abductor: a muscle that moves a part of the body away from the midline of the body.

ABO blood-type system: a blood-type system that consists of two basic antigens, A and B. Blood-type O
is the absence of both antigens.

abrasive stone: usually a sandstone slab used for grinding and polishing.

absolute dating: the determination of age with reference to a specific time scale, such as a fixed
calendrical system; also referred to as chronometric dating.

acclimatory adjustments: reversible physiological adjustments to stressful environments.

accretion: growth by virtue of an increase in inter-cellular materials.

acculturation: cultural change that occurs in response to extended firsthand contacts between two or
more previously autonomous groups.

acephalous society: a society without a political head such as a president, chief, or king.

achieved status: social standing and prestige reflecting the ability of an individual to acquire an
established position in society as a result of individual accomplishments (cf. ascribed status).

acrocentric chromosome: a chromosome in which the centromere is near one end, resulting in arms of
very unequal length.

activity area: a limited portion of a site in which a specialized cultural function was carried out, such as
food preparation, tool manufacture etc.

Adapidae: family of Eocene prosimians found in North America, Asia, Europe, and possibly Africa; may
be related to lemurs and lorises.

adaptation: changes in gene frequencies resulting from selective pressures being placed upon a
population by environmental factors; results in a greater fitness of the population to its ecological niche.

adaptive radiation: the evolution of a single evolutionary stock into a number of different species.

adenine: a purine found in DNA and RNA.

adenosine triphosphate (ATP): the main fuel of cells. ATP is manufactured by the mitochondria.

adjustment: the ability of humans to survive in stressful environments by nongenetic means.

administrative system: a twentieth-century system of ownership in which land is owned and managed
by the state; found in China, the Soviet Union, and some parts of Africa and Latin America.

adolescent growth spurt: a rapid increase in stature and other dimensions of the body that occurs
during puberty.

adult: the period in an individual's life cycle after the eruption of the last permanent teeth.
adze-blade: a ground and polished stone artifact characterized by a generally rectangular shape with a
beveled cutting edge on one end. Used as a woodworking tool.

aerial photography: photographic coverage of the land surface obtained from the air. Useful in locating
and recording site positions.

aerial reconnaissance: an important survey technique in the discovery and recording of archaeological
sites (see also reconnaissance survey).

affiliative behavior: close-proximity behavior that includes touching, grooming, and hugging.

affinal kin: persons related by marriage.

age grade: a group of people of the same sex and approximately the same age who share a set of duties
and privileges.

age set: a group of people roughly the same age who pass through various age grades together.

agglutination: a clumping together of red blood cells in the presence of an antibody.

aging: the uninterrupted process of normal development that leads to a progressive decline in
physiological function and ultimately to death.

agonistic behavior: behavior that involves fighting, threats, and fleeing.

albinism: a recessive abnormality that leads to little or no production of the skin pigment melanin.

alidade: an optical surveying instrument used in conjunction with a plane-table and stadia-rod to produce
detailed large-scale topographic maps.

alienation: the fragmentation of individuals' relations to their work, the things they produce, and the
resources with which they produce them.

all-male party: among chimpanzees, a small group of adult or adolescent males.

allantois: a sack within the amniote egg in which waste products produced by the embryo are deposited.

allele: an alternate form of a gene.

Allen's rule: a rule which states that among endotherms, populations of the same species living near the
equator tend to have more protruding body parts and longer limbs than do populations farther away from
the equator.

allogrooming: grooming another animal.

allometric growth: the pattern of growth whereby different parts of the body grow at different rates with
respect to each other.

allomorphs: forms contained in morphemes that differ in sound but not in meaning.

allopatric species: species occupying mutually exclusive geographical areas.

allophones: sounds that belong to the same phoneme.

alloying: a technique involving the mixing of two or more metals to create an entirely new material, e.g.
the fusion of copper and tin to make bronze.

alluvial fan: a cone-shaped deposit of sediments generally formed where a mountain stream discharges
onto a level surface. Alluvial fan deposits are among the most common surficial sediments in
mountainous terrain.

alluvium: a general term for all deposits laid down in fresh water - most commonly applied to riverine
sediments.

alpha chain: one of the two chains that make up the globin unit of the hemoglobin molecule.

alpha-feto protein (AFP): a compound, produced by the fetus, that enters the mother's blood through the
placenta. Excessive amounts of AFP may indicate neural tube defects or other fetal abnormalities.

altimeter: a barometric device for determining elevations above sea-level.

altithermal: a postulated climatic period characterized by warmer and/or drier conditions approximately
4,000-8,000 years ago.

altruistic act: a behavior characterized by self-sacrifice that benefits others.

alveoli: small air sacs, located in the lungs, that are richly endowed with blood capillaries. Oxygen is
absorbed by the blood in the alveoli.

ambilineal descent: a descent ideology based on ties traced through either the paternal or the maternal
line.

ambilocality: residence of a married couple with or near the kin of either husband or wife, as they
choose.

amino acid racemization: chronometric dating method based on change in the three-dimensional
structure of amino acids from one form to its mirror image over time.

amino acid: a type of molecule that forms the basic building block of proteins.

amino-acid racemization: a method used in the dating of both human and animal bone. Its special
significance is that with a small sample (10g) it can be applied to material up to 100,000 years old, i.e.
beyond the time range of radiocarbon dating.

amniocentesis: a medical technique in which amniotic fluid is removed for study of the fetus.

amnion: a fluid-filled sack, formed from embryonic tissue, that contains the embryo in the amniote egg.

amniote egg: an egg with a shell and several internal members, which made reproduction on land
possible.

amniotic fluid: the fluid surrounding the fetus.

amphibians: the earliest class of land vertebrates to evolve, yet have to keep their skin moist and lay
eggs in water; includes modern frogs and salamanders.

analogies: structures that are superficially similar and serve similar functions, but have no common
evolutionary relationship.

analogy: a process of reasoning whereby two entities that share some similarities are assumed to share
many others.

ancillary sample: any non-artifactual materials collected by archaeologists to aid in dating,

paleoenvironmental reconstruction, or other interpretations - e.g. carbon samples, soil samples,
palynological samples etc.

animal husbandry: the breeding, care, and use of herd animals, such as sheep, goats, camels, cattle,
and yaks.

animatism: belief in an impersonal supernatural force.

animism: belief in a soul, a spiritual essence that differs from the tangible, physical body.

annealing: in copper and bronze metallurgy, this refers to the process of heating and then cooling the
material to remove stress from hammering.

anterior pillars: bony columns located on both sides of the nasal aperture that help withstand the
stresses of chewing.

anthropocentricity: the belief that humans are the most important elements in the universe.

anthropoid: a member of the suborder Anthropoidea; includes the New World monkeys, Old World
monkeys, apes, and humans.

Anthropoidea: suborder of the order Primates that includes the New World monkeys, Old World
monkeys, apes, and humans.

anthropological linguistics: the scientific study of human communication within its sociocultural context
and the origin and evolution of language.

anthropology: the study of humanity - our physical characteristics as animals, and our unique non-
biological characteristics we call culture. The subject is generally broken down into three subdisciplines:
biological (physical) anthropology, cultural (social) anthropology, and archaeology.

anthropometry: the study of measurements of the human body.

anthropomorphic: "man-like." Used to describe artifacts or art work decorated with human features or
with a man-like appearance.

antibody: a protein manufactured by the body to neutralize or destroy an antigen.

antigen: a substance that stimulates the production or mobilization of antibodies. An antigen can be a
foreign protein, toxin, bacteria, or other substance.
ape: a common term that includes the lesser apes (the gibbons and siamang) and the great apes (the
orangutan, common chimpanzee, bonobo, and gorilla).

aphasia: a language disorder resulting from brain damage.

apomorphic: in cladistics, this term describes derived or advanced characteristics that arose relatively
late in members of a group and therefore differ among them. These are useful in assessing genealogical
links among taxa.

applied anthropology: the activity of professional anthropologists in programs that have as primary
goals changes in human behavior believed to ameliorate contemporary social, economic, and
technological problems.

arbitrary level: an excavation level defined by factors of convenience, with no necessary relationship to
site-stratigraphy or cultural components.

arbitrary: a characteristic of language that refers to the fact that a word, or other unit of sound, has no
real connection to the thing it refers to. The meanings of the arbitrary elements of a language must be
learned.

arboreal quadrupedalism: see branch running and walking.

arboreal: living in trees.

archaeobotany: see paleoethnobotany.

archaeological culture: a constantly recurring assemblage of artifacts assumed to be representative of a

particular set of behavioral activities carried out at a particular time and place (cf. culture).

archaeology of cult: the study of the material indications of patterned actions undertaken in response to
religious beliefs.

archaeology: a subdiscipline of anthropology involving the study of the human past through its material
remains.

archaeomagnetic dating: sometimes referred to as paleomagnetic dating. it is based on the fact that
changes in the earth's magnetic field over time can be recorded as remnant magnetism in materials such
as baked clay structure (ovens, kilns, and hearths).

archaeozoology: sometimes referred to as zooarchaeology, this involves the identification and analysis
of faunal species from archaeological sites, as an aid to the reconstruction of human diets and to an
understanding of the contemporary environment at the time of deposition.

archaic primates: the label attached to the plesiadapiformes of the Paleocene. Lacking many features of
the primate complex, the plesiadapiformes are no longer considered to be in the order Primates and the
term has fallen into disuse.

archetype: the divine plan or blueprint for a species or higher taxonomic category.

areolar area: the dark area surrounding the nipple of the breast.
arranged marriage: any marriage in which the selection of a spouse is outside the control of the bride
and groom. art the process and products of applying skills to any activity that transforms matter, sound, or
motion into forms considered aesthetically pleasing to people in a society.

art object: any artifact carrying, or consisting of, decorative or artistic elements.

articulated: two or more bones left in their anatomical position after tissue decay.

artifact: any manually portable product of human workmanship (see feature). In its broadest sense
includes tools, weapons, ceremonial items, art objects, all industrial waste, and all floral and faunal
remains modified by human activity.

artifact: any physical remains of human activity.

artificial gene: a gene that is made in a laboratory and used in place of a defective or undesirable gene.

artificial insemination: the process of mechanically introducing sperm into the female reproductive tract.

ascribed status: social standing or prestige which is the result of inheritance or hereditary factors (cf.
achieved status).

assemblage: a group of artifacts recurring together at a particular time and place, and representing the
sum of human activities.

association: the co-occurrence of an artifact with other archaeological remains, usually in the same
matrix.

assortative mating: the preference or avoidance of certain people as mates for physical or social
reasons.

asymmetry of function: see lateralization.

atlatl-weight: usually a ground and polished stone object with grooves or perforations - for attachment to
the shaft of an atlatl. Presumed to function in balancing the weapon prior to throwing.

atlatl: a device used to propel throwing-spears or "darts", used in most parts of North America prior to the
appearance of the bow and arrow.

atom: a building block of matter.

atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS): a method of analyzing artifact composition similar to optical
emission spectrometry (OES) in that it measures energy in the form of visible light waves. It is capable of
measuring up to 40 different elements with an accuracy of c. 1 percent.

attribute: a minimal characteristic of an artifact such that it cannot be further subdivided; attributes
commonly studied include aspects of form, style, decoration, color, and raw material.

attritional age profile: a mortality pattern based on bone or tooth wear which is characterized by an
overrepresentation of young and old animals in relation to their numbers in live populations. It suggests
either scavenging of attritional mortality victims (i.e. those dying from natural causes or from non-human
predation) or the hunting by humans or other predators of the most vulnerable individuals.
auditory bulla: a flat or inflated structure which forms in the floor of the skull, that houses the middle ear.

augering: a subsurface detection method using either a hand or machine-powered drill to determine the
depth and character of archaeological deposits.

Australopithecus: a collective name for the earliest known hominids emerging about 5 million years ago
in East Africa.

autapomorphic feature: a feature that is unique to a particular species.

authority: the ability to exert influence because of one's personal prestige or the status of one's office.

autogrooming: self-grooming.

autonomy: taking commands from only one authoritative source, oneself, and rejecting all attempts to
override one's autonomy. Moral autonomy entails making the final decisions about what one should do.
Political autonomy entails having the liberty to act upon the decision one has made.

autosome: a chromosome.

avunculocal residence: residence of a married couple with or near a brother of the husband's mother
who is usually a senior member of his matrilineage.

awl: a small pointed hand tool used for piercing holes in leather, wood and other materials,

azimuth: a magnetic bearing sighted from your position to a known landmark. Used in navigation and in
determining site locations.

B.P.: "Before Present." the notation commonly used on radiocarbon dates, e.g. 1,000 B.P. = 1,000 years
before 1950 A.D., or approximately 1,000 A.D.

back cross: the process of crossing a hybrid with its homozygous recessive parent.

back-dirt: the excavated matrix or fill of a site, Presumed to be of little or no further archaeological
significance.

back-filling: the process of refilling a completed excavation.

balanced polymorphism: the maintenance of two or more alleles in a gene pool as the result of
heterozygous advantage.

balanced reciprocity: gift giving that clearly carries the obligation of an eventual and roughly equal
return.

band (among geladas): a social group consisting of a number of harems and all-male units.

band: a small territorially-based social group consisting of 2 or more nuclear families. A loosely integrated
population sharing a sense of common identity but few specialized institutions.

barb: a sharp backwards extension of a projectile point intended to act as a hook to keep the point within
a wound.
barrow: a large mound of earth or stones placed over a burial. The term is especially used in reference to
the mounds of England.

basal grinding: intentional smoothing of the base or stem of a chipped stone projectile point.

basal metabolic rate: the measure of the total energy utilized by the body to maintain those body
processes necessary for life; the minimum level of heat produced by the body at rest.

basal thinning: the intentional removal of small longitudinal flakes from the base of a chipped stone
projectile point or knife to facilitate hafting.

basalt: a fine-grained volcanic rock used for the manufacture of chipped stone artifacts. Color black to
gray, texture granular to glass-like.

base-line: an arbitrary line established by stakes and string, or by surveying instrument, from which
measurements are taken to produce a site-map, or to provide an initial axis for an excavation grid.

base: a subunit of a nucleotide that makes up the DNA and RNA molecules; either a purine or a
pyrimidine.

basicranium: the floor of the brain case.

baulks: unexcavated "walls" which may be left between pits to provide stratigraphic control.

bearing: in mapping or navigation, a compass direction, or horizontal angle of sight measured in

magnetic degrees.

behavioral adjustment: cultural responses, primarily through technology, that make survival in stressful
environments possible.

behavioral isolation: see sexual isolation.

behavioral sink: a psychological state characterized by gross distortions of behavior.

behavioral thermoregulation: the use of behavior, such as avoiding or seeking sources of heat, to
regulate body temperature.

bench mark (B.M.): a vertical datum-point usually at a known elevation above sea-level, to which
mapped elevations may be related.

Bergmann's rule: a rule which states that within the same species of endotherms, populations with less
bulk are found near the equator while those with greater bulk are found farther from the equator.

beta chain: one of the two chains that make up the globin unit of the hemoglobin molecule.

biacromial width: a measurement of the width of the shoulders.

biconical drilling: a means of perforating beads or pendants for suspension. Accomplished by drilling in
from both sides with a tapered drill resulting in an hour-glass-shaped hole.

biface: a stone artifact flaked on both faces.

bifacial flaking: the manufacture of a stone artifact by removing flakes from both faces.

bifurcation: a basis of kin classification that distinguishes the mother's side of the family from the father's
side.

bilateral descent: a descent ideology in which individuals define themselves as being at the center of a
group of kin composed more or less equally of kin from both paternal and maternal lines.

bilaterally barbed: a projectile point or harpoon with barbs on both edges.

bilaterally symmetrical: the condition in which, when something is cut down the middle, the two halves
formed are generally mirror images of each other.

bilocal residence: regular alternation of a married couple's residence between the household or vicinity
of the wife's kin and of the husband's kin.

bilophodonty: a condition seen Old World monkey molar teeth in which the front and rear cusp pairs are
joined by transverse crests.

binomen: a two-part name given to a species in which the first part is the name of the genus and the
second is the specific name, for example, Homo sapiens.

binomial nomenclature: a system of naming species that uses binomens.

biological (biotic) environment: the living elements surrounding the organism.

biological anthropology: see physical anthropology.

biological evolution: change in the frequencies of alleles within a gene pool of a population over time.

biological imperatives: the basic human drives for food, rest, sexual satisfaction, and social contact.

biological species: a group of interbreeding populations that is reproductively isolated from other such
groups.

bipedalism: see erect bipedalism.

bipoint: a bone or stone artifact pointed at both ends.

bipolar percussion: a means of manufacturing chipped stone artifacts. Accomplished by placing the raw
material on a large rock and hitting it with a hammerstone from above.

bison jump: a specialized animal trap used on the Plains, involving driving bison (or buffalo) over a
natural cliff or embankment.

bitrochanteric width: a measurement of hip width.

blade: a long slender prismatic flake manufactured by indirect percussion or pressure from a prepared
core. (See macroblade and microblade.) At least twice as long as it is wide.

blank: an "advanced" Preliminary stage in the manufacture of an artifact (also: "preform".)

blending theory: an early and incorrect idea that a child is an intermediate between maternal and
paternal genetic characteristics.

body sherd: any fragment of a ceramic vessel not identifiable as a rim sherd.

bone age: a standard age based upon the appearances of centers of ossification and fusions of growth
plates.

bone breccia: cave fill that consists of masses of bone cemented together with calcium carbonate that
has dissolved out of limestone.

bone hammer: a bone that is used as a hammer in the removal of flakes from a core in the
manufacturing of stone tools.

bone industry All the bone artifacts from a particular site.

boreal forest: "subarctic forest." A dense mixed forest dominated by spruce, aspen and birch with areas
of muskeg. It extends as far north as the tree-line (edge of the tundra) and is the largest single vegetation
zone in Canada.

bosing (or bowsing): a subsurface detection method performed by striking the ground with a heavy
wooden mallet or a lead-filled container on a long handle.

boulder arrangement: (also boulder mosaic, petroform.) surface boulders aboriginally arranged into
geometric, zoomorphic or anthropomorphic patterns.

bound morphemes: morphemes that must be attached to other morphemes to convey meaning.

bourgeoisie: a Marxian term referring to the middle class.

brachiation: hand-over-hand locomotion along a branch with the body suspended underneath the branch
by the arms.

brain endocasts: these are made by pouring latex rubber into a skull, 50 as to produce an accurate
image of the inner surface of the cranium. This method gives an estimate of cranial capacity and has
been used on early hominid skulls.

brain lateralization: see lateralization.

branch running and walking: a form of quadrupedalism in which the animal walks along a branch
grasping with both the hands and the feet.

break-in-slope: any abrupt change in the gradient of a topographic surface, such as the edge of a cliff,
terrace scarp, etc.

breaking chain: the process of obtaining horizontal distances over sloping terrain with a surveyor's chain
by measuring stepped level intervals up the slope.

breast bud: an elevation of the breast as a small mound; the earliest sign of puberty in the female.

bride price: payment made by a man to the family from whom he takes a daughter in marriage.
bride service: service rendered by a man as payment to a family from whom he takes a daughter in
marriage.

bride wealth: property given by the family of the groom to the family of the bride to compensate them for
the loss of their daughter's services.

Broca's area: a small area in the human brain that controls the production of speech.

Bronze Age: the stage of cultural history that includes the earliest civilizations and the development of
metallurgy.

brow ridge: the ridge of bone above the eye sockets.

brunton compass: a sophisticated magnetic compass used as a basic surveying instrument. Also known
as the "Brunton Pocket Transit".

bulb of percussion: a raised rounded area on the ventral surface of a conchoidal flake directly below the
striking platform.

burial mound: an artificial aboriginal mound containing or covering human burials.

burial: a human interment. may be "flexed" or "extended"; single or multiple; primary or secondary.

burin: a type of chipped stone artifact characterized by the deliberate removal of small prismatic flakes
(burin-spalls) down one or more edges. Commonly assumed to have served as engraving or carving
tools.

butchering station: a site, or localized activity area within a site, dominated by evidence for the past
butchering of game animals (e.g. broken and cut faunal remains and butchering tools).

bytroop: a multimale group found among baboons and other primates

cache: a deliberate store of equipment, food, furs or other resources placed in, or on the ground (perhaps
protected by a rock cairn), or raised above the ground on a platform.

cairn: stones intentionally piled by humans.

calcined bone: burned bone reduced to white or blue mineral constituents.

calendrical system: a system of measuring time that is based on natural recurring units of time, such as
revolutions of the earth around the sun. Time is determined by the number of such units that have
preceded or elapsed with reference to a specific point in time.

call system: a repertoire of sounds, each of which is produced in response to a particular situation.

Callitrichidae: family of New World monkeys consisting of the marmosets and tamarins.

carbohydrates: organic compounds composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; includes the sugars
and starches.

carbon sample: a quantity of organic material, usually charcoal, collected for radiocarbon dating.
carnivore: an animal that eats primarily meat.

carrier: a person who possesses a recessive allele in the heterozygous condition.

carrying capacity: the point at or below which a population tends to stabilize.

cast: a representation of an organism created when a substance fills in a mold.

caste: a social category in which membership is fixed at birth and usually unchangeable.

catalogue number: a number assigned all items recovered by archaeological research to cross-index
them to the catalogue.

catalogue: the systematic list recording artifacts and other finds, recovered by archaeological research,
including their description and Provenience.

cataract: opacity of the eye lens, often inherited as a dominant. The type may vary according to the
action of a modifying gene.

catarrhine nose: a nose in which the nostrils open downward and are separated by a narrow nasal
septum; found in Old World monkeys, apes, and humans.

