Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (241 page)

A term often used in Britain to describe those working particularly on material culture; a cross-cultural study of aspects of various cultures, usually based on theory to understand how cultures work and why they change; the theoretical analysis of culture in comparative perspective. In its wider sense it is also concerned with the classification of peoples in terms of their racial and cultural characteristics, and the explanation of these by reference to their history or prehistory. In western Europe the term is used in a way that is much closer to what in the USA would fall within the field of anthropology.

 
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The study of how people make sense of what others say and do in the course of day-to-day social interaction. Ethnomethodology is concerned with the means by which human beings sustain meaningful interchanges with one another.

 
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An attempt at cultural description from a totally
EMIC
standpoint, thus eliminating all the ethnographer's own categories.

 
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The study of animal behaviour in natural habitats.

 
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Pertaining to a view from the outside. In science this view might come from the observer: the analytic view, presumably replicable by any trained observer.

 
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Successors to the
VILLANOVANS
in north central Italy (modern Tuscany) during the early 1st millennium
bc
, they had become a recognizable society by the 8th century—a loosely knit but powerful confederacy of city-states. They developed long-distance trade contacts to Greece, Carthage, and across the Alps into central Europe. Their cities were substantial and wealthy: for example, Populonia, Vetulonia, and Tarquinia. Their influence extended over wide areas, including Aleria, the Po Valley, and parts of Campania. The area is rich in natural resources, including gold, copper and iron, and this led to a strong and influential craft base. The Etruscan language still causes problems because although it is written in an eastern Greek alphabet many aspects of its syntax and vocabulary are uncertain. But the Etruscans were under constant pressure from communities to the north, and increasingly from Rome in the south. Between the 4th and 2nd centuries Rome conquered all of Etruria, but despite their political extinction, the Etruscans contributed much to Roman civilization in such matters as infrastructure, political and social organization, art, architecture, theatre, and engineering skills.

 
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