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Bondi Point

A small, asymmetrically backed point, named for Bondi, Sydney, which is a component of the Australian Small Tool tradition. It is usually less than 5 cm (2 inches) long and is sometimes described as a backed blade. Some examples suggest that the points were set in wooden handles or shafts. It occ...

Bombylos

A Greek or Roman vase so-called from the gurgling noise that the liquid made when pouring out of the narrow neck. [bombyle]

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bolt

An iron arrow or missile, especially stout and short with a blunt or thickened head, discharged from a crossbow or other engine. [quarrel]

Bolling Interstadial

An interstadial of the Weischselian cold period, dated to between 13,000 and 12,000 bp.

Bolas Stone

Weighted balls of stone, bone, ivory, or ceramic that are either grooved or pierced for fastening to rawhide thongs and used to hunt prey. The bolas, still found today among some of the peoples of South America and among the Inuits, usually consists of two or more globular or pear-shaped stones a...

Body Sherd

Any fragment of a ceramic vessel not identifiable as a rim sherd. [body shard]

Body Shape

Overall form of a ceramic object.

Body

1. The main part of a vessel that contains the volume (or sherds of it). 2. Clay or a mixture of clay and inclusions (temper) that is suitable for forming vessels or that has been fired into a vessel. [fabric, paste, ware]

Bodkin

1. A sharp slender instrument for making holes or for other functions. It may be shaped like a dagger, stiletto, or hairpin. 2. A blunt needle with a large eye for drawing tape or ribbon through a loop or hem.

Boatstone

A boat-shaped stone atlatl - a throwing-stick weight - put on the shaft to give great propulsion to a thrown dart. Unlike the bannerstone, it was apparently lashed to the stick shaft. [bannerstone, birdstone]

Boatmaking

Boatmaking and navigation have been important for thousands of years and there is evidence of dugout canoes from Mesolithic times onward, the earliest being at Perth and in Denmark. Neolithic people used skiffs as well as dugout canoes. Plank boats appeared in the Middle Bronze Age. In the Roman ...

Blunt

A point that abruptly terminates part way up the blade with no true distal point for piercing. Typically the point is chipped in a mild excurvate or straight edge. Some feel that the point may have been used in hunting as a “stunning” weapon. However, most blunts show signs of being a conserved, ...

Blue Willow Pottery

First made in England over 200 years ago, and said to be “America’s favorite patterned ware.” Willow ware is available in a wide range of patterns; the makers are most identifiable by marks, styles, and periods, running from 1780 onward.

Blowpipe

A long, hollow tube used to blow molten glass into shapes.

Bloom

1. Spongy mass of material made up of iron and slag, produced from the initial smelting of iron ore. The slag and impurities are mostly driven off in preliminary forging. To produce useful iron, bloom must be hammered at red heat to expel the stone and add a proportion of carbon to the metal. 2. ...

Block Statue

A type of sculpture introduced in the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 bc ), that represents the subject squatting on the ground with knees drawn up close to the body, under the chin. The arms and legs may be wholly contained within the simple cubic form, with the hands and feet protruding discretely. T...

Blattspitzen

A category of stone artifact with complete or nearly complete flaking on both sides and points at one or both ends. They are found in some late Middle and early Upper Paleolithic industries of central and eastern Europe.

Blank

A partly finished stone artifact that has been worked roughly into a shape but which must be further chipped to a suitable size and form to become a tool. This is an intermediate manufacturing stage in the production of stone tools, where the tools are given the rough shape at a quarry or worksho...

Bladelet

Shorter, narrower blade.

Blade Tool

A tool made from a single, thin, narrow flake detached from a core. The controlled flaking technique is characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic but it is also known from earlier cultures.

Blade Core

A flint or stone core from which blades have been struck, typically conical or pyramidal in shape and producing distinctive debitage.

Blade

A long, narrow, sharp-edged, thin flake of stone, used especially as a tool in prehistoric times. This flake was detached by striking from a prepared core, often with a hammer. Its length is usually at least twice the width. The blade may be a tool in itself, or may be the blank from which a two-...

EnglishTools, Artifacts

Black-Glazed

A style of pottery decoration in which plain wares were given a black sheen, which continued well into the Hellenistic period - especially in Athens from the 6th to 2nd centuries bc . These wares were often made alongside figure-decorated pottery and, from the 5th century bc , the shapes were fre...