Catarrhini: infraorder of the order Primates that includes Old World monkeys and the hominoids plus
various extinct taxa.

catastrophe theory: a branch of mathematical topology developed by Rene Thom which is concerned
with the way in which nonlinear interactions within systems can produce sudden and dramatic effects; ills
argued that there are only a limited number of ways in which such changes can take place, and these are
defined as elementary catastrophes.

catastrophic age profile: a mortality pattern based on bone or tooth wear analysis, and corresponding to
a "natural" age distribution in which the older the age group, the fewer the individuals it has. This pattern
is often found in contexts such as flash floods, epidemics, or volcanic eruptions.

catastrophism: the belief that the fossil forms represented in each layer of the earth were destroyed by a
catastrophic event and that the next set of plants and animals represented a new creation event and were
organisms that survived the catastrophe.

cation-ratio dating: this method aspires to the direct dating of rock carvings and engravings, and is also
potentially applicable to Paleolithic artifacts with a strong patina caused by exposure to desert dust. It
depends on the principle that cations of certain elements are more soluble than others; they leach out of
rock varnish more rapidly than the less soluble elements, and their concentration decreases with time.

cattle complex: an East African socioeconomic system in which cattle represent social status as well as
wealth.

cebid: a member of the family Cebidae; the New World monkeys excluding the marmosets and tamarins.

Cebidae: family of New World monkeys that includes the squirrel, spider, howler, and capuchin monkeys,
among others.
Ceboidea: superfamily that includes all the New World monkeys, consisting of the families Callitrichidae
and Cebidae.

cell: the smallest unit that is considered to be alive. All living organisms either are one cell or are
composed of several cells.

cenote: a ritual well, for example, at the late Maya site of Chichen Itza, into which enormous quantities of
symbolically rich goods had been deposited.

census: a comprehensive survey of a population designed to reveal its basic demographic

characteristics.

central place theory: developed by the geographer Christaller to explain the spacing and function of the
settlement landscape. Under idealized conditions, he argued, central places of the same size and nature
would be equidistant from each other, surrounded by secondary centers with their own smaller satellites.
In spite of its limitations, central place theory has found useful applications in archaeology as a
preliminary heuristic device.

centralization: concentration of political and economic decisions in the hands of a few individuals or
institutions.

centriole: a pair of small bodies found near the nucleus from which the spindle is formed.

centromere: a structure in the chromosome holding the two chromatics together. During cell division it is
the site of attachment for the spindle fibers.

cephalic index: the breadth of the head relative to its length.

ceramics: deliberately fired clay artifacts, such as ceramic vessels.

Cercopithecidae: family that includes all the Old World monkeys, such as guenons, mangabeys,
macaques, and baboons.

Cercopithecinae: subfamily that contains the Old World monkeys that are omnivorous and possess
cheek pouches.

Cercopithecoidea: superfamily that consists of the Old World monkeys.

cerebral cortex: the "gray matter" of the brain; the center of conscious evaluation, planning,. skill,
speech, and other higher mental activities.

ceremonial fund: the portion of the peasant budget allocated to religious and social activities.

chain: a surveying chain, or long steel tape-measure, calibrated in meters or feet, used for site mapping
and grid layout.

chaine operatoire: ordered chain of actions, gestures, and processes in a production sequence (e.g. of a
stone tool or a pot) which led to the transformation of a given material towards the finished product. The
concept, introduced by Andre Leroi-Gourhan, is significant in allowing the archaeologist to infer back from
the finished artifact to the procedures, the intentionality in the production sequence, and ultimately to the
conceptual template of the maker.
chalcedony: a semi-translucent silicate (quartz) rock with a wax-like luster and a great range of colors,
used as raw material for the manufacture of chipped stone artifacts. Commonly called agate.

characterization: the application of techniques of examination by which characteristic properties of the

constituent material of traded goods can be identified, and thus their source of origin; e.g. petrographic
thin-section analysis.

cheek pouch: a pocket in the cheek that opens into the mouth; some Old World monkeys store food in
the cheek pouch.

cheek teeth: the premolars and molars.

chert: a mainly opaque, fairly granular, silicate rock with a dull shiny luster and a great range of colors,
used as raw material for the manufacture of chipped stone artifacts. Varieties include jasper and flint.

chi-tho: crude bifacially flaked boulder spall or slab scraper-cutting tools commonly associated with
northern Athabaskan assemblages. Similar to a cortical spall tool.

chiefdom: a term used to describe a society that operates on the principle of ranking, i.e. differential
social status. Different lineages are graded on a scale of prestige, calculated by how closely related one
is to the chief. The chiefdom generally has a permanent ritual and ceremonial center, as well as being
characterized by local specialization in crafts.

chin: a bony projection of the lower border of the outside of the mandible.

chinampas: the areas of fertile reclaimed land, constructed by the Aztecs, and made of mud dredged
from canals.

chondrodystrophic dwarfism: a form of dwarfism in which the individual's head and trunk are of normal
size but the limbs are quite short; inherited as a dominant.

chopper: a natural pebble with a crude, steep cutting edge formed by unifacial percussion flaking.

chordate: a member of the phylum Chordata characterized by the presence of a notochord, a dorsal
hollow single nerve cord, and gill slits at some point in the life cycle.

chorion: a membrane derived from the amnion that lies just beneath the shell in the amniote egg and
acts as a surface for oxygen absorption.

chorionic villas biopsy: a method of analyzing the embryo by sampling the tissue of the placenta
surrounding the developing embryo.

chromatic: one of the two strands of a replicated chromosome. Two chromatics are joined together by a
centromere.

chromosomal aberration: an abnormal chromosome number or chromosome structure.

chromosome: a body in the nucleus of the cell that contains the hereditary material.

chronological age: the period of time since birth.

chronology: arrangement of past events in time.

chronometric dating: a dating system that refers to a specific point or range of time. Chronometric dates
are not necessarily exact dates, and they are often expressed as a range.

civilization: a term used by anthropologists to describe any society that has cities.

clade: a group of species with a common evolutionary ancestry.

cladistics: a theory of classification that differentiates between shared ancestral and shared derived
features.

cladogram: a graphic representation of the species, or other taxa, being studied, based upon cladistic
analysis.

clan: a unilineal descent group usually comprising more than ten generations consisting of members who
claim a common ancestry even though they cannot trace step-by-step their exact connection to a
common ancestor.

class: a major division of a phylum, consisting of closely related orders.

class: a ranked group within a stratified society characterized by achieved status and considerable social
mobility.

classification: the ordering of phenomena into groups or other classificatory schemes on the basis of
shared attributes (see also type and typology).

cleaver: a large core tool with a straight, sharp edge at one end.

CLIMAP: a project aimed at producing paleoclimatic maps showing sea-surface temperatures in different
parts of the globe, at various periods.

clinal distribution: a distribution of frequencies that show a systematic gradation over space; also called
continuous variation.

cline: continuous change in a trait or trait frequency over space or time.

cloning: the process of asexual reproduction in an otherwise multicellular animal.

closed corporate community: a community that strongly emphasizes community identity and
discourages outsiders from settling there by restricting land use to village members and prohibiting the
sale or lease of property to outsiders.

cluster analysis: a multivariate statistical technique which assesses the similarities between units or
assemblages, based on the occurrence or non-occurrence of specific artifact types or other components
within them.

code sheets: anthropologists' checklists of observed behaviors and inferred motivations for or attitudes
toward them.

codominance: the situation in which, in the heterozygous condition, both alleles are expressed in the
phenotype.
codon: a sequence of three bases on the DNA molecule that codes a specific amino acid or other genetic
function.

cognates: words so similar from one language to the next as to suggest that both are variants of a single
ancestral prototype.

cognitive anthropology: the study of how peoples of different cultures acquire information about the
world (cultural transmission), how they process that information and reach decisions, and how they act on
that information in ways that other members of their cultures consider appropriate.

cognitive archaeology: the study of past ways of thought and symbolic structures from material remains.

cognitive imperative: the human need to impose order on the world by mental processes.

cognitive map: an interpretive framework of the world which, it is argued, exists in the human mind and
affects actions and decisions as well as knowledge structures.

cognitive processes: ways of perceiving and ordering the world.

cognitive-processual approach: an alternative to the materialist orientation of the functional-processual

approach, it is concerned with (1) the integration of the cognitive and symbolic with other aspects of early
societies; (2) the role of ideology as an active organizational force. It employs the theoretical approach of
methodological individualism.

collagen: the organic fraction of bone as distinct from the mineral or carbonate portion. Can be dated by
the C-14 method.

collateral flaking: when flakes on a chipped stone artifact extend to the middle from both edges forming
a medial ridge. The flakes are at right angles to the longitudinal axis, and regular and uniform in size.

collateral relatives: people to whom one is related through a connecting person.

colluvium: materials deposited by gravity at the foot of a slope, e.g. talus, soil creep, etc.

Colobinae: subfamily of Old World monkeys that includes the langurs and colobus monkeys; species that
are specialized leaf eaters, possessing a complex stomach and lacking cheek pouches.

communal cult: a society with groups of ordinary people who conduct religious ceremonies for the well-
being of the total community.

communication: the transmission and reception of some stimulus or message. In relation to animal life,
communication occurs when one animal transmits information to another animal.

community identity: an effort by speakers to identify themselves with a specific locality and to
distinguish themselves from outsiders.

community: among chimpanzees, a large group of chimpanzees that, through fission and fusion, is
composed of a series of constantly changing smaller units, including the all-male party, family unit,
nursery unit, consortship, and gathering.

competition: the situation in which two populations occupy the same or parts of the same niche.
complementary pair: a set of two nucleotides, each on a different polynucleotide chain, that are
attracted to each other by a chemical bond. In DNA, adenine and thymine and cytosine and guanine form
complementary pairs.

complex: a consistently recurring assemblage of artifacts or traits which may be indicative of a specific
set of activities, or a common cultural tradition.

component: "the manifestation of a given archaeological phase at a site." (Willey and Phillips 1958: 21.)
Sites may be "single component" (only one distinct cultural unit), or "multi-component" (2 or more cultural
units).

composite tool: a tool formed of two or more joined parts, e.g. "composite toggling harpoon head".

compound tool: a tool that is composed of several parts, for example, a harpoon.

computed axial tomography (CAT or CT scanner): the method by which scanners allow detailed internal
views of bodies such as mummies. The body is passed into the machine and images of crosssectional
"slices" through the body are produced.

concentration: a notable accumulation of archaeological materials in a small area, such as a

"concentration of flakes" etc.

conchoidal flake: a type of spall resulting from the fracture of fine-grained, or glassy rocks.
Characterized by a bulb of percussion, striking platform remnant, and extremely sharp edges. A
predictable fracture pattern that allows the manufacture of Pre-determined tools from these materials.

concretion: a natural clay nodule formed out of solution in soil interstices. Often confused for man-made
objects because of their peculiar shapes.

conduction: the movement of heat from one object to another by direct contact.

cones: cells of the retina of the eye. Each of the three types of cones is sensitive to a specific wavelength
of light, thereby producing color vision.

conflict: in its political manifestation, conflict exacts an ever-increasing toll in human lives and misery.

conjoining: see refitting.

conjugal relationship: the relationship between spouses.

conjunctive approach: a methodological alternative to traditional normative archaeology, argued by

Walter Taylor (1948), in which the full range of a culture system was to be taken into consideration in
explanatory models.

consanguineal kin: persons related by birth.

consanguineous mating: mating between biological relatives.

conservation: the protection and care of archaeological resources.

consort pair: a male and an estrus female that form a temporary alliance.
consortship: among chimpanzees, a small group consisting of an adult male with an estrus female and
her young.

constitutive heterochromatin: chromosomal material that is not thought to contain any actual genes.

context: an artifact's context usually consists of its immediate matrix (the material surrounding it e.g.
gravel, clay, or sand), its provenience (horizontal and vertical position within the matrix), and its
association with other artifacts (occurrence together with other archaeological remains, usually in the
same matrix). "Primary context" refers to materials found in their original position; "secondary context"
refers to materials which have been displaced and redeposited by disturbance factors; "geological
context" is the relationship of the archaeological finds to geological strata.

contextual seriation: a method of relative dating pioneered by Flinders Petrie in the 19th century, in
which artifacts are arranged according to the frequencies of their co-occurrence in specific contexts
(usually burials).

continuous variation: see clinal distribution.

contour interval: the vertical spacing of contour lines on a topographic map - e.g. 10 m , 100 ft., etc..

contour line: a line on a map connecting points of equal elevation.

contoured level: an excavation level with a floor parallel to the slope of the ground surface.

contract archaeology: archaeological research conducted under the aegis of federal or state legislation,
often in advance of highway construction or urban development, where the archaeologist is contracted to
undertake the necessary research.

control: in the scientific method, a situation in which a comparison can be made between a specific
situation and a second situation that differs, ideally, in only one aspect from the first.

controlled comparison: a method in which hypotheses are tested by comparing two or more populations
that are similar or identical in most respects other than that which has been defined as the independent
variable.

convection: the movement of heat from an object to the surrounding fluid, either gas or liquid. Heat
causes the fluid to move away from the object.

convergence: the evolution of nonhomologous similarities in different evolutionary lines; the result of
similarities in selective pressures.

conversion: the use of a sphere of exchange for a transaction with which it is not generally associated.

coprolites: fossilized feces; these contain food residues that can be used to reconstruct diet and
subsistence activities.

core area: a section within the home range of a primate population that may contain a concentration of
food, a water hole, and a good resting place or sleeping trees and in which most of the troop's time will be
spent.

core tool: a tool that is manufactured by the removal of flakes from a core.
core: (1) a blocky nucleus of stone from which flakes or blades have been removed. (2) a column or
lineal sample of materials obtained by "coring" the ground, trees, etc..

corporate ownership control: of land and other productive resources by a group rather than by
individuals.

corporateness: the sharing of group members in specific rights.

cortex: the naturally weathered outer surface of a pebble.

cortical spall: a flake struck from the surface of a pebble or nodule which retains the natural cortex on
one face. A "Cortical Spall Tool" is generally a relatively large ovate cortical spall exhibiting retouch or
use-wear on one or more edges.

corvee: unpaid labor in lieu of taxation, usually on road construction and maintenance.

cranial capacity: the volume of the brain case of the skull.

creation-science: the idea that scientific evidence can be and has been gathered for creation as
depicted in the Bible. Mainstream scientists and the Supreme Court discount any scientific value of
creation-science statements.

cremation: an intentionally burned human interment.

crenelation: a fine wrinkling found around the base of a tooth.

creole: a pidgin language than has evolved into a fully developed language, with a complete array of
grammatical distinctions and a large vocabulary.

critical temperature: the temperature at which the body must begin to resist a lowering of body
temperature; occurs in the nude human body at approximately 31 degrees C (87.8 degrees F).

Critical Theory: a theoretical approach developed by the so-called "Frankfurt School" of German social
thinkers, which stresses that all knowledge is historical, and in a sense biased communication; thus, all
claims to "objective" knowledge are illusory.

cross-cousin preferential marriage: marriage between a person and his or her cross-cousin (father's
sister's child or mother's brother's child).

cross-cousins: mother's brothers' children and father's sisters' children.

cross-cultural research: (holocultural research) a method that uses a global sample of societies in order
to test hypotheses.

crossing-over: the phenomenon whereby sections of homologous chromosomes are interchanged

during meiosis.

cryptocrystalline: a term for glassy rocks which break with a conchoidal fracture, such as obsidian.

cultural anthropology: a subdiscipline of anthropology concerned with the non-biological, behavioral

aspects of society; i.e. the social, linguistic, and technological components underlying human behavior.
Two important branches of cultural anthropology are ethnography (the study of living cultures) and
ethnology (which attempts to compare cultures using ethnographic evidence). In Europe, it is referred to
as social anthropology.

cultural deposit: sediments and materials laid down by, or heavily modified by, human activity.

cultural determinism: the idea that except for reflexes all behavior is the result of learning.

cultural diffusion: the spreading of a cultural trait (e.g., material object, idea, or behavior pattern) from
one society to another.

cultural ecology: a term devised by Julian Steward to account for the dynamic relationship between
human society and its environment, in which culture is viewed as the primary adaptive mechanism.

cultural environment: the complex of products of human endeavor, including technology and social
institutions.

cultural evolution: the theory that societal change can be understood by analogy with the processes
underlying the biological evolution of species.

cultural group: a complex of regularly occurring associated artifacts, features, burial types, and house
forms comprising a distinct identity.

cultural materialism: the theory, espoused by Marvin Harris, that ideas, values, and religious beliefs are
the means or products of adaptation to environmental conditions ("material constraints").

cultural relativism: the ability to view the beliefs and customs of other peoples within the context of their
culture rather than one's own.

cultural resource management (CRM): the safeguarding of the archaeological heritage through the
protection of sites and through salvage archaeology (rescue archaeology), generally within the framework
of legislation designed to safeguard the past.

cultural universal: those general cultural traits found in all societies of the world. culture shock a
psychological disorientation experienced when attempting to operate in a radically different cultural
environment.

culture area: a region in which several groups have similar culture complexes.

culture history: the identification and classification of cultural change through time. A primary aspect of
archaeological interpretation concerned with establishing the chronological context of cultural items and
complexes.

culture of poverty: a self-perpetuating complex of escapism, impulse gratification, despair, and

resignation; an adaptation and reaction of the poor to the marginal position in a class-stratified, highly
individuated, capitalistic society.

culture sequence: the chronological succession of cultural traits, phases, or traditions in a local area.

culture-area: a classification of cultures within a specific geographic-environmental region, sharing

enough distinctive traits to set them apart from adjacent areas, e.g. Northwest Coast, Arctic, etc.

culture-bound: the state or quality of having relevance only to the members of a specific cultural group.
culture-historical approach: an approach to archaeological interpretation which uses the procedure of
the traditional historian (including emphasis on specific circumstances elaborated with rich detail, and
processes of inductive reasoning).

culture: learned, nonrandom, systematic behavior and knowledge that can be transmitted from
generation to generation.

cusp: a point on a tooth.

cutting blade: (also "end blade".) the Piercing element of a composite projectile point or harpoon head.
(See also projectile point.)

cytogenetics: the study of the heredity mechanisms within the cell.

cytology: the study of the biology of the cell.

cytoplasm: material within the cell between the plasma membrane and the nuclear membrane.

cytosine: one of the pyrimidines found in the DNA and RNA molecules.

datum plane: an arbitrary or imaginary horizontal surface surveyed over a site from which vertical
measurements are taken.

datum: a fixed reference point on an archaeological site from which measurements are taken.

debitage: waste by-products from tool manufacture.

deciduous teeth: the first set of teeth that develop in mammals; also known as the baby, or milk, teeth.

deduction: a process of reasoning by which more specific consequences are inferred by rigorous
argument from more general propositions (cf. induction).

deductive nomological (D-N) explanation: a formal method of explanation based on the testing of
hypotheses derived from general laws.

deep structure: an abstract two-part mental model consisting of a noun phrase and a verb phrase, with
the optional addition of an adverb or adverbial phrase.

deep-sea cores: cores drilled from the sea bed that provide the most coherent record of climate changes
on a worldwide scale. The cores contain shells of microscopic marine organisms (foraminifera) laid down
on the ocean floor through the continuous process of sedimentation. Variations in the ratio of two oxygen
isotopes in the calcium carbonate of these shells give a sensitive indicator of sea temperature at the time
the organisms were alive.

deletion: a chromosome aberration in which a chromosome breaks and a segment that is not attached to
the spindle is not included in the second-generation cell. The genetic material on the deleted section is
lost.

deme: the local breeding population; the smallest reproductive population.

demographic transition: a rapid increase in a society's population with the onset of industrialization,
followed by a leveling off of the growth rate due to reduced fertility.
demography: the study of the processes which contribute to population structure and their temporal and
spatial dynamics. .

dendrite: a branchlike projection from a cell.

dendrochronology: the study of tree-ring patterns; annual variations in climatic conditions which produce
differential growth can be used both as a measure of environmental change, and as the basis for a
chronology.

dental age: a standard age based upon the time of eruption of particular teeth.

dental arcade: the tooth row as seen from above.

dental comb: a structure formed by the front teeth of the lower jaw projecting forward almost horizontally;
found in prosimians.

dental formula: formal designation of the types and numbers of teeth. The dental formula 2.1.2.3/2.1.2.3
indicates that in one-half of the upper jaw and lower jaw there are two incisors, one canine, two
premolars, and three molars.

dentalia: small, slender horn-like Pacific Ocean shell used and traded as beads and wealth-items.

deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA): a nucleic acid that controls the structure of proteins and hence
determines inherited characteristics. Genes are portions of the DNA molecule that fulfill specific functions.

deoxyribose: a five-carbon sugar found in the DNA molecule.

dependent variable: a variable that is affected by the independent variable.

descent group: a group of consanguineal kin united by presumed lineal descent from a common
ancestor.

descent ideology: the concept of kinship as a basis of unambiguous membership in a group and
possibly of property rights and political obligations.

descent relationship: the ties between mother and child and between father and child.

descent tracing: one's kinship connections back through a number of generations.

descriptive linguistics: that branch of anthropological linguistics that studies how languages are
structured.

detritus: waste by-products from tool manufacture. Most frequently applied to chips and fragments
resulting from stone flaking.

development: the process whereby cells differentiate into different and specialized units.

developmental adjustments: alterations in the pattern of growth and development resulting from
environmental influence.

diabetes: failure of the body to produce insulin, which controls sugar metabolism; has a complex genetic
basis influenced by environmental factors.
diachronic studies: use of descriptive data from one society or population that has been studied at many
points in time.

diachronic: referring to phenomena as they change over time; i.e. employing a chronological perspective
(cf. synchronic).

diaphragm: a muscle that lies beneath the lungs. When the diaphragm contracts, the volume of the lungs
increases, causing a lowering of pressure within the lungs and movement of air from the outside into the
lungs. When the diaphragm relaxes, air is expelled from the lungs.

diaphysis: the shaft of a long bone.

diastema: a space between teeth.

diatom analysis: a method of environmental reconstruction based on plant microfossils. Diatoms are
unicellular algae, whose silica cell walls survive after the algae die, and they accumulate in large numbers
at the bottom of rivers and lakes. Their assemblages directly reflect the floristic composition of the water's
extinct communities, as well as the water's salinity, alkalinity, and nutrient status.

differential fertility rate: the situation in which some matings produce more offspring than others.

differential fluxgate magnetometer: a type of magnetometer used in subsurface detection with the
advantage of producing a continuous reading.

differentiation: organization in separate units for various activities and purposes.

diffusion: when elements of one culture spread to another without wholesale dislocation or migration.

diffusionist approach: the theory popularized by V.G. Childe that all the attributes of civilization from
architecture to metalworking had diffused from the Near East to Europe.

diglossia: the situation in which two forms of the same language are spoken by people in the same
language community, depending on the social situation.

diphyodonty: the successive development of two sets of teeth, the deciduous and the permanent teeth.

diploid: a term that refers to the full complement of chromosomes (23 chromosomes). The diploid
number in humans is forty-six.

discontinuous variation: the distribution of alleles, allele combinations, or any traits characterized by
little or no gradation in frequencies between adjacent regions.

discrete signal: a characteristic of language that refers to the fact that signals, such as words, represent
distinct entities or experiences. A discrete signal does not blend with other signals.

displacement (behaviors): the situation in which one animal can cause another to move away from
food, a sitting place, etc.

displacement (language) The ability to communicate about events at times and places other than those
of their occurrence; enables a person to talk and think about things not directly in front of him or her.

distal: that portion of a tool or bone farthest from the body of the user or "owner".
distance curve: a graph that shows the total height (or other measurement) of an individual on a series
of dates.

disturbance: a cultural deposit is said to be disturbed when the original sequence of deposition has been
altered or upset by post-depositional factors. Agents of disturbance include natural forces such as stream
or wind erosion, plant or animal activity, land-slides etc.; and cultural forces such as later excavations.

diurnal: active during daylight hours.

divination: a practice in which an element of nature acts as a sign to provide supernatural information to
the diviner.

division of labor: the set of rules found in all societies dictating how the day to day tasks are assigned to
the various members of a society.

dizygotic twins: fraternal twins; twins derived from separate zygotes.

