Glossary Archaeological method and dating
Type-site
Also called: type-cemetery
The site that gives its name to a culture, ware or phase, or whose finds serve as the standard reference for it.
When a new kind of material is first recognised, it is often named after the place where it was found or best defined, and that place becomes its type-site. Other sites are then compared against it. A type-site is a reference point for a label and need not be typical, the largest or the earliest example.
Cypriot examples include Philia, which names the Philia facies at the start of the Bronze Age; Erimi-Pamboula, type-site of the Middle Chalcolithic (Neolithic and Chalcolithic Burial); and the cemetery of Vounous, long the basis for the Early Bronze Age (Vounous and Early Bronze Age Burial). Relying on one type-site can mislead: the old picture of a uniform Early Bronze Age culture came partly from treating Vounous as representative of the whole island.
Related terms
- Facies
A distinctive set of material culture found together in one region or period, a more neutral label than 'culture' or 'people'.
- Typology
A system for sorting objects into classes and types by shape, fabric and decoration, so that like can be compared with like and dated.
- Assemblage
A group of objects found together in one context, such as a tomb, pit or floor, and studied as a set.