Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (730 page)

A water-powered mill where seawater is used to fill a pond at high tide so that it can be released to power the water-wheels as the tide goes out.

 
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Large Classic Stage Maya ceremonial centre which at its height covered over 120 square kilometres. Excavations and surveys by Edwin Shook and William R. Coe between 1956 and 1970 showed how extensive the site was and identified a large number of house platforms. This in turn triggered the reinterpretation of other Maya centres.
At the centre of Tikal is a group of ceremonial structures including the Great Plaza with a temple at either end, and the associated North Acropolis which supported three large temples and two smaller ones. Around the site are a series of earthworks which may have been for defence.
[Sum.: W. R. Coe , 1975, Resurrecting the grandeur of Tikal.
National Geographic
, 148, 792–811]

 
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Manufacturing site where ceramic tiles were made, usually involving a series of clay pits, forming sheds where the various kinds of tile were shaped, drying racks, kilns, and yards for storing finished products.

 
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Poorly sorted material carried by ice-sheets and glaciers and deposited directly by the ice. All grades of material are represented, from clay-sized particles up to substantial boulders, the lithology and origin of the material being a reflection of the surface geology over which the ice-sheet or glacier previously flowed. Also known as boulder clay. Archaeologically, till is one of the most difficult natural substrates to work on because there are many variations in the texture and composition of the till at all sorts of scales, many of which look like archaeological features such as pits and ditches, as well as the geomorphological effects of a previously glaciated environment such as frost cracking and cryoturbation.

 
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Archaeologically represented as the foundation sockets (postholes) for a large wooden structure comprising two or more concentric rings of timber uprights variously interpreted as the stanchions of a roofed building or as freestanding posts. Dated to the later Neolithic, broadly 3000–2000 bc, and found widely across the British Isles either as discrete monuments or situated within
HENGES
and
HENGE ENCLOSURES
.

 
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Method of constructing a building using a framework of timber.

 
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