Archaeology Glossary Entries from B-Group to Battlefield Archaeology

Babylon (Iraq)
The archaeological site of Babylon was the capital of a small city state of Mesopotamia, named Babylonia, located in what is now Iraq, near the modern town of Hilla.

Bachwezi Dynasty
The Chwezi Dynasty (also called Bachwezi or Kitara Dynasty) is the possibly mythical, certainly legendary, kingdom of Uganda, who are said to have ruled between 1300 and 1500 AD.

Badarian Culture
The Badarian culture is the name archaeologists have given to the Neolithic period in Egypt and the Sudan between 4400-4000 BC

Background Research
The term background research refers to the collection of previously published and unpublished information about a site or region

Baden Culture
The Baden culture is the name archaeologists have given to a culture of the central European Copper Age, related to the Bell Beaker culture and dated between about 3500-3000 BC.

Baker Cave (US)
Baker Cave is a rockshelter located in the Lower Pecos region of southwest Texas of the south central United States, with occupations dated between 9,000-6800 years before the present.

Baghdad (Iraq)
The ancient city of Baghdad, the capital city of modern day Iraq, was a relatively minor settlement in the Middle East until the 8th century AD

Bagor (India)
The archaeological site of Bagor is a Late Mesolithic (pre-Harappa) archaeological site in the Bhilwara District of the Rajasthan region of western India.

Ban Chiang (Thailand)
The archaeological site of Ban Chiang is a Bronze Age village and cemetery site in Udon Thani province of Thailand.

Ballana Culture
The Ballana (or X-Culture) is the name given to a pre-Christian, post-meroitic culture of Egypt and Nubia, dominant in Lower Egypt and Nubia between about A.D. 250-550.

Ballcourts
A ballcourt, sometimes spell ball court, refers to a specific type of prehistoric structure, in which several versions of the Mesoamerican ballgame was played.

Ban Na Di (Thailand)
Ban Na Di is a Copper Age settlement and cemetery in Thailand (1313-903 BC), including sixty burials.

Balma Guilanyà
Balma Guilanya is a rockshelter located in Catalonia, Spain that was occupied by Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers approximately 10,000-12,000 years ago.

Baltic Amber and the Amber Trade
Baltic amber is a fossilized tree resin which formed about 60 million years ago and was actively traded beginning in the Mesolithic period of Europe.

Band-e Dukhtar (Turkey)
Band-e Dukhtar is an irrigation works located in the Anatolian plain and likely dated to the Achaemenid dynasty.

Banana History
Bananas are among our earliest domesticated plants: the earliest evidence is some 8,000 years ago, in Papua New Guinea

Basel-Gasfabrik (Switzerland)
Basel-Gasfabrik is a late European Iron Age settlement located near the town of Basel, Switzerland.

Banwari Trace Site, Trinidad, Caribbean
Banwari Trace is the site where the oldest human burial so far discovered in the Caribbean was found

Bandkeramik Culture
The Bandkeramik culture is the name given by archaeologists to the first true farming communities in central Europe, dated between between 5400 and 4900 BC.

Banpo (China)
The archaeological site of Banpo is a Neolithic village and cemetery on the Wei River in Shaanxi Province, China, belonging to the early Yangshao culture, dated 5000-4000 BC.

Banyan Valley Cave (Thailand)
Banyan Valley Cave is located in Pang Ma Pha province of upland Thailand, with occupations dated beginning in the Hoabinhian period of the late stone age, up into the metal ages (3,500-900 BC).

Al-Basra
Al-Basra was an important sgricultural, manufacturing and trading center for the Islamic civilization, from about AD 800-1100.

Barley Beer
Barley beer is an alcoholic beverage made by Iron Age Celtic groups beginning in the 6th century BC of central Europe.

Basilique de St-Denis (France)
The Basilique de St-Denis is the most recent structure of several churches built on the top of a Gallo-Roman cemetery where St. Denis is said to have been buried.

Bashidang (China)
Bashidang is an early walled settlement belonging to the Pengtoushan culture, dated between 5540 and 5100 BC near Wufu village in the Yangtse River basin, Hunan province in China.

Barrow
A barrow is the archaeological term for a specific type of burial mound belonging to the Neolithic period structures in western Europe.

Bat Cave (US)
Bat Cave is an archaeological site consisting of a complex of rockshelters in New Mexico, in the American southwest, with early evidence for maize agriculture.

Bats'ub/25 Flight Cave (Belize)
The Bats'ub cave is a karst rockshelter located within the Columbian Forest Reserve of Belize.

Basketmaker Culture
The Basketmaker culture is the name archaeologists have given to a southwestern United States cultural group, ancestral to the Anasazi.

Ban Lum Khao (Thailand)
Ban Lum Khao is a Neolithic to Iron Age cemetery in the Mun River valley of northeastern Thailand. Although it is only 20 km from similarly dated Ban Non Wat, excavations at Ban Lum Khao do not exhibit the same sharp social differentiations seen at Ban Non Wat