WHAT IS THE HAND AXE?

A large bifacially worked core tool, normally oval, pointed, or pear-shaped, and one of the most typical stone tools of the Lower Paleolithic. It is the diagnostic implement of certain Lower Paleolithic industries (Abbevillian, Chellean, Acheulian), and one variety of the Mousterian. In spite of the name it was not an ax at all and probably served as an all-purpose tool. The oldest and crudest hand axes have been found in Africa; the finer, Acheulian tools are known from most of Africa, Europe, southwest Asia, and India. It was used for chopping, chipping, flaking, cutting, digging, and scraping. Hand axes first appear between 1 and 2 million years ago and they were common in assemblages for about a million years.

WHAT IS THE BOUT COUPé ?

BOUT COUPé: in British archaeology, a well-made cordiform or subtriangular refined biface from northwest Europe. It may be a diagnostic Mousterian tool.

WHAT IS THE BIFACE ?

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 handax tradition of the Lower Paleolithic period and the Acheulian cultures. Bifaces may be oval, triangular, or almond-shaped in form and characterized by axial symmetry, even if the marks made by use are more plentiful on one face or on one edge. The cutting edge could be straight or jagged and the tool used as a pick, knife, scraper, or even weapon. Only in the most primitive tools was flaking done to one side only. [bifacial, coup-de-poing, hand ax]

Cordiform biface typical of the Middle Palaeolithic. (Longueur : 11 cm).

WHAT IS THE ANACHRONISTIC ?

ANACHRONISTIC: pertaining to the representation of something as existing or occurring at other than in its proper time, particularly earlier, and involving or containing anything out of its proper time.

WHAT IS THE AMYGDALOID ?

AMYGDALOID: almond-shaped; a term used to describe elongated ovate or cordiform biface tools.

WHAT IS THE ALL-PURPOSE TOOL ?

ALL-PURPOSE TOOL: a rare stone artifact that could be used for perforating, cutting, and scraping normally larger than a thumb scraper or a drill but smaller than a large knife or scraper. It always has one end worked to a point for perforation with the opposite end worked in the form of an end scraper. One side is worked rather delicately for use as a knife. It is almost always oblong in shape.

WHAT IS THE ADENA, ADENA POINT ?

ADENA: a widespread Native American culture of the Early Woodland period in the Ohio Valley and named after the Adena Mounds of Ross County. It is known for its ceremonial and complex burial practices involving the construction of mounds and by a high level of craftwork and pottery. It is dated from as early as c. 1250 bc and flourished between c. 700 and 200 bc. It is ancestral to the Hopewell culture in that region. It was also remarkable for long-distance trading and the beginnings of agriculture. The mounds (e.g., Grave Creek Mound) are usually conical and they became most common around 500 bc. There was also cremation. Artifacts include birdstones, blocked-end smoking pipes, boatstones, cord-marked pottery, engraved stone tablets, and hammerstones. Artifacts distinctive of Adena include a tubular pipe style, mica cutouts, copper bracelets and cutouts, incised tablets, stemmed projectile points, oval bifaces, concave and reel-shaped gorgets, and thick ceramic vessels decorated with incised geometric designs. [Adena point]

WHAT IS THE ADDITIVE AND ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGY ?

ADDITIVE: An organic or mineral material mixed with clay by the potter to modify its properties in forming, drying, and firing.

ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGY: manufacturing processes in which material is added to an original mass to form an artifact. Ceramic production and basketmaking are additive technologies. 

WHAT IS THE AD ?

AD: used as a prefix to a date, it indicates years after the birth of Christ or the beginning of the Christian calendar. Anno Domini (Latin) means “In the year of our Lord.” The lower case “ad” represents uncalibrated radiocarbon years and ad denotes a calibrated radiocarbon date or a historic date that does not need calibration. There is no year 0; 1 bc is followed by ad 1.

WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY AREA ?

ACTIVITY AREA: 1. A place where a specific ancient activity was located or carried out, such as food preparation or stone toolmaking. The place usually corresponded to one or more features and associated artifacts and ecofacts. In American archaeology, the term describes the smallest observable component of a settlement site. 2. A patterning of artifacts in a site indicating that a specific activity, such as stone toolmaking, took place.

WHAT IS THE ACRATOPHORUM ?

