  Generalizing the notion of split graphs to uniform hypergraphs, we prove that
the class of these hypergraphs can be characterized by a finite list of
excluded induced subhypergraphs. We show that a characterization by generalized
degree sequences is impossible, unlike in the well-known case of split graphs.
We also give an algorithm to decide whether a given uniform hypergraph is a
split hypergraph. If it is, the algorithm gives a splitting of it; the running
time is $O(N\log N)$. These answer questions of Sloan, Gy. Tur\'an and Peled.
