Understanding the words
Scientific terms explained simply. Underlined words in articles link here.
No term found.
‘Bad death’
An archaeological concept for the funerary treatment of those who die violently or outside social norms: denial of the usual rites, deposition apart from the community, sometimes as a warning.
‘Wild Fauna’ style
The earliest style of Saharan rock art, marked by large animal figures cut in deep relief with flint tools.
4.2-kiloyear event
An abrupt climatic aridification around 2200 BC (~4,200 years ago), marked by prolonged droughts; it marks the start of the Meghalayan Age of the Holocene.
Abydos
A sacred site in Upper Egypt, necropolis of the earliest kings (Umm el-Qaab) and a major centre of the cult of Osiris.
Acheulean
A stone-tool industry (c. 1.7 Ma–300,000 BP) characterised by large, finely worked almond-shaped bifaces. Associated with Homo ergaster and erectus and spread from Africa to Europe and Asia.
Acheulean
Lower Palaeolithic technical culture characterised by hand axes, present across three continents.
Aeolianite
Rock formed by the cementation of ancient coastal sand dunes. On South Africa's Cape south coast, these dune sandstones preserve the footprints of Homo sapiens.
Africa
The cradle of humankind: the continent where the first hominins appeared, then Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago, before the expansion to the rest of the world.
Agriculture
The cultivation of plants and production of food by working the soil, which emerged in the Neolithic in the Near East and independently elsewhere; it radically transformed human societies.
Akhenaten
A pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty (reigned c. 1353-1336 BCE), author of a religious revolution imposing the exclusive cult of the solar disc Aten and founder of the capital of Amarna.
Amarna
A site in Middle Egypt (Tell el-Amarna), location of Akhetaten, the capital founded by Akhenaten and then abandoned; a major New Kingdom archaeological site.
Ammoglyph
Pattern or trace left intentionally or not by humans in sand (drawings, alignments, marks), preserved after the dune cemented. Term coined by researchers on the Cape coast.
Amurru
A Late Bronze Age kingdom in what is now coastal Lebanon/Syria, vassal at times of Egypt, at times of Hatti, linked to Ugarit by royal marriages.
Ancient buffalo (Bubalus antiquus)
A large, long-horned wild buffalo, now extinct, that roamed the green Sahara and features among the animals of the Wild Fauna style.
Ancient DNA
Genetic material preserved in old remains, often degraded, sequenced with cutting-edge techniques.
Archaeomagnetism
Dating based on the magnetism frozen into fired materials (pottery, hearths), which record Earth's magnetic field as they cool.
Archaic
Refers to an ancient, now-extinct human population or form (Neanderthals, Denisovans, ghost lineages), as opposed to anatomically modern humans.
Atapuerca
A complex of archaeological sites in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), a UNESCO site, yielding an exceptional sequence of human fossils, including the Sima de los Huesos and Homo antecessor.
Aten
The divinized solar disc, sole object of worship under Akhenaten, shown as a sun whose rays end in hands offering the sign of life.
atlatl
A spear-thrower, a hooked stick that extends the hunter's arm and increases a dart's range, used before the adoption of the bow.
Aurignacian
The earliest culture of the European Upper Palaeolithic (c. 43,000–33,000 BC), tied to the arrival of Homo sapiens and the first artworks.
Australopithecine
A genus of bipedal hominins from Africa (c. 4.2–1.9 Ma) with a brain still close to that of great apes (400–550 cm³) but walking upright. Lucy (<em>Au. afarensis</em>) is the most famous specimen.
Basketmaker
The earliest phases of Ancestral Puebloan culture (from about 1500 BC), marked by basketry, spear-thrower hunting and the gradual adoption of maize.
Beringia
A vast land bridge emergent between Siberia and Alaska during the last glaciation, at the site of today's Bering Strait; a cold steppe through which the first Americans passed.
biface
A stone tool knapped on both faces to obtain a regular shape and cutting edges.
Bipedalism
A mode of locomotion on two hind limbs, the defining trait of the human lineage, appearing over 7 million years ago. Visible in the anatomy of the pelvis, femur and foramen magnum.
Black-topped ware
Red pottery with a blackened rim and top, typical of the Naqada cultures; frequently placed in Predynastic graves.
Bladelet
A small flint blade, often under a centimetre wide, used as a projectile armature or tool in the Upper Palaeolithic.
Bottleneck
A sharp, temporary reduction in a population's size that lastingly impoverishes its genetic diversity.
Bronze Age
A protohistoric period following the Neolithic, defined by bronze metallurgy (a copper-tin alloy) and the rise of the first cities and states; in Egypt it corresponds to the age of the first pyramids.
Burial
The intentional deposition of a body, sometimes with offerings; a marker of symbolic behaviour.
Cairn
A human-made mound of stones, often raised over a burial chamber (chambered cairn) or used as a marker; common across the British Isles from the Neolithic to the Iron Age.
Calanque
A narrow, steep-sided inlet carved into limestone, characteristic of the Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Cassis. Cosquer Cave opens beneath the sea in this calanque landscape.
