Chevaux De Frise

Form of defence developed especially to break cavalry charges, although also effective against foot soldiers; consisting of closely spaced stakes or stones placed on end, chevaux de frises are sometimes associated with hillforts in prehistoric Europe.

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Chester

[Roman Deva]. City in northwest England. Modern Chester overlies a massive Roman camp (castra) of some 24 hectares, sited strategically on the River Dee to control communications with the Northwest and Wales, to separate the warring tribes of the Brigantes and the Ordovices, and to assist the sis...

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Chesowanja

An open site in Kenya, which has produced the earliest evidence yet recorded of fire in association with tools. The site is dated to 1.4 million years ago and predates the previous earliest evidence for fire — at Zhoukoutien — by nearly 1 million years. However, it has been suggested that the bur...

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Chert

A very finely crystalline form of the mineral silica, found as nodules in limestones. Many cherts are so fine-grained that they behave like a glass — they fracture almost as sharply as obsidian, and may be chipped or flaked to make artefacts. All have been used as materials for making artefacts, ...

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Chernigov

A town on the River Dnieper in the western Soviet Union, probably founded by the Swedish Vikings between the 9th and 11th centuries. It was principally a trading town on the north-south route across eastern Europe between the Black Sea and Baltic areas.

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Chenla

The first kingdom of the Khmers which came into being in what is now southern Laos in the middle of the 6th century. Its etymology is not known. It gradually expanded towards the south to absorb the territories formerly occupied by Funan (i.e. present Cambodia). At the beginning of the 8th centur...

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Chengdu

[Ch’eng-tu]. Capital of Sichuan province, China. The material culture of the Chengdu plain kept a strong local flavour long after its first contact with the Bronze Age civilizations of North China, which on the evidence of ritual vessels found in nearby Peng Xian must be dated no later than the b...

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Chengdu

Chenes

One of three architectural styles occurring in the Lowland Maya area of northcentral Yucatan. Its hallmark is the employment of elaborately decorated pre-cut veneer masonry, but it is distinguished from both Rio Bec and Puuc by its concentration on towerless, low, single-storey buildings and a pr...

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Chemical Analysis

Archaeological artefacts and materials can be analysed to determine concentrations of major, minor and trace elements. The methods used for this include X-RAY FLUORESCENCE SPECTROMETRY, OPTICAL EMISSION SPECTROMETRY, ATOMIC ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY and NEUTRON activation analysis. This information...

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Chellian

The name given by de Mortillet in the 1880s to the epoch characterized by hand axes in his classification, equivalent to the Lower Palaeolithic. It replaced the term Acheulian, which was eventually reinstated after a long and confused debate. The concept of epochs, favoured by de Mortillet, has n...

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Chellian

Chelford

An interstadial of the Dev-ensian cold stage. It has been dated by radiocarbon to c61,000 bp, but this is near the present extreme range of the technique (see radiocarbon dating) and the date may be older.

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Chedworth

Here, in idyllic surroundings in the Cotswold area of southern England, stand the ruins of a large Roman villa, one of the best-preserved in Britain and probably, in its final phase, typical of a whole group of rich villas that characterized the last years of the Roman occupation. At Chedworth th...

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Cheddar

(1) Gough’s Cave in the Cheddar Gorge in the Mendips, southwest England, has produced late Palaeolithic remains, comprising bohe and stone tools and skeletal remains which include the nearly complete skeleton of Cheddar man. These finds probably date from about 8000 to 10,000 be and are often cal...

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Chavin

[Chavin de Huantar]. In the period 900-200 bc (see Early Horizon), the Chavin Horizon art style became the dominant cultural influence in Peru. Probably developed in the medium of low-relief stone carving, it was ultimately expressed in other media as well, for instance, pottery, metals and bone....

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Chavin

Chatham Islands

Occupying an isolated position in the South Pacific, 860 km east of Christchurch, New Zealand, these islands were settled by Polynesians from New Zealand about AD 1000-1200. They are of great interest because they lie climatically beyond the limits of prehistoric Polynesian horticulture, and thus...

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Chatelperron

Cave site in Allier, central France, which has given its name to the Chatelperron point, a curved backed blade point typical of the Perigord-ian I stage of the initial French Upper Palaeolithic. The phase is also called Chatelperronian.

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Chatelperron

Chateauneuf-Les-Martigues

A large rock shelter north-west of Marseilles in southern France, with a series of deposits from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Particular interest has focused on a level with impressed ware, possibly domesticated sheep and a radiocarbon date in the early 6th millennium be; however, ano...

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Château Gaillard

The magnificent castle of Château Gaillard was built at Les Andelys in Normandy by Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy, on his return from the Third Crusade in 1196. It was situated on a promontory overlooking the Seine to control the approach to Rouen, the capital of Norm...

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Château Gaillard

Chassey

A Neolithic culture of France, named after the site of Camp de Chassey in Burgundy. In southern France, the Chassey culure succeeded the Impressed Ware culture after c4000 be, but in much of central and northern France the Chassey culture represents the earliest Neolithic, and has radiocarbon dat...

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Chasing

One of the methods used in repoussé metal-work. The term ‘chasing’ may also be used in a more general way, to describe any decorative work on metal employing hammer or punch.

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