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| The auroch is the ancestor of domestic cattle; it was a type of large wild cattle that inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct. It survived in Europe until 1627. |
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| The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River. Discovered in 1994, it is considered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites. |
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| The species of bipedal primates to which modern humans belong, characterized by a brain capacity averaging 1400 cc (85 cubic in.) and by dependence upon language and the creation and utilization of complex tools. |
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| The subspecies of the genus Homo in which modern humans are classified. |
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| A combining form meaning “old” or “ancient,” especially in reference to former geologic time periods. |
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| A combining form meaning “new,” “recent,” “revived,” and “modified.” |
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| A combining form meaning “middle.” |
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| Before (the) Common (or Christian) Era. |
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| A member of an extinct subspecies of powerful, physically robust humans, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, that inhabited Europe and western and central Asia c100,000–40,000 BCE. |
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| An Upper Paleolithic population of humans, regarded as the prototype of modern Homo sapiens in Europe. Skeletal remains found in an Aurignacian cave in southern France indicate that the Cro-Magnon had long heads, broad faces, and sunken eyes, and reached a height of approximately 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm). |
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| A mental image of something previously experienced. |
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| Magic predicated on the belief that one thing or event can affect another at a distance as a consequence of a sympathetic connection between them. |
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| Pech Merle is a cave which opens onto a hillside at Cabrerets in the Lot département of the Midi-Pyrénées region in France, about 35 minutes by road east of Cahors. It is the home of one of the few prehistoric cave painting sites in France which remain open to the general public. Extending for more than a mile from the entrance are caverns the walls of which are painted with dramatic murals dating from the Gravettian culture (some 25,000 years B.C.) Some of the paintings and engravings, however, could date from the later Magdalenian era (16,000 years B.C.) |
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| A cave in Lascaux, France, discovered in 1940 and containing exceptionally fine Paleolithic wall paintings and engravings thought to date to Magdalenian times (c13,000–8500 b.c.). |
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| A convention of representation in which part of a figure is shown in profile and another part of the same figure is shown frontally; a composite view. |
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| A person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc. |
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| A person or thing that serves as a subject for an artist, sculptor, writer, etc. |
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| Sculptured relief in which volumes are strongly projected from the background. |
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| Art form that conveys power and speed. |
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| The horizontal timber or member at the top of a roof, to which the upper ends of the rafters are fastened. |
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| A form of wall construction consisting of upright posts or stakes interwoven with twigs or tree branches and plastered with a mixture of clay and straw. |
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| A material, such as straw, rushes, leaves, or the like, used to cover roofs, grain stacks, etc. |
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| In archaeology, the arrangement of artifacts or events in a sequence relative to one another but without ties calendrically measured time; the arrangement of artifacts in a typological sequence or seriation |
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| The determination of the age of an object with reference to a specific time scale, such as a fixed calendar or in years before present (BP), based on measurable physical or chemical qualities or associations with written records; also called chronometric dating. |
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| A method for estimating the age of a mineral or rock, based on measurement of the rate of decay of radioactive potassium into argon. |
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| Thermo-luminescence Dating |
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| A method of dating archaeological specimens, chiefly pottery, by measuring the radiation given off by ceramic materials as they are heated. |
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| A technique applicable to the wide variety of substances which exhibit paramagnetism because of the magnetic moments of unpaired electrons. The spectra are useful for detection and identification, for determination of electron structure, for study of interactions between molecules, and for measurement of nuclear spins and moments. Electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy is a variant of the technique which can give enhanced resolution. Electron spin resonance analysis can now be used in vivo, including imaging applications such as MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING. |
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| A bracket of stone, wood, brick, or other building material, projecting from the face of a wall and generally used to support a cornice or arch. |
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| A masonry roof constructed from opposite walls, or from a circular base, by shifting courses slightly and regularly inward until they meet. The resulting stepped surface can be smoothed or curved, but no arch action is incurred. |
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| The site of an excavated Neolithic village on Pomona in the Orkney Islands, dating from c2000 b.c. |
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| A structure consisting of vertical beams (posts) supporting a horizontal beam (lintel). |
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| A rather obsolete term once applied to the design of Neolithic long barrows, other types of chambered tombs, and related monuments that utilized megaliths in their construction. As variations in the form of the structures have been recognized and explored, less attention has been given to the techniques used in their construction. |
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| A structure usually regarded as a tomb, consisting of two or more large, upright stones set with a space between and capped by a horizontal stone. |
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| Topmost stone in a construction. |
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| A heap of stones set up as a landmark, monument, tombstone, etc. |
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| A megalithic tomb of the Neolithic and Copper or early Bronze ages found in the British Isles and Europe, consisting of a roofed burial chamber and narrow entrance passage covered by a round mound and containing human remains and funerary offerings. |
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| A prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England, consisting of a large circle of megaliths surrounding a smaller circle and four massive trilithons; dating to late Neolithic and early Bronze Age times (c1700–1200 b.c.) and believed to have been connected with a sun cult or used for astronomical observations. |
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| Weaving technique in which threads are intertwined and twisted to form mesh. |
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| A Neolithic monument of the British Isles, consisting of a circular area enclosed by a bank and ditch and often containing additional features including one or more circles of upright stone or wood pillars: probably used for ritual purposes or for marking astronomical events, as solstices and equinoxes. |
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| Any of numerous large sandstone blocks or fragments found in south-central England, probably remnants of eroded Tertiary beds. |
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| A prehistoric structure consisting of two upright stones supporting a horizontal stone. |
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| A joint made by inserting tenon, a projection formed on the end of a timber or the like for insertion into a mortise of the same dimension, on one piece into mortise, a notch, hole, groove, or slot made in a piece of wood or the like to receive a tenon of the same dimensions, holes in the other. |
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| The art or technology of making objects of clay and similar materials treated by firing. |
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| A furnace or oven for burning, baking, or drying something, especially one for firing pottery, calcining limestone, or baking bricks. |
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| A broken pottery fragment, especially one of archaeological value. |
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| A substance composed of two or more metals, or of a metal or metals with a nonmetal, intimately mixed, as by fusion or electrodeposition. |
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| Describing the branch of study concerned with the transition period between prehistory and the earliest recorded history. |
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| A trend in painting and sculpture in the twentieth century. Abstract art seeks to break away from traditional representation of physical objects. It explores the relationships of forms and colors, whereas more traditional art represents the world in recognizable images. |
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| Symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images. |
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