Caldera
A large circular depression formed by the collapse of the roof of a magma chamber emptied during a major eruption. The Toba caldera, now filled by a lake, measures about 100 km by 30 km.
Cave (parietal) art
Art made on the walls of caves and shelters (paintings, engravings), as opposed to portable art.
Celts
A set of Iron Age peoples sharing related languages and cultures, spread from central Europe to the Atlantic.
Chalcolithic
The "Copper Age": a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, marked by the first copper objects (Ötzi's era).
Chariot burial
A protohistoric elite grave containing a chariot (two or four wheels), a marker of rank among the Celts.
Châtelperronian
A transitional material culture (c. 45,000-40,000 years ago) straddling the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in France and northern Spain; curved-backed knives and, at the Grotte du Renne at Arcy, ornaments and bone tools attributed to Neanderthals.
Chiefdom
A hierarchical social organization led by a chief, controlling redistribution and exchange, without a formed state.
Chitin
A rigid molecule forming the exoskeleton of insects; digesting it requires specific enzymes.
Climate
The long-term average atmospheric conditions of a region; its variations (glaciations, aridifications) shaped migrations, agriculture and the collapse of prehistoric societies.
Clovis
A Palaeoindian culture of North America (c. 13,000 years ago), recognizable by its fluted stone points; long believed the oldest on the continent, no longer so.
Coprolite
A fossilized excrement; it can preserve DNA and food remains, valuable for dating and identifying its makers.
Corbelling
A vaulting technique in which successive stone courses project progressively inward until they meet at the top, without centring or mortar. Used at Newgrange, Mycenae and many Neolithic tombs.
Craniosynostosis
Premature fusion of an infant's skull sutures, distorting growth and potentially impairing brain development.
Cucuteni-Trypillia
A vast Eneolithic culture of south-eastern Europe (c. 5000–3000 BC), spread across Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. Famous for its spiral-painted pottery, its figurines and its huge settlements of several thousand inhabitants, sometimes cyclically burned and rebuilt.
Cuneiform
The oldest known writing, born at Uruk; its signs, impressed into clay with a reed stylus, are wedge-shaped (from Latin cuneus).
Decipherment
The reconstruction of the meaning and value of the signs of an unknown script, often from bilingual texts, repeated proper names or statistical regularities.
Denisovan
An extinct human population, cousin of the Neanderthals, identified in 2010 from the DNA of remains in Denisova Cave (Siberia).
digging stick
Pointed wooden tool used to dig the ground to extract roots, tubers or small animals.
DNA
The molecule carrying genetic information, used to reconstruct kinship between species.
DNA metabarcoding
A method that identifies, en masse, the species present in a sample (sediment, bone) from short DNA markers, without isolating each organism.
Dolmen
A megalithic funerary structure made of one or more capstones resting on vertical uprights, often topped by an earth tumulus. From Breton dol (table) and men (stone).
Dowry
The property a bride brings into a marriage; in the ancient Near East its return upon divorce was governed by precise clauses, here between two royal houses.
Early Dynastic (Thinite) period
Egypt's first two dynasties (c. 3100 to 2700 BCE), named after Thinis, with the royal tombs of Abydos; the hinge between the Predynastic and the Old Kingdom.
Ebla
A Bronze Age city-kingdom (Tell Mardikh, Syria) whose Eblaite archives, discovered in 1975, revealed a highly developed administration and trade.
Eclipse
The passing of one celestial body into the shadow of another, for instance the Moon hiding the Sun or the Earth casting its shadow on the Moon.
Ecological niche modelling
A method reconstructing the environments favourable to a species (climate, terrain) to map where it could have lived or met another.
Elam
An ancient civilisation of south-western Iran, centred on Susa and Anshan, neighbour and rival of Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC.
Eneolithic
The "Stone-and-Copper Age": a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age (c. 5000–3000 BC in south-eastern Europe), marked by the first copper objects, large farming settlements and, in places, the rise of fortified sites. Broadly synonymous with Chalcolithic.
Environmental DNA
DNA shed by organisms into their surroundings (soil, sediment, water, rock wall) and recoverable without any identifiable bodily remains.
EPAS1 gene
A gene regulating the response to low oxygen; a variant inherited from Denisovans helps Tibetans live at high altitude.
ex-voto
An offering placed in a sanctuary to obtain a favour from a deity or to give thanks, often depicting the body part to be healed.
fairy chimneys
Columns of tuff capped with a block of harder rock, sculpted by differential erosion in the Cappadocian landscape.
Felt
A non-woven fabric made by pressing and matting wool fibres; steppe nomads used it for rugs, saddles and appliqués, remarkably preserved in the frozen Pazyryk tombs.
Fertile Crescent
An arc-shaped region of the Near East (Levant, Mesopotamia) where farming and herding first emerged.
Finger-fluting
A pattern made by dragging the fingers across a soft cave wall; a form of graphic expression attested for Neanderthals.
First Intermediate Period
A phase of political fragmentation in Egypt (c. 2181-2055 BC) between the Old and Middle Kingdoms: eclipse of royal power, autonomy of nomarchs, Herakleopolis-Thebes rivalry.
