| Cacao in Mesoamerica Criollo cacao (Theobroma cacao spp cacao) is the name of a small tropical tree with large ovate fruit, native to the northern Amazon of South America but found in ancient planted groves throughout Central America.
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| Cacao in Mesoamerica Criollo cacao (Theobroma cacao spp cacao) is the name of a small tropical tree with large ovate fruit, native to the northern Amazon of South America but found in ancient planted groves throughout Central America.
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| Cacaxtla (Mexico) Cacaxtla was a Late Classic to Epiclassic (AD 600-900) city in the Puebla Valley, Tlaxcala, Mexico, with a population of about 10,000 at its peak.
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| Cacaxtla (Mexico) Cacaxtla was a Late Classic to Epiclassic (AD 600-900) city in the Puebla Valley, Tlaxcala, Mexico, with a population of about 10,000 at its peak.
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| Cactus Hill (USA) Cactus Hill is a buried multicomponent site on the Nottaway River of Virginia, with archaic, Clovis and, below the Clovis and separated by sterile sand, an apparent Pre-Clovis occupation.
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| Caddoan Culture Caddoan culture is the name given to farmers in the Arkansas River Valley of the central southern United States and southwestward between about 1100-400 BP (years before the present).
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| Cadiz (Spain) The modern port city of Cadiz (originally called Gadir or Gardes) in the Andalucia region of Spain was a Phoenician colony of Tyre founded at least by the 9th century BC.
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| Cahal Pech (Belize) The site of Cahal Pech is an early Middle Formative to Classic period Maya site in Belize, occupied pretty much continuously between 900 B.C. to A.D. 800.
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| Cahokia (USA) Cahokia is a large Mississippian (AD 1000-1600) agricultural settlement located on the American Bottom of the Mississippi River in Illinois.
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| Cahuachi (Peru) Cahuachi is a major ceremonial center of the Nasca civilization in Peru, occupied from between AD 1-500.
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| Cai Beo (Vietnam) Cai Beo is an archaeological site and the name of the related Hoabinhian period culture in Vietnam.
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| Cairn A cairn is, in essence, an intentionally-laid pile of rocks.
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| Cairo (Egypt) The Islamic city of Cairo is, oddly enough, one of the newer cities in Egypt, founded in the 7th century AD as a military outpost.
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| Cajamarca Culture The Cajamarca Culture was a small polity in the Peruvian highlands, ca. AD 500-1450
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| Calico Hills (USA) Calico Hills is an area of the Mojave Desert in California and the location of the attempts by paleoanthropologists Louis Leakey and Ruth Simpson to find evidence of early humans in the New World.
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| Camels There are two species of quadruped animal of the deserts of the world, both of which have implications for archaeology.
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| Can Llobateres (Spain) Can Llobateres is a Middle Miocene site in Spain, where fossilized remains of the extinct ape Dryopithecus fontani were recovered and have been to between 9-10 million years ago.
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| Canaan Canaan (also called Phoenicia) is the name of a Bronze Age culture and country in what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon.
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| Cannibalism Cannibalism refers to a range of behaviors in which one human consumes another or parts of another for survival, dietary, ritual and/or pathological reasons.
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| Canterbury Cathedral (UK) The Canterbury Cathedral is probably among the most famous church edifices in the world, partly because of its famous archbishops including St. Augustine, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Becket
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| Capacocha Ceremony The capacocha ceremony was an important part of the Inca civilization, in which children were sacrificed to celebrate royal events, or to avoid natural catastrophes.
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| Capelinha (Brazil) The site of Capelinha is a Paleoindian site in the Ribeira do Iguape Valley of Sao Paulo state in Brazil, and it is a shell midden with six human burials.
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| Capernaum (Israel) The town of Capernaum is mentioned several times in the New Testament of the Judeo-Christian bible, as the home of several apostles.
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| Cardiff Giant (USA) The Cardiff Giant was a famous nineteenth century hoax, which paid off handsomely to its perpetrators.
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| Cardinal Directions north, south, east, west
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| Carib Indians Native American group who had the unfortunate honor of being the first to meet Columbus in the New World in 1492. Within a decade, they were reported to have been destroyed by diseases brought by the Spanish explorers; but their ancestors continue to populate the Caribbean Islands.
