Rancheria

In the Southwestern US and Mesoamerica, a family household unit or settlement. It is also a place, hut, or house where rancheros live.

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Rancheria

Chipping Floor

A workshop area characterized by of debris from the manufacture of chipped stone tools. In the process of flaking stone tools, large quantities of waste chips are produced. Stone Age chipping floors are often found with finished tools and indications of other activities. It is recognized archaeol...

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Chipping Floor

Shiyu

Late Palaeolithic site in Shanxi Province, China, with a fossil human occipital bone and a radiocarbon date of c 28,000 bp. There are small scrapers, points, and microlithic blades and cores.

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Shiyu

Sunda Shelf

The shallow submarine continental shelf, or platform, that is a southward extension of mainland Southeast Asia. Borneo and parts of Java, Sumatra, Bali, Palawan, and associated islands are eroded metamorphic sections of the shelf left above sea level. These were joined to the Asian continent at t...

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Sunda Shelf

Snefru

First pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty (c 2575-2465 BC) in Egypt, who was deified by the Middle Kingdom and celebrated in later literature as a benevolent and kind ruler. He created a centralized administration which marked the end of the Old Kingdom. The pyramids at Dahshur and the completion of the p...

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Snefru

Manda

The site of a Swahili city-state apparently established in the 9th century and distinguished for its seawalls of coral blocks, each of which weighs up to a ton. Located in the Lamu Archipelago off the coast of Kenya, it had numerous stone-built (and wattle-and-daub) houses. Trade, which seems to ...

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Manda

Khorat

A saucer-shaped low plateau in northeast Thailand occupying 60,000 square miles and drained by the Chi and Mun rivers. Rice agriculture began before the 4th millennium BC. The plateau's development is divided into General Period A, c 3600-2000 BC; General Period B, c 2000-800/400 BC; General Peri...

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Khorat

Potin Coin

Type of British or Gaulish coin made from potin from the early 1st century BC onwards. Potin coins are unusual in that they are cast rather than struck. The earliest examples are the first kinds of coin made in Britain and are found mostly in southeastern counties. Derek Allen has traced the orig...

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Potin Coin

Granite

A granular igneous rock composed essentially of the minerals quartz, orthoclase feldspar, and mica. It is the most common plutonic rock of the Earth's crust, formed by the cooling of magma at depth. Primarily gray in color, the crystalline rock is used mainly for building, paving, and tombstones.

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Granite

Secondary Refuse

Unwanted objects or materials that are removed from the site at which they were used and are disposed of at a different location. This often included artifacts, bone, shell, and other habitation debris, discarded away from the immediate area of use.

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Secondary Refuse

Arad

A city in southern Israel west of the Dead Sea named for Biblical Arad and having ruins visible at Tel 'Arad, just a few miles northeast. First excavated in 1962, 'Arad has three separate phases of occupation. The first settlement was in the Chalcolithic period with a walled city at the beginning...

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Arad

Sub-Arctic

Concerning the environment immediately outside the arctic circle; the arctic environment south of the boreal tree-line. The subarctic, or the physiographic zone called the taiga, is a land of coniferous forest covered with sphagnum moss and traversed by many waterways.

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Sub-Arctic

Robber Trench

A term used to describe a feature created by the robbing of its original filling material. In areas where stone or other building materials are scarce, or where a new structure is being built near one which is out of use, a monument's building materials may be plundered. The trench left is usuall...

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Robber Trench

Altitude

The distance an object or surface lies above a datum plane, usually sea level. It is one of the three dimensions defining the spatial location of artifacts.

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Altitude

La Quina

Middle and Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter complex in Charente, southwest France, and the name of a subdivision of the Charentian Mousterian tradition. The stone tool industry produced thick scrapers with a very curved cutting edge and stepped, splintered retouches. Another industry had many thin...

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La Quina

Mama-Quilla

One of the divisions of the temple of the Sun (Inti); dedicated to the moon. The moon was portrayed as a silver disk with human features.

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Mama-Quilla

Albright, William Foxwell

American orientalist and linguist who worked in Palestine, including Beit Mersim.

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Albright, William Foxwell

Bernal Garcia, Ignacio

A Mexican archaeologist known for his work at Monte Albán, Dainzü, Teotihuacán, and other Oaxacan sites.

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Bernal Garcia, Ignacio

Asturian

A macrolithic industry of the Mesolithic in northern Spain, discovered from shell mounds at cave mouths. It followed the Azilian and is characterized by a long pointed unifacial quartzite pick. It dates to the 9th and 8th millennia BP.

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Asturian

Dahe

A Neolithic village site, now preserved as a museum, at Zhengzhou in China. Several Yanshao levels are overlaid by Hougang II and Shang remains; radiocarbon dates range from c 3700-3050 BC. The uppermost Yanshao level is a late stage of the Miaodigou I culture; the expected painted pottery is fou...

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Dahe

Handle Placement

body shoulder, body to neck, body to rim, midbody, midbody to shoulder, neck, neck to rim, top of rim

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Handle Placement

Spatial Histogram

A stepped statistical surface or three-dimensional histogram used to display variations in abundance over a gridded space.

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Spatial Histogram

Chasing Tool

A kind of punch used in metalworking to create repousse style ornament.

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Chasing Tool

Late Intermediate Period

A division of time in central Andean chronology, 1000-1450 AD, which was a period of regional diversification on the coast and in the highlands. New styles, cultures, and kingdoms arose after the collapse of the Middle Horizon empires. The period began with the dying out of the signs of unity imp...

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Late Intermediate Period

Perceived Environment

The physical environment as perceived by a human society, not by archaeologists.

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Perceived Environment