Flint
A hard, brittle siliceous rock, knapped by prehistoric people to produce blades, points and sharp tools.
Fontainebleau sandstone
A very hard sandy rock of the Paris basin, forming rocky chaos and shelters; a support for prehistoric engravings around Fontainebleau.
Foramen magnum
The opening at the base of the skull through which the spinal cord connects to the brain. Its position (rear → forward) is a bipedalism indicator: placed beneath the skull in bipeds, at the rear in quadrupeds.
Four Corners
Region of the American Southwest where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet, the cradle of Ancestral Puebloan culture.
Fresco
A term used by extension for large painted compositions on the walls of decorated caves, although the technique differs from the classical mural fresco.
Gauls
Celtic peoples settled in Gaul (France, Belgium and neighbouring regions) during the second Iron Age, before their integration into the Roman Empire.
gelotology
The scientific study of laughter and its physiological and social mechanisms.
Geophysical survey
Techniques (magnetometry, radar) detecting buried structures underground without digging, by measuring physical anomalies.
Ghost lineage
An ancient human population known only by the trace it left in the genomes of present-day populations, without any confirming fossil.
Goldsmithing
The art of working precious metals (gold, silver) into jewellery, vessels and ornaments; the Maikop kurgans are among the earliest evidence of elite goldsmithing.
Gravette point
A flint point with a straight blunted back, weapon and index fossil of the Gravettian, named after the type-site of La Gravette (Dordogne).
Gravettian
An Upper Palaeolithic culture (c. 33,000–21,000 BC) famous for its female figurines, the "Venuses".
Gravettian
An Upper Palaeolithic culture (c. 33,000–21,000 BC) spanning from the Atlantic to Siberia, famous for its ivory female figurines ("Venuses") and, at Dolní Věstonice, the oldest fired ceramics.
great apes
The family of great apes (Hominidae) comprising orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans.
great house
A large multi-story monumental complex, such as Pueblo Bonito, typical of the Chaco Canyon ceremonial center.
Green Sahara
A name for the Sahara during the "African Humid Period" (c. 14,500 to 5,000 years ago), when increased monsoon rainfall sustained lakes, rivers and savannas, making the region habitable before its gradual desiccation.
Grooved Ware
Neolithic flat-based, straight-walled pottery decorated with incised grooves and geometric patterns, first appearing in Orkney and later spreading across Britain.
Harappa
A major city of the Indus Civilization, in the Pakistani Punjab, the first site excavated and the one that gave the Harappan culture its name.
Harappan
Pertaining to the Indus Civilisation, named after its first excavated site, Harappa (Pakistani Punjab); refers to the material culture, script and people of that civilisation.
Harappan seal
A small steatite stamp engraved with animals (often a 'unicorn') and signs, probably used for trade and identification; an emblem of the Indus Civilization.
Harpoon
A hunting and fishing weapon of reindeer antler or bone, fitted with barbs; an emblematic Magdalenian object whose forms help date archaeological layers.
henge
A Neolithic circular enclosure bounded by a ditch and bank, often associated with standing stones.
Hieroglyph
A sign of the sacred Egyptian script, at once figurative and phonetic, carved or painted on monuments and in tombs.
Hillfort
A fortified hilltop site of European protohistory, ringed by banks and ditches; some very large ones gather settlement and craft.
Hittite empire
A great Anatolian power of the Late Bronze Age, centred on Hattusha; in the 13th century BCE its great kings arbitrated the affairs of their Syrian vassal kingdoms.
Hittites
Bronze Age people who founded a powerful empire in central Anatolia in the 2nd millennium BC, skilled in rock-cut architecture and defence.
Hoard
A set of deliberately buried objects: a metal reserve, hoarding or offering; common in the Bronze Age.
Holocene
The current geological epoch, begun about 11,700 years ago at the end of the last ice age; the setting of all post-glacial history.
Hominin
A member of the human lineage in the broad sense, including modern humans, their ancestors and related great apes.
Hominin
Member of the subtribe Hominina, comprising the human lineage (Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus…) but excluding orangutans and gibbons. The term progressively replaces "hominid" in its narrow sense.
Homo heidelbergensis
Middle Pleistocene human species, often seen as the common ancestor of Neanderthals and our own species.
Homo sapiens
The present-day human species, which emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, the only surviving human lineage after the extinction of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
homology
A similarity between two traits that descend from the same character present in a common ancestor.
Hunter-gatherers
A way of life based on hunting, fishing and gathering wild resources, without farming or herding; it dominated almost the whole of human history.
Hybridisation
Crossing between two distinct species or lineages, such as Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, leaving a trace in the genome.
Hydroxyproline
An amino acid abundant in collagen, isolated to obtain a very pure radiocarbon date from degraded bones.
Iberian culture
A set of Iron Age cultures in southern and eastern Iberia (6th to 1st century BCE): fortified towns, writing, sculpture and cremation burial.
Iberomaurusian
A Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer culture of north-western Africa (c. 25,000 to 11,000 years ago), best known from Taforalt (Morocco) and for a stone industry of small retouched bladelets.
