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caribou ([Sp])   Quick reference

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)

... [Sp] North American reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) grouped into two subspecies, the barren ground caribou and woodland caribou. The former is only found in Arctic parts of North America and has long, slightly curved antlers. The woodland caribou roams the forest districts of Canada and has shorter, branched antlers. The caribou has never been domesticated, although it has been hunted continuously since Palaeo‐Indian times and many communities have subsisted almost exclusively from...

Mehrgarh   Reference library

Gregory L. Possehl

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...in the abundant mud bricks of the period. The dominant plant is naked six-row barley ( Hordeum vulgare , subspecies vulgare , variety nudum ). More than 90 percent of the seeds and imprints were identified as this plant. There is hulled six-row barley ( H. vulgare , subspecies vulgare ), two-row barley ( H. vulgare , subspecies spontaneum , and H. vulgare , subspecies distichum ), einkorn ( Triticum monococcum ), emmer ( T. turgidum , subspecies dicoccum ), and hard wheat ( T. turgidum , cf. conv. durum ) present in greatly reduced amounts. The only...

Pengtoushan   Reference library

Sarah Milledge Nelson

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...lumps of fired clay as well as in the pottery. It is not clear what these lumps are, but they are possibly a part of wattle-and-daub house construction. The rice grains are large, and are considered to be a form of domesticated rice, but they have not yet been identified as to subspecies. However, they are said to be the indica variety on the basis of their shape. Thus, though there is no question about the association of the rice with the carbon-14 dates, the status of the rice as a domesticate is still in dispute. The archaeological site is on a low mound rising...

Camel, Domestication of the   Reference library

Sheila Hamilton-Dyer

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...domesticated animals, but the relationship between the two-humped camels is unclear. It has been argued that the wild Bactrians in the Gobi Desert are the ancestral form or feral descendants of domestic Bactrians. Recent research on the camel genome suggests they are separate subspecies of an extinct ancestor. The superb adaptation of both camel types to extreme conditions has made them useful to desert peoples with very little further selection. Evidence of early domestication of the camel is difficult to interpret. Camel dung, hair, and bones comparable with...

Cro-Magnons   Reference library

John A. J. Gowlett

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...are identified with Homo sapiens sapiens of modern form, in the time range ca. 40,000–10,000 bp , roughly corresponding with the period of the Upper Paleolithic in archaeology. The term “Cro-Magnon” has no formal taxonomic status, since it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. The name is not commonly encountered in modern professional literature in English, since authors prefer to talk more generally of anatomically modern humans. They thus avoid a certain ambiguity in the label “Cro-Magnon,” which is...

Hunters of the North American Plains   Reference library

Jack L. Hofman

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...least Folsom times on, and antelope drives and mountain sheep trapping are represented later in the prehistoric record. Folsom culture sites, dating from about 10,800 to 10,200 BP, represent the first widespread hunting groups who relied heavily on the Late Pleistocene bison subspecies Bison bison antiquus . The distinctive stone tools of Folsom people, including projectile points that were delicately made and usually thinned by fluting (removal of long flakes from the base to near the tip), represents what was perhaps the first cultural tradition to...

Domestication of Plants   Reference library

Gary W. Crawford

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...and produce fertile offspring. In other words, they are the same species. In many crops, such as maize ( Zea mays ), this crossing is essential for maintaining genetic diversity. In most cases, the domesticated plants and their wild ancestors are the same species but separate subspecies. Traits that benefit people and are usually counterproductive to survival in the wild tend to differentiate domesticated from wild forms. In the case of annual plants exploited for their seeds and dry fruits, the seeds or fruits may be larger, have thinner seed or fruit coats,...

Humans, Modern   Reference library

Leslie C. Aiello, Melanie Lee Chang, and Susan Cachel

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...Cave, are problematic, and the morphologies of others, such as Klasies River Mouth, are often considered to be too archaic to represent early modern humans. The particularly well-dated and well-preserved fossils from Herto, Ethiopia (160,000 BP), were placed into an extinct subspecies, H. sapiens idaltu , due to the combination of derived traits that are considered to be characteristic of modern humans with an overall morphology that is more archaic than that of any living human population. The early dates for these African fossils, combined with the fact...

Asia   Reference library

George Michaels, Gregory L. Possehl, Charles Higham, Song Nai Rhee, Kidong Bae, and Namita Sugandhi

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...is an aceramic Neolithic with mud-brick houses. There is a rich, complex collection of palaeobotanical remains, most of which is from thousands of impressions in the mud bricks of the period. The dominant plant of Period I is domesticated naked six-row barley ( Hordeum vulgare subspecies vulgare variety nudum ) representing 90 percent of identified plant remains. Domesticated hulled six-row and two-row barley and domesticated einkorn, emmer, and hard wheat were also there. In Period IA, the animal economy was dominated by twelve species of large ungulates: gazelle...

