Encyclopedia of Archaeology Volume 1-3

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Professor Deborah M Pearsall The Frederick A Middlebush Chair in Social Sciences Department of Anthropology University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO USA

Professor Deborah M.Pearsall

Deborah M. Pearsall was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She grew up in various places in the upper Midwest and graduated from high school in Avon Lake, Ohio. She returned to Michigan for college, where she attended the University of Michigan and majored in Anthropology. It was also at Michigan that she became interested in paleoethnobotany—the study of plant-people interrelationships through archaeology—and studied with Richard I. Ford. After graduation from college, she enrolled in graduate school at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and began studying with South American archaeologist Donald W. Lathrap. There she became interested in Ecuador, and participated in Lathrap’s excavations at Real Alto, an ancient agricultural village. The study of macroremains and phytoliths from Real Alto became her dissertation research, and she received a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1979. In addition to continuing to work in Ecuador, Deborah has conducted research in Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Hawaii, Guam, and the Midwestern U.S., and has supervised students working in these and other regions. She has taught anthropology and carried out paleoethnobotanical studies at the University of Missouri in Columbia since 1978. She is the author of Paleoethnobotany, A Handbook of Procedures (Academic Press, 2000), Plants and People in Ancient Ecuador: The Ethnobotany of the Jama River Valley (Wadsworth, 2004), The Origins of Agriculture in the Neotropics (coauthor with D. R. Piperno, Academic Press, 1998), and editor of this encyclopedia. She enjoys gardening—especially growing old English roses—and writing, and lives on 80 acres outside Columbia with her husband Mike DeLoughery.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Takeru Akazawa Kochi University of Technology Kochi Japan Pedro Paulo A Funari Department of History Universidad Estadual de Campinas Sao Paulo Brazil Julian Henderson Department of Archaeology University of Nottingham Nottingham UK Augustin F C Holl Department of Anthropology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI USA Joyce Marcus Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI USA

M Rafique Mughal Department of Archaeology Boston University Boston, MA USA Daniel T Potts Department of Archaeology University of Sydney Sydney, NSW Australia Patty Jo Watson Washington University at St. Louis St. Louis, MO USA Steve Weber Department of Anthropology Washington State University Vancouver, WA USA Zhijun Zhao Institute of Archaeology Beijing China

FOREWORD Archaeology today has become a truly international undertaking, and it has done so by employing what has become a new and universal language. The record of the human past is a material one, recorded in the earth, in the buried remains of vanished civilizations and in the material traces which past communities have left behind. As this book clearly documents, those traces, the carefully excavated settlements and burials of early human groups and their artifacts, which they made and used, can today be made accessible in what we may call the language of archaeology. That language, intelligible in every part of the world, is able to transcend the limitations of written history. For narrative history, as set down in writing, is inevitably confined to the literate civilizations whose very early texts come down to us from just a few locations in the Old World. The universal language of archaeology, however, knows no such bounds. Instead it addresses the human use of material culture wherever human beings have lived. It draws upon a broad range of techniques – from stratigraphic excavation to radiocarbon dating, from aerial photography to molecular biology – which now make it possible to speak of a world archaeology, in which the experiences of every country and people can take their place. This book sets out in a coherent way to make that language clearly and directly intelligible to the reader, so that the basic techniques of archaeology can be understood. It goes on to apply those techniques to the entire human story. Its broad sweep takes us from the emergence of the first humans, initially in Africa, and their early out-of-Africa dispersals, through the whole gamut of human experience, dealing with the rise of farming communities, the dawn of civilizations, the formation of the first cities, and so down to the present, and to the postcolonial era in every part of the world. The good news is that every land, every inhabited area of the earth, does have its archaeology. Each community has a past, which today can be investigated with the use of the now-universal techniques of investigation described here. The scope is vast. The story unfolds here on a continent-by-continent basis. Only in recent decades has it been possible to put together such a survey. For it was radiocarbon dating that opened the way for early developments in every part of the world to be dated. Suddenly the chronology of early Australia or of southern Africa became just as secure and just as available as the comparable chronologies for Europe or for the ancient Near East. The whole scope of human achievement in every part of the world is becoming known through the practice of archaeology. The authors of this survey have produced an up-to-date account not only of the methods which constitute the language of archaeology but also of the principal findings which now allow us to speak of a world archaeology. The authorship of the Encyclopedia of Archaeology reflects the cosmopolitan status of archaeology today. It is truly international, with Chinese scholars writing many of the entries for China, African scholars for Africa. The coverage is, of course, global, covering every continent (including Oceania) and every period. It is also multifacetted, giving insights into the different schools of archaeological thought, which flourish today. It recognizes that philosophical themes (Marxist archaeology; Postprocessual archaeology) must rub shoulders with social topics (Ethnicity, Rise of political complexity), and both of these with issues of contemporary concern (Who owns the past?, Politics of archaeology). These in turn are found side-by-side with some of the key scientific subdisciplines (archaeometry, phytolith analysis, taphonomy), which today provide much of the vocabulary for that universal language of archaeology. The outcome is that this work will be read with profit in every part of the world. It will be as welcome in South America (where the Amazon basin for once achieves necessary coverage) as in Europe, as appropriate in Japan as in Mesoamerica. It reflects well the changing nature of archaeology, with the fast developing range of new research methods and the changing realities of a postcolonial world where the past of every area and region is of interest. Colin Renfrew

INTRODUCTION

Archaeology is a subject that fascinates us. From Egyptian tombs to a frozen Alpine wayfarer, from cities buried under volcanic ash to stone arrowheads turned up by the plow, archaeology is in the news and in our backyards. It is paradoxical that a subject that so easily captures the imagination is so difficult to access. Superficial media treatments and picturebook atlases and site guides on the one hand, jargonheavy scholarly books and narrowly focused articles on the other – there are few ways to learn about the real world of archaeology outside the university classroom or the dig site. The aim of the Encyclopedia of Archaeology is to change this, to make all aspects of archaeology accessible to a broad audience, from educated laypersons and university students eager to learn about the field, to scholars intent on broadening and updating their knowledge of the discipline. No existing work provides the breadth and depth of coverage achieved here. It has been my privilege and pleasure to work with over 260 talented archaeologists from around the globe during this project. In the pages that follow, they will introduce you to archaeology through contributions arranged in an easy-to-use, alphabetical format. From the moment I was invited to undertake this project, I knew that I wanted the Encyclopedia of Archaeology not only to showcase archaeological knowledge at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but to convey how archaeologists work, and to illustrate the diversity of issues and theoretical paradigms that drive our research. From this grew an underlying four-part structure for the Encyclopedia of Archaeology: Archaeology as a discipline The practice of archaeology Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century: A world overview Geographical overviews Topics and issues that cross-cut geography Archaeology in the everyday world

The ‘Contents list by subject’, which follows this Introduction, illustrates how individual contributions are grouped conceptually within this framework. Each contribution to ‘Archaeology as a discipline’ places emphasis on the broad approach and subject matter of part of the field of archaeology, and provides historical context when appropriate. Here you will be introduced to schools of thought as distinctive as cognitive and evolutionary archaeology, learn of the historic roots and philosophy of the field, and read overviews of subjects from archaeoastronomy to forensic archaeology to urban archaeology. Contributions to ‘The practice of archaeology’ describe the nuts and bolts of how archaeological research is conducted, and incorporate case studies as illustrations of modern archaeological practice. Topics range from fieldwork, through analysis of artifacts and biological materials, to approaches to interpreting the archaeological record. Among our authors you will find experts and innovators in archaeological methodology. ‘Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century: A world overview’ is a wide-ranging review of our knowledge of the past. Archaeological sites and cultural traditions are placed in regional and temporal context in contributions in the ‘Geographical overviews’ section. Each article is written by an archaeologist with hands-on research experience in the region, and includes maps and illustrations of sites and artifacts. Look up an archaeological site in the index (or use the search function in the online version) and you will be guided to the regional and topical articles that discuss it. Or just browse and learn the latest on the archaeology of East Africa, Micronesia, or the Lesser Antilles. Regions are ordered in the ‘Contents list by subject’ west to east, and north to south, and within regions contributions are ordered chronologically or by subregion, as deemed appropriate.

x Introduction

Contributions to ‘Topics and issues that cross-cut geography’ are in-depth articles on cutting-edge research in archaeology. Case studies, often from more than one region of the world, illustrate each topic. Here you will be introduced to research on subjects as diverse as extinctions of big game, social inequality, and daily life in ancient cities. Contributions on related subjects are grouped in the ‘Contents list by subject’. Finally, ‘Archaeology in the everyday world’ steps back from the approaches, methods, and findings of archaeology to look at archaeology as a profession. In this section are contributions on the ethical and legal aspects of practicing archaeology today, popular culture and archaeology, and archaeology and stakeholder communities.

The Encyclopedia of Archaeology would never have come to fruition without the hard work of the members of the Editorial Board, who assisted in developing the subject list, fine-tuned the geographical overview sections, suggested authors for contributions, and reviewed completed manuscripts. They each have my wholehearted thanks. I also thank the following friends and colleagues for their assistance and advice: Robert A. Benfer, Jr., J. Scott Bentley, Jane C. Biers, Christine Hastorf, Janet Levy, Naomi Miller, Hector Neff, Elizabeth Reitz, Ralph Rowlett, and Peter Warnock. Deborah M. Pearsall

A AFRICA, CENTRAL Contents Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists Great Lakes Area Sudan, Nilotic Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas

Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists Scott MacEachern, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary bantu languages A closely-related group of languages in the Niger–Congo family, now spoken through much of Africa south of the equator. The ‘Bantu expansion’ is the process – still not entirely understood – through which early Bantu languages spread to the east and south from their homeland on the Nigerian–Cameroon border, beginning perhaps 5000 years ago. Lupemban A Middle/Late Pleistocene stone tool industry, found in different areas of sub-Saharan Africa and descended from the Sangoan and eventually the Acheulean traditions. It is characterized by the extensive use of bifacial and core-tools. It is often assumed to be associated with forest environments, where these tools were used for woodworking and other functions. microlithic Stone tool industries characterized by the use of small tools, usually made by carefully breaking stone blades into predetermined shapes or by the production of very small blades. Microliths are defined as being 90%) are small homesteads/hamlets measuring less than 1 ha in size. Large sites without earthworks seem to have been positioned at defensive locations. While, with a certain range of variation, earthworks sites may have been part of small and competing polities. After the sixteenth century AD, these rival and competing polities came to be united under the rulership of the Bito dynasty that created the Nyoro kingdom in Western Uganda. Rwanda and Burundi on the western side of the Interlacustrine zone also developed rival but small chiefdoms. In general and all over the Lacustrine zone, iron working was strongly associated with rulership. See also: Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists; Sudan, Nilotic; Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas.

Further Reading Connah G (1996) Kibiro: The Salt of Bunyoro, Past and Present. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. Ehret C (1998) An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 BC to AD 400. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Lejju BJ, Robertshaw P, and Taylor D (2006) Africa’s Earliest Bananas? Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 102–113. Reid A (1997) Lacustrine states. In: Vogel JO (ed.) Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, pp. 501–507. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Robertshaw P (1994) Archaeological survey, ceramic analysis, and state formation in Western Uganda. The African Archaeological Review 12: 105–131. Robertshaw P (2003) Explaining the origins of state in East Africa. In: Vogel (ed.) East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders, pp. 149–166. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Schoenbrun DL (1998) A Green Place, A Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Sudan, Nilotic Kathleen Nicoll, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Acheulian Designating, or of, a Lower Palaeolithic culture characterized by skillfully made bifacial flint hand axes. artifact Any object manufactured, used, or modified by humans. Common examples include tools, utensils, art, food remains, and other products of human activity. Aterian A stoneworking tradition that is considered an evolved style of the Palaeolithic of North Africa; it includes distinctive tools with shanks (i.e., tangs) for mounting to a handle, and basically worked leaf-shaped points. calcareous Containing calcium carbonate minerals. chert A very fine grained rock formed in ancient ocean sediments. It often has a semi-glassy finish and is usually white, pinkish, brown, gray, or blue-gray in color. It can be shaped into arrowheads by chipping. It has often been called flint, but true flint is found in chalk deposits and is a distinctive blackish color. dispersal The process in which an organism spreads out geographically. flint A hard, brittle microcrystalline form of quartz commonly found in sedimentary limestone or in chalk deposits, or otherwise any kind of stone that can be flaked. lithic Stone tools or projectiles. lithic scatter A spatially discrete, though sometimes extensive, scatter of lithic artifacts recovered from the surface, for example, by fieldwalking, rather than from a particular archaeological context. megalith An arrangement or structure of extremely large stones, possibly aligned. microlith Small tools that may be any of a variety of shapes, and which have been produced from microblades. These are too small to have been used without hafting, some were set edge to edge in a groove in a bone or wood shaft and so served as cutting tools, while others would have been functional as barbs. Neolithic Refers to the first era of village farmers in any region. nomad A member of a group of people who move according to the seasons from place to place in search of food, water, and grazing land.

6 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sudan, Nilotic optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) Quaternary geologic age-dating technique used to determine the depositional age of sediments by considering mineral grains as dosimeters that ‘accumulate’ energy over time as a function of natural environmental radiation. The technique is based on the solid-state properties of mineral grains rather than isotopic decay of constituent elements (like K–Ar or radiocarbon dating). pastoralism The form of agriculture specifically known as animal husbandry; it includes the tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It also contains a mobile element, moving the herds in search of fresh pasturelands and water resources. Pleistocene A geologic period, usually thought of as the most recent Ice Age, which began about 1.8 million years ago and ended with the melting of the large continental glaciers creating the modern climatic pattern about 11 500 years ago. pluvial A term commonly used to refer to a time period characterized by increased precipitation and reduced evaporation, resulting in enhanced moisture conditions. prehistoric The period prior to written records for a given area; note that the absolute date for the prehistoric period varies from place to place. social complexity Refers to patterns in society at levels from the individual to the group, as it relates to various human adaptive systems both comprising and surrounding a society. Complexity can refer to the rituals, culture, and practices of communities, regional systems, or empires. stratified A term that refers to sediments with primary (undisturbed) characteristics, that have been deposited or laid down in successive layers. Often the succession of layers can provide a relative chronological sequence, with the earliest at the bottom and the latest at the top.

Today the central African landscape west of the Nile River is hyperarid, with 3500 m > 11 500 ft

Elk, bighorn, mountain goat, mule deer, marmot, weasel, pika, ptarmigan

Passage across the continental divide

Riparian (Streams, lakes, etc.)

All elevations and zones

Pin˜on pine, juniper, oak, prickly pear, thistle, blue grama, milk vetch Ponderosa, lodgepole, and limber pine, Douglas fir, aspen, strawberry, blueberry, gooseberry, dandelion Grasses (including edible ricegrass), shrubs, bistort, wild plum and rose, sego lily, chokecherry Engelmann spruce, aspen, bristlecone pine, glacier lily, elderberry Mosses, alpine anemone, dwarf clover, scarlet paintbrush Water birch, cottonwood, mountain alder, willow, cattail

Beaver, fish, swan, goose, duck, frog, toad

By definition, water; stream cobbles to quarry for stone to make tools

a

Elevations are approximations, and those given are more typical for the Southern (higher) Rockies. The same life zones and resources characterize peaks at more northerly latitudes, but they occur at somewhat lower absolute elevations. b Thousands of plants and animals occupy the various life zones of the Rocky Mountains. A very few characteristic examples are listed in this table. c Most of the larger species are seasonal (summer–early fall) residents of the high country; smaller species survive the winter by hibernating.

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Figure 3 Schematic diagram representing the variability in Rocky Mountain resources by environmental zone. Table 1 complements this figure, listing approximate elevations of Rocky Mountain environmental zones, as well as typical flora, fauna, and other resources (relevant to prehistoric humans) of each zone.

ranges, and a few examples of the literally thousands of species of flora and fauna that occupy them. Figure 3 illustrates these data visually, with icons representing the plants, animals, and other resources relevant to human survival (e.g., sources of raw material for chipped stone tool and groundstone production) of the major Rocky Mountain life zones.

The Rocky Mountain Archaeological Record Having provided a sense for the unique physiographic and environmental properties of North Americas Rocky Mountains, we turn now to archaeologists’ current understanding of when, how, and why prehistoric people occupied them. Prehistoric Chronology and Land Use

Archaeologists have known since the 1960s, when National Park Service Archaeologist Wilfred Husted first proposed the theory, that humans have occupied the Rocky Mountains on a sustained basis for at least 10 000 years – nearly as long as people are known to have occupied North America generally. The first archaeologically recognizable North American culture, Clovis (see New World, Peopling of), penetrated the Rockies, but left only a light signature of their tenure, 11 500–10 800 radiocarbon years before present. Clovis spear points have been recovered as isolated surface finds throughout the Rocky Mountains, but Rocky Mountain Clovis sites are limited in number, type, size, and elevation (they are particularly rare in the subalpine and alpine zones, probably

because some – though not all – Rocky Mountain peaks were still glacier-covered during the latest Pleistocene). By subsequent Folsom time, 10 800–10 200 radiocarbon years before present, evidence suggests that Palaeo-Americans had started to move into the Rocky Mountains on a more sustained basis. Though many archaeologists associate them intimately with the High Plains, Folsom people and their contemporaries frequently hunted bison in large Rocky Mountain parks (e.g., Figure 4), including Colorado’s Middle Park, San Luis Valley, and Gunnison Basin. A few of their kills occurred during the winter months, suggesting that some of these early occupants may have utilized the Rocky Mountains on a year-round basis. Folsom folk also occasionally camped in rockshelters in the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming, and in open foothills settings farther north, in the Elkhorn Mountains of west-central Montana. If there is any doubt as to whether or not some Folsom bison hunters utilized the Rockies on a yearround basis, there is no doubt that after Folsom time, prehistoric groups moved into this niche and never looked back. A few residential sites, most exceptionally two large rockshelters in the foothills of northwestern Wyoming – Mummy Cave in the Absaroka Range and Medicine Lodge Creek in the Bighorn Mountains – show human occupation beginning in the very early Holocene and continuing through the recent historic past. Such deeply stratified, continuously used sites have played an immeasurably important role in characterizing 10 000 years of human use of the Rocky Mountains.

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Figure 4 High altitude (c. 3100 m (10 170 ft) asl) mountain meadow – reasonably considered a park – in the Upper Rio Grande Basin of southern Colorado. This photograph was taken from the Black Mountain Folsom site, a hunting camp nestled today at the fringes of subalpine forest. Margaret Jodry excavated the site in the 1990s.

From approximately 10 000–7500 radiocarbon years before present, Palaeoindians utilized all environmental zones of the Rocky Mountains, exploited local Rocky Mountain stone raw materials, and manufactured spear points that differed from those of their contemporaries living either on the Plains to the east or in the Far West. In addition to hosting what seminal Central Plains and Rocky Mountain archaeologist George C. Frison has termed ‘Foothill-Mountain’ groups (year-round late Palaeoindian residents), the Rockies were also used seasonally by lowland late Palaeoindian people needing or wanting such resources as chipped stone and groundstone raw material, vegetable and nut crops (notably pin˜on) that grow only in the mountains, and large game (perhaps because it is more pleasant to hunt bighorn by a columbine-ringed alpine lake than bison by a desiccated Plains playa in August). Archaeologists lack sufficient numbers of sites to offer well-substantiated models for how late Palaeoindians moved around the mountain landscape, but available evidence suggests that like subsequent Archaic hunter-gatherers, late Paleoindians organized their mobility strategies according to seasonal constraints and resource needs of both the short and long term. The Archaic era is, throughout North America, traditionally defined as the period of prehistory ushered in by an intensification and diversification of resource use by hunter-gatherers as the last of the megafauna went extinct; and ushered out when groups adopted agriculture. Neither of these defining phenomena was particularly noteworthy in the Rocky Mountains. Earlier mountain-based, postFolsom Palaeoindians used the same broad spectrum

of plant and animal resources that later Archaic people did, and Rocky Mountain residents never adopted agriculture to an appreciable degree. Nonetheless, because the term ‘Archaic’ is so ensconced in the North American archaeological literature, Rocky Mountain archaeologists use the term, but view it as a chronological designation (for the period c. 7500– 2000 radiocarbon years before present), rather than as a label for a unique adaptive posture. During the Rocky Mountain Archaic, huntergatherers left behind increasingly obvious signatures of a year-round presence on the landscape. Numerous foothills-zone rockshelters with long histories of occupation, and a significant number of subterranean house structures – often located in parkland settings and some reflecting winter occupation – represent residential mountain base camps. Palaeoclimatic research at Rocky Mountain localities from Canada to New Mexico indicates that environmental conditions fluctuated over the course of the Archaic. Changing environmental conditions engendered concomitant shifts in land-use strategies of Rocky Mountain hunter-gatherers. For example, winter residences in mountain parks are more commonly associated with intervals of warmer or more equable temperatures, whereas foothills rockshelters were preferred winter base camps during colder spells. Under all environmental conditions, site types, sizes, and distributions suggest that mountain-adapted, Archaic foragers utilized the landscape flexibly, sometimes foraging logistically from residential base camps for up to a season at a time and at other times moving residentially from campsite to campsite (see Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient).

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Archaeologists refer to the period immediately following the Archaic as the Formative or Late Prehistoric; and to the period following that as the Protohistoric. The term Formative connotes the adoption of corn agriculture and is misleading when invoked to label Rocky Mountain people who only rarely cultivated plant species of any kind (although some mountain archaeologists still use it). In any event, the terms Formative and Late Prehistoric both refer to post-Archaic residents who lived alongside others, such as the Hisatsinom (Anasazi) and Fremont, who did engage in agriculture or horticulture (and who in some cases – notably the Fremont – used the Rockies occasionally or regularly); and prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in North America. Once Europeans began recording their encounters with indigenous cultures of North America, including in the Rockies, archaeologists refer to the period as the Protohistoric. Throughout the Formative/Late Prehistoric and the Protohistoric, Rocky Mountain residents continued flexibly exploiting a diversity of plant and animal resources. The major change for them – as for so many Native Americans – came with the adoption of European-introduced horses in the 1700s. The horse not only permitted mountain-dwellers who embraced it to use their land differently—typically much more expansively – but also for theretofore pedestrian-based tribes from adjacent regions to penetrate the Rockies either for the first time or to a greater extent than they had previously. Adoption of the horse caused such profound changes in the fabrics of mounted societies that trying to glean insights into settlement patterns of pedestrian Rocky Mountain foragers from later, mounted counterparts – even of the same ethnicity – is problematic at best. On the other hand, early European explorers who entered the Rocky Mountains for various reasons (passage west, trapping, prospecting, ethnographic interest), encountered Rocky Mountain populations that either never embraced the horse (as in the case of the Toyani, a Shoshone band of the Middle Rockies) or whose members could recall how the group made a living prior to the adoption of the horse (as in the case of many Ute bands of the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Kootenai of the Northern Rockies). Such accounts provide concrete evidence for how some groups of Rocky Mountain hunter-gatherers occupied the mountain landscape. They demonstrate that different bands – and even the same bands in different years – utilized Rocky Mountain resources in an extremely flexible and local-resource-dependent fashion. First Nations in the Rockies and beyond often rendezvoused to nurture social ties and exchange

resources, but they also frequently fragmented into groups of small sizes and varying age and gender compositions, to take advantage of mountain resources available at different times of year and in discrete places. Even before indigenous people of the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere adopted horses, some bands of the Shoshone and Ute used the Rockies on a seasonal basis, spending other parts of the year hunting bison on the Plains, or hunting and gathering in the Far West. Such groups interacted regularly with mountain-based bands, in some cases visiting the Rocky Mountains expressly for this purpose. This historically documented flexibility in resource use, settlement strategy, and group membership by populations based in the mountains year-round and their contemporaries (often relatives) based elsewhere but using the mountains on a seasonal or occasional basis is highly consistent with the archaeological evidence of human use of the Rocky Mountains for 10 000-plus years. Predominant Rocky Mountain Site Types

Having summarized who occupied the Rocky Mountains during the latest Pleistocene and Holocene and discussed how hunter-gatherers used the mountain landscape for over ten millennia, it remains to relate common archaeological site types of the Rocky Mountains, and to discuss how they pertain to the above chronology. As a result of their geologic history, the Rocky Mountains are rich in accessible tool stone (e.g., Figure 5). Sandstone, chert, and quartzite represent uplifted sedimentary (sometimes metamorphosed) sea beds. Obsidian deposits resulted from volcanic flows in the Rockies of Northern New Mexico, Yellowstone National Park, and Southern Idaho. When prehistoric people found and used primary (outcrop) or secondary (e.g., stream-cobble) deposits of any of these rock types, the resultant site is called a quarry. Macroscopic, petrographic, and geochemical fingerprinting of artifacts made of various stone types has permitted archaeologists to trace the movement of ground stone (typically sandstone or basalt) and chipped stone (usually chert, quartzite or obsidian) tools within the Rockies and in some cases, well beyond their borders. Documenting at Rocky Mountain sites the use of stone that occurs naturally only in that region has bolstered the argument that some prehistoric groups used the Rockies on a year-round basis (the presence of stone that originated elsewhere would weaken such an argument). On the other hand, documenting

AMERICAS, NORTH/Rocky Mountains 325

Figure 5 Primary outcrop of high-quality Windy Ridge quartzite. The Windy Ridge quartzite quarry is located about 10 km from Rabbit Ears Pass in the Gore Range of northern Colorado. The quarry extends to elevations as high as 3050 m (10 000 ft) asl. Diagnostic artifacts of this raw material span 11 000 years of prehistory, indicating the quarry was long-known and long-used.

the presence of Rocky Mountain stone at sites outside the Rockies – as commonly occurs – reveals the importance of Rocky Mountain raw material to others who visited the Rockies to obtain the stone themselves, or traded to get it. An extreme example illustrating the value placed on some Rocky Mountain stone comes from Midwestern Moundbuilder sites, where Yellowstone obsidian has been recovered as far east as the Hopewell heartland (see Americas, North: Eastern Woodlands). The uplifted sandstones (and sometimes other rock types) common in many Rocky Mountain foothills settings were not only quarried for the manufacture of groundstone tools, they also form natural overhangs that prehistoric people used for shelter – sometimes for extended periods of time, and often in winter. Only the earliest Clovis people appear not to have availed themselves of the natural protection afforded by textured geological formations of the Rockies. From Folsom time on (although perhaps only occasionally in Folsom time), archaeological rock shelters from the Northern to Southern Rockies served residential functions for mountainbased hunter-gatherers. Many such sites, including Mummy Cave and Medicine Lodge Creek (Figure 6), mentioned previously, enjoy better preservation conditions than open sites, and have afforded archaeologists glimpses of sometimes numerous storage pits – which can indicate both long-term and winterseason occupation – as well as plant and animal remains that can and have revealed season(s)-of-use of the sites.

Although prehistoric mountain residents often mitigated difficult winter conditions by seeking out naturally sheltered long-term residential camps, they also frequently camped in open settings throughout all the environmental zones of the Rocky Mountains. Sometimes these camps, like rock shelters, were used over the longer term; sometimes, the occupations were ephemeral. Camps occupied for longer periods of time and/or in winter show greater architectural investment than those used for the short term or during milder times of year. At the high-investment end of the spectrum, for example, the central-Colorado Yarmony site was occupied repeatedly between 7000 radiocarbon years before present and the Late Prehistoric period and includes two 6500–6000 yearold pit houses. One of the pit houses is associated with the burial of a 60 year-old woman, and both pit houses and the burial represent winter base camp activities. The Rockies contain a plethora of other prehistoric house styles as well, including particularly common basin structures, which represent a lower labor investment than deeply excavated pit houses. And, the mountains are home to many thousand short-term camp sites, where hunter-gatherers rested for a matter of days and either did not build shelters at all, or built shelters so ephemeral that they do not register in the archaeological record. Ethnographically documented wickiups, brush structures used by recent indigenous foragers of the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains, are examples of structures with little chance of being preserved in open mountain settings

326 AMERICAS, NORTH/Rocky Mountains

Figure 6 The Medicine Lodge Creek site, located in the foothills of the Absaroka Range, northwestern Wyoming. Note the natural overhang produced by the sandstone outcrops characteristic of many foothill regions throughout the Rocky Mountains. Prehistoric people used Medicine Lodge Creek and other rockshelters in the vicinity repeatedly for 10 000 years.

for more than 50 years, much less for several thousand. However, they were probably as commonly used throughout Rocky Mountain prehistory as nylon pup-tents are used today by Rocky Mountain backpackers. A vital source of sustenance for year-round and seasonal Rocky Mountains residents from 11 000 radiocarbon years before present through the Protohistoric period were the region’s large mammals. Full-time residents hunted species like mule deer, pronghorn, elk, moose, bison, and bighorn in all zones ranging from the foothills through the treeless alpine. Seasonal residents from adjacent grasslands and deserts may have taken particular advantage of the pleasant conditions of the Rocky Mountain high country in summer and early fall to hunt elk and bighorn, and/or of dense congregations of large grazers in mountain parks and foothills in the winter months. How mountain hunters harvested their prey depended on the target species, environmental structure, and season, but a site type common in the Rockies – though highly varied in form – is the game drive. One of the most efficient ways to obtain large quantities of meat at once, without horses, game drives assume a variety of forms ranging from long stone walls above timberline to wooden fences with corral catch-pens at their terminus in lower zones. Many drives have associated hunting blinds made of stone or brush (the latter must often be inferred for lack of preservation), where members of the hunting party positioned themselves to nudge the animals along a drive system or dispatch them (Figure 7).

Rocky Mountain archaeologists James Benedict and E. Steve Cassells have meticulously documented many alpine game drives in the Colorado Front Range, demonstrating how intricate and extensive such systems can be. When archaeologists encounter a game blind at a high elevation with panoramic views, they must consider the possibility that the feature truly represents that economic function, and is not, instead, the site of a vision quest. Even today, many Native Americans view particular loci, and sometimes whole Rocky Mountain landscapes, as sacred places. From an archaeological perspective, vision quest sites take many forms, and are sometimes identified as much by what is not present at the site as by what is present. Vision quest sites are typically located in high, remote places with commanding views. When present, artifacts tend not to represent the mundane debris of everyday life (as one might see at a short-term camp site), but are likely instead to be special objects, such as complete pottery vessels or never-launched projectile points. Many vision quest sites show evidence for prehistoric use, sometimes over long time frames. Some show use by contemporary First Nations people.

Conclusion This chapter has provided a flavor for the prehistory of the Rocky Mountains, both in terms of the archaeological record that prehistoric people left behind and the lifestyles they led. A key theme of the chapter has

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Figure 7 A game blind associated with an alpine game drive system in the Devil’s Thumb Pass area of the Indian Peaks Wilderness, west of Boulder, Colorado. This blind, like the many others associated with game drives in the vicinity, provided cover for hunters waiting to ambush elk and bighorn sheep. Sites associated with Devil’s Thumb game drives have been dated to older than 9000 radiocarbon years before present through the recent past.

been flexibility. From the time people first occupied the Rocky Mountains over 10 000 years ago, they have taken full advantage of the suite of subsistence resources available on a vertically oriented landscape and of the many potentially successful land-use options available for exploiting those resources at any given moment. Archaeological evidence suggests that from the dawn of human use of the Rockies, some groups chose to live there full-time, occupying all environmental zones (though not always in the same way from culture to culture, or even from year to year). Evidence also suggests that again, even during the earliest period of use, other groups viewed the Rockies as a seasonal retreat from the grasslands to the east or arid lands to the west. This pattern of multiple-use continued throughout the Archaic, Formative/Late Prehistoric, and Protohistoric periods, culminating in historic and ethnographic accounts of Shoshone, Ute, and other indigenous mountain groups that mesh neatly with reconstructions of prehistoric land use. Reasons why prehistoric people used the Rockies were as varied as the environmental zones that morph so dramatically with elevation and latitude. For some, the Rocky Mountains were home-sweet-home, meeting every conceivable human need during every season of the year. For others, the Rockies were a place to temporarily rendezvous with friends and family, escape the heat of a Plains or Great Basin summer, hunt bighorn or elk via communal game drives or bison in mountain parks, procure raw materials for

making chipped stone and groundstone tools, harvest pin˜on or other pine nuts to store for winter consumption back at a Far Western residential base, or pay homage to the spirits who dwell there. In fact, as any resident of Jackson, Wyoming or any Plains, or Far Western travel agent will attest, although the details may have changed a bit, the mountains continue to play a vital and dynamic role in the lives of contemporary westerners who rely on them for economic, social, and spiritual fulfillment. See also: Americas, North: American Southwest, Four

Corners Region; Eastern Woodlands; Plains; Sub-arctic.

Further Reading Cassells ES (1997) The Archaeology of Colorado, 2nd edn. Boulder: Johnson Books. Frison GC (1991) Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains, 2nd edn. San Diego: Academic Press. Husted WM and Edgar R (2002) National Park Service, Midwest Archaeological Center and Southeast Archaeological Center, Special Report No. 4, Technical Report Series No. 9: The Archaeology of Mummy Cave, Wyoming: An Introduction to Shoshonean Prehistory. Lincoln: National Park Service. Janetski JC (2002) Indians in Yellowstone National Park. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Madsen DB and Metcalf MD (eds.) (2000) University of Utah Anthropological Papers 122: Intermountain Archaeology. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Pitblado BL (2003) Late Paleoindian Occupation of the Southern Rocky Mountains. Niwot: University Press of Colorado. Stanford DJ and Day JS (eds.) (1992) Ice Age Hunters of the Rockies. Niwot: University Press of Colorado.

328 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic

Sub-arctic Bryan C Gordon, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, QC, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Barrenlands Treeless tundra north of the Prairies, west of Hudson Bay, east of the Mackenzie River and south of the Arctic Ocean. Dene call it dechinule, ‘land of little sticks’. beamer Long bone split lengthwise and sharpened along its length to remove hair from skins. blade Pressure-removed parallel-sided stone flake less (microblade) or greater (macroblade) than 10 mm in width. burin (spalls) Small grooving or planning tool for shaping bone and antler. Sharpened by removing spalls to create a new cutting edge. chitho Flat oval scraper of lightly abrasive stone, used to soften hides for clothing. core Roughly chipped rock or bone mass used to make flakes from which tools are made. eulachon From Chinook language. Also candlefish because it contains so much oil it can burn, is a small anadromous smelt (Thaleichthys pacificus) caught during Northwest Coast spawning, and an important human food source and trade item when processed as an oil. flesher Long bone with diagonally cut and serrated end for removing fat from a hide. hammerstone A cobble used to break cores for flakes or long bones to extract marrow fat. point Tip attached to a lance, spear, or dart used to kill game. pushplane Steep-sided, turtle-shell-shaped stone tool used to plane wood. scraper Steep-sided tool for stripping membrane from a hide; precedes chitho use. Taltheilei Named after Taltheilei Narrows draining the East Arm into Great Slave Lake. thrusting lance Lance kept in the hand and used for jabbing caribou to mortally wound. uniface Artifact chipped on one or both (biface) sides, usually applied to stone knives. wedge Tapered flaked stone for splitting bone, antler, or wood.

Introduction The Western and Central Canadian Subarctic, stretching from Alaska east to Hudson Bay and north to south from the Beaufort Sea to the northern parts of the four western provinces (Figure 1), has been home to Indian peoples for at least 12 000 years in the west and for somewhat less time since deglaciation in the east. Some archaeologists believe humans entered the New World 14 000–16 000 years ago, just before the 11 000 year-old Clovis fluted projectile points found in New Mexico. Clovis points occur across North and Central America but not in South America, where some earlier sites occur, leading other archaeologists to believe a pre-Clovis population

crossed Alaska before 20 000 years ago. The reality is unclear because archaeological sites that old often have unclear associations between their artifacts and radiocarbon dates. The presence of fluted points (see Glossary) at Charlie Lake Cave and Pink Mountain 100 km farther north, Old Crow Flats and many Alaskan sites, suggests a reverse or northward migration of hunters bearing Clovis-like points (Figure 1). Three migration routes from Asia into the New World through the Subarctic have been proposed, none of them well documented and none of them having the earliest Clovis fluted points, although later fluted points occur. Peoples using the Mackenzie Valley route may have ascended the Yukon River west through the unglaciated interior of Alaska, then north around the Continental Divide and south along the Mackenzie Valley. But this valley was too heavily glaciated at the time of the expected first arrivals. A similar Intermountain route through Alaska but southeast through the southern Yukon would also have encountered closed mountain and continental glaciation. Lately, interest has been sparked in a proposed pre-Clovis movement by boat down the West Coast. But finding archaeological sites on the ocean floor became almost impossible when postglacial meltwater inundated the route milleniums ago. About 6000 years ago, the early people of the southwest Yukon and northern British Columbia lived in small fishing camps and hunted for mixed game as well as caribou. There they developed into the Dene (the ‘people’) or Athabaskan culture. From 10 000 to 8000 years ago in the District of Mackenzie, Palaeoindians from the south followed retreating ice and caribou herds north into the Barrenlands to be later replaced by a possible amalgamation of Palaeoindian and Archaic forest peoples (Shield Archaic) as the climate warmed. These Shield Archaic people retreated south during a cold climatic interval, leaving the Barrenlands open to Inuit-like Pre-Dorset coastal hunters arriving from the northwest. The Pre-Dorset hunted migrating herds, just as had the Indians before them. When the climate warmed, the Pre-Dorset probably returned to the north and Indians again hunted caribou on the Barrenlands, this time in groups related through language and archaeology to the Dene, who from 4000– 6000 years ago had evolved in Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia. These Dene, predecessors of the tribes of the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories and northern Prairie Provinces, began to move east 2600 years ago. Mirroring the migration paths of the early Dene, the archaeology of all cultures will be discussed from north to south in the Yukon and British Columbia, down the Peace River

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Figure 1 The earliest cultures. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

to northern Alberta, up the Mackenzie Valley, and then east to the Northwest Territories and northern Prairie provinces. Linguistic and genetic data supplement Dene prehistory and define historic Dene location: Gwich’in in northern Yukon, Ha¨n and Tutchone in central and southern Yukon, Tahltan-Kaska-Tsetsaut in northern British Columbia; Sekani-Beaver, Carrier, Chilcotin and Nicola in its Central Plateau, Chipewyan-SlaveyYellowknife in the northern Prairie Provinces and Northwest Territories; Dogrib-Bear Lake, Mountain or Nahanni and Hare in the northern Mackenzie District; Sarsi in southern Alberta, and Navaho and Apache in the American southwest. Greatest linguistic divergence is in the northwest, the proposed area of Dene emergence. From there the Dene migrated south and east via the Peace River to the Mackenzie Valley and Barrenlands (2600 years ago), to the coast of Oregon and California (l500 years ago), and south on two migration routes: to the American Southwest (850–1150 years ago) and to southern Alberta (250 years ago). Their language group came to occupy the largest area of all North American Indians.

Northern Yukon The earliest occupation of Canada’s subarctic was in the Bluefish Caves, northern Yukon, while older Old Crow, Yukon, Pleistocene exposures are secondary depositions (Figure 1). Bluefish Caves were used sporadically by a few hunters from 25 000 to 12 000 years ago. Possibly humanly altered mammoth bone in the Old Crow area is two–three times older than that in the 12 000-year-old non-microblade Nenana complex in Alaska. Microblades and their cores, and burins and their sharpening spalls (see Glossary) found at Bluefish Caves resemble those in the more recent 10 500 year-old Denali complex in Alaska and are also reminiscent of similar artifacts in Siberia’s Dyuktai culture. Whether the microtools in Bluefish Caves are associated with the earliest occupation is controversial. If they are, they may be tied to interior Alaska’s 11 000 year-old Healy Lake and 14 000 yearold Swan Lake microblade sites. Microblade-using cultures existed from central Siberia to eastern Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, their Siberian ancestors reaching central

330 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic

Alaska 14 000 years ago, the southern Yukon and northern British Columbia before 6000 years ago, and the western Mackenzie District by 4500 years ago. Three cultural traditions (historical and technological), accounting for their presence and based on their use of microblades, have been proposed by archaeologists: Northwest Microblade, Northern Archaic, and Palaeo-arctic. The fact that different tool types exist within each tradition at different times and locations makes them awkward markers through which to coordinate cultural interpretations. This is shown in the overall archaeological sequence (Table 1) by the absence of firm dividing lines or the use of hatched lines. In the northern Yukon at a time later than microblade cultures, archaeological sites along the Porcupine River show greater affinity with southwest Yukon than with central Alaska. Ancestral Gwich’in stratified sites are Rat Indian Creek, Old Chief and Klo-Kut. Lithics include whetstones, maulheads, hammers, notched and contracting stemmed small Klo-Kut or Kavik arrowheads (so named from two northern sites where they have been found; see Figure 2a), adzeblades, axheads, boiling stones, scrapers (Figure 2c), and wedges. Bifacial stone tools (shaped on their two faces or sides) were less common in later phases when more bone and antler tool manufacturing took place (Figure 2). Rat Indian Creek is one of the Yukon’s bestcontrolled excavations, with 17 radiocarbon dates in seven levels spanning 2430  60 years ago to White Contact. Early and late uses of boulder spalls, chitho scrapers (Figure 2d) and bone, antler and pebble cores are similar, but bifacial chert tools decrease and scrapers and cores change 1200 years ago. The level 6/6A components lack burins but correlate with many sites in western and central Alaska and the pre-800 yearold Taye Lake phase in the southwest Yukon. It has similar points and bifaces to Aishihik. Its post1220 year-old tools resemble those found in Alaska, southwest Yukon and northwest Mackenzie District. The Old Chief sequence resembles that of Rat Indian Creek, with Klo-Kut contracting stemmed points appearing in the Old Chief phase 1300 years ago, indicating the adoption of the bow and arrow and suggesting continuity from the Old Chief phase to the Klo-Kut site. The latter is located just downriver at Old Crow. Klo-Kut, a Gwich’in spring caribou water-crossing site beginning 1700 years ago, includes artifacts like those in the upper levels of Rat Indian Creek and continues the Dene sequence forward to White Contact in the 1800s. Continuity within the archaeological sequence in Porcupine River sites supports a hypothesis of in situ development. Ancestral Gwich’in adopted their bifacial stone

technology and contracting stem Klo-Kut (Kavik) arrowheads from Alaskan tribes, the Klo-Kut arrowhead being an excellent marker for tracing Dene to the southwest Yukon and to the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. Some archaeologists tie Yukon Dene outmigration with land temporarily affected by 1200 year-old White River ashfall from a nearby Alaskan volcano, an event concurrent with the Tanana-Gwich’in language split. But the ashfall never reached the Porcupine Gwich’in, and would not have affected their movement. Indications of heavy pre- and post-Contact fishing exist at the nearby Dechyoo Njit camp. There, Dene used long, round-fronted snowshoes for hunting on fresh snow and short, pointed, upturned snowshoes for breaking trails. Subsistence came from ice fishing and hare- and ptarmigan-snaring in late winter, and hunting for porcupine, spruce grouse, caribou, and moose. In the far northwest, the Gwich’in hunted the Porcupine caribou herd in spring and summer, and sub-herds and other animals in winter. They extensively used wooden caribou fences, but only mid-Contact period fence remains have survived. A Black Fox Creek fence had protohistoric stoneadze-cut stumps, but older ones are inferred because 8000 years of stable spruce forest-tundra may have allowed stable caribou migration routes and provided wood for fence construction. For this, two long rows of poles, oriented transversely across low valleys, converged in a brush corral interlaced with rawhide snares where 80–150 caribou were trapped and killed with arrows and lances.

Southern Yukon The occurrence of extinct bison bone in the southwest Yukon led early researchers to believe that grassland dominated the post-glacial landscape, but forest pollens show a lengthy stable forest environment. A nonmicroblade Northern Cordilleran tradition (Figure 3) is the earliest documented human group and precedes the 8000–4500 year-old Little Arm phase, which has microblade cores, burins and microblades, but no notched points. Microblades like those at Little Arm occur in the Otter Falls, Canyon and Moosehide sites. Dating between the Little Arm and Taye Lake phases, the Annie Lake site has microblades and distinctly styled concave-based points. Microblades disappear in the 4500–1600 year-old Taye Lake phase (4500– 1600 years ago), but it has notched points, large barbed bone points, stone wedges, boulder spalls, several endscraper types, discoidal scrapers, burins, and extensive use of obsidian occur. The side-notched points resemble those at Mummy Cave, Wyoming,

Table 1 Generalized archaeological sequence of the Western and Central Canadian Subarctic

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332 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic

(a)

(b) 50 mm (a and b)

(c) 100 mm (c and d)

(d)

One Dene Klo-Kut or Kavik (a) and four Late Taltheilei (b) arrowheads, scraper (c) and three chithos (d) Figure 2 Dene Klo-Kut (Kavik) arrowhead, Taltheilei arrowheads, scraper and chithos (clockwise from top left). ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

their style probably diffusing north from the Plains via northern British Columbia, as such points are absent in northern Alberta and the Mackenzie Valley. Technologically continuous toolkits that extend in time from Taye Lake phase through the Aishihik phase until White Contact suggest all represent Dene (Table 1 – shaded area) (Figure 3). The 1600 to 150 year-old Aishihik phase marks the introduction of the bow and arrow. This phase’s nine components include copper artifacts, small barbed bone points, Klo-Kut arrowheads, bifaces, and ground adzes, like those at Rat Indian Creek and Klo-Kut. While all three later phases have tabular bifaces, chitho scrapers, concave-based points, and wide endscrapers, Aishihik phase has thinner, rounder endscrapers, more unifaces, and more stone wedges than Taye Lake. Diagnostic of Dene are chitho scrapers and Klo-Kut arrowheads, while hearth traces surrounded by artifacts and boiling stone fragments are all that remain of most camps, suggesting that families boiled some of their meat or fish. People depended on salmon but took woodland caribou and upland game. Archaeological continuity and linguistics agree with the concept that Dene developed in situ in eastern Alaska and the southwest Yukon, developing from the Little Arm phase over 6000 years into the Dene-speaking tribes. In the Yukon, these tribes included Gwich’in, Ha¨n, Tutchone, Kaska and Tagish. European goods are found in the most recent levels of many sites.

The 1200 year-old White River ashfall was 3–5 cm thick in populated areas of the southwest Yukon several hundred kilometers from the volcanic vent (Figure 4). Some archaeologists maintain that this eruption caused a Dene exodus, with a populationdisplacing domino effect all the way to the American Southwest, where the Navajo-Apache formed from a Dene root (see Section on Move Through Saskatchewan). However, any major displacement based on this winter ashfall is unsubstantiated. Research after Washington’s Mount. St. Helens eruption shows that distant volcanic effects were tolerable to aquatic invertebrates and flora. While fish decreased initially due to ash suspension in the water affecting the fish food chain, spawning recovered in less than 2–3 years. In the Yukon, humans and game were several hundred kilometers away, far enough to be clear of any catastrophic consequences from the eruption itself. The level above the ash in the Tatlmain Lake site north of Carmacks had fewer fish remains (9%) than the level below the ash (25%), but fish recovered soon thereafter. World history does not record a terrestrial volcanic event capable of fully disrupting extensive human resources where flexible cultural mechanisms could counteract it, but such an event may have indirectly fostered a change in human technology. Post-ashfall firing of trees killed by ash accumulation may have opened the forest, favoring the adoption from Alaska of the arrow over the dart for hunting. New Ice Patch research in the Kluane region of the southwest Yukon suggests an abrupt switch to the bow and arrow, with little overlap of darts or spears spanning the period of ashfall on 10 AMS dates. The youngest dart dates 1260  60 years, the oldest arrow; 1300  60. While darts were tipped with stone points, arrows were made of bone and antler, some archaeologists suggesting this was done using copper carving tools. The southwest Yukon Dene also mined native copper nuggets along the White River, both to make arrowheads and for trade. Before and after White Contact in the early 1800s, eulachon oil (see Glossary) was traded from the coastal Tlingit by the Kaska and Tutchone for copper and furs. The Tagish were drawn into the fur trade as middlemen, and over time, adopted Tlingit social customs (Figure 4).

West of the Continental Divide Northern British Columbia

Microblades began in north coastal British Columbia, their makers moving up the rivers and over passes to the undated Callison site with its many Taye Lake traits, and Grizzly Run on Mount Edziza, Stikine drainage, with its many microblades (Figures 1 and 5).

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Figure 3 The early cultures. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This was a quarry site, high and far from water, where microblades were made, but taken elsewhere to be used. Contemporaneously, the Rattlesnake Hill fishing station far to the south on the Thompson River has fish remains, but no microblades. Some rare cases of microblades older than 7000 years occur on the Interior Plateau, but their use ended 4000–5000 years ago, contemporaneous with those of Yukon’s Little Arm phase and Mount Edziza and the appearance of pithouses probably derived from the south (Figure 5). Almost nothing is known about the ancient people of British Columbia’s rugged interior, especially between Hazleton–Lower Liard and the Rockies. Unlike the coast, the interior ranges could not support many people. The rivers with salmon were mainly controlled by coastal people, but some degree of accommodation with the interior Dene likely occurred, especially far upriver. Along these east–west ecotones leading to the coast, midsized early-looking points are ubiquitous but undated. It is likely some were ancestral to Early Taltheilei points that occur after 2700

years ago along the Peace River. Taltheilei points (see section on the Barrenlands) are a distinctive marker for Dene that were first defined around Great Slave Lake. They are ubiquitous east of the Continental Divide and occur occasionally in northern British Columbia. A better understanding of Taltheilei shouldered points and artifact associations is needed by archaeologists studying British Columbia, if they are to identify them confidently. Too large for arrows, many may have been dartheads until their makers carried them down the Peace River to the Barrenlands, where they would have been used to tip thrusting lances at caribou water-crossings. Complicating interpretations, some Late Palaeoindian-like points persist long after small notched and stemmed forms are found elsewhere. Notched and stemmed forms are in the 3600– 3200 year-old Skeena River Kitselas Canyon site, the 4000–2400 year-old Shuswap Horizon on the Plateau and the 5600–3500 year-old Plains McKean complex. Tracing pre-Contact Dene movements in British Columbia is tenuous because the tribes at Contact

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Figure 4 Proposed origin of the Navajo-Apache from the Chipewyan c. AD 800, including the distribution of the White River ashfall. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

are too difficult to differentiate through their toolkits. Kaska artifacts in the far north of British Columbia resemble those of the Beaver, Sekani and Slave. For example, Late Fisherman Lake material from the southwest Mackenzie District of the Northwest Territories could be Kaska or Slave because the Kaska were Fort Simpson traders before the Slave pushed them up the Liard River to British Columbia. To the west, the rugged Stikine and Cassiar Ranges were occupied only by scattered, seasonal Tahltan Dene hunters. Along the Stikine River, the Tahltan caught seasonally abundant fish using nets and weirs. They hunted caribou with the aid of traps, snares and fences, the last extending 5–16 km to prominent headlands. To augment their construction, fences were interlaced with deadfalls and branches. Snares were placed in open portions. In 1821, Fort Halkett was built on the upper Liard River, followed in 1838 by a Hudson’s Bay Company post on Dease Lake.

We know little about Interior Plateau Dene, although Klo-Kut arrowheads occur in the early phases. The Ulkatcho and Chinlac site pithouses north of Anahim Lake have barbed bone points, eared endscrapers, bone beamers and awls, and birchbark, but their Carrier occupants were recent immigrants. They ate caribou, then moose when caribou retreated west into the mountains. Taltheilei-like points were replaced by side-notched arrowheads, but the only preserved Dene bow is a 50  5 cm Tahltan, for example, tapered at each end with flat inner and round outer surfaces. It had been rubbed with beaver castor and wrapped in hide for toughening. Twisted caribou sinew was used to make bowstrings. It is associated with 75-cm-long saskatoon berry cane arrows with notched caribou bone, antler or obsidian points. Late Taltheilei Dene spread south to the Oregon and California coasts to form the Pacific Dene about 1500 years ago (Figure 6), but little can be said until

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Figure 5 The early intermediate cultures, including their movements. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

more excavation reveals their routes. Bridging the gap somewhat are similar Interior Plateau and central California rectangular houses. Unfortunately, Interior Plateau pithouses have mixed components and mixed radiocarbon estimates because older soil from the pit was often piled upon younger soil around its edge during house construction. In both Interior Plateau and Pacific Dene in the White Contact period, there were unique puberty and curing rites. A warrior status from raiding was initiated and focus switched from group to individual, a widespread Dene trait. Coquille arrowheads in the Standley site in Oregon are reminiscent of Klo-kut ones, but their context in large coastal villages with highly visible shell middens does not compare well with small single-family dwellings in the interior. New British Columbia research should be continued away from pithouses, with a view to tying Plateau and Pacific Dene by focusing on hide smoothers like chithos, Klo-Kut arrowheads, stylistic artifact differences, and sequential radiocarbon dates (Figure 6).

East of the Continental Divide Northeast British Columbia and Alberta

On the east side of the Rockies near Fort St. John, the earliest signs of Palaeoindians are at Charlie Lake Cave in a Palaeoindian level dating about 10 500 years ago, with lanceolate, fluted spear points and square-stemmed Cody-Alberta points (Figure 1). They were found on the surface and likely diffused from the contiguous Plains. At Charlie Lake cave and the Farrell site, 5000–6000-year-old stemmed and notched points precede 2900–2500 year-old points suggestive of the Oxbow type on the Plains, followed by smaller post-1500 year-old notched arrowheads. In northeastern British Columbia, the pre-1830 Beaver people hunted bison on the Peace River prairie and woodland zones, and moose, woodland caribou, sheep and goats in the hills. The oldest artifacts in northern Alberta may be macroblades similar to Clovis culture specimens found farther south. Later lanceolate points resembling

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Pacific Coast Dene

Figure 6 Proposed Dene movement South across the British Columbia Plateau to become the Pacific Dene (Athabaskan) c. AD 500. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

the Agate Basin Northern Plano and Hell Gap points of the northern Plains were found on the surface of the Gardiner Narrows and Beaver River Quarry sites, as was an Alberta-Scottsbluff point found near Fort Mackay south of Lake Athabasca (Figure 1). All date about 10 000 years ago on the Plains, but are probably much younger in northern Alberta. A notched burin (see Glossary) and spalls from burin sharpening, microblades and cores came from the 4000 year-old Bezya site, while a microcore came from near Fort Vermillion (Figure 5). These may show ties to the southwest Yukon’s Little Arm phase and to the southwest Mackenzie District’s Pointed Mountain site. The Middle Prehistoric phase along the southern forest fringe includes 5500–2500 year-old notched Oxbow points, representing diffusion, trade or actual Plains people. The Eaglenest Portage site has stemmed and notched points, some being Middle Prehistoric projectiles, others Late Taltheilei arrowheads. The Gardiner

Narrows and Satsi sites, with 3500–2700 year-old Arctic Small Tool tradition points, demonstrate that their Inuit-like bearers came quite far south and even adapted to game other than tundra caribou. Gardiner Narrows and Satsi are not that far from the Karpinsky site, where all Taltheilei phases are represented. The Taltheilei tradition originated in northern British Columbia from a Yukon Na-Dene tradition and went east via the Peace River to Alberta (Figure 7). This is the only viable portal through the Rockies for groups larger than small, scattered mountain bands and is in the right location for these events. The presence of large sites, like Peace Point on the Peace River gives credence to the importance of waterways to human movement. Unfortunately, most sites have been buried or washed away, although a number of Albertan sites point to derivation from the west by way of the Peace River drainage. A precursor to 2450–2600 year-old narrow, thick, Earliest Taltheilei lanceheads has not

AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic 337

but none is well stratified and few are radiocarbondated. The fact that some points resemble those of Late or Middle Taltheilei and also resemble points found farther south in the Alberta foothills has been the basis of a postulated Rockies foothills route of the Yukon Dene to the American Southwest. A protohistoric foothills migration by Dene hunters is better documented, when Dene left western Lake Athabasca through Beaver territory to cross the far Northwest Plains along the Rockies foothills to become the Sarsi (Figure 8). Indeed, Sarsi and Beaver are close relatives, sharing oral traditions even after Sarsi became Plains hunters. Early historic Sarsi took advantage of annual bison migrations, following them south to amalgamate with and finally dissolve in the dominant southwest Alberta Blackfoot (Figure 8). A pre-1650 location for Sekani was just north of the Sarsi on the Alberta Plains, while Carrier and

been found on the Peace River, but one thin, wide, shouldered point found in British Columbia in the late nineteenth century by Morice resembles Early Taltheilei points. Perhaps looking for Taltheilei origins in the earlier Taye Lake phase in the Yukon is logical because both Taltheilei and Taye Lake have similar overall toolkits, with the exception that side-notched points (in Taye Lake) are absent in Early Taltheilei. And there are the Taltheilei-like points mentioned earlier on the Northwest Coast and Interior of British Columbia. More survey is needed (Figure 7). The Karpinsky site in western Alberta is pivotal in tying Taltheilei origin to the Peace River and British Columbia. Judging from the form and non-parallel flaking of unprovenanced Early and Middle lanceheads, it has points of all phases, suggesting the Peace River was a regularly used route. The heavily surveyed northern Alberta Oil Sands have 1000 sites,

Inuit

alik Ing

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lika

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Bering Sea

Beaufort Sea

Koyukon

Pre-600 BC Dene movement from British Columbia down the Peace River

Kutchin

Kolchan n Ta a

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Tanaina Ah

re HaP re Lak & Bea e r

tna

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Pre-tain n Mou

Gulf of Alaska

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Yellowknife Dog rib

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Figure 7 Pre-600 BC Dene movement from British Columbia down the Peace River to the Barrenlands. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

338 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic

Ing

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Proposed Dene movement south to become Sarsi c. 1650 AD Beaufort Sea

Koyukon Kutchin

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CANADA USA

Figure 8 Proposed Dene movement South to become the Sarsi c. AD 1650. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sarsi were adjacent to one another east-west, a condition requiring the Beaver to be farther east than at present. Linguistic data show southern disruption of Sekani and Sarsi, who share enough traits to indicate extensive earlier contact, something they have in common with the Carrier. Evidence also exists for the Sekani being farther east, later to be forced up the Peace River from the Alberta Plains by the Cree. If the Sarsi, on their movement south, carried the chitho or hide abrader, it disappeared or changed completely because it is absent in the Old Women’s phase of Alberta. Northwest Territories-Western Mackenzie District

East of the Yukon and British Columbia, microblade technology occurs only in the late Northwest Microblade tradition and is often associated with flake burins (made by spalling the edge of a flake). Mackenzie Valley and Great Bear Lake microblade assemblages are variants of earlier Alaskan and

Yukon cultures. Simultaneous to the Middle Shield Archaic in the Beverly range of the Thelon River, the 5000–3500 year-old Great Bear River and Franklin Tanks sites near Great Bear Lake have lanceheads, knives, choppers, endscrapers, and microblades mixed with an Arctic Small Tool burin. The nearby NT Docks site has a bladelike assemblage related to the lower level of the Whirl Lake site and dating about 5000 years ago (Figure 5). The lower level at Whirl Lake shows more southern as well as Alaskan and Yukon influence. It and the NT Docks, Pointed Mountain, and Bezya (Alberta) sites all could be defined as 4000–5000 year-old Northwest Microblade variants. But in all assemblages, composition is inconsistent; some have microcores, others have stemmed, notched, and leafshaped points under possible Plains influence. The Great Bear Lake Taltheilei people made lance and arrow heads like those in the Eastern Mackenzie District, plus scrapers, knives, adzes, whetstones, drills and small native copper awls, and

AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic 339

knives. Bone, wood, antler, hide, and fur items have not survived the acid soil. Permanent White contact was established when the Hudson’s Bay Company built Fort McPherson on the lower Peel River in 1840, followed two years later by La Pierre House on the Yukon’s Bell River and seven years later by Fort Yukon at the junction of the Porcupine and Yukon Rivers. The reputed co-occurrence of notched points, burins and microblades continues to obscure the definition of the Northwest Microblade tradition. The Pointed Mountain site has Taye Lake burins, plus microblades; other sites do not. Tenuous ties have been drawn across the Continental Divide between the 1500–2300 year-old Mackenzie complex and late Taye Lake-early Aishihik point types, notched endscrapers and burins. The 1400 year-old Fish Lake complex retains side-notched points, but its microblades may, in fact, be parallel-sided flakes. The co-occurrence of crudely flaked notched points with microblades taken from cores using a refined technique seems odd. They occur in thin soils and may represent separate technologies. Contiguous with Yukon Gwich’in sites are those in the Mackenzie Delta and Anderson Plain. Whirl Lake near Arctic Red River and the Anderson Plain have similar dwellings. The Whirl Lake dwelling lacks timbers and was probably covered with birchbark and skin, while Anderson Plain pithouses had beams supporting a low turf roof. Both areas have birchbark trays for holding fish, while Whirl Lake shows a varied subsistence of pike, waterfowl, moose, caribou, muskrat, beaver, and dog or wolf. A 10 cm bone snowshoe netting needle decorated with stylized ‘beavers’ represents a rare Dene art object. East of the Rockies, thrusting lances partially replace the atlatl because they were better tools for killing caribou at close range, as was necessary at water-crossings and corrals. Where rapid-fire hunting was needed on frozen lakes and in open space, the bow and arrow was superior for small subherds, but prior to the bow, the atlatl was used in winter. The change to side-notched arrowheads spread east of the Rockies, down the Peace River to the Northwest Territories to form part of the AD 800–1200 Late Taltheilei phase. Early Taltheilei began 2100 years ago on Great Bear Lake, eventually evolving into the Hare, who used lance and arrowheads until White Contact. Little is known about the Mountain Dene on the Nahanni River, as epidemics and famine reduced them. Up the Liard River as far as Fisherman Lake, Spence River points resembling Prairie Side-Notched arrowheads are interpreted as Slavey Dene.

Northwest Territories-Central Mackenzie District

The Mackenzie District includes the Bathurst caribou range north of Great Slave Lake and east of Great Bear Lake. Its earliest inhabitants were a 6000–3500 year-old Archaic group called Acasta, its side-notched lanceolates being a possible southern modification (Figure 3). A link may exist between its edge-burinated flakes, called Donnelly burins, and multi-gravers and those in Little Arm phase. Other items are large bipointed knives, scrapers, planes, gravers, burins, wedges and a whetstone. Acasta’s 15–25 huge 3–4 m diameter hearths were used in heat-treating quartzite to make it more suitable for flaking. One hearth had charred caribou, bear, beaver, hare, and fish bone. Rare Oxbow, narrow concave-based Duncan and larger convex-based side-notched Pelican Lake points found near Great Slave Lake’s East Arm represent Middle Plains influence. Dene prehistory is recognized throughout the subarctic by generalized toolkits: bifacial knives, scrapers, wedges, hammerstones, pushplanes, and chithos. Points are the most diagnostic tool for differentiating phases. But most Barrenland surface sites have collections mixed from two or more phases because they are situated at caribou water-crossings used over and over again for millennia. Stratified sites are rare in the Bathurst caribou range, so attempts were made to separate assemblages through estimating the age of raised beach ridges and dating charcoal in isolated hearths. As these were too crude to properly separate the 10 complexes in the 2500–160 year-old Taltheilei Shale tradition, the complexes were assigned to the three well-dated Taltheilei tradition phases in the Beverly caribou range (Table 1). Thus, the Central Mackenzie phases translate as follows: Hennessey is Early Taltheilei; Taltheilei and Windy Point are Middle Taltheilei; and Waldron River, Narrows, Lockhart River, Fairchild Bay, Snare River, and Reliance are Late Taltheilei. Earliest Taltheilei lanceheads are absent in the Bathurst caribou range, casting doubt on Dene movement across the Mackenzie Mountains via the Liard River and strengthening the theory of migrations via the Peace River. Early Taltheilei points are shouldered. Middle Taltheilei lanceheads are stemmed. Late Taltheilei is characterized by notched arrowheads, indicating introduction of the bow and arrow. The last prehistoric phase in the Bathurst caribou range is ancestral Yellowknife, but it would also include Dogrib. In historic times, both Dogrib and Yellowknife built caribou fences on lake ice in March and April, and both hunted migrating Bathurst caribou in the spring. The Bathurst range was taken over by the Dogribs in the mid-nineteenth century after years of friction and two battles with the Yellowknife.

340 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic Eastern Mackenzie District (Barrenlands), Northern Saskatchewan, and Manitoba

Hearne was first to record Dene groups following the caribou when he crossed the Barrenlands in 1771. Later ethnographic reports and archaeology confirmed that caribou was the controlling factor in the development of Dene groups on the Barrenlands, in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. All Dene groups had to follow the caribou within its wintering area and migration corridor to and from the calving grounds if they were to survive. Alternative food was insufficient to sustain them. Distance between herd ranges and the timing of each respective herd’s migration prevented any one human group from hunting more than one range. Such is the nature of joint culture and herd occupancy that tools and dialects reflect this dependence. Within each caribou range, tools become more homogeneous with time, and differ from those in adjoining ranges because of limited contact between groups. This pattern has been evident since the first peoples entered the Barrenlands. Within the Beverly Range, stratified sites provide a cultural sequence from then until Contact. The association of the Dene tribes with caribou ranges continued into historic times. From northwest to southwest, and with respect to tribal division and range, the Satudene (Hare and Dogrib) occupy the Bluenose caribou range; the Dogrib and Yellowknife occupy the Bathurst range; and the Western and Eastern Chipewyan occupy the Beverly and Kaminuriak ranges (Figure 4). The earliest people to enter the Barrenland range of the Beverly caribou were Northern Plano who followed the retreating continental ice sheet north. They occupied 34 water-crossings, each having at least one Northern Plano lancehead and dating to 8000–7000 years ago (Figure 3). Northern Plano artifacts are also seen to the south, at Black Lake in northern Saskatchewan. Northern Plano may have merged into Shield Archaic people 6500–3500 years ago, as 121 Beverly sites show no substantial interruption in artifact frequencies, particularly in knives (Figure 5). But their earliest radiocarbon-dated (6120 years ago) small, crude, side-notched point looks nothing like the elegant, long, unnotched Plano points. In time, the Shield Archaic people retreated with incoming very cold climate from the Arctic coast. Hard on their heels were 3500–2700 year-old Arctic-adapted Pre-Dorset people who moved south during this cold period. They left distinctive microblades and cores, burins and spalls, and other refined tools at many Bathurst, Beverly (246 sites), and Kaminuriak caribou range sites (Figure 9). To the southeast, Pre-Dorset artifacts are found at Black

Lake, Saskatchewan, and near Churchill, Manitoba, at the Twin Lakes and Seahorse Gully sites (see Americas, North: Arctic and Circumpolar Regions) (Figure 9). With climatic warming, Earliest and Early Taltheilei people moved into the Beverly range via the Peace River (Figure 7), leaving 190 sites in the Beverly range. From 2600 to 1800 years ago, they used long thick lanceheads, then thin shouldered lanceheads. The 1800 to 1300 year-old Middle phase expanded to occupy 355 Beverly sites, reflecting a cultural efflorescence. It also spread east to the Kaminuriak range of Manitoba and southern Nunavut leaving well-made stemmed points as evidence of mass hunting at water-crossings. The 1300 to 200 year-old Late phase people adopted the bow and arrow that is recognized in crude notched arrowheads. These people evolved directly into protohistoric Chipewyan, met by Hearne on the lower Dubawnt River and on the Thelon River’s ‘Arctic Oasis’ at its junction with the Hanbury, where the richest stratified sites occur. The Chipewyan used the bow horizontally, as probably did their Late Taltheilei ancestors. Along the Dubawnt and Thelon rivers, upturned stone slab shooting blinds and stone pile or brush fences used by these bowmen, mark the Beverly caribou migration corridor. The Thelon corridor was especially depended upon, as seen in 16 blinds and 15 fences near water-crossings on the upper Thelon River. The high quality quartzite, dominant in Taltheilei toolkits, was collected on the tundra and carried hundreds of kilometers south in the fall when the people migrated into the forest. By winter, local stone was under several meters of snow and was of poor quality. Thus, repeated sharpening over the winter of the tools they had carried from the tundra reduced the size of tools in forest sites. Scrapers and knives were serrated and four-sided in the forest zone for easier winter handling and use on frozen hides and meat. Chithos either became more worn because of use on frozen hides or from prolonged winter use before they could be replaced in summer.

Dene Move through Saskatchewan to the Southwestern United States Three routes from Subarctic Canada to the American Southwest have been proposed. The Intermountain one is the least promising because the Hare, Bear Lake, Dogrib, Yellowknife and Chipewyan are not mountain Dene and there is little supporting data. A Foothills route has been suggested because some arrowheads are supposedly similar along Alberta’s foothill sites, but others disagree on their specific traits. Furthermore, notched quartzite cobble axes

AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic 341

Beaufort Sea

The Late Intermediate Cultures bp = years before present

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Figure 9 The late intermediate cultures, including seasonal movements of Barrenland hunters and caribou herds. ã 2008 Bryan Gordon. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

and adzes like those of the northern Yukon Dene are present in Saskatchewan sites, but are absent in Alberta. These and unproven arrowhead similarities mitigate against a Foothills route. The most plausible route for southern Navajo-Apache migration is via the open Plains (Figure 4). Evidence of a Plains route south appears in Late Taltheilei times, as indicated in Plains Side-Notched arrowheads mixed with Taltheilei side-notched arrowheads and other artifacts at Black Lake near Lake Athabasca. The Plains path crosses the Churchill and Saskatchewan Rivers via an archaeologically unknown area west of AD 500–1000 Laurel and AD 1250 Selkirk peoples of Manitoba, and it remains unknown if the Dene contacted them. Crude quartzite Late Taltheilei side-notched arrowheads (Figure 2b) merge into fine chert Plains Side-Notched arrowheads across Saskatchewan. This is the first suggestion of Late Taltheilei fading into the dominant Plains culture, as Taltheilei knappers honed their skills using

superior Plains chert. On the North Saskatchewan River, Taltheilei is inferred to be present by Middle Plains Period ovoid and notched knives and gouges and pushplane-shaped endscrapers very like those of Late Taltheilei. Over a millenium ago, at the northern edge of the Saskatchewan parkland and prairie, some Late Taltheilei or ancestral Chipewyan bands became more dependent on bison and less on caribou. Gradually being drawn to the seasonal movements of the bison going south to the short grass prairie of southern Saskatchewan, some bands adjusted fully to the bison’s ‘spoke-and-rim’ migrations, often ending in winter far from where they started in spring. Bison move into the short grass prairie in summer and out to the aspen parklands to the north, the foothills to the west, or the woodlands to the east in autumn. Hunters beginning their seasonal hunts may move into the short grass prairie from one direction and out another, especially after a drought. In the process,

342 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sub-arctic

and likely being driven by drought effects on moving bison, several Chipewyan bands kept moving south, rather than north, west or east. The stable AD 900– 1200 Neo-Atlantic Episode grassland may have first attracted ancestral Chipewyan to the Plains, while the AD 1200–1550 Pacific Episode climatic deterioration may have hastened their move south (see Americas, North: Plains). Supporting this hypothesis of a southern Chipewyan movement via the archaeological record is their speech, which most clearly resembles Navajo. Navajo has the greatest retention of Chipewyan words. Minimal Chipewyan linguistic divergence puts the Navajo within the AD 800–1200 date range of Taltheilei side-notched arrowheads (Table 1). The relationship between Chipewyan and Navajo is also supported by three skeletons excavated near Colorado’s Trinidad Reservoir. They have Dene-specific first molars, suggesting the Navajo or ancestral Chipewyan were there from AD 750–1000. If so, they arrived in the southwest well after the Avonlea phase of the Northern Plains, and well before the Dismal River phase of the Central Plains, the previously accepted indicators of Dene or Athapaskan presence. They arrived well before Coronado’s 1541 notations of Apache in his journal. The Apache, diverging similarly to Navajo from Chipewyan, moved south as a unit. The Navajo and Apache split in eastern Colorado, the Apache retaining a Plains orientation while the Navajo evolved into a new Southwest-adapted culture. Some linguists say the split was farther north based on the Chipewyan ‘t’ and ‘d’ sounds diverging and reappearing later and separately in Navaho and Apache. Ancestral Chipewyan may be found in the American Southwest using a testable Preceramic Dene phase. To do this, one must ignore the earliest pottery of the Navajo and their five-pole hogans and ubiquitous triangular arrowheads. Instead, one should consider side-notched arrowheads and look for the remains of simple brush shelters or tipis, arrowshaft smoothers, hide abraders, bone fleshers and beamers, large retouched flakes and knives, dog transport, and the sinew-backed double-curved bow released horizontally. Drawn to the chest, this archery technique reduced accuracy, pull and range by two-thirds, but favored a hidden approach and gave the Apache-Navajo distinct military advantages when entering new areas.

There are many gaps in the prehistory of the Subarctic Dene. The Dene west and east of the Continental Divide and north and south of the 49th Parallel appear on first impression to be so different. Yet there is an underlying similarity, not just in their language and social structure, but in the fact that they were inveterate borrowers from other cultures. This has presented immense challenges to archaeologists, but, hopefully, we can make them more visible by examining their whole culture area, the largest in North America. See also: Americas, North: American Southwest, Four

Corners Region; Arctic and Circumpolar Regions; Eastern Woodlands; Plains; Rocky Mountains; New World, Peopling of.

Further Reading Clark DW (1991) Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian Prehistory Series: Western Subarctic Prehistory, 152. Yukon: Archaeological Survey of Canada. Fladmark KR (1986) British Columbia Prehistory. Yukon: Archaeological Survey of Canada. Gordon BC (1996) Archaeological Survey of Canada, Mercury Series 19: People of Sunlight, People of Starlight-Barrenland Archaeology in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Yukon: Archaeological Survey of Canada. Hare PG, Greer S, Gotthardt R, and Farnell R (2004) Ethnographic and archaeological investigations of alpine ice patches in SW Yukon, Canada. Arctic 57(3): 247–259. Krauss ME and Golla VK (1981) Northern Athapaskan Languages. In: Helm J (ed.) Handbook of the North American Indians. Subarctic Vol. 6, pp. 67–85. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Kroeber AL (1959) Reflections and tests on Athapaskan glottochronology. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 47: 241–258. LeBlanc R (1984) The Rat Indian Creek Site and the Late Prehistoric Period in the Interior Northern Yukon: Archaeological Survey of Canada, Mercury Series 120. MacNeish RS (1964) Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Paper 6: Investigations in the southwest Yukon: Archaeological Excavations, Comparisons, and Speculations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Noble WC (1981) Prehistory of the Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake Region. In: Helm J (ed.) Handbook of North American Indians. Subarctic, vol. 6, p. 97–106. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Workman, W (1978) Prehistory of the Aishihik–Kluane area, southwest Yukon Territory, Canada. Archaeological Survey of Canada, Mercury Series 74.

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AMERICAS, SOUTH Contents Amazon Basin Early Cultures of the Central Andes Early Villages Historical Archaeology Inca Archaeology Inca Ethnohistory Northern South America Southern Cone

Amazon Basin Anna C Roosevelt, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Archaic period Early Holocene period of often-complex hunter-gatherer cultures. diffusion The spread of archaeological cultures. Formative period Period between about 5000 and 2000 years ago when people first used cultivated plants as staple foods. hypoplasia A horizontal line of reduced enamel formation that forms in a child’s teeth when growth slows because of an illness or period of famine. interfluves Nonflooded land between the main rivers. Manioc Tropical shrub of the Euphorbiaceae family whose fibrous, starchy roots are a staple food in Latin America and the Caribbean. New Archaeology A period of theoretical and methodological innovation in American archaeology that emphasized the formation and testing of explicit hypotheses. Oriente Eastern Ecuador, which lies in the Amazon basin. osteology The study of bone morphology. palaeoindian period New World cultural period of early hunting and gathering cultures dating to the later Pleistocene and Early Holocene. paradigm An overarching theoretical approach to scientific causality from which a group of related theories and hypotheses is derived. photogrammetry Three-dimensional mapping carried out by binocular resolution of dual, offset photographic images. phytolith A silica-rich, plant-cell wall structure that can be preserved in soil, recovered, and identified to species. Pleistocene Geological period of the Ice Age between c. 2 million and 10 000 years ago. pressure-flaked a method of flaking stone to shape artifacts by pressing the rock surface. radiometric dating Dating methods that use the behavior of radioactive materials to measure the amount of time since a material was used or buried. stable isotope analysis Study of vegetation cover or diet by mass spectrometric analysis of nonradioactive isotopes extracted from plants, fauna, or soils.

varzea Brazilian Portuguese term for alluvial floodplain land. Xanthosoma Tropical South American root crop of the Aroid family distantly related to Asian taro.

Interpretive Themes in Amazonian Archaeology The dominant theme of archaeologists’ interpretations of Amazonia is the question of the role of the tropical forest in human cultural and biological evolution. Environmental determinism was the explicit paradigm of the first archaeologists to espouse a theory; Betty J. Meggers and Clifford Evans of the Smithsonian Institution. Like many early scientific archaeologists, they believed that the tropical forest environment strongly limited human cultural evolution. Influenced by theoreticians such as Julian Steward, they considered the habitat so poor in resources that early foragers could not have penetrated it. The archaeological sequence thus only could have begun in late prehistory when pottery-using migrants from agricultural Andean civilizations invaded Amazonia. In the tropical environment, their cultures would have deteriorated into horticultural village societies and foraging bands. Their small, shifting settlements and limited subsistence activities would have left the forest essentially virgin of human impacts. Archaeologists who came to work in Amazonia after Meggers and Evans suggested variations to the environmental determinist hypotheses. They argued that, although poor interfluvial resources might have limited cultural developments, humans in the rich alluvial floodplains could have intensified agriculture and fishing and developed complex cultures. Donald Lathrap’s idea was that manioc had been the staple, whereas Anna Roosevelt thought that maize would have been a staple in some areas. Lathrap felt that competition over floodplain resources had led to migrations into the interfluves, where peoples’ cultures would have deteriorated in the poor environment. Roosevelt thought

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that the deterioration only happened after the European conquest of Amazonia. For earlier occupations, Lathrap doubted that Palaeo-Indian hunter-gatherers could have survived on Amazon resources, whereas Roosevelt thought that they could. The early theoretical thinking of scientific archaeologists about Amazonia was consistent with the main paradigm of the New Archaeology movement of the 1970s, itself an extrapolation from Julian Steward’s ideas. Like New Archaeologists, the early Amazonianists assumed that the environment shaped the trajectories of local cultural evolution. In their explanations, agriculture was the basis for village sedentism and the evolution of state societies involved agricultural intensification, population growth, monumental public works, and high art. The phase of field and lab research that followed the early phase of theory making in Amazonia has motivated the revision of many early theoretical ideas and the formulation of some significantly different understandings of human history and prehistory there. By the 1990s, archaeological field research had revealed an unexpectedly long and complex cultural sequence for Amazonia. The discovery of tropical forest Palaeo-Indians and Early Holocene ceramic foragers and farmers constituted problems for neoevolutionary optimal foraging theory and for diffusionary explanations that attributed Amazonian cultures to Andean intrusions. The diverse complex cultures unexpectedly found in interfluves as well as floodplains complicated 1970s theories about the role of intensive agriculture in social evolution, and the apparent lack of stratification and centralized rulerships in some of the complex cultures encouraged alternative explanations from heterarchy theory. Moreover, recognition of the historical role of the European conquest in the disappearance of the complex societies undermined adaptationist explanations of ethnogenesis in Amazonia. Finally, evidence that the environment itself might have coevolved with prehistoric humans has placed in doubt aspects of theory and practice in conservation biology. Since the first and second phases of systematic theoretical thinking, however, the debates among Amazonian archaeologists have not really moved into new directions. Although a few archaeologists are addressing issues from historical ecology, critical theory, and heterarchy, many continue with assumptions from New Archaeology theory. Current theoretical arguments often focus on minor refinements of conclusions, rather than questions about the appropriateness of paradigms. Such questions include: whether a particular Palaeo-Indian group lived in savanna or rainforest, whether a complex society’s site catchment was varzea or interfluvial forest, whether it had manioc or maize as a staple, whether

certain complex societies had classes and central rule, and where certain cultures originated. However given the role of the tropical forest as an archtype in determinist evolutionary theory, the new evidence for more mutual causality, greater complexity, and more lines of development than expected makes Amazonian prehistory a potent stimulant for major new paradigms. A new paradigm that acknowledged the human role in the evolution of habitats and cultures and recognized the dynamic character of the interrelationships might well transform general theory not only in anthropology but throughout the natural sciences and beyond.

Research Methodology The methodology of research in Amazonia has had a trajectory somewhat comparable to that of North American archaeology. It begins with an early prescientific period of free-ranging observation and inference. Then comes an early scientific period of theoretical writing whose research is not explicitly oriented to theoretical problems. There is a final period of field research with explicit problem-oriented design and an expansion of research for cultural resource managment. In each period, however, there are many researchers who do not fit into the trajectory. During the prescientific period, scholars working in Amazonia noted a diversity of archaeological sites and materials but did not use systematic research methods or relate their findings to general theories. However, their important, open-minded empirical observations were the basis of an eventual rethinking of early modern scientific theory by scholars of the first phase of scientific interpretation and the subsequent period of problem oriented research. For example, Charles Hartt, Alfred Russel Wallace, and H. H. Smith, and Joao Barbosa Rodrigues were all aware of preceramic sites and rockpaintings. Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna, Joseph Steere, and Hartt all recognized that there had been early pottery cultures subsisting on fishing, rather than agriculture; and Ladislav Netto, Orville Derby, and Hartt all recognized that there had been populous indigenous prehistoric complex cultures with high art, urban-like centers, and extensive earthworks. In the subsequent early scientific period, work by the Smithsonian group and their affiliates as well as by Lathrap and his associates (c. 1948 through 1975) focused mainly on excavating and descriptively analyzing pottery styles to define archaeological cultures, despite the fact that the New Archaeology had developed a quiver of refined archaeological methods and systematic measurement techniques. The narrow research interests of the early scientific archaeologists

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in Amazonia prevented them from exploiting the theoretical implications of prescientific researchers’ observations and interpretations. Thus, neither the Smithsonian group nor Lathrap’s group realized at that time that there had been Palaeoindian cultures and early Pottery Archaic cultures in Amazonia. When the Smithsonian Institution began producing radiocarbon dates, the dates definitely contradicted their presumption of late human arrival and prehistoric cultural deterioration. But the institution’s scholars found it impossible to integrate the early dates into their short chronology of the human occupation. Lathrap’s group, although aware of some of the early dates, nonetheless concentrated on late prehistory. So it was that only in the 1980s and 1990s were new groups of archaeologists able to establish the outlines of a long archaeological sequence by discovering new cultural phases with stratigraphic excavation techniques and intensive dating of multicomponent sites. Only then, too, were sites systematically instrument-mapped, allowing community analysis for the first time. The archaeologists who created this longer sequence were inspired by the US New Archaeology (or processual archaeology) movement of the 1960s and 1970s to broaden data gathering with techniques from archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and human osteology and to sharpen analysis by the application of accelerator dating, geoarchaeology, geochemistry, computerized topographic mapping, informatics, and statistical analysis. It was this quiver of techniques that revealed the types of settlements and subsistence technologies not envisioned by the environmental determinists. By the 1980s, critical theory archaeologists opposed to processual archaeology had raised questions about the organizational mode and economic base of complex societies, and in Amazonia, these questions stimulated the use of methods that could better define prehistoric organization and economy. Within-site settlement subsurface mapping, regional settlement surveys, subsistence analysis, and cemetery analysis all have been recruited to test hypotheses. Of special theoretical significance have been the complex site plans and corpus of dated and biological remains that archaeologists have recovered in stratigraphic context with the new data gathering techniques. Aggregate information from pollen, macroscopic biological remains, as well as skeletal analyses has allowed more informed inferences about change in environment, subsistence, socioeconomic differentiation, and health patterns. Osteological techniques pioneered in the New Archaeology period have showed in the Amazonian populations a persistence of robust good health through prehistory, with a decline only in postconquest times. This sequence of data, along with the settlement data, did not support

the idea that the Amazon lacked sufficient subsistence resources for prehistoric populations. Not all Amazonian researchers buy into the idea of problem-oriented research or operationalized field methods. Many do not use the methods of data collection and analysis popularized by the New Archaeologists, and many do not subject their theoretical arguments to empirical tests. For example, some researchers argue for particular chronologies but do not carry out systematic radiometric dating and statistical analysis to make their case. Some researchers define land-use areas without justifying them with remote images or empirical soil classifications. Others make claims about ancient subsistence but do not feel the need to test them with fine-screening, quantified biological identifications, or stable isotope analysis for palaeodietary information. Others making claims about settlement patterns do not make instrument maps of sites to justify their arguments. Researchers on rock art do not use photogrammetric or laser mapping to record images precisely nor chemical analyses to trace pigments.

History of Research at Sites In the period from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, researchers mainly from natural science fields and cultural studies took great interest in the archaeology of the Amazon. They traveled widely, made astute observations, carried out excavations, reached insightful interpretations, and published extensively. However, their use of theory was unexplicit and their data gathering and analysis unsystematic. Their work was ignored until the late twentieth century, when it became the basis for a critical review of theories and a new stage of problem-oriented field research. The early natural science researchers described a wide range of materials in sites, including diverse biological remains, and already recognized most of the cultures now accepted by archaeologists at the time of this writing. Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Hartt published on the rock paintings at Monte Alegre; J. Barbosa Rodrigues, Hartt, and H. H. Smith noted the existence of projectile points in the Taperinha–Monte Alegre area. Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna and his invitees, Hartt and Joseph Steere, reported on research at early pottery shellmounds at Taperinha, the mouth of the Amazon, and elsewhere. Hartt’s research team excavated on Marajo Island, at Taperinha near Santarem, and at Monte Alegre in Para. Ladislav Netto published an ambitious analysis of iconography and social organization at the Marajoara culture. Curt Nimuendaju surveyed and collected extensively, documenting the incised and punctate pottery horizon near Santarem and ceramic and standing stone sites just north of the mouth of

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the Amazon. He also ventured a still-influential reconstruction of the ethnohistoric Tapajo society of Santarem, which he associated with the Santarem archaeological pottery culture. Unfortunately, important early reports were published in Portuguese and stayed generally unknown to North Americans, but erudite scholars such as Helen Constance Palmatery disseminated important excerpts in their own English syntheses on Amazon archaeology. Also writing in English, Erland Nordenskiold synthesized lowland South American archaeology and ethnology in comparative schemas, pioneered research at lowland mound sites in the Llanos de Mojos, Bolivia, and inspired many others to work in the area. The materials collected by them from that area have mostly lain unpublished in European museums. The Peruvian and Columbian Amazon regions have less recorded work from this period. By the end of World War II, scientific archaeology had become established as a discipline, and government funding for foreign area studies supported archaeological research abroad. As mentioned above, in Amazonia, the early scientitific archaeologists of the postwar period focused on the definition and analysis of pottery cultures. Despite their theorizing on the history of human adaptation to Amazonia, they did not do systematic empirical research on settlement pattern, chronology, or human ecology. Meggers and Evans wrote their dissertations on their mid-twentieth century research on archaeological sequences at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil. Their theory about the invasion and deterioration of Andean cultures was framed before radiocarbon dating. In the late 1950s they expanded research to British Guiana and in the 1960s to Venezuelan Guyana. Meggers and Evans then worked in the Napo River valley of the Ecuadorian Amazon, finding a local sequence that only later was understood to demonstrate a sequence contrary to their theory of the colonization of the Amazon. Their prote´ge´s in Brazil, British Guiana, and Uruguay carried on their effort by identifying cultures at many new sites in Amazon. The new cultural phases they found in eastern Amazonia included presumptive Formative and Archaic cultures, which by definition embodied a longer human occupation in the Amazon than their theories allowed for. In addition, dates from their excavations on Marajo suggested that the Polychrome horizon was older in Amazonia than in the Andes and that some mound constructions there dated back to Formative times. However, Meggers and Evans expressed doubts about those dates and argued against the idea that there had been early ceramic fishing cultures and early preceramic cultures. Lathrap wrote his dissertation on his late 1950s excavations at sites in the vicinity of Pucallpa in the

Ucayali River valley of the Peruvian Amazon. He argued, despite very incomplete dating, that these showed an indigenous cultural development, rather than foreign invasions and collapse. His PhD students at the University of Illinois, Urbana, added to his data by focusing on specific cultures. Together, they pushed the beginnings of the Upper Amazon sequence back into the first 1000 years before Christ, and they documented the existence of complex, populous societies at least by the time of the first European accounts. Although the Smithsonian group limited access to dig permits in the Brazilian Amazon, Lathrap students were able to use Brazilian museum collections and archives on the Marajoara culture to document that the area had a richer resource base and longer indigenous sequence than Meggers and Evans had hypothesized. Numerous Brazilian researchers of the later twentieth century carried out regionally focused research for museums, universities, and public archaeology contracts. In advance of the Carajas region iron-mining development, a team led by Marcos Magalhaes of the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi excavated caves and rockshelters and defined and dated new Early Archaic and Late Formative cultures at Gruta do Gaviao and other sites. Archaic zooarchaeological finds from Gaviao were analyzed for subsistence information by Mara Imazio da Silveira. In the lower Tapajos River area, Denise Cavalcante Gomes excavated late Formative period sites for her dissertation. On Marajo Island, an interdisciplinary team from the Museu Goeldi did geophysical survey and test excavation at several sites. Their research, though illuminating for methodology and culture history, was not explicitly problemoriented. Edith Pereira, also of the Goeldi, conducted intensive long-term research and publication on the rock art of Para, a necessary first step allowing for interpretive analysis in the future. Researchers Vera Guapindaia at the Museu Goeldi and Denise Cavalcante Gomes at the University of Sao Paulo have systematically analyzed the technology and style of pottery from Santarem in museums. At the same time North American archaeologists and Brazilians began long-term problem-oriented research inspired by processual archaeology concepts and methods. Roosevelt’s team conducted long-term research on the history of cultures and habitats in the Lower Amazon. They used detailed instrument mapping, geophysical survey, extensive stratigraphic excavations, and exhaustive soil processing to test theories on the history of human adaptation in Amazonia. Their research sites include Santarem, Taperinha, Monte Alegre, Marajo Island, and the Curua River. A major focus of that research has been dating and analysis of biological remains and artifacts in stratigraphic context. To augment excavation data,

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the team also sampled, dated, and chemically analyzed biological collections in museums. Renato Kipnes has excavated and synthesized information from Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites throughout the southern Amazon and southeastern Brazil. Delores Piperno, with collaborators including Deborah Pearsall, has analyzed sediment cores from water bodies in Ecuador and Brazil to collect microfossils for data on subsistence and environmental change. In aid of transportation planning, Brazilian Denise Schaan then of the University of Pittsburgh headed a team that carried out the first extensive regional surveys, geophysical mapping, and test excavations on Marajo at the mouth of the Amazon. Her dissertation assessed the sociopolitical organization of the Marajoara culture as a possible complex chiefdom. Also in the lower Amazon, Vera Guapindaia has researched open sites and cave urnburial cemeteries of the late prehistoric Maraca culture. Her inventories reveal that the famous burial urns depicting humans seated on effigy stools include men and women in equal numbers. Dirse Kern has led teams that systematically investigated the chemistry of anthropogenic ‘black Indian soils’ for the first time. In the upper Xingu, Eduardo Neves of the University of Sao Paulo and Michael Heckenberger now of the University of Florida investigated the settlement pattern of a cluster of large, late prehistoric ‘round’ village sites, as units of a possible complex chiefdom. The team also has carried out preliminary testexcavation and site survey at terra firme sites near extensive varzea at the mouth of the Rio Negro, looking at the nature and production of the black Indian soils as elements of prehistoric land management. In the upper Amazon, several Peruvian researchers, including Monica Teixeira, mapped and test-excavated architectural, funerary, and habitation sites along the Andean slopes of the Amazon drainage. In Bolivia, Clark Erickson established a long-term research on agricultural earthworks and habitation sites of the Llanos de Mojos. European researchers have worked both on the history of Inca contact in Andean slopes of the Bolivian Amazon and also on large enigmatic earthworks in the Bolivian Llanos. In Ecuador, researchers led by Ernesto Salazar have mapped and test-excavated numerous diverse mounds in the rich archaeological zone of the Faldas de Sangay area, studied earlier by Pedro Porras, a collaborator of Betty Meggers.

The Human Developmental Sequence in Amazonia Palaeo-Indian foragers 11 000 to c. 9000 in main floodplain and 10 000–4000 BP elsewhere

The earliest human occupation discovered as yet in Amazonia is Late Pleistocene in age but is distinct

from the Clovis big-game-hunting, fluted-point culture of North America (see Figures 1 and 2). The occupation consists of small and widely dispersed groups with a culture of broad-spectrum foraging on tropical forest and river resources. Identified environmental plant remains document humid tropical forest vegetation, not grassland. Vegetation around campsites seems to have been disturbed, possibly by purposeful burning, and by Late Paleoindian times, people may have cultivated a few trees, roots, shrubs, and herbs. The most detailed evidence on their culture comes from the multicomponent site of Cavern of the Painted Rock at Monte Alegre in the Lower Amazon (see Figure 3 and 4). The preceramic layers of the 2-m deep deposit produced over 60 radiometric dates between c. 11 000 and 10 000. The food remains recovered there document consumption of very numerous palm and tree fruits and seeds, abundant, mostly-small fish, turtles, a small amount of shellfish and small game. No grass was identified among the plants remains. The material culture is dominated by red pigment and numerous flaked stone tools of both fine- and coarse-grained siliceous rocks. The occurrence of such tools at Polychrome rock art sites and the fact that nearly all the pigment of the same chemical composition is in the Palaeoindian layers suggest that Palaeoindians were responsible for many of the paintings. These early Amazonians made finely pressure-flaked triangular and/or stemmed two-faced points and limaces (unifacial endscapers) more comparable to Late Paleolithic Eurasian and Beringian cultures than to Clovis cultures. They also flaked heavy cutting tools from coarse, tough rocks. Such tools may have been for woodcutting or digging. On the Caqueta River in Colombia, test excavations at Late Paleoindian Pen ^a Roja, a ninth millennium preceramic site, found abundant palm fruits, phytoliths of a starchy root crop, Calathea allouia, curcurbits such as bottle gourd, but no faunal remains. Grinding tools were abundant, and flaked ones were rare, but the latter included bifacial pressure flaking. Phytoliths revealed the presence of forest but not grasses. Surface finds of lithics and rock paintings have been made both in interfluves and floodplains of the Brazilian Amazon and from stratified sites in central and southeastern Brazil. The radiocarbon dating of these sites is comparable to the Amazonian Palaeoindian dates: c. 11 000–8000 BP. Skeletons from those Brazilian sites closely resemble Palaeoindian and early Archaic skeletons documented in the Andes coast and western North America. In interfluvial Amazonia, the preceramic stage continues until the Formative, between c. 4000 and 2000 BP, in contrast to parts of the main floodplains, where the pottery stage has already begun by 7500. Compared with floodplain sites, sites relying on the

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Figure 2 Quartz crystal projectile point from Cachoeira do Chacorao, Tapajos River Brazil. Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Belem, Brazil.

dispersed resources of the interfluves have a wider range of plant and animal species in them. The Early Holocene interfluvial preceramic culture of Carajas is particularly well known. Wide area excavations at Gruta do Gaviao (see Figure 5) and other sites have revealed a very broad-spectrum economy of broad collecting, fishing, and hunting. There, small fruits of diverse trees and palms, numerous fishbones, shellfish, bones of diverse small game, and rare larger game were recovered. The artifact tradition was characterized by coarse flaking of white or colored crystalline quartz. Recently discovered Early Holocene preceramic sites in the interior of French Guiana also have abundant grinding stones, but food remains and flaked lithics have not been reported yet. The Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene preceramic cultures were not foreseen in traditional Palaeoanthropological theory about Amazonia, which assumed that Palaeoindians would be exclusively adapted by hunting big game in cool open habitats and thus would not colonize Amazonia, where game is comparably rare. Considered with the Late Pleistocene Patagonian small-game hunters and newly discovered southern Peruvian marine foragers, the new cultures of the Amazon are further evidence that early Palaeoindians developed the kinds of diverse regional cultures that theoreticians had only expected to see in the Early Holocene, when the big game went extinct and modern climates had formed. The diversity and regionalism of these new early cultures have inspired a rethinking of the role of environment and subsistence in the evolution of Palaeolithic cultures worldwide. Archaic shellfishing and fishing cultures with pottery, c. 7500–3000 BP

Figure 3 Monte Alegre Hills, Brazil. By Nigel Smith.

Another new group of Amazonian cultures are the Pottery Archaic cultures of the Amazon floodplains and estuary. These unexpected cultures, the earliest pottery

Figure 4 Cavern of the painted rock and rock painting details, near Monte Alegre, Brazil. By Anna Roosevelt.

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Figure 6 Incised and punctate Early–Mid Holocene Archaic Pottery, Taperinha, near Santarem, Brazil.

Figure 5 Caverna do Gaviao, Early Holocene Preceramic Site, Carajas Region, Brazil. By Marcos Magalhaes.

cultures yet known in the Western Hemisphere, appear to have been supported not by agriculture but by intensive harvesting of aquatic resources. Spatially, the sites are associated with river floodplain lakes and coastal estuaries. One possible interpretation, then, is that after most local regions of Amazonia had been colonized by Paleoindian cultures, some local populations solved the problem of increasingly constricted catchments by intensifying their exploitation of local resources. Nine sites of pottery-making fisherpeople, dated to the Early Holocene by more than 30 radiometric assays, some of them directly on the pottery, have been excavated along the flooplains of the Lower Amazon, Amazon mouth, and the Guianas’ coasts. The Taperinha culture was found at the mouth of the Tapajos River in the Lower Amazon (see Figure 6 and 7); the Mina culture was defined in the Salgado area just south of the Amazon mouth; and sites of the Alaka culture occur along the coast of Guyana north of the mouth of the Amazon. The sites of these cultures tend to be shell middens, several of them relatively large, from 5 to more than 20 ha in area and 5 to more than 10 tall. These fishing peoples subsisted mainly on intensive aquatic foraging focused on small fish and shellfish. Carbonized plant remains are much less common at these sites than in earlier and later sites. (Shellfish are one of the few faunal food sources with considerable carbohydrate content.) Pollen cores of the period from Prainha on the edge of the Amazon opposite Taperinha

show human disturbance of the forest but no evidence of cultivation in the form of cultivated-plant pollen. Despite the apparent lack of agriculture, people made substantial cultural achievements, including the firstknown Amazonian villages, structures with prepared floors, artificial mounds (of shell), and pottery. The pottery is predominantly tempered with sand and decorated only occasionally, with paint in some regions and incision and punctation in others. Stone tools are not common, but include flakes, boiling stones, and rocks used for grinding. Both bone and shell tools and ornaments also were made. Flexed burials have been found at several sites and so have turtle-feasting areas. One skeleton analyzed at Taperinha was a pre-teen whose excellent teeth showed no dental caries associated with starchy food nor hypoplasias from severe or repeated childhood diseases or famines. The existence of large, apparently sedentary settlements of very Early Holocene fishing peoples using pottery in Amazonia has encouraged revision of thinking about the role of subsistence in the evolution of human technology and of settlement pattern in the Americas. The new Amazonian Pottery Archaic cultures seem quite parallel to early pottery-making cultures along coasts, lakes, or rivers in the southeastern US, north central Africa, Southeast Asia, south coastal China, and Japan. Following the hypotheses of geographers and botanists, it seems likely that the relatively sedentary settlements of the intensive fisherpeople caused landscape changes encouraging weedy types of species that were the forebears of domesticated plants. But since the plant remains of only a few sites have been studied systematically, tracing the origins of Amazonian staple crops archaeologically is an important task for future work. In addition, osteological and chemical analyses

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Figure 7 Taperinha shellmound, near Santarem, Brazil. By Anna Roosevelt.

need to be carried out on skeletons from Mina and Alaka phase sites, for comparison with those from Taperinha and Monte Alegre. One or two microfossil specimens in Ecuadorian Oriente lake pollen cores have been claimed to represent staple maize cultivation at 6000 BP, but the core levels with the maize were not directly dated. Future research that directly dates a whole suite of botanicals from such sequences can help clarify this important economic transition. The total lack of maize-type isotopic chemistry in Amazonian human skeletons until after the time of Christ, however, seems clear evidence that maize, if present as early as 6000, could not have been a staple food. In experimental tests, when humans or animals have eaten appreciable quantities of maize, their bone chemistry always shows the isotopic effect of the maize. People whose bones show no such effect cannot, therefore, have been staple maize eaters.

Figure 8 Formative period pottery effigy pipes and stamp, decorated with Zoned Incised Hachure, from Sambaqui Ponta do Jauari, near Alenquer, Brazil, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Belem.

Formative Horticultural Cultures, c. 4000–2000 BP

Formative pottery cultures, which have been found throughout Amazonia, are thought to have subsisted by horticulture, supplemented by foraging, especially on fish, turtles, other small game, and tree fruits. The particular role of different crops is not yet welldocumented and seems to have varied from site to site and region to region. Numerous maize pollen exines and phytoliths have been identified in Upper Amazon pollen core levels from about c. 3000 years old, but maize carbon patterns have not been detected in any Formative human skeletons yet analyzed in the Amazon. For example, two Aroxi-culture Formative skeletons dated between c. 3600 and 3200 BP (on a palm fruit, a human molar, and a human cranium) from Cavern of the Painted Rock at Monte Alegre lacked any maize signal, as did three skeletons from the Olaya site in the Ucayali, Peru, dating to about 2000 years ago. All these individuals had carbon signals typical of people who eat plants of a large

group that includes manioc, an important staple in the Amazon today. Other crops of similar carbon signature may also have been cultivated in the Formative: the minor ‘root’ crops, such as sweet potato and Xanthosoma, local seed crops, and shrub, palm, and tree fruits. In Formative sites of this apparent transition to reliance on cultivated plants for calories, shellfish are no longer common among excavated food remains, presumably because cultivated plants are a more productive and storable carbohydrate source. Also, palm fruits, so common in Palaeoindian sites, were rarer in Formative sites. Like pottery Archaic skeletons, the Formative skeletons from Monte Alegre have excellent teeth that have no caries or hypoplasias. However, Formative sites have been mapped and excavated in few regions. Only a handful have been screened and floated for food remains, and only a couple have had skeletal studies. Most seem of moderate size, but site like Faldas de Sangay in the Upper

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Amazon of Ecuador and the Castanheira site of the Ananatuba culture on Marajo Island at the mouth of the Amazon have artificial earth mounds, sometimes in structured groupings. In fact, many late prehistoric Polychrome horizon Marajoara mounds have Formative pottery in their basal layers, as does the late prehistoric Santarem site of the Incised and Punctate horizon. Some Marajo Island Formative sites, such as Castanheira, also have large adobe semitubular stoves common later on in Marajoara mounds. Such substantial built facilities are considered evidence for relative site permanence and complexity at this time. Researchers at Sangay have documented the existence of large, organized mound centers with both residential and ritual constructions and a rich material culture.

While the dating at Sangay is still preliminary, there seems a possiblity of a Formative age for some of the mounds. Many local pottery styles of the Amazonian Formative are linked to regional pottery traditions/horizons related to the Saladoid and Barrancoid horizons of northern South American and the Caribbean. Among these Amazonian Formative pottery styles, two supraregional groupings have been defined: the Zoned Incised Hachure horizon (see Figures 8 and 9) and the Incised Rim Horizon. Formative pottery, regardless of horizon, tends to be rather complex in form and elaborately decorated, especially by incision and modeling on rims and shoulders. Among the forms are griddles, keeled and flanged bowls and jars,

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Figure 10 A Marajoara Polychrome horizon burial urn, Guajara, Brazil. By Sal Catalano.

adorno-rim bowls with geometric and zoomorphic iconography, carved pottery paint stamps, tobacco effigy pipes, and other ritual objects possibly associated with rituals of shamanism. Although there is continuity from Palaeoindian cultures to indigenous cultures today, the Formative is the most important cultural influence for the late prehistoric complex cultures. Of all the archaeological stages in the Amazon, too, the Formative seems the one most similar to modern ethnographic cultures there. Some Formative settlements were more complex architecturally than modern ones, a difference could be elucidated when archaeologists excavate sites of the ethnohistoric period of ethnogenesis. Polychrome Mound-building Cultures, c. 2000–1000 BP

The Polychrome horizon links a series of diverse, long-lived cultures with elaborate and often largescale decorated pottery with geometric, zoomorphic, and human imagery (see Figure 10). All share a characteristic style of bold, complex polychrome painting, often combined with modeling, incision, and excision. Despite lacking evidence of statelike or imperial political organization, many Polychrome cultures had large spheres of interaction, extensive residential mound complexes, shamanic female figures, diverse ritual objects, drug-paraphernalia, feasting facilities, and numerous, large urn-burial grounds. The secondary urn burial cults could represent ancestor worship, and some authors think that the female images and some rich female burials may reflect matrilineal descent myths and female ritual and political roles. Although the horizon was assumed to represent an invasion from the Andes, radiocarbon dates are earlier in the eastern basin, not in the western, Andean

Amazon headwaters. It seems to begin about the time of Christ in the east, the late first millennium AD in the Middle Amazon, and not until the early second millennium AD in the west. Some Polychrome cultures in the Upper Amazon, Northwest Amazon, and Guianas survived the European invasion. Records of the conquest period mention not only polychrome pottery but also elaborate polychrome robes, and indigenous people in many parts of the basin today still make and use pottery, clothing, and ornaments in related styles. In some regions Polychrome horizon prehistoric sites are numerous and very large, indicating relative population density (see Figure 11). Most details about the lifeways come from the mouth of the Amazon. Subsistence economies based on agroforestry, plant collecting, fishing, and horticulture appear highly intensive. Bones of very small fish and nourishing seeds of common trees, shrubs, and herbs dominate residential facilities and garbage dumps, but valuable cultivated tree fruits, such as the palm, acai Euterpe oleraceae), and the bones of huge fishes (more than 1–2 m long) are common in feasting facilities. Only a few seeds of maize have been identified, and they come from a hard-kerneled, pod-pop race. Large skeletal collections in museums show a rather healthy, muscular population relying on a varied diet. In contrast to earlier periods, some skeletons’ bone chemistry is shifted toward maize and away from C-3 tropical forest plant groups. This change may reflect an increased deforestation and possible low-level maize consumption. The bone chemistry varies from person to person, possible evidence of socioeconomic differentiation. The plants and isotopes nonetheless indicate much better-preserved forest cover than in the current cattle pastures. People’s jaws show evidence of gum inflammation but not pyorrhea. Most crania have all their teeth, and, though teeth are worn, very few bear enamel hypoplasias from famine and childhood sickness. Skeletal infectious lesions also are mostly lacking. Many people are as tall as modern North Americans, and the only notable bone pathology is occasional cribra orbitalia, considered to indicate moderate intestinal parasite infections. Crania are narrow with projecting occiputs, a long-term Amazonian pattern unlike Andean morphologies. A few people’s crania have been purposely shaped in the Bishop’s Miter pattern, a possible symbol of rank. Incised and Punctate Horizon, c. AD 1000–1600

By about 1000 AD the influential incised and punctate cultural horizon known for its elaborate modeled representational pottery and fine-line polychrome painting had spread widely in Amazonia and beyond. In its greatest extent, the horizon reached from the

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Long W49˚ 36'05” Location: Lat S 0˚57'05” Approx.3 km at 341˚ from campo lime fazenda Refernce elevation: N100, E200 = 9.54 m (referenced to mean low water,nov 28,19987 = 0) Grid azimuth:magnetic north Declination:17˚03'44” Contour interval:25 cm

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Figure 14 The Luonan Basin landscape (upper) and the Lower Palaeolithic sites.

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artifacts were recovered from the cave. Cores, nodules, anvils, and other breccia rocks were arranged along the circumference of these ‘floors,’ while numerous flakes and fossil remains were concentrated in the center. Refitting study was successful in conjoining thousands of artifacts within the cave to document site formation and hominid spatial use of the cave (Figure 15). The difference between the open-air sites and the cave sites are analyzed in terms of the raw materials and tool-making technology. The study shows that stone tool types from Longyadong cave site are dominated by small modified flake tools like scrapers, points, and burins. Large choppers made on pebble stone are present but in a very low number. In contrast, 13 581 pieces collected from 268 open-air sites consists of large tool types that are not seen from the

cave sites, such as hand axes, picks, cleavers, spheroids, and choppers in relatively high numbers. It is implied that the Longyadong cave may have been one of the central sites of occupation where early hominids visited repeatedly over a long period of time, while the open-air sites were loci of their temporary activities. The differences in tool assemblages show that there might have been different site functions between the cave and open-air sites. Lithic Technology

During the Middle Pleistocene, two main lithic technologies were established as strategic adaptations: flake tools in northern China and pebble-core tools in southern China. Flake tools were produced with directly percussion or bipolar percussion by expedient core reduction. Based on the current data, no

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standard core platform preparation has been detected as yet. Predominant flake blanks were modified into scrapers, notches, and burins. Raw materials mainly consisted of poor-quality quartz and quartzite which were common locally available resources. Goodquality cherts were also selected during the later period at some sites. The majority of pebble-core tools were found at riverside sites in southern China, and were made by either freehand percussion or anvil-chipping methods. The difference between pebble-core tools and flake tools is that the former were bifacially or unifacially made on cores or large flakes. These types of tools often included large cutting implements like choppers with either bifacially or unifacially chipped edges, large bifacial or unifacial points, and other heavy-duty tools like spheroids. However, differences between the two lithic industries were also observed in comparisons of cave sites and open-air settlements, especially in southern China. Some caves, like Dadong and Guanyindong, yielded primarily flake tools that contrasted with the lithic assemblages from contemporaneous sites in adjunct areas. These differences could be direct reflections of site functions, as representations of hominid behavior. In fact, the difference between the lithic assemblages of the Longyadong cave and other open-air sites, as mentioned above, could also be explained as the result of cultural interaction between southern and northern hominids, particularly in light of the fact that the location of the Luonan Basin was on the boundary where the two lithic technologies could have met. Clearly, further study on the Luonan lithic assemblages in terms of dating and chronology, site formation, stone tool functions, will shed new lights on the diversity of hominid behaviors in the Middle Pleistocene China. Handaxes in China

Another important aspect of the Luonan Basin Palaeolithic is the discovery of over 200 handaxes from open-air sites (Figure 16). This is one of the largest clusters of so-called Acheulean-like handaxes in China. The other areas yielding a large number of handaxes are the Baise Basin in Guangxi province and the Danjiangkuo Reservoir area in northern Hubei province. A few handaxes are also reported, in lower numbers, from other open-air sites, in both northern and southern China. At present well-known handaxes assemblages are reported from Baise, where the Palaeolithic complex consisted of nearly 100 sites and localities, distributing mainly on the fourth terraces of the 100 km-long Youjiang River valley. About 25–100 m above the

present river level, the artifact-bearing deposits of the fourth terraces are associated with tektites dispersed across the basin. The age of these large cutting tools were established by 40Ar/39Ar analyses on collected tektite samples, and yielded an average age of 803 thousand years ago. Thus, Baise handaxes are claimed to be the oldest large cutting tools in East Asia. It is suggested that the both Luonan and Baise handaxes exhibits all the traits of the Acheulean technology from western Eurasia/Africa. These handaxes were made of pebble cores, bifacially chipped to straighten the working edge towards the tip, but leaving cortex and rough working surface near proximal (butt) end. It is also evident that handaxes with similar morphological traits to Chinese tools are found in Chongokni, Korea. Compared to the classic Acheulean handaxes in the West, these eastern versions seem to be crudely made prototypes. However, technologically, they share similar attributes of human modification to those in the West. The difference in their appearance may be caused by use of different raw materials, and possibly by different functions as a result of adaptive behaviors to the East Asian environment. The discovery of handaxes has always stirred sensational discussion focusing on the concept of the ‘Movius Line’ that drew developmental differences between elaborate handaxe culture in the West and crude chopper-chopping culture in the East. Since the first identification of handaxes from the Dingcun site in southern Shanxi province in 1954, Chinese scholars were trying to claim that Palaeolithic cultures were not from the cultural backwaters as implied by H. Movius’ syntheses in the 1940s. Today, it is clear that Chinese hominids produced cultures quite different to those of their counterparts in Europe and Africa. Regardless of whether the large cutting tools (including hand axes, cleavers, and picks) are similar or dissimilar to those in the West in terms of measurement or attributes, the reasons why handaxes in such form appeared in China would be of interest to Palaeolithic research for years to come. For example, archaeologists working on the Baise assemblages believe that production of handaxes could be a behavioral adaptation to an episode of woody plants burning and widespread forest destruction due to tektite events that resulted in local cobble outcrops becoming available.

Palaeolithic Cultures of the Early Upper Pleistocene (120–35 Thousand Years Ago) Northern China

Entering the Upper Pleistocene period, northern China continues to be an area of favorable settlements

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for hominid living. The number and scale of archaeological sites, in forms of both caves and open-air sites, are greater than that in previous periods, indicating expansion of hominid activities. In some regions, materials cultures were developed continuously from early occupations, such as in Zhoukoudian and Nihewan. Located about 70 m southeast of Locality 1, Zhoujoudian Locality 15 is one of the most important Palaeolithic sites during this period. The site was identified in 1932, and completely excavated between 1935 and 1937. More than 10 000 stone artifacts and abundant faunal remains of at least 33 mammalian species were recovered over the course of the excavations, but due to historic reasons, these artifacts were never studied until the 1990s. Recent examination of these lithic assemblages suggests that the lithic technology of the hominids at Zhoukoudian Locality 15

was more developed than that of their predecessors at Locality 1. The Zhoukoudian hominids in the early Upper Pleistocene effectively mastered sophisticated core-reduction modes, represented by multidirectional flaking and alternate flaking. Compared to earlier occupants at the Zhoukoudian Locality 1, these later hominids were able to successfully employ free-hand percussion to craft quartz flakes tools, which previously at Locality 1 could have been done only by bipolar flaking. However, the lithic industry of Locality 15 is suggested to continue the technological traditions of the Locality 1. The majority of tool types are scrapers of various different types (including straight sidescraper, convex sidescraper, concave sidescraper, endscraper, thumbnail scraper, double-edged scraper, and multiedged scraper), which together account for 93% of

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the 1283 total tool assemblage. Although overall the tool kits are similar to those found at the Locality 1, retouched tools were more elaborate at the Locality 15. Some specimens do exhibit well-controlled fine retouch, evidenced by even and parallel modification scars and sharp, regular, smooth, or denticulate cutting edge. Overall, the Zhoukoudian Locality 15 industry clearly is still a part of the flake tool technocomplexes of northern China. Archaeological investigations suggest the Zhoukoudian Locality 15 was once a cave site, but during the period of hominid occupation, the roof of the cave appears to have collapsed and the inhabitants were therefore living in conditions better described as a rock shelter. Faunal and palynological evidence suggest that the local environment was probably characterized by warm-temperate and forest-steppe conditions. Archaeological deposits were associated with geological formation dated to later Middle Pleistocene and early Upper Pleistocene, which were dated by Uranium-series and ESR methods to establish an age range between 140 and 110 thousand years ago. During this transitional period, the Nihewan Basin continued to be an important area for late Early Palaeolithic open-air settlements. Among these sites in the basin, the Xujiayao site has been a focus of study. Located on the northern side of the Nihewan Basin, by the Liuyi Creek, a branch of the Sangan River, the site yielded over 20 000 lithic artifacts and included cores, flakes, and various retouched tools. Within the lithic assemblages, spheroids (numbering in the thousands) are the most characteristic artifacts recovered from Palaeolithic sites in China. The most important materials recovered from the site were 18 pieces of human fossil fragments. The identity of the human remains, or so called ‘Xujiayao Man,’ is still under debate, has been determined as either Archaic Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens. One skull fragment showed evidence of healed hole, 9.5 mm in diameter. Specialists suggest that this is the earliest evidence of ‘human brain surgery.’ The date of the remains is determined to be roughly 104 000–125 000 years old. The Dingcun complex is the largest open-air site cluster known in northern China that dates to this period. These sites are located at the east side of Fenhe River in southern Shanxi province. Identified in the 1950s, the Dingcun complex is comprised of 14 localities (namely site 54:90–103), 11 of which yielded substantial cultural materials. Later investigations recovered a few more site locations. The common elements of the lithic assemblages of this complex are represented by large-sized core tools including choppers, picks, unifaces, and bifaces in most sites. Unifacial points were made on thick and large-size flake blanks,

and were retouched abruptly on the ventral side along both working edges toward the tip, to form the so-called ‘triangular-sectioned points’ of Dingcun lithic industry. Recent studies also suggest that a few sites within the complex also represent the flake-tool industry of northern China, with its standardized notches and denticulates. The coexistence of large pebble-core tool and flake-tool industries at Dingcun is again seen at the Beiyao site near Luoyang of Henan province. The lithic assemblages from this multiple-component site reveal a general trend in which large pebble tools were gradually replaced by small flake-tools throughout the region. Southern China

In recent years, the most important field investigations of Palaeolithic cultures in southern China was undertaken in the Three Gorges area of the middle Yangtze River. The existence of Palaeolithic settlements remained uncertain until the early 1990s when the Three Gorges Dam project (the world’s largest reservoir) began. Archaeological surveys conducted in 1993–1994 identified 24 palaeolithic sites below 175 m above sea level within the area to be inundated. Most sites are located in the second and third terraces along the 75 km long riverbank stretch in the western part of the gorges. The ongoing salvage excavations revealed rich cultural materials, especially at Gaojiazhen, Jingshuiwan, and Ranjialukou, all in the Fengdu County of the Chongqing Municipality. Ranjialukou is located on the upland fourth terrace, whose geological age is dated to about 125 thousand years ago, thus marking it the oldest Palaeolithic site in the reservoir. The study of Ranjialukou lithic assemblages, especially from the results of the 2005 field session, suggests a ‘throwing technique’ of tool-making at the site. The technique, now claimed as the ‘Yangtze Technique’ by its excavators, is to acquire large tool blanks, which exhibit characteristics of a semirounded and fully cortex dorsal surface and a pointed striking platform, by throwing a flat river cobble at anvil stones. This kind of technique has been recognized as a common practice in making large chopping tools in southwestern China, as well as at the Baxiandong Cave site in Taiwan. If the date claimed for Rojialukou is reliable, then it is the oldest site where this tool-making technique has been recognized. A similar technique was recognized from lithic assemblages from the Shuicheng Xiaohuidong cave site in southwestern China that dated to 50 thousand years ago. The cultural deposits at both Jingshuiwan and Gaojiazhen were at the lower strata of the third terraces, dating to before 40 thousand years ago. Five sessions of field excavations at Jingshuiwan

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uncovered thousands of artifacts dominated by modified flake tools and debris as well as possible hearths, indicating on-site multiple-facet living activities (Figure 17). The Gaojiazhen site, about 17.5 km down the riverbank from Jingshuiwan, yielded a distinctly difference artifact assemblage that was represented by large chopping tools made from cobbles. The function of Gaojiazhen may be that of a tool-making location given a large number of nodule and core occurrences. Difference of lithic technologies between both sites could be related to the different functions of the sites. Recent field investigations have increased the number of open-air sites in southern China to several hundreds; however, only a few of these sites have been excavated. Jigongshan, excavated in the early 1990s, is the most representative site of this period in southern China. The site is located 5 km northeast of the ancient city of Jingzhou, Hubei Province, on a small earthen mound on the second terrace of the north bank of the Yangtze River. The site clearly reveals two cultural strata in which an abundance of lithic artifacts were recovered. Layer 4 in the lower stratum dates to the end of Middle Pleistocene, and its lithic assemblage is similar to those from the older Quyuanhekou site in the same region, which is represented by large pebble-core tools like choppers, picks, and spheroids. Notably, Layer 2 in the upper stratum, dating to the late Upper Pleistocene, reveals a lithic technology different from previous period, one that is characterized by small flake-stone tools such as scrapers and drills. Most importantly, a living floor was identified from the Layer 4. Measuring roughly 30  20 m2, it consisted of five stone rings intentionally constructed

using cobbles and pebbles as well as stone artifacts. Tens of thousands of lithic were found scattered on the living floor, and the area of the densest artifacts concentration was in the center and to the north of the site. The sterile areas associated with the stone circles are also circular with diameters of 1.5–2.5 m surrounded by unmodified stones about 1 m wide (Figure 18). Clearly these stone circles are related to human activities, but more research is needed to determine their functions. However, current evidence suggests that they might have been used as tool-manufacturing areas, given the concentrated distributions of byproducts associated with discarded retouched tools, hammerstone, stone anvils, and other artifacts. The evidence from the Jigongshan lithic assemblages suggests a new, previously unidentified, cultural development in southern China. During the early Upper Pleistocene, southern China, especially in the area around the middle of Yangtze River, underwent changes in lithic technology – the traditional pebblecore tool industry was replaced by small flake-tool industry. Concurrent with this technological shift, some degree of cultural changes also took place. Use of cave settlements during this period increased whereas open-air sites decreased, probably as a result of colder temperatures. Site distributions and use of landscape were greatly expanded, with many more sites being discovered in surrounding mountains, suggesting an enhanced ability in human adaptation during this period. There is no difference between lithic assemblages from caves and that from open-air sites, but cave site deposits are very thick, possibly as a result of longer occupations or repeated use, or perhaps also due to the better preservation of archaeological deposits in cave sites.

Figure 17 Excavations at the Jingshuiwan Site in the Three Gorges area.

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Most cave sites were located in the southwestern plateau as well as in the southern mountainous areas, as in both regions karst formations were well developed. Notably, human remains were recovered from two small caves in southern China (Maba in Guangdong province and Liujiang in Guangxi province), both of which became well known to the world in the years following their recovery in 1958. These fossil remains include well preserved and complete skulls and other measurable fragments. Maba fossils were identified as Archaic Homo sapiens, morphologically closest to Dali fossils in northern China, and dated to around 120 thousand years ago based on Uranium-series dates. A recent study suggests that while most features of Liujiang fossils fall within a range of modern human variations, they retain a few Archaic characters. Before the new century (see below), this male (Liujiang) individual was once regarded as the oldest example of modern human in China, dated to about 50 thousand years ago in age.

Origins of Modern Humans in China From a global perspective, biological, archaeometric, and genetic evidence together appear to support the ‘out-of-Africa’ model for the origin of anatomically modern human. This model suggests Africanevolved modern humans arrived in East Asia and replaced Asian hominids around 40 thousand years ago. However, the last decade of investigations revealed

new data from southern China that continues to encourage some scholars to advocate a model of independent modern human evolution in China, namely the ‘multiregional model.’ Clearly, no matter which origin theory one ascribes to, the Upper Pleistocene fossil remains recovered in China are of critical importance. At present, there are up to nearly 40 archaeological sites in China where fossil remains of anatomically modern humans have been recovered, among which fossils from the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave, Ziyang, and Liujiang are the most important. Conventionally, modern humans from the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian were once believed to be continuously evolved from the Zhoukoudian Locality 1 Homo erectus. Although this notion has been long discarded, some scholars still insist that Asian modern humans shared some biological features of their precedent Homo erectus, such as mandibular torus, shoveling upper incisors, and nasal breadth, which are usually considered to be part of the physical identity of today’s Asian Mongoloid race. Liujiang fossils present more features that can be related to Homo erectus, while fossils from both the Upper Cave and Ziyang are regarded as the best examples of Homo sapiens sapiens in China. The new discovery of modern human fossils including a lower jaw was made at Tianyuandong cave about 6 km southwest of the Zhoukoudian Locality 1, and the Uranium-series dating gave the age of cave deposit at 25 thousand years ago contemporary with that of the Upper Cave. However, the problem is that so far most of these fossils are incomplete causing difficulties in statistical comparisons. As almost all of these well-known fossils under study are younger than 50 thousand years ago, the lack of fossil samples dated to between 100–50 thousand years ago in China is a critical weakness in the indigenous development theory. In other words, current fossil data point to discontinuity of local human evolution (see Paleoanthropology). However, this situation may change in the near future. Over the past decade, full-scale field investigations and extensive fieldworks have been undertaken in the western Hubei province and in the Three Gorges area as part of cultural heritage management associated with the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir and the subsequent South-to-North Water Transfer Project. As a result, dozens of Pleistocene faunal locations as well as human cultural remains were identified. Today, central-western China, with 16 locations, has become the richest area for recovering hominid and modern human fossils in East Asia, most of which are in western Hubei (Figure 19). These fossils range from possible Lufengpithecus, to Homo erectus, Archaic Homo sapiens, to Homo sapiens sapiens.

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What is more significant is that for the first time modern human fossils dating back to around 100 thousand years ago are being recovered from four newly identified sites. At present, Yunxian Huanglongdong site yielded the earliest examples of modern human fossils. The site is a limestone cave more than 100 m deep and 10 m tall (Figure 20), with Palaeolithic deposits more than 2 m. In 2004, five teeth (left second upper incisor, canine of upper jaw, third molar of upper jaw, right second molar of mandible, and left third molar of mandible) were recovered from Layers 4–6, in association with stone tools and faunal remains. The teeth belong to different individuals, all well preserved with clear features of the crown and root. The excavators believe that the morphological features of these teeth fall in between Archaic Homo sapiens and modern Chinese. The faunal assemblage features the South China giant Panda–Stegodon fauna indicative of the late Middle Pleistocene, in conjunction with a calibrated date of Uranium-series date that suggest the rather antique age as early as 94 thousand years ago or at least within the range of 103–44 thousand years ago in age based on uranium-series and ESR samples. The Xinglongdong cave at the western end of the Three Gorges also yielded four modern human teeth embedded in Stegodon fossil deposits that point to geological dates of late Middle Pleistocene (c. 150– 120 thousand years ago). According to the excavators conducting the 2002–2004 fieldwork session, cultural remains at the site are rich and include rare stone animal figurines. These could be the earliest examples of Palaeolithic art in China. The other two

new sites, Migongdong and Leipingdong, both in Wushan County, retain well-preserved late Middle Pleistocene (or early Upper Pleistocene) deposits in the caves where skull fragments as well as teeth were recovered. All of these fossil remains have yet to be studied as the ongoing research continues, but they will undoubtedly shed new light on the study of early modern human in China. New archaeological findings near Zhengzhou city of Henan also seem to suggest cultural continuity in central China. Identified in the 1980s, Xingyang Zhijidong is a rock-shelter type cave with deposits more than 20 m deep and covering periods from Early Upper Pleistocene to Early Holocene (see Asia, East: Early Holocene Foragers). The site was excavated in the early 1990s, and then again in 2001–2004 by Peking University (Figure 21). A series of AMS 14 C date and OSL dates taken from Layers 2–7 suggests an occupational age ranging from 50 to 35 thousand years ago, when the cold and dry climate during the Last Glacial Period took place. Cultural remains tends to be continuous in terms of technological development, although a trend of small flake tools in the later occupational time, possibly developed from pebble-core tools in early times, is observed from lithic assemblages. The archaeologists working on the materials suggest that such transitions could be adaptive to climate changes. Continuous occupations of the cave retain evidence of modern human behavioral such as hearths, activity floor, and procurement strategies. The raw materials used for stone tools are dominated by quartzes and chert that had to be transported from long-distance sources. Toolkits are represented by side-scrapers and burins, which are clearly the same

Figure 20 Images of the Huanglongdong cave site in western Hubei province and associated modern human teeth and stone tools.

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Figure 21 The Zhijidong Cave near Zhengzhou City, and its deposit (insert).

cultural manifestation as small flake tools of northern China in early periods. Therefore, while there is not yet enough evidence to refute the ‘out-of-Africa’ theory for the origin of modern humans in East Asia, new data accumulated over the last decade, both biological and archaeological, suggest that the possibility of independent evolution cannot be ruled out. New findings from China will continue to stimulate what hopes to be a fruitful debate on the issue of human origin. Chinese archaeologists and anthropologists regard this evidence supportive of a new model, namely the ‘continuity with hybridization,’ originally proposed by palaeoanthropologist Wu Xinzhi in the middle 1990s as a variation of the ‘multi-regional origin’ theory.

Late Palaeolithic Technologies at the End of Upper Pleistocene (35 000–10 000 BP) Until around 35 000 BP, traditional lithic industries continue to be present in areas where cultural manifestations were well developed. After this point in time, a number of new lithic technologies (including blade technique, bifacial technique, microblade technique, as well as wide-employment of bone tools) appeared to blend together to create the Late Palaeolithic cultures. This technological diversity resulted from cultural interactions when waves of human migrations from Western Europe spread out across Eurasian. The impacts this had on Chinese Late Palaeolithic cultures were enormous. Diversified technologies clearly replaced the conventional homogeneity in most parts of China during this period; the results may be regarded as

a southward intrusion of cultural manifestations from the North and Northwest. Similar technological diversity is also observed in the northwestern coast of North America as a result of the peopling of America around 20 000–11 500 BP (see New World, Peopling of; Siberia, Peopling of). Small-flake-tool Technology

During this period, flake tools from northern Late Palaeolithic sites tend to be small in size but delicately made mostly on fine quality cherts. Small flake industries of northern China were well represented by the Shiyu site in Shanxi province, the Xianrendong cave site of Liaoning province, and the Xiaonanhai cave site of Henan province. Compared to previous flake-tool technology, these lithic assemblages produced flake tools that show better designed and standardized forms. Toolkits included scrapers, burins, small projectile points, drills, notches and denticulates, which were made from various raw materials and by different techniques including hard-hammer and soft-hammer percussion. Pressure technique was also developed for making tools that required intensive surface retouching such as bifaces and projectile points. Standardizing toolkits were clearly adapted to northern hunting strategy that mobilized human societies. Shiyu, identified and excavated in 1963, yielded thousands of flake tools predominated by various shapes of scrapers: most of them were between 20 and 30 mm in length. Their working edges were finely retouched, probably by soft-hammers. Most flake blanks were also observed to be of regular size.

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A large quantity of faunal remains was recovered from the site, animal teeth alone counting for roughly 5000 pieces. Faunal analysis suggests most animal species are adapted to a prairie environment – there were at least 200 individuals of wild horses and wild donkeys. It seems that the Shiyu occupants, who lived around 29 000 BP, were wild horse hunters. Flake-tool industries became more frequent in southern China; but typologically and technologically these flake tools were distinctive from these in northern China, suggesting a local technological innovation. The development of this trend is well documented from the Three Gorge assemblages, through the Ziyang Locality B assemblage, to the Tongliang lithic assemblages. The best examples of the southern flaketool industry are from the Hanyuan Fuling site of Sichuan province, as well as two cave sites, Maomaodong and Baiyandong. Flake-tool blanks were made from large pebble/cobble raw materials by anvilchipping or throwing techniques, and then altered along the working edge by retouching in order to make them into suitable tools. However, flake-tool modification was not as extensive as those in northern China, and the toolkits there were not as diverse. Blade Technology

Blades were occasionally reported or cataloged from the lithic assemblages of early sites, but they were likely a by-product of flake production. During this period, blades as primary products of a special

reduction technique appeared in northern China, but archaeological sites with blade production were very limited in numbers so far. The origin of blade technology in China is difficult to trace to local flake-tool technology, thus it is probably derived from western influences. There are nearly two dozen sites where blades have been reported, all of them situated in northwest and north-central China. However, true presentations of blade technology are from only two sites, Shuidonggou and Youfang. Shuidonggou, located at southwestern part of the Ordos area about 18 km east to the Yellow River, was the first Palaeolithic site excavated in China by French palaeontologists E. Licent and P. Teihard de Chardin. They reported five locations at the site and excavated the Locality 1 in 1923. Because of classical blade production, the findings from Shuidonggou made an immediate connection between remote Chinese cultures to the western ones; thus, the site has been a focus of study and most of the collection is now housed in western institutes and museums. Follow-up excavations at the site took place in 1960, 1963, and 1980, and produced a large quantity of lithic artifacts and faunal remains. Unfortunately, like many of other sites investigated prior to 1990, this site was not systematically studied with a multidisciplinary approach until 2002. Recent surveys reported that the site complex consisted of 20 localities. Excavations during 2003–2004 were concentrated at Localities 2, 7, and 8 (Figure 22). Besides lithic artifacts and faunal remains, the site also yielded

Figure 22 The landscape of the Shuidonggou Site and ornaments (insert) recovered from the 2003–2004 excavations.

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fired clay floors and ash deposit indicative of purposeful fire use. Most importantly, dozens of finely polished ostrich shell ornaments (rings) were recovered from Localities 2 and 8. A skull fragment, found at Locality 4, was identified as Homo sapiens sapiens. The Shuidonggou lithic assemblage is dominated by blade cores and blades, made on local cherts and quartzite. Core platforms were well prepared before blade removal indicating standard reduction procedures. Notably, 21.9% of cores recovered from the 1980 excavation session were classified as Levallois cores, which were also found from other excavation sessions. Although Levallois-like products were reported from the Panxian Dadong cave, the true Levallois technique seems to be only from Shuidonggou. Unfortunately, there is no detailed study on these Levallois cores and flakes yet, but their appearance at the Shuidonggou site is a clear indicator of western influences. Most of the retouched tools, represented by side-scrapers, were made on long narrow blade blanks. Samples of Uranium-series dating and conventional 14C dating indicate the age of Shuidonggou fall in between 38 000 and 15 000 BP, but recent AMS 14C dating suggests a narrower range of between 29 000 and 24 000 BP. According to faunal analysis, pollen, and sediment studies, Shuidonggou was a part of cool and dry semi-steppe and prairie environment during this time, thus the site might have served as a base camp for a group of specialized hunters. Shuidonggou blade technology seemed to remain the sole manifestation in China until the middle of the 1980s, when the Youfang site was excavated. The site is located in the east side of the Nihewan Basin, and slightly later in age than Shuidonggou. Youfang blade technology coexisted with microblade technology; however, most of the flake tools were made on classic blade blanks. Single platform cores display parallel long and narrow blade flaking scars, some with evidences of direct percussion. The discovery of the Youfang lithic industry suggests that such blade technology continued to spread eastwards in northern China at the end of Pleistocene. However, the lack of detailed study on Chinese blade technology keeps scholars from understanding statistical data that might be able to assist in a comparative study with western assemblages. Until then, how blade technology was developed and why its distribution was so limited remains unknown. Microblade Technology

The Youfang lithic assemblage is to date the only example in China, where both blade and microblade technology were employed within a given

hunter-gatherer society. Archaeological evidence suggests that early microblade industries were found in the southern Shanxi province, about 500 km south of Shuidonggou, suggesting an independent emergence from the blade technology. Both Dingcun 77:01 and Xiachuan sites were regarded as the earliest examples of microblade technology, dated to around 26 000 BP and 24 000–16 000 BP, respectively. The later microblade industries are represented by the Shizhitan site in Shanxi province and Hutongliang site in Hebei province. At present, there are over 50 sites reported to be associated with microblade technology. They were distributed over three microregions: the north-central plain, the northeast and northern steppe, and the southeastern plateau, but the majority of the microblade sites were located in north-central China. Current knowledge of Chinese microblade technology is derived only from a few well-known sites such as Xiachuan, Xueguan, and Hutouliang. Hutouliang is an archaeological complex consisting of a number of the Upper Palaeolithic sites, located in the east side of the Nihewan Basin, about 35 km west to the Early Pleistocene site Donggutuo (see above). Nine localities were excavated between 1972 and 1974, and yielded a large quantity of lithic artifacts. Based on a series of 14C dates the sites were dated to around 11 000 BP. Analyses of these microblades identified four microblade techniques at the site, which have corresponding Japanese counterparts known as Yangyuan (or Togeshita), Sanggan (or Oshorakko), Hetao (or Yubetsu), and Xiachuan (Saikai). A recent study indicates that two types of wedge-shaped core technology existed as by-products of the modes of production at the Hutouliang site. Studies on microblades from both Xiachuan and Xueguan in southern Shanxi province were based on limited excavated and surveyed materials, and suggested technological differences existed in the manufacture of microblade between Xiachuan and Xueguan. The Xiachuan industry is represented by conical microblade cores while the Xueguan microblade industry is dominated by boat-shaped and wedge-shaped cores. It is proposed that microblade technologies at both Xueguan and Hutouliang were developed directly from the Xiachuan technology, implying that Xiachuan may be responsible for the origin of Chinese microblade technology. Data from other excavated sites like Shizitan, Dingcun 77:01, Youfang, Jiqitan, and especially Qingfengqing and Fenghuangling in Shandong province would have merits that may challenge traditional views on microblade technological development. For instance, microblades from the East Coast like Shandong

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Peninsula display distinct technological characters so that it may be possible to recognize regional microblade variation. Unfortunately, materials from these sites have not been systematically studied yet. Microblade technology in China is still poorly understood in terms of its origins and spread throughout northeastern Asian. Most Chinese scholars tend to favor a ‘north China origin’ model. Data from the region clearly indicate technological similarities between northern China industry to those from Eastern Siberia, Japan, and Korea. A recent study suggests an eastward spread of microblade technology that originated at Xiachuan, through northern and southern routes, but the hypothesis is not yet tested. It is worth noting that some scholars have started to hypothesize that wedge-shaped core microblade technology might have first emerged in Siberia and spread southward into northern China. Bifacial Technology

Bifacial technology appeared in northern China as a result of cultural interactions with northern huntergatherer societies during the peopling of the Americas. Northern China lithic assemblages produced tools that were made through bifacial-thinning techniques; but again, this technological catalog unfortunately has not yet been recognized in Chinese Palaeolithic studies. Bifaces and projectile points, a major component of stone toolkits in the North American assemblage around 11 500–10 000 BP, also appeared in the Xiachuan, Xueguan, and Hutouliang sites, but their significance has not been yet given much attention. A recent study on Upper Palaeolithic sites in Shandong Peninsula shows that biface products have high frequency in lithic assemblages at the Fenghuangling, Qingfengling, and Wanghailou sites, suggesting bifacial techniques existed as a technological innovation at the end of Pleistocene. These three sites (Fenghuangling, Qingfengling, and Wanghailou) are located in southern Shandong province, near the Yi-Shu Rivers valley. Both Fenghuangling and Qingfengling were floodplain sites and were excavated in 1984. The Wanghailou site, located in the hilltop about 68 km south of Fenghuangling, was surveyed in 1984, and excavated in 2001 by a Sino-Canada collaborative team. The three assemblages belong to two Shandong microblade industries. Lithic analyses of the assemblages suggest that bifacial thinning flakes from Fenghuangling, Qingfengling, and Wanghailou may serve as a kind of index-fossil of by-products of bifacial techniques, and account for 30.3%, 20.3%, and 14.7% of all lithic artifacts recovered, respectively. Bifaces and biface performs as types in the toolkits comprise

Figure 23 Bifaces from the Wanghailou site in Shandong Peninsula (scale in mm).

between 5–20% of shaped tools. It is possible that Shandong microblade cores were primarily produced through bifacial techniques – the wedge-shaped cores were made on small bifacial splits that also occurred in the assemblages. Large-sized projectile points, finely made on quartzite were distinct at the Wanghailou site (Figure 23), while bifaces and projectile points were relatively small at the other two sites. During an investigation in 2004, a special point (one where a channelled flake was purposefully removed from the bottom so as to be called as ‘fluted point’) was identified from the Qingfengling site. Fluted points had never been identified previously in China; however, fluted Clovis points are well known as an early industry in North America. The fluted point industry was clearly associated with wedge-shaped microblade core industries in British Columbia, Canada, at the end of the Ice Age. If a true fluted bifacial technology is proven to have existed in northern China, the technological connection between the Old World and the New World can be explored in addition to the microblade technology. Bone Tool-making Technology

Another technological innovation in the Late Palaeolithic cultures is bone tool-making. In fact, bone tools must have appeared during the Middle Pleistocene, or much earlier, as they were seen in Jingliushan, Zhoukoudian Locality 1, and Xujiayao sites. However, only at the end of the Pleistocene did using animal bones (including antlers) as raw materials for

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manuacturing various tool types appeared widely and bone tools became one of the major components of hunting-gathering toolkits. The bone tool industries were well represented by following sites: Shiyu in Shanxi province, Xianrendong Cave in Liaoning province, Lingjing in Henan province, and Dongfang Plaza in Beijing. The Dongfang Plaza site was identified in 1996 when the Plaza complex was under construction in downtown Beijing, and excavated in the following year. The site is approximately 2000 m2, and yielded thousands of artifacts including bone tools. According to the excavators, 411 bone tools were cataloged and classified into various manufacturing stages. Shaped types, indicated by retouched working edges, included scrapers, point, burins, and spades. Most of the tools were made from the long bones of large mammals. The stone and bone tools were associated with floors with evidence of fire-use. Some bone tools and by-products displayed burnt marks, indicating that the site might have served as a homebase camp for late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. Carbon-14 dates suggest that the site was occupied for two phases between 25 000 and 24 000 BP. Recent excavation at the Lingjing site near Zhengzhou city yielded significant bone-tool assemblages that previously have been rarely seen. The Lingjing site was first identified in 1965 during local water-storage construction, and the survey collection included an assemblage of wedge-shaped microblade cores. As a result, the site was referred to as the ‘Mesolithic’ period in northern China in many publications, but full-scale investigations were not able to be carried out due to underwater inundation until 2005. The 2005 field session recovered 2452 lithic artifacts and over 3000 faunal remains. However, no microblade products were recovered from excavated layers; most lithic artifacts were typical of the flake tools from northern China, and made from quartzite and quartz. At present, according to the excavator’s observation, this site represents a Late Palaeolithic occupation. Some bones display clear secondary retouch for modification. Samples were taken for use-wear examination, and the preliminary study suggested a number of possible use-wear features that may be differentiated from natural abrasion. Similar to use traces of stone tools, the use-wear on Lingjing bones were likely that of cutting, scraping, and penetrating. The use-wear also shows traces of soft, moderate, and hard-worked materials. Mostly importantly, 3 of 11 samples were determined to have hafting wear, suggesting that these objects had been used as composite tools. However, study of Palaeolithic bone tools in

China is still very poor, and caution needs to be taken in understanding how to distinguish purposeful usewears from fracture/abrasion marks caused by natural agencies at sites. The fact that bone tool-making technology existed in Upper Palaeolithic assemblages has merits to provide new directions of research in the future (see Bone Tool Analysis).

A Summary: Cultural Continuity and Interactions The last two decades of investigations have enriched our understanding of Chinese Palaeolithic cultures, which used to be based solely on the Zhoukoudian and a few other sites well known in the early days. Before 1985, the focus of investigations was to discover the nature of site distributions in order to establish a Chinese Palaeolithic chronological framework. Today, the accumulated data are sufficient for us to begin interpreting issues of Palaeolithic technology and cultural materials. Until recently, studies of Palaeolithic technology in China have been limited to generalizations about the nature of lithic industries in comparison to European or other Old World localities. From the ‘chopper-chopping tools tradition’ to the ‘simple core–flake technology,’ these broad characterizations emphasized the non-Acheulean features of Early to Middle Pleistocene lithic industries in East Asian, and now seem no long valid for characterizing Chinese materials. New data suggests that the Chinese Palaeolithic technology, starting with arrival of the first hominids in East Asian around 1.7 million years ago, formed its own unique characteristics as a result of adaptive strategies to local environment. Continuity of technological development was persistent throughout the Pleistocene age until the emergence of modern humans in East Asia. The Nihewan Basin, given its resourceful landscape, was a homeland for both hominids and modern humans during the entire Pleistocene era. Although nearly 50 Palaeolithic sites were distributed across the basin, all of Early Pleistocene sites were located in clusters at the eastern end of the basin, suggesting that explorations were expanded as adaptive technology was enhanced. The technological development continued slowly but steadily; however technological variations over time can be observed in examples from Xiaochangliang and Dongguotou of the Lower Pleistocene to Shiyu and Hutouliang of the Upper Pleistocene. The similar technological continuity is suggested from lithic assemblages of Locality 1, to Locality 15, then to Upper Cave, at the Zhoukoudian area. Cultural continuity of the Chinese Palaeolithic can also be seen in examples from southern China. Given

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Bohai Bay

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Figure 24 The Late Palaeolithic lithic industries in Shandong Penninsula during the end of the Upper Pleistocene.

the increasing numbers of archaeological sites with human fossils found in the Three Gorges/western Hubei mountainous region, this area has become a focus of research on the local evolution of anatomically modern human in East Asia. Overall material cultures from southern China remained more homogenous than in any other region. Cultural interactions throughout the time, on the other hand, gave way to regional variations in Palaeolithic technology, as we have seen in the examples from the Luonan Basin and the Three Gorge region. In these regions, the two distinct technocomplexes between northern China (flake tools) and southern (pebble-core tools) were employed at given times but their cultural impacts were surely beyond the areas under investigation. The most significant cultural interactions took places at the end of the Pleistocene, when western cultures penetrated into northern China and resulted in the complexity of technological manifestations. The influence of cultural interactions was expanded to parts of southern and eastern China. Our investigations in the Shandong Peninsula suggest that the Late Palaeolithic industries were more complex than we previously thought (Figure 24). Within this region, two microblade traditions (Fenghuangling and Wanghailou), one flake-tool tradition (Helongtan), and one small-tool tradition, coexisted in the region and there probably appeared a few large pebble-core industries at the southern end. Although we cannot at presently

ascertain whether the Shandong microblade industry was an indigenous development or a foreign invention, the current evidence may be in favor of a migration mode because the Shandong microblade traditions seem to represent cultural manifestations from both the northern and southern regions. Therefore, the formation of the Palaeolithic technology overall appears to reflect two aspects of material cultural development throughout the Pleistocene era: continuity and interaction. However, this explanation may be reinterpreted and enhanced as field investigations are ongoing. Certainly, we have much more to expect from the research results on Chinese Pleistocene archaeology in the years to come. Joint projects conducted between Western and Chinese colleagues will raise more serious questions and hopefully stimulate future investigations that, in turn, will lead to in-depth examination of the data relating to human origins and behavior in East Asia. See also: Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; Early

Holocene Foragers; Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, South: India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South; Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, Southeast: Preagricultural Peoples; Asia, West: Paleolithic Cultures; Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Bone Tool Analysis; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Europe: Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; New World, Peopling of; Paleoanthropology; Siberia, Peopling of.

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Further Reading Aigner JS (1981) Archaeological Remains in Pleistocene China. Munich: CH Beck. Fang YS, Huang YP, and Shen C (2004) Pebble semicircle structure from a Lower Paleolithic site in Southern China. Eurasian Prehistory 2(2): 3–12. Lu LD (1998) The microblade tradition in China: Regional chronologies and significance in the transition to Neolithic. Asian Perspectives 37(1): 84–112. Olsen JW and Miller-Antonia S (1992) The Palaeolithic in southern China. Asian Perspectives 31(2): 129–160. Shen C and Keates SK (eds.) (2003) Current Research in Chinese Pleistocene Archaeology. BAR International Series 1179. Oxford: Archaeopress. Shen C and Wei Q (2004) Lithic technological variability of the Middle Pleistocene at the eastern end of the Nihewan Basin, northern China. Asia Perspectives 43(2): 281–301. Tang C and Gai P (1986) Upper Palaeolithic cultural traditions in north China. In: Wendorf F and Close AE (eds.) Advances in World Archaeology 5, pp. 339–364. New York: Academic Press. Wu RK and Olsen JW (eds.) (1985) Palaeoanhropology and Palaeolithic Archaeology in the People’s Republic of China. New York: Academic Press. Zhu RX, An ZS, Potts R, and Hofman KA (2003) Magnetostratigraphic dating of early humans in China. Earth Science Reviews 61: 341–359.

Chinese Civilization Yun Kuen Lee, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Erligang culture (1600–1400 BC) The term used by archaeologists to refer to a Bronze Age archaeological culture in China. Erlitou culture (2000–1500 BC) A name given by archaeologists to an Early Bronze Age society that existed in China. The culture was named after the site discovered at Erlitou in Yanshi, Henan Province. Longshan culture A Late Neolithic culture centered on the central and lower Yellow River in China. It is dated from about 3000 to 2000 BC.

Civilization is understood as entailing a high level of social complexity, marked by the division of people into a ruling class and the ruled, and a state-level organization backed by coercive force. All of the six pristine civilizations of the world share these characteristics; however, each of them exhibits particular patterns in the political, social, economic, and cultural fields. This chapter is about the processes leading to the formation of the most distinctive patterns that

structured the Chinese civilization, which include a robust lineage system, an institution of ritual and the vast continuum of a tradition of writing.

Unique Characteristics of Chinese Civilization Kinship is an important feature of all human societies. However, Chinese kinship is exceptionally robust. During the early periods of Chinese civilization, kinship was integrated into the political system. Clearly by the late Shang (c. 1250–1050 BC), and most likely much earlier, access to power and wealth was regulated by a kin-based system. This system continued to structure the Chinese society until the modern times. All civilizations used ritual, especially religious ritual, to legitimate and maintain social order. However, ritual in Chinese civilization is remarkably secular. Although sacrifice to heaven and earth was seen as an obligation of the state to maintain the cosmological order, the most frequently practiced ritual was offerings to the ancestors. In fact, ancestral ritual in Chinese civilization was an apparatus to maintain the kinship system and thus the social order. Writing is a symbol system that enables communication in the absence of face-to-face interaction. Messages and memories can be stored and retrieved across space and through time. Although writing seems to have emerged in the Longshan era of the third millennium BC, examples have been found in small numbers only and are not yet deciphered; indicating that they have no connection to modern Chinese writing. On the contrary, the writing of late Shang by the end of the second millennium BC was immediately deciphered after its discovery, because the writing system of modern Chinese is its direct descendent. The continuity of a writing system, in effect, sustained the development of lineage organization and ritual institutions. Wealthy lineages compiled geneology books to precisely specify their relations through patrilines. In any particular time, people could refer to the ideal forms of ritual advocated by Confucianism, which had been elevated to the stature of state ideology since the second century BC. These gave rise to a unique feature of Chinese civilization: an uninterrupted civilization from the first day of its formation to the modern era (see Writing Systems).

Interface of Written History and Archaeology The simultaneous availability of both written and archaeological information is a luxury in the study of an early civilization, though each has its own

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biases. When these two complementary classes of data are used together, it allows a reconstruction of the past fuller and richer than which can be achieved with either body of information alone. Early written materials from China can be partitioned into three broad classes of information: (1) the original documentation of the time, which includes the divination record on bone and turtle shell and passages cast on bronzes; (2) the oral traditions, legends, and myths recorded in transmitted texts at a later time; and (3) the historical texts started from the first millennium BC. Each of these three classes of information has its own biases; therefore, a critical perspective on the source material is a prerequisite in using the written evidence. The prevalent traditional perspective based on the written texts is that civilization first developed in the Central Plains of the middle Yellow River valley and diffused into the other regions of modern China like ripples in water. The ripple model, albeit oversimplified, is not without merit. Neolithic archaeology indicates that modern-day China could be partitioned into several historic-cultural regions that each had its own unique characteristics and continuities (see Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures). Many of these regions sustained the emergence of complex societies; however, many of these declined and even disappeared altogether prior to the beginning of the Bronze Age during the early second millennium BC. The cultural traditions in the Central Plains, on the contrary, became increasingly complex and supplied the clearest evidences of the emergence of state societies. Moreover, the three distinctive Chinese patterns in kinship, ritual and writing also first became highly developed in the Central Plains. The archaeological findings of recent years supply much information to enrich this model and to help us unravel the complexity of the processes.

Prelude to Chinese Civilization The third millennium BC witnessed the emergence of highly complex societies all over the landscape of modern China. For instance, the Taosi tradition was represented by a group of smaller settlements aggregated around a large walled settlement at Taosi in modern Shanxi. The site yielded a large-scale semicircular structure, probably related to astronomical observations, and several graves were richly furnished with lacquer wares, stone charms, crocodile-skin drums, lavishly embellished painted pottery, etc. One of these graves is even designated by archaeologists as that of the ‘king’. However, one after the other, these highly complex societies were extinguished. The large structure of Taosi was sacked and some of the rich

graves were plundered. These early regional centers were replaced by villages and hamlets. The causes of the decline and collapse of these complex societies are not clear. Because the decline occurred within the span of a few hundred years, an increasingly popular hypothesis is that the deterioration of climate – lower temperature, drought, frequent flooding, and aggression of the coast line – brought them down. Yet, this model cannot explain why the first states emerged in the mid-Yellow River valley. In fact, studies in other parts of the world indicate that these pre-state, ritually organized societies were inherently unstable; therefore, their collapses are predictable. State formation involves a series of experiments in the building of an internally specialized government that can effectively rule a large subject and territory, levy tax to sustain the government, and build a coercive force to back the ruling. Not all complex societies were successful in this pursuit. According to the traditional historic scheme, the development of early Chinese civilization was punctuated by the linear succession of three dynastic states – Xia, Shang, and Zhou – in the Central Plains, as the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ changed hands. Guided by this overly simplified scheme, Chinese archaeologists have concentrated on finding the corollaries of the seats of the sage kings of the Xia and the Shang (the Zhou has more reliable written records). The archaeological information of the early Chinese civilization, therefore, is a biased representation in favor of the three dynasties, and lack in information of other polities in the mid-Yellow River valley. The archaeological search for Xia first started in 1959. After much works and debate, it has become increasingly clear that the Erlitou tradition in the YiLuo valley was in the right place at the right time. More importantly, it yielded evidence indicating that it has developed into a state society.

The Core of Early Chinese Civilization The core of early Chinese civilization was located in the mid-Yellow River valley. Its development contributed to the formation of particularities of Chinese civilization. Later Chinese states often claimed to be the legitimate descendents of the mid-Yellow River civilization. First State in the Yi-Luo Valley

The Erlitou site, dated to 1800–1500 BC, is located in the center of Yi-Luo valley (Figure 1). It occupies some 400 ha of rich alluvial field. The focus of the site is a walled precinct of several hectares, which contained some 30 large spatially discrete compounds

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built on rammed earth platforms. Half a dozen of them have been completely or partially excavated (Figure 2). The first excavated compound, referred to as palace I, occupied nearly 1 ha of area (Figure 3). The whole compound was built on a 0.8 m raised rammed earth terrace. The main feature was a large raised rectangular hall facing a large courtyard. The compound was then surrounded by walls with roofed corridors. The main gate was located on the south. The large open courtyard and the raised hall platform suggest observances of public functions. In addition, the walls not only delimited the dimensions of the structures, they also indicate differential access to the activities performed inside. Most likely, only privileged individuals were allowed to enter. The nesting of walls suggests the secrecy of decisionmaking within the walls. Some of the rammed structures had different plans. Palace III was built on an elongated rammed platform

of about 150 m50 m, partitioned into three equalsized courtyards and room blocks compartments. This architectural complex was very likely the residence of elite family households. Two small clusters of the most richly furnished burials at Erlitou were found in rows in the courtyards. The graves showed traces of wooden casket and cinnabar-lined floor. Grave goods included rare handicrafts made of bronze, jade, lacquer, turquoise, shell and white pottery, and scores of cowrie from the ocean. Rare materials of bronze and jade were made into sumptuary ritual objects at Erlitou. In addition to small utilitarian tools and weapons, the bronze technology was also used to cast vessels by using the piece-mold technique for the first time. They included a variety of drinking vessels, which were important ritual paraphernalia in the Shang and Zhou at a later time (Figure 4). In the jade assemblage, there was the zhang, a large blade-like artifact with no apparent utilitarian function (Figure 5).

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Figure 2 Excavation at Erlitou (Institute of Archaeology, CASS, with permission).

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Figure 3 Plan of Palace I, Erlitou (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 178, Figure 2, with permission).

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Figure 4 Bronze drinking vessels of Erlitou (Institute of Archaeology, CASS, with permission).

resources to sustain the urban population, craft and administrative specialists, as well as the luxury lifestyles of the elite. The Erlitou site shows traits of an early civilization that were never seen in earlier sites. To build the walled precinct, public resources were levied. However, the nesting of walls suggests that the general populace was being excluded from access to the structures they built. The burials not only show a high degree of social stratification; they also indicate the presence of institutionalized violence. The Erlitou people were clearly divided into the rulers and the ruled, and this order was supported by coercive force. The rows of burials in the walled precinct indicate the elite used the occasions of death to further cement their kinship ties. The differential distribution of sumptuary ritual objects suggests that ritual was organized according to class. Finally, the placement of local centers in the countryside indicates that the Erlitou elite had started to build an administrative system to rule a polity much larger than any polities seen before in China. Polity Competition and Regime Change

Figure 5 Jade zhang, Erlitou (Adapted from Zhongguo kaoguxue Xia Shang juan: Plate 13–2, with permission).

In contrast to the elite graves, about 20% of the other interments bore signs of violent death. Five burials were deposited in the rammed terrace of palace I; they were likely ritual-related human sacrifices. These burials lacked furnishings. The interments were tied up with ropes, and limbs were severed in one case. Other examples of violent death were scattered around the site. They were usually found in trash pits, and sometimes several individuals were interred together. Moreover, isolated human bones were also found in the cultural layers and ash pits. Postures of the skeletons suggest that they were being restrained by ropes and even buried alive. Decapitation and dismembering were common. Violent institutions were evidently pervasive. To sustain the construction and daily operation of the political center at Erlitou, the elite mobilized the population in the countryside by placing local controlling centers on strategic locations. A recent full-coverage regional survey to the east of Erlitou has found a secondary and a tertiary centers (Figure 6). These control nodes were systematically placed on the landscape so to effectively levy the material

By the end of the sixteenth century BC, the once grandiose palatial structures at Erlitou, one after the other, were abandoned. The occupation of Erlitou dramatically shrunk to the size of a large village. At this critical juncture, a large fortification enclosing 200 ha emerged in Shixianggou of Yansi county, just 6 km northeast of Erlitou. This site was later named as Yanshi Shangcheng, literally the Shang walled settlement at Yanshi. It tells a story of the competition between the state of Erlitou, or Xia, according to many Chinese archaeologists, and the state of Shang. The most astonishing characteristic of Yanshi Shangcheng is its nested walls (Figure 7). The whole site was enclosed by an outer circumferential wall, which was in average 20 m thick, and an inner circumferential wall of 6–7 m thick. Inside the inner circumferential wall, there were three rectangular walled complexes. Walled complex I was the largest, occupying about 5 ha of land, was the palatial-temple precinct (Figure 8). It underwent several episodes of expansion and rebuilding. Nonetheless, at least nine large rammed earth structures were contemporary at any particularly time. The plans of the large structures were different, suggesting they had different functions. For example, Palace IV had a large hall and more than a dozen of smaller rooms, was most likely a residential quarter of an elite household (Figures 9). Palace II was a cluster of several features (Figure 10). The

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Figure 6 Distribution of Erlitou sites in the Yi-Luo valley (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 189, Figure 13, with permission).

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Figure 7 Plan of Yanshi Shangcheng (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 181, Figure 4, with permission).

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Figure 8 Plan of Walled Complex I, Yanshi Shangcheng (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 181, Figure 5, with permission.)

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Figure 9 Plan of Palace IV, Yanshi Shangcheng (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 182, Figure 6, with permission).

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Figure 10 Plan of Palace II, Yanshi Shangcheng (adapted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 183, Figure 7, with permission).

main structure was a 75 m long nonpartitioned rammed terrace. Three other component features had evenly-spaced rows of postholes but no trace of living floor, making some to argue that the stilts were used to shore up above-ground structures like pile-buildings. One of these structures was connected to a rammed earth terrace in the open area in the south. Palace II was more likely a ritual facility. To the north of the rammed structures were two rectangular pits. The silt deposit on

the northern pit indicates that it was once filled with water. The unusual high density of pollen grains found in the pond suggests that it was a landscaping project. The other pit was possibly used for open-air sacrificial activities. Complex I was the political and ritual centers of the polity and the residential area of the high elite. The functions of Complex II were different from that of Complex I. Close to 100 rammed earth terraces were organized in six rows in the 4 ha of

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cultural tradition. For instance, the predominant cooking pot of Erlitou was the ding, three independently made legs were attached to a semi-globular jar (Figure 12). The predominant cooking pots of Yanshi Shangcheng were the li, tripod vessels, but the legs were somewhat hollowed-out. This was a typical Shang-style cooking ware found in the contemporary Shang site at Zhengzhou. In addition, the large structures, including the circumferential walls, the palaces and temples, of Yanshi Shangcheng and other Shang sites faced southsouthwest. On the contrary, those of Erlitou faced south-southeast. The difference in the preference of

occupation. In between the rows was a grid of shallow ditches, probably used for the drainage of runoff. Only 15 of the terraces have been excavated; but these features had almost identical plans. They were rectangular buildings with two partition walls inside (Figure 11). It is not entirely clear about the functions of these homogeneous structures; some argue they were storehouses of critical resources and some argue they were barracks for soldiers. In any event, they show the organizational capacity of state society. Yanshi Shangcheng yielded a ceramic assemblage different to that of Erlitou; it represents a different

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Figure 12 Typical cooking wares of the Erlitou and Shang traditions (adapted from Erlitou Jicui: Figures 264, 293, with permission).

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orientation was attributable to the difference in their religious beliefs. It is increasingly clear that these two regional centers in the Yi-Luo valley pertained to two different polities. The decline of Erlitou and the concurrent rise of Yanshi Shangcheng perhaps are the corollaries of the first regime change depicted in written texts, the overthrow of the Xia by the Shang. They also indicate that more than one polity coexisted and competed during the period of early civilization in the mid-Yellow River valley. Erligang and Zhengzhou Shangcheng

Zhengzhou Shangcheng was a regional center contemporary to Yanshi Shangcheng. Geographically, the site was located at where the rolling hills of the loess formation and the flooded plains of the Yellow River met. The modern city of Zhengzhou is one of the busiest transportation depots in China. Its strategic location allows Zhengzhou to regulate the traffics

between North and South China, and along the Yellow River. Unfortunately, modern urbanization has limited archaeological study. The discovery of the Shang city at Zhengzhou is inseparable from the discovery and excavations of the Erligang locality. Erligang, located on the southeast corner of the site, was the first Shang locality ever excavated at Zhengzhou. The ceramic seriation derived from the Erligang assemblage became the yardstick of the relative chronology of early Shang, which spanned from the sixteenth to the fourteenth centuries BC. Therefore, the early Shang period is often referred to as the Erligang Phase. The Shang site at Zhengzhou was a walled settlement like that of Yanshi (Figure 13). The center of the site was an area of about 300 ha enclosed by a rectangular circumferential wall. A palatial complex was located in the northeastern corner of the enclosure. An outer wall was found about 1000 m south of the enclosure, but the two ends of the outer wall did not

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Figure 13 Plan of Zhengzhou Shangcheng.

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join. Some archaeologists argue that the marshy and swampy land to the northeast of the site already formed a natural barrier sheltering the Shang settlement.

Figure 14 Excavation of the bronze cache pit H1 at Nanshun Street locality, Zhengzhou (adapted from Zhenzhou Shangdai Tongqi Jiaozang: Color plate 1, with permission).

Industrial localities, including bronze foundries, ceramic and bone tool workshops, were located outside of the inner city. The Nanguanwai foundry locality was situated in between the south inner wall and the outer wall. It occupied slightly less than 1 ha of area. Findings include a mold-baking kiln, a casting locality with storage pits, many copper ore and lead nuggets, fragments of crucibles, bronze slag, charcoal, pottery molds, and tools made of bronze, pottery, stone, bone, and shell. The distribution of these material remains suggests an industry of large-scale operation with a division of labor. The scale of bronze production of the early Shang can be illustrated by the increased volume of bronze artifacts found in archaeological sites. The Erlitou bronze production was limited. To date, dozens of small bronze objects were recovered, and they were exclusively found in the Erlitou site. The early Shang bronze industry adopted the moldcasting technique of Erlitou, but the quantity, quality and variety of the bronze ritual objects increased through time. Bronze artifacts as well as foundries were found in multiple sites. The vessel walls became thicker and had multiple layers of embellishments. More than a dozen types of ritual vessels were available by the end of the Erligang phase. In Zhengzhou, three separate caches of bronze artifacts found in between the inner settlement and the outer wall (Figure 14). Each of the three caches yielded considerable amounts of bronze artifacts, both in number and total weight (Figure 15). The biggest assemblage was the one located in the construction site of the Xiangyang Muslim Food

Figure 15 Bronzes yielded from the upper level of bronze cache pit H1 at Nanshun Street locality, Zhengzhou (adapted from Zhenzhou Shangdai Tongqi Jiaozang: Color plate 2, with permission).

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Yin was the capital of the late Shang. Chinese scholars knew about Yin from the transmitted texts. Bones used for divination by the Shang royalties at Yin were sold as an ingredient of herbal medicine for years. From this link, archaeologists located Yin. The site is called Yinxu, literally the ruins of Yin. Yin was built along the banks of the Huan River. The entire site covers an enormous area of 3000 ha, which consists of a 70 ha palace-temple complex, a royal cemetery, many residential precincts of various ranks of elite and commoners, lineage cemeteries, and industrial workshops (Figure 18). The study of Yinxu is qualitatively different from the study of the other Shang sites because it yielded the written texts of the time. They were the divination records inscribed on animal bones and turtle shells (Figure 19). Modern Chinese writing is the

descendent of the late Shang writing; so deciphering them was never a problem, albeit debate among scholars is common. The more than 160 000 inscribed pieces reveal a late Shang world from the twenty-first king Wu Ding to the twenty-ninth and the last king Di Xin (c. 1250–1045 BC), which could not possibly be monitored with archaeological data alone. One of the many aspects of the Shang civilization revealed by the oracle inscriptions is its religion. The pantheon of the late Shang was comprised of many gods, spirits, and the royal ancestors. Dead kings and their consorts became powerful supernatural figures who had influence on the outcome of every aspects of life. Through offerings the Shang kings monopolized the communication with the royal ancestors (Figure 20). This was a representation of the idealized order of the social world that power distribution was based on kinship proximity to the royal line. The kings gained the jurisdiction over other people, especially their competing kin lines, by claiming they were the direct descendents of past kings. The royal ancestors became increasingly so important in the Shang religion that rituals for them became calendric but divination to the other gods became increasingly rare and finally disappeared altogether.

Figure 16 Bronze lei-vessel recovered found in the construction site of Xiangyang Muslim Food Processing plant, Zhengzhou (adapted from Zhenzhou Shangdai Tongqi Jiaozang: Color plate 15, with permission).

Figure 17 Bronze rectangular-bodied ding-vessel found in the construction site of Xiangyang Muslim Food Processing plant, Zhengzhou (adapted from Zhenzhou Shangdai Tongqi Jiaozang: Color plate 11, with permission).

Processing plant near the outer southeast corner of the inner circumferential wall. Thirteen bronze vessels weighing 210 kg were recovered from the cache (Figure 16). The largest was a rectangular-bodied ding vessel, which measures 81 cm in total height and weighs 75 kg (Figure 17). Yin: The Late Shang Royal Capital

608 ASIA, EAST/Chinese Civilization Workshop site

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Figure 18 Plan of Yinxu, the late Shang capital site (adapted from The Formation of Chinese Civilization: Figure 6.19, with permission).

Upon death, proper funeral treatment was required to transform the royal persons into living ancestors. The funeral rite mirrored the idealized secular world of segregation and conspicuous consumption of wealth and resources. The royal cemetery, occupying an area of about 11 ha, was located on the north bank of the Huan River (Figure 21). All the large tombs had been plundered in antiquity (Figure 22); however, the discovery of the tomb of Fu Hao shed some light on the magnitude of wealth consumption. Fu Hao, a consort of King Wu Ding, was previously known in the oracle inscriptions. She was quite important in the politics of late Shang, was involved in several military campaigns and conducted ritual ceremonies. Her tomb was located 200 m to the west of the palace-temple complex and had never been looted. Her identity was positively confirmed on the inscriptions of some of the bronze offerings (Figure 23). The offerings included 1600 kg of bronze and the largest assemblage of jade ever unearthed. The inventory consisted of nearly 2000 artifacts, including 210 bronze vessels, 130 bronze weapons, 590 jade artifacts, and handicrafts made of bone, shell, and ivory. In addition, some 7000 cowry shells were found. Sixteen humans had been sacrificed to the tomb.

Figure 19 A cache of oracle bones at Yinxu (adapted from The Formation of Chinese Civilization: Figure 6.32, with permission).

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The number of human sacrifices in Yixu was shocking. Some of them seem to be loyal entourage who followed their master in death. The majority of human sacrifices, however, were found in the fills of the

Figure 20 Divination records inscribed on an ox scapula (adapted from The Formation of Chinese Civilization: Figure 5.7, with permission).

tombs. No grave offering was associated with them, their hands were often tied on the back, and their bodies dismembered or decapitated. In addition, about 2500 sacrificial pits organized in rows were found in the royal cemetery (Figure 24). These were collective burials of up to dozens of individuals, mostly males between the ages of 15 to 35. These pits confirm the descriptions of sacrificial activities recorded on the oracle inscriptions indicating that they were offerings to the royal ancestors at calendrically prescribed intervals. The human sacrifices were very likely captives taken in raids against the nonShang people, mostly the Qiang. The divinations of late Shang refer to various kin groups. Archaeology at Yinxu yielded bronze ritual artifacts with the emblems of their names distributed in spatially discrete clusters of tombs. Each of these tomb clusters was associated with a residential cluster. The power structure of late Shang was based on the kinship system. On the apex of the pyramid of power was the king, who was not only the head of the state, but was also the head of the royal lineage. The first son of the king succeeded to head the royal line; wherein the other sons became the heads of the collateral lines. The several collateral lines and the affinal lineages of the king were located at the second level of status. Each of these collateral lines had their own estates and they were actively involved in the king’s sacrificial ceremonies, military campaigns, and hunting expeditions. The collateral lines of the collateral lines occupied the third level of status, and so on and so forth. Theoretically, the access to

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Figure 21 Plan of the royal cemetery, Yinxu (adapted from The Formation of Chinese Civilization: Figure 6.21, with permission).

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Figure 22 Excavation of royal tomb 1001 at Yinxu (adapted from Cambridge Illustrated History of China: 23, with permission).

Figure 23 Ink rubbing of inscriptions of the glyphs of Fu Hao (adapted from Kaogu Xuebao 1977(2): 65, Figure 5, with permission).

power was based on the kinship proximity to the king, or the number of generations removed from the royal line. In practice, it would also involved intensive negotiation and charismatic capabilities of individuals. Succession to the throne was governed by two rules: from brother to brother and from father to son. Thus, the paramount power was altered between first collateral lines of the royal line. However, by the 25th king Kang Ding, a succession based in primogeniture seems to have become established. One of the major characteristics of Chinese civilization, that kinship is inseparable from power and

wealth, developed no later than the late Shang, and possibly much earlier.

The Greater Mid-Yellow River Civilization Sphere Early civilizations, more precisely, early state societies, supported by their superior organizational capability, could easily expand into the territories occupied by pre-state polities. In China, the civilization of the Central Plains rapidly spread into neighboring areas, creating a larger sphere controlled by a network of related states. Sites in this broader sphere were comprised of

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Figure 24 Headless interments of human sacrificial victims in tomb 1001 at Yinxu (adapted from Cambridge Illustrated History of China: 24, with permission).

the regional sub-traditions of Erlitou, Erligang, and Yinxu. On the one hand, they were political entities transplanted from the core civilization so that they were unmistakably Erlitou or Shang. On the other hand, interaction with the local indigenous traditions made them increasingly different from the core civilization. This greater sphere of societies with a common organizational pattern should not be viewed as a continuous geographic zone; they were mostly nodes and routes in a landscape otherwise occupied by simpler indigenous groups. The responses of indigenous groups varied from cooperative to hostile. Nonetheless, the expansion created an environment in which cultures of different origins made direct contact. Their interaction forged an increasingly homogeneous cultural entity within the bounds of modern China. The rulers of the states of the core civilization do not seem to have had jurisdiction over the people in the greater civilization sphere. Bone inscriptions indicate that the late Shang king had direct control over a considerable number of people, who he could command to do many tasks. However, political authority of the king was heavily based on the allegiance of leaders of the various lineages. The area directly controlled by the king and the loyal lineages was the area within which the late Shang king could move with safety and was not particularly large. Beyond that limit, the settlements bearing Shang cultural characteristics acted like independent polities and may not have had regular relationships with the

Shang kings. This contention of limited jurisdiction can be further demonstrated by the history and archaeology of the early Zhou. Military Colonization of Early Zhou

The Zhou was an agricultural group distributed in the Wei valley (Figure 1), 600 km west of Yin. By 1050 BC, the Zhou army had won a decisive victory over the Shang. Facing a vast terrain of over 1000 km stretching from the Wei valley to the east coast, the Zhou employed two strategies to rule: military colonization and forced relocation of the Yin people. After the conquest, the Zhou king created 71 new fiefdoms in strategic locations along the Yellow River. As many as 53 of these polities were governed by the heads of the collateral lines of Royal Zhou. These kin fiefdoms were relatively autonomous entities, although they had certain obligations to the Royal Zhou house. To quell the resistance of the Shang people, the Zhou uprooted the Shang lineages residing in Yin and allotted them to the new fiefdoms. The fief-building process in the new land involved the erection of a walled settlement, which was called ‘guo’: the people who lived inside the walls called themselves ‘guoren’, or citizens. The vast territory outside the walls was mostly occupied by the indigenous population; they were called the ‘yeren’, or countrymen. The relationship between the citizens and countrymen was sometimes hostile. For instance, the Qi fiefdom was constantly threatened by the

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Laiyi group, so that during a period of five generations, they had to send the bodies of the deceased dukes back to the Wei valley for burial. The people of the Yan fiefdom seemed to have faced a more friendly reaction from the indigenous people. At least they were not concerned with burying deceased dukes outside the walls. In fact, the archaeology of the walled settlement of the Yan at Liulihe, 40 km southwest of Beijing, indicates that the relationship between the groups of different origins was often collaborative. Material remains of the Zhou and Shang origins were about equally represented and were often found in the same ash pits within the settlement. In addition, excavations also yielded small numbers of artifacts of the indigenous style. The patterns of material remains indicate that early citizens of the Yan comprised the Zhou people from Wei valley and the Shang people from Yin. They were either residing side-by-side within the walls, or engaged in intensive collaboration in the cultural and economic fields. The rare, but nonetheless present, indigenous material remains indicate that they traded material resources with the local population. As predicted by the written texts, the countryside of the Yan was occupied by the indigenous population. However, in their settlements the material remains bearing Shang-Zhou traits increased through time. It is observed that during the early Western Zhou period, artifacts of Shang-Zhou styles were found only within a radius of 30 km from Liulihe. This area expanded through time and could have reached a radius of 70–90 km in the late Western Zhou. For instance, three wood-chambered burials were excavated in Baifu Village, Changping County, about 60 km north of Liulihe. The structures and furnishings of these three graves are comparable to the mid Western Zhou elite graves at Liulihe. They were either burials of elite figures from Liulihe, or of indigenous elite figures highly acculturated by the Liulihe group. Textual and archaeological studies of colonization by early Zhou rulers painted an ambiguous picture of territorial occupation and control of the expansion of early civilization. According to the Zhou texts, all the land to the coast was the land of Royal Zhou. In reality, Royal Zhou and its kin fiefdoms had limited jurisdiction over this vast territory; they shared it with the indigenous groups. Moreover, Royal Zhou’s control over the kin fiefdoms was based on the kinship ties and charisma of the Zhou king. Because of the difficulty in communication and the weakening of kinship ties with time, the kin fiefdoms acted more and more like autonomous states. Eventually the Royal Zhou house lost all but a token title. After

Shihuangdi (the First Emperor) conquered all the other states, he levied immerse labor forces to build a network of roads in a campaign to unify China Proper. Before an effective communication system was established, the decrees of the kings in China could have reached only a very limited core area. Offshoots of the Central Plains Civilization

The evidence of the early Zhou expansion shows that the relationship between the budding polities in the greater civilization zone and the core polity was mainly a loose alliance and became increasingly weakened. However, there is indication from the written texts that Dixin, the last Shang king, was concerned about the eastern territories and raised a military campaign against an indigenous polity called Tufang that lasted for 200 days. Campaigns like that would have renewed the tie between polities in the greater civilization sphere and the core polity. The archaeological record in Shandong complements these written texts. In Shandong, some large sites show strong late Shang characteristics in many aspects, while some sites yielded only small numbers of late Shang bronzes. Subutun was one of the typical Shang cemetery sites. The sites had been looted for decades before archaeological excavation. Only ten tombs of the Yinxu phase were found, but three of them had ramps like those of the Yinxu’s royal cemetery, albeit the ramps at Subutun were shorter. Tomb M1 was a four-ramped tomb (Figure 25). Despite being looted, it still yielded two large ceremonial bronze axes (Figure 26), one inscribed with the emblem of ‘Ya Chou’ (Figure 27). Fragments of other bronze artifacts also bear the same emblem. Of the 48 human sacrifices, nine of them received proper burials in caskets in the floor of the chamber and the ledge. The remaining sacrifices were mostly young males in their teens, many consisting of skulls only, were buried without offering on the floor of south ramp. If the standard of Yinxu burials could be applied at Subutun, M1 was the burial of a ruling family member, who was probably the head of the Ya Chou collateral line. Subutun seems to share similarities with the Yin in ideology, social organization and material culture. Yet, it is located some 400 km east of Yinxu. The expansion of the early Shang civilization reached as far south as the Yangzi basin, over 600 km from Zhengzhou. The southward expansion was very likely motivated by the opportunities of copper trade. The Wucheng tradition was one of these early Shang offshoots. It was distributed in the lower and middle reaches of Gan River and the drainage of Poyang

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Ceremonial ax

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Figure 25 Partial plan of tomb M1, Subutun (Shandong Provincial Museum, with permission).

Lake. The pottery and bronze assemblages of Wucheng shared startling similarity with those of the Central Plains of the late Erligang and Yinxu phases, indicating that the formation of Wucheng tradition was strongly stimulated by the civilization of the Central Plains. The political entity embodied by the Wucheng tradition very likely had strong political tie to, or was a fiefdom of the Shang. However, the Wucheng tradition became increasingly strong in its local cultural characteristics so that it developed some unique features by the late phase. Nevertheless, the

overall similarities between the material culture of Wucheng and Shang suggests that contact with the Central Plains had not been interrupted. The most spectacular findings of the Wucheng tradition were yielded from the large tomb at Dayangzhou, Xin’gan (Figure 28). The Dayangzhou tomb, yielded more than 1900 artifacts made of bronze, jade and pottery, is the second richest Early Bronze Age burial ever excavated, surpassed only by the Fu Hao tomb. The 50 or so bronze vessels are dated from the Erligang phase to the Yinxu phase, indicating

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Figure 26 One of the two ceremonial bronze axes yielded from tomb M1, Subutun (Shandong Provincial Museum, with permission).

the tomb was used in the late Shang period. The earlier bronzes must have been treasured for generations before being placed in the tomb. The earliest bronzes are almost exact copies of those found in Zhengzhou. Later bronzes show the gradual emergence of local stylistic features. For instance, one of the rectangular-bodied ding is, in most respect, similar to that found in the caches of Zhengzhou, but it differs by the addition of a pair of tigers standing on the tops of the handles (Figures 29 and 30). This is a local feature repeated on at least ten other bronzes from the tomb. The tomb also yielded a unique bronze mask not seen in the mid-Yellow River valley (Figure 31). Among the bronze offerings were more than 100 specimens of bronze utilitarian tools, such as farming and woodworking tools, which were seldom used as grave offerings in the Central Plains. The Wucheng civilization was sustained by a copper mining industry. Some 120 shafts and galleries

Figure 27 Ink robbing of the ‘‘Ya Chou’’ emblems on bronzes believed to be looted from Subutun (adapted from Kaogu Xuebao 1977(2): 24, with permission).

Figure 28 Excavation of the Shang tomb at Dayangzhou (Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, with permission).

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Figure 29 A rectangular-bodied ding-vessel found in the Shang tomb at Dayangzhou (Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, with permission).

Figure 30 Close-up of the tiger motif of Dayangzhou (Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, with permission).

were found in Tongling, a copper mine operated from the Shang to the Warring States period. The site also yielded remains of two smelting furnaces, indicating an industry included mining and smelting on the site, and the shipping of copper ingots at a later time. It is not clear if the copper ore mined from Tongling was one of the sources of the bronze industry of the midYellow valley; but it is almost certain that it was used

Figure 31 Front and side view of the Bronze mask found in the Shang tomb at Dayangzhou (Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, with permission).

locally. Copper slag, molds of utilitarian tools, and bronze weapons were found in the Wucheng site. The Wucheng civilization shared the Poyang basin with an indigenous group represented by the archaeological tradition of Wangnian. The pottery assemblage of Wangnian tradition was rooted in the earlier indigenous Neolithic traditions and was different from that of the Wucheng. For instance, the li was the major pottery kitchenware of Wucheng; but the ding was the typical cooking pot found in the Wangnian sites. Nonetheless, some Wangnian pottery and bronze vessels were decorated with the spiral pattern typical of the Shang. Interaction between the Wucheng civilization and the indigenous Wannian tradition certainly occurred.

Civilizations Independent of the Mid-Yellow Civilization The early Bronze Age civilization that originated in the mid-Yellow gained considerable success in the expansion into the south and the east, but was not as successful into the north and the west. In fact, Bronze Age civilizations that arose in the northwest and southwest matched the level of sophistication

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of the mid-Yellow civilization. These civilizations stemmed from sources different from the mid-Yellow civilization. They maintained low interaction intensity with the mid-Yellow civilization, and contributed little to the formation of the later Chinese civilization. Sanxingdui

The Sichuan Basin, being locked in by towering mountains, was the home of unique cultural entities in prehistoric and historic times. A poet compared the road to Sichuan to the road to heaven. However, the basin was not entirely isolated from the rest of the world. Communication through mountain passes was limited but possible. The discovery of Sanxingdui tradition demonstrates that as early as the second millennium BC, Sichuan had contact with the civilization of the Central Plains or its offshoots. The pre-Sanxingdui Neolithic traditions show evidences of increasing complexity through time. Their people built large walled fontifications and their smaller settlements aggregated around these newly emerged centers. The Sanxingdui tradition developed from these indigenous Neolithic traditions and reached a new level of cultural complexity. The political center of Sanxingdui society was the Sanxingdui site, located on the western edge of the Chengdu Plain. The center of the site was a walled and moated area of about 360 ha, but smaller occupations sprawled to a wider area of about 1200 ha around the center. Three connected 10 m high oval mounds, stretching 400 m from one end to the other, were located in the southern part of the walled area. They were structures built for public observance. The most spectacular findings of Sanxingdui were found in caches. Caches 1 and 2 are two of the richest caches among the ten excavated (Figure 32). Together, they contained more than 1100 artifacts made of bronze,

gold, jade, pottery, and bone. Large numbers of elephant tusks and animal bones were also found. The animal bones, as well as some of the sumptuary artifacts, had been burned before disposal. Reasons for their disposal were perhaps religious. Most of the sumptuary artifacts are unique, having no parallels outside of the Sichuan Basin. For instance, the bronze assemblage included life-size standing statues (Figure 33), masks with protruding eye-balls (Figure 34), human heads with gold foil covering (Figure 35), and models of altars, shrines and trees. The Sanxingdui people used the casting technology to produce artifacts different from those of the midYellow valley, and they seem to have practiced a different religion. Although most of the sumptuary artifacts were developed locally, a handful of them show similarities with artifacts found in the Central Plains. They included bronze vessels in the shapes of zun and lei (Figure 36) similar to those of the late Shang. The site also yielded some five dozens jade zhang (Figure 37) bearing similarities to that of Erlitou. The material culture assemblage of Sanxingdui tradition indicates that communication with the midYellow valley civilization did occur, but on a limited basis. It seems that the elite members of the Sanxingdui society monopolized the contact as an additional means to legitimize their status. On the contrary, the domestic pottery from Sanxingdui maintained its indigenous identity. Most of the ceramic vessels had very small bases or pointed bases, a unique feature of the pre-Bronze Age traditions in Sichuan. The commoners did not seem to have directly involved in the cultural exchange with civilizations outside of Sichuan. Previous archaeology of the Sanxingdui tradition has yielded sumptuary handicrafts of extremely

Figure 32 Excavation of cache pit 2, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).

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Figure 34 Bronze mask with protruding eye-balls, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission). Figure 33 Bronze life-sized standing statue, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).

complex technology and skill. Nonetheless, we lack evidence of the organization of the government and the presence of a coercive force. Whether the Sanxingdui society was organized as a state needs to be demonstrated by future archaeological work. The Northern Zone

The land north of the Great Wall has mixed economy of farming and pastoralism in modern China. The northern zone, therefore, is a cultural frontier where farming and nomadic groups interact. The nomadic lifeways of pastoral groups enabled the northern zone to maintain regular contact with cultural groups farther north and west through the steppes. By the second millennium BC, people of the northern zone had established a material culture recognizably distinct from that of the mid-Yellow River civilization. Their bronze industry is often referred to as the ‘Ordos complex’. The Ordos bronze assemblage comprises of a large number of utilitarian artifacts, such as mirrors, ladles, daggers, knives, axes, etc. The Ordos daggers and knives are distinctive in that the blade and hilt were cast in one piece, and had hollowed-out hilts and ringed pommels. Tubular sockets were cast

Figure 35 Bronze head with gold-leaf mask, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).

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Figure 36 Bronze lei-vessel, Sanxingdui (Sanxingdui Museum, with permission).

for the hafting of tools; wherein flat tangs were used in the mid-Yellow bronze technology. Only a few bronze vessels were found in the northern zone, and they bear a striking resemblance to the mid-Yellow River vessel styles, indicating that they were imports from the mid-Yellow River valley. On the other hand, a few Ordos bronzes were found in the mid-Yellow sites, such as the mirrors and knives found in the tomb of Fu Hao (Figure 38), and the daggers found in the Zhou tomb at Baifu (Figure 39). It is uncertain whether the bronze technology of the northern zone and the mid-Yellow River valley had the same origin, but it is unequivocal that they used the technology to fulfill different social goals. One of the well-studied cultural traditions of the northern zone is the Zhukaigou tradition. The core of Zhukaigou tradition was distributed between the Great Wall and the large Ordos bend in the Yellow River in modern south-central Inner Mongolia. The Zhukaigou tradition is said to appear by 2000 BC, developed from the local Longshan tradition. It abruptly ceased about 1200 BC, which is a prehistoric puzzle. South-central Inner Mongolia had been settled by farming groups from farther south, no later than the fourth millennium BC. Sedentary village communities farming millet with Miaodigou and Longshan style

Figure 37 Jade zhang, Sanxingdui (adapted from Zhongguo kaoguxue Xia Shang juan: Plate 31–1, with permission).

Figure 38 Diagnostic Northern style bronze knife and mirrors found in the tomb of Fu Hao, Yinxu (adapted from Studies of Shang Archaeology: Figure 51, with permission).

pottery appeared. Throughout the course of the development of Zhukaigou, it continued to be strongly influenced by the various traditions of the midYellow River basin. The Zhukaigou people maintained the sedentary adaptation living in permanent settlements, practicing farming and burying their dead in cemeteries. However, they had contact with the nomadic groups of the steppes. Ordos style small

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high-collared, deep hollow-legged li tripod cooking ware: many of them have decorative applique´ around the orifices. Two of these li were found in the Erlitou site. Although the Zhukaigou tradition disappeared in south-central Inner Mongolia by the twelfth century BC, its diagnostic artifacts were then widely dispersed in the northern zone, as far north as the Lake Baikal area in Russia. The Forging of Chinese Identity

Figure 39 Diagnostic Northern style bronze daggers found in the Zhou tomb at Baifu (adapted from Studies of Shang Archaeology: Figure 49, with permission).

bronze objects, such as daggers, knives, armlets, finger rings, started to appear in the early phase of Zhukaigou occupations. By the late phase of the Zhukaigou tradition, small numbers of Shang style artifacts, such as the typical Erligang style pottery li, dou and gui vessels decorated with the spiral pattern, and bronze ding, jue, ge and arrowheads, appeared. Most intriguingly, a burial at the Zhukaigou site yielded a unique set of Erligang style ceramics and a bronze ge halberd. It is apparent that south-central Inner Mongolia was a cultural frontier during the 2nd millennium BC where people of different cultural traditions met and interacted. It is interesting to see that the exotic artifacts of Ordos and Erligang origins in small proportions co-occurred at the same site. This suggests the mid-Yellow River civilization gained access to the Ordos nomads through the Zhukaigou communities. Perhaps more extensive trading activities occurred. One of the commodities that the mid-Yellow River civilization badly needed was horses for chariots, which were widely available in the steppes. The Zhukaigou tradition itself was not a one-sided recipient of influence from other civilizations. One of the unique pottery vessel types of Zhukaigou is the

The processes leading to Chinese civilization also led to the formation of a Chinese identity. The later Chinese civilization was characterized by an uninterrupted written tradition, a ritual institution of ancestors and kinship organization. These cultural features were all formed in the early mid-Yellow River civilization. This civilization itself was not a monolith; three ethnic groups took turns as the hegemonic political and cultural powerhouses. The dynamics of interaction between them eventually erased their differences and identities. By the mid-first millennium BC, the distinction between Shang and Zhou was in name only. The expansion of early civilization also incorporated indigenous groups outside of the mid-Yellow River basin into a greater civilization sphere. This sphere was a melting pot of people of different origins and cultural practices. After centuries of interaction with the offshoots of the mid-Yellow River group, and in the face of the military conquest of Qin and Han Empires, they gradually became Han Chinese. See also: Asia, Central and North, Steppes, Deserts,

and Forests; Asia, Central, Steppes; Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; Asia, Northeast, Early States and Civilizations; Cities, Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects; Political Complexity, Rise of; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Social Violence and War; Writing Systems.

Further Reading Allan S (ed.) (2005) The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chang KC (1980) Shang Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chang KC (1986) The Archaeology of Ancient China. 4th edn. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chang KC (ed.) (1986) Studies of Shang Archaeology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hsu C and Linduff KM (1988) Western Chou Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press. Keightley DN (1978) Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

620 ASIA, EAST/Early Holocene Foragers Keightley DN (2000) The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang, China. Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies, Berkeley: University of California. Liu L and Chen X (2003) State Formation in Early China. London: Duckworth. Loewe M and Shaughnessy EL (eds.) (1999) The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaughnessy EL (1991) Sources of Western Zhou History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Early Holocene Foragers Mark J Hudson, University of West Kyushu, Kanzagi, Saga, Japan ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Chulmun A Postglacial hunter-gatherer and agricultural culture of the Korean peninsula. Holocene Period of time between the present and 10 000 years before present. hunter-gatherer A member of a people subsisting on food obtained by hunting and foraging. Jomon Late glacial and postglacial culture of hunting and gathering in Japan (14 500 to 400 BC). microliths Small stone flakes, normally used as part of a larger tool such as a sickle.

Since the end of the Pleistocene, East Asia has been a world with China at its center. Two major developments in China had profound affects on the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of East Asia and surrounding regions. These developments were the emergence of farming societies at the beginning of the Holocene and then the rise of states and Chinese dynastic civilization after 2000 BC. Agriculture began initially along the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers by about 10 000 years ago, but quickly expanded across much of central China. For many scholars of China, the history of Chinese civilization begins with these early agricultural societies and their gradual evolution into the ancient Shang state of the second millennium BC. For this reason, there has been comparatively little research on hunter-gatherer populations in China during the Holocene. Huntergatherers were, however, present in the northern and southern peripheries of China up until recent times. These ‘peripheral’ areas, also comprising modern Korea, Japan, and the Russian Far East, provide the main evidence for East Asian hunter-gatherers during the Early Holocene.

During the Pleistocene, large areas of East and Southeast Asia that are now under the ocean were exposed by lowered sea levels. As well as the huge Sunda shelf that connected mainland and island Southeast Asia, the present Yellow Sea between northeast China and the Korean Peninsula would also have been dry land. The Late Pleistocene archaeology of East Asia is characterized by a widespread microlithic technology that is thought to have been used in hunting large and medium-sized mammals. With the onset of a warmer climate in the Holocene, however, microliths disappeared in most regions and human populations seem to have shifted to a broader spectrum subsistence pattern that included a range of fish, shellfish, and plants. Early Holocene coastal foraging became most developed in the Chulmun and Jomon cultures of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands, respectively (see Asia, East: Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers). Ceramic containers were developed very early in East Asia. Pottery is known from sites of the terminal Pleistocene in Japan, China, and the Russian Far East. At present, it is not clear if this pottery began independently in each of these three areas or spread from one original source. From a world perspective, however, this early East Asian pottery is remarkable not only for its great antiquity but also for its association with hunter-gatherer societies. In Southeast Asia, in contrast to East Asia, pottery arrived much later in the Holocene with the spread of farming. In Russia and Korea, the term ‘Neolithic’ is applied to early Holocene foraging cultures with pottery. The Jomon cultures of Japan could also be classified in this way, though Japanese archaeologists rarely use the term ‘Neolithic’. In China and Southeast Asia, ‘Neolithic’ refers to agricultural societies (see Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures).

China and the Russian Far East Although north China had been settled by Homo erectus, the cold, dry interior of Siberia was only occupied much later by modern humans after about 40 000 years ago. Despite its harsh climate, much of northern Siberia comprised a productive tundra– steppe biome that supported large herds of mammoths, reindeer, and other animals. The microlithic technology of the Upper Palaeolithic cultures of this region seems to have been designed for hunting these mammals, but the warmer conditions after the Last Glacial Maximum led to a growing emphasis on marine and plant foods. Pottery has been reported in sites of the Osipovka culture along the Amur River by about 14 000 cal BC. In China, early pottery has been reported from several sites,

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including Miaoyan in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where pottery has been radiocarbon-dated to before 16 000 cal BC. Although many of the early pottery sites in China are from the south of the country, recent excavations at Donghuling in Beijing and at Nanzhuangtou and Hutouliang in Hebei Province have shown that early ceramics also exist in the north. While debate continues over the precise chronology and cultural context of such early ceramic sites, there seems little doubt that pottery began in Late Pleistocene contexts in several areas of East Asia. In central and especially north China, microblades continued well into the Early Holocene, showing that hunting still remained an important economic activity even for societies that were engaged in farming or livestock herding. Microlithic technology seems to have been associated with a northward spread of settlement in northeast China (Manchuria) in the Early Holocene. In the mountainous coastal areas of the Pacific Russian Far East, Holocene huntergatherers engaged in river and ocean fishing, hunting of marine and terrestrial mammals, and gathering nuts and other plant foods. In later periods, trade in animal furs was also of great importance in this region. Salmon fishing was probably one of the earliest Holocene adaptations, as in Korea and Japan. Evidence for shellfish gathering and seal hunting is known from the Boisman sites near Vladivostok at about 5000 cal BC. Cultivated foxtail millet (Setaria italica) makes its first appearance in the southern Russian Far East after 3000 cal BC. Except for a few sites in Yunnan Province, microliths are rare in southernmost China where Early Holocene stone tools were part of the Hoabinhian pebble tool industry that extended into Southeast Asia. Rice farming spread widely in south China during the Early Holocene, but the hunting and gathering of wild resources also continued to be of great importance in many areas. Fishing groups along the coast of southeast China are known from sites such as Hungguashan in Fujian Province. Upland societies such as the Dulong of Yunnan, who combined hunter-gathering with swidden cultivation, continued in southwest China until the twentieth century.

Korea and Japan Unlike in China, where hunting and gathering was often combined with farming, in Korea and Japan specialist foraging societies with only small-scale cultivation or management of wild plants developed in the Early Holocene. These societies are usually called

‘Chulmun’ in Korea and ‘Jomon’ in Japan. Both terms mean ‘cord-marked’, referring to a widespread type of pottery decoration. Chulmun (c. 6000–1500 BC) and Jomon (c. 14 500–400 BC) cultures share many features, such as villages with semi-subterranean pit houses, maritime adaptations evidenced by numerous shell midden sites, and sophisticated ceramic traditions. The long duration and broad geographical distribution of these cultures, however, also means that they were characterized by considerable internal diversity. On the Korean Peninsula, sites from the Pleistocene–Holocene transition are relatively scarce. This has been interpreted as evidence that hunters followed game north with the climatic warming, the peninsula then being resettled by new Neolithic migrants. While some such population movements may have occurred, many earlier coastal sites were probably inundated by rising sea levels. Neolithic sites become much more common on the peninsula after about 8000 years ago. In Japan, sites of the Incipient Jomon phase (c. 14 500–8000 BC) are sometimes seen as representing an intermediate stage before the establishment of ‘typical’ Jomon culture in the Initial phase (c. 8000–5000 BC). The Odai Yamamoto I site in Aomori has produced the earliest pottery from Japan with dates of around 14 500 cal BC. However, pottery is relatively rare in Jomon sites until the Initial phase. Shell middens only become common in the Initial phase, but evidence of salmon fishing is known from the Incipient phase Maedakochi site in Tokyo. The Jomon tradition tends to be marked by much more elaborate artifacts and sites than those found in the Chulmun cultures. This may reflect greater social complexity in Jomon Japan, though further work on this question is needed. Large Initial Jomon sites are known at Uenohara in Kagoshima and Nakano B in Hokkaido, but most of the evidence for Jomon complexity comes from the Late Holocene (i.e., after 5000 BC). In Korea, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was replaced by farming in the Bronze Age that began on the Peninsula around 1500 BC. In Japan, this transition occurred after about 500 BC in the Metal Age Yayoi period. In the northern island of Hokkaido, however, foraging by the Ainu people continued until Japanese colonization in the late nineteenth century, although from medieval times the Ainu had also been heavily involved in trade and other economic contacts with Japan and China. See also: Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; China,

Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers.

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Further Reading Aikens CM and Rhee SN (eds.) (1992) Pacific Northeast Asia in Prehistory: Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers, Farmers, and Sociopolitical Elites. Pullman: Washington State University Press. Barnes GL (1993) China, Korea and Japan: The Rise of Civilization in East Asia. London: Thames and Hudson. Habu J (2004) Ancient Jomon of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuzmin YV (2002) Radiocarbon chronology of Paleolithic and Neolithic cultural complexes from the Russian Far East. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3: 227–254. Lu TLD (1999) BAR International Series 774: The Transition from Foraging to Farming and the Origin of Agriculture in China. Oxford: Archaeopress. Nelson SM (1993) The Archaeology of Korea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shnirelman VA (1999) Introduction: North Eurasia. In: Lee RB and Daly R (eds.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, pp. 119–125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shnirelman VA (1999) Archaeology of north Eurasian hunters and gatherers. In: Lee RB and Daly R (eds.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, pp. 127–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Historical Archaeology Gwen P Bennett, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary East Asia The eastern end of the Eurasian continent, comprised of territory occupied by the present-day nation-states of China and Korea on the mainland, and the island archipelago of Japan. Koguryo A state that straddled the present-day China–Korea border region during the protohistoric and historic Three Kingdoms period (c. first century BCE to 668) on the Korean Peninsula. Kyongju, Kyongsang province, South Korea Location of pre-Silla (Saro), Silla, and Unified Silla capital cities. Nara A capital city from the time period of the same name (710–794), located in the Kinai region of the island of Honshu, Japan. oracle bones Prepared turtle plastrons and oxen scapulae whose cracks, resulting from subjection to fire, were interpreted as oracles. Use started in northern China by c. 4000 BCE; by late Shang period c. 1200 BCE, they were inscribed with both question and answers. Paekche A state in the southwestern corner of the Korean Peninsula during the protohistoric and historic Three Kingdoms period. protohistory The time period when only secondary or extremely fragmentary primary sources are available. Silla a state in the southeastern corner of the Korean Peninsula during the protohistoric and historic Three Kingdoms period, it defeated Paekche and Koguryo to unite the Peninsula in a state known as Unified Silla (668–935).

the Yinxu site, Anyang, Henan province, China Location of important late Shang Dynasty settlement with royal tombs, palaces, workshops, and ‘oracle bone’ cache. Yamato Protohistoric polity on Japanese archipelago, noted in Chinese historical sources. Location as yet undefined.

Introduction Definitions of historical archaeology range from the archaeology of literate societies, of societies with written records, of historically documented cultures, and the branch of archaeology that supplements written history to create a more complete account of the past. Each definition has nuances that allow slightly different understandings and approaches, and all are applicable to practice in East Asia, where archaeology is, in general, characterized by its historiographical approach. Written records are generally regarded as the key factor dividing the historic period from the prehistoric, yet where this division falls is anything but clear in East Asia. Literacy may have been achieved by c. 2000 BCE in the Yellow River Valley of China, and unquestionably attained by c. 1200 BCE in the same region by a few elite members of society. Slowly, writing spread to other areas of East Asia, to different levels of society, and was used in the service of broader goals. Within the modern nation-state of China, there are areas that were not mentioned until very late in the historical record, as well as regions that, while being mentioned earlier in the records of their neighbors, took considerable time to produce their own. Korea and Japan first appear in Chinese records before they themselves adopted the Chinese writing system sometime between the fourth and sixth centuries CE. Later, both developed sophisticated writing systems of their own while also retaining use of Chinese characters. While it is clear that the regions of East Asia entered the historic period at very different points, many scholars tend to take the beginning of the historic period as the first textual mention of a region, regardless of where or when the document was produced. The concept of protohistory, or the period when a region is known through secondary sources or extremely fragmentary primary sources, is resisted in many instances, partly due to tradition, but also to nationalistic desires to extend a historical presence back in time. Further complicating both the interpretation of the historical record itself and its use in archaeology is the complex interweaving of ancient myth and oral tradition into the historical record. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese historical traditions all incorporate ancient mythological and supernatural origin stories, written by early ruling clans to legitimize their emergence and right to power. Again, traditionalism and nationalism

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contribute to some scholars’ resistance to recognizing both the mythological strains in accepted history and the inability of archaeology to recover evidence of these phenomena. This complex historical background in tandem with many recent or ongoing historical events gives historical archaeology its particular approach in East Asia. Twentieth-century East Asia has seen episodes of militarism, aggression, colonization, humiliation, modernization, and nationalism. These events have greatly affected the region’s historical archaeology, its goals, and the interpretation of results. While the nature of East Asian historical archaeology has changed much over the course of the twentieth century and continues to do so in the twenty-first, Fumiko IkawaSmith’s statement that East Asian archaeology is not a generalizing and comparative discipline such as anthropology, but is ‘‘national history or it is nothing’’ still rings true.

Theoretical Orientations in East Asian Historical Archaeology The search for ancestral roots is common to the historical archaeologies practiced in Korea and Japan where each population views itself as racially homogeneous. Questions of archaeological interest include where the Korean and Japanese ‘peoples’ came from (a question that has led to the sponsoring of archaeological work in Mongolia, Central Asia, and in Northwestern China along the Silk Roads); how their unique cultural practices came into being; and the formation of the states that they consider ancestral to their present-day nations. While they have disagreed on the direction and timing of cultural transmission and influence between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago, they share a common striving to better understand their pasts by using archaeology to invalidate the layers of foreign interpretation imposed through their earliest recording in Chinese histories, and in Korea’s case, Japanese colonial-period interpretations. The deep time depth of Paleolithic remains in China precludes concern over where Chinese ancestors came from, but archaeology’s early twentiethcentury discoveries ensured the discipline’s historical approach. Lothar von Falkenhausen has called archaeology in China ‘‘a handmaiden to history’’, and much effort is spent on locating and investigating the remains of historically documented locations, events, and people (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Methods). The historical archaeology of all three nation-states shares one common characteristic: while its use to investigate the distant historical past is now recognized

and its discoveries of previously unknown texts have revolutionized understandings of these early periods, textual approaches are still the preferred avenue for study of the later historical periods. In the search for earlier deposits, historical remains from more recent periods are commonly stripped from archaeological sites without thorough examination, except where finds are spectacular in nature. Because of their perceived ubiquity, remains of the recent past will be endangered in the future.

Sources of Historical Evidence Sources utilized by East Asian historical archaeology have affected its interpretations and conclusions. Written sources vary from transmitted texts such as the second century BCE Shiji (Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian) that have circulated since first produced, to archaeologically recovered records such as wooden slips dating to the seventh and eighth centuries and discovered in twentieth-century excavations of ancient Japanese capitals (Figure 1). How literary sources have come through time and the material on which they are recorded affects their reliability and completeness, and therefore their uses by historical archaeologists. Before the development of mass

Figure 1 Wooden tablets recovered from excavations at Nara Palace, Nara, Japan.

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printing techniques, hand-copying ensured that circulating texts existed in different editions or were altered through copyist’s error, while cast bronze inscriptions have survived without distortion. In China, the First Emperor of Qin’s destruction in 213 BCE of all philosophical works and histories not sanctioned by the state drastically reduced the availability of pre-Qin records. Without a doubt, scientifically excavated archaeological finds in twentieth and twenty-first century have greatly supplemented the quantity and character of historical data available for consultation throughout East Asia. Chinese written sources are the oldest in East Asia. Marks on Yangshao period pottery (c. 5000 BCE) in north China are not considered true writing, but at several sites in eastern China, including Taosi in Shanxi, Dinggong in Shandong, and Longqiuzhuang in Jiangsu, pottery of c. 2000 BCE bears strings of character-like marks that, while still undeciphered, more closely resemble true writing and may represent the beginnings of literacy. East Asia’s first decipherable writing comes from late Shang period (c. 1200– 1045 BCE) eastern China. ‘Oracle bones’ – prepared turtle plastrons and cattle scapulae – used for divination by the late Shang kings were found at the Yinxu site in Anyang, Henan (Figure 2). These bear characters incised prior to pyromantic divination which cracked the bones. Of the 5000 characters identified to date, 40% can be read, and record the divination and its response. Names and brief inscriptions are also cast onto bronze ritual vessels of the same period. In the Western Zhou period (1145–771 BCE), such inscriptions become longer and more frequent, producing what Jessica Rawson has called ‘‘memorials of political events and social relationships essential to the structure of Zhou government and society’’. Some Shang jades also bear brush-written characters, implying other unpreserved media and tools of writing for the Shang and Western Zhou periods. The first surviving examples of brush-writing on bamboo and wooden slips come from archaeological contexts of the Eastern Zhou period (770–222 BCE), primarily tombs. Inscribing records on stone and brushwriting on silk also began during this time. Written documentation multiplied with the bureaucratically organized government of the Han Empire (202 BCE– CE 220), but texts are still fragmentary. Paper was invented in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) and used for writing, painting, and making rubbings of inscribed stone tablets, which was the earliest form of copying before invention of woodblock printing during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) allowed mass production. While the keeping of dynastic histories started in the Han, it was not until the

Figure 2 Turtle plastron ‘oracle bone’ with incised characters from excavations at Yinxu, Henan Province, China.

Song Dynasty (960–1276) that preservation and commercial developments conspired to provide an explosion in the amount of source material for the historical record. The first textual references to either Korea or Japan come from Chinese histories, the Wei Shu (Wei History), a section of the Sanguo Zhi (History of the Three Kingdoms) dated 280, and the Hou Han Shu (History of the Later Han), compiled between 398 and 445. These accounts are limited, but as Gina Barnes writes, they are ‘‘intentional ethnographic reconnaissance by embassies of the Han court’’, and provide much information about cultures and peoples that can complement the archaeological record of development and change. Korea’s earliest extant records consist of archaeologically recovered wooden tablets used for recordkeeping in the Silla period (c. 300–668) and two transmitted texts, the twefth-century Samguk Sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms) and the thirteenthcentury Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three

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Kingdoms), both compiled from earlier records no longer extant. Traditional historical understandings rest on the Samguk Sagi’s dates for the formation of Koguryo, Silla, and Paekche in the first century BCE, but archaeology is challenging this view. A new text, the purportedly eighth-century Hwarang Segi (Annals of Hwarang), was recently discovered, but scholarly debate continues about its veracity. Japan’s earliest extant records are also archaeologically recovered wooden tablets used for recordkeeping in the early capitals in the Kinai region, and two transmitted texts, the eighth-century court chronicles, the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Things), dating to 712 and the Nihon Shoki (The Chronicles of Japan) of 720. These two books, also complied from earlier nonextant documents, are the sources for the idea of an unbroken historical succession of divine emperors extending back to the mythological past. Excavated and transmitted artifacts, such as images on bronze, pottery and porcelain vessels, tomb walls, pottery figurines and models, sculpture, textiles, and later ink and watercolor paintings with images of the court and daily life; cosmology; clothing; and even leisure activities also supplement written texts with very important evidence for the understanding of past activities and beliefs in China, Korea, and Japan.

Historical Archaeology in China The first scientific excavations in China led by Chinese scholars occurred in 1928 at the late Shang (c. 1200–1045 BCE) site of Yinxu, Anyang, Henan Province. Intellectuals recognized early Chinese

Figure 3 Li Ji at Yinxu excavations, Henan Province, China.

characters on inscribed ‘dragon bones’ sold in late nineteenth-century Beijing pharmacies and traced them to Anyang, spurring excavations by Li Ji, a Harvard-trained anthropologist, considered to be the father of Chinese archaeology (Figure 3). Excavations continued intermittently in the 1930s and 1940s because of war, but uncovered ‘oracle bones’ inscribed with the names of the last nine Shang kings. At a time when many intellectuals blamed blind adherence to tradition for China’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century humiliations, the correspondence of the kings’ lists in ‘oracle bones’ to the names documented in the transmitted histories was considered a welcome indication of the truthfulness of tradition. This coincidence is largely responsible for archaeology’s historical approach throughout much of the twentieth century and its attempts to find places, people, and events named in the texts. At the end of the 1970s and 1980s, when economic reforms gave the provinces greater independence, more archaeological effort was directed outside the Central Plains, but the royal tombs, palaces, and workshops found at Yinxu still kept archaeological attention and resources focused on the Central Plains region for much of the twentieth century. It remains a major research center producing new and exciting finds. Recently, the 5-year Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project concluded. Funded by the Chinese government, the multidisciplinary project aimed to improve the accuracy of dates related to the first three historical dynasties in the Central Plains (Shang and Zhou are known from their own records; the Xia Dynasty is first recorded in the second century BCE Shiji). Although criticized as politically motivated, the

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project did much research, including archaeological work, and its results are now being published. Dynastic capitals have also been a major focus of archaeological exploration. The Xi’an region of Shaanxi Province is the location of many capitals, including the Western Zhou period Feng and Hao centers (c. eleventh century BCE), mentioned in descriptive poems from the period; the Qin (221–206 BCE) city of Xianyang on the north bank of the Wei River; and the Han (202–220 BCE), Sui (581–618), and Tang (618–907) capitals on the south (Figure 4). Xi’an’s economic development has driven much of this archaeology over the past 30 years, and the general plans for the Han, Sui, and Tang capitals are now known. Walls, building foundations, residential quarters, roads, gates, and markets have been identified and excavated. Xianyang, the First Emperor of Qin’s (Qin Shi Huang’s) capital city, is eroded on its south by the river, but the purported Afang palace foundation has been uncovered along with other building remains. Capital cities for other dynasties have also been excavated including those of the Eastern Zhou period Qi and Lu states in Shandong; the Eastern Zhou and Eastern Han capital of Luoyang; the Northern Song capital at Kaifeng; and the Yuan (Mongol), Ming, and Qing capitals at Beijing. Several northern walled cities of non-Chinese dynasties have

also been excavated including the Liao Dynasty (907– 1125) Middle Capital in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, and the Mongol Yuan Dynasty’s (1272–1368) summer city at Shangdu (Xanadu), in Zhenglan Banner of Inner Mongolia. Mortuary archaeology is dominated by royal and elite tombs. China’s first large-scale tomb excavation was that of Ming Emperor Wanli, in the cluster of royal Ming tombs north of Beijing, undertaken in 1957 at the start of the Communist era and now an important tourist site. In Xi’an, the 1974 discovery of the pit containing the First Emperor of Qin’s ceramic army brought Chinese archaeology to the world stage, with figures and replicas traveling in goodwill exhibitions around the world (Figure 5). Ongoing excavations have uncovered two more pits with smaller armies of figures, and improved conservation and preservation techniques have retained some of the original pigments on their surfaces. The First Emperor’s tomb still awaits investigation, but Han and Tang period royal tombs in the Xi’an region have also been excavated. Legions of smaller ceramic figures also standing in rank were found in the Han Emperor Jing’s tomb of Yang Ling, and one Tang princess’s tomb contained well-preserved wall murals. Many tombs of nobility have also been excavated; including the 433 BCE mausoleum of Marquis Yi of

Figure 4 Plan drawing of the Tang period capital of Chang’an, Shaanxi, China.

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Figure 5 Excavations on figures guarding the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin, Xi’an, China.

Zeng in Hubei Province, who was buried with a full set of bronze bells and other court musical instruments, and the Han period Mawangdui tombs in Changsha, Hunan Province that contained numerous silk maps and documents and painted lacquer ware with cosmological representations.

Historical Archaeology in Korea Archaeology in the Korean Peninsula (and Manchuria) was introduced by Japan after its victory in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894–95, and intensified after victory in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–05. In the course of annexing and finally colonizing the Peninsula in 1910, much anthropological, archaeological, ethnological, and historical work was carried out, aimed at manifesting the Japanese ancestral claim to this territory. Interaction between the polities of Koguryo, Paekche, Silla, and Kaya on the Peninsula during the Proto-Three Kingdoms period (c. firstcentury BCE–CE 300) and then between these states and Yamato/Wa, the dominant kingdom on Japan during the Three Kingdoms period (c. 300–668), led each to develop increasingly complex forms of organization. Japanese imperialist goals supported the idea that Japanese influence on the Peninsula was responsible for the kingdoms developing into complex states. Much archaeological effort was expended by Japanese scholars in the colonial period to prove this theory, and then by Korean scholars in the postcolonial period to disprove it. Nevertheless, Japanese

researchers were responsible for many major excavations and surveys on the Peninsula where fieldwork and documentation set a standard for scholars following them. Japanese investigations include Torii Ryuzo’s 1905 excavation at a Koguryo hill fort in the Tonggou, Ji’an region on the Yalu (Ch)/Amnok (Kr) River (now in Jilin Province, China), and his 1911 survey of the third Koguryo capital at Pyongyang. Other scholars conducted excavations at Wunushan (Ch)/Onyeosan (Kr), the first Koguryo capital (now in Liaoning Province, China), and in 1911 at the Koguryo tombs in the Pyongyang region. There was also meticulous excavation and documentation of the tombs at Lelang (Ch)/Nangnang (Kr), a Pyongyang region commandery established by the Han Dynasty in 108 BCE and lasting until 313. In the south, many other important Silla, Paekche, and Kaya remains were also unearthed, and by the end of colonial rule, over 2000 sites had been recorded and several hundred dug. While colonial-period archaeology aimed to further Japan’s imperialistic goals, it did record and preserve many sites which otherwise would have remained undocumented. After colonization ended in 1945, Korea’s intellectuals largely subscribed to a nationalist historiography and aimed to use historical, archaeological, and anthropological data to demonstrate Korean identity, purity, and state legitimacy since antiquity. With the North–South split imposed on Korea in 1945, archaeology in the DPRK North and ROK South has followed different theoretical orientations, but both were still conducted in line with nationalist historiographical goals. South Korean Three Kingdoms period archaeology has focused on Paekche and Silla simply because most Koguryo ruins are in the DPRK. While both North and South agree that the Three Kingdom period states are ancestral to Korea, their restricted access to predominantly Koguryo remains in the North and Silla remains in the South has resulted in differing interpretations as to which state was more important for the formation of modern Korea. Unified Silla (668– 935) has also been an extremely important focus of research. Important ongoing excavations are being done at the pre-Silla (Saro), Silla, and Unified Silla period capital at Kyongju in southeast Korea. They have included excavations of several royal and noble tombs, which were not looted due to their construction; the burial chambers are covered by large mounds of boulders capped with earth (Figure 6). Several gold crowns and belts have been recovered here, as well as a painting of a flying white horse on a birch bark mudguard (Figure 7). A gridded city based on Chinese models was laid out in the seventh century, just north of the earlier settlement at the

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Figure 6 Silla tomb park, Kyongju, Korea.

Figure 7 Gold crown recovered from excavations of royal Silla tomb, Kyongju, Korea.

asymmetrical, walled Panwolsong. Within the gridded city the foundation stones of several large buildings all conform to the grid layout (Figure 8). To the northeast lies the Anapchi Garden Pond, where excavations have contributed many unexpected objects, including wooden slips with writing, that have rounded out the picture of life at the Silla court. The Kyongju capital region is a World Heritage Park. Paekche period archaeology is more limited than Silla because of the destruction that followed its many battles with Koguryo, Silla, and Tang China. This period’s architecture is best known from Japan, where many Paekche artisans were sent to practice their craft. Paekche horizontal chamber tombs were easily looted, but tomb styles were not unified. Square or keyhole-shaped mounded tombs were common in Kofun period Japan (c. 300–710), but the numerous early examples in the southwestern Korean Peninsula suggest this may be where this style of burial originated. The unlooted royal Paekche tomb of King Muryong and his queen was discovered in 1971, and contained gold floral ornaments that were described in the Chinese text, the Old Tang History (Jiu Tang Shu). Koryo Dynasty (918–1392) prominence in East Asian celadon porcelain production has directed much archaeology towards excavations of several Koryo period porcelain kilns in Cholla Province, especially at Kangjin and Puan and along the southeast coast. Another important project has been the excavation and reconstruction of the Choson period (1392–1910) walled fort at Suwan, an excellent, complete example of this type of construction and now a World Heritage site.

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Figure 8 Foundation stones of Silla period Hwangyongsa Temple, Kyongju, Korea.

North Korean efforts have focused on the numerous Koguryo, Koryo, and Choson dynasty remains in the Pyongyang and Kaesong regions. Excavations include Koguryo tombs and remains of its third walled capital in Pyongyang, along with tombs from the Lelang/ Nangnang Commandery. Tombs from both periods contain numerous wall murals showing a mixture of Chinese and indigenous influence and have provided much information for the relationship between China and people on the Peninsula. Koryo royal tombs near Kaesong have also undergone excavation.

Historical Archaeology in Japan Studies of ancient court traditions and etiquette by Edo period (1603–1868) literati provided the foundation for the introduction of modern archaeology to Japan during the late nineteenth century by E. S. Morse. Even before this the concentration of ancient capital remains in the Kinai region (the Nara–Osaka–Kyoto region) of Honshu led interested Edo scholars to conduct studies there, ranging from the measurement of tombs to the topographic reconstruction of the Heijo Palace site. The subsequent development of protohistoric and historic period archaeology in Japan uses a historiographical approach like that of Korea and China. Post-World War II Japan saw the de-mythologizing of the imperial house, which gave Japanese scholars new freedom to question the textual picture of Japan as having been ruled by a single dynasty from the start of time. However, ideology still influences archaeology, as seen in the current enforcement of the late eighteenth-century ban by the Imperial Household Agency

Figure 9 Tortoise and snake tomb murals from (top) the Great Tomb at Kangso, near Pyongyang, North Korea, early seventh century; (bottom) from the Takamatsu Tomb, Nara Prefecture, Japan, late seventh to eighth century.

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on the excavation of over 100 tombs predating the eighth century because they may contain the remains of emperors or other once-sacred royals. Japan’s rapid postwar economic development in tandem with strong archaeological protection laws ensure that much data pertaining to the historic period has been, and continues to be recovered. William Farris has noted several topics that dominate historical archaeological research in Japan: the question of Yamatai, the relationship between ancient Japan and Korea, the influence on Japan’s urban development of the adoption of the Chinese city model in the Nara period (710–794), and the general influence on indigenous Nara period culture of adopting many Chinese political and economic institutions. Yamatai, a protohistoric polity ruled by Queen Himiko known from the Chinese Wei Shu, has been the focus of scholarly debate for centuries. The Wei Shu gives directions to Yamatai, but different interpretations lead to locations either on Kyushu or in Kinai, each with its own camp of supporters and distinctive political overtones. Before 1945, the Kinai position signified acceptance of the ancient origins for the imperial family with its ties to the Kinai region, while the Kyushu position signified rejection of these origins. Yamatai’s entry into general public discussion

and the various overtones it has taken on there have made many scholars retreat from the debate. Although textual evidence for this debate is exhausted, and no conclusive archaeological evidence has yet come to light, the archaeological work done in the quest to answer this question has significantly contributed to knowledge of late Yayoi period (c. 400 BCE–CE 300) society. Since late prehistoric times Japan, Korea, and China have interacted with varying intensity and directions of influence. Many elements that contributed to Japan’s early development were introduced from China via the Korean Peninsula after first undergoing Korean acculturation. Japan has always admitted its cultural debt to China, but the extent of its debt to Korea did not gain acceptance until the later twentieth century (Figure 9). The traditional view of early Japan based on the Nihon Shoki and fueled by imperialistic goals was that Yamato (c. fourth to seventh century) played a dominant role among the Korean states from its outpost in Mimana, a colony established in the southern Peninsula. Critical postwar re-interpretation included Egami Namio’s ‘Horserider theory’ in which the islands were suddenly invaded by militaristic, horse-riding nomads from North Asia in the fourth century, who crossed

Figure 10 Plan drawing of the Heian period capital of Heian (Kyoto), Japan.

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the Korean Peninsula, entered Japan, and established kingdoms in both. Postcolonial and civil war Korean reaction to these theories was intense and included many archaeological investigations. This work, along with much by Japanese archaeologists, indicates the extent of cultural imports from the Peninsula to the Archipelago, such as iron and improved pottery technology, horses and mounted warfare, new burial methods, use of gold and silver ornaments, writing and mathematics, silk weaving, advanced

bureaucratic methods and organization, Buddhism and Buddhist architecture, and Chinese-style law. It has also shown that Yamato presence on the Peninsula is not indicative of a colony, and that the horse trappings contained in fourth-century tombs forming the foundation for the ‘Horserider theory’ date to the end of the century, later than the phenomena the theory is meant to explain. Excavation of early capital cities and palaces in the Kinai region such as Fujiwara, Nara, Naniwa,

Figure 11 Overview of Nara City and the Nara Palace, Japan.

Figure 12 The Second Great Imperial Hall and Residence at Nara, Japan.

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Nagaoka, Heian, and several smaller ones, as well as of their associated Buddhist temples and other remains has been an important focus of historical archaeology. New textual materials – wooden slips used in bureaucratic record-keeping – were found at many of the sites and have shed much light on the nature of pre-Nara and Nara period society and government (see Figure 1). Research has also shown the Japanese adaptation of the Chinese gridded-city model for their own needs, and clarified chronological sequences of capital-city building and developments in infrastructure (Figure 10). Architectural features, facilities, or wooden slips have even identified several structures by their function, such as the Sake Bureau compound at Nara. Details in the palace layouts indicate the organization of rule, and transportation and field systems have also been identified (Figures 11 and 12). While these investigations are not politically charged like the debates on Yamatai and Korean influences, archaeology has uncovered the dissonance between the grand images of the royal courts found in the texts and the reality of imperial rule and its ability to organize labor and finances for its projects. These circumstances are seen in the re-use of roof tiles and beams from the old palaces and capitals in new buildings, and the phased or even unfinished nature of some construction due to labor shortages. See also: Asia, East: Chinese Civilization; Asia, North-

east, Early States and Civilizations; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Methods; Writing Systems.

Further Reading Barnes, GL (1988) Protohistoric Yamato: Archaeology of the First Japanese State. Michigan Papers in Japanese Studies, No. 17; Anthropological Papers Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan No. 78. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. Barnes GL (1999) The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: The Archaeology of China, Korea and Japan. London: Thames and Hudson. Farris WW (1998) Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Kim WY (1986) Art and Archaeology of Ancient Korea. Seoul: Taekwang. Loewe M and Shaughnessy EL (eds.) (1999) The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murowchick R (ed.) (1994) China: Ancient Culture, Modern Land. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Pai HI (2000) Constructing ‘Korean’ Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean StateFormation Theories. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Portal J (2000) Korea: Art and Archaeology. New York: Thames and Hudson. Tsuboi K and Tanaka M (1991) The Historic City of Nara: An Archaeological Approach. Hughes DW and Barnes GL (trans.). Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies.

Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures Fumiko Ikawa-Smith, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Aira-Tanzawa One of the most famous Japanese tephra, first identified by Machida and Arai in 1976. Resulting from a massive eruption that occurred sometime between 26 000 and 29 000 years ago at the southern end of the island of Kyushu, the distinctive pumice is found all over the archipelago as well as in the adjacent parts of the continent. Japanese Palaeolithic A series of cultures that end with the first appearance of pottery about 15 000–10 000 uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago in the late glacial period. Tephra Air-fall material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition or fragment size. Tephra is typically rhyolitic in composition as most explosive volcanoes are the product of the more viscous felsic or high silica magmas.

Until the excavation in the fall of 1949 of the Iwajuku site, about 90 km north of Tokyo (see map in Figure 1), the Palaeolithic cultures of the Japanese archipelago was not a subject of serious inquiry by professional archaeologists. Even though reports of discoveries were made from time to time by enthusiasts, the evidence brought forth was not convincing, either in terms of artifactual nature of the specimens, or the stratigraphic contexts from which they were recovered. Since much of the Pleistocene soils of the archipelago were of volcanic origin, it was believed to have been unfit for human and animal existence during the Pleistocene due to constant volcanic eruptions and falling ashes and volcanic debris. The situation changed entirely when a team of archaeologists from Meiji University, prompted by a report by a young amateur archaeologist, recovered some 160 pieces of stone, unmistakably modified by human hands, from two different levels of Pleistocene deposits at Iwajuku (see Figure 2). Once it was established that the Pleistocene formations do contain cultural remains, discoveries

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Figure 1 Map showing the sites mentioned, the extent of Aira-Tanzawa Tephra Fall, and the area exposed during the Last Glacial Maximum.

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Figure 2 Artifacts from the Iwajuku Site. A: Retouched blades and flakes of agate and obsidian from the upper level: B: Ovate axe with polished edge and blades of shale from the lower level. After S. Sugihara, The Stone-age Remains found at Iwajuku, Gumma Prefecture, 1956.

were made at a very rapid rate: nearly 100 sites were identified in the 10 years following the Iwajuku excavation, and now over a half century later, there are over 5000 Palaeolithic sites in the archipelago.

Search for the Earliest Evidence of Human Presence Two of the stone tools recovered from the lower layer of the Iwajuku site were bifacially flaked oval axes (Figure 2b). These were first described as ‘hand axes’, with the implication that they may be

comparable to Lower Palaeolithic specimens elsewhere. As the Palaeolithic research progressed, and quaternary geology of the archipelago was studied in greater detail, it became clear that the Iwajuku hand axes were situated in a layer of buried humus, representing a period of volcanic acquiescence, not older than 30 000 BP. In fact, the overwhelming majority of some 5000 Palaeolithic assemblages known today are from Late Pleistocene formations, dating to what is now known as oxygen isotope stage 2 (OIS2). Nevertheless, the search for the oldest evidence of human occupation of the archipelago continued. After

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all, humans were in northern China (see Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures) by about 1 million years ago, if not earlier, and land bridges connecting the archipelago with the continental Asia existed during the Middle Pleistocene OIS16 (about 0.63 million years ago) and OIS12 (about 0.43 million years ago) allowing the passage of large mammals like Stegodon orientalis and Paleoloxodon namadicus naumanni. Excavations were conducted during the 1960s at such sites as Sozudai in northern Kyushu and Hoshino near Iwajuku (Figure 1), north of Tokyo, but the large number of lithic specimens meticulously recovered from formations dating to 40 000–130 000 years ago at these and other sites failed to meet general acceptance as artifacts. Starting about 1973, a series of sensational finds, purporting to attest to a very early presence of humans in the archipelago, were made, mostly in the area of the City of Sendai in northern Honshu. It was sensational, because, in Japan, as in most other countries in Asia, archaeology contributes to construction of national history, and the evidence for the early human presence in the archipelago translates as the answer to the question, ‘How long have our ancestors been living on these islands?’. In this social context, front-page treatments of Early Palaeolithic discoveries in the mass media reflected the avid public interest in the subject. Unlike the finds made in the 1960s, these artifacts were clearly products of human activity, and they were sometimes unearthed in front of witnesses by an amateur archaeologist, Shin’ichi Fujimura, from layers whose ages can be unambiguously determined in relation to welldated horizon-marker pumice deposits. As Fujimura’s reputation for his uncanny ability to spot Early and Middle Palaeolithic localities increased, so did the antiquity of human occupation of the archipelago, the oldest finds being the bifacial tools recovered from the lowest layer at the Kamitakamori site, dated to be between 0.58 and 0.60 million years old. Archaeologists began talking about the need for a ‘paradigm shift’ in Japanese Palaeolithic studies, when in November 2000 Fujimura was caught on video burying artifacts at Kamitakamori. He has since confessed to having manufactured the evidence by placing genuine, but later, stone tools from his collection in much older geological layers at 42 sites. The actual number could very well be larger. Discounting all the assemblages in whose excavations Fujimura participated, we are back to what we had before 1973, when there was a handful of assemblages which were thought to date to the earlier part of the Upper Pleistocene (OIS 5 and OIS 4), and whose artifactual nature remains controversial. New additions in recent years include the stone tools and bone flakes, associated with fossils of

P. namadicus naumanni and Sinomegaceros ordosianus yabei, from sediments in Lake Nojiri in central Honshu (Figure 1), dated to be 41 516 radiocarbon years old.

Late Palaeolithic Assemblages Almost all of the Palaeolithic remains from the archipelago date to the latter part of OIS3 and OIS2, from about 35 000 BP until the appearance of pottery about 16 000 BP. Morphology, production techniques and spatial distribution of stone tools, and their by-products are the major clues in reconstructing human activities, because the nature of the soil is not favorable for preservation of human fossils and other organic material, such as animal bones and plant remains. It is convenient to divide the Late Palaeolithic of the archipelago into three parts: Late Palaeolithic I, from 35 000 to 28 000 BP; Late Palaeolithic II, from 28 000 to 20 000 BP; and Late Palaeolithic III, after 20 000 BP. The earliest segment is represented by a small number of assemblages. They typically consist of long flakes of ‘blade’ proportions with minimum retouch, amorphous flakes, perforators, heavy duty tools with partial polish on one end (‘edge-ground axes’), and sometimes grinding stones. The assemblage recovered from the lower level of the Iwajuku site in 1949 (Figure 2b) is a good example. The occurrence of the edge-ground axes in Palaeolithic context is an unusual feature of these assemblages. More than 300 of these tools have been recovered from over 30 sites, and they often occur in clusters and circles near lakes and springs. At about 28 000 years ago, there was a massive volcanic eruption at the southern end of Kyushu, which sent forth ashes and pumice that fell all over Japan as well as on the adjacent parts of the continent (see the extent of AT fall in Figure 1). The distinctive pumice, called Aira-Tanzawa Tephra (or A-T for short), is the horizon marker, dividing Late Palaeolithic I and II of the archipelago. The complete disappearance of the artifact clusters with the edge-ground axes probably indicates the shift in subsistence strategy after the environmental disaster. There was also an indication of a temporary thinning of human population, as indicated by a decrease in the number of archaeological sites, followed by a dramatic increase soon thereafter. These growing populations were equipped with new kinds of stone tools. Tool blanks were produced by the ‘blade technique’, by which regularly shaped, parallel-sided pieces of stone were systematically detached from a carefully prepared core. These were then made into a variety of tools to perform specific functions. In addition to functional variability, there was a large range of what appears to

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Figure 3 Late palaeolithic artifacts from Shirataki, Hokkaido, Japan. Wedge-shaped micro-blade cores (Nos. 2 and 4); core preparation tablet (No. 1); burin (No. 3); micro-blades (Nos. 5 and 6); shaft-smoother (No. 7), bifacial foliate (No. 8), end-scraper (No. 9). All made of obsidian. After M. Yoshizaki, in Minzokugaku Kenkyu, 26(1): 17, 1961.

be stylistic variability in the stone tools. Several style zones could be distinguished by the ways tool blanks were retouched into backed blades. As the Late Palaeolithic II was the time of cooling climate, and the depressed sea level made the Japanese archipelago into a long peninsula projecting southward encircling a much reduced Sea of Japan, the increase in the number and the diversity of assemblages may be due in part to the population shift out of the continental Northeast Asia, where some scholars detect indications of depopulation. The new arrivals would have brought their own tool-making habits, and, being pressed into the narrow oceanic margin, human groups would have developed ways to increase productivity and maintain group identity. The predominant artifact types of the Late Palaeolithic III, after the last glacial maximum (LGM) of about 20 000 years ago, were microblades slotted into shafts made of bone or antler, used as spear heads. Recent excavation results, supported by a large suite of radiocarbon determinations, suggest that the complex reduction sequence for producing microblades from wedge-shaped cores such as those found at the Shirataki site in Hokkaido (Figure 3) had been present in this outer margin of the continent before the LGM, to continue through the Late Palaeolithic III.

Several different types of microblade cores and detachment methods have been distinguished. Bifacial leaf-shaped points were also present, sometimes in association with microblades. To this assemblage diversity is added the baked clay vessels. The linear-relief pottery of Fukui Cave in Kyushu, associated with microblades and radiocarbon dates which calibrate to about 15 300 years ago, have been known for several decades. Since then, radiocarbon dates older than 10 000 years have been obtained from over 80 early ceramic sites. The oldest one so far comes from the Odai Yamamoto I site at the northern tip of Honshu. Determinations obtained on carbonized remains adhering to fragments of plan pottery averaged to a calibrated age of about 16 000 BP. Since similar pottery is often found with very different stone tools through the archipelago, the ceramic technology, wherever it was first invented, seems to have been introduced to the archipelago, to be adopted by some of the Palaeolithic groups of the archipelago with different tool-making traditions. The ceramic use for the first few thousand years was sporadic. Although the appearance of pottery about 16 000 years ago heralds the beginning of the end of the Palaeolithic in the archipelago, it was not until about 10 000 years ago that the pottery use became

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widespread and well established, ushering in the fully ceramic Jomon Period of Japan. See also: Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures; Early Holocene Foragers; Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers; Asia, South: Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, Southeast: Pre-agricultural Peoples; Pseudoarchaeology and Frauds.

Further Reading Bleed P (1977) Flakes from Sozudai, Japan: Are they man-made? Science 197: 1357–1359. Bleed P (2002) Cheap, regular, and reliable: Implications of design variation in Late Pleistocene Japanese microblade technology. In: Elason RG and Kuhn SL (eds.) Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on Microlithization, pp. 95–102. Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropological Association. Ikawa-Smith F (1986) Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene technologies. In: Pearson RJ, Brnes GL, and Hutterer KL (eds.) Windows on the Japanese Past: Studies in Archaeology and Prehistory, pp. 199–216. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan. Ikawa-Smith F (2004) Humans along the Pacific margin of Northeast Asia before the last glacial maximum: Evidence for their presence and adaptations. In: Madsen DB (ed.) Entering America: Northeast Asia and Beringia before the Last Glacial Maximum, pp. 285–309. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Kaner S (2002) Trouble in the Japanese Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Before Farming 2: 1–23. http://www.waspjournals.com. Matsumoto N (2002) Update on the Japanese Early and Middle Palaeolithic problem. Before Farming 2: 24–25. http://www. waspjournals.com. Matsu’ura S (1999) A chronological review of Pleistocene human remains from the Japanese archipelago. In: Omoto K (ed.) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Origins of the Japanese, pp. 181–197. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies.

Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric HunterFisher-Gatherers Gary W Crawford, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada Hiroto Takamiya, Sapporo University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Epi-Jomon The last manifestation of the Jomon found only in northeastern Japan dating to about 200 BC to AD 500. Fukui Cave One of the sites of the Jomon Culture, located on the southern island of Kyushu, Japan (Yoshii-town, Nagasaki),

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Jomon The time in Japanese pre-history from about c. 14 000 to 1000 BC in most regions of Japan and to AD 500 in the northeast. Okhotsk Culture A continental culture that migrated to Hokkaido about AD 500 with a predominately coastal orientation, and a subsistence based on maritime resources, a few crops and pigs. Satsumon The decedents of the Tohoku Yayoi who eventually spread throughout most of Hokkaido, established dry-field millet, wheat, barley, and other crop production there and who became the Ainu people who still live in Hokkaido. Shellmidden Period In Okinawa, instead of Jomon and/or Yayoi periods commonly used for the mainland Japanese prehistoric chronology, some archaeologists prefer to use this term in order to stress the uniqueness of the prehistoric culture developed on the islands. The Shellmidden periods are the Jomon through the Yayoi-Heian Periods. Tohoku Yayoi The Final Jomon in northeast Japan that had taken on most aspects of Yayoi culture, including agriculture but mainly only dry-field production, and whose populations were not replaced by migrating Yayoi people. Yayoi-Heian Period The period in Okinawa between c. 300 BC to AD 1100 is tentatively called the Yayoi-Heian period. The subsistence economy was gathering, fishing, and hunting. This period seems to be a continuation of the Jomon. Thus some have suggested that this period be called the Epi-Jomon of the Southern Islands.

The Jomon refers to the period of time from c. 14 000 to 1000 BC in southwestern Japan and to about AD 500 in northeastern Japan (the Jomon period) as well as to the Jomon culture in the Japanese archipelago. As a culture the concept refers to a set of material traits rather than a shared belief set; nevertheless, the Jomon is a heterogeneous entity. The generally agreed upon shared trait set consists of low-temperature fired pottery (none is kiln-fired or wheel-thrown) that is often cord-marked (Jomon translates as cord pattern), clay figurines, stone tools, and pit house communities. A minority of sites, probably fewer than 5%, is associated with shell mounds but these mounds are usually garbage heaps associated with hamlets and villages. Monumental architecture such as large earthen circles called kanjodori are part of the Jomon landscape, particularly in south-central Hokkaido.

Definition The Jomon is difficult to define because the traits used to characterize it are not unique to the archipelago, nor are they unique to a particular period in Japan. The range of styles encompassing Jomon pottery designs through time is unique, however. Even so, some attributes such as cord-wrapped stick impressions and rouletting are found on pottery in many settings throughout the world. Furthermore, aspects of technology shared by most Jomon sites include bone fishhooks, net sinkers, tanged stone knives, as well as grinding stones and manos, indicating a

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generally shared set of subsistence practices that included the use of inland and coastal resources. Dogs and a narrow suite of crops were raised in addition to hunting and collecting a wide range of other plants and animals. A number of specialized items such as jadeite, asphalt, salt, and lacquer were extracted or produced in some regions. Sites are found throughout what is now modern Japan from subtropical Okinawa through temperate latitudes including Hokkaido and many offshore islands. The Jomon did not spread beyond Okinawa to the Sakishima region, the southernmost part of modern Japan.

Chronology The chronological subdivisions are generally found throughout Japan (Figure 1). Northeastern Japan and Okinawa have subdivisions that deviate from the general pattern. The earliest pottery appears during Cal. years AD 1000

Hokkaido Northern SW Japan Tohoku Ainu Satsumon Nara-Heian Okhotsk

500 1 BC

Yayoi-Heian

Kofun

Epi-Jomon

Okinawa Gusuku

Tohoku Yayoi Yayoi

500

Final Jomon

Final Jomon 1000 Late Jomon 2000 Middle Jomon 3000 4000

Early Jomon

5000 6000

Early Jomon

Initial Jomon

Initial Jomon

7000 8000

the Incipient Jomon, an Upper Palaeolithic assemblage in all other characteristics. Radiocarbon dates associated with the earliest pottery range from 13 800 BP at Odai Yamamoto I in northeastern Japan to 12 700 BP at Fukui Cave in Kyushu (15 000– 13 000 cal. BC). Archaeologists debate whether the pottery was a local invention or whether it diffused from the mainland. The diffusion question may not be resolvable. Nevertheless, pottery was coming into use throughout East Asia by 12 000 BC indicating a rudimentary knowledge of technology. More fruitful questions relate to the impact this new technology had on the final Upper Palaeolithic cultures. The round and pointed-based pottery of the Initial Jomon was superseded by the Lower Ento flat-based pottery of the Early Jomon (Figure 2–4). Pottery in northeastern Japan is normally cylindrical. Similar forms of pottery are found in northeastern China at the same time but the context and decorative styles bare little resemblance to those of the Early Jomon. The similarities are probably coincidental, although some archaeologists view the similarities as evidence of direct contact between the regions. The subsequent Middle Jomon pottery is extremely diverse, the earliest being elaborated Early Jomon pottery. Upper Ento (Middle Jomon) pottery in Hokkaido is substantially identical to Lower Ento (Early Jomon) but has castellated rims and applique´. Other noncylindrical forms mark a period of extreme variation throughout Japan including the fire-flame pottery of central Japan. At least six style zones are recognized throughout the archipelago during the Middle Jomon indicating zones of habitual interaction or communication. The number of significant spheres of interaction is reduced to 2 by Late to Final Jomon times indicating more integrated interaction compared to earlier periods. One is in northeastern Japan and the second is in southwestern Japan where Late and Final Jomon pottery is simplified and quite plain, mirroring developments in the adjacent Korean Peninsula.

9000 10 000 11 000

End of the Jomon Incipient Jomon Upper Palaeolithic

12 000 13 000 14 000

Upper Palaeolithic/Incipient Jomon Upper Palaeolithic

Figure 1 Chronology of the Japanese archipelago illustrating the main periods and cultures. Dashed lines indicate unclear boundaries. The Okinawa Jomon and Yayoi are referred to by some as the Shellmidden period.

The Final Jomon in southwestern Japan ended as a result of immigration and diffusion from the mainland marking the beginning of the Yayoi culture. The Yayoi brought intensive wet rice-, wheat-, barley-, millet-, and soybean-based agriculture, metallurgy, and a new sociopolitical organization from the mainland. Studies on human bone indicate clear differences between the migrant Yayoi and native Jomon populations. Still under debate are new radiocarbon dates of residues on Yayoi pottery are pushing back the

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Figure 2 Excavation of an Early Jomon pit house at the Yagi site, Minamikayabe, Hokkaido.

Figure 3 Pit houses at the Early Jomon Hamanasuno site, Minamikayabe, Hokkaido.

earliest Yayoi pottery to about 1000 BC from 500 BC. This means that the Yayoi began only a few centuries after similar changes in the Korean Peninsula had taken place. Recent research disproves that rice was introduced to Japan from the south through Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands. Current evidence is for a route from the mainland through Kyushu. The demise of the Jomon was not synchronous throughout the archipelago. While the Yayoi

developed quickly in the southwest where Jomon populations were not particularly dense, it continued in the northeast. Final Jomon people made adjustments in the face of developments on their margins and experimented with a southwestern style of agriculture that included wet rice production at locales such as the Tareyanagi site in Aomori prefecture. Rice production was not successful but they continued to grow crops such as barley, wheat, millet, and hemp.

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Figure 4 An Early Jomon cylindrical pot (Ento Kaso phase) showing prominent cord-marking.

Ultimately, cultures in the northeast that adopted agriculture became the Tohoku Yayoi, a descendent of the Final Jomon rather than a substitution of it by migrants. The Emishi, a people mentioned in early historic documents in Japan as foreigners in the northeast, likely refers to the Tohoku Yayoi, the nascent Satsumon, and perhaps even the Epi-Jomon cultures. Supporting this view are data demonstrating that the Ainu are physically similar to the Jomon people rather than the Yayoi. The Ainu ancestors are known as the archaeological Satsumon culture. At the northern extremes of Honshu and in Hokkaido, the Jomon lasted until at least AD 500 when the ancestral Satsumon people moved into Hokkaido from northern Tohoku, displaced by political events to the south. The post-Final Jomon cultures in Hokkaido contemporary with the Tohoku Yayoi are the Epi- or Zoku-Jomon. Epi-Jomon life appears to have been relatively simple compared to that of earlier Jomon periods. Most known sites such as the Sapporo Eki Kita-Guchi site (Sapporo Station, North Entrance) consist of cemeteries and short-term occupations (Figure 5). The Fugoppe cave site is an important spiritual space with nearly every rock surface covered in art. A few crops have been recovered from Epi-Jomon sites but they were likely obtained through exchange with the Tohoku Yayoi. Similar population movement might have taken place in the Ryukyu archipelago either at during latter part of the Yayoi-Heian or immediately prior to the Gusuku period. Linguistic and osteological data suggest population movements from mainland Japan. Finally, the

Figure 5 Earthen ridge forming part of a circular enclosure (kanjodori) around a cemetery at the Kiusu site, Hokkaido.

ASIA, EAST/Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers

Okhotsk culture occupied the northern coast of Hokkaido, having emigrated from the continent sometime around AD 500. This culture had a maritime adaptation but also grew a few crops as well as raised pigs. They appear to have been absorbed by the Satsumon culture.

Subsistence Jomon resource procurement strategies included hunting, gathering, fishing, and some food production. Food production was not as intensive as it was in cultures contemporary with the Jomon in China but may resemble that of the earliest agricultural peoples in northeastern China. Despite similar Upper Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic heritages on the mainland and on the Japanese archipelago, cultures in the two regions diverged dramatically by 7000 BC when people in what is now China were making a commitment to agriculture. The Jomon made no similar commitment. However, to call Jomon people strictly hunter-gatherers does not adequately characterize their economic system that lies partway along a continuum of hunting-gathering through agriculture. That is, they had a mixed economy of lowlevel resource production, hunting, gathering, and fishing. Some archaeologists believe that the Jomon were indeed agricultural. Nevertheless, Jomon people were able to call upon a variety of strategies to subsist depending on the habitats in which they were living. Identifying the specifics through time and region in Japan is difficult because most archaeology in Japan is a civil service endeavor meant to rescue ancient material ahead of modern development projects. In regions where techniques such as flotation have been carried out to recover charred plant remains, a rich plant resource procurement regime is evident. In Hokkaido, for example, flotation has been conducted since the mid-1970s. Nuts are prevalent in the Initial Jomon subsistence but Early Jomon people collected fewer nuts. Instead small-grained seeds of grasses and annual plants were utilized, much as in Early Neolithic cultures in China and elsewhere. Several plants such as barnyard millet were planted in gardens. Bottle gourd, buckwheat, and azuki bean may also have been crops. By 1000 BC millets and rice from China were present as far north as northern Honshu at the Kazahari site. Most important plants for the Jomon

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flourished in human impacted and modified habitats by the Early Jomon period. Familiarity with plant management and gardening likely facilitated the adoption of Chinese cultigens and their rapid incorporation into the economy. The Satsumon and their descendents, the Ainu, had a substantially agricultural economy that was derived from the Tohoku Yayoi agricultural system. Similar interdisciplinary research in Okinawa, at the extreme southernmost end of the Japanese archipelago, shows that the island was first successfully colonized by people through the latter part of the Middle and Late Jomon periods. Archaeobotanical data so far indicate that they succeeded there with a strictly hunting-gathering-fishing economy. It is quite rare for people to colonize small islands such as Okinawa without agriculture. They were able to adapt successfully by exploiting coral reef fish and probably nuts. This subsistence economy lasted for at least three thousand years. See also: Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures; Chinese Civilization; Early Holocene Foragers; Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures.

Further Reading Aikens CM and Higuchi T (1982) The Prehistory of Japan. New York: Academic Press. Crawford GW (1983) Paleoethnobotany of the Kameda Peninsula Jomon. Ann Arbor, MI: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Crawford GW (1997) Anthropogenesis in Prehistoric Northeastern Japan. In: Gremillion K (ed.) People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany, pp. 86–103. University of Alabama Press. Crawford GW and Takamiya H (1990) The origins and implications of late prehistoric plant husbandry in northern Japan. Antiquity 64: 889–911. Habu J (2004) Ancient Jomon of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanihara K (1990) Dual structure model for the population history of the Japanese. Japan Review 2: 1–33. Imamura K (1996) Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Kidder JE and Esaka T (1968) Prehistoric Japanese Arts: Jomon Pottery. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Pearson RJ, Barnes GL, and Hutterer KL (eds.) (1986) Windows on the Japanese Past: Studies in Archaeology and Prehistory. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. Takamiya H (2001) Introductory routes of rice to Japan: An examination of the southern route hypothesis. Asian Perspectives 40: 209–226.

See: Siberia, Peopling of.

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ASIA, NORTHEAST, EARLY STATES AND CIVILIZATIONS Sarah Milledge Nelson, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Lower Xiajiadian culture An archaeological culture in Northeast China, found mainly in southeastern Inner Mongolia, northern Hebei and western Liaoning, China. Upper Xiajiadian culture A Bronze Age archaeological culture in Northeast China derived from the Eurasian steppe bronze tradition, and roughly contemporaneous to the Western Zhou Dynasty. Yayoi period An era in the history of Japan from about 300 BC to AD 250.

Northeast Asia includes the Chinese northeast, or Dongbei (formerly known as Manchuria), eastern Inner Mongolia, the Russian Far East south of the Amur river, the Korean peninsula, and the Japanese islands (Figure 1). This region is varied in geology, but connected by long coast lines, and much early contact was probably by boat. Japan was completely cut off by the Holocene period, and its largely volcanic islands were somewhat isolated but never completely out of touch. The Korean peninsula is a block of tilted granite, with a relatively steep eastern side with few bays but many small islands on the south and west (Figure 2). The sea between Korean and Japan was probably a meeting ground of cultures, especially the southern end where islands are visible from the peninsula to Kyushu Island of Japan. The Dongbei and its surroundings are more continental. Chonji, the Heavenly Lake, occupies a large crater in mountains called Changbaishan (Ever White Mountains) in Chinese and Paektusan (Whitehead Mountain) in Korean. Lower mountains separate northeastern China from the Russian Far East, and eastern Inner Mongolia from the Dongbei. None of the mountains made impenetrable barriers. Due to the long tradition within China of recording not only their own history but geographic and cultural information about surrounding polities, the archaeological record sometimes can be enriched by contemporaneous accounts. Distinctive polities and perhaps states formed earlier in Dongbei roughly at the same time as the Xia dynasty in central China (c. 2206–1550 BCE), then contributed bronze metallurgy and domesticated horses to groups to their east,

south, and north. Each state had its own form of organization, and each civilization its unique culture; nevertheless common threads ran through them, making a rich tapestry of related cultures.

Complexity in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning Province Social and political complexity emerged in the northeastern part of the Asian continent first in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning Province. The Hongshan period demonstrates early social stratification, followed by a little-known culture called Xiaoheyan, and the better studied Lower Xiajiandian and Upper Xiajiadian. These are followed by Bronze Age societies in Liaoning and Jilin Provinces, including the Liaod ong peninsula, containing some high status burials but no known central places. Hongshan (4000–2500 BCE) is best known for its ritual building with life-sized statues in an elaborate ceremonial area, another ritual area featuring smaller pregnant figurines, and elite burials containing no burial goods except highly polished jades. The jades take specific shapes, such as pig-dragons, clouds, birds, and tortoises, suggesting that they might mark ranks or craft specialties. The pig appears to have been venerated, suggested not only by pig-dragon jades, but also by a life-sized pig statue in the ritual building, and a hill which, viewed from the Goddess Temple, resembles a pig head, with pointed ears. Several archaeologists describe the leaders of Hongshan to be wu, a Chinese word which describes shaman-like characteristics and duties. Xiaoheyan (2800–2100 BCE) overlaps with Hongshan, but its distinctive pottery assemblage sets it apart. Lower Xiajiadian (LXJD) and Upper Xiajiadian culture (UXJD) were named from a single stratified site where both were first discovered. Since that time, many sites of each period have been located and excavated, and the distinction between them is clear, both in terms of time and cultural characteristics. Lower Xiajiadian is dated 2300–1600 BCE, almost contemporaneous with Erlitou on the Yellow River in China, which is thought by many to be the remains of the Xia, China’s earliest dynasty. Although a gap appears in C-14 dates between the Hongshan period and LXJD, some Hongshan jades have been found in LXJD burials, and some LXJD sites directly overlie Hongshan layers.

Russian Far East

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CHINA Pacific Ocean Figure 1 Northeast Asia, with archaeological cultures located.

Because Xia was described as the first dynasty in China in Chinese histories, the discovery of a contemporaneous complex society far to the northeast was surprising to Chinese archaeologists and historians. Polychrome pottery from LXJD contexts, withpainted designs that appear to be forerunners of the decoration on Shang dynasty bronzes, was another surprising discovery (Figure 3). Baggy-legged tripods are new in LXJD, comprising most of the cooking pots. Small tripod pitchers are also new in the region, but otherwise LXJD continued to produce and use many of the same stone tools and much of the same types of pottery as before, in spite of having some small bronze artifacts. LXJD remains are found mostly in Inner Mongolia, although a few sites have been found to the south and east in Liaoning Province. The most conspicuous sites loom on ridges above major rivers, marked by still extant extensive stonewalls and fallen towers, with stone circular footings for buildings inside the walls on the hilltops. In addition to these high sites, unwalled villages have been unearthed. Sites of three sizes are distributed in a central place type hierarchy, suggesting political centralization. A burial site with about 800 graves was completely excavated at Dadianzi, displaying conspicuous

gradation of ranking by both the depth of the burials (the richest are up to seven meters deep) and the richness of the grave goods, including small bronze objects. Wooden coffins were used for the larger and richer burials. Red and black lacquer layered on bamboo and wooden artifacts, as well as abundant seashells, may well indicate trade with the south. Animal scapuli prepared by boring holes were used to divine the will of the spirits and ancestors according to the way cracks formed in the fire. Such ‘oracle bones’ with inscriptions are well known from the Late Shang, around 1250 BCE. However, uninscribed oracle bones are a Dongbei development dating back some two millennia earlier than LXJD north of the Xilamulun River, and presumably continuously used for about 4000 years (see below). Although the rich graves belong to both men and women, a gender distinction in placement is evident. All the burials are flexed and on their sides with their heads to the northeast, but the males face the village and the females face away from the village. Another gender difference is that women tend to be accompanied by spindle whorls while men are more likely to have stone axes. It has been argued that LXJD is just as complex as Erlitou, in terms of economy, ranking, extent of the

644 ASIA, NORTHEAST, EARLY STATES AND CIVILIZATIONS

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Figure 2 Korea and Manchuria, with sites located.

polity, craft specialization, and intensive agriculture. Certainly it seems that the two polities were directly or indirectly in contact.

Upper Xiajiadian By 1600 BCE UXJD appears, with apparent connections with the archaeology of the Eurasian steppes, especially in the styles of small bronze artifacts. The locally cast bronzes include knives with upward points and handles cast with rings or animals, and small horse trappings. The large stone constructions of LXJD were no longer built. UXJD depended on herding sheep and goats in addition to agriculture. Ridden horses may have been an aid to herding. Slab

graves near the surface are characteristic of UXJD. The burial style suggests steppe affiliations, as well as shapes and motifs on the bronzes. In Jilin Province, Bronze Age archaeological remains are labeled the Xituanshan culture (1200–400). Although there are no central places, large villages with cemeteries imply more than a simple agrarian society. Each person is buried in a stone slab burial with a few pots, stone tools, and heads or other bones of pigs and dogs. Elite burials are not in cemeteries, but found singly. Typically they contain a bronze dagger with a blade in the shape of a pair of curly brackets ({}), having a T-shaped handle constructed of different materials. Mirrors of geometric design are frequently found in elite burials, along with

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stone cists magnified many fold. In the few dolmens that escaped total pillaging, it seems that these giant constructions were used for burials of the high elite. No complete burial has been excavated, but a composite picture would suggest that contents typically include two polished small red jars, a bronze or polished stone dagger, and a necklace consisting of tubular stone beads, sometimes with a single curved bead (called gogok in Korean, magatama in Japanese) in the center. It is reasonable to suppose that the gogok is a symbol of authority at this time, since it was abundantly associated with later elites in Korea and Japan.

Bronze Age Korea Figure 3 Painted pottery from Lower Xiajiadian.

Figure 4 Liaoning dagger and bone with chariot drawing.

necklaces of green tubular beads. An etched bone clearly depicts a chariot with driver being pulled by two horses (Figure 4).

Eastern Dongbei and the Korean Peninsula In southern Jilin and on the Liaodong and Korean peninsulas, dolmen-like constructions are conspicuous on the landscape. They probably date to as early as 1000 BCE. Made of stone slabs weighing several tons, they have been suggested to reflect the concept of

The Bronze Age in Korea has some large population aggregates, which are often interpreted as chiefdoms. Bronze Age pottery styles in the Korean peninsula vary by region, but they are essentially similar – consisting of jars with relatively plain exteriors, flat bases, and wide mouths, called Mumun. They also resemble pottery of the Dongbei and the southern Russian Far East. Rice pollen, phytoliths, and grains impressions, as well as evidence for millets and barley, have all been found in the paste of Mumun pottery, confirming that this was a fully agricultural society. Houses are roomier than those of the Neolithic, and grouped into larger aggregates. Instead of being placed in river valleys, Bronze Age villages were built on hill slopes, presumably to allow for terracing of rice paddies with water diverted from small streams. Agricultural fields have been uncovered in several southern Korean sites, with rice, barley, and millets identified as dominant crops. In the southern part of the Korean peninsula, most dolmens consist of only a large monolith lying on the ground, covering a burial. The burials are most often in stone cists, but sometimes they are in pits with or without wooden coffins, and sometimes large jars contain the bodies, especially in the southwest. Daggers are often made of polished limestone instead of bronze, but Liaoning-style bronze daggers have been found all over the Korean peninsula, especially in the southeast and southwest. The bronze daggers appear in Korea at least by 800 BCE. The nature of the society in Bronze Age Korea has been a subject of much discussion, but no consensus has formed. Most would propose that they were small polities with local leaders who are buried under dolmens, which are often glossed as chiefdoms.

The State of Old Chosun Histories of the Han dynasty in China relate the establishment of a state called Chosun (Chaoxian) in the northern part of the Korean peninsula. Some

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Korean historians claim an earlier state in this region which they refer to as Kija Chosun, founded around 1000 BCE by a relative of the last Shang king who was conquered by the Zhou. No archaeological evidence supports the interpretation of such a state in the Korean peninsula. According to later Chinese historical writings, the state of Chosun was founded by Wiman in the location of a walled city, and archaeological evidence suggests complex society in northern Korea by the fourth century BCE. For example, knife-shaped coins from the Warring States period in China (450–221 BCE) are found in clusters and sometimes hoards from the Yalu River to the Taedong River. In addition, some burials near Pyongyang contain artifacts with Chinese inscriptions, including dates in the third century BCE, contemporaneous with the Chinese Qin dynasty. These discoveries confirm the literacy in Chinese of some inhabitants of Chosun. Han dynasty documents describe the battles through which Wiman, who himself was from Liaoning, became the leader of that state of Chosun. Later when both an army and navy from the Chinese Han dynasty conquered his grandson Ugo’s city, Chinese documents provide corroborating detail for the existence of such a state, including the lengthy siege and strong armies that were needed for the conquest. Archaeological evidence includes a walled city across the Taedong River from Pyongyang, which possibly is the remains of the original capital of Wiman Chosun, since it has the irregular walls of a Korean city rather than the rectangular shape of a Chinese city. Shortly after the Han conquest a census recorded the population, with many locations having the name of Tosong, or earthen fortress, suggesting walled towns. Many of these have been located by archaeological survey. The Han leadership was not content with merely conquering Chosun; it set up governing commanderies in the northern part of the peninsula, using both native and Chinese administrators, some of whose tombs have been excavated. The longest lasting of these commanderies was called Lelang (Nangnang in Korean). The Han interest in the peninsula was partly a matter of protecting Chinese borders, but trade was also an important impetus. The Han had declared a state monopoly on both salt and iron, and may well have been seeking these commodities in Korea. The presence of Chinese officials and local nobles during the Lelang period is reflected in the burials, with both local and imported artifacts.

Korean States after Nangnang Some Chinese documents referred to the southern regions of the peninsula contemporaneous with

Nangnang as Samhan, or three Han states (a different character from that of Han China). However, multiple ‘states’ are named as part of each of the three Hans, suggesting that the term meant something like a walled and possibly self-governing city with an agricultural hinterland. To confuse posterity further, one Chinese document refers to the whole south of the peninsula as the Chin State. Archaeological discoveries demonstrate that the south was developing under the stimulus of Nangnang. For example, a burial in the first century CE in the coastal region where one of the Kaya states was founded contained a writing brush, suggesting that literacy was known in the south of the peninsula during the Chinese Han dynasty. Other archaeological discoveries include southern coastal sites containing Chinese Han dynasty coins and oracle bones without inscriptions. Korean histories refer to the time period from 57 BCE to CE 668 as the Three Kingdoms Period. The three kingdoms are Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla. In addition six city-states were called Kaya, and coexisted with these warring kingdoms before being conquered or absorbed by Silla. Archaeological discoveries do not entirely confirm the early beginnings of the southern states of Paekche and Silla, although a large city has been unearthed in the southwest, and early rich burials were found in Silla territory. Whenever each crystallized into a state, polities of some sort were forming in the north, southwest, and southeast of the peninsula respectively. Koguryo was probably the earliest of the Korean kingdoms to become a true state, as we would now employ the term. The kingdom of Koguryo arose first in valleys of northern tributaries to the Yalu (Amnok) River. In Chinese writings Koguryo is described as an offshoot of Puyo, a polity in northern Manchuria and the Russian Far East, described in Qin dynasty records as the result of an expedition to that region. Archaeologically, Koguryo is characterized by large stone tombs. They are mostly in Ji’an, although many contemporaneous burial sites are also found across the river on the North Korean side. As Koguryo expanded by conquest, a large walled city defended by a hill fort was constructed in Ji’an, in presentday China (see Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; China, Paleolithic Cultures) on the north bank of the Yalu River. Within Ji’an, the development of large burials begins with stone-mounded tombs, followed by one unique tomb with monolithic stones shaped like a stepped pyramid, to tombs made of stone slabrooms covered with earthen mounds. These last are the famed painted tombs, providing a wealth of information about the lives of the elite. Several murals depict a couple, presumably the tomb occupants, sitting side by side on a raised and covered platform.

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In one such painting, servants prepare a feast, and wrestlers and dancers perform. A scene of hunting tigers and deer from horseback using the ‘Parthian shot’, twisted in the saddle to shoot with a long bow, is well known. An inscribed stele found in the vicinity of Ji’an boasts of the exploits of King Kwanggaeto. The stele details the conquest of many towns in the fourth and fifth centuries. Kwanggaeto extended his realm far into the Dongbei, including sites in the current Liaoning and Jilin provinces. It is thought that the stone pyramid tomb, noted above, was his funerary monument. Buddhism and literacy were well established within the reign of King Kwanggaeto. Later Koguryo kings drove the Han dynastic overlords from the Korean peninsula, and moved the capital to present-day Pyongyang. Painted tombs are found in large cemeteries, with Chinese influence visible in the style of the tombs, as well as in the use of the four seasonal animals (blue dragon, red bird, white tiger, and black tortoise). Both Buddhist and shamanic images are found painted on the walls of tombs (Figure 5). Korean histories relate that Paekche was founded by two brothers who were younger sons of a Koguryo king. The archaeology near Seoul seems to reflect this tale, as stone mounded graves in pyramidal style have

Figure 5 Tomb painting – ox cart, armored horse, and noble ladies.

been excavated along the Han River. Unsuccessful battles with Koguryo forced Paekche farther and farther south, while Koguryo occupied the Han River from the current location of Seoul to its mouth at Inchon. The kingdom of Paekche is known archaeologically from early fortresses at Inchon on the Yellow Sea coast and along the Han River in central Korea, and from later tombs and Buddhist monuments farther south, at Kongju and Puyo. Near the final Paekche capital at present-day Kongju, an enormous Buddhist temple is under excavation, as well as part of a large palace and its extensive grounds. Several pagodas still stand, as well as miruks, which are life-sized human stone figures with a flat hat made from a separate stone. Although the name indicates they represent the matreiya, the Buddha of the future, they are unlike other Buddhist sculpture and probably antedate the adoption of Buddhism in the region. A group of earth-mounded royal tombs occupies an area outside Kyongju. Inside they resemble small late Koguryo tombs, sometimes with faded painting on the stone-slab walls. They were all looted in antiquity, but a brick tomb was concealed underneath, and was entirely intact when it was discovered in 1971. This was the tomb of King Munyong and his wife, complete with inscriptions giving their names and the years of their deaths. Each wore a gold headdress of cut-out floral design, and gilt-bronze burial shoes. It is interesting that although Buddhism was flourishing at the time in Paekche, the burial has little Buddhist iconography. However, the tomb was constructed of bricks impressed with lotus designs, with a barrel vault ceiling and flame-shaped wall niches, reflecting Chinese styles. The Silla kingdom developed around the city of Kumsong (meaning Gold Fortress), which is presently known as Kyongju. The history/mythology of Silla describes six tribes in the valley joining forces for strength against ‘enemies nearby’. The main city arose within a plain surrounded on three sides by rivers, protected by a hillfort on the southern river and fortresses ringing the higher mountains on all sides. The archaeology of Silla can be divided into three periods. Remains of some hilltop fortresses may partly derive from the earliest era, and documents would include the hill fort known as Panwolsong, or Half Moon Fortress. During the early period the polity was known as Saro. It may not have been yet a monarchy, although the king lists, based on a lost history of Silla, contain names of kings and queens as well as their parents, continuously from 57 BCE to CE 9xx. The era of huge mounded tombs (fourth to sixth centuries) is well published, for the mounds were not easy to rob, and when first excavated in the 1930s

648 ASIA, NORTHEAST, EARLY STATES AND CIVILIZATIONS

Figure 6 Gold crown from Silla.

they were found to contain rich grave goods. Most spectacular were the royal tombs, each of which included a gold crown, gold belt, and other gold jewelry such as necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and in some cases finger and toe rings (Figure 6). On the south mound of Tomb 98 in Kyongju, the gold weighed almost five kilograms. Horse trappings are prominent in these burials, especially bronze saddlebows with cut-out and gilded decoration. The crowns are tall, with uprights in the shape of antlers and stylized trees. Many scholars have related these shapes to shamanism, and indeed one of the early titles applied to the ruler is thought to mean shaman. The crowns are covered with dangling birch-leaf-shaped gold pieces and jade and glass gogok attached with twisted gold wire. Burial goods include artifacts made of birch bark, having painted designs including white horses and the red bird of the south. Exotic goods, such as Mediterranean glass containers, Central Asian silver bowls and an inlaid dagger also came to Silla from afar. Trade must have been conducted both over sea routes from the south and across the silk road through Central Asia. Although Silla is mentioned in Chinese writings of the time, Chinese artifacts are rare, consisting of only one small glazed bottle. As the kingdom farthest removed from China within the Korean peninsula, Silla resisted Chinese influence longest. This is particularly evident in the burial style, for both Koguryo- and Paekche-built Chinese

style tombs with entry passages intended to be reentered for postmortem ceremonies, which made them inviting to loot, while Silla tombs were impossible to re-enter, covered having several meters of boulders topped by more meters of earth. Silla society was divided into endogamous groups called bone ranks, and sumptuary rules applied to each group, with restrictions specified for men and women separately. Only members of the Holy Bone were eligible to rule, but women could be selected as rulers as well as men. The largest and most spectacular of the mounded burials belonged to a queen. The True Bone were high nobles, with three other ranks of lesser nobles below them. Interestingly, the common people, both men and women, were allowed to own and ride horses, but they were restricted in the amount and kind of saddles and horse trappings they could display. Buddhism was accepted in Silla by the fifth century, and burials became less lavish, as cremation became more commonplace. Mounded tombs were often surrounded by the 12 zodiacal year-signs of China, and some even had spirit paths leading up to them, guarded by life-sized stone animals and warriors. As in Paekche, enormous Buddhist temples were endowed, and the hills around Kyongju became filled with Buddhist carvings on stone boulders, which are still objects of pilgrimage. Kaya is the name given to a group of city-states that never coalesced into a larger polity, and they were gradually conquered by Silla. They are often seen as allied with Paekche because of the written history, but in terms of artifacts such as pottery and weaponry they are closer to Silla. Six Kaya polities were distributed along the Naktong River valley and along the southern coast. The Kaya region was extremely rich in iron. Almost all cemeteries contain iron armor and iron weapons, and the richest burials have iron ingots laid out for a floor. It is likely that the large iron ingots were an important export. One Kaya tombs is reminiscent of multiple interment tombs in Liaoning, with a central burial and others radiating around it, separated by stonewalls. One burial hill has overlapping double mounds, in which one person’s head points north and the other northeast, suggesting that the husband and wife came from groups with different burial orientations. The stonewares from Kaya are closely related to those of Silla. Kaya stoneware vessels in the shape of everyday objects allow unusual insights into the material culture. They include houses, carts, sandals, boats, and drinking horns. Three of them depict men on horseback, showing their complete clothing and the rigging of the horses, including stirrups. Of two found together, one is thought to be the noble, and the

ASIA, NORTHEAST, EARLY STATES AND CIVILIZATIONS 649

other the servant, due to differences in clothing. The third one is a soldier and horse both in armor. After Silla conquered the Kaya states and other unaffiliated towns in the southeast, inscribed boundary stones that are still extant were set up on the mountain ridge dividing Silla from Paekche, in the region of the Han River, and far to the north on the east coast. Silla was able to conquer first Paekche and then Koguryo with the aid of the Tang Dynasty. In CE 668, all but the northernmost part of the peninsula was ruled by United Silla, with its capital still at Kyongju.

Yayoi and Kofun Periods in Japan In the meantime, in the Japanese islands, other complex polities developed, reflecting local changes as well as contact from the peninsula, Lelang, and mainland. After the long period known as the Jomon, which was characterized by cord-marked pottery, new plainer pottery ushered in a period known as Yayoi, although more important in the distinction between Jomon and Yayoi is the intensive growing of rice. A series of AMS dates, as well as tree rings, confirm that Yayoi is much earlier than was once thought. Yayoi appeared first in Kyushu, the major island nearest to the Korean peninsula, as early as 900 BC, and spread eastward and northward. The earliest Yayoi pottery is related in both shapes and manufacturing technology to Mumun in Korea, but it is not identical. Whether this represents migration of peoples from the Korean peninsula or diffusion of ideas, or some combination, is the subject of debate. The consensus among archaeologists who work in Japan is that some migration from the peninsula occurred, but the previous Jomon inhabitants also contributed to the continuing population. The new dating of the elaborate Final Jomon of Kamegoaka in northern Honshu and the Initial Yayoi in Kyushu are contemporaneous. While rice is a hallmark of Yayoi, some rice is found in Jomon sites as early as Early Jomon: it does not appear that Jomon sites practiced agriculture as their subsistence base. On the other hand, large rice paddies, with remains of wooden clogs, hoes, and spades, have been excavated in the Yayoi period. Domesticated pigs were raised, and one site even contains evidence of chickens. Bronze technology and bronze weapons derived from those of the Korean peninsula are characteristic of the Yayoi period. Although both iron and bronze were imported, they were used as prestige goods and for dedication to the gods. Bronze swords, mirrors, and bells were developed from Korean prototypes, although models developed in the islands diverged dramatically from those of the peninsula. Large daggers and swords appear to be ceremonial, since they

are too unwieldy to have been used in battle. Bellshaped objects called dotaku must have had ceremonial functions as well, as they are found in caves and other isolated places, as if they were ritual deposits (Figure 7). Mirrors were also important, both the fine-lined geometric type developed in the peninsula and Chinese-style mirrors. Sword, mirror, and curved jewel became symbols of the emperor. The presence of megalithic burials in Japan suggests another cultural connection with Korea. Southern style dolmens (large capstones lying on the ground) are found in Kyushu, as are jar burials, sometimes under dolmens. Polished stone knives are found in such burials, as well as tubular beads with a single curved bead. The 25 ha site of Yoshinogari on Kyushu is surrounded by a ditch, and the periphery is guarded by watchtowers standing on gigantic posts. A fortified inner area contained a burial mound in the center. A burial in two large jars joined at the mouths was furnished with tubular blue beads and a bronze sword. Han dynasty chronicles describe a queen in Kyushu named Himiko, who lived in a defended compound. The Yoshinogari site is too early to have been the domain of Himiko, but she is described as living in just such a place. However, queens ruling alone and as co-rulers were known in the subsequent Kofun period, the time of mounded tombs.

Figure 7 Dotaku – bronze bell from Yayoi period.

650 ASIA, NORTHEAST, EARLY STATES AND CIVILIZATIONS

Figure 8 Haniwa of shaman from Kofun period.

The Kofun, or Old Tumulus period, is characterized by large and elaborate tombs. The most spectacular and largest are shaped like old-fashioned keyholes, with a high circular mound and a foursided lower platform. Often the entire construction is surrounded by a moat. The tumuli vary in size, with the largest being 486 m long. Hollow terracotta figures encircled the grave mounds on the outside. These haniwa depict warriors, shamans, farmers and other livelihoods, as well as houses, boats, horses, and even a quiver full of arrows. Some indicate tattooed faces, and many depict ear-spools and bead necklaces. The houses resemble Shinto shrines, which are rebuilt every twenty years but retain the ancient architecture (Figure 8). Groups of kofun are found in several places, and are interpreted as rival centers of power, with evidence of highly stratified societies. They include northern Kyushu, Izumo on the southwestern coast of Honshu, Kibi in the southern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan, on the north side of the Inland Sea, and Yamato east of the Inland Sea. The very large tombs that define the Kofun period demonstrate the existence of leaders who commanded an enormous amount of labor, and documents show that a division of labor by family and village was firmly in place. The appearance of horses, horse-trappings, and armor has led to a theory that ‘horse riders’ suddenly

appeared from ‘the continent’ to form a new warrior culture in the Late Kofun period. Horses were not native to Japan, but they are not the most significant element in the changes in the Late Kofun. However, it is clear from many lines of evidence that a close relationship existed between parts of the peninsula and the islands, and that elite as well as artisans from Korea’s Three Kingdoms were involved in the establishment of the state in Japan. Artifacts from the Kofun period are very similar to those of Korea. In the Fujinoki tomb, the use of gold is lavish. It was used for crowns, sword hilts, burial shoes, and saddlebows, in much the same style as those found in the Silla Kingdom. The tomb of Takamatsuzuka near Nara contained wall murals with women dressed like some of those in Koguryo tombs, suggesting that styles for elite women were widespread. In spite of these correspondences, the strongest impact on the Kofun period came from the Paekche kingdom. The early Buddhist art and architecture of Nara is acknowledged to be made by artisans from Paekche. This relationship between the peninsula and the islands intensified with the introduction of Buddhism from Paekche. Koguryo in the fourth century was the first of the Korean Three Kingdoms to accept Buddhism, but it was followed within the century by Paekche. Although Paekche was destroyed in 668 by the combined forces of Silla and Tang China, much of Paekche art can still be seen in the early Buddhist sites around Nara. Capital cities were laid out in a grid pattern like that of Chang’an, the Tang capital. The growing states of East Asia became more similar to each other as China became the model for government and culture. However, they were never identical. Each polity developed and maintained individual styles of material style and governance, while participating in trade and interaction throughout northeast Asia. See also: Animal Domestication; Asia, East: China,

Neolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers; Asia, South: Buddhist Archaeology; Plant Domestication; Political Complexity, Rise of.

Further Reading Aikens CM and Rhee SN (eds.) (1992) Pacific Northeast Asia in Prehsitory; Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers, Farmers, and Sociopolitical Elites. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press. Barnes GL (1999) The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: Archaeology of China, Korea and Japan. London: Thames and Hudson. Barnes GL (2001) State Formation in Korea: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Hudson M (1999) Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

ASIA, SOUTH/Baluchistan and the Borderlands 651 Imamura K (1996) Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Nelson SM (1993) The Archaeology of Korea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson SM (1995) The Archaeology of Northeast China: Beyond the Great Wall. London: Routledge. Nelson SM (2003) Korean Social Archaeology. Seoul: Jipmoon Press.

Shelach G (1999) Leadership Strategies, Economic Activity, and Interregional Interaction, Social Complexity in Northeast China. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Takamiya H (2002) Introductory routes of rice to Japan: An examination of the southern route hypothesis. Asian Perspectives 4092: 209–226.

ASIA, SOUTH Contents Baluchistan and the Borderlands Buddhist Archaeology Ganges Valley India, Deccan and Central Plateau India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South Indus Civilization Kashmir and the Northwest Frontier Megaliths Neolithic Cultures Paleolithic Cultures Sri Lanka

Baluchistan and the Borderlands Ute Franke, DAI, Berlin, Germany ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Baluchistan An arid region located in the Iranian Plateau in Southwest Asia and South Asia, between Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Indus Civilization The Indus Valley Civilization (c. 2600–1900) was an ancient riverine civilization that flourished in the Indus and Ghaggar–Hakra river valleys in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. urbanization The increase over time in the population of cities in relation to the region’s rural population.

Introduction Baluchistan is a huge landmass that extends from western Pakistan into southeastern Iran and southern Afghanistan and separates the open alluvial plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Iranian Plateau (Figure 1). It is the largest part of the Indo-Iranian borderlands which also include parts of the NorthWest Frontier Province, Kandahar, and Hilmand Provinces in Afghanistan, and Sistan/Baluchistan in Iran.

These regions formed, at times, a cultural landscape linked through traits such as architecture and artifact styles, interpreted as evidence for exchange, shared technologies, values, and ideas. In Baluchistan, human development from the seventh millennium BC onwards, from mobile food hunters and gatherers to sedentary communities based on farming and animal husbandry, has been uncovered. Increasing levels of complexity in economy and technology, social and political organization, accompanied by a population growth and settlement expansion, fostered the development of villages, towns, and cities and provided the basis for urbanization and state formation. Throughout, this tradition maintained a distinctive character, notwithstanding regional differences and changing patterns of interaction. The purpose of this paper is to outline this development, with a focus on Baluchistan. In order to understand the preconditions and to assess its role, we will first discuss the natural conditions that govern human life and then look at the cultural communities that formed the conceptual landscape.

Natural Environment Baluchistan can be divided into three main landforms plus a small coastal belt: (1) inland basins, (2) deserts, and (3) mountains rising to 3500 m in the north. Dissected by narrow river valleys, the mountains

652 ASIA, SOUTH/Baluchistan and the Borderlands

Bamyan

KABUL Mardan

Herat

Peshawar ISLAMABAD

Birjand

Mundigak

Yazd

Kandahar

Shahdad

Kerman

Multan

Quetta

Shahr-i Sokhta

Nausharo Bam

Zahedan

Mehrgarh Surab

Tepe Yahya

Jiroft Sohr Damb/Nal Mohenjo Daro

Bampur

Khasab Shimal Ras al-Khaimah Lima Umm al-Quwain Ajman Sharjah Masafi Dubai Fujairah Mleiha Sohar Hill

Jodhpur Turbat Shahi T., Miri Q. Hyderabad Gwadar

Pasni

Karachi

Figure 1 Map of the region with sites. Ute Franke. Map: H. David. ã 2008 Dr. Ute Franke-Vogt. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

run in parallel north–south folds along the western fringe of the Indus plain and turn west near the sea, making access to the Indus plain and the shore difficult. The northerly movement of the Indo-Pakistani Plate and its collision with the Eurasian Plate shifted the coastline southward for up to 25 km during the Holocene and lifted the whole shore. These geographical barriers direct communications and the hydraulic system. In the east, large perennial rivers, such as the Hab, Porali, and Hingol/Nal, drain the mountain flow-off into the sea, while the western river systems often discharge into deserts and salt pans. The mountains comprise several ecological zones that vary greatly in terms of climate and availability of soil and water. Climate is, in general, arid with a precipitation of c. 100 mm yr
1 in the south and 400 mm in the north. Agriculture depends on irrigation and the availability of soils but less than 4% of Baluchistan is arable. The mountains are barren and valley floors built with gravel. Only in wider valleys did a fertile alluvium composed of silt and sand accumulate. In dealing with diversified ecological conditions, flexible subsistence strategies were developed: while cultivars and domesticated animals remained much the same throughout, their stake and supplementary dietary measures varied. The need for irrigation has prompted channel building at an early stage, but the most remarkable human response to environmental conditions are the sophisticated dam systems (gabarbands) of southeastern Baluchistan. A prehistoric

population density that exceeds present figures attests the success of these adaptations. Baluchistan is rich in mineral resources (copper, lead, zinc, barite), stones (gray chert, lime- and sandstone, alabaster, marble), and semiprecious stones (agate, vesuvianite-grossular, lapislazuli).

History of Research After an intensive post-war period of research in Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province, and elsewhere, work in Pakistan focused on the Indus plains (Sindh, Punjab) and its fringes (Gomal, Bannu). Virtually all archaeological information on interior Baluchistan was collected between 1880 and 1965. Surveys conducted by A. Stein, B. de Cardi, W. A. Fairservice, R. Mughal, and others produced regional data sets that to date form the basis for settlement analyses, while soundings at Kile Ghul Mohammad (hereafter: KGM), Quetta, and Anjira provided a typological and comparative framework. R. Mughal’s restudy of this material supported the concept that an Early Harappan horizon existed in the Greater Indus Valley, thereby implying the autochthonous development of the Indus Civilization, notwithstanding interaction. Research carried out in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and southeastern Iran, particularly excavations at Mundigak (J.-M. Casal), Bampur (B. de Cardi),

ASIA, SOUTH/Baluchistan and the Borderlands 653

Tepe Yahya (C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky), Shahr-e Sokhta (M. Tosi), and Shahdad (A. Hakemi), widened cultural horizons and introduced new research perspectives. By 1970, the Indo-Iranian Borderlands had emerged as a region with distinctive cultural patterns and new models on human development and interaction were developed. Foreign fieldwork ended in 1978–79, but Iranian teams continued excavations and both Afghanistan and Iran have reopened their borders recently. In Pakistan, the French Mission working in the Kacchi Plain at the foot of Bolan Pass proved the hypotheses of an indigenous cultural development in Pakistan and particularly in Baluchistan to be truer than anticipated. At Mehrgarh, Nausharo, Sibri, and Pirak, a sequence from the aceramic Neolithic Period through the first millennium BC excavated under the direction of J.-F. Jarrige, produced new sets of information that carried cultural complexes beyond mere pottery styles and facilitated the development of a wider chronological scheme (Figure 2). In southern

Baluchistan, work was more limited and only now is the region gaining its proper place in history, mainly through the French Mission working in Makran since 1985 (R. Besenval, Miri Qalat, Shahi Tump, Dasht plain) and the German Mission to central (Sohr Damb/Nal) and southeastern Baluchistan, established in 1996–97. This research is now gradually facilitating the building of models of past life on a more solid footing, but it also reveals the limits of such an endeavor: too many areas remain unexplored, too much information is inadequately published, and too many questions cannot be answered by the old data. However, no matter how much further information is needed, Baluchistan is crucial for understanding cultural development within the Indo-Iranian Borderlands until the abandonment of settled life in the second millennium BC and for assessing its role in the wider interaction spheres: was it a border, frontier, or an intermediary?

The Cultural Landscape through Time

Figure 2 Mehrgarh: Bolan section with Neolithic levels (with J.-F. Jarrige, M. Tosi and M. Vidale). Photo: Ute Franke 1983. ã 2008 Dr. Ute Franke-Vogt. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Considering the geographical barriers described, the question arises as to whether they went along with cultural isolation. At a first glance, the number of archaeological assemblages, mostly pottery, supports this idea. The wide distribution of certain styles, however, points to a different direction. Its implications are difficult to assess since unlike ‘imported’ exotic commodities and materials, such as sea shells, semiprecious stones, and metals which were exchanged, looted, or paid as tribute, and even unlike the copying of new technologies, the adaptation of pottery designs, figurines, or other artifact styles inherits a semantic dimension which is difficult to assess (see Pottery Analysis: Stylistic). With regard to the amount and nature of archaeological data, we have to define descriptive units. The Balochistan Tradition is the overarching geographically and temporally continuous heuristic system composed of multilinear archaeological entities which are linked in space and time. ‘Eras’ are developmental stages, such as food-producing and regionalization. A ‘phase’ combines a number of cultural complexes within a broadly defined region and time trajectory. ‘Cultural complexes’ or ‘horizons’ are recurrent configurations of features within archaeological assemblages, at present mostly pottery styles. Per definitionem they reflect human abilities, requirements, stylistic, and technological choices and preferences, but are not a priori considered to represent particular social or even ethnic groups. Their

654 ASIA, SOUTH/Baluchistan and the Borderlands

distribution patterns form the cultural landscape and outline ‘mental’, or conceptual, maps. Recent research has shown that these styles and horizons are still badly defined and dated which makes the reconstruction of these processes through time and the assessment of interaction and its impact on development difficult. Accordingly, we refrain from merging styles and horizons into larger units that have little analytical value, but rather discuss the smaller entities, paying tribute to regional stylistic diversity notwithstanding shared features. Early Food Producing Era: First Settlements (Mehrgarh I, II, KGM I, II, Anjira I, II, Miri I?)

After around 7000 BC in northern Baluchistan, mobile hunters and gatherers had gradually settled down. The adaptation of einkorn, emmer, wheat, and barley as staple crops, and a successful animal husbandry (cattle, goat, sheep), facilitated the development and growth of villages (see Animal Domestication; Plant Domestication). Mehrgarh is the type site for understanding the formation of a tradition that was to last for nearly seven millenniums (Figure 2). Sevenmeter high deposits and nine building levels for the Neolithic Periods reveal alternating shifts of the habitation and cemeteries over a long time. Altogether, 77 well-planned houses with two, four, and later six rooms and separate communal storage facilities were excavated (Figures 3 and 4). 320 burial chambers contained ochre-covered bodies of all sexes and age classes (Figure 5). On 11 out of 225 examined bodies, signs of ancient dentistry were found. Elaborate shell, stone, and copper ornaments, lithic objects, sometimes bitumen baskets, human figurines, and goat sacrifices accompanied the dead. While in Period I, heat-treated steatite, turquoise and lapis lazuli beads, and shell bangles probably arrived as finished objects, several workshops and wasters indicate an intensive local production during Period II, marking the beginning of technologies that remained characteristic throughout time. Pottery appears for the first time in Period II, along with stone vessels, but it is in Period III that these technologies were greatly advanced. Incipient farming and animal husbandry, and the first introduction of pottery were also noted at KGM near Quetta and, albeit at a later stage, further south at Anjira. The oldest settlements in southeastern Baluchistan date to the later fifth millennium. While in northern Baluchistan an interaction network developed, the picture in Makran is different. The lowermost aceramic levels at Shahi Tump I and a few other sites are, if at all, related to the Iranian Plateau. The faunal material indicates a change in

subsistence strategies after Period I, and further research will show whether this site belongs to the Early Food Producing Era. Incipient Regionalization: The Expansion of Settlements. The Kile Ghul-Mohammad/Togau Horizon (Mehrgarh III, KGM III, Anjira II, Sohr Damb I?, South Eastern Baluchistan I, Makran: Miri I?, II, Mundigak I–II)

The time of Mehrgarh III (late fifth and early fourth millennium) was marked by a considerable rise in the number of settlements in northern Baluchistan. Many were new foundations, indicating a population growth that reflected the success of subsistence economies. Settlements now also appeared in central and southeastern Baluchistan (Adam Buthi, Niai Buthi). Some sites are small (2500 BC 2500−2000 BC 2000−1200 BC

20⬚ N

>600 m 600 m 100 mi 100 km

Southern Neolithic 16⬚ N

12⬚ N 74⬚ E

78⬚ E

Figure 7 The distribution of Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites in peninsular India indicating the distinct cultural zones, and foci of research, of the northern Deccan Chalcolithic and the Southern Neolithic. Within the Southern Neolithic the dashed line demarcates the distribution of the Ashmound Tradition, characterized by burnt dung mounds.

Further north in the Deccan Traps zone of Maharashtra and southwest Madhya Pradesh, early village sites show a somewhat different character and a different agricultural basis. Early sites occur on the lower Narmada and Tapti Rivers and date to 2300– 2000 BC. These archaeological cultures, such as the Kayatha, are often linked or thought to derive from earlier developments in Rajasthan connected with the Ahar tradition which can be taken back to before 3000 BC at the site of Balathal. In the second millennium BC sites become much more widespread, over a wider part of western Maharashtra, especially during the Malwa phase (1700–1500 BC)

and subsequent Jorwe period (1500–1200 BC). On sites of these phases, where systematic archaeobotany is available agriculture shows a mixture of summer crops, including those of the Ashmound Tradition to the south and winter crops, such as wheat, barley, and lentils, which had been the staple crops of the Indus Valley to the northwest. On the eastern side of the peninsula, along the northern Andhra Pradesh coast and in Orissa, a distinct Neolithic tradition is known from the second millennium BC, which has a different agricultural combination that included rice. Important social and technological changes occurred across the peninsula between 1400 and 800 BC. This

ASIA, WEST/India, Deccan and Central Plateau 701

Figure 8 South Deccan granitic landscape near Piklihal Neolithic site, Raichur District, Karnataka.

Figure 9 Denuded megalithic cemetery surface near Patupadu, Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, 2004.

period is associated with the emergence of the Megalithic tradition, in which impressive stone-built burial monuments were constructed for selected individuals, probably elites (Figure 9). It is also during this period that iron metallurgy became established, with its new demands on extracting mineral resources and charcoal from woodlands. The construction of Megalithic may have emerged first in northern Karnataka and eastern Maharashtra (Vidarbha). In the South there is clear continuity from the Ashmound Neolithic tradition, whereas in Maharashtra Chalcolithic village sites toward the western part of the state appear to be largely abandoned, while new village sites emerge in the east together with Megalithic

burials (Figure 10). The Megalithic transition needs to be seen in the context of the development of political economies with new systems of wealth creation including craft production, and long-distance trade increased. This period provides the first good evidence for ‘cash crops’ such as cotton, flax, and seasonal tree fruits. In addition, the period witnessed the spread and adoption of rice by some groups on the peninsula. It may only be during this period, with the spread of rice agriculture, that settled agricultural communities emerged in the far South, including coastal and southern inland Tamil Nadu. In addition, rice agriculture went to the island of Sri Lanka during this period.

702 ASIA, WEST/India, Deccan and Central Plateau

Figure 10 Remnents of Megalithic cist and outer circle, Kodumanal, Tamil Nadu.

The Megalithic of South India is really a mosaic of local cultural traditions that shared traditions of constructing burial monuments from large stones and the use and production of iron tools and weapons. Earlier megaliths consisted of circles of large boulders (pit circles), while later forms included quarried and worked stone slabs that often lined a central cist. Burials were most often secondary, indicating the collecting together and depositing bones represented the end of a long and elaborate death ritual. Bones were sometime placed in a ceramic sarcophagus or on a bed and were normally accompanied by quantities of ceramics, mostly necked jars and bowls, suggesting association with larger-scale drinking, as well as iron weapons. The weapons, including swords, as well as some parts of bridles indicate associations with a warrior ideology. One important excavated site is Brahmagiri in Karnataka, where Mortimer Wheeler first placed the megaliths in clear chronological context. Megaliths are too few to account for most of the population and thus must represent monuments associated with elites and the emergence of more complex social hierarchies. In social evolutionary terms, many scholars have suggested that the Megalithic period represented ‘chiefdoms’. The Early Historic Period marks the beginnings of historically documented state polities, the emergence of selected urban centers in parts of South India, and the connected process of a more widespread hinterland of agricultural villages. This period can be defined as starting c. 250 BC, since during the reign of the emperor of Ashoka (of the Mauryan empire focused in the Ganges Valley, 273–232 BC), conquered parts of the peninsula, and left behind numerous edicts inscribed in the Brahmi script in parts of the Deccan (Figure 11). These include a pillar at

Amravati in the Godavari basin, and numerous rock inscriptions in northeastern Karnataka and adjacent Andhra Pradesh, such as those at Sannathi, Maski, and Brahmagiri – the latter two near significant Neolithic and Megalithic sites. North Indian sources at this time refer to regions in the south and suggest emergent polities. The first local dynasty documented on the Northern Peninsula with the rise of the Satavahana kings may date to c. 100 BC. In the far South, where later historical sources refer to the states of the Pandyas, Cholas, and Cheras, it might be suggested that these kingdoms emerged also around this time, and began to utilize their own Tamil–Brahmi script to write an early form of the Tamil language. It is during this period that North Indian religious traditions get established in the South, including Buddhism, Jainism, and some elements of Hinduism (which are mingled with local traditions). This period is also characterized by a significant level of longdistance trade across the Indian Ocean toward the West, which included the trade with the Roman Empire. Forest products, including the spices and lac (produced by scale insects feeding on certain tropical deciduous trees), were in demand as well as cotton textiles, pearls, and semiprecious stone beads. Black pepper and cotton in particular were major imports of the Roman world obtained from South Indian or West coast (Satavahana) ports, obtained in turn from interior areas. Finds of Roman coins, including hoards, are common from the first century AD in South India. Mostly, black pepper was probably traded from rainforest hunter-gatherers in the Western Ghats, while cotton was grown in the interior of Deccan. In subsequent centuries the volume of trade and interconnections with Southeast Asia also increased, as indicated by the appearance of Buddhist

ASIA, WEST/India, Deccan and Central Plateau 703

KALINGA Ajanta Ellora Nasik

Sisulpalgarh

Paithan SATAVAHANAS

Terr

Sannathi

ANDHRAS Amravati

Maski Vijayanagara (Hampi)

Brahmagiri Ashokan edicts Roman coin finds Important city sites (selected) Major cave shrine CHOLAS

Arikamedu

CHERAS PANDYAS 1000m 500m

Figure 11 A map of early historical South India, indicating evidence for Ashokan inscriptions (of the Gangetic Mauryan Empire), representative finds of Roman coins or coin hoards, and carved cave shrines. A few important city sites are labeled. Names of some important early polities are indicated. The location of the much later Vijayanagara (fourteenth to sixteenth century) is indicated.

iconography and architectural styles in Southeast Asia. While there have been some important settlement site excavations from the early historic period, archaeology from that period onward focuses more on the study of monuments, their architecture, art history, and inscriptions. A widespread type of small monument is the hero-stone (Figure 12), an engraved slab commemorating the hero of a battle, often involving cattle-raiding. While some of these include inscriptions, many are simply figural. The Satavahana dynasty (focused in Maharashtra with a capital at Paithan on the Godavari River) began the northern Deccan tradition of carving shrines in caves. These may have begun already by the second or first century BC at Karla, while many more temples were created

out of rock in the early centuries AD, as at Nasik. Some of the best-known complexes of cave shrines date from the fifth to eighth century, including the painted caves of Ellora and the carved and heavily sculptured shrines of Ajanta near modern Aurangabad. These early cave shrines were largely Buddhist and sometimes Jain, in religious inspiration, although these religions were to decline and largely disappear from the sixth century. Free-standing temples also began to be built of stone or brick in the Early Historic period, although many of the better-known and preserved temples date from the eighth or ninth century onwards and are dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses. Major Hindu temple building was also carried out in the South between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, when the Hindu-ruled South was culturally

704 ASIA, WEST/India, Deccan and Central Plateau

Figure 12 Three early hero-stones, Shimoga District, Karnataka, 1998.

opposed to northern India, which was under a series of Islamic rulers (especially, the Delhi sultanate and the Mughals). Of particular note is the evidence from the Vijayanagara kingdom, with its center at Hampi in Karnataka near modern Hospet. Founded in 1336 and lasting until the sack of its capital in 1565, the Vijayanagar kingdom has left a legacy of remarkable architecture and sculpture. Its capital city was described in glowing terms by an early Portuguese traveler, Domingo Paes, who visited in 1522. Architectural and epigraphic research on the monuments of its urban core and immediate hinterland has been, and continues to be, a major focus for research, while in the late 1980s and 1990s this was complemented by a large-scale intensive regional archaeological survey, studies of land use and ceramics. The trends of increased agricultural production, including that for craft, and extraction of wild products from woodlands for trade continued into the subsequent medieval periods and indeed into the colonial era. States throughout this period tended to encourage the creation of new settlements and the conversion of wooded ‘jungles’ into agricultural land, as indicated in land-grants and irrigation works (such as tank building). In the later medieval period, marked by the Delhi Sultante in northern India (from the thirteenth century), and Vijayanagara centered near Hospet in central Karnataka (from the midfourteenth century), urban centers and their craft producers grew as more efficient systems for the extraction of agricultural resources (through taxation) were devised, in addition to use of more intensive agricultural techniques. Such systems paved the way for the taxation and commercial organization of the Mughal empire and later colonial powers including British India. Through the medieval period there is increasing textual evidence for the establishment of

orchards. The process of converting wild woodlands into plantations increased greatly during the colonial period with demands for cinnamon, pepper, and later coffee and tea. Subsequently, especially from the nineteenth century, this plantation approach to wooded areas was extended to the production of key timber species, such as teak, for use in nineteenth-century British ship-building. For most of the last 2000 years, archaeological research in the Deccan has more of an art-historical, epigraphic, and architectural bent, with the notable exception of the work on the Vijayanagara capitol’s hinterland. For earlier prehistoric periods, excavation, survey, and artifact studies are the norm. In some areas important rock art concentrations are associated with the Mesolithic (e.g., in Kurnool District) and the Neolithic (e.g., in the Bellary and Rachiur areas). It should be noted that Neolithic and Iron Age cultures are often called ‘Protohistoric’ although there are no indigenous written sources.

See also: Africa, South: Late Pleistocene and Early

Holocene Foragers; Asia, South: Baluchistan and the Borderlands; Buddhist Archaeology; Ganges Valley; India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South; Indus Civilization; Kashmir and the Northwest Frontier; Megaliths; Neolithic Cultures; Paleolithic Cultures; Sri Lanka.

Further Reading Allchin FR (1963) Neolithic Cattle Keepers of South India. A Case Study of the Deccan Ashmounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Allchin FR (1995) Early cities and states beyond the Ganges Valley. In: Allchin FR (ed.) The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia. The Emergence of Cities and States, pp. 123–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South 705 Asouti E and Fuller D (2007) Trees and Woodland in South India: An Archaeological Perspective. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Champakalakshmi R (1996) Trade, Ideology and Urbanization. South India 300 BC to AD 1300. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Fuller DQ (2005) Ceramics, seeds and culinary change in Prehistoric India. Antiquity 79: 761–777. James HV and Petraglia MD (2005) Modern human origins and the evolution of behaviour in the Later Pleistocene record of South Asia. Current Anthropology 46(S): S3–S27. Korisettar R, Venkatasubbaiah PC, and Fuller DQ (2001) Brahmagiri and beyond: the archaeology of the Southern Neolithic. In: Settar S and Korisettar R (eds.) Indian Archaeology in Retrospect I. Prehistory, pp. 151–238. Delhi: Manohar. Michell G (1997) The Blue Guide: Southern India. New York: WW Norton. Petraglia MD (2005) Hominin responses to Pleistocene environmental change in Arabia and South Asia. In: Head MJ and Gibbard PL (eds.) Early–Middle Pleistocene Transitions: The Land-Ocean Evidence, pp. 305–319. London: Geological Society of London. Ray HP (2003) The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South Shanti Pappu, Sharma Centre for Heritage Education, Chennai, India ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Acheulian The name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with prehistoric hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of Asia and Europe. burin A special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans may have used for engraving or for carving wood or bone. chopper Pebble tools with an irregular cutting edge formed through the removal of flakes from one side of a stone.

Introduction India is rich in Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic sites, situated in diverse environmental contexts, and spanning the Middle to Late Pleistocene. The Indian Lower Palaeolithic is generally thought to consist of two technological traditions; viz. the Acheulian, which has bifacially flaked tools (handaxes and cleavers), along with others; and the Soan tradition comprising predominantly unifacial or bifacial pebble tools; and which is concentrated in northwest India and the adjoining region of Pakistan. The

Acheulian, distributed widely over Peninsular India concerns us here; and is generally bracketed between >350 kyr to around 150 kyr BP. This is succeeded by the Middle Palaeolithic (150–30 kyr BP), marked by an abundance of scrapers, points, and borers, along with the appearance of specialized flaking techniques. The Upper or Late Palaeolithic (30–10 kyr BP) in the Terminal Pleistocene, is marked by a technology dominated by blades and tools on blades and burins. This section focuses on South India, an artificial political division (a distinct geocultural region), comprising the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala (Figure 1). The first stone tool to be identified in the subcontinent (a Lower Palaeolithic artifact) was found at the site of Pallaveram, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu, by the British geologist Robert Bruce Foote in 1863. Foote discovered more than 400 prehistoric sites in southern India, documented their stratigraphic contexts, classified artifacts, and proposed hypotheses on prehistoric behavior. Discoveries by Foote (with his son, H. B. Foote) led to documentation of bone artifacts in the karstic cave complex of Kurnool in the state of Andhra Pradesh, which he believed resembled the ‘Magdalenian’ of France, and which were later classified as belonging to the Upper Palaeolithic phase. The first systematic attempt to place these industries in an environmental and chronological framework was initiated in the 1930s, by L. A. Cammiade and M. Burkitt. Working with artifacts from sites along the southeast coast of India (in the modern state of Andhra Pradesh), they divided the Indian Palaeolithic into four series (series I to IV) or cultural phases; roughly corresponding with the Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic; and associated these with climatic cycles of pluvials and interpluvials. Around the same time, H. De Terra and T. T. Paterson, working in northwest India as part of the Yale–Cambridge Expedition, placed Stone Age cultures within stratigraphic sequences associated with a sequence of river terraces, which in turn were correlated with Alpine glaciations. This scheme was later extended to the Kortallaiyar River basin, Tamil Nadu, among others, and Paterson chose to term Acheulian industries in this region as constituting the ‘Madras Palaeolithic’ after the city of Madras (modern Chennai) located nearby. Around the same time, V. D. Krishnawami’s studies in this region led to a clear distinction between the Lower Palaeolithic ‘Acheulian’ or ‘Madrasian’ industries, found over most of India; as compared to Soan traditions of northwest India. Later workers such as F. E. Zeuner, K. V. Soundara Rajan, and B. Allchin contributed further to understanding these cultures. The systematic study of various river basins was carried forward

706 ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South

0 0

200

400 km 200

400 miles

PAKISTAN Nepal

Delhi

R.Ganga Bangladesh

R.Narmada R.Mahanadi BAY OF BENGAL

R.Godavari

R.Bhima 1 R.Krishna 2 15 Karnataka ARABIAN SEA 13 Kerala

11 6

10

Hyderabad 7 R.Krishna 8 9 Andhra Pradesh 5 4 3 R.Koratallaiyar 12 Chennai R.Palar Tamil Nadu

Key 1. Hunsgi–Baichbal complex 2. Malaprabha–Ghatprabha complex 3. Rallakalava complex 4. Nellore complex 5. Cuddapah complex: Sagileru & Gunjana complexes 6. Kurnool complex: Kurnool complex; Giddalur complex 7. Nalgonda complex 8. Nagarjunakonda complex 9. Paleru complex 10. Vishakhapatnam complex 11. Krishna–Tungabhadra complex 12. Palar complex: Kortallaiyar/Arani/Coom complex 13. Kerala complex

SRI LANKA 75

90

Figure 1 Some important site complexes of southern India.

by H. D. Sankalia and his students trained at the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Pune, and ongoing research is being carried out by the next generation of scholars. Theoretical and methodological studies of the Palaeolithic in South India include at one level the discovery of sites, documentation of culture sequences, and typological studies. At another level, in the

Hunsgi-Baichbal basins of Karnataka, K. Paddayya initiated settlement pattern studies using ecological and processual approaches, while subsequent work along with M. Petraglia focused on studies of siteformation processes, cognition, and behavior. Studies by M. L. K Murty in the Kurnool complex of sites also involved adoption of regional perspectives along with ethnoarchaeological and ecological approaches.

ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South 707

Geomorphological and settlement pattern based approaches were also adopted by R. S. Pappu in parts of Karnataka. S. Pappu’s work in the Kortallaiyar river basin, Tamil Nadu, involved studies of site formation processes, palaeoenvironments and prehistoric behavior. In recent years, large-scale excavations by S. Pappu at Attirampakkam; K. Paddayya and M. Petraglia at Isampur; and trenches taken by R. Korisettar and M. Petraglia at Lakhmapur; are utilizing advances in scientific techniques of excavation, along with multidisciplinary approaches involving new dating methods, palaeoenvironmental investigations, and lithic analysis to understand prehistoric behavior (Table 1).

The Lower Palaeolithic Lower Palaeolithic sites are distributed almost all over South India, with the exception of Kerala and the extreme southern portion of Tamil Nadu. In these regions, environmental constraints and paucity of raw material are considered factors detrimental for occupation. Acheulian industries predominate, with the exception of a few sites in Kerala, Nittur in Karnataka; and Rishikonda in Andhra Pradesh, where predominantly pebble tool assemblages were discovered. A few chronometric dates are available for the Indian Lower Palaeolithic, of which only five come from South India (Table 2). These range from around

Table 1 Principal site complexes of South India Some important site complexes

Cultures and excavated sites

Hunsgi–Baichbal complex, Gulbarga district, Karnataka

Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Acheulian: Hunsgi Localities V, VI; Isampur

Upper Palaeolithic: Salvadgi, Meralbhavi Ghataprabha–Malaprabha complex, Belgam, Dharwar, and Bijapur districts, Karnataka

Rallakalava complex, Chitoor district, Andhra Pradesh Sagileru complex, Cuddapah district, Andhra Pradesh Kurnool complex, Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh

Giddalur complex, Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh Nalgonda complex, Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh Nagarjunakonda complex, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh Nellore complex, Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh Gunjana complex, Cuddappah district, Andhra Pradesh Paleru valley, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh Vishakhapatnam complex, coastal Andhra Pradesh Krishna–Tungabhadra complex: Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, and Kurnool districts, Andhra Pradesh Palar river basin including the Kortallaiyar, Arani, and Coom river basins, Tamil Nadu

Kerala complex

Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Acheulian: Anagwadi Middle Palaeolithic: Kovalli Acheulian and Middle Palaeolithic: Lakhmapur East and West Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Lower Palaeolithic: Nandipalle and Vadamanu Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Upper Palaeolithic: Kurnool caves: Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi, Billa Surgam, and Kottala Polimera Gavi Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Lower, Middle Palaeolithic Lower Palaeolithic, possible Middle Palaeolithic Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Upper Palaeolithic: Vodikallu Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Non-Acheulian pebble tool complex: Rishikonda Middle Palaeolithic: Ramayogi Agraharam Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Middle Palaeolithic: Moravakonda Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic: Attirampakkam Lower Palaeolithic: Vadamadurai, Srikrishnapuram Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: Poondi, Neyvelli, Gudiyam along slopes. Middle Palaeolithic: Gudiyam rockshelter Non-Acheulian Lower Palaeolithic

Table 2 Summary of Lower Palaeolithic dates from South India (after Misra 1989; Mishra 1995; Petraglia 1999) Site complex

Material dated 230

234

/U

on travertines

Kaldevanhali in the Hunsgi basin (Acheulian assemblages overly travertine

Th

Sadab in the Hunsgi basin (in association with Acheulian assemblages) Teggihalli in the Hunsgi basin (in association with Acheulian assemblages) Teggihalli in the Hunsgi basin (in association with Acheulian assemblages) Yedurwadi in the Hunsgi basin in association with Acheulian assemblages) Isampur, in the Hunsgi basin (in association with Acheulian artiefacts)

Th230/U234 Elephas sp. molar Th230/U234 Bos sp. molar Th230/U234 Elephas sp. molar 230 234 /U on calcretes ESR heribivore teeth

Age 174
35 166 þ 15/13 290 þ 21/18 287 þ 27/22 >350 >350 1.2
0.17 mya

708 ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South

166 and 174 kyr to >350 kyr. In general, the Indian Acheulian is bracketed between 150 kyr and >350 kyr, with a few dates from Isampur and Bori exceeding this. Relative dating based on stratigraphic sequences along river terraces and laterites has also been used to provide a chronological framework. Fluorine/phosphate ratios (which assign relative ages to fossil faunal remains) revealed that f/p of fossils associated with the Early Acheulian show ratios of 6.8 while Late Acheulian bones revealed a ratio of 5.6 in Karnataka. On grounds of artifact technology and assemblage composition, the Acheulian has been divided into Early and Late phases, while some scholars also used degrees of artifact abrasion/rolling and patination to establish a relative chronology. Thus, Attirampakkam and Vadamadurai in the Kortallaiyar basin, sites in the Rallakalava valley, as well as the Paleru and Gunjana complexes are attributed to the Late Acheulian. However, recent excavations at Attirampakkam indicate a sequence of evolution within the Acheulian (Figure 2). Similarly, excavations at Hunsgi and Isampur place these sites within an Early phase, while Lakhmapur is categorized as very Late Acheulian and transitional to the Middle Palaeolithic. Although palaeoecological data is sparse, geomorphological studies point to regional variability in site location and sedimentary contexts. Taking into consideration settlement patterns it is seen that Acheulian sites are distributed in a wide range of environmental contexts, along the Eastern coastal plains, the Eastern Ghats, and the Deccan Uplands (see Asia, South: India, Deccan and Central Plateau). No Acheulian rock shelter has been documented in South India. Investigations in the Hunsgi–Baichbal valleys in Karnataka resulted in documentation of numerous sites, largely confined to the valley floor. Based on artifact density, sites are divided into small, medium, large, and very large. Of these, the most important localities include the sites of Hunsgi and Isampur which were excavated. In the neighboring Baichbal valley, sites also occur along the sloping sides of interfluves, of which most appear clustered within a stretch of 3–4 km around the Fatehpur Nala (stream), of which Yediapur was excavated. In northern Karnataka, most sites are concentrated in the Kaladgi region in the basins of the rivers Ghataprabha and Malaprabha. These are clustered primarily in the lower reaches of the former river which is rich in quartzites suitable for tool manufacture; rather than in regions geologically comprising Deccan Traps and which are poor in raw material. A recent re-examination of the Malaprabha-Ghataprabha site complex indicates that the artifact-bearing conglomerates in the middle courses of these river systems represent a series of

coalescent alluvial fans. In this region, sites are buried under Late Quaternary alluvial deposits, postdate the formation of alluvial fans, and also occur on pediment surfaces in association with ponds and lacustral clays and fine-grained silts deposited by now extinct water courses. In the Lakhmapur complex, sites are clustered around the fan system north of the Kaladgi escarpment and away from the river. In Karnataka scholars attribute site distribution to relate primarily to raw material availability. A detailed study of the Krishna–Tungabhadra Doab revealed that all sites save Kuduvalli, are located 20–25 m above the present riverbed and 0.5–1.5 km away from the river. Moving to Andhra Pradesh, in the Gunjana complex, Acheulian groups occupied small ephemeral channels, streams, and braided runnels situated 1–2 km away from the main river channel, and in scrub woodland, scrub savanna, and thorny thicket zones near low hill ranges where there was access to food resources and perennial water. In Tamil Nadu, most Acheulian sites in the Kortallaiyar, Arani, and Cooum basins are deeply stratified within laterites and clays, and extend from the foothills of the Allikulli and Satyavedu ranges to the coast, apparently concentrated in regions rich in quartzite cobble and boulder beds. Lower Palaeolithic sites occur in varied sedimentary contexts. Most sites in southern India are surface scatters. Artifacts occur on weathered bedrock, on the surface of laterites and lateritic gravels, on gravels derived from fluvial or colluvial processes, on the eroded surface of high-level gravels, or in the foothill zones. Surface sites range from those in secondary contexts, to those which are regarded as being primary to relatively in situ, being exposed only owing to recent erosion. Thus, in the Kortallaiyar basin, sites designated as type 2a have artifacts which are exposed owing to deflation or sheet wash and are in a relatively undisturbed context. In northern Karantaka, open-air surface sites in association with outcrops of raw material and which are rich in manufacturing waste, are relatively undisturbed. In almost all regions, sites occur within fluvial conglomerates, once again not necessarily transported over long distances. Thus, Anagwadi in Karnataka is designated as a semi-primary open air channel occupation site, where excavations revealed Acheulian artifacts in the upper half of a well-cemented pebbly gravel, with a sandy silty matrix, and ferruginous cementing material. Similar channel occupation sites in a semi-primary context are documented in the Ghataprabha–Malaprabha complex, located 3–7 m above the riverbeds (with relatively unabraded tools). In the Kortallaiyar river basin, Tamil Nadu, sites of type 1a have a high integrity and comprise sites which

Surface

T7A, datum, SW corner, 37.89 m AMSL 0m

0.5 m

Key 1

1m Middle Palaeolithic 1.5 m

Layer 1: clayey-slit Layer 2: ferricrete gravel Layer 3: clayey-slit Layer 4: clayey-slit

Ferruginous gravel lense

2.5 m Acheulian 3m

Layer 5: ferruginous gravel Layer 6: laminated clay Not excavated Mud balls Calcrete nodules Burrows Brick intrusions

Area excavated (2002)

Acheulian 3.5 m

6m

5.5 m

5m

4.5 m

4m

3.5 m

3m

2.5 m

2m

1.5 m

1m

0.5 m

0m

Geomatics Solutions Development Group (GSDG), CDAC-Pune

ATM, Trench T7A, South wall

Scale 0.25 0

Figure 2 Attirampakkam: the stratigraphic sequence. ã Sharma Centre for Heritage Education.

0.25

0.5

0.75

1

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1.5 xx

ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South 709

2m Transitional to Middle Palaeolithic

710 ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South

were buried within ferricretes/laterites and ferruginous gravels and exposed only recently owing to quarrying, construction, and section scrapings. Excavations at Attirampakkam in this region revealed Acheulian assemblages in fine-grained ferruginous gravels where evidence of on-site lithic manufacture and conjoining pieces point to a high degree of preservation. Sites occurring in colluvial deposits are noted again in most regions, and are relatively undisturbed. In the Hunsgi valley, such sites occur close to the foothill zone of the tableland, where the deposit measures more than 1 m across, and artifacts are unabraded. In the Ghataprabha–Malaprabha complex, sites occur on gently sloping pediment surfaces at the foot of the Kaladgi hills, in deposits formed by a mass-wasting process. These are unstratified, located either close to the river or 1–3 km from the present stream channels, as well as in talus and colluvial deposits where they are relatively undisturbed. Later studies in this region led to the demarcation of sites within and on the surface of alluvial fans, and a reinterpretation of sites such as Anagawadi and Kovalli, as representing a series of coalescent alluvial fans. In the Lakhmapur complex, sites are clustered around the fan complex north of the Kaladgi escarpment and away from the river. Among primary sites, those resting on weathered bedrock and sealed by later deposits are noted in excavations in the Hunsgi complex, where Acheulian occupation on bedrock is sealed by gruss derived from weathering of granites. Recent excavations at Isampur in the Hunsgi valley revealed a primary site located on a siliceous limestone pediment capped by 1–3 m of silts. In the Hunsgi valley, some primary sites occur in soft sediments, on the surface of travertine deposits and covered by black soils. Several sites in the Baichbal valley occur as distinct lenses in a brownish clay deposit in a 3 m section comprising locally derived granite/basalt detritus. A detailed study of the Krishna–Tungabhadra Doab led to the discovery of sites found on limestone beds and covered by 0.30–0.50 m of thick yellowish-brown soil. Sites associated with laterites/ferricretes and elements associated with lateritic landscapes are common all over the southeast coast, in the Kortallaiyar complex of Tamil Nadu, and in the Nellore and Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh. In the Kortallaiyar basin, Acheulian sites occur within ferricretes and ferruginous gravels as revealed by field studies and excavations at Attirampakkam, where tools occur in layer 5, overlying clays also bearing Acheulian tools (Figure 3). Recent studies in the Malaprabha basin, Karnataka, at Lakhmapur West, revealed Acheulian tools in unit III, a stone line, and in the Malaprabha valley as a whole; the buried and well-developed

nodular laterites are linked with Acheulian occupations. In the case of the nonbiface assemblages, at the site of Rishikonda, 250 m inland along the east coast, pebble tools occur at the junction of a pebblybouldery gravel on a lateritic gravel resting on bedrock, on a wave-cut terrace. A unique context noted at Attirampakkam was the presence of Acheulian tools, within clays, which were previously assigned to the Cretaceous period (Figure 4). Taking into account lithic technology, on typotechnological grounds assemblages consist of the Acheulian biface complex, marked by handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, knives, retouched light and heavy duty flakes, chopper-chopping tools, a few borers and burins, cores and debitage. Pebble tool assemblages lacking the biface element, and comprising chopper-chopping

Figure 3 Attirampakkam: Acheulian artifacts in ferruginous gravels.

Figure 4 Attirampakkam: Acheulian artifacts in clays.

ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South 711

tools, scrapers, borers on pebbles and large flakes are noted at several sites in Kerala, at Rishikonda along the east coast, and at Nittur in Karnataka. It is as yet unclear as to how these industries relate to the Acheulian, either in terms of chronology or technology, although some scholars believe these represent a pre-Acheulian phase. In the Acheulian complex, the predominant raw materials used were a variety of quartzites derived from local geological formations, generally within a radius of 1–4 km of the site. These occur in the form of river gravels, high-level gravels, talus, and colluvial deposits or outcrops from which nodules and chunks were utilized. Recent excavations at Attirampakkam, point to transport of tools from within a radius of around 3 km in the lower levels of layer 6; whilst in the overlying ferruginous gravel horizon (layer 5), on-site manufacture of tools, as well as localized transport of boulder cores is noted (Figure 5). In the Hunsgi complex, studies point to caching of handaxes, evidence of curation, as well as long-distance transport at Mudnur X, and greater transport of bifaces as compared to cores and hammers (although in all cases this is less than 1 km). A small percentage of other raw materials were also used, such as quartzitic sandstones or sandstones (in the Kortallaiyar basin) or chert, quartz, and sandstone (Anagawadi). In the Lakhmapur complex in the Malaprabha basin, mineralogical studies indicate that tools are on quartzites sourced from neighboring quartzite outcrops. An interesting feature seen in the Kurnool complex is that in the eastern and western parts of the Nallamalais of the eastern division, finegrained quartzites from water worn river pebbles were preferred, while in the adjoining Erramalais, of the central division, siliceous raw materials were used, with little effort made to import raw material from adjoining regions. In the Hunsgi–Baichbal basin, the most notable feature is the predominant use of limestone, of the Bhima series which occurs in the

Figure 5 Acheulian tools at Attirampakkam.

form of nodules or blocks eroding out of the conglomerates on the valley floor. The site of Isampur is the first-known Acheulian quarry site in South Asia. This has evidence of choices exercised in raw materials used for hammerstones, and evidence of levering action by hominins to extract slabs. Interestingly, in the adjoining Baichbal basin, tools were principally on granite gneisses and schistose rocks as compared to the use of limestone in the Hunsgi valley. In the pebble tool complex of Kerala, tools are on quartz and gneissic rocks, and at Nittur, on dolerites. In the Krishna–Tungabhadra Doab region, site locations are tied to raw material sources, and variability in these sources determines whether pebbles, cobbles, or chunks were used as blanks. Similarly, in the Middle Krishna basin, the paucity of sites is linked to raw material constraints. As elsewhere in India, the Acheulian has been divided into an Earlier and Later Phase, with early scholars referring to cruder ‘Abbevillian’ industries; and in some cases with both ‘Early’ and ‘Late’ technological trends often occurring in the same region or locality. In these cases, scholars have often divided an assemblage into groups based on artifact rounding, abrasion, patination, and flaking technology into older or younger phases. Acheulian tools were on pebbles and cobbles, chunks, slabs, nodules, and flakes. Evidence of both hard hammer techniques as well as more refined flaking, prepared core techniques, Victoria West and Vaal techniques are documented. Rolled artifacts termed as ‘crude’, with pebble-based tools, deep flake scars, predominance of choppers are seen at Rallakalava A, Sagileru Group 1, (Nandipalle and Vadamanu) and Nalgonda Group 1, some localities in Nagarjunakonda and Giddalur, where evolution of the Acheulian is also noted. Evolved Acheulian traditions are also noted at these sites. The predominant use of pebble tools, or tools on pebble blanks is seen in the Nellore and Bellary regions, and at Kurnool. It is argued that the chopper-chopping element is an intrinsic part of the Acheulian, and regional variability seen here is largely a matter of raw material constraints. Variability in handaxe types is also noted by scholars, both within and between regions, both in the nature of blanks used and in the degree of flaking, standardization, and symmetry. At several excavated sites such as Lakhmapur and Attirampakkam, evidence of industries transitional to the Middle Palaeolithic is noted, and observations of surface scatters also indicate this trend (Figure 6). V. Jayaswal singles out the Nittur complex as resembling other chopperchopping tool complexes of India, which also include the Soan industries. She also situates the site of Vadamanu in the Sagileru complex as part of a group constituting a high percentage of chopper-chopping

712 ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South

finished tools to the site for resource exploitation and did not manufacture bifaces on site. In later levels, on-site manufacture and use of tools is documented.

The Middle Palaeolithic

Figure 6 Middle Palaeolithic artifacts at Attirampakkam. ã Sharma Centre for Heritage Education, India.

tools as contrasted with handaxes and cleavers. The rest of the sites in South India are classified within the handaxe-cleaver group, with the exception being Nagarjundakonda-1, which has a predominance of cleavers, and is compared with the excavated sites of Chirki-Nevasa and Lalitpur, in western and northern India, respectively. Inferences on hominin behavior are drawn from settlement pattern studies in the Hungsi–Baichbal basins, which have led to a classification of sites into occupation sites, scavenging or food-processing localities, tool caches, and sites with single episodes of activities. This pattern is noted in other regions and sites are divided into base camps, workshops, and transient camps, based on site size, artifact density, and assemblage composition. Drawing on ethnographic and ecological models, K. Paddayya suggested seasonal movements of hominin groups in the Hunsgi valley involving dry season aggregation in the valley where water was available in the form of springs and in streams; and wet season dispersion, in accordance with the movement of game and seasonality of plant resources. Excavations at Isampur revealed hominin quarrying of limestone slabs for tool manufacture; raising issues of sociality and cognition. The importance of site-formation studies has also contributed to new approaches toward examining behavior in this region. In the Lakhmapur region, behavior in terms of exploiting raw material resources has been examined. Excavations at Attirampakkam revealed that during the earliest Acheulian occupation, hominins brought

The distribution of Middle Palaeolithic sites in South India roughly parallels that of the Lower Palaeolithic. For the first time, there was an expansion into southern Tamil Nadu, as also the first occupation of rock shelters such as Gudiyam in the Allikulli hills of Tamil Nadu, and the karstic cave of Belum in Kurnool district. In the Hunsgi–Baichbal complex, settlements expanded outside the valley floor into the surrounding plateaux. In the Kaladgi basin, in the Ghataprabha– Malaprabha complex, most Middle Palaeolithic sites occur in the same locales as the Acheulian, in the semi-arid lower reaches of the valley and much less than in the subhumid middle and upper reaches, and proliferate in regions with good development of chert formations. In the Krishna–Tungabhadra Doab, for the first time, hominins entered the savanna woodland zone. There are very few chronometric dates for what is termed the Middle Palaeolithic in India. Nandipalle in the Sagileru basin (1.11–1.26 m in clayey silts; from gastropod shells) dates to 23 670
640, 690; (half-life 5568
30 years) and 24 360
660, 710 (halflife 5730
40) (PRL –293). However, the Indian Middle Palaeolithic is in general bracketed between 150 kyr BP to around 30 kyr BP. Stratigraphically, most such sites in southern India are surface collections, often found in a mixed context with the Acheulian. However, stratified sites show that they overlie Acheulian horizons, and occur in a wide range of sedimentary contexts. In most areas, sites occur in finer fluvial gravels, termed gravel II, and sometimes separated by fine sediments from gravels bearing Acheulian artifacts (e.g., Sagileru complex and Kurnool complex). In the Hunsgi–Baichbal complex, they occur in a brown silt overlying the Acheulian, and often associated with it. In the Ghataprabha–Malaprabha complex, sites occur on the eroded surface of high-level gravels, in alluvial or channel gravel beds, on the surface of pediments, in talus and colluvial deposits, and as surface sites near raw material. In the Lakhmapur complex, Middle Palaeolithic tools were identified in black clays, palaeovertisols (unit II) resting uncomfortably over a nodular laterite (unit III), as also in the top of the unit III, but are reworked. In another complex, tools were noted in laterite (unit III) resting on the top of an indurated portion of the section (unit IV), along the distal margins of a pediment slope. In the Middle Krishna valley, sites were in association with highlevelgravels and the first major occupation of this

ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South 713

region occurred owing to the abundance of raw material in these gravels.The unique occurrence of Middle Palaeolithic artifacts in red beds at a depth of 3.2 m is noted at the site of Ramayogi Agraharam, along the Visakhapatnam coast, Andhra Pradesh. In the Kortallaiyar river basin, Tamil Nadu, artifacts occur eroding out of ferruginous gravel deposits, and on the surface of eroded bedrock. At Attirampakkam, tools are noted in layer 2, a fine ferruginous gravel. Over most of South India, quartzites continued to be used, with a preference for fine-grained rocks. Some regions witnessed a shift toward siliceous raw materials (chert, jasper, quartz) available in the form of nodules eroding from chert veins, outcrops, river, and high-level gravels. This is seen in the Krishna– Tungabhadra basin, the Cuddappah complex, and the Kurnool region, where there is the additional use of indurated shale, slate, quartz, and basalt; as also in the Hunsgi–Baichbal basins, and sites in the Kaladgi basin. Regional variability within complexes is also noted. Thus, in the Sagileru complex, while quartzites continued to be used, a complete switch to siliceous raw materials is seen at the site of Vemula. Similarly, in the Krishna–Tungabhadra Doab, distinct regional variability is seen in the use of quartzite, chert, and jasper at different sites. At Ramayogi Agraharam, khondalites were used. The Middle Palaeolithic is generally characterized by a predominance of flake tools: scrapers, borers, and points, along with a continuation of handaxes (which become diminutive), and chopper-chopping tools. However, tools were also made on chunks and nodules, and many authors note a decline in standardization and refinement of tools as compared to the Acheulian. The prepared core technique and blade techniques predominate along with use of simple flakes and minimal retouch, although along the southeast coast the Levallois element is thought to be negligible. In excavated sites such as Kovalli, evidence of the prepared core technique was noted with predominance of cores and debitage and fewer scrapers, borers, scrapers-cum-borers, and points. At a number of sites, tools were on nodules as well as on flakes struck from nodules. Shouldered tools, tanged points and miniature handaxes, blunting on flakes and flake blades are also noted at several sites. With the exception of the Gunjana complex of sites (with a high percentage of handaxes), scrapers and points predominate in most regions. In the Kortallaiyar river basin, hominins exploited locally available raw material sources (cobbles, pebbles, thermal fracture flakes) in an expedient manner, with minimal retouch and trimming. Prepared core and blade techniques are noted as also a continuation of tool types and techniques associated with the Acheulian.

Inferences on behavior are sporadic. In the Krishna– Tungabhadra Doab, sites are classified into base camps and transient sites, or factory sites. Similarly, Kovalli in the Kaladgi region is designated as a factory site. In the Kortallaiyar basin, technological strategies and assemblage composition along with studies of site-formation processes were used to infer site functions and suggest possible alternate mobility patterns across the landscape.

The Upper Palaeolithic The Upper Palaeolithic cultures of South India are distributed in a wide range of ecozones. Although, the Terminal Pleistocene was a period of greater aridity in South Asia, evidence from the Kurnool caves as well as from other sites in the Krishna and Godavari valleys indicates a grassland ecosystem with forest cover, swamps, and pools. The same pattern of tropical semi-arid monsoon climate is thought to have prevailed in southern India during this phase. Faunal remains from the Kurnool caves with Rhinoceros karnuliensis, Boselephas tragocamelus, Gazella gazella, Antelope cervicapra, Tetraceros quadricornis, Cervus unicolor, Axis axis, and Tragulus cf. memmina, point to scrub-to-tree jungle type of thick vegetation with open expanses of grasses and a source of water in streams. Cave sediments in the Kurnool region were deposited under somewhat humid conditions. Fluvial changes in river regimes have been documented. A number of chronometric dates available from sites in India bracket this phase between 40 kyr and 10 kyr BP with regional variability. In South India dates from Nandipalle on freshwater gastropod shells are 24 260
600, 710 and 17 390
10%. Burnt clay samples from a fireplace in the Upper Palaeolithic levels at the cave site of Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi II gave a TL date of 17 390
10 BP. A date from Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, on freshwater shells is around 25 160
850. Sites are distributed all over southern India, with once again a few noted in Tamil Nadu and none in Kerala. In the Gunjana complex, sites occur as surface scatters, but excavations at Vodikallu revealed that artifacts occur in a fine loam possibly deposited by a sluggish stream, which covered cultural material lying exposed on the adjacent land surface. In the Rallakalava complex, artifacts occur on the eroded surface of the first aggradational terrace of the stream, and sites are found in association with sands. At sites in the Shorapur Doab, a black brown silt with lenses of loose pebbly granular gravel yielded blade tools. The best-known complex of sites lie in the Kurnool karstic cave complex, where Muchchatla Chintamanu Gavi (MCG) was excavated as also were Billa Surgam

714 ASIA, WEST/India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South

and Kottala Polimera Gavi. The MCG complex yielded the best evidence of the Upper Palaeolithic, both within caves and in the surroundings. Here, Upper Palaeolithic tools were noted below an upper cave earth in brown and chocolate brown poorly sorted deposits consisting of rockfall in a brown clayey sediment resulting from disintegrated limestone bedrock. Upper Palaeolithic site sizes vary greatly, and extend up to 20 000 m2 as seen in the southeastern fringes of the Eastern Ghats. In the Eastern Ghats, the sites are concentrated around riverine zones, marked by high artifact densities pointing to long-term occupation. Siliceous raw materials as well as quartz were now preferred, although fine-grained quartzites continued to be used. Regional variability is marked. In the Rallakalava complex, fluted cores and tools on blades are noted along with cores, scrapers, and choppers. The distinctive features include large-sized blades and blade tools and robust burins. Along the eastern coastal plain, the blunted backed blade element forms a significant part of the tool kit at some sites. Variability is also seen in the form of a tendency toward microlithization at some sites, indicating a trend toward the Mesolithic. In the Eastern Ghats, the blade tool complex comprises long parallel-sided blades, irregular blades, flake-blades, flakes, burins, borers, blade and flake cores, and debitage. The predominance of unmodified blades, flake blades and flakes, and the presence of an amorphous element are notable, with a low backed blade component. In the southeastern outliers of the Eastern Ghats, irregular and pointed blades, scrapers on blades, and flakes, denticulates, horse hoof scrapers on blade cores, prismatic curved back points, backed knives, macro lunates, macro triangles, and burins predominate. The burins, backed blades, and end scrapers are refined and are almost microlithic in form. Here, the presence of bored stones (possible net sinkers) and grinding slabs is notable. The sites of Salvadgi and Meralbhavi in the Shorapur Doab, Karnataka, are termed as workshops with two distinct stone working traditions: one characterized by manufacture of scraper-point-borer category of tools on flakes and flake-blades and the other by the production of blade tools. In the Gunjana complex, manufacturing sites could be identified with a high percentage of cores and debitage, a predominance of backed blade variants and scrapers, and a few burins, with tools tending toward microliths and representing a possible Late Upper or Epipalaeolithic phase. Excavations at the site of Vodikallu in this region yielded grinding stones and rubbers which testify to processing of plant food. Within the Kurnool cave complex, excavations at MCG yielded a wealth of blades and blade tools, along with a significant component of bone tools including perforators (some with fire-hardened

tips), scrapers, chisels, scoops, shouldered points, spatulae, worked bones, and bone blanks. This complex also has a paucity of retouched tools on blades or flakes, while backed blade variants, several burin types and other forms are absent or rare; and the culture is assigned to an incipient facies of the Upper Palaeolithic. In terms of behavioral implications, it was suggested that the cave was possibly neither a kill site nor a permanent settlement, but a transient camp, used when it received sufficient light. The scatters of sporadic artifacts in the surrounding region suggest a nomadic lifestyle. Ethnographic parallels are drawn on to explain seasonality in movement across this landscape.

Conclusion and Future Trends The South Indian Palaeolithic has yielded evidence of Early Acheulian sites which may date back to as old as 1 myr BP. Evolution within the Acheulian is noted from stratified sites, as well as from surface collections. Regional variability in raw material usage, site location and hominin behavior is also clear. Sites such as Attirampakkam display a stratified sequence of industries in well-preserved contexts, with the potential for informing on long-term adaptations to changing environments. Excavations at Isampur have revealed the first Acheulian quarry site in South Asia (see Asia, South: Paleolithic Cultures). The place of non-biface Acheulian industries requires further study. Industries transitional with the Middle Palaeolithic have been documented from numerous surface sites, as also from excavations at Lakhmapur and Attirampakkam. Regional variability in terms of raw material and tool types is seen in this phase. The origins of the Upper Palaeolithic are relatively less clear, although distinct trends in blade and burin industries are seen, with the best-documented sites located in the karstic cave complexes of Kurnool district. Recent multidisciplinary efforts in the Kortallaiyar basin and in the Hunsgi–Baichbal and Lakhmapur complexes, point to new approaches toward understanding these cultures. Future studies need to focus on generating more chronometric dates and on multidisciplinary studies for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Questions related to hominin dispersals, evolution of the Acheulian, position of the pebble industries, transitional industries, and origins of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic require to be addressed and placed within a global perspective. See also: Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, South: India, Deccan and Central Plateau; Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, Southeast: Pre-agricultural Peoples.

ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization 715

Further Reading Allchin B (1997) The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mishra S (1995) Chronology of the Indian stone age: the impact of recent absolute and relative dating attempts. Man and Environment XX(2): 11–16. Misra VN (1989) Stone age India: An ecological perspective. Man and Environment 14: 17–64. Murty MLK (1979) Recent research on the Upper Palaeolithic Phase in India. Journal of Field Archaeology 6(3): 301–320. Murty MLK (1985) Ethnoarchaeology of the Kurnool cave areas. World Prehistory 17(2): 192–205. Paddayya K (1982) The Acheulian Culture of the Hunsgi Valley (Peninsular India): A Settlement System Perspective. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute. Paddayya K (1984) India: old stone age. In: Bar-Yosef O (ed.) Neue Forschungen zur Altsteinzeit. Sonderdruck, pp. 345–403. Munich: Verlag C.H Beck. Pappu RS (2001) Acheulian Culture in Peninsular India. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld. Pappu RS and Deo SG (1994) Man-Land Relationships During Palaeolithic Times in the Kaladgi Basin, Karnataka. Pune: Deccan College. Pappu S (1999) A study of natural site formation processes in the Kortallaiyar Basin, Tamil Nadu, South India. Geoarchaeology, An International Journal 14(2): 127–150. Pappu S (2001) BAR-International Series 1003:. A Re-examination of the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record of Northern Tamil Nadu, South India. Oxford: BAR. Pappu S (2001) Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology in the Kortallaiyar Basin, South India. Antiquity 75: 107–117. Pappu S, Gunnell Y, Taieb M, Brugal J-P, and Touchard Y (2003) Ongoing excavations at the Palaeolithic site of Attirampakkam, South India: Preliminary findings. Current Anthropology 44(4): 591–597. Pappu S, Gunnell Y, Taieb M, and Kumar A (2004) Preliminary report on excavations at the Palaeolithic site of Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu (1999–2004). Man and Environment XXIX(2): 1–17. Petraglia MD (1998) The Lower Palaeolithic of India and its bearing on the Asian record. In: Petraglia MD and Korisettar R (eds.) Early Human Behaviour in Global Context. The Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record, pp. 343–390. London: Routledge. Petraglia MD, LaPorta P, and Paddayya K (1999) The first Acheulian quarry in India: Stone tool manufacture, biface morphology and behavior. Journal of Anthropological Research 55: 39–70.

Indus Civilization Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Dholavira One of the largest and most prominent archaeological sites in India, belonging to the Indus civilization. It is located on the Khadir island in the Kutch district of Gujarat. Mehrgarh One of the most important Neolithic (7000–3200 BCE) sites in archaeology, lies on the Kachi plain of Baluchistan,

Pakistan, and is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming (wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats) in South Asia. Great Bath The earliest public water tank in ancient South Asia is one of the most spectacular features of Mohenjo-daro. Indus script (Harappan script) Refers to the undeciphered writing system consisting of short strings of symbols found on pottery and seals. Used between 2600–1900 BC and associated with the Harappan period settlements of the Indus civilization.

Indus Civilization Introduction

The Indus civilization is a general term that refers to the first urban society that emerged in the greater Indus valley of Pakistan and northwestern India, between 2600 and 1900 BC. This urban society was first discovered in the 1920s and has also been called the Harappa culture after the type site of Harappa, Pakistan where it was first discovered. Other common names that are found in the literature include the Indus valley civilization and the Indus–Saraswati civilization. Another common terminology that will be used in this essay uses the framework of long-term cultural traditions to examine the origin, character, and eventual decline of a civilization. The Indus tradition (also called the Indus valley tradition) refers to the wide range of human adaptations in the greater Indus region over a long span of history, approximately 10 000 to 1000 BC. The Indus tradition encompasses all adaptive strategies that contributed to the emergence and decline of the first phase of urbanism, including hunting-foraging the origins of agriculture and specialized crafts, the emergence of cities and state-level society, and finally the transformation and decline of the Indus cities (Figure 1). In addition to the Indus, three other major cultural traditions relating to the initial emergence of urbanism can be identified for the northwestern subcontinent: the Baluchistan, Helmand, and the Bactro-Margiana Traditions. These cultural traditions are linked in different ways to processes of socioeconomic and political developments in the subcontinent, beginning as early as the Palaeolithic and continuing through the Early Historic period. The Indus tradition can be subdivided into ‘eras’ and ‘phases’ that are roughly correlated to major adaptive strategies and regional material cultural styles (Table 1). A brief summary of each major era is provided below in order to provide a larger context in which to discuss the urban Harappa phase, of the Integration era, which is the main focus of this essay.

716 ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization

Chronological Framework: Origin to Decline Earlier models for the origin of the Indus civilization proposed that it was the result of direct or indirect influence from urban societies in Mesopotamia or Iran to the west. Over the past several decades, new excavations and better radiocarbon dating have resulted in more complex models for interpreting the origins and transformations of this early urban society. The Indus region was clearly not isolated from the events going on in other parts of West Asia; nevertheless, the origin of Indus cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro can be traced to indigenous socioeconomic and political processes. Continued

archaeological excavations in both India and Pakistan have revealed the presence of numerous different types of sites that provide a more complete understanding of the origins and decline of the Indus civilization. While most scholars look to the Early Neolithic as the foundation of later urban centers, it is important to include a discussion of hunting and foraging communities who have continued to coexist and interact with settled communities throughout human history. With the retreat of glaciers in the northern subcontinent around 12 000–10 000 years ago and changes in climate, major changes in the species and distributions of fauna and flora in the South Asian subcontinent resulted in the establishment of new strategies of

Oxus (Amu Darya)

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Figure 1 Major traditions in South Asia.

ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization 717 Table 1 Indus Tradition Foraging era Mesolithic and Microlithic

10 000–2000 BCE

Early Food Producing era Mehrgarh Phase

7000–5500 BCE

Regionalization era Early Harappa phases Ravi, Hakra, Sheri Khan Tarakai, Balakot, Amri, Kot Diji, Sothi

5500–2600 BCE

Integration era Harappan phase Subdivided at the site of Harappa into Period 3A – 2600–2450 BC Period 3B – 2450–2200 BC Period 3C – 2200–1900 BC Localization era Late Harappan phases Punjab, Jhukar, Rangpur

2600–1900 BCE

1900–1300 BCE

foraging and hunting. The ‘Foraging era’ represents a relatively long period of time and broad geographical area where mobile and semisedentary foraging and hunting communities began focusing on intensive exploitation of specific plants and animals. In parts of Afghanistan and the edges of the Indus valley these adaptive strategies eventually contributed to the domestication of humped zebu cattle and possibly other species of animals and plants. During the Neolithic or ‘Early Food Producing era’, which dates to around 7000–5500 BCE at sites such as Mehrgarh, Pakistan, there is evidence for the emergence of wheat and barley agriculture and the herding of domestic cattle, along with sheep and goat. These plants and animals became the primary subsistence base for the development of larger towns and eventually cities in the Indus region. Major trade networks were also established during this period, connecting small agro-pastoral communities with distant resource areas. These networks extended from the Arabian Sea along the Makran coast to the highlands of northern Afghanistan, and from the Baluchistan hills to the deserts of Sindh and Rajasthan. In the subsequent Chalcolithic or ‘Regionalization era’, 5500–2600 BCE, distinctive regional cultures became established in the northern and southern alluvial plain, as well as in surrounding regions. Small villages became established in agriculturally rich areas and larger villages grew up along the major trade routes linking each geographical region and resource area. Some settlements, such as Mehrgarh, which is situated at the base of the Bolan Pass, became important craft production and trade centers. At Mehrgarh a wide suite of specialized crafts were developed for local use as well as for regional trade: pottery making, stone bead making, shell ornament production, copper

working, and eventually bronze working, as well as glazed steatite and faience bead making. Distinctive pottery styles and painted designs, along with regional human and animal figurine styles can be seen in other regions at sites such as Rehman Dheri (Gomal Plain), Sheri Khan Tarakai and Tarakai Qila (Bannu Basin), Sarai Khola (Taxila Valley), Harappa and Jalilpur (central Punjab), Siswal (Haryana), Kot Diji (Sindh), Amri and Ghazi Shah (southern Sindh), Nal/Sohr Damb (southern Baluchistan), and Balakot (Makran coast). Different regional cultures of phases have been named after the regions or sites where they were first discovered, such as Hakra, Ravi, Sothi, Amri, and Kot Diji phases. These cultures are collectively referred to as Early Harappan, because they set the foundation for the development of major urban centers in the core agricultural regions and at important crossroads. In addition to the developments in the core areas of the Indus and Saraswati–Ghaggar–Hakra valleys, recent excavations in Gujarat, India reveal the establishment of Early Harappan cultural traditions in Kutch and Saurashtra. The sites of Dholavira, Loteshwar, and Nagwada appear to have links to Amri and Kot Diji phase cultures in Sindh, but also reflect a local tradition from Gujarat, sometimes referred to as the Anarta culture. Many of the raw materials traded during the Early Harappan period derive from Gujarat, but the degree to which local cultures in Gujarat contributed to the Early Harappan and subsequent Harappan cultural traditions is still under investigation. At the end of the Regionalization era, during the ‘Kot Diji phase’, the first urban centers began to emerge in the Indus and Saraswati–Ghaggar–Hakra plain. At the site of Harappa, which is the bestdocumented settlement, the early urban phase dates from around 2800 to 2600 BCE (Figure 2). This settlement grew to more than 25 ha in area and was divided into two walled sectors. Smaller villages dating to the same time period have been discovered in the hinterland around Harappa and reveal that the site was a central place in an urban network and also had links to distant resource areas. At Harappa there is evidence for the first use of the ‘Early Indus script’, standardized weights, writing, and square stamp seals that were used to stamp clay sealings on bundles of goods or store rooms. Other small and large sites dating to this period reveal local developments in artifact styles, stamp seal styles, graffiti on pottery, and settlement planning. Standardized mud bricks used for building city walls and domestic architecture also appear at this time. The use of cardinal directions for orienting streets and buildings, and the use of bullock carts for transport of heavy commodities into the settlement begins during the Kot Diji phase at Harappa and numerous other sites

718 ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization 60

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Figure 2 Major geographical regions and prehistoric sites.

throughout the greater Indus region. Together these developments confirm the emergence of hierarchical social, economic, and political systems associated with early urbanism. Kot Diji phase sites have been found in the Gomal plain (Rehman Dheri), Kacchi plain (Nausharo), Taxila valley (Sarai Khola), along the bed of the Ghaggar–Hakra river (Jaliwali, Gamanwala, etc.), in the southern Indus region (Mohenjo-daro, Kot Diji, and Ghazi Shah), as well as in Kutch (Dholavira). The precise nature of regional interaction and chronology of local cultural developments is still unclear, but taken as a whole, these sites set the stage for the rise of large urban centers that came to dominate the greater Indus valley region. The Integration era, Harappa phase, dates from around 2600 to 1900 BCE, and it is during this long time span that cities such as Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, and Ganweriwala grew to their largest extent (Figure 3). This 700-year period can now be divided into three subphases on the basis

of changes in pottery, use of seals, and architecture as seen at the site of Harappa and other major settlements. Although the precise dates may differ from one site to another, at Harappa, these subphases are referred to as period 3A (2600–2450 BCE), 3B (2450–2200 BCE), and 3C (2200–1900 BCE). Some scholars still refer to this long time span as the ‘mature’ Harappan period (or Mature Harappan), but excavations and radiocarbon dating at the site of Harappa indicate that the artifact types generally associated with the so-called ‘mature’ Harappan period actually only occur during the last half of this 700-year time span. During the Harappa phase, the largest urban centers may have directly controlled their surrounding hinterland, but there is no evidence for hereditary monarchies or the establishment of centralized territorial states that controlled the entire Indus region. Cities, such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and Dholavira were clearly being ruled by influential elites, probably a combination of merchants, landowners, and religious

ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization 719

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Figure 3 Integration era, Harappa phase sites.

leaders. Smaller towns and villages may have been run by corporate groups such as town councils or individual charismatic leaders, but there is a conspicuous absence of central temples, palaces and elaborate elite burials that are characteristic of elites in other early urban societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. Hierarchical social order and stratified society is reflected in architecture and settlement patterns, as well as artifact styles and the organization of technological production. A vast network of internal trade and exchange and a shared ideology united the greater Indus valley. There was widespread use of similar styles of pottery, figurines, ornaments, the distinctive Indus script, seals, and standardized weights. Massive mud-brick walls surrounded most large settlements, and appear to have functioned primarily for control of trade access into the cities. These walls also would have served as formidable defenses, but there is no evidence for major conflict or warfare at any major center. A more detailed discussion of the Harappa phase will be presented below.

During the ‘Localization era’, ‘Late Harappan phases’, from 1900 to 1300 BCE or even as late at 1000 BCE, the major cities and their supporting settlements began to lose power due a number of factors. Shifting river patterns and the eventual drying up of the Saraswati–Ghaggar–Hakra River resulted in the abandonment of many sites and migration into the Indus valley, Gujarat or to the Ganga–Yamuna valley. The disruption of agriculture and the eventual breakdown of trade and political networks led to the decline of urbanism and the disappearance of many distinctive features of the Indus culture. The Indus script and inscribed seals were no longer used, and writing disappeared along with the use of cubical stone weights and many forms of symbolic objects. Other social and religious factors also contributed to the gradual reorganization of trade and technology and the emergence of new cultural, political and religious traditions. Although changes in material culture and socioritual traditions are well documented, there are also

720 ASIA, WEST/Indus Civilization

significant continuities. Even though cubical stone weights disappeared, the weight system used during the Early Harappan and Harappan periods continued in use in later periods and is still used in South Asia today. Other continuities are seen in pottery styles and technology, some symbolic objects, overall site layout, the use of standardized bricks, etc. These continuities justify the use of the term Late Harappan to characterize many of these traditions. The Punjab phase, Cemetery H culture spread throughout the Punjab and Ganga–Yamuna region, the Jhukar phase and related cultures were found in Sindh and Baluchistan, and the Rangpur phase includes the Lustrous Red Ware and associated Black-and-Red ware cultures that were present in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Malwa Plateau. In the northern Indus valley and parts of Baluchistan some sites show an overlap between Late Harappan and Bactro-Margiana material culture. In the Gangetic region there is overlap with the Copper Hoards culture, the Ochre Colored Pottery, and Painted Gray Ware culture. Some of these cultures may be associated with Indo-Aryan speaking Vedic communities mentioned in the sacred hymns of the Rig Veda and later Brahmanical texts, but there is little consensus among scholars on this point. Considerable research still remains to be done on this transitional period, but some answers should be forthcoming from the many new sites that have been discovered in northern Pakistan and India.

Geographical Setting The greater Indus valley refers to a vast area drained by the various tributaries of the Indus River and a parallel (now dry) river that is variously referred to as the Saraswati–Ghaggar–Hakra–Nara River. The Indus tributaries emerge from the Kirthar and Suleiman mountains of Baluchistan on the west, the Hindu-Kush and Karakorum to the northwest, the Pamir and the Himalaya to the north and east. All of these mountainous regions have played an important role in providing minerals, timber, and trade routes to adjacent cultural centers in Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The second major river has different names along its length. In the north are several tributaries, one of which is today called the Saraswati. Some scholars suggest that this was the sacred Saraswati River mentioned in the Rig Veda and other Brahmanical texts, but so far it has not been possible to confirm this identification. In the midsection it is called Ghaggar or Hakra and the depression where it appears to have flowed in the south is called the Nara. This ancient river, which will be referred to as the Ghaggar–Hakra, flowed

to the east and generally parallel to the Indus River. The Sutlej (ancient Satadru), which now flows into the Indus, appears to have been a tributary of the Ghaggar–Hakra system. The Ghaggar–Hakra appears to have reached the Rann of Kutch during the Regionalization era, but began drying up and eventually disappeared in the middle of the Cholistan desert toward the end of the Harappa phase or during the Late Harappan period. To the east, the greater Indus valley is bordered by the Thar Desert and the Aravalli mountains, both of which are rich in mineral resources used by communities of the Indus region. On the southeast lie the islands of Kutch, the peninsula of Saurashtra, and the mainland of Gujarat. The combined deltas of the Indus and the Ghaggar–Hakra Rivers extend from the Greater Rann of Kutch in the east to the rocky coast of Baluchistan near modern Karachi in the west. The coastal settlements in the Makran, Kutch, and Saurashtra appear to have had connections across the Arabian Sea to the coasts of modern Oman and the Persian Gulf. Although no purely Harappan site has been found on the Arabian Peninsula, many Indus artifacts have been found in coastal and some inland settlements.

Climate of the Greater Indus Region The Indus valley and adjacent regions are dominated by two major weather systems, the winter cyclonic system of the western highlands and the summer monsoon system of the peninsular subcontinent. The winter cyclonic system produces snowfall in Baluchistan and rainfall in parts of the Indus valley. The summer monsoon brings scattered rainfall to Sindh and Gujarat and heavy rainfall to the northern Indus plain, with rain and snow in the high mountains in the north. These two systems overlap in the Indus valley and if one system fails the other usually provides sufficient precipitation to support large populations throughout the region. The main crop cycles in the Indus valley region are aligned with the winter rains and the summer monsoon rains. Recent models of global climate indicate that, at 18 000–9000 BP, southern Asia would have been cooler and drier than today, with a weak summer monsoon. From 9000 to 7000 BP, there appears to have been a stronger summer monsoon, warmer summers, and cooler winters. Although these models work at the macrolevel, they cannot be confirmed through detailed analysis of specific sites or regions. Generally speaking, there is no evidence for major changes in climate or rainfall since at least 9000 BP. Specific regional environmental changes that directly impacted human settlement in the greater Indus region can

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generally be attributed to changing river-flow patterns and humanly induced erosion or soil degradation.

