process of constructing relative and absolute chronologies (see chronology; potassium-argon dating; radiocarbon dating).


debitage

The waste products (usually small chips) of the process of making stone tools, otherwise known as knapping.


decision theory

The means by which archaeologists seek to reconstruct processes of decision-making in the past.


deep culture history

A goal of many archaeologists who seek to establish the history of a particular culture (or place) by constructing sequences of events. Deep culture histories also have the goal of understanding the norms of specific prehistoric cultures.


dendrochronology

A dating technology using tree rings counted from logs found in archaeological contexts.


Dentate-stamped pottery

Pottery that has been stamped with a tool that produces toothlike notches in the surface of the fabric.


Developed Oldowan

East African stone industry dating from about 1.6 million years ago to about 600,000 years ago, a development of the earliest Oldowan industry first noted at Olduvai Gorge.


diachronic

Development (or change) through time.


diffusion, diffusionist

A process whereby ideas, artifacts, and other elements of the fabric of prehistoric societies and cultures are thought to have been transferred from one group to another. Diffusion is therefore thought by many culture historians to explain change and transformation in prehistoric cultures.


drift gravels

The deposits created by the movement of materials by glacial ice or meltwater.


ecofacts

Information about past plants and animals found on archaeological sites.


edaphic

Pertaining to the condition of soils on an archaeological site


elongated scalene

A small stone tool.


Emiran

A Levantine Upper Paleolithic industry.


end scrapers

A special class of stone tool made on a flake with thick working edge—in this case on the end of the flake.


Eneolithic

Chalcolithic or Copper Age.


eoliths

Pieces of chipped stone originally thought to be even older and simpler than the technologies of the Lower Paleolithic. Now considered to have been created by natural causes.


epigraphy

The study of ancient writing wither incised into or painted on stone, ceramic, or other hard surfaces.


Epipaleolithic

An intermediate stage between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.


ethnoarchaeology

The study of contemporary societies by archaeologists to gather information about the processes that may have led to the creation of the archaeological record. Ethnoarchaeology is used primarily to build models and to create inferences that can be used to understand prehistoric human behavior.


ethnogenesis

The process through which new ethnic groups come into being.


ethnographic distributions

The distributions of specific tribes or bands in space and time.


ethnography

The study of human beings by observers who participate in the lives of the people they are studying.


facet, faceting

Literally meaning one side of a multisided object, a term used by archaeologists to describe the surfaces of stone tools and the processes involved in their manufacture.


facies

A part of the stratigraphy of a particular site that can be meaningfully distinguished from the whole.


Fauresmith

An early term for late Acheulean assemblages from interior southern Africa.


field school

Programs operated by many university departments of archaeology to provide hands-on training in excavation and survey to their students.


find context

A detailed description of the specific information related to a particular group of artifacts.


flake

A thin slice or fragment of stone that has been removed from a core during the process of stone tool manufacture (knapping). Flakes can either be waste products (see debitage) or deliberately produced as the basis of tools themselves (after further working or retouching). Archaeologists seek to understand the process of stone tool manufacture by refitting flakes in a way that allows a reconstruction (in reverse order) of the reduction sequence (process of manufacture).


flexed burial

An interment where the corpse is buried with its knees bent (usually lying on its side).


foliates

Leaf-shaped stone tools.