Glossary: U Terms

Uan Muhuggiag (Libya)
The cave of Uan Muhuggiag contains an occupation and rock art, located in the Acacus massif of the central Saharan desert of Libya.

Uan Tabu (Libya)
The Uan Tabu rockshelter in Libya is one of a handful of sites in north Africa that represent substantial evidence of the Aterian Middle Stone Age complex of stone tools.

Uaxactun (Guatemala)
Uaxactun (pronounced Washackton) is an important Maya center, located in the Peten region of Guatemala.

Ubaidian Culture
The Ubaidian culture is a prehistoric Mesopotamian culture first identified by Jacques de Morgan around the turn of the 19th century.

Ubeidiya (Israel)
Ubeidiya is an early paleolithic archaeological site located on a low rise in the Jordan Valley of Israel--and at 1.4-1.6 million years in age, it is one of the oldest hominid sites outside of Africa.

Ugarit (Syria)
Ugarit is the ancient name of a Canaanite city represented by the archaeological site of Ras Shamra, on Syria's Mediterranean coastline.

Ukhaidir (Iraq)
The Abbasid palace of Ukhaidir is located in Iraq, 75 miles southwest of Baghdad.

Uluburun (Turkey)
Uluburun is the name of a Late Bronze Age ship, wrecked off the coast of Turkey near Kas in the 14th century BC and about 50 meters below the water's surface and six miles from the coast.

Upward Sun River Site
The Upward Sun River site, also called Xaasaa Na'in and the Little Delta Dune site, is a paleoindian and pre-clovis site located in central Alaska, where one of the oldest burials in the Americas was found.

Ur (Iraq)
The Mesopotamian city of Ur, known as Tell al-Muqayyar, was an important Sumerian city state between about 2025-1738 BC.

Uraha (Malawi)
The paleontological site of Uraha is located in Malawi, east Africa, and was discovered in the early 1990s by the German archaeologist Friedemann Schrenk.

Urartu
Urartu is the ancient name for the region called Ararat in the Judeo-Christian bible, located in parts of what are now the modern day countries of Turkey, Armenia and Iran.

Urban Archaeology
The branch of archaeological science called urban archaeology is concerned with the study of cities.

Urban Revolution
Archaeologists use the term Urban Revolution to refer to the suite of behaviors that seem to occur at the same time as people begin to move into cities.

Urbanism
Urbanism is the word used by archaeologists to describe the process that drove people to live in cities.

Urewe Culture
The Urewe Culture is the name given to the first group of iron producers in the Lake Victoria region of eastern and central Africa.

Uruk (Iraq)
The ancient Mesopotamian capital of Uruk is located on an abandoned channel of the Euphrates river about 155 miles south of Baghdad.

Urnfield Cemetery
An urnfield cemetery, or jar burial, is a type of secondary burial that involves placing the cremated body of a deceased person into a large jar or urn, within a large defined cemetery area.

Ushki Lakes (Russia)
The Ushki Lake sites are five locales along the Ushki Lake shore of the Kamchatka Peninsula of northeastern Siberia, in the region known as western Beringia.

Ust-Mil 2 (Russia)
The archaeological site of Ust-Mil is a Dyuktai cultural site located on the Aldan River in the Yakutia region of Siberia.

Usujiri (Japan)
The archaeological site of Usujiri is located in the Hokkaido region of Aomori prefecture on the island of Japan.

Utari Culture
The Utari, also known as the Ainu, are modern hunter-fisher-gatherers located in northern Japan and apparently descendants of the Jomon Tradition culture.

Uxmal (Mexico)
The ruins of the great Puuc regional center of Uxmal are located north of the Puuc hills of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.