Subsistence Strategies Indus cities and villages were provisioned through a combination of intensive and extensive agriculture, combined with animal husbandry, and supplemented by fishing and hunting. During the Harappa phase, two major crops could have been harvested in some regions provided there was sufficient winter rain and summer flooding or rains. Agricultural fields were watered primarily by annual rainfall and seasonal flooding, but water-diversion channels, and dams for trapping soil and moisture are common along the Baluchistan piedmont and in parts of Kutch. Irrigation canals have been found at the site of Shortughai along the Amu Darya or Oxus River in Afghanistan, but there is no evidence for the construction of large-scale irrigation channels as was common in Mesopotamia at the time. Smaller fields and vegetable plots would have been watered by wells, which are found at most Harappa phase sites, and reservoirs like those found at Lothal and Dholavira. The brick-lined tank at Lothal was filled with river overflow during the monsoons, and at Dholavira a series of interconnected stone-lined reservoirs were filled by a combination of river run-off, and rainfall collected from rooftops and the city wall by an elaborate system of drains within the city itself. The main winter or rabi season crops in the core regions of the Indus were wheat and barley, supplemented by pulses, sesame, peas, and vegetables. Perennial cotton could have been grown during the winter season and harvested in the spring. The kharif crops, including rice, sorghum, and various millets, would have been sown during or at the end of the summer monsoon and harvested in the fall. Rice was not common in the Indus valley itself and is found only in Gujarat during the Harappa phase. Cotton, mustard, sesame, dates, melon, and peas were also cultivated, possibly as kharif crops. The most important domestic animals were cattle (humped Bos indicus and nonhumped Bos taurus) and water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), followed in importance by sheep and goat. Although domestic pig is found in the cities, it was not a major source of meat. The domestic dog is well attested from animal bones as well as figurines, some of which depict small house pets, while others show mastiffs used in hunting. Many different types of wild animals were hunted and brought to the cities. Large game, such as elephant, rhinoceros, wild water buffalo, and various types of elk, deer, antelope and wild ass were hunted for food or for other products such as horns, antlers,

tusks and possibly their hides. Smaller animal may also have been hunted, and numerous terracotta figurines suggest that some of these small animals, such as Macaque monkeys, squirrels, and a variety of birds, were also captured for use as pets. Fishing and shellfish collection was important along the coasts and at the many settlements located along rivers and oxbow lakes. Marine shells were used for making ornaments and some riverine shells were used as tools. At the site of Harappa, which is more than 800 km from the coast, there is evidence for the trade of dried marine catfish, even though local riverine catfish were also being consumed. This trade in salted fish underscores the importance of preserved foods in the subsistence strategies of large urban centers (see Asia, South: India, Deccan and Central Plateau).

Settlement Patterns Many of the largest Indus cities were continuously occupied from the Early Harappan through the Harappan period. Consequently, the Harappa phase buildings and city walls often rose high above the surrounding plain, being constructed on top of earlier buildings and city walls. In some settlements, new suburbs were constructed out on the plain or on old city dumps, resulting in a higher older town and a lower newly built areas. At sites such as Harappa and Kalibangan, two distinct walled areas or mounds were created, and at other sites such as Mohenjo-daro, several different mounded areas were established. The landscape was dominated by large cities located at strategic positions along trade routes and in the core area of agricultural production. Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Rakhigarhi, and Dholavira are major cities, all of which are over 100 ha in area. Ganweriwala may represent a fifth major city at around 80 ha in area. The actual size of a settlement would have changed considerably over 700 years, but based on surveys of mounded ruins it is possible to identify an hierarchy of five settlement tiers: cities (greater than 80 ha), towns (10–50 ha), villages (5–10 ha), and hamlets (1–5 ha), camps (2 Myr have been reported from certain parts of South Asia – Riwat (Pakistan), Uttarbaini (India) and some other sites found in the upper Siwalik formations of the Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu. Unfortunately, the artifacts from all these places are of a nondescript type and also doubts have been expressed about their sedimentary contexts. Whatever be the uncertainty about the earliest stage of hominid occupation, the absolute dating methods have now placed at our disposal a good number of dates for fixing the chronological limits of the three regular phases within the South Asian Palaeolithic (Table 1). The Acheulian, representing the principal component of the Lower Palaeolithic, is dated to the Middle Pleistocene. The available dates range from 670 kyr to 190/66 kyr. At Bori in the Deccan, the lithic assemblage found in association with a tephra layer is dated

to 670 and 538 kyr. At Dina and Jalapur in the Jhelum Basin of Pakistan, the gravels yielding stone artifacts have been dated by palaeomagnetic stratigraphy between 600 and 400 kyr. Among the many thorium– uranium dates for sites in Rajasthan, Saurashtra, and the Deccan, there are some which indicate an age of >350 kyr for the Acheulian. More recently, Isampur in north Karnataka has given a date of 1.2 myr, thereby stretching the antiquity of the Acheulian to the Early Pleistocene. The available radiocarbon, uranium–thorium, and TL dates stretch the antiquity of the Middle Palaeolithic up to 40 kyr or the early part of last glacial stage. The evidence from 16 R sand dune at Didwana in Rajasthan suggests a still higher age. The cultural level here has been dated to 125 kyr by means of thermoluminescence. The succeeding Upper Palaeolithic has a larger number of radiocarbon dates which cluster between 19 and 25 kyr. The dates from sites like

Table 1 Absolute dates for Palaeolithic sites in South Asia Site

Material used

Method used

Possible early sites Riwat, Pakistan Uttarbaini, Siwalik hills, Jammu, India

Sediment stratigraphy Volcanic ash

Palaeomagnetism Fission–track

Sediment stratigraphy Miliolite Calcrete Calcrete Volcanic ash Volcanic ash Calcrete Elephas molar Bos molar Elephas molar Tooth-enamel, Bos sp.

Palaeomagnetism Thorium–uranium Thorium–uranium Thorium–uranium Potassium–argon Argon–argon Thorium–uranium Thorium–uranium Thorium–uranium Thorium–uranium Electron-spin resonance

Important Acheulian sites Dina and Jalapur, Pakistan Umrethi, India Didwana, India Nevasa, India Bori, India Yedurwadi, India Sadab, India Teggihalli, India Isampur, India Important Middle Palaeolithic sites in India Badalpur Dhom dam Mula dam Nandipalle Rati Karar Didwana (16 R) Important Upper Palaeolithic sites in India Bhedaghat Deoghat, Belan valley (3 dates) Chandrasal (2 dates) Inamgaon (3 dates) Mehtakeri Nagda Patne Dharangaon Muchchatlachintamanugavi (Kurnool) Dharmapuri

Age in years B.P. >1.9 Myr 1.6 (revised to 2.8) Myr 400 to 600 kyr 190 kyr >390 kyr >350 kyr 537 kyr 670 kyr >350 kyr 290 kyr 287 kyr > 350 kyr 1.2 Myr

Calcrete

C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 TL

24 kyr 37 kyr 31 kyr 23 kyr 32 kyr 125 kyr

Freshwater shells Freshwater shells Ostrich eggshell Freshwater shells Ostrich eggshell Freshwater shells Ostrich eggshell Ostrich eggshell Freshwater shells Burnt clay Freshwater shells

C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 C-14 TL C-14

25 kyr 18 to 25 kyr 36/39 kyr 12 to 21 kyr >41 kyr 30 kyr >31 kyr 25 kyr 25 kyr 16 kyr 29 kyr

Wood Wood Freshwater shells

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Bhedaghat, Dharangaon, Mehtakheri, Nagda, and Dharmapuri are in the range of 25–40 kyr. The upper limit for sites like Baghor I ranges from 8000 to 9000 BC. The Mesolithic representing the terminal stage of the Stone Age has been dated to 18–28 kyr at the Batadomba-leva and Beli-leva caves in Sri Lanka. The Mesolithic sites in India date to 8000–10 000 years ago. Culture Sequence

While it is true that at no single site in South Asia one could see the Palaeolithic as a single evolving cultural entity, we have now several excavated primary sites (caves/rock shelters and open air sites) showing evidence of all three stages within the Palaeolithic. These include the Sanghao cave in Pakistan, the rock shelters at Adamgarh and Bhimbetka in central India, 16 R dune site at Didwana in Rajasthan, and Patne in the Deccan. Lower Palaeolithic The South Asian Lower Palaeolithic consists of two distinct tool traditions, viz. the Soan or pebble-tool assemblages (treated as part of the general Southeast Asian tradition) and the biface or handax-cleaver tradition (Figure 2). The former tradition is best known from the Himalayan foothill zone. In the 1930s de Terra and Paterson postulated the existence of a regular sequence within this tradition, made up of pre-Soan, Early, Evolved, and Late Soan stages. Later T. T. Paterson and H. J. H. Drummond treated the lithic assemblages as the handiwork of a war-loving people, as against the peaceful folk of the bifacial tradition. As mentioned earlier, the British Archaeological Mission to Pakistan later raised serious doubts about the sedimentary contexts of lithic assemblages collected by de Terra and Paterson and their evolutionary sequence. On the Indian side of the border, pebbletool assemblages were found in the Sirsa Valley of Haryana and the Beas–Banganga Valleys of Himachal Pradesh. On the basis of stratigraphic data and palaeomagnetic dates these sites were assigned an age of 300–400 kyr. These studies on the Indian side of the Siwalik frontal range also produced bifacial assemblages of Acheulian character from the Hoshiarpur– Chandigarh sector, thereby raising the possibility that the two traditions coexisted in the area – the Soan confined to the dun valleys of the frontal range and the biface tradition occupying the flat or plateau surfaces. Pebble-tool assemblages have occasionally also been reported from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, lower Deccan and Kerala, but their stratigraphical contexts need to be placed on a stronger basis. The lithic assemblages from all these sites are characterized by the use of stone hammer technique and the artifact types

comprise uni- and bifacially worked choppers with thick butts and convex, straight or pointed edges, cores, and flakes (Figure 3). Rich clusters of sites belonging to the second and more widely spread Acheulian tradition are known from northern part of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Bihar, and Jharkhand, hilly tracts of West Bengal, lower hilly tracts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, mainland Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Himalayan foothill area of Punjab. Some lithic assemblages have also been reported from the Saurasthra and Konkan coasts of western India. Good Acheulian assemblages are also known from Sind and the Jhelum Basin in Pakistan, and the dun valleys of Dang-Deokhuri in Nepal. Barring a few cave/rockshelter sites like Bhimbetka and Adamgarh, all known Acheulian sites are of the open air type and are mostly associated with alluvial deposits. Quartzite was the most commonly used rock for tool-making, but in areas lacking in it other suitable and locally available rocks such as dolerite and basalt, granite, schist, fossilwood and even limestone were employed. In addition to stone hammer technique, soft hammer and prepared core techniques were also employed commonly. In pursuance of the behavioral approach to the Stone Age past that began to be adopted by the workers since the 1970s, intensive surveys were undertaken in some regions for identifying in situ occurrences of lithic assemblages. Large site complexes were found in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, the Singhbhum area of Bihar, the Belan and Son Valleys of north central India, Orissa, the Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys of the Bhima Basin, the Kaladgi Basin, the Chittoor, Kurnool and Cuddapah areas of the Eastern Ghats, and the Kortallayar Basin of Tamil Nadu. Further, excavations were undertaken at some well-preserved (in situ) sites for understanding the Acheulian occupation activities and techno-typological aspects. These included Singi Talav and 16 R dune site at Didwana in Rajasthan, Bhimbetka, and Adamgarh caves and the open air site of Durkadi in the Narmada Valley, Samadhiala in Gujarat, Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh, Sihawal, Patpara, and Nakhjar Khurd in the Son Valley, Paisra in Bihar, Chirki-Nevasa and Bori in Maharashtra, and Hunsgi and Yediyapur in Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys. More recently, excavations were done at Isampur and Lakhmapur in north Karnataka, Morgaon in Maharashtra, and Attirampakkam in the Kortallayar Basin of Tamil Nadu. At Chriki-Nevasa the Acheulian cultural material was found in association with colluvial gravel of basalt rocks resting on a sloping rock platform exposed

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Figure 2 Important Lower Palaeolithic sites in South Asia: 1, Riwat; 2, Pahlgam; 3, Jalalpur; 4, Dina; 5, Beas-Banganga complex; 6, Sirsa-Ghaggar complex;7, Dang-Deokhuri complex; 8, Didwana; 9, Jayal; 10, Jaisalmer-Pokaran Road; 11, Ziarat Pir Shaban; 12, Berach complex; 13, Chambal complex; 14, Bhimbetka; 15, Raisen complex; 16, Lalitpur; 17, Damoh complex; 18, Son complex; 19, Sihawal; 20, Belan complex; 21, Sisunia; 22, Singhbhum complex; 23, Paisra; 24, Brahmani complex; 25, Waingana complex; 26, Mahadeo Piparia; 27, Adamgarh; 28, Durkadi; 29, Samadhiala; 30, Umrethi; 31, Gangapur; 32, Chirki-Nevasa; 33, Bori; 34, Nalgonda complex; 35, Hunsgi and Baichbal basins complex; 36, Mahad; 37, Anagwadi; 38, Malwan; 39, Lakhmapur; 40, Nittur; 41, Kurnool complex; 42 Nagarjunakonda complex; 43, Cuddapah complex; 44, Rallakalava complex; 45, Kortallayar complex.

on the right bank of the river Pravara. One of the trenches (VII) exposed a cultural level spread over an area of 74 m2 and rich in stone artifacts and fossilized bones of Bos sp. The large stone blocks found in the

level may have formed part of the foundation of a dwelling structure. Localities V and VI at Hunsgi and Yediyapur VI locality also preserved 20–35 cm thick Acheulian levels under half-a-meter thick silt

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deposits. These levels yielded limestone cores, finished tools and debitage. All these spots were associated with rocky eminences/ridges standing 3–6 m above the beds of local streams. The Acheulian groups appear to have preferred small open spaces enclosed by rock boulders which facilitated the erection of temporary shelters with leaves and branches. Paisra in the Munger district of Bihar exposed Acheulian levels under 1–1.5 m thick colluvial gravel deposits in an inland valley enclosed by hills. These levels also preserved evidence of dwelling structures in the form of alignment of post-holes and circular arrangement of stone blocks. At Attirampakkam the Acheulian level was found in a thick deposit of laminated clay. In III F-23 rockshelter at Bhimbetka, the Acheulian deposit was 2.5 m thick and consisted of occupation

floors paved with stone slabs and pieces. A small area of 16 m2 produced 4700 lithic artifacts. Detailed geoarchaeological studies and excavations conducted by K. Paddayya at Isampur in the Hunsgi Valley exposed a quarry-cum-occupation spot covering an area of 0.75 ha. It is associated with a weathered rock outcrop consisting of silicified limestone blocks of suitable sizes and shapes. It preserved a 20–30 cm thick in situ Acheulian level below 50 cm thick brown silt deposit. Trench 1 exposed seven chipping clusters (each 6–8 m2 in extent) made up of cores, flake blanks, finished tools, hammerstones, and debitage, all found in mint-fresh condition (Figures 4 and 5). The total assemblage from this trench comprised over 15 000 artifacts, illustrating the manufacturing trajectories adopted by the hominids to produce various categories

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Figure 4 (a) Acheulian level exposed at 50 cm depth below surface in trench 1 at Isampur, Karnataka; (b) close-up of a chipping cluster.

of implements. Small amounts of fossilized dental and bone remains of bovids and cervids, and turtleshell pieces were also found along with cultural material. Three electron-spin resonance dates obtained on fossil tooth-enamel of animals belonging to Bos sp. found in the excavation gave an average value of 1.2 Myr, thereby making Isampur the earliest known well-documented Palaeolithic site in South Asia. Despite its long duration and wide geographical spread, the developmental history of the Acheulian is still unclear because none of the sites has preserved any clear stratigraphical record. At the moment it is possible to recognize two broad stages, i.e., Lower Acheulian and Upper Acheulian. The Lower Acheulian is characterized by crude workmanship. Consequent upon the use of stone hammer technique, the artifacts (handaxes, cleavers, pebble tools, etc.) are generally thick with irregular cross-sections; the surfaces are uneven with large patches of cortex; and

the edges are sinuous. Among the hand axes pointed forms (pear-shaped, lanceolate, pyriform, etc.) show a majority. In some of the Lower Acheulian assemblages picks, knives and polyhedrons occur regularly. As examples of this stage one may cite the assemblages from Ziarat Pir Shaban in Sind, Dina, and Jalalpur in the Punjab (all in Pakistan), and assemblages from the excavated Indian sites of Singi Talav in Rajasthan, Durkadi in Madhya Pradesh, Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh, Chirki-Nevasa and Bori in Maharashtra, Hunsgi, Yediyapur, Isampur, and Anagwadi in Karnataka, Singhbhum complex and Paisra in Bihar. The bottom 10 cm portion of the Acheulian level exposed in trench 1 at Isampur yielded 13 043 artifacts. Among these 169 are shaped implements comprising hand axes (48), cleavers (15), knives (18), scrapers (45), chopping tools (14), discoids (3), perforators (5), and an indeterminate example (Figure 6).

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Figure 5 Chipping clusters in the Acheulian level exposed at 50 cm depth in trench 1 at Isampur. Courtesy: K. Paddayya et al., Recent findings on the Acheulian of the Hunsgi and Baichbal valleys, Karnataka, with special reference to the Isampur excavation and its dating, Current Science, Vol. 83, No. 5, 2002, Fig. 6.

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The Upper Acheulian assemblages show the employment of cylinder or soft hammer technique, as a result of which the artifacts become thinner with smooth surfaces; the edges run more or less in a straight line. There is a general increase in the proportion of cleavers. Hand axes now include oval and triangular forms. Flake tools become more common. Bhimbetka, Raisen complex and Sihawal II in central India, Gangapur in Maharashtra, Mudnur and Lakhmapur in Karnataka, and Rallakalava complex in

Andhra Pradesh are good examples of this stage. Bhimbetka has the following types among finished artifacts: hand axes (55), cleavers (150), side-scrapers (368), end-scrapers (108), backed knives (163), truncated flakes and blades (87), notches (111), and denticulates (78) (Figure 7). The Middle Palaeolithic H. D. Sankalia’s findings in the 1950s at Nevasa in the Deccan led to formal recognition of the existence of a distinct Middle

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Palaeolithic tradition in South Asia. Since then literally hundreds of sites were found in different parts of the Indian subcontinent (Figure 8). In addition to the areas yielding Lower Palaeolithic sites, lithic assemblages of Middle Palaeolithic affiliation have been reported from hilly and forested tracts like Tripura and Garo hills of northeast India and the Karnataka sector of Western Ghats. The Ratnapura chert assemblages from southern alluvial tracts of Sri Lanka and the Mainmati–Lalmai group of assemblages on fossilwood from Bangladesh also belong to this tradition. In addition to this tendency to occupy even hilly, forested zones, there is a distinct increase in the number of sites and this suggests a more intensified use of the landscape. Sojat in Rajasthan, Choli Dongargaon in central India, and Kovalli and Devapur in Karnataka are good examples of extensive workshops that came up on raw material outcrops. The Middle Palaeolithic tradition is marked by two major changes. First, while quartizite and other rocks continued to be used in some areas, there was now an overall preference for cryptocrystalline silica forms such as chert, chalcedony, jasper, and agate. The

nodules/cobbles of these materials were procured from river-beds or hillsides lying several kilometers away. The second important change concerns the manufacture of shaped tools on flake blanks. These blanks were obtained by means of the plain flaking (soft/hard hammer), prepared core and discoidal core techniques. Margin or edge-retouch was the most common form of secondary working employed for shaping the flakes into regular implements. The chief tool-types are as follows: (1) side-scrapers of various types (straight, concave, covex, transverse, and alround edges); (2) points (simple, tanged or shouldered and bifacially worked); (3) borers; (4) combination tools like scraper-cum-borers and borer-cum-points; and (5) knives, denticulates, burins, and end-scrapers. Hand axes, cleavers, and pebble tools also occur at a limited number of sites. Sanghao cave provided a five-period culture sequence, of which period I belongs to the Middle Palaeolithic. The lithic assemblage is based on the working of quartz by means of plain flaking, discoidal, tortoise core, and fluted core or blade techniques. The major tool types include scrapers of varioustypes, points, discoids, and borers. The rock shelter at

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Figure 8 Important Middle Palaeolithic sites in South Asia: 1, Sanghao; 2, Ror; 3, Mangalpura; 4, Didwana; 5, Dang-Deokhuri complex; 6, Luni complex; 7, Hokra; 8, Berach complex; 9, Sihora; 10, Belan complex; 11, Meghalaya complex; 12, Mainmati-Lalmai complex; 13, Tripura complex; 14, Bhimbetka; 15, Patpara; 16, Samnapur; 17, Wainganga complex; 18, Patne; 19, Singhbhum complex; 20, Brahmani complex; 21, Rojdi; 22, Nevasa; 23, Shorapur doab complex; 24, Kovalli; 25, Nagarjunakonda complex; 26, Sanganakallu; 27, Nandipalle; 28, Rallakalava complex; 29, Kortallayar complex; 30, Ratnapura complex.

Bhimbetka also preserved a rich Middle Palaeolithic level yielding a variety of quartzite scrapers, Levallois flakes, and blades. A number of scrapers are made on thin slabs. The occurrence of cleavers and hand axes indicates the transitional nature of this assemblage.

Samnapur on the Narmada, Patpara on the Son, and Sanganakallu in South India are three excavated sites of the open air type. At Samnapur the cultural level was found in a semiprimary context in association with a rubble deposit of colluvial origin,

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forming part of a thick deposit of brown silt. The total site measured 100  60 m. Over 3000 cherty quartzite artifacts were excavated from an area of 44 m2 along with some fossil animal bones. This was an occupation-cum-workshop site. The shaped tools include side-scrapers, end-scrapers, denticulates, notches, points, borers, and knives. The assemblage is totally lacking in hand axes and cleavers. The granite hill-top site of Sanganakallu produced an assemblage of dolerite artifacts. Without meaning any chronological implications, two broad groups could be recognized among the Middle Palaeolithic assemblages – those still showing some proportion of bifacial implements (e.g., Luni Valley in Rajasthan, Bhimbetka in central India, and Rallakalava complex) and the ones consisting of flake-tools of various types (e.g., Samnapur in central India and Shorapur Doab complex of sites in north Karnataka) (Figures 9 and 10). The Upper Palaeolithic M. L. K Murty’s discovery of blade-burin assemblages in the 1960s from half

a dozen workshops occurring on the surface of Rallakalava gravel and silt deposits in the Chittoor district of south India enabled the formal acceptance of this phase in the South Asian Palaeolithic. In the following quarter-century blade tool assemblages were reported from a number of sites in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Gujarat (Figure 11). Quartzite and siliceous materials such as chert and chalcedony continued to be the chief raw materials for tool making. A notable development concerns the use of animal bone at some sites like the Kurnool caves in South India and of ostrich eggshell in western and central India. The shaped tools were now fashioned on long slender blanks called blades struck from longish, well-prepared fluted cores. This blade technique involved the use of a soft hammer (wood or bone) and an intermediate punch or chisel. The blades so detached were subjected to secondary working comprising edge-retouch/chipping and blunting. The shaped tools include scrapers, points, −

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Figure 10 Middle Palaeolithic artifacts from Samnapur, Madhya Pradesh: 1–4, 10, scrapers; 5, core; 6, blade core; 7, round scraper; 8, knife; 9, steep scraper. Courtesy: V. N. Misra et al., Geoarchaeology of the Palaeolithic site at Samnapur in the central Narmada valley, Man and the Environment, Vol. XV, No. 1, 1990, Fig. 8.

knives, borers, etc. In a few cases (e.g., the Rallakalava assemblages) various burin forms also occur commonly. Toward the terminal part of this stage microlithic forms appear, heralding the tradition of composite tools which characterize the succeeding Mesolithic stage. The majority of Upper Palaeolithic sites belong to the open air type and consist of extensive lithic scatters which developed on outcrops or veins of raw material. Rallakalava assemblages from the Chittoor area, Vodikalu in the Gunjana Valley of Cuddapah region, Yadwad in the Kaladgi Basin, Maralbhavi in the Bhima Basin, Bhokar in Maharashtra, and Baghor on the Son are well-known examples. The excavated sites include the caves of Bhimbetka and Kurnool, and the open air sites of Patne and Baghor I. In rock-shelter III F-23 at Bhimbetka the Upper Palaeolithic level (layer 4) was found sandwiched between the Middle Palaeolithic and Mesolithic levels, and yielded blade artifacts of quartzite. The Kurnool limestone caves were first investigated by R. B. Foote in the nineteenth century. Foote

even claimed recovery of bone implements of the Magdalenian type. Muchchtlachintamanugavi was excavated in the 1970s and exposed 40–85 cm thick deposit made up of stone blocks and rubble as well as cultural material and animal fossils. It yielded over 223 artifacts of shale and limestone, and 2003 bone implements comprising scrapers, spatulae, and points. The faunal material was typically Upper Pleistocene in character comprising dental and osteological remains of various animal species. A fireplace was also noticed in the cultural level and a burnt clay sample from it has a TL date of 17, 390 years B.P. Patne is located in the Ajanta range of hills of the Deccan, and preserved a three-tier (Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, and Mesolithic) sequence in gravel and silt deposits measuring 10–20 m in thickness (Figure 12). Levels 5–12 (from top) represented the Upper Palaeolithic. Among these layers 5 and 7 were especially rich in stone artifacts and yielded 11 788 and 12 301 specimens, respectively. Five developmental phases (A–E) were recognized within the Upper Palaeolithic. Phases A and B form an early variant with jasper as the main raw material, while phases C–E represent a late variant characterized by the use of chalcedony and appearance of lunates, trapezes, and triangles. Phase D has a C-14 date of 25 kyr. Patne also yielded many ostrich eggshell pieces including a few incised specimens and beads. Excavations at Baghor I on the river Son exposed a terminal Palaeolithic occupation floor covering an area of 286 m2. It yielded a developed lithic assemblage. An interesting feature exposed at this site was the discovery of a rubble platform which was interpreted as a shrine for mother goddess worship. Two broad variants could be recognized among the lithic assemblages – an incipient blade-tool tradition and a developed blade-tool tradition. In the former the blades are rather thick and ill-formed. Simple or retouched blades, flake scrapers, points and borers, and sometimes even chopping tools occur. Backed tools and burins are uncommon. Sites in the Kurnool area, Shorapur Doab in the Bhima Basin, Bhokar in Maharashtra, Bhimbetka in central India, Singhbhum region in Bihar, Buddha Pushkar in Rajasthan, and Visadi in Gujarat represent this archaic stage (Figure 13). In the evolved tradition the blade technique undergoes a large degree of refinement so that the blade blanks are slender with perfect parallel sides. Implements like scrapers, points, and knives obtained by edge-blunting become more common. Vodikalu in Cuddapah area, Rallakalava assemblages from Chittoor, and Baghor I assemblage from the Son Valley are some examples of this tradition (Figure 14).

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Figure 11 Important Upper Palaeolithic sites in South Asia: 1, Sanghao; 2 Jenana; 3, Didwana; 4, Budha Pushkar; 5, Belan complex; 6, Michimgiri; 7, Singhbhum complex; 8, Baghor I; 9, Bhimbetka; 10, Visadi; 11, Bhadne; 12, Patne; 13, Bhokar; 14, Papamiya Tekdi; 15, Dhavalpuri; 16, Nevasa; 17, Inamgaon; 18, Asla; 19, Shorapur Doab complex; 20, Yadwad; 21, Kurnool complex: 22, Nagarjunakonda complex; 23, Yerragondapalam; 24, Vodikalu; 25, Nandipalle; 26, Peddarajupalli; 27, Renigunta; 28, Vemula.

General Features

Settlement Patterns

Having reviewed the substantive and chronological aspects of the South Asian Palaeolithic record, it now remains to consider briefly some general features of Stone Age adaptations.

Excluding some specific tracts such as the Indus and Gangetic plains, central and northern parts of Sri Lanka, and the deltaic region of Bangladesh, Palaeolithic sites occur practically all over the South Asian

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Figure 12 Sedimentary stratigraphy and Stone Age culture sequence at Patne, Maharashtra. Courtesy: S. A. Sali, The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Cultures of Maharashtra (Pune, Deccan College), 1989, Fig. 11.

zone. The Stone Age groups occupied diverse geographical regions comprising high altitude and cold tracts like the Kashmir Valley, the Potwar plateau filled with thick sedimentary deposits, the dun valleys of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Nepal, the Aravalli hills stretching from Gujarat to Delhi, the desert zone of Rajasthan, plateau tracts of central and eastern India, the Deccan and south India, and some coastal tracts. Geological basins of the Purana age seem to have served as preferred habitats on account of the valley-like topographic forms, availability of various rocks for flaking, and presence of perennial water springs. Prehistorians in South Asia are yet to fully explore the topic of hominid

adaptations in terms of sub-regional topographic and ecological settings. The intensive site surveys carried out in some regions permit inferences about settlement patterns. A large cluster of about 90 open air Acheulian sites is known from the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh. These are found in a valley enclosed by sandstone hills and were occupied in winter. In the rainy season Palaeolithic groups moved to the rock shelters of the adjacent Bhimbetka hills. In the Kaladgi Basin, covering the Malaprabha and Ghataprabha Valleys, sites were mapped in relation to landform types. The Stone Age groups generally avoided the forested and high rainfall tracts close to the Western Ghats and concentrated their occupation on river banks and in foothill zone of the middle reaches of rivers. The more recent work in the Malaprabha Basin, including a small excavation at Lakhmapur, exposed Acheulian occurrences on a lateritic surface and these were later covered by sediments laid by low-energy processes. Raw material from quartzite outcrops and water sources in the form of springs and shallow streams were exploited by the hominid groups. The two-decade-long surveys and excavations in the Hunsgi and Baichbal valleys of the neighbouring Bhima Basin brought to light over 200 Acheulian sites in an area of about 500 km2 (Figure 15). Four major site categories emerged from this study: (1) secondary fluvial sites; (2) secondary colluvial sites; (3) secondary sites modified by surface runoff; and (4) in situ or primary occurrences. Most of the sites were found to belong to the last category, which were again classified into manufacturing sites, occupation sites, food-processing sites yielding faunal material, single-event activity or off-sites, and stone tool caches. Two major site concentrations (each made up of 15–20 occurrences and spread over a stretch of 1 or 2 km) were recognized in the area – one near Hunsgi in the Hunsgi Valley and the other near Yediyapur in the Baichbal Valley. The remaining sites were found in a dispersed way all over the basin floors. In East Africa a similar differential distribution of Palaeolithic sites was called ‘scatter between the patches’. Considering this differential site distribution together with seasonal availability of water sources and wild plant and animal foods, as inferred from ethnographic data, it was proposed that the Acheulian settlement system of the Hunsgi and Baichbal Basins hinged upon two main annual resource management strategies: (1) dry season aggregation of the Acheulian groups near the perennial waterpools (fed by seepsprings) in the Hunsgi and Fathepur streams and concentration on large game hunting; and (2) wet season random dispersal across the basin floors, resulting in

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Figure 13 Upper Palaeolithic artifacts from the Shorapur Doab, Karnataka: 1–3, retouched blades; 4–5, strangulated blades; 6–7, backed blades; 8, nosed scraper; 9, end-scraper; 10–15, burins; 17–18 simple points; 19–20, tanged points; 21–22, borers; 23–24, blade cores.

the widely scattered small sites and nonsites, and exploitation of a variety of season-specific plant foods, small fauna and water pools of the basin floors. The more recent work at Isampur revealed that this place was a localized hub for manufacturing and occupation activities. Three or four additional hubs constituted the Acheulian settlement system of the Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys. Economic Organization

The South Asian Palaeolithic sites could be grouped under the forager model, where the hunter-gatherer groups map on to resources of a given region, as according to their seasonal and spatial distribution. The fossil fauna obtained from alluvial contexts at a number of places definitely shows that in the Pleistocene various ecosystems were supporting rich wildlife and vegetation. Direct evidence of faunal exploitation is however confined to open-air sites like

Isampur, Chirki-Nevasa, Samnapur, and the caves of Bhimbetka and Kurnool. In recent years ethnoarchaeological research provided many analogies drawn from the study of hunting-gathering communities like the Chenchus, Boyas, Yerukalas, and Yanadis in South India, and Pardhis and Van Vagris in central and western India. The faunal remains from excavated sites prove that wild cattle, wild horse, wild elephant, and various deer, and antlelope species were being exploited for food purposes. Isampur excavation yielded shell remains of land turtle, thereby indicating that small fauna too was being exploited by the Palaeolithic groups. From the ethnographic record one could infer that this small fauna comprised the hare, birds, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, insects, and fishes. It is particularly abundant in wet season and its exploitation requires only collecting strategies. Muchchatlachintamanugavi exposed a fireplace consisting of regular arrangement of limestone blocks. This is the

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earliest known human use of fire in South Asia; it was used for both cooking and heating of rocks required for tool making. Unfortunately, direct evidence of exploitation of plant foods is lacking. But ethnobotanical studies clearly show that the scrub jungle and deciduous ecosystems which occupy much of the peninsular Indian landmass offer a wide variety of wild plant foods which are still being exploited by many tribal groups like the Gonds, Boyas, Yerukalas, Yanadis, and Chenchus, and also by the economically background classes of village communities. These foods comprise a variety of tuber and root crops, leafy vegetables, edible seeds, gums and mushrooms, and many species of fruits, berries/pods. Honey is another commonly used item. Like small fauna, many of these plant foods are particularly abundant in the rainy season. We may infer that the Palaeolithic groups of South Asia exploited all these wild plant foods by adopting simple collecting strategies. The recovery of archaeobotanical remains of three wild edible plant species, i.e., Artocarpus nobilis (wild bread fruit), Canarium zeylanicum (a wild nut), and two

species of wild banana from the Mesolithic levels (dated between 8000 and 10 000 years BP) in the Batadomba-lena and Beli-lena caves of Sri Lanka is a clear pointer in this regard. Art, Ornamentation, and Religious Aspects

Certain strands of evidence inform us about the esthetic/artistic activities too. In some of the Acheulian assemblages, hand axes, particularly the pointed, ovate, and cordate forms, assume symmetric and esthetically pleasing shapes. So it is possible that these specimens, in addition to serving utilitarian purposes, were also treated as objects of art. Judging by the criteria formulated by Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, these specimens also betray higher cognitive abilities acquired by the Acheulian groups. Second, several hundred painted rockshelters are known from the Vindhyan and Kaimur hills of central India. The earliest of these pictures depicting hunting, gathering, fishing, and trapping activities may go back to the terminal Palaeolithic. A third piece of art evidence comes from one of the Upper Palaeolithic sites of

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the Belan valley. It consists of a female figurine of bone (8 cm high) with featureless face and pendant breasts. But some scholars have called it a mere harpoon-head. The Acheulian level at Hunsgi V yielded a few pieces of red ocher, which were probably procured by the site occupants from the neighborhood and used for body decoration. Patne, Mehtakheri, Rajota, and many other Upper Palaeolithic sites in western and central India yielded ostrich eggshell pieces. At Patne a few pieces were obtained from the preceding Middle Palaeolithic level. These pieces included a few specimens showing criss-cross design engraved between horizontal lines (Figure 16). Patne also yielded three disk-beads of ostrich eggshell (Figure 17) and a fourth specimen made of marine shell. These specimens represent the earliest and undoubted evidence of ornamentation in South Asia.

Finally, some clues are available about the religious beliefs of the South Asian Stone Age groups. Baghor I exposed an extensive occupation floor yielding an advanced blade-tool assemblage dated to 8000–9000 BC. What is more interesting, a stone rubble platform-like structural feature, circular in shape and measuring 85 cm in diameter, was exposed in the central part of this site (Figure 18). A triangularshaped block of sandstone (15 cm height, 6.5 cm broad and 6.5 cm thick) bearing an eye-striking pattern of concentric and bright-colored laminations (light yellowish red to dark reddish brown) was found amidst the rubble of this platform (Figure 19). Using the practices still prevalent among communities like the Kol and the Baiga living in the area as an analogy, the rubble platform has been interpreted as a shrine where the Late Palaeolithic inhabitants placed this natural piece of stone with bright-colored laminations

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Figure 16 Ostrich eggshell piece from Patne, Maharashtra, showing an engraved design. Courtesy: S. A. Sali, The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Cultures of Maharashtra (Pune, Deccan College), 1989, Fig. XVIIa.

Figure 17 Disc beads of ostrich eggshell from Patne, Maharashtra. After Sali, 1989. Courtesy: S. A. Sali, The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Cultures of Maharashtra (Pune, Deccan College), 1989, Fig. XVIIb.

and worshipped it as a manifestation of Mai or mother goddess. Hominid Remains and Origins

The issues of whens and hows of hominid colonization of South Asia are extremely difficult ones to

settle at the moment, partly because of the paucity of hominid skeletal remains and partly due to the uncertain sedimentary contexts and antiquity of cultural material. However, one or two brief comments may be made to conclude this essay. Up to the present time only two instances of the occurrence of hominid fossils are known from South

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Figure 18 Stone rubble platform exposed at Baghor I, Madhya Pradesh. Courtesy: J. M. Kenoyer et al., An Upper Palaeolithic shrine in India? Antiquity, Vol. LVII, 1983, Plate X(a).

Figure 20 Fossil skull cap of archaic Homo sapiens from Hathnora on the Narmada, Madhya Pradesh. Courtesy: A. Sonakia, Skull cap of early man from the Narmada valley (Pleistocene) of central India, American Anthropologist, Vol. 87, 1985, Fig. 2. Figure 19 Obverse and reverse positions of a triangular shaped sandstone block (height: 15 cm) from Baghor I, Madhya Pradesh, bearing colored laminations and probably worshipped as a manifestation of mother goddess. Courtesy: J. M. Kenoyer et al., An Upper Palaeolithic shrine in India? Antiquity, Vol. LVII, 1983, Plate X(b).

Asia. At Hathnora on the river Narmada a fossil hominid cranial vault (calvarium) was found in 1982 in 3 m thick gravel conglomerate dated to middle to upper Pleistocene (Figure 20). Hand axes and mammalian fossils were found in association with this hominid piece, which is treated as an archaic form of Homo sapiens. Subsequently, a fossil hominid clavicle was also reported from this site. In 2001 a third hominid fossil specimen of archaic H. sapiens was found at Odai on the Tamil Nadu coast. Here a

fossilized baby skull was found in 2 m-thick ferricrete deposit dated to 166 kyr by TL method (see Luminescence Dating). As to the problem of origins, the hominid fossil and cultural findings of recent years from Georgia, China, and Indonesia may imply that the Soan pebble-tool tradition was a part of the spread of Oldowan tradition of East Africa across Asia by a northern route somewhere between 1.8 and 2 Ma. It has been argued further that the initial dispersal of the Acheulian into West Asia took place already by 1.4 Myr and more widespread dispersal covering even the South Asian zone took place by 780 kyr along a southern route cutting across the Arabian peninsula. Contrary to the

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opinions expressed by earlier scholars deriving the succeeding Middle and Upper Palaeolithic traditions from West Asia or western Europe, the culture sequences exposed in various caves/rockshelters and open-air sites in India and Pakistan clearly imply that the Palaeolithic culture of South Asia evolved locally from the Acheulian base and in this process developed tremendous intra-regional adaptational diversity. See also: Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, South: India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South; Asia, Southeast: Pre-agricultural Peoples; Asia, West: Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology.

Further Reading Agrawal DP and Kharakwal JS (2002) South Asian Prehistory, ch. 2–4. New Delhi: Aryan Books International. Badam GL (1979) Pleistocene Fauna of India with Special Reference to the Siwaliks. Pune: Deccan College. Chakrabarti DK (1999) Indian – An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations, ch. 2 New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dennell RW (1995) ‘The Early Stone Age of Pakistan: A methodological review’ Man and Environment 20(1): 21–28. Deraniyagala SU (1992) The Prehistory of Sri Lanka (2 pts). Colombo: Department of Archaeological Survey. Mishra S (1994) The South Asian Lower Palaeolithic. Man and Environment 19(1–2): 57–71. Mishra S (1995) Chronology of the Indian Stone Age: The impact of recent absolute and relative dating attempts. Man and Environment 20(2): 11–16. Misra VN (1989) Stone Age India: An ecological perspective. Man and Environment 14(1): 17–64. Murty MLK (1979) Recent research on the Upper Palaeolithic phase in India. Journal of Field Archaeology 6(3): 301–320. Paddayya K (1978) New research designs and field techniques in the Palaeolithic archaeology of India. World Archaeology 10: 94–110. Paddayya K (1984) India: Stone Age. In: Mueller-Karpe (ed.) Neue Forschungen zur Altsteinziet, pp. 345–403. Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag. Paddayya K (2001) The Acheulian culture project of the Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys, peninsular India. In: Barham L and Robson-Brown K (eds.) Human Roots: Africa and Asia in the Middle Pleistocene, pp. 235–258. Bristol: Western Academic and Specialist Press. Pappu RS (2001) Acheulian Culture in Peninsular India: An Ecological Perspective. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld. Petraglia MD and Korisettar R (eds.) (1998) Early Human Behaviour in Global Context: The Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record. London and New York: Routledge. Sankalia HD (1964) Middle Stone Age culture in India and Pakistan. Science 146: 365–376. Settar S and Korisettar R (eds.) (2002) Prehistory: Archaeology of South Asia Indian Archaeology in Retrospect Vol. I. New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research and Manohar.

Sri Lanka Robin Coningham and Keir Strickland, Durham University, Durham, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Culavamsa The final Pa¯li record of the Sri Lankan kings written in Pa¯li – the little or lesser chronicle. It effectively follows on from the Mahavamsa and covers the period from the fourth century AD to the start of British rule in the nineteenth century. Dipavamsa The oldest Early Historic record of Sri Lanka. Like the Mahavamsa, it is believed to have been compiled by monks around the fourth century AD. Its title translates as Island Chronicle in Pa¯li. Early Historic Refers to the second emergence of urbanization in South Asia, dating to the early part of the first millennium BC through to the mid-first millennium AD. Its historic references are derived from texts such as the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa. Mahavamsa The greatest of the island’s Pa¯li chronicles (literally, its name translates as Great Chronicle), it covers the period from the introduction of Buddhism to Sri Lanka with the coming of Prince Vijaya from north India in the middle of the first millennium BC to the reign of King Mahasena in the fourth century AD. stupa Solid-brick hemispherical mound constructed over Buddhist relics. vihara Pa¯li term for Buddhist monastery.

Introduction The island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon until 1973) lies 48 km off the coast of southern India and is effectively an extension of the Indian peninsula. However, while it shares many environmental and social characteristics with southern India the island is nevertheless both a distinct regional unit within South Asian archaeology and an independent nation state. Despite its relatively small size, the island can be divided into two distinct zones: a dry zone and a wet zone. The wet zone encompasses the southwest of the island and follows the lowland plains of the coast lifting sharply into the upland, rising to over 2400 m above sea level at Adams Peak near the center of the island. The dry zone covers nearly two-thirds of the island and is characterized by low level plains that stretch from the far north of the island, down the east coast and to the far south. The environment of the dry zone plains is similar to that of inland southern India, and dense human inhabitation is only made possible through extensive irrigation and water management, with artificial reservoirs covering the landscape. Sadly this climatic north–south divide can now also be seen reflected in the long running, bloody conflict between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lanka government (Figure 1).

792 ASIA, SOUTHEAST/Sri Lanka

IT TRA KS L PA Kantarodai

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Figure 1 Map of Sri Lanka.

Early–Later Prehistory Sri Lankan prehistory is notable because, to date, it lacks both a Palaeolithic and a Neolithic and the earliest human activity can only be securely pushed back to the first appearance of microlithic-using hunter-gatherers. Despite this relatively late start, it is no exaggeration to state that Sri Lanka has one of the largest bodies of prehistoric archaeological research in South Asia for its size. This body of work was pioneered by the Sarasin brothers in the first decade of

the twentieth century. In many respects they were ahead of their time in their treatment of stratigraphic sequences, artifact recording, faunal recording, site sampling, and critically their usage of ethnographic comparisons. By studying the extant Vadda huntergatherers, they were able to develop comparative interpretations for the archaeological record. This approach has continued to be used in recent years with Kennedy suggesting a phenotypic link between the so-called Balangoda Man (Homo sapiens balangodensis) and modern Vadda communities.

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The Sarasin’s work laid firm foundations, and over the next decade a number of archaeologists, such as Hartley (1911) and Wayland (1915 and 1919) studied Sri Lanka’s later prehistory, creating a vibrant field. In particular, since the 1930s, P. E. P. Deraniyagala, and later his son S. U. Deraniyagala, have developed a rigorous investigation of the island’s prehistory through the use of extensive surveys and excavations in the Ratnapura region of southwest Sri Lanka, an area with deep Pleistocene alluvial deposits and a number of open air and cave sites with faunal remains, human remains and lithic artifacts. The Ratnapura and later geometric microlithic industry are characterized by the use of quartzite stone tools, and the latter bear close comparison to the lithics of the Teri (sanddune) sites of littoral southern India. Microlithic-toolusing sites are found throughout Sri Lanka, ranging from dunes to caves demonstrating the versatility and mobility of the island’s hunter-gatherers. Radiometric dates from these sites demonstrate that microlithictool-using communities spread across the island from 30 000 years BP onwards and in some places demonstrate a continuity that lasts until the first millennium BC.

ware ceramics and the use of iron, spread across the island at the beginning of the first millennium BC. Paralleling a similar technological and cultural development in peninsula India, the lack of a Neolithic or Chalcolithic phase in Sri Lanka has tempted some to suggest a demic diffusion from the south of India to the island. However, to date there is no physical evidence of such a movement and it remains supposition. The focus of Iron Age research has been primarily on locating its cist burials and megalithic cemeteries, which are found throughout the dry zone. Settlement and subsistence data is limited to Coningham’s excavations at Anuradhapura, which show continuity from the beginning of the first millennium BC (c. 840–460 BC) through to the Medieval period. Reflected in the substitution of small temporary shelters by larger, more substantial, circular poststructures, the population of Anuradhapura increases through the Iron Age as the settlement reaches a size of 28 ha and island-wide trade networks are augmented by links across South Asia as a whole. Unfortunately, few of the island’s Iron Age cemeteries have been published with only preliminary reports from Ibbankatuva and Pomparipu, restricting our knowledge of social differentiation and ranking (Figure 2).

The Iron Age and Megalithic Although we are unable to identify an overlap between these hunter-gatherers and the first iron-using populations, a new cultural complex characterized by the use of megalithic cist burials, black and red

Figure 2 Megalithic cist cemetery at Ibbankatuva.

The Early Historic and Anuradhapura The Early Historic period begins in Sri Lanka around 450 BC and is distinct but still shows clear cultural continuity with the preceding Iron Age. The Early

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Historic is characterized by the emergence of urbanization, literacy, long-distance trade and the arrival of Buddhism. Equally significant, its archaeological record is augmented by the appearance of the island’s earliest ‘historical’ records – the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa. Recording accounts of the history of Sri Lanka from its initial colonization by the north Indian prince, Vijaya, and his companions in the middle of the first millennium BC, these chronicles were consolidated a thousand years later by Buddhist monks and provide a valuable, if limited, context for the interpretation of Early Historic archaeology. Recorded in the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa as one of the first settlements to be established by Vijaya’s followers, the city of Anuradhapura in the northern central plains of Sri Lanka is undoubtedly at the center of the Early Historic period in Sri Lanka. Its position is reinforced by the fact that it has been both excavated and published to a high standard, first by Deraniyagala, and more recently by Coningham. Their fieldwork suggests that Anuradhapura expanded dramatically within a newly fortified circuit enclosing almost 70 ha dwarfing other excavated Early Historic sites such as the port site of Mantai on the northwest coast and Kantarodai in the Jaffna Peninsula. Although Tissamaharama in the south of the island has long been identified as the capital of the sub-kingdom of Ruhuna and contains a similar pattern of monasteries and reservoirs, its exact size is still unknown. Despite this focus on larger settlements, the failure of recent surveys to

Figure 3 Jetavana stupa at Anuradhapura.

identify towns within Anuradhapura’s hinterland has led to the suggestion that monasteries may have performed many of the administrative tasks associated with this category of settlement. Capital from the fifth century BC until 1017 AD, Anuradhapura’s pre-eminence is reinforced by its position as the birthplace of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, as it was here that the missionary Mahinda, son of the Mauryan emperor Asoka (see Asia, South: Buddhist Archaeology), arrived in the middle of the third century BC. Converting king Devanampiya Tissa and his court to Buddhism, the establishment of Anuradhapura’s Mahavihara or great monastery was augmented by relics of the Buddha and a cutting from the Bodhi tree at Bodhi Gaya and led to a growth in pilgrimage from across the Buddhist world. The first of the city’s great brick stupas, the 106.5 m high Ruyanvelisaya and 58.5 m high Mirisavati were built on the orthodox Mahavihara in the second century BC but they were challenged by the establishment of Abhayagiri in the first century BC and Jetavanarama monastery in the third century AD, the former centered on a stupa of 71.5 m and the latter on one of 160 m (Figure 3). Indicating the availability of surplus labor and resources to the kings of Anuradhapura, their fortified capital was surrounded by 25 km2 of monastic establishments with a recorded community of over 10 000 monks and nuns. Anuradhapura’s survival within the dry zone of the island is testimony to the

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Figure 4 Kalawewa reservoir.

creation of a vast hydraulic system. Begun with the construction of simple gravity reservoirs, such as the Basawak Kulam (91 ha) and Tissa Wewa (160 ha), to store excess water from the wet season for use in the dry season, the Malwattu Oya was unable to satisfy the increasing demands of the city (Figure 4). Although the construction of the Nuwara Wewa (1288 ha) reservoir in the first century AD eased the situation, water had to be diverted to Anuradhapura from other river catchments through a system of feeder channels and vast storage reservoirs in the fifth century AD. Guaranteeing two rice harvests a year, Anuradhapura’s surplus facilitated its participation in Indian Ocean trade as evidenced by Roman glass, intaglio, coins and metalwork, and early Islamic and Chinese glazed vessels. The dynastic capital for one and a half millennia, the Culavamsa records that Anuradhapura was sacked by military expeditions from south India in the eleventh century AD and, despite restoration attempts by later kings, the collapse of its integrated system of irrigation, agriculture and ritual eventually led to the depopulation of the dry zone. Laying the foundations for much of the island’s urban, mercantile, economic, religious and secular character, many Sri Lankans

still regard the island’s Early Historic period, indelibly associated as it is with Anuradhapura, as a halcyon age. See also: Asia, South: Buddhist Archaeology; India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South; Megaliths; Paleolithic Cultures.

Further Reading Bandaranyake SD (1974) Sinhalese Monastic Architecture: The Viharas of Anuradhapura. Leiden: EJ Brill. Brohier RL (1924) Ancient Irrigation Works in Ceylon. Colombo: Ceylon Government Press. Coningham RAE (1999) Anuradhapura (vol. 1). Oxford: Archaeopress. Coningham RAE (2006) Anuradhapura (vol. 2). Oxford: Archaeopress. Coningham RAE and Allchin FR (1995) The rise of cities in Sri Lanka. In: Allchin FR (ed.) The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia, pp. 152–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cooray PG (1984) An Introduction to the Geology of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Colombo: National Museums of Sri Lanka. Deraniyagala SU (1992) The Prehistory of Sri Lanka (2 vols.). Colombo: Department of Archaeological Survey. Geiger W (1934) The Mahavamsa. (translated). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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ASIA, SOUTHEAST Contents Early States and Civilizations Pre-Agricultural Peoples

Early States and Civilizations Charles Higham, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Angkor Site of a series of capital cities of the Khmer empire for much of the period from the ninth century to the fifteenth century CE. Buddhism A non-theistic religion, a philosophy, and a system of psychology pronounced by Buddha. Cham civilization An ancient civilization of the Quang-nam (where Dong-duong is located), Amaravati, Vijaya (the presentday Bihn-dinh), and Pandurang regions. Dvaravati Kingdom of the Mon people that existed from the sixth to the eleventh centuries. It was centered on the Chao Phraya River valley in modern-day Thailand, with Nakhon Pathom as the capital. Hindu religion A diverse body of religion, philosophy, and cultural practice native to and predominant in India. inscriptions Words or letters written, engraved, painted, or otherwise traced on a surface and can appear in contexts both small and monumental (coin texts and monumental carvings on buildings are both included by historians as types of inscriptions). Pyu (also written Pyuu, or Pyus) An ancient series of city-states (and their languages) found in the central and northern regions of what is now Myanmar (Burma), between the first century BC and the ninth century AD, approximately 100 BC through 840 AD. Sanskrit An ancient Indic language that is the language of Hinduism and the Vedas and is the classical literary language of India.

During the course of the second and first millennia BC, communities living in much of lowland Southeast Asia progressively became more socially complex. Until recently, it was widely noted that the Bronze Age, dating between about 1300 and 500 BC, failed to reveal the rise of social elites. This is most unusual, since the control and ownership of metal is commonly accompanied by such social change. However, major excavations at the site of Ban Non Wat in northeast Thailand have uncovered a small number

of exceptionally rich burials, in which the dead were accompanied by bronze artifacts, up to 80 or 90 large pottery vessels and an astonishing amount of exotic personal jewelry (Figures 1 and 2). Such social divisions, between rich leaders and the majority of the population, continued into the Iron Age. At Shizhaishan in Yunnan Province of China, for example, there is a royal necropolis. One large grave actually contains a gold seal inscribed ‘the seal of the King of Dian’, a seal probably given to the king by the Han Emperor himself. Further south, burials at the Iron Age site of Noen U-Loke near Ban Non Wat were found with gold, silver, glass, agate, and carnelian jewellery, set in clay-lined graves filled with rice. Sites like Noen U-Loke were ringed by multiple moats and banks that would have required a very large and organized labor force. Documentation of these prehistoric communities and their cultural sophistication is an important step in understanding the rise of civilizations. Concentration by generations of French scholars on the physical remains of sacred historic sites and the associated inscriptions, largely written in the Sanskrit language of India, led to the idea that civilizations resulted from the process of Indianization. This involved the adoption of Indian religions (Hinduism and Buddhism), Indian architectural styles, and the Sanskrit or Pali languages by the undeveloped local peoples. We can now appreciate how complex Southeast Asian leaders might have selectively adopted Indian ways to elevate their status and, in doing so, founded their own states. There is a sharp boundary between the situation in Southeast Asia west of the Truong Son Cordillera and south of the Red River Delta, and the regions to the north (Figure 3). This reflects the imperialist policies of the Qin Emperor and his Western Han successors. They sent armies south, carved off new provinces (known as commanderies), and extinguished the power and status of local leaders. The rest of mainland Southeast Asia, beyond the reach of imperial China, witnessed a series of distinct civilizations each with their own language, traditions, religion, and pattern of rise and decline. These were mainly riverine. Rice was their economic prop, and all engaged

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Figure 1 This rich Bronze Age burial from the site of Ban Non Wat reveals the presence there of social elites, already, by about 1000 BC.

Figure 2 This row of very rich Bronze Age burials from Ban Non Wat in Northeast Thailand clearly illustrates the wealth of prehistoric communities prior to the emergence of early states.

in widespread trade in goods and ideas. Warfare was endemic. In the lower reaches of the Mekong River, we encounter a succession of states often named as Funan, Chenla, and Angkor (Figure 4). The state of Dvaravati occupied the Chao Phraya River, while the river valleys flowing east from the Truong Son Range sustained the Chams. To the east, we encounter the Pyu in Central Myanmar (Burma), while a civilization developed on the Arakan coast. These states should not be perceived as monolithic civilizations. The reality was more subtle: authority

and power were probably flexible and dependent on the charisma of individual leaders. Like a concertina, states could expand and contract rapidly. Even during the life of the great civilization of Angkor, establishing or maintaining control over peripheral princes was not easy, and was rarely, if ever, achieved. Hence, when talking of Dvaravati, we are probably in touch with a kaleidoscopic situation of many rival rulers, and with Champa, each river valley had its own polity with little evidence of central hegemony.

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1. Ban Non Wat, 2. Noen U-Loke, 3. Angkor, 4. Oc Eo, 5. Ishanapura, 6. Ban Don Ta Phet, 7. Ban Tha Kae, 8. Pong Tuk, 9. U-Thong, 10. Nakhon Pathom, 11. Ku Bua, 12. Sambhupura (approximate location), 13. Wat En Khna, 14. Banteay Prei Nokor, 15. Po Nagar, 16. My Son, 17. Dong Duong, 18. Koh Ker, 19. Banteay Chmar Figure 3 Southeast Asia showing the sites mentioned in the text, followed by the list of sites.

Funan Funan was one of the earliest states in Southeast Asia. Dating from about AD 100–550, its centers were located on the delta of the Mekong and Bassac rivers. The name is shrouded in mystery, and might have a Chinese rendition of the Khmer name phnom or hill. The History of the Liang Dynasty records that two

Chinese emissaries of the Wu Emperor, known as Kang Dai and Zhu Ying, visited Funan and encountered walled settlements and a king who lived in a palace. A system of taxation involved dues on gold, silver, perfumes, and pearls, and there was a form of legal system that involved trial by ordeal. There were specialists in engraving and metalworking, and the

ASIA, SOUTHEAST/Early States and Civilizations 799 Lower Mekong 1500 Angkor

Chao Phraya Valley Thai expansion south Angkor domination

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Figure 4 The cultural sequence in Southeast Asia.

ordinary people, who were black, with curly hair and tattooed bodies, lived in houses raised on piles against the regular threat of flooding. They also recorded the names of successive rulers and their predatory wars against their neighbors. One early ruler named Hun Panhuang conquered chiefs on the edge of his kingdom and installed his sons and grandsons to rule them under his command. His son was called Pan Pan, and he was followed by a ruler known as Fan Shiman, who launched wars against his neighbors. Air photographs taken during 1930s identified ancient canals crisscrossing the delta landscape, and the outline of a large rectangular city now known as Oc Eo. On the northern margins of the delta, another walled city known as Angkor Borei lay at the northern terminus of one such canal. The Chinese visitors noted that the capital of Funan had an inland location, and the size of Angkor Borei would qualify it, at the very least, as a major center. Subsequent archaeological research has confirmed much of what Kang Dai and Zhu Ying described. Oc Eo incorporated substantial brick temple foundations,

workshops for the production of jewelery, evidence for casting metals, and the wooden piles that would have supported houses. There are also seals bearing brief texts in the Indian Brahmi script, and an abundance of evidence for trade involving Rome, India, and China. A series of sites has also been uncovered by Vietnamese scholars, again involving brick temples as well as brick vaults containing cremated human remains and rich artifacts. These include gold leaves bearing inscriptions and images of women, gold discs, gold rings, a gold flower, and jewelry fashioned from precious stones and glass. Few inscriptions survive, but their Sanskrit texts provide important information. One refers to a ruler named Jayavarman, who had been victorious in the battle against a rival king. He founded many sanctuaries dedicated to Vishnu, and placed his son Gunavarman in charge of one. A second text cites King Jayavarman and his son Rudravarman, and describes how the former named the son of a Brahman as his inspector of property. A third text mentions this king’s military victories. It also recorded the foundation of a hermitage, reservoir, and a residence by his queen. Between AD 480 and 520, there was conflict, the establishment of religious foundations in favor of exotic Indic gods, the presence of educated officiants, and a royal succession from father to son. There are two inscriptions from the vicinity of Angkor Borei which imply that this was the capital of Rudravarman, the last recorded king in this region. That from Phnom Da mentions his name on several occasions. Funan prospered with the control of international maritime trade, and the stranglehold it could place over the flow of goods up and down the vital Mekong Valley. It was, however, equally vulnerable to any changes in the pattern of trade beyond its control. During the sixth century AD, such a change occurred when the Chinese increasingly bypassed the delta. Funan then fell into a rapid decline and the political center of gravity moved inland, to emerging agrarian states known to us under the name of Chenla.

Chenla Chenla enters history through Chinese records describing the receipt of an embassy in AD 616 or 617. Subsequent assessments of this polity, which evidently flourished from about AD 550 to 800, have been heavily influenced by the The History of the Sui Dynasty, which noted that Chenla was originally a vassal of Funan, but under its ruler Citrasena, conquered Funan and achieved independence. The impression that Chenla was a unified state under a king has been largely set aside by more recent research.

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Michael Vickery has stressed that the proper analysis of Chenla can only be undertaken on the basis of the original inscriptions. Most of these texts, written in Sanskrit often with a subsidiary text in old Khmer, recorded the affairs of the temples that clearly dominated the ancient landscape. Some surviving inscriptions refer to kings, place names, the titles and status of temple patrons, the extent of temple property, and the names and duties of those assigned to maintain the foundation. One of these from the temple of Kdei Ang, dating to AD 667, names members of an elite family that straddled the transition from Funan to Chenla. Other inscriptions describe a dynasty of rulers with fine Sanskrit names. The first ruler, Mahendravarman, claimed victories in the Mun Valley to the north. A successor, Ishanavarman, was widely recognized for his authority, and his capital has been identified at the large site of Ishanapura. An inscription from this site describes the valor and military prowess of Ishanavarman, a king ‘‘who extended the territory of his parents.’’ He was succeeded by his son Bhavavarman II, about whom little is known, save that he continued from the region of Ishanapura to maintain control over most, if not all, his father’s fiefs. Jayavarman I (about AD 635–680) was the great grandson of Ishanavarman. His inscriptions indicate the tightening of central power and control over a considerable area, the creation of new titles and administrators, and the availability of an army, the means of defense and destruction. A text described how King Jayavarman’s commands were obeyed by ‘‘innumerable vassal kings.’’ Jayavarman also strengthened the legal code: ‘‘those who levy an annual tax, those who seize carts, boats, slaves, cattle, buffaloes, those who contest the kings orders, will be punished.’’ New titles were accorded to highly ranked retainers who fulfilled important posts in government. One lineage held the priestly position of hotar. Another functionary was a samantagajapadi, chief of the royal elephants, a military leader, while the dhanyakarapati would have controlled the grain stores. The king also appointed mratan and pon to a sabha, or council of state. Another inscription prescribes the quantities of salt to be distributed by barge to various foundations, and prohibits any tax on the vessels going up or down river. Thus, Jayavarman I intensified royal control over dependent fiefs begun by his great grandfather, Ishanavarman. Thereafter, this dynasty loses visibility, although the king’s daughter Jayadevi ruled from a center in the vicinity of Angkor. There were, however, other dynasties of rulers in their own, independent centers. A succession of three queens ruled at Sambhupura, and controlled traffic up and down the Mekong River, and there was a line

of kings with names ending in aditya, or rising sun, who ruled during the eighth century. There was also a local dynasty ruling the state of Canasapura in the upper Mun Valley under a King Bhagadatta. Archaeologically, the kingdoms that fall under the umbrella of the Chinese term Chenla are recognized from their brick temples, encircling walls, and associated reservoirs. Ishanapura is dominated by three-walled precincts containing single-chambered temples. The doorways incorporate sandstone lintels and columns decorated with a range of motifs which drew upon India for their inspiration. One lintel from Wat En Khna shows a king in his throne chamber, surrounded by members of his court. The facades of the temples are also decorated in shaped bricks which include representations of palaces. These reveal aspects of richly ornamented wooden structures which have not survived. The Chenla states were essentially agrarian, and their economy revolved round the temple. Temples were more than centers for devotion and worship, for they played a vital economic role in the management and deployment of agricultural surpluses. Most inscriptions from this period are concerned with their temples, and the provision of resources to maintain the personnel. Men of high status with the title pon are often mentioned for their role in temple management. Inscriptions indicate that they could donate communal land to the temple and organize their kin to produces surpluses. This system involved the accumulation of wealth in the form of rice, cloth, and land. Donations to the temple, which housed ancestral spirits, resulted in the accumulation of the merit necessary for a harmonious reincarnation. Stored assets were also a form of tradable wealth. Surviving texts suggest that rice, cloth, or ironware could be traded, thus allowing pon to indulge in trade not only for basic food and cloth, but also bankable assets, such as gold and silver. Land could be mortgaged to a temple in return for silver or cloth, and the product of the land was assigned as a form of interest payment. A donor might gift products to the temple, but receive other goods in return, or deposit goods against which to make a later claim. The temple, then, performed a key role in the appropriation of a community asset into a medium for the creation and exchange of wealth items among the elite. The more successful could accumulate sufficient capital in this way to buy further land, or they could combine assets through marriage alliances and gain sufficient wealth to increase their power and status to such an extent as to control considerable areas. The established kings, therefore, were concerned with such wealth creation for it might encourage rivals, and their permission was often described as being

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necessary in the amalgamation of temples, and the rights to land ownership. Many observers have cited Indianization as the key to understanding the rise of Chenla states, wherein the inspiration to increasing social hierarchies was due to Indian visitors introducing new ideas. This view has been criticized by underestimating the strong and continuing contribution of indigenous Khmer culture. Thus, Vickery has summarized the many references in the inscriptions to local gods worshipped in Chenla temples. The local matrilineal descent system continued, and the Khmer language took its place alongside Sanskrit in the inscriptions. He prefers the notion of an Indic veneer, wherein the elites in society selectively adopted those Indian traits that suited their objectives. These included the Sanskrit language for personal and place names, the Indian script, and architectural styles. They contributed to the increasingly strong divisions in society which signal the formation of states, but the essential characteristics of the Chenla kingdoms were Khmer. During the eighth century, the number of inscriptions fell markedly, and the historic record became thin. This does not necessarily imply cultural decline. On the contrary, it was during this period that such large sites as Banteay Prei Nokor were occupied. The latter was probably the base of a ruler known as Jayavarman II, and it was he who founded the kingdom of Angkor.

Angkor Angkor, meaning holy city in Sanskrit, comprises a complex of cities, temples, and reservoirs located north of the Great Lake (Tonle Sap) in northwest Cambodia. It was first encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth century, when Portuguese missionaries visited and described an abandoned stone city, encroached by the jungle. Their accounts were recorded by Diogo da Couto and archived in Lisbon. The Great Lake is one of the world’s most productive sources of freshwater fish. During the wet season, the Tonle Sap River, which connects the lake with the Mekong River, reverses its flow and backs up to expand greatly the lake’s area. With the dry season, the river drains the lake, and rice can be grown in the wetlands left as the lake level falls. The lake margins are a particularly favorable place for settlement by rice farmers and fishers, and the region of Angkor is further attractive because of the perennial rivers that cross the flat floodplain from their source in the Kulen uplands to the north. There is a long history of settlement in this area, which began at least as early as the Bronze Age, for prehistoric occupation of this period has been found

in the Western Baray or reservoir. An Iron Age site has also been found in the vicinity of the temple of Baksei Chamkrong. Hariharalaya, the earliest major complex, lies to the southeast of Angkor. It comprises a series of temples to the south of the Indratataka, a reservoir of unprecedented size (3800  800 m2). Most of the buildings were constructed during the reign of King Indravarman (AD 877–889). His capital incorporated two major temples, known as Preah Ko and the Bakong. The water of the Roluos River was diverted to fill the Indratataka, and was then reticulated to service the extensive moats which surrounded the temples as well as, presumably, the royal palace. Preah Ko is surrounded by a 50-m-wide moat west of the Srah Andaung Preng, a basin 100 m2. The central area is dominated by six shrines dedicated to Indravarman’s ancestors. The adjacent Bakong stands out for the sheer scale of the conception: the central pyramid rises in five stages within a double-moated enclosure 800 m2. Eight small sanctuaries were placed round the base of the pyramid, probably acknowledging the male and female ancestors of Indravarman. Still awesome, it would have been a potent symbol of royal power and sacred ancestry. With the death of Indravarman in AD 889, his son Yashovarman (protege of glory) completed the northern dyke of the Indratataka and had the Lolei temple constructed on an island in the middle of the reservoir. However, he founded a new capital centered on a low sandstone hill known as the Bakheng. This center, known as Yashodarapura, the city of Yashovarman, lies at the heart of Angkor itself. Access to the summit temple is by steep stairs, but the top of the hill has been partially leveled, so that the six terraces of the sanctuary rise from the plateau like a crown. There are numerous brick chapels at the base of the pyramid and on the terraces. The topmost tier incorporates five temples, the largest in the center and the others at each corner. Yashovarman was responsible for the creation of the Eastern Baray, the dykes of which are 7.5  1.8 m2 in extent. Inscriptions erected at each corner record the construction of this reservoir fed by the Siem Reap River, which, when full, would have contained over 50 million m3 of water. He also had at least four monasteries constructed south of his new reservoir, and temples on hills surrounding the capital. After a brief interlude, when King Jayavarman IV established his capital at Koh Ker (Figure 5), to the northeast of Angkor, his successor and older brother, King Rajendravarman, returned to the old center and had two major state temples constructed. One is now known as Pre Rup, while the Eastern Mebon was

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Figure 5 Jayavarman IV of Angkor (reigned AD 928–942) moved his capital to Koh Ker, then known as Lingapura. This massive temple mausoleum dominates the plain for miles in every direction.

built on an island in the center of the Yashodharatataka. The former honored the king and his ancestors within the context of the god Shiva. Rajendravarman was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Jayavarman V. He continued to reign at Angkor, and his state temple, then known as Hemasringagiri or the mountain with the golden summits, was built to represent Mount Meru, the home of the Hindu gods. Jayavarman V’s reign was followed by a period of civil war which left the state in serious disarray. The victorious king, Suryavarman I, established his court at Angkor, the focal point of his capital being the temple known as the Phimeanakas. It comprises a single shrine, surrounded by narrow roofed galleries on top of three tiers of laterite each of descending size. The royal palace would have been built of perishable materials, and will only be traced through the excavation of its foundations. These buildings were located within a high laterite wall with five entrance pavilions ascribed to this reign, enclosing a precinct 600  250 m2 in extent. Today, a great plaza lies to the east of this walled precinct. On its eastern side lie the southern and northern khleangs, long sandstone buildings of unknown function. The former belong to the reign of Suryavarman I. Suryavarman also underlined his authority by beginning the construction of the West Baray, the largest reservoir at Angkor, and one still retaining a considerable body of water. This reservoir was unusual, in that the area within the dykes was excavated, whereas the customary method of construction entailed

simply the raising of earth dykes above the land surface. The Western Mebon temple in the center of the baray was built in the style of Suryavarman’s successor, Udayadityavarman. It was under the succeeding dynasty of Mahidharapura, from about AD 1080, that central Angkor reached the present form. Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument known, was constructed by Suryavarman II (AD 1113–1150). A devotee of Vishnu, the temple still houses a large stone statue to this god, which was probably originally housed in the central lotus tower. Angkor Wat incorporates one of the finest and longest bas-reliefs in the world, and the scenes do much to illuminate the religious and court life of Angkor during the twelfth century (see Figures 6 and 7). One scene, for example, shows the king in council, another reveals the Angkorian army on the march, while a third shows graphic scenes of heaven and hell. Very high status princesses are seen being borne on palanquins (Figure 8). Within the walls of reliefs, the temple rises to incorporate five towers, representing the five peaks of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. Despite its size and fame, Angkor Wat remains controversial. Sixteenth-century Portuguese visitors described an inscription that may well have been the temple’s founding document, but this has not been seen or recorded since. We do not know if the entire complex was sacred with restricted access, or whether people resided within the area demarcated by an outer wall and moat. The function of the temple is not known with certainty, but George

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Figure 6 The five towers of Angkor Wat rise up above the jungle in this view from the Bakheng temple.

Figure 7 The central five towers of Angkor Wat represent the peaks of Mount Meru, home of the gods.

C
de`s has argued that it was a temple and a mausoleum for the king, whose ashes would have been interred under the central shrine. A second king of the Mahidharapura dynasty, Jayavarman VII (AD 1181–1219), was responsible for the construction of Angkor Thom, the rectangular walled city which today dominates Angkor. This moated and walled city centers on the Bayon, an extraordinary edifice embellished with gigantic stone heads thought to represent the king as Buddha. He also ordered the construction of the Northern Baray or reservoir and the central island temple of Neak Pean, formerly

known as Rajasri. According to contemporary inscriptions, visitors to this temple would wash away their sins in the water that gushed from four fountains in the form of a human and animal heads. Foundation inscriptions also describe how Jayavarman VII founded and endowed two vast temple complexes, Ta Prohm to his mother and Preah Khan to his father. Each temple also incorporated shrines dedicated to ancestors of the aristocracy (Figure 9). Following the death of Jayavarman VII, building activity slowed. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Angkor state was under stress from the

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Figure 8 An Angkorian princess, seen on a relief on the walls of Angkor Wat, is carried through a forest on a palanquin.

Figure 9 Banteay Chmar is a huge temple mausoleum, built by Jayavarman VII of Angkor (AD reigned 1181–1219). Located in a remote part of northwest Cambodia, it was, until recently, virtually inaccessible and covered in jungle.

encroaching Thais, and was abandoned in the middle years of the latter century. While much of the site was then overgrown by the jungle, Angkor Wat was never completely abandoned. It, and indeed all other temples, retain their sanctity to this day. The physical remains of the civilization of Angkor, and the corpus of inscriptions (Figure 10), make it clear that there must have been many specialists engaged in regular activities. The construction of a temple even of relatively humble proportions would have called on architects and a wide range of laborers,

from those who manufactured bricks, to those who cut and shaped stone, as well as carpenters, plasterers to create the frescoes, painters, and gilders. Surviving bronzes, for example, palanquin fittings and statues, indicate the presence of metal workshops, and the ornate jewelry seen on the elite in the bas-reliefs reflect not only lapidaries but workers of gold, silver, and precious stones. Recent archaeological research by Roland Fletcher and Christophe Pottier has greatly expanded our conception of Angkor. They have identified numerous

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Figure 10 The temple of Banteay Chmar contains bas reliefs showing a naval battle between the Kingdom of Angkor and the Chams.

temple foundations and evidence for occupation beyond the ceremonial central temples and reservoirs, suggesting that this was one of the largest preindustrial cities known. Moreover, they have traced Angkorian canals that issued from the reservoirs, providing firm evidence for intensive irrigation of the rice fields between the city and the Great Lake to the south. North of Angkor, it is clear that major water control measures were put in place to divert water via the newly created Siem Reap River, and bring the precious water to the central city to feed the reservoirs and canals. Precisely when this expansion and the provision of the irrigation canals took place within the Angkorian period remains under investigation, but the hydraulic expertise was clearly of a very high order indeed.

The Cham Civilization The Cham civilization occupied the coastal plains of Vietnam from Saigon to the Hai Van Pass. Its people spoke an Austronesian language most akin to the languages of Borneo, and their ancestors probably settled this coastal strip during the first millennium BC. The territory of the Chams is divided into a series of restricted coastal enclaves, backed to the west by the Truong Son Cordillera. Cham centers are located at the estuaries of the major rivers that cross these coastal plains. The most southerly region of Champa lies from the eastern margins of the Mekong Delta to Cape Dinh, an inhospitable stretch of coastline with thin, sandy soils. Between Cape Dinh and Cape

Nay, there are three well-watered valleys separated by low passes, an area known to the Chams as Panduranga. North of Cape Dinh, the coastal strip broadens into a plain about 70  70 km2 in extent. There are many sites here in a region known to the Chams as Vijaya. The region of Amaravati lies between the Hai Van Pass and Quy Nhon, and was the dominant area of Cham political centrality. It has a reasonable area of land available for agriculture, and several well-sheltered harbors. The last area lies north of the Hai Van Pass, with most archaeological sites being concentrated in the vicinity of Quang Tri. The relative importance and political reach of these polities named in the inscriptions almost certainly changed markedly over time. It is most unlikely that Champa was ever a unified state. Early records provide the names of the component parts of this civilization. We find reference to Amaravati and Vijaya. Kauthara was first mentioned in an inscription from Pa Nagar set up by King Satyavarman in AD 784. A kingdom known as Panduranga was recorded in an inscription from Po Nagar, dated to 817 AD, which describes its ruler. My Son was the great ceremonial center of Amaravati. It comprises a series of brick shrines set out in seven walled groups with many outliers. It was founded at least as early as the fifth century AD under a ruler known as Bhadravarman. King Vikrantavarman initiated a major building program at My Son in the seventh century AD. The temples were built of brick, and the exterior surfaces bore strip pilasters, false doors, and window niches. Further temples were

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erected at least until the reign of Jaya Indravarman toward the end of the eleventh century. Temple E1 is particularly notable for the presence of fine Cham sculptures that belong to the early seventh century. The inspiration of Indian art and religion is seen in a carved sandstone pediment over 2 m wide, illustrating Vishnu recumbent on the ocean of eternity, represented by a seven-headed serpent. A bearded ascetic watches the god from his side, and two figures grasp snakes in bird’s talons beyond his head and feet. The temple within was dominated by a large linga, a phallic symbol, representing Shiva, which stood on a richly ornamented pedestal. Access to the top of this platform, which represented Mount Kailasa (the home of Shiva), was by three steps. The outer walls of the pedestal incorporate a series of carved reliefs. One of these is regarded by Guillon as a masterpiece of Cham art, showing three dancers wearing rich ornaments and holding scarves. Their jewelry includes multiple necklaces, belts, armlets, and heavy ear disks. Free-standing sculptures were also recovered from My Son, the earliest coming from temple E5, and dating to the late seventh century. It portrays Ganesha, the elephant god of wisdom. Again, Indian inspiration is apparent in this fine statue, which stands almost a meter high. Ganesha is portrayed with four arms, and he holds a rosary, an axe, a bowl of sweets, and the root of a plant which elephants are known to appreciate. He wears a

complex decorated belt and a tiger skin. A second statue of Ganesha from temple B3 stresses again the local attachment to this god. In this case, the elephant is portrayed as seated. Dong Duong is a second major center of Amaravati. It is a very large complex, measuring 1.5 km from east to west, and was probably built by King Bhadravarman in honor of his predecessor, King Jaya Indravarman, in the late ninth century AD. The was a temple designed for the worship of the Buddha. It contains a huge statue of the seated Buddha, standing over 1.5 m high, which was discovered in 1935 in the hall of the Dong Duong monastery. Another large statue depicts a monk holding a lotus in front of him with both hands, and also came from the monastic hall. A third fine statue from this site shows a guardian of the law. A dvarapala is a door guardian, and there were eight of these at Dong Duong. They are massive and forbidding, standing over 2 m in height. Each one tramples on an animal or person, and flourishes a sword. Po Nagar is the major center of Kauthara, the most southerly polity of the Cham civilization (Figure 11). Six brick sanctuaries are built on an eminence that commands a major estuary. There is a lengthy history of construction, commencing at least in the seventh century AD with a wooden temple that was destroyed by fire in AD 774. The northwestern tower was built in AD 813, and further sanctuaries were added until

Figure 11 The Cham temple of Po Nagar commands a strategic estuary on the coast of Southern Vietnam.

ASIA, SOUTHEAST/Early States and Civilizations 807

AD 1256. King Jaya Harivarmadeva set up an inscription in AD 1160, claiming victory over the Khmer and Vietnamese, as well as the Cham kingdoms of Vijaya, Amaravati, and Panduranga. The site is located so that it could control sea traffic from China south to the states of mainland and island Southeast Asia. Chinese records contain many references to the Chams, who appear as a constant irritant to the maintenance of peace on their southern frontier. However, it was the expulsion of the Chinese from the Red River delta area by the Vietnamese that brought doom to the Chams. Progressively, the Vietnamese pushed south along the coastal corridor, destroying the Cham civilization. Today, Cham speakers survive in small communities within the state of Vietnam.

Dvaravati The civilization of Dvaravati flourished in the valley of the Chao Phraya River from about AD 400 to 900. It then came increasingly under the influence, and at times control, of the Kingdom of Angkor. The people spoke the Mon language, which is closely related to Khmer. There are many Iron Age settlements in this area that reveal increasing cultural complexity between 400 BC and AD 300. These include Ban Don Ta Phet, where rich burials contain a number of Indian imports. At Ban Tha Kae, the late prehistoric phase incorporates ceramics, gold beads, querns, and stamp seals similar to those from Oc Eo, the Funan city on the Mekong Delta. There is a continuous record for the transition from prehistory to the historic period of Dvaravati at the site of Chansen, where the second period of occupation included a notable ivory comb decorated with a goose, two horses, and Buddhist symbols dating probably to the first or second centuries AD (see Asia, South: Buddhist Archaeology). Although the documentary sources for Dvaravati are few, it is known that the scribes employed Sanskrit in their inscriptions, and that Buddhism was particularly favored but not to the exclusion of major Hindu deities. The archaeology of Dvaravati is dominated by a series of large, moated cities of oval or subrectangular outline. The favored location involved a stream that fed the moats, just as in the later prehistoric Iron Age of the region. Excavations have often revealed the foundations of religious buildings in laterite and brick. These were coated in decorated stucco with Buddhist figures or symbols. The buildings were constructed to house relics or images of the Buddha. There are three geographic groups of centers, known as the Eastern, Central, and Western. It is not known

whether there was an overall integration into a single kingdom, or a series of small, regional polities. The major sites in the western group are strategically located on the flood plains of the Maeklong and Chao Phraya rivers. At that juncture, the sea level would have been slightly higher than at present, and there would have been less sedimentation. Large centers would then have been closer to the shore and able to participate in maritime trade. The principal sites in this group are Pong Tuk, U-Thong, Nakhon Pathom, and Ku Bua. The central region is dominated by the site of Lopburi, Ban Khu Muang, and Sri Thep, while the western group incorporates Muang Phra Rot, Dong Si Mahosod, and Dong Lakhon. The few inscriptions of the Dvaravati civilization are important sources of information. Unlike the situation in Cambodia, where the actual names of the Funan and Chenla kingdoms have not survived, we know that the name of the Chao Phraya polity centered at Nakhon Pathom was Dvaravati, because two coins inscribed with the Sanskrit text ‘‘meritorious deeds of the King of Dvaravati’’ were found there. Six surface finds of coins from Muang Dongkorn also refer to the King of Dvaravati. Dvaravati means ‘‘which has gates,’’ perhaps referring to the gates giving access through the city walls. A mid-seventhcentury inscription from the site of U-Thong reads ‘‘Sri Harshavarman, grandson of Ishanavarman, having expanded his sphere of glory, obtained the lion throne through regular succession.’’ The king had given meritorious gifts to a linga, and described his exalted ancestry and military achievements. A further text from Lopburi names Arshva, son of the King of Sambuka. Finally, a seventh-century inscription from Sri Thep records ‘‘In the year . . . a king who is nephew of the great King, who is the son of Pruthiveenadravarman, and who is as great as Bhavavarman, who has renowned moral principles, who is powerful and the terror of his enemies, erects this inscription on ascending the throne.’’

The Pyu The Pyu or Tircul people of Burma were first mentioned in a mid-fourth-century AD Chinese text in a list of the tribes on the frontier of Southwestern China. The author described them as the Piao. Other early Chinese records that survived in later editions describe the Piao as civilized, ‘‘where prince and minister, father and son, elder and younger, have each their order of precedence.’’ The Chinese called them the Pyu, but the Mon people knew of them as the Tircul. The Pyu civilization was developed in the dry zone of central Burma between about 200 BC and

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AD 900. It is best known on the basis of three large walled cities, Beikthano, Sri Ksetra, and Halin. All were located in tributary valleys of the Irrawaddy River, where it was possible to harness the local rivers or streams for irrigation purposes. There is compelling evidence at Beikthano for a pre-Buddhist mortuary tradition involving large brick and timber halls containing the cremated remains of high-status individuals. By the fourth or fifth centuries AD, however, Buddhism had taken root and many large public buildings, including stupas and monasteries, were constructed. Meanwhile, the cremated dead were interred in large ceramic mortuary jars set in brick structures outside the city walls. The Pyu spoke a Sino-Tibetan language, and employed Indian scripts in their inscriptions. They were proficient bronze casters, one set of figurines from Sri Ksetra showing dancers and musicians richly appareled and ornamented. Skilled artisans also made silver Buddha images of great beauty. They also took part in a widespread trading network that incorporated India. The civilization was ultimately to be succeeded by the state of Pagan. There is a major destruction layer at Halin. However, many of the Pyu arts, crafts, and ideas were incorporated into the Pagan civilization. It is recorded that King Anawratha of Pagan removed votive tablets and offerings from Sri Ksetra and placed them in his Shwesandaw temple at Pagan.

The Arakan Coast The Arakan coast of western Burma occupies a key geographic position in the maritime exchange route that developed during the early centuries AD. It faces India across the Bay of Bengal, and was thus a natural stepping stone when, for example, the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka sent Buddhist missions to Southeast Asia. Tradition has it that the Buddha manifested himself in Arakan, when an image of him was cast. This is known as the Mahamuni (great sage). Although the history of Arakan has hardly been tested archaeologically, it is known that two major cities span the fifth to the eighth centuries AD. The first, Dhanyawadi, incorporated a walled royal precinct and the hill on which the Mahamuni was housed and revered until the early eighteenth century, when it was removed to Mandalay. The second city of Vesali, located like Dhanyawadi in a rich agricultural valley suited to rice cultivation but with access to the sea, was also ringed with a substantial brick wall and moat. The Shit-thaung inscription text listed 22 kings of the Ananda Dynasty who ruled this area. Buddhism was the dominant religion, but not to the exclusion of Hinduism. Coins were minted, and there is

evidence for extensive maritime trade and wealthy urban communities.

Summary The early civilizations of mainland Southeast Asia dominated the major river valleys, and developed from prehistoric societies in which there were strong indigenous trends toward social complexity. Although leavened by the adoption of Indian religions, languages, and architectural styles, the civilizations of Southeast Asia followed their own course to statehood. Through Sanskrit or Pali inscriptions, associated with texts in indigenous languages such as Khmer or Mon, we can identify dynasties and the names of kings who established themselves in palatial buildings associated with impressive stone temples. However, warfare was endemic both within and between the rival polities. These states relied upon rice cultivation and water control for their survival, and the production of rice surpluses in villages little different from those in the area today were deployed to maintain the elite. In the case of Angkor, there was a strong thread of continuity into modern Cambodia. The Mon state of Dvaravati, however, was overtaken with the intrusion of the Thais, while the Cham states succumbed to the expansionary movement south of the Vietnamese. Many early traditions survive, however, as seen in court rituals of Thailand, and many place names of Sanskrit origin. See also: Asia, East: Chinese Civilization; Asia, South:

Buddhist Archaeology; Indus Civilization; Asia, Southeast: Pre-agricultural Peoples; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Political Complexity, Rise of; Social Inequality, Development of; State-Level Societies, Collapse of.

Further Reading Coe MD (2003) Angkor and the Khmer Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson. Guillon E (2001) Cham Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Gutman P (2001) Burma’s Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan. Bangkok: Orchid Press. Higham CFW (2001) The Civilization of Angkor. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Higham CFW (2002) Early Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia. Bangkok: River Books. Indrawooth P (1999) Dvaravati. A Critical Study Based on Archaeological Evidence. Bangkok: Aksornsmai. Jacques C (1997) Angkor, Cities and Temples. Bangkok: River Books. Moore E and Siribhadra S (1992) Palaces of the Gods. Khmer Art and Architecture in Thailand. Bangkok: River Books. Vickery M (1998) Society, Economics and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia. Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO.

ASIA, WEST/Pre-Agricultural Peoples 809

Pre-Agricultural Peoples Sandra Bowdler, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Hoabinhian First used by French archaeologists working in northern Vietnam to describe late Pleistocene and Holocene period archaeological assemblages excavated from rock shelters. Sahul Shelf Part of the continental shelf of Sahul (the Australia– New Guinea continent) which lies off the north-western coast of Australia. sumatralith An oval- to rectangular-shaped stone artefact made by unifacially flaking around the circumference of a cobble. Sunda Shelf An extension of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia, covered during interglacials by the South China Sea, which isolates as islands Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and smaller islands.

Introduction Southeast Asia is an arbitrary region whose definition is based on partly physical geographical factors, partly on cultural similarities, and partly according to politically defined areas. It comprises the modern nation states of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao (Laos), Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – the ASEAN nations (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and East Timor (Figure 1). Some would include the island of Taiwan. Physically, Southeast Asia is separated from India and much of China by high mountains, but if we were to ignore political boundaries, southeast China, including Hong Kong, would probably be seen as part as Southeast Asia. Another conflict between physical and political parameters arises in the case of eastern Indonesia. Much of Southeast Asia lies on the Sunda shelf which is separated from the Sahul shelf by deep water barriers. The Sahul shelf includes continental Australia and the surrounding islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. Irian Jaya, the western half of the island of New Guinea, is clearly part of Sahulland physically, but is part of Indonesia politically and is thus often included in Southeast Asia, rather than within the Australasian grouping. This article discusses the archaeological evidence for the human occupation of Southeast Asia during the Pleistocene period, or Ice Age, which extended from c.2 million years ago to c. 10 000 years ago, when it was succeeded by the Holocene, or Recent, geological period. Since literacy did not reach Southeast Asia until well after the end of the Pleistocene, we are reliant on archaeological evidence to tell

us the human history of that period. That evidence is variable in its distribution and quality, partly due to the fact that until the later twentieth century, archaeological research was a colonial activity, carried out in a somewhat disorganized fashion by people who were often not trained archaeologists. In the postcolonial era, research has increased in both quantity and quality, and new discoveries are frequently made. Thus, many questions do not have clear-cut or generally agreed answers but are subject to ongoing discussion and debate.

Early Hominins The first human-like inhabitants of Southeast Asia were the early hominins – members of the wider human family – known as Homo erectus. The first fossil remains of this species were discovered in central Java by Dutch Colonial medical officer Eugene Dubois in 1890, who named it Pithecanthropus erectus, the ape man who walks upright. Further remains of H. erectus have since been found at several sites in central Java. The dating of the fossils is problematic, but recent evidence supports dates of at least 1 million years ago, if not more. It is generally accepted that these fossils represent one of the earliest forays of hominins out of Africa, but whether they were the direct ancestors of modern humans is more controversial. A continuing debate was initiated by DNA research in the 1980s which suggested that modern humans emerged from Africa at a much later date, supplanting earlier hominins in places like Southeast Asia. The older view, which seems to be losing ground, was that H. erectus types migrated from Africa to many parts of the world including the Middle East, Europe, and China as well as Southeast Asia and there evolved into subtypes of modern humans (see Modern Humans, Emergence of). One of the problems with the H. erectus fossils in Java is their lack of clear association with any cultural material. The earliest humans in Africa are defined as human ancestors at least in part by their ability to make and use patterned stone artifacts, objects which can be considered cultural by virtue of their being passed on within the social group by processes of learning. Stone artifact assemblages made by H. erectus have been claimed from various parts of Java, but none is unequivocal in terms of stratigraphic location, absolute dating, and artifactual status. A badly defined industry called the Pacitanian has been recognized from a series of surface sites and attributed to H. erectus, but has not been shown to be in association with any fossils, nor has it been dated. Recent accounts suggest artifactual evidence has been found in excavated stratified situations in central Java, but detailed reports are needed to

India

Bhutan

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Nepal

China

Taiwan

Bangladesh Hong Kong

Myanmar Lao

Thailand Vietnam Cambodia

Philippines

Sri Lanka Brunei Malaysia Malaysia Singapore Island of Borneo

Sulawesi

Sumatra

Indonesia

Iriyan Jaya Papua New Guinea

New Guinea

Java Flores East Timor

Australia Figure 1 Map of Southeast Asia, with places mentioned in text.

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confirm this. The lack of universally accepted, clearly associated artifactual evidence in Java might be taken as suggesting that Javanese H. erectus was not a likely ancestor for modern humans. While the ‘classic’ H. erectus remains from Java are generally accepted as being at least 1 million to 750 000 years old, another group of remains, mainly from Ngandong on the Solo River in central Java, are considered to be more phylogenetically evolved and therefore more recent. Again, their dating is problematic, with some claims that they might be as recent as c. 30 000 years old, but a more generally accepted dating would be of the order of 300 000 years. Like the others however they are not, to the agreement of all, associated with any cultural remains. Research in Flores, one of the islands in the eastern Indonesian archipelago, has revealed new evidence. During the Pleistocene, there were periods of lowered temperatures worldwide which froze up much of the world’s water into glaciers and thus lowered sea levels. Java, being part of the Sunda shelf, was connected to mainland Southeast Asia by a landbridge during such periods. Flores lies in one of the deep troughs between Sunda and Sahul and was thus only ever accessible by water. While it is easy to imagine H. erectus arriving dry-shod in Java, it seems less likely that this early hominin would have crossed such a barrier to Flores. Finds in the Soa Basin of central Flores seem to suggest that this might have been the case. While no actual hominin remains have been found here, stone artifacts dated to c. 800 000 years ago suggest that H. erectus was here at this time. There is however continuing debate about the nature of the artifacts and their stratigraphic associations. It can be observed that in Java we have fossil hominins with few if any indisputable cultural associations, whereas in Flores we have putative hominin cultural remains but no hominins. More recent and equally challenging evidence from Flores has been recovered recently, and will be discussed further below. Evidence of H. erectus is lacking from the Southeast Asian mainland, despite its presence in southern China by at least 750 000 years ago and possibly earlier. There is also no convincing cultural evidence of an early occupation of the mainland. Furthermore, there appears to be a wide chronological gap between these early residents of island Southeast Asia and later hominin occupations in the form of modern humans, H. sapiens sapiens. Anatomically modern humans (AMHs) are now generally accepted as having evolved in Africa some time between 200 000 and 100 000 years ago, and to have spread out to the rest of the world between c. 100 000 and 40 000 years ago, or during the early part of the Upper Pleistocene geological epoch.

AMH fossils are found in the Middle East dated to c. 100 000 years ago, and in Europe by c. 40 000 years. The oldest modern humans in China are dated no older than 67 000 years ago (Liujiang). The Southeast Asian evidence for modern humans conforms to this pattern. Where it differs is in the nature of the associated cultural evidence, especially with respect to stone artifact assemblages.

Eurocentric Models Southeast Asian Pleistocene archaeology has been plagued by the imposition of models based on the archaeological sequences of Europe, and especially Northwest Europe. The term Palaeolithic, meaning literally Old Stone Age, was coined by English aristocrat John Lubbock in 1865, and subdivided by French priest L’Abbe´ Breuil in 1912 into Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic. These subdivisions were, based on types of stone artifacts on the one hand and hominin fossil types on the other, fitted into a uniform time frame. To summarize briefly, the Lower Palaeolithic represents the earliest Homo species including H. erectus (now called H. ergaster in Africa and H. heidelbergensis, and other things, in Europe). The first human ancestors (variously named, but including H. habilis) were associated with stone artifacts considered to be technically primitive, often made on pebbles (technically cobbles) and referred to as ‘chopper’ and ‘chopping tools’. The chronologically later and more phylogenetically advanced H. erectus types were associated with a particular stone artifact form, the ‘hand ax’, a bifacial implement made on a large core, which occurred in huge numbers at many sites across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India within the vast time span of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene, c. 1.5 million to 100 000 years ago. In Europe, the succeeding Middle Palaeolithic phase, dated between 100 and 40 000 years, is the time of the Neanderthals (H. sapiens neanderthalensis), whose evolutionary status has long been problematic, but who is now considered not to have been ancestral to modern humans. Their stone tools were flake tools rather than core tools, and come in a range of recurring forms generally referred to as points and scrapers. The Upper Palaeolithic (c. 40 000–c. 10 000 years) sees the arrival of fully modern humans using a more refined range of points and scrapers, often made on long slender flakes called blades, and also featuring a range of artifacts made of bone and antler. This is also the period of the renowned naturalistic cave art of France and Spain. Many problems have arisen with the interpretation of the archaeological record outside Europe by

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attempts to fit it into this Lower–Middle–Upper Palaeolithic model, and Southeast Asia is no exception. In 1948, American archaeologist Hallam Movius Jr., who had worked on European Palaeolithic sites, surveyed what was then known of the Asian archaeological record, and concluded that there were significant differences between Europe and the east. His most celebrated observation was that there were no hand axes in Asia, east of the Himalayas, and what was found in the Far East was a more primitive stone tool repertoire, consisting of ‘choppers and chopping tools’, and that this continued for thousands of years. The implication was that the latter was a hangover from a more primitive past, which had somehow not attained the advanced stage of manufacturing hand axes, let alone the far more progressive level of the Middle Palaeolithic. This was explicitly stated in his observation that ‘‘throughout the early portion of the Old Stone Age the tools consist for the most part of relatively monotonous and unimaginative assemblages of choppers, chopping tools and hand-adzes..... the archaeological...material very definitely indicates that as early as Lower Palaeolithic times Southern and Eastern Asia as a whole was a region of cultural retardation’’ (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 38 (1948): 329–420). This is indeed a restatement of an earlier comment by the Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin (Early Man in China (1941): 60): ‘‘In contrast with the already ‘steaming’ West, Early Pleistocene Eastern Asia seems to have represented (on account of its marginal geographic position) a quiet and conservative corner amidst the fast advancing human world’’. The racist implications of these statements are obvious, and have been dealt with previously in many places. It is however interesting that the overall concept of the Movius Line is perpetuated in textbooks and syntheses with little modification from the 1940s, if without the racist overtones. It is in general true that bifacial hand ax forms do not occur in the east, although there are some exceptions, such as the Chinese site of Dingcun. It is not however the case that what fills that void are ‘primitive’ chopper-chopping types. It needs to be observed that Movius (and Teilhard) were working primarily with collections of artifacts from undated surface collections, apart from the excavated material from the celebrated site of Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien) in China, ‘home of Peking Man’ (H. erectus). Even here however the dominant artifacts are not chopper/chopping tools; rather, the assemblage of artifacts which are clearly associated with H. erectus is dominated by small quartz flakes, many manufactured by the bipolar flaking technique. The hominin occupation at Zhoukoudian is rather younger than most of the

Javanese fossils, ranging from about 400 000 to perhaps 250 000 years ago. There is however in Southeast Asia a range of tools which can be characterized as chopper/chopping tools, but they are not in fact the primitive artifacts that Teilhard and Movius, and some more recent scholars, have taken them to be.

Upper Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers After H. erectus, the oldest evidence for human occupation in Southeast Asia is restricted to the Upper Pleistocene geological period, that is, within the last 100 000 years. In fact, firmly dated evidence is restricted to the last 40 000 or so years, with one exception. Within that timeframe however there is abundant archaeological evidence from all parts of Southeast Asia, although research has been more intensive in some places than others. In general, again with one exception, the cultural evidence is associated with anatomically modern humans. The archaeological record itself however is rather confusing, at least in the way it has been interpreted, particularly with respect to the kinds of Eurocentric models imposed on it, as discussed above. One of the enduring apparent mysteries of Southeast Asian research has been the Hoabinhian.

The Hoabinhian French archaeologist Madeleine Colani, who had been resident in Vietnam since 1884, excavated some 52 cave and rockshelter sites between 1924 and 1926 in Bac Son and Hoa Binh provinces in northern Vietnam. While the fearsome speed of these excavations must raise some doubts in modern archaeological minds as to their refinement and accuracy, it can hardly be denied that she had a substantial sample of material to deal with. In Hanoi in 1932, she reported to the first Congress of prehistorians of the Far East the discovery of a new Palaeolithic culture. The Hoabinhian is a culture composed of implements that are in general flaked with somewhat varied types of primitive workmanship. It is characterized by tools often worked only on one face, by hammerstones, by implements of subtriangular section, by discs, short axes, and almond shaped artifacts, with an appreciable number of bone tools (Praehistorica Asiae Orientalis, 1932).

It can be seen that Conlani’s definition is somewhat vague, and the Hoabinhian has bedeviled archaeologists ever since, with its status as ‘culture’ or ‘industry’ or indeed anything in particular under continual

ASIA, WEST/Pre-Agricultural Peoples 813

attack. Colani’s definition fails to include the salient fact that the ‘disks, short axes, and almonds’ she mentions are unifacially flaked core tools made on waterworn cobbles (generally called, less correctly, ‘pebbles’). The disks are, as the name suggests, round and flattish, the almond-shaped artifacts are often flaked over one entire surface with the other side consisting of waterworn cortex (these are also known as ‘sumatraliths’, Figure 2), and the short axes are basically the latter split or broken in half (Figure 3). Other forms consist of a cobble broken across a shorter access and similarly flaked; these types are usually called ‘choppers’, although the term

Figure 2 Sumatralith.

Figure 3 Short ax.

Figure 4 Discoid.

is often applied to all these varieties (Figures 4 and 5). What they all have in common is a worked/working edge formed by the intersection of a flaked edge with unworked cortex. One of the common and continuing misapprehensions is that these objects resemble, or are indeed the same as, the much less patterned chopper/chopping tools of the African preAcheulian and European non-Acheulian sites of the Lower Palaeolithic. Sites containing artifacts effectively identical to these pebble tools of the Hoabinhian have subsequently been described from most parts of mainland Southeast Asia, extending to Nepal and southeast China, but not, it

814 ASIA, WEST/Pre-Agricultural Peoples

Figure 5 Chopper.

Figure 6 Biface.

has generally been believed, island Southeast Asia, with the exception of northeast Sumatra (hence the ‘sumatralith’). In peninsular Malaysia, sites containing bifacially worked pebbles, which are quite different from the original unifacial types, have been characterized as Hoabinhian (Figure 6). As indicated, the status of the Hoabinhian has been controversial. On the one hand, there has been a reluctance to admit that the typical Hoabinhian artifacts are in any way distinctive, and it is often asserted that they are only due to raw material availability: if waterworn cobbles are available, pebble tools will result. This overlooks the distinctive nature of these types, which are not found in numbers in assemblages anywhere else in the world except Southeast Australia and in New Guinea. They do not resemble the earliest artifacts from East Africa, nor the non-Acheulian assemblages of Europe (such as the Clactonian, and those from sites such as Vertesszo¨llo¨s). Occasionally single unifacially flaked pebbles do occur in other assemblages, but given the ultimate limitations of stone artifact production, it is not surprising that similar forms can occur in different places; they do

not however occur in consistent patterned numbers in multiple assemblages outside Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Southeast Australia (Figure 7). One of the continuing issues is whether there is a Hoabinhian culture. Using the original definition (of Childe and others) of culture as a ‘recurring assemblage of types’, it might be argued that there is such a thing. On the other hand, the idea that this somehow corresponds to some kind of shared ethnic identity is hard to sustain in many archaeological cases, but especially so with respect to the Hoabinhian. American archaeologist Chet Gorman, who had worked on Late Pleistocene sites in Thailand, notably Spirit Cave, suggested that the Hoabinhian should be described as a ‘‘technocomplex’’: ‘‘a group of cultures characterised by assemblages sharing a polythetic range but differing specific types of the same general families of artefact-types, shared as a widely diffused and interlinked response to common factors in environment, economy and technology’’ (term coined by David Clarke in 1968). In other words, Gorman was suggesting that there was a broad range of variable characteristics characterizing the

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Figure 7 Map of Hoabhinian distribution.

Hoabinhian, but none were essential as individual elements to qualify for membership of it. At the ‘Hoabinhian 60 Years after Madeleine Colani: Anniversary Conference’ in Hanoi in 1994, it was agreed that the term Hoabinhian should be retained, but that it should be referred to not as the Hoabinhian culture, but rather as the Hoabinhian industry; the term ‘technocomplex’ did not find favor. The presence of ‘sumatraliths’ was taken to be an essential, perhaps defining, characteristic of the Hoabinhian. Another question is whether is there is a unique dimension to the manifestation of the Hoabinhian in Vietnam, or is it just the case that this is where it was first described. As indicated, Colani’s original definition was vague in the extreme. Apart from the unifacially flaked tools described above, there are other shared characteristics of the sites within which they occur, which extend beyond Vietnam. Hoabinhian industries are generally found in occupation sites in limestone rockshelters, or in open shell midden sites. Usually the rockshelter sites contain deposits of shell midden. Food remains, as well as mollusks, generally include small mammals, and a range of plant foods

has been preserved in some sites. In some sites, Hoabinhian artifacts have been found in association with ground stone axes and/or grindstones. This seems to be a chronological distinction, with such sites being more recent than those without such objects. The term Palaeolithic seems to have been used by Colani to suggest that Hoabinhian sites were of Pleistocene Age. Subsequent research suggested that they were more recent than that, and should thus, in European nomenclature, be considered Mesolithic, the term applied to hunter-gatherer societies of the Holocene in Western Europe. Colani however had in fact described two cultures; as well as the Hoabinhian, there was a later phenomenon, the Bacsonian. Many of the tools of the Hoabinhian were also present in the Bacsonian, but the latter contained tools more often associated in Europe with the Neolithic, or early farmers: edge-ground axes and pottery. Bacsonian sites included shell middens, located on the modern shore line, and thus clearly of post-Pleistocene age. A further complication arises with the concept of a pre-Hoabinhian industry in Vietnam called the Son Vian (after the site Son Vi) developed by Vietnamese scholars. This is not clearly defined:

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it contains what are obviously Hoabinhian type artifacts – unifacially flaked cobbles of sumatralith and short axe form – but what actually distinguishes it from its successor is not at all clear, certainly not in the English-language literature. In line with the conclusions of the Colani anniversary conference, it seems most useful to consider the Hoabinhian as an industry, or industries, characterized by a particular range of unifacially worked pebble/cobble tools. The limited, if odd, distribution does suggest some form of cultural connection between the communities which utilized these objects, but at this stage of our knowledge it cannot be precisely specified. There has been sufficient archaeological research carried out in Vietnam to suggest that it is found in the north but not in the south. It is known from sites in Cambodia but not Lao, but research in these countries has not been carried out to the extent where we can be sure what its distribution is in them. A number of sites are known from Thailand, both north and south. In Malaysia complications ensue, because, as previously mentioned, sites in peninsular Malaysia which contain bifacially flaked artifacts, often not made on cobbles, are characterized as Hoabinhian, which seems misleading. Examples are known from Myanmar, but archaeological research there has been as restricted as in Cambodia and Lao. Very good examples are known from Nepal, mostly from surface sites; this would seem to be the northwestern limit of Hoabinhian distribution. Hoabinhian artifacts occur in sites in southeast China. It is not clear whether they occur in Japan; single specimens of artifacts resembling Hoabinhian types have been reported, but it is not possible to be sure that they are more than an incidentally produced form within the context of quite different kinds of industries. It has been a long-standing belief that Hoabinhian type tools do not occur in island Southeast Asia, apart from some well-documented, if not well-excavated midden sites in northeast Sumatra. In fact, such artifacts have been found in some island sites; nothing like as many, it is true, as in sites in Vietnam and Thailand, but it is also the case that fewer sites have been excavated in the islands. A careful inspection of artifacts from the Niah Cave in Sarawak on the island of Borneo shows that, in the lower levels, tools of Hoabinhian type are present; they are almost unrecognizable due to their having been reworked, possibly after breakage. Specimens are also known from sites on Morotai Island, northern Maluku. They have been reported from northern Luzon in the Philippines. As previously mentioned, Hoabinhian

tools are also known from sites in the interior highlands of Papua New Guinea, as well as Southeast Australia. The chronology of the Hoabinhian is, not surprisingly, now better understood than in Colani’s time, but there are still complications. In northern Vietnam, tools of Hoabinhian type as here defined occur in sites referred to the Sonvian and dating up to 33 000 years ago. Some of these dates are however radiocarbon assays based on freshwater shellfish, which are not regarded as completely reliable. At the Ma´i Da´ Dieu rockshelter, which was re-excavated in 1988, Hoabinhian tools appear bracketed between dates of c. 24 000 and 20 500 years BP. At Ma´i Da´ Nguo´m rockshelter, pebble tools attributed to Sonvian are dated to c. 23 000 years. In Thailand, Hoabinhian artifacts occur in sites dated to 28 000–30 000 years ago. In general however the dating of Hoabinhian artifacts in archaeological sites shows a strong Late to terminal Pleistocene to Early Holocene range, from c. 16 000 to 7000 years BP. In Australia, Hoabinhian artifacts are no older than 15 000 years, but continued up to 200 years ago. An exception is the site of Kota Tampan in Perak in peninsular Malaysia. This site was originally thought to be of Middle Pleistocene age, but modern research has shown it to be Upper Pleistocene. It is an open site which consists of a stone tool workshop which was apparently sealed by volcanic ash from an explosion of Mount Toba (Sumatra). Initially, this was dated to c. 34 000 years ago, but more recent work has revised that date to 74 000 BP. Artifacts of Hoabinhian type were definitely included in the range of material underneath the ash layer. The younger date fitted quite well with the evidence from Thailand and Vietnam, but the new older date is quite anomalous. Otherwise, the time range for Hoabinhian artifacts is reasonably well defined, from Late Upper Pleistocene to Early Holocene. It is also clear that it is an industry initially associated with huntergatherers, some of whom continued making these artifacts after they had adopted agricultural practices, or at least artifacts associated with such practices.

The Non-Hoabinhian There are sites in Southeast Asia, both mainland and island, and layers within sites, within the time range of the Hoabinhian that do not include Hoabinhian artifacts. It is necessary to consider this evidence, not only in its own right, but to shed further light on the Hoabinhian itself. If there was indeed a Hoabinhian

ASIA, WEST/Pre-Agricultural Peoples 817

culture, does that mean that sites/layers which lack Hoabinhian tools represent some other culture? This evidence has generally been perceived as representing a mass of problematic data, nondescript at best, incoherent and unclassifiable at worst, and completely unrelated to the Hoabinhian. While it may be undistinguished compared with the neat types of the European Palaeolithic, these stone industries are not quite the morass of indistinguishable characteristics as has been represented. Not only in island Southeast Asia, but also at some sites on the mainland, there is a technological similarity among Upper Pleistocene industries. At many sites, assemblages consist of small, apparently casual flakes, in a range of lithologies, often including reef quartz and fine-grained chert and silcrete types. Flakes tend towards the square rather than the elongated. While simple percussion is the main flaking technique found, the bipolar technique is often in evidence, and flakes with secondary working are rare, but do occasionally appear. These assemblages are similar to those found in Chinese sites, some of which are up to 1 million years old (such as sites in the Nihewan basin), and include Zhoukoudian, and are thus associated with H. erectus. They are also found at Chinese sites within the age range of H. sapiens. This range of small-undistinguished artifacts appears at first glance to be quite different from the Hoabinhian industry. It is not however a completely different technology. The kind of percussion flaking which produces a Hoabinhian core artifact also produces flakes which share metrical and qualitative characteristics with the other industry or industries. In Australia, within the delimited space of Kangaroo Island, off the coast near Adelaide, it has been shown that Hoabinhian artifacts are in fact part of a wider industry including just such small artifacts as described here, even though the Hoabinhian types tend not to be found at the same sites as the smaller artifacts. This also seems to be the case in Southeast Asia, although there are some sites in Thailand and Vietnam where the smaller artifacts are found with the Hoabinhian types; generally the former have been overlooked and not remarked on when the sites were described. Sites yielding only the small ‘amorphous’ assemblages are known from island Southeast Asia, for example Leang Burung 2 in Sulawesi and Liang Lembudu in the Aru Islands, dating to 31 000 and 27 000 years ago, respectively. There are some sites which do not fit the pattern so far described. Tingkayu, an open site, or rather series of sites, in Sabah on the island of Borneo, has a range of rather elegant ‘bifacial lanceolates’, which are quite outside the range of most assemblages from

Late Pleistocene sites in Southeast Asia. The chronology of this site complex is far from secure however, consisting as it does of open sites dated by geomorphological circumstances, and the age of these objects must be considered unproven. There have been attempts to demonstrate a sequence of artifact change over the course of the Late Pleistocene. The site of Lang Rongrien in peninsular Thailand has been recently excavated using modern techniques, and has produced a noncontinuous sequence from c. 37 000 years ago to Holocene agricultural times. It has been interpreted as evidence of change from a small nondescript industry dated to between c. 37 000 and 27 000 years ago to a Hoabinhian industry appearing in terminal Early Holocene times, dating to between c. 9500 and 7500 years ago. This is not a classic Hoabinhian assemblage however, but consists of the bifacially flaked types also characterized as Hoabinhian in peninsular Malaysia. In Malaysia, these types are generally dated to a similar time range; types with more typical unifacial Hoabinhian types are in fact rather older in both Malaysia and Thailand. It seems however that obvious cultural change, consisting of new stone artifact types, did not occur until the Holocene. A range of small tools including backed blades and small projectile points are found in sites dated to after 7000 years ago in island Southeast Asia, notably Sulawesi and the Philippines. The Toalian assemblages of asymmetric and geometric microliths from southwestern Sulawesi have been known since the early twentieth century, and their appearance has been subsequently dated to about 6000 years ago. In the Philippines, serrated hollowbased points called Maros points have been within the same time frame. It seems that in both cases, the new tools were associated with hunter-gatherers who kept on using them when they took up agriculture.

Human Remains It would be expected that human remains of the Late Upper Pleistocene in Southeast Asia would be of modern humans, H. sapiens sapiens. Generally speaking, this is the case. The oldest such evidence is the ‘deep skull’ from the Niah Cave, Sarawak, usually considered to be c. 40 000 years old, although there is quite a lot of evidence of disturbance at that site, including burials of more recent age which may have cut into earlier layers. Recent research does however appear to confirm the dating of the deep skull as being somewhat older than 40 000 BP. Other modern human remains have been found at late Upper Pleistocene sites in Vietnam and Thailand,

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associated with Hoabinhian assemblages, and the Philippines (Tabon Cave on Palawan). The recent discovery of hominids of small stature on the island of Flores is still subject to considerable discussion. Found in a cave site called Liang Bua, several individuals are associated with what seems to be a typical small artifact assemblage as previously described, with an Upper Pleistocene date range of 94 000 to 18 000 years. Such a recent date is associated everywhere else on the globe with modern humans, H. sapiens sapiens. The Flores remains however have been assigned to a new species, H. floriensis, and, according to the scholars who have examined them, retain many characteristics of H. erectus. This evidence prompts several questions: were there modern humans on Flores at this time, contemporary with H. floriensis? If so, who produced the artifacts? Is it feasible to suppose that H. erectus evolved into a diminutive species on Flores only, particularly given the gap between dates of 700 000 and 94 000 within which no artifactual or fossil evidence falls? Only further research on the available evidence, or more evidence from Flores and elsewhere, can address these issues.

foods, and many sites demonstrate a reliance on freshwater and marine shellfish, together with small to medium size mammals. In the Early Holocene, indirect evidence for agricultural practices appears. Particularly in shell middens on the coast of northern Vietnam and also northeast Sumatra, Hoabinhian type tools are associated with cord-marked pottery and small slate knives, believed to be used for agricultural purposes. Pottery has a long tradition in Japan where it was associated with the Jomon hunter-gatherers of the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene, but this is almost unique; elsewhere, it is generally believed that ceramic pots are associated with the more settled lifestyle of agriculturalists. It is this late manifestation of the Hoabinhian that was originally designated the Bacsonian. There is a further question as to whether edge-ground stone axes were associated only with the Bacsonian. This technology, which in Europe was considered to be associated with farmers only and of Holocene age, has been found in both Australia and Japan to be dated to over 30 000 years ago and attributed to hunter-gatherers. There do not seem to be any well-dated examples of this age in Southeast Asia.

Economy

See also: Asia, East: China, Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese

It is generally accepted that before 10 000 years ago, all humans were hunter-gatherers, who did not domesticate plants or animals for food. There is no evidence to suggest that Southeast Asia was any different, with evidence for agriculture appearing perhaps 7000 years ago. The people of Southeast Asia during the Pleistocene seem to have subsisted on a wide range of resources. Unlike their contemporaries in Western Europe, they do not appear to have been big game hunters, but then there were no populations of large herd mammals to support such a regime. Evidence from sites such as Spirit Cave in Thailand shows the exploitation of a number of wild plant

Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Oceania: Australia.

Further Reading Anderson DD (1990) Lang Rongrien Rockshelter: A Pleistocene– Early Holocene Site from Krabi, Southwestern Thailand. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Bellwood P (1997) Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. O’Connor S, Spriggs M and Veth P (eds.) (2005) The Archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia. Terra Australia 22. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

ASIA, WEST/Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations 819

ASIA, WEST Contents Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations Arabian Peninsula Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant Mesolithic Cultures Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad Palaeolithic Cultures Phoenicia Roman Eastern Colonies Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures

Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations Edward J Keall, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Macedonia Ancient kingdom in southeast Europe: now a region divided among Greece, the country of Macedonia, and Bulgaria. Magi Members of a priestly caste of ancient Media and Persia. Mesopotamia Ancient country in southwest Asia, between the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a part of modern Iraq. Zoroastrianism The religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra, Zartosht). Zoroastrianism was once the dominant religion of much of Greater Iran.

Persian Territory This contribution covers roughly 12 centuries, from around 550 BC to AD 640. During this time, three Persian dynasties controlled vastly different extents of territory – the largest territory under the first dynasty (Achaemenian), the smallest during the middle phase (Parthian dynasty), and with subsequent sizeable expansion under the Sasanians (though nowhere nearly as extensive as under the Achaemenians). It is through Westerners’ eyes that we know the land as ‘Persia’. Pars, an ancient province in today’s southwestern Iran, was the homeland of the Achaemenians. Today, through the alliteration of its pronunciation in Arabic, the area is known as Fars province. In this

region of Iran lay Parsua, the first substantial Achaemenian settlement. In the fourth century BC, when the Macedonian Greeks of Alexander the Great encountered the Achaemenians, they recognized them as based in Pars, which they expressed as Persis. Hence, the rulers in Persis were identified as ‘Persians’. Through an extension of the term, the entire region ruled by these Persians became known as ‘Persian Empire’. The ancient name was ‘Iran’, a term closely related to the concept of ‘Aryan’. Linguists define the people as Indo-Iranians. They were connected with the great migration into the area of Indo-European language speakers that had occurred around the middle of the second millennium BC. Those communities, with whom they could communicate, because of the similarities of the spoken language, were judged to be part of a great Iran. Those who spoke completely different languages were considered outsiders. Notwithstanding this simplistic definition of Iran’s demographics, one should acknowledge that there were definite exceptions to this rule. For there were significant minorities present in the various Iranian (‘Persian’) states under scrutiny here, not least the Semitic-language speaking groups of Mesopotamia (particularly Aramaeans and Jews) who had been residents since the first millennium BC, and Arabs who increasingly migrated into the region in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. None of the three Iranian states described here was confined to the Iranian plateau. For the Achaemenians, their purview at its height (besides Iran proper, and Mesopotamia) included all of Anatolia (modern Turkey), lower (northern) Egypt, northern Arabia and Palestine, and the Punjab (modern Pakistan). Admittedly, revolts toward the end of the fifth century considerably reduced these territorial holdings (especially in Egypt). Certainly, both the

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Parthians and the Sasanians in times of strength controlled territory far beyond today’s northeastern border of Iran, to include parts of modern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. But official administration of Afghanistan was often ephemeral, and local dynasties assumed virtual control. They rarely ever held sway beyond the River Oxus (Amu Darya), and never beyond the Jaxartes (Syr Darya). To the west, the Parthians and Sasanians controlled large parts of Mesopotamia, but only briefly did they control any part of the Levant. The dynastic capital was invariably in the area of today’s modern Baghdad. For the Parthians and Sasanians, the rough zone of confrontation with their western enemies (first the pagan Romans, then the Christian Byzantines) lay along the River Euphrates. The archaeological record for all three Persian dynasties under scrutiny here is at best spotty. Certainly, formal excavations have been conducted in the past at various national capitals – Achaemenian Pasargadae and Persepolis; Parthian Nisa, Hekatompylos, and Seleucia-on-Tigris; and Sasanian Firuzabad and Ctesiphon. But there has not been sufficient systematic scrutiny of the entire area under consideration to allow us to draw an effective picture of how each of the regions operated over time period. It is evident that when sites are excavated, the most prevalent tangible item recovered – broken utilitarian pottery – is characterized by a local production tradition. Excavators, for example, of the site of Tepe Agrab in northwestern Iran, may muse about ‘Achaemenianlooking’ shapes of the pottery, but without the certainty of attribution that is possible, by contrast, in the discipline of Roman archaeology where thousands of sites have been excavated and their pottery classified. Standards are also difficult to assess. Artifact norms prevalent in the Zagros reaches of western Iran may not be directly applicable to the northeastern reaches of Khorrasan. Sites singled out for mention here are mostly based on the reality of excavation or site study, and a published report. Historical phenomena are also presented when documented by written texts, even though they have not necessarily been excavated.

The First Iranian State The first Iranians to have a definable entity through tangible archaeological evidence (as opposed to legend) are peoples who moved into the valleys of the Zagros Mountains of today’s western Iran, by way of the Caucasus, around 1300 BC. They are identifiable through the archaeological record by their distinctive gray-ware pottery. This is classified as ‘Iron Age I’. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Iranian kingdom of the Medes was founded in the late eighth century BC, with its capital at Ecbatana (modern

Hamadan). No formal excavations have been conducted in Hamadan, but innumerable high-quality objects from Hamadan placed on the illegal antiquities market attest to its significant status during this time and later. During the early seventh century, the Medes confronted the more famous and infamous Assyrians. Mid-century invasions of the area by Scythians from the Black Sea area caused considerable disruption. The state was strengthened however through both diplomacy and strategic reorganization of the military into separate fighting units of spearmen, bowmen, and cavalry. In 609 BC, an alliance with the Babylonians ended the previously formidable Assyrian power. Consequently, Media fell heir to the former Assyrian holdings in Anatolia, bringing them into confrontation with the Lydians in western Anatolia. At this time, the big power players in the Middle East were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Lydians, and the Medes. An important aspect of Median identity is the phenomenon of the Magi, priests of Aryan traditions. Achaemenian Persians

Media’s mid-seventh century problems permitted the coalescence of an Iranian group tracing their ancestry in southwest Iran to a legendary Achaemenes. The nascent Achaemenian state is first to be discerned at the site of Tepe Malyan in the Marvdasht plain, where inscribed documents attest to its association with the legendary ‘Parsua’. Around 550 BC, Persian Cyrus II staged a successful revolt, having first married into the Median royal line. Cyrus ‘the Great’ established his dynastic seat at the site of Pasargadae, north of the Marvdasht plain. The site comprises two palaces, with an irrigated garden in between. A platform terrace was probably intended to be the location of a third, private palace in the style of the later, more grandiose Persepolis. Other features of the site include an open-air sacred precinct with two altars, and a tower building, likely an archive house. Cyrus’ tomb employed a form and gabled roof derived from Lydian traditions of tomb architecture. Achaemenian holdings were considerably expanded when Cyrus captured the city of Babylon in 539 BC. He proceeded to attack Lydia, defeating King Croesus in 546 BC, capturing also Greek cities along the Aegean. But, turning to Iran’s eastern frontier, Cyrus lost his life in 529 BC fighting to control reaches of the Oxus. The capital Pasargadae was never finished as planned. Cyrus’ successor, Cambyses II (529–522 BC), continued the expansionist policies of his predecessor. In 525 BC, he entered Egypt after a surprise crossing of the Sinai (normally considered formidable protection

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invasion), ending in capitulation of the city of Memphis. The Pharaoh was carried off into captivity to Iran, and Cambyses was recognized as the founder of the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty. Cambyses’ premature death on the way home precipitated a widespread national revolt. But Darius I (522–486 BC) used suppression of the revolt to trumpet the new power of the Achaemenian state. The site of Bisitun, in western Iran, is enormously significant for the definition of Achaemenian Empire. On a towering cliff-face above a prolific spring, Darius depicts images of the vanquished in very explicit terms – they are shown with chains around their necks. Their dress defines their ethnicity. Names inscribed above the figures determine their identity. It was this trilingual inscription – in Babylonian, Elamite, and Old Persian – that formed the basis for Rawlinson’s cracking of the code of cuneiform in 1847. The site of Susa, in today’s southwestern Iran, but geographically a natural part of Mesopotamia, functioned as an administrative centre in Achaemenian times. Few intact Achaemenian remains have been unearthed due to the centuries of later site use. The stray find of a statue of Darius is especially interesting because of its strong Egyptianizing style. Achaemenian Dominion

Following suppression of the famous revolt, Darius moved to expand Iranian authority into India and the Oxus reaches, which he did successfully between 522 and 486 BC. At the same time, he attacked the Scythians in the area of the Black Sea, in the so-called Hellespont, disrupting grain supplies to the Greek city-states along the Aegean coast. His successes on the world stage are well reflected in the creation of a new capital in Pars province, at Persepolis. His palace complexes were set upon an artificial terrace (called in later folklore Takht-i-Jamshid, or throne of mythical King Jamshid), accessed by a ceremonial staircase rising from the Marvdasht plain. Here Darius built his huge audience chamber (Apadana) palace, as well as a smaller private palace. Walls were adorned with scenes of grand accomplishments. There was a treasury building as well. Flanking the staircase of Darius’ audience palace were scenes of processions of loyal subjects and the king’s retainers (Medes and Persians), reflecting the ceremonial activities envisaged for the building. When King Xerxes (486–465 BC) inherited the throne after Darius’ death, a serious revolt broke out in Egypt. Its harsh suppression signals the hard line that Xerxes took in all his foreign policy. At home, too, he was authoritarian. His so-called

Daeva edict, carved in stone in Old Persian, reflects the close association between Persian state and Zoroastrianism. The edict outlawed what were considered to be inappropriate acts of worship. Struggles with the Magi priests of the Median tradition are not out of the question. The royal tomb site of Naqsh-i-Rustam along an escarpment in the vicinity of Persepolis also attests to this. Here, the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda is depicted above the figure of the king venerating a fire altar. Continuing the strong Egyptian connection in Achaemenian art, Ahura Mazda is shown as a human carried as on the outstreched eagle wings of the god Horus. Disillusioned at the failure of his invasion of Greece in 480, Xerxes devoted his energies to palace construction at Persepolis. He also built a ceremonial gatehouse to the terrace that was flanked by winged bulls as guardian spirits in the style of Assyrian palace architecture. Following the assassination of Xerxes, Iran was ruled by a series of weak kings between 465 and 404 BC. Symptomatic of state weakness was another revolt in Egypt, in 405 BC, resulting in the end of the status of the Achaemenians as rulers of the TwentySeventh Dynasty. A notorious event in this period was the attempted coup by Cyrus the Younger, to take the Achaemenian throne, in 401 BC, employing the services of 10 000 Greek mercenaries. We owe it to the Greek writer Xenophon for the account of Cyrus’ demise. In spite of Cyrus’ battlefield defeat, the unchallenged retreat of the Greeks through hundreds of miles of hostile terrain from Mesopotamia to the shores of the Black Sea speaks loudly of the ineffectiveness of Achaemenian state authority at this time. Macedonian Conquest

Other uprisings occurred in the Levant, though the revolts were not successful. These events were largely overshadowed by Macedon’s dramatic rise to power. To their eventual disadvantage, the Achaemenians declined to contribute aid to the Athenians in their quest to restrict Philip II’s ambitious expansion of Macedonian authority. At the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Philip brought the entire Greek mainland under his aegis. The stage was now set for the campaigns of Alexander, Philip’s son, who would eventually topple the great empire of Iran. The first loss to Alexander was in 334 BC at the river Granicus, not far from Troy in northwestern Anatolia. Four years later, the Macedonian wonder boy surmounted the steps as a victor of the great palace terrace at Persepolis. The palaces went up in flames. The worst damage was in the palaces of Xerxes, causing archaeologists to interpret the conflagration as an act of revenge. The last Achaemenian king, Darius III, whose unfinished

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tomb at Persepolis bears testimony to the unexpected speed of the Macedonian advance, fled the scene but was murdered by his own men while trying to escape. Seleucid Interlude

Returning from his extended march into Asia, Alexander the Great took up residence in Babylon, in southern Mesopotamia, expecting to operate very much as the kind of eastern potentate he had just defeated. Yet he died prematurely in 323 BC, leaving no heir or designate. His generals fought for control of the conquered lands, and Seleucus emerged as victor of the eastern territories in 312 BC. He established a new capital just slightly upstream from Babylon, at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, close to today’s Baghdad. In spite of the fact that veterans of the Macedonian campaign had been settled along the way in newly created cities – which meant that Greek cultural attitudes and principles of science and technology began to supplant the ancient traditions in these settlements – it became difficult for the Macedonian authorities to control the vast territory they had conquered. Testimony to this is presented when local figures issued coins in the own names, not that of the Seleucid king. An example of the precarious Seleucid position is documented at Pasargadae. A military fort had been built on Cyrus’ unfinished palace terrace, as part of the post-Alexandrian occupation of the region. A coin hoard recovered through excavation from the destroyed, burnt layers of the Pasargadae fort attests to a local uprising against the Macedonian presence around 280 BC. Already by 300 BC either provincial governors or native chiefs were claiming degrees of independence from the Seleucid authorities. Eventually, as the eastern losses increased, the Seleucids abandoned Mesopotamia and positioned themselves on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, at Antioch. A few forays were made to recover lost territory on the Iranian plateau, but the new stakeholders – the Parthians – resisted these attempts. We have here the beginnings of a new empire of Iran.

Persian Resurgence The new Iran was far different from the old one. The term ‘Parthian’ is derived from Parthava – the name of an Achaemenian province situated just southeast of the Caspian Sea. Its inhabitants were Iranians, by virtue of the language they spoke. To the north, and vaguely related as Indo-European speakers, were the Dahae, one of many Scythian tribes. One of these tribal figures, a certain Arsaces, immigrated into Parthava and adopted the local Parthian culture and dialect.

He schemed successfully to become the local ruler. The dynasty he founded is rightly called ‘Arsacid’ after his name. Western writers invariably call it ‘Parthian.’ The first Arsacid (Parthian) kingdom emerged around the middle of the third century BC. For this early moment in the state’s life, we have the archaeological record of Nisa, in today’s Turkmenistan. Here we see the perpetuation of the now long-established principle of the king residing in an exclusive imperial city where entry by outsiders was restricted. As such, the site of Old Nisa housed two monumental halls, ceremonial shrines. A hoard of ostraca written in Aramaic script but representing the local dialect is the earliest testimony to the Parthian language. The hoard of 60 elaborately carved rhytons, made of ivory tusks, is also vital evidence of strong Hellenistic artistic trends prevalent in Parthia at this time. Some modest territorial gains were made initially at the expense of neighboring states, but for threequarters of a century Parthia was largely confined to the area south and east of the Caspian. Archaeologists have identified the site of Shahr-i-Qumis in northeastern Iran as the location of the second Parthian capital, Hekatompylos. This site features as one of the places designated by the travel itinerary compiler Isidore of Charax as one of the so-called ‘Parthian Stations’ along the great Asian highway. Isidore’s catalog is an indication that transcontinental trade between the Mediterranean and Indian and China was becoming increasingly important to the economies of the states lying in between. Interestingly, archaeological investigations at another hypothetical Parthian station – Kangavar, in western Iran – have proven that the monumental remains actually date from later Sasanian times. The Parthian State

A most dramatic expansion of Parthian territory occurred under King Mithridates I beginning after 170 BC. Land was seized right across the plateau of Iran, including the westernmost highland province of Media. The sudden increase in Parthian territory culminated in the 141 BC capture of the Seleucid capital city of Seleucia-on-Tigris, in Mesopotamia. Extension of Parthian authority is well attested in Mithridates’ overstriking of the coin issues of the previously independent state of Characene at the head of the Persian Gulf. The city of Charax, founded like many others in the fourth century in the aftermath of the Macedonian conquest of Asia, served as an entrepot for trade goods arriving from the east. From 73 AD, termination of the independent coin issues of Characene reflects how the state was subsumed into the

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Parthian one. From excavations at Seleucia-on-Tigris, in central Iraq, one can document the initial impact of Macedonian conquest and promulgation of Greek standards. Parthian coins were struck using the Greek model of silver tetradrachm and drachm, reflecting a deliberate government policy to accommodate Macedonian settlers in the new Persian state. However, one can also document how Greek norms gradually morphed into more local versions. Nineteenth century scholarship was wont to call this a ‘‘debased, orientalizing’’ trend. One should see it rather as resurgence of native traits. In art, a person’s status, expressed in the clothes they wore, was more important than a perfect body. At Seleucia, in house construction, builders abandoned the Greek way of constructing a post-and-beam roof, replacing it with an arched vault – a logical solution to the scarcity of quality wooden beams. Vaulted halls became a cultural identity marker for centuries of subsequent architectural construction in this region. At the site of Ashur, also in central Iraq, archaeologists have documented continuity of traditions going back to Assyrian times, albeit expressed in the medium of the now current now Parthian architectural mode. In southern Iraq, at the ancient site of Uruk, as well as at Nippur, monumental structures were sometimes built complying with Greek standards, but increasingly reflecting the vitality of indigenous traditions. Seleucid rallies were made to regain lost territory, but mostly to no avail. Like his namesake, Mithridates II continued to consolidate and expand Parthian holdings after 123 BC. His claiming of the honorific title ‘king of kings’ suitably illustrates Parthian aspirations at this time. However, westerly expansion brought the Parthians inexorably into conflict with the Romans. The zone of confrontation lay generally along the course of the Euphrates. The former Seleucid frontier city of Dura Europos fell into Parthian hands around 113 BC, only to be taken in turn by the Romans in AD 115. The overall basis of the struggle stemmed from Rome’s perceived need for defense of foreign interests by eliminating hostile elements along her frontiers. This meant that a successful combat along a frontier inevitably implied annexation of that territory and thereby the potential for new confrontation further abroad. Gradually the Romans were drawn further and further east through Anatolia until they confronted Parthia. In addition to expansion through frontier defense, Roman confrontations with Parthia were also instigated through ambitious campaigns mounted by ex officio government agents seeking personal fortunes. The explosive potential of such a mission is well illustrated by ex-consul Crassus’ Syrian campaign of 53 BC. It was an ill-advised attempt to corner the

market in luxury shipments from the East. Lightarmed Parthian cavalry easily outmaneuvered Roman foot soldiers marching across the open Syrian plains. Crassus ultimately lost his life. Parthian cavalry tactics involved discharging the notorious ‘Parthian shot’. Arrows were discharged at full gallop toward the enemy. But before close contact was made, the rider wheeled around and turned in the saddle to fire arrows backward at the enemy line. Defeat, and the capture of legionary standards, haunted the Romans for a generation until Emperor Augustus negotiated terms for their return, in 20 BC. Parthian Decline

Notwithstanding Parthian cavalry brilliance, the state was poorly prepared to take advantage of military success. Suren, commander of the forces that annihilated Crassus, was murdered out of perception that he was a danger to the king. Other potential contenders were also eliminated. Parthia’s territorial gains in Syria were gradually diminished through inept government. The Parthians lacked the bureaucratic machinery that ran the Achaemenian state. One may suggest that this kind of imperial organization did not appeal to the Parthians, and that a battle was to be won for its spoils and the challenge of fighting, nothing more. More so than the Achaemenians, the Parthian state was forced to confront tribal incursions on the northeastern frontier. We may assume that the root cause of the attempted incursions reflects the same impetus that had caused Arsaces himself and his family to infiltrate into Iran two centuries earlier. Simply said, a worsening ecological situation brought about by population growth and environmental degradation may have prompted tribes to look for new pastureland. In addition, the developed conditions of the Iranian countryside, following centuries of investment in infrastructure, may have presented an enticing prospect for plunder. As evidence of a lack of strong centralized state bureaucracy, we have the archaeological record of several sites. In tangible archaeological remains, we can see that the Parthian state did not have a rigid obsession with standardization. Rather, there are strong regional characteristics. Exemplifying this principle is the region of Elymais in southwestern Iran. The area is known for its distinctive rock reliefs, a coinage that speaks of autonomy within the Parthian state. From our own perspective and attitudes toward successful government, we may judge this as weakness. One may also judge it as a maturity whereby Parthian governors were not obsessed with imposing rigid rules on diverse peoples. Whatever the judgment,

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one has to acknowledge that the Parthian state did survive for over 400 years, a not inconsiderable achievement. Independent States

Two sites exemplify lack of strong bureaucratic control over the central reaches of traditional Iranian territory at this time. The first is the independent Arab state of Hatra in northern Mesopotamia, where its defensive walls resisted several attempts to breach them, most notably by the Roman Emperor Trajan in AD 117. In the heart of the roughly circular city lay a complex of shrines where some of the architectural features are strictly Hellenistic in style, though the predominant element in both structural form and votive statuary is decidedly Parthian. Notwithstanding its Arab society and independent status, Hatra is often used extensively to define first century AD Parthian. The archaeological site of Qal‘eh-i-Yazdigird also epitomizes independence within the Parthian realm. The site is a formidable fortress of the second century AD overlooking the so-called Zagros Gates pass between the Iranian plateau and the Mesopotamian plains. Containing a lavishly decorated palace, the fortress is best explained as a warlord’s stronghold. Wealth came from the extraction of tolls from caravan traffic plying the great Asian highway (later dubbed the Silk Road). Persian legends relating how the Sasanian dynasty that replaced the Parthians faced a major challenge in subduing this part of Iran attest well to the idea of warlords like this in the Zagros. We get some measure of the weaknesses and rivalries surrounding the Parthian throne from coins. Around 78 AD, two kings (both claiming the title ‘king of kings’) issued identically struck silver tetradrachms in the capital, but each with their own distinctive portrait and name on the coins. With no other indications of expressed victory, rather than representing civil war, the arrangement seems to reflect a degree of power sharing. Other issues of coins, such as Pacorus’ victory tetradrachm of AD 82, definitively underlines contest for the throne of Parthian Iran. The municipal bronze coins also provide priceless insight into how the state was managed. Initially, when the Parthian authorities began to take over affairs of government from the Seleucids, cities were awarded autonomy, largely due to the presence of large numbers of Macedonian settlers. Toward the end of the Parthian era, the municipal issues of coins disappear, to be replaced by bronzes stamped with the royal moniker. In addition to insight that coins give us about Parthian political structure, evidence of their circulation helps define both state organization and the

dynamics of trade. The tetradrachm circulated only in Mesopotamia, whereas the drachm (smaller in size, but higher in silver content) was the Iranian highland’s currency. The phenomenon underlines again lack of strong central authority. Although it lasted almost 400 years, collapse of the Parthian state through fragmentation was inevitable.

Persian Revival The coup started in southwestern Iran, in the original Achaemenian homeland, in the early third century AD, under the banner of Ardashir. An ancestor of the new regime’s first king was a certain Sasan, hence the identification of the dynasty as ‘Sasanian.’ The region of Firuzabad in Fars province witnessed the first of the giant rock-cut propaganda tableaus that became a trademark of the Sasanians. Here, Ardashir is depicted defeating the last Parthian king, Artabanus, in AD 226. A palace with grand fac¸ade is an impressive feature inside the circular city of Firuzabad itself. The circular layout is matched by that of neighbouring Darabjird, as well as by Ctesiphon, the eventual capital in Mesopotamia. The private palace of Qal’ehi-Dukhtar is perched on a mountain promontory outside of Firuzabad. The Sasanians’ ancestors were Zoroastrian priests, helping explain how Zoroastrianism was promoted as a state religion in the new Iran. Unlike their Parthian predecessors, who seemingly tolerated most religious expressions, the Sasanians declared what were judged to be deviant beliefs were heretical, and persecutions were imposed. In the third century, Mani’s ecumenical teachings were outlawed. Zoroastrian orthodoxy outlawing Manichaeism is documented in High Priest Kartir’s palimpsest inscription on a triumphal rock tableau of Shapur I at Naqsh-i-Rustam near Persepolis. Manichaeans fled to Central Asia where they established monasteries that were as intimately linked with spiritual pilgrimage as they were with trade along the great Asian highway. Sasanian Triumphs

After Ardashir’s decisive victory over the last Parthian king in AD 226, he campaigned to consolidate his new realm. Seizing control of international trade routes was a major part of his objective. From around the mid-first century, immigrant Kushans had sponsored trade along the River Oxus, and through the Hindu Kush and Indus valley. Kushan trade networks circumvented Iran, meaning that the Parthians were excluded from profits to be had from transshipping oriental luxuries. Ardashir’s campaigns were motivated by ambition to redress that imbalance. Initially,

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he and his immediate successors had notable successes against their neighbors in this regard. The Arab stronghold of Hatra in northern Mesopotamia, a previously impregnable stronghold, was besieged and eliminated as an independent agent in the transcontinental trade in AD 238. Similarly, the new Roman station of Dura Europos along the Euphrates was seized through tunneling by Sasanian sappers under the massive defensive walls. Like Hatra, Dura no longer had a role to play in the expanded Sasanian state, and it became a ghost city until early twentieth century archaeologists documented its remains. One must be cautious about awarding excessive merit to the Sasanians for victories against the Romans and their agents at this time. The truth is that Rome was in a crisis during the third century, its leadership manipulated to a large extent by soldiers. Nevertheless, the armies were professional. As a result, one should not downplay Shapur’s decisive victory over Philip the Arab in AD 244. Roughly a decade later, 60 000 Roman prisoners were taken at the battle of Antioch; and 70 000 were captured 4 years later at the battle of Edessa. Such victories were the subject of propagandistic tableaus carved on mountain faces near to the Sasanian ancestral home of Persepolis. Yet, as with their Parthian predecessors, the Sasanians failed to establish lasting control over these northern Mesopotamian territories. One should not discount the fact that the native languages of the area belonged to the Semitic family, and communication may have been difficult. In that sense, the territory would have been defined as ‘non-Iran’. Nevertheless, the related dialect of Aramaic had been a language of international commerce for considerable time, and language difficulties do not explain why the Sasanians failed to establish hegemony in the region. Similarly, it is wrong to imply that the steppe landscape was foreign by Iranian standards. The Sasanians successfully settled similar riverine and desert-fringe terrain in the eastern part of their empire, though this did not happen without a high price being paid for defense of the region. Roman Confrontation

A significant factor in the failure of the Sasanians to maintain mastery over northern Mesopotamia in the third century was the rising power of Palmyra (see Asia, West: Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad). An oasis in the Syrian Desert, halfway between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, Palmyra became a proverbial ‘caravan city’, where Eastern goods were transshipped to markets of the West. State support for the trade, including the assignment of armed escorts for protection, allowed the Palmyrenes to keep

considerable amounts of international trade out of Iranian hands. The accumulated wealth helped sponsor a variety of lavish building programs in the city, as well as earning it special status in the Roman Empire. In the end, Palmyra’s flamboyance, especially the aggressive behavior of its notorious Queen Zenobia, aroused Roman resentment and the city was put under direct Roman rule under the emperor Diocletian. Rome had re-entered the Syrian scene just as the Sasanian state was becoming enfeebled through feuding over the throne. In the face of Diocletian’s revitalized Roman administrative system in the late third century, Sasanian weakness resulted in territory being ceded to the west. A status quo of sorts did emerge in the fourth century with the return of stability in Iran and the 70-year-long reign of Shapur II (309–379). Although they battled extensively, neither side made long-lasting gains. It has been argued that the long drawn out wars, which drained the economies and energies of both sides, partly account for the ease with which Islam was eventually to conquer these regions in the seventh century, due to the exhausted frame of mind of the resident populations. Through defeat of the Kushans and territorial annexation, the Sasanians were brought into confrontation with the tribes across the River Oxus. Shapur was obliged to spend considerable time and effort defending the northeastern frontier of Iran against the Chionite Huns (Chinese: Xiongnu). These efforts had to be maintained under Shapur’s successors, including by one of Sasanian Iran’s most charismatic of kings, Bahram V (AD 420–438). For his hunting exploits, he earned the epithet of ‘Gur’, meaning wild ass. His image was a favourite of Islamic times to depict, along with his constant female companion Azadeh. Less well known is the fact that he battled in the northeast against a new wave of Hunnish invaders identified as the Hephthalites (White Huns). At the site of Bandian near the Iranian border with Turkmenistan, archaeologists unearthed a palace decorated with carved plaster scenes that likely depict a victory against Huns around this time. The compositional arrangement is reminiscent of third century Firuzabad, but the style reflects much more what appears in the Soghdian art of sixth century Samarkand (Uzbekistan). Carved plaster ornament was a universal cliche´ of Sasanian palace decoration. The sites of Tepe Hissar (northern Iran), Tepe Mill, and Chal TarkhanEshqabad (south of Tehran), and Ctesiphon have all produced similar examples of geometric ornament, stylized vegetation, heraldic devices, and figural art. King Peroz (AD 457–484) was obliged to continue the attempt to halt the Hephthalites. Following a defeat, the Sasanian king was obliged to give his son Kavadh as hostage for the armistice. Ironically,

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this was to serve Kavadh in good stead. When, after his father’s death, challenges were made concerning his coronation, he was installed with Hephthalite help. Furthermore, when Kavadh’s revolutionary doctrine of egalitarian Mazdakism proved to be unpopular with the privileged aristocracy, Kavadh temporarily (AD 496–498) found refuge with the Huns. For the most part, however, he was a strong ruler and confronted Byzantium (Rome’s Christian successor in the east) effectively in northern Mesopotamia. Sasanian Golden Age

A golden age for Iran set in with Khusrau I’s accession to the throne (Khusrau I, AD 531–579). The era is well reflected in scenes chosen to illustrate the sides of a grotto (Taq-i-Bustan) in the northern Zagros. The back wall shows an investiture scene and the solitary figure of a heavy-armed cavalryman. The walls on the sides depict a royal hunt. This is not an expedition. Rather, the hunt takes place in an enclosed compound where seemingly the king is guaranteed success. Game is driven into the enclosure for easy target. Musicians accompany the event. Everything is geared to ensuring the king’s prowess as a successful hunter. As for Khusrau’s political successes, he resolved the Mazdakite crisis through persecutions and executions, turning back to orthodox Zoroastrianism, earning the title Anushirvan (‘the Just’). The Mazdakite movement had caused serious disruption to established legal and fiscal practices. However, recognizing Kavadh’s concern over serious inadequacies in property and product assessments, Khusrau initiated fiscal reform. This included the concept of levying tax on a crop on the basis of an average yield. It was a much more effective way of assessing state income. The measures stayed in place long after the Sasanian regime disappeared. Creation of a professional army, replacing the former drafting of recruits from private armies of nobles, also had immediate success, both against Byzantines and Huns. Khusrau’s most dramatic victory in northern Mesopotamia included the sack of Antioch in AD 540, and the deployment of prisoners in construction projects in Iran, just as his predecessor Shapur I had done. Equally significant for the adoption of foreign ideas was the welcome afforded to academics expelled from Byzantium when the Emperor Justinian closed the prestigious academy of Athens in AD 529 on the grounds that the study of ancient Greek philosophy was heretical. These scholars helped to form the foundation of the famous medical school of Jundishapur in southwestern Iran. An undignified interregnum followed, with a successful military general challenging the heir apparent.

The legitimate crown prince was forced to seek Byzantine help in order to achieve his ascendancy to the throne. Concessions were made as a result toward Byzantine claims to territory in the Caucasus. So the epithet Parvez (‘Victorious’) hardly yet befits the individual (Khusrau II, AD 591–628) who became the new Sasanian monarch. However, Khusrau II went on to mount the most impressive of all campaigns that the Sasanians had waged since the third century. The city of Edessa, in the lee of the Taurus Mountains and at the head of northern Mesopotamia, had been an impregnable bastion for Byzantium for decades. When it fell to Khusrau, the door to the rest of Syro-Palestine was open. Antioch was sacked once again (in AD 611); Jerusalem fell in AD 614, with the Holy Cross carried off as a spoil of war. Sasanian armies entered Lower Egypt, capturing Alexandria in AD 619. A Sasanian army even threatened Byzantium itself. However the tables were turned through the brilliant tactics of Byzantine general-turned-emperor Heraclius, who led his forces on a series of incisive marches into the Iranian heartland between AD 622 and AD 628. In revenge for the sack of Jerusalem, the campaign included sack of the great fire sanctuary of Adhur Gushnasp, at the site of Takht-i Suleiman in the northern Zagros. Khusrau’s successor, King Kavadh II, negotiated for peace and conceded most of the recently won territory. The Sasanians, however, now had to face what turned out to be their ultimate demise. Islamic Conquest

Shortly after Prophet Muhammad’s death in AD 632, and apostasy rebellions, Khalid b. al-Walid marched into the desert fringes of Mesopotamia to reimpose acceptance of Islam on the apostates. This initial entry of Muslim forces into Mesopotamia was only directed toward dissident Arabs. No confrontation was made with Sasanian authorities. Subsequent raids into Mesopotamia, however, later culminated in a severe Arab defeat at the hands of the Sasanian army, in AD 634. The defeat convinced Caliph Umar of the need to dispatch major forces to the area. Unexpectedly, the Sasanians suffered a severe defeat in the battle of al-Qadasiyya (AD 636, near al-Hira, in southern Iraq). From there they fell back to a position near the capital, Ctesiphon, but which the Sasanians also failed to hold. The Arabs were awestruck by the opulence of the recently abandoned palaces, performing their simple prayers in one of the palaces. The Sasanians made another attempt to make a stand at the Iranian plateau’s edge (battle of Jalula), but unsuccessfully. The final defeat of the Sasanian king of kings occurred at the battle of Nehavand, in AD 642, in the central lands of the plateau.

ASIA, WEST/Arabian Peninsula 827 See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad; Phoenicia; Roman Eastern Colonies; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Europe, South: Greece; Greek Colonies; Rome.

Further Reading Allen L (2005) The Persian Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Culican W (1965) The Medes and Persians. London: Thames and Hudson. Curtis VS, Hillenbrand R, and Rogers JM (eds.) (1998) The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia. New Light on the Parthian and Sasanian Empires. London: Tauris. Curtis VS and Stewart S (2006) The Idea of Iran, Vol. 2: The Age of the Parthians. London: Tauris. Daryaee T (in press) International Library of Iranian Studies, Vol. 8: Sasanian Persia. The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London: Tauris. Frye RN (1962) The Heritage of Persia. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Gershevitch I (ed.) (1985) Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harper PO (1978) The Royal Hunter. Art of the Sasanian Empire. New York: Asia Society. Herrmann G (1977) The Making of the Past: The Iranian Revival. Oxford: Elsevier-Phaidon. Yarshater E (ed.) (1983) Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3. The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, 2 parts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Introduction The Arabian Peninsula occupies an area of c. 2 590 000 km2 and is bounded on the east by the Persian Gulf; on the west by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba; on the south by the western Indian Ocean (Arabian Sea); and on the north by a desert-steppe zone that blends seamlessly into the southern portions of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Politically, it is comprised of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Sultanate of Oman, and Yemen. Most of Arabia enjoys a subtropical climate with low rainfall, but much of northeastern Arabia and parts of southeastern Arabia are underlain by substantial reserves of artesian water. The mountainous areas of Yemen, the Jabal Akhdar in the interior of Oman, and inland Dhofar receive higher rainfall capable of supporting more intensive forms of irrigation agriculture (Yemen), horticulture (Oman), and arboriculture (Dhofar). Two major deserts, the Nafud in the north and the Rub al-Khali in the south, dominate the interior of the peninsula. Microclimatic zones show considerable vegetational diversity, as in the Asir region of southwestern Saudi Arabia, and the relict mangrove forests around Kalba, Ras al-Khaimah, and Umm al-Qaiwain in the UAE. Studies have documented climatic variation in the past and major sea-level changes in both the Red Sea and Persian Gulf that affected settlement in these regions.

Pleistocene Remains

Arabian Peninsula Daniel T Potts, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary anthropomorphism The attributing of human shape or characteristics to a god, animal, or inanimate thing. artesian aquifer A confined aquifer containing groundwater that will flow upward out of a well without the need for pumping. blade A type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core. ghee The liquid butter remaining when butter from milk is melted, boiled, and strained. microclimate The climate of a small, specific place within an area as contrasted with the climate of the entire area. subtropical climate Refers to zones in a range of latitudes between 30/40 and 45 . The hot season duration is longer, while the cold season is milder and rainy. transhumance Seasonal and alternating movement of livestock, together with the persons who tend the herds, between two regions, as lowlands and highlands.

Whether via the Levantine corridor (from Africa to Western Asia through Sinai), the Arabian corridor (across the Bab al-Mandeb strait from the Horn of Africa to Yemen), or both, stone tool-using hominins reached the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps as early as 1–1.2 million years ago. The earliest dated remains at ‘Ubeidiya in Israel, just north of Arabia, have been placed at around 1.4–1 million years ago. There, Homo ergaster used stone tools of Acheulean type, including large hand axes and large flakes. Comparable Acheulean (Lower Palaeolithic) material has been found on open-air sites in northern Saudi Arabia and in caves in Yemen. Potentially older pebble tools, resembling Oldowan material in East Africa, have been found on surface sites in the Wadi Shahar and at Al-Guza cave (Yemen), but their attribution remains unconfirmed. Many more Middle Palaeolithic sites, showing Levallois-style flaking technology and a Mousterian industry, characterized by flakes and blades, are known in both northwestern and southwestern Arabia, although most of these are surface sites and none has been excavated to date. Whether these sites

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were inhabited by Homo neanderthalensis can only be determined when skeletal remains are excavated at an Arabian site. Upper Palaeolithic open-air sites with sidescrapers and bifacial foliates have been documented throughout western Arabia and, more recently, south of Bir Khasfa in the Wadi Arah of Oman. Typologically this material shows clear links to East African, rather than Zagros Mousterian industries.

Early Holocene The terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene are poorly documented in Arabia, and it is really not until the mid-Holocene ‘climatic optimum’ in the seventh/sixth millennium BC (8850–7850 BP) that the record of human settlement resumes. A variety of data (sediments, isotopes, and pollen) from fossil lake beds located in the southern Rub al-Khali (Saudi Arabia and Yemen) and the UAE confirm that this ‘wet’ phase coincided with a temporary, northward displacement of the summer monsoon. At the same time, in the more northerly latitudes, the so-called 8.2 ka (ka ¼ thousand years ago) ‘event’, described as the most abrupt and significant cold event to occur in the past 10 000 years, caused a pronounced aridification in Anatolia and the Levant, which disturbed the pattern of human settlement there, effectively ending the pre-pottery Neolithic phase. The combination of aridification in the Levant and favorable climatic conditions further south in the Arabian peninsula may explain the relatively sudden expansion of settlement throughout Arabia. The earliest stone tool tradition in eastern Arabia during the sixth millennium, a blade-arrowhead industry first identified in Qatar, shows clear links to the late PPNB Levantine lithic tradition, while the slightly later sites of the Arabian ‘Neolithic’ or ‘Late Stone Age’ in eastern Saudi Arabia and the UAE contain faunal evidence of domesticated sheep and goat, both of which must have been introduced. It can therefore be suggested that the expansion of sites in eastern Arabia at this time may have been due to migrating groups from the southern Levant who, with their flocks and distinctive lithic technology, sought to leave behind a deteriorating environment, settling in Arabia during a favorable period when monsoon activity was at its peak and both game and grazing were plentiful (see Animal Domestication). In northeastern Arabia, the bifacially retouched, barbed and tanged arrowhead is the type fossil of this phase, while in southeastern and southwestern Arabia, apart from the so-called ‘Fasad points’, which are unifacial, foliates and tangless points are more common.

Most of the sites in the northeast and southeast are surface scatters, although stratified sites with multiple hearths, midden-like depositional accretion, burials, and ceramics are known as well. Most of the ceramics were of imported, black-on-greenish buff material of ‘Ubaid-type from Mesopotamia, although a coarse, chaff-tempered redware found on sites like Abu Khamis and Dosariyah in eastern Saudi Arabia may represent local attempts at ceramic manufacture. The mechanisms whereby Mesopotamian pottery was distributed from southern Iraq to sites in Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE are unknown, but scholars have speculated that Mesopotamian seamen may have ventured south in search of pearls and other resources, for which they exchanged pottery and perhaps other, perishable items. As the excavated sites of this period in southeastern Arabia always yield the remains of domesticated sheep, goat, and cattle, it seems appropriate to class the groups inhabiting them as herders who did some hunting on the side, rather than hunters and gatherers who kept livestock. In addition, as can be seen clearly in the UAE, a seasonal pattern of transhumance was practiced. This involved spending winters on the coast, where fish, shellfish, and other marine fauna provided ample protein; spring on the gravel plains of the interior; and summers in the dry desert interior or mountains. Along with fish, shellfish, and domestic livestock, wild animals like gazelle and oryx were hunted, migratory birds including the Socotran cormorant (Phalacrocorax nigrogularis) were caught, and the date palm was exploited, setting a pattern of use which is a hallmark of Arabian horticulture to this day. It is very likely that the animal domesticates were kept primarily for their secondary products – milk, fleece, and hair – while hunted animals (and marine resources) provided the bulk of the protein needs of the population. Importantly, the domestic animals kept in eastern Arabia were capable of turning brackish water, otherwise unfit for human consumption, into potable milk. Given the impossibility of keeping milk very long in an arid environment, it is clear that it was probably turned into some form of cheese or ghee (clarified butter) that could be consumed over a longer period of time. Excavations at Ras al-Hamra (Oman) and Jabal Buhais 18 (Sharjah, UAE) have revealed large cemeteries dating to this period. These are usually single inhumations in shallow pit graves, although in several cases more than one individual seems to have been interred simultaneously, perhaps as the result of death in a single event. The deceased were buried with a variety of personal belongings including necklaces, headbands, belts, bracelets, and anklets made out of marine shells, coral, mother-of-pearl and stones such

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as agate, anhydrite, carnelian, chert, jet, limestone, and serpentinite. Few sites of this period have been excavated in the interior of Arabia or in Yemen, but it is likely that some of the many surface sites on which Arabian bifacials and foliates have been found date to this era. Many fossil lake beds in the southern interior of Arabia, for example, are ringed by remains probably left by hunting parties, though no sites as substantial as those in eastern Arabia, with burials and stratified deposits, have yet been identified.

Early Bronze Age By the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third millennium BC, the cultural manifestations around the Arabian Peninsula begin to show more and more divergence in all forms of material culture. In southeastern Arabia, monumental tombs built of unworked stone, of so-called ‘Hafit’ type (after Jabal Hafit), appear on ridge tops near oases such as Baat and Buraimi. Although they contained few individuals, they were probably collective. Imported ceramics point to links with the Jamdat Nasr period (c. 3000 BC) in southern Mesopotamia. Towards the middle of the third millennium, the better-attested ‘Umm an-Nar’ culture, with its large circular fortifications (c. 16–40 m in diameter, built of stone, mud brick, or a combination of both) and far more numerous collective tombs, built of unworked stone faced with finely masoned limestone ashlars, emerges. In rare cases, the limestone ashlars of these tombs have scenes in low relief, including humans and animals

Figure 1 Temple of cut limestone ashlars at Barbar, Bahrain.

(camel, oryx, donkey, bull). Mesopotamian and Bahraini pottery, Iranian, black-on-gray ceramics and carved softstone vessels, ivory combs from Bactria and/or the Indus Valley, and Harappan weights and etched carnelian beads, all reflect peak close ties with a wide array of regions extending from the Indus Valley in the east to Syria in the west. At RJ2 in eastern Oman (Ras al-Jinz), a sprawling settlement with third millennium occupation has revealed fragments of bitumen bearing cord and reed mat impressions that come from boats. Harappan material, including ceramics and seals, found at the site suggests that Ras al-Jinz, the nearest landfall to Pakistan and India if one crosses the Arabian Sea by boat, was probably an important stage in the maritime routes linking the Indus Valley and the west. Importantly, RJ2 has also yielded a rectangular, footed incense burner with traces of aromatic resin still adhering to its upper surface. This find suggests that the trade in aromatics linking south Arabia, or the frankincense and myrrh-producing regions of Dhofar (technically in Oman, but culturally south Arabian), was already underway in the Bronze Age, a probability made highly plausible by references to a large variety of aromatics in Mesopotamian cuneiform sources of third millennium date. Late in the third millennium, several large settlements were founded on Bahrain (Qalat al-Bahrain and Saar), while nearby temples (Barbar and Diraz) displayed the first public religious architecture known in the region (Figure 1). In contrast to southeastern Arabia where collective burial (sometimes involving hundreds of individuals) was the norm, burial mounds

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on Bahrain, over 150 000 of which have been counted on aerial photographs of the main island, were predominantly individual inhumations. Cuneiform sources in Mesopotamia allow us to identify southeastern Arabia with the region known as Magan (Sumerian) or Makkan (Akkadian) at this time. The mainland of eastern Saudi Arabia, with the important island of Tarut, and Bahrain, on the other hand, formed the land known as Dilmun (Sumerian) or Tilmun (Akkadian). Settlements and tombs on the mainland at Rufayah, Abqayq, and Dhahran, and on Tarut, show evidence of strong connections with southern Mesopotamia (ceramics) and southeastern Iran (softstone vessels). Elsewhere in the peninsula, however, third millennium occupation is more elusive. Recent C-14 dates from the deepest levels at Tayma, in the Hejaz, suggest that Bronze Age occupation underlies the predominantly Iron Age strata at the site. In Yemen, the ‘Bronze Age’ was only discovered less than 25 years ago when Italian archaeologists revealed stone structures near Sirwah at Khawlan at-Tiyal and Hada’; in the Wadi Hirab, north of the Jawf; and on the high plateau near Sana’a around Hadur Hamdan and Rayda. These seem to be small villages of agriculturalists who cultivated wheat, barley, sorghum, and oats, and kept domesticated sheep, goat, and possibly donkey. A limited range of brick-red, sand-tempered ceramic forms, some of which are decorated with burnishing and incision on the exterior, as well as ground and flaked stone tools, copper tools (pins/ awls) and weaponry (short swords with raised midrib and two rivets at the base for attachment to the hilt, c. 16–25 cm long, all from Bayt al-Mujali), and jewelry made of shell and semiprecious stones, constitute the bulk of the material found on these sites, with one important exception. A small number of monolithic, anthropomorphic statues, made of granite and varying between c. 17.5 and 33 cm in height, appears to date to the third millennium (and possibly the second as well). All have small, triangular, flattened heads with eyes indicated by slight depressions and a clear nose, atop broad, square shoulders. The upper arms are held vertically against the body, and the forearms are horizontal, a pose that is reminiscent of Mesopotamian statuary of the mid-third millennium in the Diyala region (Early Dynastic II). Males are often distinguished by a raised ridge running from the shoulder downward, between the hands and around the upper waist (a rope? braid? edge of a toga-like garment that left the neck and one shoulder uncovered?); a belt closer to the hips; and a penis. In one case, a female is identifiable by a large pubic triangle, while in another small breasts and the labial area are

clearly delineated. The function of such statuary is unknown. On analogy with contemporary Mesopotamia, these anthropomorphic images may represent dead individuals who wished to be commemorated by a statue in an attitude of perpetual prayer. If so, then it is likely that they were originally displayed in a temple or shrine of some sort. The third millennium inhabitants of south Arabia were buried in ‘turret’ graves, collective inhumations built of unworked stone whch often occur in clusters or alignments. Most have been robbed, however, and the paucity of archaeological finds contained in them have made their dating problematic. Another tomb type dating to the mid-third millennium, attested at al-Qibali 9 in the Wadi Arf and at graves in the Wadi al-Muhammadiyin, consists of a circle of vertical, unworked boulders, some of which may have incised, anthropomorphic forms on the outer face. These resemble the freestanding granite statuary described above, with the addition of a particular dagger type, with crescentic pommel or handle (perhaps the handle type that would have been riveted to the copper blades found at Bayt al-Mujali). Close parallels for precisely this type of weapon are known from the so-called grave of Meskalamdug (PG 755) in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (c. 2500 BC) and later in a XIIth Dynasty grave at Dahshur in Egypt (early second millennium BC). Archaeological explorations at shell middens on the Farasan islands in the lower Red Sea have been directed at documenting links between southwestern Arabia and pharaonic Egypt but to date there is no compelling evidence of such ties before the Late Bronze Age (see the relevant section below). As for the Early Bronze Age of central and northern Arabia, as well as most of the Red Sea littoral north of Yemen, we have no information at the present time. By the mid-third millennium, eastern Arabia began to figure increasingly in Mesopotamian cuneiform sources. Late Early Dynastic documents show us Dilmun (Bahrain/eastern Saudi Arabia) as an exporter of woods ‘from foreign lands’ and copper to the southern Mesopotamian city of Lagash. By the twentyfourth century BC, Magan (UAE/Oman) had become an object of aggression as at least two Old Akkadian kings, Naram-Sin and Manishtushu, conducted campaigns there. Further aggression may have taken place during the Ur III period, but the trade of Mesopotamian textiles and oil (sesame) for copper from Magan (extracted from the copper-rich ophiolite formation of the Hajar mountains in Oman) is also attested (Figure 2). A decentralized political system is suggested by the size and nature of sites from this period in the UAE and Oman, most which are dominated by one or more fortified towers and were probably the

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Figure 2 The copper-rich Hajar mountains run from the northern UAE to the southeastern part of Oman.

Figure 3 Gold objects from the late 3rd millennium BC tomb at Tell Abraq.

strongholds of local rulers, but there is at least one text from Ur in Iraq which records the receipt of gold dust from a ‘king of Magan’ (Figure 3) (see Political Complexity, Rise of).

Middle Bronze Age In the early second millennium, the major settlement at Qalat al-Bahrain grew within the confines of an enormous city wall, built at the very end of the third millennium, encompassing some 15 ha. A large, palatial residence built of cut limestone ashlars, that continued to be used right through the Iron Age, was erected in this period. Cuneiform documents from Ur confirm that an important trade in copper ingots (originating in Oman) on their way to the cities of

southern Mesopotamia passed through the hands of Dilmunite traders. A planned settlement at Saar, with streets, a temple, and a consistent set of multiroomed houses, was also inhabited. Furthermore, a colony of Dilmunites was established on Failaka, an island in the bay of Kuwait, at the head of the Gulf. Distinctive stamp seals with iconography showing humans and animals were used by Dilmunite traders, as a sealimpressed tablet recording trade in metals found at Susa, in southwestern Iran, attests. Relations with Oman, Dilmun’s copper source, are reflected in the presence of typical red-ridged, Dilmunite (so-called ‘Barbar’) pottery, at sites like Tell Abraq and Kalba in the UAE, the composition of some of which (from Tell Abraq) shows that it originated at Saar. In Oman and the UAE, a change in diet is suggested by isotopic analyses of skeletal remains from collective tombs. Fewer terrestrial fauna (cattle, sheep, goat) were being consumed, while marine resources contributed a greater proportion of the protein intake than previously. Whether environmental conditions deterioriated at this time is unclear, though this has been invoked as a possible cause of settlement regression. Whereas tombs are abundant enough in the first 700 years of the second millennium, settlements became exceedingly scarce. A reversion to nomadism is unlikely, particularly as there is no evidence of camel domestication yet (see below). It is certain, however, that socioeconomic change occurred, visible in changes in ceramics, settlement pattern, and burial form. Graves were now either long, single-chambered structures (both semi-subterranean and above ground); ovoid, sometimes with an internal wall running the length of the chamber; or multichambered aggregates

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of roughly circular or oval spaces (perhaps built successively to house members of an extended group?). The evidence of contact with the outside world, so abundant in the late third millennium, is considerably less, though post-Harappan and Kaftari (Elamite) ceramics, at Tell Abraq and Shimal, as well as pottery and seals of Dilmunite type, reflect ongoing contact with foreign areas. The Middle Bronze Age remains very poorly attested outside of eastern Arabia, and it is not until the Late Bronze Age that the archaeological sequences in northwestern and southwestern Arabia offer us much evidence.

Late Bronze Age The late second millennium BC is now seen by many as the formative period in both northwestern and southern Arabia, leading directly to the emergence of state-level societies in Yemen during the Iron Age and major tribal confederations (e.g., the Midianites) in the Hejaz that interacted on a variety of levels with the peoples of Syro-Palestine and Egypt. On the Tihama coast (Red Sea) and around the southwestern tip of Arabia toward Abyan, to the east of Aden, a unified, Late Bronze culture known as the ‘Sabr’ culture (after the type site of the same name, c. 20 km north of Aden) shows clear links in ceramic shapes and punctate or combed decoration with African material, particularly at pre-Aksumite sites in Ethiopia and Eritrea, from which the Yemeni coast is separated only by the narrow Bab al-Mandab, and on sites of the Pan Grave culture in Nubia. Less oriented toward the highlands of Yemen than toward the Red Sea, the Sabr culture represents an important phase of development prior to the rise of Saba in the early first millennium BC. The trajectory that led in the direction of the ‘classical’ south Arabian states (Awsan, Saba, Ma’in, Qataban, and Himyar) is, however, apparent in the highlands at Yala and Hajar Bin Humeid, where calibrated C-14 dates push the beginnings of settlements utilizing irrigation agriculture and making ceramics which prefigure later south Arabian material, back to the twelfth century BC. Some scholars have pointed to early occuation at Raybun and Shabwa in the Wadi Hadramawt which appears not merely pre-Sabaean but noon-Sabaean, evincing links, to judge by the ceramics, with the southern Levant. Such links are long suspected by linguists who point to a probable common ancestry for the Phoenician and the south Arabian alphabet and similarities between alphabetic Ugaritic and the south Semitic alphabet and letter order. These clues, along with ceramic parallels, have convinced researchers that an important

stimulus leading to the appearance of classical south Arabian civilization derived from overland contacts along what would become the western ‘incense’ route leading from Gaza in Palestine to Marib in Saba. Certainly at the time proposed for such links, northwestern Arabia was inhabited, but there has been no excavation at key sites such as Qurayyah, east of the Gulf of Aqaba in northwesternmost Saudi Arabia, where the visible remains of fortifications, a citadel, agricultural fields, ceramic production area, and an associated settlement are known only from brief surface investigations. Both Late Bronze Age Aegean and Egyptian parallels, and with ‘Midianite’ wares from the copper-smelting site of Timna near Aqaba, suggest nevertheless that a date in the thirteenth–twelfth centuries BC is highly probable. Relations with Egypt and Israel, attested to in written sources, will unfortunately remain invisible from an archaeological perspective until excavations are undertaken at Qurayyah and other sites in the region. Turning to the east, by the Late Bronze Age, Bahrain had come under the control of the Kassite dynasty in southern Mesopotamia. Archaeologically, this is manifested by a fundamental change in the ceramic repertoire, as classic Kassite shapes replace those of the Barbar–Dilmunite tradition. Several dozen cuneiform texts found in the reused palatial building on Qalat al-Bahrain, surely the seat of provincial administration at this time, attest to the use of writing for local recording purposes by Kassite officials, but, apart from this, writing seems not to have become more widespread in the local community. Failaka, too, was well within the Kassite sphere of influence, and the settlement there, consisting of densely packed, multiroomed houses built of locally available beach rock (Arabic farush), shows the same predominance of Kassite ceramic forms as Bahrain. Southeastern Arabia, on the other hand, remained beyond Kassite control. At the end of the Late Bronze Age, local ceramic forms and fabrics find few parallels outside the region and with the exception of a small number of sherds resembling Elamite material from southwestern Iran, as well as one manifestly Elamite cylinder seal of faience from Tell Abraq, evidence of ties to other regions is lacking.

Iron Age During the early first millennium BC, several factors combined to launch a number of regions in the Arabian peninsula toward complex statehood. Agricultural intensification due to improved irrigation, the production of surpluses under the control of local elites, the domestication of the camel enabling long-distance caravan trade in aromatics, and pressure from outside

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aggressors (principally Assyria) all contributed to state formation processes in southwestern and northwestern Arabia, while in the Persian Gulf and southeastern Arabia, tributary relations with Assyria on the part of local rulers were documented. By far the best known of these states arose in south Arabia where thousands of inscriptions, many of them historical or annalistic, shed light on the intense competition between rulers and regions that resulted in the consolidation of successive Sabaean, Minaean, Qatabanian, Hadramawt, and Himyarite states. Although we know little of the earliest supraregional state in the region, Awsan, there is an unbroken record of state-level, highly organized, militaristic societies with standing armies and important external trade and diplomatic relations from the eighth century BC, when two Sabaean kings are mentioned in Assyrian royal inscriptions, to the coming of Islam in the seventh century AD. Broadly speaking, this millennium can be divided into four main periods: (1) the period of the mukarribs (‘unifiers’ or ‘federators’) of Saba, eighth to sixth century BC; (2) the period of the kings of Saba, fifth to first century BC; (3) the period of the kings of Saba and dhu-Raydan, first to third century AD; and (4) the Himyarite period, fourth to sixth century AD. South Arabian society was supported by an intensive agricultural regime dependent on irrigation. Major dams, like the one at the Sabaean capital Marib, stored water and enabled the production of massive agricultural surpluses. Large, walled cities (Marib, Sirwah, Baraqish, Shabwa, Najran, etc.) dot the south Arabian landscape, along with smaller towns, villages, and farmsteads in a complex hierarchy of settlement. High standards of stone masonry and an arid climate have resulted in an extraordinary level of preservation at many sites. Monumental tombs, replete with alabaster statuary, bronze weaponry, and ceramics; silver and base metal coinage, inspired originally by Athenian coinage; a rich repertoire of iconographic elements in architectural decoration and metalwork; and a passion for highly visible, elegantly carved public inscriptions, characterize south Arabia’s civilizations. In northwestern Arabia, the site of Tayma grew into a major urban center during the sixth century BC when the neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus moved his residence there from 553 to 543 BC. A large city wall enclosing an important settlement with temples and industrial areas makes this the largest archaeological site in the region. At about the same time, an important settlement on the northeastern outskirts of the al-’Ula oasis, known as Khuraybah, began to grow. The site, where Saudi excavations have recently begun, is attested in the Bible as Dedan (e.g., Genesis 10.7, etc.) and was home to a trading emporium

founded by Minaean merchants from south Arabia who thereby established an important commercial center near the northern end of the incense route. Other important Iron Age remains have been identified in the Jawf oasis of north-central Arabia, ancient Adummatu of the Assyrian sources, but these have not yet been investigated intensively. Assyrian accounts of campaigns in the region make it clear, however, that tribal confederations of camelbreeding nomads occupied much of the north Arabian desert in the early and mid-first millennium BC. The archaeology of this population is virtually unknown, although some of the abundant rock art to be seen in the region probably dates to this period. Assyrian sources also record the receipt of tribute from several kings of Dilmun but these predate the occupational evidence from the major palatial building on Qalat al-Bahrain which was used during the mid-first millennium. Ceramics and a rock crystal stamp seal in Achaemenid court style suggest that a provincial administrator in the service of the Achaemenid Persian Empire may have used the building. Otherwise, there is little archaeological evidence of Persian control at this time. The Iron Age in the Oman peninsula witnessed an explosion of settlement. Thanks to the introduction of qanat or falaj irrigation technology, many new oasis settlements were established, some of which were walled. Date palm cultivation probably expanded at this time and the use of the domesticated dromedary camel is attested. Sites like Muweilah, Rumeilah, al-Thuqaibah, and Hili 17 reflect the existence of large communities living in multiroomed, mud brick houses. Bronze weaponry has been recovered in large quantities in cemeteries such as al-Qusais, on the outskirts of Dubai. Iron Age graves have been found all over southeastern Arabia, and Izki, according to Assyrian sources, was the base of a king named Pade who sent tribute to the Assyrian ruler Assurbanipal in the seventh century BC.

The Age of World Empires Between Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in the late fourth century BC and the coming of Islam, the different sub-areas of the Arabian peninsula experienced highly variable interaction with the empires of later antiquity. In eastern Arabia, there are visible signs of contact with the postAlexander Seleucid Empire, based in central Mesopotamia, and with the later Parthian and Sasanian Empires that originated in Iran. A small Seleucid garrison that has yielded Greek inscriptions and coins, imported Hellenistic pottery and figurines of Greek

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deities, was established on Failaka island. Similar sorts of finds are attested on Bahrain, particularly at Qalat al-Bahrain and in hundreds of burial mounds, while in the UAE and Oman the degree of Hellenistic influence is considerably less, amounting to a small quantity of imported pottery (e.g., the stamped handles from Rhodian wine amphorae) and a small number of coins. A local dynast named Abiel minted his own coins at the site of Mleiha, in the interior of Sharjah, where a sprawling settlement with private houses and monumental, mud brick graves, generally reminiscent of Palmyrene funerary towers in Syria, has been excavated. Large quantities of imported Parthian pottery, along with Characene coins from southern Iraq, Namord ware from southeastern Iran, Indian Red Polished Ware from the Indian subcontinent, and quantities of Roman glass, have been found in excavations at the large (c. 4  1 km2) site of edDur, on the Persian Gulf coast north of Umm alQaiwain. Later occupational evidence in southeastern Arabia is scarce. Although a large settlement mound at Kush, in Ras al-Khaimah, has been excavated, as well as numerous graves around Samad in Oman, the last few centuries before the coming of Islam are poorly documented, perhaps because climatic conditions deteriorated and population declined. Given the distance from Yemen to the rest of the Near East, south Arabia was rarely threatened by her neighbors and its later history is marked more by internal military strife than external threats. Although diplomatic relations are attested in the Assyrian period, and an alliance between the Hamdanid dynasty and the Axumites in Ethiopia is attested in the second century AD, the Roman expedition against Marib of 26/5 BC was the first foreign incursion into south Arabia. Increasingly, however, south Arabia was drawn into a web of international political competition between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, in which Christianity, Judaism, and international trade all played a role. Archaeologically, the last few centuries before Islam are poorly known. The major site of Zafar, capital of Himyar, has never been excavated, and only cursory investigations have been undertaken at Najran, scene of an infamous massacre of Christians by Dhu Nawas, a Jewish ruler in south Arabia who came to power through a coup in 521–522 AD. The conquest of south Arabia by the Sasanians in 575 is archaeologically ‘invisible’. The last great ‘civilization’ in pre-Islamic northwestern Arabia was that of the Nabataeans. Although normally associated with their capital Petra in southern Jordan, the Nabataeans exercised control much further south. Madain Salih, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, about 110 km southwest of Tayma, is a major site with rock-cut tombs and a large settlement

mound. Smaller Nabataean sites are also known in the region. See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Mesolithic Cultures; Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad; Paleolithic Cultures; Africa, North: Egypt, PrePharaonic; Animal Domestication; Asia, South: Indus Civilization; Political Complexity, Rise of.

Further Reading Edens C and Wilkinson TJ (1998) Southwest Arabia during the Holocene: Recent archaeological developments. Journal of World Prehistory 12: 55–119. Hoyland R (2001) Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. London: Taylor and Francis. Potts DT (1990) The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, Vols. 1–2. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Simpson St J (ed.) (2002) Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen. London: British Museum.

Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant Suzanne Richard, Gannon University, Erie, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary aniconic Traditional view that bans idols from the decorative arts, for example, Jewish tradition disallows images in accordance with Mosaic law. Asherah The Canaanite mother goddess, term used to describe Iron Age pillar figurines. bit-hilani A Syrian-style palace/temple consisting of a portico with columns, often with animals carved into the column bases. hippodamian A town plan on a gridiron pattern, usually divided into blocks according to various functions. hypogeum An underground stone-built tomb. Merneptah stele Victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah (1207 BCE) mentioning numerous conquests, including, the people, Israel. miqvaot Pl. of miqveh, a Hebrew term for a ritual bath. tetrapylon Architectural gate-like structure consisting of four arches usually located at a major intersection in a Roman city. Via Nova Trajiana The new road of Trajan, built after CE 135 from Petra to Bostra.

Introduction Defining the Near Eastern Area: The Levant

The area encompasses the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, as well as, Palestine and the

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Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), although in antiquity, the region’s borders often blurred with those of Anatolia (Turkey) and Mesopotamia (Iraq). Often called Syria– Palestine or the Levant, the region divides naturally along geopolitical borders today. Scholars specialize in either Syria/Lebanon (north) or Jordan/Israel (south), the latter increasingly referred to as the southern Levant. In the past, work in the south focused on illuminating the biblical text (‘biblical archaeology’); however, in the 1960s, the methods and theory of the ‘new archaeology’ revolutionized work in the Levant. Today, those scholars undertaking the daunting task of relating biblical texts to archaeological data often use the term, ‘biblical archaeology’, specifically to refer to the Iron Age. Physical Environment/Geopolitical Landscape

Western Syria/Lebanon and the southern Levant form a geomorphologic unit. They share ca. a 400-mile Mediterranean coastline, and parallel mountain chains on either side of the Rift Valley (Ghab, Orontes and Beka‘a valleys, southward to the Galilee Lake, Jordan River, Dead Sea, and Araba to the Red Sea). Much of the region is desert or semi-arid steppe: the Negev/ Sinai, the Saudi Arabian Desert in eastern Jordan, and the Syrian Desert in southeastern Syria. Northeastern Syria (Jezirah) was part of North Mesopotamia, while the Euphrates area, generally, was often part of greater Mesopotamia. The Levantine corridor favored north–south trade routes: the Via Maris on the coast, and the ‘King’s Highway’ in Transjordan (ancient Jordan), both stretching northward to Syrian hubs from which trade routes radiated to the coast, to Anatolia, and to Mesopotamia. As this broad survey encompasses the prehistoric through classical periods, the intent is to highlight the current scholarly assessment and/or compelling issue in each period, and to illustrate it with select data sets. When cultural trajectories diverge, the north and south will be treated separately, in that order. Chronological ranges generally encompass the two regions, but do not imply exactly similar horizons. The start dates reflect the earliest cultural occurrence; time lags will be noted.

Prehistory: Paleolithic – Neolithic Paleolithic (Old Stone Age): Hunter-Gatherers to Foragers

Lower At ‘Ubeidiya, near Lake Galilee, chopping stones and micromammal remains, related to the Oldowan Acheulean industry and dating to 1.4 million years ago, now provide clear evidence for the early movement ‘out of Africa’ of Homo erectus. Although fossil remains are few, and mostly in Late Acheulian

Israel (‘Ubeidiya, Gesher Benot Ya‘akov, and Zuttiyeh’s Galilee Man), hand axes, wooden artifacts, and plant remains at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, and the earliest known piece of art – a steatopygous female figurine – at Berekhat Ram in the Golan Heights, evidence a developing hunter-gatherer society some 600 000 years ago. Sites in the north (Yabrud, Adlun, Hummal, el-Kowm) reflect regional variations near the end (Acheulean–Yabrudian), underscoring developing diversity in the Levant. Middle New radiometric dating methods have raised the start of this period considerably (250 000– 45 000 year ago), resulting in a greater overlap with the previous. An agreed demarcation, however, is the absence of bifacial (handax) tools, while the Levallois reduction technique (flake/blades) becomes characteristic. The best-known caves and rock shelters are situated in the Mediterranean core area, for example, Mount Carmel. The new dating has put those caves at the center of controversy (human origins), since archaic (Amud, Kebara, and Tabun caves) and modern humans (Qafzeh and Skhul caves) appear to be competitors using similar tools. Scholars remain divided on whether the Mount Carmel remains indicate that modern humans coexisted with or evolved from archaic humans. Upper Archaeologists exploring beyond the core area have found open-air sites in semi-arid lands, revealing that by 47 000–18 000 BCE modern humans showed astonishing adaptation, for example, Boker Tachtit (Negev), the Sinai, eastern Jordan’s Azraq Basin, Ksar Akil 25 (Lebanon), and Palmyra, and el-Koum (Syria). Accompanied with a toolkit of blades, there is a concomitant trend toward more mobile subsistence strategies and processing of plants, that is, foraging, whose clearest data are seen in the uppermost or Epipalaeolithic period. Epipaleolithic: Foragers to Sedentists

One can best comprehend the Kebaran (c. 18 000– 12 000 BCE) and Natufian (c. 12 000–9500 BCE) as evincing a ‘broad spectrum revolution;’ that is, a hunting strategy (foraging) that exploits a wide variety of game, cereals, and legumes in a localized area. This strategy inevitably led to sedentism, namely, the multiphased, round hut villages of Eynan (Galilee), Mureybit and Abu Hureyra (Euphrates). Astonishingly, Abu Hureyra may have domesticated grain (rye); Mureybit yielded over a 100 species of seeds and plants. The archaeological correlates to grain processing are: sickles with silica, mortars and pestles

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(Hayonim Cave, Wadi Hammeh 27, Saaide II, and desert sites in Jordan); to long-distance trade: obsidian, Red Sea shells, and basalt; to symbolism: the sickle hafts and figurines – the first true art. More exciting is the recent discovery of Natufian-like behavior in the early Kebaran. The open-air sites of Neve David (Mount Carmel) and Ohalo II (Galilee) already display the characteristics of sedentism, including thousands of seeds at the latter site! Neolithic: New Stone Age – Farmers, Herders, and Potters

Aceramic Neolithic PPNA Coincidently or not, at the onset of the Holocene era (c. 9600 BCE), the revolutionary first unequivocal domestication of plants (einkorn wheat, barley, and pulses) occurred (subsequent to sedentism, not the reverse). Concurrent with domestication, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) peoples crossed the threshold to permanent village settlements: Mureybit, Jerf el-Ahmar, Tell Aswad; in the south, Netiv Hagdud, ‘Iraq ed-Dubb, and Jericho, whose stone wall and ‘tower’ earned it the title, ‘earliest city in the world’. Wall paintings (Mureybit), auroch skulls on benches (Jerf al-Ahmar), along with decapitated burials and burning, suggest ritual communal buildings. Though foraging still dominates, as the first true arrowhead (notched el-Khiam point) indicates, developing social organization is implicit in these experimental farming villages. PPNB As researchers now know, it was somewhat later (8300–6800 BCE) that plant domestication became widespread, followed by the domestication of goats and sheep. Surely implying population growth, mega-sites (25–35 acres), comprising large, multiroomed, rectangular houses (‘Ain Ghazal, Wadi Shueib, Basta in Jordan, Abu Hureyra, and others in the north) now appeared. Their most recognizable attribute is the ever-present lime plaster, whether on floors and walls, in ‘white ware’, or, more spectacularly, on plastered skulls and figurines, even unique busts and statues, some almost 30 tall at ‘Ain Ghazal (Figure 1). The latter tradition, apparently an ancestor cult, is widespread (Bouqras, Tell Halula, Beisamoun, Wadi Shu’eib, Tell Sabi Abyard). Other evidence of ritual includes: decapitated burials below floors, and sanctuaries (Beidha ‘Ain Ghazal, Tell Sabi Abyad II, Halulu). It is possible that the remarkable PPNB (Figure 2) period ended due to over-cultivation and environmental degradation by the population. Throughout the entire region, shifting settlement patterns, the abandonment of numerous sites, but occupational continuity at others, all suggest a dynamic

Figure 1 Female plaster statue and bust from the 1983 MPPNB statuary cache at ‘Ain Ghazal. Photo by Peter Dorrell and Stuart Laidlaw. Permission of the ‘Ain Ghazal Archaeological Project.

period of transition to the pottery cultures of the Pottery Neolithic (PN). PPNC This phase in the south equals the Final PPNB/ early PN in Syria. Discerned originally at ‘Ain Ghazal and now recognized at a handful of sites in the south, the PPNC links the PPN to the PN period, thus closing the hiatus palestinien proposed by Kathleen Kenyon on the basis of an abandonment at Jericho. In lithics (mostly flakes) and mortuary practices (skull intact), but especially in architectural remains (small singleroom houses and corridor structures for storage) and in faunal remains, a new mode of subsistence is perceptible: nomadic pastoralism. The seasonal herding of sheep and goats as a subsistence strategy distinct from sedentism may have arisen at this time due to the ecoenvironmental conditions, as noted previously. Ceramic/Pottery Neolithic (PN) The transition (c. 6900 BCE in Syria) to widespread agricultural villages is cloudy, although continuity at a few sites (Abu Hureyra, Bouqras, Tell Ramad, Tell Sabi Abyad) alludes to a primarily indigenous process (also ‘Ain Ghazal in the south, early–mid sixth millennium). Typically, sites are small, dispersed, and short spanned, often in new locations (Amuq, Hama; in the south Munhatta, Sha‘ar ha-Golan). It is thought that the

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Figure 2 The PPNB Lower Temple, dated to 7016  132 cal BC. Photo by Bilal Deghedeh and Yousef Zu’bi. Permission of the ‘Ain Ghazal Archaeologicao Project.

new pattern reflects the adaptation and consolidation of a ‘mixed farming’ regime, with its offshoot, pastoralism. Notably, in the north, there are a few larger regional sites; in the south, Sha‘ar ha-Golan has public buildings and a vast collection of female figurines. Pottery making, a correlative process to PPNB lime-plaster technology, appeared c. 6900 BCE at Tell Damishlyiia and Tell Sabi Abyad, in the Jezirah (protoHassuna ware), and in the ‘Amuq (‘dark-faced burnished ware’), and later at ‘Ain Ghazal, in the south (Yarmoukian). Around 6000, exquisite red-painted Halaf ware appeared in the Jezireh, then spread to the coast along with an assemblage of tholoi, red-painted figurines, stamp seals, and clay sealings. Implying large-scale pottery production, specialized craftsmanship, and trade (seals), this growing complexity (in the north) accelerated in the following period.

Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone) Age: Cultural Complexity and Cities North

Syria experienced two cultural waves from southern Mesopotamia, where complex irrigation agricultural societies developed: Ubaid, in the late sixth and fifth milleniums, and Uruk (first city/first writing) in the mid-fourth millennium. The issue is to isolate diffusion from local processes in the rise of cities. The pervasive Ubaid culture’s mass-produced pottery coincided with a noticeable developing complexity at sites, suggesting diffusion. Some sites, Tell Hamam et Turkman, Tell Brak, Tell Zyadeh in the Jezireh and Tell Kurdu, Ras

Shamra, and Afis in the west have 10–14 Ubaid levels, including granaries (grill buildings). By 3600 BCE, diffusion from Sumer (the Uruk Expansion/World System) was unequivocal. Habuba Kabira is the quintessential Mesopotamian urban colony: fortifications, tripartite-niched cultic buildings, cone mosaics, beveled-rim bowls, and clay tablets of pre-pictographic style. Other colonies on the Euphrates include Jebel Aruda, Hadidi, Sheik Hasan, Tell el-Haj, Habuba Kabira; in the Syrian Desert, el-Koum. On the other hand, a mixed local and Uruk assemblage characterizes the established sites like Hama, the ‘Amuq, and Tell Brak (the ‘‘Eye Temple’’). The most significant new development is the view that Tell Brak (a 240-acre site with monumental buildings and a hierarchy of hinterland sites) and, possibly, Tell Hamoukar were urban sites before the Uruk expansion. What this signifies is that a local urban trajectory in the dry-farming north (Jezireh) may have paralleled that of the irrigation societies of the south (Sumer). The period ended with the Uruk Collapse c. 3100. Southern Levant

A different picture emerged locally (c. 4500), as probable ‘chiefdoms’ arose in several of numerous regions, the northern Negev (Shiqmim, Gilat), and the Jordan Valley (Teleilat el-Ghassul). The evidence for developing hierarchies consists of a two-tier settlement pattern, expansive settlements, public sanctuaries, and elaborate ritual; formal cemeteries, trade networks, and craft specialization (ivory, basalt stone

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carving, metals, pottery) centering on religious iconography (Figures 3 and 4). The rich corpus of prestige items must indicate a ruling elite. The spectacular Cave of the Treasure (Nahal Mishmar) hoard contained 429 mostly ritualistic copper items (crowns, scepters, maces), generally considered the temple equipment from nearby Ein Gedi, a sacred precinct overlooking the Dead Sea. The Teleilat el-Ghassul temples displayed extraordinary frescoes illustrating mythical figures and an apparent ceremony; at Gilat, a wealth of cultic paraphernalia was recovered in the temple. Nahal Qana’s eight gold ring ingots affirm trade in prestige items with Egypt. As scholars consider the interplay of prestige items, the cult, and metallurgy, they must

factor in the recent stunning discovery of the largest copper mine in the Near East (Wadi Feinan in southern Jordan). Still enigmatic are the reasons for this preurban society’s total collapse, c. 3500 BCE, although a destruction layer with Egyptian mace heads (Gilat) is instructive.

Early Bronze Age (EBA): Widespread Urbanism and the Rise of the State North

The rise of ‘state’ institutions, temple economies, historical writing, in short, civilization, is a hallmark

Figure 3 Overview of excavations in the Shiqmim Chalcolithic village, Northern Negev desert, Israel. Photo: T. E. Levy, UCSD Levantine Archaeology Laboratory.

Figure 4 Cache of Chalcolithic ceramic vessels found in a ritual deposit, Shiqmim village, northern Negev desert, Israel. Photo: T. E. Levy, UCSD Levantine Archaeology Laboratory.

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Figure 5 Umm el-Marra, Syria. General view of Early Bronze Age Tomb 1, an elite tomb with multiple burials. Pictured here are two men buried in the middle layer. Courtesy Glenn M. Schwartz.

of Sumer and Egypt, c. 3000 BCE. Lately, scholars seeking the mechanisms for ‘secondary’ state formation have focused on local trajectories distinct from the Mesopotamian model, a case in point being the dry-farming region of the Jezireh. Following the ‘Uruk Collapse’, an apparent indigenous development (the pivotal ‘Ninevite V’ period) climaxed in widespread urbanism (by 2600 BCE), for example, the 216-acre city-state of Tell Leilan. Elsewhere urbanism emerged in the west at Byblos, Ras Shamra, Hama. Even rural sites (Figure 8) show surprising complexity, for example, monumental architecture (Kashkashu III, Halawa, Raqa‘i), hydraulic systems (Umbashi, like nearby Jawa in Jordan). Ebla Several phenomenal expressions of late third millennium urban city-states (Ebla, Mari, Urkesh) enlighten us on Syria and its ethnic composition. The revolutionary discoveries at Ebla (Tell Mardikh) unveiled a hitherto unknown palatial state equal to Sumer, and an unknown Semitic language, called Eblaite, found on cuneiform tablets in the Palace G archive. Both the workshops, filled with quantities of tin, obsidian, lapis lazuli, etc., and the texts document Ebla’s control of major trade routes. Related Semitic language and texts at Mari elaborate the rival’s control of the middle Euphrates and contiguous steppe. There, Mesopotamian culture is more pervasive than at Ebla, where native traditions in art and in religion are apparent. At Urkesh (Tell Mozan), the Hurrian capital, stunning monumental remains, including a vast monumental temple plaza and terrace are coming to light.

Figure 6 Umm el-Marra, Syria. Lapis Lazuli wild goat ornament found with female skeletons in upper layer of Early Bronze Age Tomb 1. Courtesy Glenn M. Schwartz.

Stone-built tombs at Mishrife (Qatna), and Umm el-Marra (Figures 5–7) the corbelled Hypogeum at Tell Ahmar (Til Barsip), and the unique ‘white mountain’ tomb at Banat underscore the wealth and prestige of urban elites. The ‘caliciform’ culture, mass-produced corrugated cups and bowls, links sites across the region, including the southern Levant (EB IV). Destruction, abandonment, and decentralization marked the end of the third millennium. Southern Levant

On the periphery of the ‘Uruk World System’ but probably feeling ripples from Syria, a local type of urbanism developed, its rise and collapse being a major issue of research. By EB II (3100 BCE), a fairly

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uniform pattern of fortified sites of a size ranging from 10 to 60 acres was typical (Megiddo, ‘Ai, Jericho, Tell el-Farah N.). A wealth of new data suggests that Egypt quickened or stimulated urbanization. Egyptians involved in royal trade resided in EB I/II southern coastal sites (‘Ein Besor, ‘Erani, Taur Ikhbeineh), as adduced by Egyptian material culture, but especially royal serekhs of Narmer (Dynasty 0). Levantine jars (‘the Abydos jug’) in Egyptian tombs verify an interregional trade, which also included copper from a complex network involving Arad, Feinan, and Negev/Sinai sites. EB III Between 2750 and 2300 BCE, urbanism peaked in mega, highly fortified sites (Yarmuth’s 40 m wide defenses (Figure 9): Jericho’s underwent 16 rebuilds in EB II–III), following the collapse of Negev sites and concurrent Egyptian territorial expansion. Although some question EBA urbanism, in relation to Syrian models, the 216-acre site of Yarmuth appears to be a city-state with palace economy and complex organizational hierarchies (1.5-acre palace, temple, and storage facilities). Such complexity is glimpsed elsewhere: the public granary at Beth Yerah, cultic precincts at ‘Ai, Megiddo, Khirbet Zeraqoun, Arad, and palaces at Megiddo and Arad. Wealth differential is,

Figure 7 Umm el-Marra, Syria. Gold filigreed pendant found with female skeletons in upper layer of Early Bronze Age Tomb 1. Courtesy Glenn M. Schwartz.

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Figure 8 Raqa‘i. Level 3, Syria. View of a small Early Bronze Age settlement showing domestic and industrial areas and rounded (silo) building. Courtesy Glenn M. Schwartz.

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Figure 9 EB III walled palatial complex (B1) looking NE: main courtyard in foreground, smaller courtyard in the NW, Tell Yarmuth, Israel. ã Tell Yarmuth Expedition, courtesy P. Miroschedji.

however, not observed in burials, usually multiple interments of extended families in caves or, uniquely, in charnel houses (Bab edh-Dhra‘). Urban collapse 2300 BCE Once explained by invasion, the collapse and subsequent EB IV is now generally considered a local episode of urban/rural oscillation. The EB IV, something of a ‘dark age’ until recently, is now known to include agricultural settlements, as well as pastoral sites. Although the urban sector is missing, there is a level of rural complexity, evidenced by multiphase sites, even regional centers (especially in Transjordan), displaying remnant EB III urban traditions, for example, Khirbet Iskander has reused fortifications, a bench-lined gateway, and public storeroom (Figure 10). Bab edh-Dhra’, ‘Aro’er, Abu-en-Ni‘aj, Iktanu, Sha‘ar ha Golan, Nahal Rephaim complement this picture. A large corpus of metals, and ingots connecting Negev/Sinai sites with Feinan (Khirbet Hamra Ifdan), also points to trade (Egypt), as does ‘caliciform’ pottery (Syria). The period ended c. 2000 BCE.

Middle Bronze Age (MBA): Regional Kingdoms and Common Culture Scholars have the task of explaining a transition from collapse to a revitalized urbanism, an urbanism

reflecting a similar cultural complex spanning the region (and even into the Egyptian Delta). By the end of MB I, the reoccupied tells uniformly reflected the power and institutional control of elites, and texts verify the new regional kingdoms or territorial states of Mari, Yamkhad, Qatna, Hazor (and Tell el-Daba‘ in Egypt). The highly integrated nature of the culture has much to do with interregional exchange, but also ethnic ties. Texts indicate that new peoples across the Levant were in power positions, particularly Amorites and Hurrians, and Asiatics in Egypt (the Hyksos). The urban transformation in the south is difficult to explain without positing new peoples and urban stimuli from Syria. Metals, Pottery, Defenses

Various attributes demonstrably support a highly integrated Levantine culture. Now that bronze superseded copper, distinctive forms like the notched chisel, the ‘duckbill’ axe, and socketed spearheads appeared. Metallurgical advances promoted a mastery of firing and kilns, resulting in a ceramic assemblage of well-fired, carinated, metal-like vessels with delicate ring bases, highly slipped and burnished and made on a fast wheel. Massive fortifications (Figure 11) of multiple walls, triple-entryway gates, moats, glacis, and enclosures, from Leilan to Mari

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Figure 10 Khirbet Iskander, Jordan, EB IV gate and plan, to the N. Pemission of the Khirbet Iskander Expedition, courtesy S. Richard.

to Ebla (440 thick ramparts) and Qatna to Hazor to el-Daba‘ are characteristic. Unique to the region are Tell Dan’s mudbrick arched gate, and the temple at Leilan (Shamsi Adad’s capital) with swirling designs on engaged columns.

miniature calf shrine at Ashkelon; and child burials in foundation deposit jars. The wealth of elites illustrates a growing internationalism, notable in tombs and hoards, like the heavily Egyptian-influenced Montet Jar metal hoard, from Byblos.

Wealth and Elites

Mari

Ebla offers perhaps the prototypical ‘bit-hilani’ exemplar in Temple D, a fortified (‘migdol’) tripartite temple. Royal hypogeum tombs, found filled with exquisite artifacts and sculptures beneath the palace, foreshadow the LBA tradition at Ugarit. In the south, Syrian style ‘courtyard’ palaces are known (Kabri, Megiddo, Aphek, Tell Sera), although on a different scale than the monumental palace complexes in the north (Ebla, Mari, Alalakh). Widespread contacts may explain the variety of cult structures and ritual practices, for example, the Byblos Obelisk Temple (Egyptian influence); Gezer High Place, Nahariya outdoor sanctuary; even a

The splendid 300-room palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari – renowned in its time – symbolizes the burgeoning power of kings. A gold mine of information, its 20 000 tablets mention trading partners (e.g., Dan and Hazor in the south), political alliances, warfare, religion, and, of special import, relations with the pastoral nomadic tribes who throughout history played a critical role in the region. Most notable among Mari’s countless treasures are the Mari Standard, the ‘goddess with the flowing vase’, and the Investiture fresco, whose Minoan like style has also been noted in frescoes at Tell Kabri, Alalakh, and Tell el-Daba‘.

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known, scholars investigating socioeconomic factors cite evidences of great wealth differential (elite residences, tombs, luxury items, personal seals), as a potential harbinger of societal breakdown and general urban collapse, a view supported by texts documenting a growing society of disaffected peoples (the Habiru). The sociopolitical and economic impact of empire on vassal states should likewise not be underestimated. Suzerains and Vassals

Conquest, tribute, trade, control of resources, and ultimately political and territorial hegemony drove the constant warfare of competing empires: Mitanni, Egypt, Hatti (the Hittites). Prospering urban centers on the Euphrates, such as Munbaqa, Tell Brak, and Emar, were in the heartland of Mitanni, while Hittites and Egyptians battled over western Syria. In the south, Egyptian garrison cities (Tell es-Sa‘idiyeh, Tell Beth Shean, Gaza), Egyptian style temples (Beth Shean, Lachish), anthropoid coffins (Beth Shean, Deir el-Balah), and the Amarna texts all converged to substantiate a vassal–suzerain relationship. Cosmopolitanism

Figure 11 Overview of the Middle Bronze Age southern gate complex at Tell Gezer, c. 1700–1500 BC. Credit: Hebrew Union College Gezer Excavations Phase II. Courtesy Joe D. Seger.

Writings

In the south, for the first time, there was documented literacy (Akkadian cuneiform tablets). But, it was the MB/LB invention of the (pictographic) alphabet, ancestor to the Phoenician linear alphabet, that was truly revolutionary: inscriptions of this were found at Megiddo and carved on stelae by Canaanites working in Sinai at Serabit el-Khadem. Destruction and upheaval ended the period (c. 1550/1500); Hittites campaigned in the north and Egyptians expelled the hated Hyksos. Both, in the process, carved out LBA empires.

Late Bronze Age (LBA): Internationalism, Empires, and Vassal States Despite constant warfare, there was remarkable cultural continuity with the MBA, although there was a generalized aura of decline across the region, if fewer sites, a dearth of new fortifications, and degenerate (MBA) ceramics are any indication. Incongruently, this was a time of great wealth and cosmopolitanism. Although the Sea Peoples invasion c. 1200 BCE is well

The late fourteenth c. Uluburun and Cape Gelodoniya shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey epitomize the internationalism of the period: 350 Cypriot copper ingots, Egyptian ebony, Aegean and Levantine pottery, gold, wine amphora, etc. In microcosm, the picture is the same from a family tomb at Gezer (Cave I.10A), among whose contents were an Egyptian glass vase, a Syrian jug, Mycenaean and Cypriot vessels, and a Minoan-style larnax (clay sarcophagus). Imported pottery from Cyprus and Mycenae floods the market. Extravagant palaces (Megiddo, Alalakh, Ras ibn Hani), sacred precincts (Hazor, Ugarit), monumental sculptures (Megiddo, Hazor, Ugarit), patrician residences (Tell Batash, Megiddo, Ras ibn Hani), bronze Astarte and Baal statues (Hazor, Ugarit), the Megiddo ivories (a 300-piece hoard), lavish underground stone built (corbelled) graves (Tell el-‘Ajjul, Dan, and Megiddo, Ugarit) all attest to glaring wealth differential in the Levant. Ugarit

Also glaring are palatial economies, for which Ugarit’s (Ras Shamra) fabled palace of 100 rooms is a prime example. This port city is a virtual treasure trove of gold (elite art) and other precious items and sculpture (Baal stela), but, as at Ebla, its enduring legacy was a new language, Ugaritic (Canaanite), the first fullfledged alphabetic (cuneiform) script, and close relative of Hebrew. Textual study has revealed common

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religious and social traditions with the later Israelites. Upheaval, destruction, the end of empires, and general collapse swept the Mediterranean at the end of the LBA. The culprits? Probably the Sea Peoples, their battles with Ramses III immortalized on his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu.

Iron Age: New Peoples, Nation-States, and World Empires 1200–333 BCE Once the dust settled, it was evident that a new sociopolitical order existed: into the political vacuum had come new peoples (Neo-Hittites, Phoenicians, Arameans, Israelites, Philistines Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites). New nation kingdoms were shortly to arise in this new age of Iron, only to succumb to a sequence of world empires: Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and, ultimately, Alexander the Great. The LBA/IA transition remains enigmatic, as does the reconstitution of new political entities by numerous ethnic groups. What was the cultural and political impact of empire on Levantine peoples? North (Iron I)

Three regional nation-states are recognizable: NeoHittites (north), Phoenicians (coast), and Arameans (previous nomads of the steppe), who controlled most of Syria, even south to Lake Galilee. Affirmed by continuity at numerous sites (Tell Afis, Carchemish, Hama), these LBA descendants reconfigured into a number of competing polities (1200–900 BCE). Archaeologically, it is hard to sort out the multiethnic cities described in the texts, since the sometimesoverlapping Aramaean and Neo-Hittite kingdoms embrace similar elite markers. Good examples are the Aramean sites of ‘Ain Dara, whose Syrian ‘bithilani’ temple is adorned with Neo-Hittite carved reliefs of mythological creatures and sculpted sphinxes and lions; and Tell Halaf whose colossal caryatid statues are extraordinary. A new city plan, smaller, oval, double-walled, with citadel (Tayinat, Zincirli) is a hallmark of the period (also found at Megiddo in the south). Phoenicians (Canaanites) These colonizers (Carthage) and traders who opened the Levant to western (Greek) culture were extremely important – quantities of Greek pottery in coastal sites like Tell Sukkas, Al Mina, Tabbat al-Hammam may equate with colonies. Their major ports are mostly modern cities today: Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, and Arwad (Akko in the south), which limits excavation, although there are sarcophagi (Ahiram), Sidon’s temple to Eshmun, 200 inscribed funerary stelae outside Tyre, numerous

inscriptions, and important pre-eighth century materials from Sarepta. They were renowned for crafts (purple cloth, masonry, glass), but especially ivories, which adorned Samaria (castigated by the prophets) and comprised the famous Nimrud (Assyria) Ivories, thought to be tribute or booty. Undoubtedly, their most lasting contribution was the linear alphabet, ancestor to the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. Empires (Iron II)

Just before 900, the already entrenched Assyrians campaigned from the Jezireh to the coast, absorbing their enemy, the Aramaeans, in the process and their alphabetic language, Aramaic (the new lingua franca). Evidence of imperial domination is clearest in the Jezireh. There, besides ‘palace ware’, provincial centers with Assyrian wall paintings were found. Dur-Katlimmu, a huge (288 acre) walled site included a garden mural, while a famous mural of a king hunting adorned the walls at Til Barsip, a site with citadel and vast ‘bit-hilani’ palace. Colonies were also established as supply centers and/or settlements for deportees (well-known Assyrian policy). The subsequent Neo-Babylonian Empire, following the destruction of Nineveh in 609, left few imperial markers, except for their reuse of the provincial site of Dur–Katlimmu, where tablets recovered from the impressive Red House, date to Nebuchadnezzar. The Persian Empire (539–332) left few remains inland – a rectangular fort has been found at Ebla. The coast, however, thrived, since the Persians required fleets to transport their armies. There the site of Amrit – a stunning colonnaded open-air water temple – exhibits a blend of both Persian and Greek influences. Southern Levant (Iron I)

With the first mention of a people, Israel (Merneptah Stele 1207), the archaeology of the area relates to the Bible, and questions of ‘settlement’ and ethnicity arise. There is no incontrovertible evidence for an invasion (e.g., Jericho). Conversely, continuity of LBA Canaanite tradition in hundreds of newly founded rural villages (Shiloh, ‘Ay, Raddana, Giloh) is evident in pottery, cult (Bull Site), language (Raddana, el Khadr, Izbet Sartah), along with an emergent Iron Age repertoire of four-room pillar buildings and collar-rim jars. The data suggest that in the wake of widespread LBA upheaval, probably multiethnic peoples, for example, Habiru, Shashu (Amarna), Israel (Merneptah Stele), Hittites, Amorites, etc. (Bible), settled in the highlands, eventually coalescing to form a national kingdom (Israel). A similar development is posited (LBA/IA site of Umayri with its

ASIA, WEST/Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant 845

Figure 12 The ‘Four-room’ Iron Age I House at Tall al-‘Umayri, Jordan–Artist’s rendition by Rhonda Root. By Permission of Rhonda Root and the Madaba Plains Project–Umayri.

four-room house (Figure 12) and collar rim jars) for the national kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, Edom. Not in question is the ethnicity of settlers on the coast: they were the Philistines, part of the Sea Peoples whose highly urbanized cities, Aegean-derived material culture, and iron technology, have been brilliantly brought to light (Ekron, Gath, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Qasile). The United Monarchy, Tenth Century (Iron IIA)

The issue of secondary state formation (David and Solomon) is in flux, as one school reassigns wellknown strata to the ninth century. Some scholars suggest that state-level societies arose only in the eighth century. Briefly, the questionable materials include: (1) four-entryway gates (Hazor, Gezer, Megiddo), (2) palaces 6000 and 7320 at Megiddo, (3) royal planned forts in the Negev (Arad, Beersheba), and (4) Jerusalem Temple parallels (‘Ain Dara). While tenth century strata are becoming better known (Tell Rehov, Tel Zayit abecedary), Jerusalem’s occupation remains controversial. There are, however, extra-biblical tenth century correlations, such as Ahiram’s sarcophagus and Pharaoh Shishak’s raid. The picture is clearer from the beginning of the ninth century with the Divided Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom (Iron IIB)

The well-fortified ninth and eighth century cities of Israel suggest a powerful, but embattled nation state.

Stelae record victories of Aramaeans (Dan Stele, which also mentions the house of David), Moabites (Mesha Stele), and Assyrians (Black Obelisk showing King Jehu bowing and giving tribute). Tell Dan’s exceptional cultic precinct confirms the breakaway kingdom of Jeroboam in the Bible. Royal building activities depict a powerful state, for example, Ahab’s monumental pillared buildings (‘chariot cities’) or storerooms (Hazor, Beersheva), water systems (Hazor, Gezer, Megiddo), but especially the lavish Phoenician style palace at Samaria. Destruction of the latter by the Assyrians in 722/721 brought the northern kingdom to an end, its people deported. The Transjordanian kingdoms, more cordial client states, survived the depredations of the Assyrians. Iron II sites are well-fortified (Tell es-Sa‘idiyeh, Tell Deir ‘Alla, Tell Mazar, Dibon, Lehun, Mudayna, ‘Umayri, Jalul, Tawila, Buseirah, Umm el-Biyara, Tell el-Kheleifeh), but the term ‘tribal kingdoms’ is increasingly used to describe these polities. A fascinating local tradition is seen in a group of statues of Ammonite kings. The Southern Kingdom (Iron IIC)

In the ninth to eighth centuries, nation-states in both north and south are demonstrable by a four-tier hierarchical settlement: royal capitals (Jerusalem, Samaria), administrative centers (Lachish), smaller centers (Beersheba), and provincial towns (Tell Beit

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Figure 13 Tel Miqne, Israel, reconstruction of an olive oil manufacturing facility, seventh c. BCE. ã Tell Miqne-Ekron Excavation Project, courtesy S. Gitin; drawing: E. Cohen.

Mirsim). Jerusalem’s expansion and strengthening (Hezekiah’s ‘broad’ wall and tunnel) is confirmed. The remains of the 701 Assyrian siege of Lachish, including the siege ramp, is a stark reminder of life under empire, and is commemorated in Sennacherib’s relief at Nineveh. Elsewhere, the Philistine site of Ekron (Tell Miqne) functioned as an Assyrian supply center and became the largest olive oil production center in the Near East (Figure 13). A major area of current Iron II research centers on ‘popular religion’. A vast corpus of cult sites (Arad, Tell el-Far‘ah (N), Taanach, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, the Edomite sites Hurvat Qitmit and Hurvat ‘Uza), and female figurines (‘Asherah’), provide tantalizing clues about the range of Israelite practices, set in a context of the wider world of Near Eastern religion. The Neo-Babylonian destruction (587/6 BCE) of Jerusalem has vividly come to light (Ahilu’s house). Ultimately (539 BCE), Cyrus the Great of Persia allowed the deported Jews in Babylon to return home. Persian Period (Iron III)

New research demonstrates site continuity, despite devastation and exile. The archaeology of Jerusalem confirms a much-reduced city, as exiles returned from Babylon and rebuilt, and minted coins refer to the province as Yehud. Provincial garrison towns at Hesi, Jemmeh, Khirbet Abu Tuwein, Tell es-Sa‘idiyeh, and material culture, affirm imperial control. The interior of the country, generally, contrasts with the Phoenician coast, where sites (Dor, Akko, Ashdod, Askhelon) thrived due to Persian trade. Luxury

items and Attic ware underscore prosperity under empire and intensifying Greek cultural influence.

Greco-Roman Period: The Westernization of the Levant In terms of intercivilizational impact, there is no match to the ‘hellenization’ of the Levant. With Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BCE, dominant elite Greek (and later Roman) western civilization transformed what would become the Province of Syria-Palaestina. Past encounters of local peoples with empires had not led to acculturation, although recent research suggests that the process was underway before Alexander. Are local traditions still discernible? Is there noticeable variability in cultural adaptation? The following select archaeological materials highlight these issues and western acculturation. Hellenistic Period

Phoenician/Hellenistic continuities in coastal cities (Tyre/Dor) document a Greek acculuturation underway before Alexander. Just as clear is the gradual superseding of oriental by Greek coins, architecture, hippodamian plan, figurines, and cult (Tel Dor). In Syria, the colonizing Macedonians (Hippodamian plan in Damascus and Dura Europas in the desert) and strong Seleucid influence hastened the acculturation process. In the south, near the coast, Maresha’s tombs displayed Greek art (the Panathenaic of Athens), and, gradually, even the inward looking religious communities in the central hills (Samaria /Jerusalem) showed imported Aegean wares and wine amphoras

ASIA, WEST/Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant 847

in the local assemblages. The Decapolis cities in Transjordan were founded. Variability in cultural adaptation is manifest in a comparison of the Hellenized Jewish Hasmoneans (Jericho palace; ‘Iraq el-‘Amir estate) and the Jewish Community of Qumran, which exhibits no evidence for acculturation. A recent study of the site and cave pottery gives credence to the correlation between the site of Qumran and the cave scrolls (Dead Sea Scrolls) and, probably, the Essenes. Recently released to the public domain, the scrolls remain essential for both Judaism and Christianity. Roman Period

The cultural impact accelerated from 63 BCE – CE 332 as Rome tied the Levant to the rest of the Empire, politically, economically, and militarily, effecting a further transformation (Romanization). In CE 135, with subjugation (first and second Jewish Revolts) and annexation (Nabataea) accomplished, the Romans constructed the Via Nova Trajiana between ‘Aqaba and Bostra (with links to Palmyra and Dura Europas). This secured the Arabian spice trade and brought great prosperity to the Decapolis cities. The Via Maris linked Alexandria to Antioch. Roman milestones are visible reminders of imperial might aimed at controlling trade and facilitating troop movement. Military might is confirmed by excavation of sites like Aila, Udruh, Lejun, Umm el-Jimal, Bostra, Palmyra, Dura Europas, which guarded the frontier (the Limes Arabicus). Military camps and siege ramp at Masada (destroyed in CE 73) are a somber witness to the consequences of revolt under empire. Urbanization Cities, built to the specification of classical convention, vividly epitomized Romanization. An early square military plan of intersecting cardo and decumanus (Beirut, Jerusalem-Aelia Capitolina, Baalbek, Bostra) evolved into an elaborate plan of colonnaded streets, triumphal arches, and central tetrapylon (Palmyra, Jerash, Petra, Apamaea, Beth-Shan Scythopolis, etc). It began early with King Herod’s (43–46 BCE) construction of a harbor city (Caesarea) and lavish building activity (Herodium, Masada, Machareus, Jericho, Jerusalem). Local Traditions Within Greco-Roman style, an oriental (Syrian/Parthian) tradition is perceptible in Palmyra’s architecture (Temple of Bel), sculpture (frontal), and inscriptions (Aramaic, not Greek). A Nabataean style (e.g., distinctive capitals, eggshell thin pottery in floral designs) is discernible as early as 25 BCE. New excavations in the Civic Center at Petra have now uncovered ‘elephant’ capitals in the Great Temple and a contiguous pool and garden, indicative

of a sophisticated hydraulic system. Exceptional isolated sanctuaries at Seela (Syria) and Tannur (the Hauran), but few evidences of residences are a continuing enigma. A Jewish aniconic tradition is likewise distinctive, evident in the CE 70 destruction of Jerusalem, where villas of Hellenized Jews were lavish, but included no idols in mosaics and frescoes. There also were numerous miqvaot for ritual purity. Byzantine Period

Another cultural wave (Christianization) washed over the Levant with the Byzantine Period (elsewhere Late Roman or Late Antiquity), c. 324–638. Some 500 churches attest to the dramatic religious transformation of the region evident from Sinai (St. Catherine’s) to Jerusalem (Church of the Holy Sepulchre) to northwest Syria (Qal‘at Simon) to the Euphrates (Dura Europas). Of particular note, a cache of Greek papyri was recently recovered in the Petra Church, and possibly the earliest church (fourth century) was found at Aila. An excellent example of the intercivilizational dynamic at work is visible in the adaptability of Hellenized Jews to allow figural art in synagogues, such as the zodiac with the god Helios (Beth-Alpha), frescoes of biblical figures (Dura Europas) and pagan elements in funerary sculpture (Beth-Shearim). Such decorative arts, permissible at the time due to a liberal interpretation of the second commandment against idols, represent an accommodation to Hellenism. An early example (third century) from the Jewish, but very Hellenized city of Sepphoris may be seen in the Dionysus Villa, named for its frescoes and figural mosaics. In 638 the era of Muslim dominance began yet a further new chapter in the Levant that would once again utterly transform the region. See also: Africa, North: Egypt, Pharaonic; Animal Domestication; Asia, West: Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad; Phoenicia; Roman Eastern Colonies; Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures; Biblical Archaeology; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Europe, South: Greece; Greek Colonies; Plant Domestication; Political Complexity, Rise of.

Further Reading Akkerman SR, Peter MMG, and Schwartz GM (2003) The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies. (c. 16,000–300 BC) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chancey M and Porter A (2001) The archaeology of Roman Palestine. Near Eastern Archaeology 64(4): 164–203.

848 ASIA, WEST/Mesolithic Cultures microburin The residual product of the creation of a microlith during flint tool manufacture in many different cultures, for instance, the European Mesolithic. wadi A valley, ravine, or watercourse that is often dry except during the rainy season. microlith A small stone tool, typically knapped of flint or chert, usually about 3 cm long or less. vegetation zone An extensive, even transcontinental, band of physiognomically similar vegetation on the earth’s surface. Plant communities assembled into regional patterns by the area’s physiography, geological parent material, and history.

Dever WG (2003) Who were the Eearly Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company. Finkelstein I (1996) The archaeology of the United Monarchy: An alternative view. Levant 28: 177–187. Levy TE (ed.) (1995) The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. Facts on File: An Infobase Holdings Company. Levy TE, Adams RB, Hauptmann A, Prange M, Schmitt-Strecker S, and Nahar M (2002) Early Bronze Age metallurgy: A newly discovered copper manufactory in southern Jordan. Antiquity 76: 425–437. MacDonald B, Adams R, and Bienkowski P (eds.) (2001) The Archaeology of Jordan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Richard S (ed.) (2003) Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

West Asia during the Late Pleistocene witnessed a wealth of hunter-gatherer adaptations immediately prior to agriculture. This geographic area – Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, the Egyptian Sinai, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and western Iran – contains an environmentally diverse landscape (Figure 1). Mountainous regions include the Zagros, Taurus, and Lebanon ranges, while the Mediterranean Sea provides coastal niches, and inland areas are steppe or desert. Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers lived between c. 22 600 and 10 100 uncal BP (Table 1). Significant environmental oscillations were the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), c. 18 000–17 000 uncal BP, when worldwide conditions were considerably cooler and drier, and the subsequent climatic amelioration, when conditions favored expansion of vegetation zones such as the Mediterranean forest and its many plant food resources.

Mesolithic Cultures Deborah I Olszewski, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary hunter-gatherer society A society whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, using foraging and hunting, without significant recource to the domestication of either.

Black Sea 0

Georgia

400 km Turkey Taurus Taurus Mount

ins Mounta

ains

Caspian Sea

M'lefaat Cyprus Mediterranean Sea Ohalo ll

Lebanon Mountains

Za

gr

os

Palegawra

'Ain Mallaha

Iran nt

ai

ns

Ein Gev lll Tig

Wadi Hammeh 27

hrat

Sinai Re dS ea

Arabian Peninsula

es R iver

r

Eup

e Riv ris

Wadi Jilat 6 Tor Sageer

Egypt

M

ou

Warwasi

Persian Gulf

Figure 1 Map showing West Asian region and selected sites. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

ASIA, WEST/Mesolithic Cultures 849 Table 1 Chronology of the Epipalaeolithic in West Asia Period

Levantine Complex a

Uncalibrated BP

Calibrated BP

Zagros Complex b

Early Epipalaeolithic Middle Epipalaeolithic Late Epipalaeolithic

Kebaran Geometric Kebaran Natufian

22 600–15 000 15 000–12 500 12 800–10 100

24 000c–18 000 18 000–14 600 14 600–11 700

Early Zarzian Late Zarzian 3000 year gap followed by M’lefaatian

a

Data from Byrd (2005: 238); Olszewski (2003: 232). Few dates are available for the Zagros Complexes; temporal placement of these are estimations. c The uncalibrated date of 22 600 BP lies outside the range of dates that can be calibrated. Based on uncalibrated dates that are slightly younger, the beginning of the Early Epipalaeolithic may be about 24 000 cal BP. b

Table 2 Major wild food resources during the Epipalaeolithic Common name

Latin name

Acorn (oak) Aurochs Barley Boar Chickpea Einkorn wheat Emmer wheat European half-ass Gazelle Goat Hawthorn fruit Lentil Onager Pea Persian fallow deer Pistachio Red deer Roe deer Sheep

Quercus sp. Bos primigenius Hordeum spontaneum Sus scrofa Cicer arietinum Triticum boeoticum Triticum dicoccoides Equus hydruntinus Gazella subgutturosa, G. gazella Capra aegagrus Crataegus sp. Lens sp. Equus hemionus Pisum sp. Dama mesopotamica Pistachia atlantica Cervus elaphus Capreolus capreolus Ovis orientalis

For most of the Epipalaeolithic, hunter-gatherers were mobile, frequently moving their campsites to take advantage of seasonal resources or to hunt game animals. These resources included acorns, wild cereals such as einkorn and emmer wheat and barley, pistachios, hawthorn fruits, pulses such as peas and lentils, gazelle, onager, European wild ass, aurochs, wild sheep and goat, and, more rarely, wild boar and various deer (Table 2). A short interlude during the Late Epipalaeolithic saw the establishment of small villages in some areas. A hallmark feature of most Epipalaeolithic groups was the use of microliths– small backed stone tools – as arrow components or as sickle elements.

The Levantine Epipalaeolithic The Levant comprises the western portion of West Asia and intensive archaeological research here for more than 70 years has resulted in a detailed understanding of the Epipalaeolithic period. Three major complexes are the Kebaran, Geometric Kebaran, and

Figure 2 Kebaran Complex. Top: microburins; Bottom: nongeometric microliths. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

Natufian. These are often identified by their chipped stone (lithic) assemblages, and, for the most part, are temporally sequential. Kebaran Complex

Lithic industries of the Kebaran Complex first appear about 22 600 years ago (see Table 1). They are characterized by narrow nongeometric microliths (Figure 2). One important distinction between Kebaran Complex industries west and east of the Jordan Rift Valley is the presence of microburin technique (a specialized way to snap bladelets so that the resulting segments can be abruptly retouched into backed microliths) in the interior Levant east of the Jordan Rift Valley.

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Kebaran Complex sites are small, suggesting highly mobile adaptations, perhaps influenced by the onset and height of the LGM when living conditions were more harsh. In some cases, however, these hunter-gatherers repeatedly returned to the same locales, such as Ohalo II along the Sea of Galilee where they built brush structures, or to favored rockshelters such

as Tor Sageer in the Wadi al-Hasa (Figure 3). Evidence for the use of wild plant foods is amply demonstrated at Ohalo II (charred wild barley, hawthorn stones, and pistachio nutshell fragments, among other edible plant foods). People hunted land tortoise, gazelle, deer, onager, and birds. More rarely, they exploited fish (see Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient). Geometric Kebaran Complex

About 15 000 years ago, lithic industries featuring backed geometric microliths (triangles and trapezes) appear and microburin technique becomes typical in both the western and eastern Levant. The groups that made these tools lived during the early part of the climatic amelioration following the LGM. Like their predecessors, people of the Geometric Kebaran Complex were highly mobile and exploited the same range of wild plant and animal food resources. Sites are found in both the Mediterranean forest and steppic areas. Some, such as Ein Gev III, contain evidence for somewhat substantial hut structures, while others, such as Wadi Jilat 6 (Phase A) (Figure 4), may represent aggregation sites or places where people repeatedly returned. Most sites, however, are small, temporary occupations. Natufian Complex

Figure 3 View of the Kebaran Complex rockshelter at Tor Sageer, Jordan. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

The advent of the Natufian Complex, typified by lunate (half-moon) geometric microliths (Figure 5), some 12 800 years ago, signals a radical departure

Figure 4 Overview of the Geometric Kebaran Complex site of Wadi Jilat 6, Jordan. Note that the site forms a small mound due to repeated reoccupations over time. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

ASIA, WEST/Mesolithic Cultures 851

Figure 5 Natufian Complex. Three geometric lunate microliths on left; two microburins on right. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

Figure 6 Late Natufian Complex small structures at the Black Desert site of Huwaynit, Jordan. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

from earlier hunter-gatherer adaptations. Natufian Complex groups, particularly in the favorable Mediterranean forest zone from about 12 800 to 11 000 uncal BP, yield the first evidence of small village communities, such as ’Ain Mallaha, and investment in human burials within settlements. This early Natufian also contains art – carved figurines of animals and more rarely humans, as well as carvings on bone tools. Numerous ground stone tools, such as mortars and pestles, at sites like Wadi Hammeh 27 suggest a reliance on stone-ground plant foods (acorns and wild cereals). A focus on gazelle hunting is also typical. Not surprisingly, many archaeologists interpret

these features as part of the behavioral groundwork leading to the development of agriculture societies a few milleniums later. Curiously, in the period from 11 000 to 10 000 uncal BP, later Natufian Complex groups became highly mobile, even within the Mediterranean forest. Small villages all but disappear, as does art. This restructuring of adaptations may be a response to a global cooling event known as the Younger Dryas, which resulted in shrinkage of favorable vegetation zones like the Mediterranean forest, which affected the abundance of plant foods available both to humans and the animals they hunted (Figure 6).

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The Zagros Epipalaeolithic Although archaeological research here also began more than 70 years ago, the Epipalaeolithic in eastern West Asia is poorly known due to historical events that have precluded extended periods of research. The main archaeological culture is the Zarzian, while the M’lefaatian is likely proto-Neolithic or Early Neolithic. Zarzian Complex

Hunter-gatherer groups manufacturing backed microliths in the Zagros region are classified as Zarzian (Figure 7). As in the Levant, the Zarzian Complex has a temporal trend from nongeometric to geometric microliths (mainly scalene triangles). It also parallels the western Levant in that microburin technique appears when geometric microliths are manufactured. Due to the paucity of radiocarbon dates (see Carbon-14 Dating), currently it is not possible to delineate precisely when this change occured (see Table 1). Most test excavated sites are rockshelters or caves in the mountainous foothills (Figure 8), such as Warwasi Rockshelter. All appear to represent highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers pursing game animals such as onager, goat, red deer, aurochs, gazelle, and wild boar. Aside from repeated visits to these sites, there is no evidence for hut structures, burials, or investment in plant-processing tools such as ground stone. The duration of the Zarzian Complex is

Figure 7 Zarzian Complex. Top: lunate and small scalene triangles; bottom: elongated scalene triangles on left and microburin on right. Courtesy of Deborah I. Olszewski.

thought to be from the onset of the LGM through the early part of the subsequent climatic amelioration. An end date of about 12 000 uncal BP is suggested by radiocarbon dates from Palegawra. M’lefaatian Complex

The M’lefaatian Complex may derive from the Zarzian, and several researchers classify the M’lefaatian as proto-Neolithic or Early Neolithic rather than Epipalaeolithic. Hindering understanding is a 3000 year gap between the end of the Zarzian and the beginning of the M’lefaatian, during which there is little archaeological evidence. The M’lefaatian lithic industry contains nongeometric microliths and a well-developed technology that results in relatively standardized bladelet cores. Compared to the Zarzian Complex, M’lefaatian sites tend to be open-air contexts, such as M’lefaat, rather than caves and rockshelters. Reliance on wild food resources was the norm, with hunting of cattle, sheep, gazelle, wild boar, birds, and the collection of freshwater clams, freshwater crabs, land snails, and fish. It is assumed that wild cereals formed part of the diet.

Summary The Levant and the Zagros respectively represent the western and eastern Fertile Crescent, and yield evidence for several Epipalaeolithic complexes. Areas to the north, such as Turkey, and to the south, in the Arabian Peninsula, are not yet well known. For historical reasons, the most complete information is from the Levant, and thus the following discussion is based on this region. For c. 20 000 years, hunter-gatherers of the Epipalaeolithic exploited a wide array of wild plant and animal foods. Their subsistence economies entailed frequent movement of campsites and their archaeological signature therefore is somewhat ephemeral. Especially favorable locales, however, often yield evidence of the construction of more substantial hut structures, isolated human burials, or longer periods of residence. It is this background of Epipalaeolithic behaviors set within the context of global climate changes associated with the LGM and later climatic amelioration that underlie the establishment of foodproducing (agricultural) economies in the subsequent Neolithic. Why this transition from hunting and gathering to food production occurred remains a major research question in archaeology. Many scholars have pointed to the sociocultural complexity that may be evident in the early part of the Natufian Complex, such as

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Figure 8 Overview of the Zarzian Complex site of Baba Yawan Rockshelter, Iran. Courtesy of Fereidoun Biglari.

investment in art and personal ornamentation (shell beads and bone pendants). Some hunter-gatherers of this period lived in small, semipermanent villages where interactions with one’s neighbors may have required increased levels of cooperation. A stronger sense of territoriality also may have developed, resulting in numerous human burials within the small villages. It is probable that the Early Natufian Complex adaptations focused heavily on plant foods such as wild cereals and acorns. Strategies for collecting these may have led to the development of behaviors conducive to long-term investments in plant foods, especially the cereals. Although this adaptation appears to have vanished during the Late Natufian Complex with the onset of cooler and drier conditions, these behavioral signatures are once again seen in subsequent Early Neolithic societies. See also: Animal Domestication; Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Paleolithic Cultures; Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Carbon-14 Dating; Europe, Northern and Western: Mesolithic Cultures; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Plant Domestication.

Further Reading Bar-Yosef O (1998) The Natufian culture in the Levant: Threshold to the origins of agriculture. Evolutionary Anthropology 6(5): 159–177.

Byrd BF (2005) Reassessing the emergence of village life in the Near East. Journal of Archaeological Research 13(3): 231–290. Delage C (ed.) (2004) British Arehaeological Reports International Series 1320: The Last Hunter-Gatherers in the Near East. Oxford: Archaeopress. Garrard AN and Byrd BF (1992) New dimensions to the Epipaleolithic of the Wadi el-Jilat in central Jordan. Pale´orient 18(1): 47–62. Goring-Morris AN and Belfer-Cohen A (1997) The articulation of cultural processes and Late Quaternary environmental changes in Cisjordan. Pale´orient 23(2): 71–93. Henry DO (1995) Prehistoric Cultural Ecology and Evolution: Insights from Southern Jordan. New York: Plenum. Kislev ME, Nadel D, and Carmi I (1992) Epipalaeolithic (19 000 BP) cereal and fruit diet at Ohalo II, Sea of Galilee, Israel. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 73: 161–166. Olszewski DI (1996) The lithic transition to the Early Neolithic in the Zagros region: Zarzian and M’lefaatian industries. In: Kozlowski SK and Gebel HGK (eds.) Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence and Environment, Vol. 3: Neolithic Chipped Stone Industries of the Fertile Crescent, and Their Contemporaries in Adjacent Regions, pp. 183–192. Berlin: ex oriente. Olszewski DI (2003) The conundrum of the Levantine Late Upper Paleolithic and Early Epipaleolithic: Perspectives from the Wadi al-Hasa, Jordan. In: Goring Morris AN and BelferCohen A (eds.) More than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Paleolithic Diversity in the Near East, pp. 230–241. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Turnbull PF and Reed CA (1983) The faunal remains from M’lefaat. In: Braidwood L, Braidwood R, Howe B, Reed C, and Watson PJ (eds.) Oriental Institute Publications 105: Prehistoric Archaeology along the Zagros Flanks, pp. 613–695. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

854 ASIA, WEST/Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad

Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad Augusta McMahon, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary cuneiform Cuneiform is the distinctive script style developed in Mesopotamia, comprising groups of wedge-shaped signs impressed with a feed stylus upon clay tablets. empire A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority. pottery Ceramic ware made from clay and baked in a kiln. social complexity Social complexity is an approach to social phenomena which acknowledges heterarchy or difference, as well as hierarchical conditions of inequality. state The group of people comprising the government of a sovereign state. urbanism The culture or way of life of city dwellers.

Research Contexts and Questions The acquisition of collections of monumental art for museums in Europe and the US was the dominant impetus behind the earliest archaeological work in Mesopotamia from the 1860s through the early 1900s (collections in the British Museum, Louvre, and Metropolitan Museum of Art are testament to this approach). From c. 1920, archaeological work in the region shifted in focus, and the goal became a complete chronological categorization and material culture sequencing; pottery and architectural stratigraphy joined art as worthy of attention. In many ways, this goal persists in the present, but in the 1960s, wider questions of structure and process began to drive research. Archaeologists working in the prehistory of Mesopotamia are often at the forefront of theoretical debates (i.e., origins of agriculture, origins of states, and nature of chiefdoms). However, within Mesopotamian historical archaeology, our reconstruction of human actions and society is still compressed into and constrained by chronological phases, and the abundant textual material means that history often dictates to archaeology. Event-driven political narratives and institution-based explanations dominate archaeological approaches, and urban centers have most often been the focus of research programs. However, in survey and settlement archaeology, scholars working in Mesopotamia have been among the first to utilize satellite imagery and intensive survey approaches incorporating landscape and off-site features. Mesopotamia is

fertile ground for exploration of ideas of empire, mechanisms of craft production, and urban–rural interaction.

Environment and Resources Mesopotamia is defined by its two rivers, the Tigris on the east/northeast and Euphrates on the west/ southwest. Within these boundaries is a wide range of terrain, resources, and environmental conditions. The most important factor affecting human occupation is rainfall. In northern Mesopotamia (SE Turkey, NE Syria, N Iraq), rainfall is generally above 250 mmyr 1 and rainfall agriculture is possible. However, yearly fluctuations mean that reliance on rainfall alone is risky, especially at the southern edge of this zone, and irrigation projects were developed there, particularly in association with artificially large cities of the Neo–Assyrian Period. Irrigation is vital for agriculture in the central and southern portions of the region (central and south Iraq), and it is likely that sophisticated canal systems were in place from at least 6000 BC. Topographically, subregional divisions follow the rainfall variation. Northern Mesopotamia has foothills, rolling plains, river tributaries, and occasional rock outcrops, while southern Mesopotamia is relentlessly flat and without natural features other than the rivers. Archaeological maps of Mesopotamia often show the land between the rivers as entirely devoid of resources, with metals, stones, and timber located in the arc of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and foothills beyond Mesopotamia’s northern and eastern borders. However, in northern Iraq, stone and metals are available, and from the earliest permanent settlements there existed sophisticated commerce connections across the region and beyond that meant the river plains were never without any of these materials. Empty resource maps also ignore the many materials Mesopotamia does offer. Clay is an overlooked but extraordinarily important resource, utilized for bricks, plaster, pottery, figurines, and tablets. The Mesopotamian writing system is arguably the world’s earliest, and its particular form and trajectory was both enabled and directed by the ubiquitous medium of clay. The alluvial soil is capable of generating substantial agricultural surpluses. Fish abound in rivers and canals, and dates were and remain an important element of the diet and are easily exportable. Bitumen, used for waterproofing anything from baskets through boats to buildings, is found in only a few specific locations in the Middle East, including the midEuphrates. Textiles, generated by the agro-pastoralist system’s large carrying capacity for herds of sheep and

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goats, were produced on an industrialized scale in Mesopotamia and exported, even to other textile-producing areas. Finally, the southern marshes are an often overlooked but vitally important element in the resource base. Reed mats, containers, and furniture were produced there by an otherwise hunter–fisher–gatherer population and sold to urban dwellers. Most of these materials are not archaeologically visible and thus are not viewed as traditional ‘resources’ – yet they were vital to the survival and strength of the Mesopotamian economic and political system.

Materials and Landscape The most important tool for Mesopotamian archaeologists is pottery. The density of pottery per cubic meter of archaeological soil here is probably the highest of any region. The basic sequence of diagnostic pottery forms and decoration is well established, and this is instrumental in the identification and characterization of chronological phases (see Pottery Analysis: Stylistic). Regrettably, this does mean that Mesopotamian ceramic studies tend to foreground morphology, decoration, and seriation, while study of assemblages and their meanings often comes second. We are also limited by the preponderance of urban excavations, which affects reconstruction not only of pottery assemblages but also of all other aspects of material culture (see Urban Archaeology). Mounded tell sites are typical of the region and are the clearest signs of past occupation in the generally flat landscapes. Clustering of resources, the need to avoid good agricultural land, and the attachment to ‘place’ mean that once sites were chosen for settlement they tended to remain occupied, or at least to be frequently reoccupied, for centuries or millennia. The buildup of occupational debris and the rebuilding of mud brick houses on previous foundations result in the distinctive shape of these sites and their relatively rapid vertical growth. But low single-period sites, multiple-mounded sites, off-site sherd scatters and ancient roads also make up important foci of archaeological research in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia can be characterized as a ‘landscape of destruction’ in archaeological terms. Alluvial accumulation and dune abrasion in the south and wind and water erosion in the north have covered or removed parts of large sites and entire small sites. Millennia of intensive agriculture and modern industrialized cash crop farming have taken a heavy toll on both sites and landscape features. Looting and illegal excavation has increased astronomically in the last two decades. Mesopotamia’s archaeological record is perennially under threat (see Illicit Antiquities).

Chronological and Archaeological Overview Late Prehistoric City-States

Mesopotamia has long been recognized as one of the primary complex societies, developing a state structure without external influence. The Uruk period (c. 4000–3000 BC) sees social complexity: urbanism, elaborate temple complexes, mass production, the earliest writing, and the earliest representations – although standardized and anonymous – of kings (Table 1). The site of Uruk with its 320  150 m temple complex and separate temple tower provides the most emphatic evidence for public institutions in this period. Temples are identifiable by their ‘tripartite’ plan, a large central space flanked by rows of smaller rooms, and an external fac¸ade decorated with narrow niches and buttresses. The Uruk temple complex sits near the center of a city that had reached 250 ha by c. 3200 BC. This rapid urban growth was matched by depopulation of the immediate countryside, but settlement patterns around other contemporary sites (i.e., Nippur) indicate that the normal arrangement was a scatter of linked towns and villages surrounding each city. The Uruk Period ceramic assemblage is extraordinarily standardized, almost entirely undecorated (in contrast to the preceding Ubaid Period) and mass produced. The mud bricks from which both temples and houses were constructed are similarly standardized in shape and size. It was in the Uruk Period that one of the most distinctive objects of Mesopotamia, the cylinder seal, first appeared. These objects acted much like a signature, expressing authority and ownership when rolled across a clay tablet or door sealing. Usually made of imported stone, seals were intended to be worn and seen, as badges of office or of wealth and as good luck amulets. Scenes on Uruk Period seals include representations of kings involved in religious or (more rarely) military events, as well as animal combats or more prosaic rows of human figures weaving or manufacturing pottery. The glyptic scenes of kings in front of temples or feeding temple flocks are supplemented by votive statuary and reliefs showing the king as a solitary pious figure or involved in symbolic lion combat. He is instantly recognizable, no matter which context, by his distinctive skirt and hat, plus the fact that he is the center of attention or focus of each scene. These characteristics of royal art will have a long tradition, lasting through the first millennium BC. Writing is invented to serve the economy, particularly temple-centered economic administration. The earliest texts are overwhelmingly simple receipts and

Southern Mesopotamia 6000–4000 4000–3000 Ubaid Uruk

3000–2334 Early Dynastic

Northern Mesopotamia Northern Northern Ninevite 5 Ubaid Uruk (Early Jezirah I-IIIa) 5000– 4000– 3100–2550 4000 3000

2334–2154 Akkadian

Late ED (Early Jezirah IIIb) 2550–2300

2154–2004 Ur III

Northern Akkadian (EJ IV) 2300–2200

2017–1763 Isin-Larsa

1763–1595 Old Babylonian

Post-Akkadian (EJ IVb-V) 2200–2000

1570–1157 Kassite

? Old Ass Kingdom yrian of upper Mesop. 1920– 1813–1728 1740

1157–905 Isin II, Sealand II, Bazi, Elam ? Mitanni

1500– 1340

1157–625 Post-Kassite/ NeoAssyrian Middle Assyr.

1365–1031

625–539 Neo-Babylonian

539–330 Persian

? NeoNeoPersian Assyrian Bab. 934–612

612– 539

539– 330

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Table 1 Mesopotamian Chronological Periods (all dates uncalib. BC)

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inventories, supplemented by long strange vocabulary lists, ultimately quite revealing of the classes into which the Mesopotamian mind categorized the natural and human world. The script is initially pictographic but rapidly becomes syllabic as the signs develop from inscribed drawings to impressed cuneiform. Trade colonies and pervasive southern Uruk cultural material in northern Syria, southeast Turkey, and western Iran provide further evidence for the economic power of urban institutions. Much of the archaeological debate about the Uruk Period in the last two decades has focused on the southern expansion into northern and northwestern areas and on the particular relationship between local and southern populations. The consensus is that the southern influence was just that, strong cultural influence backed up by genuine presence of southerners at some sites. But there was in fact substantial social and economic complexity in the north prior to the southern influence, and there was no attempt by the south to impose either economic or political control.

Uruk Period developments of urbanism, economic complexity, and king-led, staple resource-based wealth with strong religious flavor matured and were formalized. The city-states were potentially selfsufficient, yet they share a material culture assemblage (pottery, domestic and religious architectural styles, ways of burial, etc.), and have a common religious system and literary tradition. Each city-state had a patron deity as well as hereditary kings, and complementary institutions in the temple and the palace. This cultural network covers all of the southern alluvial plains and even incorporates Mari, on the Syrian Euphrates (see map, Figure 1). The city-states are perhaps best typified by Lagash, an urban center with a network of linked towns and villages and associated agricultural land and irrigation canals. Lagash was just one of approximately 15 major contemporary independent city-states, in a delicate balance which involved complementary economic behavior and occasional armed conflict. We know the list of some of Lagash’s kings and have their images on stone reliefs, variously at war with neighbors such as Umma, building temples and presenting offerings to the gods. Kish has the best-preserved palace (Palace A), with formal and symmetrical public and private wings, surrounded by thick, buttressed walls (see Figure 2). Unfortunately, palaces tended to be kept clean during use and to be emptied at the end of their lives,

Third Millennium BC City-States to Nation-States

The Early Dynastic (ED) Period (c. 3000–2334 BC) follows the Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and can be summarized as an era of city-states (Table 1). The

TELL MOZAN TELL LEILAN ALALAKH

KHORSABAD NINEVEH

TELL BRAK NIMRUD abu

r

EBLA

Kh

NUZI ASHUR

Tig ris

MARI Eu

ph

ra

tes

TELL ASMAR

DAMASCUS

KHAFAJAH AQAR QUF

BABYLON

BAGHDAD

KISH NIPPUR

SUSA UMMA GIRSU

URUK

LAGASH

N 100 200 KM

Figure 1 Map of Mesopotamia with sites mentioned in the text.

UR

858 ASIA, WEST/Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad

N

20 M Figure 2 Early Dynastic Palace A at Kish. After Moorey (1978).

N

20 M Figure 3 Late Early Dynastic Temple at Khafajah, Level X. After Delougaz and Lloyd (1942).

leaving only an architectural plan and an impression of sterile, impersonal power. The religious institutions of the ED are most clearly illustrated at several sites along the Diyala River, northeast of modern Baghdad. Tell Asmar and Khafajah present us with a range of small to medium-sized shrines and temples (see Figure 3), while the Temple Oval at Khafajah offers a vision of how large and impressive these institutions could be. In each temple, the central shrine room is easily identified by a combination of plan (right-angled access), features (built-in altars), and contents (stone votive statues of men and women with hands clasped, elaborate bronze or ceramic offering stands). The Mesopotamian pantheon mirrors

human relations; gods have families, and family members are frequently worshipped in the same temple in lesser shrine rooms. The temples also have large courtyards and storage spaces, for outdoor rituals and economic activities. Archives of texts, such as that from the Ba’u temple at Girsu, reveal that temples were major landowners and employers as well as houses of the gods. The Ur Cemetery, established in the Late ED period, is justifiably famous for its rich assemblage of exquisitely worked vessels, seals, jewelry, weapons, and musical instruments, the raw materials for which were imported from as far away as the Indus Valley (carnelian), Afghanistan (lapis lazuli), Iran (chlorite), Anatolia (silver), and Egypt (gold). The cemetery is unfortunately also famous for a brief and limited episode of human sacrifices (e.g., Royal Tomb 1237, with its 74 skeletons), an unusual aspect of burial unique to a few years at the city of Ur and not at all representative of Mesopotamian burial practices. But the human sacrifices can be seen as an extreme version of a commonplace feature of Mesopotamian burial, grave goods. There was a clear societal image of the afterlife, and the necessity of taking food, drink, and ornaments to wear, or with which to bribe underworld deities, was strong at all levels of society. Besides cemetery burial, a popular option was interment below house floors, which appears from the ED through the first millennium BC. Placement below house floors retained the deceased as a member of the family, while cemetery burial may have been more common for those whose identity reached beyond the household and lineage, such as priests, kings, and officials. Pottery continues to be mass produced and standardized, with some variation and decoration among jars but very little among bowls. The large numbers of plain-rimmed single-serving bowls at all sites may reveal Mesopotamian dining habits as individualcentered, but more work remains to be done on this issue. Cylinder seals diverge from the scenes of the Uruk Period and have patterns of animals and humans in hand-to-hand combat, with smaller numbers of scenes showing symbolic banquets or geometric designs. Contemporary with the southern ED, Ninevite 5 is the chronological label for Northern Mesopotamia. Contemporary textual documentation and modern archaeological excavation in the north have both lagged behind that of the south, with the result that the north is seen as something of a backwater, but recent and ongoing excavations in Syria are filling the gaps and revealing a densely occupied world of great economic variety. Ninevite 5 pottery includes both painted and incised wares, which it is tempting to

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view as implying a less-institutionalized economy and society. The settlement pattern is less hierarchical than in the south, and although cities and religious institutions exist, the north may be characterized by mature chiefdoms rather than city-states. It was during the Akkadian Period (c. 2334–2154 BC) that the region’s first nation-state was created in southern Mesopotamia (Table 1). It was headed by a dynasty of charismatic kings, some of the earliest visible ‘agents’ responsible for political change and linked cultural changes. The first step was military conquest, followed by social, economic, and administrative transformations designed to create a nation out of a disparate group of city-states. These included the replacement of Sumerian by Akkadian as the ‘official’ written language, establishment of a new capital city, imposition of regional governors loyal to the king, placement of royal images in key locations and a new system of weights, measures, and legal oaths. The Akkadian kings and the ideal of unity they represented had great resonance through the rest of Mesopotamian history: copies of Akkadian royal inscriptions and the myth of the birth and rise to power of the dynasty’s first king, Sargon, appear long after the nation had vanished. Archaeologically, we are obstructed by the problem that the capital city, Agade, has never been discovered, although it is known to lie in the northern alluvial plains, near Babylon, Kish, and modern Baghdad. However, many major artworks of this period survived and reveal a new freedom of movement and delicacy of detail, while maintaining many of the ED/Sumerian traditions of royal representation. The Akkadian stele of Naram-Sin can be contrasted to the ED stele of Vultures; both represent a king leading his army in battle. The Vulture stele shows Eannatum of Lagash ahead of a blocky cluster of his army in strict horizontal registers with no representation of background setting; the Naram-Sin stele shows a backdrop of mountains and trees, and the horizontal registers have been replaced by undulating sloped ground-lines with individual figures. Akkadian Period cylinder seals retain the animal–human combat as an important motif, refining the crowded ED patterns into elegant heraldic pairs. The combat motif is supplemented by that of ‘introduction’, a procession of deities leading the human seal-owner towards a seated deity. Where domestic occupational material of the Akkadian Period has been uncovered (Nippur, Uruk), the ED cultural traditions of architecture and format of burial persist. Ceramic types change, but gradually. The great debate about this period is whether the Akkadian system was a state, nation, or empire. The wider question of archaeologically visible

determinatives of nations and empires is also part of this discussion. In some ways, the system is best represented by evidence from its edge in northeast Syria: the armory/arsenal (Naram-Sin’s palace) and massive administrative complexes at Tell Brak or the Akkadian buildings at Tell Leilan. These Akkadian structures intrude into a world characterized by city-states and small kingdoms ruled by local Hurrian kings. The northern pottery style and assemblage contrasts strongly with that of the south, but the official southern Akkadian seal style is widespread. Artworks of the Akkadian kings glorify their military conquests rather than showing religious building projects. The most striking of these is again the stele of Naram-Sin, grandson of the dynasty founder. Naram-Sin is, unusually, depicted with the pair of bull’s horns that identify a deity. All these aspects look imperial. Yet the ‘empire’ was patchy and acted more like a commercial enterprise aimed at access to raw materials rather than accumulation of land and subjects. Discussion of Sumer and Akkad would be incomplete without reference to the ethnic distinctions implied. Sumerian and Akkadian languages are distinct, Sumerian being an ergative isolate while Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language. But identification of Sumerian versus Akkadian peoples, sites, or material culture is virtually impossible. By the time we can identify two potential populations from their written languages, in the later third millennium BC, centuries of contact have created an ‘ethnically entangled’ bilingual population. Geographically, Sumer is traditionally located in the southern half of Babylonia, from Nippur to the Arabian Gulf, while Akkad is northern Babylonia. An alternative view holds that Sumer is the region dependent on the Euphrates and Akkad the world of the Tigris. But neither of these two mental divisions map onto distinct cultural regions. In fact, Sumer and Akkad are customarily used together in royal inscriptions from the Ur III Period onward; rarely do inscriptions speak of just Sumer or just Akkad. During most of the Akkadian Period, the kings simply refer to themselves as kings of Agade or ‘king of the four quarters.’ The ED situation of interlinked but self-sufficient city-states is the ‘default state’ for southern Mesopotamia. The Akkadian Period then presents the often reached-for ideal of a unified nation (to recur in Ur III, Old Babylonian, etc.), but this nation just as frequently collapses. The Akkadian nation broke down rapidly and ignominiously, according to textual records. The later kings lost power and land; the capital Agade dwindled to a village. However, excavations in late Akkadian levels at Nippur, Uruk, and other sites indicate continuity of settlement and material culture despite Agade’s problems. By

860 ASIA, WEST/Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad

contrast, the end of the Akkadian adventure in northern Mesopotamia was marked by withdrawal of personnel and the ritual in-filling of public buildings (i.e., Area SS at Tell Brak). There is an ongoing debate over the post-Akkadian Period in northern Mesopotamia and the reason for the retraction of the Akkadian presence, plus the nature of the reaction of the indigenous population. A climatic downturn, aridity, agricultural collapse, and the emigration of large parts of the northern population have been suggested; but while some sites are abandoned, others show continued occupation. We are hampered in reconstructing this period by few relevant excavations and an imprecise characterization of the ceramic assemblage. The Ur III dynasty (2112–2004 BC) attempted to recreate the nation of the Akkadian kings, but by literally inverting it: Sumerian returned as the official written language, monumental art returned to the archaic forms of the ED, and the nation was ruled from the far south of the alluvial plain, from Ur, rather than the north. These are substantial differences from the Akkadian situation, yet the concept of the southern plains as a unified whole with the surrounding areas tied to it to varying degrees is a replica of the Akkadian ideal. Economic documents proliferate; it appears that few transactions were too trivial to record, and unprecedented numbers of people were employed at least part time by the palace, necessitating documentation of rations and movement of raw materials and worked goods. In northern Mesopotamia, the Tell Brak arsenal was rebuilt, but other sites (for instance Tell Mozan) remained independent. The greatest archaeological contribution of the Ur III kings was the elaboration of the existing temple platform into the stepped ziggurat, possibly the most enduring symbol of Mesopotamian-ness (see Figure 4). Like megalithic structures in Neolithic Europe, ziggurats, with their strongly unnatural shape, massive size and weight, would have been striking markers of human impact on the landscape.

Figure 4 Ur III Ziggurat at Ur (reconstruction). After Woolley (1939).

Particularly in the flat unbroken southern Mesopotamian plain, these structures are visible from substantial distances and would have emerged as peaks above a mass of urban buildings. They are icons simultaneously of the kings who commissioned them and the gods to whom they were dedicated; they express the glory of the city and that of the larger city-state to which they belonged. They are also monuments to collective labor of the city-state’s citizens, but unfortunately access seems to have been restricted, once completed, to religious functionaries and perhaps political elites. Ur III monumental artworks emphasize the religious side of being a king, rather than the military aspects, and reliefs such as the Ur-Nammu stele are a throw-back to the ED style of presenting images serially, in horizontal registers. Overall, Ur III art is far more conventional than that of the Akkadian Period. In cylinder seals, the elegant animal combats vanish and introduction scenes are reduced in complexity and detail. Indeed, many introduction seals are so similar as to be indistinguishable except through their inscriptions. But one original element in this period is the return of baked clay figurines. These had been a regular feature of prehistory but essentially vanish with the advent of the state in the Uruk Period. This disappearance may have been due to a shift in access to means of production, particularly if ceramic and figurine production were closely linked and ceramic production became increasingly industrialized. These figurines now return in force, overwhelmingly female and naked; they are handmade with applied details and a schematic, yet attractive, form. Incantation texts indicate that their probable function was love or fertility charms. Second Millennium BC Collapse, Expansion and Collapse

An episode of political collapse (2004–1763 BC) followed the decline of the Ur III state and the capture of its last king by an Elamite army. These centuries are known in southern Mesopotamia as the Isin–Larsa Period because the leaders of the two city-states of Isin and Larsa were the primary actors in a political struggle for control of the southern plains. Additional minor actors were the kings of Uruk, Marad, and Babylon, most of Amorite descent. These Amorites are the earliest of a series of ‘foreign’ nomadic groups who filtered into and assimilated with local Mesopotamian peoples and society. Their ease at cultural assimilation has traditionally been ascribed to their lack of written language and artistic expression. However, the strength of Mesopotamian culture and its surprisingly comprehensive and embracing nature

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were also certainly factors. The political success of the Amorites is less easily explained and is genuinely ‘revolutionary’. Archaeologically, the Isin–Larsa Period is difficult to distinguish from the preceding Ur III and subsequent Old Babylonian. Some specific ceramic markers of these centuries exist (white-inlaid gray ware), but the overall assemblages vary very little; cylinder seals continue the introduction theme. Perhaps the downscaling from nations to city-states did reduce the number of monumental artworks, for we have no representations of kings from this period. But it does provide the best image of Mesopotamian urban domestic architecture in two neighborhoods at Ur. There the ideal of a courtyard surrounded by rooms including bathroom and kitchen has been organically adapted to match available space, with irregular houses, shops, and shrines reached via winding streets. Texts allow the unfolding of the biography of some houses as they passed between owners and were internally modified. Ultimately, neither Isin nor Larsa but Babylon was victorious in the regional power struggle. The subsequent political situation in the Old Babylonian Period (1763–1595 BC) mirrors the Akkadian and Ur III states, re-focused at the northern end of the alluvial plains (Table 1). This earliest Babylonian dynasty is best known for king Hammurapi, whose Law Code offers a vision of Mesopotamian society with strictly divided classes: slave, poor, free, or female. The top of the basalt stele on which the law code is inscribed presents the enduring and iconic image of the king receiving the ‘rod and ring’ (two enigmatic and muchdiscussed symbols) from the sun god, who also oversees justice. At the other end of the artistic spectrum, mass production subsumes the naked female figurines, which are now formed in molds in large numbers. These are supplemented by baked clay plaques with images of deities and scenes of ‘family life’ or myth. As already mentioned, the transition from the third to early second millennium BC in northern Mesopotamia remains one of the largest holes in our archaeological reconstruction. During the first quarter of the second millennium BC in northern Mesopotamia, the city of Ashur was engaged in lucrative long-distance trade in textiles and metals with Kanesh and other cities in Anatolia (central Turkey). This trade is unfortunately mostly documented in texts from Kanesh; relevant levels at Ashur are covered by later occupation and the way stations on the route across the Khabur basin (NE Syria) are largely unexcavated or unidentified. We are only on firmer ground with the establishment of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia in what would become Assyria,

northern Iraq, and northeast Syria (1813–1741 BC). This was created by a Sargon-like figure, ShamshiAdad, and reached from Ashur and Ekallate on the Tigris across to Tell Leilan in the northeast Khabur basin and southwest to Mari on the Euphrates. This was the first unified regional state in the north. Much of the political situation is reconstructed from the massive text archive preserved in the palace at Mari, at the juncture of northern and southern Mesopotamia and the Levant. This building is one of the most impressive structures in Mesopotamia, a vast sprawl of over 250 rooms, organized into clusters by function and surrounding two large courtyards partly decorated with wall paintings depicting royal investiture and symbolic scenes. A distinctive ceramic assemblage, Khabur Ware (often decorated with red or black horizontal stripes), traditionally has been associated with the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. But excavations at Tell Leilan, Tell Brak, and elsewhere indicate that this pottery continues to be manufactured, unsurprisingly, after this dynasty and into the subsequent period of political devolution into citystates and small kingdoms. The Old Babylonian dynasty suffered the same fate as the Akkadian and Ur III dynasties – gradual loss of territory and power and sudden military defeat, this time by an Anatolian army. However, the backdrop to the territory loss and the military defeat was ultimately environmental catastrophe. Water flow in the eastern course of the Euphrates appears to have diminished, with consequences for the survival of key urban systems and the agricultural surplus on which the region relied. What follows is a ‘dark age’ with few texts and unclear archaeological remains. Once the situation is clear again, the later second and all of the first millennium BC is the time of empires. From 1595–1200 BC, the Kassites controlled southern Mesopotamia, Mitanni and then Assyrian leaders ruled northern Mesopotamia, the Elamites expanded on the Iranian plateau, the Hittites created a nation in Anatolia, and New Kingdom rulers changed the atmosphere in Egypt. The kings in all these regions were involved in luxury goods exchange and diplomatic correspondence with each other, exemplified by the Amarna Letters from Egypt. Gold flowed from Egypt and lapis lazuli from the east by way of Babylonia, iron was the gift of the Hittites and horses that of the Mitanni. At the crux of these ‘Great Powers’ lay the Late Bronze Age city-states of northwest Syria: Ugarit, Qatna, Alalakh, and others. Rather than being crushed by the surrounding landhungry regimes, these land-poor city-states wielded enormous economic power because of their contacts and near monopoly on Mediterranean maritime trade.

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Both the Kassites in the south and Mitanni in the north are known to have been foreign to Mesopotamia from texts, yet the search for markers of nationality or ethnicity in the archaeological record has proved fruitless. The earliest kings of the Kassites are textually and archaeologically obscure, but by c. 1400 BC they had established a new capital, Aqar Quf, near modern Baghdad. This new foundation would have offered the potential for a new style and structure to reflect their origins, yet the palace and ziggurat are indistinguishable from Mesopotamian prototypes. In northern Mesopotamia, the extent of the Mitanni empire is matched by the spread of a distinctive painted pottery style (Nuzi Ware), yet this spread and its limits have more to do with economic connections than with ethnic identification. This pottery offers an example of an important aspect of the later second millennium across the region, the increased ‘internationalization’ and hybridization of artistic production. The western examples of this pottery (from Alalakh, for example) show floral motifs that owe inspiration to the Mediterranean and Egypt, while western examples more often bear geometric designs. Faience and glass were also now produced, for the moment restricted to decorative luxury items. From c. 1200 BC, the entire region, from Anatolia to Iran, suffered a second political collapse, with settlement pattern disruptions, urban destructions, environmental stress, and the disappearance of texts. This is matched by political collapses and archaeologically visible destructions across the Mediterranean, sometimes unfairly blamed on the Sea Peoples. First Millennium BC Empires

The Neo-Assyrian kings were relatively successful at weathering the regional Dark Age at the end of the second millennium BC and are the first to re-emerge as a territorial power. Babylonia devolved once again into rivalry among city-states and was first dominated by Assyria and eventually incorporated into its empire. The Neo-Assyrian is the best-known period of Mesopotamian history but perhaps the most misjudged. Traditionally, Assyria has been viewed as a cruel, military-obsessed regime, but this is belied by minor arts such as ivories, foundation deposits, and the stunning gold work of the royal tombs of Nimrud. Ashurbanipal commissioned a library as well as the destruction of the Elamites. Kings appear in symbolic or religious contexts as often as in military action in palace reliefs. Neo-Assyrian political ideology was firmly focused on the concept and image of the king, and part of the expression of this ideology was the construction of palaces or entire new cities to house the king, his

family, and the imperial administration. Ashur, Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Nineveh mirror the increasing size and complexity of the empire. Each has a citadel densely covered with palaces, temples and administrative structures, and each citadel has been incorporated into an artificially large, regular, and mostly empty city with a vast ring of high walls. The palaces are famous for the miles of stone reliefs that decorated the public rooms. These develop longstanding themes of Mesopotamian art: ritual banquets, religious ceremonies, and military battles (all known from the ED) and lion and bull hunts (from the Uruk Period). The idea of stone reliefs lining the walls may have been appropriated from the Hittites, but the style is distinctively Assyrian, muscular, symmetrical, teeming with elaborate yet formalized detail. The scale is also unprecedented, with figures reaching over 4 m high at Khorsabad. The king is central and vital to most scenes, immediately recognizable by distinctive dress and hat, slightly larger scale, and as the focus of attention in any scene. The reliefs tend to overwhelm the other art produced under the Neo-Assyrians, but this is no less spectacular. Ivory and gold objects and inlay show strikingly beautiful fusions of Assyrian, Syrian, and Egyptian– Phoenician styles. Cylinder seals, already finely detailed under Middle Assyrian rule in the later second millennium BC, developed further. Many of the later Middle Assyrian scenes had echoed the heraldic groups of the Akkadian period but show new exotic animals, such as ostriches or winged horses. In the Neo-Assyrian Period, seals still show combats and introductions to deities, but the attention to detail begun in the Middle Assyrian period reaches a peak, with individual feathers of winged figures and garment textures clearly articulated. Yet despite military might and impressive art, this Assyrian empire also crumbled, destroyed by a Mede and Babylonian coalition after 2 years of siege and battles. The Neo Babylonian Period saw the final, again short-lived, Mesopotamian empire. The expansion of the city of Babylon mirrored that of Nineveh, with the enlargement of the core mounded area plus the incorporation of a large and mostly empty area around it. Temples were rebuilt, while the palace was restructured and elaborated to an extreme and functionally useless extent. The blue-glazed brick Ishtar gate, a well-known and often-reproduced icon of this age, was one of several ceremonial access points into the city. Its animal/deity symbolism (Ishtar’s lion, Adad’s bull, Marduk’s dragon) echoes the winged bull gatekeepers of Neo-Assyrian palaces but is uniquely Babylonian in format and sensibility. This was the last independent episode for Mesopotamia, which became part of the Persian empire in 539 BC.

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Key Themes

The Built Environment

Archaeology and Texts

Besides cities and ziggurats, the other human impact on the landscape, particularly in southern Mesopotamia, would have been irrigation canals. As irrigation was essential to agricultural life, canals would have had great resonance and meaning for fertility and continuity. Larger canals were vital transport and communication routes from cities to supporting towns and villages, as well as between cities. With fish and reed-beds they present an exploitable ecosystem distinct from adjacent agricultural lands. From the third millennium BC, kings claimed credit for construction and extension of canals, as well as construction of city walls or temples; control of water conveys extraordinary power and became a cornerstone of political ideology. Ziggurats and canals offer an opposing pair of images: mountain-like peaks and extended semisubterranean linear devices. Human building activity has impacted both the sky and the earth. It is therefore somewhat surprising that Mesopotamians considered cities and canals to be gifts from the gods.

The archaeology of Mesopotamia is inseparable from its contemporary texts, comprising economic, administrative, legal, historical, and literary documents. This rich textual corpus adds nuance and detail to archaeological materials; while the archaeological record offers a valuable check to the often institutionally biased or selective texts. The political histories are strictly narrative, describing events and royal actions, which may or may not have affected people’s daily lives. But economic and administrative texts, although restricted to transactions and situations deemed worthy of recording for the future, are more relevant for them. Literature and myth offer insights into the reasons behind modes of burial, for instance, while instruction texts illuminate both agricultural techniques and religious ritual. Even vocabulary lists open a window into the Mesopotamian mind, indicating important categories and value assignments; even the absence of some terms (notably including ‘artist’) is revealing. The texts themselves, clay tablets, are archaeological objects, and information on their associations and context are as vital for their full comprehension as this information is for an understanding of art or ceramic assemblages. Both palaces and temples held libraries including both current and ancient texts. Although the majority of the population would have been technically illiterate, oral traditions were strong, and knowledge of past history and cultural traditions was part of being Mesopotamian. Early Complexities and Urbanism

Mesopotamia presents the world’s first state and empire. It was also essentially an urbanized society. Excavations in northern Mesopotamia (Syria) are pushing back the earliest known urban settlements into the fifth millennium BC, earlier than those currently known for southern Mesopotamia. For example, monumental architecture, industrial pottery production, and organized obsidian import were present at Tell Brak in the fifth millennium BC. But the absence of recent excavations in southern Mesopotamia may introduce a bias. The date and location of the earliest city may eventually be as debated as are the date and location of the earliest domesticated grain. But there is a more serious issue awaiting resolution, whether these cities were primarily economic, religious, or political in origin. Urbanization also means ruralization. The urban–rural dynamic demands further exploration if it is not to be viewed as a onesided exploitation of hinterland by urban center.

Archaeology of Religion

Temples physically dominated many cities and crowd the excavated archaeological record in Mesopotamia. The model of a temple-state, a world owned by temples and controlled by priests, was cast off long ago, but temples were undeniably material in the success of Mesopotamian urban life. Yet visits to neighborhood shrines and performance of small-scale rituals probably constituted the primary religious experience for many. The line between religion and magic was blurred, with incantation figurines and foundation deposits occupying the frontier. Mesopotamian religious belief invoked a pantheon of deities, primarily agricultural, astral, or pastoral and also, unusually, linked with man-made objects or concepts such as tools, irrigation, or the weaving loom. Deities were conceived of as anthropomorphic and were often portrayed in third–early second millennia artworks in human form, marked as divine only by horned crowns. Later, deities were reduced to symbols as the relationships among gods, kings, and the rest of the population developed. Power hierarchies among the gods mirror political hierarchies among humans. Mesopotamian religion changed over time, some deities rising in power while others faded. Political power was usually implicated: Marduk, an obscure agricultural deity, replaced Enlil of Nippur in the Creation Epic and in the highest position of authority as his city, Babylon, rose to prominence in southern Mesopotamia in the later second millennium BC.

864 ASIA, WEST/Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad Mass Production and Trade

Some early cylinder seals (Late Uruk) show schematic scenes of lines of women involved in weaving. This is supplemented by texts from temple and palace contexts across the millennia that refer to weaving institutions and the trade of large volumes of graded and specified textiles. The extreme standardization of shape and volume of many ceramic vessels across the late prehistoric and historic periods – along with the absence of kilns in domestic contexts – points to mass production of pottery. But the question of whether mass production meant attached or independent specialists has not yet been satisfactorily answered. The same question arises with regard to other modes of craft production, such as metallurgy. With mass production comes trade, and Mesopotamian trade involved both locally produced basic necessities (bricks, pottery, textiles, agricultural products) and imported luxuries. Urban institutions undeniably played a large role in the exchange of both types of goods and were the major siphons for and consumers of the latter. Sargon of Agade boasts of ships from Magan and Meluhha (probably Oman and the Indus Valley) coming to his capital, and urban public buildings are the main contexts in which exotic materials and objects are found. But the extent of private trade and barter is surely under-represented. The Ashur–Anatolia trade documentation presents an image of sophisticated profit-driven and speculative economic behavior entirely run on a private basis, and it is unlikely that this was an isolated episode. Shifts in popularity of imported raw materials can be difficult to explain. Carnelian all but disappears after the Akkadian Period, but the reason may lie with events in the Indus Valley, in Mesopotamia or the Gulf. The royal and religious monumental artworks of the Old Babylonian Period are overwhelmingly of dark stones, black limestone, or steatite, a contrast to the more variable and frequently lightcolored stones of the third millennium. This shift may have been intended to give a somber serious impression, but it may suggest closure of access routes for white limestone. Pastoralism and Urbanism

Pastoral groups appear in textual material, particularly in the late third and early second millennia BC, but remain archaeologically invisible in the continuously recycled Mesopotamian landscape. Texts reveal that urban dwellers sometimes viewed their pastoralist neighbors as barbarians who lacked knowledge of cooking or burial. But they were conversely happy to welcome them as members of the army or even as political leaders. Amorites, Kassites, Chaldaeans,

and Aramaeans – all with substantial mobile components – serially infiltrated southern Mesopotamia and ended up in political control. Mobile tribes in northern Mesopotamia seem to have been more fragmented and did not usually end up in power, yet the Mari texts indicate their importance to the economy in the second millennium, and Aramaeans eventually appeared in key official positions within the Neo-Assyrian imperial administration. The economic complementarity between agriculture and herding is better known from ethnographic examples; in the modern Middle East herds graze on harvested fields and contribute fertilizer in return. Temples in the past owned both farms and flocks, and reconstruction of a comparable seasonal movement is plausible. Continuity and Change

A graph of Mesopotamian political history would describe a ragged and broken line. States shifted and collapsed; empires tended to be hard-won and surprisingly rapidly broken. The capital cities of nations or empires leapt across the landscape, and the focus of these political units shifted with them. These changes would have affected government officials and political elites, yet the archaeological record indicates that often these major political developments had minimal impact on private citizens. Settlement patterns remained the same; architecture and intrasite spatial use was stable; pottery style persisted. Art had a mixed reaction to political change. Official styles can be identified with specific political regimes. Given the illiteracy of the majority of the Mesopotamian population, imagery was the most effective way to impart political ideology. But sometimes the most eloquent statements were made not by introducing new motifs or styles but by returning to previous ones. An image of king carrying a hod of bricks or mud plaster for construction of a temple appears in the ED and Ur III Periods in reliefs and foundation deposits; this easily read icon reappeared in the Neo-Assyrian Period with Ashurbanipal presented as the rebuilder of Babylon. Similarly, the figure of a defeated enemy prostrate below the feet of the victorious army persists as a piece of visual vocabulary from the mid-third through the late first millennium. Continuities of style and function also appear in private portable art. Old Babylonian figurines of naked women are virtually indistinguishable from those of the Neo-Babylonian Period despite a millennium of separation. Their function (love or fertility charms) also remained unchanged over this time, testament to the immutability of less-formal systems of

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belief. There are also continuities in literary traditions; the Epic of Gilgamesh, a musing on the pleasures of friendship and inevitability of death, had a life of at least 1000 years.

Palaeolithic Cultures Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mesopotamia in the Early Twenty-First Century AD The momentum of archaeological research in Iraq slowed dramatically in 1990 and has effectively ceased since 2003, while work in Syria and Turkey has intensified during these years. The Iraq Museum, repository of an irreplaceable collection of Mesopotamian artifacts, was partially looted in April 2003, and sites across the country have been comprehensively pillaged since that time, in one of the largest cultural resource disasters of recent years. Satellite images have, however, become more widely available during this period, as aerial coverage of the region has intensified; for the foreseeable future, remote sensing techniques will be the only ones available to anyone who wishes to work in Iraq and they have become increasingly relied upon by those working in Syria. Themes and theory are supplementing chronological reconstruction and culture historical approaches. See also: Asia, West: Achaemenian, Parthian, and

Sasanian Persian Civilizations; Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Cities, Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Craft Specialization; Political Complexity, Rise of; Writing Systems.

Glossary Acheulian A cultural complex identified in Africa and Eurasia by the production of handaxes – bifacially flaked tools, as well as cleavers, bifacially U-shaped handaxes on a nodule or a large flake. It lasted from 1.7 to c. 0.1 million years. alluvial fan A fan shaped distribution of sediments carried by rivers or wadis where the water flow decreases and stops, and the deposits carried by spread side-ways. Epi-Paleolithic A term that designates the period that marks the latest part of the Palaeolithic period. It is mainly used by archaeologists in North Africa and the Levant. This period lasted from c. 20 000 to 11 500 cal BP in the Levant, when the Neolithic period began. geomorphology The study of landforms, including their origin and evolution, and the processes that shape them. hunter-gatherer society A society whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, using foraging and hunting, without significant recourse to the domestication of either. The Levant Geographic term that refers to the area from the foothills of the Taurus mountains to the tip of the Sinai peninsula in the Eastern Mediteranean. Its eastern border are the Balick river valley in northern Mesopotamia, and the Syro-Arabian desert from the Euphrates River Valley, southward through the Black Desert, El-Jaffer basin and the plateau along the eastern shoreline of the Gulf of Aqaba. wadi A valley, ravine, or watercourse that is dry except during the rainy season.

Further Reading Akkermans P and Schwartz G (2003) The Archaeology of Syria, From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c. 16 000–300 BC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crawford H (2004) Sumer and the Sumerians, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moorey PRS (1978) Kish Excavations 1923–1933. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Matthews R (2003) The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, Theories and Approaches. London: Routledge. Delougaz P and Lloyd S (1942) Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publication 58. Oates J (1986) [2003]. Babylon. London: Thames & Hudson. Oates J and Oates D (2001) Nimrud, An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Postgate JN (1994) Early Mesopotamia, Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. London: Routledge. Schuster A and Polk M (eds.) (2005) The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia. Harry Abrams: New York. Van de Mieroop M (2004) A History of the Ancient Near East, c. 3000–323 BC. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Wilkinson TJ (2003) Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Woolley L (1939) Ur Excavations V: The Ziggurat and Its Surroundings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Introduction The dominant geographical features of Western Asia consist of a topographic combination of mountains (mostly of the Alpine uplift), plateaus, alluvial plains, and desert landscapes including oases. The coastal plains are often very narrow in comparison to those of other continents. The Anatolian plateau is bounded by the Pontain mountains on the north and the Taurus mountains on the south, each range about 1500 km long. Both join the northwestern end of the 1800 km long Zagros chain, which, together with the Caucasus Mountains, create a deeply dissected land mass. The Iranian plateau is bounded by the Zagros Mountains in the west and south, the Elburz and Kopet Dagh Mountains in the north, and the Khurasan and Baluchistan mountains in the east. The Mesopotamia plain stretches and descends from the foothills of the Zagros and Taurus into the Persian Gulf. The Syro-Arabian desert that stretches bound it on the west into the Arabian Peninsula. The Mediterranean Levant is a special zone within Western

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Asia and covers an area about 1100 km long and 250– 350 km wide. Topographically, it includes the coastal mountain range (overall lower than the Taurus), the Dead Sea system or the rift of the Orontes-Jordan Valleys, inland mountain ranges, and the eastward sloping plateau, which is dissected by many wadis flowing eastward into the Syro-Arabian desert. Today the climate of Western Asia is dominated by two seasons: cool, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. Winter temperatures are milder in the coastal ranges and more severe inland or at higher elevations. Precipitation is affected by distance from the sea and by altitude, with the central Anatolian and Iranian plateaus, the Syro-Arabian desert, and Mesopotamia being the driest zones. In the Mediterranean Levant, rainfall decreases in a north–south direction from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula. That zone is characterized by Eu-Mediterranean vegetation consisting of woodlands or open parklands on and along the coastal ranges. In contrast, western Anatolia is covered with broad-leafed and needle-leafed trees and shrubs resistant to cold, while cold-adapted deciduous broadleafed woodland characterizes the eastern mountains and large areas of the Zagros. Dwarf shrubland and steppic vegetation (Irano-Turanian) dominate the eastern Anatolian plateau and form a wide arching belt south of the northern Levantine, Taurus, and northern Zagros hilly ranges. Farther south, open xenomorphic dwarf shrubland and desert plant associations (Saharo-Arabian) cover areas with an annual precipitation of less than 300– 400 mm. The current complex climatic system of Western Asia makes it difficult to reconstruct the patterns of the past. Presently, large annual fluctuations in rainfall characterize the precipitation of the region with storm tracks following various paths. Those that carry humidity along the Mediterranean Sea move in a more arid, southerly direction. The second series of cyclones descends through Europe and, in turning east, leaves most of the southern Levant dry. Isotope studies of speleothems in Israel, as well as chemical analyses and dating of the palaeolake Lisan in the Jordan Valley, have demonstrated that Upper Pleistocene rainfall distributions were similar to those of today, although at certain times higher than the known averages. Rather than temperature changes, decadal and centennial fluctuations in the amount of precipitation were responsible for the expansion and contraction of vegetation belts recorded in the palynological sequences and lake levels. While the climate of Western Asia today is characterized by cold and rainy winters and hot and dry summers, the exceptions are the margins of the Arabian Peninsula that are affected by the Indian monsoon. The interplay between the western winds that bring

the moisture from the Atlantic or Northern Europe and the Asia barometric high in wintertime as well as the monsoon system, is the reason why it was difficult for many years to decipher the meaning of the climatic changes in the Levant. Knowledge was improved as the number of marine cores from the Arabian Sea became available in recent years with the increase of similar cores from the eastern Mediterranean. However, detailed correlations between climatic changes and cultural expressions are still tenuous in most cases. The Mediterranean coastal areas are more humid, whereas the inland plateaus are drier and colder in wintertime. In Anatolia and Iran, it snows. At the higher altitudes in the Taurus, Zagros, Caucasus, and other mountain chains, it snows in the winter and the summers are cool and often dry. The topographic alignments and the effects of the storm tracks that arrive in the Near East from the west created a phytogeographic pattern in which the vegetation belts are also arranged in a parallel north–south direction. They are known as the Mediterranean woodland and parkland, the steppic Irano-Turanian, and the desertic Saharo-Arabian. The latter characterize the areas where annual precipitation is often less than 250 mm a year. In Iran, they stretch along the Zagros and in Anatolia in part parallel to the Taurus. The climate of the Caucasus area is temperate in the west and becomes dried semi-arid in the east toward the Caspian. Pleistocene and Holocene climates were somewhat different than today’s climate and rain patterns were not necessarily the same. The study of past palaeoclimatic conditions demonstrates the shifts in plant and faunal associations, accompanied by geomorphic landscape modifications. The emerging images of Pleistocene environmental conditions are still fragmentary when the Lower Pleistocene is considered. Diastrophic movements along with climatic changes cause both geomorphologic alterations such as major erosion due to lowering base level, deposition in closed basins, coverage by lava flows, and the appearance and disappearance of lakes in the rift valley and the semi-arid belt. The main elements in Western Asian fauna were always Eurasiatic and the earlier Miocene–Pliocene stamp of an African component steadily decreased through the Pleistocene. Plant associations were also affected by the climatic fluctuations. Under conditions of increasing winter precipitation, the woodland belt expanded eastward and even southward. Steppic plants covered large portions of the previously arid zone, and the SaharoArabian vegetation retreated to certain enclaves. Ponds and small lakes emerged in lowlands and enclosed basins in the semi-arid areas of the SyroArabian desert. Improved environmental conditions

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enabled hunter-gatherers to expand their territories and increase their populations. The conditions changed when precipitation decreased and worsened when accompanied by a drop in the annual average of temperatures. Foragers living between the Mediterranean shoreline and the deserts or on the inland plateau such as Anatolia and central Iran, or in high altitudes, had to accommodate their mobility patterns, exploitation strategies, and population size in order to survive under the new climatic regime. Knowledge of Western Asia prehistory is pertinent for understanding the global evolutionary cultural processes due to its crucial geographic location at the crossroads between Africa and the rest of Asia. It is the Levantine corridor within this vast region that produced a wealth of archaeological records for several migrations ‘out of Africa’ of Homo ergaster/ erectus as well as the archaic types of modern humans. The Levant and adjacent areas have also seen the first sedentary hamlets of complex huntergatherers among whom were the founders of the agricultural or Neolithic revolution.

History of Research Investigations of the prehistory of Western Asia began during the late nineteenth century in two subregions: the Caucasus by Germans and Russians, and the Holy Land and adjacent countries by a wave of scholars and educated travelers who searched for its antiquities and who noticed the presence of prehistoric stone tools. This was already at the time when the antiquity of humankind had become an accepted notion in Europe. Hence, the first excavations were carried out at the turn of the century, in Lebanon, by Abbe´ P. G. Zumoffen. But it was not until the excavations in 1925 in Wadi Amud caves by F. TurvillePetre, who discovered a fragmentary skull at Zuttiyeh cave, that the search gained momentum. Other scholars who followed and published a considerable amount of new data were D. Garrod, R. Neuville, M. Stekelis, Father J. F. Ewing, and A. Rust. Thus the period between the two World Wars became a Golden Age for prehistoric research that expanded to western Iran, and research by others in the Caucasus Mountains. Among the most notable discoveries were the human relics uncovered in the caves of Mount Carmel (el-Wad, Skhul, and Tabun caves), Qafzeh Cave, and Ksar Akil. These continue to attract scholars from different countries to Western Asia. Further discoveries of human remains were made in the Iraqi cave site of Shanidar, and the investigations of the cultural expressions of the Palaeolithic period were, and are, being published in local languages as well as English, French, German, and Russian. Even today, this is the

only region in the entire world that is being searched by archaeologists from numerous different schools and countries, from Japan in the east through the USA in the west. In addition to systematic excavations, often carried out by variable digging methods and degrees of precision, numerous survey projects have facilitated the recognition of the prehistory of this region. Due to an ease of conducting archaeological research, most of the surveys addressing the distribution of Palaeolithic sites were done in the Levantine countries and include the various vegetation belts from the Mediterranean forests through the arid zone. Hence, our knowledge of past geomorphologic changes and the possible impact on human societies of hunter-gatherers is reasonably fair. In spite of the paucity of lakes in this area, pollen cores that reflect environmental fluctuations provide some information mainly in relation to the Upper Pleistocene although hints concerning the past 1.8 million years are also available.

Lower Palaeolithic The geographic position of the Levant at the crossroads between Africa and Eurasia made it a natural path for the dispersal of H. ergaster or erectus. The earliest site is Dmanisi in Georgia. The site was originally located at the shores of a small lake. Accumulations of bones and artifacts were the results of redeposition from the occupation levels in a series of ‘pipes’. The most striking discoveries are five skulls and a suite of postcranial bones. The stratified assemblages overlie a lava flow dated to 1.8 million years and the rapid rate of deposition indicates a terminal age for the site c. 1.7 million years. The lithic industry primarily consists of core-choppers, and numerous flakes, several of which are retouched. Based on African terminology, it was suggested to call the industry ‘pre-Oldowan’. However, this term only indicates that the main artifacts are cores and flakes and other Asian sites, mostly those beyond the so-called Movius line, exhibit similar composition. Pollen from coprolites indicates that the area was forested with tree species such as Abies, Pinus, Fagus, Alnus, Castanea, Tilia, Betula, Carpinus, and rare Ulmus and Salix, and bushes such as rhododendron, corylus, and myrtle, as well as herbaceous vegetation dominated by Cyperaceae, Graminae, and Polygonaceae. This association reflects an environment of high mountains with wellwatered woodland of an inland basin. The fauna included essentially palaeoarctic species such as Struthio dmanisensis, Ursus etruscus, Canis etruscus, Pachycrocuta sp., Homotherium sp., Megantereon cf. megantereon, Archidiscodon meridionalis, Equus cf. stenonis, Equus cf. altidens, Dicerorhinus etruscus, Sus sp.,

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Dama cf. nestii, Cervus sp., Dmanisibos georgicus, Caprini gen., Ovis sp., Leporinae gen., Cricetulus sp., and Marmota sp. Most of the fauna accumulated at the edge of a shallow lake but some bones demonstrate human involvement whether related to scavenging and/or hunting. Second in antiquity is ’Ubeidiya that lies 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee on the flanks of the western escarpment of the Jordan Rift. With the aid of heavy machinery, several geological trenches (numberedI–V, K, and Ka) were excavated to a total length of about 1100 m. The geological structure, as observed in these artificial exposures, is an anticline with several undulations accompanied by several faults. The numerous layers in the trenches were numbered from the observed earliest to the latest over a total thickness of about 154 m. The observed sequence was subdivided into four cycles, two limnic (Li and Lu) and two terrestrial (Fi and Fu), as follows: 1. The Li cycle, characterized by clays, silts, and limestone, terminates with laminated silts, rich with freshwater mollusks and fish remains. One layer (III-12) contained mammalian bones and some artifacts, and provided the only pollen spectrum indicating the forest cover of the flanks of the Jordan Valley. 2. The Fi cycle is built of clays and conglomerates, mainly beach deposits. Most of the archaeological finds and faunal remains were obtained from this member beginning with layer II-21 through III-64. 3. The Lu cycle is the upper limnic member, and consists of two parts: the lower part is essentially clays and chalks, while the upper part is a whitishgrayish-yellow silty series. Only a few artifacts were encountered in this unit. 4. The Fu cycle consists mainly of conglomerates, some of which are large basalt boulders. No artifacts or mollusks were found in this member. Presumably, it represents the regression or even total disappearance of Lake ’Ubeidiya due to the onset of a tectonic movement. This member is overlain by a Pliocene overthrusted block within which the basaltic flow was K/Ar-dated to 3.6 million years. The palaeoenvironments of ’Ubeidiya were reconstructed on the basis of the different nature of the layers while taking into account the malacological and faunal assemblages. The results indicate that the site was located within a sequence of complex alluvial and deltaic situations in which lakeshores fluctuated constantly. The major lake expansions are recorded in the Li and Lu members while the retreat is reflected in the Fi member. It is at that time that hominins

camped on the lakeshores, at the edges of the alluvial fan, and on the mud flats or temporarily dried marshes. From the hilly area, several lithic assemblages were washed and redeposited within the gravels that filled a wadi channel (layers K-29, K-30, and III-34, 35). The lake transgressed again (Lu), and then regressed (Fu), this time probably as a result of the beginning of the tectonic movement that caused the folding of the formation and the slumping of the Pliocene block on top of its younger member. The archaeological excavations at ’Ubeidiya uncovered many layers with numerous artifacts. Field observations indicate that the same layers can be traced on both sides of the main anticline. However, in order to avoid unfounded correlations, layers were numbered separately in relation to each geological trench. Of the 65 artifact-bearing layers, 15 can be considered as the major archaeological horizons and most were excavated on sufficiently large exposures to provide a fairly large sample of artifacts and animal bones. The depositional environment indicates on what kind of natural environment hominins preferred to stay. These types of localities are on top of a drying marshy layer, on the gravelly lake beaches, and somewhere upslope, perhaps on the plateau above the Jordan Valley. The latter contexts were washed into the lake and accumulated within a fluvial conglomerate. It should be noted that occasional isolated artifacts were encountered in different geological layers reminiscent of spare finds in East African Lower Palaeolithic sites. The raw materials used for making artifacts were lava (basalt), flint, and limestone. The basalt occurs as pebbles, cobbles, boulders, and scree components; the limestone as cobbles within the beach and wadi deposits; and the flint in the same environments as small pebbles and cobbles. The shapes of the stone objects modified by hominins include the corechoppers and the detached pieces such as flakes mostly made of flint, limestone spheroids, hand axes, trihedrals, and picks made mainly of basalt, with a few of flint and limestone. There is a direct correlation between the size of the object category and the type of common raw material. The dating of ’Ubeidiya is based on faunal correlations with Dmanisi and European sites and is thus suggested as 1.4–1.5 million years, and current electron spin resonance (ESR) dates suggest 1.2 million years. Among the faunal assemblages that include more than 100 species of mammals, birds, and reptiles, the following species are chronologically noteworthy: Lagurodon arankae, Mammuthus meridionalis cf. Tamanensis, Praemegaceros verticornis, Canis arnensis, Pelorovis oldowayensis, Apodemus

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(Sylvaticus) sylvaticus, Apodemus flavicollis, Dicerorhinus etruscus, Panthera gombaszoegensis, Kolpochoerus oldowayensis, Hippopotamus gorgops, Hippopotamus behemoth, Hypolagus brachygmathus, Allocricetus bursae, Cricetus cricetus, Gazellospira torticornis, Sus strozzii, Ursus etruscus, Pannonictis ardea, Megantereon cultridens, Crocuta crocuta, Herpestes sp. In sum, the ’Ubeidiya faunal is essentially Late Villafranchian with a few Galerian elements, and is mostly Euroasiatic with rare African elements. Faunal connections with Africa were cut off during the Late Pliocene and the early part of the Lower Pleistocene. Most of the fauna accumulated on the lakeshores and in the deltaic deposits. Only a small portion indicates the involvement of humans, probably due to hunting although scavenging as meat-obtaining strategy was not excluded. Dmanisi and ’Ubeidiya mark stations in human dispersals from Africa into Eurasia through the Levantine corridor. The existence of the Saharan desertic belt since the end of the Miocene excludes the interior of the Arabian Peninsula from the Levantine corridor except for the coast of the Red Sea. Under interglacial conditions, the northern penetration of the monsoonal system drastically changed the potential for increasing amounts of resources in eastern Sahara and could have enabled an alternative route for H. erectus or archaic H. sapiens groups. The Lower Palaeolithic assemblages at el-Abassieh in Cairo may indicate that the Nile Valley should not be excluded as a potential migration route. The Acheulian sequence is generally divided into three major categories: Lower, Middle, and Upper Acheulian. Assemblages are incorporated in each phase based on the morphological and metrical attributes of the bifaces. In general, the bifaces demonstrate additional refinement in their shapes and the degree of symmetry, when compared to the most simple forms at ’Ubeidiya, that represent the Lower Acheulian. Over 200 Acheulian occurrences were recorded in the Levant, eastern Turkey, and Iran. However, the number of excavated sites is small and includes Evron-Quarry, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Holon, Revadim, Tabun cave, and Umm Qatafa in Israel, Latamne and Gharmachi in Syria, Ain Soda and Lion’s Spring in the Azraq Basin in Jordan, and Sehrmuz and Kaltepe in Turkey. The site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, where most of the industry was manufactured from basalt with fewer artifacts made of flint and limestone, stands out with the amount of available information concerning faunal, plant remains, palaeoecological observations, and detailed lithic studies. The dominance of cleavers made of basalt flakes, provides an

African aspect to this industry and is seen as cultural evidence for another movement of hominids from Africa into the Levant. Several layers of the depositional sequence of the site, which amounts to over 30 m thick and is tilted westward, were recently extensively excavated. The Bruhnes/Matuyama palaeomagnetic chronological borderline (0.78 million years ago) was found within the site’s sequence characterized by the accumulation of fluvial, lacustrine, overbank sediments at the shoreline of an old Hula lake. Among the most important discoveries was the residue for the use of fire by the site’s occupants. Many thousands of small flakes that bear potlid fractures, which mark the effects of fire, were identified in particular concentrations. Among the faunal remains the species identified were Stegodon mediterraneus, Mamuthus (Elephas) trogontherii, Dicerorhinus merckii, Hippopotamus amphibius, Dama mesopotamica, Bison cf. priscus; Capra sp., Gazella gazella. This assemblage falls within the general definition of the Galerian fauna that replaced the Late Villafranchian association around 0.9–0.7 million years ago. Most of the sites from this period demonstrate the involvement of humans in the formation of the accumulations. Hunting and opportunistic scavenging were the main procurement strategies. The site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov produced also a wealth of plant remains, some of which were collected as food items by the camping foragers. One should mention the Middle Acheulian that in the past seemed to be a recognized phase within the Acheulian of the Near East. It was best known from the systematically collected samples in river gravels along the Nahr el Kebir and Orontes Rivers in Syria. Rare finds were retrieved in the Euphrates Valley, and some in the Beqa’a Valley. Chronologically, they were assigned to the Late Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene. In the southern Levant, the definition of Middle Acheulian was rarely used. Assemblages that seem to fall within this category, on the basis of the dominant biface forms, can be also attributed by to the Upper Acheulian. Such, for example, are the assemblages from the excavations at Holon and Umm Qatafa cave layer E. The bifaces are generally elongated, pointed, and roughly made when compared to the fully symmetrical Upper Acheulian types. However, the dates for the Holon site (c. 300–220 thousand years ago), and the Acheulian contexts from Revadim Quarry, are within the range of dates for the Acheulo-Yabrudian entity that stretches from north of the Yakon River, though Mount Carmel into northern Syria. The two Upper Acheulian sites, and many more surface assemblages collected in the Negev

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desert, are distributed south of the presumed cultural boundary between the Acheulo-Yabrudian and the Upper Acheulian, which cuts across the Levantine ecologies from west to east. The Upper or Late Acheulian demonstrates a technological tendency to have more use of soft hammer percussion, high degree of artifact symmetry, and the presumed appearance of the Levallois technique. However, the products of this knapping technique are only available in a few assemblages and their frequencies are generally very low. Typologically, the disappearance of core-choppers is noticeable. Bifaces of cordiform and amygdaloid shapes often outnumber the ovates. It seems that in part the variability in metrical attributes between sites reflects differences in the size of raw material that is available in the vicinity of these localities. The Acheulian sequence in the northern province ends with an entity that is known as either the Acheulo-Yabrudian or the Mugharan Tradition. Three ‘facies’ or combinations of different frequencies of the same tool types are included in this entity: one is dominated by small bifaces (Acheulian); the second contains numerous side scrapers, canted, and transverse scrapers often shaped on thick flakes (Yabrudian); and the last has backed blades as well as rare bifaces (Amudian). Stratigraphically, this entity precedes the Mousterian industries in the central and northern Levant. Its age is derived from thermoluminescence dating (TL) and ESR readings of c. 400/380–250/230 thousand years available for the Acheulo-Yabrudian layers at Tabun cave and the Amudian industry in Qesem cave. Recent work in the Taurus Mountains suggests that this entity originated in the north and spread southward. Unfortunately, hominid remains from this long period are very rare and include one tooth from ’Ubeidiya, a skull fragment that was found in Acheulian context in Nadaouiyeh in the el-Kowm Basin, and two femurs from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov collected from deposits removed when the Jordan Valley channel was deepened. The best preserved is the fragmentary skull from Zuttiyeh Cave, in Wadi Amud in an Acheulo-Yabrudian context, which is considered as either late H. erectus, or a generalized human type that is known from a larger area within the Old World.

Middle Palaeolithic The study of the Levantine Mousterian benefited from the long stratigraphy of Tabun cave and from a host of other excavated sites. The Middle Palaeolithic in the Taurus–Zagros ranges differs in part from

that of the Levant, but resembles the industries from the Caucasus region. The basis for the general subdivision of the Levantine industries is the sequence of Tabun Cave. The increase in the number of well-published lithic assemblages including the data pertaining to the variability within each of the Mousterian industries was the result of the advent of technological studies centered on recognizing the reduction strategies, expressed in both, the basic modes within the Levallois concept, as well as other lithic production concepts. Although the morphological variability of the lithic artifacts from various sites is not fully portrayed through the simplified model based on the Tabun Cave sequence, it seems that the overall chronological trend is clear, and that the general entities are valid archaeological ‘cultures’ in time and space, as follows: 1. ‘Tabun D type’ assemblages are stratigraphically located at the base of the Mousterian sequence in multilayered sites such as Tabun Cave, unit IX, Yabrud I Rockshelter, Hayonim Cave layers F and lower E, and in Douara Cave layer IV, Abu Sif, and the open-air site of Rosh Ein Mor in the Negev highlands. This entity is characterized by the production of elongated blanks sometimes defined as blades, pointed, and when retouched are known as Abu Sif points. The blanks were removed from cores with basal preparation and correction of the core convexity conveys the impression that the reduction had been bidirectional. In Hayonim Cave and Rosh Ein Mor, both the laminar and Levallois methods core reduction strategies were practiced. Other tool types are the burins that occur in this industry. Most Early Mousterian assemblages in the southern Levant were produced by this particular Levallois method and could be called Abu Sifian. In the northern Levant, the Early Mousterian Hummalian industry from sites in the el-Kowm Basin (northeast Syria) is essentially a bladey industry, mostly nonLevallois. Further north, in the Caucasus Mountains, a similar bladey Mousterian is known from Djrujula Cave, and a few other sites such as Koudaro Cave, and is sometimes named Djrujulan. Currently, the dating for all these industries ranges from about 250 000 to c. 150 000 years, and are therefore of similar ages to the ‘Tabun D type’. 2. The ‘Tabun C-type’ assemblages are found in multilayered sites above the ‘Tabun D-type’ ones (Tabun I 18-26 or layer C in Garrod’s excavations), Hayonim Cave upper layer E, and below the ‘Tabun B type’ in Tabun Cave. Most of the assemblages are characterized by the dominance of oval–rectangular blanks, best described from

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Qafzeh cave. The common products of this method are suboval and subquadrangular flakes, sometimes of large dimensions, struck from Levallois cores through centripetal and/or bidirectional exploitation. Triangular points appear in small numbers in definite horizons, such as layer XV in Qafzeh. Other generally similar assemblages were reported from Skhul layer B, Naame´, Ras el Kelb, Ksar ’Akil XXVI, and Quneitra where the lithic assemblage is also considered as having particular traits. 3. ‘Tabun B type’ comprises assemblages dominated by the production of mainly flakes and triangular Levallois points, frequently with a broad-base – the typical ‘chapeau de gendarme’ – striking platform. They are removed from unidirectional convergent Levallois cores. There is a striking similarity between Kebara units IX and X, Tabun layer B both in Mount Carmel and Tor Faraj in southern Jordan. In Amud and Tor Sabiha Caves, unidirectional convergent cores yielded narrower and more elongated triangular flakes, sometimes called ‘leaf-shaped’ flakes. It is worth noting that blades do occur in all of these assemblages sometimes comprising up to 25% of the blanks such as in Kebara units XI and XII, and Amud B1. Similar ‘Tabun B-type’ assemblages occur in Bezez Cave layer B, Ksar Akil layer XXVIII (Lebanon), Dederiyeh (northern Syria), and Um el Tlel in el-Kowm Basin. For historical reasons, it should be noted that the production of long and narrow flakes by unidirectional convergent mode of flaking, and the variable frequencies of blades in ‘Tabun B-type’ assemblages, were interpreted as suggesting that this industry could have been the technological progenitor of the bladey Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP). While this suggestion means that the technical change, or the first step of the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, took place in the Levant, it also has biological implications. For scholars who classify the human fossils associated with the ‘Tabun B-type’ industries (Kebara, the woman from Tabun, Amud, Dederiyeh) as Western Asian Neanderthals, it means that the descendants of this population were those who initiated the new technological revolution of the Upper Palaeolithic. This stands in contradiction to the genetic evidence that finds correlation between modern humans and Upper Palaeolithic industries. Hence, the emergence of the new lithic reduction sequences and tool types should be sought in a different region such as the Nile Valley or East Africa. The Middle Palaeolithic assemblages uncovered in the caves of the Zagros and Taurus resemble those of the southern Caucasus. The common knapping methods are discoiadal and Levallois and the frequencies of retouched pieces are very high. The dates from

Karain Cave (Turkey), Shanidar (Iraq), and Ortvale Klde (Georgia) indicate that these assemblages, rich in well-retouched and resharpened points and sidescrapers, characterize mostly the Last Glacial Mousterian. Surface collections in Anatolia, north of the Taurus ranges, demonstrate the presence of Levallois-dominated industries. One of the cultural characteristics of the Middle Palaeolithic of the region are the burials. The best known are from Skhul and Qafzeh cave, embedded in ‘Tabun C-type’ assemblages, and considered as archaic modern humans, possibly related to the finds in Omo-Kibish and Herto in Ethiopia. Late burials are those of the Neanderthals in Kebara, Tabun, Amud, Dederiyeh, and Shanidar caves (see Burials: Excavation and Recording Techniques). Faunal analysis indicated that humans hunt what was available in the vicinity of their seasonal camps. In the Levant, the main game animals were the gazelle and the fallow deer, while in the Lebanese mountains the fallow deer and the wild goat were very common. In Shanidar the wild goat was the common hunt and in the Caucasus the thur (Capra Caucasica). Both the identified hunting seasons and differences in the number of retouched pieces versus cores and debitage products indicate that Middle Palaeolithic humans were mobile, employing various habitats, either along altitudinal transects (Zagros and Caucasus) or more along topographic lows (the Levantine landscapes). Meager evidence concerning the vegetal diet was provided by carbonized plants from Kebara Cave. In spite of the poor preservation, it seems that in all the Mediterranean areas plants were more important as a stable source of food than animal tissues.

Upper Palaeolithic The cultural transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic, also referred to as the Upper Palaeolithic revolution, is demonstrated first by the technotypological shift of manufacturing stone tools and a little later by the appearance of marine shells as body decorations. The technical and typological transition is best documented in Boker Tachtit in the Negev and Ksar Akil in the Lebanese mountains. Level 1 at Boker Tachtit contains an assemblage that demonstrates mixed characteristics with dominance of tool types such as end scrapers, burins, and new point types. On the one hand, core reduction is dominated by blade production, and on the other hand some of the products bear the forms of Levallois points. These differ from the typical Mousterian Levallois points as they are shaped by bidirectional removals and not by convergent removals like the earlier forms. Similar

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observations concerning the transitional nature of the core reduction technique were made at Ksar ’Akil. There is little doubt that the earliest layers should be dated to around 47/45 000–43 000 radiocarbon years ago. The particular industries from this phase were grouped under the term ‘transitional industries’ or Emiran, although the preferred term today is Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP). Among the retouched pieces, the Emireh point, known for its basal bifacial shaping, is common only in the central and southern Levant. From the central and northern Levant, blades and flakes with transverse removal at the tip, known as ‘chamfered pieces’ or chanfriens in French, occur in Ksar ’Akil, Abri Antelias, Abu Halka, and Uc¸agizli Caves. In all cases, they mark the IUP that is also recorded in the el-Kowm Basin (northeast Syria). The next cultural phase in the Levant is characterized by the blade-dominated assemblages of the Early Ahmarian industry that dates from 43/42 000–34/ 30 000 years BP. In the early assemblages, the striking platforms of the blades bear the same facets similar to Late Mousterian core preparation, while the lipped and punctiform platforms became dominant later. End scrapers and burins are among the common tool types. Numerous open-air sites in the semi-arid areas of Sinai, the Negev, and southern Jordan were excavated and radiocarbon-dated. It seems that from c. 38 000 to 24 000 years BP the steppic zone received a higher amount of annual precipitation than it does today, and became the ‘homeland’ of many groups of Ahmarian foragers. Most sites were located next to water sources. The people gathered seeds, leaves, and fruits, and hunted ibex, gazelle, and aurochs as shown by the uncovered bones. The Early Ahmarian is poorly known from the northern and central parts of the Levant due to insufficient research and the mobility pattern of those foragers, which did not always incorporate cave-sites or rockshelters. The most impressive archaeological sequence was uncovered in Ksar ’Akil rockshelter. The stratified assemblages and faunal collections make this site unique. It could have served as a location for meetings during many generations. From this site and a few others, we know that the Upper Palaeolithic people hunted the available game in their respective areas: ibex, fallow deer, and roe deer in the Lebanese mountains; gazelle and fallow deer in Mount Carmel; and gazelle, ibex, and aurochs in the Jordan valley. Small game included hare, and trapping for birds is evidenced. The Upper Palaeolithic sequence in these parts of the Levant was interrupted by the appearance of the Aurignacian that was originally labeled as Levantine Aurignacian although the published assemblages

are very similar to the European ones. One of the tool types, an essential Aurignacian component in every assemblage, is the el-Wad point that clearly resembles the Krems point of Central Europe and the Font Yves point in France. Other striking similarities between the European Aurignacian and the Levantine contexts include the body decorations such as beads from deer teeth, as well as the proliferation of bone and antler tools, among which there are samples of split base points. These cultural elements support the identification of the Levantine assemblages with the Aurignacian cultural complex. A limestone slab with an incised ‘horse’ from Hayonim cave adds to the artistic aspects of this culture. The Levantine Aurignacian, dated to c. 34 000– 29 000 years BP, is geographically limited to the coastal and inland ranges of the central and northern Levant and was not found in the arid zone (although certain assemblages were previously misidentified as Aurignacian). Further dating may reduce this time range. Similar assemblages were reported from the Zagros Mountains but not further east or north (such as in the Caucasus). The Aurignacian penetration probably originated in the Balkans and reached selected parts of the Near East through Anatolia. The Late Ahmarian (from 30 000 to 20 000 years ago), and the ensuing Epipalaeolithic industries, are characterized by the production of blades and numerous bladelets. The emergence of microlithic forms or small and narrow bladelets precedes what is often called the Epipalaeolithic period in the Levant. One of the best examples for a camp of huntergatherers was exposed in Ohalo I, a waterlogged site discovered when Lake Kinneret regressed. Excavations uncovered a series of brush huts, a wealth of carbonized plant remains including cereals, a large slab stone, on the surface of which starches were found, evidence for grinding seeds. Among the huts, a burial was discovered. The tool assemblage includes microliths, bone and wooden tools, fishing weights, and a wealth of debitage products. Animal bones testify to hunting and ephemeral fishing. The vegetal diet, as suspected for earlier periods, provided most of the calories of those bands of foragers (see Asia, West: Paleolithic Cultures).

Epipalaeolithic The Epipalaeolithic period in the Levant, dated to c.20/19 000 through 11 500 cal year BP, is characterized by the increasing complexity of settlement systems, technology, subsistence proclivities, social organization, and artistic representations. The latter part of this period witness the emergence of settled life by sedentary foragers, known as the Natufian

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culture, who were the forerunners of the agricultural communities. The palaeoclimate of this period is generally better documented due to availability of sources such as pollen cores, deep-sea cores, and speleothems. The milleniums of the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) caused the expansion of the arid belt and therefore the more limited spatial distribution of Kebaran foragers. The climatic amelioration of the Terminal Pleistocene improved the local environmental conditions, but ended with the Younger Dryas, which was a globally cold and dry period. During the time from c. 18 000 through 13 000 cal year BP, numerous lakes and ponds were established in the formerly desertic and steppic areas; woodlands and parklands expanded permitting foragers to relax their population control and to allow for the acquisition of reliable, accessible, and predictable food resources in the same zone where subsistence was earlier a matter of hazard. The Levantine core area demonstrates both continuity and shifts in lithic industries from the previous Upper Palaeolithic entities. The European terminology placed these milleniums within the Upper Palaeolithic, but the research in the Near East since the 1960s demonstrated that the cultural trajectory was different. The European term of ‘Mesolithic’ designated the appearance of microlithic assemblages produced by hunter-gatherers who lived during the postglacial times, that is, the Early Holocene. Hence the attribution of Levantine microlithic industries to the Mesolithic, as proposed by the pioneering prehistorians, seemed inadequate. The term Epipalaeolithic was adopted from the prehistory of North Africa, where researchers faced similar terminological ambiguities (see Asia, West: Mesolithic Cultures). The variability displayed in Epipalaeolithic lithic industries with the constantly accumulating radiocarbon dates is interpreted as reflecting the existence of various contemporaneous cultures. This situation led to the introduction of various new names with definitions based on differences among tool morphologies. Often the core reduction techniques are the same through most of the region and through milleniums, but the shaped microliths differ considerably both in form and type of retouch. The Natufian culture, the latest in the sequence, demonstrates differences in core reduction methods from their previous cultures, and a few new ways for secondary shaping of the blanks into tool types. A good example is the process for snapping bladelets on an anvil, known as the ‘microburin technique’, practiced more often then by others before. Helwan retouch is a bifacial shaping used for forming lunates, some retouched bladelets, and sickle blades that were inserted in wooden hafts.

In the core area of the Levant, several Epipalaeolithic entities were the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran complexes. Their geographic distribution covers most of the Levant. In the Negev, Sinai, and eastern and southern Jordan, the typological variability seems to have been larger. The names of industries such as Nebekian, Nizzanan, Qalkhan, Hamran, etc., are sometimes grouped under the general terms of ‘complexes’. The presence of numerous cultural entities may indicate population growth on a regional scale due to the expansion of foragers from the Mediterranean core area into the previously arid zone, as well as migration into the region by foragers from Northeast Africa. The enhanced occupation of the steppic zone was encouraged by the climatic improvement that ended around 13 000 years ago although it did not eliminate human presence in the deserts that lasted into the Holocene. The early complex of the Epipalaeolithic period (from the last milleniums of the LGM) is the Kebaran which includes some local varieties (like the Nebekian) and is still in great need for many additional radiocarbon dates. The most typical stone tools were the backed and finely retouched bladelets. End scrapers are common and so are the burins. Bone and horn-core tools are rare. The ground stone tools include mortars, pestles, and hand-stones that were employed in food processing, and crashing ochre for making colors. The bearers of these microlithic industries inhabited the areas that continued to have sufficient winter precipitation and within the Mediterranean woodland belt, especially during the LGM. Other groups occupied several desertic oases (known from Jordan and Syria). Lake Lisan, a large salty lake, continued to cover most of the Jordan Valley from today’s Sea of Galilee to 30 km south of the Dead Sea. It began shrinking around 15 000 years ago and had its final drying stages during the Younger Dryas. The makers of the Geometric Kebaran complex expanded their territories into the desertic areas at the time of the climatic amelioration. Hence we find the sites located in southern Sinai and the el-Kowm basin in the north. In Sinai and the Negev, the Early Mushabian and later the Late Mushabian (also known as Ramonian) possibly reflect expansion of Northeast African forages into the Levant. In southern Jordan, the Qalkhan and the Hamran are of the same time. Remains of several entities were recognized in the oasis of the Azraq Basin and its surroundings, and the radiocarbon dates indicate that this increase in human presence and lithic variability occurred from 15 500 through 13 500 cal year BP. The Natufian culture emerged around 14 500 cal BP following a short cold and dry spell. The conditions of the Bo¨lling–Allerd in this region, with

874 ASIA, WEST/Palaeolithic Cultures

increased amounts of rain, facilitated this semisedentary hunter-gatherers culture to establish itself. Several clustered pit houses formed hamlets, where the Natufians also buried their dead, thus symbolically stating their ownership of the land. The Natufian lithic industry contained not only a specific secondary shaping technique, known as the Helwan retouch, but had hafted blades that bear the luster caused by harvesting cereals or cereals’ straw. Numerous mortars and pestles, some brought from distances of up to 100 km, were found in the base camps along with large quantities of marine shells often retrieved along the Mediterranean shores. A smaller amount of shells were obtained through exchange from the Red Sea and the Nile Valley, and a few obsidian pieces from Anatolia were found in a Late Natufian occupation at Eynan (Mallaha). Natufian art objects are of different types, many represent incised decorations of bone tools, and others are small figurines, mostly of animals and rarely of humans. Incised slabs are known from most sites. In the Negev, ostrich eggshells were employed for such decorative expressions. The meaty diet of the Natufian groups is reflected in the bone assemblages including many gazelles. Deer is more prevalent in the forested or parkland areas, where hunting and gathering hare, tortoise, and birds reflect the depletion of the local environments. During the Younger Dryas, Late Natufian groups adapted to the new conditions. Some became mobile, others more sedentary within the parkland areas. Annual partial mobility continued to be the rule. In the Negev and northern Sinai, the Harifian culture represent an adaptation to worsening conditions through seasonal movements across the land. Winters were spent in the lowlands of the coastal plain including northern Sinai, and summers in the highlands of the Negev. However, at the onset of the Holocene climatic conditions, the Harifian groups disappeared, possibly by joining the newly established cultivating communities known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A. The Epipalaeolithic sequence in other parts of Western Asia is much less known than in the Levant. In the Taurus–Zagros area, a few sites were excavated. This paucity is partly due to widely scattered field research, high rate of alluviation in the valleys, which caused the burial of many pre-Neolithic sites, and geopolitical restrictions. The excavated caves such as Oku¨zini (Turkey), Palegawra, Shanidar, Zarzi (Iraq), and Gar-i-Khar (Iran) caves, as well as open-air sites such as Hallan C ¸ emi (Turkey), Zawi Chemi Shanidar (Iraq), and Asiab (Iran) indicate that between 13 000 and 11 500 cal year BP a shift from mobile hunting and gathering to sedentary or semi-sedentary communities took place in the eastern Taurus and the northern Zagros foothills. In village

sites such as Hallan C¸emi, rounded dwellings resemble those of the Natufian, although mud was employed more extensively as a building material. The lithic assemblages are dominated by the production of microliths. High frequencies of triangles in Hallan C ¸ emi seem to indicate connections with the southern Caucasus region. The archaeological records of foragers’ occupations in Oku¨zini Cave are demonstrated an overall similarity with other backed bladelet industries both in the Levant and in the Balkans. Lithic production reflects continuity from the Upper Palaeolithic traditions. For example, in the case of the Zarzian, it is the high frequency of microliths and the important geometric component that connects it to other caves in the Zagros. In addition, there is a definite increase in the use of pounding stone tools such as mortars, bowls, and cup-holes, and pestles, common food-processing objects that employed by hunter-gatherers in this region. The shift in settlement pattern seems to have happened slightly later in the southern Zagros, Khuzistan, and the western Taurus than it did in neighboring areas. The faunal remains indicate the hunting of goat, sheep, gazelle, red deer, cattle, boar, and a wide range of other forms with the emphasis being different depending upon site location. See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Mesolithic Cultures; Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Modern Humans, Emergence of.

Further Reading Akazawa T, Aoki K, and Bar-Yosef O (eds.) (1998) Neandertals and Modern Humans in Western Asia. New York: Plenum. Bar-Oz G (2004) Epipaleolithic Subsistence Strategies in the Levant: A Zooarchaeological Perspective. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. Bar-Yosef O (2002) Natufian: A complex society of foragers. In: Fitzhugh B and Habu J (eds.) Beyond Foraging and Collecting: Evolutionary Change in Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems, pp. 91–149. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Bar-Yosef O and Pilbeam D (eds.) (2000) The Geography of Neandertals and Modern Humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum, Harvard University Press. Bar-Yosef O and Valla FR (eds.) (1991) International Monographs in Prehistory: The Natufian Culture in the Levant, pp. 1–10. Ann Arbor, MI: Oxbow Books. Bergman CA (1987) BAR International Series 329: Ksar Akil, Lebanon: A Technological and Typological Analysis of the Later Palaeolithic Levels of Ksar Akil. Oxford: BAR. Catto N (ed.) (2005) Quaternary of the Mediterranean Basin and Western Asia: Marine and Terrestrial Processes and Palaeoenvironments. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Dibble H and Bar-Yosef O (eds.) (1995) The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology. Madison: Prehistory Press.

ASIA, WEST/Phoenicia 875 Firouz E (2005) The Complete Fauna of Iran. London, New York: IB Tauris. Garrod DAE and Bate DM (1937) The Stone Age of Mount Carmel. Oxford: Clarendon. Goren-Inbar N (1990) Quneitra: A Mousterian Site on the Golan Heights. Jerusalem: Hebrew University. Goren-Inbar N, Sharon G, Melamed Y, and Kislev M (2002) Nuts, nut cracking, and pitted stones at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 99(4): 2455–2460. Goring-Morris AN (1987) BAR International Series 361: At the Edge: Terminal Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers in the Negev and Sinai. Oxford: BAR. Goring-Morris AN and Belfer-Cohen A (eds.) (2003) More than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic Diversity in the Near East. Oxford: Oxbow. Harrison DL and Bates PJJ (1991) The Mammals of Arabia. Sevenoaks: Harrison Zoological Museum. Henry DO (1989) From Foraging to Agriculture: The Levant at the End of the Ice Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Henry DO (ed.) (1995) Prehistoric Cultural Ecology and Evolution: Insights from Southern Jordan, pp. 49–84. New York: Plenum Press. Henry DO (ed.) (1998) BAR S705: The Prehistoric Archaeology of Jordan. Oxford: Archaeopress. Hole F and Flannery K (1967) The prehistory of southwestern Iran: A preliminary report. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 33: 151–206. Kuhn SL (2002) Paleolithic archeology in Turkey. Evolutionary Anthropology 11: 198–210. Marks AE (ed.) (1983) The Avdat/Aqev Area (Part 3): Prehistory and Paleoenvironments in the Central Negev, Israel. Dallas: Southern Methodist University. Medelssohn H and Yom-Tov Y (1999) Mammalia of Israel. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Olszewski DI and Dibble HL (eds.) (1993) The Paleolithic Prehistory of the Zagros-Taurus. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Ohnuma K (1988) BAR International Series 426: Ksar Akil, Lebanon: A Technological Study of the Earlier Upper Palaeolithic Levels at Ksar Akil: Vol. III: Levels XXV–XIV. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Shea JJ (1998) Neandertal and early modern human behavioral variability: A regional-scale approach to lithic evidence for hunting in the Levantine Mousterian. Current Anthropology 39(supplement, Jun. 1998): S45–S78. Smith PEL (1988) Palaeolithic Archaeology in Iran. Philadelphia: The American Institute of Iranian Studies, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Stiner MC (2005) The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200 000 Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography and Society, pp. 39–58. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Tchernov E (1986) Les Mammife`res du Ple´istocene Infe´rieur de la Valle´e du Jordain a Oubeidiyeh. Paris: Association Pale´orient. Tchernov E (1992) Eurasian–African biotic exchanges through the Levantine corridor during the Neogene and Quaternary. In: von Koenigswald W and Werdelin L (eds.) Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 153: Mammalian Migration and Dispersal Events in the European Quaternary, pp. 103–125. Frankfurt: Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg. Tchernov E (1998) The faunal sequences of the Southwest Asian Middle Paleolithic in relation to hominid dispersal events. In: Akazawa T, Aoki T, and Bar-Yosef O (eds.) Neandertals and Modern Humans in Western Asia, pp. 77–90. New York: Plenum.

Yac¸inkaya I, Otte M, Kozlowski J, and Bar-Yosef O (eds.) (2002) ERAUL: La Grotte d’oˆku¨zini : Evolution du Pale´olithique finale du Sud-Oust de l’Anatolie. Lie`ge: Universite´ de Lie`ge. Zohary M (1973) Geobotanical Foundations of the Middle East. Stuttgart: Springer Verlag.

Phoenicia Glenn Markoe, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary acropolis Upper fortified part of an ancient city. amphora Large earthenware vessel with a narrow cylindrical neck and tapering bottom used for storing wine, oil, or grain. ashlar Hewn or squared stone used in wall construction. cremation Burial process of incineration for a corpse. emporion Important trade center or marketplace. faience Glazed composition consisting of a sand quartz core with a glassy surface glaze. kothon Artificially constructed dry dock used for the building or repairing of ships. mole Artificial causeway built of earth and stone rubble. murex shell Marine gastropod of the genus Murex; one species, Murex trunculus, was the source of the Phoenician purple dye. necropolis Cemetery of an ancient city. nuraghic Prehistoric civilization of Sardinia that flourished in the second millennium BC and was distinguished by the use of bronze metallurgy and the construction of large stone structures (called nuraghe) in the shape of truncated cone towers. orientalizing Native artistic design or motif that imitates or is influenced by Near Eastern pictorial models. pier-and-rubble construction Technique of Phoenician wall construction employing upright ashlar piers in alternation with zones of fieldstone rubble infill. pithos Large earthenware storage jar with a wide, round mouth. repousse´ Technique of hammering a relief design up from the back of a piece of sheet metal. stele Freestanding upright stone slab used as a votive dedication or a gravestone. tophet Precinct of Punic ritual child sacrifice involving the cremation and subsequent offering of the victim’s charred remains in terracotta urns deposited in the ground; the term derives from a reference in the Hebrew Bible to a roasting area in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom where Israelite children were sacrificed by fire.

Introduction Geographically, the Phoenicians present a challenge to define. According to the ancient classical authors, they occupied the entire Levantine coast between the Suez and the Gulf of Alexandretta. In actuality, however, their heartland was considerably smaller, consisting of a narrow coastal strip between the Lebanon

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mountains and the Mediterranean sea stretching from northern Palestine to southern Syria – a slightly extended version of modern-day Lebanon. This dichotomy suggests that the term ‘Phoenician’ in antiquity was broadly applied to any Semitic sea trader, regardless of origins. Such ambiguity may indeed reflect historical reality. Unlike their Syrian, Palestinian, or Mesopotamian neighbors, the Phoenicians were a confederation of traders rather than a country defined by territorial boundaries. Their empire was less a stretch of land than a patchwork of widely scattered merchant communities. Maritime trade, not territory, defined their sphere. Indisputably, Phoenician maritime commerce was driven by the pursuit of a single category of natural resource – raw metals (gold, silver, tin, copper, iron, and lead). In such trade, the entrepreneurial Phoenicians skillfully positioned themselves as middlemen, procuring and conveying metals in ingot form; as importantly, they transformed them into exquisitely wrought, finished goods of bronze, iron, silver, and gold. The Phoenicians’ search for precious metals was nothing new. As archaeological research has shown, many of their trade routes had already been established by their Mycenaean and Cypriot forebears. The Phoenician contribution lay in expanding the scale and geographic scope of such exploitation, which took them not only throughout the Mediterranean, but beyond, past the Strait of Gibraltar into the coastal Atlantic regions of Europe and West Africa. It is this expansive Phoenician commercial empire that serves as the focus of this survey article.

Geographic Survey Phoenician Homeland

The following is a summary of the major Phoenician coastal ports (see Figure 1). Tyre The peninsular setting of modern Tyre (Pun. Sor (‘rock’)) today differs greatly from that of the ancient city. The headland upon which it stands is the result of successive sediments deposited on a mole built in 332 BC by Alexander the Great. In antiquity, Tyre was an island emporion, situated originally on two adjacent offshore reefs. Traces of bedrock on Tyre’s western edge and in the adjacent sea bed reveal that the principal island upon which Tyre was founded was a long narrow reef some 500 m in extent. Owing to the dense overlay of later construction, excavations in the heart of Tyre have not been possible. Stratigraphic information to date has been

ascertained only by a deep sounding undertaken in 1974, which revealed that Tyre was originally occupied in the Early Bronze Age, corroborating an ancient Tyrian tradition, reported by the Greek historian Herodotus, that the city was founded 2300 years before his day (around 2750 BC: Hdt. 2.44). Following a long hiatus in occupation encompassing the Middle Bronze Age, the city was resettled at the start of the Late Bronze Age. Judging from the archaeological record, permanent habitation on the island does not seem to have taken root until the late fifteenth century BC, with comprehensive urban development following in the mid-fourteenth century. The archaeological and written record are in unanimity about the urban character of Iron Age Tyre: the city was densely populated, perhaps far more so than any of its Phoenician mainland counterparts with the possible exception of Arwad. The 1974 sounding, in fact, yielded nine distinct Iron Age building levels that bear witness to continuous efforts at remodeling and terracing. From this time forward, the pier-and-rubble technique, a Phoenician trademark, was widely utilized; large-scale buildings were marked by handsomely dressed walls of marginally drafted ashlar masonry (see Table 1 for the definitions of time phases referred to in this article). Tyre’s two harbors, situated to the north and south of the emporion, were noted by a variety of classical authors, including Pliny (N.H. 5.76), who observes that they were connected by a canal which traversed the city. Its northern port (known in antiquity as the ‘Sidonian’) was a natural bay, sheltered from prevailing winds by the island itself and by a strip of offshore reefs that protected its entrance; it functioned as a closed harbor situated within the city walls. Tyre’s southern port, the ‘Egyptian’, was a built harbor protected by two great offshore breakwaters. Excavations undertaken at Tyre from 1997 to 1999 have uncovered a small portion of the city’s main adult cemetery, a cremation necropolis at Al-Bass on the opposing mainland. Consisting of burials in urns set within shallow, excavated pit graves along a sandy shoreline, the cemetery’s vast extent (estimated at 40 000 m2) and its prolonged use (spanning some 400 years, from c. 1000 to 600 BC) underscore the spread and longevity of the cremation practice within the funerary life of the city. Sarepta The coastal town of ancient Sarepta (modern Sarafand) occupies a low mound situated on the promontory of Ras el-Qantara, overlooking a broad bay with sheltered anchorage. Explored by the University of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1974, Sarepta represents the first in-depth excavation of an Iron Age

Massalia

Emporion

Elba

CORSICA

D Iberian Peninsula

BALEARIC

Tharros

ISLANDS

Adriatic Sea Pyrgi/Caere Rome CAMPANIA Cumae Pithekoussai Tarentum SARDINIA Tyrrhenian Sea

Adalusian Coast

Tipasa Gunugu

Nora Ibiza Hippo Acra (Bizerte) (Algiers) Hippo Regius Icosium Chullu R. ±da lgilgili Medje lol Carthage

Gadir (Cadiz) Pillars of Tingis (Tangiers) Herakles Oran Les Andalouses (Strait of Lixus Gibraltar) Rachgoun Rusaddir Sala A

Strymon R.

Alalia

Sulcis

Alcacer do Sol

Black Sea

ETRURIA Populonia Vetulonia

Hadrumetum Achotla

Utica Cape Bon

Euboea

B

Kythera

Ionian Sea

MALTA

Cape Gelidonya

Mediterranean Sea

Ugarit

Ulu Burun Rhodes

Knossos Kommos

Gabes

Sardis Sarnos Miletus

Paros

Leptis Magna Sabratha Oea TRIPOLITANIA Mogador

CYCLADES

Syracuse

Pantelleria Gozzo Kerkouane

Daskyleion Lemnos LYDIA

Athens

Corinth

SICILY

Thapsos

Aegean Sea

Croton Greater Syrtis

Lipari Morya Panormus

Pangaeum Samothrace

Thasos

C

Amathus

Kition CYPRUS

Arwad

Byblos Sidon Tyre

Cyrene Greater Syrtis

CYRENAICA Memphis LIBYA

ASIA, WEST/Phoenicia 877

Figure 1 Map of Mediterranean with Phoenician sites. Based on Markoe G (2002) Peoples of the Past. Phoenicians. London: British Museum Press.

878 ASIA, WEST/Phoenicia Table 1 Chronological chart Chalcolithic 4500(?)–3100 BC Early Bronze Age 3100–2000 BC Middle Bronze Age 2000–1550 BC Late Bronze Age I 1550–1400 BC Late Bronze Age II 1400–1200/1150 BC Iron Age I 1200/1150–1000 BC Iron Age II 1000–586 BC Iron Age III (Neo-Babylonian) 586–538 BC Persian period 538–332 BC Hellenistic period 332–64/63 BC

mainland Phoenician settlement. Soundings made in two areas on the tell (X and Y) have revealed a continuous sequence of habitation extending from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age – the date of the city’s foundation – through the Hellenistic period. Sounding Y, made on the highest part of the mound, yielded an uninterrupted sequence of 11 occupation strata marked by complexes of courtyard houses equipped with potters’ kilns and bread ovens. Sounding X revealed an extensive industrial quarter located near the harbor at the northern periphery of the settlement. Much of this district was devoted to pottery production; findings included the remains of 22 stone-built firing kilns in addition to slip basins and tanks for washing and storing clay. This sounding also produced an eighth century stone ashlar shrine to the goddess Tanit-Ashtarte equipped with benches, an offering table, and a central cultic pillar. The ancient settlement was flanked to the north and south by two small harbors; excavation of the southwestern port at Ras esh-Shiq uncovered a stonebuilt quay erected in the first century AD. No evidence has yet been found for the usage of either harbor facility prior to the Roman period. Sidon The port city of Sidon (Pun. Sdn) is situated on a rocky promontory bordered by a line of coastal reefs. The settlement, marked by an oval mound of roughly 145 ac, lies adjacent to two natural harbors: a southern circular cove and an enclosed northern port. As at Tyre, the density of modern settlement at Sidon has inhibited archaeological exploration. Concerted excavations, however, have been undertaken in recent years by the British Museum under the auspices of the Lebanese Department of Antiquities. Centered in the area immediately north and east of the medieval St. Louis Castle, this work, begun in 1998, has succeeded in documenting a continuous stratigraphic sequence extending from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age. To the south of the city acropolis, along the shore of the southern circular cove, stands a 40-m-high

accumulation of discarded murex shells marking the ancient emplacement of a large purple dye installation. As Poidebard’s early investigations have shown, Sidon’s chief port facility was situated immediately north of the city. This natural harbor, which was sheltered from the prevailing winds by a rocky offshore island and a northeasterly chain of reefs, constituted the city’s ‘closed port’ – first mentioned by Pseudo-Skylax in the mid-fourth century BC. Archaeological research over the last century has provided substantial data on the distribution of Sidon’s suburban cemeteries. Special attention may be drawn to the necropolis of Dakerman, a vast coastal cemetery located immediately south of the city. Excavations undertaken there by the Lebanese Department of Antiquities have yielded several hundred tombs of various types ranging from the fourteenth century BC through the early Roman period. Sidon’s royal necropolises of the Persian and Hellenistic periods (Mogheret Ablun and Aya) have been located along a line of hills extending east and southeast of the city. The most important of Sidon’s suburban sanctuaries was the precinct of Eshmun, located to the north of the city on the southern slopes of the Nahr el-Awali valley. Erected over a series of split-level terraces, this temple complex, founded in the sixth century BC, was the focus of excavations undertaken by the French from 1963 to 1978. Beirut The ancient port of Beirut (Pun. B’rt) is situated on a rocky promontory with a sheltered harbor. Known previously from scattered textual references, the ancient city has now been revealed, thanks to archaeological research undertaken in connection with the redevelopment of war-devastated downtown Beirut. Such excavations, begun in 1993 under the auspices of the Lebanese Department of Antiquities, have unearthed numerous sectors of the pre-Roman city, including Beirut’s settlement mound and an adjacent residential precinct dating to the Persian period. The original settlement occupied an elliptical tell, situated on a small limestone-eroded outcrop, roughly 5 ac in extent. Its core, site of the ancient acropolis, was completely demolished during construction of the medieval Crusader castle, whose foundations reached bedrock. Recent excavations around the Crusader structure have uncovered evidence for an occupational sequence dating back beyond the Middle Bronze Age, when the site was first fortified and equipped with a monumental gate. The mound itself underwent six defensive phases lasting until the Persian period, when settlement spread well beyond the confines of the tell. To the west, in the area of the modern souk, or market place, excavations have uncovered the remains of a residential district with well-preserved dwellings

ASIA, WEST/Phoenicia 879

of pier-and-rubble construction laid out in an orthogonal plan. In the area immediately adjacent to the northwest, a large quantity of murex shells and a basin complex were uncovered, attesting to local purple dye production. As excavations have revealed, Beirut underwent extensive urban development beginning in the Hellenistic period, when the ancient city achieved its historic form. Byblos The seaport of Byblos (Pun. Gbl) is situated on a promontory with two small adjacent harbors, its principal settlement situated on an elevated, circular tract of land approximately 7 ac in size. A planned city with a massive stone rampart and two gates, the Early Bronze Age city was an important coastal emporion. As recent studies have shown, its urban development was centered on a rock-cut well or spring situated in a central depression on the promontory. Beginning in the third millennium BC, the northern sector of the mound was converted into a sacred precinct by the erection of two monumental sanctuaries: a temple to Baalat Gubal (Lady of Byblos) and an L-shaped temple dedicated to an unidentified male deity. The latter structure was subsequently dismantled and its foundations re-employed in the construction of a sanctuary (known as the Obelisk Temple) dedicated to the god Reseph. The Baalat Gubal and Obelisk sanctuaries were maintained with modifications down through the Hellenistic period. Earlier excavations undertaken by the French in the southern sector of the promontory have uncovered the remains of a residential district dating to the Middle Bronze Age. Composed of roughly 100 two- to four-room house units densely arranged in four blocks, this area may have housed personnel attached to the sanctuary. The urban extent of Iron Age Byblos remains a complete unknown, although scattered clues point to the city’s development in the plains east of the acropolis. Building activity probably reached a peak in the Persian period, when the city prospered economically as a regional administrative and defensive center under the Achaemenids. It was at this time that a monumental platform and stone-pillared building (marking a Persian governor’s reception hall) was erected in the northeast sector of the city walls. As for the city’s harbor facilities, the twin bays located north of the acropolis are both extremely small and thus unsuitable for large ships. As has been recently proposed, the city’s primary needs may have been served by the larger bay and riverine estuary that stood south of the acropolis. If this reconstruction is correct, Byblos’ topography would conform with that of a typical Phoenician port, situated on a headland flanked to the north and south by separate harbors.

Arwad Ancient Arwad (Pun. ’rwd (‘refuge’)) occupies a roughly oval-shaped island of approximately 100 ac situated roughly 2.5 km off the Syrian coast opposite mainland Antaradus (modern Tortose). The urban history of this Phoenician island emporion, which remains completely unexcavated, is virtually unknown. Although Arwad was occupied continuously from at least the third millennium BC, its earliest surviving architectural vestiges (i.e., the monumental city ramparts) date only from the Roman period. Ideally situated for trade, Arwad possessed a twin harbor facing east toward the mainland; its northern and southern bays were separated by a natural jetty some 60 m in length, which was augmented in antiquity by ashlar stone construction. As its massive Roman fortifications suggest, the Phoenician Iron Age city must have been protected by a fortified defensive wall that ringed the island. As the classical sources reveal, Arwad was densely populated; its city center, like that of Tyre, marked by multistoried houses (Strabo XVI.2.13). The high ground presently occupied by the medieval fortifications undoubtedly marks the ancient city’s acropolis and the site of its main sanctuaries. As at Tyre, the city’s main necropolises were probably located on the mainland opposite – in the region of Tortose, in whose vicinity a Persian-period cemetery of royal character has recently been discovered. As chance finds from the modern city suggest, a small cremation cemetery may also have been located in the island’s southern periphery. Like Tyre, Arwad was heavily dependent upon the mainland for its raw materials and agricultural staples. In addition to Tortose, Arwad’s mainland dependencies included coastal Marathus (Amrit), Arwad’s chief continental port.

Phoenician Commercial Expansion Abroad Egypt

As the textual and archaeological record affirms, Egypt’s longstanding commercial relationship with Phoenicia was motivated by one dominant factor: the desire for Levantine timber. As history records, one of her primary targets was the forest reserves located behind Byblos in the valley of the Nahr Ibrahim and the adjacent slopes of Mount Lebanon. Extensive tracts of cedar, fir, pine, oak, and juniper were, in fact, broadly available along the entire length of the Lebanon range from Sidon north to Tripoli and, beyond, along the slopes of the Jebel Ansariye. Of the various Lebanese hardwoods harvested in antiquity, cedar was the most highly sought after for its girth, durability, and fragrance. Financial gain for the Phoenicians lay not only in the marketing of the wood

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itself but in the varied employment it provided Phoenician artisans, traders, and seamen. Tyrian commercial activity in the Nile delta is well attested, historically. As the southernmost of mainland Phoenician ports, Tyre enjoyed a close commercial and political relationship with Egypt, beginning in the Late Bronze Age, as the Amarna Egyptian royal correspondence with the Phoenician city-states reveals. Such commercial orientation is further evidenced by the city’s construction of a southern, artificial harbor, entitled the Egyptian, in the ninth century BC. Phoenician commercial presence in Egypt is later attested, in the period of the Achaemenid dynasty (538–332 BC), by the presence of a Tyrian commercial establishment, known as the Camp of the Tyrians [Hdt 2.112], at the Egyptian capital Memphis. Cyprus

As discoveries of Phoenician pottery along the island’s southern and western coasts clearly reveal, from the eleventh century onward Cyprus served a strategic role as an entrepoˆt for Phoenician westward trade within the Mediterranean. The archaeological and epigraphical record from Kition confirms a date around the midninth century BC for the earliest Phoenician settlement on the island. Evidence so far produced for earlier Iron Age occupation remains inconclusive. As the historical record confirms, Kition (Pun. Kt(y)) formed the urban nucleus and epicenter for Phoenician settlement on Cyprus, which was confined elsewhere to small commercial communities or trading posts within existing towns. A Tyrian foundation, Kition ultimately became a self-governing entity, perhaps as early as the late eighth century BC. The city’s early coinage bears witness to the existence of an independent Phoenician city dynastic line by the early fifth century BC. An important Cypriot settlement in the Late Bronze Age, Kition (situated at present-day Larnaka) was occupied by the Phoenicians (after a period of abandonment lasting some 150 years) in the ninth century. The ancient Phoenician walled city remains largely unexcavated, with the exception of the Kathari sanctuary complex situated in its northern periphery; the latter was erected upon an earlier, Late Bronze Age temenos precinct. Recent excavations on the Bamboula hill, Kition’s southerly harbor district, have yielded remains of the city’s port facilities built during the classical period. One of the largest and most active of Phoenician communities on Cyprus outside of Kition was situated at the southerly coastal port of Amathus, a native Cypriot foundation. Phoenician commercial presence there is evident from the quantity of early imported

Phoenician ware found in the city’s numerous chamber tombs. The recent discovery of what appears to be a local Phoenician cremation cemetery along the city’s southern shore reveals that a substantial and prosperous resident community of Phoenician traders was established there by the sixth and fifth centuries BC. The growing number of Phoenician inscriptions found throughout Cyprus affords an accurate indication of the extent of Phoenician settlement on the island, much of it tied directly to transit trade (Amathus, Paphos, Lapithos) and the copper industry. Phoenician involvement in the copper trade is affirmed by the number of Phoenician-influenced sites (Tamassos, Golgoi, Idalion, Meniko, Alassa) located inland on the spurs of the copper-rich Troodos range. As the archaeological evidence suggests, the Phoenicians at Kition were involved in their own commercial initiatives, particularly in the Tyrrhenian basin (Sardinia, Etruria), where Cyprus had traded earlier in the Late Bronze Age. Rhodes

Like Cyprus, Rhodes’ strategic position along the coasting route from the Levant to the Aegean rendered it an ideal transit station and secondary point of departure for Phoenician commerce. Finds of Phoenician luxury items (ivories, Tridacna shells, gold and silver jewelry) dating to the late eighth and seventh centuries attest to such trade. Besides its role as a transit station, Rhodes apparently served as a regional production center for Phoenician goods, among them trinkets and luxury items in faience (including scarabs, incised vessels with low-relief decoration, and anthropomorphic unguent vases). Beginning in the late eighth century BC, Rhodian Phoenician factories also exported ceramic unguent flasks in a local fabric imitating Cypriot and mainland pottery types. Material evidence for Phoenician settlement on the island prior to the Hellenistic period remains ephemeral. The presence of infant burials in amphorai at the archaic necropolises of Kameiros and Ialysos points to the existence of resident Phoenician communities in these localities. Crete

Phoenician presence on Crete was first intimated by the discovery, in 1884, of a cache of Orientalizing bronzes in the Zeus Cave on Mt. Ida. Subsequent finds have corroborated this fact. The discovery of a Phoenician inscribed bronze bowl at Teke near Knossos, datable on archaeological grounds to c. 900 BC, provides the earliest and most dramatic evidence thus far. Recent excavations at Eleutherna and in the region of Knossos have yielded luxury goods of Oriental and

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Orientalizing workmanship equal in quality to the Idaean finds. Phoenician presence along Crete’s southern coast has been documented by recent excavations at Kommos, which have uncovered a Phoenician-style three-pillared shrine as well as quantities of imported Phoenician pottery. Such evidence underscores the primacy of Crete as a transit point for Phoenician maritime trade. Metal prospecting served as a catalyst for Phoenician involvement on Crete. The island is rich in phosphorous-bearing iron ore, deposits of which were undoubtedly worked in antiquity; recent excavations at Kommos have revealed the presence of one such iron-working center. As the literary and archaeological record reveals, the island of Crete stood on a southern Aegean Phoenician commercial route (skirting the Greek mainland) that was aimed at the central and western Mediterranean. Focal to such transit trade was Phalasarna, Crete’s westernmost harbor, the direct departure point for ships traveling north to the island of Kythera and the southeastern Peloponessus. Recent excavations have shown that the Cretan port facility contained a rock-cut holding basin, or kothon, of Phoenician variety. Kythera itself was associated in antiquity with the Phoenicians; according to Herodotus (1.105), the island’s chief sanctuary of Aphrodite Ourania was founded by them. The Aegean

As on Cyprus and Crete, Phoenician trade with the northern Aegean was propelled largely by mining interests and the metals trade. Herodotus (6.47) informs us that the Phoenicians had settled on the island of Thasos with this objective; the Greek historian claims to have seen their extensive mining operations along the southeastern side of the island, the site of a Phoenician temple to Herakles; excavations conducted by the French have exposed the location of these mines. From Thasos, the Phoenicians, in all likelihood, prospected on the opposing Thracian mainland, in the area of Mount Pangaeum and the Strymon River, where rich gold and silver deposits were later tapped by the Thasians themselves and by foreign Greek entrepeneurs. Judging from ancient classical sources, the Phoenicians enjoyed commercial relations with the neighboring north Aegean islands of Samothrace and Lemnos; according to Homer, the latter received the gift of a decorated ‘Sidonian’ silver krater (Il. 23.741–45). The distribution of various ceramic, stone, and faience imports from the eastern Mediterranean (Rhodes, Cyprus, and the Syro-Phoenician mainland) allows us to trace the existence of a Phoenician

commercial channel to the Greek mainland through the central Aegean. As the archaeological evidence reveals, this route passed in a northwesterly trajectory from Rhodes via Kos and the central Cyclades (Naxos, Delos, Syros) to the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. Delos’ centrality to such trade is evident not only from the quantity of its early Oriental imports, but also from the island’s later commercial importance to the Phoenicians in the Hellenistic period. Aegina’s role as an entrepoˆt for eastern trade should come as no surprise. Its central location in the Saronic Gulf, with direct access to both Attica and the northeastern Peloponnesus, rendered it an ideal depot for Oriental goods entering Greece. As imported finds indicate, Greek coastal centers such as Corinth, Eleusis, and Argos formed major recipients of such Aegean trade in the late eighth and seventh centuries, either directly or through the intermediary of an island center such as Aegina. Another, more northerly, terminus for Oriental trade was the island of Euboea off the central Greek mainland, as recent excavations have shown. Sicily

As for early Phoenician contact with Sicily, Thucydides (6.2.6) provides a brief but informative account: in his words, the Phoenicians had originally established themselves all around the island on promontories and offshore islets, which were used as posts for trade with the native Sicels. With the arrival of Greek colonists, the Phoenicians abandoned most of these settlements, focusing their attentions on Motya, Solunto, and Panormus in the northwest. The historical veracity of Thucydides’ account has been confirmed by excavations at Motya, which have revealed early evidence of Phoenician occupation around 720 BC, shortly after the foundation of the earliest Greek colonies of Naxos (734 BC) and Syracuse (733 BC). As Thucydides implies, the Phoenician withdrawal to the northwestern corner of Sicily was a calculated move, aimed at consolidating control of its most strategic commercial interests on the island; the region was the closest access point to Carthage and the North African mainland. Northwestern Sicily also represented the closest point of departure for mineral-rich, southern Sardinia and for trade north with Campania and Etruria, offering an alternative to passage through the Greek-controlled Straits of Messana. The archaeological remains at Motya afford a unique opportunity to trace the urban evolution of a Phoenician city – from its beginnings as an early, unwalled settlement to its commercial height in the fifth century. Excavations by the Italian authorities have targeted specific areas of the island settlement, including portions of its harbor and commercial and

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residential quarters. Material evidence for Phoenician colonial presence in Sicily outside of Motya remains scant. Unfortunately, little is known archaeologically of the Phoenicians’ main settlement at Palermo (Grk. Panormos), a fair-weather harbor situated alongside a natural inlet within a large bay (known today as the Conca d’Oro). The ancient walled city, which now lies buried beneath Palermo’s historic inner district, stood on a small hill (Paleapoli) originally flanked by two small waterways: the Kemonia and Papireto. Its western portion was marked by an acropolis (now occupied by the Palace of the Normans), beyond which stood an extensive extramural cemetery in use from the late seventh through the third centuries BC. Sardinia

Owing to its mineral wealth (in copper, iron, and silverbearing lead ores), Sardinia served early on as a magnet for Levantine trade. The early appearance of iron technology suggests that the exploitation of this metal may have served as a catalyst (along with copper) for early Phoenician contact, leading to close interaction with the native nuraghic population, whose active cast bronze industry and emergent urban character may be tied to Oriental presence on the island. The earliest direct archaeological evidence for Phoenician colonization of Sardinia is furnished by a monumental inscribed stele from the southern coastal site of Nora, dated epigraphically to the end of the ninth or early eighth century BC. The stele’s discovery at Nora is not fortuitous; the site’s peninsular location along the western shore of the Bay of Cagliari rendered it both an ideal landing stage for Phoenician trade and a convenient coastal access point to the neighboring Iglesiente plateau with its abundant deposits of iron and silver-bearing ores. Phoenician commercial activity within the Gulf of Cagliari appears to have been well established by the seventh century BC. Focal to control of the region was the port of Cagliari (Pun. Krly) on the Tuvixeddu promontory. The Phoenician establishment of Cuccureddus near Cape Carbonara at the gulf’s eastern extremity may have played a similar role as a regional trade center. As archaeology has revealed, by the seventh century BC, the entire southwestern coast of Sardinia (from the Bay of Cagliari west to the Gulf of Oristano) was literally dotted with Phoenician emporiums, largely founded on abandoned early nuraghic settlements. Aside from Nora, the earliest traces of Phoenician occupation, dating back to the mid-eighth century, may be found at modern-day Sulcis (Pun. Slky) on the islet of Sant’Antioco in the Gulf of Palmas, which

served as the primary loading port for the mineral wealth of the Iglesiente region. Connected to the mainland by a partially man-made isthmus (attributable to Phoenician engineering), Sulcis’ early commercial growth is attested by the eighth century date of its tophet precinct and by the recent discovery of an early Phoenician necropolis in the region of Portoscuso on the adjacent mainland. Another early major Phoenician coastal foundation was the port of Tharros on the isthmus of Cape San Marco in the Gulf of Oristano. Situated, like Nora, on a narrow promontory with multiple harbors, the city controlled access, through the Campidano plain and Tirso river valley, to an agriculturally rich hinterland. As archaeology has revealed, the city functioned not only as an international port, but as a regional distribution center for a variety of products, including stone funerary sculpture, terracottas, and metal and faience jewelry. The seventh and succeeding sixth centuries marked a period of territorial consolidation within Phoenician Sardinia, as existing settlements developed and new foundations were established at river arteries on the coast (Bithya, Bosa, Villaputzu) as well as inland (Othoca, Pani Loriga, Monte Sirai) for defensive and commercial purposes. Of the strategic defensive centers, archaeology has fully exposed the site of Monte Sirai, a fortified hilltop settlement established by Sulcis to control and monitor access to the Iglesiente region and Campidano plain. Central Italy

Like Sardinia, Phoenician interest in central Italy was motivated primarily by the metals trade; the wealth of the Etruscan cities also rendered them profitable commercial markets for Phoenician goods. The earliest and clearest evidence of Phoenician presence in Italy may be found on the island of Pithekoussai (modern Ischia) off the coast of southern Campania. An early Euboean foundation, the island housed an active community of Phoenician traders by the late eighth century BC, as finds of Phoenician pottery (some with graffiti) attest. In all likelihood, the islet, situated strategically en route to coastal Etruria, served as a ‘free port’ at which native Greeks and Near Easterners mingled freely. The primary objective of Phoenician trade in Italy was, however, the northern Etrurian heartland with its ore-rich deposits of copper, lead, iron, and silver. Geological surveys have, in fact, shown that the present-day region of northwestern Tuscany, comprising the island of Elba and the opposing mainland between the Ombrone and Cecina Rivers, was extremely rich in silver-bearing ores. From an early date,

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this mountainous district, the Colline Metallifere, attracted Phoenician prospectors, commerciants, and artisans, who left in their wake a variety of luxury goods, including ornate vessels in repousse´ silver, produced locally by resident Phoenician craftsmen. Imported pottery finds suggest that the flourishing northern Etruscan coastal cities of Populonia and Vetulonia may have formed primary bases of operation for the Phoenicians, whose knowledge of Etruria’s mineral resources may have been gained from earlier Cypriot entrepreneurs. Malta

In contrast to Sicily and Sardinia, the Maltese archipelago, consisting of the principal islands of Malta (Pun. ’nn) and Gozo (Pun. Gwl), occupied a very different functional niche for the Phoenicians. Unlike its larger neighbors to the north, Malta possessed little in the way of natural resources. Agricultural potential, confined to two small alluvial plains in the north and south, was extremely limited, while mineral wealth was lacking. Malta’s attraction for the Phoenicians lay in its geographic situation midway between two primary Phoenician commercial routes – to the north, along the southern coast of Sicily, and to the south, along the North African littoral; from an early date, the island probably served as a refueling point and servicing station for Phoenician merchant ships sailing west through the Mediterranean. As burial finds and inscriptions have documented, Phoenician presence on the Maltese archipelago was fairly widespread by the late eighth century BC. While Phoenician necropolises have been found throughout both of the main islands, modern construction has severely limited archaeological exploration of habitation levels. As in Gozo, with its interior highland settlement (at Victoria) and southern coastal port (in the bay of Mgarr), Phoenician occupation on the main island of Malta was centered in two zones – to the north, on a central highland plateau, and in the southeast, around the large bay of Marsaxlokk and its neighboring inlets. From the size and extent of its surrounding necropolises, the northern hill town located inland at Rabat-Mdina apparently formed the main urban nucleus. With its natural harbors, the region around Marsaxlokk functioned as the center of commercial trade, a fact evident both from the density of surrounding indigenous settlements and from the presence of two major Phoenician sanctuaries to Melqart and Astarte. The latter temple, implanted on the site of an earlier Chalcolithic complex at Tas Silg, has yielded a wealth of evidence for Phoenician cult, including several hundred ceramic plates bearing dedications to Tanit and Astarte.

