Isometric Drawing

Projections in which the plan and the elevations are combined to give a 'three-dimensional' view, on which correct measurements can be taken either in any direction (isometric) or along two or three axes (axonometric). This three-dimensional rendering, usually of a feature or a site, is used to r...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Isometric Drawing

Olmec

The first complex civilization of Mesoamerica and its distinctive art style, beginning in the Early Preclassic (c 1200 BC) and ending c 400 BC. The farming population built and supported great ceremonial centers (La Venta, San Lorenzo, Tenochititlan, Tres Zapotes), importing tons of serpentine an...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Olmec

Grass-Marked Pottery

Pottery either marked or tempered with grass. In western Britain, there are examples of pottery covered with 'grass' impressions from Ulster, the Hebrides, and Cornwall, especially around the 5th-6th centuries AD. The term also refers to crude handmade ware made in various parts of Frisia in the ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Grass-Marked Pottery

Coinage

A standardized series of metal tokens, their specific weights representing particular values, and usually stamped with designs and inscriptions. They were used in many parts of the ancient world for everyday exchange. Greek coinage first appears in the Archaic deposit of the Artemision at Ephesus...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Coinage

Angkor Wat

A huge stone stepped pyramid, the best-known monument of Angkor (Cambodia), the largest religious structure in the world. The three-storied construction is surrounded by a moat and surmounted by five vast towers which symbolized the five peaks of Mount Meru. It was built by Suryavarman II (1113-1...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Angkor Wat

Hell Gap Point

Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points of the Plano Tradition with a broad pointed top set on a straight-sided trapezoidal body. The base is narrow and straight. Used by later Palaeo-Indian cultures of the North America Plains in the period around 7500 BC. Experiments show that these ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hell Gap Point

Katuruka

An Early Iron Age site in Buhaya, northeastern Tanzania. The pottery appears to be of the Urewe type known from other parts of the Lake Victoria basin. There is also evidence of sophisticated iron-smelting technology during the last few centuries BC. It is the oldest-known evidence for ironworkin...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Katuruka

Charentian

A Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) culture of at least two types, Quina and Ferrassie, of the Charente region of France. Dominance racloirs (side scrapers), Quina retouch, and handaxes have been found. The Charentian seems to originate in the penultimate glacial period, and has a distribution acr...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Charentian

Chavín De Huántar

The area of the great ruin of the earliest highly developed culture in pre-Columbian Peru, which flourished between about 900 and 200 BC and may have originated c 1200 BC. During this time Chavín art spread over the north and central parts of what is now Peru. It is not known whether this was the...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Chavín De Huántar

Deir El-Medina

Settlement site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, situated in a bay in the cliffs midway between the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu. It is the site of the village of the workmen who built the tombs in the Valleys of the Kings during the New Kingdom. The inhabitants were stone cutters, maso...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Deir El-Medina

Porringer

A small bowl, often with a handle, used for soup or similar dishes.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Porringer

Conchoidal Fracture

A characteristic shell-like fracture pattern that occurs in siliceous rocks, such as obsidian, chert, and flint. The fracture has smooth shell-like convexities and concavities.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Conchoidal Fracture

Geometrics

A general category of artifacts that includes lunates (crescent-shaped), triangles (three sides), trapezes (four sizes, two approximately parallel), and rectangles (four sides) - generally very small tools, usually less than an inch long and with the shapes formed by backing and a sharp cutting edge

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Geometrics

Gravettian

An Upper Palaeolithic industry named after the site La Gravette in the Dordogne of southwest France and characterized by well-developed blade tools of flint and female figurines of ivory. This advanced industry succeeded the Aurignacian and preceded the Solutrean, c 28,000-20,000BP. In France it ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Gravettian

Stamp Seal

A small, hard block that has a flat surface engraved with a design that can be transferred to soft clay or wax as a mark of ownership or authenticity. Stamp seals appear in Mesopotamia from the Halafian period in the fifth millennium BC, when they were used to impress ownership marks on lumps of ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Stamp Seal

Hesi, Tell El-

A tell site in southern Palestine occupied from the Early Bronze Age, c 2600 BC, to the Hellenistic period/Iron Age. Its excavation by Sir Flinders Petrie and F.J. Bliss were the first stratigraphic excavations in the area, and lent much information on pottery typology and successive building lev...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hesi, Tell El-

Great Silla Dynasty

First unification of Korean peninsula under single rule (668-935 AD). The Unified Silla period produced more granite Buddhist images and pagodas than any other period and the T'ang Dynasty of China exerted considerable influence over the culture.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Great Silla Dynasty

Coevolution

The recent theory that life and climate interact and that they have mutually altered each other over geologic history. The term was coined by the American biologists Paul R. Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven to describe the process whereby two or more species depend on the interactions between them. The...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Coevolution

Terminus Post Quem

Latin phrase meaning 'the end after which' - the date after which a stratum, feature, or artifact must have been deposited. The term is used either to define a relative chronological date for artifacts or provide fixed points in a site's stratigraphy. If a deposit contains dateable coins or potte...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Terminus Post Quem

Birch Creek

A series of rock shelters in Idaho with occupation from 8500 BP to historic times. The sites have been important in determining the culture and linguistics (Shoshonean) of the Rocky Mountain area.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Birch Creek

Saint-Blaise

Site near the mouth of the Rhône in France with Greek pottery from the 7th century BC. There are also quantities of Etruscan bucchero and the remains of the Hellenistic town.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Saint-Blaise

Marching Camp

Temporary military camps set up by the Roman army. When it was on the move, this was its systematic procedure for overnight and short-stay stops. Surveyors laid out a suitable and reasonably flat rectangular site, tent positions were planned and marked, usually surmounted by a palisade of stakes....

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Marching Camp

Jincun

A village near Luoyang, China, where rich tombs yielded 5th-2nd century BC carved jades and inlaid bronze ritual vessels, many of which are now in Western collections. The name Jincun is often applied to a style of Eastern Chou bronze decor, also called the inlay style, characterized by inlays of...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Jincun

Laeti

A term used for a class of non-Roman cultivators under the later Roman Empire (3rd century AD onward), who occupied lands for which they paid tribute. These barbarians were settled as farmers by the Roman government, in areas deserted after intrusive raids. They also had an obligation, inherited ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Laeti

Backfill

Excavated earth put to one side at an archaeological site, which is later used to refill the excavation. The purpose of backfilling may be to prevent erosion or vandalizing.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Backfill