Acrolith

A Greek statue, of which the head and extremities were of stone or marble and the trunk crafted of wood which was either gilt or draped. The acrolith period was the infancy of Greek plastic art.

archaeologsEnglishArtifacts, Cultures

Acrolith

Tószeg

A tell near Szolnok on the River Tisza in eastern Hungary with a defining sequence for the Early Bronze Age of the region. The succession begins with the Neolithic Tisza culture, followed by the Copper Age Tiszapolgár culture, then the Bronze Age cultures of Nagyrév (Tószeg A), Hatvan (Tószeg B),...

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Tószeg

Tumulus Culture

A Middle Bronze Age culture of the central Danube region in Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Bavaria, with burials beneath round barrows, dating c 1500-1200 BC. The heartland of the Tumulus culture was Bavaria, Württemberg, and the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture, but distribution ext...

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Tumulus Culture

Knovíz Culture

A Bronze Age urnfield culture of Bohemia, Thuringia, and Bavaria, following the decline of the Tumulus Bronze Age, c 1400-900 BC. Except for the burial rite, the Knovíz culture is similar to that of the neighboring Milavce group. The Knoviz group is one of the exceptions to the normal urnfield ri...

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Knovíz Culture

Kura-Araxes Culture

Culture complex of Early Bronze Age sites of Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia, and northwest Iran, probably of the later 4th through later 3rd millennia BC. The complex is characterized by black or red highly burnished pottery. There were portable hearths and some circular houses.

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Kura-Araxes Culture

Shulaveri-Shomu Culture

Neolithic culture based on two sites on the Kura River in Georgia and Azerbaijan. There was coarse pottery decorated by incision or knobs and small round domestic structures. The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC.

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Shulaveri-Shomu Culture

Lusatian Culture

A Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (Hallstatt period) culture of Poland and eastern Germany, an urnfield culture which had formed by c 1500 BC. Larger settlements, such as Biskupin, Senftenberg, and Sobiejuchy, are fortified. The culture is noted for its bronzework and its fine dark pottery, so...

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Lusatian Culture

Kokorevo

Six Upper Palaeolithic sites on the Yenisei River in southern Siberia. Radiocarbon dates put Kokorevo I-IV between 15,900-12940 bp. There are wedge-shaped microcores, microblades, sidescrapers, and retouched blades. Level I is Kokorevo culture, II and III are Afontova culture. The Kokorevo cultur...

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Kokorevo

Sidemi Culture

A culture of the Vladivostok area of eastern Siberia from the late 2nd millennium BC. The population lived in coastal settlements of semi-subterranean houses, which are associated with shell middens. Characteristic tools were made of polished slate, though small quantities of iron were also used....

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Sidemi Culture

Anglo-Saxons

The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. ...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages, Cultures

Anglo-Saxons

Wessex Culture

Early Bronze Age culture of southern England with cemeteries of found barrows of special types (bell, disc and saucer barrows and enclosures strangely labeled 'pond barrows') c 2650-1400 BC. It developed from the Beaker tradition and was closely related to the Armorican Tumulus Culture. The Wesse...

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Wessex Culture

TRB Culture

Abbreviated name for the Danish Tragterbecker or German Trichterrandbecher culture, alternatively known in English as the Funnel Beaker Culture. It is the first Neolithic culture of northern Europe, found in southern Scandinavia, the Low Countries, northern Germany, and northern Poland, in the la...

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TRB Culture

Gorodtsov Culture

An early Upper Palaeolithic culture of the Kostenki-Borshchevo sites in European Russia with assemblages c 30,000-25,000 bp. The artifacts include endscrapers and Middle Palaeolithic sidescrapers as well as bone tools.

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Gorodtsov Culture

Trzciniec

Early and Middle Bronze Age culture of eastern Poland, dating to the mid-2nd millennium BC. The type site near Lublin has a large number of houses with sunken foundations. Burial types are diverse, with inhumation and cremation, flat and barrow graves, occurring in varying combinations. It had ce...

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Trzciniec

Patjitanian

A Middle Pleistocene chopper-chopping tool culture from Java characterized by coarse flakes in the shape of cleavers, known from a very prolific site in south central Java. In the Patjitanian, the main types of implements consist of single-edged choppers and chopping tools that occur in associati...

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Patjitanian

Pit Grave Culture

Late Neolithic culture of the lower Volga and Don steppes, the forerunner to Corded Ware, Single Grave, or Kurgan culture. It appears on Ukrainian steppes in 3rd millennium BC, with fortified villages and burials in pits under barrows.

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Pit Grave Culture

Amudian

A culture and industry close to the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, Israel. There are several important caves, including Emireh, the type site of the Emiran, and Zuttiyeh, the type site of the Amudian. These demonstrate the early occurrence of Upper Palaeolithic blades and burins even earlier than ...

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Amudian

Kurgan Cultures

A seminomadic pastoralist culture that spread from the Russian steppes to Danubian Europe about 3500 BC. By about 2300 BC the Kurgans arrived in the Aegean and Adriatic regions. The Kurgans buried their dead in deep shafts within artificial burial mounds, or barrows. The word kurgan means barrow ...

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Kurgan Cultures

Srubnaya Culture

Bronze Age culture of the Volga and Don steppes in southern Russia, following the Yamnaya culture. The burials include horse appointments. The Andronovo complex is related to the Timber Grave group in southern Russia; both represent branches of the Indo-Iranian cultural block.

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Srubnaya Culture

Larnian Culture

A Mesolithic culture, named after Larne, Ireland, and found only on sites close to coasts and estuaries in western Scotland and eastern Ireland. It is characterized by shell middens and the early toolkits include leaf-shaped points made on a flake, the oldest unambiguous implement in Ireland, and...

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Larnian Culture

Maglemosian

The first Mesolithic culture of the north European plain, found in Scandinavia, the northern Balkans, northern Scotland, and northern England, and lasting from c 9000/8000-5000 BC. The way of life was adapted to a forest and river/lakeside environment. Much has been preserved in waterlogged depos...

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Maglemosian

Old Copper Culture

A series of late Archaic complexes in the upper Great Lakes area of the United States and Canada which settled there approximately 5,000 years ago. This culture of hunters and fishermen did not have pottery and agriculture, but the people mined native copper around Lake Superior and used it to ma...

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Old Copper Culture

Middle Bronze Age

In the Levant, the period of sophisticated urban civilization of the Canaanites, MBA I c 1950-1800 BC and MBA II c 1800-1550 BC. The Middle Bronze Age provides the background for the beginning of the story of the Old Testament. The archaeological evidence for the period shows new types of pottery...

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Middle Bronze Age

Kostolac

Eneolithic site in the Carpathian basin of Serbia and name of a culture considered a variant of the Baden culture.

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Kostolac

Karim Shahir

A hilltop site near Kirkuk in northern Iraq occupied in the period when the transition was beginning from hunting-and-gathering to farming. Its material is closely related to that of Zawi Chemi Shanidar and the culture is dated c 9000-7000 BC. There is no evidence of architecture, so the site was...

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Karim Shahir