North Africa

The story of the Phoenicians in North Africa, or ancient Libya, is clearly centered on the northern Tunisian headland around the Bay of Tunis and its environs. It is here, at the southern apex of the Tyrrhenian triangle, that the two earliest and most important Phoenician cities, Carthage and Utica, were founded along a temperate and protected coastal stretch of North Africa, situated on the transit route to the central Mediterranean and the far west. According to ancient historical accounts, Utica, located at the mouth of the fertile Bagradas (Medjerdeh) river valley, was founded first – some 287 years before Carthage. The classical sources are in agreement about the city’s early foundation, which followed shortly after the establishment of Cadiz in 1104/3 BC, a date assigned to a period 80 years after the Trojan War (Velleius Paterculus, Hist. Rom. 1:2, 1-3). Skepticism, however, has persisted over the validity of such an early date for Phoenician presence in North Africa, which is yet to be substantiated by the archaeological record. At Utica itself, no trace of the Phoenician settlement has yet been found, while the city necropolis has yielded tombs datable no earlier than the seventh century BC. Modern topographical analysis has, in fact, revealed that the city, today located some 12 km inland, was originally situated on a coastal promontory with an adjoining islet. By contrast, ongoing archaeological research conducted over the past half decade has yielded much new information about Carthage (Pun. Qarthadasht, ‘new city’) and its urban, industrial, and defensive character. In fact, recent excavations carried out on the Byrsa, the city acropolis, have yielded architectural vestiges dating back to the mid-eighth century – slightly more than 50 years shy of the city’s traditional foundation date (813 BC). Based upon the results of stratigraphic soundings within Carthage’s settlement area and the topographical evidence of its surrounding extramural burials, an accurate sense of the physical extent of the city and its environs can now be had, revealing an occupied settlement of more than 24 ha (60 ac). As for Phoenician commercial presence further east along the North African coast, the archaeological record is scant. Practical navigational considerations may have figured largely into the equation. The strong west–east current that runs along the North African littoral from the Strait of Gibraltar to Port Said made a westerly coastal advance toward Carthage from Egypt extremely problematic. So, too, did the buffeting winds, hazardous shoals, and poor visibility encountered along the barren 300 mi coastal stretch of central

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Libya known as the Syrtis. In the face of such difficulties, Phoenician sailors from the eastern mainland heading for Carthage and points beyond may have opted for a more direct westerly route via the open seas. Such circumstances help to explain why, despite ancient historical claims, the eastern Tunisian and Libyan coasts have yielded little archaeological evidence for Phoenician occupation. Indeed, with the exception of Hadrumetum and Leptis Magna, both reputed Phoenician foundations, the great cities of the Sahelian littoral, the Gulf of Gabes, and Tripolitania are marked by later settlement strata originating in the Punic period. Leptis Magna (Pun. Lpqy) alone has yielded evidence of permanent construction associated with its seventh century origins. Yet, even here, doubt persists as to the nature of the incipient settlement; according to a recent interpretation, the early stone construction found on virgin soil near Cape Hermaion served as a warehouse for a seasonal entrepoˆt; permanent settlement did not begin until the late sixth century under Carthaginian initiative. The record of early Phoenician settlement west of the Tunisian headland is equally scant. In fact, the entire coast of western Tunisia and eastern Algeria (from Bizerte (Cap Blanc) to Oran) has produced little evidence for occupation prior to the fifth century BC. Culturally and chronologically, the many emporiums dotting the Algerian coastline from Hippo Regius (Annaba) westward to Gunugu (Gouraya) reflect the growing regional influence of Carthage. The sites themselves and their Punic toponyms, which are often prefixed by ’y (Pun. for ‘island’) or Rus (meaning ‘cape’), underscore their functional significance as emporiums for Punic coastal trade. It is only in the extreme west of Algeria, along the Oranian coast, that material evidence of earlier (seventh to sixth centuries) Phoenician occupation may be found – at Les Andalouses, west of Oran, and at Rachgoun, a coastal islet situated near the mouth of the Siga (Tafna) River, where an inland necropolis and coastal settlement have yielded evidence for Phoenician occupation extending back to the seventh century BC. Ibiza

Situated off the eastern coast of Spain, the island of Ibiza (Pun. ’ybsm, ‘isle of the balsam tree’) in the Balearic archipelago formed a natural port-of-call for Phoenician craft plying the Mediterranean to and from the Strait of Gibraltar. Excavation in recent years has confirmed that the island was settled by Phoenician colonists from the Atlantic straits. By the mid-seventh century, an early foothold was established on the peninsula of Sa Caleta along Ibiza’s

southwestern coast for trade with Sardinia and the Iberian coast. In addition to shipping, mining interests (silver and iron) appear to have promoted the settlement, a modest entrepoˆt of limestone-and-mudbrick residences and warehouses. After a brief occupation of some 50 years, the settlement of Sa Caleta was abandoned, its population transferred to the hill of Puig de Vila overlooking the larger bay of Ibiza a short distance to the east, with its ancient port facility, the emplacement of which is marked by abundant finds of late seventh century Phoenician pottery. Salvage excavations undertaken in the early 1980s on the lower slopes of the adjacent hill of Puig des Molins (later site of Ibiza’s vast Punic necropolis) have uncovered the remains of the settlement’s archaic cemetery, marked by several dozen cremation pithoi burials. Ibiza’s strategic placement for early Phoenician trade has been elucidated by scattered finds of Phoenician pottery along the northeastern coast of Spain – in Alicante province (Pen˜a Negra de Crevillente, Los Saladares) and Castellon (Vinarragell) and, further north, in the delta of the Ebro River in southern Catalonia. Such finds, dating from the later seventh and early sixth century BC, suggest that Ibiza had served as a conduit for western Phoenician trade with the northern Spanish interior and with southern France, valued outlets for tin arriving overland from the north Atlantic regions of Cornwall and Brittany. Spain

Archaeological investigation in recent decades has revealed a great deal about Phoenician settlement in the Iberian peninsula, the westernmost stage of Phoenician Mediterranean expansion. Memory of early Phoenician involvement in southern Spain has been preserved in the accounts of classical authors, whose writings clearly reveal that Phoenician colonial activity in the region was driven by one overriding motive – the acquisition of ores and precious metals. The Spanish peninsula, in fact, forms one of the richest sources of raw minerals (gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin) in the entire Mediterranean. The Tyrian settlement of Cadiz – in close proximity to the mineral-rich Huelva district and Guadalquivir valley – underscores the Phoenicians’ abiding interest in gaining access to such resources. Ancient Cadiz (from Pun. Gdr, ‘wall’ or ‘fortified citadel’) was founded on a series of offshore islands in the sheltered Bay of Cadiz beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. As recent geologic and archaeological investigation has shown, the early Phoenician settlement was centered on the small northern islet of Erytheia, the present heart of nineteenth century Cadiz. In

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antiquity, this islet was separated from the larger, southern island of Kotinoussa by a deep, narrow channel, the Bahia-Caleta, which served as Cadiz’ original harbor. Like its mother city Tyre, the early Phoenician settlement at Cadiz, which lies unexcavated, appears to have been an extremely compact one, covering no more than 25 ac, encompassing the city’s three primary sanctuaries to Astarte, Baal Hammon, and Melqart. The latter, renowned in antiquity for its oracle, may be localized on the present-day islet of Sancti Petri, where a group of ancient bronze statuettes depicting male deities was discovered in 1984. The city necropolis of Cadiz was situated apart from the settlement on the opposite bank of the Bahia-Caleta channel – in the area of Puertas de Tierra, where numerous burials, the earliest dating to the fifth century BC, have been uncovered. Tyrian involvement in the Tartessian silver trade has been elucidated in recent years by archaeological research. As demonstrated, Phoenician activity focused in two regions: the western area of the province of Seville and the mountainous region of Huelva beyond. In the former, the trade in metals followed a route ending directly at Cadiz via the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Early on, Cadiz established an enclave on the northern shore of the Guadalete estuary at the indigenous Tartessian settlement of Castillo de Don˜a Blanca, which served as the island city’s continental port and transit station for mainland trade; excavations conducted there over the past two decades have revealed extensive traces of Phoenician presence. As archaeological research has demonstrated, silverbearing lead ores (perhaps from the silver mines at Aznalcollar in the Sierra Moreno) were processed and subsequently smelted at the native Tartessian sites of Tejada la Vieja and San Bartolome´ de Almonte, respectively. Phoenician activity at Tejada is evinced by the urban character of the native walled settlement, which housed stone-built warehouses and facilities for the grinding and washing of the ores. The richest deposits of gold- and silver-bearing pyrite ores were, however, to be found in the mountains of Huelva, in the inland region of Rio Tinto, the site of the most extensive mining operations in antiquity. Modern survey of the surviving traces of silver slag, estimated at roughly 6 000 000 tons, reveals the monumental scale of mining activity conducted in the Iron Age. The presence of two indigenous neighboring hill settlements (Quebranthuesos and Cerro Salomon) confirms that the process of mining and extraction fell in native hands. Phoenician involvement in such mining operations is now well documented by excavations at Cerro Salomon, where a small settlement, marked by imported Phoenician

pottery, revealed obvious traces of metalworking. Transported in ingot form down the Rio Tinto, the silver was processed at the native coastal port of Huelva, where excavations have revealed the emplacement of actual smelting furnaces dating to the eighth to seventh centuries BC. It is along the Andalusian coast east of Gibraltar, however, that the Phoenicians appear to have concentrated their settlement efforts, beginning in the eighth century BC. Archaeological investigation over the past three decades has, in fact, documented the existence of a series of compact, closely spaced settlements with adjacent necropolises along the coasts of Granada, Malaga, and Almeria, all strategically situated on low coastal headlands within sheltered bays or inlets. Their positions – on riverine estuaries such as the Guadalhorce, Guadalmedina, Velez, and Algarrobo – ensured access to the surrounding agriculturally rich interior, which represents some of the most fertile farmland in all of the Iberian peninsula. It was with an eye toward local exploitation of such natural resources (including timber) that the majority of such settlements, including Cerro del Villar, Toscanos, Moro de Mezquitilla, and Chorerras, were founded on a coast that was largely undeveloped and sparsely inhabited at the time of the Phoenicians’ arrival. Unlike their Levantine mainland equivalents, the Phoenician settlements of the eastern Andalusian coastal plain appear small and unpretentious, totalling only a few acres (2–3 ha) with correspondingly small populations: what the archaeological record reveals, in fact, is a series of centrally administered commercial enclaves rather than full-fledged towns. With its threeaisled warehouse facility, Toscanos, the best documented of such archaeological sites, well illustrates this point. In addition to farming and cattle breeding, Toscanos’ economic activities consisted of purple-dye manufacture and metallurgy (both copper and iron). As for Phoenician settlement west along the Strait of Gibraltar, attention may be drawn to Gorham’s Cave, a grotto extending some 30 m into the Gibraltar Rock along its southeast side. As recent excavation of its upper stratum reveals, the cave apparently served as a Phoenician shrine. Over the years, ongoing archaeological research has yielded a large quantity of Phoenician and Punic finds deposited between the eighth and third centuries BC, including copious faience amulets and scarabs of Egyptian and Egyptianizing variety, glass core-formed vessels, and Phoenician red slip pottery. The importance of the Gorham’s Cave grotto may also be explained by the natural defensive position provided by the Gibraltar Rock and by the safe anchorage it afforded in the Bay of Algeciras on its western side.

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Phoenician Atlantic Trade The North Atlantic

With their foundation of Cadiz, the Phoenicians established a trade foothold in Atlantic coastal Spain. North of Huelva, however, archaeological substantiation of Phoenician occupation has proved elusive. Recent excavations, nevertheless, have revealed evidence of a substantial Phoenician settlement of seventh century date at Alca´cer do Sal near the mouth of the Sado River. The presence of this site, located some 400 km north of the Guadalquivir basin, lends credence to the supposition that the Phoenicians had established a series of coastal emporia up to and beyond the Algarve coast of Portugal. While the Portuguese Algarve coast presently represents the northernmost limit archaeologically of Phoenician Atlantic commerce, ancient textual evidence suggests a far broader scope to Phoenician North Atlantic trade. According to the Ora Maritima of Avienus, written in the fourth century AD, the Carthaginian navigator Himilco, in the late fifth century BC, undertook a four-month expedition in pursuit of tin that brought him to the coast of northern Britanny and perhaps beyond – across the Channel to southern Britain and coastal Cornwall. As modern investigation has revealed, the latter region served in antiquity as a primary mining source of tin oxide ore, present in a number of alluvial gravel deposits. As excavation has shown, such stream tin had been recovered and smelted locally as early as the Bronze Age. The scope of Himilco’s North Atlantic expedition, in fact, hinges on the identification of the notorious Cassiterides (‘tin islands’), mentioned by a number of Greek and Roman authors, including Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus. There has been much debate on their exact location, a subject about which the ancient authors remain vague. Strabo (III.5.11) is the most explicit in situating them in the open seas beyond ancient Artabria, that is, the northwest region of the Spanish peninsula. Although the Cassiterides have long been associated with the Scilly Islands off the southwestern tip of England, they are more plausibly identified with European mainland locations closer to home, including the islets of the Bay of Corcubio´n beneath Cape Finisterra in Galicia and the islands along the southern coast of Brittany (ancient Armorica) between the estuary of the Loire and the town of Quiberon. Both regions housed rich deposits of alluvial tin ore that were accessible in antiquity. Atlantic Africa: Morocco

As history records, the city of Lixus (Pun. Lks) was central to early Phoenician trade in Atlantic Morocco.

The classical literary tradition underscores the importance of this key emporion, whose foundation (in 1180 BC) was believed to antedate that of Cadiz (Pliny, N.H., 19.63). Lixus’ location – 4 km inland on the north bank of the Loukkos River – has been known since the early nineteenth century. Yet excavations on the upper plateau of the Tchemmich hill, the presumed site of the early city, have failed to produce architectural evidence of early Phoenician occupation. In all likelihood, the port and its harbor were originally situated below, on the hill’s sheltered eastern foot; the date of this settlement may be surmised from scattered finds of Phoenician red slip ware of late seventh century date found on the plateau above. Like Cadiz, Lixus monitored riverine access into a mineral-rich hinterland; along the spurs of the Atlas mountains lay rich deposits of gold, copper, iron, and lead. Beyond Lixus, along a coast largely devoid of natural harbors, archaeological traces of Phoenician coastal trade are sparse. The first clear evidence of occupation may be found at Sala, an emporion situated inland from the Bou Regreg estuary near the heart of modern Rabat. Here, excavations have uncovered the remains of a large ashlar stone building associated with Phoenician red slip pottery datable to the seventh to sixth centuries BC. More than 400 km beyond Sala lies the southernmost of Phoenician Moroccan coastal establishments (on the island of Mogador in the bay of Essauoira), where excavations have uncovered a seasonal coastal encampment, roughly 50 m in diameter, marked by hearths and small huts. Mogador’s commercial nature is apparent from its ceramic finds, which include a large quantity of red slip ware sherds (around 20 bearing Phoenician inscriptions). A settlement in operation from at least 650–500 BC, Mogador, like Sala to the north, functioned as a secondary center for trade with the indigenous peoples of the Moroccan interior. As its pottery types suggest, the settlement may have been founded by colonists from Cadiz; the ceramic repertoire from Mogador is particularly close to that found in Phoenician settlements from Andalusia. How much further along the western coast of Africa beyond Mogador the Phoenicians explored remains an open question. While clearly exaggerated, Strabo’s claim (17.3.3) that the Tyrians founded 300 colonies along the West African coast may contain a reminiscence of such exploration, which set the stage for the later expedition of the Carthaginian navigator Hanno in the latter half of the fifth century BC. Debate has raged over the identification of ancient place names mentioned in this remarkable account, which, according to its text, was originally set up in the temple of Saturn (Baal Hammon) at Carthage.

ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies 887

The more adventurous would take Hanno as far as Sierra Leone or even the Cameroons or Gabon in the Gulf of Guinea; according to a more conservative view, the explorer terminated his voyage at Cape Juby along Morocco’s southern boundary. See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures; Europe, South: Greece; Greek Colonies; Medieval and Post-Medieval; Rome; Exchange Systems; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Primary Production Studies of; Ships and Seafaring.

Further Reading Aubet ME (2001) The Phoenicians and the West. Politics, Colonies and Trade, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Briquel-Chatonnet F and Gubel E (1998) Les Phe´niciens aux origines du Liban. Paris: Gallimard. Harden DB (1971) The Phoenicians. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Krings V (ed.) (1995) La civilisation phe´nicienne et punique. Manuel de recherche. Leiden: Brill. Lipinski E (ed.) (1992) Dictionnaire de la civilisation phe´nicienne et punique. Brussels: Brepols. Markoe G (2002) Peoples of the Past. Phoenicians. London: British Museum Press. Markoe G (2005) The Phoenicians. London: The Folio Society. Moscati S (ed.) (1988) The Phoenicians. New York: Abbeville Press. Pritchard J (1978) Recovering Sarepta, A Phoenician City. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Roman Eastern Colonies Rebecca Sweetman, University of St Andrews, St. Andrews, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary colony colonia Status given to a city in the Empire which had especially high privileges. client kingdoms States who had yielded to, or allied themselves with, Rome and were under her control mainly through military presence but retain the local political and administrative establishment. duoviri Roman officials appointed to act as magistrates in a judicial role in Rome and in the cities of the provinces. globalization ‘‘A social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding’’ as stated by Waters 1995, 3. province The name given to the largest unit of a an area of foreign land under Roman possession.

Introduction Roman imperial expansion in the eastern Mediterranean was a consequence of the inheritance of land, the subduing of enemies and the quest for economic resources leading to a significant growth of the Empire from the late third century BCE. The Macedonian Wars (215–148 BCE), followed by the Mithridatic Wars (88–63 BCE) in addition to the series of Roman Civil wars (88–30 BCE) meant that by the death of Pompey in 48 BCE areas such as Epirus, Macedonia, Achaea, and Asia (see Figure 1) were officially under Roman control. Pompey had secured many of the Eastern provinces and subsequently, Caesar and Augustus were responsible for much of the organization and consolidation of the Eastern Empire. The institution of Roman rule in the provinces was manifested diversely; the joining of provinces, the consolidation of the geographical mass, inclusion of client kingdoms and the installation of armies, and comprehensive new administration. Provinces were established as administrative and political units and were controlled by governors, who were formally either Propraetors or Proconsuls and appointed by the Senate or the Emperor, thus creating ‘senatorial’ and ‘imperial’ class provinces. Imperial provinces were officially governed by the Emperor with a legate as his representative, were often established in areas of instability, buffer zones, or potential flashpoints and thus had a high military presence (hosting one or more legions), for example, Moesia. Although Egypt had a legion posted there, it was an Imperial province of a special kind with an Equestrian governor, as was Judea (at times). Once a province was firmly established with a governor appointed from Rome, unless there were mitigating circumstances or particularly vehement opposition to Roman rule, the local population (more often its elite elements) was commonly incorporated into regional government positions. The Letters of the Younger Pliny are especially enlightening for an understanding of the relationship between a Roman governor, his entourage, and the local population in the Eastern provinces. The roles of the governors were varied and they were expected to oversee administration, to ensure peace (at a range of levels), to warrant maintenance of the communication routes and upkeep of the cities, preservation of religious and entertainment facilities, and essentially, to guarantee the collection of taxes for Rome. The geographical boundaries of provinces were not static. Although the limes identified in the physical remains of the frontier forts and watchtowers, indicate the boundaries of the Empire at different times, it is arguable that they were as much about monitoring the unconquered tribes as defining the extent of the

888 ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies

Figure 1 The Provinces (Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no FrontCover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ‘‘GNU Free Documentation License’’).

Empire (e.g., as fieldwork undertaken on the Limes Arabicus is showing). An awareness of the traditional political borders between provinces was maintained and while broad generalizations regarding the cultures of the Eastern Roman Empire are futile, the Roman army functioned directly and indirectly as a unifying element. Their tours of the Empire further stimulated communication between provinces, particularly through provision of food supplies and created an element of commonality through their presence and their maintenace of the built landscape. Just as the Emperor had to be constantly on guard against potential uprisings in Rome, the provinces, particularly those with a significant military presence, could be a breeding ground for future challenges to the Emperor. As such, the size and nature of a province could change to combat growing power bases, for example, Moesia was subdivided and by 211 CE Syria had been divided into three provinces. Provinces could also be merged and in some cases the reasoning behind this is not always clear, for example Crete and Cyrene were joined together to become a single administrative unit. Pisidia was originally given to Cappadocia in the second century BCE to govern, but when this failed it was joined with Galatia in the

late first century BCE. Lycaonia was divided between Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cicilia and following a series of border changes she finally became a separate province in CE 371. A historical framework for the foundation and organization of the Eastern provinces is achievable through a collation of sources such as Dio, Livy, Pliny, Suetonius, and Tacitus. The density of written culture in the East allows a view of the significant events and key characters of the provinces is viable. Archaeological material such as pottery and other small finds, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, mortuary evidence, and architecture provide a much more coherent picture of the broader aspects of society and culture of the Eastern Roman provinces. In the past, much of the archaeological work has been focused in urban centers, although with the rise and refinement of archaeological survey methods, increasing attention is paid to the consideration of the rural landscape in the Roman period (e.g., work such as the Libyan Valleys project and the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project in the Peloponnese). Scholars have explained the development and outcome of expansion and cultural change within the provinces through the application of processes

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such as Romanization, creolization, and globalization. A brief synopsis of these processes will allow for a more comprehensive understanding. Detailed discussion is available in the further reading section. Suffice is to say here that the nature of Roman provinces can be best understood through an examination of the archaeology in combination with the historical data to allow consideration of the perspective of the local population in addition to that of the Roman. As such this approach allows for a more inclusive understanding of the cultural change in the eastern Mediterranean with the growth of the Roman Empire. The initial establishment of the provinces in the East was quite a different process from that of the West. In many respects urbanization was fundamental to the success of Roman occupation and the presence of the long established cities of the East meant that it was relatively straightforward for Roman administration to fit in. The populations of the East were already habituated to centralized administration. In addition, they had advanced technologies and stunning architecture. There were well-developed trade and communication networks and there was intense exploitation of agricultural and natural resources. In addition to the manifestations of conspicuous consumption, the populations of the East had a keen awareness of hierarchy and the machinations of politics. Rome had respect for the territories of the East and her policy seems to have been to undertake as little interference as possible, as long as peace was maintained to facilitate crucial tax collection. Just as there are differences between the provinces and cities of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire, the archaeology of the East reveals that the provinces are as culturally diverse as they are geographically. There are few ‘model’ Roman cities; provinces become part of the Empire at different periods and for varied reasons. Their subsequent development as part of the Empire follow a multitude of progressions dependent on location, nature of the local population, economy, investment, etc. and a single scenario for provincial development is not appropriate. The provinces were subsumed and cities were given different status at different times for numerous motives. There was no concurrent rate at which they grew and transformations within the cities, if any took place, occurred for a staggering multiplicity of reasons. The different levels of support for Rome were sometimes, although not always logically reflected in the level of privileges or punishment conferred. For example, Aphrodisias wholeheartedly supported Rome and experienced the economic benefits, in contrast Corinth was sacked. Some cities retained certain autonomous rights, such as Palmyra and Damascus,

largely because of the benefits they provided for the Roman economy. These rights however were only valid as long as the cities behaved well. The foundation and subsequent growth of the Roman provinces was in some cases a planned strategic process, but more often there is little evidence throughout for a clearly defined unified policy. A study of the archaeology of the Eastern Roman Empire allows a broad range of perspectives and for such diversities to become apparent.

Brief History and Topography As noted in the introduction, much of the expansion and provincial organization in the East was carried out under Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus. A brief presentation of the chronology will allow further insight in the nature of the foundation of the different provinces and cities within. The widely accepted chronologies are followed here; however, it is important to note that current work is beginning to challenge the more traditionally accepted chronologies for province-creation. Following on from his success in the Mithridatic wars (after the Third Mithridatic war Bithynia ceded to Rome and Pompey was victorious over King Mithridates of Pontus in CE 65B), Pompey set about solidifying some of this control with the organization of some of the provinces, such as Cicilia (conquered in 102 BCE and reorganized 66 BCE). Pompey annexed Syria in 64 BCE and in this way she functioned as a peace monitor, having to ensure that the Cilician tribes behaved. In the same region, Pompey also organized for Judea to become a client kingdom under local monarchs. Octavian Augustus consolidated this arrangement and Judea came under the authority of the governor of Syria (as Cilica already was). The provinces were somewhat pillaged by both Pompey and Caesar to support their bids for control of Rome and the instability the civil wars gave Mithridates VI the opportunity to reclaim some of the lost land in the East in the middle of the first century BCE. Following his victories over Pompey and his success in Egypt, Caesar began a process of ensuring the loyalty of the elite, secured and founded client kingdoms in the East and also finally put an end to the Pontus uprisings in 47 BCE, thereby obtaining the province. The work of Pompey and Caesar gave Augustus a good foundation for the expansion and consolidation of the Empire. At this point, various provinces had been inherited (e.g., Cyprus), victories in Egypt had provided a good economic base and obstreperous regions such as Judea and Pontus were

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annexed along with Moesia (44 BCE). These actions of strengthening borders and policing uncontrolled regions served to unify the Eastern Empire geographically. After Augustus, the Julio-Claudians continued on a small scale to expand the Eastern Empire with the inclusion of Cappadocia (CE 17), Lycia (CE 43), and Thrace (CE 46). The next concentrated expansion did not occur until Trajan. Trajan extended the holdings with the inclusion of new provinces and previous client kingdoms such as Arabia Petraea (CE 105) and Armenia (CE 114). At this point, the Empire was expanded to include Dacia (CE 106) which functioned as a buffer zone to the unconquered peoples of the East. Hadrian’s view of the Empire was quite different from that of his predecessor Trajan. Much against the views of factions within the Senatorial elite, Hadrian envisioned that a smaller Empire would be both more manageable and more profitable and thus he began a process of contracting the borders. Although Severus motivated further consolidation and re-organization of the Empire with the inclusion of Osroene and the expansion into northern Mesopotamia, by the third century the nature of the Roman Empire had changed. At this point a clear eastern koine was identifiable throughout the Eastern provinces but at the same time the external threats of the Goths and Vandals created a need for defense rather than expansion.

The Nature of the Provinces The diversity within and between Roman provinces is understandable when full consideration is given to the following: (see Table 1): . How and why provinces were acquired (force or inheritance; strategic or economic)? . The intended or consequential role within the Empire (frontier zones or Roman colonies). . How the nature of pre-conquest societies created such diversity in the Early Empire through the extent of: . multiculturalism . pre-conquest peace within the province . pre-conquest Roman involvement. . Existing economy. . Existing religions. . Location (Mediterranean or continental; remote or accessible). . Natural resources. . Topography. Different reasons for foundation (see Table 1):

. Inherited: for example, Asia, Cyrene. . Development from client kingdoms to provinces (e.g., Judea). . Conquered because of economic potential (e.g., Egypt). . Conquered because of strategic location for trade (e.g., Crete). . Taken to shore up gaps in the area of the Empire (e.g., Cappodacia). . Taken to act as buffer zones against threatening tribes (e.g., Dacia). . Taken to maintain peace (e.g., Cilicia & Judea). . Conquered as a result of attempts to rebel against Roman rule (Pontus, Achaea). . Conquered as part of strategic expansion of Empire (e.g., Armenia & Mesopotamia taken in Trajanic expansion). As noted in the introduction, a range of different types of provincial establishments were founded in the East (see Table 1): . Senatorial Province (former consuls): Asia. . Senatorial Province (former praetors): Macedonia, Crete & Cyrene, Achaea, Cyprus, Pontus & Bithynia, Lycia & Pamphylia. . Imperial Provinces (former consuls): Moesia, Syria, Cappadocia. . Imperial Provinces (former praetors): Galatia, Cilicia, Arabia. . Imperial Procurators: Thracia, Epirus. . Prefect: Egypt and Mesopotamia by early third century. . Some were provinces but behaved more like client kingdoms (e.g., Syria). Within these different provincial establishments there was a range of cities with different status and functions: . Colonies (Butrint (Illyrium), Savaria (Pannonia), Corinth (Achaea), Knossos (Crete and Cyrene), Nicomedia (one of the last at 284–305), Beirut, Edessa, Antioch). . Military presence (Palestine & Syria and along the Danube). . Provincial principal city (Ephesus, Gortyna, Alexandria). . Economic foundations (Damascus, Palmyra). . Creations to balance internal power (Patras). . Cultural centers (Sparta).

Archaeology of the Eastern Provinces With these variations and diversities in mind a ‘model province’ is not a viable means of understanding either Roman cities or the provinces themselves in

Table 1 The Eastern Roman provinces

1

Province

Type of admin (by CE 211)

Date a

Some key cities (incl b capitals and colonies)

Reason for inclusion and economic resources

Macedonia

Senatorial former praetor

168 BCE/ 146 BCE

Dion, Pella, Thessaloniki (capital) Phillippi, Cassandra

Rebelled against Romans. Early Empire used as a launch for several conquests into east and north.

Epirus

Imperial procurator

167 BCE

Nicopolis (capital) Butrint

3

Lycia

Senatorial former praetor

Letoum, Xanthus, Patara (capital), Phaselis

4

Lycaonia

Imperial

5

Achaea

Senatorial former praetor

167 BCE independent state. Joint province with Pamphylia in CE 43 160–64 BCE divided between Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia. 146 BCE and then formally in 22 BCE

6

Asia

Senatorial former consul

133 BCE (inherited). 129 BCE became a province

8

Crete and Cyrene

Senatorial former praetor

69 BCE

Ephesus (capital), Aphrodisias (free city), Miletus (free city) Gortyna (capital), Cyrene Knossos

9

Bithynia & Pontus

Imperial former praetor

64 BCE

10

Cicilia

Imperial former praetor

78–4 BCE, 67 BCE, 51–59 BCE (Vatia, Pompey, Cicero)

Iconium

Athens (capital) Sparta (free city) Corinth Patras

Nicomedia (capital) Nicea (capital) Byzantium, Prusa Apamea Olba, Seleucia-adCalyca, Dnum Tarsus (capital)

64 BCE Roman reorganization. Administration and borders often changing. Passed to Eumenes II of Pergamon then divided after Mithraditic wars. 146 BC attached to Rome after defeat in fourth Macedonian war. Corinth and later Athens sacked. Achaea subdued and peaceful. Trade, marble, cultural credibility Inherited from kingdom of Pergamum. first BCE mutinies, sacking of Ephesus and finally from Augustus onwards, strong economy and trade centers. Crete has initial resistance. Likely to have been taken with view of strategic stopover point for trade. Piracy is used in the sources as excuse. Timber exported from Crete. Siphnum (?) from Cyrene. Bithynia ceded to Rome in 75 BCE but joint province with Pontus after victories over Mithridates in 64 BCE

Issues with pirates and ‘uncivilized’ populations. A potential threat to the peace and stability of Empire. Various stages of subduing the province. Octavian finally succeeded in formalizing control.

Wealthy and prosperous

Mixture of cultures, Lycaonian and Greek

Cyrene was inherited by the Romans in 96 BCE. Originally a province on its own in 74 BCE then joined with Crete in 69 BCE.

As appendix to Syria, Syria was meant to deal with minor uprisings, etc.

Continued

ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies 891

2

Economy: overland trade (via Egnatia constructed). Agricultural land, gold, iron, and timber exports Sided with Macedonia. Defeated by Romans in third Macedonia war (Aemilius Paullus). Central areas still had tribes. Coastal regions did well. Declared independent after Rhodes had attempted colonization. Annexed by Claudius formally.

Other

Province

Type of admin (by CE 211)

Date a

11

Syria

64 BCE

12

Cyprus

Imperial former consul Senatorial former praetor

13

Moesia

Imperial former consul

14

Aegyptus

Equestrian

30 BCE

15

Galatia

25 BCE

16

Pisidia

Imperial former praetor Imperial

17

Cappadocia

Imperial former consul

58 BCE 22 BCE became senatorial province under Augustan consolidation of East. 44 BCE split into two by Domitian

102 original Roman interest. 25 BCE

CE 17

Some key cities (incl b capitals and colonies)

Reason for inclusion and economic resources

Palmyra, Damascus, Beirut Antioch (capital) Paphos (capital), Salamis, Soli. No colonies established

Annexed by Pompey

Tomis. Nicopolis ad Istrum. Naissus (capital) Odessus, Viminacium Oescus Alexandria (capital), Cairo, Thebes, Memphis Ancyra (capital) Germa

Natural resources (gold, minerals and farmland). Military importance. Defence of Thrace. Danube: communication hub. Was important for shoring up the frontiers of the Empire.

Sagalassos, Selge, Antiocheia (and also capital), Olbasa, Cremna Caesarea (capital), Comana, Tyana

Annexed by Rome while taking advantage of the ambiguous nature of the inheritance of Egypt. Piracy provided another excuse.

Other

Certain cities (eg., Palmyra) given autonomous rights (economic benefits to the Romans). For a time it was part of the province of Cilicia.

Less noticeable change in population with inclusion in Empire. Problems with Scythians and Sarmartins

Annexed by Augustus

Augustus formalized Roman control. Originally given to Cappodacia to govern but this failed. Pisidia was then joined with Cilicia. Very slow to adopt Eastern Roman koine. Annexed by Tiberius. Changeable relationship with Rome. With Anticochus but against Philip V and Mithradiates. Managed to support the winning sides after this, Pompey, Caesar, Augustus.

Quite but steady and economically secure.

892 ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies

Table 1 Continued

18

Thrace

Imperial former praetor

c. CE 46

19

Pamphylia

Joint province with Lycia in CE 43

20

Commagene

Senatorial former praetor Imperial

21

Judea

Equestrian

22

Arabia Petraea

Imperial former praetor

23

Dacia

Imperial former consul

c. CE 106

24

Armenia Inferior

Imperial

66 BCE initial Roman control. CE 114

Trapezus

Part of the Trajanic expansion to shore up gaps in the provinces.

25

Osroene

Imperial

CE 114 and CE 195

Edessa

26

Assyria

Imperial

CE 230

Nisbis

Originally part of the Trajanic expansion, became semi-autonomus and then annexed formally by Severus. Briefly controlled by Rome in 161 and CE 194. Difficult area due to heavy Parthian involvement.

CE 72 c. CE 100 finally brought fully under Roman control having been a client kingdom CE 105. Annexed by Trajan

Plovdiv (capital), Sardica, Philippopolis, Deultum. Adrianople Aspendus (neocorus), Perge (capital), Antalya, Side Samosata (capital) Jerusalem, Caesarea (capital), Sebaste

Petra (capital), Jerash, Philadelphia Philippopolis Bosra (capital) Sarmizegetusa (capital), Napoca, Apulum, Drobeta

Agriculture. Gold. Many areas functioned using Latin rather than Greek. Difficult provinces as always suffered from invasions and as battle ground.

Supported Pompey and then became client state under Augustus. Annexed by Vespasian. Originally annexed by Augustus in CE 6. Significant problem for the Romans. Originally under the governorship of Syria, several Jewish revolts.

Last independent kingdom in Asia Minor

Annexed from Kingdom of Nabetae.

Buffer zone, Danube, agriculture. Submitted to Trajan and then Hadrian divided the province.

Significant change with inclusion in Empire. Mixed population. Used Latin. Both free and occupied territories Always a difficult area due to incursions by neighboring tribes such as the Parthians (first–third CE)

ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies 893

a The dates given are those which are commonly accepted for the creation of the Roman province. There are variations on the dates and work is underway to produce a coherent reassessment of the foundation dates. b Seat of the Roman Governor.

894 ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies

the East. Notwithstanding, there are many shared common elements. In addition to the local existing architecture many provinces benefited from investment in new buildings, such as basilicas, amphitheaters, and heated baths. A range of housing from the urban domus, such as those multistoried buildings at Ephesus, to the rural villa, such as Herodes Atticus’ Villa at Loukou in the Peloponnese, to farmsteads, such as those identified in the Megalopolis survey was found throughout the Eastern Empire. Many of these buildings became showcases for the latest trends in art such as mosaics, wall painting, and sculpture. The somewhat laissez-faire attitude to religious expression in the provinces meant that in addition to the family and personal shrines a myriad of temples to different gods are found. In addition to temples to local gods (from Apollo to Baal) the temples of Imperial cult and the Capitoline triad were founded and, with the increased security of communication routes, came the spread of popular Egyptian religions such as Isis, Serapis, and other mystery cults such as Mithras. Although some cities continued to mint their own coins, provinces more often produced series of provincial coinage with the symbols and images of the ever-present Imperial ruler. Epigraphic evidence in the East provides insights into the nature of administration and economy (such as the tax code of Palmyra) and relations between Roman and local populations. It is clear that with a few exceptions and unlike the Western provinces, after an initial attempt to run the provinces using Latin as the official language, by the end of the first century CE, Greek had become the predominant language again, as seen in Corinth. A number of ceramic studies show similar patterns in densities of ceramic imports. As sites on Crete have shown, Italian forms were prevalent in the first half of the century but this gave way to a clear preference for Eastern Sigilliata B by the end of the century. Local wares and imitations remained a constant. A mixture of grave types is found depending on topography and population; lavish sarcophagi, rock cut tombs, and tile graves are just a few of the variety of types of mortuary evidence. New roads and aqueducts were constructed to facilitate communications and provide utilities. Current ceramic studies of the eastern Mediterranean (particularly in Corinth) are re-dating and presenting more refined chronologies. Additionally, more nuanced application of the ceramic evidence is leading to new theories concerning trade and economic, skills and technology in the East. To provide more detail about the archaeology of provinces, this section will examine four areas of the Eastern provinces in detail which will allow scope for a broad understanding. In presenting a brief survey of the Eastern Empire, allowance for the

nature of archaeological research should be factored in. The comparative dearth of rural evidence is slowly being addressed (as explained in the introduction). In the urban landscape, many of the Roman cities continued in use and are present-day occupied cities and thus much of their excavation has necessarily been patchy. In the following account, a range of areas has been chosen to reflect not only the different Roman establishments but also the diversity in archaeological material available for interpretation. Thus the areas are: . Corinth. Considered a new Roman foundation in a Senatorial province. . Knossos. A Roman colony created from a strongly anti-Rome city. . Palmyra. A key economic foundation in Syria, an Imperial province. . Paphlagonia and Achaea. The Rural Roman East.

Corinth in Achaea

With a few notable exceptions such as Sparta, the Achaean league was strongly opposed to Roman interference in the Peloponnese. Following powerful resistance Mummius sacked Corinth in 146 BCE during the Achaean war. Although the extent of depopulation of the city is likely to have been inflated somewhat in the sources, even so, the Roman investors had a reasonably clean slate from which to start in terms of constructing the new Roman city. Walbank notes clear evidence for the distribution of land, and settlers from Rome is evident with the establishment of the colony, Colonia Laus Julia Corinthiensis by Caesar in 44 BCE. Moreover, there was immediate investment in civic and domestic parts of the city. The forum with its stoas and shops, the Julian Basilica, Roman Temples C, D, E, F, G, and the Odeion were all established by the early first century CE. New houses, villas and baths were constructed and a fine collection of mosaics survives from the city. The success and wealth of the city is visible in the manifestation of conspicuous consumption seem in lavish buildings such as the Pierene fountain and the continuous investment in the Forum area. As a result of her position on the Isthmus and with some initial investment, during the Roman period, Corinth once again became a strong economic and strategic city. Her growing strength and position may have played a part in the reasoning behind Octavian’s foundation of the Colonia Aroe Augusta Patrensis at Patras on the western end of the Gulf of Corinth, intended to temper the potential power of Corinth. Extensive excavations have been undertaken at Corinth and contemporary urban development has

ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies 895

been limited, allowing for detailed research. The archaeology of Corinth in the Early Empire clearly points to close ties with Rome and the West. Until the time of Hadrian, Latin was the language of choice, outnumbering Greek inscriptions by 101 to 3. As Alcock has discussed the ceramic assemblages and the overtly Roman coins which were minted in Corinth suggest clear westernized traits. The situation of the Roman temples with their frontal emphasis along the east side of the forum, one of which is likely to be the Capitolium and the epigraphic details for the Imperial cult support this connection with Rome. Simultaneously however, the Greek temple of Apollo continues in use. As the epigraphic evidence supports, with the initial foundation of the colony a clearly westernized city is constructed, however as with other cities in Greece, by the second century CE the original Greek roots appear to be the stronger force in the cultural koine of the city. Knossos in Crete and Cyrene

Under the veil of cleansing the Mediterranean of pirates, Crete became a focus of Roman attention. With the exception of cities such as Gortyn, the island was strongly opposed to Roman rule and during the early part of the first century BCE there were valiant attempts to dispel the Romans from the island. Crete’s resistance finally collapsed and the island was taken by Metellus. In 69 BCE Crete and Cyrene become joint province with the provincial ‘capital’ at Gortyn. By 25 BCE Knossos had become the praetorian provinces’ only colony, Colonia Julia Nobilis Cnossus and while there is limited evidence to suggest a significant ‘westernization’ of the city, she certainly appears to have flourished. Knossos has not been affected by contemporary urban growth, but the bias of archaeological investigation has clearly been on Minoan material. Even with detailed archaeological survey, research into the Roman remains has often been curtailed by the desires to focus on the Bronze Age material. Coupled with this is a dearth of historical sources for the province of Crete and Cyrene. In recent years, the increasing academic attention that is being paid to Roman Knossos with more research (rather than rescue) excavation and synthetic studies of the material culture, a more in-depth understanding of the nature of change from Greek city to Roman colony is viable. There is limited evidence for Roman occupation of the city in the first century BCE/CE, however it is clear that by the late first century CE Knossos has developed into a prosperous peaceful city with evidence for many of the architectural manifestations of an Eastern Roman city.

In the first half of the first century BCE, the epigraphic and numismatic data from Knossos clearly points to early attempts to run colony on formal lines: for example, with coins, Italian duoviri, and official administration documents in Latin. In the ceramic assemblage there is an initial favoring of Italian wares which by the mid first century CE are replaced by the Asia Minor-originating Eastern Sigallata B but all the time, domestic production continues. In contrast to the Latin public and official inscriptions in the first century BCE, all evidence thus far suggests that private inscriptions continued in Greek. Greek burial customs (such as rock-cut tombs and tile graves) persisted with no significant evidence for Roman burial customs. By the late first century CE a perceptible change in the material culture with the construction of the so-called Civil Basilica and the theater is visible. This is enhanced with evidence from a range of buildings representing a good cross section of society such as the Villa Dionysos and the small bathhouse close by and the town house complex at the Unexplored mansion with its associated industrial area. In terms of the sacred landscape, material culture is limited, but excavations at the Demeter Sanctuary have shown it to continue in use until the Late Antique period. The inclusion of Roman buildings, particularly administrative buildings in the late first century CE suggests a change in the Knossian landscape. It seems that finally, a century after the foundation of the colony, the city began to fit into the developing koine of the Eastern Empire, but this was taken on, a process decided on by both the local and Roman population, rather than forced. Palmyra in Syria

Syria played a number of roles in the Eastern Empire. She was a significant economic resource for Rome, at times she acted as a buffer zone to the more problematic tribes to the East and for certain periods she played the role of policing her more obstreperous neighbors such as Judea. In spite of her wealth and in many respects compliance to Rome, Syria is often perceived to be a province on-edge and this is partly due to the fear of attack from the unconquered tribes that edged in across her borders (Persian incursions were always problematic). This was the case throughout Roman rule. When the first Roman incursions occurred and Pompey began to annex the province, the Arab Nabateans begin to move in from the south and they were even able to hold Damascus for a period (around 85 BCE). Due to the constant threats three legions were originally posted in Syria (they were later moved to Judea (during the second half of the first century CE)).

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Given the potential wealth of Syria, some cities were given the right to retain a certain degree of autonomy (as long as they behaved) and Damascus and Palmyra are two examples. This arrangement was largely because of the benefits they provided for the Roman economy (trade in the case of Palmyra and production of luxury items in the case of Damascus). Hadrian granted free status to Palmyra. It was probably because of its unusual status that Palmyra did not become a colony until CE 217. The archaeology reveals a stunning diversity of culture and a flourishing city. Located in the Syrian Desert, in an oasis 150 km from the Orontes River and 200 km from the Euphrates, the full extent of her isolation was perceived as an advantage to the Romans. There is remarkable preservation of the Roman town and many of the surviving buildings are a result of a renewed investment in the town after Hadrian’s status change for the city. Like most cities of the Eastern provinces, Palmyra had a multitude of buildings; the forum represented the heart of the city with its lavish architectural colonnades. Rich residential houses have been excavated in addition to the theater, banqueting hall, baths, market place and temples. The range of temples at Palmyra, from the temple of Baal-Shamin to the temple of Bel, to the temple of Lat reflects the myriad of gods, local and foreign that were freely worshipped in the city. The tax code of Palmyra provides a wealth of evidence about local trade and the cost of living. From this inscription it is also clear what kind of material was being traded in and out of the city; basic items such as purple-dyed wool, scented oil in alabaster jars, and salt to more luxurious material such as spices, perfume, ivory, and silk from the East in addition to glass and other fine objects from Phoenicia. The tax code highlights the nature of primarily local trade. In addition to the tax code, a range of inscriptions from across the Empire reveal the extent to which Roman governors could extract tax; from property tax to income tax to inheritance tax to export and import tax. Provinces were taxed directly from Empire, controlled by the local governors. It was organized on the basis of a census and the increase in tax revenue was normally routed into the maintenance of the provinces. This worked as an incentive and ultimately economy growth in the Empire. During the third century Palmyra’s power increased while Rome’s stability waned. Palmyra grabbed the opportunity and she began to seek independence from both Rome and Persia. These attempts culminated in Queen Zenobia attempting to defy the Romans which resulted in the sacking of the city in CE 273. The city never recovered and became a

simple frontier stronghold. In all, the archaeology of Palmyra allows a good insight into daily life of a Roman provincial trade center; from public display to private life. The Rural Landscape

There are a number of issues concerning an understanding of the rural landscape in the Roman provincial East. The bias in the historical sources is firmly on the urban setting and when reference to the rural landscape is made more often as an aside. Survey evidence has saved the rural landscape from disappearing from the academic radar, however significant problems still remain. Not all areas of the Eastern Empire have been surveyed, so the full extent of regional variation and topographic diversity is not fully understood, often leading to unsupported assumptions. Not all field surveys have the opportunity to test their results with stratigraphic excavation. As such, pottery sequences and identification of context might not be completely accurate, so there is a reliance on potentially misleading data. Geophyiscal data, for example, evidence which has been brought to light in the Dichin field surveys in Moesia, undertaken by Poulter and Boyd, has the potential to provide vast quantities of evidence on the architecture of the rural landscape. Moreover, unless excavation is undertaken on the identified sites, gaps in the chronology and function will be rife. Survey data from some regions have allowed some generalizations to become popular assumptions which are recently being challenged. For example, as Alcock has shown, survey data suggests that there was a decrease in rural activity after the initial conquest of Achaea which has been interpreted as increased urbanization. An increase in the occupation and exploitation of the countryside was visible in the third century and there was a perceived increase in construction of villas, farmsteads, and rural villages. This pattern is often taken as being common to many, if not all of the Eastern provinces. Given the diversity as discussed above, and given the acceptance that towns and provinces could be vastly different, there is no reason to assume a coherent pattern in the rural landscape. The variety of topography, natural resources, fertility, and trade and communication potential leads to vastly different inhabitation and exploitation of the rural setting. In the Eastern provinces few generalizations can be made, but what is clear is that agriculture was exploited, routes were carved through the landscape and industries were founded where ores and minerals provided incentive. In addition, occupation ranged from simple one-room dwellings to farmsteads including home industries such as

ASIA, WEST/Roman Eastern Colonies 897

olive production to farmstead/industry/villa combinations to luxury villas. Although many towns such as Palmyra or Corinth gained their wealth through trade, the local population was still dependent on agricultural productions to sustain them.

Processes of Inclusion: Globalization Current research is expanding the application of globalization theories to the understanding of the development of the Roman Empire. In light of postprocessual, and particularly cognitive approaches to archaeology, globalization is an attractive concept and one which ultimately might solve many of the problems of terminology (with terms such as ‘Romanization’ now recognized as being problematic) and further understanding of the development of the East under Roman control. For Roman studies, such an approach allows further exploration of issues of cognitive elements (particularly aspects of intentional and non-intentional processes in addition to allowing an explanation of a progressive change in material culture (as seen in most of the East) rather than a swift cultural impact. The subject of globalization as a modern concept is not without its controversies and these debates largely center on different applications of globalization. A basic and commonly accepted definition could be read as: ‘‘A social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding’’ as stated by Waters. Waters’ definition does not rely on economic processes (notwithstanding they are a factor) nor does it preclude the concept of culturally independent states within a globalized world. Instead it allows social practices, unpredictable by geographical location and concerns, the development of a region relative to the globalizing power (rather than simply becoming a version of that state). In this way localization can prosper in parallel. Importantly for the Roman period, the latter element permits a situation where relative positive and negative preferences can be expressed for the potential of the globalizing power. To put it in terms of the Roman Empire, albeit simplified, Rome gradually became a ‘superpower’ in the Mediterranean, provinces were bequeathed, submitted and lost to her and eventually all displayed Roman cultural elements to varying intensities and as a consequence of different processes on the part of the Romans and on the part of the indigenous population. In this sense, this is one of the most attractive elements of explanations of globalization of the

Roman Empire, that it allows for the intentional and nonintentional influence and adoption of cultural elements for both sides.

Conclusion and Outlook As theoretical approaches are developed, so too are the practical aspects; ceramic studies encourage more refined chronologies, underwater archaeology is providing new evidence in areas such as the Black Sea and landscape surveys are correcting the urban-focus bias. For many years the foundation of colonies in the East has been viewed through a lens of the Romans imposing their designs for model establishments on local provinces. A comprehensive examination of the colonies of the eastern Mediterranean together highlights the range of diversity within the provinces. Not only is an imposed model of ‘Roman-ness’ no longer sustainable but future studies which approach the material from the viewpoint of the Romans and of the individual cities will continue to reveal the multiplicity of societies that existed in the eastern Mediterranean for the first two centuries of Roman Imperial expansion. See also: Europe, South: Rome.

Further Reading Alcock S (1997) The Early Roman Empire in the East. Oxford: Oxbow Monographs No. 95. Alcock S (1993) Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge: CUP. Bowersock GW (1998) Roman Arabia. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Bowman AK (1986) Egypt After the Pharaohs. London: British Museum Press. Bowman AK and Rathbone D (1992) Cities and administration in Roman Egypt. The Journal of Roman Studies 82: 107–127. Butcher K (2003) Roman Syria and the Near East. London: British Museum Press. Christie N (ed.) Landscapes of Change. Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2004. ISBN 1-84014-617-6. Hingley R (2005) Globalizing Roman Culture. Unity, Diversity and Empire. London: Routledge. Millar F (1993) The Roman Near East, 31BC–AD 337. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Raddice B (1963) The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Penguin Classics. Walbank MEH (1997) The foundation and planning of Roman Corinth. Journal of Roman Archaeology 10: 95–130. Waters M (1995) Globalization. London: Routledge. Wells C (1984) The Roman Empire. London: Fontana. Whittaker C. R (1994) Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Wiseman J (1979) Corinth and Rome 1: 228 B.C. – A.D. 267. Aufstieg und Niedergang der ro¨mischen Welt II.7: 438–538.

898 ASIA, WEST/Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization

Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization

The first known use of metals in the Southern Levant is during the Chalcolithic period (end of fifth to most of the fourth millennium BC). Dating from that time more than 500 metal objects have been found mainly in hoards, burials, and habitation remains, most of the metals come from sites in the southern part of Israel and Jordan and very rarely from beyond the center of Israel and north of Nahal Qanah. Most of the metals belong to two major categories and there is also a third, minor category:

Currently, no production remains or production sites of these prestige/cult objects have been found. 2. Unalloyed copper tools comprising mainly of relatively thick and short bladed objects (axes, adzes, and chisels) and points (awls and/or drills) made from a smelted copper ore cast into an open mold and then hammered and annealed into their final shape and their blade’s or point’s hardness properties. The copper tools were produced in the Chalcolithic villages on the banks of the Beer-Sheva valley where slag fragments, clay crucibles, some possible furnace lining pieces, copper prills and amorphous lumps were found beside high-grade carbonated copper ore (cuprit). The ore was collected and selected in the area of Feinan in Trans-Jordan and transported to the Northern Negev villages some 150 km to the north to be smelted there for the local production of these copper objects. 3. A group of eight gold (Au) and electrum (Au þ up to 30% Ag) solid rings was found in Nahal Qanah cave. This unique find, with no dated parallels, is attributed by the excavators to the Chalcolithic period based upon local stratigraphic and geological reasons and 14C dating of ground samples from the vicinity of the find in the cave. Surface analyses of these objects revealed a surface gold enrichment caused by the depletion of silver and the copper traces. This effect could be caused naturally by deposition, but could as well result artificially at the time of production in order to achieve a yellow color for the electrum rings rich in silver. During the Chalcolithic (copper þ stone) era at least two, if not three different metal industries of different metals beside copper were operating and left their products in the Southern Levant.

1. Prestige/cult elaborated and complex-shaped objects made of copper (Cu) alloyed (either by a deliberate choice of complex minerals or by adding several minerals together) with distinct amount of antimony (Sb) or nickel(Ni) and arsenic(As). They were cast in a ‘lost wax’ technique into single closed clay molds and then polished into their final shining gray or gold like colors depending on the amount of antimony or nickel and arsenic in the copper. The biggest hoard (416 metal objects) comprising mainly of these highly artistically complex-shaped objects was found hidden in a remote cave (the cave of the treasure) in Nahal Mishmar, Judean desert, Israel, wrapped in a straw mat. The origin of the complex source material for the production of these objects is currently unknown. The nearest suitable ore is in Trans Caucasus and Azerbaijan – more then 1500 km from the finding sites of the objects. Several clay and stone cores and clay mold’s remains were petrographically analyzed and the results point to a possible local production within the metals distribution zone in Israel.

During the next thousand years of the Early Bronze (end of fourth to end of third millennium BC), the same unalloyed copper production of the Chalcolith (1) continued to produce short blades and points as before. The same metal technique was now used for the novel production of long-blade weapons (riveted daggers and knives, heavy tanged swords, and epsilonshaped axes). The same copper production technique of casting into an open mold and then hammering and annealing was now used to produce all other metals as well, including jewelry of thin plates, sometimes decorated, and elongated thin wires (mainly for rings and bracelets) made of unalloyed copper as well as from silver (first appearance) and gold. Archaeological remains of Early Bronze copper mining and copper smelting in the vicinity of the mines have been found in Trans-Jordan (Feinan), the Arava valley (Timnah), and Southern Sinai. The only remains of metal production are those of copper and include copper slag, prills, and amorphous copper lumps as well as small shallow ball-shaped clay crucibles with

Sariel Shalev, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Chalcolithic (Copper Age period) A phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. Levant A geographical term that refers to a large area in Southwest Asia, south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and Mesopotamia to the east. Tel Dan Also known as Tel el-Qadi , an archaeological site in Israel in the Upper Galilee next to the Golan Heights.

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a socket for inserting wooden handle. In the Early Bronze I site of the Ashkelon Marina in the southern part of the Israeli coast, small shallow open pits, probably for the melting of copper in a crucible, were found beside copper industrial remains. Most of the metal products are found in burials mainly from the Early Bronze I. The same types of metals continue to be found in sites and tombs throughout the whole Early Bronze and all over the local distribution map of Early Bronze sites. A single hoard of copper objects probably from the Early Bronze I was found with no related archaeological context in the fields of Kfar Monash. During the Early Bronze period the Southern Levant metal industry became more industrialized and homogenous in its production modes and the products typology. For the first time in the South Levantine metal history, significant typological and technological affiliations to the growing metal industries in the two major imperial centers (Egypt and Mesopotamia) on both sides of the Fertile Crescent are visible. During the whole Early Bronze age there is no archaeometallurgical evidence for bronze production and no bronze objects were used during this period in the Southern Levant (see Asia, West: Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures). More than 500 metal objects have been found that date to the Middle Bronze age (end of third to middle of second millennium BC). The development of more complex weapons (longer daggers, swords, complex battle axes, etc.) was possible by alloying the copper with arsenic at the beginning and tin (Sn) later to produce arsenical copper and tin bronze. These changes in the metal properties of weapons are reflected in a kind of a ‘mirror image’ in the composition of small objects like toggle pins that were probably made mainly from scrap re-melting. Lead (Pb) is starting to play a greater role as a major alloy for thick and relatively big casts of copper-based objects, mainly of battle axes at this period. During the Late Bronze age (second half of second millennium BC) more than 400 metal artifacts were found (c. 200 blade weapons, 140 metal vessels, some working tools and small arrow heads and decorative objects). All the blades analyzed were found to be made of tin–bronze and most of all other copperbase objects are either tin–bronze alloy or have tin in their metal as impurity. At this stage in history, large quantities of copper and tin ingots are found all over the coasts of the Mediterranean and in several shipwrecks under the sea, mainly in the southern coast of Turkey. Copper and copper-base metals continued to be the major metal in use during the first part of the Iron age (end of second to beginning of first millennium BC).

Bronze scrap re-melting remains (mainly v-shaped clay crucibles, slags, clay tuyers) and structures of open camp fires full of metal production remains were found in several sites in Israel associated mainly with the Philistines and the Sea People settlements on the coast (i.e., Tel Qasile, Tel Gerisa, Tel Dor) and Tel Dan in the north of Israel. Only later in the Iron Age metallic did iron start to play a major role as a base metal for tools and weapons. See also: Asia, West: Southern Levant, Chalcolithic

Cultures.

Further Reading Budd P, Pollard AM, Scaife B, and Thomas RG (1995) Oxide ingots, recycling and the Mediterranean metal trade. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 8(1): 1–3. Gershuny L (1985) Bronze Vessels from Israel and Jordan. Pra¨historische Bronzefunde II, 6 (Mu¨nchen). Hauptmann A (2000) Zur fruhen metallurgie des kupfers in Fenan/ Jordanien. Der Anschnitt Beiheft 11: 1–236. Levy TE and Shalev S (1989) Prehistoric metalworking in the Southern Levant: Archaeometallurgical and social perspectives. World Archaeology 20(3): 352–372. Miron E (1992) Axes and Adzes from Canaan. PBF IX, 19. Philip G (1989) Metal Weapons of the Early and Middle Bronze Age in Syria–Palestine. BAR Int. Series 526. Philip G (1991) Tin, arsenic, lead: Alloying practices in SyriaPalestine around 2000 BC. Levant XXIII: 93–104. Shalev S (1988) Redating the Philistine Sword at the British Museum: A case study in typology and technology. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7(3): 303–311. Shalev S (1993) Metal production and society at Tel Dan, In: Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990, Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology. pp. 57–65. Shalev S (1994) The change in metal production from the Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze age in Israel and Jordan. Antiquity 68: 630–637. Shalev S (1996) Archaeometallurgy in Israel: The impact of the material on the choice of shape, size and colour of ancient products. In: Archaeometry 94, The Proceedings of the Twentyninth International Symposium on Archaeometry, pp. 11–15. Ankara: Tubitak. Shalev S (2002) Metal Artifacts. In: Kempinski A. Tel Kabri – The 1986–1993 Excavation Seasons. pp. 307–318. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology, Monograph Series 20. Shalev S (2003) Early Bronze Age I copper production on the coast of Israel: Archaeometallurgical analysis of finds from AshkelonAfridar. In: Potts T, Roaf M, and Stein D (eds.) Culture through Objects: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P.R.S. Moorey, pp. 313–324. Oxford: Griffith Institute. Shalev S (2004) Swords and Daggers in Late Bronze Age Canaan. PBF IV, 13). Shalev S and Northover JP (1993) The metallurgy of the Nahal Mishmar Hoard reconsidered. Archaeometry 35(1): 35–47. Tadmor M, Kedem D, Begemann F, Hauptmann A, Pernicka E, and Schmitt-Strecker S (1995) The Nahal Mishmar Hoard from the Judean Desert: Technology, composition, and provenance. Atiqot XXVII: 95–148.

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of all the cave sites is Nahal Mishmar, also known as the Cave of the Treasure because of the hoard of over 400 metal artifacts discovered there.

Jonathan M Golden, Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA

Diagnostic Features

ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Chalcolithic Culture-historical-chronological period, literally, Copper–Stone Age, denoting a period of incipient metal use, while stone remained a primary technological medium. ossuary Also known as ‘bone box’, or ‘charnel house’, a receptacle made of ceramic or stone used to hold secondary human remains (e.g., long bones). Ossuaries are often rectilinear in form with a ‘string cut’ lid, and are often decorated with painted and applied designs (e.g., human faces).

Overview The Chalcolithic (c. 4700–3500 BC) was a period of major change throughout societies of the southern Levant. Basic food production systems of the Neolithic gave way to new subsistence strategies and technologies, and broad changes in overall economic organization (e.g., the rise of craft specialization) are evident. Changes in social organization as well have been observed with early signs of social inequality and the emergence of elite groups. Key Sites/Settlement Patterns

The Chalcolithic culture spread across most of the southern Levant, from the south, near Eilat, up to the Golan in the north, and from the Mediterranean coast east past the Rift Valley (Figure 1). One of the most important settlement sites, Teleilat Ghassul (Jordan), has been treated as a ‘type site’, though it may have been abandoned before the end of the period. The Beer Sheva sites of the northern Negev (e.g., Abu Matar and Bir es-Safadi) have also been treated as ‘type sites’, though they were not occupied during the earliest part of the Chalcolithic. Other key sites include the cluster of settlements that comprise the Golan subregional culture and Grar, Gilat, and Shiqmim, in the northern Negev. There was a sizeable mobile (e.g., pastoral-nomadic) population in the region as well in addition to the settled peoples. Shiqmim has the only extramural cemetery that is directly related to a Chalcolithic settlement, though in recent years a number of very important cave tomb sites have been discovered. These tombs include Peqi’in, Nahal Qanah, and Givat Ha-oranim. The most spectacular

Chalcolithic material culture is usually easily distinguished from that of other periods, though internal subchronologies are still lacking. Key diagnostic features include ceramic forms such as V-shape bowls, churns, and hole-mouth jars with lug handles; red painted bands are a common form of decoration. Several distinct classes of sculpted figurines have been observed, including the schematic ‘violin-shape’ figurines (Figure 2), the more naturalistic ivory figurines, ‘pillar’ figurines, especially in the Golan, and human heads made of basalt. Basalt was also used to make a range of vessels, most notably bowls and fenestrated stands. The lithic assemblage is noted for axes and awls, along with a variety of blade tools, including microblades made from a fine flint, and ‘fan-shape’ scrapers made from the so-called tabular flint. A novel material at the time was metal, mainly copper and copper with arsenic and antimony, along with one rare instance of gold and gold ‘alloys’.

Economic Organization Subsistence

Subsistence strategies of the Chalcolithic relied on a combination of farming and herding/animal husbandry. Two-rowed barley was the most common crop followed by wheat and lentil. Based on studies of archaeobotanical remains, specifically, phytoliths, it appears that simple irrigation techniques were used to assist in the cultivation of wheat and barley. Another breakthrough in farming technology was the use of cattle for traction in plowing, a development reflected in the faunal assemblage. Of course, animals also served as a primary source of food, with sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs being consumed at most sites (see Animal Domestication), though the latter are rare at sites where there is less rainfall. There was also a growing dependence on products such as wool and dairy, known as the ‘secondary products revolution’, evidenced by the presence of churns and an older population of female animals in the faunal assemblage. The low frequency of pulses at some sites (e.g., Shiqmim) suggests that the people were raising crops for fodder (see Plant Domestication). Craft Specialization

The success of these subsistence strategies no doubt freed up some time for dabbling in specialized

ASIA, WEST/Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures 901

Peqi'in Kabri N

Sea of Galilee

Akko Haifa

Rasm Harbush

G O L A N

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Farah(N) Nahal Qanah

Tel Aviv

Nablus

Wadi Rabah

Amman

Azor

Palmahim

Jericho

Gezer

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Abu Hamid

Jordan R

Bene Berak Giv'atayim

Adeimah

Jerusalem

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Tuleilat Ghassul

W. Zeita Dead Tel 'Erani

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Tel Halif

Tel Arad

Beersheva

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asa

an

id

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rmuk R .

MAKTESH RAMON

Figure 1 Map of Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in the southern Levant (courtesy of Y. Rowan).

production activities, and, in time, several craft industries, including ceramic production, textiles, basalt and ivory carving, and metallurgy, would emerge. Chalcolithic ceramic production reached a new level with a wide variety of forms and technological innovations such as the earliest use of the slow wheel. Basalt bowls and the elegant ‘fenestrated’ and high-footed incense stands reflect a high level of craftsmanship in the area of groundstone production. Though little is known about their manufacture, the quality of finished ivory goods, including human figurines and perforated

‘tusks’, also attests to the work of highly skilled craftspeople. Evidence for textile production comes in the form of loom weights and spindle whorls, floral remains such as preserved linseed (flax), tabular scrapers used as sheers, and cloth impressions preserved on the bases of ceramic vessels; in rare cases such as the Cave of the Treasure (Nahal Mishmar) and the Cave of the Warrior, the textiles have been preserved. The most outstanding technological development of the Chalcolithic was the local inception of copper. Though the initial technology may have been

902 ASIA, WEST/Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures

Figure 2 Chalcolithic figurines: (a) ivory female from Bir es-Safadi (by J. Golden, adapted from Perrot 1968: Pl. 5); (b) male ivory from Bir es-Safadi (by J. Golden, adapted from Perrot 1959: Pl.II); (c) stone ‘violin-shaped’ figurine from Gilat (by J. Golden, adapted from Alon and Levy 1989); (d) bone anthropomorphic figurine with violin shaped elements (by J. Golden, adapted from Levy and Golden 1996) (not drawn to scale).

introduced from elsewhere, by midway through the period, local smiths were producing metal at an advanced level. Two distinct industries have been identified: one based on the open-casting and hammering of relatively ‘pure’ copper to manufacture tool-shaped goods; and another involving the casting (lost-wax) of complex metals (i.e., copper with arsenic and antimony) to manufacture a range of goods, some quite elaborate in design (see Figure 3). Evidence for the ‘pure’ copper industry is known from village workshops such as that of Abu Matar and Shiqmim, while evidence for the complex metals industry is extremely rare. There are now, however, some indications that the two industries may have overlapped more than previously thought, and new clues pointing to the local production of complex metals have begun to surface (see Metals: Primary Production Studies of). A staple surplus would have been required to support the activities of craft specialists that were engaged in nonfood production, and evidence for communal storage facilities has been found at large central sites such as Gilat and Ghassul, suggesting a surplus of agricultural products, probably wheat or barley. The people of the Chalcolithic also engaged in longdistance trade, as material used to manufacture many of the fancy metal goods probably came from distant sources. Obsidian found at Gilat can be traced to sources in Turkey, and it is possible that some goods, such as ivory or the gold from Nahal Qanah, came from Egypt.

Social and Political Organization Inferences concerning social organization can be made based on the discovery of status symbols and

Figure 3 Cast metal objects: (a) ‘Ibex Standard’ from Nahal Mishmar; (b) vessel from Nahal Mishmar hoard (a and b by J. Golden adapted from Bar-Adon 1980: 44, No. 17; and 107, No. 158); (c) standard from Givat Ha-Oranim (by J. Golden, adapted from Namdar et al. 2004: 5.2:1).

luxury goods, and the hoard and burial contexts in which they are usually found. The complex metals serve as a good example, where great effort and expenditure went into the production of goods, which in the end, were buried, either in small caches or deep in some burial cave. The cave tombs themselves seem to reflect some form of social hierarchy (see Social Inequality, Development of); a tomb built of mud bricks was recently discovered at the site of Kissufim Road. The wealthier burials often contained a burial ‘kit’ consisting of fancy items made of basalt, ivory, and metal, along with fine ceramics (e.g., Cream Ware) and ceramic ossuaries, or ‘bone boxes’ that are usually decorated (see Figure 4). Nahal

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Figure 4 Ceramic ossuary from the Chalcolithic cave tomb at Peqi’in (drawing by J. Golden, after Gal et al. 1999).

Qanah contains the earliest gold in the region along with several copper and copper ‘alloy’ goods, and objects. In most cases, the tombs contained the remains of multiple individuals, suggesting that they were not dedicated to any one individual, but perhaps to certain lineages. Peqi’in, which had at least 250 ceramic ossuaries, and the remains of at least 450 individuals, was probably used over the course of several generations. While the rare exotic goods and rich tombs indicate that not all people had equal access to wealth and status, differences in house size have not been observed at the settlement sites, which might be expected were there marked variation in social status (see Settlement System Analysis; Household Archaeology; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites). It is difficult to say much about political organization in Chalcolithic societies. There has been considerable debate regarding this, with some scholars arguing that there was little evidence for sociopolitical complexity, while others disagree. It is possible that the aforementioned cave tombs contained the burials of political leaders, but it is difficult to distinguish archaeologically between evidence for wealth and power. Nahal Mishmar, where there was a concentration of over 200 metal maceheads, may provide evidence for organized conflict.

Ritual and Religious Practice There is a wealth of material representing ritual and religious practice during the Chalcolithic, though much of it remains enigmatic (see Ritual, Religion, and Ideology). The well-known ceramic statues from Gilat (‘Gilat Lady’ and ‘Ram with Cornets’) likely represent ritual icons or paraphernalia. There are also smaller figurines that may have been used in

ritual practice. ‘Violin-shape’ figurines have been found at sites such as Peqi’in, Ghassul, and Gilat where there are over 50 examples made from a variety of materials, many directly associated with the sanctuary. The ivory figurines appear mainly in the Beer Sheva area, and a unique bone figurine blending elements of the two traditions has been found at Shiqmim. Other evidence for cultic practice includes massebot, or standing stones found at a number of sites, and fenestrated incense burners, named as such because traces of charring as well as their form suggest they were used for the burning of organic material. Sites with cultic architecture include Ein Gedi, Gilat, and Teleilat Ghassul, where archaeologists have excavated clusters of building and open courts identified as temple complexes. At Ghassul, portions of murals depicting what appear to be mythical figures have been preserved. See also: Animal Domestication; Asia, West: Archaeol-

ogy of the Near East: The Levant; Household Archaeology; Metals: Primary Production Studies of; Plant Domestication; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Settlement System Analysis; Social Inequality, Development of; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites.

Further Reading Bar Adon P (1980) The Cave of the Treasure. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Journal. Epstein C (1998) The Chalcolithic Culture of the Golan. (with a contribution by Tamar Noy). Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Gilead I (1988) The Chalcolithic period in the Levant. Journal of World Prehistory 2: 397–443. Golden J (1998) Dawn of the Metal Age: The Origins of Social Complexity in the Southern Levant. London: Equinox Publishing. Gopher A and Tsuk T (1996) Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology: The Nahal Qanah Cave: Earliest Gold in the Southern Levant. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Levy TE (1986) The Chalcolithic period. Biblical Archaeologist 49: 83–106. Levy TE (ed.) (2006) Anthropology, Archaeology and Cult – The Chalcolithic Sanctuary at Gilat, Negev Desert, Israel. London: Equinox Publishing. Lovell JL (2001) BAR International Series 974: The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in the Southern Levant: New Data from Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan. Oxford: Archaeopress. Perrot J (1993) Beersheba: The Chalcolithic settlements. In: AviYonah M and Stern E (eds.) NEAEHL, vol. 1, p. 161–163. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Carta. Scheftelowitz B and Oren E (1997) Givat ha’oranim (Nahal Barequet). New Antiquities: Recent Discoveries from Archaeological Excavations in Israel, p. 20. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum. Rowan Y and Golden J (in prep.) The Chalcolithic of the southern Levant. Journal of World Prehistory.

904 ASIA, WEST/Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures

Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures Marcel Otte, Universite´ de Lie`ge, Lie`ge, Belgium ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Acheulean An archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with prehistoric hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of Asia and Europe. Middle Palaeolithic Second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Upper Palaeolithic Third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.

The modern territory of Turkey extends in latitude more than 2000 km. In the east, it penetrates the Asian continent to the Iranian border. Its western extremity belongs to Balkan Europe, beyond the Marmara Sea. Geographically, politically, and archaeologically, this immense country thus establishes the link between the three continents of the Old World, Africa included. In effect, the varied relief

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of the western plateaus were characterized to the east by the extension of the Rift delineating the Levantine coast. Further still, southeast Anatolia belongs primarily to Mesopotamia, opening toward Iraq and Iran. The north, bordered by the Black Sea and the Caucasus, seems to have limited cultural currents. In contrast, the southern coast on the Mediterranean favored different forms of exchange from the Levant to Europe (see Europe: Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies). Despite its size and important geographic position, Palaeolithic Turkey has been the subject of only a few foreign research projects. However, different Turkish institutions have undertaken numerous surveys, evidencing the potential abundance of sites to be excavated. Having participated in several field campaigns with our Turkish friends and various foreign colleagues, we present here a summary of essential knowledge (Figure 1). The earliest traces of human occupations were apparently discovered at Dursunlu, in central Anatolia at the bottom of a brown coal quarry. A small series of artifacts were found in association with Lower Pleistocene faunal remains, dated to around a million years ago. Artifacts include irregular flakes on rough rocks and small worked cobbles. The

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Lower Palaeolithic layer, dated to around 400 000 years ago, seems to be attached to the same tradition: unprepared flakes, worked cobbles. This extends the European traditions present in Bulgaria to the edge of the Marmara Sea (Figure 2). The situation is completely different in eastern Anatolia: the high basins of the Euphrates and its tributaries are encased in deep limestone deposits with abundant flint sources. This vast geographic area

technology has no relationship to the Acheulean, already present in Israel and Iran. This part of Anatolia seems to belong to Eurasian traditions of this period, such as have been found at Dmanisi in Georgia, Korolevo in the Ukraine, and Riwat in Pakistan. In European Turkey, the cave of Yarımburgaz was excavated by a team from the University of Istanbul and the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to interesting Neolithic phases represented, a

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contains, for the most part, Acheulean traditions of African origin, as in the southern Levant and the northern Caucasus. However, the lack of precise stratigraphic context (apart from the depth of the geological stage) prevents dating of the sequence, apparently of long duration, if one uses the technotypology of bifaces. A single site, Sehremuz, has yielded a well-preserved industry which has been subjected to functional analysis. In central Anatolia, at Kalatepe, the excavation of a Neolithic tell also yielded a perfectly preserved Acheulean industry on obsidian. Still being studied, it appears to correspond to the workshops present in this region where obsidian is abundant. Acheulean diffusion continues in this way toward the western part of the Anatolian plateau, but apparently becomes more limited as bifaces become rarer. After pioneering research by Professor I. Ko¨kten from Ankara, followed by the excavations by I. Yalc¸inkaya and H. J. Mu¨ller-Beck, we have continued the study of a

long stratigraphic sequence in the Karain caves near Antalya. Chamber E has yielded the longest sequence, some 10 m thick and still being excavated. Available dates show that the middle assemblages are situated around 300 000–400 000 years ago, but the base remains undated. Briefly, we can state that the base has assemblages containing rough, unprepared, flakes, similar to those found at Dursunlu¨. The middle phase corresponds to the ‘European Charentian’, with irregular debitage, massive platforms, thick bulbs, and tools with scalar retouch. The upper part of the sequence, representing the last 100 000 years, contains increasingly elaborate ‘Levallois’ industries. A few isolated Neanderthal teeth were found associated with the Upper Mousterian. The sequence ends with dispersed Epipalaeolithic traces (Figure 3). A dichotomy is observed regarding lithic raw material use: the ‘Charentian’ is made of green or red radiolarite of local origin while Levallois methods were applied to flint of homogeneous texture. Thus,

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Figure 3 Karain E, Middle Palaeolithic. Artifacts from the ‘Charentian’ (lower) and the ‘Levallois’ (upper) industries. After Otte et al. (1996) Pale´olithique ancien de Karaı¨n (Turquie). Anthropologie et Pre´histoire 107: 149–156.

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near natural outcrops (e.g., in a radius of 100 km around Karain), numerous workshops evidencing Levallois reduction are present, from which certain elements were transported over long distances, where they appear at sites as intrusive. As during the Acheulean, the basins of the eastern rivers were also abundantly used as Middle Palaeolithic ‘quarries’. Surface survey has shown the presence of numerous workshops characterized by utilization of methods similar to those of the Levant. The Anatolian Middle Palaeolithic thus ends with a dichotomy, perhaps partially linked to accessibility of lithic raw materials. In the mountainous arc joining the Taurus and the Zagros, the ‘Charentian’ industries, typically involving radiolarite, also contain numerous heavily retouched tools. In the central basins, assemblages of Levallois character, made on flint, evoke the Levant all the more as they sometimes include bifacial pieces, calling to mind the Yabrudian. At the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, all of these assemblages apparently disappeared (as well as the populations making them?), being replaced by two entirely different traditions. At the site of Karain B, the Charentian is replaced by the abrupt appearance of a ‘classic’ Aurignacian, with carinated tools and finely retouched Dufour bladelets. If not for the absence of a bone industry, this Aurignacian would be identical to that found in Georgia and Iran. It could thus correspond to a movement coming out of Central Asia, related to modern humans (see Modern Humans, Emergence of) (Figure 4). By contrast, in the Hatay region, in the Turkish Levant, the cave of Uc¸agizli, formerly excavated by Ko¨kten, and subsequently by S. Kuhn and a Turkish team, has yielded a completely different industry. This industry is attributed to the Early Upper Palaeolithic, dated to 32 000 BP, and contains long, regular blades, sometimes retouched into curved backed points. Technological and typological criteria clearly associated these assemblages to the Ahmarian of the Near East, for which it would represent a recent phase and the northernmost expansion from its origin in the Negev, defined recently by A. E. Marks. The assemblages themselves seem to follow Nilotic traditions. At the Turkish site, pendants have also been discovered, which are the earliest examples, clearly original to the Anatolian Palaeolithic (Figure 5). A new ‘hiatus’ apparently seems to have taken place following the Early Upper Palaeolithic. To our knowledge, the late Aurignacian is not present in Turkey and the Ahmarian disappears. The sequence resumes around 18 000 BP, present in the upper part of Karain B, more particularly at

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o¨ku¨zini, and finally at some plateau sites, at Tel Ilipinar or Pinarbasi. Traces of a Late Mesolithic were discovered at Beldibi and Belbasi, near Antalya. ¨ ku¨zini are The two sequences of Karain B and O complementary and additionally geographically close

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Neolithic (Go¨bekli Tepe, Nevali Cori). Through such evidence, one thus recognizes the extreme cultural diversity represented by Anatolia, to which the prehistory of the Near East is indebted. See also: Asia, West: Paleolithic Cultures; Europe: Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies; Europe, Eastern, Peopling of; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Modern Humans, Emergence of. 0

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¨ ku¨zini Late Upper Palaeolithic. Artifacts from the Figure 6 O three lithic phases. After Otte M, Yalc¸inkaya I, Le´otard J-M, et al. ¨ ku¨zini cave (SW Anatolia) and its (1995) The Epi-Palaeolithic of O mobiliary art. Antiquity 69: 931–944.

(only a few kilometers between the two sites). From 18 000 to 16 000 BP, the assemblages contain short, retouched blades with curved back, producing points similar to ‘Azilian’ or ‘Kebaran’ points. The toolkits increasingly tend toward bladelets segmented to make microlithic armatures, with a true developmental break in technology (Figure 6). Evidence of sedentism appear (gathering of terrestrial mollusks, grinding), although the economy remains hunting-based (wild sheep and goats) until the Holocene. If one takes into account other evidence of ‘Holocene hunters’, located in coastal regions, it is possible to imagine that the hunter-gatherer way of life persisted in these areas while the Neolithic became well established on the central plateaus (e.g., at C¸atal Hu¨yu¨k). If, moreover, we consider the eastern part of this vast country (Urfa, Diabakyr), we note the presence of a very early and prestigious pre-pottery

Further Reading Bar-Yosef O (1994) The Lower Palaeolithic in the Levant. Journal of World Prehistory 8(3): 211–265. Celiberti V, Barsky D, Cauche D, et al. (2004) Les industries lithiques archaı¨ques du site de Dmanisi, Ge´orgie. In: BAR International Series 1272 : Section 4 : Human origins and the Lower Palaeolithic. General sessions and posters. Proceedings of the XIVth international Congress of the UISPP, 2–8 September 2001, Lie`ge, pp. 29–36. Oxford: BAR. Dennell RW, Rendell H, and Hailwood E (1998) Early tool-making in Asia: Two-million-year-old artefacts in Pakistan. Antiquity 62: 98–106. Gu¨lec¸ E, Clark Howell F, and White TD (1999) Dursunlu – A new Lower Pleistocene faunal and artefacts-bearing locality in Southern Anatolia. In: Ullrich H (ed.) Hominid Evolution. Lifestyles and Survival Strategies, pp. 349–364. Gelsenkirchen: Archae. Kuhn SL, Arsebu¨k G, and Clark Howell F (1996) The Middle Pleistocene lithic assemblage from Yarimburgaz cave, Turkey. Pale´orient 22(1): 31–49. Kuhn SL, Stiner MC, and Gu¨lec¸ E (1999) Initial Upper Palaeolithic in south-central Turkey and its regional context: A preliminary report. Antiquity 73: 505–517. Lioubine VP (2002) ERAUL 93: L’Acheule´en du Caucase. Lie`ge: ERAUL. Otte M (2004) The Aurignacian in Altai. In: Brantingham PJ, Kuhn SL, and Kerry KW (eds.) The Early Upper Paleolithic beyond Western Europe, pp. 144–150. Berkeley: University of California Press. Otte M, Biglari F, Alipour S, Naderi R, and Hosseini J (2004) Earliest human occupations in Central Asia: an Iranian look. In: Derevianko AP and Nokrina TN (dir.) Archaeology and Palaeolithic in Eurasia, pp. 279–282. Novosibirsk. Otte M, Yalc¸inkaya I, KozLowski JK, Bar-Yosef O, Lo´pez Bayo´n I, and Taskiran H (1998) Long-term technical evolution and human remains in the Anatolian Palaeolithic. Journal of Human Evolution 34: 413–431. Otte M, Yalc¸inkaya I, Le´otard J-M, et al. (1995) The Epi-Palaeolithic of o¨ku¨zini cave (SW Anatolia) and its mobiliary art. Antiquity 69: 931–944. Slimak L, Roche H, Mouralis D, et al. (2004) Kaletepe Deresi 3 (Turquie), aspects arche´ologiques, chronologiques et pale´ontologiques d’une se´quence ple´istoce`ne en Anatolie centrale. C.R. Palevol 3: 411–420. Tas¸kiran H (1998) The distribution of bifaces in Anatolia. In: Otte M (ed.) ERAUL 85 Pre´histoire d’Anatolie. Gene`se de deux mondes, pp. 569–577. Proceedings of the international symposium in Lie`ge, 28 April–3 May 1997. Lie`ge: ERAUL. Yalc¸inkaya I and Otte M (2000) De´but du Pale´olithique supe´rieur a` Karain (Turquie). L’Anthropologie 104: 51–62. Yalc¸inkaya I, Otte M, Kozlowski JK, and Bar-Yosef O (2002) ¨ ku¨zini: Final Paleolithic evolution in Southwest ERAUL 96: O Anatolia. Lie`ge: ERAUL.

B BEHAVIORAL ARCHAEOLOGY Michael B Schiffer, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary behavioral archaeology A theoretical program for studying the interactions of people and artifacts in all times and all places, formulated by J. Jefferson Reid, Michael B. Schiffer, and William Rathje at the University of Arizona during the early 1970s. processual archaeology A program for an explicitly scientific archaeology dedicated to studying culture process that arose during the early 1960s at the University of Chicago under the leadership of Lewis R. Binford. Pueblos Apartment-like dwellings of modern Puebloan people of the northern American Southwest and their ancestors, usually built of stone, occasionally of adobe.

Historical Foundations An outgrowth of the ‘new’ archaeology or ‘processualism,’ behavioral archaeology emerged at the University of Arizona in the early 1970s (see Processual Archaeology). During these years, processual archaeology was approaching its peak popularity, practiced by a coterie of recruits exposed to its tenets in graduate school. However, seeking to carve out niches in the discipline, many young processualists eschewed establishment of a theoretical orthodoxy and went their separate ways. Some employed anthropological theories; others introduced theories from systems engineering, economics, and ecology; and a few drew inspiration from the philosophy of science. As a consequence, various schools of processualism arose and began to feud with each other, initiating a period of great intellectual ferment. The prospect of an archaeology riven by factions stimulated one of behavioral archaeology’s first contributions. While still a graduate student at Arizona, J. Jefferson Reid delineated a common ground on which all archaeologists could stand. His proposal consisted of several fundamental tenets. First, archaeology was defined as the discipline that studies ‘‘relationships between human behavior and material

culture in all times and all places’’. Second, depending on their training and interests, archaeologists could ask historical (particular, idiographic) or scientific (general, nomothetic) research questions. Thus, archaeology has both historical and scientific components, and the flow of questions and findings among them contributes to the discipline’s integration. Third, four strategies of a behavioral archaeology can be delineated on the basis of the kind of questions being asked (historical or scientific) and the temporal referents of the behavior and material culture being studied (past or present). These four strategies encompassed archaeologies of every variety, new and old, and also hinted at future developments. In collaboration with Michael B. Schiffer, a fellow graduate student, and William L. Rathje, a young faculty member at Arizona, J. Jefferson Reid fleshed out these ideas and developed their implications for archaeological practice. The Four Strategies

Strategy 1 is the study of past material culture in order to answer historical questions – descriptive and explanatory – about past human behavior and societies, and encompasses most of prehistoric, historical, classical, and industrial archaeologies. This strategy was expected to remain the core of archaeology, and it has. In strategy 2, which includes experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology (see Experimental Archaeology), one asks scientific questions of present-day material culture in order to craft principles useful for studying past behavior. Since the discipline’s inception, archaeologists have conducted experiments and made observations in living societies, but these activities were sporadic, unsystematic, and did not lead to the cumulative growth of principles. Behavioralists anticipated that as the need for principles became more widely appreciated, strategy 2 would undergo a dramatic expansion. These forecasts have been realized, for archaeologists now perform experiments on a bewildering array of subjects and carry out ethnoarchaeological research in both traditional and industrial societies. As predicted, both experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology, now often undertaken with

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rigorous research designs that build on previous studies, have generated numerous principles; these mounting scientific products have profoundly affected the understanding of past lifeways, especially those of hunter-gatherer and mid-level societies. Strategy 3 embodies the long-standing belief that archaeology alone has access to records of long-term behavioral change. Thus, argued processualists such as Fred Plog, the study of past material culture could enable archaeologists to formulate principles for explaining change in past (and present) human behavior and societies. Although Reid and his collaborators expected that strategy 3 would expand rapidly, this has not happened. For the most part, archaeologists continue to borrow artifact-free theory (now called ‘social theory’) from other disciplines rather than create explanatory principles more suitable for engaging the material record of the past. Finally, the advent of William L. Rathje’s ‘Le Projet du Garbage’ led to the designation of a fourth strategy: the study of modern material culture to address historical questions about modern behavior, especially in industrial societies. Arguing that archaeology uniquely possessed the conceptual tools for handling the artifacts of ongoing societies, behavioralists believed that this strategy would enjoy a rapid florescence. Such research continues to increase and diversify, but slowly. Ironically, several archaeologists who immediately appreciated the possibilities of strategy 4, including Richard Wilk and Daniel Miller, became cultural anthropologists. Rathje’s garbage project remains the paradigmatic example of strategy 4 research. When published in 1975, the four strategies served a useful purpose, calling attention to decades-long trends in the discipline’s development, discerning emerging research frontiers, and giving impetus to the expansion of experimental and ethnoarchaeological research. However, the scheme was far less successful in achieving its aim of reintegrating the discipline. Indeed, beginning in the mid-1980s, under the impacts of postprocessualism and evolutionism, the discipline continued to fission into warring camps. Archaeological Inference

Prior to the publication of the four strategies, behavioralists had taken issue with the epistemological foundations of processualism, that is, its fundamental assumptions about how archaeologists fashion inferences about past human behavior. Processualists expounded a model of inference that went approximately as follows. Because human behavior is patterned, the archaeological record (a product of human behavior) also must be patterned. Therefore,

by applying pattern-discovery statistics to archaeological materials, one can extract statistical patterns that directly reflect past behavioral patterns. The principles enabling processual inference were called ‘correlates’, which codified patterns of human behavior in relation to material culture. Thus, in his classic inference of marital residence patterns at Broken K Pueblo, in east-central Arizona, James N. Hill employed a correlate linking matrilocal residence to the spatial distribution of female-associated stylistic attributes of pottery. Schiffer and Reid argued that the processual model of inference, though appealing in its simplicity, nonetheless failed to account for processes that intervened between past behaviors of interest and present-day properties of the archaeological record, the latter manifest as formal, quantitative, spatial, and relational (associational) variability. These intervening processes were termed ‘formation processes of the archaeological record’, and encompass cultural phenomena such as trash disposal, burial of the dead, and the loss and abandonment of artifacts, as well as environmental phenomena including animal disturbances, chemical weathering, and fluvial deposition and erosion. Principles of cultural formation processes are called ‘c-transforms’, those of environmental processes ‘n-transforms’. Formation processes themselves were said to be highly patterned, in causes and in consequences, and so could create or modify archaeological patterns. Clearly, argued Schiffer and Reid, an appreciation for the operation and effects of formation processes demonstrated that the syllogism supporting the processual model of inference was defective: archaeological patterns do not directly mirror past behavioral patterns. (Early applications of the formation-process perspective to prehistory can be found in special issues of The Kiva – in 1974 on Grasshopper Ruin (J. Jefferson Reid, editor), and in 1975 on Antelope House (J. T. Rock and D. P. Morris, editors) – and in Schiffer’s 1975 consideration of Dalton settlement patterns in Plains Anthropologist.) To address the inadequacies of the processual model of inference, behavioralists crafted their own models. A foundation was laid in Schiffer’s 1972 American Antiquity paper, ‘Archaeological context and systemic context’, which stressed the importance of keeping conceptually and analytically distinct the systemic and archaeological contexts of artifacts. In systemic context, an artifact or place is participating in a behavioral system; in archaeological context, the artifact or place is no longer taking part in a behavioral system, having been output to the archaeological record. Conflating these two contexts, as did the processual model, precluded rigorous

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inferences. This paper emphasized that artifacts have ‘life histories’, which can be coarsely modeled as a series of processes, including procurement, manufacture, maintenance, use, and discard. Three types of refuse were also defined: ‘primary refuse’, discarded in its location of use; ‘secondary refuse’, discarded in nonuse locations; and ‘de facto refuse’, artifacts not discarded, per se, but abandoned along with an activity area. Upon a life-history foundation, Schiffer presented in Behavioral Archeology (1976) the synthetic model of archaeological inference. The core idea is that of a symmetry between inference and explanation: an inference is a statement about past behavior whose justification also explains particular properties of the archaeological record. In justifying an inference, then, one constructs an argument employing correlates, c-transforms, n-transforms, and stipulations (relevant assumptions) that accounts for the successive transformations that took place during the life histories of the artifacts (and places and ecofacts) serving as evidence. For making fine-grained behavioral inferences, Schiffer also presented a detailed lifehistory model, the ‘behavioral chain’, which focuses on specific activities instead of general processes. In 1978 Alan Porter Sullivan III published in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory a model of inference that divided life histories into ‘trace-production contexts’, those intervals during which traces of particular processes and activities are ‘mapped onto’ artifacts and surfaces. Inferences are constructed by partitioning traces into their respective trace-production contexts. Thus, in inferring the use of a chipped-stone tool on the basis of microflakes, one has to partition out microflakes created by nonuse processes such as abrasion during manufacture, trampling, soil movement, shovel or bag wear, and museumdrawer retouch. The result of this partitioning process is isolation of the set of microflakes that can serve as strong evidence for inferring tool use. The partitioning process of Sullivan’s model is enabled by the synthetic model’s correlates, c-transforms, and n-transforms. Together, the synthetic model and the traceproduction model established the gold standard of archaeological inference. One could no longer ignore formation processes when constructing inferences and accounting for properties of the archaeological record. To assist the building of well-justified inferences, Schiffer published, in 1987, Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record, a compendium of c-transforms and n-transforms that drew on recent findings in experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and geoarchaeology. This book also presented detailed case studies of Hohokam chronology and

Broken K ceramics, showing precisely the importance of taking into account formation processes, whether one is dealing with the social inferences of processualists or the chronological inferences of culture-historians. Behavioral archaeology’s contributions to archaeological inference and to the understanding of formation processes have been widely appreciated. Indeed, many archaeologists working in strategy 1 – operating with behavioral models of inference, incorporating findings from strategy 2, and controlling for formation processes – have greatly expanded our knowledge of past human behavior throughout the world. These innumerable achievements cannot be cataloged in this brief article; rather, the focus is on more recent developments of behavioral method and theory.

Behavioral Archaeology Today Surprisingly, one unanticipated effect of the program’s success has been the overshadowing of other behavioral research agendas. Perhaps many archaeologists believe, erroneously, that the practice of behavioral archaeology is confined to conducting experiments, doing ethnoarchaeology, and studying formation processes. From the very beginnings of the behavioral program in the 1970s, however, practitioners began to refine, and develop further implications of Reid’s new definition of the discipline and to extend the applicability of the life-history framework to topics beyond inference and formation processes. Moreover, behavioralists delineated new research areas in the course of responding to the advent, in the 1980s, of evolutionary and postprocessual archaeologies. These latter programs called attention to a host of research questions that processualists had underemphasized, including social power and inequality, ideology, religion and ritual, meaning and symbols, and evolution defined as the differential persistence of discrete variants. Beginning in the 1980s a ‘new’ behavioral archaeology arose, also among students and faculty at the University of Arizona, which sought to show that the program could address contemporary issues including those prioritized by postprocessualists and evolutionists. Back to Basics

Before engaging these issues, behavioralists had to revisit some fundamentals. The first move was to modify slightly the behavioral definition of archaeology. William H. Walker and others pointed out, in the introduction to Expanding Archaeology, that early behavioral formulations had included the commonsense idea that behavior is an organism’s muscular

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movements. Thus, defining archaeology as the study of relationships between human behavior and material culture placed artifacts outside human behavior, as mere constituents of the environment beyond the body. The revised definition rests on the tenet that behavior, as ‘activities’, involves both people and artifacts interacting; artifacts and behavior are inseparable. Moreover, artifacts consequentially take part in every activity, such as harvesting grain, a Passover seder, and playing poker. Archaeology is redefined as the study of people–artifact interactions in all times and places. As Rathje and Schiffer pointed out in Archaeology (1982), specific interactions can be aggregated into ever-larger units of analysis, ranging from the nearly instantaneous act of striking a flake from a chert core to the centuries-long life history of a complex society. Interactions and Performance Characteristics

In The Material Life of Human Beings (1999), Schiffer and Miller specified varieties of interactions. The principal ‘interaction modes’ are mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, and electromagnetic. One can also define interactions in relation to human senses. For example, olfactory interactions are essentially chemical, whereas taste involves both chemical and mechanical interactions. Similarly, tactile and acoustic interactions are mechanical, and visual ones are electromagnetic. Even the simplest activity can involve interactions in many modes. Thus, ‘writing a letter with a pen and paper’ includes mechanical interactions between person and pen, between pen and paper, between paper and a support such as a table; and visual interactions between person and paper. Similarly, a soldier saluting an officer involves, minimally, the mechanical interactions between an officer and his or her uniform, and the mutual visual interactions between soldier and officer. In order for an interaction to take place, thereby enabling an activity to proceed, each participating interactor – whether person, artifact, or extern (any phenomenon of the noncultural environment) – must carry out one or more performances. Each interactor’s performance is made possible by a ‘performance characteristic’, which is the capability, competence, or skill that comes into play during a specific interaction. In the letter-writing example, a pen is capable of delivering ink when pressed against the paper; the paper is able to receive and absorb the ink; the ink dries quickly and remains visible; the paper’s support is firm; and the writer possesses the competence to compose text in a particular language and the ability to manipulate a pen. In saluting an officer, the soldier is able to recognize an officer’s uniform and can raise his or her arm appropriately. Human behavior at all

scales consists of aggregates of specific interactions enabled by relevant performance characteristics. Artifact functions The concepts of performance characteristic and interaction mode help one to place traditional discussions of artifact function – the role(s) an artifact plays in an activity – on a firm behavioral foundation. Drawing inspiration from an earlier effort by Lewis R. Binford, Rathje and Schiffer, in Archaeology, designated three basic functions: ‘technofunction’, ‘socio-function’, and ‘ideo-function’. A techno-function is a utilitarian function, which can involve the transport, storage, or alteration of materials. Most activities involve artifacts that perform techno-functions: ceramic crucibles for pouring molten steel, chairs to support people while taking notes, and a cabinet to hold sacred scrolls. Artifacts performing socio-functions communicate information about social phenomena among an activity’s participants and/or between that social unit and others. Artifacts with socio-functions, silently communicating social facts, are ubiquitous and affect interpersonal interaction in many activities. Ideofunctions are served by artifacts that encode or symbolize ideas, values, knowledge, and information. Clearly, artifacts can perform more than one kind of function, even in the same activity. Thus, in cruising around town, a Hummer 2 automobile moves people and cargo from place to place (techno-function), denotes membership in the group of wealthy drivers favoring a military-derived vehicle (socio-function), and (in the view of some observers) proclaims contempt for environmental values (ideo-function). All functions reduce to one or more specific interactions, each enabled by particular performance characteristics. Thus, in pounding a nail into a piece of wood (techno-function), a hammer is capable of interacting appropriately with the person wielding it and with the nail. In order for a doctor’s uniform to properly affect social interaction in a hospital (sociofunction), it has to perform in a visually distinctive manner relative to the uniforms of people playing other social roles. Similarly, a bumper sticker promoting peace (ideo-function) performs visually, either through words or a peace symbol. Although technofunctions tend to involve mechanical, chemical, and thermal interactions, and thus depend on corresponding performance characteristics, and socio- and ideofunctions require visual and acoustic interactions, these correspondences are far from perfect. Thus, partitions that delineate cubicles in an office complex affect social interaction by separating individual spaces both mechanically and visually. That functions can be defined with reference to specific interactions sharpens discussions of the roles that artifacts play in activities.

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Properties, performance characteristics, and technical choices It is useful to distinguish between an interactor’s properties and performance characteristics. A property, such as the tensile strength of a steel alloy or a person’s height, is defined in terms of the interactor itself with reference to a measuring instrument and standard scale in a laboratory-type setting. In contrast, performance characteristics are defined relationally, for they refer to the capabilities of one interactor in its engagement with another in a specific real-world, not laboratory, interaction. Properties of course affect performance characteristics. Thus, whether a cloth object can perform visually as, for example, a US flag at a football game, depends upon its size, shape, and color patterns. However, lighting conditions and the sensory performance characteristics of observers also affect this visual performance. Similarly, the heating effectiveness of a low-fired ceramic cooking pot – a performance characteristic – is dependent upon properties such as thermal conductivity and the permeabilities of the interior and exterior surfaces. Yet, heating effectiveness is also influenced by (1) the heat source, (2) the pot’s contents, (3) the placement of the pot in relation to the heat source, and (4) the temperature of the ambient environment. Thus, properties can strongly affect, but do not uniquely determine, performance characteristics. Insofar as artifacts are concerned, their properties result from the technical choices made by artisans, instantiated as specific interactions during procurement and manufacturing activities. For example, the interior permeability of a low-fired ceramic cooking pot is affected by technical choices such as smudging, polishing, and organic coatings. Schiffer and James M. Skibo in several papers explored the reticulate relationships between technical choices and performance characteristics. They argued that a technical choice can affect many properties and more than one performance characteristic. Thus, the addition of copious quantities of sand temper raises a pot’s resistance to thermal shock and improves heating effectiveness while simultaneously lowering resistance to impacts. By the same token, a given performance characteristic can be influenced by more than one technical choice. A pot’s thermal shock resistance is affected, for example, by firing temperature, kinds and quantities of temper, as well as vessel shape, size, and wall thickness (in addition to the performance of the heat source). An appreciation for these sorts of relationships, acquired in the process of conducting a long-term program of ceramic experiments, enabled Schiffer and Skibo to construct a behavioral theory of artifact design. A reader-friendly version of the design theory appeared in Anthropological Perspectives on Technology (2001).

Studying Technological Change

Given that the archaeological record is, above all, a record of changing artifact designs, behavioralists are interested in understanding processes of technological change. Artifacts are, of course, a technology’s ‘hard’ parts, distinguishable from the interacting people and their performance characteristics (based on knowledge, skill, values, etc.), which are also essential components of a technology. Regrettably, in culture-historical and processual studies of technological change, diverse processes were conflated. Thus, diffusionists traced ‘inventions’ from place to place with little regard to the processes affecting a new technology’s adoption and nonadoption; likewise, processualists assumed that external stresses on a cultural system, such as population growth or environmental deterioration, stimulated effective problem-solving inventions, which were adopted with zeal. Behavioralists break down technological change into major life-history processes, such as invention, design, replication (or commercialization), and adoption (also known as acquisition or consumption), each of which can in turn be subdivided. In the behavioral framework, there can be no single ‘theory of technological change’ because of the potentially diverse people and social groups (e.g., inventors, manufacturers, consumers) whose decisions create a technology’s life history. Thus, one segments a technology’s life history, and builds process- and variety-specific laws, theories, and models to explain the decisions that create specific behavioral patterns. The behavioral approach to studying technological change is illustrated by the following examples of invention and adoption. Invention Invention can be defined as the creative act of envisioning a new technology, that is, forming a vision or idea of an artifact or technological system having certain performance characteristics that sets it apart from other technologies. Obviously, only ideas recorded in texts or materialized in prototypes come within the purview of archaeologists. There are many kinds of invention processes, but all have one material consequence of interest to archaeologists: they lead to new variants, which sometimes occur in clusters or invention spurts. Inventions that cluster in time and/ or in space should be especially amenable to archaeological study. The model of ‘stimulated invention’, presented by Schiffer in American Antiquity in 1996, helps to account for some invention spurts and, in addition, contributes to reconciling evolutionary and processual views on invention. Evolutionists insist that invention, like genetic mutation, is a random process, whereas processualists regard invention as a problem-solving

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activity that sets the stage for new adaptations. The process of stimulated invention acknowledges that inventors usually work without knowledge of which experimental paths will lead to technically successful inventions (i.e., those achieving desired performance characteristics), nor can inventors foresee whether a technically successful invention will be replicated and adopted. Nonetheless, the activities of inventors are often responses to perceived performance shortcomings of extant technologies. When performance shortcomings are widely appreciated, they can stimulate a spurt of inventive activities that results in many new variants, some of which may achieve technical success. These variants, in turn, undergo selection during subsequent processes, and some may be replicated and adopted. Because variants selected against may have but limited archaeological visibility and because of the time-telescoping effects of most chronologies, the processual tendency to view invention as an efficient mechanical response to adaptive needs is understandable, that is, it appears as though people were able to quickly foresee, and implement, an acceptable solution to the problem. In fact, however, many variants may have been tried out and found wanting before any was adopted; and sometimes none is adopted, leaving the performance problem to be solved in another way. That stimulated variation may or may not lead to a technology that reaches consumers is in accord with the evolutionary tenet that researchers must distinguish rigorously between, and model separately, variety-generation and variety-selection processes. The cascade model of invention, published by Schiffer in American Antiquity (2005), is closely related to the stimulated-variation model, but applies only to the development of a ‘complex technological system’ (CTS). The latter is defined as any technology that consists of a set of interacting artifacts; interactions among these artifacts (and people and externs) enable that system to function. Examples include irrigation systems as well as particular hunting and cooking technologies. Because the cascade model is flexibly defined, examples of CTSs abound, even in small-scale societies. The cascade model posits that, during a CTS’s development, emergent performance problems – recognized by people as shortcomings in that technology’s constituent interactions – stimulate sequential spurts of invention. As adopted inventions solve one performance problem, people encounter new and often unanticipated problems, which stimulate more inventive spurts, and so on. The result is a series of ‘invention cascades’. A distinctive feature of the model, which promotes its generality, is the premise that processes in a CTS’s life history are the immediate contexts in

which performance problems emerge and stimulate invention cascades. Thus, life-history processes are suitable analytical units for investigating invention processes in CTSs. The minimal set of processes is: fashioning a prototype, replication (or commercialization), use, and maintenance. In an analysis of invention cascades that occurred during the development of the nineteenth-century electromagnetic telegraph, it was necessary to elaborate the basic processes. The latter came to include creating the prototype, technological display, demonstrating ‘practicality’, replication, marketing and sales, installation, use/operation, maintenance, and functional differentiation. Performance problems encountered during each of these processes generated many invention cascades, such as insulators, receiverprinters, and submarine cables. Other behavioral models of invention include, for example, Brian Hayden’s aggrandizer model in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (1998), and Schiffer’s cultural imperative model in Technology and Culture (1993). Adoption Evolutionists have taught archaeologists to regard many instances of technological change as competitions between variants during the adoption process. Thus, a new technology that becomes available to consumers often must compete with an established technology. For example, in its first decades as a commercial product, the automobile competed with other forms of transportation, including bicycles, horse-drawn wagons and carriages, and trains and trolleys. Also, alternate variants of a new technology, such as gasoline- and electric-powered automobiles, can compete with each other. As members of a consumerist society, we are aware that many new technologies are adopted in limited numbers or not at all. So it was in the past. Prehistoric societies in southern California and the Great Basin were familiar with pottery making, for their neighbors practiced it; yet, this technology was adopted by only some groups. This suggests that consumer behavior, whether at the scale of the individual, household, corporate group, or even community, can be regarded as a process of ‘differential adoption’. The explanatory task is to account for the decisions of both adopters and nonadopters. To facilitate this task, one can employ both a life-history framework and the heuristic tool known as the ‘performance matrix’. It is assumed that adoption decisions are based on peoples’ comparisons of two or more technologies’ anticipated performance characteristics in relation to relevant activities. After identifying the information about performance characteristics that likely was available to past decision makers, the archaeologist

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juxtaposes the competing technologies in a table known as a performance matrix. Major and minor patterns in the matrix indicate which performance characteristics were apparently weighted in adoption decisions. Performance matrices can be structured in several ways. For example, in Schiffer’s study of the competition between American gasoline and electric automobiles in the early twentieth century – both technologies were new at the time – performance characteristics were organized by male- and female-associated activities. The resultant patterns were quite clear: gasoline automobiles excelled in the touring activities favored by men, whereas electrics were superior performers in the urban activities associated with women. America’s elite tended to adopt both gasoline and electric cars, embodying a certain gender equality, whereas middleclass families almost exclusively purchased gasoline cars, thereby privileging mens’ activities. Factors of wealth and the patriarchal structure of American families at that time were invoked to explain this pattern of differential adoption. Performance characteristics can also be aggregated on the basis of several life-history activities, as in the competition between electric and oil illuminants for lighthouses in the nineteenth century. (Schiffer published this study in Technology and Culture, 2005). Decisions about lighthouse illuminants were made in each maritime nation by lighthouse boards, which were governmental or quasi-governmental organizations. Because these decisions affected a great many

activities, it was necessary to include performance characteristics of lighthouse illuminants pertaining to acquisition and installation, utilitarian and symbolic functions during use, and regular operation and maintenance. The performance matrix (Table 1) employs plus and minus signs to indicate which technology does (þ) or does not (–) perform at a minimally adequate level. The entries in Table 1 suggest that performance characteristics run the gamut of behavioral capabilities, including those for mechanical, chemical, and electrical interactions as well as costs (as enablers) for acquiring, using, and maintaining a technology. Moreover, the incorporation of sensory performance characteristics accommodates esthetic and symbolic capabilities, such as conveying a general or specific meaning. This expansive conception of performance characteristics allows one to build into an analysis seemingly incommensurable factors, qualitative and quantitative, from labor costs to political meanings. Thus, the researcher can explicitly deal with the multiple contextual factors that affect adoption decisions. The performance matrix itself is a ‘causally neutral’ tool involving no a priori assumptions about weightings, so long as the investigator includes all potentially relevant performance characteristics. On the basis of any major and minor patterns, one can identify which performance characteristics were weighted by past people and postulate which contextual factors (e.g., political, religious, economic, social) might have

Table 1 A performance matrix for lighthouse illumination, c. 1860–99 Acquisition of the components, and installation of the system Ability to acquire system components commercially System can be installed in lighthouses in any location System can be easily installed in existing lighthouse structures Affordability of a system’s ‘first costs’ Existing expertise adequate for designing and installing the system

Electric þ





Oil þ þ þ þ þ

Functions during use Yields the whitest, brightest, most penetrating light Can produce sufficiently steady light Long outages are avoidable Does not cast confusing shadows Can avoid blinding mariners Ability to symbolize special concern for the safety of ships and sailors Can symbolize a nation’s wealth and political power Can symbolize modernity Able to symbolize scientific/technological prowess

Electric þ þ þ

þ þ þ þ

Oil
þ þ þ þ





Operation, regular maintenance, and repairs Operable with traditional staff of keepers Operable without complete backup systems Ease of repairing breakdowns Affordability of operating expenses Ease of administration

Electric






Oil þ þ þ þ þ

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affected their decisions. In the lighthouse case, the performance matrix disclosed a major pattern: the electric light competed poorly in acquisition, installation, operation, and maintenance activities. However, a minor pattern indicates that the electric light was an adequate illuminant, especially in haze and light fog, and excelled in symbolic capabilities during use. On the basis of these patterns one can explain why the vast majority of maritime nations decided against adopting electric lights: they apparently assigned heavy weight to maintenance and financial factors (of acquisition and use). But a few nations, England and France, together acquired around 20 electric lights, and several others, including the United States, installed just one or two. These adoptions are explicable in terms of the minor pattern. Thus, France and England, long-time rivals and empire builders, were competing to have the most up-to-date illuminating technology that could advertise their political power, technological expertise, and concern for mariners of all nations. In other cases of adoption, the electric light’s ability to symbolize modernity, indicating that a nation was on the cutting edge of electrical technology, was highly valued and outweighed the technology’s performance deficiencies in the increasingly competitive international arena of the late nineteenth century. The performance matrix reveals which performance characteristics were weighted, thereby implicating potentially relevant contextual factors. By drawing upon contextual information such as family structure or international competitions in high technology, the investigator can explain why some people or social units adopted a given technology while others did not. Communication

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, the study of material culture was incorporated into the margins of many social and behavioral sciences. The usual move was to transform the materiality of artifacts into the immateriality of ideas, norms, rules, values, and similar constructs so that they could be accommodated by conventional social theories. This move, however, embodies a biased view of human life that decisively privileges the mental over the material. As one of many steps needed for remedying this pervasive problem, behavioralists crafted an artifact-based theory of human communication that assigns causal efficacy to both material and cognitive phenomena. In conventional communication theories, researchers accommodate artifacts by relegating them to a ‘nonverbal mode’ or to technologies of information transfer such as clay tablets, newspapers, and

telephones. Safely marginalized in this manner, artifacts merely modify and convey verbal information. On the other hand, the behavioral theory (presented in The Material Life of Human Beings) asserts that artifacts play consequential roles in ‘every’ communication mode. Three major sets of artifacts are recognized: ‘personal artifacts’, those compounded with a person such as tattoos, clothing, and ornaments; ‘situational artifacts’, which turn up at a place for the conduct of an activity; and ‘platial artifacts’, those residing in a place, including portable items and architectural features. ‘Activity artifacts’, those taking part in a specific activity, are drawn from person, situational, and platial artifacts. Communication modes are defined with reference to human sensory modes: visual, acoustic, tactile, and chemical. Taking persons as an example, artifacts perform consequentially in every mode. Thus, clothing and makeup affect visual performance; tooth modification, foods being chewed, and musical instruments influence acoustic performance; clothing and scarification affect tactile performance; and perfume and soaps influence chemical performances. The behavioral theory requires that the investigator privilege the vantage point of the ‘receiver’, the person who, in the course of an activity-situated communication process, obtains information from the performances of other interactors and responds. The response depends also on the receiver’s inferences, which are formed on the basis of ‘correlons’, relational knowledge acquired mainly through experience. Correlons operate not only on the performances of people, but also on those of artifacts. Indeed, the performances of activity and platial artifacts, which define the context of a communication process, key in the receiver’s activity- and interactionspecific correlons, which contribute to producing the response. To appreciate the importance of artifacts in communication, one must abandon the ‘two-body’ model – that is, two people conversing – as the paradigm of communication. The behavioral model posits instead three interactor roles: ‘sender’, ‘emitter’, and ‘receiver’. Emitters are the interactors whose performances furnish the receiver with the information needed to construct the inferences that contribute to a response. The sender is the interactor that the receiver infers affected the performance of the most salient emitter. Thus, in observing a woman who had just exited a hair salon, her husband – playing the receiver role – might infer from her coiffure’s visual performance (the salient emitter) that the sender was a skilled stylist. The response might be a compliment.

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Applying this communication theory to prehistory is obviously challenging, but it does provide a framework for asking questions. For illustrative purposes, let us place the cave paintings of the upper Palaeolithic into a communication framework. The first task is to designate the various receiver(s); in this case, the people who viewed the paintings in each activity of the paintings’ life histories. Next, we may assume that the paintings, performing visually, were platial artifacts that helped define the context of each activity. We can ask, for example, What were those activities? Did situational artifacts participate in them? If so, what were these artifacts? Were the paintings or other interactors the salient emitters in particular activities? What were the activity-specific social and demographic characteristics of the receivers? What inferences did receivers in specific activities make about the source and meanings of the paintings? What were the likely receiver responses? Can we model the correlons that contributed to specific responses? Postprocessual archaeologists advocated the study of meaning and symbols, but supplied scant guidance on doing this in the absence of historical or ethnographic evidence. On the other hand, the behavioral model of communication furnishes a framework for asking questions that can foster well-founded inferences about meaningful phenomena. Ritual and Religion

Few archaeologists today would subscribe to the venerable view that it is far more difficult to construct inferences about ritual and religion than about technology or economic activities. Indeed, behavioralists have assembled the rudiments of an approach for studying ritual and religion. A major premise is that religious rituals, like the performance of all other activities, require artifacts – both highly symbolic sacra as well as those having mainly utilitarian functions. William Walker, in Anthropological Perspectives on Technology, has suggested that, in many religious rituals, people employ artifacts as technologies for manipulating supernatural forces and entities. Another important premise is that artifacts employed in religious rituals tend to be disposed of differently than artifacts taking part in more secular activities. In a paper in Expanding Archaeology (1995) Walker labeled such artifacts ‘ceremonial trash’. Although mortuary rituals give rise to the most conspicuous kind of ceremonial trash – grave goods – such activities sometimes generate other, less obvious deposits of ceremonial trash. For example, beginning in the mid-1980s, archaeologists working in the American Southwest began to re-evaluate the contents of

structure floors. Detailed analyses of the artifact inventories furnished strong evidence that domestic structures, particularly pit-houses, had been ceremonially abandoned. One recurrent pattern was the deposition on floors of relatively large numbers of pots and other artifacts, followed by burning of the structure. In a study of pit-houses at Snaketown, a large pre-Classic Hohokam site in southern Arizona, Deni J. Seymour inferred that structures abandoned in this manner had taken part in a mortuary ritual, during which the belongings of the deceased were deposited and the house was destroyed. These findings accorded with the mortuary practices of ethnographic pit-housedwellers in the American Southwest. As Vincent M. LaMotta has argued, no longer can archaeologists assume that a structure’s floor-associated artifacts merely represent de facto refuse; sometimes the floor assemblage – even the structure itself – was also ceremonial trash. Sometimes an entire village was abandoned in a ritual flourish. In studies of Chodistaas, a thirteenthcentury pueblo of 18 rooms in east-central Arizona, Barbara Montgomery faced a challenging puzzle. According to J. Jefferson Reid’s measure of relative room abandonment, based on a generalized lifehistory of pueblo rooms, early-abandoned rooms should contain few floor artifacts as de facto refuse, whereas their fills might be dense with secondary refuse. For late-abandoned rooms, the expectations are reversed: much de facto refuse on floors, little secondary refuse in fills. Surprisingly, Montgomery found that Chodistaas departed from this pattern, as most rooms had an abundance of restorable pots on floors – presumably de facto refuse closely approximating systemic ceramic inventories – and a high density of secondary refuse in fills; also, the rooms had burned. These facts suggested that the site had been abandoned in haste, perhaps in response to warfare or a forest fire. But these hypotheses left unexplained the anomalous secondary refuse. Detailed analyses of the fill materials enabled Montgomery to discount these hypotheses as well as various post-occupational scenarios, such as fluvial deposition. In the end, she furnished strong evidence for a sequence of behaviors that implicated a ritual abandonment. After vacating vessel-rich rooms, the inhabitants set the pueblo on fire. On the pueblo’s smoldering ruins they deposited tons of refuse, including more than 100 000 sherds scavenged from extramural deposits. Apparently, prior to joining other immigrants at nearby Grasshopper Pueblo, the inhabitants of Chodistaas performed a ritual cremation and burial of the pueblo in acknowledgment of its ‘death’. By closely attending to the formation

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processes of Chodistaas deposits, Montgomery was able to infer a ritual abandonment and rule out other, seemingly more plausible, causes. One of the most contentious debates in the prehistory of the Southwest surrounds the explanation of maltreated human remains. In case after case, archaeologists have found bodies bearing traces of violent acts leading to death as well as post-mortem dismemberment and sometimes even dispersal of the bones. Warfare is the obvious explanation for finds of burned and mutilated bodies, especially those left uninterred in structures. The warfare hypothesis has lately been augmented by claims of cannibalism, supported by taphonomic and other specialized analyses. Apparently, the Puebloan Southwest was not the Apollonian paradise that Ruth Benedict made famous in Patterns of Culture. In considering alternatives to the warfare and cannibalism hypotheses, William Walker asked a deceptively simple question: ‘‘Where are the witches of prehistory?’’ The ethnographic and historic records from around the world make clear that witchcraft accusations, often followed by the killing of the witch and harsh treatment of its remains, are rather common. If so, why do archaeologists rarely invoke witchcraft beliefs and the highly ritualized punishment of witches to explain maltreated human remains? Walker argued that some instances of purported warfare and cannibalism make more sense if viewed as the outcome of witchcraft beliefs that led to activities of identifying and punishing witches. No doubt warfare and consumption of human flesh occurred in the prehistoric Southwest, but so too did the killing of witches. Using behavioral methods for analyzing the deposits in the structures that yielded human remains, Walker showed that sometimes one can distinguish among the competing hypotheses. In the final analysis, inferences about ritual and religion are no more or less difficult to construct than inferences about any human activity. In all cases, one first infers the formation processes of the deposited materials. Once these are identified, the archaeologist can construct inferences about ritual activities as well as offer hypotheses – in the form of correlons – about religious beliefs. Applications of behavioral method and theory to the study of ritual and religion demonstrate that Binford’s early optimism about the vast inferential potential of the archaeological record was not unfounded. Landscapes and Territories

Behavioral approaches to landscapes and territories draw upon empirical research and principles from diverse theoretical programs. To these eclectic

formulations, M. Nieves Zeden˜o and Stephanie M. Whittlesey have added important frameworks and other constructs. From an archaeological vantage point, one can study human–environment interactions over many spatial and temporal scales as well as frames of reference. Thus, one can focus on a given piece of land or terrain (or even a resource) and inquire about its history of use by different societies; one can also investigate how a given society’s activities over time created territories and a changing landscape. What is essential, Whittlesey emphasizes, is that archaeologists appreciate that the relationships between societies and environments are interactive and dynamic. People conduct activities and thereby modify their environment, and in turn the environment – modified and unmodified – influences subsequent human activities. In landscape and territory studies, one inevitably confronts the problem of defining units. Zeden˜o suggests, for example, that many kinds of behaviorally significant spatial units – behavioral spaces – can be constructed in relation to a given society’s activities. These include ‘habitation space’ (the spatial extent of dwellings and supporting activities), ‘food production space’ (fields, pastures, water- and soil-control features), ‘resource procurement space’ (quarries, hunting and gathering locales, water sources), and ‘ritual space’ (shrines, ceremonial buildings, sacred mountains). To this list Whittlesey adds ‘communication space’, which includes trails, roads, and other features that link activities. Needless to say, such behavioral spaces are not isomorphic and can vary independently over time. Zeden˜o has provided a life-history model for studying territories as the changing aggregate of a society’s behavioral spaces and associated ‘landmarks’ – that is, artifacts and features. A territory’s life history is divided into three major stages, each consisting of several processes: ‘establishment’ (exploration, colonization, and settlement), ‘maintenance’ (expansion, consolidation, and fission), and ‘transformation’ (use change and abandonment, which leave behind persistent places, and reclamation). For each process, she has enumerated associated activities and their material correlates and likely landmarks. For example, exploration activities such as reconnaissance, temporary uses, and limited resource exploitation can generate ephemeral shelters, caches, and markings/ cairns. Employing the case of the Hopi in northeastern Arizona, Zeden˜o has shown the usefulness of her model for organizing the study of territories. As Whittlesey emphasizes, landscapes and territories also have cognitive dimensions. On the basis

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of the landmarks representing political, religious, subsistence, and other activities, the archaeologist can proffer inferences about corresponding cognitive structures. For example, analysis of a society’s shrines – locations, orientations, features, and associated ceremonial trash – can implicate cosmological correlons. The rapidly growing behavioral literature on territories and landscapes, which dovetails with postprocessual concerns, is furnishing constructs and heuristic tools useful for studying human–environment interactions over space and time. For example, Michael Heilen has recently distinguished between systemic and archaeological landscapes and developed the implications of this distinction for empirical projects.

posed by other theoretical programs, using principles and heuristics acquired during more than three decades of theory building, experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and investigations in diverse societies ranging from foragers to industrial nationstates. In his contribution to Expanding Archaeology, J. Jefferson Reid elegantly emphasized the program’s continuing vitality ‘‘as a coherent framework for thinking about and doing archaeological research’’, and remarked, moreover, that it ‘‘has withstood rigorous testing, substantial battering, even ridicule, but has not been proved to possess fatal flaws’’. Although behavioral archaeology is a mature and highly productive program, its practitioners appreciate that not all research questions can yet be answered rigorously and that much hard work lies ahead.

Conclusion Among the present-day programs competing for attention, behavioral archaeology offers a coherent framework of models, principles, and heuristics founded upon an unapologetic appreciation for the materiality of human life. Because artifacts participate in all human activities, behavioralists insist on grounding research questions in people–artifact interactions at every temporal and spatial scale of activity. This requires researchers to acknowledge that artifacts and technologies are both causes and effects of behavioral change. Yet, while placing stress on the materiality of human life, behavioralists also seek to model cognitive phenomena – for example, correlons, which contribute to the activity-situated responses of human participants. Unlike many theoretical programs, behavioralists do not insist that only one kind of cause or prime mover (e.g., environmental change, altered beliefs, conflict among social classes and polities, or new technologies) is responsible for every behavioral change. Rather, behavioralists maintain a stance of causal agnosticism, recognizing that innumerable factors, acting singly and in varying combinations, can promote change in human behavior. Thus, a major function of the growing repertoire of behavioral formulations is to help researchers tease out the causal factors in specific cases. In the mid-1970s Reid and colleagues asserted that archaeologists could ask historical and scientific questions of any human society, past or present, by privileging the study of artifacts in human behavior. More than youthful exuberance, this claim expressed something quite fundamental about archaeology’s unique potential to fashion new understandings of the human condition. Indeed, behavioralists now address many significant questions, including those

See also: Evolutionary Archaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading LaMotta VM and Schiffer MB (2001) Behavioral archaeology: Towards a new synthesis. In: Hodder I (ed.) Archaeological Theory Today, pp. 14–64. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Montgomery BK (1993) Ceramic analysis as a tool for discovering processes of Pueblo abandonment. In: Cameron CM and Tomka SA (eds.) Abandonment of Settlements and Regions: Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Approaches, pp. 157–164. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Reid JJ (1995) Four strategies after twenty years: A return to basics. In: Skibo JM, Walker WH, and Nielsen A (eds.) Expanding Archaeology, pp. 15–21. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. Reid JJ, Schiffer MB, and Rathje WL (1975) Behavioral archaeology: Four strategies. American Anthropologist 77: 864–869. Schiffer MB (1995) Behavioral Archaeology: First Principles. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. Schiffer MB (ed.) (2001) Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Seymour DJ and Schiffer MB (1987) A preliminary analysis of pithouse assemblages from Snaketown, Arizona. In: Kent S (ed.) Method and Theory for Activity Area Research: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach, pp. 549–603. New York: Columbia University Press. Skibo JM, Walker WH, and Nielsen A (eds.) (1995) Expanding Archaeology. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. Walker WH (1998) Where are the witches of prehistory? Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5: 245–308. Whittlesey SM (1998) Archaeological landscapes: A methodological and theoretical discussion. In: Whittlesey SM, CiolekTorrello R, and Altschul JH (eds.) Vanishing River: Landscapes and Lives of the Lower Verde Valley, pp. 17–28. Tucson, AZ: SRI Press. Zeden˜o MN (1997) Landscapes, land use, and the history of territory formation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 4: 67–103.

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BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY Ilan Sharon, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definition and Introduction The term ‘biblical archaeology’ is used in at least four different – though intersecting – meanings. From widest to narrowest, these are: (1) the archaeology of the entire ‘fertile crescent’ from the Neolithic through late antiquity (this definition encompasses the archaeological setting of the biblical literature and related genres in its widest possible extent); (2) the archaeology of the Levant (or only its southern part) from the (Middle) Bronze Age to the early Roman period (this is the setting to the biblical narrative sensu stricto); (3) as above, restricted to the Bronze and Iron Ages (this definition confines the field to the background of the Old Testament); and (4) a particular intellectual current within Near Eastern archaeology. This article will mainly deal with ‘biblical archaeology’ as a school of thought (definition 4) using definition 3 as background – as the wider definitions largely overlap with Near Eastern archaeology as a whole (see Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant) and/or intersect with the purview of classical archaeology (see Classical Archaeology). Whether it is explicitly called ‘biblical’ or by any other name (see below), the archaeology of the Levant in the periods relevant to the Bible finds itself – for better and worse – in the shadow of the founding text of the Judeo/Christian/Moslem civilizations. This is manifested in the intense interest – scholarly and lay – in discoveries pertaining to the Bible. Considering its tiny area, Israel may well be the most excavated territory in the world, and the Biblical Archaeology Review has claimed to be the most widely read of all archaeological journals. It also means that the field is rife with ‘alternate’ or ‘pseudo’ archaeologists – earnestly searching for Noah’s ark, the ark of the covenant, the ashes of the red heifer, or the holy grail – as well as simple con men. Thousands waited patiently in line to peek at the ‘brother of Jesus’ ossuary at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto or the ‘‘. . . house of YHWH’’ inscription at the Israel museum in Jerusalem – both of which are probably fakes. Serious scholars – whether believers or agnostics – can ill afford to ignore their own prejudices, much less those of their audience, when dealing with artifacts possibly pertaining to the roots of monotheism

and western civilization in an emotionally pregnant and politically volatile part of the world.

Nineteenth Century – The Birth of the Discipline The earliest archaeological investigations in the Levant were conducted by European travelers in the second half of the nineteenth century. Learned societies dedicated to the investigation of the Holy Land were founded in short order in most Western powers. These included the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) in Great Britain (1865), the Deutschen Pala¨stinaVereins (DPV) in Germany (1878), the E´cole Biblique et Arche´ologique Franc¸aise (1890), and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) in 1900. The motives for this interest were sundry. Scientific curiosity was primary, but it was mixed with religious conceptions, romantic allure, and sometimes pure mysticism. Political and military interests of the big powers were very much in the background. Most of the early explorers were either missionaries or army officers. Breakthroughs of the late nineteenth century were the accurate mapping of the region – culminating in the ‘Survey of Western Palestine’ conducted by the PEF in 1871–78, the first stratigraphic excavation of a Near Eastern tell – by W. M. F. Petrie at Tell el-Hesi in 1890, and the invention of typological seriation by the same. Outside the Levant itself, the decipherment of cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts enabled for the first time to evaluate biblical literature in its original milieu. This, plus the general move toward secularization of knowledge, had led to the deconstruction or decanonization of the Bible. The ‘documentary hypothesis’ of Graf and Wellhausen posits that the Hebrew Bible is not a single composition, but a patchwork of several different sources – far removed from each other in time, place of composition, theology, and moral outlook – cut and restitched in a pseudochronological order by (late) redactors.

The First Half of the Twentieth Century The next revolution in archaeological fieldwork in the Levant was the introduction of the Reisner–Fisher ‘locus to stratum’ excavation method just before World War I. Finds were labeled by their ‘locus’ (as defined by this system – the space circumscribed by a single set of walls) and ‘loci’ were grouped into buildings and ‘strata’ on architectural grounds. Despite its

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limitations, this system was a great improvement over Petrie’s arbitrary horizontal slices, and still fit the logistical structure of most ‘expeditions’ at the time – a horde of ‘native workmen’ directed by a minimal crew whose main expertise was in linguistics, theology, or art. With the resumption of fieldwork after the halt imposed by World War I and the establishment of British mandate over Palestine (and French over Syria), most of the large-scale excavation projects switched over to the ‘locus to stratum’ method. For all their crudeness, these projects – often involving clearance of large tracts by hundreds of workers – exposed city plans and large assemblages of artifacts, which served as the basis for working out detailed artifact typologies and relative chronological sequences. By 1922, the directors of the foreign schools in Jerusalem accepted the chronological framework and terminology proposed by W. F. Albright (director of the American School), which serves as the basis of nomenclature in Levantine archaeology to this day. While the terminology they chose followed the technological scheme, the criteria for defining the periods were strictly historical. For example, the ‘Early Iron Age I’ was defined as being between the entry of Israelites to Canaan and the division of the kingdom after Solomon’s death. This reflects the confidence of Albright and his contemporaries not only that such events indeed happened – but that they can be unequivocally ‘read’ in the archaeological record. The figure of Albright dominates this period. A multifaceted genius – linguist, Bible scholar, archaeologist, theologian – he was one of the leaders of intellectual fundamentalism within American evangelical protestantism. This movement was a reaction to continental pietism, which stressed the human, devotional aspect of religion and was skeptical about miracles and divine revelation. Fundamentalists advocated the unity, inerrancy, and literality of the Bible; predicating their religious belief on the literal historicity of the covenants between God and mankind. Academically, Albright waged a lifelong battle against German Old Testament source criticism. Archaeology became the linchpin of his campaign to disprove the deconstruction of the Old Testament to an anthology of competing theologies. The very name of his principle synthesis, From Stone Age to Christianity – Monotheism and the Historical Process, defines the scope of the ‘biblical archaeology’ he envisaged – maximalistic in temporal and geographic extent, if somewhat myopic in thematic scope. It should be stressed that Albright was not a bigot – he proposed a straightforward positivistic research program into the ‘historical reality’ behind the biblical narrative. Nor was he a narrow-minded

creationist or geocentrist insisting that the ‘word of God’ supersedes any evidence to the contrary. However, the ‘rules of engagement’ of his biblical archaeology were such that one may not discount the prima facie historicity of a written source unless it has irreparable inner contradictions or irremediably contradicts the ‘facts in the ground’. It was also prone to reflexive confirmation – assuming the reliability of a historical text as above, that text is utilized as a guide to the interpretation of the archaeological record – and the (thus constructed) ‘convergence’ is then used as archaeological corroboration of the historicity of the text. Albright maintained, as some of his students’ students still do, that an unbiased examination confirms the unity, antiquity, uniqueness, and almost metahistorical nature of the evolution of monotheism. Thus was created the popular image of the archaeologist ‘holding the shovel in one hand and the Bible in the other’. Curiously enough, this ‘Albrightian program’ was embraced not only by religious Protestants, but also by secular Jewish (and to a lesser extent Arab) nationalists (both orthodox Judaism and Islam remained deeply suspicious of archaeology in any guise). The argument about ‘roots’ was central to the legitimacy debate between Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Palestine – and though the claims being made were opposing, the terms of discourse were those of ‘biblical archaeology’. A ‘Jewish Palestine Exploration Society’ (now called the ‘Israel Exploration Society’) was founded as early as 1914, and fielded its first dig in 1924. The first department of archaeology in a local academic institution was founded in the Hebrew University in 1934.

The Second Half of the Twentieth Century The next methodological breakthrough in field work started after the ten-year hiatus in archaeological activity imposed by World War II and the ensuing Arab–Israeli wars. In her excavations in Jericho (1952–58) and Jerusalem (1961–67), Kathleen Kenyon implemented what came to be called the ‘Wheeler– Kenyon’ or ‘balk and debris layer’ method of excavation. Kenyon’s work on pottery – especially the seriation of tomb deposits from her own excavation at Jericho and those of the Chicago excavation at Megiddo – is also exemplary. However, her conception of historical process, as seen from the textbooks she wrote, is narrow diffusionism. She equated the succession of archaeological ‘cultures’ she defined with successive ‘waves’ of migration and conquest by wild ‘tribes’ from the sea, the desert, or the steppes – Amorites, Hyksos, Israelites, and Philistines being cases in point.

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Albright’s American students began a project in Shechem (Tell Balata) in 1952, and the Israelis, under Yadin, the last of the ‘digging soldiers’, began excavating in Hazor in 1958. These projects were hugely influential in as much as almost all the next generation of field archaeologists were trained in them and the techniques used in them became known as the ‘American’ versus ‘Israeli’ excavation ‘schools’. Both were attempts at compromise between the horizontally oriented ‘locus to stratum’ method and the vertically oriented ‘balk and debris layer’. The ‘Israelis’ inclined toward larger exposures and faster excavation and tended to keep and publish mainly primary assemblages and complete forms, while the ‘Americans’ stressed meticulously separating and recording all types of deposits and assemblages – which made for smaller exposures and slower excavation. Interpretation-wise, however, both ‘schools’ correctly saw themselves as faithful followers of Albright. Indeed, G. E. Wright – director of the Shechem excavations and a leader in the neoorthodox movement in biblical theology – was arguably even more extreme than Albright in his notion of ‘‘God who acts in history’’. Even though ‘biblical archaeology’s’ rules of engagement of biblical text and archaeological record seemed to be accepted – at least initially – by everyone, a series of debates through the latter half of the twentieth century progressively eroded the Albrightian paradigm. Within biblical studies, Albright and his students did not stem the tide of deconstruction, and his intellectual fundamentalism remained a minority position. Indeed, by the 1970s and 1980s, extreme doubt in the historicity of the entire ‘Deuteronomistic narrative’ (the books of Deuteronomy through Kings – thought to represent a single ‘source’), gave rise to the so-called ‘minimalist’ or ‘nihilist’ school, which essentially replaced the concept of (late) redaction of the texts with (even later) ‘invention’, that is, the biblical stories are seen by proponents of this school as ‘pious fraud’ of postexilic Jews. While this other extreme also remains a minority position in biblical studies, it cannot be ignored by archaeologists in as much as it argues that any attempt to draw on some biblical ‘reality’ to aid the location of sites and interpretation of the archaeological record is tantamount to mounting an expedition to excavate Treasure Island. Attempts by Albright and others to situate the patriarchal narratives in the reality of the Middle Bronze Age or portray Joseph as a Hyksos prince lost favor as early as the 1950s, as most biblical scholars and archaeologists came to deny any but the haziest recollection of the Bronze Age in the stories of Genesis.

The failure to find any ‘wandering Israelites’ in the Late Bronze Age foiled attempts to trace the route of the Exodus – especially as Sinai, the Negev, and the trans-Jordanian deserts became well explored in the 1970s and 1980s and thousands of nomadic sites of other periods, from Palaeolithic to modern Bedouin, were located. One of the most notable ‘defections’ from Albright’s camp was when Y. Aharoni, Yadin’s principal aidede-camp, accepted a source critique by A. Alt, who claimed that the books of Joshua and Judges represent rival traditions of how the Israelites came to occupy the Land of Israel, rather than a single narrative sequence of ‘conquest’ and then ‘settlement’. Aharoni claimed that the archaeological record favored – if not conclusively proved – the ‘peaceful penetration’ tradition over ‘conquest’. The rift between Yadin and Aharoni caused the latter to leave the institute in Jerusalem and establish a department in the new Tel Aviv University, which would become increasingly critical of the Albrightian paradigm. By the 1980s, following the work of several of Aharoni’s students in Tel Aviv (most notably I. Finkelstein) and several ‘younger generation’ Americans (e.g., D. Esse and A. Joffe), the appearance of ‘Israelite’ highland villages at the beginning of the Iron Age came to be seen by most archaeologists as some combination of sedentization of locally mobile agropastoralists and ruralization of indigenous urban populations following the collapse of the Bronze Age world system. ‘Migration’ and ‘conquest’ had all but disappeared from the lexicon. In ‘biblical archaeology’ terminology, these views would fall somewhere between Alt’s ‘peaceful penetration’ model and Mendenhall’s ‘peasant revolution’ – but they really have more to do with the impact of ‘processual archaeology’ than any particular interpretation of the biblical stories of the origins of Israel (see Processual Archaeology). Another one of the debates in the 1980s raged over the very name of the discipline. W. Dever, one of the ablest spokesmen for the profession, argued that a community no longer made up of linguists, missionaries, kibbutzniks, or spies, and a discipline no longer focused on the Bible, should not be named after a text. The name he proposed, however – ‘Syro-Palestinian Archaeology’ – was rejected by some Americans for religious reasons and by some Israelis for political ones. The alternative – ‘Archaeology of the Land of Israel’ – was unacceptable to Arabs. (So as to stay on the straight and narrow politically correct path, this author hereby declares that this article uses the terms ‘Palestine’, ‘Israel’, and ‘Southern Levant’ interchangeably; that the term ‘Israel’ – except when utilized in a modern political context – is used in the

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 923

biblical sense; and that the use of ‘Palestine’ and ‘Israel’ in no way implies a judgment about the rights of any modern political entity to any territory and/or the borders of any such entity – past, present, or future.) The only result of this unresolved argument was the changing of the name of the semipopular ASOR journal from Biblical Archaeologist to Near Eastern Archaeology – which promptly caused a drop in circulation. The last decade of the twentieth century brought another argument to the fore. Finkelstein’s ‘low Iron Age chronology’ – dating the Iron Age I to c. 1125– 925 BCE instead of c. 1200–1000 as traditionally maintained – is not a large correction in absolute terms. However, it divorces the appearance of decorated ‘Philistine’ pottery in the lowlands and of the ‘Israelite’settlements in the highlands from the Egyptian references to ‘i
s
r/l
r/l’ and ‘p
r/l
s
t’ at the time of Marneptah and Ramesses III. Moreover, it supports the ‘minimalist’ claim that the ‘United Kingdom’ of David and Solomon is more a ‘golden period’ fantasy than historical reality in as much as it claims that state formation in the highlands postdates the reigns allotted to Saul, David, and Solomon in the biblical king lists. From the fundamentalists’ point of view, the critical fracture between religion and archaeology had already been passed. Once the covenants of Abraham and Moses come – in archaeologists’ eyes – to be classified as legend or allegory, it is of little import whether or not the biblical king lists are historiographic. From the point of view of archaeological method, however, it may well be that the chronological debates mark the final demise of the Albrightian paradigm. Proponents of both sides have now shifted the criteria for the absolute dating of archaeological horizons from historical/textual ‘conjunctions’ to chronometric dating (mainly radiocarbon). Albright’s basic stance of ‘guarded credulity’ had irrevocably changed to ‘qualified skepticism’: no biblical mention can be relied on unless corroborated by independent evidence. Three developments in the way archaeology is practiced in the Near East led to the increasing estrangement between Bible and archaeology after World War II. These are (in more or less chronological order) the increasing involvement of locals in the local archaeology, the rise of professionalism within archaeology, and the rise of environmental conservationism. The founding of independent states in place of Western mandates or protectorates in the Near East was followed in short order by the establishment of antiquities services manned by locals, who increasingly are graduates of indigenous departments of archaeology. The placement of Near Eastern archaeologists in general

institutes of archaeology has also served to make them more responsive to trends in archaeological theory and practice and less attuned to the biblical studies community. This has arguably been less the case in the North American and German systems, where Near Eastern archaeologists often operate from departments of Near Eastern studies or religion. Finally, the motivation of the bulk of archaeological fieldwork nowadays is salvage operations and resource management. As such, practitioners see themselves as operating within an environmental paradigm, and often have little background or interest in humanities or the Bible.

Biblical Archaeology in the Third Millenium? Is biblical archaeology dead in the water? Not by a long shot. First, while the Albrightian paradigm has been somewhat marginalized, there certainly are enough who still proudly profess it. This includes practicing American archaeologists like R. Younkers and R. Tappey, and Israelis like Eilat Mazar, as well as several universally acclaimed older scholars like F. M. Cross and K. Kitchen. With the bulk of lay support squarely behind it and the re-emergence of intellectual conservatism in academia, it is certainly too early to pronounce its demise. Second, whereas archaeology has by and large divorced itself from biblical studies, it is questionable whether the opposite is warranted, or indeed possible. For scholars whose field of interest is the emergence of monotheism, the archaeology of the Levant offers the only possibility of testing hypotheses against empirical evidence. The very supposition that the biblical text is complexly constructed and multifocal means that to get to its historical kernel (and nearly all biblical scholars believe that there is some historicity behind some of the texts) one need constantly re-examine the facts (or ‘factoids’ as some postprocessualists would have it) provided by archaeology in light of competing textually based hypotheses. Needless to say, such endeavor would not be possible if the veracity of the text is the departure point for the building of the archaeological scenario. Third, while there is no doubt that biblical (and classical) archaeology have not fared well in the era of processualism, they have every chance of flourishing in a postprocessual climate (see Postprocessual Archaeology). If the purpose of archaeology is defined as searching for some universal laws of human behavior, and the preferred method of doing so is ‘reading’ the ‘archaeological record’ with the aid of some simple ‘transforms’ or ‘middle range theory’

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which would make redundant the engagement with actual texts, then the archaeology of the Levant in the Bronze and Iron Ages becomes one test case among many in the anthropologist’s cache, and a pretty problematic one at that. If, however, one defines archaeology as the engagement between text and context, or the study of how people construct their past, then the intensive study of a tiny patch of ground from which different and competing ideologies hail becomes a fascinating theme. For this, we need to stop looking at the Bible as a collection of historical ‘benchmarks’ and to consider it as an expression of ideology – to be compared with material expressions that we find in the ground. Both types of artifacts should then be regarded as gaming pieces which we the players continually rearrange in order to construct our own differing views of how the world of the present came to be. This is exactly what some younger scholars, for example, S. Bunimovitz, A. Faust, or B. Routledge, are doing.

Big Game Extinctions

See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Classical Archaeology; Middle Range Approaches; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading Davis TW (2004) Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drinkard JF, Mattingly GL, and Miller JM (eds.) (1988) Benchmarks in Time and Culture. Atlanta: Scholar’s Press. King PJ (1983) American Archaeology in the Near East: A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Philadelphia: The American Schools of Oriental Research. Millard AR and Hoffmeier JT (eds.) (2004) The Future of Biblical Archaeology; Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions: The Proceedings of a Symposium, August 12–14 2001 at Trinity International University. Grand Rapids: Eardmans.

See: Extinctions of Big Game.

BIOARCHAEOLOGY John Krigbaum, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary bioarchaeology Recovery and scientific analysis of human remains from archaeological context. palaeopathology In bioarchaeology, the study of health and disease in human remains for both the individual and population being studied.

Bioarchaeology (osteoarchaeology) is the study of human remains in archaeological context. It may also be used in a general sense as the study of any biological remains (fauna and flora) recovered from an archaeology site. Increasingly, however, the term is used with regard to the identification and recovery of human skeletal remains in the field to analysis in the lab (osteoarchaeology). The aim of bioarchaeology is to contribute to archaeological interpretation and

offer fresh perspectives about cultural pattern and process in the past. Skeletal biology, its cornerstone discipline in physical (biological) anthropology, provides the basic groundwork for studying recovered human remains. However, first and foremost, bioarchaeology is an archaeology discipline. It requires a firm understanding of the contextual aspects of site formation from individual burial features or commingled ossuaries to mortuary analysis of burial patterning across time and space. Bioarchaeology should be a holistic process, whereby interdisciplinary efforts inform and improve upon the findings in the archaeological record. In practice, coordination of disparate data sets has been the exception rather than the rule in the analysis of human remains from archaeological sites (see Osteological Methods).

Historical Background In the early stages of the twentieth century, bioarchaeology was an as yet undefined field of study

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focusing on descriptive aspects of skeletal analysis. Copious data were collected from skeletal remains, particularly skulls, and included as appendices to reports. Physical anthropologists involved in this research rarely contributed substantively to problemoriented archaeological research and were enlisted as specialists post-excavation to analyze the skeletons recovered. Typological approaches to racial classification were the topic of the day, and most efforts were made to establish and document patterns of human variation. Most noted for these efforts was Alesˇ Hrdlicˇka who, in the early twentieth century, founded the Division of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History). In contrast, Ernst Hooton of Harvard University’s Peabody Museum had the goal of integrating data from human remains with archaeological findings and to collectively look at remains and the patterns of pathologies, etc. Although still ensconced in the racial anthropology of his day, his work at Pecos Pueblo, NM (in conjunction with Alfred Kidder), was noteworthy in providing a population-based approach to the interpretation of the human remains. This hallmark effort, however, did not change how physical anthropologists approached archaeological skeletal collections. By the mid-twentieth century, human remains continued to be analyzed and data collected and appended to archaeological monographs and reports. Greater care and detail was placed in describing/diagnosing pathological lesions but more as curiosities rather than to establish overall patterns. Bioarchaeology changed in the 1960s and 1970s, with the advent of the ‘new’ archaeology and ecological anthropology. Research programs at the Smithsonian Institution with J. Lawrence Angel, at University of Massachusetts with George Armelagos, and at Northwestern University with Jane Buikstra truly began to clarify the role skeletal data should serve in archaeological research. Interdisciplinary efforts were made to guide problem-oriented research in what was just getting referred to as ‘bioarchaeology’. At a conference organized by the late Robert Blakely in 1977, Buikstra clarified what bioarchaeology was and should be in American archaeology, in contrast to its more generalized use as a term in European archaeology meaning analysis of all biological materials from a site (e.g., seeds, charcoal, and faunal remains). Bioarchaeology in the 1980s and 1990s made substantial inroads in critical analysis and interpretation of skeletal material. Lab-based advances, in particular, are noteworthy such as the application of bone

chemistry methods to infer past diet (palaeodiet), place of origin, and biological relatedness.

Methodological Approaches Reconstruction of an individual’s ‘life history’, where possible, offers information about an individual’s ancestry, demographics, well-being, and habit. This requires good preservation of the skeleton. Commingled and fragmentary remains prove to be more complex, from establishing minimum number of individuals (MNI) to identifying markers and/or diagnosing pathological lesions. All remains, no matter how fragmentary, have a story to tell and can contribute to understanding biological and cultural processes in past populations. All human remains must be treated with respect, particularly when remains are subject to scientific analysis which may require destructive sampling of bone and tooth tissues. Methodological advances have minimized the impact such approaches have on human remains and this is particularly true with molecular advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) and stable isotopes and trace element studies (see Stable Isotope Analysis; DNA: Ancient). Palaeodemography

Apart from associated grave markers with name and date of birth/death, estimation of age-at-death and sex is established through observation of osteological markers on the skeleton. Subadult individuals are easier to age due to developmental patterns of growth in their skeleton and teeth. The presence/fusion of long bone epiphyses and eruption sequence in the deciduous and permanent dentition provide age estimates with excellent precision. Although there is greater error in correctly aging adult skeletons, age-related changes to the skull and postcranial skeleton, particularly the pelvis, have good precision. With respect to sex, the subadult skeleton typically lacks diagnostic traits prior to puberty, while adult males tend to be more robust and lack modifications of the pelvis as a function of childbirth. Much research has been dedicated to establishing and verifying methods to age and sex the skeleton, particularly with respect to forensic applications. A conceptual advance in bioarchaeology was made in 1992 with the publication of Wood and colleagues ‘Osteological paradox’ in Current Anthropology. Although the bias inherent in skeletal samples and their interpretation is clear enough (that a mortuary space or cemetery represents a collective body that may not reflect the population as a whole), the implications and significance of palaeopathological studies changed in a constructive fashion. The importance of

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frailty and relative health and well-being are certainly vital concerns that can contribute to biocultural understanding of past populations. Palaeopathology

Perhaps the greatest advances over the past several decades have been in palaeopathological diagnosis and interpretation – critical review of skeletal remains and differential diagnosis to ascertain the best explanation for the lesions observed. The osteological paradox also has heightened the efforts to consider implications of health, frailty, and concomitant morbidity and mortality as inferred from prehistoric populations. Growth disruption studies have been the most significant ‘insult’ that may be present in the subadult (or adult) skeleton. Subadults may show evidence of delayed appearance/fusion of ephiphyses, and in deciduous and permanent dentition, lines of arrested enamel development are often interpreted as signs of nonspecific stress. Other nonspecific stress indicators include signs of nutritional deficiency such as cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis. Additional nonspecific pathologies include Harris Lines, which seem to reflect signs of growth commencement in long bone shafts. Specific pathologies play an important albeit complex role and are critically evaluated in studies of human remains. The role of infectious disease, in particular, has helped to transform bioarchaeology from a descriptive discipline in to a holistic one. Changes toward sedentism and agriculture are thought to correspond to improved lives. However, findings in the late 1960s and 1970s by Armelagos and colleagues, and by Buikstra, Clark Spencer Larsen and others showed that this was clearly not the case. Increased evidence of nonspecific pathologies was present that indicated poor dietary quality in staple foods, notably maize. Most importantly, these studies underscore the fact that different populations experiencing similar biocultural stressors respond in similar fashion. As part of the new bioarchaeology, increased emphasis has been placed on examining aspects of the skeleton that may not be pathological but rather express ‘use’ for the individual/population under study. Significant observations and analyses are made on patterns of osteoarthritis have been observed and biomechanical aspects of bone formation assessed to infer past use and accommodation of the skeleton to forcing stressors and loads. Palaeodiet

Two important analytical techniques in bone chemistry include trace element analysis and stable isotope ratio analysis (see Trace Element Analysis; Stable Isotope Analysis). Advances have proved to be

exceptionally useful in contextualizing human remains and reconstructing past human subsistence. Coupled with other archaeological data, stable isotopes provide an independent measure of individual diet. Such data can distinguish between numerous dietary regimes and thereby provide important distinctions of diet that may relate to status, gender, and place. Ancestry

Analysis of biological distance (biodistance) has advanced significantly since the early descriptive stages of skeletal biology. Metric and nonmetric data continue to be collected on teeth, skulls and postcranial remains and new methods of analysis and more powerful computer programs, statistical software, and data acquisition tools (e.g., microscribes and CT scans) make these data relevant and complementary in both local and regional context. New advances in bone chemistry, particularly with heavy stable isotopes of strontium and lead, also provide novel approaches to assessing place of origin. Simply put, individual’s tissues reflect the terra firma of their childhood. Other approaches to determining ancestry are more direct, perhaps best reflected by advances in ancient DNA studies using well-preserved bone. Coupled with genetic surveys of living populations and with studies of historical linguistics, aDNA data provide a powerful means to assess past relationships of the individual and/or population in question.

Ethics One important change in bioarchaeology in North America has been the adoption of legislation affecting the status of excavation and curation of human remains. The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), signed as law in 1990, forced bioarchaeologists from field schools to museums to reassess their actions in the field and in their analysis of archived collections. Importantly, bioarchaeologists were made to justify the use of such collections in present and future research. Active research programs across the North American continent have improved efforts to integrate biological data with the archaeological record. Further, NAGPRA provides a means for bioarchaeologists to connect with Native American/First Nation groups and find common ground or compromise. Further benefits from NAGPRA were to make the public and anthropologists aware of other disenfranchised groups and to reconsider issues of cultural property and ownership or stewards of the past. These repatriation concerns have been addressed outside of North America with mixed results and often for political rather than ideological purpose. No matter, that lines of

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communication have been open and public awareness and debate is ongoing is healthy for the future of constructive bioarchaeology in the future to assist in promoting a better understanding of the past. There is huge potential for bioarchaeology to provide and promote a biocultural framework with which students of prehistory and the public can benefit. From individual life history to population-based studies, bioarchaeology has made significant contributions to archaeology. Bioarchaeology is a field that has matured considerably over the past century. Early ‘classificatory’ stages focused on typological and descriptive reviews whereas at present, increased focus draws upon multiple lines of evidence to assess past human experience and condition. Increased specialization has led to numerous points of reference in the natural and physical sciences which help to expand the scope of bioarchaeology and underscore its relevance in any archaeological pursuit associated with human remains. See also: Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods; Excavation

and Recording Techniques; DNA: Ancient; Forensic Archaeology; Health, Healing, and Disease; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Osteological Methods; Paleodemography; Paleopathology; Stable Isotope Analysis; Trace Element Analysis.

Further Reading Armelagos GJ (2003) Bioarchaeology as anthropology. In Gillespie SD and Nichols DL (eds.) Archaeology Is Anthropology, Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 13. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, pp. 27–40. Blakey ML (2001) Bioarchaeology of the African diaspora in the Americas. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 387–422. Buikstra JE and Ubelaker DH (eds.) (1994) Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains. Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series, No. 44. Fayetteville, AK: Arkansas Archeological Survey. Buikstra JE and Beck LA (eds.) (2006) Bioarchaeology: The Contextual Analysis of Human Remains. San Diego: Elsevier. Cohen MN and Crane-Kramer GMM (eds.) (in press). Ancient Health: Skeletal Indicators of Agricultural and Economic Intensification. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Katzenberg MA and Saunders SR (eds.) (2000) Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton. New York: Wiley-Liss. Larsen CS (1997) Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parker Pearson M (2001) The Archaeology of Death and Burial. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Steckel RH and Rose JC (eds.) (2002) The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ubelaker D (1999) Human Skeletal Remains: Excavation, Analysis, Interpretation. Washington, DC: Taraxacum.

BLOOD RESIDUE ANALYSIS Judith Field and Karen Privat, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary blood residue One or a number of blood components (e.g., red blood cells, hemoglobin, heme, plasma proteins, etc.) present on some surface. Bugas-Holding A late Prehistoric Shoshone occupation of the Sunlight Basin in the Absaroka Mountains of northwest Wyoming. Cuddie Springs A notable archaeological and paleontological site in the semi-arid zone of central northern New South Wales, Australia. Cuddie Springs is an open site, with the fossil deposits preserved in a claypan on the floor of an ancient ephemeral lake. Monte Verde An archaeological site in south-central Chile, which is suspected to date 12,500 years before present, making it one of the earliest inhabited sites in the Americas. Monte Verde pre-dates the earliest known Clovis culture site of Clovis, New Mexico by 1000 years.

Introduction Stone tools used in the butchering of animals or the processing of animal meat, skin, or bone may accumulate blood and other associated residues on their surface. Blood is most likely to derive from prey species, though it is possible for human blood to be deposited on a tool accidentally during the knapping process. When an animal is being butchered, blood may also build up in associated sediments or on other nearby materials such as hearthstones. The recovery and species-level identification of blood residues has the potential to contribute important and detailed information about the hunting practices, dietary habits, and economies of ancient peoples. Sustained interest in the analysis of archaeological blood residues was initiated by Tom Loy’s 1983 report of the species-level identification of haemoglobin recovered from 1–6-kyr-old stone artifacts. Since then, there has been a concerted effort to identify

928 BLOOD RESIDUE ANALYSIS

apparent blood residues to genus/species using a variety of techniques borrowed from the clinical sciences.

Blood as Residue Mammalian blood is primarily composed of plasma and red blood cells (
55% and
45% in humans, respectively). The remaining minor constituents of blood (30 ka has been reported at the Pleistocene archaeological site of Cuddie Springs in southeastern Australia. The artifacts were deposited on the bed of an ephemeral lake (cf. waterhole), and the sediments from which the artifacts were recovered are primarily silts and clays, anaerobic, alkaline, and constantly damp. There has been little movement within the sediment since deposition and the sediments have been protected from disturbance by the formation of an old land surface capping the deposits of interest. While now in the semi-arid zone, Cuddie Springs was located within the arid zone during the period of artifact deposition. Residue survival seems optimized in the sediments formed during extended dry lake conditions when it is likely that blood would have dried relatively quickly before burial. Rapid burial post-discard may have reduced the exposure to damaging UV radiation. The residues on the Cuddie Springs artifacts were generally identified in or near unconformities such as step fractures on the stone surface, where they would have accumulated from cutting or scraping and would have been less susceptible to subsequent removal (Figure 1c). Such blood and tissue accumulation has been observed in modern experimental studies, indicating that higher residue concentration and long-term survival is more likely at disconformities such as microcracks and step fractures than on smooth areas on the tool surface.

Methodology No single analytical protocol has yet been agreed upon as consistently effective in detecting and identifying blood residues. Researchers therefore employ various techniques during excavation, post-excavation, screening, and biochemical analysis of artifacts, according to personal preference and experience. Some investigations of potential blood residues omit certain elements of the investigation process, such as special handling of artifacts with potential blood residues during and after excavation, or the documentation of visible residues prior to extraction. Examination and Documentation

The first step in residue analysis should involve the examination of the artifact under low-power magnification to locate any possible blood residues. If any

BLOOD RESIDUE ANALYSIS 929

Figure 1 (a), Blood residue on a silcrete stone artifact used to butcher kangaroo (M. fuliginosus, scale bar ¼ 100 mm). (b) Extraction from the same tool in A, visualized in a scanning electron microscope showing individual red blood cells (scale bar ¼ 10 mm). (c) Putative blood residue (dark films) associated with step fractures adjacent to the used edge of a flaked stone artifact from Cuddie Springs, in sediments dated to 30 ka. (d) High-power view of residues on flaked stone artifact shown in (c) (scale bar ¼ 100 mm). (e) Surface of experimental tool with blood residue from butchering kangaroo prior to extraction using water as a solvent (scale bar ¼ 1 mm). (f) Surface of same experimental tool shown in (e), showing the incomplete removal of residues (scale bar ¼ 1 mm). The surface of the tool was lightly scraped with a nylon disposable pipette tip before the solvent plus sample was withdrawn.

residues are detected, they should be described and photographed. Blood has often been reported as having a distinctive morphology. Dried blood accumulated on experimental tools used to butcher animals produces distinctive residues, straw yellow to dark red in color, exhibiting extensive hexagonal cracking in places (Figure 1a). Scanning electron microscopy of these residues shows intact red blood cells within the yellow–red matrix (Figure 1b). Red blood cells, if preserved intact, are large enough to be visually identified by light microscopy on lithic tool surfaces. Because the anucleate, concave shape of mammalian red blood cells differs from those of other vertebrates, some researchers have postulated that broad taxonomic distinctions may be made from the observed three-dimensional form of preserved residues. The diameter of red blood cells also varies between species, providing another, more precise prospective

diagnostic tool. However, changes in red blood cell size and morphology have been observed during drying of experimental residues, calling into question the potential efficacy of these taxonomic indicators. Prior to extraction, the artifact may be further tested for the possible presence of blood using a clinical haemoglobin detector, such as Ames Hemastix. Such tests cannot unequivocally identify haemoglobin on artifacts since they have been found to cross-react with non-blood-derived fluids and to produce falsepositive results when exposed to certain elements commonly present in sediment. Blocking cross-reactions may be attempted (e.g., treatment with 0.5 M EDTA to prevent manganese cross-reaction), but cannot be guaranteed. Nevertheless, they can be included as one useful step in the screening process for blood residues, with a positive result indicating that further investigation is necessary.

930 BLOOD RESIDUE ANALYSIS Extraction and Analysis

Protocols for the recovery of residues from an artifact surface involve either the targeted isolation of visually identified residues (Figure 1e, f) or bulk, whole-tool extractions. There is great variability in extraction methods for putative blood residues and the solvent used is critical to success. The use of 4 M guanidine hydrochloride and 4% ammonium hydroxide rather than water or buffer solutions has been reported to greatly improve recovery and detection rates. Once extracted from the artifact surface, the residue may be subjected to one or a number of immunological, electrophoretic, and microscopic analyses to determine the presence of blood-derived compounds. Immunological assays, including enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western blot techniques, seek to detect and identify particular proteins derived from blood. In theory, immunological methods can identify specific proteins derived from a particular species, allowing for species-specific identification of blood residues. However, cross-reactivity between species still occurs in practice, reducing the reliable application of immunological techniques to the general detection of (mammalian) blood. Blood proteins can also be isolated and identified using gel electrophoresis, which uses an electric current to separate molecules by their size. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) involves the separation of the individual proteins in a residue into discrete components by their ionic charge through a pH gradient. Blood residue studies have also attempted to use simple protein assays such as dot-blot and bicinchoninic acid assays. Often a laboratory will preferentially use one extraction and analysis protocol while another will routinely employ a different method. Differing protocols between laboratories may account for the greatly varying reports for the survival and recovery of blood from stone artifacts and for divergent perspectives on blood survival and/or the form in which blood may be detected. Laboratories do not typically engage in inter-laboratory comparison of results or consultation regarding the relative effectiveness of analytical strategies. Blind tests of the recovery and identification of blood residues that have been undertaken between laboratories have generally produced equivocal results.

Archaeological Applications Cross-over electrophoresis is an immunological method, principally used by Margaret Newman, University of Calgary, to identify blood proteins in residues on stone tools. Orin Shanks and colleagues applied this method to the analysis of artifacts from the Late Holocene Bugas-Holding (open) site in

Wyoming, USA. The large area excavation of the site investigated site-patterning of specific domestic activities. Site-specific information was pooled to provide an interpretative framework for the study of possible protein residues and included site formation processes, palaeoenvironmental data, and excavation strategies involved in the recovery of artifacts. Furthermore, considerable testing of reagents, experimental controls, and systematic re-testing of samples were undertaken to reduce the probability of falsepositive results. The results confirmed the processing of faunal species (bovine and sheep) that had been identified in the faunal assemblages. Interestingly, the analyses raised further questions about animal exploitation, with bear proteins also found on three of the seven artifacts returning positive reactions. Bear was represented at the site by only a single skeletal element. Furthermore, the nature of the subsistence tasks identified by the integrated functional approach has provided insights into tool use and re-use. Importantly for blood residue studies, these results support a relatively long-term survival of blood residues on stone artifacts and the potential of identifying species-specific proteins by methods other than DNA analyses, while reinforcing the need for a systematic and rigorous approach to the analysis of purported blood residues in archaeological contexts. Noreen Tuross and Tom Dillehay undertook an analysis of residues from the site of Monte Verde in Southern Chile. Monte Verde is an open site, with occupation traces contained within a wetland environment on the margin of an ancient tributary of the Maullin River. Two cultural layers were identified at the site: the youngest dated to 13.2–12.5 kyr BP and a second less well-defined unit located some distance from the other site and dated to c. 33 kyr BP. The investigations included a combination of immunological and geochemical approaches to the identification of residues on flaked stone artifacts recovered from both horizons. Consideration of the archaeological and stratigraphic contexts as well as the geochemical characterization of the sedimentary matrix was an essential part of the investigative approach to this study. An analysis of the sediments and site formation processes indicated that the younger cultural layer represented a single occupation event, following which material was rapidly buried and maintained in a consistently anoxic, reducing environment, promoting organic preservation. The geochemical analyses demonstrated the absence of organic matter and the presence of desiccant silica gel in the deposits immediately below the younger occupational layer, and identified a lack of humic acids in the overlying strata suggestive of low microbial activity. Further macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular evidence

BONE TOOL ANALYSIS 931

of the high degree of preservation of organic remains within the cultural strata, in addition to the consistently low temperature of the sediments, indicated that the burial conditions were likely to promote long-term preservation of molecular residues. Seven artifacts from the two horizons were tested for the presence of residues: three from the 13.2– 12.5-kyr-BP habitation level and four from the older (possible) cultural layer. The authors noted that no correlation existed between observed ‘stains’ on the surface of the artifacts and the results of immunological tests for blood residue. One artifact (from the c. 33 0-kyr-BP layer) yielded positive results for the presence of blood protein. For the immunological assay experimental controls, including soil samples and blanks were included. These controls enabled a greater degree of confidence in the interpretation of the results from testing the extracted residues. The ELISA method was used to detect the presence of haemoglobin. A Western blot assay was subsequently used to determine the preservation and source (i.e., species) of the purported haemoglobin-containing residue. The results of this study suggest that it is possible for degraded but detectable components of blood to survive over archaeological timescales, and in sufficient quantities and preservation to be detected using existing biochemical techniques. The case studies presented above demonstrate how important a rigorous, multidisciplinary approach is for investigating questions of artifact function and use. Not every analysis will necessarily require taxonomic identification. The detection of blood proteins alone may be a useful result, depending on the research question at hand. When approaching the biochemical testing stage, a hierarchical approach

should be observed, with the assessment of the nature of the residues as the first step. Identification of residues to species level remains contentious and problematic, and may not be possible. The most fruitful studies will include a survey of all tool-use indicators, including usewear and technological studies, and will incorporate the expertise of both archaeological and biochemical researchers to ensure the effective execution of the analyses and the interpretation of the experimental results.

Further Reading Cattaneo C, Gelsthorpe K, Phillips P, and Sokol RJ (1993) Blood residues on stone tools: Indoor and outdoor experiments. World Archaeology 25: 29–43. Craig OE and Collins MJ (2002) The removal of protein from mineral surfaces: Implications for residue analysis of archaeological materials. Journal of Archaeological Science 29: 1077–1082. Fullagar R, Furby J, and Hardy B (1996) Residues on stone artefacts: State of a scientific art. Antiquity 70: 740–745. Loy TH (1983) Prehistoric blood residues: Detection on tool surfaces and identification of species of origin. Science 220: 1269– 1271. Loy TH (1993) The artefact as site: An example of the biomolecular analysis of organic residues on prehistoric tools. World Archaeology 25: 44–63. Odell GH (2001) Stone tool research at the end of the millennium. Journal of Archaeological Research 9: 45–100. Shanks OC, Kornfeld M, and Ream W (2004) DNA and protein recovery from washed experimental stone tools. Archaeometry 46: 663–672. Tuross N and Dillehay T (1995) The mechanism of organic preservation at Monte Verde, Chile, and one use of biomolecules in archaeological investigation. Journal of Field Archaeology 22: 97–110. Yohe RM, II, Newman ME, and Schneider JS (1991) Immunological identification of small-mammal proteins on Aboriginal milling equipment. American Antiquity 45: 659–666.

BONE TOOL ANALYSIS Ryan J Rabett, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

osseous materials Bone, antler, ivory teeth, and horn. secondary manufacture Production investment following the initial creation of a tool blank.

Glossary

Introduction

anthropic The intentional or unintentional result of human action. curated tools Implements of variable investment with a use life usually beyond a single episode; repair is likely. expedient tools Low-investment implements, employed chiefly because of the utility of an existing feature (e.g., sharp edge) and the convenience of the moment. They are generally not retained or repaired.

This article examines the osseous technologies that can be created from animal skeletons. ‘Tool’ status is accorded to a skeletal element or fragment that has been modified subsequent to its isolation from the carcass. Such anthropic adaptation may be deliberate (e.g., through manufacture) and/or appear as a result of utilization, and is granted in instances where these

932 BONE TOOL ANALYSIS

details cannot otherwise be ascribed to alternative nonanthropic causes. Implements can display a combination of traces from both human and natural sources and as such the study of them involves both zooarchaeological (i.e., via animal ecology, hunting, and butchery) and technological analysis (see Archaeozoology). As an exemplar of this, the following discussion will present some of the similarities and differences that exist between osseous and lithic raw materials and tool-blank production, and will situate both in an operational sequence of animal procurement and processing. It will then give an account of principal manufacturing techniques, methods for establishing tool function, and the phenomenon of ‘pseudo tools’.

Raw Materials and Tool-Blank Production Close similarities exist between certain aspects of acquisition and processing osseous and lithic raw materials. Both may be collected in an opportunistic manner during the course of other activities such as foraging, hunting, or herding, and cached ahead of actual use. This kind of scheduling has been inferred from the concentrations of red deer antler found at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr in northern England. Preproduction exposure to fire can affect the mechanical character of stone and help with its working into a tool. Incidental heat treatment of bone as part of the cooking process also alters its responsive qualities through the loss of moisture and organic (collagen) constituents. The extent to which these changes influence the selection of skeletal fragments for tool manufacture is an area that requires further research; however, preproduction work, including the soaking of antler to make it more plastic and workable for tool making, is well known from ethnographic sources and experimentation. As with lithics, acquiring a tool blank is often an extractive process. Osseous implements may begin life as fortuitously fractured pieces of bone broken during processing of the carcass before or through consumption, for example, as a consequence of marrow extraction. Alternatively, this initial stage may be more targeted and deliberate: from the ‘quarrying’ of simple cortical flakes from the dense sections of cortical bone in a manner reminiscent to flake removals for stone tool production, to more elaborate preparatory steps. One of the most well known of these involves using a special lithic tool (a burin) to remove long parallel sections of cortical bone or more commonly antler or ivory, such as is seen at the Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe and the Central Russian Plain, through what is called the ‘groove and splinter’ technique.

A second method, used chiefly on bone or antler, involves cutting around the circumference of the element. This usually takes place close to one or both ends of the element so that the diaphysis can be used as a source of material or as a tool in itself. While it is possible to cut cleanly through a piece using this method, frequently just enough is done simply to control fracturing and the bone or antler is broken by force. As a result, this is called the ‘groove and snap’ technique. There are, however, divergent as well as convergent characteristics between lithic and osseous technologies. Whereas access to usable or favored resources may be affected by variables such as distance, transportation, and even weather conditions in both instances, stone is by and large a stationary resource; osseous raw materials by contrast will, in all cases where living animals are the starting point, have their own patterns of mobility. The behavior of groups (e.g., migration) and individual animals introduces an element of unpredictability and reliance on the skills of the hunter to successfully locate, stalk or trap, and ultimately kill the animal. Whereas the procurement of lithics (be it opportunistic or targeted) must be incorporated into other daily activities, the reward for meeting this unpredictability is that potential raw materials are guaranteed at the end of every successful hunt. Allowing for interspecies differences, osseous raw materials will also always occur in identically shaped packages. Where predictability is lost in the initial phase of acquisition, it is gained through redundancy in the form of what is acquired. However, skeletal elements are functional parts of a body structure that facilitate locomotion, provide protection to internal soft tissues or form part of a feeding apparatus. This places certain limits on how osseous materials can be worked and on what can be made from them; restrictions that are less pronounced in lithic raw materials. Bone is also a much more dynamic material than stone. It is being constantly reformed and replaced during the life of the animal and is subject to the effects of habitual action, trauma, and disease. Age affects an element’s size, but also its inherent strength – bones from aged animals are more highly mineralized than those of younger animals or those in their prime. Changes in composition continue postmortem: the organic collagen decomposes (the rate of this process will be moderated by the environmental conditions of deposition and, as mentioned, may be accelerated by cooking), bone becomes still more mineralized, structurally weakened and prone to the effects of weathering. Finally, animals may also be treated in different ways according to variability in the way people view

BONE TOOL ANALYSIS 933

them. Ethnographic studies show how some animals may be perceived as being an integral part of a group’s ‘community’ while others may be treated as hostile outsiders; the act of hunting carries overtones of social interaction as much as it is the necessary pursuit of sustenance. There is considerable challenge in retrieving these subtle, often habitual, relationships archaeologically, though it is not impossible for us to draw inferences about them in our interpretations of animal procurement and reduction sequences, including where this leads to the production, maintenance, and discard of osseous technology (Figure 1).

Curated, Expedient, and Pseudo Tools Turning a blank into a tool may require a multistage or an abbreviated sequence of additional work. Various secondary manufacturing techniques may be employed in the creation of more complex curated tools, including cutting, perforating, or incising the blank. A process like hafting will bring together a range of different materials to bed, bind, and mount

the working point or edge of a tool into a handle or shaft. In order to exploit the mechanical strength of most animal bones, the long axis of the tool must be aligned with that of the element. As the archaeological record attests, the resilient nature of the material means that it is well suited to the production of projectile points (Figure 2) and it is here that many experimental studies have concentrated. Perhaps the most widely applied techniques involve the scraping and paring or the grinding of a tool blank, either to augment its existing form or to turn it into a prescribed shape. Scraping creates bands of thin striations of varying widths (Figure 3) – reminiscent of a bar code – that are caused by minute irregularities in the working edge of the stone or metal being used. Scraping leaves two other characteristic (though not ubiquitous) traces. The first of these are called ‘chatter marks’: short, closely associated, parallel signals that appear during the course of the stroke and lie at right angles to the main striations (Figure 3). The second trace is characterized by an abrupt line also

Available prey

Prey selection Perceived social relations between hunter and hunted

Primary butchery

Practical dictates of animal physiology

Removal of blank from bone Manufacturing process Discard bone debitage

Cooking Mechanical properties of bone

Choice of skeletal element Available lithic or other implements

Hunting technology

Cultural/ traditional observances of production

Learned skills

Intention to make bone artefact Choice of technique Actual use and maintenance of bone artefact Discard bone artefact

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of interrelated factors in the sequence of bone tool production, use, and discard. Striped arrows indicate the entry and exit points to other adjoining systems.

934 BONE TOOL ANALYSIS

Figure 2 Experimental projectile points and hafting mechanism. Scale in 5 mm increments. Photographs: Ryan Rabett.

at right angles to the direction of the striations. This marks the point at which the edge of the fabricating tool first cuts into the bone at the beginning of a stroke – the ‘inception’ point (Figure 3) – and is an indication of the direction in which the bone was worked. Paring essentially involves a more invasive form of the same process, where shavings are actually carved out of the bone surface. Working osseous materials with an abrasive agent such as sand produces a different form of striation exhibiting a ‘spindle’ or ‘comet-like’ appearance (Figure 4). This distinct profile develops as a result of changes in applied pressure along the abrading path that individual grains take across the surface. In some cases, the shape of a blank and that of the tool itself may spring directly from the natural form or affordances of the original element. Archaeological examples fitting this description include antler and bone pieces used as ‘soft hammers’ or ‘punches’ in lithic reduction (or alternatively, where elements are used as hide processing or fabrication tools). For example, in the Third Millennium Neolithic site of Chalain 4 in the Jura region of France, wild boar tusks and beaver

incisors provided preformed cutting edges that were well suited to tasks such as working the wooden parts of composite tools like arrows or bow staves. There are certain occasions when the only anthropic modification to an osseous blank comes from a brief period of utilization, for example, using fragments of an animal’s own carcass as improvised tools to assist in its butchery. Such pieces are often characterized as ‘expedient’ and are generally discarded at the end of a single period of activity. The lack of investment and abbreviated use life means that it is often only by identifying highly localized damage, such as microflake scars, or rounding of a fracture edge, that such tools can be singled out from other nonanthropically modified fragments in a faunal assemblage. The ability to distinguish between surface traces left by human action and those caused by other agencies (such as trampling, which can cause traces that are superficially similar to cut-marks), either before or during burial, is a major concern in the study of animal butchery, but also has significance in the study of osseous technology. This is particularly the case when archaeologists find potential implements that

BONE TOOL ANALYSIS 935

are made on antlers, horns, and teeth. As part of the external anatomy of an animal, there is a greater chance that these parts will have been subject to surface damage and wear during its life in ways that the internal bones will not have been. Work on deer

Figure 3 Striations, chatter marks, and inception lines on scraped bone (20 magnification: upper image; 30 magnification: lower image) from Niah Cave, Borneo. Photographs: Ryan Rabett. Reproduced courtesy of the Sarawak Museum, Malaysia.

antler from nonarchaeological contexts by Sandra Olsen, for example, has shown that rounding, polish, fracturing, and fine abrasion may all occur at the points of antler tines, and are caused when the deer rubs its antlers against the ground or against trees. This may proceed even to the extent of producing a discrete wear facet to the tip. These ‘pseudo tools’ are completely natural features, but can sometimes be mistaken for use wear and hence for genuine archaeological tools. Familiarization not only with the context of an archaeological assemblage but also with the ecology and behavior of species represented is an important guard against making this mistake. Tool function is normally deduced through two complementary avenues of investigation. The first of these employs comparable lines of evidence through ethnographic or experimental analogues as a reference or to replicate the conditions and consequences of usage. Alternatively, archaeological tools may be examined at a microscale for use wear traces attributable to particular activities (see Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear). Analysis at high magnification, such as that possible through a scanning electron microscope (SEM), can reveal the finest intricacies of detail, isolating minute blood or vegetal residues, or can provide highly resolved images of different kinds of surface polish. Although care must be taken to isolate contaminants that could have become lodged in the microstructure of the surface during recovery or subsequent conservation, this approach can help establish the kinds of materials a tool came into contact with during the period of its use (see Organic Residue Analysis).

Figure 4 The form of ground striations (20 magnification) left on the surface of a bone tool from Niah Cave, Borneo. Scale in 5 mm increments. Photographs: Ryan Rabett. Reproduced from Asian Perspectives.

936 BONE TOOL ANALYSIS

Figure 5 Use-wear striations (accumulated after 300 strokes) along the leading edge of an experimental unhafted tool used to scrape tubers (sweet potatoes); 20 magnification. Photograph: Ryan Rabett.

Lower magnification (usually light-microscope work) is more coarse-grained and has limited facility to characterize residue traces, but where portability or a comparatively large sample size (or cost) are controlling factors, this method is still able to examine details of gross surface change, for example, fractures, manufacturing, and use striations (Figure 5), and give the global character of use polishes: how and where they are distributed across a tool. For example, hafting may preserve a clear wear differential between exposed and bound sections of the tool, while movement in the haft during use can cause discrete patches of polishing and may result in the creation of fine striations from particulate abrasion. This kind of analysis is, therefore, suited for establishing patterns in the context of use – how implements were being utilized.

Conclusion Ethnographic studies and archaeological sites with outstanding organic preservation reveal the wide range of applications to which organic technologies have been used. In most cases, few of these items survive to be recovered by excavation. Of these technologies, osseous tools are among the most enduring and provide valuable insights into the procurement and processing strategies of early peoples. While many of the processes of stone tool utilization may have been transferable to osseous materials, recourse to these alternate raw materials was probably not always or ‘perhaps even usually’ as a direct replacement for stone. There is growing appreciation that osseous materials were often chosen with quite deliberate intent and a view to the affordances that their form or mechanical properties gave to successfully negotiating a particular task. As such, they also

offer a rare glimpse of the interface between human technical adaptation, tradition, and ingenuity, and the living resources upon which we relied. See also: Archaeozoology; Cognitive Archaeology;

Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Organic Residue Analysis; Taphonomy; Vertebrate Analysis.

Further Reading Clark JGD (1954) Excavations at Star Carr: An Early Mesolithic Site at Seamer near Scarborough, Yorkshire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D’Errico F, Giacobini G, and Puech P-F (1984) Varnish replicas: A new method for the study of worked bone surfaces. OSSA 9–11: 29–51. Dobres M-A and Hoffman CR (1999) The Social Dynamics of Technology: Practice, Politics and Worldviews. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Johnson E (1985) Current developments in bone technology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 157–235. Knecht H (ed.) (1997) Projectile Technology. New York: Plenum Press. Luik H, Choyke AM, Batey CE, and Lo˜ugas L (eds.) (2005) From hooves to horns, from mollusc to mammoth: Manufacture and use of bone artefacts from prehistoric times to the present. Muinasaja teadus 15: Proceedings of the 4th Meeting of the ICAZ Worked Bone Research Group at Tallinn, 26th–31st of August, 2003. Tallinn: Tartu University. Olsen S (1989) On distinguishing natural from cultural damage on archaeological antler. Journal of Archaeological Science 16: 125–135. Scheinsohn V and Ferretti JL (1995) The mechanical properties of bone materials in relation to the design and function of prehistoric tools from Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina. Journal of Archaeological Science 22: 711–717. Semenov SA (1957) Prehistoric Technology: An Experimental Study of the Oldest Tools and Artefacts from Traces of Manufacturing and Wear. Thompson MW (trans., 1964). London: Cory, Adams & Mackay Ltd.

BURIALS/Dietary Sampling Methods 937

BURIALS Contents Dietary Sampling Methods Excavation and Recording Techniques

Dietary Sampling Methods Karl J Reinhard and Vaughn M Bryant, Jr., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Glossary control sample A sample collected from an area that is not likely to be influenced by the phenomenon under study which is used to compare analytical results with those from areas that are likely to have been impacted by the phenomenon under study. dental calculus Hardened plaque on the teeth which is formed by saliva, food debris, and minerals. dental plaque An adherent substance made of mucus, food particles, and bacteria. edaphic Resulting from, or influenced by, the soil. pelvic girdle The bony ring supporting the lower limbs in humans composed of the two hip bones laterally and in front, and the sacrum and coccyx behind. pollen aggregates Clumps of pollen composed of many grains of the same type. These signal economic use of buds, flowers, anthers, or sometimes seeds or fruits. pollen concentration A method for calculating the number of pollen grains present per milliliter or gram of sediment based on adding known numbers of exotic pollen grains or spores to a sediment sample. sacrum A triangular bone made up of five fused vertebrae and forming the posterior section of the pelvic girdle. stratigraphic column In burial analysis, a stratigraphic column refers to the layers within the pelvic girdle that range from burial fill to intestinal remains. As a corpse decomposes, sediment from the burial fill enters the pelvic girdle from above and compresses the intestinal contents to the lowest part of the pelvic girdle, the sacrum. The uppermost sample from the highest part of the pelvic girdle is composed of burial fill. The middle of the pelvic girdle might contain some food remains. The lowest level is very likely to contain dietary residue from food.

Burials and Preservation Microenvironments A burial contains numerous, individual microenvironments, each of which has a different preservation potential, which in turn can provide evidence of human diets. Animal and plant food residues can be recovered from the lower intestinal tract, oral cavity, associated vessels, other forms of burial offerings,

and fragments or whole plants or animals deposited in the burial. Individual microenvironments at a burial site result from many aspects including, but not limited to: (1) preparation of the burial feature, (2) addition of burial offerings, (3) depth and orientation of the corpse, (4) edaphic conditions such as moisture and pH, (5) microbial activity, and (6) exposure of the burial when it is excavated. When burials are discovered at sites, the subsequent excavation and removal process should be done with caution and should take into consideration the subsequent types of laboratory analyses (see Burials: Excavation and Recording Techniques). Failures during the recovery phase, or the use of improper sampling strategies, will compromise the ability to provide valid interpretations. In addition, burial sampling must include control samples from the burial fill and surrounding contexts. When found, a skeleton or mummified burial normally has two areas where dietary residues can be easily recovered. In life, dietary residues (i.e., pollen grains, phytoliths, starch granules, plant fibers, animal hairs, etc.) are produced or released during mastication and some of these can become trapped in dental plaque (see Pollen Analysis). If not removed, within a few days, plaque is mineralized and adheres to the teeth in the form of dental calculus. Large deposits of calculus are often found on teeth (Figure 1). Dietary microfossils and residues that were trapped in the calculus are easily recovered during laboratory analysis (Figure 2). Sometimes artifacts or vegetal materials are placed in the mouth of the deceased, especially in the Andean region of South America. Such types of vegetal materials can often be recovered and identified as microfossils or macrofossils present in the area of the oral cavity of a burial. The second burial area of dietary interest is the abdominal area, specifically the sacrum and the soil inside the pelvic girdle. In some well-preserved burials, distinct fecal pellets (coprolites) can be found in the abdominal area because the colon is located in that area. However, for most burials, distinct coprolites are not visible, but controlled sampling of sediments in the pelvic girdle area may reveal seeds, starch grains, phytoliths, pollen, and other types of residues of dietary and medicinal importance.

938 BURIALS/Dietary Sampling Methods

Figure 1 Photograph of dental calculus. Microfossils from dental calculus reflect diet for a few days prior to death.

sterile containers that are then sealed, and then sent to a laboratory where the contents can be removed in a controlled environment. A control sample of burial sediment around the exterior of each vessel should be collected, examined, and then used as a basis for comparison with the contents recovered inside the vessel. In burials where recovered ceramic vessels are cracked, it is often appropriate to remove the sediments in the vessel in the field. In cases where burial vessels are fragmented, analysis of the shard will sometimes provide useful palaeoethnobotanical data. The importance of collecting control samples of the burial fill and from areas above and below the burial cannot be overemphasized. Any interpretations of paleoethnobotanical data recovered from burials (i.e., mummy or skeleton, vessels, artifacts, burial floor surface) are dependent upon comparisons to data recovered from site and burial control samples. Extensive analysis of the contents of control samples will allow analysts to distinguish which items are probable evidence of diet or medicinal use and which items might instead reflect site contaminants.

Pollen Studies and Burial Sediments

Figure 2 Microfossils, for example the starch grains illustrated here, are quite common in dental calculus.

In some types of burials, a variety of grave offerings are included with the body. If present, each bowl or other type of vessel in a burial becomes its own microenvironment, which can offer evidence of its original contents (i.e., pollen, starch, phytoliths, and macrofossils). Some types of grave offerings present better microenvironments of preservation. For example, basketry vessels are less durable than ceramic vessels, and therefore have less preservation potential. Objects made of copper or copper alloy promote preservation because the copper oxide produced by the object is toxic to most types of microbial decomposer organisms. When containers are found in burials, there are various techniques that should be used to sample for dietary residues. For ceramic vessels, a rinsing of the inside, bottom portion is appropriate. Ideally, burial artifacts should be collected in the field, placed in

As a general rule, the wind-pollinated plants produce and disperse millions of pollen grains in the hope that a few of them will be carried to their intended destination by the winds. As a result, in any given location there may be thousands or even millions of pollen grains falling to the earth’s surface in what is called a region’s ‘pollen rain’. This is why the most frequent pollen types recovered in sediment and soil samples are from wind-dispersed plants. The insect-pollinated plants, which are sometimes pollinated by bats, humming birds, small mammals, or a host of insect species, usually produce flowers containing nectar and relatively few pollen grains. Normally, these plants need to produce only a few hundred or a few thousand pollen grains per flower because of the highly efficient method of direct pollination achieved by the various pollen carriers that visit the flowers. The pollen grain surface of most insect-pollinated types is usually covered with lipids so they will stick easily to insects that visit the flowers. In addition, these insect-pollinated plants usually produce highly ornamented pollen grains with thick, sturdy pollen walls designed to protect the pollen’s cytoplasm from the often bumpy ride provided by the pollinators. In general, insect-pollinated pollen types are also heavy and overall are not designed aerodynamically for travel on wind currents. For all of these reasons, few of these types become part of the normal pollen rain of a region. One exception would be instances where

BURIALS/Dietary Sampling Methods 939

flowers still containing a few pollen grains might fall to the surface underneath the parent plant, thus allowing the pollen to become released as the flowers decay. Another exception would be situations where insect-pollinated flowers are carried to a specific location by some animal or human. Using several lines of logic and planned sampling strategies, pollen in burial soils that results from cultural activities, called ‘economic pollen’, can be separated successfully from pollen that may have come from the normal pollen rain, referred to as ‘background pollen’. First, if one of the pollen types in the soils of a burial matches an ethnographic or archaeological food plant species endemic to the region, or comes from a plant that may have been obtained in trade, then that pollen should be considered as potentially reflecting the use of that plant as a food source. However, roots, tubers, corms, and other underground plant organs will not carry attached pollen with them from the source plant, so there is reduced potential for the pollen from these types to be represented in the site. Seeds and fruits from some plant species that are brought to a site often do carry pollen on their outer surfaces and thus such pollen types can reflect plant usage. Nevertheless, even with such types of potential pollen sources, one must be careful to distinguish pollen evidence suggesting actual plant usage and pollen that may be from background sources. For example, a number of types of economic chenopods, including Chenopodium quinoa, and amaranths (Amaranthus) produce pollen that is nearly identical to the pollen of many noneconomic genera and species in these same plant groups. Trying to distinguish which pollen types are from economic plants rather than from noneconomic background types is often nearly impossible to determine without extensive studies using the resolution capability of a scanning electron microscope. Pollen concentration values add another dimension to pollen data from burials and coprolites. For example, 10 maize pollen grains out of each 100

pollen grains recovered from a soil sample would be recorded as a 10% average. Similarly, 10 000 maize pollen grains out of 100 000 would also be recorded as a 10% average. However, there is a significant difference in terms of the potential importance and source of maize pollen in each of those two samples. That difference can only be realized by conducting pollen concentration values of both samples. Low concentrations of some pollen taxa in coprolites or soil deposits may result from sources of ambient pollen in the normal pollen rain (pollen distribution in a region). However, high concentration values of the same pollen taxa would suggest some type of disturbance or cultural activity rather than resulting solely from normal pollen rain distributions. Knowing the types of percentages of pollen found in burial sediments and coprolites in burials is important because the relative pollen percentages may be roughly the same in both types of samples; however, there may be dramatically differences in the pollen concentration values. This is illustrated in the Mimbres burial (Table 1) examined by Shafer et al. For example, maize pollen percentages are not statistically different between the control sample and samples from the sacral coprolites. However, the maize pollen concentration values reveal an average concentration of only 266 pollen grains per gram for the control sample but 59 280 pollen grains per gram for the sacral coprolite sample. The above discussion briefly describes some of the factors that should be considered during the analysis and interpretation of pollen materials collected from burials at archaeological sites. In addition to these, there are other, even more important considerations that must be applied to pollen studies of burial deposits. These include (1) the assurance that the person conducting the pollen analysis has not accidentally contaminated the field samples with other pollen types in the laboratory that come from the use of unclean laboratory equipment or facilities; (2) the knowledge that the researcher has not accidentally

Table 1 Pollen concentration values of selected pollen types from Burial 109, NAN Ranch, New Mexico Taxon

Mustard Squash Cheno-am Willow Maize Cattail Grass

Sacrum

Grave fill

Above pelvis

Below pelvis

Conc.

%

Conc.

%

Conc.

%

Conc.

%

303 240 6840 43 320 149 340 59 280 7410 3420

53 1 7.5 26 10 1 20%) because (1) the samples show a large spread in the concentrations of the radioactive isotopes and (2) any effects of a lumpy environment are neglected (i.e., the original sediments might have contained larger boulders and pebbles, etc., which, of course, were not collected). If teeth contain significant amounts of uranium, the errors introduced by the unknown U-uptake history may be as high as 50%, if the assumption is made that the EU and LU models bracket the true ages of the samples. If all dose rate parameters are measured, including U-series isotopes, the 1-s error (precision) of an ESR analysis is in the range of 7%. Because it is very difficult to analyze teeth of precisely known age, the evaluation of the systematic errors (accuracy) in ESR dating is open to conjecture.

Application of ESR Dating Dating of teeth is the main application of ESR in palaeoanthropological studies. There have been some other applications in archaeological/palaeoanthropological contexts: for example, ESR dating of

1126 ELECTRON SPIN RESONANCE DATING 0

50

100

1 BS

ESR

645a 645b

250

200

14

C

530a 530b 530c 17304

EU-age (ka)

LR1

33 ± 1 ka

up

39 ± 3 ka

2

36 ± 1 ka

up

41 ± 2 ka

LRC

48 ± 1 ka

Early LSA

531a 531b 531c 644a 644b 646a 646b

150

1 WA

2 BS (

41 ka

)

529a 529b 541a 541b 19011+

MSA 3

540a 540b 17302+ 532a 532b 532c 533a 533b 537a 537b 537c 17505+

63 ± 2 ka

2 WA

60 ka

535A 535B 535C 535D 3 BS

607A 607B 536A 536B 536C 609A 609B 609C BC5

(

)

BC5: 74 ± 5 ka

58 ± 2 ka

2

66 ± 3 ka

3

74 ± 4 ka

3 WA

66 ± 2 ka

601A 601B 601C

1 RGBS

76 ± 4 ka

534a 534b 647A 647B 538a 538b 538c

4 BS

Howieson's Poort

608A 608B 608C

1

79 ka

602a 602b 602c 4 WA

604A 604B 604C 605a 605b 605c

1

118 ± 4 ka

6

116 ± 5 ka

7

174 ± 5 ka

2

166 ± 6 ka

5

147 ± 6 ka

1

174 ± 9 ka

2

227 ± 11 ka

250

EU-age (ka)

MSA 1

603A 603B 603C

82 ± 2 ka

5 BS

539a 539b 539c 754a 754b 754c

5 WA

753 0

50

100

150

200

Figure 5 The age of BC5 in context with the ESR and 14C chronology for Border Cave. Lowercase letters following the sample number denote sub-samples of a single tooth, capital letters separate enamel fragments. The two bracketed results were not used for the calculation of the average ages of the units. Gru¨n R, Beaumont P, Tobias PV, and Eggins S (2003) On the age of Border Cave 5 human mandible. Journal of Human Evolution 45: 155–167; Bird MI, Fifield LK, Santos GM, et al. (2003) Radiocarbon dating from 40–60 ka BP at Border Cave, South Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 943–947.

ELECTRON SPIN RESONANCE DATING 1127

speleothems, which has created some confusion with respect to the age of the Petralona hominid (Greece); ESR dating of mollusk shells (e.g., from Batadomba Cave, Sri Lanka); of spring deposited travertine (e.g., Weimar Ehringsdorf and Bilzingsleben, Germany), and of burnt flint (e.g., Kebara, Israel). These applications have recently been summarized by Gru¨n and Rink. Perhaps, apart from ESR dating of mollusk shells, other dating techniques are significantly better suited to provide precise age information on these materials, for example, U-series dating on speleothems and travertines or thermoluminescence on burnt flint. ESR dating of tooth enamel is applicable between a few thousand years and, in exceptional circumstances, up to a few million years. Although it would be highly desirable to be able to date bones with ESR, any attempt to obtain independent ESR age estimates has so far been unsuccessful. This is due to the following observations: (1) bones usually absorb more uranium than teeth and (2) the mineral phase (hydroxyapatite) in bones is only somewhere in the region of 40–60% (enamel: about 96%). During fossilization the mineralogical compounds of the bones change, leading to the formation of new minerals, disintegration of some mineral phase, conversion of an amorphous phase into hydroxyapatite, as well as growth of the crystal size. Formation of the new mineral phase (with new defects ¼ traps) with time will generally lead to an age underestimation regardless of the U-uptake model applied. ESR dating of tooth enamel has been applied to a variety of archaeological and palaeoanthropological sites. ESR dating has been used for the dating of the early modern human sites of Border Cave, and Klasies River Mouth Cave in southern Africa, as well as Qafzeh and Skhul in the Levant. The ESR dating results demonstrated the occurrence of anatomically modern humans at around 100 000 years ago. ESR was also used for the dating of Neanderthal sites including Tabun, Kebara, Amud, Krapina, Le Moustier, and La-Chapelle-aux-Saints. The particular strength of ESR dating lies in the direct analysis of tooth enamel fragments from human fossils. The archaeological and palaeoanthropological site of Border Cave contains one of the most detailed ESR dating sequences (Figure 5). The dating results in the younger layers agree well with radiocarbon results on charcoal collected from the same layers. Of particular interest is the age of Border Cave 5, one of the few early anatomically modern hominid fossils that were found in situ at the site. A study based on the analysis of nitrogen contents and infrared splitting factors indicated that BC5 may be as young as Iron Age, that is, about 1000 years old.

ESR analysis of a tooth fragment and determination of its uranium concentration with laser ablation ICPMS demonstrated that BC5 agrees with the age of the other samples that were found in the surrounding sediments (Figure 5). The best age estimate of 74 000  5000 years shows that fully modern humans lived in southern Africa significantly earlier than in Europe.

Summary The advantages of ESR dating of tooth enamel, particularly when applied to human fossils, lie in providing valuable information to our understanding of modern human evolution. The dating range of ESR goes well beyond the radiocarbon barrier and covers about the last 500 000 years. The inability to accurately date tooth enamel by other means is also a downfall of ESR dating, because it is difficult to assess the reliability of the age estimations. The precision of ESR dating is significantly less than that of isotopic methods. Results of museum specimens are often associated with large errors, because ESR dating is crucially dependent on the reconstruction of the external dose rate environments. See also: Amino Acid Racemization Dating; Carbon-14 Dating; Dating Methods, Overview; Dendrochronology; Luminescence Dating; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Obsidian Hydration Dating.

Further Reading Aitken MJ (1985) Thermoluminescence Dating. New York: Academic Press. Aitken MJ (1998) Optical Dating. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bird MI, Fifield LK, Santos GM, et al. (2003) Radiocarbon dating from 40–60 ka BP at Border Cave, South Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 943–947. Eggins S, Gru¨n R, Pike A, Shelley A, and Taylor L (2003) 238U, 232 Th profiling and U-series isotope analysis of fossil teeth by laser ablation-ICPMS. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 1373–1382. Eggins SM, Gru¨n R, McCulloch M, Pike A, Chappell J, Kinsley L, Shelley M, Murray-Wallace C, Spo¨tl C, and Taylor L (2005) In Situ U-series dating by laser-ablation multi-collector ICPMS: new prospects for Quaternary geochronology. Quaternary Science Reviews 24: 2523–2538. Gru¨n R (1989) Electron spin resonance (ESR) dating. Quaternary International 1: 65–109. Gru¨n R (2000) Electron spin resonance dating. In: Ciliberto E and Spoto G (eds.) Modern Analytical Methods in Art and Archaeology Chemical Analyses Series, vol. 155, p. 641–679. New York: Wiley. Gru¨n R (2006) Direct dating of human remains. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 49: 2–48.

1128 ENGENDERED ARCHAEOLOGY Gru¨n R, Beaumont P, Tobias PV, and Eggins S (2003) On the age of Border Cave 5 human mandible. Journal of Human Evolution 45: 155–167. Gru¨n R and Stringer CB (1991) ESR dating and the evolution of modern humans. Archaeometry 33: 153–199. Prescott JR and Hutton JT (1988) Cosmic ray and gamma ray dosimetry for TL and ESR. Nuclear Tracks and Radiation Measurement 14: 223–227.

Elites

Rink WJ (1997) Electron spin resonance (ESR) dating and ESR applications in quaternary science and archaeometry. Radiation Measurements 27: 975–1025. Sillen A and Morris AG (1996) Diagenesis of bone from Border Cave: Implications for the age of the Border Cave hominids. Journal of Human Evolution 31: 499–506.

See: Social Inequality, Development of.

Empires

See: Political Complexity, Rise of.

ENGENDERED ARCHAEOLOGY Rosemary A Joyce, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary androcentrism An unreflective assumption of a unified male perspective that does not allow for differences in perspectives of women and men. dichotomy Division into two parts, groups, or classes, especially when these are sharply distinguished or opposed. division of labor The anthropological concept that in every society there is a normal distribution of tasks among people of different age, sex, or other identity statuses. ethnographic analogy The procedure of using observations of living societies made by anthropologists as a basis for interpretation of archaeological patterning, based either on specific historical continuities or on similar characteristics that allow one case to be generalized and identified with another. feminist archaeology An explicitly political approach to archaeology that critically examines androcentrism and gender inequity in the present practice of archaeology, encourages analyses of inequality in past societies, especially inequalities on lines of sex, and advocates awareness of the implications of models of past gender relations for contemporary society. gender Often used to distinguish the cultural interpretation of sex differences, including the assignment of different roles on the basis of biological sex, and understood as a culturally created and therefore historically changing aspect of human identity. processual archaeology The idea that archaeology should identify the processes through which past societies developed in their historical forms, with an emphasis on the generalizable aspects of what happened in the past.

sex/gender system The concept that sex and gender are not separable as given biology (sex) and cultural interpretation (gender) but instead are inseparable parts of cultural orders through which biological variation is naturalized as the basis for cultural differences.

Introduction One of the most active areas of archaeological innovation in the last half of the twentieth century was the exploration of gender. Never a single, unified project, this topical area of attention was able to bring together archaeologists representing every theoretical perspective – from culture historical through processual, postprocessual, and even evolutionary archaeology (see Processual Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Evolutionary Archaeology). After more than 20 years of development of this topic, most contributions still take the form of individual papers, usually included in edited volumes. This is one indication of the breadth of participation by a very large number of people in developing archaeologies of gender. Early in the history of the development of archaeologies of gender, Cheryl Claassen, who did much to sustain this level of energy by organizing the three conferences on gender in archaeology starting in 1991, noted another important characteristic of participation in this emerging topical area: many, perhaps most, of the participants were graduate students or recent recipients of doctorates.

ENGENDERED ARCHAEOLOGY 1129

The lack of theoretical unity among the many people contributing to archaeologies of gender has at times been seen as a weakness, particularly from the point of view of explicitly feminist scholars. Their most urgent concern was with the possibility that archaeologists pursuing questions of gender would simply create an appearance of long-term stability for present-day gender relations, ‘naturalizing’ present inequalities. Remarkably, other archaeologists saw quite the opposite danger: that use of explicitly feminist theoretical perspectives would impede the progress of ‘objective’ research on gender in the past, or that such research would be marginalized because mainstream archaeologists would find it unacceptably political. Despite the large numbers of contributors to the development of archaeologies of gender over the past 20 years, and the very visible venues where work of this kind has appeared, it is probably true that today, some archaeologists view this as a specialty with which they do not need to engage. This is unfortunate, because while archaeologists of gender have not developed special methods to ‘see’ men and women in the past, they have developed sophisticated perspectives on the social implications of material remains whose potentials go far beyond such simple goals. Archaeologies of gender fundamentally transform understandings of classic archaeological questions such as the development of agriculture, the emergence of institutionalized social distinctions in early sedentary societies, and the ways that wealth and power could be increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people in the most stratified states. In this article, some of the big moments in the history of archaeologies of gender are briefly reviewed first, and then some of the key interpretive and methodological approaches taken by archaeologists working around the world on questions of gender are outlined. Finally, future directions for this line of archaeological inquiry are suggested. It is clear that there is no reversing the impact of the extraordinary florescence of archaeological research on gender of the past decades.

Genealogies of Research on Gender in Archaeology Constructing histories while events continue to unfold is a perilous task, one that also has highly political dimensions. This article does not claim to be a complete history of archaeologies of gender. Instead, it identifies a series of key conferences and publications that pushed the field of gender archaeology forward in the 1980s and 1990s. The outline of events mainly concerns the English-language literature, above all, the literature from North America and Great Britain. Within the

English-language literature, important contributions were also made by archaeologists in Australia. In parallel, archaeologies of gender were developed by Scandinavian archaeologists, such as Erika Engelstadt and Mary Louise Stig S
rensen, often publishing in English as well as Scandinavian languages. In Germany, Femarc, the Women’s Network in Archaeology, began in 1991 and continues to operate a website to this day, again in both English and German. Archaeologies of gender are less developed in other regional traditions in archaeology, but the international extension of interest in related questions that developed over the same period of time is still noteworthy. Many histories of archaeology of gender credit an article by Margaret Conkey and Janet Spector in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, published in 1984, as a particularly influential starting point. In this article, Conkey and Spector outlined a ‘task-differentiation’ approach to identifying women in archaeological sites, using ethnographic analogies to establish the tasks that would have occupied men and women in different societies. Concern has been expressed about singling out this article as a kind of origin point for archaeology of gender, based on the indisputable fact that there were preexisting works by archaeologists concerned with understanding gender relations using archaeological data. For example, at least as early as 1960, Tatiana Proskouriakoff published a pathbreaking study of women in Classic Maya art. This beginning was followed up in 1976 by Joyce Marcus’ consideration of evidence for women’s roles in Classic Maya politics. In 1982, archaeologist Mary Pohl published a pathbreaking study of the roles of Classic Maya women in relation to the raising of animals. About the same time, archaeologists working on the ancient societies of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and neighboring regions were actively developing accounts of the roles of women in these ancient societies, in books like the 1983 Images of Women in Antiquity. It is thus worth asking why the 1984 paper by Conkey and Spector has been cited by many people as a turning point in their ability to write about gender as a legitimate topic. Two things stand out: first, the article is methodological; it proposed a framework for identifying evidence of gender. Second, the method is rooted in the concept of gendered divisions of labor, an anthropological base that many archaeologists found helpful in initially making a transition to gender analysis. These perspectives also underwrote the Wedge Conference, organized by Conkey and Joan Gero, which brought together archaeologists working on a variety of technologies to follow through on analysis of gender in 1988. The published volume from this conference, 1991’s

1130 ENGENDERED ARCHAEOLOGY

Engendering Archaeology, is perhaps the secondmost widely cited point of reference for archaeologists of gender, and was a landmark that, among other things, launched the newly coined term ‘engendered archaeology’. It might be fair to say that archaeologies of gender have been struggling with the legacy of this initial orientation ever since. By linking gender to production, archaeologists opened the door to examining gender in what processual archaeologists saw as the most determinative aspect of social life, subsistence, and the economy. Contributions to Engendering Archaeology argued for the significance of factoring in differences in the economic roles of men and women in models of past societies, and demonstrated an ability to address these questions with materials of many different kinds. The method advocated in the original article, however, was inherently dependent on cross-cultural analogies subject to critical re-examination. Since these analogies were derived from ethnography conducted in the contemporary world, in societies that already had experienced colonial engagements of unknown transformative effect, they ran the risk of incorporating presentist perspectives and validating modern gender arrangements as universal. Moreover, most authors took for granted an equation of dichotomous biological sex with a primary division of all human populations into a relatively homogeneous group of males, and an equally homogeneous group of females. Later researchers in archaeology have worked hard to develop alternative approaches that do not assume a dichotomy of genders grounded in the two-sex model. But they contended with their own histories of advances based on making precisely this assumption. The philosopher Alison Wylie, writing an introductory paper in Engendering Archaeology, called attention to the trajectory for future research that could be predicted given the beginning of archaeology of gender as a search for women in the past. Comparing archaeology to other disciplines, such as history, she predicted that archaeologists would find it necessary eventually to question the very concepts of analysis with which they were working. While most subsequent authors cited Wylie, we nonetheless took the short cut provided by associating gender with two preexisting sexes, between whom there was assumed to be a separation of tasks, something we could potentially see archaeologically in dichotomous distributions of features, artifacts, and floral and faunal remains. The Wedge Conference was influential precisely because of its shared programmatic direction. A second conference, held at almost the same time,

is equally important in the history of development of archaeologies of gender even though participants shared no common project or assumptions. This was the 1989 Chacmool conference on gender in archaeology. Organized by students of archaeology at Calgary University, this open-attendance conference provided a forum for an international group of archaeologists who proposed an astonishing array of approaches to understanding gender in the past. Many of the international participants already had taken part in conferences or publication projects in which gender was one dimension of human variation being considered, some of which were grounded in a more openly feminist critique of archaeology than generally characterized North American gender studies of the time. The sheer diversity of the papers included in the Chacmool conference volume is testimony to the already existing activity of archaeologists who had arrived, more or less simultaneously, at the conclusion that it was time to talk about men and women in archaeological analyses. Notable contributions to this conference went further, and began to trouble simple assumptions of a male/female dichotomy. Many of the papers argued that the projection of genders in representational media, such as figurines or stone sculpture, was a source of understanding gender ideologies, something that had been a secondary theme of many participants at the Wedge Conference as well. Several papers at the Chacmool conference attempted to explicitly theorize how genders might have been formed in the past through people’s use of materials that would leave archaeological traces, taking gender formation, not the work and lives of women and men, as their explicit focus. Even more notable, at a time when most work on gender conflated gender with women, some of the participants at the Chacmool conference were concerned with identifying masculine images, roles, and ideologies. Cheryl Claassen, a participant in the Wedge Conference, organized a third pathbreaking conference in 1991 that nurtured archaeologies of gender in North America. Claassen was inspired to promote wider engagement in discussions of archaeology of gender, bringing together individuals who she knew had presented papers on related themes at national and regional meetings. The three conferences that Claassen organized served as incubators for cross-regional connections that sustained a large number of researchers interested in pursuing questions that were not central in their individual regions. Notably, the first conference included discussion of teaching courses on gender, or with content about gender. Roundtable discussions explored the question of how archaeologists were

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actually operationalizing their terms, defining gender and using it. After its first few iterations, successor conferences moved to different regions of the US, providing a unique context for archaeologists, including large numbers of students, to meet with others of like mind and develop their analyses in collaborative settings. These conferences promoted a form of feminist practice through which new generations of scholars were able to gain a foothold, exploring every possible material and all the ways that they could imagine accessing gender in the past. Subsequent regional conferences dealing with the US Southwest, the pre-Columbian Americas, and archaeology worldwide included many scholars who first tried out their ideas about gender in the context of one of the ‘gender in archaeology’ conferences. The importance of such conferences as settings that allowed practitioners to gain support for their ideas was not limited to North America. In 1991, the first of a series of Australian conferences on Women in Archaeology was held. In addition to papers on aspects of the place of women in past societies, this conference included discussions of equity in careers of women in archaeology. The Australian conferences appear also to have had a more explicit commitment to feminist analysis than was typical of the open North American conferences. Several participants in the Wedge Conference participated in the first Australian conference. In Great Britain, questions of gender were incorporated in a number of conferences around the same time, although typically in Britain, these conferences were not limited to discussions of gender. An exception was the 1994 Gender and Material Culture Conference at the University of Exeter, which explicitly brought to the foreground methodological concerns, asking how archaeologists could use the material record to talk about gender in the past. Like the other conferences taking place in the early and mid-1990s, some of the participants in the Exeter conference, which resulted in three edited volumes, had previously participated in other conferences dedicated to exploring gender in archaeology. It is arguable that without the extremely lively conference scene of the time, gender would never have taken off as a strong topic of research in archaeology, since at the same time as these conferences, considerable resistance to work in this area was expressed by mainstream archaeologists. Some archaeologists were concerned that the diversity of participation would lead to an incoherent field of study. In a 1997 review article in Annual Reviews in Archaeology, Margaret Conkey and Joan Gero expressed concerns about what they characterized as a ‘cottage industry’ of gender archaeology. For archaeologists

like this, the price of the openness of participation in gender conferences was bracketing the fundamental definitional questions Claassen raised at the first conference she organized. The gain was a vast number of studies that proposed ways to assess the roles of women, and less often men, in past societies around the world, often relying on distributions of specific artifacts used as signatures of men and women. Critical participants in archaeologies of gender worried that premature attempts to create simple methods to ‘see’ men and women would reinforce modern ideas of clearly divided separate spheres that actually are products of relatively recent histories in the industrial world. Some archaeologists, drawing on theoretical work in contemporary gender studies, were concerned that archaeologists too quickly adopted definitions of sex (as precultural, biological given) and gender (as the cultural interpretation of sex) that were already critiqued by scholars in other fields. A very few archaeologists of gender, informed by these external theoretical sources, were trying to grapple with how one would recognize a sex/gender system in which biology was conceived as something other than a simple dichotomy. Other participants in the early development of archaeologies of gender noted that treating sex/gender systems as separable from other aspects of identity, such as age, class, ethnicity, or race, was artificial, and that it was especially problematic to assume that gender was the most fundamental division in all societies. These concerns still exist, and not all work on archaeology of gender meets contemporary standards of analysis in feminist and gender scholarship more widely. Nonetheless, the advances fostered by the wide participation in archaeologies of gender are clear. It has now become common to find sessions dedicated to gender at annual meetings of archaeological professional societies, and to find papers on gender included in sessions on other topics. Archaeologies of gender have made important contributions to how archaeologists think about the past and to what we think we know about it.

What We Know Today as a Result of Archaeologies of Gender Because archaeologies of gender began with the question ‘‘where are the women?’’ much of the literature in this topical area has consisted of empirical contributions to knowledge of particular times and places. Thus there are edited books and special issues of journals on gender in Africa, Asia, and various regions of the US, among others. Such edited volumes usually adopt culture-historical or culture-evolutionary models, but explicitly include consideration of women’s

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contributions in the past, often highlighting those instances in which women were active agents of change. Culture-evolutionary or culture-historical approaches are also common in the still-rare monographs in the field. For example, in their 1999 study of women in the ancient Americas, Karen Olson Bruhns and Karen Stothert provided a culture-evolutionary overview of women’s place in economy and society in the ancient Americas, as evident in the numerous case studies they reviewed and synthesized. Sarah Nelson’s influential 1997 book Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige, while organized around a critique of androcentrism in archaeology itself, demonstrates the proposed alternative approach through a global cultural evolutionary narrative that asks what women’s contributions were at various points in human history around the world. Studies such as these draw needed attention to the absence or assumed passivity of women as social actors in other archaeological accounts of cultural evolution. Other works take the study of gender as a means to propose new methodological perspectives. One long-term debate, both within and outside archaeologies of gender, was whether there should be methods specific to the study of gender, and if so, what these methods were. Reduced to its basic, this is the question of how archaeologists can see women (and by implication, men) in the past. Archaeologists of gender in fact have exploited the entire existing archaeological toolkit in pursuit of evidence of differential treatment of people in the past along lines of sex, and of differences in the experiences and activities of people of different socially recognized genders. The entire suite of distributional analyses used in household archaeology, for example, has been marshaled to support identification of gendered spaces and divisions of labor along the lines of gender in places as widely separated as Europe and Mesoamerica. Studies of gender have not been limited to the smallscale settings where normative models of gender relations derived from late twentieth-century ideologies associating women with a private, domestic sphere lead archaeologists to expect to see women. Significant studies of political economy of states and of prestate societies asked the question, ‘‘what were the political and economic roles of women in these societies?’’ The answers proposed showed that women were significant political actors even in complex societies where official political roles were reserved for men, particularly when women’s roles in production for the state are included. In Elizabeth Brumfiel’s articles on Aztec society, she demonstrates that household labor was reorganized with the development of the state in ways that relate to intensification of demand for cloth produced by women in domestic contexts.

As she and others have noted, the importance of cloth in the Aztec economy created opportunities for women to assert special status in both the household and state. Brumfiel’s writing has been extremely influential, making her 1992 article in American Anthropologist the secondmost cited journal article on gender in archaeology, after the 1984 paper by Conkey and Spector. Archaeologists have amply demonstrated that a public/domestic dichotomy cannot be projected into the past without losing much of the picture of ancient political economy. As Julia Hendon argued in a 1996 article in Annual Reviews in Anthropology, which is among the top ten cited articles on gender and archaeology, political and economic action begins in the household. Archaeologists of the more recent past have posed direct challenges to the assumption of a timeless feminine domestic sphere by tracing how ideologies of female domesticity were built up over the course of the nineteenth century. This ‘cult of domesticity’ was promulgated through the use of material culture recovered in archaeological research such as serving wares and decorative objects. Historical archaeologists have documented the continued engagements of women as laborers outside this emerging domestic sphere in a wide range of historic settings, from plantations where enslaved African women reproduced social and cultural relations even under the most oppressive conditions, to the brothels of urban centers where sex trade was practiced, and the prisons, mining settlements, and camps of striking laborers typical of modern industrial societies. Two analytical approaches come closest to being core methods of gender archaeology, mortuary analysis and analysis of art. Burials have repeatedly figured as possible sites were the relations between biological sex and cultural statuses could potentially be clarified. Mortuary and bioarchaeological studies of human remains have documented telling distinctions in treatment of the dead along lines of sex or inferred social gender identities, including differences in nutrition, in burial orientation, and in materials buried with the dead (see Bioarchaeology; Individual, Archaeology of in Prehistory). Drawing on ethnographic documentation, Sandra Hollimon has pursued a particularly careful set of explorations of the possibility to identify third genders in Chumash cemeteries, given the known presence and frequency of such statuses in historic Chumash communities. Drawing on sophisticated biocultural understandings of sex itself as encompassing variations beyond normative male and female, Rebecca Storey has proposed that an individual burial at Classic Maya Copan may have been intersexed, and recognized socially as a different gender.

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Scholars have examined how men, women, and additional genders were represented in ancient societies using approaches common to study of symbolism and ideology in visual media (see Interpretive Art and Archaeology). Some of the most abundant, and earliest, work of this kind was accomplished in Classical, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian archaeology by art historians. Typically, studies began by identifying signifiers of male and female genders, sometimes explicitly considering the possible existence of alternative genders. Bodily features, such as breasts, genitalia, facial hair, waist-to-hip ratios, and musculature are often used to identify males and females. Depictions of anthropomorphic forms in rock art, in areas as distant as Norway and South Africa, have been the focus of such studies, identifying different forms of bodily masculinity as well as differences between males and females (see Rock Art). Ann Cyphers proposed that figurines from Chalcatzingo, Mexico, recorded different stages in the female life course, including specific developments related to stages of pregnancy, providing a parallel expansion of feminities. Costume and modifications of the body, including sex-specific hair treatments and body ornaments, are common secondary attributes identified in such studies of gender in visual imagery. In some studies, the distributions in burials of ornaments of the kinds depicted in sex-specific imagery are considered as a second line of evidence to assess the inferred gender differences. Among the most explicitly theoretical discussions of gendered visual representations are the many contributions to debates concerning the meanings of Paleolithic and Neolithic figurines of Europe and the Near East (see Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures; Europe: Neolithic). Exaggerated physical features on some of these figurines have been identified as evidence of fertility cults in which women’s bodies were valued as symbols of broader fecundity, as sexualized toys intended for men, as self-portraiture of pregnant women, and as ambiguous images that sometimes clearly conflate suggestions of male genitalia with apparent female bodies. A broadly debated question in figurine studies worldwide is whether the apparent predominance of female representations indicates that the makers of these small-scale human images were normally women. Joyce Marcus has developed a particularly strong argument in which she links the dominance of female images in early figurines in Oaxaca, and their distribution in household contexts, to female veneration of female ancestors. None of these innovative studies employed methods uniquely developed for finding gender in the past. Together, they demonstrate that no method available

to archaeologists cannot be pressed into service in an archaeology of gender. As with other archaeological topics, a common strategy is to draw on multiple lines of evidence to strengthen arguments. The fact that gender archaeology has no specific unique methods does not imply that archaeologies of gender have not been sources of archaeological innovation. The archaeology of gender has involved critical reassessment of a core archaeological methodology, ethnographic analogy. As the social anthropologist Henrietta Moore has noted, most of the studies produced by early ethnographers assumed a correspondence between sex and gender, a universal dominance of males in the public, political sphere, and a more limited and passive position of women. Reliance on informants who were usually male means that most ethnographies do not represent any contestation of gender ideologies. Specialists in gender have addressed this weakness in the main source of interpretive models for all archaeology, including conducting new ethnographic research attentive to the complexity of gender among hunter-gatherers and small-scale societies where economic, political, and social relations could be reexamined with gender and archaeology in mind. Archaeological reevaluations of ethnographic sources have resulted in analyses of the exercise of authority and control by women obscured by androcentric analyses of state-level societies, like those of the Classic Maya or Aztecs. Ethnographically informed studies of native North American hunter-gatherers, like those of Hetty Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa, show how parties that ranged out from home bases to pursue, process, and bring back game were constituted of men and women recruited along lines of age rather than by parties segregated by sex. Margaret Conkey, writing about the hunter-gatherers of the European Paleolithic, suggested that when separate bands came together at seasonal gathering places, multiple dimensions of identity including but not limited to sex would have been brought to the foreground as band members navigated complex social relationships. These studies suggest strongly that other dimensions of difference within society, such as age or skill, may often have been more significant bases for distinctions within society than sex/gender. These studies have shifted focus from gender identity (assumed to be congruent with sexual identity) to sex/gender difference, which can be much more fluid and multidimensional. Archaeologists working on questions of gender have also developed broader critiques of androcentric assumptions taken for granted by archaeologists. The fact that archaeologies of gender assumed prominence at a time when women were moving into the field in unprecedented numbers is undoubtedly significant. Androcentrism may have been more obvious

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to women archaeologists because it did not ring true with their own experiences. For example, male viewing perspective and modern sexual orientations projected into the past led generations of archaeologists to interpret female figures as sexual imagery. Women, also among those who viewed and possibly used such objects in the past, would not necessarily have shared the same sexualization of the female body. Arguments like those of Ann Cyphers that figurines showing women in different stages of pregnancy were made and used in rites of passage during a female life course are based on a notably different experiential perspective from the one that saw these same objects as intended for male viewing. A second example of the critical interrogation of androcentric assumptions are innovative discussions of the possible roles of women in early plant cultivation and pottery production. Both arguments propose that women would have been agents of change due to their detailed and intimate knowledge of the materials being manipulated, as the assumed principal participants in food preparation. In both cases, archaeologists propose that human beings in general, and women in particular, may have been more active in fostering change than in traditional models. This shift to a more active view of human intervention, based on critically examining the assumed passivity of women that was an accepted part of earlier archaeological models, has broader significance. The methodological innovations of archaeologies of gender are not limited to critiques of previous approaches. While there is no specific method for detecting women (or men) in the past, participants in archaeology of gender have pursued the core question of when and how one can talk about gender difference in sophisticated ways. An increasing number of archaeologists have asked specifically how we might study gender in the past if we did not begin by projecting a modern two-sex/two-gender model that encourages the interpretation of dichotomous distributions as evidence of gender segregation. Bioarchaeologists have been particularly important participants in this process. Early on, archaeologies of gender often began with sexed burials to try to arrive at diagnostic patterns associated with male or female identity. The assumed simple correspondence model, though, ignores both the actual continuity of distribution of biological characteristics such as body size, and the presence in biological populations, even if at a low frequency, of persons whose chromosomal sexual identity is neither normative male nor normative female. Bioarchaeologists, with their greater understanding of both the procedures of sex assignment in analysis and of real biological variation, have been

open to identifying possible intersexed individuals. Working with ethnographic models, bioarchaeologists have been the first to ask how people whose gender identity was neither normative male nor normative female, so-called third or fourth genders, would appear in mortuary populations where they were known to have existed, such as in native North American societies. Other archaeologists inspired by contemporary studies of gender as a product of specific social practices have turned to the archaeological record to examine how different societies in the past went about producing the experiences of embodied personhood that are gender. If gender is not simply a cultural recognition of innate dichotomous sexual differences, then sex/gender systems were outcomes of experiences beginning in childhood and continuing throughout life, reinforced by everyday habits of work, by rituals of the life cycle, and by the representation of normative sex/gender in discourses, some of them recorded in permanent visual and textual forms. These analyses have led far beyond questions of sex/gender alone, to explicit consideration of sexuality and the nature of personal experience of embodiment in the past. These archaeological discussions lead far from the initial roots of archaeologies of gender in a quest to find the women missing from most accounts of the past.

Future Directions Archaeology is immeasurably enriched by work that replaces unexamined generalized people with populations of diverse, changing persons. It is thus important that research on gender does not become a form of separate analysis that is seen as easy to ignore because it is assumed to have no consequences for broader analyses. The solution does not lie in banishing explicit critical theoretical perspectives from archaeology of gender. Gender needs to be mainstream, but not at the cost of abandoning critical lessons that archaeologies of gender have shown about archaeological naı¨vete´ about models that presume all people are interchangeable, or that genetically female persons in the past ‘naturally’ did housework and were tethered to homesites by childbirth and childrearing. We need to follow the examples of pioneers who use their analyses of gender to critique commonly accepted models. For example, Elizabeth Brumfiel insists on the consequences of taking gender into account for the study of the Aztec state. The consequences are not solely the recognition of political status of some women, the identification of the

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exceptional queens of antiquity, now amply documented for a wide range of societies. They go to the heart of the way domestic economies and political economies are interconnected. They should transform our notions of what counts as socially significant craftwork. The broader scope of sex/gender positions archaeologists of gender have examined, including celibate men and women, third sexes, hypermasculine men and their less aggressive counterparts, and males and females pursuing same-sex desire must become part of mainstream models of ancient societies or we risk perpetuating unreal, unidimensional views of other times and places. Archaeologists studying gender also need to bring their work to the attention of specialists in other fields, historians, ethnographers, and researchers on cultural studies, who still rarely use the more sophisticated work of contemporary archaeologists in their studies, referring instead to the speculative history of an earlier generation. The human past is a source of far more varied examples of ways people lived their lives as differently sexed persons than any society recorded in ethnography or documentary history. Some of the past human experiences did not survive into the historical period, notably the ways of life of hunter-gatherers of the deep past. Other human experiences may be more evident in the material traces of everyday life than in the selective record of politically motivated textual records. For all periods, even the well-documented recent past of the capitalist world, archaeology provides alternative lines of evidence that often demonstrate practices at odds with ideologies, whether those of populations underrepresented in texts or those of people whose actions departed from the expressed norms. It is incumbent on archaeologists to make our understandings of the complex ways that spatial features and portable objects helped shape human sex/gender systems more accessible to other scholars, and to the wider public. To accomplish all of these goals, archaeologists interested in gender can no longer assume a simple dichotomous model of sex, nor a correspondence of sex with gender. In each individual social setting, we need to consider how physical variability, including sex, was subject to shaping, evaluation, and representation. We need to consider the political dimensions of differential experiences of people in the past grounded in sex and simultaneously in other aspects of personhood. We need to take seriously the idea that sexual being was always related to experiences of desire and pleasure that were not inconsequential parts of human experience. At the same time, we

need to treat the multiple actors in our past settings as agents of economic and social action that might have shaped the understandings of sex and gender as much as they were shaped by them. We need to do all this in the clear realization that archaeologies of personhood are always politically charged in the present, in the expectation of conservative backlash and resistance, and with the clear understanding that what we say will matter in the lives of people in the present, if only because the past is so often used to justify contemporary social relations. This may seem daunting, but it should seem exciting: asking questions that matter with data that no other field can provide is what will continue to infuse archaeologies of gender with energy. See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Bioarchaeology; Craft Specialization; Enslavement, Archaeology of; Ethnicity; Europe: Neolithic; Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures; Evolutionary Archaeology; Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects; Household Archaeology; Identity and Power; Individual, Archaeology of in Prehistory; Interpretive Art and Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Politics of Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Rock Art.

Further Reading Balme J and Beck W (eds.) (1995) Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History, No. 26: Gendered Archaeology: The Second Australian Women in Archaeology Conference. Canberra: ANH Publications. Claassen C (ed.) (1992) Monographs in World Archaeology, No. 11: Exploring Gender through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press. Conkey MW and Gero J (eds.) (1991) Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Donald M and Hurcombe L (eds.) (2000) Gender and Material Culture in Archaeological Perspective. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gilchrist R (1994) Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women. London: Routledge. Nelson S (1997) Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Nelson S (ed.) (2006) Handbook of Gender in Archaeology. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. Pyburn KA (ed.) (2004) Ungendering Civilization. New York: Routledge. Schmidt RA and Barbara LV (2000) Archaeologies of Sexuality. New York: Routledge. Walde D and Willows ND (1991) The Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary. Calgary: University of Calgary Archaeological Association.

1136 ENSLAVEMENT, ARCHAEOLOGY OF

ENSLAVEMENT, ARCHAEOLOGY OF Kofi Agorsah, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary African Diaspora African people and culture away from the continent of Africa, for example, African Diaspora in the Caribbean. Kormantse The name of a fishing village on the coast of Ghana from which the first consignment of slaves was shipped by the British; a term for describing slaves imported from the Gold Coast (Ghana) who either passed through that port or from the West African region, usually identifying Akan (Asante) cultural practices. Maroons The enslaved, who escaped from bondage, freed themselves and founded their own communities in inaccessible parts of their respective territories; runaway slaves. Maroon society Group(s) of runaway communities that grew out of runaways in colonial times. marronage The act of running away and harassment of the plantation. plantocracy Plantation class or proprietors.

In many parts of Africa, use of the terms ‘slave’, ‘slavery’, ‘slave trade’, and ‘enslavement’ could lead to complete distortion of history, culture, and varied perceptions unless the specific term is qualified and explained in relation to the specific circumstance, time, and place. While in the African sense, being a ‘slave’ merely connotes a person of low social status among ‘‘communalistic and even feudalistic systems with tendencies toward patronage’’ and a source of prestige, sexual gratification, and rewarded domestic labor, the western paradigm has been purely capitalistic, depicting downright human degradation and ‘racism’ with financial gain as the main objective. This non-African connotation is crystallized in what could be described as ‘powerless animal-status unpaid jobbing gang’ and facilitated by the ‘trans-Atlantic slave trade’. Fuller discussions of the differences in these terms and the conditions in Africa by many writers reveal their implications for our approaches in archaeological interpretations of the evidence of the cultural formation and transformations created by the encounter of African and other cultures in the Americas. Edward Long, an eighteenth-century planter and lawyer, clearly described enslaved Africans as ‘‘commodity. . .Negroes . . . fit objects of purchase and sale, transferable like any other goods or chattels’’. The temple and domestic serfs of Ancient Egypt and the ancient world, including the Near East, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, particularly

during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom until about 500 BC were considered the semifree labor forces, suggesting the African concept of ‘slavery system’, of course, with certain minor differences. In those areas, as in Africa, the enslaved were not stripped of their social identity, nor denied opportunity to forge new bonds of kinship through marriage and alliance, or considered as mere property. Understanding of the role and place of the slavery system depended on the cultural attitude toward it and each attitude impacts approaches used in explaining cultural values in history. However, the historical interpretation and cultural attitude of the transAtlantic slave trade that led to the creation of the concept of the African Diaspora appears to have overwhelmed consideration of slavery systems in times, places, and periods preceding it. In fact, the earliest formation of the African Diaspora could date back to the first time when our human ancestors left Africa about a million years ago although one cannot make any connection with the Atlantic slavery system. This adds a major challenge to archaeological reconstruction and interpretation of the history of enslavement as it relates to Africa and African culture abroad. Much of the lack of consensus and diversity of approaches in archaeological analysis and interpretations that crystallized in the 1970s in the Americas can also be identified in uncertainties and Eurocentrism in archaeological inquiry and interpretations of the African past. Additionally, longstanding issues regarding chronology, methodology, African identity, and cultural continuities remain unresolved. These problems are duplicated in the African continent itself, where archaeological research has failed to address the ancient and traditional slavery system on which the Atlantic slave trade capitalized. Directed mainly toward reconstructing the lifestyles of the ‘plantocracy’, archaeology of slavery has often been limited to identification of architectural and plantation layout, associated export/import items such as arms and ammunition, pharmaceutical, and other cash commodities, seriously ignoring the lifestyle and conditions of enslaved groups. In 1985, Theresa Singleton of Syracuse University, writing on Archaeology of the African Diaspora, made a statement which confirms that archaeological endeavors were biased toward the interpretation of planter lifestyles. Evidence is geographically, thematically, and unevenly distributed, leaving gaps, lacking objectivity in interpretation, and seriously plagued by loose patterns in the use of cryptic, vague, or unclear archaeological jargon.

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Toward the end of the last century, many archaeological endeavors directed toward life of the enslaved in Jamaica began to change the situation. The Maroon site of Nanny Town and Port Royal referred to as the ‘wickedest colonial city’ in the Caribbean and many more sites in Antigua, Barbados, Curacao, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, and the Bahamas were explored. Bio-anthropological analysis of skeletal remains of enslaved African in colonial Suriname by a Mohammed Khudabux broke new grounds in the study of colonial slavery systems. The Suriname data addresses, ethnic identity, patterns of physical changes, diet, health, and other conditions of forced slave adaptation on plantations. The African Burial Ground project of New York directed by Michael Blakey, a bio-anthropologist of College of William and Mary, though more recent, continues to be a major impact on the archaeology of slavery in the Americas. In a comprehensive review, William Keegan of University of Florida clearly and rightly confirmed that archaeology of the African Diaspora, including archeology of slavery, was ‘‘riding the wave of exponential curve’’; this was illustrated by a two-volume Bibliography of Caribbean Archaeology he and others edited and also demonstrated by the Society for Historical Archaeology in one of its Columbian Quincentenary series edited by Theresa Singleton and Mark Bograd. However, research efforts concerning slavery in the African Diaspora continued to be restricted to plantation studies and dealing with the planter class activities referring only generally to the enslaved. Many more scholars, including archaeologists and historians were increasingly engaged with issues of material culture of the enslaved, building upon and correcting, where necessary, biased studies and interpretations. The establishment of a teaching and research archaeology program at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica in 1987 increased hope and enthusiasm for joint collaborative field schools, which generated greater awareness. For the first time, a major archaeological project on the heritage of Maroon societies was initiated. The resulting discoveries of Amerindian figurines (Figure 1) and Spanish coins (Figure 2) at the site of Nanny Town in Jamaica, for example, suggested that the natives, who ran away into the hills of Jamaica, may have been the first Maroons to be later followed by the African runaways. The evidence further suggests early coexistence of both groups and formation of defense alliances against the colonial power. These early finds overturned the claim by many historians that the natives on the island had all been exterminated prior to the arrival of the English. Developments of the last decade may be attributed to the cultural awareness that followed far-reaching constitutional

Figure 1 Terracotta figurines, Nanny Town, Jamaica.

Figure 2 Spanish coin (pieces-of-eight), Nanny Town, Jamaica.

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Govinden, and Chowdhury began to receive much attention, following the pattern developed in the Caribbean and South America. Merrick Posnansky, professor emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, provides summary discussions of the implications of these endeavors in both Africa and the African Diaspora, emphasizing the need for more attention to the multidisciplinary approaches and closer examination of transformations created by the encounter of cultures in the African Diaspora. But the question remains about how much more we now know than before, how much more we need to know about the African experience in the Diaspora, and which direction should archaeology go in the coming millennium?

and educational changes, emergence and successes of resistance movements, and transformations of the previous decades, compounded by associated nationalistic activities and the achievement of independence by many nations in Africa and the African Diaspora. Archaeology of resistance culture became recognized as a central factor in understanding slavery in the New World. The awareness propelled many countries in the Caribbean and the Americas into accepting the historical links more seriously than before. However, lack of qualified archaeologists, restrictive funding sources, and the dearth of Africanist and local scholars with archaeological interest posed serious challenges (see Africa, Historical Archaeology). In Africa itself, the main archaeological studies linking the African Diaspora related to the colonial trade forts and castles built along the West and East African coasts and the wealthy coastal gold-rich kingdoms such as Efutu in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Archaeological research spread into the general West African region, including the colonial Senegambian area, the Bassar area of Togo and the coastal Benin, Cameroon and adjoining areas, the East African coast, including what has been referred to as the Swahili coast, and the Indian Ocean and Polynesian region. Studies of Maroons and resistance culture in Mauritius and South Africa by Peerthum, Carter,

Slavery Factor in Africa West and Central Africa contributed large numbers of enslaved Africans to the trans-Atlantic trade. Even before Columbus’ visit to the New World and European migrations that followed in search of greener pastures, African slaves had been taken to Spain and Portugal from northern Africa, consequently becoming a major factor in the trade that drove Europe and the Americas to prosperity. The development of plantations in the mid-fifteenth century on the West African coast was

AKANNY States (or ethnic groups) known to Dutch GHANA

Forts Lodges

IVORY COAST

A AK

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AQ QUIFORO

R P re

M O

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Figure 3 Location of Kormantse, Ghana.

tri

BC

A

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GR

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T ACCRA EA O Ac su cra

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TU MANY M C O Mo orm r an Elm Cab i tin ina o C ors Sh am a C

D A

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BI

Adapted from Agorsah 1994,184

Bu

YN

JA

TA

BU

NT

SA FE

(AH)AN

SONQ FA

s

Dye

UAY

ABR

A

U

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Location of Kormantse in the 1650s

ENSLAVEMENT, ARCHAEOLOGY OF 1139

eventually switched to the Caribbean and the Americas in a confusing trade that makes tracing of the origin of the enslaved Africans increasingly difficult and elusive. Identifying cultural transfers, the nature of the pre-existing cultural traits among groups that served as the carriers of the original substantive aspects of the cultures, and the reconstruction of their formation and transformation processes became more difficult. Meanwhile, the early approaches designed to recover artifacts and architectural data only for the interpretation of planter lifestyles had also become obsolete. For example, the uncritical use of such terms as ‘Kormantse’, also written in various forms (Cormantyne, Kramanti, etc.) to describe groups of enslaved people passing through the then Gold Coast port of that name in West Africa (Figure 3) continued to plague the archeological literature and discourse. But other gains have been made. Explaining burial and mortuary practices among different African societies as a means of deriving models that would help reconstruct life experiences of the enslaved in the African Diaspora was beginning to be appreciated. The bio-anthropology laboratory at Howard University embarked on an ambitious examination of skeletal remains of the African Burial Ground in Manhattan, New York bringing hope of reconstruction of the identities and past experiences of the enslaved. Similarly, studies relating to settlements of Maroons and free slaves, houses, yards or compounds, diet, diseases, physical effects of slave labor in Jamaica, Bahamas, and other Caribbean areas as targets of archaeological research which followed the 1990s, continued to yield lots of good results. Regardless of all these developments and advances in approaches toward explaining slavery in Africa and its relations to the Atlantic slave trade, much remains to be done. Kwaku Senah, an African historian in Trinidad and Tobago, who has researched ‘Slavery’ from the African perspective, in a 2005 article notes that the main problem might be that the term ‘slavery’ has acquired an expanded meaning to serve a vast number of purposes and blames it partly on the languages in which the term is discussed. Or is it to be concluded that ‘‘slavery cannot be identified through archaeological efforts alone’’?

See also: Africa, Historical Archaeology; Africa, West:

Villages, Cities, and States; Americas, Central: Historical Archaeology in Mexico; Americas, North: Historical Archaeology in the United States; Americas, South: Historical Archaeology.

Further Reading Agorsah EK (1994) Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives. Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press. Agorsah EK and Child GT (2005) Africa and the African Diaspora: Cultural Adaptation and Resistance. New York: Authorhouse. Armstrong DG (1990) The Old Village and the Great House: An Archaeological and Historical Examination of Drax Hall Plantation. St. Ann’s Bay Jamaica, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Blakey ML (1989) American nationality and ethnicity in the depicted politics of the Past. In: Gathercole P and Lowenthal D (eds.) One World Archaeology, 12, pp. 46–50. London: Routledge. Farnsworth P and Wilkie L (1996) The influence of trade on Bahamian slave culture. Historical Archaeology 30(4): 1–23. Goucher CL (1993) African metallurgy the Atlantic world. African Archaeology Review 11: 197–215. Higman BW (1988) The archaeology of slavery. Slavery and abolition. Journal of Comparative Studies 9(1): 85–92. Horton J and Horton EL (2005) Slavery and the Making of America. New York: Oxford University Press. Keegan WF (1994) West Indian archaeology. 1. Overview and foragers. Journal of Archaeological Research 2(3): 255–284. Keegan W, Stokes AV, and Newson LA (1990) Bibliography of Caribbean Archaeology, 2 Vols. Bullen Research Library. Gainesville: University of Florida. Long E (1772) Candid Reflections upon the Judgment lately Awarded by the Court of the King’s Bench in Westminster-Hall on What is Commonly Called The Negroe-Cause . . . By a Planter. London: T. Lowndes. Mintz S (1974) Caribbean Transformations. Chicago: Aldine Publications. Patterson HO (1969) The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development and Structure of Negro Slave in Jamaica. New Jersey, Rutherford: Africa World Press. Posnansky M (1982) African archaeology comes of age. World Archaeology 13: 345–358. Posnansky M (1984) Towards an archaeology of Black Diaspora. Journal Black Studies 15(2): 195–205. Senah EK (2005) Explicating the primary nexus: Slavery in Africa and the African Diaspora. In: Agorsah EK and Childs T (eds.) Africa and the African Diaspora, pp. 204–222. New York: Authorhouse. Singleton T (1985) The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

1140 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND THE LAW

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND THE LAW Thomas F King, SWCA Environmental Consultants Silver Spring, MD, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary agency A unit of government, whether local, provincial/state/ regional, national, or international – for example, the Agency for International Development; the Environmental Protection Agency. Synonyms include bureau, ministry, department, division, office. data recovery Archaeological excavations or other research performed to recover or rescue information from destruction. Often performed as a form of impact mitigation. environment Variously defined, but generally refers to everything around us, notably the natural environment (trees, rocks, streams, animals, plants, mountains, landscapes) and the built environment (houses, cities, neighborhoods, villages, parks), including the social, cultural, and esthetic values attached to them by human society. Also include less tangible surroundings such as social institutions, beliefs, and expressive arts, at least to the extent these are somehow related to the tangible environment. environmental impact analysis Study of a project’s or program’s potential impacts on the environment. mitigation Eliminating, reducing, ameliorating, or compensating for damage to or destruction of something – for example, redesigning a project to avoid destroying an archaeological site, or to destroy less of it than might otherwise be the case; excavating a site in advance of its destruction; funding the preservation of one site to mitigate the effect of destroying another. program (programme) A complex of activities and/or planned actions designed to accomplish some purpose – for example, a city’s housing program, or a regional irrigation program. Sometimes referred to as a scheme. project A specific action someone proposes to undertake – for example, a motorway, a reservoir, a military exercise, an agricultural scheme, a housing development, a sewerage system.

What is Environmental Impact Assessment and What Does It Have to Do with Archaeology? Most archaeological research in the early twenty-first century is not done in the interests of learning about the past for its own sake. Nor is it done in order to obtain information and materials for public interpretation in museums, parks, and educational institutions. Most archaeological research today is done, and most archaeologists are employed, in connection with some kind of environmental impact assessment. As the words suggest, environmental impact assessment (EIA) is done to assess what impacts some

action, activity, or program will have on the environment. It is done as a result of laws enacted in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by virtually all developed nations and many developing ones, and because of policies adopted by international funding bodies like the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). The basic idea behind EIA is ‘look before you leap’ – determine what damage a project or program will do to the environment before deciding whether and how to carry it forward. National EIA laws and international instruments cause studies to be done of a proposed project’s environmental impacts, so that these impacts can be weighed and balanced together with the project’s perceived benefits in reaching a decision about funding or permitting it. Words like ‘environment’ and ‘impact’ can have different meanings for different people, and the ways such terms are expressed and understood can vary between cultures. Generally, however, the ‘environment’ is understood by EIA practitioners to include both the natural world and the built environment of cities and towns. Sometimes the word is used rather exclusively to embrace only the tangible aspects of the environment – plants, animals, soil, water, buildings, sites. In other cases things that are not so tangible are also recognized as parts of the environment – such as the social and cultural institutions involved in human use of plants, animals, or water, and the feelings that people have for places – of awe, of reverence, of revulsion, and so on. ‘Impacts’, in most EIA systems, include both direct and indirect impacts: impacts that result immediately from an action at or near the place the action happens, and impacts that occur at a distance in space or time. Archaeological sites are usually understood to be parts of the environment, and their disturbance is taken to be an environmental impact. It should be noted that environmental engineers – that is, engineers who work on control and correction of environmental pollution – tend to think of the environment as limited that which can be polluted – basically air, water, and soil, and regard impacts as primarily involving the pollution of such media. A well-done EIA examines all aspects of the environment that may be altered by a project, be it a highway, a railroad or pipeline, a dam and reservoir, a new urban development, an agricultural scheme, or a port facility. The analysis is performed by an interdisciplinary team of scientists, social scientists, and other specialists, often organized by a consulting

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firm engaged either by a project proponent or by a government agency or ministry responsible for funding, permitting, or overseeing the proposed project. Among the aspects of the environment that are often examined are the affected area’s archaeological sites, along with its historic buildings, cultural landscapes and urban areas, the traditional lifeways of its people, and other cultural characteristics. In the United States, where the practice of EIA is well developed although not always very well done, it has been reliably estimated by a major US firm, SWCA Environmental Consultants, that about US$300–400 million is spent every year on EIA-based archaeology. This is an enormous amount of money relative to what comes from traditional research funding sources like foundations and academic institutions. A similar level of EIA-based archaeology is carried on in the European Union, Japan, and other nations, although in some countries most of the work is conducted by cultural ministries and other governmental organizations rather than by the private consulting firms that dominate the field in the US. Most archaeologists completing graduate degrees today can expect to spend at least part of their careers in EIA-related work. The industry has also generated many jobs for people without advanced degrees. Many archaeologists support themselves in graduate school in such jobs, and some make their careers in EIA-related work without having to complete a graduate education.

In many countries, and in the implementation of some international standards and agreements, EIA archaeology is regarded as part of an interdisciplinary professional practice called ‘cultural heritage’, ‘heritage resource management’, ‘historic preservation’, or ‘cultural resource management’ (Figure 1; see Goals of Archaeology, Overview). This field of practice brings together specialists in such fields as archaeology, cultural and social anthropology, history, and architectural history to work toward ensuring the preservation and wise use of the cultural environment, as variously defined. Precisely which aspects of that environment are emphasized varies from nation to nation; some national traditions give priority to protection of the built environment of architecture and landscape architecture; others give more stress to traditional ways of life, uses of the natural environment, or intellectual property. Archaeology plays a large role in some such interdisciplinary management programs, a minor role in others, but to the extent a cultural heritage program emphasizes EIA work, archaeologists are deeply involved in the assessment process.

Conducting EIA Archaeology Ideally, EIA is initiated very early in the process of planning a project, when it is possible to explore multiple alternative ways of fulfilling a given need (e.g., the need for safe transportation between city A

Figure 1 EIA archaeology assesses and deals with the impacts of modern developments like railroads, highways, reservoirs and housing on archaeological sites. Photo by the author.

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and city B, or the need for irrigation water in Agricultural Zone X). Unfortunately, EIA is sometimes delayed until later in planning – sometimes so late that it becomes effectively meaningless, because key decisions have been made and alternatives have been foreclosed. When the system is working properly, however, the EIA begins when the project and its alternatives have been only roughly sketched out. At this early stage, the government agencies or other parties responsible for the EIA undertake scoping to determine what types of analysis to perform. Scoping involves establishing the geographic areas within which studies of the environment will be undertaken – the lands through which a highway or railroad is planned, for example, or the valley that may be flooded by a reservoir or turned over by mining. It also includes doing background research to determine what is already known about such areas and about the impacts of the kind of project under study, and consultation with government agencies, experts, and stakeholders. The result is a plan and schedule for the EIA research, and the selection of study team members. Often scoping reveals that archaeological sites may be affected by the proposed action – perhaps flooded, bulldozed, blown up, or more subtly damaged through changes in land use, increased public access to sensitive areas, and similar factors. Sometimes background research indicates that important archaeological sites are known or suspected in the

area; in other cases there may be no data on archaeology at all, or such data as do exist may be unreliable, making further study necessary. There may also be the potential for impacts on places and other resources that are not strictly archaeological but are culturally or historically important – perhaps living communities, important subsistence resources, or areas regarded by local people as having spiritual significance. Determining how these places may be affected often requires research by historians, architects, landscape specialists, or anthropologists, as well as careful discussions with local people. Other research commonly done as part of EIA includes studies of the area’s geography, ecology, water and air quality, water resources, sociology, and economy. Where the possibility exists that archaeological resources will be damaged or destroyed, archaeological surveys are typically conducted in coordination with the other environmental studies, although the coordination, unfortunately, is not always perfect. Such a survey is similar to what an archaeologist might do for pure research purposes (Figure 2), but its location is dictated by where project effects may occur, and the archaeologist in charge of the work is not free to focus only on the kinds of sites and data in which he or she is interested. Instead, an effort must be made to understand the full nature of the archaeological record that may be destroyed or altered by the project. This requirement to address areas and sites that archaeologists might not choose to examine if

Figure 2 EIA archaeology involves a great deal of field survey and documentation Photo by the author.

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left to their own devices has resulted in some interesting expansions of archaeology’s scope. We have found ourselves examining the archaeological leavings of World War II, for example, the fields and farmsteads of the early twentieth century, and many a nineteenthor early twentieth-century urban neighborhood. We have also paid more attention to small, relatively unimpressive sites than we might have otherwise, since they may be all we find and they are subject to destruction (Figure 3). Survey is typically supervised by professional archaeologists, but may be carried out by students, local people, or itinerant archaeological survey specialists. It usually includes further background research, consultation with local residents, and controlled fieldwork – walking, driving, or otherwise going over the land surface looking at it carefully, and sometimes conducting test excavations. It may also require aerial or satellite imaging, underwater remote sensing using side-scan sonar and other exploratory techniques, and studies of the area’s geomorphology – how the landscape has developed and been transformed through time. In urban areas it may require deep excavations in and around standing or recently demolished buildings. The fieldwork is followed by analysis of results, leading to the preparation of descriptive and analytical reports (Figure 4). The archaeological reports are summarized as part of the EIA’s overall description of the potentially affected environment, along with information on the area’s biology, hydrology, air quality, wetlands, floodplains, sociopolitical systems, and economic

structure. The analysts conducting the EIA – sometimes archaeologists, sometimes other specialists, most often groups representing multiple disciplines – then examine how the proposed project is likely to affect whatever has been found. Depending on the requirements of the laws under which the assessment is done, they may examine multiple options for achieving the project’s purposes, seeking an alternative that will achieve those purposes with minimum damage to the environment. They may consult with local residents, specialists, and government bodies that have special expertise or legal jurisdiction, such as cultural ministries or historic preservation agencies. They may commission additional studies to fill gaps in the assessment, or to address topics that come up as the analysis goes forward. Special attention often is given to impacts on the environments of indigenous groups, and of low-income and minority populations. In most cases the money to support EIA work comes from the project proponent, based on the premise that he who wants to build something, and who presumably will benefit from it, should be responsible for assessing and revealing its impacts. EIA-related work is typically done by nonprofit- or profit-making corporations – sometimes corporations that specialize in the study of particular resources such as archaeological sites, sometimes corporations that conduct a range of planning, environmental study, and even architectural and engineering work. In some countries EIA studies, or their archaeological elements, are carried out by academic institutions or

Figure 3 Nineteenth-century copper processing site in New Mexico, USA. Photo by the author.

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Figure 4 EIA archaeologists must also consider buildings and structures associated with relatively recent history, such as this World War II Japanese building, blasted by American bombs and strafing, on Jaluit Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Photo by the author and The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery.

government agencies, such as cultural ministries in the case of archaeology. Sometimes such agencies are expected to conduct their EIA work using their own budgets, rather than deriving support from project proponents. This arguably increases the independence of their judgments, reducing the influence of the project proponent on the study results, but it can also cause stress on an agency’s budget, and distort its priorities.

the projected level of impacts on archaeological sites alone to convince decision makers to abandon a project, but sometimes such impacts in combination with others – for instance, impacts on threatened and endangered animal and plant species, on water quality, on health and safety, on human communities or on places of contemporary religious or cultural importance – result in a decision that a project cannot go forward.

The Results of Environmental Impact Assessment

Archaeology as Impact Mitigation

Generally, the EIA results in a document or documents that accompany the project plans through whatever review and approval process is required by the responsible government or funding body. The people and groups responsible for deciding whether and how to proceed with the project consider its projected environmental impacts along with its costs, its benefits, and its technical and economic specifications. They eventually make a decision as to whether the project or some alternative to the project will be implemented, and if so, under what conditions. If the EIA reveals that the project will cause disastrous effects on the environment, the project may be abandoned, but this is rare. In most cases the result of EIA is some modification in the project design to control impacts on the environment. It is rare for

In most cases, the decision is to go ahead with the project in some form. Typically, then, measures are adopted to mitigate (i.e., reduce or compensate for) the project’s environmental impacts, including its impacts on archaeological sites. Sometimes archaeological sites can be buried and left for future study, or incorporated into planned parks or other kinds of open space. However, excavations or other studies to rescue archaeological data that would otherwise be lost are commonly included among impact mitigation measures. Sometimes these studies are hurried affairs that produce rather marginal data, but in countries with strong EIA systems that create orderly planning processes, there is usually enough time and money to conduct good archaeological research, carried through to include analysis and publication of results and the permanent care of recovered materials. As in

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the case of the studies done during EIA preparation, the funding for mitigation usually comes from the project proponent or the project’s financial backers, based on the principle that those who benefit from a project should pay to mitigate its impacts. In some countries, however, cultural ministries and other archaeological bodies are themselves expected to fund the work, which can create serious disconnects between the magnitude of a project’s impacts and the level of effort devoted to their mitigation. Excavations conducted to recover archaeological data as impact mitigation are similar to excavations done for research purposes, with some important exceptions. In most cases the sites one is excavating will be destroyed when one is finished with them (or sometimes earlier), so there is pressure to be as complete as possible in the recovery of important information. Information may not be the only important thing to recover; it may be, for instance, that the site contains graves, and it is important to recover and relocate the bodies regardless of their archaeological research significance. Time may be of the essence, so expedited means of excavation may be employed – very large excavation teams, bulldozers and backhoes, other heavy equipment. Sometimes, though it is not desirable, archaeologists find themselves literally working around the construction equipment as a site is destroyed. Although archaeologists usually formulate research designs to guide their data recovery excavations, the fact that the sites are going to be destroyed creates an obligation to be attentive to other research interests as well. The archaeologist in charge may be especially interested in, say, the archaeology of the period 3000–2000 BCE, but if the site to be destroyed contains deposits from 1000 to 0 BCE, these deposits cannot be ignored; they must be responsibly investigated. This argues for a team approach in which different specialists focus on different areas of interest, and some data recovery projects are organized in this manner. In other cases, the archaeologist in charge must try to do justice to whatever research interests are relevant to a site. Sometimes excavations must be carried out under hazardous circumstances that a wise archaeologist would otherwise avoid – in areas polluted by toxic wastes, amid unexploded ordnance, even in the path of lava flows from an erupting volcano. On the other hand, excavations are often carried out in very public settings – at construction sites in the middle of a city, or along a busy highway, so archaeologists have to learn to relate positively to the public. Many archaeological data recovery projects include public involvement elements, featuring site tours, publication of nontechnical reports of results, and programs for volunteers.

How EIA Archaeology Differs from Other Kinds of Archaeology In some countries the archaeological aspects of EIA are performed by governmental cultural ministries or by nongovernmental cultural heritage organizations. In others they are conducted by the same academic institutions and museums that may carry out other kinds of archaeological research. Very often, however, archaeologists are employed by private companies or governmental bodies that specialize in environmental impact work, either for profit or on a nonprofit basis. Archaeologists working in such an organization do little or no teaching or pure research, and they must learn to do things that they would not always need to do if employed in academia or a research institution. They must learn to work in teams with other scientists, and often must take on nonarchaeological responsibilities themselves. It is not uncommon for archaeologists to be involved in assessing not only impacts on archaeological sites, but also impacts on historic buildings, culturally valued landscapes, and places of traditional cultural importance to living indigenous and other communities. They may find themselves conducting ethnographic studies and consulting with such communities to learn their concerns about the project and to explore ways of addressing them. They may have to become expert in doing historical research, examinations of historic architecture, or studies of traditional ways of life. EIA archaeologists also need to become at least somewhat familiar with the laws, regulations, and government policies under which their work is funded and conducted, and to understand something of the political, economic, and business realities surrounding the projects whose impacts they study (Figure 5). They need to learn enough about relevant aspects of engineering and planning to be able to communicate with those designing the project and get their help in finding alternatives that lessen impacts. As an archaeologist assumes higher and higher levels of responsibility in an EIA organization, he or she needs to learn about how to prepare and manage budgets and payrolls, how to hire, dismiss, and supervise staff, how to write and review planning documents, and sometimes how to oversee quite large, diverse groups of people using expensive and sometimes dangerous equipment. Some archaeologists have come to specialize in work dealing with hazardous environments, wearing protective clothing and working with experts to minimize exposure to toxic wastes or injury from unexploded ordnance. Archaeologists doing EIA work must also learn to refrain from electing to excavate sites when there are viable and perhaps less costly alternative ways to

1146 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND THE LAW

Figure 5 EIA archaeologists must be sensitive to the cultural importance of natural places. Rivers like this one (the Klamath in Northern California, USA) are significant to indigenous groups not only because of the role their fish play in the economy, but because of their centrality in traditional culture. Photo by the author and Klamath River Intertribal Fish and Water Commission.

manage them – for example, through redesign of a project to protect a site in place, sometimes burying it so deeply that it is unlikely to be seen again for thousands of years. They need to learn to deal with real-world conflicts between archaeological and other interests – not only the interests of project proponents and governments, but such interests as those of local people in their own cultural heritage.

Problems in EIA Archaeology Of course, EIA work is not always as orderly and positive as described above. One common problem is insufficient money to do the job right. Sometimes fieldwork is rushed, or analysis and reporting are delayed or not carried out at all. In the context of surveys and other assessment studies, this can lead to faulty data upon which to make decisions about the significance of impacts or the appropriateness of mitigation measures. In the context of mitigation, it can defeat the whole purpose of archaeological data recovery, since the data are not made available for future research. Another common problem is that some project proponents, government agencies, and whole governments treat the EIA process as merely an administrative hurdle that must be surmounted on the way to getting a project funded, approved, or constructed. They may schedule the work too late to really influence decisionmaking about whether and how to proceed with a project; they may shortchange the research, and they

may ignore the results. Their minds may be made up before the analysis even begins. Some regulatory agencies, EIA companies, and even archaeologists themselves apply arbitrary and inflexible standards to EIA work – rigidly prescribing how surveys are to be done, for example, and how things are to be recorded. This can lead to significant inefficiencies, and to rote, pointless studies that merely masquerade as scholarly research. The ways in which EIA regulations interface with national and other archaeological and historic landmarks laws can also present problems. In some countries, ‘heritage’ laws protect only sites or buildings that have been recorded on some kind of schedule or register – which means, of course, that they have to have been found and studied to some extent before they are considered in planning. When a project is planned in an area that has never been fully surveyed for archaeological sites – or even one that has been surveyed, but where new discoveries are likely – there may be no sites that have been scheduled or registered, but sites may actually be there, and they may be very important. The logic of EIA demands that such sites be identified and considered, but the country’s heritage laws do not provide for it. The people organizing a piece of EIA research may know no better than to identify only those places already on the schedule. The result, of course, is that very significant sites can be destroyed without consideration for preservation or data recovery.

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Sometimes people working on an EIA are treated as nuisances by project planners and construction workers, finding themselves ignored, expelled from project sites, and castigated as obstructionists. This can be traumatic for the individuals involved, but more importantly it can impede their work and result in a failure to consider and address significant archaeological sites and other aspects of the environment. Regarding EIA as a mere nuisance is one reason assessments are sometimes done too late to have any influence on planning. Perhaps worst of all, some private companies and government ministries that do or contract for EIA work encourage those working for them to ignore or play down a project’s adverse effects, including effects on archaeological sites, even threatening noncompliant employees with loss of their jobs. It may be made very clear that if one wants to keep one’s position, or be part of the next contract, one had better not regard that newly discovered site as significant, request that obviously necessary bit of laboratory analysis, or pay attention to that group of descendants who want to save their ancestors’ bones. If one bends to these pressures, one not only damages one’s own reputation, but can be a party to unnecessary archaeological destruction and other environmental impacts. Archaeologists and others working on EIA also often find themselves caught between project proponents and opponents, each intent on having its way at the expense of the other and demanding that the EIA analysts take sides. This can bring about high levels of frustration, depression, and burnout. Working in EIA can also be depressing because one is constantly confronted with the destruction of archaeological sites, traditional communities, beautiful buildings, and pristine natural landscapes. However much one is able to arrange for these impacts to be mitigated, the experience of loss can take a toll on one’s mental health. Some academic and research archaeologists look down on EIA archaeology as intellectually undemanding second-class research. This, too, can be unpleasant for archaeologists specializing in EIA, but most take it philosophically, holding that their critics have little knowledge of the matter and are merely expressing elitist bias. In fact, there is EIA-related archaeology that is excellent and EIA-related archaeology that is very badly done, but the same can be said for any other kind of archaeological research. Most experienced EIA archaeologists also find that archaeological research is overrated as an end in itself. In EIA practice an archaeologist can contribute to making the world a better place, to preservation of the planet’s natural and cultural heritage, and to

the continued existence of indigenous and other cultures. One of the best parts of working in EIA is that an archaeologist can become more than just an archaeologist.

The Advantages of Being an EIA Archaeologist It is that sense of contribution that makes EIA work peculiarly worthwhile, whether one comes into the field as an archaeologist, a biologist, a sociologist, or a soil scientist. One’s research connects with the real world, with real people, and real needs. The EIA specialist is involved in solving practical problems, and engaging with communities in identifying and protecting the places they hold dear. Many archaeologists find this the most rewarding part of their work – that it involves them with communities trying to save things that they care about. EIA work also is – or should be – highly interdisciplinary, so an EIA archaeologist has the opportunity to enjoy the intellectual stimulation that comes from being part of a team with members of other disciplines. Unfortunately, much EIA work tends to be multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary – each discipline working by itself, with the results pulled together into an overall report by an editor. But when the work truly is an interdisciplinary team effort, it can be particularly rewarding. EIA work takes archaeologists to interesting places where they might not otherwise travel. Because human development takes place all over the world, there is a need for EIA work almost everywhere. EIA archaeology is done in great cities and remote deserts and jungles, even on the bottom of the sea. Parts of the world that had seen little or no archaeological research in the past have become part of the archaeological universe because scholars have gone there to prepare EIAs. There is even talk of the need for EIA archaeology on the moon.

The Future of EIA Archaeology One of the greatest dangers that EIA archaeology, and EIA in general, face is that they will become so standardized, so routine, that they neither attract talented people to their practice nor accomplish very much for the environment. This tendency is apparent in the United States, where EIA archaeologists in particular seem to be falling into rote ways of finding and describing sites, of describing and analyzing impacts, of reporting results, and even of conducting data recovery excavations. Standardization can be useful, but it can also stultify creativity. It also creates a process of impact analysis that is opaque to the

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Figure 6 Even animals can be important cultural heritage resources, requiring careful attention by EIA archaeologists. The Okinawa dugong is important in the traditional culture of Japan, and has been the subject of recent litigation over the effects proposed U.S. Department of Defense projects may have on it. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, permission given.

public, laden with jargon and unexamined assumptions. We do things in particular ways because it is the way we always do them, and we describe what we do in terms that can be understood only by others who do the same things. This is not only a formula for bad research and useless results, for lost and destroyed archaeological sites; it is also something that will in the end erode public support for the whole EIA enterprise. To conclude on a personal note, the author’s belief is that in order to survive and thrive, EIA archaeology must become truly more than archaeology; archaeologists must not only work with members of other disciplines in an interdisciplinary manner, we must become interdisciplinary ourselves. We need to go beyond archaeology to address the impacts of change and development on the whole cultural environment – the ways people relate to natural resources, their belief systems, the spiritual values they attach to places, plants, animals, vistas (Figure 6). We need to relate in a positive, open, consultative manner to the public in all its multifaceted richness, bringing people into our analyses and making sure that our results make sense to them. The reason for doing EIA is to maintain the viability of the environment while getting on with needed change. This should be, and can be, a creative, challenging enterprise in which archaeologists can play important roles. Many archaeologists now make their careers doing or supervising EIA work for private companies and governmental bodies, and most twenty-first century archaeologists will take part in EIA for at least portions of their working lives. Some research archaeologists

think of this as being like a jail sentence, and for some it doubtless is. For others, however, it is an opportunity to do some of the most exciting, rewarding, and socially significant work to which an archaeologist’s talents can be bent. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Careers in Archaeology; Cultural Resource Management; Goals of Archaeology, Overview.

Further Reading ArchDev (1999) Archaeologists and development: environmental campaigners guide to archaeology. http://www.geocities. com/rainforest/canopy/2065/encamp.html, accessed 23 August 2006. British Archaeological Job Resource (2004) Short guide to archaeology and the planning process. http://www.bajr.org/ Documents/Guide for Archaeology in Planning.pdf#search¼% 22%22EIA%22%20%22Archaeology%22%22, accessed 23 August 2006. Canadian International Development Agency (2001) Environmental impact assessment: preliminary index of useful internet web sites. http://www.iaia.org/eialist.html CIDA, Hull, Quebec. Canter L (1995) Environmental Impact Assessment. New York: McGraw-Hill. Council for British, Archaeology (2003) Planning for archaeology and the historic environment: having your say. On-line factsheet series at http://www.britarch.ac.uk/conserve/planning/, accessed 23 August 2006. King TF (2004) Cultural Resource Laws and Practice: An Introductory Guide. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. King TF (2005) Doing Archaeology: A Cultural Resource Management Perspective. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Lawrence DP (2003) Environmental Impact Assessment: Practical Solutions to Recurrent Problems. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Interscience.

ETHICAL ISSUES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 1149

ETHICAL ISSUES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Thomas F King, SWCA Environmental Consultants, Silver Spring, MD, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary descendant A person or group of people defined by their established or assumed genetic or cultural relationship to an ancestor or group of ancestors. ethics Moral principles and values that guide the behavior of a group of people, in this case archaeologists. ethics, code of A formal articulation of ethical standards adopted by an organization – for example, the code of ethics of the Association for Interplanetary Archaeology. indigenous Native to an area – for example, aboriginal Australians are indigenous to Australia. looting Strictly speaking, taking something of value by force or violence. As used broadly by archaeologists, digging up archaeological sites or otherwise taking things from them for personal interest or gain, or for wanton pleasure, or even out of ignorance, and defacing or destroying archaeological sites without good reason, even if no taking of ‘loot’ is involved. trafficking Buying, selling, or assisting in the buying and selling of things in commerce; used by archaeologists with specific reference to artifacts and other archaeological material.

Introduction Working as we do with finite and fragile resources, which often are of interest and value to both the general public and specific, sometimes competing, groups of people, archaeologists often wrestle with ethical questions. These questions are seldom simple or unambiguous – however much we might like them to be, or in some cases think that they are. The purpose of this article is to summarize major ethical issues that archaeologists confront, outline some of the ways archaeologists deal with them, and discuss some positive, negative, and ambiguous aspects of the answers given to ethical questions. Elsewhere in this encyclopedia, Don D. Fowler outlines the history of institutional approaches to archaeological ethics, including some of the laws, international agreements, and organizational codes developed to canonize ethical precepts.

The Core Ethic: Protecting, Obtaining, and Using Data A basic assumption underlying archaeological practice is that it is a good thing to do, that it is right and proper to perform archaeological research. But for what purpose? If pressed, most, if not all, archaeologists would say that we work to preserve information

about the human past that would otherwise be lost, that we seek to bring that information back into the intellectual mainstream from which time has displaced it – that is, to interpret the past accurately – and that we try to use the information we recover, and our interpretation of it, to address questions and issues that are important to humankind. If this is our tripartite purpose, then our central ethical obligation must be to pursue it well, to achieve it to the best of our abilities. This core ethic – which in fact we are rarely called upon to articulate, but which remains an assumption underlying all our work – is the justification for doing archaeology and for the support it receives from the public and governments worldwide. One way or another, it informs and influences how we attend to all other ethical responsibilities. Some of our commonly recognized ethical prescriptions follow directly from the core principle. For instance, forging artifacts and assisting in the perpetuation of hoaxes are taken by archaeologists to be unethical. Why? Because such activities mislead, and can cause the past to be misinterpreted, violating our ethical responsibility to interpret the past accurately. For a similar reason – because our core ethics require that we make what we recover available for use in accurately understanding the past – the failure to write up and publish the results of a field project is almost universally regarded by archaeologists as an ethical failure. To a somewhat lesser degree it is regarded as at least questionable for an archaeologist not to share data with another researcher, particularly if one has delayed publication of one’s results for a long time. Similarly, it is regarded as ethically reprehensible not to see to it, to the extent one can, that the materials one takes out of the ground, and the documentary records that one creates in the process, are cared for properly, theoretically in perpetuity, usually by an appropriate museum or other curatorial facility. Of course, it is regarded as highly unethical to excavate an archaeological site without fully recording what one does, what one finds, and the spatial relationships among things found and observed. However, it is generally understood that an archaeologist may not be able to follow all these prescriptions in every case to the extent that all archaeologists might wish. No one faults an archaeologist who suffers a debilitating illness and cannot finish writing up an excavation. Nor is one faulted if one turns over artifacts and records to a curatorial facility that is subsequently bombed or looted, that burns

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down, or whose new management decides to throw out its archaeological collections to make room for Edwardian furniture or post-Impressionist art – though in the latter case, if the archaeologist is aware of the institutional change, there is some ethical responsibility to try to get the archaeological collections moved to another facility. Finally, how much one can record during an excavation depends on whether one has plenty of time or is being rushed by forces of destruction; it also depends on what the forces of destruction are, the character of the site, the local sociopolitical situation, and so on. Although giving up one’s life to protect a site from vandals with AK-47s may be regarded as admirable, it is not generally held to be an ethical requirement.

The Ethics of Destroying Archaeological Sites It follows from the core principle that we favor the preservation of archaeological sites, and hence deplore their destruction. However, in point of fact we destroy sites ourselves, by excavating them, and here’s the quandary: we cannot adhere to our core ethic of retrieving and making good use of data without destroying them. This might not be the problem it is, if we could document everything we uncover in an excavation, but complete documentation is impossible. We cannot record every particle of soil and its relationships with every other particle, its chemical composition, and its physical structure. Every year, it seems, new analytic techniques are developed or new research questions posed that make us wish we had recorded something that went unrecorded in last year’s excavations. So most archaeologists acknowledge that the very conduct of archaeological research destroys sites and the data they contain. To contend with this uncomfortable truth, many of us try to conduct our research only in sites that are likely to be destroyed by other forces anyway – sites in the path of development, for example, or that are being eroded off sea cliffs. We sometimes are critical of colleagues who conduct excavations in sites that can be preserved, or who excavate in unnecessarily destructive ways. If an archaeologist strips away a 2000-year-old cultural stratum to get at one that is 4000 years old, and fails to make a reasonable effort to record the more recent stratum and its contents, his or her ethics are likely to be questioned. The vehemence with which we criticize such practices, however – particularly the practice of excavating sites that can be preserved, such as those in protected areas like parks – waxes and wanes through time. Back in 1974, William Lipe called eloquently on

archaeologists in the United States to adopt a ‘conservation model’ and emphasize site preservation. For a time many – perhaps most – American archaeologists followed Lipe’s advice; we tried to focus our attention only on threatened sites, and criticized those who dug sites that could be preserved. In recent years this ethic has eroded, in part because it can be hard to uphold the core ethic of learning and transmitting information about the past without excavating protected sites. Another reason the ‘conservation ethic’ has eroded is disillusionment with our ability truly to protect any site over the long run. This decade’s open space all too readily becomes the next decade’s parking lot or housing tract. Illicit excavators can gain access to even the most remote sites, in the most protected locations. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and the massive erosion resulting from rising sea levels are mostly beyond human control, and warfare seems to be as well; the organized military forces of most countries theoretically adhere to the 1954 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, but compliance with the letter of this convention is sporadic at best, and compliance with its spirit is even less systematic. All these characteristics of the real world can wreak massive destruction, and do not respect the integrity of ostensibly protected archaeological sites. In the face of these complexities, few archaeological eyebrows are currently raised over the excavation of a site that theoretically can be protected, provided the excavation is well and carefully done. However, the pendulum may swing back at any time toward something like Lipe’s ‘conservation model’. Ethics are not immutable.

The Ethics of Treating with ‘Looters’ and ‘Traffickers’ Archaeologists use the term ‘looter’ rather loosely, to mean not only people who dig into archaeological sites to acquire ‘loot’ with which to enrich themselves, but also people who collect artifacts for their own enjoyment, people who wantonly vandalize archaeological sites, and people who pick or dig something up out of simple curiosity. Some archaeologists recognize that ‘looters’ of such varied character have many reasons for digging, some of them not too different from those that motivate archaeologists themselves. Others, however, would condemn to purgatory or worse all nonprofessional excavators, and sometimes even collectors of artifacts from the ground surface. Archaeologists are similarly critical of people who sell or assist in the sale of artifacts – who are seldom referred to simply as ‘buyers’, ‘sellers’, or ‘dealers’

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but by the pejorative term ‘traffickers’. The reason for such visceral reactions on the part of archaeologists is that ‘looting’ is understood to be destructive of archaeological data present in sites, in artifacts, and particularly in the relationships among artifacts, sites, and site features like architecture and soil strata. A pot ripped out of its archaeological context may be beautiful on the shelf, but it has lost much of its ability to inform us about the past. ‘Trafficking’ makes ‘looting’ attractive to some people by creating a private market for excavated antiquities. An archaeologist who assists or otherwise deals positively with ‘looters’ and ‘traffickers’, is regarded by most of his or her colleagues as unethical. Degrees of ethical violation are generally recognized. If an archaeologist helps an artifact dealer establish that a ‘looted’ pot is genuine, in most archaeological communities that is regarded as bad, but not as bad as helping the dealer establish a monetary price for the pot, which in turn is not as bad as buying the pot from the dealer, which is less bad than selling the pot to the dealer. Worst of all is digging the pot up and selling it to the dealer. But if the pot or its contents are very, very important in terms of the information they represent, the core principle of recovering and using information may take precedence. If the pot contains papyri bearing some previously unknown ancient text, many archaeologists on balance will swallow hard and buy it. Selling it, however, is another matter – unless the buyer is a research or curatorial institution, in which case it may be acceptable for the archaeologist to recoup whatever he or she paid for the pot and its contents. There are, in other words, extenuating circumstances, but the extenuation extends to different lengths depending on the action taken. Some ‘looters’ and ‘traffickers’ are economically distressed residents of areas rich in ancient sites, driven by their poverty to dig up and sell artifacts. Some have the additional justification of viewing the artifacts as having been left to them by their ancestors. Although most archaeologists regard what such people do as reprehensible, most also have to acknowledge that the situation is a difficult one, in which ethical codes by themselves provide little guidance. Should we try to stop such ‘looting’? If so, are we not obligated to look for alternative ways for the erstwhile diggers to earn a living? Is this not at least a practical necessity, if we expect people to stop digging for profit? Is purchasing something from an impoverished community whose members dig up things left by their ancestors somehow less bad than buying something from a different kind of ‘looter’? What about trying to teach people to ‘loot’ using archaeological methods? Where and how does one draw ethical lines?

There are others classified by many archaeologists as ‘looters’ and ‘traffickers’ who seek archaeological cooperation – for example, people who seek treasure buried or lost on land and under the sea. If a treasure hunter offers to fund an excavation, done using all relevant controls to assure the recovery and documentation of important data, in return for the right to keep or sell what is found, is it ethical for an archaeologist to accept the offer? Mainstream archaeological organizations, and most archaeologists, answer with a resounding ‘No.’ When pressed for a rationale (something that is seldom done in polite archaeological company), many fall back on a simple statement of morality – excavating things for sale is simply ‘wrong’. If asked for a rationale less redolent with religiosity, the answer may be that in the final analysis no treasure hunter ever has, ever will, ever can excavate according to archaeological principles; in the end the fever to loot will win out. Or that even if an excavation is done properly, if the artifacts are dispersed through sale, they become unavailable for future study. Some treasure-seeking interests counter with proposals to turn over everything found to a museum, or even to create museums for everything found, except for items like coins and gold bars, which arguably have little research significance. While this sort of proposal softens the logical ground under archaeological opposition to cooperative endeavors, the hardcore moralism tends to remain. The codes of ethics of most archaeological organizations flatly forbid cooperation with those who would excavate archaeological material for sale. Finally, there are many people, nonarchaeologists in terms of professional training and academic degrees, who collect artifacts for reasons that they say are essentially the same as those that motivate archaeologists. We are fascinated by the past, they say; we want to learn about the past, and we do not want to see archaeological sites destroyed by development or agriculture or erosion, so we want to excavate them. The only difference between what we do and what you do, they go on, is that we keep what we find, or occasionally sell or exchange it – rather than putting it in a museum where we all know it has a good chance of being lost or tossed out in some change of institutional policy. Some say they would be happy to work to archaeological standards, if archaeologists would only help them and not insist that they give up their collections. There are some archaeologists (this author among them) who wonder if it is possible to achieve cooperation between archaeologists and at least some classes of ‘looter’ and ‘trafficker’ – creating a relationship under which sites are excavated using archaeological methods, but selected recovered objects can remain in

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private hands or enter the stream of commerce rather than going to museums and research institutions. On the whole, such an idea is regarded as anathema by the mainstream of archaeology. There are certainly programs in which archaeologists work with people who collect artifacts, but almost invariably an agreement not to ‘traffick’ is a precondition to participation in such a program. Often a participant is required to give up his or her private collection or at least refrain from digging to expand it. Very few archaeologists have gone to work for or with treasure recovery organizations, based on agreements under which the treasure seekers record and properly conserve archaeological data while recovering coins or bullion for sale. These archaeologists, however, are widely regarded by the mainstream as having sold their souls. It is not apparent that they, or a responsible private collector, actually violate archaeology’s core principle of protecting, recovering, and using data, but many archaeologists and archaeological organizations shun and discriminate against them. This is an unresolved issue that will probably gain more exposure as time goes by, particularly as treasure recovery companies gain expanded access to the deep oceans and other extreme environments using expensive high technology unavailable to ordinary archaeological researchers.

The Ethics of Relations with Indigenous, Descendant, and Protective Communities If I decide that I want to excavate your late grandmother to study her grave offerings, you will probably want to have something to say about it. If it is your great-great-great-great grandmother’s body I want to exhume, you may be less concerned, but this is not certain; you may feel just as strongly about your distant ancestors as you do about your proximate ones. Descendant communities typically want to exercise a considerable amount of control over their ancestors’ bones, artifacts, and places of residence, worship, and burial, and their interests may differ considerably from the information-driven interests of archaeologists. Descendant communities are not the only ones who may wish to protect the bones and relics of past societies from the attentions of archaeologists. Some communities are strongly protective of the dead on religious or other spiritual grounds, regardless of the putative ancestral relationships between the dead and any person living today. Such groups simply hold that the dead should not be disturbed, and to varying extents this belief may extend to the artifacts produced and used by the dead as well. Such protective interests may be just as deeply felt as those of

people who trace their own lines of descent back to the people in the ground. There was a time when archaeologists could largely ignore the concerns of such communities – at least they could as long as those communities were indigenous groups, people of color, and other relatively powerless parties. Ignoring such concerns did not seem unethical because the core ethic of archaeology – obtaining data to satisfy human curiosity and bring the past back to life – was taken to be unequivocally good. Most archaeologists still feel that our motives in conducting research are essentially pure; we are hurt when descendant and protective communities call us ghouls and grave robbers, but that is what we are to them, and explaining the importance of our research has little impact on their perceptions. As colonial power structures have given way to postcolonial ones, hitherto powerless communities – both those who have actually been colonies and those who simply feel colonized by virtue of being parts of a social and economic underclass – have become increasingly critical of archaeology and archaeologists. Since such communities often arguably occupy the moral high ground, and because their causes can generate strong public and political support, archaeologists have had to find ways to accommodate and respect their interests. Some archaeologists and archaeological organizations try to distinguish between ‘real’ descendants – that is, people who can demonstrate descent using sciences like genetics and anthropology – and people who merely think themselves descended from longago cultures, or feel that they are responsible for the well-being of the dead. The former, it is argued, are entitled to respect; the latter are not. This sort of science-based distinction is embedded in some legislation, like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the United States, which mandates the repatriation of bones and artifacts to descendants or otherwise ‘affiliated’ groups, but only upon a showing of ethnic or cultural affiliation. This sort of distinction infuriates communities that regard science itself as a colonialist, imperialist activity; once again the dominant society is imposing its values on them. From the perspective of many indigenous communities, a distinction based on affiliation also misses the point. Many such groups feel strong responsibility for the dead, regardless of their relationships to anyone living today. It is, they feel, their responsibility to the dead themselves, or to spiritual powers, to ensure that the dead can continue their journey to the afterlife. Demanding that affiliation be demonstrated is doubly offensive to such groups. Not only does it impose the dominant society’s scientism on a community whose beliefs lie elsewhere, it also implies

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that one human being can ‘own’ another – a notion that carries widely troubling connotations. Archaeologists – particularly those trained in anthropology – can empathize with such perceptions, but often have trouble embracing ethical codes based on such empathy. The core ethic of a descendant or spiritually protective community is usually entirely different from that of archaeology; the past is something to be protected, to be left alone, to be respected, not to be exhumed, scrutinized, and studied. Returning ancestral remains and artifacts to a nonscientific group usually makes them unavailable for research, and may even result in their destruction (from the archaeologist’s perspective). Collaborating with such a community when excavating an ancestral site usually places restrictions on what can be excavated, or on the kinds of analysis that can be performed. Nevertheless, whether out of empathetic desire or political and legal necessity, archaeologists the world over have developed ethical codes supporting collaboration with, and often acceding to the wishes of, descendant and protective communities – particularly those indigenous to the area where an archaeologist works, such as American-Indians and AboriginalAustralians, and those with access to local, national, or international political power. Many of us square these new ethics with our central research ethic by believing (rightly, I think) that we gain more in terms of understanding and preservation of the past through partnerships with such communities than we would from running roughshod over their interests – even if doing the latter were still legally and politically possible.

The Ethics of the Workplace and Society In recent years, whether out of choice or necessity, archaeologists have paid increasing attention to certain ethics that they share with other professionals – scientists, engineers, teachers, cooks – and with society as a whole. It is unethical to plagiarize, of course, or to steal a colleague’s or student’s work. We have ethical responsibilities toward those who work with and for us. We should not exploit or abuse them; we should provide a living wage, decent living conditions, and reasonably safe workplaces. Less obviously, most of us recognize an obligation to help those we supervise learn from what they do, regardless of whether they are formally regarded as students. Particularly, those who work without or with little pay generally do so because they are interested in archaeology, and we are obligated to help them satisfy that interest. We have ethical duties to those who pay the bills, be they institutional employers, sponsor foundations or

individuals, government agencies, or contractual clients. At the very least, we owe our employers and sponsors an honest day’s work and a product as close as possible to whatever it is they expect us to deliver. Beyond this, most of us recognize an obligation to be sensitive to the interests that have brought them to finance our work – for example, the interest of a property developer required to fund an archaeological study before his or her development destroys a site, whose great desire is probably that we complete our work promptly and get out of the way. We have ethical responsibilities toward the world around us, and to its nonarchaeological resources. Those of us who work in environmental assessment and similar fields often find ourselves assigned responsibility for describing and evaluating aspects of the environment that are not archaeological – historic buildings, cultural landscapes, the traditional lifeways of local people. We have a duty to recognize that these places and things have value even though they may not be of archaeological interest. If we cannot ourselves represent that value adequately, we have a duty to make sure it is addressed by people better qualified to do so than we. All of us are responsible for taking care of the natural and human environments within which we work – for not polluting a stream with dirt from our excavations, not digging up the habitat of an endangered species, and not undermining the historic building that stands on our excavation site. Among these external ethical precepts, one of the most interesting and problematical is the notion of responsibility to those who pay the bills. Recognizing and carrying out this responsibility is seldom a problem when the one doing the paying is one’s own museum or university, or a foundation that supplies research grants. We may be late with a report; we may not find what we and our supporters had hoped we would find, we may misspend our grant and flee the country, but these tend to be either minor problems or such obvious ethical failures that they raise few problems of interpretation. The ethic of ‘responsibility to financial supporters’ becomes complicated when the financial supporter’s only interest is in getting the archaeology out of the way so he can proceed with his housing project or highway. Archaeologists today are routinely employed as members of teams doing environmental impact assessments in advance of construction and land use projects. In this context one’s financial support often comes from the party whose potential environmental impacts one is assessing. What are one’s responsibilities toward the financial supporter – the client – in such a case? It is easy to say that our responsibility is simply to do proper, honest archaeology – to ascertain what

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impacts the proposed project will have on archaeological sites and seek ways to preserve them. But the matter is not that simple. For one thing, there are many different ways to consider impacts. Will we seek only those sites that will be bulldozed to oblivion if the project is built, or will we also look for those that may be indirectly affected, by future erosion downstream, through looting by residents of the new housing project, through secondary development induced by the presence of the new motorway? When we find a site, we can evaluate its significance in a variety of different ways – some narrow and more or less dismissive, others much broader and more inclusive. Which sort of evaluation scheme should we employ? As individuals and teams we may or may not individually be particularly well qualified to find or evaluate particular kinds of sites, in particular areas, but obtaining specialist advice may be costly to our client. Then there are the nonarchaeological interests – the descendant community that thinks a place is terribly important even though we, as archaeologists, find nothing interesting about it; the religious group that ascribes spiritual significance to a place, the architectural historians who want to save old buildings and the community members who want to save their town. Doing proper archaeology may technically not include paying any attention whatever to such interests, and whether we do pay attention or not can have financial implications for our employer. It is safe to assume in most cases that the client would like us to do as little and find as little as possible – to look only at areas where direct destructive project impacts will occur, to evaluate sites as narrowly as possible, and to assign value solely on the basis of archaeological criteria, let other interests fend for themselves. Is it our ethical obligation to do our work in accordance with our client’s program and preference, or is this directly contrary to our other ethical responsibilities? Here again it is easy to say we should be broad, inclusive, and thorough in our study of a project’s impacts, and provide the client with objective, unbiased information whether he wants it or not. But just how broad an area or range of impacts should we consider? What range of interests should we include in our consideration? What is our definition of ‘thorough’ in the case at hand – or for that matter, our definition of ‘objective’ and ‘unbiased’? And what do we do when our team leader says, or implies, that we are being unreasonable, costing the client unnecessary money, not giving him the results he wants, and that we may lose our jobs or our next contract as a result? On the other hand, at what point does the ‘thoroughness’ of our research become exploitative of our client? These can be difficult questions, and archaeologists

increasingly must grapple with them as we play our roles in the activities of government agencies, land developers, project proponents, and public-interest groups.

Conclusion One sees much articulation of ethical standards in the archaeological literature but little serious debate about such standards and their implications. It is generally accepted that such things as destroying archaeological sites and cooperating with ‘looters’ and ‘traffickers’ are wrong, and one must not do them – even when doing so appears to be justified by archaeology’s core principle of preserving, recovering, and using information. We insist that we simultaneously give clients good value for the money they spend on our impact assessment work, and give maximum protection to both archaeological sites and other aspects of the human environment, but we seldom debate the complications that such balanced service creates. Ethical discussions both in print and at such events as the ‘ethics bowl’ held annually by the Society for American Archaeology tend to assume the correctness of the standards promulgated by the various archaeological and cultural organizations, focusing on their application in particular situations. We tend to believe quite strongly that some things are ethical and that others are not, often without deeply exploring the logical underpinnings or practical results of our beliefs. While logic and practicality do underlie most of archaeology’s ethical positions, it is doubtful whether rigid and unquestioning adherence to them is always wise. For a discipline regarded by many of its practitioners as a science, however, archaeology can be remarkably unwilling to explore the theory upon which its canonical principles are based. It can be quite unforgiving of those who deviate from those principles, expunging them from membership in professional organizations, refusing to allow them to present or publish the results of their work, threatening their employment. Anyone contemplating such a deviation, even with what may seem to be a pure heart and excellent justification, needs to tread with extreme caution, at risk of being branded ethically deficient. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Environmental Impact Assessment and the Law; Historic Preservation Laws; Illicit Antiquities; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Native Peoples and Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

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Further Reading Green EL (ed.) (1984) Ethics and Values in Archaeology. New York: Free Press. King TF. A 1937 winged liberty head dime from Silver Spring, Maryland. In: Thinking about Cultural Resource Management: Eessays from the Edge, pp. 164–169. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Layton R (ed.) (1994) Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions. London: Routledge. Lipe WD (1974) A conservation model for American archaeology. The Kiva 39(1–2): 213–243. Lowenthal D (2005) Why sanctions seldom work: Reflections on cultural property internationalism. International Journal of Cultural Property 12(3): 393–424.

Lynott M and Wylie A (eds.) (1995) Ethics in American Archaeology: Challenges for the 1990s. Washington DC: Society for American Archaeology. Scarre C and Scarre G (eds.) (2006) The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shanks H (1999) How to stop looting: a modest proposal. Archaeological Odyssey. 2:04, September/October 1999. Washington DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. Vitelli KD (ed.) (1996) Archaeological Ethics. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

ETHNICITY Bonnie J Clark, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary culture history A history of the cultures that inhabited a particular location or region. descent Hereditary derivation or lineage. ethnicity A form of communal identity that emphasizes common ancestry and an association with a territory. hybridity A description of the inevitably mixed, interpenetrated condition of cultures, languages, etc. material culture Human modifications to natural resources and the environment. race A population distinguished as different from others based primarily on physiology. Genetic studies suggest there are no legitimate ways to divide the human population based on such characteristics, rather the existence of races is a social rather than a true physical phenomenon.

Ethnicity, as a topic of concern for archaeologists, has its roots deep within the history of thought about human difference. Although the term itself is relatively new (arriving in English language dictionaries in the 1950s), the idea is old, derived as it is from the ancient Greek term ethnos, which roughly meant ‘various different groups of peoples’. The journal Ethnos, which began publication in 1936, is a testament to the anthropology’s long engagement with such difference. As it is currently theorized, ethnicity is a form of group identity separable from other communal identities, such as class or religion, by emphasis on common ancestry and an association with a territory, both of which may be based in some deep, perhaps mythic past. Other characteristics that ethnic groups often

exhibit are a collective name, a shared history, elements of common culture, and a sense of communal solidarity. The concept overlaps a great deal with ideas of race based as it is on at least supposed shared ancestry. Nineteenth-century discussions of differences based on ethnicity as defined above, often used the terminology of race, something currently associated primarily with physiological differences. Thus, archaeological investigations of race and racism share a great deal with those primarily focused on ethnicity. A general consensus exists among anthropologists that, for ethnic identity to have salience, group members must have an awareness of peoples outside of the group. Some anthropologists suggest that ethnicity is a relatively modern social construction, one that exists only in relation to state-level societies. Others claim that, because cultures have always been in contact with other groups through relations such as trade or marriage, the conditions which foster ethnic identity are essentially universal. Every archaeologist who has studied ethnicity has relied on the existence of a significant relationship between material culture and ethnicity. As so deftly laid out by Siaˆn Jones in The Archaeology of Ethnicity, how archaeologists have conceptualized that relationship has a great deal to do with their ideas about culture. When they believe that cultures are bounded, homogeneous entities, archaeologists easily equate different suites of material culture with different groups in the past. The building of culture histories around the world relied upon this unproblematized relationship, one expressed in many terms we still use for prehistoric peoples, such as the Basketmakers of the Southwestern United States, or the Beaker people of Europe. However, other archaeologists

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conceptualize cultures as having porous boundaries, comprised of multifaceted individuals with potentially conflicting goals. Increasingly those who study ethnicity conceptualize it as intimately tied to age, gender, status, and other elements of identity. Such researchers expect that people with different social positions within an ethnic group may engage with material culture in very different ways. This view of culture leads archaeologists to pay attention to a range of material culture that those with a normative view might dismiss as random variation. Early approaches to past peoples relied on what has been termed ‘primordialism’, or a belief that similarities in the cultural expressions of members of various ethnic groups lie in the sameness of shared experience. In the wake of various ethnic political movements that often relied on the mobilization of cultural symbols, came Ethnic Groups and Boundaries in 1969. The editor of the book, Fredrik Barth, posited that ethnic identities are tools created during crisis and often mobilized to political or economic ends. This position, which has since been coined ‘instrumentalist’, suggests that ethnicity is a form of invented tradition rather than an expression of shared practices of significant time depth. The decades that followed the publication saw anthropologists of all stripes expending a good deal of energy investigating these two models of ethnicity. Historical archaeologists often embraced the study of ethnicity, especially those who were in the position to research the material remains of documented locales such as plantations, where identity was forged from the crucibles of cultural struggle. Ethnoarchaeological research investigated how much variation in the style of artifacts could be accounted for by different social groupings. Various investigations suggested that some artifacts reflect passive style or cultural norms of the proper way to produce an item, an idea that fits with primordialism. Other items, however, have active style intended specifically to mark social differences, something expected by an instrumentalist view of ethnicity. It is clear, however, that there is no absolute boundary between passive and active style, as an artifact that in one generation is shaped by taken-for-granted norms can become actively manipulated in the next. A middle-ground position, that ethnicity has both primordial and instrumental characteristics, is held by many twenty-first-century practitioners. How researchers operationalize the concept of ethnicity highlights some of the critical themes in a twenty-first-century archaeology of ethnicity. Given that the term ethnos derives originally from ancient Greek, it seems appropriate to turn to research on the poleis (city-states) of ancient Greece and their

colonies. Many ancient Greek poleis were comprised of a number of cultural groups. Texts of Greek origin myths help to establish that these collective identities were in fact ethnic, and were mobilized in continuing proclamations of group distinctiveness. As investigated by Jonathan Hall, a number of groups coupled these discursive strategies of ethnic identification with material ones. Both Greeks in Cyprus and the Akhaians of southern Italy expressed their identity materially, particularly through distinctive architecture. Other groups used the built environment to reinforce their link to mythic ancestors and the territories with which they were associated. For example, the Dryopes legitimized their claim to Asine by participating in the cult of Hera, the earlier, Bronze Age goddess of the Argive plain in which Asine was located. They also reused local Bronze Age tombs for their own inhumations. These are acts Hall classifies as ‘ancestralizing,’ strategies he suggests to be common among ethnic groups, because descent is often a critical element of this form of collective identity. It is illustrative to couple these studies of identity within the Greek poleis with those conducted in far-flung colonies. For example, in Berezan, a Greek colony in the northern Black Sea, the earliest traders lived in housing very similar to that of the majority Scythian population. Interestingly, the distinguishing architectural elements of the colonists’ houses were interior heating systems, something that reflects their struggles to adjust to a colder climate. This is an embodied element of their ethnic identity linked to the environmental differences between their homeland and their new territory and very unlikely to be an instrumental expression of personhood. These early traders were later joined by a wave of Greek immigrants, who as documentary and ceramic evidence suggests were largely Ionian. They lived in above-ground houses that reference a pan-Hellenic rather than Ionian form. One imagines that in Berezan, the most pertinent axis of ethnic identification was Greek/Scythian; thus, colonists did not mobilize around their internal Greek identity as Ionians. This case study highlights a critical element in the archaeology of ethnicity, namely that ethnic identity is both contingent and fluid, and thus our investigations must pay careful attention to the context in which material remains were a part. Like many archaeological investigations of identity, both of these are examples where researchers have access to some form of written documentation. However, aided by technological breakthroughs such as the sourcing of materials and DNA analysis, researchers are interpreting ethnicity among prehistoric populations with growing confidence. For example, the traditional culture areas of the prehistoric southwestern United States have recently come under scrutiny,

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revealing numerous examples of migration, intermarriage, and ethnogenesis. These studies indicate that the region has long been host to various forms of ethnic hybridity, a condition which post-Colonial theorists suggest is the norm for humanity. See also: Engendered Archaeology; Identity and Power.

Further Reading Barth F (ed.) (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little Brown. Conkey M (1990) Experimenting with Style in Archaeology: Some historical and theoretical issues. In: Conkey M and Hastorf C (eds.) The Uses of Style in Archaeology, pp. 5–17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Duff AI (2002) Western Pueblo Identities: Regional Interaction, Migration, and Transformation. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Hall JM (1997) Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones S (1997) The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present. London: Routledge. Lucy S (2005) Ethnic and Cultural Identities. In: Dı´az-Andreu M, Lucy S, Babic SA, and Edwards DN (eds.) The Archaeology of Identity, pp. 86–109. London: Routledge. Orser CE, Jr. (ed.) (2001) Race and the Archaeology of Identity. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Romanucci-Ross L and DeVos G (eds.) (1995) Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict, and Accommodation. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira. Solovyov SL (1999) Ancient Berezan: The Architecture, History and Culture of the First Greek Colony in the Northern Black Sea. Leiden: Brill. Stark MT (ed.) (1998) The Archaeology of Social Boundaries. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY Margaret E Beck, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary ethnoarchaeology The study of cultural material (such as pots, weapons, and tools), the understanding of how and why these materials were used, and interpretations of what they were used for. ethnography The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. material culture The counterpart of verbal culture and learned behavior that refers to physical objects from the past – together they constitute human activity. middle-range research Study of how people use objects and structures and the human behaviors associated with this use. uniformitarianism The theory that all geologic phenomena may be explained as the result of existing forces having operated uniformly from the origin of the earth to the present time.

Ethnoarchaeology is ethnographic field work designed to contribute to archaeological interpretation. It has also been called action archaeology, living archaeology, or archaeological ethnography. Archaeologists study the material traces of past human behavior; ethnoarchaeologists study the material traces of ongoing human behavior, so that archaeologists can better infer past human behavior from material patterns. Ethnoarchaeological studies may address questions

at one or more levels, including the artifact (e.g., manufacture and use), the site (e.g., spatial distribution of features), and the process (e.g., exchange, seasonal mobility). Direct behavioral observations, informant accounts and explanations, previous anthropological or sociological studies, and historical documents may all be available to the ethnoarchaeologist, allowing a more detailed and nuanced look at the relationships between human activities and artifacts. Archaeologists often use data collected from living people to formulate hypotheses and interpret archaeological patterns. Ethnographic accounts and ethnographic museum collections are often incorporated into archaeological studies, but relevant information may come from many fields, including sociocultural anthropology, history, linguistics, sociology, geography, and economics. This other work used by archaeologists is distinguished from ethnoarchaeology by its research design. Data originally collected for nonarchaeological applications is usually too vague about the material culture or spatial distribution of activities. For example, ethnographers may provide some information on diet and food preparation but fail to describe the vessels and utensils used and the resulting material evidence of food preparation, such as wear on tools and the refuse produced. Archaeologists are then forced to guess what the material patterns should be from these activities. The term ‘ethnoarchaeology’ is restricted here to fieldwork conducted explicitly for

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archaeologists, because only then will archaeological issues be adequately addressed and data collected in a way that relates to archaeological data. Ethnoarchaeology is one of several areas of study that improve archaeological inference, grouped by Lewis Binford into ‘middle-range research’. Middlerange research is essentially the study of cause and effect; archaeologists observe end products, such as artifacts, features, and spatial patterns, and infer the events or behaviors that created them. Links or correlates (as defined by Michael Schiffer) between dynamic events and activities and their static material traces can be formulated either by observing the ongoing behavior of others, as in ethnoarchaeology, or by mimicking the behavior in experiments under controlled conditions, as in experimental archaeology. Using these correlates requires the uniformitarian assumption that our observations can apply to other time periods because the processes we see in the present operated in a similar way in the past. The notion of uniformitarianism became widely accepted in geology in the first half of the nineteenth century and is now common in archaeology, although, the extent to which human behavior is consistent across time and space is still hotly debated. To complicate matters, the end product or archaeological record is created by multiple processes, and archaeologists often find remains that only indirectly reflect the particular human behavior they have chosen to study. Middle-range research, therefore, also includes the study of formation processes of the archaeological record, perhaps best known from the work of Michael Schiffer. Formation processes include both cultural processes, such as those studied by ethnoarchaeologists, and natural processes, such as sediment deposition and erosion. These processes can alter and rearrange material remains at any point during archaeological site formation. Some ethnoarchaeologists focus on particular behaviors of interest, such as house construction, stone tool manufacture, or food sharing, that occur early in the site formation process. Other ethnoarchaeologists address how materials enter the archaeological record through activities such as discard and house abandonment and how they are transformed by cultural processes such as trampling and construction, later in the site formation process. Research on formation processes is similar in some ways to taphonomy, the subdiscipline of palaeontology that addresses how organisms become part of the fossil record.

Development and Research Themes Jesse Walter Fewkes first used the term ‘ethnoarchaeologist’ in 1900, referring to an archaeologist

who applies his knowledge of a group’s current or recent culture to the study of its prehistory. This is similar to the ‘direct-historical approach’ formally defined by Waldo Wedel in 1938 and depends on cultural continuity over time. This approach was used by a number of archaeologists in the United States during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, including Arthur Parker in the Northeast, Wedel and William Duncan Strong in the Great Plains, Julian Steward in the Great Basin, and Fewkes and Frank Hamilton Cushing in the Southwest, and it still plays an important role in archaeological interpretation. It is not considered to be ethnoarchaeology by current scholars, who argue that ethnoarchaeology concerns more general links between human behavior and material patterning that are not dependent upon cultural continuity. The summary of ethnoarchaeology’s history largely follows that of Nicholas David and Carol Kramer, who in their 2001 book Ethnoarchaeology in Action divide the history of ethnoarchaeology into three periods: Initial, New Ethnoarchaeology, and Recent. They date the beginning of modern ethnoarchaeology to a 1956 paper by Maxine Kleindienst and Patty Jo Watson, titled ‘Action archaeology: the archaeological inventory of a living community’. Kleindienst and Watson argued that the archaeologist, ‘with his own theoretical orientation’, needed to conduct fieldwork to collect appropriate data for archaeological applications. The Initial period of ethnoarchaeology is mostly exploratory, descriptive, and focused on particular material culture classes. Modern Yucatecan Maya Pottery Making by Raymond Thompson, published in 1958, is a landmark study in this period because Thompson addresses how his descriptive work may be used by archaeologists. George Foster’s 1960 article ‘Life expectancy of utilitarian pottery in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan, Mexico’ is an early attempt in ethnoarchaeology to consider how artifacts are actually discarded and enter the archaeological record. The New Ethnoarchaeology developed from the New Archaeology or processual archaeology, an important theoretical shift in American archaeology following Lewis Binford’s article ‘Archaeology as anthropology’ in 1962. The New Archaeology regarded culture as the external, nonbiological means of human adaptation to the environment. It also advocated an explicitly scientific approach to archaeological inquiry. This theoretical shift directed ethnoarchaeology toward studies of landscape and resource use, particularly by foragers, and toward work that considered how cultural remains entered the archaeological record. Important studies of hunting and gathering groups include work with the Ngatatjara Aborigines

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in Australia (Richard Gould), the !Kung San in southern Africa (John Yellen and others), the Nunamiut in Alaska (Lewis Binford), the Alyawara of central Australia (James O’Connell), and the Hadza in Tanzania (James O’Connell, Kristen Hawkes, and others). Studies of agricultural villagers include research by Patty Jo Watson and Carol Kramer in Iran and William Longacre in the Philippines. Publications appeared on the use of space, both within individual settlements and broader landscapes, and on-site formation processes. The Recent period is characterized by the growing influence of postprocessualism within archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. This perspective downplays function and adaptation and emphasizes the role of human choice and agency in culture. David and Kramer start this period in 1982 with the publication of Ian Hodder’s book Symbols in Action, which uses ethnoarchaeology to present a different view of material culture. Material patterns and objects are not just the end result of human behavior, Hodder argued; they also influence and shape that behavior. Artifacts are not passive evidence of culture but symbols in action. Hodder was inspired by scholars, such as the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose practice theory has become increasingly important in archaeology. Postprocessualism does not replace processualism and related theoretical perspectives, however; this period also displays continuity in theory and in actual projects from the New Ethnoarchaeology period. Frenchspeaking ethnoarchaeologists such as Valentine Roux also continued to work in the positivist tradition, adopting a theoretical position known as ‘logicism’ that is based on archaeological writings by JeanClaude Gardin and outlined by Alain Gallay. The fruits of long-term efforts in ethnoarchaeology became apparent in this period, through comparison and synthesis and the publication of findings from several large multiyear projects. Edited volumes such as Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology and From Bones to Behavior bring together studies from multiple authors and regions and evaluate the overall contributions of ethnoarchaeology to behavioral inferences from a particular artifact class. The Coxoh Ethnoarchaeology Project, led by Brian Hayden, conducted fieldwork in three communities in the Maya highlands between 1977 and 1979 and led to important publications on the production and use of flaked stone, ground stone, and ceramic artifacts as well as refuse disposal. The Mandara Archaeological Project directed by Nicholas David and Judy Sterner began in 1984, conducting research in Cameroon and Nigeria on ceramic manufacture, metallurgy, household compounds, and other topics. Longacre’s Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project has continued over 30 years and is discussed further below.

To date, ethnoarchaeological projects have been conducted all over the world, in settings ranging from hunting–gathering camps to state-level societies. Topics include a wide variety of material remains and artifact classes, such as architecture, faunal bone, botanical remains, basketry, flaked stone, ceramics, glass, and metals. Activities and cultural processes have also been studied, such as the use of space within buildings, sites and settlements, and broader landscapes, site abandonment, and the development and transition of decoration and style. All of these studies are too varied and numerous to adequately summarize here. For more information, readers are referred to the ‘Further reading’ section, especially the excellent overview by David and Kramer.

Applying Ethnoarchaeology As archaeology has evolved, so have ideas about the nature of archaeological inference and the appropriate use of ethnoarchaeology. Ethnoarchaeological data may be used as analogy, in which the archaeologist concludes that one thing (the prehistoric culture) is like another thing (the recent or modern culture) based on some observed similarities in material culture. The archaeologist may then associate the material culture with less tangible aspects of culture in the recent or modern group, and project those aspects onto the prehistoric group. In ethnoarchaeology as first defined by Fewkes and in the direct-historical approach, ethnographic analogies were often used uncritically; because of presumed cultural continuity, analogies between ancestral and descendent cultures were assumed to be valid without testing. Robert Ascher expanded use of these analogies in 1961 by arguing that analogies can be drawn between cultures that adapted to similar environments in similar ways. The New Archaeology emphasized testing hypotheses with archaeological data, and uncritical analogies were subsequently challenged. Ethnoarchaeology was often used instead as a source of testable hypotheses, as advocated by Patty Jo Watson. Robert Kelly’s The Foraging Spectrum illustrates this perspective. It combines ethnoarchaeological research with other hunter–gatherer studies and may not be ethnoarchaeology itself, but it was written primarily for archaeologists who need relevant anthropological theory to create testable archaeological models. (Kelly’s recent work studying mobility and site layout among the Mikea of Madagascar is more clearly ethnoarchaeology as it is defined here.) Hypotheses should not be generated solely from data from living people, however, as pointed out by ethnoarchaeologists such as Martin Wobst and Michael Stanislawski. The universe of possible explanations should not be restricted

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to what has been observed in recent human behavior; if it is, we will never see how the past may differ from the present. Ethnoarchaeology has also served to point out problems in interpretation, either with overlooked variables or unexplored alternatives. John Yellen has called this the ‘spoiler approach’ and notes that although it emphasizes what archaeologists get wrong, it is an important part of developing and improving middle-range theory. Both Binford and Schiffer emphasize that in order to make inferences from the archaeological record, archaeologists need scientific law-like generalizations about the relationships between human behavior and material culture. Ethnoarchaeology is one major arena in which these generalizations or correlates are developed. Richard Gould and John Yellen have used ‘contrastive ethnoarchaeology’ in this way, comparing household spacing between hunting–gathering groups in similar desert environments. In this case, the differences proved to be more informative than the similarities, and they concluded that the closer spacing in the Kalahari Desert was related to danger from large carnivores, which are absent in Australia’s Western Desert. Comparative studies also use data from multiple groups to find broader patterns, as in Dean Arnold’s Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process, Kelly’s The Foraging Spectrum, and Richard Blanton’s Houses and Households: A Comparative Study. Binford argues strongly for ‘‘the use of cross-cultural comparisons as a uniformitarian strategy for learning in anthropology’’ throughout his career and in his 2001 book Constructing Frames of Reference, written to address ‘‘productively using ethnographic data in the service of archaeological goals’’. French-speaking archaeologists and ethnoarchaeologists in the logicist tradition agree that ethnoarchaeologists look for generalizations about behavior and material culture, although, as Alain Gallay points out, these are not useful if they become overly broad ‘‘platitudes on human behavior’’ or overly narrow ‘‘local cultural particularisms’’. Gallay also argues that they cannot be applied appropriately if the mechanisms behind them are not understood. The scientific approach taken by the logicists includes use of evidence from other scientific fields, including some less often considered by North American ethnoarchaeologists such as experimental psychology. Valentine Roux and Danie`la Corbetta’s research on craft specialization near New Delhi, India is one example of a logicist ethnoarchaeological study. Roux and Corbetta relate changes in ceramic shape to increasing productive specialization, explaining the relationship through the development of motor skills by potters as well as attributes of the raw materials.

Not all archaeologists believe such generalizations have been or can be developed through ethnoarchaeology, or that they can be applied broadly enough to be meaningful or useful. Archaeologists such as Michelle Hegmon and Donald Grayson, referring to ceramic and faunal studies respectively, have suggested that cautionary tales or the spoiler approach dominate the field. Postprocessualists might deny that patterns of any real significance or interest could apply across cultures. Even committed ethnoarchaeologists find difficulties, often practical if not theoretical. For example, David and Kramer note that Roux and Corbetta’s results have not been applied to the interpretation of archaeological material, in part because Roux’s system for classifying vessels by level of specialization is very complex and can only be used for complete or reconstructible vessels. Other archaeologists and anthropologists argue that direct applications to archaeology are not the only useful contributions of ethnoarchaeology, if ethnoarchaeology is defined more broadly as ethnographic study with an archaeologist’s attention to material culture. Daniel Miller conducted ceramic ethnoarchaeology in India early in his career, and has since made enormous contributions to the field of modern material culture studies. He is a founding editor of the Journal of Material Culture, and his books include A Theory of Shopping and the edited four-volume set Consumption: Critical Concepts. Jeanne Arnold and Anthony Graesch are two of the archaeologists working with data from modern middle-class households in Los Angeles, collected at the UCLA Center on Everyday Lives of Families (CELF), a Sloan Center on Working Families supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Program on DualCareer Working Middle Class Families. They focus on domestic material culture, including architecture, home furnishings, and family possessions, and document the use of objects and space through systematic timed observations, photographs, and interviews. Currently, Arnold is investigating activity scheduling, object management, and identity formation, and Graesch’s focus is on how the constructed domestic environment reflects and relates to household activities. In spite of debates about its utility and appropriate role, ethnoarchaeology has had a significant impact on archaeological research, affecting the way questions are formulated, hypotheses are evaluated, and material patterns and interpretations are placed in a broader cultural context. The most visible impact may be on hunter-gatherer archaeology. James Skibo, in his review of American Antiquity articles from 1975–2004, found that ethnoarchaeological studies were cited 19 times per year on average and that most

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of these citations were for work with hunter-gatherers. Indeed, hunter-gatherer ethnoarchaeology has been frequently used to interpret archaeological data sets, such as regional survey data from the United States Great Lakes area in a 2005 issue of American Antiquity. Ethnoarchaeology often contributes to archaeology in the same way that other anthropological and social studies do, by enriching our understanding of culture and adaptation and human variation. Archaeologists who undertake ethnoarchaeology witness connections between artifacts and people and a whole lot more, and often return with a fundamentally different perspective on the study of human behavior, through archaeology or otherwise. These contributions are hard to quantify. There are other more tangible, if more prosaic, applications of ethnoarchaeological data. One area of influence is artifact analysis and interpretation. As pointed out by Donald Grayson and Laurence Bartram, Binford’s analysis of ethnoarchaeological fauna influenced many analyses of archaeological faunal collections. In spite of the apparent dominance of huntergatherer archaeology, ceramic ethnoarchaeology has also affected archaeological ceramic research. For example, the ethnoarchaeologist Dean Arnold once collaborated with two leading researchers in the chemical characterization of artifacts, Hector Neff and Ronald Bishop, to examine what ceramic sourcing really means in a social and behavioral context. Mark Varien and Barbara Mills used cross-cultural ethnoarchaeological data on ceramic use life to evaluate archaeological ceramic discard rates at one site in the United States Southwest. Miram Stark, who received her PhD from the University of Arizona, influenced many of her archaeological colleagues with her depiction of village-level ceramic specialization from the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project (which is one reason why Kalinga and other ethnoarchaeological data are frequently considered in the reconstruction of ceramic exchange networks in central and southern Arizona). Spatial patterning has also received a lot of attention. Papers in the edited volume The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning include both ethnoarchaeological studies and applications of ethnoarchaeological findings to particular archaeological sites. Susan Kent’s Analyzing Activity Areas is an important work that illustrates the utility of moving back and forth between ethnoarchaeological and archaeological perspectives. Kent planned to directly apply her ethnoarchaeological research presented in the first half to archaeological sites in the second half, but this application proved difficult given differences in the types of data collected. The attempt nonetheless generated many useful insights,

including a ground-breaking discussion of crosscultural differences in the use of space. Her later article ‘The archaeological visibility of storage: delineating storage from trash areas’ is a strong application of her ethnoarchaeological work in Botswana to archaeological sites in the United States Southwest.

Ethnoarchaeological Collections So far there has been a discussion on the collection and use of data rather than objects. The physical objects, as examples of the material culture, are another important line of evidence. Ethnographic collections have been used by archaeologists to better understand nonindustrial material culture, and some have been directly compared to archaeological collections or analyzed using similar methods. Despite their utility, these are not the collections the archaeologists themselves would have made given the opportunity. This is, at least in part, because museums and wealthy individuals do not choose items that represent the bulk of the archaeological record. For example, collectors and the viewing public generally prefer painted vessels in good condition. Plain cooking vessels are underrepresented and heavily used vessels are rarely included, although fragments of such vessels dominate many archaeological collections. Ethnoarchaeologists may collect objects as well as data with the needs of archaeologists in mind. Such collections may allow for more detailed artifact analysis similar to that undertaken for archaeological objects, and permit reanalysis and use as training material by other researchers who could not visit the field site. Collections both enhance the original study and help other archaeologists to learn and benefit from ethnoarchaeological work. For example, Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project researchers collected both painted water jars and plain cooking vessels, now curated at the Arizona State Museum. These collections were an integral part of research by Skibo and Kobayashi on cooking vessel use. During his Nunamiut research, Binford collected faunal bone from both recently butchered animals and older Nunamiut sites. These materials are stored at the Museum of New Mexico and also at the University of Arizona, where Mary Stiner is directing additional analyses.

Example: The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project Some of the issues raised above are revisited through one example from the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project (KEP). This project is directed by William Longacre at the University of Arizona, who began

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studying contemporary potters in 1973. His choice of potters in Kalinga Province, the Philippines, was influenced heavily by a colleague, Edward Dozier, whose ethnographic fieldwork in the region indicated that ceramic vessels were still made and used within Kalinga households. Over the past 30 years, Longacre’s initial research focus on pottery decoration has expanded into broader investigations of household ceramic manufacture, use, and exchange. Longacre continued to collect data himself for decades and directed one large field season during the 1987–88 academic year. Many of his former students, including Michael Graves, James Skibo, and Miriam Stark, have also published their work with this project. The KEP is based in the Pasil Municipality along the Pasil River Valley in northern Luzon, the Philippines. The study area has two things in common with many other ethnoarchaeological field locations. First, most people in Pasil are farmers who grow almost all of their food and have limited access to cash. Second, the area is relatively inaccessible due to the local topography. The Pasil villages are located on mountain slopes (Figure 1), and unpaved roads reach some but not all of them. Electricity is only

available from gasoline-powered generators; it is used primarily for powering lights at night, and even then not consistently. Fewer commercial goods reach these communities because they are difficult to transport and also difficult to afford. Ceramic cooking vessels stay in use longer in these settings, perhaps in part because they are locally available and cheaper than the metal vessels that have replaced them in most of the world (Figure 2). The example used here is drawn from the 2001 field season in Dalupa (Figure 3), a community of 380 people in 71 households. As a prehistoric ceramic analyst, the author was especially interested in ceramics from middens, or trash dumps, because archaeologists recover large samples of ceramics from these contexts. Many more vessels are broken and discarded into middens than are left in other contexts, such as within houses during abandonment. During our fieldwork, we tracked the movement of discarded vessels into middens to link refuse deposits with their source areas, such as households or groups of households, and to see how well midden assemblages represented what was thrown away. Households are the focus of much anthropological and archaeological inquiry. Relying on observed ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological patterns, archaeologists have tried to associate attributes of household ceramic assemblages or social groups with household size and composition, wealth or status, social obligations, and diet, cuisine, and food preparation techniques. To draw these connections, however, they need to isolate the ceramics from different households or groups of households. Our goal was to see whether, using the right approaches, they could include midden ceramics in such studies. Methods

Figure 1 View from Dalupa across the Pasil River Valley towards two nearby communities.

The choice of methods is crucial in an ethnoarchaeological study, particularly if the authors claim to find a broader pattern that applies to other situations. Archaeologists need to have confidence in the results before using them in archaeological interpretation, and should ask some pointed questions. How exactly did the ethnoarchaeologists document their patterns? How much variation might be expected from these patterns? Could any of the data sources be biased, and how and why? The best way to show the crosscultural applicability of a pattern is often to look at as many cases as possible, but authors can at least increase confidence in their particular case through careful data collection. David and Kramer provide an excellent overview of fieldwork methods and concerns unique to ethnoarchaeology. KEP fieldwork here is offered as one concrete example of ethnoarchaeological methods.

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Figure 2 Local potters in Dalupa apply resin to ceramic pots after firing to waterproof them.

Figure 3 View down the central thoroughfare (cement sidewalk) of Dalupa. Because of Dalupa’s location on the side of a mountain, houses sit on residential terraces with stone walls like the one visible in the foreground.

Matthew Hill and Margaret E. Beck spent five months living in Dalupa and conducting fieldwork. They relied partially on interviews with Dalupa residents and partially on their independent observations of behavior and physical deposits, collecting data from household ceramic inventories, weekly questionnaires, and physical investigations of middens and artifacts. The interviews were conducted in English with the help of four local assistants, who translated as necessary. While use of English is widespread in the region, the dominant language is Kalinga. Interviews are a relatively quick way to get information on a variety of topics, and may be the only way to get some kinds of data. Some responses may be inaccurate or misleading, however, as informants may not

remember events in sufficient detail or may adjust answers in attempts to please interviewers or avoid embarrassment. We attempted to reduce informant error by interviewing households once a week and collecting data over the entire field season, asking informants only to remember very recent events. We also reviewed questionnaire data for internal consistency and field-checked data whenever possible. Rosemary Firth describes and illustrates well the value of crosschecking interview data in Housekeeping Among Malay Peasants. We visited each house at the beginning of fieldwork to record all of the ceramic vessels owned by each family. Toward the end of the field season, we visited everyone again and re-inventoried their ceramic

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vessels. We compared the totals and then asked the family about any discrepancies, including vessels they may have broken or discarded. One of our local assistants visited every family once a week to ask about cooking vessel use, general household discard, and ceramic breakage and discard. First, people were asked what their family had cooked the previous day and which pots they used to cook in. They were also asked what they threw away the previous day, and where they put it. Finally, they were asked if they had broken or otherwise damaged any ceramic vessels during the week, and what they did with the vessels afterward. Their reports of damage from weekly interviews should have been consistent with the final ceramic inventories, and families were asked about any discrepancies during the final vessel inventories. We mapped the entire village, including any visible accumulations of trash. Each accumulation got an arbitrary number. Every week we reviewed the questionnaire data and matched the reported discard locations to our mapped trash piles, checking for new trash piles as needed. In this way we estimated how many households, and which households, threw trash into a particular midden. Once the middens were defined, we documented them in more detail. We mapped them in plan view (Figure 4), cored them along a center line to determine depth, and recorded the items present on the surface in sample units. We also excavated test units in two active middens. We collected 3001 midden sherds, including surface sherds from 17 active middens and excavated sherds from two middens.

Results: Trash and Trash Accumulation

Most trash within the Dalupa residential area is produced by household activities. Household trash generally consists of household items and waste from routine activities, such as meal preparation and personal hygiene. It is usually temporarily collected in a container within the house, such as a large metal can, that is periodically carried outside and emptied. Ceramic vessels are thrown away close to where they were broken, in most (79%) cases within 10 m. Ceramic vessels broken within houses were treated like other household trash, although as relatively large objects, they might be thrown away immediately rather than placed in the trash can. One major difference in household trash between Dalupa and communities in the United States is that leftover food is almost never thrown away. It is instead shared with other people or given to domestic animals, and does not find its way into middens. Some inedible (to humans) by-products of food processing, such as pea pods, are thrown away. Discarded items do not accumulate randomly all over the village. The piles of trash often smell, attract insects and scavenging animals, and occupy space that could be used for other activities. Residents therefore come to some informal agreement about where trash may accumulate, and it becomes concentrated in certain locations as middens, known as aggil in the Kalinga language. In Dalupa and in other ethnoarchaeological settings, middens tend to appear in or along streams or washes, around the edges of house lots, and off the sides of hills or terraces.

Figure 4 This midden below a terrace wall was photographed just before mapping. (The line through the midden center is a measuring tape.) Note the spectators along the wall. Especially in the beginning of the field season, most of our activities gathered a crowd.

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There were 32 active middens in Dalupa during our fieldwork, covering about 10% of the residential area. Dalupa households use between one and three middens for disposal of their daily household waste, although they tend to concentrate their refuse in one midden closest to their house. Some middens are used by a particular house and others are shared by multiple households. We grouped middens into three categories based on household contributions: household (used by only one household), local (used by two to five households), and communal (used by six or more households). Household and local midden users transported their refuse relatively short distances, averaging 6 and 11 m, respectively, because these middens were either within or adjacent to their house lots. The communal middens shared by many more families tended to be farther away from their houses, and communal midden users transported their trash nearly 35 m from their households on average. People apparently prefer to put a household midden close by, within their own house lot, when they have the space to do so. Household middens are found among the Maya households in the Coxoh Project area and in Philip Arnold’s sample of Mexican households in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz. The average house lot size in the Veracruz sample is 282 m2. In Dalupa, where house lots average only 156 m2, residents are often forced to share middens with their neighbors. Middens in Dalupa are constantly disturbed even while they are forming. Younger children have not yet been fully socialized to avoid the trash, and often play in middens and collect materials from them.

Figure 5 Animals rummage through a Dalupa midden for food.

Domestic animals such as pigs, dogs, and chickens scavenge for food and also enter the middens to consume rice chaff, banana peels, and other discarded organic materials (Figure 5). Because middens are often very close to living and working areas, they received significant foot traffic in some areas and might be shifted or disturbed by outside cleaning activities. For example, neighbors occasionally moved small middens away from their house if the smell or waste bothered them; larger middens near public spaces, such as the basketball court or elementary school, were pushed back or burned, or both, to clean up the area before intra- or intercommunity events (Figure 6). The movement, cleaning, and trampling of middens reduces many items to plastic, metal, glass, fabric, and ceramic scraps. Faunal bone fragments only appear occasionally; in Dalupa as elsewhere, dogs destroy most of the bone produced by butchery and meat consumption. We argue that the basic rules of trash disposal and midden placement might apply in other settings, allowing archaeologists to link middens to the living and working areas where trash was produced. It would be easier to connect household and local middens with their sources, because they receive trash from fewer households. Those households are immediately adjacent to the midden and can be identified. Household and local middens are visibly different from communal middens, at least in Dalupa, in their smaller size and placement around or between houses rather than around public activity areas. To apply our patterns, archaeologists would need to determine which structures in their site are habitation structures and which structures are contemporaneous.

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Figure 6 The midden adjacent to the elementary school (the building to the right) is burned before the start of fall classes.

We also conclude that middens are good contexts for sampling household ceramic assemblages. Most (73%) discarded vessels went to middens, according to the weekly interviews, although some vessels were left outside the residential area or as isolated artifacts within the village. Both the weekly interviews and analysis of the midden ceramics suggest that the distribution of vessel types in middens is similar to the overall distribution of discarded vessel types. Discussion In the absence of ethnoarchaeology, data on this topic may never have been collected. Other anthropologists do not seem to want such detailed information about trash and trash dumps, and the limited comparative data available were collected by other ethnoarchaeologists. We also reaped the benefits of a long-term ethnoarchaeological project, as our work was greatly improved by the availability of previous KEP vessel collections and data. For example, we were able to compare the frequency of vessel breakage and rates of ceramic use between the 1987–88 and the 2001 field seasons. Unfortunately, from the perspective of ceramic ethnoarchaeology, we found that ceramic use and ownership significantly declined over this 13-year period. Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork is similar to other ethnographic research in some ways, but methods reflect (or should reflect) the emphasis on material culture and the need for data comparable to archaeological data. Even so, there are often fundamental differences in the units of observation between ethnoarchaeology and archaeology, as noted by researchers who have worked in both settings, such as James Skibo and Philip Arnold. Moving back and forth between ethnoarchaeological and archaeological

perspectives should enhance both kinds of research. We attempted to collect data as comparable to archaeological data as possible, having previously worked as archaeologists and attempted to apply ethnoarchaeological findings to our archaeological data. Only our archaeological audience can judge whether we were successful in our own data collection strategies. Our goal was to generalize about waste disposal in a village setting, and we suggest the observed patterns should apply in other villages (prehistoric or otherwise) similar to our ethnoarchaeological case. If they do, then midden deposits can be used to compare the material culture between households or groups of households. Archaeologists interested in household archaeology currently rely on material from house floors, which produce much smaller samples. We believe, as do other archaeologists influenced by the New Archaeology, that our generalizations would be refined and strengthened by additional cross-cultural comparisons.

Conclusion Archaeologists often want data from living groups that they can apply, more or less directly, toward their interpretations of the archaeological record. These are not easy to come by for several reasons. First, everyone really wants ethnoarchaeological data collected by archaeologists with similar theoretical perspectives and research interests to his or her own. This is obviously impossible; despite a considerable increase in ethnoarchaeological studies, they still make up a small portion of archaeological research, and opportunities to study nonindustrial technologies and lifeways are rapidly vanishing. Although ethnoarchaeologists attempt to serve the needs of archaeology, diversity

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within the discipline ensures that not all archaeologists will get what they want. Second, as noted earlier, both cultural and natural formation processes affect material patterning, and not all of these are documented in ethnoarchaeological studies. Archaeological inference depends upon numerous correlates or principles from multiple avenues of research, and ethnoarchaeology alone is unlikely to provide a scene that one could also observe in the archaeological record. As John Yellen observed, ethnoarchaeologists often describe the results of single events but archaeological assemblages result from multiple events. The archaeologists hoping for, in James Skibo’s words, ‘‘some tidy, tight, little correlate that can be applied to their massive pile of sherds now spilling onto the lab floor’’ will be disappointed by ethnoarchaeology, because ethnoarchaeological findings ‘‘must first be put into models that then can be applied to the archaeological record’’. See also: Behavioral Archaeology; Experimental Ar-

chaeology; Interpretive Models, Development of;

Ethnographic Analogy

Middle Range Approaches; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Sites: Formation Processes.

Further Reading Beck ME (2006) Midden ceramic assemblage formation: An ethnoarchaeological case study from Kalinga, the Philippines. American Antiquity 71: 27–51. Binford LR (1978) Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press. David N and Kramer C (2001) Ethnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayden B and Cannon A (1984) The Structure of Material Systems: Ethnoarchaeology in the Maya Highlands. SAA Papers 3. Washington, DC: Society for American Archaeology. Kramer C (1979) Ethnoarchaeology: Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology. New York: Columbia University Press. Longacre WA (ed.) (1991) Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Longacre WA and Skibo JM (eds.) (1994) Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology: Expanding Archaeological Method and Theory. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Yellen JE (1977) Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past. New York: Academic Press.

See: Middle Range Approaches.

ETHNOHISTORY Joel W Palka, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary analogy This concept relates to the inferences archaeologists make regarding the reconstruction of past behavior based on information from ethnography, ethnohistory, ethnoarchaeology, or comparative studies. annales An influential movement in historical research that seeks to reconstruct the complete history of a wide range of human activities and social life that vary over short to long periods through a multivariate data set, such as documents, oral history, material culture, geographical information, economics, archaeology, and social theory. archive Collection of documents in government offices, churches, libraries, museums, town halls, and private holdings studied by ethnohistorians.

contact studies This specialty involves historical and archaeological research on the interaction between colonial peoples and indigenous societies, and examines how culture contact resulted in transformations in native cultures. direct historical approach Relies on ethnographic and historical evidence to correlate archaeological sites and artifacts with known cultures and combines the data to reconstruct past societies and specific human behavior. emic A term that describes a view from within a society or an insider’s perspective on a culture that is obtained through native voice, symbolism, material creations, or actions. ethnography The description of contemporary human societies and culture that combine social analysis, comparative theory, and occasionally historical and archaeological contexts (also cultural and social anthropology or ethnology). ethnohistory This field of inquiry, methodology, or discipline examines past human behavior and elements of a society, such as demography, social change, and material culture, and how they were maintained or transformed through time by using written records and oral accounts.

1168 ETHNOHISTORY longue dure´e This term refers to periods of little or slow change in a society, or predictable cycles or repetitions of cultural elements over an extended period, that are integrated with large-scale environmental or material factors. In archaeology circles, this concept often signifies the long duration of cultural continuities. middle-range theory This concept covers the different methods and ways that archaeologists reconstruct past human behavior from interpretations of material remains in the archaeological record. upstreaming Refers to the use of ethnographic or ethnohistoric data from modern cultures to critique reconstructions of or directly interpret past behaviors and cultures in the archaeological and/or historical records (the reverse is referred to as ‘downstreaming’).

This article covers the usage and importance of ethnohistory in archaeology. Ethnohistory is a multidisciplinary field of study. The discipline typically focuses on past indigenous societies and how they changed following contact with expanding Western states in the Colonial and Post-Colonial Periods (usually around 1500–1900). Ethnohistory frequently involves the study of documents and/or oral histories related to indigenous lifeways, language, religious beliefs, economic organization, material culture, and how they were transformed following encounters with Europeans. Ethnohistory has been described in the past as the study of identities, locations, contacts, movements, numbers, and cultural activities of indigenous peoples from written records. Essentially, this field can be portrayed as the ethnography of past cultures through historic sources, either written by colonists (usually European) or indigenous peoples following colonization, and it involves the interpretation of social behaviors and cultural transformations. Many archaeologists do ethnohistorical research, yet in most cases they rely on published information on primary sources or studies carried out on them by ethnohistorians or historians. In turn, ethnohistorians undertake or participate in archaeological projects as archival researchers and usually not as excavators. However, that is changing today since some archaeologists also retrieve data from archives, explorers’ accounts, and oral histories, and ethnohistorians are more interested in first-hand archaeological findings. While archaeology and history can be used separately for studies of the past or culture change, this essay concentrates on the use of ethnohistory and archaeology together in research projects to learn more about ancient societies. Therefore, as it can be imagined, the direct utilization of both fields of inquiry and data sets is a worthwhile but difficult task. It is easy for an anthropologist to incorporate historical information in a discussion of culture change, yet it requires more

effort to gather original archaeological and historical data as well. Although ethnohistory was influential with historians and social anthropologists during its genesis, the relationship between and interconnectedness of ethnohistory and archaeology continues to expand. This relationship fits well within the Annales school of historical scholarship, for instance, where different but interrelated data sets and perspectives help achieve a more complete analysis of the past. The Annales approach is also concerned with the differing pace of historical events over the short and long terms. In other words, specific political events can occur in short periods in a society whereas ethnic interaction and change can take place over centuries. Interestingly, the importance of ethnohistory in archaeology is not usually explained in archaeology textbooks, yet many archaeologists incorporate ethnohistoric research findings or original historic data in their studies. However, textbook authors who work in Middle America usually discuss the utility of ethnohistory and this is perhaps due to the extensive archives and historical research in this culture area. Ethnoarchaeology and historical archaeology, which are related disciplines, generally receive more treatises than ethnohistory in textbooks and discussions of archaeological inquiry. They differ from ethnohistory, however, in that ethnoarchaeology is concerned with ethnographic studies of human societies and their material culture and how they help archaeologists create behavioral analogies with the past. Sometimes there is an ethnohistorical component in ethnoarchaeology, but it mainly deals with the ethnographic present. At the same time historical archaeology is traditionally viewed as the study of Europeans and their settlements and society from the Colonial Period to the twentieth century with a particular emphasis on the nineteenth century (as seen in the article content in the flagship journals in this discipline; besides the serial Ethnohistory, the Annual Review of Anthropology , American Antiquity, and the Journal of Field Archaeology are good places to begin researching case studies and theoretical approaches to ethnohistory in archaeology). However, there is actually much overlap between historical archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and ethnohistory, and their uses in archaeology with regard to methodologies, aims and goals, creation of analogies, contributions, and their connections to history.

Ethnohistory This type of research is typically conducted by historians, ethnologists, linguists, and archaeologists.

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Ethnohistory can be claimed as a subdiscipline or methodology in either anthropology or history, and the debate continues regarding which field it should be placed in. Despite the fact that it is a common scholarly pursuit and has its own widely-read journal, very rarely does ethnohistory have its own academic department or program within a university. Additionally, ethnohistorians can be found in different university departments, such as anthropology, linguistics, and history, or organizations (libraries, museums, cultural centers, etc.). Ethnohistory as a research tool and subdiscipline largely grew out of studies of colonialism and culture contact which focused on indigenous culture change starting around the mid-twentieth century. With this in mind, the discipline has its roots and subsequent developments in research in the New World: the clash of cultures and the generation of archives in North, Central, and South America from the Colonial Period onward provided the impetus for the creation of ethnohistory as a discipline or research methodology. One area of usefulness of ethnohistory in archaeology is its ability to help bridge time gaps. It is advantageous for substantiating evidence from the ethnographic present, which archaeologists rely upon for their analogies and interpretations of past human behaviors, in order to reconstruct the archaeological past. In fact, there is actually an inherent danger in applying analogies from the ethnographic present to reconstruct human lifeways in the deep past due to considerable culture change over time. However, if the behaviors are represented in the historic record which is closer to archaeological periods, then errors relating to the misapplication of ethnographic data to ancient times are minimalized. For our purposes here, the positive uses (and not abuses in the field, such as taking all documents at face value for truthful past cultural reconstructions) of ethnohistory in archaeology are stressed. Much of the discussion and bibliographic sources here revolve around New World archaeology, especially Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, where the author has research expertise and where impressive amounts of ethnohistory in archaeology have taken place. Certainly, ethnohistory is used in archaeology in other parts of the world where European or indigenous documents and oral histories are available, such as Africa, China, and the Pacific, but this combination is popular in the Americas because of the abundance of historic sources and investigators. In Africa and the Pacific, for example, Portuguese and English writings along with native oral histories are accessed by archaeologists. Indigenous histories are important for excavators in China and India on the other hand.

In the archaeology of Europe, pre-colonial (Rome and Norway, for instance) and colonial-era (United Kingdom and Spain) sources are utilized in archaeology. In true ethnohistorical form, I will devote space here for an extensive list of sources that can be easily accessed by the reader to peruse ethnohistorical and archaeological research. In these cultural and geographical regions, ethnohistorical information is often used to singularly help archaeologists reconstruct specific aspects of the past societies that they are interested in. On the other hand, some ethnohistory is more comprehensive in nature or is focused on many social and historic issues regarding a past society. Political structure and ethnic borders in an ancient civilization, such as Maya and Aztec, for instance, are examined in light of what Europeans described for similar social conditions in these societies during the contact period or time of colonization. Stone tool manufacture and how lithics were used in the distant past are also similarly reconstructed with ethnohistoric accounts of a particular culture, including the historic Maya, Aztecs, and Inuit. Importantly, archaeology fills in gaps in the historical record (see Time and History, Divisions). At times we know of certain behaviors and material possessions present in a past society through ethnohistory, but we may lack a more complete understanding of the native culture and social change. For example, through ethnohistory the settlement patterns of a certain ethnic group may be clearly described. But we may not have historic records of their subsistence practices and how they were transformed after interaction with foreigners. For example, we may comprehend nineteenth-century Yucatec Maya subsistence from accounts of explorers, but more information from archaeology may be desired regarding their burial practices and household economies if they are not historically evident. Conversely, only through ethnohistorical data and analysis are archaeologists able to examine research topics such as ethnogenesis, native resistance to colonial rule, social organization, religion, cultural survivals, and late pre-contact societies. Ethnohistory also lends significant insights on issues that currently are, and will continue to be, scrutinized, including human agency, gender, ritual, microeconomics, and cultural diversity. It also provides the time depth that is the backbone in archaeological research so that we may witness culture change or continuity and how and why they occurred over a long period. The documentary record varies depending on the region, authorship, preservation, period in which they were created, and intended audience. Some documents cover population figures, household sizes and compositions, and

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tribute or tax lists. Other archival sources contain long discussions of native religion, social organization, and intellectual life. Additional written sources contribute maps, descriptions or drawings of material culture, and native language dictionaries, to name a few types of ethnohistorical information. It is easy to see why ethnohistory is of great interest to archaeologists. Written records provide information on human behavior, culture change and continuity, and material culture that can be examined in the archaeological record. Often the time depth of the documents is helpful for viewing diachronic culture change which is a hallmark advantage of archaeological research.

Ethnohistory and Archaeology Among the earliest mentioning of ‘ethnohistory’ is in the archaeology literature at the beginning of the twentieth century. Here the term refers to a method to reconstruct past cultures by extracting information from historical documents. Surely many archaeologists in different settings did, and still do, consult historical sources to better interpret archaeological data and generate more convincing analyses of archaeological cultures. It is important to note here that studies of Colonial Period sources and the histories of indigenous people were an integral part of the development of archaeology in many Latin American countries, such as Mexico where research on the Pre-Columbian past was bolstered by written descriptions of the Aztecs and Maya. In Mexico and Guatemala, for instance, ethnohistory, archaeology, and ethnography come together for the study of national history, heritage, and contemporary society. While it may be tempting to suggest that the origins of ethnohistory as a field of study was within archaeology in the Americas, it in fact was pursued simultaneously by historians, archaeologists, linguists, and anthropologists, who put their research into further historic light. A perusal of the journal Ethnohistory demonstrates the multidisciplinary origins of this field. The volumes from the first few years of this journal contained articles by historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists who covered their field of study and its importance for ethnohistory, and vice versa. Toward the end of the twentieth century, however, more historians and fewer anthropologists and archaeologists wrote for the journal. Comparatively little archaeology is found there today and when archaeologists publish in the journal they treat the historic record and its implications for archaeology, but they often do not include archaeological data. The plural disciplinary nature of ethnohistoric research continues to the present, although some researchers point out that many ethnographies would

benefit from ethnohistory. Similar suggestions or criticisms have not been leveled at archaeologists as a whole, except for colleagues who are seen as ‘ahistorical’ or who lack historical analogies or comparative data in their work. Their research is often shallow in time depth and frequently needs historical information for stronger behavioral reconstructions. These archaeologists have also ignored historic processes of culture change since they concentrate on single periods and advocate for cross-cultural behavioral ‘laws’. Or they have merely not included an ethnohistoric component to their research even if written sources are available. From the origins of archaeology to recent intellectual shifts in archaeological thought, ethnohistory has played a key role in the reconstruction of past societies. Although the genesis and growth of ethnohistory itself are rooted in culture contact and culture change studies in American archaeology, history is also strongly wedded to classical archaeology in Europe, as with the study of Greece and Rome, and European and US historical archaeology, such as excavations at Monticello in the eastern US and in nineteenth century Irish farmsteads. It was also instrumental in the development of the global cultural-historical approach in archaeology during the first half of the twentieth century. Historical knowledge was central to culture-historical archaeology at this time since the study of material culture, ethnicity, and their historical connections to particular societies were the main goals of archaeological research. Thus, archaeologists sought to identify the archaeological remains of known societies, like the Hopi and Navajo people of the Southwest US. Nationalism and progress in expanding nation states around the world were also frequent topics touched upon in the cultural–historical approach, as in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and the study of documents was necessary to learn more about past ethnic groups and their archaeological sites within the boundaries of these states. Hence, the understanding of the political extension of and material culture of the Aztecs of Mexico depended on the joint employment of ethnohistory and archaeology (see Political Complexity, Rise of). Ethnohistory was not viewed as a vital enterprise within the Processual approach or the New Archaeology which was generally concerned with comparative cross-cultural studies in understanding the past. Although culture change over time and ethnographic analogies are part of the processual archaeology (see Processual Archaeology), the use of history was minimized, however, since it was seen as culturespecific, non-recurring, and noncomparative in nature. Ethnohistory nonetheless is deemed useful in postprocessual or contextual archaeology (see Postprocessual Archaeology). In this archaeological paradigm it is

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recognized that long-term cultural continuities may exist and can be manifested in archaeological, historical, and ethnographic contexts. It is also recognized here that meanings and functions of ancient material culture can be discerned by analyzing the historic past through documents of different periods. Furthermore, human actions and agency are often the focus of historical research and this perspective can help explain archaeological patterns and the artifactual evidence. For instance, the complex symbolism and women’s labor in ancient Maya civilization can be viewed in historical accounts of Maya textile weaving. This information has been applied to the interpretation of classic Maya elites and textile production as seen on stone monuments and archaeological ceramics. Historic meanings and cultural transformations are targeted for understanding individual symbolic systems and art, particular social groups or economic classes, and specific human behavior and beliefs in postprocessual research. Again, what is termed ‘historical archaeology’ traditionally is thought of as the archaeology of Europeans during the Colonial and post-Independence Periods. Yet the concentration of ethnohistoric research, or the investigation of indigenous societies and culture change following colonization, can be placed within the rubric of historical archaeology. This is due to the fact that there are many documents related to indigenous cultures and not just Europeans or Africans. Conversely, ethnohistorians do cover Old World peoples in their research and not just indigenous cultures. Moreover, ethnohistory and historical archaeology both use documents and material culture for the examination of past cultures and lifeways. Thus, historical archaeology encompasses the historical and material analysis of the ‘modern world,’ whether it is European or not. The subdiscipline of historical archaeology (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline) is also attracting attention around the world and its practitioners incorporate historical information directly in their research more so than other archaeologists. Ethnohistory is gaining greater importance in archaeology at the present as a research tool or guide for conducting research on the ancient past. Archaeologists are continuously relying on ethnohistory to create analogies for reconstructing past behaviors from the material record (namely, using the so-called see middle-range theory), especially if there is a historical connection between the archaeological and documented cultures or if there are no ethnographic societies from which to draw analogies. In many academic departments or research programs around the world, especially in Europe, archaeology is closely aligned with history and researchers are

using both to investigate specific cultures or local ethnic groups and how they changed or remained the same over time. Even ethnohistorians are now employing archaeological studies and data in their research and publications. Ethnohistory is a uniting force in the study of culture: it brings prehistory, history, and ethnography together in complex and necessary ways. As one scholar put it: the wall between history and archaeology and its practitioners is tumbling down.

The Direct Ethnohistorical Approach The anthropologist Julian Steward coined the concept of the ‘direct historical approach’ and called for its practice to unite archaeology and anthropology over 50 years ago (although some researchers in North America, Mexico, and Europe were linking past societies with present ones much earlier). Basically, this approach implies that the reconstruction of past societies represented in the archaeological record can be facilitated through ethnographically observed behavior in modern cultures. The scholar must work from the known to the unknown, taking cultural elements back in time to their archaeological beginnings to examine prehistoric human behavior. This is done preferably with identifiable peoples and cultures in the past to make these links with their historic and ethnographic descendants. The approach of ‘upstreaming’, or starting with the ethnographic and reaching to ancient times is more common than the opposing ‘downstreaming’, but the latter is appearing more and more in the literature. Importantly, in this view, more secure connections are made between a historical-ethnographic group and its archaeological antecedents for convincing reconstructions of the past. Importantly, solid chronologies and identifications of past and present cultures are necessary for the direct historical approach to work. A historical connection has to be demonstrated for the application of present conditions to the past to be believable. This connection is frequently impossible to make, however. Subsequently, simple or only a few analogies can be attempted between cultures that occupied the same geographic, had a similar economy, or were organized under like political structures. The continuity of behaviors between the past and present also has to be assumed, or, better yet, demonstrated. In the end, archaeologists are just creating analogies and comparisons from the present to the past, and some are more convincing than others with regard to the quality of the data and interpretations. The majority of archaeological research that utilizes ethnohistory involves such a direct historical approach between related past and present people:

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cultural information, reconstructions of past behaviors, and interpretations of historic societies taken from the written record are applied to their archaeological counterparts. The importance of ethnohistory in creating analogies or directly reconstructing archaeological cultures is obvious in Mesoamerica (see Americas, Central: Postclassic Cultures of Mesoamerica). In this region, archaeologists have access to a vast number of colonizer accounts, documents written by indigenous people, church and government records, early ethnographies, and oral histories to inform them about archaeological cultures. For instance, ancient Aztec settlement patterns can be studied in conjunction with conquistador descriptions. Aztec religious rituals and material culture are better understood through priests’ records. Their past economic life, such as craft production and trade, can be illuminated by Aztec or Spanish tribute lists. Some major historical sources of Mesoamerica, extensively mined by a large number of archaeologists for their rich indigenous cultural information, include the Florentine Codex, an extensive treatise of Mexican–Aztec culture of central Mexico compiled by the Friar Bernadino de Sahagun with the aid of indigenous informants, the Relation of the Things of Yucatan, a description of Yucatec Maya culture and history mostly attributed to Friar Diego de Landa and his informants, and the Relation of Michoacan, which is a detailed recounting of the rise and fall of Purepecha or Tarascan society in west Mexico as told by natives. Aztec ritual artifact deposits in central Mexico have been correlated with historically described New Fire ceremonies in Sahagun’s manuscript, Classic Maya hieroglyphs and calendar chronologies from stone monuments are now well comprehended through Landa’s writings, and Tarascan burial practices and beliefs have been reconstructed by using the Relation of Michoacan. Texts created by the Maya themselves include the Popol Vuh, the Annals of the Cachiquels, and the Chilam Balam manuscripts.

Ethnohistorical Archaeology In most instances, archaeologists turn to the historical record to apply cultural data to prehistoric conditions as described above generally after the excavations and lab work have begun. Nonetheless, some archaeological research has been driven by initial or coeval groundwork in ethnohistory, and this approach is becoming more common. Either archaeologists conduct preliminary searches in archives related to the problems and geographical area at hand, or he/she carries out archaeological research on historic indigenous cultures that supplements what is known from

the written record. This type of interdisciplinary ‘ethnohistorical archaeology’ is valuable since the written and material records complement one another aptly. Furthermore, the archaeological evidence provides additional windows or unique views regarding past cultures that are not available from written texts. In this category of investigations, archaeological research focusing on the historic period, or to the time of European colonizers across the globe, is dominant. Furthermore, investigators study both indigenous and Old World societies and how they interacted in the contact period. The information and interpretations from the documentary sources and archaeology are interwoven into a seamless whole since the two data sets provide information that one or the other disciplines may not have alone. Also, there are often fewer temporal and cultural gaps between the historical and archaeological peoples and periods (vs ethnographic and ancient cultures), and one body of data directly informs the other. For instance, studies of early Colonial Period Taino settlements, demography, and political organization in the Caribbean are balanced with Spanish descriptions of native villages, populations, and sociopolitical structure on the one hand and archaeological data on settlement patterns, numbers and sizes of houses, and distribution of status goods within Taino sites on the other. Likewise, the functions of Taino architecture and artifacts have been inferred from information in historic descriptions. To summarize, the combination of ethnohistory and archaeology in academic research generally follows a few main goals, although they can be combined into a larger one as well: (1) the two subdisciplines and associated data sets are utilized to acquire additional insights on a past society during a specific period, (2) ethnohistory is used in conjunction with archaeology to reconstruct past societies over a long period of time stretching from recent times to the distant past or vice versa, or (3) the historical and archaeological data are combined to provide insights and reconstructions of past societies that normally would not be possible with one of the disciplines alone. This approach allows archaeologists to work with diachronic culture change over an extensive period in a geographical or culture area and allows for a focus on particular social issues; these ends are normally not possible with archaeological or historical data by itself. For example, at the turn of the twentieth century, Jesse Walter Fewkes obtained archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to reconstruct Taino society, the function of indigenous material culture, and outline social changes from precontact to modern times in the Caribbean. He was able to reconstruct

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the functions of artifacts, such as stone implements and pottery, and discuss them with regard to Taino religion and economics with the diverse data set. Additionally, researchers in Amazonia and Mesoamerica have explored culture continuities and change over thousands of years with ethnohistory and archaeology. In these cases involving the longue dure´e, topics such as symbolism in art, specific subsistence strategies, human agency, and reasons for particular transformations in social organization are only visible through a compound historical and archaeological lens. A useful outgrowth of ethnohistorical archaeology is material culture studies in the contact era. Scholars simultaneously conduct archaeological and ethnohistorical research to catalog, interpret functions of, scrutinize changes in, and dissect the social relevance of artifacts for past peoples and cultures. Popular avenues of research in this vein include the production and distribution of stone tools and ceramics, which were widely used by indigenous groups from the Colonial Period up to the present, because of their cultural importance, availability, and durability. These two classes of artifacts are also resilient in the ground and are studied by most archaeologists. Publications of Colonial Period and post-Colonial artifacts and their importance for examining time frames, ethnicity, economic interaction, religious symbolism, social relations, and identity are clear products of the archaeology–ethnohistory interface. In this manner, the production and consumption of stone tools and their relationship to social rank in post-contact Hawaii, California missions, and Australia are well known.

Ethnohistory in Archaeology at Present This final discussion visits recent uses and considerations of ethnohistory in archaeology. The general trends in ethnohistory and archaeology over the last few decades will be outlined along with some predictions for the future based on current thoughts and practices in the field. At the present we are witnessing a surge in the number of research projects and publications in archaeology that have a substantial ethnohistorical component. Archaeologists continue to turn to ethnohistory for direct historical analogies to reconstruct past cultures. To give one example, the religious symbolism and supernatural worlds of Native Americans in the midwest and southeast regions of the US have been resurrected by comparisons of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic information from these culture areas. This ‘Archaeology of the Soul’ by Robert Hall is achieved through the interpretations of the historic, material, and ethnographic data sets from the select cultures.