ACRATOPHORUM: a Greek and Roman table vessel for holding pure wine, as opposed to the crater which held wine mixed with water. This vessel was often made of earthenware and metal, though some were gold or silver.

WHAT IS THE ACQUISITION ?

AQUISITION: First stage of the behavioral processes (followed by manufacture, use, and deposition), in which raw materials are procured. 

WHAT IS THE ACOUSTIC VASE ?

ACOUSTIC VASE: large earthenware or bronze vases that were used to strengthen actors’ voices and were placed in bell towers to help boost the sound of church bells. A church in Westphalia contains fine 9thcentury Badorf wares, and larger relief-band amphorae were used in 10th- and 11th-century churches. [acoustic vessel] 

WHAT IS THE ACLIS ?

ACLIS: A small javelin or harpoon, consisting of a thick short pole set with spikes. This massive weapon resembles a trident or angon. [aclys, aclyx]

WHAT IS THE ACISCULUS ?

ACISCULUS: A small pick used by stone-cutters and masons in early Roman times.

WHAT IS THE ACINACES ?

ACINACES: A short sword or scimitar, often very short and worn suspended from a belt around the waist, and used by Eastern nations of antiquity, especially the Medes, Persians, and Scythians.

WHAT IS THE ACHZIB WARE ?

ACHZIB WARE: A Phoenician, Iron Age II, red-slip pottery type consisting primarily of jugs with a trefoil mouth of “mushroom” rims, red slipped, and highly burnished.

WHAT IS THE ACHEULLEAN ?

ACHEULIAN: A European culture of the Lower Paleolithic period namedfor Saint-Acheul, a town in northern France, the site of numerous stone artifacts from the period. The conventional borderline between Abbevillian and Acheulian is marked by a technological innovation in the working of stone implements, the use of a flaking tool of soft material (wood, bone, antler) in place of a hammerstone. This culture is noted for its hefty multipurpose, pointed (or almond-shaped) hand axes, flat-edged cleaving tools, and other bifacial stone tools with multiple cutting edges. The Acheulian flourished in Africa, western Europe, and southern Asia from over a million years ago until less than 100,000 years ago and is commonly associated with Homo erectus. This progressive tool industry was the first to use regular bifacial flaking. The term Epoque de St Acheul was introduced by Gabriel de Mortillet in 1872 and is still used occasionally, but after 1925 the idea of epochs began to be supplanted by that of cultures and traditions and it is in this sense that the term Acheulian is more often used today. The earliest assemblages are often rather similar to the Oldowan at such sites as Olduvai Gorge. Subsequent hand-ax assemblages are found over most of Africa, southern Asia, and western and southern Europe. The earliest appearance of hand axes in Europe is still refereed to by some workers as Abbevillian, denoting a stage when hand axes were still made with crude, irregular devices. The type site, near Amiens in the Somme Valley, contained large hand-ax assemblages from around the time of the penultimate interglacial and the succeeding glacial period (Riss), perhaps some 200,000–300,000 years ago. Acheulian hand axes are still found around the time of the last interglacial period, and hand axes are common in one part of the succeeding Mousterian period (the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition) down to as recently as 40,000 years ago. Acheulian is also used to describe the

period when this culture existed. In African terminology, the entire series of hand-ax industries is called Acheulian, and the earlier phases of the African Acheulian equate with the Abbevillian of Europe. [Acheulean, Acheulian industry] 

WHAT IS THE ACERAMIC AND ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC ?

ACERAMIC: Without pottery or not using pottery; a term applied to periods and societies in which pottery is not used, especially in contrast to other periods of ceramic use and with neighboring ceramic cultures. Aceramic societies may use bark, basketry, gourds, leather, etc. for containers.

ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC: early part of the Neolithic period in western Asia before the widespread use of pottery (c. 8500–6000 bc) in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups were in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), Zagros area (Karim Shahir, Jarmoan), and Anatolia (Hacilar Aceramic Neolithic). Aceramic Neolithic groups are rarer outside western Asia.

WHAT IS THE ACANTHUS ?

ACANTHUS: conventionalized representation of the leaf of the Acanthus spinosus plant, found on the lower parts of Corinthian and Composite capitals, and also used for enrichment of various elements in Classical architecture.