Davis

(1811-88). American doctor who together with E.G. Squier studied the prehistoric mounds of the eastern USA.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Davis

Daub

A clay-based material, acting as the matrix in a wattle and daub wall. The daub is plastered on to the wattle framework and allowed to dry, forming a quick and relatively weathertight structure. The imprint of wattle has survived on some ancient daub from archaeological sites.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dating

The determination of a date for objects, deposits and buildings is at the centre of all archaeology. In later periods this may be accomplished by historical methods (e.g. coin dating) but if such evidence is not available other methods have to be used. Cross dating and seriation or sequence datin...

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Database Management System

Computer program that stores information and allows it to be retrieved in any desired combination or order. Filing systems of various kind are already widely used in archaeology; database management systems are merely an extension of these.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Database Management System

Darwin

(1809-82). The founder of evolutionary theory, which he expounded in his seminal work Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859. Its particular relevance for archaeology was to boost the acceptance of the anti...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Darwin

Dar Es Soltan

A cave on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, some 200 km south of Tangier, where excavation has revealed a late Aterian industry associated with human remains of Mechta-Afalou type. Later levels contain a long sequence of iBEROMAURUSiAN-related industries.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dar Es Soltan

Dara-I Kur

See Aq Kupruk.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dara-I Kur

Dapenkeng

[Ta-p’en-k’eng]. A Neolithic site in Taiwan, near Taibei, characterized by coarse cord-marked pottery of a kind widely represented at sites in south and southeastern China that fall somewhere between the late 5 th and the 3rd millennium bc. The relationship of this corded-ware Neolithic, sometime...

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Dapenkeng

Danzantes

Stone slab, bas-relief carvings dating to c lOO bc - ad 100 (see also PreClassic) that flank the earliest flat-topped mound at Monte Alban, Mexico. They depict nude male figures, some with mutilated or elaborately emphasized sexual organs, in unnatural dancing or possible swimming poses. Sometime...

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Danubian Culture

Term used by Gordon Childe to describe the sequence of prehistoric cultures found in central Europe, along the valley.of the Danube and other rivers; it is not often used today. Danubian I is the Linear Pottery culture; Danubian II the later Neolithic cultures, such as Tisza, Lengyel, Stroke-Orna...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Dantu

A district just south of the Yangzi River in Jiangsu province, China. A Western Zhou tomb found in 1954 at Dantu Yandunshan contained a few pieces of glazed pottery and 12 bronze ritual vessels. The inscription on one of the bronzes, a GUI of conventional early Western Zhou style, names the marqu...

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Dantu

Danilo

The eponymous site for the Danilo culture, distributed over central and southern Dalmatia from <4700 be to the early 4th millennium be. Excavated by D. Rendic-Miofcevic and J.Korosec, the site, near Sibenik, consists of large numbers of pits and post holes, whose associated material has been subd...

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Danger Cave

Site of long occupation in northwest Utah, USA, containing one of the most complete inventories of material from the Desert Tradition. Characteristic artefacts, such as baskets, manos, metates and small projectile points, were found in abundance. The earliest evidence of human occupation dates to...

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Danelaw

An agreement by formal treaty between King Alfred of Wessex and the Danish leader Guthram in 878, establishing a political boundary along the line of the old Roman road, Watling Street, from Chester through Lichfield and Hertford to London. The Danes were given the large area to the east of the l...

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Danelaw

Danekirke

A 5th-century site situated outside Ribe in Western Jutland. It poses interesting archaeological problems as the excavators found traces of only one large timber hall, associated with enormous quantities of imported luxury items including a great deal of West European glass. It may well be a Migr...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Danekirke

Dammayan Temple

One of the largest Buddhist brick monuments in Pagan, northern Burma, built under king Narapatisithu in the late 12th century. It is similar in style to the Ananda Temple.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Dammayan Temple

Damb Sadaat

A prehistoric site in the Quetta valley of West Pakistan which was occupied during the 3rd millennium bc. The population of this period lived in well-built mud-brick houses consisting of several small rooms, used tools of copper, and had wheel-turned pottery painted in black designs on a buff or ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Place Names

Damb Sadaat

Damb Buthi

A prehistoric site in southwestern Sind, Pakistan, which has produced material of both Amri and Harappan types, but from separate locations on the hill.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Damb Buthi

Damascus

Modem capital of Syria. A rich oasis city, Damascus was occupied by the 3rd millennium bc, but the settlements of the prehistoric, biblical and Roman periods underlie the modem and medieval city and are therefore not readily available for excavation. Egyptian texts and references in the Bible att...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Dalton

Complex of cultural traits from the late Paleo-Indian period, centred on the Southeastern United States. It is characterized by the Dalton point, a fish-tailed variation of the Clovis point. Most Dalton sites indicate that major subsistence effort was in hunting deer. There is inconclusive eviden...