Additionally, more archaeologists are utilizing ethnohistory and ethnographic information in their study areas to do historical anthropology. With these developments we now have diachronic perspectives on specific anthropological issues such as agrarian reform, ethnogenesis, long-term adaptations to colonialism, symbolism and religion, material culture and identity, and the role of trade in culture change. The results of these studies create a wide, long-term perspective with links between history, ethnography, and archaeology; no longer are historical, cultural, or archaeological treatments given at the beginning or the end of a book, for instance, they appear handin-hand throughout the narrative. In recreating the lives of farmers and communities during the nineteenth-century Caste War of Yucatan, for example, the complexities of the political and economic causes and effects of the conflict and what they mean for today’s inhabitants have come to light. Importantly, scholars are increasingly becoming more sophisticated in the practice of ethnohistory. For one, they are more critical of the historic sources since other documents and archaeology often provide missing or conflicting information. Oftentimes documents provide a narrow window on past indigenous societies, especially if they were produced by European elites in their lifetimes. Investigators then have persisted in seeking additional historical information to confirm their analyses and cultural reconstructions. Conversely, they do not take the historical information at face value and continue to seek additional corroborating documentary or archaeological information. For example, Spanish reconstructions of Mesoamerican religious practices, especially bloodletting and human sacrifice, can be ambiguous or exaggerated depending on the authors. Therefore, a careful checking and comparison with other historical and material evidence is warranted for a more accurate view of past behaviors. When available, ethnohistorians today have more frequently turned to native writings or documents directly concerning indigenous people, such as wills and court proceedings, to widen their perspectives and obtain an emic or native view of past societies. This approach is difficult since both native languages and Colonial Period writing have to be mastered. With these sources new data on specific topics in native records and lifeways including marriage practices, language, land tenure, community identity, and ritual become available. Research on indigenous Yucatec Mayan language testaments in Colonial Yucatan, for instance, revolutionized Maya ethnohistory and provided additional analogies for ancient Maya culture for archaeologists.

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Moreover, the growing number of indigenous scholars in ethnohistory, archaeology, and anthropology is producing fresh ideas and new perspectives on the past through ethnohistory and archaeology. An indigenous renaissance with regard to native views on history and nuanced interpretations of archaeological data is producing an emic view of culture and how it changes or remains the same over time. It can be argued that a closer, insider/emic view of native archaeological culture can be realized in general with information from historic accounts interpreted by their descendants. This insider’s view will be obscured if documentary evidence is lacking or if no indigenous people study available sources. Scholarly attention to oral history also continues to grow. Spoken and remembered information about the past is more commonly accepted alongside written and archaeological data at the present. The combination of the historical data sets and archaeology has led to the construction of ‘alternate histories’ which follow indigenous perspectives for indigenous ends. In this case, insights from native informants and local colleagues help generate new models on the social and political structures of past societies and how they should be presented to readers, for example. The study of new ethnicities following culture contact between Europeans, Africans, and indigenous peoples in Latin American history and archaeology and the use of the past to counter colonialist political positions are just two examples of this non-Western perspective. Finally, as indigenous people around the world continue to organize politically, they have stressed their desire to obtain a more complete picture of their past and of the social and economic conditions of their ancestors. This movement will cause a growth in historical anthropology where ethnography, cultural studies, archaeology, and history meet. Through the urging of native or first peoples, a new awakening of hybrid research in ethnohistory, archaeology, and ethnography carried out by people of different backgrounds and disciplines is upon us. This approach counters many studies in anthropology and archaeology today that are overly synchronic, ahistorical, and colonial. Thus, ethnohistory in archaeology and ethnography is here to stay because of its utility in

providing useful information and analogies with regards to the past and since it is important to indigenous societies who are preserving their culture and identity for the future. See also: Americas, Central: Postclassic Cultures of Mesoamerica; Ethnoarchaeology; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Political Complexity, Rise of; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading Alexander RT (2004) Yaxcaba´ and the Caste War of Yucata´n: An Archaeological Perspective. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Baerreis DA (1961) The ethnohistorical approach and archaeology. Ethnohistory 8(1): 49–77. Bauer BS (2004) Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Deagan KA and Jose´ Marı´a C (2002) Columbus’s Outpost among the Tainos: Spain and America at La Isabella, pp. 1493–1498. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Galloway PK (2006) Practicing Ethnohistory: Mining Archives, Hearing Testimony, Constructing Narrative. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Gasco J, Smith GC, and Garcı´a PF (eds.) (1997) Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central and South America. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at University of California, Los Angeles. Heckenberger M (2005) The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D. 1000–2000. New York: Routledge Press. Kepecs S and Rani TA (eds.) (2005) Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica: Archaeological Perspectives. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Knapp BA (1992) Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Lightfoot KG (2005) Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers. Berkeley: University of California Press. Moreland J (2006) Archaeology and texts: Subservience or enlightenment. Annual Review of Anthropology 35(1): 135–151. Rogers JD and Samuel MW (eds.) (1993) Ethnohistory and Archaeology: Approaches to Postcontact Change in the Americas. New York: Plenum Press. Siegel PE (ed.) (2005) Ancient Borinquen: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Smith ME (1996) The Aztecs. Oxford: Blackwell. Spores R (1984) The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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EUROPE Contents Neolithic Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

Neolithic Peter Bogucki, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary animal traction The use of animals for pulling vehicles such as wagons. beaker A decorated, handleless drinking vessel, characteristic of the Late Neolithic in northern, central, and western Europe. causewayed camp A Neolithic enclosure in northern or western Europe with one or more circuits of ditch interrupted by unexcavated zones that enable level passage across the ditch. cenotaph A monument or empty tomb honoring a dead person whose body is elsewhere. Copper Age/Eneolithic A term used to refer to the societies of southeastern and central Europe who had adopted copper metallurgy but which were otherwise Neolithic in character. Synonymous with Chalcolithic as used in the Near East. loess Fine-grained wind-deposited soil sought by early farmers due to its high fertility. long barrow An elongated mound of earth covering one of more burials; the term is specifically applied to non-megalithic long mounds built during the late fifth and early fourth milleniums BC in northern and western Europe. longhouse An elongated wooden post structure with a primarily residential function. magoula (pl. magoules) A Greek name for an artificial mound formed by successive layers of settlement debris. rondel A symmetrical round ditched enclosure in central Europe with one of more circuits of ditch and palisade. settlement cell A regional cluster of settlements separated by some distance from similar clusters; derived from the German term Siedlungskammer used to characterize the regional distribution of Neolithic settlements in central Europe. smelting The separation of metal from its ore by heating in a hearth or furnace. wristguard A rectangular plaque of stone with several small holes at either end for tying to the wrist as a protection from the snap of the bowstring, often found in graves associated with Bell Beakers.

Archaeologists refer to the final part of the Stone Age in Europe and many parts of Asia and Africa as the Neolithic period. The basic defining attributes of the Neolithic period in Europe are the emergence of sedentary farmsteads or villages whose inhabitants

cultivated crops, kept livestock, and made pottery (Figure 1). It began with the initial appearance of farming communities in Greece around 7500 BC, spread across Europe to reach Scandinavia and the British Isles just after 4000 BC, and ended with the development of bronze metallurgy just before 2000 BC. Neolithic societies exhibit considerable variation across Europe and over time.

The Concept of the Neolithic The notion that there was a period of antiquity that predated the use of metals, a Stone Age, was formally articulated by Christian Thomsen when he organized the exhibits of the Danish National Museum in the early nineteenth century. By the time Sir John Lubbock (1834–1913) published Prehistoric Times in 1865, the Stone Age in Europe was considered to have two phases: pe´riode de la pierre taille´e (the period of chipped stone tools) and pe´riode de la pierre polie (the period of polished stone tools). Lubbock termed the former Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age, and the latter Neolithic, or New Stone Age, from the Greek words for ‘new’ and ‘stone’. Subsequently, archaeologists realized that the definition of this period based on a single artifact type was spurious, since Neolithic peoples also continued to use chipped stone tools even as polished stone axes were introduced. A broader view emerged that saw the Neolithic as characterized by pottery manufacture, agriculture, livestock, and settled villages, but still without the use of metals. In this conception, the Neolithic formed the final Stone Age precursor to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the classic northern European prehistoric sequence, which was soon adopted throughout most of Eurasia. Over time, the association between the Neolithic period and the establishment of agricultural communities became its most salient characteristic. During the first half of the twentieth century, the eminent archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) characterized the Neolithic Revolution as a major transformation of human society on the pathway to civilization. In Childe’s view, this change was very rapid and unavoidable, the most important human event between the discovery of fire and the building of cities. Such an

1176 EUROPE/Neolithic Skara Brae Balbridie, Crathes Claish Farm

Sarup

Magheraboy

Grødbygård, Limensgård

Ceide Fields Schipluiden, Hardinxveld, Hazendonk

Ascott-underWychwood Hambledon Hill

Goseck

Sweet Track

Henauhof NW

Balloy

Hornstaad Hornle

Egolzwil

Otzi’s findspot

Arene Candide

Varna

Leucate Correge Rudna Glava

Aibunar

Caldeirao Cave Franchthi Cave

Passo di Corvo

Figure 1 Principal sites mentioned in text.

emphasis established the study of the Neolithic period and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as a major research focus in archaeology during the second half of the twentieth century. We now know that Childe’s characterization of the Neolithic transition to agriculture as ‘revolutionary’ might be somewhat misleading. It was certainly an important change but one that had its roots thousands of years earlier in changes in human diet and social organization at the end of the Ice Age. The eventual adoption of domesticated plants and animals required a long-term process of change and did not take place overnight. Archaeologists today use the word ‘Neolithic’ to designate a period characterized by agricultural societies using cultivated plants and domesticated animals, yet still relying on stone tools. It is not a sharply demarcated span of time or a set of cultural features. At the beginning, it is blurred due to many instances of local continuity with foraging societies whose economy was transformed by the addition of domesticated plants and animals. At its end, the Neolithic merges relatively seamlessly into the Bronze Age, as the copper that came into use late in the Neolithic was alloyed with tin to make a much harder metal suitable for tools and weapons. When accompanied by the use of livestock for products

other than meat, the demand for bronze permitted the accumulation of status, power, and wealth that characterizes the last two milleniums BC in Europe. Thus, the word ‘Neolithic’ provides a convenient shorthand for archaeologists to refer to this complex set of developments that was initiated by the transition from foraging to farming and subsequently saw the emergence of a mature agricultural economy. Concurrently there was an elaboration of mortuary ritual, exchange, conflict, and social differentiation that provided the foundation for later European prehistory and indeed many of the specific characteristics of European society that survive into modern times.

Founder Crops and Animals The crops and livestock that fed the Neolithic communities of Europe (see Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures) originated in the Near East. Recent research points towards a region known as the Levantine Corridor, an inland zone about 40 km long between the Damascus Basin and the lower Jordan Valley, as potentially the location of the earliest cultivation in the Near East. Einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, and barley are the three principal ‘founder crops’ of Near Eastern agriculture. They differ from their wild counterparts primarily by the

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nature of the rachis, the stem which holds the grain to the ear. Wild wheats and barley have a brittle rachis, which shatters at ripening to disperse the grain and thus propagate the plant. In domestic forms, the rachis is tougher and thicker, which permits the harvesting of the whole ear by cutting with sickles. Such a method would have selected for plants with tougher rachises which were dependent on humans for their propagation. At sites like Netiv Hagdud in the lower Jordan valley, early farmers lived in circular and oval structures built of mud bricks upon stone foundations and stored grain in underground storage pits. Just as wheat and barley were the ‘founder crops’ of Near Eastern agriculture, sheep and goat can be considered the ‘founder animals’ of ungulate domestication, around 10 000 years ago. Goats appear to have been domesticated first in the Zagros Mountains, while sheep in the upper Tigris and Euphrates valleys underwent domestication a few centuries later. Cattle and pigs appear to have been domesticated in Anatolia around 9000 years ago. Recent DNA analyses show that the domestic cattle used in Neolithic Europe originated from this Anatolian source, with minimal ingression of native wild cattle genetic material. The earliest domestic pig in Europe also originated in Anatolia. The major elements of the suite of Near Eastern domestic plants and animals spread from the core area of early agriculture in the Levant to Europe. Their dispersal to Europe is particularly interesting because plants and animals which had originated in semi-arid regions quickly adapted to temperate conditions. The mechanisms of this dispersal varied. In some areas, agricultural peoples themselves dispersed, bringing a sedentary lifestyle, crops, and livestock. Elsewhere, indigenous populations which had previously lived by foraging gradually adopted agriculture. The spread of farming in prehistoric Europe between 7000 and 3000 BC is a classic example of the interplay between these two processes.

Arrival and Dispersals The first farming settlements in Europe were established in Greece around 7000 BC. Although the earliest farming settlements of western Turkey are not yet well known, it is clear that the domesticated plants and animals, and possibly the farmers themselves, came from Anatolia. Rather than taking a short jump across the Bosphorus, it appears that the earliest farmers came to Greece by hopping along the islands of the Aegean Sea. Although there is still little evidence for settlement on the Aegean islands during the Mesolithic, the inhabitants of mainland sites like

Franchthi Cave could certainly catch deepwater fish, implying the possession of watercraft suitable for open-water travel. Once domestic plants and animals reached the Anatolian coast, knowledge of them probably traveled quickly throughout the Aegean basin. Farming appears to have arrived more or less simultaneously on Crete, the Argolid Peninsula, and Thessaly, suggesting two main routes, via Rhodes and Karpathos to Crete and through the Cyclades to the Greek mainland. By about 6800 BC, farming was certainly present in Europe, probably even a century or two earlier. At Franchthi Cave in the Argolid, the subsistence pattern changed dramatically. Although the domesticated emmer wheat, barley, lentils, sheep, and goats must have arrived from Anatolia, the Franchthi finds indicate continuity from the local foragers. The floodplains of Thessaly are crossed by many abandoned watercourses and a few active meandering streams. These abandoned watercourses with their silted-up channels and adjacent levees made ideal locations for early farming settlements. They are dotted by hundreds of mounds, known locally as magoules, that were the locations of Neolithic settlements. About a hundred of them in the Larisa basin date to the period between c. 6800 and 6000 BC. The water-retentive properties of the light silty soils, the flooding of streams, and the seasonal pooling ofwater in basins provided a favorable environment for cultivation. Livestock could be grazed in the areas with heavier soils. The Early Neolithic magoules contain layers of small settlements composed of clustered rectangular houses that were built using either mud bricks without wooden reinforcement or with a frame of upright posts with the spaces between them filled with wattle and daub. The floors are made from packed clay and were frequently recovered with a fresh layer. The construction techniques, especially the use of mud bricks, reflect strong Near Eastern connections. The Early Neolithic sites of Greece had a predominantly agricultural economy, with few wild plants and animals found. Emmer wheat, six-row barley, lentils, peas, and vetch are the most common crops, while sheep and goat are the most common livestock. Cattle and pig are scarcer. Along the Mediterranean coast, domestic plants and animals spread outward from Greece quickly after about 6500 BC. Watercraft enabled long-distance interaction among foraging communities of the coasts of Italy and southern France as well as with the large Mediterranean islands. Domestic plants and animals were transported from one hunter-gatherer community to another, and a distinctive form of pottery

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impressed with small seashells known as Cardium was widely adopted. Many early Neolithic settlement sites are found in rockshelters such as Arene Candide in Liguria. Open air settlements with Cardium-impressed pottery are also known, including the walled settlement at Passo di Corvo in Italy and Leucate-Corre`ge in southern France. By 5500 BC, farming had reached the Atlantic along the coasts of Spain and Portugal, as demonstrated by finds of domestic sheep from the cave site of Caldeira˜o. In contrast to the situation along the central Mediterranean where hunter-gatherers appear to have adopted agriculture, the Portuguese archaeologist Joa˜o Zilha˜o has argued that colonizing farmers settled fertile areas in Spain and Portugal, forming enclaves of agricultural settlement throughout the Iberian Peninsula. First Farmers of Central Europe

V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) recognized the significance of the Danube valley as a corridor for the movement of people and ideas from southeastern Europe into the heartland of the continent during the Neolithic. Proceeding up the Danube from southeastern Europe, the early farmers entered the lowlands of Hungary, an area that includes sand dunes,

low levees, oxbow lakes, and flat plains. West of the Danube bend, the river is fed by tributaries like the Nitra, the Va´h, and the Morava that drain south from the Carpathians and east from the Alps. Further northwest, fairly narrow divides separate the Danube and its tributaries from other major river systems of central Europe (see Europe, Central and Eastern), including the Oder, Elbe, and Rhine. From these, early farmers could reach rivers such as the Vistula, the Meuse, and the Aisne. All these river systems drain basins formed within the hills and mountains of central Europe. Beginning on the Hungarian Plain and spreading through Slovakia, the Czech lands, Austria, Germany, and Poland into the Low Countries and eastern France, farming communities became established in the river valleys of central Europe between 5500 and 5000 BC. Named for the distinctive incised lines on their ceramic vessels, the earliest farmers of central Europe are known as the Linear Pottery Culture (Figures 2 and 3). The rapid dispersal of Linear Pottery settlements throughout this area, over a period of only a few centuries, accompanied by the extreme uniformity in artifacts and architecture over this vast area, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in prehistoric Europe. Its large settlements have traces of

er

Fun ne lB Cul ea tur k e

e

Linear Pottery C ult ur

Thessaly Figure 2 Principal archaeological cultures mentioned in text.

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Figure 3 Linear pottery vessel with cattle motif from Hienheim, southern Germany, ca. 5300 BC. (after Modderman PJR (1977) Die neolithische Besiedlung bei Hienheim, Ldkr. Kelheim I. Die Ausgrabungen am Weinberg 1965–1970. Leiden: Institute of Prehistory.)

the largest buildings in the world at this time, timber longhouses up to 45 m long. Linear Pottery settlements are concentrated in what archaeologists would call ‘settlement cells’, loose clusters of settlements along streams among the hills. These islands of early farming settlement are found from Slovakia to eastern France and are associated with patches of a fertile wind-blown soil called ‘loess’. Loess was deposited by winds during the Ice Age that picked up loose soil and blew it forward until it settled as a thick blanket. In the loess patches, small brooks cut shallow valleys as they merged into larger streams, which flowed into smaller rivers which in turn drained into the major rivers. Such valleys of smaller streams were especially preferred by the Linear Pottery settlers. The Linear Pottery Culture takes its name from the incised lines on its ceramic vessels, but pottery is not the only defining characteristic of these early farming societies. Flint tools include blades that are markedly different from the tiny microliths that characterize Late Mesolithic finds. Triangular flint arrowheads are occasionally found in some areas, interpreted variously as signs of increased hunting, conflict, or influence by indigenous hunter-gatherers. Toolmakers sometimes traveled great distances to get high-quality flint. Coarser stones like amphibolite were shaped through hammering and pecking, then grinding, into axes. A special form of Linear Pottery ground stone axe is the so-called ‘shoe-last celt’, which is relatively narrow with a square cross section resembling a cobbler’s tool. Hundreds of Neolithic settlements with longhouses are now known across central Europe. Linear Pottery longhouses were rectangular multipurpose structures, ranging between 7 and 45 m in length and generally 5–7 m wide. The posts occur in five rows, two forming the exterior walls and three providing the interior

support for the roof. In the exterior walls, the spaces between the posts were filled with wattle and daub. The longhouses provided shelter for humans and livestock as well as storage and working space. Longhouse settlements occur primarily in the valleys of the smaller rivers, in small clusters of sites at which several houses were standing at any one moment, usually at the point where the floodplain begins to slope up towards the adjacent hills. Sometimes they are located on the terraces of the major rivers like the Danube and Vistula. These localities were occupied for up to several centuries, with longhouses being rebuilt on the same locations many times. The rapid spread of farming across central Europe came to a sudden halt after a few centuries, resulting in a major Neolithic farming frontier that encircled the area of Linear Pottery settlement. Most Linear Pottery settlements did not generally extend beyond the loess, and the isolated pockets along the lower Vistula and Oder and in the Paris Basin remained the farthest extent of agricultural settlement for several centuries. The Central European Farming Frontier was not a simple boundary line that could be drawn on a map. On its northern edge, it lay between 52 and 54 north latitude, the southern part of the North European Plain where there were the pockets of settlement by the Linear Pottery culture and its descendants. On the west, it lay on a belt around the Paris Basin and down to the Yonne valley, while in the south it was marked by the foothills of the Alps. Life on this frontier must have been complicated. The indigenous hunter-gatherers of the North European Plain, the Alpine lake basins, and the Atlantic coastal areas were not very far away. We can only imagine the sorts of interactions that occurred. It is clear is that the foragers did not immediately see any benefit in adopting the full agricultural system of the Linear Pottery farmers. Nonetheless, the frontier was porous. In addition to a trade in stone axes, it must have been a struggle for Linear Pottery farmers to account for each of their cattle and sheep. Cattle in particular, when grazing in forests, have a penchant for wandering off. Feral domestic livestock must have found their way beyond the farming frontier and would have found congenial habitats in the clearings and meadows created by tree falls, beavers, and the foragers themselves. After about 5000 BC the Linear Pottery culture fragmented into a variety of local groups that flourished during the fifth millennium BC. Prominent among these are the Brzes´c´ Kujawski Group of northcentral Poland, and Ro¨ssen Culture of central and western Germany, and the Villeneuve-St. Germain (VSG) Group of northern France. These groups clearly

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Figure 4 Neolithic longhouses at Miechowice, central Poland, ca. 4500 BC (from Grygiel R (2004) The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Brzes´c´ Kujawski and Osłonki Region. Ło´dz´: Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, used with permission).

follow in the Linear Pottery tradition. The most visible evidence for continuity comes in the form of longhouses, although the later houses have a trapezoidal, rather than rectangular, shape to their groundplans (Figure 4). The subsistence economy of these groups also followed generally in the Linear Pottery tradition, although in many areas domestic pigs assumed greater importance. This development moved the economy closer to the pattern of mixed farming that was widespread throughout later European prehistory and persists into the present day. Changes also appear in burial rites in some areas. For example, Linear Pottery communities buried most of their dead in cemeteries set apart from the settlements, while the graves of the Brzes´c´ Kujawski Group are found just outside their longhouses, often in small clusters that suggest family groups. Long Barrow Cemeteries

One of the most striking developments of the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC is the development of large mortuary sites characterized by the construction of long earthen mounds, called ‘long barrows’. They are found on the periphery of the world inhabited by the Linear Pottery culture and its successors, most prominently in Poland, Germany, and Denmark, and in France along the Yonne, Seine, and Marne. These would have been areas of cultural contacts between the early farmers of central Europe and the foragers of northern and western Europe, and the construction

of long barrows presages the mortuary ceremonialism of the later Neolithic period that will be discussed further below. The long barrows were built from timber and earth, sometimes reaching lengths of well over 100 m, although rarely more than 10 m wide. In northern Poland they are outlined with large boulders, while similar structures outlined with a wooden palisade have recently come to light in southern Poland. In France, they are delineated by ditches. Beneath the mound are one or more burial chambers aligned on the main axis of the barrow. Long barrows often have a trapezoidal plan, reminiscent of the Brses´c´ Kujawski, Ro¨ssen, and VSG longhouses, and at Balloy at the junction of the Seine and Yonne rivers, they were built upon the site of an abandoned VSG settlement. They often occur in groups of a dozen or more. Archaeologists beginning with V. Gordon Childe have noted the similarity between the long barrows and the earlier longhouses, and Magdalena Midgley has recently proposed that the traces of abandoned longhouse settlements would have provided powerful images of ancestral places that were transferred by subsequent generations to the mortuary monuments. Foragers Meet Farmers: the Rhine–Maas Delta and Alpine Lake Basins

On the periphery of the Linear Pottery area, two other regions provide additional evidence for an

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indigenous response to the proximity of farmers. The lake basins of the Alpine Foreland in southern Germany, Switzerland, and eastern France supported populations of Mesolithic foragers, while in the combined delta of the Rhine and Maas (Meuse) rivers in the Netherlands, hunter-gathers gradually became aware of the farming populations to their south. In both areas, domesticated plants and animals worked their way into the forager diet during the centuries just before 4000 BC (see Europe, Northern and Western: Mesolithic Cultures). The excellent preservation conditions in the Rhine– Maas delta have provided a remarkable record of the reaction of hunter-gatherers to the proximity of farmers, in this case the Linear Pottery and Ro¨ssen communities about 100–150 km to the south, during the fifth and fourth milleniums BC. At Hardinxveld near Rotterdam, several dunes were the sites of winter base camps of hunter-gatherers between 5500 and 4450 BC. In the upper levels, dating after 4700 BC, bones of domestic animals were found, although cereals were absent. After about 4300 BC, there is clearer evidence for contact between foragers and farmers, for pottery found at sites like Hazendonk has stylistic affinities to late Ro¨ssen wares. Bones of domestic animals and charred chaff and grains of domestic cereals reflect what Leendert P. Louwe Kooijmans has called a ‘semi-agrarian’ economy, which combined the use of domestic plants and animals with a broad exploitation of wild species. This type of subsistence pattern appears to have lasted for several centuries. The ‘missing link’ between the semi-agrarian economy of the late hunter-gatherers and the full farming economy of the later part of the Neolithic has been provided by the site of Schipluiden, excavated in 2003. Located on coastal dunes, Schipluiden provides traces of an economy with a continued mix of wild and domesticated species but with a greater role played by domesticated plants and animals. The settlement remains are more substantial than at Hazendonk and contain locally made pottery, dense concentrations of posts, a fence around the settlement, long-term use of discard areas, and both summer and winter birds, suggesting year-round occupation by about four or five households during some time between 3700 and 3400 BC. Contracted burials suggest adoption of the burial rite used by Neolithic communities to the south. The Alpine Foreland of southern Germany and northern and western Switzerland saw a similar confrontation between foraging and farming. The lake basins of this area were populated by communities of hunter-gatherers, as reflected by the site of HenauhofNord on the Federsee in southern Germany, during

the second half of the sixth millennium BC. During the succeeding millennium, lakeside farming communities using domestic plants and animals but also continuing to hunt and gather were established along the lakeshores. One such settlement is found at Egolzwil, one of the classic sites of the so-called Swiss Lake Dwellings, which contrary to popular reconstructions of houses built on piles over the water were really post structures built on the muddy lake shores. By 3900 BC, settlements like Hornstaad Ho¨rnle on Lake Constance provide evidence of a full agricultural economy based on sustained cultivation of wheat and barley. The Great Transformation around 4000 BC in Northern and Western Europe

Just after 4000 BC, the indigenous foraging peoples of northern and western Europe adopted agriculture. The relative contemporaneity of this transformation from southern Scandinavia to the British Isles is remarkable, leading some to suggest that a climate change was involved. Although this is far from clear, most of the radiocarbon dates for the earliest agriculture from Sweden to Ireland all seem to fall at the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, between about 4000 and 3700 BC. Around 4100 BC, agricultural communities were established in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany after a marked increase in contact between the indigenous foragers of the southern Baltic basin and the farmers to the south that began several centuries earlier. Around the southern Baltic in Denmark, southern Sweden, and northern Germany and Poland, the foragers of the Erteblle culture lived in relatively sedentary year-round settlements, such as the one at Smakkerup Huse on the Danish island of Zealand. These final hunters of northern continental Europe and southern Scandinavia became the first farmers in this region, beginning around 3900 BC. Once adopted by the foragers, agriculture spread rapidly up to the Dala River north of Stockholm, which formed the northern limit of Neolithic cultivation. The Erteblle culture developed into the Funnel Beaker culture, the first Neolithic society of northern Europe, named for the flaring upper edges of its ceramic vessels. Funnel Beaker settlements increased in size during the fourth millennium BC. On the island of Bornholm, long rectangular houses have been found at the sites of Limensga˚rd and Grdbyga˚rd. During Funnel Beaker times, we see the first use of wetlands for rituals being used for ritual deposits, often of pots containing food offerings, and occasionally animals and even people who were sacrificed.

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The British Isles have yielded surprisingly little evidence of their earliest farming settlement, leading to the popularity of the hypothesis that agriculture was introduced very gradually over the 2000-year span of the Neolithic. Peter Rowley-Conwy has argued against this idea, pointing out that the adoption of agriculture has a dramatic transformative effect on society and that the transformation must have been rapid. Indeed, evidence is accumulating of Neolithic cultivation and animal use during the fourth millennium BC. Occupation and rubbish deposits under a long barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood provide evidence for Neolithic timber structures and the use of domestic animals just after 4000 BC. In eastern Scotland, remarkable timber post structures have been found at Balbridie, Claish Farm, and Crathes. In and around these structures, samples of carbonized grain have been radiocarbon-dated to the period between 3900–3500 BC. Ireland presents a very interesting case of how archaeology can change rapidly. Until very recently, virtually nothing was known about the earliest farming settlements except for some scattered traces of houses. In the last decade, there has been a remarkable boom in the discovery of Neolithic houses throughout Ireland, due largely to road construction and other development connected with the Irish Economic Miracle. Most of these new houses, which are small rectangular structures with posts set in a bedding trench that runs around its outer wall, date between 3800 and 3600 BC. Even earlier is a

palisaded Neolithic enclosure at Magheraboy in County Sligo that dates to 4000–3900 BC. The extent and organization of early agriculture in Ireland can be seen at the preserved Neolithic landscape found at the Ce´ide Fields in northern County Mayo. Early farmers removed the forest cover during the centuries after 4000 BC and cleared the stones from their fields to make house foundations and walled compounds in which animals were kept. The removal of the forests by early farmers caused soil nutrients to be washed away, making the soils more acidic, which in turn inhibited the decomposition of dead vegetation, which formed peat beginning around 3500 BC. Layer upon layer of peat accumulated over the next several milleniums, burying the entire landscape including the stone walls and house foundations, with blanket bog. Archaeologists can now trace the outlines of the walls and houses to discover how the early farmers organized their landscape. By 3000 BC agriculture was established throughout most of Europe, from Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands (Figure 5) to the southern tips of Italy and Spain, and from the Atlantic to the Urals. In archaeological time, the dispersal of farming and the transformation of society that accompanied it occurred remarkably quickly. While it may not have been the revolution that V. Gordon Childe thought it was, it was certainly a process that once begun was not possible to stop once a community made a commitment to the use of domesticated plants and animals.

Figure 5 Plan of the Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, ca. 3100 BC (after Childe VG (1931) Skara Brae, a Pictish Village in Orkney. London: Kegen Paul, Trench, Trubner).

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Consolidation: The Late Neolithic and Copper Age Following the successful establishment of agriculture throughout Europe, farming communities from the Balkans to Ireland and from Sweden to Spain developed into mature and stable societies. They had accumulated a store of knowledge about cultivation and livestock that enabled them to handle the risk and uncertainty inherent in an agricultural economy. Herds ceased to be simply a source of meat and hide and became living resources for milk, wool, and animal power. Metals, particularly copper, came to be used in many areas, first for ornaments and then for tools. Mortuary ceremonialism became more elaborate and widespread. Archaeologists refer to the final millennia of the Neolithic with a variety of terms. Late Neolithic is the most common label, while in southeastern Europe the use of copper has led many scholars to refer to this time as the Copper Age. Older publications use the term Eneolithic, although this label is rarely applied today. Chronologically, the Late Neolithic can be said to be framed roughly by the span of time between 5000 and 2800 BC in southern and southeastern Europe, 4000–2200 BC in central and eastern Europe, and 3500–2000 BC in northern and western Europe. Copper Metallurgy

The use of copper to make ornaments and tools appeared first in the Balkans just before 5000 BC, when the ability of potters to achieve high temperatures for the firing of pottery also enabled them to smelt copper from its ores. During the millennium that followed, the knowledge and skill of the early metalworkers developed further, and copper use expanded throughout southern Europe and into central Europe. The earliest copper artifacts were beads, pendants, and bracelets, although subsequently, it became possible to make complex forms like axes and chisels using molds. Copper was smelted from ores such as malachite and azurite which are found in mountainous areas. Many Late Neolithic copper mines have been found in central and southeastern Europe, including Rudna Glava in Serbia and Aibunar in Bulgaria. The presence of copper slag at settlement sites suggests that metalworking was a part of routine life for Late Neolithic peoples in southeastern Europe. Copper artifacts are found in both mortuary and domestic ¨ tzi the Iceman was carrying a copper ax contexts. O when he died around 3300 BC. Artifacts made from copper, particularly daggers, are especially prominent features of the Late Neolithic societies of northern and western Europe. In these

areas, copper artifacts clearly are prestige items, found almost exclusively in burials, presaging the role of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, in the years after 2000 BC. The Late Neolithic Built Environment

Settlements, burials, and ceremonial sites became visible and permanent features of the landscape and were invested with attachment and with meaning. In different parts of Europe, these locations took various forms: nucleated settlements; groups of dispersed farmsteads, compact, densely settled mounds; strongholds with earthworks; cemeteries of all sorts; tombs: megaliths, long barrows; rondels and causewayed camps, even bogs and ponds as locations for rituals. The significance of these locations lasted on a time scale ranging from decades to centuries. The locations of habitation, burial, and ritual were the spatial anchors of Late Neolithic society to a far greater degree than had been seen previously. Moreover, these sites were connected by well-worn communication routes: paths, tracks, rivers, passes, and portages. They were destinations as well as starting points. This inter-site ¨ tzi the movement is dramatized by the find of the O Iceman, about whom more will be said below, who died while negotiating a high Alpine pass around 3300 BC. Circular ditched enclosures known as ‘rondels’ are found in upland loess zones south of the Carpathians in Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Austria, and eastern Germany. Unexcavated gaps in the ditch at four opposing points on the perimeter provide a way across. Usually, there are few traces of settlement, so these appear to have served some form of nonhabitation purpose, presumably ceremonial. At Goseck in eastern Germany, a series of four concentric ditches and two palisades about 75 m at their maximum diameter have been recently discovered. The palisades had three gates facing southeast, southwest, and north. The excavators have suggested an astronomical purpose for the site, while alternatively the gates in the palisades controlled access to the central ceremonial space. Similar to the rondels of central Europe are the socalled ‘causewayed camps’ of the British Isles that date between 3700 and 3000 BC. About 40 such enclosures are known, largely on the chalk downs and river terraces of southern England. Often, they are associated with earthen long barrows, about which more will be said below. These sites have one or more concentric ditches, roughly circular in plan, interrupted at several points by unexcavated portions, which form ‘causeways’ into the interior. The existence of the causeways and the locations of the

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sites suggest that the earthworks did not fulfill a defensive function. Instead, they are most commonly interpreted as ceremonial or ritual sites. At a number of them, such as Hambledon Hill in Dorset, human remains have been found in the ditches and interiors. At Hambledon Hill, these remains had been exposed to the elements and largely defleshed prior to their deposition in the ditch. Another such important place was Sarup in Denmark. Between 3400 and 3200 BC, an enclosure with several causeways was built to enclose an area of about 8.5 ha on a sandy promontory. The enclosure was not a complete encirclement of the site, since it was bounded on two sides by water. Instead, it closed off the landward side of the promontory from the surrounding terrain. The Sarup enclosure grew from a simple palisade to a complex system of parallel ditches and palisades, placed conspicuously in a landscape that contained dozens of megalithic tombs. It appears that the Sarup enclosure was also a place of ritual, for a number of the pits and ditches contained burnt human bones. In northern and western Europe, Neolithic people and their livestock often needed to cross wetlands. They began to lay down wooden trackways made from stakes and logs across the wet areas. One of the best known is Sweet Track in Somerset, England, where the earliest trackway has been dated by treerings to the winter or early spring of 3807 or 3806 BC. Later, wider roads made from logs were laid down, many of which were often rebuilt and used for centuries. Neolithic roads may also have existed on dry terrain. These are very difficult to document, but some have proposed that the arrangement of burial monuments across the landscape reflects ancient road systems. It seems logical that Neolithic tracks and even roads would have run through mountain passes and converged on major stream crossings. The widespread distribution of raw materials and finished artifacts clearly reflects a population on the move. Intimacy with the Dead

One of the defining characteristics of the Late Neolithic and Copper Age is what could be called ‘mortuary ceremonialism’. Such ceremonialism takes a variety of forms, from the megalithic tombs of the Atlantic fringe to the elaborate cemeteries of southeastern Europe. A distinctive feature of these societies was a particular intimacy with the dead, who were a persistent presence in society and continued to be encountered on a regular basis in excarnation places, collective tombs, settlement burials, and family plots and cenotaphs in cemeteries. These encounters

occurred in a context of ceremonial veneration for ancestors and a sense of continuity of place and affiliation. It legitimized the existence and perpetuation of the household or hamlet to whom the dead belonged. A cemetery at Varna, in northeastern Bulgaria, provides the richest collection of Late Neolithic/ Copper Age burials in eastern Europe. Although its dating is inexact, correlation with dates finds from other sites suggests that the Varna cemetery was in use between 4900 and 4400 BC. The nearly 300 graves contain gold, copper, and other luxury items, although 20% were ‘symbolic graves’ or cenotaphs without actual human remains. Gold artifacts, the most distinctive aspect of the Varna cemetery, occur in 61 graves, including most of the cenotaphs. Curiously, most of the gold is found in the cenotaphs, while only a few of the graves with skeletons were similarly furnished. Three cenotaphs contained goldornamented clay masks with male features. The richest burial at Varna contained the skeleton of a man about 40–50 years old and about 1.75 m tall. Accompanying the skeleton were nearly a thousand gold objects along with other items made of copper, stone, clay, and Spondylus shell. One of the gold objects is termed a ‘scepter’, in which a wooden handle had been sheathed with gold and topped with a stone macehead. ¨ tzi the Iceman O

Not all Late Neolithic human remains are found in graves. In 1991, two hikers in the Alps came across the frozen corpse of a man who subsequent investigation showed to have died about 3300 BC. Nicknamed ¨ tzi and ‘the Iceman’ by the press, this find produced O one of the most remarkable glimpses of the life of a Late Neolithic inhabitant of central Europe. He was in his middle- to late-40s, rather old for his time, and had lived a hard life. ¨ tzi was carrying a lot of equipment, including O a bow and a quiver of arrows, bone points, a needle, a copper axe in a handle, several flint tools, a marble pendant, and several pieces of fungus believed to have medicinal properties. He was wearing a bearskin hat, shoes with bearskin soles and deerskin uppers, goatskin leggings and loincloth, a calfskin pouch and belt, and a cape of woven grass. His stomach contents indicated that he had recently consumed venison and cereals before his death in late spring or early summer, as indicated by tree pollen. ¨ tzi’s death remain a matter The circumstances of O of controversy. A CT scan has revealed an arrowhead embedded in his shoulder, and wounds have been found on his hand and wrist. Was he fleeing from

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attackers with whom he had previously fought, or was he an individual who had lived a physically taxing and sometimes violent life who had the misfortune to be caught in a late-spring blizzard as sometimes occurs high in the Alps? The answer is ¨ tzi’s corpse and the simply not yet known. Today, O associated finds can be seen at the Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, Italy. The Secondary Products Revolution

In a 1981 essay, Andrew Sherratt (1946–2006) coined the term ‘Secondary Products Revolution’ to describe a major shift in the use of domestic animals from providers of meat and hides, which required the death of the animal to ‘Secondary products’, renewable resources taken from living animals such as milk, wool, and animal power, or traction. During the fourth millennium BC, Neolithic farmers in eastcentral Europe began to make much greater use of these secondary products. A variety of social changes are reflected this change in animal management. Although some activities, such as dairying, began in earlier prehistoric periods, approaches to animal use became progressively more complex during the Late Neolithic. The key data for the Secondary Products Revolution include ceramic sieves and vessels probably used in milk handling; animal figurines; remains of wagons, wagon parts, and plows in burials and waterlogged deposits; wagon models and representations on pottery; rock-carvings of wagons; ritual burials of cattle and other livestock; and plow-marks on fossil soils under barrows. Two of the principal secondary products, milk and wool, may have been in use much earlier, but after 4000 BC their use was especially widespread. Dairy production would have enabled Neolithic farmers to collect milk from their animals and to convert it into storable food such as cheese and yogurt. The availability of such storable animal products would have enabled Neolithic households to maintain a steady food supply during the growing season and to obtain dietary protein and fat during the summer before the crops were harvested. Wool from sheep would have provided warm clothing that permitted more winter activities as well as blankets and wall hangings that would have kept Neolithic houses warm and reduced the amount of wood burned for fuel. Animal power was perhaps the most significant aspect of the Secondary Products Revolution. Traction from oxen would have been useful for two major Late Neolithic innovations, plowing and cartage. It also would have had significant implications for the household labor supply and the ability of individual households to manage their resources by

multiplying their productive capacity well beyond that which its own human labor force can provide. Two of the most labor-intensive activities of a Neolithic household would have been the preparation of fields for cultivation and the transport of bulk materials from remote locations to the settlement. Households using animal-pulled plows are able to cultivate an area significantly greater than that of households not using animal traction, especially for crops grown on heavier clay-based soils. Oxen pulling wagons would also reduce household labor costs substantially by hauling harvested crops and especially wood for construction and firewood. The transformation of livestock, particularly cattle, from a ‘walking pantry’ to productive assets provided an opportunity for individual households to accumulate wealth. The household that owns draft animals can manage its labor much more flexibly than one without such assets, and it also enables lessproductive members of the household, such as children and the elderly, to contribute to the household labor pool. When durable and valuable goods such as copper tools and ornaments are added to the equation, we see that this combination provided the conditions for households to accumulate wealth and to transfer it from one generation to the next. Mechanisms probably developed for the loaning and borrowing of draft animals between households, as exist in many agrarian societies today. Yet livestock can become sick, die, or be stolen, so draft animals were not ‘money in the bank’ but investments that carried a risk of failure. As households became differentiated by wealth, the potential also existed for differentiation by status, which begins to appear in variation in grave goods found in Late Neolithic burials. At this point, however, there does not appear to have been any formal structure in public life that suggests political power beyond the level of the household. Formally instituted social and political hierarchies, such as are seen in the Bronze Age chiefdoms after about 2000 BC, may be a logical consequence of differentiation by wealth and status, but it is not possible to recognize them yet during the Late Neolithic over most of Europe.

Corded Ware and Bell Beakers The third millennium BC saw the emergence of two large-scale cultural developments that are marked by distinctive artifact styles distributed over vast areas. One is the widespread use of cord-marked pottery associated with single burials under low mounds, while the other involves the appearance of a very specific type of handleless thin-walled drinking vessel

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known as a beaker that is consistently found in male burials with other distinctive artifacts Archaeologists have puzzled over the meaning of these phenomena, known as Corded Ware and Bell Beakers, for over a century, and yet their significance remains elusive. Corded Ware is distributed through eastern, central, and northern Europe as far west as the Netherlands, whereas Bell Beakers are found from Spain to Denmark and throughout the British Isles. The earliest dates for Corded Ware come from central and southern Poland around 2800 BC, and it spread outwards from this core area. It generally disappeared from most regions between 2300 and 2100 BC. A number of variants of Corded Ware are known. It is found in Alpine pile dwellings and along the Baltic coast. In Sweden and southern Norway, Corded Ware communities made axes with upturned edges that resemble the prow and stern of a boat, hence the name Boat-Axe Culture. One of the latest Corded Ware groups is the Fatianovo Culture along the upper Volga in Russia, which persisted until around 2000 BC. Corded Ware communities continued the Neolithic pattern of mixed farming, with cattle, sheep, and goat playing a prominent role. With the exception of the communities along the southern Baltic coast, known as the Rzuczewo Culture, and the Alpine lake dwellings, Corded Ware settlements are rare. This has given rise to the hypothesis that the makers of Corded Ware were mobile pastoralists, although it is just as likely that they were sedentary peoples who simply built their houses in a way that did not leave substantial subsurface traces. The practice of burying individuals under single small mounds which characterized the Corded Ware world was a break with the earlier practice of collective burial found over much of this area during the previous millennium. It appears from the burials that a key societal role was assigned to a group of men whose status is reflected in their possession of flint knives, battle-axes, bows and arrows, and drinking vessels. Such emergence of individual identity and status is an important development that continues into the Bronze Age. Bell Beakers are even more enigmatic than Corded Ware. First recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, they were first presumed to be the characteristic artifacts of a single mobile people who spread rapidly across western and central Europe. Archaeologists spoke of a Beaker Folk and ascribed various attributes to them, such as being warriors, traders, and metalsmiths. Throughout the twentieth century, various theories were proposed for the origins of Bell Beakers under the assumption that they represented

a people whose identity was reflected in the use of a very specific vessel form. The vessel that gives Bell Beakers its name is a finely made thin-walled cup usually deep orange in color. It is tall and narrow, without handles. Its incised decoration occurs in horizontal bands, or ‘zones’, separated by smooth bands without ornament. The decoration is usually in the form of chevrons or hatching. A number of types of beaker decoration have been identified that appear to have regional or chronological significance. The late Andrew Sherratt suggested that the beakers were used to consume alcoholic beverages during feasting and conviviality. Alongside the beakers archaeologists often find a distinctive set of artifacts. Many of these are associated with archery, including flint arrowheads, slate wristguards that protected the archer’s hand from the bowstring, and ‘shaft straighteners’ which were pairs of grooved stones to polish arrow shafts. Copper daggers were the principal metal artifact associated with Bell Beakers in central and western Europe, while in northern Europe, flint copies of metal daggers were made. Finally, a characteristic Bell Beaker artifact is the V-perforated button in which two holes were drilled into a piece of material to converge in its interior. Bone, antler, jet (a semiprecious black stone), and amber were the most common materials used. The V-perforated buttons were used as ornaments. The significance of Bell Beakers has been debated heatedly by archaeologists. No longer do they speak of a Beaker Folk, since the geographical distribution and chronology of Bell Beakers makes it clear that there was no obvious origin or dispersal, but rather of the widespread Beaker Phenomenon in which a set of artifacts connected with drinking, war, and hunting appears in male burials in which the body was placed in a contracted position. The Bell Beaker set of artifacts may have been the status symbols of an emerging elite that came into sharper focus during the subsequent Bronze Age.

Conclusion: the Roots of Europe During the Neolithic period, the prehistoric societies of Europe start to appear familiar to the modern observer. People ceased to be hunters and gatherers pursuing a way of life completely alien to us. While the earliest European farmers lived under what we would consider primitive conditions, nonetheless their settled existence is more like ours than their precursors. It is indeed possible to trace the roots of European society known from recent milleniums back to the Neolithic in several key aspects:

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1. A mixed farming economy based on wheat, barley, pulses, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs formed the subsistence base for European communities until the introduction of American plants like the potato about 500 years ago; 2. The basic technology and infrastructure of European rural life, including metallurgy, timber architecture, weaving and ceramics, salt and food preservation, roads, and watercraft, either made their initial appearance during the Neolithic or developed into tools of everyday life; 3. The ritual use of important landscape features, such as mountains, springs, and bogs, and the maintenance of ritual structures on the landscape carried through into later prehistoric and historic times; and 4. Patterns of social and economic asymmetry and the acceptance and formalization of these social conditions that were elaborated in the Bronze Age and afterward can be seen to have their roots in the Late Neolithic. It has now been only four millennia since the end of the Neolithic, not a very long time at all in archaeological terms. Four millennia earlier, most inhabitants of Europe were still hunters and gatherers in a relatively unmodified landscape. Placing the Neolithic period in this perspective dramatically illustrates the extent of the transformation in human society and also in the natural environment that occurred during this time and the need to understand how it happened.

See also: Animal Domestication; DNA: Ancient; Modern,

and Archaeology; Europe, Central and Eastern; Europe, Northern and Western: Bronze Age; Early Neolithic Cultures; Mesolithic Cultures; Plant Domestication.

Further Reading Bogucki PI (1988) Forest Farmers and Stockherders: Early Agriculture and Its Consequences in North-Central Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bogucki PI (1999) The Origins of Human Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Bogucki PI and Crabtree PJ (eds.) (2004) Ancient Europe 8000 BC–AD 1000: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Childe VG (1925) The Dawn of European Civilization. New York: A. A. Knopf. Childe VG (1931) Skara Brae, a Pictish Village in Orkney. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Cunliffe BW (ed.) (1994) The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Fowler B (2000) Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier. New York: Random House. Grygiel R (2004) The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Brzes´c´ Kujawski and Osłonki Region. Ło´dz´: Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography. Hodder I (1990) The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Midgley M (2005) The Monumental Cemeteries of Prehistoric Europe. Stroud: Tempus. Milisauskas S (ed.) (2002) European Prehistory: a Survey. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Modderman PJR (1977) Die neolithische Besiedlung bei Hienheim, Ldkr. Kelheim. I. Die Ausgrabungen am Weinberg 1965–1970. Leiden: Institute of Prehistory. Price TD (ed.) (2000) Europe’s First Farmers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thorpe IJ (1996) The Origins of Agriculture in Europe. London: Routlege. Whittle AWR (1996) Europe in the Neolithic: the Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whittle AWR (2003) The Archaeology of People: Dimensions of Neolithic Life. London: Routledge.

Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies Jehanne Fe´blot-Augustins, CNRS, Nanterre, France ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary biface Refers to a tool shaped by the removal of flakes from two surfaces of a piece of raw material (a cobble or a large flake). The characteristic retouch flakes generally cover most of the two opposing surfaces. blade Refers to an elongated flake, with a length equal to at least twice its width, and more or less parallel edges. A bladelet is a small blade. Tools made from blades or bladelets are termed blade or bladelet tools. blank Refers to products (e.g., flakes, blades or bladelets) or pieces of raw material (e.g., cobble) that can potentially be transformed by retouch into a formal tool, hence the terms flake blank, blade blank, bladelet blank. chaıˆne ope´ratoire Refers to the successive stages involved in the production of lithic artifacts, beginning with the procurement of the block of raw material and ending with the discard of the used artifacts. A concept somewhat broader than that of reduction sequence (see ‘lithic reduction’), with which it is often equated. core Any piece of raw material from which flakes, blades, or bladelets have been detached, in order to produce blanks for tools, hence the terms flake core, blade core, and bladelet core. down-the-line trade Refers to a process in which goods (here lithic items) move through reciprocal exchange from group to

1188 Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies group, thus involving a series of successive exchanges of material from a point source. flake Refers to any fragment of stone that is removed from either a core or a tool during manufacture. No particular size or shape is implied by this term. A tool made from a flake blank is termed a flake tool. Levallois Refers to an elaborate Middle Palaeolithic core preparation and reduction process, by which are predetermined the shape and character of the products (also termed Levallois) sought by the knapper. Sometimes, the aim is to manufacture a single large flake rather than a series of smaller flakes: in that case, the product is called a Levallois preferential flake. The flakes detached in order to prepare the core for production are also quite specific and are called Levallois preparation flakes. lithic reduction Refers to the subtractive process by which a block of raw material is transformed, through successive stages, into a tool. This involves the detachment of ‘flakes’, ‘blades’, or bladelets using a hard (stone) or soft (wood, antler) hammer. The block or nodule may have to be rid of its outer part (roughing-out stage), before being prepared in order to give it an adequate shape for the subsequent operations. Once prepared, the block has become a preformed ‘core’, from which the desired products (flakes, blades, or bladelets) are obtained according to a variety of methods and techniques. These products can subsequently be transformed into tools. Middle Palaeolithic (Europe) Refers to the time period beginning about 250 000 years ago and ending about 40 000–35 000 years ago, during which a particular culture developed, the Mousterian, characterized by the use of flake tools. This culture is associated with Neandertal man. Five stable types of Mousterian industries have been recognized. Among these, the Quina Mousterian is characterized by high amounts of large, thick side-scrapers, the Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition by high amounts of bifaces. retouch Refers to removals carried out for the purpose of obtaining a tool. technology Refers to the methods and techniques implemented by prehistoric stone-knappers to produce artifacts corresponding to varied mental templates. The technological analysis of a lithic assemblage aims to reconstruct the ordered series of sequences that have to be carried out to obtain from a block of raw material the particular types of products sought by the knapper. These desired products are called end products, and can be either ‘blanks’ or ‘tools’. tool As opposed to blanks, refers to retouched products, that is, products that are modified by the removal of flakes (termed ‘retouch’ flakes) along one, both, or part of their edges. Many formal tool types have been recognized for the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, for example, scrapers, limaces, burins, ‘bifaces’. When the edges of the tools have become blunt through use, they are renovated by means of resharpening flakes. Upper Palaeolithic (Europe) Refers to the time period beginning about 40 000–35 000 years ago and ending about 10 000 years ago, during which successive cultures rose and developed: the major ones are the Aurignacian, the Gravettian, the Solutrean, the Magdalenian. Among other traits, these cultures are characterized by industries based on the systematic production of blade and bladelet tools in addition to flake tools. The associated human remains belong to anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). The transition with Middle Palaeolithic industries is represented in eastern central Europe by the Szeletian. Because no human remains were recovered, it is still unclear whether Szeletian industries were made by Neandertals or by modern humans.

Introduction Provenance studies are based on the identification of spatial relationships between stone archaeological artifacts and geographical locations, the raw material sources. Prerequisites are the characterization of the archaeological samples by a variety of methods and techniques – the most common being petrographic techniques and chemical analyses – and the existence of comparative regional geological databases, generally resulting from systematic geological sampling on a regional basis. In the context of prehistoric mobile hunter-gatherer societies, stone raw material provenance studies prove useful for investigating the way man interacts on a macroregional scale with his environment and other human communities. Tracking the human transport of raw materials and stone tools across the landscape can give us insights into both individual and group mobility, and interaction networks. This is because stone raw materials are, with shells, among the rare documents that can be traced to a geographical origin. Ceramics (when present) or other objects made of clay, such as figurines, can also be sourced.

Historical Developments Provenance studies have been the object of a longstanding interest in western and central Europe, where the potential of such studies was recognized as early as the 1960s–70s. Research on raw material procurement was not initially developed along the same lines everywhere. In France, Belgium, and Germany, for instance, attention focused primarily on the site and the raw materials introduced into it. As a result, long-distance transfers were rarely recognized because geological surveys were conducted within the confines of a region, generally construed as the catchment area of a major watercourse or as a major sedimentary basin. More recently, a greater awareness of the need to exchange information and flint samples has led to closer interaction between researchers working in different areas, and consequently to the acknowledgment of transfers exceeding the confines of a region. On the other hand, in Poland, Hungary, and former Czechoslovakia, attention centered during the earlier phases on the deposits themselves and on the distribution from the sources of distinctive types of raw materials, resulting in an initial emphasis on longdistance and medium-distance movements of raw materials. Since the 1980s, when systematic regional geological surveys were undertaken, more prominence has been given to the characterization and

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identification to source of raw materials recovered at individual archaeological sites.

An Integrated Approach Distances traveled, usually measured as the crow flies, and the plotting on maps of raw material transfers are by themselves highly informative elements, notably in terms of the varying magnitude of these transfers through time. They also help to appreciate the geographic limits of exploited or known territories, and reveal the recurrent character of certain transfers, indicative therefore of favored itineraries. These aspects can be directly appreciated from maps and the frequency distributions of transfers in relation to distances. However, behavioral perspectives cannot meaningfully be developed without reference to technology (see Lithics: Manufacture), an approach closely linked since the 1980s to lithic provenance studies. Based on the notion of chaıˆne ope´ratoire (reduction sequence), the technological analysis of a lithic assemblage, broken down into different categories of raw material, enables one to recognize the stage of manufacture in which each sourced and quantified raw material is introduced onto a site (nodules or roughed-out blocks, preformed cores, blanks or tools). Thus, raw materials can be characterized not only by distances and quantities, but also by technological stages of introduction. The relation between these three parameters – distance, quantity, and character of transported technology – defines a technoeconomic transport pattern characteristic of a period and/or of a region. Because raw material procurement should be considered as an integral part of a large set of subsistence strategies, aimed at meeting both economic and social requirements, distributions in combination with transport patterns need to be interpreted in terms of prehistoric mobility (i.e., ‘land-use’) and in terms of long-distance social interaction.

Interpretive Framework Group Mobility versus Interaction Networks

In Middle and Upper Palaeolithic contexts, analyzing the causes underlying raw material distributions is a major difficulty. Do observed distances correspond to the customary movements of groups across the landscape, or to displacements of items exceeding the range of such movements? A related matter is the distinction between direct acquisition and indirect acquisition through trade and exchange of raw materials, the two major types of mechanisms responsible

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for the presence of intrusive items in archaeological assemblages. When distributions are interpreted in terms of group mobility, the underlying assumption is that of a procurement embedded in other subsistence-activities, and distances traveled are construed as a measure of the size of the area exploited for subsistence-related purposes. In particular, the maximum transport distance (MTD) recorded for individual lithic assemblages is used as a proxy for the maximum size of territories. Economic necessities arguably give rise to specific mobility strategies, which may vary through time and/or space, and translate into different scales and rates of movement. When distributions are interpreted in terms of intergroup relationships, thereby implying exchange, MTDs are seen as the material correlates of the maximum extent of interaction networks expected as part of the survival and social process. Distances involved can be very great insofar as items can travel a long way through successive transfers. The existence of alliance networks is rarely contemplated for the Middle Palaeolithic. They are supposed to have developed only in the Upper Palaeolithic, along with the essential social structures making interaction possible. Criteria for Exchange

Establishing the magnitude of Palaeolithic group mobility from the extent of interaction networks is fraught with difficulties, since direct and indirect procurement may produce similar patterns. However, in some cases, the possibility of a ‘down-the-line’ mode of distribution resulting from successive reciprocal exchanges can be considered in view of the results of a cross-cultural comparison of ethnographic records of exchange. These show that highly valued items are conveyed over extreme distances (600–3000 km) by such a mode. Archaeologically, the prerequisites for an interpretation in terms of ‘down-the-line’ trade are (1) the presence of at least one site where the item may have been passed on, located between the source and the furthest known occurrence of that item and (2) the presence in the ‘relay’ site of another item made from the same raw material or from a raw material of close geographical provenance (see Exchange Systems). The Cultural Ecological Paradigm

Whether plotted transfers are interpreted as correlates of group mobility or as proxies for the extent of interaction networks, the issues are generally addressed in relation to the cultural ecological paradigm

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(see Cultural Ecology). Behavioral models devised to assess the size of exploited territories and the extent of spatial networks of connection among groups are mostly based on ethnographic accounts of present day hunter-gatherers and rely heavily on ecological approaches (Figure 1). Hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies are supposed to be directly influenced by the nature, abundance, and accessibility of resources. In turn, these strategies may result in different patterns, rates, and scales of movement across a landscape, as well as in variably dense and extensive interaction networks. In particular, the scale of group mobility appears indicative of adaptation to different environmental contexts, moves being longer or more frequently recorded over long distances in the most exacting environments, Similarly, risk-minimizing strategies in high-risk environments, where resources are liable to important fluctuations, promote the creation of wide-ranging social networks through which information about vital resources is dispensed, the exchange of goods forming an integral part of these strategies. When interpreting distributions of transfers, it is suggested that in both cases the frequency with which particular distances are covered is possibly more significant than the magnitude of transfers (see Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient).

which past hunter-gatherers’ dealings with space were environmentally constrained. Drawing on bibliographical information about stone raw material transfers in 500 lithic assemblages, evidence for change and variability is presented below, and particular points are illustrated and discussed in relation to these major issues. The methodologies used to characterize and identify sources of the lithic materials discussed in this article have changed over the years. Earlier attempts (in the 1980s) were mainly based on the sole macroscopic characterization of rocks by color, texture, and visible inclusions. This method nevertheless allows materials to be sourced with a measure of reliability when it is grounded in a thorough knowledge of the range of regionally available raw materials. In later publications (from the early 1990s to the present), the most widely used approach involves a combination of macroscopic observations and petrographic microfacies analyses, complemented by micropalaeontological analyses of thin sections. On the whole, chemical methods, more complex, costly, and time-consuming, have been less used, and either on specific materials such as obsidian and radiolarite, or to narrow the range of potential sources when other approaches were powerless to do so (see Chemical Analysis Techniques).

A Palaeolithic Perspective: Diachronic Change and Macro-Regional Variability

Diachronic Change: Scale of Transfers

Provenance studies have since the 1980s been conducted in a techno-economic perspective, and a large documentation is available on lithic transfers for the entire Palaeolithic of western Europe (WE), western central Europe (WCE), and eastern central Europe (ECE). Monitoring change versus continuity and macroregional variability for the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic allows major issues to be addressed, namely the question of behavioral/cognitive differences across the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic divide, and the degree to

Middle Palaeolithic transfers In the European Middle Palaeolithic, MTDs greater than 100 km (65 miles) are recorded for only 11 sites (8%), all late Middle Palaeolithic, out of 145 (Figure 2), with a maximum of 300 km in three instances. On the assumption that Middle Palaeolithic transfers are correlates of group mobility, and MTDs are proxies for the maximum size of territories, the very high proportion of MTDs smaller than 100 km (n ¼ 134, 92%) suggests that in most cases subsistence requirements were met within those bounds.

Patterns, rates and scales of movement

Scale and density

Resources

Group mobiity

Nature Abundance Accessibility

Continentality latitude

Interaction networks

Hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies

Environment

Figure 1 The role of ecological conditions in the development of long-term adaptive strategies.

Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

1191

60 MP (n = 145) Frequency (%) of MTDs

50

UP (n = 355)

40 30 20 10 0 [0–50]

]50–100]

]100–150]

]150–200]

]200–250]

]250–300]

>300

Distances (km) Figure 2 Frequency distributions of MTDs recorded for European Middle Palaeolithic (MP) and Upper Palaeolithic (UP) lithic assemblages, respectively. There is a single MTD per assemblage. Data for the so-called transitional industries such as the Chatelperronian, the Bohunician, and the Szeletian, are included in the Upper Palaeolithic distribution. Data come from France and Belgium for WE, from Germany and Switzerland for WCE, from Poland, Hungary, eastern Austria, the Czeck, and Slovak Republics for ECE.

Upper Palaeolithic transfers A dramatic increase (n ¼ 173, 49%) in the number of sites with MTDs greater than 100 km is observed for the European Upper Palaeolithic (Figure 2). The absolute threshold of the (Late) Middle Palaeolithic (300 km) is overshot, since transfers (n ¼ 27 occurrences) between 300 and 450 km (200–300 miles) are recorded. There are also two exceptional instances of 600 and 700 km long transfers. As a result, the proportion of sites with MTDs smaller than 100 km has fallen to 51%. The increase in the magnitude of transfers suggests differences of a socioeconomic nature. These can refer to the inner organization of groups and the patterning of their mobility, when for instance anticipated long-distance seasonal moves are considered. They can also refer to complex processes involving long-distance social interaction, the latter in particular, but not exclusively, for transfers >300 km. Diachronic Change: Techno-economic Transport Patterns

Normative Middle Palaeolithic patterns For the entire Middle Palaeolithic of western and central Europe, in areas where there is little correspondence in lithic resource availability, terrain, and topography, transport patterns show strikingly similar characteristics. As a rule, quantities decrease in relation to distance from source, and lithics are introduced onto the sites in a more and more elaborate form. In particular, transfers exceeding 20 km are tied to small quantities of end products (blanks, tools) sometimes complemented by a few reduced cores, interpreted as portable personal gear intended for use as people go along. Interestingly, exceptions where larger quantities are brought onto sites as preformed

cores from further than 20 km relate to areas yielding only poor to medium quality stone, thus arguing for the existence of a selective attitude toward raw materials in the Middle Palaeolithic. However, even in such cases, the quantities involved are smaller than in the Upper Palaeolithic and the distances much shorter: recently documented examples range from 14% to 20% transported over 30–40 km. Consequently, these exceptions should not be overrated in terms of anticipated needs in large quantities of higher-grade raw materials. Variable Upper Palaeolithic patterns Throughout western and central Europe, Upper Palaeolithic techno-economic patterns are characterized by their extreme variability, as opposed to the Middle Palaeolithic norm. Alongside the former Middle Palaeolithic pattern, which occurs unsurprisingly where high-grade local raw material is available, another pattern is observed, consisting in the transport over long distances (140–160 km to 300 km) of substantial quantities (>50% in the Gravettian) of unworked nodules or preformed cores (with or without a complement of blanks or tools). This ‘new’ pattern points explicitly to the building up of supplies, and can be identified in most cases where the poor to medium quality local raw material is not suitable for Upper Palaeolithic blade production, although admittedly the selective attitude toward raw materials fluctuates through time and seems dependant – among other factors – on the particular demands of a given culture’s lithic technology. Macro-regional Variability

While techno-economic patterns of transport do not vary macro-regionally and exhibit similar

1192 Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

other data, a different patterning of group mobility has been suggested for ECE, functioning on a seasonal basis and involving medium (100 km) to long-distance (230–300 km) moves following natural transit routes. Interestingly, the rare west European long-distance transfers, also following natural transit routes, occur in a region of France, the Auvergne, where environmental conditions were probably as exacting as in more continental (ECE) zones.

characteristics in the whole of Europe for the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, respectively, MTD distributions for the Middle Palaeolithic and the Upper Palaeolithic suggest an enduring clinal relationship between greater frequency of long-distance transfers and increasing continentality across the Middle/ Upper Palaeolithic divide, in keeping with the cultural ecological paradigm. Evidence for the Middle Palaeolithic Compared with west European MTDs, those for WCE and ECE show a forward shift of frequencies toward greater distances, in particular for the first three distance classes (Figure 3). In addition, transfers greater than 200 km are better represented in ECE. Building on this and

Evidence for the Upper Palaeolithic While in the Upper Palaeolithic MTDs exceeding 300 km are recorded for WE and WCE, they are exceptionally rare (n ¼ 2, n ¼ 1) in comparison with ECE (n ¼ 24) (Figure 4). Their range is also smaller since they do

60 MP (n = 145) Frequency (%) of MTDs

50

UP (n = 355)

40 30 20 10 0 [0–50]

]50–100]

]100–150]

]150–200]

]200–250]

]250–300]

>300

Distances (km) Figure 3 Frequency distributions of Middle Palaeolithic MTDs for WE, WCE, and ECE. There is a single MTD per lithic assemblage.

50

Frequency (%) of MTDs

WE (n = 177) WCE (n = 47)

40

ECE (n = 131)

30

20

10

0 [0–50]

]50–100]

]100–150]

]150–200]

]200–250]

]250–300]

>300

Distances (km) Figure 4 Frequency distributions of Upper Palaeolithic MTDs for WE, WCE, and ECE, respectively. There is a single MTD per lithic assemblage. Data for the so-called transitional industries such as the Chatelperronian, the Bohunician, and the Szeletian, are included in this distribution. Note that the WE distribution is biased in favor of the ]200–250] and ]250–300] distance classes by the weight of the Auvergne transfers (see Figure 5).

Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

not exceed 380 km in WE and 400 km in WCE, whereas in ECE distances well over 400 km are recorded (four occurrences at 420–450 km, one at 600 km, and one at 700 km). The overall magnitude of lithic transfers is therefore greater in the latter macro-region. More interestingly, MTDs shorter than 100 km are by far the most frequent in WE, suggesting that in most cases either territories or networks were smaller than in ECE. By contrast, the ECE distribution is quite balanced, and displays relatively important percentages associated with distances greater than 100 km. The frequency distribution of MTDs for WCE is partly consistent with a location halfway along a continentality gradient, insofar as percentages for the ]100–150 km] and ]150–200 km] distance classes are highest, implying that most territories/networks fall within this range. This suggests that although magnitudes could be similar, longer transfers were more frequent in WCE than in WE, arguably as a result of greater continentality. WE percentages for the ]200– 250 km] and ]250–300 km] distance classes seem to contradict this assumption. It should however be noted that they are mainly due to transfers in the environmentally exacting Auvergne region, which account for 58% of the occurrences (17 out of 29) for these classes. They also account for 18% of the ]150–200 km] distance class. When the Auvergne transfers are disregarded (Figure 5), the ]200–250 km] distance class percentages for WE and WCE are inverted (5.9% and 6.4%, respectively); they are, in addition, both lower than the percentages for ECE (17.6%). This, as well as the very low percentages associated with the longest distances (>300 km), draws WCE closer to WE rather than to ECE.

1193

Case-Studies Seasonal Mobility in the Auvergne

The magnitude of raw material transfers between the Auvergne sites and sources 250–300 km further north illustrates a case of continuity in mobility patterns across the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic divide, which is consistent with the cultural ecological paradigm. Considered in a techno-economic perspective, these transfers also reinforce previously stated diachronic differences. A hilly relief and a globally rough climate characterize the Auvergne, in the central part of France. During colder periods, local glaciers covered the higher altitude zones that border the Loire and Allier valleys, along which there are clusters of sites, both Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian, Protomagdalenian, mostly Badegoulian and Magdalenian). All of the Upper and some of the Middle Palaeolithic sites contain northern flint from the Touraine and the Paris Basin, the former sites in large quantities. In this respect, it is significant that flint is scarce and generally of poor quality in the Auvergne. The Auvergne is considered to have been a region of severe seasonal contrasts throughout the Upper Palaeolithic, particularly inhospitable during the winter months. The absence of any winter hunting in the sites further suggests that human occupation was seasonal in the area. Working on this assumption, it is contemplated that in the Upper Palaeolithic the procurement of higher-quality northern flint was embedded in subsistence strategies and occurred in the context of planned seasonal moves. These followed natural routes connecting flint yielding regions

50 WE (n = 158) Frequency (%) of MTDs

WCE (n = 47) 40

ECE (n = 131)

30

20

10

0 [0–50]

]50–100]

]100–150]

]150–200]

]200–250]

]250–300]

>300

Distances (km) Figure 5 Frequency distributions of Upper Palaeolithic MTDs minus the Auvergne transfers for WE. Compared with Figure 4, MTDs for WE, WCE, and ECE are more consistent with an overall distribution along a continentality gradient when the Auvergne transfers are disregarded.

1194 Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

and others known to be lacking suitable raw materials (Figure 6). Long-distance seasonal mobility (ranging between 160 and at least 250 km in the Upper Palaeolithic) is a pattern argued to obtain in ECE. Explaining the Auvergne long-distance seasonal moves in terms of adaptive responses to environmental constraints is supported by the enduring northern origin of raw materials across the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic divide. However, the quantities recorded for the Middle Palaeolithic are very small. A similar case of continuity in transport and mobility strategies is documented only in ECE, in Moravia, where northern trans-Carpathian flint systematically occurs in Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites, conveyed along natural routes (the Moravian Gate). As in the Auvergne only poor quality flint is available in Moravia, and it is also only during the Upper Palaeolithic that trans-Carpathian transfers are associated with large quantities of raw materials, rather than with a few end-products.

Indirect Procurement

Drawing on ethnographic parallels concerning the exchange of highly valued items by down-the-line trade over extreme distances, special attention has been paid to the longest transfers (>300 km) acknowledged in WE, WCE, and ECE. These always involve very small quantities (generally a single item) of end-products, often in remarkable materials, such as obsidian or white-spotted S´wieciecho´w flint in ECE, which account for half these transfers and may have been invested with more than utilitarian properties. Eastern Central Europe In ECE, such very long transfers are recorded throughout the Upper Palaeolithic, beginning with the Szeletian and the Aurignacian, which partly overlap in time. It is argued that three of the four >300 km Szeletian transfers may result from a down-the-line mode of exchange (Figure 7). Items made of eastern materials from the

PARIS BASIN

LOIRE

ALLIE

R

TOURAINE

AUVERGNE

High-quality flint area Middle Paleolithic sites 0

50 100

200

km

Upper Paleolithic sites

300

Figure 6 Northward long-distance winter moves from the Auvergne (France), following natural routes leading to areas yielding highquality flints. Both Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites contain Touraine and Paris Basin flints, but the procurement of large quantities of such flints is only documented for the Upper Palaeolithic. Figure composed by G. Monthel (UMR 7055 du CNRS).

Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

1195

Chocolate flint

Holy Cross Mts

Swíeciechów flint Kraków Jurassic flint Radiolarite

la

tu Vis

MORAVIA

Obsidian Felsitic quartz porphyry

Urcice-Golštyn Miškovice Nová Dedina I

Neslovice

Szeletian sites Aurignacian sites

Va

n

TOKAY

Danube

BÜKK

50

100

200

300

Other transfers, possible combination of direct and indirect procurement Szeletian Aurignacian

km

0

Indirect procurement (down-the-line) Szeletian Aurignacian

Figure 7 Indirect procurement by down-the-line trade through social exchange in the Szeletian and the Aurignacian of ECE (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic). Figure composed by G. Monthel (UMR 7055 du CNRS).

Tokay and Bu¨kk regions (obsidian and felsitic quartz porphyry, 360 and 340 km) are recorded west in Moravia, at Neslovice. Obsidian and felsitic quartz porphyry are abundant in all the Bu¨kk area sites. Felsitic quartz porphyry is also documented at a halfway point in some Va´h valley sites, construed as ‘relay’ sites. In addition, the presence of the characteristic raw material of this valley, radiolarite, is recorded in both eastern (Bu¨kk) and western (Moravia) sites. In a similar way, the S´wieciecho´w flint item from northeastern Poland found in Moravia, at Misˇkovice (360 km), alongside with Krako´w Jurassic flint, is argued to have been conveyed through the Krako´w region sites, where S´wieciecho´w flint items are recorded, as well as items in ‘chocolate’ flint, of similar northern origin. In the Aurignacian, indirect procurement can be contemplated for two of the four >300 km transfers. One is associated with the presence of S´wieciecho´w flint in Moravia, at Urcˇice-Golsˇty´n (380 km), where Krako´w Jurassic flint is also recorded. There again, the Krako´w sites, which yield some S´wieciecho´w flint (three items at Krako´w-Sowiniec), can be interpreted as ‘relay’ sites. Another transfer is associated with the presence

of 10 obsidian items at Nova´ Ddina I in Moravia (320 km), alongside with radiolarite, and these were possibly conveyed through the Va´h valley sites. Western Central Europe In WCE, only one >300 km transfer is recorded, in connection with HohlensteinStadel, an Aurignacian site of the Swabian Jura. It is associated with a few end products in Baltic flint from northern Rhineland (400 km). While in the Swabian Jura, all other long-distance transfers are throughout the Upper Palaeolithic oriented eastwards (240 km) and westwards (220 km) along the Danube River, suggesting direct procurement of materials during (seasonal?) group movement, this transfer is oriented north-south. Small quantities of Baltic flint have been found at the Aurignacian site of Wildscheuer in the Rhineland, some 140 km distant from the closest source, and the assumption is that down-the-line trade to southwestern Germany conveyed the items recovered at Hohlenstein-Stadel. Western Europe In WE, basically as a reflection of the state of current research, >300 km transfers are

1196 Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies

so far only acknowledged for the French Aurignacian (n ¼ 2 occurrences). These transfers relate to one item each of grain de mil flint conveyed from western Charente to the Arie`ge (at Tuto de Camalhot) and the He´rault (Re´gismont-le-Haut) (Figure 8). Grain de mil flint also occurs at several of the Ve´ze`re valley sites in the Pe´rigord, and two types of northern Aquitaine flints (Bergeracois and Fumel) have been identified at the Tuto de Camalhot and Re´gismontle-Haut. Indirect procurement by down-the-line trade via Pe´rigord ‘relay’ sites is therefore suggested for the >300 km grain de mil transfers. In this respect, it is of additional interest that shells of Atlantic coastal species occur both at Pe´rigord sites and at the Tuto de Camalhot. It does not necessarily ensue from the above examples that direct procurement is the only underlying mechanism for transfers 1.2 MA

0.9–0.74 MA

1.2–0.9 MA

0.9–0.74 MA

1.2–0.9 MA

Human bones

Figure 1 Map of the oldest settlements in Europe and >1.–0.74 MA.

0

500

1000 km

1212 EUROPE, EASTERN, PEOPLING OF

Figure 2 Microlake industries fom the period 0.6–0.3 MA in Central Eastern Europe: side-scrapers, points and denticulated tools (15 – Trzebnica, Site 2, Lower Silesia, Poland; 6–10 – Rusko, site 42, Lower Silesia, Poland; 11, 12 – Dubossary, Republic of Moldova, 13 – Pogrebi, Republic of Moldova).

Vertesszollos (Hungary) – 550–350 kyr BP, Dubossary I and Pogrebi I (Republic of Moldova) 300 kyr BP, and Mikhaylovskoye in the Lower Don Basin (southern Russia) – about 300 kyr BP. Moreover, the oldest industries in the northern Caucasus, for example, from layers 5a–7 of the Treugolnaya Cave (Russia) also show microflake character. Microflake industries did not appear as one cultural tradition, but are the effect of adaptation of the oldest European groups producing pebble industries

to climatic conditions of the first interglacials (isotope stages 15–11), notably to the Mediterranean and Boreal environments. For this we have the evidence of the wide use of organic materials, most importantly wood, which was used to make projectiles (at Schoningen spears of more than 2 m long were discovered) and hafts for small flake tools (known from Schoningen and Bilzingsleben). The manufacture of microflake tools (average length from 17 to 35 mm) could be explained by the more difficult access to

EUROPE, EASTERN, PEOPLING OF 1213

lithic raw materials at the time when the forest cover was thick. The sites with microflake industries often occur within travertines, sedimented in the vicinity of thermal springs. Among faunal remains, bones of forest elephant (Bilzingsleben) and horse (Equus mosbachensis – Vertesszollos I, Schoningen) dominate. Although there were suggestions that faunal remains come from scavenging, there is evidence to show that they come from hunting. For example, at Schoningen wooden spears occurred and bones of young, selectively hunted, horses dominated. It should be emphasized that the Acheulian does not occur in central and eastern Europe. On the one hand, this culture is known in western and southwestern Europe (beginning from 600 to 500 kyr BP) and on the other, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus (probably not earlier than 350 kyr BP) east of the line of the Rhine and the Alps, and north of the main ridge of the Caucasus; therefore, the Acheulian did not occur (Figure 3). Hand ax cultures could have appeared as the effect of the second ‘Out-of Africa’ migration that took place along two routes: via the Near East and via Gibraltar. The Middle Palaeolithic of central eastern Europe (beginning from about 300 kyr BP) saw the continuation of microflake adaptations and the emergence of two new cultural traditions: the Micoquian and the Mousterian. These cultures were created by the preNeanderthals, and later by the classical Neanderthals.

At that time Europe was isolated from outside migrations, forming a kind of cul-de-sac. At the same time the expansion of the Neanderthals from Europe to Western Asia, during the isotope stages 6 and 4, took place via the Balkans and Anatolia. This expansion was brought about by deteriorating climatic conditions during the ice-sheet transgressions in isotope stages 6 and 4. At that time the routes joining Europe with Western Asia north of the Caucasus were blocked by the Caspian Sea transgressions and by the Manych Inlet that joined the Lower Don with the range of the Caspian transgressions. Middle Palaeolithic central eastern Europe was divided into two culturally distinctive zones: the southern zone, where from about 250 to 200 kyr BP the Mousterian with characteristic Levallois technology and tools on flakes developed, and the northern zone with the dominance of the Micoquian with the manufacture of bifacial tools, notably asymmetrical ‘Keilmesser’ and bifaces. The two cultural units overlap in the Carpathian Basin and in the Crimea (Figure 4). The peopling of central and eastern Europe by anatomically modern humans (AMHs) took place as late as between 45 and 35 kyr BP, parallel with the gradual vanishing of the Neanderthals who – nonetheless – survived until about 28 kyr BP. The first AMH expansion to Europe is generally believed to be related to the first diffusion of the Aurignacian into Europe, corresponding to the AMH migration from the Near East into Europe via Anatolia, the

+ ⊕

Before zone 6

+ ⊕

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 3 Eastern Europe before Oxigen Isotope Stage 6 (>186 kyr BP): Early Middle Palaeolithic: 1 – Acheulian, 2 – Bilzingsleben microflake group, 3 – Clactonian-Tayacian, 4 – Levalloisian, 5 – Levalloisian with leaf points.

1214 EUROPE, EASTERN, PEOPLING OF

1 2 3 4 5 6 0

1000 km

7

Figure 4 Mousterian (1–6 – points) and Micoquian (7–10 – side-scraper-knives Keilmesser) implements from the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Crimea: 1–6 – Kabazi II, 7,8 – Ak-kaya, 9,10 – Kiik Koba upper level.

Balkans, and the middle Danube Basin. Although it is still thought that AMHs were makers of the Aurignacian (despite the fact that some human remains ascribed to the Aurignacian proved to be younger, e.g., at Cro-Magnon and Vogelherd), it is highly likely that prior to the emergence of the Aurignacian, earlier AMH migrations had brought some Early Upper Palaeolithic cultural elements from the Near East. These earlier migrations brought to Europe blade technologies deriving from Levallois technological tradition (e.g., assemblages from the Temnata Cave, Bulgaria, the Bohunician in the Carpathian Basin), and could form the base for the origin of the Aurignacian, not necessarily in only one center (Figure 5). The Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition appears to be an increasingly complex process. Besides the Aurignacian, functioning between 37 and 28 kyr BP, more local units emerged between 45 and 30 kyr BP assigned to ‘transitional units’. Their distinctive feature was the production of leaf points (the Szeletian in the Carpathian Basin, the Streletskian in the Don Basin,

and the Crimea, the Jerzmanowician (-RanisianLincombian) in the border zone between the uplands and the Great European Plain) or the manufacture of backed points (the Uluzzian which occurs not only in Italy but also in southeast Europe – Klisoura Cave I in the Argolid, Greece). The anthropological type of makers of ‘transitional cultures’ is still unknown, but these cultures played a vital role in the formation of culture units of the middle phase of the Upper Palaeolithic (30–20 kyr BP) in Europe (e.g., the Pavlovian in the middle Danube Basin; the Sungirian in the Russian Lowland). Populations of the middle phase of the Upper Palaeolithic belonged, undoubtedly, to AMH, but preserved a gene pool inherited from the Neanderthals (i.e., one of the individuals from the grave in Sungir near Vladimir in Central Russian Plain) and some cultural traits inherited from the ‘transitional cultures’ (Figure 5). The first pan-European culture horizon which corresponds to cultural and probably ethnical uniformity, was the Gravettian spreading from the Atlantic to the

EUROPE, EASTERN, PEOPLING OF 1215

Figure 5 Early Upper Palaeolithic of Central Eastern Europe (Oxigen Isotope Stage 3 – 50–30 kyr BP): 1 – Levallois-derived Initial Upper Palaeolithic (probably first anatomically modern humans); transitional leaf point industries, 2 – Szeletian (Neanderthals), 3 – Jerzmanowician (Neanderthals or AMH), 4 – Streletskian/Sungirian (Neanderthals/AMH), 5 – Bryndzenian; transitional industries with backed blades, 6 – Uluzzian (Nenaderthals and/or AMH), 7 – Aurignacian (AMH).

Don, during the period between 30 and 20 kyr BP. The maximum of the last great ice-sheet transgression (20–18 kyr BP) caused the disintegration of this cultural uniformity when the northern part of central Europe became depopulated and different cultural units emerged in the Western (the Solutrean and the Magdalenian) and Eastern (the Epigravettian) Europe. See also: Asia, West: Paleolithic Cultures; Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Europe, Central and Eastern; Modern Humans, Emergence of.

Further Reading Bar-Yosef O and Philbeam D (eds.) (2000) The geography of Neandertals and modern humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean. Peabody Museum Bulletin 8.

Burdukiewicz JM (2003) Technokompleks mikrolityczny w paleolicie dolnym S´rodkowej Europy. Wroclaw: Uniwersytet Wroclawski. Burdukiewicz JM and Ronen A (eds.) (2003) Lower Palaeolithic Small Tools in Europe and the Levant. BAR International Series. Oxford: BAR. Gamble C (1999) Palaeolithic Societies of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gladilin VN and Sitlivy VI (1999) Achel Tsentralnoy Evropy. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Lordkipanidze D, Bar-Yosef O, and Otte M (eds.) (2000) ERAUL: Early Humans at the Gate of Europe. Vol. 92. Liege: ERAUL. Mellars P (ed.) (1990) The emergence of Modern Humans. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Petraglia MD and Korisettar R (eds.) (1998) Early Human Behaviour in Global Context: Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record. London: Routledge. Roebroeks W and van Kolfschcoten T (eds.) (1995) The Earliest Occupation of Europe. Leiden: Leiden University.

1216 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age

EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN Contents Bronze Age Early Neolithic Cultures Iron Age Medieval Mesolithic Cultures

Bronze Age Peter Bogucki, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary alloy A mixture of two or more elemental metals to form a new metal with specific qualities. barrow A burial mound that covers a grave, usually of earth in contrast to a cairn; also known as a tumulus or kurgan. cairn A mound of stones, either over a burial chamber or grave or from the clearance of fields. chiefdom A form of social organization characterized by differences in access to status, power, and wealth that are passed down from one generation to the next. heterarchy A structure of social organization in which the ability to make decisions is not concentrated at the top but rather spread among many cooperating individuals. hillfort A fortified hilltop, usually by means of ramparts, ditches, and embankments. hoard A buried deposit of artifacts, usually ones of fine quality or value, not associated with a settlement or burial. longhouse An elongated wooden post structure, primarily for dwelling but often including stables and workspaces. lur (pl. lurer) A Bronze Age bronze horn from southern Scandinavia consisting of a long curving tube cast in sections and ending in a circular plate. palisade A fence or stockade constructed of closely set wooden posts, set either in individual postholes or in a continuous trench. palstave A Bronze Axe tupe in which the blade is divided from the heel by a ridge, with flanges on the heel forming grooves to enable connection to a handle. sarsen A type of sandstone from the Marlborough Downs in southern England that was used in a number of prehistoric monuments including Avebury and Stonehenge. wattle and daub A method of wall construction in which mud is plastered over a lattice of sticks and branches.

Between about 2500 and 800 BC, the prehistoric societies of northern and western Europe were characterized by increasing technological sophistication and the emergence of social and economic systems that were more complex than those of the Neolithic period. Archaeologists refer to this period in Europe

as the ‘Bronze Age’, a term which has been in use for nearly two centuries and is based on the widespread use of bronze for weapons and ornaments. In fact, the concept of an intervening period between the preceding milleniums when people used only stone and the subsequent appearance of iron metallurgy has its roots in northern and western Europe, although it is now common to speak of a Bronze Age in many other parts of the Old World as well.

Concept of a Bronze Age Credit for the introduction of a systematic division of antiquities into stone, bronze, and iron is generally given to Christian Thomsen (1788–1865), who was the curator of the Danish National Museum of Antiquities in the early nineteenth century. Thomsen recognized that there were certain collections that contained no metals, others that had only bronze, and others that included iron. His successor, J. A. A. Worsaae (1821–85), transformed this system of organizing collections into an archaeological tool by demonstrating that the collections with just stone artifacts were earlier than those that included bronze, and that these in turn were earlier than those that included iron. Thus, the ‘three-age system’ of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages was established and was eventually adopted throughout Europe. Although modern archaeologists realize that this tripartite division of prehistoric society is far too simple to reflect the complexity of change and continuity, terms like ‘Bronze Age’ are still used as a very general way of focusing attention on particular times and places and thus facilitating archaeological discussion. In the case of the Bronze Age of northern and western Europe, the topic of discussion is the second millennium BC, plus several centuries beforehand and afterward. Neolithic society did not turn into the Bronze Age overnight, nor did Bronze Age society suddenly decide that it was time for the Iron Age to begin. As with many archaeological categories, the Bronze Age is not only a time but also a set of

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technological, social, and economic practices that had earlier roots and later consequences.

Bronze: New Technology Late Neolithic peoples in central and southern Europe had used copper smelted from ores such as malachite and azurite since the fifth millennium BC. The Iceman who died in the Alps around 3300 BC had a solid copper axehead among his possessions. Pure copper is very soft and difficult to cast, so the only objects that could be made from it were ornaments and simple tools. Around 2500 BC, prehistoric metallurgists discovered that the addition of a small amount of tin, about 10%, to copper made it much stronger and easier to cast. Copper alloyed with tin (sometimes also arsenic or lead) is known as bronze. This discovery was one of the earliest examples of ‘materials science’, in which a new metal with a distinctive chemical composition that does not exist in nature was created by experimentation and observation of the results. The advantage of alloying copper with tin is that the resulting bronze can be made more or less hard depending on the application. A very hard bronze with 10% tin would be used for weapons, while a milder 6% bronze could be used to make sheets that could be shaped into body armor. The range of products that could be made from metal multiplied exponentially, as did the variety of forms, decoration, and sizes of different artifact types. Different regions were able to make their own distinctive forms of weapons and ornaments, and these changed gradually over time in response to stylistic and technological advances. As these artifacts accumulated across Europe during the nineteenth century, the Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius (1843–1921) was able to work out a detailed mapping in time and space of the bronze forms of northern Europe. His relative chronology of the Bronze Age, although superseded by other dating forms such as radiocarbon, is still useful as a general reference framework to modern archaeologists. Although copper deposits are widespread in Europe, the amount of copper ore that is visible on the surface is limited. Copper mining was practiced from Late Neolithic times onward, but during the Bronze Age, mining had to take place on an industrial scale to meet the demand. A number of Bronze Age copper mines have been discovered and the mining techniques studied. One of the largest Bronze Age copper mines is at Great Orme in northern Wales, where shafts and galleries were dug deep into the orebearing rocks. Fires were lit at the mining face, and then cold water was dashed on the hot rock to cause it

to crack. The cracked rock was then pried loose with levers or smashed with stone hammers and brought to the surface. Other important Bronze Age copper mines are found in the Austrian Alps and in southwestern Ireland (Figure 1). The problem is that tin does not usually occur in the same general locality as the copper, and in fact is usually found some distance away. During the Bronze Age, tin deposits were located in Cornwall, Brittany, Spain, and Anatolia, but these are very localized. Prospecting missions must have been undertaken by Bronze Age metallurgists to find tin sources, and once these were located, trade connections must have been established to bring the copper and tin together to smiths in other parts of Europe. In the Carpathian Basin, there are abundant copper deposits in the surrounding mountains, but no tin, yet a tremendous number of bronze artifacts are found there. Even more remarkable is the fact that Denmark lacks local deposits of both copper and tin, but there are robably more Bronze Age metal finds per unit of area in Denmark than in any other European country. Along with the development of metallurgy came advances in metal working, particularly in the development of moulds. The earliest moulds were carved into soft stones, but these quickly advanced to twopiece moulds made from stone or clay that permitted the manufacture of three-dimensional objects. Channels in the moulds provided inlets to pour in the molten bronze and vents for some of it to escape, thus preventing the occurrence of air bubbles in the finished product. The excess was melted down and reused. Clay and wax cores enabled the casting of hollow or socketed objects. Stone moulds could be reused many times to produce dozens of identical artifacts, thus permitting the mass production of standardized objects, while multiple clay moulds could be formed around a prototype object to make identical copies. Weapons were a high priority for Bronze Age metalsmiths. These include daggers, swords, spearpoints, and a wide variety of axeheads. Bronze axe forms underwent a considerable development over time. The earliest were flat forms that continued the copper shapes used during the Late Neolithic. These progressed to a form known as a palstave, in which a ridge in the center of the axe halfway between the butt and the blade improved the attachment of the axehead to the haft, or the handle. The palstave, in turn, was superseded by socketed axes in which the haft fits into a socket moulded into the base of the axehead. Alongside these forms, another common bronze weapon was the halberd, a pointed weapon like a dagger attached perpendicular to a

1218 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age Borum Eshøj Egtved Højgard Holme-next-the-Sea (Seahenge) North Ferriby

Egenhøj Tanum

Flag Fen Runnymede Avebury

Ekornavallen

Great Orme

Uggarde rojr

Clonfinlough

Kivik Trundholm Elp Windy Dido Telgte Itford

Stonehenge, Amesbury, Bush Barrow Gwithian Shaugh Moor/Grimspound Fort Harrouard Marmesse Auvernier Monte Bego

Lugnaro

Leubingen Dover Black Patch Haguenau Forest Zurich-Mozartstrasse Mauritius Spring Val Camonica

Figure 1 Location of principal sites mentioned in the text.

shaft. Utilitarian objects like sickles and razors were also made by bronze metalsmiths. Ornaments and other decorative and ritual objects were also made from bronze. Bronze bracelets, neckrings, and decorative pins were popular forms. Some of the most unusual Bronze Age artifacts are the pairs of wind instruments, known as lurer in Denmark but also found in Ireland, in which long bronze tubes consisting of several moulded pieces fitted together which produce a low sound when blown from one end. Another remarkable object is the so-called ‘sun chariot’ from Trundholm in Denmark, in which a moulded bronze horse on a platform with six wheels is pulling a large bronze disk that had been plated with gold leaf. The lurer and the sun chariot are on display at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Although many of these bronze objects have been found in graves, and some in settlements, a large number are known from deposits called ‘hoards’ in which collections of bronze objects were deliberately buried, for reasons that are difficult to fathom. Earlier generations of archaeologists thought that hoards were the caches of itinerant metalsmiths, who buried their

wares either for safekeeping or to avoid having to carry them over long distances, and then never returned to dig them up. This seems very improbable, and it seems more likely that hoards were the result of some ritual activity, perhaps votive offerings to deities. Bronze was not the only desirable metal in use during the Bronze Age. Gold was also greatly in demand, and in some parts of Europe such as the British Isles, Bronze Age goldwork is stunningly beautiful. Gold was probably acquired by picking it out from placer deposits in streams. Once accumulated, it was hammered and shaped cold rather than cast. Beaten gold sheets were formed into crescent-shaped necklaces called lunulae, bracelets, and cups like the one found at Rillaton in England, now on display in the British Museum. Later, massive neckrings with elaborate twists and clasps, some weighing over 2 kg, were manufactured, especially in Ireland where they can be seen in the National Museum in Dublin.

Continuity from Late Neolithic Despite the changes caused by new metal technology, the everyday life of most people in northern and

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western Europe during the Bronze Age was very similar to that of Late Neolithic times (see Europe: Neolithic). Small-scale societies flourished in every location that had fertile soil and ample pastures. The principal difference was the increased interconnectedness among these societies due to trade, watercraft, and vehicles. Architecture, Settlement, Economy

The mature agropastoral economy that emerged during the Late Neolithic throughout Europe continued into the Bronze Age. Rural farmsteads dotted the landscape. In some areas, they were clustered into villages, but for the most part they were dispersed. The pristine forested landscape encountered by the Neolithic farmers had long been transformed into fields and pastures, although woodlands still remained in abundance (see Europe: Neolithic). Evidence from some areas indicates the large-scale organization of the landscape with field boundaries. Across Dartmoor in southwestern England, low walls of stone enclosed large rectangular fields over many square kilometers. The basis for such partitioning of the landscape is unclear, but for some reason it ceased abruptly around 1200 BC. Bronze Age landscape organization is also known from other parts of the British Isles. At Windy Dido near Quarley in Hampshire, fields were organized into blocks that shared long parallel boundaries, ditches dug into the Wessex chalklands that ran for several kilometers in some cases. Bronze Age houses and settlements in northern and western Europe take a variety of forms, although the main settlement type is a small farmstead with one or more houses, presumably the residence of one or several families. The farmsteads were dispersed across the landscape, separated by fields, pastures, and woodland. Larger agglomerations of population are relatively rare, generally associated with particularly favorable habitats like the lakes of the Alpine Foreland or craft production centers. Some of the best-studied Bronze Age houses in northern Europe are in Denmark. Early Bronze Age settlements saw a continuation of the use of longhouses with a single row of interior posts, known as ‘two-aisled’ longhouses. At Egehj in Jutland, three houses were excavated. Each was 6 m wide and between 18 and 21 m long. The walls were built from posts between which the spaces were filled with a mixture of twigs and mud plaster known as ‘wattle and daub’, while four large posts ran down the center of each house to support the roof. Later in the Bronze Age, the width of the houses was expanded to three aisles through the addition of a second row of interior posts. At Hjga˚rd, three-aisled houses were 8–9 m

wide and 20–22 m long, dimensions that are generally consistent with other such Late Bronze Age houses from northern Europe. There is some evidence for a part of the interior space of these houses being divided into stalls for livestock. In the Netherlands, three-aisled longhouses were also built, often over 20 m long and clearly divided into stables for livestock and living and working space for people. At Elp, there is evidence that the same farmstead site was used again and again over a period of several hundred years, sometimes after having been abandoned for decades. All this rebuilding occurred within a very small area, adjacent to a burial mound, suggesting that people returned repeatedly to a location inhabited by their ancestors. In Switzerland and eastern France, the pattern of lakeside settlement in the Alpine foothills that began in the Neolithic continued into the Bronze Age, and in fact flourished during the second millennium BC. Houses were built either using a log-cabin method, as exemplified by those found at Zu¨rich-Mozartstrasse, or with wattle and daub between posts, as at Auvernier on Lake Neuchaˆtel. Many of the Alpine lakeside Bronze Age settlements were abandoned just before 1000 BC. In Britain and Ireland, round houses were the norm, grouped together into small farmsteads of between two and ten buildings. Each house had approximately 100 m2 of floorspace. At Gwithian in Cornwall, the house walls were built from a double circle of stakes with two large posts defining the entrance. Around 1700–1600 BC, the farmstead at Shaugh Moor in Dartmoor was enclosed by a stone wall, within which several round stone structures were situated around its interior edge. High phosphate levels in one of the structures suggest that animals were kept in it, whereas the largest building was probably the house. Nearby, the Grimspound settlement also has round stone houses surrounded by a stone enclosure. Two well-studied settlements that date to the end of the second millennium BC are Blackpatch and Itford Hill in Sussex. At these sites, small clusters of round huts built from stakes were enclosed by fences to form household compounds. At Clonfinlough, in County Offaly in Ireland, an oval palisade with ash posts enclosed an area about 50 by 40 m in a raised bog. Within this enclosure, four wooden platforms built of oak planks, ash posts, brush, sand, and gravel and connected with wooden trackways provided dry living surfaces above the wet bog. Several of the platforms supported round houses built with posts and wattle and with internal hearths. The platforms ranged from 4 to almost 10 m in diameter. Tree ring dating of timbers ranged between 917 and 886 BC. Interesting finds at Clonfinlough

1220 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age

include two amber beads, possibly originating in the Baltic area, and two wooden paddles. The nearby river Shannon was a major communication route between the interior of Ireland and the west coast. The agricultural economy of Bronze Age northern and western Europe saw a continuation of the mixed farming economy with field crops and livestock that emerged during the Neolithic period. Various types of wheat and barley were the most commonly cultivated plants, but millet and rye became economically important for the first time. The grains were made into bread, porridge, beer, and probably other fermented beverages. Legumes such as broad (also known as ‘Celtic’) beans were an important complement to grains, and they also fix nitrogen in the soil, thus enabling crops to be rotated for sustained yields. Oil plants such as flax and poppyseed were widely used. Cattle, pigs, sheep, and goat were kept in proportions that varied from region to region. Not only were livestock kept for meat and hides, but in the case of sheep, goat, and cattle for their valuable ‘secondary products’ that could be provided by living animals such as milk and wool. Cattle also provided yet another important resource: traction, or pulling power. They could thus draw plows or wagons, both of which had crucial importance for the economy. Plows permitted the cultivation of more land and also of poorer soils, thus expanding the potential areas of settlement. Wagons enabled farmers to move large objects such as animal carcasses, timber, firewood, harvested crops, metals, and other bulky objects back to the farmstead and between settlements. Cattle, sheep, and goat thus became capital investments by a farming household and could be exchanged for other commodities like metals or loaned, thus generating wealth. Eventually, horses entered the Bronze Age economy, facilitating long-distance travel over land. A network of roads emerged, along with wooden trackways made from logs across marshy areas in northern Europe. Horse-drawn wheeled vehicles, such as chariots and wagons, appeared in some areas of northern and western Europe. Wheels were made from planks joined together with cleats or dowels, although spoked wheels are found on Late Bronze Age wagon models and depicted in rock art. Bronze Age Watercraft and Trade

The capacity for maritime mobility that emerged during the Mesolithic and Neolithic of northern and western Europe developed further during the Bronze Age. Transport of people and goods across straits and protected seas such as the English Channel, Baltic Sea,

and the Irish Sea became routine. Indeed, such transportation was necessary to link the copper and tin sources and to distribute the finished bronze products. The inhabitants of the British Isles and Scandinavia were closely linked to the Bronze Age societies of continental Europe. The maritime boatbuilding abilities of Bronze Age peoples are reflected in several watercraft that have been found preserved in waterlogged coastal deposits. A boat discovered in 1992 near Dover was probably about 15 m long (9.5 m was recovered) and 2.4 m wide. It was made from six large oak timbers joined by strips of yew, with all the joints caulked with moss and covered by oak strips, clearly the work of sophisticated shipwrights. It is estimated that the Dover boat was propelled by at least 18 paddlers to ferry people, livestock, and goods across the English Channel. In 1974, just off Dover in Langdon Bay, a large number of bronze axes made in France were found, apparently the load of another cargo boat that sank just off the English coast. Other Bronze Age boats have been found at North Ferriby in Yorkshire, although not as well preserved as the one at Dover. Meanwhile, a timber structure at Runnymede Bridge on the Thames river in England has been interpreted as a Late Bronze Age wharf, indicating that river commerce led to the construction of facilities for loading and unloading boats. The extent of Bronze Age trade is most clearly reflected in the distribution of metal finds in northern and western Europe. Nowhere is this more vivid than in Denmark. An extraordinary number of Bronze Age metal artifacts have been found in Denmark, yet the Danish peninsula and islands lack any natural sources of copper or tin. Some of the finds reached Denmark as finished products, whereas evidence for local metalworking suggests that copper and tin ingots also were transported there. What was provided in exchange for these items? Agricultural products, wool, hides, dried fish, and amber were the likely commodities, although slaves cannot be excluded from the range of possibilities. Long-distance trade and the local economy converged at some of the large fortified sites that emerged late in the Bronze Age. One such site is FortHarrouard in France just west of Paris. An area of about 7 ha on a plateau overlooking the Eure river was surrounded by earthen ramparts and a ditch. Inside the ramparts were houses arranged around an open space. Fort-Harrouard was a regional center for weapon manufacture. Excavations yielded about a hundred moulds, primarily for weapons like spears, swords, arrowheads, and daggers. Hill forts were also constructed throughout the British Isles during the Late

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Bronze Age. The Breiddin hillfort in Wales was fortified with a rampart reinforced with timber boxes, and evidence for bronzeworking was also found at this site.

Death and Burial Death was an important part of life in the Bronze Age of northern and western Europe. Two of the most notable burial rites were the practice of burying individuals under mounds in the early Bronze Age and the widespread change to cremation during the Late Bronze Age. Grave goods were often lavish, and archaeologists debate whether these reflect directly the deceased individual’s status in life or were symbolic and ritual displays by the survivors. The removal of expensive bronze and other exotic materials from the world of the living is a powerful statement of the importance attached to mortuary ritual, as is the investment of time and effort in the construction of tombs and the arrangement of the body and its associated objects (see Burials: Excavation and Recording Techniques). The tradition of burial of single individuals under small mounds (also known as barrows or tumuli) that began during the Late Neolithic continued into the Bronze Age in northern and western Europe. The deceased individual was usually buried in a small central pit along with grave offerings. Often, a circular trench would be dug around the pit to define the burial site, and then a low barrow built over the grave and its surroundings. As time went on, whole mortuary landscapes of barrows accumulated, sometimes dozens or even hundreds, as are found in the Haguenau Forest in eastern France. In Ireland, the tradition of megalithic burial continued for a while with the construction of

Figure 2 Wedge tombs, like this one at Srahwee in County Mayo, continued the tradition of building megalithic burial monuments into the Early Bronze Age (photo ã 2004 by Peter Bogucki).

the small ‘wedge tombs’ (Figure 2). The descendants living among these tombs were continually reminded of their membership in a genealogical lineage and the degree of status and power that this accorded them. In 2002, about 3 miles from Stonehenge at Amesbury, rich burial was found that dated to the very beginning of the Bronze Age in southern England, around 2300 BC. The ‘Amesbury Archer’ was between 35 and 45 years old. He was buried on his side in a flexed position in a large rectangular pit, possibly lined with wood. On his forearm was a slate wristguard that protected the arm from the string of the bow. The grave contained several pottery vessels, flint tools, two copper knives, and two gold earrings. The most interesting aspect of the Amesbury Archer was that chemical analysis of his teeth and bones showed that he originally came from central Europe in the region of the Alps. Some of the most remarkable burials from the early part of the Bronze Age are those of the ‘Wessex culture’ in southern England, which contain many finely crafted artifacts made from gold and imported materials that reflect long-standing and sustained connections to continental Europe. The Bush Barrow, situated about a kilometer from Stonehenge and excavated in the nineteenth century, contained the body of a tall male lying on his back. On his chest was a gold plate, and his right hand held a small bronze dagger. Two larger daggers lay parallel to his right arm, along with an enigmatic gold plate with a hook, while a bronze axe lay by his shoulder. The gold artifacts bear similarities to those found in France, particularly in Brittany. The nature of the probable relationship between this individual and the activities that took place at Stonehenge is unclear. The Wessex burials of southern England reflect a society that had long-distance connections and whose elite members were part of an international community made possible by the trading connections mentioned earlier. Similar elite burials are found in continental Europe from this period. At Leubingen in central Germany, a timber mortuary structure was covered by a mound about 34 m in diameter. Within the structure was the body of an old man and a younger individual, accompanied by bronze weapons and gold ornaments. Timber was employed somewhat differently in a number of Bronze Age mound burials in Denmark. Huge oak trunks were hollowed out into massive coffins whose lids formed an airtight seal. A thin iron pan that formed around the cores of the mounds also contributed to extraordinary preservation of cloth, leather, and hair. At Borum Eshj near Aarhus in Jutland, a mound 38 m across and 9 m high

1222 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age

contained three oak coffins. The first contained a woman in her fifties who wore a woolen tunic and long skirt, along with bronze ornaments and a dagger. She was covered with a heavy wool rug and a cowhide. The second coffin held a man in his fifties or sixties on top of a cowhide. He wore a woolen hat, kilt, and cape. The third coffin had been placed into the mound after the first two and contained a younger man. At Egtved in southern Jutland, an oak coffin lined with cowhide contained a young woman about 18–20 years old, wearing a short-sleeved woolen tunic and a short skirt made from cords rather than cloth. A bronze belt disk, decorated with spirals and a raised spike at its center, lay on her abdomen. The blossom of a yarrow flower, found between the hide and the blanket covering the body, indicated that the burial had taken place during the summer, while a birch-bark container held the residue of a fermented beverage made from honey, fruit, and wheat. Bronze Age barrows in southern Scandinavia were meant to be seen from a distance and are usually at high points in the landscape. In Sweden, their presence was also emphasized by covering them with cairns of stones gathered from the surrounding countryside. A typical Bronze Age cairn is found at Ekornavallen in central Sweden, about 20 m in diameter and 2 m high. It is at the highest point on a ridge sloping toward a nearby river in an area dotted with prehistoric graves built over a period of several millennia. In southeastern Sweden, the Kivik cairn was larger, about 75 m across. Although robbed in 1748 and used as a quarry, it contained two stone cists and several carved slabs that have images that are similar to those on rock carvings and which may depict the funeral ceremony. The largest of the 400 Bronze Age cairns on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea is Uggarde rojr (note lowercase ‘r’), where a central cairn 45 m in diameter and 8 m high was surrounded by a number of smaller cairns. Later in the Bronze Age, around 1700 BC in the British Isles and by 1300 BC in continental Europe and Scandinavia, the principal burial rite shifted dramatically from the burial of whole bodies to the reduction of the body to ashes through cremation. Across much of continental western Europe, the ashes were placed in urns and buried in cemeteries known as ‘urnfields’, which contain dozens or even hundreds of burials. Grave goods were also modest and consisted largely of the bronze ornaments that might have been on the corpse when it was burned, such as pins and earrings, rather than weapons. At Telgte, in northwestern Germany, urn burials were found throughout a 2 ha area, although this was probably only part of the whole cemetery. In many of the graves, the pit containing the urn was

surrounded by a small ditched enclosure. Some of these were circular, others elongated, and still others had a ‘keyhole’ plan in which the round end encircled the burial pit but the enclosure was extended into a rectangular form on one end. Some of the keyhole graves had traces of mortuary houses constructed from wooden posts over the burial. Many of the elongated enclosures have a common orientation, roughly NW–SE. In Scandinavia, the Late Bronze Age cremation burials were sometimes placed within settings of stone that suggest the outline of a ship. At Lugnaro in western Sweden, a mound covered a stone ship that was about 8 m long. The cremated remains of four individuals were found in the mound. In one instance, the urn contained burnt human and sheep bones, a piece of wool cloth that survived the funeral pyre, and three bronze objects: a dagger, tweezers, and an awl. The tradition of arranging stones in the form of a ship around a grave continued for many centuries after the end of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia. The variation in the quantity and quality of grave goods and mortuary architecture has led most archaeologists to conclude that the Bronze Age was characterized by increasing differences in the access by individuals to status, power, and wealth. The amount of physical labor and ceremonial effort that went into some Bronze Age burials and the high value ascribed to the goods buried with the bodies – and thus taken out of use by the living – is consistent with their expectations for such a stratified society. Thus the evidence from burials reflects a society differentiated into elites and commoners, which is not especially apparent from the small and unassuming settlements.

Rock Art The Bronze Age saw the flourishing of a rich tradition of rock art in which exposed surfaces of rock were engraved with depictions of objects, people, and symbols (see Rock Art). The two major provinces of Bronze Age rock art in western and northern Europe are found in Scandinavia and in the southern Alps. Each has its own characteristic repertoire of motifs. There is hardly a rock outcrop with a smooth face in Sweden that escaped being used as the canvas for rock carvings. Most are concentrated along the west coast facing the North Sea, a region called Bohusla¨n, but they are also found in southern and central Sweden and adjacent parts of Norway and Denmark. The Tanum area in Bohusla¨n is the capital of Bronze Age rock carvings in Sweden. Several hundred separate carved outcrops are known in Tanum, and many more are known from adjacent districts. Hundreds more await discovery. When they were carved, the

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Bohusla¨n engravings were along the shoreline, whereas today they are 25–30 m above sea level due to the postglacial rebound of the Swedish peninsula, which continues to rise even today. The most common engraving is a very simple hemispherical pit 5–10 cm in diameter and a few centimeters deep, known as a ‘cup mark’. Cup marks are ubiquitous on Scandinavian rock outcrops. The significance of cup marks is completely unknown, for they do not represent any recognizable object, but the fact that so many of them were made means that they surely held some sort of symbolic meaning. More interesting to archaeologists are the rock carvings that depict objects, animals, and humans, because they are trying to tell us something about the social and spiritual lives of Bronze Age people. Ships are by far the most abundant image, and thousands of carved watercraft with raised prows and sterns and often carrying people have been recorded (Figure 3). Sleighs, trees, and weapons are also common motifs. When people are shown, they are often brandishing spears and swords, playing bronze trumpets, pushing plows, or riding chariots drawn by oxen. Many of the human images are unequivocally male. Animals include deer, bear, fish, birds, and whale. Abstract images are often of suns and spirals. Sometimes the artists traced their feet and hands. Some of the Swedish carvings give the impression of planned compositions, while others seem more haphazard. Scenes of rituals, processions, plowing, and hunting depict at one level familiar elements of Bronze Age life, but we do not know the extent to which these carvings themselves were locations or backdrops for social activity or whether the capturing

of these images had a deeper significance for the relationship between the world of the living and the world of myths and deities. The other major province of Bronze Age rock art is found in the southwestern Alps of northern Italy and southeastern France. It is exemplified by two classic sites, Val Camonica in Lombardy, Italy, and Mount Bego in the French Alps-Maritimes. At both these sites, the tradition of carving on rock faces began during the Neolithic and continued into the Iron Age, but the Bronze Age carvings are classics of their genre. At Mount Bego, some 100 000 individual images were carved into the schist and sandstone outcrops by hammering with a pointed metal or stone tool. The most common images are a schematic depiction of horned oxen, sometimes in pairs or fours pulling a plough. Bronze weapons and tools account for about 15% of the images. Matching them to dated finds of actual tools and weapons from archaeological deposits has proven to be a reliable way of dating the Mount Bego carvings. Enigmatic geometrical figures may be depictions of animal pens and fields. Human figures are rare, but they are often complex. One famous example has a circular head and zigzag arms, while others seem to be dancing or praying. The human figures also seem to be placed at special locations such as where travelers would have to pass. Val Camonica has yielded over 200 000 carvings, and neighboring valleys contain still more. Traces of color suggest that many of the engravings were once highlighted with color. Some of the carvings appear to depict houses and workshops with pitched roofs, while others may be pictorial maps of fields and dwellings. People are engaged in activities like hunting, weaving, plowing, and metalworking. Weapons and tools are common motifs at Val Camonica as at Mount Bego, clearly reflecting the functional and symbolic importance of these objects for Bronze Age society.

Monuments

Figure 3 Rock carvings, like this one from Scania in southern Sweden, cover boulders throughout Scandinavia and depict important aspects of Bronze Age life in northern Europe, such as seafaring using long boats with multiple rowers. Note the cup marks directly below the ship (photo ã 2000 by Peter Bogucki).

In addition to their mortuary monuments, the Bronze Age inhabitants of western Europe continued the tradition of marking the landscape with settings of upright stones. As with the burial chambers constructed during the Neolithic, these monuments are part of the megalithic tradition of using large stones as architectural elements. Yet they also continue an earlier tradition of building similar monuments in timber. Collectively, these round monuments are known as ‘henges’, the most celebrated of which is Stonehenge.

1224 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age Stonehenge

It is impossible to describe the Bronze Age without mentioning Stonehenge, although the monument that is visible today was the product of many centuries of construction and renovation and is only an elaborate example of the circular stone monuments found throughout the British Isles. Stonehenge is located in southern England not far from Salisbury in Wiltshire. After its relatively simple Late Neolithic origins around 2700 BC, Stonehenge developed into a complex arrangement of concentric circles and semicircles of enormous upright stones by the beginning of the Bronze Age around 2000 BC. It continued to be in use for several centuries after that and remained visible on the landscape in the form we see it today, known as phase 3. Although some have hypothesized that it served as an astronomical observatory, a more likely explanation is that Stonehenge was the regional focal point for the rituals and ceremonies that were integral parts of Bronze Age life. An intriguing aspect of Stonehenge is the source of the stones used for its construction. The distinctive ‘trilithons’, the immense upright stones with equally immense lintels placed across them, are blocks of sarsen stone, a very hard sandstone found near Avebury, about 30 km to the north. Sarsen stone was also used for the surrounding circle of upright stones with lintels that give Stonehenge its circular form. Even transporting these blocks 30 km was a tremendous engineering feat, for they weigh up to 60 tons, but it pales in comparison with the effort needed to move the smaller bluestones that also form a horseshoe setting within the sarsen circle. These volcanic rocks, each weighing several tons, were brought from the Preseli Mountains of Wales, about 200 km away. Archaeologists have estimated that the final building phase of Stonehenge required nearly 2 million hours of labor, the equivalent of a thousand people working for a year. Most people do not realize that Stonehenge lies amid an immense Late Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial landscape with hundreds of prehistoric sites from the third and second milleniums BC. Most of these are barrows, while others were smaller ritual features that mimic or presage Stonehenge, only built from wood long since decayed. Many of the barrows are sited along ridges to the north, south, and east of Stonehenge. Stonehenge itself is approached by an ‘avenue’ formed by two parallel ditches cut into the chalk and banks about 12 m apart that stretch in a curve down to the River Avon. During earlier phases of Stonehenge construction, other ditched features, known as the Cursus and Lesser Cursus were situated north of the site. Whatever its

Figure 4 Stonehenge, in southern England, is perhaps the most famous Bronze Age ceremonial monument that has survived to the present. The sarsen trilithons with their upright orthostats and horizontal lintels can be seen in this picture (photo ã 1984 by Peter Bogucki).

function, Stonehenge did not exist in isolation but rather was one prominent element in a landscape devoted to ceremony and burial (Figure 4). Seahenge

At Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, England, an oval arrangement of 55 oak posts found in the intertidal zone in 1998 appears to have been an early Bronze Age ritual structure, popularly named ‘Seahenge’ soon after its discovery. The arrangement of posts was 6.8 m across at its maximum diameter. In the center of the ring was an upturned stump of a large oak tree. All of the timber posts were shown by tree ring dating to have been cut in a single year, 2049 BC – in fact, during the spring or early summer – while the central inverted stump was cut or died the previous year. Comparison of the marks left by bronze axes showed that between 50 and 60 different tools were used. As is the case with Stonehenge, the function of Seahenge is shrouded in mystery. The many different toolmarks suggest that it was a community project. The location at the edge of the sea is probably significant, and the inversion of the stump clearly held a complex symbolic meaning, but we can only speculate on what it might be. Flag Fen

Much later than Seahenge, toward the end of the Bronze Age around 1350 BC, an immense timber barrier and platform was built at Flag Fen near Peterborough, England. Immense numbers of trees were felled and brought to the site. Many, perhaps up to 80 000, were used to build a long wooden alignment of pilings through the swamp, extending over a kilometer, by driving them into the bottom

EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Bronze Age 1225

mud. Closer to the shore, timbers were laid horizontally on the wet ground to make a trackway. The structure was maintained for several centuries, until about 950 BC. At the deepest part of the swamp, an immense platform about a hectare in area was built with more piles across which timbers were placed. There is no evidence that it was used for dwelling, for it was probably simply too wet a spot. From the platform, wooden, ceramic, and metal objects were cast into the swamp as offerings, many after having been deliberately broken. Human and animal bones were also found. In 1994, the earliest prehistoric wheel known in England, made from three alder planks, was found at Flag Fen. Flag Fen is a conspicuous example of the role of bodies of water in prehistoric rituals in northern and western Europe that began during the Neolithic and reached its zenith during the Iron Age in the first millennium BC. Springs, ponds, and bogs all seem to have held some sacred significance, judging from the quantities of bronze, wooden, and ceramic objects that were cast into them. At the Mauritius Spring at St. Moritz, Switzerland, renovations in 1907 led to the discovery of two complete bronze swords and a part of a third, a broken dagger, and a fibula that dated to the period between 1400 and 1250 BC. The swords are types that are found primarily in southern Germany and Bohemia, indicating that they were brought some distance to the site. These artifacts lay at the bottom of a wooden well chamber that had been determined by tree ring dating to have been built in 1466 BC to capture the effervescent water of the spring.

Bronze Age Society Society did not undergo a radical transformation at the onset of the Bronze Age. Many of the social, economic, and symbolic developments that mark this period have their roots in the Late Neolithic. Similarly, many of the characteristics of the Bronze Age persist far longer than its arbitrary end in the first millennium BC with the development of ironworking. The Bronze Age in Europe is of tremendous importance, however, as a period of important changes that continued to shape the European past into the recognizable precursor of the societies that we eventually meet in historical records. Stuart Piggott (1910–96), in his 1965 book Ancient Europe, called it ‘‘a phase full of interest’’ in which the Neolithic ‘‘curious amalgam of traditions and techniques’’ was transformed into the world ‘‘we encounter at the dawn of European history.’’ If we accept the view that the Bronze Age mortuary and ceremonial sites of northern and western Europe

reflect societies whose members differed in their access to status, power, and wealth, the question then becomes what form these differentiated societies took. Some archaeologists have hypothesized that they were organized into ‘chiefdoms’, a form of social organization known from many prehistoric societies around the world. In chiefdoms, positions of status and leadership are passed from one generation to the next rather than earned by accomplishment. This elite population depends on the control of the production of farmers, herders, and craft specialists, whose products they accumulate, display, and distribute to maintain their social pre-eminence. As an alternative to such a straightforward hierarchical social structure, other archaeologists have advanced the notion that Bronze Age society had more complicated and fluid patterns of differences in authority and status, depending on the situation and the relationships among individuals and groups, a condition known as ‘heterarchy’. Whatever position one accepts, it is clear that the Bronze Age social organization became progressively more complex between 2500 and 800 BC. Along with the evidence for social differentiation comes increased evidence for warfare. Defended sites such as hill forts, skeletons with traces of violent injuries, and especially the innumerable finds of weapons reflect societies in which conflict was endemic. The ongoing race to improve the effectiveness of weapons, culminating in well-crafted swords (many of which are found with damaged edges, showing that they were used and not just for display), shows that Bronze Age armorers were always thinking of better ways to injure people. Helmets and shields afforded some protection, but body armor made from thin bronze sheet, such as the Marmesse cuirass from France, would have been ineffective against weapons and was probably worn as a symbol of status. Boats probably provided transport for raiding parties, as well as for goods and travelers. The paradox of the Bronze Age of northern and western Europe is that the social differentiation seen in graves is not reflected in the farmsteads and small hamlets in which people lived. Aside from hill forts, which appear to have been defended refugia rather than locations of working settlements, there is little evidence for sites in northern and western Europe having served as the ‘seats’ of chiefs. Unlike the Mycenaean palaces of the Aegean or the elaborate stone-walled citadels of southern Spain and Portugal, the dispersed and relatively uniform Bronze Age settlements of northern and western Europe do not match the variation or richness seen in the burials.

1226 EUROPE, NORTHERN AND WESTERN/Early Neolithic Cultures

Life in northern and western Europe was very different at the beginning of the first millennium BC from how it was at the end of the Neolithic. While the Bronze Age in this area did not see the emergence of urban states as it did in the Aegean and in the Near East, the changes in society were nonetheless significant and long-lasting. During the Bronze Age, local chiefs came to control trade networks for the acquisition of resources and to oversee their conversion into symbols of power and wealth. The status of these chiefs was embedded in hereditary claims to authority and in alliances with their peers. Although there is virtually no evidence that any one of these polities was yet able to dominate others or to control territory beyond its local sphere, herein lie the foundations of the European societies that we know from later prehistory and early historical accounts. See also: Asia, West: Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Burials: Excavation and Recording Techniques; Europe: Neolithic; Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures; Iron Age; Rock Art; Ships and Seafaring; Weapons and Warfare.

Further Reading Bogucki PI and Crabtree PJ (eds.) (2004) Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.–A.D. 1000: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Childe VG (1930) The Bronze Age. New York: The Macmillan Company. Clarke DV, Cowie TG, Foxon A, Barrett JC and National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (1985) Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge. Edinburgh: National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Cunliffe BW (ed.) (1994) The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kristiansen K (1998) Europe before History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kristiansen K and Larsson TB (2006) The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions and Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milisauskas S (ed.) (2002) European Prehistory: A Survey. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Mohen J-P and Elue´re C (2000) The Bronze Age in Europe. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Osgood R, Monks S, and Toms J (2000) Bronze Age Warfare. Stroud: Sutton. Parker Pearson M (1993) The English Heritage Book of Bronze Age Britain. London: B.T. Batsford. Piggott S (1965) Ancient Europe; from the Beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity: A Survey. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pitts MW (2000) Hengeworld. London: Century. Renfrew C (1973) Before Civilization; the Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe. London: Cape. Waddell J (1998) The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway: Galway University Press.

Early Neolithic Cultures Michael Ilett, Universite´ Paris 1/CNRS, Nanterre, France ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary adze A tool with a polished stone blade used for cutting and shaping wood, similar to an axe. The wooden haft is not preserved in most archaeological contexts. Unlike an axe, the cutting edge of an adze blade is at right angles to the haft. caprine Sheep and/or goat. As the skeletons are very similar, it is often impossible to distinguish between sheep and goat bones from archaeological sites. comb decoration Impressed decoration made by pressing a tool with a short, serrated edge into the soft clay surface. daub A building material for walls made by mixing soil, water, and chopped straw or other plant fibers. Daub is plastered onto a wooden framework and survives in archaeological contexts when it has been hardened by fire. dendrochronology A dating technique based on the comparison of annual growth rings from trees. A complete dendrochronological calendar has been established for oak in Europe, including the whole Neolithic period. Oak from archaeological contexts with a sufficient quantity of growth rings preserved can thus be dated very precisely. fine-ware pottery Thin-walled vessels, often in the smaller size range, with well-finished surfaces. flexed burial The body is placed in the grave on its side, with the legs slightly bent at the hips and knees. impressed techniques Decoration of pottery before firing by pressing a fingertip, natural objects such as shells, or specially made tools in wood or bone, into the soft clay surface, leaving a negative. incised decoration Decoration of pottery before firing by drawing a sharp instrument across the soft clay surface to create shallow lines.

The Early Neolithic is defined here as the initial period of the spread of farming into western Europe between 6000 and 5000 cal BC. Archaeological data currently available from most regions suggest that this process involved the westward migration of farming communities, rather than the adoption of agriculture by indigenous hunter-gatherers. Steady demographic growth was the most likely cause of population movement. Originating from southeast Europe, farmers moved west along two principal routes, the Mediterranean coast and the Danube valley, each producing characteristic archaeological remains and cultural sequences. Thus a distinction can be drawn between the Mediterranean Early Neolithic of Italy, southern France and Spain, and the Early Neolithic of western Germany, Benelux, and northern France, closely linked to central Europe. Contrasts in the scale of fieldwork should also be underlined. In many Mediterranean regions, excavation has often been limited to caves rather than

Early Neolithic Cultures 1227

open-air sites, whereas the more northerly regions have a much longer history of large-scale settlement excavation.

Italy, Southern France, and Spain The Neolithic sequence in the central and west Mediterranean begins with the Impressed Ware culture, which appears in southeastern Italy shortly after 6000 cal BC and remains largely confined to this region, although there are a few outliers in northwest Italy and southern France. Pottery is characteristically decorated with a variety of impressed techniques, and some red-painted motifs occur in the later stages (see Pottery Analysis: Stylistic). As throughout the Early Neolithic sequence, lithic industries include flint blades, polished stone axes, and grinding equipment in abrasive rock. Flint was mined through long galleries dug into the hillside at Defensola, on the Adriatic coast. Obsidian from the island of Lipari was an additional raw material for blade production. Bone tools are also present. Italian Impressed Ware settlement sites range up to 3 ha in size, but none have been extensively excavated. Post-holes, foundation trenches, and daub fragments provide evidence for houses, although there are few distinct ground plans. Other features are pits containing burnt stones, and occasional burials. Some sites are enclosed by ditches. The faunal remains are almost entirely of domestic animals, with a majority of caprines. Analyses of charred plant remains show that both emmer and einkorn wheat were grown, as well as naked wheat and barley. Lentil and pea were also cultivated. The period 5600–5000 cal BC sees major expansion of farming communities in the west Mediterranean, with a new series of cultures emerging from Late Impressed Ware. These include Stentinello in southwest Italy, Catignano in east-central Italy, and the Cardial complex which extends from west-central Italy through southern France to the Iberian Peninsula. Stentinello pottery has a combination of impressed and incised decoration arranged in broad horizontal and vertical bands. Survey in the Calabria region has documented a dense pattern of settlement with an average distance of 1 km between sites. The Catignano culture is characterized by its fine-ware pottery with red-painted motifs on both external and internal vessel surfaces. Excavation of the type-site has provided good evidence for settlement organization. The area investigated, under 10% of the 3 ha site, contains the ground plans of five buildings with deep foundation trenches and post-holes. All are orientated north– south. The plans are either rectangular or trapezoidal, with slightly rounded north ends (Figure 1). Length

ranges from 12 to 16 m and width from 7 to 9 m. Close by lies a cluster of deep, irregularly shaped pits with refuse layers producing large quantities of finds. There are also smaller cylindrical pits and shallow rectangular features filled with burnt stones. The widespread Cardial culture, with its distinctive shell-impressed pottery decoration (Figure 2), can be broken down into a number of chronological and

Figure 1 House plans and associated features from the Neolithic settlement of Catignano, Italy. Adapted with permission from Tozzi C and Zamagni B (eds.) (2003) Gli scavi nel villaggio neolitico di Catignano (1971–1980). Florence: Instituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protohistoria.

Figure 2 Pottery decorated with shell impressions, Cardial culture, Courthe´zon, southern France. Photo: M. Olive/MCC.

1228 Early Neolithic Cultures

regional groups. From an early stage, the islands of Sardinia and Corsica were settled, and by 5000 cal BC farming communities had spread along the coastlines as far west as southern Portugal. Expansion also took place inland, notably following the Rhoˆne and Ebro valleys. There are both open settlements and cave sites, the latter being used mainly for caprine herding or as hunting camps, according to data from southern France. On current evidence, the settlements are relatively small, covering at the most 1ha. In the Rhoˆne valley, sites like Courthe´zon and Lamottedu-Rhoˆne contain shallow features filled with burnt stones, as well as post-hole alignments and deeper pits. Of particular interest is the quite recent discovery of two lakeside settlements, La Marmotta in westcentral Italy and La Draga in northeastern Spain. On both sites, waterlogged conditions have preserved large quantities of upright wooden posts from buildings, as well as other organic remains. A complete 11m dugout canoe was found on the Italian site. At La Draga, dendrochronological analysis of oak posts indicates the presence of rectangular houses. The small areas excavated here have produced the highest numbers of cereal remains and animal bones in the west Mediterranean Early Neolithic. The most comon cereal is free-threshing wheat, followed by hulled and naked barley. Faba bean and pea are present in much smaller quantities. Over 90% of bones are from domestic animals, with caprines slightly outnumbering cattle and pig.

Figure 3 Pottery decorated with comb impressions, Late LBK culture, Maizy-sur-Aisne, northern France. Photo: UMR 7041, CNRS.

Western Germany, Benelux, and Northern France The first farming populations here belong to the central European Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture, dating to 5500–5000 cal BC. Due to large-scale excavations of settlements and cemeteries, data are abundant. LBK chronology is based on changes in pottery decoration techniques. Typical motifs are incised curvilinear bands. The earliest LBK sites are only found in regions of Germany east of the Rhine. The next stage takes the LBK across the Rhine and further west into parts of Benelux and northeastern France. The valleys of the Seine basin, which form the last western frontier of LBK expansion, were mostly settled in the latest stage, when comb-impressed decoration had become common (Figure 3). Lithic industries include tools made from flint blades, as well as polished stone adzes and abrasive grinding equipment. Both flint and stone raw materials circulated over considerable distances, as finished or semi-finished products. Sea-shell ornaments provide further evidence for exchange networks. There is also a range of bone artifacts.

Figure 4 House plans and associated features from the Neolithic (LBK) settlement of Langweiler 8, Germany. Adapted with permission from Boelicke U, von Brandt D, Lu¨ning J, Stehli P, and Zimmermann A (1988) Der bandkeramische Siedlungsplatz Langweiler 8. Bonn: Habelt.

Settlement patterns are well documented and thus offer possibilities for reconstructing land use and population density. In most regions, LBK sites are located on fertile loess soils in the major river basins and at a more local scale form clusters consisting of up to 12 sites. The largest, longest-lived sites can cover up to 10 ha and are sometimes associated with ditched enclosures. Characteristic features are post-holes and foundation trenches of rectangular buildings 5–7 m wide and 10–45 m long (Figures 4 and 5). Oriented

Early Neolithic Cultures 1229

Figure 5 LBK house under excavation at Cuiry-le`s-Chaudardes, northern France. Photo: UMR 7041, CNRS.

Figure 6 LBK burial, Berry-au-Bac, northern France. Grave goods include pottery and stone bracelets. Photo: UMR 7041, CNRS.

northwest/southeast, houses are flanked on either side by long pits. Originally dug to provide material for daub, these pits were ultimately used for discarding refuse. Extensive rescue excavations in advance of open-cast mining near Cologne in Germany have shown that large sites such as Langweiler 8 can contain up to 100 ground plans. Detailed phasing of this long-lived site shows that the actual size of the settlement fluctuated between 3 and 17 houses. A similar site at Ku¨ckhoven, in the same region, has produced a 15-m-deep well, with an elaborately constructed oak plank lining and other organic finds preserved below the water table. Cemeteries occur a short distance from the settlements (Figure 6). One of the largest excavated so far

is Aiterhofen, in southern Germany, containing over 200 inhumation and cremation burials. The former are single flexed burials in shallow pits. Men are often buried with flint arrowheads and stone adzes. LBK settlement excavations in western Germany and Benelux have provided abundant charred plant remains, although animal bones are often poorly preserved in loess soils. The most recent studies indicate that five species of plant were cultivated: emmer and especially einkorn wheat, as well as pea, lentil, and flax. Associated weed species are an additional source of information on agricultural practices. The most complete data on animal bones come from the late LBK settlement of Cuiry-le`s-Chaudardes in northern France. Here domestic species make up 80% of the

1230 Iron Age

remains, with cattle clearly outnumbering caprines and pig, as is generally the case in other LBK regions. The highest frequencies of wild animal bones are associated with the smallest houses on this site. On the shifting western frontier of LBK expansion, shared flint arrowhead types are possible signs of interaction between farmers and hunter-gatherer groups. It has been suggested too that the exotic La Hoguette and Limburg pottery styles mainly found on LBK sites in these frontier regions were made by hunter-gatherers, but there are very few data to support this idea. In short, the Early Neolithic cultures of western Europe reflect the gradual migration of small farming communities into new areas over a period of several centuries. Knowledge of the LBK is particulary detailed and offers the clearest picture of settlement growth and territorial expansion. Movement into northern Europe was probably hindered by environmental conditions that were less favorable for LBK agriculture. It should also be stressed that there is still no firm evidence in western Europe for huntergatherer populations actually adopting agriculture at this time. Nor is there evidence for the widespread diffusion of pottery making among these populations, in contrast to the situation on the northeastern margins of Europe at an equivalent period. Nevertheless, the degree of contact and admixture between Early Neolithic farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherers inwestern Europe still remains a subject of considerable debate. Progress on this question will depend largely on more intensive fieldwork in regions where hunter-gatherer sites occur close to Neolithic farming settlements. New insights can also be expected the further development of biomolecular archaeology, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from burials. See also: Animal Domestication; DNA: Ancient; Europe:

Neolithic; Europe, Central and Eastern; Plant Domestication; Pottery Analysis: Stylistic.

Further Reading Ammerman AJ and Biagi P (eds.) (2003) The Widening Harvest: The Neolithic Transition in Europe. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America. Arias P (1999) The origins of the Neolithic along the Atlantic coast of continental Europe: A survey. Journal of World Prehistory 13: 403–464. Binder D and Se´ne´part I (2004) Derniers chasseurs et premiers paysans de Vaucluse. In: Buisson-Catil J, Guilcher A, Hussy C, Olive M, and Pagni M (eds) Vaucluse Pre´historique, pp. 131– 162. Le Pontet: Barthe´lemy. Boelicke U, Von Brandt D, Lu¨ning J, Stehli P, and Zimmermann A (1988) Der bandkeramische Siedlungsplatz Langweiler 8. Bonn: Habelt.

Bogaard A (2004) Neolithic Farming in Central Europe. London: Routledge. Bosch A, Chinchilla J, and Tarrus J (eds.) (2000) El poblat lacustre neolitic de La Draga: Excavacions de 1990 a 1998. Girona: Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya. Guilaine J and Cremonesi G (eds.) (2003) Torre Sabea: Un e´tablissement du ne´olithique ancien en Salento. Rome: Ecole franc¸aise de Rome. Lu¨ning J (1988) Fru¨he Bauern in Mitteleuropa im 6. und 5. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Jahrbuch des Ro¨misch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 35: 27–93. Price TD (ed.) (2000) Europe’s First Farmers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tozzi C and Zamagni B (eds.) (2003) Gli scavi nel villaggio neolitico di Catignano (1971–1980). Florence: Instituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protohistoria. Vaquer J (ed.) (1999) Le ne´olithique du nord-Ouest Me´diterrane´en. Paris: Socie´te´ Pre´historique Franc¸aise.

Iron Age Peter S Wells, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Celtic art Celtic art is art associated with various peoples known as Celts speaking the Celtic languages in Europe from prehistory through to the medieval period and beyond, as well as art of ancient peoples whose language is unknown, but where cultural and stylistic similarities lead to believe they are related to Celts. La Te`ne culture The part of the Iron Age in central and northwestern Europe, from c. 450 BC to c. 58 BC. This period of culture received its name of ‘La Te`ne’ from an archaeological site in Switzerland, where an amazing discovery was made of iron weapons, implements, and jewelry, most of them decorated with a particular style of artwork. oppidum Latin name used by Julius Caesar to designate the Late Iron Age centers he encoutered in Gaul during his military campaigns (58–51 BC), and now used by European archaeologists to designate all of the large walled settlements dating to the final two centuries BC in temperate Europe. bog bodies Bog bodies, also known as bog people, are preserved human bodies found in sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of preservation.

Introduction: The Concept and General Patterns The Iron Age – Concept and Chronology

‘Iron Age’ is a modern concept that archaeologists created in the nineteenth century as a means for organizing their study of prehistoric materials. They

Iron Age 1231

define the Iron Age in Europe as the period between the time that communities first began to adopt iron as their principal material for making tools and the Roman conquests of the last century BC and the first century AD. Peoples in different regions adopted iron metallurgy at different times. In central parts of the continent, such as eastern France, southern Germany, and the Czech Republic, a generally accepted date for the beginning of the Iron Age is 800 BC. In Britain and Scandinavia, it is around 600 BC. In common practice, the Roman Period begins (and the Iron Age ends) in France and neighboring countries west of the Rhine in the 50s BC, when Julius Caesar led his Roman legions in the conquest of Gaul. In Germany south of the Danube, the Roman conquest happened in 15 BC. The conquest of Britain took place in the years following the invasion in AD 43. For regions east and north of the Roman frontiers on the Rhine and Danube, investigators use ‘Roman Iron Age’ to designate the period until about AD 400 (see Figure 1 for key sites). Everyday Life: Subsistence, Settlement, and Provisioning

By the start of the Iron Age, virtually all peoples of northern and western Europe belonged to communities that practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Only in some regions of northern Scandinavia and northern Britain did hunting and gathering still play a major role in the diet. Wheat and barley were the staple cereals in most regions, with rye and oats important in some places. Lentils, peas, and beans were significant garden crops. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were the main domestic animals, with great variation regionally in which animals were most important. Excavation results show that many agricultural communities supplemented their diets with local wild resources, such as fish, deer, and boar, and a wide variety of fruits, berries, and nuts. Throughout the Iron Age, the great majority of people lived in small communities, with fewer than 100 inhabitants. In most regions, houses were built of timber, usually with posts sunk into the ground along the perimeter and wattle-and-daub walls constructed between them. Only in some regions did larger communities develop, with populations in the hundreds. In the final two centuries BC, town-like settlements emerged in central regions of the continent and in southeastern Britain. During this time the development of new implements made food production more efficient. These include iron plowshares and coulters for preparing fields for planting, scythes for harvesting hay to feed livestock during the winter, and rotary querns for grinding grain.

Communities manufactured a variety of goods that they needed or desired. Pottery was made of local clays and served a range of domestic purposes. Iron was smelted from surface ores, which were abundant in many regions, and it was used to make a variety of tools, weapons, and ornaments. Bronze remained the principal material for jewelry, such as bracelets, necklaces, and clothing pins (see Metals: Primary Production Studies of). Wood, bone, antler, textiles, stone, leather, and other materials were also processed into needed objects. Most communities were in more or less regular contact with other communities, both regionally and inter-regionally. The clearest evidence for interaction is in traded objects. Most communities had regular access to bronze for making ornaments, yet neither copper nor tin (of which bronze is an alloy) occur in most parts of northern and western Europe. Every bronze object is the product of a complex process of mining, smelting, transporting, alloying, and crafting. Other materials that were regularly traded between communities include amber, fine ceramics, glass (beads and bracelets), and grindstones. Major Changes During the Iron Age

Several major interrelated changes took place during the Iron Age in much of northern and western Europe. These happened at different times and in different ways in the various regions. Population increased. In most regions more settlements and cemeteries are known than from earlier periods, and their sizes suggest larger communities. In some areas, centers of population and more complex economic and political functions developed during the Iron Age. Interactions between communities intensified, and they included significant links over great distances, such as across the Alps to the Mediterranean world. Manufacturing increased in scale, especially during the final two centuries BC. Marked differentiation in burials points to the emergence of more powerful individuals and groups in some regions who gained control over the political and economic systems. Warfare is a major theme of Iron Age Europe. Weapons are common in burials in some times and places, and hilltop settlements defended by major banks and ditches are prominent features of many landscapes (see Social Inequality, Development of; Weapons and Warfare). In ritual activity, we can observe a shift from practice on the scale of individual households and small communities, to much larger intercommunity behavior, including the construction of large sites in the landscape at which substantial quantities of valuable objects were deposited in the course of rituals. Significant changes in world view, including ideas about identity on individual,

1232 Iron Age

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33.

Figure 1 Map showing key sites. 1. Alesia; 2. Aylesford; 3. Berching-Pollanten; 4. Bibracte; 5. Biskupin; 6. Bragny-sur-Saoˆne; 7. Bra˚; 8. Colchester; 9. Danebury; 10. Deal; 11. Do¨ttenbichl; 12. Empel; 13. Feddersen Wierde; 14. Fellbach-Schmiden; 15. Flo¨geln; 16. Glauberg; 17. Gournay-sur-Aronde; 18. Grafenbu¨hl; 19. Grauballe; 20. Grossromstedt; 21. Gundestrup; 22. Gussage All Saints; 23. Hannogne; 24. Harsefeld; 25. Hayling Island; 26. Hedega˚rd; 27. Heuneburg; 28. Hjortspring; 29. Hochdorf; 30. Hodde; 31. Hohenasperg; 32. Iwanowice; 33. Jakuszowice; 34. Kalkriese; 35. Kelheim; 36. Kessel; 37. Knockaulin; 38. Lindow; 39. Llyn Cerrig Bach; 40. Maiden Castle; 41. Manching; 42. Mont Lassois; 43. Navan Fort; 44. Neuwied; 45. Putensen; 46. Ribemont; 47. Ro¨ekillorna; 48. St. Albans; 49. Snettisham; 50. Stare´ Hradisko; 51. Stradonice; 52. Tara; 53. Tolland; 54. Vix; 55. Welwyn Garden City; 56. Winchester; 57. Zarten; 58. Za´vist.

community, and larger social group levels, are apparent in the development and spread of new styles and techniques of representation.

Themes In Iron Age Research Centers: Emergence of Larger and Specialized Communities

The most apparent difference between the Iron Age and earlier periods of European prehistory is the emergence of centers in some regions. During the sixth century BC, settlements were established on hilltops in the upland regions of western and central Europe, and outfitted with substantial bank-and-ditch defense systems. Many of these hilltop settlements developed

into substantial centers of population and of manufacturing and trade activity. The most fully investigated of these is the Heuneburg on the upper Danube River in southwest Germany. Other sites that show similar patterns include Mont Lassois and Bragnysur-Saoˆne in eastern France, the Hohenasperg in southwest Germany, and Za´vist in Bohemia. At the Heuneburg, building foundations reveal a much denser settlement structure than on typical farming settlements, with rectangular timber-framed buildings constructed close together within the fortress. Recent research has revealed extensive suburbs on the lower ground surrounding the fortified center, with clear differentiation between people who lived in the hilltop fortress and the larger population that lived below. The Heuneburg and the other centers

Iron Age 1233

were parts of complex structured cultural landscapes that included cemeteries of burial mounds. Within the cemeteries around the Heuneburg are 11 monumental mounds that contained exceptionally rich graves as well as more modestly outfitted burials. Workshop debris shows that manufacturing at the centers included iron production, bronze working, pottery making, bone and antler carving, and the processing of a variety of luxury materials, such as amber, coral, gold, jet, and lignite, for the crafting of personal ornaments. The centers produced goods that were exchanged with smaller communities in the countryside. Especially striking at the centers is abundant evidence for interactions with peoples of the Mediterranean basin. Numerous vessels of Attic painted pottery have been recovered at the Heuneburg, showing that this fine ware produced at Athens (1600 km away) was imported to the Heuneburg and used, and broken, there. The types of vessels, including cups (kylikes) and mixing vessels (kratere), were part of the Greek wine-drinking ritual. Fragments of Greek transport amphorae indicate how wine was brought from Mediterranean lands, most likely up the Rhoˆne River valley, then overland to the Danube valley and to the Heuneburg. Coral, another import from the Mediterranean, was brought north for carving into ornaments for inlay on metal jewelry. While these imports may have arrived through indirect trade, an important piece of evidence at the Heuneburg demonstrates interaction on a personal basis. In one of the phases of construction of the defensive system around the fortress, the wall was built of clay bricks, a technique foreign to temperate Europe but common in the Mediterranean world. The shape and size of the bricks match those at Greek fortifications on the Mediterranean coasts. An architect from the Greek world must have been brought to design the wall, or a native of west-central Europe learned the technique during a sojourn on the shores of the Mediterranean, and upon returning directed the building of the wall. A center that differed in significant ways from those of west-central Europe was excavated at Biskupin in west-central Poland. Archaeologists uncovered a settlement of 120 timber-build houses, densely arranged within a walled enclosure, preserved in the wet environment. Tree-ring dates show that the timbers for the first phase of construction were felled near the end of the eighth century BC. If all of the houses were inhabited at the same time by families, some 500–1000 people may have lived at Biskupin. A variety of craft activities are evident, and amber, bronze, and glass beads are among the imports. Biskupin and other settlements in this part of Europe do not show the

intense connections to the Mediterranean world apparent at the Heuneburg and other sites in westcentral Europe. The centers of west-central Europe flourished between the mid-sixth and early fifth century BC, then declined, for reasons that are not well understood. In Britain at this time, many fortified hilltop settlements were thriving. The community at Danebury played many of the same roles in its landscape that the Heuneburg did in its, and Danebury remained a center of regional importance for several centuries. Excavations revealed intensive habitation, subsistence, and economic activity on the settlement. The investigators recognized that many of the grain-storage pits on the site were subsequently used for depositing materials, including humans and animals, in the course of ritual practice. In most of temperate Europe, during the fourth and third centuries BC, centers were less common than before, though in Britain Danebury and other sites remained active into the final century BC. The cultural landscape in most regions shows a more dispersed, non-centralized pattern of settlement. Cemeteries of often well-outfitted inhumation burials are the most abundant source of information about this period. Women’s graves often contain sets of personal ornaments, including bronze neckrings, bracelets, fibulae, and link belts, as well as glass beads and bracelets. Some men’s graves contain sets of weapons, including iron swords, spears, and shields. In the second century BC, a new series of centers emerged, known as oppida, after Julius Caesar’s use of that term in reference to the tribal capitals of Gaul against which he fought in his campaigns of 58–51 BC. The word oppidum at that time meant ‘town’, indicating that in Caesar’s view, the Gallic centers were of urban character. In his commentary, Caesar described a number of the oppida in Gaul, and archaeological evidence shows that similar urban centers developed east of the Rhine in southern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. About 150 such sites have been identified, though they differ greatly in area and in the density of occupation remains. All oppida were enclosed by massive walls of earth, timber, and stone. Most are on hilltops, but others are situated in other naturally defensible locations. Oppida were considerably larger than the earlier centers, with many including hundreds of acres of land. Many that have been excavated reveal dense occupation remains, with evidence of highly active industries in iron, bronze, ceramics, and other materials, as well as intensive trade relations with other parts of Europe, including the Mediterranean world. At the time that the oppida were thriving, great

1234 Iron Age

quantities of iron implements were being manufactured, many of high-quality steel, and a three-metal coinage system in bronze, silver, and gold had developed. The major oppida at which dense occupation and manufacturing remains have been recovered, such as Bibracte in France, Manching in Germany, Stradonice in Bohemia, and Stare´ Hradisko in Moravia, probably had populations between 5000 and 10 000. Some oppida, such as Zarten in southern Germany, have yielded little evidence of habitation and are believed to have served as places of refuge only in times of danger. The oppida occur in the hilly upland regions of temperate Europe and not on the North European Plain. There communities remained much smaller. In southern Scandinavia, a few larger farming villages developed, such as Hodde in Denmark, with 27 households joined together within a fenced settlement enclosure. One complex of house and barn at Hodde was set off from the rest by a substantial fence, it was built more sturdily than others, and its occupants used finer pottery, suggesting social differentiation within this settlement. In Britain, new, larger communities were forming, as they were in the upland regions on the continent, but their settlements differed from the fortified oppida. Large hillforts such as Maiden Castle, with its massive defensive works, had relatively small populations and do not display the highly centralized economic functions of the continental oppida. Major tribal centers of southeast Britain, such as those at St Albans and Colchester, often include significant earthworks and widespread settlement remains. But they seem to have more the character of several small settlements agglomerated into one area than of large fortified central places. Interaction: Regional and Inter-Regional

Interaction between communities is more apparent during the Iron Age than earlier. It is evidenced in the archaeological material both through imports – objects made of materials that do not occur locally or displaying techniques and styles of manufacture that indicate foreign origins – and through the adopting of practices and techniques that point to distant sources. Foreign materials that commonly indicate interaction over distances include amber, bronze, coral, glass, and gold. Finished objects that often point to nonlocal origins include items of personal ornamentation, such as fibulae and belthooks, fine pottery, bronze vessels, and weapons. A variety of different mechanisms of interaction is likely to have been involved in the transmission of such goods from one place to another, including trade, migration, raiding, pilgrimage, and interfamily visits. Such interactions are

especially evident at the centers, but they are apparent throughout the Iron Age landscape, as new discoveries are making increasingly clear. Especially for more densely inhabited regions, such as continental Europe, southern Britain, and southern parts of Scandinavia, a useful way of thinking about inter-community interactions is in terms of networks. Throughout the Iron Age, most communities belonged to complex networks through which goods and information flowed. Changes in one part of the network, such as the sudden availability of new desired products such as glass beads, spread throughout the network, such that the new goods became available to all communities that were part of it. At the Early Iron Age centers, interaction is particularly visible in the presence of quantities of Mediterranean luxury imports. Yet recent discoveries are changing our understanding of the systems of interaction by showing that Mediterranean imports were much more widely distributed in the cultural landscape. Fine painted pottery from Athens, bronze vessels and figurines from Etruscan Italy and eastern Mediterranean lands, and ornate objects made of glass, are among the foreign objects recently reported at many sites in Iron Age Europe. But the centers are still distinguished by the density of ‘high-value’ Mediterranean imports – larger quantities of fine Greek pottery, and unusually large and complex objects such as the Hochdorf cauldron and the Vix krater (see below). Objects crafted from silk and ivory in some of the rich burials attest to very long distance circulation of exotic luxury goods. The Greek and Etruscan imports recovered at the Early Iron Age centers are associated with evidence suggesting that elements of feasting rituals practiced in Mediterranean societies were adopted by elites at the centers north of the Alps. The Greek pottery consists of vessels used in wine-drinking rituals, and the sets of ceramic and bronze vessels arranged in the rich burials at Grafenbu¨hl, Hochdorf, and Vix attest to practices that probably played important social and political roles among the elites. The mechanisms of transmission of the unusual and costly Mediterranean imports, such as the Grafenbu¨hl tripod and furniture, the Hochdorf cauldron, and the Vix krater and gold neckring, have been much discussed. When systematic study of such imports began, most researchers viewed the interactions in economic terms and understood them as trade goods. More recently, investigators have focused on social roles that such imports are likely to have played, including ways that the elites manipulated them at politically significant feasts and funerary rituals. Mercenary service by young men in armies in the Mediterranean region probably played a much larger

Iron Age 1235

role in cultural change than we understand at present. Greek textual sources mention Celtic mercenaries in different parts of the Mediterranean basin during the fourth and third centuries BC. The earliest local coinage in temperate Europe, dating to the third century BC, is modeled on Greek gold coins, the prototypes of which were probably brought into temperate Europe by such soldiers returning home. They surely brought with them information about their experiences in the Mediterranean world, and this knowledge is likely to have played a significant part in the changes that occurred during the final centuries of the Iron Age. The oppida of the last two centuries BC were major centers of interaction, demonstrated by large quantities of foreign materials recovered on these settlements. Imports from the Mediterranean world include fine pottery, ceramic wine amphorae, bronze vessels, medical instruments, mirrors, personal ornaments, writing equipment, and coins. Other goods at the oppida indicate interactions with other regions, such as with communities on the North European Plain. Objects from Italy and from the central regions of the continent become increasingly common in Scandinavia, especially Denmark and Sweden, during the final century BC, attesting to intensification of long-distance interactions across Europe. The island of Gotland off the coast of central Sweden played a special role in interactions in the north of Europe. Exceptional quantities of goods, especially metalwork, from regions to the south have been recovered there. In Britain too, ever larger quantities of materials from the continent are evident in the final century BC. Coins from across the English Channel were imported, and new coinages developed in southern Britain. Metalwork, including fibulae, from the continent is also well represented on British sites, and stylistic development of local metalwork indicates familiarity with fashions on the continent. Roman amphorae were arriving at ports such as Hengistbury Head on the south coast. Other Roman imports include fibulae, glass ornaments, and garum, the popular fish sauce. Interactions between British communities and groups on the continent led to the widespread adoption of wheelmade pottery and wine-drinking paraphernalia among elite groups of the southeast, evident in well-outfitted burials such as those at Aylesford and Welwyn Garden City. Manufacturing: Production of Needed and Desired Goods

Most Iron Age communities produced their own basic ceramics for food preparation and storage, textiles for clothing, and everyday implements of wood, bone, and antler. Many smelted local ore to make iron. In some regions where high-quality ore was

abundant, larger-scale, specialized production developed early, as in parts of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. Since the constituents of bronze, copper and tin, are available in only very limited locations, for communities to have access to bronze to make personal ornaments, the metal had to be brought in from outside. Bronze objects are abundant in graves throughout the continent, showing that most communities had means for acquiring the metal, through the network of connected settlements. Molds for casting ornaments are relatively common on settlement sites, and their presence indicates that in many communities, someone knew the techniques of casting the metal. The molds were most often made of sandstone, and they may have been crafted by specialists and acquired by many communities for their own use. The scale of iron production grew substantially during the Iron Age. By around 500 or 400 BC (it varied by region), iron had replaced bronze for tools, and by the time of the oppida in the final two centuries BC, very large quantities were being produced. Sizable numbers of iron implements are found at sites such as Manching and Stradonice, and extensive slag heaps attest to major production at many sites, including Kelheim on the Danube River in Bavaria. Metallographic analyses show that from the beginning of the Iron Age, some blacksmiths had learned how to make steel blades by alloying carbon with iron. By the final two centuries BC, a large proportion of the cutting tools were being produced of high-quality steel. Until the time of the oppida, almost all pottery in western and northern Europe was handmade. Limited use of the wheel is evident at some Early Iron Age centers, but the technology was not further developed at that time. Only during the last two centuries BC do we find substantial proportions of pottery made on the fast-turning wheel, both on the continent and in southern Britain. This change indicates that pottery production shifted from a domestic craft to a highly specialized one, probably practiced by full-time potters. The fine, wheel-turned ceramics supplied not only the inhabitants of the centers, but also people in the smaller settlements in the countryside. Recent excavations at many small settlements have produced important evidence that economic processes that had been believed to be largely restricted to the oppida, such as making pottery on the wheel and minting coins, were in fact carried out by numerous small communities. At Berching-Pollanten in southern Bavaria, a village community produced wheel-made pottery, fibulae, coins, and substantial quantities of iron, rather than depending for those goods upon the industries at the nearby oppida of Manching or

1236 Iron Age

Kelheim. In southern England, residents of a small farming community at Gussage All Saints cast ornate bronze ornaments for chariots and horse harness fittings. Such discoveries necessitate fundamental rethinking of ideas about how the Late Iron Age economy operated. Elites: Expressions of Status through Funerary Practice

Richly outfitted burials are more common and more lavishly equipped than those of earlier periods. The richest of these graves attracted attention early in the development of the field of European archaeology, and they remain the most familiar aspect of the period, abundantly represented in books and magazine articles about Celts. They are important in any discussion of social and political organization in Iron Age Europe, as well as of ritual and identity. The most striking of the burials are those of the period 550–480 BC in west-central Europe, associated with the Early Iron Age centers such as the Heuneburg, the Hohenasperg, and Mont Lassois. These graves were situated inside elaborate chambers of hewn timbers and covered with substantial mounds of earth. Typical grave goods include gold neckrings, gold bracelets, other gold jewelry, four-wheeled wagons, sets of drinking vessels, many of them imported from the Mediterranean world, and, in the men’s graves, ornate daggers. While no two graves are identical, the similarity of the goods in rich graves from central France in the west to Bohemia in the east indicates a common set of rules and practices regarding the signs and symbols of elite status that were used in funerary ritual. The graves at Hochdorf in southwest Germany, dated about 540 BC, and Vix in eastern France, about 480 BC, are of special significance. Unlike the majority of rich graves in the region, the Hochdorf tomb was undisturbed, and the excavations in 1979 were of unusually high quality. In the grave were the remains of a man about 30 years of age adorned with a gold neckring, gold bracelet, two gold fibulae (pins that worked like modern safety-pins), a gold belt plate, a dagger with sheath and hilt covered with gold, and gold ornaments on his shoes. He was arranged on a couch made of sheet bronze. At his feet was a bronze cauldron made in a Greek workshop, containing residue of a beverage that was probably mead, with a gold bowl for a ladle. Other objects in the grave included a wagon and, hanging on the north wall of the chamber, nine drinking horns, one large horn of iron with gold bands ornamenting it and eight smaller ones crafted from bull’s horns. The Vix burial contained the remains of a woman approximately 30 years old. She also wore a gold

neckring and a variety of other jewelry, and she was buried with a wagon and with vessels. This grave contained a much richer assemblage of vessels made in the Mediterranean world. They included two fine ceramic drinking cups from Athens, a bronze jug and two bronze basins from central Italy, and an enormous bronze krater, 1.64 m high and weighing 208 kg, made in a Greek workshop, a unique object believed to have been a diplomatic gift of some kind from the Greek world to this potentate in eastern France. Much discussion has revolved around the nature of the social and political system of which these burials were part. Some scholars interpret the graves in terms of a feudal model derived from medieval Europe, whereby the buried individuals are understood as princes and princesses ruling regional cultural landscapes from their fortified hilltop settlements. Others adopt a model from comparative anthropology, viewing the buried individuals as chiefs. The former interpretation leads toward ideas about significant political power, the latter to discussion about redistributive economies. Debate also circulates about why the practice of outfitting these rich burials (of which about 50 are known) began around the middle of the sixth century BC, then ceased by the middle of the fifth century BC. A central issue in this debate has been the role of the ‘southern imports’ – the Greek and Etruscan luxury objects in the rich burials and on the settlements associated with them that distinguish these from the majority of sites. Did the elites rise to power by exploiting interactions with southern societies to enhance their prestige and increase their wealth? Or did the elites emerge through processes operating within their societies, and are the imported luxury goods expressions of the wealth they consumed and displayed? Beginning around the middle of the fifth century BC, another series of richly outfitted burials appeared to the north, again extending across the central regions of temperate Europe from eastern France to the Czech Republic. The individuals buried in these graves were also marked by gold ring jewelry, wheeled vehicles, and southern imports, but their ornaments were decorated in a new style called La Te`ne, also known as Early Celtic art. In these burials, dating between about 450 and 400 BC, the imported vessels are mostly Etruscan bronze jugs, and only a few Greek ceramic vessels are represented. The same questions apply about the nature of the society to which these individuals belonged, and the reasons behind their apparent rise to power and wealth. From the fourth century BC on, richly outfitted burials in chambers under mounds are much less frequent. Characteristic instead are large cemeteries of flat graves, with many men’s graves containing weapons (swords, spears, shields) and women’s graves including

Iron Age 1237

personal ornaments, especially bronze fibulae, bracelets, and chain-link belts. Gold is unusual in burials after 400 BC, as are vessels imported from the Mediterranean world. Only in the final century BC, when interactions between the oppida and the Roman world were intensifying, do we find substantial numbers of unusually richly outfitted burials again. In Britain, where the burial evidence from the Iron Age is considerably less abundant than on the continent, a series of cemeteries in east Yorkshire known as the Arras Culture includes graves characterized by two-wheeled chariots, bronze ornaments, ditched enclosures, and covering mounds, all of which indicate some special distinction for the individuals so buried. In the final centuries of the Iron Age on the Continent and in Britain, graves that contain the remains of men with weapons and often other special items such as bronze vessels have been interpreted in terms of the emergence of a ‘warrior aristocracy’. The phenomenon has been understood in terms of interregionally linked groups of men whose identity was closely tied to their roles as warriors in their communities. Such graves have been documented at Deal in Kent in Britain, Hannogne in eastern France, Neuwied in the Rhineland, and Harsefeld on the North European Plain. Much recent discussion has revolved around the question, what do the rich burials actually represent? Are they indicative of the rise of elites with new power and wealth, or are they instead indications of periods of unusual instability and competition for power? One school of thought argues that all periods in which unusually rich graves occur were times of unusual stress and political disorder, and that lavish funerary rituals served in competitive displays during such tumultuous periods. According to this perspective, times and places that were not distinguished by rich burials did not necessarily have more egalitarian social and political structures, only greater stability. Ritual: Deposition of Objects and Construction of Enclosures

Many traditional ritual practices, such as depositing objects in bodies of water or burying them in pits in the ground, continued into the Iron Age from earlier times. But during the course of the Iron Age, the scale of deposition increased, and more effort was devoted to constructing special places for the performance of rituals (see Ritual, Religion, and Ideology). Recent excavations at a spring at Ro¨ekillorna in southern Sweden show that the site was used as a place of ritual deposition over long periods, including the Iron Age. In a pond at Hjortspring in Denmark, about 350 BC people deposited a boat capable of

carrying 20 warriors, together with weapons to outfit a force of 80 fighters, including swords, shields, spears, and chain mail. Several large and ornate metal cauldrons have been recovered from wet sites elsewhere in Denmark. Most are bronze, such as the enormous vessel found at Bra˚. But the Gundestrup cauldron is made of silver, and it is decorated with unique scenes of ritual, warfare, and deities interacting with humans. This extraordinary object was deposited in a bog near the northern tip of Jutland, apparently as an offering. In northwest Wales at Llyn Cerrig Bach was found a deposit of about 150 objects that included iron weapons, bronze vessels, and metal ornaments from a wheeled vehicle and from horse harness equipment. Much elaborate bronze metalwork was deposited in rivers in Britain during the Iron Age. Ornate shields, helmets, and swords have been recovered from the River Thames at London, for example, along with large numbers of human skulls. Similar deposits of metal objects and human skulls have been found in the River Meuse at Kessel in the Netherlands. The bog bodies of northern Europe constitute a special set of ritual sites, though there continues debate about the nature of the rituals that resulted in the many hundreds of human beings deposited in watery places. Bog bodies date from different periods, but a clear concentration is apparent during the prehistoric Iron Age and early Roman Iron Age. In contrast to typical burials, in which only skeletal remains survive under favorable conditions, the bodies found in bogs are often extraordinarily well preserved by the anaerobic and acidic conditions, with skin and internal organs intact. Among the best known and most thoroughly studied of the bog bodies are those from Grauballe and Tollund in Denmark and Lindow Moss in Britain. Scholarly opinion generally agrees that they were deposited in the course of ritual sacrifice. Both men and women are represented among the bodies, and all age groups from adolescence to old age. Some bog bodies have articles of clothing, others do not. Few objects have been recovered with the bodies. Many of the individuals were killed through some method that involved the neck – strangling, cutting the throat, or breaking the neck. In Britain, recent research has shown that throughout most of the Iron Age, settlements were the settings for ritual activities such as feasting and the making of special deposits. Favored locations for such deposits were pits within the settlements or boundary ditches surrounding them. On the continent, enclosures defined by banks and ditches were constructed as places for ritual activity. Sometimes they were circular, but more often rectangular. At Gournay-sur-Aronde in northern France, from about 300 BC, remains of thousands of animals were placed into pits, and

1238 Iron Age

thousands of weapons, including swords, spears, and shields, were deposited in the enclosing ditches. At the nearby site of Ribemont, quantities of human bones indicate sacrifice of large numbers of persons, or ritual manipulation of skeletal remains in connection with funerary practices. Many hundreds of rectangular ditched enclosures known as Viereckschanzen have been identified throughout the central regions of temperate Europe, and many include special deposits of iron weapons and tools in the ditches. At the bottom of a deep shaft at the Viereckschanze at Fellbach-Schmiden in southwest Germany, large wooden sculptures of stags and goats were recovered, with indications of an anthropomorphic deity linked to the animals. Iron tools buried in pits have been interpreted as offerings in rituals dedicated to deities connected with fertility and with the harvest, while deposits of coins, most often gold but sometimes silver, are thought to represent offerings of wealth. At Snettisham in eastern England, 11 pits have been found that contained jewelry, coins, and scrap metal of gold, silver, and bronze, all apparently buried for ritual purposes. Two sets of gold jewelry, including neckrings, bracelets, and fibulae, have been found recently on a hilltop near Winchester in southern Britain, apparently part of a ritual deposit made around the middle of the final century BC. On the continent deposits of gold coins, sometimes together with gold rings, indicate similar practices. Funerary rituals changed throughout much of Europe during the second century BC. While hundreds of inhumation cemeteries are known from the fourth and third centuries BC, for most parts of temperate Europe, cemeteries are rare from the second and first centuries BC, and it is not clear how communities disposed of bodies. At some settlements, quantities of human bone recovered in pits have been interpreted in terms of practices involving exhumation and ritual manipulation of human bone, perhaps in place of the earlier practice of inhumation. Among the best-studied assemblages is that from the oppidum at Manching, where at least 420 individuals are represented by skeletal remains on the settlement. Many places that were sites of ritual activity during the Iron Age continued to play special roles during the Roman Period. Such sites provide critical evidence for understanding continuities and changes in religious practice from the prehistoric Iron Age into Roman times. The ritual complex at Ribemont in northern France became an important temple center after the Roman conquest, and a large stone and cement structure was erected on top of the Iron Age site. At Empel in the Netherlands, a ritual site at which ornaments and coins were deposited during the Late Iron Age became – in the Roman Period – the site of a

stone-built temple dedicated to the god HerculesMagusanas – a deity with characteristically both an indigenous and a Roman name. In southern England, Hayling Island was the site of an enclosure at which quantities of metalwork, including weapons, jewelry, and coins, were deposited during the prehistoric Iron Age. During Roman times, a stone temple was constructed directly on top of the earlier structure. In Ireland, a number of large hilltops were sites of communal ritual activity from the third century BC onward. Excavated complexes at Knockaulin in the south and Navan Fort in the north yield remains of enormous timber circles that were apparently constructed for ritual performance. Around both sites are outer banks and inner ditches, a combination commonly associated with ritual rather than defensive purposes. Both sites show complex phases of building, using often very large timbers, with burning, and rebuilding, suggesting complex series of rituals practiced on these hilltops. Many of the visible structures at the great ritual complex of Tara near Dublin are believed to be of Iron Age date. Identity: Textual Sources and Uses of Style

In earlier traditions of research, the peoples of western and central Europe were considered ‘Celts’, those of northern and northeastern Europe, ‘Germans’. Now much research in both archaeology and history has challenged that model. The idea that Iron Age Europeans were Celts comes from sixth and fifth century BC Greek texts, which indicate that people called Keltoi inhabited lands in western Europe. Texts from later centuries refer to Keltoi migrating across the Alps into Italy and serving as mercenaries in armies in the eastern Mediterranean region. Roman writers used the term Galli (Gauls) to refer to peoples north of the Alps, and several writers tell us that the peoples whom the Greeks called Keltoi and those the Roman called Galli were the same. The name Germani (Germans) appears later; the earliest description of people called Germans that survives is that of Julius Caesar in his commentaries on his campaigns in Gaul. The main problem with these names Celts and Germans is that they come to us through the writings of other people (Greek and Roman authors) – we have no record of what the native Iron Age peoples called themselves. To judge by the regional variation in style of material culture, it is highly unlikely that all of the peoples whom the Greeks considered Keltoi would have thought of themselves as members of a group. The same applies to Germans, as described by Caesar and by later writers such as Tacitus. The new style of ornament known as La Te`ne, characterized by stylized floral patterns and human

Iron Age 1239

and animal heads, first appeared in the middle Rhineland region early in the fifth century BC. It contrasted markedly with the geometric patterns of squares, rectangules, circles, and triangles of the Early Iron Age. The first examples of this style are on objects in rich burials, such as gold neckrings, bracelets, and pendants, and on bronze fibulae, vessels, and scabbards. The appearance of this new style at about the same time that Greek writers mention Celts in western Europe led archaeologists to associate the style with the Celts, and it is often called Early Celtic art. Many investigators have linked the spread of the style, from the start of the fourth century BC on, with migrations of Celts southward into Italy, southeastward into Greece and Turkey, northeastward to Poland, and westward into Iberia. But as the archaeological database has increased in size, and as archaeologists have begun much more critical appraisals of traditional models of migration, new understandings of these processes are emerging. Ideas for the new style came ultimately from the Mediterranean world, but its expression north of the Alps does not represent any attempt to copy Greek and Etruscan patterns. Rather, it was a transformation of themes from Mediterranean objects into new decorative media in temperate Europe. The reasons behind the creation of this style are related to identity, but not the simple ‘Celtic’ identity of traditional interpretations. The earliest examples on the metalwork in the rich burials can be understood as signs created for newly emerged elites to distinguish themselves from the elites at the Early Iron Age centers to the south (see above). After a couple of generations, the new style was adopted by peoples in other parts of Europe, as, for example, represented in the cemetery at Iwanowice in Poland, but there is no need to connect this adoption with large-scale migration. The application of the La Te`ne style shows marked regional variations, not adherence to a common pattern that might indicate migration of a population. Nor is there archaeological evidence for substantial movements of populations, either out of some areas or into new ones. The spread of the La Te`ne style is best interpreted as the adoption of a fashion, taken up by peoples throughout much of Europe as an attractive novelty associated with special status. Initially in every region, the new style appeared on objects possessed by elites – fine jewelry, ornate weapons, and luxury vessels of bronze. It served as an identifying mark of elite status and thus was so eagerly adopted, first by groups competing for that status, later by others seeking to emulate them. The ancient writers never mentioned Celts in connection with Britain or Ireland. But the La Te`ne style appeared in Britain around the middle of the fifth

century BC, and a distinctive ‘insular’ La Te`ne style continued to develop throughout the rest of the Iron Age. La Te`ne ornament is first recognizable in Ireland on metal objects dating to the third century BC, many of which display a flamboyant local version of the style. Relations with Rome: Intensification of Interactions

From around the middle of the second century BC, and especially during the final century BC, numerous indications show that connections with the Roman world intensified. Ceramic amphoras attest to an expanding wine trade over much of the continent and in southern Britain. Roman bronze vessels associated with the consumption of wine appear in many graves, including ones at Welwyn Garden City in Britain, Hannogne in France, and Kelheim in Germany. Following Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in 51 BC, Roman bronzes, pottery, weapons, and other objects became ever more abundant in graves east of the Rhine, especially in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland. A new series of men’s graves containing weapons indicates a new value placed on military activity, as in cemeteries at Grossromstedt in Thuringia, Putensen in Lower Saxony, and Hedega˚rd in Denmark. Also east of the Rhine, new settlements were established around the middle of the final century BC, as at Feddersen Wierde and Flo¨geln in Lower Saxony, which became intensively involved in production of goods for trade to Roman military bases along the Rhine frontier. At Jakuszowice in southern Poland, substantial quantities of Roman coins, ornaments, and pottery reflect long-distance connections, perhaps based on trade in iron, between Late Iron Age communities and the Roman provinces. Recent excavations at battle sites from the time of the Roman conquests are producing new information about those confrontations between the Roman legions and the indigenous forces. At Alesia in France, excavation results are changing understanding of that critical battle in Caesar’s victory over the peoples of Gaul. Excavations at Do¨ttenbichl in southern Germany have revealed the first identified battle site associated with the conquest of southern Bavaria in 15 BC. At Kalkriese in northern Germany, the site of the defeat of three Roman legions under the leadership of the general Varus is yielding important evidence about a Roman catastrophe that played a major role in disuading Roman leaders from attempting further conquests eastward. Current Trends in Research

Past research tended to focus on imposing and highly visible sites, such as major hillforts in Britain, oppida on the continent, and large burial mounds all over

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Europe. Recently, research has taken new directions. Surface survey and excavation are examining typical Iron Age settlements, not just the major centers. As a result, we are coming to understand much more about how economic and social systems operated in the landscape and to situate the hillforts and the rich graves into broader contexts of social and political development. Studies of landscapes rather than individual sites are showing that a wider view is needed to understand the specific archaeological deposits. At Vix, for example, new investigations uncovered a rectangular enclosure 200 m from the rich grave that apparently served as a place for part of the funerary ritual associated with the burial. At the Glauberg near Frankfurt in Germany, aerial reconnaissance and excavation in the landscape around a mound revealed a complex series of landscape alterations associated with the burial, including a long ‘processional way’ and four life-size statues set up near the tumulus. New studies of DNA extracted from bones in Iron Age graves are contributing to understanding of family relationships among individuals buried in cemeteries. The results are likely to greatly enhance our ability to reconstruct social systems in this period. As this research progresses, we may be able to develop much better understanding both of community compositions and of patterns of migration in Iron Age Europe. See also: Europe: Neolithic; Europe, Northern and Western: Bronze Age; Medieval; Mesolithic Cultures; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Historical Archaeology in Ireland; Exchange Systems; Household Archaeology; Metals: Primary Production Studies of; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Social Inequality, Development of; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites; Weapons and Warfare.

Further Reading Bogucki PI and Crabtree PJ (eds.) (2004) Ancient Europe 8000 BC–AD 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World 2 vols. New York: Thompson/Gale. Green MJ (ed.) (1995) The Celtic World. London: Routledge. Hill JD (1995) The Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (c. 800 BC–AD 100). Journal of World Prehistory 9: 47–98. Jrgensen L, Storgaard B, and Thomsen LG (eds.) (2003) The Spoils of Victory: The North in the Shadow of the Roman Empire. Copenhagen: National Museum. Megaw R and Megaw V (1989) Celtic Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Moscati S, Frey O-H, Kruta V, et al. (eds.) (1991) The Celts. New York: Rizzoli. Todd M (1992) The Early Germans. Oxford: Blackwell. Wells PS (1999) The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wells PS (2001) Beyond Celts, Germans, and Scythians: Archaeology and Identity in Iron Age Europe. London: Duckworth.

Medieval Tadhg O’Keeffe, UCD Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary assarting Reclaiming; taking into cultivation land that was previously unavailable. bastides Regularly planned fortified towns, such as the late thirteenth-century English towns in Gascony, southwest France. Gothic Style of architecture in Europe between c.AD 1150 and 1500; it is characterized by the pointed arch. gru¨benhauser Small, semi-subterranean, usually single-roomed huts, typical of Germanic culture in the fifth and sixth centuries. manors Large agricultural estates with various ranks of tenant, all under the control of a local lord. motte-and-bailey The mound (motte) and enclosure (bailey) components of a castle which formerly had timber buildings. Romanesque Style of architecture in Europe between c. AD 1050 and 1150; it is characterized by the Roman-style round arch. wics Early medieval coastal trade depots, often with some manufacturing; they date between the late seventh and ninth centuries.

Introduction Europe is generally regarded as having five welldefined major historic regions: the north, the west, the east, the south (the Mediterranean), and the center or middle. Northern Europe is comprised of the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, Finland, the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), and Scandinavia. It is, in a sense, the northern equivalent of the Mediterranean, in that these lands encircle the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Even though the region was never a single political entity, the histories of these lands, individually and collectively, revolve around that very large and continuous body of water. Western Europe is comprised mainly of Iberia, France, and the major off-shore islands of Britain and Ireland. Here too a sea – in this case the Atlantic Ocean – provided a natural geographic unity. Like northern Europe, this region was never politically unified either; on the contrary, its medieval and early modern history is marked by regional conflicts in which England usually stood alone. Where Europe’s northern seas imparted some degree of cultural unity to their adjoining landmasses, there has been much less cultural unity along the Atlantic seaboard. In this overview we will look at two general issues – chronology and historiography/methodology – before recounting the development of medieval northern and western Europe as revealed by archaeological evidence.

Medieval 1241 Chronology

The phrases ‘medieval’ and ‘middle ages’ are relatively modern inventions. A ‘middle age’ was first identified by the Italian scholar Flavio Biondo in the early fifteenth century, and was used with reference to the period of European history that had ended just before the Italian Renaissance. The associated adjective ‘medieval’ is of more recent vintage, having been coined in the eighteenth century. When did the medieval period begin and end? More precisely, given that the terminology is a post facto invention, what are the dates that historians and archaeologists regard as marking the start and end of the period? The answer varies from one part of Europe to another, as each European country has its own historical trajectory, but there is general consensus that the period lasted for about 1000 years across most of the continent and was framed by the early fifth century AD at one end and by the early sixteenth century AD at the other. The Birth of the Middle Ages

Most scholars maintain that the collapse of the western Roman empire at the start of the fifth century was the event that began the period; a cross-disciplinary European Science Foundation project in the 1990s entitled The Transformation of the Roman World and the Emergence of Early Medieval Europe reflected this view. That collapse was a complex process that began in the third century, but its most dramatic moments came in the early 400s as Germanic peoples – ‘barbarians’, as the Romans described them unflatteringly – spilled over the empire’s boundaries, sometimes taking land by force. As recently as 30 years ago it was fashionable in academic circles to describe that immediate post-Roman period in the western half of Europe as ‘the Dark Age(s)’. This terminology reflected the view that the Germanic peoples, who were non-Christian and illiterate, extinguished the bright light of the empire, casting Europe into darkness. Today, of course, the cultural sophistication of the Germanic populations is universally appreciated on its own terms, and they are celebrated as medieval Europe’s founding population. The abandonment of the term Dark Age reflects our understanding of their critical role in the shaping of Europe over the following millennium (see Europe, Northern and Western: Iron Age; Europe, South: Rome). It should be noted that the fifth century is less appropriate as the starting date for the medieval period in those areas around the edges of northwestern Europe that had not been under Roman control. Scandinavia, for example, was prehistoric in the fifth century. Indeed, judging by an authoritative

encyclopedia of Scandinavia’s medieval history and archaeology, scholars in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden regard the medieval period as beginning in, respectively, the late 800s, the late 900s, and the mid-1000s. Judging by this authority, Scandinavian scholars do not describe the period in which the region’s Viking inhabitants expanded overseas – the late eighth and ninth centuries – as part of the ‘middle ages’, even though the Viking raids and settlements overseas are described as part of medieval history elsewhere. The End of the Middle Ages

Turning to the other end of the chronological scale, the period between 1500 and 1550 is favored by historians as the end phase of the ‘middle ages’ in both the northern and western regions of Europe. This chronology is also generally accepted by archaeologists, even though many medieval cultural practices are known to have continued on. There are, briefly, four reasons why the early sixteenth century has such significance: Italian Renaissance thinking spread northwards and westwards (a phenomenon of particular interest in France), Protestantism gripped Northern Europe, the New World was discovered, and finally, feudalism, which was the dominant mode of social organization in the ‘middle ages’, gave way to capitalism. Although each of these is, strictly speaking, an historical phenomenon, each impacted on the material conditions of life and so each is manifest in the archaeological record.

Historiography and Methodology As a period for which there is a good documentary record, most of our knowledge of the European ‘middle ages’ comes from the discipline of history. Both the idea of history (historia) and the privileging of the discipline of history within the western intellectual tradition are reflected in the fact that we speak of the ancient past as pre-history. It is hardly surprising, then, that the discipline of medieval archaeology – the specifically archaeological study of the historical period of the ‘middle ages’ – was, with historical archaeology, among the last major branches of archaeology to develop in Europe. Yes, archaeologists had been studying medieval, especially earlier medieval, remains since at least the early 1900s, but the work was sporadic and was conducted with little sense of the intrinsic or self-referential value of archaeological investigation. It was the foundation of the London-based Society for Medieval Archaeology in 1957, and the launch of its journal, Medieval Archaeology, that really marked the beginning of the discipline’s maturation. That journal remains the

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best-known and most widely read international journal in the field; although British-based, it has always accepted papers from other parts of Europe, reflecting the importance of pan-European thinking in the understanding of the medieval archaeological record. Other periodicals dealing with the same post-Roman, pre-Reformation period, such as Arche´ologie Me´die´vale from France (first issued in 1970), Archeologia Medievale from Italy (first issued in 1974), and Boletı´n de Arqueologı´a Medieval from Spain (first issued in 1987), have significantly smaller circulations, in part for reasons of language, and are generally less influential as a result. For much of its short history, the discipline of medieval archaeology has been strongly empiricist in approach. Although practitioners do not slavishly follow the interpretations suggested to them by historical sources, there has long been a tendency among them to present normative explanations of the material as historical narratives, thereby reinforcing the argument that the purpose of medieval archaeological research is to buttress our historical knowledge of the ‘middle ages’. Indeed, the reviews presented ahead of the archaeologies of the earlier and later medieval periods follow this pattern. It must be said that a measure of archaeology’s success in making the material evidence ‘talk’ has been the increasing tendency among medieval historians to make use of archaeological findings in their own work. Medieval archaeology was very much in its infancy when new archaeology emerged in the late 1960s. Its response to that theoretical–methodological shift was implicitly positive, though not immediately so. However uncomfortable medieval archaeologists were with new archaeology’s concern with anthropological thinking, its qualitative and model-building aspects had a clear use and were embraced accordingly, albeit with one eye still trained on the historical record. The more recent theoretically informed interests and approaches in archaeology – often described under the umbrella term of postprocessualism since the mid-1980s – have been accepted less enthusiastically. In 1994, a decade after postprocessualism first emerged in prehistoric archaeology, an exciting agenda for a postprocessual medieval archaeology was set out by David Austin, but its success has been somewhat limited. In Britain, where archaeological theory is especially popular, many new studies adopt explicitly theoretical perspectives, but it is noteworthy that most of the published papers in the journal Medieval Archaeology testify to the continued strength of empiricism. No general medieval archaeological survey of Europe, or indeed of any large-scale region of Europe, has ever been published: studies of the medieval

archaeology of many of the constituent countries (as defined in modern rather than medieval times) are available, but no inter-regional or international synthesis has ever been fashioned from them. The one book that does attempt a survey of all of medieval Europe – The Encyclopedia of Medieval Archaeology (Crabtree (ed.) 2001) – certainly succeeds in giving a snapshot of the medieval continent, and indeed the regions of interest to us here feature very prominently, but it is in a format that, almost by its nature, fails to communicate the dynamics or outcomes of crosscontinental connections and so is of relatively limited synthetic value. The problems of producing a synthesis are great. A number stand out. There is differential knowledge of different places and regions, as well as differential access to whatever data is available. For example, the significantly heavier concentration on England over other countries (notably Spain, with its medieval Islamic culture) in the Encyclopedia of Medieval Archaeology reflects the extent to which medieval England is better understood archaeologically than almost anywhere else of comparable scale in Europe; it also reflects the accessibility, thanks to language, of scholarly research material from there. The danger, of course, is that a pan-European synthesis will be skewed toward places like England, and that the complexity of cultural dynamics in medieval Europe as manifest in the archaeological record will be misrepresented as a result. There is also differential development of both interpretative strategy and interpretation. Again, thinking of England (and of Britain more widely), normative explanations that were acceptable a generation ago have come under increased scrutiny, thanks to the theoretical turn. For example, English scholars once had no difficulty believing that the AngloSaxons did indeed migrate to England in huge numbers at the dawn of the ‘middle ages’, causing an almost immediate cultural transformation, but alternative mechanisms of change involving much smaller numbers of migrants are now being explored. Comparable mechanisms are not being explored in every other part of Europe to explain comparable, migration-related, changes at the dawn of the ‘middle ages’, even though there may be scope for them. Inevitably, then, there is a lack of synchronicity in this case between interpretations of the same phenomenon in different parts of Europe. This illuminates the difficulty of creating a balanced pan-European overview. Finally, there are problems of terminology, both of the ‘middle ages’ and of modern scholarship. Medieval terms had different meanings at different periods, and different terms were used to describe the same basic phenomena in different places: this point is

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wonderfully illustrated by a trilingual document from twelfth-century Zealand in which the concept of ‘castle’ is conveyed by the term motte in French, munitio in Latin, and werf in the local or vernacular language. Also, modern terms coined in one part of Europe might not have clear equivalents in other parts, thereby making cross-cultural connections a little more difficult to establish: for example, the letter-system used by British scholars to describe the ceramics imported in post-Roman times from the Mediterranean and Gaul (B-ware, E-ware) is not used in the lands in which those ceramics were actually produced.

The Earlier Medieval Period: AD 500–1000 The medieval period is generally divided into three phases – Early, Central, or High, and Late – but there is little consensus on their date ranges. For the purpose of this review of northern and western Europe, we will simply divide the period into two: an earlier phase to AD 1000 and a later phase to AD 1500. The Age of Migrations

The archaeology of that earlier period can really only be understood by reference to the Roman period that preceded it. The fifth century was unquestionably a century of rupture, of broken continuity. The archaeological evidence for this is plentiful and diverse: excavations in old Roman towns, for example, often reveal actual gaps in occupation around the fifth century, while gold coinage, previously the staple of the empire, was no longer produced or circulated in the fifth century (and when it was minted again in the sixth century, it owed more stylistically to contemporary Byzantine coinage than to older Roman coinage, thereby underscoring the discontinuity). But there was also considerable continuity. Continuity is entirely to be expected given that many Germanic people lived with the imperial boundaries prior to AD 400, while Romanized populations continued to live within those former boundaries after the collapse. The archaeological evidence for continuity is, again, very diverse and plentiful. At a local level, for example, Roman-type wheel-turned pottery continued to be made in the Rhine–Meuse valley, even though this was under the control of Germanic people whose pottery vessels were handmade. Continuities are also manifest at a more international level. Although it has often been assumed that one consequence of the collapse of the empire was the loss to northern and western Europeans of the far-flung trade partners they had acquired in Roman times, archaeologists have been able to show how Roman-origin long-distance trade routes remained

open and in operation. We know, for example, that raw glass from the former Roman provinces of Egypt and Palestine was still being exported to the western Mediterranean and northwestern Europe during the post-Roman (i.e., early medieval) period, and that it was not until the late eighth century that western Europeans used glass that was manufactured in western Europe. One hugely important commodity that was moved along these long-distance routes is known historically but is almost invisible in the archaeological: the slave. It is reasonable to imagine that the vessels that carried wine, fur, olives, hides, and other commodities along the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and North Sea shipping lanes were also transporting slaves. The shift from Roman rule to Germanic rule in the fifth century had social and economic implications everywhere, not least in northern and western Europe. In terms of archaeology, towns and villas had been central to territorial organization and to patterns of production and consumption under the Romans. Under Germanic rulers, by contrast, unenclosed, irregular, agglomerations of houses seem to have been the dominant settlements, and in many areas they were associated with a greater amount of pastoral farming than had been the case under the Romans. These agglomerations, generally comprised of timber-built houses and sunken-floor buildings (gru¨benhauser), had neither the spatial regularity nor the permanency of towns or villages. Indeed, most of them were abandoned within a few centuries of their creation, to be replaced toward the end of the millennium by the towns and villages that are still occupied in the landscapes of modern northwestern Europe. These early settlements do testify, however, to societies that were well above subsistence level, if also perhaps below the average comfort levels of their Roman predecessors. Wics and Christianity

Archaeological evidence of a rebound towards full productive exploitation of economic resources on a par with that of the Romans is available from the later seventh century. The archaeological evidence from the newly established wics (specialized coastal settlements for trade and even some manufacturing, the largest examples of which were Ipswich, Southampton, London, Quentovic, Dorstad, and Birka) testifies to intense, localized, economic and commercial activity in seventh- and eighth-century northwestern Europe; indeed, when the Vikings took to the region’s seas a little later (in the late 700s and early 800s), they would have been very familiar with the traffic in

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valuable goods over the previous century and a half, and probably also with its destinations. The trade activity around the wics was not only local, however: Michael McCormick, in a groundbreaking study that combines history and archaeology, has demonstrated how, contra earlier views, northern and western Europe also continued to be linked to the Mediterranean through the relic-trade, and the movements of both coinage and slaves. To illustrate the importance of the wics in the international network of relations, one need only scrutinize the contents of the grave at Sutton Hoo of the East Anglian king Raedwald (died 624–5): the assorted overseas material testifies to contacts between eastern England and the Celtic West, Francia, Scandinavia, and the east Mediterranean, and the nearby wic of Ipswich was probably the point of entry. The wics are also important because they were to some degree planned settlements; in other words, they did not evolve but were brand new settlements laid out according to some predetermined spatial plan, complete with boundary markers and designated use-zones. We must imagine that people hitherto living in the countryside relocated by choice, or more likely were relocated with no choice, to these new settlements, under the watchful eyes of local kings. Given that the wics were places of specialized, nonagricultural activity, we must imagine also that the same local kings ensured that contemporary rural farmland kept them supplied with food. It is significant in this context that there is increasing archaeological evidence from different parts of northwestern Europe, particularly England, for nucleated rural settlements of the seventh century being laid out anew with some degree of spatial regularity. The archaeological evidence suggests, then, a controlled reorganization of the landscape with a view to increased productivity. The seventh century was also a period of sustained conversion (or, more accurately, reconversion) of the northern half of Europe to Christianity. The Germanic migrants of the fifth century had been pagan. Under their polity Christianity disappears from our record across much of northern and western Europe, only to reappear two centuries later as the dominant religion once again. The most famous exception to the fifth-century shift from Christian to pagan is Ireland, where the shift was the other way around. The hitherto pagan Irish were first subjected to Christian missionary activity in the fifth century; ironically, that activity came mainly from Christian Roman Britain, just as the Romans were ceding control to the new pagan Anglo-Saxon immigrants. An extraordinarily rich insular Christian tradition of art,

literature, and learning developed in Ireland thereafter, sustained by the patronage of local kings and by the wealth generated by its proto-urban monasteries. Although their influence has probably been exaggerated, Irish missionaries played an important role in the reintroduction of Christianity to parts of Europe in the late sixth and seventh centuries. An enduring paradox of early medieval Christianity in Ireland is that its great works of art – free-standing, sculpture-covered, monumental stone crosses (High Crosses), illuminated gospel books (such as the Book of Kells), and rich altar plate (such as the Ardagh Chalice) – were produced to serve a Church which invested very little in built fabric: contemporary Irish churches were small, ill-lit buildings, capable at best of holding no more than several dozen people at a time. Viking raids in the late eighth and early ninth centuries certainly disrupted the pattern of production at church sites in Ireland, but their impact was not fatal. In fact, the Viking contribution to medieval Irish civilization was ultimately very positive: communities of Vikings settled permanently in coastal Ireland in the early tenth century, establishing new towns (such as Dublin), and later converting to Christianity and assimilating thoroughly with the native population. Carolingian and Later Europe

The first sustained period of economic prosperity in post-Roman northwestern continental Europe came a little later in the 800s, when much of the region was under the rule of Charlemagne and his successor Carolingian emperors. Although he was a Frank, and therefore a descendent of one of the fifth-century Germanic migrant groups, Charlemagne fashioned himself as a Roman emperor and had himself crowned as one on Christmas Day AD 800. Thus, the connection with the Roman world was still alive four centuries after the fall of Rome itself. Although the Carolingians only held power over part of the larger geographical area of northwestern Europe, in many respects they represent the continent’s principal bridge between antiquity and the peak centuries of the ‘middle ages’. Their landlords, farmers, industrialists, and builders shaped the future. On their great agricultural estates or manors, for example, they used heavy plows, crop rotation, and watermill-aided grain processing, thus setting in train the system of farming that would later feed the continent when population figures soared in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They replaced gold with silver as the material for coinage, and silver remained the currency standard until the twelfth century (when its debasement by copper provoked a return to gold). Carolingian builders also took

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the old Roman basilical form of church and remodeled it in a way that formed the basis of later, post1000 AD Romanesque architecture, as we will see below. By the close of the first millennium AD, and thanks in no small measure to the innovations of the Carolingian era, the form of sociopolitical organization that we describe as feudalism had developed. Feudalism has long been a very contentious concept among historians of medieval Europe, with some arguing that it is a misleading concept and others defending its general value but arguing that its nature differed from one part of Europe to another. In its most basic form a feudal society is hierarchical, obligationbased, and militarized, with different grades of peasants obliged to provide labor services to those above them on the social pyramid, and the lords obliged to provide land and military protection to those below them in status. Among archaeologists, medieval feudalism is generally regarded as represented by private castles on the one hand and large agricultural estates with communal farming and planned market villages on the other. Castle building by local lords had certainly begun by the tenth century, especially in the former Carolingian territories in France: at Doue´-la-Fontaine in Anjou, for example, a castle-hall dating from the tenth century was discovered in excavation beneath an eleventh-century castle mound. The first fully planned villages are more difficult to date, and it is difficult to generalize from one part of northwestern Europe to another, but there is firm evidence now that the process began in the ninth and tenth centuries, if not as far back as the seventh (as we noted above). The role of the Church in village formation from the tenth century is certainly critical, since churchyard burial became the norm for local communities in the north and west in that very century.

The Later Medieval Period: AD 1000–1500 The millennium year – AD 1000 – was a significant one in European cultural history. There was a real fear in many circles that the anniversary of Christ’s death would be marked by the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Book of Revelations. The year passed without incident, and medieval churchmen across Europe marked the deliverance of the world from apocalyptic destruction by building churches at an astonishing rate. The great church building, Romanesque and Gothic, represents only one highprofile element in the archaeological canvas of later medieval Europe, as we will see, but its prominence in our thinking about the period – a period for which George Duby coined the phrase ‘The Age of the

Cathedrals’ (1981) – reflects the penetration by Christianity of all aspects of later medieval life in northern and western Europe. Having said that, there is a need, as yet generally unfulfilled at the level of synthesis, to factor into the medieval archaeology of Europe the impact of Islam: a kiln of Islamic tradition among the thirteenth-century workshops of Sainte-Barbe in Marseille, for example, is but one indicator among many of the movements of craftsmen and craft-knowledge from the Arab world to the Christian, while Kufic inscriptions on the walls of twelfth-century southern French churches, such as the cathedral in Le Puy, suggest more subtle interactions. Farm, Industry, Market

In many cultural pursuits the patterns established before AD 1000 simply continued thereafter. But steady population increase prior to the fourteenth century had a growing impact on all of them. That impact is perhaps most evident archaeologically in the landscapes of rural farming communities on the one hand, and of urban mercantile communities on the other. The output requirements of rural communal agriculture in this period of enlarging population led to a massive intensification of arable farming in environments suited to cereal growing. Technology made that intensification possible within the manorial economy. The heavy plow, mounted on wheels and pulled by a team of (usually eight) draft animals, either horses or oxen, had been known in Roman and earlier medieval times, and was universal by the thirteenth century. The large rural workforce had a sufficient supply of iron-made tools (plows, harrows, and so on) to open up to cultivation land that had hitherto been under forest. The taking in of new land – ‘assarting’ in English – is most dramatically represented by the forest villages of Germany with their long, sinuous, fields snaking across land that had been newly cleared. Turning to urbanism, the later medieval physical expansion of old towns of Roman origin was exceeded by the foundation of brand new towns, complete with planned marketplaces, regularly arranged streets with properties of equal width along them, and town walls. New town foundation was an economic necessity everywhere in Europe, and was made possible by the agricultural endeavors in the countryside. As defensible places, new towns had roles in regional defense, as, for example, the bastides established by the English in southwestern France in the thirteenth century. Finally, new town foundation was also an agent of colonization in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries: because town occupancy was

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attractive to medieval rural dwellers, the English founded new towns in Ireland in order to entice settlers to their new colony there, and the Germans did exactly the same in the Slavic lands on the other side of Europe. One definition of ‘town’ is that it is a place where the majority of inhabitants are not engaged primarily in agricultural production but are involved in the so-called ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ industries of manufacturing, commerce, and so on. Many medieval industries, both before and after AD 1000, were rural rather than urban, however. Availability of raw material was one factor in their location. Extractive industries were rural by their nature. Unless raw material, once obtained, could be easily transported to urban places, manufacturing industries tended to stay in the countryside, often with settlements of specialized workers developing around them, as in the pottery-producing Saintonge area of western France, for example. In any case, most industries required copious amounts of firewood, and industrial operations intended to serve regional markets required it in vast amounts. Not only was the wood scarce in already built-up areas, but kilns and furnaces were fire hazards. The availability of water for power and transport was also influential in determining industry location. Urban places generally had water, but industry often polluted it, so it is no coincidence that we find certain urban (or, more correctly sub-urban) industries like tanning at places where water flows away from settlements. Pottery Of all the medieval industries, the ceramic industry is probably the best known. It is certainly the industry that leaves the strongest imprint in the archaeological record. Northern and western Europe were pottery-making and pottery-using right through the ‘middle ages’ (although there were aceramic pockets, such as early medieval Ireland), and each region had its own pottery-making traditions that evolved through time. Some sites or places of production had histories of activity over a millennium: Mayen in the German Eifel, for example, was one of many places where there was continuous pottery production from Roman to later medieval times. Because pottery has almost no recycling value, broken sherds enter the archaeological record as unmodified cultural indicators. By-sight analysis often allows identifications of places of origin: for example, thirteenth-century pots from Saintonge, mentioned above, can be easily identified in archaeological levels in Britain and Ireland by their distinctive shapes and by their white or buff color (the result of being made with the local,

low-iron, fine clay). Scientific analysis of ceramic material – particularly Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, or INAA – allows actual production places to be identified. Most medieval pottery is simple earthenware: it is clay pottery, made by hand or wheel. Wheel-turned earthenware was present in the Roman world but its manufacture and use was discontinuous in large parts of Europe. By the start of the later medieval period (as defined here) it was common again, and from the twelfth century it was everywhere. The clay for earthenware was literally dug out of the ground, made pliable, had materials (temper) added to it for stabilization in the kiln, and was then fired slowly. The heat of the firing determined hardness and imperviousness. Although generalization is dangerous given the sheer quantity and diversity of ceramic material found in northwestern Europe, later medieval ceramics were invariably glazed. Glaze is a lead-based transparent vitreous film on the surface of pottery, and its purpose is both decorative and functional: the colors are attractive and it largely prevents porosity. Glaze was applied in different ways before firing: sometimes vessels were completely immersed in it, and at other times it was applied by brush or was dripped over the inverted vessels as they were stacked in readiness for firing. Just as the color of the ceramic was determined by the type of clay used, the color of the glaze was determined by added oxides: iron oxides made them yellow or red, copper made them green, cobalt blue, and antimony yellow. Prestige vessels – tableware – were glazed externally, but cooking wares were sometimes only glazed on the inside to increase their imperviousness. On the whole, the use of ceramic cooking vessels actually declined around the fourteenth century as more efficient and larger capacity metal vessels (such as cauldrons) came into use. By contrast, the range of serving/ consuming vessels increased, so that by the end of the ‘middle ages’, there were many ceramic ‘factories’ producing high-quality plates and dishes. It was only after the end of the ‘middle ages’ – the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – that ‘slipware’ and porcelain (or ‘china’) was made in northwestern Europe. The Hanseatic League The archaeology and socioeconomic history of late medieval northern Europe is dominated by the Hanseatic League, a group of towns around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea which formed a regional commercial and manufacturing cooperative from the middle of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth. Hanse means fellowship, and it was applied in this context to allude to mercantile guilds. The League towns were distributed between the

Medieval 1247

Netherlands in the west and Estonia in the northeast, and were mainly port towns, even if their access to the sea was by navigable river. There were also communities of Hansa merchants in port cities outside this area (such as London). The development of the League and its control over regional commerce was greatly aided by the development of a new type of large capacity seafaring vessel, the cog. Lu¨beck was the main Hansa town. A new town founded in 1158, it achieved regional prominence in the 1220s and 1230s when its laws – its town constitution, in other words – were adopted by other towns within the region, notably Hamburg. The center of Lu¨beck quickly became a mercantile enclave, with a market area, specialized shops and craft areas, a town hall, merchant houses, warehouses, and a Kaufmannskirche or merchants’ church, designed as much for mercantile business as for worship. In its layout and architecture, Lu¨beck can be regarded as a typical Hansa town. No artifact is more associated with the Hansa confederation than the stoneware vessel. Stoneware is earthenware that is fired at such great heat (1200
C and upward) that it is impervious to water. Not all clays lend themselves to this: the most suitable clays were in Saxony and the Rhineland, which is where the type originated. Stoneware was distributed widely across Europe, even to the Mediterranean, thanks to the influence of the Hanseatic League. Glaze, usually made of salt, was applied towards the end of the firing process so that the ceramic body and the glaze fused as one. Stoneware is the Hansa ceramic par excellence. Castles

Castle-building began before AD 1000, as we have noted, but survivals of that period are quite rare. The great phase of castle-construction begins in the second half of the eleventh century and it continues uninterrupted to at least the end of the ‘middle ages’. Indeed, newly built high-status private buildings were still being described as castles in the 1700s across much of northern Europe. The history of the castle as a monument-type has long been discussed in terms of a tension between defensibility and domesticity. Castles are traditionally understood by scholars to have been primarily military structures, but they are also understood to have been residences, equipped for comfortable living by lords and their inner households. Castle-scholars – castellologists – across both northern and western Europe have generally argued that prior to the fourteenth century or thereabouts, castles were more military than domestic, reflecting the fact that power was maintained within feudal society by military force or

persuasion. They have also argued that, notwithstanding the widespread use of gunpowder, changes in the social and political environments in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries shifted the emphasis in castle design toward greater domestic comfort and a higher level of status display. In this way of thinking, the late thirteenth century is identified as the period when castle building was at its peak. Thus, the castles of Edward I in north Wales – Caernarvon, Harlech, Conway, and the unfinished Beaumaris – are regarded in many circles as the greatest of all European medieval castles because they offered high levels of comfort (for their royal patron and his court) within near-impregnable architectural designs. Recent years have seen shifts in this thinking among some archaeologists. The overtly military interpretation of pre-1300 and later castles has been questioned, and other aspects – their symbolism, the rituals of domestic life within them – have come into focus instead. Much of the groundbreaking work in this regard has come from Britain, where, for example, archaeologists now regard the watery landscapes that surround castles not as defensive barriers but as early attempts at aesthetic landscape planning of a type that is more frequently associated with the Renaissance. Archaeological studies of stone castles have concentrated on fabric; excavation can yield lost walls but the upstanding walls tell us the most. The one type of medieval castle for which excavation is singularly well suited is the timber-and-earth castle, a type that is pan-European in distribution and usually dates from the eleventh or twelfth century. There are different types of timber-and-earth castles, or ‘timber castle’ as some describe it. The best-known type is the motte or motte-castle; the motte-and-bailey castle is a subcategory of this. The motte-castle’s main feature is a tall earthen mound, steep-sided and flattopped in profile. The timber building or buildings stood on this mound, but needless to say these do not survive and their plans are retrievable only by excavation. The word motte itself, sometimes rendered as mota or motta, originally signified a small block of land, as in the ninth century in north Italy, but by the middle of the twelfth century it was mainly being used to describe the mounded component of a castle, whether that mound was a natural feature or was manmade. The term bailey, which refers to the courtyard area beside a motte or outside a central citadel within a castle complex, is regarded as the modern recension of ballium in Latin, and baile in the English language of the Norman period. The consistency with which mottes were built by medieval societies of the eleventh and twelfth

1248 Medieval

centuries – from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and from west of the Shannon in Ireland to east of the Elbe in central Europe – is quite extraordinary. The motte is almost as ubiquitous as Romanesque architecture in the Europe of the later 1000s and 1100s. The tried-and-trusted practical value of the castle mound as a high and well-drained vantage point may have been behind its great popularity, and it might also have acquired some sort of iconic status as part of the visual apparatus of feudal lordship. Moreover, the act of building a motte – of stripping land, moving soil, imitating a natural hill – may have been imbued with as much symbolic significance as the finished product, since it was the actual practical demonstration of a lord’s control over natural and human resources. Motte origins across this great geographic sweep are frustratingly fugitive. The documentary record is not explicit enough to help us discover when, where, or why the motte first appeared, and too few sites have been excavated. It has been argued that mottes first appeared in the tenth century but we only really know them from the eleventh. It is possible that the motte was the end result of a process of morphological development from a simpler form of timber-andearth monument, driven perhaps by a need for greater defense in increasingly restless times. To support this we could cite the evidence from the German site known as Der Husterknupp where there was a gradual heightening of an earthwork between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries until it eventually looked like a motte. On the other hand, it could be equally argued that the motte had actually been ‘invented’ as a fully-fledged type by at least the start of the eleventh century. Monasteries and Cathedrals

Among the many achievements of the late eighth- and ninth-century Carolingians, the one which stands out most boldly in the archaeological record may be the architectural. The first great architectural style of the later medieval period, the Romanesque (c.1050–1150), developed in part out of Carolingian architecture; at very least, the Carolingians showed how ancient Roman architectural forms could be reshaped, and in doing so they provided a blueprint for post-AD 1000 builders. The place of origin of the round-arched style that we know as Romanesque is disputed, as indeed is the very idea that Romanesque is a single style to begin with. What is clear, though, is that by AD 1100 hundreds of new ecclesiastical buildings had been erected in Spain, northern Italy, France, Germany, and England, all of them revealing an obvious ancestral debt to Roman buildings of eight centuries earlier.

Included in these were cathedrals, parish churches and, especially, monasteries. The greatest of all monasteries of the period was Cluny in Burgundy. This was founded in 910 as a Benedictine monastery. During the tenth century its brethren adapted their Benedictine regulations to their own needs and the monastery suddenly became the center of a new monastic movement: the Cluniac. Their monastery was simply vast. Twice they had to replace their church with a bigger structure, and eventually (in 1130) they ended up with the largest church ever built in northwestern Europe. French revolutionaries demolished almost all of the church and monastery between 1800 and 1810, but the American scholar Kenneth Conant excavated large parts of the site in the mid-twentieth century and revealed its history. Conant’s work at Romanesque Cluny is among the most famous excavations of a medieval European site. Each of the countries of medieval northern and western Europe had its own particular national tradition of Romanesque architecture, and there were also regional traditions within those countries. The funding for this explosion of new architecture came from different sources. Local royal patronage and international pilgrim traffic account for some of it. These building projects would not have been possible if contemporary economies had not also been operating so successfully. In the second quarter of the twelfth century, church builders in the region around Paris developed a new architecture: the pointed-arch style known as Gothic. St Denis, the royal abbey church of France, was the first building in which it was used. Over the course of the following century the Paris Basin, with Chartres, Notre-Dame-de-Paris, Bourges, Beauvais, and others, became a great canvas for the display of Gothic architecture. That this same region was exceptionally rich agriculturally is no coincidence. Gothic spread outwards from northeastern France and by the mid-thirteenth century it was the established style almost everywhere for new ecclesiastical buildings. As with Romanesque before it, there were national regional traditions of Gothic. In fact, ethnic and political identities – English, French, German – were articulated more clearly through Gothic architecture in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than had been the case with Romanesque. Gothic’s debt to the Roman past was much less obvious than Romanesque’s. It was a new creation of the ‘middle ages’. Were one looking for a symbol of the end of the ‘middle ages’ around the start of the sixteenth century, one could choose the replacement of Gothic, the quintessential medieval style, with the neo-Classical style of the Renaissance.

Mesolithic Cultures 1249 See also: Europe, Northern and Western: Iron Age; Europe, South: Medieval and Post-Medieval; Europe, South: Rome; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Historical Archaeology in Ireland; Exchange Systems.

Further Reading Austin D (1990) The ‘proper study’ of medieval archaeology. In: Austin D and Alcock L (eds.) From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in Medieval Archaeology, pp. 9–42. New York: Routledge. Crabtree P (ed.) (2001) Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. Duby G (1981) The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society 980– 1420. London: Croom Helm. Fehring GP (1991) The Archaeology of Medieval Germany. An Introduction. New York: Routledge. Gaimster D (2005) A parallel history: The archaeology of Hanseatic urban culture in the Baltic c.1200–1600. World Archaeology 37: 408–423. Gerrard C (2004) Medieval Archaeology: Understanding Traditions and Contemporary Approaches. London: Routledge. Higham R and Barker P (1992) Timber Castles. London: Batsford. McCormick M (2001) Origins of the European Economy. Communications and Commerce AD300–900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pulsiano P (ed.) (1993) Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland.

Mesolithic maritime cultures, such as the Erteblle culture of southern Scandinavia. composite tool A tool formed by the incorporation of disparate elements, such as microliths set into a bone or antler shaft to form a projectile point or knife. forager A subsistence strategy based on the daily gathering of wild food resources (hunting, gathering, fishing) by small subsistence groups; foragers are highly mobile and move seasonally to take advantage of natural resources. microliths Small stone tools made on small blades or bladelets, often geometric in shape; they were set into grooved shafts of bone, antler, or wood to form a projectile point or knife and often served as the barbs or tips of an arrow. midden An accumulation of poorly stratified refuse (ash, charcoal, food debris, broken tools, and pottery) associated with human occupation. resource intensification The increased production and productivity of natural resources, involving the manipulation and regulation of wild plant and animal species and improved methods for harvesting or capturing them. seasonal round An annual pattern followed by hunter-gatherers, with regular seasonal stops at specific locations for the procurement and/or production of plant or animal foods. tranchet A lithic tool with a chisel-like edge produced by removing a single large flake perpendicular to the axis of the tool; the technique was used to manufacture axes and adzes in the Mesolithic. transverse point A trapezoidal lithic projectile point that lacks an acutely pointed tip; instead, a sharp, unretouched straight edge cut a wide wound channel in the prey, facilitating blood loss.

Introduction

Mesolithic Cultures Gail Larsen Peterkin, Houston, TX, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary adze A flat, heavy lithic artifact similar to an ax, but with the blade perpendicular to the haft and an asymmetrical cross-section; it was used to fell trees, trim boards, and hollow out dugout canoes. ax A flat, heavy lithic artifact with a working edge parallel to the haft; axes were used for woodworking and, later in prehistory, for warfare. blade A long, parallel-sided lithic flake, at least twice as long as it is wide, removed from a specially prepared blade core. bladelet Small blade; blades are at least twice as long as they are wide, but blade/bladelet metric dimensions vary culturally. collector A subsistence strategy based on the logistical collection of wild food resources in an area with seasonal and environmental variability; collectors send out specialized subgroups to procure natural resources for a larger sedentary group, often producing a surplus and encouraging storage. complex hunter-gatherer Sedentary hunter-gatherers (or logistical collectors) with intensive economies and an internal differentiation of labor, characterized by storage, trade, and ceremonial elaboration. The Native Americans of the Northwest Coast are a classic example of complex hunter-gatherers, although the term has also been used for sedentary Late

The term Mesolithic (Greek mesos ‘middle’ þ lithos ‘stone’) was first used in the late nineteenth century to fill the gap between Lubbock’s Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age) stages, although it was only in the early twentieth century that it began to acquire a consistent meaning. As a European concept, the Mesolithic has been most relevant for the prehistory of Europe, especially northern and western Europe. The Mesolithic is a transitional chronological stage interposed between the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of the Pleistocene glacial epoch and the development of agricultural economies in the Neolithic. The Mesolithic begins with the end of the Pleistocene at 11 550 years ago (9600 BC) and represents the continuation of a foraging way of life into the postglacial Holocene geological epoch. This period was characterized by the retreat of glacial ice from northern Europe, an accompanying rise in sea level, the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna, a more stable and temperate climate, the growth of forested ecosystems, and the redistribution of plant and animals species. The cultures of the Mesolithic were thus able to expand into new frontiers, including the deglaciated regions of northern and western Europe.

1250 EUROPE, SOUTH/Mesolithic Cultures

The Mesolithic ends with the local adoption of agriculture, so the terminal date for the Mesolithic varies regionally. In northern and western Europe, agricultural economies were adopted several millennia after the beginnings of food production in southwest Asia. Hence, the Mesolithic is best known from northern and western Europe, where there was a considerable length of time for its development between the end of the Pleistocene and the adoption of agriculture.

Characteristics of the Mesolithic Because of its geographical breadth and chronological depth, the Mesolithic is noted for cultural diversity and the emergence of regional territories (Table 1). Nevertheless, the Mesolithic cultures of northern and western Europe shared a number of basic cultural attributes. Subsistence

The new and rapidly changing environments of postglacial Europe required an adaptive shift to take advantage of the expanding resource base. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers exploited a wide range of medium-sized ungulate species that flourished in the forests, including red deer, roe deer, elk, aurochs, boar, sheep, goat, and ibex. Small animals provided food and fur; birds, fish, shellfish, and marine mammals were heavily utilized at some sites. Coastal sites were often accompanied by large shell middens. For the first time, plant resources became an important part of the diet, including species such as hazelnuts, acorns, European water chestnuts, and nettles. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers managed the landscape. Chipped and ground stone axes were used to

cut down trees, and the controlled burning of swamps and wetlands provided open land where animals could congregate for easier hunting. In northern and western Europe, the dog was domesticated during the Mesolithic, perhaps to assist with hunting by tracking wounded prey or flushing birds and small game (see Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient). By the Late Mesolithic, a well-developed ‘collector’ economy based on resource intensification was in place throughout northern and western Europe. Plant and animal resources were extensively exploited based on their reliable and recurrent seasonal availability, producing a surplus that could be stored for later use. For this reason, several anthropologists and archaeologists have argued that some Late Mesolithic foragers should be considered complex hunter-gatherers. Technology

Mesolithic stone-tool technology was based on microliths – small stone tools, usually geometric in shape, that were manufactured on small blades or bladelets. They were set into special slots in bone or antler shafts, forming a composite tool (Figure 1). Composite tools were used both for hunting and procuring and processing plant materials. Organic tools were manufactured of bone, antler, or wood, and included a variety of harpoons, bird points, and fishing equipment such as fish hooks and leisters (Figure 2). Nets and seines were used to ensnare large numbers of smaller fish. Axes of chipped and ground stone were also used for woodworking (Figure 3). Wood was an important

Table 1 Well-known Mesolithic cultures of northern and western Europe (in italics), along with the Mesolithic sites mentioned in the article Region

Early Mesolithic

Middle Mesolithic

Late Mesolithic

British Isles France

Star Carr Azilian

Sauveterrian

Iberia

Azilian

Tardenoisian, Campignian Asturian, Mirian

Low Countries Germany Scandinavia

Pesse Ofnet Kongemose

Ellerbeck Ertebølle Bjørnsholm Ringkloster Skateholm Smakkerup Huse Strøby Egede

Beuronian Maglemose

2 cm (a)

(b)

Figure 1 (a) Reconstructed Mesolithic composite point with microlithic inserts; some composite points had as many as 11 microliths inserted into a prepared groove, (b) a triangular geometric microlith or triangle.

EUROPE, SOUTH/Mesolithic Cultures 1251

(a) 2 cm

2 cm

Figure 4 Mesolithic transverse arrow point.

(b)

(c)

Figure 2 Mesolithic organic tools: (a) bone fish hook, (b) Azilian antler harpoon, and (c) Mesolithic barbed antler point.

points were added to the tool kit later in the Mesolithic; they relied on a straight cutting edge to produce a wide wound channel (Figure 4). The discovery of a number of Mesolithic composite and transverse points lodged in the bones of game animals confirms their effectiveness as hunting weapons. Pottery and ground stone tools, considered hallmarks of the succeeding Neolithic stage, made their first appearance in the Late Mesolithic. Ground stone was used to make axes and adzes, as well as beads and figurines. Although never abundant, pottery was present in several Late Mesolithic cultures, including the Campignian of northern France and the Erteblle of southern Scandinavia. Mesolithic pottery was utilitarian and was used for cooking and food storage. Erteblle vessels had thick walls and little or no decoration, and the most common form had a pointed base. Small oval ceramic bowls may have been used as lamps. Settlement

2 cm Figure 3 Mesolithic flaked stone ax.

resource in the Mesolithic, and it was used to construct dwellings and to manufacture boats, canoes, and paddles. The earliest evidence of substantial carpentry dates from the Early Mesolithic of Star Carr, where a wooden platform or track was constructed over the boggy terrain between the site and the nearby lake; the earliest known dugout canoe comes from Pesse in the Netherlands. The first definitive evidence of the bow and arrow in Europe dates from the Mesolithic, and wood was used for Mesolithic self bows and arrow shafts. The bow and arrow was an important advancement in hunting technology. It was useful in a wide range of environmental settings, including postglacial forests, and it allowed hunters to kill from a greater distance and with more accurate targeting. Transverse arrow

The Mesolithic pattern of resource diversification and resource intensification encouraged population mobility, and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers moved regularly in an annual cycle called a seasonal round, taking advantage of plants and animals during their peak abundance. For this reason, it is necessary to examine regional settlement systems rather than individual sites. In southern Scandinavia, for example, large sites, such as Bjrnsholm and Smakkerup Huse, were located along the coast, with smaller satellite settlements, such as Ringkloster, located further inland for specialized activities such as hunting, trapping, or freshwater fishing. Larger coastal sites often had a longer duration of habitation. Many of these larger settlements were semisedentary or sedentary, and some, such as Erteblle and other Scandinavian sites, were probably occupied year round. Domestic structures were variable in form: round, semicircular, oval, or rectangular. Houses had sunken floors, wooden post construction, and a single central hearth, suggesting that they were occupied by a single family or small group.

1252 EUROPE, SOUTH/Mesolithic Cultures

2 cm

that the health status of Mesolithic populations was good, with little evidence for disease or malnutrition. Numerous traumatic injuries, however, indicate that violence was a common cause of death, and mass graves, like the one at Strby Egede in Denmark, suggest intergroup conflict.

Figure 5 A typical Azilian painted pebble.

Mesolithic to Neolithic Transition

Figure 6 Artist’s rendering of the red deer antler headdress from Star Carr.

Art and Ritual

The Mesolithic was characterized by a decrease in artistic quality and quantity, especially in comparison to the preceding Upper Palaeolithic. Largely schematic rather than naturalistic, Mesolithic art was produced in a restricted range of colors – the reddish hues of ochre, complemented by black and white. Enigmatic objects such as Azilian painted pebbles may have been a form of artistic expression, although they could have been lunar notations or even game markers (Figure 5). Jewelry and items of personal adornment were present in the Mesolithic, including ground stone beads, pierced shells and teeth, and amber, and the presence of exotic items indicated regional exchange and interaction. At Star Carr, 21 red deer antler headdresses were probably worn for ceremonial rituals or used as hunting disguises (Figure 6). The existence of numerous Mesolithic cemeteries confirms the existence of burial rituals. Although most Mesolithic cemeteries were small, they provide a great deal of information about the culture and biology of Mesolithic populations. Burial techniques were not yet standardized. At the large cemeteries of Skateholm I and II in Sweden, both inhumation and cremation were practiced, and the unusual ‘skull nests’ of Ofnet, Bavaria, suggest either ritual veneration or large-scale violence. Many graves, including those of children, were colored with ochre and accompanied by grave goods, including tools, jewelry, shells, and animal and human figures, suggesting the emergence of a social status based on age and gender differences. Physical anthropologists have determined

The Neolithic arrived relatively late in northern and western Europe, beginning around 4000 BC. Neolithization, the processes that culminated in the customary production of food from domesticated sources, began prior to the actual arrival of Neolithic cultures, as Late Mesolithic foragers accommodated to the presence of neighboring agriculturalists along an expanding ‘Neolithic frontier’. During the transition, lithic artifacts such as axes, adzes, picks, and tranchets increased in number, and pottery came into wider use. The bones of domesticated animals and cereal pollen began to appear sporadically within Late Mesolithic sites. Neolithic attributes, including polished axes, domesticated animals, beaker ceramics, and burial mounds and barrows, appeared gradually over a period of several hundred years. See also: Asia, West: Mesolithic Cultures; Europe:

Neolithic.

Further Reading Bonsall C (ed.) (1989) The Mesolithic in Europe: Papers Presented at the Third International Symposium, Edinburgh, 1985. Edinburgh: John Donald. Larsson L, Kindgren H, Knutsson K, et al. (eds.) (2003) Mesolithic on the Move: Papers Presented at the Sixth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Stockholm, 2000. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Mellars PA and Dark P (eds.) (1998) Star Carr in Context. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Milner N and Woodman P (eds.) (2005) Mesolithic Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Mithen SJ (1990) Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peterkin GL, Bricker HM, and Mellars P (eds.) (1993) Hunting and Animal Exploitation in the Later Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Eurasia. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 4. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Price TD and Gebauer AB (eds.) (2005) Smakkerup Huse: A Late Mesolithic Coastal Site in Northwest Zealand, Denmark. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Rowley-Conwy P, Zvelebil M, and Blankholm HP (eds.) (1987) Mesolithic Northwest Europe: Recent Trends. Sheffield: Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield. Vermeersch P and VanPeer P (eds.) (1990) Contributions to the Mesolithic in Europe: Papers Presented at the Fourth International Symposium on the Mesolithic in Europe, Leuven, 1990. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

EUROPE, SOUTH/Greece 1253

EUROPE, SOUTH Contents Greece Greek Colonies Medieval and Post-Medieval Rome

Greece Airton Pollini and Sophie Montel, University of Paris 10 – Nanterre, Nanterre, France ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary abaton In Greek, portico for incubation. In this kind of dormitory, the sick waited for the god to appear in their sleep and to give them the way of recovery. agora In Greek, public place. They were multifunctional. andron (pl. andrones) In Greek, reception room for men. archaeometry Combining of scientific techniques and traditional methods of history and archaeology. bouleuterion Greek term to design the Council Chamber. cella Latin term for the main room of the Greek temple, the naos. It is generally preceded by the pronaos. Doric and Ionic order In classical architecture, a column (without base in Doric order, with a base in Ionic order) with shaft, capital, and entablature. The number of flutes, the form of the capital, and the decoration of the entablature vary between the two orders. The Doric order has been employed mainly in central Greece, south Italy, and Sicily, while the Ionic order originated in Asia Minor. dynast Sovereign, ruler of a little country or ruling under the protection of a great power. heroon Funerary enclosure or monumental tomb of various forms, designed for a hero and, by extension, for a prominent figure. hestiatoreion In Greek, public room for banqueting. hysplex Greek term for the system of departure of the race in the stadium. kouros (pl. kouroi) Greek term for the young male. It designs the male statue of Archaic Period. The female statue is the kore (pl. korai). naiskos (pl. naiskoi) In Greek, diminutive of naos. The term refers to a kind of little chapel with pillars or columns in front and a pediment. Naiskoi were used as funerary monuments, expanded grave reliefs, especially in Athens Kerameikos cemetery in the fourth century BCE. palaestra Place of training for the athletes. Pausanias Greek author and traveler of the second century CE. He wrote a Periegesis, a travel around Greece in ten books, very useful for archaeologists. peribolos tomb Tomb with a wall of enclosure. This kind of monumental tomb was developed in Attica in the fourth century. peribolos wall Wall of enclosure of a sanctuary. peristyle A range of columns surrounding a building or an open court.

philology Study of written documents. Pliny the Elder Latin author of the first century CE. He wrote the Historia Naturalis, encyclopedia in 37 books. In books XXXIII–XXXVII (ores, metals, stones), he deals with history of art. Plutarch Greek author of the first and second century CE. pronaos In Greek, before the temple (naos). The pronaos is the first room when entering the temple. stele Rectangular and vertical stone used as a surface of engraving and/or painting and sculpture. In funerary context, it designs the relief monument above the tomb. stoa (pl. stoas) Portico in Greek. tholos Round building. The term is also used to design the Mycenaean chamber tombs. Vitruvius Latin author and architect of the first century BCE. He wrote De Architectura, a treatise of architecture in ten books.

When it comes to Greek archaeology, one must have in mind that the very word ‘archaeology’ comes from ancient Greek and meant at that time ‘‘a history or a legend of the past’’ (as put by Plato: ‘‘They are very fond of hearing about the genealogies of heroes and men, Socrates, and the foundations of cities in ancient times and, in short, about antiquity [archaeologia] in general.’’, Hippias Major, 285d), or in the terms of Thucydides, ‘‘to talk about ancient things’’ (VII, 69, 2). Archaeology in present-day Greece is a well-known discipline and its origins should be found first in the Renaissance and most precisely in the philological tradition. Nevertheless, some knowledge of ancient texts has always been transmitted over generations, including during the Middle Ages, when manuscripts were kept and recopied within monasteries and libraries. The Renaissance marked an important moment for this transmission, either by descriptions of the antiquities seen by travelers, such as Cyriacus of Ancona (1391–1455), or by an increasing interest in, and an intellectual reappraisal of, the ancient literature. The editing of ancient texts by intellectuals all over Europe resulted in another discipline, philology, a word that appeared only in the eighteenth century. The discovery of archaeological remains in Herculaneum and then in Pompeii started a stronger regain of interest in antiquity: noble and wealthy families became interested in acquiring and collecting works of art

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coming from ancient sites. In the second half of the eighteenth century, intellectuals, artists, and cultivated people also started traveling to those ancient remains, especially in Italy and Sicily, the so-called Grand Tour. Even though we have the testimony of various Western travelers from previous periods, visits to Greece were eased only after its independence in 1831, after 10 years of war against Ottoman rule. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when nationstates were being established in Europe, Greek and Roman cultures were perceived as the cradle of Western civilization and started to be studied as such (see Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of). The example of Lord Byron, who went to Greece to fight for its independence, is symptomatic of the intellectual link between Western European countries and their claim for a common culture with ancient Greece. For a long period, Greek archaeology was actually the simple collection of works of art, what we can call antiquarianism, and almost no attention was given to the contexts of discovery. Archaeology was not yet a discipline, but only a private activity sponsored by the nobility. A turning point was represented by the establishment of the international schools in Athens, the first of which was the Ecole Franc¸aise in 1846 (Figure 1) (followed by the British, German, American, and

Italian, among others), responsible for the study of the antiques and not only their collection by private nobles. It coincides with the development of archaeology as a discipline and with the beginning of the great excavations in Greek ancient sites, in particular some of the most important sanctuaries of the Greek world (Olympia, Delphi and Delos). Another important achievement of the incipient discipline of Greek archaeology was the discovery and excavation of the site of Troy, by H. Schliemann and W. Do¨rpfeld in 1871. Greek archaeology has some problems of definition, geographical and chronological. The ancient Greek world does not coincide with present-day Greece, which somehow is an insolvable problem. Most of the ancient Greek cities established in the Anatolian coast (actual Turkey) are included in what is called Greek archaeology, but ancient Greek colonies on the Black Sea and in Italy, Sicily, France, and Spain are most commonly treated separately (see Europe, South: Greek Colonies). The other definition problem is chronological. In a broad sense, Greek archaeology would comprehend prehistoric and historical periods together, going through several centuries, from the Minoan civilization (second millennium BCE) until at least the Roman conquest in the second century BCE. On the other hand, due to the increasing specialization of the discipline, Minoan and Mycenaean periods, that is, the period before the advent of Greek city-states at the beginning of the first millennium BCE, are usually considered as independent branches of Greek archaeology.

Minoans and Mycenaeans

Figure 1 Athens, French School of Archaeology (EFA): main building, library (nineteenth century).

Succinctly, linguistic studies of the Mycenaean language, the Linear B decrypted in 1952 by M. Ventris, proved it to be a sort of ancient Greek dialect, written by ideograms and syllabic symbols. It was the proof of a certain continuity between these civilizations and classical Greece, already suggested by the memory of a thalassocracy (Minoans) in the writings by Herodotus and Thucydides, as well as implied by the descriptions of the Iliad, by Homer (Mycenaeans) (see Classical Archaeology). The chronology of Minoan civilization, whose name is obviously inspired by the legend of the Cretan king Minos and the Minotaurus, is comprised between 2100 and 1450 BCE and several archaeological remains can be found especially in Crete, since the discovery of Knossos by Sir A. Evans at the beginning of twentieth century. Some important palaces in the best-known cities such as Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros characterized this civilization, whose language, the Linear A, is still to be deciphered.

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Archaeological research has interpreted these buildings, constructed in the form of a courtyard with several rooms around it, as a palace having various functions such as habitation, administration and official ceremonies, and also religious functions. Some cases include stocking facilities, which indicate a commercial function as well (Figure 2). All these elements, together with the analysis of the evolution of architectural remains, allow the statement of a civilization with a growing degree of centralization, attaining an impressive measure in the apogee of Minoan times between 1700 and 1450 BCE. During this time, we can hardly distinguish the main palace and the urban quarters, becoming a large and intricate net of constructions. Recent research has indicated important commercial routes in the basis of ceramic material found in surveys and excavations, with a growing precision of its typology, chronology, and origin of production. Mycenaean civilization developed from 1700 and, during the period from 1450 to 1300 BCE, archaeological research has discovered remains of a series of important damages suffered by the great Minoan palace at Knossos. Recent developments have supported the hypothesis of linking the development of Mycenaeans (with an increasing number of remains found in Crete, as well as a large quantity of ceramic

and the presence of written tablets in Linear B), and the series of destructions suffered by Knossos. Mycenaean is the name given by H. Schliemann to those he thought to be the people described by Homer in the Iliad. At the edge between antiquarianism and scientific archaeological research, the discovery of the so-called Agamemnon mask, a golden mask H. Schliemann attributed to the Mycenaean king and chief of the Greek expedition to Troy, was used as the proof of the existence of that civilization. If there is still much discussion about the association of the literary tradition in the Homeric epic poems and the Mycenaean culture, ulterior research has proved at least the existence of a kind of common culture, in the forms of funerary rituals and the geographical spread of ceramics. The other great discovery by H. Schliemann was the location of the city of Troy (Figure 3), which has been excavated by a join American–German team (since 1988) and became a Turkish national historical park in 1996. The geographical spread of this civilization was impressive, reaching most of mainland Greece, several islands of the Cyclades, Crete, and Asia Minor, which can be verified by the similarities of funerary customs as well as by the spread of a common type of ceramics. Despite this large territory, we only know four palaces of that period: Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, and Thebes. Most of what we know of Mycenaean civilization comes either from archaeological research in these palaces, which seem to concentrate all the administration of the city, or, on the other hand, by the interpretation of epigraphic evidence, mostly in the form of clay tablets in Linear B. Several elements described in Homer’s epics, notably in the Iliad, found a correspondent in some archaeological findings (like a cup similar to the Nestor’s cup, weapons whose techniques of production coincide with the descriptions by Homer, etc.), posing a problem of chronology. Recent research has proved that Homer’s descriptions are not perfectly Mycenaean, but a mixture of elements of a long past memory and his contemporary society, of the eighth century BCE: one example is that weapons in the Iliad are described as iron ones although those of the Mycenaeans were in bronze.

Dark Ages

Figure 2 Knossos, Crete: the warehouse with pithoi on the ground (Minoan period).

This chronological problem takes us to the discussion of what is called the Dark Ages: the period between the thirteenth and the eighth centuries BCE. All Mycenaean remains show that an important destruction occurred in the thirteenth century, for which there are few plausible explanations: the traditional view of a series of invasions of other people, based upon some

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Figure 3 Troy (Troia/Wilusa), Turkey: fortification wall of Troia II (c. 2550–2250 BCE), with the paved ramp leading to the southwest gate.

literary evidence, was questioned by later archaeological discoveries that, instead of showing a sudden change in practices and material culture, are more likely to present a picture of continuity between Mycenaean and later periods. Even the designation of the Dark Ages is now put into question, as archaeologists are finding more and more evidence of intense activities during this period, but still not enough to give us a broader picture of the society of those times. Zagora of Andros

One of the best-known examples of archaeological remains of the period called the Dark Ages is Zagora of Andros (Cyclades): due to their importance, recent excavations advocate a different appellation for this period. Zagora is one of the first organized settlements dating in the Proto-Geometric Period (the ‘dark’ transitory period) to be discovered. Greek excavators (in the second half of the twentieth century) brought to light schist wall houses covered by mud or flat stones which remind us that localized and perishable building materials are of common use for the construction of houses in the whole Mediterranean area, from prehistory up to the present (the schist is the local stone of Andros and is used in all settlements of the island). This settlement was protected on the one side by a strong wall, and by the cliff on the other; the houses are dated to the tenth and eighth century, whereas the sanctuary continued to be in activity until the classical period. The usual composition of the houses was of an oblong room with a central fireplace, a separate storage area, and a stable with a courtyard. The advantage of the orthogonal plan that was used in later settlements is illustrated by this example of the Geometric Period.

City-state The eighth century represents a great rupture of Greek history in the development of the city-state, a rupture that was sometimes called the ‘Greek renaissance’. It is the system created in and for the city-state that characterizes the so-called ‘classical Greece’, a social system that lasted until at least the adventure of Macedonian conquest and the formation of the Hellenistic kingdoms, at the end of fourth century. These four centuries of Greek culture could be better described by means of themes instead of a simple chronological method. We discuss then the major elements of this culture we try to depict: the political sphere (with its civic buildings), the habitat, the economic organization, the religion and Greek main sanctuaries, the funerary customs, and the artistic achievements. The traditional definition of city, as developed by M. Weber, E. Durkheim, and G. Childe, is: a concentration of population in a particular place, with a specialization of working activities, a public and monumental architecture, a complex social stratification, the use of writing, and the development of internal and external commerce. Most of Greek history and culture were organized in the context of the citystate, that is, independent states composed of an urban center and territory of variable size, which gave the most distinguished elements of what is Greek. The first characteristic that should be clarified is the ‘Greek’ culture: even though we can recognize some elements to be distinguished as ‘Greek’, with the literary evidence to support this statement, a ‘Greek’ culture is an intellectually created affirmation, probably resulting from the wars several allied cities made against the common enemy, Persia. Even the

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dichotomy between Greek and barbarians only made real sense after those wars, at the beginning of fifth century BCE. Actually, Greece was composed of several independent cities, with different social and political systems of organization, and constantly at war against each other. All these traits continued to be true even after the Median Wars and the Peloponnesian War (opposing Athens to Sparta and their allies); the latter war is the clearest proof of very different organizations of those cities. Nevertheless, before enumerating the different characteristics, one could follow Herodotus’ classical description of what makes Greeks different from the others and similar among themselves: ‘‘the kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life’’ (Histories, 8, 144, 2). These are exactly the themes we follow to describe the ‘common Greek’ society. The Political Sphere

The urban center of a Greek city was composed basically of three parts: the public area of political and economic exchanges, the sacred space, and the residences. The area reserved for the public life was called agora in Greek and it used to house several buildings with specific purposes. One of the best known examples is the agora of Athens (Figure 4), which is also taken as a model by modern archaeologists trying to describe other cities’ monuments. However, recent research has made it clear that Athens is only a well-known example among various possibilities of organizing the public area of a Greek city. The American School of Classical Studies has excavated the agora of Athens since 1931, after some

preliminary, nonsystematic excavations. As most of the Greek literature preserved comes from Athens, the work in its agora can benefit from the combination of those two types of data (literary and archaeological); no other city in Greece has as much information and the same quality of data as Athens. For political purposes, the most important building is the bouleuterion, where the council of the elected representatives would gather to vote the decisions of the city. Several other examples of this civic building can be found in Greece or Asia Minor (Aphrodisias, Assos, Herakleia at Latmos, Iasos, Miletos, Nyssa, Priene): they show a variety of size and form but most of those buildings found in mainland Greece are in a bad state of preservation (Argos, Athens, Corinth, Dodona, Megalopolis, and Olympia). One of the most characteristic buildings of an agora is the portico (stoa in Greek): some agoras seem not to have a bouleuterion, but a portico is present in practically every Greek city. The stoai were places for public gatherings and walking (Figure 5): they offered shelter on rainy or too sunny days; they could also provide shelter for public, religious, commercial, or political activities; they constituted multipurpose buildings. The typical architecture of these buildings is of a long covered space, recognizable mainly by the presence of colonnades, forming a protected place. In the case of Athens, several porticoes were identified, on all four sides of the agora; they are not contemporaneous but they progressively framed the public space. Some of them may also have had some administrative functions, as well as a propitious place to house Solon’s laws (Royal Portico, in the west), where the tribunal could give some of the city’s judgments, such as the famous one against the philosopher Socrates

Figure 4 Athens, agora: the public place (circular tholos in the foreground) and temple of Hephaistos on the left.

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Figure 5 Assos, Troad, Turkey, agora: north stoa; on the back wall, we can see the holes for the wooden beams for an upper story (late Hellenistic age).

in 399 BCE. Public display in the form of inscriptions on steles could also provide information on laws or on next events. When talking about the stoai of Athens, one of the most impressive is the Stoa of Attalos, constructed by Attalos II of Pergamon in the middle of the second century BCE, and rebuilt by the American school to lodge the Museum of the Agora in 1953–56. At the rear of this building, a row of shops links the building with the commercial function of the agora. Other agorai have been excavated in Greek cities. All of them assume the role of the economic center of the city, with permanent (stoai, shops often with a room for the sales and another room, at the back, for the stock or the workshops) and not permanent structures (such as stalls): on the Competaliast’s agora in Delos, holes in the pavement made of granite plates were brought to light and interpreted as holes for stalls and tents installed on the market day. Other common types of building present in an agora are the sacred ones (temples or altars), as well as places for social gatherings, such as theaters. In some smaller cities, the same building could perform the functions of theater and bouleuterion, depending on the circumstance. That was not the case in Athens, where one can find, besides the bouleuterion, an odeon (small covered theater) in the middle of the agora, constructed under Roman rule in the first century BCE. Habitat

Greek habitat may be perceived by various means and should take account of the structural differences between, on the one hand, cities of spontaneous growth, such as Athens and Delos (Figure 6), and planned ones, such as Piraeus, Olynthos, Miletos,

or Priene. On the other hand, the habitat comprises either the urban center of a city (called asty in Greek), or residences, farms, and small villages spread in the countryside. Most of our knowledge of Greek habitat comes from the study of urban centers, and good examples are Delos and Olynthos, or the colonial cities in the west (Megara Hyblaea, Selinunte, Poseidonia, Metapontos) and in the east (Chersonesos, Istria, etc.). Olynthos Olynthos (Chalcidic peninsula) is a famous example of a Greek urban habitat: D. M. Robinson (Johns Hopkins University) excavated it between 1928 and 1939, and J. Vokotoulou is undertaking recent excavations and restorations. The city occupies two flat-topped hills rising to about 30–40 m (the north and south hills) and a section in the plain, east of the hills; founded in the fifth century and unoccupied since its destruction by Philippe II in 348 BCE, Olynthos is of great interest for archaeologists. The ruins preserved the state of the houses where ancient Greeks lived in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The main feature of Olynthos is the regular orthogonal plan of the city and the organization of the habitat in blocks: for example, on the north hill, houses were mostly grouped in blocks of ten, comprised of two rows of five houses separated by a narrow alley. Like most Greek houses, they are organized around a central courtyard, often paved, and a portico on one side (generally north). Within this regular plan, however, there is considerable variation, and the uniformity of the house plans is only on the surface. Some houses devote much space to andrones (richly decorated with floor mosaic), kitchens, and other specialized rooms, whereas others have more general-purpose spaces or many shops. The study of the artifacts found in the houses allows working

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Figure 6 Delos, theater area: example of spontaneous habitat (Hellenistic and Roman in date).

hypothesis on the purpose of the rooms and the gender distribution inside the house: this new approach has renewed our knowledge and interpretations of the organization of Greek household. Other sites inform us on the daily Greek lifestyle: Abdera (Thrace), Kassope (Epirus), and Priene (Asia Minor) are examples of modular Hellenistic houses like the ones in Olynthos. The joint Greek and Swiss excavation of Eretria (Euboia) has revealed oval-shaped houses or houses of apsidal plan, dating to the Geometric Period, as well as houses decorated with mosaic dating to Hellenistic and Roman periods. The mosaic floors also concern the rich Hellenistic houses of Pella (Macedonia), second capital of the Macedonian kingdom, where the archaeologists have discovered a palace. Two other palaces were discovered, completing our knowledge on this kind of residence: the palace of the first capital of the Macedonian kingdom, VerginaAigai, dated to the second half of the fourth century BCE, and another in Demetrias-Volos (Thessaly). These impressive (Pella: 60 000 m2) but badly preserved sites comprise complexes which surrounded, like the Greek houses, large, open, peristyle and central courtyards. The apartments, the reception rooms, and the functional ones were distributed round these central courtyards. Territory

One of the major developments of Greek archaeology in the last two decades is the introduction of a different method of research, the survey. This technique consists of the collection of data on the surface and of the identification of constructed structures, covering a large area and broad chronological periods. One of the main intentions of these researches is

the identification of settlements spread in the countryside (chora in Greek). The study of the territory of a Greek city is a relatively recent subject for archaeologists and it allows a new approach on ancient Greek lifestyle. A great part of the society was organized on an agricultural basis, from the calendar (e.g., for festivals and wars) to the economic, political, and social life, since only citizens could own the land and cultivate it. Recent discoveries all over Greece permitted the drawing of a better picture on several aspects, but especially on the organization of the habitat in the form of farms or small villages, as well as new hypothesis of demography estimations, of the economic production of the land, etc. Another evolution is the cooperation of several scientists in the archaeological research: geographers, botanists, zooarchaeologists, among others, are integrated in the archaeological team and search for a broader knowledge of ancient lifestyle. The first and the best-known example of survey in Greece is the Boiotian Project, started in 1979 and intended to draw a complete picture on this region’s occupation. Since then, several other projects have been proposed almost everywhere in Greece and they have given a much better idea of the ancient rural life. One of the reasons surveys are so wellvalued is that their results are held in the form of quantifiable data, allowing the development of models for the interpretation of the territory’s occupation and the comparison between several regions. Our knowledge of the organization of Greek countryside has improved considerably thanks to this new method; nevertheless, much has been said to reinforce the limits of surveys and the importance of completing them with traditional stratigraphic excavations.

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Religion and Main Sanctuaries

As in every society, ancient Greece had a specific form of organization of economic life; however, compared with other themes, which are the subject of a clear conceptualization by ancient authors, the economic life was not an aspect of major interest. The word economics (oikonomikos) comes from Greek, but it held a very different sense at that time – it was related to the management of the household (oikos in Greek). The treatises by Xenophon and Aristotle, both named Oikonomikos, were entirely devoted to the administration of the household, in its broad sense, which also included how to deal with the citizen’s family and slaves. Nothing was ever written on how to administer the economy at the city level, or how economic exchanges were organized. Our knowledge has to draw either on the archaeological remains alone or on some short texts (mainly inscriptions) dealing with very specific subjects. The rarity and the variety of sources (inscriptions, numismatics, and several types of material culture) result in several different interpretations for the economic history of ancient Greece. The reference book by M. I. Finley (The Ancient Economy, 1973) stressed the importance of agriculture as the main source of richness; more recently, the study of some aspects of the long-distance commerce, especially the study of amphorae, has drawn attention to the possibilities of the high economic income merchants could have. There are basically two issues that favor this reappraisal of the importance of commerce: on the one hand, the developments on the typology of ceramics (whose locality and date of production can be identified much more precisely), and on the other hand, submarine archaeology and the discovery of important shipwrecks with their load (the best-known examples are those of Marseille and Alexandria). These improvements lead to a much broader view of economic exchanges and contribute to their reevaluation. The first and most important conclusion is that, despite some texts (mainly the works of philosophers as Plato’s Laws, The Republic, and Aristotle’s Politics) advocating for an entirely autonomous city as the perfect model, all and every Greek city counted on external commerce. On the local scale, after a long tradition in Greek archaeology of being interested only in the most impressive monuments (temples, civic buildings, etc.), some aspects of ancient common life have recently attracted attention. In this sense, excavations of workshops and farms as well as surveys made in the countryside contributed to reinforce and improve our knowledge of the economic production.

Our knowledge of Greek religious practices has continued to increase since the end of the nineteenth century and the first large excavations conducted by the French School of Archaeology (Delphi, Delos), by the German school (which excavated mainly in Olympia, Samos, and in Turkish sites like Miletos and Didyma), by the Austrian (Ephesos), by the American school (Isthmia, Nemea), and by the Greek Archaeological Service (the Acropolis of Athens, Dodona, Eleusis, Epidauros). Those sites are very important for us to approach the Greek way of honoring the gods. One possible approach to the study of Greek sanctuaries and religion is by the festivals organized in those places. We can start with the Olympic games, as this field shows a recent improvement, due mostly to the Olympic games of Athens in 2004. Olympia The Germans have excavated the place that gave its name to the Olympic games since the end of the nineteenth century. Whereas a Mycenaean cult center is attested, Olympia (NW Peloponnesus) became important only in the Geometric and Archaic Periods (776 BCE is the date traditionally given for the beginning of the games). The buildings belong to two main categories: worship (temples of Hera, altar and temple of Zeus with the chryselephantine statue – made of gold and ivory – by Phidias), and places linked to the activities of the Olympics (stadium, palaestra, gymnasium, and accommodation). More specific and problematic is the so-called Phidias workshop, a place where the technician certainly sculpted the statue. Olympic games were organized in four different places, during what is called an olympiad: they started in Olympia, continued in Isthmia and Nemea, then in Delphi, and finished in Isthmia and in Nemea again. Nemea In Nemea, S. G. Miller (University of Berkeley, California) reconstructed the system of departure of the stadium (in Greek hysplex, which guaranteed a simultaneous start) and allowed a better comprehension of the athletics. The excavations (of the locker room, the passageway to the stadium, the drinking fountains, and the platform for the judges) and the restoration of Nemea, as well as the restoration in Isthmia (University of Chicago), complete our knowledge of the buildings used for Olympic Games. The following examples complete the panorama of Greek places of worship. Athens The sanctuary of Athena Polias on the Acropolis of Athens is one of the most famous and well-known religious places of classical antiquity

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Figure 7 Athens, Acropolis: the sacred rock from Philopappos Hill.

(Figure 7). Ancient sources are prolific (Pausanias, Plutarch), several researchers studied this place, and a large academic production is available. The excavations were first conducted in the nineteenth century under the authority of the archaeological society (P. Cavvadias) with German contribution (1862–95 mainly); in 1975 began a great campaign of restoration work that is still in progress. The Propylaea, the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and the temple of Athena Nike are the major buildings of the sacred rock, but our knowledge of this place also concerns the inscriptions (IG I3) and the offerings: statues, specially the archaic maiden of the Perserschutt (the word, owed to German archaeologist W. Do¨rpfeld, refers to all the fragments resulted from the Persian vandalization of the Acropolis in 480–479 BCE), bronze statuettes, vases, weapons, little objects. Eleusis Eleusis, where the Greek Archaeological Society has been working since 1882, is another place of interest in Attica (22 km west of Athens). It was a sanctuary of Demeter, where mysteries were celebrated. Eleusis became a pan-Hellenic sanctuary in the Archaic period under Solon. The main architectural features and the specific archaeological remains of this sanctuary are the sacred well (Kallichoron), the Cave of Pluto, and the Telesterion of Demeter where the secret initiation rites were accomplished. The telesterion is a square building with banks of seats on its four sides; here, initiated people watched the mysteries. This kind of building is very specific and belongs to the category of meeting places. Other examples have been excavated: for religious purposes in Samothrace (Sanctuary of the Great Gods), Thebes (Cabirion), and for civic purposes, in several agorai.

Some of the main Greek sanctuaries house oracles: Delphi, Delos, Dodona, Didyma, Epidauros. In Delphi (Phocidia), Apollo spoke to the believer through the Pythia, a priestess; in Delos, in Didyma, and in other places in Asia Minor (i.e., Claros), Apollo also gave oracles. In Dodona (Epirus), it was Zeus’ oracle that spoke by the rustle of the wind in the sacred tree (oak). Asklepios, whose main sanctuary is in Epidauros (but also Kos and Pergamon in Hellenistic and Roman periods), cured the ill, sending them visions. All these practices, documented by ancient texts and archaeological remains, have revealed specific installations, which give us a better idea of the way Greeks consulted the oracles. Delphi Delphi is a sanctuary of Apollo located in Central Greece, north of the Corinthian Golf, in Phocidia. It was founded probably in the geometric period, c. 800 BCE (but there are some traces of Mycenaean occupation in the surrounding area). The excavations conducted by the French school since the end of the nineteenth century have revealed numerous phases for the altar and temple of Apollo, and several remains of offerings made to the divinity (Figure 8). It is important to notice that, before exploring the sanctuary, the French school and the French government had to move the modern village of Kastro (which developed since the Middle Ages in the location of the ancient ruins). This operation permitted the preservation of one of the most significant religious place of the ancient world. In other places, like Olympia or Delos, which were not occupied since late antiquity, archaeologists did not encounter such problems. Our knowledge of Delphi’s topography owes much to the testimony of the Greek

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Figure 8 Delphi, sanctuary of Apollon: theater (classical and Hellenistic periods), Apollo temple (fourth century) under it, and the treasury of the Athenians at the bottom.

author Pausanias (Description of Greece, Book X) who described the sanctuary in the second century BCE. Historians and archaeologists compared the remains excavated and the text; it results in a possible recreation of the numerous architectural buildings (temples, porticoes, about 30 treasuries) and sculptural offerings along the sacred way (the statue bases are preserved and we can analyze the evolution of the settings of such offerings). The archaeological finds and the ancient sources combined allow us to understand Delphi as a real showcase for the cities which represented at the sanctuary either major events (victories on the barbarians, Persians, or Gauls) or personal acts and commemorations. Delphi was, in the symbolic spirit of Greek mythology, the navel of the world. Neither archaeological nor geophysical studies brought to light explanations about the functioning of the oracle (neither hole in the ground nor divine spirit), famous in antiquity and used by Greeks before every important enterprise (i.e., colonization). Moreover, on the other side of the valley, the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia completes the panorama of this important religious place (temple, treasuries, and a tholos, built in the beginning of the fourth century BCE, the function of which remains hypothetical). Delos The sanctuary of Apollo in Delos (Cyclades) is one of the main interests of this island deserted at the end of antiquity. The French School of Archaeology started working there in 1873 and the activities (excavations, studies, restorations) still carry on. The oracle of Apollo was the second one after Delphi,

and, here again, Delian Festival and games were held every four years. Didyma The sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma (Asia Minor, 10 km south of the city of Miletos) was a famous cult place with a sacred spring and a grove before the arrival of the Greeks. The Germans all through the twentieth century up to the present have conducted the excavations. Here, the study of the Hellenistic period of the temple gives some information on the oracle: the temple was unroofed; a naiskos in the middle of the court contains the statue of Apollo, whereas an unusual room between the pronaos and the cella may have served as the Chresmographeion (office of the oracle). A sacred way linked the Didyma sanctuary to the city of Miletos (also excavated by a German team), and much has been learnt on the procession held between these two points from inscriptions and archaeological finds. Dodona This sanctuary of Epirus (north of central Greece, 20 km south of Ioannina) was famous for the oracle of Zeus, traditionally the earliest oracle in Greece. The earliest archaeological evidence for cult activity dates to the eighth century BCE. Greek excavations (from 1873 up to the present) brought to light the temple of Zeus and a peribolos wall that surrounded the sacred oak (early fourth century), three other temples (Aphrodite, Dione, Themis), and a bouleuterion. Dodona developed a more monumental character with the rule of King Pyrrhos (297–272 BCE). A theater, a temple of Herakles, stoai, and

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finally a stadium were added. The theater and the stadium belong to the festival buildings used in Dodona for the Naia Festival (athletic and drama contests) held every four years in honor of Zeus. Epidauros In Epidauros (on the east coast of the Argolid, Peloponnesus), the sanctuary honored first Apollo (sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas) and then Asklepios, God of Medicine. The excavations began in 1881 (Greek Archaeological Society) and continued in the twentieth century, while the restoration works are still in progress (Committee for the Preservation of the Epidaurus Monuments). In the fourth and third centuries BCE, an ambitious building program resulted in the construction of monumental buildings for the worship (the temple and the altar of Asklepios, the tholos, the abaton, etc.), and later, of convenient buildings (the theater, the hestiatoreion, the baths, the palaestra, gymnasium, stadium, etc.). The theater, the tholos, and the abaton (portico where the sick waited for the god to appear in their sleep) are the most specific buildings of this sanctuary. Porticoes for incubation (abaton) are known in other sanctuaries of Asklepios (Athens, on the south side of the Acropolis, Corinth) or Amphiaraos, hero healer (Oropos, Attica). Like other religious festivals, the Asklepieia (pan-Hellenic athletic and dramatic festival) were held every four years. Samos, Ephesos Two other sanctuaries give some precious data on the religious practices. The Heraion of Samos (excavated mainly by the Germans between 1910 and 1914, 1925 and 1939, and since 1952) and the Artemision of Ephesos (excavated by the Austrians since 1896) show us examples of an Archaic Ionic temple. In these two places, we can follow the development of the sanctuary from the Geometric Period to Roman time. Ionic order began there, on the west coast of Asia Minor: the archaic temple of Artemis in Ephesos was the largest building in the Archaic Greek world and the first large structure to be built entirely in marble. The temple, reconstructed after a fire in 356 BCE, was considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The special features of the soil in the Heraion of Samos ensured the preservation of ivory and wood artifacts, which is very rare; in the Ephesos’ so-called Artemision, many little offerings were discovered and inform us on the cults celebrated there in the Geometric Period, before the construction of the archaic temple (so-called Cresus’ temple). Necropolis – Mausoleum: Funerary Customs

The archaeology of death is one of the most productive fields of our discipline. The funerary custom is

an important element in the definition of a society: its regularity and diffusion in space may shed light on the extent of a given community. The type of tombs (sarcophagus, funeral urn, tumulus, for an individual or for a family, etc.), the funerary ritual, the treatment of the corpse (incineration or inhumation), and the artifacts buried together with the deceased inform us of the physical characteristics and the social status of the deceased, as well as the religious beliefs of the community. We choose to comment on four sites, ranging from the Proto-Geometric to the fourth century BCE, that illustrate archaeological concerns of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the heroon of Lefkandi (Euboia), the cemetery of the Kerameikos in Athens, the mausoleum of Halikarnassos (Asia Minor), and the royal necropolis of Vergina (Macedonia). The British School of Archaeology in Athens excavated the heroon of Lefkandi during the 1980s. The excavation of the Toumba cemetery has brought to light a long and narrow, apsidal building dated to the first half of the tenth century BCE. It measures c. 50  13.5 m2, and a row of holes for wooden posts surrounds the building. Other holes, in the center of the building, are the remains of the inner colonnade: the heroon, like the first Archaic temple in stone, had an axial colonnade. Two burial shafts were uncovered inside, one containing the skeletons of four horses, the other both the inhumation of a woman and the cremation of a warrior. They were rich in offerings, some of which were imported, and show the exchanges between Greece and Near East at that time. The structure has been interpreted as a local ruler’s house, which, after his death, was covered with a mound and converted to a heroon. The cemetery of the Kerameikos in Athens was explored first by the Greek Archaeological Society (1863–1913) and since 1913 by the German Archaeological Institute. These excavations allow us to understand on a wide scale the funerary practices of the rich Athenians from the sub-Mycenaean and ProtoGeometric periods to the late imperial Roman time. This cemetery includes private graves, tumuli with several burials, public burial monument (the demosion sema), and peribolos tomb. All these funerary structures have revealed rich material that gives an idea of the citizens buried there. The monuments discovered over the tomb, statues (kouroi and korai), steles, or naiskoi, give several examples for the history of art of both Archaic and classical times (Figure 9). Among the important discoveries of the nineteenth century, we have to consider the mausoleum of Halikarnassos. This is an eponymous monument: we name this kind of funerary structure after the Mausolos

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Figure 9 Athens, Kerameikos cemetery: the Street of the Tombs, with classical funerary monuments (mostly fourth century BCE).

dynasty of Karia who died in 353–352 BCE. Charles Newton, who removed many of the sculptures to the British Museum, excavated the site in 1857. Excavations resumed under Danish direction in 1966. It is a huge construction (total height of monument c. 57.6 m) made up of a tall podium (with two or three steps), a cella surrounded by a peristyle, and a pyramidal roof crowned by a sculpture. The mausoleum associates Greek features and local, indigenous ones. Greek sculptors came to Halikarnassos (following ancient authors Pliny and Vitruvius) – we can see it in the relief friezes which decorate the monument – but the entire structure owes much to local traditions, for example, the Lycian pillar tombs and the Nereid Monument of Xanthos. Nowadays, researchers place emphasis on all these influences and on the relations between the funerary structures of Greek cemeteries (like the Kerameikos) and those ones. In 1977, Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the royal necropolis of Vergina (Macedonia). Vergina-Aigai was the first capital of Macedonia: archaeologists brought to light the palace and a large number of tombs (from the tenth to the second century BCE). A huge tumulus, 110 m in diameter containing three vaulted tomb chambers and one cist grave, lies on the western edge of the necropolis. These royal burials of the last third of the fourth century, with their well-preserved painted decoration and rich contents (gold and ivory artifacts, weapons, crimson-purple fabrics, ruins of funerary furniture) are among the most spectacular recent discoveries of Greek archaeology. Tomb II, with a royal hunt painting on the front, has been identified as the tomb of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Vergina and other Macedonian tombs (Lefkadia, Aghios

Athanasios) are now being published by their Greek finders or curators. Artistic Achievements

Ancient painting When we talk about ancient painting, we have only a few works of art to look at: Minoan and Mycenaean wall paintings are often fragmentary; almost nothing is preserved from the Classical period. The Greek author Pausanias gives some rich descriptions of mural paintings in Delphi’s Cnidian Lesche (by Polygnotos), of the panels in the Stoa Poikile (painted stoa) of the Athenian agora (by famous Athenian artists), or in the left room of the Acropolis Propylaea, but nothing has survived. The only possible example of a classical Greek painting is to be found in the colonial context of the Tomb of the Diver in Paestum (Figure 10). The tomb formed by four slabs and one lid, all of them painted, was dated to 480 BCE. The very characteristic of painting the inside of a tomb and certain aspects of the iconography put some doubts on the identification of the tomb as Greek. On the other hand, the tomb belongs to a Greek city, and the style of the paintings is comparable to the contemporaneous Greek ceramics. For the Archaic and classical periods, in terms of Greek painting, the black or red painted vases (produced in Greece mainly between c. seventh and third century BCE) remain the most reliable source. However, recent archaeological discoveries in the north of Greece (Macedonia; see also the discussion on cemeteries) invite us to a new approach to the ancient authors whose writings on painting and color have been feeding the collective imagination of artists, philosophers and historians since the

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Figure 10 Paestum National Museum, south Italy: Tomb of the Diver, detail of the lid with the diving scene (c. 480 BCE).

Renaissance. Recent books bring a new way of looking at the links between Roman and Greek paintings: the first are sometimes inspired by the second, when they are not copies of Greek famous creations, as the Roman author Pliny the Elder, for example, reported (Natural History, XXXV). Archaeometry and new techniques of photographic analysis (infrared, ultraviolet, etc.) complete iconographic and stylistic studies: analyses and characterization of the pigments and the painting techniques used on Macedonian, Thracian, or Alexandrian monumental tombs, on the Hellenistic paintings collection of Louvre Museum in Paris, on the funerary stele of Demetrias-Volos, revealed the characteristics of this kind of painting (monumental and funerary) and allow some more precise considerations. On the other hand, the discipline has seen a renewal of the studies on the Roman wall painting (like for the Greeks’, Roman portable panels disappeared) of the Pompeii, Herculaneum (Campania), or Farnesina (Rome) villae. Current research starts from the four styles defined by A. Mau in 1899 (Style I, incrustations simulating marble of various colors and types on painted plaster; Style II, architectonic or architectural, artists imitated architectural forms by pictorial means; Style III, ornamental, under Augustus’ reign; Style IV, heterogeneous) to define and specify features that depend on the geographical, historical, political, sociological, and of course architectural contexts. Our knowledge of ancient painting has recently improved not only with these late classical and Hellenistic discoveries, but also with the renewal of the study on protohistoric painting. Cycladic wall paintings were brought to light in the south Aegean islands of Santorini (frescoes of the ancient habitations in Akrotiri-Thera, excavated by S. Marinatos, then by Ch. Doumas (Archaeological Society at Athens, since 1967), Melos (Phylakopi), and Keos (Ayia Irini, University of Cincinnati since

1960); Minoan paintings were discovered in Crete (palace of Knossos, Ayia Triada, villae of Amnisos and Tylissos in the surroundings). All the figurative paintings are neopalatial in date (1700–1450 BCE). The frescoes of Akrotiri-Thera are now exhibited in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera and in the National Museum in Athens, while restoration works are now being conducted on the site. The frescoes of Knossos, discovered by Sir Arthur Evans, are exhibited in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum; copies are on display for tourist purposes on the site. The Minoan frescoes have different sizes: some of them covered the wall in its whole height (e.g., the ‘saffron gatherer’), others were under life size (taureador fresco) or miniature (in this case, the paintings emphasized architectural parts like the doors or windows). Distinction can also be made between the subjects: among the frescoes with human and animal representations, we find bull-leaping and bullcatching compositions, boxing and wrestling scenes, processional scenes; there are also formal patterns or heraldic animals on a large scale (frieze of ‘figureof-eight shields’ or ‘griffins flanking throne’) and, finally, decorated floors (the dolphin fresco, restored by Evans like a mural, probably collapsed from the second story). Mycenaean paintings were discovered in the palaces of Mycenae (H. Schliemann, Greek and English excavators), Tiryns (H. Schliemann and W. Do¨rpfeld), and Pylos (palace of Nestor, paintings first published by M. Lang, 1969), and also in Orchomenos and Thebes; some of the Knossos murals are Mycenaean because they were painted when the Mycenaeans came to Crete c. 1450 BCE. Mycenae and Tiryns are well known by archaeologists and historians. In Pylos, where the frescoes that stood on the walls at the time of their destruction have survived in great number, the present purpose is to restore the paintings trying to reconstruct the

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decorative program from the huge quantities of fragments. The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project (‘‘multi-disciplinary, diachronic archaeological expedition formally organized in 1990 to investigate the history of prehistoric and historic settlement and land use in western Messenia in Greece, in an area centered on the Bronze Age administrative center known as the Palace of Nestor,’’ University of Cincinnati and other contributions) is one of the programs which illustrates the association of researchers in order to improve our knowledge on a place or an area. In this context, chemists, physicists, archaeologists, and art historians work together and produce new results that give another idea of the ancient artifacts, way of life, etc. Ancient recreations of the Mycenaeans paintings of Pylos have been checked, completed, or changed, while new ones have been suggested; some fragments have revealed clearly traces of painting or patterns. Sculpture In this article, we cannot take into consideration all the recent discoveries and improvements in the study of ancient pieces of art. We can only mention the direction taken by art historians who are dealing with Greek sculpture. Marble originals, rare bronze originals (often discovered under the sea), or Romans copies of both continue to impress visitors of antique museums. The reception, the visual perception, and the setting of the statues are nowadays subjects of study, as well as the use of color or gilding on marble sculpture. It is neither the career of one sculptor, nor the stylistic or iconographic studies, which mainly interests the art historians and archaeologists of the twenty-first century: they want to understand Greek sculpture from the quarrying of the block

in the quarry to the workshop of the sculptor, and from there to the place of exhibition (Figure 11). Ceramics The same shift of interest has also happened in the study of Greek ceramics. In the beginning, archaeologists cared only for the beautiful pieces of art of painted vases; more recently, scholars are more preoccupied in defining typologies and in making them more accurate. In a broader sense, the modern approach aims at constituting precise corpora either of forms with accurate dating or in a reappraisal of those painted vases, trying to show evolutions of style and of subjects represented. The study of everyday vases, and particularly amphorae, permitted assessment of some aspects of the organization of ancient daily life. Analyzing the paintings, researchers are trying to account for the messages those images could convey, contributing thus to a better comprehension of the values of those societies and their symbolic meanings. A new approach that sees material culture as an indication of the people’s identities (mainly grouped under the term ethnicity) is perceptible in the study of Greek ceramics, either in the constitution of typologies or in the analysis of representations and symbolic meanings of images. Recent improvements in Greek archaeology are now allowing the reduction of the differences of approach between a more traditional one, based essentially on classics, and a more conceptual one, influenced by an anthropological method developed initially for prehistoric archaeology. Those two approaches have much to gain from each other and Greek archaeology is the perfect field for that encounter, as it is a privileged area, containing extensive

Figure 11 Samos, Greece: the cast of the sculptural group offered by Geneleos (beginning of the sixth century) is set up on the site, while the original pieces are in Samos and Berlin museums.

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written documents as well as very broad material culture that can touch all aspects of past life, from poor people’s daily life to high-level artistic and economic achievements of the elite. See also: Asia, West: Roman Eastern Colonies; Ceramics and Pottery; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Classical Archaeology; Ethnicity; Europe, South: Greek Colonies; Rome; Historical Archaeology: Methods; Landscape Archaeology; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology.

Further Reading de Carbonnie`res P (1995) Olympie: La victoire pour les dieux. Paris: CNRS. Empereur J-Y and Garlan Y (eds.) (1986) Recherches sur les amphores grecques. Athens: Ecole Franc¸aise d’Athe`nes; Paris: De Boccard. Etienne R, Mu¨ller Ch, and Prost Fr (2000) Arche´ologie historique de la Gre`ce antique. Paris: Ellipses. Holtzmann B (2003) L’Acropole d’Athe`nes: Monuments. Cultes et histoire du sanctuaire d’Athe`na Polias. Paris: Picard. Immerwahr S (1990) Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Knigge U (1991) The Athenian Kerameikos. History – Monuments – Excavations. Athens: The German Archaeological Institute in Athens (Krene Editions). Miller SG (2004) Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Morris I (1992) Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rouveret A (2004) Peintures grecques antiques – La collection helle´nistique du muse´e du Louvre. Paris: Fayard-Muse´e du Louvre. Whitley J (2001) The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Greek Colonies Gocha R Tsetskhladze, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Archaic period Traditionally dated c. 700–479 BC. Some scholars prefer different dates: starting from c. 800 BC with the appearance of the Greek alphabet; or from c. 750 BC, to coincide with the onset of the Greek renaissance; or identify c. 700–600 BC as the Orientalizing period, when many ideas and features came from the Near East. 479 BC marks the end of the Persian Wars, a significant turning-point in Greek history. A period of significant Greek achievement in pottery, sculpture, architecture, lyric poetry, philosophy, and new forms of political organization (from tyranny to democracy).

Classical period c. 479–323 BC. From the end of the Graeco-Persian Wars to the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great and his death. The fifth century marks the development by Athens of her empire, the conflict between Athens and Sparta, resulting in the Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), the defeat of Athens and the loss of its empire; culturally a golden age thanks to Pericles; further refinement of democratic government. The fourth century is marked by the fight for dominance between Sparta, Athens, and Thebes. Athens remained the dominant intellectual center (Plato, Aristotle, philosophy, rhetoric, etc.). colonization A form of migration, deliberate in intent. For the Archaic period of ancient Greek history, it dates from c. 750 down to c. 490 BC and describes Greek expansion throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which took place for a variety of reasons. Colonization continued in the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Ancient colonization was different from its ‘modern’ counterpart. Hellenistic period 323–31 BC – from Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire to the defeat of Cleopatra VII of Egypt by Rome (and her suicide in 30 BC). Under Alexander’s successors, numbers of small kingdoms emerged throughout the Near East from the defeated Achaemenid empire. Greek culture spread beyond the Mediterranean, resulting in the Hellenization of local cultures and the absorption of features of local cultures by the Greeks; Alexandria became the true center of Greek culture. From the late third century BC, Rome gradually conquered the whole Mediterranean world; from c. 200 BC it began to develop a culture of its own, heavily influenced by Greek models. migration Movement of a group of people as a body, usually in large numbers and over large distances. Migrations happen in every period of human history, for many and various reasons, for example, displacement by war, collapse of empires, natural disaster, shortage of food or raw materials, etc. post-and-pise´ construction Vertical wooden framework with rammed earth/clay infilling to make walls.

Major Greek expansion around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, called in academic literature ‘Greek colonization’, dates from the Archaic period (eighth century BC to beginning of the fifth century BC). Migration and colonization feature in every period of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern history, but Archaic Greek colonization is distinguished from most others by its scale and extent (the only comparisons to be made are with Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Near East and the Hellenistic period, but the nature and character of these are different). Greece itself had witnessed migration even before the Archaic period: the Ionians migrated from mainland Greece (followed by Dorians and Aeolians) in the late eleventh to tenth century BC and settled the islands of the Aegean and on the west coast of Asia Minor, founding 12 cities; earlier still, the Mycenaeans had established their settlements around the Mediterranean. The reasons why Archaic Greek colonization was such an important phenomenon are simple and straightforward. Greeks set up colonies in new environments, establishing themselves in the lands

1268 Greek Colonies

stretching from the Iberian Peninsula in the West to North Africa in the South and the Black Sea in the North East (Figure 1). In this colonial world, Greek and local cultures met, influenced, and enriched each other, and together with the spread of the Roman empire and Christianity formed the foundations of modern European culture.

Introduction: General Observations Although the study of Greek colonization, colonies, and overseas settlements has a long history, there are some methodological issues to be addressed, not least the term ‘colonization’. There has been some discussion of the appropriateness of the term to the Ancient Greek context. Was what happened really colonization or just a form of migration? Nowadays, colonization is generally recognized as a modern Anglophone concept, based on imperial activity in the recent past, transported back and forced onto Ancient Greece; the usefulness of applying such terminology to the ancient world is debatable. In reality we are talking about words, and since ‘colonization’ has been in common

currency, it is hard to abandon its use. The fact is that there were Greek settlements outside the Greek mainland. We have few, if any, ancient written sources contemporary with Greek colonization. Our information comes from a whole range of Greek and Latin authors. Herodotus (c. 485–425 BC), Thucydides (c. 460/455– 395 BC), Strabo (c. 64/3 BC–AD 23), Pseudo-Scymnus (c. 138–74 BC), and Eusebius (c. AD 260–339) are our main sources on the establishment and description of colonies. Although in the Odyssey Homer provides us not just with information on geography, trade, and life in the Greek city but with an account of an ideal colonial site, we do not know when Homer lived (the latest suggestion is the mid-seventh century BC). Ancient authors give foundation dates for colonies, for instance Thucydides those for Sicily. But how accurate are these dates when he was writing a few centuries later? The dates given in ancient written sources need to be compared with those obtained from archaeological evidence, especially the earliest Greek pottery found in colonial sites (see Table 1). Even this approach has drawbacks: how extensively

Olbia Panticapaeum Tyras Theodosia Chersonesus

Histria

ET

RU

Gades Maenaca

M

Mesembria Apollonia Rome

Heraclea Chalcedon

Byzantium

Epidamnus

Kyme Pithekoussai

Metapontion Cyzicus

E

Chalcis Eretriaj

Corinth

Phycaea LYDIA Miletus

ACHAEA

A

NI

Megara

lO

Corcyra Himera Naxos Utica I Selinous L Katane Akragas T Carthage Syracuse Gela Kamarina E Hadrumetum D

Amisus

Trapezus

PHRYGIA

Aspendus CIA LI CI

PAM PHY LIA

Al Mina

Rhodes

R

CYPRUS CRETE N

E

A

Tyre

PHO

R A

Phasis

SEA Sinope

IA

Tartessus Hemeroscopium

AN S

Alalia

RIC IS . LEA BA

BLACK

ENIC

Massalia Emporium

SC

N

Barca Cyrene L IBYA

Naucratis Memphis EGYPT

Figure 1 Major Greek colonies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Source of illustration: Tsetskhladze GR and De Angelis F (eds.) (1994) The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology, endpapers.

Greek Colonies 1269 Table 1 Main Greek colonies and settlements in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (all dates are BC) Settlement

Mother-city/cities

Literary dates for foundation

Earliest archaeological material

Earlier local population

Abdera

1. Clazomenae 2. Teos Miletus Andros Syracuse Gela Aegina Aeolia

1. 654 (Eusebius) 2. c. 545 c. 680–652 (Strabo) 655 (Eusebius) 663 (Thucydides) 580 late 6th c. (Strabo) second half of 7th c.–first half of 6th c. (Herodotus, Ephorus, Ps.-Scymnus, Strabo) shortly after 600 c. 545 before 561 (Ephorus, Strabo) c. 655–625 late 7th c.

second half of 7th c.

No

c. 600–575

?Yes

c. 655–625 c. 600

c. 625–600 c. 600

Yes

c. 600

Yes Yes

Abydus Acanthus Acrae Acragas Adria Aenus

Agathe Alalia Alopeconnesus Ambracia Amisus Anactorium Apollonia in Illyria Apollonia in Libya Apollonia Pontica Argilus Assera Assus Astacus Barca Berezan Bisanthe Black Corcyra Byzantium Callatis Camarina Cardia Casmenae Catane Caulonia Celenderis Cepoi Cerasus Chalcedon Chersonesus Taurica Chersonesus (Thracian) Cius Cleonae Colonae Corcyra

Phocaea Phocaea/Massalia Aeolians Corinth Miletus and ? Phocaea Corinth and Corcyra Corinth and Corcyra Thera

?6th c. second quarter of 7th c. c. 600–575 c. 525–500

Yes Yes

third quarter of 7th c. c. 575–550 Yes

Miletus

c. 610 (Ps.-Scymnus)

late 7th c.

Andros Chalcis Methymna Megara and Athens Cyrene Miletus Samos Cnidus Megara Heraclea Pontica Syracuse

?655 (Eusebius)

mid-7th c.

?7th c. ?711 (Eusebius) c. 560–550 647

6th c.

c. 630

Yes

6th c. 659 (Eusebius) or 668 late 6th c. 601 (Eusebius); shortly before c. 597 (Thucydides) late 7th c.

600–575 650–625 4th c. late 7th c.

No

shortly before c. 642 (Thucydides) 737/6 (Eusebius); c. 728 (Thucydides)

c. 600 second half of 8th c. c. 700

Yes No

mid-6th c.

580–560

?Yes Yes

685 and 679 (Eusebius) 421

525–500

Yes

1. Plutarch 2. 707/6 (Eusebius); same as Syracuse (Strabo)

second half of 8th c.

Yes

7th c. some pre-750 in pre-Hellenic context; first colonial pottery after 725

Miletus and Clazomenae Syracuse Chalcis Croton Samos Miletus Sinope Megara Heraclea Pontica Athens

561–556

Miletus Chalcis Miletus 1. Eretria 2. Corinth

627

Cotyora Croton Cumae (Italy)

Sinope Achaea Chalcis and Eretria

709 (Eusebius) 1050 (Eusebius)

Cydonia

Samos (then Aegina)

c. 520 (Herodotus)

Yes No Yes

Continued

1270 Greek Colonies Table 1 Continued Settlement

Mother-city/cities

Literary dates for foundation

Earliest archaeological material

Earlier local population

Cyrene

Thera

late 7th c.

Yes

Cyzicus

Miletus

Dicaearchia Dioscourias

Samos Miletus

1. 762/1 2. 632/1 (Eusebius) 1. 756/5 2. 676/5 (Eusebius) 531 (Eusebius) c. 550

Yes

Elea Emporion Epidamnus Euhesperides Gale Galepsus Gela

Phocaea Massalia/Phocaea Corcyra Cyrene Chalcis Thasos Rhodes and Crete

early/first third of 6th c. (local inland settlement) first half of 6th c. c. 600–575

Gryneion Helorus Heraclea Minoa Heraclea Pontica Hermonassa Himera

Aeolia Syracuse Selinus

Hipponium Histria Hyria Lampsacus Laus Leontini Leros Leucas Limnae Lipara Locri Epizephyrii Madytus Maronea Massalia Mecyberna Medma Megara Hyblaea Mende Mesembria Metapontum Metaurus Methone Miletopolis Mylae Myrmecium Nagidus Naucratis Naxus (Sicily) Neapolis (Kavalla) Nymphaeum Oasis Polis

Megara and Boeotians Miletus and Mytilene Zancle/Mylae Locri Epizephyrii Miletus Crete Miletus Sybaris Chalcis Miletus Corinth Miletus Cnidus Locris Lesbos Chios Phocaea Chalcis Locri Epizephyrii Megara Eretria Megara, Byzantium, Chalcedon Achaea 1. Zancle 2. Locri Epizephyrii Eretria Miletus Zancle Miletus or Panticapaeum Samos Several Ionian cities Chalcis

c. 540 c. 600 627 (Eusebius) before c. 515

692/1 (Eusebius); shortly before 688 (Thucydides)

before 510

657 (Eusebius) ?7th c. 654 (Eusebius) shortly before 728 (Thucydides)

c. 625 c. 700

Yes

by 500 c. 700 mid-6th c.

No Yes

575–550 c. 625 c. 620 630 6th c.

750–725 7th c.

?Yes

Yes

Yes

mid-7th c. 630 (Eusebius) 679 (Eusebius); temp Messenian war (Aristotle) before c. 650 598 (Eusebius)

728 (Thucydides); before Syracuse (Ephorus) 493 775/4 (Eusebius)

575–550 c. 700

Yes

c. 600 c. 600 third quarter of 8th c.

No

?11th c. c. 500 last quarter of 8th c. 1. 700–650 2. c. 550

Yes

716 (Eusebius)

last quarter of 8th c. 575–550

No

c. 655 (Strabo) 737 (Eusebius); shortly before 733 (Thucydides)

last quarter of 7th c. third quarter of 8th c.

Yes Yes

c. 733 or c. 706

c. 650–625

Thasos Miletus Samos

610–575

554 (Ps.-Scymnus) (Strabo)

650/49 (Eusebius); 648 (Ptolemy, Diodorus)

Yes

580–570 before c. 525

Yes

Greek Colonies 1271 Table 1 Continued Settlement

Mother-city/cities

Literary dates for foundation

Earliest archaeological material

Earlier local population

Odessus Oesyme Olbia Paesus Pandosia Panticapaeum Parium

585–539

c. 560 650–625 575–550

Yes

c. 725–700 590–570

Yes

Parthenope Patraeus Perinthus Phanagoria Phaselis Phasis Pilorus Pithecusa Posidonia Potidaea Priapus Proconnesus Prusias Pyxus Rhegium Rhode Samothrace Sane Sarte Scepsis Scione Selinus

Miletus Thasos Miletus Miletus Achaeans/Elis Miletus Paros, Miletus, Erythrae Cumae/Rhodes Miletus Samos Teos Rhodes Miletus Chalcis Chalcis and Eretria Sybaris Corinth Miletus Miletus ?Miletus Sybaris Chalcis (and Zancle) Rhodes Samos Andros Chalcis Miletus Achaea Megara Hyblaea

675–650 mid 6th c.

?Yes

c. 540

?Yes

c. 550–530

Yes

c. 750–725 c. 600 c. 600

Up to a point No

Selymbria Sermyle Sestus Side Sigeum Singus Sinope

Megara Chalcis Lesbos Cyme Athens Chalcis Miletus

Siris Spina Stagirus Stryme Sybaris Syracuse Tanais Taras Tauchira Temesa Terina Thasos

Colophon Chalcidians Thasos Achaea Corinth ?Miletus Sparta Cyrene ?Croton Croton Paros

Theodosia Tieum Tomis Torone Trapezus Tyras Tyritace Zancle

Miletus Miletus Miletus Chalcis Sinope Miletus Miletus Cumae/Chalcis

647 775/4 (Eusebius) 709 12th c. (Strabo) 550–500 602 (Eusebius) c. 545 ?688

625–585 before c. 690 627 (Eusebius) 8th c. 9th-8th cc. 600–500 655

720s late 7th c. c. 700

Yes

651 (Diodorus Siculus); 650 (Eusebius); 628 (Thucydides) before Byzantium

mid-7th c.

Nearby

7th-6th cc. 620–610 1. pre-757 (Scymnus) 2. 631/0 (Eusebius) c. 680–652 656 (Eusebius) c. 650 720s (Ps.-Scymnus); 710/9 (Eusebius) 735 706 (Eusebius)

1425 (Eusebius); mid-17th c. (Archilocus) 550–500

before c. 650 757/6 (Eusebius) mid-6th c. 8th c.

last third of 7th c. c. 700

720s c. 750–725 c. 625–600 c. 700 c. 630 c. 500 c. 500 c. 650

No Yes

580–570

Yes

early 6th c. late 12th c. second half of 6th c. 575–550 third quarter of 8th c.

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes ?Yes ?Yes No

Adapted from Graham (1982), 160–162, Osborne (1996) 121–125, with additions from Tsetskhladze and De Angelis (1994) passim, and Hansen and Nielson (2004) passim.

1272 Greek Colonies

date and describes a city-state enjoying independent political and social institutions (not least its own constitution), and furnished with an agricultural territory (chora). The term apoikia is generally used for colonies; its literal translation is ‘a settlement far from home, a colony’. Although the term carries no particular political or social meaning, it can include a proto-polis with independent political and social arrangements and a chora. To distinguish another kind of colonial settlement, emporion is used. It is a kind of trading-post or settlement, lacking a chora or any independent social and political structure, established in a foreign land, either as a self-contained site or as part of an existing native urban settlement, sometimes with the permission of local rulers and under their control. The first use of the term emporion was by Herodotus in the fifth century to describe Ionian Naucratis in Egypt (see below). But this term too is artificial: a polis was also a trading center, sometimes with a designated area called, in ancient writings, an emporion. Excavation of so-called emporia demonstrates that these were not just trading stations but also centers of manufacture. In recent times the formulation port-of-trade (introduced for the first time for the ancient world by K. Polanyi in the 1950s–60s) has gained increased favor with

has the site been studied and have the earliest habitation levels been reached? In several cases we know the name of a colony from written sources but have been unable to locate it archaeologically, or unable to investigate it since it lies under a modern city. The first Greek colonies and overseas settlements were small, situated mainly on peninsulas for easier defence. Since the Archaic period the landscape has changed – sea levels have risen, peninsulas have become islands, suffered erosion, been submerged, etc. (Figures 2 and 3). We face pitfalls with the terminology used by ancient authors to describe Greek cities and colonies. It all comes from (and applies to) the Classical period and later. Its application by many modern scholars to the Archaic period complicates more than it clarifies. According to the ideal Classical concept of a polis (city-state), each city should have a grid-plan, fortification walls, a designated area for temples and cult activity (temenos), market-place (agora), gymnasium, theater, etc. Indeed, we can identify these features more or less easily when excavating Classical and Hellenistic sites, but they were not the norm in earlier periods. Even to use the term polis for the Archaic period, either in mainland Greece or in the colonial world, causes problems: the concept belongs to a later

City wall

about 600 B.C. about 560 B.C. about 500 B.C. Supposed coastline in 6th century B.C. Main streets Marshes Craftsmen's district City gate

Carmes Major

?

Pistoles

?

Moulins Bourse Agora ?

Saintlaurent

R OU RB A H

NE ZO

Old Harbor

Figure 2 Plan of Archaic Massalia (now Marseilles, southern France). Initially, colonies were small, as the city walls of about 600 BC clearly demonstrate in this case; with the increase of population, a greater area was enclosed. The coastline has changed since ancient times: the ancient harbor is now dry land. Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 363, fig. 3.

Greek Colonies 1273

Figure 3 Topography of Emporion (Spain). The initial settlement was established on a small off-shore island called Palaiapolis (right of plan; now linked to the mainland). Later, the colony was moved to the mainland, called Neapolis (left of plan). Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 475, fig. 26.

historians of the ancient economy; for example, Archaic Naucratis is so labeled, although it was more than a trading place – it manufactured pottery and scarabs. Thus, once again, modern conceptions are applied to ancient reality. The reasons for colonization are the most difficult to identify and disentangle. There were particular reasons for the establishment of each colony and it is practically impossible to make watertight generalizations. Many writers adopt a perspective influenced by modern experiences: overpopulation, food shortages, the hunt for raw materials, etc. Ancient written sources seldom mention reasons; where they do, the emphasis is always on forced emigration. The eighth century BC is not the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries AD. In the Archaic period there was little knowledge of distant lands; no trade routes plied regularly by shipping. According to one modern scholar, it was ‘murder’ to establish a colony. The people had no idea where they were going, how many of them would get there, and what they would find when they did. Another practice known from ancient times is of tyrants disposing of (to them) undesirable people by forcing them to migrate. The population of the earliest colonies was small; we have few definite figures, one is of 1000 people at Leucas, 200 at Apollonia in Illyria and the same number at Cyrene. The most obvious of example of forced migration in response to a clear set of circumstances is Ionia in East Greece, a very wealthy region in modern-day western Turkey with Miletus as its main city. From the second half of the seventh century, neighboring Lydia began to expand, gradually absorbing Ionian territory; this was the time that Ionia sent out its first colonies. Greater misfortune

befell it from the middle of the sixth century when the Achaemenid empire began to conquer Ionian territory and then, in the wake of the Ionian revolt in 499–494 BC, laid it to waste. Ancient written sources indicate directly that the Ionian population fled from the Persians – their choice was flight or to remain and be enslaved or killed. Thus, they established between 75 and 90 colonies around the Black Sea and several in the western Mediterranean. Of course, there was a shortage of land and a shortage of food, but this was not from overpopulation, it arose from loss of resources to a conquering foe; and external difficulties provoked internal tension between different political groups, especially in Miletus. One Ionian city, Teos, after sending out colonies to Abdera in Aegean Thrace and Phanagoria in the Black Sea, became so depopulated that Abdera was asked to send people back to refound the mother-city. We have a few inscriptions, such as foundation decrees of the Late Archaic period, which describe the process and formalities of founding a colony; the vast majority of the information comes, however, from Classical and later authors. Some colonies were established by a mother-city (metropolis) as an act of state, others as a private venture organized by an individual or group, in each case choosing an oikistes (leader/founder of the colony), from no particular group or class but in many cases a nobleman. The oikistes then consulted the Delphic Oracle in order to obtain the approval of the gods for his venture: the colony would be a new home for the Greek gods as well as for the settlers. The colonists and those who stayed behind bound themselves by a solemn oath not to harm each other (initially, colonies reproduced the same cults, calendars, dialects, scripts, state

1274 Greek Colonies

offices, and social and political divisions as in their mother-cities). The oikistes was a very important man. According to sources of the Classical period, it was he who named the new city, as well as selecting its precise site when the party arrived at its destination; he supervised the building of the city walls, dwellings and temples, and the division of land. The death of the oikistes may be seen as the end of the foundation process: he became a hero and his tomb was worshipped with rituals and offerings. It was a widely held opinion, based mainly on the information of Classical authors, that only males set off to colonize; and that Greek men took local women. Of course, intermarriage was practiced and many ventures may have been entirely male, but we know that women (priestesses) accompanied men in the foundation of Thasos and Massalia. It is also possible that women followed their men to a colony once it had been established. In any case, we have no evidence from the Archaic sources to be certain one way or another. The relationship between the colonists and the native inhabitants was very important. Again, there is no single model. Unfortunately, in modern scholarship, ‘political correctness’ has cast a shadow. The word ‘barbarian’ has fallen from favor because of its modern connotations; we forget how the Archaic Greeks used it – onomatopeically for the sound of local languages to their ears. Thus, ‘barbarian’ had no cultural connotations; it meant simply someone who did not speak Greek. Modern academics have even set up an artificial dichotomy of ‘Greeks’ and ‘Others’. Scholars are increasingly applying modern definitions and standards of ethnicity and race to the Archaic colonial world (even the concept of ‘Greekness’ itself belongs to the Classical period, not earlier). Step by step the attitude is fading (and rightly so) that Greeks ‘civilized’ the local peoples with whom they came into contact. All relationships are a twoway process: so, just as locals were influenced by Greeks, Greek colonies adopted and adapted local practices. Now we know that native people played an important role in the foundation and laying out of Megara Hyblaea. In Metapontum some of the first colonists used the simple construction methods of the local population – dwelling-houses were dug partly into the ground; while in the building of the temple in the chora of Sybaris, posts and pise´ were used, a technique alien to mainland Greece. These are just a few of many examples. In many cases, Greeks and locals lived alongside each other in a Greek settlement, whether in the western Mediterranean or the eastern Black Sea. Nowadays, there is increased archaeological evidence of Greeks living alongside

locals in native settlements far inland: one case in the Scythian lands some 300 miles/500 km from the shore, but also in the deep hinterland of Massalia in the south of France. Many colonies were established in territory either occupied by a local population or close by (see Table 1). Frequently, land for settlement by colonists was given by local rulers. The relationship between the newcomers and the locals was often pacific, to their mutual benefit. Greek craftsmen were employed by local rulers; for example, in the Iberian Peninsula and the Black Sea to produce prestige objects, and even, as is the case in Etruria, to paint tombs, or build fortifications, as in Gaul, or public buildings, as in Iberia (near the colony of Emporion). This was characteristic mainly of Ionian colonization. Elsewhere, things could be less peaceful. In Syracuse, for instance, the local Cyllyrii were serfs, and at Heraclea Pontica on the southern Black Sea, half the local Maryandini were killed and the rest enslaved. This was typical of Dorian colonization. Recent scholarship has started to re-examine the nature and mechanisms of trade relations between locals and colonists – less a matter of commerce, as we understand it now, more of formalized gift-giving and exchange. What we know about the locals and their culture is mainly the way of life of their elites; and the tastes and behavior of nobles were practically the same in every area, whether of the Mediterranean or the Black Sea (see Europe, South: Greece; Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant).

Greek Colonies and Settlements in the Mediterranean and Black Sea Greek colonization, which started in c. 750 BC, produced about 230 colonies and settlements. Several were the result of secondary colonization – colonies established by other colonies; fewer than half have been studied archaeologically. The main colonizers in the Archaic period were Chalcis, Corinth, Eretria, Megara, Miletus, and Phocaea. In one short survey, it is impossible to paint a comprehensive picture. This article concentrates on major areas of activity and their principal colonies (for more information see Table 1). A frequently asked question is who were the first colonizers – the Greeks or the Phoenicians? It is very difficult to answer with any certainty. The Phoenicians were forced to flee their homeland in the Levant by the expansion of the Assyrian empire. But it seems that the main aim of Phoenician migration was commercial. In the eighth century BC Greeks were moving into the relatively close territories of central

Greek Colonies 1275

and southern Italy, while the Phoenicians established small settlements in Sardinia and further to the west and south. The Greek settlements were designed for permanence; those of the Phoenicians disappeared over time, probably absorbed by the locals. Currently, we are re-evaluating our knowledge of the Phoenicians and their expansion on account of a new absolute chronology for the Mediterranean Iron Age based on radiocarbon and other scientific dating. It seems that Phoenician expansion started nearly a hundred years earlier than had been thought. Down to the fifth century BC, Greek culture was heavily influenced by ideas from the Near East. There are Near Eastern objects in Greece; we also know of migrant (especially Syrian) craftsmen settling in mainland Greece. Lefkandi in Euboea received a large quantity of Eastern and Egyptian objects. This is of particular significance – the earliest colonizers were Euboean, and it is unsurprising that they should look to the Near East as their first destination. Which brings us to Al Mina, in northern Syria at the mouth of the Orontes River, the ‘Greeks’ gateway to the Near East’. The site was excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley before World War II, since when its interpretation has provoked heated debate which still continues. The architectural remains, where they exist, are poorly preserved – construction was of mud-brick – but the site’s importance lies in the large quantity of Greek pottery it has yielded: from first occupation down to about 700 BC the vast majority of it Euboean, some probably from Samos, very little Corinthian, and some made by Greeks in Cyprus or Syria. From about 700 BC onward, the remains of Greek pottery and non-Greek local wares (Syrian and Cypriotshape) are roughly equal. It is very difficult, based on pottery alone, to say whether the settlement was the first Greek emporion/port-of-trade, a distribution center for Greek pottery to the Near East, or a Euboean quarter within a local settlement, and who was transporting these pots. But since the Euboeans and the Levantines already knew each other, it is most probable that some Euboeans were living in a local settlement controlled by a local ruler. Euboean pottery has been found at various Near Eastern sites. It surely came via Al Mina. We know of Greek mercenary sites at Mezaz Hashavyahu and Tell Kabri. The Euboeans were also pioneers in the western Mediterranean where, in the mid-eighth century BC, they established the emporion Pithecusa on an island in the Bay of Naples (modern Ischia). Excavation has produced abundant evidence of early metallurgical production. A Levantine (Syrian) presence is also

recorded, as is that of mainly Euboean but some Corinthian potters. The site is famous for the discovery of a North Ionian cup with an inscription of the Nestor poem (Figure 4). Pithecusa declined in importance from the end of the eighth century following the foundation of Euboean Cumae on the nearby Campanian mainland. South Italy and Sicily were well-stocked with colonies. In the former, Sybaris was established by Achaeans in c. 720 BC. It had good farmland for producing grain and wine. Another Achaean foundation was Croton (in about 710 BC), also with good farmland; the temple of Hera Lacinia stands in the Archaic city. Metapontum, also Achaean, had an excellent harbor and agricultural territory (the pattern of land division has survived very well); there were many temples in the city, including one to Apollo. Poseidonia (Paestrum), again Achaean, has yielded fortification walls, temples dedicated to Hera, Ceres, and Athena, and had close links with the Etruscans (Figure 5). Tarentum, Siris, and Locri were Spartan foundations. The colonies soon became large and wealthy, and then began to establish their own colonies: Locri, for example, founded Medma, Hipponium, and Metaurus. In Sicily, Syracuse, established by the Corinthians in 734 BC, was the richest Greek colony. It possessed a fine harbor and temples to Athena, Zeus, and Apollo; one Ionic temple was unfinished. Naxus, a Chalcidian foundation of 734 BC, was built on a local settlement from which the native inhabitants had been displaced. Leontini (established 728 BC), also Chalcidian, was also established on a local site from which the native Sicels were expelled; it had fortification walls. Soon afterwards, the Chalcidians founded Catane. Rhegium was a joint foundation of Chalcidians from Zancle and Messenians from the Peloponnese, while Zancle itself (later Messina) had been founded soon after Naxus by Cumae in southern Italy. Megara Hyblaea was a Megarian colony; it exhibits regular planning, excavation has unearthed the earliest houses, temples, the agora, etc. Gela, a Dorian foundation of 688 BC in which Rhodians and Cretans participated, displaced a local settlement; we know of temples to Athena and Demeter. In the seventh century BC these colonies expanded by establishing their own: Syracuse founded Helorus, Acrae, Casmenae and Camarina; Megara Hyblaea, Selinus; Zancle, Himera; and Gela, Acragas. Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily soon outgrew their mother-cities in wealth and display. For this reason Sicily became known as Magna Graecia. Syracuse by repute was the largest and most beautiful of all Greek cities. In the fifth century, Acragas had a population of 80 000; Sybaris between 100 000

1276 Greek Colonies

Figure 4 Nestor’s Cup, Pithecusa. Late eighth century BC. One of the earliest examples of Greek writing. This cup is inscribed with lines known from Homer. The inscription translates as: ‘Nestor had a most drink-worthy cup, but whoever drinks of mine will straight away be smitten with desire of fair-crowned Aphrodite.’ Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 228, fig. 13.

A PAESTUM PIANTA GENERALE

Porta NORD cd. "AUREA"

Ex S

50 0 N 100 m

8 S. 1 Museo

R

A

Santuarlo dl ATHENA

A

G

O

Area sacra

FORD

D

B Porta EST cd. "della SIRENA"

Porta OVEST cd. "MARINA"

Santuarlo dl HERA

C Porta SUD cd. "della GIUSTIZIA"

Figure 5 Plan of Poseidonia (Paestrum) (Italy). Step by step, Greek colonies developed regular planning, a designated area for trade (agora), a sacred place where the main temples were erected (temenos), etc. Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 186, fig. 7.

Greek Colonies 1277

and 300 000, and filled a circuit of about 10 km (6 miles); the area of Tarentum exceeded 7000 km2 (2750 square miles). Even the earliest inscription in the Greek alphabet, scratched on a local vase, was discovered in Italy (near Gabii); it dates to c. 770 BC. In North Africa the fertile land of the Cyrenaican seaboard and plateau was probably what attracted the Greeks. In c. 632 BC Dorian colonists from the island of Thera established Cyrene. Initially, they settled on

0

5 cm

0

50 cm

Figure 6 Architectural ornaments from temple, Emporion (Spain). Left: antefixes (carved ornaments hiding joints between tiles in roof eaves); right: acroterion (pinnacle). Both made of terracotta (baked clay). Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 478, fig. 27.

the small offshore island of Platea. After a few years, the native Libyans persuaded them to move to a better site, Cyrene. The colonists took local wives. Cyrene prospered and in the sixth century invited new settlers from the Peloponnese and the Dorian islands; as a result, the new colony of Barca was established. This expansion alarmed the natives who, in 570 BC, sought Egyptian help against the Greeks. From c. 515 BC Cyrene formed part of the Persian empire, but it continued to prosper. The city had grand public buildings, temples to Apollo, Zeus, and Demeter. There were other Greek cities in Libya – Apollonia (established by Thera), and Euhesperides and Tauchira (both colonies of Cyrene itself). In Egypt the pharaohs employed Ionians and Carians as mercenaries from the early seventh century BC. In c. 650 BC Chios, Teos, Phocaea, Clazomenae, Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus, Phaselis, Mytilene, Aegina, Samos, and Miletus established an emporion Naucratis on the Nile Delta. The settlement was under strict Egyptian control which forbade intermarriage between Greeks and locals. Many of the states established a joint sanctuary (Hellenion), with separate temples for Aegina, Samos, and Miletus. This was not just a trading station but a production center for pottery, votives, and faience scarab seals. Greek colonists opened up the Adriatic coast, the lands of local Illyrians, in the last quarter of the eighth century BC. The chief attraction of the area was probably its silver mines. Corcyra (Corfu), settled first by Eretrians and then, in 733 BC, by Corinthians, had two temples of Artemis and one of Dionysus. Relations between the colony and its mother-city of Corinth were tense and in the seventh century there was a battle between them. In about 627 BC, Corcyra and Corinth established Epidamnus, of which little is known archaeologically; shortly afterwards Corinth founded Apollonia, a wealthy colony.

Figure 7 Reconstruction of local Iberian funerary sculpture (Spain). Greek influence becomes increasingly visible in the material culture of the local population. Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 460, fig. 18.

1278 Greek Colonies

0

50 cm

Figure 8 Iberian sculptures (Spain), early fifth century BC. Some Greek features appeared in local sculpture. Source: Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 461, fig. 19.

1 0

2 5m

3

4

5

6

Figure 9 Archaic subterranean dwellings from Olbia (Black Sea). Plans and reconstructions. The earliest colonists lived in simple dwellings. Source: Tsetskhladze GR (2003) Greeks beyond the Bosporus. In: Karageorghis V (ed.) The Greeks beyond the Aegean: From Marseilles to Bactria. New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), 138, fig. 3.

For the colonies of the northern shore of the Aegean, the main sources are literary; there is little archaeological evidence, especially for the Archaic period. The chief colonizers were the Chalcidians, whose main colony here was Torone, and the Eretrians, who founded Mende, Scione, and Methone. Corinth founded Potidaea in c. 600 BC. The Parians, who occupied the island of Thasos in the 680s, established several cities on the mainland opposite, including Neapolis (Kavalla) and Oesyme in

Thracian lands whose foundation occasioned conflict with the native Thracians. The Chians established Maronea and the Aeolians Aenus. Abdera, a wealthy colony situated in Aegean Thrace, was founded twice: the first time by Clazomenians in the second half of the seventh century BC; the second time by Teans in c. 545. Both were Ionian. Another Ionian colony, Massalia in the south of France, was established by Phocaea in c. 600 BC (Figure 2). Ancient tradition, not contemporary with

Greek Colonies 1279

the event, speaks of the welcome the colonists received from the native ruler and their commitment to intermarry with native women. The earliest dwellings were one-room constructions of mud-brick on stone foundations. For a long time Massalia lacked a chora, thanks to the proximity of local settlements to the city walls and the unsuitability of the local terrain for grain cultivation. Thus, for economic survival, Massalia needed to establish very close links with the Gauls and other local peoples – as it did with the Etruscans. Gradually, it established subcolonies or settlements in the near hinterland. Another Phocaean foundation, established at the same time as Massalia, was Emporion in Spain, home to a local Tartessian kingdom and several Phoenician settlements. Initially, it was a small settlement on an island; in c. 575 BC it moved to the adjacent mainland, an area populated by locals who came to form part of the Greek city (Figures 3 and 6). Because of the marshy surroundings, Emporion had very little chora, at least until the fifth to fourth centuries. Thus, like Massalia, it developed close relations with local peoples (Iberians) from the outset in order to ensure its prosperity (Figures 7 and 8). We know nothing archaeologically about Rhode, the other Greek colony in Spain. Ionian colonies in Italy were few. In Etruria Ionians established their quarter in Gravisca (the harbour of Tarquinia) in about 600 BC. This was not just a center for trade between Greeks and Etruscans; it was a production center as well, including a gem workshop established in the late sixth century. Elea was entirely Greek and we have no evidence to suggest that locals formed any part of it. Initially, it enjoyed friendly relations with local chiefs; however, in about 520 BC it had to erect fortification walls. Alalia, established by Phocaea in about 565 BC, was surrounded by local people too, but we know little about relations with them. The main area of Ionian colonization was the Black Sea, known to Greeks initially as ‘inhospitable’. The Hellespont and Propontis, where such colonies as Thracian Chersonesus (by Athens in 561–556 BC), Cyzicus (by Miletus in 756 and then again in 676 BC), Perinthus (by Samos in 602 BC), Chalcedon (by Megara in 685 or 679 BC), and Byzantium (in 668 or 659 BC) were established, provided the gateway to the Black Sea. Miletus was the principal colonizer of the Black Sea, founding its first colonies here in the last third/end of the seventh century – Histria, the settlement on Berezan (ancient Borysthenites), Sinope, Apollonia Pontica, and Amisus. The sixth century BC saw a major wave of colonization. Several dozen cities and settlements were established – Panticapaeum, Olbia (Figures 9 and 10), Cepoi, Patraeus, Odessus, Phanagoria, Gorgippia, Phasis, Gyenos, Dioscurias, and many others. Heraclea Pontica was

0

25

1

50 m 3

4

7

2

6

5

Figure 10 Olbia (Black Sea). Plan and reconstruction of the agora and temenos. The physical appearance of colonies changed gradually, especially from the Classical period (cf. Figure 9). Source: Tsetskhladze GR (2003) Greeks beyond the Bosporus. In: Karageorghis V (ed.) The Greeks beyond the Aegean: From Marseilles to Bactria. New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), 143, fig. 7.

founded in 554 BC by Megarians and Boeotians; Hermonassa was a joint colony of Miletus and Mytilene. The Black Sea littoral was heavily populated by locals, chief among them the Thracians, Getae, Scythians, Colchians, Mariandynoi, Chalybes, and Macrones. Several of these were hostile to the Greeks from the outset: for example, in the large area between Heraclea Pontica and Byzantium, there were no Greek colonies or settlements despite the fertile land and excellent harbors, apparently ideal for the establishment of colonies, because, as ancient Greek written sources tell us, this was a region inhabited by hostile locals.

1280 Medieval and Post-Medieval

Conclusion The establishment of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the Archaic period took place at a time and in a context of exploration, the acquisition of new geographical and technical knowledge, and the mutual entriching of each other’s cultures (Figures 7 and 8). It was not just expansion and colonization as we understand it from a modern point of view. It was dictated by internal and external considerations. Thanks to colonization boundaries, both physical and intellectual were pushed, so that, as Plato remarked, the world extended from the Pillars of Hercules to the River Phasis (modern-day Rioni in Georgia), that is from the western tip of the Mediterranean to the eastern edge of the Black Sea. Thus, even at a cursory glance, it can be seen that Greek colonization owned no single reason, followed no particular model and responded in a variety of ways to the varied local circumstances it confronted. See also: Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Classical Archaeology; Europe, South: Greece.

Further Reading Boardman J (1999) The Greeks Overseas. Their Early Colonies and Trade, 4th edn. London: Thames and Hudson. Descoeudres J-P (ed.) (1990) Greek Colonies and Native Populations Proceedings of the First Australian Congress of Classical Archaeology, Held In Honour of Emeritus Professor A. D. Trendall, Sydney 9–14 July 1985. Canberra and Oxford: Humanities Research Centre and Clarendon Press. Graham AJ (1982) The colonial expansion of Greece. In: Boardman J and Hammond NGL (eds.) The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. III, pt 3, 2nd edn., pp. 83–162. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graham AJ (1983) Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece, 2nd edn. Chicago: Ares. Hansen MH and Nielsen TH (eds.) (2004) An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malkin I (1987) Religion and Colonisation in Ancient Greece. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Malkin I (ed.) (2001) Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Osborne R (1996) Greece in the Making, 1200–479 BC. London: Routledge. Tsetskhladze GR (2003) Greeks beyond the Bosporus. In: Karageorghis V (ed.) The Greeks beyond the Aegean: From Marseilles to Bactria. New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA). Tsetskhladze GR (ed.) (2006) Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill. Tsetskhladze GR and De Angelis F (eds.) (1994) The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology.

Medieval and Post-Medieval John Bintliff, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Al-Andalus From the eighth to tenth centuries AD, almost all of Spain and Portugal fell to Islamic armies and became known as Al-Andalus. The origin of this term is disputed but could be a corruption of the Gothic term for division of conquered land into allotments. Today the modern province of Andalucia covers only the southernmost part of Spain, but includes the last kingdom to fall to the Christian armies in the 15th century AD, that of Granada. Byzantine Roman is a cultural and chronological term which is used for the Roman Republic and later Empire up till the fourth century AD, when Rome is replaced by Constantinople as imperial capital. The subsequent period is often called Late Roman in the East (fifth to seventh centuries AD) after which Byzantine civilization begins in full. Confusingly, some scholars term these Late Roman centuries Early Byzantine. Byzantine civilization lasts till the fall of Constantiople in 1453 AD. Byzantium–Constantinople–Istanbul A Greek colony, Byzantium, was renamed after the Emperor Constantine the Great, when he relocated the capital of the Roman Empire Rome to this city in AD 330. After the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453, it was again renamed, to Istanbul (a corruption of the Greek expression ‘to the City’). capitalism Developing in late medieval Italy, this new form of financial and commercial activity concentrates on monitoring and manipulating capital, including credit notes, to create new forms of economic stimulus and wealth creation. Global spread of this form of economics has been one of the key historical processes between the fourteenth and twenty-first century AD. feudal Technically, in the medieval period in Western Europe, a lesser and major elite of warriors was maintained by being granted rights over the products of peasant villages and lands, on the basis that they would fight for their superior lords (the highest in the feudal pyramid being kings, dukes, and the Pope). In the Byzantine and also Early Ottoman Empires a similar system of support operated, and a strictly feudal system was spread through Greece and the Crusader states of the Near East through Crusader colonies in the eleventh to fifteenth centuries AD. incastellamento A term employed in Italian medieval archaeology to describe the fortification of villages, with or without an elite fortress or tower associated, from the Dark Ages into the early high medieval era (c. AD 600–1000). Both protection from marauding barbarians and also control by the lord of the village can be the reason for this widespread phenomenon in the countryside. Little Ice Age Between the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries AD, there is scientific and archive evidence to suggest a global climatic cooling phase, which in Europe may have been associated with unstable, wet weather and crop failures. maiolica When this kind of glazed ware was imported from Islamic and Christian Spain into Italy and Islamic North Africa, one route took it through the Balearic Islands such as Majorca and Menorca, hence the name. The key feature is the coating of the clay of the pot with an opaque tin glaze, which creates a

1298 EUROPE, WEST/Rome Guichard P (2000) De la Conqueˆte Arabe a‘ la Reconqueˆte: Grandeur et Fragilite´ D’al-Andalus. Granada: Fundacio´n El Legado Andalusi Granada. Jardine L (1996) Worldly Goods. A New History of the Renaissance. London: Macmillan. Papanikola-Bakirtizi D (ed.) (2002) Everyday Life in Byzantium. Athens: Ministry of Culture. Pollak MD (1991) Turin 1564–1680. Urban Design, Military Culture, and the Creation of the Absolutist Capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sabelberg E (1983) The persistence of palazzi and intra-urban structures in Tuscany and Sicily. Journal of Historical Geography 9: 247–264. Sigalos E (2004) Housing in Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.

plebeians were Roman citizens who were not patricians: rich and poor, progressively organized as a political force seeking to obtain almost the same rights as the patricians. pom(o)erium Area defining the spatial, religious, and legal limits of the city, inside the pomerial line, drawn by a founding furrow. Tombs and army were normally not accepted in it. templum Inaugurated space, usually squared, from where each public decision must be taken. The temple building was a templum consecrated to a god: it was normally divided into a cella (where the cult statue was stored), a vestibule and a colonnade, above a high podium with stairs; the sacrifices were fulfilled on an altar in front of the temple.

Introduction: A Question of Urban Archaeology Some Specificities of Rome

Rome Emmanuelle Rosso, Colle`ge de France, Paris, France Ste´phanie Wyler, Ecole franc¸aise de Rome, Rome, Italy ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary apotheosis Divinization of a Roman emperor. auspicium (‘‘look at the birds’’) Religious procedure consisting in examining the signs given by birds, in order to question the divine agreement before each public decision. First step of the augural science, which approves the inauguration of a templum. euocatio Religious procedure consisting of an invitation to the main god of the enemy to join the Roman side before a decisive battle; in return for the victory, a temple to the new Roman divinity is vowed (e.g., Consus from Tarent on the Aventine (272), Vertumnus from Volsinii (264), Minerva from Falerii (241), etc). evergetism Social practice consisting, for a rich private citizen, in paying, theoretically voluntarily, for the development, the maintenance and the improvement of his city. In return for his expenses, he received honor, public gratitude, and the popularity necessary for being elected to the highest public offices. forum Central place for public and private business. Originally a market place (moved to the forum boarium, holitorium, and piscarium, for the trade of livestock, vegetable and fish), the forum Romanum was the first forum of Rome, symbol of the Republic, but in use throughout the history of Rome. The five imperial forums were new places built directly to the north of the forum Romanum for propaganda of the Emperors (Cesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, Trajan). horreum Monumental and usually multistoried structure designed for the storage of goods (especially grain). The port on the Tiber River in Rome comprised huge horrea like the horrea Galbana. imperial ustrina On the Campus Martius, the place where the funerary pyres of Roman emperors were erected. patricians/plebeians The patricians were hereditary aristocrats coming from the first consuls of the Republic, holding the exclusive power until the middle of the fifth century BC. The

The archaeology of Rome is a paradigm for urban archaeology, with all the specificities that this peculiar situation involves. As a matter of fact, the city has continuously been settled from the proto-historic period and cyclically prominent on the Italian and Mediterranean scales. The evolution of the urbs, ‘the City’, as the ancient Romans used to call themselves, has been complicated by its status of capital of the Empire, to which Rome has given its own name, and by its history: the knowledge of ancient Rome has become a major issue at stake in the legitimacy of power, enhanced by the rule of the Christian Church and by the final choice to turn the city into the capital of united Italy at the end of the nineteenth century. Thus, ancient Rome has constantly been considered as a pattern for other periods, should it be the Renaissance or Mussolini’s time, highlighting in turn the glorious remains of the lost power or, on the contrary, re-using the antique wealth, in order to compete with it. As a matter of fact, the surface intra muros (century 40 000 m2.) and the population of Rome at the first century BC (c. 1 million inhabitants) have never been reached again before the twentieth century. Each and every period would deserve to be taken into consideration. Further, study of any one of them (e.g., Rome throughout pagan Antiquity – the subject of the present article), necessarily needs an intellectual reconstruction: the remaining untouched evidences are intricately linked to their reused corollaries, on occasion re-employed or functionalized for other purposes (e.g., a pagan temple turned into a Christian church, a sarcophagus into a fountain etc) (Figure 1). Besides, the increase of the city’s level, of c. 20 m at the most from the sixth century BC to nowadays, gives an idea of the stratigraphic complexity in the different areas: some of the hugest public buildings have been used as foundations for medieval and Renaissance constructions, and partly remain in the

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Figure 1 An example of reuse: the mausoleum of Hadrian turned into the fortified Castel Sant’Angelo.

cellars of houses (such as the theatre of Pompey or of the stadium of Domitian, under the Piazza Navona). Moreover, the different areas of the city have not evolved the same way, some monuments having been completely destroyed, others reused, removed, preserved, or even rebuilt – for practical as much as ideological reasons. Rome throughout History

Urban archaeology applied to the case of Rome raises different methodological issues: besides the scattering of material evidences, for the above-mentioned urban purposes, but also with the growing taste for collections of ‘antiquities’ as early as the Renaissance, it is often tricky to categorize most of the monuments, considering their use even during Antiquity. As a matter of fact, ancient Romans themselves liked to gather works of art in public or private collections, and, on occasion of restorations due to obsolescence or fire, to transform, adapt, modernize, or personalize all kinds of monument, always used as ideological symbols – in a culture in which the limits between public and private spheres were definitely different from ours. In that context, one specific monument should be studied in consideration of its foundation, but also its different phases of monumentalization, throughout Antiquity and beyond. It ensues from this that a chronological overview is as problematic as a topographical one. Here we have been chosen to organize the presentation of the main archaeological remains of Rome, unlike most of the archaeological guides, in four chronological phases: the time of the ‘foundation’, the Republic, the Augustan period, and the Empire, subdivided into thematic focuses. This intends to underline the specificity for

each period of a long history, from the eighth-century BC to the fourth-century AD, and to emphasize the situation of archaeology in the historical research. Multidisciplinary Evidences: Imaging the City

It implies that each chronological panorama is an intellectual reconstruction, based not only on the archaeological remains ideally replaced in their contexts of uses, but also, on a variety of literary, epigraphic and iconographic evidences. This feature is another specificity of Rome: on the one hand, there is a rather important number of preserved monuments, and on the other hand, we know through written documents the name, the function, the history, and the approximate localization of most of the ancient buildings – so that the research field is immense, and the temptation to associate the one to the other great. This is also methodologically dangerous, when the coincidence cannot be rigorously demonstrated. Most of the time, archaeological reality is much more ‘normal’ than the textual one, which is inclined to highlight the exceptions, for artistic, ideological, or sociologic reasons. Consequently, present scholars intend to connect the lacunary elements in time and space, thanks to a multidiciplinary approach in order to base building identifications upon more precise archaeological information. Systems of computer modeling and virtual reconstructions have recently permitted to provide impressive three-dimensional graphical, digital, and interactive restitutions of the buildings. In the end, ongoing studies tend to focus on private constructions, while a new field of research looks at ‘non-noble’ or ‘non-e´lite’ constructions like suburban habitations, shops, or basic infrastructures of the city, such as water supply, which clearly demonstrate that Ancient

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Rome was not exclusively a ‘city of temples and squares, emperors, horses and houses’. Main Steps of Roman excavations

The heterogeneity of evidences to be connected to archaeological findings is one part of the puzzle of Rome; another concerns the modern attitude toward the antique remains. As a matter of fact, for the reasons mentioned above, a search for the past has always existed – unlike most of ancient cities, such as Athens: the quest whether it should be linked to the cult of the first Christian saints and the trade of martyr’s relics, or to the fascination for the politic and artistic antiquity at the Renaissance, has destroyed and isolated from their context a number of monuments. Paradoxically, the most important damages have been done when the interest for antiquity was at the highest point: in the sixteenth century, the area of the forum and the Palatine Hill, rather well preserved because of its abandonment into pasture and aristocratic gardens, was systematically excavated and properly looted from the sculptures and precious materials, essentially marbles, that were found; this can be partially reconstructed, thanks to drawings of contemporaneous artists and architects, such as Pirro Ligorio, but no scientific documentation was carried out at the time. The same process of discovering (led by philological interests above all), imitation and, in the end, spoilation, can be observed at the Neronian domus aurea, at the origin of the taste for the grotesques, and the villa Hadriana at Tivoli, in the Roman suburb. The destruction of archaeological levels and the removal of antiquities was stemmed when archaeology was to become a scientific discipline, thanks to Winckelmann’s conceptions on Art History, in the nineteenth century at the same time, archaeological remains became the stake of a competition between the Vatican, the aristocratic Roman families, the foreign states (particularly Germany and France) and the new Italian state. After 1870, most of the archaeological areas, defined as such, were bought by the state, scientifically excavated by archaeologists such as Ranucio Lanciani or Giacomo Boni, highlighted and exhibited to the public. But this does not imply that they were absolutely preserved, faced with the big works of the new capital, or, in the 1930s, of the Mussolinian State, whose leaders intended to inscribe themselves in the continuation of their famous predecessors, with the construction of the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II between the Capitol and the forum, or the via dei fori imperiali (‘street of the imperial forums’), leading across the different forums – and destroying part of them.

From the revival of the excavations after World War II up to nowadays, with the digging of the third line of the metropolitan underground line, started in 2006, the scientific scopes of archaeology are better defined, controlled, and distributed by the Soprintendenza to the different partners – Italian and foreign, public and academic. But this still implies necessary choices, depending on the patrimonial strategies, in excavating, preserving, presenting, and emphasizing the archaeological findings. Since excavations are a destructive method, to reach one peculiar historical level means to destroy the levels above, even if they are more impressive. Even if modern methods intend to document them with the best accuracy, objectivity, and exhaustiveness, the ongoing attitude tends to preserve most of the construction, and to work on very limited surveys, or to benefit from public works that drill the underground of Rome. So that we know definitely better the archaeology of the latest antique periods than the earliest; but the quest for the entire Roman past is still in constant progress, thanks to the evolution of modern archaeology.

The Beginnings of Rome: The Formation of the City The Question of the ‘Origins’

The question of the ‘origins’ of Rome is a methodological textbook case of the status still nowadays conferred to archaeology in the historical research. As a matter of fact, the ideological background at stake is a major issue. Roughly, the question is to understand how Rome became the ruler of its huge Empire, including Greece: was its destiny written as soon as it was founded? Why Rome, and not another Latial or Etruscan city? This question has been asked by the ancient historians themselves, including the Greek Polybius (e.g., 1.1.5) in the mid-second century BC and the Roman Livy, who wrote, at the time of Augustan ‘restoration’, a year-by-year history of Rome ab urbe condita, ‘since the foundation of the city’. This ideological justification of the power of the city has been regularly updated, from the pontifical states, at the head of the Kingdom of Rome up to the fascist state, which pretended to restore the ancient Empire. This weighty historiography is even complicated by the relative scarcity, and above all the disparity, of the evidence concerning the beginnings of Rome. In that matter, archaeology is, with epigraphy, the only ‘primary’ discipline, whereas the others – ancient literature, historical annals, myths, and religious practices – offer a very rich tradition, much more emphasized than any other foundation story of the

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Mediterranean area: one of the most relevant features is that the birth of Rome has not been attributed to a divine, but to a human willingness, and then immediately conceived as a politic phenomenon, confusing ancient history and earthly mythology. Yet, do the archaeological discoveries confirm or infirm the literary tradition, mostly conveyed by authors writing at the end of the first century BC (mainly the antiquarian Varro, the historian Livy, and the politician Cicero)? As such, the question seems easy to answer; in fact, the debate between hypercriticism – the quasicomplete rejection of the traditional sources, considering them as late reconstructions which cannot afford a piece of evidence – and fideism – which sees every new discovery as a proof of the reliability of ancient tradition – is far from being closed, even with the most recent and spectacular excavations of the slopes of the Palatine Hill. Tradition Confronted to Archaeology

According to the literary tradition, Rome was founded by Romulus in 754/3 BC. He and his twin-brother Remus had been rescued and fed by a she-wolf, and then by a shepherd, who found them on the river Tiber’s bank, on the future site of Rome. Once grown up, Romulus founded the Roma quadrata, ‘the squared Rome’ on the Palatine Hill, surrounded by a wall, correlated with the first pomerium, the ritual boundary of the city; he was proclaimed king after having killed Remus, who pretended to share the power. It was the beginning of the royal period, which lasted through the reigns of (mythically) seven kings, up to 509: the last three of them, the Etruscans Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus, testimonies of the Etruscan rule of Rome from the end of the seventh century, are to be connected with a phase of (re)organization of the people and of the city. Disgusted by the excess of the monarchy, Romans were induced to revolt against the last Tarquinius and set up the Republic. Archaeologically, the settlement of Rome is known as early as the beginning of the ninth century, thanks to the discovery of a habitat on the Palatine hill (mainly huts), and of tombs (inhumation and cremation) on the future forum, on the Capitol and the Esquiline, indicating the development of communities from small villages to larger nucleated settlements. Yet, the Italian excavations, led by A. Carandini since the 1980s on the northern lower slope of the Palatine, have brought to light a monumental wall dating from the middle of the eighth century: the coincidence with the Romulean tradition is definitely proved for the one, whereas for the others, the political definition of Rome as a city-state cannot be demonstrated by this

discovery, even less included in the evolution of a protourban structure than in a revolution of the political and urban organization; however, this process appears to have been completed at the latest at the end of the seventh century. The royal Etruscan period (end of the seventh to sixth century) indeed coincides with the material tracks of a proper systematization of the city (which does not imply that it did not exist before), with a clear delimitation of the different spaces (public– religious/private habitat, civic/military, living/dead), and a specific orientation of the urban axes, determined by the augural science; this feature clearly differentiates Rome from the Greek cities of Italy founded at the same time. Among the most important archaeological remains of this period, best known thanks to the comprehensive work of F. Coarelli, belongs a coherent urban system, at the term of which the pomerium was extended in order to include the septimontium (the ‘enclosed seven hills’), when Servius Tullius traditionally reorganized the people in 30 ‘tribes’ and the city in four parts; it was marked by a new wall, still in use up to the first century AD (the remaining wall in cappellaccio-tuff dates back to the fourth century. BC, but coincides with the archaic track of the wall). The most important discoveries, from the excavations of G. Boni at the very beginning of the twentieth century up to those of the Palatine and the Capitoline Hills, one century later, concern the complex formed by the forum, the Arx (the ‘citadel’ upon the north of the forum, where the auspicia were taken), and the Capitolium (Figure 2). The marshy site of the forum was paved after important drainage works, and particularly the construction of the cloaca maxima (the ‘main sewer’), one end of which is still visible on the Tiber’s bank. On the forum, the first public place, were built the comitium, the political space where the people used to assemble, tabernae (‘shops’), settling the commercial activities, and religious shrines, such as the Volcanal, a sanctuary consecrated to Vulcan (also known as the lapis niger, named after the first century BC pavement of ‘black stone’ that covered it), in which was buried an altar and a sacred law mentioning a ‘king’ (rex) – so far the oldest public inscription of Rome. On the western part of the forum (Figure 3) was maintained, throughout the Republic, the Regia, the ‘royal palace’ of the last kings of Rome (traditionally the house of Numa), linked to the house of Vestal Virgins and the temple of Vesta, in which they kept the public household fire. In the Regia were found bucchero (Etruscan pottery) with the name rex inscribed, and decorative terracotta probably alluding to the foundation of Athens (with a representation

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of the Minotaur), which informs on the level of familiarity towards Greek culture as early as this period. The forum was crossed by the via sacra (the ‘sacred way’), whose orientation, even if its the original layout is still debated, follows a religious axis linking the arx to the Latin shrine of Jupiter Latiaris in the Alban Hills, at the south of Rome. But the bestpreserved religious archaic structure is the sanctuary of Mater Matuta and Fortuna, under the church of Sant’Omobono, between the Capitol and the forum Boarium: with the temple of the Capitol triad dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, achieved at the very end of the sixth century and become the symbol of the city (the foundation and part of the podium are exhibited in a new part of the Capitol’s museum (Figure 4)), they throw some light on the development of religious architecture of the time, known as ‘Tuscan (Etruscan) order’: as for the public development of the forum, the new grandeur of the religious building informs on the inner and foreign expansion of the city. Remains of the royal period, from the eighth to the end of the sixth century, inducing a re-reading of the tradition, enlighten, in addition to the proper foundation of Rome, the process of elaboration of a

city-state whose final state is rather well known at the sixth century. However, the archaeology of archaic Rome is still increasing, thanks to permanent excavations and a superior knowledge of the surrounding archaic cities of Latium and Etruria (for which we have far fewer texts and almost no tradition), that should allow to define more and more precisely the very specificity of the city, and an always more subtle chronology of its beginnings.

Republican Rome Literary tradition has it that the Romans expelled the last Etruscan king, Tarquinius the Proud, and established the Republic in 509 BC. If the temple of the Capitol triad seems to have been inaugurated at that period indeed, and the first lists of consuls appear contemporaneously, the archaeological remains suggest that a much more violent crisis happened in the middle of the fifth century, with important fire tracks on several public buildings, such as the Regia and the comitium, followed by the reconstruction of a part of the forum. Once again, more than a proper ‘revolution’, it seems that the political organization of the city has progressively changed all

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through the first half of the fifth century, which might reflect the different steps of the conflict between patricians and plebeians, and the fear of the return of kings in Rome, probably more and more stigmatized throughout ages. The forum Romanum

From that time dates back a reorganization of the city, and above all of the forum, that was used as the politic, economic, and symbolic center of Rome (Figure 3). Initially (probably as soon as the late sixth century),

the area of the forum was roughly divided into two parts, distinguishing a northern zone around the comitium for public activities, and the forum as such, the market place in the southern part. Progressively, the part devoted to politics, in a broad sense, tended to monopolize the entire area: besides the political spaces as such, this normally included the religious sphere, which was absolutely inseparable from the civic activities. As for the economic activities, most of the cumbersome markets were moved to the Tiber’s bank, on the forum boarium, holitorium, and piscarium,

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Figure 4 Archaic podium of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

respectively, for the trade of livestock, vegetables, and fish, whereas prestigious business (banking, jewellery, perfume) were maintained around the macellum, divided into shops (tabernae), from the balconies of which people could look at the gladiators’ fights, still taking place on the forum place up to the end of the Republic, and sponsored by the politics. As a matter of fact, one relevant feature of the Republican time was the competition between the members of the new aristocracy (the nobilitas, composed of both patricians and plebeians), physically expressed by the construction of different monuments glorifying the rulers and their families, as they paid, with the profits of looting, to build, restore, extend, and embellish the public buildings. This implies that most of those buildings were called after a leader – except the temples named after the divinity to which they were devoted – and that the forum was subjected to an increasing competition of that sort of evergetism, up to an actual saturation. At the end of the Republic, the only way to carry on this escalation was to extend the forum, which meant building new ones: the first initiative in that sense was used by Cesar, imitated on a larger scale by Augustus, Vespasian, and Trajan. The original Republican forum went on to be called the ‘Roman forum’, whereas the new ones got the name of each Emperor, known at once as the ‘imperial forums’ (Figure 5). Archaeologically, the forum Romanum is better known from the fourth century (as Rome was restored after the Gallic siege of 390), and mainly from the second century BC: after the victory over Carthage, the rule of Rome on the Mediterranean led to a rapid accumulation of wealth, and an important embellishment of the city – starting with the forum, as the most

obvious politic symbol of the power of Rome. Combined with the competition between the rulers, Republican Rome displayed above all the image of its triumph on the Greek and barbarian worlds, in terms of military victories (triumphal arches, euocatio of the enemies main divinities) and looting (mainly sculptures and paintings), whereas the influence of Greek art and technology was to change definitely the shape of the city. However, throughout the Republic, the overall organization of the forum did not fundamentally change: the key buildings remained roughly the same, so as to be reproduced in other cities under Roman power, specifically most of the colonies (see Asia, West: Roman Eastern Colonies; Europe, South: Greece). The comitium area Among these buildings should be first counted the complex of the comitium, made up of the comitium itself, the curia, the Rostra platform, and the Graecostasis (‘platform for the Greeks’). The whole represents the architectural image of the working Republic, politically and judiciary: the people used to assemble on the place at the center of the comitium, the Senate usually in the curia, and the magistrates to speak from the Rostra (whereas the foreign representatives could contribute to the Senate meetings from the Graecostasis). The comitium existed since the royal period, but its Republican shape was adopted either at the end of the fourth or in the middle of the third century BC: probably under the influence of the Greek public ekklesiasteria, it was designed as a circle inscribed inside a square, with internal terraces, while, as an inaugurated templum, it was oriented following the cardinal points. As a matter of fact, the first

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Roman colonies designed in the first third century – Alba Fucens (301), Cosa and Paestum (273) – adopted such a circular structure as the center of their own political lives. South of the Roman comitium had been set up, at the very beginning of the Republic, the raised platform for the orators, magistrates, and lawyers, named Rostra (‘ship-rams’ driven into a column on the platform) after the naval victory of Rome over the Latin people, off Antium, in 338. Cesar moved it westwards when he extended the forum, purely and simply destroyed the Graecostasis and turned the curia Hostilia into a temple to Felicitas, as he was to build a new curia named after his family, the curia Iulia (Figure 3): a high rectangular building (corresponding to the proportions prescribed by the Caesarean architect Vitruvius) subdivided inside into three longitudinal sectors to welcome the senators. These modifications, directly linked to the topographical move of the center, were obviously highly symbolic: notably, that was the way to turn the Rostra from the curia to the forum, that is to say the magistrates, from the Senate to the people, in accordance with Cesar’s popular politics. Shaping the forum The last generic building of the Roman forum was the basilica (‘royal building’, named after the Hellenistic kingdoms’ architecture adopted in Rome at the end of the third century BC). It was a large covered space designed as a substitute for the open space of the forum when the weather did not allow its normal activities – economic, politic, and judiciary. The structure of the basilica, usually subdivided into three parallel aisles by two central colonnades, has been adopted by Christian architecture when building churches which maintained the terminology. During the Roman Republic, texts mention at least four basilicas: Porcia, Aemilia, Sempronia, Opimia, before the edification of the Caesarean basilica Iulia. The latter is an extension of the basilica Sempronia, south of the comitium area and the forum place, and appears much richer than the Republican ones in terms of architecture and decoration, even just the podium remains nowadays: 101  49 m (including the previous basilica and the adjacent ‘old shops’), five aisles bordered by porticos on two levels of arches, and internal temporary subdivisions that allowed judgement in several trials contemporaneously. One of the urban functions of those large and regular buildings was to unify and close the forum, that is to say to create a coherent complex where the gradual set-up of the place tended to appear anarchic. It is no accident that Cesar proceeded to the restoration of the basilica Aemilia, north of the forum,

contemporaneously with the construction of the basilica Iulia, and of its own forum, with all the modifications in the comitium area above mentioned. When he finally opened the northwestern corner of the forum Romanum in 46 to set up the forum Iulium, he bordered it directly with a portico on three sides, and at the center of it a temple to his patron Venus Genitrix, and a bronze equestrian statue of himself (Figure 5). The Republican place had already been closed west, against the Capitol, with the monumental Tabularium (where were kept the State archives, the tabulae), by Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 78: a long gallery on three levels, inspired by the architectural development of Latial sanctuaries which would become a model for other Roman buildings (such as the theater of Pompey, the Coliseum, or the Trajan’s markets), served to link the aerarium (‘bronze treasure’) and the temple of Saturn to the coins workshop, close to the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline Hill. The Republican shape of the forum Romanum was, lastly, definitely determined by a number of temples and shrines, and of honorific monuments to the glory of the rulers. Once again, each and every aspect was symbolically inextricable: a temple dedicated to a divinity who helped the Romans to win a victory (often a deified human quality) celebrated at the same time the god, the power of Rome and the action of the general and his family. Little remains of the numerous Republican sanctuaries of the forum which were so many testimonies to Roman history, as they have been continuously restored and reused during the Empire. Among them might notably be named, in addition to the royal shrines still in use throughout the Republic (sanctuary of Venus Cloacina, altar of Saturn, temple of Vesta, mundus – the navel of the City), the temples of Saturn and of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux (early fifth century BC, restored both several times), the temple of the Concord (fourth or third century). But the Republican temples are best known, thanks to the temples on the forum boarium (to Portunus and Hercules Victor) and on the area sacra of the Campus Martius. The Campus Martius (‘Field of Mars’)

Topographically, the campus Martius is the plain included between the Capitol, the Tiber, the Quirinal, and the Pincio, but the name usually refers to the western part of it, delimited by the via Flaminia (Figure 2): outside the pomerium, it is a public area (since, according to the tradition, it was the property of Tarquinius before being seized by the Republican State), devoted to military exercises, sportive games (such as horses races), and some political assemblies (notably the elections of magistrates in the saepta, the

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‘vote enclosure’), that is to say to activities that required a large space in which to gather the Roman people, armed and voting (theoretically synonymous at that time). Unlike the center of the city, the campus Martius was for a long time an open space rather free of constructions: this explains that, from the second century BC, it became a proper ‘laboratory of urbanism’ (P. Gros), progressively extended northwards. Roughly, four archaeological phases are well identified: the sanctuaries of the mid-Republic (fourth to third century BC), the Hellenistic constructions in the area of the circus Flaminius (second to first century BC), the Augustan extension northwards, and the Imperial modifications (essentially during Domitian, Hadrian, and the Antonin Emperors’ reigns, from the end of the first century to the end of the second century AD). The area sacra of the Largo Argentina The four temples of the sacred area, emphasized, thanks to the preserved zone in the middle of the Largo Argentina (Figure 6), give the best idea of the evolution of Republican religious architecture (even if all of them have been several times restored, particularly after the fire of AD 80). Built between early third century and late second century BC, it had not been monumentalized as a coherent complex before the mid-second century, unified by a paving between the temples. Now the architecture and decoration of their first phases (sometimes found reused in the Late Republican or Early Imperial restorations) progressively go from Latial traditions (shared with south Etruria) to Hellenistic ones, typically with the circular neoclassic temple B (Figure 7). At the same time, this religious area reveals itself to be very coherent with the entire zone: the involved divinities (convincingly identified by F. Coarelli as Feronia, Juturna, the Lares Permarini, and Fortuna Huiusce Diei, ‘the Fortune of today’) were linked to the provision of supplies, thanks to marine and fluvial transport, related to the plebeian connotation of this part of the Campus Martius, particularly since the construction of the circus Flaminius in 221, competing with the traditional circus Maximus. Yet, from the second century BC, the Field of Mars was to become, even more than the forum, the scene of intense rivalry between the leading families who found enough room, and fewer restrictions than inside the pomerium, to conceive huge constructions, such as porticos and theaters. The most relevant example is the complex of Pompey, directly west of the area sacra, dedicated after his triumph of 61: at the top of the theater stood the temple of his patron Venus Victrix (the terraces of the first serving as a scale for the second, allowing to get round the interdiction to construct a permanent show building),

whereas a squared portico, adjacent to the theater, adorned by a rich collection of artworks and finally devoted to Pompey, was closed by a new curia (in which Cesar was murdered 10 years later). Despite the scarcity of material evidence (the shape of the theater is readable in the layout of modern streets), this complex is a proper summary of the changing conception of the state, physically and symbolically reflected in the city, to the glory of a man. Cesar was to magnify the same movement when he prematurely died: August pursued his projects and extended them to definitively change the face of Rome.

Augustan Rome Roman studies for over a century had explored numerous aspects of the ‘Augustan revolution’: society, institutions of the new regime, religion and religious architecture, topography of Rome, Augustan portraiture, the widespread dissemination of the urban model in the colonies of the Empire; but a very specific issue of recent studies since the mid1980s focuses on ideology and its visual expressions after the pioneer study by P. Zanker entitled The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, and especially his study on the symbols involved in numismatics, sculpture, painting and also ceramics, etc. Moreover, new attention was given to a global approach to the Augustan building policy and city planning as paradigm for reading urban creations of autocratic rulers. Finally, the perception of Rome by Ancient viewers became a new important theme. Although the documentation from the Augustan Age is more abundant and our knowledge much more precise than for any other period of the Empire, many monuments are known through no direct testimonies, but only through numismatic or written sources, for example, the extraordinarily rich collections of artworks displayed in major ensembles that have completely disappeared. Augustus transformed the aspect of the city more durably, more deeply, and more radically than any other Roman statesman before and after him. The concentration of all the power in the hands of a single man permitted for the first time the development of a coherent, uniform, and global urbanistic program which could be conceived as an ideal reflect of the political achievements of the Emperor. The anarchical expansion of not only the Urbs during the Late Republic but also the transformations and destructions due to the civil wars of the first century BC necessitated an important enterprise of restoration and reconstruction and a more accurate control of the urban space: for that reason the huge urbanistic program of Augustus is based upon an important administrative reform. The ancient division of the

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Figure 5 Map of the imperial Forums including recent discoveries.

Figure 6 Temple C to Fortuna Huiusce Diei (end of the second century BC), on the area sacra of the Largo Argentina.

urban space into four districts inherited from the fourth century BC system was transformed by Augustus who created 14 new circumscriptions, the regiones; moreover, each of the 265 urban vici or quarters received a magister in charge of the cult of the Lares and of the genius Augusti: the numerous crossroads marmorean altars preserved in the Roman collections reflect the new imperial ideology and bear a rich iconography derived from the official monuments such as the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace); they symbolize the strict

correlation between administrative, urbanistic, religious, and political reforms of the Augustan era. The principal aim of the Augustan program was the reconstruction of Rome and the restoration of its traditional cults neglected during civil wars. The archaeological evidence is fortunately completed by a major source of the period, the Res Gestae divi Augusti (History of the Divine Augustus), political testament of the princeps which gives a list of the monuments dedicated or restored by the Emperor:

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Saepta Iulia Iseum

Marsh of the Goat

Altar of Mars

Hecatostylum Diribitorium

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Theater and portico of Balbus

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Be

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Ju

Circus Flaminius

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Theater of Pompey

B C Vetus D Area sacra

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Pompey

Ap

Portico of

Villa Publica

Porticus Minucia

A

TIBER

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Forum Holitorium

300 m

Figure 7 Map of the southern Campus Martius in the Republican time.

he said to have 82 temples restored during the year of his sixth consulship in 28 BC! In fact, there are three main categories of temples concerned by Augustan restoration of the pax deorum (‘peace of the gods’): first of all, cults linked to the origins of Rome or traditional Republican cults like those of Quirinus, Iuno Regina, Jupiter Feretrius, Vesta, Jupiter Capitolinus; then temples of ‘personal’ divinities protecting the emperor and his family (Apollo, Diana, Mars, Neptune or divus Iulius, ‘deified Cesar’); finally, temples or altars dedicated to personified abstractions such as Pax, Concordia or Fortuna. As major symbol of the old Republic that Augustus pretended to restore, the aspect of the forum Romanum could not be transformed as radically as other areas of the Urbs. Moreover, religious restrictions did not allow to modify the location of the traditional temples. So the strategy of the princeps (‘first citizen, prince’) consisted of a planned process of annexation of preexistent buildings and of addition of basic symbols of

the new imperial order, mainly linked to the victory of Actium (over his rival Marcus Antonius in 31 BC) and the arrival of the Golden Age. Instead of erecting new monuments, Augustus consequently chose to mark the main circuits with symbolic elements like statues, arches, and honorary columns decorated with the spoils of the main battles: for instance, a Hellenistic statue of Victory was placed in the curia Iulia. By this way he could change the signification of this area and transform it into a space dedicated to the selfpromotion of the Gens Iulia; in fact, the only new foundation is that of the Temple of Caesar soon surrounded by two Augustan triumphal arches, the first one commemorating Actium, the second one the diplomatic victory over the Parthians with the recuperation of Roman standards in 19 BC. This triple-bay arch was articulated with the portico of Caius and Lucius Caesar (the adoptive sons of the princeps) which formed a monumental fac¸ade for the basilica Aemilia (Figure 7).

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The new foundations were fewer but of a high significance: Augustus created a third forum of monumental proportions significantly located between the forum Iulium and the forum Romanum; it was dominated by a huge temple of Mars Ultor (‘the Advenger’) and flanked by a double absidated portico decorated with the portrait statues of the summi uiri (‘the Great’) and triumphators of Rome from Aeneas to Caesar (Figure 8). Recent excavations brought new elements about a sumptuously decorated aula (‘aristocratic courtyard’) adjacent to the portico, whose exact destination remains uncertain but that was probably dedicated to the Imperial Cult. As founder of a new Rome, Augustus gave new importance to the Palatine, the hill of Romulus; this sector was fully reorganized under his reign and became another strategic place for the expression of the new imperial ideology: as early as 40 BC Octavian had begun to transform it into his principal residence and in 28 BC he dedicated there a temple to the cardinal divinity of the new Golden Age, Apollo Actius after an omen that this place had to become a sanctuary; so Apollo became the new custodian of the Sibylline Books. Augustus also declared public a part of the residence and built two libraries as well as a monumental portico whose decoration figured Apollinian myths: a complete sculptural evocation of the Danaids myth was displayed in the forecourt of the temple. Excavations began as soon as the eighteenth century on the site at that time occupied by the Farnese gardens and residences; the rich collection of

marble sculptures, terracotta, and various artifacts from the Imperial Palace are nowadays dispersed in various private palaces, in Roman Museums but also in the Archaeological Museum of Naples; recent research focuses on the residence of the first emperor and its paintings. Moreover, the Palatine Hill, which preserved a continuous stratigraphy from the archaic period until late-antique times, is concentrating most intensive archaeological activity; in addition to important researches on archaic walls and habitations which recently provided much-discussed results (see supra), archaeologists and researchers are at present collaborating to a large-scale international research project studying the successive phases of the Imperial Palace and including three-dimensional modeling of each phase. Moreover, excavations in the northeast part of the Hill by French archaeologists on the area of Vigna Barberini, the ancient site of a monumental terrace of the imperial residence, brought new evidence about the Domitianic and Severan phases of the Palace as well as new data concerning archaeology of landscape and gardens, a field that has recently acquired new importance. On the Campus Martius, Augustus realized a largescale building program including his most innovative architectural projects: he gave to Rome and dedicated to Marcellus in 13 BC one of its first stone theaters; moreover, Augustus dedicated a monumental complex comprising a huge dynastic Mausoleum inspired by archaic royal tombs (tumuli), the marble Ara Pacis commemorating the victorious return of the princeps

Figure 8 Reconstruction of the Colosseum, the Palatine hill and the imperial forums.

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after campaigns in Gaul and Spain in 13 BC and a monumental sundial engraved in bronze letters on a large square dominated by an Egyptian obelisk whose shadow indicated the direction of the Ara Pacis at Augustus’ birthday. Remains of the sundial were found under Piazza Montecitorio and the obelisk is to be seen there. But the most spectacular reorganization of the area was due to Agrippa who commissioned a series of new prestigious buildings: he built the Pantheon, one of the best-preserved temples of Rome, a monumental thermal ensemble that became the prototype of the series of all ‘imperial baths’ up to Caracalla, a campus, gardens including an artificial lake (stagnum), a sanctuary to Neptune and the Porticus Vipsania, where a monumental map of the world was exhibited; he also rebuilt the Villa Publica and the Saepta Iulia, both of which were designed at the same time for political activities, spectacles, and agreement of the Roman people. Although the originality of Augustus’ building program is undeniable, it is important to underscore that the architectural choices of the princeps were highly traditional and often conservative; typologically, they almost all used a Republican visual language, which formed the formal counterpart of the restoration by Augustus of the traditional piety and politics. Stylistically, the evolution of Augustan buildings enlightens the elaboration of specific visual semantics that formed the Roman Corinthian order, which became a major symbol of the new imperial order. So had Augustus profoundly modified the Roman cityscape without introducing any spectacular novelty in urban components? Augustan Rome was a new Rome due to a change of scale and to the unifying aspect of the project.

Rome of the Emperors Flavian Rome (AD 69–96)

The original and very ambitious building program of the Flavian emperors in Rome has only recently received the attention that it merits, although we know very well-preserved monuments from this period, notably the Colosseum or the arch of Titus on the forum. First of all, numerous reconstructions were imposed by the great fires of AD 69, which heavily damaged the Capitol and the forum Romanum, and of AD 80, destroying much of the central Campus Martius; both of them authorized the second dynasty to reconstruct in a strong programmatic way the Augustan Urbs. The new Rome of the Flavians, including very innovative constructions, concerned all parts of the Urbs and all types of monuments. Another destruction was of benefit to the Flavian urban reshaping: the full reorganization of the huge area once covered by the domus Aurea, the sumptuous private palace of the emperor Nero, which was almost completely destroyed: the entire space was ‘restored’ to public use (and thus to the Roman People) and included the completion of the unfinished temple of divus Claudius (Figure 9), a gigantic stone amphitheater known as the Colosseum, part of Vespasian’s forum (see below), a monumental thermal complex built under Titus, a ludus for gladiators, a new version of the Meta Sudans (a monumental circular fountain) and finally, important Domitianic extensions of the Palatine imperial residence recently excavated; among these discoveries, there is to mention a monumental terrace-garden built on huge substructions on the northeast side of the hill including an absidated portico, and a new access ramp with an entrance arch to the Palace.

Figure 9 A temple for the imperial cult: the temple of Divus Claudius on the Forma Urbis.

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In the traditional political center of the city the Flavian emperors, like Augustus before them, realized minor transformations; there is to mention a systematic scansion of the Via Sacra from the Field of Mars to the Capitol, with arches or commemorative monuments evoking the Flavian victory and the Jewish triumph of AD 70: for instance the arch of Titus in the Circus Maximus, known essentially from epigraphic evidence, and that of the Velia, fully preserved today. The Flavian dynasty built or rebuilt no fewer than 50 major public monuments in Rome representing a complete monumental panoply and including two new dynastic temples (see below), a mausoleum temple, two new imperial forums, a stone amphitheatre, and many sanctuaries and honorific monuments. Moreover, recent research has revealed that important cutting and leveling works had already begun under Domitian on the site of the future Trajan’s Forum, which suggests that Domitian had planned the construction of a second imperial complex. The scale of the works begun under Domitian as well as the stylistic characteristics of Domitianic architectural decoration clearly demonstrated for the first time a centralized organization of the urban building ‘industry’ and of the ateliers at an unprecedented level. The Imperial Forums

The area of the imperial forums is the one that has recently offered most innovative historical perspectives due to the extensive excavations in the city centre realized on occasion of the Roman Jubilee (2000) (Figure 10): the traditional image of these forums formed in the early nineteenth century has been for the first time modified in a radical way, in particular concerning the planimetry of Trajan’s and Augustus’ forums; recent research has also brought new evidence about the successive phases of these monumental programs (some of them only projectual) and about the early mediaeval occupation of the area of forum Transitorium (Figure 11) and Temple of Peace, which results are at present exhibited with axonometric reconstructions in the recent Crypta Balbi Museum. Moreover, a large-scale research project is aiming at studying all the architectural fragments from the forums and the provenience of their material while a new Museum specifically dedicated to the history of the forums is to be opened in Trajan’s markets. The most important recent findings concern Augustus’ Forum, which included a third semicircular exedra on its south part, Trajan’s Forum, where no monumental temple to divus Traianus has been found, and the central area of the Templum Pacis. The three first ensembles are those of dynasty founders, Caesar, Augustus and Vespasian; the

multifunctional forum Iulium dedicated to Venus Genetrix, divine ancestor of Gens Iulia, associating an axial temple consecrated to a dynastic divinity, a closed colonnaded portico, a rich artworks display as well as administrative, political, or cultural annexes is rightly considered as the prototype of the imperial forums. Caesar’s Forum was symbolically and topographically linked to the Curia Iulia opening on the forum Romanum, the Atrium Libertatis which included the first public library of the capital and the aedes divi Iulii, creating a continuous monumental sequence placed under Caesar’s patronage. Epigraphic evidence from recent excavations regarding Praefecti Urbi attests the continuity of use of this complex until the fourth century AD. The Temple of Peace was an imperial forum which has provided very scarce archaeological evidence, although ancient sources mention it as one of the most beautiful monuments of the capital in that period. In particular, Pliny the Elder tells about its famous pictures and sculptures from Classic and Hellenistic periods, about sumptuous marbles and fountains. Nevertheless, the complex also housed offices of the Roman administration, libraries, and a hall where a huge marble Map of Rome was to be seen, probably as early as the Flavian era. Although the fragments of this map, dating from a Severan restoration of the site, were first discovered in the sixteenth century, the Forma Urbis nowadays remains the essential primary source for Roman topography studies which focus on the precise localization of the ancient buildings mentioned by textual sources (Figure 9). Thanks to the excavations of the ‘millennium year’ our knowledge of the Templum Pacis is more precise (Figure 10): the surrounding portico was elevated on a podium and a central area without stone pavement included a series of parallel longitudinal basins forming canals decorated with rose plantings. Although a series of statue bases inscribed with the names of famous sculptors from the Classical and Hellenistic periods was found during ancient and recent excavations, the original location of the statues in the monument remains uncertain. The second Flavian Forum, that of Domitian, was, like its predecessor, a victory monument dedicated to Minerva, the patron goddess of the emperor, whose temple dominated the complex. Ancient sources mention it as forum Transitorium because of its position between forum Augustum and forum Pacis, that conditioned its particular architectural aspect, including a ‘false’ and deluding portico along the side walls (Figure 11). The continuous frieze of the portico included a representation of the myth of Arachne linked to Minerva and the attic was adorned with a series of standing female figures in relief which are very

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Figure 10 Map of the imperial forums including recent discoveries.

Figure 11 The imperial forums: the forum of Nerva and the so-called ‘Colonacce’.

