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

Sozudai

A Palaeolithic site in Oita Prefecture on Kyushu, Japan. A few hundred tools, mostly of quartzite, were recovered from a secondary deposit on a marine terrace during excavations in 1964. They include hand axes, scrapers and flakes. The geological age of the deposit suggests that the tools could b...

Southern Cult, Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

A complex of artistic themes and cultural material, often death-related, which occurred over a wide area in the eastern USA, most often in Mississippian contexts. Common motifs such as the hand/eye symbol, the feathered serpent, the skull and long bone, and depictions of sacrifice support the fre...

Southern Cult, Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

archaeologsOthers

South Cadbury

This site in Somerset, southwest England, is one of the more important secular Dark Age sites in Britain. It is essentially an Iron Age hill fort with a complex history of abandonment and refortification continuing throughout the prehistoric, Roman and medieval periods. The 16th-century antiquari...

EnglishPlace Names

Southampton

Hamwih (or Hamton), the 8th- and 9th-century predecessor of medieval Southampton, is situated to the east of the later town opposite the Roman site of Bitterne (Clausentum) on the banks of the River Itchen in southern England. Hamwih was discovered in the 19th century by brick-earth diggers. Exca...

Sousse

Islamic Sousse [Roman Hadrume-tum] on the Tunisian coast was still a minor settlement in 821-2, when the Aghlabid ruler Ziyadat Allah built the ribat, a stronghold for volunteers dedicated to the holy war against the infidel. It is a square fort, 39 metres across, with towers (one of which is a m...

EnglishArchitectural

Sousse

archaeologsArchitectural

Sounion

[Roman Sunium]. Byron’s ‘Sunium’s marbled steep’ is a classical sanctuary site on a rocky headland some 70 km southeast of Athens. It is famous for the standing columns of its mid-5th century bc marble temple to Poseidon, which make a dramatic sight and give the location its alternative title of ...

EnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Soufli

An Early Neolithic settlement in Thessaly, northern Greece. It is especially well known for having produced a rare piece of monumental sculpture depicting a more than life-size woman wearing a skirt and necklace.

Sotka Koh

A western outpost of the Harap-pan civilization close to the Makran coast. It is situated on a rocky outcrop and at least partly surrounded by a stone wall.

Sotka Koh

archaeologsOthers

Soroki

A group of short-lived settlement sites of the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, located on the middle reaches of the River Dnieper in Moldavia, USSR. The Mesolithic sites, with radiocarbon dates of <5500-5400 be, are 20-cm thick layers with hearths containing layers of shells and fishbones an...

Sopot-Lengyel

Term defined by S. Dimitri-jevic to denote the later Neolithic sites of Srem, north Bosnia and east Slavonia, Yugoslavia, in the period of c4300-3700 be. The pottery of this group shares affinities with the dark burnished ware tradition of the south Balkans and the incised and monochrome traditio...

Son Vi

The ‘Sonviian’ stone industry of the Red River valley in north Vietnam is regarded by modern Vietnamese archaeologists as the immediate predecessor (or an early stage) of the Hoabinhian. The industry is of late Pleistocene date (radiocarbon dates cl 6,000-9000 be).

Son Vi

archaeologsOthers

Songze

[Sung-tse]. See Majiabang.

Songze

archaeologsOthers

Song

[Sung]. Chinese dynasty (ad 960-1279). During the Northern Song (960-1126) the capital was at Kaifeng near the Yellow River in Henan province. During the Southern Song (1127-1279) it was at Hangzhou (near modem Shanghai), and North China was ruled first by the barbarian Jin dynasty of the Jürched...

Sondage

A trench of limited area, sunk through the layers of an archaeological site, to make a preliminary investigation of its stratigraphy.

Somrong Sen

4.5-metre-thick occupation mound near the Tonle Sap Lake in central Cambodia, which has yielded a rich Neolithic assemblage of incised pottery, bone and shell tools and ornaments. The bulk of the deposit predates 1000 bc and it appears that a Bronze Age cemetery may also have been found on the si...

Somrong Sen

archaeologsOthers

Somme Bionne

A chariot burial of the Early La Tene Iron Age, in the Marne area of France, dated to the late 5th century bc. The burial, presumably of a chieftain, was under a large barrow and was equipped with very rich grave goods, both imported objects and locally manufactured items. The imported items incl...

Somerset Levels

The low-lying areas of Somerset in southwest England where marshy conditions led to the formation of peat, which has grown over a period of more than 4000 years. In the process it has preserved remains of human activity, as well as environmental evidence. Peat-cutting exposed remains of ancient t...

Solutrian

A site in the Sâone-et-Loire, central France, with Palaeolithic occupation on the slope below a craggy hill. Above Mousterian deposits come Aurig-nacian, later Perigordian, Solutrian (of which Solutré is the name site) and Magda-lenian. Only the results of the most recent excavations are at all r...