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid): the material which carries the hereditary instructions (the "blueprint")
which determine the formation of all living organisms. Genes, the organizers of inheritance, are composed
of DNA.

DNA hybridization: a method of comparing DNA from different species by forming hybrid DNA.

domestic cycle: the changes in household organization that result from a series of demographic events.

domestic mode of production: the organization of economic production and consumption primarily in
the household.

domestication: the process by which people try to control the reproductive rates of animals and plants by
ordering the environment in such a way as to favor certain species.

dominance (behavior): the situation in which one animal may displace another and take preference in
terms of sitting place, food, and estrus females.

dominance (genetic): the situation in which, in a heterozygous individual, only one allele is expressed in
the phenotype.

dominance hierarchy: a system of social ranking based upon the relative dominance of the animals
within a social group.

dorsal: toward the top or back of an animal.

double descent: a system of descent in which individuals receive some rights and obligations from the
father's side of the family and others from the mother's side.

Down's syndrome: a condition characterized by a peculiarity of eyefolds, malformation of the heart and
other organs, stubby hands and feet, short stature, and mental retardation; the result of an extra
chromosome 21.

dowry: payment made by the bride's family to the groom or to the groom's family.
dowsing: the supposed location of subsurface features by employing a twig, copper rod, pendulum, or
other instrument; discontinuous movements in these instruments are believed by some to record the
existence of buried features.

drill: a tool used for perforating wood, bone, and soft stone.

drinking tube: a length of hollow bird-bone used in aboriginal ceremonial situations for drinking liquids.

drive-lanes: aboriginal fences of rock piles or brush used to direct game-animals towards a trap.

drumlin: a streamlined hill or mound formed by a moving glacier, with the "tail" in the direction of ice-flow.

duplication: a chromosomal aberration in which a section of a chromosome is repeated.

dysfunction: the notion that some cultural traits can cause stress or imbalance within a cultural system.

dyspnea: difficult or painful breathing.

early man: in the New World this term refers to the oldest known human occupants - i.e. prior to ca.
8,000 B.P.

ecclesiastical cult: a highly complex religious system headed by a full-time priest.

echo-sounding: an acoustic underwater-survey technique, used to trace the topography of submerged

coastal plains and other buried land surfaces (see also seismic reflection profiler).

ecofacts: non-artifactual organic and environmental remains which have cultural relevance, e.g. faunal
and floral material as well as soils and sediments.

ecological determinism: a form of explanation in which it is implicit that changes in the environment
determine changes in human society.

ecological isolation: a form of reproductive isolation in which two closely related species are separated
by what is often a slight difference in the niches they occupy; also called habitat isolation.

ecological niche: the specific microhabitat in which a particular population lives and the way that
population exploits that microhabitat.

ecology: the study of the dynamic relationships of organisms to each other and the total environment.

economic anthropology: a subdiscipline of anthropology that attempts to understand how the schedule
of wants and demands of a society is balanced against the supply of goods and services available,
withthe recognition that economic processes cannot be interpreted without culturally defining the
demands and understanding the conventions that dictate how and when they are satisfied.

economic class: a group that is defined by the economic position of its members in relation to the means
of production in the society--the wealth and relative eocnomic control they may command.

economic system: the ideas and institutions that people draw upon and the behaviors in which they
engage in order to secure resources to satisfy their needs and desires.
ecosystem: a group of organisms with specific relationships between themselves and a particular
environment.

ectotherm: an animal that derives much of its body heat from external heat sources.

ectotympanic: a bony element within the middle ear that supports the tympanic membrane or eardrum.

edema: retention of water in the tissues of the body.

effector: an enzyme produced by one of the structural genes that binds with the repressor and prevents
the repressor from binding to the operator.

effigy mound: an earthwork in the general shape of an animal (e.g. a snake, bird, etc.).

effigy pipe: an aboriginal smoking pipe shaped to resemble a human or animal form.

egalitarian society: a society that recognizes few differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status.

electrical resistivity: see soil resistivity. electrolysis A standard cleaning process in archaeological
conservation. Artifacts are placed in a chemical solution, and by passing a weak current between them
and a surrounding metal grill, the corrosive salts move from the cathode (object) to the anode (grill),
removing any accumulated deposit and leaving the artifact clean.

electron probe microanalysis: used in the analysis of artifact composition, this technique is similar to
XRF (X-ray fluorescence spectrometry), and is useful for studying small changes in composition within the
body of an artifact.

electron spin resonance (ESR): a chronometric dating technique based upon the behavior of electrons
in crystals exposed to naturally occurring radioactivity; used to date limestone, coral, shell, teeth, and
other materials. Enables trapped electrons within bone and shell to be measured without the heating that
thermoluminescence requires.

electrophoresis A method for separating proteins in an electric field.

elevation: a measurement of vertical distance in mapping.

Ellis-van Creveld syndrome: a rare recessive abnormality characterized by dwarfism, extra fingers, and
malformations of the heart; high incidence among the Amish.

embryology: the branch of biology that studies the formation and development of the embryo.

emic: a perspective in ethnography that uses the concepts and categories that are relevant and
meaningful to the culture under analysis.

empathetic method: the use of personal intuition (in German Einfuhlung to seek to understand the inner
lives of other people, using the assumption that there is a common structure to human experience. The
assumption that the study of the inner experience of humans provides a handle for interpreting prehistory
and history is made by idealist thinkers such as B. Croce, R.G. Collingwood and members of the
"postprocessual" school of thought.

empirical: received through the senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste), either directly or through
extensions.
empiricism: reliance on observable and quantifiable data.

emulation: one of the most frequent features accompanying competition, where customs, buildings, and
artifacts in one society may be adopted by neighboring ones through a process of imitation which is often
competitive in nature.

encephalization quotient: a number reflecting the increase in brain size over and beyond that
explainable by an increase in body size.

enculturation: the process by which human infants learn their culture.

endocranial cast: a cast of the inside of the brain case.

endocrine glands: organs that produce hormones.

endogamy: a rule requiring marriage within a specified social or kinship group.

endotherm: an animal whose body heat is regulated by internal physiological mechanisms.

engineer's level: an optical surveying instrument designed to obtain accurate level lines of sight and turn.

entrepreneurs: individuals who are willing to take risks and break with traditional practices in order to
make a profit.

entrepreneurship: economic innovation and risk taking.

environment: everything external to the organism.

environmental archaeology: a field in which inter-disciplinary research, involving archaeologists and

natural scientists, is directed at the reconstruction of human use of plants and animals, and how past
societies adapted to changing environmental conditions.

environmental circumscription: an explanation for the origins of the state propounded by Robert
Carneiro that emphasizes the fundamental role exerted by environmental constraints and by territorial
limitations.

eolian deposits: sediments transported by wind (e.g. sand-dunes, loess, etc.).

eoliths: crude stone pebbles found in Lower Pleistocene contexts; once thought to be the work of human
agency, but now generally regarded as natural products.

epidermal ridges: fine ridges in the skin on the hand and foot that are richly endowed with nerve endings
and are responsible for a highly developed sense of touch; responsible for fingerprint pattern.

epidermis: the outermost layer of the skin.

epiphyses: secondary centers of ossification near the ends of long bones.

epoch: a unit of geological time; a division of a period.

equilibrium: a balance among the components of an ecosystem.

era: a major division of geological time defined by major geological events and delineated by the kinds of
animals and plant life it contains. Humans evolved in the Cenozoic era.

erect bipedalism: in humans, the locomotor pattern in which the body is maintained in an upright posture
on two legs while moving by means of a heel-toe stride.

ergonomics The study of scientific data on the human body and the application of such data to problems
of design.

erratic: a glacially transported boulder.

erythroblastosis fetalis: a hemolytic disease affecting unborn or newborn infants that is caused by the
destruction of the infant's Rh + blood by the mother's anti-Ah antibodies.

erythrocyte: a red blood cell; found in blood, lacks a nucleus, and contains the red pigment hemoglobin.

esker: a sinuous ridge of fluvial deposits resulting from a sub-glacial melt-water stream.

estrogen: a hormone produced in the ovary.

estrus: the time period during which the female is sexually receptive.

ethnicity: a basis for social categories that are rooted in socially perceived differences in national origin,
language, and/or religion.

ethnoarchaeology: the study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioral
relationships which underlie the production of material culture.

ethnobotany: a subdiscipline of anthropology that explores how societies perceive and categorize plants
in their environment and how they use these plants for food, medicine, ritual, etc.

ethnocentrism: the tendency to judge the customs of other societies by the standards of one's own
ethnographic present: describes the point in time at which a society or culture is frozen when
ethnographic data collected in the field are published in a report.

ethnographic analogy: interpretation of archaeological remains by comparison to historical cultures.

ethnography: that aspect of cultural anthropology concerned with the descriptive documentation of living
cultures.

ethnohistory: the study of ethnographic cultures through historical records.

ethnology: a subset of cultural anthropology concerned with the comparative study of contemporary
cultures, with a view to deriving general principles about human society.

ethnomusicology: the study of music in a cross-cultural perspective.

ethnos: the ethnic group, defined as a firm aggregate of people, historically established on a given
territory, possessing in common relatively stable peculiarities of language and culture, and also
recognizing their unity and difference as expressed in a self-
ethnoturbinals: bony plates, occurring as pairs, that are found within the nasal region of the skull and
support the nasal membranes.

etic: a perspective in ethnography that uses the concepts and categories of the anthropologist's culture to
describe another culture.

eugenics: the study of the methods that can improve the inherited qualities of a species.

eukaryote: a cell with a nucleus that contains nDNA.

euprimates: "true" primates; primates that show features of the modem primate complex.

eutherian mammal: a placental mammal.

evolution: the process by which small but cumulative changes in a species can, over time, lead to its
transformation; may be divided into two categories: physical evolution (adaptive changes in biological
makeup) and cultural evolution (adaptive changes in thought and behavior).

evolutionary ecology: the study of living organisms within the context of their total environment, with the
aim of discovering how they have adapted.

excavation grid: a system of rectangular coordinates, established on the ground surface by stakes and
string, which divides a site into excavation units.

excavation: the principal method of data acquisition in archaeology, involving the systematic uncovering
of archaeological remains through the removal of the deposits of soil and the other material covering them
and accompanying them.

exchange: the distribution of goods and services among members of a society.

exogamy: marriage outside a particular group with which one is identified.

exons: the sequences in the DNA molecule that code for the amino acid sequences of corresponding
proteins.

experimental archaeology: the study of past behavioral processes through experimental reconstruction
under carefully controlled scientific conditions.

exposure: (1) a natural or artificial section or cut into the ground, such as a wind blow-out, sea-cliff, or
roadcut. (2) the orientation of a site in relation to magnetic direction or the sun - e.g. a "southern
exposure". (3) the quality of color, contrast and light in a photograph.

extended family household: a multiple-family unit incorporating adults of two or more generations.

extensor: a muscle that straightens out the bones around a joint.

extinction: the disappearance of a population.

extrasomatic: behavioral.

fabric: (1) a material woven of plant or animal fibers. (2) the orientation of sedimentary particles.
facial sinus: a hollow, air-filled space in the bones of the front of the skull.

factor analysis: a multivariate statistical technique which assesses the degree of variation between
artifact types, and is based on a matrix of correlation coefficients which measure the relative association
between any two variables.

faience: glass-like material first made in predynastic Egypt; it involves coating a core material of
powdered quartz with a vitreous alkaline glaze.

fall-off analysis: the study of regularities in the way in which quantities of traded items found in the
archaeological record decline as the distance from the source increases. This may be plotted as a falloff
curve, with the quantities of material (y-axis) plotted against distance from source (X-axis).

familial hypercholesterolemia: a rare dominant abnormality controlled by a multiple-allele series of at

least four alleles. The disease is caused by a defective protein that can result in extremely high levels of
cholesterol in the blood.

family household: a household formed on the basis of kinship and marriage.

family unit: among chimpanzees, a small group consisting of a mother with some or all of her offspring.

family: a major division of an order, consisting of closely related genera.

faunal dating: a method of relative dating based on observing the evolutionary changes in particular
species of mammals, so as to form a rough chronological sequence.

faunal remains: bones and other animal parts found in archaeological sites. Important in the
reconstruction of past ecosystems and cultural subsistence patterns.

feature: a non-portable product of human workmanship. Usually clusters of associated objects; structural
remains; hearths, etc.

fetalization hypothesis: see neoteny hypothesis.

fictive kin: persons such as godparents, compadres, "blood brothers," and old family friends whom
children call "aunt" and "uncle".

field data forms: printed forms used to record archaeological survey or excavation information. Special
forms are frequently used to record artifact proveniences; features and burials; site locations and
descriptions; and level-notes.

field dependence: the tendency to see the field of vision as a single unit, with separate objects existing
only as part of the whole.

field independence: the tendency to see the objects in one's field of vision as discrete units, distinct from
the field as a whole.

fieldwork: the firsthand observation of human societies.

filigree: fine open metalwork using wires and soldering, first developed in the Near East.
fire-cracked rock (f.c.r.): (also "fire-broken rock"). Rocks which have been cracked or broken by the heat
of a fire. A common element in aboriginal campsite debris.

fishing station: a special type of site located on streams, lakes, or ocean beaches, where fishing
activities were carried on. May be characterized by a fish-trap or WEIR.

fission-fusion society: a constantly changing form of social organization whereby large groups undergo
fission into smaller units and small units fuse into larger units in response to the activity of the group and
the season of the year.

fission-track dating: a dating method based on the operation of a radioactive clock, the spontaneous
fission of an isotope of uranium present in a wide range of rocks and minerals. As with potassium-argon
dating, with whose time range it overlaps, the method gives useful dates from rocks adjacent to
archaeological material.

fitness: the measure of how well an individual or population is adapted to a specific ecological niche.

flagging (also "survey tape"): brightly colored plastic ribbon used to mark features, sites, surveyed stakes
etc., to aid in their relocation.

flake tool: a tool manufactured from a flake.

flake-scar: the negative area left on a stone core or nucleus after the removal of a conchoidal flake.

flake: a fragment removed from a core or nucleus of cryptocrystalline or fine-grained rock by percussion
or pressure. May be used as a tool with no further deliberate modification, may be retouched, or may
serve as a preform for further reduction.

flaking station: a specialized site, or activity area within a site, dominated by evidence for the past
manufacture of flaked stone artifacts. Might consist of an area of concentrated detritus, cores, flaking-
tools, and preforms.

flaking-tool (also "flaker"): any implement used to remove conchoidal flakes by percussion or pressure
from a nucleus of suitable material. May be a pointed antler or bone pressure-flaking tool, or a small
hammer-stone used for percussion.

flesher: a toothed implement manufactured on an animal long-bone, used for scraping hides.

flexed burial: a human interment where the body is placed in a semi-fetal Position with the knees drawn
up against the chest and hands near the chin.

flint: a microcrystalline silicate rock similar to chert, used for the manufacture of flaked stone tools. Color
most commonly gray, honey-brown, or black.

floodwater farming: the practice of planting crops in areas that are flooded every year in the rainy
season, the floodwaters thus providing natural irrigation.

floor-plan: a scale drawing of features, matrix changes, and important associations completed for the
end of each excavation level in a given

floral remains: remnants of past vegetation found in archaeological sites (see microfloral remains).
Useful in the reconstruction of past environments.
flotation: the process of recovering small particles of organic material by immersing sediment samples in
water or other fluids and skimming off the particles which float on the surface. An important method for
obtaining microfloral and microfaunal remains and carbon samples.

fluted: grooved or channeled. A fluted point is a projectile point which has had one or more long thinning
flakes removed from the base along one or both faces (e.g. Clovis or Folsom points).

fluvial deposits: sediments laid down by running water.

folivore: an animal that eats primarily leaves.

folk taxonomy: the classification of phenomena on the basis of cultural tradition.

folktales: traditional stories found in a culture (generally transmitted orally) that may or may not be based
on fact.

food chain: a sequence of sources of energy in which each source is dependent on another source.

foraging: collecting wild plants and hunting wild animals for subsistence.

foramen magnum: a large opening in the occipital bone at the base of the skull through which the spinal
cord passes.

forebrain: the anterior of three swellings in the hollow nerve cord of the primitive vertebrate brain; formed
by a thickening of the wall of the nerve cord.

forensic anthropology: the application of the techniques of osteology and skeletal identification to legal
problems.

foreshaft: a separate, often detachable piece, between the point and main shaft of a projectile.

formal interview: an interview that consists of questions designed to elicit specific facts, attitudes, and
opinions.

formal organization: a group that restricts membership and makes use of officially designated positions
and roles, formal rules and regulations, and a bureaucratic structure.

formalism: a school of economic anthropology which argues that if the concepts of formal economic
theory are broadened, they can serve as analytic tools for the study of any economic system.

formation processes: those processes affecting the way in which archaeological materials came to be
buried, and their subsequent history afterwards. Cultural formation processes include the deliberate or
accidental activities of humans; natural formation processes refer to natural or environmental events
which govern the burial and survival of the archaeological record.

fossil beach (also: "paleo-beach", "raised beach", "fossil strandline"): a lake or ocean beach developed
when the water-level was significantly different from that of the present. Most commonly these will be
"raised beaches", or old strandline features and sediments found above the modern shoreline.

fossil cuticles: the outermost protective layer of the skin of leaves or blades of grass, made of cutin, a
very resistant material that survives in the archaeological record often in feces. Cuticular analysis is a
useful adjunct to palynology in environmental reconstruction.
fossil ice wedges: soil features caused when the ground freezes and contracts, opening up fissures in
the permafrost that fill with wedges of ice. The fossil wedges are proof of past cooling of climate and of
the depth of permafrost.

fossil: the remains or traces of any ancient organism.

founder principle: the situation in which a founding population does not represent a random sample of
the original population; a form of sampling error.

four-chambered heart: a heart that is divided into two sets of pumping chambers, effectively separating
oxygenated blood from the lungs from deoxygenated blood from the body.

fovea: a depression within the macula of the retina of the eye that contains a single layer of cones with no
overlapping blood vessels; the region of greatest visual acuity.

fraternal polyandry: marriage of one woman with a set of brothers.

free morphemes: morphemes that are complete words when standing alone.

freehold: private ownership of property.

French structuralism: the theoretical school founded by Claude Levi-Strauss that finds the key to
cultural diversity in cognitive structures.

frequency seriation: a relative dating method which relies principally on measuring changes in the
proportional abundance, or frequency, observed among finds (e.g. counts of tool types, or of ceramic
fabrics).

frugivore: an animal that eats primarily fruits.

function: the contribution that a particular cultural trait makes to the longevity of the total culture.

functional-processual approach: see processual archaeology.

functionalism: the theory that all elements of a culture are functional in that they serve to satisfy
culturally defined needs of the people in that society or requirements of the society as a whole.

gamete: a sex cell produced by meiosis that contains one copy of a chromosome set (twenty-three
chromosomes in humans). In a bisexual animal the sex cell is either a sperm or an ovum.

gametic mortality: a form of reproductive isolation in which sperm are immobilized and destroyed before
fertilization can take place.

gathering: among chimpanzees, the largest observed group within the community.

gender: a cultural construct consisting of the set of distinguishable characteristics associated with each
sex.

gene flow: the process in which alleles from one population are introduced into another population.

gene pool: the sum of all alleles carried by the members of a population.
gene therapy: a genetic-engineering method in which a gene is altered and then inserted into a cell to
correct an inherited abnormality.

generalized reciprocity: informal gift giving for which no accounts are kept and no immediate or specific
return is expected.

generalized species: species that can survive in a variety of ecological niches.

generalized trait: a trait used for many functions.

genes: the basic units of inheritance, now known to be governed by the specific sequence of the genetic
markers within the DNA of the individual concerned.

genetic counselor: a medical professional who advises prospective parents or a person affected by a
genetic disease of the probability of having a child with a genetic problem.

genetic determinism: the idea that all behavior, including very specific behavior, is biologically based, in
contrast to cultural determinism.

genetic drift: the situation in a small population in which the allelic frequencies of the Fl generation will
differ from those of the parental generation due to sampling error.

genetic engineering: the artificial manipulation of the genetic material to create specific characteristics in
individuals.

genetic equilibrium: a hypothetical state in which a population is not evolving because the allele
frequencies remain constant over time.

genetic load: the totality of deleterious alleles in a population.

genetics: the study of the mechanisms of heredity and biological variation.

genome imprinting: the phenomenon whereby an allele may have a different effect on the offspring
depending on the sex of the contributing parent.

genome: all the genes carried by a single gamete.

genotype: the genetic constitution of an individual.

genus: a group of closely related species.

geochemical analysis: the investigatory technique which involves taking soil samples at regular intervals
from the surface of a site, and measuring their phosphate content and other chemical properties.

geochronology: relative dating based on geological stratigraphy.

geographic coordinates: the world-wide system of latitude and longitude used to define the location of
any point on the earth's surface.

geographical isolation: a form of reproductive isolation in which members of a population become

separated from another population by geographical barriers that prevent the interchange of genes
between the separated populations.
geographical race: a major division of humankind into large geographical areas wherein people
resemble one another more closely than they resemble people in different geographical areas.

geomagnetic reversals: an aspect of archaeomagnetism relevant to the dating of the Lower Paleolithic,
involving complete reversals in the earth's magnetic field.

geomorphology: a subdiscipline of geography, concerned with the study of the form and development of
the landscape, it includes such specializations as sedimentology.

georadar: a technique used in ground reconnaissance, similar to soil-sounding radar, but with a much
larger antenna and more extensive coverage.

gestation: the period of time from conception to birth

gift exchange: see reciprocity.

gill pouches: structures that form in the early human embryo and that are thought to be homologous to
the gill slits of other chordates.

glacial lake: a lake formed of ponded glacial meltwater, or by the damming of a drainage system by
glacial activity. A "pro-glacial" lake has at least one margin formed by glacial ice.

glacial maximum: the position and period of greatest advance of a glacier.

glacial striae: scratches on bedrock or loose stones caused by glacial abrasion. May be large or
microscopic and could, in some cases, be mistaken for evidence of human activity.

glacial: a period of expansion of glacial ice.

globin: a constituent of the hemoglobin molecule that consists of a globin and four heme units. The
globin consists of two alpha and two beta chains.

