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living systems [2]

Word List with 49 words
By Dictionary.com

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Words in This List

industry

an assemblage of artifacts regarded as unmistakably the work of a single prehistoric group

ware

a group of ceramic types classified according to paste and texture, surface glaze and decorative motifs rather than shape and color

henge

a Neolithic monument of the British Isles, a circular area enclosed by a bank and ditch and often including circles of upright stone or wood pillars

celt

an ax of stone or metal without perforations or grooves, beveled on one end

dolmen

a structure usually regarded as a tomb, consisting of two or more large, upright stones set with a space between and capped by a horizontal stone

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menhir

an upright monumental stone standing either alone or with others, as in an alignment, found chiefly in Cornwall and Brittany

graffito

an ancient drawing or writing scratched on a wall or other surface

dromos

a passageway into an ancient subterranean tomb

chulpa

a type of prehistoric stone tower, found in Brazil and Peru, having living quarters over a burial chamber

debitage

lithic debris and discards found at the sites where stone tools and weapons were made

bifacial

having the opposite surfaces alike, such as on some tools

site catchment analysis

the examination of a contained area to evaluate the productivity of the resources customarily exploited by the inhabitants of a settlement

posthole

an excavated hole showing by its shape and by the remains of wood or other debris that it was once filled by a post

tectiform

a design found in Paleolithic cave art and believed to represent a structure or dwelling

Mogollon

an Amerindian culture of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico characterized by pit houses and distinctive black-on-white pottery

microlith

a tiny stone tool made from a bladelet and mounted singly or in series as the working part of a composite tool or weapon

Capsian

designating an Epipaleolithic culture of northwestern Africa, characterized by the use of geometric microlithic tools

Hoabinhian

typifying a middle to late Stone Age culture found in southeast Asia that is characterized chiefly by agricultural village settlements

Hopewell

a mound-building agricultural Amerindian culture characterized by earthworks, burial mounds, corded pottery, ornamental knives and tobacco pipes

obsidian dating

a method of dating obsidian artifacts by calculating how long it has taken to produce a given thickness of a hydration layer within such matter

hammerstone

an ancient stone tool used as a hammer, as for chipping flint, processing food, or breaking up bones

woodhenge

a henge monument consisting of circles of upright timber posts

steinkern

fossilized outline of a skull or a mollusk shell formed when mud or sediment consolidated within the structure before the material disintegrated

chamber tomb

a tomb usually of megaliths covered by mounds, sometimes decorated, and used for successive family or clan burials spanning generations

endocranial cast

a cast of the inside of the cranium, as of a fossil skull, used to determine brain size and shape

wedge tomb

a Neolithic chamber tomb found in the British Isles, having a trapezoidal cairn and a long, narrow chamber opening into it from the wider, higher side

Oldowan

a Lower and Middle Pleistocene industrial complex in eastern Africa, characterized by stone tools two million years old, the oldest artifacts yet known

shaft grave

a grave consisting of a deep, rectangular pit with vertical sides, roofed over with a stone slab

core tool

a stone tool with a cutting edge, as a hand ax, chopper, or scraper, formed by chipping away flakes from a core

Solutrean

of an Upper Paleolithic European culture c18,000?16,000 b.c., characterized by the making of stone projectile points and low-relief stone sculptures

passage grave

a megalithic tomb found in Europe with a roofed burial chamber and narrow entrance passage covered by a mound and containing human remains

food vessel

an early Bronze Age grave vessel, 1600?1300 b.c., found in Ireland and northern Britain and intended for the use of the deceased in the afterlife

long barrow

a funerary barrow having an elongate shape, sometimes constructed over a megalithic chamber tomb and usually containing one or more corpses and objects

macrolith

a stone tool about 1 ft. (30 cm) long

palstave

a bronze celt ax fitted into a split wooden handle

pit grave

a shallow grave hollowed out of a bed of rock or the floor

round barrow

a funerary barrow having a bell, disk, saucer, or pond shape, primarily of the Bronze Age and containing the cremated remains and grave artifacts

Woodland culture

a pre-Columbian tradition characterized by the corded pottery, hunting and agriculture, and burial mounds in the eastern United States

Aterian

a Middle Paleolithic industry of northwestern Africa characterized by the production of tanged points and leaf-shaped points of varying sizes

Heuneburg

a prehistoric site near Ulm of the early Iron Age dating to the first millennium b.c. that had extensive trade with the eastern Mediterranean

Urewe

an early Iron Age pottery tradition of central Africa and associated with the spread of ironworking and possibly cattle raising and the Bantu language

Yang-shao

Neolithic culture of N China characterized by sunken floor dwellings, domesticated pigs, and handmade pottery painted in designs of spirals and circles

thermoluminescence dating

a method of dating archaeological specimens, chiefly pottery, by measuring the radiation given off by ceramic materials as they are heated

type-site

the place where artifacts of a particular culture or cultural stage have first been found, customarily adopted as the name of that culture

court tomb

a type of Neolithic trapezoidal burial mound having a semicircular forecourt at one end and bounded by large standing stones

Jarmoite

a member of the prehistoric people of northeastern Iraq in and around the settlement at Jarmo

Olmec

a civilization on the southern Gulf of Mexico, characterized by agriculture, a calendar, long-distance trade networks, pyramids and jade work

Venus

a statuette of a female figure, usually carved and typically having exaggerated breasts, belly, or buttocks, often found in Upper Paleolithic cultures

epiglottis

a thin, valvelike, cartilaginous structure that covers the glottis during swallowing, preventing the entrance of food and drink into the larynx.