Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (197 page)

Neolithic communities of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia and Bosnia of the period 4700 bc down to 3900 bc. The culture developed from the local
IMPRESSED WARE CULTURE
, its distinctive pottery being decorated with incised geometric shapes emphasized by the use of white and red filler added after firing. Occupation sites include caves and open sites. Danilo groups seem to have had trade links, as the ceramic assemblages include Ripoli ware from Italy.

 
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See
LINEAR POTTERY CULTURE
.

 
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A term sometimes used to refer to periods immediately after the collapse of civilizations or when archaeological evidence suggests a phase of relatively little activity compared with what had been evident in previous times. Examples include the Dark Ages in Greece (
c.
1100–800 bc) after the Mycenaean collapse, and the British Dark Ages spanning the period ad 410–900 after the Roman collapse. The term is not very helpful, as it suggests that little is known about the period. The ‘darkness’ referred mainly to the paucity of evidence for the period, a paucity now partly remedied and more apparent than real.

 
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Dart , Raymond Arthur
(1893–1988)
[Bi].

South African anthropologist best known for his discovery of the first Australopithecine fossil in 1924. Born in Brisbane, he trained as a doctor at Sydney University Medical School before serving in WW1 with the Australian army medical corps. After the war he went to London to pursue his research in brain anatomy at University College. At the age of 30 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the fledgling Medical School in the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, a post he remained in until his retirement. In 1924 he was shown a fossil skull from Taungs near Kimberley and realized that it was an extremely early hominid of a type previously unrecognized. He named it
Australopithecus
, much to the dismay of those in the academic world who realized that the word was a cocktail of Greek and Latin. Although the place of
Australopithecus
in hominid evolution at the time of its discovery was hotly contested, Dart lived to see his views confirmed by finds at Olduvai and elsewhere. In 1966 he was made United Steelworkers of America Professor of Anthropology at the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, USA.
[Obit.:
Antiquaries Journal
, 69 (1989), 404–5]

 
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Darwin , Charles Robert
(1809–82)
[Bi].

British biologist and naturalist who developed and expounded the theory of evolution by natural selection and the survival of the fittest. After two years as a medical student in Edinburgh he earned a BA degree at Cambridge University in 1831. Here he met Adam Sedgwick and John Henslow , the latter of whom recommended him for the post of naturalist on the expedition ship
The Beagle
. Darwin used the trip, between
c.
1831 and 1836 bc, to make observations on biology and geology that would last him his entire career. Between
c.
1846 and 1854 bc he spent much time researching the classification, variation, and origins of animal species. After the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace sent Darwin a manuscript outlining similar evolutionary thinking, he published his abstract
On the origin of species
(1859, London), documenting his evidence for the operation of biological evolution. He later became interested in the early history of humans and developed his thinking on human evolution as
The descent of man and selection in relation to sex
(1871, London). His interest in soils and their formation led him to consider the work and role of the earthworm, published as
The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms
(1888, London), which provided one of the first scientific considerations of how archaeological remains are buried.
[Bio.: J. Bowlby , 1991,
Charles Darwin: a biography
. London: Pimlico]

 
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