Gloger's rule: a rule which states that within the same species of endotherms, more heavily pigmented
forms tend to be found near the equator and lighter forms away from the equator.

glottochronology: a controversial method of assessing the temporal divergence of two languages based
on changes of vocabulary (lexicostatistics), and expressed as an arithmetic formula.

glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency: the lack of an enzyme of the red blood cell
inherited as an X-linked recessive. Afflicted individuals develop severe anemia when in contact with the
lava bean or certain antimalarial drugs.

gluteal musculature: three muscles of the pelvis that in monkeys and apes act as extensors of the thigh.
In humans the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle of the human body, acts as an extensor, but the
gluteus minimus and gluteus medius act as abductors.

gorge (also "gorge-hook"): a bone bipoint used to catch fish or waterfowl. After being swallowed, the hook
will toggle in the stomach of the prey and cannot be drawn out.

gorget: a relatively large, flat, or gently curving object of polished stone, shell, or metal, with holes for
suspension. Usually believed to have been worn as an ornament around the throat.
gout: abnormal uric acid metabolism inherited as a dominant with variable expression.

grammar: the formal structure of a language, comprising phonology, morphology, and syntax.

grammatical structure: the rules for organizing elements of a language into meaningful utterances.

granulation: the soldering of grains of metal to a background, usually of the same metal, and much used
by the Etruscans.

graphic arts: those forms of art such as painting and drawing.

grave goods (also: "grave inclusions", "mortuary goods", etc.): tools, weapons, food, or ceremonial
objects placed with a burial.

graver: a small pointed or chisel-like stone tool used for incising or engraving.

great apes: the orangutan from Asia and the common chimpanzee, bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee), and
gorilla from Africa.

great English vowel shift: a linguistic change during the Middle English period, when speakers of
English began to alter the sounds of vowels, eventually changing all vowel sounds in the language.

grid-system: a system of rectangular excavation or sampling units laid over a site by strings and stakes.

grooming cluster: a small group of closely related females that engage in a high degree of grooming.

grooming: in primates, the activity of going through the fur with hand or teeth to remove insects, dirt,
twigs, dead skin, etc.; also acts as display of affection.

ground reconnaissance: a collective name for a wide variety of methods for identifying individual
archaeological sites, including consultation of documentary sources, place-name evidence, local folklore,
and legend, but primarily actual fieldwork.

ground running and walking: a form of quadrupedalism in which the animal walks on the ground using
the hands and the feet; the palms of the hand are flat on the ground.

ground stone: stone artifacts shaped by sawing, grinding, and/or polishing with abrasive materials (e.g.
"ground slate knives", "polished soapstone pendants" etc.).

group: a number of individuals who interact on a regular basis and have a sense of collective identity.

growth hormone: a hormone produced by the pituitary gland; essential for normal growth.

growth plate: a narrow growth zone between the epiphysis and diaphysis of a bone.

growth: increase in the size or mass of an organism.

guanine: a purine found in the DNA and RNA molecules.

gun-flint: a square blade-segment of flint used to ignite the powder charge of a flint-lock gun. Often
mistaken for an aboriginal artifact.
habitat isolation: see ecological isolation.

habitat: the specific area where a species lives.

habitation area: a generalized term for a house or tent floor, or the remains of any other type of
aboriginal shelter.

habitation site: a location where a human group has lived and conducted normal daily activities for a
significant period.

habitus: as defined by Bourdieu, a culturally specific way not only of doing and speaking, but also of
seeing, thinking and categorising. Habitus tends to be"naturalized" in that it is taken for granted or
assimilated into the unconscious so that habitus is a necessary condition of action and shared
understanding.

hafted: attached with a binding to a shaft or handle (e.g. a "hafted knife").

half-life: the time taken for half the quantity of a radioactive isotope in a sample to decay (see also
radioactive decay).

hammerstone: a natural rounded, largely unmodified pebble used as an unhafted hammer.

hand-axe: a Paleolithic stone tool usually made by modifying (chipping or flaking) a natural pebble.

hand-level: a small, simple, hand-held surveying instrument for establishing horizontal lines-of-sight over
short distances.

hand-maul: a carefully manufactured unhafted stone hammer.

haplotype: a set of genes that determine different antigens but are closely enough linked to be inherited
as a unit; also : the antigenic phenotype determined by a haplotype.

hard palate: the bony roof of the mouth that separates the mouth from the nasal cavity, permitting the
animal to breathe and chew at the same time.

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium: a mathematical model of genetic equilibrium: p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1.

harem: a subunit of a larger social group consisting of a male associated with two or more females.

harpoon head (point): the arming tip of a harpoon. generally classifiable into 2 main forms - toggling and
barbed - each of which may be composite or single-piece, and may or may not carry additional cutting-
blades or side-blades. Always have line-guards or other means of line attachment.

harpoon: a thrown or thrust spear-like weapon armed with a detachable point fastened to a retrieving
line.

hearth: a fireplace, often circular and may be unlined, rock or clay-lined, or rock-filled.

heat treatment: an aboriginal process by which the flaking properties of a rock were improved by
controlled heating in a fire.
heel-toe stride: a method of progression characteristic of humans in which the heel strikes the ground
first and the person pushes off on the big toe.

hegemony: preponderant influence or authority of one individual or social group over another.
heliocentric: a sun-centered model of the universe.

hematite: a natural iron oxide which was used as a reddish pigment.

heme: a constituent of the hemoglobin molecule that consists of a globin and four home units. Each
heme unit contains an atom of iron.

hemochorial placenta: the type of placenta found in most primates in which materials pass between the
maternal and fetal bloodstreams through a single vessel wall.

hemoglobin A2: a normal variant of hemoglobin A that consists of two alpha and two delta chains and is
found in small quantity in normal human blood.

hemoglobin A: a normal adult hemoglobin whose globin unit consists of two alpha and two beta chains.

hemoglobin C: an abnormal variant of hemoglobin A that differs from the latter in having a single amino
acid substitution on the beta chain at the same position as the substitution producing hemoglobin S.

hemoglobin F: a normal variant of hemoglobin, known as fetal hemoglobin, that consists of two alpha
and two gamma chains and is found in the fetus and early infant. It is gradually replaced by hemoglobin A.

hemoglobin S: an abnormal variant of hemoglobin A that differs from the latter in having a single amino
acid substitution on the beta chain; known as sickle hemoglobin.

hemoglobin: the red pigment in erythrocytes that carries oxygen to and carbon dioxide from body
tissues.

hemolytic disease: disease involving the destruction of blood cells.

hemophilia A recessive: x-linked trait characterized by excessive bleeding due to faulty clotting
mechanism.

henge: literally, "hanging rock," this term is often applied to the Neolithic stone monoliths found in Britian.

herd: among geladas, a large social unit consisting of several bands that come together under very good
grazing conditions.

hermeneutics: formal study of methods of interpretation. Following Gadamer, the hermeneutical process
is often regarded as involving complex interaction between the interpreting subject and the interpreted
object.

heterodont dentition: the regional differentiation of teeth by function.

heterozygosity: the quality of being heterozygous. Having two different alleles of a particular gene.

high-altitude mountains sickness: a condition that includes shortness of breath, physical and mental
fatigue, rapid pulse rate, headaches; occurs in persons not acclimatized to high altitudes.
higher taxa: taxa above the species level, such as family, order, class, phylum, and kingdom

hindbrain: the posterior of three swellings in the hollow nerve cord of the primitive vertebrate brain;
formed by a thickening of the wall of the nerve cord.

hinge-fracture: a weak or inward-directed blow against cryptocrystalline or fine-grained rock will produce
a flake which breaks off (or "hinges") halfway along, without carrying through to a thin tapered end.

historic period: the time after European contact, or the beginning of written recording.

historical archaeology: the archaeological study of historically documented cultures. In North America,
research is directed at colonial and post-colonial settlement, analogous to the study of medieval and post-
medieval archaeology in Europe.

historical linguistics: the study of how languages change over time.

historical particularism: a detailed descriptive approach to anthropology associated with Franz Boas
and his students, and designed as an alternative to the broad generalizing approach favored by
anthropologists such as Morgan and Tylor.

historiographic approach: a form of explanation based primarily on traditional descriptive historical

frameworks.

hoards: deliberately buried groups of valuables or prized possessions, often in times of conflict or war,
and which, for one reason or another, have not been reclaimed. Metal hoards are a primary source of
evidence for the European Bronze Age.

holism: the philosophical view that no complex entity can be considered to be only the sum of its parts;
as a principle of anthropology, the assumption that any given aspect of human life is to be studied with an
eye to its relation to other aspects of human life.

holocene: the post-glacial period, beginning about 10,000 B.P.

holocultural research: see cross-cultural comparison.

home base: a location to which males and females return in human societies.

home range: the area occupied by an animal or animal group.

homeostasis: a term used in systems thinking to describe the action of negative feedback processes in
maintaining the system at a constant equilibrium state.

hominid: a member of the family Hominidae, which includes humans.

Hominidae: family of the superfamily Hominoidea that includes humans.

hominoid: a member of the superfamily Hominoidea, which includes apes and humans.

Hominoidea: superfamily of the suborder Anthropoidea that includes the apes and humans.

Homo sapiens: the human species.

homodont dentition: situation in which all teeth are basically the same in structure, although they may
differ in size, as is found in reptiles.

homologous chromosomes: chromosomes of the same pair containing the same genes but not
necessarily the same alleles.

homology: a similarity due to inheritance from a common ancestor.

homoplasy: a similarity that is not homologous. Homoplasy can arise from parallelism, convergence,
analogy, and chance.

homozygous dominant: having two dominant alleles of the same gene.

homozygous recessive: having two recessive alleles of the same gene.

homozygous: having two like alleles of a particular gene; homozygous dominant when the allele is
dominant and homozygous recessive when the allele is recessive.

horizon: (1) a discrete regional cultural period or level of cultural development marked by some easily
recognizable criterion or trait. (2) in soil-science terminology, a natural developmental zone in a soil profile
such as the "A-horizon".

horizontal angle: in mapping, the angle of sight measured on the level or horizontal plane.

horizontal circle: with major surveying instruments, the graduated horizontal table around which the
sighting telescope revolves; used to measure the horizontal angle.

horizontal datum: a base measuring point ("0.0 point") used as the origin of rectangular coordinate
systems for mapping or for maintaining excavation provenience.

horizontal distance: the measurement of distance on a true level plane.

horizontal migration: a nomadic pattern characterized by regular movement over a large area in search
of grass; also called plains migration.

horizontal provenience: the location of an object on a two-dimensional plane surface.

hormones: complex molecules produced by the endocrine glands that regulate many bodily functions
and processes.

horticulture: a simple form of agriculture based on the working of small plots of land without draft
animals, plows, or irrigation; also called extensive agriculture.

house-pit: an aboriginally excavated house floor.

household: a domestic residential group whose members live together in intimate contact, rear children,
share the proceeds of labor and other resources held in common, and in general cooperate on a day-to-
day basis.

human factors research: see ergonomics.

Human Relations Area Files: (HRAF) a compilation of reports on 330 societies that are used for cross-
cultural research.

hunter-gatherers: a collective term for the members of small-scale mobile or semi-sedentary societies,
whose subsistence is mainly focused on hunting game and gathering wild plants and fruits; organizational
structure is based on bands with strong kinship ties.

hunting and gathering: involves the systematic collection of vegetable foods, hunting of game, and
fishing.

hybrid inviability: a form of reproductive isolation in which a mating between two species gives rise to a
hybrid that is fertile but nevertheless does not leave any offspring.

hybrid sterility: a form of reproductive isolation in which a hybrid of two species is sterile.

hybrid: the result of a cross or mating between two different kinds of parents.

Hylobatidae: family of the superfamily Hominoidea that includes the lesser apes, consisting of the
gibbons and siamang.

hypercalcemia: a condition characterized by high levels of calcium in the blood, caused by excessive
amounts of vitamin D; results in sluggish nerve reflexes and calcification of soft tissues.

hyperplasia: growth by virtue of an increase in the total number of cells resulting from mitosis.

hypertrophy: growth by virtue of an increase in the size of cells.

hypothesis: a statement that stipulates a relationship between a phenomenon for which the researcher
seeks to account and one or more other phenomena.

hypothetico-deductive explanation: a form of explanation based on the formulation of hypotheses and

the establishment from them by deduction of consequences which can then be tested against the
archaeological data.

hypoxia: low oxygen pressure due to being at high altitude.

ice cores: borings taken from the Arctic and Antarctic polar ice caps, containing layers of compacted ice
useful for the reconstruction of paleoenvironments and as a method of absolute dating.

ice-wedge: a vertical wedge-shaped vein of ground ice found in permafrost areas. causes "polygonal
ground" (see periglacial phenomena) and may result in severe disturbance of archaeological sites.

iconography: an important component of cognitive archaeology, this involves the study of artistic
representations which usually have an overt religious or ceremonial significance; e.g. individual deities
may be distinguished, each with a special characteristic, such as corn with the corn god, or the sun with a
sun goddess etc.

idealist explanation: a form of explanation that lays great stress on the search for insights into the
historical circumstances leading up to the event under study in terms primarily of the ideas and motives of
the individuals involved.

ilium: the thin, bladelike section superior to the hip socket on the innominate bone.
immunological comparison: a method of molecular biology that compares molecules by use of antigen
antibody reactions.

immunological distance (ID): a measure of the strength of an antigen-antibody reaction that is indicative
of the evolutionary distance separating the populations being studied.

in situ: archaeological items are said to be "in situ " when they are found in the location where they were
last deposited.

incest taboo: the prohibition of sexual intimacy between people defined as close relatives.

incest: sexual intercourse between closely related persons.

inclined sights: in mapping, a vertically angled line of sight.

inclusion: an intentional cultural association, such as grave-goods with a burial.

inclusive fitness: an individual's own fitness plus his or her effect on the fitness of any relative.

incomplete penetrance: the situation in which an allele that is expected to be expressed is not always
expressed.

increment borer: a hand-operated coring device for obtaining tree-ring samples.

independent assortment: a Mendelian principle which states that differing traits are inherited
independently of each other. It applies only to genes on different chromosomes.

independent family household: a single-family unit that resides by itself, apart from relatives or adults of
other generations.

independent variable: the variable that can cause change in other variables.

index fossil: a paleospecies that had a very wide geographical distribution but existed for a relatively
short period of time, either becoming extinct or evolving into something else.

index: a spirit-bubble leveling device on the vertical circle of major surveying instruments.

indirect percussion: a technique for flaking stone artifacts by interposing a bone or antler punch
between the hammer and the raw materials. Allows greater control than direct percussion flaking.

individualistic cult: the least complex form of religious organization in which each person is his or her
own religious specialist.

Indriidae: family of Madagascar prosimians that includes the indri, sifaka, and avahi.

induced mutation: a mutation caused by human made conditions.

induction: a method of reasoning in which one proceeds by generalization from a series of specific
observations so as to derive general conclusions (cf. deduction).
inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICPS): based on the same basic principles as
OES (optical emission spectrometry), but the generation of much higher temperatures reduces problems
of interference and produces more accurate results.

Industrial Age: a cultural stage characterized by the first use of complex machinery, factories,
urbanization, and other economic and general social changes from strictly agricultural societies.

industrial melanism: a situation in which the frequency of alleles for dark color increases in relation to
alleles for light color in response to changes in the environment due to pollution caused by increasing
industrialization.

industrial society: a society consisting of largely urban populations that engage in manufacturing,
commerce, and services.

industrialism: a form of social organization in which the population's needs for food, manufactured
products, transportation, and many services are met through the use of machines powered largely by
fossil fuel.

industry: all the artifacts in a site that are made from the same material, such as the bone industry.

infantile: the period in an individual's life cycle from birth to the eruption of the first permanent teeth.

informal interview: an unstructured question-and-answer session in which the informant is encouraged

to follow his or her own train of thought, wherever it may lead.

informant: a person who provides information about his or her culture to the ethnographic fieldworker.

infrared absorption spectroscopy: a technique used in the characterization of raw materials, it has
been particularly useful in distinguishing ambers from different sources: the organic compounds in the
amber absorb different wavelengths of infrared radiation passed through them.

innominate bones: a pair of bones that, with the sacrum section of the vertebral column, make up the
pelvis. The innominates join in the front of the pelvis at the pubic symphysis.

innovation: the process of adopting a new thing, idea, or behavior pattern into a culture.

insectivore: an animal that eats primarily insects; also a member of the mammalian order Insectivora.

instinct: a genetically-determined pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a

response to specific internal or environmental stimuli.

institutions: a society's recurrent patterns of activity, such as religion, art, a kinship system, law, and
family life.

instrument height: the elevation of the line-of-sight of a surveying instrument above the immediate
ground surface.

instrument position (ip): the location at which a surveying instrument is established to obtain a sighting.

instrument: a general term for major optical surveying equipment, including transits, alidades, and
surveyor's levels.
intensification: an increase in the product derived from a unit of land or labor.

intensive agriculture: a form of agriculture that involves the use of draft animals or tractors, plows, and
often some form of irrigation.

interaction sphere: a regional or inter-regional exchange system, e.g. the Hopewell interaction sphere.

intergenerational competition: a system whereby mating between generations is prevented by forcing

the young out of the group when they reach sexual maturity.

interglacial: a period of warming between two glacials.

intermediate expression: the situation in which a heterozygous genotype is associated with a phenotype
that is more or less intermediate between the phenotypes controlled by the two homozygous genotypes.

intermembral index: the length of the humerus and radius relative to the length of the femur and tibia.

intron: the DNA sequence in a eukaryotic gene that is not translated into a protein.

invention: any new thing, idea, or way of behaving that emerges from within a society.

inventory of resources: a catalogue of the kinds of materials the people under investigation take from
their environment in order to clothe, house, and feed themselves; the amount of time they spend
procuring these materials; the quantity of food they collect or produce; and the distribution of the research
population per unit of land.

inversion: a form of chromosome aberration in which parts of a chromosome break and reunite in a
reversed order. No genetic material is lost or gained, but the positions of the involved alleles are altered.

Iron Age: a cultural stage characterized by the use of iron as the main metal.

ischial callosity: a thickening of the skin overlying a posterior section of the pelvis (ischial tuberosity);
found in the Old World monkeys and some apes.

isostatic uplift: rise in the level of the land relative to the sea caused by the relaxation of Ice Age
conditions. It occurs when the weight of ice is removed as temperatures rise, and the landscape is raised
up to form raised beaches.

isotopic analysis: an important source of information on the reconstruction of prehistoric diets, this
technique analyzes the ratios of the principal isotopes preserved in human bone; in effect the method
reads the chemical signatures left in the body by different foods. Isotopic analysis is also used in
characterization studies.

jasper: a colloquial term for some varieties of chert. Usually refers to dark red or dull-green, fine-grained,
semi-translucent banded materials.

jati: local subcastes found in Hindu India.

joint family household: a complex family unit formed through polygyny or polyandry or through the
decision of married siblings to live together m the absence of their parents.

juncture: the linkage or separation of syllables by pauses.

juvenile: the period in an individual's life cycle that lasts from the eruption of the first to the eruption of the
last permanent teeth.

karyotype: the standardized classification and arrangement of photographed chromosomes.

kill-site: a type of special activity site where large game animals were killed and butchered.

kin selection: the process whereby an individual's genes are selected by virtue of that individual's
increasing the chances that his or her kin's genes will be propagated into the next generation.

kin terminology: the terms that systematically designate distinctions between relatives of different
categories.

kindred: a collection of bilateral kin.

kingdom: a major division of living organisms. All organisms are placed into one of five kingdoms:
monera, Protista, Fungi, Planti, and Animalia.

Klinefelter's syndrome: a sex-chromosome count of XXY; phenotypically male, tall stature, sterile.

knuckle walking: semierect quadrupedalism, found in chimpanzees and the gorilla, in which the upper
parts of the body are supported by the knuckles rather than the palms.

kula ring: a system of ceremonial, non-competitive, exchange practiced in Melanesia to establish and
reinforce alliances. Malinowski's study of this system was influential in shaping the anthropological
concept of reciprocity.

labret: a "cuff-link" or pulley-shaped object of stone, bone or wood, inserted in a perforation of the lower
lip as an ornament or status symbol by some aboriginal peoples.

lactation: the production of milk by a female mammal

lacustrine deposits: lake sediments; usually fine laminated silts and clays.

laminae: very thin strata.

