Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (294 page)

The most famous and most thoroughly explored frontier system created by the Roman army. The main wall runs coast to coast across northern England for 117km from the Wallsend in Newcastle on the east to Carlisle on the Solway Firth in the west, with a continuation of the line as a series of forts and signal stations along the Cumbria coast. Construction of the wall began in ad 122 on the instructions of the Emperor Hadrian while on a visit to the province; it was completed in about ad 133. Various kinds of construction are represented along its length, but the basic idea was a stone wall punctuated at intervals of a Roman mile by small forts (milecastles) with turrets in between. Larger forts lay at intervals. There was a ditch on the north side, and a military zone on the south defined by an earthwork called the
vallum
, which is actually a ditch. The purpose of the wall was to control the movement of people in and out of the empire, and to counter localized threats and uprisings. Hadrian's Wall was abandoned between about ad 140 and ad 165 when the frontier moved north to the Antonine Wall, but otherwise it remained in place throughout the Roman occupation of Britain.
[Sum.: D. J. Breeze and B. Dobson , 1987,
Hadrian's Wall
. Harmondsworth: Penguin]

 
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The handle section of an implement such as an adze or an awl.

 
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A general term referring to a series of regionally distinct Archaic Stage cultures living around the Colorado River basin in southwestern North America in the period after
c.
ad 500. Sometimes known as the Patayan Tradition, these groups adopted agriculture and pottery-making from the Hohokam Culture of Arizona.

 
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Axe-like weapon where a pointed metal blade, similar to a dagger blade, is mounted at right-angles on the distal end of a wooden haft. Sometimes the blade is slightly curved. Halberds are especially characteristic of the early Bronze Age in Europe.

 
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Small hanging ornament of metal or stone modelled in the shape of a halberd blade.

 
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The time taken for one half of a radioactive isotope to decay into a stable element. Different isotopes have different half-lives, ranging from a few seconds to many thousands of years. The most visible application in archaeology is in relation to radiocarbon dating and other radiometric dating techniques.

 
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