1.
Megalith
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A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. The word megalithic describes structures made of large stones without the use of mortar or concrete. For later periods, the monolith, with an overlapping meaning, is more likely to be used. The word megalith comes from the Ancient Greek μέγας and λίθος, megalith also denotes an item consisting of rock hewn in definite shapes for special purposes. It has been used to describe buildings built by people from parts of the world living in many different periods. A variety of stones are seen as megaliths, with the most widely known megaliths not being sepulchral. The construction of these took place mainly in the Neolithic and continued into the Chalcolithic. At a number of sites in eastern Turkey, large ceremonial complexes from the 9th millennium BC have been discovered and they belong to the incipient phases of agriculture and animal husbandry. Large circular structures involving carved megalithic orthostats are a feature, e. g. at Nevalı Çori. Although these structures are the most ancient megalithic structures known so far, at Göbekli Tepe, four stone circles have been excavated from an estimated 20. Some measure up to 30 metres across, as well as human figures, the stones carry a variety of carved reliefs depicting boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions. Dolmens and standing stones have been found in areas of the Middle East starting at the Turkish border in the north of Syria close to Aleppo. They can be encountered in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Israel, Jordan, the largest concentration can be found in southern Syria and along the Jordan Rift Valley, however they are being threatened with destruction. They date from the late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, megaliths have also been found on Kharg Island and pirazmian in Iran, at Barda Balka in Iraq, and at Jaintapur in Bangladesh. A semicircular arrangement of megaliths was found in Israel at Atlit Yam and it is a very early example, dating from the 7th millennium BC. The most concentrated occurrence of dolmens in particular is in an area on both sides of the Jordan Rift Valley, with greater predominance on the eastern side. They occur first and foremost on the Golan Heights, the Hauran, and in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, only very few dolmen have been identified so far in the Hejaz. They seem, however, to re-emerge in Yemen in small numbers, the standing stone has a very ancient tradition in the Middle East, dating back from Mesopotamian times
2.
Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
3.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
4.
Long gallery
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In architecture, a long gallery is a long, narrow room, often with a high ceiling. In Britain, long galleries were popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses and they were often located on the upper floor of the great houses of the time, and they stretched across the entire frontage of the building. They served several purposes, they were used for entertaining guests, for taking exercise in the form of walking when the weather was inclement, and for displaying art collections. A long gallery has the appearance of a corridor, but it was designed as a room to be used in its own right. In the 16th century, the seemingly obvious concept of the corridor had not been introduced to British domestic architecture, later, long galleries were built in Victorian houses, such as Nottingham Castle
5.
Hall
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In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, and the next to the front door became the entrance hall. Today, the hall of a house is the next to the front door or vestibule leading to the rooms directly and/or indirectly. Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a passage, in warmer climates the houses of the wealthy were often built around a courtyard, but in northern areas manors were built around a great hall. The hall was home to the hearth, and was all the residents of the house would eat, work. One common example of form is the longhouse. Only particularly messy tasks would be done in rooms on the periphery of the hall. Still today the hall is often used to designate a country house such as a hall house, or specifically a Wealden hall house. In later medieval Europe, the room of a castle or manor house was the great hall. In a medieval building, the hall was where the fire was kept, as heating technology improved and a desire for privacy grew, tasks moved from the hall to other rooms. First the master of the house withdrew to private bedrooms and eating areas, over time servants and children also moved to their own areas, while work projects were also given their own chambers leaving the hall for special functions. With time, its functions as dormitory, kitchen, parlour and so on were divided off to separate rooms or, in the case of the kitchen, until the early modern era that majority of the population lived in houses with a single room. In the 17th century even lower classes began to have a room, with the main chamber being the hall. The hall and parlor house was found in England and was a fundamental, historical floor plan in parts of the United States from 1620 to 1860, in Europe as the wealthy embraced multiple rooms initially the common form was the enfilade, with rooms directly connecting to each other. In 1597 John Thorpe is the first recorded architect to replace multiple connected rooms with a rooms along a corridor each accessed by a separate door. Many buildings at colleges and universities are formally titled _______ Hall, typically being named after the person who endowed it, for example, Kings Hall, others, such as Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, commemorate respected people. Between these in age, Nassau Hall at Princeton University began as the building of the then college
6.