Ice-free corridor
An inland passage between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, open and viable only around 14,000-13,000 years ago, too late for the earliest arrivals.
Idol
A figurine, often of clay, depicting a figure (frequently female) or a deity; abundant in Neolithic and Eneolithic cultures such as Cucuteni-Trypillia.
ignimbrite
Compact volcanic rock formed from pyroclastic flows, harder than tuff, forming the protective caps of the fairy chimneys.
Indo-Europeans
A set of populations linked by a language family (Indo-European) from which most languages of Europe and part of Asia derive; their spread is associated with Bronze Age steppe societies.
Indus Civilisation
A major Bronze Age urban civilisation (c. 2600-1900 BC) across present-day Pakistan and north-west India: planned cities (Harappa, Mohenjo-daro), standardised bricks, undeciphered script, no monumental palaces.
Indus script
A system of about 400 signs engraved on Harappan seals, tablets and pottery, undeciphered to date for lack of a bilingual text.
Insular dwarfism
Reduction in the body size of an animal species due to island isolation, where resources are limited and predators absent. Explains the small stature of Homo floresiensis.
Interbreeding
Genetic mixing between human populations or species; between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens it left 1 to 2% of Neanderthal DNA in non-Africans.
Interstadial
A relatively mild episode within a glacial period, shorter and less pronounced than an interglacial.
Introgression
The lasting transfer of DNA segments from one population or species into another through repeated interbreeding, detectable in genomes long afterwards.
Iron Age
The last period of protohistory (from c. 1200 BC in Europe and the Near East), marked by iron metallurgy and the first kingdoms.
Karst
A limestone landscape shaped by rock dissolution, rich in caves and passages; its sediments can preserve bone and DNA over long timespans.
Kerbstone
A large stone slab delimiting the base of a megalithic mound, often engraved with geometric motifs. The K1 at Newgrange is the most famous.
kiva
A circular, half-buried ceremonial chamber entered from the roof, used for rituals and gatherings in Pueblo communities.
knapping
The set of operations for fracturing a stone block to extract flakes or blades.
Kurgan
A burial mound of the Eurasian steppes, of earth and stone over a timber chamber holding a high-status individual and grave goods.
La Tène
The European second Iron Age (c. 450-50 BC), named after a Swiss site; the Celtic apogee, curvilinear art, oppida and coinage.
Last Glacial Maximum
The peak of the last glaciation (c. 26,000 to 19,000 years ago), with ice sheets at their greatest extent; it pushed populations towards southern refuges.
Late Bronze Age
The final phase of the Bronze Age in the Near East (c. 1550 to 1200 BCE), an age of great empires and international diplomacy, ended by a general collapse.
lead sling bullet
A lead sling projectile cast in an acorn (biconical) shape, often engraved with inscriptions; in Latin glans, glandes plumbeae.
Levallois technique
A Middle Palaeolithic flint-knapping method: a core is prepared so a flake of predetermined shape can be struck off in one blow; a hallmark of Neanderthal skill.
Levant
A region of the eastern Mediterranean Near East (Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), a major crossroads of the first human migrations out of Africa.
LiDAR
Laser-based remote sensing (from "Light Detection And Ranging"): a sensor fires light pulses and measures the echo's return time to map a surface in three dimensions. Mounted on a plane or a drone, it slips through gaps in the canopy and reconstructs the bare-earth relief, revealing structures invisible beneath vegetation.
Linear Elamite
A script of Elam (Iran), used around 2300 BC, partly syllabic, long undeciphered and cracked in the 2010s-2020s thanks to repetitive royal inscriptions.
Linear Pottery (LBK)
The first Neolithic of Central Europe (c. 5600-4700 BC), named after the incised bands of its pottery; the Danubian current spreading farming along the rivers.
Lingones
A Gaulish people of the Langres plateau and present-day Burgundy, on whose territory the sanctuary of the sources of the Seine stands.
LMLK
A type of royal seal impression (four palaeo-Hebrew letters meaning "to/of the king", la-melekh) stamped on the handles of storage jars from the Kingdom of Judah in the 8th-7th centuries BC, as part of an administrative and taxation system.
Lower Palaeolithic
First and longest period of prehistory, marked by the earliest knapped stone tools and the first hominins outside Africa.
Luminescence (OSL)
Optically stimulated luminescence dating: measures the last exposure of sediment grains to light.
Luminescence dating
A method dating the last heating or light exposure of sediments and minerals by measuring energy trapped in the crystal.
Magdalenian
The last great Upper Palaeolithic culture (c. 17,000–12,000 BC), the peak of cave art (Lascaux).
Mammoth ivory
Mammoth tusk worked by Palaeolithic craftspeople to carve figurines, beads, points and ornaments.
Mammoth steppe
A vast cold, dry steppe-tundra ecosystem covering glacial Eurasia, home to mammoths, woolly rhinos, reindeer, horses and bison.
Marathousa 1
Open-air Palaeolithic site in the Megalopolis basin, Greece, on the shore of an ancient lake, where the oldest handheld wooden tools were found.
