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Greenstone (archaeology)
Greenstone is a common generic term for valuable, green-hued minerals and metamorphosed igneous rocks and stones which early cultures used in the fashioning of hardstone carvings such as jewelry, statuettes, ritual tools, and various other artifacts. Greenstone artifacts may be made of greenschist, chlorastrolite, serpentine, omphacite, chrysoprase, olivine, nephrite, chloromelanite among other green-hued minerals. The term also includes jade and jadeite, although these are perhaps more frequently identified by these latter terms. The greenish hue of these rocks generally derives from the presence of minerals such as chlorite, hornblende, or epidote.Kipfer (2000, p.218) Greenstone minerals were presumably selected for their color rather than their chemical composition. In archaeology therefore, having a loosely applied general term is at least partially influenced by the observation that ancient cultures often used and considered these various green-hued materials as int ...
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Archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, archaeological site, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes ove ...
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Otago University
, image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate university , endowment = NZD $279.9 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $756.8 million (31 December 2020) , chancellor = Stephen Higgs , vice_chancellor = David Murdoch , administrative_staff = 2,246 (2019) , academic_staff = 1,744 (2019) , students = 21,240 (2019) , undergrad = 15,635 (2014) , postgrad = 4,378 (2014) , doctoral = 1,579 (2019) , other = , city = Dunedin , province = Otago , country = New Zealand (Māori: ''Ōtepoti, Ōtākou, Aotearoa'') , coor = , campus = Urban/ University town 45 ha (111 acres) , colours = Dunedin Blue and Gold , free_label = Student Magazine , free = ''Critic'' , affiliations = MNU , website https://www.otago.ac.nz, logo = Logo of the University of Otago.svg The Un ...
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Transactions And Proceedings Of The Royal Society Of New Zealand
The ''Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand'' was a scientific journal and magazine published by the Royal Society of New Zealand. Before 1933 the society was called the New Zealand Institute, and the journal's name was ''Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute''. It was active between 1868 and 1961 and was the most important scientific journal in New Zealand. Notable contributors *Thomas Cheeseman, naturalist *William Colenso, botanist *Harold John Finlay, palaeontologist and conchologist. * Charles Fleming, ornithologist and palaeontologist *James Hector, geologist *Thomas Hocken, botanist and anthropologist *Ernest Rutherford, chemist and physicist, Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ... References ...
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Otago University Museum
Tūhura Otago Museum is located in the city centre of Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ..., New Zealand. It is adjacent to the University of Otago campus in Dunedin North, 1,500 metres northeast of the city centre. It is one of the city's leading attractions and has one of the largest museum collections in New Zealand. Natural science specimens and humanities artefacts from Otago, New Zealand and the world form the basis for long-term gallery displays. An interactive science centre within the museum includes a large, immersive tropical butterfly rainforest environment. In February 2022 the museum was gifted the name ''Tūhura'', meaning "to discover, investigate and explore" by local rūnanga, changing the official name to Tūhura Otago Museum. History Origin ...
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Tobago
Tobago () is an island and ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. It also lies to the southeast of Grenada. The official bird of Tobago is the cocrico. Etymology Tobago was named ''Belaforme'' by Christopher Columbus "because from a distance it seemed beautiful". The Spanish friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote that the Kalina (mainland Caribs) called the island ''Urupina'' because of its resemblance to a big snail, while the Kalinago (Island Caribs) called it ''Aloubaéra'', supposedly because it resembled the ''alloüebéra'', a giant snake which was supposed to live in a cave on the island of Dominica. The earliest known record of the use of the name ''Tabaco'' to refer to the island is a Spanish royal order issued in 1511. That name was inspired by the resemblance of the shape of the island to the fat cigars smoked by the Taíno inhabitant ...
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Pre-Columbian Cultures
This list of pre-Columbian cultures includes those civilizations and cultures of the Americas which flourished prior to the European colonization of the Americas. Cultural characteristics Many pre-Columbian civilizations established permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, and complex societal hierarchies. In North America, indigenous cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley during the Middle Archaic period built complexes of multiple mounds, with several in Louisiana dated to 5600–5000 BP (3700 BC–3100 BC). Watson Brake is considered the oldest, multiple mound complex in the Americas, as it has been dated to 3500 BC. It and other Middle Archaic sites were built by pre-ceramic, hunter-gatherer societies. They preceded the better known Poverty Point culture and its elaborate complex by nearly 2,000 years.
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Olmec
The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures. The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica's formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500  BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, early Olmec culture had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most famil ...
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Pounamu
Pounamu is a term for several types of hard and durable stone found in southern New Zealand. They are highly valued in New Zealand, and carvings made from pounamu play an important role in Māori culture. Name The Māori word , also used in New Zealand English, refers to two main types of green stone valued for carving: nephrite jade, classified by Māori as , , , and other names depending on colour; and translucent bowenite, a type of serpentine, known as . The collective term pounamu is preferred, as the other names in common use are misleading, such as New Zealand jade (not all pounamu is jade) and greenstone (a generic term used for unrelated stone from many countries). Pounamu is only found in New Zealand, whereas much of the carved "greenstone" sold in souvenir shops is jade sourced overseas. The Māori classification of pounamu is by colour and appearance; the shade of green is matched against a colour found in nature, and some hues contain flecks of red or bro ...
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New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the List of island countries, sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's Capital of New Zealand, capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. ...
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Māori People
The Māori (, ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed their own distinctive culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori. Initial contact between Māori and Europeans, starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising tensions over disputed land sales led to conflict in the 1860s, and massive land confiscations, to ...
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ... country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approx ...
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