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| Carnac (France) Carnac is a town on the Morbihan coast of the Bretagne region of France, the vicinity of which is known world wide for abundant Neolithic megalithic structures.
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| Carthage (Tunisia) Carthage was a Phoenician colony located in what is now the country of Tunisia about 15 kilometers from the capital city of Tunis.
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| Casas Grandes (Mexico) Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) was a large, influential capital city of the Casas Grandes polity in the state of Chihuahua, northern Mexico
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| Casimiroid Culture The Casimiroid culture is an Archaic period culture of the Caribbean Sea in Central America, with the type site found on the island of Casimira in the Dominican Republic.
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| Castel del Monte (Italy) The World Heritage site Castel del Monte is a medieval period castle, built by Frederick II between AD 1229 and 1249.
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| Castelluccio Culture The Castelluccio Culture is a Bronze Age (2000-1400 BC) culture of Sicily, and the name of the type site.
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| Catal Hoyuk (Turkey) Catal Hoyuk is an Early Neolithic site in Turkey (6300-5500 BC), and so far the oldest civilization on earth.
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| Catlinite Another name for pipestone, reddish sandstone used by Native Americans for making pipes
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| Causeways A causeway is an early form of transportation system, consisting of a narrow, man-made earthen or rock structure that bridged a waterway.
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| Cave Art Cave art refers to paintings, murals, drawings, etchings, carvings, and pecked artwork on the interior of rock shelters and caves.
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| Cayönü (Turkey) Cayönü is an Early Neolithic site (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) in the upper Tigris valley of southeastern Turkey
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| Cellular Theory of Prehistory The cellular theory of prehistory was dreamed up by German pathologist Rudolf Virchow, who believed that if you looked hard enough, you could find the archaeological roots of each particular ethnic group as a segregated, intact whole.
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| Celt A small axe-like type of stone implement usually held in the hand used for working wooden materials
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| Celtic Culture The Celtic culture (or Celts) were a long-recognized cultural group of the Iron Age in western Europe, from about the 11th to the first century BC.
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| Cemetery A location where individuals are buried
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| Ceque System The word 'ceque' means 'line' in the Inca language Quechua but in reality it meant many things to the Inca, some of which we probably will never understand.
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| Ceramics and Pottery The term ceramics or pottery refers to artifacts made of heated earth, including storage and cooking vessels, building material such as adobe brick, and occasionally tools and furniture.
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| Ceremony A gathering of people for a program, usually serious in nature, for a specific purpose
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| Cerén (el Salvador) The archaeological site of Ceren is a Mesoamerican agricultural village in El Salvador, known as the American Pompeii.
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| Cerro Lampay (Peru) Cerro Lampay is a Late Archaic, Caral-Supe civilization site located in the Fortaleza Valley of Peru.
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| C-Group Culture The third segment of the terms used by archaeologists to define Nubian culture, the C-Group lasted from about 2000-1700 BC.
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| Chachapoyas Culture Chachapoyas culture is the name given to an Andean civilization, located in the Amazon rainforest
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| Chaco Canyon (USA) Chaco Canyon is an archaeological site in the state of New Mexico in the American southwest, belonging to the Anasazi culture.
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| 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
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| 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.
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| Chalchuapa (el Salvador) Chalchuapa is the name of a Maya period site in El Salvador, occupied from about 1200 BC to the Spanish conquest.
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| 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.
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| Champa Kingdom The Champa Kingdom was located along the coastal plains of southern and central Vietnam, between about AD 192 and 1832.
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| 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.
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| Chang'an (China) Chang'an is the name of one of the most important ancient capital cities of China.
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| Chanhu Daro (Pakistan) The archaeological site of Chanhu Daro is a Jhukar culture site located in Sind province of modern day Pakistan.
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| Chanka Polity The Chanka was a small polity in the Peruvian highlands following the Wari empire and a rival to the Inca civilization
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Chaoxian Cave (China) The Chaoxian cave is an early hominin site located in eastern Anhui province, China.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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