Mari
A city on the Euphrates (Tell Hariri, Syria) founded around 2900 BCE, one of the first planned cities, famed for the palace of Zimri-Lim and its cuneiform archives.
Mastaba
An early Egyptian flat-roofed tomb with sloping sides, the architectural ancestor of the pyramid.
maximum parsimony
A methodological principle favouring the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions.
Megafauna
The very large animals (mammoths, giant ground sloths, etc.) of the Pleistocene, most of which became extinct at the end of the last ice age.
Megalith
A large stone raised or assembled by humans (menhir, dolmen, stone circle), typical of the Neolithic and Bronze Age.
Megasite
A very large prehistoric settlement of several hundred hectares and thousands of inhabitants, such as the Trypillian sites of Talianki or Maidanetske, organised in concentric rings of houses.
Meluhha
The name given in Mesopotamian texts to a distant land, which most specialists identify with the Indus Civilization, a trading partner of Sumer.
Menhir
A stone erected vertically by humans, standing alone or in rows (alignments), emblem of the Breton Neolithic megalithic tradition. From Breton men (stone) and hir (long).
Mesolithic
The period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic (c. 10,000–6,000 BC in Europe), still based on hunting and gathering.
Messak
A sandstone plateau in Libya's Fezzan (Messak Settafet and Messak Mellet), among the richest concentrations of rock engravings in the Sahara.
Metallurgy
The techniques of extracting and working metals (copper, bronze, gold); its rise in the Eneolithic and Bronze Age transformed tools, weapons and social hierarchies.
Metonic cycle
A period of 19 years after which the phases of the Moon fall again on the same dates of the solar calendar.
Microlith
A very small chipped-stone tool (a few millimetres to 2-3 cm), often mounted in series on a shaft; emblematic of the Mesolithic.
midden
A mound of accumulated domestic refuse, used in Orkney as insulating material around dwellings.
Middle Palaeolithic
A Palaeolithic period (c. 300,000 to 40,000 years ago) associated mainly with Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, marked by Levallois tools.
Middle Pleistocene
Geological subperiod (about 770,000 to 126,000 years ago) marked by growing behavioural complexity among hominins.
Middle Stone Age
A long phase of African prehistory (c. 300,000 to 40,000 years ago), the African equivalent of the Middle Palaeolithic, marked by the rise of symbolic behaviour.
Migrations
Long-distance movements of populations; a major driver of human history (the exit from Africa, the peopling of continents, Neolithic and steppe expansions).
Mohenjo-daro
One of the largest cities of the Indus Civilization (Sindh, Pakistan), famed for its Great Bath and grid layout; a World Heritage site.
Monolatry / monotheism
The exclusive worship of a single god; Akhenaten's reform, centred on the Aten, is often cited as the earliest documented attempt of this kind.
Mosaic morphology
The combination, in a single organism, of primitive and derived anatomical traits, as if the body assembled parts of different ages.
Mousterian
The stone-tool industry typical of Neanderthals, based on the Levallois flaking technique.
Mummy
A body preserved from decay, naturally (cold, aridity, peat) or artificially; the frozen Pazyryk kurgans yielded natural mummies with tattooed skin.
Naqada culture
Predynastic cultures of Upper Egypt (c. 4000 to 3100 BCE), divided into Naqada I, II and III phases, that paved the way for unification and the pharaonic state.
Natufian
An Epipalaeolithic culture of the Levant (c. 12,500–9,500 BC) that preceded farming: its populations harvested wild grains and lived in semi-permanent villages. Direct precursors of the Neolithic.
Natufian
A culture of semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers of the Levant (c. 12,500-9,500 BC) harvesting wild cereals and building the first round houses; it prepares the Neolithic.
Natural mummification
The preservation of a body without deliberate human embalming, brought about by ambient conditions such as extreme dryness, cold or lack of oxygen that slow the decay of soft tissues.
Neanderthals
A fossil humanity of Eurasia, robust and cold-adapted, extinct around 40,000 years before present.
Near East
A region of western Asia (Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran), cradle of the Neolithic revolution, agriculture, the first cities and writing.
Necropolis
A large organised burial ground, a "city of the dead", often spanning several periods.
Nefertiti
The great royal wife of Akhenaten, a central figure of the Amarna period; her painted bust, held in Berlin, is one of the most famous faces of antiquity.
Neolithic
The "New Stone Age": a period marked by farming, herding, settlement and pottery, from around 10,000 BC.
Neolithic revolution
The shift from hunter-gatherer societies to farming and settled life (c. 10,000 BCE in the Near East), giving rise to villages and then cities.
Nomad
Refers to human groups without fixed dwellings, moving with their herds through the seasons; pastoral nomadism shaped the societies of the Eurasian steppes.
Nomarch
The governor of a province (nome) of ancient Egypt; first appointed by the pharaoh, the nomarch became a hereditary, autonomous dignitary rivalling central power at the end of the Old Kingdom.
Ochre
A red or yellow mineral pigment (iron oxides), used from prehistory for adornment, funerary rites and art.
Old Kingdom
The first great period of unified pharaonic Egypt (c. 2700-2200 BC, 3rd-6th Dynasties), the golden age of the great pyramids and of a strongly centralised state.
