Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (479 page)

 
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The occupants of the duchy of Normandy in northwest France, descendants of the Franks and 10th-century Norse settlers. From ad 1063 onwards they expanded their lands considerably with the conquest of Sicily, southern Italy, and, in ad 1066, Britain. These military feats were consolidated by a tightly controlled army and a feudal aristocracy. Strong forts were constructed both as defensible positions and statements of power. The Normans were the driving force behind the Crusades of the 11th century onwards, and they promoted the French language and Romanesque styles of architecture. By about ad 1200 Norman conquerors had been absorbed into the cultures they came to control, although their presence continued to be felt down into the Middle Ages.

 
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A view of human culture based upon the identification of abstract rules and general conditions that can then be applied to a particular culture in order to explain or understand its workings or material culture. Such an approach provides a widely used framework for studying archaeological cultures throughout time.

 
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A general term used to describe the people and cultural traditions of communities living in, or migrating out from, Norway during the later 1st and early 2nd millennia
ad
. The term is sometimes misused to refer to all Scandinavian peoples of this period. See also
VIKINGS
.

 
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Type of late Saxon pottery found in the midlands of England from the period
c.
ad 850 to 1150.

 
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Archaic Stage hunter-gatherer communities post-dating the Palaeo-Indian groups in the far north of North America, flourishing in the period from 4000 bc down to modern times. Northern Archaic communities used projectile points reminiscent of those used on the Great Plains. Among other things, they hunted caribou and waterfowl. Lithic assemblages include side-notched asymmetrical projectile points, unifacial knives, and end scrapers.

 
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