Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (10 page)

A collection of people present in a public setting, all going their separate ways rather than composing a homogeneous group.

 
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King of the Lombards, a nobleman selected by Queen Theudelinda as her second husband in ad 590. After threatening the Byzantine states he agreed to a truce, and after 605 was at peace with his neighbours in Italy. During his reign Catholics in northern Italy were re-established. Died
c.
ad 615.

 
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The market-place or centre of a Greek town with shopping and commercial facilities, the main public buildings, and open space where the citizens would gather for markets and sporting events. Many agoras were delimited by boundary stones. See also
FORUM
.

 
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Societies whose means of subsistence is based on agricultural production, crop-growing and the husbandry of animals.

 
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Gnaeus Julius Agricola was governor of Britain between ad 78 and ad 84. Thanks to the biography by his son-in-law
TACITUS
, we know a good deal about his life. He was born in the
colonia
of Forum Iulii, now Fréjus, in France and served in Britain on two occasions before succeeding Frontinus as governor. During his period of office he campaigned extensively in north Wales, northern England, and Scotland where he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Caledonian tribes at Mons Graupius, probably near Aberdeen. Plans for the total conquest of Scotland were unfulfilled.

 
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A South American culture found around the Valliserrana region of northwest Argentina of the period ad 700–1000, characterized by finely made ceramics and ceremonial objects of bronze and copper, some perhaps made under the influence of craftsmen working at Tiahuanco, Bolivia. Incised and polychrome decoration is common on pottery vessels, as too are feline and dragon motifs, depictions of warriors and weaponry, and images of trophy heads. Warfare was endemic, and many burials contain the remains of decapitated individuals. The disappearance of the Aguada Culture, apparently rather sudden, may have been the result of an invasion from the east.

 
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