LANDSAT: see remote sensing.

landscape archaeology: the study of individual features including settlements.

language: a highly flexible and complex system of communication that allows for the exchange of
detailed information about both interior and exterior conditions. As a creative and open system, new
signals may be added and new ideas transmitted.

lateralization: the phenomenon in which the two hemispheres of the brain specialize in regard to different
functions.

law: a rule of social conduct enforced by sanctions administered by a particular source of legitimate
power.

leaching: a natural process by which chemicals and minerals are transported downwards through a soil-
profile.
legal subdivision system: the method of describing parcels of land in terms of "Township, Range,
Section, and Quarter Section".

legitimacy: the right to rule on the basis of recognized principles.

leister: a composite fishing spear made up of barbed side-pieces surrounding an unbarbed central point.

Lemuridae:Madagascar prosimian family that includes the femurs.

lenticular: "lens-shaped". any object with a biconvex cross-section.

lesser apes: the gibbons and siamang of Asia.

lethals: defects that cause premature death.

leukocyte: a white blood cell; functions to destroy foreign substances.

level bag: a bag containing excavated materials from a single level of a single excavation unit.

level notes: written observations on all significant characteristics of an excavated level.

level: the basic vertical subdivision of an excavation unit. May be natural. arbitrary or contoured.

leveling mechanism: a social or economic practice that serves to lessen differentials in wealth.

levirate: a social custom under which a man has both the right to marry his dead brother's widow and the
obligation to provide for her.

lexicon: in linguistics, the total number of meaningful units {such as words and affixes) of a language.

lexicostatistics: the study of linguistic divergence between two languages, based on changes in a list of
common vocabulary terms and the sharing of common root words (see also glottochronology).

lexigram: a symbol that represents a word.

lichenometry: the study of lichen growth as an aid to dating surface rock features and rock art.

life expectancy: the length of time that a person can, on the average, expect to live.

life span: the theoretical, maximum age.

light-table: a glass-topped table illuminated from underneath, used in the laboratory photography of
archaeological specimens.

lignite: a soft shiny black variety of coal, aboriginally used to manufacture decorative objects.

line-guard: a device to fasten the retrieving line to a harpoon point.

line-level: a small spirit-bubble designed for suspension on a string Used in archaeology to determine
horizontal lines over short distances.
lineage: a unilineal descent group composed of people who trace their genealogies through specified
links to a common ancestor.

lineal relatives: direct ascendants and descendants.

lingua franca: any language used as a common tongue by people who do not speak one another's
native language.

linguistic anthropology: a subdivision of anthropology that is concerned primarily with unwritten

languages (both prehistoric and modern), with variation within languages, and with the social uses of
language; traditionally divided into three branches: descriptive linguistics, the systematic study of the way
language is constructed and used; historical linguistics, the study of the origin of language in general and
of the evolution of the languages people speak today; and sociolinguistics, the study of the relationship
between language and social relations.

linguistics: the scientific study of language.

linkage: the association of genes on the same chromosome.

linked changes: those changes brought about in a culture when other (interconnected) parts of that
same culture undergo change.

lipids: the class of compounds that includes fats, oils, and waxes.

lithic industry: that part of an archaeological artifact assemblage manufactured of stone.

lithic technology: the process of manufacturing tools etc. from stone. Most frequently refers to stone
flaking.

lithic: of, or pertaining to stone.

lithology: the identification and study of rocks.

lithosphere: the hard outer layer of the earth.

living floor: the horizontal layer of an archaeological site that was once the surface occupied by a
prehistoric group. It is identifed both by the fact that it is hard-packed and also by the artifacts located on
its surface.

local races: subdivisions of geographical races. One type consists of partially isolated groups, usually
remnants of once larger units. The second type includes fairly large subdivisions that contain a degree of
variation within them.

locality: a very large site or site-area composed of 2 or more concentrations or clusterings of cultural
remains.

loess sediments: deposits formed of a yellowish dust of silt-sized particles blown by the wind and
redeposited on land newly deglaciated, or on sheltered areas.

logistics: the process of transporting, supplying and supporting a field project.

long-house: the long multi-family dwellings of the Iroquois area.

Lorisidae: prosimian family that includes the lords, potto, angwantibo, and galago.

low energy budget: an adaptive strategy by which a minimum of energy is used to extract sufficient
resources from the environment for survival.

lumbar curve: a curve that forms in the lumbar region of the spine in humans.

macroblade: a large blade, greater than 5 cm in length.

macroevolution: "large-scale" evolution; the evolution of new species and higher taxa.

macrofamily: classificatory term in linguistics, referring to a group of language families showing sufficient
similarities to suggest that they are genetically related (e.g. the Nostratic macrofamily is seen by some
linguists as a unit embracing the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Uralic, Altaic, and Kartvelian language
families).

macula: the central area of the retina, consisting of cones only.

magnetometer: an electronic device for detecting small anomalies in the earth's magnetic field. Can be
used to explore certain subsurface characteristics of an archaeological site prior to excavation.

mammals: members of the class Mammalia, a class of the subphylum Vertebrata, that are characterized
by a constant level of activity independent of external temperature and by mammary glands, hair or fur,
heterodonty, and other features.

mammary glands: glands found in mammalian females that produce milk.

mandibular symphysis: the area where the two halves of the mandible join together.

mandibular torus: a thickening of bone on the inside of the mandible.

Manichean: a believer in religious or philosophical dualism, from a religious dualism originating in Persia
in the third century A.D. and teaching the release of the spirit from matter through strict self-denial. mano:
a hand-held stone used for grinding vegetable foods on a stone slab or "metate".

manuport: an unmodified, natural rock, brought into a site by human agency, that shows no sign of
alteration.

map-measure: a small wheeled device for measuring map distances.

mapping: drawing a map showing the physical features of a community; usually an early step in a field
project.

marasmus: a form of protein-caloric malnutrition caused by a diet deficient in both protein and
carbohydrates.

marginal people: those individuals who are not in the mainstream of their society.

market exchange: a mode of exchange which implies both a specific location for transactions and the
sort of social relations where bargaining can occur. It usually involves a system of price-making through
negotiation.
marsupials: Members of the infraclass Metatheria of the class Mammalia. The young are born at a
relatively less developed stage than those of placental mammals; after birth, the young animal attaches to
a mammary gland in the pouch, where it continues to grow and develop.

Marxist anthropology: based principally on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, this posits a
materialist model of societal change. Change within a society is seen as the result of contradictions
arising between the forces of production (technology) and the relations of production (social organization).
Such contradictions are seen to emerge as a struggle between distinct social classes. Current Marxist
anthropology focuses on the transformation of social orders and the relationships between conflict and
cultural change.

masseter: a muscle of chewing that arises on the mandible and inserts on the zygomatic arch of the
skull.

material culture: the buildings, tools, and other artifacts that includes any material item that has had
cultural meaning ascribed to it, past and present.

matriarchy: a society ruled by females.

matriclan: a group that claims but cannot trace their descent through the female line from a common
female ancestor.

matrifocal family household: a family unit based solely on the bond between a mother and her children.

matrifocal: centered on the mother; said of a family situation common to the urban poor worldwide in
which the woman and her relationships with her children and her female kin form the core of family life.

matrilineage: a lineage whose members trace their genealogies through specified female links to a
common female ancestor.

matrilineal descent group: a unilineal descent group in which membership is inherited through the
maternal line.

matrilineal descent: descent traced through the female line.

matrilocal residence: residence of a married couple with or near the wife's kin.

matrix: the physical material within which artifacts are embedded or supported.

maximum parsimony principle: the principle that the most accurate phylogenetic tree is one that is
based on the fewest changes in the genetic code.

Maya calendar: a method employed by the Maya of measuring the passage of time, comprising two
separate calendar systems: (1) the Calendar Round, used for everyday purposes; (2) the Long Count,
used for the reckoning of historical dates.

means of production in the society--the wealth and relative economic control they may command

mechanical isolation: a form of reproductive isolation that occurs because of an incompatibility in

structure of the male and female sex organs.
mechanical solidarity: a type of social integration based on mutuality of interests found in those
societies with little division of labor. modernization the process of social change whereby traditional
societies take on the characteristics of more industrialized societies.

mechanization: the replacement of human and animal labor by mechanical devices.

megafauna: all animals weighing more than 100 pounds

megalithic yard: a metrological unit (c. 2.72 ft) proposed by Alexander Thom, and argued by him, on
statistical grounds, as the standard unit of length used in the construction of megalithic monuments in
Britain and France.

meiosis: the form of cell division occurring in specialized tissues in the testes and ovary that leads to the
production of gametes.

melanin: the brown-black pigment found in the skin, eyes, and hair.

melanocyte: a specialized skin cell that produces the pigment melanin.

menarche: first menstruation.

Mendelian population: see reproductive population.

mental foramen: a small opening in the mandible through which blood vessels and nerves pass.

mercantile system: a system of ownership common in Europe and elsewhere after the eighteenth
century in which land became the private property of individual owners.

Mesolithic: an Old World chronological period beginning around 10,000 years ago, situated between the
Paleolithic and the Neolithic, and associated with the rise to dominance of microliths.

messenger RNA (mRNA): a form of RNA that copies the DNA code in the nucleus and transports it to
the ribosome.

metacentric chromosome: a chromosome in which the centromere appears roughly in the center and
the two arms are roughly the same length.

metal detector: an electronic instrument which detects buried metallic objects by inducing and measuring
an electromagnetic field.

metallographic examination: a technique used in the study of early metallurgy involving the microscopic
examination of a polished section cut from an artifact. which has been etched so as to reveal the metal
structure.

methodological individualism (or individualistic method): approach to the study of societies which
assumes that thoughts and decisions do have agency, and that actions and shared institutions can be
interpreted as the products of the decisions and actions of individuals.

microblade core: the nucleus from which micro-blades were manufactured. Usually a small barrel or
conical shaped stone artifact with a flat top and one or more fluted surfaces left as scars from the removal
of the microblades.
microblade: a small prismatic parallel-sided flake struck from a prepared core. Microblades were
probably inserted end-to-end in a slotted bone or antler shaft to provide a continuous cutting edge for
points or knives.

microenvironment: a specific set of physical, biological, and cultural factors immediately surrounding the
organism.

microevolution: "small-scale" evolution within a population over relatively short periods of time.

microfaunal remains: very small animal remains, such as rodent bones, tiny bone fragments, insects,
small mollusks, foraminifera, etc., discovered in an archaeological site.

microfloral remains: very small plant materials such as seeds, pollen, spores, phytoliths etc. discovered
in an archaeological site. Microfauna and microflora are extremely important in paleoenvironmental re-
construction.

microhabitat: a very specific habitat in which a population is found.

microlith: a tiny stone tool, characteristic of the Mesolithic period, many of which were probably used as
barbs.

microraces: arbitrary divisions of large local races.

microwear analysis: the study of the patterns of wear or damage on the edge of stone tools, which
provides valuable information on the way in which the tool was used.

midbrain: the middle of three swellings in the hollow nerve cord of the primitive vertebrate brain; formed
by a thickening of the wall of the nerve cord.

midden: the accumulation of debris and domestic waste products resulting from human use. The long-
term disposal of refuse can result in stratified deposits, which are useful for relative dating.

Middle Range Theory: a conceptual framework linking raw archaeological data with higher-level
generalizations and conclusions about the past which can be derived from this evidence.

Midwestern taxonomic system: a framework devised by McKern (1939) to systematize sequences in

the Great Plains area of the United States, using the general principle of similarities between artifact
assemblages.

mitochondria: bodies found in the cytoplasm that convert the energy in the chemical bonds of organic
molecules into ATP.

mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA): a double-stranded loop of DNA found within the mitochondria. There can
be as few as one or as many as several hundred mitochondria per cell, and each mitochondrion
possesses between four and ten mtDNA loops.

mitosis: the form of cell division whereby one celled organisms divide and whereby body cells divide in
growth and replacement.

MNI (minimum number of individuals): a method of assessing species abundance in faunal

assemblages based on a calculation of the smallest number of animals necessary to account for all the
identified bones. Usually calculated from the most abundant bone or tooth from either the left or right side
of the animal.

mobiliary art: a term used for the portable art of the Ice Age, comprising engravings and carvings on
small objects of stone, antler, bone, and ivory.

model: a system of hypothetical principles that represents the characters of a phenomenon and from
which predictions can be made.

modified brachiation: a slower and more cautious form of brachiation; seen in the orangutan.

modifying gene: a gene that alters the expression of another gene.

moiety: one of the two subdivisions of a society with a dual organizational structure.

mold: a cavity left in firm sediment by the decayed body of an organism.

molecular biology: the comparative study of molecules.

molecule: a unit composed of two or more atoms linked by a chemical bond.

monkey: any member of the superfamilies Ceboidea (New World monkeys) and Cercopithecoidea (Old
World monkeys).

monocausal explanation: the attribution of one cause to the existence of a phenomenon.

monogamous family: a social group, found among lesser apes and other primates, consisting of a single
mated pair and their young offspring.

monogamy: an exclusive union of one man and one woman.

monophyletic taxon: a taxon containing species that are all descended from the same single common
ancestor.

monotheism: belief in one god.

monotremes: members of the subclass Prototheria of the class Mammalia; the egg-laying mammals.

monozygotic twins: identical twins; twins derived from a single zygote.

moraine: a glacial deposit (till) with a distinctive topographic expression. "Terminal moraines" mark
episodes of stability or re-advance in a Period of overall glacial retreat. Moraines appear as hill or ridges
marking original glacial limits.

moral economy approach: views peasants as being less concerned with individual profit than with the
security of knowing they will be protected in adversity.

morphemes: the smallest units of speech that convey meaning.

morphology: the study of structure, including the system by which speech units are combined to form
meaningful words.
mosaic evolution: the concept that major evolutionary changes tend to ttake place in stages, not all at
once. Human evolution shows a mosaic pattern in the fact that small canine teeth, large brains, and tool
use did not all evolve at the same time. Mossbauer spectroscopy: a technique used in the analysis of
artifact composition, particularly iron compounds in pottery. It involves the measurement of the gamma
radiation absorbed by the iron nuclei, which provides information on the particular iron compounds in the
sample. and hence on the conditions of firing when the pottery was being made.

mounting: a behavioral pattern whereby one animal jumps on the posterior area of a second animal as a
part of the act of copulation or as a dominance display.

multi-component: a site is said to be multi-component when it shows evidence of 2 or more distinctive

cultural occupations.

multi-dimensional scaling (MDSCAL): a multivariate statistical technique which aims to develop spatial
structure from numerical data by estimating the differences and similarities between analytical units.

multicausal explanation: the attribution of more than one cause to the existence of a phenomenon.

multilineal evolutionism: an anthropological approach that focuses on the development of individual

cultures or populations without insisting that all follow the same evolutionary pattern.

multimale group: a social unit consisting of many adult males and adult females.

multiple-allele series: a situation in which a gene has more than two alleles.

multiplication-of-species model: the idea that a generalized species can give rise to a large number of
new species, sometimes rapidly.

multiplier effect: a term used in systems thinking to describe the process by which changes in one field
of human activity (subsystem) sometimes act to promote changes in other fields (subsystems) and in turn
act on the original subsystem itself. An instance of positive feedback, it is thought by some to be one of
the primary mechanisms of societal change.

multivariate explanation: explanation of culture change, e.g. the origin of the state, which, in contrast to
monocausal approaches, stresses the interaction of several factors operating simultaneously.

mutation: an alteration of the genetic material.

myth: stories that are told about the deeds that supernatural beings played in the creation of human
beings and the universe itself.

native copper: metallic copper found naturally in nuggets, which can be worked by hammering, cutting,
and annealing.

natural levels (also "stratigraphic levels"): an excavation level defined by the original stratigraphic units of
the site.

natural selection: the process whereby members of a species who have more surviving offspring than
others pass their traits on to the next generation, whereas the less favored do not do so to the same
degree.
negative eugenics: a method of eliminating deleterious alleles from the gene pool by encouraging
persons with such alleles not to reproduce.

negative feedback: in systems thinking, this is a process which acts to counter or "dampen" the
potentially disruptive effects of external inputs; it acts as a stabilizing mechanism (see homeostasis).

negative reciprocity: an exchange between enemies or strangers in which each side tries to get the
better end of the bargain.

neocortex: a gray covering on the cerebrum of some vertebrates; the site of higher mental processes.

Neolithic Revolution: a term coined by V.G. Childe in 1941 to describe the origin and consequences of
farming (i.e. the development of stock raising and agriculture), allowing the widespread development of
settled village life.

Neolithic: an Old World chronological period characterized by the development of agriculture and, hence,
an increasing emphasis on sedentism.

neolocal residence: residence of a married couple in a new household established apart from both the
husband's and the wife's kin.

neoteny hypothesis: a theory of evolutionary change which holds that organisms in a group maintain
younger characteristics of ancestral groups while becoming sexually mature during what was previously
an infantile or juvenile stage of development; also, the retarded development of specific characteristics.

nephrite: a hard fibrous green to white rock often used for the manufacture of adze-blades. Commonly
called jade.

net sinker (also "net weight", "sinker"): a rock used to submerge a fishing net. May be grooved, notched
or perforated.

network: a web of social ties of various kinds.

neutron activation analysis (NAA): a method used in the analysis of artifact composition which depends
on the excitation of the nuclei of the atoms of a sample's various elements, when these are bombarded
with slow neutrons. The method is accurate to about plus or minus 5 percent.

neutron scattering: a remote sensing technique involving the placing of a probe into the soil in order to
measure the relative rates of neutron flows through the soil. Since stone produces a lower count rate than
soil. buried features can often be detected.

New Archaeology: a new approach advocated in the 1960s which argued for an explicitly scientific
framework of archaeological method and theory, with hypotheses rigorously tested, as the proper basis
for explanation rather than simply description (see also processual archaeology).

New World semibrachiation: a locomotor pattern involving extensive use of the hands and prehensile
tail to suspend and propel the body; seen in species otherwise quadrupedal.

niche: the environmental requirements and tolerances of a species; sometimes seen as a species'
"profession" or what it does to survive.
NISP (number of identified specimens): a gross counting technique used in the quantification of animal
bones. The method may produce misleading results in assessing the relative abundance of different
species, since skeletal differences and differential rates of bone preservation mean that some species will
be represented more than others.

nocturnal: being primarily active at night.

nomadic pastoralism: the strategy of moving the herds that are one's livelihood from pasture to pasture
as the seasons and circumstances require.

non-equilibrium systems: see self-organization.

non-probabilistic sampling: a non-statistical sampling strategy (in contrast to probabilistic sampling)

which concentrates on sampling areas on the basis of intuition, historical documentation, or long field
experience in the area.

nondisjunction: an error of meiosis in which the members of a pair of chromosomes move to the same
pole rather than to opposite poles.

nonunilineal descent group: a kin group in which descent may be traced through either parent or
through both.

nonverbal communication: the various means by which humans send and receive messages without
using words (e.g., gestures, facial expressions, touching).

nouveau riche: people with newly acquired wealth.

norm: the most frequent behavior that the members of a group will show in a specific situation.

Notharctinaet: subfamily of the Adapidae, found primarily in North America.

notochord: a cartilaginous rod that runs along the back (dorsal) of all chordates at some point in their life
cycle.

nuchal crest: a flange of bone in the occipital region of the skull that serves as the attachment of the
nuchal musculature of the back of the neck.

nuchal muscle: the muscle in the back of the neck that functions to hold the head up. In primates with
heavy facial skeletons, the large nuchal muscle attaches to a nuchal crest.

nuclear DNA (nDNA): DNA found within the nucleus of the cell.

nuclear family household: an independent family unit formed by a monogamous union.

nuclear membrane: a structure that binds the nucleus within the cell.

nucleation: the tendency of populations to cluster in settlements of increasing size and density.

nucleic acid: the largest of the molecules found in living organisms; composed of chains of nucleotides.

nucleotide: the basic building block of nucleic acids; composed of a five-carbon sugar (either ribose or
deoxyribose), a phosphate, and a nitrogenous base (either a purine or pyrimidine).
nucleus: a structure found in the cell that contains the chromosomes.

nursery unit: among chimpanzees, a group of several family units (mothers with offspring) and
sometimes females without infants.

obesity: a condition in which a person's weight is 20 percent greater than a sex- and age-specific weight-
for-height standard.

obsidian hydration dating: this technique involves the absorption of water on exposed surfaces of
obsidian; when the local hydration rate is known, the thickness of the hydration layer, if accurately
measured, can be used to provide an absolute date.

obsidian: a volcanic glass whose ease of working and characteristically bard flintlike edges allowed it to
be used for the making of tools.

occipital condyles: two rounded projections on either side of the foremen magnum that fit into a pair of
sockets on the top of the spine, thus articulating the skull with the spine.

occipital torus: a horizontal bar of bone seen above the angularity in the occipital.

ochre: iron oxide or hematite. Color is commonly reddish-brown to yellow. Used as a natural pigment.

off-site data: evidence from a range of -information, including scatters of artifacts and features such as
plowmarks and field boundaries, that provides important evidence about human exploitation of the
environment.

Old World semibrachiation: a locomotor pattern involving extensive use of the hands in leaping; seen in
basically quadrupedal animals.

Oldowan industry: the earliest toolkits, comprising flake and pebble tools, used by hominids in the
Olduvai Gorge, East Africa.

olfactory: referring to the sense of smell.

Oligopithecidae: family represented by a single specimen from the Early Oligocene of the Fayum, Egypt.

omnivorous: eating both meat and vegetable food.

