Others - Archaeologs

Others

Discover other things about archaeology.

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Recently Added: Others

Bonfire Shelter

archaeologsOthers

Bone Measurement

Dimensions of skeletal structures can be taken using a variety of calipers and other measuring equipment. The aim of such work is to compare the size and shape of bones between many different individuals. This is done by statistical methods, nowadays using multivariate analysis to compare many me...

Bone Dating

Bone may be dated in a number of ways. The most commonly used is radiocarbon dating: both the collagen and mineral components of bone are dateable. Recently a number of bone samples have been dated by a uranium series method. Relative dates may be obtained from time-related chemical changes which...

Bone

In life, bone is one of the connective tissues of the body and consists of crystallites of the mineral hydroxyapatite, deposited on a fibrous matrix of the protein collagen. Mineral occupies 71 per cent of the volume, collagen 19 per cent, other proteins 2 per cent, and water 8 per cent. After de...

Bondi Point

A small asymmetric backed point, named after a site at Bondi, Sydney, Australia. It is usually less than 5 cm long and is sometimes described as a backed blade. A component of the Australian Small Tool traditon, it occurs on coastal and inland sites across Australia, generally south of the Tropic...

Bonampak

A Maya ceremonial centre located close to the Lacanha River in the tropical rain-forest of northeast Chiapas, Mexico. Dating to the Late Classic Period (c450-750), it is most notable for its polychrome murals which can be tightly dated to 800 on the basis of long count inscriptions. The so-called...

Bologna

[Bononia]. The general area at the eastern end of the Po Valley now covered by the sprawl of modern Bologna, is naturally favourable to agriculture, and straddles obvious lines of communication between plain, mountain and seaboard. Evidence for settlement is often virtually obliterated by success...

Belling Interstadial

An interstadial of the Weichselian cold stage. It is dated to between 13,000 and 12,000 bp.

Belling Interstadial

archaeologsOthers

Boian

After the excavations of I.Nestor in 1925 at the Boian A tell, it became possible to divide the Rumanian Neolithic into two phases: an earlier, Boian, phase and a later Gumelnita, phase. The Boian culture is now recognized as the principal Middle Neolithic culture in Muntenia, in the lower Danube...

Bog Burials

Name given to the human bodies found in peat bogs in Scandinavia and northern Europe, including more than 160 from Denmark. They are renowned for the remarkable preservation of the bodies caused by the chemicals in the peat, which has allowed archaeologists to study aspects of past life usually l...

Bog Burials

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Bog

A term generally used to describe communities of plants growing on acid waterlogged ground, as opposed to fen. Three main types of bog can be distinguished: valley bogs remain waterlogged due to the concentration of drainage into a valley; raised bogs form as large pillows of peat, and are kept w...

Bochica

See Chibcha.

Bochica

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Boca Chica

See Chicoid.

Boca Chica

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Boat Burial

A pagan burial ritual widely adopted by the Vikings, and practised to a lesser extent by the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic races before them. The AngloSaxon poem Beowulf demonstrates the belief that the journey to the afterlife could be achieved in a vessel, and indeed the Saxon boat graves excavated ...

Bo [Po]

See bells (China).

Bo [Po]

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Bloom

Spongy mass of iron and slag, resulting from the initial smelting of iron ore.

Bloodletting

See Perforation.

Bloodletting

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Bleeper

A type of proton gradiometer, in which the reading is given as a series of bleeps. This design of magnetometer is very cheap to produce, and has therefore been widely used in archaeology.

Blackwater Draw

Deeply stratified site in eastern New Mexico, USA, with evidence of occupation from earliest Paleo-Indian through Archaic times. Stratigraphic evidence has established unequivocally that the Llano culture was earlier than Folsom, and showed a clear association between Clovis projectile points and...

Black Pottery Cultures

See Longshan.

Black Pottery Cultures

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Black-Figure Ware

Phase in Greek vase painting. From about 720 bc vase-painters, especially in Corinth and Athens, developed a characteristic style, in which one or more bands of human and animal figures are silhouetted in black against a red background. The red colour is given by the fabric of the pot when fired,...

Black-Figure Ware

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Black And Red Ware

An Indian pottery type, red on the outside, but black on the inside and round the rim, due to firing in the inverted position. Characteristic forms include shallow dishes and deeper bowls. In one form or another this ware is found throughout much of the Indian peninsula in the later 2nd and early...

Black And Red Ware

archaeologsOthers

Bismarck Archipelago

See Melanesia, New Britain.

Biskupin

An Iron Age settlement belonging to the late Lausitz culture in northwest Poland. It was situated on an island and defended with timber breakwaters and box ramparts. More than 100 rectangular timber houses were laid out on a regular street system and may have housed up to 1000 people. Workshops f...

Bisitun

[Behistun]. A rock face in northwest Iran on which Darius I placed a trilingual inscription recording his military victories in 516 bc. The inscription was in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, all three written in the cuneiform script. In spite of the difficulty of gaining access to the high v...

Bisitun

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Bir Terfawi

Late Aterian site in the Egyptian Western Desert, dated to about 42,000 be. The shores of a shallow lake were settled by hunters who preyed on a varied fauna including species of both Mediterranean and more southerly affinities.

Bir Terfawi

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Birdlip

A site near Gloucester with four cist graves of the 1st century bc. One cist contained the skeleton of a woman together with bronze bowls, silver and gold bracelets, a bronze brooch and a bronze mirror with incised and enamel decoration, a fine example of insular Celtic art.

Bird Bones

These are quite commonly preserved on archaeological sites. Identification is a very specialized skill, but considerable precision is often possible. Interpretation may then be carried out in terms of diet and reconstruction of the ancient environment.

Bird Bones

archaeologsOthers

Bilzingsleben

Recent excavations on this travertine site in East Germany, not far from Halle, have revealed thousands of stone tools of a Lower Palaeolithic CLACTONiAN-type culture. A few human fossil skull pieces are known. Numerous lines of evidence indicate the interglacial environment and a date in the pen...

Bigo

A site in southwestern Uganda marked by massive linear earthworks and recalled in oral historical tradition as a former capital. The earthworks, over 10 km in total length, attest to the organizational capabilities of the early interlacustrine kingdoms. The site has also yielded an early 13th-15t...

Big Game Hunting Tradition

An adaptation to the grasslands environment of the Late Pleistocene period in North America, especially evident in the Great Plains. Large game animals (megafauna) were hunted as the primary means of subsistence. Lanceolate projectile points, such as Clovis and Folsom, characterize the tradition....

Big Game Hunting Tradition

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Bibracte

[modem Mont Beuvray]. An Iron Age oppidum near Bourges in central France. The site of Mont Beuvray has been clearly identified as Bibracte, capital of the Aedui tribe before the foundation of Augustodunum (Autun) some 30 km away c5 bc. Bibracte is known from Caesar’s account as a major Aeduan str...

Bianzhong

[pien-chung]. See bells (China).

Bianzhong

archaeologsOthers

Bhir Mound

See Taxila. [pi]. jade disc with circular central perforation. In Chinese texts of the Eastern Zhou period the word is used in this sense, but can also refer more generally to any precious jade. Jade discs and disc-like axes have come from 4th- and 3rd-millennium bc graves at east-coast Neolithic...

Bhir Mound

archaeologsOthers

Bharhut

A Buddhist stupa in central India. The stupa may have been constructed in the Asokan period but the surviving structure belongs to the 2nd century bc. The railing surrounding the stupa is decorated with scenes from the Jataka stories.

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