Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (630 page)

Fine to medium-sized particles of between 2mm and 0.06mm across forming constituent components of natural and anthropogenic sediments and deposits.

 
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Style of middle Neolithic pottery found in Ireland and dated to between 3500 and 2500 bc. In 1961 Humphrey Case noted that the recurrent features of the style were the presence of round-bottomed in-turned bowls, the upper part of the vessel decorated from a very large repertoire, partiality having been shown towards impressions of twisted cord. Lugs are common and the fabrics generally rather sandy. Included within his category of Sandhills ware were four substyles: Sandhills Western, Goodland Bowls, Dundrum Bowls, and Murlough Bowls. More recently, Alison Sheridan has questioned the integrity of the Sandhills ware group, preferring instead a series of regional sequences with parallel developments in coarseware and fineware.

 
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Late Palaeo-Indian communities occupying southern California in the period 9000–8000 bc. They post-date local Clovis sites, and are characterized by the presence of leaf-shaped points/knives, choppers, scrapers, and hammerstones. The exploitation of coastland and marshland seems to have been important to these groups.

 
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Middle Palaeolithic, post-
ACHULIAN
, stoneworking industry found in equatorial and southeastern Africa, named after the type-site of Sango Bay on Lake Victoria, Uganda. The industry is characterized by light tools that include triangular-sectioned picks, scrapers, and core axes. However, few in situ assemblages have been found and the industry is extremely heterogeneous. Once seen as a technological response to wooded environments in the period around 100000 years ago, it is now seen as relating to communities exploiting dry relatively tree-free landscapes.

 
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Early farming village and ceremonial centre of the Formative (Pre-Classic) Stage situated in the Valley of Oaxaca. Investigated by Kent Flannery in the 1970s, the site appears to have developed after 1300 bc. Evidence of Olmec influence becomes apparent after
c.
900 bc when the settlement had grown to cover 20ha or more and probably served as the ceremonial centre for up to twenty surrounding villages. A carved stone monument of this period depicts a sacrificed captive whose heart seems to have been torn out. Finds suggest that the occupants were involved in the manufacture and exchange of magnetite mirrors and shell ornaments. By about 400 bc, San José Mogoté seems to have been overshadowed by the new ceremonial centre of Monte Albán.
[Sum.: J. Marcus and K. Flannery , 1996,
Zapotec civilization. How urban society evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley
. London: Thames & Hudson]

 
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Sankalia , Hasmukh D
(1908–89)
[Bi].

Indian archaeologist who built the Department of Archaeology at Deccan College. Born into a middle-class family in Bombay he studied Sanskrit for his first degree at Bombay University and Indian history and culture for his MA degree. In 1932 he completed a thesis on the ancient Buddhist educational establishment at Nalanda before spending some time in London where he took a doctorate in 1936 on the dynastic history of ancient monuments in Gujarat. During this time he worked for Sir Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle where he learnt the techniques of excavation. He was selected as professor of proto-Indian and ancient Indian history at Deccan College in Poona in 1939. Sankalia chaired the Department of Archaeology at Deccan until his retirement in 1973, building the reputation of the department and developing numerous programmes of survey and excavation in the region.
[Obit.:
American Anthropologist
, 92 (1990), 1006–10]