Oldowan
The oldest known stone-tool industry (c. 3.3–1.7 Ma), characterised by flaked pebbles (choppers) and basic flakes. Named after Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania).
operational sequence
Ordered succession of technical steps leading from raw material to finished object.
Oppidum
A large fortified settlement of late Iron Age Celtic Europe, set on high ground and walled; the first form of town north of the Mediterranean.
Oretani
An Iberian Iron Age people occupying Oretania, in the southern Spanish Meseta (modern Ciudad Real and Jaén provinces), before the Roman conquest.
Out of Africa
The dispersals of Homo sapiens out of Africa, including a major expansion c. 70,000 to 60,000 years ago and earlier exits.
Pacific coastal route
The hypothesis of a migration along the deglaciated Pacific coast (the 'kelp highway'), exploiting marine resources; favoured for the earliest arrivals.
Palaeoanthropology
The science that studies human evolution from the fossil remains of hominins (bones, teeth, footprints) and their context, to reconstruct our biological origins.
Palaeoecology
The study of past ecosystems and their relations with the environment, reconstructed from fossils, DNA and sediments.
Palaeogenetics
The study of ancient DNA extracted from remains (bones, teeth, sediments, walls) to reconstruct the past of populations.
Palaeogenomics
The study of ancient genomes from DNA preserved in bones, teeth or sediments, to trace evolution and lineages.
Palaeoindian
Refers to the earliest human cultures of the Americas at the end of the Pleistocene, big-game hunters, including Clovis and Folsom.
Palaeolithic
The oldest and longest period of prehistory (c. 3.3 Ma–12,000 BC), defined by chipped stone tools and a hunter-gatherer way of life.
Palaeolithic Venus
A small carved female figurine (stone, ivory, fired clay) of the Upper Palaeolithic, often with accentuated forms; their meaning (fertility, status, ritual) remains debated.
Palaeopathology
The study of diseases, injuries and trauma on ancient human or animal remains.
Palaeoproteomics
The study of ancient proteins preserved in fossils (bone, tooth enamel); can reveal species or sex when DNA is gone.
Palmyra
An oasis and caravan city in the Syrian desert, prosperous in the first centuries CE; a crossroads between Rome and the East, home of Queen Zenobia.
Pastoralism
A way of life based on herding livestock (cattle, sheep, goats), often mobile, which spread across the Green Sahara and, in that region, preceded farming proper.
Peat
A waterlogged organic soil formed by accumulated plants; it seals and remarkably preserves wood and ancient remains.
Peopling of the Americas
The migration of the first modern humans into the Americas from Asia via Beringia, long dated to around 13,000 years ago (the "Clovis first" model) but pushed back beyond 20,000 years by sites such as White Sands.
Peopling of the Americas
The migrations that led Homo sapiens to occupy the American continent, from Beringia; its date and routes remain debated.
Permafrost
Permanently frozen ground; in the Altai, water seeping into kurgans froze into ice lenses that preserved bodies, textiles and wood for millennia.
Petroglyph
An engraving made on a rock surface by pecking, incising or abrading, as opposed to rock painting; a form of prehistoric art found on every continent.
Pharaoh
The title of the ruler of ancient Egypt, regarded as a living god guaranteeing cosmic order (Maat), supreme head of state, army and worship.
Phoenicians
A people of sailors and traders from the Levant (modern Lebanon) who founded trading posts across the western Mediterranean from the start of the first millennium BC.
Phrygians
Indo-European people settled in central Anatolia after the fall of the Hittites, dominant in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, known for their rock-cut architecture and King Midas.
phylogenetics
The study of evolutionary kinship among species, often represented as a branching tree.
Plastered skulls
Human skulls whose face was remodelled in lime plaster, sometimes with shells for eyes; a Neolithic funerary practice linked to ancestor worship.
play panting
The panting, staccato vocalisation apes make during play, regarded as the ancestor of laughter.
Pleistocene
The geological epoch of the great ice ages (c. 2.6 Ma–11,700 BP), spanning most of human prehistory.
Plesiomorphic
Describes an ancestral (primitive) anatomical character inherited from a common ancestor, as opposed to recent derived traits.
Pliocene
A geological epoch spanning roughly 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago, the last subdivision of the Neogene. It was during the Pliocene, in an East Africa undergoing cooling and forest fragmentation, that the first fully bipedal australopithecines such as Lucy (~3.2 Ma) evolved.
Population structure
The organisation of a species into partly isolated subgroups that exchange genes irregularly; the 'structured stem' model describes the origin of Homo sapiens this way.
Portable art
Transportable art objects (figurines, engravings on bone or ivory), such as the Palaeolithic Venuses.
Pre-Clovis
A set of American sites older than Clovis (Monte Verde, Cooper's Ferry, etc.) that overturned the 'Clovis first' model.
Pre-Neanderthal
Middle Pleistocene human populations (c. 300,000 to 130,000 years ago) already showing incipient Neanderthal traits, at the hinge between Homo heidelbergensis/erectus and classic Neanderthals.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic
The first phase of the Neolithic (c. 9,600–6,900 BC), before the invention of pottery.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)
The first phase of the Near Eastern Neolithic (c. 9,600–8,800 BC), predating pottery; at Jericho it corresponds to the construction of the tower and enclosure wall.
