Open site in northern Iraq of the Karim Shahir phase (undated here, but probably 8th millennium be). The site contained round and oval sunken houses with stone floors. Finds include a chipped stone industry of Karim Shahir type, lightly baked clay figurines and beads, and fragments of stone bowls. There is little evidence on the subsistence economy: the faunal remains have not been published and no plant remains were found. However, the occurrence of mortars and querns may indicate that cereals were harvested; clay balls, perhaps used as weights for digging sticks, suggest that these were cultivated and not wild cereals. moas. Extinct New Zealand land birds (Dinornithidaé) comprising 13 species in 6 genera, according to recent analysis. Moas (a Polynesian vernacular term) were exterminated by early Polynesians in New Zealand between initial settlement (about ad 900) and possibly 1600. The largest species, Dinornis giganteas, stood about three metres high. Moa-hunting was once held to be an economic mainstay of the Archaic Maoris, but it is now clear that large concentrations only occurred in certain regions, especially east coastal South Island.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied