Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (472 page)

Architectural and decorative style dominant in the 18th century, developed from classical forms discovered in Italy and Greece.

 
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A school of thought based on the idea that human behaviour and cultural change are characterized by distinct patterns and mechanisms that can be explained by evolutionary change. Whereas 19th-century evolutionists were prepared to accept that cultural change might have resulted from deliberate human attempts to change their environment for the better, neo-evolutionists are fundamentally deterministic, arguing that humans have always sought to maintain traditional ways of life, with the dominant roles in cultural change being played by such uncontrollable factors as economics, demography, or technology. From the 1940s onwards, neo-evolutionary ethnologists such as Leslie White and Julian Steward argued that, in different environments, very different cultures might arise from identical social processes. This was taken up by archaeologists during the 1960s, but under the glare of the mature processual archaeology of the 1970s and 1980s appeared rather simplistic.

 
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The Gothic revival movement in architecture began in the mid 18th century
ad
but reached a peak in Victorian times.

 
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A period of prehistory originally defined by the occurrence of polished stone tools and pottery. Now used most frequently in connection with the beginnings of farming. Literally the New Stone Age, as opposed to the Palaeolithic or older Stone Age. The appearance of characteristic polished flint and stone types, including axes, adzes, and arrowheads, is generally also associated with the introduction of cereal cultivation and animal domestication, and in Europe with the earliest manufacture of pottery. The radical nature of these innovations has probably been exaggerated in the past by the use of the term ‘Neolithic Revolution’. The appearance of Neolithic culture is dated variously from around 8000 bc in the Middle East to the 5th and 4th millennia
bc
in Atlantic Europe.

 
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A term popularized by Gordon
CHILDE
in the 1940s to reflect the huge impact on life that was made by the development and spread of farming which he saw as one of two critical moments in early history (the other he called the Urban Revolution).

 
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Egyptian god, spirit of the corn.

 
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