Discriminant Analysis

A technique of multivariate analysis in which new variables are calculated from the original, large number of variables and this function is combined with classification. Discriminant functions are especially calculated to show up differences between previously defined groups of items (e.g. artif...

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Discriminant Analysis

Carolingian

A term referring to the time and place of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), who called himself the king of the Franks and Lombards from 768-814 AD. In an archaeological and architectural sense Carolingian describes the period c 750-900 AD. The Carolingian kingdom of Italy occupied the northern and...

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Carolingian

Woolley, Sir

British archaeologist known for his work at Ur, Carchemish, Tell el-Amarna, Tell Atchana, Al Mina, and Al 'Ubaid. At Ur, he revealed 5000 years of history and wrote it up in a 10-volume series ("Ur Excavations"). His discovery of geological evidence of a great flood suggested a possible correlati...

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Woolley, Sir

Ofnet

A cave near Nordingen in Bavaria, best known for the composite burial of 33 skulls of early Mesolithic date. Some earlier Palaeolithic deposits are also present in this and the nearby Klein Ofnet cave. In deposits of the Late Paleolithic Azilian culture found at Ofnet, carefully decapitated heads...

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Ofnet

Ossification

The fusion of a limb bone with its articular end which implies calcification of soft tissue into bonelike material.

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Ossification

Palliser Bay

An area at the southern limit of New Zealand's North Island with Archaic Maori sites associated with sweet potato cultivation, attesting a fairly large horticultural population between 1100-1400 AD. After 1450 the area became depopulated, due to environmental degradation and an adverse climatic c...

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Palliser Bay

Bigo

A great earthwork site in western Uganda associated with the Chwezi people. The massive linear earthworks, over 6 1/2 miles long (10 km), is a ditch system, some of it cut out of rock, enclosing a large grazing area on a riverbank. It may have comprised both a royal capital and a cattle enclosure...

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Bigo

Artifact Type

A description of a category of artifacts which share a set of somewhat variable attributes, such as spoons or tables. An artifact type occurs together in the majority of cases.

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Artifact Type

Mina Perdida

Ceremonial platform mound site in the Lurín Valley of Peru, dated to the early Initial Period.

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Mina Perdida

Vailele

Site in Upolu, Samoa, with assemblages from the terminal ceramic phase of Samoan pre-history c 300 BC-200 AD stratified beneath later aceramic mounds. The large earthen mounds were built as house platforms and contained plain pottery and stone adzes.

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Vailele

Dyss

The Danish name for the earliest type of megalithic chamber tomb found in Scandinavia in the Early Neolithic. The oldest dysser are rectangular slab cysts roofed with capstones and containing 1-6 skeletons. The burial chamber is covered with a mound which rises to the height of the capstone and h...

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Dyss

Danger Cave

A cave site of long occupation in western Utah, dated to 11,000-11,000 BC and having one of the most complete inventories from the Desert Tradition. Artifacts include leaf-shaped projectile points, baskets, manos, metates. The last occupation dates to after 2000 BC.

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Danger Cave

Mindel Glaciation

The second major Pleistocene glaciation of Alpine Europe which ended with the onset of the Holsteinian Interglacial. It was the second major Ice Age in the Pleistocene period, shown in Quaternary deposits in the Alps and the valleys of south German rivers. The Mindel consists of moraine and relat...

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Mindel Glaciation

Tied

Pertaining to walls that abut except in a few places where a single stone overlaps from one wall to another.

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Tied

Kansanshi

An ancient copper mine near the modern Solwezi in central Zambia's Copperbelt. Small-scale exploitation of the copper deposit appears to have begun during the Early Iron Age of the second half of the 1st millennium AD. Large-scale workings are not attested before the 14th or 15th century.

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Kansanshi

Emirean

An early Upper Palaeolithic industry of the Levant region, named for the Emireh cave at the north end of the Sea of Galilee (Israel) which yielded tools and triangular arrowheads with a base tapered by means of bifacial retouches (Emireh points). It is the earliest stage of the Upper Palaeolithic...

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Emirean

Seismic Surveying

A method of remote sensing that uses vibrations sent into the earth which are flected back by buried matter, helping to locate archaeological deposits.

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Seismic Surveying

Emporium

A place that served as a center of commerce and characterized by a wide range of goods. They were often located at seaports where imported merchandise was warehoused and sold. The remains of the ancient emporium of Rome have been discovered on the banks of the Tiber.

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Emporium

Plane Table

Portable surveying instrument that consists of a drawing board and a ruler (alidade) mounted on a tripod and used to sight and map topographic details and to plot survey lines directly form field observations. This piece of equipment is much used in earlier surveying and map-making. One end of th...

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Plane Table

Kokkinopilos

A series of Palaeolithic sites on the Louros River in northern Greece. There are artifacts dating to the early Last Glacial, Middle Palaeolithic artifacts including Levallois cores, sidescrapers, and bifacial foliates. A surface collection of Mousterian types has also been found.

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Kokkinopilos

Aeginetan Marbles

Archaic Greek sculpture discovered in the temple of Pallas-Athene at Aegina, an island in the Saronic group of Greece. They are in the Glyptothek at Munich, Germany. Aegina's period of glory was the 5th century BC, which left a legacy of sculpture.

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Aeginetan Marbles

Iona

An island of the Inner Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. In 563, it was granted by Connal of Dálriada to St. Columba for the founding of a monastery. It was the base from which the Celtic church, under Columba, Aidan, and their successors, converted northern Britain to Christianity. Lindisfarne...

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Iona

Rhythmite

A sedimentary structure of rhythmically paired laminations or beds. The flat-lying, fine-grained bottomset beds of many large former glacial lakes filled in and buried all of the pre-existing relief and are now exposed, forming perfectly flat lake plains. Cuts into these sediments often reveal rh...

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Rhythmite

Incurvate

A term to describe the outline or shape that is indented or convex. A form of Basal edge or Stem Base outline.

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Incurvate

Chryselephantine Statue

A type of figurine sculpture made of ivory and gold. The flesh was of ivory and the drapery of gold. These were produced in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete, and in Greece from the 6th century BC. They were often colossal cult figures placed in the interiors of major temples, such as that of...

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Chryselephantine Statue