Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (536 page)

Small hard rock-like bodies formed in the spaces between the living cells of a plant through the structured accumulation of silica brought into the cells with water. The identification of phytoliths from different plants preserved in archaeological material can provide an indication of the local vegetation.

 
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Style of bronze pin common in northern France and southern England during the Ornament Horizon of the middle Bronze Age. Picardy pins are distinctive in having a tapering shaft that is considerably thickened at the head end, a swollen neck, and an elaborated domed or mushroom-shaped head. They often have some incised decoration near the head and may be pierced through the swollen neck.

 
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Long narrow core tool, sometimes slightly curved in profile, truncated at one end and pointed at the other. Typical of the Sangoan in Africa.

 
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Archaic Stage hunter-gatherer communities living in the southwestern parts of North America in the period 7000 bc to ad 200. The Picosa Culture was recognized by Cynthia Irwin-Williams on the basis of a series of general or ‘integrative’ traits, and subdivided into four chronologically or spatially separable traditions on the basis of a series of ‘isolative’ traits. The four subdivisions of the Picosa Culture (whose name is a compound of the first two letters from each of the first three subdivisions) are: Pinto (7000 bc to ad 500), Cochise (7000–200 bc), San Pedro (1500–200 bc), Southeastern (not fully dated), and Oshara (5500 bc to ad 600).

 
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Literally, ‘the painted people’, a term used by the Romans during the late 3rd century to refer to those communities living north of the Antonine Wall in the northern parts of the British Isles. The name these groups used for themselves was Cruithni and they probably had an ancestry extending well back into the later Iron Age. They were enemies of Rome, and appear to have survived as a kingdom down to the 9th century
ad
when they became incorporated into the kingdom of Scotland. Amongst the material culture of the Picts were distinctive
SYMBOL STONES
carrying incised or carved relief images of animals, human figures, and other symbols. Later examples are ornamented with crosses and sometimes bear
OGHAM
inscriptions.

 
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1
A single character within a picture-writing system such as
HIEROGLYPHICS
or
CUNEIFORM
.
2
A symbol or other marking painted on rock. See
ROCK ART
.

 
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