Omomyidae: family of Eocene and Oligocene primates, showing some resemblance to the tarsiers,
found in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

one-male group: a social unit consisting of a single male associated with several females.

ontogeny: the processes of growth and development of the individual from conception to death.

ontology: the study of ontogeny.

oogenesis: the production of ova.

open-area excavation: the opening up of large horizontal areas for excavation, used especially where
single period deposits lie close to the surface as, for example, with the remains of American Indian or
European Neolithic long houses.
open: a characteristic of language that refers to the expansionary nature of language, which enables
people to coin new labels for new concepts and objects.

operator: a site in the operon to which a repressor can bind, shutting off transcription of structural genes
in the operon.

operon: a group of genes all controlled by the same regulatory gene.

opposable thumb: an anatomical arrangement in which the fleshy tip of the thumb can touch the fleshy
tip of all the fingers.

optical emission spectrometry (OES): a technique used in the analysis of artifact composition, based
on the principle that electrons, when excited (i.e. heated to a high temperature), release light of a
particular wavelength. The presence or absence of various elements is established by examining the
appropriate spectral line of their characteristic wavelengths. Generally, this method gives an accuracy of
only 25 percent and has been superseded by ICPS (inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry).

ordeal: a painful and possibly life-threatening test inflicted on someone suspected of a wrongdoing.

order: a major division of a class, consisting of closely related families.

Oreopithecidae: specialized hominoid from the Late Miocene of Europe.

organic solidarity: the unity of a society formed of dissimilar, specialized groupings, each having a
restricted function (Durkheim).

orthognathous: describes a face that is relatively vertical as opposed to being prognathous.

orthograde: vertical posture.

ossification: the process of bone formation.

osteodontokeratic culture: an archaeological culture based upon tools made of bone, teeth, and hoary.

osteology: the study of bones.

ostracum: fragments (as of pottery) containing inscriptions. The singular is "ostraca."

outgroup: in a cladistic analysis, a group of species that are closely related to the species being studied
and are used to differentiate between shared derived and ancestral derived features.

outwash channel: a stream valley formed by glacial melt-water.

outwash deposit: fluvial sediments laid down by glacial melt-water.

ovulation: the point during the female reproductive cycle, usually the midpoint, when the ovum has
matured and breaks through the wall of the ovary.

ovum: a female gamete.

paleoanthropology: the study of the fossil record and archaeology.

paleoecology: the study of the relationship of extinct organisms or groups of organisms to their
environments.

paleoentomology: the study of insects from archaeological contexts. The survival of insect exoskeletons,
which are quite resistant to decomposition, is an important source of evidence in the reconstruction of
paleo-environments.

paleoenvironments: past environmental/climatic conditions.

paleoethnobotany (archaeobotany): the recovery and identification of plant remains from archaeological
contexts, important in the reconstruction of past environments and economies.

paleoindian: a term most frequently applied to early projectile point "cultures" of North America (e.g.
Clovis, Folsom, Cody, etc.).

Paleolithic: the archaeological period before c.10,000 BC, characterized by the earliest known stone tool
manufacture.

paleomagnetism: see archaeomagnetic dating.

paleontologists: experts on animal life of the distant past.

paleontology: that specialized branch of physical anthropology that analyzes the emergence and
subsequent evolution of human physiology.

paleopathology: the study of the evidence of trauma and disease in fossilized skeletons.

paleosol: "old soil." buried soil horizons indicative of past soil conditions different from that presently
prevailing.

paleospecies: a group of similar fossils whose range of morphological variation does not exceed the
range of variation of a closely related living species.

palisade (also "stockade"): a fence formed of vertical posts placed side-by-side. Usually intended for
defensive purposes.

palynology: the analysis of fossil pollen as an aid to the reconstruction of past vegetation and climates.

pangenesis: an early and inaccurate idea that acquired characteristics of parents are transmitted to their
offspring.

Panidae: family within the superfamily Hominoidea that consists of the common chimpanzee, bonobo,
and gorilla.

paradigmatic view: approach to science, developed by Thomas Kuhn, which holds that science
develops from a set of assumptions (paradigm) and that revolutionary science ends with the acceptance
of a new paradigm which ushers in a period of normal science.

parallel cousins: mother's sisters' children and father's brothers' children.

parallel evolution: see parallelism.

parallel flaking: regular sized parallel sided flakes removed from stone artifacts.

parallelism: a condition in which homoplastic similarities are found in related species that did not exist in
the common ancestor. However, the common ancestor provided initial commonalities that gave direction
to the evolution of the similarities.

Parapithecoidea: suborder of the order Primates consisting of Early Oligocene primates from the Fayum,
Egypt.

parietal art: a term used to designate art on the walls of caves and shelters, or on huge blocks.

participant observation: actual participation in a culture by an investigator, who seeks to gam social
acceptance in the society as a means to acquire understanding of her or his observations.

pastoralism: a form of social organization based on herding.

patination (patina): crust formed on an artifact by chemical alteration of its surface or accretion of calcium
carbonate.

patriclan: a group that claims but cannot brace their descent through the male line from a common male
ancestor.

patrilineage: a lineage whose members brace their genealogies through specified male links to a
common male ancestor.

patrilineal descent group: a unilineal descent group in which membership is inherited through the
paternal line.

patrilineal descent: descent traced through the male line.

patrilocal postmarital residence: a custom where by a married couple resides in the household or
vicinity of the husband's parents.

patrilocal residence: residence of a married couple with or near the husband's kin.

patrimonial system: a system of ownership, followed in northern and central Europe during the Middle
Ages, in which land was controlled by feudal lords who held their domains by hereditary right.

patron client relationship: a mutually obligatory arrangement between an individual who has authority,
social status, wealth, or some other personal resource (the patron) and another person who benefits from
his or her support or influence (the client).

peasants: farmers who lack control over the means of their production--the land, the other resources,
and the capital they need to grow their crops, and the labor they contribute to the process.

pebble tool: a natural rounded pebble manufactured into a simple cutting tool by the removal of a few
percussion flakes, usually unifacially on one edge.

pecking (also "pecking and grinding"): the process of manufacturing heavy-duty stone tools (bowls,
mauls etc.) from granular rocks by prolonged hammering with a hammerstone. Abrasive techniques might
be used to finish the piece.
pedestal: a raised area isolated around important excavated materials to facilitate their study.

pedigree: a diagrammatic reconstruction of past mating in a family.

pedology: the scientific study and classification of soils.

peer-polity interaction: the full range of exchanges taking place -- including imitation, emulation,
competition, warfare, and the exchange of material goods and information -- between autonomous (self-
governing) sociopolitical units, generally within the same geographic region.

pendant: any ornamental object designed for suspension.

penetrance: the degree to which an allele is expressed in the phenotype.

pentadactylism: the presence of five digits on the hand and/or foot.

peptide bond: a link between amino acids in a protein.

percussion flaking (also "direct percussion flaking"): the technique of shaping stone artifacts by
removing flakes with direct blows with a hammer of stone, antler, or wood.

pericentric inversion: a type of inversion in which two breaks occur in a chromosome, one on either side
of the centromere, and the centerpiece becomes fumed around and rejoined with the two outside pieces.

periglacial phenomena (also "cryoturbation"): a general term for disturbance of surficial deposits caused
by frost action. Most prevalent in areas of permafrost and can be very damaging to archaeological sites.

period: a unit of geological time; a division of an era.

peripheralization: the process whereby an adolescent animal encounters aggressive behavior from
adults and gradually moves away from the group over time.

permanent teeth The second set of teeth that erupt in mammals. Humans have thirty-two permanent
teeth.

petrified wood: agatized wood, sometimes used as a raw material for the manufacture of flaked stone
artifacts. Often banded or laminated and of variable color.

petroglyph: pictures, symbols, or other art work pecked, carved or incised on natural rock surfaces.

pH: The measurement of acidity or alkalinity. A pH of 7 is neutral; less than 7 is acid; greater than 7 is
basic or alkaline.

phase (also "focus"): a chronologically limited cultural unit within a local culture sequence, characterized
by sufficient diagnostic traits to set it apart from all other units. A phase is generally represented by 2 or
more components in several sites and is the basic classificatory unit of archaeological "cultures".

phenotype: the observable and measurable characteristics of an organism.

phenylketonuria (PKU): a genetic disease, inherited as a recessive, brought about by the absence of the
enzyme responsible for the conversion of the amino acid phenylalanine to tyrosine. Phenylalanine
accumulates in the blood and then breaks down into by-products that cause severe mental retardation in
addition to other symptoms.

phenylthiocarbamide (PTC): an artificially created substance whose main use is in detecting the ability
to taste it. The ability to taste PTC is inherited as a dominant.

phoneme: a class of sounds that differ slightly from one another but that may be substituted for one
another without any change of meaning.

phonology: the sound system of a language.

phosphate unit: a unit of the DNA molecule consisting of a phosphate and four oxygen atoms.

photo-mosaic: a number of overlapping photographs glued together to provide continuous coverage of a

large area. Aerial photographic mosaics are used in the production of modern topographic maps.

photogrammetry: the science of obtaining accurate measurements and maps from photographs.

phratry: a group that typically consists of several clans that extend the rights and obligations of kinship to
one another but retain distinct identities.

phyletic gradualism model: the idea that evolution is a slow process with gradual transformation of one
population into another.

phyllite: a soft laminated shale-like rock used for the manufacture of decorative objects such as pendants
and beads.

phylogenetic tree: a graphic representation of evolutionary relationships among animal species.

phylogeny: the evolutionary history of a species.

phylum: a major division of a kingdom, consisting of closely related classes; represents a basic body
plan.

physical anthropology: the scientific study of the physical characteristics, variability, and evolution of the
human organism.

physical environment: the complex of inanimate elements that surround an organism.

phytoliths: minute particles of silica derived from the cells of plants, able to survive alter the organism
has decomposed or been burned. They are common in ash layers, pottery, and even on stone tools.

pictograph: aboriginally painted designs on natural rock surfaces. Red ochre is the most frequently used
pigment and natural or abstract motifs may be represented.

pidgin: a language based on a simplified grammar and lexicon taken from one or more fully developed
languages.

piece esquillee (fr. "splintered piece"): a type of flaked stone artifact manufactured by the bipolar
percussion technique. Generally characterized by a lenticular or wedge-shaped cross-section; opposed
bifacial crushing, battering and hinge-fracturing; and frequently relatively long columnar "blade-like" flake
scars.
pinger (or boomer profiler): an underwater survey device, more powerful than sidescan sonar, capable
of probing up to 60 m (197 ft) below the seabed.

pipestone: any soft stone used in the manufacture of aboriginal smoking pipes.

piston corer: a device for extracting columns of sediment from the ocean floor. Dates for the different
layers are obtained by radiocarbon, archaeomagnetic, or uranium series methods.

pithouse: a semi-subterranean "earth-lodge" dwelling. Usually consisted of an earth-covered log

framework roof over a circular to rectangular excavation.

placenta: an organ that develops from fetal membranes and functions to pass oxygen, nutrients, and
other substances to and waste material from the fetus.

placental mammals: members of the infraclass Eutheria of the class Mammalia; mammals that form a
placenta.

placoderm: a member of the extinct class of early jawed vertebrates.

plane-table mapping: the construction of small-scale topographic maps, on the site, by use of an
alidade, plane-table, and stadia-rod.

plane-table: a small drawing table mounted on a tripod in such a way that it can be leveled and rotated.
Provides the base for the alidade in plane-table mapping.

plasma membrane: a structure that binds the cell but allows for the entry and exit of certain substances.

plasma: the liquid portion of the blood containing salts, sugars, fats, amino acids, hormones, plasma,
proteins, etc.

plastic arts: those forms of art such as sculpture, carving, pottery, and weaving.

plate tectonics: the theory that the surface of the earth is divided into a number of plates that move in
relationship to each other. Some of these plates carry the continents.

platelets: cell fragments in the blood that function in blood clotting.

plating: a method of bonding metals together, for instance silver with copper or copper with gold.

platycephalic: having a low and relatively flat forehead.

platyrrhine nose: a nose in which the nostrils open sideways and are usually separated by a broad nasal
septum; characteristic of the New World monkeys.

Platyrrhini: infraorder of the order Primates that includes the New World monkeys and various New
World fossil taxa.

play group: a group of juveniles within a larger social unit that engage in play behavior.

play: energetic and repetitive activity engaged in primarily by infants and juveniles.

pleiotropy: a situation in which a single allele may affect an entire series of traits.
Pleistocene: the latest major geological epoch, colloquially known as the "Ice Age" due to the multiple
expansion and retreat of glaciers. Ca. 3.000,000-10,000 years B.P.

plesiomorphic: in cladistics, this term describes primitive or generalized characteristics that arose early
in the evolutionary history of a taxonomic group. These will be very widespread and will therefore not help
in dividing the group into lower-level taxa.

pneumatized: the presence of air spaces within some bones of the skull.

point mutation: an error at a particular point on the DNA molecule.

polar bodies: cells that develop in oogenesis, contain little cytoplasm, and do not develop into mature
ova.

political economy approach: assumes that I peasants rationally calculate the advantages.

politics: the process by which a community's decisions are made, rules for group behavior are
established, competition for positions of leadership is regulated, and the disruptive effects of disputes are
minimized.

polity: a politically independent or autonomous social unit, whether simple or complex, which may in the
case of a complex society (such as a state) comprise many lesser dependent components.

pollen analysis: see palynology.

polyandry: marriage between one woman and two or more men simultaneously.

polygamy: plural marriage.

polygenic: the result of the interaction of several genes.

polygyny: marriage between one man and two or more women simultaneously.

polymorphism: the presence of several distinct forms of a gene or phenotypic trait within a population
with frequencies greater than 1 percent.

polypeptide: a chain of amino acids.

polyphyodonty: the continuous replacement of teeth such as occurs in reptiles.

polytheism: belief in many gods.

polytypic: a situation in which a species is composed of several distinct populations.

Pongidae: family within the superfamily Hominoidea that consists of the orangutan.

populationist viewpoint: the concept that only individuals have reality and that the type is illusory. Since
no two individuals are exactly alike, variation underlies all existence.

positive eugenics: a method of increasing the frequency of desirable traits by encouraging reproduction
by individuals with these traits.
positive feedback: a term used in systems thinking to describe a response in which changing output
conditions in the system stimulate further growth in the input; one of the principal factors in generating
system change or morphogenesis (see also multiplier effect).

positivism: theoretical position that explanations must be empirically verifiable, that there are universal
laws in the structure and transformation of human institutions, and that theories which incorporate
individualistic elements, such as minds, are not verifiable.

post-contact period (also "historic period"): refers to the period following the first arrival of Europeans.

post-mold: the impression, stain, or cavity, left in the ground by a rotted wooden post.

post-partum sex taboo: the prohibition of a woman from having sexual intercourse for a specified period
of time following the birth of a child.

postmating mechanism: any form of reproductive isolation that occurs after mating.

postorbital bar: a feature of the skull formed by a downward extension of the frontal bone that supports
the eye.

postorbital constriction: as seen from the top view, a marked constriction in the skull immediately
behind the orbits and supraorbital torus.

postorbital septum: a bony petition behind the eye that isolates the eye from the muscles of the jaw and
forms a bony eye socket, or orbit, in which the eye lies.

postprocessual explanation: Explanation formulated in reaction to the perceived limitations of

functional-processual archaeology. It eschews generalization in favor of an "individualizing" approach that
is influenced by structuralism, Critical Theory, and neo-Marxist thought.

pot-hunter: an "amateur archaeologist" who vandalizes and destroys sites to add to his private collection,
or for monetary gain.

pot-lid fracture: a circular flake removed from cryptocrystalline materials by sudden heating. Leaves a
small saucer-shaped depression in the surface of the stone.

potassium argon dating: a chronometric dating technique based on the rate of decay of potassium 40 to
argon 40. Used to date rocks up to thousands of millions of years old though it is restricted to volcanic
material no more recent than c 100 000 years old. One of the most widely used methods in the dating of
early hominid sites in Africa.

potlatch: a form of competitive giveaway found among the Northwest Coast American Indians that serves
as a mechanism for both achieving social status and distributing goods.

power grip: a grip in which an object is held between the fingers and the palm with the thumb reinforcing
the fingers.

power: the ability to exert influence because one's directives are backed by negative sanctions of some
sort.

pre-ceramic period: the period prior to the introduction of ceramic artifacts.

pre-contact: refers to the period before the first arrival of europeans in a given area.

Pre-Wisconsinan: prior to the Wisconsinan glacial period or older than about 70,000 B.P.

preadaptation: the potential to adapt to a new niche.

prebendal system: a system of ownership common in the centralized bureaucratic states that arose in
China, Mogul India, Peru, and the Ottoman Empire, in which land was temporarily assigned to
administrators or tax collectors by the ruler.

precision handling: a situation in which an object is held between one or more fingers with the thumb
fully opposed to the fingertips.

preform: an early preliminary stage in the reduction-manufacture of a flaked stone artifact.

prehensile tail: a tail found in some New World monkeys that has the ability to grasp.

prehistoric: the period prior to written records for any given area. In North America synonymous with

prehistory: the period of human history before the advent of writing.

premating mechanism: a form of reproductive isolation that prevents mating from occurring.

prenatal: the period of an individual's life cycle from conception to birth.

presenting: a behavior in which a subordinate primate shows his or her anal region to a dominant
animal.

preservation potential: the probability of a bone's being preserved after death.

pressure flaking: the technique of shaping tools from cryptocrystalline or fine-grained rocks by pressing
off small concoidal flakes by flaking.tools of antler or bone.

prestige goods: a term used to designate a limited range of exchange goods to which a society ascribes
high status or value.

primary center of ossification: the area of first appearance of bone within the cartilage model of a long
bone.

primary context: the original depositional situation, unaffected by any later disturbance.

primary deposit: a primary deposit is a body of sediments which have not been significantly disturbed
since their original deposition.

primary flakes: the first series of flakes removed from a core or nucleus in the process of tool
manufacture.

Primates: order of the class Mammalia that includes the living prosimians, tarsiers, New World monkeys,
Old World monkeys, lesser apes, great apes, and humans.

primatology: the study of living nonhuman primates.

primitive valuables: a term coined by Dalton to describe the tokens of wealth and prestige, often of
specially valued items, that were used in the ceremonial exchange systems of non-state societies;
examples include the shell necklaces and bracelets of the kula systems (cf. prestige goods).

primitive: a derogatory term used to describe small-scale, preliterate, and technologically simple
societies.

prion: a microscopic particle that causes nervous system diseases in nonhuman animals and has been
implicated as the cause of kuru. The prion appears to be composed of protein and lacks any nucleic acid.

probabilistic sampling: sampling method, employing probability theory, designed to draw reliable
general conclusions about a site or region, based on small sample areas. Four types of sampling
strategies are recognized: (1) simple random sampling; (2) stratified random sampling; (3) systematic
sampling; (4) stratified systematic sampling.

processors: hunter-gatherers who occupy one permanent settlement, from which they move to
temporary camps to exploit seasonally available resources (a foraging pattern).

processual archaeology: an approach that stresses the dynamic relationship between social and
economic aspects of culture and the environment as the basis for understanding the processes of culture,
change. Uses the scientific methodology of problem statement, hypothesis formulation, and subsequent
testing. The earlier functional-processual archaeology has been contrasted with cognitive-processual
archaeology, where the emphasis is on integrating ideological and symbolic aspects.

Proconsulidae: Miocene hominoids from Africa.

production: the conversion of natural resources to usable forms.

productive life span: the period bounded by the culturally established ages at which a person ideally
enters and retires from the work force.

productivity: the amount of work a person accomplishes in a given period of time.

profane: the sphere of the ordinary and routine; the everyday, natural world.

profile drawing: a precise scale drawing of the strata and horizons revealed in the walls of an excavation
or other exposure. A section which has been drawn is said to have been "profiled".

profile: a section, or exposure of the ground, showing depositional or developmental strata or horizons.

prognathism: a jutting forward of the facial skeleton and jaws.

projectile point: An inclusive term for arrow, spear or dart-points. Characterized by a symmetrical point,
a relatively thin cross-section and some element to allow attachment to the projectile shaft. Flaked stone
projectile points are usually classified by their outline form.

prokaryote: a cell, more primitive than a eukaryote, having no nucleus. Prokaryotes include bacteria and
blue-green algae.

pronograde: a posture in which the body is held parallel to the ground.

Propliopithecidae: family of the infraorder Catarrhini from the Middle Oligocene to Late Miocene of Africa
and Europe that may have given rise to the Old World monkeys and the hominoids.

prosimians: members of the suborder Prosimii, including the living Madagascar lemuriformes and the
lorises, potto, angwantibo, and galagos.

