Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (475 page)

The best known of the three large developed passage graves in the Bend of the Boyne between Slane and Drogheda in eastern Ireland, about 50km north of Dublin. The site was excavated by Michael O'Kelly between 1962 and 1975, and restored under his direction thereafter. The focus of the site is a vast circular cairn
c.
80m across and 12m high, retained at the base by a kerb of 97 boulders, some decorated in the style of British
ROCK ART
known as megalithic art. It was built about 3200 bc. A passage, 19m in length, leads into the mound from the southeast side and gives access to a cruciform chamber roofed by a lofty corbelled vault. The orthostats of the passage support roof slabs, but at the very front of the passage is a unique ‘roof-box’ which allows light to shine into the tomb through a slot above the roof of the outer passage. This happens at sunrise around the time of the winter solstice, the first rays of the sun illuminating the rear wall of the chamber for about 17 minutes.
The passage grave was originally within a
STONE CIRCLE
, twelve pillars of which still survive. By the later Neolithic the tomb had fallen out of use and the sides were already beginning to slump by the time
BEAKER
-using groups arrived in the area. The present reconstruction with vertical quartz-clad walls has proved highly controversial; many authorities believe that the surface of the barrow was originally far less steep and covered in quartz boulders.
[Sum.: M. O'Kelly , 1982,
Newgrange. Archaeology, art and legend
. London: Thames & Hudson]

 
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The Egyptian period following the expulsion of Asiatic Hyksos rulers and the subsequent reunification ties including Thuthmoses I–IV, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramesses I–XI. Broadly the 18th to the 20th Dynasties,
c.
1550–1070 bc. To this period belongs much of the monumental architecture of Egypt.

 
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See
NEOLITHIC
.

 
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General term for the Americas following their discovery by Europeans in the 16th century
ad
, thus setting them in contradistinction to the Old World of Africa, Europe, and Asia.

 
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Within the Gunung Subis limestone massif of north Borneo is a series of caves that have been used for burial and settlement over many millennia. The most important, known as the Great Cave, was extensively excavated by Barbara and Tom Harrison intermittently between 1954 and 1967. They showed that the site contained a long series of deposits starting in the Middle Palaeolithic with a pebble and flake industry. What is claimed to be an early
Homo sapiens
skull dating to perhaps 40000 years ago was also found, although the association between the bones and the charcoal that yielded the radiocarbon date is not secure. Higher deposits in the cave include flexed inhumations from the period 12000–15000 bc, and extended burials in wooden coffins or on mats from the 1st and 2nd millennia
bc
. The most recent burials in the cave are jar burials and cremations from the period 1500 bc through to about ad 1000. Distinctive styles of local pottery appear around 2500 bc along with Neolithic polished stone axes. A new multidisciplinary programme of excavations by Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson started in 2000 with the aim of reinvestigating this important sequence.
[Sum.: G. Barker
et al
., 2000, The Niah Caves project.
Sarawak Museum Journal
, NS 76, 111–49]

 
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Church council held in the city of Nicaea (Iznik, Turkey) in ad 325, at which Arianism was denounced and the Nicene Creed was formulated.