Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (79 page)

Coastally adapted Utian-speaking communities of the San Francisco Bay area of the American west coast between 2000 bc and ad 300. These groups lived in small villages, while exploiting the coastal marshlands for fish, shellfish, and edible plants. Burials typically include a few grave goods, although shaman graves have also been postulated.

 
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A ledge or level space between a bank, and its accompanying ditch or scarp. Also a narrow space separating an inner bank and ditch from an outer bank.

 
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Bernal , García Ignacio
(1910–92)
[Bi].

Mexican archaeologist, well known for his work as Oaxacan sites such as Monte Albán and Dainzú, and for his excavations and restorations at Teotihuacán.
[Obit.:
Anthropological Newsletter
, 33.5 (1992), 4]

 
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Bersu , Gerhard
(1989–1964)
[Bi].

A gifted German archaeologist with a wide-ranging interest in many aspects of Europe's ancient past. Born in Jauer, Silesia, his experience in the field began in 1907, when he assisted in excavations near Potsdam. In the following years he visited several European countries in an archaeological capacity. During WW1 he served in the Office for the Protection of Monuments and Collections on the western front and was later attached to the German Armistice and Peace delegations. In 1924 he began a long association with the Römisch-Germanischen Kommission (German Archaeological Institute) in Frankfurt-am-Main, becoming the second director in 1928 and the Director in 1931. Under his guidance the Institute took over new premises and became a centre for scholars from all over Europe to meet and discuss archaeological questions. In 1933 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1935 the Nazi government removed him from office and he began working overseas. He and his wife Maria moved to Britain and, at the invitation of the Prehistoric Society, he undertook a research excavation at Little Woodbury, Wiltshire, in (1938–9), introducing continental methods of excavation to the study of British prehistoric sites. During WW2 he was interned on the Isle of Man, but was allowed to continue his researches with the help of other internees, and between (1939 and 1945) he excavated a number of later prehistoric and Viking-age sites. After the war, in 1947, he was appointed to a Chair in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. Three years later he returned to Frankfurt to take up his former position at the German Archaeological Institute where he remained until retirement in 1956.
[Bio.: W. Krämer , 2000,
Gerhard Bersu. Ein deutscher Prähistoriker 1889–1964.
Frankfurt: Römisch-Germanische Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts]

 
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Egyptian god often depicted as an ugly dwarf, he was a domestic figure associated with childbirth and music. Shown sometimes with a lion's head, or in later periods in a soldier's tunic. Protector of the home, of children, and of women in childbirth. He became popular with the Phoenicians.

 
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A non-destructive technique for gauging the chemical composition of the surface layers of materials such as pottery and glass. A sample is bombarded by a collimated beam of electrons from a weak radioactive beta source. The sample is arranged at 45 degrees to the beam with the backscatter particles counted using a Geiger counter. The whole system is portable and being non-destructive can be used on museum specimens in the field. The drawback is that the system is unable to identify specific elements responsible for the backscattering; it can only measure the presence of known elements of high atomic number within a matrix of low atomic number (for example, lead in glass).