Fire

Possibly the most important single discovery made by early man was how to produce fire at will. Fire is first found on occupation sites of the Lower Palaeolithic period, approximately half a million years ago, although true hearths do not become typical until the penultimate glacial period, perha...

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Fiorelli

(1823-96). The most important of the 19th-century archaeologists to excavate at Pompeii. He set up a training school based at Pompeii, where many other archaeologists learnt the techniques of stratigraphical excavation.

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Fiorelli

Finglesham

An early Saxon cemetery situated close to the former mouth of the Wansum estuary in Kent, in use between the early 6th and mid-7 th centuries. The large inhumation cemetery was partially excavated at the beginning of this century; the main research excavation took place in the 1960s, and over 40 ...

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Filitosa

A defended promontory site in southern Corsica, belonging to the Torre culture. The walls are built of Cyclopean masonry and incorporate broken statuemenhirs; these and others in the area apparently represent male figures equipped with daggers and swords. There is a radiocarbon date of cl200 bc (...

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Filigree

A technique of decorating gold and silver jewellery: designs formed by thin wire are soldered on to the part to be decorated. The technique had been mastered by the Early Dynastic Sumerian craftsmen of the 3rd millennium bc and fine jewellery decorated in this way appears in the Royal Tombs of Ur...

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Fiji

An archipelago in eastern Melanesia, centred on the large islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. A rich archaeological sequence begins with the Lapita culture from about 1300 be, and progresses through successive ceramic phases (see Sigatoka) to a period of earthwork fort construction and warfare, ...

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Fibula

Latin word for a common type of brooch, usually made of bronze, resembling the modem safety-pin and used in the fastening of such clothes as tunics and cloaks. The fibula essentially comprises a pin bent round (often with a spiral at the angle) with a catch to hold the point. Alternative forms ha...

archaeologsEnglishTools

Fertile Crescent

A term invented in 1916 by James Breasted, first Director of the Oriental Institute of Chicago. The term was applied to a crescent-shaped area of cultivable land between the highland zones and the West Asian desert, stretching from Egypt through the Levant to southern Anatolia and northern Mesopo...

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Ferrières

A passage grave in Languedoc, southern France, which has given its name to a cultural group of the Late Neolithic and Copper Age (3rd millennium bc). It is characterized by pottery with incised decoration.

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Fernando Po

Island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, of particular archaeological interest since (presumably due to the absence of sources of metal) a Neolithic technology and life-style appear to have continued until at least the early centuries of the 2nd millennium ad. A similar situation seems to have ...

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Fenshuiling

[Fen-shui-ling]. SeeLiYU.

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Fenshuiling

Fenghuangshan

[Feng-huang-shan]. See

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Fenghuangshan

Feng

[Feng]. See Zhou capitals.

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Feng

Fen

A community of plants growing in basic or neutral waterlogged conditions, as opposed to bog. Fens represent a stage in the progressive colonization of shallow water; this plant succession continues with the colonization by trees (the ‘carr’ stage) followed in some areas by the growth of a raised ...

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Fell's Cave

Located on mainland Chile near the Straits of Magellan, this is one of the principal sites used in defining the Magellan Complex (the other being Palli Aike). A radiocarbon date of 8700 be taken from its earliest level has helped make credible the widely accepted minimal date of 9000 be for the p...

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Fell's Cave

Federmesser

Literally, a pen-knife point. Points of this type are a typical constituent of assemblages of flint tools in northern Europe dating from the last few millennia of the last ice age. They are backed blades tapering to a point, and were probably used as arrowheads. They tend to have curved or angled...

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Feddersen Wierde

The most thoroughly excavated and best-preserved of the terp settlements on the North Sea German littoral. Lack of space necessitated that the internal layout of the village was carefully planned, and so it was divided into segments radiating like spokes of a wheel from a central open area, separ...

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Feature

On archaeological excavations the term is used for any recorded remain that is not classified as a structure, a layer or a small find. For instance, pits and post-holes are features, as is anything of uncertain nature or function.

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Fayum

A low-lying lake-basin in Lower Egypt to the west of the Nile, to which it was formerly connected by a channel. The Fayum Depression has yielded a long sequence of archaeological occurrences, but is primarily known for Neolithic sites illustrating the earliest farming communities yet recognized i...

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Fayum