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...
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...
A small bowl, often with a handle, used for soup or similar dishes.
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.
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
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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....
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...
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 ...
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.
French prehistorian specializing in prehistoric rock art who found and studied sites in Chilean Pantagonia - Englefield, Ponsonby, Munición - and in Brazil, José Vieira and several sambaquis (shell middens). She also excavated at Marassi (Tierra del Fuego), Lapa Vermehla, and Lagoa Santa.
In music, a wooden or metal object used to provide a rhythm by striking another object; otherwise, A general tool used to beat objects with.
A small island in Morbihan, southern Brittany, France, where the burial of 23 Mesolithic skeletons were found in a Tardenoisian settlement. Grave goods include stag antlers and shell jewelry. There was a shell midden and the site is dated to c 6575 bp.
An Early Iron Age village site near modern Lusaka, Zambia, dated to about the 5th century AD, that gives its name to a tradition of the Chifumbaze complex. The elaborately decorated pottery is similar to that from contemporary Copperbelt sites. Iron-working was a major industry. A late phase, 9th...
A late Middle Palaeolithic culture of Moravia, Czechoslovakia, with artifacts including sidescrapers, endscrapers, bifacial foliates, denticulates, burins, and laurel-leaf points.
Sanskrit for 'City of Hunters', capital city of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Funan, which flourished from the 1st-6th century AD in an area that comprises modern Cambodia and Vietnam. It is 120 miles (190 km) from the mouth of the Mekong River, near a landform called Ba Hill in southern Cambodia.
The main writing material used by the scribes of early civilizations. Signs were impressed or inscribed on the soft clay, which was then dried in the sun. The ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites wrote on tablets made from water-cleaned clay. A common form was a thin quadrilate...
The traditional capital of Moravia in the southeastern Czech Republic, which was inhabited in prehistoric times according to archaeological evidence. Important sites surround and are in the town, including a burial covered in red ochre, mammoth tusks, and ornaments, which has proven to be one of ...
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