Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (731 page)

A rampart reinforced by vertical and horizontal timbers tied together as a rigid framework.

 
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As the indefinite continued progress of existence, time is one of the key dimensions used in archaeological research and is seen in two ways. Measured time,
CHRONOLOGY
, can be viewed as a series of blocks of defined duration that occur in sequence and which can be counted, like the ticking of a clock. Such time is an artificial social construction tied to observable events, often the movements of celestial bodies, and for convenience archaeologists frequently back-project modern notions of time (for example, years, centuries, and millennia in the western Christian calendar) onto earlier societies. In contrast,
TEMPORALITY
refers to the human experience of time in terms of the sequence of events which may not be entirely successive and which defy measurement.

 
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An approach to the study of human behaviour, pioneered by the Swedish geographer Torsten Hagerstrand , which emphasizes the movement of individuals simultaneously across time and space.

 
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The process whereby distances become ‘shortened in time’ as the speed of modes of transportation increases.

 
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Soft bright silvery-white malleable metal (Sn) with a low melting point that resists corrosion, occurring naturally in cassiterite and other ores. Used in alloys, especially as a constituent of bronze (along with copper and lead) from early Bronze Age times onwards. Tin ores are relatively scarce in the Old World, the main sources being Cornwall in Britain, northwest Spain, and Bohemia. Lesser sources may have been used in central Italy and eastern Turkey, along with highly localized outcrops now lost. As a result, tin was widely traded in antiquity.

 
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A pottery or bronze vessel with three legs common in early China.

 
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