Archaeology Glossary Entries from Chachapoyas Cultur to Chwezi Culture

Ch'arki
Ch'arki is an apparently ancient method of meat preservation, developed as a way to more-or-less freeze dry fresh meat without preservatives.

Chalchiuhtlicue
Chalchiuhtlicue was the Aztec goddess of running water, and the patron of navigation and childbirth

Site of Chacuey, Dominican Republic
Chacuey is an ancient Taino site in the Dominican Republic, characterized by petroglyphs and water pools.

Chachapoyas Culture
Chachapoyas culture is the name given to an Andean civilization, located in the Amazon rainforest

The Chaco Road System
The Chaco Road likely had both economic and religious significance to its ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) builders, residents of Chaco Canyon between about 1000 and 1125 AD.

Chaco Culture
Chaco culture was one of three three great ancestral pueblo cultures and regional powers of the American southwest in the late prehistoric times

Chaco Canyon (USA)
Chaco Canyon is an archaeological site in the state of New Mexico in the American southwest, belonging to the Anasazi culture.

Chaac
Chaac, sometimes spelled Chakh or Chac, was the Mayan god of rain, water and lightning.

Chahai (China)
Chahai is the name of an archaeological site in China, near Fuxin in Liaoning Province, Manchuria, and belonging to the early Neolithic Xinglongwa culture.

Chalchuapa (el Salvador)
Chalchuapa is the name of a Maya period site in El Salvador, occupied from about 1200 BC to the Spanish conquest.

Chan Chan (Peru)
The World Heritage archaeological site of Chan Chan is located in the Trujillo province on the north coast of Peru, and it was the capital of the Chimú state between about AD 850 and 1470.

Chalcolithic Period
The Chalcolithic is the name given to the period in the Near East and Europe after the Neolithic and before the Bronze Age, between about 4500 and 3500 BC.

Chaluka Site (Alaska)
Chaluka Archaeological Site. Ancient Village in the Aleutian Islands. Arctic Prehistory. Refer to this page to learn more about the Prehistory of Alaska

Champa Kingdom
The Champa Kingdom was located along the coastal plains of southern and central Vietnam, between about AD 192 and 1832.

Chanhu Daro (Pakistan)
The archaeological site of Chanhu Daro is a Jhukar culture site located in Sind province of modern day Pakistan.

Chang'an (China)
Chang'an is the name of one of the most important ancient capital cities of China.

Chanka Polity
The Chanka was a small polity in the Peruvian highlands following the Wari empire and a rival to the Inca civilization

Chaoxian Cave (China)
The Chaoxian cave is an early hominin site located in eastern Anhui province, China.

Chankillo (Peru)
Chankillo (also spelled Chanquillo) is a ceremonial center and solar observatory located within an area of rock outcrops and sand ramps in the Casma-Schin river valley of arid coastal Peru.

Chantuto Phase
The Chantuto phase is the name given to Archaic period occupation of the coastal tidewaters along the southwest Mexico, dated roughly between 4000-1500 BC.

Chaparron Complex
The Chaparron culture in the name given to a group of people who lived in sedentary villages of lower central America, especially Costa Rica, between about 1000-500 BC.

Chapelle-aux-Saints (France)
La Chapelle-aux-Saints is a rockshelter located in southern France, where a skeleton of a aged Neanderthal was recovered over a century ago.

Characteristics of Ancient Civilizations
Ancient civilizations sometimes evolve from simpler societies; this much is apparent. The characteristics which identify increasing complexity include a range of different elements.

Charlie Lake Cave (Canada)
Charlie Lake Cave is a stratified rockshelter in northeastern British Columbia located within the so-called "Ice Free Corridor".

Chassey le Camp (France)
Chassey le Camp is the Chasséen (middle Neolithic) type site located on the Saone river, a small farming village of between 100 and 400 people, occupied beginning about 1500 BC.

Chasséen Culture
Chasséen Culture is the name given to a Middle Neolithic Bell beaker culture throughout what is now France between 4500 and 2500 BC.

Chavín Culture
The Chavín culture is the name of a cultural group in Peru, now thought to have been primarily a religious cult, dated from about 400-200 BC.

Chateau Gaillard (France)
Chateau Gaillard is a Medieval castle in France built by Richard Lionheart of England from 1197-1198, in order to protect his holdings in Normandy.

Chatelperronian Period
The Châtelperronian period is the name given to similar Upper Paleolithic Neanderthal (probably) stone tool assemblages, from about 32,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Chauvet Cave (France)
Chauvet Cave is one of the earliest rock art sites in the world, dating to the Aurignacian period in France, about 30,000-32,000 years ago.

