Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (618 page)

Between ad 1000 and 1050 the communities living around the Roskilde Fjord deliberately scuppered a large number of wooden ships to create a barrier across the mouth of the fjord and thereby help protect their settlements from raiders. In 1962 the National Museum of Denmark mounted an ambitious underwater excavation to recover waterlogged remains of these Viking vessels. A coffer-dam was built and a large number of timbers raised and subsequently preserved. A number of reconstructed ships are now displayed in the Roskilde Ship Museum, including: a knarr (long-distance sea-going cargo vessel propelled by a sail), an oar-propelled merchant ship, a warship similar in form to those depicted on the Bayeux tapestry, a ferry or fishing boat 12m long, and a Viking longship of the type that would have been crewed by 40–50 men.
[Sum.: O. Olsen , 1990,
Five Viking ships from Roskilde Fjord
. Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum]

 
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Early style of bronze sword based on the Rixheim swords of central Europe but produced locally in France and Britain. Characterized by a relatively short slender blade and fairly parallel sides, with a short tapering point. At the top of the blade is a perforated tang for the attachment of the hilt using four rivets.

 
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Middle Neolithic culture of central Europe, named after an inhumation cemetery of 70 graves near Merseburg in central Germany. The Rössen Culture is the successor to the
LBK
in the upper Danube and Rhineland, dating to the early 4th millennium
bc
. Settlements may be enclosed and houses were generally trapezoidal rather than long and rectangular in plan as in the LBK. Pottery includes round-bottomed and pedestalled bowls with characteristic ornament in incised or ‘stabbed’ technique.

 
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Rostovtzeff , Michael
(1870–1952)
[Bi].

Ukrainian archaeologist and scholar specializing in the history of Greece and Rome and the early history of southern Russia. Born in Kiev, he was a schoolboy in the classical gymnasium in Kiev. In 1895 he received from the University of St Petersburg a grant to study abroad for three years, during which time he became interested in excavations and archaeological studies. In 1903 he was made professor of Ancient History in St Petersburg Imperial University and in the University for Women. He held these Chairs for fifteen years. The Bolshevist revolution forced him to flee Russia and he spent two years in Oxford. He also devoted his energies to helping found the Russian Liberation Committee in London. In 1920 he accepted the Chair of Ancient History in Wisconsin University and in 1925 was appointed to the parallel Chair in Yale University. In 1928, with support from the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, he took over excavations at Dura-Europeas on the Euphrates. He published more than 600 papers, reviews, books, and essays.
[Obit.:
The Times
, 22 October 1952]

 
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Type of
QUERN
developed in late prehistoric times with a thick round stationary lower stone in which there is a socket for a spindle, and a hemispherical (beehive-shaped) rotating upper stone that sits over the lower stone. The two stones are held in register by the central spindle which also serves as a chute down which grain can be poured, so that it is taken between the stones near the centre of the quern and gradually moves outwards as it become finer in texture. A socket in the upper stone allows the insertion of a handle to make turning the quern easier. See also
BEEHIVE QUERN
.

 
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A large cave system in the Dordogne of southern France with occupation deposits in the entrance area dating to the period between 9000 and 8000 bc, the
SAUVETERRIAN
. In 1947 speleologists reported
MAGDALENIAN
cave paintings and engraved drawings of animals inside the cave, and in 1956 further panels were discovered. The images are dominated by over 100 illustrations of mammoths, which have caused some controversy because mammoths were believed to have been extinct in the area before the end of the Pleistocene.
[Rep.: L. R. Nougier and R. Romain , 1958,
The cave of Rouffignac
. London: G. Newnes]