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likely personifications of the Provinces of Empire announcing the figurative program of the Hadrianeum. The triumphal vocation of this Forum remained since Alexander Severus erected the bronze statues of Roman triumphatores. Trajan’s Forum was the latest and most impressive of the imperial forums. The intervention of the damasian architect Apollodorus could explain innovative aspects of the complex; like other forums, Trajan’s Forum was a multifunctional ensemble commemorating the princeps’ triumph over the Dacians (present Romania). The most famous feature of this Forum is obviously the Trajan’s Column, high 40 m., providing a continuous sequence of historical reliefs narrating the imperial campaigns and victory. Moreover, this column showed the height of the excavations occasioned by the construction of the complex; finally, it became the tomb of the emperor Trajan. The monument was surrounded by two libraries which recent research has proved to be two-storeyed buildings. But the complex was dominated by a huge apsidal basilica whose attica received colossal statues of Dacian barbarians carved in Egyptian green marble and porphyry and giant Medusa medallions. The basilica opened on a large square decorated with great reliefs presenting the same subject matter as those of the column in a more synthetic visual language: some of the panels of this ‘Great Trajanic frieze’ have been reused as spolia (‘loots’) in the arch of Constantine. Finally, a colossal equestrian statue of the Emperor stood in the square: recent excavations gave its precise location, not in the center but in the southwest part of it. A key problem of the topography of the Forum is the location of the temple of Divus Traianus mentioned by textual sources: although the absence of a temple under the Palazzo della Provincia, already noticed during excavations made at the end of the nineteenth century, has been proved definitively, no element of a monumental structure has been discovered elsewhere; nonetheless, recent works have brought to light decisive evidence concerning the entrances to the forum: its south delimitation wall was not rectilinear, but segmented, while the north access included a monumental pronaos (‘vestibule’). It is important to outline the extraordinary durability of these ensembles still in use in early medieval times: late antique restorations or reconstructions are attested for the major part of them. Glory and Cult of the New Gods: The Monuments of the Imperial Cult

The constitution of the aedes divi Iulii, the altar dedicated to the deified Caesar and consecrated by Augustus

in the place of Caesar’s funerary pyre, whose remains are still visible on the forum, initiated the long series of monuments designed for the cult of the new gods of the Roman State; its prominent location, in the vicinity of Caesar’s Forum and in front of the Capitoline Hill, reveals the importance immediately conferred to this cult and marks the beginning of the annexation of the political centre by monuments erected to the glory of the imperial family. Over a range of two centuries, from Augustus to the end of the Antonine dynasty (98–192), the literary and archaeological sources attest no fewer than 11 new temple foundations. The two nodal and attractive monuments which conditioned ulterior constructions are Augustus’ Mausoleum on Campus Martius on the one hand and the aedes divi Iuli on the forum on the other hand. The Field of Mars, traditionally dedicated to the expression of the posthumous glory of prominent Romans, was a natural place for imperial funerals led in monumental ustrina which soon became permanent installations. The first imperial temple erected in this area was the so-called porticus divorum dedicated to the deified Vespasian and Titus; but the major development of imperial cult was due to the Antonine dynasty with the construction of an impressive series of honorific and cultic monuments that radically transformed the cityscape: a new dynastic Mausoleum by Hadrian (present-day Castel Sant’ Angelo (Figure 1)), a temple to divus Hadrianus, still preserved on actual Piazza di Pietra, a basilica to Faustina and Plotina nowadays completely destroyed, a commemorative column to Marcus Aurelius replicating Trajan’s column today visible in Piazza Colonna, another complex including an ustrinum, an ara and a column to Antoninus Pius, which pediment depicts the ‘apotheosis’ of Antoninus and Faustina, and finally, a temple to Marcus Aurelius and Faustina. Nonetheless, the Ancient Forum preserved its attractive force since each important dynasty erected there at least one temple: we can mention that of the deified Vespasian, facing the aedes divi Iuli, and that of Antoninus and Faustina along the Sacra Via. Finally, several of these monuments have an eccentric location because they were erected on birthplace or familial residences of the emperors: the Templum Gentis Flaviae has replaced a Flavian domus identified, thanks to a fistula inscribed with the name of T. Flavius Sabinus, a sacrarium was dedicated to divus Augustus on the Palatine Hill, and the location of the Templum divi Claudi on the Caelian hill (Figure 9) is probably related to the mythical history of the Claudii. Besides the monumental temple foundations, a large panoply of minor monuments were directly related to imperial religion and ideology; so the altars dedicated to the genius of the emperor, the Lares

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Augusti or the imperial virtues (Providentia, Pax), and also the numerous historical scenes which decorated honorific monuments. These monuments were recently objects of a renewed attention although they are mostly without topographical context. These dynastic temples have particular importance for the story of the sanctuaries of Rome because they represent the only new religious foundations of the imperial period after the Flavians; Republican and Augustan temples were continuously restored and rebuilt by the emperors, sometimes with consequent transformations of the original form of the monument (so Hadrian’s Pantheon, whose main architectural feature was the entirely conserved cupola, although reproducing on the fac¸ade the original dedication by Agrippa, was a real re-creation by the new emperor and included the addition of a monumental portico, the basilica Neptuni). On the one hand, a form of saturation of the urban space limited the opportunities for new constructions. On the other hand, for religious, cultural, and ideological reasons, the cityscape of Imperial Rome was characterized by a strong conservatism: besides the impossibility to modify the location of the sanctuaries, the pietas manifested by the successive emperors toward the monuments built by prestigious predecessors was another important factor in the stagnation of the large-scale building projects in the second century AD. From Trajan onward, most of the imperial dedications were dynastic monuments or restorations. The Spectacle Monuments

First of all, the ludi (public games) represented an essential part of the celebration of Roman cults and especially of the major festivals held in honor of the gods; since they were strictly related with a specific deity and, consequently, with a sanctuary, they generally took place in the vicinity of it, in the forecourt of a temple or in an adjacent square. This situation contributes to explain the fact that the Urbs remained for centuries a city with no permanent spectacle monuments in stone: the games generally took place in wooden temporary constructions (which left no archaeological remains) or in monuments originally designed for other functions. So a multiplicity of places and buildings could be used for gladiatorial or scenic performances: before the construction of the first permanent amphitheater of the capital in the second half of the first century BC, the munera were given on the forum Romanum, where subterranean service galleries have been discovered under the paving of the place, in the Saepta on the Campus Martius, or in the ancient Tarentum that comprised an area for chariot racing.

The nonspecificity or the pluri-functionality of public buildings is a major feature of Roman architecture. In this context, the Circus Maximus, located between the Aventine and Palatine hills, represents a notable exception both for its chronology (it is the most ancient spectacle monument of Rome, since its construction is traditionally linked with the Etruscan kings) and for its monumentality: in the second century AD, it could accommodate 150 000 spectators. Although various works are attested for the Republican period, major transformations were due to Agrippa and Augustus: the Circus received new marble installations and decorations on the central platform, and an imperial tribune was built, while not until the beginning of the second century AD the process of monumentalization was fully completed. The end of the first century BC marks an essential turning point in the story of the spectacle monuments of Rome: in a space of less than 50 years, three stone theaters were built, all of them concentrated on Campus Martius: the theaters of Pompey (see above), of Marcellus, and of Balbus. The second one, which is better preserved today than the first one because of its transformation into a fortress and a palace in medieval and modern times, was designed for the ludi Saeculares of 17 BC and dedicated by Augustus to his deceased nephew Marcellus. Finally, the theater of Balbus, associated to a monumental portico and a Crypta, was built in the same years to commemorate the victory over the Garamantes: only the subterranean part of the portico is well preserved. These monuments, functional to a new typology of games and spectacles, were also victory monuments perpetuating the tradition of the great porticated places and temples dedicated by the Republican triumphators in the Hellenistic style but at the same time they offered a new monumental frame as well as new opportunities for the expression of personal – and soon for imperial – propaganda. Moreover, new regulations concerning the distribution of spectators in the semicircular cavea mirrored the hierarchy of the Augustan society. The construction by Vespasian of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, best known as the Colosseum, as a manubial monument after the Jewish triumph of AD 71 marks a new step in the history of spectacles in Rome: the ideological signification of this huge monument of a new type – the restitution to the populus Romanus of a place unjustly privatized by Nero’s domus aurea (Golden House) – was reinforced by a prominent location in the heart of Rome, in the immediate vicinity of the forum Romanum (foro proximum), unlike the first stone amphitheatre of the capital, built in 29 BC by T. Statilius Taurus on Campus Martius and destroyed in the great fire of AD 64;

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the capacity without precedence of the amphitheater reflects a new conception of relations between emperor and Roman people, as well as a substantial change of taste of the public, since gladiatorial spectacles had to replace scenic and musical performances. Moreover, a monumental stone ludus for gladiatorial training was part of the building program. The first permanent stone amphitheater of the capital soon became the highest symbol of Rome’s power, grandeur, and eternity. During Mussolinian excavations was discovered the huge pedestal of the colossal statue of Nero-Sun God, which gave its name to the monument, as well as the remains of the Meta Sudans, a monumental fountain built by Augustus; all of these structures were demolished for the realization of the actual Via dei Fori imperiali. Most recently, new investigations have completed our knowledge of the history of the Colosseum valley prior to the construction of the amphitheatre, revealing the existence of monumental Neronian porticoes in connection with the Velia and a religious complex including a temple restored by Claudius and a shrine for the imperial cult adorned with statue bases of members of the Julio-Claudian family. These radical transformations in urban landscape in the heart of the city in a space of one century reveal the rapidity of social, ideological, and political changes related to imperial politics and constitute a good example of the extreme complexity of the stratigraphy in a city like Rome. The fire of AD 80 which damaged a large part of Campus Martius gave to the new emperor Domitian the opportunity for an important transformation of the area; not only did he restore Pompey’s theatre, the Iseum Campense or the Porticus Minucia in the area of Largo Argentina, but he also introduced new monumental spectacle buildings, two of them being without precedent in Rome: an odeum and a stadium designed for the celebration of Domitianic music, poetry and game festivals dedicated to Jupiter, which is the only example of this type of building actually known for the western part of the empire. The actual Piazza Navona still preserves the shape of the ancient stadium that exemplifies the introduction by Domitian in Rome of games and spectacle monuments typical for Greek culture. A restoration of the monument by Severus Alexander in the late third century AD shows the long-lasting imprint of this monument in the city. Nonetheless, because of the nature of the archaeological remains, we possess more documentation about the architecture of spectacle buildings – and thus about permanent structures than about the spectacles themselves and the temporary installations related to them.

Capital of the Western Empire The Buildings of the Imperial Administration

The study of the city of Rome as administrative center of a worldwide and centralized empire raises specific epistemological, historical, as much as methodological problems: first of all, this type of installation received for a long time scarce attention from specialists. A reason for that is the state of the available documentation: on the one hand, we know from textual sources that each important service received a specific setting and proper archives; on the other, we are most of the time unable to identify in the preserved buildings the concrete services because of the total destruction of the archives themselves and also because of the pluri-functionality of the buildings designed to house these activities: the administrative centers were often located in the exedras of the major basilicae. Moreover, these services have regularly been removed during imperial times. Finally, in archaeological terms, it is difficult to differentiate them from the numerous libraries of Imperial Rome. Naturally, the most important activities were concentrated in the area of the forum. The most famous structure is the Tabularium, whose monumental substructions on the Capitolium still dominate the present-day Forum’s valley (Figure 12): this central archive building was part of a complex which comprised also the officinae of Roman coinage until Domitian related to the temple of Moneta and the state treasury near to the temple of Saturn. The imperial fora soon became essential for administrative as well as judiciary activities: the Templum Pacis was probably one of the headquarters of the Praefectura Urbis, and the forum Augustum could house processes. The large porticoes located on Campus Martius also housed numerous vital complexes: for instance, the Crypta Balbi was not only a portico related to the stone theater, it probably was the place for the praefectura vigilum, and the temples today visible on the area of Largo Argentina were part of the porticus Minucia that housed the list of the citizens who could benefit from free grain distributions. Recently, excavations made on the slopes of the Palatine Hills have suggested that the monumental substructions of the imperial residence could have been used as offices of the imperial bureaucracy. Structures for the Food Supply System

Aelius Aristides claimed that it was impossible to find outside Rome something that could not be found in Rome. The role of the city as final destination and ‘cellar’ of all types of goods available over the

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Figure 12 Reconstruction of the Tabularium and the temples of forum Romanum in imperial times, design by C. Moyaux.

Mediterranean sea is not only a literary commonplace of Panegyrics of Rome: the complexity and the sophistication of the structures related to the trade and the food supply of the ancient city, both in administration and in building, reveals that it was obviously a central and perpetual concern of the Roman State to be able to provide food to a million people (the estimated population for the imperial period). The major problem was that Rome had no good natural harbor; Ostia became the river port of the capital and merchandises were transhipped to Rome. As for the offices of the Roman bureaucracy, the archaeological remains of those vital activities raise important methodological problems. One of the most impressive testimonies of the commercial activity of the city, considered as a major symbol of ‘the consumer city’ that was Rome, is the present-day Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill, 35 m high, built exclusively with empties of Roman amphoras from the port. The hill is massively composed from olive-oil amphoras from Spain whose production ranges from AD 150 to 250. This concentration raises the question of the conservation of other goods from other periods but gives an idea of the scale of the imports in Rome’s emporium. The commercial harbor, which included huge warehouses like those of the Porticus Aemilia or the horrea Galbana, was built to the southwest of the Aventine Hill: some structures are still visible on the banks of the Tiber as well as stone quays. In the city center were developed general and specialized markets: most of the imperial fora also housed commercial activities, but the best-preserved structures are the so-called Trajan’s markets, a multistoried semicircular building.

centuries. The water requirements of the rapidly expanding city, but also the cultural and ideological importance of water as symbol of Rome’s domination over nature, necessitated the creation of an always more sophisticated supply system that included an extraordinary variety of installations: sewers, aqueducts, fountains, and various basins. The baths built by Agrippa and those of Nero on Campus Martius probably constitute the paradigm for the ulterior imperial baths, although on a minor scale. These huge and luxuriously decorated monuments without compare constitute a building type unto themselves, designed from a very similar pattern, whose major characteristic is an interior division into two symmetrical parts: besides a central buildingblock including the most monumental structures, notably giant halls and piscinae of cold and hot water, the imperial baths included a double series of secondary rooms set into a garden precinct. Among the imperial baths mentioned by written sources, only a few examples are well preserved: those of Caracalla and those of Diocletian (Figure 13), a part of which has been transformed into churches in Renaissance times: S. Maria degli Angeli was designed by Michelangelo who transformed one of the main halls of the complex, which houses nowadays part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. Moreover, others have recently provided new evidence: the baths of Titus built on the Oppian Hill and those of Trajan which partially replaced them. The constantly increasing capacity of these complexes shows that this type of infrastructure was considered an absolute priority by the emperors of the third century AD.

The Water Supply System : Baths and Aqueducts

The first drainage works on the Forum’s valley date back to the Etruscan period with the construction of the cloaca maxima which remained in use for

Conclusion Roman Archaeology raises specific problems inherent to the nature of the city itself and that of the

EUROPE, WEST/Rome 1317 CAPITOLIU M TABULARIU M AEDES CONCORD IAE

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Figure 13 The baths of Diocletian: reconstruction.

discipline – the ubiquitous presence of both visible and nonvisible remains in a living modern capital, the complexity of a stratification covering a period of over 1300 years, the quantity of modern demolitions, as well as the mass of objects, artworks, and structures which survived without context. The extensive excavations on the occasion of the 2000 Jubilee in the heart of the city provided revolutionary elements for the ancient topography of Rome, while huge works for the construction of an underground-line are now to begin. These particular events and challenges led to the development of new research fields and documentation methods (particularly remarkable are the attempts to integrate all the types of data available and to provide threedimensional reconstructions of Ancient Rome) but they also impose radical choices in terms of conservation, preservation, and presentation of the recently

excavated structures. They invite a new reflection on the opportunities and the limitations of interpreting archaeological evidence: although new categories of objects have recently reached the status of historical sources, producing an increasing mass of potentially informative material, the discontinuity of these sources and the distortion between ancient testimonies and concrete findings from different periods spread out in various sectors of the city remains intact, as well as the problem of interpretation of these testimonies. The preserved structures say almost nothing of their effective use. On the other hand, the always more accurate and sophisticated collecting of data from recent excavations as well as their re-contextualisation will certainly permit a reduction in the degree of fragmentation available information and allow future scholars to re-question this material in the light of new elements and new research issues.

1318 EUROPE, WEST/Historical Archaeology in Britain See also: Asia, West: Roman Eastern Colonies; Cities,

Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Classical Archaeology; Europe, South: Greek Colonies; Medieval and Post-Medieval; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Urban Archaeology.

Further Reading Carandini A (2006) Remo e Romolo. Torino: Giulio Einaudi. Claridge A (1998) Rome. An Oxford Archaeological Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coarelli F (1974) Guida Archeologica di Roma. Milano: Mondadori.

Cornell TJ (1995) The Beginnings of Rome. London: Routledge. Cornell TJ (1995) Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 6: Imaging Ancient Rome. Documentation-Visualization – Imaginatio. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology. La Rocca E (2001) ‘La nuova immagine dei fori imperiali. Appunti in margine agli scavi’. Ro¨mische Mitteilungen 108: 171–214. La Rocca E (1999) Riscoperti di Roma Antica. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Steinby EM (ed.) (1993–2000) Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 6 vols. Rome: Quasar. Wallace-Hadrill A (1993) Augustan Rome. London: Bristol Classical Press. Zanker P (1988) The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

EUROPE, WEST Contents Historical Archaeology in Britain Historical Archaeology in Ireland

Historical Archaeology in Britain Dan Hicks, Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary historical archaeology The archaeology of the period after c. AD 1450 in the Old World, and of the period after European contact in the New World, up to and including the present. industrial archaeology The study of post-medieval industrial sites, landscapes, and buildings. In an older usage, the archaeology of the modern period (c. AD 1750–1950). post-medieval archaeology The historical archaeology of Europe after the Middle Ages (c. AD 1450–present). In an older usage, the archaeology of Europe between the end of the Middle Ages and the mid-eighteenth century (c. AD 1450–1750).

Introduction The post-medieval period (c. AD 1450–present) received little attention from British archaeologists before the middle of the twentieth century. Accordingly, despite some occasional early engagements with early modern material, today British historical archaeology is a field with few ‘ancestors’; beginning during the 1950s, its short history still lies entirely within

living memory, and some of its most significant developments have taken place since the mid-1990s. While the field has traditionally been dominated by English research and research agendas, the potential of Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish historical archaeology, and the complexities of ‘British’ historical archaeology, are increasingly recognized. This review begins by considering the emergence of the field, through ‘conservation and consolidation’, during its first three decades (1950s–1970s). A second section considers the ‘high period’ of conventional British post-medieval and industrial archaeology during the 1970s and 1980s, and a third section considers the ‘fragmentation and critique’ that characterized the 1990s. A further section explores the emerging ‘diversity’ of historical archaeology since 2000, with particular emphasis upon current debates over heritage management, archaeologies of the recent and contemporary past, and the global and postcolonial contexts of British historical archaeology. Brief conclusions are provided.

Conservation and Consolidation The emergence and development of British historical archaeology during its first three decades (1950s–1970s) occurred outside of the dominant museum and university institutions of prewar British archaeology.

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The process was driven by three successive, but overlapping impulses: the emergence of ‘local studies’, the rise of ‘rescue archaeology’, and increasing efforts toward the ‘consolidation’ of post-medieval and industrial archaeology as more established and respected fields of enquiry. Local Studies

The first impulse, toward ‘local studies’, developed during the years of rapid social and material change that followed World War II, when public interest in the remains of local, industrial, and urban history grew markedly. Primarily an English (rather than British) phenomenon, it was driven by the efforts of avocational archaeologists, special interest groups, museum-based archaeologists, and Workers’ Educational Association and university extramural tutors who ran classes in places such as Bristol, Birmingham, and Leicester. A number of distinctive approaches to studying the material remains of the recent past developed, grounded not in excavation but in field trips and ‘parish surveys’ which emphasized topographical survey and historic map analysis. No firm distinctions between medieval, post-medieval, or industrial material generally existed in such work. Rather, the field was closely bound up with emerging concerns around conservation and the apparent destruction of the contemporary historic landscape. Local studies formed part of a new postwar rediscovery of the English countryside associated with the rise in private car ownership and changes in industrial manufacture. Particularly influential was the work of landscape historians Maurice Beresford (especially his 1957 book History on the Ground) and W. G. Hoskins (especially his 1967 book Fieldwork in Local History). Meanwhile, a distinctive tradition of Scottish rural settlement studies, exemplified by the work of Horace Fairhurst, also began to develop – pointing out how little understood Scottish rural settlement was between the Iron Age and the eighteenth century. Such work laid the foundations for the historical landscape archaeology of the 1970s and 1980s (also discussed below). Rescue Archaeology

While rural landscapes were the primary focus of local studies, the archaeological mitigation of the large motorway projects of the 1960s and 1970s virtually never engaged with post-medieval material, focusing instead upon prehistoric, medieval, and especially Romano-British material. A small number of influential rural excavation projects did nevertheless take place, usually focusing on the medieval– post-medieval transition. Most notable were the

excavations at the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy in Yorkshire (abandoned during the early sixteenth century) which ran for successive summer seasons between 1950 and 1990 under the direction of John Hurst and Maurice Beresford; Michael Jarrett and Stuart Wrathmell’s excavations at the village of West Whelpington in Northumberland (abandoned c. AD 1720); and Barry Cunliffe’s combination of excavation and standing buildings recording at Manor Farm, Chalton, Hampshire between 1966 and 1972, which traced the development of the farm buildings from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries. The situation in the countryside was in stark contrast with that in English cities. In the face of the urban rebuilding programs that took place after the war, urban archaeological excavations were undertaken on an entirely new scale. While the work of the Guildhall Museum in London (from 1949) was particularly prominent, between the 1950s and 1970s urban excavation programs in Exeter, Southampton, Norwich, Leicester, Coventry, Bristol, Oxford and York, and Martin Biddle’s excavations at Winchester, formed a crucial part of the development of postmedieval urban archaeology. While recent remains were still often removed in order to expose more valued medieval or Romano-British archaeological remains, the sheer quantities of post-medieval material culture that were recovered meant that museumbased archaeologists began to engage with it in postexcavation work for the first time. This laid the foundations for the development of the post-medieval material culture studies of the 1970s and 1980s (discussed below). Consolidation

A third impulse, involving efforts toward disciplinary ‘consolidation’, developed from the early 1960s through new newsletters, conferences, societies, and publications. The prime movers in this process were museum-based archaeologists, who were gradually joined by archaeologists based in higher education institutions (usually in continuing education departments). The National Record of Industrial Monuments was established in the early 1960s, and involved a program of recording undertaken by local societies coordinated by the Council for British Archaeology. Through the efforts of archaeologists such as Phil Mayes and Ken Barton, the Society for PostMedieval Archaeology was founded in 1966, developing out of the Post-Medieval Ceramic Research Group which had been established at a meeting in Bristol in 1963. The Association for Industrial Archaeology was founded in 1973. Society journals were established – Post-Medieval Archaeology (from

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1967) and Industrial Archaeology Review (from 1976), and for the first time, book-length studies were produced, especially popular regional studies of industrial archaeology and vernacular building traditions.

Post-Medieval and Industrial Archaeology The 1970s and 1980s were dramatic times for British archaeology, with the rise of modern rescue archaeology, and the emergence of both processual and postprocessual theoretical approaches in Britain. But in many ways this was a slower, inward-looking period for British post-Roman archaeology, which came to be split between three period divisions – ‘medieval archaeology’ (c. AD 450–1450), ‘post-medieval archaeology’ (c. AD 1450–1750), and ‘industrial archaeology’ (c. AD 1750–1950). Despite such period distinctions, post-medieval and industrial archaeology saw a significant degree of consensus in relation to subject-matter, research agendas and disciplinary identity. However, this consensus saw the earlier efforts toward consolidation now giving way to a disciplinary nervousness. The innovation of Hoskins, Beresford, and Hurst was replaced by purely descriptive studies that sought to provide material to contribute to interpretations drawn from a previous generation of economic and social historians. Thus, David Crossley’s Post-Medieval Archaeology in Britain (1990) and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA)’s Research Priorities for Post-Medieval Archaeology (1988) focused upon the field’s potential, through synthesis of the field’s diverse range of data, to add to our understanding of early modern industrial and agricultural production, and demography. Meanwhile the third edition of Neil Cossons’ BP Book of Industrial Archaeology (1987) and the Association for Industrial Archaeology’s Industrial Archaeology: Working for the Future (1991) were not complemented by other studies that sought to expand the archaeology of more recent periods beyond the study of the remains of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century industrialization. The pages of Post-Medieval Archaeology and Industrial Archaeology Review were filled with highly detailed and descriptive archaeological reports, and apart from occasional contributions to county archaeological journals the results of British historical archaeology were virtually never published outside these two publications. Despite these limitations, the 1970s and 1980s represented a crucial period in some respects. Through the work of many dedicated researchers, the earlier efforts toward consolidation were realized. These are summarized in the following.

Post-Medieval Material Culture Studies

During the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of postmedieval archaeology was focused upon material culture studies developed by museum-based archaeologists. In the place of previous ‘connoisseur’ studies of elite material culture, especially glassware, precious metalware, and ceramics, usually written for the antiques trade, much-needed typological sequences for post-medieval British and imported ceramics, clay pipes, glass, and to a lesser extent building materials and metalwares, were developed. These studies were complemented by the excavation of the sites of industrial production: ironworks, the production sites of nonferrous metals such as lead, tin, copper, copper alloys, ceramics, and glassworks (Figure 1). Publications such as Adrian Oswald’s Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist (1975), Peter Davey’s monograph series The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe (1979– present), Richard Coleman Smith and Terry Pearson’s Excavations in the Donyatt Potteries (1988), and Jacqueline Pearce’s Border Wares (1993) provided crucial tools with which British historical archaeology could engage with material culture in a more sophisticated manner. Historical Landscape Archaeology

While the simultaneous interest in medieval and early modern material became less common in most subfields of British historical archaeology in the 1970s and 1980s, it was retained in historical landscape archaeology. Here, the landscape was seen as a ‘palimpsest’ – akin to a document partially effaced and written over again many times. Thus, the contemporary nature of landscape archaeology was underlined, rather than the isolated study of particular chronological periods. In Scotland the term ‘Medieval or later Rural Settlement Studies’ was generally used, but in practice was characterized by an emphasis upon the medieval rather than the post-medieval. In England, the work of Christopher Dyer and Joan Thirsk at the Centre for English Local History at Leicester University, Mick Aston in the Department of Continuing Education at Bristol University, and later Tom Williamson at the University of East Anglia, was all influential. The perspectives of landscape historian Oliver Rackham, especially his History of the Countryside (1986) which emphasized the importance of fieldwork in the study of landscape, also influenced historical landscape archaeology. Such work led to an increasingly wide range of nonintrusive field methodologies, incorporating air photograph interpretation, geophysical survey, and more controversial techniques such as M. D. Hooper’s approach to dating medieval and post-medieval hedgerows by

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Figure 1 The remains of a crucible furnace from the former Brunswick Steel Works in Sheffield. A row of melting holes and blocked-up flues are visible. After recording the furnace was reburied and protected in situ. Courtesy of Archaeological Research Consultancy at the University of Sheffield.

assessing the number of shrub species present within them. The journals Landscape History (from 1979) and Rural History (from 1989) provided important venues for the development of this field. Historical landscape archaeology was mainly focused upon agrarian landscapes – the study of ‘river and wold’ – and especially upon the evidence of agricultural ‘improvement’ and the long-term history of landscape enclosure. However, it also increasingly encompassed the studies of urban topography and the archaeology of parks and gardens. Mick Aston and James Bond’s The Landscape of Towns (1976), for example, ranged from prehistoric and RomanoBritish contexts to Victorian and twentieth-century towns, and even to ‘the future of towns’. Other researchers began to use the techniques of landscape archaeology to study British battlefields, leading to work such as Glenn Foard’s 1995 study of the site of the Battle of Naseby (1651) in Northamptonshire. Meanwhile, gardens archaeology emerged as a new field of enquiry during the 1980s, especially in the context of historical restoration. Particularly influential were Chris Currie and Martin Locock’s excavations at Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens in Birmingham in the late 1980s (Figure 2), and Brian Dix’s excavations in the early 1990s in advance of the restoration of the Privy Garden at Hampton Court (built 1701–2).

Industrial Archaeology

From the mid-1950s, Industrial Archaeology had developed in parallel with Local Studies: also through the Workers’ Educational Association and university extra-mural departments, but through a largely separate community of enthusiasts from a different range of backgrounds – craftsmen, industrial managers, and particularly engineers interested in the history of their own industries. The 1970s and 1980s saw an increasingly wide range of work in industrial archaeology, particularly in the publication of regional surveys of industrial remains, and field studies of the production sites for items of material culture regularly excavated by archaeologists (ceramics, glass, metalwork, etc.). Industrial archaeologists also increasingly examined other industrial sites such as coal and tin mines, textile mills, and transportation networks such as roads, canals, and railways (see Industrial Archaeology). Landscape approaches were also extended into the archaeology of industrial landscapes through Jeremy Lowe and Martin Lawlor’s 1982 study ‘Landscapes of the iron industry’ at Blaenavon in Gwent, Wales, Judith Alfrey and Kate Clark’s ‘Nuffield Survey’ of the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire during the late 1980s, and by Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson’s Industrial Landscapes of the East Midlands (1992). This work has been increasingly

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Figure 2 Gardens archaeology at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham. Photograph: Chris Currie.

influential. For example, in the 1990s in Wales, Stephen Hughes’ work with the Welsh Royal Commission demonstrated the potential of the landscape archaeology of industrial landscapes through his work in the lower Swansea Valley in South Wales – this ‘Copperopolis’ developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and ranged from industrial copper works which included a massive smelting hall known as the ‘Great Workhouse’, to other industrial processes, including porcelain manufacture, and roadways, wooden railways, and a commercial wharf. Buildings Archaeology

The archaeological study of post-1500 buildings also developed during this period. Vernacular architectural studies were catalyzed by Ronald William Brunskill’s Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture (1970) and Eric Mercer’s Vernacular Houses (1975). Scholars such as J. T. Smith examined the transition from medieval open halls to new post-medieval forms, inspired especially by W. G. Hoskins’ (1953) notion of a ‘Great Rebuilding’: a theme developed upon by Matthew Johnson’s study of Housing Culture: Traditional Architecture in an English Landscape (1993). Elsewhere in the UK, the archaeological study of many other kinds of buildings – from polite houses to institutions such as workhouses, schools, hospitals, and military structures – developed. The study of military architecture also developed, especially after the formation of the Fortress Study Group in 1975. The potential of studying workers’

housing was also increasingly recognized, especially in Royal Commission volumes such as Roger Leech’s Early Industrial Housing: The Trinity Area of Frome, Somerset (1981) and Lucy Caffyn’s landmark 1986 study of Workers’ Housing in West Yorkshire. Temporary housing was also examined, as with Michael Morris’ study of the ephemeral traces of the navvy huts used by road, railway, and canal construction workers (Figure 3). Church Archaeology

While the archaeology of churches and churchyards grew in importance during the 1970s, especially through the efforts of Warwick Rodwell and Richard Morris, a focus upon medieval, rather than postmedieval, remains continued to characterize the field. A notable exception was the studies of gravestones across Britain developed by Harold Mytum. The archaeology of post-medieval death and burial was also generally neglected, with cemeteries usually cleared without appropriate archaeological mitigation. This began to change during the 1980s, an important watershed being the Museum of London excavation directed by Jez Reeve of 968 eighteenthand nineteenth-century burials from the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields in London between 1984 and 1986. As Margaret Cox has suggested, the project raised crucial ethical, bureaucratic and intellectual issues around the treatment of the dead in the recent past: issues which have informed the subsequent development of forensic archaeology (discussed below).

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Figure 3 Collapsed door frame from a temporary navvy structure from construction of the Woodhead Tunnel (part of the Sheffield to Manchester railway) between 1839 and 1845. Figure 3 in Morris M (1994) Towards an archaeology of navvy huts and settlements of the industrial revolution. Antiquity 68: 573–584. Courtesy of Antiquity Publications Ltd.

Historical Maritime Archaeology

Fragmentation and Critique

In the rapid development of maritime archaeology in Britain from the 1970s, the study of material dating from after AD 1500 has played an important role. In Scotland, two underwater archaeology projects played a central role in the development of scientific approaches to wreck site formation processes: Keith Muckelroy’s excavations of the Kennemerland, a Dutch East Indiaman wrecked off the Shetland Islands (conducted between 1973 and 1977), and Colin Martin’s excavations of the Dartmouth, a British frigate wrecked off the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. The most high-profile and intensive underwater archaeology project ever undertaken in Britain was also a historical maritime archaeology project: the raising in 1982 of Henry VIII’s warship the Mary Rose (which was built in 1509–1510, and sank in the Solent on the south coast of England in 1545). The Mary Rose project not only yielded crucial information about sixteenth-century ship construction but also many wellpreserved personal and domestic items of material culture. Meanwhile, scholars such as Sea´n McGrail and Basil Greenhill used British and Irish historical ethnographic and documentary material to examine the ethnoarchaeology of shipbuilding traditions. The study of terrestrial maritime landscapes also developed, especially through Gustav Milne’s seminal excavations of the waterfront of medieval and post-medieval London for the Museum of London in the mid-1970s and late-1980s.

By the late 1980s the subfields outlined above were growing in confidence, coherence, and critical mass. However, virtually no new researchers and practitioners or researchers had joined British historical archaeology: the generation of archaeologists that emerged during the 1970s and 1980s (trained in the new undergraduate degrees in archaeology) overwhelmingly turned instead to prehistoric or world archaeology. From the outside, British historical archaeology appeared to be an intellectually isolated and stagnant field in which a dry consensus had developed around purely descriptive modes of research. In this context, from around 1990 a number of factors combined to bring ‘fragmentation and critique’. Fragmentation

Fragmentation resulted in part from the new commercial archaeological environment that developed after the changes to the Department of Environment’s Planning Policy Guidance (PPG 16) in 1990. During the 1990s, competitive tendering and the emergence of a new kind of commercial archaeological contractor radically changed the positions of museum-based city archaeological units in which post-medieval material culture studies and urban excavation had developed during the 1970s and 1980s. In the new commercial environment, a new generation of larger, national-based archaeological units emerged. This

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made the previous development of integrated overviews of urban post-medieval archaeology produced by museum-based archaeologists much more difficult, especially outside London. Meanwhile as the decade progressed, the conventional internal disciplinary boundaries of British historical archaeology were increasingly questioned from within. This was most visible in the conference activities of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology, driven in particular through the work of professional and museum-based archaeologists, laid many of the foundations for this process. Through the efforts of David Gaimster, Geoff Egan, and David Cranstone, the society held joint conferences with the Society for Medieval Archaeology in London in 1996 on the theme of The Age of Transition: The Archaeology of English Culture 1400–1600, with the US-based Society for Historical Archaeology in London and Williamsburg, Virginia in 1997 on the theme of Old and New Worlds, and a joint conference with the Association for Industrial Archaeology at Bristol University in 1999 on the theme of Archaeology and Industrialization. These meetings served to problematize conventional boundaries that had developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and focused the attention of historical archaeologists upon significant processes that fell across conventional chronological divisions, such as the archaeology of the ‘reformation’, the reuse of monastic lands and buildings after the ‘dissolution’ (1536–1540), or the social history of industrialization. From 1995 the conventional neglect of the twentieth-century British archaeology was challenged by the 7-year Council for British Archaeology’s Defence of Britain Project through which around 600 volunteers recorded almost 20 000 twentieth-century military sites across Britain. Critique

Meanwhile ‘critique’ developed from researchers based in higher education institutions, particularly archaeologists who studied as doctoral students at the University of Cambridge during the late 1980s and early 1990s such as Matthew Johnson, Sarah Tarlow, John Carman, Gavin Lucas, and Victor Buchli. The extension of the principles of ‘ethnoarchaeology’ into an examination of very recent and contemporary British material culture – mortuary practices in Victorian England and modern Cambridge, modernism and suburbia, pet food factories or beer can designs – had been an important point of departure for the postprocessual turn of 1980s Cambridge (see Postprocessual Archaeology). Such work used modern or contemporary material rhetorically – to make broader theoretical arguments about material culture rather than to

contribute to the historical study of recent periods. Indeed, from the early 1990s Chris Tilley, Daniel Miller, and others rejected archaeological approaches, seeking instead to develop anthropological ‘material culture studies’ as a separate field. At the same time, however, others began to use interpretive approaches to critique the descriptive consensus of British historical archaeology. An early statement was Kate Clark’s diagnosis of ‘Trouble at t’Mill’ for 1980s industrial archaeology, published in Antiquity in 1987. But it was not until the second half of the 1990s that a genuine watershed in British historical archaeology came about with Matthew Johnson’s An Archaeology of Capitalism (1996), Sarah Tarlow’s Bereavement and Commemoration (1999), and Sarah Tarlow and Susie West’s edited collection The Familiar Past? Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain (1999). These volumes questioned interdisciplinary boundaries, and sought to develop a ‘social archaeology’ of early modern material: variously applying the sociological perspectives of Bourdieu and Giddens, literary theory and Foucault, structuralist analyses of social space, and anthropological theories of consumption in conventional post-medieval contexts. The literary bent of such studies sometimes weakened their engagement with materiality, critiquing previous uses of archaeology to illustrate processes defined by social and economic history but replacing such studies with similar illustrations of social theory. Nevertheless, the importance of these studies lay in their emphasis of interpretive as well as purely descriptive approaches, and their inspiration of a new generation of archaeologists to start work on British historical archaeology.

Diversity (1999–Present) Today, the picture presented in David Crossley’s PostMedieval Archaeology (1990) is unrecognizable. Since the turn of the millennium, the field has responded to fragmentation and critique by developing diversity, a renewed self-confidence in the distinctive perspectives of archaeology in all its forms, and its abilities to combine alternative approaches. While the complex processes that have contributed to the present situation are still in the process of becoming clear, they are sketched in this section. The year 2000 saw the publication of a landmark document by English Heritage, Power of Place: The Future of the Historic Environment, which included the results of a major MORI survey of public attitudes to heritage in England. The document highlighted two interrelated phenomena: how many people, especially among the Black and Asian communities, felt excluded from heritage, and how for

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many people the remains of the recent past – which often formed part of the everyday built environment in which they lived – represented valued aspects of the heritage. Since then, the potential for historical archaeology to engage with issues of public value and social inclusion has been an important inspiration for historical archaeologists. One emerging theme in such studies is the archaeology of British identity. The past 500 years have witnessed the historical emergence and changing limits of ‘Britain’. Through the Acts of Union of 1707 which brought together England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Act of Union of 1800 which brought Northern Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the British nation was, in historian Linda Colley’s double-edged term, ‘forged’ during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Behind these legislative processes lay complex medieval and early modern developments: the personal union between the Irish Parliament and Henry VIII (1541), the Laws in Wales Acts (1535–1542) which brought together England and Wales, the establishment of English plantations in Ulster plantation after the Nine Years War (1594–1603). Such processes also continued into the twentieth century, with the division of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry from the rest of Ireland, forming Northern Ireland, in 1920–1921, and the establishment of the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998 – bringing the repeal of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 and the end of direct rule from Westminster. Cutting across these processes, British culture has continually benefited from the arrival of immigrant populations during the post-medieval period – especially from continental Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and southern and eastern Asia. A number of British historical archaeologists have begun to develop studies that combine an archaeological examination of these historical processes with an awareness of contemporary politics. Jim Gardner’s 2004 study of heritage among the Bangladeshi community in east London and Siaˆn Jones’ studies of the complex relationships between Scottish heritage and memorialization have been especially influential here. The plantation archaeology of Ulster, and of the Munster plantation in contemporary southern Ireland (established during the 1580s), holds great potential to explore similar themes, but remains underdeveloped despite recent engagements by American archaeologists Audrey Horning and James Delle. Others, such as Matthew Johnson, have pointed to the potential of a postcolonial archaeology of Britain. In this vein, Dan Hicks has sought to trace the influence of colonial history upon British landscapes and material culture through his fieldwork at the garden of mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic merchant Thomas

Goldney III in Clifton, Bristol. In her 2003 edited collection Archaeologies of the British, Australian archaeologist Susan Lawrence placed studies of British identity and regionality undertaken by archaeologists such as Alasdair Brooks, Pamela Graves, Adrian Green, Matthew Johnson, and James Symonds in the United Kingdom in global comparative perspective. The 2000s have also seen a number of challenges to the conventional neglect of twentieth-century (and even more recent) archaeology. Victor Buchli and Gavin Lucas’ edited collection Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past (2001) was highly influential here, especially the editors’ own study of an abandoned council house in Cambridgeshire. In a radical departure from the rhetorical use of archaeologies of the recent past in postprocessual archaeology, Buchli and Lucas eloquently demonstrated the potential for archaeological methods to be used to contribute to the social scientific study of homelessness, drug use and the effectiveness of housing policy. The social usefulness of archaeologies of the recent and contemporary past have also been clearly demonstrated in the rapid development of forensic archaeology in Britain, especially through the work of Margaret Cox. The annual meetings of the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) group, convened in 2003, have provided a venue for the development of such ‘contemporary archaeology’ alongside more conventional historical archaeology. The archaeology of the sixteenth–nineteenth centuries has also seen renewed attention, especially in the work of museum-based archaeologists such as Geoff Egan in London and David Barker in Stoke-on-Trent who have continued to develop sophisticated studies of post-medieval material culture studies; in studies of the reception of medieval buildings in the early postmedieval period such as the work of Kate Giles; and in Chris Dalglish’s studies of the landscape archaeology of improvement in eighteenth-century Argyll. Meanwhile, especially through the work of John Schofield, twentieth-century archaeology has been developed further in military archaeology – a field in which archaeologists have studied Cold War military sites, the remains of antinuclear peace camps and wall art as well as more conventional World War I and World War II remains (Figure 4) – and in other aspects of twentieth-century archaeology. Here, archaeological survey methods have been increasingly combined with oral historical and documentary research – most vividly in Laura McAtackney’s study of the archaeology of the Long Kesh/Maze prison site in Northern Ireland, which is now decommissioned. Twentieth-century archaeology has also proved a fertile area for public archaeology projects, which involve members of local communities in field

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Figure 4 Mid-twentieth century wall art on the walls of a prisoner of war camp in Lincolnshire, showing Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Courtesy of Roger J. C. Thomas.

projects, such as Eleanor Conlin Casella’s excavation of two cottages at Alderley Edge, Cheshire and Gabriel Moshenska’s oral historical research around the Museum of London community excavation of the remains of bombed-out Victorian terraced houses at Shoreditch Park in east London.

Conclusions Since the mid-1990s, historical archaeology in Britain has witnessed a radical phase of debate and growth. While the literary, interpretive critique of the 1990s was a useful and overdue catalyst, today it is the emergence of field projects that combine empirical and interpretive perspectives, and often political and community engagement, that makes the prospects for the field so strong. The most successful of these involve new kinds of partnership between archaeologists based in the commercial, museums, and higher education sectors, as with the Alderley Edge project discussed above. James Symonds and Anna Badcock at the Archaeological Research Consultancy at the University of Sheffield have recently developed a number of innovative new studies in historical archaeology from development-funded excavations, including Symonds’ 2002 edited volume The Historical Archaeology of the Sheffield Cutlery and Tableware Industry 1750–1900. Similarly, the Museum of London’s excavation in 1989 of the site of the Rose

Theatre in Southwark, London (constructed 1587) has produced important new interdisciplinary perspectives upon theatre history. While further projects and publications of this kind develop, many challenges remain. British historical archaeology has not yet developed field projects that engage with the untold histories of ethnic minorities, working class communities or household situations that have been addressed in North American, South African, or Australasian historical archaeology. The historical archaeology of gender and sexuality in Britain, explored so successfully by medieval archaeologists such as Roberta Gilchrist, remains underdeveloped. Few book-length studies in the new British contemporary and historical archaeology have been written. The field’s center of gravity in London and southeast England remains insufficiently counterbalanced by the development of historical archaeologies in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, in northern and western England, and in cities such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, and Glasgow. The potential of building partnerships between different archaeological communities (commercial, higher educational, governmental, museum-based, avocational) remains underexplored. Nevertheless, as the field continues to build upon the solid foundations laid in the second half of the twentieth century, British historical archaeology has emerged as one of the most dynamic and exciting fields in contemporary European archaeology.

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Acknowledgments The chapter was completed during a period of research leave funded by the University of Bristol and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to whom thanks are due. Thanks are also due to David Cranstone, David Gaimster, Roberta Gilchrist, Matthew Johnson, Marilyn Palmer, and James Symonds who commented on a draft of this chapter. See also: Europe, Northern and Western: Medieval; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Ireland; Historic Preservation Laws; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Industrial Archaeology; Landscape Archaeology; Maritime Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Urban Archaeology.

Further Reading Buchli V and Lucas G (eds.) (2001) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. London: Routledge. Casella EC and Symonds J (eds.) (2005) Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions. New York: Springer. Crossley D (1990) Post-Medieval Archaeology in Britain. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Currie C (2005) Garden Archaeology: A Handbook. (Practical Handbooks in Archaeology). York: Council for British Archaeology. Egan G and Michael RL (eds.) (1999) Old and New Worlds. Oxford: Oxbow. Gaimster DRM and Gilchrist R (eds.) (2004) The Archaeology of the Reformation. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Gaimster DRM and Stamper P (eds.) (1997) The Age of Transition. The Archaeology of English Culture 1400–1600. Oxford: Oxbow Books. (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 15; Oxbow Monograph 98). Hicks D and Beaudry MC (eds.) (2006) The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson MH (1996) An Archaeology of Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Lawrence S (ed.) (2003) Archaeologies of the British: Explorations of Identity in Great Britain and its colonies, 1600–1945. London: Routledge. (One World Archaeology 46). McAtackney L (2007) The contemporary politics of landscape at the Long Kesh/Maze Prison site, Northern Ireland. In: Hicks D, McAtackney L, and Fairclough G (eds.) Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press (One World Archaeology). Morris M (1994) Towards an archaeology of navvy huts and settlements of the industrial revolution. Antiquity 68: 573–584. Palmer M and Neaverson P (1999) Industrial Archaeology: Principles and Practice. London: Routledge. Penrose S (2007) Images of Change: A Field Guide to the English Landscape, 1950–2005. Swindon: English Heritage/Atkins Heritage (with contributions from Bradley A, Buchli GV, Fairclough V Hicks D, Miller J, and Schofield J). Schofield J (2005) Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict. London: Duckworth (Duckworth Debates in Archaeology). Tarlow S and West S (eds.) (1999) The Familiar Past? Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain. London: Routledge.

Historical Archaeology in Ireland Charles E Orser, Jr., Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA Colm J Donnelly, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary folklife Traditions passed down informally over time within a group. industrial archaeology Archaeology that concerns itself with the physical remains of the Industrial Revolution. maritime archaeology Study of human interaction with the sea, lakes, and rivers. modernity The condition of belonging to the ‘modern’ era since the post-medieval period. post-medieval archaeology The archaeology of the period approximately between 1450 and 1750.

The definition of what constitutes historical archaeology has been a matter of prolonged discussion. The term has its origins among archaeologists working on post-Columbian European and European-impacted sites within the United States and other regions colonized or visited by people from Europe after about AD 1500. A broader definition views historical archaeology as the investigation of any archaeological materials related to any literate society anywhere in the world. This last definition incorporates the idea that historical archaeology is essentially a methodology that combines archaeological and historical information. Viewed in an Irish context, the first definition shares an affinity with the British use of the term ‘post-Medieval archaeology’, a term that is widely used in Ireland. Conversely, the employment of the second term proposes that the introduction of the written word to Ireland at the start of the Early Christian period in the fifth century AD heralds the advent of historical archaeology. Under this broader definition, historical archaeology in Ireland would embrace all literate history. For present purposes, however, we define historical archaeology in the first sense, as the study of the modern world, while also acknowledging the methodological appeal of the broad definition. Usage of the more restrictive term, though preferred, raises several important issues when used in an Irish context. The central problem with using the term ‘historical archaeology’ in Ireland relates to the island’s history. Ireland was part of Europe at the commencement of

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the sixteenth century, the time frame referenced in the more restricted definition. In contrast to those places that would be most closely associated with global European colonization – and where historical archaeology was also first practiced – Ireland’s indigenous culture was already drastically affected by the government-sponsored actions of a neighboring European superpower, England. The effect of English involvement in Ireland has had positive and negative repercussions for both nations over the past 300 years. Bearing this circumstance in mind, any attempt to identify a precise date for the advent of the modern world in Ireland – and thus the purview of the most rigorous definition of historical archaeology – necessitates a sensitivity to certain political, religious, cultural, and economic elements of the island’s history as a result of increasing levels of English governmental and cultural intervention. The commencement of the Nine Years War in 1594, instigated by powerful native Gaelic lordships in Ulster, under the leadership of Hugh O’Neill, ended with the Treaty of Mellifont in 1603. The main Irish protagonists were allowed to keep their lands, but political intrigue left O’Neill and his followers in a precarious situation. In 1607, a cohort of the chief Gaelic lords left Ireland for the continent in an event known as The Flight of the Earls. This action provided the administration of James I, the new monarch of England and Scotland, with the opportunity to put into practice a major scheme of plantation on the confiscated estates. The plantation schemes that were enacted from the 1550s to 1620 – including the Plantation of Ulster in 1609 – did not, however, produce the results anticipated. The newcomers brought with them new governing structures and laws, and sought to alter radically the Irish landscape by introducing agricultural and economic practices they construed as an improvement over the traditional Gaelic methods. They also changed the built environment by constructing new buildings in nonindigenous styles. Even with the advent of such broad cultural transformations, the planters failed to attract sufficient numbers of settlers. To remain economically viable, the new landowners were thus forced to retain members of the pre-existing native Irish population on their new estates. The successful introduction of Protestantism into Ulster, which was integral to the improvement process, was stunted since the native Irish remained Catholic, despite some notable conversions. The English planter population were outnumbered, even though they controlled the new landscape they had created as a consequence of their power. Because of their insecurity – a common by-product of colonization – they were ever watchful of a possible insurrection by the native Irish populace.

When that revolt finally materialized in 1641, it heralded a 10-year period of hostilities that only ended with the total conquest of Ireland by Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1653. Following the Interregnum and the uneasy peace between monarch and parliament under Charles II, the ascent to the throne in 1685 of the Catholic James II led to further traumatic events in Ireland. Ousted by the Protestant English parliament in 1688, James viewed Ireland as the theater wherein he could regain his crown. The defeat of James’ forces by his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange, led to the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, a truce that ensured the final political subjugation of Ireland by Britain. Ireland had become a Protestant-dominated country by the end of the seventeenth century, with political power firmly in the hands of the island’s landowning Protestant Ascendancy, a class that experienced its great affluence and influence during the eighteenth century. Given this politico-religious history, can historical archaeologists use early modern events to designate the purview of Irish historical archaeology? Scholars have long recognized that the English planters constructed their homes in a style that betrayed their own places of origin. What has not been emphasized is that English manor houses and Scottish tower houses might have been new to the Irish landscape, but – leaving aside the use of new materials such as brick and Renaissance features such as bay windows – these structures were still fundamentally medieval. The building stock of the landowners of Ireland only really improved with the peace and stability of the eighteenth century. The Protestant Ascendancy controlled 95% of the land by the end of the century. Outside the upper echelons of plantation society, new settlers typically adopted the cabins of the native Irish, presumably constructed for them by native builders. Thomas Raven’s contemporary pictorial maps of the villages of the London Companies offer insights into a world where medieval building traditions – timberframed, English-style houses and mud-walled Irish cabins – sat juxtaposed on the landscape. The excavation of native Irish material culture on plantation settlements at Salterstown, County Londonderry, can be viewed as evidence of economic interaction between members of both groups. This discovery may even indicate that native Irish men and women lived among the planters. As is true of vernacular architecture, the material culture also indicates the new settlers’ need to rely on the native Irish to help them survive in their new environment. The slow pace of cultural change, however, is indicated by the discovery of everted rim-ware – a native pottery type that has its origins in the thirteenth century – alongside imported pottery at plantation village sites in County Londonderry. Excavations reveal

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that people continued to use the native ware until the end of the seventeenth century. The principal form of lordly residence in Ireland during the Late Medieval period was the tower house, a tall self-contained, stone building with rooms stacked one over the other. Access between floors was gained by means of a stone staircase. The tower houses had genuine defensive strength, but they were not grim citadels; rather, they were defended homes. By the second half of the sixteenth century, a change occurred in tower house architecture, and Renaissance architectural ideas began to manifest themselves in this well-established building tradition. The changes in architecture, however, reflect Irish knowledge and appreciation of what was occurring throughout Renaissance Europe. Just as Irish builders had adapted English-decorated architecture three centuries earlier to produce their own successful regional variations, the Irish Gothic, they began to adopt Renaissance ideas in their building designs. Efforts to identify cultural parallels and sources of inspiration for these modifications have not yet been entirely fruitful, however. If Hugh O’Neill and his Gaelic army had been successful at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, Ulster may not have become subject to British colonization during the first two decades of the new century. The demand to colonize would probably have led to British involvement later in the seventeenth century, however, since Ireland would still have been a Catholic country, and thus perceived as a potential threat to the security of Protestant Britain. Burgeoning capitalist practice would certainly have added further impetus to the process of colonization, because Ireland was resource rich, with numerous opportunities for entrepreneurial advancement. What becomes apparent, therefore, is that the seventeenth century as a whole must be viewed as the period when Ireland was transformed from medieval to modern. Of more importance, however, is the realization that this process occurred as a direct consequence of British colonialism. It constituted a complex process of making Ireland British. On political, religious, economic, and social fronts, the transformation of Ireland during the seventeenth century did not occur as a result of any single event. It was a protracted and nonteleological process. But the modern world that was created for Ireland was not of its own choosing; it was a world that had been shaped by British intentions. Twentieth-century politics have also exerted a significant influence on the development of historical archaeology in Ireland. With partition in 1920, the island was refashioned as two governmental jurisdictions. Further negotiations created Northern Ireland, composed of six northeastern counties, as part of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Irish Free State, later the Republic of Ireland, consisting of the remaining 26 counties. The presence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom meant that archaeologists in the north benefited from the methodological and theoretical developments in British archaeology. The formalization of British post-Medieval archaeology beginning in the early 1960s – through the Post-Medieval Ceramic Research Group, which became the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology later in the decade – meant that historical archaeologists in the north did not necessarily have to justify their interest in post-prehistoric sites. The situation, however, was far different in the Republic of Ireland. Here, archaeologists were encouraged to focus their attention on the far distant past, in periods of history that existed before the creation of the British Empire. Even medieval archaeology was frowned upon in the south, and the only archaeology that could be methodologically linked to historical archaeology (under the broad definition) focused on what is often termed the Early Christian Period. This epoch is usually defined as extending from the introduction of Christianity to the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, or from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. When archaeologists in the Republic did show interest in modern culture history, they often classified their work under the rubric of folklife studies. Many of these scholars, such as AT Lucas, director of the National Museum of Ireland in the Republic, were dedicated to multidisciplinary investigations of topics that would later fall well within the confines of historical archaeology. Others such as Joseph Raftery –also a former director of the National Museum of Ireland – argued for an explicit linkage between archaeology and folklife studies. Such calls were not immediately heeded, and the formalization of historical archaeology in Ireland did not occur until 1999, with the formation of the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group. This developmental history contrasts with that of the United States where, in the 1930s, a nascent historical archaeology was largely a governmental creation designed to conduct research at sites associated with people and places notable in early American history. Research at sites like Jamestown, that extolled European colonization, and Williamsburg, that celebrated the nation’s revolutionary past, could not be duplicated in Ireland because most of the 1916 rebels and the veterans of the Irish Civil War were still alive. Modern history was thus too immediate, fresh, and remembered to be a subject for archaeological investigation. Concerned individuals had discussed the creation of a folk museum in Northern Ireland for at least two

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decades before the 1958 Ulster Folk Museum Act was passed by the Northern Ireland government. In 1961 the government purchased Cultra Manor, on the southern shore of Belfast Lough eight miles from Belfast, as the museum’s home. Concerned with the preservation of the built environment, museum personnel pursued a policy of identifying abandoned and threatened buildings of architectural merit. The buildings were then ‘collected’ from their original locations – disassembled stone by stone, transported to Cultra, and re-erected at a suitable location within the museum, depending upon their original rural or urban context. The museum’s conservators might be questioned today for not including excavation in their program, but the buildings, now saved and protected, provide a unique and important catalog of the north’s vernacular architecture. In the Republic, the National Museum of Ireland opened a branch designated as the Museum of Country Life in Castlebar, County Mayo, in 2001. This facility is dedicated to reflecting all aspects of traditional life in Ireland during the 1850–1950 period. Historical archaeology is not currently situated within the museum’s stated purview, but the over 50 000 artifacts in its collection are entirely consistent with historical archaeology’s subject matter. Despite the relatively late blooming of historical archaeology in Ireland, archaeologists working on modern-period subjects have nonetheless made impressive contributions to knowledge. Much remains to be accomplished, but archaeologists have explored aspects of the full range of Ireland’s modern history, from the earliest plantation sites to early twentiethcentury industrial works. Various academic scholars have examined the architectural legacy of the Ulster Plantation, with studies of individual buildings and their histories published in the first and second editions of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, beginning in the late nineteenth century. Fortified houses and tower houses continued to receive attention throughout the twentieth century, and in the north specifically, the establishment of the government-supported Archaeological Survey enabled further research to be undertaken at a range of individual sites. Major synthetic articles by Jope and by Waterman, which continue to be referenced today, were published as a result of this research. One of the first excavations at a castle associated with the plantation period – late sixteenth or early seventeenth century – was undertaken in County Fermanagh in 1964–65 at Agheeghter, where the stair projection for a larger, and previously demolished, main block was recorded in advance of its destruction for a road improvement scheme. Several archaeologists, supplemented by studies of historical

geographers, continued this research throughout those areas that experienced English and Scottish plantation efforts. In keeping with the early trends in historical archaeology in general, the buildings these scholars surveyed tended to be the homes of principal landowners. At the same time, however, some researchers also recognized that a complete picture of daily life during the plantation period could only be obtained with a concomitant study of the housing and material conditions of the colonized. This research on Ireland’s plantation era illustrated one important facet of historical archaeology: the value of historic maps. Pictorial maps produced during the early decades of the seventeenth century show two distinct medieval building traditions – one Irish, one English – existing side by side on the landscape. Archaeologists have yet to find evidence for Englishdesigned, timber-framed architecture in the Ulster Plantation. Excavation at Movanagher in County Londonderry has shown the ephemeral nature of the physical evidence for both native and imported house types. The maps thus document cultural features that archaeologists have yet to examine. In another example, historical documents indicate that a British village existed somewhere in the vicinity of Sir John Hume’s Tully Castle in County Fermanagh. In 2002, an extensive program of reconnaissance excavation in the immediate area failed to locate any evidence of the village, and the excavators were forced to look to the nearby hamlet of Churchill as the possible village site. The archaeological investigation of rural settlements began in the 1950s when archaeologists excavated a clachan (a cluster of farm dwellings and associated outbuildings) at Murphystown, County Down. One goal of the project’s directors was to investigate the origins and development of the clachan as a settlement type. The clachan at Murphystown had been abandoned possibly as late as the early twentieth century. Other protracted excavations at rural settlements have occurred at the deserted village of Slievemore on Achill Island in County Mayo, and at the evicted townlands of Ballykilcline, Muliviltrin, and Gorttoose in County Roscommon. These projects all have the goal of documenting daily life in the Irish countryside, a topic that promises to provide new information about material culture, consumerism, subsistence, economics, and relationships maintained with the outside world. These researches into the nineteenth century also have a multinational dimension because they illuminate the material and social aspects of the Irish Diaspora, a series of related events that affected the entire world. As a result, some of the archaeological findings being generated in Ireland can be compared with those from sites elsewhere in the world, such as in the United States and

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Australia, whose history was significantly impacted by Irish emigration (see Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia; Americas, North: Historical Archaeology in the United States). At the same time, several projects have been conducted in urban settings. Most of the major cities in Ireland, north and south, have been subject to archaeological excavation, particularly with the recent increase in construction activities throughout the island. Some projects, such as several conducted in Belfast, have been specifically dedicated to the examination of modern-period remains, whereas other projects, notably in Dublin and Galway, have recovered modern artifacts during the excavation of earlier periods. Inevitably, much of the modern-era archaeology conducted in urban settings will have an industrial component. Given that Belfast was developed into a major industrial center in the late nineteenth century, it is perhaps not surprising that the first study of the industrial archaeology of Ireland came from the north. Professor Rodney Green, whose family had been involved in the linen industry for many years, published in 1949 a seminal text on the impact of that industry on the Lagan Valley. Government archaeologists were employed on the compilation of an archaeological survey of County Down in the 1950s at a time when Green was a member of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Council of Northern Ireland. He used his position on the council to argue for a study to be made also of the sites associated with the linen industry in the county, and he was subsequently invited to undertake a survey of these sites. The initial scope of the survey was later broadened to include monuments associated with other industries, and the resultant text, published in 1963, proved to be the first regional industrial survey in Britain and Ireland. The success of this initial venture persuaded the council to undertake a more encompassing survey of the industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland. During the 1960s, then, surveyors amassed a wealth of information now housed in the McCutcheon Archive within the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. The pioneering work undertaken by the industrial survey encouraged other academics to produce publications on other industrial subjects, including engineering industries, and water power, railroads, breweries, distilleries, and glassworks. Excavation at the largely forgotten Downshire Pottery in Belfast has provided important insight on the nature of the Irish creamware industry. This late eighteenth century ceramic work was created to compete with Josiah Wedgwood’s industrial complex in Staffordshire, England, but its operation was short-lived.

Outside Belfast and Derry, most industrial activity was small scale, and designed to supply local needs. Farmers operated flax-scutching watermills during the winter months as a means of generating additional funds, just as flax itself was viewed as a cash crop of the rural community. These cottage industries, though vastly significant within the local economies, are still largely understudied by archaeologists. The volume of existing research regrettably does not mean that industrial archaeology is necessarily a major topic of academic study in Ireland. Belfast was one of the world’s most industrialized urban centers, but the archaeological study of the city’s industrial origins has been virtually nonexistent when compared with what archaeologists have accomplished in other industrial cities in Britain. The only major industrial archaeological investigations that have occurred in the city have been conducted within the sponsoredresearch sector, for example, when archaeologists excavated and recorded the Annadale Brickworks in advance of a new housing development. Oddly, industrial archaeology does not formally constitute part of the curriculum at university level in Northern Ireland. The paucity of formal instruction, however, does not mean that interest does not exist, and the addition of an industrial archaeologist to the staff of University College Cork suggests, perhaps, that attitudes toward the subject are changing. Industrial archaeology continues to be championed by independent volunteer organizations, such as the Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland, and by local community groups who have restored industrial sites to working order as tourist attractions to aid their local economies. Maritime archaeology has also been slow to develop in Ireland, but a major research center was created in 1999 at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. One of their projects relevant to historical archaeology was their investigation of the La Surveillante, a French frigate scuttled in 1797 in Bantry Bay, County Cork. This effort documented the ship’s construction and the equipment on board, and also proved a strong rationale for the further development of maritime archaeology in Ireland. The historical archaeology of Ireland is, in recent times, beginning to be pursued as a recognized field of study in Ireland. Archaeologists working in Northern Ireland have conducted much more modern-era archaeology than have archaeologists in the Republic. The cause of historical archaeology in all of Ireland will surely grow, however, as a result of the further expansion of archaeology as a discipline in the island’s universities, and as the explosion of contract archaeology forces both legislators and practitioners to recognize the importance of modern-era archaeological sites to national heritage.

1332 EVOLUTIONARY ARCHAEOLOGY See also: Americas, South: Historical Archaeology; Europe, Northern and Western: Medieval; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Maritime Archaeology; Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia.

Further Reading Donnelly C and Brannon N (1998) Trowelling through history: Historical archaeology and the study of early modern Ireland. History Ireland 6(3): 22–25. Donnelly C and Horning A (2002) Post-Medieval and industrial archaeology in Ireland: An overview. Antiquity 76: 557–561. Francis P (2001) A Pottery by the Lagan: Irish Creamware from The Downshire China Manufactory, Belfast, 1787-c. 1806. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University.

Jope EM (1960) Moyry, Charlemont, Castleraw, and Richhill: Fortification to architecture in the north of Ireland 1570–1700. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 23: 97–123. McCutcheon WA (1980) The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland. Belfast, UK: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Orser CE (1996) Can there be an archaeology of the great famine? In: Morash C and Hayes R (eds.) Fearful Realities: New Perspectives on the Famine, pp. 77–89. Irish Academic Press: Dublin. Orser CE (2002) Ireland. In: Orser CE (ed.) Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology, pp. 296–299. London: Routledge. Orser CE (2004) Historical Archaeology, 2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Rynne C (1999) The Industrial Archaeology of Cork City and Its Environs. Dublin: The Stationery Office. Waterman D (1961) Some Irish seventeenth-century houses and their architectural ancestry. In: Jope EM (ed.) Studies in Building History, pp. 251–274. London: Odhams Press.

EVOLUTIONARY ARCHAEOLOGY Timothy A Kohler, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Darwinian fitness The relative or absolute number of offspring produced by an individual or a population, either measured by counting direct descendants or by including offspring of relatives, discounted by their degree of relatedness (inclusive fitness). Galton’s problem A problem that arises in cross-cultural comparisons if cultures that share traits because of shared histories, including diffusion, are mistakenly considered to have independently developed those traits. Named after a famous objection by Francis Galton to a paper delivered by Edward B. Tylor at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1888. group selection A mechanism for selection in which social groups are the objects of selection, as might be possible if cooperative interactions among its members enhance the fitness of a group. kin selection Selective advantage due to helping behaviors directed toward genetically related individuals (term coined by John Maynard Smith). phenotype All the characteristics of an individual that arise from the interaction, over a lifetime, of its genotype with its environment. phylogenetic tree A representation of an inferred line of descent for a group of related organisms (or societies), identifying a reconstructed common ancestor and the distances among its descendants. selection The retention of favorable variants and the rejection of injurious variants, to paraphrase Darwin’s original definition of natural selection. symbol system An organized communication system that is governed by rules and is therefore generative, containing signs that are self-referential (e.g., words defined by other words) and is therefore symbolic.

All archaeologists are concerned with documenting change through time in human cultures and societies. In addition, evolutionary archaeologists seek to explain these changes using evolutionary logic. Like all living things, humans are subject to biological evolution; like many animals, we can transmit behaviors via social learning and imitation. Our evolution has been more complicated still, however, because we also employ a symbol system – which is itself subject to and instrumental in evolution. Variability in how archaeologists currently apply evolutionary theory to explain sociocultural change suggests that our grand synthesis has yet to be developed. But ironically, for a field which denies that change needs to be progressive, much progress has been made over the last two decades in particular and the rate of progress seems to be accelerating.

Pre-Twentieth Century Use of Evolutionary Theory in Anthropology Until the mid-nineteenth century, the worldwide archaeological sequence remained extremely unclear, and until the advent of radiometric dating in the midtwentieth century the length of the sequence was consistently underestimated. This did not prevent Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, in contact with less politically complex societies in the Americas and Africa, from using these societies as models for ancient societies around the world. Evolutionary concepts were much ‘in the air’ by the early 1800s, and in the 1850s, Herbert Spencer applied evolutionary ideas to what he believed to be the

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sequence of development of human societies around the world. For Spencer, evolution was a universal concept applicable to the development of complexity in the physical, biological, and social realms; as he used it in regard to society, it seems to have been synonymous with progress. Such study of ‘cultural evolution’ was the first systematic manifestation of evolutionary interests in anthropology and archaeology. Workers in this tradition focused on identifying and describing what were thought to be successive and, usually, universal stages of increasingly complex technologies, economies, and sociopolitical structures. At the same time they devoted comparatively less attention to the processes that might have caused societies to move from one of these stages to the next. The American lawyer Lewis Henry Morgan, for example, identified three major stages (savagery, barbarism, and civilization), with additional substages, through which he believed societies passed in sequential fashion. Technological innovations were important in differentiating these stages, although Morgan considered societies to be functionally integrated, so changes in technology could influence other aspects of society, and vice versa. In formulating his taxonomy, Morgan took into account the findings of contemporary ethnology and archaeology (a field just then beginning to find its feet). Morgan’s work in turn influenced Marx and Engels (see Marxist Archaeology).

Side tool

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There were isolated attempts to apply the principles of evolution directly to the study of artifacts. In the 1860s and 1870s, Lieutenant General A. LaneFox Pitt-Rivers gave a series of lectures, collected in 1906, in which he endeavored to place in order of sequential development many different kinds of artifacts, including boomerangs and stone tools (Figure 1). The principles used to obtain his sequences are still worth reading, and included the idea that artifacts change from the simple to complex by means of the accumulation of many very small changes – not all of which are accepted – and also the concept that parts could be dissociated from complex artifacts to form new artifacts. Diagrams such as that in Figure 1 foreshadow seriations by cultural-historical archaeologists in the first half of the twentieth century, and cladistic (or phylogenetic) approaches that began in the late twentieth century.

Twentieth-Century Cultural Evolutionism With few exceptions, early twentieth-century anthropologists retreated from the sweeping cross-cultural evolutionary schemes of the mid-to-late nineteenth century in favor of a research strategy – in America often called historical particularism – that sought to understand the unique sequence of development for individual cultures, focusing on diffusion of ideas and technology as the engine of change. This refocus was

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Early Palæolithic Late Palæolithic Early Neolithic Late Neolithic Early Bronze Late Bronze Iron Period Modern Australian Modern American Denotes common occurrence

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Figure 1 Plate I from Pitt-Rivers (1906) illustrates how, in his view, various pointed stone tools developed from the primitive ‘side tool’ together with the approximate time spans of their use. (Originally presented, 1875. Reproduced by Courtesy of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.)

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partly a reaction against the high ratio of speculation to empirical evidence in the trajectories proposed by the nineteenth-century cultural evolutionists. There was as well a growing recognition of the difficulties in using living cultures as examples of evolutionary stages in the distant past. In American anthropology, it was not until the midtwentieth century work of Leslie White and Julian Steward that cultural evolutionary approaches again became prominent (for more detail from varying perspectives see the Further Reading section). These taxonomies were more sophisticated than their nineteenth-century predecessors in their use of an ever-expanding archaeological database, and more explicit about the processes that could move a society from one level of sociopolitical integration to another. Indeed, these approaches were very focused on describing and attempting to explain the long-term trajectory in human societies toward ever-greater technological and political complexity. The resultant typologies found much favor among archaeologists for their ability to briefly characterize levels of sociopolitical complexity, using, for example, the concepts of band, tribe, chiefdom, and state. They also championed a largely unexamined form of group selection that was being discarded in biology over this same period, and in general they paid little attention to the nature of the analogies they were seeking to make to processes of biological evolution. If, as the famous twentieth-century biologist Ernst Mayr claimed, ‘population thinking’ was one of Darwin’s most important contributions to science, and was directly opposed to ‘typological thinking’, it can be argued that the cultural evolutionists generally failed to think about societies as composed of populations, and their taxonomic schemes instead encouraged typological thinking. The enormous intellectual ferment and discovery in biology, genetics, and ecology during the last half of the twentieth century finally began to penetrate archaeology in the 1980s, and when it did, it caused a great rupture that began to spell the end of traditional cultural evolutionism by around 1990.

Evolutionary Principles in Biology and Their Initial Translation to Culture Change When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859, he eloquently summarized his theory, in the last paragraph of that work, as follows: These laws [whose actions have resulted in the biotic world we see today], taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost

implied by reproduction; variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and Extinction of less-improved forms (Darwin 1859: 489–490).

Darwin’s theory was incomplete in that he was unable to specify a mechanism for inheritance. This was supplied by Mendel in 1865, a contribution ignored until his work was replicated, then rediscovered, in 1900. The resulting hybrid was later joined with population genetics and reconciled with findings from paleontology to create the ‘modern synthesis’, the standard version of evolutionary biology in the mid-1900s. Bioanthropologists, of course, used the concepts in the synthesis to explain hominoid biological evolution, but cultural anthropologists – from whom most archaeologists took their lead – were for the most part content to consider that ‘cultural evolution’ as characterized above represented the valid extent to which biologically inspired thinking could be brought to bear on their subject. This began to change only in the 1980s. Although ‘new archaeologists’ paid lip service to evolutionary theory in the 1960s, Robert Dunnell was a key figure in insisting that archaeologists had serious work to do in realizing the potential of evolutionary theory in archaeology, for example, in carefully considering how an analogy could be built up between culture change and genetic change, what the units of selection ought to be in the study of culture change, and which units were under selection and which might be neutral with respect to selection. He developed an approach, usually called selectionism, which considered human technology to be part of the human phenotype. (This approach is sometimes called ‘evolutionary archaeology’, but the author considers this somewhat imperious, since there are other ways to apply evolutionary logic in archaeology; therefore, the narrower term is used here.) Selectionists characterize the replicative success of variant technologies through time, for example, by graphing the relative frequency of variants in an archaeological sequence. They propose various guidelines to determine from the shapes of these graphs whether variants were under selection – or closely correlated with something that was under selection – or whether the observed changes through time were only what would be expected under drift. Drift is a population-level process that is random, meaning that variants increase or decrease by chance alone. Variants whose behaviors appeared to be random were defined as stylistic (neutral). If variants

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appeared to be under selection, then an effort was made to identify the selection pressures causing that change.

Contemporary Approaches to Evolutionary Archaeology Selectionists deal directly with the artifacts in the archaeological record and consider the human behaviors producing them, or the decisions, values, and norms standing behind those behaviors, as unavailable to a scientific approach. This gives selectionism a certain appealing simplicity and clarity, though much current evolutionary inquiry in archaeology, by contrast, seeks to investigate precisely those sectors of the human experience declared out of reach by selectionists. One emerging tradition of analysis emphasizes processes of cultural transmission, including the roles of learning and decision making. Another focuses on investigating the population-level consequences of environmental variability on variability in human behavior. Both typically require forming and evaluating mathematical models, often in forms suggested by population genetics, in the first case, or by evolutionary ecology, in the second. Cultural Transmission/Dual-Inheritance Theory

This first of two families of current approaches – related to selectionism by its interest in cultural transmission and therefore in history – is based on an analogy between cultural transmission and genetic transmission. Using formalisms modified from population genetics, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus Feldman gave mathematical interpretations to processes in cultural evolution that are analogous to the forces of mutation, selection, migration, and drift in evolutionary biology. This entailed a change in focus from the cultural evolutionist’s interest in long-term trajectories of cultural systems to consideration of the fates of single traits, where a trait is ‘‘the result of any cultural action (by transmission from other individuals) that can be clearly observed or measured on a discontinuous or continuous scale.’’ To apply these forces to culture change, some have to be redefined. Selection, for example, can occur on two levels: cultural selection, entailing adoption of a trait by individuals, and natural selection, which refers to the consequences of that decision on Darwinian fitness. Likewise, cultural transmission is much more varied than genetic transmission since it can be vertical (parents to offspring, as in genetic transmission), oblique (parental generation to offspring generation), or horizontal (within generation). Another important difference between cultural and biological

transmission modulates the rate of culture change: cultural transmission may be ‘one to many’ (which can result in rapid change), ‘many to one’ (ordinarily quite conservative), or anywhere in between. These differences make it possible for cultural transmission and selection to result in fixation of behaviors that are detrimental to Darwinian fitness – for example, smoking cigarettes in many portions of the world, or female genital mutilation in North Africa. Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, their students and colleagues have broadened and modified this strategy of analysis. They recognized that selection among alternative behaviors is often biased by factors such as the frequency of that behavior in the population, or the prestige of individuals using alternative behaviors; such biases can have significant effects on the course of culture change. A number of archaeologists (e.g., Bettinger and Shennan) have adopted portions of this approach, for example, to model how population size affects rate of culture change, or to infer processes of cultural transmission from the pattern of changing numbers of variant ceramic or projectile point designs through time. Cultural transmissionists, selectionists, and historical linguists are also beginning to adapt phylogenetic tree- and network-building methods from evolutionary biology and from the study of the history of manuscripts (see Figure 2). These methods provide rigorous tools for investigating the history and pattern of branching and blending within various cultural domains, and also make it possible to control for common origin in assessing cross-cultural hypotheses of functional relationships (thus, overcoming ‘Galton’s problem’). Phylogenetic approaches also make it possible to ask questions about the stability of co-occurrence and co-evolution of traits over long time spans. Do cultures have a stable ‘core’ of relatively unchanging characteristics or are all characters equally subject to change? By their macro-scale and their ability to consider many characters simultaneously, these approaches begin to return us to some of the same interests that motivated the earlier cultural evolutionists. Behavioral Ecology

Human behavioral ecology (HBE) is the second of the principal contemporary approaches to applying evolutionary theory in archaeology. Archaeologists working in this tradition assume that people (and other animals) have evolved to strive for success in, and make reasonably intelligent decisions about, matters such as maximizing rate of food intake, defense of resources, and so forth, to the extent that these are connected with Darwinian fitness. They use tools

1336 EVOLUTIONARY ARCHAEOLOGY Ejagham 800 TN 802 Mpongwe B11a Kota B25 1 Duata A24 2 Fang A75 1

Bantu root

Likile C57 Mbesa C51 Lingala C36 Teke B73 5 Yombe N12b 1 Sikongo H16h Sundi H161 4 Yaka Kasongo H31 2 Suku H32 Yaka H31 4 Ngombe C41 Bira D32 2 Kumu D37 2 Lele C84 1 Sakata C34

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Kela C75 Nkundo C61 1 Gangela K19 Clokwe K11 Lwana K14 1 Ndonga R22 Herero R31 Umbundu R11 1 BInja D24 1 Lega D25 3 Tonga M64 1 Bemba M42 Lala M52 Lamba M54 Kaonde L42 Luba L33 Songe D10S Rundi J62 Rwanda J61 1

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Gikuyu E51 Giryama E72a 1 Nyamwezi F22 Sumbwa F23 Nyakyusa M31 2 Yao P21 2 Mambwe M15 Tumbuka N21 2 Sena N44 Kunda N42 Cewa N31b Nyanja N31a Shona S10 Venda S21 Lozi S34 Sotho S33 Tswana S31 Tsonga S53 Ndebele S44 Swati S43 Xhosa S41 Ngoni S45 Zulu S42

Figure 2 This phylogenetic tree was built using data on linguistic cognates among 68 Bantu-speaking cultures in Africa. Then the presence of cattle was mapped onto this tree, along with an inference concerning the ancestral states of cattle-keeping among the hypothetical ancestral populations determined during the construction of the language-based tree. Ancestral states for matriliny and patriliny were also mapped onto this tree (not shown) and then a computer program compared these two phylogenies. The results supported the conclusion that populations adopting cattle-keeping lose matriliny, while controlling for the influence of shared history among the populations in the sample. Reprinted from [Holden CJ and Mace R (2005) ‘The Cow is the enemy of Matriliny’: Using phylogenetic methods to investigate cultural evolution in Africa. In: Mace R, Holden CJ, and Shennan S (eds.) The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach, p. 223, Figure 12.3. London: UCL Press] with permission from [Thomson Learning].

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transitions in human history – for example, the transition from foraging to agriculture and animal domestication. Recent HBE models, moreover, increasingly grapple with more social and even symbolic phenomena. One such development is the use of signaling theory, which suggests that self-interested individuals can be expected to engage in individually costly but frequently group-beneficial signaling behaviors, with such behaviors becoming more socially conspicuous in proportion to an individual’s ability to produce them. Rebecca Bliege Bird and Eric Alden Smith suggest that costly (honest) signaling explains puzzles including unconditional generosity (for example, in feasting), pursuit of risky big game for public consumption, ostentatious commitment to religion, artistic skill, monumental architecture, and so on.

derived in zoology and evolutionary ecology, which were in turn strongly influenced by approaches in economics, to examine the extent to which predictions based on these assumptions are borne out in the archaeological record. Decision making is usually assumed to be based on rational choice among alternative models, in conjunction with individual learning and innovation, and in the context of limited and costly information and various constraints in possible courses of action. HBE is related to sociobiology, though that field takes a more direct interest in reproductive success through its use of kin selection and other models that measure Darwinian fitness directly, rather than analyzing nonreproductive behaviors presumed to be related to fitness. Behavioral ecologists explain behavioral variability through time, or within a population at a given point in time, by reference to relevant aspects of environmental variability (broadly defined to include the social environment). Traditional problems include explaining change in group size, sharing/exchange, land tenure/resource defense, prey choice/diet breadth, and settlement pattern. Although these problem domains may on first glance seem narrow, they are certainly broad enough to allow researchers in this tradition to study some of the most important

Conclusions Current applications of evolutionary theory in archaeology are more diverse than can be summarized here. The main strands – selectionism, cultural transmission theory, and behavioral ecology – are also more complementary than what some of their chief proponents admit. Figure 3 summarizes the important evolutionary forces (e.g., natural selection) and

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Cultural transmission, learning, and decisionmaking through time: Guided variation (transmission modified by individual learning) Direct bias (choose among models) Indirect bias (e.g., copy most prestigious model) Frequencydependent bias (e.g., copy most common model)

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Ho tra rizo ns nta mi l ss ion Figure 3 Significant forces and flow structures that must be accommodated in any complete theory of human evolution that incorporates both biological and sociocultural change.

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structures (e.g., vertical transmission) in culture change. Of these, most selectionists concentrate on natural selection within the artifact-producing population as the explanation for change; as this is a slow process, the timescales are, of necessity, long. Behavioral ecologists focus on how populations respond to environmental variability to achieve phenotypic adaptation using decision-making processes that include guided variation and direct bias. These processes can take place on relatively short timescales. As it is unlikely that either phenotypic adaptation or natural selection alone can explain change on relatively long timescales, we need theory that includes both. Dual inheritance theory in principle addresses all the processes and structures in Figure 3, but in practice emphasizes the forces of cultural transmission on the left side of that figure. If we wish to eventually return with scientific rigor to the large-scale vision of the nineteenth-century cultural evolutionists, validated against and enriched by a well-understood archaeological record, we will need theory and method that accord an appropriate role to all these forces, structures, and timescales. See also: Marxist Archaeology.

Further Reading Bettinger RL (1991) Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. New York: Plenum. Boyd R and Richerson PJ (1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bliege Bird R and Smith EA (2005) Signaling theory, strategic interaction, and symbolic capital. Current Anthropology 46: 221–238. Carneiro RL (2003) Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Critical History. Boulder: Westview. Cavalli-Sforza LL and Feldman MW (1981) Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Excavation

Darwin C (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray. (Facsimile reprint with an introduction by E. Mayr (1964). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.) Dunnell RC (1980) Evolutionary theory and archaeology. In: Schiffer MB (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 3, pp. 35–99. New York: Academic Press. Holden CJ and Mace R (2005) ‘The Cow is the enemy of Matriliny’: Using phylogenetic methods to investigate cultural evolution in Africa. In: Mace R, Holden CJ, and Shennan S (eds.) The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach, pp. 217–234. London: UCL Press. Jablonka E and Lamb MJ (2005) Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge: MIT Press. Johnson AW and Earle T (1987) The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kelly R (2000) Elements of a behavioral ecological paradigm for the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. In: Schiffer MB (ed.) Social Theory in Archaeology, pp. 63–78. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Kennett DJ and Winterhalder B (2006) Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lipo CP, O’Brien MJ, Collard M, and Shennan S (2006) Mapping our Ancestors: Phylogenetic Approaches in Anthropology and Prehistory. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction. Mace R, Holden CJ, and Shennan S (eds.) (2005) The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach. London: UCL Press. Mayr E (1959) Darwin and the evolutionary theory in biology. In: Evolution and Anthropology: A Centennial Appraisal. Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington. Morgan LH (1877) In Meggers BJ (ed.) Ancient Society; or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, Through Barbarism to Civilization, pp. 1–10. New York: H. Holt. O’Brien MJ and Lyman RL (2000) Applying Evolutionary Archaeology: A Systematic Approach. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Pitt-Rivers AL-F (1906) In: Myres JL (ed.) The Evolution of Culture and Other Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shennan S (2002) Genes, Memes, and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution. London: Thames and Hudson. Trigger BG (1998) Sociocultural Evolution: Calculation and Contingency. Oxford: Blackwell.

See: Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods; Excavation and Recording Techniques; Historical Archaeology: Methods; Sites: Conservation and Stabilization; Mapping Methods; Mounded and Unmounded; Stratigraphic Analysis.

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EXCHANGE SYSTEMS Glenn R Summerhayes, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary exchange systems Any system for exchanging goods and services between individuals and/or societies. obsidian A jet-black to gray, naturally occurring volcanic glass, formed by rapid cooling of viscous lava. volcanic glass Natural glass produced by the cooling of molten lava too quickly to permit crystallization. Lapita people Lapita peoples are those that colonized Remote Oceania for the first time. The name Lapita comes from a village in New Caledonia where the characteristic pottery was found in the 1950s.

Introduction Regional studies of exchange systems are important in archaeology. They involve the identification of the movement of materials across the landscape and the modeling of the nature of interactions that took place. It is the latter that excites archaeologists, allows an insight into the socioeconomic dimensions of past societies, and provides mechanisms for change in those societies.

The Rise of Exchange Studies Regional exchange studies are not new and have preoccupied archaeologists since the nineteenth century. Chemical techniques have been used since the midnineteenth century on identifying the distribution of archaeological metal artifacts from Central Europe. Perhaps the most famous early study was by Anna Shepard who, in the 1930s and 1940s, postulated the exchange of pottery over wide areas of southwest United States by analyzing mineral inclusions in thin section to pinpoint the origins of such minerals. Yet, the importance of exchange in archaeology today arose out of a reorientation in the way archaeologists had perceived trade/exchange operating in the past. The realization that migrationist/invasion models could not adequately explain the distribution of material across the landscape, nor change in societies over time, led archaeologists to look at other mechanisms. Inspired by the works of economic anthropologists such as K. Polanyi, who defined three types of trade and exchange (reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange), and anthropologists such as B. Malinowski who studied trade and exchange in a Melanesian

society, archaeologists realized that trade and exchange were embedded within the social and economic structures of society. By studying trade and exchange, the intention was to reconstruct the economies and organizations of past societies and their changes over time. The access to and control over prestige goods through trade and exchange was seen as a prime mover for change, leading to ranked societies. A major proponent for the study of regional exchange systems was Colin Renfrew. In a classic paper on trade and culture process in European Prehistory published in 1969, Renfrew argued that trade was a causal factor for cultural change leading to the beginning of urbanization in the Aegean. An increase in trade with new wealth, craft specialization, and communication led to change from a ‘village subsistence economy into an urban society’. This was a marked shift away from inferring invasions or diffusion from a ‘higher culture’ to account for the Aegean Early Bronze Age. From these earlier studies a number of influential edited volumes on the archaeology of regional exchange systems appeared in the 1970s and 1980s which covered an eclectic array of topics from the Old and New World and provided the benchmark for trade and exchange studies. These studies were important not only in identifying the movement of materials in the past but also in cementing links with the chemists, geologists, or physicists who undertook the physicochemical analysis that demonstrated that trade and exchange took place. The collaboration of the latter group, in association with theoretical changes in archaeology, fuelled the development of regional exchange studies.

Technological Developments Coinciding with changes in the way archaeologists looked at change in the past, there were major developments in the scientific techniques that allowed the identification of the movement of materials, and just as important, became more accessible to archaeologists. It was only in the mid-1950s that ‘characterization’ analyses took off after a meeting between archaeologists and chemists at Princeton to discuss the possibility of using nuclear research in the study of archaeology. This led to characterization analyses being undertaken at two laboratories – the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, and the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford in England. Techniques deployed included Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) and

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Spectrographic methods. These studies were reasonably successful, being able to separate pottery ware from Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, or different factories of Samian ware (see Chemical Analysis Techniques; Pottery Analysis: Chemical). These studies laid the foundations for chemical analyses for the next four decades, in which tens of thousands of analyses using varying techniques were carried out on many types of objects including pottery, stone (obsidian, marble, chert, volcanic rocks), amber, and metals including coins. Apart from NAA, XRF, XRD, and spectrographic methods, techniques currently in use include Proton Induced X-ray Emission and Proton Induced Gamma Ray Emission (PIXE-PIGME), inductively-coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP), lead isotope analysis, and electron microscopy to mention a few. Major changes in the instrumentation of these techniques over the last thirty years have meant that more elements can be analyzed with a higher precision. The choice of technique depends on availability to the archaeologist and cost (Figure 1).

Demonstration of Exchange Ancient regional exchange systems are often associated with rare and exotic valuable materials known to have restricted distributions, such as lapis lazuli, ostrich egg shell (Africa), amber, spondylus shell, jade, obsidian, copper, and other precious

Figure 1 Electron microprobe – analyzing pottery.

material items. Yet most past exchange would have involved materials or goods used for daily existence, such as food. These, however, would be rarely seen in the archaeological record, being perishable. Thus, the archaeology of exchange deals mostly in those resilient artifacts hardy enough to be left in the archaeological record, such as obsidian, stone, pottery, or jade, for instance. These techniques became successful because of the premise that exchange must be demonstrated, rather than assumed. Pottery is difficult to characterize or fingerprint. Often archaeologists use what is called a ‘criterion of relative abundance’ which infers that most pottery from a production center is to be found locally. Yet if pottery was produced for exchange only, then little would be found locally thus limiting the application of this concept. The ‘criterion of relative abundance’ is useful, however, when used with a physicochemical analysis for provenance studies. That is, relate the pottery under study back to its raw materials: nonplastic inclusions (minerals, sands, etc.) and clay. Mineral inclusions found within pottery can be related to local geology, and both river and beach sands. Clays, on the other hand, vary greatly with respect to the underlying geology, and a study of the elemental composition of pottery may give a clue to their origin. The chemical analysis of clay is complex and dependant on the parent material, climatic changes, geomorphology, and weathering. The importance in undertaking a physicochemical analysis of pottery can be seen with the example of

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Lapita pottery presented below. In the past, archaeologists often viewed stylistic similarities over large distances as a consequence of exchange. Stylistic similarities in pottery, for instance, have been equated with regional exchange systems where trade or exchange of pots from one or a restricted number of centers took place. Yet, in many instances, this is not the case. The pottery tradition of Lapita, for instance, is spread from Papua New Guinea to Tonga, a distance of over 4000 km. It is stylistically homogeneous having a suite of shared decorated motifs made by a dentate stamping technique. Over 30 years ago, it was thought that this pottery was made in one or a handful of manufacturing centers and then exchanged with other communities, thus accounting for its spread within Melanesia. Yet, after extensive petrographic and chemical analyses, it was established that with the exception of a couple of assemblages, most Lapita pottery was locally made (see Figure 2). It was people

and ideas that were exchanged, not the pots. Thus, if local production of an object is demonstrated, then models other than the trade/exchange of the object must be developed to account for stylistic similarity. Identifying the source of an object and studying the context of production is not easy. The use of a ‘resource zone concept of source’ is useful here in defining a geographical region from which the object was produced. For instance, the exact spot where the firing of a pot took place or obsidian was extracted is not crucial here; only whether the pottery is of local origin or not, or if the obsidian originated from a defined area. Attributing an object to a general regional zone (or procurement zone) is often more important than trying to identify a precise spot for manufacture. In any provenance study of archaeological objects, a few words of caution from Garman Harbottle, a nuclear physicist, are best heeded:

Figure 2 Lapita pottery from the site of Kamgot, Papua New Guinea.

1342 EXCHANGE SYSTEMS archaeologists love the term sourcing, with its upbeat, positive thrust – that you analyze or examine an artifact and, by comparison with the material of known origin, ‘source’ it. In point of fact, with very few exceptions, you cannot unequivocally source anything. What you can do is characterize the object, or better, groups of similar objects found in a site or archaeological zone by mineralogical, thermoluminescent, density, hardness, chemical and other tests, and also characterize the equivalent source materials, if they are available, and look for the similarities to generate attributions. A careful job of chemical characterization, plus a little numerical taxonomy and some auxiliary archaeological and/or stylistic information, will often do something as useful: it will produce groupings of artifacts that make archaeological sense. This, rather than absolute proof of origin, will often necessarily be the goal.

Other materials with restricted natural sources are prone to be exchanged, if not because of their utility, then because of their value. Obsidian is a good example as it is chemically homogeneous, and its sources, which have restricted natural distributions, can be chemically fingerprinted. Earlier work by Colin Renfrew had demonstrated its importance in modeling exchange patterns. Yet, its application requires extensive research. Identifying the potential source areas of a material requires an intensive search within a known region. For instance, in a recent study on obsidian exchange within the western Pacific over a 20 000 year timespan, archaeologists have concentrated on the source areas within West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Over a number of years, obsidian flows were mapped

by both Jim Specht and Robin Torrence of the Australian Museum and samples taken for characterization using PIXE-PIGME with the result that a finer discrimination of sources was possible with five source localities chemically defined (see Figure 3). By analyzing obsidian found in archaeological sites (some artifacts more than 3700 km distant from their source) it was possible to not only trace it to its source localities, but also to define changes in the selection of different sources over time. Obsidian from source localities in New Britain, Papua New Guinea were distributed over 6500 km from Fiji in the east and Borneo in the west, 3000 years ago (Figure 4).

Distribution Patterns A distinction has often been made between two schools of thought, formalists and substantivists, about the way trade and exchange should be modeled. The former approach works within the paradigm of market economics. Here, all exchange transactions can be viewed by economic rationalism, based on cost efficiency. Falloff models presented in the section below are based on cost efficiencies. The substantivist school, on the other hand, views exchange as embedded in social and economic processes. This approach allows an investigation into social groups and social change. In reality, archaeologists draw from both approaches to model ancient interregional exchange.

Willaumez Peninsula New Britain Mopir Papua New Guinea

Gulu 0

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Approximate area in which obsidian sources have been found Volcanoes with obsidian flows 0

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Figure 3 Obsidian sources in West New Britain.

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PHILIPPINES

Samoa Solomon Islands

Santa Cruz Fiji

Bukit Tengkorak

NEW GUINEA

Tonga

Vanuatu

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Figure 4 Distribution of obsidian from West New Britain to Fiji and Borneo.

Archaeologists analyze the distribution of an object from its source or production area to its consumption site in order to model the type of exchange that took place. In some instances, the nature of the society participating in the exchange system is inferred, such as egalitarian versus chiefdom, or nonhierarchical versus hierarchical. Popular among archaeologists is the use of falloff curves and modes of exchange. By plotting the frequency of an item against distance from its source (falloff curve), Colin Renfrew observed different distribution patterns which he attempted to relate modes of exchange or access. Some of these modes included reciprocity, down-the-line, and central place exchange. How were falloff curves and modes of exchange related? Down-the-line exchange and reciprocity led to an exponential falloff in abundance, away from the source or production center. The term ‘Law of monotonic decrement’ was coined to account for this falloff in the frequency of an item away from the source. Attempts were also made to define an object’s value by the slope of the curve. Small slope equates with high value goods, such as spondylus shells in Europe, Maya jade, and Oaxaca iron ore mirrors. These modes were equated with an egalitarian society (semi-sedentary agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers; nonranked; nonhierarchical). Central place exchange, on the other hand, was seen as directional (no exponential linear falloff) and should lead to multinodal falloff curves, and is indicative of redistribution. Central place relates to the movement of goods towards one place or center, from which they are then distributed. Redistribution has been related to complex chiefly societies (hierarchical, ranked, and/or stratified societies). Examples of such societies given

by archaeologists include early states such as the Maya, Egypt, Near East, or chiefdoms such as Hawaii. Although problems occur with equifinality, that is, different modes of exchange produce similar distributions, this approach is important as it relates the measurement of archaeological material away from the source, to trade and exchange modes, and the structures of societies. A good example of changes in inter-regional exchange systems can be seen in the distribution of obsidian in the western Pacific over 20 000 years. Here distribution patterns changed over time indicating changes in the socioeconomic configurations of these regional exchange systems. Patterns in the distribution of obsidian can be best modeled using either ‘down-the-line exchange’ models, or social connectivity. For instance, the distribution of obsidian during the late Pleistocene and early to mid-Holocene is best explained by down-the-line exchange as there is an exponential falloff in abundance away from the source. The first evidence for the extraction and distribution of obsidian is found in the late Pleistocene site of Matenbek, New Ireland. In the bottom units dated to between 20 000 and 18 000 years ago, nearly 80% of obsidian came from the Mopir source and the rest from Willaumez Peninsula sources (see Figure 3). Matenbek lies over 350 km from the nearest Mopir obsidian source, and just over 400 km from the Willaumez Peninsula sources. The distribution of obsidian is best explained by the extraction of obsidian from the closest available source, and subsequent down-the-line exchange between semi-sedentary populations. This would account for the small appearance of Talasea obsidian and the dominance of Mopir in this assemblage.

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However, taking an exponential falloff pattern alone could lead to erroneous models being developed. For instance, at 3300 years ago obsidian was distributed beyond the Bismarck Archipelago to Fiji in the east as part of the colonization of this region by Austronesian speaking peoples. Obsidian was brought out into the Pacific as part of that colonization process, yet it continued to be exchanged among Lapita communities. If the volume of obsidian is measured, then there is an exponential distribution from its source. Yet, by analyzing the assemblage in detail, differences are seen. The earlier Lapita assemblages show an expedient technology not seen in the earlier pre-Lapita or later assemblages away from the source regions. These assemblages had the largest pieces of obsidian and lacked bipolar flaking. Such an expedient technology is not expected from a down-the-line exchange network. The distribution of this West New Britain obsidian could have been a result of either direct procurement or the movement of obsidian through a smaller number of hands. The movement of this obsidian was argued to be an indicator of a formal exchange network that was an adaptive mechanism in the colonization process forming a ‘lifeline’ back to a homeland. In this context, exchange is an adaptive strategy for colonists moving east and a means of maintaining social ties. When this lifeline is no longer needed, then exchange with homeland areas would cease.

Future Directions Approaches to regional exchange studies will continue to change on three fronts. First, change will occur in tune with developments in archaeological theory. As archaeologists will be asking different questions about the role of exchange and society, changes in approaches and methodologies will take place. Second, at the same time, it is reasonable to expect advances in characterizing techniques, making them yet more accessible and cheaper to use. Lastly, archaeologists will consolidate knowledge on the sources and distribution of a variety of goods, giving a more complete perspective on the role of exchange within a society. As an example, attention is drawn to the Pacific where the production and distribution of a number of materials, from pottery, obsidian, chert, volcanic adzes, and shell artifacts are used to

show that each class of material has different production and distribution patterns. If any class of artifact were taken by itself, a ‘myopic’ view would be seen of the role of trade and exchange within societies. Only by comparing the production and distribution patterns of the complete range of material available can a proper picture of trade and exchange take place. See also: Chemical Analysis Techniques; Neutron Activation Analysis; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis.

Further Reading Bird JR, Duerden P, and Wilson DJ (1983) Ion beam techniques in archaeology and the arts. Nuclear Science Applications 1: 357–516. Bishop R, Rands R, and Holley G (1982) Ceramic compositional analyses in archaeological perspective. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 5: 275–320. Earle TK and Ericson JT (1977) Exchange Systems in Prehistory. New York: Academic Press. Ericson JE and Earle TK (1982) Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange. New York: Academic Press. Harbottle G (1982) Chemical characterization in archaeology. In: Ericson J and Earle T (eds.) Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange, pp. 13–51. New York: Academic Press. Kirch PV (1997) The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World. Oxford: Blackwell. Malinowski B (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: George Routledge and Kegan Paul. Neff H (1992) Chemical Characterization of Ceramic Pastes in Archaeology. Monographs in World Archaeology 7. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press. Polanyi K (1957) The economy as instituted process. In: Polanyi K, Arensberg C, and Pearson H (eds.) Trade and Market in the Early Empires, pp. 243–270. New York: Free Press. Renfrew C (1969) Trade and cultural process in European prehistory. Current Anthropology 10: 151–169. Renfrew C, Dixon JE, and Cann JR (1966) Obsidian and early cultural contact in the Near East. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 32: 30. Sabloff JA and Lamberg-Karlovsky CG (1975) Ancient Civilization and Trade. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Shackley S (1998) Advances in Archaeological Volcanic Glass Studies. New York: Plenum Press. Summerhayes GR (2000) Lapita Interaction. Canberra: ANH Publications, Terra Australis, Australian National University. Summerhayes GR, Bird R, Fullagar R, Gosden C, Specht J, and Torrence R (1998) Application of PIXE-PIGME to archaeological analysis of changing patterns of obsidian use in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. In: Shackley S (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Volcanic Glass Studies, pp. 129–158. New York: Plenum Press.

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EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY Roeland Paardekooper, University of Exeter, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Brief History, Including the History of the Definition

ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Experimental archaeology is as old as archaeology itself. The first archaeological experiments probably date back to the sixteenth century, when Renaissance scientists like Agricola and Mercati laid the foundations of elementary scientific archaeology. The oldest described experiment we know of originates in Germany when clergyman and archaeologist A. A. Rhode produced a flint axe by himself to support the theory that these objects were man-made. From then onward, both scientists and laymen contributed to the development of a corpus of experiments which archaeologists could use to falsify or verify their hypotheses. Falsification is feasible; nowadays, the opinion is such that verifying hypotheses is impossible, hence only validating them is undertaken. ‘Old’ experiments across Europe and beyond in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries are documented. These were called experiments in the sense of ‘‘any honest effort to understand ancient artifacts by actually working with them’’ (Coles, 1979, 11–12). In these early days, questions were raised about the provenance (nature or human) of objects, whereas later experiments were more into how things exactly could have been made and how they could have been used. Were they in any way useful to modern standards? Some years before 1860, for example, a number of horns were found in Ireland. These were not normal end-blown instruments, but were blown from the side (Figure 1). They could be tested in order to see what sounds could be extracted from them. This was a nondestructive method in which the artifact itself remained complete. Partly depending on the skills of the users, different musical notes could be derived. The report describing attempts to blow these horns sadly describes: ‘‘And it is a melancholy fact, that the loss of this gentleman’s life (Dr Robert Ball, rp) was occasioned by a subsequent experiment of this kind. In the act of attempting to produce a distinct sound on a large trumpet . . . he burst a blood vessel, and died a few days later’’ (quoted in Coles, 1979, 14). In 1893, at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the last of the large World’s Fairs of the nineteenth century took place. It was themed around the 400 years commemoration of Columbus’ travel to America. Some Norwegians – nonarchaeologists – thought it to be a good idea to send over a Viking ship replica, just to make clear, there were other Europeans who had gone before Columbus. This would draw

Glossary analogy Analogy is the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source), the more familiar area of experience, to what is typically the more problematic area of experience (the target). Experimental archaeology is a kind of scripted analogy. archaeological open-air center An archaeological open air center is an outdoor themed facility with (re)constructed buildings (artifacts, animals, environments), based on (in most cases prehistoric or medieval) archaeological and historical sources. ethnoarchaeology There are resemblances possible between archaeological information and the information derived from observations of present-day preindustrial societies. This has been suggested and practiced since Sir John Lubbock in 1865. The value of ethnoarchaeology lies in the fact that the people observed master their techniques quite well, this in contrast to most archaeologists. Ethnoarchaeological observations are hardly ever comparable with archaeological observations at a 1:1 scale. This – and the fact that there are hardly any societies to be studied, undisturbed by industrial societies – makes the use of scripted analogies (experimental archaeology) taking a larger role. experimental archaeology ‘‘A sub-field of archaeological research which employs a number of different methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches within the context of a controllable imitative experiment to replicate past phenomena (from objects to systems) in order to generate and test hypotheses to provide or enhance analogies for archaeological interpretation.’’ Source: Mathieu (2002, 1). living history Historical authentic activities in an appropriate context, often an archaeological open-air museum. Interpreters engaged in living history may be in role (first-person interpretation) or simply in costume (third-person interpretation). Source: (http://www.imtal-europe.org) primitive technology Working with materials and techniques, inspired by past or present preindustrial cultures. It involves gathering experiences which are not necessarily translated into a feedback to the (archaeological) source. It can be regarded as a step toward experimental archaeology. reconstruction/model/construct As the use of the word ‘reconstruction’ implies a high level of certainty, the word ‘construct’ was introduced. Some people speak of a model at scale 1:1. A simple construct would look like how the original might have looked like at the moment of production, but made in a modern way and maybe with modern materials. A more evolved construct would be made in the possible ‘original’ way. The final level of constructs would be made the way we think it might have been like and also used as we suppose it was. This final category is setting the construct into an experimental framework as it is such action and such use that creates data which we can compare again to the archaeological data.

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Figure 1 Bronze horns from Drumbest (Co. Antrim, Ireland), c. 700 BC (Ulster Museum, Belfast). Drawings from Coles, 1963, quoted in Coles 1979, p. 14).

attention to Norway at the fair, promoting their own country. Captain Magnus Andersen had a copy built of the excavated Viking ship from Gokstad, but archaeologists were at first heavily against the idea of actually sailing the ship across the Atlantic, not being sure if the original ship was just ceremonial or actually seaworthy. In less then a month, Andersen and his crew of 11 people crossed to Newfoundland. When they got familiar with the ship, they ‘‘were able to look at the ship’s movements and its capacities of enduring storms a bit more calm and with less preconceptions’’. The ship was very elastic but remained watertight. The proven seaworthiness was an important result of this excursion. The experiment resulted in information which could be compared to the archaeological remains of the Gokstad ship and other, later Viking Age ship finds. The clear gap between archaeological scientists and craftsmen has unfortunately played a role in experimental archaeology ever since. An important problem is the loss of everyday knowledge – abilities which many people mastered three generations ago need now to be reinvented, through trials or experiments. Experience, therefore, plays an important role in experimental archaeology – not the obtaining of it, but the use. Andersen’ expedition marked the start of a tradition of building ships, based on archaeological examples and sailing with them (Figure 2). Noteworthy are the dozens of travels by Thor Heyerdahl and Timothy Severin. At present, there are literally hundreds of such ships. Patriotic elements, besides military themes, were often an important motive for experiments. That archaeology alone makes costly experiments like the

construction of ships feasible is a pity. However, relevance of both archaeology as a science and experiments to other areas of society is necessary for both to justify their existence. This, however, can also mean use and misuse of archaeology or experimental archaeology. Good examples can be noted from Germany, from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the fall of the Nazi Reich. Already from 1897 onward, there were reconstruction works executed at the Saalburg in southern Germany. This used to be a Roman castellum at the Upper Germanic–Raetian border in the first to third century AD. In 1913 (just before World War I (WWI)), experiments were carried out here to build Roman defensive works out of wicker with replicas of Roman tools. The works were carried out by the Mainzer Pioneer Battalion and paid for by the emperor himself. The Saalburg is nowadays still the only fully reconstructed Roman castellum in the world. By rebuilding this, Emperor Wilhelm II followed a trend amongst nobility and the court and their interest for archaeology. As with the nineteenth century treasure rooms, nobility wanted to show the link of the monarchs with history, and thus legitimize their position. The activities back in those days at Saalburg were not about the classic museum tasks – collecting, preserving, and presenting. During the Nazi regime in Germany, archaeology and experimental archaeology were put to use in professional popularization and massive ideological exploitation in attempts to justify the Third Reich’s view of the world. The 1936 Berlin ‘hands-on’ exhibition Lebendige Vorzeit was a powerful tool in spreading the Nazi ideology, just like the open-air centers which were established across the Reich. The goal was not to serve science, but that the people start believing in the cultural level of their forefathers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, archaeologists looked for ‘living’ analogies to their excavated material culture. This practice is summarized under ethnoarchaeology (see Ethnoarchaeology). Archaeologists saw more resemblances between their forefathers and non-European, preindustrial societies than with themselves. The active colonization of areas outside Europe – or the more intensive use of these – in the nineteenth century enabled making anthropological observations easy. Sir John Lubbock was one of the first to suggest such anthropological observations in his book Pre-Historic Times as Illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages (1865). In California, at the end of the nineteenth century, a small group of native Americans, the Yahi, were trying to continue their way of life without modern influence. In 1865, most of them were slaughtered,

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Figure 2 Preparations for putting the Viking ship replica to sea in Bergen, 1893. In Rasmussen, viking fra Norge til Amerika, Bergen (1894).

and around the turn of the century their last camp was destroyed by White settlers. In 1911, the last surviving Yahi was ‘adopted’ by two anthropologists and was named Ishi, which in his own language simply meant ‘man’. In the following 5 years, he taught the anthropologists a wealth of things about his society, like hunting or fire making, things one would not be able to learn from simple excavations. Ishi made clear that it was not just about knowing how a technique needs to be applied, but an ample experience in using it is also required. With his death in 1916, a wealth of knowledge about the life of the indigenous people in North America disappeared. By the end of the 1960s, ethnoarchaeology proved to still be useful as an eye opener for archaeologists. Yellen looked into what kind of faunal remains reach the archaeological record from known butchery sites of the African !Kung bushmen (see Butchery and Kill Sites). The anthropologist excavated some sites, together with the people actually forming those sites a few months earlier. It became clear how difficult it was to discern between natural and cultural factors for the appearance or disappearance of certain bone fragments. However, by making a difference between these two groups, one would better be able to describe the cultural factors. Simple culture-determined facts like how to cut meat and bones and which bones

to take away from the site cannot be known to archaeologists, thus leaving a lot unexplainable. The !Kung for example remove the right ribs – not for cooking but to hang them from a tree. We cannot explain the archaeological record fully without knowing the cultural determinants. Ethnoarchaeological observations are hardly ever comparable with archaeological observations at a 1:1 scale. This – and the fact that there are hardly any societies to be studied, undisturbed by industrial societies – elevates the role of the use of scripted analogies (experimental archaeology). The value of ethnoarchaeology lies in the fact that the people observed master their techniques quite well, this in contrast to most experimental archaeologists. The experience might as well hinder the one executing the experiment in not being able to adjust to the needs of the archaeologist, who wants to create an action which is as much as possible comparable to his or her archaeological theory and data and fits in the imagined cultural framework.

Examples of the Importance of Experimental Archaeology A well-published experiment, in such a way that many people could share in the knowledge and

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insights learnt from this activity, was the building of a Stone Age house in Denmark in 1958 by Hans-Ole Hansen. He describes the successes and setbacks in an accessible, lively manner. Such activities, based on trial and error, cannot follow a planned script, because many details are unknown from the drawing table. They are more about gaining experiences and counting how much material and how much time goes where (the way ‘we’ build it). The fact is, 50 years later, we still meet surprises each time we build a ‘prehistoric’ house somewhere; surprises that mean we need to improvise and solve problems on the spot. For example, one needs to have tried cutting trees with both a stone axe and a steel axe before you can compare them in usability. It takes some experience in using both kinds, as they need to be handled differently (Figure 3). Building an Iron Age house in the present day might say little about how it was to build such a house over 2000 years ago, but it is up to experimental archaeologists to find out what we actually can learn from it. By dismissing the human element and measuring the time it costs for someone to reach a goal does not mean that registering time is useless. Some processes have always led to the same results, both in the past and in the present. That is why it is good to measure how much time it takes, for example, for ceramics to be baked at a certain temperature, within the context of the variables, such as the kind of clay and the kind of kiln. In the 1950s, knowledge of how to smelt iron without using a modern blast furnace had almost vanished in Europe, although hundreds of archaeological sites were already identified as iron-smelting sites. Without exact knowledge, the evidence of the different stages would be impossible to compare and to discern. In the past 60 years, ethnoarchaeological reports from Africa and Asia have found their way to many people

interested and, combined with the archaeological data sets, literally thousands of experiments with shaft furnaces and other prehistoric and early historic types were executed across the world. Especially in the United States, groups of archaeologists/craftspeople are very active in iron smelting (e.g., at the Rockbridge Bloomery (http://iron.w/u.edu)). One of the advantages of iron smelting is that it was executed in many regions across the world which makes it easier for people to become familiar with it in their local environment. More clearly, these experiments and the vast amount of reports of them have made it possible for archaeologists to discern the different steps, methods, and their by-products. In 1967, a construction built in Lejre (Denmark) resembling an Iron Age house was deliberately set on fire and excavated later. Such experiments take time, courage, and a stable physical environment. The scene for the fire was planned in detail, with inventory and stock put in place where needed. Small porcelain cones were mounted across the house as part of the registration of temperature. Surprisingly for the experimenters, the house burnt down in as little as 30 min. A few days after the fire, small test pits were excavated. In this excavation, different layers of ash were discernible as well as different sources of clay and loam (walls, floor, etc.). These different features were much more difficult to recognize in the 1992 excavations. The people excavating in the second phase were unaware of the documentation of the fire in 1967, just like archaeologists nowadays excavate houses without knowledge of what exactly they will find until they do make finds. To everybody’s surprise, they made only very little finds, even if the house was only burnt down 25 years before. After the 1992 excavations, the undisturbed parts are left for the future.

Figure 3 Overview over the Iron Age village at Lejre Experimental Centre, Denmark. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

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The pity of this famous experiment is that there has been no money available to date to process the complete documentation of the constructing phase, the phase of use of the house, the burning down, and subsequently the excavation. Even if this could be done, the work comparing the data with original archaeological information on burnt-down houses has to be started first of all. In the 1980s and 1990s, different wooden ships were built in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, resembling a medieval cog-like vessel. This kind of ship was used in the late Middle Ages in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea as trading vessel. As is often the case, money was acquired through European unemployment funds. The building of such new ships of old design has an important added value, namely promoting interest in the past, and therefore strengthening the position of archaeology. The different cog-like vessels built in the 1980s and 1990s served different levels of authenticity and different goals. Most important, the ships were meant to be used as seafaring vessels in modern ages. A major advantage of having these new ships built is that the original archaeological data receives renewed attention, not just from archaeologists, but from a range of other specialists as well, who all ‘see’ things in the original data, which archaeologists did not identify before. Archaeologists do learn to see beyond what they know, but these insights might be limited. In some cases, archaeological details were copied into a ship, and people first found out about their use after sailing with the ship. This is the case, for example, for a triangular piece of wood, which decenniums after the excavations had to be planned in the correct location, which could be recognized in medieval depictions as well. It turned out to be a so-called beam-end fender (Figures 4 and 5). Experiments in using such a ship are often restricted to short-term monitoring experiments (‘‘does it work well?’’). Longer-term monitoring, using log books and comparing these over the years, would be a cost-effective way of learning more. The different ship projects are in touch with each other and exchange experiences. If the results and experiences with such ships were to be combined, an interesting image would emerge.

Archaeological Open-Air Centers Looking at the scattered publications of experiments executed around the world, some of them are done in laboratory circumstances at universities. Most of them are done under field circumstances at archaeological open-air centers. These centers have a position

Figure 4 The location of the beam-end fender in front of a through-beam on the outer side of the hull. Drawing by Morten G
thche, Maritime Newsletter from Roskilde, Denmark, no. 7, December 1996, p. 15.

Figure 5 The beam-end fenders can be seen clearly on this town seal from Elbing c. 1350. From Maritime Newsletter from Roskilde, Denmark, no. 7, December 1996, p. 15.

between science on the one hand (as most important source of information) and the public on the other hand (as most important ‘target group’). They are a prime mediator between science and the public. There are about 400 archaeological open-air centers across the world, with 6 million visitors per year. The key words for these centers are education, presentation (with living history), and experiment.

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These three aspects come together in their basic objective of interpretation of archaeological data. Such centers are not museums in the traditional definition. One of their most important characteristics is that they do not own any original artifacts, everything is ‘fake’ so to speak. That does not mean they do not have a collection, but in most cases the information that goes with these artifacts is more important than the artifact itself. Their houses, decoration, and tools are there to be used, and if they break, they can be constructed anew – according to the latest insights in archaeology (Figures 6 and 7). The staff working in such a center either present their museum in a way similar to a modern museum, or they act like living history actors, dressed up and playing a role which fits the timeframe the center depicts. Not being a museum does not imply that those centers are very commercial. They have a message to get across and gaining more insight in the past through experiments is part of their mission. The main task of the archaeological open-air centers is to present an image of the past as the interpreters see it, to their visitors. An important part of these visitors are school groups, which receive the information in programs where they themselves need to be active. This ‘hands-on’ approach is a type of formal education. A type of more informal education is applied to day tourists. They partly visit these centers for a popular day out, but seeing how ‘their’ ancestors lived and being informed plays a role as well. For them, it is a kind of ‘edutainment’ (see Tourism and Archaeology). Archaeological open-air centers need people who are both experienced in crafts as in archaeological knowledge. Scientific involvement in the archaeological centers prevents them from telling nonsense to the public. Moreover, continuous involvement ensures that centers give an up-to-date image of the past, according to the latest scientific insights. The centers on their part broaden the support for archaeology as a science drastically. The final advantage which archaeologists can find in open-air centers is the use of them as field laboratories, occasionally or for long-term experiments. This applies both for academic research and for training students. Historic Overview

The oldest archaeological open-air centers were constructed at the end of the nineteenth century and portrayed a romantic image of the past. Around Lake Constance, in the period 1888–1940, much attention was paid to lake dwellings. This was

Figure 6 Neolithic house in the outdoor archaeological garden at Asparn/Zaya, Austria. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

Figure 7 Bronze Age houses at the archaeological park at Montale, Italy. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

still the period when excavations were especially carried out by the nobility. Excavations of these lake dwellings in the northern Alpine region made a wealth of information available about the people living on the coasts of these lakes in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. A still existing example of such a lake dwelling reconstruction is situated in Unteruhldingen, on the German side of Lake Constance (http://www.pfahl bauten.de). The first ‘prehistoric’ houses were built here in 1922. In the years immediately preceding WWII, these lake dwelling museums had role in promoting the fatherland. At present, Unteruhldingen is one of the

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most popular open-air centers across the world and has the capabilities of being innovative and showing a constantly updated presentation about the past (Figure 8). Other elements are self-criticism of its role in the past and teaching the public how we know what we know. In 1925, work started in Virginia on reconstructing ‘Colonial Williamsburg’ (http://www.history.org). The place is a living history museum themed on the eighteenth century, a period many Americans take pride in. It contains 88 original houses and 50 reconstructions and receives at present a million visitors per year. Here, they interpret the origins of the idea of America, conceived decades before the American Revolution.

In Poland, following wetland excavations at Biskupin (http://www.biskupin.pl), first reconstructions of an Iron Age settlement were made in 1936 (Figure 9). The project raised a lot of attention and acquired the character of a national monument, playing a role in defining Polish nationality up to the present day. Biskupin has a major educational value and is one of the most frequently visited open-air centers across Europe. With their long history, they have been able to maintain knowledge on building wooden constructions. Since the 1980s, Biskupin is the venue of the largest archaeological festival in the world. Yearly, about 80 000 visitors come and see a themed festival on, for example, ‘Romans and

Figure 8 Two of the groups of lake dwellings at the Unteruhldingen Museum, Germany. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

Figure 9 Constructing an iron smelting oven during the Biskupin Archaeological Festival in Poland. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

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their barbarian neighbors’ or ‘In the shadow of the pyramids’. In the first decades after WWII, not many new open-air centers were conceived. Groundbreaking work was done under the guidance of the Dane HansOle Hansen, when the Lejre Experimental Centre (http://www.lejre-center.dk) was conceived. From the very beginning, the centre was an interdisciplinary field station. It combines characteristics of a theme park (its low threshold) with a museum’s scientific background and one keeps aware of the relevance to present-day society. The center represents a dynamic, informal, and nonrecognized learning, both for school children and adults alike. The well-balanced constellation between presentation, education, and research as practiced in Lejre has been an inspiration to dozens of other centers. Lejre does its own research, tries to involve university students by giving introductory courses in experimental archaeology, publishes both scientific and popular books, and offers means and opportunities to experimental archaeologists across the world to do experiments in Denmark. In 1972, Peter Reynolds set up an archaeological field laboratory with aid from the Council of British Archaeology (CBA) entitled ‘the Butser Ancient Farm Research Project’ (http://www.butser.org.uk). Among the existing archaeological open-air centers, it is the one with the most scientific aspirations. Butser has been developed as working Iron Age farm with, since 2003, a Roman villa, filmed and described by the Discovery Channel (Figure 10). The foremost goal is to be used by archaeologists and their students, but education plays an important role as well. The experiments carried out follow a strict regime, thus having a high scientific value. In the late 1970s, with much discussion between archaeologists, an Iron Age fortress (Figure 11) was

partly reconstructed in Sweden at Eketorp (http:// ¨ land. www.eketorp.se) on O Some of the questions which played an important role in the discussion in Sweden were: . Does a (re)construction have any use at all? . What is the goal of (re)constructing? Is it research, education, tourism, or adventure? . Does it generate new knowledge or does it reproduce established knowledge? Eketorp has been successful in addressing problems about reconstructing environments, based on archaeological data. Old archaeological hypotheses were tested and new ones were formulated, showing

Figure 10 View of the interior of the Romano-British villa at Butser Ancient Farm, UK. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

¨ land, Sweden. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper. Figure 11 The large round fortress, based on Iron Age finds, at Eketorp on O

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both the reach of experimental archaeology and its limits. Eketorp was at the beginning of a boom of ‘living history villages’ across Sweden. Many centers need to generate a large part of their income themselves. Since the 1980s, some centers could start up with a big sum of money from a particular fund. One of these places, still with a noncommercial goal, is the Middelaldercentret in Denmark (http://www.middelaldercentret.dk). Their theme is about medieval techniques and machines of war. The center started off with some catapults and archaeologists still do research in areas like medieval ways of making gunpowder. An important characteristic for the 75 000 visitors is the many volunteers in their living history role. Future developments might be seen in centers like Bachritterburg Kanzach in southern Germany (http:// www.bachritterburg.de). It is not their motto (‘‘be surprised – understand – experience’’) which is new, nor their approach to using living history groups. Much of the information which is used in creating the center and its reconstructions is based upon detailed experimental research at universities in different countries. What makes this project being mentioned here innovative is that it is financed with European funds. More and more often, European structural funds are used to create tourist attractions like archaeological open-air centers in rural areas. A major weakness is that the money can only be used to construct a center, not in running it. There are just a few open-air centers which have theme park characteristics, for example, the Irish National Heritage Park. But a commercial theme park is different from an archaeological open-air center. Theme parks are ‘‘extreme examples of capital intensive, highly developed, user-oriented, man-modified, recreational environments’’ (Pearce, 1988, 60). Archeon (http://www.archeon.nl) in the Netherlands, with almost 200 000 visitors per year, is presenting itself as living history theme park. It is organized as a company, that is, the commercial role is evident, but the managers know that they have to retain quality and keep contact with universities to ensure this. More people learn here about national Dutch history then in the National Dutch Museum of Antiquities just 30 mi away.

Different Kinds of Experimental Archaeology The phrase ‘experimental archaeology’ (sometimes called ‘archaeology by experiment’) is used in various ways and people mean different things by it. It is not necessarily only laboratory experiments according to scientific laws (Figure 12).

Figure 12 Experiment with medieval fulling of wool at the Historisch OpenluchtMuseum Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Picture: H. van Doormalen.

Building Reconstructions in Archaeological Open-Air Centers

Reconstructed or constructed houses are seen as the most tangible results of scientific experimentation. In books and brochures, one can read statements like: ‘‘the building of our museum was an act of experimental archaeology’’. These are, however, rather acts of personal experience. A construction alone might be at best a by-product of experimental research, and nothing more. The real product of an experiment is data. The construct, or model, serves other goals. Changes are made in the possible reconstruction before it has even left the drawing room, as it is made fit for future use, ready to be a part of the ‘prehistoric’ or ‘medieval’ scenery. An archaeological open-air center however, keeps the pretension high up; there is talk about a scientific experimental (meaning ‘true’) image of the past. Archaeologists do not like that and stay away, even if they once were enthusiastically involved. A point is made about what kind of knowledge is mediated, what is based on science and what on other sources. But this coin has two sides: ‘mistakes’ are also made in the field because of lack of interest of archaeologists to get involved, maybe because they are afraid to get beyond what they think is possible in archaeology. Educational Programs for Children

Experimental archaeology is as often used to describe what is actually museum education. An employee

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helps children to make a pouch, cut a spoon, or sail a canoe. Obviously, these are not experiments, but by using this phrase, open-air centers want to point to the fact or assumption that they are offering serious activities, and we are not dealing here with entertainment only. Generally seen, the activity (the fun) is not the focal point; rather, it is more a means to transfer the message which should be told in an open-air center. Needless to say, the lesson learnt about the past needs to reflect on the present as well. Demonstrations for Public, or Living History

Demonstrations of any kind provide the connection between textbooks and reality, between knowledge learned by heart and knowledge gained by experience. Besides education programs for children, at special open days or events, actors are hired who either give a demonstrations in crafts, fighting, cooking, or whatever more is interesting, or they try to sell certain products which carry the atmosphere of prehistory or the Middle Ages. The public has a great influence on what is successful, it is not the most authentic items which sell best or the most authentic crafts or activities which are rewarded most. These activities and products are not rewarded for their authenticity, but for the way they succeed in connecting with the modern public. It all happens in the present and is inspired by the past. The past is not a touchstone, merely the major source of inspiration. Using living history actors, sometimes employed by the center, but most often hobbyists active on weekends and holidays, is a successful approach. But the people are ‘actors’. Some of them are very well informed about ‘their’ past, others are not. As an uninformed outsider, which the public generally speaking is, it is impossible to detect the difference. Both the actors as well as the open-air centers carry a responsibility. One of the major problems of living history is that it is hard to make clear that at this point a past is presented, not the past. Trying Out a Technique, Occasionally

Most archaeologists have, once or more often in their lives, tried out or gotten acquainted with a technique. This is a good way to learn more about the qualities of one’s artifacts or one can imagine, for example, how much time it would have taken for an experienced group of people to build a house in the Iron Age. With this background experience, one might then be able again to imagine more about the people living in such a Iron Age world. However, measuring the quantity of time for cutting out a tree canoe might actually tell us nothing of how much time it took

in the past. Answering this question tells one in the first instance more about one’s own capabilities and handicaps than it gets us acquainted with our predecessors. It takes another step further, repeating the experiment. First then, it is possible to make more valuable judgments. That one (if one is archaeologist or craftsman or both does not matter) has to follow a more structured approach is almost inevitable. The larger part of the experiments being presented in books and articles are onetime experiments, with no thought of, or approach to, repeatability. In the respect of trying out a technique, the misunderstanding between experiment and primitive technology should be enlightened. The use of a mere technical approach differs from experimental archaeology in that trying to approach the past culture is not necessarily a means; it is the materials and techniques themselves that are the focal point. Primitive technology is a processual approach to experimental archaeology and it depends on the archaeologist to make a step further or not, to feed his experience back to the original data or not. Primitive technology has been developed and fostered both in America and in Europe. One of the people in the United States who stood at the beginning of this approach is Errett Callahan. He started teaching himself flint knapping as early as in 1956 and has made it a point to share his knowledge learnt through experience with many others. His important projects are the Pamunkey Project, the Cahokia Pit House Project, and his Danish daggers project, most of them awaiting final publication. At the end of the 1980s, the Society of Primitive Technology (http:// www.primitive.org) was established by Callahan and others, being a low-profile but highly effective society in bringing together craftspeople who are serious about ancient crafts. In Europe, an important impetus to the study and promotion of primitive technology was given by Tomas Johansson from Sweden, who established the Society for Prehistoric Technology in 1980, publishing a popular magazine on the subject until 1995. He established courses for wouldbe experimental archaeologists in a national academy and was, in 2001, one of the founders of a European network of archaeological open-air centers, EXARC (http://www.exarc.eu). Scientific Experiments

Feynman et al. (1963) stated: ‘‘The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific ‘truth’.’’ The natural scientific method is by far not the only way to learn more about the past. It is only that using this method will not bring us far enough. But it is the

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best way to go beyond assumptions, ideas, possibilities, and hypotheses. Exeter University, UK, is the only university in the world so far which offers an MA in experimental archaeology (http://www.ex.ac.uk). It is designed to give practical experience of many ancient technologies and to embed these experiences within current scientific and academic theories, methodologies, and presentations to the profession and public. In the nineteenth century, it was mere technical curiosity about individual objects which drove people to do experiments. From the 1960s onward, theoretical foundations were laid under experimental archaeology. Ascher discerns different kinds of experiments, from imaginative experiments, which never leave the drawing room, to the comparative experiment (‘‘is my excavation technique better then yours?’’), up to imitative experiments, where archaeologists try to set up an imitation of a situation as it could have been in the past, in order to test their beliefs about past cultural behavior. It has been a discussion over the years as to which categories of activities would fall under ‘experimental archaeology’ and which would not. Is it an archaeological experiment if one experiments methodologically with different excavation techniques? This depends on the background of the archaeologist answering such questions. Experimental archaeology follows the trends in mainstream archaeology. The kind of hypotheses archaeologists postulate dictates a certain approach to experiments, but the theory behind experimental archaeology as a whole also follows the tendencies in general archaeology. The description of what experimental archaeology is and what it should be limited to followed under the ‘processual archaeology’ the rules of being interdisciplinary and searching for laws on which human behavior was supposed to be based (see Processual Archaeology). This meant the rise of experimental research in postdepositional processes, technology, and function of artifacts. Ascher reasoned that all human behavior would follow a pattern (a dynamic concept with different steps following each other). A division in groups of experiments would be best following the way of production and use of the artifact. The artifacts and the cultural behavior of which they were produced were focused upon, the human factor was described as following laws, not culturally determined. Reynolds’ division of different kinds of experiments (1999) was meant to divide and control experimental archaeology better. Before he starts, he makes a clear difference between experiment, experience, and education. These three, however, touch upon each other frequently. He introduced experimental

archaeology as a means to learn much more, partly by experience, partly by inference about the past. Many experiments produce new data, but they are seldom fed back to the original data, the archaeological record. An experiment must fit into the dogma of the discipline. A hypothesis like ‘‘people in the Iron Age had a relaxed life’’ would not fit into the dogma of archaeology as it cannot be tested by using archaeological data. It has not and cannot be a subject of archaeological research – therefore it cannot be the subject of an archaeological experiment. Experiments require to be replicable and need to be replicated. And, to prevent too much subjectivity, the experiment should be designed as such, that the outcome can be statistically assessed. Archaeological data can lead to a testable hypothesis. An experiment can be used to falsify this hypothesis and simultaneously lead to new hypotheses. In some cases, an experiment is run, solely to generate hypotheses, which in later experiments need to be tested. Experiments can validate a hypothesis, but cannot prove anything. There might be another hypothesis which could lead to the same results. Reynolds makes five categories of experiments, of which the construct experiment is the first. This is the kind of experiment which is often labeled as ‘reconstruction’. As the use of the word ‘reconstruction’ implies a high level of certainty, the word ‘construct’ was introduced. A construct in itself is a low-grade experiment. The real results of an experiment are data, derived from the actions of the experimental archaeologist. Obviously, these experiments have more materialistic results as side effects, but that is because archaeology – the prime but not the only source of the data on which an experiment is based – is involved in material culture. Constructs can be classified into a hierarchical system, devised by Coles: . A simple construct would only look like how the original artifact might have been – it would give an impression, like for a Hollywood movie (‘‘If a Stone Age man could have come alive again and seen the models I made, I expect he would have flung himself and laughed until he cried (. . .) No one was going to catch me saying that I intended to build a Stone Age house as it really had been, but only as it might have been’’ (Hansen, 1964, 18)). . A second level is about making something that looks the same, but is also produced with the same materials, tools, and techniques as presumed in the original. This artifact stands on itself. . The final level of reconstructions would not only involve the artifact made in the original way but also having it used in the presumably original

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fashion. This way, the artifact can tell us more about the past cultural context – as far as we can pursue this. This final category is setting the reconstruction into an experimental framework as it is such action, such use which creates data (e.g., through wear of the authentically used reconstruction) which we can compare again to the archaeological data. The second level of Reynolds’ experimental division refers to process and function. It seeks to examine how things were achieved and involves a passage of time. At Butser Farm, for example, storage pits were made, like the ones used in the Iron Age, and these were used for a period of over 10 years. The third category of Reynolds is called simulation when archaeological material is projected back into the state of what it might have looked like when still used in the past. A construct of an artifact or a set of artifacts is made and the deterioration through time is monitored. This is a way to see how the archaeological record came to be. Reynolds built a few roundhouses, basing his work as much as possible on archaeological data, and carefully monitored the decay, that is, the weaknesses of such a structure. With this experience, over the years he could argue as to exactly what the construction of such houses could have been like: for example, a difference in roof construction immediately has effects on the floor plan and the strength of the house (see Figure 13). Another good example is the experimental earthworks at Overton Down and Wareham in the UK. In the early 1960s, different mounds and earthworks were constructed in these locations in order to determine the effectiveness of prehistoric tools in constructing them. However, the second purpose is the most important. With a binomial progression of

years, a part is excavated and the degradation is compared to the earlier obtained data and to archaeological sites. In the earthworks, pseudo-artifacts are planted, whose deterioration and movements are also charted. This is a long-lasting simulation experiment. The fourth series of experiments under Reynolds’ system is called ‘eventuality trial’ and incorporates all the three earlier categories. It seeks to explore the potential product, for example, the agricultural potential of the past. The greatest problem here is to establish the limits against which the variables can be examined. One can monitor harvest yields of prehistoric crops on similar soils as used in those days, but one can imagine the multitude of uncontrollable variables. Repeating the experiment over a number of years at different locations gives a better statistical value but the results remain the product of a specific combination of variables. How else could you infer how much land a family would need for agriculture? The last category Reynolds describes is called ‘technological innovation’ and is about the testing of new scientific equipment in archaeology to improve archaeological data acquisition. An important element in present-day descriptions of experimental archaeology is whether or not there is a feedback possible to the original archaeological data. A recent definition as stated by Mathieu (2002, 1) states experimental archaeology to be: ‘‘a sub-field of archaeological research which employs a number of different methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches within the context of a controllable imitative experiment to replicate past phenomena (from objects to systems) in order to generate and test hypotheses to provide or enhance analogies for archaeological interpretation.’’

Figure 13 Typical roundhouses at Butser Ancient Farm, UK. Picture: Roeland Paardekooper.

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Experiments in this sense are attempts to imitate a situation as it might have been in the past. It is no longer about ‘reproducing’ an item. The experiment should be controllable, meaning it should be performed in a laboratory environment, albeit an open-air site. The possibility to control the necessary variables is more important then having the activity done in a seemingly authentic way. If authenticity is more important, the experiment turns into a demonstration or living history. An experiment in the modern archaeological sense is about replicating objects (in its simplest form), replicating behaviors (as far as we can approach these) up to replicating systems, although this latter is hard to achieve. It is no longer about ‘making’ an object, but about ‘using’ it, or using a set of objects in a system. These actions result again in data which are comparable to the source data. Experimental research either generates hypotheses or tests them. If an experiment is just about generating hypotheses, it is more an activity to gather experiences, to make an inventory of the variables playing a role in a certain activity. In this case, it follows a more general approach instead of being a well-thought-out plan. If one has already made an inventory of all variables and is able to measure and control all of them, one can continue to either try to falsify the hypothesis or accept the hypothesis for the moment. A successful experiment cannot lead to a one-to-one explanation or even evidence. A hypothesis is only valid as long as there is no proof that supports an alternative. An experiment is about creating a data set which forms an analogy with the original archaeological data set which needs to be explained. Using an analogy implies one can supplement characteristics of one situation (the modern experiment in this case) to the other (the archaeological situation under investigation). Both situations need to be as similar as possible. We have in both situations statics: artifacts and structures. The action which resulted in these statics in the past is what we want to learn more about. If we then use similar artifacts and structures in a presumably similar way, we might be able to tell something of the actions (and consequently the people) leading to these statics. A difficult point is whether the same action always leads to the same result and only that result. In other words, is it possible to explain the same data set with different actions? A good answer to this question will strengthen the analogy and therefore the value of the experiment. An experiment would gain much value, if a few key issues are properly addressed. This can make the experiment much more worth its money and effort. An experiment needs to be measurable and

repeatable, executed with the correct manual skill – not too high, but certainly not too low. One should base oneself on experience of those already having executed similar activities before, either as experiment, theory, or in ethnoarchaeological reports. In other words, a database should be kept about the subject in question. One should understand the technology and archaeology of the period and culture under investigation well – it is not just about trying out a technique and seeing if it works. During any stage in the experiment, one will find the need to improvise – and document these improvisations. Hardly ever does an experiment go exactly as planned. A great problem with experimental archaeology, and at the same time its strength, is the versatility of the idea. The scope for enquiry is unlimited, but it attracts all manner of students (Coles, in Malina (1983)). Theory without practice is empty; practice without theory is blind (Immanuel Kant, in Coles (1979, 243)). See also: Butchery and Kill Sites; Ethnoarchaeology; Interpretation of Archaeology for the Public; Interpretive Art and Archaeology; Middle Range Approaches; Politics of Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Tourism and Archaeology.

Further Reading Andraschko F and Schmidt M (1991) Experimentelle Archa¨ologie: Masche oder Methode? In: Fansa M (ed.) Experimentelle Archa¨ologie, Bilanz 1991, pp. 69–82. Oldenburg: Isensee. Coles JM (1979) Experimental Archaeology. London: Academic Press. Coles JM (1963) Archaeology by experiment: ‘Bronze age’ shields made at Cambridge which establish that leather was for use, bronze for ritual and show. The Illustrated London News, 2-3-1963, pp. 299–301. Feynman R, Leighton R, and Sands M (1963) The Feynman lectures on physics. Reading I: 1–1. Hansen H-O (1964) I Built a Stone Age House. New York: The John Day Company. Ingersoll D, Yellen J, and Macdonald W (eds.) (1977) Experimental Archaeology. New York: Columbia University Press. Kelterborn P (2005) Principles of archaeological research in archaeology. EuroREA, (Re)construction and Experiment in Archaeology 2/2005, pp. 120–124. Lammers-Keijsers YMJ (2005) Scientific experiments: A possibility? Presenting a general cyclical script for experiments in archaeology. EuroREA, (Re)construction and Experiment in Archaeology 2/2005, pp. 18–24. Malina J (1980) Metody experimentu v archeologii, pp. 44–45. Brno: Academia Praha. Malina J (1983) Archaeology and experiment. Norwegian Archaeological Review 16(2): 69–85. Mathieu J (2002) Introduction – Experimental Archaeology: Replicating past objects, behaviors and processes. In: BAR 1035: Experimental Archaeology: Replicating Past Objects, Behaviors and Processes, pp. 1–11.

1358 EXPLANATION IN ARCHAEOLOGY, OVERVIEW Meldgaard M and Rasmussen M (1996) Arkæologiske eksperimenter i Lejre. Lejre: HAF Lejre. Pearce PL (1988) The Ulysses Factor: Evaluating Visitors in Tourist Settings. New York: Springer Verlag. Reynolds PJ (1999) The Nature of Experiment in Archaeology. In: Harding AF (ed.) Experiment and Design, Archaeological Studies in Honour of John Coles, pp. 156–162. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Relevant Websites http://www.archeon.nl – Archaeological themepark Archeon. http://www.biskupin.pl – Biskupin – Muzeum Archeologiczne w Biskupinie. http://www.butser.org.uk – Butser Ancient Farm. http://www.history.org – Colonial Williamsburg Living History Museum.

http://www.ex.ac.uk/archaeology – Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter. http://www.eketorp.se – Eketorp – History Brought to Life on ¨ land. Southern O http://www.exarc.eu – EXARC, a European Network of Open Air Museums and Other Facilities Involved in Experimental Archaeology. http://www.imtal-europe.org – IMTAL Europe – International Museum of Theatre Alliance. http://www.pfahlbauten.de – Lake Dwellings of Unteruhldingen. http://www.lejre-center.dk – Lejre Forsgscenter: Lejre Experimental Center. http://www.middelaldercentret.dk – Medieval Centre. http://iron.wlu.edu – The Rockbridge Bloomery. http://www.primitive.org – The Society of Primitive Technology. http://www.bachritterburg.de – Bachritterburg Kanzach.

EXPLANATION IN ARCHAEOLOGY, OVERVIEW Charles Stanish, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary critical theory A philosophical position in the humanities and social sciences that seeks human liberation and social transformation through knowledge and action. empiricism A theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. epistemology The study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge. hermeneutics An epistemological theory with roots in the study of biblical texts that understanding is based on the dialectical (back-and-forth) relationship between the whole and its parts. New Archaeology A movement that began in America in the 1960s, aimed at making archaeology more scientific by employing empiricist and neo-positivist principles. positivism A philosophy that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. postprocessualism A school of archaeological thought that uses critical theory and interpretative methods while cautioning against the shortcomings of scientific archaeology. processualism A school of archaeological thought that uses empiricist theories of knowledge and scientific methods to derive testable models of human behavior.

Throughout its 200 years as a recognizable intellectual activity, archaeology has focused on both the recovery of ancient objects and explaining what precisely those objects mean about the societies that

produced them. In this sense, ‘explanation’ in archaeology is historically and culturally contingent, and the aims and techniques of archaeological explanation shift as the epistemological and ontological foundations of the discipline shift. The purpose of this entry is to define precisely what explanation in archaeology is in contemporary terms. Explanation is defined by most dictionaries as ‘the act of giving the reason for, the justification of, or the cause of phenomena.’ Historically and linguistically, the terms explanation and cause are associated with scientific approaches in the social, behavioral, and natural sciences. Within contemporary archaeology, however, there are both scientific and nonscientific approaches to studying the past. A proper examination of ‘explanation’ in archaeology therefore requires a broadening of the definition of explanation to include any epistemology that gives meaning to the past as derived from the material record. This entry will therefore be an expansive treatment of the topic to cover both nonscientific and scientific approaches.

Archaeological Approaches in the Twenty-First Century At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we can profitably define four broad kinds of archaeological research based upon their philosophical foundations and the implicit and explicit goals stated by their practitioners. These kinds of archaeology, ranging from the least to the most scientific: are (1) critical theory,

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(2) hermeneutic or interpretative archaeology, (3) historicist archaeology, and (4) scientific archaeology. In short, contemporary critical theorists seek to create narratives of the past consistent with broad moral and political principles and to examine the discipline of archaeology itself as a constructed social practice. Hermeneutic or interpretative archaeology seeks to read multiple meanings into the archaeological record. Historicist archaeology seeks to explain the archaeological record of objects and archaeological contexts in space and time. Scientific archaeology seeks to subsume the empirical archaeological record into broader principles of human behavior. Each of these kinds of archaeology begins with different logical principles and assumptions. For each kind of archaeology, ‘explanation’ has different meanings, if any meaning at all. Even more complex, many archaeologists adopt the principles of two or more of these intellectual traditions simultaneously as they do their work. Idealist Philosophical Traditions

Critical archaeology Critical theory practitioners stand at the end of one continuum in the philosophy of social science. Generally antagonistic to modern philosophies of science (logical positivism and empiricism), the core goal of critical theory is not to define what is in the archaeological record, but rather define: (1) what the archaeological record ought to teach us about the past and (2) to deconstruct archaeology as a power-infused social activity and rectify what they see as past errors in the way archaeology has been practiced. Critical theorists begin with the assumption that all knowledge is socially constructed, a tradition drawn largely from philosophical idealism. Furthermore, in this tradition, no socially constructed knowledge base is better or worse than any other by any a priori criteria. As such, critical theorists in archaeology seek explanation of the past in terms of their implications for social action in the present. Explanation, or more appropriately stated, providing meaning to the archaeological record and to the act of explanation itself, is subsumed under broad social, political, cultural precepts, and/or moral mandates. As Hodder and Hutson note, such approaches interpret ‘‘. . . past cultural meanings in relation to such issues as power and domination, history and gender’’. Critical archaeology is essentially a morally based social and political activity in the sense described by Scheper-Hughes (1995) for anthropology in general. In this tradition, any pretext of logical realism (whether in the positivist sense used by Salmon (1982:162) or in the postpositivist sense of Gibbon (1989:142–172); see Wylie (2003)) or its related philosophical positions of materialism, instrumentalism,

empiricism, and so forth, is considered inappropriate for archaeological interpretation. Any scientific epistemology assumes that a real and knowable world exists apart from the human observers – that is, what scientists study is independent of the analytical process and has an independent ontological status with its own a priori properties. Scientific epistemologies assume that data and history are real, and that the process of interpretation, in theory (if not necessarily in practice), can be morally neutral. Scientific philosophies eschew the metaphysical. Extreme logical positivism even denied the existence of abstract truths not verifiable by the human senses, although most archaeological scientists today hold much more moderate views as described below. Archaeologists working in this critical theory tradition would ideally expect the interpretation of those power relationships to contribute to some kind of broader social activity that weakens asymmetrical relationships of power in contemporary society. Ironically, while maintaining a hyper-relativistic stance as an ideal, interpretations of the past that conform to morally sound principles of social justice are usually considered superior to those that are perceived to reinforce asymmetrical power relationships in contemporary society. Insofar as explanation exists in this tradition, it is intimately linked to the degree to which an interpretation can inspire or effect social and political action. Given that all interpretations are valid, one is not only free to choose the most socially correct one, one is in a sense obligated to choose the most moral interpretation. An archaeologist working in the critical theory tradition who discusses, say, an early Greek theatre, a Southwestern US kiva, or Peruvian sunken court would seek to define the power relationships represented by that architecture in the material record. These public constructions are interpreted as reinforcing ideologies of power, or, conversely, may be seen as means by which the majority of people resist such social power. As a critique of existing archaeological practice, critical theorists have provided useful insights into how archaeologists conduct research. It has been far less successful as a positive research framework, given its general rejection of explanation as a feasible or desirable goal. Hermeneutic or interpretative archaeology Hermeneutic or interpretative archaeology draws off many of the principles of critical theory, most crucially the assumption that all knowledge is socially constructed. They likewise share a general rejection of scientific determinism or any variant of logical positivism or empiricism. Hermeneutics is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as ‘‘the art or science of

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interpretation. . . .’’ Beginning at least with the philosopher Collingwood (with strong ties to Hegel and Kant), hermeneutic approaches to history and culture generally reject scientific epistemologies. As culturally constituted and irreducible, human behavior cannot be explained with reference to external factors such as the environment, technology, and so forth in hermeneutic archaeology. As with critical archaeology, hermeneutic archaeology also rejects any simple or direct relationship between material culture and human behavior. As hermeneutic practitioners would put it, ‘‘culture creates objects and objects create culture’’ in a recursive and complex relationship not reducible to simple linear propositions. Avidly antipositivistic, knowledge is not cumulative, but constantly reformulated. Knowledge that reinforces asymmetrical power relations is consciously resisted (or decentered) as an explicit goal. In this tradition, culture and the archaeological record are ambiguous cultural texts to be ‘read’ – interpreted and reinterpreted – not explained in any scientific sense. The ‘texts’ are highly affected by the readers’ social, political, and cultural biases; for many hermeneutic archaeologists, the context in which the archaeological record is read is as important as data themselves. Therefore, an archaeologist working in this tradition who encounters an early Greek theatre, a Southwestern US kiva, or Peruvian sunken court would seek to create a narrative of meaning that is represented in the material record. That meaning can be different for different interpreters, and there is no hierarchy of these interpretations. What is meaningful from one perspective is as equally valid as any other perspective. Ambiguity and imprecision, considered anathema by historicist and scientific archaeologists, are essential components of hermeneutic archaeology. It is essential precisely because such language evokes different meanings from different people, a process that enriches the narrative. While usually denying it, most practitioners of hermeneutic and critical archaeology implicitly rely heavily upon some form of philosophical idealism. A prominent example is Hodder and Hutson (2003:4), who, in describing the epistemological foundations of interpretative archaeology, note that cultural behavior is not reducible to broader generalizations because ‘‘culture is meaningfully constituted’’ (i.e., not an independent phenomenon apart from the observer) and ‘‘cultural relationships are not caused by anything else outside themselves. They just are’’. This statement, of course, betrays a classic idealist stance visa`-vis culture and history. It must be pointed out that some readings of this tradition suggest that external and noncultural factors constrain the production of cultural meaning and therefore may result in some

broad cross-cultural similarities, a process that scientific archaeologists would call convergent evolution. However, as the above quote demonstrates, hermeneutic archaeology is firmly rooted in idealist epistemologies of philosophy not amenable to any kind of reductionist statement or empirical verification/ falsification procedure. Combined, critical and hermeneutic archaeology constitute a large part of what is known as ‘postprocessual’ archaeology in Anglo-American traditions (see Postprocessual Archaeology). Most objective observers now agree that postprocessualism provided a useful critique of the excesses of the new archaeology and the naı¨ve adoption of logical positivism (see Processual Archaeology). That critique gave rise to a richer approach to explaining the past with variables beyond technology, demography, and subsistence. In other influential intellectual traditions, particularly those in Spain and Latin America, the term ‘social archaeology’ is usually associated with these and/or some variant of Marxist or structural Marxist approaches (see Social Theory; Marxist Archaeology). Postprocessual archaeology constitutes a rich and diverse set of approaches that is not readily definable. Some selfdescribed postprocessualists actually work within empiricist epistemologies as described below, but reject the traditional ‘processual’ archaeological focus on the strictly material. In this sense, they are ‘post’-processual only insofar that they test models of cultural process that privilege ideology, gender, power, and other variables traditionally considered epiphenomenal by the New Archaeology. However, all critical and hermeneutic archaeologies are postprocessual, and all are based upon the general rejection of scientific philosophies and the implicit adoption of philosophical idealism in one guise or the other. Explanation and causation in such traditions is not an attainable goal. Creating multiple meaning of the past while critiquing the practice of archaeology is the central goal. Empiricist Philosophical Positions

Historicist archaeology Historicist archaeology seeks to precisely define objects and events in the archaeological record in space and time. The term ‘historicist’ is used to differentiate this school from ‘historical’ archaeology. The latter is a subdiscipline of archaeology focusing on time periods that have contemporary textual information (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline). Historical archaeology can be conducted in any one of the four traditions described here (see Historical Archaeology: Methods). The former, described in this article, refers to a particular approach in archaeology that has its own epistemological principles.

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Scholars working within this historicist tradition generally accept key principles of scientific ontology and epistemology, particularly the assumption of a real, independent, and knowable universe. They combine these philosophical assumptions with inductive methodologies to reconstruct the archaeological record. Inductive methodologies begin with the existing database and confine explanation to within what can be known about the empirical record. Historicist archaeology shares many of the philosophical principles of scientific archaeology, but eschews the subsuming of particular historical events into broader theoretical principles. Explanation in this tradition centers on the ability to locate the remains in or on the ground in either a known historical sequence as derived from independent data sets such as texts, or within existing archaeological data sets. Successful explanation is based upon the degree to which the interpretation generally conforms and adds to previously established knowledge. Unlike scientific approaches, historicist archaeology sees the past as contingent, developing out of earlier historical moments in a particular cultural sequence. It is not, in their view, subsumable to larger processes. Given this assumption, historicists seek to explain particular historical phenomena through a rigid methodology of empirical testing and verification. For instance, the discovery in 1974 of the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Qin Shihuangdi represents a classic instance of explanation in this tradition. The tomb had been described in texts, the dates were known to the precise year, and the archaeological data confirmed and expanded the empirical knowledge of this important culture. Prior to archaeological research, the tomb was not explained but was merely part of a large mound that was assumed to be archaeological. After the discovery of terra cotta figures and after problem-oriented research was conducted at the site, the archaeologists were able to define who built the tomb, when it was built, when it was abandoned, and even in some cases which individuals were represented by the terra cotta figures. From an historicist perspective, explanation was very successful because the tomb, the buildings, and the associated objects were precisely located in space and time; empirical knowledge was increased, the canon of historical knowledge about this dynasty was expanded, and a richer history was created. Explanation in this tradition only begins at this level; eventually more data (either empirical data derived from additional field work or data derived from new analysis of existing data sets) should ideally provide the archaeologist with a richer understanding of the history of the object or social phenomena.

Historicist archaeology deals with questions such as: why did Cahokia collapse, what was the origin of divine kingship among the Maya, what motivated Akkadian expansion, did humans or climate kill off the late Pleistocene megafauna in the Americas, who was buried in this tomb, and so on? In this sense, the historical tradition again breaks with critical and hermeneutic approaches in seeing knowledge as cumulative. While interpretations may be refined, revised, and/or discarded, the collection of new empirical knowledge adds to the ever-increasing canon of historical data in any particular cultural area. It is in this fundamentally empiricist activity that explanation is located in historicist archaeology. To continue with our example, an archaeologist working in the historicist tradition who discovers an early Greek theater, a kiva, or Peruvian sunken court would seek to assess the time and culture within which that architecture was constructed. The degree to which these objects can be associated with known historical events and even individuals, as with the Qin Shihuangdi tomb, is the major criterion of explanatory success. The same applies to any and all sorts of objects and the contexts within which those objects are found. As empirical knowledge accumulates, an increasingly richer historical narrative of past societies can be constructed. Explanation is not precisely linear, since new data will alter interpretations. However, there is general sense borrowed from ‘soft’ neopositivist assumptions that the addition of new data from any particular area will enhance the ability of the archaeologist to explain the cultural historical record in any particular place and time. Scientific archaeology Scientific archaeology accepts many of the principles of historicist archaeology but goes further in that the primary goal is to subsume the archaeological record into broader patterns of human behavior in space and time. Scientific archaeology is viewed by its practitioners as a branch of comparative behavioral and social science. As such, it is most closely associated with ‘explanation’ and ‘causality’, as generally understood in the philosophy of science. Contemporary scientific archaeology is an outgrowth of the New Archaeology popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The philosophical standards of this perspective can be found in the book Explanation in Archaeology by P. Watson, S. Le Blanc, and C. Redman (1971). The New Archaeology explicitly borrowed from the logical positivism and extreme empiricism of the Vienna School and its later practitioners. When the critique of logical positivism among philosophers of science in the 1950s and 1960s gained ground later in archaeology, the New

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Archaeology modified its epistemological underpinnings. In particular, modifications by the work of the philosopher Hempel (in particular, the recognition of ‘statistical’ laws) and, to a lesser extent, the influence of Popper, contributed to a reformulation that served as the philosophical basis of the next generation of scientific archaeology that developed out of the New Archaeology. Eliminating some of the excesses of the extreme empiricism of logical positivism and adopting more ‘elastic’ criteria of verification, scientific archaeology has shifted its focus since the 1980s. It is a safe generalization to say that the New Archaeology was largely associated with Hempelian deductive-nomological explanation, while contemporary scientific archaeology is more associated with Popperian falsification epistemologies and instrumentalist philosophies of science. Instrumentalist assumptions reject the notion that absolute truth can be known and instead rely on ‘best fit’ models, as described below. Likewise, unlike much of the New Archaeology, contemporary scientific archaeology assumes that there is usually no direct relationship between material culture and behavior; both natural and cultural processes work to alter the archaeological record in space and time. Most contemporary scientific archaeologists also accept the fact that cultural biases affect both the interpretation and the analytical categories used to study the archaeological record. However, since science is viewed as a replicable, rule-bound social activity and not a reflective and subjective activity as in idealist traditions, scientific archaeology assumes that these biases can be made explicit and therefore controlled. Like the New Archaeology, contemporary scientific archaeology relies heavily on empiricist and realist assumptions about the structure of the natural and social world as independent and knowable, while adopting a much stronger reliance on propositions derived from existing theoretical knowledge. Again, the influence of the post-Vienna School empiricists is evident here. Contemporary scientific archaeology also accepts the methodological precept of parsimony, best defined by the OED as ‘‘the logical principle that no more causes or forces should be assumed than are necessary to account for the facts’’. Processual archaeology used to be synonymous with the New Archaeology. Now it is simply another term for scientific archaeology. While this school is not formally named, it is a type of archaeology that encompasses a number of frameworks that evolved from the New Archaeology. The key goal of the discipline today is to understand the general processes or underlying logic of human cultural evolution in

the same way that evolutionary biologists construct generalizing principles to understand the origin and evolution of the world’s plants and animals. Within evolutionary biology, there is a wide range of theoretical approaches. Within contemporary scientific archaeology, there is an equally broad range of approaches. Some approaches privilege economics, some privilege technology, some ideology, ecology, polity, or demography, and most combine these factors into complex, multivariate explanations. All scientific approaches share, by logical necessity, reductionist assumptions and seek empirical confirmation or rejection in one form or another. They are therefore diametrically opposite to hermeneutic and critical archaeologies. Virtually all contemporary scientific neoevolutionary theory rejects the universalizing and totalizing features of early unilineal or, to a lesser extent, multilineal cultural evolutionary theory. Universalizing is understood to mean that a particular theory covers all cultural phenomena in all places and all times. Totalizing refers to the assumptions of nineteenth century evolutionary theory that saw all aspects of cultures as evolving. Instead, contemporary neoevolutionary cultural theory recognizes distinct evolutionary pathways in different environmental and social circumstances, and, except for doctrinaire (and now largely marginal) Darwinian archaeology, it isolates only certain aspects of culture that are subject to selection. In this light, concepts such as typologies, chiefdoms, states, and so forth are not assumed to be inherent stages through which societies must evolve. Such a position, in fact, represents a discredited preDarwinian (read Spencerian or Lamarkian type of philosophical idealism) kind of evolutionary process that has little theoretical or empirical foundation in contemporary scientific archaeology. Rather, neoevolutionary theory in contemporary scientific archaeology is more faithful to Darwinian evolutionary principles of descent with modification with some kind of selective mechanism providing the means by which societies develop. Terms such as ‘chiefdom’ and ‘state’, as Flannery has consistently pointed out for two decades, are merely heuristic categories that help sort out a very complex empirical reality. A chiefdom has an ontological status similar to the category of ‘reptile’ or ‘mammal’ in evolutionary biology. In the same way that there is no inherent process by which a reptile must evolve into a mammal, there is no inherent process by which a chiefdom must necessarily evolve into a state. However, being able to distinguish mammals from reptiles allows palaeontologists to reconstruct evolutionary sequences and develop general principles of evolution better than if no

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such categories existed; the analogy holds for scientific archaeology as well. In this sense, explanation in contemporary scientific archaeology differs from the New Archaeology in several critical ways. At the epistemological level, the most important is the recognition that social scientific ‘laws’ do not exist as immutable phenomena, even if a real world exists apart from our observations of it – this is a clear effect of the influence of Popperian philosophies of science in the discipline. The limitations of our sensory capacities necessarily (in a logical sense) make it impossible to discover immutable laws. Rather, scientific theories are the best descriptions of the observed archaeological record, as deduced by patterns of behavior seen in ethnographic or historical peoples. Likewise, a criterion of utility (or ‘philosophical instrumentalism’ in some discussions) is the basis by which theories are judged; more simply put, whatever theory explains the most phenomena in the most parsimonious way at a particular moment is considered better than other theories. Again, this is a position unequivocally derived from the philosophies of Popper as he modified logical positivism. As mentioned above, the heuristic categories used by processual archaeologists, such as ‘chiefdom’, provide a means of comparing societies across space and time. This analytical technique is the cornerstone of scientific archaeology. Put another way, comparative analysis is the fundamental logic by which general principles can be derived from the archaeological record. In a number of cases around the world, chiefdoms indeed evolved into states. But the reality is that the vast majority of chiefdoms did not evolve into states, and in some cases of secondary state formation, states developed out of socio-political organizations that were not chiefdoms at all. The same can be said for virtually any analytical category utilized by scientific archaeologists. However, in those rare instances where a clear pattern emerges where structurally similar societies in independent geographical areas followed similar patterns of development, explanation in a classic scientific sense is demanded. In fact, the cornerstone of contemporary scientific archaeology rests on the numerous observations that patterns in the historical and archaeological record occur across space and time. Given this empirical reality, some kind of reductionism is logically inescapable and necessary for scientific archaeology.

Explaining the Past In light of the above discussion, it is clear that only scientific and historicist archaeology ‘explain’ past human behavior as traditionally understood in the

philosophy of social science. Historicist archaeology explains the empirical record by placing objects, monuments, and texts in their historical context. Scientific archaeology views explanation as a logical reductive process. Historicist archaeology, in turn, focuses on what was once known as space–time systematics; this is the locating and explanation of objects in an ordered sequence around the world in different places and times. There are a number of logical means by which archaeologists seek to explain the past. Perhaps the most common is the ethnographic analogy. Ethnographic analogy is based upon the principle that people in similar cultural and environmental circumstances faced with similar goals, resources, and constraints will behave in similar ways. Ethnographic analogy works best where the consequences of failure to obtain the desired goals can result in death or extinction of the individual or group. In these instances, it is assumed that optimal solutions will independently develop among peoples in space and time, irrespective of any kind of cultural meaning associated with those solutions. Suboptimal choices will be selected out in any competitive environment. Examples here include defensive constructions, irrigation agriculture, hunting techniques, and the like. While there are many ways to protect a group of people against another group in a premodern context, there is a very limited set of optimal choices given the iron logic of war and extreme consequences of failure (see Arkush and Stanish (2005) for examples of this logic with premodern military architecture). Therefore, around the world in space and time and effectively independent of cultural factors, premodern fortresses are strikingly similar in architectural style and function. Likewise, given the invariant laws of the physics of water movement, there are very few successful ways to construct irrigation systems. As with defensive architecture, irrigation works around the world in similar environments tend to be very similar in design and use. Given this, and given the precept of parsimony, archaeologists can make high-probability interpretations of the function and use of irrigation systems, defensive architecture, and other such features in the archaeological record, even without any textual information. Ethnographic analogy works with other kinds of human behavior to varying degrees. It is successful to the degree that selective pressures operate on the choices made by people. Where cultural choices, such as language syntax or dress styles, do not alter the fitness of individuals or groups in a selective environment (both social and ecological), then ethnographic analogy is of little or no use.

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Ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology are logically similar to ethnographic analogy (see Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology). Ethnoarchaeology studies modern peoples to provide more precise ethnographic analogs to aid in the explanation of past behaviors. Experimental archaeology seeks to replicate the behaviors by which archaeological data are created. Both rely on empiricist epistemological assumptions and the precept of parsimony. These two fields are simply formal procedures of ethnographic analogy used to derive analogs from the known record of human behavior. The direct historical approach can be used with great success in a number of archaeological contexts around the world. The basis of the direct historical approach is that objects used by ethnographically documented peoples that are similar in key ways to objects found in archaeological contexts of those same peoples’ ancestors, carry a high probability of having the same function. Likewise, the adoption of the principle of parsimony is necessary. For this approach to work, there must also be a direct cultural relationship between an archaeological data set and a living group of people. Therefore, if one excavates a round structure with similar features to a historic hogan in Arizona, and if there is no evidence of cultural disruption, then one can make a high-probability statement that the excavated structure functioned in the same way as the historic hogan. The utility of the direct historical approach is proportional to the closeness in age and space of the archaeological and ethnographically known analog. The comparative approach is often confused with ethnographic analogy and the direct historical approach. The comparative approach is epistemologically different, though it is often used in conjunction with ethnographic analogy by scientific archaeologists. What distinguishes it logically from ethnographic analogy is that the comparative approach is feasible only if one adopts some kind of broadly processual and evolutionary theory. A theory is only evolutionary in the modern sense of the term if it contains some kind of selective mechanism. Given this assumption, plus the assumption of parsimony, organizationally similar societies in similar environmental circumstances can be used as analogs to archaeological complexes.

Conclusion Archaeology is a rich and diverse discipline with theoretical approaches that range from the most humanistic to the most scientific. Archaeology can be practiced as an interpretative narrative, as a historical discipline, or as a comparative social or behavioral science. All forms of archaeological practice that are executed well can enrich our understanding of the past. Explanation in archaeology takes many forms and depends upon the kind of archaeology that is practiced. The most explicit use of explanation in archaeology is found in the historicist and scientific traditions. As such, contemporary archaeology has moved well beyond a focus on the object to permit us to define meaning and explain past behaviors around the world in space and time. See also: Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Methods; Interpretive Models, Development of; Marxist Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Social Theory.

Further Reading Arkush E and Stanish C (2005) Interpreting conflict in the ancient Andes: Implications for the archaeology of warfare. Current Anthropology 46(1): 3–28. Flannery K (1995) Prehistoric Social Evolution. In: Ember C and Ember M (eds.) Research Frontiers in Anthropology, pp. 1–26. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Flannery K (1999) Process and agency in early state formation. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9(1): 3–21. Gibbon G (1989) Explanation in Archaeology. London: Basil Blackwood. Hodder I and Hutson S (2003) Reading the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmon M (1982) Philosophy and Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Scheper-Hughes N (1995) The primacy of the ethical. Propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology 36(3): 409–440. Shanks M and Tilley C (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer CS (1997) Evolutionary approaches in archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 5(3): 209–264. Watson PJ, LeBlanc S, and Redman C (1971) Explanation in Archaeology, An Explicitly Scientific Approach. New York: Columbia University Press. Wylie A (2003) Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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EXTINCTIONS OF BIG GAME Todd A Surovell, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Blitzkrieg A specific form of the overkill hypothesis formulated by Paul Martin with respect to Pleistocene extinctions in the Americas. In blitzkrieg overkill, humans encounter faunas naı¨ve to human predation making them extremely susceptible to extinction by hunting. Rapid human population growth and geographic spread are fueled primarily by hunting of large game, and human colonization and faunal extinctions are complete within a millennium. Hyperdisease A hypothesis developed by Ross MacPhee and Preston Marx to explain the extinction of Quaternary faunas. The hyperdisease hypothesis argues that many prehistoric ‘‘first-contact’’ animal extinctions are explained by the introduction of hyper-virulent and hyper-lethal diseases first introduced to animal populations by colonizing humans and/or their domesticates (e.g., domestic dogs). Megafauna A term generally used to refer to the largest animals present within an ecosystem, most often used with respect to the array of large-bodied species which suffered extinction during the Quaternary. A strict definition refers to animal species weighing more than 44 kg (approx. 100 lbs). Overkill hypothesis The hypothesis that most animal extinctions of the Quaternary can be directly or indirectly attributed to predation by humans. Sitzkrieg A hypothesis developed by Jared Diamond to explain the extinction of Quaternary faunas. The sitzkrieg hypothesis refers to slow, drawn-out extinction events caused by secondary human effects, such as deforestation, anthropogenic burning, and general habitat modification.

humans and hominids lived side by side with the woolly mammoth, rhinoceros, cave bear, giant deer, and straight-tusked elephant for thousands of years. They even left painted depictions of some of these animals on cave walls (Figure 1). When humans first arrived in Australia some 50 000 years ago, the island continent was inhabited by a menagerie of marsupial mammalian, avian, and reptilian megafauna. Yet by comparison, the world’s large fauna of the modern era are much reduced in diversity and geographic extent. Surprisingly, though the extinctions of the Quaternary are the most recent ‘mass extinction’ of the fossil record, the issue of cause remains largely unresolved. The idea that humans caused Late Pleistocene extinctions through over-hunting is known as the ‘overkill hypothesis’, but other explanations have been proposed. For example, some argue that Quaternary extinctions may have been caused by climate and ecological changes that have occurred during the last two million years. Others suggest that extinctions may have resulted from the introduction of novel and highly lethal pathogens by humans to populations of animals. Still other researchers have proposed multi-causal explanations that point to both human and natural causes. Of course, extinctions of all taxa in all places and times in the Quaternary need not have the same cause. Different factors may account for animal extinctions over time and space, and dauntingly any or all of these explanations could be correct when viewed at a global scale.

Introduction Over the last two million years, humans and our hominid relatives have witnessed a broad wave of animal extinctions deemed by some as the sixth mass extinction to have affected the biological communities of the Earth. Mass extinctions are characterized by dramatic increases in extinction rates in fossil assemblages – large numbers of species disappear from the fossil record over brief windows of geologic time. Although the causes of recent extinctions remain unresolved, some researchers argue that humans were not mere witnesses to but were instead directly responsible for the extinction of most taxa that disappeared from the fossil record within the last two million years. There is little question that prehistoric peoples of the New World coexisted with mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, and a myriad of other nowextinct animals. In Europe and Asia, Palaeolithic

What Happened to the Megafauna? The Overkill Hypothesis

The overkill hypothesis states: ‘‘the majority of animal extinctions that have taken place over the Quaternary have resulted directly or indirectly from human hunting.’’ Proponents of overkill do not claim that humans caused all animal extinctions of the Quaternary; nor do they claim that all humancaused extinctions resulted from over-hunting of extinct prey. For example, extinctions of large carnivores might have resulted from competition with humans rather than direct human predation of carnivores. The argument is simply that prehistoric human hunting dramatically modified animal communities, and had humans not colonized the planet, most of the species that suffered extinction during the Pleistocene and Holocene would still exist today. Although

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the origins of overkill can be traced to the nineteenth century, overkill was championed in the latter half of the twentieth century by Paul Martin, a palaeoecologist at the University of Arizona.

Figure 1 Line drawing reproductions of Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings of extinct Pleistocene fauna. Irish elk, Lascaux cave a, woolly mammoth, Rouffignac cave b, cave bear c, and two-horned rhinoceros d, Chauvet cave.

The keystone to Martin’s argument was the apparent widespread occurrence of ‘first contact’ extinctions across the globe. With the important exceptions of the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, waves of animal extinctions immediately followed initial human colonization of many regions of the world (Figure 2). In the 1970s, when considering extinctions in the Americas, Martin developed his most explicit formulation of the overkill hypothesis, a model he called ‘blitzkrieg’. With mathematician James Mosimann, Martin constructed a computer simulation which showed how humans could have colonized the entirety of the unglaciated New World from southern Canada to Patagonia within 1000 years (Figure 3). Rapid population growth and migration would have been fueled by hunting of nowextinct Pleistocene mammals. These animals which had never experienced human hunters would have been naı¨ve and easily killed. Although the overkill hypothesis (or variations thereof) applied to oceanic islands extinctions is generally accepted today, whether overkill explains extinctions on continents remains highly controversial. The most serious obstacle to overkill is that in most regions archaeological evidence for human exploitation of extinct taxa is scarce. In North America, for

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Geographic region Figure 2 The relative timing of human colonization and the major wave of animal extinctions for various continents (left) and islands (right). Solid colors and lines indicate certainty about age. Dashed lines and colors indicate uncertainty about age. Age axis is log-scaled.

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example, although 33 genera of large-bodied mammals suffered extinction during the Late Pleistocene, fewer than five can be shown to have been utilized by humans. If humans caused the extinction of North American species by over-hunting, then they must have killed thousands if not millions of animals, which begs the question, ‘Where is the archaeological evidence?’ Martin has argued that if blitzkrieg-type overkill happened very quickly, little archaeological evidence would be expected. For others, however, this lack of direct evidence has meant that perhaps we should be seeking explanations for extinctions elsewhere, such as in the dramatic swings in global climate that have occurred during the Quaternary.

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Figure 3 The Martin/Mosimann ‘blitzkrieg’ model of Pleistocene extinctions. Humans enter North America via the ‘Ice-free corridor’ at approximately 13 400 BP, and rapidly colonize the New World within 1000 years. Human range expansion takes the form of a traveling wave. Along the wave front, naı¨ve Pleistocene fauna are hunted to extinction. Redrafted from Figure 2 from Martin PS (1973) The discovery of America. Science 179, 969–974.

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Variations in the Earth’s orbit over the last two million years have caused climate to oscillate between glacial and interglacial conditions. There were more than 20 instances when continental glaciers expanded and contracted over the Northern Hemisphere (Figure 4). As continental glaciers waxed and waned, oceanic and atmospheric temperatures cooled and warmed, sea levels fell and rose, precipitation regimes were greatly modified, and plant and animal species migrated and reorganized ecological communities. Because swings in climate had major impacts on biological organisms, there is no doubt that animal extinctions could have resulted, but there is considerable argument about how climate change might cause mass extinctions, and whether climate change explains the observed extinctions of the Quaternary. Interglacial

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Years before present Figure 4 The last five glacial cycles recorded in stable oxygen isotopes from benthic foraminifera recovered from a core of the Pacific Ocean floor. Oxygen isotopes of marine foraminifera record the isotopic composition of ocean water which is a direct reflection of the volume of glacial ice in terrestrial settings. High values of d18O indicate glacial periods. Low values of d18O, like those observed in modern times, indicate interglacials. Data from Mix AC et al. (1995) Benthic foraminferal stable isotope stratigraphy of site 846: 0–1.8 ma’. In: Pisias NG et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program. Scientific Results 138, College Station, TX, USA. 839–854.

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A handful of models have been proposed which attempt to link Quaternary climate change to extinctions. Unlike overkill models, climate change hypotheses are typically constructed with reference to specific geographic regions because extinctions occurred at different times in different parts of the world. The most explicit climatic/ecological extinction models have considered North America. For example, Dale Guthrie, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Alaska, has argued that the transition from glacial to interglacial climate in North America (20 000– 10 000 years ago), resulted in vegetational communities that would have been detrimental to many species of Pleistocene megafauna. Lower levels of seasonality and longer growing seasons in Pleistocene ecosystems produced high-diversity mosaics of vegetation that would have permitted large herbivores to easily meet their nutritional requirements. With the transition to the Holocene, North American biomes were transformed into large-scale low-diversity patches wherein generalist feeders with simple digestive tracts, such as mammoths, mastodons, sloths, and horses would essentially starve, or due to anti-herbivory toxins, be poisoned to death by being forced to eat large quantities of toxic foods, to which these animals had little physiological resistance. According to Guthrie, only large mammals with specialized diets or physiologies, such as bison, pronghorn, and moose, thrived in Holocene ecosystems. Climate-based hypotheses, like overkill, suffer from many problems. Most commonly, it is questioned why it was a particular climate change that caused the extinctions. For example, in the Americas, extinction correlates with the most recent transition from glacial to interglacial climate, but this was just one of many such transitions that occurred during the Pleistocene. Proponents of overkill would argue that this episode of climate change just happens to correlate with the first arrival of human migrants; proponents of climate hypotheses would argue that this period of climate change was uniquely severe. Also, proponents of climate hypotheses must explain why extinctions seemingly always correlate with human colonization. If humans had no causal role in Pleistocene extinctions whatsoever, then the timing of extinction should be independent of human global colonization, and yet human migration and animal extinction seem to be highly correlated (Figure 2). Hyperdisease

Due in part to problems with overkill and ecologicalclimatic hypotheses, a third major contending explanation for Pleistocene extinctions has come to the

fore – hyperdisease. This idea, proposed by palaeontologist Ross MacPhee and virologist Preston Marx, can explain two aspects of Quaternary extinctions with which overkill and climate change struggle. Climatic models fail to explain the global pattern of ‘first contact’ extinctions, and overkill struggles to explain the paucity of archaeological evidence demonstrating human hunting of extinct fauna. MacPhee and Marx propose that extinctions were caused by the introduction of ‘hypervirulent, hyperlethal diseases’, which they call ‘hyperdiseases’, by humans or domestic dogs to naı¨ve populations of animals, naı¨ve in the sense of having no immunity to such pathogens because they had no prior experience with them. The hyperdisease hypothesis predicts that extinction should follow a first contact pattern and should produce little archaeological evidence of human exploitation of extinct animals. However, the disease model has yet to successfully overcome a range of potential theoretical setbacks: (1) Foremost, it is unclear whether a disease is capable of driving any species to extinction under natural conditions. (2) It is also unknown if a single disease could infect such a broad range of species as those lost during the Quaternary. (3) Finally, this hypothesis is very difficult to test. Efforts are in progress to attempt to recover pathogens directly from remains of extinct animals or from their fecal matter, but even if pathogens are discovered, it will be difficult to determine if in fact the identified pathogen is the sought-after hyperdisease. The Keystone Herbivore Hypothesis

South African ecologist Norman Owen-Smith, an expert in ‘mega-herbivores’ (>1000 kg), recognized that the extinction of the largest of the Pleistocene fauna must have had dramatic effects on past vegetation. Extant terrestrial mega-herbivores, the African and Asian elephants and rhinoceroses, through foraging and trampling can dramatically impact ecosystems, turning forests and woodlands into scrubland, savannah, or grassland. The removal of mega-herbivores by hunting or climate change, therefore, could have dramatic effects on the structure of vegetational communities. If mega-herbivores served as keystone species in Pleistocene environments, their removal could have cascading effects causing the extinction of numerous other animal taxa. Owen-Smith calls this idea the ‘keystone herbivore hypothesis’. The Achilles’ heel of the keystone herbivore hypothesis is the prediction that mega-herbivore extinction should have preceded the extinction of other taxa, and to date there is very little evidence to indicate that this actually happened.

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fauna? When viewed from a global perspective, Quaternary extinctions show a number of patterns that provide clues to cause(s): (1) Extinctions were asynchronous across the globe, but globally appear to correlate to some degree with first human arrival to regions (Figure 2). (2) Quaternary extinctions on continents and large islands disproportionately and severely impacted large-bodied taxa. (Figure 5). (3) Fauna in some regions were more severely impacted than others (Figures 5 and 6). (4) In most regions, archaeological evidence for the interaction of humans and extinct animals is limited. The extinction records in various regions of the world are discussed in the following sections.

Sitzkrieg

Jared Diamond argues that most Pleistocene extinctions can be attributed to humans, but diverges from traditional overkill models with respect to cause. Using observations of historically recorded extinctions, Diamond notes that many human-induced animal extinctions are not caused by hunting, but have instead resulted from secondary effects. Diamond contrasts the traditional ‘blitzkrieg’ model to what he calls ‘sitzkrieg’. Diamond suggests that extinctions may not have been a lightning-quick predatory assault on Pleistocene fauna by humans, but instead a slow ‘war of attrition’ where extinctions were by-products of secondary impacts, such as felling of forests, anthropogenic burning, and the introduction of non-native competitors. Like the disease model, the ‘sitzkrieg’ model predicts that extinctions should correlate with or postdate human colonization, and that there should be relatively little archaeological evidence for human hunting of extinct fauna. As such, it remains a very difficult model to distinguish from hyperdisease, but some researchers find this idea very compelling for explaining extinctions on oceanic islands.

Africa

Africa holds a unique position in the Quaternary extinctions because it is the homeland of hominid and modern human evolution (see Modern Humans, Emergence of). In addition, a greater proportion of large-bodied mammalian taxa survived here than in any other region of the world (Figure 6). Proponents of overkill do not see these two facts as independent. Large mammal survival in Africa, they would argue results from the co-evolution of African large mammals with bipedal hominids whose hunting prowess gradually increased over time. Although many genera of large-bodied mammals did suffer extinction in Africa, extinctions do not show clear clustering in time, and many extinct genera were replaced by similar taxa, indicating that many African extinctions likely were caused by interspecific competition rather than anthropogenic factors. The first members of the genus Homo evolved in Africa roughly 2.5 million years ago. However, it

The Global Record of Quaternary Extinctions Attempts to test extinction hypotheses typically focus on a handful of key variables. Which species suffered extinction, which survived, and was there a detectable and dramatic increase in extinction rate in the Quaternary? What is the relative timing of initial human colonization, climatic/ecological change, and the major wave of extinctions? Also, what is the archaeological evidence for hunting of extinct

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log body mass (g) Figure 5 Body size distributions for extinct and extant Quaternary species in North America, South America, Australia, and Africa. In all regions, extinctions were highly selective, disproportionately affecting large-bodied animals. Redrafted from Figure 1 of Lyons SK, Smith FA, and Brown JH (2004) Of mice, mastodons and men: Human mediated extinctions on four continents. Evolutionary Ecology Research 6: 339–358.

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Continent Figure 6 The percentage of extinct and extant megafaunal (>44 kg) mammalian genera by continent. Data from Barnosky AD, Koch PL, Feranec RS, Wing SL, and Shabel AB (2004) Assessing the causes of Late Pleistocene extinctions on continents. Science 306: 70–75.

is not until the evolution of Homo erectus roughly 1.8 million years ago or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years later that hominids had likely developed the ability to effectively hunt large animals. Over this period, there is an absence of clear temporal clustering in animal extinction in Africa, although there are many cases of likely climactically driven local extinctions (species survived in other parts of the continent). The inability to detect waves of extinction in Africa may be attributed either to a true lack of clustering of extinctions in time, or to poor chronological control on extinction events. Among the extinct Quaternary fauna of the African continent are many species of hominids including the entire genus Australopithecus, three genera of proboscideans, and more than 24 genera of ungulates and carnivores. Notably, many extinct genera have been recovered from archaeological contexts, particularly in Early and Middle Pleistocene contexts, but establishing predation of extinction species by pre-modern hominids has proved to be exceptionally difficult. Eurasia

Like Africa, Eurasia suffered relatively few losses of large mammals, and hominids and extinct fauna coexisted for an extended period of time. The Eurasian landmass lost two genera of proboscideans including mammoths, at least three species of rhinoceros, hyenas, cave bears, hippopotamus, giant deer, and others. Europe lost proportionately more large mammals than Asia where mega-herbivores, like Asian elephants and rhinoceroses, survived to the present in tropical Southeast Asia. Unlike Africa,

which sustained a hominid presence across most of the continent throughout the Pleistocene, large portions of high-latitude Eurasia remained uncolonized by Homo until the Late Pleistocene, providing refuge for many now-extinct taxa until the end of the last Ice Age. During the Pleistocene, continental glaciers expanded and contracted over most of northern Europe many times causing dramatic ecological shifts (see Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods). Hominids and animals underwent repeated range shifts in response to glacial oscillations. The genus Homo first migrated out of Africa and into the southerly latitudes of Eurasia approximately 1.8 million years ago, or slightly earlier. It is unclear whether hominids maintained a consistent presence in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene (1.8–0.78 million years ago), but by the start of the Middle Pleistocene c. 0.78 million years ago, Homo was likely to stay in Eurasia. By 50 000–45 000 years ago, modern Homo sapiens had spread through most of Eurasia. Precise extinction dates for many Eurasian species are poorly known, especially for Asian species and those species which suffered extinction prior to 50 000 years ago, but numerous now-extinct animals coexisted with hominids for hundreds of thousands of years before suffering extinction. Although numerous mammalian extinctions occurred throughout the Quaternary in Europe, extinction rates among large mammals increased substantially in the Late Pleistocene between c. 50 000 and 10 000 years ago with extinctions possibly occurring in two pulses. Straight-tusked elephant and hippopotamus, species common in temperate fossil assemblages, were the first to suffer extinction, around 50 000–40 000 years ago. At this time, not only were continental glaciers

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expanding pushing these species southward, but modern humans made their first incursions into Europe. Arctic species like woolly rhinoceros and mammoth, well adapted to cold glacial conditions survived through the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 20 000 years ago) only to suffer extinction as the climate warmed c. 10 000 years ago. It is also after the Last Glacial Maximum that major human influxes into arctic regions occurred. A case can be made of overkill and/or climate change as the extinction causes for Europe since extinctions seem to occur at times when both humans and climate are on the move. Nowextinct mammal species did survive into the Holocene in isolated geographic pockets. For example, dwarfed mammoths survived until 4000 years ago on Wrangell Island in high arctic northeast Asia, and the giant deer, Megaloceros survived into the Early Holocene in western Siberia and the Ural mountains. Although human associations with extinct fauna, like rhinoceros, elephant, and mammoth, are fairly common in Lower and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages, direct associations are considerably less common in the Upper Palaeolithic when the majority of extinctions occurred. There are more than a dozen archaeological sites showing subsistence use of proboscideans (Elephas and Mammuthus) throughout Eurasia spanning more than 600 000 years of prehistory. These sites gradually increase in latitude with age, possibly reflecting slow human northward range expansion with concomitant proboscidean range contraction. Nonetheless, the causes of Eurasian mammalian extinctions remain as unresolved as on any continent. Australia

During glacial phases of climate, sea levels dropped, and the map of Australia was dramatically altered because the island continent became connected to the adjacent islands of Papua New Guinea and Tasmania, forming the Ice Age continent of Sahul (see Oceania: Australia). Prior to human colonization, Australia was home to 28 genera and 55 species of vertebrate fauna that are now extinct (Figure 7). Australian extinctions were among the most severe of any continent, having lost 88% of its megafaunal mammalian genera (Figure 6). The largest known marsupials, the diprotodonts, large browers weighing perhaps up to 2000 kg, suffered extinction during the Late Pleistocene, as did 24 species of macropods (a family of marsupials which includes the kangaroos, tree kangaroos, wallabies, and padmelons). Also lost were a handful of carnivores including Megalania prisca, a huge meat-eating lizard. The flightless Genyornis newtoni was the largest of the five or six birds to have suffered extinction. Genyornis left

Figure 7 Silhouettes of the extinct Pleistocene fauna of Australia drawn to scale. Reproduced from Murray in P. Martin and R. G. Klein (1984) (eds.) Quaternary Extinction: A Prehistoric Revolution Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

abundant eggshells in Australia’s fossil record that can be readily dated and analyzed to determine the animal’s diet. Studies of Genyornis eggshells have produced critical data about timing of extinction and ecological change in Australia. Gifford Miller and colleagues dated more than 700 Genyornis eggshell fragments by the radiocarbon and amino acid racemization methods and found that the giant flightless bird went extinct between 55 000 and 45 000 years ago. The extinction date for Genyornis is unique because it is one of only very few extinct taxa whose extinction date is well established. Determining the precise timing of Australian extinctions has proved problematic. In some critical localities, it appears that extinct fauna were geologically redeposited into younger contexts creating the appearance of survival into time periods long after which the animals suffered extinction. Also, it is increasingly apparent that most Australian extinctions occurred near the temporal limit of radiocarbon dating (c. 50 000 years ago). One rigorous study of extinction dates in Australia by Richard Roberts and colleagues found that at least six genera of megafauna, in addition to Genyornis, suffered extinction at approximately 46 000 years ago. Therefore, the time period between 55 000 and 45 000 years ago appears to be the key to solving the riddle of Australian extinctions. Although the precise date of human colonization of Australia remains controversial, well-dated contexts at Lake Mungo and Devil’s Lair both suggest a colonization date between 50 000 and 45 000 years ago. At other more controversial sites, colonization

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dates have been proposed in excess of 60 000 and even 100 000 years ago. Bearing in mind the possibility for older sites, as Australian researchers have done more work and improved dating of critical localities, dates for extinctions and human arrival seem to be converging at a 10 000 year period between 55 000 and 45 000 years ago. To many researchers, this is strong albeit circumstantial evidence for human involvement in animal extinctions. Of course, temporal correlation is not necessarily causation, and it remains possible that climate change could have played a major or minor role in Australian extinctions. However, the climate change argument does not fare well in Australia because this critical time period, 55 000 to 45 000 years ago, was not a period of dramatic climatic shift in Australia. However, a recent study of the prehistoric diets of Genyornis, emus, and wombats found that when Genyornis went extinct, the diets of surviving emus and wombats shifted suddenly and permanently in multiple regions of Australia. To Gifford Miller and colleagues, this dietary shift indicates a major reorganization of Australian ecosystems right at the time of extinction, and they argue that this ecological change cannot be explained by climatic forcing. Instead, they hypothesize that burning of Australian environments by humans caused this environmental change, thus driving Genyornis and other species to extinction. Others have suggested that maybe it was not the ecological change that caused the extinction, but it was the extinction that caused the ecological change. Australia lost many species of large browsing marsupials, and their removal could have had dramatic ecological consequences as Owen-Smith has proposed for the keystone herbivore hypothesis. Though the precise cause remains unclear, many researchers are convinced of a human involvement in Australian Pleistocene extinctions. Not helping the overkill case in Australia, there are no kill sites of extinct Pleistocene fauna, and direct evidence of human use of megafauna is extremely rare. The Americas

Extinctions in North and South America were similar to those in Australia, except they occurred 30 000 years later. In North America, 33 genera of megafauna were lost including, mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, ground sloths, lions, cheetahs, dire wolves, giant shortfaced bears, and others. In South America, extinctions were more severe, where 50 genera of large mammals disappeared in the Late Pleistocene. These include four genera of proboscideans, three genera of horses, the great majority of large ungulates, and many genera of ground sloths and giant armadillos. Extinctions

in North and South America disproportionately impacted the largest mammals, and a clear spike in extinction rates occurred in the latest Pleistocene. Though New World Pleistocene extinctions are better dated than those in Australia, the precise timing of extinctions continues to be a matter of contention. Chronological control on North American extinctions is better than that for South America, but extinctions on both continents appear to have been more or less simultaneous occurring in a narrow time interval between c. 13 300 and 12 500 years ago. Extinctions in North and South America correlate in time with both initial human colonization and a period of dramatic climate change, the most recent transition from glacial to interglacial climate. The best-dated New World extinctions correlate well with the start of Younger Dryas stadial (c. 12 900–11 500 years ago), a 1300–1400 year long abrupt reversal to glacial conditions where global temperatures cooled and glaciers readvanced (Figure 8). Humans entered the New World from northeast Asia across the Bering land bridge in the millennia preceding the Younger Dryas. For more than six decades, it was believed that the initial colonization of the New World was represented by the Clovis complex characterized by the production of lanceolate basally intended, fluted projectile points. Correlating very well New World extinctions, the Clovis complex dates to a very narrow time interval from c. 13 400 to 12 800 years ago. Recently, however, a handful of sites that appear to predate Clovis have been excavated, most notably Monte Verde, Childe, dating to 14 800 years ago, more than 1000 years before Clovis. The significance of pre-Clovis sites for the extinctions debate is twofold. First, if these sites truly predate Clovis, Martin’s blitzkrieg simulation, which assumes colonization by Clovis, cannot be correct. Second, humans and Pleistocene fauna coexisted in the New World for a slightly longer period than previously believed. Whether the existence of preClovis sites is problematic or beneficial to the general overkill hypothesis, however, is not clear because it has important implications for the archaeology of overkill. The thorn in the side of the New World overkill hypothesis has been the paucity of archaeological evidence demonstrating the exploitation of extinct fauna. In North America, there is relatively abundant evidence for hunting of mammoth during Clovis times, and there is minimal evidence for hunting of mastodon, horse, and camel. But considering that 33 genera of large mammals suffered extinction in the Late Pleistocene of North America, the overkill hypothesis is weakened by this scarcity of evidence. However, if humans were in the New World 1000–2000 years prior to Clovis and hunted Pleistocene fauna to extinction, the Clovis period

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Years before present Figure 8 The Younger Dryas stadial (highlighted in blue) recorded in stable oxygen isotopes of glacial ice in the GISP2 core from Greenland. Oxygen isotopes of glacial ice record the isotopic composition of precipitation which is strongly related to air temperature. High values of d18O indicate warm temperatures. Low values of d18O indicate cold temperatures. The Younger Dryas was a 1400 year reversal to glacial-like conditions that punctuated the warming trend that occurred between 20 000 and 10 000 years ago. New World extinctions appear to correlate with the onset of the Younger Dryas. Data from Grootes PM and Stuiver M (1997) Oxygen 18/16 variability in Greenland snow and ice with 103 and 105 year time resolution. Journal of Geophysical Research 102: 26455–26470.

correlates only with the tail end of the extinction event where many populations of extinct fauna would have been highly depressed, and the majority of hunting of extinct fauna might have occurred prior to Clovis, a portion of the archaeological record of which we have a tiny sample. Therefore, the archaeological evidence for overkill might be in the millennium just prior to Clovis, a portion of the record which has remained virtually invisible. Despite claims that the overkill hypothesis for North America has itself perished, it lives on because it remains as likely an explanation for Quaternary extinctions as any other model. Island Extinctions

Vertebrate extinctions on oceanic islands have figured prominently in discussions of Quaternary extinctions, and unlike continental extinctions virtually all researchers agree that human impacts were responsible for the great majority of island extinctions, although precise mechanisms remain unresolved. Blitzkrieg-type overkill is advocated by some researchers, while others argue island extinctions were likely much more akin to Diamond’s sitzkrieg scenario. For overkill advocates, islands serve as important controls in the extinction debate. Many oceanic islands were not discovered or colonized by humans until well into the Holocene, and they show the survival of many genera after the extinction of their continental counterparts with extinction occurring only after human arrival. For researchers

who advocate climatic/ecological hypotheses, island fauna survived because islands are insolated from climatic change, or island extinctions are irrelevant to continental extinctions because island faunas are much more vulnerable to human effects. Island animals live in small populations, within confined geographic ranges, without access to a pool of conspecifics from which to recruit new individuals. A repeated pattern is seen on oceanic islands; with human colonization, a large range of species suffer extinction (Figure 2). Island regions that have figured prominently in extinction discussions are the West Indies, multiple Pacific archipelagos, the Galapagos, the islands of the Mediterranean, Madagascar, and New Zealand. Unlike continents, island extinctions typically impacted a broad array of vertebrate taxa including small-bodied birds, reptiles, and mammals. Among the first island extinctions were those of the Mediterranean. Early Holocene human colonization resulted in the decimation of the mammalian fauna of Mediterranean islands where only two relict Pleistocene mammalian species remain. Prior to human arrival, Mediterranean islands were home to dwarf varieties of elephants, hippos, and red deer which survived long after their nearby continental relatives; also lost were other species of ungulates, rodents, insectivores, birds, and reptiles. In the Caribbean, ground dwelling sloths, large rodents, and a wide array of small mammals, lizards, and birds suffered extinction with human colonization in the Middle Holocene. Like Mediterranean hippos

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and elephants, Caribbean sloths survived thousands of years after the extinction of large North and South American sloths. The islands of New Zealand and Madagascar also show waves of extinction at the time of human colonization. Beginning around 2000 years ago, Madagascar lost many species including seven genera of giant lemurs, at least six genera of large flightless birds, a pygmy hippo, an aardvark, a large viverrine carnivore, and giant tortoises. Limited but clear archaeological evidence of human butchery of extinct giant lemurs has been recovered from Madagascar, as have a few specimens of human-modified bones of other extinct fauna, such as a tibiotarsus from the 3 m tall, 500 kg elephant bird. The islands of New Zealand were first colonized by humans only about 900–1000 years ago, but within a matter of centuries, the large flightless moas and other species were decimated. New Zealand is particularly important in the extinctions debate because clear and abundant archaeological evidence for human predation of moa species has been recovered there. More than 100 archaeological sites show evidence of human subsistence use of moas. That humans hunted and caused moa extinction is not disputed, but the relative importance of hunting, anthropogenic burning, and the introduction of non-native rats and domestic dogs in moa extinction is a matter of debate.

Where Are We Now? In recent decades, the amount of information available to researchers studying Pleistocene extinctions has grown substantially. With the exception of the development of a general consensus that human impacts, whether hunting or otherwise, regularly caused island extinctions, this dramatic increase in data has not led to a dramatic increase in conclusions about the cause (s) of Quaternary extinctions. The fundamental problem is that extinction hypotheses are very difficult to test directly, and they tend to be incredibly flexible, capable of accommodating virtually any evidence brought forth. For example, does a scarcity of archaeological evidence support or refute the overkill hypothesis? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that question. What has become increasingly clear is that a strong circumstantial case can be made for a significant human role in Quaternary extinctions, not only on islands but also on continents. With the exception of Europe, Asia, and Africa, one could determine the timing of human colonization of virtually the entire world by studying only the palaeontological record. A wave of extinctions occurring

within the last 50 000 years would indicate that humans had arrived. To many researchers, this evidence alone indicates clear human agency in Quaternary extinctions. If, however, islands are eliminated from this scenario, this temporal correlation only occurs on three large landmasses, North America, South America, and Australia, and perhaps it becomes more feasible to argue that these correlations are just coincidence. But extinctions on continents show consistent trends with respect to body size, disproportionately affecting the largest species, the preferred prey of hunter-gatherers. Yet if humans caused the continental extinctions of dozens of genera of Pleistocene fauna, must it have been the perfect crime? To kill these many animals and leave so little evidence, to some researchers seems like an impossible feat. To others, little evidence is expected. Such disagreements highlight why it has been so difficult to determine the causes of big game extinctions in the Quaternary. See also: Archaeozoology; Butchery and Kill Sites;

Migrations: Australia; Pacific; Modern Humans, Emergence of; New World, Peopling of; Oceania: Australia; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods; Siberia, Peopling of.

Further Reading Barnosky AD, Koch PL, Feranec RS, Wing SL, and Shabel AB (2004) Assessing the causes of Late Pleistocene extinctions on continents. Science 306: 70–75. Diamond JM (1989) Quaternary megafaunal extinctions: Variations on a theme by Paganini. Journal of Archaeological Science 16: 167–185. Grayson DK (2001) The archaeological record of human impacts on animal populations. Journal of World Prehistory 15: 1–67. MacPhee RDE (1999) Extinctions in Near Time: Causes, Contexts, and Consequences. New York: Kluver /Plenum. MacPhee RDE and Marx PA (1997) The 40 000-year plague: Humans, hyperdisease, and first-contact extinctions. In: Goodman SM and Patterson BD (eds.) Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar, pp. 169–216. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Martin PS and Klein RG (eds.) (1984) Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Miller GH, Fogel ML, Magee JW, Gagan MK, Clarke SJ, and Johnson BJ (2005) Ecosystem collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a human role in megafaunal extinction. Science 309: 287–290. Owen-Smith N (1987) Pleistocene extinctions: The pivotal role of megaherbivores. Paleobiology 13: 351–362. Stuart AJ, Kosintsev PA, Higham TFG, and Lister AM (2004) Pleistocene to Holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoths. Nature 43: 684–689. Surovell TA, Waguespack NM, and Brantingham PJ (2005) Global archaeological evidence for proboscidean overkill. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102: 6231–6236.

F Fakes

See: Pseudoarchaeology and Frauds.

Feasting

See: Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects.

FIBER ARTIFACTS James M Adovasio, Mercyhurst College, Erie, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary basketry A class of fiber artifact which includes several distinct kinds of items, including rigid and semirigid containers or baskets proper, matting, and bags. Matting is essentially ‘two-dimensional’ or flat, whereas bags are ‘three-dimensional’. coiled basketry A subclass of basket weaves made by sewing stationary horizontal elements (the foundation) with moving vertical elements (stitches). cordage A class of elongate fiber artifacts which are generally subsumed under the English terms string and rope. fiber perishable impressions Traces left by organic fibrous materials (either vegetal or animal in origin) in the decoration of ceramic artifacts or on other potentially preservable media (e.g., clay-lined features such as floors, hearths, pits, etc.). netting An open-work fiber construction in which the fabric is built up by the interworking of symetrically spaced knotted or looped elements. plaited basketry A subclass of basket weaves in which all of the weaving elements pass over and under each other without engagement. relative humidity A term used to describe the quantity of water vapor that exists in a gaseous mixture of air and water. textiles Fiber artifacts which are infinitely flexible cloth fabrics produced with a frame or loom. twined basketry A subclass of basket weaves made by sewing stationary (passive) vertical elements, or warps, with moving (active) horizontal elements called wefts.

Introduction In the present context, the term ‘fiber artifacts’ subsumes several diverse classes of perishable artifacts which are represented in the world archaeological record only under relatively rare conditions of preservation. Specifically included are cordage and cordage by-products such as netting, basketry, textiles, sandals, cradles, and a host of other less-standardized constructions. The principal attribute which all of these products have in common is the fact that they are made from plant-derived (i.e., vegetal) fiber or some other plant-based constituent whole leaves, twigs, stems, roots, etc. Such items are normally recovered in archaeological contexts only when the agents of biodegradation are effectively nullified or at least slowed down appreciably. These situations are relatively rare on the Earth’s surface and include dry caves and rockshelters, permafrozen soils, and, almost paradoxically, waterlogged contexts where specimens are completely immersed for extended periods. Other and far rarer preservation contexts include juxtaposition or exposure to metal or metal salts, envelopment in volcanic ash, or incorporation within coprolites. Fiber artifacts may also be preserved when they are totally carbonized even in open or ‘wet’-site conditions (see Frozen Sites and Bodies). When actual ‘positive’ specimens are not available, detailed data on one or another class of fiber artifacts may be present in the form of negative

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impressions in fired or unfired soils, on ceramics, and occasionally on other media such as wood or bone. In very rare circumstances, a fiber artifact may be encased in a fine-grained sediment-like silt, then totally disintegrate, and ultimately be infilled with another even finer sediment like clay. In such cases, the equivalent of a lost wax casting is formed and the resultant ghost artifact is actually a positive rather than a negative. Despite the relative rarity of fiber artifacts in the archaeological record, at least when compared with far more durable items like lithics or ceramics, vegetal artifacts actually form the vast bulk of the technology of most ethnographic hunting and gathering societies regardless of latitude. Similarly, in archaeological contexts such as dry caves where preservation is excellent, fiber artifacts often outnumber lithic artifacts by more than 20 to 1. In addition to their numerical preponderances in ethnographic assemblages and archaeological contexts where preservation permits truly representative recovery, plant-fiber-based constructions are a peculiarly useful and sensitive artifact class or series of classes on a variety of analytical levels. Indeed, the unique diagnostic attributes of basketry, textiles, cordage, and related materials have been recognized by a relatively large number of specialists for a rather long time. The ability of all types of plant fiber artifacts to elucidate the lives of their makers is based on a fundamental series of attributes common not simply to basketry or textiles but to all items in this broad grouping. First, as noted long ago by Weltfish, basketry and by extension other fiber artifacts can be comparatively studied and accessed from many perspectives because ‘‘. . .the fundamental factors involved in the technical process objectify themselves in the product and are not lost in the process of making’’. A parallel view was echoed by another specialist King who noted that the ‘intimacy’ of the maker’s association with fiber artifacts is far greater than that which obtains with lithics, ceramics, or virtually any other kind of construction in any medium. This ‘intimacy’ is predicated upon and conditioned by the fact that all of the craftsperson’s ‘manufacturing choices’ are ‘physically represented’ in the finished product whether it is a basket, a textile, a sandal, net or cradle. Moreover, as stressed by Baumhoff, the manufacturing choices which are manifested in the finished specimen . . .may be regarded as discrete elements rather than as arbitrary points in a continuum. The basket weaver may twine with a right hand twist or a left hand twist but he cannot be halfway in between. Furthermore, his method of work is perfectly apparent in the finished product so

that the craftsman himself need not be observed at all. Thus, for most situations in basket making there is only a finite number of logical alternatives. . .(Baumhoff, 1957: 2).

Of the greatest importance in the study of any class or type of fiber artifact is the fact that the ‘finite number of logical alternatives’ referred to by Baumhoff is culturally determined to a very high degree. In point of fact, no class of artifacts normally available to the archaeologist for analysis possesses a greater number of ‘culturally bound’ or ‘culturally determined’ yet still visible attributes than do plant fiber constructions. The terms ‘culturally bound’ or ‘culturally determined’ mean simply and explicitly that the range of techno-manipulative alternatives witnessed in the extant attributes of a finished basket, textile, or other fiber artifact is to a very great degree fixed or delimited by the customs or standards of the ‘immediate’ social entity to which the maker belongs or within which the maker functions. While these standards are subject to idiosyncratic modification and even occasional borrowing of designs or construction attributes, their collective existence is eminently verifiable. This is scarcely a novel observation nor is its corollary – that no two individuals, bands, tribes, societies, or other social groups ‘ever’ produced fiber artifacts of any kind in exactly the same fashion. Not only has this fact been demonstrated ethnographically for over a century, but it is also archaeologically valid as well.

Recovery and Conservation Protocols Although plant fiber artifacts often formed a very substantial portion of the total ‘industrial’ output of both ethnographic and prehistoric populations, the archaeological recovery of these items, as noted above, is directly conditioned by circumstances of preservation. Space precludes a detailed discussion of recovery or conservation protocols, but some commentary on these topics is warranted. Dry Sites

In dry caves and rockshelters, fiber artifacts may be notably abundant and their condition is generally excellent. Only minor modifications in the basic excavation and screening procedures are usually necessary to ensure consistent recovery. If employed at all, large, heavy excavating tools (e.g., shovels, pick-mattocks) should be abandoned in zones containing fiber artifacts because they can seriously damage or even destroy specimens. For the same reason, sharp-edged

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trowels should not be employed in sorting screened materials (see Caves and Rockshelters). Specimens encountered during the excavation and screening operations usually require only careful packaging in rigid plastic or fiberboard containers with suitable packing material (e.g., styrofoam, shredded paper, etc.) to ensure their arrival intact in the laboratory. Naturally, detailed provenience data must be recorded for all fiber specimens as well as all associated artifactual and nonartifactual materials. If possible, specimens should be photographed in situ and mapped in plan along with any associated items before removal to ensure that details of construction are preserved if the specimens should be lost or destroyed during excavation or transportation. All fiber specimens, however minute, should be saved for analysis. Even in a more or less dry site, basketry, textiles, cordage, and other perishables may have suffered from periodic exposure to moisture (notably in the deeper levels) or may be badly worn, charred, or gnawed by rodents. Any of these conditions can render the specimens too friable for transport until they have been treated. Occasionally, deterioration is so great that field stabilization must be performed before removal from the soil matrix. Wet Sites

Included here are all sites, sheltered or exposed, that are subject to periodic rain, flooding, or the movement of ground water. This category also subsumes sites that are permanently waterlogged or submerged, or that are permafrozen. The survival of fiber artifacts in any form from such sites is considerably less probable than from dry sites and its condition is usually far worse. In most open sites, fiber artifacts are generally preserved only in a charred or incinerated state or in the form of negative impressions, which may not be recognized by the excavators as perishable artifacts. Thousands of pieces of wholly or partially incinerated basketry, textiles, cordage, and other perishables, as well as many more thousands of impressions, have doubtless been lost simply because they were unexpected, unrecognized, or both. As a general guideline, it is always best to presume that charred or incinerated fiber artifacts may be encountered in any site and therefore to use excavation procedures that maximize chances of discovery/ recovery. Charcoal or charcoal/ash concentrations and ‘stained areas’ should be excavated cautiously and scrutinized frequently and closely. Any phenomena should be presumed to be potential fiber artifacts until proven otherwise and appropriate measures

taken to ensure their recovery. Occupation ‘floors’ or surfaces, pits, and hearths should also be investigated carefully for basketry impressions which are often even more difficult to recognize than charred remains. It cannot be overemphasized that success in recovering fiber artifacts from most open sites depends almost entirely on recognizing evidence. The excavator must remember that distorted, carbonized, sediment-encrusted remnants bear little or no resemblance to complete, well-preserved specimens. In fact, there is no substitute for experience in this type of identification. When a specimen suspected of being an incinerated or carbonized fiber artifact is encountered, extreme care should be exercised in exposing it. If it retains any structural integrity, it may simply be tediously uncovered with delicate instruments (e.g., dental probes, biological probes, needles, bamboo slivers), augmented where appropriate by soft camel’s hair brushes or judicious use of compressed-air delivered via canister. If incinerated specimens are too fragile to be separated from the soil matrix without severe damage, surface and/or internal consolidation may be required. In extreme cases, the surrounding soil matrix must be consolidated and the specimen removed en bloc. Other wet-site conditions present different problems. The successful extraction of basketry or other fiber artifacts preserved through contact with metal does not usually require any special procedures. Normal caution in excavating and packing the metal fragments for transport should permit recovery of any adhering perishables. Permanently or intermittently waterlogged or permafrozen sites require highly specialized recovery techniques. The removal of specimens from very muddy contexts is best accomplished with hydraulics or a combination of hydraulics and more conventional techniques. High-velocity water sprays or jets must be carefully monitored to prevent the pressure of the water from exceeding the surface strength of the specimens and thereby causing irreparable damage. If properly controlled, the careful use of hydraulics will effectively and safely separate fiber artifacts from a muddy matrix (see Sites: Waterlogged). Plant fiber artifacts from permanently waterlogged, submerged, and permafrozen contexts must be approached with extreme care. While such specimens may be removed intact with little difficulty, others may necessitate complex extraction procedures. All such specimens require special handling after excavation. Although they often give the illusion of being structurally strong, waterlogged specimens cannot

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bear excessive handling and will lose structural integrity through rapid drying. After excavation, every effort must be made to ensure that waterlogged or permafrozen specimens are kept in their recovery state until transport to the laboratory. Impressions

In contrast to the variety of procedures applicable to the recovery of actual fiber artifacts, the treatment of impressions is more or less uniform. Impressions may be preserved on living floors, in graves or fire features or, more rarely, in trash or midden areas. They are also common on certain types of pottery, as well as on the asphalt or plant-resin linings of baskets. These linings, which rendered the containers watertight, frequently outlive the vessels and preserve a strikingly detailed negative imprint. Plaited or twined fiber artifacts used in the construction ofhouse walls or roofs may leave clear marks on the mud, clay, or daub packing. Although virtually all the varieties of impressions noted above involve no more than careful excavation, handling, and packaging for successful recovery, the yield of impressions from archaeological sites is pitifully small. The principal problem lies in recognition, since most impressions appear even less artifact-like than incinerated or carbonized remains. Surprisingly, even imprints on pottery and basket-linings are frequently ignored or, at best, misidentified. The recovery of impressions requires prompt perception of traces and slow, careful excavation with delicate instruments. Virtually any pattern, no matter how symmetrical or asymmetrical, which appears on an excavation floor, firepit lining, chunk of burned daub, potsherd, or other surface should be treated as a potential imprint. Specimens from dry caves and rockshelters may be so encrusted with sediment or animal excrement as to be unrecognizable. Consequently, items of this kind should be taken to the laboratory for careful examination. Before their removal is attempted, impressions should be exposed in much the same manner as charred or incinerated specimens, and then drawn and photographed in situ. If the impressions are on objects, such as ceramic sherds, daub, or pitch linings, and if these objects are firm, they should be removed and wrapped as carefully as their condition requires. If the impressions are on floors or objects too frail to withstand disturbance, extensive stabilization procedures may be necessary. Before any stabilization or removal is attempted, however, the impressions should be photographed and also analyzed as completely as possible in case the measures to preserve them are unsuccessful. The disintegration of fiber artifacts on a fine clay or silt floor may leave a negative pattern with a large

number of construction attributes preserved under the overlying matrix. The delicate task of separating the matrix from the negative impression is facilitated by applying water to the structural parts of the pattern. Ideally, the fill can then be peeled out with needles or probes, exposing the pattern. The success of the separation depends on the texture and composition of the floor or the object bearing the impression, as well as on the makeup and condition of the overlying matrix. Sandy fill is relatively easy to separate from a fired clay floor, whereas other combinations of earth are virtually inseparable. Compressed air or water picks can sometimes be substituted for the needle/probe method described above. The choice of technique must be dictated by local conditions. After exposure, the impression should be analyzed in precisely the same manner as a preserved specimen of that class of fiber artifact. All pertinent measurements should be taken and the cleared impression should be re-photographed if necessary. The object or matrix containing the impression should then be cleaned manually or with an airbrush as much as possible and the surface consolidated with a suitable agent. At this juncture, a cast or positive impression should be taken. Ordinary modeling clay, liquid latex or its equivalent, or even plaster of Paris can yield satisfactory results. The selection of a casting medium is usually dictated by local circumstance and preference or experience. Consolidating the surface of the impression before casting minimizes the adsorption of extraneous materials by the casting medium and facilitates separation of the cast from the impression. Naturally, all the caveats normally associated with casting apply to contexts involving fiber artifacts, and patience coupled with a willingness to modify techniques is required to achieve success. Upon completion of the casting, the negative impression can be removed en bloc and suitably packaged for transport to the laboratory. Should the impression disintegrate during removal or transportation, the field procedures will ensure a documentary record.

Laboratory Methods Once in the laboratory, prehistoric plant fiber artifacts and impressions may require further processing before the initiation of analysis. Generally, this involves cleaning and/or stabilization as well as providing adequate storage conditions. Cleaning and Stabilizing

The procedures described below do not constitute a complete collection of cleansing and preservation techniques, nor are they surefire ‘recipes’ that can be

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mechanically followed with instant and satisfactory results. The laboratory treatment of specimens or impressions is never uniform and requires a certain amount of adaptation and adjustment of methods. The procedures should be based on a thorough knowledge of the constitution of the specimen prior to treatment and an understanding of how it got to be that way. Some general admonitions can be stated, though these certainly are not rules. The analyst should treat each fiber specimen or impression as if its condition were unique despite the fact that its state of corrosion or deterioration may roughly be ascribed to a particular type (e.g., waterlogged, carbonized). The specific reaction of different specimens to the same treatment may be distinct. Common sense is a major ingredient in the treatment of specimens or impressions. There is nothing wrong with altering procedures in midstream. Caution is the watchword and the specific procedures described are simply indications of the range of treatments that might be employed. Before detailing specific cleaning and stabilizing techniques, the following points are offered as guidelines. As little as possible should be done. If a fiber artifact is still flexible and stable, ‘no’ agents should be applied unless it is clear that further deterioration is likely to occur. This also applies to impressions whose matrix is adequately consolidated. The long-term effects of additives must be considered. This is one of the major problems in the stabilization of plant fiber constructions. Certain agents, such as shellac and its allies, must be avoided. Once employed as a virtual panacea, this preservative is now known to transform into a black, brittle, insoluble mass that obscures the specimen and cannot be removed without causing damage. Oil-based pesticides or fungicides break down with time and release harmful residues that ultimately destroy the specimen. As noted by Adovasio, many additives render material unsuitable for radiocarbon assay, and this fact must be seriously considered in the laboratory as well as on the site. All commercial preparations are to be chosen with extreme care, as their composition is subject to change with little or no advance notice. Alterations in proportions or strengths and substitutions in ingredients may produce entirely different results than previous versions of the compound. A preparation that does not list all the ingredients and their relative proportions should never be used until it has been tested on expendable samples. Similarly, no preparation that differs even slightly from an earlier formula in concentration of ingredients should be employed without prior testing.

While it is widely agreed that any conservation method employed to stabilize fiber artifacts should be reversible, there are sometimes conditions which mandate the use of nonreversible techniques. An excellent case in point is the remarkable collection of burial fabrics and assorted wooden artifacts recovered from the Windover Bog in Florida. Due to the advanced decomposition of the interior of many of these superficially stable items and the unsuitability of any other preservation techniques, all but a small ‘control’ sample of the Windover fabrics and wood were conserved via parylene conformal coating, a non-reversible technique which is described and discussed in Adovasio et al. Without proper environmental control after treatment, all preservative techniques may be of little use. For fiber specimens, this means maintenance of stable temperature and relative humidity (RH). Ideally, temperature should not exceed 70  F (or mold growth may begin) and RH should not be less than 62% (or the object will be desiccated). Fluctuating temperature and humidity are the most destructive agents. Protection from excessive light is also necessary. Ordinary incandescent lights can cause fading; most fluorescent lights are potentially worse, and prolonged exposure to direct sunlight is the most damaging of all. Specimens should be stored in polyethylene bags sealed with masking tape, or, preferably, one of the commercial transparent tapes. When humidity or temperature cannot be controlled, the careful sealing of bags is imperative. Space precludes any further discussion of specific cleaning and stabilizing procedures to be employed with dry or wet site perishables. Final Preparation

After the cleaning and stabilizing procedures have been completed, the specimens and impressions are nearly ready for analysis. Actual examples of prehistoric fiber artifacts generally require no further processing, but impressions and positive casts taken from impressions may need an additional preparatory step. Frequently, the detail on impressions or positive casts is difficult to perceive even under the best lighting conditions. In order to maximize the data potentially available from such specimens, it is often advantageous to coat the surface with talc applied via a soft brush or with sublimated ammonium chloride. These procedures bring the technical details into sharp relief and greatly facilitate their analysis as well as photography. The results are often spectacular and well worth the minimal effort involved. Logistic preparation for the analysis of actual fiber artifacts and impressions are minimal. A clean, well-lighted area with plenty of layout space is

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desirable, along with a variety of instruments. While unaided visual inspection is occasionally sufficient, the analyst must often resort to a 5–10 hand lens or a variable-power stereoscopic microscope; hence, these instruments should always be available. An ideal analytical milieu includes a variable power stereoscope with an integral high-resolution digital camera connected to a HD large format screen with image capture capabilities. Considerable prodding and poking is frequently necessary to expose details of manufacture and a variety of metal probes should be on hand for this purpose. Measurements should be taken in the metric system with a precision sliding or digital caliper. Proper lighting is crucial to the analysis of fiber artifacts and the analyst should experiment with a variety of combinations to achieve the best results.

Analytical Methods As with other compositional classes of artifactual materials, no universally accepted methodological protocols exist for the analysis of plant fiber artifacts. However, there are widely accepted guidelines for the analysis of most types of fiber artifacts. The suggested procedures outlined below derive from a series of what have become for most fiber analysts ‘the standard references’, though it should be stressed that other analytical strategies have been and are still in use. As defined here, the analysis of any kind of fiber artifact is essentially a progressive and reductive taxonomic or classificatory exercise, the ultimate results of which are analytical types or, in some cases, idiosyncratic categories. In this context, a type consists of a constellation of manufacturing attributes or features the collective total of which is the specimen under scrutiny. Because, as noted in the Introduction, many of these construction attributes are culturally standardized, the resultant ‘types’ are perforce considerably more than simply the convenient creation of the analyst. Basketry and Textiles

Basketry is a class of fiber artifact which includes several distinct kinds of items, including rigid and semirigid containers or baskets proper, matting, and bags. Matting is essentially ‘two-dimensional’ or flat, whereas bags are ‘three-dimensional’. Bags can be viewed as intermediate forms because they are two-dimensional when empty but three-dimensional when filled. As Driver (1961) points out, these artifacts can be treated as a unit because the overall technique of manufacture is the same in all instances. All forms of basketry are manually woven without frame or loom. As all basketry is woven, it is technically a variety of textile.

For most analysts, the term ‘textiles’ is reserved for fiber artifacts which are infinitely flexible cloth fabrics produced with a frame or loom. While there is obviously some overlap between basketry and textiles (e.g., twined cloth), the presence or absence of a frame or loom is a reasonably consistent classificatory diagnostic. The analytical protocols presented here for basketry and textiles follow Adovasio and Emery, respectively. According to Adovasio, the classification of basketry may be likened to the taxonomy of living or extinct plants and animals. The operation consists of two basic steps. The basketry assemblage from any given site is first divided into major groups or subclasses of weaves; then each subclass is divided into technological types. The entire procedure reduces the assemblage to progressively smaller units of increasingly greater taxonomic resolution or precision. It is generally agreed that basketry may be divided into three subclasses of weaves that are mutually exclusive and taxonomically distinct: twining, coiling, and plaiting. The potential number of technological types within each subclass is relatively great. Twining is a subclass of basket weaves made by sewing stationary (passive) vertical elements, or warps, with moving (active) horizontal elements called wefts. Twining is used to produce containers, mats, and bags, as well as fish traps, hats, clothing, and other less typical basketry forms (Figure 1). Coiling is a subclass of basket weaves made by sewing stationary horizontal elements (the foundation) with moving vertical elements (stitches). Coiling techniques are used almost exclusively in making containers and hats but are very rarely used for bags. Mats and other forms are seldom, if ever, produced by coiling (Figure 2). Plaiting is a subclass of basket weaves in which all elements pass over and under each other without engagement. For this reason, some analysts described plaited basketry as woven not sewed. Plaiting can be used to make containers, bags, mats, and a wide range of other less-standardized forms. Assignment of specimens to subclasses or types depends on the identification and quantifications of shared attributes or clusters of attributes. As noted above, attributes may be defined as features of manufacture, the sum total of which is the individual specimen. A variety of attributes can and have been employed to classify basketry or textiles. Such diverse criteria as the object’s shape, rigidity or flexibility of the weave, and elements of decoration (to note but a few) have been used with widely varying degrees of success. It is my position that subclasses or types should be defined exclusively by attribute of wall construction.

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Figure 1 Schematic showing some common types of twining. As labeled, (a) is Close Simple Twining, S-twist Wefts; (b) is Open Simple Twining, S-twist Wefts; (c) is Close Simple Twining, Z-twist Wefts; (d) is Open Simple Twining, Z-twist Wefts; (e) is Close Diagonal Twining, S-twist Wefts; (f) is Open Diagonal Twining, S-twist Wefts; (g) is Close Diagonal Twining, Z-twist Wefts; (h) is Open Diagonal Twining, Z-twist Wefts.

For purposes of this discussion, any basket (or textile) is assumed to have several distinct parts, the most significant of which is the ‘wall’ or main body of the specimen. In most forms of basketry or textile, the main body is readily distinguishable from the edge (selvage or rim) as well as in the case of containers, the center. The wall or main body of a basket, mat, or bag can be constructed by only three basic manipulative procedures or weaves which correspond directly to the three major subclasses of basketry: twining, coiling, and plaiting. The procedures are so distinctive that even when all three are employed in the same specimen (a very rare occurrence), it is easy to detect where one ends and the other begins. After sorting into subclasses, each specimen of basketry is assigned to a technological type. The protocols for assignment to types are detailed in Adovasio (1977) and briefly summarized below. Twined baskets are allocated to types based upon the spacing of the weft rows (open or close) and in the number and sequence of warps engaged at each weft crossing (simple or diagonal). Coiled specimens are allocated to types based on the kind of basket wall or foundation technique and the type of stitch employed. Plaited specimens are assigned to types based on the

number of plaiting elements and the interval of element engagement. Any specimens which cannot be assigned to technological types are placed in arbitrary categories based on their predominant technological, structural, and formal attributes (Figure 3). In addition to typing, all examples of each subclass of basketry are examined for additional attributes. Where feasible, twined specimens are analyzed for selvage (edge treatment), method of starting, method of insertion of new warp and weft elements, method of preparation of warps and wefts, form, wear patterns, adherent residues, function, decorative techniques, and the type and mechanics of mending. Coiled specimens are also assessed for type of rim finish, method of starting, work direction, decorative patterns and mechanics, type and mechanics of mending, form, wear patterns, adherent residues, function, method and preparation of foundation and sewing elements, and type of splice. Plaiting specimens are examined for selvage treatment; method of starting; number, orientation, composition, and preparation of plaiting elements; wear patterns; adherent residues; form; decorative mechanics; mechanics of mending; and function. Because there is considerably greater potential variety to a textile assemblage, the number of possible

1382 FIBER ARTIFACTS Direction of work

False braid at termination of rim

Self rim Simple stitch

Bundle Rods Stitch Split stitch Moving end

Wrapping stitch Work surface: sewing awl is thrust through bundle from this side Stitch slant = l Splice Moving end Fag end

Fag end Non-interlocking stitch Wrapping stitch

Interlocking stitch Double stitch

Normal center Cross section of coil Bundle Rods Stitch

Figure 2 Schematic example of close coiled basketry.

types which may occur can exceed the diversity of types in a basketry assemblage. The protocols for analyzing and classifying textiles are detailed in Emery (1966). Essentially, the process of classification involves initial division of the assemblage into broad groups of specimens based on the number of elements employed in the weaving process. The basic categories are single-element and multiple-element fabrics within which there are a great number of specific structural types and even subtypes. Space precludes any further discussion of assignment to type but, as with basketry, after the typing process is complete, all textile specimens are also analyzed, where feasible, for a wide variety of other attributes including selvage, the use of wrapping elements, accessory structures (e.g., added stitches), elements of decoration, wear patterns, adherent residues, form, and possible function.

and ‘rope’. Netting is a cordage-based fiber construction which Emery defines as a fabric ‘‘built up by the repeated inter-working of a single continuous element with itself’’. Where preservation permits, cordage and cordage-based constructions such as netting may be the most common categories of fiber artifacts recovered. The analysis of cordage is fairly straightforward and the most commonly employed protocols follow Hurley. Cordage and cordage-based fiber artifacts have a relatively limited number of structural attributes when compared with basketry, textiles, or sandals. For cordage, assignment to types is established on the basis of only three structural attributes:

Cordage and Netting

1. Number and composition of plies (1, 2, or more; simple or compound). 2. Direction of initial ‘spin’ (S or Z). 3. Direction of final twist (S or Z).

Cordage is a class of elongate fiber artifacts which are generally subsumed under the English terms ‘string’

The term ‘ply’ as used here means a strand or bunch of fibrous material that is almost always twisted.

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Figure 4 Schematic showing cordage construction.

Figure 3 Schematic showing some common types of plaiting. From top to bottom, they are Simple Plaiting 1/1 Interval, Simple Plaiting 1/1 Interval with Paired Elements, and 2/2 Twill Plaiting.

These strands can be used alone to form single-ply cordage or in groups to form multiple-ply cordage. Multiple-ply cordage is produced by twisting two or more ‘single’ plies together. An individual ply is simple if it consists of a single strand or bunch of material with the same twist, or it may be compound. Compound plies are constructed with multiple strands or bunches of material individually twisted and then twisted with each other in the opposite direction (Figure 4). Compound plies are therefore separate pieces of cordage which when twisted with other plies form a technically distinct cordage type. In addition to assignment to types, cordage is also analyzed for splices (the introduction of new plies), angle of initial and final twist, and, where germane, ancillary cordage manipulations like rat-tailing, crepe twisting, or ply-wrapping. Cordage may also be evaluated for wear, adherent residue, and possible function. Any knots encountered are analyzed and described following a standard knot reference. Netting in various forms is one of the most commonly encountered cordage-based by-products. Unlike basketry, textiles, or cordage, there is no standard or

generally accepted set of analytical protocols for this subclass of fiber artifacts. Following Emery, there are basically only two ways to produce the structure of a single element fabric in any form. These categories are usually called knotless (Figure 5) and knotted netting (Figure 6). Knotless netting may, in turn, be divided into a series of technological types based on the manipulation of the cordage employed in the construction. Such netting structures are either linked or looped and within these categories several variations exist. The analysis of knotless netting therefore involves two separate trajectories: the identification of the cordage type or types used in the construction and then the determination of the variety of knotless netting represented in the piece. In knotted netting, the fabric of the fiber artifact is built up in rows secured by knots. The assignation of knotted netting to types is usually based on the type of knot employed in the construction and the process of building up the individual rows of fabric. Like knotless netting, the cordage employed in the construction of knotted nets must also be analyzed. In addition to the foregoing, all netting constructions are scrutinized for kind and degree of preparation of raw materials employed in the construction, splices, mends, wear patterns, adherent residues, and where possible, form and function. Sandals, Cradles, and Other Fiber Artifacts

Sandals are essentially baskets (or textiles) worn on the feet (Figure 7). Cradles are basically baskets

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Figure 5 Knotless netting. From Tanner 1976: 57 figure 3.8g.

Figure 6 Knotted netting.

designed to contain and/or transport infants Figure 8. The analytical protocols for these fiber artifacts essentially follow those employed for basketry or textiles and, as most sandals or cradles are usually twined or plaited, follow the protocols associated with these subclasses of fiber artifacts. Of course, with both of these formal types of artifacts, certain analytical procedures are unique to these items. For example, sandals require – in addition to identification of the techniques involved in the basic construction of the sole – determination of the methods used to produce such sandal-specific features as toe flaps, heel pockets, ties, sole pads, socks, treads, and insulation. There are also similar cradle-specific attributes which must also be analyzed. After the analysis of the basketry, textiles, cordage, cordage by-products, sandals, and other more or less standardized fiber artifacts from any given assemblage, there will always be finished and partially finished artifacts ‘left over’. These items, which do not comfortably fit standard classificatory or taxonomic schema, are usually called miscellaneous fiber constructions and are allocated to categories based on predominant formal and/or structural attributes. Such categories may include exotic or aberrant types of basketry or textiles whose construction does not correspond to known macro-patterns; as well as such diverse items as fiberwrapped sticks, fiber ‘rings’, or ‘doodles’. A collection also usually contains construction materials or individual plant fiber or wood components employed in the manufacture or decoration of one or another kind of fiber artifact. Space again precludes any delineation of the protocols to be Binding loop Splice

Weft Warp

Figure 7 Schematic example of a twined sandal.

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Figure 8 Example of an open twined cradle.

employed for such items but details are available in Adovasio (1977). Additionally, sandals, cradles, and other lessstandardized fiber artifacts are also examined for wear patterns, adherent residues, mends, decorative mechanics, and, of course, raw materials and their method(s) of preparation.

Raw Materials Concurrent with the typological and attribute-oriented analysis of fiber artifacts is the determination of the source or sources of plant-derived and other raw materials used in their construction. The techniques for the identification of macro-plant remains are detailed in Macroremains Analysis and will not be reiterated here. It should be stressed, however, that the identification of raw material sources is a critical part of the analysis of fiber artifacts and often is more time-consuming than the structural analysis of the specimens themselves.

Photography In the processing of prehistoric fiber assemblages, the crucial step of specimen photography generally intervenes between the analysis and the description and

interpretation of the data. After analysis, representatives of each technological type and miscellaneous category should be photographed. If feasible (and this is my practice), virtually all specimens should be photographed even though this may be timeconsuming and costly. Minimally, the analyst should photograph both sides of at least one representative of each type or miscellaneous category and each complete or nearly complete specimen. Where warranted, close-ups of construction details such as centers, rims, splices, and other attributes of basketry should be taken, as well as multiple views of three-dimensional items. The latter should include plan views and profiles. Photography of fiber artifacts, like photography of any other class of artifact, requires a considerable degree of skill and patience. As in the analysis process, the photographer must frequently experiment with lighting angles and intensities to bring out the significant features. All specimens should be photographed in their ‘normal’ orientation. For instance, with basketry specimens, twining fragments should be positioned with the warps vertical and the wefts horizontal; coiling fragments should have the foundation horizontal and the stitches vertical. Fragments of simple plaiting should be oriented with one set of elements parallel to the long axis of the viewer, while twill plaited fragments should be arranged so that the crossing points of opposing sets of elements form a series of versus parallel to the long axis of the viewer. Complete or nearly complete specimens of any subclass of fiber artifact should be oriented as their specific characteristics dictate. An easily read metric scale should be included in all photographs.

Description, Compilation, and Interpretation Upon completion of the analysis and classification of any assemblage of fiber artifacts, the specimens must be described, the resultant date compiled and, ultimately the collection must be interpreted. Adovasio (1977) and Emery (1966) provide appropriate standardized descriptive protocols for basketry and textiles respectively, while Hurley (1979) affords the same for cordage. Andrews, Adovasio, and Carlisle (1986) offer a model for sandal descriptions, and Andrews and Adovasio (1980) include descriptive schema for netting and a variety of miscellaneous fiber constructions. If properly analyzed and described, and if the specimens so treated were recovered from tightly controlled archaeological contexts, the potential information recoverable from even the smallest ‘scrap’ of fiber artifact is potentially illuminating on a wide range of

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issues. Even when specimens are recovered from contexts with limited or no stratigraphic chronological control, they may often inform about their makers in a way that no other artifact class can. As noted above, this information is encoded into each fiber artifact specimen and only requires the proper methodological protocols for decipherment. The decoding process, while superficially formidable at times, is relatively simple and certainly well within the capabilities of most discerning and patient professionals and laymen. Excellent case studies of prehistoric fiber artifact assemblages are numerous and several have been cited above. Any or all of them as well as countless others attest most eloquently to the probative power of fiber artifacts in a wide variety of arenas. While among the most fragile products fabricated by prehistoric artisans, fiber artifacts often serve as the most enduring legacy of the life and times of the individual craftsperson and social milieu which produced them. See also: Caves and Rockshelters; Conservation and Stabilization of Materials; Frozen Sites and Bodies; Macroremains Analysis; Preservation, Modes of; Sites: Waterlogged.

Further Reading Adovasio JM (1977) Basketry Technology: A Guide to Identification and Analysis. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Adovasio JM, Hyland DC, Andrews RL, et al. (2002) Wooden artifacts. In: Doran GH (ed.) (2002) Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery, pp. 166–190. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Adovasio JM, Laub RS, Illingworth JS, McAndrews JH, and Hyland DC (2003) Perishable technology from the Hiscock

site. In: Laub RS (ed.) Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences Volume 37: The Hiscock Site: Late Pleistocene and Holocene Paleoecology and Archaeology of Western New York State, pp. 272–280. Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Andrews RL and Adovasio JM (1980) Perishable Industries from Hinds Cave, Val Verde County, Texas. Ethnology Monographs 5. Pittsburgh: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. Andrews RL, Adovasio JM, and Carlisle RC (1986) University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 34, issued jointly as Ethnology Monographs No. 9: Perishable Industries from Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Malheur County, Oregon. Pittsburgh: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. Andrews RL, Adovasio JM, Humphrey B, et al. (2002) Conservation and analysis of textile and related perishable artifacts. In: Doran GH (ed.) (2002) Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery, pp. 121–165. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Baumhoff MA (1957) Introduction to basketry: A proposed classification by He´le`ne Balfet. University of California Archaeological Survey Reports 38 47: 1–21. Budworth G (2003) The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots and Ropework. London: Hermes House. Croes DR (ed.) (1992) Occasional Paper 6: The Wetland Revolution in Prehistory. Exeter: Prehistoric Society, Wetland Archaeology Research Project, University of Exeter. Driver HE (1961) Indians of North America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Emery I (1966) The Primary Structure of Fabrics: An Illustrated Classification. Washington, DC: The Textile Museum. Hurley WM (1979) Prehsitoric Cordage: Identification of Impressions on Pottery. Washington, DC: Taraxacum. King ME (1975) Archaeological textiles. In: Fiske PL (ed.) Irene Emery Roundtable on Museum Textiles 1974 Proceedings, pp. 9–16. Washington, DC: The Textile Museum. Weide DL and Webster GD (1967) Ammonium chloride powder used in the photography of artifacts. American Antiquity 31(1): 104. Weltfish G (1932) Problems in the study of ancient and modern basket makers. American Anthropologist 34: 108–117.

FOOD AND FEASTING, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS Christine A Hastorf, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary commensality Fellowship at table; the act or practice of eating at the same table. cuisine Style of cooking (sometimes the prepared food). diet A prescribed selection of foods. dish A particular item of prepared food.

feasting Eating an elaborate meal (often accompanied by entertainment). food Any substance that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue food. foodways The eating habits and culinary practices of a people, region, or historical period. gastro-politics The everyday domestic politics of the allocation of food. household archaeology A branch of archaeology concerned with the study of the material culture and activities associated with ancient households. meal The food served and eaten at one time. subsistence Minimal resources for subsisting.

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Food is the meeting place of nature and culture. One cannot unravel one side from the other, making food and all its components engagingly cultural while being driven by the biological. In many communities, food is the principal medium for social interaction, both for prestige gain as well as for comfort and communality. Food is the driving force of vast productive fields as well as small, intimate family meals sitting around a hearth. Both of these are goals in archaeological inquiry. Eating stimulates the memories of every past meal while being driven by the politics and economies of the day. The histories of people’s experiences can be read through the histories of their food use. Food in fact is so basic to life that we often overlook its centrality in our studies, assuming it is insignificant despite it being so obviously present on a daily basis. Eating food is both banal and fraught with consequences, giving it the power to alter and influence. Although we require food, we impose categories upon our food ingredients, making some potential food items unacceptable for consumption and others acceptable, based on a range of emotional, historical, social, economic, and political decisions. But these rules also help people choose edible foods in new settings and lessen the daily issue of what to eat. As Andrew Sherratt aptly stated, we do not eat species, we eat meals. The study of food is a perspective, an approach, a constellation of questions about the past, and thus a way of doing archaeology. It is not that food does not inspire intellectual thought; it does. Food makes researchers think broadly and deeply about social life. Food production, preparation, storage, serving, and consumption play a part in the creation and recreation of cultures, nations, groups, families, individuals, genders, and personal identities. Food is also material, allowing us access to many aspects of past human society. Giving food creates relationships and therefore encourages sociality. Food sharing is probably the most common social act and gift in human history. Gift exchange occurs virtually in every human interaction, if not as food or things, then at least as information, texts, or attention. Things that are given hold a different meaning than owned or purchased items. A gift is a thing and an act. The gift, with its obligation, holds the possibility of continuing interactions as well as material return. Food gifting develops social relationships of alliances between individuals and therefore larger social units. Even nonmarket societies differentiate between exchange value (the worth of an object when it is exchanged) and use value (the worth of an object based on its use). Meals and dishes have fluid meanings, well beyond what is physically eaten. The socially sensitive within a specific culture can ‘read’ the occasion, based on the

type, quantities, and presentation of the meal. Even if one is studying a new social event, there are cultural rules and proscriptions surrounding the meal that, when applied, identify the type of event and the social relationships of the actors. This is helpful for the archaeologists to bear in mind in their interpretations, as some settings have spatial data that can identify where food was presented and consumed. The study of meals, foodways, food, and cuisines can help archaeology recover the humanity of the past. Food garners meaning with every bite. It participates symbolically in defining boundaries between the self and the other from regional cuisines, regional production, to religious taboos. Food selection is based on a combination of cultural factors, psychological factors, and ecological availability. Selection is, in part, built upon the memory of past experiences, accentuating certain senses, thoughts, and feelings at each new event. The sensory factors include taste, odor, texture, levels of satiation as well as the settings in which food is consumed, the flavor of the food and its perception; all these contribute in forming a strong corporeal memory. Food scholars agree that human desires are learned and are not wholly dependant upon the nature of foods themselves. Even those few predispositions that humans do have, like a desire for sweetness, salt, and fat, can be unlearned and channeled. As a child grows up in a particular culture, surrounded by traditional culinary preferences, s/he learns what items are desirable as well as the appropriate combinations and quantities of these foods. Most often, food choices are dictated by age, gender, context, and relational experiences. Choices are made daily and seasonally. Large events are planned for, resources are hoarded, utensils are borrowed, and labor is called up. Events like weddings can take years of preparation and planning.

Food Preferences Edmund Leach pointed out three food categories: edible, edible but not eaten/tabooed food, and edible but not recognized as food. These categories are culturally constructed and in some ways are physiologically arbitrary. There are a range of poisonous things that are considered delicacies. In addition, there are many edible substances in environment that people do not consume. Further, people can transgress their own rules of edibility if situations change. During low levels of food production situations, less desirable foods grown and collected are consumed. An extreme example is seen in emergency settings with the threat of starvation in the acts of cannibalism. Food preferences have a genetic bias. Sweet is the earliest and most innate taste desire that humans

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share with other primates. This has been linked to a desire for ripened fruit and mother’s milk. While all people might begin their lives desiring sweet tastes. This desire for sweetness can and has been modulated culturally, as seen in the overpowering need for sugar products in the English and American diets while in France and the Middle East, sugar is less desired. Over the past 500 years sugar has become a powerful force in the creation of modern European economic (and moral) decisions. Desire for sweetness has escalated in the capitalistic commodity trade. During the development of international trade, first with sea traders and the spice trade, sugar, like pungent spices, evolved from a rare exotic into an essential commodity through the manipulation of an ‘objective’ taste, reorienting not only dietary esthetics but also state economies and political positions. Such a broad potential in food preferences invites us to think critically about the ways food reflects past societies, both in stasis and in change. Chemistry is part of the interest in sweetness. People gravitate to some distinctive flavors to enhance their eating pleasure. In foraging societies, the most preferred tastes are fatty and sweet. These flavors are associated with well-being and confer superiority to the consumer. Strong tastes or flavors are often linked to life stages and initiation rites, where youth consume especially strong-flavored foods (chili peppers, meat, alcohol, tobacco), and either don’t have food or have too much food to imprint the initiate during the ritual. Piquant foods should be identifiable in the archaeological record, if we add characteristics like taste to our food descriptions. Like food preferences, most taste aversions are learned. Eating something that swiftly creates nausea can strongly encode distaste for the substance that instills a food aversion throughout a lifetime. Visceral reflexes direct these aversions to specific foods, even if the foods are edible, clean, and do not generate an allergic reaction. Powerful emotive events can also participate in converting an aversion to a liking, as they reform the person into a new social position within society. Food prohibitions are the mirror image of food selection. Most taboos (food prohibitions) are group specific. Although there are rules for what is to be eaten, by whom and when, these are less common than prohibitions of consumption by social position. Certain foods are deemed appropriate for some people but not for others, based on political, religious, moral, or social constructs. This is the basis for food taboos. Most taboos tend to be linked to conditions (like pregnancy) or activity (like planting a field) or they are dictated by religious dicta, active for the whole community. There are also food selection models that

are similar to taboos, but these are oriented toward the food item themselves. These types of taboos are based on the physical qualities of the plants and animals. It is believed that, if consumed, the plant’s or animal’s physical characteristics will be transferred to the consumer and will enhance or harm the individuals. Another important food preference and selection model revolves around scarcity, value, restricted access, and hierarchy (social or political ranking). Strong food preferences are usually applied to expensive, scarce, or highly valued foods. Rare or expensive foods are often associated with festive occasions, consumed at special occasions, like meat in the Andes or champagne in Europe. These types of foods play a part in creating varied forms of social, political, and economic differences. Food preferences are built upon historical traditions. They are based not only on taste and texture but also on processing and cooking methods. The speed of adopting new foods is based upon accessible food processing technologies. If a new plant or animal fits into an ongoing culinary tradition, storage, cooking, or processing practices, acceptance will be rapid. When there is no precedent for processing or cooking a new foodstuff, the ingredient is less often or more slowly adopted. Historically, we have this displayed in staple crop adoption. Adding maize to a grain cuisine is an easy adoption, because the same storing, cooking, and meal activities are applied. Adding a tuber crop into a grain diet requires new storing, processing, and cooking strategies that will need to be imported or developed. This slows acceptance, as these additions are hurdles to the psyche and the daily practice of the consumer. This model is testable archaeologically, useful in the study of agricultural and cooking techniques, as well as in contact and cuisine. Social difference is perhaps one of the most common active principles of cuisine. Foods can be desirable in one group yet abhorred in others, thus setting up a central feature in defining group boundaries. Identity differences based on differing cuisines operate between every group. Self-identity situates the individual with respect to their place in the world, creating values, beliefs, and ways to act that are acceptable and comfortable. Identity contributes to how individuals and groups perceive and construct society. Being a person within that society is reaffirmed through shared core foods, dishes, and flavors. People have strong feelings about their own cuisine and often aversions to foods of other cuisines. Cuisine boundaries have been identified in several archaeological examples where neighboring groups regularly have different plant and animal frequencies. Different flavors and dishes were probably identified with these different groups, maintaining their different identities through their foodways.

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Figure 1 The gastro-politics of the feast.

There are a series of terms that are used within the sub-discipline of food archaeology: food, foodways, commensal, and gastro-politics. Food is, of course, the things that are procured and consumed, but the term can also be used in lieu of cuisines, referring to styles of cooking and eating (Figure 1). Foodways is the system of food procurement, distribution, preservation, preparation, presentation, and consumption. Many have begun to use the word commensal to mean communal eating, especially at feasts, after Dietler’s use of it in his 1996 commensal politics article. In these situations, commensality infers group eating, that is not eating alone. Originally, the word ‘commensal’ means ‘sharing a meal’ in Middle English, from Medieval Latin commnslis (com meaning ‘with’ and mnsa ‘table’). But since there are also ecological uses of this word, it causes confusion for some readers. Appadurai introduced a different term for the more political side of communal meals. He uses the term ‘gastro-politics’, a useful concept as it stresses the charged innuendoes and ulterior motives that underlie supra-family meals. This dynamic can occur at family meals as well. These political dimensions of meals indicate and construct social relations of equality, intimacy, and solidarity. They also sustain relations characterized by rank, distance, or difference.

Archaeological Evidence of Food Archaeology is a material endeavor and fortunately, many artifacts are correlates of past food use. Plant and animal remains dominate, but hearths, ceramics, chipped and ground stone, storage bins, organic residues, architecture, baskets, human bone, chemical residues, human bone isotopes, phosphates, storage pits, middens, and the environment can all be relevant. A surprising range of historical accounts, like shipping orders, shop lists, and diaries, contain information about past food patterns, adding strength and dimensionality to excavated material. Therefore all

domains of archaeological studies demonstrate the potential for studying the past through the lens of food. Diet and subsistence questions have been core topics in processual archaeological approaches. These subjects are addressed through studying the temporal trends of data gathered in most archaeological projects. Dietary studies have also had particular success with the newer microanalytical work on organic substances, phytoliths, isotopes, and starch. A social foodways approach to studying the past has also received attention with a focus on multiple data sets and historical context. How much information is sufficient to study foodways, especially their social dimensions? How do the different parts of a meal or a dish link people to things and things to ingredients? In what different contexts are the food remains found and can we separate out the different stages in the foodways sequence archaeologically? We can see the traces of many food activities through the stages in food procurement and their material correlates, filling in the small, repetitive activities of the larger event. Food preparation is a sequence of activities, a chaıˆne ope´ratoire. The taskscapes of meal preparation contextualize food patterns. By looking at the activities in turn: procurement-production, processing for curation, storage, processing for consumption, display, serving, eating, and rubbish disposal through artifactual distributions, depositional histories, and covariance, past foodways and their cultural contexts become visible. We can identify some of these steps in the archaeological record, with the data and analysis available. Questions asked about production, difference, cultural boundaries, colonialcontact situations, class, community, livelihood, gender, family size, politics, seasonality, and personhood, all can be lined up to these tasks of food creation and cuisine. Recent publications addressing the archaeology of food are helping open up these issues of cultural identity, cultural change, and the vast symbolic

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universes that are uncovered in food studies. Food studies have developed in a range of sociological, historical, and anthropological approaches that include ecological anthropology, cultural materialism, economic archaeology, Marxist anthropology, exchange, political foodways, structuralism, symbolic anthropology, cognitive food studies, cultural reason, practice theory, religious rituals, psychological approaches, memory, and food traditions. Archaeologists studying economic archaeology, subsistence change, political archaeology, social archaeology, historical archaeology, zooarchaeology, and paleoethnobotany along with other subdisciplines have successfully applied a foodways approach to a range of political and social questions, initiating the food archaeology trajectory (see Paleoethnobotany; Archaeozoology). There are a series of operational principles within food archaeology that all studies build upon. The first assumption is that the material culture of food can reflect as well as create social relations and groups. A second working assumption is that caloric efficiency and ‘practicality’ do not guide all actions with regard to food consumption but traditions and cultural constitution also participate in determining what is desired and disliked. A third premise is that food is a transformative agent. Relationships are forged between people through the food they eat together. Food transforms people, not only by sustaining them, and even transforming their mood and corporeal situation, but also through the sociality of the food event and the connections gained in eating together. Part of this assumption is that eating is a sensual act, including the touching with hands, lips, mouth, and skin, as well as activating smell, and vision. These senses all participate in the act of consumption, not only creating the action but also its associated memories not only creating the action but also aiding memory of the meal. This transformative quality is part of the action of food. Transformation is therefore in both, the body where the euphoria and chemical changes occur, and also in a social transformation by eating and talking together at the meal. Another principle is that meals and dishes are not just symbols and metaphors of society, they also are agents in social process. Actions link into the power of memory. Like heirlooms, certain consuming experiences can evoke strong emotions and even sustain people when there is little else. As food and drink truly keep people alive, they become the metaphor of life and society. Food is what most people in the past spent most of their time thinking about and planning their actions around. Examples of food/commensal studies in the archaeological literature are becoming increasingly common. Many scholars have realized how robust and

informative such an approach is, leading them to use food as their entrance into the past. The most productive studies have been comparative, either through time or by comparing different social or economic subgroups within one society. These archaeological examples include agricultural production, hunting and collecting patterns and exchange, household storage and processing, forms of cooking, relations with the dead through meals, meal styles, cuisines, shifts in serving styles (especially as these relate to the size of the consuming group and its social implications) different classes within one society (such as servants or slaves), the place of women within the family, depositional patterns, and a sense of pollution and corporeal world view, and evidence of food taboos.

Feasts In the comparative vein, archaeologists have been able to seek and identify different meal types, most commonly in the form of feasts as opposed to daily meals. Feasts are often considered political, in part because of the impact of public food-gifting and performance on interpersonal and interfamilial relations. Food and drink are the media that embody hospitality and largesse, leading to obligation. The definition of a feast is a meal for a group larger than a household or family, honoring someone or something while gaining prestige for the organizers. Once there is more than one person at a meal, there is political intrigue, giving all feasts a political edge. Feasts reaffirm and realign social positions, often more overtly than the daily fare. They operate at many levels. They condense sociality and escalate the potential for realignment. Individuals create, maintain, and contest their positions of power and authority as conflicting interests can transform the structures of the systems themselves. There are a series of political issues linking to feasts that can be addressed such as internal social relations, factions, and the political impact of gifting. Working at the scale of the feast, its structure, and size, allows archaeologists to investigate the past on the scale of the individual society rather than the broad sweep that is usually addressed in political economic studies. Additionally, feasts often leave material evidence, in rubbish dumps, ditches, or burnt houses. It is at this analytical scale that we can track the negotiation of influence and authority. This is most clear in the famous potlatch (a feast gathering of multiple families occurring in groups along the Pacific Northwest coast), where there is aggressive gifting and even shaming, to maintain and realign the familial positions within the greater society. These feasts bring enemies together to exchange

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within a ritualized space and time. While fights can break out, these spaces allow for communication in nonhierarchical societies (societies without a higher political authority). These large potlatch feasts often leave material evidence. Feasts are performances, with much discussion during their preparation, comment on the presentation, amount and quality, and corporeal reaction of satisfaction and pleasure or indigestion during the event as well as deconstruction and interpretation afterwards. Feasts often include explicit performances as well, processional arrivals, music, entertainers, dancing, in addition to the often codified sequence of courses and drink display and presentation. All of this requires a great deal of preparation or a cadre of specialists. The foodstuffs must be gathered, storing more than any one family could eat. The ingredients must be processed and cooked by knowledgeable people, often bringing many together at one time. Archaeologists often claim to identify feasting locations based on the unusual concentrations of food preparation evidence. Feasts may have many goals, including increasing group solidarity, paying debts, maintaining social relations, tribute collection, using food and labor surplus, promoting prestige, demonstrating power, displaying opulence, gaining allies, frightening enemies, making peace, instigating war, exchanging valuables, seeking marriage partners, celebrating initiation rites, arbitrating of disputes, maintaining social control through sanctions, communicating with the deities, or honoring the dead. Detailing the types of meal events allows us to list the agendas that could have been operating and therefore some of the social ramifications of these events. Essential in a feast, however, is inequality and indebtedness. No matter how congenial a feast is, invited guests who willingly consume become indebted to the host, who gains status and prestige with every successful event. These events also illuminate the actions in a political system. Most feasts are orchestrated by leaders with some power and authority. These leaders and their families are expected to orchestrate a successful event, rallying the people to gather and cook the food, as well as to convince the invited guests to come. There is tension and cajoling in all of this. When we find these events archaeologically, it is worthwhile to remember these political aspects. Ethnographies from Papua New Guinea have illustrated to us how feasts are the central cog in the political world of alliance-building and warfare of the highland farmers and herders. There, it can take up to 20 years to prepare for one feast. Pigs are the most important food item that is shared and

consumed, and are usually eaten only at feasts. In preparation, much energy and discussion occurs around the pig herd. Females raise the animals into items of wealth through affinal exchanges, to equilibrate marriage exchanges or be presented as food at feasts. Presentation of butchered pork tracks a thin line between amicable sharing of food with one’s friends and family in a gesture of largesse and social one-upmanship and aggressive shaming (killing) of one’s enemies through overfeeding. With the banning of internecine warfare, feasting has become the main avenue for community prestige. The harvested yams are displayed and the neighbors invited over. In a feast of excess, they shame their neighbors by proffering food that exceeds what they received at their neighbor’s previous feast. These are escalatory, competitive feasts for community and lineage aggrandizement. The feast is full of symbolic expressions of ambivalence surrounding affinal relationships while simultaneously attempting to control competing desires to fight. Symbolic statements made in the food presentations are strictly coded like a grammar. Each feasting event says something about the politics of the performers. Who is invited to a feast, who comes, who gives food to whom, who eats with gusto, and so on, providing much to talk about, and much to disapprove of. Thus, the feast opens as well as realigns the political settings of the community. Dietler and Hayden, in an important book on archaeological feasts, define a feast as communal consumption of food and/or drink in an unusual event, a bombardment of the senses. Dietler makes the case that there is always a ritual component to a feast, in that there is a protocol with signified meanings and symbols that differ from everyday activities. These attributes include the setting, the accompanying social interactions, the performance, with singing, story-telling, toasting, oration, as well as the food and its special presentation. But there is more; feasts also include sensual, physical, and memory changes. Weismantel notes how one does not just gain a sense of euphoria at a feast, an excess of things pleasurable, heightened serotinin and glucose, but also synesthesia (an overloading of the senses of sound, taste, sight) that breaks down and merges the actions and presence of all attending. In these altered states, things and people form a memorable experience. Feasts have become a popular topic in archaeological discourse, as seen by the recent plenary sessions at the Society for American Archaeology meetings of 2002 and 2003 with regular symposia at the Theoretical Archaeological Groups in England, Germany, and Italy. Previous archaeological studies have investigated feasting without realizing it. For example, most

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functional pottery and lithic tool analyses address food processing, serving, or consuming, but foodways is usually left out of most discussions about these artifact classes! Brian Hayden and Michael Dietler have promoted feasting in archaeological interpretation, centering the investigation of these meals prominently within political, economic, and ritual research. Feasts are, they claim, the material manifestation of political action, especially in small-scale societies, although they work at all levels of every society. They place food at the center of the debt relationship created by the gift of feeling full. In the introduction to their book, Dietler and Hayden ask if there can be a theory of feasting. Studying the political economy of a society requires the study of feasts. Besides the grand feasts that are large, identifiable events, we must also be aware that special meals can occur at all levels of society. Even the poorest, simplest cultural group has special meals. These might be harder to tease out in the archaeological record, but they did exist. The ‘festive landscape’ in any given society, therefore, will always be a palimpsest of several different forms of commensal politics. Many of these feasting activities will have material correlates, making the identification of a feast in the archaeological record more possible. Rather than debate whether every feast is a ritual, it is more important to seek the political component that is magnified in these meals, allowing these events to contain heightened social value at the same time as being a nexus for the realignment of social and political outcomes. Issues that have been highlighted in the study of feasts are the political structure of communities, the scale and economic place of foreign trade, social stratification, ancestral worship, and its cosmological implications. These questions have been addressed in regions of the world like the American Mississippian culture, China, Neolithic England, Roman Italy, the Middle East, Medieval England, the Philippines, the American Southwest, Polynesia, the Andes, and Mexico to name a few. While there is no universal labeling system, categories are making their way into the feasting literature. These discussions can be organized into feast types, each with associated increasingly overt political agendas. Because these terms are being increasingly applied in the literature, sometimes without full discussion of the social and political ramifications, we will go through them here. As with all categorizations, they are broad and stereotypic. There is always a worry when a single label is placed on a large cluster of acts, because different social actions and understandings are often united when they should not be. It is important to historicize and contextualize the particular setting to understand the meals and the

people that are being studied. Questions to keep in mind while doing so are if these feast ‘types’ are materially distinct and, if so, how can they be identified in the archaeological record. However, they should be used as guidelines only. Three general categories are emerging from the archaeological feast literature. The first meal type is the empowering, entrepreneurial, celebratory alliance or cooperation feast. These feasts are ostensibly a party without political repercussions. These meals can be accompanied by significant political actions but that is not the overt reason for the feast. In societies where there are no hereditary rules for status distinctions, hosting feasts is the main way to gain and maintain any position, and they begin with this type of ‘family feast’. The celebratory feast is defined as a reunion among equals. Wedding feasts, work feasts, and harvest festivals fit in this category. Another feast within this category is the potluck meal, so famous across North America. This broad category could also include the barbeque, increasingly popular in Western societies. While these meals can be large or small, they tend to punctuate certain seasonal or lifestage events. Community solidarity feasts are often highly ritualized. These can occur on a regular basis, as with harvest festivals, or the opening of a new school building. In Chiripa, Bolivia where the author has worked for some years, the community has a feast once a year to honor the schoolteachers. Both the cooks and the teachers change every year but the food ingredients, the mode of preparation, and the rituals surrounding the honoring remain the same. There are the reciprocal aid feasts, which are work-party feasts among people of approximately equal social standing, as when two families exchange harvest help, feasting after the work is completed. These meals are only vaguely politically charged. By definition, the potluck feast is a humble affair. There is no lasting largesse, as each participant brings something for all to sample. Of course the dishes can be special, but they often seem to be simple, even comfort foods, rather than more elegant, harder to prepare, or exotic dishes that we often associate with feasts. Their existence in the past is probably common and archaeologists are beginning to find evidence for them in surprising situations. This large class of meals can be a major forum for labor mobilization in prestate as well as in neighborhoods within state societies. They can be associated with social cohesion. The participants can have the same political standing, expecting some general form of reciprocation. These meals can promote kin relations, solidarity, and social maintenance. This category as it stands is very broad and encompasses most of

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the world’s feasts. It is hoped that this classification can be elucidated and expanded with more subtle linking interpretations in future research. Potluck feasts have been identified when the food was basically a lot more of the same. The second major feast category has been labeled the patron–client, the patron-role, or the commensal feast, each term having a slightly different emphasis. Such events highlight formal hospitality with unequal social positions in attendance. The title patron–client suggests inequalities, with the giver and receiver clearly identified. There is a stronger, more overt, political and/or economic leitmotiv to these events. Equal reciprocation is not expected, creating subordination, and political or economic debt. Largesse and gracious hospitality are important at these feasts, much like the feasts described in the Odyssey of Homer. In some settings the preparation and cooking are part of the performance, as with Polynesian pig roasts or the Medieval spitted animals. These more elaborate and centralized food preparations can be roughly contrasted to potluck meals with their random disbursed preparation, dishes coming together in one location for the consumption of a group meal. At these patron–client feasts the menu is planned, amounts are calculated, sequences are designed, and skill presentation is as crucial as the quality, quantity, and cooking expertise. The food and other objects that are gifted in abundance allow for the elaborate political repositioning of families and kin groups. These events ripple through the society for many years. These meals display not only of food but also of certain special recipes, special dishware, cutlery, drinking vessels, and the usual dancing and music that are always present and highly valued. Patron–client feasts are common political devices to legitimize status differences. While not hiding from these differences, feasts soften and naturalize the extant status differences, allowing the indebted participants to feel less trapped in their situation, thus muting the cognitive dissonance that exists in these unequal political situations. The variation within this broad category allows for more overt inequalities to be operating, but these feasts have more at stake than the patron–client feasts. While this feast can be dissected into different subtypes (economic, redistributive, diacritical and competitive), only some characteristics that are not covered above are mentioned here. These feasts do not occur on a regular basis but are instigated by specific families, lineages, or institutions when the need arises. Special food gifts within commensal feasts often are thinly disguised loans, as with redistributive feasts, which ultimately must be repaid, probably with interest, through labor or in kind.

Figure 2 A feast before a dance, La Paz, Bolivia.

One outcome is indebtedness. The Austro–Hungarian government harnessed this form of feasting, with dancing and drinking feasts to gain recruits. After the prospective recruits were plied with liquor and were well-drunk, the music would begin. When a young man joined in the dance he joined the cavalry (Figure 2). A concise archaeological example allows us to see both of these feast types at work in the archaeological record. Kristina Kelertas identified patron–client feasts operating in the formation of Bronze Age elites in the Northwestern Danish Jutland region. With a detailed study of macrobotanical remains from a series of sites in the Thy region, she was able to reconstruct changing land use patterns of cereal production and animal herding. She found that agricultural practices intensified after the Late Neolithic into the Early Bronze Age; there was more cattle-grazing and crops specifically producing fodder and wheat were grown. The botanical data showed that the elite residences held the bulk of the bread wheat remains, a new and prized crop in Bronze Age Jutland. This intensification expressed an escalatory cycle of greater numbers of animals for traction and manure to augment the desired crop yields, requiring more fodder to be grown for the greater number of cattle. From a series of excavated domestic houses that spanned several time periods, she surmised that the local leaders initiated feasts in these buildings to recruit labor for their more intensive farming requirements, needed for the surplus they wanted to produce. The feast evidence reflects a form of patron–client feasting where different statuses are present at a special meal of bread and drink. She thinks that the feasts that earlier consolidated allegiances and stabilized

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friendship, spiraled chiefly into power legitimation and inequality in the Later Bronze Age, with more at stake. For Kelertas, the feast was a critical component in societal change that successfully allowed the ideology of concentrated power to emerge, accompanying production intensification through largesse. These first two feasting categories are not easy to separate out materially in the archaeological record, hence the problem of their labels and the benefit of comparison. Status differences that flag the more aggressive patron feasts may be seen in special, elite serving equipment or special food ingredients, yet these, like the language accompanying them are fluid and contextual, making blanket statements difficult as to the active power differences activated in a feast. In addition, the dynamics of these two categories can be operating at the same event as opposing goals of different participants. In fact, as Kelertas’ example demonstrates, the first type, the empowering feast, easily allows for the possibility of the feast to morph into the second type, the patron–client feast, in many settings. There are several of these examples in the archaeological literature. Not only can feasts shift from one category to the other during consumption, but different feasting agendas can operate simultaneously. Participants often arrive with opposing goals and because feasts are long, fluid, and often chaotic affairs, held together by talk and spontaneous exchange, different outcomes can be claimed for the same event. Many feasts that begin in congenial friendly manner can become aggressive drunken brawls. In fact, we will do well to remember the many ethnographic and historical examples of death and attack that have occurred at cooperation or even wedding feasts. These aspects of the feast remind us that feasts were focal points for political tensions, brought to the surface once the alcohol and food had flowed for hours. How these fights concluded determined the future political relations in the region. The ‘festive revolution’ aspect to feasts demonstrates how feasts can be a microcosm of the larger political situation. These categories may not always lead to clear definitions with specific interpretations in the archaeological record; they initiate an array of ramifications of feasts that can be sought and discussed within the data, helping us to see the multiple discourses that were occurring in the past. The third feast category is the diacritical, status, or display feast. This is more overt and definable. These meals actively promote status differences through differential access to ingredients and cuisines, and highlight a sense of selectivity for the clientele. Exclusivity, taste, luxury, and manicured style are applied in these events, being essential to the development of

specialized food manners and cuisines. Stylistic competition is at the heart of this feast type, as emulation and mimicry tactics operate. This feast requires rare, exotic, and new food ingredients or recipes, extra courses, or larger quantities. Luxury foods are presented; if not rare or expensive, then they are presented in an elaborate manner on expensive dishes, or accompanied by unusual events. Gourmands and specialists are often involved in the preparation and the serving, taking longer than most meals in the preparation. In these settings, very expensive or tabooed foods become edible for the participating elite. Special taste and table manners must be learned and applied at these feasts, as these meals are usually highly choreographed, stylistic activities. The concept of civilizing people and society has been linked to such select activities, as these more elaborate performances suggest learned knowledge as well as increased control of the body and its sense of taste and refinement. The ingredients, dishes, and styles reify political differences as they create an elite class with special codes of behavior and taste operating within a larger society. While all feasts create a difference, these diacritical feasts are meant to overtly display it. Many archaeological feasting studies discuss diacritical feasts, given that they are the most obvious, with silver cauldrons and exotic foods. Dietler compares the Hallstatt Iron Age diacritical feast with the Rhone Valley Iron Age patron–client feast to highlight their differing political trajectories, as played out in their feasting behavior. He claims that the Hallstatt leaders held diacritical feasts using foreign Hellenistic vessels to consume the imported and expensive foreign wine. He surmises that the feastgivers were trying to maintain their elevated political standing through the emulation. They imported the whole packet, with foreign and expensive elite objects, food, presented in new, foreign styles. To the south, on the other hand, the Rhoˆne Alpen dwellers feasted without incorporating any foreign artifacts, only the imported wine, which they seemed to consume with gusto. These people retained their own cultural styles of feasting using cauldrons to hold the imported wine. These feasts tended to be primarily drink consuming ones, rather than eating food. The Greeks thought these feasting habits were barbaric. These feast categories and their definitions provide a solid base for archaeologists to conceive of the place of feasts within the political sphere. Their material correlates must be worked out in every situation. The test implications and correlations must be designed with care. Making a comparison between the daily meal and the special, unusual meal is the easiest way of

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identifying a feast archaeologically. If these differences are materialized we should be able to find them. The semiotic world of eating is opened up through a feast, which can tell us about many aspects of the society. One misguided assumption is that feasts are only for the elite of a society. This is due to an emphasis on diacritical feasts being the most securely identified form. While elite feasts are perhaps more easy to identify than other feast types, all groups have feasts at some point, making it imperative for every food study to consider the existence of and the type of feast, through smaller-scale, detailed analyses. Bringing in the more communal potluck and the focused potlatch feast concepts can help us to identify the smaller-scale events. All food studies, whether large-scale feasts or family meals, require attention to artifactual and attribution detail. Those specific topics are covered in other sections of this volume, but it is important here to remind the reader about some of the more successful ways to identify meals or feasts. First, analyzing multiple data sets is essential. Ceramics are useful but linking them to what was served in them and where, allows us to get closer to them. Grinding stones outside of a house are helpful in understanding the socialization of the food preparers; what was being ground and how often ground food was consumed, learned from a detailed toothware analysis would also help understand the gender and familial settings of these preparations. There are some very exciting examples of these types of multiple data set use, in contextual studies in the literature and several of these are listed in the bibliography here. Approaching the past through food usually begins with something relatively small, even insignificant: the contents of a midden or the placement of pots in a house compound. These mundane facts, however, take us somewhere big, towards fresh perspectives on old questions. These questions bring the lived experience closer. Food and its necessity direct much human life, the pattern of daily life, and who was involved. Food practices in the past were undoubtedly as complex and multi-faceted through all spheres of life as they are today. The many trajectories that food allows us to follow into the past will enrich all of archaeological inquiry and place food archaeology firmly in the center of the discipline over the coming years. See also: Agriculture: Social Consequences; Archaeozoology; Household Archaeology; Invertebrate Analysis; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Manufacture; Macroremains Analysis; Organic Residue Analysis; Paleoethnobotany; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Stylistic; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites; Stable Isotope

Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis; Trace Element Analysis; Vertebrate Analysis.

Further Reading Appadurai A (1981) Gastro-politics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8: 494–511. Counihan C and VanEsterik P (eds.) (1997) Food and Culture. London: Routledge. Dietler M (1990) Driven by drink: The role of drinking in the political economy and the cast of Early Iron Age France. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9: 352–406. Dietler M and Hayden B (eds.) (2001) Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Farb P and Armelagos G (1980) Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating. New York: Washington Square Press. Goody J (1982) Cooking, Cuisine, and Class. A Study in Comparative Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumerman G, IV (1994) Feeding specialists: The effect of specialization on subsistence variation. In: Kristin D (ed.) Paleonutrition: The Diet and Health of Prehistoric Americans, Occasional Paper 22, pp. 80–97. Sobolik: Center for Archaeological Investigations. Hard R, Mauldin R, and Raymond G (1996) Mano size, stable carbon isotope ratios and macrobotanical remains as multiple lines of evidence of maize dependence in the American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 3(4): 253–318. Hastorf CA and Johannessen S (1993) Pre-Hispanic political change and the role of maize in the central Andes of Peru. American Anthropologist 95(1): 115–138. Johannessen S (1993) Food, dishes, and society. In: Scarry CM (ed.) Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands, pp. 182–205. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Jones A (1999) The world on a plate: Ceramics, food technology and cosmology in Neolithic Orkney. World Archaeology 31(1): 55–77. Kelertas KA (1997) Agricultural Food Systems and Social Inequality: The Archaeobotany of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Thy, Denmark. PhD Dissertation, Archaeology Program, University of California, Los Angeles. Le´vi-Strauss C (1970) The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology. (translated from the French by John and Doreen Weightman). London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. Mills BJ (ed.) (2004) Identity, Feasting and the Archaeology of the Greater Southwest. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. Mintz S (1985) Sweetness and Power, the Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books. Miracle PT and Milner N (2002) Consuming Passions and Patterns of Consumption, pp. 65–88. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Parker Pearson M (ed.) (2003) BAR International Series 1117: Food Culture and Identity in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Oxford: Archaeopress. van der Veen M (ed.) (2003) World Archaeology: Luxury Foods. vol. 34(3). London: Routledge. Weismantel M (1988) Food, Gender and Poverty. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Welch PD and Scarry CM (1995) Status-related variation in foodways in the Moundville Chiefdom. American Antiquity 60(3): 397–419. Wiessner P and Schiefenho¨vel W (eds.) (1996) Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Wright K (2000) The social origins of cooking and dining in early villages of Western Asia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66: 89–121.

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Food Production, Social Consequences

Foragers

See: Agriculture: Social Consequences.

See: Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient.

FORENSIC ARCHAEOLOGY John Hunter, Univeristy of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary aerial photography A technique of photographic observation and survey of the ground from an aircraft, spacecraft, or satellite which provides detailed information about sites and features without excavation. geophysics The study of the physical properties of the Earth – structure, composition, and development – such as magnetic, electrical, and electromagnetic methods. homicide Homicide is the killing of another human being by one or more others. physical anthropology A subdiscipline of anthropology that views humans as biological organisms, studying human biological or physical characteristics and their evolution. taphonomy The study of the transformation of organic remains after death to form fossil and archaeological remains.

Background Forensic archaeology is about using archaeological principles in contexts which may result in archaeological evidence being presented in a court of law. This is likely to be a criminal rather than a civil scenario, although archaeological evidence can be used in either. However, the work is most likely to relate to finding or recovering the buried remains of murder victims. There is often a misconception that ‘forensic’ archaeology has a more popular basis in determining, for example, the last meal of sacrificed bog bodies, or the nature of fatal illness identified in Egyptian mummies. But these are essentially the application of science to archaeological remains even if some of the techniques used are derived from techniques used in forensic practice. ‘Forensic’ archaeology

has a greater ‘gravitas’ and usually involves working with police forces in the resolution of serious crime, normally murder. The context is invariably modern, the victim is normally a specific named individual with living relatives, and the enquiry is inevitably geared toward identifying and convicting the offender responsible for the murder. The great majority of these offences involve the disposal and concealment of human remains, in whole or in part, as a result of drug abuse, prostitution, or paedophile activities and as such mark an unusual and unpleasant context in which archaeologists may find themselves operating. In addition, a minority of cases involve the search for other types of buried remains, for example, drugs, firearms, or stolen money. Forensic archaeology also has a high profile within the context of mass graves, usually resulting from genocide and human rights abuse, and is discussed separately below. The subject is relatively new in both the US and the UK. Despite some popularly held views, archaeology is less concerned with finding valuable objects in the ground and more concerned with understanding the nature of events in past times. Archaeology is not only concerned with identifying the location of buried remains, but also in developing techniques by which these remains can be recovered, and any associated evidence maximized in order that a reconstruction of events can take place. This chimes well with the nature of criminal investigation and can be denoted under several main headings which provide an overlap between the two disciplines: . Search. Mapping, aerial photography, landscape analysis, geology, land use, and shallow sub-surface geophysics in order to identify clandestine graves. . Recovery. Stratigraphy, recording and planning; physical anthropology; conservation in order to

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excavate and recover victims and associated evidence. . Skeletal analysis. Physical anthropology for distinguishing between human and animal materials, and for the determination of age, stature, sex, trauma, etc. . Environmental science. The value of seeds, pollens, entomology, flora and fauna, etc. for identifying habitats where incidents occurred. . Analytical science. Methods for dating buried materials and for provenancing a range of organic materials and metals in order to associate samples with controls. Sadly, this is not a simple awareness exercise. Even though the archaeological application might be straightforward, the context of personnel hierarchies, protocols, procedures, and legal constraints is very different. It entails a two-way process by which the evidential requirements of the archaeologist need to be understood by other law enforcement professionals, and vice versa. Archaeologists need to be trained in crime scene skills as much as other professionals need to be aware of archaeological interests. A major incident (e.g., homicide) will require specialist input from a range of professional groups, typically the senior investigating officer (SIO), the scientific support manager, the crime scene manager and scene-of-crime officers, forensic scientists, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the forensic pathologist. The success of the operation depends entirely on the interaction and mutual evidential understanding of all the individuals concerned. Many archaeologists are trained in physical anthropology and are generally familiar with human hard tissue for purposes of determining age, sex, stature, trauma, etc. This familiarity also usually extends to being able to distinguish between human and animal bone and is a skill which is particularly useful in assessing the importance of bone material discovered during building operations, gardening, or house renovation. Furthermore, in forensic search scenarios where human remains may have become disarticulated or scavenged, the ability to determine this distinction in situ is both cost-effective and time saving. Archaeology and crime scene investigation have much in common, to the extent that more than a few archaeological graduates have found satisfying career opportunities in scene-of-crime work. Both groups are essentially concerned with identifying, recording, and sampling in an effort to reconstruct past events. In archaeological terms these events might be thousands of years old, in forensic terms maybe just days or even hours old, but the same types of evidence apply, and the same rigors are

necessary. The extent of the timeframe is largely an irrelevance. Archaeology has a history of feeding off other subjects in order to satisfy its holistic needs, but now there is some evidence to suggest that the reverse process is occurring: for example, a recent case study in which a boy’s torso was found in the river Thames received much benefit from the application of techniques originally developed and used in archaeology, namely palynology and stable isotope analysis. This enabled the investigation to be able to interpret the deceased’s likely country of origin and location of last moments. Many police investigations could be described as archaeological scenarios, notably, in the UK the search of the garden of 10 Rillington Place, London in 1953 in the search for victims of John Christie, the saturated 1964 (and subsequently 1988) media coverage of the search of Saddleworth Moor for the victims of Ian Brady, and the Valentine’s Day photographs in the daily press in 1984 when Denis Nilsen’s garden in north London was excavated in the quest for disarticulated remains. More recently the search for bodies at 25, Cromwell Street, Gloucester provided an equal opportunity for archaeological intervention.

Stratigraphy The archaeologist’s understanding of stratigraphy is the key to any involvement in criminal investigation. Archaeology is about identifying different layers of soil by virtue of their color, physical properties, or characteristics, and then interpreting what each individual layer means, thus developing a picture of what occurred in a given place over a period of time. Hence, if a hole has been dug in the ground the layers evident in section, suitably interpreted, can be used to provide a statement of what went on in that particular place over time. Furthermore, given that the individual layers are superimposed, there is a relative chronology present in that it is possible to determine which layer is the earliest in the sequence, which is the latest, and what the chronological order is for the layers in between. The same rules apply whether there are hundreds of layers, for example, as found in deep urban deposits, or just a few. In other words, the section also provides a ‘snapshot’ of events at the time the hole was dug. If a criminal then takes the opportunity to bury a victim in that location, then the ‘statement’ of what occurred and the ‘snapshot’ of the event in time are both altered. These are the features to which the forensic archaeology will need to be alert. A victim buried in a grave is therefore contained within a stratigraphic environment (Figure 1). The grave is effectively a sealed deposit in which the

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0

1 metre

Figure 1 Stylized drawing of grave in profile. ã 2008 Professor John Hunter. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

individual and any evidence pertaining to that individual is sealed. Retaining the integrity of that environment is of great forensic importance since it contains evidence for the identity of the individual, the likely manner and cause of death, and the possible chronology of burial (according to the relative chronology of layers which are both earlier and later). In many scenarios human remains (usually bones) are discovered during building operations, drainage works, or garden cultivation. The remains are removed from the ground, taken away in order to be assessed as being either animal or human, and consequently both the ‘statement’ and the ‘snapshot’ are lost. The bones are effectively ‘stray’ and without context. If, alternatively, they are retained in position then the integrity of the grave can be preserved and important forensic issues of identification, cause and manner of death, and chronology can be given greater credibility. The first two of these are certainly unusual issues for the archaeologist to consider, but they are the key to the nature of forensic excavation and mark a significant point at which ‘traditional’ and forensic archaeology diverge. Retaining the integrity of a burial can resolve in a very simple and effective way a range of likely situations. For example, this can involve the discovery of articulated remains during building or quarrying operations and an assessment of their stratigraphic position in relation to both the structure and other features, or the occurrence of disarticulated material either on the surface or in introduced deposits. In all instances it is a matter of preserving the integrity of any burial and of defining the context of any

deposition. This can often enable a decision to be made as to whether the material is modern (and therefore of potential forensic interest) or ancient and therefore of only archaeological or historic interest. The search and recovery of human materials without awareness of contextual integrity may have the effect of dislocating any remains from their context or, more significantly from a forensic angle, of contaminating evidence with material which derives from earlier and/or later contexts. Any hint of contamination will almost certainly cast doubt in court over (1) the value of the evidence presented and (2) the professional expertise of the archaeologist concerned. Retaining this integrity is the key to understanding what happened. In some instances where human remains have been found partly buried, the archaeologist will be needed to determine whether the remains were originally buried (i.e., as the result of actions by a third party) and have since been partly exposed or scavenged, or have become buried (i.e., by a process of natural soil accumulation, hillwash, etc.). In the former the matter will require criminal investigation, in the latter it may not. The distinction between the two will be negated if the primary investigation and recovery is not carried out archaeologically.

Search The search for missing persons assumes that the individuals concerned are alive in the first instance and may be missing due to medical or psychological conditions as much as to disorientation, abduction, or murder. The shift of search from a living to a deceased target is a gradual one and also necessitates a shift in the techniques deployed. This paper is only concerned with searching for clandestine burials which can involve the deployment of a range of specific techniques and an equally wide range of expert personnel. Most of these searches are highly planned and coordinated, usually by a Police Search Adviser (POLSA). Searches initially commence with noninvasive methods in order to target specific areas, to eliminate others, and to define search boundaries. The information (intelligence) which underpins this process may include a range of factors: offender and geographical profiling, witness accounts, last sightings, database statistics derived from similar scenarios (including disposal patterning), and the suspect’s movements. Ordnance Survey, geological, and land use maps can be used to define access and feasibility of burial; aerial photographs may be commissioned, and appropriate areas defined. As in archaeology, aerial photography may be able to identify areas of disturbance from soil change, shadow, or crop mark although on a scale much smaller than most

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archaeological features observed from the air, and in concealed rather than open locations. All searches require some starting point or location of interest. Without these any search is impracticable. Search is also about eliminating areas from the search, either because they are not considered feasible (e.g., open rocky ground), or because they have been searched without result. It is clear, therefore, that a search team is only likely to eliminate an area with a high degree of confidence. This level of confidence is only achieved by using a sequence of search techniques, including complementary techniques. No one ever wants to find out that a burial was subsequently discovered on an area that had been eliminated. Once these ‘desk-top’ techniques have been concluded, target areas will be identified for more detailed attention. These areas may consist of straightforward tracts of land, individual gardens, or specific small points of interest identified from the air. Graves dug into the ground will invariably leave a trace, even years later. Ground disturbance is likely to have an effect on the surface vegetation, perhaps supporting stronger growth, different species, or presenting different flowering times, compared to the undisturbed surrounding ground. These are longer-term effects. In the shorter term, trampled vegetation and soil may be apparent, as will the local disposal of excess soil which is unable to fit back into the grave. There may also be a topographical effect in that eventual consolidation of the grave fill will cause a depression in the ground surface; this may later become exacerbated when the buried body collapses through the decay process. Both vegetational and topographical change may require skilled observation, usually by POLSAs, archaeologists, or dog handlers who are familiar in such skills. The ranked masses of members of the public, so often photographed ‘helping’ in many early enquiries, may unwittingly eliminate vulnerable evidence of this type. The same effect of disturbance which can create vegetational and topographic change may also lead to the creation of a geophysical signature which differs from the surrounding, undisturbed ground. In effect, the search techniques used so far have been focused on identifying the disturbance caused by the grave, rather than the body lying within the grave. Archaeological geophysics (as opposed to geological or engineering geophysics) is particularly suited to work of this kind as it shares the same requirements and sensitivity for identifying small shallow subsurface targets. It does, however, require there to be a reasonable ‘background’ of nondisturbed ground or of consistent geology in order for the grave to be picked up as being anomalous within that background. Even in wide open areas geophysical techniques are

pushed to their limits to detect grave-size targets, and this may become virtually impossible in many typical search environments, notably rear gardens which display various types of surface, and are overgrown and cluttered with material, both surface and buried, which may interfere with the methodology. Of the three main methods used in archaeology, resistivity and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) are probably the most effective in forensic environments. Magnetometry, which is highly sensitive to local magnetic and ferrous effects, has been found to be less useful, if only in view of the background ‘noise’ present in many of the locations targeted (above). Resistivity is particularly useful in open landscapes such as lawns or areas of turned soil but is likely to require data processing in order to enhance any anomalies detected. GPR, on the other hand, is better in confined spaces and has the ability to detect through dense surfaces. Thus, in contexts where patios, driveways, or swimming pools become targets of search, GPR is a helpful technique in being able to minimize heavy reinstatement costs. It also has the advantage of showing anomalies in ‘real time’ and allows targeting of specific features as the survey progresses. However, there are now several software packages that allow all geophysics techniques to be processed and filtered as well as being converted into 3-D images which allow the operator to maximize the data available. It is important to stress that all geophysical survey methods have advantages and limitations. Electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic techniques all respond to, or are affected by, different phenomena and the various systems are best used to complement each other rather than being used as individual options. For example, a grave in a particular soil environment might not be detected using resistivity, but may be picked up using magnetometry. Experimentation has emphasized the difficulty in detecting graves using geophysics, particularly soon after burial has taken place. Equally, it can take a skilled and experienced operator to recognize the display effects of a burial evident in a radar scan depending on time since disposal. A key element here is the decay dynamic of the buried victim and its effect on detection methods. Archaeological features tend to be inert, whereas a recently buried victim will undergo a process of decay which ultimately (under normal circumstances) will culminate in skeletonization. The speed and extent of this decay process and resulting effects (taphonomics) depends on numerous factors such as depth of burial, wrapping, wetness, temperature, soil environment, oxygen, bacteria, etc., and these, in their turn, may alter the efficacy of the various detection techniques available. Geophysical survey normally operates using 20 m  20 m grids, allowing up to 10 grids to be

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covered in a working day; resistance and magnetometer readings are usually taken at 0.5 m intervals in order to ensure that a grave is adequately sampled. The detection of likely targets either by geophysics, from the air, by field-craft, evidence of scavenging, or by observation of disturbed ground can then be tested by ‘ground truthing’. This can entail trial trenching or, less invasively, the use of a cadaver dog. These dogs are trained to detect the scent of decaying human flesh but ideally require the ground to be ‘vented’ first. This involves the handler piercing the ground in the suspect area often to a depth of around 0.6 m with a narrow metal probe in order to allow any scent to rise to the surface. Often the ground is vented with a series of holes, or in a line which enables the handler to lead the dog into, and across, the suspect area downwind. If the dog responds in a particular place, further action can be taken; if it does not, then the Police Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) will have to decide the next step. One option available to the SIO is to become more invasive in order to be confident that no remains have been buried. For example, in a garden where a number of targets have been found by geophysics but have not been responded to by the dog, a machine might be employed to strip away the topsoil. Used skilfully, machines have a valuable role to play in work of this kind. The use of a wide (toothless) ditching bucket can clear a garden down to undisturbed substrates in a matter of a few hours, allowing any disturbance to be investigated, usually by half-section. Given their destructive nature, machines are best used as a secondary rather than as a primary approach. Used primarily, they may destroy much evidence if any burial is present; used secondarily, they can achieve elimination of an area. Their role in search depends significantly on the intelligence that an SIO may have regarding a given location. Probing can also be used, although this can have damaging effects on a buried victim. Used systematically, it may be possible to identify softer (disturbed) substrates from harder (undisturbed) substrates. This method can also be extended to the use of a corer, which will allow a column of earth to be removed in order to assess the nature of buried deposits. Both methods have destructive implications. Any features discovered, by dog or other methods, can be excavated by hand, usually by half-section. This allows the excavator to identify the size, depth, and nature of the feature as rapidly as possible (there may be many features requiring investigation), as well as showing in section how the feature was infilled. If the feature turns out to be a grave the nature of the infilling may be significant. During the half-section,

spoil will be recovered either by contexts or (more likely) in arbitrary spits and retained, in case the feature is found to contain human remains. In such an eventuality the ‘search’ process will have already interfaced with the recovery exercise: the likely extent and depth of the grave will be known, the nature of the infill identified, and the taphonomics established. Taphonomy is a relatively new area of study which can affect both search and recovery, and has been the subject of extensive focus. These factors will provide valuable information and guidance for the remainder of the recovery process. More significantly, both loss of evidence and the opportunity for contamination to have occurred will have been minimized. Most modern search exercises will be logged by the senior POLSA and produced in report form. This log should include times, dates, areas, methods, decisions made, and locations eliminated. In the event that no victim has been recovered, it provides an invaluable record for future ‘cold case’ reviews in which new technologies and methods might be applied. Many older cases which now come under review have no such log, or even accurate record of where any ‘digging’ took place, and may need to be started from scratch (see Remote Sensing Approaches: Aerial; Geophysical).

Recovery On discovery of buried human remains the area becomes a scene of crime. It will be cordoned off, a common approach path will be identified, and a scene-of-crime team deployed under the auspices of a Crime Scene Manager in order to recover the evidence. Unlike an archaeological site, the crime scene can include both the immediate surface environment of the grave as well as the grave itself. No attempt to investigate the grave will be undertaken until the adjacent ground surface and associated features have been fully recorded by video and photography, and the ground surface subjected to fingertip search. The manner in which the grave may have been concealed, the presence of footprints or tire-marks, and local vegetation may all need to be taken into account before any archaeological activity can take place. Only critical personnel will be permitted into the cordoned area, each will be logged in and out by a uniformed officer, and all will be required to wear special disposable clothing, sometimes known as ‘whites’. These are to prevent the scene being contaminated or confused by material from the clothes of the investigating personnel and include disposable overshoes, hoods and rubber gloves. Masks are intended to minimize the spread of DNA. New tools are invariably

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used for each scene (including spades and trowels, etc.) in order to prevent cross-contamination from other scenes. At most the key team is likely to consist of the forensic pathologist, one or two scene-of-crime officers (one of whom may act as photographer), an exhibits officer, and an archaeologist (if invited). In some instances where hard tissue is concerned, a physical anthropologist may also be included. Physical anthropologists are now becoming increasingly involved in medicolegal matters, especially at postmortems. There may be a briefing first so that all concerned are agreed on a common strategy, and the pathologist is likely to be the lead figure as he/she will be required to give evidence in court on the cause and manner of death. Subject to agreement with the pathologist, excavation is normally geared in the first instance to identifying the grave outline, determining stratigraphic relationships between the grave fill and the surrounding ground, and setting up a recording regime. Fixed points need to be identified and plans produced, although these can now usually be carried out (if requested) by traffic officers using an electron distance measure (EDM). In most circumstances, however, in confined areas plans are more easily and rapidly produced by hand. In most, but not all, cases it may preferable to half-section the grave in order to identify any particular pattern of infill in the exposed section. The section might, for example, show that a grave had been carefully backfilled with specific materials in order to minimize discovery. This might be used to demonstrate in court that the perpetrator was in a sound state of mind in disposing of the body, with resultant implications for motive and outcome. Most grave fills, however, are simple mixes of backfilled substrates and require excavating in numbered ‘spits’ with spoil usually retained in sealed containers such as large plastic dustbins for later sieving. Any exhibits recovered are ‘seized’ by the exhibits officer who will log, number, and bag them and thus commence a chain of custody that will retain the legal integrity of each exhibit until such time that it is required in court. Graves often contain items deliberately concealed by the perpetrator, for example, soiled clothes or a weapon, as well as items conveniently discarded such as cigarette butts or datable newspaper. Forensic recovery is no different from any other type of archaeology in being destructive and therefore requiring the practitioner to excavate according to a research design in order to answer specific questions. Unlike ‘traditional’ archaeology, however, these types of questions tend to pertain to an individual event. The interrogation might consider how the grave was

dug, what tools were used, whether it was excavated in a hurry or had been carefully prepared or even left open, whether it contained an unusual fill or any foreign material, or whether it contained material transferred from the offender into the fill. These and similar questions culminate in the overarching question ‘who killed this individual?’ This type of evidence needs to be looked for and recovered as a matter of priority even if it entails excavating in unusual or unorthodox ways. Equally, the victim needs to be uncovered and removed in a manner that will retain any forensic evidence on the body itself, avoid contamination from nongrave contexts, and prevent additional trauma to the body itself. This often has to be undertaken in confined, screened, or tented areas, sometimes in cellars or narrow gardens, and this can present practical difficulties which have to be surmounted ‘on the hoof’. Space permitting, access to the body may need to be facilitated by digging out a platform from the side of the grave in order that work on the body can take place at the same level. No matter how the job is done, at the end of the day the archaeologist needs to be able to recover essential data according to the highest possible standards in order for it to be presented in court and defended under cross-examination. Often this will need ingenuity and inventiveness, especially if a suspect is being held in custody with specific time constraints under the terms of the UK Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Irrespective of physical constraints, it is essential to produce basic archaeological records in written and graphic terms (Figure 2). Throughout this process, the archaeologist will still need to be aware of other forms of evidence, including any necessary sampling for entomological or environmental purpose, and will be mindful of the limitations of his or her own expertise, and acknowledge when further specialist support is necessary. Records will need to be made in the normal way but, unlike normal archaeological records, they will be subject to disclosure, that is, they will need to be made available to the court, including defense counsel. This includes all written and photographic records, all plans, notes, context sheets, and any dictaphone tapes and is necessary under the terms of the UK Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996. This is a useful reminder that the forensic archaeologist is a witness of the court, not of the commissioning party, and has an obligation to present objective evidence irrespective as to whether he or she is representing the prosecution (the Crown Prosecution Service) or the defense. In this, and other respects, much of the work of the forensic archaeologist differs from that of the more traditional

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C

Defined edge of disturbance 0

1 meter

Wood

A

B Rubble

A B

Rubble, brick and clay

N

Drain D C

D 001 002

004 005

003

Polythene 006 Figure 2 Standard record of grave, including profile and showing recovery of grave fill in numbered ‘spits’. ã 2008 Professor John Hunter. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

archaeologist and may require different skills and experience. Levels of competency in this area have been defined by the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners (CRFP).

Mass Graves Opinions vary as to what constitutes a mass grave, but essentially it is one that contains numerous individuals, often measured in hundreds, and is usually the result of genocide or civil war, although they can result from military conflict or the hurried consequence of natural disasters. Their excavation tends to fall into two types: the recovery of evidence in order to obtain convictions for war crimes, or the need to recover individuals in order to obtain personal identification and facilitate repatriation to families. Mass graves resulting from genocide or

civil war are discussed here. They have occurred in several parts of the world, but most notably in Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. They can pose problems other than simply of scale, often through political interference, cultural differences, lack of appropriate facilities and equipment, and unfamiliarity with archaeological processes by those nominally responsible for excavation. Archaeologists and anthropologists may be part of a team but may not necessarily be in a position to exercise control over the way bodies are recovered and treated. They may need to devise minimum standards with which they are comfortable and which can be presented and defended in court. Mass graves tend to be identified from the air or located on the basis of witness accounts. Concealment is not necessarily a high priority in regions where the government itself has carried out atrocities, although some are very deliberately shielded from

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international gaze, for example, by re-deposition of rubble. Witness accounts are probably the most important methods since the same witness(es) may also provide evidence of the people responsible. Trial trenching, usually by machine, can be used to narrow down the specific location. Geophysics remains a useful technique, but requires a large background area against which the anomaly caused by the grave is visible. Given that many areas around mass graves are known to be mined, this is not always feasible. However, once the grave has been found geophysics may be able to provide information regarding density or nature of deposition within the grave itself. Mass graves tend to be dug and infilled by machine. As such they tend to be of characteristic width (typically around 3 m which is the width of a large machine bucket) and have a ramp at one end. Tyre tracks may still be evident on the surface and, if the grave was also an execution site, there may be cartridge cases and other material to be recorded at the grave edge. Many such graves may be over 2 m deep and will necessitate consideration of collapse and flooding. Other hazards may include live ordnance, or devices planted in the grave by perpetrators, not to mention local hostility. Only in some cases are the victims laid out individually or bagged. In some instances of genocide the bodies are carried to the grave in wagons and tipped in by machine causing a series of discrete depositions of contorted and intermingled remains. Some graves are secondary, that is, the bodies have been removed from a primary grave, and therefore may contain evidence of the primary grave itself, or even of an original execution site. The process of moving human remains by machine inevitably causes some body parts to become detached; it may also entail differential states of decay between individual machine depositions within the grave. The net effect is that the archaeologist can be required to separate out tightly compressed individuals from each other, while at the same time identify soil change, record artifacts and belongings, identify evidence for abuse, and maintain a comprehensive system of recording. Given the varied states of decay and disassociation of remains, recording a mass grave can require a high degree of anthropological knowledge. It will almost certainly require a system that can record threedimensionally and log data simultaneously (typically a total station EDM). One system, for example, allows for the taking of points on the main joints of each individual, thus creating ‘stick-people’ who can be viewed and rotated as appropriate on the computer screen. This method can sometimes assist

the relocation of body parts to individuals. The nature of a mass grave is such that the individual victims are the key ‘artifacts’ and therefore bespoke recording pro formas are likely to be required. Individuals are numbered uniquely and this number should remain with each individual from excavation to mortuary, via autopsy and any sampling for DNA, through to eventual reburial. The same number will be used for clothing and any other associated material (e.g., jewelry) or objects which may support presumptive identification. Recording will also need to be made in situ of blindfolds, cable ties, and other evidence of abuse in case these become detached in the recovery process. Record will also need to be made of other materials within the grave, for example, artifacts such as projectiles or cartridge cases, botanical remains that may have been transferred with the victims, and soils or geological traces which may also provide links between graves and point of execution. Tire marks and machine teeth marks within the grave itself may provide evidence of type of vehicle, or even the specific vehicle used. See also: Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods; Excavation

and Recording Techniques; Osteological Methods; Remote Sensing Approaches: Aerial; Geophysical.

Further Reading Brown AG, Smith A, and Elmhirst O (2002) The combined use of pollen and soil analyses in a search and subsequent murder investigation. Journal of Forensic Sciences 47: 614–618. Cheetham P Forensic geophysics. In: Hunter JR and Cox M, Chapter 3, pp. 62–95. Connor M and Scott DD (eds.) (2001) Archaeologists as Forensic Investigators: Defining the Role, Journal of Historical Archaeology (dedicated volume), vol. 35. Pennsylvania: The Society for Historical Archaeology. CPIA (1996) Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act. London: HMSO. Erzinclioglu Z (2000) Maggots, Murder and Men. Colchester: Harley Books. Haglund WD and Sorg MH (eds.) (1996) Forensic Taphonomy. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Haglund WD and Sorg MH (eds.) (2002) Advances in Forensic Taphonomy. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Hunter JR, Roberts CA, and Martin A (1996) Studies in Crime: An Introduction to Forensic Archaeology. London: Routledge. Hunter JR and Cox M (2005) Advances in Forensic Archaeology. London: Routledge. Killam EW (1990) The Detection of Human Remains. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas. PACE (1984) Police and Criminal Evidence Act. London: HMSO. Pye K and Croft DJ (eds.) (2004) Forensic Geoscience, Geological Society, Special Publication 232. London: Geological Society. Tremlett G (2003) Tracing Adam The Guardian (G2) 7th August 2003.

1404 FROZEN SITES AND BODIES

FROZEN SITES AND BODIES Robert Park, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary desiccation The process of drying to such an extent that minimal or no moisture remains. Dessication is one means by which fragile organic items can be preserved in the archaeological record. mummy An ancient human body which has had the soft organic portions preserved. Mummification can occur, intentionally or unintentionally, through a variety of processes. permafrost Ground that stays frozen throughout the year, usually beneath an ‘active layer’ that thaws each summer. Burial within permafrost can result in fragile organic items being preserved through freezing.

Introduction Some of our most vivid glimpses into past lives are provided by archaeological sites and bodies that have been preserved through freezing. It is difficult to imagine coming closer to actually meeting people from the past than looking into remarkably wellpreserved faces – the face of a man who lived in the Alps 5000 years ago, or the face of a teenaged girl who was a human sacrifice in the Andes 500 years ago, or the faces of sailors who perished 150 years ago during a doomed expedition seeking Canada’s Northwest Passage. In addition to bodies, freezing can also preserve a wide range of other materials that would not survive under most other archaeological conditions, especially organic materials. For these reasons, frozen sites and bodies are of immense archaeological interest. In many environments outside the tropics, it is common for items to become frozen during the cold months of the winter. However, except under very special circumstances these items will invariably thaw again in the spring. Far from preserving something, repeated cycles of freezing and thawing will hasten the destruction of fragile organic materials. Thus, for something to be preserved by freezing for more than just a few months it must enter an archaeological context characterized by persistent cold temperatures. For that reason Arctic and alpine environments have yielded the greatest numbers of frozen sites and bodies. The high alpine environment is cold and supports year-round snow and ice cover in some topographic contexts. The Arctic environment is cold and is also characterized by ‘permafrost’, or

permanently frozen ground. During the Arctic summer the surface layer of the earth thaws – this is referred to as the ‘active layer’. Depending on the latitude and on local conditions, the thickness of the active layer may vary from just a few centimeters to more than a meter. However, below the active layer is permafrost – a layer that remains frozen year round. Archaeological materials buried deep enough to lie within the permafrost layer will remain frozen indefinitely, although excavating in permafrost is an extremely laborious process. The nature and degree of preservation resulting from freezing can vary. Organic items that become frozen for extended periods of time but which are exposed to the atmosphere can become freeze-dried – the water content of the items is lost through sublimation, leaving behind the dried soft tissues. Organic items retaining a greater portion of their original water content are the outcome of two different scenarios: burial within permafrost or burial within an ice field or glacier. Under these conditions, which involve stable temperature and humidity without the desiccating effects of exposure to the atmosphere, organic items may retain their water content and undergo fewer decompositional changes depending on how much time elapses between death and freezing. Dealing specifically with mummies (the generic term for preserved bodies), freeze-drying produces desiccated mummies whereas freezing without desiccation produces true frozen mummies. A much wider variety of analyses can be performed on frozen mummies but there are immense difficulties studying them both due to the problems of working with them in the frozen state, and due to the conservation concerns caused by temporarily thawing them (see Conservation and Stabilization of Materials).

Frozen Sites Many Arctic cultures created ‘semi-subterranean’ houses – pit houses with low raised walls and rafter roofs which were then thickly insulated with skins, rocks, and turf. When these houses were abandoned, the roof and walls would collapse into the house interior burying anything left on the floor deeply enough to be within the permafrost layer. The excavation of such houses from the Thule culture, which occupied the region from Siberia through the North American Arctic to Greenland approximately 1000 years ago, has produced a very wide variety of extremely fragile organic artifacts preserved through

FROZEN SITES AND BODIES 1405

freezing (Figures 1 and 2). A different kind of frozen ‘site’ is becoming more important archaeologically due to recent climatic warming: retreating glaciers and ice patches. The melting back of permanent ice patches in Canada’s Yukon has exposed numerous ancient wooden hunting implements. Radiocarbon dating shows that the hunters who lost these implements used the area throughout the last eight millennia. Comparable, although younger, finds have recently been discovered melting out of an ice field in Switzerland.

Frozen Bodies The most famous frozen body was discovered high in Europe’s o¨tzal Alps, melting out of glacial ice. The body, commonly referred to as ‘o¨tzi’ or ‘the Iceman’, is that of a male who was at least 40 years old at the time of his death approximately 5300 years ago. Analyses suggest that the body was quickly covered with snow and eventually became desiccated. Ultimately, as the snow built up over a period of years, the body became entombed in glacial ice and was only

Figure 1 Thule culture winter house, before excavation, at a site on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic. The walls of the approximately 700-year-old house were constructed of boulders and the roof was supported by the bones of bowhead whales. The collapsed roof and slumped walls have filled up the center of the house, burying everything its occupants left behind deeply within the permafrost.

Figure 2 Artifacts melting out of the permafrost in a Thule culture winter house. In this photo a sealskin boot sole is visible left of center; just below the lens cap there is a perforated strip of sealskin which would have been removed after the skin was pegged out to be scraped. Beneath that there is a small bow made of baleen, the material from a bowhead whale’s mouth. Below the bow there is a bundle of wooden arrows. Various scraps of cut sealskin, fur, feathers, and wood shavings are also visible.

1406 FROZEN SITES AND BODIES

released at the end of a period of unusually low snowfall and rapid melting that culminated in September 1991. Artifacts found with the body included his clothing (a cap, a woven grass cloak, and a leather vest and shoes), a backpack, a hafted stone knife, a hafted copper axe, an unfinished bow with arrows, and a firestarting kit. The body itself and the items found with it hint at a very dramatic story. Copper and arsenic in his hair suggests that he was closely involved in copper working during his life. Analysis of his stomach contents, including pollen, revealed information about his last meals which must have taken place at a lower altitude. At the time of his death he had been very recently wounded by an arrow, the arrowhead from which remained in his shoulder. He also had a serious cut wound on one hand. Various speculative scenarios have been advanced to account for his presence in this alpine pass, generally involving him fleeing pursuers and succumbing to the cold. A similar but much younger frozen body of someone who perished while traveling in an Alpine region was made in 1999 in a melting glacier in the northwest corner of British Columbia, Canada. Named Kwa¨day Da¨n Ts’ı´nchi (Long Ago Person Found), the remains are those of a male who was approximately 20 years old at the time of his death five centuries ago. Although found 80 km from the coast, analyses of the contents of the digestive tract revealed marine species and stable isotope analyses revealed that most of his dietary protein came from marine sources. The Andes mountains of South America have also produced equally old frozen mummies from the Inca civilization. These, however, were deliberate burials of human sacrifices. Because many were not deeply buried they became desiccated mummies, but a few are true frozen mummies including one that was found in 1995 in southern Peru. Known as ‘Juanita’ or ‘the Ice Maiden’, this is the body of a 14-year-old girl who had been killed by a blow to the head. In 1999, the bodies of a 15-year-old girl, a sixyear-old boy, and a six-year-old girl were found on Mount Llullaillaco in Northwest Argentina. They appear to have died from deliberate exposure, perhaps following ritual inebriation, but studies of the bodies revealed that they had been overfed in the weeks prior to their death, which is consistent with historical accounts of the preparation of Inca human sacrifices to ensure that they would be happy and satisfied when they arrived in the world of the gods. The Arctic regions have produced numerous desiccated mummies from burials in caves and in aboveground rock graves. The Aleut practiced deliberate mummification but under the right circumstances the Arctic environment also produced natural mummies,

as in the case of a remarkable collection of fully clothed desiccated mummies from Greenland. True frozen bodies are also known from the Arctic – the best examples come from within permafrost at the site of Utqiagvik in North Alaska. In 1980, five bodies were found in the eroding remains of a precontact semi-subterranean house. The house, which was located very close to the shoreline, appears to have been suddenly collapsed by thick sea ice that had been pushed onshore by strong winds in the middle of the night. The occupants of the house apparently had no warning and were crushed to death. Two of the bodies, both adult women, were well enough preserved to be autopsied. The lungs of both women were found to be black with anthracosis from the smoke of the oil lamps that were used to heat the winter houses. In 1994, the 800-year-old body of a female child, 5–8 years of age and known as ‘Agnaiyaaq’ (Little Girl), was recovered from an eroding grave. Autopsy revealed that she had been tended for an extended period through chronic illness stemming from a rare congenital disorder. Three of the best-preserved frozen bodies ever studied derive from Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to discover and sail through Canada’s Northwest Passage. The expedition spent its first winter at Beechey Island where three sailors died and were buried. The next summer the ships sailed to near King William Island where they became frozen in. The still-frozen ships were abandoned 2 years later and the remainder of the crew perished in a desperate attempt to walk south to safety. Research on their skeletal remains suggested to anthropologist Owen Beattie that the effects of lead poisoning from the lead-sealed food cans utilized by the expedition might have contributed to the disaster. To investigate that possibility he undertook the exhumation of the three sailors who had died during the first winter of the expedition: John Torrington, William Braine, and John Hartnell. In 1984 and 1986 they were temporarily exhumed, thawed, and autopsied. Significantly, all three were found to have extremely high lead levels in their tissues and hair; the measurements from the hair confirmed that high quantities of lead had been ingested during the voyage, not beforehand, consistent with the theory that lead poisoning may have been a major factor in the expedition’s disastrous failure. Frozen bodies are also contributing to current medical science. A great deal of what we know about the virus that caused the catastrophic Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 comes from tissue samples excavated from victims who had been buried within permafrost, in Alaska and Svalbard.

FROZEN SITES AND BODIES 1407 See also: Conservation and Stabilization of Materials; Paleopathology; Preservation, Modes of; Sites: Conservation and Stabilization.

Further Reading Beattie OB, Apland B, Blake EW, et al. (2000) The Kwa¨day Da¨n Ts’ı´nchi discovery from a glacier in British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 24: 129–147. Beattie OB and Geiger J (1987) Frozen in Time. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books. Ceruti MC (2002) Archaeological find of three frozen mummies and offerings at the Inca ceremonial complex on Mount Llullaillaco (Northwest Argentina). In: Lynnerup N, Andreasen C, and Berglund J (eds.) Mummies in a New Millennium, pp. 178–182. Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center. Dixon EJ, Manley WF, and Lee CM (2005) The emerging archaeology of glaciers and ice patches: Examples from Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias national park and preserve. American Antiquity 70(1): 129–143.

Hare PG, Greer S, Gotthardt RM, et al. (2004) Ethnographic and archaeological investigations of alpine ice patches in southwest Yukon, Canada. Arctic 57(3): 260–272. Hart Hansen JP, Meldgaard J, and Nordqvist J (eds.) (1991) The Greenland mummies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Notman D and Beattie OB (1996) The palaeoimaging and forensic anthropology of frozen sailors from the Franklin arctic expedition mass disaster (1845–1848): A detailed presentation of two radiological surveys. In: Spindler K, Wilfing H, RastbichlerZissernig E, et al. (eds.) Human Mummies: A Global Survey of Their Status and The Techniques of Conservation, pp. 93–106. Wien: Springer-Verlag. Spindler K (1996) Iceman’s last weeks. In: Spindler K, Wilfing H, Rastbichler-Zissernig E, et al. (eds.) Human Mummies: A Global Survey of Their Status and The Techniques of Conservation, pp. 249–263. Wien: Springer-Verlag. Zimmerman MR and Aufderheide AC (1984) The frozen family of Utqiagvik: The autopsy findings. Arctic Anthropology 21(1): 53–64. Zimmerman MR, Jensen AM, and Sheehan GW (2000) Agnaiyaaq: The autopsy of a frozen Thule mummy. Arctic Anthropology 37(2): 52–59.

G Garbology

See: Ethnoarchaeology.

Gatherers

See: Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient.

Gender

See: Engendered Archaeology.

GEOARCHAEOLOGY Heidi Luchsinger, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary bioturbation Disturbance of an archaeological site by organisms. eluviation The leaching of a soil horizon. erosion Removal of sediments by erosional agents such as wind, water, glaciers, etc. geoarchaeology Archaeological analysis which uses tools and methods from the geosciences. iluviation The accumulation within a soil horizon. micromorphology Geoarchaeological analysis of sediments in thin section using microscopy. palaeoenvironment Past environments. pedogenic Formed through soil formation processes. postdepositional processes Processes which affect an archaeological site once it is abandoned. sedimentation Deposition of natural sediments. site formation processes Natural processes which may preserve or destroy the context of an archaeological site, that is, the processes involved in the formation of an archaeological site.

Introduction Geoarchaeology explores the natural context of archaeological sites in order to investigate research problems related to archaeology. All sites have

context. Whether sites deeply buried, lying on the surface, or underwater, each lies within a natural landscape and environmental context. Since many sites are buried or partially buried, the physical context of sites includes the landscape surface surrounding the site and the three-dimensional regional stratigraphy which lies below the landscape surface. Each archaeological site occupies a specific location within this complex context or matrix of sediments, soils, and landforms. Sediments, soils, and landforms are dynamic and can change dramatically during and after a landscape is occupied by humans. Therefore, each of these landscape components may have an impact on the preservation of archaeological sites lying within this context and/or human activities of the past. As its name implies, geoarchaeology involves interdisciplinary investigation between archaeology and the geosciences. In other words, geoarchaeology is geoscience for the purpose of archaeology. For example, geoarchaeological investigations may include studying the stratigraphy of an archaeological site, site formation processes, landscape position of a site, the local geology, and palaeoenvironmental history of a region. Sometimes geoarchaeology is used to establish which features at an archaeological site are natural and which are cultural. An archaeologist may wonder if a particular feature in profile is the

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remains of a fire hearth or an odd-looking root burrow. As with mainstream archaeology, the ultimate goal of geoarchaeology is to reconstruct past human behavior. Methodology

Although geoarchaeology is considered a subdiscipline of archaeology, it maintains its own methodology and theoretical orientation. The methodology of geoarchaeology is most commonly defined as the application of methods from the earth sciences for solving archaeological research problems. Such methods include those from geology, geography, sedimentology, pedology, stratigraphy, and geomorphology. In this sense, geoarchaeology has been conducted nearly since the origin of archaeological investigation in the eighteenth century and its development is closely tied to the development of the field as a whole. During the earliest periods, archaeologists and geoscientists investigated archaeological sites together and this evolved into close collaboration in later years. However, the theoretical orientation of modern geoarchaeology was not formalized until the 1976 publication of Geoarchaeology: Earth Science and the Past by Davidson and Shackley and with Colin Renfrew’s famous quote in the Preface which states that: ‘‘. . . every problem in archaeology starts as a problem in geoarchaeology’’. Research Questions

As Renfrew pointed out 30 years ago, geoarchaeology has its own theoretical orientation and own research problems. Geoarchaeology is much more than simply describing the stratigraphy of an archaeological site, conducting sedimentological analyses, or drilling sediment cores. For example, geoarchaeology can help evaluate research questions such as: what was the landscape like when this site was settled? Did the inhabitants have easy access to water? Has this site been disturbed by plants, animals, insects, groundwater, or artifact hunters? Was there one occupation at a site or multiple occupation phases? Is this piece of charcoal that the author would like to radiocarbon date associated with these artifacts? Why is there no charcoal at this site? Geoarchaeology is not a mere descriptive tool or singular type of methodology. Modern geoarchaeology is as scientific and holistic as its roots which were established in processual archaeology. Geoarchaeology has its own set of research questions which bridge the geosciences and archaeology (see Archaeometry; Bioarchaeology). So, what does this mean? By investigating the natural context of the archaeological record, geoarchaeology can help determine the chronological context of

the archaeological record through analysis of stratigraphy and dating, evaluate the preservation of the archaeological record (i.e., by studying formation processes of a site or a landscape), and interpret whether this natural context may or may not have had any impact on past human behavior. Geoarchaeology can suggest how complete or disturbed an archaeological record of a region or single site is. It can also analyze whether or not a landscape had an impact on a human population or whether humans had an impact on the landscape. The more a landscape or site is altered, the less potential information can be gathered to interpret past human behavior.

Historical Development of Geoarchaeology Geology has played a role in European archaeology since the eighteenth century and was promoted by the ongoing search for human antiquity. In the early 1700s, a geologist analyzed the geology of the stones which are part of the structure at Stonehenge, England. In the late 1700s, John Frere described the geological context of several Acheulian handaxes which he had discovered. Interdisciplinary work between archaeologists and geologists continued in the eighteenth century in Europe with various projects. The famous geologist Sir Charles Lyell participated in a number of these projects. In the second half of the eighteenth century, more attention to stratigraphy was apparent at archaeological excavations throughout Europe and around the Mediterranean (e.g., England, Greece, Rome, and Egypt). Such close collaboration between the geosciences and archaeology converged into the modern subdiscipline of geoarchaeology which continues and has a strong presence in European archaeology today. In North America, the development of geoarchaeology is closely tied to the development of archaeology. From the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, archaeologists were mainly interested in describing and classifying artifacts and monuments. However, the analysis of geological stratigraphy and use of dating techniques were also incorporated into archaeological investigation. This period has been described as the phase in archaeology most concerned with the search for human antiquity. During this phase, it was common for archaeologists and geologists to collaborate in their research. One of the main reasons for this collaboration is that both disciplines incorporate stratigraphic analysis and geochronology. During the early to mid-twentieth century, as archaeological techniques became more systematic

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and standardized, increasingly detailed studies of archaeological stratigraphy and reconstructions of the paleoenvironment began to appear. In North America, Late Pleistocene human occupation was finally confirmed with the discovery of the Folsom site in 1927. In the 1930s, human antiquity in the Americas was further reinforced by the discovery of Clovis artifacts found in a stratified unit older than overlying Folsom artifacts. In addition, it was determined that both of these sites were found in primary and undisturbed context. Kirk Bryan was one of the forerunners of modern geoarchaeology in North America. Bryan was a geologist for the United States Geological Service who studied palaeoenvironmental change at Chaco Canyon and the impact on human behavior. In the 1930s, Ernst Antevs also studied paleoenvironmental change and conducted work at a number of Clovis sites. During the 1960s, processual archaeology became more prominent and this shift had a crucial impact on the development of geoarchaeology. As there was a shift toward use of more ecological approaches in archaeology, there was also interest in the impact of the paleoenvironment on human behavior and impact of formation processes on the archaeological record. Geological and archaeological studies became more integrated at this time as archaeology placed emphasis on using a more scientific and holistic approach to studying past human behavior. Studies on settlement patterns, the paleoenvironment, and context increased significantly. During the 1960s, C. Vance Haynes, Jr. was already conducting what most would consider to be modern geoarchaeology at various sites in North America. The term ‘geoarchaeology’ was first coined in 1973 by Karl Butzer. In 1976, D. A. Davidson and M. L. Shackley published Geoarchaeology: Earth Science and the Past. In the preface of this book, C. Renfrew put forth that ‘‘...every problem in archaeology starts as a problem in geoarchaeology’’. As geoarchaeology began to come together as a true discipline, the Geological Society of America established the Division of Archaeological Geology in 1977. Over the next two decades, there was a series of important works published which has defined modern geoarchaeology and brought the field further into the forefront of archaeology. These works include: Archaeology as Human Ecology (1982) by K. Butzer; Site Formation Processes (1983) by M. Schiffer; Archaeological Geology (1985) by G. Rapp and J. A. Gifford; Archaeological Sediments in Context (1985) by J. Stein and W. Farrand; Geoarchaeology: An International Journal was first published in 1986; Geoarchaeology: A North

American Perspective by M. R. Waters; Geoarchaeology: The Earth-Science Approach to Archaeological Interpretation (1998) by G. Rapp and C. Hill; Earth Sciences and Archaeology (2001) by P. Goldberg, V. T. Holliday, and C. R. Ferring; and Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology (2006) by P. Goldberg and R. I. Macphail. Particularly, over the past 10 years, geoarchaeologists have made solid progress on clarifying the research objectives of geoarchaeology and refining methods used for both large-scale and sitespecific geoarchaeological studies.

The Natural Context of the Archaeological Record: Landscapes, Sediments, and Soils Modern landscapes consist of a surface which is shaped by many different types of landforms. Landscapes overlie the Earth’s bedrock. Between the landscape surface and bedrock, is a complex sequence of sediments which were deposited and eroded by various processes. Typically, soils form on these sediments when exposed at the surface and before they are buried. The nature and characteristics of sediments and soils are rarely static. Sediments are affected by various physical and chemical processes and other types of disturbance whether caused by humans, animals, plants, or soil formation. Sediments and soils preserve buried or partially buried archaeological sites contained within these units. If sediments have undergone transformations, it is likely that the archaeological material buried within has been affected to some extent as well. Stratigraphy studies these layers and determines the chronological sequence of sediments and soils over time. Through field observation, stratigraphic studies place these layers in a relative chronological sequence (i.e., the deepest layers are generally older than overlying layers which are sequentially younger towards the surface). If datable material is found in these layers, then this material can be dated to provide a more absolute chronology for the sequence of layers. Each layer is considered a stratigraphic unit of sediment which was deposited at or over a period of time depending on the rate of deposition. Stratigraphic units are characterized by features such as texture (i.e., percentage of sand, silt, and clay), structure (i.e., which may indicate how the unit was deposited), and mineralogy (i.e., types of minerals present in the sediment). If a stratigraphic unit indicates that it has undergone soil formation, then the unit is further subdivided into soil horizons which are classified by their pedogenic features. Soils are very important to archaeology because soil formation indicates that the surface of a particular stratigraphic unit was once a

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stable surface. Therefore, the surface was potentially occupied by humans. In addition, soils can be widespread and sometimes they can be correlated with soils in other regions.

Factors in Archaeological Site Preservation Archaeological sites may be occupied on surfaces with active deposition, erosional surfaces, or stable surfaces undergoing soil formation. If a site is located in an environment of active deposition, it is likely that the site will be buried and incorporated into the stratigraphic unit. If the sedimentation rate is rapid, there will be a clear distinction between this occupation level and overlying units or subsequent occupations. If the sedimentation rate is slow, archaeological materials from successive occupations could become mixed together since they would not be separated by depositional units.

Site Preservation

There are many different formation processes which play a role in the preservation of the archaeological record. Some preserve cultural material better than others. In an ideal situation, a site would be rapidly buried by sediments with little disturbance and be minimally affected by postdepositional processes. In essence, such an environment would seal an archaeological deposit into the stratigraphy, for example, many cave sites have this level of preservation. However, well-preserved archaeological sites can be later threatened by postdepositional processes and landscape destruction. In reality, a majority of archaeological sites are affected by some type of postdepositional process and geoarchaeological studies are necessary to evaluate the impact of these processes on interpretations of past human behavior.

Soils

Large-scale and Site-specific Research in Geoarchaeology

Soils in stratigraphy are important to archaeology because they indicate a significant period of stability when a landscape surface was stable and not undergoing significant deposition or erosion. Soils may take many years to form and therefore these surfaces would be exposed to potential human occupation during these periods of stability as with modern landscapes. In addition, buried soils (i.e., buried paleosols) provide geoarchaeologists with valuable information about surface topography and past landscape conditions. In addition, their physical and chemical characteristics aid in reconstructing past climates. However, soils can cause problems for the preservation of an archaeological site. Soil formation processes can have a direct influence on the preservation of archaeological material. Such processes include the shrinking–swelling of clay, mineral oxidation– reduction, the accumulation and decay of organic matter, translocation or removal of salt, eluviation, iluviation, as well as bioturbation. Organic material such as plant, shell, and bone can deteriorate from leaching, oxidation, and biogenic degradation in soils. Downward translocation of carbonates promotes bone deterioration in leached horizons. Eluvial horizons become more prone to erosion and the stratigraphic context can be destroyed for a site located in that soil horizon. Bioturbation is often more common in soils and can translocate artifacts to the surface. Soils do provide some benefits for preserving the archaeological record. For example, the translocation of salts in calcic horizons can promote the preservation of shell and bone.

Geoarchaeology is conducted on large and small scales. Regional or large-scale geoarchaeology reconstructs landscape and paleoenvironmental history. Smaller-scale projects in geoarchaeology are more site specific and focus on the stratigraphy and features of an archaeological site. Large-scale geoarchaeological projects might focus on the segment of a river valley. Such a project may reconstruct the landscape history of the river valley by establishing the sequence of deposition, erosion, and soil formation from the period just prior to human occupation. The archaeological record of this portion of the valley could then be placed within this landscape history for relative dating. In addition, within this landscape reconstruction, it would then be possible to interpret the natural formation processes acting at each archaeological site. Finally, the preservation of the archaeological record could be evaluated and the impact of landscape history could be analyzed for its potential influence on settlement patterns. As a result of this type of project, a geoarchaeologist can formulate predictive models for locating archaeological sites and contribute inputs into the effect of landscape on settlement patterns. For example, recent geoarchaeological work has been conducted in Argentina by the author on a large river valley on the border between Patagonia and the Pampas. Extensive fieldwork included survey, detailed stratigraphic recording, analysis of the geomorphology, recording of archaeological sites, and collection of samples for geological analysis, radiocarbon dating, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating.

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As a result, it was possible to reconstruct the landscape of a 150 km segment of this valley from its initial formation and place the stratigraphy and each landform into a chronological framework from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene. As a result, it was then possible to place the known archaeological record into this chronological framework and landscape context. It was also possible to evaluate the preservation and natural formation processes of each known archaeological site. In addition, a predictive model was constructed for the location of archaeological sites for each time period based on this landscape reconstruction. In short, archaeological sites from the Middle Holocene will be found buried in Middle Holocene landforms on Middle Holocene land surfaces, etc. Now it is also possible to interpret how the landscape history of this valley could have had an influence on past human settlement patterns and there are very good indications that abrupt changes in the river course also contributed to shifts in settlement. Site-specific geoarchaeology has now become very common. A geoarchaeologist is called in to help interpret the stratigraphy and answer specific research questions. For example, micromorphological analysis could be used to investigate postdepositional processes which occurred at a site. Micromorphology is a geoarchaeological method of analyzing thin sections of sediments using microscopy. Micromorphology can be used to decipher the microstratigraphy and reveal discrete traces of human behavior that would otherwise be destroyed through physical and chemical analysis or not identified macroscopically from field observation (i.e., through stratigraphic recording). Such discrete archaeological features found in thin section can be potentially important to largescale archaeological interpretations at archaeological sites. In addition, it is possible to locate geological and pedological features that can be important for understanding the geoarchaeology of a site, which in turn forms the basis for archaeological interpretations. Geoarchaeological micromorphology became more prominent in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the publication of Soils and Micromophology in Archaeology by M. Courty, P. Goldberg, and R. Macphail in 1989. This handbook formalized micromorphological analysis at archaeological sites and illustrated the value of this technique through specific case studies. For example, a micromorphological analysis was recently conducted at a North American Clovis site by the author. Samples were collected from the site in order to analyze the degree of groundwater impact on archaeological evidence, the extent that soil formation processes have affected a site, the presence and

extent of any bioturbation even on the microscale, and to search for any evidence of discrete occupational surfaces. As a result of this analysis, although minor postdepositional processes did occur at this site, the site is fully intact and has not been altered significantly by these processes to affect archaeological interpretations. Both scales of research in geoarchaeology are crucial for evaluating the archaeological record.

Geoarchaeology Over the Past 10 Years Geoarchaeology: An International Journal is probably the most prominent forum for publishing geoarchaeological studies worldwide. This journal was first published in January 1986. For more than 20 years, this journal has allowed the geoarchaeology community to present a wide variety of studies from many different regions. Over the past 10 years, Geoarchaeology has published over 400 articles. A vast majority of these articles report on research conducted at prehistoric sites (c. 80–85%) although there are a number of articles on historical, Biblical, and Classical sites as well. The geographic distribution of modern geoarchaeological studies over the past 10 years is vast. Geoarchaeology has published articles on studies from every continent including: Africa (e.g., Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, Libya, and Zaire); throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia (e.g., Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Cambodia); Australia, New Zealand; and the Americas (e.g., Canada, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, and Argentina). This basic overview illustrates how at the beginning of the twenty-first century, geoarchaeology is now practiced worldwide and the abundance of publications indicates how the field of geoarchaeology has grown since the 1970s.

Conclusions All archaeological sites have natural context. Context constantly changes and these changes can have a major impact on the preservation of the archaeological record and our interpretations of past human behavior. As an interdisciplinary field, geoarchaeology explores the context of the archaeological record using methods from the geosciences. Geoarchaeology has its own theoretical orientation. However, as with archaeology, its primary goal is to reconstruct past human behavior. See also: Archaeoastronomy; Archaeometry; Bioarchaeology; Economic Archaeology.

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Further Reading Butzer KW (1982) Archaeology as Human Ecology: Method and Theory for a Contextual Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ferring CR (1992) Alluvial pedology and geoarchaeological research. In: Holiday VT (ed.) Soils in Archaeology: Landscape and Human Occupation. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Gladfelter BG (1981) Developments and directions in geoarchaeology. In: Schiffer MB (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Methods and Theory, pp. 343–364. New York: Academic Press. Goldberg P, Holliday VT, and Ferring CR (2001) Earth Sciences and Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Goldberg P and Macphail R (2006) Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology. Malden: Blackwell.

Glass

Huckleberry G (2000) Interdisciplinary and specialized geoarchaeology: A post-Cold War perspective. Geoarchaeology 15: 523–536. Rapp GR and Hill CL (1998) Geoarchaeology: The Earth-Science Approach to Archaeological Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stein JK and Farrand WR (1985) Archaeological Sediments in Context. Peopling of the Americas. Edited volume series, vol. 1. Orono: Center for the Study of Early Man Institute for Quaternary Studies University of Maine at Orono. Waters MR (1992) Principles of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Waters MR (1999) Geoarchaeology: the Earth-science approach to archaeological interpretation; geological methods for archaeology (Book Review). Geoarchaeology 14: 365–369.

See: Vitreous Materials Analysis.

GOALS OF ARCHAEOLOGY, OVERVIEW Donald L Hardesty, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary archaeological record The physical remains produced by past human activities, which are recovered, studied, and interpreted by archaeologists to construct knowledge of the past. culture history A history of the cultures that inhabited a particular location or region. processual archaeology A branch of archaeology which seeks to understand the nature of cultural change by a study of the variables which cause it, usually in a manner characteristic of ‘new archaeology’. post-processual archaeology A relatively new school of archaeological thinking that uses the ideational strategy and cautions against the shortcomings of scientific methods and the new (or processual) archaeology. hermeneutics The theory and methodology of interpretation, especially of scriptural text.

Introduction Several goals underlie the practice of archaeology. They include documentation of the archaeological record of the human past, establishing chronologies

and culture histories, the reconstruction of past lifestyles and cultures, the explanation of variability and change in past human behavior and the human condition, stewardship of the archaeological record, and understanding contemporary environmental problems and planning for sustainable futures.

Documenting the Archaeological Record The material remains that make up the archaeological record create a repository of information about the human past that is both independent of and complementary to written records, memories, and oral traditions. Documentation of the archaeological record is, therefore, the most fundamental goal underlying the practice of archaeology. It involves the activities of discovery, recovery, and recording. The activities of discovery include searching for and identifying material remains of the human past with the assistance of pedestrian surveys, remote-sensing technologies such as satellite images and ground penetrating radar, test excavations, and chemical surveys. Recovery includes the methods of mapping and excavation. Recording the archaeological record involves the use of photographs, drawings, maps, and narrative description.

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Establishing Chronologies and Culture Histories Another goal is culture history, placing the archaeological record within a chronological framework and identifying geographical, environmental, and cultural linkages that help answer the questions of when, where, and who. Culture histories involve the use of chronological (e.g., periods), geographical (e.g., culture areas), and cultural classifications (e.g., phases, components) to organize the archaeological record. It uses geographical distributions to answer questions about migrations of human populations (e.g., earliest peopling of the Americas or the Hawaiian Islands) and the spread of technologies and technological innovations such as bronze metallurgy, irrigation agriculture, and monumental architecture. Using the archaeological record to answer the question of ‘who’ often involves the use of artifact markers associated with the cultural traditions of specific human groups such as the Vikings or the Scythians. Culture histories drove most archaeological research until the second half of the twentieth century, and archaeological research in poorly documented places is typically driven by this goal today. Culture history explains social and cultural change with historically specific internal or external mechanisms. Internal mechanisms include population growth and individual variation in behavior such as innovation, drift, and selection. External mechanisms include environmental change, population movement, and the diffusion of ideas.

Reconstructing Lifestyles and Cultures Reconstructing the lifestyles of people who lived in the past is another goal of archaeology. Toward this end, the archaeological record is used as a source of information about the material conditions of life in the human past including environments, subsistence activities, and economic systems such as trading networks, demography and populations, and technologies. Another objective is to reconstruct social relations. Included are archaeological studies of social groups and networks such as households, settlements and settlement systems, and political economies such as states and world-systems. Archaeological studies of culturally constructed social groups defined by gender, social hierarchies such as class and rank, ethnicity and ethnic groups, and occupation are also included. Yet another objective is to construct cultures, ideologies, and belief systems through the material expression of past behaviors such as mortuary complexes, rock and cave art, and landscapes.

Explanation Another goal of archaeology is to understand variability and change in past human behavior and the human condition, to answer the questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’ in addition to the ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘who’ inquiries driving the goal of culture history. Toward this end, archaeologists may use ‘processual’ or ‘post-processual’ approaches. Processualism involves the use of theories and models of general social, cultural, and natural processes to explain variation and change and is based upon the epistemologies of positivist philosophers such as Carl Hempel that assume objectivity and focus upon observeroriented interpretations. Searching for general laws of human behavior by using research strategies that follow the rules of deduction, beginning with theories from which hypotheses could be derived and tested with observations of the archaeological record, is one strategy. Another is to use systems models that focus upon the ecological, social, or cultural functions of past human behavior. Processual approaches to explanation used in archaeology include cultural evolution, evolutionary ecology, world-systems, and structuralism. In contrast, post-processualism uses ‘hermeneutic’ structures to interpret the past. The hermeneutic approach considers the interplay between meaning and the social actions of individuals and social groups. Rather than general processes, it focuses upon the role of social agents acting to achieve goals within a complex social field made up of gender, class, political faction, ethnicity, race, and ecological setting as the key player. Hermeneutic structures assume that all material things carry meanings that reflect constantly changing individual experiences, goals, and social relations. The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, which denies the assumption of objectivity and accumulated knowledge that underlies scientific explanation, is the philosophy that underlies this approach; it stresses social responsibility and critically evaluates how the social and cultural context within which archaeologists do research influences their interpretations of the past.

Stewardship Stewardship is another goal of archaeology. The preservation and management of the material remains of the past and the archaeological record drives much of the practice of archaeology today. Early efforts to preserve ancient buildings and monuments include the Roman emperor Hadrian, a 1462 decree by Pope Pius II to document and preserve ancient houses and monuments in the Vatican, a 1666 law in Sweden

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prohibiting the destruction of antiquities, and the 1882 Ancient Monuments Act in England. The 1960s and 1970s brought a plethora of national, state, and local preservation laws and policies (e.g., the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 in the United States and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979 in England) and established the practice of what is known as rescue archaeology or cultural resource management (see Cultural Resource Management). International conventions such as the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention), the ICOMOS International Charter for Archaeological Heritage Management, and the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage of the Council of Europe also play a significant role in archaeological stewardship. Toward this end, professional archaeological societies (e.g., Society for American Archaeology, European Association of Archaeologists) have created programs for sustainable heritage preservation. Site preservation is one component. The newly established site preservation program of the Archaeological Institute of America, for example, focuses on the Greco-Roman city of Cyrene in Libya and includes signage, interpretative publications, cataloging and digitizing records, and training programs in cultural heritage management and tourism. Stewardship also involves the preservation of archaeological collections and records. Heritage education (e.g., The Heritage Education Network) and heritage tourism (e.g., the Heritage Tourism Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Los Caminos del Rio Heritage Corridor in Texas) are other components of archaeological stewardship. Future preservation is a significant problem. Henry Cleere, former ICOMOS coordinator, identifies the major current threats to the global archaeological heritage as atmospheric pollution, warfare, natural disasters, looting, unsympathetic urban and infrastructure planning, inadequate site management, and over-excavation.

Planning for Sustainable Futures Finally, another goal of archaeology is to document and apply historical knowledge of past

Greek Colonies

human–environmental interactions to the understanding of contemporary environmental problems and planning for future sustainability (see Historic Roots of Archaeology). Toward this end, archaeologists seek to develop long-term historical models of natural and social dynamics that consider time depth, responses to infrequent natural processes and hazards, and legacies of past land use patterns and human decision making in the context of cultural attitudes and perceptions to order to understand contemporary environmental problems and to forecast future changes. Multidisciplinary projects such as the archaeomedes and Emporda´ programs in Europe’s southern Mediterranean Basin and the Central Arizona-Phoenix project in the United States illustrate the approach. See also: Anthropological Archaeology; Archaeology Laboratory, Overview; Cognitive Archaeology; Cultural Resource Management; Evolutionary Archaeology; Historic Preservation Laws; Historic Roots of Archaeology; Historical Materialist Approaches; Illicit Antiquities; Marxist Archaeology; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Pedestrian Survey Techniques; Processual Archaeology; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Fagan B and DeCorse CR (2004) In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology, 11th edn. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Hester TR, Shafer HJ, and Feder KL (1997) Field Methods in Archaeology, 7th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hodder I and Hutson S (2003) Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King TF (2004) Doing Archaeology: A Cultural Resource Management Perspective. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. McGlade J (1995) Archaeology and the ecodynamics of humanmodified landscapes. Antiquity 69: 113–132. Renfrew C and Bahn P (2005) Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice, 4th edn. London: Thames and Hudson. Spector J (1993) What this Awl Means. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press. Tilley C (1994) A Phenomenology of Landscape. Oxford, Providence: Berg. Van der Leeuw S and Redman CL (2000) Placing archaeology at the center of socio-natural studies. American Antiquity 67(4): 597–605. Voss B and Schmidt R (eds.) (1999) Archaeologies of Sexuality. New York: Routledge.

See: Europe, South: Greek Colonies.

H Hazardous Environments

See: Toxic and Hazardous Environments.

HEALTH, HEALING, AND DISEASE Charlotte Roberts, Durham University, Durham, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary anemia Reduction of red blood cells/hemoglobin below normal in blood. biomolecular A molecule produced by living cells, for example, a protein. brucellosis An infection of humans contracted from goats, pigs, sheep, cows, and horses. caries Decay of teeth. cleft palate Nonfusion of the two halves of the bony palate of the mouth. congenital A condition that somebody is born with. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) A protein in cells. endocrine Relating to the endocrine system; a series of glands that secrete hormones. epilepsy A transient disturbance of brain function. hemoglobin Oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells. histological Minute structure and composition of body tissues. infection Invasion and multiplication of microorganisms in the body (bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses). isotope A chemical element. leprosy Transmitted by inhaling droplets from the lungs of infected humans. migraine Periodic headaches, often with nausea, caused by constriction of cranial arteries. neoplastic Any new and abnormal growth; cell multiplication is uncontrolled and progressive. osteoporosis Abnormal loss of bone mass. plague An infection transmitted to humans by fleas from infected rats. sinusitis Inflammation of the air-filled sinuses of the face. tuberculosis An infection transmitted to humans from other humans (droplet infection from the lungs) or by ingesting infected products of animals. venereal syphilis An infection transmitted venereally.

Introduction Health can be defined as freedom from disease, and in a state of physical, mental, and social well-being,

while disease represents an impairment of normal function of the human body and includes conditions such as infections, tumors, and dental problems. A basic component of life itself, all populations from past to present have experienced the effect disease can have on their social, economic, and political well-being. While archaeology is the study of people, the success or failure of people and the societies in which they lived can only directly be measured by exploring evidence of their health and their efforts to control it. We only have to appreciate how debilitating the effects of influenza can be to understand the effects diseases had on our ancestors who had no access to effective health care, including drug therapy.

Evidence for Disease Types of Evidence from the Archaeological and Historical Records

In the field of archaeology it is possible to study health and disease through a number of avenues. These include palaeopathology, or the consideration of disease in skeletons and mummified bodies from archaeological sites (see Frozen Sites and Bodies); the study of artwork, such as sculpture, and illustrations on pottery or in paintings, which show people suffering from disease or being treated; descriptions of disease in historical written manuscripts; and the study of artifacts (e.g., medical and surgical instruments), ecofacts (e.g., medicinal plant pollen), and structural evidence (e.g., the remains of hospitals). Some of these avenues are plentiful and unambiguous while others can be very difficult to analyze and interpret. For example, written accounts of disease may be influenced by the author’s preferences and interpretation of events, which may bear no resemblance to the facts of the time. Furthermore, signs and symptoms of a number of diseases may be similar and

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therefore difficult to differentiate when described. For example, tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, and pneumonia may all induce breathlessness and coughing up blood. Artistic representation can also be ambiguous, for example, when a rash is depicted, a sign that can equally apply to many diseases such as leprosy and smallpox. Likewise, the study of human skeletal remains may provide only a basic understanding of what diseases were prevalent at a certain point in time because not all diseases affect the skeleton, and few bodies with preserved soft tissue are found in archaeological contexts. Thus, some evidence is more useful for some diseases than others. In addition, the different types of evidence for disease may be more commonly found in different temporal and geographic contexts. For example, it is only when urban centers develop that we see more organized attempts to control and treat disease, with the founding of hospitals and the manufacture of surgical instruments. Methods of Study of Human Remains

The study of cremated and inhumed human remains from archaeological sites provides the primary evidence for disease, and the funerary contexts from which they derive vary both spatially and temporally. For example, in the Neolithic of Europe chambered cairns predominate, often with mixed burials, while later in the Medieval period discrete burials in large cemeteries are the norm; this makes analysis of disease from different contexts challenging (see Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods). Methods of identification of human remains include visual/ macroscopic, histological, radiographic, and biomolecular techniques, with the majority of evidence coming from macroscopic analysis in the last 10 years, the use of biomolecular methods such as the extraction and amplification of DNA from specific diseasecausing organisms has enabled the identification of soft tissue disease in skeletal remains, such as plague and malaria, and the presence of disease in people who have died before bone changes occurred. For example, plague DNA has been found in the teeth of skeletons from post-Medieval plague pits in southern France. Most research on palaeopathology is focused on the most commonly found human remains on archaeological sites, skeletons and, generally speaking, for many parts of the world, smaller numbers of prehistoric burials have been found than for later periods. This might reflect differences in disposal of the dead (e.g., cremation vs. inhumation), and the ability of archaeologists to find the evidence. However, the survival of buried bodies depends very much on the burial environment, and this also determines whether whole bodies survive to be excavated.

For example, hot and cold (dry) environments preserve bodies well, including soft tissue, but there are relatively few mummified bodies available for analysis compared with skeletal remains. Categories of Disease Identifiable

The evidence for disease in skeletal remains can be categorized into congenital, dental, joint, infectious, circulatory, metabolic, endocrine, neoplastic, and trauma, with the dental, joint, infectious, and trauma categories providing more abundant evidence. Thus, it is therefore clear that many diseases are absent when compared with the suite of health problems affecting human populations today. Stature, however, is also a good indicator of health because it is in the growing years when an adequate wellbalanced diet and freedom from disease are essential for populations to attain their optimal height for their age, sex, population, geographic location, and time period. In adults, unless a medical complaint is affecting height, reduced height usually indicates a chronic dietary deficiency or disease. A number of studies of children’s skeletons have also indicated that reduced growth of bones is usually seen in skeletons with a number of indicators of stress such as dental enamel defects, and children with shorter bones are seen to die younger in the past. Congenital disease may be genetic or nongenetically initiated and includes conditions such as spina bifida and cleft palate, and dental disease tells us something about diet, childhood stress, occupation, dental care, and dentistry. For example, recent research on skeletons from Bahrain shows few caries, which may reflect the naturally high fluoride levels in drinking water protecting the teeth. Identification of how people may use their teeth for particular activities has also shown us, through particular wear patterns, that people from post-Medieval England smoked pipes and held nails in their teeth for carpentry, and that nineteenth-century Inuit Eskimo women held animal skins in their front teeth to stretch and soften them to make into clothes. Trauma gives us an indication of domestic and interpersonal violence, along with efforts made to treat injuries, and joint disease can show the process of aging and the effects of work on the joints. For example, research on skeletons from the fifteenth-century English battlefield site of Towton found many with unhealed injuries to their skulls (around four per skull), supporting historical documentation for the site of the battle. Infections may be nonspecific (we do not know what specific organism caused the infection) or specific (where we do, e.g., Mycobacterium leprae is the organism causing leprosy) and may inform us about levels of hygiene, living conditions, population density, trade, and the

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keeping of animals and the consumption of their products. Brucellosis and tuberculosis are both infections that can be contracted by humans from their infected animals by ingesting or working with their infected products. The first evidence for tuberculosis comes from Italy, dated to the Neolithic, and probably relates to domestication of animals. Many examples of tuberculosis have been identified in the archaeological record (Figure 1) but, in contrast, few records of brucellosis have been reported: some examples derive from Herculaneum, Italy and date to AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted and preserved the site under volcanic ash. Sixteen of the 151 individuals had evidence of brucellosis in their skeletons and it was also identified in preserved dairy products. Circulatory disease tells us about problems of the normal circulation of the blood around the body which may impact on the skeleton, and disorders of the metabolism and endocrine system (metabolic and endocrine disease) such as scurvy and thyroid problems, respectively, may help us understand dietary and other deficiencies. For example, osteoporosis has been identified in individual skeletons (e.g., sixth-century Negev Desert in Israel) but also in larger groups of burials (see Osteological Methods; Figure 2). A recent study found a higher rate of bone loss in a Medieval population in England than today which was surprising considering the (assumed) more active lifestyle of the past. While neoplastic and congenital disease is uncommon in the archaeological record, evidence may suggest that increasingly complex societies develop more of these conditions. For example, in Britain there is very scarce evidence in prehistory but this increases from the Roman period onwards; pollutants in the atmosphere and a more complex diet

may be predisposing people to tumors and congenital disease (Figure 3). While many diseases can be recognized, the reader should be aware that poor sample representivity (making results ambiguous), the inability to age adult skeletons accurately and sex nonadult skeletons (making demographic profiles incomplete), pseudopathological lesion differentiation, the problem of identifying specific diseases beyond the disease category, and the lack of ability to identify soft tissue diseases without the use of ancient DNA analysis (also fraught with problems) make the study of health and disease in skeletal remains very challenging. Added to this are the limited ways in which the skeleton can react to disease (bone formation and destruction, in particular skeletal pattern, based on clinical data).

Figure 2 Compression fractures of vertebrae: Early Medieval England.

Figure 1 Tuberculosis of the spine: Early Modern period, North America.

Figure 3 Tumor on fibula from Early Medieval England.

1420 HEALTH, HEALING, AND DISEASE Disease within Its Cultural Context

Bound up with the evidence of disease is the necessary consideration of that evidence in context. A population’s general living environment (inside and outside the home), the climate and weather patterns, levels of hygiene, cleanliness of food and water supply, what work they do, and who and what they come into contact with, plus their biological sex, age, social status, and ethnicity, all affect what diseases they might contract. Studying disease for its own sake and in isolation from the context from which the evidence comes makes its analysis and interpretation incomplete. The quality and quantity of food and a balanced diet is particularly important in developing a strong immune system to withstand disease. Until relatively recently, it has only been possible to detect dietary deficiencies in skeletal remains, but stable isotope analysis of carbon, strontium, and nitrogen in teeth and bones can now allow us to assess the types of plants eaten and the contribution of marine and terrestrial animals to the diet (see Stable Isotope Analysis). For example, in Portugal more plant and animal domesticates were being eaten in the Neolithic compared to the Mesolithic, and in the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Ukraine hunting, fishing, and gathering provided the protein component of the diet, but there was an increase in fish consumption in the later Neolithic. By looking at the details of dietary intake, it becomes possible to assess whether diet was a contributory factor to health or disease for our ancestors. It is also necessary to understand that concepts of health, disease, and how disease should be treated, vary today around the world and between developed and developing countries. For example, Graeco-Roman medicine considered divine displeasure as a major cause of disease and, while Roman medicine advocated a preventive approach to health by regulating food and drink, taking regular exercise, massages, baths, and relaxation, it also utilized herbal remedies alongside the influence of gods, goddesses, and magical remedies for treating disease. It is therefore important to understand that how populations deal with disease can vary considerably both temporally and geographically.

times were the transition to agriculture from hunting and gathering, the development of urban centers, and the rise of industrialization. As people started to domesticate plants and animals, for example, in Neolithic Europe, population numbers began to rise and settled communities developed with permanent housing. In effect, to support an increased population, agriculture had to develop, and today it remains the mainstay of feeding the world. The risks to the health of these human populations practicing agriculture lay in increased population density, allowing infectious disease to be transmitted more readily, diseases of their animals being passed to them via contaminated meat and milk (e.g., tuberculosis), the accumulation of refuse and waste in their settlements attracting vermin and disease, the challenges of maintaining a clean water supply, and a decline in the variety of food available, with a reliance on cereal crops. Many studies of skeletons from this period of time around the world reveal an increase from the preceding period of hunting and gathering of iron-deficiency anemia, infectious diseases, stress markers in bones and teeth, trauma, and dental and joint disease. For example, in North America, there appears to be a consistent trend for an increase in caries of the teeth with the transition to maize agriculture (Figure 4). Maize is a highly cariogenic food containing high levels of sugar (sucrose) which are very readily metabolized by bacteria in the mouth. In addition to this sugar contribution to the diet, there was also a decline in wear on the teeth, which allowed food to accumulate between the cusps of the molars and premolars. In contrast, in Britain caries does not increase until the Roman period (first to fourth centuries AD) – 7.5% of total teeth – and the Late and post-Medieval periods – 5.6% and 11.2% of teeth – when imports of exotic sugary foodstuffs, and sugar, respectively led to

Health at Major Transitions Domestication of Plants and Animals

There are a handful of times during human prehistory and history when major changes/transitions in the environment and socio-economic situation have led to problems with health, and it is therefore logical to concentrate on what happened to health at these transitions (a question-driven approach). These major

Figure 4 Dental caries in a premolar and molar tooth from a hunter-gatherer individual from North America.

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these increases; in this case sugar in cereals was not the main cause. Furthermore, not all cereal crops have a high sugar content; in Thailand, where rice was (and is) the staple crop, there was a relatively low rate of caries found. Skeletal changes of anemia are also seen in higher frequencies in settled communities in the past. Again, North America provides abundant evidence and two main factors are probably at work. Maize is deficient in iron and contains substances that make iron hard to absorb from the gut; a diet reliant on maize may have predisposed people to anemia. The other factor may be related to increases in infection in agricultural communities due to a rise in population density and poor sanitation leading to parasitic infection of the gut, hemorrhage, and malabsorption of foodstuffs into the body, including iron. However, there are instances where high rates of caries and anemia are found in hunter-gatherers (Figure 5). In Australian prehistoric aboriginal populations, for example, the evidence for anemia is high in tropical/subtropical environments but low in desert

communities, suggesting that the former environment may be predisposing people to parasitic infection and anemia. Multiple indicators of stress including dental enamel defects (poor nutrition) and infection also appear to commonly occur in agricultural communities in the past, for example, at Dickson Mounds, Illinois (AD 950–1300) in North America, which suggests that, in general terms, practicing agriculture was detrimental to health. The hunter-gatherer group at this site had 0.9 defects per individual; 1.18 defects were found in the mixed hunter-gatherer/agriculture group, and the fully agricultural group had 1.61 defects. Furthermore, reduced age at death has been noted in individuals whose skeletons reveal dental enamel defects (Figure 6). Another study, which examined health at the agricultural transition compared a hunter-gatherer (50 BC–AD 200) and agricultural (AD 1050–1250) group of skeletons from West-central Illinois. It was found, through analyzing the cross-sectional shape of the femur and humerus, that females had stronger bones in the agricultural group; it was suggested that they were instrumental in growing and processing of cereal crops. Development of Urban Centers

Figure 5 Cribra orbitalia (anemia) in an orbit of the skull: Late Medieval France.

Figure 6 Dental enamel hypoplasia from Late Medieval England (grooves of the teeth).

As time went by social organization became more complex, more sophisticated artifacts and buildings appeared, and trade links became established. Urban centers developed, for example, in Late Medieval Europe, with their accompanying advantages and disadvantages. Large population increases led to people living in high densities, often crowded into inadequate housing with poor sanitation and drinking polluted water. Urban centers brought trade and new resources, and immigrants, attracted to the towns and cities for work and resources, but people also brought disease with them. Studies of human remains from urban contexts generally have revealed poor health compared to populations living in rural environments. For example, a study of sinusitis in rural and urban Late Medieval English populations found a generally higher rate in urban inhabitants and the most severe sinusitis in the males of one particular urban site (Figure 7). There were 72% of individuals affected at one urban site (St. Helen-on-the-Walls, York), with 76% of males and 69% of females involved, while at one of the rural sites (Wharram Percy, Yorkshire) 51% were affected (44% of the males and 60% of the females). Although sinusitis can be caused by many factors, such as allergies, house dust, and smoke caused by burning fuels such as dung, wood and peat, by analyzing whether dental disease (a contributory factor for sinusitis) had led to sinusitis, it was found that it contributed very little to urban sinusitis compared with rural sites; this suggested

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Figure 7 Pitting of bone on sinus floor (sinusitis) from Early Medieval England.

Figure 9 Nonspecific infection in a lower leg bone from North America (right bone in figure).

Figure 8 Healed fracture to the tibia and fibula (lower leg bones) from Late Medieval England.

Figure 10 Damage to a foot due to leprosy from a Late medieval individual from Denmark (normal foot at bottom).

that environmental pollution was the main factor causing this health problem in urban sites. Furthermore, it was known from documentary data that the males of the population at York were likely working in the many industries operating adjacent to the parish in which they lived. Lead poisoning may also occur as a result of pollution from certain industries, and in the Roman Empire the use of lead in water pipes, and lead vessels and utensils, predisposed to lead poisoning. Lead solders on tins of food also led to poisoning in victims of the nineteenth-century John Franklin expedition to the Canadian Arctic. Another example of urban versus rural differences in health can be seen in England where stature in Early Medieval (rural) populations tends to be higher than in later and post-Medieval (urban) populations. As stature is a measure of health during the growing years, a poor deficient diet and a young life exposed to pathogens will predispose to shorter long bones and

a reduced height compared to what would be expected. However, not all urban environments were necessarily more detrimental to health. A study of trauma (Figure 8) in rural and urban skeletal populations from Nubia found higher rates in the rural group, suggesting that cultivation and herding animals, and negotiating rough terrain, probably contributed to these high rates. Generally speaking, however, infectious diseases (Figure 9) such as tuberculosis (spread by droplet infection and through infected meat and milk), leprosy (Figure 10) (transmitted through droplet infection), and venereal syphilis (spread by sexual intercourse) were more prevalent in urban populations in the past purely because the conditions were right for their transmission. Venereal syphilis in Europe, for example, was very uncommon until the Late Medieval period, which reflects a time when urban living was more common, trade increased, and sexual promiscuity increased (Figure 11).

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Figure 11 Destruction of the skull due to venereal syphilis from Late Medieval Scotland.

Low levels of hygiene and contaminated foodstuffs and water also contribute to a depressed immune system, making people more susceptible to contracting infectious disease. Industrialization

In Europe the advent of industrialization in the early nineteenth century, where manufacturing industries became predominant, further increases in population density occurred, with a large part of the population eventually living in an urban environment. Housing could be very poor indeed with many families living in one room with inadequate ventilation, and diet could be deficient in certain constituents. Alongside industry came pollution of work places and the environment in general, and the population succumbed to diseases associated with their work. Analysis of human remains from this period has also shown poor health. A recent study of the skeletons of children from the eighteenth/nineteenth-century Christchurch, Spitalfields site in London, England found that industrialization had a major impact on health although some indicators were not as common as expected, due to other factors. Infant and child mortality was higher than in a comparative Late Medieval urban site, growth was more retarded, and there was a high rate of vitamin C and D deficiencies (scurvy and rickets). However, rates of respiratory infection were low compared with the Late Medieval urban site, which was also borne out by a study of the adults from the same population. This may be because the population, being of a high social status, was protected from ‘polluted’ air outside their homes, but also lived in lower population densities, thus preventing respiratory infections from spreading. Clearly, though, industrialized societies would generally be more exposed to a poor living environment, especially their place of work. Rickets, for example, became much more common

Figure 12 Rickets in leg bones from Early Medieval England.

with industrialization because people worked long hours in factories, lived in poverty, and were exposed to smog in their environment. This prevented ultraviolet light reaching their skins, something necessary for the production of vitamin D in the skin and the subsequent absorption of calcium and phosphorus to make strong bones. While the earliest case of rickets so far reported is from South Africa and dated to 4820  90 BC, and occasionally there are examples from the record of people living in rural environments with rickets, there are very few examples until the urban post-Medieval industrialized period (Figure 12).

