Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (25 page)

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AMEN
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Term describing preservational environments in which oxygen is lacking and in which microbial decay is halted or greatly slowed. Such environments are typically waterlogged or deeply buried under very fine grained sediments and lead to the preservation of organic materials such as animal and plant remains.

 
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A process of reasoning whereby two entities or processes that share some similarities are assumed to share many others. Alison Wylie has usefully defined two kinds of analogy in archaeological reasoning:
formal analogy
is based on a straightforward comparison of some aspect of form, or observable characteristics, which can be transferred from one case to another;
relational analogy
is based on understanding the causal relationships between the variables that can be observed.

 
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Arbitrary grouping that an archaeologist defines for classifying human-manufactured artefacts. Analytical types consist of groups of attributes that define convenient types of artefacts for comparing sites in space and time. They do not necessarily coincide with actual tool types used by prehistoric people.

 
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South American cultural grouping, defined almost entirely by ceramic styles, from Marajo Island, Amazonia, and tentatively dated to
c.
1400 bc. The ceramic assemblages belong to the Zone Hachure Horizon defined in the Amazon Basin. Typical vessel forms include rounded bowls and jars. Some are decorated with fine parallel or cross-hatched lines with zones defined by deeply incised outlines. There is no evidence for agriculture associated with groups using this pottery. Settlements were small, perhaps multi-family communal residences.

 
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Cliff-top coastal settlement site of Palaeo-Arctic communities on an islet off the coast of Umnak Island in the eastern Aleutians. The site was occupied from before 7000 bc down to
c.
5000 bc. There were traces of elliptical houses partially dug into the ground. The economy probably relied on sea mammals and fish, although little of the tool assemblage recovered appears to have been designed for such use.
[Rep.: J. Aigner , 1970, The unifacial, core and blade sites on Anangula Island, Aleutians.
Arctic Anthropology
, 7, 59–88]

 
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