Mindel

The term for the interglacial erosion interval, envisaged by Penck and Bruckner as separating the Gunz and Min-del glacials. The Alpine sequence is now known to be much more complex than was originally thought, but Gunz/Mindel has unfortunately gained wide currency as a general term meaning the a...

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Mindel

Gundestrup

Find-spot of a great silver cauldron of the late pre-Roman Iron Age near Aalborg in Jutland, Denmark. The cauldron was found dismantled in a peat bog and is thought to have been put there as a votive offering. It weighs c9 kg and the eight outer and five inner plates are decorated in relief in th...

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Gumelnifa

The eponymous site of the Gumelnita culture is a tell located near Oltenija in the lower Danube Valley, Rumania. Excavated by V. Dumitrescu, the Copper Age deposits were divided into two occupations, Gumelnija A and B, dated c3800-3200 be. This subdivision of the culture parallels the partitionin...

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Gumelnifa

Gumanye

The eponymous site of the initial phase of the later Iron Age of south-central Zimbabwe, dating to about the 11th century ad. It marks a clear break with the preceding Early Iron Age: opinion is divided as to the extent and source of external influence represented by this transition.

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Guitarrero Cave

Pre-ceramic Period site of long occupation, located at the base of the Cordillera Negra in northern Peru. Stratified deposits have yielded a wide variety of artefacts, both lithic and organic, together with a number of reliable radiocarbon dates. Its earliest level (Guitarrero I) has rendered a d...

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Guinea Neolithic

This ill-defined term has been applied to a heterogeneous series of industries in the coastal regions of West Africa. Backed microliths akin to those manufactured in earlier times are associated with pottery and with ground stone axe-like and hoe-like implements. One of the few well-described and...

archaeologsEnglishPeriods

Gudnja

A cave site in a steep valley west of Ston, in southern Dalmatia, Yugoslavia. A five-metre stratigraphy comprises six occupation levels: I, Early Neolithic Impressed ware; II-III, Middle Neolithic Danilo culture; IV-V, Late Neolithic regional variant of the Hvar culture; and VI, Copper Age. This ...

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Gua Lawa

A limestone shelter near Sampung in eastern Java excavated in 1926. The sequence may document a transition from a pre-ceramic assemblage of small hollowbased stone arrowheads (see Maros points of Sulawesi) into a Neolithic assemblage with cord-marked pottery and many bone and antler tools. The si...

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Gua Kechil

A limestone shelter in Pahang Province, central Malaya, with a sequence which demonstrates a gradation from a late phase of the Hoabinhian with cord-marked pottery, into a Malayan Neolithic assemblage which post-dates 2800 be. See also Gua Cha, where the change from Hoabinhian to full Neolithic i...

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Gua Cha

A large limestone shelter in Kelantan Province, central Malaya, excavated in 1954 and 1979. The basal level is Hoabin-hian, spanning the period 8000-1000 be, with burials; the upper level (cl000 be to ad 1000) contains richly provided Neolithic burials with southern Thai (Ban Kao) pottery affinit...

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Grubenhauser

[German: ‘sunken huts’]. Most early medieval settlement sites in northern Europe are characterized by two types of building: timber dwellings built on the ground surface which have left traces of postholes, stake holes and beam slots, and sunken huts or Grubenhauser. The archaeological remains of...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Architectural

Grubenhauser

Grotefend

G.F. (1775-1853). German scholar who made considerable strides towards the decipherment of the cuneiform script and, specifically, inscriptions in the Old Persian language written in this script. He presented a paper on his work to the Gottingen Academy in 1802, but it was not published and his w...

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Grotefend

Grooved Ware

A British late Neolithic pottery type, its flat-based vessels having straight vertical or outward sloping walls. It is decorated with shallow grooving or sometimes with applied cordons. It was formerly called Rinyo-Clacton ware after two widely separated findspots (Clacton in Essex and Rinyo in t...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Gromatukha

See Amur Neolithic.

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Gromatukha

Grimes Graves

Group of flint mines in Norfolk, eastern England, with almost 350 mine shafts up to 9 metres deep and with radiating galleries. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the main period of use was in the Late Neolithic, c2000 be (c2500 bc). The mines were mainly supplying material for the manufacture of fli...

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Grimaldi

Site on the Riviera in Italy, a few hundred metres from the French frontier, with a series of shelters and caves which were mainly investigated in the 19th century. Long sequences of archaeological levels were excavated with many burials and objects of adornment. Two of the burials, the ‘negroids...

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Griddle

Flat ceramic plate used in the final stage of detoxifying manioc. After grating and pulping, thin discs of manioc are baked on the griddle into a kind of unleavened bread. Although there are other methods of preparation, use of the griddle is especially common in northeastern South American conte...

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Grid

Many archaeological sites are surveyed by measuring from a grid, usually in the form of a rectangle of equally spaced points, enclosing the site. See surveying.

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Grey Ware

The typical ceremonial ceramic ware of Monte Alban, Mexico, is of a fine grey paste and first occurs in the middle PreClassic. Grey ware occurs throughout the site’s occupation and variations in shape and ornamentation, rather than colour, are the best indicators of change over time. A distinctiv...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Grey Ware