stadial

comparative more stadial · superlative most stadial

1. geographyPertaining to a glacial stade.
2. archaeologyPertaining to or existing in successive stages of a given culture, society etc.

   1 more example

   He drew on the growing ethnographic record contained in travellers' tales about extra-European societies to develop a stadial view of human evolution according to which each society passed through the stages of hunting, pastoral life, farming, and trading – a schema which had no place for scriptural precept.

   2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 188

plural stadials

1. geographyA short, colder period within an interglacial; a stade.