Solutrian

archaeologsOthers

Solomon Islands

A chain of large islands in the centre of Melanesia. Dates for earliest settlement remain unknown, but widely distributed Papuan languages suggest that the islands were inhabited before the beginning of Austronesian expansion into Oceania (c3000 bc). Archaeological sequences are best known from t...

Solo Man

See Ngandong.

Sol Lessivé

The type of soil which may develop under open vegetation, or under arable fields, normally in areas of relatively low annual rainfall, where the soil may dry out during the summer. Sols lessivés seem usually to have originated from brown forest soils which have been stripped of their protective t...

Solifluction

[solifluxion]. See periglacial.

Soil Marks

Pits and ditches may be revealed on aerial photographs by the different colour of their fill, in contrast to the surrounding subsoil. Soil marks show up particularly well in ploughed fields, but are sometimes apparent even under a crop.

Soil Marks

archaeologsOthers

Soil Conductivity Meter

One design of electromagnetic surveying equipment.

Soil

Material which has been subject to soilforming processes. A prerequisite for soil formation is the growth of vegetation. Gradual colonization, first by lichens and then by higher plants causes a parallel build-up of organic matter — humus — in the developing soil. Weathering of the underlying par...

Sohar

The principal town of the Batina coast of Oman in the Sassanian and early Islamic periods. The site had perennial water and enjoyed a plentiful supply of agricultural products, especially dates. The Wadi Jizzi provided a corridor for communications with Buraimi oasis in the interior. Although it ...

EnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Society Islands

A major archipelago in eastern Polynesia, with two geographical sub-groups: Windward (Tahiti and Moorea) and Leeward (Raiatea, Huahine, Borabora, Tahaa, Maupiti). The islands were settled around ad 500 by Polynesians who developed a group of colourful chiefdoms, first recorded by Europeans after ...

Soapstone

Another name for steatite.

Soan

The Soan River area in the upper Punjab in India has revealed a larged number of Palaeolithic stone tools. Some series (Pre-Soan) lack hand axes, others have hand axes or Levallois flakes (Late Soan). Their age is poorly fixed, but is probably over half a million years for some of the material.

Snettisham

Find-spot in Norfolk, eastern England, of a hoard of fine late Iron Age metalwork, dated to the 1st century bc. The hoard consisted of 58 torcs (7 of gold, 48 of the silver-gold alloy, electrum, and 3 of bronze), a gold bracelet, and 159 coins (14 of gold and 145 of potin, the copper-tin alloy ot...

Snaketown

An important Hohokam site in the lower Gila River valley, Arizona, USA, excavated by Emil Haury in 1964-5. A strong Mesoamerican influence is apparent throughout its occupation and architectural features include both the platform mound and the ball court. The site, occupied from the beginning of ...

EnglishPlace Names

Snails

Molluscs of the class Gastropoda. Many species of gastropod exist, adapted to life in the sea, fresh water and on land. Land snail shells are frequently preserved in buried soils, the fills of ditches, and other deposits over limestone subsoils. They are not preserved in the wet and acid conditio...

Snails

archaeologsOthers

Smyrna

[ancient Izmir]. One of the largest late classical and early Byzantine sea ports of western Asia Minor. The early remains are now mostly covered by the modern city and so very little archaeological investigation has been possible, but historical sources have illuminated many aspects of its Byzant...

EnglishAncient Cities

Smolensk

Excavations at Smolensk in the western USSR have begun to increase our knowledge of early medieval Russia. Stone and timber houses and five churches of the Pre-Mongol period have been discovered; colourful frescoes imitating Byzantine silks were found attached to the lower parts of the church walls.

EnglishPlace Names

Smithfield

In early writings on the later stone industries of South Africa, particularly those prepared before the development of radiocarbon dating techniques, reference was frequently made to a group of ‘Smithfield’ industries, named after a town in the Orange Free State. The unifying feature of these ind...

Smilcic

A multi-level open site of the Early and Late Neolithic located near Zadar in north Dalmatia, Yugoslavia. According to the excavator, S. Batovic, there are two occupation horizons: I, an Early Neolithic level with Impressed ware and scanty architectural remains; and II, 13 occupation phases of th...

Smilcic

archaeologsOthers

Smelting

The process of separating metal from ore. In most cases, this is done by heating in a furnace or hearth. Some metals may melt whilst being smelted, but this is not necessarily part of the process. The main chemical reaction in smelting most of the ores used in antiquity is that of reducing a meta...

Small Mammal Bones

Small mammal is traditionally defined as one which cannot be seen above long grass. This includes a variety of rodents, lagomorphs (hares and rabbits), insectivores and carnivores. Bones of these animals are commonly preserved on archaeological sites, accumulating in drains, pits, wells and other...

Small Mammal Bones

archaeologsOthers

Slavs

The term generally used to refer to the peoples who inhabited an area concentrated in modem Poland, and who by the early middle ages were considered a distinct cultural group. The origins of the Slavs are very obscure though they seem to derive from the Iron Age tribes indigenous to the Oder-Vist...

Previous Next