Late Archaic and Post-Archaic sedentary communities living in southwestern parts of North America between c. 1000 bc and ad 750 with three main phases. Basketmaker Phase I, dated to c. 1000-1 bc , is essentially the same as the Archaic. Basketmaker Phase II, c. ad 1-450, is the same as the Desert...
A container that is usually woven and may have handles.
A type of dagger, usually used by civilians in the medieval period, with an H-shaped hilt.
1. Proximal or end portion of a knife, tool, or projectile point. The base is usually designed for hafting or gripping, but not designed or intended for cutting, scraping, or penetrating. Oftentimes, base edges were ground so that sharp edges would not abrade the hafting materials and cause halti...
A type of very hard, dark, dense rock, igneous in origin, composed of augite or hornblende and containing titaniferous magnetic iron and crystals of feldspar. It often lies in columnar strata, as at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland and Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides. It is greenish- or brownish-bla...
Type of leaf-shaped socketed spearhead of the European Middle Bronze Age which has two small holes or loops at the base of the blade, one either side of the socket - possibly for securing the metal spearhead to the wooden shaft or to tie streamers to the top of the spear.
İntentional removal of small, longitudinal flakes from the base of a chipped stone projectile point or knife to facilitate hafting.
A flaking technique applied to accommodate hafting, which involved the flaking of notches into the basal edge of a preform.
The grinding of projectile points at their base and lower edges (so that the lashings will not be cut), a Paleoindian cultural practice. Basal thinning obtains the same result through the removal of small chips instead of grinding. [basal notching]
Proximal edge of a triangular or lanceolate projectile or stem of a stemmed type. There are eight major types of basal edges convex, straight, concave, auriculate, lobbed, bifurcated, fractured, and snapped.
Flat rectangular ingots of silver of Roman times in Britain.
Type of large Middle Bronze Age pot found within the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain c. 1500 bc through to 1200 bc . Barrel urns have a distinctive profile, wider in the middle than at the base or the rim, often with applied cordons that are decorated with fingertip impressi...
A cylindrical container, often of wood, that holds liquids.
A barlike ornament, usually of polished stone and perforated, worn around the throat.
A technique of decorating pottery by adding thick slip to the surface of a pot before firing. The term also refers to the creamy mixture of kaolin clay itself, for pottery ornamented with barbotine, and the technique of applying an incrustation of this mixture to a ceramic surface for decorative ...
Strong wire with barbs at regular intervals used to prevent passage.
Triangular-shaped flint arrowheads of the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Europe. They are distinctive in having a short rectangular tang on the base opposite the point, symmetrically set either side of which is a barb. The tang was used to secure the arrow tip to its shaft and usually pr...
A subsidiary point facing away from the main point that makes an arrowhead or spear hard to remove. [barbed (adj.)]
A stone-flaking technique using a bone, antler, wood, or other relatively soft material as a hammer to remove small, flat flakes from a core during flint knapping. These flakes have a characteristically long, thin form with a diffuse bulb of percussion. [cylinder hammer technique, soft hammer tec...
Site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of China, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Panshan ware is generally conside...
A stone atlatl - a throwing-stick weight - put on the shaft to give great propulsion to a thrown dart. The stone is perforated for hafting and often has a bipennate, “butterfly” or bannerlike appearance. [banner stone, birdstone, boatstone]
A type of leaf-shaped flake found widely amongst the later Mesolithic assemblages of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, and a component of the Bann culture. These are large flakes having no significant tang, with light retouch, either as elongated or laminar forms or as broader leaf-shaped for...
A pottery of the Danubian I culture, a Neolithic culture that existed over large areas of Europe north and west of the Danube River around the 5th millennium bc . It consists of hemispherical bowls and globular jars, usually round-based and strongly suggesting copies of gourds. The name refers sp...
A design element or fundamental part that is continued or repeated along a straight line that, on pottery, most commonly encircles the vessel but may also be vertical or diagonal.
