Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (754 page)

Communities who were the first occupants of the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia around 5000 bc and whose distinctive village settlements, buff-greenish pottery decorated with geometric designs, stone and metal tools, and agricultural economy lasted down to the beginnings of the
URUK PERIOD
around 4000 bc. The culture is named after the small tell of Al Ubaid, Iraq, partly excavated by
SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY
in 1922.

 
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Uhle , Max
(1856–1944)
[Bi].

German philologist turned archaeologist whose explorations of South American archaeology began in Peru in the 1850s. Uhle was the first to produce a general chronology for Peruvian archaeology based on detailed stratigraphic associations and sequences. He excavated at Pachamac, Tiahuanaco, and Cuzco, as well as numerous smaller sites. In 1941 Uhle published
Aztecs of Mexico
(New York: Doubleday).
[Bio.: J. H. Rowe , 1954, Max Uhle, 1856–1944: A memoir of the father of Peruvian archaeology.
University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology
, 46(1), 10–134]

 
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A period of time equal to 20 solar days in the Mayan
LONG COUNT
.

 
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Bishop to the Goths, who preached according to the doctrine of Arius (341–8). The subsequent conversion of the Goths to Arianism has been attributed to Ulfila's influence, but was probably the result of contacts in the Balkans after the Gothic entry to the empire in 376. Ulfila translated the Bible into the Gothic dialect.

 
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A trailing perennial herb (Ullucus tuberosum) native to the Andes of South America bearing fleshy tubers. Domesticated locally by
c.
8000 bc.

 
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Series of Irish tales relating the exploits of the king and warrior-heroes of Ulster in their struggle against other Irish kingdoms. The best known and longest of these tales is ‘
The Cattle Raid of Cooley
’, which concerns an expedition from Connaught to steal the famous bull of Cooley and the deeds of the champion of Ulster, Cúchulain, who, as a child prodigy, tragically chooses a valiant but short life.

 
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