Wedge-shaped gallery grave
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A wedge-shaped gallery grave or wedge tomb is a type of Irish chamber tomb. They are so named because the burial chamber narrows at one end, an antechamber is separated from the burial area by a simple jamb or sill, and the doorway generally faces west. A distinguishing characteristic of wedge tombs is the double-walling of the gallery and they were often covered by cairns, which could be round, oval or D-shaped, often with a kerb to revet it. More are low sized, usually about 1.5 metres high, wedge tombs were built between the Irish late Neolithic and middle Bronze Ages. Today, between 500 and 550 known wedge tombs survive in Ireland, and are predominantly in the west
7.
Tumulus
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A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, a cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus. Tumuli are often categorised according to their external apparent shape, in this respect, a long barrow is a long tumulus, usually constructed on top of several burials, such as passage graves. A round barrow is a tumulus, also commonly constructed on top of burials. The internal structure and architecture of both long and round barrows has a range, the categorization only refers to the external apparent shape. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe. The funeral of Patroclus is described in book 23 of the Iliad, Patroclus is burned on a pyre, and his bones are collected into a golden urn in two layers of fat. The barrow is built on the location of the pyre, achilles then sponsors funeral games, consisting of a chariot race, boxing, wrestling, running, a duel between two champions to the first blood, discus throwing, archery and spear throwing. Beowulfs body is taken to Hronesness, where it is burned on a funeral pyre, during cremation, the Geats lament the death of their lord, a widows lament being mentioned in particular, singing dirges as they circumambulate the barrow. Afterwards, a mound is built on top of a hill, overlooking the sea, a band of twelve of the best warriors ride around the barrow, singing dirges in praise of their lord. Parallels have also drawn to the account of Attilas burial in Jordanes Getica. Jordanes tells that as Attilas body was lying in state, the best horsemen of the Huns circled it, as in circus games. An Old Irish Life of Columcille reports that every funeral procession halted at a mound called Eala, whereupon the corpse was laid, archaeologists often classify tumuli according to their location, form, and date of construction. Some British types are listed below, Bank barrow Bell barrow Bowl barrow D-shaped barrow - round barrow with a flat edge at one side often defined by stone slabs. Disc barrow Fancy barrow - generic term for any Bronze Age barrows more elaborate than a hemispherical shape. Long barrow Oval barrow - a Neolithic long barrow consisting of an elliptical, platform barrow - The least common of the recognised types of round barrow, consisting of a flat, wide circular mound that may be surrounded by a ditch. They occur widely across southern England with a concentration in East and West Sussex. Pond barrow - a barrow consisting of a circular depression, surrounded by a bank running around the rim of the depression
8.
Cairn
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A cairn is a human-made pile of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic, càrn, cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes, from prehistoric times to the present. In modern times, cairns are often erected as landmarks, a use they have had since ancient times. Cairns are used as markers in many parts of the world, in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, as well as in barren deserts. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons. An ancient example is the inuksuk, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, inuksuit are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks, different types of cairns exist from rough piles of stones to interlocking dry stone round cylinders. The most important cairns commonly used around the world are interlocking stone survey cairns constructed around a central survey mark about every 30 km on the tallest peaks across a nation. These physical survey mark cairn systems by surveyors as the basis for national survey grids to interconnect individual land survey measurements for entire nations, on occasion these permanent interlocking stone cairns were taken down then reconstructed for survey mark for measurements to increase the accuracy of the national survey grid. They can also be used in unpopulated country as emergency location points, for example, the extensive trail network maintained by the DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association, extensively uses cairns in conjunction with T-painted rock faces to mark trails. Other examples of these can be seen in the fields of Volcanoes National Park to mark several hikes. Placed at regular intervals, a series of cairns can be used to indicate a path across stony or barren terrain, such cairns are often placed at junctions or in places where the trail direction is not obvious. They may also be used to indicate an obscured danger such as a sudden drop, most trail cairns are small, usually being a foot or less in height. However, they may be built taller so as to protrude through a layer of snow, hikers passing by often add a stone, as a small bit of maintenance to counteract the erosive effects of severe weather. North American trail marks are sometimes called ducks or duckies, because they sometimes have a beak pointing in the direction of the route. The expression two rocks do not make a duck reminds hikers that just one rock resting upon another could be the result of accident or nature rather than intentional trail marking. The building of cairns for recreational purposes along trails, to ones personal passage through the area. This distracts from cairns used as navigational guides, and also conflicts with the Leave No Trace ethic
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