Coping with Disease and Injury There were a number of ways in which past communities variously, both geographically and temporally, managed to deal with health problems. These can be divided into several categories, and include herbal remedies, blood letting using leeches or cupping, cautery (using heated irons on various points of the body), bathing, minor surgery such as applying herbal dressings to (or stitching) wounds, and more major surgery such as amputation, trepanation, or dental surgery. Of course, many of these procedures are invisible when trying to observe them in skeletal remains from archaeological sites, although indirect evidence such as surgical instruments may be present. It is here when other sources of evidence are particularly helpful. Documentary and Iconographic Evidence

Study of historical periods of time are particularly useful when it comes to evidence of medicine or surgery to treat disease in the form of documentary

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evidence describing treatments, and illustrations of therapy. Hippocrates, the Graeco-Roman author writing in the fifth-century BC, was particularly knowledgeable about the treatment of fractures where reduction (pulling apart the bone fragments and setting them in the right position) and splinting were recommended. This treatment of course is the mainstay of fracture therapy today. There are also many illustrations of treatment ranging from Greek vases dated to 400 BC depicting the bandaging of wounds, to the stitching of a wound in a thirteenth-century European manuscript, and major and minor surgery in Medieval illustrations. Documentary evidence also describes the extensive use of herbal remedies for specific ailments and diseases throughout history. It is likely that in prehistoric periods herbal remedies would also have been utilized for illnesses. For example, Culpeper, writing his herbal book in the post-Medieval period in England, prescribed camphor, liquorice, lungwort, mallow, poppy, polypodium, violet, and red roses for the treatment of tuberculosis. However, many remedies for illnesses prescribed by various authors were much more unconventional. For example, eating dead infant’s flesh was one remedy recommended for leprosy in Late Medieval Europe which particularly reflects the stigma attached to leprosy at this time and relates to the lack of understanding of what leprosy was and how it was contracted. Evidence from Human Remains

There is very little direct evidence for the treatment of disease and trauma from human remains from archaeological sites. One could argue that this is because many treatments are invisible in the archaeological record because most human remains are skeletons. The only direct evidence comes in the form of trepanation, or the removal of part of the skull for various reasons, and the amputation of limbs. Most fractures identified in skeletal remains are healed and therefore we would be unlikely to see evidence for splints, even though these are described in written descriptions and illustrated in artwork for specific periods. However, there are some interesting cases of treatment other than trepanation and amputation. A unique female mummy from Naples, Italy and dated to the sixteenth century, appeared to be that of a person who had suffered syphilis; her right arm had a lesion consistent with the infection which had an ivy leaf dressing applied (antiseptic) kept in place with linen bandages. Earlier examples of treatment of wounds come from England, Belgium, and Sweden where Medieval skeletons had copper plates applied to their upper arms where evidence for infection was

found (and that from England was lined with ivy leaves); in York, England a Medieval male skeleton had copper plates applied to an infected knee joint. Copper, of course, has antiseptic properties. Evidence of trepanation has been found throughout the world stretching back into prehistory. Why populations practiced this surgical procedure from such a long time ago is often a mystery. Suggestions for the reason for this operation include trauma, migraine, epilepsy, and to let the spirits out. Indeed, some skulls from archaeological sites have evidence of healed head wounds and trepanation holes, indicating an obvious reason for the surgery. In Peru, research showed a frequent association of skull fracture and trepanation in skulls dated to between 400 BC and AD 1500; in Peruvian Central Highland sites, from 212 skulls with trepanation, 55.7% of males, 31.6% of females, and 26.9% of subadults had associated skull fractures (Figure 13). However, many skulls have no direct evidence to indicate why the person underwent the procedure, although intracranial infection and scurvy have been suggested for an example in Israel dated to 3500 and 2200 BC, and a meningioma for one individual from the Czech Republic dated to AD 1298–1550, respectively. A number of types of trepanation holes have been identified, including scraped (common in Britain), gouged, and sawed (common in South America), and many have evidence of healing, suggesting that the operation had been a success. In a recent study of trepanations in Britain, almost twothirds of the 62 identified from the Neolithic to postMedieval periods had evidence of healing. What is not known is the possible associated brain damage that may have occurred during the procedure. Amputations (Figure 14) are also evident from skeletal and mummified remains but are very rare; they may be the result of surgical treatment but could equally be due to an accident, punishment, or ritual practice. Evidence of amputation has been found in a number of places and includes a 3600-year-old hand

Figure 13 Trepanation of the skull from South America.

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Figure 14 Amputation of a lower leg bone (tibia) from Late Medieval England.

amputation in a man from Israel, the amputation of a big toe discovered in a mummy from Thebes-West, Egypt and dated to 1550–1300 BC (with replacement prosthesis), and the amputation of a lower leg and forearm in a seventh-century male from the Isles of Sicily off the southwest coast of mainland England. It is highly likely that hemorrhage, shock and death would have quickly ensued should amputation have been practiced in the past, even though there is evidence that anesthesia and control of bleeding was practiced during operations in some cultures. There is, likewise, little evidence for dental disease treatment in the past from skeletal remains although written and illustrated sources, mainly from historic periods, attest to dentistry. The few examples of clear treatment that do exist include a drilled carious tooth from the Middle Neolithic period of Denmark (3200–1800 BC), gold fillings from Illinois, United States (AD 600), a bone rosary bead used as a filling in fifteenth-century Denmark, people with gold foil fillings and porcelain, ivory and bone dentures from eighteenth/nineteenth-century Christchurch, Spitalfields, London, gold bridgework and false teeth dated to 600 BC in Italy, and a drilled tooth with an abscess from Alaska dated to AD 1300–1700. Institutional, and Other Care and Treatment

The development of hospitals to take in the sick was particularly late in time. While the Romans built military hospitals within their Empire and had physicians, it was not until the Late Medieval period in Europe that hospitals developed on a larger scale. General hospitals opened to treat the sick and give charity to the poor, usually as a result of a rich benefactor feeling that it was necessary to provide such charity for their

own well-being after death. There were also more specialist hospitals to segregate and/or care/treat the leprous (leprosaria) and tuberculous (sanatoria). For example, the first sanatorium was founded in France in 1643 but it was not until the nineteenth century that the real concept was established for isolating tuberculosis sufferers in specifically designed institutions. A healthy diet with lots of protein, fresh air, sun, and a balance between exercise and rest were the main therapeutic remedies advocated. All around the world sanatoria opened, usually at high altitudes, with those in North America, becoming very big business. Before that time, specific dietary components such as milk to increase strength and resistance to tuberculosis (ancient Greeks), the ingestion of the meat of animals with ulcerated lungs (fourth/fifth-century AD Babylonia), and hyssop and fleawort boiled in sour wine (Galen, second-century AD) were advocated. Leprosy also invoked a reaction by communities, which suggests that like tuberculosis it was a disease which was associated with stigma. One of the reactions was to found leprosy hospitals to segregate the leprous and, although documentary sources from Medieval Europe attest to herbal and other treatments for leprosy, hospitals per se were not for treatment purposes. In Britain, over 300 leprosy hospitals were founded in the Late Medieval period, mainly between the eleventh- and sixteenth-century AD. However, by the fourteenth century foundations were declining and new hospitals tended to be established only in Scotland after that time. The diagnosis of leprosy was inaccurate, however, and generally relied on village elders, clerics, or physicians observing the facial characteristics of a suspect or the properties of their blood; this means that many people with leprosy were probably not diagnosed, while others were misdiagnosed. Likewise, treatment was also unconventional and involved the use of herbal remedies such as scabious and nettle, blood-letting, bathing at specific sites, and eating particular foods. Neither diagnosis nor treatment showed much logic or judgment but were more a reaction to a disease that was ill understood and feared. Clearly, evidence for our ancestors developing coping mechanisms for dealing with disease is abundant and comes from a variety of sources. While some of the treatments advocated are somewhat strange, it at least shows that societies were attempting to deal with health problems.

Conclusions Health, healing, and disease comprise very relevant areas of archaeological study because, if people in the past were unhealthy (and did not have access to health care), this impacted on how society functioned.

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For example, during the fourteenth-century plague in England a very large proportion of the population died, having a significant effect on the social, economic, and political structure of Late Medieval England. Multiple sources of evidence are available in order to explore how healthy our ancestors were, some being more useful than others. Human remains from archaeological sites, however, have provided us with extensive information about health and disease, and data have enabled us to focus on the impact on health of major changes in socio-economic situations. Future work in parts of the world where health data for the past are lacking, and developments in methods of analysis such as biomolecular analysis, will enable us to piece together more of the complex jigsaw puzzle that is the origin, evolution, and history of disease. While disease may be interesting for its own sake, it should not be forgotten that it is only when other archaeological data are utilized for its analysis and interpretation, that useful and informative patterns of health will emerge. See also: Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods; Frozen

Further Reading Arnott R, Finger S, and Smith CUM (eds.) (2003) Trepanation: History, Discovery, Theory. Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger. Aufderheide AC and Martı´n RC (1998) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kiple K (ed.) (1993) The Cambridge World History of Human Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Larsen CS (1997) Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behaviour from the Human Skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ortner DJ (2003) Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Porter R (ed.) (1997) The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present. London: Harper Collins. Roberts CA and Cox M (2003) Health and Disease in Britain: From Prehistory to the Present Day. Gloucester: Sutton Publishing. Roberts CA and Manchester K (2005) The Archaeology of Disease, 3rd edn. Gloucester: Sutton Publishing. Rosen G (1993) A History of Public Health. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stone AC (2000) Ancient DNA from skeletal remains. In: Katzenberg MA and Saunders SA (eds.) Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, pp. 351–371. New York: Wiley-Liss.

Sites and Bodies; Osteological Methods; Stable Isotope Analysis.

Heritage Sites

Hieroglyphs

See: World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

See: Writing Systems.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION LAWS Don D Fowler, Reno, NV, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary antiquities Relics, monuments, etc., of the distant past. heritage Something handed down from one’s ancestors or the past, as a characteristic, a culture, tradition, etc. law The set of rules or norms of conduct which forbid, permit or mandate specified actions and relationships among people and organizations.

Archaeology is best seen in relation to historic preservation law within the framework of the concept of cultural heritage as defined by David Lowenthal in 1996. History (including archaeology) is an ongoing scholarly endeavor which ‘‘explores and explains pasts grown ever more opaque with time; heritage clarifies pasts so as to infuse them with present purposes ... heritage aims to convert historical residues into witnesses that attest to our own ancestral virtues’’ (p. xi). Heritage consists of places – sites, buildings, structures, and landscapes, as well as objects and

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ideas – from the past that are used by those in the present as validating symbols of national, ethnic, tribal, religious, or social class identity or authority. While archaeology as history seeks to illuminate ‘opaque’ pasts by thorough scholarly research, the results of that research are often used for heritage purposes. Heritage laws are designed to preserve and provide means of interpreting the validating symbols that collectively form the cultural patrimony of a nation state, a significant subpopulation thereof, a consortium of states, such as the European Union, or all of humankind (see World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws). Herein, the terms ‘heritage laws’ and ‘heritage legislation’ are used as synonyms for ‘historic preservation law’.

Cultural Heritage and International Law Archaeology in the twenty-first century is increasingly conducted – and scrutinized – on the global scale. Hence, archaeological practice is, and will be, directly or indirectly structured by both national and public international heritage laws. Archaeology may be understood in relation to heritage legislation through the underlying concepts of the commons, stewardship, and knowledge-making as a public good. In the legal realm these concepts must be balanced against the rights of individuals, of indigenous/selfdefined groups, of nation states, of transnational entities such as the European Union, and of humanity on a global scale. Archaeology as a scholarly discipline shares long-held values in Western ideology about knowledge-making as a noble purpose carried out for the common public good. A basic assumption of Western culture is that the pursuit of more – and more complete – knowledge about the world, how it operates, and the human situation within it – past and present – is a noble purpose. Archaeology generates knowledge about the totality of the human past on a global scale, and thus contributes to an understanding of the human situation and therefore to the common good. New knowledge becomes part of the human commons, in theory available to and shared by everyone. This requires the preservation of, and access to, that knowledge in publications, documents, and records held in libraries and archives. Archaeology necessarily deals also with objects and places – sites, buildings, structures, artifacts, ecofacts, and geofacts – and the documentation associated with them, collectively comprising the ‘‘material memory’’ of the human past (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). These too are considered part of the knowledge base, to be held in trust by public institutions for exhibit and restudy at a later time. The International Council

on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) states that ‘‘The [world’s] natural and cultural heritage belongs to all people. We each have a right and a responsibility to understand, appreciate, and conserve its universal values.’’ Experts in international law distinguish between private international law, which is concerned with the differences between the internal laws of different nations, and public international law. The latter applies to all humanity, or all nation states and other entities that subscribe to specific legal instruments. Protection of cultural heritage involves both forms of international law. Public international law is comprised of an ever-developing body of charters, covenants, conventions, declarations, and treaties, herein collectively called instruments. Some instruments are promulgated by global multipurpose institutions, particularly the United Nations (UN). UN heritage instruments are developed primarily by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), or other related organizations. Other international heritage instruments are formulated by various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as ICOMOS, and transnational entities, such as the European Union. Still others are treaties between two or more nation states, often focused on illegal trafficking in antiquities. Treaties often involve elements of both private and public international law. Collectively, cultural heritage instruments form a superstructure of international law that functions on a consensual and confederate basis. The instruments focus on the protection, conservation, and study of ‘cultural heritage’, assumed to be part of the commons of all humanity and/or the ‘cultural patrimony’ of individual nation states, or subentities thereof. They provide organizational, procedural, and ethical guidance for developing heritage laws, policies, and procedures at the international, transnational, and national levels. Public international heritage law and practice build on a series of sequential charters, declarations, and covenants promulgated at first by international congresses made up of representatives of national cultural institutions, and after 1949, by UNESCO, its subdivisions and allied organizations. The keystone instrument, The Athens Charter for the Restoration of Historic Monuments, was adopted in 1931 by the First International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments, meeting in Athens, Greece. Several major resolutions were adopted which laid the basis for most of the national and international heritage legislation and the conservation practices that were developed in subsequent decades:

1428 HISTORIC PRESERVATION LAWS International organizations for Restoration on operational and advisory levels are to be established ... Problems of preservation of historic sites are to be solved by legislation at national levels for all countries ... Excavated sites which are not subject to immediate restoration should be reburied for protection ... Historical sites are to be given strict custodial protection ... Attention should be given to the protection of areas surrounding historic sites. ...

The Athens charter was amplified by the 1964 Venice Charter, the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. The preamble to the Venice Charter places cultural heritage preservation in an international context: Imbued with a message from the past, the historic monuments of generations of people remain to the present day as living witnesses of their age-old traditions. People are becoming more and more conscious of the unity of human values and regard ancient monuments as a common heritage. The common responsibility to safeguard them for future generations is recognized. It is our duty to hand them on in the full richness of their authenticity. It is essential that the principles guiding the preservation and restoration of ancient buildings should be agreed and be laid down on an international basis, with each country being responsible for applying the plan within the framework of its own culture and traditions. (International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, Preamble, 1964).

Article 27 of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts the right of the individual to participate in the cultural life of her or his community. The 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights sets forth more specific rights relating to cultural issues, as does the 1970 Cultural Rights as Human Rights. The 1998 declaration of ICOMOS marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: The right to cultural heritage is an integral part of human rights ... The right to have the authentic testimony of cultural heritage, respected as an expression of one’s cultural identity within the human family; ... the right to wise and appropriate use of heritage; the right to participate in decisions affecting heritage and the cultural values it embodies; the right to form associations for the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. (Declaration of ICOMOS Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1998).

Other UNESCO instruments focus on stewardship, protection, and conservation of cultural heritage; for example, the 1972 Convention for the Protection of

World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and the 1997 Declaration on the Responsibilities of Present Generations to Future Generations. Articles 7 and 8 of the latter state: Cultural Diversity and Cultural Heritage. With due respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, the present generations should take care to preserve the cultural diversity of humankind. The present generations have the responsibility to identify, protect and safeguard the tangible and intangible cultural heritage and to transmit this common heritage to future generations. ... The present generations may use the common heritage of humankind, as defined in international law, provided that this does not entail compromising it irreversibly. (Declaration on the Responsibilities of Present Generations to Future Generations, 1997).

The 1990 ICOMOS (1990) Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage provides a general framework for archaeological site conservation applicable in most world regions. Transnational conventions follow from the international instruments, for example, the 1992 European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage. Other international charters and covenants are concerned with specific heritage conservation issues vis-a`-vis indigenous/self-defined peoples, trafficking in antiquities, or specific areas of concern such as the underwater heritage (see below).

Linkage of National and International Heritage Laws Laws or edicts governing protection of specific places or objects of cultural heritage were occasionally promulgated by rulers or polities over many centuries in various countries. But it was not until cultural heritage became directly linked to histories of nation states that comprehensive legislation began to be developed. England and Sweden created heritage legislation in CE 1600s, declaring that all objects from ancient times were the property of the Crown, thus part of the national cultural patrimony. Modern national-level legislation began in the 1800s in Europe, some European colonies, and the United States. Additional legislation was passed by a few countries between 1900 and 1940. During the 1800s large-scale European and (after 1880) US archaeological expeditions went to the Mediterranean and the Middle East to excavate the monuments and cities of the ‘‘ancient Old World civilizations’’. After 1885 similar expeditions went to Mexico, and Central and South America. Literally tons of artifacts and artworks were carried out of Egypt, Greece, Turkey, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Latin America to fill the great

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art and natural history museums being built then in Europe and the US. The attendant publicity led to archaeological artifacts and art works having value as curios and art objects, expanding the longstanding markets for Egyptian and Classical objects. Looting increased exponentially, prompting national and colonial legislation designed to define and control legitimate archaeological research through permitting systems, to combat illegal looting, and to retain artifacts and objects of art within, or seek their return to, the countries of origin. The end of World War II marked a turning point for material heritage legislation and practices in many countries. Massive post-war rebuilding, redevelopment and expansion of cities and transportation infrastructures, and the processes of globalization worldwide, were destroying the historical built environment and archaeological sites at an alarming rate. To counter these threats, in 1972, UNESCO encouraged nations to formulate and implement cultural heritage policies. The focus was on developing nations, many of which had significant ethnically or culturally diverse populations, each often claiming its own heritage-validating symbols. Individual nations responded variously with charters or statements of cultural policy that defined national heritage and preservation objectives. This provided the basis for new, revised, or additional heritage protection legislation to empower the nation states to realize their objectives. A major concern for developing nations was preserving heritage for purposes of cultural tourism as a means for economic development. Some seventy statements of national cultural policies were published by UNESCO during the 1970s. By the year 2005, over 110 nation states had created significant heritage laws and related policies and regulations. Some have overarching laws and regulations, and others covering politically significant subdivisions, for example, the United Kingdom, and the subdivisions of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Most nation states have one or more governmental agency or ministry charged to oversee and administer regulations governing their cultural heritage. After the mid-1970s, there was a broadening of ‘heritage’ to include ‘traditional places’ – sites and cultural landscapes that have mythological, religious, or traditional foodways meanings to specific cultural groups. Well known examples are Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park and Ayer’s Rock in Australia. The worldwide large-scale exploitation and destruction of natural resources, coupled with the development of global-scale environmental movements, led many nation states to pass legislation defining and

protecting natural heritage. Some countries created combined natural and cultural legislation and related administrative entities, for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The UNESCO World Heritage List, created in 1972, includes both cultural and natural places, as well as cultural routes, or itineraries, such as the Silk Road across Inner Asia and the pilgrimage road from France across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela.

National Heritage Legislation Space precludes a worldwide country by country survey of national heritage legislation, but a broad regional survey will indicate commonalities. Heritage legislation in Europe must be seen in relation to individual nations and two transnational organizations, the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (COE). ‘The Consolidated Treaty Establishing the European Community’ states that the EU shall ‘‘respect national and regional cultural [including religious and linguistic] diversity’’ and act to conserve and safeguard the ‘‘cultural heritage of European significance.’’ The COE is not an EU institution, but a cooperative intergovernmental agency of 46 member states focused on human rights, promotion of cultural diversity, and protection of heritage. The COE issues hortatory conventions – those relating to heritage include a general 1954 Cultural Convention; a 1969 Archaeological Heritage Protection, revised in 1992; and a 1985 Architectural Heritage Convention. There is also a 1992 European Plan for Archaeology, a cooperative charter for archaeological research and enhancing heritage legislation. All European nations not in membership of the EU have heritage legislation and implementing agencies, many of them well organized and effective. Heritage legislation and agencies vary widely in Asian countries. China has some national heritage legislation, but more is required given the enormous development projects underway in the early years of the twenty-first century and their impacts on heritage resources. Japan, by contrast, has a long history of heritage legislation extending back to 1919, focused on both tangible and intangible heritage, the latter including music, drama, and folk culture. Tangible heritage includes places of scenic beauty, both cultural and natural landscapes such as gardens and bridges, gorges, seashores, and mountains. Other South Asian and Southeast Asian nations have varying levels of heritage legislation and implementing agencies. They range from legislative declarations calling for the protection of national heritage, for example, Cambodia, to Thailand, which has a highly organized heritage

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preservation system of agencies and museums that have been in existence for decades. Malaysia has no effective heritage legislation, but created a Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage in 2004. There is an Asia–Pacific consortium of heritage-oriented NGOs sharing information about developing effective national heritage legislation and organizations. Since colonial times, India has had a suite of heritage laws and related administrative agencies. In Africa the levels of heritage legislation and implementing agencies vary widely. Egypt was among the first nations, beginning in the nineteenth century, to attempt to control, through legislation and permitting systems, the outflow of its cultural heritage to the museums and art markets of the world. The effectiveness of the efforts varied widely over time, but became more systematic and effective after World War II and the establishment of Egypt as a fully independent nation in 1954. Heritage legislation in other African nations was often based on whatever colonial legislation had been implemented by the European nation controlling each colonial state. After African nations achieved independence, many followed the 1970s UNESCO guidelines for formulating heritage policies and legislation and created agencies to implement the policies. Islamic countries, or countries with large Muslim populations, have heritage legislation that is often coordinated, at least in part, with traditional Islamic law. All Caribbean nations, except Antigua, have heritage legislation, as do all the nations of Latin America. Some nations, such as Mexico, have specific treaties with the United States relating specifically to problems of trafficking in antiquities. All nation states have definitions of what constitutes national patrimony. Some focus only on places, built heritage – sites, monuments, structures, historic districts. Others include natural and/or culturally modified landscapes, and objects – artifacts, traditional crafts and works of art, books, and archives. Still others include nontangible heritage folklore and folkways, traditional ceremonies and practices, music, and indigenous knowledge, including languages.

Looting and Trafficking in Antiquities A major focus of public international heritage law and concern is the looting of archaeological sites to satisfy the intense, worldwide demand for ‘antiquities’ for the illicit ‘antiquities market’. Looting destroys context and information, both critical to the conduct of scholarly archaeology and thus the

preservation of heritage knowledge. Looting of archaeological sites has gone on for centuries, indeed millennia. Prior to 1940, few nations outside Europe had national legislation aimed at protecting movable cultural property (Egypt and Turkey were major exceptions). Thereafter the pace quickened as new nation states emerged from colonial situations, although the effectiveness varied by country, time, circumstance, and the demands of the illicit antiquities market and major museums. After c. 1970, looting and trafficking in antiquities reached ‘crisis’ proportions as demand accelerated among wealthy individuals and unscrupulous museums, including several major art museums in Europe, the United States, and Asia. A major focus of national laws, international conventions through UNESCO and its related agencies, and various treaties between nation states has tried to slow or stop the trafficking, but with little success. Prior to 1970, major museums were (and some still are) major end-purchasers of illegally obtained antiquities. After 1970, museum and museum association codes of ethics relating to looting began to be developed in Europe and the United States. Most codes focus on the refusal to purchase art objects or antiquities without appropriate provenance. The ‘International Council on Museums (ICOM) Code of Professional Ethics’ states that: The illicit trade in objects destined for public and private collections encourages destruction of historic sites, local ethnic cultures, theft at both national and international levels ... contravenes the spirit of national and international patrimony ... So far as excavated material is concerned, ... [a] museum should not acquire by purchase objects in any case where the governing body or responsible officer has reasonable cause to believe that their recovery involved the recent unscientific or intentional destruction or damage of ancient monuments or archaeological sites, or involved a failure to disclose the finds to ... the proper or legal government authorities. (International Council on Museums (ICOM) Code of Professional Ethics).

The McDonald Institute of Archaeology at Cambridge University in 1997 established an Illicit Antiquities Research Centre to coordinate actions and promote information dissemination on problems and potential solutions to looting and trafficking in antiquities. The problem, however, remains a serious one. The reader is referred to the various UNESCO instruments and those of related organizations for details on the linked attempts to stop or impede the trafficking across international boundaries. Overall, the instruments are minimally effective in the face of huge profits made by those involved in the trafficking.

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Public International Heritage Law and ‘Self-Defined’ Peoples A central, and highly complex, set of national and international legal and ethical concerns for archaeology that has developed since the 1950s derives from the linkage of some archaeological sites, artifacts, and the knowledge related to them, to self-defined peoples from whose pasts and/or traditional cultures they are said to derive. These asserted linkages have come to legally structure how archaeology is, or is not, conducted in numerous countries. ‘Self-defined’ peoples is used here as an inclusive category, since it refers to peoples, nations, or communities that may, or may not, have national or international legal recognition within nation states or international bodies, but whose members regard themselves as a sociopolitical or culturally distinct group. ‘Indigenous peoples’, ‘indigenous nations’, ‘descendant communities’, and ‘Fourth World’ are also terms variously used by, or applied to, such groups. All such groups may assert rights to archaeological resources and knowledge which they conceive to be part of their cultural heritage. Self-defined peoples’ claims to archaeological knowledge and artifacts are best understood within the larger framework of the general indigenous peoples’ rights movement that culminated in the formulation of the International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Nations in 1994 by the United Nations and numerous NGOs. The covenant and related instruments distinguish between ‘‘nations’’ and (nation-) ‘‘states’’ of the First, Second, and Third Worlds. For present purposes, the major points are: Indigenous nations are peoples which have the right to full and effective enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights law. ... Indigenous nations have the right of self-determination, in accordance with international law, and by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development without external interference. Indigenous nations have the right to practice their cultural traditions and evolve culture in relation to lands and territories without interference. This includes the right to maintain, protect, and develop the past, present, and future manifestations of their culture, such as archaeological and historical sites and structures, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies, and visual and performing arts and literature, as well as the right to the restitution of cultural, religious, and spiritual property taken without their free and informed consent or in violation of their laws. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, and teach spiritual and religious traditions,

customs, and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of human remains. Nations and States shall be encouraged to take effective measures to preserve respect and protect the sacred places of each indigenous nation.

Self-defined indigenous nations assert that the public international laws, and derivative regulations of the ‘State system’, that is the nation-states which comprise the United Nations, have been undermined by the private international law and rule-making of multinational corporations, thus weakening the state system. The indigenous nations argue that covenants and other instruments developed by them have equal standing in international law with the instruments of the multinational corporations and must be taken seriously by the ‘‘states’’. Increasingly, since the 1960s, both national and public international heritage laws have been written in support of the claims of self-defined groups to the cultural heritage of the nation-states in which they reside, or from which they derive.

Law of the Sea and Underwater Cultural Heritage A particularly complex area of public international heritage law is the ‘‘law of the sea’’. Various international agreements and disagreements have existed for millennia over travel on and (since airplanes) over the oceans, access to sea (fisheries) and seabed resources, such as oil, as well as shipwrecks and other cultural materials on the floor of the sea. The ‘‘law of the sea’’ includes maritime or admiralty law, pertaining primarily to private shipping and various rights to salvage abandoned shipwrecks or cargo. It also includes public international law, which defines differential access to and use of the sea in relation to distances from coastlines, as well as travel thereon and resources within and under it. The 1982 UN agreement, the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed by 119 nations focuses on territorial waters, sea lanes, and underwater resources. The fact that several major nation-states (the US, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Israel, and Italy, and several others) are not parties to the treaty creates various complications for the protection and study of underwater cultural heritage. The Convention defines a nation’s territorial waters as extending 12 nautical miles beyond its coastline. Beyond that limit, commercial or military ships or aircraft may move freely. A contiguous zone may extend out to 24 miles. Coastal nations have

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exclusive rights to fisheries resources out to 200 nautical miles, called the ‘‘exclusive economic zone’’; coastal nations with continental shelves have exclusive rights to oil, gas, and other natural, but not cultural, resources up to 200 nautical miles. Beyond the 200 mile limits are the high seas, traditionally not subject to national control – the ‘‘freedom of the seas’’. Over the centuries, laws, treaties, and practices relating to salvage of shipwrecks and/or sunken cargoes, fluctuated widely, whether under the ‘‘high seas’’, or in or adjacent to territorial waters, however defined. The advent of systematic study of and attempts to protect underwater cultural resources after World War II highlighted problems of freedom to salvage versus scholarly study and protection and conservation of the resources. One complicating factor in the protection of underwater heritage is the issue of sovereignty. Government-owned vessels do not fall under the general laws of the sea. Warships are similar to embassies: they cannot be entered by local law-enforcement officials when anchored in foreign waters. If they sink they cannot be salvaged without the permission of the navy that owns them – whether they are in territorial, coastal, or international waters. The principle of sovereignty holds as long as the owning nation, or a recognized descendant nation, continues to exist. A second factor is that ships in international waters can only be salvaged if they are abandoned. If an owner or insurer exists and has not given up its interest in a vessel, a salvor must come to an agreement with that entity before proceeding with any salvage operation. The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage provides a framework for participating nation-states to deal with the issues. The convention recognizes the UNCLOS definitions of territorial, contiguous, and international waters, referring to the latter as the ‘‘Area’’. The convention aims to ‘‘preserve underwater cultural heritage for the benefit of humanity’’. It states that the commercial exploitation of underwater culture heritage for trade or speculation or its irretrievable dispersal is fundamentally incompatible with the protection and proper management of the underwater cultural heritage. Underwater cultural heritage shall not be traded, sold, bought or bartered as commercial goods.

Ships flying the flags of signatory nations are obliged to report discoveries of shipwrecks and any illicit activities they observe in their own waters or the Area. Once reports are received by signatory governments, they ‘‘shall take measures to prevent the entry into their territory, the dealing in, or possession of,

underwater cultural heritage illicitly exported and/or recovered’’. In summary, national and international heritage laws, conventions, and other instruments have developed over many centuries. Since 1970, the ongoing emergence of a ‘global society’ has led to linkages of the heritage instruments of multinational organizations, nation-states and those of self-defined peoples in concerted attempts to protect and control places, objects, and ideas regarded as being part of the shared heritage of humanity or some significant portion thereof. Looting and trafficking in antiquities contravenes the basic idea of protecting, conserving, and sharing the human cultural heritage. The heritage is seen as existing both on land and beneath the seas. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Cultural Resource Management; Illicit Antiquities; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Anaya SJ (1996) Indigenous People in International Law. New York: Oxford University Press. Babits L and Van Tilburg H (eds.) (1998) Maritime Archaeology. New York: Springer. Baslar K (1998) The Concept of the Common Heritage of Mankind in International Law. The Hague: Mijhoff Publishers. Brodie N and Tubb KW (2002) Illicit Antiquities: The Theft of Culture and the Extinction of Archaeology. London: Routledge. Brownlie I (2003) Principles of Public International Law. New York: Oxford University Press. Joyner CC (ed.) (1997) The United Nations and International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keune RV (2003) Historic Preservation in a Global Context: An International Perspective. In: Robert ES (ed.) A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty First Century, pp. 353–384. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Lee R, Mango A, and Osmaczyk EJ (eds.) (2003) Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements, 3rd edn. New York: Routledge. Lowenthal D (1996) The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. New York: Free Press. O’Connell DP (1992) The International Law of the Sea, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Weiss EB (1989) In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity. Tokyo: United Nations University.

Relevant Websites http://www.cwis.org – The Center for World Indigenous Studies. http://www.icom.org – International Council of Museums. http://www.international.icomos.org – International Council on Monuments and Sites. http://www.unesco.org – UNESCO (includes UN instruments and links to other international government and NGO heritage organizations. http://journals.cambridge.org – International Journal of Cultural Property, Cambridge Journals Online.

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HISTORIC ROOTS OF ARCHAEOLOGY Teresa S Moyer, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary antiquities Objects and material culture from the ancient past. antiquity A time in the distant past, understood as preceding the Middle Ages. anthropology The study of humankind, its culture and evolution, both extant and extinct. contact period Era of European colonialism beginning in the fifteenth century, when first contact was made with indigenous groups across the globe. ethnology The use of ethnographic data to study contemporary cultures; one of the four sub-disciplines of cultural anthropology. linguistics The study of human language and its applications for cultural behavior. physical anthropology The scientific study of the physical characteristics, variability, and evolution of the human organism. scribe A public clerk or secretary, especially in ancient times. social history An area of study that considers historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends.

Introduction The historical roots of archaeology lie in the curiosity of ancient cultures about the people who came before them. One finding of contemporary archaeology is that almost universally humankind has been curious about the past and has collected material evidence of it to suit various needs. Archaeologists do not agree on the major paradigms that characterize the development of archaeology. Histories of archaeology tend to slant away from the influence of women, indigenous groups, or local informants. Safe to say, what we today call archaeology comes from a conglomeration of slowly changing ways of thinking in response to the testing of theories and new finds across the globe. The following discussion looks at the coalescence of archaeological thought from ancient times to the mid-nineteenth century.

The Ancient World Archaeology in recent times shows that ancient peoples recovered material remains of even earlier peoples and visited their monuments. Archaeologists speculate that ancient peoples interpreted the materials to support their cultural conceptions of time as known through tradition and mythology. Other cultures are known to have perceived antiquities as tangible links to, or proof of, sacred eras closer to the point of creation. No evidence exists that ancient

people used systematic methods to excavate and record their finds, or that they sought to answer questions of time depth and cultural sequence. Yet the evidence of ancient artifacts in archaeological contexts outside their own indicates that the prehistory of archaeology reaches thousands of years into the past. The recognition of objects as culturally unfamiliar and time-distant was an important conceptual development in the earliest history of archaeology. For example, in eastern North America, the Iroquois of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD collected projectile points, stone pipes, and native copper tools made thousands of years earlier. The artifacts may have been found in the course of daily activities. A number of cultures integrated ancient artifacts and monuments into their own religious practices. The Aztecs of South America performed religious observances in the sixteenth century at Teotitihuacan, a city inhabited in the first millennium AD. They buried ritual deposits, including Olmec figurines and valuable goods, in the walls of the Great Temple. Scribes in Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty left graffiti that documents their visits to ancient and abandoned monuments. The first known collection of antiquities was amassed in Babylonia in the sixth century BC. It references a growing interest among the literate classes in the monuments and the written records of the past in relationship to religious concerns about gods or heroes and their perceived representation of civilization in more perfect form at the time of creation. Many groups attributed artifacts to mythological sources. European peasants in the medieval period collected stone celts and stone projectile points. Some thought that the artifacts, also called ‘fairy arrows’ or ‘thunderbolts’, were shot from the sky to injure humans. Europeans were also aware of prehistoric tumuli and megalithic monuments in their local areas. These places were plundered by people of all classes for treasures, holy relics, and for building materials. Historical records by way of the Bible, surviving histories of Greece and Rome, and traditions going back to the Dark Ages were the primary historical authority. These accounts were the driving influence leading to the belief that the world was only a few thousand years old. The collection and preservation of holy relics during the Middle Ages was connected to such religious beliefs. Historians’ work with antiquities served political purposes. In China, historian Si-ma Qien, who wrote

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in the second century BC, visited ancient ruins and consulted relics and texts when writing his history of ancient China, the Shi Ji. His influential account helped to unify the political and cultural trends of the time. A preponderant emphasis lay on written records and oral traditions to create narratives of the past. Greek and Roman scholars used written and oral sources, but were also influenced by religious practices, local customs, and civil institutions. The Greek historian Thucydides, however, concluded that graves dug on the island Delos in the fifth century BC belonged to the Carians because they contained armor and weapons akin to contemporary Carians. The Greek traveler Pausanias described the public buildings, art works, rites, and customs of different regions and the historical traditions associated with them. The Greeks and Romans kept relics of the past as votive offerings in their temples and graves, sometimes also opening graves to recover relics of past heroes. The collection and use of very ancient artifacts by past cultures demonstrates the ways that material culture became an active component in shaping societal life. Ancient cultures integrated mythology, history, and artifacts into their own practices.

Directions from the European Renaissance Beginning in the late fourteenth century, the cultural, social, and economic changes related to the end of feudalism in northern Italy led scholars to seek precedents in earlier times for political innovations. During the ensuing Renaissance, scholars looked to literature of the Classical era to provide a glorious past for the emerging Italian city-states and to justify the increasing secularization of Italian culture. Popes, cardinals, and Italian nobility collected and displayed ancient works by the late fifteenth century. They also sponsored expeditions to search out and recover materials of commercial and esthetic value. Excavations at the Roman sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii were examples of such treasure hunts (see Classical Archaeology). Scholars of the Renaissance era became critically familiar with the texts of ancient Greece and Rome. They saw that the past was different and separate from the present, but also that past periods should be studied on a relative basis. Renaissance ideas inspired by the Classical world spread geographically throughout Europe and in the artistic and scholarly disciplines. These ideas inspired a surge in the arts and scholarly thought. A trend in the plastic arts – particularly sculpture, and also painting – demonstrated

interest in humanism through artistic expression of nudity and human traits, such as dignity. Humanism as a philosophy developed as European societies began to choose between secular and religious views of the world. After the Renaissance, some antiquarians studied the local mounds and monuments of their own countries. Others traveled to Mediterranean and Near Eastern areas to investigate the origins of contemporary civilization. They returned to Europe with treasures for their wealthy patrons. Art history and Classical studies are two fields that grew from the pursuits of the Renaissance era, as members of the nobility became collectors of Greek and Roman objects and valued them as art. Collectors looked on land and under water for treasures, as seen in Italy. One of the earliest episodes of underwater treasure hunting was in the midfifteenth century, when an avid collector named Cardinal Colonna commissioned the recovery of two sunken ships from the bottom of Lake Nemi. The ropes, however, were not strong enough to raise the ships, although some planks and a torso of a large Roman sculpture were recovered. The recovery of artifacts from ancient Italian sites in the early eighteenth century piqued interest in what else might lie beneath the surface. Engineer Rocco Gioacchino de Alcubierre, under orders from the king, opened haphazardly placed tunnels into the ancient town of Herculaneum, beneath the lava left by Mount Vesuvius. He found paintings, mosaics, and other preserved features. He continued at Torre Annuziata in the 1740s, gaining substantial support when it was discovered to be the ancient city of Pompeii. Excavations continued in a treasure-hunting capacity at both sites for decades. The discipline of art history developed as a frame of analysis for ancient materials. Art history depended upon written records for the chronology and context of the changing styles of ancient works, but the field also brought the study of material culture into investigations of the past. Johann Winckelmann, a German scholar writing in the mid-eighteenth century, established art history as a distinct branch of classical studies. Winckelmann outlined periods of Greek and Roman sculptural styles and described the factors influencing the development of Classical art. Art history provided an analytical framework for using material culture to study the ancient past. Classical studies became the mode of analysis stemming from the expeditions to ancient Aegean sites beginning in the mid-eighteenth century. Winckelmann had noted that most extant examples of Greek sculpture were actually Roman copies, which inspired the collection of authentic Greek works. British ambassador Thomas Bruce, also known as Lord Elgin, was

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granted permission by the sultan of Turkey to remove stones from Athens. His men removed many elements from the Parthenon and they were displayed in London in 1814. They became part of one of the first major controversies in the exhibition of archaeological materials. Some viewers protested the vandalism of the objects from their original sites, while others dismissed the sculptures as inferior to the Hellenistic–Roman style to which they were accustomed. Other excavations soon followed at the island of Peloponnesus, the Acropolis at Athens, and the island of Aegina. Classical studies became the model for Egyptology and Assyriology. These fields drew on information recorded in the Bible about the ancient civilizations of Egypt and the Near East as seen by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Travelers from across Europe documented their travels up the Nile River and around Cairo, but contributed little else to the knowledge of Egypt. Discoveries by the French in the late nineteenth century made significant inroads into Egyptian archaeology. Scholars associated with Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt collected Egyptian antiquities, which generated interest about the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Soon after, French engineers discovered the Rosetta Stone, a slab of basalt inscribed with translations of ancient languages. Jean Francois Champollion and others interested in linguistics took to the task of deciphering the hieroglyphics associated with the finds. Interestingly, visitors to sites in Ethiopia and Sudan preferred to link the monuments with Egyptian culture, rather than appreciate them on their own merit or as historically associated with African peoples to the south. The exposure of Egyptian antiquities excited the public’s curiosity and spurred further expeditions from other European nations to learn more. As a result, many sites were pillaged to build collections outside of the Near East before dedicated study could begin. The cultural regions of Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Asia Minor, or Persia did not at first glance seem to have grand monuments like those of Egypt. Travelers in the mid-sixteenth century, however, reported seeing great mounds of earth covering the traditional sites of cities such as Nineveh or Babylon. Napoleon’s invasions also brought attention to the region as they did to Egypt also. Researchers such as Edward Daniel Clarke and Jean Louis Burckhardt searched for evidence of Biblical sites in the Holy Land (see Biblical Archaeology). Clarke brought a healthy skepticism of traditional lore and tested sites to determine the physical locations of ancient cities. Others, like Edward Robinson, used investigations of the Near East to support a literal interpretation of the Bible. Linguists untangled the meaning of ancient

sites with their deciphering of Mesopotamian cuneiform in the early nineteenth century. Their translations illuminated ancient political structures and genealogies. Slowly, a picture began to grow from the accumulated linguistic and material evidence. Scholars of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries referred to a staged system of technological progress suggested by Greek and Roman historians and philosophers of Classical times. This approach was embraced for archaeology beyond the Mediterranean. Information was organized for professionals and the public using a tiered system. For instance, J. C. Thomsen’s arrangement of the national museum of Denmark in 1819 according to the Three-Age system with the idea that the ancient inhabitants of Europe passed through technological stages of development characterized by their use of stone, bronze, and iron. This system dovetailed with current social paradigms that associated class and race with human development as a staged process. Methodologies for observing the natural world were also underway in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but would not directly impact archaeology for another century or two. Few scientists saw a conflict between their work and the Bible, and fewer still challenged religious doctrine or the historical reliability of the Bible rather than fight the rest of the scientific community for credibility. Scholars throughout Europe worked to fit ancient finds into the paradigm that the world was only about 6000 years old. On the other hand, geologists made headway in chronological thinking and methodology in their attempts to understand fossils. Large fossils were at first interpreted within mythological confines to be unicorns, giants, dragons, or even the remains of creatures killed during the Biblical flood. Robert Hooke, a geologist working in the mid-seventeenth century, saw that fossils differed from strata to strata and suggested that they could inform a chronology of the Earth that stretched before the book of Genesis. Nicholas Steno also noted that successive strata contained different flora and fauna, but demonstrated that these types of materials existed together in the same environment at the same time. Scientific methodology in the natural sciences would bring coherence to archaeology and inspire theoretical conceptions of the past, as well.

Exploration and Observation The exploration of Africa, the Americas, and the Far East expanded Europeans’ anthropological knowledge. Little anthropological data had been collected from these areas. Changes in archaeology were influenced by a literary approach to anthropological

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writing, but hindered by the deep acceptance of theological explanations for natural and cultural phenomena. These factors, coupled with the exoticism of regions that were new to European explorers, led to the ‘armchair speculation’ of the origins of the new peoples being met and the shape of their lives. Europeans began to explore the coast of Africa below Morocco in the fifteenth century. Portuguese merchants returned with stories of fabulous kingdoms and cities in the interior of Africa. By the sixteenth century, African civilization had entered a troubled period as a result of economic decline, the overseas slave trade, and invasions from other nations. Despite earlier accounts to the contrary, Europeans convinced themselves that African culture had never become civilized and thus were able to justify their imperialism. Europeans accepted Herodotus’ and others’ accounts of Ethiopia because its pyramids, temples, and reliefs were akin to those visited in Egypt. Europeans refused to accept the idea of a complex Sudanese culture or that southern Africans could create substantial monuments, despite reports in the mid-sixteenth century of gold mines in the midst of masonry fortresses. Medieval Arab writers commented on rich trade in gold, ivory, animal skins, and iron from large cities along the eastern coast of Africa, which led some scholars to connect the region with the Biblical city of Ophir and to King Solomon’s mines. Explorers from Europe were also seeing ruined cities in the Far East as they began to settle ports for trade. Robert Knox, a Dutch seaman, published an account of Anuradhapura on the island of Ceylon. His report made readers aware that the jungles held ancient evidence of civilization from times before the Europeans arrived. In 1790, a peasant plowing a field near Nellore in India stumbled upon the remains of a small Hindu temple that contained a pot filled with second-century AD Roman coins and medals. This was an unusual event, as much of the archaeological work consisted of exploration and documentation of visible temples and monuments. European explorers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries offer some of the first accounts from a historical perspective on the New World, its people, and the landscape. Exploration of the Americas resulted in important academic findings and philosophical quandaries for Europeans. Willey and Sabloff characterize the era of exploration and recovery of information from foreign places as ‘the speculative mode of thought’. The explorers encountered new peoples and cultures, as well as unusual landscape features. They recorded ethnographic information and began rudimentary investigations. Theological interpretations dominated the discussions. Collections of archaeological data

took place incidentally to these pursuits. The expeditions also collected documentation of Native Americans’ interests in history, such as chronicles, genealogies, or historical statements. These accounts have been preserved in the original or in postConquest copies. Most of the projects collected data that related to larger, exploratory trends in the ‘natural scientific’ spirit. Such work fed speculation about the natural and cultural makeup of the American continents and interest in exploitable natural resources. Explorers to South America from Spain described the lives of the Aztecs and the Maya at the time of the Conquest. A few writers, such as Bernardino de Sahagan and Diego de Landa, also demonstrated approaches and questions that today could be considered archaeological. They were the forerunners of men and women in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who asked when events took place and what had happened, in conjunction with their descriptions of indigenous groups and ancient ruins. Governmental directives ordered a number of expeditions from Europe to the Americas, such as the sixteenth-century trek of Diego Garcia de Palacio to the Maya site of Copan, Honduras and of Antonio del Rio to Palenque, Mexico in the nineteenth century. Missionaries also collected information. Bishop Diego de Landa and Fray Bartoleme´ de las Casas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wrote about archaeological ruins and the history and way of life of the Mayan culture of Chichen Itza and other sites. As Europeans investigated the Americas, they included in their reports of natural discoveries the indigenous peoples, natural resources, flora, and fauna. Although archaeology per se was not practiced, in these early centuries of the ‘contact period’, many explorers did collect anthropological information that would inform future archaeological investigations. Priests and administrators who accompanied the Spanish Conquistadores to Latin America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took accounts of American Indians. Today, these accounts offer archaeologists important information about the civilizations. Records of explorers such as Giovanni de Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier recorded information of ethnographic value, as well. The expeditions returned to Europe with information for speculators, ideas for settlements, natural specimens, and cultural souvenirs. The scholars of North America, operating within a theology-centered worldview, began to speculate on the indigenous peoples’ origins. Theories postulated that the so-called ‘Indians’ might descend from Iberians, Carthaginians, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, Canaanites, and Tartars, or even came from the vanished island of Atlantis. Most hypotheses reflected

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the cultural values, biases, or predilections of different groups of settlers. Some early Spanish settlers, for example, did not believe that the Indians had souls and thus could not be human beings. This justified their program of exploitation. The Spanish Crown, however, insisted that the Roman Catholic Church proclaim Indians as human so that the government could assert its right to govern them. This also meant that Christians were forced to grapple with the ‘savages’ as people who also descended from Adam and Eve. Theological interpretations, however, were challenged by the increasingly influential scientific inquiries. Nonscientific conjecture, or armchair speculation, weighed in on topics such as the mounds of North America, or the developmental sequence for ‘primitive’ cultures. Such early speculations expressed the cultural views of the European explorers and immigrants and began to fan curiosity about the past of the New World. Through the nineteenth century, the Enlightenment concepts of reason and progress philosophies sustained a belief that progress was inherent in the human condition. The settlement of North America by Europeans forced the issue as the intelligentsia conjectured about topics such as theological explanations of natural and cultural phenomena, the exotic realm of the unexplored New World, and an immediate need to create a heroic history for the new land. In the late eighteenth century in North America, ethnocentrism pervaded colonists’ cultural values toward indigenous peoples, whom they perceived to be savage and separate in origin from the builders of the mounds. Reports by the Spaniards of Tenochtilan, the capital of the Aztecs, the public works of the Incas, or the other great achievements of the Indians of Middle and South America, lent further doubt that the mounds of North America were capable of revealing such civilized places. Observations by De Soto’s party, for example, described the American-Indians building and using mounds in the southeastern United States, but this information was conveniently forgotten. In North America, the ‘myth of Mound builders’ posited that a ‘lost’ civilized race built the mounds and ruins, but disappeared long before Europeans came on the scene. Europeans in the New World did not believe that the Indians were capable of building the mounds, particularly in comparison to what they judged as the grand public works of the Indians of Middle and South America. Racial myths eclipsed religious ones as justification for action against the Indians, who were widely seen to be brutal and warlike in nature and incapable of significant cultural development. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, two basic positions had emerged regarding the

origins of the mounds: either the Mound builders and the Indians (or their direct ancestors) were one and the same people, or the Mound builders, whose hypothesized origins were as varied as those first proposed for the peopling of the New World, were an ancient race who had died off or moved away, to be replaced by the later Indians. While others speculated about the origins of the earthworks, who built them, and why, Thomas Jefferson, a member of the American Philosophical Society, acted on the problem by investigating a small burial mound near the Rivanna River on his Monticello property in Virginia. The result was one of the first controlled, stratigraphic excavations in the world. This project has led to some call Jefferson the ‘father of American archeology’. Such endeavors shaped national politics by informing policy with information about Native American peoples.

Stirrings of Archaeology Archaeology is known in contemporary times as a series of methods carried out in a scientific manner to test and explore theories about the past. During the first third of the nineteenth century, the interdisciplinary elements of archaeology began to come together. Discoveries by geologists decades earlier were revisited by their professional counterparts in the 1830s, who began to appreciate the significance of flint artifacts observed in geological strata. Lyell revolutionized geology with his depositional theories. Boucher de Perthes announced the discovery of artifacts in deep geological strata and concluded that they had great antiquity. The findings of geologists stirred great controversy because the idea that such antiquity of humans flew against Biblical theology and prevailing belief. The concept, however, was the nucleus for Paleolithic archaeology. Their observations of strata superimposed over each other and contained archaeological materials led to the important discovery of stratification, which enabled archaeologists to look at questions of time depth. Questions about time began to change armchair speculation and antiquarianism into a scientific discipline. Of course, as we have seen, interest in the meaning of time, albeit in a broader sense, is the root of archaeology centuries ago. By the 1830, the major questions put to archaeological materials had to do with ordering the contemporary world. Class, race, and politics were still influenced and inspired by monuments and materials of past ‘great’ civilizations. Scientific inquiries into race by S. G. Morton influenced the attitudes of anthropologists toward Native Americans. Morton compared skulls from North American Indians with similar relics derived both from ancient and modern

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tribes, to understand their origins. The writings of Englishman Henry Lubbock significantly influenced American evolutionary archaeology, known also as prehistoric archaeology. He, too, took an evolutionary approach that attributed American Indians with biological inferiority over European-descended Americans. Scientific analysis of antiquities and osteological specimens thus addressed theories about the history and peoples of America. The findings were interpreted to construct a national identity favoring the circumstance of European-Americans. The rise of science (which began in eighteenthcentury rationalism), industrialism of Europe and America, and the expansion of power to unexplored or exotic regions, all contributed to the development of archaeology. Some early specialists largely dismissed speculation and began considering methodological questions, such as how to pose problems, to excavate, to present data, and to answer questions in a rigorous manner. J. J. A. Worsaae (1821–85) articulated that burial goods were associated by their usage at the same time and that they were placed in the burial at the same time. Worsaae also recognized the importance of careful excavation and record keeping and, significantly, that the primary purpose of excavation was to gather information on humankind’s history and development rather than to gather specimens for museums and private collections.

The beginnings of archaeology as it is recognized today as a series of methods and logical sequences began centuries ago. The recognition of a need for a conceptual shift from speculation to adequate recording and mapping of archaeological sites began in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. By the 1840s, the fields of anthropology included archeology, ethnology, physical anthropology, and linguistics; these were seen as separate disciplines, but all were concerned with cultural evolution and the study of indigenous peoples. The historical roots of archaeology run deep through centuries of human curiosity about the past and in each other. See also: Biblical Archaeology; Classical Archaeology.

Further Reading Daniel G (1976) A Hundred and Fifty Years of Archaeology, 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Eydoux HP (1971) In Search of Lost Worlds: The Story of Archaeology. New York: World Publishing Company. Patterson TC (1995) Towards a Social History of the United States. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Stiebing WH (1994) Uncovering the Past: A History of Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trigger BG (2006) A History of Archaeological Thought, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willey GR and Jeremy AS (1980) A History of American Archaeology, 2nd edn. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY Contents As a Discipline Future Methods

As a Discipline William B Lees, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary aqua-lung The original name for open-circuit diving equipment now known as SCUBA, developed in 1943. direct historical approach A methodological approach to correlating prehistoric archaeological sites and cultures with historically documented Native American cultures using a comparison of traits between late prehistoric archaeological sites

with the early historic period archaeological sites known to have been occupied by specific Native American peoples. Native American A term used to describe some of the indigenous peoples of North America. new archaeology A school of archaeological thought that came into favor during the 1960s and that has as its hallmark the use of the scientific method of inquiry. Georgian order A set of rules pertaining to architecture, material culture, behavior, and other components of culture dating from the eighteenth century, and characterized by an increase in the importance of symmetry and order.

The emergence of historical archaeology as a discipline can be attributed largely to developments in North America during the second half of the

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twentieth century. There, historical archaeology evolved from a base that was focused on archaeological research supporting restoration of pivotal nationalistic historic sites. Following World War II, emergence of the discipline was fueled by rapidly expanding national archaeology programs in the United States and Canada. By the end of the third quarter of the century, the discipline emerged, seeking to proclaim scholarly legitimacy and, within the United States and to a lesser degree in Canada, a place within anthropology. The maturation of the discipline in the decades that followed has increasingly been influenced by scholars residing in, and scholarship focused on, regions beyond North America. Historical archaeology today is increasingly informed by a global or world perspective (see Americas, North: Historical Archaeology in the United States). In North America, prior to World War II, excavation of historic sites was not uncommonly conducted within a traditional archaeological or anthropological setting. Here the focus was on Native American sites of the early historic period, and the goal was to match these historically documented sites with those from prehistory based on similarities of archaeological traits – the presence and absence of house patterns, ceramics, and stone tool types. Significant discussions of this approach are found in William Duncan Strong’s Introduction to Nebraska Archaeology in 1935 and Waldo R. Wedel’s Introduction to Pawnee Archaeology in 1936; it was in a 1938 article by Wedel that the term ‘direct historical approach’ was first used. The type of inquiry represented by the ‘direct historical approach’, in part because it was concerned with Native American sites and was conducted by those interested first and foremost in questions of prehistory, was not perceived as intellectually comparable to other historic site excavations being conducted at the same time. The ‘direct historical approach’, thought not generally perceived by most as being within the trajectory to a modern historical archaeology, recognized that archaeology in North America was a continuum that did not stop with the arrival of people with a literate tradition. Ironically, although the direct historical approach and the bridging of history and prehistory was a standard practice in archaeological research of the 1930s and 1940s, by the 1990s Kent Lightfoot was arguing that historical and prehistoric archaeology had become so rigidly separate that we needed to return to a focus on questions that bridged this incredibly significant point in the history of life in North America, and to collaborate with scholars on both sides of the line between prehistory and history. Not surprisingly, scholars working outside North America have confronted vastly different historical

traditions and the dichotomy between prehistory and history takes on different meaning or becomes altogether irrelevant. Also prior to World War II, major North American excavation projects at places such as Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia, brought focus to archaeology as a major player in an incipient heritage tourism industry focused on a nationalistic revival in the United States. The goal of these excavations was the recovery of architectural footprints and construction detail, recovery of museum specimens, and general verification or illustration of historical place and activity (see Tourism and Archaeology). During this era, and in some cases well into the third quarter of the twentieth century, it was historians and other nonarchaeologists who were making many decisions of what historic sites to excavate, and why. The perception developed during this era that excavation at historic sites was not clearly archaeological – whether it was anthropological or not was a concern that was still well beyond the horizon. This view of the incipient discipline of historical archaeology persisted well into the second half of the twentieth century and spread to areas such as Canada where a similarly ambitious program of revival of nationalistic historic sites developed, supported by excavation. Archaeology as ‘handmaiden to history’ was the intellectual status quo for practitioners – pioneers in the creation historical archaeology as a discipline – who began to clamor in the 1950s and 1960s that excavation of historic sites should serve broader intellectual purposes than had come to be the norm. At this same time, due to the development of the aqua-lung, underwater archaeology was an emerging field of archaeological study that was fighting for recognition because of its potential contributions to historical scholarship rather than as the source of museum artifacts or treasure. The aqua-lung (now known as SCUBA) allowed, of course, easy access to underwater sites. Its development was followed by creation of a suite of excavation and recording methods that allowed the serious systematic archaeological study of shipwrecks, submerged towns, and other underwater resources. In many important ways, the perception of historical archaeology as ‘handmaiden to history’ outlasted the genesis of the discipline of historical archaeology, and caused practitioners to continue to argue for the validity of historical archaeology, and to continue to claim its place at the intellectual table, well into the final quarter of the century if not to this very day. By the end of the century, however, historical archaeology in North America and beyond existed as a vibrant and dynamic discipline marked by healthy professional societies; a large number of practitioners who

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had been trained as historical archaeologists and who identified themselves as such; a broad and successful publication programs of journals, books, newsletters, and websites; the acceptance of historical archaeology as a legitimate responsibility of historic preservation; and a large number of academic programs that offered courses or formal programs in historical archaeology at the graduate level. One of the biggest challenges to the emergence of historical archaeology as a discipline was one of selfdefinition. While the importance of the historical record (written and oral) to historical archaeology had been widely accepted early on, it also served to fuel much debate on whether historical archaeology was most appropriately considered a part of the discipline of history or a part of anthropology, or that it belonged somewhere else entirely. Those arguing that it belonged to history were reacting partly to their own disciplinary alignments, and also to the uses to which historical archaeology was, in their perspective, best suited, or to examples of how it had so far been applied. Very simply put, those on one side of this equation believed that historical archaeology could best serve history by helping to provide physical illustrations of historical events, by answering very particular historical questions, and the like. On the other side, there were an increasing number of practitioners who believed that historical archaeology was more than a ‘handmaiden to history’ and that it had scholarly contributions to make that were different than those appropriate in any other established fields of inquiry (see Historical Archaeology: Methods). How to define the subject of study was another matter of concern. Early on, it was common to reference history itself, defining historical archaeology as the study of cultures after the introduction of written history. This was fraught with many conceptual problems, as even in North America the point when written history ‘commenced’ varies geographically as well as between cultural groups – even within a region. As interest among North American scholars grew in globalizing the study of historical archaeology, this relationship was soon enough seen to be even less relevant in places such as Asia and Europe. At this point, this simplistic approach to definition was revealed to be a testament to the ‘New World’ focus held by the pioneers of historical archaeology. The propulsion of historical archaeology away from an alignment with history and toward anthropology, and the start of a trajectory toward a definition of historical archaeology that works on a global level, began to accelerate during the period of intellectual excitement and innovation surrounding the onset of the ‘new archaeology’ during the 1960s. Although the new archaeology was received with

varying degrees of acceptance around the world, it nevertheless was important in galvanizing a body of young scholars with the idea that the archaeology of the recent past was both viable and important. People such as Lewis Binford, James Deetz, Edwin Dethlefsen, and Stanley South stepped forward and championed historical archaeology as a grand anthropological laboratory that had value well beyond the validation of history or the elucidation of historical detail or illustration. Though their approaches to archaeological interpretation were ultimately different – some favored interpretation derived from archaeological science while others preferred what was to be later labeled a postprocessual approach – these scholars and others were successful in arguing that historical archaeology was indeed a discipline unto itself. The lasting interest of scholarly contributions from this era, exemplified by seminal works such as James Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten, first published in 1977 and Stanley South’s 1977 volume Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology, identifies this period as a watershed in the development of the discipline. It is thus inarguable that the modern discipline of historical archaeology is heavily indebted to North American scholars and that the debates and discourse leading to its emergence happened more often than not at North American gatherings. This focus on the New World, and almost by default on the colonial influence of Europe in the New World, led to a somewhat Eurocentric conceptualization of the discipline’s subject. As recently as 1991, for example, the late James Deetz defined historical archaeology as ‘‘. . . the archaeology of the spread of European societies worldwide, beginning in the fifteenth century, and their subsequent development and the impact on native peoples in all parts of the world.’’ Attempting to broaden this definition somewhat to account for research experiences in North America, Europe, and South America, Charles Orser offered a compelling, and beautifully simple, definition of historical archaeology as concerning itself with the archaeological study of the modern world. Many scholars, including many from outside North America, see Orser’s model as patently Eurocentric and simplistically capitalistic in nature, and offer alternative approaches to understanding the history of the world’s cultures through historical archaeology. Thus, spurred on by the increasing globalization of our world, and of all scholarly inquiry, the maturation of historical archaeology at the close of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twentyfirst has been characterized by bringing voices from all parts of the world to the table for the discussion of what historical archaeology should become.

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Parallel with developments in North America during the last half of the last century, scholars in other parts of the world have been busy conducting historical archaeology in different historical, political, and social (both past and present) contexts. The result has been a rising discussion on redefining historical archaeology to be less focused on European expansionism and to be more concerned with the stories of all people and cultures of the world living during the time when their history or the history of their neighbors was being preserved through writing or memory. In a mid-1980s review of historical archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, Merrick Posnansky and Christopher DeCourse rejected standing definitions of historical archaeology developed by North American scholars, not because of the ‘‘contact implication that it represents but the emphasis in some of the literature on the one sided impact of that contact.’’ Independence in Africa caused a new nationalism expressly counter to the old colonial structure. The result was a deliberate reaction against archaeology that was focused on these colonial powers in favor of one seeking to establish national identities based on the archaeology of indigenous populations. The goal was to view the component populations through the shroud of colonialism. Recently, Peter Schmidt and Jonathan Walz have continued this discussion by arguing that African cultures represent modern cultures regardless of the effect of European expansionism. The focus becomes not European contact or colonialism, but rather ‘‘local African historiographies’’ (Schmidt and Walz 2007:54). An important role of historical archaeology lies in validating these African historiographies, many based on oral tradition, by testing and correcting Western interpretations of African traditions, providing bridging information where gaps exist in tradition, by reassessing models of material change, and by challenging foreign interpretations of African history. In essence, the focus shifts from a concern on the effect of European expansion on Africa and African cultures to a focus on developing carefully validated contextualized interpretations of local African cultures. Of importance, these new contextualized interpretations allow African cultures to preside as modern cultures alongside European cultures regardless of the influence of one upon the other. Matthew Johnson argues that such a focus on local materially based contextual studies is exactly how we should conceive of global historical archaeology, and as a way to move away from global models of the modern world based on capitalism in favor of the recognition of the power and importance of the local expressions of culture.

These views on the importance of contextual studies emerged to some degree from Johnson’s examination of the archaeology of capitalism. As Johnson notes, the component parts of capitalism have local genealogies that must be understood before capitalism itself can be understood: ‘‘... an archaeology of such elements as [capitalist] agrarian practices, architecture, and material culture must place them back into those contexts and genealogies for a richer, more contextual understanding of how the archaeology of the Georgian Order is related to social practices related to capitalism’’ (Johnson 1996:204). The implication of this line of thought is that in order to understand the global spread of capitalism, it is essential to develop contextual studies of local cultures including those that may seem to be unaffected by the emergence of capitalism within a particular region. Recognizing the North American origins of the discipline, Brazilian scholar Pedro Paulo A. Funari is another who argues against the utility of a monolithic global definition for historical archaeology. He cites the disparate scholarly traditions of differing parts of the world as one significant barrier to such an approach. Also making a world approach difficult is the differing time depths and the nature of relationships and developmental trajectories of the historical period in various regions of the world. The colonial history of Africa, for example, is clearly vastly different from than that of North America which, among other things, results in vastly different interests in terms of research. But Funari also stands on the shoulders of the long lineage of historical archaeology scholars from North America and around the world in expounding the importance of material, written, and oral sources of information about the past, and of the importance of the discipline of historical archaeology in using a patently comparative approach to look at many important questions about the past, to write the histories of those who are otherwise unknown, and to correct the histories of those whose past has been distorted or withheld by the forces of history. What makes historical archaeology a useful and dynamic discipline is, to Funari, its comparative approach and willingness to accept various methods for understanding the past. It is the discussion resulting from the differences between regions and approaches taken by scholars that leads to significant advances in disciplinary knowledge, and knowledge about the world, ‘‘because an understanding of the complexity of society, its features and changes, can only be gained from a pluralistic and interdisciplinary world perspective’’ (Funari 1999:58). A hallmark of the maturing of historical archaeology into a discipline independent of theoretical or methodological advances has been the development

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of specialized venues for scholarly discourse. Their emergence was the result of at least two forces: resistance to the inclusion of historical archaeology into existing conference venues and publications, and a concurrent growing number of historical archaeologists with something to say. In reaction to these forces, Stanley South conceived of and held the first Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology (CHSA) in 1960 and provided a venue for many very important statements and debates in the formative years of the discipline. Proceedings of these meetings were published in the Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology Papers. Though held in the Southeast and occasionally in conjunction with the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the CHSA was not a regional conference but was rather one focused on methodological and theoretical issues, and it had a major impact on thought in historical archaeology. A few years later, in 1966, the International Conference on Historical Archaeology was held in Dallas, Texas, on the campus of Southern Methodist University. On the agenda was consideration of creating a new society dedicated to historical archaeology. Present in Dallas were many seminal figures in the history of American archaeology – figures representing an honor roll of the founders of modern historical archaeology and including, among others, Arnold L. Pilling, Carl Chapman, Charles Cleland, John L. Cotter, Edwin S. Dethlefsen, Charles Fairbanks, Bernard L. Fontana, J. C. Harrington, Edward Jelks, Ivor Noe¨l Hume, G. Hubert Smith, Stanley South, and Roderick Sprague. In Dallas, it was debated what to call the discipline, which Ivor Noe¨l Hume recommended should be ‘historical archaeology’, and what to call this society, which Stanley South moved should be the ‘Society for Historical Archaeology’. The formal creation of the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) followed in 1967, and it has since become an international voice for the discipline and its annual conference a major venue for scholarly discourse. At this same time, a number of parallel developments occurred that have influenced the subsequent maturation of the discipline. In 1959, to combat the same lack of a venue for communication, the Council for Underwater Archaeology (CUA) was formed. At this time, technology was making underwater exploration practical on a large scale, and interest was growing on conducting true archaeological research underwater. Formed in North America, the CUA represented a worldwide network of communication for underwater archaeologists. In 1963, the first Conference on Underwater Archaeology was held in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the late 1960s, the CUA and the Conference on Underwater Archaeology became inactive but

almost immediately, in the early 1970s, an underwater component of the new SHA conference was established. In 1973, the heir to CUA, the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology (ACUA), was established at that year’s SHA conference. Today the ACUA is an integral force within the SHA, and the annual conference has become the International Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology. Also, in 1959, the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA) was formed in Great Britain. The SPMA promotes the ‘‘archaeology of late medieval to industrial society in Britain, Europe and those countries influenced by European colonialism’’ through publications such as Post-Medieval Archaeology and an annual conference. Recognizing shared and overlapping interests, the SPMA and SHA have held joint meetings on several occasions. In 1970, the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology (ASHA) was formed in Australia to provide a venue for discourse and publication. In 1991, the name was changed to the Australasia Society for Historical Archaeology to recognize expansion of the mission to include New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region in general. The multiple parallel developments related to historical archaeology in North America and virtually simultaneous parallel developments in Great Britain and Australia clearly illustrate the level of interest in different variations of historical archaeology as a worldwide horizon of scholarship during the very late 1950s through the 1960s (see Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain). Though archaeologists in North America grappled during this period and later with definitions of historical archaeology that were very parochial in retrospect, these parallel developments were symptomatic of the global nature of this emerging discipline. By the end of the twentieth century, scholarship in historical archaeology had recognized that any definition of the discipline must reflect the global nature of the cultures, sites, and times being studied by historical archaeologists. Of importance, these new and evolving definitions do not ordain any particular methodological or theoretical paradigm or platform. Historical archaeologists embrace the full range of theoretical approaches that may be in vogue anywhere within archaeology, while still taking advantage of the rich oral and written record of the past – the availability of the historical record remains the hallmark of the discipline that presents a broadness of data and dynamic sets of richly separate comparative data that allow historical archeologists to ask, and hope to answer, suites of questions not otherwise possible.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY/Future 1443 See also: Africa, Historical Archaeology; Americas,

Central: Historical Archaeology in Mexico; Americas, North: Historical Archaeology in the United States; Americas, South: Historical Archaeology; Asia, East: Historical Archaeology; Europe, South: Medieval and Post-Medieval; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Historical Archaeology in Ireland; Historical Archaeology: Future; Methods; Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia; Tourism and Archaeology.

prehistory Literally, the time before written history. structuralism An approach to studying language and culture that argues for the common existence of complex mental structures or templates underlying all human consciousness. worldview/mindset An alternative term for the structuralist mental template. A worldview is a mental structure that arises through learning the normative grammar of binary opposition, for example, light/dark, raw/cooked, culture/nature.

Introduction Further Reading Deetz J (1996) In Small Things Forgotten, An Archaeology of Early American Life. Doubleday NY: Anchor Books. Falk L (1991) Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Ferguson LG (1977) Special Publication Series, Number 2, Society for Historical Archaeology: Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things. New York: Society for Historical Archaeology. Funari PPA, Jones S, and Hall M (1999) Historical Archaeology; Back from the Edge. London: Routledge. Lightfoot KG (1995) Culture contact studies: Redefining the relationships between prehistoric and historical archaeology. American Antiquity 60(2): 199–217. Orser CE, Jr. (1996) A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World. New York: Plenum. Schmidt PR and Walz JR (2007) Re-representing African pasts through historical archaeology. American Antiquity 72(1): 53–70. South S (1994) Pioneers in Historical Archaeology, Breaking New Ground. New York: Plenum. South S (1977) Method and Theory in Historical Archeology. New York: Academic Press.

Future Heather Burke, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary new, or processual, archaeology A perspective that seeks to understand long-term change in human society in terms of evolutionary processes in cultural development. normative Something that is prescriptive or part of the standard. Based on shared ideals, values, or rules for living, norms – while appearing universal – are in fact specific to particular groups. postmodernism An eclectic me´lange of perspectives that hold in common a disillusionment with Enlightenment ideals of progress, rationality, and universal truth. postprocessualism A collection of variant viewpoints in archaeology that suggest that the ways we construct the past are largely a construction of social and political currents in the present.

Archaeology is not a discipline renowned for predicting the future. Its focus is always on the past, although historical archaeology is, in many ways, the archaeology of contemporary communities. On the one hand, much of it deals with the origins of modern, western society and the modes of behavior constructed over the past 500 years. On the other, its recentness gives it a direct relevance to modern marginalized communities, particularly Indigenous or other colonized groups for whom the recent past is an area of contestation and dispute. So where is historical archaeology heading in the twenty-first century? One possible answer lies in these communities’ futures, and with all that they hold both in common and apart.

Where has it Come From? Historical archaeology was first defined as a separate entity in the late 1960s. Its practitioners initially devoted considerable effort toward defining their field, casting around for a core set of goals and a sense of direction that would justify their worth to established prehistorians and cultural anthropologists. Like all archaeology, the changing direction of historical archaeology has paralleled wider theoretical changes across the humanities and social sciences generally, themselves components of essential changes in modern, western modes of thought since World War II (see Historical Archaeology: Methods). In seeking a path, much early historical archaeology was heavily influenced by the ‘new’, or processual, archaeology of the 1960s. Processual archaeology was concerned with explaining long-term patterns in human behavior across both time and space in order to reveal the commonalities in the ways that human beings interacted with their environments. In historical archaeology this was translated into identifying, for example, the processes involved in producing the material patterns that could be observed at (and in some degree were also held to constitute) historical archaeological sites. Stanley South, one pioneer of this approach, defined a range of quantifiable artifact patterns that he believed could be used to identify

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sites independently of historical documents. The major problem with such approaches, however, is that identification was not explanation – South’s pattern recognition process could successfully label a particular ‘behavioral unit’ as a school, for example, but how a school functioned, or how wider attitudes to childhood or appropriate age-related behaviors constructed children (and by extension adults), let along how this might change over time, were not issues that the processual path could reveal (see Processual Archaeology). The alternative theories of structuralism, also in their heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s, imported several key ideas from linguistics that shifted attention away from material artifacts as passive products of particular activity patterns, toward artifacts as symbolic representations of deeper, underlying worldviews. James Deetz’s seminal investigations into the transition between medieval and Georgian mindsets in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury colonial Virginia, for example, married an analysis of deep mental structures with detailed, small-scale analysis of the nuances of material form and style. Deetz’s insights enabled him to produce a broad-ranging and perceptive historical archaeology that encompassed changes in architecture, dining, refuse disposal patterns, ceramic forms, gravestones, and color, within its scope. Since the 1980s, historical archaeology has taken many of structuralism’s symbolic strands and woven them together in the light of contemporary social politics to analyze a range of interests synonymous with postprocessual archaeology. Taking its cue from various elements of postmodernism, and inspired by philosophical and sociological literature, postprocessual archaeology rejected the belief that artifacts were merely passive residues of past human behavior, and argued instead that objects are, and always have been, an active medium through which people create themselves and their society. Objects are fashioned and used by people in the process of constructing who they are. In the last 20 years, historical archaeology has become increasingly oriented toward postprocessual questions of power, ideology, class and ethnicity, and the many ways in which material artifacts are used to construct and negotiate both personal and group identity in a variety of contexts.

Where is it Heading? Forecasting the future of historical archaeology is complicated by the continuing tensions over the extent to which historical archaeology should focus on the study of a globalizing process (the social creation of the modern world, usually via the

development of capitalism, as proposed by Orser), or its antithesis: the ‘messiness’ of local contexts and small-scale experience (as proposed by Johnson). The different trajectories in the development of historical archaeology between the Old World and the New further complicate this situation. In the Old, historical archaeology is most often an extension of the archaeology of long-standing literate societies; it is therefore methodologically defined as a discipline which has unique access to a distinctive class of material (documents). In the New, despite the existence of writing in some precolonial cultures, the abrupt appearance of colonizing nations means that historical archaeology is more often tightly defined according to a time period: as post-Columbian or according to the era of European colonial expansion. The expansion of European powers in places with long Indigenous histories, such as the Americas, Australia, and South Africa, has inevitably meant that historical archaeology in the New World has focused heavily on the many distinctions between Indigenous and colonizer pasts. These core epistemological issues, together with the explicitly political agenda of much postprocessual archaeology and the exploration of global/local tensions, suggest some of the ways in which the goals of historical archaeology might develop in the future. One such avenue moves beyond the archaeology of the colonial period as a product of a particular set of economic conditions or attitudes, to the archaeology of the more devastating – and historically rarely visible – social aspects of the colonial process (see Postprocessual Archaeology). There are several ways in which historical archaeology is beginning to do this. Myths of the frontier, or the enduring narratives created around the behavior of early colonizers and their relationships to the colonized, are one example. Constructed through folkloric tales of pioneering behavior, frontier myths are often materialized through the domestic evidence for life in a socially and economically marginal environment. Claims for defensive architectural features in everyday domestic structures, for instance, are one way in which historical archaeological sites are factored into stories that link such evidence to the creation of colonial mindsets and a fear of the unknown. Similarly, the reshaping of old forms of social identity in new contexts, the origins of notions of race as a defensive tactic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, or the construction of ‘whiteness’ as a normative category in opposition to those it colonized, are current topics that are beginning this exploration. More significantly, in line with an interest in power, ideology, and colonialism, it is likely that

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historical archaeology will become increasingly linked to crucial postcolonial issues, at least in twenty-first century settler cultures. Many aspects of the recent past are still deeply ingrained in the social memory of descendent communities today, such as the removal of Indigenous people from their lands, the reshaping of local communities to suit wider political and economic agendas, even the deliberate erasure of Indigenous groups through violence. Massacre sites, or places where Indigenous people met with violence and death at the hands of settlers or other colonizing groups are just beginning to come into historical archaeological focus. These sites of negative heritage – places for which the memories are painful and raw despite the passage of time, and that often hold volatile, conflicting meanings – situate trauma in the landscape, but are seldom explored because of the variety of painful emotions they generate. They are rarely, if ever, recorded in historical documents, but live in the oral traditions of Indigenous peoples. As Indigenous people increasingly take control of their own heritage and the ways in which their past is presented, these sites will form components of wider discourses on settler culture and the ‘shared histories’ that much historical archaeology currently attempts to investigate. A move away from studying ‘races’, ‘ethnicities’, or other essentialized groups (but not necessarily the essentializing process which constitutes groups by comparison to each other) toward the social construction of difference and the various material ways in which this can be signaled or negotiated suggests a third potential direction for historical archaeological practice: a focus on the range of imagined identities that are constructed under modernity and its globalizing forms. Appadurai has alluded to a growing rootlessness in modern society as identities become less territorialized and the opportunities this creates for constructing an imagined past that in some cases may never have existed. This ‘invented nostalgia’ can also be linked to a growing emphasis on cultural tourism and visitor experiences of historical archaeological sites and thus to wider concerns with community archaeology, local agendas, and identity politics in a globalized world. There is a strong element of contemporary identity which reaches out to the recent past for its direction. There is also, however, an element that suggests that the ruptures brought about by colonialism in part require the reinvention of tradition and the recognition of negative heritage as an essential component of the present. See also: Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Methods; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading Appadurai A (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deetz J (1977) In Small Things Forgotten. The Archaeology of Early American Life. New York: Anchor. Hall M and Silliman SW (eds.) (2006) Historical Archaeology. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Johnson M (1996) An Archaeology of Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Johnson M (1999) Rethinking historical archaeology. In: Funari P, Hall M, and Jones S (eds.) Historical Archaeology: Back from the Edge, pp. 23–36. London: Routledge. Leone M and Potter P, Jr. (1988) The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Orser CE, Jr. (1996) A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World. New York: Plenum. Orser CE, Jr. (ed.) (2001) Race and the Archaeology of Identity. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. South S (1977) Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology. New York: Academic Press.

Methods Charles E Orser, Jr., Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary artifact Archaeologically or historically interesting human-made object, such as a tool, weapon, or ornament. historical archaeology A branch of archaeological study and interpretation that deals with literate societies the objects and events since the beginnings of recorded history. soil zone A vertical or horizontal region of soil with common characteristics. stratification An arrangement or deposition of sediment or sedimentary rocks in a sequence of layers (strata).

As the name implies, historical archaeology is a subfield of archaeology in which the practitioners use at least two distinct but related sources of information: archaeologically retrieved data (artifacts, features, soil zones) and historical materials (personal accounts, governmental records, maps). The sources available to a historical archaeologist often will depend on the period of history being examined. Archaeologists investigating an outpost of the Roman Empire in Great Britain may have access to fewer sources than archaeologists excavating a twentiethcentury farmstead in the American Midwest. In all cases, however, the historical archaeologist’s main task is to combine the various sources of relevant information to provide the most thorough interpretation of

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the past possible. Historical archaeological research thus regularly involves both excavation and the examination of nonarchaeological sources of information (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline). When excavating, historical archaeologists often encounter extremely thin layers of soil, generally referred to as microstratification. All archaeologists, regardless of their area of expertise, may find thin layers of accumulated living surfaces. Thin layers of occupation are commonplace in historical archaeology because of the frequent study of house-lots and other activity areas that have been occupied for short periods of time. Historical archaeologists conducting investigations of post-Columbian history, or modernworld archaeology, commonly locate thin occupation layers. The possible presence of microstrata means that historical archaeologists must excavate recently occupied sites carefully, paying close attention to the way the soil has been naturally deposited. Historical archaeologists also often encounter deep, purposefully built features that contain thick layers of soil and artifacts. These features, particularly privies and wells, often serve as time capsules. Before the institution of regular curb-service trash pickup, site residents often used open holes as trash and garbage receptacles. Given the way in which things get deposited in such places, archaeologists generally discover that the deeper one digs into a well or privy, the older the materials. Excavating deep features, historical archaeologists often can construct timelines that document the history of the property being studied. The internal stratification in such features may be thick or thin, depending upon the circumstances of deposition. Upon the discovery of thick layers, perhaps representing the deposition of a large amount of material from the demolition of a structure, the archaeologist may decide to excavate within each soil zone using excavation levels of a standard thickness. In addition to the excavation and study of regular archaeological materials, in which all archaeologists must have expertise, historical archaeologists must also develop the skills of historians. Historical archaeologists must know how to locate, examine, and interpret the many historical records they may encounter in the course of their research. Historians spend their careers learning how to conduct documentary research, and historical archaeologists have learned a great deal from them. The way in which history is written, and precisely what it means once written, is a source of continued controversy among historians, and historical archaeologists must be conversant with the newest trends in historical interpretation. Numerous schools of thought exist, extending in scope from microhistory (perhaps written at the level of a single person’s life) to macrohistory (written to include

contacts and interactions on an international or even global scale). Historical archaeologists have discovered that their site-specific research can contribute to the understanding of large, worldwide historical processes, including the spread of empires and capitalism, the role of transnational exchange and commodity gift-giving in local situations, and the beginnings of material globalization. At the same time, the site-specific nature of most archaeological research also means that historical archaeologists can provide unique perspectives on daily life at the household level. Some of the documents historical archaeologists use will be straightforward and require little in the way of in-depth analysis. For example, nineteenthand twentieth-century city insurance maps show the precise locations and even the construction materials of buildings in urban settings, and historical archaeologists have used them to great benefit. Older maps, such as those compiled by colonial surveyors or administrators or perhaps by untrained individuals, may have been completed at a large scale or maybe not even drawn to scale. These maps are less precise and generally demand greater interpretation. Historical archaeologists also make extensive use of pictorial records and even drawings and paintings when available. In colonial settings, for instance, archaeologists can learn much about indigenous patterns of dress and the acceptance and rejection of foreign items for adornment and other purposes. Paintings and drawings can also help archaeologists locate sites by matching the image with the landscape. Images of individuals depicting unflattering or unrealistic physical characteristics can provide information about attitudes and biases that were present when the images were executed. Drawings in newspapers and weekly magazines provide examples. Historical archaeologists can use such information to help interpret past social context. Photographs can be an extremely useful source of information for historical archaeologists. These images can be used to show the past appearance of buildings long demolished, as well as an infinite variety of other objects. Most evocative are images of individuals who once lived at a site being studied. The presence of snapshots can provide a realism and humanity to archaeological research that is seldom matched with other sources of information. Literary works, even of fiction, are becoming increasingly important to historical archaeologists. Many authors have written about their own periods of history in terms that are expository and enlightening. Such works, if their voracity can be determined, can provide special insights into the contexts of the living society that can be gained through no other means. In many cases, writers may comment on the

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use and availability of material objects, thus giving the historical archaeologist special insights into the context and meaning of artifacts in the past. Historical archaeologists also make use of nontextual sources of information. These sources demonstrate the strong linkage between much historical archaeology and anthropology, because this category of information is consistent with the practices of ethnographers. The techniques learned from social and cultural anthropologists involve the collection of cultural traditions and the compilation of concepts and beliefs from indigenous groups. Many of the methods historical archaeologists use in this facet of their research may also derive from the fields of local and public history, which, in turn, have borrowed from anthropology. The methods historical archaeologists use to collect information that may only exist in personal memories extend from the practical use of recording devices and the transcription of interviews to the evaluation of cultural motifs and folk tales. Beginning in the late twentieth century, historical archaeologists began to appreciate the role that indigenous knowledge could play in their research. Rather than ignoring members of descendant communities who are not professional archaeologists, many historical archaeologists have actively engaged people who, though not scholars, nonetheless may retain a huge body of unique and important information in their personal recollections. Historical archaeologists have discovered that interactions and collaborations with members of descendant communities can add rich detail to their research and make their findings and interpretations relevant far beyond the confines of academic archaeology. The word ‘archaeology’ generally conjures up images of excavation and discovery beneath the Earth, but many historical archaeologists practice

‘aboveground archaeology’. This term refers to the examination of buildings, structures, and other cultural features, such as gravestones, that do not require excavation. Historical archaeologists often are able to incorporate into their interpretations inscriptions on grave markers, the designs of floor plans, and the construction techniques used in standing buildings. In incorporating aboveground features in their research, historical archaeologists share their methods with industrial archaeologists and historical architects. See also: Ethnohistory; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline.

Further Reading Burns JA (ed.) (1989) Recording Historic Structures. Washington, DC: American Institute of Architects Press. Harris EC (1989) Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy, 2nd edn. New York: Academic Press. Howell M and Prevenier W (2001) From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kuppuram G and Kumudamani K (2002) Methods of Historical Research. New Delhi: Sundeep Press. Lock G (2000) Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies. Amsterdam: IOS Press. McDowell-Loudan EE (2002) Archaeology: Introductory Guide for Classroom and Field. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Morriss RK (2000) The Archaeology of Buildings. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus. Orser CE, Jr. (2004) Historical Archaeology, 2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Rithie DA (2003) Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosenzweig R and Thelen D (1998) The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York: Columbia University Press. Sommer BW and Quinlan MK (2003) The Oral History Manual. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press. Wilson DA (2006) Interpreting Land Records. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

HISTORICAL MATERIALIST APPROACHES LouAnn Wurst, SUNY College at Brockport, Brockport, NY, USA Maria O’Donovan, Public Archaeology Facility, Binghamton, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

historical materialism The methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–83). Marxism Any political practice or theory that is based on an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (including the later Communist Parties and Communist states, as well as academic research across many fields) may be termed Marxism.

Glossary capitalism An economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately owned and operated for profit, and in which distribution, production and pricing of goods and services are determined in a largely free market.

Historical Materialism is a common term for the theoretical ideas of Karl Marx. Marxism is not a unified theoretical framework and any attempt to define

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a singular vision of Historical Materialism is doomed to failure. Discussing the many subtle differences within Marxism is impossible within the confines of this brief essay; however, archaeology has been most influenced by Western Marxism and we chose to focus on this approach. While Western Marxism also encompasses theoretical variation, there are several principles and concepts that define the core of historical materialism for most of these theorists. Any discussion of historical materialism must begin with the dialectic. Marx used the dialectic as both a theory to understand how the world works and as a method to study it. In dialectical thought, society is comprised of internal relations and it is the surface appearance of these relations which are taken to be its parts. Social entities do not and cannot exist apart from the underlying relations they are involved in, and dialectical social relations actually define what any entity will be. One common example of a dialectical relation is husband–wife, neither of which can exist without the other. In this simplified example, the internal relations define the surface appearance of the entities husband and wife. One of the central facets of the dialectic is the unity of opposites. Dialectical relations unite opposites – husband–wife, master–slave, capitalist–worker, etc. These opposing entities live within different material conditions and have different intrinsic interests. Thus, dialectical social relations always contain conflict and contradiction within them. It is the play of contradictions within relations that drives change. Change is constant within social relations and may entail small or major transformations; a series of small or quantitative changes may also build into a qualitative or structural change. In rooting change within the dialectic, Marxism excludes cause and effect scenarios. Change does not stem from one entity that impacts another, but from their relations. It follows, then, that social relations both constrain and enable change. Dialectical research emphasizes social totality and focuses on the whole of real lived experience. The web of relations that comprises the social world connects all aspects that ‘common sense’ understandings view as separate. There is no such thing as ‘the economy’ or ‘ideology’ that exists independently of the social totality and that can act upon it. Versions of Marxism, particularly Soviet-style Marxism, have been critiqued for their vulgar materialism. While these critiques may be appropriate, the unity of opposites and the emphasis on the social totality within Marxism imply that the mental and the material are part of the same web of social relations and are in reality part of the same thing. Thus, neither has more a priori explanatory force, although Marxist explanation is materialist in the last instance.

Social relations, and thus change, are never completely of the present. Marx famously expressed this idea as ‘‘People make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under given circumstances directly encountered and inherited from the past.’’ These circumstances include social relations, structures, material conditions, technology, etc. To fully understand a given society, it is necessary to place it within its historical and material context. As a method, Marx used the dialectic to study the world, to organize what he found and to present his findings. The best statement of Marx’s method is summed up in this quote: The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individual, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. (Marx and Engels, 1970: 42)

In other words, Marx started from a ‘material’ reality and derived relevant abstractions from this reality to grasp the significance and form of social relations. Thus, any Historical Materialist archaeology begins with a human population that is active, historically situated, and whose activity is fundamentally associated with production. A Historical Materialist method focuses attention on the production and reproduction of everyday life in all of its varied aspects and manifestations: people must produce things to live and reproduce, but they must also reproduce themselves and the social relations they enter into in order to engage in production. Production and reproduction are simply two aspects of the same dialectical totality of everyday life. Thus, humans make society through the playing out of the contradictions, constraints, and freedoms in the dialectical social relations that form everyday life. A focus on the production and reproduction of everyday life is the basic ‘stuff’ that archaeology deals with, and it has clear material referents (see Economic Archaeology; Social Inequality, Development of). A Historical Materialist archaeology of the study of everyday life must be built on the analysis of different forms of evidence. As McGuire points out, a dialectical archaeology is based on the contradictions and relations that exist between the patterns of different material forms, and it is the anomalies between various kinds of artifacts that are used in different social contexts that become the keys to interpreting the internal dynamics of society. By examining different lines of evidence, anomalies or paradoxes in the messages become evident, suggesting that different groups in any community did in fact live their own history

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in very different ways. Examining multiple lines of evidence points to the differing social and material strategies; understanding the reasons for differential material behavior is the crux of dialectical reasoning. Equally important in capturing the contradictions and relations of everyday life is the analysis of varying scales. Crumley and Marquardt argue for the relevance of temporal and spatial scale in the conduct of material strategies. People act, think, and draw on material resources in very different ways according to perceived scales and are constrained in very different ways at various scales. In this process, the same individuals and social groups can create different or contradictory social relations and material strategies. Thus, analysis at multiple scales provides essential insights into the reality of social relations. Finally, what distinguishes Historical Materialism from the other social theories is praxis, the political commitment to change the world. As Derek Sayer notes, ‘‘the study of Marx can be a coded form of social criticism (in East and West alike), it can be sniveling apologetics, but it can hardly be politically innocent’’. All Marxists would agree that there is real oppression and exploitation in the Capitalist world and that a vital part of any scholarship is challenging these wrongs. Praxis involves the dialectical interrelationship of critique, knowledge, and action: critique reveals this oppression and how we as scholars are related to it; knowledge helps us understand the structure of how this oppression works; and critique and knowledge provides the basis to take action to transform society. In this way Marxism is inherently political and subversive of modern Capitalist society. A Marxist archaeologist must always ask ‘‘scholarship for whom?’’ and question whether their scholarship challenges or reinforces the power relations of the social world. The implications of a Historical Materialist archaeology as both a theory and a method are clear. A series of features or aspects are the hallmark of a dialectical

Marxist approach: an emphasis on real, socially and historically conditioned contexts; a focus on the production and reproduction of everyday life; an emphasis on the web of social relations that exist within the larger social totality; abstracting from that totality only for analytical purposes; examining multiple lines of evidence (material and historical) at multiple scales to identify contradictory messages; interpreting how these relate to the internal dynamics of society; and using these understandings to engage in praxis in the modern world in which we work. See also: Colonial Praxis; Economic Archaeology; Marxist Archaeology; Political Complexity, Rise of; Social Inequality, Development of; Social Theory; Social Violence and War; State-Level Societies, Collapse of; World Systems Theory.

Further Reading Crumley CL and Marquardt WH (eds.) (1987) Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective. San Diego: Academic Press. Marquardt WH (1992) Dialectical Archaeology. In: Shiffer MB (ed.) Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 4, p. 101–140. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Marx K (1963) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers. Marx K and Engels F (1970) The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers. McGuire RH (1992) A Marxist Archaeology. San Diego: Academic Press. McGuire RH, O’Donovan M, and Wurst L (2005) Probing praxis in archaeology: The last eighty years. Rethinking Marxism 17(3): 355–372. Ollman B (1993) Dialectical Investigations. New York: Routledge. Ollman B (2003) Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Sayer D (1987) The Violence of Abstraction:The Analytical Foundations of Historical Materialism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Thompson EP (1978) The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.

HOUSEHOLD ARCHAEOLOGY Penelope Allison, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

household archaeology A branch of archaeology concerned with the study of the material culture and activities associated with ancient households. material culture Buildings, tools, and other artifacts, including any material item that has had cultural meaning ascribed to it, past and present.

Glossary architecture The art and science of designing and erecting buildings. ethnography A branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.

Introduction Broadly speaking, households tend to be a combination of a kinship group and a dwelling, forming a

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socioeconomic unit in which reproduction and early childhood socialization takes place. These households constitute the bulk of the population in ancient societies and are therefore fundamental building blocks for reconstructing the past social and cultural life. But archaeologists do not dig up households. They dig up the dwellings and the domestic artifacts of past societies but not the social units. Since the late 1960s, archaeologists have been developing approaches to the houses and domestic spaces they dig up to better understand the social behavior of the people who inhabited them. To the ‘New Archaeologists’ (see Processual Archaeology), like R. R. Wilk and W. C. Rathje, households were an essential level of inquiry for moving ‘from grand theories of cultural change and evolution to the practical archaeology of potsherds and stone tools’. But how do archaeologists investigate households through the archaeological record? What can we learn about households from their material remains? How do archaeologists get from the material remains to the social, or behavioral, level? The material remains of households do not directly provide evidence for household behavior. Rather they provide the material residues of household activities. By developing an understanding of the nature and interrelationships of these household activities we can learn more about household behavior and therefore about social behavior in the past.

Households as Economic and Social Units Wilk and Rathje argued that it is important to investigate households in archaeology because an understanding of the nature of change in household organization bridges the existing ‘mid-level theory gap’ (see Processual Archaeology). They argued that, at the level of the household, ‘‘social groups articulate directly with economic and ecological processes.’’ Richard E. Blanton argued that households were probably the major arena in which social productive strategies are played out. Thus, archaeologists have been principally concerned with households in the past as socioeconomic units of production in the wider community. Wilk and Rathje defined the activities of a household as being concerned with production, distribution, transmission, and reproduction. ‘Production’ consists of the pooling of labor of the household (e.g., planting, shepherding, weaving, wage earning) to procure resources and increase their value. ‘Distribution’ consists of the distribution of resources from producer to consumer within or outside the household (e.g., food). ‘Transmission’ concerns the transference of rights, responsibilities, and property between

generations within the household. ‘Reproduction’ refers to the rearing and socializing of children born into the household. These household activities are all for the benefit of the household unit, linking its members and possessions together and emphasizing the importance of a household as a social and economic unit. Wilk and Rathje divided these activities into three levels: (1) the social (i.e., the demographic unit); (2) the material (i.e., the dwelling with its possessions); and (3) the behavioral (the actual activities it performs). The material is the only level which is extant in the archaeological context.

Households as Consumption Units In the last two decades archaeologists have also been concerned with household as units of consumption. As well as being socioeconomic units and producers of material culture, households are also consumers. Households ‘consume’ goods because they are readily available (e.g., locally made pottery) but they will often go to extreme lengths to acquire goods because they are not readily available (e.g., fine nonlocal pottery or glassware). It is often a lack of availability that makes particular goods desirable. This desirability may lead to greater importation of luxury goods, in turn leading to local imitation of them, which may ultimately render them less desirable. Thus, relationships between household production and consumption are complex. Many studies of material-culture consumption in archaeology have stemmed from assumptions, both in Capitalist and Marxist systems, of a hierarchy of production over consumption rather than reciprocity, with consumption as a logical outcome of production rather than as an active agent in the process of production. This has led to many archaeological sites being excavated and analyzed for studies of production rather than consumption. For example, pottery is frequently analyzed typologically to investigate technological and chronological aspects of its manufacture and distribution. To investigate how and why it was used within particular households, precise information is needed on its find spots and on the variations of shapes and fabric across and between related sites – whether between a number of households from one community or between a number of related communities. For example, one can learn more about the culinary habits of a household, or a community, by focusing on the evidence pottery provides for food consumption, its social, cultural, political, and economic motivations and its relationship to settlement structures and acculturation. Quantitative and qualitative comparisons of nonlocal material culture can also provide information on household consumption

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and its relationship to a community’s political and economic status.

Households as a System of Membership Because household membership has been defined as being based on kinship relationships there is a common perception that the actual compositions of households are largely known, relatively standardized, and unchanging phenomena. Perceptions of unproblematic compositions of households stem from assumptions that the head of the household controls the activities and behaviors of ‘his’ [sic] socioeconomic unit. The contributions of the other members to household formation and to its interaction with the community are believed to be mitigated through that household head, and therefore largely unimportant. The complex mechanisms and ideologies that make up the household as a unit of production, reproduction, and consumption have been considered of little consequence. Thus, studies of the internal dynamics and intra-relationships of a household have often been by-passed in investigations of patterns of human social behavior. However, household dynamics are important factors in the social, political, and economic roles of the household in the wider community, not as a unit but as a system of membership. To understand the social significance of domestic space we need to go beyond the outward presentation of a household as a unit to the inward perspectives of the practical activities of daily life that provide information on members of a household and their relationships to each other. To validate a conception of households as productive entities, there needs to be a well-founded comprehension of what such entities might be composed of – the potential diversities of their internal organization (physical and ideological) both within a society and cross-culturally. In other words, an essential level of inquiry in household archaeology concerns the internal constitution and organization of households themselves. An understanding of the spatial, status, gender, and age relationships within households leads to a better comprehension of the complexity and diversity of the roles of households, as social and productive units in the wider community. Joyce Marcus stressed the need for an awareness of household status differentiation among the assumed homogeneous ‘commoners’ in sixteenthcentury Mayan societies – ‘one’ household does not stand for ‘all’ households in a community. Susan Lawrence studied the ephemeral remains of a mining settlement at Dolly’s Creek in the state of Victoria in Australia which was active from c. 1850s to 1870s. She showed that, while few traces of the

actual dwellings remain, the artifacts left behind in these spaces that the dwellings once occupied indicated the diversity of the types of household to be found in what is traditionally considered a maledominated arena, with rudimentary living standards. She was able to identify evidence for different household types – single men’s dwellings or family dwellings – and to demonstrate the diverse ways in which these households occupied these dwellings and presented themselves. In turn, she could demonstrate that life in such mining settlements was complex, and sometimes ‘gentile’. Lawrence’s findings throw new light on long-held and widely propagated perspectives of the rugged masculine world of early Australia, particularly in mining settlements.

Gender and Households Important to the study of household membership in the past is, therefore, the deconstruction of perceptions that households are largely unchanging and known socioeconomic entities, with a known set of power structures. Such perceptions stem from analogies with contemporary Western societies, which view the house as the locus of consumption and the woman’s domain, but under the authority of the male head of the household. In some cases, these assumptions have even led to a view that male presence tends to be invisible in archaeological households because the material culture of households informs mainly on female activities. Gender is not visible in the archaeological remains of households. It is largely through analogies with modern societies, through preconceived ideas about women’s activities, and through concerns for the perspectives of a male head of the household, rather than through anything readable in the archaeological data, that assumptions have been made about gender roles, gender distribution of activities and spaces, and the invisibility of certain members of the household. Notions of household member invisibility are determined by assumptions that other members are more visible. In the archaeological record of households, without some outside analogical inferences, males are no more or less visible than females, e´lites no more or less visible than subordinates. Engendered approaches to archaeology expose cultural and gender biases in investigations of past household behavior, particularly those that concern divisions of labor and the visibility of gender (see Engendered Archaeology). For example, critical approaches to the roles of women in production, for distribution within and outside the household, are important for developing better understanding of gender relationships within a household. In the past,

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scholars studying the Roman town of Pompeii have used the discovery of quantities of loom weights in the front hall, the so-called ‘atrium’, of a Pompeian house to argue that this particular house would have been a weaver’s workshop rather than a dwelling, where male weavers produced cloth for commercial distribution. There is textual evidence that both men and women were weavers in the Roman world. A household approach, analyzing the distribution pattern of all cloth-working artifacts across a number of Pompeian houses demonstrated that weaving seems to have been commonplace in the front hall in many houses. There is no reason, in a preindustrial society like that of Pompeii, for presuming a spatial and functional distinction between the production of cloth for consumption within the household and that for distribution outside, and therefore no reason for assuming a gendered distinction in this production. Historical archaeologists have demonstrated that even in the nineteenth century, largely European, societies, household production and consumption activities are not divided strictly along gender lines. The study of household material culture can provide information on the production and consumption activities of a household without unwarranted assumptions about the gender separation of household-focused tasks. Household archaeology can also use a consumption approach to increase the visibility of women in the archaeological record, and even to distinguish all-male households, such as in military barracks or in the temporary residences of miners.

Public and Private Traditionally the house has been seen as a private/female world and the outside world as a public/male world. This binary opposition has influenced many studies of past households, classifying private life as that pertaining to women, children, and slaves, and the household as being made up of elements that serve the master in his negotiations with the world outside the household. However, such assumptions are, again, part of the cultural baggage of modern scholars. The association of women with private and men with public are aspects for upper- and middle-class European societies which have become reified in historical documentation. Even in ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins, a community of aristocratic women, resided in the center of the most central domain of Roman public life – the Roman forum – and, far from being a secluded religious sect, played an active role in Roman sociopolitical life. Cross-cultural studies show that perceptions of a domestic/female:public/male dichotomy as a universal concept have an unwarranted normalizing effect on our understanding of past household behavior. Indeed,

even in nineteenth-century urban contexts the instigation of public and cooperative housekeeping challenges the traditional definition of households as private and extends women’s ‘private’ roles to the ‘public’ community. From the 1870s, in cities like Paris, London, Moscow, Boston, and New York, middleand upper-class commercial cooperative apartment hotels; noncommercial cooperative homes for single working women; and the activities of domestic reformers saw household tasks socialized into cooperative institutions. Thus, studies of household archaeology must tread cautiously when attempting to treat excavated spaces as dichotomized public or private space and to associate them, accordingly, with specifically male or female activities.

Symbolism and Rituals Also significant to household archaeology are the roles of symbolism and rituals in household behavior, but again there is no clear dichotomy that separates ritual aspects of social life from everyday routine activities. Routine activities often have their own symbolic qualities, and ritual activities can be part of everyday routine. For example, eating can be a daily family ritual and ritual eating on celebratory occasions. Many aspects of women’s routine domestic roles can acquire cult status. Household material culture can also acquire a symbolic quality in structuring and reinforcing social status (for example the tea sets of aspiring Victorian middle classes). And, ‘everyday’ artifacts of one society can have symbolic significance when adopted by other societies (e.g., the Coca Cola bottle in the film ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’). Archaeologists need to be aware that such symbolism is inherent in the archaeological record of households.

The Temporality of a Household Past household behavior concerns temporality, both in terms of the daily life cycle and the life cycle of the household itself. It is difficult to isolate the remains of a single household through its archaeological vestiges. Even at sites that have experienced a catastrophic event and abandonment, such as at Pompeii, it is difficult to isolate a single, quantified, household. Some houses in Pompeii were built several centuries before the eruption in AD 79 and may have housed a number of households. Equally, in cultures where dwellings might be built specifically for one generation, household relationships undergo change in that the original individuals may remain but may remarry and the children will grow and multiply, and perhaps move away. Nicholas David showed how the built structures and family relationship in a

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contemporary compound of the Fulani, in Cameroon, demonstrated the types of complex, and changing, family groupings of which one must be wary when reading evidence for households in the archaeological record. Jason Yaeger and Cynthia Robin used this concept of household developmental cycles to argue that some of the observed heterogeneity of households within the Classic period Mayan settlements of San Lorenzo and Chan No´ohol near Xuantunich in Belize – settlements previously thought to be those of ‘uniform, homogeneous peasantry’ – documented consecutive generations residing within established households, with differing family groups and labor access. These developmental cycles indicate that most archaeological sites involve what have been termed ‘household series’. Household archaeology has to consider the potential variation in household organization over time. Only at sites that are abandoned after a brief occupation, such as hunter-gatherer sites or military camps destroyed during battle, might single-period households be assumed. In general, the archaeological remains of households are best employed to investigate patterns of household behavior that may persist over generations. Household archaeologists also have to be aware of the changing use of space throughout the day and avoid making overly simplistic ascriptions of static functions to domestic spaces. An area of the house where some household members may meet to conduct business with outsiders at certain times of the day may be given over to household production and more domestic activities by other members of the household at other times of day. This might well be the case in the front halls in Pompeian houses. Textual references and the display furniture found in these areas may indicate that this space was used for the morning ‘salutatio’, when the owner of the house would meet his clients. Perhaps this space was used for weaving later in the day, although we cannot necessarily assume this temporal segregation from the archaeological evidence. Given the difficulties of isolating the activities of single households, separating out the daily organization of activities through archaeological remains is practically impossible, without use of analogy.

Ethnographic, Textual, and Pictorial Analogy The foregoing discussion highlights the difficulties facing household archaeologists in their attempts to understand the behaviors and relationships of the people behind the structures and artifacts that they dig up. These difficulties stem from the fact that a household is not an archaeological phenomenon but an ethnographic one. Thus, many of these

difficulties may be resolved by recourse to ethnographic, historical, or pictorial analogy. Ethnographic Analogy

Ethnographic and ethno-historical analogy is useful for developing an understanding of the archaeological remains of households, particularly in prehistoric contexts. For example, Susan Kent distinguished differences in the construction and use of domestic space by contemporary Navajo, Euro-American, and SpanishAmerican households. The contemporary Navajo domestic space, and its observed differences from the other households, could then be used to help explain the use of space in ancient Navajo houses. Ethnographic studies of contemporary agricultural communities in the Maya lowlands can help in interpreting the spatial arrangements of house lots in precolonial and colonial communities in the Yucatan in Mexico but, as Rani Alexander warned, the often synchronicity of ethnographic and ethno-archaeological models do not necessarily reflect the diachronic processes found in the archaeological record. But ethnographic and ethno-historical analogy can also have a normalizing effect on past behavior, by superimposing patterns of modern or recent household behavior on previous sociocultural situations. For example, the use of architectural parallels between historic and prehistoric domestic spaces to interpret the use of the latter ignores the changing uses of individual spaces that have no impact on the structure of a house. Ethnography is fundamental to the study of household archaeology, but ethnographic data do not describe household behavior in the past. Rather ethnographic data can be used to explore variation in household behavior and highlight the potential for diversity and change in domestic worlds. That is, ethnography is a ‘signifier’ of complexity rather than a ‘prescriber’ of household behavior. Cross-cultural studies, of different parts of the world, are important to deepen our understanding of the range of potential variability in household behavior that the archaeological remains could represent. Textual Analogy

Household archaeology is also concerned with the households of historical periods. The availability of contemporaneous written documentation for the Classical, ancient Egyptian, Medieval, and post-Medieval worlds, and from much of the ancient Near East, often provides archaeologists working in these areas with a full body of data for the investigation of household behaviors. However, the relationships between the textual and the archaeological material can be as complex and as difficult to grasp as the relationships between prehistory and

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ethnography. Sometimes in historical archaeology some specific members of an archaeologically identified household may also be identified through documentary evidence (e.g., Nero and his Golden House in Rome). However, attempts to relate archaeological remains to extant textual evidence must be sensitive to the fact that the texts themselves are selective. For example, textual material often emphasizes and reinforces the roles of a society’s elites, while archaeology can frequently provide evidence of household behavior across a much broader social spectrum, even within elite households. Like ethnographic analogy, attempts to read the archaeological record, through direct associations with documentary evidence, can lead to a normalization of past domestic behavior which denies its historic, regional, or status specificity. Such readings serve to perpetuate perspectives of the inconsequence of household dynamics in the writing of history. They also compromise the ability of archaeological data to provide information which cannot be directly associated with textual information. As with ethnographic analogy, textual analogy can be used to negotiate with the archaeological remains, not to define them. For example, ancient Greek texts have been used to argue for strongly segregated households divided along gender lines, but there is a lack of archaeological evidence for strictly gendered divisions of domestic space. This has led to a reassessment of the textual evidence and a proposal that binary oppositions in the Greek world might be more evident in status than in male:female relationships. Similarly, negotiations between documentary and archaeological evidence for household composition in gold fields in colonial Australia challenge perceptions of them as being male dominated. Misuse of textual analogy and biased assumptions about task division between different household members can render invisible the activities of subordinate members of the household. A critical approach to both archaeological and documentary data can investigate relationships between ideological perspectives of household behavior, as often presented in the documentary evidence, and actual household practice, as presented in archaeological remains. Pictorial Analogy

Contemporaneous artistic or commemorative representations, such as sculpture, paintings, etchings, drawings, or early photography, often include depictions of dwellings and household objects and activities. If these representations have chronological and social proximity to the archaeological data, they can provide useful pictorial analogy. For example, depictions on Greek vases of men and women in association with moveable furniture and engaged in household

activities provide evidence for the engendering of these activities in the ancient Greek world. Artist’s depictions or early photographs of gold-mining settlements help to explain and interpret the fragmentary remains of these temporary dwellings. However, pictorial material can also distort our view of the material past. Like textual and ethnographic material, it embodies the world view of the creator which is not necessarily representative of the world views and the practices of those depicted, or indeed of the individuals represented by the archaeological remains. Such media often portray stereotypical situations or, conversely, desirable and imagined situations, like the numerous magazines in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that advertise idyllic household furnishings and settings. Thus, pictorial representations can also be imbued with their own agenda and so pictorial analogy can, again, reproduce ideal rather than actual behavior. Modern Analogy

We frequently use, often inadvertently, analogy with our own culture to infer the nature of households in past societies. Perceptions that houses are occupied by nuclear families are probably the most all-pervading of such analogies. We can use archaeological evidence, and cross-cultural analogy, to test such inferences. While any type of analogy has the potential to bias interpretations of archaeological remains, if used critically, analogy provides essential data for household archaeology. The question is not whether or not analogy is appropriate but whether the particular analogical inferences made are appropriate to the particular archaeological data. In summary, cross-cultural analogy – ethnographic, textual, pictorial, and modern – is a particularly important analytical tool in household archaeology, not to describe household behavior in the past but to guard against assuming any universal concepts of household uniformity.

Households as Structures Because archaeologists often dig up dwelling sites, many household archaeology studies have focused on the physical fabric and layout of a dwelling – the architecture. Archaeologically excavated dwellings usually consist of foundations alone, so that only a floor plan can be discerned. Thus, emphasis is often placed on the two-dimensional layout of these remains, at the expense of their three-dimensional proportions. Only at sites like the Pompeii can a better understanding of the three-dimensional space of a house (e.g., its windows, decoration, and proportions) be developed (Figure 1). Thus, at many archaeological sites it is the two-dimensional arrangement

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Figure 1 Three-dimensional proportions of the House of the Ceii in Pompeii. ã 2008 Dr Penelope Allison. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

of domestic space that is used to explain domestic behavior. For example, ground plans of houses have been analyzed for their homogeneity or heterogeneity within a community, or across communities. The ways in which communities build their houses, and arrange the spaces within them, provide information on social and economic aspects of these communities, and the interrelationships of their member households. However, one can only extrapolate social behavior from household definitions and structural remains, often only a floor plan, if one makes assumptions that relationships between space and households are uniform across all societies. On the contrary, ethnographical analogy indicates that the use of specific space can be extremely variable. For example, more than one household can inhabit one structure and also a household group can inhabit more than one structure, as David showed for the inhabitants of the Fulani compound. Attitudes of privacy can also vary widely between different social groups. Analyses of the structural remains of a house present a producer-oriented view, that of the builder, rather than a consumer-oriented view, that of the household. Charles Stanish stressed that the architectural plan of a house was one of the most distinctive features of household organization and of the ethnicity of a household unit. He rightly argued that the spatial

organization of rooms within a domestic structure documented its intended arrangement of internal activity areas. He identified two different architectural household types at a number of settlement sites in southern Peru, variously dated from c. CE 900 to 1500. These two types, called domestic terrace type and paired structures, showed different structural organization that did not necessarily relate to chronological differentiation. Stanish argued that these two different architectural types belonged to different ethnic groups. However, builders and users of dwellings are not always a homogeneous group. Some buildings are built by some of the subsequent occupants, but many people live in dwellings constructed by close relatives or associates during their lifetime and have little or no input into the decision-making or construction process. Many others live in houses built by unrelated individuals or distant ancestors. In many societies, households inhabit spaces designed by the builders of an earlier period or by other socially or culturally dominant groups who impose the structures on them (e.g., modern Aboriginal housing in Australia). Indeed, the vast majority of individuals will not build the house in which they will dwell. Even when members of the household have contributed to the building of their own dwelling, these members can often be more concerned to outwardly imitate other dominant groups in the construction of their dwelling than to conform to the expected lifestyle of the household members (e.g., Californian bungalows in Mexico or apartments in Kuala Lumpur). However, while such dwellings can serve to constrain those lifestyles they can never completely reformulate them. To view architecture as a prescriber and dictator of household behavior is to be biased toward the perspectives of the builder as the signifier of domestic behavior and to undermine the significance of the activities of all the household members, and of interethnic marriage, in formulating their dwelling as a social space. A household is not essentially an architecturally dominated entity. In many cases in archaeology the structural remains of dwellings are either not extant in the archaeological record or they never existed. Thus, the identification of a household as a social entity is not limited to the identification of the structural remains of its ‘house’. If household archaeologists analyze only the patterning of structural remains it is difficult for them to understand the nature of the household that lived there.

The Material Culture of Households Households do not just live in houses, they also use material culture. While it is true that archaeologists do not dig up households, it is also true that they do not

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dig up just houses. Whenever they dig settlement sites, they invariably dig up household material culture. The structural remains are only part of that material culture. As ethnography and history can serve to flesh out these remains, it can warn us that architecture can conceal household behavior. For example, the home office in my nineteenth-century terrace house in Sydney was originally constructed as a parlor (Figure 2). This changed use of space, and the changed internal dynamics of a household, did not involve any structural change to the house. Archaeologists digging up such a house would not be able to identify this reuse through the floor plan alone. They would need to pay close attention to the distribution patterns of the house contents that might have fallen through the wooden floor boards (e.g., paper clips and parts of pens), what Amos Rapoport termed the ‘non-fixedfeature’ elements. There is often a considerable wealth of such elements in archaeological remains – pottery and glass vessels, stone, metal and worked bone implements, animal bones, vegetal remains – which are not part of the house structure, but which are evidently part of the household and which provide insights into the nature and distribution of household activities, and into relationships between social action and material culture. Studies of house floor assemblages for assessing spatial distribution of household activities had their beginnings in the southwestern United States in the 1970s (see Americas, North: American Southwest, Four Corners Region). However, the rich data sets and the documentary evidence from other parts of the world, particularly from Old World sites in the Mediterranean region, are well suited to this type of

investigation. Many recent studies in Old World archaeology have investigated the distribution of household artifacts within dwelling spaces. Through analyses of all the material culture of past households we can learn much about past household behavior. However, it is by no means a simple matter to identify the contents of a house, or more particularly of a room, in the archaeological record, because the depositional processes which occur during habitation – change of habitation, abandonment, and postabandonment – contribute to the house floor assemblages excavated by archaeologists. These depositional processes need to be carefully identified in the archaeological record, and relationships between the different assemblages and structural remains identified, before artifact assemblages can be used to study household behavior. Thus, the state of preservation of a site is a major factor in the success of such an approach. Choice of Site

House floor assemblages, as found on archaeological sites, are a palimpsest of activities that may cover several generations – the materialization of the ‘household series’ mentioned above. However, sites that were rapidly and completely abandoned are more likely to present house floor assemblages belonging to the final occupancy of that site. The New Archaeologists considered Pompeii to be the archetypal site for such ‘systemic house floor assemblages’, but even there the depositional processes are much more complex than widely believed. The Classic period Cere´n site in El Salvador was also destroyed by a volcanic eruption c. CE 500–680, but it was

Figure 2 Twentieth-century home office in nineteenth-century parlor in Sydney, Australia. ã 2008 Dr Penelope Allison. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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excavated by more modern techniques than Pompeii and so has better identified house floor assemblages. Sites that have suffered a human rather than a natural catastrophe can also provide good data for studying household behavior. The ancient Greek cities of Haleis and Olynthus were rapidly abandoned during political upheaval, leaving a wealth of archaeological remains. Failure to strike gold, or other desirable mineral resources, in mining settlements in both the ancient and modern worlds, often results in short-term occupation followed by swift abandonment. The destruction and rapid abandonment of military or frontier sites can also provide useful evidence of household activity in often tenuous and unstable conditions. Thus, the ideal sites for using artifact assemblages to investigate for patterns of household activities, and therefore household behaviors in a particular community, are those sites with relatively wellpreserved house floor assemblages. However, such sites can still display a range of patterns of reuse and discard which must be considered when using artifacts and their related activities to describe spatial functions within household contexts. Equally, investigations of household archaeology are not limited to such ideal sites. It is possible to investigate a particular household activity at less well-preserved sites on a site-wide basis, comparing it with other sites that are culturally or chronologically related. Analyses of the artifact assemblages in refuse locations in both rural and urban sites can provide information for intersite comparisons of household behavior. For example, insights into varying dietary behavior between the late Iron Age and early Roman periods in Britain, or into the changing diets of colonists as they come to terms with the environment and the isolation, can be gained by comparing assemblages of animal bone from a number of different sites. Thus, analyses of artifact distribution at archaeological sites play an important role in household archaeology by contributing less prescriptive approaches to the distribution of household activities than studies that rely on the structural remains. The use of computerized databases and statistical analyses has greatly facilitated such approaches to household material culture. The study of household activities requires a ‘rich’ description of all domestic remains. Electronic data collection and analyses allow archaeologists to process large amounts of data, rapidly and from a range of perspectives.

Conclusions It has been claimed that the investigation of households is an inappropriate inquiry for archaeology and that, because of its association with concepts of

kinship, and a need for ethnography, ethno-history and history to interpret spatial patterning, household archaeology is a misnomer. Some would argue that material remains cannot tell us anything about household behavior. The problem is not that archaeological remains cannot provide information on domestic behavior in the past, but rather that archaeological data are not always capable of answering the kinds of questions which anthropologists and social historians might ask of their own data. The investigation of household activities, their spatial distribution, and their changing temporal patterns, is an important level of inquiry for using the archaeological record to develop a better understanding of household behavior in past communities. The material-cultural remains of the houses that form the archaeological record – the structures and their contents – provide a wealth of information on past households. Emphasis on the spatial patterning of structures and other artifacts throws light on household organization of production and consumption. While it is very difficult to use the material culture to identify the nature and quantity of the members of a household and their interrelationships, the patterning of this material, however ephemeral and whether or not delimited by architectural remains, gives us a greater comprehension of the range and distribution of the activities, and possibly behavior and ideologies, of these households. Thus, the archaeological remains contribute to our knowledge of household behavior in the past, if household archaeologists ask questions that these data are capable of answering. The material-cultural remains can be compared to ethnographic, ethno-historical or textual data for similarities and differences. Any differences are not necessarily errors on the part of the archaeologists. Rather, they help us to understand the diversity of human behavior in the past that is often blurred or even obliterated by inappropriate use of analogy, even at the level of household activities. See also: Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnohistory; Middle Range Approaches; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites.

Further Reading Allison PM (ed.) (1999) The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge. Allison PM (2004) Pompeii Households: Analysis of the Material Culture. Monograph 42. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. On-line companion: http://www.stoa.org/ pompeianhouseholds. Blanton RE (1994) Houses and Households: A Comparative Study. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. London and New York: Plenum Press.

1458 HUMAN–LANDSCAPE INTERACTIONS Brandon JC and Barile KS (2004) The Chore of Defining the Household: Theorizing the Domestic Sphere in Historical Archaeology. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Cahill N (2002) Household and City Organization at Olynthus. New Haven: Yale University Press. David N (1971) The Fulani compound and the archaeologists. World Archaeology 3.1: 111–131. Kent S (1984) Analyzing Activity Areas: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Use of Space. Alberquerque: University of New Mexico. Lawrence S (2000) Dolly’s Creek. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Marcus J (2004) Mayan commoners: The stereotype and the reality. In: Lohse JC and Valdez F (eds.) Ancient Mayan Commoners, pp. 255–283. Austin: University of Texas Press. Nevett L (1999) House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Human Evolution

Rapoport A (1990) The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Nonverbal Communication Approach. Tucson: University of Arizona. Smith M (1992) Braudel’s temporal rhythms and chronology theory in archaeology. In: Knapp AB (ed.) Archaeology, Annales and Ethnohistory, pp. 23–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stanish C (1989) Household archaeology: Testing models of zonal complementarity in the South Central Andes. American Anthropologist 91.1: 7–24. Wilk RR and Rathje WL (eds.) (1982) Archaeology of the household: Building a prehistoryof domestic life. American Behavioral Scientist, 25.6: 611–725. Yaeger J and Robin C (2004) Heterogeneous hinterlands: The social and political organization of commoner settlements near Xunantunich, Belize. In: Lohse JC and Valdez F (eds.) Ancient Mayan Commoners, pp. 147–173. Austin: University of Texas Press.

See: Modern Humans, Emergence of.

HUMAN–LANDSCAPE INTERACTIONS Joel W Grossman, Bronx, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Akkadian A Semitic-speaking dynasty founded by Sargon the Great (Sharrukin, 2334–2279 BC) c. 2370 BC with Akkad (or Agade), an unidentified site, as his capital. Anasazi A major cultural tradition of canyon dwellers found in the southwestern United States between AD 100 and 1600. dendrochronology An absolute chronometric dating technique for measuring time intervals and dating events and environmental changes by reading and dating the pattern of annual rings formed in the trunks of trees. Holocene A geological period that extends from the present day back to about 10 000 radiocarbon years, approximately 11 430  130 calendar years BP (between 9560 and 9300 BC). marine transgression Phenomenon in which sea-level rises (or land sinks) and large areas of land become inundated. palaeoenvironmental reconstruction The determination of the prehistoric environment of an archaeological site, using the methodologies of geology, botany, palenology, and archaeozoology. palynology The science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs.

Introduction The theme of ‘human–landscape interactions’ in the twenty-first century covers a number of very exciting new developments, insights, and debates in the fields

of environmental history, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and landscape archaeology. The field of landscape archaeology is relatively recent and many of the baseline concepts currently used to address human– landscape interactions were not developed until the 1970s. In the last 5 years, a confluence, or parallel maturation, has taken place between advances in archaeological theory, evolution of new high-resolution palaeoenvironmental sequences, and the emergence of new geospatial technologies. This survey first summarizes background assumptions and concepts underpinning modern approaches, highlights the major debates and areas of innovation about climate change, environmental causality and new research directions, and lines of investigation that have come to light as a result of these new insights. Then, in light of these developments, this article suggests several theoretical and applied technology avenues for future investigation in landscape archaeology. From a pre-World War II (WWII) focus on individual archaeological sites as isolated entities, archaeology has moved to their treatment as parts of a broader network of interrelated sites. More recently (post1970s), the discipline has incorporated the idea of environmental setting for a contextual treatment of archaeological data. Within only the last decade, the emergence of new high-resolution dating and analysis techniques has begun to yield important new sequences of environmental change. These have done

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nothing less than revolutionize traditional approaches to the study of man–landscape interactions in prehistory and history. Archaeology has only recently begun to grapple with the fact that these ‘environmental contexts’ are neither static nor constant. Rather, they are almost continuously changing, both independent of, and in response to, human interaction with the environment. As discussed below, recent advances and initiatives are beginning to transform the field from a two-dimensional (2D), mostly static approach (i.e., from solely a diachronic sequence of transformations out of context) to a dynamic, three-dimensional (3D) treatment of archaeological data in a geospatial universe. In fact, such a geospatial perspective will increasingly incorporate both the environmental diversity of past landscapes together with processes of climatic and environmental change and transformation. Technologically, the advent of such tools as highly resolved, decade-level sampling and dating capabilities, geographic information systems (GIS), and 3D modeling of ancient and modern landscapes, from real world bathymetric and topographic sources, provides the means to dynamically analyze and describe complex geospatial relationships between man and the landscape. This emerging integration of the concept of environmental change, spurred by high-resolution dating techniques and sophisticated 3D real world geospatial data control, is reorienting the field of landscape archaeology from a ‘flat’ 2D universe (as in flat paper maps) into the third dimension which is continuously changing in form and resource potential through time. These new 3D geospatial technologies are providing archaeology with the means to plan, target, and discover surviving (and often well-preserved) archaeological remains. These applied technology solutions are leading to the discovery of well-preserved high-integrity remains, even in heavily altered, or now inundated or land-filled, modern landscapes – based on what the environment used to look like, instead of what it looks like today. Recent discoveries and debates dominate in five areas of concern, not all complementary or consistent in their findings: (1) the recognition of magnitude and effect of long-term human impacts to the environment; (2) the effect of climate change on human settlement and land use history; (3) the advent and relevance of high-resolution dated sequences of environmental change; (4) very recent recognition of the critical role played by sea-level rise in human history in general, and in the origins of early urbanism in particular; and (5) new insights into the previously ignored significance and potential for archaeological preservation in inundated coastal estuaries, bays, and marshes. In essence, this article

is not about ‘global warming’ per se – it is in addition to it. Most new developments in landscape archaeology, or as some now refer to as landscape ecology and/or paleoecology, stem from the use of new high-resolution palaeoenvironmental pollen, ice or soils sequences to argue that significant environmental and climatic events occurred immediately before or after major changes in settlement patterns, economies or demographics of prehistoric cultures. Instead of studying periods spanning hundreds or even thousands of years, current breakthroughs in both New World and Old World archaeology reflect a shift to new highresolution temporal and analytical sampling units of 20–50 years, or less. The most current topic of debate is interpreting the role of climate change in general and the impact of droughts, in particular. As summarized below, droughts have been blamed for the demise of important cultural phases in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the American Southwest, Mexico, the Mayan area, and Andean South America. Similarly, others have argued that droughts were the incentives, or triggers, for early sedentary, centralized settlements and stratified societies. Several theorists and practitioners argue strongly for or against the existence and reality of catastrophic floods in prehistory. And the newest model for the emergence of Mesopotamian civilization highlights the role of sea level rise. As a counter to the often deterministic tone of many of these arguments, several cases highlight the role of past human cultures in bringing about significant, ecologically traumatic, long-term changes to prehistoric and early historic environments. Finally, in response to the recent recognition of the role of Late Holocene sea-level rise, or marine transgression, this overview will conclude with a discussion of the archaeological potential and significance of now buried and/or inundated landscapes, and of the geospatial tools that are being deployed to reveal them.

Theoretical Origins and Assumptions Baseline Geospatial Constructs

Modern landscape or environmental archaeology is an amalgam of techniques and ideas from several disciplines (geography, ecology, archaeology, palenology, paleoclimatology). Some of these were derived from social science and theory, others from hard sciences dealing with the earth and environmental history. This treatment focuses on the ecologically contextual, geospatial, and diachronic analysis of human–landscape interactions. The specialized topics

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of ‘spiritual landscapes’ and ‘architectural landscape archaeology’ are beyond the scope of this discussion. Prior to WWII, it was not uncommon for archaeologists to spend their entire careers studying a single site, treated almost in isolation – isolation from other contemporary sites and in isolation from the environment and landscape features surrounding it. Furthermore, following the Linnaean tradition of focusing on the identification of new ‘species’ (and in the case of archaeology, new material culture and artifact ‘types’), the study of prehistoric cultures was often done with little or no reference to current or past environment or topographic setting. Environmental context was not a baseline concern. In both the Americas and Europe, between the 1950s and 1970s, two streams of thought coalesced to form the conceptual and methodological building blocks of contemporary landscape archaeology. In the United States, the roots of a ‘regional’ approach in studying prehistoric settlements can be traced back to Lewis Henry Morgan’s work on Native American village organization (1881) and to Julian Steward’s 1930s study of the shifting hunting and gathering economy of the Shoshone Indians. Despite these early prototypes, modern American students did not begin to focus on the distribution and context of archaeological sites until the release of Gordon Willey’s 1953 survey work in the Viru Valley of Peru. While many parallel studies were done in Mexico and North America, it was Willey’s study of changing ‘settlement patterns’ in an arid coastal valley that set the form and direction of later spatial studies in American archaeology. At the same time, other baseline assumptions that helped form landscape archaeology came from biology and early efforts to explain how organisms and multiple communities of animal and plants formed a system of interconnecting elements. In 1953, Eugene Odum published Fundamentals of Ecology and introduced the concept of nonstatic or dynamic ‘ecosystem’ into the biological lexicon. The same year, Odum’s essay, Human Ecology, extended this biological concept to the study of human populations and culture. These intellectual constructs also served to infuse the idea of change and process to the often static treatment of human–landscape interactions. In Europe, one of the first conceptual attempts to incorporate the notion of environmental context emerged with the introduction of the concept of ‘site catchment area’. In 1972 this concept was borrowed and applied from earlier social and economic models by two archaeologists, Higgs and Vita-Finzi. The notion of site catchment area provided a functional, economic, and geographic framework to relate landuse patterns to environmental conditions and subsistence sources. It also assumed that these subsistence

activities took place within a circumscribed environmental context that would diminish in intensity and importance with increasing distance from the core site area. While the European ‘ecological catchment’ and the American ‘settlement pattern’ were spawned from different traditions, in the 1970s and 1980s archaeologists on both sides of the Atlantic borrowed freely and both concepts helped set the stage for later regional- and habitat-oriented treatments of archaeological data. Their adoption represented a paradigm, or conceptual, shift away from objects and ‘things’ (including ‘sites’), in and of themselves, to broader contextual investigation of spatial associations and interrelationships ‘between’ things, artifacts, sites, and resource areas. By the middle of the last decade, landscape archaeology began using constructs that attempted to weld process and landscape in a single model or paradigm. Archaeologists working in Mesoamerica adopted a new model, the Tropic Web, that integrates the ‘spatial’ aspect of ‘site catchment’ with the ‘dynamic’ elements of ‘ecology’ and change. This ‘dynamic and geospatial’ framework treats humans as elements of a network of resources and organisms that are intensely linked throughout their life cycles. A related concept, Task Space, was fielded by African archaeologists which treats landscape as a place where different tasks take place at specific times within a changing set of schedules. Both ideas also provided conceptual tools that began to ‘fit’ with the dynamic, real time, real world, 3D modeling capabilities of current geospatial technologies. Applied Technology: Dating and Proxies

These mixed traditions and approaches resulted from two impetuses toward a regional geospatial and environmental perspective: (1) the availability, beginning in the 1960s, of high-resolution aerial photography; and (2) externally imposed legal mandates to undertake regional archaeological surveys as part of the emerging environmental impact and historic preservation movement in developed regions. These new tools and procedures, in turn, aided archaeologists in seeking and discovering new sites in environmental contexts they may not have been otherwise investigated. Finally, just as the availability of low-altitude aerial photography in the 1960s provided archaeologists with handy geospatial tools for evaluating sites in an environmental context, the recent availability of high-resolution, radar-derived digital terrain models are today providing the capability to investigate and explore – remotely and safely – a study area from afar (Figure 1) (see Cultural Ecology; Cultural

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Figure 1 3D Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of a Highlands valley of New Jersey, U.S. The radar-derived coordinate and elevation data can be rendered as either two-dimensional contours, or as three-dimensional surface mesh models which permit the extraction of plan, profile and volume information for the analysis of the topographic and ecological context of historic and prehistoric sites within the drainage. (By Joel W Grossman, Ph.D., ã Joel W Grossman, Ph.D. 2008. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Resource Management; Landscape Archaeology; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods; Remote Sensing Approaches: Aerial; Geophysical; Settlement Pattern Analysis; Settlement System Analysis; Paleodemography). The ability of modern landscape archaeology to measure either environmental change, and/or man’s impact on it, partially resulted from the emergence of new dating techniques that have resolved increasingly finer units of analysis–from intervals of centuries, down to sampling and dating at 10–50-year intervals, or in the cases of tree rings, clay varves, and ice cores, intervals of 1 year. The majority of case studies highlighted below represent often radical reinterpretation of prehistoric man–landscape interactions, based on data from terrestrial and marine cores that are yielding both chronological and environmental evidence. These procedures, and the incorporation of techniques and data from other disciplines, are central to the following examples and case studies. Each in turn demonstrates the use of two elements: (1) subdecade-level dating with chronometric procedures (of these, perhaps the most important technological innovation was the advent of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating in the 1980s which both addressed the crude dating of early C14 techniques and enabled high resolution age determinations from samples as small as a charred seed; or from the counting of tree ring, ice or sediment layers from long core sample) (see Archaeometry; Carbon-14 Dating; Dendrochronology; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Luminescence Dating; Obsidian

Hydration Dating) and (2) the use of what environmental scientists refer to as proxies. Proxies are subtle traces of minerals, radioactive elements, or organic compounds that show changes indicative of temperature or climatic shifts (see Archaeometry; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Geoarchaeology; Neutron Activation Analysis; Paleoethnobotany; Pollen Analysis). The following cases will stress the analytical basis for each set of climatic findings over individual theories or models. Old Biases and Impediments

The emergence of modern landscape archaeology and the understanding of the delicate and dynamic balance between human and natural forces did not come easily. The new perspectives of landscape archaeology or environmental history could not emerge until several key deeply held biases and culture-bound Western assumptions had been set aside. These were (1) the concept that preindustrial environments were pristine and unspoiled, and that the Holocene, or last 10 000 years following the retreat of glaciers, underwent little change and was static and (2) that indigenous peoples lived in child-like harmony with their environment. The notion of a pristine and stable or static past The first major barrier came from ingrained nineteenthand twentieth-century assumptions that colonial environments were, prior to the recent impacts, stable and reflected habitats and groundwater conditions unchanged for thousands of years. A second major

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assumption to be set aside was that in addition to being pristine, little if any environmental change had taken place since the retreat of the ice sheets 10 000– 12 000 years ago – what existed in the historic period had existed for thousands of years before. This notion arose in part from bias, and in part from imprecise available data control and dating techniques. It was only in the early 1970s that two pivotal documentbased studies of the colonial environment of North America – Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange and William Cronon’s Changes in the Land – began to plant the seeds of reevaluation. Not only had the landscape been impacted by European contact in the early fifteenth century, but also that it had been altered, if not at times carefully managed, by Native Americans long before European introductions. Cronon even suggested that what many early explorers described in exotic travelogues as the ‘natural untouched splendor’ of America’s eighteenth-century wilderness may have been artifacts of a generation of abandonment by Native Americans after their populations had been decimated by disease and/or pushed out of

their traditional territory by European colonists. In fact, it now appears that the traditional use of these eighteenth-century documentary accounts may not be as accurate as the well-dated botanical remains from the seventeenth-century archaeological sites. As summarized below, both the excavation of archaeological plant remains from mid seventeenth-century deposits and recent pollen sequences from the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern United States have documented plants indicative of disturbed environments as early as 1650 (Figure 2). The notion of the ‘native in harmony with nature’ Coupled with the misconception of supposedly stable pre-European environments of colonized territories in Africa, Asia, and America, was the associated bias that not only were the indigenous living in a ‘stable balance with nature’, but also that they were too ‘primitive’ and limited in numbers to cause any significant changes to their surroundings. That picture is no longer valid. Archaeological ground surveys and air photo analysis, for example, now suggest a

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Figure 2 Three Dimensional bar graph of dated plant remains from the 17th and 18th Century features discovered in the Dutch West India Company Block at Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, New York (Grossman et al. 1985). The predominance of ‘‘weed’’ types introduced from Europe, predominantly adopted to ‘‘Waste Ground’’, suggests that the environment of Dutch New York had been disturbed and traumatized at least as early as the mid-17th Century. (By Joel W Grossman, Ph.D., ã Joel W. Grossman, Ph.D. 2008. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

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Mayan population of some 3 million people, and that at least 8000 kilometers (out of a total of 22 700 square kilometers, or 35% of their area) had been cleared and deforested by the Classic Period Maya. Instead of being sparsely populated as many early explorers recounted, these low densities may reflect only the sudden and drastic impacts of disease on indigenous peoples. Some early diaries of the first Spanish visitors to Peru described a 90% population decline along the coast, and coastal valleys devoid of people. Current estimates put New World population levels at 40–70 million inhabitants at the time of European contact. As is the case today, the higher the density of people, the greater the environmental impact, all things being equal.

Cases of Man-Made (Anthropogenic) Environmental Change Historical Antecedents

The awareness of man’s impact on the environment is not a new concept, nor a new scientific development. In 1868 George P. Marsh published The Earth as Modified by Human Action with the stated goal of addressing ‘‘. . . the character and, approximately, the extent of the changes produced by human action in the physical conditions of the globe we inhabit. . . .’’ He drew from Classical, Medieval, and historic sources to illustrate what would be described today as ‘quantified geospatial’ evidence and assessments of man’s impacts to the landscape. Marsh suggested major landscape and climate impacts based on records of nineteenth-century coastal drainage and land reclamation projects in coastal marsh and wetland areas (100 000–400 000 acres) in England, Holland, Hungary, and California. He also made the observation that the chronological analysis of official climate records, before and after draining, documented measurable fluctuations of between a tenth and a third of a degree, in temperature. What has changed, and what is illustrated by the following case studies of anthropogenic (man-made impacts), is the time-depth and geographic diversity of these impacts. The following cases illustrate the extent and magnitude of prehistoric alternations to the landscapes of Mexico, the Andes, and Lowland South America. They also illustrate the importance of modern high-resolution palaeoenvironmental sequences, new dating techniques, the importance of aerial photography and high-altitude remote sensing for the accurate measurement and documentation of these changes. A wide body of archaeological and ethnobotanical evidence indicates that in the New World (and presumably elsewhere) much of the environment

and landscape had been heavily altered and manipulated long before European settlement and impacts. In addition to evidence of large pre-Columbian populations and dense settlement patterns in concentrated areas of Mexico, the Andes, and the Lowlands of South America, the archaeological focus on landscape and wide-area studies are documenting massive earthmoving efforts, beyond those of mound and temple construction that altered topography and drainage patterns throughout wide regions of the Americas. As the following cases and recent compilations of long-term and wide-area multidisciplinary archaeological investigations document, these pre-contact, man-made alterations of the landscape were both broad in scope and ecologically significant. In addition to the following specific examples, a number of general changes took place independently of localized cultural and environmental conditions. These general impacts included an increase in the number and range of domesticated plants, expansion in the distribution of vermin and savaging species that lived symbiotically as by-products of human activities, a reduction in nonessential animal and plant species, and a general reduction in former distribution and habitats of animals of prey. In addition to these general cross-cultural impacts, and without belaboring the point, archaeologists (especially those working in the Americas) have begun to compile repeated cases of significant regional impacts and alterations to the environment by indigenous peoples, long before European contact. Recent archaeological treatments have revealed examples of well-documented prehistoric man-made impacts to ancient habitats in Mexico, the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, and in the lowlands of the Amazon basin. Middle America

Comparative studies by Charles Spencer between dry uplands of Mexico and the tropical savannas of Venezuela, have documented the construction of massive water-control systems that in many cases rival the productivity and environmental conservation capabilities of modern intensive agricultural systems. One example underscores the size and capacity of a huge prehistoric dam system in the Tehuaca Valley of Mexico. Built over several centuries, the 400-meterlong (c. 1200-foot-long) dam impounded a volume of 2.6 million cubic meters. This reserve of water was sufficient to irrigate land to support 1000 people, with an annual surplus. Although abandoned in AD 250, the author suggested that its topographic displacement surpassed those of modern efforts. Similarly, in Oaxaca, some 20 miles to the south, several hundred inhabitants built aqueducts and canals that efficiently irrigated the majority of the valley.

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In contrast, contemporary water-control systems generally irrigate only parts of the same area for agriculture, and leave major sectors dry and unusable. Finally, Spencer listed an extensive prehistoric system in the damp tropical plains of the Barinas region of Venezuela that drained and regulated fluctuating water levels throughout the year. Extensive networks of ditches and channels siphoned excess flood waters in the wet season and brought water to irrigate the same areas in the dry season. This seasonally adjustable, prehistoric water-control technology raised production to two crops per year, and appears to have supported populations some 20 times larger than todays. Andean South America

The Andean regions of highland Peru and Bolivia also featured massive landscape alterations and impacts to the precontact environment. Recent work in the highlands of the Lake Titicaca Basin, such as that of Clark Erickson, have reevaluated the economic and settlement patterns of the Pre-Inca Tiahuanaco cultures living around the lake between c. AD 800 and 1200. These also underscored the extent of anthropic, or man-made, alterations to the environment, clearly also long before European contact. Based on surface survey and the ability to measure landscape alterations with air photos, Erickson calculated that the Lake Titicaca peoples had built over 500 000 ha (123 500 000 acres) of terracing on the surrounding foothills. In the lower portions of the basin, extensive areas of perhaps as much as 256 ha (632 acres) had been transformed for intensive agriculture by the construction of sunken gardens or q’ochas. These plots provided static irrigation from groundwater for fields of potatoes, quinoa (Andean grain related to Amaranth), and feed for domesticated animals. Extensive canals irrigated fields and pastures in the dry seasons, apparently as early as 1800–2000 BC. Based on modern aerial imagery and remote sensing, it now appears that the entire landscape of the basin was managed and reconstructed – with little remaining to identify as natural or ‘pristine’. Lowland South America

Perhaps the most striking new insights and divergences from old assumptions pertain to the prehistoric ecology and environmental history of the Amazon lowlands of South America. Twenty years of diligent multidisciplinary archaeological, ethnobotanical, and chronometric work by Anna Roosevelt is producing a body of new evidence that debunks nearly a century of misconceptions concerning man–landscape interactions

in the Amazon basin. Long held assumptions are beginning to fall by the wayside in the face of this new, multidisciplinary evidence. These include (1) the notion that the Amazon was a pristine habitat, only recently impacted by modern deforestation; (2) the idea that the indigenous inhabitants lived in harmony with the lowland environment; and (3) the belief that early farmers could not subsist in the tropical rain forest. Work at three large prehistoric settlement areas in the delta flood plain, near the Amazon’s outlet into the Atlantic, in the Tapajos confluence region of Monte Alegre, have revealed well-dated stratigraphic sequences, a host of well-preserved botanical and food plant remains. and clear evidence that these inhabitants were not living in small scattered settlements, but instead in large raised platform mounds above the flood plain. Roosevelt surmised that these centers covered core settlement areas of 4 km2, each with population levels of 10 000 people, and that they developed long before European contact. These early Monte Alegre inhabitants practiced shifting ‘slash and burn’ agriculture that resulted in cleared regions around their settlements. The dense populations and clearing practices also appear to have created what Dr. Roosevelt suggested were degraded landscapes of localized treeless savannas, distinguished only by dense secondary stands of palms or other single-type stands of trees. In addition to these patterns of localized forest clearing, Roosevelt also identified what appear to be raised fields distinguished by layers of dark fertilized soils from the waste and domestic by-products of the local residents. The new sequence of dated pollen cores, archaeological plant remains, and the isotopic analysis of human remains suggest that the appearance of the dry interior open savannahs was not a ‘natural’ event with ancient roots, but instead the relatively recent prehistoric by-products of ‘anthropogenic,’ or man-made, land clearing. What one sees today is not the result of only modern deforestation and land clearing, but also the ancient products of prehistoric agricultural practices and localized alterations to the landscape by peoples living in relatively large and dense centers of population. This thesis recently gained support from an innovative nonarchaeological source. Recent work by a team of geochemists from the University of South Carolina has used deep-sea core samples from the Amazon discharge fan to argue that the savannahs were not ancient, but modern and that the Amazon basin had been covered by dense, highcanopy forests little changed for 70 000 years. The researchers used dated sediment samples to measure the relative ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12, based

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on the fact that samples eroded from arid grasslands are significantly different from that of sediments from forested regions. The Amazon samples show consistently ‘high’ negative values indicative of runoff from forested areas versus open savannahs. The new core evidence also counters a widely held theory, first promulgated by an ornithologist in 1969, that explained the biodiversity of the Amazonian bird populations as the result of being isolated by stands of primeval forrest, each separated by vast expanses of open interior savannah. Known as the Refuge (or Refugio) Hypothesis, this model presumed that the savannahs were ancient and served to create ‘refuges’ of isolated forest stands that fostered species distinctions within and between animal and bird populations. The theory was also adopted by some lowland archaeologists to explain settlement patterns and cultural differences among modern indigenous peoples today. These new archaeological and deep-sea core data are the first concrete and testable evidence that refutes the popular Refuge Theory. They also suggest that clearing encountered by European colonists was, as Dr. Roosevelt suggests, the result of actions by prehistoric peoples, not natural forces. Historic Old and New World Environmental Impacts

As Marsh argued over a century ago, historical archaeology and a focus on environmental indices (pollen, seeds) is providing comparable material evidence of environmental trauma in the medieval and colonial periods in the Americas and Europe as well. In England, the analysis of pollen and metal traceelement fractions from three cores taken from peat bogs in the Northern Pennines have provided new evidence of long-term environmental impacts from the regional mining industry. The identification of shifting tree and plant communities from dated pollen cores indicate that small short-term forest clearings had begun in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. These early impacts were followed by substantial wide-scale clearing and deforestation in the subsequent Iron Age and Romano-British Periods. Landscape changes from local mining, however, were clearly evident by the Medieval Period. However, the measurement of lead and zinc levels in pollen core samples correlated with a permanent drop off of tree pollen, together with an increase in lead trace-element readings beginning in the eleventh century AD. It is noteworthy that a modern travel description on the Web treats the area as pristine, with idyllic terms as ‘‘one of England’s most special places – a peaceful, unspoilt landscape. . . .’’ The archaeological evidence and the archical record instead point to a long history of environmental degradation.

Comparable indicators of man-made environmental trauma to the colonial United States environment have also been documented for later seventeenth-eighteenth and eighteenth-century sites as well. Excavations by the author along the original colonial shoreline at Pearl Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan led to the discovery of well-preserved seventeenth-century remains of the first warehouse of the Dutch West India Company, as well as the house foundations and artifacts of some of its principal residents and officials from the 1650s. Well-preserved and tightly dated plant remains excavated from privies and cisterns were found buried and preserved 8–12 feet below the modern grade of Lower Manhattan. Instead of varieties suggestive of well-tended rear yard gardens, nurtured soils, and neatly kept yards, the earliest 1650s plants from the Dutch West India block showed little evidence of ornamentals. When the colonial seeds were compared to ornately illustrated contemporary sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European Herbals (e.g., Leonart’s Fuchs’ (German) The New Herbal of 1543, or Culpeper’s (English) The Complete Herbal of 1649), they proved to be both predominantly of European origin and used as ‘medicines, dyes, and industrial products’ (Figure 2). Instead of indicating well-tended household gardens, the majority of the mid-seventeenth-century plants were adapted to acidic, heavily compacted, and disturbed soils, or waste ground similar to what one might find along heavily traveled dirt roads, open yards, or paths today. With the exception of the widely dispersed peach being present from the 1650s onward, the archaeological evidence for ethnobotanical indicators of potentially landscaped or intentionally planted specimens did not become evident until the first quarter of the eighteenth century. This unique archaeological evidence implies that Colonial Dutch New Amsterdam urban landscape had been traumatized and disturbed by the introduction of foreign, often genetically dominant, invasive ‘weeds’ as early as 1650 (purslane, bedstraw, Pigweed (amaranth), goosefoot/lambs quarter, copperleaf, carpetweed, carpetweed and indigenous berries, and squash and tobacco seeds). It also suggests that archaeologists, historians, and ecologists must proceed with caution in accepting accounts by later, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ‘naturalists’ of supposedly pristine environmental conditions in colonial America and elsewhere.

Cultural Responses to Climate Change The previous case studies have illustrated the range and severity of man-made impacts to the environment and landscapes of different culture areas in prehistory. Over the last 10 years, intriguing new theories

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have been presented by scientists from several disciplines about how climate change has influenced the rise and fall of ancient civilizations in both the Old and New Worlds. In particular, these theories have focused on droughts and, in one well-publicized case, floods, and most recently, the role of sea-level rise. The availability of high-resolution and welldated paleoclimatic and archaeological sequences are providing new insights and alternate interpretations about how and why complex urban societies formed and collapsed. Most of the following cases involve debates over the identification and cultural significance of long-term (300–500 year) mega-droughts on several well known but unexplained prehistoric economic and demographic collapses and disappearances. Peter deMenocal of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University notes the independent record of significant episodes of climate changes over the last 3000years of the postglacial Holocene period. Instead of being uniform and climatically stable, as once thought, it was punctuated by a series of widespread, continent-wide, periods of cooling and desiccation and droughts, throughout North America, that lasted for approximately 1500 years over the last 10 000 years. He also noted that where identified, these long-term droughts emerged suddenly, often in less than a decade. And as we well see below, he also argues that these episodes of long-term climatic change had devastating consequences for prehistoric and historic peoples of the Americas. These arguments fall into two subcategories: (1) studies that point to the negative effects of severe droughts; and (2) those that point to the onset of drought conditions as catalysts for major population movements and/or adaptations to changing landscape and environmental conditions. Only recently, highresolution environmental sequences of climatic and botanical changes, often now resolved down to 20–50-year intervals, have become available with sufficient chronological precision to be matched to comparable archaeological sequences of cultural growth, decline, or disappearance. Readers must be cautious of ‘single source’ explanations of culture change. Brian Fagan has warned that the ‘correlation’ of high-resolution data on environmental change (from sediment, lake, or ice cores) does not demonstrate a ‘causal relationship’. And as he underscores, these traumatic episodes of culture change are complex and difficult to ascribe to a single guiding force. Ancient Egyptian Droughts

Archaeologists have long been aware that significant population migrations played a role in the development of early sedentary agricultural settlements in both the Nile valley and Mesopotamia, as well as

in the formerly sparsely populated and dryer southern region of the Tigris and Euphrates river drainages. Additionally, a number of scientists have argued that climate change and a shift to dryer, more arid conditions played a significant role in bringing about the demise or collapse of early urban centers in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Recently, alternative arguments are now being put forth that the onset of more arid conditions may have served as an important ‘trigger’ or causal factor for the emergence of early civilizations in both regions. All of these arguments are based on the chronological correlation of recently available high-resolution sequences of environmental and climate data, generally from marine and terrestrial cores, with longstanding archaeological sequences from different culture areas. For ancient Egypt, the 1000-year period between c. 5800 and 4800 BC saw the emergence of first goat and sheep herding, and then early mixed herding and farming communities in the Nile Delta. Beginning around 3300 BC, a period referred to as the Old Kingdom emerged as a period of prosperity and growth distinguished by the first urban centers, centralized state rule, large-scale construction of government and religious complexes, and the first pyramids. It was also was a period of continual and reliable Nile floods. However, sometime around 2200 BC, the Old Kingdom appears to have suddenly suffered social and economic anarchy and collapse. Scholars have spent their entire careers promulgating theories as to why, but generally without much evidence. Work by Fekri Hassan initially suggested that drought may have been a factor in the collapse of early Egyptian civilization. Hassan based this possible explanation on the simple stratigraphic observation that an important basin fed by the Nile River, the Fayum Depression, lacked any lake-bottom sediments dating to the period of the Old Kingdom. This suggested to him that, instead of the traditional 18–20 m of water, the depression had dried out and, that where once present, the sediments from this period had blown away. Multiple lines of recent geological and sedimentological evidence are substantiating Hassan’s thesis that drought may have brought about the demise and collapse of the Old Kingdom. The recovery of high-resolution sediment cores from the Nile Delta by Jean-Daniel Stanley, has recorded a band of red wind-blown sand, suggestive of severe drought, dating to c. 2150 BC, or at the same time as the collapse of these earliest Egyptian urban and religious centers. Other sediment cores from elsewhere in Egypt and North Africa have recorded the chemical and mineralogical fingerprints of similar layers of wind-blown sand of the same age. Scientists of

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the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have also reported that high-resolution pollen and diatom sequences have identified parallel periods of drying and drought dating to around 2100 BC from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and equatorial Africa. These multiple lines of evidence now appear to have world-wide implications, with comparable effects on the settlement and culture histories of other regions, including the Near East and the New World. Hassan also argued that just as drought appears to have brought an end to the Old Kingdom, the beginning of the subsequent Middle Kingdom between c. 1900 and 1800 BC was distinguished by centralized efforts to control the short-term effects of drought. He points to the initial building of canals, a large dam and reservoir, and the dredging of the channel of the Nile linking the river to the Fayum Depression. These constructions both buffered against periods of drought and served to regulate the water level within the Fayum Depression in support of extensive irrigation agriculture surrounding it. He theorized that subsequent Nile floods breached the dam, inundated the depression, and rendered it unusable for agriculture until the third-century BC, or a period of abandonment lasting at least 1500 years. Mesopotamian Droughts

Similar work on sudden climate change by Dr. deMenocal has used deep-sea sediment cores taken from the Mediterranean to argue that abrupt climate change to cooler and dryer conditions brought about the sudden collapse of the Akkadian civilization in northern Mesopotamia around 4200 BP. Detailed chemical and particle analysis identified a thick lens of air-borne sand in the column beginning (dating to 4170 BP), which appears to have lasted for at least 300 years. This and other lines of archaeological and climatic evidence were combined to contend that, as was the case for the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the collapse of the Akkadian culture and the previously identified migration of its population to the south coincided with the onset of a major long-term period of drought in the region. As was the case for the advent of irrigation and water control systems in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, others have used paleoclimatic evidence to suggest that a regional shift to more arid conditions also helped trigger the onset of both irrigation agriculture and urbanism in southern Mesopotamia. In 2004, two scientists – Nick Brooks and Harvey Weiss – independently used similar evidence to theorize that increased desiccation was not only responsible for the collapse and migration southward of the Akkadian peoples.

In addition, they both argued that drought may have played a role in the subsequent population increases, urbanism, social stratification and onset of irrigation agriculture in southern Mesopotamia, as well. North American Droughts

In a synthesis of both archaeological and climatic evidence from both New World and Old World archaeological chronologies Dr. deMenocal has highlighted both Old and New World examples of longterm drought relative to a number of archaeological culture sequences. His examples illustrate prehistoric shifts in settlement patterns, the abandonment of urban centers, and in the case of the Pueblo and Mayan cultures of North and Central America, their complete disappearance. He used evidence from sediment cores and tree ring dating to explain the longdebated decline of both the first European colonies in North America and, quite clearly, provided credence to the arguments by several archaeologists that drought was also the culprit behind the abandonment of the great Pueblo centers. Archaeological evidence and tree ring dates have also provided convincing evidence that the 1587 settlement of the Lost Colony on North Carolina’s Roanoke Island had disappeared during the most severe drought in 800 years. Similarly, the high mortality and near loss of the 1607 settlement of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement of North America, coincided with the driest period of drought in the prior 770 years of the local tree ring record. Finally, the correlation of sequences of climatic change with the pivotal benchmark dates of prehistoric culture change has provided convincing evidence to explain the thirteenth-century abandonment of the Anasazi ‘cliff house’ settlements in the American Southwest. Although often without much evidence to go on, earlier archaeological theories had suggested their demise through droughts, war, internecine conflict, or religious chaos. Recently, the availability of high-resolution sequences of climate change now presents a tightly dated record indicating that drought was indeed the primary cause of decline. Regional tree ring chronologies and drought distribution maps document that the thirteenth-century abandonment of Anasazi settlements coincided with the advent, around 1280 AD, of a significant, generationlong drought lasting at least 26 years. Central American Droughts

Similar lines of evidence from dated sediment cores help to explain the sudden decline of the Maya as well. Two came from land-locked lakes in the Yucatan peninsula. A third was recovered from a

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segment of a 500-foot-deep core drilled off the coast of Venezuela, to the south of the Maya heartland in the Caribbean. Using different lines of evidence, the core sequences together provided redundant records that drought played a key, if not a primary, role in the collapse of Maya urban centers and the depopulation of the peninsula between AD 800 and 1000. Radioisotope analysis of minute fresh water shells from the inland lake cores indicated that the onset of an extended, but ill-defined (c. 200 year) period of dryer conditions and reduced rainfall had occurred sometime around AD 900. More recently, based on radiocarbon determinations from the Venezuelan sediment column, Dr. Larry Peterson of the University of Miami was able to define a 200-year series of climate ‘signals’ – or indices of sudden climate fluctuations – dating from AD 750 to 950. Work by Gerard Haug used X-ray fluorescence to measure the relative amounts of trace titanium in a series of dated sediment samples. Titanium was tested for because it accumulated in the basin sediments as a small but measurable by-product (‘trace element’) of stream run-off from the Yucatan peninsula; the lower the titanium levels, the lower the rainfall. Four periods of reduced titanium measurements dated to AD 760, 810, 860, and 910. Each was interpreted to be an indicator of episodes of apparent drought, which correlated suggestively with the collapse of the Maya centers sometime after AD 800. These independent core-derived findings support the earlier thesis of an independent Texas archaeologist, Richard Gill, that drought was responsible for the abandonment of the Maya cities sometime after AD 800. Gill based his suggestion on a survey of the latest dates carved into monuments before different centers were abandoned. Despite a fudge factor of 30 years in the core-derived radiocarbon determinations, his archaeological chronology of calendar dates for the demise of the Maya matched the dates of the titanium ‘proxies’ of climate change with uncanny precision. Andean Droughts

A similar sudden climatic event in around the thirteenth-century AD has also been presented to explain the decline of the Middle Horizon urban centers in the Bolivian Andes (and by extension in highland Peru). Although somewhat less convincing than the wealth of tree ring data for the American Southwest, samples from a single ice core have been used by some to argue that the collapse of the pre-Inca urban center of Tiahuanaco on the Bolivian altiplano (11 000 feet elevation), surrounding Lake Titicaca, may also have occurred as the result of drought. Counted and measured like tree rings, the availability of a finely dated ice core from the Quelccaya area

of the southern Andes, 200 km to the north, provided a tightly dated 1500-year sequence of annual ice accumulation. The dated ice sequence indicated that a lessening of ice accumulations and a shift to significantly drier conditions began around AD 1040 and lasted for at least 200 years, or until the thirteenth century. This suggested change to dryer conditions also corresponded with a 30 foot drop in the level of Lake Titicaca. Archaeologists and climatologists have used this single line of dated climatic evidence to argue that the sudden and long-term climate shift to dryer conditions would have been of sufficient magnitude and duration to destroy or radically diminish the productivity of the traditional raised field system. In addition, new research on the Quelccaya ice cap used radiocarbon dating of ancient plants recently exposed by the retreating glacier to argue that the onset of the Late Holocene around 5000 BP was marked by a measurable shift to cooler conditions. This evidence of dated climatic change is also identical in age to comparable climactic events in the Old World. As discussed above, the climatic transition at 5200 BP is also coincident with parallel shifts and the emergence of urbanism in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. This independent ice core data indicated that a climate shift also occurred in the Americas at the same time as the windborne sand was recorded in sediment cores from the Mediterranean. These temporal parallels suggest that the shift may have been a world-wide event, with world-wide cultural consequences.

The Black Sea and ‘Noah’s Flood’ In 1997, two Columbia University oceanographers and geophysicists (and again not archaeologists), Walter Pitman and Bill Ryan, presented a widely heralded theory that the breaching of a shallow ridge around 7200 years before the present, literally ‘opened the flood gates’ from the Mediterranean and ‘deluged’ the lower elevations of a landlocked basin to create the Black Sea. The two researchers also upped the scientific ante by suggesting that the event correlated in time, and was one and the same as the Biblical tale of Noah’s flood. The well-publicized theory received much attention, and given the institutional affiliations of the proponents, was broadly accepted as . . . gospel. In his important 2004 synthesis, The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization, Brian Fagan captured the enthusiasm of the moment in vivid terms of prehistoric loss and angst: The rising lake . . . killed carefully tended gardens . . . Helpless villages watched as their thatched houses and storage bins vanished under the brackish tide. At some points, the shoreline advanced up the river valleys as fast as a young man could walk. (p. 113).

HUMAN–LANDSCAPE INTERACTIONS 1469 Alternate Data and Interpretations

Though popular in the West, the thesis apparently was developed with little consultation or reference to over 30 years of archaeological, environmental, and geological research on the Black Sea by Russian scientists. At the forefront of this research tradition was the work of a Ukrainian climatologist, Valentina Yanko-Hombach, whose investigations (like parallel studies in the West), used thousands of sediment cores and high-resolution seismic profiles to study the geological and environmental history of the Black Sea. Aside from the radiocarbon evidence that local agriculture did not flourish for another thousand years (suggesting the lack of any farming communities that would have been available to be drowned), her work on ‘foraminifera’ (microscopic marine shells that varied by species depending on the water being fresh or saline) suggested instead that the Black Sea basin had experienced not one major deluge, but in fact a series of many smaller ‘floods’ over many thousands of years. Her sediment cores identified salt-tolerant foraminifera varieties around 9500 years ago, and concluded that if there was a deluge, ‘‘Noah’s flood legend has nothing to do with the Black Sea.’’ In 2002 the Journal of Marine Geology published a special volume of papers dedicated to presenting alternate data and interpretations of the Black Sea issue. One Canadian-led study indicated that the salinity of the Black Sea was never as low as that of a freshwater lake, and that gradual processes were sufficient to account for reported changes in the water chemistry of the Black Sea. In addition, pollen data suggest that environmental conditions were not amenable to either pastoral or agricultural settlements along the shores of the Back Sea until 4600 BP, or 3000 years later than the postulated flood. The deluge hypothesis – and the international debate it precipitated – was promulgated long after the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus could not be attributed to political or Cold War barriers, only linguistic and cultural ones. What the debate does underscore is the critical need to evaluate different interpretations of cultural and environmental history with both a strong multidisciplinary and ‘crosscultural’ perspective. Sometimes in science it takes a small voice to muster the courage to say ‘‘the Emperor has no clothes’’ – hopefully in the same language as the audience. Stopping the Flood: The Trigger of Gradual Sea-Level Rise

As recently highlighted this year for its significance by a National Academy of Science review, two scientists,

an archaeologist and paleoclimatologist, Douglas Kennett and James Kennett presented a radical new interpretation of the role of Holocene climate change on the origins of civilization. Instead of prolonged droughts, they argue that a slow-down in the rate of marine transgression, or ‘sea-level rise’ – and the associated formation of high water tables, coastal estuaries, and marshes – may have played an even more critical role in the formation of city-states in Mesopotamian culture history. They summarized available climatic data for the Persian Gulf region and concluded that climate change between 10 000 and 5000 BP, but not drought alone, was responsible for the prehistoric demographic shifts and cultural changes documented in the archaeological record. They argued that between 9000 and 8000 BP the region experienced a period of high humidity and frequent monsoons that resulted in dispersed lakes, the availability of rich aquatic resources. High rates of sea-level rise also created inshoreline incursion rates of 110 m (c. 330 feet) per year, a rate equal to the loss of six miles of shoreline per century. This rapid shoreline incursion would, they postulate, have led to dispersed settlements that needed to periodically move inland. Then, after 8000 BP, the slowdown or demise of melting ice brought a slowdown in the rate of sealevel rise and marine encroachment. This change in turn led to the formation of stable wetlands and marsh habitats, which depend upon low rates of ‘marine transgression’ to maintain sediments deposition at pace with the rising waters. These ecological changes created important new subsistence sources including access to fresh water, a diverse set of new habitats for hunting and fishing of birds, fish, and land animals. This period also corresponded with the initial formulation, between 8000 and 6300 BP, of centralized settlements – the Ubaid Period – in southern Mesopotamia. They also make the point, overlooked by others, that irrigation agriculture can only be practiced in areas of high water table and that canal systems could have ‘only been successfully constructed after’ the wetlands and high water tables had formed and stabilized. Unlike earlier theories stemming from the original 1981 suggestion by Dr. Adams, that the early Mesopotamia centers developed as a ‘result’ of irrigation agriculture, the authors reverse the case and argue instead that irrigation agriculture came about ‘after’ the city-state had formed and only after the water table had stabilized near the surface. After 6300 BP – the Uruk Period – they point to an expanding population, the advent of canal systems, and the realignment of settlement patterns. Instead of being oriented to the irregular topography and shorelines

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of the marshes and estuaries, these growing urban centers followed lineal patterns paralleling the extensive network of the new canal and irrigation systems. In essence, while increasing aridity may have added to the process after 6200 BP, they argue the primary impetus was due to ‘‘a deceleration in marine transgression that stimulated the expansion of floodplains in southern Mesopotamia and formation of high water table necessary for large-scale, flood plain irrigation agriculture.’’ Not only does this new model present a convincing alternative to attributing demographic, settlement and economic shifts in culture history to catastrophic causes, but they also suggest, as did others 2 years before, that the source of several myths of biblical floods derived more likely from the area of southern Mesopotamia, not the Black Sea. They also conclude that both the Sumerian and the Christian flood sagas (myths) more likely reflected a period of rapid sea-level rise forming a rapidly expanding inland sea several thousand years before the advent of the Mesopotamian Urban centers.

Buried and Submerged Landscapes This important argument has put the process of marine transgression into a whole new light. In the context of landscape archaeology, it has now emerged as a central mechanism, if not a primary trigger, for the early concentration of settlements in littoral regions – as well as for the formation of the first urban centers in the near East. This new evidence has unequivocally raised the issue of environmental change in general, and the role of sea-level rise in the formation of estuary, wetlands, and marsh habitats, in particular, to be the central causal factor or impetus for the formation of sedentary settlements. In tandem with the release of Kennett’s and Kennett’s paper on the role of seal-level rise in the development of early Near Eastern civilizations, two archaeologists, Erlandson and Fitzpatrick released a paper in 2006 (see additional reading) calling for a recognition of the archaeological potential of submerged archaeological sites and called for regional studies that deal with local variation. . . ..careful reconstructions of coastal paleography and predictive modeling . . ..to help determine the most likely locations of ancient coastal settlements as well as the places where settlements are most likely to be preserved. . .

This call to arms dovetails nicely with new insights into late Holocene sea-level rise and the ability of 3D geospatial techniques (3D GIS and terrain modeling) to capture the topographic subtlety and

changing configuration of formally exposed cultural habitats (Figure 3). Holocene Fluctuations and Exposure

Recently, the availability of tightly dated and microsampled pollen cores have revealed far-reaching new insights into the Late Holocene trends in sea-level rise that appear to contradict widely held assumptions about climate change over the past 3000 years. Just as these new high-resolution palaeoenvironmental sequences are showing correlations with archaeological events over the past 6000 years in the Near East, new high-resolution sediment and pollen cores from coastal marshes in both Europe and the Americas are now documenting equally significant fluctuations in sea-level rise and sedimentation rates over the last 2000 years as well. Instead of static marsh habitats at the same water level over the last several millennia, it now appears that many of these sediment-filled drainages were exposed throughout the late prehistoric and early historic periods. The recorded high rates – orders of magnitude above the ‘official’ IPCC estimates of c. 11–21 cm per century – and extreme fluctuations in the rates of marine transgression over the past two millennia, are also strongly suggesting that much more of the late prehistoric landscape of now inundated drainages were exposed than we had previously suspected, when prehistoric settlements began to abound along the coastal drainages of North America and elsewhere. For example, recent high-resolution core sample fractions by Dorothy Peteet and her team at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the NASA/ Goddard Institute for Space Studies, taken at c. 4 cm (20–50 year) intervals from a Hudson River estuary (Piedmont marsh), upriver from New York City, documented extreme fluctuation is sedimentation rates – and by extension as a proxy for pollen-based indices of past disturbance – over the last 1500 years. The earliest and deepest core segment, dating from c. AD 500–1000, showed a rate of 18 cm per century, consistent with the nineteenth-century tide gage records for the region. However, it dropped to 3 cm per century between c. AD 800 and 1250, but jumped to from c. a 30–60 cm between AD 1250 and 1300. It then dropped down to 30 cm per century in the Colonial period, half the rate of the previous century, but nearly two to three times the currently generalized estimate of 11–21 cm per century. Several similar core sequences from the coasts of Nova Scotia and Maine have used the relative composition of foraminifera (microscopic shell species variously adapted to either fresh or saline habitats) to extend the earliest nineteenth-century tide gage

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Figure 3 Historic geospatial composite illustrating the process of 3D palaeo-environmental reconstruction of buried cultural landscapes, in this case the original topography and ground cover seventeenth century Colonial Manhattan. Relative topographic variability is extruded from historic map coverage, the actual elevations and depths from archaeological excavation records, or ‘ground truth’. The historic plant and tree cover is derived from excavated and dated archaeological plant remains and ethnobotanical records. Modern digital air photo coverage is used with computer-based GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software to georeference, or ‘rubber-sheet’, the historic landscape projection to real-world coordinates (By Joel W. Grossman, Ph.D., ã Joel W. Grossman, Ph.D. 2008, Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

records, back a century, to AD 1750. And like the new Hudson River core data, they also recorded historic period rates of 30–50 cm per century in Maine and 60 cm per century from Nova Scotia, with most of increases occurring in the eighteenth century. The dated column or core samples identified evidence of significant large climate signal, or fluctuation, in the region’s wetness, indicating the sudden onset of drought in the northeast, during what had been called the Medieval Warm Period in both Europe and the Americas, between approximately

AD 800–1350. This c. 500-year warm spell was followed by what climatologists have called the ‘Little Ice Age,’ between fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. Similar palaeoclimatic records of drought at this time from the Chesapeake estuary, and from the Jamestown Colony to the south, suggest that the entire northeastern US region experienced the sudden onset of a 4–5-century-long period of drought, parallel with the shift to warmer conditions. These shifts are thus beginning to document ‘order of magnitude’ variances in contrast to the ‘straight-line’

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mean regression plots of the commonly ascribed to the multimillennium time span between the post1850 tide gage data and the c. 3000-year-old chronometric dates for basal estuary or marsh sedimentation in the northeast. The new data instead suggests that rates of marine transgression appear to have (1) left significantly more dry land exposed than thought (the higher the rate of sea-level rise, the more land was formally exposed in the historic and late prehistoric periods), and (2) subject to sudden and significant shifts in regional climate trends. If these episodes of sudden climate change in the late prehistoric and historic (Medieval-Colonial) era patterns can be documented for other regions, then current discussions of ‘global warming’ may need to add, or factor in, the variable of ‘widely fluctuating’ LateHolocene rates if sea-level rise and sudden climate change to the widely held straight-line ‘handle’ of the modern ‘Hockey Stick’ of contemporary climate modeling. In terms of archaeological associations with the landscape, these episodes of higher late-prehistoric rates of sea-level rise also suggest that what were presumed to be low-lying or submerged landscapes within coastal drainages, may in fact have been significantly higher, dryer, ecologically diverse, and more available for human exploitation and settlement than previously presumed. These findings also strongly suggest that future palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental studies must now come to grips with the need to sample and analyse equivalent high-resolution (decade level) samples in order to ‘see’ comparable short-term climate shifts and changes in sea-level rates in other coastal regions. Submerged Archaeological Survivals

Recently, some astounding off-shore discoveries in the British North Sea, and off the coasts of Denmark and Sweden, have documented the unexpected survival of well-preserved archaeological sites in now submerged off-shore ocean settings. These discoveries show high levels of stratigraphic integrity, the survival of a broad-range of prehistoric food and ecological data, as well as a wide assortment of diagnostic chipped stone, wood, and bone artifacts. In 2003, British archaeologists and divers working in the North Sea discovered two prehistoric settlements, one tentatively dated to the Early Mesolithic (8500–10 000 BP) and another to the Late Mesolithic (5000–8500 BP). While a prehistoric antler harpoon had been earlier recovered in North Sea fishing net, and a deep-sea core sample yielded a chance find of a Stone Age chipped stone artifact, these submerged sites are the first to be confirmed

to have survived the often severe wave action of the North and Baltic seas. Marine archaeologists from the Estonian Maritime Museum also recorded a 1720 Russian or Swedish fort on the bottom of the Bay of Tallinn. The stone and timber fort was found at a depth of 8–11.5 m (24–35 ft), 900 m (2700 ft) off shore. In 1999, similar cases of submerged archaeological sites, that had clearly survived the forces of tidal action and sea-level rise, were discovered by Harold Lubke along the Baltic coast in the Bay of Wismar. Fifteen sites, belonging to at least two and possibly three prehistoric culture groups were recorded along now inundated shore areas, one group at c. 0–5 m and oldest at 7 to 8 meters (21–24 ft) below mean sea level (msl). These seafloor sites revealed rich assemblages of stone and bone implements, most prismatic blades consistent with late Neolithic types, preserved plant remains, small-boned vertebrates, as well as numerous wooden artifacts including prongs and fishing equipment, an elm wood bow, parts of log boats, bone and antler points, a bone knife, harpoon fragments, antler strikers (to make fires), and an antler pendent and boar tusk knives. The zoo-archaeological remains included deer, boar, and large amounts of minute fish bone, including a predominance of eel and cod. The best preserved of these delicate artifacts were recovered from a band of submerged ‘peat’ reflecting its transition from a dry land site, to a temporary matrix of a tidal marsh before being buried under off shore sands of the rising sea. An internally consistent series of 32 radiocarbon determinations returned dates between 4100 and 6200 BP, which together with the artifacts distinctions suggested three phases of prehistoric occupation within this 2000-year time span. In 2002 Lubke published an important paper entitled ‘Submarine Stone Age Settlements as Indicators of Sea-Level Changes and the Coastal Evolution of the Wismar Bay Area’. Lubke combined his depth and bathymetric data with the radiocarbon age determinations to recompute earlier widely accepted estimates of sea-level rise that had been based on standardized morphological and analytical procedures from dated sediment cores. The archaeologically anchored calculations showed that the sea had reached the elevation of the prehistoric sites 1000–2000 years earlier than thought, reaching the 7 m mark of the earliest and deepest site around 5100 BC instead of 4000 BC, and the higher 3 meter mark of the more recent site by 4100 BC instead of 2000 BC. In addition, like air-borne radar, a series of sideband-sonar scans of the bottom captured a broad range of topographic variability and defined specific landscape features that were found in association

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with the submerged prehistoric sites and could be used, in the future, to target the topographic characteristics of other similar underwater archaeological survivals. These included low beach gradients, original deposits imbedded in and protected by peat, wherethe local topography contains indentations, ‘fossil’ estuaries and river valleys, submerged gullies, depressions with former wetland deposits, on the flanks of submerged islands, bays, estuaries, near-shore lagoons, and other forms of partial shelter. Similarly from the Pacific Coast of North America Fedje and Jasenhans from Parks Canada and the Geological Survey of Canada documented well-preserved shell-fish-rich beaches and stands of submerged treestumps from drowned forests at a depth of 150 m (c. 450 ft) in Werner Bay of British Columbia. In addition, the recovery of a barnacle-encrusted chipped stone tool from a depth of 55 m (c. 150 ft) suggests human occupation predating 10 200 BP. As was the case for the Baltic, this unique find suggested rates of marine transgression that were significantly higher than prior estimates derived from traditional geomorphological coring and dating procedures. Like the European studies, high-resolution marine side-band sonar and remote sensing surveys reveled

that the Holocene artifact was found in association with drowned landscape features (palaeobeaches, former stream confluences, lakes, terraces, bogs, and estuaries) that suggested the potential for the discovery of other drowned sites in zones of now buried and submerged drainages and coastal formations. In addition, this evidence suggests that now submerged landscape of the Pacific Coast continental shelf was both exposed and occupied by humans in the Holocene. This new marine archaeological evidence, in conjunction with new palaeoclimatic evidence that the long-adhered- to ‘Ice-free corridor’ route for Early Man migrations into the Americas may not have been either open, or available, for some 2000 years after the earliest evidence of human occupations in south America – at Mont Verde in southern Chile – has added credence to the alternative theory in support of a coastal migration route. These important new insights and alternate estimates for marine transgression suggest strongly that the discovery of future buried and submerged archeological sites will depend on the availability of high-resolution 3D control of the original preinundation and prelandfill topography (Figures 3 and 4). These deep-sea survivals also suggest that if fragile

Figure 4 A 3D paleo-environmental reconstruction of prehistoric topography and habitat of the formally exposed New Jersey Meadowlands as it was before being inundated by rising sea levels ca. 2000–3000 BP. The digital terrain model, or 3D surface-mesh model, is derived from georeferenced 1865 US Army survey of bathymetry and mud-depth readings in the Hackensack Basin. The environmentally accurate 3D prehistoric tree and plant cover is identified from radiocarbon-dated pollen cores. (By Joel W Grossman Ph.D. ã Joel W Grossman 2008. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

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archaeological remains (with preserved organic artifacts and intact deposits) can withstand the rigors of coastal tides and wave action, they would have survived in Holocene tidal marshes as well. . . . and that we have to be prepared to look for them.

The Third Dimension: Modern Geospatial Strategies Both in England and the United States, several government-sponsored programs are using historic bathymetry, GIS, and 3D terrain modeling to reconstruct the topography and archaeological sensitivity of now both buried and submerged shore areas as they appeared prior to being covered by landfill or inundated by rising seas. For example, in England, Dr. Spikins of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne is directing a futuristic project entitled: A Search for Submerged Early Postglacial Sites: Prospection Based on GIS Based Predictive Model. High-resolution topographic reconstructions will be used to identify subtle underwater landscape features similar to those found in association with known sites. Also in England, scientists, working with a government-funded Estuarine Research Programme, are using GIS and 3D terrain to model and compare historic British Admiralty Charts dating back to 1847. Work directed by Dr. Daphne van der Wal is using these georeferenced correlations of historic naval charts to track changes in the estuary morphology and sedimentation rates over the last 150 years. In the eastern seaboard of the US, historic bathymetry from US Army Civil War-era mud depth surveys is being used by the author to develop 3D georeferenced reconstructions of the premarsh topography of the now inundated wetlands of the New Jersey Hackensack Meadowlands. Three-dimension terrain modeling is being used to define what the preinundation landscape looked like, and where people may have lived on it over the last 3000 years, and when the water level was 20–30 m lower than today. Historic GIS comparisons are defining which of the sensitive archaelogical areas may have survive modern impacts (Figure 4). As has been shown for earlier prehistoric submarine landscapes in Europe and the Pacific Coast of North America, these 3D terrain models of the Civil War-era bathymetry have documented a diverse ‘preinundation landscape’ of fresh water drainages, terraces, plateaus, ridges, tidal, and estuary zones beneath the modern water level. High-resolution sediment core sample sequences – taken at 4 cm or at 20–50-year intervals – will be used to create a detailed record of changing climatic, habitat, and sea-level rise. This record of localized environmental

changed will be used to ‘skin’ the digital premarsh landscape model with period-specific plant and tree cover (Figure 4). Scaled digital GIS overlays of all identified past impacts (canals, roads, infrastructure, land fills, toxic dumps, etc.) will be subtracted from areas of projected sensitivity to provide environmental review agencies with a target-specific strategy to focus resources on only undisturbed areas of surviving potential archaeological sensitivity (see Figure 5).

Future Directions This summary has highlighted current research issues and directions in landscape archaeology within the last decade. Instead of the traditional rationalization of archaeology and antiquity – war, population increases, trade, religion, irrigation agriculture – most without evidence to support them, the advent of high-resolution palaeoenvironmental chronologies of climate change have spawned a new generation of models which tie sequences of culture change to detailed records of climate change. Recent archaeological and ecological studies have also stressed the magnitude of human and cultural impacts to the environment in prehistoric and early historic times. These multiple lines of new evidence and explanations indicate that (1) archaeology must address ‘culture change’ with the assumption that ‘environmental change’ has been ongoing over the last 3000 years, (2) these changes have not been uniform, but have shown major fluctuations in the Holocene, (3) that these Holocene fluctuations in climate and sea-level rise are in addition to any modern ‘Green House’ascribed postindustrial climate shifts, (4) fluctuations in the rate of sea-level rise suggest that now inundated coastal bays, estuaries, and drainages, may have been more exposed and more available to human occupation that previously assumed, (5) palaeoenvironmental reconstructions will have to address ancient landscapes from the perspective of what they looked like in the ‘past’, versus the present, and finally (6) archaeological evidence may represent an important source of data to fill existing Late Holocene gaps in record of sea level rise and environmental change. Over the last 10 years, most of the major new insights have derived from refinements in the resolution and dating of regional sequences. Recent breakthroughs are beginning to highlight the ‘interplay’ between sequences ‘of environmental change, sea level rise, and ancient topography’. Instead of only ‘diachronic’ or chronological treatments – as in ‘point samples of ‘straws’ punched through a prehistoric layer cake’ – we will have to use the modern geospatial tools of GIS, 3D terrain modeling, and palaeoecological reconstruction to ‘geospatially correlate’ these

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Potential archaeological survivals

Subtraction of all modern infrastructure and impacts

Scaled GIS overlay of historic maps

Digital air photo project base map

Figure 5 Historic Impact Analysis using GIS to define un-impacted areas that could contain potentially surviving prehistoric and historic cultural resources after “subtracting” modern impacts from modern construction and landfills within the New Jersey Hackensack Meadowlands. (By Joel W Grossman Ph.D., ã Joel W Grossman Ph.D. 2008. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

high-resolution chronologies of environmental change, with the subtle topographic variables and contexts of past archaeological landscapes, some exposed, some buried, and some submerged (Figure 3). From a treatment of archaeological landscapes as 2D and predominantly static, we must now see them as 3D, geospatial and dynamic. See also: Archaeometry; Carbon-14 Dating; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Cultural Ecology; Cultural Resource Management;

Dendrochronology; Ecofacts, Overview; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Geoarchaeology; Landscape Archaeology; Luminescence Dating; Maritime Archaeology; Neutron Activation Analysis; Obsidian Hydration Dating; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics; Paleodemography; Paleoethnobotany; Pedestrian Survey Techniques; Pollen Analysis; Remote Sensing Approaches: Aerial; Geophysical; Settlement Pattern Analysis; Settlement System Analysis; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites; Toxic and Hazardous Environments.

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Further Reading Brooks N (2004) Beyond collapse: The role of climatic desiccation in the emergence of complex societies in the middle Holocene. In: Leroy S and Costa P (eds.) Environmental Catastrophes in Mauritania, the Desert and the Coast. Abstract Volume and Field guide. Mauritania, 4–18 January 2004. First Joint Meeting of ICSU Dark Nature and IGCP 490, pp. 26–30. Crosby AW (1972) The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. deMenocal P (2001) Cultural responses to climate change during the Late Holocene. Science 27: 667–673. Erlandson J and Fitzpatrick SM (2006) Oceans, islands, and coasts: Current perspectives on the role of the sea in human prehistory. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 1: 5–32. Fagan B (2004) The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. New York: Basic Books.

Fisher A (2004) Submerged Stone Age-Danish examples and North Sea potential. In: Flemming NC (ed.) Council for British Archaeology Research Report 141: Submarine Prehistoric Archaeology of the North Sea, pp. 21–36. York: Council for British Archaeology. Flemming NC (ed.) (2004) Council for British Archaeology Research Report 141: Submarine Prehistoric Archaeology of the North Sea: Research Priorities and Collaboration with Industry. York: Council for British Archaeology Research. Kennett DJ and Kennett JP (2006) Early state formation in southern Mesopotamia: Sea levels, shorelines, and climate change. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 1: 67–99. Lentz DL (ed.) (2000) Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Pre-Columbian Americas. New York: Columbia University Press. Lubke H (2002) Submarine stone age settlements as indicators of sea – Level changes and the coastal evolution of the Wismar Bay area. Greifswalder Geographische Arbeiten 27: 203–210.

HUNTER-GATHERERS, ANCIENT Luis Alberto Borrero, IMHICIHU-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary ethnoarchaeology Ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons, usually focusing on the material remains of a society, rather than its culture. sedentarization Process where tribes cease seasonal or nomadic lifestyle and settle down in all-year habitats. Selk’nam Also known as the Ona lived in the Tierra del Fuego island, in southern Chile and Argentina. They were one of the last aboriginal groups in South America to be reached by Westerners, in the late nineteenth century. Nunamiut Inuit people of Alaska’s Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region.

Introduction When speaking of foragers and collectors we are referring to people living off the land by hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants, and fishing, people who are not exercising any control over the reproduction of exploited animals and plants. This remains true even in the present times when some contemporary hunters and gatherers, like the Ache of Paraguay who cut down trees and visit them later in the season to collect worms, or the Nukak of Colombia whose movements are organized depending on the wild orchards resulting from the seeds of the fruits that remained on the ground of abandoned camps. Today, only a few scattered groups pursue a hunting and gathering way of life, and often they do

so either by engaging in mutualistic associations with agriculturalists or pastoralists, or by practicing some horticulture or tending of animals. Often these economic arrangements are very close to slavery. Moreover, these hunters and gatherers are spatially restricted to economically and geographically marginal places in different parts of the world. This variety of situations prompted a debate around the definition of hunters and gatherers, which was centered in the forager populations of Southern Africa, the so-called Bushmen. At stake was their status as pure hunters and gatherers or as the result of contemporary pressing forces. Whatever the merits of both positions – and there is indeed value on both fronts – one basic result of the debate is a richer and more complex image of the many ways in which foragers can organize themselves, ranging from economically and socially complex to simple and highly mobile groups. This is important because foraging was in the distant past the basic way of life around the world, and as it is often emphasized, that was the case for at least 99% of human history. Another conclusion derived from this debate is that modern hunters and gatherers are not very good analogs for the interpretation of the archaeological past. This observation puts a limit on the value of ethnoarchaeological results, which many times were used to produce direct analogies for the interpretation of the archaeological record. Then, one result of the debate was to confirm that methodology is the field where ethno-archaeology can best contribute to the advancement of our interpretative skills as archaeologists. For example, ethno-archaeological studies can

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help us to decide which analytical methods are more suited for the description and explanation of the subsistence, social organization, or mobility of past foragers. Since the contemporary world is of limited value for the direct understanding of past societies, it follows that the results of archaeological research should be intensively used. Then, patterns derived from archaeological studies of hunter and gatherer adaptations should have a crucial role in shaping our image of past foragers. However, ethnographic and ethno-archaeological studies also produced results that impacted the practice and understanding of archaeology beyond methodology. In sum, it can be inferred that the results of both the contemporary and the archaeological research enterprises can be usefully combined in a single explanatory framework in order to learn about the past. The study of the interactions between foragers and their environments has always been a key research area. The extent of these relations was captured by the forager–collector continuum, as defined by Lewis R. Binford in a famous paper published in 1980. This continuum emphasizes the differences between very mobile communities with low numbers of people and whose subsistence exhibits little planning – the Foragers – and people who enjoy a limited degree of sedentarism, spending at least several weeks or months at a central hub engaging in a more sophisticated system of food exploitation and conservation, and aggregate in higher numbers – the Collectors. Moreover, a worldwide search conducted by Binford identified a latitudinal pattern in the distribution of hunter and gatherer societies. He found that those societies located closer to the equator usually had a forager orientation, while collector societies were numerically more at higher latitudes toward the Poles. These patterns are derived from the basic relationship that exists in nature between latitude and the distribution of resources. Some organizational properties of the bands exploiting thoseresources varied accordingly with seasonal and spatial availability. The already-mentioned Ache of Paraguay constitute a good example of what Binford called a forager society. Back in the 1960s, before they were concentrated in missions, the Ache moved around a lot, at times more than 60 times a year. High mobility produced many small camps that were used by a few people, who basically hunted medium-sized mammals and gathered fruits for the day. The camps were formed by simple huts which were made of palm leaves. They offered protection against the rain and were constructed in a few minutes. Ache bands aggregated only rarely, and only for a short time. On the other hand, the classic example of collectors is the

Nunamiut of Alaska, with whom Binford worked for years. They exploited several different resources, especially migratory caribou (Rangifer tarandus), other smaller mammals, fish, and birds and from a central location. Many of these resources were available at different times of the year and at widely separated places. Logistical expeditions, usually implying several days outside of the base camp, needed to be organized in order to exploit this variety of resources. Techniques of meat conservation were used to preserve meat for the winter. The Nunamiut spent most of the year in aggregation camps, where they occupied well-constructed wood structures. Being foragers and collectors are not the only ways in which hunters and gatherers can organize themselves, but it is a practical way of understanding some of the basic ties of small-scale human aggregations with the environment in which they made a living. In fact the forager–collector continuum can be partially assimilated to the distinction made by James Woodburn between hunters and gatherers with immediate and delayed-return economies. The archaeological applications of this concept clearly show that it is more a framework around which research can be organized, than a fixed formula within which cases can be accomodated. A fertile ground for archaeological research, which is at least partially derived from the forager–collector continuum, is the study of lithic instruments in terms of curated versus expedient technologies. In turn, studies of the design of instruments and the provenience of the rocks selected to construct them constitute refinements that help to tackle the study of hunters and gatherers around the world. Several expectations specifically derived from the forager or collector models for faunal remains were also useful for the development of new quantitative techniques of archaeofaunal analysis. In fact, many of these techniques were generated or discussed in ethno-archaeological settings.

The Oldest Foragers and Collectors The oldest evidences for hominins associated with stone tools and cut and marked mammal bones occur in Africa at places such as Gona, Ethiopia, or Olduvai, Tanzania. They clearly indicate that a foraging way of life was responsible for at least part of the assemblages dating 2.6 million years ago or less, and that animal protein was used at that early time. However, in those and other sites of the Pliocene– Pleistocene climatic periods, it is not always clear if the bones are the result of scavenging or of hunting activities by hominins. Recent research showed that scavenging niches probably existed at those times, niches basically created by abandoned field

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kills, which typically do not use all the tissues available on carcasses. On the other hand, the dental remains of hominins, the results of stable isotopes on their bones, their stone tools, and the placement of sites on the landscape suggest that hunting – a well-developed strategy among living primates, and presumably among primate ancestors – is a strong possibility. It is less evident which fossil markers are useful to distinguish scavenging from hunting activities. All kinds of studies were conducted to interpret the oldest archaeological sites, ranging from the identification and location of cut marks on bones to the representation of different skeletal parts at the sites. The superimposition of stone tool marks over carnivore marks is an important criterion that, in the few cases where they were found, showed that at least some part of the diet may have been related to scavenging. One of the difficulties that exist in order to infer a hunting strategy from the archaeological record derives from the fact that none of these early sites contain bona fide projectiles. Some bola stones in African sites or wooden spears found in northern Europe – where the environment allowed good preservation of organic remains – attest to their existence, but there is still no agreement concerning their importance within those ancient tool kits. However, the repeated deposition of stone tools and bones at particular places is well testified for those early sites, and taphonomic work demonstrated that those bone accumulations are much more than what can be expected from chance accumulations. The Oldowan industry was defined on the basis of the findings at these sites, a simple industry that by c. 1.6 million years ago was widely distributed in Africa. At that time or slightly earlier, there are evidences of hominins moving out of Africa into Asia and Europe. The process of global dispersion of Homo erectus, which is associated with the use of a bifacial lithic technology, began to fill the available habitats in new continents. Initially the dispersion was restricted to tropical climates, but at some point around 500 000 years ago or before, the peopling of Northern Europe took place. In Europe and the Near East they were replaced by Homo neanderthalensis, and by a different lithic technology. Systematic use of caves as habitation sites was one of the many behavioral characteristics that were acquired by people colonizing cold Europe.

Foraging Homo sapiens In a later period, with a chronology that is still disputed among archaeologists, the systematic accumulation of bones from a single or dominant species plus the presence of stone projectiles, makes it clear that

the use of a strategy for hunting was a strong possibility. The study of the stable isotopes of European human bone and teeth samples from near the end of the Pleistocene suggests that animal protein was an important part of the diet. It must be noted that this technique of stable isotopes can also enlighten on the importance of maritime versus terrestrial protein in the diet. The available results indicate that none of the early samples attest to the use of marine resources. The first evidences of their consumption are provided by faunal remains, basically mollusks. Then, in the long term it is clear that maritime foods were a very late addition to the diet. What these findings show is that a marine component was systematically incorporated in the subsistence at least at the time when modern humans appear. The oldest and wellsupported evidence for the consumption of marine resources comes from South Africa. However, the archaeological record of modern humans includes marine resources almost everywhere, from Gibraltar to England, and from Australia to the Americas. This use of the coastal resources attests to the systematic incorporation of a new habitat into the hominin world. This incorporation is easy to understand when we realize that the global dispersion of humans required the use of sea routes and oceanic navigation skills. The continent of Australia, for example, was reached sometime between 60 000 and 40 000 years BP, implying the use of open sea routes. The use of aquatic routes is a simple and economic way of dispersion, and many recent theories purporting to explain the human peopling of the Americas invoke Pacific or Atlantic coastal routes as alternatives to the classic – and, it must be said, better supported by the evidence – route across the Bering land bridge. At the end of the Pleistocene much of the known variation in subsistence strategies was already present in different and unrelated parts of the world. Human adaptations including systematic hunting of ungulates, differential transport of their bone parts, central home bases, and sophisticated techniques of lithic reduction, which are similar to those recorded during the Holocene, were established in America since the beginning of human colonization – at least 12 000 years ago – and in Australia, Asia, or Europe since c. 40 000 years ago or before. In Africa, on the other hand, they appear to be older than 100 000 years. In all these cases stone tools, hearths, sometimes bone tools, and varied subsistence remains are associated with modern humans Homo sapiens. In some places these early colonizers preyed upon what are today extinct animals, and humans are considered by some authors as crucial factors in the extinction process. However, nothing approaching hard proof of human involvement in the extinction

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was really offered by the archaeological record, and the reasons behind the removal of dozens of faunal species near the end of the Pleistocene in many places around the world still remains an unanswered question. Many sites where mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) and other extinct animal bones were deposited in association with hearths, projectile points, or other artifacts exist in North America or Siberia, but the situation is different in other regions of the world. For example, few sites with good stratigraphic association between human artifacts and bones of extinct animals exist in whole continents, such as South America or Australia. It appears that different extinction mechanisms need to be considered for different continents, or that other models need to be considered as well. The most important alternative to the human-caused extinction model defended by Paul Martin and others, takes into account climatic changes that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene, particularly the Younger Dryas Cold Event. Again, since the Younger Dryas was basically a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon; it is difficult to see the climatic model as simply replacing the human model. Most of the technological flexibility that is observed in contemporary hunters and gatherers groups – as expressed in weaponry, hearths, tents, boats, burial, processing tools, adornments – can already be documented for early modern humans in Europe, Asia, Australia, and America. Moreover, they are usually older in Africa. There are many regional differences, as we will see below, but still it can be defended that the basic skills and capacities that are known through ethnographic and ethno-archaeological research, were already in place several thousand years ago. Then, the process of dispersal implied the selection of the most appropriate strategies and techniques from an ample pre-existing pool. It must be noted that the dispersal of the species around the planet implied a change from tropical to a variety of nontropical environments. Accordingly, this process required a number of cultural and physiological adaptations to cold weather. This was the only way to colonize the lands located in the far north of the planet, including Scandinavia, Siberia, and Beringia. The expansion of foragers to America at the end of the Pleistocene was probably based on the existence of this knowledge. In the beginning the occupation of the northern lands was probably discontinuous, a pattern that was archaeologically detected even some 22 000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum. Effectively, at this time the archaeological record shows that humans abandoned most of the Northern lands and concentrated in the Southern peninsulas of Europe where climate was milder. On the other hand, navigational skills were necessary in order to populate

Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Southern and Central Pacific Ocean. All these enterprises required the capacity for cooperation and coordination of human populations that were dispersed across large distances. Cooperation is a basic way of reducing risks in adverse environments, and may hold the key for the successful colonization of distant and unknown lands. In terrestrial settings foragers needed to learn the basic trends in the use of places and their surroundings, including the acquisition of knowledge about the location of the lithic sources, the seasonal availability of different faunal and plant resources, or the less costly paths within the selected foraging areas. Communication was essential in order to make this kind of knowledge available for widespread peoples. On the other hand, in maritime settings foragers also needed to deal with long-term subsistence planning, since many of the lands that were populated by sea required several days of navigation. The process of dispersal across long sea routes probably implied a degree of isolation for the initial colonizers. Then, successful colonizers in new lands needed to be able to reproduce the basic technological repertoire of the original land. It can be defended that the process of global colonization was only possible using fine-tuned exploration skills. The acquisition of these skills was probably costly in terms of time, and may have required many generations. Once the process of human dispersal of Homo sapiens around the planet was basically completed, another process was initiated, one of cultural differentiation. Fusion and fission of bands, changes in band membership, demographic increases, and changes in hunting and collecting ranges were among the many small-scale processes that were contributing to this differentiation, which sometimes was prompted by differences in habitat, degrees of isolation, and historical reasons. In the end, cultural divergence was one of the basic results of these complex processes. Through different mechanisms, both isolation and marked proximity of bands or populations could precipitate cultural differentiation. As a result of the dynamic interaction occurring among different populations, hunters and gatherers experimented with drastically differing cultural trajectories. Some of these trajectories culminated in the abandonment of the forager way of life. The saturation of space in some regions, the beginnings of territorial organization, and the implementation of other ecologic and social strategies were just some of the paths that were taken by human populations. Cultural complexity and economic intensification was sometimes the result, a process that under certain conditions helped to constitute semisedentary societies. Classic ethnographic examples of this semisedentary

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condition are the societies of the British Columbia, which always defied classification. In other cases sedentary societies exerting a tight control over the reproduction of animals and plants were formed, resulting in the domestication of several species in different parts of the world. However, as already mentioned, sedentarization was not always the path selected by humans, and many populations maintained a highly mobile forager way of life well into the Holocene. In fact, in many places like the Near East, archaeological research demonstrated that hunting of wild animals continued to be an important task even after the beginning of sedentarization and food production. With the exception of Europe, the forager lifestyle was still practiced by a high proportion of the world population in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The twentieth century saw an important decline in the number of people living from hunting, gathering, and fishing, and at this time the process of their geographic encroaching was almost completed. In part as a result of this distribution, it must also be said that many societies were not constant in their economic orientation; for example, many bands were alternating between foraging and horticulturalist lifestyles in the Amazon and between foraging and pastoralist lifestyles in sub-Saharan Africa. The reasons behind these changes are to be seen not only in their geographic, but also in their social marginality. These changes in economic orientation usually constituted the only alternative that these people had to work independence of their sedentary neighbors.

The Selk’nam of Tierra Del Fuego The interaction between foragers and representatives of the Western society did not always end in the acculturation or the mere displacement of people. In fact the classic result was the extermination of the foragers. As an example, the case of the Selk’nam hunters and gatherers will be introduced and discussed. The Selk’nam were a terrestrially oriented society of foragers who inhabited the steppes and prairies of the northern part of the island of Tierra del Fuego, in the southern tip of South America. Their subsistence was based on the hunting of a middlesized ungulate – the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), a variety of birds (Chloephaga sp., Phalacrocorax sp.), and sea mammals (Otaria byronia, Arctocephalus australis). These foods were complemented with gathered plants and shellfish. Stranded whales also provided meat and especially blubber. The latter was a basic food for people living in the cold habitats of Tierra del Fuego. The Selk’nam had developed a system of hunting territories in which groups of individuals

had the right to exploit fixed portions of the land. They were highly mobile within these territories and formed aggregation camps that were mainly used for initiation ceremonies and the exchange of goods. The initiation ceremonies – many times associated with the stranding of a whale, that is, when there was plenty of food available – constituted the occasion when territorial limits were abolished. It was also possible to hunt and gather at other territories but only under conditions of dietary stress. To hunt in a different territory without authorization of the owners usually produced armed conflict between bands. It is not known how old this system was, but apparently it was a good regulator of the distribution of people and resources. The archaeological research on the foragers that were living in the region before they were called Selk’nam shows that these people were interacting with other societies, for example, with the so-called ‘canoe people’ who inhabited the southern and southwestern channels of what today are Chile and Argentina since more than 6000 years ago. Interactions with these and other societies existed during several centuries, and yet the archaeological record does not show major changes in the overall cultural configuration. In general, contact between forager societies could be sometimes violent, but it was relatively stable in the long term. Transformations occurred and the owners of the land changed, but the forager way of life remained. It is not possible to know exactly how many changes of this kind took place through the centuries before the European contact in the north of Tierra del Fuego, but it is clear that a basic subsistence mode persisted. However, this situation was going to change. At the end of the sixteenth century a new process of contact, this time with Europeans, started. During the following three centuries only ephemeral contacts occurred between European sailors and explorers and the Selk’nam, most of which occurred in the coasts of the Strait of Magellan. These contacts were usually violent. Finally, at the end of the nineteenth century, the introduction of sheep ranches began an aggressive process of usurpation of the hinterland of the Selk’nam, a process that prompted a number of linked changes. The Selk’nam were displaced from their birth territories, losing contact with the geographical features and subsistence resources which they were accustomed to. Under those conditions, at some point they began to hunt the sheep introduced by the ranchers, calling them ‘the white guanacos’. Retaliation of the ranchers was immediate. The killing of men and the displacement of the survivors, mainly women and children, to Salessian missions was the classic form that took this response. The remaining Selk’nam moved to the

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central part of the island, where a forested environment provided some protection. One of the reasons was that the forest was not considered economically interesting by the ranchers, who preferred open sheep habitats. One side effect of this concentration of Selk’nam bands in the forest was a complete disruption of the territorial system, a situation that resulted in systematic violence among members of different bands. Thus, internal warfare became an important factor in the process of Selk’nam extermination. Individuals were attracted by the offer of a roof and food at the missions, and began to congregate there at least on a temporary basis. The stage was set for the final blow, which was produced by the introduction of infectious diseases. The concentration of people in the missions, people who lacked immunity against European diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, or smallpox, was the crucial factor. Under the conditions imposed by the missionaries, the transmission of disease was both efficient and quick. In less than 20 years the social organization of the Selk’nam was transformed in ways that were not adequate to deal with the new situation of contact with a society that was so different from theirs. The few survivors took difficult jobs in the ranches, for example, as horsebreakers. A few decades after the initial contact with the ranchers, most of the pure blood Selk’nam were gone, and their culture was completely lost. Similar events and processes involved other cultural groups in Tierra del Fuego and in southern Patagonia, and the result was always the social and physical extermination of the local foragers. With slight differences in the timing and the actors, similar processes were documented in different parts of the world. The forager way of life was not well suited to deal with the world market.

Conclusions The net result of this study confirms that there is no single way of living as a forager but many. In terms of their capacity to interact with other ways of life, some of them proved to be more resilient, while others were more fragile. In the end none was flexible enough to

remain intact after intensive interaction. In classificatory terms, it is true that some of those forager societies are difficult to separate from less predatory ways of life. However, no matter how many forager cultural poses exist, there is always a basal line that defines one type of interaction with the land, its resources, and other people that is specifically forager. There is nothing typological in affirming this, but simply the statement that the understanding of the people who lived and live as foragers constitutes an unavoidable way to understand our current position on the planet Earth. See also: Ethnoarchaeology; Extinctions of Big Game; Migrations: Australia; Pacific; Modern Humans, Emergence of; New World, Peopling of; Ships and Seafaring; Siberia, Peopling of; Stable Isotope Analysis.

Further Reading Bettinger R (1991) Hunter-Gatherers. Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. New York: Plenum. Binford LR (1980) Willow Smoke and Dog’s Tails: Hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation. American Antiquity 45: 4–20. Binford LR (2001) Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Ethnographic and Environmental Data Sets. Berkeley: University of California Press. Erlandson JM (2001) The archaeology of aquatic adaptation: Paradigms for a new millennium. Journal of Archaeological Research 9: 287–350. Fitzhugh B and Habu J (eds.) (2002) Beyond Foraging and Collecting. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Gamble C (1994) Timewalkers. The Prehistory of Global Colonization. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kelly RL (1995) The Foraging Spectrum. Diversity in HunterGatherer Lifeways. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Lee RB and Daly R (1999) The Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Panter-Brick C, Layton RH, and Rowley-Conwy P (2001) HunterGatherers. An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price J and Brown J (1985) Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers. The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. New York: Academic Press. Zeder M (1991) Feeding Cities: Specialized Animal Economy in the Ancient Near East. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

I IDENTITY AND POWER Rosemary A Joyce and Laurie A Wilkie, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary identity Established characteristics that set certain individuals apart from others in society. ethnicity The national, cultural, religious, linguistic, or other attributes that are perceived as characteristic of distinct groups. cultural heritage Qualities and attributes of places that have aesthetic, historic, scientific, or social value for past, present, or future generations. class A social stratum whose members share certain economic, social, or cultural characteristics. material culture The artifacts and ecofacts used by a group to cope with their physical and social environment. ethnoarchaeology The study of contemporary cultures with a view to understanding the behavioral relationships which underlie the production of material culture.

Introduction Identity and power are closely intertwined in archaeological research, and both crosscut different theoretical approaches and areal traditions. Even when not explicitly central to a specific study, archaeologists always work with models of identity, whether in the form of localized group identities of culture, language, or ethnicity, or in the form of aspects of individual identity such as gender, age, sexuality, or social role or status. Power is similarly universally at issue in archaeology, even if it is not the explicit center of analysis. In the case of power, archaeologists are always concerned with different relations of power in the past, and also have to contend with the way archaeologies, especially those of identity, are related to contemporary power struggles. Power relations in the past range from shifting relations between persons that characterized hunter-gatherer societies in the deep past to the institutionalized relations between factions, classes, or identity groups in complex societies (see HunterGatherers, Ancient).

Neither identity nor power are open to being simply read off the material records that archaeologists explore. Over the history of archaeology, a range of approaches to interpreting material patterns as evidence of identity and as evidence of power relations has been developed. In the nineteenth century, and continuing into the first half of the twentieth century, archaeologists used variation in the style of artifacts that were used for the same purposes as evidence for different group identities. Beginning early in the twentieth century, and continuing to the present, differences within localized groups in such things as the amount, variety, expense to procure, or value of materials have been used to propose different individual and factional identities along lines of prestige, rank, status, wealth, or class. Inherent in both these approaches is the assumption that differences in identity would be reflected in use of objects that symbolized or represented individual and group identity and power. In the latter half of the twentieth century, processual and postprocessual archaeologists brought more explicit critical approaches to bear on how material things were related to identity. New approaches viewed differences in material patterns not just as reflections of pre-existing identities, but also as the means through which people shaped their identities. This led both to concerns with material patterns potentially masking differences, and to approaches to the way that individuals and groups actively manipulated the possibilities for identification in their social settings. Much greater attention began to be paid in the last two decades of the twentieth century to questions of individual experiences of personhood: to gender, sexuality, and age. While the kinds of evidence examined remained the same, the scales employed expanded to include the microscale of the person, the medium scales of the residential group and the community, as well as the regional scales of settlements across landscapes. Contemporary archaeology takes identity formation as active, multiscalar, and sees material culture both as means of formation of identities and of expressing and contesting them (see Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology).

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Identity: Self and Group In archaeological approaches, identity is inherently a multiscalar concept because it includes identities experienced at the scale of the person and those of persons in groups. This means that identity must be considered multiple, shifting, and relational. A person may act as a member of a group in one context, and as a member of a faction of the group in another. The same person may participate in identities that crosscut groups with which they otherwise identify, experiencing identification with others of the same sex, gender, race, ethnicity, or other identity. A person’s sense of identity may change as they mature and age, and their status may change as they learn and exercise skills and gain authority and status. From these social science observations, it follows that at the level of the person, identity should never be thought of as an essence, but should always be treated as in process. Identification, rather than identity, would be a better focus for research. Identification, of course, is not only a process of individuals, but of groups. Indeed, identification is indispensable for group formation, maintenance, and reproduction. While, on the one hand, groups are made up of persons who identify with each other, human societies also reify group identities of various kinds, often projecting them onto nonhuman features in the environment. People may identify as members of named or unnamed groups that reside together, work together, and hand down property over generations. These co-residential, familial, corporate, or house identities may be symbolized by constructed architectural features such as tombs, houses, estates, or shared property. Archaeologists routinely recover traces of these kinds of material foci of small group identities. At larger scales, groups of people may create settlements that are the context for common actions that bind together, reproduce, and symbolize broader identification, as citizens of towns, as members of regional networks of interconnected settlements, or as part of nation-states. Again, archaeologically recoverable materials, such as stylistically distinctive movable objects, or ‘public’ spaces and buildings, can provide evidence for these processes of urban, ethnic, and national identification. Within the same settlement contexts, at scales from the small group to the largest scale of the nation or international network, people may identify with others of similar status or history in different places, and distinguish themselves from others in their immediate vicinity through habits of dress, foodways, religious practice, and the organization of household space. All of these identities of class, faction, and ethnicity, may leave material residues for archaeological investigation.

Because identity is so fluid, archaeologists are challenged not to reify or simplify the situation. Treating one identity as more significant may be a choice made for the purposes of analysis, but it always must be countered by consideration of other aspects of identity. The same material remains may serve to link some people together through identification, and to differentiate them from others through disidentification. People may actively manipulate the multiple possibilities open to them, and always actively work to shape and reshape their identifications with others in ways informed by their understandings of the effects identity may have on power relations.

Power: Substance, Relationship, or Discourse? Power is every bit as complex a social scientific field of understanding as is identity. One of the major sources of variability in social theories of power is whether power is conceived of as a capacity that people have, or an aspect of relationships that results from differences between people in their abilities to make things happen. In the first case, power is seen as a kind of substantial thing. A person or group ‘has’ power, and may even be thought of as stockpiling power for specific uses. In archaeology, approaches growing out of this kind of theory of power may see some people as potentially distinguished by innate charisma, skill, or influence. The personalization of power may be seen as reflected in such things as ‘status badges’, objects that distinguish certain individuals, often recovered in mortuary contexts. It may be indirectly reflected in the accomplishment of community works, such as building of architectural projects, especially if these projects end up as the sites of the residence or burial of one or a few selected people. Here, the energy or labor of the people who built the architecture is seen as the mobilized effect of a power that an individual leader or leading class had. From this perspective, power may also be manifest in such things as control of locations of storage of everyday and special goods, monopolization of imported goods or products of skilled craftwork, or consumption of more, better, more expensive, or rarer goods. In these respects, approaches that take power as something different people or groups have merge with a slightly different view of power as relational. In these approaches, power is a matter of influence, of differential ability to get things done, and may even be rooted primarily in the way people assess each other. Power in this sense will still be detectable through its products, and will still potentially be reflected in differences in material culture. But it may be seen as

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more fragile, in need of constant building and rebuilding. From this perspective, rituals, feasts, and even public artworks may be projects undertaken to simultaneously represent power relations, and to reinforce them. The differences between people or groups with more and less power will be seen as less a matter of objective control of more wealth, labor, or resources, and more a matter of representation. For many contemporary social scientists influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, both of these classic approaches are mistaken, and power needs to be reconceived as a kind of continuous product of social relations. For archaeologists drawing on this latter theoretical literature, power may be seen primarily as ‘discursive’, as lodged in many small, cumulative practices through which each person continuously situates him- or herself in relation to others. These archaeologists creatively employ concepts never intended to be applied to societies outside Europe, identifying ‘surveillance’ as an effect of monumental architecture, for example, or proposing that sculpture in a uniform style was a medium of ‘governmentality’. It should be clear that these different ways of thinking about power actually merge somewhat into each other. All have material consequences. Power is to be seen in differences between people or groups. It is indexed by different amounts and qualities of goods available for consumption, or by the deliberate and stylized use of unusual, imported, or costly things to set off otherwise similar activities such as meals from those of less powerful people. Power may be performed explicitly in public scenes, festivals, feasts, and rituals, set in special arenas whose construction themselves required power to compel, coax, or persuade labor. Power will be projected, debated, contested, and is subject to being lost, denied, or diminished. These shifts in relative power will be archaeologically visible in changes over time in material culture on the level of small residential groups and larger communities, and even in the individual nutritional and health experiences recorded in the bones of individual people. Because identification divides up the human communities that produced archaeological sites into factions, strata, classes, or other groups, it is intimately tied to the exercise, representation, and contestation of power.

Categorical Aspects of Identity in Archaeology Classically, archaeologists have used different aspects of the identities of people and groups as focal perspectives for different analyses, even if they understand identity to be fluid, actively constructed, and multiscalar. Thus, there is a substantial archaeological literature on categorical aspects of identity. These

can be viewed as framed either at the level of the group (e.g., ethnicity, class, race) or of the individual (status and role, sex, and age). Each of the major approaches to identity has its own problems, its own history within archaeology, and often, specific forms of evidence routinely used. In the history of archaeology, there is a general trend from consideration of the regional linguistic-cultural group (understood as ethnicity) toward more concern with persons (and their gender, sexuality, and age). But already in the earliest scientific archaeology, status and role identities at the level of the person were part of models, and contemporary archaeology continues to be concerned with group identification. Ethnicity, Language, and Culture

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century archaeology took regional distributions of artifacts as the beginning point to define localized patterns of material culture. These ‘cultures’ were seen as the material expression of unified groups of people, who shared history, values, and identity. In nineteenth-century archaeology, taking place within developing nationstates, each culture was presumed to have also had a singular, authentic language of its own. As nationstates consolidated and began to confront internal segmentation, archaeological culture-linguistic groups were often conceived of as analogues of localized identity groups, ethnicities, that the modern nation-states were attempting to absorb. Localized factional identity thus could be represented simultaneously as authentic, and as obsolete. Archaeology was actively employed to relate modern factions within nation-states to specific pasts. Factions within nation-states embraced these localized vestiges of the past in the same way as nations themselves did, if for different reasons. Archaeologists often contributed to the identification of spatial distributions of stylistically distinctive materials as evidence of ancestors of contemporary ethnic groups through their desire to be able to interpret the archaeological materials in terms of actual living culture. This equivocal history of association of style of material culture with language and ‘ethnic’ identity has continued to create problems for archaeology. On the one hand, because the material patterns were seen as reflecting an existing essential identity, it blocked consideration of the active use of material culture to create, reinforce, and recreate identities. By associating material culture identities with singular languages, it blocked research on the distinct ways that material culture works in identification, which may not always or even usually be analogous to the ways that language works. But at the same time, ethnicity provided a vocabulary to use to call out the distribution of distinctive material culture across

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the landscape. It allowed archaeologists to focus on how boundaries were created through differences in material culture, and how certain intimate practices, such as those of dress and foodways, were particularly important in the recreation of identity over time. Today, distributions of similar material culture are not assumed to represent evidence of identities on their own. Rather, bounded distributions of similar materials are taken as problems to be interpreted. In some instances, such as colonial Uruk settlements in Mesopotamia, or the neighborhoods of people from Oaxaca that persisted as enclaves for centuries in the great Mexican city, Teotihuacan, assemblages of distinctive material culture within communities with different patterns can be believably interpreted as evidence of ethnically distinctive groups. In these cases, the kinds of practices maintained as distinctive (especially religion and foodways) are particularly appropriate means for a group of people to maintain their differences from a larger, distinct, population. In the case of Teotihuacan, as these differences persist they remain more stable than the culture of the home region, eventually appearing archaic in comparison with contemporary Oaxaca. Similar situations can be amply documented in historic archaeology of European colonial enclaves, of Chinese communities overseas, or of communities of people of African descent. In the latter case, ethnogenesis and reproduction of ethnic identities routinely employed material culture of the dominant European culture in distinctive ways, demonstrating that our search for such factional identities within complex societies needs to observe not just the obvious stylistic distributions but more subtle differences in practices that might be taking place. So, for example, imported majolica pottery used in colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador in the sixteenth century involved selection of bowl forms that were similar to those previously made of local materials. Ethnoarchaeological studies of the production and use of painted pottery in Amazonian Ecuador offer another example of the need for attention to subtler distinctions in order to see ethnic identities, while reminding us that these factional identities may be heterogeneous linguistically and historically. Here, within a single community, people from two different political factions produced vessels with structures of exterior ornamentation that were consistently different, even if the member of the political faction spoke a language different from the majority of the faction, and had learned to paint pottery in a different political and social setting. What this ethnoarchaeological work underlines is that identification is a process in which people use material culture, not an essence reflected or expressed in it. This work also underlines the fact that even in societies without institutionalized distinctions of social status, identity is political.

Status and Role

Early archaeologists complemented their interpretation of localized distributions of artifacts as cultures with identification of distinctions in material culture within these homogeneous culture areas. Here, the main axis of distinction was understood to correspond to differential social status, prestige, wealth, rank, or class (or all of these at once). Drawing on anthropological studies of the mid-twentieth century, processual archaeologists systematized approaches to these within-group identities. Drawing on the theoretical work of Elman Service, archaeologists assumed that as societies progressed from egalitarian bands (in which no permanent social distinctions other than gender were found) to tribes, chiefdoms, and states, distinctive individual or group identities would develop. In bands, persons were understood to temporarily occupy roles (such as leader of a hunt), but these were not usually treated as archaeologically perceptible identities. In tribes, differences in achieved rank were expected, such that for every person who achieved distinction (in skill, authority, or knowledge) there would be a position of differential status. In chiefdoms, in addition to achieved rank, ascribed rank was understood to be institutionalized, so that shared, higher social status could be perpetuated from generation to generation. In both of these situations, archaeologists allowed for the potential to identify rank statuses held by individuals through their use of distinctive symbolic ‘status badges’, especially in burials. These individualized status markers might be shared among members of an institutionalized ranked group. In state-level societies, institutionalized classes occupied distinctive prestige or wealth strata. These distinctions were perceptible not only in the individualized contexts of burials, but also in the shared residential contexts where members of one social stratum lived. Materially, these indicators of identity linked individuals to groups, which in the archaeology of complex societies and in historical archaeology are generally understood as social classes. Class and Wealth

Classes are a defining feature of complex societies, states, and the modern world. In modern social sciences, classes are sometimes treated as objective groupings of people of the same relative social standing, based on things such as level of education, income, or kind of employment. But the original selection of criteria actually stems from the kind of class distinctions social scientists recognize. For example, in countries like Great Britain, where there was a history of inherited noble titles, these inherited statuses still define different classes even though the members of the different

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classes (royalty, nobility, and commoners) may overlap in wealth and education, and even though employment categories crosscut these inherited classes. What distinguishes classes of all kinds is that they involve ranking of groups of people, so that one class is of higher wealth, prestige, or status than another. Archaeologically, then, class distinctions involve shared identities and ranking. Where a contemporary social scientist can use interviews and histories to establish identification and ranking, archaeologists must use material proxies. Archaeologists define classes based on materially observable criteria. Household wealth has been one of the easiest potential bases to define for class distinctions in archaeological settings. Nonetheless, there has been substantial debate about how to measure household wealth. Some approaches convert everything into labor equivalents, reasoning that the consumption of human effort is independent of any social conventions of value. Experimental archaeology can provide a basis to project how much work was involved in building such things as the residences of Maya nobles, or the tombs of Egyptian workers, nobles, and rulers. Assessing the labor value of movable objects can be more complex. Distance from the sources of raw materials or of production of finished products contributes to the expense involved in obtaining movable objects, so such exotics or products of long-distance exchange may receive special attention in assessing household wealth. Within any category of things, the amount of work involved may vary. ‘Production-step measures’ are a rough way to assess the different values of objects produced with more steps (more work) or fewer steps (less work, and thus less expense or value). Using ethnographic and historic analogies, archaeologists have suggested that the least useful way of stratifying groups in the past using movable objects is sheer numbers of things; this is much more strongly tied to such things as group population size, longevity of occupation, and approaches to disposal of materials. While archaeologists can produce reasonable arguments for the existence of different classes based on household wealth, these differences may crosscut more socially significant class identities, just as they do in many present-day societies. So another approach to class differences in archaeology has been to examine the symbolism of group status in things such as architectural form, decoration of artifacts, location of housing within settlements, and use of written or graphic symbols. From this perspective, it is not just important that some people’s houses took more labor to construct: they may be made of materials that distinguish them, they may follow models of higher status, and they may be embellished with elements that themselves are symbolic of social

orders. This is as important an approach in historical archaeology as it is in the archaeology of states in Mesoamerica, the Andes, and the Classical Mediterranean. Unlike household wealth, which actually creates a continuous scale of distribution of groups, these symbolic approaches lend themselves to identifying discrete strata or parallel segments within urban societies, like Indian castes or Aztec calpulli. When written documents are available, as they are in historical archaeology and in many complex societies, the material and visual symbols may be matched to literary terms that designate different class strata. While class is above all an identity of a group, class membership may be an important aspect of the identity of an individual as well. Documentary sources can offer critical indications of the class identity of individuals, whether these come in the form of tomb inscriptions or historical documents such as wills or legal cases. Sex, Gender, and Age

Gender has been another focus of archaeological research on identity that links individuals and groups. Gender identities are sometimes treated as simple analogs of biological sex. Mortuary and bioarchaeological studies identify adult males and females from specific traits, and then the nonbiological aspects of burials may be used to project aspects of gender identities. For example, the inclusion of certain kinds of pins in burials of females in British and European archaeological sites is taken as one of the material markers of female identity, contrasting with other kinds of clothing fasteners found with male burials. An emphasis on the display of gender differences in costume has thus been a second material route adopted by archaeologists attempting to discern gender identities. Representation of dichotomous patterns of dress in visual media provides a third way to see categorical gender identities. These approaches have been subject to considerable debate, critique, and refinement within archaeology, starting with the realization that sex itself is not really dichotomous, even if we do not consider the possible presence of biologically intersexed persons in a population. Children cannot be assigned to biological groupings on the same bases as adults, so there is always a third term in mortuary analyses, persons who may be assigned to the same gender identity as adults based on shared material patterns, or who may form a distinctive group based on age. Even within a group of adults assigned to the same sexed category, age distinctions may be relevant. In a study of burials from the central Mexican site of Tlatilco, it was noted that older males and females shared characteristics of burial treatment, as did younger adult males with younger adult females. Relatively

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little material culture linked the older and younger adults of the same sex. Considerations like these shift attention away from presumed identity groups symbolized by use of certain objects, to the way material culture was used in processes of identification. Race

Like gender, race has been treated as an essentialized identity inherent in biology. So too, as with gender, race has been subject to serious reconsideration by archaeologists, especially those involved in the study of the African diaspora and the history of European colonization. A simple forensic model takes race as something inherent in national origins that concentrated certain variants of physical traits in different world areas. A notable example of the pitfalls of this approach to race was the African Burial Ground Project in New York City, where the initial archaeological team failed to notice signs of distinction within the biological population that were important evidence of differences in identity among these people of African descent. Archaeologists now approach race as a historical identity created with reference to biology but not given in biology, and examine material evidence for distinctions of identity among people with similar biological characteristics. Archaeologists examine how specific practices, including religion, healing, and personal adornment, were reproduced within racially identified or identifying groups. With attention to racial identity, and the contrast between simple models archaeologists might once have used and the nuanced historical approaches they now routinely employ, archaeologies of identity most clearly intersect with contemporary issues of power.

The Politics of Identity All of the aspects of identity examined archaeologically involve potential exercises of differential power in the societies under examination. Class, gender, race, ethnicity, and status are all implicated in social ranking and stratification, in the relative placement or groups and individuals with differential access to wealth, authority, prestige, and agency. Writing about identity in the past also always involves archaeologists in issues of power in the present. There are at least two main reasons for this. First, relations of identity and power in the past can serve as a precedent for relations of power between groups in the present. These differential positions of power may be explicitly grounded in history, as in the use of archaeology by Nazi Germany to demonstrate the superiority of a mythical ‘Aryan race’ whose legacy was claimed by the Nazi state. Or they may be analogical bases for claims to naturalize contemporary power

relations, as when arguments are made for the ‘natural’ inferiority of women based in speculative claims that in early human history, men undertook complex tasks that privileged their intellectual development. Archaeologists investigating identity in the past have a responsibility to be exceptionally careful in outlining the logical assumptions they make to avoid contributing to such abuses. Even with such care, archaeologies of identity will still engage with contemporary politics because in the modern world, identity matters deeply as a basis for political action. The passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the United States caused archaeologists in that country to engage with contemporary Native Americans who were concerned with the ways archaeological claims about identity affected their present-day political viability. By employing a simple model of identity between static distributions of things taken as reflections of essential folk identities, archaeologists created a framework in which historical change was the loss of identity, or the invention of false new identities. Even when archaeologists themselves moved on to use more sophisticated models of the relationships between identity and material culture, these nineteenth-century ideas about the integrity of identity and the closed bounded nature of groups remained in circulation and could be used to deny contemporary descendant communities legal standing. In Guatemala, contemporary Maya scholars and public intellectuals have pointed out that archaeological investigations have provided material for arguments of discontinuity from the Classic Maya past that contributed to characterization of the contemporary Maya as backward during the genocidal civil war in that country. These same intellectuals have contested the dominance of archaeological attention to ancient Maya warfare as a continued misrepresentation of ancestral Maya that colors contemporary understanding of the living Maya. The mobilization of the African–American community in New York City to call for a new research approach to the African Burying Ground represents a second kind of relation of archaeological identities to modern politics. The people involved were not claiming direct descent, and were not subject to losing material benefits due to archaeological use of outdated models of identity. Instead, their appeal for a voice was related to the potential archaeology offered to document otherwise lost histories. In some cases, archaeologists have found themselves uncomfortably placed in the middle of movements to claim connections with the past by nations, such as French celebration of Celtic heritage or the arguments that took place between national governments about custody of the remains of the European Iceman.

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Archaeologists are in a unique position to analyze the ways that remains of past societies become part of nationalist or factional discourses through which modern state governments or ethnic groups attempt to create solidarity by claiming deep roots. In their work on this modern process of identity formation through engagement with material culture, archaeologists have begun to identify problems with the modernist idea of ‘cultural heritage’, particularly the ways it elevates the materials of certain classes or groups as exemplary while quietly ignoring the material evidence of the experiences of others. Archaeologists have even been able to define concepts such as ‘negative heritage’, remains of the past that modern nations or factions deliberately eradicate because of the challenges they present to contemporary social values. Whether through their presence and celebration, or their excision from historical consciousness, the materials that archaeologists use to identify past identity formation remain politically potent in the present. See also: Cities, Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Economic Archaeology; Engendered Archaeology; Ethnicity; Household Archaeology; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient; Individual, Archaeology of in Prehistory; Political Complexity,

Ideology

Rise of; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Social Inequality, Development of; Urban Archaeology.

Further Reading Bond GC and Gilliam G (eds.) (1994) The Social Construction of the Past: Representation as Power. New York: Routledge. Brumfiel EM (1992) Breaking and entering the ecosystem: Gender, class, and faction steal the show. American Anthropologist 94(3): 551–567. Diaz-Andreu M et al. (2005) The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity, and Religion. New York: Routledge. Jones S (1997) The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present. New York: Routledge. Kane S (ed.) (2003) The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global Context. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America. Meskell LM (2002) The intersections of identity and politics in archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 279–301. O’Donovan M (ed.) (2002) The Dynamics of Power. Occasional Paper no. 30. Carbondale: Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Orser CE, Jr. (ed.) (2000) Race and the Archaeology of Identity. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Schmidt P and Patterson T (eds.) (1995) Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Stark MT (ed.) (1998) The Archaeology of Social Boundaries. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

See: Ritual, Religion, and Ideology.

ILLICIT ANTIQUITIES Neil Brodie, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary due diligence The measures that an individual or institution can reasonably be expected to take when investigating the pedigree of an object being considered for acquisition in order to ensure its legality. provenance The history of ownership of an object.

An illicitly traded archaeological artifact (illicit antiquity) is one that has at sometime been traded in contravention of national or international legal

regulations. Typically, it will have been removed illegally from an archaeological site or monument, and/ or exported illegally from its country of origin. Possibly, it will have been stolen from a museum or other cultural institution, or from a private owner. The act of removal is normally unrecorded and probably destructive. Illicit antiquities are often sold by reputable vendors without any public indication of ownership history (provenance). In 1993, for example, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) released details of six pieces of sculpture that had been stolen from the storeroom of Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, and subsequently recovered. Three had been sold through Sotheby’s auction house. Four years later, in 1997, Peter Watson showed that many Italian antiquities sold at Sotheby’s

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London with no published provenance had come from one dealer in Switzerland, who was acting as a ‘front’ for another dealer, the Italian Giacomo Medici, who was in turn smuggling the antiquities out of Italy where they had been illegally excavated. Medici was arrested by the Italian Carabinieri in 1997 and in 2005 he was convicted of receiving and illegally exporting stolen antiquities. It is not known how many illicit antiquities he had managed to pass onto the market without provenance before his arrest. Over the last 20 years between 65% and 90% of antiquities offered for sale on the market have had no clear published provenance, which suggests that a large, perhaps major, part of the market is comprised of illicit antiquities. Even when an antiquity is sold with a provenance, it does not mean that the provenance is genuine. A now infamous example of what appears to be a deliberately confused provenance is provided by the Euphronios krater. In 1972, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought a sixth-century BC Attic red-figure krater attributed to the painter Euphronios. It cost the museum $1 million, which, at the time, was considered to be an outrageous price. The krater was said to have been bought from an Armenian living in Beirut through the mediation of US dealer Robert Hecht, who could document that it had been in the possession of the Armenian’s family, and thus outside Italy, since 1914. By 1973, however, doubts were being expressed about this apparently legitimate provenance, and it was suggested instead that the krater had, in fact, been excavated illegally in Italy in 1971. In 1993, the Metropolitan’s director at the time of purchase, Thomas Hoving, suggested that there had actually been two Euphronios kraters, a fragmentary one in the possession of the Armenian, and a better-quality one excavated illegally in 1971. Unbeknown to the Metropolitan, Hecht had switched pieces, selling the illicit one to the Metropolitan with the good provenance, and selling the Armenian’s poorer quality piece to a private collector. In 2001, the Italian Carabinieri raided Hecht’s Paris flat, where they seized a handwritten memoir. In this memoir, Hecht had recorded two different versions of his role in the Euphronios affair. One was that he had obtained the krater from the Italian dealer Giacomo Medici, mentioned above in connection with Sotheby’s. The other version was the one made public by the Metropolitan, that he had acquired it from the Armenian. In November 2005, Robert Hecht was charged in an Italian court with the illegal export of antiquities and conspiring to receive stolen art (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). In 2006, the Metropolitan Museum ceded title of the Euphronios krater to Italy, along with title to 20 other antiquities, though refused to admit any knowledge of

illegal origin. The krater will return to Italy in 2008. The real provenance of the krater has still not been made public, and presumably is known only by Hecht, and perhaps Medici. The Euphronios krater is just one example of how a provenance might be invented or changed to disguise the illegal origin of a piece. There are many more. In 1997, the British dealer Jonathan TokeleyParry was found guilty of handling antiquities stolen from Egypt and jailed for 6 years. To smuggle the antiquities, Tokeley-Parry disguised them as tacky tourist souvenirs by first coating them with liquid plastic and then painting them with garish colours. Once back in England, the plastic and paint were removed with acetone and the pieces were restored to their original condition. To pass them off as legitimate he invented a provenance, an ‘old collection’, the Thomas Alcock collection. Thomas Alcock was said to be a British Army engineer who had passed through Egypt early in the twentieth century. TokeleyParry manufactured labels dabbed with used teabags to give them the appearance of age which he attached to pieces in an attempt to make the false provenance appear more convincing. It is virtually impossible to verify a provenance or to research an unprovenanced antiquity’s pedigree. Museums and salerooms are under no obligation to release information on the subject, and most usually do not. As a result, it is easy for an innocent or an unprincipled buyer to claim that there was nothing to suggest that a purchased piece was illicit. The difficulties attending provenance research have led to the development of the concept of ‘due diligence’. Due diligence describes the measures that an individual or institution can reasonably be expected to take when investigating the pedigree of a potential acquisition to ensure its legality. Due diligence should take account of the character of the vendor and the price asked (a suspiciously low price would indicate a dubious provenance), and should include checking the potential purchase against appropriate registers of stolen artifacts. Now that it is known that so many unprovenanced antiquities have an illegal origin, in future it will be difficult to claim innocent purchase without first conducting the necessary due diligence. Unfortunately, even due diligence cannot guarantee the legitimacy of a piece. Documents can always be forged, and it is not always easy to assess the character of a vendor, as was made clear by the conviction in 2002 of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz. Schultz had bought pieces from Tokeley-Parry, knowing them to be stolen from Egypt, and had been until 2001 the president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art, the United States’ foremost dealer association.

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The Archaeological Perspective From an archaeological perspective, the trade in illicit antiquities causes two problems. First, the unrecorded and unsystematic digging of archaeological sites and monuments to feed the trade reduces the total amount of information that is available about the past. Stratigraphies and contextual relationships are lost and fragile or unsaleable material is discarded or destroyed. Second, the recontextualization of looted objects in collections assigns them new meanings that are often flawed, and so any historical conclusions that are drawn from them are of uncertain reliability. These problems are nothing new. As early as 1904, for example, Robert Carr Bosanquet, then director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, recognized them in his discussion of the collection of the British antiquary, George Finlay. In the early 1870s, Finlay had obtained through the offices of an agent in Athens a large collection of obsidian artifacts that were said to be from various Bronze Age sites of southern and central Greece. Bosanquet discovered that instead they had probably all been dug out of the Bronze Age site of Phylakopi on the Greek Cycladic island of Melos. The site context of this material had been destroyed, an act which has hindered investigation there ever since, and the true provenance of the artifacts had been replaced by a series of fictitious ones designed to capture Finlay’s interest, and his money. In 1993, David Gill and Christopher Chippindale encapsulated these problems in their memorable phrase, the ‘‘material and intellectual consequences of esteem’’. Like Bosanquet, Gill and Chippindale were looking at Early Bronze Age material from the Greek Cycladic islands, in their case the bleachedwhite marble figurines. When these Cycladic figurines first came to public attention in the nineteenth century they were considered to be ugly and barbaric, and of no value. Their aesthetic and monetary fortunes changed during the middle years of the twentieth century when their simple lines caused them to be viewed more positively as modernist archetypes, and they began to attract the attention of collectors and museums. Today, Cycladic figurines command high prices on the art market. Gill and Chippindale considered the consequences of this newfound esteem. It was during the 1950s and 1960s that large numbers of Cycladic figurines began to appear on the international market. Out of the 1600 figurines so far known, about 90% have no ownership history or documented find spot, and so were presumably looted. Gill and Chippindale further estimated that the material consequence of obtaining so many figurines would be that something like 12 000 graves and their contents have been destroyed.

They also discussed the intellectual consequences. Like Finlay’s obsidian, the invention of vague and unverifiable provenances for the looted pieces, such as ‘‘said to be from Naxos’’, or wherever, plays havoc with any attempt to trace patterns of their original production and distribution. Furthermore, acceptance of the figurines within the modern canon as ‘art’ has brought with it all the trappings of connoisseurship, so that today, in trade and collecting circles at least, Cycladic figurines are considered to be works of fine art that were produced by so-called ‘master carvers’, and created by a society with both the means and the inclination to support full time artistic specialization and production. Yet, as Gill and Chippindale point out, these are propositions that need to be investigated, not assumed.

Social Perspectives The damage caused by the looting of archaeological sites is not just a matter of scholarly concern. There can be serious social and economic consequences. For some communities and states, archaeological objects can function symbolically as material constituents of cultural identity, or they might be imbued with a spiritual significance. Their expropriation can help to weaken group identity and cohesion. In the United States, this issue was recognized by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which acknowledges that the past appropriation of Native American human remains and cultural objects by nonindigenous individuals and institutions was illegal, and that, where possible, such materials should be returned to the possession of their rightful owners. Any future finds on federal or Native American land will similarly be subject to the ownership of the appropriate group (see Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The fact that archaeological artifacts are looted because of their monetary value cannot be overlooked. Often, sites are looted by poor subsistence farmers, and many people are uncomfortable describing the usually illegal excavation of artifacts that are sold for subsistence purposes as looting. The term ‘subsistence digging’ has been suggested as a preferred alternative. Any effort to stop subsistence digging in order to maintain the integrity of archaeological sites can be construed as valuing archaeological heritage over human life. It has been suggested that the characterization of such digging as ‘looting’ criminalizes already deprived communities, and subsistence diggers should be regarded as having a legitimate, economic interest in archaeological heritage. As a long-term subsistence option, however, such digging

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is unsustainable as the archaeological sites are quickly worked out. The illegal trade offers many opportunities for criminals. On the ground this might simply mean that the people digging the sites are breaking the law. But further up the trading chain there are opportunities for more extensive criminal involvement through activities such as corruption and money laundering, and it is increasingly being recognized in Iraq and Afghanistan that the money derived from the sale of antiquities can be used to purchase weapons. Thus although in the past the trade in illicit antiquities was seen to be a victimless crime, this is no longer the case.

The Proliferation of Forgeries The routine suppression and invention of provenances that characterize the trade facilitate the entry onto the market and into collections and museums of forged pieces. The best way to be certain of an artifact’s authenticity is to know its archaeological find spot and its history since excavation. For a piece with no provenance, clearly this is not possible. The authenticity of an unprovenanced piece can be judged only through scientific analysis or expert opinion, and neither method is foolproof. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has on display a Cycladic figurine depicting a seated person playing a harp. It was acquired in 1947 with no published provenance and is considered to be one of the museum’s most important pieces, certainly in terms of its prehistoric collections. Some experts, however, have long doubted the figurine’s authenticity because of its abnormally long arms, made necessary by its incorrect hold of the harp, and other unusual features of anatomical detail. In 2000, it was revealed by a British artist that in January 1947 he had met a local sculptor on the Cycladic island of Ios who claimed to have been commissioned some years earlier by an Athenian antiquities dealer to produce a marble figurine of a harpist. The islander made a sketch of the figurine he had made, and it shows a remarkable similarity to the piece in the Metropolitan. If the figurine drawn in the sketch really is one and the same as the Metropolitan example, it means that the Metropolitan must have been duped into buying a fake. Not surprisingly, the Metropolitan is not convinced by this argument, and the piece remains on display. But the shadow of doubt that now hangs over the figurine’s credibility as a genuine artifact will only be dispelled by the publication of reliable information about its discovery and excavation, if indeed it was excavated. The issue of forgery is probably more acute than generally suspected. Oscar Muscarella, ironically of

the Metropolitan Museum, has identified hundreds of what he believes to be forgeries of Near Eastern artifacts, or genuine artifacts that have been subject to contemporary ‘enhancement’ to improve their monetary value, and he considers this number to be very much a minimum one. If Muscarella is right, and as the pieces he discusses have no documented provenance it is hard to prove him wrong, the infiltration of fakes into collections is more widespread that previously thought possible and poses a serious threat to scholarship.

Some Statistics Reliable statistics about the size of the trade in antiquities and the seriousness of the associated damage are notoriously elusive. This is because the trade is clandestine and there are no organizations charged with gathering relevant information about damaged archaeological sites and monuments. Nevertheless, some quantitative information about destruction ‘on the ground’ has been provided by archaeological surveys of regions and individual sites. In 1983, one study showed that 59% of all Mayan sites in Belize had been damaged by looters. Between 1989 and 1991, a regional survey in Mali discovered 830 archaeological sites, but 45% had already been damaged, 17% badly. In 1996, a sample of 80 was revisited and the incidence of looting had increased by 20%. A survey in a district of northern Pakistan showed that nearly half the Buddhist shrines, stupas, and monasteries had been badly damaged or destroyed by illegal excavations. In 2001, it was reported that 14% of known archaeological sites in Andalusia, Spain, had been damaged by illicit excavation. Between 1940 and 1968, it is estimated that 100 000 holes were dug into the Peruvian site of Batan Grande, and that in 1965 the looting of a single tomb produced something like 40 kg of gold jewelry, which accounts for about 90% of the Peruvian gold now found in collections around the world. In 2001, an archaeological survey of the area of ancient Lydia in western Turkey discovered 397 Iron Age tumuli. Ninety percent showed signs of looting and 52 tumuli had been completely destroyed. A survey of the Lower Ulu´a Valley in Honduras found that 60% of the 507 sites discovered had been damaged by looting and that 15% had been totally destroyed.

The Development of the Antiquities Market during the Twentieth Century The plunder of archaeological sites for their saleable antiquities can be traced back at least to the eighteenth century, and probably earlier. But it was during

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the twentieth century that the practice extended and intensified to achieve its present size and scope. This expansion was caused by at least five processes that were acting together to increase demand, reduce legal supply, and increase illegal supply. First, there was a continuing increase in the number of museums collecting archaeological material. Museums, art museums in particular, exert a primary effect on the market by acquiring unprovenanced antiquities, and in so doing exert a secondary effect by sending a clear signal to private collectors that such practice is acceptable. By displaying archaeological objects as treasures or great works of art, museums also increase their desirability. Second, Western artistic taste became more inclusive. While the proliferating museums were busy acquiring art, the range of material that was available for them to collect as art was also increasing. From the Renaissance through to the end of the nineteenth century, classical Greek and Roman sculpture had been thought to epitomize art, but the onset and development of modernism changed all that. Many artists started to draw inspiration from non-European and non-classical sources, and as a result since the end of the nineteenth century antiquities from all parts of the world have come to be seen as significant artworks, or at least to possess aesthetic qualities that appeal to Western taste. Third, although an increasing variety of antiquities was coming to be regarded as aesthetically worthwhile, their legitimate supply was diminishing as newly independent countries moved to introduce stringent regimes of heritage protection. One of the first actions of the newly independent Greek state was in 1833 to pass a law forbidding the export of antiquities. This law was promulgated in response to the depredation of Greek archaeological heritage that had taken place under the centuries of Ottoman occupation, particularly over the preceding 50 years, and which the Greeks themselves had been powerless to curtail. The Greek example has been followed many times over as countries freed from colonial rule have passed legislation to protect their archaeological heritage from illegal trade (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). Fourth, improving technologies allowed better location of archaeological sites, easier access to them, and more efficient removal of material from them. It also became progressively easier to obtain information and to arrange transactions. Sites and monuments in previously remote (from the market) places such as West Africa and the Himalayas have since been devastated. Shipwrecks on the deep ocean floor have also become accessible and vulnerable. Finally, toward the end of the twentieth century, many political barriers to trade disappeared as the

formerly closed communist world opened up. Czech police, for example, estimate that thefts from cultural institutions increased 12-fold when the Czech Republic’s borders opened in 1990. The cumulative and deleterious effect of these processes on archaeological heritage can be seen in most areas of the world. The terracotta statues of West Africa, for example, were largely unknown 50 years ago, but over the past few decades they have been dug up in ever-increasing numbers to feed the growing demand for so-called ‘tribal’ or ‘primitive’ art. The results have been predictable. In 2000, ICOM issued its Red List of Endangered African Heritage, which detailed eight categories of archaeological objects that are under imminent threat from looting and theft, and appealed to museums, auction houses, art dealers, and collectors to stop buying them. The list included Nok terracottas from Nigeria and Djenne´ terracottas from Mali, and the Bura terracottas of Niger. Bura terracottas were not discovered until 1983, and so in less than 20 years they had passed from being an unknown to an endangered tradition.

Legal Responses As described above, since the nineteenth century, most countries have placed their archaeological heritage under some kind of legislative definition and control. International laws designed to inhibit the illegal movement of antiquities have been developing in parallel. At first, this international effort was responding to the plunder and destruction of art and other cultural objects during wartime, and in 1954 it culminated in the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and its First Protocol. A Second Protocol was added in 1999. By September 2006, the Hague Convention had been signed and ratified by 116 countries, though only 42 had acceded to the Second Protocol. The problems posed to archaeological heritage by the illicit trade in peacetime were also causing concern and in 1970 UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Means of Preventing and Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. This convention makes provision for intergovernmental action to control the trade, and by September 2006 it had been signed and ratified by 110 countries. Articles 7b(ii) and 9 of the UNESCO Convention were implemented in the United States as the 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA or CPIA). Under this act, the United States can reach agreement with a second country to place import restrictions on specific categories of cultural material which are thought to be in

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danger of pillage. In September 2006, the United States had bilateral agreements with 12 countries. The 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Objects rectified some of the perceived shortcomings of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. In 2001, in response to the increasing exploitation of deepwater shipwrecks, UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which offers protection to submerged landscapes as well as to shipwrecks and other sunken objects. Unfortunately, these national and international laws have seemed powerless to prevent the continuing expansion of the trade in illicit antiquities, and the associated archaeological destruction has grown worse (which is not to say that it would not have grown worse still without legislation). There are two reasons for this apparent failure of legislative regulation. One reason is poor subscription to the relevant international conventions. So although the United States set a good example when it ratified the 1970 UNESCO Convention in 1983, it was nearly 20 years before other major market countries followed suit. The United Kingdom and Japan did not become parties until 2002, and Switzerland until 2003. By 2006, neither the United States nor the United Kingdom had ratified the Hague Convention or its Protocols (although the United Kingdom had announced its intention to do so), and neither country was intending to accede to the 1995 Unidroit Convention nor to the 2001 UNESCO Convention on underwater heritage. The second and perhaps most important reason for the failure of regulation is that the relevant national and international laws are poorly enforced. International attention focuses on the illegal trades in drugs, arms, and, recently, people. At the national level, health, education, and security are usually more pressing priorities than heritage preservation, particularly in the developing world where most archaeological looting takes place (see Historic Preservation Laws). There is also disagreement about what should be the fundamental philosophy of protective legislation. Although there is a general consensus that the antiquities trade as presently constituted is inequitable and causing irreversible harm to the archaeological heritage, there is considerable dispute about how best to resolve the problem, whether by placing the trade under what might be characterized as ‘weak regulation’, or under ‘strong regulation’. Proponents of weak regulation, who term their perspective ‘cultural internationalism’, argue that, with the exception of a limited number of exceptional or otherwise significant pieces, most antiquities should be freely available for international trade. Free trade would increase

the amount of material in circulation, thereby improving public access, and profits could be used to protect important archaeological sites. The strong regulation perspective is that a free market does not assure an equitable circulation of cultural objects, nor does it increase public access. Instead, it causes a flow of antiquities into a limited number of acquiring communities – internationalism is a serious misnomer. Free trade would not be sustainable, and any money generated would need to pay for oversight of the regulatory regime, none would ‘trickle down’ to site protection. In effect, the debate is about whether the conservation of archaeological heritage would be favored more by public (strong regulation) or by private (weak regulation) ownership. In the absence of any reliable comparative statistics of site damage in public and private jurisdictions, and with only a few quantitative studies of market composition, it is hard to decide.

Ethical Responses The explanation sketched out above for the twentieth century development of the trade in illicit antiquities identified five causal processes, but their articulation and synergy were only realized through the agency of the various ‘players’, from academics and museum curators, through dealers, to the people on the ground that do the actual digging. The active implication of professional ‘experts’ in market processes has since the 1960s caused the development of ethical standards that are intended to insulate professional practice from the market (see Ethical Issues and Responsibilities). It seems inescapable that there should be a causative link between academic practice and the development of a market. The study and analysis of antiquities provide information about their age, their abundance, the geographical parameters of their production and consumption, and about their functional, aesthetic, and historical characteristics. This information helps to structure the market by providing typological categories and the means to judge quality and scarcity and therefore to estimate price. Back in 1904, Bosanquet blamed the looting of Phylakopi on the publication of an educational pamphlet by Finlay that had devoted seven out of fifteen illustrations to obsidian artifacts, and identified their Melian origin. It has been suggested many times since then that the market for ancient Greek pottery was formed by the publication of Johann Winckelman’s 1764 study of the pottery, his identification of its Greek origin (it had previously been thought to be Etruscan), and his comparison of its painted compositions to the work of Rennaissance masters. But although market formation might be an unintended consequence of study and publication, the

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expertise of academic and museum specialists is also crucial for market function. Although at first sight the mitigating impact of the UNESCO Convention may appear to have been limited, the expert negotiations that accompanied its initial drafting and, later, the US ratification acted to raise awareness among professional archaeologists, anthropologists, and museum curators about practices beside legitimate study and publication that help sustain the trade and that might be avoided. A series of declarations made in the early 1970s by the major archaeological and museum associations endorsed the principles enshrined in the UNESCO Convention, and increasingly since then codes of ethics and practice have been formulated with provisions to guard against professional involvement with the trade. Unfortunately, there has not always been unanimous agreement as to what the correct ethical response should be, particularly as regards publication policies and museum acquisitions (both discussed below). Professional archaeologists and museum curators possess the academically validated and thus socially recognized expert knowledge that allows them to pass authoritative judgments – either through scientific examination or the more traditional skill of connoisseurship – on the identity and the authenticity or otherwise of an antiquity. This service is an indispensable one for a market that is comprised largely of unprovenanced objects and badly infiltrated by fakes. Thus, while the academic study of archaeological material may be said to structure the market, the identification and authentication of unprovenanced antiquities allows the market to function. Recognizing this danger, professional associations now prohibit their members from identifying or authenticating unprovenanced objects in such a way that might support the market. Although it is accepted that the academic study and publication of legitimate archaeological material promotes a market, it is also recognized that the study of material with no provenance and that has in all probability been looted causes two further problems. One problem is the intellectual one discussed above concerning the reliability of interpretation: the study of unprovenanced antiquities is constrained by the absence of information relating to archaeological find spot that vitiates the context of understanding. The second problem is a commercial one: the study and publication of an unprovenanced object will in itself provide a provenance of sorts, an academic pedigree, and make it easier to sell in the future. Thus many archaeologists and museum curators believe that the academic study of unprovenanced material provides only a limited addition to historical knowledge, and one that is gained at the cost of a potentially larger loss of available information

through the consequential looting of more archaeological sites. The academic journals American Journal of Archaeology (in 1978) and American Antiquity and Latin American Antiquity (in 1991) tackled this issue when they decided not to publish any paper that offers first publication of looted or illegally exported material. This decision has not been universally welcomed, and the counterargument has been developed that some objects, particularly written materials, have an intrinsic importance, even out of context, that warrants their study and publication so that their information is saved for posterity. Museums have the potential to play a central role in the antiquities trade through their acquisition policies. As noted above, when a museum acquires an object with no provenance it contributes directly to demand and sets an ethical standard. Professional museums associations have responded to this problem by asking that their member museums formulate acquisitions policies incorporating guidelines about unprovenanced material. Museum associations also offer advice as to what degree of provenance might make an object acceptable for acquisition, although there is some disagreement as to what this might constitute. So, for example, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) recommends that unprovenanced objects should not be acquired at all, while the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) suggests that they are suitable for acquisition if it can documented that they have been out of their country of origin for more than 10 years. The different recommendations reflect a difference of opinion between those who believe that the acquisition of an unprovenanced object encourages further looting, and those who believe that the looting has already happened and the object needs to be ‘saved’. A compromise is the so-called ‘1970 Rule’, advocated by the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and Britain’s Museums Association (MA), whereby objects that are documented to have been out of their country of origin since 1970, the date of the UNESCO Convention, are acceptable for acquisition. People who live in the vicinity of archaeological sites are sometimes the people who loot them, and other times they are indifferent or acquiescent. This fact has made it clear that the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists go beyond simply refraining from activities that will sustain the market, and that archaeological research must have a public as well as an academic aspect. Where possible, archaeologists, particularly those who work in foreign countries, should endeavor to work with the consent of the local and/or indigenous public, to recognize the public claim on archaeological heritage and to respect local sensitivities. It is also the responsibility of

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archaeologists to ensure that their methods and aims are more widely understood, to employ and to train local people, and to publicize their results through popular as well as academic media. Sites (where appropriate) should be prepared for public presentation so that they can be incorporated into educational curricula and tourist itineraries. Many of these activities have a potential economic outcome, which can be crucial in poorer areas and should not be overlooked or neglected as being irrelevant to research. When local communities are accepted as stakeholders in the archaeological process, they are more likely to take a proprietorial interest in their local archaeology. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Historic Preservation Laws; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Politics of Archaeology; Pseudoarchaeology and Frauds; Who Owns the Past?; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Atwood R (2004) Stealing History. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Brodie N, Doole J, and Renfrew C (eds.) (2001) Trade in Illicit Antiquities: The Destruction of the World’s Archaeological Heritage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Brodie N and Tubb KW (eds.) (2002) Illicit Antiquities. The Theft of Culture and the Extinction of Archaeology. London: Routledge. Gill DWJ and Chippindale C (1993) Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures. American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601–659. Meyer K (1973) The Plundered Past. New York: Athenaeum. Muscarella OW (2000) The Lie Became Great. The Forgery of Near Eastern Cultures. Groningen: Styx. O’Keefe PJ (1997) Trade in Antiquities. Reducing Destruction and Theft. London and Paris: Archetype and UNESCO. Renfrew C (2000) Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership. London: Duckworth. Tubb KW (ed.) (1995) Antiquities Trade or Betrayed: Legal, Ethical and Conservation Issues. London: Archetype/UKIC. Watson P and Todeschini C (2006) The Medici Conspiracy. The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities. New York: Public Affairs.

IMAGE AND SYMBOL Saburo Sugiyama, Aichi Prefectural University, Aichi, Japan; Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary materialization Action to make materials (landscape, building, objects, tools, etc.) based on a concept, image, plan, religion, scientific thoughts, or any kind of ideological reflection. nahualism Mesoamerican belief that a person is believed to be linked with a particular animal sharing same attributes and often can transform into that animal or metaphorically represent it in social life, particularly for rituals. teotihuacan Ancient planned city flourished during the first to sixth century in Mexican Highlands. It was one of the most populous pre-Columbian cities in the New World, with an estimated population of 100 000 to 150 000 inhabited in an urban area of 20 km2.

Image and symbol can be found widely in the archaeological record, and have been dealt with a variety of ways in material culture studies. As humans, we are fundamentally cultural beings who have long used images and symbols to communicate with other members of our society and beyond, beginning in the Paleolithic period. One may say that virtually all

artifacts can be explored as ‘images’ or ‘symbols’, or as the product or by-product of symbolic behavior to a certain degree. During the last two decades, new theoretical movements influenced by post-modernism and focusing more on ideology and individual actions have impacted many social sciences, including archaeology. As a consequence, image and symbol have become key themes in more fully and contextually understanding ancient societies. Particularly in postprocessual, behavioral, symbolic, or cognitive archaeology, images and symbols are discussed in terms of possessing meanings and functions beyond what they visually represent. This article begins with the definition of related words and concepts, presents certain theories associated with the study of images and symbols, then discusses some of their specific aspects, first by material, then by stylistic features. Throughout this article, image and symbol are discussed as units possessing two parts: a signifier (an image or symbol recorded in some material) and a signified (a meaning/concept to which the image or symbol refers). In archaeological contexts, the meaning (signified) of a signifier or set of signifiers is not often clear; frequently they depend on arbitrary local sets or conditions of other materials, and are historically specific. It is therefore proposed that the meanings

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signified need to be explored contextually or relationally with others, to understand the image and symbol (signifier) appropriately and comprehensively.

Definitions and Theories The terms and concepts related to image and symbol vary widely, they largely overlap and their usages differ significantly among archaeologists. These are defined as follows (Figure 1). All the terms we use here for images or symbols can be included in a general category ‘sign’, something that refers to the existence of a material, fact, condition, or quality. Signs can be grouped into three categories based on the type of relation between signifier and signified. ‘Representational image’ (representation, icon, portrait, or picture) is a reproduction or duplicate, outline, or silhouette of the form of a thing or person. A drawing of one thing (signifier) refers to what the form of the drawing indicates (signified), like a drawing of a dog referring to a real dog. ‘Indexical image’ is referring to, or indicating, another thing, person, or concept, by its nature or attributes, like a drawing of smoke from a house (signifier) and fire (signified), or thunder (signifier) and rain that the thunder predicts (signified). No matter what ethnic group or language is involved, anyone can universally identify or intuit the message signified by a representational or indexical image. ‘Symbol’, or emblem, is a sign that stands for an idea or an object by association, resemblance, or convention. The relationship

Representational (or Icon) Sign

Indexical

Symbol

between a signifier and thing signified is largely arbitrary, like white flag for ‘surrender’ or a dove standing for ‘peace’. Abstract or geometric designs may also be included in this category. Fundamentally, culture determines their relationships; therefore to understand the meaning (signified) of the symbol, one must know its arbitrary convention, which may have been shared only among certain cultural, ethnic, or linguistic groups. One of the best examples would be the letters of the alphabet, which are symbols for sounds, and combinations of letters forming words that represent ideas and objects. Thus, sentences we write or speak can convey more complicated descriptions of things or ideas (ideology, religion, worldview, sciences, etc.), which only people who are familiar with the language and/or writing system can understand. The above examples demonstrate how we express our ideas or interpretations of the world we conceive, and communicate with others about them fundamentally through images and symbolic notational systems. Although signs are comprised of these three basic categories, their boundaries are often unclear, overlapping or continuous, and complex. It is difficult to precisely understand the meaning (signified) without contextual and/or conventional information. For example, in Mesoamerica a representation of cacao fruit may have signified a food, chocolate beverage, or currency for commercial exchange. An image of a dove can merely mean a flying object, a food source, a message carrier, or a symbol of peace (Figure 2). How

Image------------

Image-----------------

(or Emblem)--------------

a dog image standing for a real ‘dog’

smoke from a house standing for ‘fire’

white flag standing for ‘surrender’

an ideographic letter standing for ‘person’, also phonetic sign -ren- in Chinese and -hito- in Japanese. Figure 1 Categories of ‘signs’.

Figure 2 Meanings of images vary by context, as in these images of doves.

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Figure 3 Mural depicting a deer and coyotes, Teotihuacan, Mexico.

can we determine what kind of meanings a drawing of cacao fruit or a dove convey? An understanding of the particular cultural tradition, associated materials, and/or specific cultural contexts in time and space are critical – for example, whether a dove image was found in a restaurant, in a post office, or in a United Nations building. An image of a mural painting depicting a deer and two coyotes, from the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, can be interpreted as being a simple representational image of two coyotes attacking one deer, or an indexical image referring to ‘hunting’ or ‘the law of the jungle’, or a symbol of ‘human sacrifice’. (Figure 3) Because of the long tradition of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica and excavation data obtained at the site, we now believe that the mural most likely functioned as a metaphoric expression of human sacrifice by extraction of the heart. However, one who is not familiar with Teotihuacan culture and archaeology may be more inclined toward the first interpretations. Even complete, naturalistic images like this Teotihuacan mural do not necessarily refer simply to what the figures represent. Symbolic expression is often neither complete nor comprehensive, but may include key elements that were sufficient for the members of a designated community to recognize their specific meanings. Therefore, we as outsiders should consider meanings in the regional context that particular images and symbols conveyed. Most importantly, the understanding of meanings is essential to further explore the sociopolitical conditions/ functions and historical particularities in which the image was created, such as who addressed the messages to whom, with what kind of ideological, sociopolitical, or economic objectives, and so on. As a social science, archaeology must explore such social functions underlying images and symbols.

Symbolism

Theories of symbolic or practice anthropology provide useful tools for realizing broader archaeological approaches to ancient imagery and symbolism. Since the 1980s there has been a growing interest in individual action, experience, ethos, emotion, and decision-making processes. A central focus of these individual action-based approaches is the dynamic inter-relationship between agent and ecology, structure, or system. Symbolic behaviors such as rituals are considered by symbolic anthropologists as one of the primary matrices for the reproduction of consciousness. For Clifford Geertz, a culture comprises a web of meanings which a society creates, reproduces, or transforms. Geertz deals with symbols as vehicles to carry these meanings, which are arbitrarily set and shared by community members. As outsiders, therefore, we are required to contextually ‘read’ these meanings through symbols in order to perceive their value systems, such as religion, worldview, ethics, and other ideological dimensions of a particular culture. We must strive to approach these underlying symbolic systems from a native’s point of view, if possible, by participating in their events, rituals, or daily life. Victor Turner suggests that these symbols function as mechanisms of social formation and transformation. He stresses the power of symbols which operate to unify community members and to change social institutions. According to these perspectives, symbols constructing webs of meanings are virtually everywhere in material culture, going beyond images or symbols that are readily recognizable. Not only does this apply to objects found in living spaces, such as ritual items or temple constructions, but also to open spaces, natural surroundings and phenomena, or to

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people’s actions, including ceremonial events or mortuary practices as sacred symbols. Food resources, household tools, and forms of economic transactions that have been discussed more in economic or technological terms, could also have conveyed symbolic meanings. Although we tend to define ‘image and symbol’ as what we now call linear or painted reproduction, sculpture, or craft products, ancient people may have conceived natural and artificial objects of much broader categories meaningfully and symbolically, and reproduced them as image, index, or symbol. We will return to this topic later in discussing more specific examples. In Marxist frameworks, symbols can be understood as functional in the sense that they represent dominant groups or conflicting power relations among social units. Symbols may have become social strategies or tools to support power over others. Thus, material symbols and their implied meanings do not just passively exist, but are actively involved in social formation and transformation processes through daily life and ritual actions practiced at different levels of the social hierarchy. In archaeology, these social functions may be better referred to by interpreting monumental constructions, images of rulers, or prestige objects as power symbols that would have required the control of raw materials, production and reproduction systems, or long-distance exchange routes. Accordingly, we would expect to encounter such relations and their symbolic correlates particularly in stratified societies.

Materials for Image and Symbol If we define image and symbol as signifiers or vehicles of meanings integrated in cultural contexts, we can interpret them using many different kinds of materials. From their form, size, material type, color, production techniques, and stylistic attributes, we can observe the developing human capacity to conceive the world and to interact with the surrounding environment. In fact, searching for the origins of meaning is one of the fundamental inquiries of world archaeology. It is directly related to defining the moment or process through which we became human. Questions of defining meaning can also be discussed in terms of the origins of cognition, consciousness, intelligence, perception, and language. Research by primatologists indicates that nonhuman primates demonstrate a variety of cognitive capabilities to certain degrees; however, their systems of perceived meanings and symbolic manifestations are apparently quite different from ours. Early examples of image and symbol can provide key information regarding how our ancestors began to construct and share

meanings, although the data are scanty and often useful only as indirect references (see Cognitive Archaeology). A large amount of pictorial information is available from later developed societies around the world. Different kinds of materials and forms used to create images and symbols are listed below, with a brief discussion of certain instances. These examples are not exhaustive, and do not include functional objects such as tools or weapons that also had particular functions as image or symbol. The purpose is to highlight various perspectives on what we customarily call image and symbol in the archaeological record. Sacred Geography and Site Formation

Images and symbols are not found only with ancient buildings or the objects discussed below; rather, some features of the natural environment may have also served as integral elements to forms, concepts, or visions symbolized in certain other materials. A particular mountain, cave, rock, river, lake, celestial object, or other natural feature would have been interpreted meaningfully by ancient peoples – for example, as a place of origin, a sacred spot connecting people to the upper- or under-world, a source of divine power, etc. The symbolism involved in features of the landscape can be archaeologically suggested by constructions or objects dedicated to them, and their spatial arrangement with artificial features like monuments, ritual spaces, petroglyphs, or dedicatory burials. Intended associations can be archaeologically illustrated in maps or through Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates in which specific alignments or significant distances may be recorded. Certain celestial phenomena seem to have been observed with special attention by many ancient societies. In Mesoamerica, the cycles and directions of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Pleiades, and solar/lunar eclipses were particularly integrated in monumental construction plans, the contents of rituals or mortuary practices, and in hieroglyphic writing. Ancient Mesoamerican understandings of such phenomena were not the same as those we conceive of today, based on Western astronomy. They often comprised central elements of Mesoamerican cosmology or cosmogony that were believed to have structured time and space of the present world, and the rising or setting spot of celestial objects on the horizon often coincided with the direction of particular constructions on special days. Archaeoastronomy has revealed that many other ancient societies also recorded the rising and/or setting of certain celestial objects, particularly during the equinoxes or solstices, the days in which the Sun passes the zenith, and the days of solar/lunar eclipses. The materialization of ancient

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Figure 4 Central N-S axis of Teotihuacan, Mexico.

worldviews, combined with features of the landscape and celestial phenomena, were integrated in the material culture and the spatial layouts of Egyptian monuments, Chinese cities, European megaliths, and Andean sacred centers as well. The central N–S axis of the highly planned city of Teotihuacan (Figure 4) was exactly aligned with its main street, the Avenue of the Dead, the central axis of the Moon Pyramid, and the summit of the sacred mountain located behind it. The huge ceremonial center was evidently designed for pilgrims to conceive the Avenue as an axis mundi, or the most sacred earthly passage from the center of the heavens to the underworld, through the sacred mountain, the pyramid, and the central avenue connecting to the lowest part of the valley, where the Citadel complex was constructed apparently to represent the entrance to the watery underworld. In contrast, the E–W axis of the city was clearly related directly with celestial movements or calendrical cycles. The main E–W axis was oriented exactly to the setting position of the Pleiades on the western horizon on the day when the Sun passed the zenith. The whole city harmoniously integrated its natural surroundings and celestial phenomena, and was a highly symbolic expression of a specific cosmology and conception of time and space. Abundant images and symbols in the pyramids, monumental sculptures, murals, ceremonial objects, as well as symbolic actions like human sacrificial rituals, complemented this worldview at Teotihuacan by giving it a material form, beginning with the foundation of the city. Monuments, Public Space, and Other Constructive Markers

Ancient monumental constructions around the world expressed specific symbolic meanings; particularly, pyramids, ceremonial architecture, plazas, colossal

Figure 5 Image from the Nasca lines.

sculptures, and other public buildings seem to have represented ideological dimensions often with sociopolitical implications, particularly in the cases of pre-industrial urban centers. The location, form, size, orientation, architectural style, and ornamentation of a public building may contain particular symbolic meanings defined by local tradition and/or references to historical events entailing political messages. Some of the architectural features in ceremonial centers, or stone alignments such as the Nazca Lines (Figure 5), have been interpreted as religious, cosmological, or astronomical/calendrical symbols. It has been proposed that they were constructed to proclaim the sacred political power of rulership to their community members and beyond. Recent studies indicate that the fac¸ades of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at Teotihuacan commemorated in sculpture a mythical cosmological event (Figure 6): the initiation of time and space set in motion by this serpent-like divine creature. Another sculptural representation, in the form of a headdress, symbolized the maximum authority of a time bearer.

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Figure 6 Feathered serpent pyramid, Theotihuacan, Mexico.

In its broader sociopolitical context the monument proclaimed the idea of divine rulership, reinforced by recently discovered mass-sacrificial burials and symbolic offerings associated with the militarism. A Teotihuacan ruler, who administered the present world on behalf of the gods, could well have sponsored the erection of the monument, with the facade’s pictographic presentation on such a large scale, in order to convince the public of the divinity of political power as well as the significance of warfare for the continued prosperity of the city. Petroglyphs, Sculpture, Mural Art, Codices, and Portable Art

Most of the images and symbols depicted in the archaeological record belong to these highly variable categories of materials. They include rock art, sculptures, murals (Figure 3), engravings on constructions, drawings on ceramics, lithics, bones, woods, textiles, codices (Figure 7), etc. The great abundance of objects carrying images or symbols exhibit a wide variety of material forms, styles, sizes, techniques, colors, and so on. There exists substantial flexibility in expressing people, objects, phenomena, and complicated ideas. Certain features are discussed in the following section dealing with Ancient Art Styles (see Rock Art). Ritual Objects and Mortuary Remains

Rituals are central social institutions that structure the actions of practitioners. Symbolic objects used for ritual performance can be considered as vehicles of religious meanings that a society arbitrarily and conventionally produced to unify the members of their community. For example, during the early Bronze age in China, particularly the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the order of the heavens was believed to have been transmitted to ruling groups through ceremonies that the state governments orchestrated. The bronze vessels used for the ceremonies symbolized heavenly order and

Figure 7 Example of Codex drawing.

public morality that defined the quality of governance. The varied images and symbols covering the surfaces of these vessels included ancestral deities, regionally specific creatures and animals, ritual meanings, and the daily life of diverse members of society; they were symbols that proclaimed divine rulership, and territorial dominance over a subjugated public. Among ritual objects, mortuary items are overwhelmingly symbolic, and reflect the society’s belief system concerning life after death. These symbolic actions may have been communicated more esoterically than was the case in public ritual, among limited community members who shared more restricted understandings of the associated symbolism. In the case of dedication or sacrificial burial, the relation between the dead and the offerings found in association with them may not have been direct. Living community members who were responsible for the preparation of the grave would have expressed their religious ideology with political proclamations made through its symbolic offerings. (Figure 8) At the Moon Pyramid in Teotihuacan, nine obsidian figurines in the form of the Feathered Serpent, the symbol of maximum political authority, were buried in an important dedication burial of the pyramid, to proclaim the institution of divine rulership. This creature was the sacred symbol of governance most frequently associated with monumental constructions in Teotihuacan. The unique form of the deity was consistently identifiable among the pictorial records in murals, ceramics, sculptures, and other media. The uniqueness was also recognizable by unusually high

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Figure 9 Chinese character.

Figure 8 Feathered serpent obsidian figurine, Teotihuacan, Mexico.

quality of these masterpieces of chipped stone, as well as by the special location of the deposit, which only ruling groups could have controlled. Language and Writing Systems

Language may well have been fully developed by the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period. Without a doubt, it is the most powerful system of communication, and the most flexible symbolic complex ever created by humans. However, the creation and initial formation processes cannot be reconstructed directly since no material remains referring to the earliest usages of language can be recovered in archaeological contexts. Another breakthrough for the wider dissemination of linguistic systems took place when writing systems were invented in association with particular languages. The earliest, or ‘pristine’, writing systems developed in Mesopotamia-Egypt, China (Figure 9), and Mesoamerica (Figure 10), independently from one another. They were later introduced and developed in other cultural/linguistic environments, transforming letter form, sentence structure, pronunciation, and meanings. The complicated messages encoded with a vocabulary and grammatical system were printed in diverse materials, like stone, wood, or paper, for contemporaneous and future readers beyond the societal boundaries, as written materials were often carried far from their places of origin. It is noteworthy that early writing systems were apparently created and developed along with the emergence of complex society, and that their practices were evidently controlled by ruling entities in those societies. In other societies, certain kinds of information were recorded systematically in other materials like the kipu system used by the Inca Empire of the prehispanic Andes (Figure 11). Apparently, the Andean kipu did not develop to represent language; however, as was the case with writing systems in other ancient societies, the kipu were also used

Figure 10 Maya glyph.

Figure 11 Andean kipu, a knotted record-keeping device.

by ruling entities to convey ideological and political legitimatization, and to control people and tribute.

Ancient Art Styles Ancient art styles are fundamentally different from those of Western traditions in terms of spatial arrangements, object forms, perspective, production techniques, and motivations. For example, realistic and

IMAGE AND SYMBOL 1503

perspective painting familiar in our modern art are rather unusual in the human history of image and symbol. Before impressionism or cubism arose, the classic Western tradition of images or portraits can be characterized as faithful reproductions that tended to convert three-dimensional existing people, objects, or phenomena perceptively into two dimensions on canvas, without significant distortion. The best instance of this ‘realism’ in modern art may be photography, an exact copy in form, size proportion, moment, light contrast, and color. What we call ancient, ethnic, or ‘primitive’ arts were produced with non-Western sensibilities to explicitly stylize or symbolize meanings (the signified) using diversified materials and techniques. These traditions exhibit great

cultural diversity in time and space, including different religions, worldviews, ethics, ethos, feelings, and intuitions. At the same time, we can observe certain features or artistic trends commonly shared among pre-industrial societies. In this brief description, some features differing from Western ones are stressed. Finally, the utility of the drawings of children, who have not been completely socialized into Western aesthetics, will be highlighted as a means of better understanding ancient images and symbols. Spatial Arrangement

Spatial patterns in ancient arts varied greatly. Whole spaces may be arranged using certain conventions

Figure 12 Inlay drawing, royal tomb of Ur dynasty, Mesopotamia, exhibiting linear arrangement of people.

Figure 13 Codex Feje´rva´ry Mayer, Mesoamerica.

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reflecting particular cultural traditions, social units, or material choices. In certain cultural traditions, objects or people may be depicted linearly, often facing to one direction (Figure 12). They may relate to one, two, or more cultural narratives, representing vertical divisions of a certain kind in the social hierarchy. In other cases, objects are drawn surrounding a central object with four different horizons integrated or scattered apparently without spatial structure (Figure 13). Some of the objects are depicted on their side or upside down on the same scene, like the deer representations in Figure 14, apparently without a consistent conception of horizontality. However, they may not have been illustrated as upside down, rather the convention may relate to a flexible perception of two-dimensional space, for which the canvas was conceived of three-dimensionally – being in Western terms, a combination of frontal view with profile and plan, as in cubism. The man standing on the right of Figure 14 also has two aspects; frontal and side views stylistically speaking. Thus, no perspective view was necessary for the ancient artist

to efficiently express a scene of hunting. Figure 13 exhibits a unique technique of what we call unfolding or rollout of a calendrical sequence, in which Mesoamerican spatial and temporal divisions of the world were ordinarily expressed with cardinal directionality, and their associated attributes such as deities or birds. All these elements were integrated in a single image. Here we can see again the fused conception of multi-horizontality, three-dimensionality, and historicity or time passage in a plan; it may remind one of what the cubists attempted in the early twentieth century. It also seems that in many ancient arts, each object was often drawn completely and rarely overlapped with other objects, as they may have been conceived of as independent. Explicit depictions of personified or deified images of natural beings are also commonly found in ancient art objects, including scenes of transformation or nahualism. As seen in Figure 13, some celestial objects like the Sun and the Moon are also depicted as personified or spiritualized beings in preindustrialized complex societies. Space management of ancient art objects is thus much more flexible, inconsistent, or ‘unreasonable’ than we may imagine from an internationally standardized Western sensibility, drawing on scientific understandings of how the natural world operates. Size and Proportion

Figure 14 Mold-made bronze ceremonial bell, Yayoi period, Japan, from Makoto Sahara.

The size of each person or object depicted on the same canvas or in an ancient art work differs greatly, not necessarily reflecting real proportions. The same adults in Figure 15 were portrayed in different sizes, although the drawing did not use perspective to show depth. This demonstrates a tendency of ancient drawing, in which important persons or objects were represented larger and centrally compared to modern drawings. Obviously, different sizes can reflect the degree of concern or importance of the persons or

Figure 15 A mural in a Korean tomb dated to the fourth century AD.

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objects depicted. Ceramics modeled with adornment on the surface of a Jomon pot from Japan (Figure 16) shows a bow and arrow pointing to a four-legged animal or a person. The importance of the bow and arrow may have made the animal/human representation much smaller than the actual size, as is suggested by Makoto Sahara. Multiple Viewpoints and Stylistic Attributes

In many cases, ancient two-dimensional drawings can be described as possessing multiple viewpoints rather than consistent single-view scenes. Some figures are drawn in frontal view, others from the side or above, as was discussed with Figures 13 and 14. It is also apparent that viewpoints vary depending on the objects being represented. In Figure 17 two people are standing in front, while a person on the extreme left side and four deer were drawn in profile, while four-legged animals on the right side and a dragonfly were represented as seen from the top within the same scene, which was engraved on a bronze bell from the Yayoi period, Japan. The pre-historic artist may simply have chosen a viewpoint which could demonstrate more comprehensively the object. The form, position, orientation, proportion, order, and other

Figure 16 Jomon pottery vessel, Japan.

Figure 17 Engraving on a bronze bell, Yayoi eriod, Japan.

stylistic attributes of the depicted objects may also depend on what the artist intended to express, no matter how inconsistent the viewpoint, form, size, proportion, direction, and other attributes were. In Figure 18 a Storm God on a Teotihuacan mural is depicted only with his head, two arms, elaborate headdress, and other ornamentation attached to the upper body in the central area of the mural. Below this, two legs are depicted; however, a torso is clearly missing if we consider this deity as a full-bodied representation. Maybe, the body was not important in comparison to the head with his identifiable symbolic complex, or this instance may have comprised a unique cultural convention at Teotihuacan. Historicity in Space

Image complexes are often used to describe the history of a society or narrative of an individual or god. Particular crucial moments or events may be represented together as a processual sequence on the same scene or sheet to represent the society’s central value systems like religion, myth, legend, royal history, worldview, ethos, and other ideological factors. The same trends can be observed in an individual account composed of a series of depictions about the birth of a divine entity, the Crucifixion or the Resurrection of Christ, the moment of spiritual enlightenment, or Nirvana in Buddhism. A long migration history of the Aztec tribes beginning from the legendary island of Aztlan and ending with the foundation account of the capital was

Figure 18 Teotihuacan mural depicting Storm God.

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Figure 19 Migration scene from the Codex Boturini, Mexico.

illustrated as a historical document, combined with a map-like rollout, together recorded on a long sheet (Figure 19). In this Codex Boturini, the act of rowing the boat symbolizing the departure, footprints signifying journey, and other subsequent incidents in the narrative evidently refer to a nomadic life and its progression over time. The sheet serves as a descriptive device of legend, history, chronology, and map simultaneously, successfully registering both temporal and spatial information. Consequently, the drawing illustrates an ‘inconsistent’ (from a Western perspective) sense of horizon, directionality, formality, proportionality, and other features described above.

R

Z

S

Figure 20 Differences in drawing related to handedness.

Right or Left Handedness

In primitive hand drawings or paintings from ancient societies, it is possible to infer whether the author was right- or left-handed. (Figure 20) A right-hander tends to draw sloping lines from the top-right down to the bottom-left. Scrolls are drawn in the direction of the letter ‘S’; animals are drawn preferentially with their head on the left side facing toward the left. On the contrary, a left-hander tends to draw sloping lines from the top-left down to the bottom-right; scrolls appear in a ‘Z’ direction; and animal heads are drawn facing to the right consistently unless the directionality was determined by other factors. This general trend is often useful to conceive the authorship of ancient art works, and to compare them with others from associated groups or individuals. Comparison with Child Drawings

Analysis of the drawings of children may be useful to better understand certain features of ancient art works since they both expose explicitly the intention of the drawings without the restrictions of Western conventions, such as a sense of realism or perspective views, as originally suggested by S. Makoto and others. All drawings presented here (Figures 21–23)

L

Figure 21 Child drawing: lacking torso.

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Figure 22 Child drawing: varied sizes of objects.

were drawn by Thai children from Pai village of 4–6 years. A man in Figure 21 shows a disproportional face, arms and legs, and lacks a torso completely. The face was fairly realistically illustrated, and we may therefore think that he (or she) was a central figure for the child. This reminds us of the representation of Storm God from the Teotihuacan mural, which also lacks a torso (Figure 18). The varied size of independently drawn objects can be observed in Figure 22 where a chicken, a dog, a house, and a rabbit were disproportionately drawn; all facing toward the left (therefore, the author may be righthanded). The rabbit might have had special significance in this scene. Aligned dots near the entrance to the house may signify footprints, suggesting movement. Therefore, it can be argued that a certain span of time may have been involved conceptually. In Figure 23, unrealistic size proportions can again be observed among the rabbit, fish, house, tree, and flower. The fact that animals are facing to the left and that the scrolls appear in an ‘S’ direction, also suggest right-handedness. In this child’s drawing, the personification of the Sun can be seen by a human face illustrated inside of the solar disk. Developing childhood cognitive systems, flexibility, and intuitive space management may be parallel to human’s evolving cognition capacity recorded archaeologically in hominid material culture, and their lack of full immersion into Western aesthetics may be parallel to nonWestern art observed in the archaeological record. Image and symbol systems, including language, were created during an early stage of human evolutionary history. They became one of the most important and powerful tools to conceive of the outside world, and to express and communicate comprehensively and flexibly with the community’s members regarding worldview, religious thought, legends, histories, or other kinds of value systems and fundamental ideological and social matters. In general terms, it can be said that the relations between the signifier (image and symbol) and signified (intended meanings and implied functions) may have developed as social organizations and cultural traditions became more complex, larger, or longer lived.

Figure 23 Child drawing: unrealistic size proportions.

Particularly, writing systems clearly became a powerful tool for ideological and social transactions in pre-industrial complex societies. Abundant pictographic information, therefore, can provide us references for the study of the human capacity for communication, developing cognitive systems, intelligence, and its inter-relation with social organization. It should be stressed that to better understand ancient images and symbols the motivation or intended meaning (signified) must be seen as a primary factor determining the object, shape, space distribution, size, proportion, viewpoint, color, or other features of it signifier. The art styles of ancient images and symbols look quite different from those

1508 INDIVIDUAL, ARCHAEOLOGY OF IN PREHISTORY

we currently conceive of in the Western tradition. However, the drawings of modern children seem to be comparable to ancient ones to a certain degree in some of their aspects. In archaeology, it is possible to partially reconstruct the cultural contexts in which image and symbol were created, and the relation between the signifier and signified should be evaluated, sometimes freely from our embedded Westerners art standards and ‘common senses,’ for a better understanding of culture and social histories in comparative contexts. See also: Archaeoastronomy; Cognitive Archaeology; Identity and Power; Landscape Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Rock Art; Writing Systems.

Indigenous Archaeology

Further Reading Renfrew C and Scarre C (eds.) (1998) Cognition and Material Culture: the Archaeology of Symbolic Storage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller D and Tilley C (eds.) (1984) Ideology, Power and Prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geertz C (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Hodder I and Hutson S (2003) Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hodder I, Shanks M, Alexandri A, et al. (1995) Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past. New York: Routledge. Sugiyama S (2005) Human Sacrifice, Warfare, and Rulership at Teotihuacan: Materialization of Ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sahara M (2005) Archaeology of Fine Art. Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten. (in Japanese).

See: Native Peoples and Archaeology.

Indigenous Rights and Archaeology

See: Who Owns the Past?.

INDIVIDUAL, ARCHAEOLOGY OF IN PREHISTORY Carolyn L White, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary behavioral ecology The study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for human behavior and the relationship between human adaptation and the environment. causality The relationship between cause and effect. In an archaeological sense, the relationship between the material data and the actions that produced those data. chaıˆne ope´ratoire An approach to studying the production of lithic material through a reconstruction of raw material procurement, reduction technology, use, and discard. identity A set of practices, ideas, meanings, or ideologies held by a particular group of people. multivocality The use or incorporation of many voices or perspectives and an understanding of the multiple interpretations possible for a given scenario.

narrative A particular story or communicated account that positions people within a historical context. neolithic A period beginning approximately 12 000 years ago marked by the domestication of animals, the development of agriculture, and the manufacture of pottery and textiles. New Archaeology A reorientation of archaeology that began in the 1960s, which adheres to an explicitly scientific, problemoriented, deductive approach to research. paradigm A working set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality. self-reflexivity An awareness of the role of the author (i.e., the archaeologist or anthropologist) in the creation of the data and interpretation of a particular site, culture, or research problem. structuralism A theoretical perspective that maintains that there are unobservable social structures (i.e., regular patterns or sets of practices) that people hold within a given society and those structures generate observable social phenomena that can illuminate those structures. social stratification The presence of a hierarchical arrangement of social strata within a society where various strata have unequal access to resources.

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Introduction Archaeologists by necessity move between the general and specific in excavating individual sites and relating those sites to broader interpretations and generalizing observations of the past over vast spaces and time periods. The archaeological record consists of materials made, used, lost, broken, and abandoned by individuals, and the role of the individual as a component of causality is widely recognized as a key factor in the creation of archaeological sites. The individual scale has been taken up by some, but larger scales of analysis are often preferred by archaeologists on account of many difficulties and restrictions that exist on the individual scale. Preservation conditions are often incompatible with the individual scale, making differentiation between occupation episodes elusive and the fine-grained analysis that the individual scale demands evasive. In a different sense, the individual scale has been rejected by other archaeologists who prefer to strive for broader, more general (and more widely applicable) interpretations about the past. Archaeological interest in identity, narrative, selfreflexivity, multivocality, and individualism is paralleled by social anthropology’s increasing distrust of ideas of peoples, institutions, communities, and classes as coherent entities, and marked by a return to life histories as an ethnographic endeavor. Interest in the individual level of scale, and in the role of particular individuals in the archaeological record, is hardly a recent trend; however, as interest in exposing the role of the individual has propelled a variety of lines of research, beginning with the New Archaeology. Recently, concern with gender, age, ethnicity, status, religion, and other aspects of identity – and the broader contributions of these features – has catalyzed research in the individual scale of analysis and in the recognition of difference in the archaeological record.

Approaches to the Individual Approaches to understanding the individual in prehistory vary according to time and place and theoretical perspective. Structuralist approaches employ the individual to access the collective. Evolutionary approaches view the individual, rather than the group, as the primary locus of selections. In considering the individual, the relationship between individual people and aggregate data is critical and the role that grouping people together has in understanding the past affects the models that are developed. Many have examined the collective experience, but the individual scale is critical to the construction of the collective. In the prehistoric past, archaeologists rely on various traceable aspects of human behavior. Choice

of raw materials, functional differentiations, formal characteristics of tools, production techniques and intentional behavior, and food acquisition serve as focuses of archaeological research. The very question of whether the archaeological record can reveal individual events, and by extension, individual lives, deeply affects the extent to which the individual has been taken up within various subfields. Is the archaeological record too coarse grained to record individual events? Some characterize the prehistoric archaeological record as snapshots of various points through time. The various timescales that are addressed across regions, continents, and millions of years provide an uneven record, at best. Some timescales permit ready accessibility to the individual scale of analysis, whereas others are judged to better serve a more aggregate perspective. In general, archaeological research is conducted within research structures established by the paths developed by previous scholars, defined by sets of research questions that have been pursued for years. Within these established research paradigms, it has proven challenging for some scholars to address the concept of the individual, on account of the way that those structures are configured. Recent work in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic has made those structures and strictures plain, and has attempted to focus on individual lives in order to throw both the biased expectations and individual lives into relief. One of the many ways that archaeologists have addressed the individual in the archaeological record is to attempt to connect large-scale research questions with the idea of individual choice. In prehistoric North America, a behavioral ecological approach to prehistoric mobile groups guides a substantial pool of research. Within the context of behavioral ecology, there has been a tendency to focus on the behavior of the group; nonetheless, there is general acknowledgement that individual variation affects the ways that ideas are transmitted. The role of inter- and intragroup variability is widely acknowledged to be critical in influencing culture, though some archaeologists have found the condition of the archaeological record an insurmountable obstacle to accessing this level of analysis. Yet, researchers engaged in examining the shift to foraging practices acknowledge the role of individual decisions in the arrival at significant cultural shifts.

Methods There have been a variety of approaches to the study of individuals that reflect the shifting conceptualization of the idea and relevance of the individual and the examination of the archaeological record at this scale. Refitting studies, material culture analyses,

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burial data, interest in the body, and the examination of specific individuals are but a few realms within which the individual has been placed at center stage. One area of the individual scale that has been used with success has been that of refitting studies, and the use of such data to reach the individual scale of analysis. This examination of high-resolution data shows individual actions through time by taking objects that individuals shaped in the course of the construction/ manipulation of a single object. The examination of knapping scatters, the use of chaıˆne ope´ratoire to study the processes by which individual people made tools in single episodes, and an investigation of site formation processes using this data have created fine-grained, detailed information about the individual actions of single persons. These studies have led some scholars to examine individual sites in detailed ways in order to gain access into ‘particular’ high-resolution events. Scholars have examined the preferences and rules that guide the selection and discard of particular sorts of raw materials. Part of this effort seeks to assess and differentiate between the practices determined by individual preferences and which practices conform to embedded rules. This research attempts to see individuals as organizing agents at high-resolution sites. Along related lines, artifact studies have been a focus of interest for the examination of the individual in terms of artifact manufacture and stylistic variation (see Artifacts, Overview). North American archaeologists have attempted to explore the role of individual preference via the examination of artifacts, conducting statistical, mathematical, and qualitative analysis to understand variability in all manner of artifacts groups (lithics, ceramics, perishable materials, etc.). The impetus behind this research principally has been to separate change and variation created by individual preference from the broader cultural changes that are reflected in differences in artifact styles (see Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis; Stylistic; Vitreous Materials Analysis). Modes of burial, treatment at death, and the material goods interred with individual people provide information about social stratification, inequality, leadership, and many more aspects of life that relate to the status of individual people within their broader society (see Burials: Excavation and Recording Techniques). Archaeologists in southwestern and midwestern North America have examined these issues intensively. Burial data, both material culture and human remains, provide important information rank and placement of individuals within a broader community. Furthermore, human remains reveal

information about a very wide range of aspects of life in the past: disease, nutrition, work tasks, and gender, to name but a few. In this research, the results of individual bodies is brought together to reconstruct the more broadly drawn life of a community. Recent interest in the role of the body relates to aspects of social stratification and issues of identity. The materiality of the body, and the potentials and limitations applied to the body based on things like age, sex, race, and gender, have been fruitful avenues of research. Much of this work has been based on burial evidence, but scholars have also looked at personal adornment, the scale and movement of bodies through structures and landscapes, and more philosophical conceptualizations of what it means within to live in a body. In addition, the relationship between the body, the individual form, and the rendering of individual people in two and three dimensions is a recent line of interest. Finally, the identification of a Neolithic individual – ‘Otzi the Iceman’ – provides unparalleled information about Neolithic life. The extraordinary preservation of tools and other kinds of material culture, as well as the clothing and other objects worn on the body, and the information drawn from the body itself, provide information about this single person, but also provide unequalled information about the broader society from which this person came. See also: Artifacts, Overview; Burials: Excavation and

Recording Techniques; Engendered Archaeology; Ethnicity; Identity and Power; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis; Stylistic; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Social Inequality, Development of.

Further Reading Gamble C and Porr M (eds.) (2005) The Hominid Individual in Context: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Landscapes, Locales and Artifacts. London: Routledge. Hamiliakis Y, Pluciennik M, and Tarlow S (eds.) (2002) Thinking Through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Hill JN and Gunn J (eds.) (1977) The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies. New York: Academic Press. Kelly R (1995) The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in HunterGatherer Lifeways. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Mithen S (1996) The Prehistory of the Mind: The Coginitive Origins or Art, Religion, and Science. London: Routledge. Pauketat TR and Loren DD (eds.) (2005) North American Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Strathern M (2004) The whole person and its artifacts. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 1–19.

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INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY Marilyn Palmer, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary historical archaeology The archaeology of the period after c. AD 1450 in the Old World, and of the period after European contact in the New World, up to and including the present. industrial archaeology A multidisciplinary approach to the study, interpretation and in selected cases, preservation of the technological, economic, and social evidence for the period of industrialization from c. 1750 to the present day. post-medieval archaeology the archaeology of Europe, particularly the UK, between the end of the Middle Ages and the mid-eighteenth century (c. AD 1450–1750).

Introduction The archaeological study of the physical evidence of recent industrial activity has been one of the most important developments in archaeology, at least in Britain, in the second half of the twentieth century. Industrial archaeology has been transformed from a fringe activity in the 1950s to an internationally recognized element of the discipline of archaeology, demonstrated by the large number of cultural landscapes designated as World Heritage sites by UNESCO which have industrial activity at their heart (Figure 1). In this, however, lies the dichotomy of industrial archaeology – it is both an academic study of the ways in which people lived and worked in the past through the physical remains which survive into the present and at the same time a conservation movement to protect and interpret those remains (see World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws). Obviously, the two aspects come together: it is impossible to interpret industrial monuments unless they are understood through archaeological and historical study. But the popular and even the professional conception of industrial archaeology has tended to adopt its meaning as a movement to conserve the industrial past, which would be better termed ‘industrial heritage’, rather than its meaning as the study of the ways people worked in the past. This has hindered its acceptance at the academic level and it is only in the last two decades (1990s–2000s) that it has made considerable headway in this direction. Nevertheless, the emphasis on conservation and preservation of sites currently distinguishes industrial archaeology from both postmedieval and historical archaeology, and has led to a greater retention of volunteer interest, reflected in the contrasting nature of the membership of the two

major British societies concerned with the study of the recent past, the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA) and the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA). The latter was set up in 1973 to represent the interests of industrial archaeology. It still attempts to hold a balance between the volunteers, who have dominated industrial archaeology in the past, and the professionals, who are playing an increasingly important role. However, volunteers still account for the majority of labor at working sites. In 1998, English Heritage undertook research to quantify volunteer effort in industrial heritage activity in the UK, and their report (Public Access to England’s Industrial Heritage) concluded that there was a total volunteer workforce of some 11 600 participating in the preservation and operation of industrial heritage sites in England, amounting to some £5.8 million pounds in value. The AIA publishes the premier British journal in the field, Industrial Archaeology Review. In the USA, too, a similar contrast exists between the membership and publications of the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Society for Industrial Archaeology, the latter being founded in 1971 and from 1975 publishing Industrial Archeology, edited by Patrick Martin of Michigan Technological University. In 1983, the journal World Archaeology devoted a volume to industrial archaeology (vol. 15. no. 2, 1983). In his overall survey of world industrial archaeology, the economic historian Walter Minchinton said that industrial archaeology had been one of the more successful British postwar exports but that he hoped that a similar survey in 10 years time would be able to report on a more extensive geographical activity, a widened topical scope and a greater professionalism in industrial archaeology throughout the world. More than 20 years on, this article takes up this challenge. It first considers the genesis and significance of these two meanings of industrial archaeology in a section on ‘Origins, definitions, and scope’. A second section considers the subject matter of the discipline, while a final section deals with the changes brought about by the dramatic development of contract archaeology in the 1990s and the need for research strategies to help eliminate the fragmentation created by such an approach.

Origins, Definitions, and Scope Industrial archaeology originated in Britain in the 1950s, after the postwar preoccupation with renewal had led to the destruction of much of the landscape

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Figure 1 The Iron Bridge across the Severn Gorge in Shropshire, the world’s first iron bridge, cast in Abraham Darby’s Coalbrookdale foundry in 1777 and erected in 1779. Now in the care of English Heritage, the bridge was originally saved by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and is the centerpiece of an industrial landscape accorded World Heritage status.

associated with early industrialization. It is generally agreed that the term was first used in print by Michael Rix of the University of Birmingham Extra-mural Department in an article in The Amateur Historian, one of a sequence of articles dealing with various periods of archaeology. The banner was taken up in the UK by Kenneth Hudson in his Industrial Archaeology: an Introduction (John Baker, 1963), J. M. Pannell’s The Techniques of Industrial Archaeology (David and Charles, 1966), and Angus Buchanan in the Pelican Industrial Archaeology in Britain (1972). Industrial Archaeology and Historical Archaeology

In the 1950s, there was no systematic investigation of the physical remains of the recent industrial past in the UK, since the peculiarly British ‘postmedieval archaeology’ generally concerned itself with the period from c. 1450 to c. 1750. The term ‘historical archaeology’ was not generally used in the UK until comparatively recently, even when it became current in the USA and Australia from the 1970s. This is partly because the written history of Europe goes back into classical times and ‘historical archaeology’ could be used to refer to any period where texts and physical evidence can be used in conjunction, for example, as in the Greek and Roman periods. Industrial archaeology was therefore an appropriate term for the study of the classic period of industrialization from c. 1750 onwards. Some early practitioners of industrial archaeology, however, argued that the discipline was a thematic rather than a chronological one and could range from the prehistoric to the modern

period, notably Arthur Raistrick in his Industrial Archaeology: an Historical Survey (Eyre Methuen, 1972). It is now generally accepted that industrial archaeology is the systematic study of standing, as well as subsurface, structures of the classic period of industrialization from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. What characterizes this period is capital investment on a large scale in both buildings and machinery and the consequent organization of the labor force to maximize production. It is with this development that industrial archaeology is largely concerned, although it must be recognized firstly that ‘industrialization’, in this sense, began earlier in some industries than others and that therefore an interpretation of a particular site or industry may need to go back to the seventeenth century or earlier. Secondly, it is clear that the domestic or home-based method of production continued to coexist with factory production, albeit with many changes in the lifestyle of the workforce. The purpose of industrial archaeology, then, is to make use of a multidisciplinary approach, involving site and building survey, photography, stratigraphy, artifacts, landscapes, documentary research, and oral history to study, interpret, and, in some cases, preserve the physical evidence of the vast social and economic changes which have overtaken society in the past 250 years or so. It is generally concerned with the evidence for people at work and so defines a type of human activity rather than a type of site, since ‘work’, even after the so-called Industrial Revolution, could be based in domestic as well as nondomestic locations.

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In areas of the world with a shorter written history, historical archaeology was taken to embrace the study of industrial sites and artifacts. It was pointed out by Ian Jack and Judy Birmingham in Australian Pioneer Technology: Sites and Relics (1979) that the use of the term ‘industrial archaeology’ in Australia was inappropriate since the time span of British industrial archaeology embraced the whole of Australian history since European settlement. In the USA, many historical archaeologists also did not see the need for a different term for the study of industrial sites, since again the majority of their work was concerned with the colonial era and its implications. This point was put forward vehemently in a paper by Vincent Foley in an early (1968) issue of Historical Archaeology (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline). He argued that ‘‘the archaeologist must dig for his data. The ‘industrial archaeologist’ is performing archaeology when he excavates a site. He is not an archaeologist, however, if this excavation is only occasional or accidental to his normal method of procuring data.’’ Foley was strongly opposed by a fellow American, Robert Vogel (who went on to play a major role in American industrial archaeology), who argued in the subsequent issue of Historical Archaeology that it was equally important to record, understand, and interpret aboveground structures, taking as an example the ruinous structures of the Tredegar ironworks in Richmond, Virginia, a bastion of Confederate ordnance production. Donald Hardesty, in his classic The Archaeology of Mining and Miners: A View from the Silver State (SHA, 1988), pointed out that so often the standing buildings, machinery, and landscape features characteristic of many British industrial sites did not survive on US mining sites but ‘‘they are rich in trash dumps, residential house foundations, privies and other remains of the miners themselves’’ and that therefore excavation was essential. In the UK, though, aboveground remains undoubtedly formed the basis of most British industrial archaeology in the first 30 years of its existence as a discipline and the material culture of the workforce, which might have been obtained through systematic excavation, was neglected. The secondary role of excavation in industrial archaeology undoubtedly hindered its acceptance as a legitimate form of archaeology for several decades but – at least in Europe – this is now less of a problem since nondestructive activities such as landscape and earthwork survey and building analysis have become fully accepted aspects of archaeological work. More serious, though, was the fact that industrial archaeology concentrated on the technological analysis of specific industrial sites and areas and failed to consider the behavioral aspects of material culture or the processes of culture change. This justifiable

criticism has only begun to be remedied in the 1990s and 2000s, when the advent of ‘interpretive’ or ‘postprocessual’ approaches led to increasing concern with questions of power and inequality, labor relations, and class formation which are central research themes for industrial archaeology, as in Paul Shackel’s 1996 Culture Change and the New Technology: An Archaeology of the Early American Industrial Era. This development clearly brought industrial archaeology into a much closer relationship with existing subdiscipline of historical archaeology, as already practiced in North America, and Australasia. Industrial Archaeology and Industrial Heritage

The initial impetus for industrial archaeology in the UK was, then, the attempt to study, catalog, and preserve selected relics of the period when Britain was the world leader in the process of industrialization. It was a spontaneous growth, resulting in volunteer activity on a considerable scale in both preservation and recording. The Council for British Archaeology, which represents both amateurs and professionals, tried to give some shape to the enthusiasm for industrial archaeology by the introduction of standardized record cards, completed by volunteers. This grew into the National Record of Industrial Monuments based first at the University of Bath under Angus Buchanan and later subsumed into the National Monuments Record (NMR) of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME). Gazetteers of important industrial sites were built up on a county basis, many of which have found their way into local Sites and Monuments Records (now Historic Environment Records) and achieved a measure of recognition, if not always protection. English Heritage in the 1990s sought to take this activity to a national level by means of the Industrial Monuments Protection Programme, initially designed to update the lists of Ancient Monuments but resulting in some fundamental research on specific industries, especially in the extractive industries where landscape change threatened many sites. Unfortunately, the funding for this project was brought to an end prematurely in 2005 and the large amount of information gathered not adequately disseminated. Similar national recording programs of industrial sites have been carried out in other parts of the UK, especially in Northern Ireland where the government funded an official survey following a pilot study of County Down which had been carried out by E. R. R. Green in the late 1950s (Green was also to edit the first major series of regional industrial archaeology guides in the UK published by David and Charles). W. D. McCutcheon carried out this survey in the 1960s but his important The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland was not published until 1980 (Figure 2). Similar

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Figure 2 Wellbrook Beetling mill in Northern Ireland, a small water-powered mill for beetling or refining woven linen cloth, now in the possession of The National Trust.

work was carried out on the threatened coal industry by the statutory organizations in England, Scotland, and Wales while Stephen Hughes’ magisterial study for the Welsh Royal Commission of the threatened landscape of ‘Copperopolis’, the lower Swansea Valley in South Wales, set new standards for the recording of industrial buildings in their cultural context. Colin Rynne of the University of Cork in Ireland, who has carried out some important recording work and published in 2006, Industrial Ireland 1750–1930: an Archaeology, has pointed out that Ireland was regarded as a colony and that its industrial heritage has also to be thought of as ‘British’, an argument that could be extended into the Caribbean and parts of the eastern USA as well as Australia. Inventory work on industrial sites followed in Europe, generally with more professional and less amateur involvement than in the UK. Although French historians had for a long time been interested in industrial history, little notice was taken of industrial sites until the 1970s and it was not until 1983 that the Inventaire Ge´ne´rale began to include industrial sites with the foundation of an industrial heritage group within it, the Cellule du Patrimoine Industriel. A longterm project to create a national database of French industrial sites was initiated in 1986, and a similar database project was begun in the Netherlands where responsibility for the industrial heritage passed to the Projectbureau Industrieel Erfgoed (PIE), created in 1992. In Belgium, various categories of industrial building have been surveyed, particularly watermills and windmills, and a national survey published by Patrick Viaene in 1986. The Scandinavian countries have an important industrial heritage, particularly in

mining of copper and iron, which is increasingly being recognized as significant by their governments and both Rrs in Norway and Falun in Sweden have been designated as World Heritage sites (Figure 3). In Norway, buildings and sites of industrial interest have been recorded both by the Council for Culture and the Norwegian Technical Museum, while in Sweden, motivated by Professor Marie Nisser, the Central Office of National Antiquities is monitoring various recording initiatives. Further afield, industrial archaeology in the heritage sense has made rapid progress in Australia since the 1960s with the Australian National Trust publishing lists of industrial sites and conserving many of them at state level, notably the important mining landscapes of gold, copper, and silver at Moonta and Ballarat. In the United States, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) was created in the 1930s but responsibility for recording industrial buildings and machinery is now shared by the Historical American Engineering Record (HAER), established in 1969 under the aegis of the National Park Service, which itself dates back to 1916. The records are maintained by the Library of Congress in what is termed ‘preservation by documentation’, a concept similar to that of the British National Monuments Records. Preservation itself has undoubtedly played a more major role in industrial archaeology than in other forms of archaeology since its inception and this has, of course, meant that sites are often not excavated below what is felt to be the best level for public appreciation. For example, a steel cementation furnace in Sheffield was excavated to the level at which it had been truncated rather than destroy it to find any

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Figure 3 Copper mining and smelting have dominated the Norwegian town of Røros since its foundation in the late-seventeenth century. Below the slag heaps are the ramshackle wooden workers’ houses with their grassed roofs, while the company town is dominated by the late-eighteenth century Baroque church. Mining continued in Røros well into the twentieth century, but the importance of the town’s historic remains were carefully conserved and accorded World Heritage status in 1982.

Figure 4 One of a row of eight mid-nineteenth century cementation furnaces from the Brightside Works in Sheffield, excavated by ARCUS, the Archaeological Unit of the University of Sheffield (by permission of ARCUS, Sheffield).

possible earlier remains (Figure 4). In Sweden, the medieval iron furnace at Lapphyttan was fully excavated archaeologically to understand more about the origins of blast furnace technology whereas the important standing structures of the iron making complex at Engelsberg, now a World Heritage Site, have been retained as industrial monuments in order to further public understanding of Sweden’s internationally important iron industry. In Poland, recording programs have been carried out on the numerous

surviving headgears associated with the coal industry in the region around Katowice with a view to preserving the most important of these. Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK have cooperated in an important new initiative, the European Route of the Industrial Heritage http://en.erih.net which links sites in all three countries, although the selection of sites is somewhat esoteric. In the USA, the National Parks Service has undertaken the consolidation and in some cases, the complete reconstruction of important

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industrial monuments, such as the early iron making furnaces at Saugus north of Boston and Hopewell in Pennsylvania and the site of Washington’s National Armory and Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. The involvement of historical archaeologists has led to a greater concentration on the workforce involved at such sites, something that was neglected until recently in British studies, although the work of ARCUS, the Sheffield-based archaeological contract unit, has begun to correct the over-concentration in the UK on technological detail as opposed to the human face of industrial archaeology, (as can be seen in The Historical Archaeology of the Sheffield Cutlery and Tableware Industry 1750–1900, edited in 2002 by James Symonds.). However, the way forward in the large-scale conservation of industrial sites and structures can only be through the process of ‘adaptive reuse’. Many are unsuitable for this technique, although exciting projects for the reuse of nineteenth century steelcased blast furnaces are already in place in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, and in the Landschaftspark near Duisburg in Germany, the former serving as a theater and the latter being used for a variety of recreational purposes, including a climbing wall in the ore store and diving training taking place in one of the now flooded gas holders. However, warehouses, malthouses, and textile mills are increasingly being converted for housing and there have been some spectacular conversions for retail use, such as the former chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. Industrial archaeologists must continue to press for and be involved in adequate archaeological recording of both buildings and their context prior to such conversions; preservation per se needs be selective but preservation by record is essential. Industrial archaeology is then a discipline in tension which seeks to maintain a balance between investigative techniques which can lead to destruction of sites and the preservation of sites and structures for posterity.

The Industrial Past: Buildings, Landscapes, Artifacts, and Documents Buildings

Since industrial archaeology began as a campaign to preserve, or at least to record, selected sites and structures deriving from the industrial past, more attention has been paid to the study of standing buildings than is true for most periods of archaeology. Industrial buildings are the visible symbol of the processes of

production in both space and time, and the analysis of these buildings requires the use of the archaeological concepts of function, context, and typology. The industrial archaeologist has to be able to recognize the buildings characteristic of particular industries in order to determine their function by examining form and topographical context. Typological sequences of structures such as lime, pottery, or brick kilns can help establish relative dates although in many cases the technology used was that deemed appropriate for the purpose: for example, primitive temporary clamps for brick manufacture were built alongside the construction sites of railway tunnels or canal locks in the nineteenth century for speed and convenience even though far more sophisticated methods of production were available. The final stage of the analysis involves the study of the building in its cultural context, attempting to understand its symbolism in terms of power structures and employer–worker relationships within the industry with which it was associated. The volunteer nature of early industrial archaeology meant that most of the fieldwork was site specific, consisting of studies of individual sites and buildings which were published in both regional and local journals. Widespread industrial change toward the end of the twentieth century, however, led to many types of industrial buildings and structures becoming redundant and in danger of demolition without record at the same time. Regional and national surveys were only possible with public funding and an excellent example of such work in the UK are the three volumes on textile mills published in the 1990s by RCHME on West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and Cheshire, together with extensive recording in the Derwent valley of Derbyshire and yet unpublished work on southwest England (Figure 5). Valuable though these were, little attention was paid to any form of spatial analysis to try to determine how the workforce functioned within them. In this respect, the work of the architectural historian Robert Markus in his 1993 Buildings and Power has been influential in encouraging research students to attempt such analysis, for example, the work of Ian Mellor on various Yorkshire textile mills. In the USA, Mary Beaudry and Stephen Mzrowski have gone further in their multidisciplinary study of the textile town of Lowell in Massachusetts, demonstrating how the form of the settlement expressed the corporate image sought by the entrepreneurs who built the mills, with the female workforce safely ensconced in boarding houses (Figure 6). Patterns of settlement are as important in this period as in earlier periods of history in indicating economic and social organization, and

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Figure 5 A reconstruction drawing of Lombe’s pioneering silk mill at Derby as it may have appeared in 1721. The workforce operated in a space dictated by the circular and transverse silk throwing and twisting machines, which were themselves dependent on the power of the great waterwheel. (RCHME, ã Crown Copyright)

Figure 6 A bird’s eye view of part of Lowell, Massachusetts, by Bailey and Hazah 1876. The Boot Mills are shown between the river and the Eastern Canal, while at right angles to these are the eight rows of boarding houses in which female mill workers were housed.

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much more work is being carried out on domestic housing, one of the earliest studies being Lucy Caffyn’s Workers’ Housing of West Yorkshire (1986). It has also been increasingly recognized that industrial activities persisted on a domestic basis long after the introduction of the factory, and Paul Barnwell, Marilyn Palmer, and Malcolm Airs in 2004 brought together summaries of work being carried out in The Vernacular Workshop, while Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson continued this in their 2005 The Textile Industry of South-west England: a Social Archaeology. Landscape Archaeology

The first use of the term industrial archaeology in print in 1955 coincided with the publication of W. G. Hoskins’ seminal Making of the English Landscape which popularized ‘landscape history’. Hoskins resented the intrusion of large-scale industrialization into the self-sufficient village communities in which he was interested but he did appreciate the potential of industrial archaeology to recreate a particular stage in the development of past society when industry was part of the rural economy. Landscape to both the historian and the archaeologist is the physical manifestation of changes wrought by man in both space and time. Buildings in their relationship to one another and to their topographical setting are part of landscape, and one of the major reasons for studying industrial landscapes is to transform a collection of individual structures into a coherent whole which has meaning in both technological and cultural terms. Technologically, the interrelationship of buildings and features in the landscape is usually determined by sequences of industrial production and the adaptation of these to local environmental conditions. Culturally, these interrelationships can reveal systems of industrial organization and social relationships, particularly those between the employer and his workforce. The task of the industrial archaeologist is to analyze the industrial landscape in terms of both the spatial and the sequential relationships of structures and features in order to illuminate the process of industrialization. Increasing professional activity has begun to reverse the site-specific tendency of early industrial archaeology, and most fieldwork and research programs now reach beyond the structures of prime technological significance to consider their wider context, examining sources of raw materials, provision of power, transport systems, associated industry and accommodation, as in Barry Trinder’s The Making of the Industrial Landscape and Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson’s Industry in the Landscape, 1700–1900. Studies of industrial landscapes

normally take one of two forms: limited surveys of features associated with a particular site or structure or extensive surveys of whole areas. An outstanding example of the former in the UK is the work carried out by Wayne Cocroft, formerly of RCHME, on the extensive and complex site of the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey in Essex, published in 2000 as Dangerous Energy. This exemplified the problems of determining both spatial and sequential relationships in the landscape, since it included a multiplicity of different buildings and earthworks and had a chronological depth from the mid-seventeenth to the end of the twentieth century. On a broader scale, Judith Alfrey and Kate Clark’s Nuffield-funded survey of the internationally important landscape of the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire in the late 1980s sought to reveal change over time by means of detailed plot surveys making use of both historic maps and the contemporary landscape. Mark Bowden and Ian Goodall of English Heritage undertook an important survey of the Furness district of Cumbria to identify the relationships in the landscape between the surviving iron furnaces, the associated charcoal pitsteads and the sledways and tracks used for transporting the fuel. Considerable archaeological evidence also remained of the related woodland industries, including remnants of the huts occupied by the charcoal-burners and other itinerant woodland workers. Studies such as these are the essence of industrial archaeology, revealing both the spatial links in the landscape and the social context of technological development. Artifacts

To most historical archaeologists, artifacts comprise the main body of evidence from which information about the lifestyles of past societies is derived. Variations in the type and distribution of artifacts indicate material change and prompt investigation into its causes. Industrial archaeologists, however, have chronicled the development of the means of production in terms of changing structures but have paid less attention to the new types of artifacts produced as a result, although David Barker has worked on both the kilns and their products in the potteries of Stoke-on-Trent. This is an obvious area for cooperation between industrial and historical archaeology, since only by bringing the means of production and the products together can changes in material culture be identified and the reasons for change understood. Justine Bayley and Jim Williams of English Heritage have shown in a paper on ‘Archaeological science and industrial archaeology – manufacturing, landscape, and social context’ published in Understanding the Workplace: A Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology how scientific techniques can illuminate

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 1519

Figure 7 The strong-armed women or balmaidens employed to break up ore at tin and copper mining sites of Cornwall. The role of women in mining is often neglected but they played a major role in preparation and dressing work on the surface while their menfolk extracted ore underground.

most areas of industrial archaeology, from analysis of process residues to studies of the diet and health of the workforce. Such analyses, commonplace in historical archaeology, need to become an equally routine part of industrial archaeology although the cost of such analyses of often beyond the means of those working on industrial sites and structures. Documentary Sources

Both historical and industrial archaeology make routine use of textual evidence. The industrial period is rich in such sources but, since the majority of the workforce was illiterate until at least the end of the nineteenth century, they emanate from the employer rather than the employed. However, with the increasing tendency to give due weight to the human as well as the technological aspects of industrial archaeology, oral histories, photographs, and local collections of memorabilia all have their place in trying to bring the material record back to life (Figure 7). The definition of industrial archaeology used by The International Committee for the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) rightly stresses that the discipline makes use of all methods of investigation most suitable for to increase the understanding of the industrial past and present.

Frameworks For The Future The first half-century of industrial archaeology was, then, largely driven by the need to ensure that buildings and structures from the industrial past which still existed in the contemporary landscape were recognized and, where possible, either recorded or preserved.

Much of the impetus had come from the voluntary sector with increasing professional involvement. The 1990s, however, certainly in the UK and to some extent elsewhere, witnessed a fundamental change in the funding of archaeology. In the UK, this has been expressed as ‘the polluter pays’, much archaeological work no longer being driven by research needs but by rescue priorities in advance of development and funded by the developers themselves. Although this has undoubtedly resulted in a vast increase in the amount of archaeological work undertaken on both sites and buildings, it has also led to profound criticisms that research – or the increase of knowledge and understanding – is no longer the imperative of most archaeological work that is now carried out, largely by contract archaeologists whose numbers have dramatically increased. It was to counter such criticism that English Heritage undertook a program leading to the publication of both regional and national research frameworks into which discoveries made through developer-funded work could be integrated. The regional research frameworks so far published in the UK have sections on both post-Medieval and industrial archaeology, while the AIA, in conjunction with English Heritage, published in 2005 Understanding the Workplace: A Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in Britain, edited by David Gwyn and Marilyn Palmer. This concentrated on the role of human agency in industrial archaeology, the term ‘workplace’ implying not only a building in which work has taken place but also the people who operated within that workplace to carry out the processes. It is not a comprehensive agenda, omitting many themes

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such as landscape characterization, the extractive industries, and the analysis of artifacts, and needs to be read alongside David Barker and David Cranstone’s 2004 edited volume, The Archaeology of Industrialization, which emanated from a conference jointly organized between the Association for Industrial Archaeology and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology at Bristol in 1998. The increasing involvement of professional archaeologists in industrial archaeology has also led to some useful developments in methodology, none more so than that devised by Michael Nevell and John Walker of Manchester University Archaeological Unit. They plotted when new types of industrial site first appeared in the landscape and then ascribed their introduction to one of the three social classes identified in the region, lords, freeholders, and tenants. This Manchester Methodology may not be applicable to areas with a less-defined social structure but resulted in industrial monuments being firmly embedded in the social archaeology of the region rather than just being seen for their technological importance in the development of industrialization. At the same time, industrial archaeology was securing a foothold in academia and Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson put forward in Industrial Archaeology: Principles and Practice a theoretical approach to industrial archaeology which stressed the role of human agency in site formation. This agenda has been carried forward by contributors to the session of the Theoretical Archaeology Group which was published in 2005 as Industrial Archaeology: New Directions, edited by Eleanor Casella and James Symonds. Both publications stress the need to consider the significance of industrial sites within a framework of inference which seeks to establish social as well as economic and technological significance. Industrial archaeology in the sense of an academic study as opposed to a preservation movement has been moving much closer to historical archaeology as it is now conceived, with the term now becoming more widely used in the UK and perhaps subsuming both post-Medieval and industrial archaeology.

Conclusion Has, in fact, the term ‘industrial archaeology’ now outlived its usefulness? Should it instead be termed ‘later historical archaeology’ or ‘modern historical archaeology’, which defines the discipline as the study of material culture within a textual framework but also gives it a period definition? This would not be a popular solution, however, as Keith Falconer of English Heritage has said,

‘‘just as Britain is perceived to have pioneered the industrial revolution and have bequeathed industrialization to the world two centuries ago, so, in the last half century there is a similar perception that this country has pioneered and given the subject of industrial archaeology to the world.’’

Rather, we may have to continue to operate on two levels: the acceptance of a term such as ‘later historical archaeology’ for the academic study of the archaeology of industrialization, but a continuing popular recognition of ‘industrial archaeology’ as the study and conservation of the monuments of past industrial activity and generally synonymous with ‘industrial heritage’. In this sense, industrial archaeology has been extremely successful in achieving what its pioneers set out to do, achieve recognition for the importance of the remains of the industrial past and where possible their survival in the contemporary landscape. But in the second half of the twentieth century, industrial archaeology has developed from a purely amateur pastime, motivated by a desire to preserve the material remains of Britain’s industrial past, into a more mature scholarly discipline. New studies have contributed toward the development of social approaches to the discipline, while studies of industrial landscapes have explored ways in which these manifest not just the physical remains of industrial processes but also embody evidence for past hierarchical power relations. In these ways, industrial archaeology has broken free of its earlier constraints to become an archaeology of industrialization.

See also: Conservation, Archaeological; Historic Pres-

ervation Laws; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Barker D and Cranstone D (eds.) (2004) Archaeology of Industrialization. Leeds: Maney. Beaudry MC (1989) The Lowell Boott mills complex and its housing: Material expressions of corporate ideology. Historical Archaeology 23: 19–33. Birmingham J, Jack I, and Jeans D (1979) Australian Pioneer Technology: Sites and Relics. Richmond: Heinemann. Buchanan RA (1972) Industrial Archaeology in Britain. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Casella EC and Symonds J (eds.) (2005) Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions. New York: Springer. Cossons N (2000) Perspectives on Industrial Archaeology. London: Science Museum. Gwyn D and Palmer M (2005) Understanding the Workplace; A Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in Britain. Leeds: Maney.

INSECT ANALYSIS 1521 Markus TA (1993) Buildings and Power. London: Routledge. Nevell M (2004) From Farmer to Factory Owner: Models, Methodology, and Industrialisation. Manchester: Tameside Borough Council. Palmer M and Neaverson PA (1984) Industry in the Landscape, 1700–1900. London: Routledge. Palmer M and Neaverson PA (1999) Industrial Archaeology: Principles and Practice. London: Routledge. Rynne C (2006) Industrial Ireland 1750–1930: an Archaeology. Cork: The Collins Press. Shackel P (1996) Culture Change and the New Technology: An Archaeology of the Early American Industrial Era. New York: Plenum Press. Stratton M and Trinder B (1997) Industrial England. London: Batsford/English Heritage.

Trinder B (1982) The Making of the Industrial Landscape. London: Dent. Trinder B (ed.) (1992) The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Industrial Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Relevant Websites http://en.erih.net – European Route of Industrial Heritage. www.industial-archaeology.org.uk – Association for Industrial Archaeology. www.sia-web.org – Society for Industrial Archaeology. www.spma.org.uk – Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology. www.mnactec.com/TICCIH – International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage. www.sha.org – Society for Historical Archaeology.

INSECT ANALYSIS Scott A Elias, University of London, Egham, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary beetles Any of numerous insects of the order Coleoptera, having biting mouthparts and forewings modified to form horny coverings that protect the underlying pair of membranous hind wings when at rest. Bronze Age The period in history after the Stone Age characterized by the development of bronze and its use, especially for weapons and tools. coprolite Fossilized excrement. faunal remains Bones and other animal parts found in archaeological sites. iron Age A cultural stage characterized by the use of iron as the main metal.

Introduction Well-preserved insect fossils have been found in many archaeological settings. Fossil insects are now making an important contribution to the reconstruction of both natural and anthropogenic environments associated with archaeological sites. These fossils provide evidence about human lifestyles and living conditions, as well as evidence about the environmental setting of the sites. The biological evidence sometimes reveals far more about these matters than can be obtained from archaeological artifacts.

Types of Deposits Yielding Insects Chief among these are waterlogged sediments at sites of human occupation. These are commonly preserved in northern Europe. Insect exoskeletons in waterlogged sediments show excellent preservation, and

their abundance and taxonomic diversity is often incredibly rich (faunal assemblages including hundreds of identified species are not uncommon). Insect exoskeletons are readily preserved in situations where normal decomposition is retarded, due to the lack of oxygen. Examples of saturated organic deposits yielding insect fossils include ancient trackways through bogs and other wetlands, organic detritus from wells, and ancient occupation horizons below the current water table. Organic-rich sediments from ponds, lakes, and peat bogs in close proximity to archaeological sites also may contain insect faunas that are contemporaneous with nearby human occupation. Domestic debris from under floors, in trash middens, latrines, sewers, and barrow pits, have also yielded abundant insect remains. The garbage and sewage of past generations offer many clues to their lifestyles, sanitation, animal husbandry, and land use.

Environmental Indications from Insects The ecological sensitivity of insects makes them useful indicators of past environments, both natural and anthropogenic. Most European archaeological sites contain a mixture of synanthropic (human-associated) and nonsynanthropic insect remains. It is often difficult to make clear separations between these two components. In 1985 Kenward studied indoor and outdoor insect taxa found in modern buildings which helped to define potential sources of insects deposited in ancient dwellings (Figure 1). Insect remains can provide a wealth of archaeological detail and may yield information on human activities and environmental conditions not brought out by other types of data. Stored product pests, as well as scavengers and plant feeders, document food

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From nests and droppings of predators and scavengers

From stored products

From roof and walls

Insects seeking habitation sites Accidental entry in local flight

Migrating insects

From litter

Parasites of occupants

In imported material, casual transport, or on occupants Crawling

Figure 1 Cutaway section of a medieval house, showing potential sources of insect remains. Red arrows indicate household insects; green arrows indicate external insects. SA Elias (1994) Quaternary Insects and Their Environments. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

storage and use patterns, food types, building methods, and other details of domestic life, farming, and animal husbandry. Human parasites and synanthropes offer evidence of sanitation conditions, health, crowding, and human dispersal patterns. Carrion beetles, flies, and other insects provide forensic data on human and animal corpses.

European Studies British insect fossils have been studied from archaeological sites ranging in age from 10 kyr BP through the nineteenth century. More than 120 sites have been investigated for insects. An extensive gap in the fossil insect record extends from the Upper Paleolithic to the Early Neolithic period. Neolithic sites document the change from natural forest to cleared sites used for cultivation and grazing. One of the best-documented insect faunal successions of the Bronze Age was discovered at Thorne Moor in South Yorkshire. Here, fossils from an ancient trackway showed regional forest clearing and the rise of cereal pollen in the regional vegetation. Beetle species which are now extinct or extremely rare in Britain provide evidence of old, mature forests. Iron Age records abound in Britain, and insect fossils have been examined from numerous Roman sites. Stored product pests associated with grain have been found in a number of Roman sites in Britain.

Reconstructions of medieval life at Anglo-Danish sites in York have included detailed research on insect fossils. All of the insect assemblages from York reflect human habitations. Based on the quantity and quality of debris, the insect evidence suggests that the Romans were somewhat more hygienic than the subsequent Anglo-Danish inhabitants of York. The overwhelming impression from the insect evidence is one of squalor in Anglo-Danish times. Elsewhere in Europe, insects have been studied from medieval sites at Oslo, Norway, and the Orkney Islands. More extensive work has been done on Roman and medieval sites in Germany. In Greece, Panagiotakopulu and Buckland in 1991 have studied fossil insects from a Late Bronze Age site at Santorini. The fossil evidence indicates the establishment of field and stored grain pests in the Aegean region by about 3500 year BP. One cereal pest, Rhyzopertha dominica, probably originated in Africa, and arrived at Santorini through trade with Crete and Egypt.

Studies in the North Atlantic Region Buckland et al. in 1986 studied pre- and postsettlement insect faunas from an early Norse farm site in Iceland. The samples indicate a native fauna of a few species that became more diverse as humans modified the landscape (especially the draining of bogs and overgrazing of hillsides by sheep). Other Icelandic

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studies have documented the ecological effects of the Norse colonization of Iceland, which began in the ninth-century AD. Postcolonization faunas generally include several synanthropic insects that arrived with the Norse or with subsequent trading ships from Europe. The native subarctic biota of Iceland faired very poorly after Norse settlement. When the Norse established settlements on Greenland, they also brought a characteristic insect fauna with them. However, their attempts at agriculture and animal husbandry were hindered by the severe climate, and by about AD 1350, the settlements in western Greenland were abandoned. The end of Norse occupation was marked by a shift in the fossil insect assemblages. The ‘indoor’ synanthropic species died out immediately, and were replaced by ‘outdoor’ native Greenland species in the abandoned Norse farm houses.

Studies of Insect Parasites from Archaeological Sites The fossil remains of lice and their eggs have been found on mummies from around the world, including Greenland, Egypt, and the Aleutian Islands. Fleas have been found from Old World archaeological sites, beginning with Neolithic remains from the Island of Orkney, through Roman-age archaeological sites at York, and on through medieval assemblages from York, Dublin, and Norse Greenland.

Insect Fossils in New World Archaeological Sites Most insect fossil studies from New World archaeological sites deal with faunas from natural environments in the vicinity of the archaeological site. A few American studies have archaeological connections, however. Elias studied insect fossils from refuse pits at the Cahokia Mounds site in Illinois, and was able to document the seasonality of human use of the site. Coprolite Studies

The study of ancient human feces, preserved in dry caves as coprolites, has yielded some interesting information on insects and their interactions with Amerindians (see Coprolite Analysis). Some arthropods were consumed as food. These include cicadas and grasshoppers that were eaten by the Anasazi at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and ants and termites that were apparently eaten by Paleoindians at the Dirty Shame Rockshelter in Oregon. Other insects, such as fleas, lice, and mites, were external parasites that were either accidentally or deliberately consumed.

The remains of fly maggots and their pupal exuviae (the skin cast from the larva as it pupated) have been used in some New World sites to help determine mode and timing of burial. A study of fly remains from a Late Prehistoric Arikara Indian burial site at Leavenworth, South Dakota, placed the time of burial between late March and mid-October (the flies’ active season in South Dakota). Insects from Non-Anthropogenic Deposits at Archaeological Sites

Insect fossils from non-anthropogenic environments (i.e., undisturbed, natural habitats) provide data useful in building an environmental framework in which to place archaeological interpretations of a site. The insect faunas provide inferences on climate, soil, and regional vegetation. For instance, Elias in 1990 examined insect fossils from a Clovis archaeological site at False Cougar Cave, Montana. The insects were recovered from cave-floor sediments which also contained Paleoindian artifacts. Based on the insects, the regional climate environment was very similar to modern conditions by 10 500 year BP. A Clovis-age insect assemblage from the Lubbock Lake site in west Texas reflected climatic conditions that were cooler and wetter than the modern day.

South American Archaeology At Monte Verde, Chile, an archaeological site dating to c. 13 kyr BP contained insect fossils preserved in peat that were studied by Ashworth et al. The environmental reconstruction based on the insect fauna is that of a shallow creek with sparsely vegetated sand bars and some boggy margins, flowing through a rain forest (see Americas, South: Southern Cone). The Late Glacial palaeoclimate was interpreted as very similar to modern. No synanthropic insect species were found in the Monte Verde assemblages. There appears to have been a lack of adaptation of New World insects to synanthropic lifestyles until much later in the Holocene. This was probably because of a lack of suitable human-induced habitats, at least in western North America, until late in prehistory.

Comparison with European and Other Old World Studies Most New World studies are from the Late Pleistocene or Earliest Holocene, while all but one of the Old World Studies are Mid- to Late Holocene in age. Differences in types of human occupation and lifestyles between these times are important. In Europe, the

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more or less sedentary lifestyles from the Bronze Age through medieval times led to the accumulation of organic debris (in wells, cesspits, latrines, trash heaps) and associated insect faunas. In contrast to this, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers leading a transhumance lifestyle left very little organic debris on the landscape. Regrettably, the only substantial artifact records of these people are their stone tools. Their wanderings left little mark on the landscape, so that coeval insect faunas generally reflect undisturbed habitats. See also: Americas, South: Southern Cone; Coprolite Analysis; Invertebrate Analysis; Vertebrate Analysis.

Further Reading Ashworth AC, Hoganson J, and Gunderson M (1989) Fossil beetle analysis. In: Dillehay TD (ed.) Monte Verde, A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, pp. 211–226. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Buckland PC, Grieg JRA, and Kenward HK (1974) York: An early Medieval site. Antiquity 47: 25–33. Buckland PC and Kenward HK (1973) Thorne Moor: A paleoecological study of a Bronze Age site. Nature 241: 405–406.

Buckland PC, Perry DW, Gislason GM, and Dugmore AJ (1986) The pre-Landnam fauna of Iceland: A paleontological contribution. Boreas 15: 173–184. Elias SA (1990) The timing and intensity of environmental changes during the Paleoindian period in western North America: Evidence from the fossil insect record. In: Agenbroad LD, Mead JI, and Nelson LW (eds.) Megafauna and Man, pp. 11–14. South Dakota: Mammoth Site, Hot Springs. Elias SA (1994) Quaternary Insects and their Environments. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kenward HK (1985) Outdoors-indoors? The outdoor component of archaeological insect assemblages. In: Fieller NRJ, Gilbertson DD, and Ralph NGA (eds.) Palaeobiological Investigations. Research Design Methods, and Data Analysis, Association for Environmental Archaeology Symposium, No. 5B, pp. 97–104. McGovern TH, Buckland PC, Savory D, Sveinbjarndottir G, Andreason C, and Skidmore P (1983) A study of faunal and floral remains from two Norse farms in the western settlement, Greenland. Arctic Anthropology 20: 93–120. Osborne PJ (1983) An insect fauna from a modern cesspit and its comparison with probable cesspit assemblages from archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 10: 453–463. Panagiotakopulu E and Buckland PC (1991) Insect pests of stored products from Late Bronze Age Santorini, Greece. Journal of Stored Products Research 27: 179–184. Pauketat TR, Kelly LS, Fritz GJ, Lopinot NH, Elias SA, and Hargrave E (2002) The residues of feasting and public ritual at early Cahokia. American Antiquity 67: 52–65.

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH Patty Jo Watson, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary archaeobotany Recovery, identification, and interpretation of plant remains (including pollen and other microscopic items) from archaeological deposits. Also known as palaeoethnobotany. archaeometry A general term referring to the use of chemical and physical methods and techniques in archaeological research to obtain information concerning dating (e.g., radiocarbon determinations), materials identification and sourcing, and subsurface prospecting (e.g., soil conductivity and resistivity surveys). archaeozoology See zooarchaeology. geoarchaeology Use of geological methods and techniques within archaeological sites (e.g., sedimentological analysis of cultural deposits to reveal their origins and transport histories) and/or within the regions surrounding one or more sites (e.g., mapping and analysis of landforms and rivers, providing the physical environments for archaeological sites). palaeoethnobotany See archaeobotany. zooarchaeology Recovery, analysis, and interpretation of animal remains (vertebrate and invertebrate) from archaeological sites. Also known as archaeozoology.

What is Interdisciplinary Archaeology? Contemporary archaeology, no matter where in the world it may be found, is interdisciplinary. Excavation teams include not only archaeologists expert in ancient architecture and artifacts, but also specialists in plant remains; animal bones; metallurgy; DNA extraction and analysis of samples from human and nonhuman bone or botanical materials; sediments and stratigraphy; and a host of other topics now regarded as essential to archaeological projects. It may seem selfevident that archaeologists must confer with many different kinds of scholars in order to understand the vast array of items and materials they unearth as well as the contexts of those items and materials. Nevertheless, both the nature and the practice of interdisciplinary archaeology are actually quite complex and rather recent developments in the history of archaeology. One source of complexity is the fact that different kinds of archaeology have different histories and different scholarly homes. Classical archaeology, for example, is traditionally grouped with the humanities, especially those centered upon the Greek and Roman civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean world, their languages and their histories. Prehistoric

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archaeology, on the other hand – addressing the earliest part of the human story in Africa, Europe, and Asia – developed in relation to geology, palaeontology, botany, and zoology; hence, it was traditionally grouped with the natural sciences. Students learning to be classical archaeologists studied Greek, Latin, history of art and architecture, and the massive literature of scholarship on Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations in the Mediterranean region and in Central and Eastern Asia. Students learning to be prehistorians studied stone tool typologies; sediments and stratigraphy; geochemical dating techniques; the environmental, ecological, and cultural implications of floral and faunal species and assemblages; the fossil record of human evolution in the Old World; and the archaeological remains left by hunter-gatherer-forager or early agricultural societies around the globe, as well as ethnographic information about such societies provided by European explorers of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and by anthropologists of the late nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Because of the abundant written records left by ancient Greek and Roman societies and their predecessors, classical archaeologists did not traditionally concern themselves with systematic recovery of animal bones and plant remains because it was believed that essential information about the economies and physical environments of these societies was contained in their own records and archives. Another major source of complexity surrounding the issue of interdisciplinary research in archaeology is the practical one. It is extremely difficult to establish and maintain adequate integration among even a few nonarchaeological collaborators on the one hand, the archaeologists on the other, and the two groups in concert during all the stages of a project: survey, excavation, analysis, and publication. Simply making certain that each specialist has essential equipment, research space, and access to materials pertaining to that specialist’s area of expertise is daunting, especially if the work is being carried out in a remote locale, or in a country foreign to the scholars doing the work. Many interdisciplinary projects founder on these logistical issues alone, quite apart from conceptual matters of any sort.

Early Examples of Successful Interdisciplinary Archaeology The modern era of interdisciplinary research in archaeology was pioneered at the beginning of the twentieth century by a 70-year-old geologist, Raphael Pumpelly, who assembled a diverse field staff for his 1904 excavations at ancient sites in the Central Asian oases of Anau, Merv, and Samarkand. The group

included four archaeologists, two geologists/geomorphologists (Pumpelly and his son), and a cultural geographer. The materials recovered were analyzed and published by a zoologist, a chemist (who investigated the metal artifacts), two human palaeontologists/ physical anthropologists, and a botanist, as well as three of the four archaeologists from the field staff. Pumpelly’s demonstration of successful, explicitly interdisciplinary archaeological field research and publication did not immediately inspire further examples. In the years following World War II, however, interdisciplinary, ecologically oriented archaeology developed rapidly in both Europe and North America. In England, Grahame Clarke’s research at the Mesolithic site of Star Carr, and his major synthesis, Prehistoric Europe: The Economic Basis, were foundational. Roughly contemporaneously with Clarke’s work, Robert J. Braidwood’s Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, projects fielded a series of interdisciplinary teams in search of the earliest empirical evidence for agriculture and pastoralism in southwest Asia, beginning with excavations at the early village site of Jarmo (c. 8500 years old) in north Iraq. To recover and interpret the remains of the earliest domesticated plants and animals, Braidwood enlisted botanical and zoological experts, as well as geologists specializing in palaeoenvironmental research. Like Pumpelly, Braidwood obtained funding to take several of these experts in the natural sciences to the field with him, and to support their subsequent analyses of floral, faunal, and geological materials. Moreover, he succeeded in assembling a panel of such experts who collaborated with him for several decades as the research ramified to other sites and other geographic locales in western Asia.

The Development of Interdisciplinary Archaeology The research by Braidwood and his interdisciplinary collaborators provided an extremely influential model for prehistoric archaeology in both the Old and New Worlds. Interdisciplinary, palaeoenvironmental, palaeoecological archaeology became the norm to the extent that three new subdisciplines grew to autonomous maturity during the 1970s and 1980s: archaeobotany or palaeoethnobotany, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology (see Paleoethnobotany; Geoarchaeology; Archaeozoology). In addition to these three areas of research, now well established in the interdisciplinary space between archaeology and botany, archaeology and zoology, and archaeology and geology, respectively, several other zones of cooperation have developed or are developing between archaeologists and experts in specific scientific methods or techniques, such as radiometric means of

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dating archaeological materials, DNA analysis of human and nonhuman organic remains, and sourcing of artifacts or raw materials via trace element analysis. All the techniques and methods just noted, and many others actually and potentially applied to archaeological research, are sometimes jointly referred to as ‘archaeometry’. Archaeometric procedures as well as archaeobotany, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology are variously engaged by archaeologists of all persuasions. Archaeology everywhere in the world has become more and more intricately interdisciplinary, a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future. This, in turn, means that crucial practical issues of coordination and integration will also continue to present major challenges for all the collaborators in each interdisciplinary archaeological endeavor, and will continue to demand careful, persistent attention at the scale of the individual human beings working together in those endeavors. See also: Archaeometry; Archaeozoology; Geoarchaeology; Paleoethnobotany.

Further Reading Braidwood R (1960) The agricultural revolution. Scientific American 203: 130–148. Braidwood L, Braidwood R, Howe H, Reed C, and Watson P (eds.) (1983) Prehistoric Archeology Along the Zagros Flanks.

Interments

vol. 105. Chicago: University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Publication. Butzer K (1975) The ‘ecological’ approach to prehistory: Are we really trying? American Antiquity 40: 106–111. Butzer K (1982) Archaeology as Human Ecology: Method and Theory for a Contextual Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. C¸ambel H and Braidwood R (eds.) (1980) Prehistoric Research in Southeastern Anatolia (Pub. No. 2589). Istanbul: Istanbul University Faculty of Letters. Clarke G (1972) Prehistoric Europe: The Economic Basis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flannery K (1986) Guila´ Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. New York: Academic Press. Marquardt W (ed.) (1999) The Archaeology of Useppa Island (Monograph No. 3). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies. Marquardt W and Watson P (eds.) (2005) Archaeology of the Middle Green River Region (Monograph No. 5). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies. McDonald W and Rapp G (eds.) (1972) The Minnesota Messinia Expedition. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press. Moore A, Hillman G, and Legge A (eds.) (2000) Village on the Euphrates: From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pumpelly R (ed.) (1908) Prehistoric civilizations of Anau: Origins, growth, and influence of environment. Explorations in Turkestan, Expedition of 1904 (2 vols.). Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Watson P (1997) The shaping of modern paleoethnobotany. In: Gremillion K (ed.) People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany, pp. 13–22. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.

See: Burials: Dietary Sampling Methods; Excavation and Recording Techniques.

INTERNET, ARCHAEOLOGY ON Julian D Richards, University of York, York, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary digital preservation Long-term, error-free storage of digital information, with means for retrieval and interpretation, for all the time span that the information is required for. metadata Data about data. Metadata describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data is formatted. Semantic Web The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed

not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be understood, interpreted, and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share, and integrate information more easily. XML The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different information systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet.

The influence of the Internet in our everyday lives is so pervasive that it is hard to credit it as a stillimmature technology. Twenty years ago it did not

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exist. By July 2005, according to Hobbes’ Internet Timeline, there were 353 million Internet hosts, that is, computer systems connected to the network with registered Internet (IP) addresses. The extent of Internet penetration in the developing world is still patchy, although this is a rapidly changing picture. In December 2005, only 2.5% of African households had Internet access, whereas for the United States the figure was 68%, and for the United Kingdom 63% http://www.internetworldstats.com/. The origins of the Internet can be traced back to the Cold War and the Space Race. In 1957 the USSR launched the first Sputnik; USA formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In 1969 ARPANET was commissioned to provide a computer network for the US Department of Defence which connected the military with university and civilian contractors. The intention was also to provide a distributed system of computers capable of withstanding a nuclear strike. In 1971 the first e-mail program was invented; e-mail rapidly grew to comprise 75% of all traffic on ARPANET, and in 1973 the first international connection was made to link University College London with ARPANET. Within a short space of time academic networks were established and from 1981 BITNET provided e-mail and file transfer (FTP) facilities at City University, New York. By the mid-1980s, therefore, the Internet existed as a network of networks across which it was possible to transmit computer files. However, for this to be transformed into the World Wide Web, three things were required: (1) a means of specifying the internet addresses of specific files, (2) a protocol for information transfer, and (3) a uniform way of structuring hypertext documents providing links to other documents. The first was provided by the development of Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs), and later Universal Resource Locators (URLs). These domain names could be mapped to the numeric addresses of each computer connected to the Internet, and specific files hosted on the computers could be referenced. Second, a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) provided an agreed means of transmitting files from the computer, or web server, on which it was held, to the user’s own computer. Third, the specification of HTML, a HyperText Markup Language, provided a standard for machine-readable instructions to software browsers for how to display interlinked text files. In 1991, the World Wide Web was effectively ‘released’ to the world when CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) made its linemode browser available. This was able to parse and display blocks of text, and to highlight hypertext links, but it was not suitable for a Windows environment. In 1993, access was therefore revolutionized when

the US National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) released Mosaic, the first Windowsbased browser. This was followed, the next year, by Netscape Navigator, and eventually by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Most early web applications were academic in aim but this soon began to change. In 1993 the website http://www.whitehouse.gov/ was launched, closely followed, in 1994, by the first internet shopping malls. Archaeology has made innovative use of the Internet for dissemination and communication since the beginning. In common with other disciplines, e-mail was rapidly adopted, first by the academic sector, followed by private individuals. A number of discussion lists, such as ARCH-L and BRITARCH provided active fora for heated debate, as well as more routine announcements. ARCH-L has online archives going back to May 1992 http://listserv.tamu.edu/archives/ arch-l.html. More focused lists create online communities of archaeological specialists, although some regret the time required just to monitor all the lists in which they have an interest. The most significant impact of the Internet on archaeology has come about through the use of the Web for publication and dissemination. By creating its own website, any project, whether major statefunded research, or local archaeology society, or community-based, is able to promote itself online. New web tools such as ‘blogs’: weblogs which are online journals or diaries, or ‘wikis’: collaborative online environments to which a number of people can contribute, allow higher levels of interaction. Other innovations, including automated web newsfeeds, webcams, and webcasts, have been used very effectively by fieldwork projects to broadcast regular updates on new discoveries (see Popular Culture and Archaeology). Enthusiasts have created websites for every possible archaeological subject. While this can be seen as a democratizing process, allowing everyone access to the means of self-publication, the downside is the lack of traditional academic control and review, leading to the easy promulgation of unscientific nonsense. The multivocality allowed by the Internet has resonated with many postmodern archaeological thinkers, but it demands high-level skills of source criticism from its users. There are, however, a number of authoritative archaeological websites, which have followed traditional publication models. The first peer-reviewed e-journal for Archaeology, Internet Archaeology http://intarch.ac.uk, was first published in 1996. Antiquity http://antiquity.ac.uk has also developed a web presence of additional features. Most archaeological journals have responded to the growth of the Internet by providing parallel online editions, using

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the PDF format. The JSTOR archive http://www. jstor.org/ now provides access to a large number of scholarly journals, including American Antiquity. However, this is really a means of using the Internet for electronic distribution of a traditional printed journal, rather than electronic publication in its own right. Other projects have been highly innovative in exploiting the potential of the Internet to provide access to elaborate graphics, including multimedia, online Geographic Information System (GIS), and searchable databases. The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery http://www.daacs. org/ provides an excellent example of a highly interactive excavation publication. The Internet can also provide access to material which would never have been published in traditional form. Archaeology has suffered from a growing problem of gaining access to unpublished grey literature, reporting the results of contract archaeology. In the UK, the OASIS project has provided an index to that literature and is gradually making it available online, together with an online recording form for reporting new fieldwork http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/oasis/. In the United States, the National Parks Service has set up NADB-Reports – a bibliographic database of gray literature. The Internet has also allowed unparalleled access to primary sources. In the UK, the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) provides online access to a growing number of archaeological fieldwork archives http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/; in the USA the Perseus Project has a particular focus on classical texts and archaeology http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/. However, the majority of archaeological content available via the Internet is only accessible by searching online databases in what is known as the ‘deep web’, as opposed to the ‘surface web’ of indexable web pages and images. Examples of deep web content include the National Monuments Records, or sites and monument inventories of a number of countries or regions. Among the first to go online was Scotland, which now provides sophisticated map-based searching of its CANMORE inventory http://www.rcahms. gov.uk/. The online database of the Portable Antiquities Scheme http://www.finds.org.uk, which holds information about finds reported by members of the public under the Treasure Act for England and Wales, is an interesting example of a community-fed online resource. As the Internet grows as a primary means of providing access to archaeological information fears have been expressed that it disenfranchises those who lack the technical skills or high-speed connections that are commonly assumed. Although there are parts of the developing world – as well as sections of the population of the developed world (particularly the

aged) – for whom this is true, it is not clear that these problems are greater than those of access to academic libraries, and in most cases they are substantially less. As the quantity of Internet information grows another difficulty is finding what you want. A number of sites have developed which attempt to provide guides to archaeology on the Internet, or a subset of it. The Archaeology pages at About.com http:// archaeology.about.com/ or those provided by the popular archaeology magazine Current Archaeology http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ are among the most successful. The former has a useful set of links to archaeological blogs. Other sites, sometimes described as web gateways, provide lists of links to sites, often with summary abstracts. The ARCHNET site, currently hosted at the University of Arizona http://archnet. asu.edu/, is one of the most useful resources; one of the most innovative sites is that provided by the British Archaeological Jobs Resource http://www.bajr.org/. However, one of the greatest problems facing these sites is keeping up to date with the logarithmic growth of the web; most depend upon considerable investment of time and expertise, and it is difficult to see how they can be sustainable in the long term without institutional support. Most Internet users will also turn to a search engine to find what they are looking for, and the dominance of ‘Google’ makes it the first port of call for most people looking for archaeology on the web. Google is an extremely valuable tool in some circumstances and is difficult to beat as a free text index, but it does not provide access to the ‘deep web’, and it cannot take advantage of structured information held in databases. Thus it cannot distinguish, for instance, between Barrow as a place, a person, or an excavation tool. Library catalogs use simple metadata (‘data about data’) for author, title, date, place of publication, and subject, in order to help us find the book we want. The Dublin Core has been adopted as the agreed metadata standard for resource discovery for electronic resources. The Open Archives Initiative has also agreed a standard (OAI-PMH) for metadata harvesting, which allows the crosssearching of structured information held in distributed databases. Nonetheless, for such searching to be effective requires adherence to standards and the adoption of agreed archaeological vocabularies and subject thesauri. It is envisaged that in the future, Internet tools will be able to make much more effective use of structured data. The mark-up language HTML just controls how a web page is rendered by the browser software. Tim Berners-Lee’s vision for a Semantic Web shows how XML will be used to tag the content of web pages, allowing more automated harvesting and assimilation of relevant information. In the United

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States the term ‘cyberinfrastucture’ has been used to describe a web-based research environment in which multiple datasets can be integrated and analyzed; elsewhere the term ‘e-Science’ has been adopted to reflect new ways of undertaking collaborative research using the Internet. Finally, there is an underlying concern that because of the lack of central control of the Internet there are problems with the longevity and sustainability of archaeological pages. Many sites are transient and web addresses change. The ‘Internet Archive’ takes regular snapshots of many websites but there are long-term issues about the preservation of digital data. In the UK the ADS is seeking to address some of these problems, and other countries are becoming aware of the need to archive digital data, but there are inevitably challenges in coordinating preservation activity at an international level, while the Internet continues to evolve at such a rapid rate. See also: Interpretation of Archaeology for the Public; Popular Culture and Archaeology.

Further Reading Lock G (2003) Using Computers in Archaeology: Towards Virtual Pasts. London: Routledge. Richards JD (2002) Digital preservation and access. European Journal of Archaeology 5(3): 343–367.

Relevant Websites http://archaeology.about – About Archaeology. http://antiquity.ac.uk – Antiquity. http://ads.ahds.ac.uk – Archaeology Data Service. http://archnet.asu.edu – Archnet. http://www.bajr.org – British Archaeologicsl Jobs Resource. http://www.archaeology.co.uk – Current Archaeology. http://www.daacs.org – Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery. http://intarch.ac.uk – Internet Archaeology. http://www.internetworldstats – Internet World Stats. http://www.jstor.org – Journal Storage. http://www.finds.org.uk – Portable Antiquities Scheme. http://listserv.tamu.edu – Texas A & M University. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu – The Perseus Digital Library. http://www.rcahms.gov.uk – The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. http://www.whitehouse.gov – The White House.

INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC John H Jameson, Southeast Archeological Center, Tallahassee, FL, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Glossary community A group or class of people having common interests, likeness, or identity. Communities include educational, professional, academic, governmental, descendant, and local. Communities are not discrete in that they can and do overlap. For example, members of a descendant community may also be part of the educational and the professional communities. community-based archaeology A partnership established between professional archaeologists and nonarchaeologists in order to develop more meaningful public interpretation and programming. In this relationship, archaeologists not only study communities as part of their research agenda, but also include substantive input from community members in all phases of planning, research, and interpretation. cultural heritage A collection of social, cultural, scientific, archaeological, architectural, historical, artistic, spiritual, or religious values, unique and nonrenewable, attributed to tangibles and intangibles associated with objects, sites, landscapes, structures, or natural features.

cultural resource Similar and often synonymous with cultural heritage, sometimes used to refer to cultural and legal aspects of properties and sites. heritage tourism The travel, visitation, and economic activities directed at and associated with an area’s cultural heritage, recreational resources, and natural resources. ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) An international nongovernmental organization of professionals (e.g., architects, historians, archaeologists, art historians, geographers, anthropologists, engineers, and town planners), dedicated to the conservation of the world’s historic monuments and sites, as well as promoting the application of theory, methodology, and scientific techniques to the conservation of the architectural and archaeological heritage. Its work is based on the principles enshrined in the 1964 International Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (the Venice Charter). ICOMOS Ename Charter on Interpretation of Cultural Heritage Sites (Ename Charter) An initiative of the Ename (East Flanders, Belgium) Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation, adopted by ICOMOS, to define the basic objectives and principles of site interpretation in relation to authenticity, intellectual integrity, social responsibility, and respect for cultural significance and context. public archaeology Commonly refers to archaeological activities that are publicly funded or directed. Sometimes used to

1530 INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC refer to compliance-driven archaeological work (cultural resource management or CRM), as well as activities that are oriented toward public understanding and participation. stakeholder Any person or group that can claim a social, economic, cultural, scientific, archaeological, historical, artistic, spiritual, religious, or community connection to cultural resources and heritage.

Introduction As a specialty within the sphere of public archaeology and cultural heritage management, the public interpretation of archaeological and cultural sites has come to be recognized as an essential component in the conservation and protection of cultural resources and sites and to foster public stewardship around the world. In the United States, the development of resource protection legislation and cultural resource management (CRM) strategies in the 1960s and 1970s, and the resultant very rapid accumulation of archaeological and historical site information and collected artifacts, led to concerns for inclusiveness and sensitivity to heritage values of multidimensional constituents or ‘stakeholders’ (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). By the late 1980s, many archaeologists in the United States and elsewhere were addressing the contemporary context of their research as part of a growing practical and ethical awareness. The 1990s saw the emergence of greater energy and funding devoted to the public interface of archaeology as the professional community became aware that intellectual introversion was no longer acceptable and that more attention should be paid to the mechanisms, programs, and standards of public presentation. Among leading professional interpreters, only the programs and presentations that attempted to go beyond rote informational recitation and convey emotional as well as intellectual connections between the lay public and the rapidly expanding body of archaeological knowledge were acceptable. In the face of an increasing public interest and demand for information, archaeologists and their cultural heritage colleagues began to more actively collaborate to devise effective strategies for public presentation and interpretation. Until the 1990s, publications on public presentation and interpretation strategies and standards were rare and largely obscured in isolated accounts and academic grey literature.

esthetic, artistic, spiritual, emotional, and other values stemming from introspection. An expansion and broadening of the content of ‘archaeological knowledge’ to be more inclusive and less authoritative has emerged, broadening the definition and meaning of ‘expert’. An important result has been the emergence of the interpretive narrative approach in archaeological interpretation, where archaeologists actively participate in structuring a compelling story instead of just presenting sets of derived data. The narrative is used as a vehicle for understanding and communicating, a ‘sharing’ as well as an ‘imparting’, of archaeological values within the interpretation process. This trend is resulting in profound ramifications for definitions of significance in heritage management deliberations and what is ultimately classified, conserved, maintained, and interpreted. It will change the role we play and the values we present in historic preservation and education. It will affect our strategies for conducting research and the public interpretation of that research. The challenge for archaeologists, cultural historians, and other resource stewards is to educate ourselves on the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities to deal with these developments. Paramount for educators and interpreters is ensuring that our audiences connect with and understand cultural heritage values, those tangibles and intangibles that define what is important to people. We strive in these endeavors to develop more holistic interpretations in which the values of sustainable environment and heritage are inextricably linked. We have recognized that multidisciplinary and inclusive approaches are the most effective. The sites we deal with are no longer limited to great iconic monuments and places, but now include millions of places of importance to sectors of society that were once invisible or intentionally ignored. These sites can play an important role in fostering peaceful multicultural societies, maintaining communal or ethnic identities, and serving as the indispensable theater in which the ancient traditions that make each culture a unique treasure are performed periodically, even daily. The values of these previously ignored and heretofore low-priority sites and features are often not readily obvious in the material fabric or surrounding geography, but they must be identified and require a narrative for the fullness of their meaning to be properly conveyed to locals, site visitors, and the public at large. This is accomplished through processes of public interpretation and education.