Prosimii: suborder of the order Primates that includes the living Madagascar lemuriformes and the
lorises, potto, angwantibo, and galagos.

protein-caloric malnutrition: a class of malnutrition that includes kwashiorkor and marasmus.

protein: a long chain of amino acids joined together by peptide bonds (a polypeptide chain).

protoculture: the simplest or beginning aspects of culture as seen in some nonhuman primates.

protohistoric: a period prior to the beginning of written records in an area, but after that area has been
initially mentioned in reports written elsewhere.

proton magnetometer: a device used in subsurface detection which records variation in the earth's
magnetic field.

prototherian mammals: mammals belonging to the subclass Prototheria; monotremes or egg-laying

mammals.

provenience: the horizontal and/or vertical position of an object in relation to a set of spatial coordinates.

provisional site designation: a temporary code or number applied to newly located sites during site-
surveying, until a final Borden System number can be assigned.

provisionized colony: groups of free-ranging primates that have become accustomed to humans
because of the establishment of feeding stations.

proxemics: the study of human perception and use of space in communication and social relations.

proximal: the portion of an artifact or bone closest to the body of the user or "owner".

pseudo-archaeology: the use of selective archaeological evidence to promulgate nonscientific, fictional

accounts of the past.

psychic unity: a concept popular among some nineteenth-century anthropologists that assumed that all
people when operating under similar circumstances will think and behave in similar ways.

psychological anthropology: the study of the relationship between culture and individual personality.

ptyalin: a digestive enzyme found in saliva that begins the digestion of starches in the mouth.

puberty: an event in the life cycle that includes rapid increase in stature, development of sex organs, and
development of secondary sexual characteristics.

pubic symphysis: the area of the pelvis at which the two innominates join.
punctuated equilibria: principal feature of the evolutionary theory propounded by Niles Eldredge and
Stephen J. Gould, in which species change is represented as a form of Darwinian gradualism
"punctuated" by periods of rapid evolutionary change.

purdah: the Muslim or Hindu practice of keeping women hidden from men outside their own family; or, a
curtain, veil, or the like used for such a purpose.

purine: a base found in nucleic acids that consists of two connected rings of carbon and nitrogen; in DNA
and RNA, adenine and guanine.

pyrimidine: base found in nucleic acids that consists of a single ring of carbon and nitrogen; in DNA,
thymine and cytosine, and in RNA, uracil and cytosine.

pyrotechnology: the intentional use and control of fire by humans.

quadrant: generally refers to one-quarter of an excavation unit or level, e.g. "the northwest quadrant of
excavation unit N. 2-4, E. 4-6".

quadrat: a rectangular sampling unit.

quadrupedalism: locomotion on four limbs.

quarry site: a site where lithic raw materials have been mined.

quartz-crystal: pure silicate rock-crystal. Usually perfectly clear with six crystal surfaces. May be used as
a raw material for lithic tool manufacture.

quartzite: a granular stone formed of fused quartz grains. Commonly white, yellow or red. Used as a raw
material, for flaked stone tools.

race: a subgroup of human population that shares a greater number of physical traits with one another
than they do with those of other subgroups.

radioactive decay: the regular process by which radioactive isotopes break down into their decay
products with a half-life which is specific to the isotope in question (see also radiocarbon dating).

radiocarbon dating: an absolute dating method based on the radioactive decay of Carbon-14 contained
in organic materials.

radioimmunoassay: a method of protein analysis whereby it is possible to identify protein molecules

surviving in fossils which are thousands and even millions of years old.

radiometric dating: a type of chronometric dating that involves methods based upon the decay of
radioactive materials; examples are radiocarbon and potassium-argon dating.

raised beaches: these are remnants of former coastlines, usually the result of processes such as
isostatic uplift or tectonic movements.

random sample: a sample in which each individual in a population has the same chance of being
selected as any other.

range: see home range.

ranked societies: societies in which there is unequal access to prestige and status e.g. chiefdoms and
states.

rational economic decisions: the weighing of available alternatives and calculation of which will provide
the most benefit at the least cost.

reaves: Bronze Age stone boundary walls, for instance on Dartmoor, England, which may designate the
territorial extent of individual communities.

rebellion: an attempt within a society to disrupt the status quo and redistribute the power and resources.

recessive: a genetically determined characteristic that is expressed only in the homozygous recessive
condition.

reciprocity: a mode of exchange in which transactions take place between individuals who are
symmetrically placed, i.e. they are exchanging as equals, neither being in a dominant position.

recombinant DNA: a technique for transferring genetic material from one organism to another.

recombination: a mechanism of meiosis responsible for each gamete's uniqueness. As the

chromosomes line up in metaphase, they can combine into several configurations.

reconnaissance survey: a broad range of techniques involved in the location of archaeological sites,
e.g. the recording of surface artifacts and features, and the sampling of natural and mineral resources.

red blood cell: see erythrocyte.

redistribution: a mode of exchange which implies the operation of some central organizing authority.
Goods are received or appropriated by the central authority, and subsequently some of them are sent by
that authority to other locations.

refitting: sometimes referred to as conjoining, this entails attempting to put stone tools and flakes back
together again, and provides important information on the processes involved in the knapper's craft.

refutationist view: approach which holds that science consists of theories about the empirical world, that
its goal is to develop better theories, which is achieved by finding mistakes in existing theories, so that it is
crucial that theories be falsifiable (vulnerable to error and open to testing). The approach, developed by
Karl Popper, emphasizes the important of testability as a component of scientific theories.

regional continuity model: a hypothesis which states that modem H. sapiens had multiple origins from
existing local populations. Each local population of archaic humans gave rise to a population of modem H.
sapiens.

regulation of access to resources: control over the use of land, water, and raw materials.

regulatory gene: a segment of DNA that functions to initiate or block the function of another gene.

relative dating: the determination of chronological sequence without recourse to a fixed time scale; e.g.
the arrangement of artifacts in a typological sequence, or seriation (cf. absolute dating).

relative fitness (RF): the fitness of a genotype compared with the fitness of another genotype in the
same gene system. Relative fitness is measured on a scale of O to 1.
relativism: the concept that a cultural system can be viewed only in terms of the principles, background,
frame of reference, and history that characterize it.

religion: a framework of beliefs relating to supernatural or superhuman beings or forces that transcend
the everyday material world.

remote sensing: general term for reconnaissance and surface survey techniques that leave subsurface
archaeological deposits undisturbed.

rent fund: the portion of the peasant budget allocated to payment for the use of land and equipment.

replacement fund: the portion of the peasant budget allocated to the repair or replacement of materials
depleted by normal wear and tear.

replacement model: a hypothesis which states that modern H. sapiens evolved in Africa or Asia and
radiated out of one of these areas replacing archaic hominid populations.

replication: the experimental reproduction or duplication of prehistoric artifacts in an attempt to better

understand how they were made and used in the past.

repressor protein: the product of a regulatory gene that blocks the function of another gene.

reproductive isolating mechanism: a mechanism that prevents reproduction from occurring between
two populations.

reproductive population: a group of organisms capable of successful reproduction.

reproductive risk: a measure expressed in terms of the number of zygotes needed from a mating pair to
produce two offspring that will in turn reproduce.

rescue archaeology: see salvage archaeology.

research design: systematic planning of research, usually including (1) the formulation of a strategy to
resolve a particular question; (2) the collection and recording of the evidence; (3) the processing and
analysis of these data and their interpretation; and (4) the publication of results.

resharpening flakes: usually small flakes removed from the edges of chipped-stone cutting or scraping
tools to rejuvenate the effectiveness of the edge.

residual volume: the amount of air still remaining in the lungs after the most forceful expiration.

resilience: the ability of an ecosystem to undergo change while still maintaining its basic elements or
relationships.

resistivity meter: see soil resistivity. Natural accretions of manganese and iron oxides, together with clay
minerals and organic matter, which can provide valuable environmental evidence. Their study, when
combined with radiocarbon methods, can provide a minimum age for some landforms, and even some
types of stone tool which also accumulate varnish.

resistivity: a means of detecting buried features and areas of disturbance by measuring the resistance of
an electrical current passed through the ground.
restriction enzyme: an enzyme used to "cut" the DNA molecule at specific sites; used in recombinant
DNA technology.

retina: the layer of cells in the back of the eye that contains two types of cells, rods and cones, that are
sensitive to light.

retinoblastoma: a cancer of the retina of the eye in children, inherited as a dominant.

retouch: the removal of small secondary flakes along the edge of a lithic artifact to improve or alter the
cutting properties of that edge. Retouch flaking may be bifacial or unifacial.

retouched flake: a stone flake which has had one or more edges modified by the deliberate removal of
secondary chips.

revitalization movements: conscious efforts to build an ideology that will be relevant to changing cultural
needs.

revolution: an attempt to overthrow the existing form of political organization, the principles of economic
production and distribution, and the allocation of social status.

Rh blood-type system: a blood-type system consisting of two major alleles. A mating between an Rh -
mother and Rh + father may produce in the infant the hemolytic disease erythroblastosis fetalis.

rhinarium: the moist naked area surrounding the nostrils in most mammals; absent in most primates.

rhyolite: a fine-grained light colored volcanic rock, chemically identical to obsidian. color may range from
white, through gray, and yellow to reddish-pink. Sometimes used as a raw material for lithic tools.

ribonucleic acid A type of nucleic acid based upon the sugar ribose; exists in cells as messenger RNA
and transfer RNA.

ribose: a five-carbon sugar found in RNA.

ribosome: a small, spherical body within the cytoplasm of the cell in which protein synthesis takes place.

rimsherd: a fragment of the rim, or top edge, of a ceramic vessel. important archaeologically since rims-
herds frequently show the greatest degree of stylistic variability.

rite of solidarity: any ceremony performed for the sake of enhancing the level of social integration
among a group of people.

rites of intensification: rituals intended either to bolster a natural process necessary to survival or to
reaffirm the society's commitment to a particular set of values and beliefs.

rites of passage: rituals that mark a person's transition from one set of socially identified circumstances
to another.

ritual: behavior that has become highly formalized and stereotyped.

rock alignment: any artificial arrangement of rocks or boulders into rows or other patterns.

rock-art: an inclusive term for petroglyphs and pictographs.

rock-shelter: a shallow cave or rock overhang large enough to have allowed human occupancy at some
time.

rods: cells of the retina of the eye that are sensitive to the presence or absence of light; function in black-
and-white vision. ~

role: a set of behavioral expectations appropriate to an individual's social position.

sacred: the sphere of extraordinary phenomena associated with awesome supernatural forces.

sagittal crest: a ridge of bone along the midline of the top of the skull that serves for the attachment of
the temporalis muscle.

sagittal keel: a bony ridge formed by a thickening of bone along the top of the skull; characteristic of H.
erectus.

salvage archaeology (also "rescue archaeology", or "crisis archaeology"): archaeological research

carried out to preserve or rescue sites, materials and data from areas threatened by man-made or natural
disturbance. The most common type of archaeological fieldwork conducted in North America at the
present time.

sampling bias: the tendency of a sample to exclude some members of the sampling universe and
overrepresent others.

sampling error: in population genetics, the transmission of a nonrepresentative sample of the gene pool
over space or time due to chance. See also founder principle and genetic drift.

sampling unit: the sub-element of the total population selected for sampling.

sampling universe: the largest entity to be described, of which the sample is a part.

sampling: the probabilistic, systematic, or judgmental selection of a sub-element from a larger

population, with the aim of approximating a representative picture of the whole.

sanction: any means used to enforce compliance with the rules and norms of a society.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the notion that a person's language shapes her or his perception and view of
the world.

scarce resources: a central concept of Western economics which assumes that people have more
wants than they have resources to satisfy them.

scarp: an escarpment, cliff or other steep slope, such as the slope between fluvial terraces.

scent marking: marking territory by urinating or defecating or by rubbing scent glands against trees or
other objects.

science: a method of reaming about the world by applying the principles of the scientific method, which
includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing
those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge that results
from scientific study.
scientific theory: a statement that postulates ordered relationships among natural phenomena.

scientism: the belief that there is one and only one method of science and that it alone confers legitimacy
upon the conduct of research.

scraper: a tool presumably used in scraping, scouring, or planing functions. Most frequently refers to
flaked stone artifacts with one or more steep unifacially retouched edge(s).

seasonal isolation: a form of reproductive isolation in which the breeding seasons of two closely related
populations do not exactly correspond.

secondary burial: a human interment which was moved and re-buried aboriginally.

secondary center of ossification: an area of ossification, usually near the end of a long bone.

secondary datum: a local base measuring point at a known distance from the main horizontal or vertical
datum points.

secondary deposit: a body of natural or cultural sediments which have been disturbed and re-
transported since their original deposition.

secondary retouch: finishing or resharpening flaking done after the basic shape of a lithic tool has been
completed.

secondary sexual characteristics: physical features other than the genitalia that distinguish males from
females after puberty.

section: (1) a vertical cut (or exposure) through a body of sediments or a feature. (2) a one-square mile
unit in the legal subdivision system.

sectorial premolar: a unicuspid first lower premolar with a shearing edge.

secular trend: the tendency over the last hundred or so years for each succeeding generation to mature
earlier and become, on the average, larger.

sedentary pastoralism: animal husbandry that does not involve mobility.

sedentism: the practice of establishing a permanent, year-round settlement.

sediment: material that was suspended in water and that settles at the bottom of a body of water.

sedimentary beds: beds, or layers, of sediments; also called strata.

sedimentation: the accumulation of geological or organic material deposited by air, water, or ice.

sedimentology: a subset of geomorphology concerned with the investigation of the structure and texture
of sediments i.e. the global term for material deposited on the earth's surface.

segmentary lineage: a descent group in which minimal lineages are encompassed as segments of minor
lineages, minor lineages as segments of major lineages, and so on.
segmentary societies: relatively small and autonomous groups, usually of agriculturalists. who regulate
their own affairs; in some cases, they may join together with other comparable segmentary societies to
form a larger ethnic unit.

segregation: in the formation of sex cells, the process in which paired hereditary factors separate,
forming sex cells that contain either one or the other factor.

seismic reflection profiler: an acoustic underwater survey device that uses the principle of echo-
sounding to locate submerged landforms; in water depths of 100 m, this method can achieve penetration
of more than 10 m into the sea-floor.

selective agent: any factor that brings about differences in fertility and mortality.

selective attention: unconscious focusing on and response to stimuli that are perceived to be important,
to the exclusion of other stimuli.

selective coefficient: a numerical expression of the strength of a selective force operating on a specific
genotype.

selective pressure: pressure placed by a selective agent upon certain individuals within the population
that results in the change of allele frequencies in the next generation.

self-organization: the product of a theory derived from thermodynamics which demonstrates that order
can arise spontaneously when systems are pushed far from an equilibrium state. The emergence of new
structure arises at bifurcation points, or thresholds of instability (cf. catastrophe theory).

self-reducing tacheometer: a major surveying instrument (transit or alidade) which allows the direct
read-out of true vertical and horizontal distances within the eye-piece without the use of trigonometric
formulae or tables.

semantic domains: groups of related categories of meaning in a language.

semantics: the study of the larger system of meaning created by words.

senescence: old age.

serial monogamy: an exclusive union followed by divorce and remarriage, perhaps many times.

seriation: a relative dating technique based on the chronological ordering of a group of artifacts or
assemblages, where the most similar are placed adjacent to each other in the series. Two types of
seriation can be recognized, frequency seriation and contextual seriation.

serrated: notched or toothed. may refer to the edge of a tool.

serum: plasma after the clotting material has settled out.

settlement pattern: the spatial distribution of cultural activities across a landscape at a given moment in
time.

sex chromosomes: the X and Y chromosomes. Normal males have one X and one Y; normal females
have two X's.
sex-controlled trait: a trait that is expressed differently in males and females.

sex-limited trait: a trait that is expressed in only one of the sexes.

sexual dimorphism: the condition in which differences in structure exist between males and females of
the same species.

sexual division of labor: the situation in which males and females in a society perform different tasks. In
hunting-gathering societies males usually hunt while females usually gather wild vegetable food.

sexual isolation: a form of reproductive isolation in which one or both sexes of a species initiate mating
behavior that does not act as a stimulus to the opposite sex of a closely related species.

sexual skin: skin in the anal region that turns bright pink or red and may swell when the animal is in
estrus; found in the female of some primate species.

sexual stratification: the ranking of people in a society according to sex.

shaman: a medium of the supernatural who acts as a person in possession of unique curing, divining, or
witchcraft capabilities.

shamanistic cult: that form of religion in which part-time religious specialists called shamans intervene
with the deities on behalf of their clients.

sharecropping: working land owned by others for a share of the yield.

shared ancestral feature: compared with a shared derived feature, a homology that did not appear as
recently and is therefore shared by a larger group of species.

shared derived feature: a recently appearing homology that is shared by a relatively small group of
closely related taxa.

sharing clusters: among chimpanzees, temporary groups that form after hunting to eat the meat.

shell midden: a site formed of mainly concentrated shellfish remains.

shifting cultivation: (swidden, slash and burn) a form of plant cultivation in which seeds are planted in
the fertile soil prepared by cutting and burning the natural growth; relatively short periods of cultivation on
the land are followed by longer periods of fallow.

shovel-screening: a rapid excavation procedure in which the site matrix is shoveled directly through a
screen (usually 1/4" mesh).

shovel-shaped incisors: incisors that have a scooped out shape on the tongue side of the tooth.

sickle-cell anemia: a disorder in individuals homozygous for hemoglobin S in which red blood cells will
develop into a sickle shape that, in turn, will clog capillaries, resulting in anemia, heart failure, etc.

sickle-cell trait: the condition of being heterozygous for hemoglobin A and S. yet the individual usually
shows no abnormal symptoms.
side-blade: a flaked stone, bone, shell, or metal artifact inserted in the side of a shaft or projectile point to
provide an extended cutting edge.

sidescan sonar: a survey method used in underwater archaeology which provides the broadest view of
the sea-floor. An acoustic emitter is towed behind a vessel and sends out sound waves in a fan-shaped
beam. These pulses of sonic energy are reflected back to a transducer-- return time depending on
distance traveled--and recorded on a rotating drum.

silent areas: sections of the cerebral cortex, which include parts of the frontal, occipital, and temporal
lobes, in which electrical stimulation produces little or no emotional or motor response.

simian shelf: a bony buttress on the inner surface of the foremost part of the ape mandible, functioning
to reinforce the mandible.

simple random sampling: a type of probabilistic sampling where the areas to be sampled are chosen
using a table of random numbers. Drawbacks include (1) defining the site's boundaries beforehand; (2)
the nature of random number tables results in some areas being allotted clusters of sample squares,
while others remain untouched.

simulation: the formulation and computer implementation of dynamic models i.e. models concerned with
change through time. Simulation is a useful heuristic device, and can be of considerable help in the
development of explanation.

site catchment analysis (SCA): a type of off-site analysis which concentrates on the total area from
which a site's contents have been derived; at its simplest, a site's catchment can be thought of as a full
inventory of artifactual and non-artifactual remains and their sources.

site exploitation territory (SET): often confused with site catchment analysis, this is a method of
achieving a fairly standardized assessment of the area habitually used by a site's occupants.

site survey: the process of searching for and describing archaeological sites in a given area.

site: a distinct spatial clustering of artifacts, features, structures, and organic and environmental remains.
as the residue of human activity.

skull deformation: the artificial distortion of cranial bones during growth practiced by some aboriginal
cultures.

slag: the material residue of smelting processes from metalworking. Analysis is often necessary to
distinguish slags derived from copper smelting from those produced in iron production. Crucible slags
(from the casting process) may be distinguished from smelting slags by their high concentration of copper.

SLAR (sideways-looking airborne radar): a remote sensing technique that involves the recording in
radar images of the return of pulses of electromagnetic radiation sent out from aircraft (cf. thermography).

slash and burn agriculture: a method of farming, also called swidden agriculture, by which fields are
cleared, trees and brush are burned, and the soil, fertilized by the ash, is then planted.

slavery: a practice that permits some people within a society to own other persons and to claim the right
to their labor.

slope distance: in mapping the inclined distance (as opposed to true horizontal or vertical distance)
between 2 points.
social anthropology: see cultural anthropology. <> social category: a category composed of all people
who share certain culturally identified characteristics.

social class: a category of people who have generally similar educational histories, job opportunities,
and social standing and who are conscious of their membership in a social group that is ranked in relation
to others and is replicated over generations.

social control: a framework of rewards and sanctions that channel behavior.

social division of labor: the process by which a society is formed by the integration of its smaller groups
or subsets.

social intelligence: the knowledge and images that originate in an individual's brain and that are
transferred by speech land in the last 5,000 years, by writing to the brains of others.

social mobility: the ability of people to change their social position within the society.

social norm: an expected form of behavior.

social pressure: a means of social control in which people who venture over the boundaries of society's
rules are brought back into line.

social stratification: the ranking of subgroups in a society according to wealth, power, and prestige..

socialization: the process by which a person acquires the technical skills of his or her society, the
knowledge of the kinds of behavior that are understood and acceptable in that society, and the attitudes
and values that make conformity with social rules personally meaningful, even gratifying; also termed
enculturation.

society: a group of interacting people who share a geographical region, a sense of common identity, and
a common culture.

sociobiology: the study of the biological control of social behavior.

sociocultural anthropology: a branch of anthropology that deals with variations in patterns of social
interaction and differences in cultural behavior.

sociolinguistics: a branch of anthropological linguistics that studies how language and culture are
related and how language is used in different social contexts.

soil resistivity: a method of subsurface detection which measures changes in conductivity by passing
electrical current through ground soils. This is generally a consequence of moisture content, and in this
way, buried features can be detected by differential retention of groundwater.

soil texture: the relative proportion of clay, silt and sand sized particles in a soil.

soil-sample: a quantity of soil, site matrix, or sediments collected for physical, or chemical analysis.

soil-sieves: small, precision metal screens, used for determining the proportions of different sized
particles in a soil sediment sample.
soil-sounding radar: a method of subsurface detection in which short radio pulses are sent through the
soil, such that the echoes reflect back significant changes in soil conditions.

solifluction: the slow downslope movement of surface sediments in a saturated condition. Prevalent in
permafrost areas due to the seasonal thawing of the surface of the permafrost zone. Can cause complete
mixture of site stratigraphy and archaeological components.

somatic: a term that refers to the body.

sorcery: the performance of certain magical rites for the purpose of harming other people.

sororate: a social custom under which a widower has the right to marry one of his deceased wife's
sisters, and her kin are obliged to provide him with a new wife.

specialization: the limited range of activities in which a single individual is likely to be engaged.

specialized pastoralism: the adaptive strategy of exclusive reliance on animal husbandry.

specialized species: a species closely fit to a specific environment and able to tolerate little change in
that environment.

specialized trait: a structure used basically for one function.

speciation: the evolutionary process that is said to occur when two previous subspecies (of the same
species) are no longer capable of successful interbreeding; they are then two different species.

species: the largest natural population whose members are able to reproduce successfully among

speech community: a socially distinct group that develops a dialect; a variety of language that diverges
from the national language in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.

sperm: a male gamete.

spermatogenesis: sperm production.

spheres of exchange: the modes of exchange-- reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange-- that
apply to particular goods or in particular situations.

spindle: a structure consisting of fibers radiating out from the centriole that functions in cell division.

spirit possession: the supposed control of a person's behavior by a supernatural spirit that has entered
the body.

spokeshave: an artifact with a notch or concave edge, presumed to have been used in shaping wooden
or bone shafts.

spontaneous generation: an old and incorrect idea that complex life forms could be spontaneously
created from nonliving material.

