Search - Archaeologs

Browse by Letters

We try our best to keep the ads from getting in your way. If you'd like to show your support, you can use Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.

Recently Added

Sutkagen Dor

The westernmost site of the Harappan civilization, on the Makran coast, southwest Pakistan. Like other Harappan towns, Sutkagen Dor is divided into a citadel and a lower town. The citadel was defended by a massive wall, not made of brick as in the Indus Valley itself, but of semidressed stone. Th...

Susuya

Site in southern Sakhalin, an island off the east coast of Siberia north of Japan, dating to the last few centuries BC or the first few centuries ad. The site marks the first appearance in this area of a true maritime economy of sea-mammal hunters, using efficient harpoons. It is thought to repre...

Susa

[Susiana]. Major city (Biblical Shushan) in Khuzistan, southwest Iran. The area around Susa, known as Susiana, is contiguous with and very similar to southern Mesopotamia proper (it is sometimes included in the designation ‘Greater Mesopotamia’) and the development of civilization followed closel...

Surveying

Accurate surveying is essential for recording archaeological sites, before and during excavation. At most excavations, horizontal dimensions are measured with tapes, from a ‘grid’ of known points around the site. Height differences are usually measured using a level and staff. These dimensions ma...

Surkh Kotal

A site in Afghanistan, among the most important monuments of the Kushans, who in the 1st century ad created an empire extending from Bactria to the upper Ganges. The most famous Kushan ruler was Kanishka (early 2nd century), builder of the hilltop fortress at Surkh Kotal, in which the Kushans cre...

Sur Jangal

A prehistoric site in the Loralai Valley of northern Baluchistan, Pakistan. Three major phases of occupation probably belong to the later 4th and 3rd millennia bc. Characteristic blank-on-red painted wares frequently depict both humped (zebu) and humpless cattle; faunal remains from this site ind...

EnglishPlace Names

Sunium

See Sounion.

Sungir

An open site of the Strelestsky-Sungir culture some 200 km east-northeast of Moscow, occupied c20,000-25,000 be. It is by far the north-easternmost of the rich Upper Palaeolithic sites, although sites close to the Arctic Circle are known. There is a strong Mousterian element in the stone artefact...

Sunda Shelf

The shallow submarine continental shelf which extends from the Southeast Asian mainland to Huxley’S Line; it supports the islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Bali and Palawan, which were joined to the Asian continent at times of low Pleistocene sea-level. The eastern edge of the shelf (Huxley’s Lin...

Sumer

The earliest civilization in the world, which arose in southern Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium bc. The name is taken from inscriptions, where it appears in the title "King of Sumer and Agade’; it was applied first to the language found on the earliest clay tablets and later to the whole civili...

Sumatra

The prehistory of this large island of western Indonesia is little known, but recent excavations at Tianko Panjang cave in Jambi Province have yielded an obsidian flake industry dating from about 8000 be, with undated cord-marked pottery in upper layers. The Pasemah megaliths may date from the ea...

EnglishPlace Names

Sulphur Springs

Earliest of three stages of the Cochise culture, named after a small cluster of sites in southeast Arizona, USA. Evidence of plant food processing (e.g. cobble manos) together with split and burnt faunal remains, imply an Archaic lifestyle, although there is an almost complete lack of projectile ...

Sulphur Springs

archaeologsOthers

Sulawesi

The largest island of eastern Indonesia, in the intermediate Wallacean faunal region between the Sun da and Sahul shelves. Sulawesi may have been beyond the reach of settlement by Homo erectus, but there is a possible late Pleistocene industry from Cabenge, and the southwestern peninsula contains...

Sukhothai

An ancient city in northern Thailand which in the 13th century became the nucleus of a newly emerging Buddhist Thai state, independent of the declining Khmer empire of Angkor. Under its greatest king Rama Khamhaeng (cl275- cl 317), who is also regarded as a sort of culture hero of the Thais, the ...

Sui Xian

[Sui-hsien]. district in Hubei province, China. A rich burial of the late 5th century bc excavated at Sui Xian Leigudun in 1978 is identified by inscribed bronzes found in it as the tomb of one Marquis Yi of the little-known state of Zeng. A dated inscribed bell contributed to the funerary goods ...

EnglishArchitectural

Sui Xian

archaeologsArchitectural

Sui

[Sui], Chinese dynasty, ad 589-618.

Sui

archaeologsOthers

Sugu

A site in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, where many Yayoi settlements, cemeteries and workshops, known as the Sugu site group, are located. The Sugu site proper is a cemetery containing over 200 jar burials. The most famous among them is a grave believed to be that of the political leader of the area...

Sugar Cane

Sugar canes (Saccharum sp.) are large grasses which contain a sweet syrup in their coarse fibrous stems. It is believed on botanical grounds that they were first subjected to selection by man in the New Guinea region, by at least an early phase of Austronesian settlement (c3000 BC).

Sufutun

[Su-fu-t’un]. A site near the city of Yidu in Shandong province where large cruciform shaft tombs with sacrificial victims were excavated in 1965-6. The Sufutun tombs were similar in construction to the so-called royal tombs at Anyang Xibeigang and belong either to the very end of the Shang dynas...

Sufutun

archaeologsOthers

Sue

Bluish-grey pottery used during the Kofun, Nara, and Heian periods in Japan. A large variety of vessels were made on a mechanical wheel, and fired in a kiln at about 1100°C, with the blue-grey colour resulting from the oxygen-reduced atmosphere in the kiln towards the end of the firing process. T...

Sue

archaeologsOthers

Succase

Small settlement site of the Rzucewo culture, a regional group of the Corded ware culture group dated to the turn of the 2nd millennium be. Succase lies near the mouth of the River Vistula on the southern shores of the Frisches Hoff in Pomerania, Poland. Several occupation layers are represented ...

