Wessex Culture

Early Bronze Age culture of southern Britain characterized by a group of very rich burials under round barrows of special types (bell, disc and saucer barrows and enclosures strangely labelled ‘pond barrows’). The burials are usually divided into two groups, with inhumation predominating in the e...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Weipa Shell Mounds

See shell mounds (Tropical Australia). Wessex. Kingdom of the West Saxons established, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, by Cerdic when he landed on the south coast in the early 6th century ad. It was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to become firmly established, and expanded slowly by ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Weipa Shell Mounds

Weifang

[Wei-fang].

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Weifang

Weichselian

Group of Quaternary glacial deposits in northwest Europe (see Table 5, page 418). The main feature is a striking group of end moraines, demarcating the maximum extent of the Weichsel ice-sheet. This ice-sheet flowed out from centres in Scandinavia, over the bed of the Baltic Sea and into northern...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Wealden House

A type of timber-framed building, dating from the 15th century; many surviving examples are concentrated in southeast England. The Wealden house has a distinctive design in which the central open hall is flanked at both ends by multi-storeyed wings; in the purest examples the end storeys are jett...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Wealden House

Wayland’s Smithy

An Early Neolithic long barrow in Oxfordshire, southern England, with two phases of construction. The earlier monument covered a wooden mortuary house which contained the remains of 14 individuals. Over this was constructed a much longer trapezoidal mound with a stone kerb and with a megalithic c...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Wayland’s Smithy

Wattle

Flexible wooden rods or twigs, used in constructing hurdles and fencing, or as support in a wattle and daub wall.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Wattle

Watling Street

Roman road from Richborough to Chester in southern and central England, a major trunk route built in the early years of the Roman occupation of Britain. The road runs via Canterbury to London; thence it branches north-west to Veru-lamium, Towcester and Wroxeter, and finally turns north to Chester.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Water Newton

[Roman Durobrivae]. 25 km from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, this was a large and important Roman pottery town, centre of production for the Nene Valley colour-coated fine ware, and find-site in particular (1975) of a hoard of 4th-century Christian silver plate. Accessible toda...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Wasit

Located half way between Basra and Kufa, Wasit was founded as a new town by Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi, governor of Iraq, in 703-4. Its remains occupy some three square kilometres. The only standing building is a shrine with a monumental portal flanked by minarets, datable to the 13th century. Ex...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Warthe

See Saale.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Warthe

Warsaw

Medieval Warsaw grew up on the left bank of the River Vistula. Excavations in the vicinity of the royal castle located the earthworks of the proto-urban 9th-century fortress, with earth-and-timber ramparts and gateways. The area around the cathedral proved to be the site of the citadel of the 10t...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Warring States Period

The latter part (475-221 bc) of the Eastern Zhou period. See Zhou.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Warka

See Uruk.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Warendorf

A migration period settlement located by the River Ems in Westphalia, West Germany. The excavations represent a palimpsest of individual phases which overlie each other, spanning the latter part of the 7th,8th and early 9th centuries. The excavations were carried out in the 1950s and uncovered a ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Wangshan

[Wang-shan]. See Jiangling, Yue.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Wangshan

Wallacea

The biogeographical zone of eastern Indonesia, flanked by the Sunda Shelf to the west and the Sahul Shelf to the east. This zone has never been fully land- bridged and dates of first human settlement are unsure. The first settlers of Australia prior to 30,000 years ago had to cross sea gaps of up...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Waldalgesheim

A chariot burial of the La Tene Iron Age in the Rhineland, western Germany. It contained the bodies of a man and a woman and many fine grave goods of both bronze and gold. Some of these objects were imports, for example a bronze bucket of Italian type, but most were of native manufacture. Many of...

archaeologsEnglishOthers