General archaeology

General archaeology

Terms and definitions of archaeology -- the study of human society through the analysis of artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes.

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General archaeology

Ethnoarchaeology

Archaeology; General archaeology

The study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioural relationships which underlie the production of material culture.

Structuralist approaches

Archaeology; General archaeology

Interpretations which stress that human actions are guided by beliefs and symbolic concepts, and that underlying these are structures of thought which find expression in various forms. The proper ...

Site catchment analysis (SCA)

Archaeology; General archaeology

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 ...

A technique used in identifying minerals present in artefact raw materials; it can also be used in geomorphological contexts to identify particular clay minerals in sediments, and thus the specific ...

Microfloral remains

Archaeology; General archaeology

Very small plant materials such as seeds, pollen, spores, phytoliths etc. discovered in an archaeological site. Microfauna and microflora are extremely important in paleoenvironmental ...

Cultural anthropology

Archaeology; General archaeology

A subdiscipline of anthropology concerned with the non-biological, behavioural aspects of society; i.e. the social, linguistic, and technological components underlying human behavior. Two important ...

Chronometric dating

Archaeology; General archaeology

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.