A general type of tall medieval jug used in Europe whose height is about three times its diameter.
An ancient heavy missile launcher designed to hurl javelins or heavy balls on the principle of a crossbow. The smaller ballista was just that - a basic, large crossbow fastened to a mount. It was also used to hurl iron shafts, Greek fire, heavy darts, etc. during sieges. The huge, complicated Rom...
A fine-textured, highly plastic sedimentary clay, usually composed of the mineral kaolinite, typically containing considerable organic matter and firing white or cream. [ball-clay]
A round object used in games. [game ball]
An apparatus for weighing, usually consists of a beam on a pivot with a means of supporting the object to be weighed on one side and weights on the other.
Neolithic period of the Lake Baikal region in eastern Siberia. Stratified sites in the area show a long, gradual move from the Paleolithic to Neolithic stage, starting in the 4th millennium bc . The postglacial culture was not “true” Neolithic in that it farmed, but was Neolithic in the sense of ...
Damage that can occur to artifacts and ecofacts during excavation, transportation, and cataloging.
A type of pottery of the 8th to 9th centuries from the hills of Cologne, Germany. The globular pitchers and bowls of the Carolingian period are the best known. Badorf-ware kilns have been excavated at Bruhl-Eckdorf and Walberberg and products have been found in the Netherlands, eastern England, a...
A distinguishing emblem or mark, often worn to signify membership, achievement, employment, etc.
Plate armor protecting the back; worn as part of a cuirass.
1. A type of steep retouch probably used to dull the edge of a flake, making it suitable for hafting or handling with fingers; common on the edge opposite the cutting edge of a knife. 2. Pertaining to enamel or pottery.
A purposely created stone flake tool which is usually a decortication flake that retains a piece of the cortex on one side and a sharp edge on the other.
İn stone toolmaking, a small blade with one edge blunted by further chipping along one edge. This retouching technique was used so that it could be fitted snugly into a haft, to provide a fingerrest, or so that it could be held in the hand without cutting the fingers. [backed knife]
Pottery vessels ranging in date from the 11th to 15th centuries and found in northern Italy, especially in medieval churches. They were placed in walls of churches, over church doorways, and in church towers for decorative purposes. These Italian vessels were imported from the Byzantine and Arabi...
Ceramic amphorae of the east Mediterranean, from the 1st to the early 7th century ad and divided into four subgroups.
Rather plain and shoddily made type of socketed bronze ax produced in the period 650-600 bc at the very end of the Bronze Age of northern France (Hallstatt II). Mostly found in large hoards, in which few examples appear to have been finished or used. This has led to the suggestion that they were ...
A tool consisting of an ax and a hammer combined, i.e., a shaft-hole ax having a hammer knob in addition. It was primarily a weapon of war, combining the functions of battle ax and mace. [axe hammer, axe-adze, hammer axe]
Kuzey Afrika'da İ.S. 3. yüzyıldan 6. yüzyıla kadar yapılmış bir tür kırmızı parlak seramik. Parçalar damgalı süslemelere sahipti ve yaygın olarak ticareti yapılıp dağıldı.
A type of red gloss pottery made in North Africa from the 3rd to 6th centuries ad. The pieces had stamped decoration and were widely distributed.
A rod or spindle, either fixed or rotating, on which a wheel or group of wheels is fixed. The axle cap is usually made of iron; it bound the end of an axle and was perforated to allow a linch pin to pass through the axle and keep the wheel in place.
An imaginary line drawn roughly down the middle of a lithic flake as viewed from the dorsal side and extending from the point of percussion, parallel to the direction of striking or the line of force during striking.
Path of the force that removed a piece from the core of a stone tool, running from the point of impact on the platform of the artifact toward the distal end.
An unfinished, roughly shaped axhead. [axehead roughout]
Cutting or chopping part of an ax. [axehead]
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