stability: the ability of an ecosystem to return to equilibrium after disturbances.

stadia rod (also "surveyor's staff'): a long brightly painted rod, accurately calibrated in metric units (or
feet and inches), used for obtaining elevations and stadia measurements of distance in mapping with a
major surveying instrument.

standard deviation: a statistical measurement of the amount of variation in a series of determinations;

the probability of the real number's falling within plus or minus one standard deviation is 67 percent.

standing wave technique: an acoustic method, similar to bosing, used in subsurface detection.

state: a term used to describe a social formation defined by distinct territorial boundedness, and
characterized by strong central government in which the operation of political power is sanctioned by
legitimate force. In cultural evolutionist models, it ranks second only to the empire as the most complex
societal development stage.

statistical analysis: the application of probability theory to quantified descriptive data.

status: a position in a pattern of reciprocal behavior.

steatite: soapstone or talc; a soft gray to green stone used as a carving medium.

stela (pl. stelae): a free-standing carved stone monument.

step-trenching: an excavation method employed on very deep sites, such as Near Eastern tell sites, in
which the excavation proceeds downwards in a series of gradually narrowing steps.

stereoscope: a simple optical device to allow the perception of a stereoscopic (or 3-dimensional) image
from pairs of aerial photographs.

stereoscopic vision: visual perception of depth due to overlapping visual fields and various neurological
features.

storage-pit (also called cache-pits): circular excavations usually less than 3 m in diameter assumed to
have aboriginally functioned as storage "cellars".

strata: (1) depositional units or layers of sediment distinguished by composition or appearance. (singular:
"stratum"), (2) individually sampled subareas in a "stratified-random" probabilistic sampling scheme.

stratification: the division of a society into groups that have varying degrees of access to resources and
power.

stratification: the laying down or depositing of strata or layers (also called deposits) one above the other.
A succession of layers should provide a relative chronological sequence, with the earliest at the bottom
and the latest at the top.

stratified random sampling: a form of probabilistic sampling in which the region or site is divided into
natural zones or strata such as cultivated land and forest; units ate then chosen by a random number
procedure so as to give each zone a number of squares proportional to its area, thus overcoming the
inherent bias in simple random sampling.

stratified sample: a sample obtained by the process of dividing a population into categories representing
distinctive characteristics and then selecting a random sample from each category.
stratified society: a society in which extensive subpopulations are accorded differential treatment.

stratified systematic sampling: a form of probabilistic sampling which combines elements of (1) simple
random sampling, (2) stratified random sampling, and (3) systematic sampling, in an effort to reduce
sampling bias.

stratigraphy: the study and validation of stratification; the analysis in the vertical, time dimension, of a
series of layers in the horizontal, space dimension. It is often used as a relative dating technique to
assess the temporal sequence of artifact deposition.

stratosphere: the part of the atmosphere 20 to 50 kilometers (12 to 31 miles) above the earth's surface;
the area where ozone forms.

structural functionalism: the theory that the central function of the various aspects of a society is to
maintain the social structure--the society's pattern of social relations and institutions.

structural gene: a segment of DNA that codes for a polypeptide other than a regulator.

structuralist approaches: interpretations which stress that human actions ate guided by beliefs and
symbolic concepts, and that underlying these ate structures of thought which find expression in various
forms. The proper object of study is therefore to uncover the structures of thought and to study their
influence in shaping the ideas in the minds of the human actors who created the archaeological record.

structured interview: an ethnographic data-gathering technique in which large numbers of respondents

are asked a set of specific questions.

style: according to the art historian, Ernst Gombrich, style is "any distinctive and therefore recognizable
way in which an act is performed and made." Archaeologists and anthropologists have defined "stylistic
areas" as areal units representing shared ways of producing and decorating artifacts.

sub-bottom profiler: see underwater reconnaissance.

subcutaneous fat: the fat deposited under the skin.

subera: a division of an era. The Cenozoic is divided into two suberas, the Tertiary and Quatemary.

submetacentric chromosome: a chromosome in which the centromere lies to one side of the center,
producing arms of unequal length.

subsistence pattern: the basic means by which a human group extracted and utilized energy from its
environment.

subspecies: interfertile groups within a species that display significant differentiation among themselves.

substantivism: a school of economic anthropology that seeks to understand economic processes as the
maintenance of an entire cultural order.

subsurface detection: a collective name lot a variety of remote sensing techniques operating at ground
level, and including hosing (or bowsing), augering, magnetometer, and radar techniques.

supernatural beliefs: a set of beliefs found in all societies that transcend the natural, observable world.
superposition: the principle that under stable conditions strata on the bottom of a deposit were laid down
first and hence are older than layers on top.

surface collection: archaeological materials obtained from the ground surface.

surface finish: in the study of ceramic artifacts, the mainly decorative outer elements of a vessel.

surface scatter: archaeological materials found distributed over the ground surface.

surface structure: the particular arrangement of words that we hear or read.

surface survey: two basic kinds can be identified: (1) unsystematic and (2) systematic. The former
involves field-walking, i.e. scanning the ground along one's path and recording the location of artifacts
and surface features. Systematic survey by comparison is less subjective and involves a grid system,
such that the survey area is divided into sectors and these are walked systematically, thus making the
recording of finds mote accurate.

survey area: the region within which archaeological sites are to be located.

surveying: (1) in archaeology, the process of locating archaeological sites. (2) more generally, the
process of mapping and measuring points on the ground surface (e.g. "legal" or topographic surveying").

suspensory behavior: a form of locomotion and posture whereby animals suspend themselves
underneath a branch.

sweating: the production of a fluid, sweat, by the sweat glands of the skin. The evaporation of the sweat
from the skin leads to a cooling of the body.

symbol: something that can represent something distant from it in time and space.

symmetry analysis: a mathematical approach to the analysis of decorative style which claims that
patterns can he divided into two distinct groups or symmetry classes: 17 classes for those patterns that
repeat motifs horizontally, and 46 classes for those that repeat them horizontally and vertically. Such
studies have suggested that the choice of motif arrangement within a particular culture is far from random.

sympatric species: different species that live in the same area but are prevented from successfully re-
producing by a reproductive isolating mechanism.

symphyseal face: the surface of the pubis where one pubis joins the other at the pubic symphysis.

symplesiomorphic feature: see shared ancestral feature.

synapomorphic feature: see shared derived feature.

synapsids: the reptilian group from which the mammals ultimately emerged.

synchronic studies: rely on research that does not make use of or control for the effects of the passage
of time.

synchronic: referring to phenomena considered at a single point in time; i.e. an approach which is not
primarily concerned with change (cf. diachronic).
syndrome: a complex of symptoms related to a single cause.

synostosis: the joining of separate pieces of bone in human skeletons; the precise timing of such
processes is an important indicator of age.

syntax: the arrangement of words into meaningful utterances.

synthetic theory of evolution: the theory of evolution that fuses Darwin's concept of natural selection
with information from the fields of genetics, mathematics, embryology, paleontology, animal behavior, and
other disciplines.

system: a series of interrelated parts wherein a change in one part brings about changes in all parts.

systematic sampling: a form of probabilistic sampling employing a grid of equally spaced locations; e.g.
selecting every other square. This method of regular spacing runs the risk of missing (or hitting) every
single example if the distribution itself is regularly spaced.

systematic survey: see surface survey.

systems thinking: a method of formal analysis in which the object of study is viewed as comprising
distinct analytical sub-units. Thus in archaeology, it comprises a form of explanation in which a society or
culture is seen through the interaction and interdependence of its component parts; these are referred to
as system parameters, and may include such things as population size, settlement pattern, crop
production, technology etc.

tactile pads: the tips of the fingers and toes of primates; area richly endowed by tactile nerve endings
sensitive to touch.

taphonomy: the study of processes which have affected organic materials such as bone after death; it
also involves the microscopic analysis of tooth-marks or cut marks to assess the effects of butchery or
scavenging activities.

Tarsiidae: suborder of the order Primates consisting of the tarsiers.

taxon: a group of organisms at any level of the taxonomic hierarchy. The major taxa are the species and
genus and the higher taxa, including the family, order, class, phylum, and kingdom.

taxonomy: the theory of classification.

Tay-Sachs disease: an enzyme deficiency of lipid metabolism inherited as a recessive; causes death in
early childhood.

tectonic movements: displacements in the plates that make up the earth's crust, often responsible for
the occurrence of raised beaches.

tectonic plate: a segment of the lithosphere.

tell: a Neat Eastern term that refers to a mound site formed through successive human occupation over a
very long timespan.

telocentric chromosome: a chromosome in which the centromere is located at the very end of the
chromosome.
temper: materials added to clay in the manufacture of ceramic artifacts, to prevent cracking during firing.
Could include vegetal fibers, feathers, rock fragments, sand, or ground-up pot-sherds.

temporal isolation: see seasonal isolation.

temporalis: a muscle of chewing that arises on the jaw and inserts on the side of the skull.

temporomandibular joint: the joint formed at the point of articulation of the mandible and the base of the
skull.

temporonuchal crest: a crest on the back of the skull, forming on the occipital and temporal bones.

tent-ring: a circle of rocks used to hold down the edges of an aboriginal tent (e.g. "tipi-rings").

tephra: volcanic ash. In the Mediterranean, for example, deep-sea coring produced evidence for the ash
fall from the eruption of Theta, and its stratigraphic position provided important information in the
construction of a relative chronology.

termite stick: a tool made and used by chimpanzees for collecting termites for food.

terms of address: the terms people use when they address their kin directly.

terms of reference: the terms by which people refer to their kin when they speak about them in the third
person.

terrace: a fluvial terrace is a remnant of an earlier flood-plain isolated by down-cutting of the river,
resulting in a step-like series of "flats" and scarps. Beach terraces are old ocean or lake beaches isolated
by lowered water levels.

terrestrial quadrupedalism: see ground running and walking.

territory: an area that a group defends against other members of its own species.

tesseera: a small tablet (as of wood, bone, or ivory) used by the ancient Romans as a ticket, tally,
voucher, or means of identification; or, a small piece (as of marble, glass, or tile) used in mosaic work.

test pit (also "test excavation"): a small exploratory "dig" designed to determine a site's depth, and
contents prior to major excavation.

testosterone: a male sex hormone.

thalassemia: the absence or reduction of alpha- or beta-chain synthesis in hemoglobin. The homozygous
condition (thalassemia major) is characterized by a high frequency of hemoglobin F and fatal anemia; the
heterozygous condition (thalassemia minor) is highly variable but usually occurs with mild symptoms.

theism: belief in one or more gods of extrahuman origin.

theodolite (also "optical transit"): a transit with accurate optical readout of vertical and horizontal angles.

theory of acquired characteristics: the concept, popularized by Lamarck, that traits gained during a
lifetime can then be passed on to the next generation by genetic means; considered invalid today.
theory: a step in the scientific method in which a statement is generated on the basis of highly confirmed
hypotheses and is used to generalize about conditions not yet tested.

therian mammals: members of the subclass Theria; the "live-bearing" mammals, including the
marsupials and placental mammals.

thermal prospection: a remote sensing method used in aerial reconnaissance. It is based on weak
variations in temperature which can be found above buried structures whose thermal properties are
different from those of their surroundings.

thermography: a non-photographic technique which uses thermal or heat sensors in aircraft to record
the temperature of the soil surface. Variations in soil temperature can be the result of the presence of
buried structures.

thermoluminescence dating (TL): a chronometric dating method based on the fact that some materials,
when heated, give off a flash of light. The intensity of the light is proportional to the amount of radiation
the sample has been exposed to and the length of time since the sample was heated. It has much in
common with electron spin resonance (ESR).

Thiessen polygons: a formal method of describing settlement patterns based on territorial divisions
centered on a single site; the polygons are created by drawing straight lines between pairs of neighboring
sites, then at the mid-point along each of these lines, a second series of lines are drawn at right angles to
the first. Linking the second series of lines creates the Thiessen polygons.

thin-section analysis: a technique whereby microscopic thin sections are cut from a stone object or
potsherd and examined with a petrological microscope to determine the source of the material.

threat gesture: a physical activity used by one animal to threaten another animal. Some threat gestures
are staring, shaking a branch, and lunging toward another animal.

Three Age System: a classification system devised by C.J. Thomsen for the sequence of technological
periods (stone, bronze, and iron) in Old World prehistory. It established the principle that by classifying
artifacts, one could produce a chronological ordering.

thymine: a pyrimidine found in RNA.

till: sediments laid down directly by glacial ice. Commonly consists of unsorted angular rock fragments
mixed with clay.

tipi: a relatively large conical skin and pole tent used in the Plains area.

toilet claw: a claw found on the second toe of prosimians that functions in grooming.

tool: an object that appears to have been created for a specific purpose.

topographic map: a map which accurately depicts the physical features and relief of an area.

topography: the physical ground features of an area.

totem: a plant or animal whose name is adopted by a clan and that holds a special significance for its
members, usually related to their mythical ancestry.
township: a square area, containing 36 sections; a major unit of the legal subdivision system.

trace element analysis: the use of chemical techniques, such as neutron activation analysis, or X-ray
fluorescence spectrometry, for determining the incidence of trace elements in rocks. These methods are
widely used in the identification of raw material sources for the production of stone tools.

tradition: a continuum of gradational culture change through time representing the unbroken
development of a single culture.

trait: any discrete cultural element; or, one aspect of the phenotype.

trajectory: in systems thinking, this refers to the series of successive states through which the system
proceeds over time. It may be said to represent the long-term behavior of the system.

transect: a linear sampling area.

transfer RNA (tRNA): within the ribosome, a form of RNA that transports amino acids into the positions
coded in the mRNA.

transformation: a radiation change in morphology among homologous structures.

transformational grammar: Noam Chomsky's theory of linguistics, based on the fact that a single
meaning may be expressed in different forms.

transformational rules: according to transformational grammar, the techniques by which deep structure
is translated into surface structure.

transhumance: seasonal movement of livestock between upland and lowland pastures.

transit: a sophisticated optical surveying instrument similar to an alidade, except that it is mounted
directly on a tripod, rather than resting on a plane

translocation: a form of chromosomal aberration in which segments of chromosomes become detached

and reunite to other nonhomologous chromosomes.

travelers: hunter-gatherers who follow a regular yearly round, occupying a series of campsites for brief
periods when a valued resource is available in the vicinity of each site (a logistical pattern).

tree-ring dating: a chronometric dating method in which the age of a wood sample is determined by
counting the number of annual growth rings.

trend surface analysis: the aim of trend surface analysis is to highlight the main features of a
geographic distribution by smoothing over some of the local irregularities. In this way, important trends
can be isolated from the background "noise" more clearly.

tribe: a descent and kinship-based group in which subgroups are clearly linked to one another, with the
potential of uniting a large number of local groups for common defense or warfare. Unlike bands, tribes
are usually settled farmers, though they also include nomadic pastoral groups whose economy is based
on exploitation of livestock. Individual communities tend to be integrated into the larger society through
kinship ties.
true brachiation: a form of locomotion found in the lesser apes in which the body, suspended from
above, is propelled by arm swinging as the animal rapidly moves hand-over-hand along a branch.

true breeding: showing the same traits without exception over many generations.

tuff: geological formation composed of compressed volcanic ash.

tundra: a type of landscape where the ground is frozen solid throughout most of the year but thaws
slightly during the summer.

Tupaiidae: family of the order Insectivora that includes the tree shrews.

Turner's syndrome: a genetic disease characterized by forty-five chromosomes with a sex chromosome
count of X-; phenotypically female, but sterile.

tuyere: a ceramic blowtube used in the process of smelting.

twin studies: comparisons of monozygotic twins to dizygotic twins for the purpose of estimating the
degree of environmental versus genetic influence operating on a specific trait.

tympanic membrane: the eardrum.

type: a distinctive formal artifact class defined by the consistent clustering of attributes and restricted in
space and time, e.g. the "Folsom Point" is a projectile point "type".

typology: the systematic organization of artifacts into types on the basis of shared attributes.

ultrasound: a method of taking a picture of the fetus using sound waves.

ulu: an Eskimo word for a relatively large, semi-lunate, side-mounted "woman's knife".

unconformity: the surface of a stratum that represents a break in the stratigraphic sequence.

underwater reconnaissance: geophysical methods of underwater survey include (1) a proton

magnetometer towed behind a survey vessel, so as to detect iron and steel objects which distort the
earth's magnetic field; (2) sidescan sonar that transmits sound waves in a fan-shaped beam to produce a
graphic image of surface features on the sea-bed; (3) a sub-bottom profiler that emits sound pulses which
bounce back from features and objects buried beneath the sea floor.

uniface: a stone artifact flaked only on one surface.

unifacial flaking: the removal of secondary flakes from only one surface of a stone nucleus.

uniformitarianism: the principle which states that physical forces working today to alter the earth were
also in force and working in the same way in former times.

unilineal descent group: a kin group in which membership is inherited only through either the paternal
or the maternal line, as the society dictates.

unilineal evolution: a pattern of cultural progress through a sequence of evolutionary stages; the basic
premise of the early cultural evolutionists.
unstructured interview: an ethnographic data-gathering technique usually used in the early stages of
one's fieldwork in which interviewees are asked to respond to broad, open-ended questions.

uracil: a pyrimidine found in RNA.

uranium series dating: a dating method based on the radioactive decay of isotopes of uranium. It has
proved particularly useful for the period before 50,000 years ago, which lies outside the time range of
radiocarbon dating.

urbanization: the proportionate rise in the number of people living in cities in comparison to the number
living in rural areas.

urbanized society: a society in which a majority of people live in cities.

use-wear: polish, striations, breakage, or minor flaking which develop on a tool's edge during use.
Microscopic examination and study of the wear may indicate the past function of tools.

utilized flake: a stone flake used for a tool without deliberate retouch, but exhibiting use-wear.

utilized material: pieces of stone that have been used without modification.

variable: any property that may be displayed in different forms.

varnas caste: groups in Hindu India associated with certain occupations.

varves: fine layers of alluvium sediment deposited in glacial lakes. Their annual deposition makes them a
useful source of dating.

vasoconstriction: the constriction of the capillaries in the skin in response to cold temperatures.

vasodilation: the opening up of the capillaries of the skin in response to warm temperatures, thus
increasing the flow of blood to the surface of the

ventral: the front or bottom side of an animal or artifact.

Venus figurines: small Upper Paleolithic statues characterized by exaggerated breasts and buttocks and
very stylized heads, hands, and feet.

vertebrate: a member of the subphylum Vertebrate; possesses a bony spine or vertebral column.

vertical angle: in mapping, the angle of sight measured on the vertical plane.

vertical circle: with major surveying instruments, the graduated vertical table around which the sighting
telescope rotates; used to measure the vertical angle.

vertical clinging and leaping: a method of locomotion in which the animal clings vertically to a branch
and moves between branches by leaping vertically from one to another. The animal moves on the ground
by hopping or moves bipedally.

vertical datum: a base measurement point from which all elevations are determined.

vertical distance: the measurement of distance (or elevations) on a true vertical plane.
vertical provenience: the vertical position of objects within a site determined in relation to a vertical
datum or datum plane, as well as to the local ground surface.

Victoriapithecidae: family of Early and Middle Miocene Old World monkeys from north and east Africa.

volcanic ash: layers of airborne pumice resulting from violent volcanic eruptions. Provide valuable dating
markers when found in sites.

water table: the level of water under the earth.

wealth: the accumulation of material objects that have value within a society.

weathering zone: in pedology, the depth to which soil processes are operational.

weathering: the natural chemical or physical alteration of an object or deposit through time.

weir: an aboriginal fish-trap based on a fence or barrier of stakes or rocks built across a stream.

welded tuff: a rock formed of consolidated pumice or volcanic ash. Occasionally used as a raw material
for lithic artifacts.

Wheeler box-grid: an excavation technique developed by Mortimer Wheeler from the work of Pitt-Rivers,
involving the retaining of intact baulks of earth between excavation grid squares, so that different layers
can be correlated across the site in the vertical profiles.

white blood cell: see leukocyte.

Wisconsin(an) glaciation: the latest major episode of glacial advance in the Pleistocene of North
America; from about 70,000 to 10,000 B.P.

witchcraft: use of religious ritual to control, exploit, or injure unsuspecting, or at least uncooperating,
other persons.

workday: the culturally established number of hours that a person ideally spends at work each day.

world system: a term coined by the historian Wallerstein to designate an economic unit, articulated by
trade networks extending far beyond the boundaries of individual political units (nation states), and linking
them together in a larger functioning unit.

X chromosome: the larger of the two sex chromosomes. Normal females possess two X chromosomes;
normal males possess one X and one Y chromosome.

X-linked: a term that refers to genes on the X chromosome.

X-ray diffraction analysis: a technique used in identifying minerals present in artifact raw materials; it
can also be used in geomorphological contexts to identify particular clay minerals in sediments, and thus
the specific source from which the sediment was derived.

X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF): a method used in the analysis of artifact composition, in which
the sample is irradiated with a beam of X-rays which excite electrons associated with atoms on the
surface.
XTENT modeling: a method of generating settlement hierarchy, that overcomes the limitations of both
central place theory and Thiessen polygons; it assigns territories to centers based on their scale,
assuming that the size of each center is directly proportional to its area of influence. Hypothetical political
maps may thus be constructed from survey data.

Y chromosome: the smaller of the two sex chromosomes. Normal females possess no Y chromosome;
normal males possess one X and one Y chromosome.

Y-5 pattern: the pattern found on molars with five cusps separated by grooves, reminiscent of the letter Y.

Y-linked: a term that refers to genes on the Y chromosome.

yolk sac: a sack formed from embryonic tissue in the amniote egg that contains yolk.

zooarchaeology: the study of faunal remains found in archaeological sites and their cultural significance.

zoomorphic: "animal-like". refers to art-work or decorated objects with an animal motif or appearance.

zygomatic arch: the "cheek" bone; an arch of bone on the side of the skull.

zygote: a fertilized ovum.

zygotic mortality: a form of reproductive isolation in which fertilization occurs but development stops
soon after preventing much of the warm blood from reaching the surface of the body, where heat could be
lost.