Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (341 page)

An indigenous word meaning ‘the people’, which is the term much preferred by communities living in the high latitudes of North America instead of ‘Eskimo’ or ‘Esquimaux’.

 
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The idea that cultural change is brought about by the conquest of one group by another. In some cases this is certainly true, but from the 1920s through to the 1960s especially the idea of invasion was closely connected with that of
DIFFUSIONISM
to the extent that the arrival in an area of almost any new kind of material culture was associated with folk-movements and waves of invaders. Such a view is no longer accepted and invasions need to be demonstrated rather than assumed.

 
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Retouching done by a direct or indirect percussion technique, working from the top of the flake so that chips are removed from its smooth underside.

 
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In Greek architecture, a style characterized by columns with a diameter-to-height ratio of between 1:8 and 1:10. It was a development in architectural form that perhaps originated in Asia Minor to create an order more decorative and elaborate than the austere and earlier Doric. Its columns have bases ornamented with a variety of mouldings, and are more slender, with deeper flutes and no sharp or vulnerable edges as in the Doric Order. Capitals have a pair of spiral volutes extending out on either side, front and back, over a ring of egg-and-tongue moulding round the top of the column. There are no triglyphs.

 
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Communities representing the most recent variant of the
NORTON TRADITION
of coastal Alaska in the period
c.
ad 1–500, and later in some areas of north Alaska. This group lacks the stone lamps, pottery and ground slate tools of the Norton Tradition, but has a highly developed art and uses similar projectile points and other kinds of stone tools. At the type-site of Ipiutak on Point Hope, Alaska, the ruins of over 600 rectangular houses arranged in four rows along ridges in the beach have been found. Some of the dead were buried in log coffins set in pits in the ground, others were placed on the ground surface and covered in logs or wooden frames. Carved ivory pieces included realistic and fantastic animals, human heads and skulls, snow goggles, and grotesque masks. Ipiutak carving was not restricted to grave goods but was applied to everyday items too.

 
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A group of deposits representing a geostratigraphic stage within the
PLEISTOCENE
series of the British
QUATERNARY
system, represented by a series of lacustrine muds, river terraces, and estuarine and marine sediments overlying
WOLSTONIAN
sands and gravels, and sealed by
DEVENSIAN
deposits containing material indicating cold conditions. Traditionally, Ipswichian deposits are taken to represent a single warm phase, the last interglacial, dating to the period 150000 years ago down to 115000 years ago. There may in fact be considerable variation within the period. Archaeologically, Mousterian artefacts of the Middle Palaeolithic are found in Ipswichian deposits. Equivalent to the Riss-Würm in the Alpine sequence, the Sangamon in North America, and the Eemian in northern Europe.

 
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