Grave goods

 

Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a body.

Ubaid

 

The Ubaid period (c. 6500–3700 BC) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.

In South Mesopotamia the period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the Uruk period.

The term "Ubaid period" was coined at a conference in Baghdad in 1930, where at the same time the Jemdet Nasr and Uruk periods were defined.

 

Ubaid culture is characterized by large unwalled village settlements, multi-roomed rectangular mud-brick houses and the appearance of the first temples of public architecture in Mesopotamia, with a growth of a two tier settlement hierarchy of centralized large sites of more than 10 hectares surrounded by smaller village sites of less than 1 hectare.

Ethnoarchaeology

Ethnoarchaeology is the ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons, usually through the study of the material remains of a society (see David & Kramer 2001). Ethnoarchaeology aids archaeologists in reconstructing ancient lifeways by studying the material and non-material traditions of modern societies. Archaeologists can then infer that ancient societies used the same techniques as their modern counterparts given a similar set of environmental circumstances.

Oldowan

The Oldowan, often spelled Olduwan or Oldawan, is the archaeological term used to refer to the stone tool industry that was used by Hominines during the Lower Paleolithic period. The Oldowan is significant for being the earliest stone tool industry in prehistory, being used from 2.6 million years ago up until 1.7 million years ago, when it was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry. Oldowan tools were therefore the earliest stone tools in human history, and mark the beginning of the archaeological record of stone tools. The term "Oldowan" is taken from the site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where the first Oldowan tools were discovered by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in the 1930s. However, some contemporary archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists prefer to use the term "Mode One" tools to designate Oldowan tools, with "Mode Two" designated Acheulean ones and so forth.

Cro-Magnon

The term Cro-Magnon refers to one of the main types of early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens) of the European Upper Paleolithic. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are dated to 30,000 radiocarbon years. The name derives from the cave of Crô-Magnon in southwest France, where the first specimen was found.

tomography

Tomography is imaging by sections or sectioning, through the use of wave of energy.^[1] A device used in tomography is called a tomograph, while the image produced is a tomogram. The method is used in medicine, archaeology, biology, geophysics, oceanography, materials science, astrophysics and other sciences. In most cases it is based on the mathematical procedure called tomographic reconstruction. The word was derived from the Greek word tomos which means "a section", "a slice" or "a cutting". A tomography of several sections of the body is known as a polytomography.