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Dalriada

In the later 5th century a group of Gaelic-speaking people known as the Scotti travelled from western Ireland to the northeast coast of Scotland (modem Argyllshire). There they founded the kingdom of Dalriada, which was imposed upon a native Pictish population. The Dalriada introduced the Picts t...

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Dalriada

Dalmatia

A Roman province, called after the local tribe of the Delmatae, which corresponds partly to modern Yugoslavia. The whole eastern Adriatic area, roughly equivalent to present-day Yugoslavia and Albania put together, was finally annexed by Rome in 9 ad and became the province of Illyricum, valuable...

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Dai Viet

Name of Vietnam during certain periods of its history, notably from the 11th century to the 14th century, when the expansion towards the south and the absorption of the kingdom of Champa began.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dai Viet

Daima

A large occupation mound in the extreme northeast of Nigeria, on the seasonally inundated plains adjacent to Lake Chad. The site’s occupation began shortly before the middle of the last millennium be, but reflected the continuation of a life-style that had been established in the area at least 50...

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Dadunzi

Neolithic site in Pei Yangshao levels range from c3700 to ¿3050 Xian, northern Jiangsu province, China, with bc. The uppermost Yangshao level represents three main levels named after the nearby sites a late stage of the Miaodigou I culture, known also from Guangwu Qinwangzhai and seen here at the...

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Dahe

The site of a Neolithic village, now preserved as a museum, at Zhengzhou in Henan province, China. Several Yangshao levels are overlaid by Hougang II and Shang remains; four radiocarbon dates for the

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Dacia

A Roman frontier province held from cl06-270 ad, comprising an area to the north of the Danube and roughly equivalent to modem Rumania. The Dacians had constituted a threat to Rome for some time, and their leader Decebalus had to be recognized as a client king by Domitian. A more determined and s...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Da But

A five-metre deep marine shell midden near Thanh-hoa in northern Vietnam, which has produced a mixed Bacsonian and Neolithic stone industry together with ochre-stained burials and pottery. Excavated in the 1920s, the site has recently been dated to ¿4000 be.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dabban

A blade industry of Cyrenaician Libya, named after the site of Hagfet ed dabba but best known at Haua Fleam. At the latter cave it appears in the sequence c40,000 be, making a sharp break with the preceding Libyan Pre-AuRiGNACiAN. The Dabban is clearly related in some way to the broadly contempor...

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Dabar Kot

A large site in the Loralai Valley in northern Baluchistan, Pakistan, probably occupied from the 5th millenniuum BC. In later levels, material of Harappan type was associated with local artefacts such as figurines of Zhob type. The latest occupation of the site is represented by a large Buddhist ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Konnakis Painter

Greek vase painter from Apulia, ca. 375-350 BCE.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Artists

Konnakis Painter

Cylindrical Tripod Vase

A ceramic form popular in the Early Classic Period in Mesoamerica and a hallmark artefact of Teotihuacan. As the name suggests, it is cylindrical in shape and stands on three slab or cylindrical legs; it frequently has a knobbed lid.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cyclopean Masonry

Style of building with large, irregular blocks of stone fitted closely together. It is named after the Greek mythical character Cyclops, thought by the Greeks to have built the walls of Tiryns, which are constructed in this way.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cuzoul

The rock shelter of Le Cuzoul de Gramat in Lot, southwest France, has a series of Mesolithic levels, mostly Tardenoisian. Well-preserved human remains including a skeleton came from these deposits. Cycladic. Term for the Bronze Age of the Aegean Islands, equivalent to Helladic on the Greek mainla...

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Cuzoul