Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (315 page)

A road or track running in a natural or man-made hollow deepened through wear caused by prolonged usage or the raising of the ground on each side.

 
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Holmes , William Henry
(1846–1933)
[Bi].

American geologist and antiquarian who began his professional career as a geological illustrator. In the late 1880s and early 1890s he carried out a survey of the Palaeolithic material in North America and concluded (wrongly, as it later transpired) that the supposed Palaeolithic material was the refuse of Indian toolmakers. His draughtsmanship and systematic survey methods allowed him to produce detailed classifications of aboriginal pottery in the eastern USA (published in 1903) and studies of ancient ruins in Mexico. He later became head of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
[Bio.: D. J. Meltzer and R. C. Dunnell (eds.), 1992, The archaeology of William Henry Holmes . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution]

 
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The later of two chronostratigraphic units or epochs forming the
QUATERNARY PERIOD
(the earlier one is the
PLEISTOCENE
) dating from 10000 years ago down to the present day. The series of deposits represented are simply the latest major
INTERGLACIAL
stage following the
DEVENSIAN
stage at the end of the Pleistocene, known in Britain as the
FLANDRIAN
although in other areas (rather confusingly) as the Holocene.

 
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An group of
QUATERNARY
interglacial deposits in northwestern Europe; they are stratified above the Elster and precede the
SAALE
. They date to the period after 300000 years ago and are no more recent than 20000 years ago.

 
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Pottery made at the legionary works depot at Holt, Denbighshire, in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries
ad
. Of light-red and buff fabric, often imitating Samian forms, and found mostly in Chester and adjacent areas.

 
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Greek poet, believed to have been blind, writing in the mid 1st millennium
bc
, who is credited with two important works with direct archaeological relevance because of their subject matter:
The Iliad
relates the events of 51 days in the last year of the siege of Troy by the Greeks; and
The Odyssey
describes the wanderings of Ulysses on his way back from the Trojan War and the vengeance he exacted on the suitors of his wife Penelope. The first printed editions of Homer's works appeared in ad 1488.

 
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