Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (663 page)

 
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Literally, a bucket, the term is applied to various forms of sheet-bronze buckets of the late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Europe, whose function was most probably as containers of wine for ceremonial or festive occasions. Pottery vessels, too, are sometimes described misleadingly as ‘situlate’ in reference to their shape, when their derivation from metal prototypes is at best secondary and their relation in function obscure. An outstanding series of bronze buckets from northern Italy and around the head of the Adriatic, dating from the late 7th to the early 4th century
bc
, is ornamented with elaborate human and animal scenes in a style known as
SITULA ART
.

 
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Embossed or incised decoration of early Iron Age date in south-central Europe, the medium for which was usually a bronze shouldered bucket-shaped vessel (situla).

 
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Used to describe a form of vessels, with wide mouths, short everted necks, high shoulders, and straight sides tapering downwards, characteristic of the early Iron Age in Britain.

 
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A Neolithic settlement situated on the exposed west side of the Orkney island of Mainland in the far north of the British Isles. Excavated extensively by Gordon Childe in 1928–30 and more recently by David Clarke during the early 1970s, the site is a village of up to seven stone-built houses occupied at any one time, surrounded by a midden and debris resulting from many centuries of occupation. Occupation of the site appears to fall into two main phases, spanning the period 3100 bc to 2500 bc, and is characterized by the use of
GROOVED WARE
style pottery. Perhaps because of a shortage of wood, the occupants of Skara Brae used stone slabs to construct furniture (beds, dressers, etc.) as well as fittings and fixtures within their houses, thus providing an almost unique representation of things that are lost elsewhere. Although the economy of the site included a major contribution from fishing and the use of marine resources, sheep and cattle were kept and there was some small-scale cultivation of cereals.
[Sum.: D. V. Clarke , 1976,
The Neolithic village at Skara Brae, Orkney
. Edinburgh: HMSO]

 
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The study of human remains using the approaches of physical anthropology to determine such matters as age, sex, cause of death, racial affinity, evidence of disease, and the presence of wounds or injuries. Increasingly, use is made of DNA analysis to provide details of the person's physical form and appearance.

 
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