Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (295 page)

1
Chief room of a house, mainly used for ceremonial and domestic life. With the decline in communal life since the Middle Ages, the term has been transferred to denote a lobby entrance.
2
A large single-roomed building used for domestic accommodation and ceremonial or communal purposes.

 
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Prehistoric cemeteries and salt mines in the heart of the Salzkammergut 50km southwest of Salzburg in the Austrian Alps. Excavations since the 19th century have revealed a wealth of material round the town of Salzbertal beside and above Lake Hallstatt. An extensive cemetery excavated between 1846 and 1863 by Johann Ramsauer contained 980 graves, and later excavations found more, bringing the total to over 1100. Most belong to the 7th and 6th centuries
bc
, and represent the whole community of men and women of all ages as well as children and infants. The wealth of the prehistoric community at Hallstatt was evidently based upon salt mining, and there are abundant traces of the early workings. Finds from the mines included leather knapsacks and clothing which had been well preserved as a result of saline conditions. No settlements of these mining communities have been found to date.
[Sum.: F. R. Hodson , 1990,
Hallstatt, the Ramsauer graves
. Bonn: Habelt]

 
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Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age culture of central Europe named after the type-site at
HALLSTATT
, Austria. In the German system of classification the Hallstatt cultural sequence is subdivided into four units, A–D, of which A (12th and 11th centuries
bc
) and B (10th to 8th centuries
bc
) are regarded as Bronze Age cultures, and equate to the older and younger Urnfield cultures, while C and D were Iron Age cultures, dating to the 7th and 6th centuries
bc
.
Although the Hallstatt Culture developed from the preceding
URNFIELD CULTURES
there were a number of marked changes. First was the introduction of ironworking technology. Second, inhumation replaced cremation as the principal burial mode. And, third, Hallstatt society appears to have been highly differentiated, with wealthy chieftains buried in richly furnished graves that included amongst their grave goods material imported from the Mediterranean world.

 
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A cluster of houses and other buildings smaller than a village.

 
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A
MORTARIUM
with a rim and flange that form a single unit, shaped like the head of a hammer, its centre meeting the body of the vessel at right angles.

 
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In flintworking, the block of hard stone used to detach flakes from a core. Typically a conveniently shaped pebble or rounded stone is used; battering and cracking on the ends usually betray their use as hammerstones. See also
MAUL
.

 
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