History Vocabulary Calvert 6th Unit 1
Terms
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- bematistae
- "steppers" who measured distance by the steps they took
- Stonehenge
- a monument found in the south of what is now Britain, made of huge stones (or megaliths), arranged in a circular pattern
- Nubia
- an ancient African kingdom, south of Egypt
- extended family
- nuclear family plus the families of the children when they grow up (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents)
- Vedas
- a collection of sacred poems from what is now the country of India
- kitchen midden
- a rubbish heap, including artifacts and bones, left in a settlement by people of the past
- nuclear family
- mother, father, siblings
- radiocarbon dating
- a method for determining the age of once-living things, based on the fact that their radioactive carbon content decays at a regular rate
- alternative family
- individuals who live together for economic, political, social, or religious reasons (may or may not be related)
- Thucydides
- 471 - 400 B.C., Greek historian
- astrolabe
- instrument used to help sight positions of the sun and stars
- Ptolemy, Claudius
- 100s B.C. Greek geographer, astronomer, and author of Guide to Geography
- topography
- the physical features of a region, such as mountains, plains, and rivers
- megalith
- a very large stone used in various prehistoric buildings or monuments
- Icarus
- Icarus was a character in a Greek myth. His father made him wings of wax, but he flew to close to the sun and the wings melted.
- archaeology
- the systematic recovery and study of tools, graves, buildings, pottery, and other remains of past human life and culture
- Priscus
- Roman writer and historian
- archaeological record
- artifacts, ruins, bones, and fossils
- cartographer
- a mapmaker
- scientific dating
- dating ancient objects by analyzing them in a laboratory
- Attila
- king of the Huns from about 433 - 453
- Eratosthenes
- 200s B.C., Greek mathematician who used a gnomon to figure the earth's circumference
- culture
- the attitudes, beliefs, customs, traditions, art, and achievements of a society that are passed from one generation to another
- Pliny the Younger
- Roman writer and governor of Asia Minor
- diffusion
- the spread of ideas, values, and inventions from one culture to another
- primary source
- information about events recorded at the time of those events
- climate
- the average weather conditions in an area over a long period of time, especially temperature, precipitation, and wind
- Ptolemy
- c. 367 - 283 B.C., general of Alexander the Great who ruled Egypt after Alexander's death
- Pliny the Elder
- Roman scholar
- fossil
- the remains or imprint of a plant or animal from a past geological age
- Seneca
- a Roman writer who lived at about 4 B.C. to A.D. 65
- amphorae
- pottery containers filled with wine and olive oil (from ancient Rome)
- Plato
- Greek philosopher and student of socrates (c. 427 - 347 B.C.)
- Faxian
- A.D. 400s, Chinese Buddhist monk who wrote about travels to India
- gnomon
- blade that stands upright on a sundial
- dendochronology
- tree-ring counting, the oldest form of scientific dating
- deforestation
- the process of clearing away trees or forests
- stratigraphy
- the study of the remains that are found in various layers of soil and rock
- monsoon
- a wind system affecting the climate of India and southern Asia; reverses direction seasonally, producing a wet season and a dry season
- excavation
- in archaeology, the systematic digging of an area of ground to recover the archaeological record
- Strabo
- 1st century Roman historian and author of Geography
- prehistory
- the history of humans before the development of writing
- Hippalus
- 1st century Greek who discovered shorter trade route to India (c. A.D. 37) by sailing directly across the Arabic Sea
- Homer
- Greek epic poet and author of the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 700 B.C.)
- latitude
- the angular distance north or south of the earth's equator, measured in degrees along a meridian, as on a map or globe
- artifact
- an object made by humans that is of archaeological or historical interest
- circumference
- the boundary line of a figure, area, or object
- oral tradition
- the legends, myths, and beliefs that a culture passes from generation to generation by word of mouth
- Tutankhamen
- Egyptian pharaoh whose tomb yielded important archaeological finds (d. 1352 B.C.)
- Hanno
- Carthaginian commander who led voyage to west coast of Africa C. 480 B.C.
- secondary source
- information about events recorded after those events by people who have studied the primary sources
- Herodotus
- 400s B.C. Greek historian
- sarcophagus
- stone coffin (sometimes refers to any coffin)