Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (734 page)

Narcotic plant (Nicotina tabacum) with leaves that can be smoked, chewed or, in powdered form, snorted. The plant is a coarse rank-growing annual up to 2m tall. A native of South America where it was domesticated by
c.
ad 400. Soon afterwards it spread to many other parts of the New World. The tobacco plant was first brought to Europe in ad 1558 by the Spanish physician Francisco Fernandes .

 
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A plot on which a house stands or once stood.

 
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A building constructed beside a turnpike road where tolls were collected from travellers passing through the turnpike and which provided accommodation for the toll collector.

 
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Tollund Moss is a narrow bog set amongst high hills near Aarhus in Jutland. Here, in 1950, Professor P. V. Glob excavated the body of a man in a remarkable state of preservation: the clothing, skin, hair, and even the stomach contents had all survived. Dating to about 210 bc, the man had been naked except for a well-made leather cap and a belt around the waist. When examined it was found that he had been strangled or hanged and part of a braided leather rope still encircled his neck. Study of the stomach contents revealed that he had eaten his last meal 12–24 hours before his death and that it had consisted of a sort of gruel made up of various seeds, both wild and cultivated.
[Sum.: P. V. Glob , 1969,
The bog people
. London: Faber & Faber]

 
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Early state-organized society occupying central Mexico in the period ad 900–1100; the dominant culture of the early Post-Classic Mesoamerica. The origins of the Toltec are unclear, but they were probably one of the Chichimec groups which migrated southwards after the decline of Teotihuacán. The Toltec capital was established at Tula, Mexico, in
c.
ad 960 by the leader Topiltzin .
At its peak the Toltec state spread to include the Yucatán and areas which until that time had been relatively peripheral. Human sacrifice was a major feature of Toltec religion. Large carved statues characterized ceremonial centres of the period.
The Toltec state was not especially long-lived, and had crumbled away by the mid 13th century
ad
, perhaps triggered by a climatic deterioration. Numerous later Mesoamerican groups, notably the Aztecs, claimed descent from the Toltecs.

 
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Structure built for the burial of the dead, either individually or collectively. Most tombs contain a strong reflection of the belief systems and ideologies of those who built them, and archaeologists regularly use indicators such as the size and sophistication of the structure to draw conclusions about the status and wealth of those buried within. It is also widely recognized that tombs were often much more than simply burial places of the dead; they also had a role amongst the living as territorial markers, ceremonial centres, and places of pilgrimage.

 
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