Standards Development For today’s archaeologists, traditional definitions for the terms ‘historic’, ‘archaeological’, and ‘scientific’ are changing to incorporate intangibles such as

The NPS Interpretive Development Program (IDP)

The US National Park Service (NPS) has been a leader in North America in developing interdisciplinary and

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more holistic approaches to public interpretation of heritage. The agency regards interpretation as ‘‘a distinct profession encompassing a philosophical framework that combines the essence of the past with the dynamism of the present to shape the future’’ (NPS IDP 2006). The NPS Interpretive Development Program (IDP), conceived by NPS in the mid-1990s, and still evolving in the early years of the twenty-first century, encourages the stewardship of park resources by facilitating meaningful, memorable visitor experiences. Based on the philosophy that people will care for what they first care about, the program aims for the highest standards of professionalism. It calls for a mission-based training and development curriculum, field-developed national standards for interpretive effectiveness, a peer review certification program, and developmental tools and resources. It is designed to foster accountability and professionalism in interpretation, facilitate meaningful and memorable experiences for visitors, raise the level of public stewardship for park resources, and facilitate learner-driven skill development. Before the 1990s, training for NPS interpreters included a detailed introduction to significant names, dates, and references to important books. Often this introduction was coupled with an exercise in writing a personal definition of interpretation. The IDP approach incorporates many important aspects of these methods but with a strengthened sense of individual responsibility: professional interpreters are trained to search for understanding the process of interpretation in fostering resource stewardship. NPS interpreters are expected to be able to articulate the outcomes of interpretation in order to make personal choices in approach and establish the relevance of interpretation for resource decision makers. The program is based on the precept that effective interpretation moves beyond a recitation of scientific data, chronologies, and descriptions. The IDP program has adopted an interpretation formula expressed as an equation: (KR þ KA)
AT ¼ IO (Knowledge of the Resource þ Knowledge of the Audience
Appropriate Techniques ¼ Interpretive Opportunities). The interpretive equation applies to all interpretive activities and embraces a discussion of multiple points of view incorporating related human values, conflicts, ideas, tragedies, achievements, ambiguities, and triumphs. The ultimate role of interpretation is to support conservation by facilitating public recognition and support of resource stewardship. This is accomplished by facilitating opportunities for visitors to forge linkages with resource meanings that contribute to the development of a stewardship ethic. The program’s credo is ‘‘Interpretation is a seed, not a tree’’ (NPS IDP 2006).

The IDP program attempts to define the ‘art’ and ‘skill’ of interpretation, effective interpretation techniques, and modes of delivery. The techniques and modes used are tailored to the backgrounds and identities of target audiences and communities, as well as other constituent stakeholders. To date, 12 training modules for interpretation have been developed, listed as follows in ascending degrees of specialty and employee development: . Module 101: Fulfilling the NPS Mission: The Process of Interpretation . Module 102: Informal Visitor Contacts . Module 103: Prepare and Present an Interpretive Talk . Module 210: Prepare and Present a Conducted Activity . Module 220: Prepare and Present an Interpretive Demonstration or Illustrated Program . Module 230: Effective Interpretive Writing . Module 270: Present an Effective CurriculumBased Program . Module 310: Planning Park Interpretation . Module 311: Interpretive Media Development . Module 330: Leading Interpreters: Training and Coaching . Module 340: Interpretive Research and Resource Liaison . Module 440: Effective Interpretation of Archeological Resources These specialties relate to a set of competencies developed by NPS for national standards in interpretation. They stand as a goal to foster interpretive excellence nationwide in NPS areas at every stage of an employee’s career. A standard rubric is developed and used by peer review certifiers in measuring whether a specific product demonstrates the elements of success in that area, at a point in time. Employees use the rubric as a guide for self-assessment and to determine whether they need to work on skills or complete other preparation before attempting to meet the certification standards. The basic or core assessment rubric is expressed in two interconnected parts: 1. The project/program is successful as a catalyst in creating opportunities for the audience to form their own intellectual and emotional connections with meanings/significance inherent in the resource. 2. The project/program is appropriate for the audience, and provides a clear focus for their connection with the resource(s) by demonstrating the cohesive development of a relevant idea or ideas, rather than relying primarily on a recital of a chronological narrative or a series of related facts.

1532 INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC The ‘‘Effective Interpretation of Archaeological Resources’’ Training Module

The 12th module, ‘‘Module 440, Effective Interpretation of Archaeological Resources,’’ was developed in the late 1990s as a ‘shared competency’ specialty where archaeologists and interpreter-educators are trained to work together in creating more effective programs. The module includes the premise that modern public interpretation programs should seek to present a variety of perspectives to multicultural audiences that result in a greater understanding and appreciation of past human behavior and activities. In these settings, archaeologists, interpreters, educators, and site managers collaborate in using their knowledge and skills to create opportunities for the audience to form intellectual and emotional connections to the meanings and significance of archaeological records and the peoples who created them. The module was created in association with the NPS Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright training centers, by an interdisciplinary task group. Considered an advanced specialty, the module was designed to be an elective training opportunity for both archaeologists and nonarchaeologists. Intended to strengthen the relationships between archaeology and public interpretation, the overall purpose of the training is to make public archaeological presentation and interpretation more accurate and effective. It calls for archaeologists, interpreters, educators, and others to be trained together in the skills and abilities (shared competencies) needed to carry out a successful interpretation program. The module stems from an NPS-wide

push to improve training and development of its employees and to promote better methods for interpreting archaeological resources. Courses and workshops guided by the module are designed to improve interdisciplinary communication for a team approach to developing and carrying out effective public interpretation programs and projects. They are also designed for multi-agency, cross-cultural, and international relevancy. During the training, interpreters and educators gain knowledge of archaeology for developing presentations and media about archaeological resources. Archaeologists gain the foundation of knowledge and skills in interpretation necessary to develop interpretive presentations and media about cultural resources. All groups gain knowledge and skills through increased dialogue and interactions between archaeologists and interpreters for joint development of effective interpretation of archaeology. Two major goals of courses and workshops are to create opportunities for audiences to (1) learn about archaeological interpretations and how they are made, and (2) to ascribe their own meanings (values) to archaeological resources, helping to increase public understanding and concern for preservation and protection of archaeological values. Partcipants typically include archaeologists, interpreters, guides, education specialists, museum specialists, and site managers. The module is being applied at training courses and workshops at national parks and other cultural sites throughout the United States (Figure 1). The NPS Management Policies document, revised in 2006, reiterates the importance of educational and

Figure 1 Interdisciplinary focus group discusses public archaeology program during 40-hour Module 440 ‘‘Effective Interpretation of Archeological Resources’’ training, Old Dorchester State Park, South Carolina, 2004.

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interpretive programs in the NPS and the leadership role that NPS plays: ‘‘visitors will be offered authentic experiences and opportunities to immerse themselves in places where events actually happened, experience the thrill of connecting with real objects used by previous generations, enjoy some of the most beautiful and historic places in America, and understand the difficult moments our nation has endured.’’

Programs will ‘‘provide each visitor with an interpretive experience that is enjoyable and inspirational within the context of the park’s tangible resources and the meanings they represent’’ (NPS 2006). Evolving Philosophies of Interpretation

The National Association of Interpretation (NAI) definition for interpretation, which closely parallels the NPS IDP definition, states: ‘‘Interpretation is a communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the inherent meanings in the resource’’ (NAI 2005). Recent international developments related to interpretation are attempting to distinguish between the terms ‘presentation’ and ‘interpretation’ in ways that seem to cross-cut the NPS/IDP definitions. Though similar to the NPS definitions, the recently formed ICOMOS International Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP), in its mission statement, states: ‘‘Presentation’’ denotes the carefully planned arrangement of information and physical access to a cultural heritage site, usually by scholars, design firms, and heritage professionals. As such, it is largely a one-way mode of communication. ‘‘Interpretation,’’ on the other hand, denotes the totality of activity, reflection, research, and creativity stimulated by a cultural heritage site. In this respect the input and involvement of visitors, local and associated community groups, and other stakeholders of various ages and educational backgrounds is essential to interpretation and to the transformation of cultural heritage sites into places and sources of learning and reflection about the past, as well as valuable resources for sustainable community development and intercultural and intergenerational dialogue (ICOMOS ICIP 2006).

In the ICIP definition, ‘interpretation’ appears to be a more loaded term. The NPS IDP program, historically emphasizing the art and skill of interpretation, rather than its social and political underpinnings, nevertheless appears to be moving in a more broad conceptual, albeit qualified, direction: ‘‘I think we’re moving toward embracing the larger concepts of visitor experience. Visitor experience includes interpretation ... As for interpretation itself; I see their [ICIP’s] definition as one more abstract attempt to herd cats. I’m not sure what it really means. I think the IDP

and NAI approach is more helpful because it identifies the actual work involved. Interpreters do all the things the larger definition suggests, but can now be precise about how and when they do interpretation’’ (David L. Larsen, personal communication, 2006; author’s added emphasis in italic font).

The Ename Charter initiative In response to increased economic and political pressures from the tourism industry, coupled with an enhanced public interface, the standards for interpretation of heritage sites have become important topics for international discussion and debate. During the spring of 2002, an initial draft of a charter dealing with the interpretation of cultural heritage sites was written by the staff of the Ename (Belgium) Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation, based on close consultation with colleagues, and following the model of earlier charters in the cultural heritage field. The Ename Charter mission is to provide ‘‘international standards and guidelines for authenticity, intellectual integrity and sustainable development in the public preservation of archaeological and historical sites and landscapes’’ (Ename Center 2006). The first draft of the charter was circulated widely during the summer of 2002 in anticipation of the Ghent Conference on Heritage, Technology and Local Development. As a follow-up to this conference and the workshops and discussions held in Ghent, a special roundtable discussion on the Ename Charter was organized by the NPS in Washington in November 2002. Subsequent drafts of the charter have attempted to refine more internationally workable approaches to protecting the physical integrity and authenticity of sites, ensuing that all aspects of a site’s significance are impartially made known to visitors, preventing the site’s significance from being used for political propaganda, and ensuring an ethical, professional approach to heritage interpretation. The Ename Charter principles The Ename Charter on Interpretation is internationally significant in the history of heritage management in that it addresses the purpose and principles of public interpretation, arguably the most important activity that occurs at a historic site, by delivering the conservation, education, and stewardship messages that represent the transcendent humanistic values of the resource. Having gone through several drafts and revisions, the current draft (dated 12 December 2006, Table 1) continues to be scrutinized by the international community of interpretation experts. The main body of the charter is a set of basic principles for interpretation that provide an outline of professional and ethical standards.

1534 INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC Table 1 ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation of Cultural Heritage Sites, draft dated 12 December 2006 (Ename Center 2006) PREAMBLE Since its establishment in 1965 as a worldwide organisation of heritage professionals dedicated to the study, documentation, and protection of cultural heritage sites, ICOMOS has strived to promote the conservation ethic and to help enhance public appreciation of humanity’s material heritage in all its forms and diversity. As noted in the Charter of Venice (1964) ‘‘It is essential that the principles guiding the preservation and restoration of ancient buildings should be agreed and be laid down on an international basis, with each country being responsible for applying the plan within the framework of its own culture and traditions.’’ Subsequent ICOMOS charters have taken up that mission, establishing professional guidelines for specific conservation challenges and encouraging effective communication about the importance of heritage conservation in every region of the world. These earlier ICOMOS charters stress the importance of public communication as an essential part of the larger conservation process (variously describing it as ‘‘dissemination,’’ ‘‘popularization,’’ ‘‘presentation,’’ and ‘‘interpretation’’). They implicitly acknowledge that every act of heritage conservation – within all the world’s cultural traditions – is by its nature a communicative act. For the vast range of surviving material remains of past communities and civilisations, the choice of what to preserve, how to preserve it, and how it is to be presented to the public are all elements of site interpretation. They represent every generation’s vision of what is significant, what is important, and why material remains from the past should be passed on to generations yet to come. The need for a clear rationale, standardised terminology, and accepted professional principles for Interpretation and Presentationa is evident. In recent years, the dramatic expansion of interpretive activities at many cultural heritage sites and the introduction of elaborate interpretive technologies and new economic strategies for the marketing and management of cultural heritage sites have created new complexities and aroused basic questions that are central to the goals of both conservation and the public appreciation of cultural heritage sites throughout the world: – What are the accepted and acceptable goals for the Interpretation and Presentation of cultural heritage sites? – What principles should help determine which technical means and methods are appropriate in particular cultural and heritage contexts? – What ethical and professional considerations should help shape Interpretation and Presentation regardless of its specific forms and techniques? The purpose of this Charter is therefore to define the basic principles of Interpretation and Presentation as essential components of heritage conservation efforts and as a means of enhancing public appreciation and understanding of cultural heritage sites.b DEFINITIONS For the purposes of the present Charter, Interpretation refers to the full range of potential activities intended to heighten public awareness and enhance understanding of cultural heritage site. These can include professional and popular publications, public lectures, on-site installations, formal and informal educational programmes; community activities; and ongoing research, training, and evaluation of the interpretation process itself. Presentation more specifically denotes the carefully planned communication of interpretive content through the arrangement of interpretive information, physical access, and interpretive infrastructure at a cultural heritage site. It can be conveyed through a variety of technical means, including, yet not requiring, such elements as informational panels, museum-type displays, formalized walking tours, lectures and guided tours, and multimedia applications. Interpretive infrastructure refers to physical installations, facilities, and areas at a cultural heritage site that may be specifically utilised for the purposes of interpretation and presentation. Site interpreters refers to staff or volunteers at a cultural heritage site who are permanently or temporarily engaged in the public communication of information relating to the values and significance of the site. Cultural Heritage Site refers to a locality, natural landscape, settlement area, architectural complex, archaeological site, or standing structure that is recognized and often legally protected as a place of historical and cultural significance. OBJECTIVES In recognizing that interpretation and presentation are part of the overall process of cultural heritage conservation and management, this Charter seeks to establish seven cardinal principles, upon which Interpretation and Presentation – in whatever form or medium is deemed appropriate in specific circumstances – should be based. Principle 1: Access and Understanding Principle 2: Soundness of Information Sources Principle 3: Attention to Setting and Context Principle 4: Preservation of Authenticity Principle 5: Planning for Sustainability Principle 6: Concern for Inclusiveness Principle 7: Importance of Research, Evaluation, and Training Following from these seven principles, the objectives of this Charter are to: 1. Facilitate understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage sites and foster public awareness of the need for their protection and conservation. 2. Communicate the meaning of cultural heritage sites through careful, documented recognition of their significance, through accepted scientific and scholarly methods as well as from living cultural traditions. 3. Safeguard the tangible and intangible values of cultural heritage sites in their natural and cultural settings and social context. 4. Respect the authenticity of cultural heritage sites, by communicating the significance of their historic fabric and cultural values and protecting them from the adverse impact of intrusive interpretive infrastructure. Continued

INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC 1535 Table 1 Continued 5. Contribute to the sustainable conservation of cultural heritage sites, through promoting public understanding of ongoing conservation efforts and ensuring long-term maintenance and updating of the interpretive infrastructure. 6. Encourage inclusiveness in the interpretation of cultural heritage sites, by facilitating the involvement of stakeholders and associated communities in the development and implementation of interpretive programmes. 7. Develop technical and professional standards for heritage interpretation and presentation, including technologies, research, and training. These standards must be appropriate and sustainable in their social contexts. PRINCIPLES Principle 1: Access and Understanding Interpretation and presentation programmes, in whatever form deemed appropriate and sustainable, should facilitate physical and intellectual access by the public to cultural heritage sites 1.1. Effective interpretation and presentation should enhance experience, increase public respect and understanding, and communicate the importance of the conservation of cultural heritage sites. 1.2. Interpretation and presentation should encourage individuals and communities to reflect on their own perceptions of a site and establish a meaningful connection to it by providing insights – as well as facts. The aim should be to stimulate further interest and learning. 1.3. Interpretation and presentation programmes should identify and assess their audiences demographically and culturally. Every effort should be made to communicate the site’s values and significance to its varied audiences. 1.4. The diversity of language among visitors and associated communities connected with a heritage site should be reflected in the interpretive infrastructure. 1.5. Interpretation and presentation activities should also be physically accessible to the public, in all its variety. 1.6. In cases where physical access to a cultural heritage site is restricted due to conservation concerns, cultural sensitivities, adaptive re-use, or safety issues, interpretation and presentation should be provided off-site. Principle 2: Information Sources Interpretation and presentation should be based on evidence gathered through accepted scientific and scholarly methods as well as from living cultural traditions. 2.1. Interpretation should show the range of oral and written information, material remains, traditions, and meanings attributed to a site. It should also clearly identify the sources of this information. 2.2. Interpretation should be based on a well researched, multidisciplinary study of the site and its surroundings, but should also acknowledge that meaningful interpretation also necessarily includes reflection on alternative historical hypotheses, local myths, and stories. 2.3. At cultural heritage sites where traditional storytelling or memories of historical participants provide an important source of information about the significance of the site, interpretive programmes should incorporate these oral testimonies – either indirectly, through the facilities of the interpretive infrastructure, or directly, through the active participation of members of associated communities as on-site interpreters. 2.4. Visual reconstructions, whether by artists, architects, or computer modelers, should be based upon detailed and systematic analysis of environmental, archaeological, architectural, and historical data, including analysis of written, oral and iconographic sources, and photography. The information sources on which such visual renderings are based should be clearly documented and alternative reconstructions based on the same evidence, when available, should be provided for comparison. 2.5. Interpretation and presentation activities and the research and information sources on which they are based should be documented and archived for future reference and reflection. Principle 3: Context and Setting The Interpretation and Presentation of cultural heritage sites should relate to their wider social, cultural, historical, and natural contexts and settings. 3.1. Interpretation should explore the significance of a site in its multi-faceted historical, political, spiritual, and artistic contexts. It should consider all aspects of the site’s cultural, social, and environmental significance. 3.2. The public interpretation of a cultural heritage site should always clearly distinguish and date the successive phases and influences in its evolution. The contributions of all periods to the significance of a site should be respected. 3.3. Interpretation should also take into account all groups that have contributed to the historical and cultural significance of the site. 3.4. The surrounding landscape, natural environment, and geographical setting are all integral parts of a site’s historical and cultural significance, and, as such, should be taken into account in its interpretation. 3.5. Intangible elements of a site’s heritage such as cultural and spiritual traditions, stories, music, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, personal customs and cuisine should be noted and included in its interpretation. 3.6. The cross-cultural significance of heritage sites, as well as the range of perspectives about them based on scholarly research, ancient records, and living traditions, should be considered in the formulation of interpretive programmes. Principle 4: Authenticity The Interpretation and presentation of cultural heritage sites must respect the basic tenets of authenticity in the spirit of the Nara Document (1994). 4.1. Authenticity is a concern relevant to human communities as well as material remains. The design of a heritage interpretation programme should respect the traditional social functions of the site and the cultural practices and dignity of local residents and associated communities. Continued

1536 INTERPRETATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY FOR THE PUBLIC Table 1 Continued 4.2. Interpretation and presentation should contribute to the conservation of the authenticity of a cultural heritage site by communicating its significance without adversely impacting its cultural values or irreversibly altering its fabric. 4.3. All visible interpretive infrastructure (such as kiosks, walking paths, and information panels), when deemed appropriate and necessary must be sensitive to the character, setting and the cultural and natural significance of the site, while remaining easily identifiable. 4.4. On-site concerts, dramatic performances, and other interpretive activities – when deemed appropriate and sensitive to the character of the site – must be carefully planned to minimise disturbance to the local residents and to the physical surroundings of the site. Principle 5: Sustainability The interpretive plan for a cultural heritage site must be sensitive to its natural and cultural environment, with social, financial, and environmental sustainability among its central goals. 5.1. The development and implementation of interpretation and presentation programmes should be an integral part of the overall planning, budgeting, and management process of cultural heritage sites. 5.2. The potential effect of interpretive infrastructure and visitor numbers on the cultural value, physical characteristics, integrity, and natural environment of the site must be fully considered in heritage impact assessment studies. 5.3. Interpretation and presentation should serve a wide range of educational and cultural objectives. The success of an interpretive programme should not be judged solely on the basis of visitor attendance figures or revenue. 5.4. Interpretation and presentation should be an integral part of the conservation process, enhancing the public’s awareness of specific conservation problems encountered at the site and explaining the efforts being taken to protect the site’s physical integrity. 5.5. Any technical or technological elements selected to become a permanent part of a site’s interpretive infrastructure should be designed and constructed in a manner that will ensure effective and regular maintenance. 5.6. Interpretive activities should aim to provide equitable and sustainable economic, social, and cultural benefits to the host community at all levels, through education, training, and the creation of economic opportunities. To that end, the training and employment of site interpreters from the host community should be encouraged. Principle 6: Inclusiveness The Interpretation and Presentation of cultural heritage sites must be the result of meaningful collaboration between heritage professionals, associated communities, and other stakeholders. 6.1. The multidisciplinary expertise of scholars, conservation experts, governmental authorities, site managers, tourism operators, and other professionals should be integrated in the formulation of interpretation and presentation programmes. 6.2. The traditional rights, responsibilities, and interests of property owners, nearby residents, and associated communities should be noted and respected in the planning of site interpretation and presentation programmes. 6.3. Plans for expansion or revision of interpretation and presentation programmes should be open for public comment and involvement. It is the right and responsibility of all to make their opinions and perspectives known. 6.4. Because the question of intellectual property and traditional cultural rights is especially relevant to the interpretation process and its expression in various communication media (such as on-site multimedia presentations, digital media, and printed materials), legal ownership and right to use images, texts, and other interpretive materials should be discussed and clarified in the planning process. Principle 7: Research, Evaluation and Training Continuing research, training, and evaluation are essential components of the interpretation of a cultural heritage site. 7.1. The interpretation of a cultural heritage site should not be considered to be completed with the completion of a specific interpretive infrastructure. Continuing research and consultation are important to furthering the understanding and appreciation of a site’s significance and should be integral elements in every heritage interpretation programme. 7.2. The interpretive programme and infrastructure should be designed and constructed in a way that ensures periodic content revision and/or expansion. 7.3. Interpretation and presentation programmes and their physical impact on a site should be continuously monitored and evaluated, and periodic changes made on the basis of both scientific and scholarly analysis and public feedback. Visitors and members of associated communities as well as heritage professionals should be involved in this evaluation process. 7.4. Every interpretation programme should be seen as an educational resource and its design should take into account its possible use in school curricula, communications and information media, special activities, events, and seasonal volunteer involvement. 7.5. The training of qualified professionals in the specialised fields of heritage interpretation and presentation, such as content creation, management, technology, guiding, and education, is a crucial objective. In addition, basic academic conservation programmes should include a component on interpretation and presentation in their courses of study. 7.6. On-site training programmes and courses should be developed with the objective of updating and informing heritage and interpretation staff of all levels and associated and host communities of recent developments and innovations in the field. 7.7. International cooperation and sharing of experience are essential to developing and maintaining standards in interpretation methods and technologies. To that end, international conferences, workshops and exchanges of professional staff as well as national and regional meetings should be encouraged. These will provide an opportunity for the regular sharing of information about the diversity of interpretive approaches and experiences in various regions and cultures. a

See definitions in text. Although the principles and objectives of this Charter may equally apply to off-site interpretation, its main focus is interpretation and presentation at, or in the immediate vicinity of, cultural heritage sites. b

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The principles place emphasis on the essential roles of public communication and education in heritage preservation and are presented under the following basic headings: Access and Understanding; Information Sources; Context and Setting; Authenticity; Sustainability; Inclusiveness; and Research, Education, and Training. On the surface, the principles are generally commonsensical in terms of conditions and prescriptions for effective public interpretation. Just ‘how’ the principles are articulated, however, will determine how well they are received in international circles and whether they will be considered desirable, practical, and feasible. In countries with fragile or questionable human rights histories or poorly developed infrastructure, practical applications could be problematic. Because of their importance in outlining the major issues and foci of international dialogue and points of contention, they are given in their entirety below. ICOMOS initiatives In January 2004, the Executive Committee of the International Committee on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) agreed that the work of review and revision of the Ename Charter would be undertaken under the auspices of a small editorial group working closely with a team chosen by the Ename Center. Unlike other charters in the past, whose drafting and initial review process was the responsibility of one ICOMOS International Scientific Committee (ISC), the present charter’s broad nature and general pertinence initially precluded it from having a single sponsor ISC. The plan set forth by ICOMOS called for the text to be debated and further scrutinized with extensive discussion in order to reflect the global consensus and universal wisdom that is the hallmark of all ICOMOS doctrinal documents. The review time was extended until the ICOMOS General Assembly in Quebec, Canada, in 2008. The issues that continue to be discussed and debated include: . defining mechanisms for securing stakeholder participation, in that there are no universally shared views on who are the valid stakeholders; . further analysis, in terms of establishing acceptable boundaries and better guidance as to their interpretation, on the interpretation of religious and sacred sites, places of memory and the so-called sites of conscience; . further discussion on the nature and circumstances of ‘authenticity’ as it relates to both tangible and intangible heritage resources; . the question of the universal need to interpret heritage sites and categories and the circumstances that surround them that influence decisions to interpret as well as the level of interpretation; and

. defining ‘target audience’ to include not only the professional preservation community, but also the growing numbers of specialists that conceive, design, and build interpretation programs and infrastructure, knowing little about the principles of heritage conservation and management. The Charleston Declaration International dialogue and reaction spurred by the Ename Charter initiative led ICOMOS to expand global discussions using the Ename Charter as a stimulus to guide and inform the process. In early May 2005, in recognition of high public interest and the effects of mass tourism, the connections to current heritage management practices, and technological advancements, US/ICOMOS held a conference in Charleston, South Carolina, to better articulate a consensus on internationally applicable public interpretation principles. The main outcome of the conference was the Charleston Declaration on Heritage Interpretation, issued on 7 May 2005, which reiterated the importance and purpose of establishing a set of internationally relevant principles for interpretation and called for further international dialogue. The declaration pointed out that additional clarifications were needed before the adoption of a doctrinal document on interpretation at the ICOMOS General Assembly in Quebec in 2008. In addition, the declaration recognized that more scrutiny is needed on four major issues: . defining mechanisms for incorporating stakeholder perceptions and values; . providing guidance for interpretation of religious and sacred sites, places of contested significance, and sites of conscience or ‘painful memory’; . defining the concept and role of ‘authenticity’; and . how the categorization of heritage sites and the circumstances that surround them affect opposition or support among cultures and communities as well as the level of interpretation. The Ename Charter and the Charleston Declaration are important in that they address international standards of public interpretation through conservation and stewardship messages that relate to cultural heritage values. The use in the charter of such terms as ‘responsibility’ and ‘appropriateness’ calls for careful scrutiny in how certain terms and expressions are worded and how well the charter is ultimately accepted internationally.

Today’s Challenges The Issue of ‘Authenticity’

At Chaco Canyon in the mid-1990s, Christine Finn examined the quandary of NPS employees in dealing with ritual objects left at Casa Rinconada. In her

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essay, she raises the issue of ‘authentic’ use of an ancient site, and asks whether it is possible to discriminate one use as more worthy than another. The Native American community argued their right through inheritance or continued use: How might more recent visitors, such as twenty-first century New Age followers, claim their right to use the site? Is their use, for ritual purposes, an expression of care and understanding, or does it mark a lack of consideration for earlier claims on the site? Is the site, or the significance of the encompassing landscape, the main issue? Chaco Canyon, she points out, as a celebrated heritage complex located in the desert US Southwest, continues to be a valuable resource to Native Americans while also becoming a ceremonial center for New Age followers, who were, ironically, in part inspired by Native American knowledge. As this case exemplifies, and as is reflected in the conclusions of the Charleston Declaration, further discussions are needed on the concept and meaning of ‘authenticity’ in interpretation. Traditional attitudes that focus on static, material authenticity will need to be replaced with more conditional and contextual definitions shaped by acknowledgement of dynamic processes of cultural change and diversity rather than judgments based on fixed criteria. Definitions of authenticity must be tempered or guided by local and community-based, inclusive analyses. Any analysis model for authenticity should reflect and represent multiple perspectives on what is authentic or ‘true’ about a site or place and should provide a roadmap for practical solutions. The nature and qualifications of ‘experts’ on authenticity should reflect the diversity of cultural affiliations and values attributed to the site, which, in turn, should be periodically reviewed and reassessed. Toward More Inclusive Interpretation

In heritage management, some of our most serious challenges involve defining and applying universal principles of interpretation. In present-day discussions and debates about interpretation standards, the subject of inclusiveness tends to be one of the more contentious and problematic issues. There are many, often overlapping, roadblocks to inclusiveness involving cultural, political, economic, and social factors. It can seem hopeless in a wide variety of sites and settings: can Jerusalem, for example, ever be interpreted in a way that we can describe as inclusive to all, or even a majority, of stakeholders? When we contemplate the challenges posed by the study and commemoration of heritage places within modern multicultural societies, we step into a complicated maze of terminology and semantics centered on international debates about relevance and conscience

as well as cross-cultural and international priority and appropriateness. We come to the table with developing, and sometimes divergent, assumptions and purposes for site commemoration and treatment. While no country or region in the world practices or exhibits multiculturalism in the same manner, most of the these conversations occur in countries from the Western cultural tradition, or, at least, the terminology used in these discussions stems from the predominately Western ideas of equal treatment, ethnic sensitivity, and accountability for multiple points of view that are constantly and openly debated. Many of the categories used in heritage site management, such as national park, national monument, and world heritage site, are notions of commemoration originating in the West (see World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws). This is mentioned here so as not to forget that, as we enter into discussions of international and universal relevance, we need to be cautious in avoiding terminology that can appear, to a non-Westerner, to be patronizing and insensitive. Multiculturalism is one of those terms that are difficult to describe definitively, but it is important in our discussions here in that it describes the general sociopolitical environment that is necessary for public policy in managing cultural diversity in multiethnic societies, stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country’s or region’s borders. As a policy, multiculturalism emphasizes the unique characteristics of different cultures, especially as they relate to one another within national boundaries. Multiculturalism is a view, or policy, that immigrants and other groups should preserve their cultures with the different cultures interacting peacefully within one nation. This has been the official policy of Australia, Canada, and the UK. Multiculturalism has been described as preserving a ‘cultural mosaic’ of separate ethnic groups, and is contrasted to a ‘melting pot’ that mixes them, the United States commonly being given as an example of a melting pot. Some use the term multiculturalism differently, describing both the melting pot, and the ‘cultural mosaic’ condition, such as in Canada, as being multicultural and refer to ‘pluralistic’ versus ‘particularist’ multiculturalism. Pluralistic multiculturalism, similar to the melting pot concept, views each culture or subculture in a society as contributing unique and valuable cultural aspects to the whole culture. Particularist multiculturalism is more concerned with preserving the distinctions between cultures. Probably no country falls completely into one, or another, of these categories (see Culture, Concept and Definitions). The nature of the reality of multiculturalism in any one country or region affects public policies and

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attitudes about inclusive heritage interpretation and where to focus the discussions; that is, what are the messages, and to whom are the messages directed? Fundamental Questions

In our deliberations regarding who owns the past and what constitutes inclusive public interpretation, we can couch our discussions within the framework of attempting to answer some fundamental questions. While present and future deliberations will not easily resolve these questions, they certainly encompass many of the key issues. First, what constitutes an ‘inclusive’ public interpretation of heritage? The Ename Charter on Interpretation (Table 1) defines ‘inclusiveness’ as that which seeks to ensure that the interpretation of a cultural heritage site is not merely a carefully scripted presentation prepared by outsiders, but should instead actively involve the participation of associated communities and other stakeholders. In all aspects of site commemoration and site management, whether these are interpretive programs, exhibits, physical maintenance activities, or the effects of heritage tourism, according to the charter, an interpretation program must be seen as a community activity rather than something imposed by persons or institutions perceived to be outside the community. ‘Community’ in this sense is simply a group or class having common interests, or likeness or identity. Communities include educational, professional, academic, governmental, descendant, and local. Communities are not discrete in that they can and do overlap. For example, members of a descendant community may also be part of the educational and the professional communities. In discussions of inclusiveness, our ideal for communities is that they be involved in participatory education and public interpretation where members of a community actively participate in developing, carrying out, delivering, or otherwise producing the program or elements of the program or interpretive product. The second question we might pose is ‘‘Does the term ‘inclusive’ connote democratic or equal treatment? How does it relate to, appeal to, and be available to, broad masses of people?’’ If we accept the assumption that some form of multiculturism is a necessary backdrop for inclusiveness, our approaches to commemoration and public interpretation should follow an objective process that seeks to identify the attributes, or values, inherent in the resource that make them important to people and therefore worthy of protecting, preserving, and celebrating. Third, we might ask, in multicultural societies, how are standards of significance and authenticity promulgated and agreed upon, and how are they effectively formalized while accommodating multiple

points of view? One corollary question is, once commemoration standards are formalized in terms of management strategies and oversight procedures, how are the values of immigrant and minority communities, as well as evolving values of the ‘majority’ addressed and accommodated within the identification-commemoration process? A second corollary question is, are formally managed monuments and sites a reflection of a timeless ideal or a changing reality, and can these purposes coexist? Public interpretation treatments worldwide run the gamut for tendencies of inclusiveness and exclusiveness. What does a Palestinian, or Palestinians as a group, believe as authentic and therefore worthy of protection and commemoration? How does this compare in terms of commonality of commemoration, sense of place and setting, etc., with the heritage values of Israelis for the same territory or site? Can divergent communities in terms of values and opinions on commemoration ever arrive at a consensus, or even develop a constructive dialogue, about the rights of inclusion in heritage interpretation and site management? Inclusiveness through Values-based Management

One approach that seems to result in more democratic and far ranging treatments, involving a comprehensive assessment based on input from a broad range of stakeholders, is what has been termed ‘values-based management’. Values-based management aids inclusiveness by providing a mechanism for accountability for the totality of values and significance attributed to a site or set of sites. ‘Values’ in this sense relate to tangibles and intangibles that define what is important to people. In all societies, a sense of well-being is associated with the need to connect with and appreciate heritage values. An understanding of how and why the past affects both the present and the future contributes to people’s sense of well-being. In heritage management, we articulate ‘values’ as attributes given to sites, objects, and resources, and associated intellectual and emotional connections that make them important and define their significance for a person, group, or community. Practitioners of values-based management strive to identify and take these values into account in planning, physical treatments, and public interpretation efforts. In theory, values-based management, if thoroughly and impartially executed, will result in more democratic and inclusive interpretations by accounting for the values of all stakeholders. This is the ideal. Some notable examples of values-based management were published in a series of studies sponsored by the Getty Institute in 2003. And there are many more examples from the US and elsewhere: Chaco Canyon National Historic Park in the United States;

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Port Arthur World Heritage Site, Tasmania, Australia; and Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site in the UK. Although differing ethnic groups will not agree on the meaning of, or share the same perspective toward, concepts of value, all people who ascribe meaning and significance for a site will relate to concepts of value in some significant way. Perhaps an extension of the values-based approach that can facilitate more inclusive interpretation is to develop mechanisms of identifying more broadly defined value categories. More broadly defined concepts of value would aid inclusiveness by making meanings accessible and relevant to wider communities of stakeholders. It seems that many of the contested issues surrounding values’ assessments are rooted in divergent concepts of authenticity. Authenticity involves factors that ascribe values or meanings that make something real and not an imitation; they ascribe concepts of ‘truth’ or legitimacy for a society, group, community, or individual, perhaps a topic for another future colloquium, and, indeed, ICOMOS. Beyond Recitation: The Application and Art of Interpretation

Effective interpretation: Fostering audience links to resource meanings and universal concepts Another possible avenue toward a more inclusive and internationally relevant public interpretation of heritage is to consider the utility and development of universal values and concepts that can provide the greatest degree of relevance and meaning to the greatest number of people. A major goal of interpretation is to provide links for audiences between tangibles and intangibles and to place the audience or visitor in relationship with broad meanings. The NPS IDP, discussed earlier in this article, has identified links to universal concepts as key to effective interpretation in all modes of delivery. IDP describes universal concepts as intangible resources that almost everyone can relate to, that is, universal intangibles. While not all people are likely to agree on the meaning of or share the same perspective toward a universal concept, according to the IDP philosophy of interpretation, all audiences can relate to the concept in some meaningful way. For example, the rocks (tangible) of Yosemite National Park tell many stories of beauty, danger, and mystery (intangible). Universal concepts make meanings accessible and the resource relevant to widely diverse audiences. They do not always have to be explained to be experienced or understood. Approaches and techniques for presenting universal concepts will differ from one type of resource to another. In all modes of delivery, the interpretive product should capture and illustrate the tangible to intangible/universal concepts.

According to IDP, the interpretive product should include a variety of universal concepts such as time, change, tranquillity, peace, safety, security, shelter, and solitude. It should be appropriate for the audience and provide a clear focus for their connection with the resource by demonstrating the cohesive development of a relevant idea or ideas, rather than relying primarily on chronological narrative or a series of related facts. It should provide opportunities for audiences to make both intellectual and emotional connections to resource meanings by using analogies, comparisons, word pictures, and other methods to link tangibles and intangibles. According to IDP, ‘‘the visitor is sovereign’’ in terms of forming his or her own intellectual and emotional connections with meanings and significance inherent in the resource. The interpretive product should serve as a catalyst in creating opportunities for the audience to form these connections (NPS IDP 2006). Interpretation as a mechanism for resource sustainability Many of the established principles for interpretation in the United States and internationally stem from the writing and philosophy of Freeman Tilden. Tilden defined interpretation as an educational activity that aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects by first-hand experience and illustrative media, rather than to simply communicate factual information. Freeman’s six principles emphasized relevance to the experience of the audience and interpretation as a teachable art form. According to Tilden, the chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation, and must address itself to the whole person rather than any phase. Tilden advocated what we would describe today as a ‘layered’ approach to interpretation that takes into account the perspectives of a variety of audiences differentiated by age, sociocultural background, and other factors. Later advocates have built on the foundations of Tilden and applied postmodern theoretical approaches. Jon Kohl, for example, defines interpretation in terms of ‘‘a ‘paradigm’, a deeply embedded set of beliefs that together form a story or worldview.’’ To Kohl, each culture has a story that explains its people’s creation, significance, and destiny. This set of beliefs directs how they relate to resources. Kohl advocates expanding the scope and ultimate goal of interpretation beyond conservation goals toward an integration of ‘‘deep stories’’ that ‘‘carry it across the divide to conservation in the short-term and sustainability of natural and cultural resources in the long.’’ For interpreters, he says, these changes will first be felt in conservation, a sector of sustainable resource management, and then later for sustainability issues in general.

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Kohl believes that effective interpretation in the future will involve a paradigm shift that rewrites the worldview script by interpreting new ideas and meanings in order to move society toward sustainability. Interpretation through inspiration and cognitive connection Many cultural heritage specialists today are not content to rely solely on traditional methodologies and analytical techniques in their attempts to reconstruct human history and bring it to life for people. They want to venture beyond utilitarian explanations and explore the interpretive potential of cognitive imagery that archaeological information and objects can inspire. They realize the value and power of artistic expression in helping to convey archaeological information to the public. Archaeologists are increasingly concerned with how the past is presented to, and consumed by, nonspecialists. They want to examine new ways of communicating archaeological information in educational venues such as national parks, museums, popular literature, film and television, music, and various multimedia formats. Archaeology and archaeologically derived information and objects have inspired a wide variety of artistic expressions ranging from straightforward computer-generated reconstructions and traditional artists’ conceptions to other art forms such as poetry and opera. Although some level of conjecture will always be present in these works, they are often no less conjectural than technical interpretations and have the benefit of providing visual and conceptual imagery that can communicate contexts and settings in compelling ways. Two such interpretive formats,

two-dimensional paintings and popular history writing, are used by the NPS as public interpretation and education tools (Figures 2 and 3). Interpretation in popular history writing Today, many public archaeologists have come to agree that ‘both’ quality research and the public interpretation of research findings are indispensable outcomes of their work. After all, is not the ultimate value of archaeological studies not only to inform but also ultimately to improve the public’s appreciation of the nature and relevance of cultural history? This improved appreciation results in an improved quality of life for all persons. Exhibits and popular history writing are two of the most effective techniques for public interpretation of archaeology. To be successful, both techniques must not only inform but entertain. The goals are to connect, engage, inform, and inspire, resulting in a lasting and improved appreciation of the resource. Too often, among the flood of reports and artifacts that have come from cultural heritage studies, archaeologists and cultural heritage managers lose sight of the purpose of the compliance process, which is to provide public enjoyment and appreciation for the rich diversity of past human experiences. An important, and some would say the ‘most’ important, outcome of mitigation programs is the production of publications, programs, and exhibits that provide public access to research findings. For example, an important outcome of the Richard B. Russell (RBR) CRM program of the US Army Corps of Engineers, a major reservoir and dam project of the 1980s, was the

Figure 2 ‘‘Sara’s Ridge Archaic Site.’’ Interpretive oil painting by Martin Pate, based on archaeological site information and base map, Richard B. Russell Dam and Reservoir, Georgia and South Carolina. Image courtesy Southeast Archeological Center, National Park Service.

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the fundamental integrity of the original material. The universal praise of Beneath These Waters from the educational, scientific, and local communities was a testament to the success of the book in providing informational access to the research findings. The Challenges of Heritage Tourism

Figure 3 ‘‘Unlocking the Past.’’ Oil painting by Martin Pate. The painting is meant as a metaphor for the theme and topics of the Unlocking the Past outreach project that discussed the nature of historical archaeology in North America. The image is being used by the Society for Historical Archaeology as a logo for its education and outreach efforts.

production of publications and exhibits that provided public access and interpretation of the findings of the RBR studies. In the production of the RBR popular history volume, Beneath These Waters, the NPS and the Corps jointly produced a popular account that was both informative and entertaining. In preparing Beneath These Waters, the NPS chose a team of professional writers adept at the art of effectively translating technical information for the lay public. The writers, not formally trained in archaeology or history, faced distinct disadvantages in taking on the task of writing the book. As they pored over the various technical archaeology and history reports, however, they realized that this initial detachment from technical know-how had given them an important advantage in writing a popular history. They could apply objectivity in reviewing the project and its results, unencumbered by the predictable baggage of professional biases, cultivated styles, and emotions attached to a project of this magnitude and importance. The writers’ task was to take the results of two decades of research, strip them to the essentials, and reclothe them for a general audience without losing

Another current and ever-growing challenge that will affect the inclusiveness of heritage management and interpretation is the juggernaut of tourism. By definition, heritage tourism is collaboration between conservationists and commercial promoters. In heritage tourism, our goal is to harness people’s fascination and sense of connection to the past and turn it into a commodity. It is often an uneasy association because the motives of these respective groups are not always compatible. While there is general recognition that heritage tourism can work to promote preservation of communities’ historic and cultural resources, and also educate tourists and local residents about the resources, the resulting effects are not always viewed as beneficial, especially from those of us on the conservationist side of the fence. Nevertheless, because heritage tourism is a growth industry in almost every part of the world, the issues it conjures up – good and bad – must be addressed. Globalization and global tourism are changing our world in ways that we are just beginning to understand. Heritage tourism, with its ties to the currents of rapidly evolving global economies, is causing increasing needs and demands for cross-cultural and international communication and interdisciplinary training. Greater importance is being placed on transferable skills such as the application of interdisciplinary approaches, writing for both academic and nonacademic audiences, oral presentation, and experience with multimedia packages. Heritage tourism run amok – when the relationship lacks conservation-driven decision making and objectively derived values assessments – threatens or limits the goal of inclusiveness in interpretation by rendering community and other stakeholder involvement superficial. Interpretation of the meaning of sites is inherently important to the conservation process and therefore plays a defining role in conservation/tourism interactions. Those of us whose primary goals and interests are conservation should be determined that our values and standards in this relationship are not compromised or diminished.

Conclusions The last few decades have witnessed a dynamic period of evolving standards and philosophy in public

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archaeology and heritage interpretation. Philosophical approaches and techniques exemplified by the NPS IDP have formed a basis for the development of international definitions, standards, and approaches that lead to more effective strategies for site protection and conservation through enhanced public stewardship. Discussions on issues such as authenticity and inclusiveness will continue to dominate international debates about the significance and proper use of sites. The challenges for international relevance and application posed by the ICOMOS Ename Charter initiative will form the center of future debates and deliberations. The goal of more inclusive interpretations will require an acceptance of divergent definitions of authenticity that depend on a level of tolerance of multiple definitions of significance with concomitant, objectively derived, assigned and ascribed heritage values. We can hope that these efforts lead to the recognition of humanistic values that are reflected in heritage tourism practices, as well as site commemoration and protection decisions by controlling authorities. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Archaeology Today; Cultural Resource Management; Culture, Concept and Definitions; Native Peoples and Archaeology; Popular Culture and Archaeology; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading DeCunzo L and Jameson JH, Jr. (eds.) (2005) Unlocking the Past Celebrating Historical Archaeology in North America. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. De la Torre M (2003) Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, The J. Paul Getty Trust.

Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation (2006). ICOMOS Ename Charter for the Interpretation of Cultural Heritage Sites. Fifth Draft, 12 Dec. 2006 http://www. enamecharter.org/index.html (accessed 14 Dec. 2006). Finn C (1997) ‘‘Leaving more than footprints’’: Modern votive offerings at Chaco Canyon prehistoric site. Antiquity 71(271): 177–178. ICOMOS ICIP (2006) Mission Statement. http://icip.icomos.org/ ENG/about_missionstatement.html (accessed 18 Apr. 2007). Jameson JH, Jr. (2004) Public archaeology in the United States. In: Merriman N (ed.) Public Archaeology, pp. 21–58. New York: Routledge. Jameson JH, Jr. (ed.) (1997) Presenting Archaeology to the Public: Digging for Truths (ed). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Jameson JH, Jr. (ed.) (2004) The Reconstructed Past: Reconstructions in the Public Interpretation of Archaeology and History. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Jameson JH, Jr., Ehrenhard JE, and Finn CA (eds.) (2003) Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Kohl J (2003) Post-revolution interpretation. Legacy (Nov./ Dec. 2003, Parts 1–3). Interpreters and the Big Story. http:// jonkohl.com/publications/categories/interp.htm (accessed 25 May 2006). McManamon FP and Hatton A (eds.) (2000) One World Archaeology, Vol. 33 Cultural Resource Management in Contemporary Society – Perspectives on Managing and Presenting the Past. New York: Routledge. NAI (2005) National Association for Interpretation: Mission, Vision, and Core Values. http://www.interpnet.com/about_nai/ mission.shtml (accessed 18 Apr. 2007). NPS (2005) Module 440: Effective Interpretation of Archeological Resources. http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/440/module.htm (accessed 18 Apr. 2007). NPS IDP (2006) The Interpretive Development Program, Aiming for High Ground. http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/ (accessed 15 Jun 15 2006). Tilden F (1957) Interpreting Our Heritage:Principles and Practices for Visitor Services in Parks, Museums, and Historic Places. New York: Van Rees. Stone PG and Molyneaux B (1994) Introduction. In: Stone PG and Molyneaux BL (eds.) The Represented Past: Heritage, Museums, and Education, pp. 1–28. New York: Routledge.

INTERPRETIVE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY John H Jameson, Jr., Southeast Archaeological Center, Tallahassee, FL, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Glossary esthetic art Art forms that are produced for recreational or pleasurable purposes or are perceived to possess recreational or pleasurable qualities or values. environmental art Art that demonstrates a relationship with nature. The setting for these works is often a mixture of natural or cultural elements of landscape.

interpretive art In cultural heritage and archaeology interpretation, interpretive art is any art form used to explore the interpretive potential of cognitive imagery that cultural and archaeological information and objects can inspire. In this sense, it is used to help create opportunities for visitors to sites and exhibits to form their own intellectual and emotional connections to the meanings and significance of archaeological information and the people and events that created them. interpretive narrative archaeology A narrative approach in presenting and interpreting data being employed by an increasing number of archaeologists in the USA and worldwide. It is sometimes described as ‘story telling’, presented in the third person, and, less commonly, in the first person. Its goal is to make the results of archaeological research more relevant and

1544 INTERPRETIVE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY meaningful to the members of the public in whose interest such work is undertaken. In other cases, it is a first person attempt to personalize, contextualize, and demystify the research process. More than just ‘telling the story’, interpretive narrative archaeology serves to place interpretation at the center of the archaeological endeavor. public art Art created in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being located or staged in the public domain, often in an outdoors and readily accessible setting. The term is also applied to art forms that are exhibited in a public space and publicly accessible buildings. Public art is not confined to physical objects in that art forms such as music, dance, and poetry have proponents that specialize in public art. utilitarian art Art forms that reflect the necessities of life.

History is a great deal closer to poetry than is generally realised: in truth, I think, it is in essence the same. (A. L. Rowse) Only imagination fleshes out the sound and taste of time past, anchoring the flavor of lost moments in the welter of objects left behind. (Carmel Schrire, in Digging Through Darkness, Chronicles of an Archaeologist (1995))

Introduction Archaeology is an indispensable tool in the construction, elaboration, and interpretation of history. Viewed as a sub-discipline of anthropology, with obvious philosophical links to such fields as history and cultural geography, archaeology uses material cultural and other vestiges of the past, such as artifacts and historical accounts, to refine, expand, and update our knowledge of mankind’s history as well as cultural and physical development. Being one of the most interdisciplinary of fields, it is alternatively taught as a specialty or concentration within history and other social science university departments around the world. Archaeological methods are used in scientific investigations of past human behavior to produce more accurate historical accounts and interpretations, helping us to understand the relevance and importance of the present as well as the past. Our studies of the past are creations of the present defined by social relationships and values of the present. In recent years, an enhanced and expanded attention to educational and community-based archaeology and inclusiveness has helped focus the public eye on the importance and relevance of archaeology in preserving and protecting multicultural values for diverse audiences. As an interdisciplinary field of study that investigates the past by finding and analyzing evidence from material culture within a contextual and natural fabric, with a focus on predicting human behavior, archaeology has long attempted to recognize and define ‘artistic’ objects and their associated values. The early history of archaeology as an academic field in

the United States was influenced by the Victorian preoccupation with classical antiquity in both the Old and New Worlds, coupled with emerging ethnological concepts that concentrated on Native American cultures. These factors helped to create a philosophical and theoretical framework for early American archaeology in the nineteenth century that attracted scholars from the academic fields of history, classical studies, the fledgling field of anthropology, as well as the art world. Although archaeological method and theory in the twentieth century was expanded and transformed, drawing heavily from the physical and social sciences, the philosophical and conceptual links to the study of art have persisted to the present day.

Art and Imagery as Public Interpretation and Education Tools in Archaeology Archaeology and Interpretive Art

During the past two decades, archaeologists, interpreters, and educators worldwide have increasingly collaborated to more effectively interpret archaeology and cultural heritage. Employing an interdisciplinary team approach, public interpretation practitioners use their knowledge and skills to create opportunities for the public to form intellectual and inspirational connections to the meanings and significance of the archaeological materials and the peoples who created them. Increasingly, they have come to appreciate the value and power of artistic expression in helping to convey archaeological information to the public and giving it new meaning. What we have termed ‘interpretive art’ has been used successfully in paintings, drawings, posters, teaching guides, reports, popular histories, and Web presentations as ways of engaging, informing, and inspiring the public about the value of archaeology. Interpretive message and associated meanings can be delivered through divergent artistic expressions such as two-dimensional oil paintings, three-dimensional exhibits, public sculpture, and popular history writing. Successful programs utilize techniques that both inform and entertain. The goals are to connect, engage, inform, and inspire, resulting in a lasting and enhanced appreciation of the resource (see Interpretation of Archaeology for the Public; Popular Culture and Archaeology). At the Southeast Archeological Center in Tallahassee, Florida, in our outreach and public interpretation efforts, we have enlisted painters and writers to produce artistic works with the goals of complementing and helping to explain the archaeological record, while also engaging, entertaining, and inspiring the audience. We believe that our interpretive oil paintings also help dispel false or stereotypic imagery by

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offering an alternative, more plausible scene. Esthetically pleasing paintings can attract and engage while also serving a number of other interpretive objectives such as supplying detailed information about the resource and carrying conservation, commemorative, or metaphorical messages (Figures 1–3). Some parallels to this team-oriented interpretive strategy can be drawn from recent developments in the realm of the so-called ‘dinosaur art’ where the expert palaeontologists have learned to work cooperatively with dinosaur artists – to work with the artists rather than to dismiss what the experts perceive as inaccurate depictions stemming from the public’s fascination with these fantastically large, powerful, and grotesque creatures. As with archaeology, the public’s attraction to dinosaurs does not usually spring from a scientific source. The palaeontologist’s inability to say what dinosaurs really looked like has no power to drive away inaccurate icons. Media-savvy palaeontologists have learned to wait

to publicize a dinosaur discovery until they have a commissioned painting of the creature to show. They have learned that, by working with the artist, the experts can at least inform the public about what is known. The artists usually want to be as accurate as possible because doing so lends credence and prestige to their work. Most dinosaur images today, including those depicted in television and movies, are guided by hard data, though hard data can only be a starting point. We believe that archaeologists should likewise take advantage of the public’s natural curiosity in working with artists to create images grounded in hard data – announcing new discoveries and new interpretations – even if this is just a starting point, as with dinosaur art. History well told makes a compelling story. In producing popular accounts rooted in historical and archaeological research, we have partnered with artists and writers to produce works that reflect dramatic and skillful writing as well as accurate information. Popular

Figure 1 Example of interpretive art for a public awareness poster with a conservation/protection message. Courtesy, Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service. Oil painting by Martin Pate.

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Figure 2 Example of interpretive art used in a commemorative poster for the 50th anniversary of the Southeast Archaeological Conference. Courtesy, Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service. Oil painting by Martin Pate.

Figure 3 Example of interpretive art with a metaphorical message about historical archaeology and the components of research, coupled with public interpretation. Courtesy, Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service. Oil painting by Martin Pate.

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writers of cultural resource themes can tell stories inspired by archaeology that are appealing because of the nature of the material and because of the way the story is told. They are interpreters who contribute not only to the esthetic expressions of art, but also to human understanding and increased knowledge. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have actually functioned. They prompt thoughts about the human experience in other times and places. These esthetic and humanistic expressions about cultural history inspire us to immerse ourselves in efforts to reconstruct more distant pasts, exploring the ways people constructed their lives. This evokes in us a sense of beauty and excitement and gives us added and enhanced perspectives on cultural history, society, and the human condition. For example, in preparing the highly demanded and award-winning popular history Beneath These Waters, the National Park Service chose a team of professional writers adept at the art of effectively translating technical information for the lay public. Contract writers Sharyn Kane and Richard Keeton, because they were not formally trained archaeologists or historians and were unfamiliar with the world of government contracting, overcame some distinct disadvantages in accomplishing the task of writing this book. Guided by a scope of work and in collaboration with government archaeologists, the authors’ task was to take the results of two decades of research from the multivolume Richard B. Russell Reservoir cultural resources studies, strip them down to the essentials, and reclothe them in a fashion that would be well received by general, but diverse, audiences without losing the fundamental integrity and accuracy of the original, research-derived material. Utilitarian versus Esthetic in Archaeological Public Interpretation

Public interpretation of archaeology involves methodologies associated with conveying factual and stimulating explanatory information to the lay public. The popularity of its products and programs reflects a growing public awareness of the importance of archaeology and the ways in which the past is represented, including the inherent value of understanding imagery both ‘from’ and ‘of’ the past. Art is something created by humans that is evocative; it is more than symbolism or simple representation. It causes the viewer to feel something: anger, joy, sadness, fear, energy, violence, tranquility, loneliness, and awe. It causes the viewer to think. It makes a social or cultural statement. It makes us see humor where we have not seen it before. It places us in settings and

moods that we have not yet encountered. It allows us to experience something in a new way. It is much more and different than mimicry. Art can do many things to us at the same time. An artist shows imaginative skill in arrangement or execution. Rendering an esthetically pleasing effect is the rendering of an altered nature or an altered material world. Aristotle in the fourth century BC wrote that this modification of nature and objects produces two types of art: utilitarian art that is necessary for life; and pleasurable or esthetic art that is produced for recreation. Art in the latter sense is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of esthetic objects. But the classification of objects as art is cultural, subjective, and at times, controversial. Archaeologists, both historians and prehistorians, have had a long-standing interest in art and the relationships of archaeology and art. Today, we can find university curricula that teach archaeological approaches to the study of art which are distinct from those of the other disciplines that study art. Here, ‘archaeology of art’ takes an anthropological approach that often challenges Eurocentric and traditional Western interpretations. Archaeologists are increasingly examining how archaeological information is communicated in national parks and museums; by popular literature, film, television, music, and various multimedia formats; and its overall effectiveness. We want to explore the potential of cognitive imagery that springs from an association with archaeology and its attempts to reconstruct past lifeways. We want to know how certain interpretive methodologies, in various settings, using certain media formats, can contribute to both public and professional understanding of human history. Esthetic art has been in our own culture and in cultures around the world since recorded history, yet archaeologists rarely ask questions about esthetics in their research designs, but rather have concentrated on the utilitarian explanations. Although the esthetic qualities of things are sometimes acknowledged in the archaeological literature, they are rarely discussed. This strategy has not only been convenient, but perhaps partially justified if one assumes, as some have, that the purpose for esthetic art is lost with an unrecorded culture. But, if only unsatisfactory utilitarian reasons can be found to justify an artifact and its attributes, then the motive for its being or creation must be esthetic. Perhaps it is time for archaeologists to more earnestly address and relate to esthetic art forms that have been as important in all cultures as ways of showing imaginative skills. We pose the question: might an emphasis on

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esthetic qualities also be an important element in the interpretation of the past? Perhaps more accurate interpretations would be rendered, and apparent theoretical contradictions in the archaeological record explained, if the esthetic arts were more fully considered. Palaeoarchaeologists have long been at a loss, beyond utilitarianism, to explain the remarkable skill levels and apparent ‘artistic’ attributes in many varieties of Palaeo-Indian creations, including cave paintings and projectile points and tools. Baker (1997) has pointed out that the knowable dimensions of a given culture are inversely proportional to its remoteness in time. More hard data is available as we come to more recent time periods and thus a less speculative starting point for the interpretive artist as well as the technical experts. As a result, it is difficult for an archaeologist to define or differentiate between utilitarian and esthetic art forms in ancient cultures. The Palaeolithic cave paintings in southern France were created over 30 000 years ago. However, the lack of knowledge of the culture seriously impedes the archaeologist from defining functional aspects of these images. In contrast, the Folsom projectile point manufactured approximately 10 000 years ago in North America has the obvious utilitarian art form of piercing and cutting in the food gathering process. With a paucity of observable material culture, are we left only with subjective or logical explanations? Do the ‘flutes’ on the Palaeo-Indian projectile represent a pleasurable or esthetic art form in addition to its utilitarian function? Those of us familiar with Palaeo-Indian traditions often do not consider these examples of stone craftsmanship to be works of esthetic art. Others, however, speculate that they may represent some kind of ceremonial function, possibly within the realm of magic or religion. But these are vague speculations at best. We suspect that some utilitarian objects through time and culture change are embellished or elaborated, sometimes to a point where the original utilitarian forms are barely, if at all, recognizable. We observe what appears to be a combining or blending of esthetic and utilitarian attributes, and this combination has occurred across all time lines.

Archaeology as a Catalyst for Human Inspiration and Interpretation Facilitating Connections to Values and Meanings

The practice of archaeology, and archaeologically derived information and objects, can inspire a wide variety of artistic expressions ranging from computergenerated reconstructions and traditional artists’ two- and three-dimensional conceptions to other art forms such as poetry, opera, storytelling, and more

modernistic genres such as landscape art. Although somewhat conjectural, these works are often no more suppositious than technical interpretations and have the benefit of providing visual and conceptual imagery that can communicate contexts and settings in compelling and unique ways. These connections broaden the significance and relevance of archaeology for scholars as well as the general public. The cognitive connections between archaeology and art reflect an inductive approach in defining and explaining archaeologically derived information and making it meaningful to the public. An emphasis on using artistic expression in interpretations is consistent with a new direction in archaeological practice that challenges the positivist paradigm of processual archaeology and promotes the relevance and validity of inductive reasoning over deductive reasoning. Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts

In Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts (2003), the authors explored a variety of outcomes stemming from the interplay of archaeological inquiry, observation, and certain artistic expressions, and how these can demonstrate and be applied to more meaningful and effective approaches to interpretation that emphasize public awareness, access, and inspiration. The international contributors to Ancient Muses articulated their philosophical underpinnings by explaining the importance of the development of interpretive narrative archaeology and interpretive historical fiction that employ the imaginative uses of arts such as storytelling and drama in making the past come alive for public audiences. For example, Ancient Muses describes how contemporary Native American groups such as Navaho and Hopi look to the rock art as inspiration from their ancestors and a renewed understanding of the timelessness of their culture. Similarly, Aboriginal people in Australia are described as using visual arts to establish and maintain connections with the world around them; beyond mere indicators of cultural interaction, rock art images are used to convey social and cultural information and provide visual cues for oral histories. An article on archaeology and poetry describes ways in which both the poet and the archaeologist ‘see’ what is not so obvious; both poet and archaeologist continually reinterpret inanimate objects or ‘things’ that they try to explain or enable to ‘speak’ to us about their meanings. A piece involving the screenplay for the film ‘The English Patient’ portrays the translation of a ‘too perfect’ novel into film and the process of transformation of text and image over time. Another article describes interpretive writing experiences that attempt to meet the challenge of breathing life into the findings of technically oriented archaeological reports.

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More fine arts-related discussions convey how a public sculptor was inspired by his exposure to archaeology and cultural history in creating public sculpture. A team composed of an archaeologist and a librettist tell an intriguing tale about how the their interaction and collaboration produced an original, historically based libretto, and eventually a full production opera. Fifth World Archaeological Congress (WAC 5) Session

Another forum for discussion of this topic was the Fifth World Archaeological Congress (WAC 5) in 2003. In this international forum, held in Washington, DC, there were demonstrations of examples and practices from both artists and archaeologist/artists, and their interplay, that promote the relevance and validity of the deductive reasoning approach and a shift in how many archaeologists plan and conduct research and evaluate significance. For example, Lance Foster, a member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, professes to be both an American Indian artist and an archaeologist: ‘‘I have always been Indian, and I have always been an artist . . . In examining the relationships between Indian art and archaeology, I believe I have found a unique personification . . . I wanted to talk about art, from the gut, from my experience as both an Indian artist of the Iowa tribe, and as an archaeologist.’’

David Middlebrook, a renowned sculptor from California, in an example of public art, explains: ‘‘What peeked my interest were the thirty-thousandyear-old cave paintings of southern France which I believe were the first signs of the intellectual revolution. I have incorporated these images into many of my large scale public art pieces. In recent years I have become at one with the technical and esthetic challenges of combining natural materials with intellectual and emotional content. The engineering tension and balance is part and parcel with the intent and substance of the work’’ (Figures 4 and 5).

Johannes Kranz of the foundation ‘Casa de los Tres Mundos’ in Nicaragua explained that the foundation is erecting a sculpture park composed of oversized copies of archaeologically recorded pre-Columbian artifacts. The oversized copies have been molded to ‘‘give back a piece of history and identity to the people of a newly constructed village’’. Here, an innovative educational and preservation initiative ‘‘serves as a model for joint efforts in community building, the strengthening of local identity and the challenge of preserving cultural heritage in similar projects throughout the world, particularly in underdeveloped countries’’. Christine Finn, also co-editor and contributor to the Ancient Muses book, discussed ‘Figures in a

Landscape’: Jacquetta Hawkes’s 1953 film about the landscape sculpture of Barbara Hepworth. In the 1920s and 1930s, Barbara Hepworth was one of a small group of pioneering sculptors in London committed to exploring abstraction. By the early 1930s, she had developed her mature style: a sensuous kind of organic abstraction, sometimes incorporating strings, wires, colored paint, or holes piercing the sculpted form. Jacquetta Hawke’s film about Barbara Hepworth was one of many works that had the goal of reminding archaeologists swept up in a frenzy of postwar scientific and theoretical advances of the human values of their profession. Hawkes’ work now begs re-evaluation at a time when archaeologists are more aware of the need to communicate to the general public. In ‘Stratigraphy: Digging Living Layers’, Nicola Laneri, another contributor to Ancient Muses, described a project consisting of a multimedia art installation that represents an ‘excavation’ of different ethnic ‘layers’ in a New York City neighborhood. This archaeological excavation of a contemporaneous context is provided using multimedia, including digging sounds, depictions of material culture, and images of a dialogue between the ‘conservation’ of the Italian tradition, represented by the words of Rosa Morrone, the owner of an Italian bakery in East Harlem since the 1950s, and the neighborhood’s ‘innovative’ facade, expressed by the words and work of the Puerto Rican painter-muralist-chalker James DeLavega. The images and objects that form this project embody the diverse ethnicities (Italian, Puerto Rican, Mexican) now present in the neighborhood and how diverse forms of cultural interactions (peaceful and violent) between these groups have led to the re-creation of ‘new’ material culture (e.g., espresso coffee made with an Italian Moka machine and Puerto Rican coffee, pizza prepared by Mexicans, Italian Madonna statues dressed with real hair – an Hispanic tradition – and worshipped by Asians) shared amongst all of these communities and remade throughout the cultural, functional, and ritual transformation of their values during the last century. In his paper ‘Sherds ABOVE the Loess: historical archaeology as art,’ David Orr contended that archaeological objects recovered from American historic sites, like those extracted from antiquity, possess an intrinsic esthetic power far removed from their scientific or historic value. This paper addressed these origins and provided an approach to the utilization of historical archaeological objects and assemblages as ‘works of beauty’ and worthy of a fine arts approach. This realization, he said, should give all of us a new perspective on the complex matrix of functions which historical archaeological material possess. An example was given that focused on a select group of

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Figure 4 An example of David Middlebrook’s public sculpture.

early eighteenth century English slipware pottery found in one context in Philadelphia and how this assemblage could easily produce a very striking art historical/esthetic exhibit. Yet, properly staged, such an esthetically motivated exhibit of historical archaeological ‘treasures’ would not be antithetical to American anthropologically driven archaeologists. In ‘From rock art to digital image: archaeology and art in aboriginal Australia,’ Claire Smith and Kirsten Brett explored the changing uses and meanings of Aboriginal arts from the Barunga–Wugularr region of the Northern Territory, Australia. The central theme here was the manner in which Aboriginal people use visual arts to establish and maintain connections with the world around them. Rock art images are used to convey social and cultural information and provide visual cues for oral histories.

When transferred into a digital format they can form the basis for educational tools that effectively extend indigenous forms of instruction. Archaeological Interpretation and Environmental Art

Generally speaking, environmental art is art that demonstrates a relationship with nature. The setting for these works is often a mixture of natural or cultural elements of landscape. Much environmental art is ephemeral, is site-specific, and involves collaborations between artists and others such as scientists, educators, and community groups. It usually involves an interpretation of a natural form and is based on the premise that creating artworks informs humans about natural and environmental forces, issues, and processes. Environmental art ‘‘re-envisions our

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Figure 5 Detail of Middlebrook public sculpture showing prehistoric pictograph images.

relationship to nature, proposing through the (artist’s) work new ways for us to co-exist with our environment’’. Seemingly taking their cues from the experimental archaeology model as well as from environmental art, some archaeologists have explored participatory methods of interpretation where the archaeologists attempt to experience and articulate new meanings and values for the resource. In these contexts, the landscape is seen not as something to be copied, but as a primary source for the creation of the work that is both artistic and interpretive. The place and the setting mold the work which is static and rooted in place. Its meaning and identity are not transferable to another location: the place is the work and the work is the place. In these archaeological interpretation experiments with environmental art, the appreciation of the work becomes anchored in the landscape. By being both ‘of’ the past and ‘of’ the

present, these archaeologists claim that the work enriches understanding of both, in recognition of the multiplicity of meanings in a particular place and a particular landscape. Both the practices of interpreting the past and producing art, they contend, result in the production of new meaning of setting and resource, transforming our understanding of place and space. In this case, art and archaeology act together dialectically to produce a novel conceptualization of the past that can appeal to different audiences in different ways and produce a means of relating to the past that is much more than the sum of its component parts. In an intriguing example from Leskernick Hill on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England, in the late 1990s, Bender et al. (2000) explore the conceptual links between producing landscape art works in the present and how this contributes to an understanding and interpretation of prehistoric lifeways. Initially, in

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an attempt to represent our experience of the hill, they experimented with writing. They opened up their interpretive text by juxtaposing diary entries with conventional prose, but eventually decided that they also needed to create more open-ended drawings and images, ones which were more subjective, full of question marks, and in some way more indicative of their various interpretative leaps, perspectives, and knowledge. To Bender and the other project archaeologists, art was seen to provide alternate ways of telling the story and expressing the ‘powers’ of stones on Leskernick Hill. They tried to capture what they perceived as a powerful sense of place that the rocks evoked through their inherent sculptural properties and positioning on the site and cultural landscape. They did not aspire to recreate the specific meanings that the stones had to the Bronze Age inhabitants of the site, but rather to propose a creative response to the physical setting and attributes of the cultural landscape. One of the many ways in which they explored this included physically transforming, and adding to, the surface structures of the hill by wrapping the stones and ‘creating installations’: ‘‘One key response we had to the stones was to wrap them. In doing this we were acknowledging and making tangible our actions within, reactions to, and interpretations of, Leskernick’s stoney landscape, and the possible significance of these stones to its prehistoric inhabitants. The process of stone wrapping served to energise the stones with our ideas and thoughts ... We wrapped stones of particular shapes: triangular, ‘whale-backed’, and pyramidal stones. These stones seemed to be of particular significance to the prehistoric inhabitants of the hill, being centrally positioned within the back walls of the houses, or sometimes having enclosure walls ‘illogically’ incorporating them and in the wider landscape of the settlement sometimes having cleared areas around them . . . Wrapping with fabric curiously confounded the observer’s perception of depth and volume . . . Wrapping the stones with cling film altered and obscured surface texture but still preserved the shape. We regard shape as being a key element in the choice and arrangement of stones on the hill . . . Wrapping stones within cling film and highlighting them with paint we found was a particularly effective way of visually expressing the significance of these stones.’’

One of their goals was to find ways to make the archaeological recordings of the past, and otherwise their engagement with it, more three-dimensional. They consciously attempted to avoid nostalgia for a vanished past or an irrational mystical relationship to culture or nature. Their work did not aim at replication but in situ transformation, attempting to rework a sense of place into present-day consciousness. They also attempted to find a middle ground between the

personal idiosyncratic approach to landscape characteristic of contemporary environmental artists and the disengaged and disinterested ‘objectivity’ of visual representation in contemporary archaeology: ‘‘We are working on a hill in which a symbolic geography of place has been pre-constructed for us by its Bronze Age inhabitants. We are attempting to create a dialectic which mediates between it and ourselves, past and present. We engage with the stones through our bodies. We perceive Leskernick hill from within, not from looking at it as if in a painting. The meanings are a product of our encounter and participation and personal involvement creates perceptual intensity. The body is a constant in relation to a continuum of shapes and sizes and forms on the hill. An awareness and interpretation of the significance of different stones on the hill is ultimately a relationship between the body and the object. Our wrapped stones mark a place, they also mark a situation, an orientation, a relationship . . . For us, performing art is a process of engagement and enablement. It allows us to see the hill, its stones and the prehistoric architecture, in a new way. Through the visual transformation of the stones they become solid metaphors linking our experience of place to the past. Wrapping stones is, in essence, to follow the lead already provided by them, it is to be objectively guided in which we attempt to emphasize the form and character of the stones and the particular properties they possess . . .Our art both aids us in interpreting the past in the present and can be appreciated, on another plane, as a contemporary cultural work. By both being of the past and of the present we would claim that it enriches our understanding of both in a recognition of the multiplicity of meanings in a particular place and a particular landscape.’’ (Bender et al. 2000)

Conclusions This chapter has discussed ways where art has been used as public interpretation and education tools as well as examples of the reciprocal effect where archaeology and archaeological information and objects have inspired artistic expression in unique and interesting ways, expanding and adding to our understanding about the value of archaeology. Experiments in environmental art have allowed some archaeologists to understand, appreciate, and interpret objects, sites, and cultural landscapes in new and innovative ways. These artistic expressions are important enhancements to archaeology’s traditional roles of analyzing and interpreting evidence from material culture and the natural environment; they enable archaeologist practitioners as well as the public to gain a greater understanding and appreciation for the resource. The preservation of archaeological sites and objects depends on the cooperation and interest of nonarchaeologists who are most often the conveyors of

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archaeological knowledge to the lay public. In fact, the most effective presentations and the most inspirational experiences come about when archaeologists and nonarchaeologists collaborate in a team approach. If we want more effective and inspirational appreciation of archaeology, we need to reach out to our communication partners: park interpreters, exhibit planners and designers, Web designers, writers, poets, musicians, screen writers, operatic composers – artisans of all types – to produce inspirational imagery and stories based on archaeological and historical facts. See also: Internet, Archaeology on; Popular Culture and Archaeology.

Further Reading Baker T (1997) Art and the Folsom Point. (http://www.ele.net/ art_folsom/art_fols.htm), 2002. Bender B, Hamilton S, and Tilley C (2000) Art and the RePresentation of the Past, adapted for the Internet by Basu P. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leskernick/articles/art/art.htm, 2006. Finn CA (2004) Past Poetic: Archaeology in the Poetry of WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney. London: Duckworth. Finn C and Henig M (2002) Outside Archaeology: Material Culture and Poetic Imagination. British Archaeological Reports (BAR) International. Greenmuseum (2006) What is Environmental Art? http://greenmu seum.org/what_is_ea.php, 2006. Harrison T (1998) Herodotus and The English Patient. Classics Ireland, Vol. 5. Dublin: University College Dublin. Hyder WD (1998) Basketmaker spatial identity: Rock art as culture and praxis. In: Faulstich P (ed.) International Rock Art Conference (IRAC) Proceedings, Vol 1: Rock Art as Visual Ecology. Tucson, AZ: American Rock Art Research Association.

Jameson JH, Jr. (1997) Introduction. In: Jameson JH, Jr. (ed.) Presenting Archaeology to the Public: Digging for Truths, pp. 11–20. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Jameson JH, Jr. (2000) Public interpretation, education, and outreach: The growing predominance in American archaeology. In: McManamon FP and Hatton A (eds.) Cultural Resource Management in Contemporary Society, One World Archaeology 33. London: Routledge. Jameson JH, Jr. (2003) Art and imagery as public interpretation and education tools in archaeology. In: Jameson JH, Jr., Ehrenhard JE, and Finn CA (eds.) Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Jameson JH, Jr. and Baugher S (2007) Public interpretation, outreach, and partnering: An introduction. In: Jameson JH, Jr. and Baugher S (eds.) Past Meets Present: Archaeologists Partnering with Museum Curators, Teachers, and Community Groups. New York: Springer. Jameson JH, Jr., Ehrenhard JE, and Finn CA (2003) Introduction. In: Jameson JH, Jr., Ehrenhard JE, and Finn CA (eds.) Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. McCarthy JP (2003) More than just ‘‘telling the story’’: Interpretive narrative archaeology. In: Jameson JH, Jr., Ehrenhard JE, and Finn CA (eds.) Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Morwood MJ and Smith CE (1996) Contemporary Approaches to World Rock Art. http://www.une.edu.au/Arch/ROCKART/ MMRockArt.html, 2002. Santayana G (1894) The power of art. In: Sonnets and Other Verses. London: Stone & Kimball. Schrire C (1995) Digging through Darkness, Chronicles of an Archaeologist. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. SEAC (2003) About SEAC’s Interpretive Art Projects. http://www. cr.nps.gov/seac/about_interpart.htm, 2006. SEAC (2003) WAC-5 Conference Session: Archaeology and the Arts: the Ancient Muses and Other Inspirations. http://www.cr. nps.gov/seac/WAC/JJ_Muses.doc, 2006. Wikipedia (2006) Public Art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_ Art, 2006.

INTERPRETIVE MODELS, DEVELOPMENT OF William Howard Walker, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary cultural evolutionism The continuous, accumulative and progressive process by which cultural phenomena, systemically organized, undergo change, one form or stage succeeding another. Cultural evolutionism is the application of the general theory of evolution to cultural phenomena as distinguished from biological or physical phenomena. culture history approach The description of cultures as clusters of material culture traits created by processes of innovation, diffusion, or migration. historical particularism Historical particularism claims that each society has its own unique historical development and must

be understood based on its own specific cultural context, especially its historical process. interpretive model An interpretive model is simply composed of the assumptions that form the foundation for interpreting evidence and arguments. postprocessual archaeology A humanistic approach, attempting to get at past peoples’ own views of how they did things and what was significant. It derives from postmodern philosophy in the social sciences. processual archaeology Processual archaeology is the study of process, that is to say, investigations of the way humans do things, and the way things decay.

Interpretive models in archaeology, sometimes also described as models of inference, emanate from theories that describe the organization of society or culture and how they change through time. Implicit and

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explicit in these theories are assumptions about the relationship between human activity and material culture. These assumptions form the logic or models archaeologists use to interpret patterning they find in archaeological materials. In this article, the author explores highlights in the history of some of these models and focus on classical evolutionary, historical particularist, functionalist, ecological, and practiceoriented social theories.

Classical Evolutionism In the late nineteenth century, interpretive models in archaeology were guided by the conception of cultures as organizational stages along a continuum from simple to complex. These societal stages, for example, savagery, barbarism, and civilization, were recognized by their degree of technological, social, and ideological sophistication relative to conceptions of progress and rationality in industrial states and empires of the time (England, France, United States, etc.). It was assumed that progress from the lower stages of savagery to the upper stages of civilization was a universal process, albeit that societies passed through these stages at different rates, mediated by natural and social processes. In some versions, there was an explicit recognition that progress was hampered by biological inferiority, but in others social factors were heavily weighted as the basic biological apparatus or ‘psyche’ was assumed universal. Stage Models

This understanding of cultures allowed ethnologists to organize vast amounts of data. Given that artifacts and architecture were significant attributes of these stages reflecting social, technological, and ideological sophistication, known material culture patterns in living societies became ready-made analogical packages for archaeological interpretation. One could match known cultures of different evolutionary stages to unknown ones with similar artifact assemblages and begin interpreting specific finds according to the logic of that stage. This approach was particularly powerful if living descendants of these cultures existed in similar evolutionary stages. In the American Southwest, the prehistoric Pueblos, for example, were assumed analogous to ethnographically extant Pueblo Indian cultures whose lifeways were classified as representative of the lower state of barbarism. Therefore, evolutionary oriented ethnologists working the Southwest extrapolated from living Pueblo peoples to prehistoric ones. Jesse Walter Fewkes, who eventually became the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology, explored

religion, architecture, migrations, kinship, farming, and oral traditions by working through the logic of classical evolutionary assumptions and known Pueblo beliefs and practices. Despite the inherent ethnocentrism of this approach, it is interesting to note that its explicit linkage between ethnography and interpretation led to questions that in the practice oriented studies of today seem quite prescient. Soviet Archaeology

Also an early creative, but largely isolated interpretive model that derives from a synthesis of classical evolutionism and Marxist social theory was the rise of Soviet archaeology. Its history was briefly chronicled for Western scholars in Bruce Trigger’s first edition of The History of Archaeological Thought. Marx and Engels shared with other nineteenth century social evolutionary theorists a teleological understanding of human history. Their dialectical materialism also highlighted the importance of technology and was deeply committed to social rather natural explanations for cultural differences. In that archaeology, the earlier evolutionary stages were replaced by Marxist understandings of different socioeconomic forms of society. Although implemented in a politically repressive fashion, the explicit linkage between favored Marxist theory and archaeological interpretation exemplified a now widely held assumption about the interpretive process; material patterns and inferences are what your theory makes of them (see Marxist Archaeology).

Historical Particularism In the early decades of the twentieth century, interpretive models based on evolutionary analogies gave way to inferences built on historically contingent processes of migration, innovation, and diffusion. This understanding of culture was aptly titled the ‘historical particularist school’ and its archaeological advocates culture historians. This shift in interpretive modeling had its roots in a new atomistic understanding of culture as comprised of discrete units known as culture traits. Rather than looking at societies as rungs on a rationally progressive ladder of history, ‘culture historians’ instead envisioned cultures as temporary clusterings of discrete traits flowing through time. Later critics of this approach have referred to it as the water flow model of culture. As ideal (beliefs, values, emotions) and material traits (symbols, houses, tools) flowed through time and across space, they formed and re-formed different cultures. Archaeologists saw their science as an historical one that

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consisted of identifying, tracking, and explaining these configurations of traits. Initially in Europe, where many nations could trace their populations to local prehistory, earlier evolutionary approaches were transformed into nationalist culture histories. Later, under the influence of Gordon Childe, these tendencies were muted in favor of interpretations that were international and emphasized the innovation and spread of functionally useful traits. In the Americas where archaeologists were by and large derived from immigrant populations rather than indigenous Native Americans communities, nationalist archaeologies were less pronounced. Archaeology was situated in anthropology departments rather than archaeology or history departments as it was in Europe. In the Americas, archaeology was identified with the ethnological study of aboriginal peoples. While stage-based approaches generated interesting cross-cultural patterns, they were typically weak with respect to specific societies. A trait-based approach to cultures in archaeology went hand in hand with an emphasis on detailed ethnographic observation and particularist studies in American anthropology as a whole. A number of early North American culture historians were also ethnographers, and their creative urge to apply historical particularist theory to archaeology stimulated their archaeological students and colleagues to see new possibilities in seriation and stratigraphic techniques that had been known for some time. Indeed, they became topics of theoretical consideration. Culture historians realized that an atomistic approach to culture and history provoked and facilitated a much finer parsing of material trait variability into archaeological cultures. The interpretive model of an archaeological culture defined by clusters of styles of ceramics, lithics, housing, grinding stones, etc., focused attention directly on the particulars of prehistoric cultures and away from ethnological stages. As a result, culture historians dramatically expanded knowledge of the spatial and temporal patterning of material culture in the archaeological record. To explain these patterns, interpretive modeling turned to discussions of diffusion, innovation, and migration. This was particularly useful in the context of the New World where well-known historical changes were not easily accommodated into the progressive evolutionary models of earlier scholars. For example, it had long been known that ethnohistoric Native American cultures seemed ‘less evolved’ than those associated with prehistoric mound building in the eastern United States. Similarly, the famous horse nomad societies of the North American plains had

clearly emerged after the introduction of horses by Spanish and other European explorers. As Clark Wissler noted in his critique of evolutionary theory, many of these Plains societies seem to have deevolved from barbarian farmers to savage hunters during the colonial period. In the Old and New Worlds, this atomistic understanding of culture led to the majority of spatial temporal designations (i.e., phases) still in use today, albeit often stripped of their culture historical assumptions. Although successful, and one of the more unified examples of archaeological method and theory, culture history also had its weaknesses, especially when compared with the emerging functionalist social theory associated with anthropology and other social sciences of the time. Ironically, while ethnologists such as Wissler had justified this theoretical approach by appeals to ethnography and history, ethnographic analogy was less central to the interpretive models of culture historians. The function of traits was perceived as relatively self-evident (houses were shelters, ceramics stored food, arrows were projectiles, etc.), and therefore questions about artifact uses and activities were not emphasized. Instead, how artifacts were acquired and transmitted across time and space drew intellectual energies. Since the processes creating such distributions were already known through migration, innovation, and diffusion, explicit integration of ethnographic analogies in interpretation were unnecessary. Not surprisingly, as culture-process-oriented questions about ecology, social organizational or conflict began to crop up in the changing theoretical landscape of the social sciences, archaeological contradictions between archaeological and anthropological interpretive models became a theoretical concern. Initially, this contradiction between the archaeological study of culture and that of anthropologists and historians was addressed by seeking to define material traits that served as process markers. Gordon R. Willey, for example, influenced by Julian Steward’s ecological theory, defined ‘settlement pattern’ as a trait in his Florida Archaeology. Such comprises, however, were cumbersome and archaeologists began to actively push the boundaries of particularist theory in the 1930s and 1940s.

Functionalism In a scathingly critical but brilliant piece, Walter Taylor emphasized this discrepancy arguing that culture was an emergent property, literally a mental construct ‘‘objectified and made observable through the action-systems of the body. . . . it follows from this that culture is unobservable and non-material.’’

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By removing all materiality from the concept of culture, Taylor ushered in an era of explicit theoretical archaeology whose ramifications are still being worked out. His call for interpretations focused on reconstructions of past cultural contexts foreshadowed more recent studies of archaeological sites formation processes, gendered activities, technological style, practice, agency, and ecology. His explicitly mentalist rendering of culture led him to propose a conjunctive model of archaeological inference where archaeological patterns were modeled as material manifestations of ideas. With the terminology and social theory available to him, he was unable to convince many archaeologists to follow his approach. Until postprocessual archaeologists, such as Ian Hodder, began to talk about the material record as text, practice and active, many of the nonmaterialist themes Taylor proposed went unaddressed. Archaeologists instead seized on the inherent assumptions he suggested about the deeper organization of material patterning in archaeological sites and began pursuing functional and ecological questions. Understanding of what constitutes a culture shifted once again. Rather than being a contingent clustering of traits, the metaphor of an organism with systems of relations (like organs) became a more favored means for realizing the emergent organization of culture. Settlement pattern studies and archaeological survey became an early and effective means for finding evidence of such organisms on ancient landscapes. Willey’s former trait ‘settlement pattern’ was transformed into a topic of study in its own right in Archaeological Settlement Patterns in the Viru´ Valley, Peru. Other scholars recognized that warfare was an important process that also deserved important attention, as did study of religious processes and the growth of political and economic power. In eastern North America, scholars such as Raymond S. Baby, Preston Holder, William Ritchie, Antonio J. Waring, and William S. Webb explored religious processes that had previously gone unstudied. Ethnographic analogy was back. Many of the organizing principles of culture broached by Taylor could be found there. Charles Di Peso presented a detailed and radical interpretation of the Site of Casas Grandes in northern Mexico linking the regional economic and political history of the American southwest to the empires of the valley of Mexico. The use of such analogies highlighted a clear need for ethnographic information appropriate to archaeological interpretations that was not necessarily available in past ethnographic work. Archaeologists, therefore, began to go out and conduct their own studies in the form of ethnoarchaeology (see Ethnoarchaeology).

Processual Archaeology These functional approaches to cultural organization were consolidated in the 1960s by a ‘processual’ or new archaeology and its proponents such as Lewis R. Binford who applied Leslie White’s understanding of culture as an adaptive system. In such a framework, the institutional organization found in earlier functional studies of religion, war, politics, and economy was placed within a larger contextual framework of cultural ecology. Material patterns were assumed to be reflections of the ongoing cultural processes of adaptation both developmentally (internal society changes) and in response to external environmental changes. To enhance, as well as justify, this understanding of culture, an important development for interpretation was the explicit discussion of modeling and the process of inference itself. It became common-place for archaeological interpretations to integrate references to theory from the philosophy of science in these discussions. Ideally models not only explained cultural adaptations but also took the form of testable propositions or hypotheses. Although regional histories were still critical to this endeavor, the greater goal was to produce broadly applicable conclusions about culture and history that transcended particular cultures or times. In conjunction with this emphasis on building a new archaeological science, innovative technologies such as computers as well as spatial and mathematical techniques, were introduced in interpretive models to give them more rigor and assess the reliability of interpretations. In such an archaeology, artifacts were initially considered as representative of different parts or aspects of the cultural system (see Artifacts, Overview). Binford introduced the terms technomic, sociotechnic, and ideotechnic to classify artifacts into functional categories. Following White, Julian H. Steward, and others, these materialist theory categories also reflected a hierarchy of causes. Technology, defined as the harnessing of energy in the environment for subsistence and other basic needs, was assumed to be the driving force that conditioned the organization of social institutions which in turn laid the causal groundwork for particular systems of belief. As technological needs changed so would social organization and ideology. Finally, this causal layering of culture and its subsystems prioritized group activities and longer-term processes rather than individual activities and specific events. Behavioral Archaeology

This combination of scientific goals, causal priorities, and units of analysis has generated a range of critical

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and alternative archaeological models of interpretation beginning in the 1970s that continues today. In the mid-1970s, J. Jefferson Reid, Michael B. Schiffer, and William R. Rathje called for a ‘behavioral archaeology’, arguing that to achieve the goals of such a process-oriented study scholars needed to refocus the discipline on building knowledge of the relationship between behavior and material culture in all times and places (see Behavioral Archaeology). Schiffer proposed a pathway model of archaeological inference to understand how patterns in the archaeological record were causally produced by earlier events in the history of the artifacts involved. He argued that given a detailed knowledge of correlations between activities and artifact patterns in different stages of an artifact’s life history (e.g., manufacture, use, re-use, discard) derived from ethnographic (especially ethnoarchaeological) settings, one could define traces in the archaeological record of these earlier activities. In effect this model suggested that any interpretation was at root a series of hypotheses about past artifact life histories. Behavioral archaeologists differed from Taylor by arguing that culture was an emergent product of the behaviors, rather than ideas, making up these histories. Although initially framed as working within the same materialist framework as other processual archaeologists by emphasizing artifact histories, behavioralists were forced to elevate the importance of specific site formation process events, as well as individual scale activities. This was telling, as it led to a break between behavioralists and other processual archaeologists and exposed undertheorized aspects of the interpretive models of the time that have since been pursued in practice and agency-based models. In a famous exchange between Schiffer and Binford, each described the other’s interpretive model as lacking the dynamism to accurately characterize variability of the archaeological record. Schiffer argued that frequencies, forms, associations, and spatial relations of artifacts changed from one stage to another stage in their life histories. Therefore, it was critical to partition out these changes. Depositional patterns, he argued, were distorted versions of earlier manufacturing and use patterns. For example, the distribution of ceramics in a site likely reflected the spatial locations of refuse disposal activities rather than use locations at a site. Processual Debate

In contrast, Binford balked at the consideration of transformations and reconstructions of life history stages, asking if the archaeological record results from the output of a culture and its subsystems, how

could it be a distortion of itself? Why not simply link material variability directly to its organizing principles. That, at lower scales of analysis, sites contain artifacts that were once in a different place is simply to be expected given a specified set of organizing principles in an adapting system. It is the organization of that system and not the minutiae of its artifact variability that ultimately counts. Much has been made of this exchange, but what seems clear is that while they shared an ideological allegiance to science and processual archeology, at the root of this debate were different interpretive models originating in different understandings of culture. For Binford it was an adaptive system; for Schiffer it was an emergent property of behaviors. Indeed, Schiffer called for the formation of a new behavioral science based on artifact–people relationships to explore such phenomena, and has in his subsequent books explored the role of artifacts in communication and the history of science and technology. This is a significant difference that has since the mid-1980s taken archaeologists, behavioral and otherwise, far from functional interpretative models of culture. For example, a small but vocal group of scholars inspired by Robert C. Dunnell, known as Darwinian or Selectionist archaeologists, has argued that much of the evolutionary talk in archaeology owes its heritage to Spencerian conceptions of cultural evolution rather than to the more reputable biological science of Charles Darwin. They have persistently argued that culture, activities, and artifacts should be approached as variable phenotypic properties under the influence of the forces of evolution, particularly natural selection. Although this program is still developing it is clear that many of its adherents have focused on looking at artifacts as extensions of their users’ phenotypes. Their interpretive models therefore assume, like those of palaeontologists, that ever-changing populations of past artifacts can be modeled through the consideration of their adaptive fitness in specific historical contexts.

Postprocessual Archaeologies In an equally radical but more widely appreciated development, Ian Hodder proposed a postprocessual archaeology that would focus on themes undervalued or ignored in processual archaeology, such as the role of individuals and the ideological components of their actions including their intentions, beliefs, and symbols. His model, reminiscent of Taylor’s, assumed that beliefs interceded between people and their artifacts. Like-minded scholars agreed that culture was better understood not as an organism, but instead as the product of thinking more similar to a literary text.

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Books such as this encyclopedia can be created by one or more people, and then read and differently interpreted by others to produce new and varied texts. In short, for Hodder, culture was a form of symbolic information similar to a language whose organization and interpretation was mediated by its expression in speech, writing, and other symbols including the material culture patterns examined by archaeologists. In addition to this model of the relation between people, objects, and culture, Hodder also contested the importance of science promoted by earlier archaeologists. Where once science and the philosophy of science had served to justify innovations and changes in archaeological method and theory, they became for him obstacles that impaired the interpretive or reading process. Although named by Hodder and unified by its general opposition to processual archaeology, postprocessual archaeology in the 1990s was actually a mix of many archaeologies reflecting differing conceptions of culture and society. Anyone with an interest in questions such as religion, gender, semiotics, or even Marxist theory was so labeled. Processualists, as well as others estranged from processual archaeology such as Behavioral archaeologists and Darwinian archaeologists, also continued to contribute to the plurality of archaeologies evolving since the 1980s. As a group, despite their great differences with respect to the philosophy of science, they all share to relative degrees an interest in smaller-scale phenomena associated with the causal properties of material culture and individual activities. Although no unified understanding of culture or society has gained preeminence since the mid-1980s, a focus on practice and agency theories may do so in the future. As archaeologists have searched for new ways to conceptualize culture, artifacts, and activity, several trends have emerged including a renewed interest in material culture studies and a more critical approach to long lived dichotomies (e.g., material/ideal, human/ animal, people/things, natural/supernatural, belief/ action) associated with the study of society and culture. As processual and postprocessual scholars alike have moved into new territory, they have all recognized to some degree the limitations of assuming these categories are real rather than analytical tools whose utility should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Behavioral archaeologists and Selectionists, for example, have been intensely interested in experimental archaeology because both models of interpretation, specifying that an artifact’s performance characteristics in activities is central. For Selectionists, performance variability leads to variable fitness in evolving populations; for behavioralists, performance

characteristics provide a window into the causal contributions an object makes to an on-going chain of events in its life history. In both cases, albeit for different reasons, the distinction between animate people and inanimate things has not been helpful. For the Selectionist the extended phenotype unifies people and things under one unit of selection. Behavioral archaeologists recognize that there are no behaviors without material objects, and that topics such as communication, archaeological site formation processes, ceramic design, or prehistoric religion, become clearer when people–object interactions are treated as one unit of analysis. Similar to practice theory (described below), this approach allows behavioralists to incorporate the beliefs, intentions, and properties of objects into one material object of study. For decades, it was common to assume that traces of religion and other topics (e.g., gender) were inherently more difficult to identify archaeologically because they were commonly classified by such dichotomies as immaterial, lacking utility, and nonrational. But as Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus have demonstrated in Oaxaca, the material evidence of religion is relatively robust when one looks for it. Practice-oriented perspectives (the author would include but not subsume behavioral archaeology here) build classifications based on interactions rather than normative assumptions about them. They therefore see culture or society as the emergent property of practices. Such perspectives have demonstrated during the last 20 years that theorizing the relationship between people and objects facilitates identification and interpretation far more archaeological variability than had previously been recognized or imagined.

Practice Theory In practice theory, it is assumed that both motivations and actions are contained in practice. Practices themselves create and recreate the emergent properties or structures of culture. That is, cultures are created through practice, and at the same time change it because of the inherent variability of practice. By recognizing that analytical categories are tools and not reality, one is free to discard them for more precise instruments. Just as earlier scholars recognized cultural subsystems and institutions in the historically contingent clusters of culture historians, practice theorists ask whether topics described as ideational cannot be more usefully addressed by looking for variation in what people do rather than in models that distinguish beliefs from actions, utilitarian from nonutilitarian, or religion and technology. For example, people’s interactions with the environment, so critical

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in processual archaeology are transformed into new analytical possibilities through consideration of practice. While still relevant to interpretations, they are modeled as local practices that will likely be far more variable than pragmatic commonsense anticipates. Such models like many others before them derive from a consideration of ethnographic materials. Artifact Agency

Luckily, social science interest in practice-related theory has reinvigorated material culture studies across the academy. One of the hottest topics in contemporary social theory is the realization that people’s practice is conditioned by the agency or causal properties of objects. When people perceive and interact with objects as if they were alive, this creates social relationships between them that defy rationalist models of social action. Alfred Gell in his book Art and Agency makes a persuasive argument for inferring the agency of artifacts by analyzing how people’s actions track that animacy. An analogous model of inference is highlighted in Schiffer and Miller’s artifact-based approach to the study of human communication. On a broader canvas, Bruno Latour and other scholars interested in the relationship between society and technology have also promoted a model of artifact animacy. They have argued that regardless of whether people perceive agency in material objects, the properties of artifacts and systems of people and artifacts have causal affects on the analogous to social agents. They, therefore, advocate reconceptualizing society as composed of both human and nonhuman social actors. In what has become known as actor network theory, they describe these social actors by the neutral term ‘actants’. Actor network theory calls for a symmetrical relationship between people and objects that erases the common sense notion of animate human actors and inanimate passive things. Structured Deposits

Such diverse practice-based material-culture-oriented research has stimulated archaeologists to ask new questions about the relationship between artifact agency and the formation of archaeological deposits. Ethnographic evidence, since the early work of classical evolutionists, has demonstrated that people interact with a range of innate material objects that they consider in some sense to be alive or to possess vital powers. When interpretive models emphasize practice theory and object agency, archaeologists have a new tool for linking broad questions about politics, economics, social organization, and religion to the formation of archaeological deposits.

Since the late 1990s, archaeologists aware of such theories have looked for and found evidence of purposely ‘structured deposits’, sometimes called ‘ritual deposits’, in a range of societal scales from small-scale farming hamlets to complex urban cultures. Richard Bradley has succinctly summarized the significance of these deposits, noting that their patterning often highlights the significance of the materials comprising the artifacts, their histories of social interaction, and the significance of the particular places where they are recovered. Objects found in structured deposits are a mixture of mundane and extraordinary things, but because of their social nature enter the record in organized groups. Some are brought together by their agency, and others kept apart. Finally, these attributes of their organization (the structuring) may result from the enactment of narratives, such as might attend ritual practices recalling past sacred events. Joshua Pollard and others argue today that the term structured deposit implies that some deposits are unstructured and that the true lesson for practiceoriented archaeologies is that all deposits reflect the social nature of human–object interactions. In common with Latour, they ask how would the agency of artifacts affect all forms of activity, ritual and otherwise, and what does that mean for interpretations of the past? In conclusion, differing conceptions of what constitutes culture create specific questions that become the focus of interpretive models in archaeology. Archaeological history, therefore, has changed in relation to innovative understandings of culture including classical evolutionism, historical particularism, processualism, and practice theory. The key to understanding each of these models is understanding the linkages they make between artifacts, people, and culture. See also: Agency; Artifacts, Overview; Behavioral

Archaeology; Cognitive Archaeology; Culture, Concept and Definitions; Ethnoarchaeology; Evolutionary Archaeology; Historic Roots of Archaeology; Historical Materialist Approaches; Marxist Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Social Theory.

Further Reading Binford LR (1962) Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28: 217–225. Childe VG (1925) The Dawn of European Civilization. London: Kegan Paul. Clarke DL (1968) Analytical Archaeology. London: Methuen.

1560 INVERTEBRATE ANALYSIS Dobres M-A and Robb JE (2000) Agency in archaeology: Paradigm or platitude? In: Dobres M and Robb J (eds.) Agency in Archaeology, pp. 3–17. Routledge: London. Dunnell RC (1980) Evolutionary theory and archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 3: 35–99. Flannery KV and Joyce M (eds.) (1983) The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zatopek and Mixtec Civilizations. New York: Academic Press. Gell A (1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodder I (1985) Postprocessual archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 1–26.

Renfrew C and Zubrow BW (1994) The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffer M (1987) Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Schiffer MB and Miller AR (1999) The Material Life of Human Beings: Artifacts, Behavior, and Communication. New York: Routledge. Taylor WW (1948) A Study of Archaeology. Memoir 69. Menasha, WI: American Anthropological Association. Willey GR (1953) Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 155: Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Viru´ Valley, Peru. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

INVERTEBRATE ANALYSIS Daniella E Bar-Yosef Mayer, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary aperture The opening of a gastropod shell from which the mollusk comes out while alive. Bivalvia A molluskan class of marine and freshwater animals that have a shell composed of two valves. Gastropoda Class of mollusks that are snails, mostly having a shell that is usually coiled, that live in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. A few members of this class have no external shell. operculum Chitinous or calcareous plate attached to a snail’s foot with which it closes the shell aperture when the animal withdraws into its shell. Polyplacophora A mollusk class that has a shell made of eight plates. Chitons. Scaphopoda A molluskan class of animals that burrow into sandy bottoms, usually at great depths, and have a slightly curved tube-like shell that is open at both ends. Tusk shells. sclerochronology The rate of growth of an animal as studied by the formation of rings (daily, seasonal, or annual). spire The top part of a gastropod shell that includes all whorls except the last one. umbo The tip of a bivalve behind the hinge area where the two valves connect to each other (plural: umbones).

Invertebrates are animals that do not have a vertebral column. Most, notably mollusks (mollusc ¼ British spelling; mollusk ¼ American spelling), arthropods, echinoderms, corals, and very rarely sponges can be found in the archaeological record, whether the result of human activities or reflecting the former natural environment of a site. The invertebrate remains most commonly encountered in archaeological sites are those of phylum Mollusca, the second largest in the

animal kingdom (after Arthropoda) and consists of about 100 000 species. The phylum is divided into eight classes, five of which bear shells that may be encountered in the archaeological record: Gastropoda (snails), Bivalvia (also known as Pelecypoda or Lamellibranchia; bivalves), Scaphopoda (tusk shells), Polyplacophora (chitons), and Cephalopoda (cuttlefish) (Figure 1). The latter have a small internal skeleton that is rarely encountered in archaeological sites. All others have an external skeleton, the shell, made of calcium carbonate. Most molluskan remains retrieved from archaeological sites occur naturally in marine environments while certain snails and bivalves are present also in freshwaters (rivers, springs, and lakes), and some snails are exclusively terrestrial.

Mollusks as Ornaments, Artifacts, and Shell Money The earliest evidence for use of mollusks by humans is from burial contexts of early modern humans (Skhul and Qafzeh caves, Israel) dating to about 100 000 years ago. Marine shells, especially small gastropods (such as Nassarius and Columbella) and bivalves (such as Glycymeris and Cerastoderma) and Dentalium (scaphopods) were the preferred species for decoration throughout the Upper Palaeolithic in parts of Europe, the Near East, and North Africa (Figure 2). In South Africa Nassarius was also a preferred genus during the Middle and Late Stone Age, while Dentalium was used in the Late Pleistocene of western Australia. Shell, being relatively easy to obtain from the beach or from freshwater sources, and made of a relatively soft material (hardness: 3 on the Mohs scale) is a preferred source for making ornaments to this day.

INVERTEBRATE ANALYSIS 1561 Apex

S p i r e

Suture

Hinge

Umbo

Columella Muscle scars Inner lip

B o d y

Aperture Columella Ventral margin

Outer lip

w h o r l

(b)

Base

(a)

Anterior end

Posterior end

(c)

Figure 1 Mollusks commonly encountered in excavations: a, gastropod, b, bivalve, c, scaphopod.

Figure 2 Selection of shell ornaments from Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites: 1, 2. Dentalium sp.; 3. Antalis spp. (six specimens); 4–6. Nassarius gibbosulus; 7. shell artifact of unknown species; 8. Cypraea spurca; 9. Cypraea erosa nebrites Red Sea; 10. Columbella rustica; 11. Conus mediterraneus; 12. Theodoxus jordanii (two specimens); a freshwater species; 13. a worked ‘cassid lip’ of Phalium granulatum; 14. Glycymeris insubrica; 15. Acanthocardia tuberculata; 16. Donax trunculus; 17. pendant of Pinctada margaritifera (Photo: Daniella Bar-Yosef).

It can be used as a simple bead (i.e., a natural shell with a perforation), or it can be made into an artifact so that the initial shape is no longer recognizable. The most common personal ornaments made of shell are disc beads, pendants, and bangles. Methods for producing holes consist of grinding, gouging, drilling, hammering, a combination of those, or relying on natural perforations that are a result of abrasion. Those should not be confused with holes produced by natural predators, primarily gastropods of superfamilies: Naticacea and Muricacea. Shell bangles made of Spondylus gaederopus from the Mediterranean occur throughout the Balkans and further areas of Europe. Bangles made of Lambis truncata were common in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Levant, and similar bangles made of Turbinella pyrum were common in the Bronze Age cultures of the Indian subcontinent. By contrast, Glycymeris bangles are common phenomena among southwestern US cultures. In Central and South America ornaments and other artifacts of Spondylus sp. were desired for their red colors. Occasionally operculi (sing. operculum)of gastropods were used for ornaments as well. Shells served as functional artifacts, such as containers (e.g., valves used as cosmetic palettes in ancient

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Egypt and Mesopotamia), bailer shells used as pails, digging tools, fishing hooks, musical instruments (and especially trumpets made of Charonia tritonis and other large gastropods). Shells were used as currency in different parts of the world in different periods. To serve in this function the shells have to answer several criteria: to be durable, hard to forge, easily identifiable, not too easy to obtain, and their value needs to be agreed upon. The best-known examples are from Bronze Age China where cowries were used as shell money, California – where Dentalium served in this capacity, and Cypraea moneta (cowrie) that originated in the Maldives served Europeans to buy slaves in western Africa during the seventeenth–eighteenth century. In the northeastern US wampum belts made of Mercenaria and Busycon also served as currency, especially during postcontact fur trade. Busycon served to produce many other shell artifacts, including shell gorgets. Studying shell artifacts throws light on past economies as expressed in ancient trade routes and exchange systems, and it testifies to past spiritual lives as evidenced in funerary customs and other rituals.

Mollusks as a Food Source Mollusks were first exploited as food in the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age, but their ‘systematic’ use over long periods of time as a major dietary component seems to have begun in the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. Shells that are food debris usually accumulated in large heaps referred to as shell middens (especially large heaps in Brazil are known as sambaqui; Figure 3). Shell middens, however, usually contain not only shell but also artifacts and other food refuse such as animal bones and botanical remains, and therefore should really be called

shell-bearing sites. Because of their large size, shell middens or shell mounds are typically excavated by sampling. Often shell middens are characterized by species preference, that is, one or very few shell species are present in any site, either due to preference or availability. Those include bivalves (most common), gastropods (very often limpets), polyplacophorans (chitons), or sea urchins (see below). The decrease in shell size over time that is commonly observed in middens is often attributed to human overexploitation of the largest individuals in the population harvested. The repeated exploitation of the same species allows to carry out analyses of changes in stable isotopes, especially @ 18O, to determine long-term climate changes. Changes in oxygen isotope ratios reflect changes in temperature and serve to determine seasonal occupation of the shell midden, but also to infer on sea level changes. Seasonality can also be determined by making thin sections (especially of bivalves), and identifying seasonal (or daily) growth increments that reflect warmer or cooler seasons. Yet another method for determining seasonality of oyster middens would be by measuring parasitic gastropods (odostomes) that are associated with them. Occasionally shells from a midden had secondary use as raw material for ornaments, tools, and vessels (see above). During Roman Empire times oysters were cultivated. Land snails were sometimes popular food items. Prehistoric populations in North Africa created ‘escargotieres’ (land snail middens), the Romans imported Helix snails to Britain, and snails endemic to Cyprus were imported to the Levant during Hellenistic times, in addition to using local species (see Shell Midden Analysis). Shellfish are known to have been used as bait, and thus serve in another capacity as a food source, but this can hardly be detected archaeologically.

Figure 3 The Brazilian shell mound sambaqui of Garopaba do Sul. Photo: Manoel Gonzalez. (a) View of mound; (b) shell-bearing strata.

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Mollusks Used in Construction and Pottery Production In the Near East, especially during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, shells, especially Glycymeris sp., were used to create a layer of shells in the foundation of floors, apparently to improve drainage. On other occasions shells were collected to produce lime for making plaster, also for use on floors. The same lime could be used for other purposes such as tanning hides or processing various foods. In some areas today shells are used to serve as insulation material. Bivalve shells of different species have been used in pottery production in three different ways: crushed shells were used in pottery as temper (in a few sites in Africa, sponge was used for the same purpose), complete valves were used for burnishing pottery, and occasionally Cardiidae shells were used to create a pattern based on grooves on pottery vessels before firing them (see Ceramics and Pottery).

Textile and Textile Dyes In the Mediterranean, beginning in the Middle Bronze Age, several species of the family Muricidae were used to extract ‘purple dye’. These are pigments in different hues of red–purple–blue that develop when the contents of the hypobranchial gland of these snails is exposed to sunlight. This specialized craft was later attributed especially to the Phoenicians, throughout the first millennium BC, and large heaps of crushed muricids, as well as basins for keeping the snails and processing the dyes, are encountered around the Mediterranean. This craft was also undertaken in other parts of the world using different species of muricids. Byssus threads that the bivalve Pinna nobilis uses to attach itself to the substrate, were collected in Roman times to produce silk-like fabrics. These are known from historic records but are not encountered archaeologically (see Textiles).

Paleoenvironment and Dating Climate and seasonality reconstructions are typically undertaken when studying middens. In other sites land and freshwater snails are useful in reconstructing past environments. While both were rarely used for making beads, land snails often burrow into the archaeological sediments on their own while freshwater snails most often were inadvertently brought to the site either with mud for the construction of mud bricks, or with drinking water. In addition, the presence of freshwater snails, especially Bulinus sp., which is the host of the Schistosoma

worm, is sometimes taken to indicate the presence of schistosomiasis (bilharzia), a parasitic disease. Radiocarbon dating of shells is possible but should be used cautiously and with correction for reservoir age. Differentiating between recent and fossil mollusks can be done either by radiocarbon dating, or by measuring strontium isotopic compositions (87Sr/86Sr). Specific shell artifacts may be a diagnostic tool for determining relative chronology similarly to pottery and lithic types (see Carbon-14 Dating; Dating Methods, Overview). Methods for shell analysis are highly diverse and to date there are no standard methods. The growing number of professional meetings of archaeomalacologists in recent years is likely to advance certain aspects of molluskan (as well as other invertebrates) analysis. The description of a shell assemblage is based on identification and quantification. The basic step in the analysis of any invertebrate is species identification. Because of the broken and abraded nature of shells (that first rolled on the beach, then were manipulated by humans in antiquity, and finally were buried in archaeological sediments), the use of faunal guidebooks is often not satisfactory. The comparison to identified specimens in comparative collections in museums and other curated collections is required, and it is often necessary to compare to several identified specimens, also because of the natural (genetic) variability within each species. The analysis of shells that were used as ornaments is not always possible when the indicative body parts were cut or broken, but often faded remains of the spire or the natural sculpture of the shell can serve as clues, as well as their finding within debris in the case of workshops for shell ornament production. The next step will be determining the archaeological type (beads, pendants, bangles, etc.), which varies between geographic and temporal zones. Creating a typelist (similar to such lists used for pottery and lithics) is a useful tool for describing precise definitions of the types. It is often important to add a taphonomic description of the shells, that can indicate whether they were collected alive or dead, heavily abraded by the actions of the waves, wind and sand, or fresh (see Taphonomy). The proportions between complete shells, broken ones, and small fragments may be useful in determining the existence of a workshop versus the finished objects that may have been traded.

Quantification Counting of shells that were used as artifacts is important because it has been demonstrated that the proportions of different shell species change in different periods, and can thus be chronological indicators.

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Figure 4 Cylinder seal made of the coral Acropora from Tel Assawir in Israel, sixteenth to fifteenth centuries BCE. Credit: Adam Zertal and Ron Beeri.

The same can be said of shells in a midden, that can be a more sensitive indicator of seasonal or periodic changes in mollusk consumption due to availability or preference of certain species. Minimum number of individuals (MNI), number of individual specimens (NISP), and weight are the most commonly used criteria. MNI of gastropods is calculated by counting the number of occurrences of the apex, the base, or other elements of the shell. MNI of bivalves can be calculated either by counting all umbones and dividing them by two (as each valve has an umbo), or by differentiating between right and left valve and counting one of them. The decision on which counting technique to use depends on the species studied as well as the analyst’s preference.

and are assumed to have had medicinal and talismanic purposes. Rare worked specimens include a few cylinder seals (Figure 4). Additional invertebrates encountered rarely are barnacles attached to sea turtles, whales, or mollusks. Some barnacles are edible and are found in middens. Crustaceans and insects that were eaten, or bees that were tended for their beeswax and honey, are rarely visible archaeologically, although some beeswax remains on pottery have been recorded. Insects were used in antiquity to make textiles, especially silkworms to produce silk, and bugs of the family Homoptera and Kermes insects to produce dyes, but they are not visible in the archaeological record (see insect analysis).

Other Invertebrates

See also: Archaeozoology; Ceramics and Pottery; Insect Analysis; Shell Midden Analysis; Textiles; Vertebrate Analysis.

Other invertebrates that have skeletal remains and preserve in archaeological sites are mainly echinoderms and corals. Sea urchins are the echinoderms most often found, and in some cases when used as food an ‘urchin midden’ is created. The spines, lantern elements, and periproct are the test parts that disintegrate along plate margins. The reconstruction of numbers and sizes of urchins exploited, depends heavily on the fine sieving of archaeological sediments. Sponge particles were noted in Palaeolithic sites of Italy. Corals are occasionally encountered

Further Reading Antczak A and Cipriani R (eds.) (in press) Early Human Impact on Megamollusks, British Archaeological Reports. Oxford: Archaeopress. Bailey GN and Parkington J (eds.) (1988) The Archaeology of Prehistoric Coastlines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bar-Yosef Mayer DE (ed.) (2005) Archaeomalacology: Molluscs in Former Environments of Human Behaviour. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

INVERTEBRATE ANALYSIS 1565 Bar-Yosef Mayer DE (2005) The exploitation of shells as beads in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic of the Levant. Pale´orient 31/1: 176–185. Campbell G (in press) Sorry, wrong phylum: A neophyte archaeomalacologist’s experiences in analyzing a European Atlantic sea urchin assemblage. Archaeofauna. Claassen C (1998) Shells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Meehan B (1982) Shell Bed to Shell Midden. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Koike H (1986) Prehistoric hunting pressure and paleobiomass: An environmental reconstruction and archaeozoological analysis of a Jomon shellmound area. In: Akazawa T and Aikens CM (eds.) The University Museum Bulletin, Vol. 27: Prehistoric HunterGatherers in Japan: New Research Methods, pp. 27–53. Tokyo: University of Tokyo. Thomas KD and Mannino MA (2001) The exploitation of invertebrates and invertebrate products. In: Brothwell DR and Pollard AM (eds.) Handbood of Archaeological Sciences. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Islamic Civilizations See: Africa, East: Swahili Coast; Africa, Historical Archaeology; Asia, West: Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations; Europe, South: Medieval and Post-Medieval.

Isotope Analysis

See: Stable Isotope Analysis.

L LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY Wendy Ashmore and Chelsea Blackmore, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Annales School Approach to history (originally, French history) emphasizing among other things a blending of history with the social sciences, favoring comparison and structure over noncomparative narrative histories; took shape with establishment of the journal Annales, in 1929. axis mundi Literally, ‘axis of the world’; a centering place, offering passage from one cosmic realm to another and around which a properly ordered world is arranged. ethnoarchaeology The study of living people by archaeologists, usually with the goal of understanding how customs and behavior are expressed in material traces. ethnohistory Study of relatively recent societies through accounts of explorers, missionaries, native chroniclers, such archival resources as land titles and census documents; often focuses on situations of colonization. fengshui Literally, ‘wind and water’; Chinese art and science through which one’s life is placed in harmony with forces of the universe. historical ecology Study of past ecosystems by chronicling change in human–landscape relations over time. inhabitation Social practices by which people understand their own lives and landscapes, with reference to occupants and actions in the same locale, in other times (after Barrett). panopticon A space (originally a prison, as designed by Bentham) in which all areas can be observed from a single central position, usually without certainty, among those being observed, about whether surveillance is actually taking place. phenomenology Philosophical approach giving primacy to direct experience and encounter with the world, stemming from work by Husserl and later, Heidegger and others. settlement pattern Material traces of people’s presence on the land, usually highlighting buildings and other constructed features, and their distribution. worldview Comprehensive, culture-specific conception of the universe and humanity’s place therein.

‘Landscape archaeology’ has been defined in multiple ways, all of which involve archaeological study of people’s involvement with their surrounding environment. Differences arise from contrasting intellectual traditions, the theoretical stances in which the authors work. For some, the critical relations are

ecological, grading into environmental archaeology or geoarchaeology. For others, focus is on the sets of meanings derived from landscape experience. Still others recognize combinations of analytical and interpretive foci. Important to virtually all are reliance on multidisciplinary approaches, including more than archaeological data alone. Landscape archaeology attends both to sites and settlement remains and to spaces in between. As a consequence of the latter, landscape archaeology sometimes can be linked conceptually to distributional or nonsite archaeology, in which the subject matter is the discoverable array of material traces, commonly at the level of individual artifacts. The investigative scale of landscape archaeology is usually regional in scope, although US historical archaeologists use the term to refer to the study of formal gardens. At the wider scale, landscape archaeology facilitates recognition of extensive material remains, such as roads and agricultural fields, which do not fit comfortably in traditional notions of the archaeological site. Such wide scale also highlights the importance of people’s movements across the land, whether for economic, social, ritual, or other reasons. The more spatially expansive definitions consider landscape archaeology to deal with long-term, historically contingent cases, and the cumulative materialized relations between localized social groups and the settings in which they live and move. These relations are recursive between the landscape and the behaviors and beliefs of its human occupants. Despite the multiplicity of specific, contrasting definitions, landscape archaeology is widely viewed as potentially unifying across theoretical divides.

Theory in Landscape Archaeology Landscape has a long history in archaeology, although that history differs across intellectual traditions, especially in the English-speaking world. Many authors call attention to the etymology of the word, from the Dutch landschap, and its relation to a genre of painting in seventeenth-century Europe. For some, the distinctly Western ‘gaze’ involved, and the perspective views that simultaneously distance the scene

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and make possessions of its contents, are bound up with the patronage of wealthy landowners underlying the creation of the pictures. For other authors, landscape is more concerned with territory, and with economic or ecological dimensions of nature and environment. Not surprisingly, theoretical perspectives about landscape in archaeology have changed in tandem with wider intellectual, political, and economic currents, most consistently reflecting attitudes toward forms of human involvement with land. Sherratt discusses pertinent European trends within a wider set of fluctuations in European intellectual movements since the Renaissance. In his view, times of stability support considerations favoring comparison, determinism, order, and stages, a collectivity he glosses as an Enlightenment attitude, in which emphasis is given to evolution, and in spatial analyses, to settlements. He associates landscape studies with times of political and economic instability, in which Romantic attitudes favor contextual, relativist, and meaningoriented studies. To consider further how definitions and theory have shifted in intellectual time and space, the remainder of this section adapts from more extended discussion elsewhere, treating Anglophone traditions, primarily in Britain and North America. Turning first to late-nineteenth-century North America, Euro-Americans equated the notion of landscape with nature unspoiled by humans. Somewhat ironically, Yosemite, Niagara Falls, and other places modified by Olmstead for health or esthetic reasons quickly became naturalized in popular thought. Despite Sauer’s 1925 scholarly distinction between ‘cultural’ landscapes and ‘natural’ ones, the notion of landscapes as pristine nature remains frequent in the US, among scholars as well as the public. In Britain, by contrast, a deeper, long-standing interest in prehistoric and historical landscapes is tied in part to genealogical interest in local and regional traditions, and was given immense boost from availability of aerial photography and production of the Ordnance Maps after World War I. Americanist archaeological landscape studies of the late twentieth century derive most directly from cultural ecological studies of Steward and Willey’s settlement pattern research. Both were significant foundations for the positivist ideas dominating USbased archaeology in the late twentieth century, and both supported examination at a regional scale. Theoretical trends in the US New Archaeology broadly paralleled those in a New Geography at mid-century, and archaeologists cited widely from Chisholm, Chorley, Haggett, and (early) Harvey. In this time of economic and political optimism (despite the Cold War), landscapes and other kinds of space were

objects to be measured and compared, analyzed, and interpreted via powerful statistical models. The land remained a neutral and passive object, used by people but otherwise relatively detached from them. In Britain as well, scientific approaches prevailed in archaeology amid the economic and ecological perspectives of the 1960s and 1970s, and a similar array of positivist geographers was influential. Whether emphasizing a functional view to reconstructing ancient land use, or focusing on social and economic systems at varied spatial scales, landscape archaeology at this time was broadly consistent on both sides of the Atlantic. Already in the 1970s, however, positivist stances increasingly were challenged in both the US and UK, by post-positivist philosophies, humanist concerns, and calls for social relevance – and social justice – in uncertain times of economic flux and the Vietnam War. Space (including landscapes) and human action were recast as matched participants in perpetually recursive mutual constitution. Existentialism, feminism, idealism, phenomenology, and interactionism proved to be important philosophical influences. Despite these challenges, positivist archaeology remains strong in the US, if with widening exploration of post-positivist stances. In landscape research, theory from economic geography, ecology, and anthropology continues to support inferences about social and economic dimensions of land use. Some landscape analysts focus more closely on physical terrain, with theory drawn at least as often from the physical and natural sciences as from the social. In all of the foregoing, location and distribution of material resources figure importantly, if with growing attention as well to monuments and rock-art or other material inscriptions of social meaning. Historical archaeologists in the US tend more toward humanistic perspectives, writing of landscapes most often in terms of colonial gardens. Although reference remains relatively sparse regarding existentialism, feminism, idealism, phenomenology, and other strands of social theory sparking recent social geography, growing attention turns to the potentials in practice theory, structuration, and Marxist thought. In the UK, landscape research is generally more humanistic and post-positivist, and archaeologists invoke social theory from a range of sources, especially structural Marxism, phenomenology, various forms of practice theory, and occasionally, feminist thought. Most practitioners stress the idea of landscape as socially constructed, emphasizing that the same piece of ground holds different social attachments and contrasting symbolic meanings for different people and groups, at any one time and through time as well. Attachments and meanings may be attested materially,

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inscribed on the land in architecture, rock-art, or other media; additionally, or alternatively – and more challenging for archaeologists – the attachments and meanings may reside in memories, shared orally, if at all. Location and distribution of material markings figure significantly as subjects of inquiry, especially stone monuments, construction, and rock-art, and objects or settings commonly thought to materialize performance of ritual. Materially unmarked landscape elements gain increasing importance as well, as inferred cues in orienting and organizing human activity. Whether expressed materially or not, however, attachments and meanings are commonly considered fundamental for orienting individuals and societies, integral to social identities and often, to moral grounding.

Landscape and Ecology Landscape as ecological study commonly emphasizes long-term interaction between humans and the terrain on and in which they live. A principal advantage of such a perspective is the enhanced potential for recognizing climatic, geomorphic, economic, ideational, and/or political change in a single defined setting. This combined temporal and environmental focus relates to the long-dure´e of Braudel and the Annales School of history. Although landscapes are often described as comprising palimpsests of cumulative change, archaeologists focus alternately on identifying either episodes within the sequence or their cumulative effects. Geomorphic changes in the landscape include localized human and geological effects, as well as more widely experienced effects from climate shifts. Fluvial hydrology, for example, reveals alterations wrought by natural forces of alluviation and erosion, and also recognizes human intervention. The degraded modern landscape of Greece has long been attributed to combined effects of farming and climate change; working in the Argolid specifically, van Andel and Runnels attribute the situation more specifically to Bronze Age and Byzantine episodes of major soil erosion, involving archaeological and geomorphic evidence of rapid forest clearing for agriculture with no substantial soil conservation measures. In Oaxaca, Mexico, of the late first millennium BC, Joyce and Mueller document that intensification of agriculture in the highlands around Monte Alba´n immediately preceded an increased sediment load in the rivers draining the watershed. The result transformed hydrology and boosted agricultural potentials far downstream, in the broad Rı´o Verde Valley at the Pacific coast. The ramifications of geomorphic and anthropogenic changes to the landscape can have dramatic and long-lasting impact on human and other life.

Many ecological studies are more directly economic in focus, examining evidence of human land use and ecological potentials. In the 1960s, Vita-Finzi and Higgs were influential in examining foraging and farming landscapes in the Levant, developing retrodictive models of what economic strategies were plausible in light of inferred technologies, demography, and landforms of Paleolithic and Neolithic times. More than two decades later, Kirch extended social inference of such study, in Polynesia contexts. After he had assessed the differential resources and subsistence capacities of varied islands, as well as their archaeological records of human occupation, landscape archaeology allowed him to link contrasts between trajectories of demographic prosperity and ecological disaster to degrees of cooperation-based social organization, as well as in subsistence strategies per se. These and related inquiries for some define historical ecology, a pursuit intersecting with landscape archaeology, in which analysts highlight the cumulative political and economic relations between people and the land, over hundreds and often thousands of years, frequently with implications for the present day. In Burgundy, for example, Crumley and Marquardt’s research has documented the impact of factors as diverse as the Roman conquest and climate change on the lives of the Celtic populace of the region from the Late Iron Age through the Middle Ages. Landscape approaches are crucial for inquiries about large-scale land management strategies, the transformation of extensive tracts, and the social order responsible for these actions. As Erickson’s work documents, the extent of artificial terracing in pre-Columbian Andean landscapes attests to labor investment in antiquity on a collective, cumulative scale even larger than that involved in construction of civic buildings, and at least several hundred years before imperial Inka labor tribute levies. Although features of agricultural intensification are massive in aggregate, however, Erickson’s ethnoarchaeological studies reveal that the labor involved did not always or necessarily require oversight by authority more centralized than a network of kin groups. This Andean research has had clear, constructive implications for agricultural development programs today. Many ancient peoples have modified surface hydrology, as well as topography. In the Maya lowlands, for example, extensive, if often subtle alteration began as early as 400 BC, in Preclassic times, directing water to plaster-lined reservoirs instead of letting it escape through porous karst limestone bedrock, where it thereby would have eluded reach of humans. In this case, and in contrast to at least parts of the Andean terracing just cited, the concentration of water resources, their eventual focus on providing

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water to urban centers, and the magnitude of modification over hundreds of square kilometers are thought ultimately to imply centralized direction and control. Indeed, landscape inquiry has confirmed extensive and long-standing ecological management around the globe, by societies with quite varied characteristics of size and internal organization. Because of that, the idea of pristine landscapes, unmodified by humans, has become untenable virtually anywhere. Through landscape inquiry, the vast expanse of Amazonia has yielded evidence for millenia of human intervention, in earthworks as well as indications of repeated forest cutting. Inference that Australia’s outback was ‘untouched’ any time recently is similarly misleading, on the basis of geographic and archaeological findings, as well as resounding testimony in Aboriginal narratives.

Landscape, Cosmology, and Worldview People experience landscapes as land, water, and sky. They also learn well the seasonal temperatures, changeable winds, and sensory events, from storms on the ground to eclipses in the heavens. Prominent features of topography or constellations come to signify locations, episodes, or supernatural actors in creation narratives. Sun and moon are among the most commonly deified forces, whose actions take place eternally in the landscape embracing sky, horizons, and unseen netherworld. The passage of the seasons, as well as predictability of rain, temperature, and other weather conditions are all read from movements of those and other celestial bodies. In parallel ways, the contours of visible terrain come to embody cosmology and mythic history. These collectively are fundamental aspects of worldview, the principles by which the world is properly constituted. Multiple scholars have noted that, in the worldview of local occupants, visually dramatic places in the landscape, especially involving abrupt transitions in elevation, landform, waterfalls, and other such features, tend to be treated as places where components of the universe join. Analysts frequently call such a location an axis mundi, following influential writings by Eliade and Tuan. These kinds of places are prime spots for attachment of cosmogonic and migration narratives, and for marking materially, by rock-art and other means. Repeated movement across the landscape, over the span of days, seasons, years, and lifetimes, situates the oral texts as social memory of inalienable landscape knowledge. Increasingly, archaeologists collaborate with indigenous peoples in acknowledging and seeking to understand meaningful landmarks of these narratives, as in recent studies by Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson, or by Zeden˜o, in different portions of what is now the US Southwest.

Human-made marks on the landscape, as rock-art or standing monuments of some other sort, may become naturalized over time, as primordial. Ancient architecture, especially as ruin mounds, may be attributed as readily to supernatural forebears as to human ancestors. Recorded accounts of the building of Stonehenge, by Merlin of Arthurian legend, or by supernatural giants, dramatize this tendency. While these monuments may cease to be occupied in their original ways, they almost surely retain some meaning as visible parts of the landscape. Richards argues that the megalithic stones, earthen mounds, and ditch rings of Neolithic Orkney embodied and replicated the surrounding expanses of earth, stone, and water, which modern observers see more clinically as simply glaciated terrain. The caveat about persistence of meaning stems from reminders, such as the Orkney instance, or Blake’s reminder of naturalized archaeological Nuraghi tower monuments of Bronze Age Sardinia; features that today seem close to neutral or empty of reported local meaning. Analysts often take implications of cosmological meaning to define ‘sacred’ landscapes. As useful as this term can be, it also begs a definition for what constitutes sacrality, and for what the limits of sacred and mundane are in particular cases, especially in societies less secularized than the modern Western world. Especially when treating of ancient societies who have left no written accounts, archaeologists are severely challenged to determine what, if any, significance modern distinctions between sacred and nonsacred might have had in antiquity. Frequently, cosmology and worldview also inform inscription of social and political order in the landscape, at multiple scales. Site choice for building a house, shrine, field, or settlement is affected not only by physical terrain and economic resources, but also by beliefs about proper disposition of humans on the land. In China, the ideas that underlie the principles of fengshui and its goals of maximized auspiciousness for inhabitants apparently guided placement of houses or settlements from the prehistoric period. Parallel kinds of principles, based on such notions as cardinal orientations of world quarters, or importance of sighting alignments with particular astronomical phenomena, provide directives in other societies, states, and otherwise. Wheatley’s writings about Chinese cities influenced much subsequent thinking on the matter. Often conceptions of the cosmos are mapped onto the earth, as in building positions and alignments in urban landscapes of New Kingdom Egypt, at Teotihuacan in Mexico, or among the Classic Maya. Beyond a single town or city, landscapes are similarly shaped by worldview. In the Southwest, ancestral Keres landscapes achieved this mapping in the

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distribution of shrines extending in cardinal directions from the cosmologically organized town plans, often with orienting reference to prominent mountains or other ‘natural’ landmarks. Far to the south, in the landscape around Cuzco, Peru, ritual circuits of the Inca were mapped along sight lines extending radially, to varied distances from the capital. Within this sacred landscape, the radiating lines, or ceques, were marked at irregular distances by huacas, sacred places or objects imbued with supernatural force, which recalled cosmic or legendary events in the Inca past. Lamentably for archaeologists, the huacas themselves are not always visually distinguished from other natural features, in predictable location or form, and this makes their identification dependent on oral tradition and written accounts. The strong benefit of ethnohistory available for interpreting Inca belief is what is so prominently lacking for societies in many locales, especially deep in prehistory. Nevertheless, painstaking landscape studies in those situations, such as research by Bradley, Richards, and other scholars of Neolithic Britain, are testimony to the productivity of proposing working understandings of those sacred landscapes. In each of the foregoing instances and many others, landscape is often central to interpreting ancient cosmology and worldview.

Landscape, Identity, and History Whether referring to sacred or mundane characteristics, the foregoing sections illustrate that people engage landscapes in long-term reflexive exchange, establishing both possible and proper ways of living in the world. In the process, individuals and groups come to identify with the landscapes they inhabit. With establishment of identity in this sense, landscapes also become repositories of social memory and history. Landscapes as identity materialize the reciprocal and always fluid relationship between the physical terrain, language, history, and cultural ideologies. That is, as people live within and move among arenas that shape their worldview, they simultaneously reinvest and modify meanings of the land. As Basso describes among the modern Western Apache, for example, conversations and stories are punctuated with place names that spatially situate actions of known, legendary, or deeply ancient others. By such narratives, landscapes are socialized and history is emplaced. The places named also come to carry moral values associated with cited actions and their consequences. Landscapes thereby become conceptual tools as much as they are physical arenas, and in so doing, comprise conceptual frameworks to guide people in their daily actions and interactions with others.

As with language, understanding of a landscape is built on social memory and the experiences tied to it, serving as a form of cultural logic. From his studies in prehistoric contexts of Iron Age and earlier contexts in Britain, Barrett writes of parallel kinds of identification, memory, and history. He adopts the term ‘inhabitation’ to describe the social practices through which direct experience, shared memories, and operative modes of understanding (such as concepts of time) make a landscape and its monuments meaningful for its current set of occupants. In Britain, he argues that Iron Age people transformed experience of the landscape and monuments inherited from earlier times, replacing rituals that were millennia old with new, more pragmatic practices of land-use and living in the present. What archaeologists encounter today is a landscape that has visually collapsed distinct identities and histories from the past, but which inquiry reveals to be convergent in location only, and substantially divergent in meaning. Mnemonic landmarks of identity take many forms. Among the most common are mortuary sites. Building from arguments by Saxe, Goldstein, Renfrew, and Charles, archaeologists frequently draw on grave or mortuary monument distributions to map social territories. Most commonly, clusters of interments are inferred to denote either central places or boundaries of the land identified with the group in question. At the same time, Buikstra (writing about the lower Illinois valley) and Sharples (writing about Neolithic Orkney) caution that different portions of a kingroup or community may be buried in multiple, distinct locations. From these combined perspectives, tracking the places and forms of mortuary practices, especially over multiple centuries or millennia, can yield provocative insights about changing social identities within a regional landscape. In the lower Illinois valley, for example, Buikstra and Charles detect not only significant changes over time in form and topographic location of burials and cemeteries, but also concomitant shifts in emphasis on mortuary ritual versus ancestor cult, and from these observations, propose sequential transformations in social identities, among those who were burying their dead. Identification with specific landscape features may affect social standing, whether by design, or as unintended consequence. For instance, otherwise socially subordinate groups sometimes benefit from access to economic and symbolic resources, such as water, when they are rare or patchy in distribution. Among many cultural groups, not only is water essential for survival but also it carries symbolic connotations connected to the supernatural. According to Scarborough, Fash, Lucero, and other archaeologists, leadership authority in pre-Columbian lowland Maya

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society relied in large measure on control of water sources, often along with their augmentation, as with reservoir catchments. The landscape of water resources thereby mapped the bases of social power, its establishment and maintenance, and the varied degrees of its centralization. In other circumstances, however, special or unique landscape resources can foster resistance to authority. By the fourteenth century, the Hauz-i Rani, or ‘Queen’s reservoir’ near Delhi, had become known as the site of a miracle involving a sufi Islamic saint. Beyond its economic importance, the water of this hauz held an unusual degree of sacred significance. Otherwise politically and economically disadvantaged residents in the vicinity came to be considered special disciples, and the association allowed them a degree of autonomy relative to the Delhi Sultanate. As Kumar writes, the beneficial distinction depended on the historical conjunction of the capital’s location in Delhi, and on political and economic prosperity at that hub. When the imperial capital changed location, economics declined, and homage to the sufi saint shifted to a different locale; the sacrality and special standing of the hauz and its village dissolved. The changing fortunes of the Hauz-i Rani village have material history in the elaborate medieval architecture at the shrine, and the sequence of its ruination in subsequent centuries.

Landscape, Gender, and Sex Many authors have called attention to the notion of landscape as a product of the rise of capitalism and its attendant social inequities, especially in class and gender. Through the advent of landscape painting, and the linear perspective that permitted such imagery, wealthy landowners could commission portraits of their holdings. Not only did this distinctly Western gaze objectify the surrounding world, distancing and removing it from direct experience, the vantage also marked possession and feminization of landscape by the men who contracted for the works. In other words, the mere concept of landscape is loaded with connotations both of control and of hierarchical gender relations. Just as landscape embodies cosmology, history, and social identity, it can also materialize gender. Specific features of earth or sky may be identified as female, male, or other genders, often with implications of primordial (and perpetual) acts of sexual reproduction. Recognition of gender attribution in antiquity commonly depends on availability of ancient texts, depictions, or strong cultural continuities from the past. Earth and sky are frequently creator deities, but neither partner is universally male or female. While the

idea of Mother Earth is acknowledged as widespread across time and cultures, in ancient Egypt, texts and images distinguish earth, along with nourishing floodwaters of the Nile, as male. In other cases, gender identities are attributed to portions of the land, or to individual celestial bodies. Of the latter, sun and moon are regularly, though not universally, recognized as male and female, respectively, while individual stars or planets are more varied. Among the Maya, for example, Venus was and is emphatically male, the younger brother of the Sun, one of the earliest and most influential deities in creation. Within the earthly plane of ancient Greece, a gendered landscape materially unified rural and urban worlds. According to Cole, the most important sanctuaries of Artemis, goddess of wilderness and fertility, were located in the countryside, with replicas within city limits. While the shrines themselves expressed societal unity implicitly, ritual processions of women between the two enacted it explicitly, because women’s unprotected movements were behavioral if not material testaments to the security and stability across society’s spatial expanse. In a complementary vein, customary gendering of activities may attach gender identities to the specific spaces where those activities are carried out. Seclusion and gendered exclusion in nunneries and monastic landscapes are among the most striking examples, well attested with material evidence. At the other end of a continuum of exclusivity, some gender-specific activities – often for performance of ritual – may keep one or another gender off-limits only for the duration of the event. The latter sort of instance leaves little or no material trace for archaeologists to discern. In between those extremes of archaeological visibility one can cite instances from gendered landscapes as mutually contrastive as the arctic north and equatorial Africa. In the Arctic, structuralist analysis of Inuit worldview links women with winter, the sea, and marine life, while men are associated with summer, land, and terrestrial animals. McGhee’s examination of Thule artifacts, their inferred uses, and the sources of raw materials suggests that a similar gendered distinction of time and space ordered the Thule world a millennium ago and more. Linkage of women with ivory from sea mammals and men with hunting gear made from terrestrial materials is one part of the conclusions reached. According to Bodenhorn’s recent ethnographic work in northern Alaska, a similar worldview may lie today behind men’s valuation of their wives’ abilities to ‘call’ to sea mammals, and bring them close for the men to hunt. In this account, men may do the physical work of the hunt, but they do it in a

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female landscape realm and rely on women’s skills to complete the act. This collaborative partitioning of a gendered Arctic landscape contrasts with the findings of historical archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnoarchaeology in iron smelting of Tanzania. There, place names are glosses of words for men’s and women’s genitalia, and for actions in sexual intercourse, such that an ancient smelting furnace tower is a phallus, a nearby river is named for vaginal fluid, and other localities constitute steps in coition, especially men’s actions. From Schmidt’s combined analytic perspectives, the material landmarks complement verbal labels, the whole conveying a complex but unified message of social and sexual hierarchy and male prowess, and equating the process of iron smelting with reproduction. More to the point, customs regarding women’s exclusion from the smelting process confirm the visual message of the landscape, linking success in metallurgical production with success in procreation, and by extension with societal prosperity.

Landscape, Movement, and Pilgrimage As is clear from preceding sections, movement is a critical factor in landscape knowledge, and in endowing landscapes with meaning. Seasonal rounds among nonsedentary societies familiarize people with places to which they attach histories and legends, in which they gain economic resources, or from which they infer acts of supernatural creation. Darnell describes the caravan tracks inscribed by wear across economic, political, and ritual landscapes of pharaonic Egypt, while Snead details paths carved by centuries of repeatedly walking established routes in the Puebloan Southwest. In deep antiquity of markedly different cultural traditions, scholars such as Bradley, Bender, and Tilley suggest inference of long-past pathways by phenomenological re-enactment of plausible routes. In particular, they point to rock-art and visually striking changes in topography as likely signposts guiding such movement. Indeed, Thomas infers a rather intricate choreography of movement, guided by extant or reconstructed visual cues in the landscape, leading toward Neolithic Avebury, and into the carefully structured circular enclosure of ditch and megaliths. Pilgrimage combines landscape movement with spiritual belief, as a formalized act of faith involving a destination, a journey, and experience of ambient geography. In ancient times as now, the process of pilgrimage itself is as much a physical undertaking as a spiritual one: the endurance of the pilgrim, the ruggedness of the landscape, and the remoteness of

the destination enhances social and spiritual qualities of the journey. Spiritual magnetism, the hallmark of pilgrimage centers, is often associated with miraculous cures, supernatural beings, difficulty of access, and sacred geography. Archaeological studies of pilgrimage have been largely the domain of classical and historical archaeologies. Ancient Greek women’s passages between rural and urban sanctuaries of Artemis have already been cited. For prehistoric times and nonliterate traditions as well, however, pilgrimage may offer an appropriate explanatory model for understanding sacred places and landscape crossings. According to Silverman, shrine mounds, well-swept open spaces, and an array of temporary buildings identify Cahuachi as a pilgrimage destination between AD 200 and 400 in the landscape of south coastal Peru. Sheets finds that well-worn tracks in Costa Rica lead consistently to (or from) pre-Columbian ceremonial sites. Parker Pearson and his colleagues contend that Stonehenge and the great earthen henge at Durrington Walls were end points for circuits through the encompassing ceremonial landscape, and that completion of the local pilgrimage in opposite directions at the two solstices commemorated complementary transitions between life and death in Neolithic Britain. Cross-cultural evidence from caves, materializing day-to-day observances or more specialized rituals, suggest that pilgrimages to such portals cross landscapes of quite varied spatial scale. In Mesoamerican landscapes of ancient and modern times, caves and settlements sometimes have close spatial linkages, although even over that short distance, formal, paved roads often mark passage from the mundane world of daily life to the supernatural portal into the earth. In contrast, the cave of Naj Tunich, in Guatemala, is far from any substantial settlements, but the existence and contents of its mural drawings and Maya inscriptions, as well as physical modifications to its chambers, attest to visitors from afar over more than the last millennium, arguably as pilgrims. Archaeologically, it is the abundance of traces of reverential visits within the cave paired with the absence of nearby settlements that together point to acts of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage stations and other sacred landmarks also prove powerful tools in political propaganda, particularly when those sites acted as intra-regional destinations. For example, Roman conquerors actively seized on such places to transform the landscapes of Celtic peoples under their dominion. At the same time as they rearranged human occupation of the Celtic landscape by settling people into the lowland valleys that were conducive to more intensive agricultural production, the Romans also erased

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markers of tradition Celtic religion. That is, to extinguish the continuation of pagan beliefs and practices, the Romans destroyed oak groves and other landscape features sacred in Celtic worldview. Destruction of sacred monuments alters landscapes of belief, and is known from both ancient and modern times, as conquering armies raze buildings and monuments that had been cues to belief and ritual – from temples that fell to the Spanish conquest of the New World, to destruction of mosques and churches in the interethnic wars of eastern Europe in the late twentieth century.

Landscape and Gardens Among other contributions, landscape archaeology has helped redirect archaeological focus to the ideological, physical, and cultural importance of some in-between spaces that had been traditionally ignored. In addition to reporting on roads, water bodies, and other features already cited, garden studies offer notable illustration of this point. Although traditionally associated with historical archaeology and art history, such studies provide a unique means with which to explore materialized discourse on social hierarchy. Appreciation of formal gardens as archaeological landscapes has grown as preservationists have enlisted archaeologists’ aid, to understand and conserve historical settings of recent centuries. Except in the Classical world, application of garden archaeology to societies deeper in antiquity is still underdeveloped, although important studies are underway at places such as Petra and have been part of the understanding of space and social identity of ancient life in Egypt. More than any other kinds of landscape, gardens are purely human constructions, bounded and cultivated. While garden studies include barnyards, social forecourts, pathways, kitchen gardens, and work-yards, the majority of research has focused on formal ‘pleasure’ gardens. These are typically much more than an array of plants, trees, and flowers. Rather, their spatial organization depends on the intimate relationship between the house and the garden, linked by proximity, design, proportions, and access. During the Renaissance, gardens were a means to display social status and a resource for enhancing social mobility. By the mid-seventeenth century, manufactured pastoral landscapes also provided respite from stresses of urban life for many among the bourgeoisie. Nobles, on the other hand, viewed emulation of their gardens, dress, or custom as conspicuous and ostentatious consumption, a display of poor taste by men aspiring above their station.

Florescence of formal gardens reflected upper-class interests in classical history: Greek and Roman art, science, and esthetics became the ultimate expressions of refinement and taste. Expressed materially by inclusion of urns, statues, and terraces, garden spaces became overt commentaries on morality and social legitimization. For example, construction of terraces and creation of visual focal points used geometry and principles of optics to manipulate perceived space, exaggerating the grandeur and scale of gardens in relation to adjoining homes. As public vistas to be awed and admired, formal gardens created spaces of exclusion and inclusion. These contrived idyllic scenes also blurred distinctions between artifice and nature, thereby naturalizing (and legitimating) the authority of landowners – while simultaneously rendering invisible those responsible for the physical acts of landscape construction. Application of Renaissance principles and artistic styles also associated the landowners with a revered past, using innuendo to strengthen claims of property and social rights. Royalty was not immune from such declarative ostentation, as in the seventeenth-century garden landscape of Versailles. Leone’s work reveals similar principles – and goals – in action at the eighteenth-century William Paca Garden and others in Annapolis. Within colonial America, work gardens and vegetable patches also became a common feature of the urban and domestic landscape, across social classes. While relatively small in scale and hidden from view, these gardens, too, reflected particular worldviews. Just as formal gardens were the ultimate expression of polite society and social virtue, so too did kitchen gardens symbolize the importance of family life and domesticity. Kitchen gardens were also integral to the economic success of urban families. In Lexington, Virginia, for example, the lack of commercial markets made families dependent on the productivity of these small plots of land. The vegetables and goods produced sustained the family and any excess was used in trade for goods and services needed in town. The creation and success of the domestic garden was not simply economic or utilitarian in plan and effect, but was also seen as a way to attract men to their homes and make them content within the domestic realm. Indeed, Kealhofer identifies spatially nested landscapes of seventeenth- and early eighteenthcentury tidewater Virginia that collectively solidified colonial landowners’ identities, both in contrast to Native American neighbors and along rungs of a social ladder within the colonist community. While some formal gardens were focal points of social knowledge within communities, direct experience of the gardens themselves was commonly

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restricted. Archaeological evidence restores the shade trees and fencerows that once shielded gardens from prying eyes, limiting access to a privileged few. On slave-holding plantations of eighteenth-century America, the house yard, work gardens, and common grounds of enslaved and free laborers were pointedly excluded from the more luxuriant spaces. This allowed planters to hide slaves from sight, establishing instead an atmosphere of ‘natural’ tranquility. At the same time, however, slaves could develop a landscape of resistance effectively hidden from the eyes of the overseers and owners. Slave-held houseyard gardens thus embodied independence, control, and pride of ownership, materializing resistance within the spatial confines of the plantation. Many slaves also planted gardens removed from plantation space and control, embodying freedom within a remote landscape that excluded whites.

Landscape, Legitimization, and Conflict If landscapes create a particular way of understanding the world, then they are also important vehicles for naturalization of social and political agendas, particularly those involving social and economic disparity. As already discussed, formal gardens and plantations are prominent illustrations of such agendas, as are pilgrimage destinations. By materializing a hegemonic social memory, landscapes legitimate positions of authority and privilege. Alternative viewpoints, however, instantiate resistance and reshape the landscape. Both social control and rejection of landscape form shape the way in which the world is perceived, engaged, and constructed. First is the construction of authority. Particularly in state societies, those in power shape landscapes to validate and reinforce their own authority. Discussions of city planning in antiquity demonstrate repeatedly that those who commissioned the constructions invoked spatial principles, grounded in culturespecific worldviews, that would situate the activities of religious and political leaders in the most respected positions, those most imbued with sanctified power. Wheatley’s compelling writings established the relation between worldview and city plan, in ancient China and elsewhere, and especially since his work at mid-century, others have written of how aspects of worldview were manipulated to enhance the authority of those in charge. Steinhardt writes of city plans in a succession of Chinese capital cities as calling on worldview and the authority of the past in this regard, and especially in the time of Khubilai Khan. In his new-built capital, deliberate recreation of a revered ancient urban landscape helped legitimize the political claims of the new Mongol dynasty.

Elsewhere, Maya kings supported their own claims by invoking principles of cardinal directionality of the Maya cosmos, and the symbolic auspiciousness of each of the cardinal quarters for situating ruler’s palaces, arenas for public spectacles, and mortuary monuments. As in China, Maya cityscapes were landscapes of power. In medieval South India, Fritz shows that the idea was literally extended into the landscape beyond the political capital at Vijayanagara. There the king reinforced his authority not only within the urban precincts, but also by regular circuits to a series of hinterland stations where he could be re-identified ritually as the human avatar of divinity. This was indeed an extensive landscape of power, legitimization, and authority, if one without overt evidence of contest or resistance. Historical archaeology in the US has yielded numerous examples of landscape manipulation in the production and codification of ideology, and in some cases, the resistance such manipulation inspired. Under the antebellum plantation system in the American South, slaves were considered personal possessions and sources of surplus production, and as such were kept under direct surveillance to ensure productivity and efficiency. Beyond the gardens described earlier, the landscape of plantation space was tightly regulated, tracing a physical map of domination and subordination. Overseer and plantation houses were often centrally located in relation to the fields and slave cabins, providing optimum conditions for surveillance by those in authority. The landscape was in many ways reshaped as panopticon. Throughout the world, colonization and westernization have reinvented landscapes by physical reorganization. As with imperial Romans in Celtic lands, policies of colonization have sought to restructure indigenous landscapes into patterns suiting the colonizers, and often reflecting principles of private property and marked social hierarchy characteristic of states and empires. The landscape policies used to promote hierarchical differences, however, also create space for resistance. An example is the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in what is now New Mexico. After initial Spanish attempts to quell the rebellion, multiple Puebloan communities expressed their resistance by relocating to defensive hilltops locations, where they established whole new settlements according to staunchly guarded principles of spatial and social order, with material orientation to established indigenous landscape referents. Indeed, fortification and defensive settlement systems emphatically mark contested landscapes, whether involving colonization or competition, and from cases relatively small in scale to those as expansive as the Great Wall of China.

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In a different landscape of containment, women’s prisons in nineteenth-century Australia illustrate practices of resistance, attested archaeologically but absent or obscured in written records. Casella writes of a holding facility in Tasmania in which walls, fences, and rules rigidly structured movement and activities, of both staff and inmates. Despite these barriers, however, such barred goods as liquor and tobacco reached inmates in solitary confinement in surprising quantities, and Casella suggests that some of the buttons unearthed might even have been secret currency for the prohibited transactions. Exclusionist in different and broader ways is colonization and other forms of culture contact that deny the prior and continued presence of indigenous peoples on the landscape. Much of European expansion in North America was dismissive in this way, colonists seeing as ‘vacant’ and unused the landscapes that, in fact, were already long and extensively occupied, and that their residents had imbued richly with economic worth, identity, and spiritual meaning. This kind of contest over landscape continues to this day in many parts of the postcolonial world, involving litigation and attempts at diplomacy, and at times violence. If far from unique, a particularly well-documented instance of such landscape contest is the War of the Little Big Horn, multiple perspectives on which are attested both historically and archaeologically. It is also possible for competing views of landscape to coexist, with or without overt conflict. Contrasting worldviews, or economic strategies, or political histories may coincide in filling the same landscape with multiple uses and multiple, disparate meanings. One thinks readily of modern cases, as in Israeli and Palestinian occupation of the same land, Mongols and Chinese in Inner Mongolia, or Hopi and Navajo

Language

See: Writing Systems.

(and non-Native Americans) in what is now the US Southwest. Archaeological examples are sometimes recognized, if infrequently, in mutually proximate populations with distinct architecture and other material forms of culture. See also: Cognitive Archaeology; Cultural Ecology; Explanation in Archaeology, Overview; Geoarchaeology; Human–Landscape Interactions; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology; Rock Art; Settlement Pattern Analysis.

Further Reading Anschuetz KF, Wilshusen RH, and Scheick CL (2001) An archaeology of landscapes: Perspectives and directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9: 157–211. Ashmore W (2004) Social archaeologies of landscape. In: Meskell L and Preucel RW (eds.) A Companion to Social Archaeology, pp. 255–271. Oxford: Blackwell. Ashmore W and Knapp AB (eds.) (1999) Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell. Bender B (ed.) (1993) Landscape: Politics and Perspectives. Oxford: Berg. Bender B and Winer M (eds.) (2001) Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile, and Place. Oxford: Berg. Crumley CL (ed.) (1994) Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing Landscapes. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. David B and Thomas J (eds.) (2007) Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. World Archaeological Congress (WAC) Handbook Series. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Rossignol J and Wandsnider L (eds.) (1992) Space, Time, and Archaeological Landscapes. New York: Plenum Press. Tilley C (1994) A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments. Oxford: Berg. Ucko PJ and Layton R (eds.) (1999) The Anthropology and Archaeology of Landscapes: Shaping Your Landscape. London: Routledge.

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LITHICS Contents Analysis, Use Wear Manufacture

Analysis, Use Wear William Andrefsky, Jr., Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary chipped stone A method of manufacturing stone tools through lithic reduction, wherein lithic flakes are struck off a mass of tool stone with a percussor. conchoidal fracture Conchoidal fracture describes the way that brittle materials break when they do not follow any natural planes of separation. debitage The totality of waste material produced during lithic reduction and the production of chipped stone tools. This assemblage includes, but is not limited to, different kinds of lithic flakes, shatter, and production errors and rejects. lithic flake A thin, sharp fragment of stone that results from the process of lithic reduction. striking platform The surface on the proximal portion of a lithic flake on which the detachment blow falls.

Introduction Lithic artifact analysis is the study of stone artifacts in an effort to reconstruct past cultures, lifeways, technology, and behavior using those stone artifacts. Researchers interested in lithic analysis often study both the lithic tools used to perform various tasks and the lithic ‘debitage’ (debris) resulting from tool production and use. Lithic analysis begins with an understanding of how tools are produced and manufactured. This includes not only an appreciation of how stone is fractured and shaped, but also an understanding of the properties of various kinds of stone and how that stone is acquired by tool makers (see Chemical Analysis Techniques). Lithic analysis also includes the classification, measurement, and tabulation of different stone tools and debitage. Different sizes, shapes, and amounts of lithic artifacts reveal different kinds of information about past technologies, cultures, and behaviors. The analysis of lithic artifacts also includes an understanding of the wear created along the edges of tools during their use (‘microwear’ analysis). Distinctive kinds of edge damage, polishes, and debris accumulated on stone tools reveal how the

tool was used and sometimes what it was used for (see Blood Residue Analysis; Phytolith Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis). There are two primary kinds of lithic artifacts; ‘chipped stone’ artifacts and ‘ground stone’ artifacts. The most abundant and most common lithic artifacts are the chipped stone variety (those made by cracking off pieces of stone to shape it). Ground stone artifacts are less ubiquitous and are formed by grinding or abrading the stone surface (e.g., mortars and pestles). This article deals with the analysis of chipped stone artifacts.

Mechanics of Lithic Production Chipped stone artifacts can only be made from a relatively small proportion of all available stone types. Only stone that has uniform or homogenous texture, and has very small or microscopic grain size, and is very hard and brittle can be made into chipped stone tools. These qualities of stone allow the toolmaker or ‘knapper’ to break the stone in a controlled and deliberate manner to shape it. Common stone types used for making lithic artifacts include obsidian, flint, chert, and quartz. Chipped stone artifacts can be characterized as either ‘objective pieces’ or ‘detached pieces’. Objective pieces are those items that have been cracked, flaked, or modified in some way, and may include rock cobbles, broken pieces of stone, or more formalized cores. Detached pieces are those items that have been removed from objective pieces during the modification process. Detached pieces are referred to as blades, flakes, chips, spalls, or debris. Detached pieces are often removed from objective pieces by either percussion or pressure flaking techniques. The removal of a flake or chip by applying pressure to the objective piece without striking is known as ‘pressure flaking’. This is usually done by placing the tip of an antler or sharpened bone on the objective piece and pushing down and in on the point of applied force. The removal of a flake or chip by striking the objective piece with a hammer or percussor is known as ‘percussion flaking’. The percussor is often a stone cobble or pebble (‘hammerstone’), but may also be made of bone, antler, or wood. Different

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amounts of force used to remove detached pieces are recognized as different load applications. The load application and the angle at which the load is applied to the objective piece will determine the shape and size of the detached piece. Percussion flaking generally has a greater load application than pressure flaking. One of the most common objective pieces is known as a ‘core’. A core is a mass of homogeneous lithic material that has had flakes removed from its surface. Cores come in a variety of sizes and shapes from all different parts of the world and from all different periods of time. The primary purpose of a core is to supply flakes that can then be used as cutting tools or be made into a more formalized tool. Different core technologies were developed and used based upon the needs or the toolmakers, availability of stone, and the techniques of core reduction passed from one toolmaker to another. Figure 1 illustrates different examples of objective pieces and detached pieces.

Flake Properties The production of lithic artifacts depends upon the controlled removal of detached pieces from an objective piece. Often the detached pieces have characteristics of conchoidal fracture. Flakes with characteristics of conchoidal fracture are called ‘conchoidal flakes’ (Figure 2). Conchoidal flakes can be recognized as having two surfaces: a dorsal and a ventral surface.

The ventral surface is the surface that has broken away from the objective piece and is usually smooth and shows no evidence of previous flake removals. The dorsal surface is opposite the ventral surface and may show signs of the original exterior of the rock (‘cortex’) or of previous flake removals. Only the dorsal side of the conchoidal flake will have evidence of the original exterior of the rock. Specific properties of flakes are related to the technology used to detach the flake and can reveal information about the type of tool manufactured and the technique(s) used. Typically, conchoidal flakes will have a point of applied force that removed the flake from the objective piece, known as a ‘striking platform’. Depending upon the physical characteristics of the original objective piece there are several different kinds of striking platforms. Some are flat, some are rounded, and others are angular with multiple facets. In some cases, there will be a projection at the base of the striking platform on the ventral surface of the flake known as a ‘lip’. A lip is formed as a result of impact with soft-hammer percussion or pressure flaking technology. The end of the flake containing the striking platform is the ‘proximal end’. Opposite the proximal end is the ‘distal end’. The distal end of the flake is where the force of the original point of impact terminates. Different shapes of flake terminations reveal different kinds of information about the manner in which the flake was detached. The sides of the flake

Figure 1 Example of various tool and debitage types: (a), hafted biface; (b), unhafted biface; (c), core tool; (d), angular shatter; (e), flake tool; (f), proximal flake; (g), flake shatter.

LITHICS/Analysis, Use Wear 1581 Bulb of force

Striking platform

Proximal end

Compression rings Lateral margin

Distal end (a)

(b)

Figure 2 Conchoidal flake showing common flake characteristics: (a), ventral side; (b), dorsal side.

Chipped stone artifacts Human modification? Yes = tool, No = debitage

Tool Bifacial flaking? Yes = biface No = nonbiface

Biface Contains haft element? Yes = hafted biface No = unhafted biface

Nonbiface On flake? Yes = flake tool No = core tool

Debitage On flake? Yes = flake debitage No = nonflake debitage

Flake debitage Contains striking platform? Yes = proximal flake No = flake shatter

Nonflake debitage = Angular shatter

Figure 3 Flowchart showing chipped stone typology with seven artifact types.

between the proximal and distal ends where the dorsal and ventral sides meet are called the lateral margins. Lateral margins are often where the flake or blade is intentionally modified by the toolmaker or modified as a result of use. The area below the striking platform on conchoidal flakes may have a raised hump on the ventral surface. This feature is called the ‘bulb of force’. The size and location of the bulb of force indicates the amount of load applied in the flake removal process and the density of percussor used. The bulb of force is always on the ventral surface of a flake, and never on the dorsal surface. Below the bulb of force and radiating away from the proximal end there may be compression rings. These rings show the direction of applied force as it traveled through the objective piece when the flake was detached. Another characteristic that is frequently found in association with the bulb of force is a scar from a small chip or flake on the bulb. This is called an ‘eraillure’ flake scar and is produced during the original impact of the flake removal.

Lithic Artifact Classification One of the most important components of lithic analysis is the classification of stone artifacts. Figure 3 shows a flowchart that defines types based upon a series of attributes either present or absent. The typology is based upon the morphology of chipped stone artifacts and is not intended to reflect function (see artifact function in the following section). This basic chipped stone classification system encompasses all shapes of stone artifacts, and can be altered, modified, or expanded depending upon the needs of the researcher. There are a total of seven artifact types in this morphological typology. Three of the artifact types are debitage (‘proximal flakes’, ‘flake shatter’, and ‘angular shatter’), and four are tools (‘hafted bifaces’, ‘unhafted bifaces’, ‘flake tools’, and ‘core tools’) (see Figure 1 for examples). The typology begins with chipped stone artifacts. If the artifact is not made from chipped stone, it is not included in the flowchart. All chipped stone

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artifacts located on the left side of the chart are objective pieces that have been intentionally modified or modified by use (tools). Chipped stone artifacts that have no intentional modification or modification resulting from use are on the right side of the chart (debitage). Tools that have two surfaces which meet to form an edge that circumscribes the entire tool, and which have flakes removed on both surfaces are bifaces. Those tools without biface shaping and flaking are nonbifacial tools. Bifaces are further separated into those with haft elements (hafted bifaces) and those without haft elements (unhafted bifaces). The tools included in the nonbifacial category are separated into flake tools and core tools based on the presence of a single recognizable dorsal and ventral surface (flake characteristics). Those tools with a single recognizable dorsal and a single recognizable ventral surface are considered flake tools and the other tools (not bifaces and not flake tools) are considered core tools. The debitage (artifacts on the right side of the flowchart) are also separated based upon flake characteristics into a flake group and a nonflake group. The flake debitage is further separated based upon the presence or absence of a striking platform. Proximal flakes are those with a recognizable striking platform. Flake debitage without a striking platform is considered to be flake shatter. All debitage without a single recognizable dorsal and ventral surface is considered to be angular shatter. Once the artifact assemblage is classified, based upon this typology or another typology, the specimens can be tabulated, measured, and assessed. Attributes related to size, shape, technology, raw material characteristics, and function can be recorded. Some functional parameters can only be determined by microscopic analysis. The section below discusses techniques of determining tool function using microwear analysis.

Tool Function Microscopic inspection of artifacts can be conducted on tools and debitage to evaluate how the artifact was used. Lithic tool functions using ‘microscopy’ are understood at different scales of interpretive detail. Some forms of microwear analysis interpret tool function as type of action (scraping, slicing, chopping, etc.). Other types of microwear analysis attempt to interpret tool functions in more detail, such as the type of material being worked (bone, hide, flesh, etc.). Each of these different scales of interpretive detail come with different levels of confidence in their accuracy, and in some cases are dependent upon the type of microscopy equipment employed by the investigator.

Most researchers recognize three kinds of magnifying equipment used for microwear analysis; ‘scanning electron microscope’ (SEM), ‘metallurgical microscope’, and the ‘stereomicroscope’. The SEM captures an image with a controlled electronic field and is effective at over 10 000 magnification. Magnification at this level may not recognize larger evidence of wear such as breakage patterns on the edge of the tool. The metallurgical microscope is useful for magnification of objects in the 100–500 range. These microscopes use incident lighting that illuminates objects from above at a 90 angle. Stereomicroscopes are effective in the range of approximately 6–150 magnifications and use external lighting. There are advantages and disadvantages to each microscope, ranging from equipment cost, to amount of time required for analysis, to appropriate scale of resolution. In general, three kinds of wear have been recognized by microscopy techniques in lithic analysis; ‘striations’, ‘polishes’, and ‘microchipping’. Striations result from the contact of the worked material and the tool and it occurs when debris is introduced during the operation of the tool, resulting in scratches (striations) on the tool surface. Polishes are produced by abrasion and deposition of silica on the stone tool. Silica is often deposited as a result of working materials such as wood from which silica is displaced and transported to the tool surface. Striations and polishes are best viewed under high magnification with either a metallurgical microscope or with the SEM. Microchipping is caused by the contact between the tool edge and the material being worked. Different patterns of microchipping are produced by different actions of tool use and by the relative density of material being worked. The stereomicroscope is effective for recognizing various patterns of microchipping damage. Microwear analysis of lithic artifacts is influenced by a wide variety of variables that make tool functions challenging to interpret. For instance, the type of stone a tool is produced from is known to break differently under similar kinds of stresses or impacts. This means that stone type may have different kinds of chipping damage when performing the same kinds of tasks. The edge angle of the cutting tool will also influence the size and amount of chipping damage. Similarly, the angle and direction of the tool to the worked surface also adds variability to the wear pattern. Tools from archaeological sites have the added problem of postdepositional wear such as trampling, erosion, and weathering. Researchers often switch from one microscope to another while conducting lithic analysis. For instance, a stereomicroscope might be used initially to scan the artifact surface for evidence of use.

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Once detected, the location on the artifact with evidence of use might be greatly magnified in search of polishes, striations, or debris. Since different artifact assemblages are composed of different kinds of raw materials and different kinds of weathering contexts, microwear analysis of excavated lithic artifacts is often conducted in unison with experimental studies using materials gathered from the same region or from the same raw material source. Experiments such as making cutting tools and cutting or slicing different kinds of plants and animal parts are conducted to establish a control sample for comparison against the excavated artifacts. See also: Blood Residue Analysis; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Phytolith Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis.

Further Reading Andrefsky W, Jr. (1998) Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Andrefsky W, Jr. (ed.) (2001) Lithic Debitage: Context, Form, Meaning. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Hayden B (ed.) (1979) Lithic Usewear Analysis. New York: Academic Press. Henry DO and Odell GH (eds.) (1989) Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 1: Alternative Approaches to Lithic Analysis. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Keeley LH (1980) Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses: A Microwear Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kooyman BP (2000) Understanding Stone Tools and Archaeological Sites. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Odell GH (ed.) (1996) Stone Tools: Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory. New York: Plenum. Rosen SA (1997) Lithics after the Stone Age: A Handbook of Stone Tools from the Levant. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Torrence R (1989) Time, Energy, and Stone Tools. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whittaker JC (1994) Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Manufacture Harry J Shafer, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary attribute Any visible characteristic of an artifact. bending fracture Fracture caused by bending that exceeds the elastic limits of the material. The flake characteristically has the remnants of the biface edge at the striking platform and a lip on the ventral side formed by the bending fracture. It is a common fracture for stone tools used in cutting, chopping, and piercing.

Controlling bending fractures using soft-hammer and punch techniques was a common method of thinning bifaces. biface Artifact chipped or flaked on both faces. billet A tubular-shaped implement associated with soft-hammer flaking, usually of antler or bone, used to create bending fractures to thin bifaces. bipolar technology Applying a force to a stone set on a hard anvil. The stone is subjected to forces from the initial blow and a rebound force created by the anvil. blade Flakes removed from a specially prepared core that are over twice as long as they are wide, generally have parallel edges, and one or more longitudinal ridges. blade core Core especially prepared for the removal of blades. blank Term used to describe the beginning or early stage core in stone tool manufacture. A flake blank may be reduced into a uniface or biface tool, depending on the objectives of the flintknapper. bulb of percussion Pronounced bulb formed on the interior of a flake immediately beneath a direct impact usually associated with hard-hammer flaking. The bulb is an extension of the Hertzian cone. burin-like removal The removal of a flake from the longitudinal or transverse axis of a flake, uniface, or biface. The resulting angle created by the platform and flake facet was once regarded as a burin-like tool for woodworking. This interpretation no longer holds favor since the spall may have been the objective and used as drill bits. A burin-like facet can also be produced by direct impact blows on projectile points. chert Cryptocrystalline rock (sedimentary rock) formed in limestone. chalcedony Cryptocrystalline rock similar to chert but differs by having a fibrous structure. Chalcedony, also includes agate, is formed under similar conditions as chert and may be found in the same matrix. conchoidal Shell-like characteristics of Hertzian cone fracture. Diagnostic features include cone initiation, bulb of percussion, and wave characteristics created by fracture propagation. cone fracture See Hertzian cone. core The mass from which flakes are removed. cortex The outer rind of a pebble or cobble. cryptocrystalline A class of rocks that have microscopic crystals not visible to the eye; including chert, flint, chalcedony, Novaculite, jasper, among others. debitage The term used to describe wastage from chipped stone manufacture (flakes, shatter). Debitage may also include discarded cores and items broken in manufacture. dorsal The exterior side of a flake that may have flake scars or cortex. edge abrader Stone, usually quartzite, used to abrade the edges of a blank or preform to facilitate soft-hammer or punch flaking. end shock Snap fracture that occurs near the middle of a biface caused by a blow struck near one end. eralliure Tiny flake scar on the bulb of force created by the force waves of impact. feather termination A fracture that terminates at the surface of the core creating a very acute and sharp angle. flake Sliver removed from a mass or core. flint Common name for chert. Some argue that the only true flint is that at Dover, England, used extensively to make gunflints for the British Colonial Empire. Dover flint is a dark gray to black chert. flintknapper An individual who shapes flint or other stone through the process of knapping or lithic reduction, to manufacture stone tools. flute Flake removed from the base to create a longitudinal groove on one or both sides of a biface, characteristic of Clovis and Folsom projectile point technologies.

1584 Manufacture formal tool Tools made to conform to a specific form or design. Example: grooved axes, biface projectile points. Hertzian cone The fracture cone created by a hard hammer striking the surface of cryptocrystalline stone such as chert, obsidian, or Novaculite. hard-hammer Using a stone or other similarly hard material to flake cryptocrystalline rocks. hinge fracture or termination A fracture that loses its energy and terminates at the surface of a core by reversing its fracture path. igneous Rocks formed by volcanic activity. Examples are obsidian, basalt, andesite, dacite, and rhyolite. lipped flake See bending fracture. mano (Spanish for hand); in archeology the term for hand stone used with a grinding slab or metate for grinding seeds and other substances. metamorphic Rocks that become melted by heat or pressure. Example: quartzite. metate Grinding slab used in conjunction with a hand stone or mano. novaculite Cryptocrystalliine rock found in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and in the Caballos Formation in the Marathon Uplift in the Big Bend region of Texas. These are the same geological formation and material. obsidian Glassy igneous rock that cools so rapidly that a crystalline structure cannot form. Usually occurs in black or gray, but green, burnt sienna, and speckled deposits also occur. overshot or outrepasse´ A flake that carries across the core and terminates on the opposite side removing part of the core edge or end. preform A late stage in the manufacturing trajectory of a formal stone tool. pressure flaking Applying pressure at the edge of a core by using an antler, bone, or some other suitable material to create a bending fracture. quartzite A metamorphic rock formed under heat or pressure that fuses quartz sand particles together to form a homogenous mass. quarry Locality where toolstones outcropped and were procured by prehistoric people. sedimentary rocks Sediments such as silts, clays, and sands become compacted in the ocean floor and become solidified into sedimentary rocks. Example: limestone, siltstone, sandstone. soft hammer A percussion tool that is softer than the material being flaked. causing a bending fracture rather than a coneinitiation fracture characteristics on flakes. step fracture or termination Results when a flake detached from the core is pulled away too rapidly; the flake will bend beyond its elastic limit and snap before it terminates. striking platform The surface from which the blow to remove a flake is struck. Striking platforms on flakes are described by the nature of this surface, cortex, single faceted, multiple faceted. terminations How the fracture path of a flake ends, includes feature, hinge, step, and overshot. uniface Artifact flaked or chipped on only one face. ventral The bulbar or interior side of a flake. wedge fracture (see bipolar) Created by bi-polar impact where force is generated from two directions, from the hammer and from the anvil. Fracture may propagate around the cone splitting the core into multiple pieces.

Human-made flakes and other chipped stone materials are major keys to identifying prehistoric sites throughout the world. Much can be learned about people in the past from the way in which they solved

problems basic to human survival. Tools used to perform tasks often reveal what those tasks were, and knowing something about what ancient people did can tell us how they lived. Stone tools preserve longer than any other material made and used by human hands. Much of human history and culture is read in stone artifacts. Of all classes of material culture produced by humans through the ages, stone artifacts are the most likely to survive the ravages of nature. Chipped stone tools provide the earliest evidence of human technologies in our human past, dating back perhaps as early as 2.5 million years ago. Tracing the evolution of stone technology provides a scale with which archaeologists can measure human technological evolution. Methods and techniques of making stone tools, tool types, and styles of the tools changed over time. Raw material selection based on the size and quality of material suitable for stone tool manufacture was a critical variable in how and why the stone was reduced. The various methods of making stone tools, tools used in the manufacture, the manufactured product, approaches and style of reduction, manufacturing trajectories and reduction systems, failures, and wastage (debitage) are topics discussed. The term lithics is derived from the Greek word lithos meaning stone. This natural material comes in many different forms and is created by three geological processes that serve to classify all rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Certain rocks in each of these classes were used to make chipped and ground stone tools. It is important to distinguish the types of stones chosen to be altered into tools because these classes of rocks have different qualities and are not uniformly distributed across the landscape. People had to use their technological expertise to adapt to the various kinds and sizes of stones available in their environment, or develop social networks to acquire good material. Unusually high quality stones such as obsidian or fine chert were highly sought after and sometimes considerable effort went into obtaining access. Alternatively, it was necessary to alter the available stone by annealing to create a more suitable material for chipped stone tools. The approach to reducing stone into a tool depended upon a number of factors: the kind, size, and quality of raw material, kind of tool, tool size, tool form, and tool style. How one learned to make stone tools, or the technological style, was an important component of the reduction system as well (see Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear).

Fracture Characteristics Cryptocrystalline rocks with high silica (SiO2) content (e.g., flint, chert, jasper, silicified shale, fine-grained

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quartzite, fine grained basalt, and obsidian) fracture conchoidally unless the mass is flawed. The term conchodial means ‘shell-like’ because the bulbar surface created by the fracture is reminiscent of a shell. This is because a cone is created when a hard percussor such as a hammer stone makes contact with the surface of the mass or core. This cone type fracture is called a Hertzian cone. The other major fracture initiation type in chipped stone tool manufacture is the bending fracture created by using a billet, punch, or pressure tool. Conchodial and bending fractures can be controlled by an experienced flintknapper and used to one’s advantage. Granular or coarse rocks such as quartzite and rocks with large crystals, such as granite and diorite, are more resistant to fracture and were often selected for hammer-stones, grinding stones, and ground stone axes because of that very quality. Different stones were selected and used for different qualities, and different methods of reduction were used in shaping the stones into tool forms. The methods of reducing siliceous and crystalline materials included the uses of hard hammers, soft hammers (billets), punches, pressure, pecking stones, and grinding stones. The qualities of a rock were used to the advantage of the ancient stoneworker. Homogenous rocks with high silica such as chert, flint, and obsidian fracture in highly predictable ways. Coarse rocks with granular or crystalline structure such as quartzite or granites, or rocks with cleavage planes such as silicified wood or laminated shale, fracture differently. How rocks fracture or resist fracture is one of the main topics addressed.

Types of Rocks The rock family tree begins with volcanic activity and the formation of ‘igneous’ rocks. These chemically rich rocks break down from weathering, producing gravels, sands, silts, and clays. As the finer sediments of clays, silts, and sands are deposited on the shallow ocean floor, they compact and become solidified into ‘sedimentary’ rocks. As sedimentary rocks are forced deeper into the Earth’s crust, pressure and heat alter their structure through metamorphosis. ‘Metamorphic’ rocks melt through volcanic activity and the cycle begins again. Finer divisions are made within these three rock categories. For example, there are two basic types of igneous rocks, intrusive (such as diorite, granite) and extrusive (such as basalt, andesite, dacite, rhyolite, obsidian). Intrusive rocks are forced upward from molten rock beneath the surface and cool within the crust; some are later exposed through erosion. The cooling is slow, allowing crystals to form. These igneous rocks are coarse. Extrusive igneous rocks are ejected by volcanic activity and

cool more rapidly, leading to smaller crystals and finer structures. All of the extrusive igneous rocks can be shaped by chipping. Silica content, however, increases from basalt, andesite and rhyolite to obsidian. Obsidian, a natural glass, has the highest silica content and is rapidly cooled magma, which cools so quickly that crystalline structure does not have time to form. Sedimentary rocks are grouped into three classes: clastic, chemical, and biological. Clastic rocks include sandstone, shale, mudstone, siltstone, and conglomerate. Chemical rocks include limestone, dolostone (dolomite), and evaporates such as gypsum and salt. Biologic rocks include coal and chert. Chert and chalcedony are formed by the same process, but chalcedony has a more fibrous structure and is characteristically semi-translucent. A common term for chalcedony is agate. Both chert and chalcedony are replacement materials within fossil casts in sedimentary deposits. An example of replacement is silicified wood where chalcedony has replaced the cellular structure of the decayed wood.

Chipped Stone Tool Manufacture Manufacturing tools by chipping away the mass follows a linear trajectory of reduction. Each flake removed is one step toward finishing a tool. The key to chipping cryptocrystalline materials is to control the breakage and guide the fracture path in such a way that the mass is reduced and the impact damage is carried away by the resulting flake. The flake retains the bulbar features of the impact, leaving only the negative bulbar features on the core. Mistakes, such as inadvertently damaging the mass or core during flake removal, can be made at each step, however, these could halt the process and ruin the piece. These ruin pieces provide critical evidence of the manufacturing trajectory since failure can occur at any point in the reduction process. Failed pieces leave traces of the methods and strategies of tool manufacture and provide very important technological information and insight into the manufacturing trajectory and intent of the flintknapper (Figure 1). Controlling the direction of fracture originating from the Hertzian cone of force is the key to shaping stone tools. The intent is to direct the fracture path along a trajectory that literally sculptures the finished tool. A critical step in controlling the fracture path is proper preparation of the striking platform – that point on the surface of the core which will be struck by the percussor (hammer stone, bone or antler billet, punch, or pressure flaking tool). Proper preparation of the platform by strengthening it by trimming or grinding will increase the probability of a successful flake

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6

5

1 3 2 Figure 1 Anatomy of hammerstone-struck flake. 1, Bulb of percussion; 2, striking platform; 3, proximal end; 4, distal end; 5, exterior or dorsal surface; and 6, interior or ventral surface.

removal. Improper preparation, on the other hand, will increase the odds of failure. Failure can occur at any point in the manufacturing trajectory of a chipped stone tool, or at any time a flake is removed. Failed efforts provide important technological information to archaeologists because each failure freezes the reduction trajectory at that point. Often the technique, strategy, and style of the ancient flintknapper can be seen in a failed piece better than in a finished piece. Finishing a stone tool often removes the traces of previous reduction steps. Several techniques of reduction may be employed during the course of making a chipped stone tool, depending on the stage of reduction and the attributes desired for the finished product. How the fracture is controlled is also partly due to the type of implement used. A hard percussor, such as another stone, creates a typical Hertzian cone when contact is made with the core. Characteristic attributes of a cone-type of fracture initiation are the round impact scar at the top of the cone on the striking platform, striking platform remnant, a strong bulb of force, and a relatively thick bulbar cross section. This type of percussor requires a strong striking platform to insure proper flake removal. If the platform is too thin the hammer will crush the edge and often ruin the piece. A crushed edge also dispenses the energy of the blow. The advantage of using a hard-hammer percussor is that it allows a flintknapper to take the initial steps of breaking a mass and creating pieces such as large flakes or preformed core for further reduction, or removing flakes from a core to be used as blanks for further reduction. Thinning a biface using a hard hammer is difficult because of the strong platform necessary for successful flake removal. Usually this is not possible when the objective is a small biface 10 cm or less in size such as a projectile point. Exceptions do occur. For example, the ancient Maya in northern Belize made massive bifaces, most were used

Figure 2 Illustration of hard-hammer percussion that produces a Hertzian cone fracture initiation.

for axes, but huge symbolic bifaces (‘eccentrics’) up to 75 cm long were also made from the massive chert outcrops for which the area is known. In the Maya case, stone mass worked in favor of the flintknapper in thinning large bifaces using only limestone hammers. The Maya resolved the hard-hammer problem by creating a 90 striking platform by beveling the edge which provided the necessary contact surface for the stone hammer. The thickened edge withstood the hammer blow allowing large thinning flakes to be removed from the faces of the biface (Figure 2). Striking the edge with a soft percussor such as an antler billet creates a bending type of fracture initiation. A Hertzian cone fracture is not the result of a soft hammer, although an attribute of a Hertzian fracture may occur such as a slight bulb of force. Controlling a bending fracture initiation also requires critical attention to the striking platform and existing flake scar ridges created by the removal of previous flakes. Strengthening the platform is done by dulling the edge either by raking it with a hammer stone or grinding the edge with an abrasive stone. The flint worker will select a place on the biface edge where a ridge was created by the intersection of two flake scars. The ridge provides a reinforced point that is ground or strengthened. The intent is to use the flake scar ridge to direct the fracture path across the surface of the biface at least to mid-point or beyond. This is the most basic method of thinning a biface intended for use as a knife or a dart point. The resulting soft-hammer flake will have a characteristic lip at the striking platform. This lip is the result of bending the edge of the biface to the point that it fractured. A diagnostic ‘biface thinning’ flake is created that is usually thin, arched in profile, has a lipped striking platform, and facets from previously removed flakes on the exterior surface. The ideal biface thinning flake is not always the result of soft-hammer flaking. Crushed or snapped striking

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platforms occur frequently, and sometimes there is no discernable lip at all. Archaeologists have debated the pros and cons of hard-hammer and soft-hammer flaking for years, because under certain circumstances a bending flake can be removed with a hard hammer, and a cone-initiation flake can be produced with a soft hammer, but these instances are not frequent enough to define a technological pattern. Modern-day lithic replicators use stones or heavy copper billets for hard-hammer flaking, and copper billets for soft-hammer flaking. The copper is a substitute for antler billets, which wear out frequently and have to be replaced, whereas the copper will last for decades. Prehistoric flintknappers did not have access to copper for billets and primarily used antler, bone, or ivory where available. Another effective method of reduction is the use of indirect percussion requiring the use of a punch. The punch is usually an antler tine or bone, shaped for the purpose. The punch is precisely placed on the striking platform and tapped with a hammer. This technique was probably more widely used than archaeologists have recognized, but there are advantages and shortcomings to the technique. The advantage is one of control, especially if the flintknapper is removing blades from a prepared core. Precision in impacting the core striking platform is critical to successful blade removal. The punch can be precisely placed on a ridge that will guide the fracture path through the core. The same advantage holds true when a punch is used to thin and shape a biface. The disadvantage comes with the difficulty of securing the core or biface sufficiently to withstand the punch blow. If the core or biface is not well secured, it will move and the movement will dispense the energy from the blow and no flake will result. Punch blades and flakes often display slight lipping and bulbar features because the punch flake can be initiated by a bending fracture, but the compressive force also produces a slight bulb of force. The striking platforms for both blade cores and bifaces were often strengthening by grinding or abrading. Most finely made bifaces were finished and shaped by pressure flaking. Pressure flaking has the same advantage as indirect percussion in that the flaking tool can be placed precisely on the platform. Flint workers then apply pressure using various techniques of applying force, either with the hands and forearms, or by placing the elbows inside of the knees and using leg pressure to assist the hand and arm pressure. Pressure flakes have similar characteristics to punch flakes in that there are often subtle lips and bulbar features, but are smaller than punch flakes. Small bifaces such as arrow points were made entirely by pressure flaking as were some small thin dart points (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Illustration of pressure flaking.

The products of core-blade technology are found in many sophisticated stone technology systems where appropriate raw material was available, namely fine grained chert, flint, obsidian, or quartzite. Blades are prismatic flakes removed from prepared cores that are over twice as long as they are wide. Blades make highly efficient cutting tools as well as blanks for a variety of other tools such as awls, perforators, end scrapers, burins, and cores for the production of burin spall tools. To produce a blade core, the nodule was prepared by creating a suitable striking platform with an appropriate angle of about 70–80 ; platform preparation depended upon the type of percussor used, whether a hammer stone, billet, punch, or pressure. With any technique, the flintknapper had to ensure that the platform and outer surface met at the appropriate angle; if not, then such an angle needed to be created. Next, the flintknapper needed to create an intersection of a ridge created by the removal of one or more flakes down the face of the core. The ridge is critical in directing the path of the blade as the fracture propagates down the core. With hard-hammer blade removal, the critical factor is to remove any overhanging platform remnant created by the removal of previous flakes. Use of a hard hammer creates prominent negative bulbs that often leave such an overhang. With billet percussors, the overhang not only needed to be removed, but the edge of the platform needed to be strengthened by grinding. This helps prevent step or hinge fractures that would otherwise ruin the core. The same concerns also needed to be addressed with indirect or punch percussors. Obsidian platforms used in the pressure removal of blades were often abraded to create tiny surface flaws that aided in initiating fracture during blade production. Blade cores have the diagnostic polyhedral shape created by multiple facets resulting from blade removal.

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Fluting is a form of blade removal. Flutes are channel flakes removed from the base of a biface to thin the haft element. To prepare a biface for fluting, the late-stage preform was thinned in such a way that the longitudinal midsection was the thickest part of the biface. This subtle ridge served to guide the fracture path of the channel flake much like a ridge on a polyhedral blade core. The striking platform was prepared at the base by either retouch or grinding to strength the edge. The flute was removed on one face possibly using one of several techniques such as a billet, a punch, or even pressure. The preparation and removal of the flute was repeated on the opposite face. Failed attempts to flute a point included several problems, the most common of which was the end shock or snap that broke the piece in half. Another was an overshot flute that terminated through the piece prematurely, literally splitting the preform. Other failures were caused by collapsed platform, hinging or stepped flakes that also terminated prematurely. Failed attempts at projectile point manufacture usually mark site or location within the site where flintknapping took place. Finished projectile points, on the other hand, may be recovered hundreds of kilometers from the point of manufacture. Fluted projectile points are most widely identified with the Clovis and Folsom complexes in North America. Bipolar flaking is yet another method of reducing a mass into sharp-edge flakes or flake blanks. A pebble or cobble is placed on an anvil, such as another stone, and smashed on top with a hammer stone. The resulting impact causes the core to be subjected by forces from two directions, much like cracking a walnut placed on an anvil. The attributes of bipolar flakes and cores are much different from those created by previously described methods. Flakes are removed from the exterior of a nucleus. The nucleus exhibits crushing and direct impact scars on both ends. Bipolar flakes are often trapezoidal or thin slivers with crushed platforms. The disadvantage of bipolar flaking is that the stone worker has little control over the products. The advantage is that round pebbles and cobbles that lack sufficient facets or angles for hard-hammer use can be fractured by the bipolar method. In cases where small pebbles are the only resource available, it allows the knapper to obtain sharp-edge flakes or cores for the use in cutting tasks. Bipolar technology is often found in areas where the only available resource occurs in the form of small pebbles (Figure 4).

Breakage Problems Regardless of one’s skill level, failure will occur in the manufacture of chipped stone artifacts, especially at any stage in the linear reduction of bifaces. The most

Figure 4 Bipolar reduction method.

common failure problem is end shock which is a snap fracture caused by vibrations set up when a blow is struck near one end of the piece. The vibrations cause the core to bend, exceeding its elastic limits. Another problem is platform collapse or crushing caused by improperly preparing or strengthening the striking platform. Improper platform preparation may also cause the flake to snap before termination causing a step fracture to occur. Yet another example of failure is a premature termination of the flake as the fracture rolls out to the surface, causing a hinge fracture to occur. Overshot flakes are caused by the opposite of the hinge flake in that the flake terminates hinging downward cutting the core in two. Any of these failures can occur at any step along the way. That is why archaeologists pay attention to the failures and related debitage because these artifacts clearly document the trajectory of manufacture, the intent of the flintknapper with regards to the style of being made, how the manufacturing process was achieved, which tools were used, and even the level of skill employed.

Manufacturing Tools Tools used to manufacture chipped stone artifacts recovered from archaeological contexts include hammer stones, antler billets, antler and bone punches, and antler and bone pressure flaking tools, stones used as edge grinders in platform preparation for biface thinning. These may be of chert, limestone, quartzite, or sandstone.

Debitage or Chipping Waste Debitage or chipping waste is the most commonly encountered artifact in preceramic cultures worldwide. Debitage refers to all waste material created during the course of stone artifact manufacture, including flakes, cores, broken and aborted preforms.

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Archaeologists are well acquainted with the attributes that distinguish human-made flakes from those created by natural processes or ‘geofacts’. Geofacts are flakes or spalls created by natural forces such as landslides, stream action, exfoliation, and frost fracturing. Human-made flakes retain attributes that are directly attributable to the forces that produced them, such as prominent striking platforms (sometimes prepared), bulbs of force (Hertzian cone remnants), or lipped striking platforms, and flake scars from flakes previously removed from a core. Cores, masses from which flakes were removed, exhibit negative flake scars, negative bulbs of force, often prepared striking platforms, sometimes multiple striking platforms and flake scars showing flakes removed from different directions. Artifacts broken in manufacture such as bifaces, discarded tools used in chipped stone tool manufacture such as hammer stones, billets, punches, pressure implements, that are discarded at the chipping location of workshop are also considered as debitage or wastage. Archaeologists can learn much information from debitage analysis. For example, when biface tools such as projectile points are the object of production, debitage from the manufacture of a single point reveals the technological methods, strategy, and trajectory of the process. Furthermore, recovery of the microdebitage (flakes smaller than 10 mm), will likely identify the location where person worked.

Annealing or Heat Treating There are many examples in human history when people’s access to good quality raw material for stone tool production was either limited to poor quality material or was unavailable within their locality or region. The knapping quality of chert and fine-grained quartzite could be improved by controlled heating or annealing. How this was done is often a point of debate, but it was performed most likely in earth ovens. The objective was to slowly subject the stone to rising temperatures sufficient to cause annealing of the crystalline structure, but not too hot to cause the moisture in the matrix to expand. When the latter occurred, thermal fracture caused internal fractures and ruined the stone for all practical purposes. Annealed chert or quartzite lose some of their tensile strength, thereby facilitating reduction by billet and pressure flaking. The edges are sharper but more delicate, and are highly suitable for sharp-edge cutting tools and projectile points. Annealed stone is not good for heavy-duty cutting or chopping, however, due to the more brittle character of the material. Annealing often changes the color of the stone as well. Iron in the matrix will assume a reddish or pinkish hue if the

heating environment allows oxidation, or a gray hue if heated in a reduced environment.

Ground Stone Tool Manufacture Ground stone tools are shaped by two separate processes, by use, or intentionally shaped to conform to a desired form. Ground stone materials were intentionally selected because they are not conducive to conchodial fracture. Coarse-grained or coarse crystalline materials (such as basalt, andesite, rhiolite, granite, sandstone, silicified sandstone, quartzite, among others) depending on what was locally available in the outcrops or gravels, were used as grinding implements such as grinding basins (cairns, metates, mortars) and grinding stones (manos, mullers, pestles). These types of artifacts acquired their shapes through use. They were initially shaped by pecking and grinding, using material of equal density as a pecking stone. Pecking creates tiny impact craters that remove bits and pieces of material with each blow. Pecking is time-consuming, but an efficient method of shaping a coarse rock preform. Once shaped, the grinding basin and grinding stone assume their characteristic use-shape which is the form that most often appears archaeologically. Artifacts intentionally shaped by pecking, grinding, and polishing include a very wide variety of tool forms. Functional tools such as axes, celts, and adzes, for example, may be made of very hard crystalline material, including igneous rocks such as granites, porphyry, and basalt, or metamorphic rocks such as quartzite or metamorphic sandstone. The density of the rock served as an advantage for such tools used in heavy cutting and chopping tasks because of their resistance to fracture. See also: Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear.

Further Reading Andrefsky W (1998) Lithics: Macroscopic Approach to Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark JE (1982) Manufacture of Mesoamerican prismatic blades: an alternative technique. American Antiquity 47(2): 355–375. Cotterell B and Kamminga J (1979) The mechanics of flintworking. In: Hayden B (ed.) Lithic Use-Wear Analysis, pp. 97–112. New York: Academic Press. Kooyman B (2000) Understanding Stone Tools and Archaeological Sites. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Schick KD and Toth N (1993) Making Silent Stones Speak. New York: Simon and Schuster. Shafer HJ and Hester TR (1983) Ancient Maya chert workshops in Northern Belize, Central America. American Antiquity 48: 519–543. Whittaker J (1994) Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools. Austin: The University of Texas Press. Whittaker J (2004) American Flintknappers. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

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Living Archaeology

Looting

See: Ethnoarchaeology.

See: Illicit Antiquities.

LUMINESCENCE DATING James Feathers, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) A method in luminescence dating using a narrow bandwidth of visible light to stimulate a luminescence signal in order to measure the accumulated radiation dose during the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments). radionuclide An atom with an unstable nucleus, which is a nucleus characterized by excess energy which is available to be imparted either to a newly created radiation particle within the nucleus, or else to an atomic electron. thermoluminescence (TL) A method in luminescence dating using heat to stimulate a luminescence signal in order to measure the accumulated radiation dose during the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments).

Luminescence is light emitted from crystalline materials after an initial absorption of energy. It is distinguished from similar phenomena such as fluorescence by a time interval between absorption and emission, a delay that allows, under ambient conditions, an accumulation of stored energy that can serve as a clock. Energy is accumulated by absorption of ionizing radiation, typically from natural radiation sources in the sample and its surroundings. Ionization produces free charge carriers (electrons and electron vacancies, or holes) that then become trapped at local, chargedeficient defects within the crystal lattice. Absorption of other energy, typically heat or light, may release electrons and holes from these traps, and their recombination with opposite charge as they return to ground state produces luminescence. Where light releases the trapped charge, the resulting signal is called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). Where heat is the

agent, the signal is called thermoluminescence (TL). Either can be used for dating. Only defects that do not lose their trapped charge under ambient conditions can be used for dating. From these, the intensity of luminescence is proportional to the amount of trapped charge accumulated since the last significant exposure to heat or light. If the average radiation dose rate over time is known, this accumulated charge can be related to elapsed time. Because of long half-lives of the major natural radionuclides (238U, 232Th, and 40K), the dose rate is nearly constant over archaeological time, allowing current dose rates, in most cases, to be used to estimate average dose rate. Figure 1 is a simplified version of what happens. In remote geological time when the crystal structure is formed, all traps are empty. With time, the traps fill as a function of ionizing dose rate and availability of empty traps. If all traps fill, the sample is said to be saturated. When the sample is exposed to sufficient heat or light, the traps are emptied (the zeroing mechanism). After being emptied, the trapped charge builds up once again, a cycle that may be repeated several times, until the sample is retrieved for dating. The sample is heated or exposed to light in the laboratory and the resulting luminescence is measured. The intensity is calibrated against artificial irradiation in the laboratory to determine how much ionizing dose is required to replicate the natural signal. This is called equivalent dose (De) and dividing by the dose rate yields an age. The event dated is the last sufficient exposure to heat or light. This allows dating of materials heated in antiquity, such as ceramics or burned lithics. Sediments exposed to light when deposited and subsequently buried can also be dated. The main sample requirement is a suitable dosimeter – a crystalline material that produces a luminescence signal and is sensitive to dose. Quartz and feldspar (particularly

Level before deposition

Bleaching

Latent luminescence

,

The ‘natural signal

OSL/Independent age ratio

LUMINESCENCE DATING 1591 1.5

3.1 ± 0.4

1.0

Aeolian Freshwater

100

Marine Years of burial Laboratory measurement

Figure 1 Simplified schematic of the process of luminescence dating (Aitkin 1998). Latent luminescence refers to the accumulation of trapped charge, while ‘bleaching’ can be from exposure to either light or heat.

potassium feldspar) are the two most common dosimeters used. Their ubiquity gives luminescence a wide range of applicability, often being suitable where materials for other dating methods (see Dating Methods, Overview) are not present. Small surface scatters of artifacts, for example, have been dated by luminescence. But it does not work everywhere. A sensitive dosimeter may not be present (quartz often has a poor signal) or the trapped charge may ‘leak out’ over time (called anomalous fading and often a problem with feldspars if not corrected for). Laboratory procedures involve measuring De and the dose rate. Most research has been directed at getting an accurate measure of De – making sure only stable traps are sampled, correcting for changes in luminescence sensitivity between natural and artificially irradiated aliquots, testing for the possibility the sample was only partially zeroed in antiquity, and taking into account anomalous fading. But there can also be problems getting an accurate assessment of dose rate, including lower efficiencies of alpha irradiation, complicated radioactive environments, changing dose rates through time, and uncertain moisture contents. These complications provide wide room for error, but if measurements are careful, the method is remarkably robust, and luminescence ages often compare favorably with independent dating results (Figure 2). Improved methods and instrumentation have allowed precisions of 5–10% to be achieved routinely. But every date, just as the case for any other dating method, needs to be evaluated critically, requiring archaeologists to understand the intricacies of the method.

OSL age (ka)

Deposition

Glacial 10 (n = 53)

100 200 300

300

1

200 100

0.1 0.1

1 10 100 Independent age estimate (ka)

Figure 2 Comparison of quartz OSL ages with independent age estimates using a logarithmic scale (the inset shows the linear scale). The ratio of OSL to independent age is plotted in the top part of the figure, showing some statistical disagreements, although whether the OSL or independent ages are in error is not known. Data compiled by Murray AS and Olley JM (2002) Precision and accuracy in the optically stimulated luminescence dating of sedimentary quartz: A status review. Geochronometria 21: 1–16.

The upper limit on dating depends on the onset of saturation or on thermal fading of relatively shallow traps, which are deep enough for dating young samples but which lose some of their signal over long times. Saturation comes earlier in quartz than in feldspar, limiting dating by quartz to about the last 100 000 or 200 000 years, depending on the dose rate, while feldspars, if anomalous fading can be controlled, may date up to 1 million years. That luminescence is applicable well beyond the 40 000-year range of radiocarbon (see Carbon-14 Dating) has allowed significant applications in Old World archaeology. Dating burned lithics has refined the chronology of the Middle Palaeolithic and the transition to the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe and the Near East. Dating buried sediments has provided detail on the poorly known chronology of the Middle Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa. The lower limit on dating depends on the strength of the signal from low doses, but nineteenth and even twentieth century dates of good precision have been obtained. An advantage of luminescence for young

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samples is that it produces calendar ages that need no further calibration against independent dating evidence. Luminescence can often exceed the precision of radiocarbon for dates during the past 1000 years, when the calibration curve for radiocarbon often produces multiple intercepts. Although luminescence often lacks the precision of radiocarbon or tree-ring dating, it has one distinct advantage that makes it the method of choice in some situations even where other datable materials are available. A distinction is often made between ‘dating’ events, the event actually addressed by the dating method, and ‘target’ events, the event of archaeological interest. Where the two do not coincide, bridging arguments are required to associate the two events. With luminescence, bridging arguments are often obviated because the dating event and target event are the same. Ceramics are dated to when they were last heated, usually when made or used, which is what archaeologists want to know. Lithics are most likely dated to when they were accidentally burned either during manufacture (normal heat treatment is usually not to high enough temperatures) or during occupation, again an archaeologically relevant event. For sediments, attempts to date them by their contents using methods like radiocarbon are often unsuccessful because deposition has incorporated old material, but luminescence dates the depositional event itself. This advantage is well illustrated by attempts to tease apart mixed assemblages. Ceramics of different ages found in the same deposit cannot be easily differentiated by, for example, associated charcoal using radiocarbon. But luminescence has demonstrated that ceramics found together, even side by side in the same pit, can be separated in age by centuries. Here the high precision of radiocarbon must be traded for the better accuracy of luminescence. Dating individual artifacts by luminescence also allows measurement of the tempo of technological change. Artifacts successions are usually dated in relative terms by averaging methods like seriation or ceramic crossdating, which can detect changing modes, but not beginnings and ends. Most current research in luminescence is directed at dating unconsolidated sediments, not only because of wide applications in quaternary geology, but because, unlike ceramics or lithics, all grains in sediments may not be the same age, either because some were not fully reset at the time of deposition or because of mixture after deposition. This problem has been addressed by either component analysis of the luminescence signal or by measuring single grains. The luminescence signal is a

composite of signals arising from traps which differ in their response to sunlight. Various techniques have been devised to isolate the ‘fastest bleaching’ component which is most likely to have been reset to zero at the time of deposition. Comparison with a slower bleaching component informs on the extent of bleaching. By determining De on single grains, or single aliquots containing a small number of grains, the fully reset grains may be isolated from the partially bleached ones and mixed assemblages may be identified. Measuring single grains has become practical by advances in instrumentation and in single-aliquot methods for determining De, although interpreting the distribution of De values from grains of a single sample is not always straightforward. Identifying mixtures is important for understanding site-formation processes and assessing the integrity of stratigraphy. These problems are particularly relevant for controversial issues such as colonization of Australia and settlement of the New World, both areas where luminescence dating has been applied. Isolating only well-bleached grains has also proven useful in dating construction episodes in monumental architecture and in dating the covering of rock art by mud wasp nests. See also: Amino Acid Racemization Dating; Carbon-14 Dating; Dating Methods, Overview; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Obsidian Hydration Dating.

Further Reading Aitken MJ (1985) Thermoluminescence Dating. London: Academic Press. Aitken MJ (1998) An Introduction to Optical Dating. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Btter-Jensen L, McKeever SWS, and Wintle AG (2003) Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dosimetry. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Chen R and McKeever SWS (1997) Theory of Thermoluminescence and Related Phenomena. Singapore: World Scientific. Feathers JK (2003) Use of luminescence dating in archaeology. Measurement Science and Technology 14: 1493–1509. Mercier N, Valladas H, and Valladas G (1995) Flint thermoluminescence dates from the CFR Laboratory at Gif: Contributions to the study of the chronology of the Middle Palaeolithic. Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 351–364. Murray AS and Olley JM (2002) Precision and accuracy in the optically stimulated luminescence dating of sedimentary quartz: A status review. Geochronometria 21: 1–16. Murray AS and Wintle AG (2000) Luminescence dating of quartz using an improved single-aliquot regenerative-dose protocol. Radiation Measurements 32: 57–73. Roberts RG, Galbraith RF, Olley JM, Yoshida H, and Laslett GM (1999) Optical dating of single and multiple grains of quartz from Jinmium rock shelter, northern Australia. Part II: Results and implications. Archaeometry 41: 365–395. Wintle AG (ed.) (1997) Luminescence and ESR dating and allied research. Radiation Measurements vol. 27(5/6): 819–892.

M MACROREMAINS ANALYSIS Gary W Crawford, University of Toronto at Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary azuki bean (also spelled adzuki) An annual vine widely grown throughout East Asia and the Himalaya for its small (approximately 5 mm) bean. caryopsis Dry, one seeded fruit (grain) of grasses (Poaceae) in which the seed coat firmly adheres to the seed. cotyledon A significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant, upon germination, the cotyledon usually becomes the embryonic first leaves of a seedling. embryo The rudimentary plant found within a seed. Fabaceae The botanical name of a large and economically important family of flowering plants, which includes the plants commonly known as legumes. flotation The methods by which plant remains are extracted from sediment by immersing the sediment in water and collecting the suspended or floating plant remains. hilum On certain seeds, the scar at the point of attachment of the stalk (funiculus) that links the seed to the plant. Poaceae A family, in the Class Liliopsida of the flowering plants, is also known as Gramineae.

Macroremains from archaeological sites include seeds, fruits, chaff, buds (leaf or flower), rinds, underground structures such as tubers as well as wood, and other stem fragments. All have a role in understanding human–environmental interaction and culture in the past. In turn, preservation conditions, archaeological retrieval methods, and culture of the inhabitants of a site all impact our understanding of archaeological plant remains. Plant macroremains make an important contribution to archaeology, so much so that the introduction of flotation recovery of plant remains started a revolution in our interpretations of the past.

Preservation Plant tissues decay by being consumed by microorganisms. They will be preserved if they cannot be consumed by these organisms or in the absence of such organisms. Preservation normally involves charring, desiccation (drying), or waterlogging. Charring

removes hydrogen and oxygen and leaves a carbon skeleton of items such as wood, a seed, or fruit and occurs when plant remains are exposed to excessive heat near, or in, hearths, or when a structure burns such as in a house fire. In some cases, plant material such as chaff is mixed with clay to make pottery and the subsequent firing will preserve some of the chaff in the pottery wall. Only in the relative absence of oxygen will charring occur. The higher the temperature, the worse the preservation will be. Delicate materials such as leaves and fibers of herbaceous plants rarely survive unless the temperature is quite low. Tougher plant tissues such as seed coats, particularly of nuts and other dry seeds, are retained at higher temperatures. Plant remains stored in containers, under soil, or otherwise protected from the air will usually be the best preserved by charring. Carbon is relatively stable so does not decay when exposed to oxygen. At dry sites such as protected caves and rock shelters (see Caves and Rockshelters) as well as at sites in deserts, plant tissue preserves because of the lack of moisture that microorganisms require. A wider range of plant tissue such as leaves and other soft tissue survives in such contexts. The plant remains may appear almost fresh. At the Guila Naquitz site in the dry highlands of Mexico, bean pods and quids of chewed maguey have been recovered. At Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, thousands of objects made from wood, gourds and other plant material left behind by indigenous miners are preserved. Mud to make adobe walls is usually mixed with plant stems and chaff and when the bricks are sun-dried the stems and chaff are preserved inside the bricks. In extremely wet conditions, preservation occurs when oxygen cannot be replenished in the water. This often occurs in deep marine or lake settings, alluvial flood deposits, bogs, and landslides. In these settings, aerobic (oxygen consuming) microorganisms that are mainly responsible for the decay of organic material cannot survive. Sites such as Torihama in Japan, Hemudu in China, and Scowlitz in British Columbia, Canada are examples of wet sites with excellent preservations of plant remains. In other instances the plant remains themselves are not preserved, but their impressions are. Impressions

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of seeds and fruits in contact with clay during the manufacture of pottery occasionally occur on the interior and exterior surfaces of pottery. These impressions retain the surface form and sometimes the cellular pattern of the seed, fruit or stem that made the impression. At Pompei in Italy, plant remains are preserved as casts of the original item in the volcanic ash or as charred remains.

Recovery The methods for recovering macroremains depend on the type of deposit being excavated. Samples from dry sites can simply be dry-screened to separate the plant remains from the surrounding sediment. Plant remains from wet sites may be recovered by wet-screening, that is, by using pressurized water to wash the sediments though a screen or set of nested screens that divide the material into size grades. Another method, flotation, is used where charred material is the main form of plant remains. For flotation, large volumes of soil (often 10– 50 l) are collected from a variety of contexts. The samples may be the complete fill from a pit or other context or may be a subsample depending on time and budget constraints. In general, all context types at a site are sampled. If a pit is excavated in a deeply stratified site, each pit layer is normally sampled. If the site is a large village with a variety of contexts such as house floors, hearths, storage pits, and refuse dumps, then each of these should be sampled. Once collected, the soil is partially dried. Too much drying can cause the delicate charred remains to break. The soil volume is measured and recorded along with the sample’s location. In the simplest method, bucket decanting, the soil is gently poured into a bucket of water, stirred, and the material suspended in the water decanted through a fine-mesh (usually 0.2 mm) sieve (Figure 1). The suspended material, or light fraction, is trapped in the sieve while the water passes though it. This is repeated

Figure 1 The bucket decanting flotation method.

until no more material is in suspension. The soil in the bottom of the bucket is then screened through a mesh of roughly 1–1.5 mm. The material caught in this screen is the heavy fraction and will contain small artifacts and plant remains that did not float. In fact, flotation is recommended for the rapid collection of all small items in certain contexts. Both fractions can be placed in separate pieces of cloth that are tied into a self-contained bags, dried and stored for analysis. For processing large volumes of soil, a number of mechanized methods are available but they are all based on the same principle as the bucket-decanting technique.

Initial Sample Preparation Analysis of light fractions follows a standard procedure at each lab in order for data to be comparable. Methods may vary depending on the lab and the samples (samples from Ontario have large quantities of wood charcoal, maize cob fragments, and kernels while samples from China often have only small seeds, but the techniques are all designed for efficiency and accuracy). Seeds vary in size and are mixed with other debris so preparing a sample so that it is easier to view and quantify is important. In the lab, samples are weighed and then passed through a series of nested geological sieves normally of the following mesh sizes: 6.35, 4.00, 2.38, 2.00, 1.41, 1.00, 0.71, 0.42, and 0.21 mm. The number of screens can vary depending on the sample size (fewer screens for smaller samples), but this is typical for a 20 g sample. The analyst can microscopically scan particles of roughly the same size making observations consistent. Seeds of the same type, because they are roughly the same size, will be separated to a great extent too. Weights of each of the portions are recorded. The first sample weight and the fraction weights are not used in the final tabulations but are used to audit the analysis. The fractions above the 2.38 or 2.00 mm screen are

MACROREMAINS ANALYSIS 1595

separated entirely into their constituent components, which may include wood charcoal, nutshell, large crop seeds (maize, wheat, barley etc.), unidentified plant remains, bone, stone flakes, and uncarbonized organic material such as rootlets. Seeds of wild plants are usually found in the fractions smaller than 2.38 mm, and their weight is usually quite small. Each of the larger components is weighed and the seeds counted. Mineral and uncarbonized organic material are not included in the final results that are limited to archaeologically significant material. Each of the other components is reported as a percentage of the total component weight and density (g/l of soil). Only carbonized seeds or items for further study are removed from the smaller material. Watchmakers’ tweezers, fine brushes, and dissecting needles all can be used to extract delicate seeds from the sample. Some analysts count the seeds but do not separate them. This may not be a problem but the author prefers to store the seeds and other interesting specimens separately by type in gelatin capsules so they are easier to check and reanalyze. The seeds are weighed together as a component. The percentage summaries of the gross composition of the samples are based on the material larger than 2.00 mm. The author has found that the smaller fragmentary material is easily misidentified and it may take hours or days to split (with a wide margin of error) the smaller material into wood charcoal, nutshell and so on. Given the available resources of most labs, separating an entire sample into its constituent components is neither accurate nor efficient. Data are best recorded in a computerized database. In the lab data are first recorded on a hard copy of the same form used for data entry on the computer. Any relational database will suffice. Retrieval of samples fitting particular criteria is fast and accurate and tabular summaries of data can be quickly achieved.

Identification and Documentation The majority of seeds and fruits recovered from archaeological deposits are larger than 0.5 mm in at least one dimension so a binocular dissecting microscope is ideal for the majority of observations. Items to be identified are three dimensional and the binocular configuration allows the analyst to see small objects with proper depth perception. A magnification of between 10 and 50 times is usually sufficient. When details such as cell patterns smaller than 0.5 mm (e.g., 10–50 mm) need to be documented a light transmission microscope or scanning electron microscope (SEM) is useful. Figure 2 illustrates a specimen viewed with two types of microscopes. Cost and time obviate the use of the SEM for the examination of most specimens. Proper documentation, particularly of new or potentially controversial discoveries, needs to be properly published. In the author’s work the specimens are usually documented with a digital photography system and supporting software (Nikon Digital Sight and Nikon’s Eclipsenet software). This setup permits fast digital measurement, photography, and data recording (Figure 2). Identifications must be confirmed by comparison with modern reference specimens. A reference collection with a comprehensive representation of plant taxa from one’s research area(s) is essential. Specimens are arranged taxonomically, that is by plant family and then within families by genus, species, and subspecies. At the University of Toronto we use the Montgomery seed collection, which is the basis of the Montgomery Seed Manual, in addition to the reference collection in the author’s lab. Seeds and fruits within a single plant family share more traits than do plants in different families. Overall shape, size, and symmetry, seed coat morphology, shape and position of the embryo and endosperm, the number of cotyledons, and the nature of the attachment of the seed to the plant are among the most

Figure 2 An example digital image of a charred Rubus (raspberry/bramble) seed (R) compared to its modern counterpart (L) with measurements taken using the Nikon Digital Sight imaging system and its companion Eclipsenet software.

1596 MACROREMAINS ANALYSIS

Figure 3 Comparison of modern azuki bean (L) and an archaeological specimen from South Korea (R). Both specimens show characteristics typical of beans: cotyledons (c), plumule (p), and seed coat (s). The size of the archaeological specimen is significantly smaller than its modern counterpart indicating it likely represents a wild or early domesticated form.

significant characteristics used to identify specimens (Figure 3). Charred seeds in particular are often broken so sometimes only one or two characteristics remain and they may not be enough to make an identification. A typical analysis will report a number of unidentifiable seeds. Two important economic plant families, grass (Poaceae) and bean (Fabaceae), exemplify how fruit and seed structures are used in the identification process. The seed (grain) of grasses is called a caryopsis. The grain is held within two tough leaflets called the palea and lemma, the structure and form of which can help identify a grain. The embryo at one end of the seed and that end (proximal end) is normally pointed. The opposite end (distal end) of the grain is normally blunt. In some cases the grass embryo extends the length of the grain but in most it does not. The main domesticated grass in the New World is maize and it belongs to the Maydeae subgroup (tribe) of the grasses. Wheat and barley, two significant crops from the Near East, are members of the Hordeae tribe of grasses. Superficially, maize looks quite different from either barley or wheat (Figure 4). Maize kernels are broad and flat with a crescent-shaped embryo comprising a significant part of one face of the grain. Wheat and barley are long and narrow with a short embryo relative to the grain length. Wheat and barley differ from each other in subtler ways than they do with maize. For example, barley has a shallow groove ventral furrow down the face of the grain opposite the embryo while wheat has a deep, narrow groove. In the bean family, the fruit is a legume, a pod with two sides joined by a suture. This fruit is quite different from that of grasses. Inside the pod is a single row of seeds. The seeds have two halves (cotyledons) that are part of the embryo. The embryo also has a primordial root (the radicle), and leaves (plumule). The form and position of these are diagnostic

(Figure 3). On the outside of the seed, the hilum is the scar left by the attachment to the plant. Its position and form also helps distinguish one type of bean from another. Determining the wild or domesticated status of a specimen is critical when investigating the transition to agriculture. The problem is made complex by the understanding that a domesticated plant or crop is the same species as its wild relative. Crops are adapted to human-created ecosystems and have advantages to people that are often disadvantages in to plants adapted to wild habitats. Wild dispersal mechanisms are suppressed so that plants are easier to harvest, protective tissues are reduced so that plants are easier and tastier for people to eat, seed coat thickness may be reduced so that seeds germinate soon after they are planted, and the seed, fruit, stem, or other part that people value may increase in size (Figure 5). This is not a comprehensive list of the impact of domestication, but they represent characteristics that affect plant anatomy. In grains one of the first characteristics to change is the brittleness of the rachis, or tiny stem that connects the grain to the plant. An irregular scar indicates the grain was ripped from the plant (by people) while a clean scar indicates a natural break. Wood, either in the form of charcoal or as uncharred fragments can be identified in order to assess the local woodlands in the past, as well as to determine the choices people were making for fuel and raw materials. Other significant plant tissues are roots and tubers as well as rinds of large fruits such as squash and gourd. Large fragments or complete root structures such as the potato are rarely recovered; the remains are usually fragmentary. The tissues of these structures may shrink, expand, deteriorate, or otherwise distort due to charring, drying, or waterlogging. Techniques are being developed to identify such tissues. Fragments no larger than a cubic centimeter are best examined with a SEM. The cells of starchy roots and tubers are usually

MACROREMAINS ANALYSIS 1597

Figure 4 Three types of grass. Charred wheat (top left) and barley (bottom left) from Japan, and maize (right) from Ontario. The ventral (L) and dorsal (R) views of wheat and barley show the embryo and furrow (groove) respectively. The maize embryo is missing but the embryo scar has the typical arched form of grasses. Maize kernels do not have a ventral furrow.

7 Daundong site specimens Wild specimens (archaeological) Modern crop

6

Width (mm)

5 4 3 2 1 0 0

1

2

3

4 5 6 Length (mm)

7

8

9

Figure 5 Seed size variation of azuki beans in the archaeological record of South Korea compared to the variation of a modern cultivar. The specimens from Daundong are an early crop whose seed size is intermediate between wild and modern sizes.

spheroidal and fit together with a relationship to adjacent cells. That is, they fit together because they developed together. Other surfaces are notable due to their reflective properties (shiny vs. dull). Other cellular patterns associated with vascular tissues such as tension fractures and cavities are often present and can be used to help identify the remains.

Data Presentation There are many ways to present data depending on the problem being investigated. An example of a data set is from the Carlson Annis site, Kentucky (Figure 6). Carlston Annis is one of many large Archaic period shell mounds found throughout the

Southeast US. In this case, one priority was to learn about patterns through time (c. 5000–2500 BC) at the site so a graphic representation of percentage composition helped visualize patterns, particularly those involving relative abundance of all classes of plant remains. The samples are ordered from youngest to oldest (top to bottom) and by type of material (left to right) with sample components first and potential plant food-related material second. The data table can alternatively be presented as densities, that is, number or weight of items per liter of soil. In the case of the Carlston Annis site, acorn is more common than hickory in the younger layers. Either people were developing a taste for acorns or they were more abundant locally making them a sensible food choice. The second hypothesis is sensible because of its simplicity. Oaks likely became more common because hunters and gatherers are known to have used fire to help manage local habitats and oaks tend to be fire tolerant while hickory is not. Just after this period and elsewhere in Kentucky people had turned to agriculture and practiced slash and burn (swidden) agriculture. They appear to have developed slash and burn techniques from their knowledge of burning as hunter-gatherers. The site has a relatively low incidence of charred seeds. Its site is known to have had a large population of earthworms that ingest nearly all small items, thereby significantly reducing the number of seeds that archaeologists could recover.

Outlook Today thousands of specialists are recovering and analyzing macroremains around the world. Flotation has been used for decades in some regions such as the

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

36.90 55.39 110.90 77.08 40.88 43.91 56.82 34.67 49.11 99.88 108.04 98.05 95.38 176.88 171.61 69.81 14.96 16.12 3.65

1.24 0.91 1.48 1.94 0.65 2.54 3.60 0.30 1.86 6.61 6.25 16.13 10.62 16.76 16.63 4.40 5.28 6.53 2.40

Total 1360.04

104.86

%

0 50 ⫻ 10

Wa lnu Tu t she be ll r Sq ua Se sh rin ed d s

Me at

Acorn

Sh ell

Hic ko ry

nu tsh ell

Plant food

To ta we l pla igh nt f t (g oo m) d

Sample components

Sm all bo ne Wo od ch arc oa l Un ide rem ntif ain ied pla s nt Pla nt foo d

Le ve l Sa mp (ex le w clu eig Fla ding ht (g m fin ke ed ) s eb ris ) Sh ell

1598 MACROREMAINS ANALYSIS

100 Less than 1.0%

Figure 6 Carlston Annis, unit C13 flotation sample contents as percentage of sample weight and total plant food weight.

Near East and North America but has only recently been systematically applied in areas such as China. Clearly, macroremains analysis is an indispensable part of archaeological research. New techniques such as DNA and residue analysis are helping identify plants and the evolution of domestication but the first steps will continue to be flotation or mechanical screening of waterlogged contexts (see Sites: Waterlogged) and desiccated soils and the microscopic analysis of macroremains resulting from these recovery techniques. Interpretations need to develop beyond the narrow confines of typical archaeological interests to issues involving sustainable agricultural methods, contemporary plant management, ideology, agency, forensics, and others. See also: Caves and Rockshelters; Coprolite Analysis; Ecofacts, Overview; Fiber Artifacts; Frozen Sites and Bodies; Organic Residue Analysis; Paleoethnobotany; Phytolith Analysis; Plant Domestication; Pollen Analysis; Preservation, Modes of; Sites: Waterlogged; Starch Grain Analysis.

Further Reading Dimbleby GW (1978) Plants and Archaeology. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Ford RI (1985) Commentary: Little things mean a lot – quantification and qualification in palaeoethnobotany. In: Ford RI (ed.) Prehistoric Food Production in America, pp. 215–222. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Greig J (1989) Archaeobotany. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. Hastorf C (1999) Recent research and innovations in paleoethnobotany. Journal of Archaeological Research 7(1): 55–103. Hather JG (1993) An Archaeobotanical Guide to Root and Tuber Identification. Bloomington, IN: Oxbow Books. Hather JG (2000) Archaeological Parenchyma. London: Archetype. Hillman GC (1983) Interpretation of archaeological plant remains. In: Van Zeist W and Casparie WA (eds.) Plants and Ancient Man: Studies in Palaeoethnobotany. Rotterdam: Balkema. Marquardt WH and Watson PJ (2005) Archaeology of the Middle Green River Region, Kentucky. Gainesville: Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, University of Florida. Pearsall DM (2000) Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures. San Diego: Academic Press. Renfrew JM (1973) Palaeoethnobotany: The Prehistoric Food Plants of the Near East and Europe. Figures Drawn by Alan Eade. New York: Columbia University Press.

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MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY Jeremy Green, Fremantle, WA, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary maritime Connected with the sea, especially in relation to seafaring, commercial, or military activity.

Introduction Maritime archaeology as a discipline has had a troubled genesis. Starting in the postwar period with the advent of commercially available SCUBA equipment, diving soon became a recreational sport. As the equipment became more accessible, so the sport became more popular. As a result people were soon discovering shipwrecks and the artifacts that they contained, particularly in the Mediterranean. Of course, people had known about ‘things’ in the sea or underwater long before. Hard-hat diving was widely used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for salvage and underwater operations. In fact, salvage-diving, or working underwater, had been in operation since the seventeenth century when divers using a diving bell had salvaged the guns from the Swedish warship Wasa at a depth of about 30 m. The first ‘archaeological’ operation was probably the discovery by Greek sponge divers of the Antikythera ship in 1900. Here the divers were under the instruction of archaeologists who directed the operations from the surface. Throughout the postwar period, various nonarchaeological groups have worked in the Mediterranean on a variety of Greek and Roman wrecks and these operations were often conducted with great care and proficiency, but unfortunately sometimes not with rigorous archaeological principles. The Grand Congloue´ wreck excavated by Jacques Cousteau in 1952 was one of the first excavations of a site using the aqualung. The work was featured in an article titled ‘Fish men discover 2,200-year-old Greek ship’. Cousteau describes the use of an air lift as something akin to a browsing horse and munching shells, sand, shards, and things too big for it to eat, such as parts of amphora which, when jammed in the pipe mouth, were pulverized to allow them to go up the air lift. Of course, this was very early days and there were, needless to say, no archaeologists on that project.

The first underwater archaeological excavation was of the Cape Geledonia wreck in 1960 by George Bass. This was a groundbreaking excavation; archaeologists who could dive, plus divers who were experienced in archaeological sites, joined an international team that established a benchmark for conducting archaeology underwater. The watchword then was: ‘‘It is easier to teach an archaeologist to dive that a diver to be an archaeologist.’’ By the 1960s, the field of maritime archaeology was expanding. European countries and countries bordering the Mediterranean were beginning to establish modest maritime archaeological programs. However, at the same time, there was a growing interest in looting and treasure-hunting, and many important sites in the Mediterranean were completely destroyed for their cargos of amphora. Against this background, the discipline of maritime archaeology slowly evolved, largely independently from traditional terrestrial archaeology and often at times against enormous adversity. In order to conduct a maritime archaeological program, it is necessary to have legislation to protect the underwater cultural heritage (UCH). In many European countries this was enacted early, but in many countries the legislation was either inadequate or nonexistent (see Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation). The first example of single-purpose legislation to protect shipwrecks was enacted in 1963 in Western Australia (a state with a population of about 1 million people at that time). Today, the state has over 1200 known shipwrecks that are protected by legislation and these are managed by a state government department with a staff of ten people. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, where there are literally hundreds of thousands of wrecks, for a long time the legislation was inadequate and till 2002, only 47 sites were protected. The level of management in the UK can be judged by the fact that about 70 000 sports divers undertook 1.5 million dives in 1992, while at the same time there were only 20 or so paid professional diving archaeologists. While the situation in the United Kingdom is not a particularly encouraging example, many countries have no legislation and no means of looking after sites. Other countries have relatively modest programs but there are few places in the world that can be said to have an ideal situation. A recent UNESCO convention (see below) will ultimately help to redress this situation.

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What Do We Do and What Do We Study? Maritime archaeology is often considered to be an expensive activity because of the resources and equipment that are necessary to operate underwater. However, the archaeological rewards are often enormous. Because UCH has until recent times not been accessible, the resource is extremely large. Once it was considered to be the study of things that were literally underwater, shipwrecks and submerged land sites such as harbors. Today, maritime archaeology also encompasses studies involving maritime activities, such as fishing, commerce, exploration, shore-based facilities that relate to maritime activities, and maritime landscapes. Therefore the maritime archaeologist of today is dealing with a highly diverse subject. Shipwrecks have been the main focus of study, particularly in Europe and the Mediterranean. Here the discipline has concentrated on the development of ships and shipbuilding. In the Mediterranean, the Institute for Nautical Archaeology, in Turkey, starting with the Cape Geledonya shipwreck, has pioneered a series of excavations that have helped to understand the development of shipbuilding from the early Bronze Age through to the Byzantine Period. This work has been complemented by other important studies in France, Italy, Greece, Israel, and Egypt. This has led to an understanding of how and why these ships were built and the nature of the trade networks and maritime commerce that they were involved in. In some cases, replicas of the shipwrecks have been built to help understand their sailing capabilities. In Northern Europe, parallel studies have been undertaken, looking at the evolution of shipbuilding from the Roman period through to the post-medieval. In particular, the ships of the Viking period have been extensively studied, starting with the early land finds of land-based ship burials in Norway and the UK. These finds were complemented by a number of ships from the Viking period discovered in Denmark at Roskilda. This work led to the development of an extensive program of replicating these vessels and studying their sailing characteristics. Following this, studies of merchant ships have been undertaken, especially of the cog and other similar vessels that operated in the Northern European waters. In the early period, the lack of extensive written record made the study of shipwrecks less complex. With only tantalizing references to ships, their cargos, and the people who sailed in the vessels of, say, the Bronze Age, the archaeological finds provide unique evidence of the times. For example, the writings of Homer are one of the few sources of written evidence relating to ships in the Bronze Age, even though he

probably wrote much later than the events to which he referred. Despite all Homer’s writings about the siege of Troy and the warfare, we still have little understanding of what their ships or everyday life was really like. In Homer’s Iliad, the besiegers of Troy appear to have lived on barbecued meat alone, with no reference to fishing. In the Odyssey, there are more references to sailing and the ships, but they are so tantalizing! In ‘Calypso’s island’, we hear of Odysseus being given a bronze double ax and adz to fell the trees. Poplar and firs were split and trimmed. The planks were bored and wedged and knocked home, locked with pegs and joints. The vessel was fenced with twigs and wicker bulwarks, stem to stern. This was written some 2700 years ago. Today we can compare some of these words with vessels that were built in those times. Archaeological excavation is likely to be the only way more can be discovered about these issues since it is unlikely that another Odyssey will be found in the archives. As we progress forward in time, more and more written material becomes available to the maritime archaeologist. Beyond the medieval period, maritime archaeology becomes a more complex field of study. The maritime archaeologist is now faced with a growing source of alternative information to compliment the archaeological record. Records, letters, bills of lading, paintings, etchings, ship plans, and a whole range of complementary evidence becomes available (see Ships and Seafaring). As we progress further in time to the Industrial Revolution, this written record grows in volume until, by the nineteenth century, it is almost overwhelming. In these later time frames, which have only recently begun to be studied, we see a different form of maritime archaeology evolving, where the simple excavation of one particular site is not likely to illuminate the times in the same way that a Bronze Age or Classical Period shipwreck would. Questions have to be asked about the relevance of the site: was it a typical example of the times, how did it fit into the pattern of other similar or different vessels doing the same type of thing? Thus these types of studies become more integrated in historical and social issues. This is, of course, not history, which itself tends to study the broad issues and certainly does not examine detailed material culture. If we take the example of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), historians and archivists have studied and tried to understand the broad questions of how the company operated between 1602 and 1797. However, it was not until the discovery and excavation of VOC shipwrecks, that the archaeologists started to ask detailed questions of the historians about the material that they were

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encountering. This can be illustrated by the following example. In the 1980s, contemporary thought was that Northern European ships were built in the conventional manner, with first the keel, then the ribs, and then the planking placed over the ribs as skin (this was known as ‘frames-first’). It was known that in the Classical and Roman period, ships were built differently by laying the keel, then building up the planking to form an outer shell, and then inserting the ribs last (‘shell-first’). When a seventeenth century VOC ship was excavated and found from the archaeological excavation to have been built shell-first, the report was initially greeted with incredulity. The archaeological evidence was, however, irrefutable and it was not till this point that examination of contemporary paintings and treatise of ship construction showed several examples of the shell-first construction which continued up until the late seventeenth century. That in itself began a new research theme for the historians, seeking to understand how and why this unusual technique persisted for such a long time. So in this time frame, when there are some records and some archaeological sites, in a way the archaeological record and the historical record complement each other. In some cases, the historical record will be the only information indicating a particular thing, that does not exist, for whatever reason, in the archaeological record. In other cases, the reverse is true. So the maritime archaeologist has the additional problem of accessing historical records, often in a foreign language, in order to obtain a complete understanding of the study. Archival research is not a traditional part of an archaeologist’s work, nor are the historians used to dealing with the minutia that this level of archaeological work requires. When we reach the nineteenth century, the problem for the maritime archaeologist becomes immense. The level of information, other than the archaeological record, is often huge. The approach here has been to take a much broader overview. Few archaeological excavations have been conducted on nineteenth century sites and where they have, the sites have had exceptional significance. The study of the nineteenth century has also had a more regional significance to countries that have had a relatively modern maritime tradition. Thus, the US (apart from states with connections with the Spanish Plate Fleets), Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, all with European colonial connections, have been in the forefront of this field of study. However, as recently pointed out by a number of writers, this field of study has largely failed to develop a sophisticated theoretical basis. A new and interesting field of study deals with the iron and steam shipwrecks of the Industrial Revolution (see Industrial Archaeology). The study is

particularly interesting because, initially, people thought that iron wrecks would ‘last for ever’. Corrosion studies have shown that contrary to this belief, iron shipwrecks are disintegrating at an alarming rate. This can be seen when examining the most recent pictures of the Titanic compared with pictures taken when the vessel was first found in 1985. The research concentrates on issues of how to conserve these rapidly disintegrating artifacts. A number of complex projects have involved the excavation of complete ships and subsequent conservation and display. The first example was the raising of the seventeenth century Swedish warship Wasa in Stockholm Harbour in 1961. This was another landmark for maritime archaeology. For the first time, an almost complete ship was brought to the surface, not for salvage, but for archaeology. This immense project brought home the impact of the past – at that dramatic moment when the vessel first broke surface and floated into the dry-dock. The raising of the Mary Rose in 1982 was another example. However, strangely, neither of the projects has become a springboard for advancement in the field. Admittedly, both projects have excellent displays, but with the Wasa there have been no more than a handful of academic papers and the recent publications on the Mary Rose have been disappointing.

Theoretical Questions Maritime archaeology involves recovering the archaeological information through survey, excavation, recording, and documentation. The theoretical questions which then have to be addressed relate to the interpretation of this information, first at a more particularistic, object-oriented level, and, by extrapolation, to the deeper patterns of cultural systems. There are several schools of thought governing maritime archaeological research. Historical particularism studies the material culture and is artifactorientated and concerned with the artifacts and their functions. This approach is particularly appropriate for the archaeology of shipwrecks, because, being a relatively new field of study, the material artifacts are often not well understood. It is important, therefore, to build a clear understanding of the function of the material before the interpretation can take place. It has been stated that one of the most important objectives for maritime archaeology is simply to build up catalogs of material from wreck sites in order to create a springboard for the generation of hypotheses. Other approaches involve the development of hypotheses that can be used to study societies and the way they operated. More recently, with sites belonging to the post-medieval period, the use of an

1602 MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY

integrated approach has been widely used. Here, both the archaeological and historical records are combined to attempt to obtain a clearer overall picture. For example, many items will not appear in the archaeological record of a shipwreck; perishable items may disappear, the origin and destination and the reason for the voyage may not be known; conversely, the historical record may not record items on board the ship or the way the ship was built and its type. Through the careful integration of both sources a much more informed picture can emerge, providing a deeper understanding of the significance of the site. Obviously, this is not always possible, but it is clear that an integrated approach will produce a better result. Post-excavation research will initially focus on the artifacts through their classification and identification. At this first level, the objective is identification, to which end scientific techniques may be applied to assist in determining the type of material the object was made of and its dating. Additionally, the historical record may be helpful in the identification and dating of objects where there are contemporary descriptions of similar material. At the next level, the archaeological research becomes involved with the interpretation of the function of the object and its relation to the other objects on the site. For sites that have a supporting written record, the documentary evidence can be very important, since it can provide information to explain why particular objects were present and what their function was. The final stage is reached with the study of the pattern of the material in relation to other sites and its relevance to broad historical interpretation which then leads to the formulation of the theories or hypotheses that can be used to explain major trends or processes. Irrespective of which theoretical framework is adopted, the objective of a maritime archaeologist will be to find out as much as possible about the material. This can then be used in conjunction with other information of a similar or associated nature to gain a broader concept of its significance on the site and, subsequently, its relevance in broad historical terms.

Finding Sites Most of the techniques used by maritime archaeologists today for the location of sites originate from other fields, particularly the offshore oil industry, although the equipment and resources that are generally used by maritime archaeologists are modest in comparison. Even though high-technology equipment has been used to find sites over the years, the majority of archaeological wreck sites

have in fact been found by chance, often through the fishing industry. The three main systems used to locate sites are visual searching, either using divers or remotely operated vehicles with video cameras; magnetometers that detect the presence of ferrous metal (usually applied to searching for iron shipwrecks); and sonar, particularly side-scan and multibeam sonar, that presents a sonar image of the sea bed. The use of remote sensing equipment is becoming common now that it is more readily available and, unlike diver operations, can be conducted over long periods of time without interruption. Where a maritime archaeologist is faced with the need to locate a site, it is essential to carry out the appropriate initial research prior to the survey, and that the survey is conducted in a systematic manner. Often, in the past, searches have been conducted with totally unscientific and illogical principles. However, today with the advent of precise positioning through the Global Positioning System (GPS), with a cheap hand-held instrument, a position can be determined anywhere on the surface of the Earth to an accuracy off by just a meter or so.

Management Legislation underpins much of the work of the professional maritime archaeologist. There has also been considerable debate within maritime archaeological circles over codes of ethics (see Ethical Issues and Responsibilities). Part of this debate relates to the question of dispersal of collections. Is it acceptable, for example, to excavate a site and then sell the collection? Is it acceptable for a museum to buy material on the auction market which has clearly come from a site that has not been excavated in an archaeological manner? In many situations, the archaeologist is required by law to sell the collection. In other cases, the sale of the collection finances the excavation work, and by necessity the material must be sold in order to carry on working. It is quite clear that, at the turn of the century, we have seen major and important wreck collections sold at auction. While some material has gone to museums, the majority has been dispersed, and thus been lost. Usually the only way that the material has been recorded is in an illustrated auction catalog which, for archaeological purposes, is totally inadequate. The issue has been addressed in a number of forums: the ICOMOS International Committee on the Underwater Cultural Heritage and the International Congress of Maritime Museums being the most significant. As far as the question of artifacts from shipwreck sites is concerned, there are now several schools of

MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY 1603

thought holding widely divergent views on these issues. The purists argue that the collection is unique and, if dispersed, the information will be lost forever. Therefore, no excavation should take place unless the material can be conserved and then preserved. The pragmatists state that sites will be excavated or looted and, unless the material is recorded, it will be totally lost. Their approach is to work with the salvors and try to preserve and record as much as possible. The purists claim that this is self-defeating. By giving archaeological respectability to looting or salvage, it is legitimized and, in the long run, even more material will be lost. The treasure hunters argue that, but for them, the sites would never be found. In their eyes, archaeologists are incompetents who are trying to take away the right they have, as treasure hunters, to the rewards for their endeavors. Within this hotbed of dissent exist questions relating to the position of amateurs and nonprofessionals – questions of who is to take responsibility for conservation, storage, and display of material. It is, therefore, not surprising that some terrestrial archaeologists find the maritime field difficult to accept as a fully fledged academic discipline.

The Issue of Treasure Hunting In the US, the discovery of shipwrecks of the Spanish Plate Fleet generated a whole industry in treasure hunting that began in the 1960s. By the beginning of the 1970s, the field was divided into roughly three camps: the treasure hunters out for commercial gain and little else; a small number of archaeologists working for professional organizations that conducted archaeological projects; and a number of amateur and volunteer divers who wanted to help preserve the archaeological record, usually acting independently. By the mid-1980s, the discovery in Southeast Asia of shipwrecks that had marketable Chinese and Asian ceramics opened a new floodgate of treasure hunting and looting of archaeological sites in Asia. No discussion about maritime archaeology is complete without some reference to treasure hunting. There are three kinds of treasure hunters: professional, semiprofessional, and amateur. The professionals typically use off-shore equipment and work in deep water, the semi-professional generally works on smaller vessels with less skilled divers, and the amateur is simply someone who loots in his spare time. The history of maritime treasure hunting probably starts with the amateur divers who started in the 1950s in the Mediterranean, collecting amphora and selling them. In the Carribean, the treasure-hunting business started with the discovery of the first of the Spanish Plate Fleet ships in the 1960s. Up until the 1980s,

treasure hunting was connected with finding gold, silver, and other valuable items. In 1983, a Chinese junk, dating from the mid-seventeenth century, was discovered in Indonesian waters. The wreck contained a remarkable collection of Chinese porcelain, which was ultimately sold at Christie’s in Amsterdam, and made a small fortune for the finder. The finder went on to discover the Geldermalsen which contained a huge cargo of Nanking porcelain. There has never been an event quite like the sale of the Nanking Cargo. It composed over 160 000 ceramic items and 126 gold ingots, all of which sold for about £10 million. The suggested price in the catalog was generally far exceeded at the time of the auction, often by up to ten times. The auction was the second highest total for a Christie’s sale and no doubt, for them, a very profitable operation. From this moment on, shipwreck treasure hunting was not just looking for gold and silver. Asia became the new center for treasure hunting, and while there has never been an auction on the scale of the Nanking Cargo, many sites are being looted and destroyed, and the finds sold at auction. The arguments between treasure hunters and maritime archaeologists have largely reached a stalemate. Archaeologists are not going to become involved in selling artifacts and maintain it is not possible for an untrained person to conduct archaeological excavation. Treasure hunters say they are the only people finding wreck sites and there are plenty of sites to go around. In the interim, underwater sites are being salvaged of artifacts that have commercial value, often with official approval of the country involved. Sadly, the commercial exploitation of underwater archaeological sites continues, with little or no concern from governments that are, in reality, the guardian of the national cultural heritage (see World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws).

The UNESCO Convention On the international level, the UNESCO Draft Convention for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage was adopted by the Plenary Session of the 31st General Conference in 2001, thus becoming UNESCO’s fourth heritage convention. The convention acknowledges the importance of UCH as an integral part of the cultural heritage of humanity and a particularly important element in the history of peoples, nations, and their relations with each other concerning their common heritage. It also emphasizes the importance of protecting and preserving the UCH, which it considers the responsibility of the government of each state. It notes the growing public interest and appreciation of UCH; the public’s

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right to enjoy the educational and recreational benefits of the UCH; and how public education will contribute to awareness, appreciation, and protection of that heritage. The convention further observes that UCH is threatened by unauthorized activities directed at it, and that there is a need for stronger measures to prevent such actions. The convention also notes that there is an increasing commercial exploitation of UCH aimed at the sale, acquisition, or barter of UCH. As one can imagine, this was not an easy process; it had taken over a decade to reach this conclusion and was again a reaffirmation that society considers the protection of UCH more important than its exploitation. Prior to the UNESCO Draft Convention on Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, there was no international instrument to provide significant legal protection to UCH: shipwrecks, sunken cities, underwater cave paintings, and so forth. Although some nations possessed laws to provide protection in their own waters, others did not. This led to confusion about the rights of a nation to protect its cultural heritage, whether submerged in its own waters or another nation’s, or on the high seas. The main feature of the draft convention is that, among signatories, no activity directed at UCH may occur without a permit, no matter where the heritage is located. It provides guidance on the permitting process, including from which party the permit must be sought, depending on the location of the heritage. The draft convention covers all traces of human existence having a cultural, historical, or archaeological character which have been partially or totally underwater, periodically or continuously, for at least 100 years. It requires the consideration of on-site preservation of UCH as the first option before allowing any activities directed at it. Responsible nonintrusive access to observe or document on-site UCH ‘‘shall be encouraged to create public awareness, appreciation, and protection of the heritage. . . ’’. UCH may not be commercially exploited. Signatories have the exclusive right to regulate and authorize activities directed at UCH in their territorial sea and contiguous zone, and may enforce this right. On matters in a signatory’s exclusive economic zone (out to 200 nautical miles), however, the draft convention does not provide any new enforcement authority. There are several provisions making it clear that the convention must be interpreted consistent with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Signatories must require their nationals to report any discovery of UCH (even if discovered in another signatory’s waters), and must prohibit them from engaging in activities directed at the heritage without a proper

permit and to enforce those regulations against foreign-flag nationals and vessels, at least in the territorial sea and contiguous zone.

Ethics Maritime archaeologists have discussed over a long period of time the international issue of ethics. Can maritime archaeologists legitimately work for a treasure hunter and maintain that they are in fact archaeologists? There was a time when the answer to this question would be ‘may be’. But today the answer is clearly ‘no’. Any situation where archaeological material is sold or dispersed so that it makes it impossible, in the future, to reassemble it in order for it to be reassessed, is not archaeology. No matter how well-intentioned the individuals are that associate themselves with this situation, they are being unethical, albeit there is no formally adopted code of ethics, except what is implied in the UNESCO convention. Such people who become involved in the treasurehunting industry give it a false sense of legitimacy and, ultimately, add to the future destruction of yet more sites.

The Future Maritime archaeology is a discipline that is evolving. Although it has suffered from limitations of being a relatively expensive field of study, currently it is developing rapidly in the high-technology area. Numerous projects involving deep-water archaeology are revealing well-preserved finds that have great interest, both to archaeologists and the general public (see Robotic Archaeology on the Deep Ocean Floor). This technology, a product of commercial oil exploration, provides opportunities to investigate sites that have never been touched and that are often extraordinarily well preserved. The challenge here will be to ensure that such sites are properly investigated and that they do not become the regime of commercialism rather than science. Growing issues relate to the management of archaeological sites and the access of the sites to the public, but through this process it is likely that sites will be better regulated and the archaeology better managed. More theoretical studies are expected, with the greatest development expected in the understanding of development of maritime technology. The most significant issue is, in reality, that in the last four decades, a whole new source of archaeological information has become available for study. How, therefore, are we to ensure that this resource is managed in a way that the information is not lost and that society can benefit from this?

MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY 1605 See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation;

Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Illicit Antiquities; Industrial Archaeology; Robotic Archaeology on the Deep Ocean Floor; Ships and Seafaring; Underwater Archaeology; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Bass GF (1967) Cape Gelidonyia: A Bronze Age shipwreck. Transactions American Philosophical Society 57(8): 1–77. Bass GF (2005) Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson. Bass GF (ed.) (2004) Serce Limani: An Eleventh-Century Shipwreck: The Ship and Its Anchorage, Crew, and Passengers. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Bass GF and van Doorninck FH (1982) Yassi Ada, Vol. 1: A 7th Century Byzantine Shipwreck. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Blackman DJ (1973) Marine Archaeology. Proceedings of the 23rd Symposium Colston Research Society Held University of Bristol April 1971. London: Butterworths. Bruce-Mitford R (1975) The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Vol. 1: Excavations, Background, the Ship Dating and Inventory. London: British Museum. Cousteau J-Y (1954) Fish men discover a 2,200-year-old Greek wreck. National Geographic Magazine 105(1): 4–7. Cederlund CO (1983) British Archaeological Reports, International Series 186: The Old Wrecks of the Baltic Sea: Archaeological Recording of the Wrecks of Carvel-Built Ships. Oxford: BAR. Cederlund CO (ed.) (1985) British Archaeological Reports, International Series 256: International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology. Oxford: BAR. du PlatTaylor J (1965) Marine Archaeology. London: Hutchinson.

English Heritage (1999) Towards a Policy for Maritime Archaeology: An English Heritage and RCHME Discussion Paper. Fenwick V (1998) Historic Shipwrecks: Discovered, Protected and Investigated. Stroud, UK: Tempus. Litwin J (2000) Down the river to the sea. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Gdansk 1997. Gdansk: Polish Maritime Museum. Marsden P (2003) The Archaeology of the Mary Rose, Volume 1: Sealed by Time: The Loss, and Recovery of the Mary Rose. Portsmouth: The Mary Rose Trust. Prott LV, Planche E, and Roca-Hachem R (2000) Background Materials on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Paris: UNESCO. Reinders R and Paul K (eds.) (1991) Carvel Construction Technique: Skeleton-First, Shell-First: Fifth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Amsterdam 1988. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Ruppe´ CV and Barstad JF (eds.) (2002) International Handbook of Underwater Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum. Steffy JR (1994) Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press. Throckmorton P (1987) History from the Sea, Shipwrecks and Archaeology. London: Michell Beasley. UNESCO (1972) Underwater Archaeology, A Nascent Discipline. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2001) Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, 15 Oct–3 Nov 2001, Paris. http://www. unesco.org/culture/laws/underwater/html_eng/convention.shtml accessed Mar 2007. Westerdahl C (1994) Crossroads in ancient shipbuilding. Oxbow Monograph 40: Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Roskilde, 1991. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY LouAnn Wurst, SUNY College at Brockport, Brockport, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary historical materialism methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883). Karl Marx German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. Marxism the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marx’s work on one hand, and the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand.

For most westerners, the term Marxism conjures a plethora of contradictory images. For some, it is cast as a bogeyman – an irrelevant icon of either a rigid

evolutionism or failed political idealism. Some have rejected Marxism as part of the larger postmodernist critique of all totalizing discourses. Its equation with economic determinism and communism as the inevitable outcome of history is hard for most social scholars to swallow, especially with the recent collapse of many communist states. On the other hand, many scholars have argued that Marxism represents some of the most powerful theoretical ideas of the modern age and the only true potential for emancipatory action. Reconciling these disparate stances is not easy. This stems from the fact that Marxism does not refer to a single, consistent social theory; there is often more difference than similarity between selfproclaimed Marxists. Ambiguities in Marx’s work and the often-hidden nature of his influence in Western scholarship are at the root of many differences. Divergence in Marxist theory is also linked to historical

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contexts and, in Anglophone archaeology, its specific development and research agendas. Thus, Marxism is best seen as a tradition rather than a theory, recognizing that it often takes many different forms. There is, however, a series of principles that all Marxists, no matter what bent, share. All look to the writings of Karl Marx for inspiration and engage in the larger tradition of Marxist scholarship that builds on his work. All Marxist archaeologists propound some form of historical materialism, including a dialectical approach that treats society as a totality of interconnected social relations defined by contradiction and conflict. They reject ‘commonsense’ ideas of linear causality based on abstracting discrete social entities, that is, the economy, instead focusing on relations evident in and connecting material/ideal oppositions. All Marxists emphasize that people make history through praxis, or theoretically informed action. For archaeologists, this means recognizing that our knowledge of the past is created in and influenced by modern social and political conditions that derive from a capitalist system defined by relations of power and inequality that are unjust. Finally, Marxist archaeology is geared toward not simply understanding these relations, but changing them. As such Marxism represents a form of political action (see Economic Archaeology; World Systems Theory). Marx is best known for his study and critique of capitalism. Except for historical archaeology, this is a context that is far removed from much archaeological research. In this respect, archaeologists have applied historical materialism in several different ways – abstracting general concepts and ideas and applying them to noncapitalist contexts; and using it to understand the workings of archaeology and its products in the modern capitalist world. In other words, Marxist ideas have been applied to construct knowledge about the past as well as to critically confront our role in the construction of knowledge in the present.

Marxism and Knowledge about the Past Marxist archaeologists have creatively applied many aspects of Marx’s general concepts and ideas to our understandings of life in the past. One obvious area has been questions of state formation and the origins of complexity, with its accompanying relations of class and hierarchy. The application of a Marxist model to this, one of the burning questions in archaeology, dates from the work of V. Gordon Childe, undoubtedly the most prolific Western archaeologist of the twentieth century and the first to explicitly use Marxist theory in his work. Childe presented a theory

of historical development punctuated by revolutions (Neolithic, Urban, and Industrial) based on changes in relations of production. This focused attention on questions of labor, appropriation of surplus production, exploitation, and class struggle. While many of Childe’s specific arguments have been discredited by new empirical data, the Marxist emphasis continues in the contemporary research on state formation by Thomas Patterson, Elizabeth Brumfiel, Antonio Gilman, Philip Kohl, and Allen Zagarell. Other scholars have fruitfully extended a similar historical materialist framework to pre-state or nonstratified societies, recognizing that questions about the relations and mode of production, labor, inequality, and exploitation are not limited to the modern world. Examples would include Jon Muller’s and Charles Cobb’s study of the Mississippian period in the southeastern United States and Dean Saitta’s analysis of power and labor relations in both Cahokia and Chaco Canyon. A slightly different tack was taken by Marxist archaeologists who adopted a world-systems approach. World-systems theory was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein to account for the formation and growth of capitalism on the global stage. Wallerstein’s appeal lay in theorizing spatial parameters for inequality, conflict, and contradiction in terms of regional core and periphery relations. Archaeologists have critically and creatively applied these ideas to unequal geographic development in the Near East, the Mediterranean world, and the American Northwest/Southwest. Worldsystems theory continues to be widely used, although typically alienated from its Marxist roots. Other Marxist archaeologists have focused more specifically on class relations in various social contexts. Class can be defined as social groups that occupy different productive relations and entails differential control over labor and surplus production. Real classes exist only in concrete historical circumstances where the relations are inherently conflictual and contradictory. Archaeologists have seldom adopted an explicit class approach, but the Marxist-derived terminology of ‘dominance and resistance’, power, and struggle has become mainstream.

Marxism and Modern Archaeology Marxist approaches have also had a profound impact on our understanding of the role that archaeology plays within the modern capitalist world. Archaeologists in colonialist contexts have been confronted by well-organized First Nation and descendant communities who have led us to questions ‘archaeology for whom’? Marxism provides powerful tools to deal

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with this question by focusing attention on class, inequality, and exploitation. In North America, Bruce Trigger and Randall McGuire used a Marxist approach to examine the way that mainstream images of Native Americans functioned ideologically to support colonialism and the modern capitalist state. Archaeologists are today scrambling to engage various descendant communities in a dialog that seeks to move beyond these past injustices. Marxists have also approached the archaeological study of the present through Critical Theory. Mark Leone’s research in Annapolis is a prime example. Leone focused on ideology as people’s taken-forgranted beliefs that mystify the true nature of social relations to uphold dominant power relations. To promote struggle and change, the Annapolis public education program introduced visitors to the contradictions and social inequalities of the capitalist system evident in landscape, architecture, and material culture. Other archaeologists have applied an explicitly Marxist class analysis to the structure of modern archaeology, making strong connections between archaeology and American socio-economic and class relations. These studies have demonstrated that archaeology is an inherently middle class practice, evident in the kinds of questions asked about the past, the kinds of knowledge that are privileged, and the nature of the interpretations that are constructed. We have also learned that archaeology is as plagued by a class structure defined by inequality and exploitation as any other arena of the modern capitalist world. Patterson has argued that for the past 70 years, archaeologists have been engaged in a conversation with ‘‘Marx’s ghost’’. While most of this engagement is hidden, there are few burning questions in archaeology that have not been informed by Marx’s ideas.

Material Culture

See: Artifacts, Overview.

Archaeologists have engaged ‘‘Marx’s ghost’’ through a variety of concepts – class, state formation, inequality, power, ideology, etc. Acknowledged or not, Marxism is a vital part of archaeology’s theoretical development. Marxist archaeologists have made valuable contributions to our knowledge of the past as well our role in the construction of knowledge in the present. See also: Colonial Praxis; Economic Archaeology; Historical Materialist Approaches; Political Complexity, Rise of; Social Inequality, Development of; Social Theory; Social Violence and War; State-Level Societies, Collapse of; World Systems Theory.

Further Reading McGuire RH (1992) A Marxist Archaeology. San Diego: Academic Press. McGuire RH and Walker M (1999) Class confrontations in archaeology. Historical Archaeology 33(1): 159–183. McGuire RH and Wurst L (2002) Struggling with the past. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(2): 85–94. McGuire RH, O’Donovan M, and Wurst L (2005) Probing praxis in archaeology: The last eighty years. Rethinking Marxism 17(3): 355–372. O’Donovan M (2002) Grasping power: A question of relations and scales. In: O’Donovan M (ed.) The Dynamics of Power, Occasional Paper No. 30. pp. 19–34. Carbondale: Center for Archaeological Investigations and Southern Illinois University. Patterson TC (1999) The political economy of archaeology in the United States. Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 155–174. Patterson TC (2003) Marx’s Ghost: Conversations with Archaeologists. Oxford: Berg. Spriggs M (ed.) (1984) Marxist Perspectives in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trigger B (ed.) (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Wurst L (2006) A class all its own: Explorations of class formation and conflict. In: Hall M and Silliman SW (eds.) Historical Archaeology, pp. 190–206. Oxford: Blackwell.

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METALLOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS Peter Northover, Oxford University, Oxford, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary electron microscopy Uses both wave and particle properties of electrons to form images and generate other signals. The principal division is between transmission and scanning electron microscopes. In the transmission electron microscope (TEM), as the name implies, a focused beam of electrons passes through the sample and the contrast in the projected image is formed by the interaction of the beam with microstructural features in the sample. In high-resolution electron microscopes (HREMs) the spatial resolution achieved can be as small as 0.08 nm. In the scanning electron microscope (SEM) a focused beam of electrons is scanned in a raster over the sample surface. The interaction of the beam with a small volume of material at the sample surface produces a number of signals. Secondary electrons are low-energy electrons ejected from the surface and the contrast of the image depends on the number reaching the detector, which is a function of the surface topography. Images can also be formed by ‘backscattered electrons’ where the contrast additionally contains compositional information as backscattering is related to atomic number. With a specially prepared sample with a strain-free surface, backscattered electrons can also give important crystallographic information (‘electron backscatter diffraction’ (EBSD)). Also ejected are ‘Auger’ electrons whose energy depends on the atomic species present and, often, the state of their chemical bonding. The electron beam may also cause light to be emitted (‘cathodoluminescence’) or generate an X-ray spectrum characteristic of the elements present. The combination of a rastered beam and the X-ray analysis allows ‘elemental mapping’. light or optical microscopy (OM) Most generally used in metallography using reflected light in ‘bright field’, with a maximum spatial resolution of approximately 250 nm. The use of low magnifications or macroscopy is also of importance in studying large and complex structures. Variations that can be useful in identifying phases, including corrosion products, are dark field, where annular illumination means that the illuminating light is not collected but only light scattered from surface features, polarized light, and ‘differential interference contrast’ which in reflected light can emphasize shallow surface relief. A different form of optical microscopy is confocal microscopy. This is an imaging technique usefully used in archaeological metallography to reconstruct three-dimensional images by using a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light or flare in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane. The information collected can be used to produce contour or relief maps of surfaces and measure surface roughness, for example, in quantifying grinding and polishing traces. ‘Raman’ and ‘infrared microscopy’ are more specialized optical techniques. Raman microscopy depends on the scattering of laser light by the vibration of chemical bonds which can give very precise information about the molecular species present. ‘Infrared microscopy’ utilizes the absorption of infrared radiation by chemical bonds. microhardness testing In combination with optical microscopy to aid interpretation measures the resistance of a

material to indentation. A diamond indenter is pressed into the sample under a known load for a known time, and the size of the impression measured. This gives a hardness number which is a function of yield stress and work hardening rate. For samples of ancient metals it may be the only means of measuring mechanical properties that can be applied. proton microprobes Have primarily been used in archaeology as a microanalytical tool but they can be used in a scanning mode to produce elemental maps using all the signals available. These include X-rays (PIXE or particle induced X-ray emission), gamma rays, and backscattered protons. (‘Rutherford backscattering’ (RBS)). The energy of the backscattered particles depends on the species of atom they are interacting with and the depth at which the scattering takes place. Because of the sensitivity of this technique for some light elements it permits the three-dimensional reconstruction of the corrosion and patination of metal artifacts. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy Can give a measure of the chemical state of atoms in the surface of a material. XPS spectra are obtained by irradiating a material with a beam of X-rays while simultaneously measuring the energy and number of electrons that escape from the surface one to ten. It is potentially a very useful technique for assessing the surface state of some artifacts, for example, the patination of gold, in relation to their appearance.

Metallography The application of metallographic techniques in archaeology greatly enlarges our understanding of the form, function and context of metalwork, and metal debris far beyond that provided by typology, stratigraphy, and compositional analysis. Even in the last mentioned it has a part to play, but more importantly addresses the question of how an object was designed and made, how functional it was, how it was intended to look, how it was used and what happened at its deposition. In short, it enables one to write a very full biography of metal artifacts in a way that can and should be fully integrated to the narrative of a site, a region, or a culture.

Introduction Metallography in its broadest definition encompasses all aspects of the characterization of the structure of metals and alloys, and the objects made from them, in relation to their composition and properties. In an archaeological context a very wide range of metallographic techniques can be used to write and collate the biographies of metal artifacts based on the premise that every process or event in the life of an artifact from manufacture to conservation leaves a trace that potentially can be read. In doing this methods will be

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used that are described in other sections of this work besides the variety of microscopic methods which form the core of this article. A further general point relates to resolution: at all levels of resolution from the macro- to the nano- there is information of relevance, indeed of importance, to archaeology. As an example, what was possibly the first application of high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) to archaeology was in elucidating the structure of the glossy black surface of Chinese mirrors from the Han Dynasty. This is an important issue because archaeology has tended to be content with examining metal with a restricted resolution, rarely exceeding the power of the optical microscope and the wavelength limit of light. Going beyond this with any appropriate technique can open up completely new avenues of research. A case in point is the characterization of intergranular corrosion using high-resolution scanning Auger microscopy. This showed that between the majority cuprite corrosion product and the bronze grains was a layer of cassiterite (tin dioxide) only 70 nm thick: this had not previously been suspected because the question had never been examined at that resolution, while its identification can open the way to an improved understanding of internal corrosion in copper alloys.

Surface studies Metalwork from archaeological contexts, with the exception of some precious metal finds can be expected to be significantly corroded so that the traces of forming, finishing, use, and deposition might be expected to be visible only on a relatively coarse scale. This is not necessarily so since the preservation of detail, such as use wear or combat damage, depends very much on the mode of corrosion. An extreme example of preservation can be seen in the Late Bronze Age hoard from Isleham, Cambridgeshire where some parts of a large mass of scrap metal were effectively protected for the environment for over 3000 years. As a result some of the bronze has a surface layer of corrosion products less than 1 mm thick and it has been possible to use a confocal surface profiler to provide a quantitative measurement of grinding polishing traces as a step toward assessing the type and grade of abrasives used for producing a polished surface. Other surface techniques, for example X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) can be used to characterize the corrosion product or, in say a Renaissance bronze, to provide analysis of a patina and relate it to the metal substrate. Where an object is more corroded it may well be possible that within the stratified corrosion products is a layer which preserves the

original surface detail and which may be revealed by suitable cleaning (usually mechanical). It may even be possible to detect a chemically treated or patinated surface within such corrosion layers by a technique such as Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) in a proton microprobe. Because of its high energy (typically 3 MeV) the proton beam has a much greater penetration than other microbeams and an analysis of the energies of backscattered protons can provide compositional and structural data over depth. Identifying an unusual species in a confined layer could well highlight an ancient patination process that might be difficult to observe in any other way. Even so, to calibrate any surface technique properly, and to relate the surface to the underlying metal structure, some form of sampling and microscopic study is necessary, supported as appropriate by microanalysis.

Sampling While, as will be described later, there is much to be learned from the macro- and microscopic examination of the surfaces of artifacts, the majority of their history is contained within them and so the removal of one or more samples is in general essential. It must be said, though, that as with compositional data, to recover microstructural information from a metal artifact sampling or other intervention may not be necessary. For example, developments in radiography can reveal structure on a variety of scales, even down to fine microstructural detail such as deformation twins, especially where the detail has been highlighted by corrosion. Where the removal of samples is necessary, their size and location should be determined by the information sought from an object but this will be constrained by its condition and geometry – it is much simpler to cut a section from a sharp cutting edge than a thick circular section bracelet. The microscopy technique used also has an influence. For transmission electron microscopy (TEM) which is not used as often as it should be in archaeology, sufficient material has to be removed to be able to prepare a thin foil 3 mm in diameter. For optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the sample may be as small as a single fragment of gold thread a few micrometers thick, or as large as a complete crosssection of a pattern-welded sword or, indeed, a complete object. In some circumstances metallography can be carried out in situ on an object, with a small area perhaps 2–3 mm in diameter being polished and etched. As an example, this technique has been used with success in a major study of medieval and renaissance armours.

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Where a sample has been taken for study of a crosssection it is rarely so large that it can be prepared without being mounted. (Samples for scanning electron microscopy are discussed briefly in a later section). Mounting can be hot or cold. Cold mounting in epoxy, acrylic, or polyester resins has the advantage that delicate or brittle specimens can be mounted without being crushed by the hydrostatic pressure in a hot mounting press, and also low viscosity resins can be used to impregnate porous samples such as bronze massively corroded by fuel ash. Tin and lead require particular care as even some cold resins reach a temperature during curing which will significantly alter their microstructure. This is even more true of hot mounting, but hot mounting is undoubtedly an efficient process and some resins have useful properties such as conductivity or good edge retention. Once samples are mounted for optical or other microscopy they need to be ground and polished, using successively finer grades of abrasive. Modern industrial methods of metallographic preparation are designed to provide flat, damage free surfaces of a wide variety of materials using a minimal number of process steps. Developments such as diamond grinding disks and polycrystalline diamond suspensions undoubtedly produce good results but removal rates are often too rapid for small samples and a more traditional multistep approach is safer. The final polish is aimed at producing a visually scratch-free and undeformed surface. Each grinding and polishing stage, besides removing metal, deforms the surface layers of the sample and this deformation will become visible once the sample is etched and obscure a lot of detail. A deformed surface also precludes important new techniques such as electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) in the scanning electron microscope. Care also has to be taken in preparing soft metals such as tin, lead or pure gold and silver to ensure that grinding and polishing debris is not left embedded in the soft metal. In all these latter circumstances the final polish could require specialized compounds such as colloidal silica, or be substituted by chemical or electrolytic methods (see Metals: Primary Production Studies of). Finally, for the optical microscope, or for accurate microanalysis in a scanning electron microscope or electron microprobe the sample surface must be placed normal to the incident beam.

Optical Microscopy The optical microscope should be the workhorse of metallurgy in archaeology for the range of compositional and structural data that it can provide. Should be, because compositional analysis using

drilled rather than cut samples, or surface analyses using X-ray spectrometric methods still dominate some projects and much that is relevant to archaeology is therefore lost. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that in some circumstances optical metallography can lead to important archaeology that could not have been reached by any other methods. Versatile though they are, optical methods have a spatial resolution limited by the wavelength of light and, as the power of the objective lenses is increased, a decreasing depth of field and field of view. Current developments in microscopy deal with this by highly accurately controlled motorized stages. When a sequence of images is obtained by stepping the stage along the Z-axis, software can add the in-focus parts of each image to produce a fully focussed image of all parts of an object or a sample surface. The most-fully featured versions of these systems permit a full set of photogrammetric measurements, such as contour maps, depth profiles, etc.; even just knowing whether a feature is a hole or standing proud of the surface. Scanning the stage along the X- and Y-axes enables mosaics of large samples to be produced, reviving the traditional technique of macroscopy, albeit at the cost of very large image files. With lenses optimized for digital cameras just coming into service the possibilities of quantitative analysis of metallographic images have never been better, and a position should be reached where microstructures are routinely recorded quantitatively, with the data treated statistically in the same way as compositional analyses. First steps in this direction have revealed its power and have given new insights into the history of a number of metalwork assemblages. It is important always to examine a sample before etching: etching by definition damages the polished surface and can obscure or remove structural features such as corrosion products, inclusions, or gas or shrinkage porosity, or other manufacturing defects. With an optical microscope several forms of illumination are available, and at this stage it is planepolarized light and dark field illumination, in addition to normal bright field incident illumination, that aids the characterization of these structures. Further identification of inclusions may be made using infrared and Raman microscopy. Many details of the original microstructure and alloy can be preserved in more or less fully corroded samples (Figure 1) and can be recovered using these techniques following careful sample preparation. Also, process variables, such as the overall amount of reduction a piece of wrought metal has received can be measured from the elongation of nonmetallic inclusions such as sulphides, calibrated by measurement of experimental test samples.

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Etching The full history of a sample will only be revealed by etching, that is, using a chemical reagent to differentially attack the polished surface (in specialized cases an electrolytic method may be required). The ideal case of a defect-free single crystal would produce no reaction but that ideal does not exist, and certainly not in the archaeological world. Etching will specifically highlight major and minor structural features and variations in composition, although a different etch might be required to produce the best contrast for each feature. Fortunately the metallurgical literature contains lengthy lists of recipes for all combinations of alloys and structure, but

Figure 1 Deformed copper drift pin from HMS Pomone, 1811: field of view is 300 mm.

unfortunately there can often be safety issues with toxicity (cyanides), burns (hydrofluoric acid), and explosion (picric acid).

Microstructure The first part of this discussion applies primarily to nonferrous metals, especially alloys based on copper, silver, or gold, and iron and steel will be reviewed below. This distinction is a function both of the different crystal structures of the two alloy groups, and also because much ancient iron, especially in the west and in Africa has been produced by a direct bloomery process and has not been molten in bulk. The macro- and microsegregation following on casting of nonferrous metals and alloys (and also in cast irons) are readily displayed with the correct etch. This may take some selection since etching response can be radically affected by the presence of specific impurities, for example, antimony and iron in bronze. The etching of cast structures also permits some estimation of process variables, especially cooling rate. This controls the scale of the microstructure, for example, dendrite arm spacing or cell size, and the size and dispersion of included phases, and also the retention of metastable phases or structures. These features can also usefully be mapped using backscattered electron imaging in the scanning electron microscope with atomic number contrast, and by elemental mapping in the electron microprobe (Figure 2). This, in turn, can give some information on other factors, for example, the mould type and material, when no other

Figure 2 Backscattered electron image in atomic number contrast of inclusions in copper drift pin; high atomic number elements (lead, bismuth) show white.

1612 METALLOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

evidence is available. Subsequent steps in processing can be identified may be more or less easily: while the effects of heat in homogenizing a structure, whether deliberately as a heat treatment or accidentally in a fire, are usually very clear, seeing when a cast structure has been deformed through cold work is often problematic, it simply being difficult visually to detect small distortions of a dendrite. When a cold worked structure is heat treated (annealed) at a sufficient temperature a new, strainfree grain structure nucleates and grows. In alloys that share the crystal structure (face-centered cubic) of copper, silver, and gold this structure is particularly distinctive, with polygonal equiaxed grains crossed by parallel-sided bands which are growth defects called twins. When this grain structure is itself cold worked the effects of deformation can be picked out by etching in the form slip traces (lines) or deformation twins (narrow lenticular bands), followed by deformation of the grains and ultimate destruction of any clear structure. By comparing these results with those from experimentally deformed alloys of the same type this can be quantified so that the amount of cold work can be measured and, coupled with estimating the elongation of ductile inclusions, the working history of the sampled area can be estimated. Observations of the mechanical behavior of the alloys may be supported by microhardness testing; in studying material from industrial archaeological contexts larger sections may be available for study and mechanical testing undertaken. Other variables can be also be quantified: metallographic and microanalytical observation of segregation can provide a determination of heat treatment temperatures as the distributions of different elements are homogenized at different temperatures. The recrystallized grain size is a function of annealing time and temperature and prior cold work: very large grain sizes can be indication of exposure to high temperature during a fire or cremation. If the heating is under oxidizing conditions a band of oxide inclusions may form below the metal surface; in extreme cases there may be visible signs that the metal has begun to melt. Optical metallography (supported by SEM) can also be used to characterize other aspects of metalworking such as plating, patination, and joining techniques, even where much else is corroded. Indeed, the characterization of intermetallic inclusions in corroded tin alloys such as pewter and solder may be the only guide to what was originally intended. Wrought iron, cast iron and steel are not always so rich in directly diagnostic microstructural features as, say, copper-based alloys. Even in antiquity carbon was not the only element alloyed with iron, phosphorus being the most important. Because the impact

and interaction of these elements is not always readily visible in the microstructure it is true to say that metallography of iron is incomplete with a partnership with microanalysis, and with elemental mapping at both micro- and macroscales. Such mapping can also identify features such as weld lines which are otherwise effectively invisible; also some of the diagnostic species are immobile during corrosion, so structural features can be followed into corroded areas, or even located in completely corroded material. Methods of working are different with hot forging of wrought alloys the norm rather than, with few exceptions, the cold working characteristic of nonferrous alloys. A second difference, in steels with sufficient carbon, lies in the importance of quenching to transform the microstructure athermally to produce hard and strong martensitic structures, whose properties can be improved by low temperature heat treatments called tempering. (Martensites also occur in nonferrous metals but in archaeological contexts are confined to high tin bronzes). Here, too, nonmetallic inclusions hold important information about production history: these include slag from the bloomery or puddling processes or forge welding, or sulphides in iron smelted by coal-, or coke-fired blast furnaces, in the west an indication of recent date. Also, as with nonferrous metals, a metallographic study should be supported by hardness and, if possible, other mechanical testing.

Electron Microscopy Beyond the constraints set by the wavelength limit of light, the world of electron microscopy offers almost unlimited resolution, current research in aberration correction lenses in transmission electron microscopes giving spatial resolution down to 0.08 nm. The most commonly used form of electron metallography is secondary electron imaging (SEI) in the SEM. Increasingly, instruments with large specimen chambers and low vacuum or variable pressure mean that large objects can be examined without preparation so that the maximum of surface detail and attached organic and other material can be imaged. For smaller objects the technique has been exceptionally useful in the investigation of jewelry, gold in particular giving excellent contrast and allowing even the smallest features of granulation and soldering to be explored. New software now means the three-dimensional potential of SEM images can be fully realized with the same possibilities of contour mapping, depth profiling, and surface roughness measurement as with optical techniques, as well as creating anaglyphs for a true three-dimensional view.

METALLOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS 1613

SEI is not the only imaging technique, backscattered electron imaging (BEI) in topographic and atomic number contrast, EBSD, and cathodoluminescence (CL) all having uses. EBSD has great potential for the future because, at the expense of stringent sample preparation requirements, it gives important crystallographic data. When metals sections are formed, the methods used can influence the preferred orientation of grains and the resulting texture can be quantified by EBSD. Applications might include differentiating between rolled and hammered sheet for making coin blanks, or exploring how the making of sheet bronze for cauldrons and shields might have changed over time, or perhaps even providing convincing evidence of hot working of silver and bronze. EBSD has also been used to explore how microstructure might change with time through phenomena such as discontinuous precipitation of an alloying element from supersaturated solid solution or diffusion induced grain boundary migration. This has been most studied in silver but has a wider significance. These grain boundary changes could be studied in greater detail in the TEM and the mechanisms probably fully understood. This has not happened for a number of reasons: specimen preparation is challenging, access for archaeology to instruments and trained microscopists has not been easy but, probably most importantly, the relevance of the technique to metallurgical questions in archaeology has often not been recognized. Hence any review of the technique will be little more than a wish list but it could have a considerable impact. First and foremost, many microstructural features could be correctly identified for the first time, such as the composition and structure of carbonitride precipitates in ancient iron, or the interpretation of cold worked microstructures in iron and steel. Questions long discussed, such as the impact of certain conservation techniques which use moderately elevated temperatures, or the origins of the extreme ductility of certain alloys such as some arsenical coppers could at last be resolved. Nanotechnology is a modern coinage but its products have been in use for two milleniums or more: the purple surface of shakudo, or the techniques of luster ware are two

Metallurgy

examples and they will not be fully appreciated until observed with sufficient resolution and, equally significantly, quantified (see Conservation and Stabilization of Materials).

Conclusions The panoply of modern metallographic techniques can illuminate a whole gamut of archaeological problems, but whatever the question some features are constant. There will always be a premium on the highest quality of sample preparation, and there can be no a priori limitation of the resolution with which they are examined. More basic than any of these is that the subject must move from being observational and qualitative to being fully quantitative, with data that can be treated statistically, and correlated with other datasets both analytical and archaeological. It should simply be a normal, and fruitful, part of a holistic approach to metal objects and metallurgy in archaeological and historical contexts. See also: Chemical Analysis Techniques; Conservation and Stabilization of Materials; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Primary Production Studies of.

Further Reading ASM Handbooks (1986) ASM Handbook, Vol. 10: Materials Characterization. Materials Park, OH: ASM International. Northover JP (1996) Metal analysis and metallography of early metal objects from Denmark, Appendix I. In: Vandkilde H (ed.) Jutland Archaeological Society Publications, 32: From Stone to Bronze: The Metalwork of the Late Neolithic and Earliest Bronze Age in Denmark, pp. 321–358. Moesga˚rd: Jutland Archaeological Society. Northover JP (1998) Analysis of copper alloy metalwork from Arbedo TI, Annex 1. In: Schindler MP Antiqua 30: Der Depotfund von Arbedo TI, pp. 289–315. Basel: Schweizerische Gesellschaft fu¨r Ur-und Fru¨hgeschichte. Scott DA (1991) Metallography and Microstructure of Ancient and Historic. Marina del Rey, CA: Getty Conservation Institute in association with Archetype Books. VanderVoort GF (1984) Metallography: Principles and Practice. New York, London: McGraw-Hill. VanderVoort GF (2004) ASM Handbook, Vol. 9: Metallography and Microstructures. Materials Park, OH: ASM International.

See: Metallographic Analysis; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Primary Production Studies of.

1614 METALS/Chemical Analysis

METALS Contents Chemical Analysis Primary Production Studies of

Chemical Analysis Thilo Rehren, Institute of Archaelogy, London, UK

human activities from the archaeological record requires chemical analysis in conjunction with traditional archaeological approaches.

ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reason for Analysis

Glossary alloy A combination, either in solution or compound, of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties. metal An element that readily loses electrons to form positive ions (cations) and has metallic bonds between metal atoms. trace element An element in a sample that has an average concentration of less than 100 parts per million atoms, or less than 100 micrograms per gram.

Introduction Metal objects play a significant role in most postNeolithic societies, which is reflected in the denominators for major chronological units (Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age). The sequentiality of these units further reflects the stepped introduction of major metals and alloys, spanning from the earliest use of native metals (gold and copper) probably some 10 000 years ago, and continuing to this day with the development of ever more sophisticated alloys. Here, we will restrict ourselves to the metals and alloys known before c. AD 1500, primarily the metals gold, copper, lead, silver, tin, iron, and mercury, and the alloys bronze (copper–arsenic and copper–tin), brass (copper–zinc), and steel (iron–carbon). The first origin of many metals was from natural occurrences (‘native metals’), not requiring elaborate mining activities and smelting from ores. This is limited to specific geological areas and typical of the earliest use of gold, silver, copper, iron, and mercury. Supply of metals increased dramatically with the inception and spread of mining and extractive metallurgy; the geological limitation of metal production to areas rich in specific ores, however, remained. Many civilizations flourished in areas devoid of metal ores, such as the large river valley cultures; others were rich in one metal but not another. Thus, production, trade and exchange, and recycling of metals were of considerable importance from an early period onwards. Identifying and understanding these past

The use of metal objects can be seen as falling in one of three broad categories: decorative (jewelery, inlays), military (arms and armor), and domestic (tools, general implements). These exploit different metal properties perceptible in antiquity, such as color, sonority, density, malleability, hardness etc. One reason to analyze metal objects is to understand whether for a given object these properties have been either selectively exploited, or even modified to suit the purpose. This acquaints the analyzer with the state of metallurgical knowledge, or relative priorities of these parameters, and of the person or society producing the object. Reconstructing the techniques used to smelt and process metals from the waste left behind is a closely related field. Another reason is to discuss the functionality of objects, for example, whether they were made for display only or for real use; this can be a question for funerary or dedicatory objects. Chemical analysis is also a main avenue toward identifying the geological origin of a given object, in particular in combination with isotopic analysis. Basic curiosity, the desire to classify objects by material types and to identify similarities and differences in composition in order to form groups, and finally the necessity to identify the most suitable conservation methods are further reasons for analysis. Thus, four main research fields prevail in the analysis of metal objects: identifying their composition and current condition, establishing compositional groups, reconstructing metallurgical practice, and locating the geological origin of the metal. Of these four research fields, the first two are predominantly descriptive and the latter two mostly interpretative; the first and the third are absolute in that they consider only the material at hand while the second and fourth are relative as they require existing comparative material. This has major ramifications for the analytical practice; research requiring comparative data will have to match the type of existing data when conducting new analyses.

METALS/Chemical Analysis 1615

Analytical Practice The metallurgical analysis in archaeology draws from the entire range of materials science methods of analysis, but several approaches have been particularly successful and therefore more widely adopted. These include methods which do not alter the physical integrity of the metal objects, such as neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), electron Probe micro-analysis (EPMA) and protoninduced X-ray emission or gamma emission (PIXE or PIGE); those which require a sample to be removed and dissolved, such as atomic absorption analysis (AAS) and inductively coupled plasma either with optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) or mass spectrometry (ICP-MS); and those which remove a minute amount of material through evaporation or ablation, such as laser ablation ICP-MS, or secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Ideally, the choice of analytical method and instrument is governed primarily by the particular research questions, moderated only by curatorial constraints. In reality, costs of analysis and ease of access to or availability of instruments often play a decisive role. For all methods it is imperative to monitor and report data quality (accuracy and precision) through publishing results for analysis of certified reference materials along with the unknown samples, in order to be able to compare data from different laboratories. Main practical considerations are sample size and location. Archaeological metals are often heterogeneous with grain sizes up to several millimeters; intentional surface treatments such as gilding or patination, or unintentional alterations through corrosion or conservation treatments, can result in major differences in composition between the surface and the body of an object. Sampling and analytical method have to take account of this, allowing, for instance, for invasive sampling to characterize both the surface and the body, and to ensure sufficiently large volumes of material to be analyzed, either in situ or after removal of a sample from the object. These volumes can be much larger than normally offered by LA-ICP-MS or SIMS, which typically analyze volumes of a few tens of cubic micrometer only. A balance between the curatorial desire to minimize the sampling impact and the analytical need for a representative sample is sometimes difficult to achieve. Identifying Composition and Condition

The analytical emphasis in identifying composition of nonferrous metals is on the main constituents down to about one half of one percent by weight. Components below that level have only a limited effect on the properties of the main metal, and their presence or

absence will not have resulted in perceptible changes in properties that could be linked to archaeologically relevant alloy selection for particular types of objects or specific purposes. Correct alloy identification for categorization purposes or conservation treatment also does not require more detailed analyses. This type of information is easily available from a range of analytical techniques, including scanning electron microscopes with energy-dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS) and portable XRF instruments, and often without the need for invasive sampling. Surface analysis only requires a small area to be cleaned to expose fresh metal, and can be done in conjunction with normal conservation treatment. The nature and degree of corrosion is best studied by optical microscopy, ideally of a polished cross section, and in combination with X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS analysis. Analyzing iron and steel requires accurate determination of the carbon content at levels between 0.01% and 1% by weight. Few of the analytical instruments used in nonferrous metal analysis are capable of doing this, and methods established in industry normally require much larger and better preserved samples than typically available in archaeology. Here, optical metallography often is the most appropriate method. Establishing Compositional Groups

Within the broader metal and alloy types, much information regarding distribution and circulation of metals between societies can be gained from a more detailed analysis of minor and trace elements. This enables forming chemically defined groups, informing on metal supply in a given society and adding an independent dimension to artifact groups defined by stylistic criteria. It requires comparing data from different laboratories and thus needs both precise and accurate data, typically using the more advanced methods of chemical analysis. Establishing compositional groups now often includes isotopic characterization and provenancing (see ahead), but remains an important line of enquiry on its own. Reconstructing Metallurgical Practice

Chemical analysis of metal artifacts informs about alloying and refining practice, heterogeneity of complex objects (soldering, surface treatments, repairs, etc.), and possible corrosion effects. Analytical practice depends on the metal or alloy in question, and considers main components as well as trace elements and nonmetallic inclusions. The best analytical approach combines chemical and microscopic analysis to understand the spatial distribution of chemical components within an object. EPMA offers this combination in one instrument, but optical metallography can be combined

1616 METALS/Primary Production Studies of

with almost any chemical method. A major field in its own right is the analysis of metallurgical waste (slags, crucibles, furnace remains, etc.) to reconstruct smelting techniques (see Metals: Primary Production Studies of). The approach here is mainly based on geological methods. Locating Geological Origin

Provenancing follows on from the formation of compositional groups and compares their chemical and, in particular, isotopic signature with ore deposits or production sites. The most widely used method is determining the isotope ratio of the four stable lead isotopes in a series of artifacts, and comparing it with the isotope ratios of known ore fields or smelting sites. The minute lead content present in most metals is sufficient to determine these ratios, enabling lead isotope analysis (LIA) for almost all metals and alloys. A mismatch between a potential source field and an object group demonstrates that that object does not come from that source, provided the source characterization is complete and the metallurgical history of the metal object does not include addition of alien lead for alloying or refining purposes. A match between source field and artifact is not on its own proof of origin, but requires further supporting evidence such as contemporary mining activity at and cultural contact with the source region. The lead isotope ratio of a source is determined by its geological history; thus, any source with the same geological history will have the same isotope signature, resulting in widespread overlap between contemporary ore sources. Provenancing by LIA relies equally on high-precision and high-accuracy measurement of isotopic ratios, using thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) or multi-collector ICP-MS with appropriate analytical protocols, and the availability of substantial comparative geological data even for remote and very small ore sources. The chemical composition of smelted metals does differ significantly from the composition of the ore, and enables only a broad discussion of potential relationship between source regions and metal artifacts; this can contribute significantly to the discussion in the case of overlap in isotope ratios between various possible source fields. Interpretation of Data

Any data interpretation needs discussion of analytical error, accuracy, and precision. In addition, the interpretation of the chemical composition of archaeological metal artifacts requires an understanding of the effects of the different metallurgical processes involved in

their production. Smelting, refining, alloying, and recycling or corrosion all influence the chemical composition of the metal; identifying their respective signatures and effects as the result of the production history of an object is at the core of metallurgical analysis. Understanding which signatures and effects are determined by natural processes and governed by the laws of physics eventually enables identification of those which are due to human activity and choice. Bringing these into the open is the ultimate purpose of metallurgical analysis in archaeology. See also: Metals: Primary Production Studies of; Neutron Activation Analysis.

Further Reading Craddock PT (1995) Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Junghans S, Sangmeister E, and Schro¨der M (1968) Kupfer und Bronze in der Fru¨hen Metallzeit Europas. Berlin. Junghans S, Sangmeister E, and Schro¨der M (1974) Kupfer und Bronze in der Fru¨hen Metallzeit Europas. Berlin. Pernicka E (1990) Gewinnung und Verbreitung der Metalle in pra¨historischer Zeit. Jahrbuch des Ro¨misch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 37: 21–129. Pollard M and Heron C (1996) Archaeological Chemistry. Letchworth: RSC Paperbacks. Tylecote RF (1987) The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London: New York: Longman.

Primary Production Studies of Thilo Rehren, Institute of Archaeology UCL, London, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary alloy Intentional combination of two or more metals to produce a material with properties different from the starting metals. Naturally occurring combinations of metals should be labeled ‘natural alloy’ to avoid the impression of intentionality in their production. beneficiation Mechanical separation of different minerals in an ore, producing a concentrate which is further processed by smelting, and tailings which are discarded. crucible Ceramic vessel used in the processing of metal or glass at temperatures above 200  C. melting Physically transforming a metal from the solid state to the liquid state, typically in preparation for either alloying or casting, or both.

Primary Production Studies of 1617 ore A naturally occurring combination of minerals from which one or more metals can be economically extracted. slag Waste material from the smelting or melting of metal. smelting Chemical transformation of an ore into a metal. Typically requires reducing conditions and elevated temperatures, and also produces slag and gaseous waste.

these aspects of production is at the core of archaeometallurgical analysis of slag. The nature of the material to be studied is best suited for a combination of chemical and mineralogical methods of analysis.

Reason for Analysis Introduction Metallurgy plays a significant role in most postNeolithic societies. A number of metals and alloys were known before c. AD 1500, namely gold, copper, lead, silver, tin, iron, and mercury, and the major alloys of bronze (copper–arsenic and copper–tin), brass (copper–zinc), pewter (lead–tin), and steel (iron–carbon). The first origin of many metals was from natural occurrences (‘native metals’), not requiring elaborate smelting or processing, and hence not leaving much waste or slag from their production. Supply of metals increased dramatically with the inception and spread of mining and extractive metallurgy; the geological limitation of metal production to areas rich in specific ores, however, remained. Many civilizations flourished in areas devoid of metal ores, such as the large river valley cultures; others were rich in one metal but not another. Thus, from an early period on metals were traded long distances, both as ingot and as finished artifacts, offering opportunities for provenancing studies (see Metals: Chemical Analysis). The waste materials, in contrast, remained at their production site, giving reliable evidence of production local to the archaeological site. Metallurgical activity leaves three main types of evidence in the archaeological record: metal objects and waste metal, associated products such as slag, and remains of installations such as furnaces or hearths. Of these, slags are typically the best-preserved, most abundant and most informative, but their study requires scientific analysis and expert interpretation. Even the most fundamental of identifications are not always possible using field methods and visual inspection alone. In extreme cases, true metallurgical slag can be confused with geological or other artificial materials. The differentiation between primary production or smelting and secondary production or reworking is typically given by the wider archaeological context, but cannot be taken for granted. It is often difficult to distinguish between ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, or primary production versus secondary working. Studying the waste material can give very specific information about metallurgical processes and ore types, production technologies, and scale of production, none of which is available from the study of finished objects. Identifying and understanding

The production and working of metal is controlled by two main factors: technical constraints and cultural traditions. While there are certain fixed physicochemical conditions to be met for specific metallurgical operations such as smelting, alloying, refining, casting, and recycling, there are also many different configurations which may fulfill these conditions. The composition and quantity of the resulting materials, primarily metal and slag, reflect both factors. It is by identifying the fixed physico-chemical constraints that the culturally determined configurational factors can be revealed, producing archaeologically relevant information. The most basic reason for slag analysis is to identify the type of metallurgical process, metal and ore type smelted or worked at a given site. This is mostly done through chemical analysis. Ore deposits comprise two complementary materials: the rich mineral and the gangue or host rock. Ore beneficiation mechanically separates the rich mineral from the gangue. Smelting then extracts the metal from the rich mineral through a series of chemical reactions while transforming remaining gangue to form the slag. In this process, unwanted components of the rich mineral are either transferred into the slag or escape as volatile components with the fumes. The type of rich mineral, such as oxidic, sulfidic, or complex, is broadly reflected in the composition of the smelted metal. The slag, however, contains all the gangue components as well as components of the rich mineral, effectively giving a more complete representation of the ore body. This picture is complicated through the addition, conscious or not, of further material to the slag, such as fluxes, eroded furnace wall material, and fuel ash. Alloying, refining, casting, and recycling all produce their own compositionally distinct types of waste material, typically in much lower quantities than smelting and often in close relationship to technical ceramics such as crucibles and hearths. The second reason is to identify the nature of the operation. Metallurgical processes require elevated temperatures, typically in the range of 800–1400  C, and a wide spectrum of redox conditions, spanning from highly oxidizing to strongly reducing. Each metallurgical process has its own characteristic combination of temperature and redox condition. Neither

1618 Primary Production Studies of

can be determined directly, but find their direct expression in the mineralogical makeup of the slag. Identifying these parameters is crucial for the basic identification of the process, as well as for identifying its particular configurational aspects, and relies heavily on mineralogical analysis. Finally, the production remains are often well preserved and the best available indicator for the scale of operation of a given workshop or smelting site. Careful determination of total slag quantity and composition, in combination with an assumed or directly determined ore quality, can provide good estimates of metal production quantities by using mass balance calculations. Similar estimates can be made for workshop remains such as crucibles or smithing debris; quantities can be determined either for a site overall, or on an average annual basis if the lifespan of the site or workshop is known. Quantification is crucial for discussions of subsistence or surplus production, craft specialization, and trade relationships. Of these three research fields, the first two are predominantly descriptive and require a good knowledge of ore geology, geochemistry, metallurgy, and petrology for their interpretation. The third is often speculative and based on assumptions concerning overall preservation or recovery rates of waste material, and the average or typical quality of ore or metal for which often no reliable data is available.

Analytical Practice Slag analysis in archaeology draws almost exclusively from Earth science methods, primarily geochemistry, ore petrology, and igneous petrology. Ideally, this involves a multielement fully quantitative chemical method such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) or inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometry in combination with optical and electron microscopy for a qualitative or semi-quantitative assessment of mineralogical parameters. In reality, costs of analysis and ease of access to, or availability of, instruments and expertise often play a decisive role in selecting methods of analysis. For all quantitative methods it is imperative to monitor and report data quality (accuracy and precision) through publishing results for analysis of certified reference materials along with the unknown samples, in order to be able to compare data from different laboratories. Smelting slag often occurs in huge quantities, measuring in tons or even thousands of tons; the main practical considerations here are sample size and representativity. Sampling methods developed for Earth sciences are often appropriate, including sampling of stratified profiles and reducing large sample

volumes through homogenization and quartering into aliquots suitable for the chosen instrument. Curatorial constraints are often more important in the analysis of other waste materials, such as crucible fragments, which have a stronger developed object character and do not occur in such large quantities. Here, crosssections prepared for reflected light microscopy (RLM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with attached energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) are more suitable than bulk chemical analysis. SEM-EDS has relatively high detection limits in the order of 0.1 wt.% for most elements, and therefore provides only limited chemical information; however, it offers a high spatial resolution of what is analyzed, ideal for complex and multiphase materials such as crucibles with internal slag and external vitrification. A balance between the curatorial desire to minimize the sampling impact and the analytical need for a representative sample is sometimes difficult to achieve, and may require the use of noninvasive and nondestructive methods such as surface-XRF or micro-XRF.

Identifying Metal, Metallurgical Process, and Ore Type Some slags can be very similar in appearance to certain rocks or other archaeological waste materials, such as over-fired ceramic, burnt brick, etc. Bulk chemical analysis is normally sufficient to identify metallurgical slag. Most shaft furnace slag is characterized by iron oxide levels between 40 and 80 wt.%, mostly less than 50 wt.% and often less than 30 wt.% silica, and less than 10 wt.% alumina. Geological or clay-based materials have typically less than 20 wt.% iron oxide, more than 10 wt.% alumina, more than 50 wt.% silica, and higher levels of alkali and alkali earth oxides than slags. Glassy blast furnace slags may not fall within these brackets but have much lower iron oxide and higher silica concentrations; these are typically identified as metallurgical slag by their elevated base metal content and often lime-rich bulk composition, when compared to geological or clay-based materials. Almost all pre-modern iron production is based on the bloomery process which produces a slag with 50–70 wt.% combined iron and manganese oxide, and base metal concentrations of less than 0.1 wt.%. The main slag phase crystallizing from these slags is fayalite, Fe2SiO4. Minor oxides and trace elements, such as lime, titania, phosphate, arsenic, and nickel, can be indicative of specific ore types, but can also derive from fuel ash or absorbed furnace wall material; these need to be considered when interpreting the analytical data.

Primary Production Studies of 1619

Most early copper slag is also fayalitic and can appear very similar to iron smelting slag, but contains higher levels of copper and other base metals, up to a few percent by weight. Further discriminating criteria are the redox condition as preserved in the oxidation state of iron (metallic, ferrous, or ferric), with copper slag being less reducing, and having higher sulfur levels if a sulfidic ore was smelted. The redox conditions in these iron-rich slags are best determined through RLM of the free iron oxide phase, wuestite (‘FeO’) in iron slag or magnetite (Fe3O4) in copper slag. Lead and tin slags are often glassy and mostly characterized by elevated levels of their respective metal, often present also as metallic inclusions. Lead slags in particular can be very variable in their chemistry and mineralogy, ranging from fayalitic to extremely rich in barium oxide, calcium fluoride or oxide, and lead oxide, reflecting the wide range of gangue minerals associated with lead ores. A crucial question for lead slags is whether the smelting was for lead or for the silver associated with many lead ores; no clear criteria have yet been developed for this distinction. Most secondary metallurgical processes leave their own specific waste materials; their comprehensive treatment however is beyond the scope of this article. They are on average richer in the metal(s) processed than the average smelting slag. The differentiation between iron smithing and smelting slag by chemical and mineralogical methods can be difficult for individual pieces, but morphological criteria together with the archaeological context often allow reasonably safe identification. The close association of most nonferrous secondary production waste with ceramics, typically crucibles, has already been mentioned. Only in very early periods (Early Bronze Age I and earlier in the Old World) was copper smelted in crucibles; copper-rich crucible slag in all later periods is almost certainly from secondary processes, such as alloying, casting, or refining.

Production Technology Once the basic metallurgical processes – ferrous or nonferrous smelting, secondary processing, casting, etc. – have been identified, further questions can be asked concerning the actual process parameters such as temperature, redox condition, and consistency of operation. Process temperatures can be estimated by comparing bulk compositions with appropriate phase diagrams; this works best for relatively simple systems where the three or four major oxides add up to more than 95 wt.%. For more complex systems,

experimental determinations of melting temperatures are more reliable. Both approaches rely on the assumption that the entire material was liquid during the process; the presence of un-reacted components, typically residual quartz, distorts the data. Microscopic analysis is therefore necessary to assess the degree of melting; in addition, it offers insight into the cooling history through grain size and shape criteria. Redox conditions can be determined through Moessbauer spectrometry; however, care has to be taken to avoid contamination through later corrosion or weathering of the material. This is again best checked through microscopic analysis; the identification and relative abundance of suitable primary iron-rich phases (metallic iron with or without carbon, fayalite, wuestite, magnetite, hematite) gives good qualitative data about the redox conditions at the time of solidification of the slag, while any corrosion products such as iron hydroxides or partially oxidised fayalite can be identified as secondary. The consistency with which a metallurgical process is performed indicates the level of skill, while changes over time may reflect changes in ore supply or practice. Both are archaeologically important aspects, and require that larger series of analyses of well-dated material are undertaken. Comparison of metallurgical practices between sites and regions may further reveal culturally specific styles or modes, or instances of independent development or shared technologies.

Quantifying Production Another archaeologically relevant aspect is the amount of metal produced or worked per unit of time. This can only reasonably be quantified for smelting sites where full recovery – or at least full quantification – of slag is possible. In order to estimate the amount of metal produced per unit of slag, one needs to know the average ore composition as well as the average slag composition. Using mass balance calculations it is then possible to identify whether the slag can indeed originate from that particular ore, or whether other materials contributed to the slag formation, such as fluxes or eroded furnace wall material. It is then further possible to calculate the theoretical amount of metal produced per unit of slag. This depends to a large extent on the richness of the ore; for iron smelting, the ratio can vary from 0.1 to 10. Few calculations have been done for copper; but on theoretical grounds it is unlikely that the ratio is higher than 0.8 or much lower than 0.4 if the main sulfidic ore, chalcopyrite, was used and the slag has the typical fayalitic composition.

1620 MIDDLE RANGE APPROACHES See also: Metallographic Analysis; Metals: Chemical

Analysis.

Further Reading

Craddock PT (1995) Early Metal Mining and Production. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pollard M and Heron C (1996) Archaeological Chemistry. Letchworth: RSC Paperbacks. Tylecote RF (1987) The Early History of Metallurgy in Europe. London, New York: Longman.

Bachmann HG (1982) Occasional Publication 6: The Identification of Slags from Archaeological Sites. London: Institute of Archaeology.

Microremains

See: Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis.

MIDDLE RANGE APPROACHES Jerimy J Cunningham, The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

archaeological remains. Middle range approaches generally fall into two distinct types: technically sophisticated experimental approaches to understanding patterns and ethno-archaeological research.

Glossary conceptual independence An epistemic value in postpositivist science in which two theories or components within a theory do not share exactly the same axiomatic principles such that their research necessarily results in the same conclusion. Conceptual independence is at the heart of archaeology’s quest to integrate independent lines of evidence. middle range theory (in archaeology) Refers to theories about the causal forces that create the archaeological record. Middle range theory is usually associated with ‘source-side’ experimental and ethno-archaeological work that seeks to identify the natural, cultural and taphonomic processes that create material culture patterns in the present in order to develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of the archaeological record. middle range theory (in sociology) Refers to theories at a mid-level of abstraction derived primarily from focused empirical study. The term was introduced by Robert Merton in sociology to balance a perceived opposition between high level theory that could not be tested directly against bodies of data and ‘on the ground’ empirical studies.

Introduction Middle range approaches are generally considered to be ‘source-side’ programs of research because they study modern material culture to devise an interpretive baseline from which to decode the archaeological record. The overriding goal of middle range research is to identify the numerous causal forces that combine to create the material patterns observable in

Mertonian and Binfordian Middle Range Theory While many of the analyses described as middle range research seem quite straightforward, few concepts in archaeology have proved as slippery as the notion of ‘the middle range’. Middle range theory was initially coined by Robert Merton in sociology to moderate an opposition he saw between highly abstract theoretical debates and empirically focused studies. Middle range theories were proposed as a way of balancing this opposition. They would allow sociologists to move beyond atheoretical empirical studies and build mid-level constructs that could promote further empirical testing while simultaneously speaking to broader theoretical issues. In the late 1970s, the term was introduced into archaeology by Louis Binford and quickly became one of the most important concepts, in processual archaeology’s scientific approach to knowing the past. Binford suggested that middle range research could address a fundamental problem in archaeology. Archaeologists generally drew on anthropological theory of social systems to interpret the material record; yet these theories explained human behavior rather than the material culture patterns that are the focus of archaeological analysis. In order to carry out deductive testing strategies championed by processual archaeology, explicit

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and unambiguous linkages needed to be identified between human behavior and material culture. Binford thus enlisted ethno-archaeology to generate this essential component of processual archaeology’s epistemology, charging it with building a body of ‘middle range theory’ that identified material correlates for the human behaviors referred to in its explanatory models. While much has been made of the distinction between Binford’s and Merton’s versions of middle range theory, they do share the view that middle range theories are primarily developed through inductive empirical studies. Merton was certainly cognizant of the ways that general theoretical tendencies impacted the definition of the lower-level ‘concepts’ in data collection, but he saw middle range theory primarily as an outgrowth of empirical research. Because middle range theories were to be abstracted directly from data, the resulting theory could be used by a number of conflicting general theories or might even be combined into an entirely new theoretical entity. Binford shared this view, although he seems to have come about it independently. While ethnoarchaeology must be inspired by archaeology’s interest in ‘functional relations’, middle range theory was to be developed primarily out of inductive programs of ‘theory-building.’ He felt this was possible because in ethnoarchaeological research there is ‘‘little problem of inference regarding the identity of the agent producing the pattern or traces . . .’’. What is quite distinct about Binford’s version of middle range theory is how restricted its application is compared to sociological uses. Rather than as an alternative to general theorizing, he employed the concept specifically to solve the archaeological problem of translating a static material record into human behavior. This limited, inductive basis for middle range theory had an unexpected but important spin-off. As positivism slowly waned in the social sciences, middle range theory became a lynch pin in processual archaeology’s response to the contextualist challenge offered by Thomas Kuhn. Binford brilliantly noted that, in contrast to relativist responses to paradigmatic knowledge, conceptually unrelated bodies of theory could be combined to create a mitigated or methodological form of objectivity. When data or theoretical propositions developed under one body of theory are used in a test of an unrelated theory, the test is ‘independent’ because different background knowledge (from that being tested) is used to constitute the data as evidence. Middle range theories were uniquely positioned to generate conceptual independence because they were ‘built’ from ethnoarchaeology’s inductive programs of research and thus seemingly did not rely on archaeology’s general theory. By introducing middle range theory into

archaeological testing as an independently generated ‘linkage’ between explanatory theories and the archaeological record, processual archaeology felt it could avoid the tautologies implied by paradigmatic knowledge. Ethno-archaeology’s middle range theories thus worked much like the data created by technical specialties such as C14 dating, lithic usewear analysis or stratigraphy. These analyses draw on background knowledge from other (nonarchaeological) sciences, which meant that when their findings (a date, a pattern of microwear, or a stratigraphic layer) were introduced into archaeological interpretations, they created opportunities for noncircular assessments of that interpretation. The concept of the ‘middle range’ emerging from processual archaeology thus possessed two related meanings. First, it referred to the study of the causal processes that create the archaeological record, echoing behavioral archaeology’s interest in ‘Formation Processes.’ Second, it also referred to distinct bodies of theory that were conceptually independent of archaeology’s general explanatory theory. By using these ‘middle range’ theories in archaeological testing programs, the field could seemingly escape relativism.

Middle Range Ambiguities Experimentally-based analyses of archaeological materials, such as lithic use wear analyses, the chemical analysis of pottery, the study of artifact production sequences, as well as taphonomy have emerged at the vanguard of middle range approaches in archaeology. These studies draw from other bodies of theory – usually anchored in the hard sciences – to identify the natural and technical processes that impact the creation of the archaeological record. They have dramatically increased the amount of variation that can be routinely studied in archaeological remains and they have successfully identified many of the technological constraints that influence material patterns. Because they draw from the hard sciences, they have also proven particularly effective in identifying causal relations that likely hold across both time and space and thus provide a secure basis for archaeological inferences about the past. The primary drawback of this form of middle range research has been the limited scope of the knowledge that it has produced, which rarely addresses the broader social and cultural processes of interest to archaeology. In contrast, ethnoarchaeology encountered several difficulties in achieving the middle range goals that were established for it. Unambiguous material correlates failed to materialize as ethnoarchaeology discovered that human societies were much more diverse than originally expected. The suggested inductive

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emphasis to ethnoarchaeological research proved particularly detrimental in the face of this complexity because, as anthropologists had long known, theoretical frameworks are absolutely essential to rendering fluid human acts in meaningful units for analysis. Ethnoarchaeology thus faced a conundrum: if its middle range research remained inductively focused, it risked producing eclectic and irrelevant findings, but if it drew on familiar archaeological theories for guidance, it risked violating the very independence that made its middle range research important in archaeology’s epistemology. Ethnoarchaeology’s inability to find the material correlates has resulted in a radically expanded concept of ‘the middle range’. The most successful ‘middle range approaches’ use high-tech analysis anchored theoretically in the hard sciences to identify a limited set of causes of the archaeological record. This research closely matches processual archaeology’s conventional definition by pairing independence with a study of the causes of material patterning. Colloquial uses in archaeology continue to see middle range theory as the study of behavioral–material ties, but often do not stress independence. Marxists, for example, have recently called for the development of middle range theories that identify how the extraction of surpluses and the workings of ideology affect archaeological patterns. The goal here is to examine how processes deemed important to a particular general theory are reflected in material culture, rather than to call for the development of a body of theory that is entirely independent from it. Other, philosophically inspired re-analyses of middle range theory have pointed out that all archaeological interpretations inevitably make inferences about behavioral– material relations. They have also noted that the independence once considered to be an unique outgrowth of middle range research’s distinctiveness from archaeological theory is actually found in varying degrees in all bodies of theory. Independence may occur when different theories fragment horizontally, as occurs when archaeology uses data developed in the harder sciences, or vertically, as when higher level theories fail to entirely define the data it investigates.

The implication is that the concept of ‘the middle range’ may have outgrown its usefulness because it no longer refers to a specific set of approaches or a definable body of theory. On the other hand, recent trends following the processual–postprocessual debate suggest that Merton’s original definition may make a comeback. Archaeologists are now re-emphasizing mid-level research topics such as gender, style, and agency that are not tied to specific general theories and thus closely resemble the ‘middle range theories’ Merton hoped to foster in sociology. Therefore, archaeological uses of the concept of ‘the middle range’ may relate to one or any combination of the following: site-formation processes, behavioral–material relations, conceptual independence, and/or theories aimed at creating a balance of theoretical and empirical content. See also: Behavioral Archaeology; Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Explanation in Archaeology, Overview; Interpretive Models, Development of.

Further Reading Binford LR (1977) For Theory Building in Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Binford LR (1981) Bones, Ancient Men and Modern Myths. New York: Academic Press. Binford LR (1983) Working at Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Kosso P (2001) Knowing the Past: Philosophical Issues of History and Archaeology. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Merton RK (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure, 3rd edn. New York: Free Press. Raab LM and Goodyear AC (1984) A review of middle-range theory in archaeology. American Antiquity 49: 255–268. Schiffer MB (1976) Behavioral Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Shott MJ (1998) Status and role of formation theory in contemporary archaeological practice. Journal of Archaeological Research 6: 299–329. Tschauner H (1996) Middle-range theory, behavioral archaeology, and postempiricist philosophy of science in archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 3: 1–30. Wylie A (2002) Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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MIGRATIONS Contents Australia Pacific

Australia David Cameron, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary phylogenetics Study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species, populations). Pleistocene Period from 1 808 000 to 11 550 years BP.

Introduction There are currently two main theories regarding the human migration to, and population of, Australia. The first is the multiregionalist hypothesis, which argues that prehistoric ‘gracile’ people from southern China, followed by a more ‘robust’ group which had origins from earlier Homo erectus populations of Indonesia, first populated Australia. The other theory is the ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis that argues for one main population of modern Homo sapiens occupying Australia around 60 000 years ago as part of an ongoing worldwide migration that originated from Africa around 200 000 years ago. It was these modern human African populations that were largely responsible for the demise of the more archaic indigenous human populations, including the Neanderthals of Eurasia as well as H. erectus and H. floresiensis from Asia, not through a prehistoric genocide, but more likely a greater ability to compete for finite resources.

The Origins of Modern Homo sapiens The earliest evidence to date for the emergence of truly modern humans is from Africa, as defined by the Homo sapiens fossils from Herto, Middle Awash, and Ethiopia. These fossil specimens and stone artifacts have been dated to around 165 000 years ago by precise age determinations based on the argonisotope method. Molecular studies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) support the idea of recent African origins. The molecular studies of Neanderthal mtDNA

also show a divergence from a modern human sample far outside the range observed in modern humans and, as such, the Neanderthal lineage is now believed by most to go back to at least 500 000 years ago, well before the emergence of H. sapiens. As in studies of mtDNA, patterns of nuclear DNA distribution are significantly more variable in Africa compared with the rest of the world and it has been possible to estimate the time of the first appearance of some of these patterns in Africa at between 200 000 and 100 000 years ago. The extremely limited genetic distance between modern H. sapiens populations throughout the world today strongly supports a recent and common ancestry from Africa.

The Asian Fossil Evidence Most of the fossil evidence of H. sapiens in Northeast and Southeast Asia dates to less than 20 000 years ago, although a cranium and maxilla have been recovered from Ziyang which have been dated to 38 000 years ago. An occipital bone from Shanxi Province in China has been dated to 28 000 years ago as well. Indeed, the specimens from the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian in China, which had previously been considered to be Late Pleistocene, are now thought to be early Holocene, around 11 000 years old. This also applies to the Liujiang specimen from southern China, whose dating has swung back and forth: formerly thought to be well back in the Late Pleistocene, it has been considered by some to represent Holocene, possibly as late as Neolithic, burial into Late Pleistocene deposits, but its dating and stratigraphy has recently been reconsidered, and it has apparently been reconfirmed at probably 67 000 BP (Before Present). In Southeast Asia, the oldest H. sapiens are burials from northern Vietnam dating to 20 000 years ago. The fragmentary skull from Niah Cave in Borneo was originally thought to date approximately 40 000 years ago, but the original excavator did not realize that the remains were a burial dug into somewhat (or much) older deposits, so an age for this specimen remains problematic. The Wajak skulls from Java, Indonesia have been thought to be Late Pleistocene based solely on their robust appearance, but recent radiocarbon dates of 6560 BP for the human femur

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Figure 1 Major human palaeoanthropological sites.

and 10 560 for associated fauna have been obtained (see Figure 1 for locations of sites discussed in this article).

Palaeo-Environment and Colonization of Australia The migration route taken by the first Australians to reach the continent would not have been an easy one. The islands of Southeast Asia were largely covered in thick and dense rainforest and jungles and, even at its maximum, the lower sea levels of the glacial periods (which meant that Australia and New Guinea defined a single land mass) were still high enough so that a substantial sea voyage would be required to reach this expanded continent (known as Sahul). Indeed, all through the island of Indonesia, these people would have had to make a number of sea-crossings between islands, some of which were at least 50–60 km distant. As such, the first Australians must have had access to boat-making technology of some sort (see Ships and Seafaring). Even though much of the interior region during the earliest phase of human habitation would have been very much like it is today; the semi-arid areas would have been quite different. As the archaeology and palaeo-environmental reconstructions at Lake Mungo indicate, this area which is semi-arid today, would

have been defined by a large lake teeming with fish and shellfish around 40 000–30 000 years ago. Also giant marsupials (megafauna) would have, along with the earliest humans of the continent, wandered on the shores of the lake. Around 11 000 years ago with the interglacial the Arafura plain, that ‘joined’ Australia and New Guinea, was flooded, thus separating them. Associated with this was increased rainfall and warmer temperatures which made inland parts of the continent more habitable and triggered a westward migration by most of the early population that had lived along the eastern coastline.

Multiregionalism and ‘Out of Africa’ Two main theories relate to the origins of the earliest Australians. The first is the multiregional model proposed by Wolpoff, Wu, and Thorne. They argue for an independent evolution of human groups in different regions of the world through time. This theory suggests that there is a continuation of anatomical form from Homo erectus of Java through to the first Australians. As such the original human colonization of Australia is said to have had two distinct migration episodes, the earlier migration of a ‘gracile’-like people, and the other later migration of a more ‘robust’like people. The so-called ‘gracile populations’ (as represented by many of the Willandra Lakes fossils)

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are said to have originated from present-day southern China, while the later ‘robust’ populations (like in Kow Swamp and Coobool Creek; Figure 1) are said to have originated from present-day Indonesia, from the H. erectus population. The alternative hypothesis associated with the ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis, as originally proposed by Brauer and Stringer, suggests that indigenous Australians are represented by one migration occurring around 60 000 years ago, with little significant biological contact after this initial colonization, that is, there was a recent origin of modern humans from Africa followed by a rapid biological dispersion throughout Europe and Asia, including Australia. These modern populations quickly replaced the original populations in Europe and Asia without any significant inbreeding; the demise of the more ‘archaic’ human populations occurred simply by their succumbing to the competition for the available resources with recently arrived modern humans. The oldest Australian hominin fossils have so far been discovered at Lake Mungo (Figure 1); it is one of these specimens designated Lake Mungo 3 (LM 3) that has now been dated to between 60 000 and 40 000 years ago. The Lake Mungo fossils are described as having a high frontal (forehead) and relatively thin cranial walls, the cranium is spherical in shape, the frontal lacks a supra-orbital torus (bony brow ridge), and the face is relatively flat and lies immediately below the frontal. In other words, this early population is truly modern (Figure 2a). Apart from LM 1, LM 3, and some other, much less complete, specimens from the Willandra Lakes, the main candidate for what the multiregionalists define as ‘gracile’ among the Australian fossils is the skull from Keilor (Figure 1). Keilor, in particular, is said by Thorne to resemble the cranium from Wajak in Java, some specimens from Ziyang in southern China dated to around 38 000 years ago, and Liujiang arguably dated at 67 000 years. The isolated incisor teeth from Liujiang are ‘shovel-shaped’ and this incisor morphology has often been argued to represent a regional trait linking Chinese H. erectus and modern East Asians. This feature, however, is also observed in Neanderthals, 400 000 year-old specimens of Homo heidelbergensis from Africa and Asia and even their presumed African ancestor Homo ergaster (around 2 million years ago), and their ancestor Australopithecus (around 3.5 million years ago). As such, it is simply a ‘primitive’ feature for the hominins and is not unique to the Australian–Chinese fossil hominins at all. Indeed, incisor-shoveling is not strongly developed in Aboriginal Australians, including the Keilor skull, so that if this ‘regional continuity’ character

Figure 2 LM and KS specimens. (a) Willandra hominin specimen 1 (Lake Mungo) from southern New South Wales. (b) Kow Swamp 1 from Victoria.

was correct it would be evidence against a China– Australia link, not for it. The so-called ‘robust’ Pleistocene Australians are argued by multiregionalists to include the skulls from Kow Swamp, Cohuna, and Coobool Creek, all apparently dating from about 9000 to 12 000 years ago (Figure 1). They are said to have large jaws and teeth, thick skull bones, prominent continuous brow ridges and, in particular, flat receding foreheads. The multiregionalists argue that these ‘robust’ fossils all demonstrate a continuity of morphological features with Javanese H. erectus, and share no physical and/ or genetic influence from the Pleistocene of Africa. Indeed, much of the entire multiregional scheme has been based on comparisons of Early Pleistocene Indonesian H. erectus specimens from Sangiran and the Late Pleistocene Australian modern human fossils from Kow Swamp (Figure 2b). What of the other Australian fossils? One from the Willandra Lakes (WLH 50) (Figure 1), is indeed very robust, and has thicker skull bones than any from Kow Swamp and dates to 14 000 years ago. Recently, Wolpoff and colleagues have argued in depth

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that WLH 50 provides evidence for a H. erectus– Australian lineage. Most, however, agree that the unusual cranial thickness and robusticity observed in WLH 50 is the result of a pathological condition known as hemoglobinopathy. Therefore, while Wolpoff and colleagues spent considerable time analyzing WLH 50, they were not able to rule out the possibility that WLH 50 may have suffered a pathological condition. As such, their suggested evolutionary sequence from H. erectus to Australia is based on one specimen, and one that is extremely problematic. Another, from Cossack, Western Australia, is very large and appears to have a flat receding forehead, but it is distorted and compressed, so it is difficult to interpret its actual morphological shape. Nitchie, from western New South Wales, is very much like Keilor but has larger brow ridges, and this highlights a problem – the boundary between the two groups is not clearly delineated. Keilor, in fact, is every bit as large as any Kow Swamp individual, and has an enormous palate. Lake Mungo 3 has thick skull bones and large teeth, but is ‘gracile’ in shape. Both are very different from the tiny LM 1, the only one which is really ‘gracile’ at all (see below). As far as the dates go, the ‘graciles’ appear earlier; LM 1 and 3 are either 40 000 or 60 000 years old; Keilor is the latest Pleistocene (probably 10 000–20 000 years old). Of the ‘robusts’, WLH 50 is 14 000 years old, the Kow Swamp specimens vary from 9000 to 12 000 years ago, and Coobool about the same, while Nitchie (if it truly belongs to this group) is only 6000. If the multiregionalists are correct, the ‘graciles’ arrived first, the ‘robusts’ much later.

Were There Two Distinct Prehistoric Populations within Australia? Peter Brown and others have argued that there is no difference between the suggested ‘gracile’ and ‘robust’ fossil specimens and thus only one population is present. A single origin for the first Australians is likely if one takes into account (1) temporal considerations, (2) sexual dimorphism, that is, difference between the sexes in overall size and anatomical robusticity, and (3) cultural practices, for example, intentional cranial deformation (see below). While the multiregionalists suggest that the ‘graciles’ came first, followed by a ‘robust’ population, it could also be that there was gradual change within a single population toward greater robusticity. A recent study by Anto´n and Weinstein was the first to draw attention to this trend in overall increased robusticity during the later Pleistocene fossil hominin record. Sexual dimorphism also needs to be considered. For example, Colin Pardoe and Colin Groves

independently examined the sex allocations of the specimens and concluded that, if the multiregionalists were right about sex, their males were represented by ‘robust’ while most of their females were represented by ‘gracile’ specimens. In other words, the criteria one uses to determine sex are the same as those to determine which of the two ‘types’ one is examining. Another important factor that Brown identified was the cultural practice of artificial cranial deformation, which appears to account for much of the ‘distinct’ morphology of the ‘robusts’ especially those from Kow Swamp. Cranial deformation is a result of parents deliberately or unintentionally altering their children’s head shape in infancy; it is said to look more attractive, or it is culturally distinctive, or it may simply result from swaddling or other cradling practices. It has been very widespread throughout the world over time: the Maya, the Aztec, some Plains Indians, some Hawaiians, the people of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu, offshore islanders in Papua New Guinea, Lebanese Maronites and other Middle Easterners, and some women in the Toulouse region of France, all had artificially deformed crania. Brown analyzed crania from Arawe, in the island of Melanesia, that are known to have been deliberately deformed, and compared them to crania from the Sepik River Region, known not to be affected by cranial deformation. He demonstrated that many of the ‘unique’ features observed in the Australian ‘robust’ crania are also present in the Arawe deformed specimens, that is, their ‘distinct’ morphology is likely the result of these populations practicing cranial deformation and certainly has nothing to do with a proposed link between them and the earlier H. erectus populations of Indonesia. Also, while the Kow Swamp crania do show significant cranial thickness, Brown demonstrated that the thickness of the cranium observed in the female LM 1 is within the range observed in the Holocene female Murray Valley sample, while the male LM 3 specimen falls within the range of not only the male Murray Valley collection, but also the male Kow Swamp sample. Thus, again, cranial thickness between the ‘robust’ and the ‘gracile’ samples is not very distinctive at all. The upper face of the ‘robust’ Late Pleistocene/ Early Holocene Australians and the Indonesian Middle Pleistocene H. erectus has most frequently been used by the multiregionalists as a unique ‘complex’ uniting these two demes to the exclusion of all others. This is particularly true of the long, flat frontal and developed supra-orbital torus. The supraorbital region of the Kow Swamp individuals is superficially similar to those observed in the Sangiran

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H. erectus specimens with developed and continuous brow ridges. They are, however, even more similar to Middle Pleistocene African H. heidelbergensis fossils such as Kabwe (Zambia) and European ones such as Petralona (Greece), relative to H. erectus. Indeed they are well within the range of early and modern H. sapiens, that is, it is not a unique feature shared with H. erectus and the Australian Kow Swamp population (Figure 3). Finally, there is no morphological evidence to support a Chinese origin for the Pleistocene Australians (e.g., Mungo and Keilor specimens), or Indonesians (e.g., Wajak cranium). Indeed, the only truly ‘gracile’ Australian specimen is LM 1. A single specimen falling outside the general range is certainly noteworthy, but must be inconclusive. More significantly, however, LM 1 could be a juvenile. When cremated, her skull came apart at the sutures, but matrix still covered the crucial basicranial region, which would tell us whether she was mature or not. The development of the supra-orbital torus in most nonhuman primates, including early hominins, is associated with a process known as neuro-orbital disjunction (Figure 4). This is defined by the face being pushed out from the braincase, as in H. erectus; the braincase,

Figure 3 Comparison of Australian material with other nonerectus hominins. (Top left) H. heidelbergensis specimen from Petralonaq, Greece. (Top right) H. heidelbergensis specimen from Kabwe, Africa. (Bottom left) Modern human from Kow Swamp, Australia. (Bottom right) Homo erectus specimen Sangiran 17 from Indonesia.

including the anterior cranial fossae (which houses the frontal lobes of the brain), is positioned behind the face, so that the frontal lobes are long and relatively low. In other words, the robust supra-orbital of H. erectus is the result of the frontal (forehead) requiring a strong bridge of bone to haft the braincase to the upper face. Thus, the supra-orbital torus is a structural ‘supporting beam’ connecting the large and posteriorly oriented braincase to the face. The condition in H. sapiens over the last 170 000 years or so, however, is for the complete opposite condition, that is, the anterior cranial fossae (which houses the frontal lobes of the brain) are located directly above the orbits (eye sockets), as opposed to the more posterior position of H. erectus. This results in a vertically oriented frontal bone, with the face positioned directly beneath, reducing the need for a structural ‘supporting beam’ (supra-orbital (browridge)) linking the face to the cranium. This can be referred to as neuro-orbital ‘convergence’, that is, the face is high and vertically flat. This is clearly the condition in Kow Swamp individuals, even taking into account those individuals whose frontals have been affected by intentional cranial deformation; indeed, individuals that are not influenced much by intentional deformation show that the anterior

Figure 4 Neuro-orbital disjunction/convergence. (Top) A modern human from Kow Swamp (KS 1) showing the modern human condition of neuro-orbital convergence, as opposed to (bottom) the more archaic condition of neuro-orbital disjunction observed in the early H. erectus Sangiran 17 specimen.

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outgroup is a group of closely related taxa, which are not directly part of the study group. If we were studying hominids, for example, the obvious outgroup would be the early Miocene hominoids and the Old World monkeys. Synapomorphies establish sister-group relationships between taxa, while primitive features that are shared by at least two outgroups are assumed to be symplesiomorphies and cannot be used to allocate species to a clade. For example, when examining the New World and Old World monkeys an obvious symplesiomorphic feature is the presence of a tail, but when the great apes are included in such a study, the absence of a tail is a synapomorphy linking all primates without tails as hominoids. When looking at a finer resolution of detail, let us say groups within the hominoids, the absence of a tail is now of no phylogenetic significance as all hominoids are defined by not having a tail. The absence of a tail in hominoids is meaningless in trying to determine which species are closely related. In this case the absence of a tail becomes a primitive, or plesiomorphic, feature of the hominoids. A synapomorphy of the hominins, however, might be an increase in brain size (relative to body weight). The parsimony analyses were generated using the computer program PAUP* version 4.0 beta.

cranial fossae are located directly above the orbits in the typical modern H. sapiens fashion, and not posterior to them as in H. erectus (Figure 5). Therefore, the suggested ‘similarity’ between H. erectus and the Kow Swamp H. sapiens is the result of two very different processes, one biological (neuro-obital disjunction in H. erectus) and the other cultural (cranial deformation in some demes of H. sapiens). The phylogenetic analysis of Cameron and Groves of these hominins also clearly shows that both the Australian ‘gracile’ (Lake Mungo) and ‘robust’ (Kow Swamp) populations cluster together and with modern H. sapiens and not H. erectus, even taking into account cranial deformation of the Kow swamp population. Phylogenetic systematics was first established by Willie Hennig to help determine relationships and classify organisms that are based on evolutionary affinities as a result of identifying shared unique features. It is also often referred to as cladistics. Unique features shared between species are used to help establish a common ancestry. Phylogenetics is based on the allocation of taxa to groups based on the recognition that they share unique characters (synapomorphies) that distinguish them from their ancestors as well as more distantly related groups. The identification of these derived characters is based on the study of an outgroup. An

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Figure 5 Phylogenetic analysis (bootstrap with 1000 replications) of 27 cranial features (CM ¼ Cro-Magnon, KS ¼ Kow Swamp). This cladogram demonstrates that Kow Swamp reflects a modern human condition as opposed to Homo erectus.

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Large supra-orbitals are known to occur in a number of recent H. sapiens too, especially in large robust males with narrow skulls, including some northern Europeans and African Bushmen, and in a number of fossil H. sapiens from Africa (Dar es-Soltan), Western Asia (Skhul V, Qafzeh), Europe (Madlec, Predmosti, Cro-Magnon), and East Asia (Zhoukoudian Upper Cave specimen 101). The robust supra-orbital is a primitive human feature, and not evidence of regional continuity. Its development in H. sapiens is a result of differential brain development and growth patterns, and as such, is distinct from the condition observed in H. erectus and other earlier hominins. The remaining features that multiregionalists use to support a regional continuum between the Middle Pleistocene Indonesian H. erectus and the Late Pleistocene Australasians are largely functional in origin. These features include a large robust mandible (lower jaw), and large post-canine teeth (premolars and molars), which are clearly associated with the development of the masticatory apparatus (upper and lower jaws) and responses to diet. They are closely integrated as a functional complex and should not be isolated as individual features. As Wolpoff himself has shown, a large dental complex is observed in the sub-Saharan Africans, second only to Australians. These and other modern human groups were in most cases dependent on the mastication of largely unprepared food resources (little preparation before consumption), the molars pulping and grinding tough food items. In order to house a large dental complex, one requires a large robust mandible with its associated musculature. Clearly a small mandibular frame housing a large dental complex will result in masticatory stresses resulting in disastrous stresses and a breakdown of the masticatory system. As such, selective pressures would result in an increase in mandibular robusticity and increased post-canine tooth size to help cope with a tough and gritty diet; not to do so would result in a biomechanical failure of the masticatory apparatus and thus early death.

The Archaeological Evidence The original Australians are among the earliest known true modern humans. To get to Australia required an ocean voyage over considerable distances. Indeed the minimum distance, even during Glacial Maximum, would still be around 50 km. Two open sea routes are most likely as the entry points to Australia. The first is the eastern route via Indonesia to New Guinea and the other is the southern route from Indonesia to Northwest Australia. Either way it suggests that these people had extensive and sophisticated knowledge

of working with wood, bamboo, and other related materials. Not only this, but the early Australians are distinguished from the later occupants of Europe in terms of art and burial practice; in both cases in fact, Australia has the earliest evidence of these practices. For example, at Mandu Mandu Rockshelter the earliest known evidence of beads (modified cone shells) has been documented at 32 000 years ago, while the female Mungo individual (LM 1) is the oldest cremation known anywhere in the world. By 26 000 years ago, the ancestors of indigenous Australians were using very sophisticated fishing techniques including gill nets and traps. This does not mean that navigation, art, beadwork, cremation, gill nets, and fishtraps were invented in Australia and spread elsewhere. It may be so, but the sea barriers are vast, and contacts must have been few. Instead, it is more likely that these commonalities mean one of two things. Some of these cultural practices may well have been developed in Australia and in the rest of the world independently: their common humanity responded to similar challenges in similar ways. But some of the Australia/rest-of-the-world similarities are so complex in all their details that only one conclusion can be drawn: they already existed in the common ancestor, before the colonization of Australia over 60 000 years ago. Language surely arose once, as did the control of fire, religion, and music. These are cultural items for which there is no direct evidence, and yet the principle of parsimony suggests very strongly that they are much earlier in their genesis. It is likely that the original colonization of Australia was based on coastal movements through the landscape; by 25 000 years ago, however, the inland region had been penetrated. The occupation of the interior of the continent may have been via the many extensive river systems. The stone tool tradition for the first 30 000–50 000 years is not particularly distinctive and is referred to as the Core Tool and Scraper Tradition. It was not until the mid-Holocene (around 5000 years ago) that the tool tradition rapidly changed and we get a more refined tradition known as the Australian Small Tool Phase. This new technology includes stone knives, daggers, neatly trimmed spear points and barbs, and many other micro all-purpose tools. If there was a separate dual migration into Australia by ‘robust’ and ‘gracile’ populations, then there is certainly no evidence for it within the archaeological record. Indeed, overall the archaeological record demonstrates a continuum within and between the earliest inhabitants and the later descendants until the ‘arrival’ of the mid-Holocene small tool tradition.

1630 MIGRATIONS/Australia

The Molecular Evidence The extraction of ancient mtDNA from a number of Australian Pleistocene modern human remains by Adcock and colleagues allows us for the first time to examine and compare early modern human mtDNA, dating between perhaps 60 000 to 8000 years ago, with recent modern humans. Mitochondrial DNA samples have been extracted from the early ‘gracile’ specimens from Willandra Lakes (LM 3) and later ‘robust’ populations from Kow Swamp and the ‘gracile’ near-Holocene Willandra Lakes bones. The LM 3 mtDNA is closer to modern humans than to the (later) Neanderthal samples, thus confirming the distinctiveness of the Neanderthals from living humans. The near-Holocene ‘graciles’ from Willandra Lakes, and Kow Swamp, show absolutely no difference in their mtDNA, suggesting that the presence of two distinct populations within Australia is refuted. Indeed, neither ‘robust’ nor ‘gracile’ populations can be differentiated from living indigenous Australians.

Origins of the First Australians There is little, if any, evidence to support dual migration into Australia, that is, one from southern China and another from Indonesia. Any real or imagined differential degree of robusticity between the early and later Australians can be explained by time difference, and during the Holocene we see the reverse condition happening, from ‘robust’ to more ‘gracile’ (within only a few thousand years) just as happened in many other non-Australasian populations, including Africa. Cultural influences may also have played a part; the later Kow Swamp people practiced cranial deformation while the earlier Willandra Lakes population did not. Over a considerable time range, it is not difficult to see adaptive, selective, and cultural forces operating within a relatively isolated population. Was the pre-Mango Australian population part of an ‘Out of Africa’ population migratory wave, which started around 150 000 years ago? Well-developed neuro-orbital convergence first appears in the African fossil record with specimens like the Omo-Kibish H. sapiens, dated to over 130 000 years ago. The more archaic Indonesian Middle–Late Pleistocene H. erectus populations, with the exact opposite condition of neuro-orbital disjunction, had nothing or very little to do with the biology of the Late Pleistocene of Australia. In order to maintain such a link would require a significant biological reversal by the Australian population to neuro-orbital convergence which, given the laws of parsimony, is most unlikely. There is absolutely no evidence supporting

an early ‘gracile’ migration from China around 60 000 years ago followed later by a ‘robust’ migration from Indonesia around 15 000 years ago. The recent dates for the Ngandong (Solo) H. erectus specimens, at around 50 000 to 30 000 years, if accepted, postdate the arrival of the modern humans in Australia by at least 10 000 years (probably more). If these dates are correct, then two species of Homo occupied this region around 50 000 years ago and this means that the Solo people cannot have been ancestors of people who lived earlier than they did. Instead, the Solo people were a persisting primitive form of H. erectus, unaffected by the moderns who had to pass through Indonesia to get to Australia. The Ngandong people eventually succumbed to competition pressures from modern H. sapiens who settled in the area. Finally, the recent spectacular fossil hominin specimens finds from Liang Bua Cave, Flores (LB 1) which date to the last 100 000 years, and are now allocated to the hominin species H. floresiensis, show that at least three species of Homo were present in the area of Indonesia during the human migrationary event to Australia. H. floresiensis has a combination of derived H. sapiens-like features as well as very primitive Plio/ Pleistocene features. For example, it is defined like H. sapiens in having marked neuro-orbital convergence, but is also defined by the Plio/Pleistocene hominin condition of having a small brain (relative to body size) as well as a large postcanine dental complex. While the describers suggest that H. floresiensis is a dwarf representative of H. erectus, it shares few, if any, derived H. erectus features. Indeed, the phylogenetic studies by Cameron of the skull LB 1 using 36 morphological features indicate that this small hominid species is closer in morphological form to H. habilis as opposed to H. erectus or H. sapiens (Figure 6). It is thus likely that like H. erectus, H. floresiensis originates from an early Plio/Pleistocene hominin species, and in the case of H. floresiensis at least, a H. habilis-like ancestor, which originated in Africa or possibly Eurasia around 2 million years ago. There is now clear evidence that at least three species of Homo occupied Asia from around 60 000 years ago. This refutes the multiregionalist scheme that argues that only one species was present, evolving into a ‘geographical lineage’ of H. sapiens. The evidence confirms that a population of modern H. sapiens occupied this area ‘side-by-side’ with the more archaic populations of H. erectus and H. floresiensis. The early Plio/ Pleistocene indigenous populations of H. erectus and H. floresiensis ended in extinction, while the much later migration of H. sapiens resulted in the ‘successful’ occupation of the New and Old Worlds before the

MIGRATIONS/Australia 1631 Pan Pr. afarensis A. africanus K. platyops 17

P. walkeri

60 62 28

P. boisei P. robustus K. rudolfensis H. ergaster

19 13

H. georgicus 21

19

66

E. H. erectus L. H. erectus

34

H. pekinensis 12

E. H. neanderthalensis

23 47

L. H. neanderthalensis

76 33

88

E. H. sapiens H. sapiens

22

H. heidelbergensis H. habilis H. floresiensis Figure 6 Phylogenetic analysis (bootstrap tree with 1000 replications) including H. floresiensis and early and late hominid(in) specimens. Based on 36 anatomical features clearly showing, H. floresiensis reflects an early hominin condition.

Holocene, with one of these populations occupying Australia around 60 000 years ago.

Conclusion

Further Reading

The available human fossil, archaeological, and molecular evidence all point to the same conclusion that Australia was populated by modern H. sapiens around 60 000 years ago. There is no evidence that Australia was occupied ‘in mass’ by dual migrations. The earliest origins of the indigenous aboriginal Australians like that of all other H. sapiens is tied to our earliest African ancestors dating back to around 200 000 years. Other more archaic hominin groups, which occupied Southeast Asia, including H. erectus and H. floresiensis had little, if anything, to do with the emergence of H. sapiens and certainly played no part in the colonization of Australia by modern H. sapiens around 60 000 years ago.

Eastern Europe

See also: DNA: Ancient; Modern, and Archaeology; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Molecular Archaeology; Oceania: Australia; Paleoanthropology.

Brown P, Sutikna T, Morwood MJ, et al. (2004) A new smallbodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431: 1055–1061. Cameron D and Groves CP (2004) Bones, Stones and Molecules: ‘Out of Africa’ and Human Origins. Burlington, MA: Elsevier/ Academic Press. Moorwood M, Soejono RP, Roberts RG, et al. (2004) Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature 431: 1087–1091. Oppenheimer S (2003) Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World. London: Constable. Stringer C (2002) Modern human origins: Progress and prospects. Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society of London B 357: 563–579. Stringer C and McKie R (1996) African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity. London: Pimlico.

See: Europe, Eastern, Peopling of.

1632 Pacific

New World

See: New World, Peopling of.

Pacific Ian Lilley, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary applied relief Decoration created by adding clay strips, knobs and so on to the surface of a pot before firing, often with incised decoration and sometimes itself incised. calibration Adjustment of dates to match calendar years, required because of variation introduced by different forms of dating and based on rigorous cross-dating of timber of known age. gracility Relatively light physique. Holocene The current geological epoch, beginning at the end of the last glaciation some 10 000–15 000 years ago. hominids Primates in the human line (i.e., the genus Homo). incised Decoration cut into the surface of a pot before firing. luminescence A dating technique measuring the strength of residual light energy captured in quartz crystals exposed to the sun then buried or otherwise concealed from light. megafauna Generally but not always large species of animals closely related to those alive now, mostly but not inevitably now extinct and including reptiles (e.g., giant monitor lizards) and birds (e.g., ratites such as New Zealand moa) as well as mammals. Melanesia (the ‘black islands’) Includes mainland New Guinea and, excluding Micronesian Nauru, all of the islands south of the equator out to and including Fiji in the east and New Caledonia in the south. Island Melanesia refers to Melanesia without mainland New Guinea. The Indonesian province of Papua covers the western half of New Guinea. The eastern half comprises the mainland provinces of Papua New Guinea, which also includes the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago and northern Solomons. Micronesia (the ‘small islands’) Includes all the islands north of or straddling the equator between Palau and the Marianas in the west and the Marshalls and Kiribati in the east. mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Special DNA passed on only from mothers. paddle-impressed Decoration (only sometimes intentional) created on hand-made pottery with a small carved or cordwrapped paddle used to shape and thin the walls of the pot before firing. Pleistocene The previous geological epoch, dating from about 2 million years ago to the end of the last glaciation 10 000–15 000 years ago. Polynesia (the ‘many islands’) Has several components. Triangle Polynesia encompasses the area between Hawai’i, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Rapa Nui/Easter Island, including Tuvalu. It subsumes West Polynesia, formed by Tuvalu, Tonga and Samoa, and East Polynesia, which covers all of the remainder. New Zealand and nearby islands are increasingly

separated as South Polynesia, as is the case in this article. The ‘Polynesian outliers’ are Polynesian communities in Melanesia and Micronesia resulting from recent westerly back-migration, while the Mystery Islands are those with signs of prehistoric use which were unpopulated when first found by Europeans. proto language Now-extinct language forming the common ancestor of groups of modern languages. radiocarbon (carbon-14, C14) A dating technique measuring the strength of residual radioactivity in certain atoms of carbon affected by cosmic radiation and absorbed by living tissue before decaying at a known rate upon the death of the organism. robusticity Relatively heavy physique. sexual dimorphism Size differences between the sexes (among humans, females are usually smaller than males). stratigraphic association Analytical links between objects deposited together in the same sediment or in the same period and thus assumed to be linked in use in the living culture that produced them in the past. The Bird’s Head The western end of the island of New Guinea, which looks like the head of a large bird, the body of which extends to the east. Y-chromosome The distinctive male chromosome, shaped roughly like a Y.

The human history of the Pacific was structured by three principal phases of migration. The first occurred in the Late Pleistocene, when modern humans spread from Southeast Asia into Greater Australia and the neighboring Bismarck and Solomon Islands archipelagoes. Greater Australia is the continent known as Sahul, which formed when lowered sea levels joined New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania during the last glaciation. On the other side of the planet, modern humans were beginning to move into Ice Age Europe at about the same time. The initial dispersal into Near Oceania, the region to the end of the main Solomons chain, registered a profound shift in human affairs. People island-hopped across a significant sea barrier from the Old World, which had long been inhabited by hominids, to an entirely naı¨ve new world with an anachronistic marsupial fauna where there was no chance that human progenitors had evolved and ‘hominized’ the landscape. The second major colonization occurred more than 35 000 years later, and saw the settlement of the last unoccupied part of the globe outside Antarctica. From about 3500 BP, pottery-making sailor-farmers also ultimately of Southeast Asian origin produced the ‘Lapita phenomenon’ in the Bismarcks and then continued on to become the first people to occupy

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Remote Oceania, that part of the Pacific beyond the main Solomons. Lapita is characterized as a vast ‘community of culture’ which, at least as far east as Fiji, was maintained by long-distance ties through which people, ideas, and goods such as pottery and obsidian moved over great distances. The final phase of migration was signaled by the appearance of Europeans in Oceania in the sixteenth century AD. We are still in this final phase, in the sense that colonialism and its aftermath have fostered continuing large-scale migration not only to, but also within and from, the Pacific. Until recently these movements received little archaeological attention outside Australia and New Zealand, but historical archaeology is now starting to make strides in many parts of the Pacific. These advances cannot be covered here but some are dealt with elsewhere (see Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia). It should also be noted that recent population shifts have substantive archaeological consequences which should also be subsumed as historical, colonial, or contact archaeology. Recent migrations have profound social and political implications for archaeological practice as well, arising as settlers and indigenous peoples work through their differences concerning perceptions of history and access to archaeological evidence (see Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Native Peoples and Archaeology; Politics of Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?).

Language and Biology Biology and historical linguistics play central roles in the study of Pacific migrations. Echoing early models proposing waves of physically distinct migrants, some biologists remain convinced that the earliest inhabitants of Near Oceania can be sorted into groups with separate origins in Java, China, India, and elsewhere. Others propose a single original colonization by biologically diverse people followed by continual biologically-minor mingling with external source areas, as well as important evolutionary modification owing to gene flow, genetic drift, and adaptation to varying environmental contexts. Skeletal characteristics such as robusticity and gracility, which multipleorigins models identify as crucial markers of separate origins, have been shown by proponents of the singleorigin model to relate to sexual dimorphism and climatic variation. The single-origin model is based on genetic as well as skeletal evidence and accords best with the archaeological record, in which there is no evidence for serial major migrations in the form of sudden appearances of novel items of material culture or new patterns of behavior with demonstrable nonPacific origins.

Linguistics has little to say about the initial colonization and early history of Near Oceania. The languages of the Pacific fall into two classes: Austronesian and non-Austronesian (or Papuan). The 700þ Papuan languages include most of the languages of New Guinea and some on nearby islands to the west as well as to the east as far as New Georgia in the Solomons. They are linked at the highest level only because they are not Austronesian, though several lower-order groupings have been detected. There have been efforts to extract historical patterns from such relationships, but they do not speak with any certainty to questions concerning very early periods. There are suggestions that some languages and groupings may have significant time depth, and that some in the New Guinea highlands may be distantly related to Australian languages. This last contention is supported by biological studies showing that Aboriginal Australians have affinities with Melanesians and particularly highland New Guineans, who were isolated from major biocultural changes that unfolded on the coasts and islands of Melanesia in the Late Holocene (see Oceania: Micronesia; New Guinea and Melanesia). Austronesian languages were the only pre-European languages in Remote Oceania. Ultimately of Taiwanese descent, they are also spoken almost everywhere in Island Southeast Asia and, in Near Oceania, in some coastal and lowland parts of New Guinea and most of the Bismarcks and main Solomons. All Austronesian languages located east of the Bird’s Head in western New Guinea, including all but the most westerly parts of Micronesia, form a group known as Oceanic. In Melanesia, Oceanic splits into a number of major subgroups. Changes in an ancestral language in one of these subgroups eventually produced the very closely related set of languages that spread through Polynesia. All Micronesian languages except those of the Marianas, Palau, and Yap fall in one subgroup which originated in central Melanesia. Yapese is a complicated case, but seems most closely related to Oceanic Austronesian in the Admiralty Islands in the northern Bismarck Archipelago. The languages of Palau and the Marianas are Austronesian but not Oceanic, being Western Austronesian of Southeast Asian type. Although the facts and the theory are continually debated, biology backs the broad linguistic picture concerning the colonization of Remote Oceania: the people came from Southeast Asia via Island Melanesia, where they mingled with existing populations before continuing to the east. Because the indigenous people of Remote Oceania share certain distinctive biological markers and all speak Oceanic, it is generally accepted that their ancestors brought Austronesian languages with them, in the welldescribed form of Proto-Oceanic. Linguistics and

1634 Pacific

biology agree that these colonists largely avoided mainland New Guinea, though both disciplines have detected traces of a pre-Oceanic Austronesian incursion along the north coast from the west. It now also seems likely that they leapfrogged the main Solomons chain. There is growing biological evidence for sex-based differences in these patterns of dispersal. The distribution of male (Y) chromosome markers reveals a complex pattern of interrelationships between Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, but the female genetics (mitochondrial DNA), like the linguistics, indicates a swift and homogenous Austronesian dispersal. The archaeological witness to this spread is the Lapita cultural complex, described below.

The Archaeology of Pleistocene Migration in Near Oceania There are long and short chronologies for the initial occupation of Near Oceania. The former is based on luminescence dating and the latter on radiocarbon. The short model proposes that people first arrived in Greater Australia and nearby archipelagoes no more than about 45 000 BP (Figure 1). The long chronology asserts that this is because radiocarbon cannot reliably date anything older. Luminescence methods date colonization at 50 000–60 000 BP. It is reasoned that much older dates are implausible because there is no evidence of that antiquity in Tasmania, which was connected to the mainland between 62 000 and 70 000 BP. The short chronology rejects dates older than 45 000 BP for three main reasons. First, no older dates have secure stratigraphic associations with undoubted

cultural remains. Second, the long chronology does match knowledge of modern human dispersal elsewhere in the world. There are no modern human remains in Island Southeast Asia – through which the first migrants to Australia must have passed – older than 45 000 years. Lastly, the calibration of luminescence dates to calendar and radiocarbon dates is not well understood, so very old luminescence determinations may in fact be the same in calendar years as younger radiocarbon dates. There are no dates of any sort older than 40 000 BP for human activity in New Guinea, the Bismarcks, or the Solomons (Figure 2). In the short chronology this is taken to mean that the whole of Near Oceania was settled in a single migratory process, although available radiocarbon dates indicate that the New Guinea highlands, the Solomons and the Admiralties may not have been settled until around 10 000 years later than the rest. The long chronology argues instead that the different dates for initial settlement of Australia and New Guinea mean colonization occurred at different times and by different routes even though the two landmasses were joined at the time. It will be some time before this matter can be settled. Only four sites with Pleistocene deposits have been excavated in coastal New Guinea. Only two, Jo’s Creek and Lachitu Cave, date to the period of initial colonization and no detailed reports are available for any of them. More work has been done in the New Guinea highlands, but we still know very little about initial settlement of the uplands. Work at the two most ancient highlands sites indicates among other things that the earliest stone artifacts include distinctive ‘waisted’ tools (i.e., notched for a handle;

Figure 1 The raised coral terraces of the Huon Peninsula, New Guinea, in the vicinity of the 40 000-year-old Jo’s Creek site. Photograph by author.

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Figure 2 Misisil Cave, western New Britain, the first Pleistocene site discovered in the Island Pacific. Photograph by author.

Figure 3 Ground stone tools, New Guinea. Photograph by author.

Figure 3). Similarities between such tools and certain artifacts in Australia may reflect the introduction of a technological tradition of Asian origin common to all of Sahul’s first inhabitants. Waisted tools have also been found at Jo’s Creek, where they have been speculatively linked with very early forest clearance. Some of the highlands sites also contain the remains of extinct ‘giant’ species of animals. Collectively known as ‘megafauna’, such creatures lived throughout Sahul and their hunting by humans has been linked with the patterns in which the continent was colonized. Popular accounts usually paint ‘blitzkrieg’ scenarios in which the new colonists rapidly eliminated the megafauna. Faunal extinctions are commonly associated with human colonization, as is the case in Remote Oceania, discussed below. There is however no evidence that this occurred with the

megafauna in Near Oceania. There is only a handful of sites in Sahul where there is any indication of interaction between people and extinct giant fauna, and none where there is unambiguous evidence for hunting, let alone mass extermination. First used some 39 500 years ago, Buang Merabak cave in central New Ireland contains the earliest evidence for colonization of the Bismarcks. There are dates of the same general magnitude from elsewhere in New Ireland as well as from coastal and interior sites in New Britain. There is very little evidence from the Bismarcks for the period following the first influx of people until about 20 000 BP. It seems that the first settlers were at least partly coastally oriented, as all early coastal sites contain marine mollusk remains. This focus is logical, given the sea-crossings involved in colonizing the islands. However, there are few fish bones in the sites and people also exploited forest fauna such as birds and bats, suggesting the first colonists were relatively generalized foragers rather than marine specialists. A generalized foraging strategy was probably critical to the success of the movement of people from northern Sahul (i.e., New Guinea) to Island Melanesia, where the diversity and richness of the terrestrial and near-shore marine biota diminish dramatically with increasing distance east. There may have been another significant migration around 28 000 BP, the oldest date yet obtained for the colonization of the main Solomons chain. This movement required a 180-km open-sea crossing from New Ireland and it seems there was little interaction with the Bismarck Archipelago after the shift occurred. The move saw people encounter an environment biotically even more depauperate than the Bismarcks. In the Pleistocene the Solomons had only a restricted

1636 Pacific

range of bats, rats, and reptiles. The cuscus (phalanger) that was important human prey in the Bismarcks at that time does not appear in the Solomons until the Late Holocene. Moreover, although the diversity of pelagic fish was probably relatively constant throughout the Indo-Pacific region, the reefs of the Solomons are less diverse than those of the Bismarcks. There was another significant change around 22 000–20 000 BP. This is when people occupied the Admiralties for the first time, by island-hopping from New Ireland and/or the north coast of Sahul/New Guinea. Both routes were used in the historical period and both regions have more recent archaeological connections with the Admiralties. This movement required an open-sea journey of over 200 km, about a third of which would have been out of the sight of land. This makes it the longest sea journey anywhere in the world up to this time and the only attested Pleistocene voyage beyond the limits of island intervisibility. The significance of this event as a milestone in human migration should not be underestimated. Even today the journey requires capable marine craft and noteworthy navigational ability. Matters of voyaging are taken up again in general terms later.

The Last 3500 Years: The Settlement of Remote Oceania Melanesia

The colonization of the remote Pacific began with the spread of the Lapita cultural complex from the Bismarck Archipelago from 3300 BP (Figures 4 and 5). A mixture of Southeast Asian and Melanesian

cultural traits, Lapita is typified by highly distinctive pottery, the first ceramics in the Oceanic Austronesian-speaking Pacific, which flourished in their classic form until about 2700 BP. The pottery’s elaborate decoration includes stylized human faces, and was created with a dentate (toothed) stamp following systematic rules. Some of the pots were very large and at least some were painted as well as stamped. Other characteristics of the cultural complex included the first domesticated pigs, dogs, and chickens in the Pacific, distinctive shell artifacts, and village locations that allowed easy access for seagoing canoes and longdistance movement of goods, particularly obsidian. Lapita took about 400 years to spread from the Bismarcks to Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. Only a handful of Lapita sherds has been found on the New Guinea mainland, though, and it seems that the cultural complex never became established there. The main Solomons may also have been leapfrogged in the initial Austronesian push out from the Bismarcks. Only late Lapita ceramics have been found in the archipelago, even though classic Lapita is known in the Reef-Santa Cruz islands, which are politically part of the modern state of Solomon Islands but are remote from the main island chain. Current models have late Lapita groups moving into the Solomons proper from the Bismarcks as well as back-migrating from the Reef-Santa Cruz islands. The two groups met at a sharp and well-described linguistic boundary within Oceanic Austronesian known as the Tryon– Hackman Line. Other models for the settlement of Remote Oceania have been raised from time to time, particularly regarding pre-Lapita/pre-Austronesian migrations and

Figure 4 Yellow tephra (ash) from Mt. Witori eruption c. 3600 BP. This distinctive ash separates pre-Lapita strata from Lapita-period strata in much of western New Britain. Photograph by author.

