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Did you mean prehistoric site, Prehistoric Society, prehistoric art ... prehistoric site, Prehistoric Society, prehistoric art, Prehistoric Archaeology, Siberia, Prehistoric, Trade, Prehistoric, Prehistoric genes, prehistoric sites, Aegean Prehistoric Cultures, Burial Practices – Prehistoric Show More Show Less
prehistoric ([De]) Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
... ( prehistory ) [De] Generally referring to the time before written histories assist in creating understandings of the past, a transition that happens at different times in different places and for different reasons. The term ‘prehistoric’ was first introduced into the English language in 1851 by Daniel Wilson in his book The prehistoric annals of Scotland (London: Macmillan), although the Oxford English Dictionary ’s etymological listing suggests that the word ‘prehistoric’ was first used in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836 to describe...
prehistoric Quick reference
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (3 ed.)
... Dating from the first appearance of life to when the earliest written historical records begin. Human prehistory dates from the appearance of the first modern humans. In North America prehistory is usually taken to refer any time before ad 1540...
Prehistoric Society ([Or]) Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
... Society [Or] Membership organization founded in 1935 devoted entirely to the study of prehistory. The society aims to advance education and promote interest in all branches of prehistory and allied subjects, and to promote the conservation of the archaeological heritage for the benefit of the public. Publications include the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society...
prehistoric site ([De]) Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
... site [De] An archaeological site dating to the period before literary, historical, archival, or recorded oral documentation for the period of use or the material culture it...
prehistoric art Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms (2 ed.)
... art Art created before the existence of written records, the period varying enormously between different cultures. Writing came into existence in various parts of the world between the 4th and 1st millennia bc . Much of our knowledge of prehistoric art and culture, therefore, has been derived from archaeological investigations. In Europe the ending of the prehistoric period is often associated with writings about European Iron Age societies by classical authors. The term ‘prehistoric’ was first coined by a Frenchman, Gustave d'Eichthal, in 1843 . In...
prehistoric sites Quick reference
A Dictionary of English Folklore
... sites . Visible landscape features which seemed artificial, yet had no practical function and no known history, frequently feature in local legends . They are associated with the Devil , giants , fairies , and legendary heroes or wizards. Many are said to conceal treasures , or to be places where ritual actions (such as running round them) can raise ghosts . How much of all this was seriously believed, and how much merely repeated for fun, is hard to assess. See also BARROWS , STANDING STONES , CADBURY CASTLE , LONG MEG , MERRY MAIDENS , ...
Prehistoric Archaeology Reference library
Andrew Sherratt
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
... Archaeology Prehistoric archaeology is a field of research that encompasses all of the pre-urban societies of the world, which by definition have no written records to provide direct accounts by observers and participants. It therefore has a distinctive set of procedures for analyzing material remains in order to reconstruct their ecological settings, materials procurement and subsistence practices, everyday life, social organization, and the patterning of symbolic codes in such extinct societies. Since this is the “purest” form of archaeology,...
Trade, Prehistoric Reference library
Robin Torrence, Mark Edmonds, Robin Torrence, and Andrew Sherratt
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...Prehistoric Introduction Prehistoric Axe Trade Prehistoric Obsidian Trade Prehistoric Amber Trade Trade, Prehistoric: Introduction “Prehistoric trade” is usually understood in its broadest sense to mean “the transfer of goods.” Social strategies played a major role and in many cases were more important than economic transactions. Although most research has been directed to highly distinctive material objects, such as stone axes, obsidian tools, pots, or metal items, a large number of perishable objects as well as raw materials and food probably...
Prehistoric genes Reference library
Magic Universe: A Grand Tour of Modern Science
... genes Sorting the travelling salesmen from the settlers M eteorology and genetics combined to resolve an argument about the origin of the Polynesians, who during the past 2000 years populated the islands of the broad Pacific, like daring space-travellers in search of new planets to live on. In 1947 , a seagoing ethnologist, Thor Heyerdahl of Norway , popularized the proposition that the Polynesians came from South America. On Kon-Tiki , a balsa raft built on primitive lines, he and a small crew made a westward voyage from Peru to the island of...
Siberia, Prehistoric Reference library
Wm. Roger Powers
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...Prehistoric Pebble tool complexes discovered in the Amur Basin (Filimoshki, Kumara I, and Ust’-Tu), the Altai (Ulalinka), and the Lena Basin (Diring Yuriakh) have been attributed to the Lower Paleolithic (Middle or Lower Pleistocene). There is no consensus as to the age of these assemblages, and in the case of Diring Yuriakh, estimates in excess of a million years have been proposed. Nothing is known about which humans were responsible for these sites or how they subsisted. Mousterian (Middle Paleolithic) sites are confined to the Altai Mountains (e.g.,...
Social Organization, Prehistoric Reference library
Gary M. Feinman
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...in human social organization. Yet the suite of systematic archaeological methods, procedures, and interpretive frameworks to examine prehistoric social relations is more recent, stemming largely from the latter half of the twentieth century. As recently as 1954 , Christopher Hawkes ( American Anthropologist 56: 155–168) outlined a rather narrow vision for archaeology that scripted little potential for the study of prehistoric social organization. Hawkes and others envisioned a hierarchy of inference in which ancient technology and subsistence were viewed...
Burial Practices – Prehistoric Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...Practices – Prehistoric It is difficult to know when humans began to dispose purposefully of their dead, because the chances of archeologists discovering or recognizing the earliest such practices are slim indeed. However, in recent years, what appears to be the earliest known evidence for some kind of funerary ritual has come to light in northern Spain. The Sierra de Atapuerca, near Burgos, comprises a wide variety of early dwelling sites, dating back about a million years. Some 1600 feet inside the Cueva Mayor, an enormous cave, there is an...
Aegean Prehistoric Cultures Reference library
Neil Asher Silberman, Cyprian Broodbank, Alan Peatfield, Louise Hitchcock, James C. Wright, Kim S. Shelton, Elizabeth B. French, and Kim S. Shelton
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...Prehistoric Cultures Introduction Cycladic Culture Minoan Culture Helladic (Mycenaean) Culture Mycenae Aegean Prehistoric Cultures: Introduction The Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean basin, rediscovered in the late nineteenth century by the pioneering excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy and Mycenae and in the early twentieth century by Arthur Evans at Knossos, have offered scholars a unique perspective on the economic and cultural developments in the region that preceded the rise of the classical Greek world. From the evidence of...
Prehistoric mythology of the Neolithic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
... mythology of the Neolithic The first myths, those of the Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”) and early Neolithic (“New Stone Age”) are, in the absence of written evidence, locked in mystery and can only be approached in a suppositional manner by way of archeology and comparison with later cultural expressions. Turning to the high Neolithic and the development of Indo-European and Middle Eastern myth, we can be more specific. And as we move into later periods we are on still more familiar ground, even as we remember that myths are often, in part, the...
Prehistoric mythology of the Paleolithic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
... mythology of the Paleolithic It is impossible to be precise about the origins of mythology. The emergence of a toolmaking proto-human being, Homo habilis , occurred several million years ago and was followed by the more advanced Homo erectus , of whom remains dating from about 800,000 b.c.e. have been found in Europe. It is not until the middle of the Paleolithic, the period marked by the development of stone tools that coincides with the geological and climatological Pleistocene or Ice Age—that is, sometime after 500,000 and before 200,000 ...
prehistoric Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
... XIX. — F. préhistorique ; see PRE- , HISTORIC . Hence prehistory...
