Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (214 page)

 
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Small detached round or square building containing nesting boxes for the breeding and accommodation of doves or pigeons. Of greatly varying ground plan, dovecotes were important economic resources during medieval and later times as they provided sustainable supplies of meat, eggs, feathers, and manure. Also known as a columbarium.

 
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A pattern of exchange practices where the recipient of a supply of goods keeps a proportion and passes the rest on (trades, sells, gives as gifts, etc.) to the next group who do the same. The pattern repeats but the volume of material gets less with every transfer. If the volume of material is plotted on a graph against distance from source, such a pattern of exchange will appear as an exponential decay curve; plotted on a logarithmic scale the fall-off appears as a straight line. See also
DISTANCE-DECAY MODEL
.

 
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The latest industrial phase of the later Bronze Age in Ireland, named after a large hoard of bronzes found at Dowris in the 1820s
ad
. The hoard itself dates to the 8th century
bc
. The Dowris Phase is one of the regional traditions within the more broadly defined
EWART PARK PHASE
.

 
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A unit of silver coinage in the Greek world issued in multiple such as the
didrachm
(2), the
tetradrachm
(4), and the
deckadrachm
(10).

 
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See
DRAGENDOFF FORM
.

 
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A system for classifying the shapes of
TERRA SIGILLATA
vessels developed by the German archaeologist Hans Dragendorff (1870–1941) which he published in 1895–6. The scheme has since been expanded, but the basic structure remains.