Chavín de Huántar (Peru)
Chavin de Huantar is an archaeological site of the Chavín culture located on a steep slope of the Andes Mountains of Peru, occupied from about 900-200 BC.

Chengziya (China)
Chengziya is an archaeological site in Shandong Province, China, consissting of a walled settlement, with occupations primarily dated to the Longshan period (2600-2000 BC).

Chellean Man (Tanzania)
Chellean man is the name given to a Homo erectus skull with an extremely large brow ridge, found by Louis Leakey in 1960.

Chengbeixi Culture
Chengbeixi culture is the name given to an early developmental Neolithic paddy rice agriculture village culture in the Yangtze River of China, between about 7000-5000 BC.

Chengtoushan (China)
Chengtoushan is a Daxi culture site, located in the Lixian county of Hunan Province, China, with the earliest walled settlement in China.

Chichén Itzá (Mexico)
Chichén Itzá is a large Maya and Toltec village and temple complex on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.

Chenopodium
Chenopodium is one of about 250 species of plant, a good dozen of which were independently domesticated in various places all over earth.

Chernyakhov (Ukraine)
Chernyakhov is the name given to a Slavic village and cemetery in the Lower Danube region of Ukraine, dated to the 4th century AD.

Chetro Ketl
Chetro Ketl site in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Chetro Ketl-the largest great house site within Chaco Canyon

Chifumbaze Complex
The Chifumbaze complex is a widespread Iron Age culture, covering much of southern and eastern Africa.

Chilhac (France)
Chilhac is the name of a karst cave in the Massif Central region of Auvergne, France, with an early hominid (probably Homo erectus) occupation.

Chilca (Peru)
Chilca is the name of an early Archaic period site located on the Peruvian coast about 70 kilometers south of Lima.

Chimú State
The Chimú state, also called the "Kingdom of Chimor," was an Andean civilization which grew out of the Moche civilization, was established in Peru about 850 AD, and conquered by the Inca in 1470.

Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp)
Evidence for the domestication of chili peppers suggests that it was domesticated in South America.

Chinampa
The traditional farming technique called chinampa, is sometimes called floating gardens, and it has been used in the American continents for at least 1,000 years

Chincha Culture
The Chincha was a small polity on the coast of Peru oriented to living on marine resources, from 1000 AD to 1476 when they were conquered by the Inca

Chinchawas (Peru)
Chinchawas is a small village site, part of the Recuay polity, located on a known transportation route between the coast and the highlands in northern Peru.

The Chinchorro culture is the name of an archaic period South American...
The archaeological site of Chinchorro is a cemetery site located on a beach in Arica, in southern Chile.

Chinchorro Mummies
Chinchorro mummies are uniquely formed burials of mummified individuals of the Chinchorro culture of Chile and Peru, among the oldest and most stylistically individual mummies in the world.

Chinese Purple
The color known as Chinese or Han Purple was a manufactured pigment used in China between about 500 BC and 220 AD, most famously on the terracotta soldiers of the Qin emperor.

Chirand (India)
Chirand is a stratified Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Iron Age settlement in the eastern Ganges Valley of Bihar in northern India, between about 2500-AD 30.

Chiripa (Bolivia)
The archaeological site of Chiripa is located in the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia, associated with the Tiwanaku culture

Chocolate Domestication
Theobroma spp is the official name of several varieties of tropical trees that are native to the northern Amazon region of South America and were cultivated and domesticated in central America to produce the wonderful elixir of the gods, chocolate.

Chogha Mish (Iran)
The archaeological site of Chogha Mish is located in the Khuzistan Province of Iran (Susiana Plain).

Chultun
Chultuns are underground cavities dug by the ancient Maya, used to store water and food, and perhaps to make alcoholic beverages.

Chorrera Culture
The Chorrera culture is the name given to the Late Formative period in Ecuador's Andes and coastal areas

Chou Dynasty
The Chou Dynasty (also spelled Zhou) ruled China for over 700 years (1050-256 BC).

Chronological Analysis
Archaeologists use the term 'chronological analysis' to refer to the analysis of an object, set of objects, archaeological site or set of sites in terms of its temporal characteristics

Chicomoztoc. The Mythical Place of Origins of the Aztecs
The mythical Chicomoztoc,the place of the seven caves, was the sacred place of origin for the Aztec/Mexica, the Toltecs, and other groups of Central Mexico and northern Mesoamerica. Refer to this page to learn more about this important Mesoamerican myth.

Chwezi 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.