Predynastic
The period of Egypt before unification (c. 3100 BCE) and the First Dynasty, marked by the Naqada cultures and the gradual emergence of the state.
Prehistory
The span of human history before the invention of writing, from the Palaeolithic to the Metal Ages, known mainly through material remains.
pressure flaking
A finishing technique that detaches thin flakes by pressing with a tool, without percussion.
Proto-city
A very large settlement predating true cities, lacking certain urban features (state, writing, high density), whose status as a 'city' is debated, such as the Trypillian megasites.
Proto-Elamite
The oldest writing of Iran (c. 3300 BC), still largely undeciphered, contemporary with Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform but distinct from it.
Proto-map
A figurative representation of a territory predating maps in the modern sense; at Ségognole, a shaped floor evoking valleys and water flows.
Proto-urban
Refers to a large agglomerated centre with urban features (density, craft, communal functions) without being a city in the classical sense.
Proto-writing
Notation systems preceding true writing (tokens, clay envelopes) that encode information without yet transcribing language.
Protohistory
The transitional period between prehistory and history, covering societies without their own writing but known through external texts.
Pueblo
Spanish word for "village", used for the adjoined stone-room dwellings of the Southwest and, by extension, the peoples who live in them.
Qafzeh
A cave in Lower Galilee (Israel) yielding Homo sapiens and some of the oldest known burials outside Africa.
Radiocarbon (carbon-14)
A dating method based on the decay of carbon-14, usable back to about 50,000 years.
Red deer (Cervus elaphus)
A large European deer whose males bear branching antlers renewed each year; the antlers, both raw material and symbol, feature in many proto-historic ritual deposits.
Rescue archaeology
Archaeology triggered by development works (roads, railways, buildings) to study and record remains threatened with destruction before construction; in France it is carried out notably by Inrap.
Rhesus factor
A blood-group system; a Rhesus mismatch between mother and fetus can cause haemolytic disease of the newborn.
Rock shelter
A shallow cavity at the foot of a cliff or under a rocky overhang, offering natural shelter; a favoured site of prehistoric habitation and rock art.
Roman Republic
The political system of Rome from 509 to 27 BC, led by elected magistrates and the Senate, before the founding of the Empire.
Saalian
The penultimate major glacial period of the Pleistocene in northern Europe (c. 300,000 to 130,000 years ago), with a cold, steppe climate; the Biache-Saint-Vaast Neanderthals lived during it.
Saharan rock art
The body of prehistoric engravings and paintings across the Sahara, grouped into major stylistic phases (Wild Fauna, Cattle, Horse, Camel) from the Neolithic to antiquity.
Sahul
The continent formed during the ice ages by the union of Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania when sea levels were low.
Saros cycle
A period of 223 lunar months, about 18 years, after which eclipses recur in an almost identical configuration.
Sarsen
A block of very hard silicified sandstone, the remnant of a Cenozoic sedimentary cover scattered across the chalk of southern England. The largest Stonehenge stones are sarsens from West Woods, in Wiltshire.
Schöningen
German site that yielded eight wooden throwing spears about 300,000 years old, among the oldest known wooden weapons.
Scythians
Nomadic horse peoples of the Eurasian steppes (1st millennium BC), known for animal-style art, goldwork and kurgan burials; the Pazyryk culture is an eastern expression of them.
Seal
A small engraved object (often steatite) used to stamp a mark in clay; the Indus seals, bearing animals and signs, attest to administration and trade, though their script remains undeciphered.
Sedentism
The shift from a nomadic life to lasting settlement in one place, a precondition for the rise of villages.
Sequencing
Reading the order of the bases (A, T, G, C) of a DNA molecule; high-throughput sequencing reads millions of fragments in parallel.
Shamanism
A set of beliefs and ritual practices based on communication between the living and a spirit world, mediated by a practitioner (the shaman) entering a trance state. The shamanic hypothesis has been proposed to interpret part of Palaeolithic parietal art.
Sima de los Huesos
A natural shaft at Atapuerca (Spain) that yielded over 6,500 bones of at least 29 Homo heidelbergensis individuals dated to −430,000: the largest Middle Pleistocene human fossil assemblage.
sling
A throwing weapon made of a leather or fibre strap whose pouch, loaded with a projectile, is whirled and released at high speed.
Solutrean
A European Upper Palaeolithic culture (c. 22,000–17,000 BC), remarkable for its leaf-shaped lithic points worked with flat retouch. Contemporary with the second art phase of Cosquer Cave.
Speleofact
A human-made arrangement of cave formations (broken, positioned stalagmites), as at Bruniquel.
Stable isotopes
Non-radioactive forms of an element (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen) whose ratios in bone and teeth reveal an individual's diet, mobility and geographic origin.
Stalagmite
A calcite formation rising from a cave floor by drip-by-drip deposition; its slow growth allows precise dating.
stem
The narrowed base of a point, used to haft it onto a shaft or handle.
