Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (46 page)

Bronze that contains a high proportion (up to 30 per cent) of arsenic.

 
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Any object which has been modified, fashioned, or manufactured according to a set of humanly imposed attributes, including tools, weapons, ornaments, utensils, houses, buildings, etc. Artefacts are the basic components of
MATERIAL CULTURE
.

 
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A logically irreducible characteristic or independent variable within a specific artefact.

 
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Legendary king and champion of the British against the Anglo-Saxon invaders, immortalized in the 15th century
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by Malory's chivalric tales about the Knights of the Round Table and the search for the Holy Grail. Most of the stories about Arthur belong to the 12th century and later, and even his existence is disputed.

 
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A powerful defensive structure built specifically to house heavy guns in multiple tiers. The castle walls were built of stone, sometimes with earthen outworks. They were usually constructed to protect a harbour entrance or anchorage from attack by sea. Accommodation inside the castle was usually limited to that needed for the garrison and to store munitions. One of the earliest examples is Dartmouth Castle, Devon, built in ad 1481; the majority were constructed in the 16th century
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.

 
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South American farming cultures found in the Marajo area of Amazonia and tentatively dated to
c.
ad 1300–1500, characterized by their ceramic assemblages which belong to the Incised and Punctuate Horizon defined in the Amazon Basin. The Aruã Complex was a successor to, and apparently simpler than, the Marajoara Culture that spread widely in Amazonia in the early 1st millennium
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.

 
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