Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (437 page)

 
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Small chiefdom communities living in the Guayas River basin of Ecuador, South America, in the integration period,
c.
ad 500 to the Spanish conquest. Milagro people built their houses on small mounds above seasonal flooding, while larger platforms up to 100m long and 10m high were used for the construction of temples and chiefs' residences. Mounds of intermediate size were used for burials, some of which were placed in tubes formed by knocking the bottoms out of a number of ceramic urns and stacking them one on top of another. Intensive agriculture was practised using water management systems. Milagro craftsmen were very skilled metalworkers and copper money axes were common.

 
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Bronze Age communities of the early 2nd millennium
bc
in southwest Bohemia, named after the type-site of Milave
, Domal
ice, Czech Republic. Postdating the
TUMULUS CULTURE
in the region, the dead were cremated but the ashes were gathered together and covered by a barrow. Pre-dating the local
URNFIELD CULTURE
.

 
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A massive hoard of late Roman silverware found in a field at West Row near Mildenhall, Suffolk, England, in ad 1942. The hoard contains 34 pieces including a large dish depicting the head of Oceanus surrounded by friezes of sea deities and others revelling; two smaller platters with Bacchic scenes; a niello dish with geometric designs; bowls; ladles; and spoons. Some of the objects carry Christian inscriptions. The whole group is traditionally regarded as the household valuables of a wealthy Roman family who buried it in the 4th or early 5th century
ad
to save it from Saxon raiders. However, in 1997 Richard Hobbs and Paul Ashbee rehearsed a range of doubts over the integrity of the find, suggesting that it might have arrived in Britain during the 20th century from a findspot elsewhere in the Roman empire.

 
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A style of middle Neolithic pottery found over much of central eastern England and East Anglia during the 4th millennium
bc
. Characterized by round-bottomed bowls with fairly elaborate decoration. Deep S-profiled forms with rolled or thickened rims predominate.

 
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