Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (484 page)

A group of cereals domesticated in the Near East during the 5th or 6th millennia
bc
. Most domesticated oats are hexaploid types with six sets of chromosomes derived from the wild red oats (Avena sterilis) found around the Mediterranean. The main cultivated varieties include the common oats (Avena sativa) found in cool climates; the cultivated red oats (Avena byzantina) found in warmer climates; and the large-seeded naked oats (Avena nuda) found mainly in southwest Asia. Other wild hexaploid species include the common wild oats (Avena fatua) and the winter wild oat (Avena ludoviciana). The use of oats was not widely adopted in northern Europe until the Iron Age.

 
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See
OXFORD ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNIT
.

 
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A highland plateau and valley at about 1550m above sea level in the southern part of the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Surveys and excavations directed by Kent Flannery , Richard
MACNEISH
, and others provide a detailed picture of cultural development in the area.
Archaic Stage remains have been found at the cave site of Guila Naquitz and Cueva Blanca, the former providing abundant evidence of over a dozen species of plants being exploited by communities living in the area between
c.
8700 and 7000 bc. Incipient agriculture was being practised from about 7400 bc. By 1500 bc Formative Stage villages were being built. Houses were of wattle and daub, rectangular in plan, and arranged around an open area of plaza which may have served as a dancing ground or a place for public rituals.
In the Rosario Phase, 700–500 bc, the town of
SAN JOSÉ MOGOTÉ
had grown to fifteen times the size of the next largest centre and acted as a ceremonial centre for perhaps fifteen or twenty villages. This was the first stage in the development of chiefdom and eventually state-based society in the area, centred on
MONTE ALBÁN
which was successively used by Zapotec and Mixtec.
[Rep.: K. Flannery , J. Marcus , and S. Kowalewski , 1981, The Pre-Ceramic and Formative of the Valley of Oaxaca. In J. A. Sabloff (ed.),
Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians
. Austin: University of Texas Press, 48–93]

 
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Late Mesolithic communities living in the western isles of Scotland during the 4th millennium
bc
, named after a series of sites investigated on the island of Oban, Argyll. Settlements include shell middens and rock-shelters and suggest a marine-based economy. Artefacts include barbed spears and stone limpet scoops.

 
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From the Greek word meaning ‘spit’ or ‘dagger’, the term was applied to the long narrow shafts of stone, usually granite, with pyramidal-shaped tops set upright in pairs before the entrance to Egyptian temples. Old Kingdom examples are squat and closely relate to the
PYRAMIDS
. Later examples are taller and more slender. One of the best-known examples outside Egypt is Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment in London. It once formed a pair with the obelisk now in Central Park, New York, and both were originally set before the temple at Heliopolis dedicated to Tuthmosis III, and also bear an inscription of Ramesses II.

 
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The idea that things exist, or that statements about things are true, in absolute terms and independently of human existence or belief. Such a view stands in opposition to subjectivism, which holds that knowledge and truth are not independent of human existence. In many ways the debate between
PROCESSUAL
and
POST-PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY
has at its heart this polarization between objectivist and subjectivist approaches.