Suberde

A small settlement site in the Konya plain of southern Turkey, dated to the later 7th millennium be. Two occupation levels were recognized, the earlier with traces of hut floors, the later with building of mudbrick and plastered floors. There has been some dispute about the nature of the subsiste...

Sub-Boreal

A climatic sub-division of the Flandrian, originally supposed to be warm and dry, in contrast to a wet and warm preceding Atlantic period. Godwin’s Pollen Zone Vllb corresponds to the Sub-Boreal period in Britain. The zone starts with the elm decline. Its end is rather ill-defined over much of Br...

Sub-Atlantic

A climatic sub-division of the Flandrian, originally supposed to be wet and cold, in contrast to the preceding SubBoreal period. The increased rainfall may be attested in Britain by a change in the peat stratigraphy of bogs (see recurrence surface). Godwin’s Pollen Zone VIII corresponds to the Su...

Stupa

Indian burial monument. Stupas were the tombs of Buddhist holy men and often became shrines. Built of brick or stone, stupas are domed structures, surrounded by a decorated railing. The Mauryan emperor Asoka is said to have built 84,000 stupas; one of the most famous is at Sanchi. See also Buddhi...

Stukely

(1687-1765). British antiquary who made quite accurate drawings and descriptions of prehistoric monuments such as Avebury and Stonehenge, containing much useful information about features now destroyed. However, he was afflicted with what Stuart Piggott has called ‘Druidomania’, attributing all p...

Stukely

archaeologsOthers

Stroke-Ornamented Ware

English name for the German Stichbandkeramik, which characterizes the Middle Neolithic culture in Central Europe (southern Poland, Czechoslovakia and parts of southern and central Germany). The pottery is decorated with geometric designs, especially zigzags, made by incision in a series of short ...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Striking Platform

When a core is made of stone for the removal of flakes or blades, it must have a flat surface against which the hammer is struck to remove the blanks. This is the striking platform. Part of it comes away with each flake.

Strigil

[Latin: strigilis]. narrow curved scraper, made of horn or metal, used by Roman and Greek bathers for the cleansing of the skin. Romans used them particularly in the hot room (caldarium) (see baths, roman), and this task was often performed by slaves.

Strigil

archaeologsOthers

Strettweg

Hallstatt burial in eastern Austria of the 7th century bc, famous for one of the grave goods: a miniature bronze wagon, possibly a cult object. The wagon frame bears a group of mounted warriors flanking a much larger naked woman, interpreted as a goddess, holding a bowl above her head.

Strelice

A small settlement site of the Late Neolithic Lengyel culture, located in central Moravia, Czechoslovakia, and dated to the mid-4th millennium be. Among the rich middle Lengyel ritual assemblage was a fired clay house model showing timber posts and a pitched roof with bucrania attached to the gab...

Straubing

A regional group of the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture found in Bavaria. It is characterized by flat inhumation cemeteries with grave goods such as simple bronze daggers, awls, tores, cones of coiled wire and amber beads.

Stratigraphy

The study of sequences of sediments, soils, structures or rocks. Layered deposits are said to be stratified. The sequence of deposition can be assessed by a study of the relationships of different layers. Any one layer can be said to have been deposited at a later date than those which are strati...

Stoneware

Distinctively hard-fired vessels which were first made at Siegburg near Cologne as early as about 1200 ad. Stoneware involved the firing of pots in excess of 1100°C, at which point the molecules fuse to form a new stronger structure. Stonewares required particular clays, but the technique made po...

EnglishAncient Pottery

Stonehenge

Situated on Salisbury plain in Wiltshire, southern England, Stonehenge is Britain’s most remarkable stone circle and one of the most impressive megalithic monuments anywhere. Excavations have revealed three major building stages and some subsidiary substages. The first monument, Stonehenge I, was...

Stone Circle

Term for a ring of standing stones, either truly circular or near-circular in shape. Stone circles occur in many parts of the world at different times, but in prehistoric Europe they represent a peculiarly British development About 900 examples are known throughout Britain and Ireland and datable...

Stone Age

The first age of the Three Age System, defined by the use of stone for tools. See also Mesolithic, Neolithic, Palaeolithic.

Stone

One of the first materials to be used for making artefacts. Very fine grained, or glassy stones, such as flint and obsidian, were shaped mainly by chipping or flaking. Other less brittle stones had to be hammered or chiselled into shape, and then polished. Precious and decorative stones were also...

Stoa

Type of classical Greek building, consisting essentially of a long, straight colonnade, with vertical wall (and sometimes rooms) behind and roof over. The colonnade is sometimes doubled, and a projecting wing may be added to either end. Examples occur from about 650 bc onwards. The type does not ...

Stirrup-Spout Vessel

An ancient American vessel, with precursors in the Initial Period, which usually takes the form of a closed globular jar. Its defining characteristic is a hollow loop (or stirrup) of clay attached to the vessel body at both ends with a tubular spout set into it in a vertical plane, usually at its...

Stirrup-Spout Vessel

archaeologsOthers

Stillbay

Site on the Cape coast of South Africa which yielded a poorly defined stone tool assemblage of ‘Middle Stone Age’ type. The name Stillbay was formerly used over a wide area of southern and eastern Africa to designate industries of this general type. The term has now been replaced by a series of m...

Steward

(1902-72). American archaeologist and anthropologist who made major contributions to theoretical archaeology. His main interest was in the study of culture process and for this he drew on both anthropological and archaeological evidence. He edited the monumental Handbook of South American Indians...

Previous Next