Human Evolution, Theories of   Reference library

Richard G. Delisle, Peter Andrews, Leslie C. Aiello, Melanie Lee Chang, Susan Cachel, Nicholas Toth, Kathy Schick, and Melanie Lee Chang

The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)

...at sites such as Omo, Ethiopia (198,000–104,000 BP), Border Cave, South Africa (170,000–50,000 BP), and Klasies River Mouth, South Africa (115,000–60,000 BP). The particularly well-dated and well-preserved fossils from Herto, Ethiopia (160,000 BP), are placed into an extinct subspecies, H. sapiens idaltu . The early dates for these African fossils, and the fact that the next-oldest modern human fossils are from the sites of Qafzeh and Skhul, Israel (about 100,000 BP), suggest strongly that H. sapiens sapiens originated recently in Africa and subsequently...

Rehob   Reference library

Amihai Mazar

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology

...one centered at Tel Rehob and its vicinity. Perhaps it was even influential enough to construct such an apiary inside the crowded city. Remains of actual bees were found in charred honeycombs recovered from the hives. These were identified as Apis mellifera anatolica , a subspecies that is typical of Turkey and known for its high Four-horned altar. Kim Walton, courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem productivity and mellow behavior, in contrast to the local and more aggressive Apis mellifera syriaca . This is unique evidence for the import of bees...

Corn, Oil, and Wine Production   Reference library

Rafael Frankel

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology

..., thereby corroborating the Anatolian origin of wine. The same term has survived in modern languages: wine in English, vin in French, wein in German, and vino in Italian. Origin and domestication of the vine (Vitis vinifera L ) . Although a few examples of the wild subspecies of the grape Vitis vinifera sylvestris have been found near the sources of the Jordan, it cannot be regarded as indigenous to the region but, rather, seems to be native to the area south of the Caspian Sea and along the southern coast of the Black Sea. The vine was probably...

Cereals   Reference library

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East

...Within each species, subspecies differentiate themselves by the characteristics of their glume attachment. Einkorn ( T. monococcum L.) varieties, both wild (subspecies boeoticum ) and cultivated (subspecies monococcum ), are diploid glume wheats. A crucial component of the earliest agriculture, einkorn's place in the village pantry gave way to more productive species. Better suited to poorer soils, einkorn does not have attractive rising qualities when baked as bread. Emmer and durum ( T. turgidum L.) appear as wild emmer (subspecies dicoccides ),...

Lions   Reference library

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East

...Near East. With more than 150 citations in the Hebrew Bible, they apparently were familiar in biblical times. Lions were finally hunted to extinction in Palestine in the nineteenth century ce . Elsewhere in the region they were not exterminated until after World War I. Several subspecies of lion ranged throughout the greater Near East until modern times, but it is impossible to determine which were closest to ancient Levantine populations. Lion imagery was ubiquitous in the cultures of the ancient Near East. In religious and royal symbolism the lion appears as...

Pigs   Reference library

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East

.... The pig, Sus scrofa , was domesticated in the Near East from two wild subspecies, S. s. attila —a habitant of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq—and S. s. libycus —common to the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. The earliest evidence for domestic pig comes from Hallan Cemi in southeastern Turkey. Based on morphological changes and mortality patterns, domestication is dated by radiocarbon analysis to c. 8500 to 8000 bce . This preliminary new evidence supersedes the well-known morphological evidence for domestic pig (shortening of the skull and teeth) found at the...

Genetics and Domestic Fauna in Southern Africa   Reference library

K. Ann Horsburgh

The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology

...Scholars almost universally agree that domestic cattle have their ancestry among the now extinct wild auroch ( Bos primigenius ), of which a Eurasian ( B. primigenius primigenius ), a South Asian ( B. primigenius namadicus ), and a North African ( B. primigenius opisthonomus ) subspecies are recognized ( Clutton-Brock 1989 ). The most widely accepted model of cattle domestication describes independent processes operating on B. primigenius namadicus in India resulting in modern B. indicus , and on B. primigenius primigenius in northern Eurasia producing...

The Trade, Use, and Circulation of Elephant Ivory in Sub-Saharan Africa Over the Longue Durée   Reference library

Paul J. Lane

The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology

...North African, or Atlas, elephant, now extinct, may have constituted a third species, being smaller than savannah elephants and more docile than both extant species. Its precise taxonomic and genetic status is uncertain, however, and consequently it is currently regarded as a subspecies ( Loxodonta africana pharaoensis ) of the savannah elephant ( Nowak 1999 ). Elephants have been valued in a myriad of ways by different African cultures over the millennia ( Ross 1992 ) and may have been exploited for their meat since the Lower/Early Middle Pleistocene, as...