Black-Figure

A type of Greek pottery that originated in Corinth c. 700 bc and was popular until red-figure pottery, its inverse, began in c. 530 bc . This style consisted of pottery with one or more bands of human and animal figures silhouetted in black against the tan or red ground. The red color was probabl...

Black-Burnished Ware

Culinary vessel forms made in two different fabrics and widely imitated. One was black, gritty, and handmade from c. ad 120 to the late 4th century ad . A second was more gray and finer, with a silvery finish, and wheel-thrown in the Thames Estuary area c. ad 140 to the mid 3rd century ad . [blac...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Black-And-Red Ware

Any Indian pottery with black rims and interior and red on the outside, due to firing in the inverted position, which was made beginning in the Iron Age. Characteristic forms include shallow dishes and deeper bowls. It first appeared on late sites of the Indus civilization and was a standard feat...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Bivalve

An aquatic mollusk that has a compressed body enclosed within two hinged shells, such as an oyster, mussel, or scallop, or any animal with two halves to its shell such as an ostracode or brachiopod.

Bit

A metal mouthpiece attached to a bridle, used to control a horse. The domesticated horse was probably first controlled with a simple halter. The bit consists of a bit-mouth and adjacent parts to which the reins are attached. Bits with cheekpieces of antler did not appear in central Europe until a...

Bit

archaeologsTools

Biscuit

Pots that have been given a preliminary firing to render them hard enough for further work such as decoration and glazing. The higher the temperature of the biscuit firing, the harder will be the pot, resulting in a reduced reaction between the glaze and body in the final firing. Also includes un...

Birdstone

A class of prehistoric stone objects of undetermined purpose, usually resembling or shaped like a bird; carved bird effigies. These polished stone weights occurred in the cultures of the Archaic tradition (8000-1000 bc ) and later cultures in the eastern woodlands of North America. They were prob...

Birdpoint

A smaller arrowhead used by Native Americans to kill small game such as rabbit, waterfowl, and birds. [bird point]

Birch-Bark Manuscript

Early Russian letters and documents scratched onto thin pieces of birch bark, dating to the 11th to 15th centuries ad . They were first found in 1951 in Novgorod by A. Artsikhovski and form a very important source of information as no other documents earlier than the 13 th century have survived b...

Bipolar Percussion

A type of percussion that involves the placement of raw material (usually small rounded or oval cobbles) on an anvil stone and striking it from the top. [bipolar flaking, bipolar technique]

Bipennis

An ax with a double blade or edge, used as an agricultural implement, an adze, or a military weapon. It was used by the Amazons, Scythians, and Gauls. [bipenne]

Binder

A substance, usually organic, added to a clay or glaze to increase its green strength.

Billet

A soft hammer used to strike flakes from a stone core, often made of antler, bone, or wood. [baton, percussor]

Bilaterally Barbed

A projectile point or harpoon with barbs on both edges.

Bifurcate

Point base split into double lobes with indentation similar to notches on the sides. [bifurcated base]

Bifid Razor

Type of tool, possibly a razor, of the Middle Bronze Age of Europe, with two ovate, sharp-edged lobes of thin metal attached to a central tang.

Bifacially Worked

Pertaining to an artifact that has been flaked on both sides. [bifacial working (n.)]

Bifacial Thinning Flake

Flakes removed during the thinning or resharpening of bifaces. These flakes are relatively flat, have broad, shallow flake scars (produced by the detachment of previous thinning flakes from the dorsal face), and tend to exhibit a feathering out of lateral margins. The proximal end of the flake of...

Bifacial Retouch

Retouch flaking that occurs on both the ventral and dorsal sides of an edge.

Bifacial Flaking

Manufacture of a stone artifact by removing flakes from both faces.

Bifacial Blank

A biface in the early stages of production displaying only percussion flaking and no evidence of pressure flaking. In many cases, blanks were traded and/or transported from their area of origin and subsequently used as bifacial cores from which flake blanks were detached for the production of dar...

Bifacial

On both ventral and dorsal sides.

Biface Bevel

A bevel that was formed by removing flakes from both faces of an edge.

Biface

A type of prehistoric stone tool flaked on both faces or sides; the main tool of Homo erectus . The technique was typical of the hand-ax tradition of the Lower Paleolithic period and the Acheulian cultures. Bifaces may be oval, triangular, or almond-shaped in form and characterized by axial symme...

Bier

A movable wooden platform on which corpses were laid, sometimes together with grave goods, and eventually carried to a burial place.

Biconvex

A blade shape having two worked faces.

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