Dvaravati

A Buddhist kingdom in presentday Thailand, first mentioned in Chinese sources as T’o-lo-po-ti in the middle of the 7th century; it is believed that the kingdom came into being as a result of the dismemberment of the far-flung empire of Funan. Its centre was probably in the Suphanburi area of sout...

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Durrington Walls

Very large henge monument in southern England, belonging to the Late Neolithic period and dated to the later 3rd millennium bc. The monument has a diameter of nearly 500 metres and encloses an area of clO hectares. Inside, the excavators found remains of two large circular timber structures, each...

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Dura Europus

A tell site on the middle Euphrates River in Syria, which was an important Parthian city, serving as a centre for trade, where merchants from areas as far apart as Palestine and Mesopotamia met. The site was occupied from its foundation by the Seleucids in the late 4th century bc, until its destr...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dura Europus

Dunhuang

[Tun-huang]. Chinese frontier outpost at the western end of the Gansu Corridor where the Silk Route branches before crossing Central Asia. Dunhuang was established as a Han military commandery in 111 bc and many documents and manuscripts dating from the Han dynasty have been found there. It was a...

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Dundo

A town of northeastern Angola, the centre of extensive mines where alluvial deposits of the northwards-flowing Congo tributaries are worked for diamonds. The nature of the deposits and the circumstances of the recovery of the prehistoric artefacts which they contain have ensured that little archa...

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Dunadd

A site in Argyllshire, Scotland, which was a nuclear fort of the Kingdom of Dalriada, besieged by the Picts in 683 and 736. Unfortunately, excavations carried out at the beginning of the present century ruined much of the internal plan, but the more recent investigations succeeded in establishing...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Dun

Term used for stone-built fortified settlements found in western and northern Scotland. Most are quite small, representing an individual homestead, but the term is sometimes applied to larger settlements defended with stone walls. Many duns were built in the later Iron Age,but they continued to b...

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Duff

(1912-78). Leading New Zealand archaeologist, best known for his excavations at the site of Wairau Bar, his classification of Polynesian and Southeast Asian stone adzes, and his fundamental work The Moa-hunter Period of Maori Culture, first published in 1950.

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Duff

Dublin

The city of Dublin, the modem capital of Eire, was founded by Norse settlers in the 9th century. Its position near the Liffey estuary provides a sheltered and defensible harbour, and througout much of the Middle Ages it remained one of the foremost sea ports in the British Isles. Excavations have...

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Druids

A powerful Celtic priesthood, evidence for which we derive mostly from late Roman Republican and Imperial literary sources. Since they provided a focus of opposition to Roman expansionist aims, Druids tend to be viewed with hostility by Latin authors, and are credited with various barbarisms, suc...

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Drift

The name given to all unconsolidated sediments which lie on the top of the ‘solid’ geology. This term originates from the belief that such deposits were transported across the waters of the Catastrophists’ ‘Flood’, frozen into drifting icebergs. The Catastrophist view of geology held that the obs...

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Dralang

A megalithic site at Dralang in southwestern Tibet, discovered by A.H.Francke between 1900 and 1910. It consisted of a cleared space with a stake in the centre, flanked on two sides by Iha-t’o, arrangements of two stones supporting a third flat slab to form a small table-like structure. Within th...

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Dou Wan

Dowsing. A practice similar to water divining. There have been a number of claims for the detection of archaeological sites by dowsing, but until the explanation of such phenomena is established it is difficult to assess the application of dowsing to archaeology.

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Dou Wan

Douglass

(1867-1962). American astronomer who developed the dendrochronology dating method. He outlined the method as early as 1901, but it was not until 1929 that he was able to publish an unbroken sequence of tree-rings for the Southwest USA extending back from the present day to the early years of the ...

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Douglass

Double Axe

A shaft-hole tool with symmetrical double axe blades. It can be made of stone or copper or bronze. In Mino AN Crete it was an important cult symbol, as well as a practical tool.

archaeologsEnglishTools

Double Axe

Douar Doum

A site outside Rabat in Morocco which has revealed some of the earliest stone tools in Africa. The tools are in rough stone and include a variety of pebble tools, but no hand axes. They are typical of the Oldowan or pebble culture of Africa, and are contemporary with the Moulouyan dunes of about ...

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Dos Aguas

Rock shelter with paintings of the Spanish Levantine (Mesolithic) type situated in Valencia province, southeast Spain.

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Dorset Tradition

An eastern Arctic tradition whose stone-working technology is clearly related to the Arctic Small Tool Tradition. Its core area was centred on the North Foxe Basin in northern Canada, but ultimately its influence spread as far as Greenland. Whether the culture originated in Alaska or from a point...

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Dorset Tradition

Dorpfeld

(1853-1940). German archaeologist who excavated many important sites in the Greek world, both prehistoric and classical. He worked under Ernst Curtius on the excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at Olympia in the late 1870s and then assisted Schliemann on his third and fourth season...

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