Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) raisin, dried fruit of certain varieties of grapevines bearing grapes with a high content of sugar and solid flesh. Although the fruit is sometimes artificially dehydrated, it is usually sun-dried. Th...

(Encyclopedia) Neolithic period or New Stone Age. The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the ...

(Encyclopedia) Harris, Marvin, 1927–2001, American anthropologist, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (A.B., 1949; Ph.D., 1953). A member of the faculty of Columbia (1952–80), he was chairman of the anthropology d...

(Encyclopedia) Mead, Margaret, 1901–78, American anthropologist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Barnard, 1923, Ph.D. Columbia, 1929. In 1926 she became assistant curator, in 1942 associate curator, and from 1964 to 1969 s...

(Encyclopedia) Iberians, ancient people of Spain. Some scholars have argued that they migrated from Africa in the Neolithic period and again at the end of the Bronze Age, while the archaeological evidence has been i...

(Encyclopedia) Steward, Julian Haynes, 1902–72, American anthropologist, b. Washington, D.C., grad. Cornell, 1925, Ph.D. Univ. of California, 1929. He taught at the Univ. of Michigan (1928–30), Columbia (1946–...

(Encyclopedia) folkways, term coined by William Graham Sumner in his treatise Folkways (1906) to denote those group habits that are common to a society or culture and are usually called customs. The word provided a ...

(Encyclopedia) Mesolithic period mĕzˌəlĭthˈĭk [key] or Middle Stone Age, period in human development between the end of the Paleolithic period and the beginning of the Neolithic period. It began with the end o...

(Encyclopedia) pre-Columbian art and architecture, works of art and structures created in Central and South America before the arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere. For many years the regions that are now ...

(Encyclopedia) William and Mary in Virginia, College of, mainly at Williamsburg; state supported; coeducational; chartered 1693, opened 1694 by Episcopalians under James Blair. It became a university in 1779. The se...