Step pyramid
Egypt's first great stone monument, raised for King Djoser at Saqqara by Imhotep (Third Dynasty), by stacking diminishing mastabas.
Steppe
A vast semi-arid, treeless grassland of Eurasia, suited to nomadic herding and the horse; a corridor for the movement of peoples and technologies in later prehistory.
Steppe ancestry
A genetic component derived from the pastoralists of the Pontic steppes (Yamnaya and related cultures) spreading across Europe and Asia in the Bronze Age; its absence in the Harappan individual from Rakhigarhi reopened debates on South Asian peopling.
Still Bay
A southern African Middle Stone Age culture (c. 75,000–72,000 years ago), characterised by bifacially worked silcrete points and rich symbolism (engraved ochres, beads). Attested at Blombos Cave.
Stone circle
A Neolithic or Bronze Age monument of standing stones set in a ring, often ritual or astronomical in purpose.
Stratigraphy
The study of the superimposed layers (strata) of an archaeological site; each layer corresponds to a phase of occupation and yields a relative chronology.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The part of Africa south of the Sahara; cradle of Homo sapiens, long thought hostile to ancient-DNA preservation because of heat.
Supervolcano
A volcano capable of an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), ejecting more than 1,000 km³ of material. Such "super-eruptions" are extremely rare and leave a giant caldera rather than a cone.
Symbolic behaviour
A set of practices (adornment, pigments, art, burial) reflecting symbolic thought; long ascribed to Homo sapiens alone, now attested for Neanderthals too.
T-pillar
A T-shaped stone monolith of the Anatolian sanctuaries (Göbekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe), often carved with animals or human limbs.
Talatat
Small standardized stone blocks used under Akhenaten to build quickly; reused after the fall of Amarna, they have allowed whole scenes to be reconstructed.
Tectiform
A geometric sign of Palaeolithic cave art resembling a roofed structure (a "roof" or hut), made of lines and parallel strokes. At La Mouthe this motif was long interpreted as the depiction of a dwelling.
Tell
An artificial mound formed by the accumulation of successive layers of settlement remains at the same spot, typical of the Near East. Each destruction-rebuilding event adds a stratum.
Tephra
A generic term for all the solid fragments (ash, lapilli, pumice, blocks) ejected into the air by a volcanic eruption. Tephra layers serve as precise chronological markers (tephrochronology) across vast regions.
Terracotta
Clay shaped and then hardened by firing; the material of pottery, bricks and figurines, ubiquitous since the Neolithic.
Trace fossil
Fossilised trace of a living organism's activity (footprint, burrow, track), as opposed to body fossils such as bones. Ichnology is the science that studies these traces.
Trilithon
An elementary megalithic structure made of two upright stones supporting a horizontal lintel (from Greek tri-, "three", and lithos, "stone"). At Stonehenge, five great sarsen trilithons formed the central horseshoe.
troglodyte
Describing a dwelling dug into rock or set within natural or artificial cavities.
Tumulus
A mound of earth or stones covering one or more burials; it often capped a dolmen's chamber in the Neolithic.
Ugarit
A wealthy Bronze Age merchant city-kingdom on the Syrian coast (Ras Shamra); its cuneiform archives and alphabet make it a major source on the ancient Near East.
unifaces
A stone tool retouched on one face only.
Upper Palaeolithic
The final phase of the Palaeolithic (c. 45,000 to 10,000 years ago), marked by Homo sapiens in Europe, art, ornaments and a succession of cultures (Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian).
Uranium-thorium dating
A method dating calcite formations (stalagmites, flowstones) via uranium decay into thorium; useful beyond the range of radiocarbon.
Urban planning
The planned organisation of urban space (streets, districts, water and drainage networks, public buildings); the Indus Civilisation offers an early and remarkable example.
use-wear
Micro-traces left on a tool by its use, studied through use-wear analysis to reconstruct its function.
Vassal kingdom
A state bound by treaty to a great king, owing him tribute and military loyalty while keeping its own dynasty; Ugarit and Amurru were vassals of Hatti.
Vizier
The highest official of the Egyptian state after the pharaoh (Egyptian "tjaty"): effectively a prime minister directing administration, justice, the treasury and public works in the king's name.
voicing
The production of sound through vibration of the vocal cords, a marked feature of human laughter.
volcanic tuff
Soft, porous rock formed by the buildup and compaction of volcanic ash, easy to carve but hardening on contact with air.
Volcanic winter
A prolonged global cooling of the climate caused by the injection of sulfate aerosols and ash into the stratosphere during a large eruption, which reflect sunlight and lower temperatures for several years.
War chariot
A light two-wheeled spoke-wheeled vehicle drawn by horses, built for combat or prestige; the oldest attested (c. 2000 BC) come from Sintashta graves in the Ural steppe.
Writing
A system of conventional signs used to fix language or information durably; its appearance (c. 3300 BC) marks, by convention, the end of prehistory.
Zebu
A humped domestic bovine (Bos indicus) adapted to hot climates, domesticated in South Asia; depicted on many Indus seals and figurines.