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Figure 5 Dentate-stamped Lapita sherd from New Caledonia. Photograph by Christophe Sand, Director, Department of Archaeology, New Caledonia.

non-Lapita migrations contemporary with Lapita. It was once thought that New Caledonia in particular was a good case for pre-Austronesian occupation, owing to the presence on various islands in the archipelago of tumuli (mounds) presumed to mark a human presence of great antiquity. Sampling of these sites has found no evidence for either human activity or great antiquity, but their origins remain a mystery. New Caledonia also has Podtane´an pottery. This ware is contemporary with, geochemically identical to, and often associated stratigraphically with local Lapita yet it bears no Lapita decoration, being paddle-impressed instead. Moreover, it persisted for almost 1000 years after Lapita disappeared. It has been taken to reflect a population dispersal contemporary with but separate from Lapita, but is now generally thought to result from social differences within a single migratory group. In other parts of the southwest Pacific there is little if any pottery dating to the Lapita period but exhibiting non-Lapita decoration. The existence of Podtane´an ceramics is thus a major difference between New Caledonia and the rest of the Lapita domain. There were other differences as well, even if the overall cultural characteristics of the very first settlers were close to those of Lapita groups elsewhere. Thus, Lapita colonists brought the commensal Pacific rat to New Caledonia as elsewhere, but not the critical Lapita triad of pig, dog, or chicken. Nor did they bring kava or the spiny rat, both of which have been linked with Lapita dispersal at least as far south as central Vanuatu. These absences may reflect sampling error, but could imply things were more different at the time of initial landfall than is currently hypothesized.

Be that as it may, it took only a few generations for the first settlers of New Caledonia to develop a range of cultural characteristics that signal the appearance of a distinctive southern Lapita province. In like vein, it was once hypothesized that Vanuatu was initially occupied by the makers of incised and applied-relief Mangaasi ceramics during the Lapita period, but before the appearance of Lapita pottery and its makers in those islands. Recent excavations have established that Lapita dating to 2900–3000 BP is the earliest cultural evidence, that classic Lapita was replaced within a few centuries by plain or differently decorated wares, that Mangaasi developed only about 2000 BP out of earlier post-Lapita ceramics and that pottery production ceased in the central islands about 1200 BP. At the time of writing, a spectacular new find of a Lapita cemetery at Teouma on the central island of Efate´ is promising to add a significant dimension to our knowledge of Vanuatu’s early prehistory. Fiji is often considered together with neighboring Samoa and Tonga and nearby islands in West Polynesia, but cultural divergences emerged soon after virtually simultaneous Lapita colonization of all three island groups around 2900 BP by people who made what is known as Eastern Lapita, typified by a reduced range of vessel forms and simplified decoration. Lapita evolved into Polynesian Plainware by about 2600 BP. Although links among the archipelagoes were active throughout prehistory, the process of divergence soon saw western Fiji change in ways which tied it to Island Melanesia while patterns in eastern Fiji were more akin to those in Polynesian Samoa and Tonga. This means that in the east the evolution of Plainware also saw the range of vessel forms shrink, leaving assemblages conventionally thought to have been produced by an archaeologically, linguistically, and biologically wellattested ancestral Polynesian society from which all Polynesian societies descend. Plainware ended throughout Fiji about 1500 years ago, to be replaced by decorated wares suggesting connections with northern Vanuatu. The chronological and technological abruptness of the replacement may indicate new people migrated to Fiji with the ceramics, though some scholars see no connections between postLapita changes in Fijian ceramics and those outside the archipelago. Within the last 1000 years, there was widespread agricultural intensification which coincided with the appearance of fortified villages. It is unclear whether the development of fortifications resulted from internal social processes or clashes between immigrants and locals. It has been argued that there is good evidence for a post-Lapita ‘community of culture’ akin to that of the Lapita period, in the form of synchronous widespread

1638 Pacific

ceramic changes, and specifically the contemporaneous appearance of applied-and-incised decoration broadly similar to Mangaasi in Vanuatu. This grouping is seen to stretch from the Admiralties in the north at least as far as central Vanuatu, and perhaps also to New Caledonia and Fiji. Others have strongly asserted their disagreement, arguing that any widespread similarities result from shared Lapita heritage rather than continuing long-distance interaction. It remains indisputable, though, that historical patterns of human phenotypic variation indicate there was substantial post-Lapita gene-flow through Melanesia, meaning people must have remained connected in some way throughout the region’s late prehistory. Polynesia

It has been contended that settlement of the huge area of the Pacific beyond West Polynesia was continuous, flowing on without pause after the Lapita settlement of Samoa and Tonga. However, current data place a pause of at least 1000 years in West Polynesia before people moved again after ‘becoming’ the Polynesians ancestral to today’s populations. Precisely when this dispersal occurred is debated. A short chronology indicates colonization of the Marquesas between 1400 and 1700 BP, and perhaps earlier. This archipelago has long been proposed as the first part of East Polynesia to be settled. The short chronology times the settlement of the Cook and Society Islands to no earlier than about 1200–1400 BP, in line with the conventional view that these archipelagoes were bypassed as people spread from West Polynesia to the Marquesas (Figure 6).

The earliest radiocarbon date accepted by the short chronology for remote Easter Island is 800 BP. The best-dated material in Hawai’i signals initial colonization at no more than 1400 BP. The short chronology recognizes only post-1000 BP dates in the remote eastern islands. This reiterates the short chronology for New Zealand in South Polynesia, which proposes first settlement of the mainland in the last 800–1000 years and of the Kermadecs and Chathams by 800 and 700 years ago. This overall pattern accords with geological evidence concerning the emergence above sea level of habitable and/or stepping-stone islands in East Polynesia. The foregoing dates compress the prehistory of East and South Polynesia, and imply that cultural change was faster than hitherto thought. Critics contend that the short chronology excludes valid earlier dates for environmental change indicative of human activity, that there is evidence the Societies were settled as early as the Marquesas, that there are more than half a dozen secure dates at 1000 BP or earlier in Mangareva and the Pitcairn Group, the region from where Easter Island was colonized, and that by 1200 BP the Marquesas and central archipelagoes were all well-populated and linked by frequent interaction. A long chronology dates occupation of Hawai’i to at least 1200 BP, if not 1500–1800 BP, and proposes that Easter Island was also settled from 1200 to 1300 BP, but accepts the short chronology for South Polynesia. Whichever chronology is eventually accepted, it is clear that the furthest-flung islands of Polynesia were effectively isolated not long after colonization.

Figure 6 Opunohu Bay, Mo’orea, Society Islands. The stunning landscape is typical of Polynesian high islands and is the remains of an eroded volcanic caldera. Photograph by Dr. Jennifer Kahn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Archaeology, School of Social Science, University of Queensland.

Pacific 1639

Hawai’i, Easter Island, and New Zealand may have seen occasional visits, but they were all completely cut off at the time of European contact. Interaction waned in the central islands, too, but only after more than five centuries of interaction following colonization. This process saw the societies of the remote Pacific differentiate to a degree while remaining recognizably closely related. The usual sequence saw the appearance of complex centralized chiefdoms structurally like those in West Polynesia, archaeologically associated with agricultural intensification and monumental architecture including the famous moai heads on Easter Island (Figure 7). The Hawaiian chiefdom was the most complex in the Pacific, approaching the status of an archaic state. At the same time, while the West Polynesian and indeed the Lapita roots of East Polynesian cultures remained apparent during the early post-colonization period, the region also witnessed the rapid materialization of a variety of distinctive traits. The best known are an astonishing diversity of fishing gear, as well as new types of basalt adze. The latter descend from other

distinctive types created in West Polynesia as colonists there adapted to crossing the ‘Andesite Line’ separating the complex continental geology of the southwest Pacific from the simplified basaltic geology of the more remote Pacific. New Zealand stands isolated from East Polynesia, not just because it is geographically remote but also because its combined land area is very large and it has a temperate rather than tropical or subtropical climate. This meant that East Polynesian colonists could grow only a restricted range of their familiar domestic plants, and then only in the North Island and the north of the South Island. Nor did domestic pigs or chickens make it: dogs alone survived the transfer. In the colder and more mountainous South Island, people gave up agriculture altogether to become full-time foragers. This process was aided by the presence throughout New Zealand of various species of flightless birds called moa, some of which were three times the size of a modern ostrich. All were exterminated by hunting or habitat modification, continuing a pattern of human environmental impact that played out throughout Remote Oceania and in places such as Easter Island reached extremes which dramatically undermined people’s capacity to survive. Two other aspects of Polynesian migration need to be mentioned briefly. The first is the presence of the ‘Polynesian outliers’. These are Polynesian communities in Melanesia and Micronesia resulting from westerly back-migration in the recent prehistoric and early historic periods. They remind us that while the strength of population movement certainly waxed and waned through Pacific prehistory, it never ceased entirely. The second phenomenon worthy of a passing note is what are known as the Mystery Islands. These are places such as Norfolk Island, off Australia, which exhibit signs of prehistoric use by Polynesians but which were unpopulated when first found by Europeans. They indicate that while the settlement of the remote Pacific was a prodigious feat, some colonies ultimately failed. In some cases, this was because the Mystery Islands were simply too remote and resource-poor to sustain viable human societies without contact with parent communities. Micronesia

Figure 7 The meae Iipona, at Puamau, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, Polynesia. Meae, ritual structures often associated with life-size wooden or stone tiki (anthropomorphic sculptures), were elaborated in the Marquesas to an impressive monumental size. This site has the largest tiki in the Marquesas, standing 2.43 m tall. Photograph by Dr. Jennifer Kahn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Archaeology, School of Social Science, Unviersity of Queensland.

Historical linguistics indicate that Central and Eastern Micronesia were settled from Vanuatu or the southeast Solomons, but archaeological research has revealed few connections dating to late or early post-Lapita times. None of the high islands of the Carolines – from west to east, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae – has an archaeologically complete cultural sequence. Colonization occurred about

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2000 BP (Figure 8). After a series of changes including the loss of ceramics by about 500 BP, Pohnpei and Kosrae went on to develop complex chiefdoms with astonishing monumental architecture (Figure 9). The Micronesian atolls were first occupied at the same time as the high islands. Atoll societies did not develop complex political systems. At scarcely 3 m above sea level, they are fascinating nonetheless owing to the adaptations needed to cope with life on such small, remote, and precarious landforms. Shell technology was highly developed in the absence of stone, and the Caroline Islanders had the most sophisticated seafaring technologies in the Pacific. Interestingly, shell technology also dominated on the rocky high islands, suggesting they were first settled by atoll-dwellers.

Western Micronesia was settled straight from Southeast Asia, and/or Taiwan in the case of the Mariana Islands. There are earlier indications for environmental disturbance but reliable direct evidence for human activity in the Marianas and Palau dates to a maximum of 3500 and 3300 BP respectively, and in Yap to about 2000 BP. This has given rise to the same sort of debate about short and long chronologies seen elsewhere in the Pacific. The short chronology indicates initial occupation of Western Micronesia around the same time as the beginning of Lapita in the Bismarcks, but the two dispersals were probably not related. The earliest Western Micronesian ceramics, Marianas Red ware and Lime Infilled ware, are only generically similar to Lapita, suggesting a common origin in Southeast Asia.

Figure 8 Chuuk Lagoon, Chuuk (Truk), Micronesia. Photograph by Dr. Paul Rainbird, Head, Department Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales.

Figure 9 Monumental architecture on the artificial islet of Nan Douwas, Nan Madol, Pohnpei, Micronesia. Photograph by Dr. Paul Rainbird, Head, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales.

Pacific 1641

Theory Conventional explanations of Pacific prehistory are global exemplars of migrationist culture history, and suffered little from the ‘retreat from migrationism’ that accompanied the rise of processual theory in the late twentieth century. In part this is because of the inescapable fact that an island world such as the Pacific could only have been settled by migration. In the case of Remote Oceania, uninhabited prior to the appearance of Lapita, it also seems obvious that this migration involved culturally, biologically, and linguistically closely-related people. Most criticism has focused on attempts to push the situation in East and South Polynesia, where this was undoubtedly the case, backward to cover the Lapita phenomenon in Melanesia and West Polynesia. While there is little doubt the latter reflects some sort of migration of the descendants of Southeast Asian and Melanesian people, there has been considerable debate concerning the dynamics and long-term consequences of their dispersal through the New Guinea region in particular. The consensus is that many characteristics of modern coastal and island cultures in Melanesia stem from contact between existing communities and Southeast Asian people who, in addition to introducing pottery and Austronesian languages, brought with them a package of cultural innovations incorporating ‘full-blown’ agriculture, efficient ocean-going watercraft which enabled longdistance interaction, and perhaps a weakly hierarchical sociopolitical order, as they migrated rapidly through the region. For many researchers, such features put the Lapita phenomenon on par with the world’s other major agricultural dispersals. There are empirical and theoretical alternatives, however. Empirically, there is considerable evidence that the ethnographically known cultures of Near Oceania are the products of very long-term trajectories of change. It might well be that Southeast Asian people introduced pottery technology, Austronesian languages, and possibly certain sociopolitical institutions to Melanesia. It is also true, though, that the existence of very early islands sites shows open-ocean travel has a Pleistocene history in the region, that data from New Guinea and the Bismarcks suggest agriculture may have been established by the Early Holocene and that the presence of New Britain obsidian in Pleistocene sites far distant from its sources shows long-distance interaction networks were developed well before the Austronesian expansion into Melanesia. At a theoretical level, the argument has long been that culture history is a conceptually impoverished approach that ought to be replaced by a less tidy but

intellectually more rigorous and empirically more accurate processual model that separates language, biology, and culture rather than attempting to join them in a seamless historical narrative. There is a moral dimension as well, based on the assertion that the conventional culture history descends from and perpetuates racist myths separating the brutish inhabitants of Melanesia (i.e., the ‘black islands’) from the fairer-skinned and culturally more elevated Polynesians. Similar attempts have been made to deconstruct conventional models of West Polynesian prehistory, and especially the so-called phylogenetic model of ancestral Polynesian society. The contention is that such models are undermined by a growing number of empirical inconsistencies, but that these are ignored owing to the strength of expectations generated by historical linguistics and biology (especially genetics). A hypothetical alternative sequence for West Polynesia argues for a high degree of continuity between the Lapita and post-Lapita periods and suggests that the characteristics of Polynesian societies recorded by European observers may have arisen only within the last millennium. While acknowledging the empirical and theoretical issues at stake, some scholars have sought to enliven debate by approaching Lapita and other aspects of Pacific migration from fresh perspectives. One attempt to meld aspects of the indigenist and migrationist stances on Lapita origins and explain how Southeast Asian and Melanesian cultural elements could be integrated with entirely novel developments in a coherent whole proposes that the Lapita complex began as a diaspora in the sociological sense, produced by processes of hybridization and creolization in the Bismarcks. These processes gave rise to a culturally distinctive social formation which allowed dispersed and highly mobile peoples to remain socially cohesive owing to a unifying ideology materialized in their elaborately decorated ceramics. Another model focusing on the colonization of Remote Oceania distinguishes colonization from migration, in which the destination as well as the source of the population movement are inhabited. Each produces a distinctive pattern of cultural evolution: colonization, or dispersal, follows a pattern consistent with the phylogenetic approach to the settlement of East Polynesia, while migration is a reticulate process more like that described by the diaspora hypothesis.

Voyaging The conceptual distinction of colonization from migration is tied to the reassessment of past work on pre-European voyaging in Oceania. Consideration of

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Figure 10 Modern inter-island sailing canoe, Bismarck Archipelago. Traditional canoes varied widely in size and design through the Pacific, and in places such as Micronesia were very sophisticated craft, but those used in the initial colonization of the region may not have differed much from the one shown here. Photograph by author.

the matter has swung between positions that see the settlement of the Pacific as a series of accidental landfalls and those holding that the process was purposeful. The latter has been the prevailing view for some time, with many scholars believing that the archaeological pattern of population dispersal through time and space results from a conscious three-phase strategy of exploration of Remote Oceania. This strategy began with the Lapita diaspora and followed the development from Pleistocene times of seafaring technologies in the sheltered ‘voyaging corridor’ of Near Oceania, where seas are relatively benign and islands quite close together. The first phase, which took people beyond the Solomons for the first time, entailed exploring against the wind so that return voyages with the wind to the point of origin were relatively straightforward. The second phase involved exploring across the wind, where a higher degree of difficulty in returning home was balanced by the knowledge gained about island distribution in the first phase. The final phase, which saw the colonization of South Polynesia late in prehistory, was with the wind, making return voyages harder still, but again balanced by knowledge gained in the first two phases. The difficulty with assessing this elegant model, which is based largely on modern experience, is that there is virtually no archaeological evidence for the seafaring technologies in question. The ‘against, across and down the wind’ hypothesis assumes that the large sea-going craft and superior navigational skills evident in parts of the Pacific in the recent past were present in the remote past as well. This assumption underpins the approach taken in well-known

voyages between major island groups made in modern versions of Oceanic watercraft. It has been contended that the three-phase scenario confuses pattern with purpose, in so far as the pattern broadly reflects a succession of stepwise movements to the next closest islands. This replicates the case with nonhuman biological dispersals through the region. Such movements require neither special high-level navigational skills nor large and sophisticated canoes. Moreover, continual and sometimes quite radical refinements to archaeological settlement chronologies mean that the timing of movements no longer supports the three-phase settlement model in the way it once did. Overall, the evidence suggests that only steerable outrigger sailing canoes were required for the Lapita dispersal to West Polynesia, and relatively simple double-hulled canoes for the settlement of East and South Polynesia (Figure 10). It also seems likely that vessels of both sorts were primarily sailed downwind. To sail what would normally be upwind, people took advantage of seasonal wind-reversals, as they did in ethnographic times, or, in the case of long-distance dispersals against the wind over more extended periods, longer-term trends such as those caused by El Nin˜o cycles. See also: Asia, South: Paleolithic Cultures; Ethical Issues

and Responsibilities; Extinctions of Big Game; Migrations: Australia; Native Peoples and Archaeology; Oceania: Australia; Historical Archaeology in Australia; Micronesia; New Guinea and Melanesia; New Zealand; Political Complexity, Rise of; Politics of Archaeology; Ships and Seafaring; Who Owns the Past?.

MODERN HUMANS, EMERGENCE OF 1643

Further Reading Kirch P (2000) On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lilley I (ed.) (2006) Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands. Oxford: Blackwell.

Siberia

See: Siberia, Peopling of.

Models

See: Interpretive Models, Development of.

Sand C (ed.) (2003) Pacific Archaeology: Assessments and Prospects. Noume´a: De´partement Arche´ologie, Service des Muse´es et du Patrimoine de Nouvelle-Cale´donie. Weisler M (ed.) (1997) Prehistoric Long-Distance Interaction in Oceania: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Auckland: New Zealand Archaeological Association.

MODERN HUMANS, EMERGENCE OF Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Archaic, near Modern humans Humans that fall within the category of early Homo sapiens. They were contemporary with the late Neanderthals in Europe as well as contemporary with late Homo erectus in eastern Asia. blade A piece of flint (or other hard rock) detached by direct or indirect (with the help of a punch) knapping from a nodule (called ‘core’) and its longer axis is more than twice its width. Levallois A distinctive knapping tone technique which enabled artisans to obtain flakes, blades and triangular points by shaping carefully the nodule (a core), in a flattish form. Named after a suburb of Paris where it was first recognized in the river gravels of the Seine. modern humans Anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, who evolved in Africa before 200 000–100 000 years ago. Mousterian A cultural term used to designate Middle Paleolithic age lithic industries across western Eurasia. The different combination of tool-types were made by both Neanderthals and near Modern humans. mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is DNA that is located in mitochondria.

Introduction Two different models explanation the origin and dispersal patterns of modern humans. The first model, ‘out of Africa’, is based on the interpretations of several

sources including the genetic evidence (mainly the mtDNA), the available fossils, and the wealth of archaeological evidence. The second, a competing model, known as the ‘multiregional continuity’, suggests an alternative interpretation of the same fossils, and gains support from the dichotomy between the lithic industries of East Asia and the rest of the Old World. In the former region, stone artifacts exemplify continuity through most of the Palaeolithic sequence, while the latter, the largest landmass, was characterized by relatively numerous turnovers in lithic technology and tool types. Such changes in composition of stone industries can be seen as supporting population turnovers. Genetic studies propose rough chronological steps and geographic routes for the dispersals of humans into Eurasia. Based on these investigations, archaeologists test for corresponding evidence based on the stone artifacts and their manufacturing procedures. There is little doubt today that archaic (or near-) modern humans, originated in East Africa some 200 000 years ago (all dates are uncalibrated BP), and are represented by fossils from Omo-Kibish and Herto sites in Ethiopia (200 000–160 000 years ago), and later by the Skhul-Qafzeh group in Israel (120 000– 90 000 years ago). The paucity of fossils from most other parts of Asia, except for a few Chinese skulls, accounts for the many unknowns concerning this continent. This period is called in the archaeological terminology the Middle Palaeolithic in most of the Old World, except for sub-Saharan Africa where the

1644 MODERN HUMANS, EMERGENCE OF

common term is Middle Stone Age (MSA; a translation from the Greek-based term ‘Palaeolithic’). Additional ‘out of Africa’ by the bearers of Upper Palaeolithic blade tools, and the first users of body ornaments, occurred some 55 000–45 000 years ago. Groups of these people colonized most of Europe and North Africa, and expanded through Western Asia into northern Asia. A southern route through the margins of the Arabian Peninsula into India is poorly known. By the time they reached SE Asia and Australia (c. 40 000 years ago), the production of flake industries was the common knapping method for shaping their tool kits. Hence, for brevity, this article discusses first the early wave of African migrants and then the second, known as the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, or the dispersals of modern humans (Figure 1).

of two basic knapping techniques was recorded in both regions including the Nile Valley that served, more than once during prehistoric times, as a corridor for human movements in both directions. One knapping technique is known for the production of blades, by either unidirectional or bidirectional detachments from a core that often had a cylindrical shape or at least a rounded striking platform. The second way of detaching desired blanks from a core, often with a lenticular cross section, is the famous Levallois technique. This technique incorporates several different methods for the detachments of flakes, blades, and triangular points. Interestingly, the early Middle Palaeolithic humans, beginning c. 250 000 years ago, produced bladeshaped artifacts in East Africa (defined as blanks of which the length is more than twice the width). This phenomenon is better known from the Levant, the Caucasus, and east of the Caspian Sea, where the production of blades and pointed elongated blanks was carried out during the early Middle Palaeolithic (250 000–130 000/90 000 years ago).

The Dispersals of Archaic, Near-Modern Humans The archaeological sequences from East Africa and Western Asia are not the same. However, the presence 40

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In East Africa, the supposed homeland of the archaic modern humans, the Levallois technique seems to prevail. Blanks were shaped as side-scrapers and points and in addition bifacial (foliate) points were a component of the tool kit. The Nile Valley produced a similar sequence with foliates present as a distinct tool type until about 100 000/90 000 years ago, while later the industries fall into the Mousterian dominated by the use of the Levallois technique. Foliates and tanged points characterized the Aterian that was known from eastern Sahara through the Maghreb, where they lasted longer, to about 30 000/28 000 years ago.

Archaic Humans and Neanderthals in Western Asia The study of the Levantine Mousterian benefited from the earlier discovery of the long stratigraphy of Tabun Cave (Mount Carmel). Dorothy Garrod, the original excavator, identified three major layers that more recently were adopted as terms for classifying the industries, from late to early, as ‘Tabun B-type’, ‘C-type’, and ‘D-type’. Assemblages, generally similar to those of Tabun Cave, were discovered in other sites in the Levant. In addition, the radiometric chronology (basically through thermoluminescence dating (TL), electron spin resonance (ESR), and 14C; (see Carbon14 Dating; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Luminescence Dating) facilitated the ordering of the three different industries, briefly described here. The earliest, Tabun D-type, is characterized by the production of elongated blanks defined as blades and when retouched, known as Abu Zif points. The blanks were removed from cores with basal preparation that occasionally produced the impression that the reduction sequence was bidirectional. This type of industry was found all over the Levant, in the Caucasus, and beyond the Caspian Sea. Their Levantine and Caucasus dates are from 250 000 to 130 000 years ago, and probably 90 000 years ago further east. It is quite possible that their presence and dates mark the dispersal pattern of the archaic modern humans, the population that made them. Unfortunately, no fossils were found in the excavated sites. The more recent Mousterian is the Tabun C-type, best described from Qafzeh Cave (near Nazareth, Israel). The common products of this method are suboval and subquadrangular flakes, sometimes of large dimensions, struck from Levallois cores through centripetal and/or bidirectional exploitation. Triangular points appear in small numbers. The industry dates to 140 000/130 000–90 000/85 000 years ago

and contained human burials in Skhul and Qafzeh caves, as well as the use of seashells for body decorations, and plenty of red ocher. The latest Mousterian is Tabun B-type, dominated by the production of mainly flakes and triangular Levallois points, frequently with a broad-base striking platform removed from unidirectional convergent cores. In several sites such as Tabun, Kebara, Amud, Dederiyeh, and Shanidar Caves, Neanderthal burials were exposed. It seems that the arrival of this new population in the Levant, and the Zagros Mountains, was triggered by the cold conditions across Europe during OIS 4. Additional evidence for the presence of Neanderthals was discovered in Sakajia cave, and is evidenced by their stone industries in many localities in the Caucasus mountains and foothills. Hence, the Levant was occupied by a northern population, the Neanderthals. However, after about a span of 40 000/30 000 years, there is a wealth of evidence for a major change. New groups of people took over the region at about 50 000/45 000 years. This was the wave often referred to as the recent dispersal of modern humans, the bearers and initiators of the Upper Palaeolithic, a change that is also seen as a technological and cultural revolution.

The Cultural Attributes of Fully Modern Humans – The Bearers of the Upper Palaeolithic The Upper Palaeolithic cultural package does not appear at once and is demonstrated by numerous discoveries in African and Eurasian sites, through the variability of shaped stone artifacts, use of new raw materials, and artistic expressions. In a comprehensive short review, the novelties of this period, some originating in older cultures, were as follows: 1. Systematic production of prismatic blades, with only rare cases where flake production continued to be the dominant mode. The exceptions are sites in East Asia (mostly the Chinese plains), SE Asia, and Australia, where the common Upper and Late Pleistocene industries are flake dominated (such as the Hoabinian culture). 2. The exploitation of animal teeth, bones, antlers, and ivory as raw materials, although they were available to Middle Palaeolithic humans, for the production of domestic or ritual tools and ornamentations, as well as for art objects. The presence of bone tools, although not in every East Asian site, facilitates today the recognition of their attribution to the Upper Palaeolithic (see Bone Tool Analysis). The only geographic and chronological exceptions are the rich

1646 MODERN HUMANS, EMERGENCE OF

assemblages of Howieson’s Poort in South Africa, and in particular the Bloombos Cave, generally dated to 80 000–60 000 years ago. 3. Systematic usage of body decorations including beads and pendants made from marine shells, teeth, ivory, and ostrich egg shells is recorded from both Europe, Western and Central Asia, and Africa, and is seen as communicating the social identity of individuals and their group. Again, the exception are the contexts of Howieson’s Poort, and the lack of cultural continuity within the following MSA assemblages can be interpreted as the lost body of knowledge by the inhabitants of this region. 4. Long-distance exchange networks for providing lithic raw materials and marine shells are recorded from distances of up to several hundred kilometers, and are consistently different from the shorter procurement ranges during the Middle Palaeolithic. 5. Although Middle Palaeolithic spears hafted with Levallois or other Mousterian points were recorded in a few instances, the Upper Palaeolithic period witnessed the invention of improved hunting tools such as spear throwers, and later bows and arrows and boomerangs. These devices facilitated targeting animals from longer distances and could have brought higher rates of hunting success. 6. Human and animal figurines, decorated and carved bone, antler, ivory, and stone objects are reported from many Upper Palaeolithic contexts. Representational, abstract, and realistic images, either painted or engraved, began to appear in caves, rockshelters, and exposed rocky surfaces by 36 000 years ago. The Franco-Cantabrian region differs from the rest of the Upper Palaeolithic world possibly due to two factors: first, the pressures faced by local hunter-gatherers interacting with newcomers moving to an area richer in food resources during harsher times (c. 40 000–12 000 years ago). Second, a cultural continuity from the Chaˆtelperronian– Aurignacian to later cultural entities. 7. Storage facilities often characterize sites in regions of the northern latitudes, where seasonal depletion of resources led modern humans to this invention. 8. Grinding tools appear during the Upper Palaeolithic in the subtropical belt and the Mediterraneantype vegetation, where plant food was always a major component of human diet. Unfortunately, knowledge concerning the exploitation of plant food during the Palaeolithic is limited due to poor preservation in most sites. 9. Hearths in Upper Palaeolithic sites, with or without the use of rocks for warmth banking and parching activities, are often recorded although

variable types of hearths are known from the Middle Palaeolithic and MSA contexts. 10. Distinct functional spatial organization within habitations and hunting stations such as kitchen areas, butchering space, sleeping grounds, discard zones, and the like are relatively common in Upper Palaeolithic sites (see Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites). These features reflect the social structure or a particular combination of members of the band such as males’ task group. Although a few Middle Palaeolithic and MSA sites disclosed somewhat similar arrays, the clearest spatial organization characterizes modern humans. 11. Finally, intentional burials, a few with some grave goods, were exposed in Middle Palaeolithic sites. Upper Palaeolithic sites rarely disclose burials, and those often incorporate offerings or body decorations such as the famous ones from Sungir (Russia). It seems that the paucity of burials is due to a change in mortuary practices, when the dead were buried outside the main living area, or left to rot in particular places. Hence, they are not found within the traditional confines of the archaeological excavations that often target the occupational horizons.

The Dispersals of Modern Humans and Their Upper Palaeolithic Cultures There is no doubt that outside Africa the Initial Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant began some 47 000/45 000 radiocarbon years ago, and therefore, given the cultural roots, emerged earlier in northeast Africa. In the Nile Valley, a series of Upper Palaeolithic sites rich in blades seem to form a continuity from a late bladey Mousterian industry. The near-modern human skeleton discovered at Taramsa 1 was buried in a sandy deposit, and its context, a Middle Palaeolithic industry, dated it to 80 000–50 000 years. While the human remains are pre-Upper Palaeolithic, the lithics of a later exploitation of the site, dated to 38 000– 37 000 years, demonstrate transitional morphologies of the artifacts closely resembling the Levantine Initial Upper Palaeolithic exemplified by sites such as Boker Tachtit and the early layers at Ksar Akil rockshelter (c. 47 000–42 000 years). In addition, the first body decorations as perforated seashells are known from this period. The industry of this initial phase of the Upper Palaeolithic leads to the development of blade detachment, and among the tools, besides end scrapers and burins one finds the Emireh points (similar to the African Bambata point), and the chamfered blades and flakes that also appear in the Dabban, the Early Upper Palaeolithic in Cirenaica (Libya).

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The following phase in lithic production evolved into the Early Ahmarian, a blade-dominated industry with rare bone tools. The bearers of these cultures, as recognized recently by European archaeologists, migrated into Europe at c. 43 000/42 000–38 000 years ago. The migration from the Levant into Europe took two paths. One was through the Balkans, where the Bachokirian culture was identified in Bacho Kiro and Temnata Caves, into the Czech Republic (Moravia), where the incoming people produced the Bohunician, a stone industry made by the same procedures as the earlier Boker Tachtit in the Negev (Israel). Along the Danube River Valley, they reached southern Germany and the Atlantic coast. The southern path took them through Greece into Italy (as the Adriatic Sea was a landmass at that time), and into the Alps foothills, across to southern France where the Chatelperronian is possibly the earliest cultural expression some 40 000/38 000 years ago. The move into the Iberian peninsula caused the retreat of Neanderthals into the Pyrenees and in the south to isolated areas such as Gibraltar and Portugal. While entering Europe, groups of foragers moved from the Balkans, around the Black Sea, which was a large freshwater lake, into the Russian plain. Neanderthals found refuge moving into northern latitudes and southward into Crimea. Another route from the Levant, or through the southern path along the Zagros ranges, led eastward, beyond the Caspian Sea, across Central Asia where Lake Aral was a large water body, into northern Asia. The Early Upper Palaeolithic blade assemblages from Kara Bom, the Denisova cave, which provided also a rich collection of ivory beads and pendants, the Ust-Karakol site, and others in the Altai region, support this observation. The earliest dates for the Upper Palaeolithic seems to cluster around 38 000 years ago. The geographic trend marked by later dates for Upper Palaeolithic contexts continues from Siberia into Mongolia, northern China (Inner Mongolia), and later into Korea and Japan. The dispersal of modern humans forced earlier populations such as the Neanderthals to seek refugia in mountainous areas, such as the Caucasus where the replacement of one population by newcomers occurred around 35 000–34 000 years. The earliest Upper Palaeolithic in this region is characterized by small prismatic cores, the production of bladelets shaped into microliths of various forms, as well as bone and antler objects. The vast region of East and Southeast Asia did not witness the same shift in knapping techniques. In the Chinese plains and hilly region, from the Western Hills where Upper Cave Zhoukoudian is located, to the eastern margins of the Himalayas, the small flake

industry marks the Upper Palaeolithic, together with the rare presence of bone tools. The same core and flake assemblages are known from the Hoabinian culture as well as from the earliest contexts in Borneo and Australia dated to c. 40 000 years ago. It seems that the important cultural boundary was along the mountain ranges of Southeast Asia oriented in a north-to-south direction. Hence, the movements of modern humans were in two directions from Southeast Asia. One path led north into China. The other route led foragers to initiate the first colonization of the Australian continent. North African environments, along the Nile Valley and in the Maghreb, seem to exhibit a similar sequence of technological changes as in the Levant. Rapid changes in tool types occur in every region, thus creating a room for recognizing local entities. For example, in Western Europe, the rich Aurignacian culture emerged after the first wave of colonization. It is known for its art objects, cave art, use of ivory and bones for making tools and body decorations, and a particular stone artifact. All its roots can be found in Western European entities such as the ‘Proto-Aurignaician’ or ‘Fumanian’, which is closer in composition to the Levantine Ahmarian. In Africa itself, both the archaeology and the genetics indicate a southern movement from East Africa into South Africa, a process that was repeated several times later. It is suffice to indicate the move of the ‘agricultural package’ from the Ethiopian plateau, or the Bantu herders into southern Africa. Hence, archaeological observations tend, in general, to correspond to the propositions made by the geneticists, but the recording of the detailed global puzzle of human dispersals, the exact routes, and the dating of the various stages require further investigations. See also: Asia, Central, Steppes; Asia, East: China,

Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, South: India, Paleolithic Cultures of the South; Paleolithic Cultures; Asia, West: Paleolithic Cultures; Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Bone Tool Analysis; Carbon-14 Dating; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Europe, Eastern, Peopling of; Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear; Manufacture; Luminescence Dating; Migrations: Australia; Paleoanthropology; Spatial Analysis Within Households and Sites.

Further Reading Bar-Yosef O (2002) The Upper Paleolithic revolution. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 363–393. Brooks AS, Yellen JE, Nevell L, and Hartman G (2006) Projecile technologies of the African MSA: Implications for modern human

1648 MOLECULAR ARCHAEOLOGY origins. In: Hovers E and Kuhn SL (eds.) Transitions before the Transition: Evolution and Stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age, pp. 233–256. New York: Springer. Clark JD (1993) African and Asian perpectives on the origins of modern humans. In: Aitken MJ, Mellars P, and Stringer C (eds.) Origin of Modern Humans and the Impact of Chronometric Dating, pp. 148–178. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Conard NJ (ed.) (2006) When Neanderthals and Moderns Met. Tu¨ bingen: Kerns Verlag. Deacon HJ and Deacon J (1999) Human Beginnings in South Africa: Uncovering the Secrets of the Stone Age. Cape Town, South Africa, and Walnut Creek, CA: D. Phillips and Altamira Press. Derevianko AP and Shunkov MV (2004) Formation of the Upper Paleolithic traditions in the Altai. Archaeology Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 3(19): 12–40. Forster P (2004) Ice ages and the mitochondrial DNA chronology of human dispersals: A review. Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society London B 359: 255–264. Gamble C (1999) The Paleolithic Societies of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gorring-Morris N and Belfer-Cohen A (eds.) (2003) More than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic Diversity in the Near East. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Modern Material Culture Studies

McBrearty S and Brooks AS (2000) The revolution that wasn’t: A new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39(5): 453–563. Mellars P (2004) Neanderthals and modern human colonization of Europe. Nature 432: 461–465. Mellars P (2005) The impossible coincidence. A single-species model for the origins of modern human behavior in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology 14: 12–27. Underhill PA (2003) Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology LXVIII: Inferring Human History: Clues from Y Chromosome Haplotypes. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. VanPeer P (1998) The Nile Corridor and the Out-of-Africa model: An examination of the archaeological record. Current Anthropology 39 (Supplement): S115–S140. Wolpoff MH, Hawks J, Frayer DW, and Hunley K (2001) Modern human ancestry at the peripheries: A test of the replacement theory. Science 291: 293–297. Zilha˜o J (2006) Nenaderthals and moderns mixed, and it matters. Evolutionary Anthropology 15: 185–195.

See: Ethnoarchaeology.

MOLECULAR ARCHAEOLOGY David M Reed, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary activity area Site with ancient chemical evidence in soil and artifacts including micro-debitage from domestic and ritual activity. isotopes Elements having nuclei with the same number of protons (the same atomic number) but different numbers of neutrons, widely used to date materials based on a knowledge of the decay rates of naturally occurring isotopes, and the current abundances. phylogenetics The study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species and populations); it constitutes a means of classifying groups of organisms according to degree of evolutionary relatedness. residue analysis Identification and quantification of organic residus in archaeological artifacts.

Introduction Molecular archaeology is the application of techniques developed for physics, chemistry, and biology for the study of ancient artifacts and biological remains at an atomic or molecular level. It encompasses archaeological chemistry, biomolecular archaeology, ancient DNA, and chemical palaeodiet analysis. Any research that addresses archaeological issues at a chemical level, by examining human or nonhuman tissues, organic residues from archaeological sites and objects, extraction of genetic material from plants and animals, determination of diet from stable isotope or trace elemental composition, and sourcing of objects by chemical signatures, may be considered a form of molecular archaeology. The insights provided from molecular archaeology allow scientists to examine evidence at finer scales than obtained previously. Ultimately, it is the application

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of the systematic analysis of molecules to reconstruct the past in the pursuit to answer fundamental anthropological questions, including who were are ancestors, where did they come from, how were they organized, what did they eat, when and from which progenitors were cultivars and animals domesticated, who did ancient people interact with as they migrated and settled the world, and what diseases afflicted them? Addressing these questions is achieved through the scientific application of destructive and nondestructive methods to characterize historical and archaeological organic and inorganic materials. Molecular archaeology intersects and utilizes numerous disciplines such as population genetics, geochemistry, statistics, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and palaeontology. Its practice requires both an understanding of archaeology, particularly the group under investigation and archaeological site burial conditions, and expertise in a physical or biological science. Methods include noninvasive techniques that leave objects in essentially the same state before and after analysis, destructive techniques that require the consumption of milligram or smaller quantity of an object, and nondestructive techniques that may require a small sample of an object to be removed, but the object or its sample can be reanalyzed at a later date or with alternative technologies. The discipline of molecular archaeology may be subdivided into the fairly distinct subdisciplines of archaeochemistry, biogeochemistry, and archaeogenetics. Although there is some overlap in their service to solving archaeological issues, each has developed independently. Within these areas, archaeologists directly examine original biochemicals preserved in the organic and inorganic phases of bones and teeth, or chemicals attached to or contained in tools, pottery, and other artifacts. From the results of their study, as illustrated with case examples below, inferences may be drawn about human ancestry, genetic development, cuisine, agricultural technologies, and production techniques.

Archaeochemistry Central areas of contribution for archaeochemistry include provenance studies, residue analysis, activity area analysis, and reconstruction of production technologies (e.g., glass working, metallurgy, or ceramics). A growing number of techniques for physicochemical analyses are applied to artifact analysis. For example, in X-ray fluorescence, an item is bombarded with X-rays causing the emission of secondary X-rays whose wavelengths can be measured and are characteristic of the elements present in the item. Chemical

compounds and trace elements can be identified by their characteristic emissions when electrically excited, as with optical emission spectroscopy, or from the gamma rays produced as radionuclides decay, as occurs in neutron activation analysis. Chromatographic approaches separate a sample into its constituent components and then measure or identify the components. Spectroscopic techniques identify substances from the electromagnetic spectra arising from either emission or absorption of radiant energy. Each technology has benefits, appropriateness, and principles that hold keys to assist us in unravel the past. Provenance Analysis

The cultural components of power, wealth, labor, regional interactions, and social organization can be inferred from a detailed understanding of the resources and activities involved in an artifact’s construction and deposition. Provenance determination involves the characterization of an object’s composition (mineral or chemical profile) and the natural sources of raw materials used in its manufacture to reconstruct source material procurement activities including production technologies and trade networks. Material evidence for early trade between Egypt and Canaan is limited even though written evidence is abundant in biblical and Egyptian documents. Natural asphalt or bitumen (a crude oil by-product occurring in seeps) was used to waterproof reed baskets, as an adhesive, in mortar and cement for building, to pave roads, for mummification, and for other uses. The demand for bitumen led to it becoming an important trade item between Egypt and the Dead Sea. Organic geochemical analysis was used to determine that natural asphalts were imported from the Dead Sea to Egypt between 3900 and 2200 BC and may have continued until much later. Residue Analysis

To characterize a sample of residue, a small amount of a material, milligram or smaller, is subjected to chemical composition determination by mass spectrometry, chromatography, or other suitable sensitive technology. The results produce a chemical profile that can be matched with known references. For example, scientists developed a technique to determine the color of wine from residues in ancient containers. Using mass spectroscopy, they found evidence for tartaric and syringic acids in jars from Tutankhamun’s tomb indicating that they had contained a wine from red grapes. In another culinary study, chemical residue analysis of pottery indicated that the Maya

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were consuming Theobroma cacao, or chocolate, as early as 500 BC, more than 1000 years earlier than previously known. Activity Areas

Human activities can leave chemical evidence in soils and sediments. Remnants in the solum include microdebitage from kitchen, ritual, or craft activities, botanics, pigments, and incense can all leave chemical signatures discernible from the natural soil makeup. In tandem with and in the absence of macro-remains, chemical analysis of soils and floors can provide evidence for improving our understanding of household organization, the dynamics of domestic, ritual, and craft activities, and the locations of such past activities. Production Technologies

Glass composition varies by differences in the raw materials and recipes used in manufacturing. Primary glass production encompasses the mixing and manipulation of raw materials to manufacture glass, while secondary work included converting imported glass into final objects. Associating the evidence for glass production in Bronze Age Egypt between its primary and secondary components has implications for understanding Mediterranean trade activity from 1500 to 1000 BC. Control over production and consumption was maintained by the high statuses, and a rise in trade and consumption in the Near East, Middle East, and the Mediterranean was commensurate with the rise of elite groups. Written accounts record pharaonic requests for glass importation, but not for glass production within Egypt. The silica, lime, and soda used for the manufacture of Egyptian glass varies according to procurement location, opening the opportunity for analysis with chemical fingerprinting. Reconstruction of the production technology of the late Bronze Age glass industry from the analysis of glass artifacts and debris indicates that several steps were involved. After plant ash, crushed quartz, and other raw materials were procured, they would be converted to a raw glass at relatively low temperature (900–950
C). Incompatible salts were removed by washing raw, crushed glass with water, then the pulverized raw glass would be mixed with a colorant (metal oxides), to emulate turquoise or lapis lazuli, and turned into ingots at higher temperatures (1000–1100
C). Colored glass ingots were transported to distant workshops for the final steps of creating polychrome glass vessels. Different concentrations of potassium in blue-colored glasses are attributable to different plant ashes used during production, further indicating that glassmaking centers specialized in particular coloration.

Biogeochemistry Diet, evolutionary history, life history, growth, health, development, behavior, climate, and habitat are inferable from the results of the studies of morphology, pathology, and chemical composition of the bones and teeth of humans and other animals. Food procurement strategies reflect the technologies employed by ancient humans, and in turn provide clues about sociopolitical and economic development of ancient peoples. These approaches are founded on biogeochemical principles. Two chemical approaches are commonly examined by archaeologists for the reconstruction of ancient diets and agricultural systems – trace elements and stable isotopes. Teeth and osseous remains provide the source material for analysis. Both approaches are predicated on empirical observations of natural variations and chemical processes involved in the uptake and metabolism of plants and animals. Trace Elements

The application of trace elemental measurements of bone composition has been undergoing re-evaluation. Much early work has been discredited because of advancement in our understanding of diagenesis (i.e., the alteration of chemical composition during burial) and the complexity of the relationship between diet, metabolism, and the resulting trace elemental composition of tissues. Measured amounts of trace elements must correspond in a predictable manner to those present at the time of death of an animal. Calcium (Ca) is the most common element in bone. Strontium (Sr) and barium (Ba) are chemically similar to (i.e., belong to the alkaline earth metals group) and substitute for calcium during metabolism. Intense study of strontium metabolism in humans and its distribution in food webs arose from concern about the global spread of radioactive 90Sr from thermonuclear tests. In principle, the analysis of Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca reflects trophic position in food webs. This occurs because calcium more efficiently passes through the gut wall than its heavier elemental partners and leads to ratios in tissues lower than the food consumed. Furthermore, feeding experiments on laboratory animals indicate that the amounts of strontium, barium, and zinc in tissues relate to dietary intake. Strontium in bone depends on the dietary amounts of protein and fiber. Barium levels behave similarly to strontium, but depend additionally on dietary iron. Levels of zinc correlate to the amount of dietary protein. Therefore, trace elemental studies hold the potential to define the proportions of dietary fiber, protein, and

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iron consumed, but are unlikely to address more specific questions regarding food sources. Other trace elements have fallen into disuse as appropriate diet indicators and have become diagenetic monitors. For palaeodietary reconstruction, the field of stable isotopic chemistry has nearly replaced trace elemental research, particularly since tissue fractions can be carefully tested for the preservation of the living state isotopic composition. Stable Isotope Chemistry

The term isotope refers to a difference in the number of neutrons in the nuclei of an atom. The masses of isotopes differ because atomic mass is determined by the total number of protons and neutrons composing an atom. Two fundamental isotopic species of elements occur – stable and unstable (radioactive). Nuclides which transform into different nuclides only through an external agent are considered stable. In contrast, radioactive isotopes spontaneously transform into one or more different nuclides. Isotope ratio mass spectrometry relies on the principle that electrically charged atoms can be separated by their masses based on their mass-to-charge ratio when passed through a magnetic field. Differences in isotopic composition are measured by comparing isotope ratios of a sample to a reference material. Their ratio is expressed in d-notation as d ¼ (Rsample – Rreference)/Rreference)  1000%, where R refers to the abundance ratio of the rare isotope to the most abundant isotope of the element under consideration. Stable isotope ratio analysis has been a significant tool in geochemistry since the 1940s when the introduction of improved mass spectrometer designs was developed and the foundations of natural fractionation processes were ascertained. These methods were introduced to archaeology and palaeodietary reconstruction in the late 1970s with seminal reports on maize consumption through time by ancient Amerindians from eastern North America and experimental demonstrations that the stable isotopic ratio of animal tissues reflects their diets. The stable isotope analysis of skeletons has expanded to include multiple tissue fractions, control of the problems associated with diagenesis and contamination, and a more thorough understanding of the relationship between the isotopic composition of foods consumed and the incorporation of isotopic signatures into various tissues. Bones contain organic (collagen, protein, and lipid) and inorganic (apatite) fractions. Burial introduces diagenetic contaminants that require careful removal before either fraction can be analyzed. The analysis of

collagen and bioapatite bone fractions for the ratio of the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen allows for estimating the proportion of marine versus terrestrial components of an individual’s diet and, in some cases, reveal the proportion of maize consumed. The isotopic composition of the diet is basically reflected in a consumer’s tissues when fractionation due to metabolic processing is taken into account. Isotopic fractionation is the systematic separation of isotopes by different physical or chemical processes which create differences in the isotopic ratios of an element. Because of the large proportional differences in their atomic masses and their ubiquity in nature, the isotopic fractionation of the stable isotopes of hydrogen (R ¼ 2H/1H), carbon (13C/12C), oxygen (18O/16O), nitrogen (15N/14N), and sulfur (34S/32S) are particularly important and well studied. The primary determinant of the carbon isotope ratio signature in the food eaten by humans is the isotopic variability due to differences in photosynthetic processes. In addition, herbivore tissues show an enrichment in 13C and 15N relative to the plants they eat and carnivores show a further enrichment. Thus, the primary plant signatures fractionate as the trophic level increases in both marine and terrestrial food webs. The stable isotopic ratio analysis of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) has been used to reconstruct patterns of residence and mobility. The ratio of 87Sr to 86Sr in the food chain is defined geographically by its ratio in the geology of an area. 87Sr/86Sr values measured in the hydroxyapatite mineral portion of skeletal tissues (typically teeth) will reflect that of food source soils. Stable oxygen isotope ratios assist in resolving issues of migration and reconstructions of palaeoclimate. The fractionation of 18O versus 16O occurs during evaporation, condensation, and precipitation of meteoric water and depends on temperature, which varies according to latitude and altitude. Empirical observation of modern samples and experimentally determined fractionation equations provide the basis for estimating unknown water sources. The isotopic composition of tissues reflects the isotopic composition of the water consumed by an animal and in turn reflects the physical and climatic conditions of water sources. Dental enamel does not remodel and is mineralized by 13 years of age in humans, while bone mineralizes and remodels over the lifetime of an individual. Therefore, movement from one isotopically distinct location to another is recorded in skeletal tissues and can be reconstructed from a knowledge of the d18O signatures in waters across a region under investigation.

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The d18O of cellulose has been correlated to d18O values of source water on a regional scale. The d18O composition of precipitation varies naturally by season and latitude, thus providing a regional signature when metabolized by plants. As an example, maize (Zea mays) cobs from archaeological sites in the American Southwest were examined and their d18O values compared to the values of maize experimentally grown with waters of known d18O compositions. The proportions of water sources (seasonal precipitation or nonlocal perennial streams) could be estimated from the d18O of the plant cellulose and provided an indication of the farming practices applied. In application to burials from Tlailotlacan (a Zapotecan enclave of the ancient central Mexican city of Teotihuacan), stable oxygen isotope analysis reinforced and expanded our understanding of mobility and ethnic patterns associated with these inhabitants and their Oaxacan roots. Ethnic enclaves at Teotihuacan, indicated by differentiation in artifacts and architecture, had been a part of its urbanization process since its earliest phases. Zapotec immigrants were identified by their foreign d18O values and showed that there was ethnic continuity and continual interaction with several distant locations (400 km) during the enclave’s existence (c. AD 200–750). A parallel study of burials from Tlajinga 33, also in Teotihuacan, further demonstrated the continual influx of foreigners to the urban center, with many individuals arriving during their childhoods. Teotihuacan was more than a multiethnic New World urban center; it was a city in which immigrants were continually integrated into the social, familial, and economic structures of the state and the process of urbanization influenced the geographic and social mobility of people across ancient Mesoamerica. Photosynthetic differences among the carbon dioxide assimilation processes of plants are the main natural source of fractionation for stable carbon isotope ratios. Because of their different discrimination of 13 C relative to 12C, C4-based plants show distinct 13 d C values in comparison to C3-based plants. A third form of photosynthesis, crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), shows d13C values between those of C3- and C4-based plants. Altitude, temperature, and humidity also alter d13C values. Overall, C3-based plants show an average d13C value of –27.1  2.0%, while C4-based plants average –13  1.2%. Nitrogen isotope ratio values show primary differences between terrestrial and marine sources. Terrestrial plants generally have nitrogen isotopic compositions close to atmospheric nitrogen, because the fixation of nitrogen involves little fractionation. Marine organisms generally have d15N-values more positive

than terrestrial ones because of the larger degree of fractionation occurring from de-nitrification and marine biogenic nitrogen is typically enriched in 15N. Thus, terrestrial nitrogen isotopic values range between 0% and 10%, while marine sources span between 7% and 20%. When the isotopic values of local plants and animals are available as signatures of the source foods, then the isotopic composition of skeletal tissues can provide an estimate of the diet of the consumer. When possible comparative isotopic sources should come from archaeological material (botanical or low mobility animal remains), modern sources are often altered relative to the prehistoric. Environmental strontium values have been changed significantly due to nuclear testing. The isotopic ratio of stable carbon in atmospheric carbon dioxide globally shows the influence of fossil fuel use over the last 150 years. Deeper temporal changes in atmospheric CO2 have occurred because of long-term temperature change that happens over the course of global climatic variation.

Archaeogenetics Principles of Genetics

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) refers to the sequence of nucleotide bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) that join together in a long molecular chain and form genomes – the instruction code for building and running biological organisms. The 3 billion bases of the human genome are divided into 24 chromosomes consisting of 22 autosomes and, either, two X, or one X and one Y, sex chromosomes. An additional piece of DNA, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), contains slightly more than 16 500 bases and resides separate from nuclear DNA. Nearly all of the DNA sequence is identical in all humans, but about 0.1% varies at locations across the genome, mostly as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These SNPs, where one nucleotide has spontaneously changed, or mutated, to another, are inherited generation to generation and are the fundamental data for reconstructing ancestry. Ancient DNA analysis refers to the extraction of genetic material from plants, coprolites, humans, and nonhuman animals from museum or archaeological specimens. The retrieval and analysis of ancient DNA is considerably more difficult than of modern DNA. Not only is it fragmentary, due to degradation, but extracting uncontaminated genomic material requires exacting procedures. Thus, much focus has been on possible sources of contamination, methods to overcome biochemical inhibitors to sequence amplification, and ways to authenticate the ancient DNA sequences.

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Genetics (DNA and molecular markers) gives access to information at the individual, intrapopulational, and interpopulational levels. Comparison of the genetic profiles of multiple individuals is a means for determining biological distance and thus kinship. Comparing collections of genetic profiles from different populations reveals their relationships in evolutionary terms and their diachronic associations. Anthropological genetics proffers the capacity for inferring kinship structure, population movements, and the biological relatedness of populations across regional and continental distances directly from archaeological skeletal remains. Understanding the populational, genetic, and social structures of ancient cultures can improve our interpretations of human migrations, our models of the social structures and relationships among cultural divisions, and the demographic structures of past societies. Since ancient societies, especially prestate ones, organized their labor, economic, political, and social institutions and activities by age, sex, kinship, and social rank, our models and reconstructions are dependent on the quality of our knowledge of genetic and social relationships. Differences among people according to their sex and kinship are central to anthropological models of the evolution of ancient societies, especially the political and economic structures. Reconstruction of cultural institutions in archaeology is often performed by ethnographic analogies to settlement survey and excavation data. Rarely does direct evidence exist for examining kinship models from archaeological remains. Individual relatedness among people in households, residential groups, and communities would provide reconstructions with direct evidence for the kinship organization of the society under study. Genetic relations are difficult to reconstruct, except in unique circumstances where written records exist and, even then, relationships are only recorded for the uppermost levels of society, so the vast majority of people remain anonymous. With the recent advent of ancient DNA techniques, we have the potential to reconstruct kinship ties for all social statuses. Expertise in genetics and nucleic acid extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, sequencing or genotyping of informative genetic components (e.g., mitochondrial DNA, microsatellites, and X or Y chromosomes), statistical analysis, and phylogenetics is required to reconstruct the complex evolutionary history of organisms. Deoxyribonucleic acid is extracted and authenticated from archaeological, museum, and fossils samples. Genetic reconstruction can then proceed to tackle the questions of the genetic structure of extinct species in relation to contemporary species, solve the phylogenetic relationships within our genus Homo, and uncover

kinship structure and the biological sex of individuals buried in cemeteries, to infer the routes and times of human movements, and determine the genetic composition of microorganisms. Evolutionary Relationships

Key to studies of this type is an understanding of phylogenetics, tokogenetics, and coalescent theory. Phylogenetics is the science of classification, or taxonomics, and representation of the biological and genealogical relationships among biological entities arising through evolution. Phylogenetic analysis is a mathematical approach based on computation of the similarities and differences among sampled populations for inferring or estimating evolutionary relationships, estimating the time of divergence between entities, and chronicling the series of events along lineages. The evolutionary history of taxa may be represented as trees. Typically, hierarchical relationships are shown as a schematic tree comprised of nodes connected by branches. A node indicates the stage at which two or more branches diverge. Thus, the evolution from ancestors (internal nodes) to extant descendants (terminal nodes, tips, leaves, or operational taxonomic units) is estimated from the variations in a set of characters. In molecular phylogenetics, the characters are DNA or protein sequences. Groups within a tree are either monophyletic, polyphyletic, or paraphyletic. A clade or monophyletic group is a natural taxon in which all members are derived from a unique common ancestor with respect to the entire tree, have inherited a common set of traits, and thus have a shared evolutionary history. A group excluding some of its descendants is paraphyletic. In opposition to monophyletic is polyphyletic, in which a group shares a common ancestor with another group and probably represents an incomplete clade. Networks best represent intraspecific relationships (tokogeny). This is because species phylogenies are the result of reproductive isolation and population fissioning over longer time periods during which mutation combined with population divergence led to the fixation of some alleles and to nonoverlapping gene pools. In contract, intraspecies genealogical relationships arise by the sexual reproduction of fewer, more recent mutations and recombination. Evolutionary processes occurring among sexual species are hierarchical because an ancestral species gives rise to two descendant species. Within sexual species the processes are nonhierarchical because two parents combine their genes resulting in offspring. Tracing the merging of ancestral lineages backwards through time is coalescence. Models of DNA polymorphism in a population include not just

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mutation, but the genealogy of sampled sequences as determined from the additional sources of variation – recombination and coalescence. Under coalescent theory, sampled lineages are treated as randomly picking their parents, tracking backwards through time until their lineages coalesce into a single lineage of the most recent common ancestor. This approach is more appropriate when the questions involve migration, or estimate or model other parameters such as population size or bottlenecks, admixture, or other demographic features impossible to address with phylogenetic methods. Polymerase Chain Reaction

The advent of the PCR and associated molecular biological laboratory advances have been the foundation for successful work in archaeogenetics. Since only tiny amounts of genetic material can be collected from specimens and only short stretches of the genetic code can be read at a time, a method for copying specified chunks of DNA is required. PCR, though a thermochemical reaction, is the process of amplifying (repeated copying) unique DNA sequences from a mixture of sequences with the use of primers (short oligonucleotides designed to match and prime DNA sequences). The amplified DNA can then be analyzed further with sequencing instruments that read the nucleotide code (A, C, G, or T), or with methods to test for known genetic markers. Mitochondrial DNA

The majority of ancient DNA studies are based on the amplification of multicopy DNA sequences like mtDNA and chloroplast DNA. The mtDNA genome has been fundamentally useful to ancient genetics because thousands of copies exist per cell while nuclear genes have only two copies per cell, it is only maternally inherited, it is haploid (having one set of genes), and does not undergo recombination as it is passed intact from mother to child. An extensive understanding of its worldwide diversity has been developed, particularly in terms of stable polymorphic sites or haplogroups, from which maternal lineages can be identified and related to populations that are divergent from each other or that share haplotypes. Similarly, paternal lineages may be traced via the Y chromosome, also uniparentally inherited without recombination, but it has only one copy compared to the thousands of copies of mtDNA per cell. Since the DNA of living populations only relates to surviving descent lines, ancient DNA holds the potential to uncover extinct lineages.

Archaeogenetic Applications

Successful analysis has been performed on remains consisting of osseous matter, hair, teeth, and fossils. Determining the point of origin, when the process began, and sometimes from which wild ancestor domesticated plants and animals were derived has been advanced by ancient DNA studies. The genetic changes (e.g., reduced variation) occurring from the process of long-term selection for domestication and comparison of ancient DNA against modern relatives has provided insight into the domestication history of dogs, cattle, horses, goats, squash, and maize, among others. Ancient DNA studies provide a powerful, direct appraisal of genetic relationships among extinct species and to their present descendants. Pleistocene animal genetic history Several extinct Pleistocene animals have had their DNA analyzed, including mammoth, mastodon, ground sloth, cave lion, and cave bear. The population history and phylogeography of species can be traced over time when many individuals have been preserved. For example, ancient DNA analysis of Late Pleistocene brown bears indicated that the mtDNA brown bear lineages have changed from a pattern of coexistence in a single area 35 000 years ago to the modern pattern of lineages distributed into different geographical regions worldwide. In another study, ancient mtDNA retrieved from moas as old as 3500 BP showed that Australian emus and cassowaries were closer relatives to moas than to kiwis. Apparently, flightless birds colonized New Zealand twice, once by ancestors of moas and independently by ancestors of kiwis. Human ancestral genetic history Resolving the genetic affinities of Neandertals and contemporary hominids is central to two competing theories of modern human origins – the replacement model and the multiregional model. Under a theory of replacement, modern humans rapidly replaced archaic hominid forms such as Neandertals as they spread from Africa throughout western Asia. Alternatively, under the multiregional model, genetic exchange occurred and continuity existed between archaic hominids and modern humans. mtDNA segments amplified from Homo neanderthalensis remains shows them to be genetically distinct from contemporary humans and phylogenetically outside the mtDNA variation of living humans. As estimated from the population genetic analysis of mtDNA sequences retrieved from Neandertal specimens, their genetic contribution to early modern humans appears to be less than 25% and very likely Neandertals went extinct without

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contributing mtDNA to living humans. The mtDNA lineage that leads to Neandertals diverged about 500 000 years BP, while the common maternal ancestor of Homo sapiens sapiens probably lived around 170 000 years BP. Thus, from the mtDNA evidence, a recent African origin and little genetic intermixing is supported. Cultivar genetic histories The evolutionary histories of cultivars such as maize (Zea mays), grape (Vitis vinifera), Cucurbita (squashes, pumpkins, and gourds), and olive (Olea europaea L.) are being resolved in the light of new DNA studies and phylogenetic analysis. The timing and nature of plant domestication in the Americas has been a major research focus. The genus Cucurbita consists of a dozen or more domesticated and wild species distributed throughout the Americas. Before European contact, six different species were domesticated and formed important sources of food in Native American economies. Molecular evidence (chloroplast DNA and mtDNA) from extant specimens indicates that domestication of C. pepo occurred twice; once, possibly in southern Mexico 10 000 BP or earlier, as a lineage that includes pumpkins among its members, and again, another lineage with members including acorn squash and ornamental gourds, was domesticated possibly in the Ozark Mountains around 5000 BP. Peopling of the Pacific islands One of the more perplexing and complex mysteries of prehistory has been the timing and pattern of the settlement of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. One approach is to study commensal species. The Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) is an especially useful species because its distribution ranges from Southeast Asia across the Pacific Ocean to Easter Island, its remains are associated with the Lapita cultural complex and later Polynesian settlements, they do not swim, thus required human transportation, and the species is distinct from the European rats (R. rattus and R. norvegicus) introduced later.

Variation in extant rat population mtDNAs throughout Oceania identified pathways taken by the human settlers as they carried the Pacific rat with them for food beginning 40 000 years BP. Three distinct haplogroups of R. exulans have been identified, lending strongest support to a model of Lapita settlement and interaction with indigenous inhabitants over a period 6000–3000 years BP, along a voyaging corridor from eastern Indonesia to the Bismarck and Solomon Islands. See also: Archaeometry; Chemical Analysis Techni-

ques; DNA: Ancient; Modern, and Archaeology; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Primary Production Studies of; Migrations: Australia; Pacific; Neutron Activation Analysis; Organic Residue Analysis; Stable Isotope Analysis; Trace Element Analysis.

Further Reading Adriaens A (2005) Non-destructive analysis and testing of museum objects: An overview of 5 years of research. Spectrochimica Acta B 60: 1503–1516. Jackson CM (2005) Glassmaking in Bronze-Age Egypt. Science 308: 1750–1752, (DOI: 10.1126/science.1112553.). Matisoo-Smith E and Robins JH (2004) Origins and dispersals of Pacific peoples: Evidence from mtDNA phylogenies of the Pacific rat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 101 (24): 9167–9172, (DOI: 10. 1073_/pnas.0403120101.). Reed DM (ed.) (2005) Biomolecular Archaeology: Genetic Approaches to the Past. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, Center for Archaeological Investigations. Rehren T and Pusch EB (2005) Late Bronze Age glass production at Qantir-Piramesses, Egypt. Science 308: 1756–1758, (DOI: 10.1126/science.1110466.). Serre D, Langaney A, Chech M, et al. (2004) No evidence of Neandertal mtDNA contribution to early modern humans. PLoS Biology 2(3): e57, (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0020057.). Wendt CJ and Lu S-T (2006) Sourcing archaeological bitumen in the Olmec region. Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 97–98. White CD, Spence MW, Longstaffe FJ, and Law KR (2004) Demography and ethnic continuity in the Tlailotlacan enclave of Teotihuacan: the evidence from stable oxygen isotopes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 385–402.

N NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION ACT Keith W Kintigh, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary cultural affiliation A reasonably strong relationship of shared identity between a modern Native American tribe and the earlier group to which a set of human remains or cultural items belonged. Kennewick man Name assigned to the remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) U.S. Legislation passed in 1990 that specifies the conditions under which Native American human remains and restricted classes of cultural items are subject to repatriation.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA; 25 USC 3001 et seq.) is the primary US federal law that enables the repatriation of Native American human remains and objects with particular cultural significance. In addition, it authorizes a program of federal grants to assist in the repatriation process. While its focus is repatriation, the law prohibits trafficking in Native American human remains and other cultural items obtained in violation of the law.

Scope NAGPRA covers specifically defined Native American ‘cultural items’ that were either held by museums or federal agencies as of 16 November 1990 or that are newly found on federal or Indian lands. Under NAGPRA, ‘cultural items’ are human remains, funerary objects, and narrowly defined classes of ‘sacred items’ and collectively owned ‘objects of cultural patrimony’. Claimants recognized by the law include lineal descendants (in the rare cases in which they can be identified), federally recognized Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. The Smithsonian

Institution is exempt from NAGPRA but is covered by the National Museum of the American Indian Act (20 USC 80q). The implementation of the law is governed by regulations promulgated by the Department of the Interior (43 CFR 10). Generally speaking, a federally recognized Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization that is determined to have a ‘cultural affiliation’ with human remains or other cultural items is entitled to their repatriation. Cultural affiliation is defined in the law to mean ‘‘a relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably traced historically or prehistorically between a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and an identifiable earlier group.’’ As the pivotal concept in the law, cultural affiliation defines the threshold for closeness of relationship that is required for a modern group to be entitled to repatriate Native American human remains or other cultural items. NAGPRA provides for repatriation of human remains and other cultural items that are held by museums or federal agencies and, somewhat differently, with human remains and objects that are newly discovered on federal or Indian land as a result of an ongoing excavation or inadvertent discovery.

Museum Collections Under the law, museums (including universities) receiving federal funds and federal agencies were required to inventory their collections of human remains and associated funerary objects regardless of the ownership of the land from which they were acquired. In consultation with tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, they were required to determine the cultural affiliation of these human remains and objects whenever possible. Each museum and agency had to provide affected groups with this inventory and a summary of its collections of unassociated funerary objects (those without associated human remains), sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. The Secretary of

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the Interior is required to publish notice of completed inventories and intended repatriations in the Federal Register. Native American lineal descendants, federally recognized Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations that are identified by the museum or agency as culturally affiliated (or that separately demonstrate their cultural affiliation) are entitled to the repatriation of the affiliated remains or other cultural items from the custodial institution so long as there are no competing claims. NAGPRA provides museums and agencies with deadlines for the distribution of inventories and summaries. However, there is no deadline for culturally affiliated tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to make a claim (so long as the museum or agency has not repatriated the human remains or other cultural items to another claimant). In the absence of a claim, the museum or agency retains the human remains or objects. The law does not explicitly provide for the disposition of culturally unidentifiable human remains or other cultural items (those lacking cultural affiliation). Museums repatriating such remains and objects on their own initiative do so without the shield from legal claims of breach of fiduciary duty, public trust, or violations of state law that NAGPRA provides for repatriations that are accomplished pursuant its provisions. NAGPRA does not prohibit scientific study of human remains or objects in museum or agency collections. It includes a rarely, if ever, used provision that permits delay of repatriation for the completion of scientific study whose outcome would be of ‘major benefit to the United States’.

Intentional Excavation and Inadvertent Discovery Human remains or other cultural items that are intentionally excavated or inadvertently discovered on federal or Indian land after 16 November 1990 are subject to somewhat different provisions of NAGPRA. As with museum and agency collections, lineal descendants have the highest priority as claimants of human remains and associated funerary objects. If the remains or other cultural items are from Indian land, ownership lies with the tribe on whose land they were discovered. Failing that, ownership or control is vested in a culturally affiliated tribe if one is identified and makes a claim. In the absence of a culturally affiliated tribe, a tribe that is legally recognized as having aboriginally inhabited, the area in which the remains or objects were discovered can claim them. The disposition of human remains or objects that are not claimed

will be determined by regulations that have not yet been issued by the Department of the Interior. The intentional excavation of Native American human remains or other cultural items on federal or Indian land is allowed only with a federal permit (issued under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act) and after consultation with appropriate Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. Inadvertent discoveries of human remains or other cultural items on federal or Indian land entail prompt notification of the land-managing agency or tribe, consultation with appropriate tribes, and if grounddisturbing activities precipitated the discovery, cessation of those activities. NAGPRA does not govern ongoing excavations on nonfederal, non-Indian land. However, human remains or other cultural items recovered from these lands as a part of a federal undertaking are subject to the National Historic Preservation Act (16 USC 470 et seq.) In the absence of any federal entanglement, state law or local ordinance may apply.

Review Committee The law establishes a Review Committee, appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, whose primary responsibility is to hear disputes and provide recommendations on their resolution. The committee is charged with compiling an inventory of culturally unidentifiable human remains and making recommendations about a process for their disposition. It also makes an annual report to Congress. The committee is composed of three members nominated by museum and scientific organizations, three nominated by Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations (two of whom must be traditional religious leaders), and one member from a list composed, and agreed to, by the other six. Staff support to the committee is provided by the Department of the Interior and is presently housed in the National Park Service.

History Passed in 1990, NAGPRA was the culmination of several attempts to pass repatriation legislation. However, it was the first national legislation that included a substantial and open effort to accommodate scientific and museum concerns as well as Native American interests. NAGPRA was the result of a compromise among national organizations representing American Indian organizations, professional organizations representing the scientific community (primarily the Society for American Archaeology), and the American Association of Museums. As passed, the

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law was supported by a broad range of organizations representing American Indian, scientific, museum, and preservation interests.

Implementation NAGPRA has had a dramatic effect on the day-today practice of archaeology and physical anthropology in the US. For ongoing excavations, Federal agencies have often routinized repatriation from lands under their jurisdictions through formal agreements with tribes. Because of these agreements, the process typically operates smoothly, although determinations of cultural affiliation seem more often assumed than demonstrated (as the law requires). Archaeologists’ consultation with tribes is now commonplace, even when excavation of human burials is not anticipated. In part, this is due to legal requirements, in part to archaeologists’ changing views of their ethical obligations and in part to a realization of the mutual benefits of this increased dialog (see Politics of Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?). In museum contexts, NAGPRA helped stimulate interactions of archaeologists and museum professionals with Native Americans that were felt to be constructive by all parties. These relationships have frequently led to Native involvement with museums extending beyond repatriation to exhibit design, curatorial practice, and other museum activities. To date, the proportion of disputed repatriation claims has been very small. However, considerable criticism has been leveled at individual federal agencies and some museums, both by Native Americans and archaeologists, for their failure to follow the provisions of the Act. A more fundamental criticism comes from some scientists who argue that scientific progress should not be subordinated to what they describe as essentially religious concerns of Native Americans. From a different angle, some Native Americans and some archaeologists argue that repatriation of Native American human remains and objects is an ethical or human rights issue in which science should have no say. Milder critics would say either that NAGPRA goes too far to accommodate the interests of scientists or it is overly favorable to Native Americans.

Courts The most prominent NAGPRA court case was a challenge by a group of scientists of a federal agency finding that a 9000-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man was culturally affiliated with a coalition of five Northwest US tribes. The court rejected this finding and ruled that the remains were not Native American under the definition in the Act. The court ruled that age alone is insufficient to satisfy the definition and that in order to be considered Native American, some relationship must be shown between a set of remains and a modern Indian tribe. The court ruled that the plaintiff scientists could pursue additional studies of the remains (Bonnichsen v. United States, 217 F. Supp. 2d 1116; D. Or. 2002). Another suit, Na Iwi O Na Kapuna O Makapu v. Dalton, challenged the Navy’s use of standard methods of physical anthropological examination in the completion of a NAGPRA inventory. The court held that ‘‘Examinations done for the purpose of accurately identifying cultural affiliation or ethnicity are permissible because they further the overall purpose of NAGPRA, proper repatriation of remains and other cultural items (894 F. Supp. 1397; D. Haw. 1995).’’ See also: Politics of Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?.

Further Reading Clark GA (1996) NAGPRA and the Demon-haunted world. SAA Bulletin 14(5): 3. Goldstein L and Kintigh K (1990) Ethics and the reburial controversy. American Antiquity 55(3): 585–591. Klesert AL and Powell S (1993) A perspective on ethics and the reburial controversy. American Antiquity 58(2): 348–354. Lovis WA, Kintigh KW, Steponaitis VP, and Goldstein LG (2004) Archaeological perspectives on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: underlying principles. In: Richman JR and Forsyth MP (eds.) Legal Perspectives on Cultural Resources, pp. 165–184. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Meighan CW (1992) Some scholars’ views on reburial. American Antiquity 57(4): 704–710. Society for American Archaeology (1986) Statement concerning the treatment of human remains. Bulletin of the Society for American Archaeology 4(3): 7–8. Trope JF and Echo-Hawk WR (1992) The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: background and legislative history. Arizona State Law Journal 24(1): 35–77.

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NATIVE PEOPLES AND ARCHAEOLOGY George P Nicholas, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Aboriginal people in Canada Recognized in Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, sections 25 and 35, respectively, as Indians, Me´tis, and Inuit. Indigenous archaeology An expression of archaeological theory and practice in which the discipline interacts with indigenous values, knowledge, practices, ethics, and sensibilities. Indigenous peoples Refers to so-called Fourth World and/or formerly disempowered, disenfranchised, or colonized peoples. Depending upon region, this term may be synonymous with Aboriginal, First Nations, First Peoples, and Native, amongst others.

Introduction Indigenous archaeology is an expression of archaeological theory and practice in which the discipline intersects with Indigenous values, knowledge, practices, ethics, and sensibilities, and through collaborative and community-originated or -directed projects, and related critical perspectives. Indigenous archaeology seeks to (1) make archaeology more representative of, responsible to, and relevant for Indigenous communities; (2) redress real and perceived inequalities in the practice of archaeology; and (3) inform and broaden the understanding and interpretation of the archaeological record through the incorporation of Aboriginal worldviews, histories, and science. It is an approach to archaeology defined as much by the practice of non-Indigenous researchers working with Indigenous peoples, as by initiatives led by Indigenous archaeologists and communities themselves. Indigenous archaeology is conducted by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous practitioners, one of many points of similarity it has with feminist archaeology (in which there are male practitioners) – what matters is not the identity of the practitioner but rather achieving the goal of decolonizing the discipline and otherwise questioning the knowledge we obtain through archaeology. Some initiatives exclusively involve members of one or more Indigenous communities. In addition, the field of study is not limited to tribal lands or sites, but to the entire archaeological record worldwide. Thus, Indigenous archaeological studies have included a Secwepemc First Nation archaeologist working on Secwepemc sites in British Columbia, Canada; an archaeologist of European

descent working with an Aboriginal community in Australia; a Ghanan archaeologist conducting ethnoarchaeological research in Ethiopia; and a Native American (Ojibwe) excavating at C ¸ ata¨lho¨yk in Turkey. In its broadest sense, Indigenous archaeology may be defined as any one (or more) of the following: (1) the active participation or consultation of Indigenous peoples in archaeology (Figures 1 and 2); (2) a political statement concerned with issues of Aboriginal self-government, sovereignty, land rights, identity, and heritage; (3) a postcolonial enterprise designed to decolonize the discipline; (4) a manifestation of Indigenous epistemologies; (5) the basis for alternative models of cultural heritage management or stewardship; (6) the product of choices and actions made by individual archaeologists; (7) a means of empowerment and cultural revitalization or political resistance; and (8) an extension, evaluation, critique, or application of current archaeological theory. Not coincidently, the lack of precise parameters to this field contrasts with the preciseness of Western science and philosophy, and is more in line with the openness and lack of rigid categorization often found in Indigenous worldviews and ethnoclassification systems (i.e., where greater variation in classification of, e.g., gender roles, may not only accepted but expected). Such a nonabsolutist view is also found in feminist standpoint theory.

Nomenclature The term ‘Indigenous archaeology’ and recognition of the concept are relatively recent developments. The earliest use of the term is in Dewhirst’s 1980 monograph, The Indigenous Archaeology of Yuquot, but this referred to the Aboriginal (vs. European) component of the archaeological site. However, essential aspects of the still-unnamed concept appear in print at least a decade earlier. David Denton’s 1985 statement that ‘‘The development of native archaeologies requires an ongoing dialogue between traditional scientific archaeology and various native perspectives on the past’’ (emphasis added) is one of several that recognized the need for broadening the scope of archaeology. It was not until the late 1990s that the term was used with some consistency in its modern connotations. The first published definition of Indigenous archaeology is by Nicholas and Andrews (1997) who used it in reference to ‘‘archaeology with, for, and by Indigenous peoples’’. Thereafter, the term appears with increasingly frequency, becoming widespread in 2000 with the publication of Joe Watkins’ volume,

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Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Although Watkins did not define the term, his review of the historical development of Indian-archaeologist relations in North America (particularly as related to CRM and to reburial and repatriation issues) contextualized key aspects of the concept. The term has now gained wide recognition, despite the fact that it still resists formal or consistent definition. The ‘indigenous’ part of Indigenous archaeology most often relates to the involvement of so-called Fourth World and/or formerly disempowered, or disenfranchised, or colonized peoples in the process of doing archaeology (Figure 3). Maybury-Lewis’ definition of ‘Indigenous peoples’ as those who are ‘‘marginal or dominated by the states that claim jurisdiction over

Figure 1 Randi Hillard, Nuxalk First Nation, examining 3000year-old shell midden at an ancestral Secwepemc archaeological site in Kamloops, British Columbia, 2002 (G. Nicholas, Photo).

them’’ (2002: 7) generally coincides with how the term is constituted in the present archaeological context. There are, however, indigenes who are not disenfranchised or disempowered; in many parts of Africa, for example, they are the government. Likewise, while archaeology in China has always been ‘indigenous’, that falls outside of the realm of ‘Indigenous archaeology’. In Australia, ‘indigenous archaeology’ most often refers to the archaeology of the pre-contact period. Indigenous archaeology generally refers to projects and developments associated with or initiated by Aboriginal peoples in the United States, Canada, and Australia, but may include others (e.g., African Americans). However, expressions of Indigenous archaeology also appear widely elsewhere, including in parts of Africa (e.g., South Africa, Kenya), New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, northern Europe, Siberia, and Central and South America. This has created discussion around the questions of ‘‘who is ‘indigenous’?’’ and why some individuals do not consider themselves as such. In Central America, for example, only a small percentage of the native-born population currently self-identifies as ‘indigenous’. This clearly reflects important political and social issues regarding identity and self-representation. Aspects of Indigenous archaeology may overlap with or be synonymous with ‘native archaeology’, ‘internalist archaeology’, ‘anthropological archaeoogy’, ‘collaborative archaeology’, ‘covenantal archaeology’, ‘vernacular archaeology’, ‘community archaeology’, ‘stakeholder archaeology’, ‘participatory action research’, ‘ethnocritical archaeology’, ‘reciprocal archaeology’, and ‘ethical archaeology’.

Figure 2 Hopi tribal member LaVern Siweumptewa interpreting a petroglyph map depicting clan migrations at the site of Wupatki in northern Arizona, with Micah Loma’omvaya, Bradley Balenquah, and Mark Elson looking on. Photograph by T. J. Ferguson, July 29, 1998.

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Figure 3 Sharon Doucet, Ehattesaht/Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, British Columbia, represents one of a growing number of Native Americans who see archaeology as a vital bridge between past and present (G. Nicholas, Photo).

History The first stage in the development of Indigenous archaeology can be traced through the work of anthropologists and archaeologists who worked closely with Aboriginal communities in the late nineteenth and early-to-mid twentieth centuries. In North America, they included Harlan Smith, Jesse Fewkes, Frank Cushing, Alanson Skinner, and Arthur C. Parker (himself Seneca Tribe); in Australia, Norman Tindale and Donald Thompson; in Saharan Africa, Jean-Paul Boeuf. During this seminal period of historical particularism, collaborative investigations were encouraged (if only indirectly) in the voracious pace of the ethnographic, linguistic, archaeological, and biological fieldwork of Franz Boas and his colleagues and students. The emphasis was on assembling large volumes of data to understand the unique character and history of each culture, and on original fieldwork, emic analysis, subjective data, and a relativistic approach. Early archaeologists and anthropologists thus often worked closely with Aboriginal community members (such as George Hunt and Paul Silook in North America; Charlie Lamjerroc and Charlie Mangga in Australia – although many are unnamed), relying on them to aid in locating or interpreting artifacts and sites, and for translations and other liaison services. In return, these community members not only benefited in terms of financial compensation and status, but also had a direct, often lasting influence on local archaeological practice. Another significant development that encouraged collaboration was archaeologists’ use of the direct historical approach to interpret archaeological sites by reference to nearby

historic Aboriginal communities (see Anthropological Archaeology). For the most part, however, the involvement of Indigenous peoples in archaeology conducted on their traditional lands was generally limited to service as guides and crew members, or often merely unwitting bystanders. Indigenous communities usually benefited little from these interactions. These communities also had little meaningful input into the design of research projects, or involvement in decisions that directly affected their cultural heritage; in fact, the blatant quest to excavate human remains for display or study was often a violation of social mores and religious beliefs. As a result, archaeology was increasingly viewed as harmful and disturbing to many, and of little relevance or value. Although there were numerous exceptions, the primary beneficiaries of archaeology have long been archaeologists themselves and the institutions they serve, or, in the case of CRM projects, commercial interests, and the broader public. During the latter part of the twentieth century, major changes took place in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the dominant society. By the 1960s, the increasing move toward Aboriginal cultural revitalization and politicization, coupled with a rapidly approaching postcolonial, postmodern world order, and changing public attitudes in the wake of the Vietnam War and other events, contributed to the emergence of Indigenous archaeology in North America. Comparable situations emerged elsewhere, including the outstation movement in Australia, and the independence of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in Africa. In the Americas, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, demands for tribal recognition, national sovereignty, and/or acceptance of ethnic identity and values were often as much inspired by cultural heritage issues as they were by calls for social justice and restitution. In the United States, for example, Vine Deloria, Jr., clearly articulated aspects of Native American dissatisfaction, including the legitimacy and practice of anthropology and archaeology and the callous treatment of ancient human remains. The emergence of the American Indian Movement in the early 1970s not only brought such concerns to national attention, but also launched actions to stop the desecration of ancestral remains and places of cultural significance. Increasing political clout and support from a sympathetic (albeit wary) public resulted in federal legislation as the American Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975) and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978). Significant federal legislation or rulings on Indigenous rights were passed in New Zealand (Treaty of Waitangi Act (1975)),

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Australia (Mabo v Queensland (1992)), Canada (Delgamuukw v Regina (1997)), and elsewhere. Within the context of these above events, two broad, interrelated themes have contributed to the grassroots development of Indigenous archaeology: (1) the treatment of the dead (and sacred objects and places); (2) cultural heritage and legislative concerns about the ownership of cultural and intellectual property. Treatment of the Dead

Indigenous objections to the collection, study, and display of human remains by archaeologists and others have had a significant effect on the practice and politics of archaeology and in some countries led to the passage of legislation to protect their religious practices and heritage. Long-standing concerns regarding both excavated and fortuitous finds relate foremost to the belief in the sanctity of human burials, and also to other factors including disrespectful or inappropriate handling, display, and curation. During the late nineteenth century, institutions worldwide assembled major collections of nonEuropean skeletal remains to aid the study of human biological and cultural evolution, or to establish racial classification systems. In addition, some scholars felt it necessary to establish a record of the soon-to-beextinct Indigenous peoples of various lands. Human remains were obtained not only from archaeological sites, but also by raiding Aboriginal cemeteries or collecting corpses on battlefields or from morgues; specimens were purchased and sent to museums around the world. Thus, over the past several centuries, the remains of tens of thousands of ancestral Aboriginal people were sent throughout colonial alliances worldwide, and accumulated in museums and other repositories where they often went unstudied or were simply forgotten about. In the United States, this included Ishi’s brain; in South African, Sarah Baartmann’s remains. Indigenous peoples long demanded that such practices cease, citing the desecration of their ancestors and sacred sites, as well as the double standard of ‘scientific’ inquiry – Aboriginal human remains brought to laboratories to study, while those of European descent quickly reburied. In the 1970s, the American Indian Movement and others took direct action against archaeologists investigating human remains, but with little lasting effect. Reburial and repatriation issues subsequently rose to national and international prominence in the 1990s in response to the highly publicized looting of the Slack Farm site in Kentucky (1988) and similar events; to charges that archaeology was scientific colonialism; and to

changing attitudes toward Aboriginal rights. The adoption of the Vermillion Accord on Human Remains by the World Archaeological Congress in 1989, and the passage of the National Museum of the American Indian Act (1989) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) in the United States, and the South African Resources Act (1999) directly addressed Indigenous concerns about the treatment of their dead, and for the first time placed moral values above scientific ones. The reaction of the archaeological community to reburial and repatriation varied widely. Some felt that political correctness had trumped science and reason, while others were sympathetic; the majority fell in between with a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude. Despite initial fears, legislated or voluntary concessions by archaeologists to Indigenous concerns have proved beneficial to the long-term relationship between these groups simply because the controversies obliged interaction and communication. Important lessons about collaboration were provided by the Smithsonian Institution’s repatriation of 1000 individuals to Larsen Bay, Alaska, in 1991, the return of War God fetishes to Zuni Pueblo in 1989, and by a number of major repatriations in Australia, including the return by the Australian National University of the Kow Swamp remains in 1990 and of Mungo Lady to Lake Mungo in 1992, and that by the Natural History Museum, London, of 17 Tasmanians to Australia. The willingness of some archaeologists and major scientific organizations to work with descendant communities to rectify past inequities set the stage for later collaborations. Although the Kennewick Man (the ‘Ancient One’) case (1995–2005) in the United States demonstrated that significant differences remain, the number of Native communities allowing or requesting the scientific study of ancestral human remains is increasing. As the result of reburial and repatriation legislation, in many countries archaeologists are now required to consult with Indigenous governments and organizations, and to adhere to established protocols and permitting system for field and research projects in their territory, or for studying human remains. In many cases, this brought archaeologists into direct contact with Indigenous groups, whose views began to inform the research process. Cultural Heritage Concerns

Cultural heritage and traditional lands are defining elements of Aboriginal ethos and worldview. As a result, the care of ancestral sites has figured prominently in both the origins of and goals of Indigenous archaeology. By the mid-1960s, the preservation of archaeological sites was increasingly a focus of

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attention of CRM and heritage legislation in North America and elsewhere (National Historic Preservation Act, US (1966); Australian Heritage Commission Act (1975)). Such legislation was aimed at broad public values, but did not specifically address the concerns or desires of the Indigenous minority whose ancestors created the vast majority of archaeological sites in formerly colonized countries, and who lacked the authority to make decisions about the preservation and management of their own heritage. While ‘consultation’ with members of descendant communities has now become a frequent, and sometimes required component of heritage management, it too often has remained only nominal with little true power sharing. In addition, many Aboriginal communities lack funds and personnel to devote to archaeologists’ requests for information and externally imposed timelines. However, Indigenous organizations in southern Africa, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere increasingly require research, media, and travel permits for archaeological and ethnographic work conducted there. Although federal and state or provincial legislation has protected the material heritage of Indigenous peoples, two aspects have been especially problematic. The first is the concept of ‘significance’ and its application in evaluating the value of heritage sites, as required by specific legislation. Within most archaeological projects, scientific values have been given primacy, although historical, religious, and community values are also considered, as in Botswana. Such a priority often runs counter to non-Western perspectives that do not require ‘significant’ places, ancestral sites, or entire landscapes to possess material evidence of what happened there (or even to have been culturally modified at all). However, concerns about oral history and intangible heritage have been addressed by policies or legislation in South Africa, Canada, and elsewhere, and, more generally, by UNESCO. The second issue concerns the notion of ‘stewardship’ and the role of archaeologists and their professional organizations as stewards of the archaeological record on behalf of (or in the interest of) descendant communities, especially those who may not be able (or willing) to care for it ‘properly’. Indigenous and non-Indigenous critics have charged that stewardship has generally been a unilateral, paternalistic process, with archaeologists assuming control over the process and imposing a different value system on the past. Indigenous peoples have gradually achieved greater and more meaningful control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage through various avenues over the past 30 years, although there have been regular setbacks when legislation is changed or legal precedents overturned. New or broadened legislation has

ensured greater direct Aboriginal involvement, such as the requirement for First Nations in British Columbia to review archaeological permit applications (Heritage Conservation Act (1996), Canada), and offered new levels of protection (e.g., Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act (1989), Australia, and UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)). In the United States, a 1992 amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act allowed tribes to establish their own Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, enabling direct involvement in heritage preservation on tribal lands. Successful negotiations for Aboriginal management or co-management of tribal lands and heritage sites also occurred with more frequency (such as Uluru and Kakadu National Parks in Australia), albeit with some federally imposed limits. Tribal involvement in archaeology was underway as early as the 1950s in many countries in Africa following independence. In the United States, it began in the 1970s with the Zuni Archaeology Program (in 1975) and the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department (in 1978) as the first major initiatives to address specific concerns of Indigenous peoples relating to CRM and also to provide training. During the 1980s and 1990s, state government agencies and Indigenous organizations began to establish programs to train community members (e.g., ‘Aboriginal rangers’ in Australia) to monitor CRM projects. College and university-level archaeology programs provided new opportunities for Indigenous people to gain access to important tools (Figures 4, 5 and 6). Various museums worldwide have responded to Aboriginal concerns by considering and integrating alternate curation and management practices, shifting their roles from repositories of antiquities (or ‘captured heritage’) to holders of cultural treasures. The Museum of South Australia, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the National Museum of the American Indian, and others actively promote Indigenous perspectives in exhibits and education programs. In addition, the rise of community-based museums has provided new opportunities to explore and articulate local values in cultural heritage. In the United States, new sources of funding, including casinos, have enabled some groups to fully fund their own archaeology programs (e.g., Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut).

Theoretical Foundations In general practice, Indigenous archaeology employs all of the basic elements of archaeological theory, namely those associated with culture historical, processual, and postprocessual approaches. At the same time, its character has been influenced by the

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broadening discourse in anthropology and, somewhat later, archaeology that began to take shape in the late 1970s. It is thus a logical step in the historical development of archaeological thought and practice. This is especially evident in the shift in emphasis from the etic, empirical, and problem-oriented aspects of cultural historical and processual archaeology to the more emic, reflexive, and agency-oriented aspects of postprocessualism. Nonetheless, individuals in many Indigenous communities believe that they do not need archaeology to tell them what they already know about the past through other means. Critics have suggested that Indigenous archaeology represents a highly subjective, ‘anything-goes’ approach. Some explanations by Indigenous peoples of

Figure 4 Lunch break during a trip to relocate a dugong hunting magic site inside the scrub in northern Cape York. Pictured are Kaio Ropeuarn, Mickeri Peter, Andrew Peter, Meun (Shorty) Lifu and Christo Lifu. (Photo Susan McIntyre - Tamwoy).

how things were in the past are, in fact, embedded in religious belief and thus do fall outside the realm of Western notions of science and history. However, as defined here, Indigenous archaeology is a relatively coherent body of method and theory contextualized by the needs, values, and critiques of Indigenous peoples. For example, it may operate as an extension of traditional archaeological methods conducted with, for, or by communities in CRM surveys; a pursuit of land claims; or supplementing or validating traditional histories. Much of Indigenous archaeology is strongly oriented to identifying and hopefully addressing the limitations and biases of Western science, as well as the significant power imbalances faced by minority communities. It attempts to make archaeology more relevant, more responsible, and more representative through a strongly postcolonial orientation that runs parallel to, or intersects with Marxist theory, cultural relativism, feminist theory, and other explicitly Indigenous constructs. In turn, decolonization theory developed, in part, to address some of the key issues raised by Indigenous archaeology. Depending upon its context, Indigenous archaeology may include any of the following theoretical elements in designing and implementing research practices: . Indigenous epistemology – local explanations of worldview (how things came to be); . interpretive archaeological theory – reflexivity, multivocality; recognition of relative and situated nature of knowledge; . Marxist theory – exposing power relations, inequalities, motive, and means for social change; theoretically informed action;

Figure 5 Dr Innocent Pikirayi supervising University of Pretoria 1st-year students on Bantu-speakers’ farming settlement excavation. Mmakau, Ga-Rankua, South Africa, 2005 (Photo courtesy of Sven Ouzman).

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Figure 6 Students in Simon Fraser University’s Indigenous Archaeology Field School, 2004. Excavation of middle Holocene site on Kamloops Indian Reserve, Kamloops, British Columbia (G. Nicholas, Photo).

. critical archaeology – recognition of class-based nature of science and history, exposing the means by which knowledge is produced and its emancipatory potential; and . feminist theory – demarginalization, reconceptualization, re-examination of categories, concepts, standpoints and perspectives; considering other viewpoints or ways of knowing. Indigenous Methodologies

The principal goals of Indigenous archaeology are to broaden the scope of archaeology and to transform its practice. It seeks to do so primarily through its applications in a number of overlapping spheres in which Aboriginal peoples have a vested interest, especially heritage preservation, education, community history and traditional knowledge, cultural revitalization, and repatriation of knowledge and objects of cultural patrimony. However Indigenous archaeology has a dual and sometimes contradictory nature since it utilizes (indeed adds to) the spectrum of methods employed in archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and related fields, but also challenges them by developing alternative approaches to interpreting past lifeways. The resultant tension between competing Indigenous and Western ideologies has proved to be a productive area of new ideas. The methodologies of Indigenous archaeology emphasize ethical and culturally appropriate behavior at all stages of research, a shift in the frame of reference (i.e., the postcolonial strategy of ‘de-centering’), reflexive approaches, research ethics, a recognition of the subjectivity of scientific objectivity, a concern with benefit sharing and community participation,

and flexibility as to how and when community members will involve themselves. Research projects are designed with community needs and values in mind, which are often prioritized over the recovery of scientific data (which can lead to conflict with government permitting agencies). Archaeologists working with, and especially for, Indigenous peoples may thus be requested to serve as consultants, cultural brokers, facilitators, advocates, policy analysts, needs assessors, or expert witnesses. Given the different ways in which Indigenous peoples construct the world, it is no surprise that the heritage concerns of communities often go well beyond the scope of archaeology. Research methods are informed by local (internalist) values, coupled with the recognition that not all elements of past lives are reflected in material culture. The four-field approach to anthropology therefore has great relevance since it provides access to and a framework for understanding all aspects of a society, including emic and etic perspectives. Oral histories often have a central role in Indigenous archaeology, for example, especially when different (i.e., customary) definitions of significance are identified, or when linked to archaeology through the congruence of methods and data, as promoted by Indigenous scholars. Eliminating the standard division between ‘historic’ and ‘prehistoric’ periods also removes an unnecessary separation of contemporary Aboriginal peoples from their past. The nature of research is also influenced by local worldviews, which can have significant implications for appropriate CRM strategies, for example, the absence of the familiar Western dichotomies of past/present and real/supernatural realms, plus time being viewed as nonlinear, mean that ancestral spirits are part of the contemporary landscape. The scale of investigation may vary substantially, from landscape-centered to artifact-focused, from tangible to intangible cultural heritage. Concerns arise over biases or limitations associated with traditional survey and site sampling methods, as well as with the adequacy of site significance evaluations and predictive models (especially when the latter are seen or believed to contradict community knowledge of traditional or precontact land-use practices). Field methods include standard data observational and collection strategies from archaeology, such as site survey, testing, and excavation techniques. In general, however, there is less reliance on empirical approaches and more standing given to nonempirical sources, including oral histories, folklore, traditional knowledge, and religious beliefs. Ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological methods include walking the land to identify traditional cultural properties, and use of focus groups, interviewing, and participant observation (all with informed consent), which may be used to

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discuss customary law or to identify local concerns about, or perceptions of what constitutes heritage sites. At the request of the community, projects may be designed to use non-destructive, non-invasive field methods either entirely or to the degree possible. Artifacts and other materials may be reburied on site after analysis. Other methods of note include the occasional use of non-Cartesian site grids to locate circular subsurface test units; the use of toponomic information to direct fieldwork; alternative classification systems; and alternative curation methods (e.g., smudging artifacts). Customary or hybrid ceremonial activities are sometimes conducted prior to, during, or at the close of fieldwork, and may include storytelling, drumming, singing, and offerings by elders or community members to honor the ancestors, as well as smudging and ocher face paint to cleanse or protect crew members. Care is taken to use appropriate terminology, recognize the problematic nature of some terms by archaeologists (e.g., ‘prehistory’) and to show respect, especially to elders, the traditional custodians of Indigenous knowledge. There have been major changes in the manner that human remains are treated, both in response to federal legislation and community consultation (Figure 7). Although there have been well-publicized examples of Native Americans employing NAGPRA to repatriate and rebury human remains without scientific study, there are as many cases where tribes have allowed or even requested such study, including aDNA testing and radiocarbon dating. Some Indigenous archaeologists work in this realm, or as mediators between archaeologists and communities.

Figure 7 Carrie Dan, Kamloops Indian Band, British Columbia, Canada, preparing birchbark baskets to hold human remains prior to reburial. Ms. Dan has a degree in Archaeology and has been involved in several studies of human skeletal remains. She has also served as an intermediary between Aboriginal communities, tribal governments, and archaeological consulting firms.

The broad operating framework of Indigenous archaeology is defined by a series of incentives that range from federal legislation to local community needs and initiatives, filtered through the continuing discourse between (and within) the Aboriginal and archaeological communities. Foremost are meeting the needs of the community, in terms of capacity building or resolving conflicts between developers. Much of the efforts of Indigenous archaeology deal with enabling communities to manage their own cultural heritage or to evaluate the work done by others on their territory. In Australia, North America, and elsewhere, the Indigenous people employed full or part time in archaeology today numbers at least in the hundreds, facilitated in many cases by new opportunities for academic, field-school, or work experience-based training. In some countries, however, Indigenous minorities are suppressed and part of the suppression involves distancing them from their archaeological heritage. Contemporary tribal politics affecting archaeology include drafting heritage policies and the development of tribal permitting systems, research protocols, and guidelines. Involvement in archaeology by descendant communities can also be viewed as expressions of both resistance and cultural sovereignty. Increasingly, consultation with communities is a requirement of federal, state, or provincial legislation. Indigenous communities and organizations in some countries are creating their own archaeology or cultural heritage departments, as well as consulting companies. These mechanisms help provide access to and at least some control over the process and products of archaeology on tribal lands, as well as offer an alternative to the type of stewardship model endorsed by the Society for American Archaeology and other organizations. The introduction and integration of new large-scale resource management strategies by federal agencies has developed in direct response to concerns raised by Indigenous peoples. In North America, these initiatives include ‘traditional cultural properties’ (under Section 106, NHPA), and ‘Aboriginal cultural properties’ (Parks Canada), which are similar to some Indigenous stewardship programs that integrate cultural and natural resources. Community-based protocols identifying who has rights to use and publish data and photographs are beginning to address long-standing concerns about cultural and intellectual property. Access to research results by the community, in appropriate formats (from public talks to DVDs, and from lay-oriented, jargon-free publications to technical reports), is important. There is growing use of film, digital recordings, and webbased media to record or present Aboriginal interpretations of cultural landscapes or other aspects of their culture, such as the Nganampa Anwernekenhe film

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series made by Indigenous Australians for both their own needs and public television. Tribal and public museums are also developing new ways to effectively present Indigenous and ‘scientific’ interpretations of the past, but also working to prevent the loss of intellectual property (e.g., the Hoodia biopiracy case in southern Africa). In sum, Indigenous archaeology requires developing respect and trust through meaningful community interaction, consultation, negotiation, and collaboration; culturally appropriate behavior; a relatively informal, personal approach, and a long-term commitment to the community.

Reactions to Indigenous Archaeology Reactions to Indigenous archaeology were initially mixed. Some expressed dismay that federal reburial and repatriation legislation, plus the inclusion of Aboriginal people and values in archaeology, would be the end of some types of archaeological investigations and encourage hyper-relativism. There were also concerns about the credibility of Indigenous people doing archaeology, especially where their research could be used in CRM or land claims. Today, however, Indigenous archaeology has become widely recognized worldwide and part of the vocabulary of archaeology. One indicator of its recognition is its appearance as a topic in introductory archaeology textbooks. Students are growing up in a world where Indigenous archaeology is part of the archaeological landscape that they encounter, no different in some respects from other aspects of archaeological theory and practice. At the same time, mainstream archaeology’s reaction to Indigenous archaeology is similar to its reaction to feminist archaeology. There are striking parallels between the two in terms of their developmental history, the critiques they offered, the body of new methods and theory that each developed, and their persistent marginal status within the discipline, rather than as approaches that are broadly transformative. Throughout the world, Indigenous people’s increasingly sophisticated critique of archaeological practice, coupled with the development of Indigenous archaeology, has contributed significantly to the development of new ethical standards and codes by professional organizations, including the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists, the Australian Archaeological Association, and the Canadian Archaeological Association, the Society for American Archaeology, and the World Archaeological Congress. The World Archaeological Congress’ code of ethics is framed around the obligations archaeologists have to

Indigenous peoples; WAC also actively promotes and financially supports Indigenous participation in all of its meetings. Indigenous archaeology has a relatively limited presence within the Society for American Archaeology. However, the society does support Aboriginal archaeologists through the Arthur C. Parker scholarship for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, and has published the working together section of the SAA Archaeological Record. Other organizations have provided important venues for exploring Indigenous issues in archaeology, including the Chacmool Archaeology conference, which hosted Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology in 1999, and Decolonizing Archaeology in 2006. Finally, Indigenous concerns regarding education have contributed to the creation of Native Studies and Indigenous Archaeology programs in universities and other academic setting. There are also communitybased initiatives, a growing number of which offer credentials and training in archaeology.

Conclusions Significant challenges remain to achieving the premise and promises of Indigenous archaeology. The scope of archaeology has clearly broadened through many ‘working together’ projects. However, very few ‘collaborations’ with Indigenous groups actually include true power sharing and negotiation regarding the process and products of archaeology. This is a major hurdle since the idea that the giving up of control frightens many archaeologists, but may lead to greater enrichment and sharing both in terms of what and how we know about the past and in terms of dealing with it in the present. Major issues regarding ownership of and access to cultural and intellectual property have yet to be seriously engaged. Indigenous peoples need more opportunities for education and training in archaeology. Mainstream archaeology needs to better understand how and why Indigenous peoples may view it as threatening to them. Indigenous archaeology grew out of efforts by marginalized peoples worldwide to challenge the imposition of archaeology on their lives and heritage. It has in a relatively short time developed into a distinct body of methods and theory designed to promote ethical and inclusive practices that will further democratize the discipline, and stimulate new ideas that will significantly increase the scope of archaeology as a socially relevant and still scientifically sound discipline. See also: Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Cultural Resource Management; Engendered Archaeology; Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Historic

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1669 Preservation Laws; Illicit Antiquities; Marxist Archaeology; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Politics of Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?.

Further Reading Atalay S (guest editor) (2006) Decolonizing Archaeology. American Indian Quarterly 30(3&4): 269–503. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies (AIATSIS) (2000) Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies. Conkey M (2005) Dwelling at the margins, action at the intersection?: feminist and indigenous archaeologies, 2005. Archaeologies 1.1: 9–59. Davidson I, Lovell-Jones C and Bancroft R (eds.) (1995) Archaeologists and Aborigines Working Together. Armidale: University of New England Press. Denton D (1985) Some Comments on Archaeology and Northern Communities. Heritage North ’85 Conference. Yellowknife, NWT. Dewhirst J (1980) The Indigenous Archaeology of Yuquot, A Nootkan Outside Village. Ottawa: National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, History and Archaeology. Dongoske KE, Aldenderfer M and Doehner K (eds.) (2000) Working Together: Native Americans and Archaeologists. Washington, DC: Society for American Archaeology. Ferguson TJ (2003) Archaeological anthropology conducted by Indian tribes: Traditional cultural properties and cultural affiliation. In: Gillespie SD and Nichols D (eds.) Archaeology is Anthropology, Archaeological Papers of the American

Nautical Archaeology

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Anthropological Association 13, pp. 137–144. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Fforde C (2004) Collecting the Dead: Archaeology and the Reburial Issue. London: Duckworth. Maybury-Lewis D (2002) Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Mihesuah DA (ed.) (2000) Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains?. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Nicholas GP and Andrews TD (1997) Indigenous archaeology in the postmodern world. In: Nicholas GP and Andrews TD (eds.) At a crossroads: Archaeologists and First Peoples in Canada, pp. 1–18. Burnaby, BC: Archaeology Press, Simon Fraser University. Nicholas G and Hollowell J (2007) Ethical challenges to a postcolonial archaeology: The legacy of scientific colonialism. In: Hamilakis Y and Duke P (eds) Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Peck T, Siegfried E and Oetelaar GA (eds.) (2003) Indigenous Peoples and Archaeology: Honouring the Past, Discussing the Present, Building for the Future. Calgary: Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary. Smith CL and Wobst HM (eds.) (2005) Decolonizing Archaeological Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Smith LT (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Swidler N, Dongoske KE, Anyon R and Downer A (eds.) (1997) Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Trigger B (1980) Archaeology and the image of the American Indian. American Antiquity 45(4): 662–676. Watkins J (2000) Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Mountain View, CA: Altamira Press.

See: Maritime Archaeology.

See: Modern Humans, Emergence of.

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS Leah Minc, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary accuracy The closeness of a measurement to its true value. b-decay A form of ionizing radiation released by certain radioactive materials, consisting of high-energy

electrons or positrons designated by the symbols b
and bþ, respectively. g-ray An energetic form of electromagnetic radiation equivalent to a high-speed photon produced by radioactive decay; denoted by the Greek letter g. half-life The length of time required for one-half of the initial activity of a radioisotope to decay; after one half-life, 50% of the original activity remains; after two half-lives, only 25% of the original activity remains. isotope Any of several different forms of an element with different atomic mass; isotopes of an element will have nuclei

1670 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. neutron flux The density of neutrons available to irradiate a sample, typically measured in neutrons per cm2 per second. precision The closeness of repeated measurements of the same quantity; measurement replicability. provenance The geographic origin of an artifact, object, or raw material. radioisotope A radioactive isotope of an element; the radioisotope may be naturally occurring or artificially produced through irradiation. radionuclide An atom with an unstable nucleus which undergoes radioactive decay by emitting a g-ray(s) and/or subatomic particles. sensitivity The smallest amount of a chemical or element detectable by an analytical method.

Introduction Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a sensitive analytical technique for determining the amount of different elements (major, minor, or trace) present in a sample. The technique is most accurately viewed as a method of quantitative chemical analysis based on the nuclear properties of constituent elements. Briefly, NAA involves placing a small amount of sample material in a flood of neutrons (typically generated by a nuclear reactor) in order to activate or create radioactive isotopes of the elements present (Box 1). As these excited isotopes return to a stable state, they emit charged particles and noncharged g-rays, in a process known as radioactive decay. The detection of those decays permits both the identification of elements originally present in the sample and the precise determination of their quantity. In the classic case of NAA, chemical separation of elements following irradiation was required to allow the measurement of radioactive emissions with fairly simple instrumentation. Today, however, ‘instrumental neutron activation analysis’ (INAA), in which detection instrumentation separates and identifies elements by their g-rays, is the standard method.

History of NAA Neutrons were discovered in 1932, and within 4 years the basic principles of neutron activation analysis had been established by the work of Georg von Hevesy and Hilde Levi at the Niels Bohr Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, using a radium–beryllium source for neutrons and an early Geiger-counter assembled by Levi. However, neutron activation analysis only became practical as a method for elemental determination in the mid-1960s, with the availability of high-intensity neutron sources provided by research reactors (Figure 1), and with the development of

Box 1 Elements and Isotopes An element X is defined by its atomic number Z (which represents the number of protons) and by its mass number A (which represents the sum of its protons and neutrons). An element can be designated as AZ X although Z is redundant with the chemical symbol X and is generally omitted. Electrons, arranged in a series of shells surrounding the nucleus, are equal in number to Z. Isotopes of an element have the same number of protons, but different number of neutrons, i.e., same Z but different A. A few elements are ‘mono-isotopic’, that is, having only one natural isotope. Most elements, however, have more than one naturally occurring isotope, in which case the relative fractional abundance of the isotopes is generally constant or fixed. For example, aluminum is mono-isotopic; all naturally occurring aluminum is 27Al. In contrast, iron has four naturally occurring stable isotopes with the following abundances: 54

Fe Fe 57 Fe 58 Fe 56

5.8 % 91.7 % 2.2 % 0.3 %

During irradiation, each isotope undergoes a distinct reaction and subsequent decay, and yields gamma rays characteristic of the specific isotope. Since most isotopic ratios are assumed to be constant (there are some important exceptions), any one isotope can be analyzed to determine the amount of element present. The terms ‘radioisotope’ and ‘radionuclide’ refer to isotopes which are radioactive. These may be naturally occurring in the environment, or more typically, are created through activation by neutrons.

high-resolution g-ray detectors that enabled the analysis of complex g-spectra. During the 1970s, INAA rapidly emerged as the preferred technique for trace-element characterization, owing to its accuracy and sensitivity, and to number of elements that can be identified simultaneously (Table 1). INAA remains competitive with more recent instrumental techniques of multielement analysis (including ICP-MS), and is considered superior in the analysis of certain suites of elements, such as the rare earth or lanthanide elements. The technique helped establish the foundations of modern geochemistry, and INAA continues to make a major contribution through its application in a broad range of fields, especially geology, the environmental sciences, biology, chemical engineering, and medical research. Over the past three decades, INAA has become a major analytical tool in archaeology, as well. The technique was first applied in provenance studies of ceramics by researchers at Brookhaven National Lab and at Oxford in the late 1950s, although these early efforts

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were frustrated by the poor-resolution detectors available at the time, which were unable to distinguish closely spaced g-peaks. By the mid-1960s, however, the development of lithium-drifted germanium (Ge–Li) g-ray detectors had significantly improved detector resolution and paved the way for successful analyses of obsidian in Europe and North America. These early studies established both the provenance

hypothesis (which holds that each raw-material source carries a unique combination of trace elements as a chemical signature or fingerprint) and the importance of INAA as a method for sensitive, multielement analysis of artifact composition. INAA is now routinely employed by archaeologists in materials science and provenance investigations of lithic, ceramic, metal, glass, and organic artifacts. The primary application remains that of provenance studies, in which archaeologists utilize INAA to ‘source’ artifacts based on their characteristic traceelement composition; once finished artifacts have been linked in their geographic point of origin, mechanisms of trade and exchange, political geography, and social controls over the circulation of goods can be modeled based on the distribution of artifacts from that source. Other applications of elemental analysis include authentication (verifying the antiquity of an artifact based on its trace-element composition), explorations of ancient technology (utilizing traceelement composition to infer technological processes, particularly those of metallurgy and the production of glass), and investigations of health and diet (examining consumption patterns and nutritional status of prehistoric populations from bone chemistry) (see Trace Element Analysis).

Basic Principles of INAA

Figure 1 The core of a research reactor provides a highintensity source of neutrons to activate samples. Irradiation facilities may be located directly in-core or in locations surrounding the core.

INAA is the sequence of events involving the irradiation of a material, the creation and subsequent decay of radioactive nuclei, and the detection and quantification of those decays. Irradiation is one type of nuclear reaction involving projectile particles and target nuclei (Box 2). Although there are a variety of different possible projectiles in nuclear reactions, in INAA the

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of INAA Advantages of INAA Scope Multielement Sensitivity Nuclear technique Ease of sample preparation Nondestructive

67 common and rare earth elements become radioactive when exposed to the neutron flux in a reactor; of these, over 50 can be identified and measured quite readily. By combining different irradiation and decay times, it is possible to measure a large number of elements from the same aliquot of sample; e.g., a typical analysis will provide data on 35–40 elements in a single sample. The method permits measurement of all detectable elements with great sensitivity; many elemental concentrations are measurable in parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb). INAA can determine element regardless of chemical or mineral form; some isotopic identifications are possible. Both liquid and solid materials can be irradiated without chemical pre-processing, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing concerns of contamination that may accompany acid digestion or chemical separations. Although a small amount of material is removed from the artifact for analysis, that sample can be reanalyzed multiple times; i.e., the sample is not destroyed during analysis.

Disadvantages of INAA Not widely available INAA generally requires a research nuclear reactor as a neutron source. Slow turn-around time Decay times of up to 4–5 weeks may be required prior to measuring long half-life elements. Bulk analysis INAA provides no information on within-sample variation or heterogeneity, such as that provided by the electron microprobe (EMPA) or LA-ICP-MS. Radioactive waste The irradiated sample material becomes radioactive waste, and cannot generally be returned to the researcher.

1672 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS

projectiles are neutrons, and the target nuclei are the elements present in the archaeological sample. Typically, a small amount of material is removed from the artifact, encapsulated for irradiation, and exposed to the flow of neutrons generated by a nuclear reactor. During irradiation, the bombarding neutrons collide with nuclei present in the sample to form compound nuclei in an excited state (Figure 2). The excitation energy of a compound nucleus is due to the additional neutron, which upsets the balance between the repulsive electromagnetic forces separating protons and the attractive nuclear force which binds

Box 2 Nuclear Reactions In general terms, we can denote the processes of reaction as: aþA!B þbþQ where: a is the colliding particle, A is the target nucleus, B is the product nucleus, b is the resulting particle, and Q is the energy released. Nuclear reactions are usually written by the abbreviated convention: Aða; bÞB

protons and neutrons equally to each other. In response to this imbalance, the compound nucleus almost instantaneously de-excites to a more stable configuration through emission of one or more prompt g-rays (gp) or a charged particle. The resulting nucleus may be stable; more typically, however, the result is a still radioactive nucleus which then further de-excites emitting one or more delayed g-rays (gd), with a half-life ranging from less than a second to many years. It is these delayed g-rays that are utilized by INAA for elemental determinations. Both the ‘energy’ carried by the g-ray (measured in kiloelectron volts or keV), and the rate or ‘half-life’ of the decay are characteristic of a particular isotope (Figure 3). By collecting and measuring the full spectrum of g-rays emitted by a sample, it is possible to identify and precisely quantify the range of radioisotopes present in the sample, and thus to determine the elemental composition of the sample. As the name NAA suggests, the technique requires: (1) a source of neutrons, (2) a detailed knowledge of the reactions that occur when neutrons interact with target nuclei, and (3) instrumentation suitable for detecting, recording, and analyzing the resulting radioactive decays. Neutron Sources

A number of conservation conditions apply to any reaction equation, including:

. The mass number and the charge must balance on each side of the reaction arrow.

. The total energy before the reaction must equal the total energy after the reaction.

Neutron sources available for INAA include nuclear reactors, accelerators, and radio-isotopic neutron emitters, such as PuBe sources. Nuclear reactors are generally preferred, however, in that they offer the highest concentration of available neutrons (a parameter termed the ‘neutron flux’, measured in neutrons

Delayed g - ray gd

Prompt g - ray gp

Target nucleus

Radioactive nucleus Incident neutron Unstable compound nucleus

Figure 2 Schematic overview of neutron activation and subsequent decay.

Stable product nucleus

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1673

100

100

1010

80

% of activity remaining

60

50

40

25 12.5

20 0

0

1

2 3 Half-lives

6.25

3.125

4

5

Figure 3 The half-life of a radioactive isotope is defined as the length of time required for one-half of the activity to decay away. After one half-life, 50% of the original activity remains; after two half-lives, only 25% of the original activity remains. Half-life is a distinguishing feature of radioisotopes, and can vary from less than 1 s to thousands of years.

per cm2 per second), and thus permit greater sensitivity in elemental analysis. Within the core of a nuclear reactor, the controlled fission chain reaction in the uranium fuel rods creates a stream of neutrons. The fission reaction is initiated by the absorption of a nuetron into a heavy nucleus of a 235U atom, which splits into several smaller nuclei and generates considerable heat. Each fission also produces an average of c. 2.5 extra nuetrons that can be used to induce further fissions, thereby propagating the fission chain reaction. Neutrons in excess of those needed to sustain the chain reaction can be utilized to irradiate sample materials. Water surrounding the reactor core serves to cool the system and to reflect neutrons back into the core, concentrating them near the fuel and irradiation facilities. An equally important role of the water, however, is that is moderates or slows down the neutrons, increasing the probability that they will collide with and be absorbed by a 235U nucleus and perpetuate the chain reaction. Moderating materials such as water and graphite also increase the probability that free neutrons will be slowed sufficiently to interact with nuclei of the target material as well. All reactors produce neutrons with a range of energies, depending on the degree of moderation that the neutrons have experienced (Figure 4). The resulting neutron energy spectrum is typically divided into three main components: 1. Fast or fission flux. Neutrons born of the 235 U fission, which still have much of their original energy, that is, their energy has not been moderated (> 0.5 MeV). 2. Intermediate or epithermal flux. Neutrons with intermediate energies (from 1 eV to 0.5 MeV) which have been partially slowed down through

Relative neutron flux

108

Thermal neutrons Epithermal neutrons

106 Fast or fission neutrons 104

102

10 10−5

10−3

10−1

10

103

105

107

Neutron energy (eV) Figure 4 The energy spectrum of neutrons produced by the fission of U235 atoms in a reactor core. As fast or fission neutrons are slowed to thermal equilibrium with the moderating medium, the probability that they will activate a nucleus in the target sample increases significantly.

collisions with surrounding material. Many isotopes experience resonance (and a correspondingly high probability of neutron absorption) for specific neutron energies in this region. 3. Slow or thermal. Low-energy neutrons (energies below 0.5 eV) that have been slowed down by (and lost energy to) the moderating medium of the reactor, and are in thermal equilibrium with atoms in the reactor’s moderator. These ‘slow’ neutrons still have an average velocity of 2200 m s
2; however, at low neutron energies, the reactions of very many nuclides obey the Maxwellian 1/V law, that is, the probability of neutron absorption is inversely proportional to the neutron velocity. Research reactors (which exist to generate neutrons for scientific purposes) range in size and power output, and hence in neutron flux. Small university research reactors with 100–200 kW power can generate thermal neutron fluxes on the order of 1010–1011 n cm
2 s
2. Larger research reactors of 10–70 MW thermal power provide neutron fluxes up to 1015 n cm
2 s
2. Irradiation facilities (locations where sample materials can be loaded for irradiation) may be placed in the center of the core, or peripheral to the core fuel assembly. In addition, most research reactors have pneumatic facilities (much like the send-and-receive-station at the drive-up window at the bank), for the rapid irradiation and retrieval of samples for the analysis of short halflife isotopes. Since flux varies considerably with distance from the core center, it is necessary to know the neutron energy spectrum for a specific irradiation location or facility at a given reactor.

1674 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS Neutron Reactions

At the base of INAA is the sequence of events involving both nuclear reaction and nuclear decay. Nuclear reactions are changes induced in nuclei by interactions with projectile nuclei of sufficient kinetic energy. There are two fundamental types of reaction that occur during irradiation: neutron capture and transmutation. Neutron capture The most common type of nuclear reaction that occurs when target material is placed within a beam of neutrons is ‘neutron capture’ also designated as the (n, g) reaction. In this case, a low-energy or thermal neutron is absorbed by the nucleus, increasing the mass of the nucleus by 1 and creating a highly unstable compound nucleus. This excited nucleus almost immediately decays through release of a prompt g-ray (gp), hence the term (n,g) reaction: 1 0 nth

Aþ1 þA X þ gp þ Q Z X !Z

In some cases, the loss of a prompt gamma results in a stable isotope. More commonly, the resulting configuration remains in an excited state (indicated by the asterisk) and will undergo further radioactive decay. In the case of mono-isotopic aluminum, thermal neutron bombardment leads to the following reaction: 1 0n

 28 þ 27 13 Al ! 13 Al þ gp þ Q

or

28  27 13 Alðn; gÞ13 Al

Note that neutron capture results in an isotope of the same element, having increased the mass number from A to A þ 1, while Z remains unchanged. Transmutation The absorption of an epithermal or fast neutron, in contrast, creates a highly unstable compound nucleus which de-excites by the release of a charged particle, usually a proton, denoted the (n,p) reaction: 1 0 nf

A  1 þA Z X ! Z
1 X þ 1 p þ Q

Note that in this case, A remains the same, while Z decreases to Z
1. Less frequent transmutations involve the (n,a), (n,2n), and (n,t) reactions. For aluminum, the (n,p) reaction involving the addition of a neutron and the loss of a proton transmutes aluminum into magnesium, while in a similar reaction silicon is transformed into an isotope of aluminum: 27 27 13 Alðn; pÞ12 Mg

or

28 28  14 Siðn; pÞ13 Al

It is important to note that, depending on the available neutron energy spectrum, the same radio isotope can be produced from two different reactions on two

different stable isotopes. However, most research reactors have a ‘well-thermalized’ neutron spectrum where 90–95% of available neutrons are thermal neutrons, so that the (n,g) reaction is most common. In some cases (such as in the analysis of easily activated metal artifacts), an epithernal neutron activation may be desired; in these cases we can filter out thermal neutrons through the use of a cadmium foil, to increase the percentage of (n,p) reactions. Radioactive Decay

The corollary of neutron activation is radioactive decay, that is, the spontaneous transformation within an excited nucleus which results in a change of the N/Z ratio toward a more stable configuration. The most common decay mode following neutron activation involves b-decay (Figure 5). In this process, the active isotope emits a b-particle, which is physically equal to a high-speed electron. Two distinct forms of b-decay are possible: b– Disintegration Most of the isotopes formed by thermal-neutron capture show a ‘neutron excess’. The extra neutron can be annihilated by the reaction: n ! p þ b
þ n
whereby a neutron is transformed into a proton, and a negatron (b
) together with an antineutrino (n
) is emitted: Aþ1  X z

!

Aþ1 zþ1

X þ b
þ n
½þgd 

b+ Disintegration When a nuclear reaction yields as isotope with a proton excess, the excess proton may be transformed according to the reaction: p ! n þ bþ þ n whereby a proton is converted into a neutron, and a positron (bþ) together with a neutrino (n) is emitted. (Electron capture followed by X-ray emission is an alternative decay mode here.) Aþ1  Zþ1 X

!

Aþ1 Z

X þ bþ þ n½þgd 

In either case, some radioisotopes are ‘pure b-emitters’, that is, they decay directly to a stable state by the emission of b-particles only. These isotopes pose a problem for INAA: b-particles are not monoenergetic, rather the energy lost during decay is divided between the b-particle and the antineutrino. As a result, b-particles can carry a range of energies, and their energy is not characteristic of a particular isotope. Fortunately, most radioisotopes retain a small amount of excess energy which is given off as g-rays, which do carry an energy indicative of a specific decay and thus identify the parent isotope. For example, the thermal neutron irradiation of aluminum yields the following reaction and subsequent

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1675 1 n 0

→

1 p 1

+

0 e −1

1 p 1

→

1 n 0

0 e +1

+

Neutrino Antineutrino

b+

b – Particle

Stable nucleus with one less neutron and one more proton

Stable nucleus with one less proton and one more neutron

b – Decay

b + Decay

Particle

Figure 5 Alternative forms of b-decay following activation. In b-decay, the extra neutron is converted to a proton, whereas in bþ decay, an excess proton is converted to a neutron. Both forms of b-decay generally produce one or more g-rays as well, but some isotopes are pure b-emitters.

*

28 decay: 28 13Al ! 14Si þ b þ n þ gd, with a characteristic gamma ray at 1779 keV and a half-life of 2.25 m. Similarly, the irradiation of sodium with thermal neutrons gives the following reaction and decay: *

24 24 11Na ! 12Mg þ b þ n þ gd and yields a peak at 1368 keV with a half-life of 15 h. g-Rays are high-energy photons, with energies generally higher than (but overlapping) those of X-rays in the electromagnetic spectrum. In contrast to b-particles, g-rays are monoenergetic, and their energy is completely defined by the energy levels between which they occur. Excited nuclear states represent quantized energy levels that can be visualized as concentric energy ‘shells’ somewhat in the same way that orbital electrons occupy discrete energy shells in Bohr’s model of the atom. During activation, the energy in the nucleus is excited to a higher state; as nuclei de-excite, they lose energy and fall to a lower energy state. The energies of g-rays emitted in these state-to-state transitions are completely defined by the energy levels (‘shells’) between which they occur, and thus are characteristic of a specific transition of a specific radioisotope. g-Emission frequently accompanies b-decay and carries away the energy of the excited levels. The de-excitation of a radioactive nucleus can occur by one g-ray between the excited and the ground level, or by a cascade of g-rays between several lower excited levels or by both. This last phenomenon is called

137Cs

60Co

(30.17 years) b1 (93.5%) b2 (6.5%)

661.7

(5.272 years) b 1 (99.88%) 2505.7 b2 g1 (0.12%) 1332.5

g

g2 0

137Ba

0 60Ni

Figure 6 Decay schemes for 137Cs and 60Co. For 137Cs, 6.5% of the b-decays decay directly to ground state, while the majority go to an excited nuclear state of 137Ba. The g-ray released from that excited state carries an energy of 661.7 keV. For 60Co, most b-decays (99.88%) drop to the 2505.7 keV level, and then deexcite to ground state in two stages. The result is two g-rays with energies corresponding to the difference in these energy states: g1 ¼ (2505.7
1332.5) ¼ 1173.2 keV; and g2 ¼ (1332.5
0) ¼ 1332.5 keV. These two g’s appear simultaneously and are said to be in cascade.

g-branching. Decay schemes are graphic illustrations of the way in which a particular radioisotope reaches stability or ground state (Figure 6). Detecting Gamma Rays

The instrumental detection of any particle or radiation depends upon the production of charged secondary particles which can be collected together to produce an electrical signal. Charged particles, for example, a- and b-particles, produce a signal within

1676 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS

a detector by ionization and excitation of the detector materials directly. g-Ray photons are uncharged and consequently cannot do this. Instead, g-ray detection depends on intermediate interactions which transfer the g-ray energy to electrons within the detector material. These excited electrons have charge and lose their energy by ionization and excitation of the atoms of the detector medium giving rise to a measurable unit of electric current. Most g-ray detectors in use today are high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors (Figure 7). At extremely low temperatures, germanium approximates a nearperfect semiconductor material, with no free carriers of electrical charges but with a low threshold energy, such that a very small amount of input energy will generate an electrical pulse. When cooled by liquid nitrogen (at 77 K), the average energy required to produce such a pulse in germanium is 2.98 eV. g-Rays penetrating the detector crystal create charged particles through the photoelectric effect. As a g-ray photon is absorbed by the detector material it will eject a photoelectron, generating a small pulse of electrical current with a voltage proportional to the energy lost by the incoming g-ray. The functions of the electronic system are to collect that charge, measure, its intensity, and store the information. In modern detector systems, electrical pulses are assigned (based on pulse height) to one of c. 16 000 channels which together represent the entire energy spectrum; the true energy of each channel (in keV) is determined through calibration against a known g-ray source. The accumulation of pulses or ‘counts’ in several adjacent channels creates a peak in the spectrum, representing the radioactive decay of a specific isotope.

g-Ray spectra are typically complex (Figure 8). The decay of any one radioisotope may generate dozens of peaks of varying intensities, and multielement characterization generally involves the analysis of many, closely spaced and sometimes overlapping g-peaks.

Nuclide Identification and Quantification As we have just seen, the different radioisotopes produced in activation are distinguished by their different g-ray energies and by their half-lives. Based on peak height or peak area (the number of pulses associated with a specific g-ray energy), the radioisotopes can also be analyzed quantitatively, permitting measurement of the concentration of the element(s) of interest. There are two primary approaches to quantifying elements based on their g-ray spectra: the parametric approach and the direct-comparison approach. The ‘parametric approach’ (also called the absolute, standardless, or K-zero approach) holds that if all the parameters controlling the induced activity are known, then the quantity of the elements present can be calculated directly from the measured radioactivity (Box 3). The necessary irradiation parameters include the neutron flux and its energy spectrum, the isotopic neutron-capture cross-section (a measure of the probability of reaction with a neutron of a given energy), the duration of irradiation, and the half-life and/or decay constant of the isotope in question. Measurement parameters include the length of decay prior to collecting a g-spectrum, the duration of the g-count, the detector efficiency (fraction of total gamma rays detected), possible interferences between g-peaks, and natural or background radiation in the

To electronics (amplifier, etc.) Germanium crystal detector

Dewar

Liquid nitrogen fill collar Preamplifier End cap

‘Cold-finger’ to liquid nitrogen

Figure 7 Exploded view of an HPGe gamma-ray detector. The ‘cold-finger’ connects the germanium crystal to a well of liquid nitrogen contained in an adjacent dewar, chilling the crystal so that it becomes a near-perfect semiconductor. Courtesy of AMETEK.

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1677 12

Sc-46 Sc-46

11 10

Fe-59

Ce-141

Fe-59

Th (Pa-233) C-51

9

Co-60

Cs-134

Hf-181

Co-60

8 Eu-152

7 6 Peruvian vessel P-4

Sb-124

5 4 3 100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

1200

1300

1400

1500

1600

1700

Energy (keV) Figure 8 Complex g-ray spectrum resulting from the irradiation of a ceramic vessel from Peru. Several of the isotopes are represented by multiple g-peaks.

Box 3 The Parametric Approach to INAA The parametric approach holds that if all the parameters governing the generation and subsequent decay of radioactivity can be specified, then the amount of an element present in an irradiated sample can be determined from the area of the associated peak in the g-spectrum. Generically, to quantify a specific isotope, the necessary parameters are as follows: Peak Areag ¼ Peak Areag m fi NA AW sth Fth I Fepi l ta td tc fg Eg

mfi NA ðsth fth þ fepi IÞð1
e
li ta Þðe
li td Þð1
e
li tc Þðfg Eg Þ AWl

¼ total peak area or counts associated with isotope of interest; ¼ sample mass of element in grams; ¼ fractional abundance of isotope; ¼ Avogadro’s number (6.02  1023 atom/mole); ¼ gram atomic weight (gm/mole) of element; ¼ spectrum-averaged thermal neutron reaction cross-section; ¼ thermal neutron flux during irradiation; ¼ epithermal neutron reaction cross-section; ¼ epithermal neutron flux during irradiation; ¼ decay constant for the nuclide (a function of half-life); ¼ irradiation or activation time; ¼ decay time (from end of irradiation to beginning of count); ¼ count time (for collection of gamma spectrum); ¼ frequency of decays at g energy (% of total due to branching); ¼ detector efficiency at a given g energy and geometry.

The number of nuclei of a given isotope in the sample is based on sample weight, isotopic abundance, and Avogadro’s number, which expresses the fact that one gram-atomic weight of any element contains the same number of atoms. During irradiation, the activity of a radioactive nuclide grows according to neutron flux (the number of available projectiles), the neutron capture cross-section (the probability of activation), and half-life of the isotope in question. Following irradiation, the activity of a radioactive nuclide decays according to the exponential law. During that decay interval, the sample is placed near a gamma detector, which detects a fraction of the total decays according to its relative efficiency.

1678 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS

spectrum. A flux monitor (such as a small piece of high-purity gold wire) is included with each batch of samples in order to determine the flux for particular irradiation; other parameters are known through experimentation or system calibration. The K-zero method has become the standard for INAA in Europe. It offers great flexibility, in that in theory, it is possible to quantify any element with enough activity to generate a peak in the g-spectrum. An alternative approach, the ‘direct comparison’ or standard comparator method, is more common in the United States. The samples or unknowns are irradiated along with several replicates of standard reference materials or SRMs. These are materials for which elemental concentrations are known quite accurately through a variety of chemical analyses, and the ‘true’ composition is certified and published. In the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) create, analyze, and certify SRMs, as do a number of nongovernment agencies. SRMs commonly used in the analysis of archaeological materials include NIST1633 (coal fly ash), NIST688 (basalt rock), NIST278 (obsidian), and NIST279 (brick clay). Under the direct comparison method, the samples and standards are irradiated under the same conditions (frequently simultaneously); thus, all the parameters determining the induced activity for a given isotope are held constant for both unknowns and standards, and so cancel out. Elemental concentrations in the unknowns are then determined through simple weight-ratio comparisons with the reference materials of known composition (Box 4). The direct comparison method is sometimes credited with being more precise than the parametric approach, as well as easier to implement, but the

analysis is limited to quantifying those elements present in the SRM. Adherents of this approach must also specify the element library or ‘known’ values used for a given SRM, as the original certified values may be revised over time. In either approach, is it common to include samples of a material of known composition to serve as a check on the accuracy and precision of results. These ‘check standards’ also serve as a basis for interlab calibration, ensuring that the results obtained by one INAA lab are comparable to those of other labs.

Irradiation Protocols and Procedures Analytical procedures differs by INAA lab and by the type of material being analyzed, but a full multielement suite typically involves two irradiations, one for isotopes with very short half-lives (on the order of minutes to hours), and a second one to build up activity in the longer half-life isotopes (on the order of days to years). To analyze for elements with short half-life isotopes (Al, Ca, Cu, Ti, V, K, Mn, Na), a sample will generally be irradiated for a brief period of time (e.g., 20 s to several minutes depending on available flux) using a pneumatic tube system to deliver the sample to an incore location. Following irradiation, multiple counts of gamma activity may be necessary, the first shortly after irradiation (for Al, Ca, Cu, Ti, and V), and a second count several hours later (for Ba, Dy, K, Mn, and Na) after the more active isotopes have died down. Because the isotopes are decaying rapidly, count times are relatively short (e.g., 500 s). The data for elements with intermediate and long half-life isotopes (including As, Ba, La, Lu, K, Na, Sm, U, Yb, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Eu, Fe, Hf, Nd, Rb, Sc, Sr, Ta, Tb, Th, Zn, Zr) require an extended irradiation

Box 4 The Direct Comparison Method of INAA If we hold all irradiation and measurement parameters constant (including irradiation time and location, flux, decay time, counting time, and position relative to detector), then the analytical problem in Box 3 simplifies to a direct comparison between the activity generated in our sample relative to the activity generated in a standard of known mass: Activitysample Masssample ¼ Activitystandard Massstandard where activity is measured in counts per second (cps) based on total peak area. For example, a 200 mg aliquot of the SRM NIST1633A containing 14.3% aluminum (28.6 mg) yields 72 cps at the 1779 keV line associated with aluminum. In contrast, our 200 mg sample of clay, irradiated and counted under identical conditions, yields 60 cps at the 1779 keV line. What is the aluminum content of the clay sample? 60 cps ?mg of Al ¼ 72 cps 28:6 mg of Al Solving this simple equation indicates that the clay sample contains 23.8 mg of aluminum, or 11.9% by weight. (Note that the analysis of other elements may require additional steps, such as the resolution of peak interferences.)

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1679

(4–40 h is not uncommon). Following irradiation, two separate counts of g-activity are done of each sample, typically after a 1-week decay period for the intermediate isotopes, and again after 4 weeks for the longest half-life isotopes. Both of these counts may involve collection times of several hours per sample. The resulting data consist of a table of concentration values in percent (%), parts-per-million (ppm), or parts-per-billion (ppb), depending on the element, and associated measurement error. The ‘sensitivity’ (the least amount of an element detectable) of the analyses varies by element (Figure 9) and by the composition of the sample matrix. Similarly, both ‘accuracy’ (the closeness of a measure to its true value) and ‘precision’ (the closeness of repeated measurements of the same quantity) will vary by element, owing to differences in isotopic abundance, cross-section, gamma branching ratios, and matrix and spectral interferences. Coefficients of variation in the range of 1–3% are routine for the more precise elements (including many of the transition metals and lanthanide elements), but can be as high as 10–15% in the more poorly characterized elements. Preparing Samples for INAA

Archaeological materials of mineral origin should be cleaned of surface contamination, crushed to a powder (the consistency of table salt), and dried. For ceramic sherds, surface contamination and pigments (slips, glazes, and paints) are best removed through abrasion with a solid tungsten-carbide rotary file; a small piece of the clean sherd is then ground using a mortar and pestle and dried. For whole vessels and museum specimens, it is frequently possible to drill into the vessel and collect powdered material from the base or other discrete location. Lithic samples can be crushed in a

press or cut with a rock saw; fragments should be checked carefully for surface residue or metal contamination, and then cleaned with acetone or aqua regia, rinsed with de-ionized water, and dried. Powdered sample materials can be archived in liquid scintillation vials or other clean containers. Researchers should guard against cross-sample contamination by thoroughly cleaning all equipment between samples, and should control for other possible sources of contamination including chemical residue and dust within the sample preparation area. Skin oils and salts similarly can contaminate samples, but can be avoided by wearing examination gloves. Keep in mind that INAA is a bulk analysis method: any contamination included with the sample will appear as part of the artifact’s composition. Final encapsulation for irradiation is frequently done at the INAA lab proper. Typically, 200–500 mg of powdered material is placed in clean vials of highpurity polyethylene or fused silica (‘quartz’), and carefully weighed before the vials are heat-sealed. Additional sample material may be archieved for future analysis; however, the irradiated material will generally not be returned to the researcher due to the presence of long-lived radioisotopes and will ultimately be discarded as radioactive waste. Selecting a Lab

Many university and government research reactors have the facilities for INAA; however, smaller reactors may not generate a sufficient neutron flux to support sensitive analyses. In other instances, reactors may have the necessary irradiation facilities and detection equipment, but lack personnel with expertise in working with archaeological materials.

H

He

Li Be

B

Na Mg

Al Si P

K Ca Sc Ti

C

N

O

V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr

Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te Cs Ba *

F Ne

S Cl Ar

I

Xe

Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn

Fr Ra ** *

La Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb` Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu

** Ac Th Ac Th 1 mg/g

100 ug/g

10 ug/g

1 ug/g

100 mg/g

10 ng/g

1 ng/g

1 pg/g

Figure 9 The sensitivity of INAA varies by element, from percent level to parts-per-trillion.

1680 NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS

Archaeologists interested in conducting INAA should preferably consult with an established archaeometry program and/or with labs having a demonstrated expertise in geochemical INAA with a reputation for quality results. Other considerations in selecting a lab include: the suite of elements included in a standard analysis, access to a comparative database of potential raw materials for your research area (critical for provenance determinations of lithics and clays), policies concerning publication of data and archiving samples, turn-around time, and cost (which currently ranges from c. $25 to >$100 USD per sample).

Applications of INAA Data INAA can provide high-quality data on elemental composition for a broad range of artifact types. The successful utilization of those data, however, requires a detailed understanding of what factors affect trace-element composition. Generically speaking, the chemical makeup of an artifact is influenced by a series of natural, cultural, and postdepositional factors. Depending on the question of interest and the material at hand, researchers need to evaluate the relative contribution of these factors, and the extent to which a given factor enhances or blurs the pattern under investigation. Most provenance studies, for example, utilize geographic variation in the natural composition of raw materials, such as obsidian flows or clay mines, to define the trace-element signature of a given source. These raw materials differ, however, in the distinctiveness of their original composition, and in the role of cultural modification and postdepositional contamination in obscuring that signature (Table 2). The problems and potentials raised

by several raw material types are introduced in the following. Analysis of Obsidian and Igneous Rock Artifacts

Fortunately for archaeologists, natural factors combine to give obsidian sources a highly distinctive chemical signature. Each obsidian flow represents a unique geologic event, distinct in time and space, representing the molten contents of one magma chamber. While the product of any one eruption is remarkable homogeneous in composition, multiple flows from the same volcano will be distinct, and differences between volcanoes are strong (Figure 10). Cultural utilization and subsequent discard of obsidian tools do not significantly alter the original chemical makeup of the raw material, although exposure and extreme heat may hydrate the surface of an artifact. As a result, each obsidian source has a unique signature that is easily characterized by INAA or other less sensitive techniques, such as XRF. An obsidian artifact can be easily matched to a specific source along a profile of elements (Figure 11) or through a series of bivariate plots. Comprehensive databases of obsidian composition have been developed for many regions, and the International Association for Obsidian Studies maintains an online catalog listing obsidian sources worldwide. In the Mediterranean and in Mesomerica, for example, these databases now support detailed examinations of how widely obsidian was traded, and the relative accessibility of obsidian from a given area through time. Related studies have utilized these data to model the nature of exchange systems, differentiating between down-the-line, reciprocity, simple market,

Table 2 Range of factors affecting trace-element composition Natural factors Obsidian artifacts Composition of parent material mineralogy of magma fractional crystallization Weathering of cooled rock Ceramic artifacts Parent material mineralogy clay fraction aplastic inclusions Clay formation processes erosion redeposition sorting of size fractions Weathering of clay horizons in situ loss of mobile cations accumulation of metals

Cultural factors

Post-depositional factors

None

Weathering of exposed surfaces surface hydration locally reduced element concentrations Exposure to high-temperature (burning)

Paste recipes mixing clays refining/sifting addition of temper Firing differential or incomplete loss of water and organics loss of volatile elements Vessel use absorption of contents

Contamination by ground water industrial pollutants Weathering of exposed surfaces

NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS 1681 50 Different flows within the Greater Sevkar source: Pokr Sevkar Metz Sevkar West

Metz Sevkar

Chalco area

200

30 Metz Satanakar

Chromium (ppm)

Lanthanum (ppm)

40

250

150

100 Huexotla area

20 50

Bazenk 10 1.3

1.5

1.9 1.7 Scandium (ppm)

2.1

2.3

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or complex market exchange. Finally, although obsidian is by far the easiest raw material to ‘source’, INAA has also enabled provenance determinations of other igneous rocks, such as basalt and andesite used for ground-stone tools, sculpture, or architecture. Analysis of Ceramics and Clay Artifacts

Ceramic clays, in contrast, are inherently more variable, making provenance determinations more complex. Generated through the weathering, erosion, and redeposition of alumina-rich rocks, clay composition frequently displays clinal variation over space, and stratigraphic variation through time. Further, ceramics are an extremely plastic medium; the natural composition of the clay may be modified during vessel manufacture and use (through sifting, refining or mixing raw

clays, the addition of temper, firing, or absorption of contents), and finally by exposure to groundwater contamination following discard, all of which affect the trace-element composition of the artifact. The range of variation within a sample of ceramics produced from the same clay source can be broad, with relatively weak distinctions between different clay sources (Figure 12). To establish ceramic provenance, multivariate statistics are required to match the chemistry of a ceramic vessel against a potential clay source based on 20–30 different elements simultaneously. Measures such as the Mahalanobis distance (D2) statistic assess the probability that an artifact belongs to a specific clay source based on element concentrations as well as on the degree of variability encountered within the source material. In this situation, the sensitive, multielement analysis provided by INAA becomes critical, so that measurement error does not contribute to the challenges in distinguishing between sources. Given the generally wide-spread availability of potential potting clays, few studies have undertaken comprehensive raw material surveys similar to those available for obsidian sources. Rather, ceramic provenance is established most readily by comparing pottery vessels against production debris (such as kiln wasters) from a known pottery producing center. Where finished ceramics must be tested against natural clays, it is frequently advisable to pair INAA with a visual analysis technique (e.g., optical mineralogy or electron microprobe analysis) to assess how components of the

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ceramic paste, such as a specific type of mineral temper, contribute to the bulk chemical composition. In spite of these challenges, regional and local databases have been developed for important ceramic types, including trade wares and higher status ‘elite’ wares. These studies have led to examinations of long-distance exchange of the ceramics themselves, and of important commodities such as wine, olive oil, and salt, based on ceramic shipping containers. Once ceramic vessel provenance is known, a host of other topics can be addressed as well, including the organization of market exchange, determining the presence of political borders impeding trade, monitoring the movements of people through migration or resettlement, establishing the geographic extent of a group’s historic territory based on the location of clays used in their traditional pottery, and assessing the use of imported pottery vessels as markers of power and authority, to name just a few. In addition to provenance determinations, traceelement data have also clarified aspects of ceramic technology, including providing insights into the selection and modification of raw materials. Similarly, compositional data have been employed to evaluate changes in the organization of ceramic production, as for example, when the appearance of a more standardized or uniform ceramic paste is interpreted as resulting from the transition from small scale domestic production to a more intensive, workshop level of production. Analysis of Limestone Artifacts

An important raw material for architecture and sculpture, limestone is formed through the deposition of fine mineral sediments and carbonate mud (from the disintegration of microorganisms such as green algae) in an ancient marine environment. These sediments were generally well-mixed and widely dispersed before deposition, such that spatial variation in limestone composition can be subtle over large areas. Conversely, limestone mined from the same locale may show significant stratigraphic variation in composition, due to changes in sedimentation and paleo-oceanic conditions over eons of time. Provenance determinations of limestone are possible, however, with sensitive, multielement analysis such as provided by INAA. For example, the Limestone Sculpture Provenance Project initiated by Brookhaven National Lab has characterized the main limestone quarries used for the production of Medieval sculpture and religious architecture in western Europe. Their INAA database currently comprises more than 2200 analyses based on sculptures in museum collections, quarries in Europe and the Nile Valley, as well as

from French monuments and British cathedrals. Compositional information in the database is used to group sculptures and relate them to quarry stone by multivariate statistical procedures. Because many sculptures in museum collections were removed from their original sites long ago, the compositional data allow art historians to answer questions concerning their geographic origin and attribution. Analysis of Metal Artifacts

Native metals, which include gold, copper, silver, and meteoric iron, occur in metallic state and can be worked as found. Where significant deposits of native metals are recovered – such as the copper nodes of Cyprus or the Great Lakes region of North America – trace-element contaminants in the metal can be utilized to determine artifact provenance. Most metals, however, occur in the mineral state as complex ores (which may not appear metallic at all) from which the metal must be extracted through smelting and refining. Further, as precious commodities, metal objects were frequently recycled, melted down, and recast. This extensive processing destroys any trace-element signature that might reflect provenance, such that other methods of determining source (such as lead isotope analysis for bronzes) must be used. The compositional data provided by INAA may still provide a wealth of information for metal artifacts, however. Trace-element studies can provide key insights into advances in metal-working technology (e.g., arsenic vs. lead–tin bronzes) as the type of ore utilized leaves tell-tale markers in the finished artifact. Trace-element analyses can also readily distinguish native versus smelted (imported) copper in the New World, as well as identify potential counterfeits of precious metal objects, based on relative purity. Other applications include assessing changes in monetary standards, the debasing of currencies, and the degree of political control over coinage and mints, from changes in the ratio of constituent metals.

Conclusion INAA has become a mainstay of archaeological materials science research, contributing to the characterization of many tens of thousands of artifacts in archaeological studies spanning the globe. The sensitivity, precision, and multielement capability of INAA make this method particularly useful in characterizing complex materials such as ceramics, in the analysis of materials with low element concentrations, or where the amount of material available for analysis is limited. Although provenance studies remain the most popular application of this method,

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the high-quality compositional data generated by INAA can be employed to address a broad range of economic, technological, and ecological issues, whose limits are set only by our ability to phrase the research questions. See also: Archaeometry; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Trace Element Analysis; Vitreous Materials Analysis.

Gilmore G and Hemingway J (1995) Practical Gamma-Ray Spectrometry. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Glascock MD and Neff H (2003) Neutron activation analysis and provenance research in archaeology. Measurement Science and Technology 14: 1516–1526. Kruger P (1971) Principles of Activation Analysis. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Neff H and Glascock MD (1995) The state of nuclear archaeology in North America. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 196: 275–285. Potts PJ (1984) Neutron activation analysis. In: Potts PJ (ed.) A Handbook of Silicate Rock Analysis, pp. 399–439. New York: Chapman and Hall.

Further Reading

Relevant Websites

Alfassi ZB (1990) Activation Analysis, 2 vols. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Bishop RL and Blackman MJ (2002) Instrumental neutron activation analysis of archaeological ceramics: Scale and interpretation. Accounts of Chemical Research 35: 603–610.

http://www.limestonesculptureanalysis.com – Limestone Sculpture Provenance Project. http://www.peak.org – International Association for Obsidian Studies.

New Archaeology

See: Processual Archaeology.

NEW WORLD, PEOPLING OF Tom D Dillehay, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Clovis culture (also Llano culture) A prehistoric Native American culture that first appears in the archaeological record of North America around 11 000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. Monte Verde an archaeological site in south-central Chile, which is suspected to date 12 500 years BP, making it one of the earliest inhabited sites in the Americas. Taima-Taima A Late Pleistocene Palaeo-Indian site in Venezuela.

Introduction For decades, scientists thought that the New World was first populated by migrants from Asia who wandered down the center of the hemisphere about 11 500 years ago. This conventional view of the first Americans dates to the early 1930s, when stone projectile points that were nearly identical were found at

archeological sites across the American Southwest and the Great Plains. They hinted at a single human migration and cultural tradition that scientists labeled Clovis, after an 11 200-year-old site near Clovis, New Mexico. Because no older sites were known to exist at that time in the Americas, archeologists thought that the Clovis people were the first to enter. These first people presumably walked across dry land, the Bering Land bridge, that connected modern Russia and Alaska at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels were hundreds of feet lower than they are today. From there the earliest Americans would have traveled south through an ice-free corridor that some geologists believe existed in what are now the Yukon and Mackenzie river valleys, then along the eastern flank of the Canadian Rockies to the continental United States and on to Latin America. Much rethinking about the peopling of the Americas has taken place in recent years as a result of new discoveries in archaeology, historical linguistics, genetics, and palaeoanthropology. Several archaeological sites in both North America and South America have much potential to document earlier traces of human occupation. The eastern woodlands

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of the United States in particular has yielded more convincing evidence of sites ancestral to the widely documented 11 500-year-old Clovis culture, which is best known for its fluted or channeled projectile point and big-game hunting tradition. For instance, Meadowcroft Shelter in Pennsylvania, Cactus Hill in

Virginia, Topper Site in South Carolina, Little Salt Springs in Florida, and others suggest that people who were both hunters and gatherers may have lived in those areas as far back as 16 000 to 13 000 years ago (Figure 1). These possibilities are supportive of the 12 500-year occupation at Monte Verde and slightly

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later sites in South America, because if people first came into the Americas across the Bering Land bridge, we would expect earlier dates in North America. It also is likely that multiple early migrations took place and people moved along the edge of the ice sheets and coastlines from Siberia to Chile and from northern Europe into eastern North America. There also is discussion of possible influences, albeit presently very remote due to scarce evidence, from Africa and even Australia. Some palaeoanthropologists even believe that the oldest human skeletal material from Brazil more strongly affiliates with ancient Africans and Australians than with modern Asians and Native Americans. This hints at the presence of non-Mongoloid as well as Mongoloid populations in the Americas. Linguists and geneticists also postulate earlier migrations. Some linguists believe that a high diversity of languages among Native Americans could only have developed from an earlier human presence in the New World, perhaps as old as 20 000–30 000 years ago. Several geneticists present the same argument derived from gene diversity. Based on comparisons between certain genetic signatures shared by modern Native Americans and modern Siberians, it has been estimated that people from Siberia entered the New World at least 25 000 years ago. It also is likely that there were multiple migrations into the Americas, as suggested by several genetic studies. Specifically, geneticists have focused on two types of evidence extracted from the cells of modern Native Americans: mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only through the mother to both son and daughter; and the Y chromosome, which is transmitted only from father to son. So far, the genetic evidence sends mixed signals about the number of migrations. Some scientists believe in a single migration; others postulate multiple ones. These new discoveries and ideas are not without their critics. Advent Clovis proponents who staunchly defend the Clovis-first theory still hold to the notion that the first Americans were mainly big-game hunters who entered the Americas from Siberia no earlier than 11 500 years ago. This theory has been dismissed and replaced by a pre-Clovis model in recent years, which believes that multiple migrations occurred long before 12 000 years ago by different populations equipped with a wide variety of technologies and subsisting on a broad spectrum of plants and animals and that pre-Clovis people gave birth to Clovis people. Yet Clovis proponents believe that notions of a pre-Clovis are based on questionable radiocarbon dates, human-made artifacts, geological context of sites, and interpretations of the evidence. Although these criticisms are often constructive and encourage

a more rigorous scientific approach to the study of the first Americans, they are often based on anecdotal tales and little scientific evidence. Despite continuing debates over the first peopling of the Americas and the ambiguity and paucity of some evidence, three issues are becoming clearer. Although the Clovis culture is the most widely distributed early record in North America and accounts for a major portion of the first chapter of human history in the north, it fails to explain early cultural and biological diversity in all of the Western Hemisphere, especially in South America. Second, Northern Hemisphere agendas about the peopling of the New World, which were developed in the historically better investigated regions of North America, have created unrealistic expectations or preconceptions about the significance of cultural developments in Central and South America. Despite the likely migration of early people from the north to the south, the archeological records of each continent must be viewed in their own terms and not be judged by preconceived notions often based on meager evidence or over-extended interpretations. Third, regardless of the quality of evidence, the first American populations seemed to have been a melting pot for a long time and possibly had their physical, genetic, and cultural roots in different areas at different times. It is certain that the first migrants into the Americas adapted to many different environments quickly, creating a mosaic of contemporary different types of hunters and gatherers (such as big-game hunters, general foragers who hunted and gathered plant foods, coastal fishermen) immediately after they entered new environments. Further, a key issue is not so much rapid migration but rapid social and economic change and a steep ‘learning curve’ across newly encountered environments – that is, the adaptation of technological, socioeconomic, and cognitive processes from one generation to another. As the different archaeological records of South America and parts of the eastern United States suggest, this was not a single unitary process, but many. While hunter and gatherer groups were settling into one new environment, others were probably just moving into neighboring ones for the first time. Others probably stayed for longer periods in more economically productive environments. All of these processes must have begun sometime before 12 000 years ago in order to produce the types of technological and economic diversity reflected in the archeological record by 11 000 years ago. The record left behind by these processes is characterized by variable site sizes, locations, functions, occupations, and artifacts that clearly reflect different adaptations to different environments.

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Climates, Environments, and Archaeological Records A major factor determining expanding and receding ice sheets in high-latitude regions of the world, changing sea levels, mammal extinction, regional biotic restructuring, and the movement of Late Pleistocene fauna, flora, and people was climatic change. Although glacial ice sheets greatly affected the routes available to early migrants in the higher latitudes of North America and the southern Andes, they had little to no affect on the middle sections of North America, all of Central America, and most of South America. During the terminal Pleistocene between 13 000 and 11 000 years ago, sea levels were 70 or more meters lower than at present, and the Pacific and Atlantic shorelines were considerably farther out than their present position. As the continental ice sheets melted and retreated, the oceans rose and inundated most of the continental shelves. Most any early archeological

sites along old shorelines have thus been destroyed or inundated by water. Widespread extinctions also accompanied these changes, particularly the loss of more than 30 genera of large mammals (for instance, ancient bison, horse, bear, mammoth, mastodont, and saber-tooth tiger). It is not known whether climatic change, human overkill (Figures 2 and 3), or both led to extinction. Major changes in vegetation communities also have taken place over the past 18 000–10 000 years. During the period from 13 000 to 10 000 years ago, when most American environments were likely inhabited by humans, temperatures were generally warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter, and rainfall was increasing. Patchy heterogeneous biotic zones were shifting to broadly homogenous mosaics with new and different mixtures of plant and animal species. In contrast to many interior regions, coastal areas displayed a combination of higher and more reliable and greater ecological

Figure 2 General view of the excavated springs at the Taima–Taima site in Venezuela where El Jobo projectile points were found with the bone remains of mastodont and other extinct animals. Courtesy of Alan Bryan and Ruth Gruhn.

Figure 3 Variety of El Jobo projectile points and other stone tools from the Taima–Taima site and other localities. Courtesy of Alan Bryan and Ruth Gruhn.

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diversity. These features may have been particularly desirable as cold and aridity reduced ecological productivity over much of the extreme northern and southern latitudes, but even in some of these areas human occupation may have been intermittently concentrated in short-lived warming episodes. In the high Andean mountains, for example, this is indicated by the pulsing of occupation at several caves and rockshelters and the abandonment of some areas. Taken together, the palaeoecological and archaeological evidence is still a long way from accurately transforming palaeoclimatic data into clear statements about the productivity, availability, and reliability of resources for human use. On both a regional and local level, climatic shifts must have greatly influenced human land and resource use patterns, resulting in differential patterns of archaeological site location, abandonment and occupation, and artifact type and use. Yet, climatic factors, such as ice sheets, rainfall, and aridity, are only one among several (e.g., technology, social alliances, perceived alternatives) influencing human decisions to occupy, or abandon, parts of a landscape and how the archaeological record of each landscape is preserved for scientific study. Certain regions of the Americas have received far better archaeological scrutiny than others. There are various reasons for this, often to do with logistics and conveniences and more commonly because of archaeological impact studies and changing scholarly research interests. For instance, densely populated parts of the United States have received greatest archaeological coverage, because they are where most modern development and impact studies occur and travel and access is easy. Some regions, such as the deserts of the American Southwest and the coastal plains of Peru and Chile, have a rich Late Pleistocene heritage and high archaeological visibility due to the absence of vegetation. On the other hand, there has been little archaeological field-work in the tropical

forests of South America before the 1970s. In this region archaeologists have prospected more areas around rivers and lakes and in caves and rockshelters where accessibility and visibility are easier.

Landscapes, Technologies, Economies, and Founding Populations Before reviewing general patterns in the archaeological records of North and South America, a comment on founding populations and demography is useful. Whether small founding populations were engaged in the initial dispersion or colonization (meaning more territorial) in the Americas, they surely had demographic requirements. That is, other people were a crucial resource that probably placed limits on how far away a group could venture from its nearest neighbor. Any small founding group probably needed to maintain networks of potential mates, social interaction, and exchange of information on foods, and other resources. Such social ties would help to explain the general uniformity of technology across vast areas of a continent, such as the similarities in Clovis and later projectile points in North America and in the many different stone tool industries in many parts of South America (Figure 4). One of the most important factors determining the long-term and long-distance movement of founding populations across different landscapes was their ability to adapt their technologies and social organizations to the exploitation of new food sources and yet maintain social ties with neighboring or splinter groups. Any constraints on this movement were likely to be greatest where resources were limited. In homogenous, relatively static environments such as the boreal forests of high latitude zones in North America, the grasslands of the Great Plains in North America, the Pampa and Patagonia grasslands of South America (Figure 5), and the coasts in both continents, where

Figure 4 General view of the excavated Tibito´ site in Colombia showing a large boulder surrounded by stone tools and the bone remains of extinct animals.

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Figure 5 General view of Panualauca Cave in the high grasslands of central Peru where early human artifacts were associated with the bone remains of palaeocamelids.

resources were patchy and probably less reliable in time and space, groups probably had little choice but to move more often. The temperate deciduous forests of the Eastern United States and parts of the Andes, Brazil, and Venezuela, which were more heterogeneous and generally richer in foods, may have supported more different types of economies, and groups may have stayed longer in some areas. Temperate and tropical forests, in particular, probably gave people many subsistence options and the opportunity to reside longer, but perhaps less incentive to specialize or concentrate on particular resources. Further, because people likely would have spent more time exploring these areas and getting to know the variety of resources available, these longer stays may have sparked more social cohesion and perhaps more complexity. Greater social and economic complexity generally is inferred from the appearance of new kinds of archeological sites, such as burials and rock art, the adoption of new stone technologies, the exploitation and manipulation of new food types, including domesticated plants, and an increase in the exchange of products over long distances. There is archaeological evidence that by 12 000 to 11 000 years ago people had colonized most broad environments in the Americas, such as deciduous forests, coasts, tropical rain forests, cold steppe and shrub grasslands, and deserts. With the exception of eastern Beringia (Alaska and Yukon territory) in the far northwest, firm evidence for early colonization of the northern boreal forests and tundra of modern Canada is still lacking, although promising evidence comes from the site of Bluefish Caves where modified bones suggest early human habitation before 12 000 years ago. Another series of early sites is found in the Nenana Valley of Alaska that date between

11 500 and 11 000 years ago and reveal stone tool technologies remotely similar to those in eastern Siberia. Thus, it appears that by at least 11 500 years ago, people with similar tool technologies moved from far eastern Russia to Beringia and thus became some of the first people to have entered the New World. It is not known whether these people migrated farther south through ice-free corridors or followed the Pacific coastline. Further, the stone tool industries from these areas appear to have little resemblance to Clovis stone tools. By 11 200 years ago, there is widespread evidence of the Clovis culture throughout the middle sections of North America and in parts of northern Mexico. Clovis and other point traditions are widely distributed in the eastern United States and Canada at the Vail, Bull Brook, Shoop, Shawnee-Minisink, Debert, and other sites. In west-central North America, along the eastern slopes of the Rockies and on the southern plains, Clovis sites are common. Studies in the Plains and Southwest deserts reveal parallel or sequential point traditions associated with hunting economies, especially biggame (mammoth, giant ground sloth) in open terrain. These also include Clovis followed by several regional point styles such as Folsom, Midland, Goshen, and Plainview. Some of the earliest Clovis sites are found in the least expected places, for instance, the southeastern United States where several localities (Little Salt Springs, Thunderbird, Topper) date earlier than those in the west and southwest United States. In addition, Clovis is much less frequent in the far western United States where nonfluted points are more prevalent and associated with varying hunting and gathering economies. Although generally perceived as a big-game hunting tradition, not all Clovis and other early sites support this notion. Better preserved than plants, faunal remains suggest that any idea of a single Late

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Pleistocene economy is unrealistic. For instance, at Meadowcroft Shelter and other early woodland sites in eastern North America, both Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (c. 11 500–8000 years ago) faunas are dominated by small and medium-sized animals, perhaps reflecting greater environmental stability in the eastern woodlands and earlier extinction of large mammals. If so, then human populations may also have been better able to maintain themselves in the woodland habitats of the Eastern United States than elsewhere. In fact, some archaeologists have proposed that rather than being specialized big-game hunters, Clovis and later point-makers were broad-spectrum hunters and gatherers, particularly in the eastern woodlands and southern areas where the environment was more diversified than northern latitudes. In contrast to North America, the fluted point tradition played a minor and late role in the peopling of South America. Instead, a wide variety of fluted and nonfluted point industries associated with broad-spectrum economies are found in many regions from at least 12 500 to 11 000 years ago. In the Andes and in the eastern tropical lowlands and southern grasslands, many caves and rockshelters were occupied intermittently from at least 11 800 to 11 000 years ago, especially in eastern and central Brazil and in extreme southern Patagonia. It is not known whether this pulsing of rockshelter occupations is simply an artifact of climatic change or simply human patterns of social and economic change. Strong similarities in the dates of occupation pulses as far apart as 1000 km, however, implicate climatic changes operating on subcontinental scales. The surviving evidence of recently discovered human occupation of the central Amazon basin and other forested areas where archaeological exploration and visibility are minimal may be no more than a small sample of the populations that once concentrated there and elsewhere. In summarizing the evidence from South America, it is clear that early technological and economic developments show cultural diversity at the outset of human entry and the establishment of ever increasingly distinct regional economic combinations along the coasts and in highland Andean valleys. Although the current archaeological evidence is still too scanty to discern the specifics of these developments in all environments, two general transitions can be inferred. The first was a change in adaptive strategies and organizational abilities during and at the end of the Pleistocene period. This transition signifies the rapidly increasing ability of people to recognize the environmental potentials that existed in coastal wetlands, desert oases, intermontane valleys, lowland river valleys, and high altitude grasslands, to communicate these potentials to others and to take

advantage of them, and to develop the social organization required to exploit resources in a wider variety of compressed environments. Second, early people probably learned many hunting and gathering techniques, and on occasion employed them to domesticate some plants (i.e., squash, beans, chili peppers, and chenopodium) and to begin a semisedentary or subterritorial lifestyle in some areas by at least 10 000 to 9000 years ago. With the exception of only two sites in South America – Taima–Taima in Venezuela and Tagua–Tagua in Chile – there is no hard evidence to show that big-game hunting was the mainstay of the earliest known South Americans. Instead, most early South Americans employed a broad-spectrum economy that was associated with many different tool technologies and reduced territorialism. Another dimension of Late Pleistocene subsistence throughout the Americas remains difficult to investigate though the evidence of older sites suggests that marine foods also were exploited. Changes in sea-level and occupation hiatuses at several coastal sites in Peru (Quebrada Tacahuay, Quebrada Jaguay, Quebrada de los Burros) and Chile (Huentelafquen, Quebrada de Las Conchas) during the 11 000–10 000-year period mean that earlier marine-oriented sites may exist on submerged continental shelves. Freshwater and brackish fish also were taken in northern Peruvian Paijan sites dated around 10 500 years ago and several early sites along rivers in eastern Brazil (Figure 6). Similar evidence is being retrieved from a few sites along the submerged shelves of Florida and Washington states. These patterns eventually may help to explain the rise of later more socially and economically complex societies in some areas of Mexico and South America where we know that large nomadic hunter-gatherer bands eventually settled down to establish productive food economies and dynamic social systems by at least 9000 years ago. Not known are the conditioning factors that brought about these changes in regional environmental settings. The archaeological evidence for these changes is weak in most areas. Only in the past 20 years have we come to realize how widespread broad-spectrum economies were in the Late Pleistocene of the eastern woodlands of the United States and especially along the Pacific coast, lowland tropical forests, and northern Andean regions of South America. This is probably a result of increased archaeological research and better archaeological recovery techniques (i.e., ground penetrating radar to find buried sites, extraction of plant remains from archaeological sediments) to find new foods which have opened the minds of archaeologists to the idea that not all early people were big-game hunters but exploited a wide variety of food types in many different

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Figure 6 General view of the Pedra Furada site in eastern Brazil where Late Pleistocene human artifacts were excavated.

Figure 7 General view of the Monte Verde site where an early human campsite was excavated in southern Chile.

Figure 8 View of the remains of a wishbone-shaped hut structure excavated at Monte Verde.

environments. Examples of different foods are the thousands of snails recovered from Late Pleistocene Paijan sites on the north coast of Peru; the variety of seeds, nuts, soft leafy plants, tubers, and seaweeds

recovered from floors of residential huts at Monte Verde (Figures 7 and 8); and the abundant remains of palm nuts and other plant types found at several caves and rockshelters in eastern Brazil. Despite these kinds

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of foods, other groups developed economic practices that often relied on a specific species, for instance, hunting high quantities of bison on the Great Plains of North America and camelids (guanaco) or a few other species on the high puna or tundra of the Andes. If many Late Pleistocene populations were not as big-game focused as earlier interpretations suggested, the impression of long-distance movement over the landscape is suggested in many areas of the Americas by the infrequency of sites, which are often many kilometers apart. The absence or infrequency of sites, of course, also may represent a sampling bias, with the surviving sample of sites located and studied by archaeologists today probably representing no more than a fraction of the original settlements. As noted earlier, the constant destruction of sites by modern construction or by erosion and other natural forces make it difficult to find sites in many places. The strongest evidence for the movement of early people across the landscape and the exchange of goods between them primarily comes from Clovis and Folsom sites on the Great Plains of North America, where some of the raw material used to make projectile points and other stone tools often traveled hundreds of kilometers to reach a site. The presence of exotic stone material in sites offers some support for great human mobility, or the alternative possibility that people developed geographically more extensive exchange and alliance networks as a means of coping with more unproductive environments where quality resources were scare or unavailable. Long-ranging contacts between Late Pleistocene populations also may be indicated by the general uniformity of the Clovis and other early point technologies across North America and to a lesser extent across South America. The scale and intensity with which similar point types moved across the Americas decreased significantly after 10 000 years ago, when people became less

mobile and more territorially settled into regional environments.

Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Connections Both North and South American archaeology have long shown an interest in comparing Pleistocene and Holocene social and economic strategies. Traditionally, archaeologists have treated the Late Pleistocene period as a separate historical and cultural phenomenon, not paying much attention to the fact that this was the epoch that planted the initial seeds for the social and cultural foundations of subsequent Holocene societies. Studies have contrasted mobile, nonterritorial Late Pleistocene groups who primarily hunted territorial grazers (e.g., mammoth, mastoon, bison, and paleocamelids) with more semisedentary or territorial Holocene communities whose subsistence needs were met from a combination of plants, shellfish, and large and small game. Recent studies suggest that the importance of plant foods in Late Pleistocene subsistence has been underplayed. Supporting empirical evidence for the importance of plants comes from the well-preserved site of Monte Verde (Figures 9 and 10) in the forests of southern Chile, as well as from the wide range of plant food remains known from several sites in the Eastern United States and in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. Exploitation of plant foods may have been facilitated by the innovation of new technologies, such as digging-sticks to extract edible roots and tubers. Grinding stones for processing hard foods such as nuts and some fruits also are more commonly excavated in early sites, especially in the forested United States (Thunderbird, Gault, Dust Cave) and the forested lowlands of South America (Pena Roja, Monte Alegre, Santana do Riacho, Lapa Verhelma IV).

Figure 9 View of the wood foundations of a long tent-like structure at Monte Verde.

1692 NEW WORLD, PEOPLING OF

Figure 10 Human footprint preserved near the tent-like structure at Monte Verde.

In recent years, more archaeologists are beginning to examine the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene periods from a different perspective; they are considering how later social developments were predicated on the cultural diversity (mainly technology) and broad-spectrum economies of earlier hunters and gatherers. The rapid efficient adaptation of regional Late Pleistocene and subsequent Early Holocene populations to diverse environments may partially explain why some forms of incipient social and economic complexity appeared earlier in parts of Mexico and South America than in North America. For instance, squash and possibly other cultigens may have appeared as early as 10 000 to 9000 years ago at sites in Ecuador and Peru, while pottery production was established by at least 5500 years ago in parts of Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador, human mummification by 7000 years ago in northern Chile, monumental architecture by 6500 years ago in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and by 5500 years ago in Ecuador and Peru, and so forth. What triggered these early cultural developments in diverse environments is not well understood. It might relate to advanced hunter

and gatherer societies intensifying broad-spectrum diets in lush environments such as patchy forests and low coastal wetlands, in highly compacted ecotones along the flanks of the central highlands of Mexico and the Andes farther south, and in the confluences of large river systems such as the Mississippi and Amazon. In each of these areas there is growing archaeological evidence to suggest that different social and historical processes were acting in terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene times to form early food producing and more territorial, if not permanently settled, groups in some areas. Social and economic intensification are seen to be causally interlinked in parts of the Eastern United States, Mexico, and South America. Increased manipulation or control of the environment, combined with improvements in technologies designed to extract more food resources, probably led to increases in human population size and density and to the formation of new territorial and alliance systems between different groups, especially along the interior rivers of the eastern forests of the United States and along the desert coasts and adjacent western slopes of the Andes in Peru and north Chile where culturally complex societies developed in the Early to Middle Holocene period (9000–7000 years ago). The appearance of new technologies (facilities for storing and preserving food, grinding stones, permanent domestic structures) during this period in these regions suggests increased food productivity and more localized territorialism. America north of Mexico and high-latitude regions of the extreme Southern Hemisphere presently do not show the same early complexity of plant domestication, technological diversity, and population density that characterizes many highland and lowland areas in Central and South America. (An exception is early mound cultures dating as far back as 7000 to 6000 years ago along parts of the lower Mississippi River, albeit cultivars are absent.) The reason is surely not that northern and extreme southern populations were cognitively unable to undertake the kinds of developments observed in the archeological records of more complex intervening populations, but that they chose to deploy them rarely or infrequently. The former populations may not have been, as the anthropologist Martin Wobst has noted for Europe and other regions of the world where less complex hunters and gatherers existed in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene times, ‘situationally appropriate’, in part because environmental conditions did not demand such high-cost responses, or, it might be that they had narrower, single-species-focused hunting strategies, like the Clovis mammoth hunters in the

NEW WORLD, PEOPLING OF 1693

American southwest. More conservative, but arguably more stable, adaptations such as those on the north coast of Peru and in parts of the southeastern United States and of the tropical lowlands of South America, for instance, could thus maintain themselves. Until scientists carry out more research on these and other topics, we will not better understand the uneven early cultural developments that took place across the Americas and the lingering influences that they had on later cultures. One aspect of early cultures that is poorly understood is social organization. Several archaeologists believe that the shift from hunters and gatherers to agriculturalists and herders in many parts of the world was sparked not only by new technological innovations and the exploitation of new plant foods but also by major changes in the social organization of families and household groups. For early mobile or semisedentary hunters and gatherers, the band model of social organization, with its sharing of resources among members, was probably the most viable way to survive as groups moved and settled into unknown territories. The mobility of bands across unpopulated terrain allowed them to adapt to environmental challenges and to social conflicts. What mobility could not provide in the way of resources, exchange with neighbors could. But eventually some groups settled down, became more socially and culturally complex, and developed into agriculturalists and/or herders. Not until the onset of a sedentary lifeway in parts of the Americas during the Early to Middle Holocene period, can we observe a dramatic reorganization of social and economic relations between neighboring groups. These changes must have been accompanied by changes in the nuclear family and the aggregation of new and larger communities made up of different types of families and social groups that served as the primary units of production and reproduction. These are the transformations archaeologists must begin to identify in order to better understand the ways that laid the foundations for subsequent developments.

Epilog This brief essay has attempted as much to point out major historical developments in the first peopling of the Americas as some of the limitations of our thoughts and to suggest different avenues of research on early human migration and colonization. Although not a primary theme here, little attention has been given to the concrete steps we need to take toward more profitable future research. It thus seems fitting that this essay should end in emphasizing, not the inferences to which the current evidence seems to

point, but rather ways to improve that evidence and our interpretation of it. One way to improve it is to enlarge and fill out the archaeological record in traditional terms of finding, excavating, dating, and publishing more sites. The relatively few sites and archaeological patterns mentioned in this article, and fewer still which are fully published, are an obvious handicap. Second, reliable dating methods need to be more widely applied to sites if we are to identify regional trends and processes of migration and colonization with greater precision. Third, systematic attention must be applied to faunal, floral, settlement, and other data, which in turn must be integrated with other data sets (genetics, human skeletal, geological, linguistic) in order to study more closely the changing relationships between independent and dependent climatic and cultural variables. Fourth, specialists need to model their data and interpretations more in terms of process-dependent and context-dependent culture change over long periods of time vast spaces in the Americas. In order to test the kinds of relationships discussed above, many more sites require investigation for the purpose of identifying the dynamics of big and little culture traditions. Finally, relatively new methods that have been successfully applied elsewhere to relate artifact differences and similarities to the cultures producing them should be brought to bear on the problems discussed here. See also: Americas, South: Early Cultures of the Central

Andes; Extinctions of Big Game; Plant Domestication.

Further Reading Adovasio J (2002) The First Americans, New York: Random House. Anderson DG and Sassaman K (eds.) (1996) The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Bryan AL (1973) Paleoenvironments and cultural diversity in Late Pleistocene South America. Quaternary Research 3: 237–256. Dillehay DT (1999) Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, Volume 2: The Archaeological Context and Interpretation. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press. Dillehay TD (2000) The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. New York: Basic Books. Dixon J (1999) Bones, Boats and Bison. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Meltzer D (2004) Peopling of North America. Developments in Quaternary Science 1: 539–563. Nichols J (2002) The first American languages. In: Jablonski N (ed.) Memoirs of the California Academy of Science Number 27: The First Americans, The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, pp. 273–293. San Francisco: University of California Press. Schurr T (2004) Molecular genetic diversity in Siberians and native Americans suggests an early colonization of the New World. In: Madsen D (ed.) Entering America: Northeast Asia and Beringia Before the Last Glacial Maximum. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

1694 NEW WORLD, PEOPLING OF Stanford D and Bradley B (2002) ‘Ocean Trails and Prairie Paths: Thoughts on the Origins of Clovis.’ In: Jablonski N (ed.) Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences Number 27: The First Americans, The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, pp. 255–272. San Francisco: University of California Press.

Steele G and Powell J (2002) ‘Facing the past: A view of the North American human fossil record’. In: Jablonski N (ed.) Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences Number 27: The First Americans, The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, pp. 93–122. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences.

O OBSIDIAN HYDRATION DATING Peter J Sheppard, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary PIXE-PIGME Proton-induced X-ray emission and protoninduced gamma ray emission are methods of determining the elemental composition of material surfaces by using a proton beam to excite atoms which emit X-rays or gamma rays which are characteristic of the atom. This method is commonly used in the nondestructive geochemical characterization of obsidian. INAA Instrumental neutron activation analysis is a method of elemental analysis routinely used to determine major and trace element compositions of archaeological materials. The method commonly employs neutron radiation from a nuclear reactor to create isotopes of the elements to be measured. The decay of radioactive isotopes allows the detection and quantification of the elements in the sample. anisotropic Materials which have different chemical and electrical properties in different directions are anisotropic while those which do not are isotropic. Anisotropic crystals break a ray of light into two rays. This birefringence reflects the crystal structure.

Introduction The association between the date and the event being dated is of particular importance in dating. Dating the manufacturing event of an artifact may require different methods than determining its date of last use or deposition in the archaeological record. Often archaeologists have poor control over the association between the actual item dated and the event they wish to date. It is for this reason that the development, in the 1960s, of obsidian hydration dating (OHD) was greeted with such interest, as it promised to date actual artifacts and the behavior associated with their manufacture and to provide access to abundant, inexpensive dates on obsidian, a generally well-preserved material. Obsidian

Obsidian is a form of volcanic glass produced by rhyolitic volcanism. Rhyolite is an igneous rock with

silica content in excess of 65% SiO2. Obsidian is formed when rhyolitic magma with a low gas and water content quickly cools to form a solid without the time for a crystalline phase to develop, creating an isotropic glass. All glasses are unstable and eventually devitrify. Obsidian is under-saturated with water and over time equilibrium is restored by the slow diffusion of water into the obsidian to create the hydrated material called perlite. It is this time-dependent hydration process that forms the basis of OHD. Although obsidian is a comparatively rare material, its excellent flaking properties have resulted in it being widely distributed. Obsidian is found along the Ring of Fire which encircles the Pacific (west coast of the Americas [including Easter Island], Japan, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, western Tonga, and New Zealand), the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, and the East African Rift Valley. Obsidian may be common in archaeological sites and in New Zealand, sites near major sources may contain many hundreds of kilos of obsidian flakes. Trade in obsidian is common. Therefore, although obsidian dating might be considered to have limited geographical applicability, the wide distribution of this exotic material makes it useful as a dating material in many areas of the world. History of OHD

In 1955 Ross and Smith noted a sharp boundary between water-rich perlite and the glassy obsidian which made up the interior of a sample. Friedman and Smith in 1960 using 600 obsidian artifacts from around the world demonstrated that microscopic measurement, of the thickness of the perlite layer had the potential for dating archaeological sites where flaked obsidian had been found. The thickness of the perlite was related to the amount of time since the production of the fresh-flaked surface. Typically this hydrated layer was some microns thick in archaeological samples (e.g., 0.5–10 mm) and was able to be measured rapidly with comparatively simple equipment, promising the rapid production of large numbers of dates from sites containing abundant obsidian flakes. OHD was widely adopted in the American

1696 OBSIDIAN HYDRATION DATING

Great Basin, California, and Central America, and by 1988, the University of California Dating Laboratory produced a catalog of over 13 000 readings. Since its early promise, it has become apparent that application of the method requires greater control over a variety of factors such as obsidian composition, soil temperature, and measurement protocols leading some investigators in the 1990s to doubt its general applicability as a dating method. Theory

When a new surface is produced on a piece of obsidian, water immediately begins to be absorbed into the body of the glass, producing a hydrated layer with a higher refractive index and density than the interior. For most archaeological purposes we can assume a constant relative humidity and sufficient water to generate hydration. Friedman and Smith created dates by cutting petrological thin-sections from each artifact – in effect taking a thin slice (c. 30–60 mm thick) which showed, under a transmitted light microscope, a cross-section of the artifact containing the current surface and the transition from the outer hydrated surface layer into the unaltered body of the artifact. They determined that the thickness of the hydrated layer X was related to the square root of time T by a rate constant k. X ¼ kt0:5

ð1Þ

The unknown hydration rate (k) was determined by radiocarbon dating organics associated with obsidian at sites and then estimating a rate which was applied to artifacts of unknown age from other contexts in the same climatic zone (see Carbon-14 Dating). The use of broad climatic zones was an attempt to account for the effect of temperature on this chemical reaction. At higher temperatures the rate of hydration would be expected to increase. Unfortunately the use of such broad climatic zones as proxies for site soil temperatures is too imprecise an estimate. In addition, although Friedman and Smith’s work reported that variation in the composition of obsidian could affect the rate constant k, it did not take enough account of such variation. In subsequent studies Friedman and Smith investigated the effect of temperature on hydration rate under experimental conditions where they hydrated obsidian at elevated temperatures from 95 to 245
C. Their work demonstrated that the Arrhenius equation approximated the relationship of temperature to the hydration rate: K ¼ A expE=RT

ð2Þ

In this formula K is the rate constant for a particular obsidian while T is absolute temperature of the reaction (degrees Kelvin), R the universal gas constant, E the activation energy, and the pre-exponential A is related to the physical and chemical characteristics of the particular obsidian. Of particular importance in this formula is the relationship between the activation energy and temperature, as it can be shown that given the average known activation energy of obsidian, small changes in temperature can lead to significant changes in age (e.g., 1
C T producing 10% difference in age). This indicates the importance of an accurate estimate of the hydration temperature history. In this equation, then, the terms E and A are specific to the artifact and the value T must be estimated by some means. In order to determine the length of time an artifact has been hydrating, we need to know the hydration depth, something about the artifact specific chemistry, and environmental temperature. Method

Determining the hydration rate Obsidians with different chemical compositions hydrate at different rates. Although a variety of correlations have been proposed between rate and chemistry, current research demonstrates a good relationship between compositional (connate) water content and hydration rate. Measurement of the water content can be conducted using infrared spectroscopy; however, it has been shown that there is a good correlation between water content and obsidian density. Density can be measured using simple laboratory equipment although care must be taken to ensure very precise measurements and reduce the errors associated with vesicles and other physical variation in the glass. This method seems particularly useful for the ‘drier’ obsidians of the southwest Pacific. Other methods of determining hydration rates have been used. The earliest method simply dated contexts containing obsidian samples, using radiocarbon dating or dendrochronology (see Dendrochronology), and then developed a time versus hydration depth relationship. Problems with this included the accuracy of the dates and their association with the artifacts and the assumption that all the samples had the same geochemistry and hydration temperature history. An advance on this was the use of experimental hydration of obsidian from specific sources to derive rates; however, the fact that hydration proceeds very slowly means the time needed to make a measurable hydration rim might well exceed an experimenter’s lifetime. To speed up the process the experiments now are generally made in pressure vessels at higher temperatures and the

OBSIDIAN HYDRATION DATING 1697

resulting curve extrapolated to low temperatures comparable to those experienced by artifacts to be dated. A fundamental assumption here is that these hightemperature results can be reasonably extrapolated downward. A more general problem is the creation of specific rates for obsidian ‘sources’ or varieties. It may be possible to determine a rate or rate range for an obsidian variety, but it is clearly better to determine a specific rate for each sample to be dated. If individual rates are not determined then it is imperative that samples be assigned to ‘sources’ or obsidian classes with common geochemistry. This most often will require the use of methods of geochemical characterization (e.g., PIXE-PIGME, XRF, or INAA) (see Neutron Activation Analysis). Temperature

Gray scale intensity

Estimating the temperature at which the hydration reaction has occurred is a potential source of considerable error. Understanding this variable is also complicated by the fact that the temperature may have changed over time as the artifact is gradually buried or redeposited in fill. Modern research has shown that even site specific micro-climatic variation can be important. Some effort has gone into soil temperature modeling but most research depends on the use of analog thermal cells which are placed in the archaeological site for a year to monitor EHT. The amount of water diffusing into these cells correlates with the EHT although the rate may not be completely analogous with obsidian hydration. Of course the problem of estimating the overall temperature history of the artifact remains. The best samples will be those whose context has not changed at all since deposition (i.e., constant depth below surface). We are still left, however, with the potential effect of unknown climate and microclimate (e.g., change in ground cover) change over time. 190 185 180 175 170 165 160 155 150 145 140

Measuring the hydration rim Diffusion of water into glass changes the optical properties of the hydrated zone making it visible. The width of the band from the artifact surface to the diffusion front is the hydration band thickness. Most measurements of the hydration depth have been made on thin-sections (30–60 mm thick) by optical means. Measurement is normally made using oil immersion objectives at 1000 magnification with the assistance of specialized eyepieces designed for microscopic measurement. The best possible resolution of these optical devices in visible light is c. 0.2 mm. Recently computer image analysis (Figure 1), as developed by Ambrose and refined by Jones, has allowed finer resolution and the objective definition of the diffusion front. This method allows integration of measurement over the width of the captured hydration band and facilitates rapid repeat measurements and statistical analysis of stored images. Computer image analysis is still dependent on optical imaging and the production of a thin section which is destructive of the artifact. An ideal method would be nondestructive and simply involve some instrument-based objective measurement of a property of the unaltered sample which can be correlated with hydration depth. A variety of methods (e.g., secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS)) have been tried over the years with most involving geochemical profiling measuring the parameter of interest at gradually increasing depths. Most recently, a Fourier transform spectrometer-based system developed by Kondo and Matsui has been used with reported accuracy of less than 0.1 mm, while Stevenson has made use of acoustic microscopy which promises to be a fast and economic method. Whatever the method, it is important to incorporate some notion of the error inherent in the measurement process, as well as all other estimates or measurements, as part of the final date.

Outer surface

Unhydrated obsidian

Hydration band 0

10

20 Pixel number

30

40

Figure 1 Gray scale analysis of a plane light obsidian band image. Each pixel is 0.075 mm wide giving a band-width of approximately 0.82 mm between the inflection points. Analysis conducted with Rim-Buster software developed by Martin Jones.

1698 OBSIDIAN HYDRATION DATING Case Studies and Usage

Given the considerable number of variables which need to be evaluated and their cumulative errors, and the assumptions often associated with their measurement, skepticism about the utility of OHD may be well founded and we should be very careful in accepting older chronologies. Yet, thanks to a small band of dedicated researchers, we know considerably more today about the basics of OHD and the methodology is much more refined and useful. In a comprehensive review of OHD, Martin Jones has concluded that although absolute dating may always be problematic, especially given the difficulty of estimating EHT ‘history’ of an artifact, relative dating within sites and what he calls absolute relative dating, may be very useful in sites which contain numerous obsidian flakes. This, in fact, was the recommendation of Friedman and Smith in their original 1960 paper where they state: ‘‘The Method in its present state of development is especially suited to determine relative chronologies on layered sequences of artifacts from a single site, or region.’’ If we are dealing with obsidian samples from the same geochemical source and the same site, then we may assume that all parameters relating to hydration rate and EHT are constant and the only uncertainty is associated with the hydration band measurement. If, in addition, we have some obsidian samples which are very tightly cross-dated by radiocarbon or some other method, then we may use these samples to estimate a site-specific EHT. We are then able to estimate absolute sample ages within a particular site. Under these circumstances we can produce, very cheaply, large numbers of ages or relative ages which relate different components of an archaeological site to each other, possibly defining a fine-grained construction or occupation sequence. A good example of this type of work, which did not in fact require the determination of an age, is the study of hydration bandwidths on volcanic glass in the ‘Aoa site in American Samoa in order to evaluate whether there was disturbance which had mixed artifacts between layers. Another very useful application of site-specific OHD is the dating of the last 250 years in historic or protohistoric sites where radiocarbon dating is not

possible. Jones has dated components of the protohistoric Papahinau site in New Zealand which extends into the mid-nineteenth century, and shown the presence of two distinct occupation phases. Similarly Ambrose has made use of the very fast hydration occurring in the tropics to refine the chronology of an obsidian mining site in Papua New Guinea whose use extends into the historic period. See also: Amino Acid Racemization Dating; Carbon-14 Dating; Dating Methods, Overview; Dendrochronology; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Luminescence Dating; Neutron Activation Analysis.

Further Reading Ambrose W (1998) Obsidian hydration dating at a recent age obsidian mining site in Papua, New Guinea. In: Shackley MS (ed.) Archaeological Obsidian Studies, pp. 205–221. New York: Plenum Press. Ambrose W (2001) Obsidian hydration dating. In: Brothwell DR, and Pollard AM (eds.) Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, pp. 81–92. Chichester: Wiley. Ambrose W and Stevenson C (2004) Obsidian density, connate water, and hydration dating. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 4(2): 5–16. Clark J, Sheppard P, and Jones M (1997) Late ceramics in Samoa: A test using hydration-rim measurements. Current Anthropology 38: 898–904. Friedman I and Smith R (1960) A new dating method using obsidian: Part I, the development of the method. American Antiquity 25: 476–493. Jones M (2002) A Brief Prehistory of Time. PhD Dissertation. University of Auckland. Jones M, Sheppard P, and Sutton D (1997) Soil temperature and obsidian hydration dating: A clarification of variables affecting accuracy. Journal of Archaeological Science 24: 505–516. Ridings R (1996) Where in the world does obsidian hydration work? American Antiquity 61: 136–148. Stevenson C, Abdelrehim I, and Novak S (2001) Infra-red photoacoustic and secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements of obsidian hydration rims. Journal of Archaeological Science 28: 109–115. Stevenson C, Abdelrehim I, and Novak S (2004) High precision measurement of obsidian hydration layers on artifacts from the Hopewell site using secondary ION mass spectrometry. American Antiquity 69: 555–567. Stevenson C, Mazer J, and Scheetz B (1998) Laboratory obsidian hydration rates: Theory, method, and application. In: Shackley MS (ed.) Archaeological Obsidian Studies, pp. 205–221. New York: Plenum Press.

OCEANIA/Australia 1699

OCEANIA Contents Australia Historical Archaeology in Australia Micronesia New Guinea and Melanesia New Zealand

Australia Judith Field, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary human colonization Human colonization is a broader category than the related subconcept of colonialism, because whereas colonialism refers to the establishment of settler colonies, trading posts, and plantations, colonization encompasses all large-scale emigrations of an established population to a ‘new’ location, such as immigration, the establishment of expatriate communities, and the use of guest workers. Last Glacial Maximum The time of maximum extent of the ice sheets during the last glaciation (the Wu¨rm or Wisconsin glaciation), approximately 20 000 years ago. The conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum in Australia persisted for probably 10 000 years. Sahul The name given to the single Pleistocene-era continent which combined Australia with New Guinea and Tasmania.

Australia is an island continent exceeding 3.1 million square kilometers. It comprises a very old, relatively flat landscape and is the driest continent on earth. The modern land mass covers over 40 of latitude with a diverse range of environments: from the dominant arid core to rainforest and temperate forests on the margins to alpine areas in the southeast. The period of human history has been influenced by rising and falling sea levels and fluctuating climatic conditions. At various times in the past, as a result of lowered sea levels associated with glacial periods, the Australian continent was joined to Papua New Guinea and Tasmania – known as Sahul. Environmental change drove shifts in vegetation structure and faunal populations. There was significant contraction and expansion of the continental land mass as a result of sea level fluctuations through the last glacial cycle with sea levels at their lowest during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (c. 30–19 ka). When Europeans arrived and settled here around 230 years ago they were met by an indigenous population of mobile hunter-gatherers

with sophisticated cultural and spiritual systems, including c. 250 languages, a material culture with few formal tools but including some sophisticated items such as an aerodynamic foil – the boomerang, and an environment with a unique vegetation and fauna. The nature of the climate and landscape in Australia has provided limited preservational opportunities for organic remains with archaeological investigations focused predominately on caves and rockshelters. Shell middens, open sites such as lithic scatters, stone arrangements, quarries, and a diverse array of rock art have also provided insights into the histories of indigenous Australians. Historically, the focus has been on the timing and pathways of human colonization of the continent, the physical anthropology of these populations and the possible links to Late Pleistocene faunal extinctions (see Oceania: Historical Archaeology in Australia). As yet none of these issues has been clearly resolved but a complex picture has emerged of environmental change and the dynamic nature of human adaptive responses at the local and regional level. While considerable attention has been focused on the Pleistocene, the Holocene has also received concerted archaeological research of a similar scale. Some of these issues are addressed here and key examples are presented to provide an insight into the nature of the Australian archaeological record.

Timing and Patterns of Initial Colonization Initial human colonization of the Australian continent is conservatively estimated at around 45 ka, though some researchers argue for an arrival predating this time by 10 000–15 000 years. Any archaeological sites that formed on the continental shelf, which included the Torres Strait and Bass Strait, are now submerged because of sea level rises at the terminal Pleistocene, before c. 10 ka (Figure 1). Environmental proxies such as fossil pollen (vegetation) and charcoal (fire) records have been used to support arguments for initial human colonization before

1700 OCEANIA/Australia

Sulawesi

Papua NEW GUINEA

Nombe

Huon Peninsula

Flores Torres strait

Timor

Malakunanja II Nauwalabila l Ngarrabullgan Urumbal Pocket

Carpenters Gap GRE8 Karrku Puritjarra Kulpi Mara AUSTRALIA Wilgie Mia

Cuddie Springs Lake Mungo

Devil's Lair

Wyrie Swamp

TASMANIA

Kow Swamp

Nunamira Cave

Figure 1 Map of Australia and region showing the location of sites mentioned in the text. Modern-day Australia is marked by the dark outline and the pale outline is the continental margins during the time of lowest sea level at the LGM c. 30–19 ka when Tasmania and New Guinea were joined to the mainland, together comprising Sahul.

100 ka. Fluctuations in microscopic charcoal (fire frequency) have been interpreted as indicators of a human presence, though this has not been supported by the archaeology. Landfall of the first colonizers is most likely to have been coincident with a time of lower sea levels and involved a minimum 90 km open sea crossing. As such it demonstrates a sophisticated knowledge of seafaring, language, and construction of suitable watercraft which is consistent with a maritime economy. There are at least two colonization pathways into Australia, with most consideration given to the southern route from southeast Asia, through Java to Flores and Timor, the latter yielding archaeological evidence dating to >35 ka. There was an approximate 2000 km coastline along which people may have landed and subsequently based their coastal marine economy. A less often discussed second route, is through Halmahera,

Papua/Irian Jaya, across New Guinea and down across the Carpentarian Plain into northeastern Australia. There is good evidence for a 40 000 year occupation from the Huon Peninsula in New Guinea, and Late Pleistocene occupation of the Solomon Islands and New Ireland. Two sites dating to c. 40 ka are found in north Queensland – GRE8 (Figure 2) near the base of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Ngarrabullgan Cave (Figure 3) in the east on the Great Dividing Range that runs down the eastern coast of Australia. The debate by archaeologists over colonization pathways continues, but whenever people arrived on the Australian continent it is clear that by the time Europeans landed here Aboriginal people occupied all environmental zones and were present in relatively large numbers, with estimations of 750 000– 1 000 000 at European contact. Three models were developed to account for the patterns of colonization.

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Figure 2 GRE8 Rockshelter in Northern Australia where occupation deposits have been dated to c. 40 ka. The archaeological sequence is arguably continuous through the peak period of aridity during the LGM, and may have been part of a refuge area during this time. GRE8 is located adjacent to the permanent spring-fed Gregory River in the limestone gorge country of the Riversleigh Fossil World Heritage Area. Photograph ã Michael Slack.

Figure 3 Ngarrabullgan Rockshelter is located on top of Mt. Mulligan, an 18-km-long mesa surrounded by dry sclerophyll woodland. Despite 60 species). A recent review of the currently available datasets has shown that 65% of megafauna in Australia may have disappeared prior to the arrival of people. The decline initially occurred during the penultimate Glacial Maximum between 130 and 150 ka. By the time people arrived, c. 43–45 ka, only 13% (c. 8) of the known megafauna species remained. The trend to aridification of the continent that had begun some hundreds of thousands of years previously, perhaps the added hunting pressure of a new predator, and increasing uncertainty in climate in the lead-up to the LGM may have combined to see the last of the megafauna disappear. Some of the smaller species may have survived the LGM only to become extinct by c. 16 ka. Interestingly, despite intensive archaeological investigations in Tasmania there is no evidence that megafauna were extant here when humans arrived and, on the mainland, only one site provides the archaeological evidence which demonstrates coexistence with people. Claims for human-mediated extinctions of Genyornis in the Lake Eyre basin in southern Australia, do so in the absence of any evidence for the presence of people at that time, or palaeoenvironmental data indicating vegetation change and/or fire activity. The explanatory hypotheses for the extinction of the megafauna in Australia all suffer the same problem – the thin datasets that are currently available. However, viewing the fossil record over the longer

time scale has now provided a perspective which appears to exonerate people as the primary mover in these events, indicating instead a complex palaeoecological problem. Whatever happened, there is mounting evidence that the activities of people were only a footnote to the large-scale processes in train long before humans set foot in Sahul.

Technology The toolkits possessed by Pleistocene huntergatherers in Australia were, in relative terms, very simple (see Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient). Formal tools were few but included waisted stone hatchets (ground edge axes) from the Huon Peninsula in New Guinea at c. 40 ka, stone hatchets from Northern Australia in deposits dating to over 30 ka, and bone points from Devil’s Lair dating to nearly 30 ka. In general, artifact manufacture was effectively determined by both raw material type and flaking quality. Pleistocene assemblages were initially classified as the Core Tool and Scraper Tradition with the Small Tool Tradition attributed to later Holocene assemblages. These labels have now been discarded as regional variations in assemblages have become apparent and it has been established that flaked stone artifact assemblages can be more productively evaluated on the basis of the continuum of a reduction sequence rather than on morphological types. Attributing a function to the many and varied artifacts produced in these reduction strategies is best determined by

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functional studies that also incorporate use-wear and residue analyses. Expedient flaked stone tools dominate Pleistocene assemblages. These assemblages are mostly small in number (200), and are generally made of locally available stone. The few exceptions to these are the rich artifact assemblages from southwest Tasmania, excavated as part of the Southern Forests Archaeological Project; and from the Cuddie Springs site in central northern New South Wales. Notably, grindstone fragments have also been recovered from horizons dated to c. 30 ka at Cuddie Springs. On the basis of functional studies, these grindstones are argued to have been used for grass seed processing among other tasks. Of the other artifacts found at this site, some were used to prepare and maintain wooden tools, others were used for food processing with butchering tools also being common. Like other Pleistocene archaeological sites, stone raw materials at Cuddie Springs are dominated by locally available silcrete. At this site some raw materials, for example, feldspar porphyry, have been imported from distances greater than 100 km.

Holocene Toolkits The flaked and ground stone tool technologies of the Holocene show marked variation in style and form as seen in the Kartan Industry (first identified on Kangaroo Island) and Gambieran sequences (from the Mt Gambier Region) from the southern regions of the continent. However it is from the mid-Holocene (c. 5 ka) that marked changes are observed in the stone tool assemblages from mainland Australia both in implement types and manufacturing techniques. They are considerably physically smaller and have commonly been referred to as the Australian Small Tool Tradition. Ground edge hatchets, microliths or backed artifacts, spear points, drills, and other items became common in artifact assemblages from this period. Distributions of tool types also varies with tula adzes (a hafted woodworking tool) being primarily confined to the more arid areas of the continent, unifacial and bifacial points concentrated mostly in the north of the continent but also found down through the center. Kimberley points are bifacially flaked from fine-grained siliceous materials such as quartzite or silcrete using pressure flaking. They vary in length, the longest being around 10 cm long though they are usually about half this size. Bifacially flaked points are restricted to the north and variations on these points (e.g., Pirri points) can be found down through the center of the continent. Microliths come mainly from the southern areas. While microliths seem to peak in production around

2–3 ka, they decline in use around 1 ka in many of the east coast sites. The primary function of microliths has never been clearly established though they were probably used as armatures in composite spears and knives. Grindstones are ubiquitous in the arid/semiarid areas where they were used mainly for processing grass seeds, Nardoo (a small freshwater fern with starchy sporocarps), and perhaps some Eucalyptus and Acacia species (Figure 8). Grindstones have also been recovered from more temperate regions though their functions may vary according to resource availability (see Lithics: Analysis, Use Wear). Two zones which are thought to have had barriers to permanent settlement are the arid zone and the rainforests. Both were colonized at vastly different times but permanent occupation of both may have been constrained by similar problems – access to resources and climatic fluctuations. In the case of the arid zone access to carbohydrates, in the form of grass seeds, may have limited occupation as their exploitation involved a high-energy input/low-energy return. In the rainforest, permanent settlement may have been controlled by access to toxic starchy nuts which were a high-energy input, high-energy return food item.

Figure 8 Anmatyerre woman grinding acacia seeds, Utopia, June 1983. Photograph ã M. A. Smith.

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Arid Zone Occupation Puritjarra Rockshelter in Central Australia (Figure 9) provides some of the earliest evidence of human occupation of the arid core. Other sites, on the northwest arid margin such as Riwi Rockshelter and Carpenters Gap, attest to occupation of this region as early as 40 ka. While the earliest occupation dates are towards the margins, both Puritjarra and a second site, Kulpi Mara, were occupied from around 30 ka and attest to the fact that most desert landscapes were visited during the Late Pleistocene. Coinciding with the period of peak aridity, most sites were abandoned from around c. 20–13 ka. Whether these patterns are taphonomic, a sampling bias or a real signal has yet to be clearly demonstrated. Certainly from the midHolocene (c. 5 ka), with climatic amelioration, occupation of these regions was re-established with increased intensity of use in the last 1500 years. As with the rest of the continent, water availability appears to have dictated the movement of people, though more intensive use of particular technologies such as seed grinding and perhaps kinship networks would have also contributed to the ability of people to maintain a presence in this environment. Cultural transformation and changes in occupation patterns would have been a feature of the intense arid period during and immediately postdating the LGM. Certainly, exchange networks have been postulated for the Late Pleistocene period where items such as ochre, marine mollusks, and lithics may have been traded through the northwest of the continent. A number of ochre mines have been identified and linked to extensive trade networks through the center of the continent: they include Wilgie Mia and Bookartoo.

Mineral magnetic studies have linked the ochre found at Puritjarra to the Karrku mine (Figure 10) to the northwest of this site.

Rainforests The Australian rainforests are thought to be one of the last environments to be colonized by Australian Aborigines, with permanent settlement of this environmental zone not occurring until the last few thousand years. Pollen cores from the northeast of the continent have been interpreted, from microscopic charcoal patterns and shifts in forest types, as evidence of a human presence in these areas over 40 000 years ago. However, the archeological evidence has not been forthcoming to support rainforest occupation in any intensive way until 2 ka. The archaeological site of Jiyer Cave, located on the Russell River on the Atherton Tablelands southwest of Cairns, provided the first indication of antiquity of rainforest occupation when basal ages of c. 5000 BP were obtained, and until recently it was the earliest evidence of rainforest occupation in Australia. Recent work in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area on the Tully River to the south of this area (Figure 1) has now extended this occupation to c. 8000 cal BP at the site of Urumbal Pocket (Figure 11). However, occupation rates prior to 2 ka are indicative of ephemeral use of this landscape and it was not until c. 1.8 ka that permanent occupation of the rainforest is established. Excavations here have yielded evidence of a sustained increase in toxic nut exploitation, particularly Beilschmiedia bancroftii, the yellow walnut, from around 2.5 ka climaxing at c. 1.5 ka. The pattern of

Figure 9 Puritjarra Rockshelter, Central Australia, November 1986. Photograph ã M. A. Smith.

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Figure 10 The Karrku ochre mine near Puritjarra Rockshelter in Central Australia. Photograph ã Tim Wimbourne.

Figure 11 Excavations underway at Urumbal Pocket located in the wet tropics region of northeastern Australia. The site is adjacent to the Tully River channel which was dammed 50 years ago for hydroelectricity. The basal occupation dates of c. 8 ka make it the oldest known rainforest occupation on the Australian continent. Photograph ã Judith Field.

toxic nut use lags just behind artifact discard rates at each site investigated in the study. At least for Australia, it would appear that like the arid zone, the development of technologies that provide access to particular plant food resources may be the limiting factor in permanent occupation of these environments.

Tasmania The most southern extension of Australia is Tasmania and it has provided a unique record of human

occupation from the Late Pleistocene that rivals in richness the Palaeolithic records of southern France. Current evidence indicates that Tasmania was repeatedly occupied from c. 35 ka, though there is a gap in some archaeological sequences from c. 13 to c. 9 ka. The Tasmanian record has been shaped by its high latitude (which during the LGM had pronounced glacial activity), topography, and also the environmental shifts resulting from rising sea levels during the LGM. Following marine transgression Tasmania was changed from being part of mainland Australia to an island. Furthermore, there were, and are, great

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Figure 12 Nunamira Rockshelter in the Florentine Valley in Tasmania has yielded one of a number of extremely rich occupation sequences from the southwest and these sites represent some of the southernmost known archaeological sites that were occupied during the LGM. Photograph ã Richard Cosgrove.

differences in environment between the wetter and mountainous topography of the western part of the island, and the drier eastern region where dry sclerophyll forest dominates today. Changes in the use of rockshelters, such as Nunamira in the southwest (Figure 12), have been correlated to climatic and environmental changes. The Southern Forest Project investigators argued that people were highly adaptable and exploited opportunities provided by climatic fluctuations to revisit areas and exploit resources where possible. These changes are evidenced in the archaeological records which document the changing use of rockshelters over time where cyclical patterns can be correlated to climatic fluctuation. The Pleistocene sites from the southwest have sequences dominated by the bone of Bennett’s wallaby. Other small marsupials including wombats, possums, and in some places platypus, are present, with the artifact assemblages dominated by quartz, though chert, quartzite, chalcedony, hornfels, and silcrete are also represented. Interestingly, the southwest was apparently abandoned after the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, with occupation sequences for this period coming from northern and inland Tasmania and the Bassian Plain. People may have migrated north to the mainland before the marine transgression around 12 ka isolated Tasmania from the mainland. Arguably, Tasmania’s geography and climate were the limiting factors in constraining human population. In terms of technology, items such as boomerangs and spear

throwers are not known from Tasmania, though thumbnail scrapers (small, marginally retouched flakes) were common in the Pleistocene sequences from the southwest, as is Darwin Glass – which has been found up to 100 km from its source. Certain plant foods such as the daisy yam, while abundant here and exploited widely on the mainland, were never recorded as having been eaten in Tasmania. Interestingly, of the >600 000 bones recovered during the investigation of the southwest of Tasmania, not a single megafauna bone (or part thereof) was found in a cultural deposit, though megafauna have been found elsewhere on the island. It would appear that the arrival of humans postdated the extinction of the megafauna with no known evidence to support coexistence or interaction with humans.

The Holocene The increase in occupation sites and rates of artifact discard that occurred after c. 5 ka in Australia have been viewed by some to also signal increased social complexity in social systems, or a trend to ‘intensification’ and in some places a move to more permanent occupation of particular areas. One of the apparent markers of this change is the presence of backed artifacts: small crescent or segment shaped tools which are triangular in cross section, either symmetrical or asymmetrical, with blunting retouch on the thicker margin opposite the cutting edge (see below).

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Of increasing interest and apparent complexity are the changes now documented through the Holocene period, particularly the last 4000 years when climate became more stable and similar to the present day. Coincidentally, the Dingo (the Australian native dog) also arrived on mainland Australia around 4000 years ago and has been associated with the extinction of some faunal species on the mainland – the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus sp.) and the Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus sp.). A dramatic increase in the number of sites, discard patterns, and changes in behavior as witnessed by the development of semipermanent campsites, the increase in use of grass seeds as well as the diverse nature of the rock art occurred around the mid-Holocene. Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for these changes, the most debated being that of Harry Lourandos’s intensification. His ideas have acted as a catalyst for a new generation of researchers trying to unravel the complex nature of the archaeological record through this time and to try and formulate a cohesive explanation for the distinct changes in the archaeological record. The artifact technologies identified from this period were initially labeled the Australian Small Tool Tradition, however the degree of variability now recognized across regions has seen this term discarded. Of particular interest is the proliferation of microlith technology, which are small crescentshaped flakes, triangular in cross section that have been blunted by retouch along the back (Figure 13). Backed artifacts have arguably been used for a variety of functions including armatures in composite spears. While fundamentally conforming to the shape described above, they varied in size from around 10 mm to c. 50 mm in length and have been accorded a variety of names including ‘Bondi points’. While their proliferation has been documented from around 6000 BP, they have been recovered from in and around the GRE8 site, which has been dated to the terminal Pleistocene (c. 10 ka). Backed artifacts decline in use in many localities from around 1000 BP though no explanation currently exists to explain this decline. The Late Holocene saw the proliferation of many artifact types including the Elouera, the Kimberley Point (a bifacially flaked point made from fine grained siliceous stone), the tula adze (an arid zone implement for woodworking), and the Pirri graver (a wood graver overlapping in distribution with the tula adz). In addition, grinding stones and hatchet heads became more common from around 4000 BP.

Figure 13 A backed artifact from deposits dated to c. 10 ka in Northern Australia. Photograph ãJudith Field.

Major trade routes covered most of the continent and have been documented in the ethnographic literature. Pituri, a narcotic plant from southwestern Queensland, was widely traded across the continent, as were pearl and baler shells. Ochre and grindstone slabs were also moved great distances with well-documented trade routes moving through the center of the continent south to north and vice versa. These trade routes were also important social and economic pathways where not only goods (e.g., stone raw materials) but knowledge, ceremonies, and genes were exchanged. The Australian archaeological sequences attest to a diverse and rich cultural history. The dynamic nature of Aboriginal life reflects adaptation to significant shifts in climate and environment over the period prior to the next major wave of colonization by Europeans. Each decade of research brings significant developments in our understanding of the lifeways of these indigenous populations. See also: Extinctions of Big Game; Hunter-Gatherers,

Ancient; Migrations: Australia; Oceania: Micronesia; New Guinea and Melanesia.

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Further Reading Allen J and O’Connell J (eds.) (1995) Transitions: Pleistocene to Holocene in Australia and New Guinea. Antiquity 69 (Special Issue No. 265): 649–862. Brumm A and Moore M (2005) Symbolic revolutions and the Australian archaeological record. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15(2): 157–175. Flood J (1985) Archaeology of the Dreamtime: The Story of Prehistoric Australia and its People. Sydney: William Collins. Hiscock P (2007) Archaeology of Ancient Australia. London: Routledge. Morwood M (2002) Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Oceania/Australia, Peopling of

Mulvaney DJ and Kamminga J (1999) Prehistory of Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Murray T (ed.) (2004) Archaeology from Australia. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing. Pardoe C (2006) Becoming Australian: Evolutionary processes and biological variation from ancient to modern times. Before Farming 2006/1 (Article 4): 1–21. Veth P (1989) Islands in the interior: A model for the colonization of Australia’s arid zone. Archaeology in Oceania 24: 81–92. Wroe S and Field J (2005) A review of quaternary extinctions and climate: An alternative paradigm. Quaternary Science Reviews 25: 2692–2703.

See: Migrations: Australia.

Historical Archaeology in Australia Judy Birmingham, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary conservation The process through which the historical integrity of archaeological resources is prolonged through careful management. excavation The principal method of data acquisition in archaeology, involving the systematic uncovering of archaeological remains through the removal of the deposits of soil and the other material covering them and accompanying them. historical archaeology Archaeological study of historically documented cultures.

Introduction Historical archaeology – the archaeology of the modern world – began as a discipline in Southeastern Australia in 1967, coincident with the Society for Historical Archaeology in the United States and similar studies in South Africa. Undergraduate courses began at Sydney University in 1974, building on both academic and community-based interest and research, including theses, extending back to the 1930s. Academic teaching and research centers, along with conservation legislation, spread across Australia over the next 20 years, with research, professional, and

consultancy streams well-established for the last two decades. Starting in 1967 the earliest historical excavations in Australia were at Irrawang, Wybalenna, Fossil Beach, and Port Essington. They were conducted from Sydney, Melbourne, the Australian National Universities, and, partly at least, initiated by student demands for local fieldwork opportunities. Promising as these initial excavations were, Commonwealth and State conservation legislation of 1975 and later focused effort on assessment and recording of standing elements of the National Estate for the next decade. The universities of Sydney, New England, and then La Trobe remained the primary academic centers for teaching and research in historical archaeology until the expansion in the 1990s to Flinders and James Cook Universities, as well as those of Western Australia and Queensland. Since 1992, Sydney University’s Archaeology Computing Laboratory has been a key GIS and digital data training and research facility (see Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Methods). Teaching of underwater excavation, recording, and conservation, once limited to a graduate diploma in Western Australia, has expanded significantly with postgraduate research and field programs available at James Cook and Flinders Universities. The WA Maritime Museum in Fremantle remains a key center for maritime research. Postgraduate research is now a significant component of the discipline, and theses can be found listed on most university web pages. Graduates are quickly absorbed into urban development consultancy work,

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or employed in government heritage conservation management. University-based research has expanded since the 1990s, with funding supporting larger synthesizing programs. Opportunities for professional archaeologists expanded following the heritage protection reforms, which established a demand for university-trained historical archaeologists. A good entry point for information is the Australian government heritage web site which presents guides to relevant legislation in different fields, as well as to professional associations, publications and newsletters, and web resources. The Australian Society for Historical Archaeology (ASHA), begun at Sydney University in 1969, focused at first on excursions and lectures but quickly moved into publication – its newsletters from 1971, its journal from 1983, and its occasional publications such as Archaeology and Colonisation: Australia in the World Context in 1988, and Wybalenna in 1992. In 1992, the Society changed its name as well and retitled its journal Australasian Historical Archaeology (AHA) to reflect the inclusion of New Zealand and to make clear its wider regional perspective. In addition to the journal, it currently has a quarterly newsletter online, and an annual conference. The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists was formed following the advent of professional employment, and has an online register of consultants, as well as monthly newsletters. It has a new series of consultancy monographs. The Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (AIMA), started in Fremantle, also has a long history. It has an annual bulletin (volume 1, 1978), a special publications series, and an annual conference, increasingly held jointly with ASHA and/or Australian Archaeological Association (AAA). The Australian Archaeological Association embraces both prehistoric and historical archaeology and has a journal published twice a year (volume 1, November 1974) with full online index, and also has an annual conference. Other relevant publications are Archaeology in Oceania, Historic Environment, published by Australia-ICOMOS, and numerous research monographs from the Centre for Archaeological Research, Australian National University, Canberra.

Archaeologies of Convicts The forced migration of convicts from Britain was the primary reason for founding the colony at Sydney, and the substantial legacy of convict sites and structures remain a focus of historical archaeology. The extensive secondary punishment sites of Norfolk Island (1825–56) and Port Arthur (1830–77) with

their associated work stations as well as smaller institutions like Sarah and Maria Islands, and the remoter Port Essington, Fort Dundas, and Raine Island have been mapped and recorded. Convicts worked in Western Australia from 1850 to 1868 and left a legacy of public works and roads. South Australia was transportation free. Physically the colonial landscape was essentially shaped by convicts, whether quarrying stone to build jails, barracks, and fortifications; roads and bridges; or as laborers on settler estates and eventually as freed settlers (emancipists). Socially, convictism within the settlement meant an unusually fluid colonial structure. Most convicts were not confined, and moved to assignment and tickets of leave: when their sentences ended, they continued to merge with other colonists equally determined to forge ahead in a new land. One consequence is that without reference to documents, the roles and activities of convicts are virtually indistinguishable in the archaeological record. New detail on the convict system has come from rescue excavations. Remains of Old Sydney Gaol was one of the earliest, as were parts of Government Houses at Sydney, Norfolk Island, Hobart, Port Macquarie, and elsewhere. Traces of early convict activities in Sydney and Parramatta include locally made earthenware vessels and bricks made from local clay as well as ephemeral remains of early domestic structures. More recent research has investigated strategies of power, gender, and resistance especially in places of secondary confinement, as in excavations at Ross Female Factory, one of several such institutions. Evidence of the three categories of prisoners at the Factory was recovered – the newly arrived, those ready for hiring out to work, and those serving time for more crimes. The hidden and lost below-floor artifacts suggested that the third class of prisoners were more proactive in further bending rules about liquor, smoking, and adornment. Revisiting the earlier salvage clearance of the Norfolk Island hospital privy has allowed analysis of its deposit of Second Settlement artifacts with their seeming dark insights into the power-plays of sick convicts there. More distant again, the limited excavations and wider survey at the military outpost of Port Essington identified three construction phases between 1838 and 1849, one characterized by convict workmanship. Artifacts from the excavations plus intensive historical research produced a study contextualized with British Empire trade and military policy as well as within the colony. Similarly, analysis of convict building programs may provide insights into changing government

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policies and efficiency (1826–40s), as shown in the Great North Road stockades or the Fort Dundas military outpost (1824–28). Variations in both ground plan and quality of construction work give rise in each location to interesting inferences about the nature of control and supervision of the work gangs, and ultimately about power and resistance. Poor-quality work flows from inadequate control of work gangs, changes of ground plan facilitate greater control, excellent construction means efficient management – all interesting hypotheses for testing. At different times good behavior by convicts earned them transfers to work on probation stations (Tasmania), and assignment to free settlers as laborers in NSW. Sometimes on estates in NSW, the separate barracks built for assignees survive. Once free, emancipists merged into the colony’s growing population. Some who can be textually identified lived in Sydney’s Rocks as shown in the Cumberland St. excavation (and others), and developed family homes indistinguishable from nonconvict households, with good tableware, toys, ornaments, and reasonable diet despite very average building structures, street refuse, and adjacent slaughter-yards.

Archaeologies of Settlement In contrast to convicts under sentence, free settlers were quick to take advantage of land opportunities in the new colony intent on self-advancement as well as re-creating traditional social structures. The first phase of settlement was in the Southeast expanding to grazing lands beyond the Blue Mountains by 1820, and Melbourne in 1839. Wider settlement into the interior of the continent from the 1850s was spearheaded by prospectors looking for more gold, and explorers followed by pastoralists seeking grazing land. Missionaries, traders, and other ethnic communities followed and settled – missionaries wherever they could find Aboriginal souls to save, the Chinese in and around goldfields, Afghans providing camel transport to new settlements. Permanent and intermittent coastal settlements also continued – Asians along the north coast seeking trochus, pearl, and beche de mer, mixed communities in sealing and whaling settlement along the south. Archaeology can reveal a variety of ethnic, cultural, gender, and power relationships as well as colonist lifestyles: it has the capacity to explore the settlement system more fully since it is not confined to those with the written word such as servants and laborers, foreign immigrants, and most notably indigenous populations. Archaeology made an early start on the colonial mansions, symbols of colonial power with elegant

material culture, carrying out heritage assessments and conservation works, sometimes with minimal excavation. Some of these detail their owners’ ingenuity, enterprise, and management practices: at Elizabeth Farm Parramatta and Camden Park, two contrasting homes of the powerful Macarthur family, excavations reflect their owners’ commitment to the colony and their own aggrandizement within it. Others, now ruined, have been more extensively excavated. Jamison’s estate at Regentville (1824–69) was founded on cattle, and well details the creative energy of these early settlers – the innovative flushing closet, his impressive Mason’s ironstone dinner service, the terraced vineyards, the new steam mill technology, and the complex linkages of Jamison properties from his city residence, via the grand house on the Nepean River to his inland pastures. James King, a settler who set up his pottery manufactory of Irrawang in the Hunter Valley about 1830 to provide high-quality domestic wares at prices little higher than imported wares, displays the same restless innovative energy as Jamison, and seems to reflect the new business practices of the great Josiah Wedgwood. At Lake Innes House excavated finds from servants’ cottages suggested more conservative practices, a British model for land owner–servant relationships. Dundullimal station near Dubbo, built of wooden slabs in c. 1842, was typical of early properties further inland. By the 1880s, money from gold finds as well as pastoral exports had brought prosperity and bigger houses: and the succession of homesteads such as at Saumarez, near Armidale, document the grandeur of the settlers’ ambition. By contrast, in the interior, where pastoral expansion rapidly followed 1860s–70s exploration and gold rushes, grandeur yielded to function. New pastoral stations, set in leases covering thousands of hectares, were sometimes larger than English villages with housing and services for livestock, managers, stock-workers, and families. The archaeological research of today, whether of coastal or interior pastoral settlements, probes the total station system – homesteads, outhouses, and workers’ quarters of shepherds, gardeners, or stockmen: employed, assigned, or convicts; Aboriginal or white – and includes the Aborigines on whose labor most employees depended. Less visible in the landscape is the spread of missions throughout the interior and especially northern Australia and the Torres Strait to save the souls of the Aboriginal people encountered. Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran missionaries were key players, and the mission stations they established became centers for rations distribution, religious conversions, and culture change. For example, the early layout of the

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cemetery at Benedictine New Norcia (founded 1846) visibly embodied its hierarchical structure while at Killalpaninna Lutheran Mission (1866–1916) Aborigines and missionaries were buried separately, on either side of the church. The significant records of indigenous cultures during this time of change generated at numerous missions have been extensively studied: many of the sites retain potential. Survey at Killalpaninna demonstrated, perhaps for the first time archaeologically, how complex this cultural interaction was as it played out across the landscape. The sparse pattern of European occupation has sometimes left short-lived settlements that can be studied archaeologically. Every kind of mining rush had its initial tented camps near the diggings: camps of Chinese immigrant workers are especially visible. Most were abandoned as alluvial workings gave way to less mobile reef-mining operations, which were sometimes the start of more permanent mining townships. Construction camps arose for roads, railways, dams, and canals, even the Snowy River scheme, and were then abandoned. Even official settlements did not always survive. A few, such as Corinella, Risdon Cove, Reeves Point, and Somerset were conceived as permanent, others such as Fort Dundas (1824–28) and Port Essington (1839–49) were outposts set up only for diplomatic, strategic, or commercial reasons. Some of these sites, earlier investigated by archaeologists, are now being revisited. More recent research goes beyond confirming historical sources to investigate power relationships revealed in spatial details, sharing of resources, efficiency, work management, and changes over time.

Archaeologies of Interaction Sporadic early European shipwrecked explorers and traders, Macassan trepangers, global whalers and sealers, as well as the great influx of post-1788 white colonists and pastoralists, missionaries, and convicts all encountered Australia’s earliest Aboriginal peoples. The rich archaeological evidence of these intercultural imprints continues to be recovered and studied, and indigenous Australians increasingly take ownership of these studies of their own recent past. Traditional terminology uses Contact or Postcontact Archaeology to denote recent Aboriginal sites marked by a European–Aboriginal mix of artifacts, structures, and spatial patterning. Some excavation of Post-contact sites took place in the 1960s: first an Aboriginal midden adjacent to the Port Essington settlement, then the European-style government settlement built for Tasmanian Aborigines during their time at Wybalenna (1832–45) by G. A. Robinson ‘‘to

house, Europeanize and Christianize’’ the Tasmanian Aborigines he had gathered around him. The mixed material culture found on floors and around these cottages demonstrated how Aboriginal use of, and interaction with, unfamiliar European items was more revealing than their presence alone. The 1990s excavation at Burghley investigated a European stock hut (c. 1827), used by Aborigines after its abandonment about 1836–37 until c. 1842, again with mixed material culture. In more densely populated coastal Australia these sites are not common: one or two European items sometimes occur late in upper layers of Aboriginal rock-shelter deposits, while surface camp sites rarely survive. The story is different inland. With expansion into the interior from the 1860s, semi-permanent Aboriginal camps developed close to places of white settlement, such as missions, telegraph stations, police outposts, pastoral stations, and mining sites. The surface scatters that mark these camps have been studied at sites including Ooldea mission (1919–35) and Killalpaninna mission (1866–1920), the 1872 Overland Telegraph Stations such as Strangways and Charlotte Waters (cf. the 1990s Central Australia Archaeology Project), police camps at Boggy Hole (1889–91) and Illamurta Springs (1893–1912), Engoordina Station (1880–81) and Arltunga gold mining area (1888–1912). Most camps housed relatives of mission children, domestic employees, and Aboriginal stockmen, especially when bush food was sparse, since rations were often issued at these stations. Artifacts included recycled European tablewares, clothing, food cans, wire, bottle glass, and iron tools. More distant campsites too had European artifacts, but fewer. Traditional flaking is found on raw materials like ceramic insulators and glass bottles. Similar camp-sites are also found on explorer routes; explorers’ notes in their journals speak of rewards of iron hatchets and hoop iron to Aboriginal guides. Documenting this oral history, especially where archaeological evidence survives, often has special relevance in that, in law, continuity of traditional land use and practices has to be demonstrated if Native Title is to be recognized. Today the term ‘shared landscapes’ is sometimes preferred where pastoral leases and land grants mindlessly overran the visible camps, relics, and burials of the indigenous owners still in occupation. In current projects, Aboriginal communities have been increasingly working with field archaeologists to map places and record the associated oral memories so lacking in earlier formal white viewpoints of what happened. Collaboration with Aboriginal stockmen in Kimberley near Hall’s Creek, then with former

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pastoral communities in coastal northern NSW, mapped remembered places, camps, and artifacts, together with events, people, and values. Other recent examples illustrating the range of collaborative projects in the Post-contact field include Corranderk Mission Station (1863), Blacktown Native Institution (1821–29), Poonindie Mission (1850–96), Ebenezer Moravian Mission (1859–1904), and Peel Island Lazoret (1907–59). Different forms of cultural interaction are to be seen along Australia’s north coast among those engaged in the pearling, trochus, and trepang activities from Cossack and Broome to Arnhem Land. The archaeological footprint of Macassan traders as they harvested trepang and smoked their catch on shore was the subject of early field work and study, and continues topically. Indigenous peoples of the Torres Strait Islands form a distinct cultural group and have a different history of interaction. Their maintenance of their traditional culture and complex trading networks within their sphere of interaction allowed them to remove the legal fiction that the settlement of the continent was anything other than an invasion.

Archaeologies of Australian Cities Australian urban excavation rarely presents Old World depth and complexity, but still has more superimposed structural and occupation layers than the majority of sites in rural and remote Australia. Such excavation since the 1970s is development driven under heritage legislation, so that in general, time frames are tight and site boundaries prescribed by development rather than research priorities. Finance is not always sufficient to cover the processing, publishing, and storage of finds, and the site-specific nature of these investigations does little to support inter-site comparison and analysis. Fuelled by growing public concern, rescue archeology had a lively start in 1974, when a very early burial, disturbed during construction of Sydney’s Town Hall Square was immediately excavated by Sydney University’s new Historical Archaeology students. Regulations for rescue excavation followed the extensive heritage survey and assessments of government-owned assets throughout Australia – including hospitals, asylums, jails, and naval and defense establishments in several Australian cities – which were required by Commonwealth legislation of 1975, a huge task involving many historical archaeologists over the next decade and more. From 1975 into the 1980s, historical archaeology accelerated in the Sydney CBD under State legislation, with excavation in advance of development

at the important sites of Hyde Park Convict Barracks, the historic Sydney Hospital, Old Sydney Gaol, and the Colony’s First Government House by 1984, followed in the later 1980s by The Australian Gaslight Co. site, and excavations in the Haymarket, Paddy’s Market, Darling Harbor, and CSR-Pyrmont, as well as increasing excavation of historic Parramatta. Earlier rescue projects primarily involved public buildings and accessed well-ordered government records: now excavators were using municipal residence records to structure comparative analyses of working-class households. Heritage legislation in other states followed during the 1980s, with the Little Lonsdale project (1987–88) and City Link (1989) in Melbourne. In 1988, the Seventh Annual ASHA Conference – Archaeology in the World Context – discussed the implications of this expanding body of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeological data in a more international context, reviewing current approaches to the analysis of urban rubbish fills, whether underfloor, well, or privy fills or yard rubbish derived from single households or successive occupancies. In 1994, Sydney’s important Cumberland St. excavations used a combination of finds and municipal records to explore the nature of the households revealed. Dietary remains as well as selection and quality of household goods suggested how rapidly former convicts seemed to have climbed the social ladder. Conversely, street and yard assemblages add rich archaeological data on low-efficiency sewage and water systems, and street butchering and vegetable refuse. A La Trobe University project, Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City, later developed the 1988 conference themes by revisiting slum-land stereotypes in both Melbourne and Sydney. Other recent work on the Rocks has set the Chinese presence there in a wider context. Analyses of shipwreck cargoes now include new emphasis on urban consumer preferences, as well as intercolonial ceramic and other trade networks (Figure 1). Another archaeological focus has been mapping early Sydney archaeologically in relation to historic sources. To date such early sites include the Brickfields Hill brick and pottery-making sites, the first burial ground, the earliest jail , the first Observatory, earliest defenses, stretches of the original shoreline, and the foundations of the first Government House. In fact, since the boundaries of city sites are constrained by development needs rather than research questions, archaeologists are left to make the best of what they uncover. One solution is archaeological forward planning with the incorporation of potential city sites (and prepared research questions) into the

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Figure 1 Historical archaeological and shipwreck sites in Australia referred to in the text. Map by Andrew Wilson, Archaeological Computing Laboratory, University of Sydney.

planning process instead of repetitive reaction to oneoff excavations. Such a policy is now in place for Parramatta, the second town laid out in the Colony by Governor Phillip in 1789, which is undergoing major redevelopment. Five huts have been excavated here since 1985.The historic plan is known so that projections can be made about excavation potential into a preformulated integrated program with consistent themes, from the initial convict huts through all phases of its later development. Access to archaeological results can still be a problem, with completed reports – as required by excavation permits – mostly stored in State heritage libraries. Urban excavations often offer public participation in the dig, as well as Open Day visitation, and recommend conservation of significant remains.

A few become museums like the Museum of Sydney (on the site of First Government House), Hyde Park Barracks museum, or the Rocks Discovery Centre in Sydney. Many excavation sites are now commemorated by interpretive displays: variations on the Sydney Time Map which leads from site to artifact to people and back have proved promising. Other information is to be found in archaeological newsletters, web sites, and journal articles, and there are a number of monograph series and books. However, publication of the excavations themselves is often delayed where archaeological assemblages are ill-defined, historical records poor, and/or quantities of uninformative finds large. Recent overview publications of history and archaeology on the Rocks sites are a welcome development.

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Archaeologies of Industry Industrial activity began with white settlement partly for survival, and thus was always scouting for commercial prospects, the real business of colonization into which archaeology can offer unique insights. Research questions involve the selection, adaptation, and/or rejection of necessary technology; sources and availability of expertise; and the character, conditions, social and cultural needs of the workers involved. Many Australian industrial sites offer potential for investigating such questions. In the 1960s much historic technology was still in use in city foundries and brickworks as well as in country towns, but redevelopment was imminent. Archaeological enthusiasts – from National Trust members to professional engineers – were tireless in recording this disappearing heritage, imported and locally-adapted industrial technology. Site plans, drawings, flowcharts, and photography were followed by histories and workers’ interviews; excavation was rare. Early recorded sites included windmills, waterwheels, and horse-mills; saltworks, breweries, flourmills, olive and grape presses, wool-scours; lime kilns, brickworks, and potteries; and water supply, sanitation, and sewage farms in country towns or city suburbs. These studies – usually single-site – concentrated on how the site operated, identifying technology used, changes over time, sources of raw materials, nature of the plant, plans of its layout and flowchart of processing, with reference to company financial records of costs and returns. Others extended beyond the site to their transport systems, and the local communities and distant boardrooms behind them. The main questions concerned how the site worked, with emphasis on observation and recording of the processes involved and choices made. For mining sites, the location was determined by the resource. The mining of Australia’s rich mineral resources moved across huge landscapes in all states. The mining of coal began in 1801 near Newcastle, copper in South Australia from 1844 at Burra and Kapunda, tin from 1871 at Tingha, and silver–lead–zinc from Silverton and Broken Hill from 1883. Gold has left the most numerous surface traces, from Sofala in NSW and Castlemaine in Victoria in the 1850s, Hill End and the Palmer River in the 1870s, Pine Creek from 1877, and Kalgoorlie–Coolgardie from 1893. Recording processes and plant surviving in these distant locations continues; conversely, development pressure is often less (Figure 2). Preservation of industrial relics is a different matter. While industrial sites now come within regional planning schemes because of their heritage values,

assessments by professional interest groups often conflict disastrously with commercial interests. Sometimes there are conservation solutions. The massive mining company BHP Newcastle initiated their own historical recording of the recently closed 1915 complex, while in small towns local councils may support potteries, breweries, foundries, or pipe-works for tourist visitation. Some dramatic industrial structures are retained with new uses after closure: examples include Lithgow’s blast furnace, Perth’s Swan Brewery, the Commissariat Store in Brisbane, and Sydney Park on the site of the old Austral Brickworks. Such sites often undergo a great change after their original features have been recorded, although a crucial part of a long-familiar skyline does remain. Others become museums – the Living Museum of the West, based on the former Hughes Pipeworks in Footscray, and Sydney’s Eveleigh Railway Workshops Technology Park, or the impressive Power House Museum. Others of huge historic significance – Pyrmont Railway Yards in Sydney, the hub of a century of wool export – can be reduced to rubble without trace. Some mining remains in the bush are protected by incorporation into National Parks such as Hill End and Yerranderie. In Victoria the rich heritage of goldmining relics and sites around Bendigo and Castlemaine are conserved as part of the major Heritage Victoria Gold Mining project. South Australia also presents its varied heritage of Cornish engine houses and UK copper-mining technology as a tourist resource. These spectacular industrial monuments still signify remarkable past enterprise. An early model applied to industrial archaeological sites concerning sources and adaptations of imported technology was the Swiss Family Robinson model, based on the adaptation of equipment from the colonizing country to new needs, as well as adaptation of practice and expertise. Australian experience has also been compared with other colonies – South Africa, Canada, and Jamaica. Archaeology also proved informative on the gap between what the Board knew in London and what was really happening on site. These included frequent disasters over imported technology – expensive boilers at Hill End or Arltunga were hauled huge distances but scarcely worked and rarely utilized processes; the Peake copper smelter that worked for just 6 days. In Western Australia, evidence of the Coolgardie rush of 1893 survives in Kalgoorlie’s still operating mines and extensive mining relics. A major heritage item is the Goldfields Water Scheme (1898–1903) with eight pumping stations, the great Mundaring Weir, and a pipeline 523 km long to carry water from the coast to

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Figure 2 Historical archaeological sites in Southeastern Australia referred to in the text. Map by Andrew Wilson, Archaeological Computing Laboratory, University of Sydney.

the goldfields as well as the associated work camp sites, now the subject of archaeological study. Research directions today include the social contexts of industrial sites. Settlements as well as mine-shafts are integrated into the industrial landscape – employees’ households, single-men quarters and mess room or pub, together with oral histories, wherever possible, backgrounding employee families. Such projects include the archaeological traces of transient Chinese miners, alluvial mining sites, techniques and trade routes that followed gold rushes across Australia from 1850.

Maritime Archaeologies Maritime archaeology in Australia developed as a response to shipwreck looting in Sydney with the wreck of the Dunbar, followed by the spectacular violation of Dutch East India Company and British colonial wrecks off the coast of Western Australia. Destruction of wreck sites and legal battles over artifact ownership brought about the national Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976, followed by State legislation either as separate acts (e.g., South Australia Historic Shipwrecks Act 1981) or incorporated into general heritage legislation.

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Shipwrecks continue to be found, such as that of the convict ship Hive in 1835 in Jervis Bay (NSW). However, the online Australian National Historic Shipwreck Database, set up in 1988 by AIMA and now federally run, now contains well over 6500 wrecks, approaching some 98% of those known. This is supplemented by online lists from State maritime heritage agencies, which give location maps, maintained by Department of the Environment and Heritage. Amateur diving enthusiasm ensures that dive heritage trails get continuing support around Australia and beyond: maritime research themes have also expanded well beyond wreck excavation. The research potential of wreck cargoes, often tightly dated with detailed records, to provide information about consumer demands as well as intercolonial trade routes, risks, and practices across half the known world is now being realized. The Sydney Cove, wrecked in the Bass Strait with ceramics from Canton in 1797 and the wooden casks on board the William Salthouse wrecked in 1841 bound for Melbourne, have opened up this field. The investigation of the manufacture and stowage of the 36 casks (containing flour, salted provisions, nails, and various liquids) is one example of such archaeological enquiry. The scholarly publication of the Eglinton cargo adds background to what colonists wanted for their mansions in 1852. There are wider questions to be asked of the wrecks themselves. What can be learned about eighteenth to nineteenth century preparation of vessels for these long voyages of exploration and survey? At any given time, what shipboard conditions did immigrants to Australia have to endure? More specifically what can be learned from the scanty remains of HMS Sirius, flagship of the first fleet, wrecked off Norfolk Island in 1789, or from the more numerous artifacts of the HMS Pandora wrecked in 1791 after involvement with the Bounty mutineers. Maritime research has also moved on-shore, where investigation extends to shore bases of fishing and pearling in the north, also the archaeology of shore-whaling and sealing, now the subject of a well-funded collaborative research project in southern Australia and New Zealand. Centered in Flinders University, it is studying the physical remains of social behavior in remote locations as well as whaling industry technology and economics. Shipwreck survivor camps are a new area of investigation, offering the potential for archaeological insights into group behavior in such extreme conditions. A surviving example, well-known from historical texts, is the Sydney Cove camp on Preservation Island described by Strachan. Another is that from the French whaler Perseverant (1841).

Future Directions In the course of four decades Australian Historical Archaeology has achieved active academic departments with teaching and research in at least six states and territories, with heritage legislation and cultural resource management established in almost all states. There are national and state site registers, and professional expertise in rescue archaeology is widespread. Rescue projects involving industrial complexes, regional surveys, and large urban excavations in many cities have produced significant new information, although the physical storage of excavated material remains a problem to be solved. The scope for future development is encouraging. First, academic funding can increasingly be sought for large integrative archeological projects – surveys of whaling and sealing sites, of transcontinental contact sites, and inter-colonial urban archaeology – which add significantly to the synthesis of earlier projects. Second, digital technology is increasingly easing the earlier problems of gray literature – the inaccessibility of many rescue dig reports and bodies of data. Archaeologists now not only put reports but also find databases online. Digital technology continues to transform most technical aspects of the discipline – data entry, statistical results, mapping, and survey. Of particular interest is its role in interpretation of archaeological results to the public with immediate association of images, tables, maps, and text. Third, digital technology also means changes in how this information is presented that is, changes in the nature of delivery. Time-mapping and interactive displays developed at the Archaeology Computing Laboratory are increasingly relevant in museum and on-site displays, while computer games offer new opportunities. In these interpretations, digital technology can present sites, artifacts, and historical texts with complex interactive dialog that may challenge the long-standing dominance of the written word. Places, structures, and objects in many phases and from new angles interact on the screen suggesting alternative interpretations. Historical archaeology continues to bring its own perspective on Australian life. The questions raised by new archaeological finds become more interesting as the probability of additional historical texts recedes. Archaeological discoveries can trigger reassessment of earlier text-based interpretations, and offer today’s archaeologists and historians new evidence. It is characteristic of archaeological data to be physical and specific and this imparts a curiously sharp edge to its arguments that is not to be blunted by the current trend toward the writing of blended historical

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narrative. Genuine conflict between physical evidence and historical interpretations is a key arena for historical archaeology to make its own contribution to understanding Australia’s past.

Micronesia Scott M Fitzpatrick, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See also: Africa, Historical Archaeology; Americas, Central: Historical Archaeology in Mexico; Americas, North: Historical Archaeology in the United States; Americas, South: Historical Archaeology; Antiquities and Cultural Heritage Legislation; Asia, East: Historical Archaeology; Europe, South: Medieval and Post-Medieval; Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Historical Archaeology in Ireland; Historical Archaeology: As a Discipline; Future; Methods; Industrial Archaeology; Maritime Archaeology; Urban Archaeology.

Further Reading Birmingham J (1992) Wybalenna: The Archaeology of Cultural Accommodation in Nineteenth Century Tasmania. Sydney: Australian Society for Historical Archaeology. Birmingham J, Jack R, and Jeans D (1979) Australian Pioneer Technology: Sites and Relics: Towards an Industrial Archaeology of Australia. Richmond, VIC: Heinemann Educational Australia. Casella, E (2002) Archaeology of the Ross Female Factory: Female Incarceration in Van Diemen’s Land, Australia. Launceston, TAS: Records of the Queen Victoria Museum, No. 108. Connah G (1988) The Archaeology of Australia’s History. Sydney: Cambridge University Press. Harrison R and Williamson C (2002) Sydney University Archaeological Methods Series, Vol. 8: After Captain Cook. The Archaeology of the Recent Indigenous Past in Australia. Sydney: University of Sydney Archaeological Laboratory. Karskens G (1999) Inside the Rocks: The Archaeology of a Neighborhood. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger. Kerr JS (1984) Design for Convicts. Sydney: Library of Australian History with National Trust of Australia (NSW). Mayne A and Murray T (2001) The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nash M (2001) Cargo for the Colony: The 1797 Wreck of the Merchant Ship Sydney Cove. Woden, ACT: Navarine Publishing. Staniforth M and Hyde M (2001) Maritime Archaeology in Australia: A Reader. Blackwood, SA: Southern Archaeology.

Relevant Websites http://www.heritage.gov.au – Australian Heritage Directory. http://www.asha.org.au – Australian Society for Historical Archaeology. http://www.aacai.com.au – Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. http://www.aima.iinet.net.au – Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology Inc. http://eied.deh.gov.au/nsd/public/welcome.cfm – National Shipwreck Database. http://www.australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au – Australian Archaeological Association Inc. http://car.anu.edu.au – Centre for Archaeological Research.

Glossary Achugao Pottery found in the Marianas that has parallel incised lines in curved or rectilinear patterns around the necks of vessels with stamped or incised circle motifs with colored slips, usually in red or black. Betel nut The nut from the betel palm (Areca catechu) that is chewed with pepper leaf (Piper betle) and slaked lime to produce a euphoric effect. Betel nut was chewed by prehistoric peoples in western Micronesia and is still used widely today in Yap and Palau. Chelechol ra Orrak An archaeological site in the Palauan archipelago that contains some of the earliest human burials found thus far in the Pacific Islands, dating to 2800–3000 years BP. Latte Prehistoric stone pillars used in the Marianas for supporting house structures. Nan Madol An archaeological site on the island of Pohnpei constructed of large basalt columns and foundation stones on artificially built islets. This enormous complex was home to the Saudeleur dynasty from about 1500 to 500 year BP and is one of the most impressive sites in all of Micronesia. Remote Oceania A term used to describe a part of the Pacific that includes those islands that are geographically separated over great distances and are generally not intervisible; includes those islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. San Roque Pottery found in the Marianas that is decorated with circular motifs. Sawei An extensive exchange system that involved peoples from the coral Outer Islands who traveled to Gagil in Yap to exchange resources. Sekau/Seka A drink prepared from the pepper plant (Piper methysitcum), also known as kava, that was introduced into eastern Micronesia by early colonists. The use of the plant has a long tradition in Pohnpei, where the roots of the plant are pounded into a pulp on a large basalt stone and twisted through strands of hibiscus bark. Stone money Large circular or ovoid disks of limestone that were carved in the Rock Islands of Palau by Yapese islanders and brought back to Yap for use as exchange items and symbols of wealth and status; also known as rai to the Yapese and balang in Palauan. Tasa The capstones of latte (Marianas). Taro A tuber crop imported to the Pacific Islands and one of the most important foods to peoples in the region today and in the past.

Introduction One of the last great waves of human migration was the peopling of the Pacific. As early as 3500 years ago, people began colonizing the western and southwestern Pacific, and over the next 2500 years, even the most remote islands had been visited by humans

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across this seemingly boundless ocean. The Pacific, despite its vastness, became a highway for peoples who were skilled in sailing and navigation. The Pacific is traditionally divided into Melanesia (‘black islands’), Polynesia (‘many islands’), and Micronesia (‘small islands’). ‘Micronesia’ was a term first coined by the Frenchman Gre´goire Louis Domeny de Rienzi, but it was Se´bastien-Ce´sar Dumont d’Urville (1832) who is credited with classifying the Pacific into these three regions. Although they do share some geographical and cultural similarities, the regions are not all mutually inclusive. Some islands such as Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro along the southernmost boundary of Micronesia are distinctly Polynesian (Figure 1). Micronesia is an archaeologically rich, culturally diverse, and geographically vast region of the northwest tropical Pacific made up of over 2000 islands and reef islets. Micronesia, like Polynesia, is considered a part of ‘Remote Oceania’ in which there is great distance between islands, most of which are not intervisible. These factors played a role in the timing of island colonization, whereby the most remote islands were typically settled much later than those adjacent to larger land masses. Despite the fact that Micronesia has a complex history of settlement by humans prehistorically, the name in geographic terms suffices quite well, and led to F.W. Christian (1899) to call it the ‘sea of little lands’. Micronesia encompasses an area of ocean of around 7.4 million km2 with a total land area only

2700 km2, comparable to the size of the United States, but with an area the same as the state of Rhode Island. In fact, the largest island in the region is Guam, which is only 544 km2. Micronesia is typically divided into four main island groups – the Marianas, the Carolines, the Marshalls, and Kiribati – but contains numerous other coral atoll outliers. The Marianas stretch in a north– south line in the northwest corner of Micronesia and include the larger islands of Guam, Saipan, Rota, and Tinian. Guam has the distinction of being the first island group in the Pacific Islands contacted by Europeans after Magellan landed there in 1521. The Carolines are the largest group, comprised of over 950 islands spanning 3200 km from Palau in the west to Kosrae in the east. The Western Carolines include Palau and Yap, and Chuuk, Kosrae, and Pohnpei are located in the Eastern Carolines. It is important to note that there are also hundreds of atolls and reef islets interspersed between these larger islands, some of which were settled prehistorically. The Marshall Islands lie at the extreme eastern margin of Micronesia and are made up of 29 atolls and several small coral islands that together form an area of only 180 km2. The largest of these atolls is Majuro with 64 individual islets that surround a lagoon 300 km2 in area, but only around 9 km2 of it is land. The nation of Kiribati straddles the equator and consists of three main island groups – the Line Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Gilberts, as well as the island of Banaba.

Figure 1 Map of Oceania and general boundary of Micronesia. Drafted by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

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Roughly 1200 different languages have been recorded historically and in modern times in the Pacific Islands. About 1000 of these languages belong to the Austronesian family that is spread from Madagascar through much of Southeast Asia, Melanesia (excluding New Guinea), and all of Polynesia and Micronesia. However, there are slight differences in the division of these languages within Micronesia. The islands in Yap, the Eastern Carolines, Marshalls, and Kiribati are considered part of the Oceanic subgroup (which includes all of Polynesia and much of Melanesia), whereas Palau and the Marianas (as well as the Philippines) speak languages in the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgrouping. Based on the linguistic evidence, the prehistoric human settlement of Micronesia likely took place in three major events, but must have included multiple migratory movements. The first was the settlement of the Marianas and Palau from island Southeast Asia, the second may have derived from the Bismarcks to Yap, and the third to central and eastern Micronesia from somewhere around the Solomons and/or Vanuatu. That Micronesians were able to colonize and adapt to these remote islands is a testament to their sophisticated maritime technologies and ability to sail and navigate using the stars as a compass. Micronesians are considered to have developed the most advanced sailing techniques in the Pacific, allowing them to stabilize and maneuver their outrigger canoes with great efficiency and speed. Modern voyaging experiments demonstrate how navigators using traditional skills and knowledge, passed down from generations to generations, were able to successfully travel between islands almost at will, treating these voyages as accomplishments of endurance rather than exceptionally difficult navigational exercises. This allowed them to maintain linkages with peoples on other islands through intermarriage and exchange, although some Micronesian peoples such as those in Palau eventually lost the need or desire to travel long distances over open ocean.

Environment Micronesian islands have a tropical climate with small seasonal changes. However, there are some marked differences in rainfall patterns. Islands in the western part of Micronesia frequently have a higher precipitation in June and July and a drier season between February and April. Larger volcanic islands to the east such as Pohnpei and Kosrae receive more rainfall annually than the others. In fact, Pohnpei is considered to be one of the wettest places on earth, with an astonishing 300–400 inches of rainfall every year. The southern Marshall Islands, for example, typically

receive more rainfall than the northern ones, and the opposite is true for the Gilberts (Kiribati). There are four main island types in Micronesia – high volcanic (e.g., Pohnpei, Kosrae), island-arc (e.g., Palau, Yap), raised coral or limestone (e.g., Fais, Satawal, Rock Islands), and coral atoll (e.g., Kayangel, Ulithi, the Marshalls). The western part of Micronesia (Western Carolines, Marianas) lies west of the Andesite Line, which separates the deeper, igneous rock of the Central Pacific Basin from the partially submerged continental areas of acidic igneous rock on its margins. Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, and New Zealand are all eastward extensions of the continental blocks of Australia and Asia and lie outside the Andesite Line. Within the closed loop of the Andesite Line are most of the deep troughs, submerged volcanic mountains, and oceanic volcanic islands that characterize the Central Pacific Basin. Here, basaltic lavas gently flow out of rifts to build huge dome-shaped volcanic mountains whose eroded summits form island arcs, chains, and clusters. Outside the Andesite Line, volcanism is more explosive, and the so-called Pacific rim of fire is the world’s foremost belt of volcanic activity. The most prevalent island type in Micronesia is the coral atoll. These are remnants of submerged volcanic peaks that have emergent coral reefs developed on the uppermost fringe of the peaks. They usually have a deep lagoon or several smaller ones with coral sand beaches. Freshwater must either be collected from rainwater in some type of catchment or from wells dug into the island’s interior to tap what is known as the Ghyben–Herzberg lens (a lens of freshwater that lays atop the denser saltwater). The majority of coral islands extend in an arc east to southeast from the Caroline Islands through the Marshalls, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau, and Tuamotu. Chuuk, for example, primarily consists of coral atoll reef islets that surround an immense lagoon approximately 2125 km2 in area, although there are a few volcanic islands found in the southern half of this group. Studies on climate changes during the Late Holocene have shown that atolls in Micronesia were not able to form until sea level, which was steadily rising, had begun to stabilize to its present-day height. Because of their insular nature, islands in Micronesia have an impoverished fauna, especially in terms of terrestrial species. A number of these, including the fruit bat (Pteropus spp.), coconut crab (Burgis latro), and various species of crabs, were eaten in the past and are still relished today. Archaeological evidence suggests that pigs (Sus scrofa), dogs (Canis familiaris), two different species of rats (Rattus rattus mansorius and Rattus exulans), and possibly chicken (Gallus gallus) were introduced by native peoples.

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But, these were typically not all present on every island. Prior to the historic period, a variety of bat, bird, crab, frog, and snake species were present. Marine resources such as fish and shellfish played a more prominent role in the diet of prehistoric Micronesians compared to terrestrial animals. The green (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) were important for their meat and carapaces and shellfish were heavily exploited for both food and manufacturing tools. Of these, giant clams (tridacnids) was preferred for their meat, dense shell for making tools (particularly adzes), and probably as containers. Other species such as Terebra, Conus, Mitre, Anadara, Cassis, Trochus, and Pinctada shells were important for producing adzes, fishhooks, graters, beads, or ornaments. Other invertebrates used by Micronesians as food include sea urchins (Echinoidea), the sea worm (Sipuncula), starfish (Asteroidea), sea cucumbers (Holothurioidea), octopus (Cephalopoda), shrimp (Natantia), and various crustaceans. Animals transported by humans to the islands such as pigs (identified only from Palau and Fais) and dogs may have supplemented the diet, although neither seems to be found in any great quantities at archaeological sites. Although marine foods were abundant and an important source of protein and calories, plants introduced by humans were critical to the long-term survival of human groups. These crops included bananas (Musa spp.), coconuts (Cocos nucifera), taro (Colocasia esculenta and Cyrtosperma chamissoni; rarely Alocasia macrorrhiza), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), yams (Dioscorea alata, D. nummularia, D. pentaphylla or cumingi), and pandanus (Pandanus tectorius). The Polynesian chestnut (Inocarpus edulis) also provided an additional source of food for some peoples. In general, taro and yam are most preferred in the west, while breadfruit was more of a staple in the east (Figure 2).

The Prehistoric Settlement of Micronesia The Mariana Islands

Evidence from sites such as Tarague Beach on Guam and Achugao Point, Chalan Piao, and Laulau on Saipan demonstrates that the settlement of the Marianas occurred by at least 3500 year BP. Some linguists have proposed a colonization of the Marianas by peoples from Taiwan, though others argue that Chamorro speakers have more immediate links to the Philippines. Recent genetic evidence suggests that the Marianas and Yap were probably settled independently from islands in Southeast Asia and that gene flow may have also occurred from

Figure 2 Swamp taro (Cyrtosperma chamissoni ). Photo by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

central-eastern Micronesia. If the Marianas were settled from some part of Southeast Asia, it has been hypothesized that Yap and Palau might have been stepping stones to the northern reaches of western Micronesia, although it seems more likely that the Marianas were settled independently. Ceramics found in the earliest occupation layers in the Marianas known as Achugao Incised and San Roque Incised are much different than other pottery traditions found in Micronesia. Some of the decorative techniques appear reminiscent of the dentate-stamped Lapita pottery found in the islands of Melanesia and western Polynesia. Achugao pottery has parallel incised lines in curved or rectilinear patterns around the necks of vessels with stamped or incised circle motifs with colored slips, usually in red or black. Decoration on the much rarer San Roque pottery consists of circular motifs. Lime was used to fill in the decoration on both ceramic types after firing. It has been suggested that pottery seen in the Marianas, as well as those ceramics from Luzon (northern Philippines) and Lapita, share similarities with the red-slipped pottery found in Yu¨an-shan assemblages in Taiwan. In addition to pottery, other artifacts such as beads and bracelets made from Conus shell are found. Some of the more interesting features in Marianas prehistory are the latte stones made from limestone, sandstone, or basalt which begin to show up in the archaeological record around 1000 year BP. These stone pillars with capstones (tasa) were arranged in pairs numbering between three and seven (often occurring in clusters) and used to support house

1724 Micronesia

Figure 3 Latte stone from the Marianas. Photo by Michiko Intoh.

structures. A study of 234 sets of latte on Guam found that over 80% were in sets of four or five and were rarely more than 2.5 m high. The House of Taga site on Tinian, however, has columns over 5 m high. Although there has been some debate about the true function of latte stones, it is likely that they served multiple purposes centering around habitation, domestic activities, and preventing rats from gaining access to food supplies. It is quite possible they also served other functions that were more ritual or symbolic in nature. Needless to say, the carving, transport, and use of latte stones clearly represent a gradual rise in Marianas’ social complexity (Figure 3). The Western Caroline Islands

Prior to the late 1990s, early dates from Palau and Yap hovered around 2000 year BP, even after nearly 30 years of investigation. A wealth of archaeological information derived from cultural resource management projects on Koror and the large volcanic island of Babeldaob, as well as recent research in the smaller Rock Islands of Palau, now suggests that the settlement took place closer to around 3000– 3300 year BP, nearly contemporaneous with the earliest prehistoric sites known in the Marianas. Good evidence for this period of occupation comes from Ulong Island and the Chelechol ra Orrak site which contains the oldest-known burials yet found in the Pacific Islands (c. 2800–3000 year BP). Palaeoenvironmental cores that show an increase in charcoal fragments (possibly from people burning forested

areas for growing crops), and pollen from plants transported by humans, suggest that human settlement may have occurred even earlier around 4500 year BP. However, similar to what is seen in the Marianas, no archaeological evidence has yet been found to support the early palaeoenvironmental dates and so it is still a debated issue whether human settlement did in fact take place this early. Palauans appear to have genetic contributions from Southeast Asia, central-eastern Micronesia, and New Guinea, a reflection of their long history and geographical proximity to all three regions. Computer simulations of drift voyaging suggest that Palau was likely colonized by peoples from the southern Philippines (Mindanao), matching up well with the linguistic evidence. Because of its ecological diversity, Palau has a number of species not found in the other islands such as the marine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), which was present at historic contact, but was either rare or unimportant as a resource. Among larger marine vertebrates, the now endangered dugong (Dugong dugong) was highly prized for its vertebras, which were worn as bracelets (klilt) by men of high status in Palauan society. Palauans and Yapese both brought with them a number of important crops, the most important of which was taro (Cyrtosperma chamissonis) that was grown in swamp ponds. Although swamp taro was an extremely important crop to the Yapese, they also grew yams in gardens created by slashing and burning sections of the forest. In addition to the various plants that Western Carolinian populations purposefully brought with them for food were other cultigens that did not necessarily fulfill a dietary need, but still important culturally. These include nuts from the betel palm (Areca catechu), which is chewed in combination with pepper leaf (Piper betle) and slaked lime to produce a calming, euphoric effect in the user. Areca palms are an important cash crop today in Palau and Yap and are often found surrounding men’s houses or residences. Evidence for betel nut chewing in Palau dates back nearly 3000 years (Figure 4). The initial colonizers of Palau probably focused on settling the larger islands of Babeldaob and Koror, although the smaller Rock Islands were also used for specific purposes such as burying the dead. By about 2500 year BP, people in Palau began constructing monumental earthworks along ridgelines such as terraces and later on, flat-topped ‘crown and brim’ formations. These large complexes are not found elsewhere in the Pacific Islands and probably served multiple functions that were agricultural, domestic,

Micronesia 1725

Figure 4 Betel nut (Areca catechu) palms surrounding a traditional Palauan men’s house (bai ). Photo by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

Figure 5 Terrace formation on the island of Babeldaob in Palau. Photo by Calvin Emesiochel.

ceremonial, defensive, and/or symbolic in nature (Figure 5). After 1500 year BP, most terraces were completely abandoned and stonework villages on both the coralline and volcanic islands are seen. By 800 year BP, ancient Palauan life was centered in these villages which contain a variety of stone architecture, including house and cooking platforms, meeting house (bai) foundations, docks, bathing areas, chiefly backrests, and extensive pathways that linked sections of the villages together. Not only were these stone constructions utilitarian and probably defensive, but platforms were used for interring the dead and served as indicators of status, rank, and power. When Europeans arrived, these villages were still in use and continue today as places of residence for many inhabitants. Artifacts commonly found at stonework village and other archaeological sites in Palau include

ceramics that were locally made and primarily tempered with ‘grog’ (crushed fragments of fired pottery); some earlier samples contain calcareous or volcanic sand. Ornaments and tools made from the giant clam, Terebra, and Conus, and stone tools are found, but the latter in much fewer numbers. Archaeological research in Yap that began in the 1950s began to identify many features on the surface such as stone construction for house platforms, alignments, pathways, and walls. The earliest acceptable radiocarbon dates for Yap hover around 2000–2200 year BP and come from the sites of Pemrang and Rungruw at the southern end of Yap proper. Similar to many other Micronesian islands, the most ubiquitous artifacts found in Yap are ceramics, but with others made from shell and stone. The earliest ceramics contain calcareous sandtempered (CST) pottery and after about 600 year BP, a laminated type becomes more common. However, like the Marianas and Palau, palaeoenvironmental sequences with charcoal and pollen suggest that initial settlement may have occurred a thousand years earlier, although further work is needed to substantiate these findings. Genetically, the Yapese appear to have been independently settled from somewhere in Southeast Asia. The distribution of a particular genetic sequence on Yap and throughout central-eastern Micronesia suggests that these areas were linked culturally in the past. This is evidenced by the extensive exchange relations that were known historically between Yap and the coral atoll dwellers to the east. When Europeans arrived, there were peoples living in over 140 villages on the four main islands of Yap (Yap, Maap, Rumung, and Gagil-Tamil), which were socially ranked – higher-ranked villages were located on the coast and lower-ranked ones were inland. As a result, the higher the ranking, the more privileged access these groups had to resources from the land and sea. However, these ranking systems were dynamic and could change as conflicts occurred, so it was critical that villages continually validate their ranking by establishing and maintaining exchange relationships with other groups, including those outside of Yap. Some of the most dominant features of Yapese settlement are the faluw (young men’s house), pebaey (council house), stone paths, and taro gardens. Villages are divided into tabinaw or plots and often surrounded by hedges. Wunbey (paved plazas) are built on top of these. Other obvious markers of village life in Yap include their famous ‘stone money’ (rai) that can be seen lined up along pathways or in front of residences (Figure 6). These unusual disks are

1726 Micronesia

Figure 6 Stone money disks (rai ) set upright against the foundation of a residence in Yap. Photo by Michiko Intoh.

usually circular or ovoid in shape and made from limestone quarried in the Rock Islands of Palau (see below). It has been proposed that as populations grew (perhaps as high as 30 000 people by the mid-1800s), the Yapese shifted from small-scale cultivation of crops on hillsides to coastal areas for growing taro. According to Japanese administration censuses taken during the turn of the nineteenth century, these numbers declined rapidly after contact to less than 8000. The Central and Eastern Caroline Islands

Based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, the islands of Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae appear to have been first colonized by at least 2000 year BP from somewhere in southeast Melanesia or perhaps Fiji/western Polynesia. The languages here are classified into a subgroup of Oceanic languages called Nuclear Micronesian, which implies that the initial settlers of these islands probably came from somewhere in the vicinity of early Lapita expansion between the Bismarcks and the Solomons or Vanuata. Artifactually, all of the high islands in the Central and Eastern Carolines have CST pottery during initial colonization at 2000 year BP. However, the manufacturing of pottery ceases on all of these islands by about 700 year BP or slightly before. Various theories have been proposed to account for why peoples here and in other parts of the Pacific stopped making pottery, but it could be tied to a number of factors, including a change in cooking practices or a breakdown of trade relations in which pottery played a part in transferring goods. For subsistence, those islands around the central part of Micronesia such as Chuuk tend to rely on taro, but also breadfruit which is seasonally available. The Piper methysticum plant, known as kava

in Polynesia, was also brought into Pohnpei and Kosrae where it is known as sekau or seka, respectively. The roots of this pepper plant are pounded into a pulp on a large basalt sekau stone which are often found in prehistoric and modern villages. To prepare the drink, the pulp is strained with water by twisting it through the inner strips of bark from the hibiscus tree. The sekau/seka is shared in a communal cup by users, which usually numbs the mouth, relaxes the individual, and increases the senses. Some archaeologists have suggested that Pohnpei, the third largest island in Micronesia (330 km2), was originally settled by peoples around 2300–3000 year BP due to similarities in language, agriculture, and artifacts – this is slightly earlier than the most wellaccepted chronologies dating closer to 2000 year BP. The most common types of archaeological sites found on Pohnpei are those with stone architecture. The site of Nan Madol, built on nearly 100 artificially constructed islets covering 80 ha, is constructed of large foundation boulders used to support columnar basalt columns. It is by far the most impressive example of stonework in Micronesia (and arguably the Pacific) and represents one of the finest examples of architectural prowess known in prehistoric Oceania. The site contains dozens of structures, including stone enclosures, platforms, and tombs. Also affectionately known as the ‘Venice of the Pacific’ because of the channels that can be accessed by boat during higher tides, Nan Madol construction began around 1500 year BP and lasted for about 1000 years with the most intensive building taking place during the last few hundred years of its use. These structures have been interpreted as serving as chiefly residences for the island’s elite ruling class known as the Saudeleur. According to oral traditions, the Saudeleur dynasty was later overthrown by an invading group around 500 year BP by a man called Isohkelekel who led 333 warriors in a battle to defeat the ruling class. Other stone constructions found on Pohnpei include vaults or tombs (lolong), platforms (pehi), and enclosures (keltakai). After about 1000 year BP, adzes made from Terebra and Mitre shell appear, and 200 years later pearl shell trolling lures are found (Figures 7 and 8). The colonization of Kosrae was probably contemporaneous with other islands in the Central and Eastern Carolines, although limited palaeoenvironmental research suggests that the island was colonized earlier around 2500 year BP. The best-known site on Kosrae, located on Leluh Island, is similar to Nan Madol in that it was constructed using columnar basalt columns to form walls and foundations. The site covers an area of 27 ha with a canal running through the center

Micronesia 1727

Figure 7 The corner of a tomb enclosure at the Nan Madol site known as Nan Douwas. Photo by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

contact; only a few hundred people were estimated to be living on Kosrae in the 1870s. Of the three high islands in this region of Micronesia, Chuuk (formerly known as ‘Truk’) has received the least attention archaeologically, although it does have some of the best evidence for historic sites dating to the Japanese administrative period and World War II (WWII). The earliest settlement of Chuuk is found on the island of Fefan dating to around 2000 year BP, but could be slightly earlier. Some archaeological deposits found within the intertidal zone off Fefan are indicative of stilt houses being constructed. The cultural chronology for Chuuk is somewhat vague with a long ‘gap’ of a thousand years between 700 and 1500 year BP where little information exists about prehistoric settlement. The Winas Phase probably represents the initial settlement of Chuuk lagoon and the sites on Fefan island may contain the oldest pottery-bearing sites in central and eastern Micronesia. Ceramic vessels are typically CST plain bowls or pots with little to no decoration. Tridacna shell tools and Conus ornaments are also found, reminiscent of those seen in the Solomon Islands. The later Tonnachaw Phase lasts from 700 year BP to the present. No ceramics are present, but a number of other artifacts are found such as coral pounders, Terebra shell adzes, and breadfruit peelers made from cowry shells. Archaeologists have identified seven major site types on the island, most of which are associated with later periods of occupation. These include coastal residences with lineage houses (wuteyches), coastal wuuts (canoe houses), interior residences that were domestic in nature, interior fanang (cookhouses), ridge and summit sites that are midden rich, forts with rock-wall structures located at higher elevations, and rock art.

Figure 8 Columnar basalt columns used to construct the wall of a structure at Nan Madol in Pohnpei. Photo by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

The Marshall Islands

of the site to allow access to the sea. The site is said to be the residence of the paramount chief and his subchiefs. Pottery recovered here is similar to late Lapita plainware, but shares closer affinities with pottery from Chuuk. Through time, the population began to increase, especially between 300 and 900 year BP, and groups began more intensively settling the coastal margins and upper valleys. By 500–600 year BP, nearly all of the major land areas, including the coastlines, flatter uplands, and islands in mangrove, have evidence for prehistoric habitation. At contact, populations are estimated to have reached between 7000 and 10 000 people, but declined rapidly after European

The Marshall Islands are probably best known for being used as an atomic testing ground by the US military after WWII. In total, 67 devices were detonated between 1946 and 1958, all of which took place on either Bikini or Enewetak atoll. Because of the focus placed on the Marshalls during and after WWII, there are extensive historic remains on the islands such as concrete bunkers, artillery, and wreckage of planes and other vehicles, although good evidence is emerging that the islands were intensively settled prehistorically as well. Several extremely early radiocarbon dates have been collected from Bikini that date from about 2800–3500 years ago, but they are much older than other chronological sequences and are considered

1728 Micronesia

dubious by most researchers. It is likely that settlement of the Marshalls took place closer to around 2000 year BP based on dates from several atolls including Kwajalein, Bikini, and Majuro. Linguistic models suggest the Marshalls were colonized by groups originating in eastern Melanesia; this is also supported by computer simulations of voyaging, but it is also possible that peoples moved northward through Tuvlau and Kiribati from Fiji. Although atolls are rich in marine foods, prehistoric Marshallese also cultivated crops in order to survive on these small, remote islands. Differences in rainfall between the northern and southern Marshall Islands led to the giant swamp taro Cyrtosperma and breadfruit being emphasized in the more southerly and wet islands, and coconut and pandanus in the northern and more arid islands. Dozens of archaeological sites have been identified in the Marshalls and as expected, nearly all of the portable artifacts found in these sites are made from bone and shell due to the lack of local volcanic stone. Examples include shell adzes made from Cassis, Conus, Lambis, and Tridacna, Spondylus beads, and Conus rings. Pearl shell was also used to manufacture trolling lures and fishhooks. The few stone artifacts found in archaeological deposits may have been made from stone that drifted to the islands on driftwood masses. Twentynine burials at Laura village on Majuro that date to 1400–1800 year BP and contain hundreds of ornaments such as beads, shell rings, and a few bone and shell tools testify to inhabitants caring for the deceased during the early prehistoric period. Kiribati

Relatively little is known about the prehistory of Kiribati, a likely result of their remoteness and lack of good accessibility, but also a feeling by past researchers that the settlement of these smaller atolls and limestone islands lacked stratified deposits or were peripheral to the understanding of Pacific settlement compared to other high island groups. We now know this not to be the case and there has been a steady increase by archaeologists since the early 1980s to investigate these types of island throughout Micronesia. Linguistically, peoples in Kiribati as in the Central and Eastern Carolines speak languages within Nuclear Micronesian. A majority of the archaeological work conducted on prehistoric settlement in Kiribati has been done in the Gilberts. Excavations on the island of Makin by Japanese archaeologists revealed cultural deposits at a depth of over 3 m that dated to around 1600 year BP. The artifacts found, including fishing lures made from Cassis

shell, appear to be closely related to those found in eastern Polynesia. Studies conducted later on the islands of Tarawa and Tamana revealed a diversity of fishing gear such as fishhooks and lure shanks, shell beads, and pavement and alignments made from coral rock. More recent archaeological work on Nikunau shows that prehistoric peoples were building earth ovens using coral and clam shells.

Exchange Systems and Interaction Spheres The ability of Micronesians to cross vast distances and interact with other island communities was crucial to their successful colonization and long-term settlement, livelihood and, at times, survival. Anthropologists and archaeologists are not only interested in discovering when the islands were settled, but how islanders initiated or maintained contact with each other and the items exchanged as a result. Because interisland interaction was fairly commonplace in many parts of the Pacific, including Micronesia, the transfer of commodities, ideas, and knowledge becomes a crucial part of trying to understand why and how cultures may have changed over time. One of the most well known and documented exchange systems in Micronesia was the formal gift exchange between the people of Gagil on Yap and coral atoll dwellers from the east. This exchange system, called the sawei (literally referring to the Ulithian term for baskets used to transport gifts), involved peoples from Ulithi, Fais, Woleai, Eauripik, Sorol, Ifalik, Faraulep, Lamotrek, Elato, Satawal, Polowat, Pollap, Pulusuk, and Namonuito who paid tribute to the Gagil district in the form of shell valuables, sennit cord (coconut fiber rope), and various other items in return for goods that were scarce in the

Figure 9 Stone money disk found at the Metuker ra Bisech quarry site in Palau. Photo by Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

Micronesia 1729

low-lying coral islands (e.g., pottery, timber). This exchange required crossing hundreds of kilometers of open ocean with outrigger canoes and began centuries prior to European contact (Figure 9). Another interesting case of exchange was the quarrying of ‘stone money’ by Yapese islanders in western Micronesia. Disks of limestone (also referred to as rai by the Yapese and balang in Palauan) up to 4.5 m in diameter and weighing over 8 tonne, were carved from the many natural limestone caves around the Palauan archipelago and transported by oceangoing canoes or European trading ships back to Yap Island 400 km away. The production of these exotic valuables is known, in part, from European explorers who participated in the transport of these disks back to Yap in the 1800s. A rich collection of ethnographic data and oral traditions suggests that stone money manufacture took place prior to European contact. This makes these megaliths the heaviest portable objects ever moved over open ocean by Pacific Islanders. Although the sawei and stone money production are two of the most prolific examples of exchange and cross-cultural interaction in Micronesia, there are numerous other cases of artifacts being transferred between islands. Pottery from Palau found in Ngulu, Yapese pottery, and volcanic stone recovered on eastern atolls, and similarities of pearl-shell trolling lures found in the Marshalls and Solomon Islands are indicative of long-term prehistoric exchange systems operating within and between widely separated archipelagos.

Conclusions and Outlook Micronesia, as one of the three main regions of the Pacific, is a lesser-known but still archaeologically fascinating part of the world. Although research has been going on in Micronesia for decades, it is still in its infancy, with a disproportionate amount of work taking place in the western part of the region and generally decreasing as one moves eastward. Nonetheless, despite the vastness of ocean that these smaller islands occupy, particularly the hundreds of coral atolls scattered across its surface, it is clear that prehistoric peoples were able to successfully colonize these islands by at least 2000 years ago and as early as 3500 year BP according to archaeological evidence. Palaeoenvironmental data suggest that colonization of many of these islands may be hundreds or even thousands of years earlier. Linguistic, genetic, and archaeological research indicate that most, if not all of the major island groups,

were settled independently from Southeast Asia, and possibly New Guinea in the case of western Micronesia, while those in the Central and Eastern Carolines and Marshalls have their likely origins in Melanesia or parts of western Polynesia. Archaeological research also demonstrates that there is a strong tradition of transporting larger stones (megaliths) to use as exchange items and for construction. The interisland movement and exchange of these megaliths indicates the ability of relatively small populations to coerce, force, or in some way encourage commoners to perform hard labor and risk their lives to achieve the goals of elite groups. As archaeology continues to grow and develop in Micronesia, we will likely see many of the chronological gaps between archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data filled in, and gain a better understanding of just how extensive peoples were moving and interacting as part of archaeologically and historically documented exchange systems and interaction spheres. See also: Exchange Systems; Migrations: Pacific;

Oceania: New Guinea and Melanesia.

Further Reading Athens JS and Ward J (2004) Holocene vegetation, savanna origins and human settlement of Guam. Records of the Australian Museum. Supplement 29, 15–30. Butler BM (1994) Early prehistoric settlement in the Mariana Islands: New evidence from Saipan. Man and Culture in Oceania 10: 15–38. Davidson J (1992) New evidence about the date of colonisation of Nukuoro Atoll, a Polynesian outlier in the Eastern Caroline Islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society 101: 293–298. Fitzpatrick SM (2003) Early human burials in the western Pacific: Evidence for a c.3000 year old occupation on Palau. Antiquity 77: 719–731. Hezel FX (1983) The first taint of civilization. A history of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in the pre-colonial days, 1521–1885. Pacific Islands Monograph Series 13. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Hunter-Anderson RL and Zan Y (1996) Demystifying the Sawei, a traditional interisland exchange system. ISLA: A Journal of Micronesian Studies 4: 1–45. Intoh M (1997) Human dispersals into Micronesia. Anthropological Science 105: 15–28. Lum JK and Cann RL (2000) mtDNA lineage analyses: Origins and migrations of Micronesians and Polynesians. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 113: 151–168. Rainbird P (2004) The Archaeology of Micronesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weisler M (2001) Life on the edge: Prehistoric settlement and economy on Utrok atoll, southern Marshall Islands. Archaeology in Oceania 36: 109–133.

1730 OCEANIA/New Guinea and Melanesia

New Guinea and Melanesia Robert L Welsch, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA and The Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA Adam M Levine, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Glossary Austronesian The Malayo-Polynesian family of languages that extends from island Southeast Asia to Polynesia, but does not include the many hundreds of Papuan languages on New Guinea and the larger Melanesian islands. Far Oceania The Pacific Island groups lying east of the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands, that were settled much later, generally within the last 3500 years. Lapita The common name of an ancient Pacific Ocean pottery that is believed by some to be the common ancestor of several cultures in Polynesia and surrounding areas. Melanesia A division of Oceania in the southwest Pacific Ocean comprising the islands northeast of Australia and south of the equator. Micronesia A division of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean comprising the islands east of the Philippines and north of the equator. Near Oceania The Pacific Island groups nearest Asia that were settled earliest, principally including the Melanesian Island groups of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands. New Guinea An island in the southwest Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Polynesia A division of Oceania including scattered islands of the central and southern Pacific Ocean roughly between New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island. pottery Ware, such as vases, pots, bowls, or plates, shaped from moist clay and hardened by heat. sherds The individual pieces of broken pottery vessels.

On 1 November 1910, after a year-and-a-half collecting ethnological specimens in Melanesia for The Field Museum, the anthropologist A. B. Lewis called in at the Catholic mission station at Vuna Pope on the Gazelle Peninsula of eastern New Britain in what is now Papua New Guinea. Here he was shown a peculiar kind of pottery that had been found by one of the Catholic priests that was unlike any he had observed or collected in other parts of Melanesia. He wrote in his diary that ‘‘On the island of Watom broken pottery is found, with ornamental patterns of fine incised lines and dots. This is different from anything I have seen’’. Lewis was one of the first anthropologists or archaeologists to see these distinctive potsherds, some of which were described in two short papers by Father Otto Meyer. Having been Franz Boas’s fourth PhD student as well as a curator at The

Field Museum, Lewis was broadly trained as an anthropologist. He had seen dozens of pottery-making traditions in Melanesia, both contemporary and archaeological, yet he did not recognize and identify this style of dentate stamped potsherd as Lapita as any Pacific archaeologist would today. The reason was that it would be more than 40 years before similar sherds would be found at the site now known as Lapita in New Caledonia, which gave this pottery the name by which it is known today. During an expedition to New Caledonia a few months later in 1911, Swiss ethnologist Fritz Sarasin, then director of the Museum fu¨r Vo¨lkerkunde in Basel, happened upon similar potsherds at Kone´, a community along the west coast of Grand Terre. Sarasin was surprised to find that ‘‘Mixed with these primitive tools were a large number of pottery fragments some of which bore dentate stamped decoration’’. His colleague, the French geologist Maurice Piroutet likened these potsherds to fine Etruscan pottery or Corinthian style vases, but assumed that they were much more recent than such European antiquities. Decades later, sherds from this site were radiocarbon-dated at 2500 BP, roughly contemporaneous with those Corinthian vases to which Piroutet had likened them. Neither this style of dentate stamped pottery nor the site in New Caledonia where it was first found would emerge onto the archaeological map of Melanesia until after July 1952, when archaeologists E. W. Gifford and Richard Shuttler visited Kone´ excavating for a week at a site near a beach on the Foue´ peninsula. One of the villagers had brought them a dentate sherd from the same area Sarasin and Piroutet had learned of 40 years earlier. Here Gifford and Shuttler conducted the first systematic excavation of these dentate potsherds in situ, discovering the actual source of the sherds (their New Caledonia Site 13), later obtaining dates from two pieces of associated charcoal of 846 BCE and 481 BCE. They asked laborers from the community helping them what the name of the site was in Haveke, the local language, and they were told Xapetaa, which Gifford and Shutler heard and recorded as Lapita, the name such sherds have been known by ever since. When Gifford and Shutler analyzed these sherds, they recognized a similarity both to the sherds from Watom that Father Meyer had described four decades earlier and others that W. C. McKern had excavated in 1920–21 at Tonga. These Tongan potsherds were also dentate stamped and had come from a stratified site, but until then they had remained undated. McKern had presumed they were quite recent sherds closely related to historic traditions in Fiji. The sherds from Lapita were also similar to some found a few

New Guinea and Melanesia 1731

years earlier on the Isle of Pines. Although Gifford and Shutler were the first to connect Tonga, New Caledonia, and Watom through Lapita-style pottery, their field report made rather little of these connections.

Lapita and the Link between Melanesia and Polynesia In 1955 the young archaeologist Jack Golson took up the first archaeological post at the University of Auckland, and almost immediately turned his attention to excavating sites in Tonga, Samoa, and New Caledonia. He added new locations to the growing list of sites with dentate stamped pottery, but little was made of these sites until he moved to the Australian National University in 1961. Golson proposed ‘‘some early community of culture linking New Caledonia, Tonga, and Samoa, antedating the ‘Melanesian’ cultures of the first and ancestral to the historic Western Polynesian cultures of the other two. This community is expressed in terms of variants of the same pottery tradition’’. From Canberra, he sent out graduate students to excavate sites across the same region: Jim Specht re-excavated Meyer’s site at Watom, Jens Poulsen worked on Tongatapu, and Colin Smart excavated in New Caledonia. About the same time, Lawrence and Helen Birks were excavating at Sigatoka in Fiji, and Roger Green (1968) was working in Western Samoa. But it was Golson, who began to synthesize these scattered early field reports into a single interpretation of their significance for Pacific prehistory, suggesting that Lapita-style pottery was a key element of what he believed was a prehistoric ‘cultural complex’, a ‘community of culture’ that he understood to extend from New Britain and the Bismarck Archipelago, through New Caledonia and Fiji, to Tonga and Samoa. The feature of Lapita pottery that has excited Pacific archaeologists ever since has been its wide distribution from New Guinea and the Melanesian Islands into western Polynesia, especially Tonga and Samoa. As an ornate type of decorated pottery with wide distribution across more than 4000 km of the southwest Pacific, Lapita has appeared to many as the key to the peopling of what archaeologist Roger Green dubbed ‘remote Oceania’ (southern Melanesia and all of Polynesia) from ‘near Oceania’, presumably from the Bismarck Archipelago. Archaeological interest in Lapita, thus, began as a way of understanding the peopling of Polynesia rather than as an effort to understand the broad sweep of Melanesian prehistory, which by the 1970s was already known to reach back as far as 25 000 BP in the open site of Kosipe in the Papuan Highlands on the island of New Guinea.

The Limits of Melanesia Most Pacific archaeologists and anthropologists today divide the Oceanic region into three ethnolinguistic provinces – Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia – distinctions that date back to the French explorer J. Dumont d’Urville, who visited the Pacific in 1826–29. Because the people of New Guinea, the Bismarks, the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji had darker skin tones, he christened their region as Melanesia (meaning ‘dark islands’) distinguishing this region from Polynesia (meaning ‘many islands’) – Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, and New Zealand – and Micronesia (‘small islands’), which included the many atolls in the Mariana, Caroline, Marshall, and Kiribati groups. These groupings also contrasted with another grouping, Malaysia (‘the Malay islands’) that included all of island Southeast Asia. D’Urville’s classification drew heavily on what he interpreted as distinct racial differences among the several regions of Oceania. Although these three geographical regions are reasonably well fixed in the minds of most archaeologists and anthropologists today, they were not widely used by scholars until well into the twentieth century. Most nineteenth-century maps, for example, merely distinguish Polynesia (a term typically written across both Micronesia and Polynesia) from Australasia, which included Australia, New Guinea, the Melanesian islands, and New Zealand (see Oceania: Micronesia; Migrations: Pacific). Younger scholars may assume that Melanesia is largely an ethnolinguistic classification, but if viewed from a Melanesian point of view these several regions are fairly arbitrary, referring neither to linguistic, ethnic, or culture-historical criteria. Polynesia works fairly well as an ethno-linguistic category because the region was settled so late (within 3000 years) and had a certain amount of isolation from the rest of the world until the late eighteenth century. But Melanesia has had a much more complex history as a region, older than Australia and any other part of the Pacific, with more linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity than any other part of Oceanic subregion. As early as Captain Cook’s voyages, it was clear that the languages of Polynesia were related to languages of island Southeast Asia. Later, it seemed clear that some of the languages of New Guinea, the Melanesian islands, and Micronesia were also related. This widespread language family was formerly known as Malayo-Polynesian, but is mostly referred to as Austronesian today. Linguists have further divided Austronesian into Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian groupings, but unlike d’Urville and the anthropologists of the early twentieth century, linguists

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typically place Fiji in Polynesia, not in Melanesia. For linguists, the Melanesian languages only include those Austronesian languages of Melanesia, while the other languages belong to one of eight or more unrelated non-Austronesian language groupings. These are the so-called Papuan languages, a term that is confusing because these many distinctive languages may not be related to one another and share only one feature, the fact that they are not Austronesian languages.

Lapita and the Peopling of Eastern Oceania Of all the archaeological conundrums that have engaged the imaginations of Pacific prehistorians, the most important is surely the Lapita phenomenon. Soon after Golson and his students began plotting the distribution of pottery bearing the Lapita style, archaeologists began to define Lapita as a ‘distinctive’ type of dentate pottery. Such descriptions suggest a stylistic uniformity not always realized in the actual archaeological record, since Lapita sherds vary in style both over time and across their broad regional distribution. But even with such variation, as more Lapita sites were uncovered in the Bismarcks and the other Melanesian Islands, some sort of connection between New Britain and western Polynesia seemed obvious. Lapita sherds were in the earliest strata of Tongan and Samoan excavations, suggesting that Lapita marked the migration of people from the older settlements Melanesia to settle Polynesia. For many archaeologists Lapita pottery soon became associated with Austronesian languages and according to this view, the people who had Lapita pots became bearers of the Lapita Culture. As Peter Bellwood put it, ‘‘the Lapita Culture is the record of a number of highly mobile groups of sea-borne colonists and explorers, who expanded very rapidly through Melanesia in the mid-late second millennium B.C., and on into Polynesia’’. There were three problems with this earliest Lapita model that have been at the heart of archaeological debate ever since. First, the concentration of Lapita potsherds was densest in the Bismarcks, where people typically had darker skin tones than Polynesians. How could archaeologists account for Polynesians having lighter skin than the Melanesians when the oldest Lapita sherds had been found in Melanesia not Polynesia? Some explained away this problem by arguing that Lapita pottery had come from the Indonesian islands where people were more coppercolored than in Melanesia. But no Lapita sherds had been excavated west of the Bismarcks, and

even today the only unambiguous Lapita finds west of Manus are at Aitape, although Bellwood and Koon have suggested that a related tradition was found at Bukit Tengkorak, a very late cave site in Sabah (North Borneo). Others have argued that there was considerable biological variation already present in Melanesia, a random sampling of which could have produced the genetic patterns found in Polynesia today. The second problem concerned the meaning of Lapita sherds. Pots are not people, and the presence of Lapita sherds across the region does not guarantee that the people who used these pots had the same biology, spoke the same language, or shared the same customs. On seeing similar sherds in both western Polynesia and Melanesia, Golson’s notion of an ‘early community of culture’ suggested a shared material culture as well as other cultural features that preceded an intrusive Melanesian culture. As archaeologists excavated more sites, they found Lapita sherds associated with obsidian (from New Britain and Manus) and certain kinds of shell ornaments. This suite of elements have come to be known as the ‘Lapita cultural complex’, a term of art that usually implies that all those who possessed these items were members of essentially the same cultural group that was ancestral to modern Polynesians. Some authors have accepted sites without one or another of these three elements – including sites lacking Lapita pottery itself – as belonging to the Lapita cultural complex. But as Terrell notes it is difficult to support the notion that every site with either Lapita pottery, obsidian, and shell ornaments spread out over more than 4000 km of the Pacific shared the same ethnicity, especially when humans had inhabited parts of the region for more than 30 000 years. The third problem had to do with whether these early makers of Lapita pottery had intentionally set off to explore and colonize the previously uninhabited islands of southern Melanesia and western Polynesia. The distribution of Lapita gave credence to an argument that the part-Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) had espoused in his book Vikings of the Sunrise, since the distribution suggested a gradual and intentional expansion further and further into the Pacific. Andrew Sharp had challenged the intentional model of settlement, arguing that deliberate sailing eastward into remote Oceania would have been far too dangerous. Thus, he argued that southern Melanesia and western Polynesia were settled through accidental voyaging by people blown off course. Sharp’s book prompted a symposium organized by Jack Golson discussing and challenging Sharp’s controversial views that contradicted the oral history of many Polynesian communities. More recently,

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Geoffrey Irwin conducted computer simulations finding that Pacific Islanders settled only those places that were safest to find and return from. He concluded that by the Lapita period islanders had perfected their sailing techniques in a voyaging corridor in Melanesia. Most scholars now accept that exploration was unambiguously deliberate, careful, and more rapid than scholars had previously assumed. Two key debates remain regarding the Lapita phenomenon: (1) where was Lapita pottery first developed or invented? and (2) how accurate is the assumption that the presences of Lapita pottery indicates an invasive, migrant population and culture? Archaeologists have suggested three general theories or models to deal with these issues. The earliest model, associated most strongly with Peter Bellwood, Roger Green, Patrick V. Kirch, and Matthew Spriggs, is culture historical and holds that Lapita pottery was an entirely new cultural artifact in Melanesia, marking the arrival of a new and intrusive migrant population from Asia that spoke an Austronesian language. This view – following linguistic models – sees Lapita Culture or the Lapita Cultural Complex as originating in Taiwan, spreading into island Southeast Asia, the Bismarck Archipelago, island Melanesia, and finally western Polynesia. To address the supposed racial similarities between Tonga and Southeast Asia not shared by darker-skinned Melanesians, Bellwood, in particular, has seen this migration as extremely rapid. According to this model these newcomers spoke an ancestral Austronesian language. They brought pottery, horticulture, pigs, dogs, and chickens, as well as outrigger canoes that would allow them to explore the far reaches of the Pacific. This model sees Lapita culture as essentially homogeneous across its distribution, representing a single ethnicity from eastern Indonesia as far as Samoa. Kirch finds support for this model in Robin Torrence’s excavations around Talasea in New Britain, where Lapita pottery first appears in the lowest strata after the 3600 PB Witori eruption. Note, however, that Jim Allen and Peter White have used this same evidence to support the second model that has come to be known as the Melanesian Homeland model. The Melanesian Homeland model emerged in the 1980s following J. Peter White’s discovery of obsidian in his excavations at Balof rock shelter. The earliest occupied strata in Balof were unambiguously preLapita and date to about 6000 or 7000 BP, yet more recent layers contained pieces of Talasea obsidian from New Britain. In later layers obsidian comes from Lou Island in the Admiralities. The movement of obsidian along 600 km of coast in the Talasea case and across 150 km of open sea from Lou led White to suggest that the Lapita phenomenon could have

evolved gradually within the Bismarck Archipelago building on pre-existing trade networks. Responding to Roger Green’s argument that Southeast Asians brought the Lapita cultural complex to the Bismarcks, White and Allen suggested that while ‘‘such contacts [with Southeast Asians] may have resulted in the acquisition of certain items and technological knowledge . . . most of the technological knowledge and economic aspects of the [Lapita] complex could have developed within a local context’’. In the following decade or so, Allen and White argued in favor of the indigenous development of Lapita pottery, tanged obsidian blades, and shell ornaments, as opposed to the introduction of these elements from the west. Following Torrence’s research there is reason to believe that volcanic eruptions actually opened up some regions to new settlement, or perhaps settlement by new communities. This model was the impetus for a great deal of research under the auspices of the Lapita Homeland Project, a research program that funded or facilitated excavations throughout many parts of the Bismarck Archipelago, including the work of Kirch at Talepakealai on Mussau. Supporters of the Melanesian Homeland model accept that peoples who had access to Lapita pottery, obsidian, and associated ornaments were the earliest settlers of western Polynesia (especially Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa). But they see the origins of the elements that were innovative as due to local, in situ development in the Bismarck Archipelago rather than as technologies or items brought from Southeast Asia. Jean-Christophe Galipaud proposes a variant model that sees Lapita itself, and perhaps the plainware so often found in Lapita sites, as introduced from Southeast Asia. But he sees the Lapita phenomenon as a cultural tradition, rather than as a horizon or just the presences of pots. These traditions involved a variety of elements besides Lapita pottery, all of which developed and changed within different parts of Melanesia providing a continuity that persisted even when Lapita pottery ceased being made or used. A third theory about Lapita, called the Voyaging Corridor model, was suggested by John Terrell and developed more fully by Terrell and Welsch. This model sees the spread of Lapita culture as a much slower and more complex cultural process. Development of Lapita pottery likely occurred in the Bismarcks, but following Terry Hunt this model sees Lapita as a kind of pottery that could as easily suggest trade or exchange among diverse peoples as it could identify common ethnicity. Since pottery was present in some parts of the region – such as at Vanimo on the north coast and at Dongan on the Ramu – before the

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development of Lapita not every community was as eager to adopt this style of pottery as others. At the heart of this model is the assumption that the northern coast of New Guinea, along with New Britain, New Ireland, and parts of the Solomons were already inhabited by peoples with great linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity that mimics the diversity found in these same regions today. Thus, Lapita emerged within pre-existing networks of trade and exchange that have always linked culturally diverse peoples. The peopling of southern Melanesia and western Polynesia almost certainly occurred after development of Lapita pottery and may well mark an expansion of human settlement out from the voyaging corridor of northern New Guinea and the Bismarcks after sailing technology and skills had developed in the ways that Irwin has suggested. This model also finds support in recent excavations revealing an abundance of diversity ‘within’ Lapita pottery. Most Pacific archaeologists accept one or another of these three models as a way of understanding and interpreting the Lapita phenomenon. Over the past quarter century, archaeologists have learned a great deal about the distribution of Lapita and its associated elements, but because of the vast area over which Lapita sherds have been found and the many possible additional sites where they might be expected according to these models, much remains unresolved. At present there really is no general consensus about the settlement of remote Oceania, except that people with Lapita pottery were involved. One problem with the extraordinary archaeological interest in Lapita is that such research has focused narrowly on the past 3500 years of Melanesian prehistory rather than the previous 30 000 or 40 000 years. In addition, interest in Lapita has often been more about what Lapita has to say about Polynesian origins than about what was actually happening in Melanesia itself.

The Earliest Settlement of New Guinea and Australia Unambiguous evidence of early settlement on the island of New Guinea came surprisingly late given the intense interest anthropologists had given the region. By 1965 it was clear that during the Pleistocene, New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania formed a single land mass that has come to be known as Sahul. Chappell suggests that the period was characterized by sea levels 50 m below their current height. These lower sea levels exposed considerable stretches of land to human settlement that is now submerged, which may account for some of the difficulty archaeologists have had in finding early lowland sites. Yet even with low sea levels, settlement of Sahul from an

equally vast Southeast Asian landmass (known as Sunda) was not a simple matter because a deep sea trench separated the two and required some sort of sea crossing. Kirch has referred this crossing as the first ‘‘purposive voyaging in the history of humankind.’’ The earliest settlement of Sahul remains highly controversial. Fullagar et al. proposed a thermoluminesence date for the Jinmium rockshelter in Australia of a very early date (176 000–116 000 BP), and Roberts et al. dated a site called Malakunanja in Arnhem land to 55 000 BP. These dates remain tentative but suggest that humans have probably inhabited Sahul for at least 50 000 years. The first evidence of early settlement in New Guinea began to emerge in the 1960s when Susan Bulmer and Peter White excavated sites in the Central Highlands dated at 8000–11 000 BP. White et al. reported on an even earlier site at Kosipe in the Owen Stanley Range dated to 26 000 BP. More recently, Les Groube excavated what remains the earliest site on the New Guinea mainland at Bobongara on an uplifted terrace of the Huon Peninsula dated to 40 000–60 000 BP. Uplift seems to have protected this site while other early coastal sites were submerged. (Currently this site is being proposed as a World Heritage site.) Groube suggests that a kind of agroforestry was being practiced during much of this early period. Gorecki et al. and Smith and Sharp have also identified settlement sites in New Guinea dating to 30 000 BP or earlier (at Lachitu and Kuk, respectively). There is now unambiguous evidence for the human settlement of New Guinea for more than 30 000 years, and further excavations may double this date.

When and How Did Humans First Reach Island Melanesia? Such early dates were somewhat expected for New Guinea, which was attached to Australia. But it came as a total surprise to Pacific archaeologists when Jim Specht found radiocarbon dates from the Pleistocene in New Britain at the Misisil cave site. New Britain and New Ireland had never been connected to the New Guinea mainland; nevertheless, these early dates demonstrated comparably early settlement in the Bismarcks. Since then Pavlides, Leavesley and Allen, and Gosden and Robertson have all identified early settlement sites dating to more than 30 000 BP on New Britain and New Ireland (at Yombon, Buang Merabak and Matenkupkum, respectively). Most of these sites (except for Yombon) were rock shelters or caves. Similarly, Wickler and Spriggs have excavated the Kilu rock shelter in Buka where the earliest settlement dates to 29 000 BP.

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Thus, it would appear that the people first crossed the Vitiaz Strait separating the Huon Peninsula from New Britain at least 30 000–40 000 years ago. From New Britain they next settled New Ireland, followed both by northerly and southerly colonizations of the Admiralty Islands and Solomon Islands, respectively. Fredericksen et al. excavating the Pamwak rock shelter on Manus found support for this model when they dated the earliest settlement of the Admiralty Islands to 13 000 BP. Similarly, Roe excavated the rock shelter site of Vatuluma Posovi on Guadalcanal and midHolocene sites with slightly earlier dates, and Spriggs obtained comparable dates from the Nissan, situated between New Ireland and Bougainville in the northern Solomon Islands. South of the Solomons, current research suggests that first human settlement was generally associated with Lapita pottery.

From Hunting to Horticulture: The Beginning of New Guinea Food Production By the 1950s, when sociocultural anthropologists first began studying the peoples who inhabited the Central Highlands of New Guinea, they recognized that most of these densely populated communities subsisted on sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas). The problem this presented was the fact that sweet potatoes were a New World crop from South America. Short of some early trans-Pacific contact between Melanesia and South America, these sweet potatoes must have reached Melanesia sometime after Magellan’s voyage in 1519–20. James B. Watson suggested that the arrival of sweet potatoes had triggered a revolution in the highlands that brought these communities from hunting to horticulture in a few centuries. Watson assumed that lowland and coastal peoples in New Guinea may have long had horticulture involving taro and other crops, but proposed that introduction of sweet potatoes had led to an ‘Ipomoean revolution’, leading to rapid growth of populations and population densities in the highlands as well as development of intensive exchange networks. Excavations at Kuk plantation in the Western Highlands by Golson and his colleagues led to discovery of early drainage ditches in what had been a swampy area in the Western Highlands as early as 10 000 BP. Golson also found evidence of an early digging stick in one of these ditches, suggesting that millennia before the arrival of the sweet potato, New Guinea Highlanders were cultivating root crops such as taro. What makes this site so important archaeologically is Kuk was essentially isolated in the middle of the New Guinea highlands from and independent of other centers of agricultural evolution in China, the Indus valley, the fertile crescent, and the

Nile. Moreover, unlike these other areas at Kuk early inhabitants depended on root crops – and perhaps tree crops – rather than cereal grains. Brookfield and White had also challenged Watson’s model arguing for a much longer and more gradual evolution of horticulture than the later had envisioned. More recent excavations at Kuk suggest that the transition from foraging to horticulture was a complex process extending over several thousand years. Denham and his colleagues find early cultivation at 10 000 BP, mounding appears about 7000 BP, and full blown network of drainage ditches from beginning around 4400 BP. They have also documented domestication of bananas at Kuk about 7000 BP. (Kuk has also been nominated as a World Heritage Site.) Susan Bulmer’s excavations at Kiowa in the Western Highlands and White’s excavations at Kafiavana in the Eastern Highlands produced pig bones with carbon dates of 5000–6000 BP, suggesting that pigs were introduced to the island from Southeast Asia through human agency. The low intensity of pig husbandry found in many parts of New Guinea makes it difficult to determine whether such early pigs were feral or domesticated. Even today in the Western Province, the domestic pig herds are heavily interbred with the feral herds, since domestic boars are gelded. But if taro and other root crops were being grown in the highlands, there is no reason to discount the possibility that some of this production was used to domesticate a semiferal herd from an early date. Golson and his colleagues accepted the Ipomoean Revolution as having important consequences for agriculture, pig husbandry, exchange systems, and rapid population growth, along some of the lines Watson had suggested. But they have demonstrated that the shift from hunting to horticulture had begun nearly 10 000 years earlier than Watson had imagined. The key feature of the Ipomoean revolution was that sweet potatoes grow much faster than taro and provided much greater yields, thereby allowing more food for both human and pig populations, which lead to human population densities more than 500 per km2 in some areas and the emergence intensified horticulture, production of surpluses, and coordinated exchange systems of thousands of pigs in the Te and Moka exchange networks that swept through the highlands valleys. Another likely consequence of agricultural intensification in the New Guinea highlands was the creation of vast anthropogenic grasslands first suggested by Harold Brookfield and developed more systematically by Geoffrey Hope and J. M. B. Smith. More recent advances in palynology and residue analysis have confirmed that the expansion of grasslands

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as linked to the intensification of horticulture, but much of this expansion has arisen over the past millennium or so. In a similar way, current studies have focused attention on tree crops as an important aspect of early plant domestication. Arboriculture was probably far more important in the lowland rainforests than archaeologists had previously believed. Cultural anthropologists have come to recognize that sago, the most important lowland crop, is tended and weeded in a very nonintensive way to produce greater yields and to speed up or slow down the timing of maturation. Other tree crops such as breadfruit, pandanus, galip, and other fruits and nuts are often planted and minimally tended, yet they yield important edible products for a generation or more. Such studies have emerged primarily in the lowlands and coastal areas once archaeologists recognized that the landscapes we see today are fairly recent phenomena. Swadling had noted that when sea levels rose after the last glacial maximum it produced a huge bay in what is now the Sepik and Ramu Rivers. But silt from the mountains over the past 6000 years has filled in this bay to produce the current coastline. Similarly, Terrell has suggested that what now appears as a long straight shoreline at Aitape was once a complex series of islands and lagoons complete with a rich array of food resources. Kyle Latinis has argued that in such environments trees likely played a much more important role than other cultigens. Andrew Fairbairn has built on these studies and those at Kuk to suggest the need for more intensive archaeobotanical methods to understand the evolution of horticulture and plant use in Melanesia.

Evidence for Social Hierarchies in Prehistoric Melanesia In attempting to characterize differences between Melanesia and Polynesia, Marshall Sahlins suggested that Polynesian societies were organized by hereditary chiefs and social rankings, while Melanesian societies were more egalitarian and typically organized by achieved forms of leadership particularly ‘big men’. Sahlins’s model was so compelling for both sociocultural anthropologists and archaeologists that it dominated the Oceanic stage for a generation, leading few archaeologists working in Melanesia even to look for evidence of social hierarchy of the sort archaeologists had been finding in Polynesia. More recently, Bronwen Douglas and Nicholas Thomas have argued that Sahlins’s dichotomy oversimplifies social patterns in both regions, and some communities in Melanesia clearly had hereditary leadership.

The earliest immigrants to Melanesia (40 000– 20 000 BP) likely had an egalitarian social structure. But until 5000 or 6000 years ago, there is little archaeological evidence of any kind of social pattern; it suggests nothing about social stratification one way or another. Kirch, drawing on his model of the Lapita phenomenon, has suggested that ancestral Austronesian societies in island Southeast Asia were ranked. In his view, early Lapita communities in Melanesia were similarly ranked, and their descendants brought social stratification and hereditary leadership with them into Western Polynesia. Some archaeologists have found tentative evidence for social hierarchy, most notably an intensified economy and increased sedentism, but Pavlides has pointed out that these patterns predated Lapita. Kirch interpreted Lapita shell ornaments as exchange valuables, but shell and shark-tooth necklaces from pre-Lapita Melanesia may carry equivalent ritual or exchange value. Pawley reconstructed two Proto-Oceanic terms that he interprets as ‘chief, or person of chiefly rank’ and ‘first born son of a chief’. But Lichtenberk reconstructed the same terms to mean ‘leader’ and ‘oldest child,’ respectively. To date only eight burials from the Lapita period have been excavated, and none of them are associated with grave goods. Hayden has argued that pottery is itself a marker of social status which, when first created, functioned as a conveyor of elite power rather than as a utilitarian good. The problem with all of these arguments is that up to now the evidence of social stratification has been quite weak. It remains an open question whether some or all societies with Lapita pottery were socially ranked. Toward the end of the ‘Lapita period,’ there is more convincing evidence of social hierarchy, most notably megaliths that resemble those associated with social rank in Polynesia. Christophe Sand, for example, has identified monumental platform sites that rival the ‘megalithic’ sites of the Marquesas in size. Analogous remains have been found in ethnological contexts in the Loyalty Islands and Ile des Pins by Jean Guiart. Other sites have also been found in Island Melanesia in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji. Some of these sites were quite large, such as a site on Grande Terre, New Caledonia with 100 structures, whose dense population alone suggests considerable social stratification. To supply these populations the most extensive pondfield terraces in Oceania have been found on New Caledonia (the Grande Terre). Irrigation channels and mounding systems have been identified on New Caledonia and Vanuatu, respectively. Such mounding systems have also been identified in the Solomons and the Bismarck archipelago.

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Most of these sociopolitical developments seem to be in situ Oceanic developments, rather than elements diffused from Southeast Asia. Several scholars have suggested that the Melanesian outliers had inherited a degree of sociopolitical complexity from Polynesia and that these traits were diffused into southern Melanesia (i.e., a ‘backwash’). Such possibilities for cultural transmission from Polynesia back into Melanesia have given a much greater significance to the Polynesian outliers, who were much less isolated than early anthropologists and archaeologists had assumed. Although the Polynesian outliers may not always be the source of Melanesian sociopolitical evolution, the study of these outliers has undergone a dramatic paradigm shift from the ecological and adaptational approach of a generation ago to a more comprehensive approach stressing both material and immaterial concepts. The development of social complexity in Melanesia should best be approached as a multifaceted process driven by the complex interrelationship among many spheres of society.

From Potsherds to Historic Exchange Systems: Linking the Prehistoric Record to the Present Among the most interesting features of ethnographically studied societies in Melanesia are its extensive exchange systems, often involving dozens of communities speaking a variety of mutually unintelligible languages. The most famous of these systems is the Kula ring of the Massim district described by Malinowski, but anthropologists have described other networks including the Hiri trade between Port Moresby and the Papuan Gulf, the exchange system across the Vitiaz Strait that linked communities from Lae to Madang and west New Britain, the islands in Geelvinck Bay, and the extensive network along the Sepik Coast. All of these networks involved exchanges of pottery, shell rings and other ornaments, and a variety of other crafts, raw materials, and foodstuffs. Although pottery, shell ornaments, obsidian, chert, and jade preserve well in archaeological sites, most other materials do not, making it extremely difficult to see continuity from prehistory into the historic record. Two strategies have been suggested as ways of exploring these continuities. Ian Hughes took an ethnographic approach, conducting interviews with dozens of communities across the highlands and into the lowlands. These interviews recorded oral accounts about traditional exchanges in the generations just prior to contact, and unlike most parts of Melanesia they were possible because first contact

came so late to the highlands, from about 1930. Hughes noted a remarkable movement of objects from community to community across diverse language groups, even between groups that were chronically at war. A similar strategy has been employed by Welsch and Terrell, who attempted to document the extent and nature of the precontact and early postcontact exchange system. They found that precontact exchanges involved pottery, shell rings, foodstuffs, raw materials, and a wide variety of goods such as bows, arrows, and string bags. Along the Sepik coast exchange was organized around hereditary friendship rather than as trade between anonymous partners. In precontact times most individuals had friends in 20 to 40 communities, many speaking different languages. This network resembles the exchange network across the Vitiaz Strait, but seems more complex and was less centered on any particular community. It consists of a more extensive social field. Such studies as this one and Hughes’s project have been challenged as ‘ethnographic analogies’ that offer little in the way of explanation for prehistoric patterns. Such studies may not describe early prehistoric patterns completely, but they are not merely ethnographic analogies because these historic patterns actually developed from the prehistoric patterns that preceded them. The second and more obvious archaeological strategy has been employed by Ian Lilley, who excavated at Sio on the New Guinea mainland and in the Siassi islands on the other side of the Vitiaz Strait. Comparing artifactual material in these two sites, Lilley attempted to decipher from the prehistoric evidence the local development of the modern trade networks that Harding had observed first hand. But while there was some evidence of Lapita at Siassi, early crossstrait trade seems quite limited. Much later, a protosystem emerged about 1600 BP, with new ceramic traditions on the mainland sporadically traded to Siassi in exchange for New Britain obsidian. Lilley also found significant differences between this protosystem and Harding’s historic system, most notably the importance of historic middleman traders and the local emphasis on pig and dog teeth and shell bead, all of which occurred in minimal quantities. Other scholars – especially Jim Allen, Susan Bulmer, and James W. Rhoades – have used a similar strategy to explore the development of the Hiri trading system westward into the Papuan Gulf from the Motu of Port Moresby. Excavating in different locations they compared the production of Motu pottery and its penetration into the Gulf. This exchange network was of fairly recent origins as most of the deltas in the Papuan Gulf are at most 2000 or so years old. Nevertheless, considerable continuity has been observed

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over the past several hundred years, much as across the Vitiaz Strait. Geoffrey Irwin used a similar but somewhat more comprehensive approach to study the origins of the historic pottery trade at Mailu and in the Massim. Although the exchange systems in the Trobriands and other parts of the Massim centered historically on shell valuables, many other objects were exchanged as well. People at Mailu made pots in abundance, trading them to their neighbors to their east and west. Irwin observed that pottery at Mailu became thinner and thinner over time to save material and create a kind of planned obsolescence established itself as a specialized producer of pottery. But when comparing the two sites Irwin found that shell valuables in the Kula ring were sometimes traded toward Mailu, but that this path for shells waxed and waned at various times. Each of these patterns is somewhat different, just as the local particularities are varied. Nevertheless, such studies are attempts to understand how the present and recent past is connected to the prehistoric past. In some cases, such as Lilley’s case study, there are discontinuities in the prehistoric record. But in others such as at Mailu and the Massim, the system has changed in significant ways without ever ceasing entirely. Much the same can be said about the entire broad sweep of Melanesian prehistory that stretches out over at least 40 000 years. Despite some discontinuities and abrupt changes in prehistoric social patterns, it will help archaeologists and prehistorians to see the Melanesian past as part of a very long and broad sweep of time. See also: Exchange Systems; Migrations: Pacific; Oceania: Australia; Micronesia; New Zealand; Plant Domestication.

Further Reading Allen J and White P (1989) The Lapita homeland: Some new data and an interpretation. Journal of the Polynesian Society 98: 129–146. Bellwood P (1979) Man’s Conquest of the Pacific: The Prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania. New York: Oxford University Press. Brookfield HC and White JP (1968) Revolution or evolution in the prehistory of the New Guinea Highlands: A seminar report. Ethnology 7: 43–52. Golson J (1962) Polynesian Navigation: A Symposium on Andrew Sharp’s Theory of Accidental Voyages. Wellington: The Polynesian Society. Golson J (1971) Lapita ware and its transformations. In: Green RC and Kelly M (eds.) Studies in Oceanic Culture History (vol. 2), p. 67–76. Pacific Anthropological Records 12. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Gosden C (1991) Long-term trends in the colonization of the Pacific: Putting Lapita in its place. In: Bellwood P (ed.)

Indo-Pacific Prehistory 1990: Proceedings of the 14th Congress if the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, pp. 333–338. Canberra: Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. Green RC (1991b) Near and remote oceania: Disestablishing ‘Melanesia’ in culture history. In: Andrew Pawley (ed.) Man and a Half: Essays in Pacific Anthropology and Ethnobiology in Honour of Ralph Bulmer, pp. 491–502. Auckland: The Polynesian Society. Groube LM, Chappell J, Muke J, and Price D (1986) A 40,000 year-old human occupation site at Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea. Nature 324: 453–455. Irwin GJ (1992) The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kirch PV (2000) On the Road of the Winds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lilley I (2006) Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Sand C (2002) Melanesian Tribes vs. Polynesian Chiefdoms: Recent archaeological assessment of a classic model of sociopolitical types in oceania. Asian Perspectives 41(2): 284–294. Spriggs MJT (1997) The Island Melanesians. Oxford: Blackwell. Terrell JE and Welsch RL (1997) Lapita and the temporal geography of prehistory. Antiquity 71: 548–572.

New Zealand Richard Walter and Chris Jacomb, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary K-selected A species is described as a K-selected (or competitor) species as a reference to its reproductive and survival strategy. A K-selected species produces few offspring but these are usually nurtured and protected until they reach reproductive age. Humans are a good example of K-selected species as opposed to r-selected species, such as rabbits, which breed within a few months of birth and reproduce many offspring per breeding cycle. mDNA Mitochondrial DNA. mDNA is DNA that is located in the mitochondria rather than the nucleus of the cell (nuclear DNA). mDNA is passed on only from the mother to the offspring whereas the offspring receive equal contributions of nuclear DNA from both parents. Because mDNA is essentially cloned from generation to generation, most change is the result of mutation. Since the mutation rate of mtDNA is easily measured, mDNA serves as a useful tool for tracking genetic change through time. Treaty of Waitangi The treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of agreement between the Maori and the British Crown. Written in both English and Maori, it was first signed on 6 February 1840 in Waitangi, the Bay of Islands. The treaty was initially set up to assist in the peaceful settlement of Europeans and enabled the Crown to set up a governorship to establish laws, in New Zealand. In return, Maori received the same rights and status as the British citizens and continue to have tribal control over their lands, fisheries, forest, valuables and cultures.

New Zealand 1739 wiggle matching Wiggle matching is a technique used in radiocarbon dating to improve age estimates. It relies on the fact that there have been fluctuations in the concentration of radioactive carbon isotopes (radiocarbon) in atmospheric carbon dioxide through time, and that these fluctuations are recorded in the carbon isotope ratios in living organisms. A high-resolution sequence of radiocarbon dates from organic samples can be matched against wiggles in the radiocarbon calibration curve to provide a more accurate assessment of the age of the dated samples.

Background New Zealand is a continental landmass 270 000 km2 in area separated from its nearest neighbor by more than a thousand kilometers of ocean. It was the last major landmass in the world to be colonized by humans and this colonization event was different from other such events in fundamental ways. For most of world prehistory human colonization was characterized by population expansion into adjacent zones. The lifestyles and technologies of the homeland could be reproduced with relatively minor adjustments and there were few technological barriers to return movement or communication between homeland and colony. New Zealand colonization involved quite different sets of circumstances. First, the New Zealand environment is radically different from its first settlers’ homeland and there were severe limits on the ability of the colonists to reproduce their traditional economies or lifestyles. New Zealand was settled by people from eastern Polynesia who traveled in large, ocean-going, double-hulled canoes that traveled some 3000 km over deep ocean. These settlers came from tropical volcanic islands and small coral atolls and moved into a large continental archipelago straddling the subtropical to sub-Antarctic zone. Their island production system relied on a range of tropicaladapted crops, few of which would grow in New Zealand. The second factor is the problem of isolation. Once arrived in New Zealand further contact with the island world would have been extremely difficult and for all intents and purposes New Zealand prehistory unfolded in isolation from any outside influence until sustained interaction with the West starting in the late eighteenth century. The reason for this is not just the sheer length of the journey. The prevailing winds of East Polynesia are easterly and the trip to New Zealand was across and slightly down the wind, sailing into a large target. The return journey would have been much more technically difficult and it would have aimed toward much smaller targets. In sum, the colonization of New Zealand involved introducing humans into an environment from which they could not easily return, and where few aspects of their original lifeways could be continued. As a

consequence much New Zealand archaeology has been concerned with questions of adaptation and cultural change. To put this into perspective, Maori society, as described by the European explorers of the eighteenth century, had many distinctly Polynesian characteristics including elements of language, technology and deep ideological and sociopolitical structures. These reflect the ancestral roots of Maori society in the island homelands of tropical Polynesia. Yet at the same time Maori society was unique. Centuries of isolation in a radically different land and without any significant contact with the outside world had allowed Maori society to diverge radically in areas such as material culture, art, economics and social practice. Thus in all meaningful ways Maori society can only be described as an indigenous New Zealand society. It is the development of this indigenous society from its Polynesian roots that stands at the heart of New Zealand archaeological inquiry and in the following sections of this essay we discuss some of the major issues involved in this inquiry. The shortness of the New Zealand prehistoric timescale makes it difficult to define the course of culture change with any precision but several key chronological indicators are discernable in the archaeological record. On the basis of these, archaeologists often divide the New Zealand sequence into two phases: an early Archaic phase and a later Classic phase. These phases are useful archaeological constructs but in no way imply cultural discontinuity. Indeed, despite the marked variation that underpins the two-phase sequence, there are much stronger threads of continuity running right through New Zealand prehistory and extending back to the islands of Polynesia.

Colonization As an isolated island nation the colonization question has always been central to the study of New Zealand’s past and various models for the peopling of New Zealand have been proposed. Captain James Cook, during his exploratory visits in the late eighteenth century, described the Maori people of New Zealand as members of a wider Polynesian nation and despite some early speculation about pre-Polynesian migrations from Melanesia, the single origins of the Maori ancestors in island Polynesia is, today, undisputed. The more detailed questions that have engaged archaeologists are: where in Polynesia was New Zealand colonized from, and when did this happen. We address each of these issues in turn. Maori tradition refers to a mythical homeland, Hawaiiki, from where the founding canoes set out on their long journey to New Zealand. The exact location of this homeland is not stated within the

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traditional histories, but there are hints of shared ancestral names and genealogies that suggest the Cook Islands as a likely place. Other lines of evidence are helpful but less precise. According to comparative ethnography, Maori society falls within an East Polynesian culture area that is defined on the basis of shared terminologies for key elements of social life, on kinship patterns, social organization, and on material culture. Linguistic models are consistent with this view. The Maori language of New Zealand belongs to a lower-order subgroup of the Polynesian language family known as Tahitic which includes Tahitian and most languages of the Cook Islands, the Austral Islands, and the Tuamotus. The archaeological record, while entirely consistent with linguistics and comparative ethnography, does not serve to narrow the field very much (Figure 1). The earliest archaeological sites in New Zealand fall within the Archaic phase which is characterized by a distinctive artifact assemblage very similar to those found in sites of similar age in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. The artifacts include highly specialized stone adze forms, imitation whale-tooth necklaces, one-piece fish hooks and a variety of small

bone tools. Many of these artifact forms display stylistic and functional variations that are never found in West Polynesia and this reinforces the notion of a distinct East Polynesian cultural complex of which New Zealand Maori culture is a part. At present all evidence points to Hawaiiki as being located within a zone encompassing the southern Cook Islands, the Austral Islands and the Society Islands. The argument of proximity plus aspects of oral history and tradition suggests that the southern Cook Islands is the most likely point of origin for the first canoes, but until stone tools are found in New Zealand that can be geochemically sourced to an East Polynesian island, it is unlikely that a more precise answer will be given soon. The timing of settlement has been debated since the beginnings of New Zealand archaeology. Maori traditional accounts were used by nineteenth-century ethnographers to suggest an initial discovery around AD 800 followed by a massed colonization in about AD 1350 by around a dozen canoes. The advent of radiocarbon dating provided empirical evidence to supplement tradition, but still could not narrow this range down with any certainty. One study, based on

Homeland or ‘Hawaiiki’ zone Hawaiian Is

Marshall Is Line Is Kiribati

Tuvalu Vanuatu .. Fiji ..

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Tokelau Samoa

Tuamotu Is Cook Is

Tonga

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New Caledonia

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0 170 ⬚W

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Figure 1 South Pacific Ocean showing location of New Zealand and the Polynesian homeland zone.

110⬚

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palynological evidence for deforestation, raised the argument that settlement began as early as AD 500 and this led to a reassessment of existing dates. But instead of pushing the settlement date back, the result was to reject many of the existing dates and to move the estimated age of settlement to around AD 1200. There is still no real consensus among archaeologists although most believe that settlement occurred in the thirteenth to early fourteenth century. A possible terminus anti quem for New Zealand settlement exists in the tephrochronological record. About seven centuries ago a volcanic event known as the Kaharoa eruption resulted in the deposition of a thin ash layer over about a third of the North Island’s east coast. No in situ archaeological deposits have been found sealed below a securely identified primary deposit of Kaharoa Ash which has been accurately dated using wiggle matching of radiocarbon ages to AD 1314  12 (Figure 2). Early European explorers observed Polynesians using large double-hulled sailing canoes and rare examples of double-hulled craft were observed in use by Maori during Cook’s (1769–77) and Tasman’s (1642) visits to New Zealand. It is assumed that double-hulled voyaging canoes broadly similar to those observed by early European visitors were the vessels that brought the first settlers to this country. There has been much debate about the nature of the voyages of discovery. Were they accidental ‘drift’ voyages or deliberately targeted in specific directions. If deliberate, what was the clue that land existed as far as 3000 km over the horizon? Computer simulations have shown that drift voyaging would not have been a successful exploration strategy and that the voyages must have involved deliberate navigation. One very obvious clue to the presence of land over the horizon would have been the flight paths of migratory birds. New Zealand had the largest number of marine bird species in the world and many are migratory. It has been estimated that several billion marine birds nested in New Zealand before the arrival of humans. Each year, for example, millions of mutton birds (Puffinus spp.) migrate between the north Pacific and New Zealand and at least some must have flown over eastern Polynesia during their journey south or north. Whatever the cause, the discovery voyage was deliberate. Once the direction of voyaging had been decided, sophisticated techniques of oceanic navigation including observations of wind direction, sea currents and wave patterns as well as the positions of the sun, moon and stars, would have made the journey itself relatively straightforward. With good winds, the voyaging canoes could have made the journey in less than two months.

Early Adaptation Over several thousand years the Polynesian people had developed a ‘portable economy’ which they introduced to each new island they settled. This economy revolved around a set of domestic plants and animals that were mainly of Southeast Asian origin and included breadfruit, coconut, banana, taro, yam, gourd as well as industrial species such as paper mulberry. It also included domestic animals: chicken, pig, and dog. The problem is that New Zealand’s environment was not suited to most of these species and so the settlers found themselves having to develop new economic strategies as their existing systems failed. This involved the adaptation and transformation of previous practices, a re-sorting of priorities, the discovery of entirely new sources of food, and the invention of strategies and technologies for their exploitation. Climatic conditions limited any type of horticulture based on the tropical domesticates to warmer parts of New Zealand including parts of the South Island and within that zone wet field cropping of taro would have been even more restricted – to northern New Zealand. The early settlers also had to deal with seasons, something that was largely irrelevant to horticultural life in the islands. The only crop plant brought to New Zealand by the first settlers that thrived in the cooler climes was the South American sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas or kumara in Maori). But in order to create a viable kumara production system, new technologies were required. The most important of these was the invention of the storage pit – an excavated earth chamber with a low roof. Kumara pits were used to preserve tubers over the winter months for food, and so that seed stock was available during the next planting season. Today the remains of thousands of kumara storage pits can be seen scattered across the northern landscapes. Soils for gardening were modified by the addition of material such as sand or gravel mulch, which may have extended the growing season. Along with kumara some of the other imported plants, including gourd, taro, and yam, were grown, but their importance was very localized. The most important component of the plant-food regime after the invention of kumara storage was the inclusion of an indigenous wild plant component. Although no longer eaten and something of a mystery as to how it was prepared, early explorers describe the root of the native bracken fern (Pteridium esculentum) as one of the most common plant foods in many parts of the country. The two animal domesticates, pig and chicken, never arrived in New Zealand. They were probably placed on the colonizing canoes but either did not

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Bay of Islands

North Island

Kaharoa Tephra (AD 1314 ± 12)

Lake Taupo

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N Southern limit of tropical Polynesian horticulture

Riverton Bluff

Major hunting zone (coastal = moa and seal Inland = moa)

0

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Figure 2 New Zealand showing the location of the Kaharoa tephra and places mentioned in the text.

survive the journey or died out for some reason shortly after arrival. The dog (Canis familiaris) survived and became a small but important part of the Maori diet as did rat (Rattus exulans), a feral animal but one which was introduced to New Zealand, deliberately or otherwise, on the ancestral canoes.

While Polynesian horticulture was difficult and domestic animals were not successfully introduced, the first colonists found in the new environment an abundance of easily hunted meat sources beyond anything available in Polynesia. Colonies of fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) were found along the coasts

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of the mainland and offshore islands and these became a major seasonal resource. Other sea mammals were also exploited at a much lower intensity including sea lions, elephant seals, dolphins, and pilot whales, although the latter were probably only taken from natural strandings. On land there was a range of flightless birds available including 12 species of the now extinct ratite known collectively by the Polynesian term ‘moa’. Moa were one of the largest and most powerful birds that ever lived but having evolved in an environment that was effectively without terrestrial predators, they were particularly susceptible to human hunting. The earliest sites in New Zealand contain an abundance of moa bone, indeed the earliest period of New Zealand prehistory was once referred to as the ‘moa-hunter period’ of Maori culture. In fact, while moa hunting was dominant in some parts of the country New Zealand’s early economy appears to have been highly regionally varied. In the north, horticulture was established early, and because of the lower standing biomass of moa and sea mammals there, hunting was of lesser significance. In the south, and particularly along the southeast and south coasts of the South Island, moa and seal densities were much higher, and horticulture impossible. Here the economy was based on hunting, probably with a high seasonal component and thus New Zealand’s South Island is one of the few places in the world that was colonized by horticulturalists who then adopted a hunting and gathering economy. A number of sites dating to this early period of prehistory have been excavated and these paint a picture of a society that had adapted very quickly to the radically different environment and climate of New Zealand, but one that still retained many aspects of the way of life of the islands. New Zealand contains a rich array of high-quality industrial stone including obsidians, metasomatized argillites, greywackes, nephrite (a form of jade), cherts, and basalt. These resources are widely spaced across the country, but generally occur in small highly localized sources. Practically, all of the sources were discovered and in widespread use within a generation or two of first settlement of New Zealand and the earliest known sites contain a diversity of stone types from across the country. This is indicative of a very rapid and efficient exploratory phase and suggests a high level of mobility in the immediate post-colonization generations. It is likely that early exploration and mobility was facilitated by the use of sailing canoes like those that brought the first colonists from the tropics. The settlement pattern of New Zealand’s early period is reminiscent of the island homeland. In the Cook Islands during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries communication networks linked

small nucleated villages located on the reef passages of each island and were a medium for the transfer of a range of materials especially of industrial stone and shell. In New Zealand the earliest sites also include villages many of which were located on river mouths and harbors – analogous positions to the coral reef passages of the islands. As in the islands there is evidence of high levels of mobility in the form of importation of lithic resources, and thus it is possible that communication networks similar to those of the islands linked these early communities. Throughout Polynesia archaeologists recognize the dynamic interaction between landscape and culture. In New Zealand humans both transformed the natural world and responded to the environment through processes of cultural, social, and technological adaptation. When New Zealand was first settled most of the land was heavily forested to the shoreline. Sediment cores indicate an increase in charcoal deposition and a rise in the relative proportion of fern and grasslands relative to forest species from around the beginning of the fourteenth century. This is believed to be related to the conversion of forest land to horticulture in the north and the promotion of more productive phases of vegetation succession including bracken growth in other places. Avian extinctions also followed human arrival of which the most significant was the disappearance of the moa, along with some 30 other bird species. Indeed by European arrival not only was the moa extinct, there was no certain reference to it in Maori oral histories and tradition and thus all we know of Maori interaction with moa is via the archaeological record. Until recently, most archaeologists believed that this interaction occurred over a period of four or five centuries with extinction occurring around the early sixteenth century. However, recent studies indicate that moa extinction may have occurred within 60 to 160 years of human arrival. New Zealand’s terrestrial fauna (entirely avian except for three small bat species) had evolved for millennia in the absence of mammalian predators. The K-selected moas with their small clutches, long lives and relatively large size, were extremely vulnerable to any new predation, let alone highly organized predation by a rapidly increasing population of human hunters. To add to the loss of moas, sea mammals were becoming severely depleted by the end of the fifteenth century and the large breeding colonies of fur seals were by then restricted to southern New Zealand. By later prehistory seal populations had dropped to the point where they were no longer more than a supplementary dietary component, and a hunting economy based partly around the occupation of grounds adjacent to breeding colonies was no longer practiced.

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The Development of Classic Maori culture By the early sixteenth century there had been two hundred years of relatively unrestricted population growth from a founding population estimated on the basis of mDNA analysis to be approximately 200. Populations would have risen by this time to a few thousand. With the extinction of moa and the drastic decline in seal numbers southern New Zealand, which had previously supported viable populations, had become quite marginal and the focus of occupation shifted to the warmer horticultural north. This marks the beginning of a series of changes that culminated in the Classic phase which is an assemblage of cultural characteristics based on observations of Maori life by the first European explorers. The chronology of the emergence of Classic Maori culture is uncertain but trajectories of change can be identified archaeologically from this time including the development of new site types, new artifact assemblages, different patterns of resource utilization and movement, and economic practices. Site types. The site type most commonly associated with the Classic phase is the pa (Figure 3). These are often described as fortified settlements, but they probably include a wider range of functions. The earliest pa for which radiocarbon age estimates have been obtained date to approximately AD 1500 and today approximately 7000 pa sites have been recorded ranging in size from a few hundred square meters to many hectares. Pa are characterized by

earthwork defenses including ditches, banks, and artificially steepened scarps. They were usually located on easily defendable positions such as hill tops, ridges, and headlands surrounded by steep cliffs. European observations of pa document the use of high wooden fences or palisades with elaborate gateways and archaeological excavations bear this out. Internally, pa sites may contain structures including terraces with food storage pits, houses, and drainage systems. Some pa are probably best described as defended settlements, others as citadels for retreat at times of war and others as defended outposts located adjacent to remote resources. Generally, pa are found close to resource zones such as large shellfish beds, fishing grounds, and rich horticultural soils. Few pa have been investigated archaeologically and oral traditions of pa tend to be restricted to accounts of major battles. As a result there is still little known about this important class of site, but their appearance is often linked to other changes in social and economic life. Oral tradition associates many of the larger pa with the political activities of named chiefs and in many instances they clearly have a connection with tribalism, boundaries in the landscape and with personal and tribal identity. Some archaeologists have linked the emergence of pa to population growth and the development of political complexity, especially of the emergence of Polynesianstyle ranked chiefdoms. In many parts of the country pa are concentrated in places with high-yielding

Figure 3 Maungawhau (Mt Eden) in Auckland city. One of a number of large volcanic cone pa of the region. (Photo Courtesy of the Auckland Institute and Museum).

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horticultural soils and this has further stimulated discussions of intensification, competition, and the development of political complexity. In fact, there is independent evidence in the archaeological record to suggest that simple kin-based chiefdoms were present throughout New Zealand prehistory and that horticultural intensification was minimal. Thus while the emergence of pa is definitely related to social change the nature of this relationship is far from clear. New artifact assemblages. Although there was continuity in the general form of the artifact assemblage, the styles of many artifacts changed through time. While adzes of the Archaic phase were, for the most part, markedly quadrangular, and often with a lashing modification at the butt, those of the Classic phase were generally of a rounded quadrangular cross section and lacked such modification. Early adzes were made using percussion technology before grinding and polishing part of the surface, while later adze manufacture relied much more on abrasive techniques. This change is largely attributable to changes in stone material used for adze making. Fish hooks of the Archaic were most commonly made in one piece – often of moa bone – and were replaced in the Classic by two-piece forms that employed a bone point and a wooden shank. Fishing lures with bone points were also used throughout the sequence with the shanks of early forms being predominantly stone or bone and those of later forms either bone or wood (Figure 4). The ornaments, dominated in the Archaic by large necklace units in bone, ivory or serpentine, were replaced in the Classic phase by generally smaller neck or ear pendants often of bone, teeth, or nephrite. By European arrival a sophisticated Maori art tradition was in place that still thrives in modern New Zealand. Classic Maori art was particularly well developed in the areas of tattoo, textile manufacture, and wood carving. Archaeological evidence shows that all of these art forms were present from the Archaic but Maori art has diverged sufficiently from that of other East Polynesian cultures to infer a period

Figure 4 Maori stone adze. (Photo Courtesy of the Auckland Institute and Museum).

of radical development and transformation leading to the emergence of the Classic Maori art tradition. Patterns of resource utilization and movement. A remarkable characteristic of early settlement is that within a generation of landfall, nearly every major stone source in the country had been discovered, and was being transported long distances. For example, obsidians from the northern North Island are found in early sites more than 1000 km away in the southern South Island and argillites from the northern South Island are found in early sites 750 km distant in the far north, as well as in the southern South Island. By the Classic phase most stone sources were no longer being moved over long distances and there was a greater concentration on local material. There is one exception to this and that involves the use of nephrite. Although present in very small amounts in some Archaic sites, the use of nephrite became much greater in the Classic phase where it was used for weapons, adzes, and ornaments. Nephrite is only found in the South Island, and is almost entirely restricted to a small number of source areas on its mid-southern west coast. A small number of nephrite adzes have been found in early sites, mainly those located close to the source areas, but by the time of European contact it was in widespread use over much of New Zealand. Whatever the reason for the increased use and distribution of nephrite, its widespread presence late in the sequence indicates that the transport and trade mechanisms present in the Archaic were still available in the Classic, although there may have been changes in the detail of their employment. Economic practices. The tropical food plants introduced from Polynesia would only grow easily in the frost-free north. Their successful cultivation became increasingly marginal to the south, with their effective limit being kumara gardening in the vicinity of Banks Peninsula. Although horticulture was practiced, where possible, throughout New Zealand prehistory, it is likely that it played a less important role in the economy during the Archaic phase when meat sources were more abundant. In the centuries following the loss of the moa and seal and as populations grew there is evidence for the expansion of horticulture – more and more land was cleared and brought into production. The direct record of this is in the form of modified soils, drainage systems, and concentrations of pit and terrace complexes associated with food storage. There is indirect evidence of land clearance in the sediment record. The increase in kumara production coincides with the growth of the pa complex, and some archaeological explanations stress the idea that increasing investment in land stimulated a need for defending that land from outsiders. The whole result was the development of

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bounded and defended territories. Again, the archaeological evidence while generally supportive of such a model is yet untested.

European Contact Early contact, exploration, sealing, flax trading, whaling. The first known visits to New Zealand after initial Polynesian settlement were by explorers from Europe. New Zealand was given its modern name by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642. The next visit was by James Cook in 1769 who was leading a scientific expedition to the Pacific and who managed to chart, with remarkable accuracy, the whole of the coastline of the country. The main contributions of these visits to archaeology are the observations made about how people lived and, from 1769 onward, the material culture collected and now held in museums in Europe and elsewhere. Within decades of Cook’s visits, European commerce began to move into New Zealand waters. The most important resources New Zealand had to offer were flax (Phormium tenax – mainly used for making rope), sealskins, and tall, straight kauri (Agathis australis) trees in the north of the country which were sought after as spars for ships. The earliest European settlements were in places with good harbors adjacent to supplies of these resources. These include Bluff and Riverton, near the southern tip of the South Island which were close to good sealing grounds and stands of flax, and the Bay of Islands, close to kauri forests. European contact wrought many rapid changes to Maori society and culture. Perhaps one of the most significant in terms of social organization and belief systems was that of Christianity, although unlike other parts of Polynesia large-scale conversion took many decades. It introduced many new technologies (iron, muskets) and major new food types (potato, wheat, pig). Alcohol, tobacco, and new diseases were less beneficial European introductions. Although there were many changes to Maori lifeways as a result of European contact and commerce, there were, again, many lines of continuity. In spite of the introduction of Christianity, traditional practices and beliefs continued, modified as necessary to conform to new ideologies. Many traditional architectural forms and settlement structures seem to have continued, as did the use of pa. Maori were actively engaged in commerce from at least the late 1790s and had become a major economic force in the south Pacific five decades later. Through commercial activity muskets had become readily available to those tribes situated close to European settlements and by the 1820s, this had caused an imbalance in power relations. A period of widespread musket warfare ensued during which

time pa designs changed to accommodate the use of guns. The new ‘gunfighter pa’ were designed with corner bastions that allowed flanking fire along the outer walls of the fortifications. The tribes that obtained the earliest arsenals of muskets were able to expand rapidly into neighboring territory and numerous such expansions are documented for the early nineteenth century. Later, disputes over land acquisition and access to commercial opportunities led to conflict with the European settlers resulting in the Land Wars which lasted on and off for almost three decades from the mid-1840s. During this time pa were adapted for defense against artillery fire with deep trenches and underground chambers reinforced with timber roofs and walls. Such sites are important features of the archaeological landscape relating directly to the formative period during which modern New Zealand society was forged.

Summary The New Zealand archaeological sequence is short by comparison with most parts of the world but it contains a rich record and one that offers interesting archaeological opportunities. Almost uniquely in world terms, first European contact with Maori was at a time of scientific inquiry and many of the first encounters were by skilled and educated observers who left detailed records. To this body of material, Maori knowledge in the form of oral histories, traditions, and genealogies has been added, resulting in a detailed documentation of an indigenous society prior to European influence. This serves as an excellent foundation from which to investigate the emergence of this indigenous society out of a very differently adapted cultural baseline. To make matters more interesting still, the entire unfolding of Maori history occurred in isolation from any outside influences, a situation that is also unique in world terms. A century of archaeology in New Zealand has contributed a good knowledge of material culture and of economic change, but much remains to be done in both substantive and theoretical terms, in terms of understanding the processes of culture change that resulted in the emergence of Classic Maori culture as seen by the first European visitors and as recorded in Maori oral history. Contemporary archaeological work in New Zealand takes place in partnership with Maori whose ancestral relationship to New Zealand’s heritage places and prehistoric material culture is recognized in statute and through the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori have been active in historical scholarship for more than a century and are increasingly involved in archaeological research and teaching. Most recently, Maori scholars and tribal representatives have been engaging in international debates about who owns

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the past and the repatriation of taonga (objects of cultural value) and human remains from overseas. This is contributing to the development of a richer and more culturally informed archaeology. See also: Migrations: Pacific.

Further Reading Anderson A (1989) Prodigious Birds: Moas and Moa Hunting in Prehistoric New Zealand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oceania/Peopling of

Oceania/Polynesia

Davidson J (1984) The Prehistory of New Zealand. Auckland: Longman Paul. Duff R (1956) The Moa-Hunter Period of Maori Culture. Wellington: Government Printer. Holdaway S and Furey L (eds.) (2004) New Zealand Archaeological Association Monograph 26. Change through Time, 50 Years of New Zealand Archaeology. Auckland: New Zealand Archaeological Association. Prickett KE (1982) The First Thousand Years: Regional Perspectives in New Zealand Archaeology. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. Sutton DG (1994) The Origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

See: Migrations: Pacific.

See: Migrations: Pacific.

ORGANIC RESIDUE ANALYSIS Eleanora A Reber, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary acyl lipids Acyl lipids are the various components making up fat or oil. Pure fat or oil is made up largely of triacylglycerols – three fatty acids attached to a glycerol backbone. These compounds can break down so that each glycerol backbone contains only one or two fatty acids, in which case the newly produced compound is called a monoacylglycerol or a diacylglycerol, with fatty acids unattached to a glycerol called free fatty acids. absorbed residue Residual components from ancient activity (cooking, resource processing, etc.) which are absorbed within a porous archaeological matrix and able to survive chemical and microbial degradation during deposition. alkanols Alcohols with a long carbon chain that are found primarily in plant waxes. biomarker Components unique to a specific source or a class of sources: cholesterol is a biomarker for animal lipids, while theobromine is a biomarker for cacao, and various terpenoids are biomarkers for different families, genera, and species of trees.

compound-specific isotope analysis A type of analysis that allows the separation of constituents in a residue by gas chromatography followed by the analysis of the carbon stable isotope ratio of each separate compound. derivatization A chemical reaction performed on the constituents of a residue to make it more amenable to chromatographic analysis. fatty acids Long carbon chain carboxylic acids that make up the major constituents of acyl lipids. Fatty acids are often stripped from the glycerol backbones during analysis and their relative abundance determined, to help interpret the origin of a residue. gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) A type of analysis in which a complex mixture of components are separated in the gas chromatograph, and each component is identified through mass spectrometry. organic residue analysis The analysis of any type of residue remaining attached to, or absorbed within, an archaeological artifact. unsaturation The presence of double bonds in an organic compound. visible residue Chemical components that are absorbed within the pores of a visible encrustation on an artifact, with a charred residue yielding the best chemical preservation.

1748 ORGANIC RESIDUE ANALYSIS

Introduction The advantage of organic residue analysis is that it provides a direct link between an artifact and human activity by looking at the residues of ancient use of the artifact. Residues can be analyzed with a variety of analytical tools, depending on the research design and type of artifact. Recently, most activity in organic residue analysis has centered on ceramic residues. In essence, any organic residue study must take into account a range of problems: how the residue originated, how it was preserved through time, what effect environmental degradation had on the residue and its constituents, and how to interpret the surviving residue in terms of human behavior.

Survival of Residues The full chemical process behind the preservation of organic residues is incompletely understood. It is known, however, that some organic compounds do preserve throughout their deposition in archaeological context either by being absorbed within the ceramic matrix of a potsherd, or by retention in the pores of a visible encrustation on the surface of a ceramic sherd or stone tool. Absorbed

Absorbed residues often result from long-term use of the artifact, with the residue comprised of various components absorbed during the use-lifetime of an artifact. Absorbed residues occur primarily in pottery, though recent studies suggest that they may also occur in porous rocks. In order to become an absorbed residue, chemical components must be sufficiently soluble in water that they are able to absorb within the porous matrix in the first place, but not so soluble that they are washed out of the artifact by rainfall during deposition. As a result, absorbed residues are primarily made up of lipids, and occasionally proteins, which fulfill this condition. Visible

Visible residues, as shown in Figure 1, may result from either a single use of an artifact – a major culinary disaster in the kitchen, or a very messy episode with a stone tool – or from a buildup from repeated use. Because the constituents of a visible residue do not have to have been absorbed within a porous matrix, a wider range of components can be preserved in this way, including starch grains and other components less water-soluble than lipids. Organic components, as well, may be preserved in a visible residue, most notably phytoliths and pollen (see Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis).

Figure 1 A visible residue encrusted on a sherd of early stumpware from the George Reeves site in Illinois (11S650).

Environmental Degradation

In both absorbed and visible forms, only certain types of chemical components are able to survive archaeological deposition. Various experimental studies have been undertaken on this point, and have established that the overall result of environmental degradation of organic residues is the preferential disappearance of water-soluble, shorter-chained and polyunsaturated constituents. Longer-chained and saturated components tend to preserve proportionally longer. Residue degradation takes several forms. First, water-soluble components such as sugars are washed out of the residue and into the soil. The components of the residue then begin a complex series of reactions: microbial, thermal, and oxidative. Microbial degradation is caused by the activities of microbes and bacteria. Thermal degradation results from chemical reactions produced by the exposure of residue constituents to heat. This type of reaction can be very useful to analysts. For example, the best indicator for the presence of marine processing in a vessel is the presence of o-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids, which are thermally produced from triunsaturated fatty acids. Oxidative degradation results from the reaction of oxygen with various residual components, and is responsible for the preferential degradation of polyunsaturated acyl lipids.

Lipid Residues Lipid residues are the primary constituents of most absorbed ceramic residues. They are comprised of

ORGANIC RESIDUE ANALYSIS 1749

various classes of lipid, including acyl lipids, terpenoids, waxes, alkanes, and alkanols. Lipid residues must first be extracted from their matrix, whether it is an absorbed or visible residue. They must then be analyzed and interpreted. The three primary types of interpretation involve biomarkers, relative abundances, and compound-specific stable isotope analysis. Relative abundances of components can also be useful in interpreting residues, but must be used carefully, due to the effects of environmental degradation. Even with this caution, however, residues comprised primarily of plant-based components contain more unsaturated fatty acids relative to unsaturated fatty acids, as shown in Figure 2, while those originating from animal-based materials contain more unsaturated fatty acids, and occasionally the presence of the biomarker cholesterol.

Types of Analysis

Various types of instrumental analyses have been applied to residue analysis. For residues with a complex mixture of components, which includes most absorbed residues, some sort of chromatographic separation of constituents prior to identification is preferable. The standard approach involves the use of a GC/MS. Liquid chromatography (LC/MS) produces a similar effect, and works well on less volatile constituents of a residue, though less well on more volatile constituents. Both types of analyses produce a chromatogram, shown in Figure 2, which indicates the various separated components and their relative abundance in the form of peaks. Each peak in the chromatogram has a corresponding mass spectrum, such as that in Figure 3, which allows the identification of component. The extracted residue is usually split into different fractions, which are processed and derivatized in various ways to maximize the desired information. Usually, a total lipid extract is analyzed by GC/MS in order to view the entire residue and its state of preservation. Visible residues are amenable to a wider range of analyses than absorbed residues, as the carbonized residue may undergo Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FT-IR) which allows the detection of components that cannot successfully undergo chromatographic analysis. Microscopic analysis of visible residues is also useful, sometimes permitting the identification of starch grains and macroscopic remains embedded in the residue.

Extraction

The standard method for extraction of absorbed ceramic residues was set forth by Evershed et al. in 1992. It involves powdering a potsherd in a mortar and pestle, and extracting the organic constituents in a strong solvent. The solvent is then removed from the powdered matrix and blown down to produce a pure residue. Although experiments have been undertaken on nondestructive analyses of absorbed residues, the destructive approach has so far been more effective. The extraction of visible residues is based on the standard methodology for absorbed residues, with the use of smaller amounts of solvent. C16:0

C18:0

Relative intensity

C18:1 C18:2

C20:0

C22:0

Docosane-dioic acid

C17:0 C14:0

C24:0

C15:0 C19:0

C21:0

C23:0

Time (min) Figure 2 A gas chromatogram of the fatty acid methyl ester fraction of an absorbed residue extracted from a potsherd. The subscripts refer to number of carbons followed by the number of double bonds (unsaturation) present; C18:2 refers to an eighteen-carbon chain fatty acid with two double bonds. The relatively high abundance of unsaturated fatty acids in this residue suggest a primarily plant origin for the residue.

1750 ORGANIC RESIDUE ANALYSIS Compound-specific Isotope Analysis

Compound-specific isotope analysis is very useful in areas where the biome includes both C3 and C4 photosynthesis, either naturally or through importation of crops. A good example of this is the identification of maize in absorbed pottery residues. The diet in southeastern and Midwestern North America is primarily C3, with very few CAM or C4 plants present in the diet except for the imported tropical grass maize. Maize does not have a biomarker, but it is abundant in the alkanol n-dotriacontanol. Compound-specific isotope analysis of a residue can determine if the n-dotriacontanol is C3 or C4 in origin, as shown in Figure 4. If the component is C4

Relative abundance

239

m/z

in origin, it is reasonable to argue that maize was processed in the pot.

Conclusions Organic residues have great potential to uncover the specific ways in which people used pottery, stone tools, or other artifacts containing residues. When interpreting residues, however, it is essential to remember that many constituents of the residue may have been washed out during deposition, or degraded chemically or microbially. It is also important to determine, if possible, whether the residue was the result of a single use, or of a series of different uses. This accomplished, however, organic residue analysis allows a unique look at ancient artifact use. See also: Coprolite Analysis; Macroremains Analysis; Paleoethnobotany; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis.

73 143 173

69 100

225 200

357 372

Figure 3 A mass spectrum identified as dehydroabietic acid, a common biomarker for resins from pine trees. The numbers and lines refer to the abundance of various molecular weight fragments, with 239 being the molecular weight of the most stable fragment of the compound, and 372 being the molecular weight of the unfragmented compound.

Internal standard n-Triacontanol −30.30‰ n-Octacosanol −29.10‰ n-Hexacosanol −26.50‰ n-Tetracosanol −25.87‰

Further Reading

300

n-Dotriacontanol −19.97‰

n-Docosanol −29.65‰

Time (min) Figure 4 A gas chromatogram of the neutral fraction from a residue extracted from a sherd from Louisiana. The stable carbon isotope ratio of each compound is noted under the compound name – note the difference in isotopic ratio between n-dotriacontanol and the other alkanols present. The internal standard was added to help measure the amount of residue present.

Evans K and Heron C (1993) Glue, disinfectant and chewing gum: Natural products chemistry in archaeology. Chemistry and Industry 12: 446–449. Evershed RP, Heron C, Charters S, and Goad LJ (1992) Chemical analysis of organic residues in ancient pottery: Methodological guidelines and applications. In: White R and Page H (eds.) Organic Residues in Archaeology: Their Identification and Analysis, pp. 11–26. London: UKIC Archaeology Section. Evershed RP, Stott AW, Raven A, Dudd SN, Charters S, and Leyden A (1995) Formation of long-chain ketones in ancient pottery vessels by pyrolysis of acyl lipids. Tetrahedron Letters 36: 8875–8878. Evershed RP and Tuross N (1996) Proteinaceous material from potsherds and associated soils. Journal of Archaeological Science 23: 429–436. Hansel FA, Copley MS, Madurera LAS, and Evershed RP (2004) Thermally produced o-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids provide evidence for the processing of marine products in archaeological pottery vessels. Tetrahedron Letters 45: 2999–3002. Heron C, Evershed RP, Goad LJ, and Denham V (1989) New approaches to the analysis of organic residues from archaeological remains. In: Budd P, et al. (eds.) Archaeological Sciences 1989: Proceedings of a Conference on the Application of Scientific Techniques to Archaeology, Bradford, September 1989, pp. 332–339. Oxford: Oxbow. Reber EA, Dudd SN, van der Merwe NJ, and Evershed RP (2004) Direct detection of maize processing in archaeological pottery through compound-specific stable isotope analysis of n-dotriacontanol in absorbed organic residues. Antiquity 78: 682–691. Regert M, Garnier N, Decavallas O, Cren-Olive´ C, and Rolando C (2003) Structural characterization of lipid constituents from natural substances preserved in archaeological environments. Measurement Science and Technology 14: 1620.

OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS 1751

Origins/Agriculture

See: Plant Domestication.

Origins/Animal Husbandry

Origins/Writing

See: Animal Domestication.

See: Writing Systems.

Osteoarchaeology

See: Bioarchaeology.

OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS Concepcio´n de la Ru´a, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary attrition Wear, usually used in reference to the teeth. calcification The process of formation of bones and teeth. collagen A fibrous structural protein constituting about 90% of bone’s organic content. diaphyses The shaft of a long bone. DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule of heredity that contains the genetic code. epiphysis The cap at the end of a long bone that develops from a secondary ossification center. eruption (of teeth) The emergence of teeth through the gum. hydroxyapatite A dense organic, mineral matrix; the second component of bone. long bones Term for the bones of the arms and legs, specifically, the humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, and fibula. proximal Closest to the center of the mid-line of the body; in limbs, closest to the point of attachment to the trunk pubic symphysis The junction of the right and left pubic bones at the mid-line. sciatic notch Part of the pelvis located at the junction between the ilium (upper, flat portion of the pelvis) and the ischium (lower portion of the pelvis). sphenooccipital suture (basilar suture) A synchondrosis lying between the sphenoid and the occipital bones at the skull. ventral arc Slightly elevated ridge across the ventral surface of the female pubis.

Introduction Skeletal remains are often found by archaeologists in their work, both in ancient layers and in more recent graves. Recovering and interpreting human bones provides information of interest in fields such as forensic osteology, human palaeontology, physical anthropology, and archaeology (Figure 1). Archaeologists concentrate on cultural residues of former human occupations, yet a great deal of information is gained from the skeletal remains. The study of human remains from archaeological contexts is known as bioarchaeology. Study of the skeleton makes it possible to estimate an individual’s age, sex, and stature. The analysis of individuals representing biological populations may offer insight into diet, health, biological affinity (metrics and genetics), and population history. Identifying the human remains by element, side, age, and sex are the first task of human osteology. Such identification is often critical in answering archaeological questions.

Morphological Analysis Methods for Estimating Age

These involve estimating the individual’s age-at-death rather than the amount of time that has elapsed since

1752 OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS Bioarcheology Human paleontology

Osteological remains

Wide sciatic notch

Forensic osteology Female

Male

Physical antropology Figure 1 Human osteology: relationship with other scientific disciplines.

death. The progression of changes the skeleton undergoes over the course of a lifetime forms the foundation for studies of skeletal aging. It is important to know that there is substantial variation among different individuals in the rate and timing of development changes. There is, therefore, always a degree of imprecision in aging skeletal remains. Osteological standards are based on a population whose individuals have known ages. Seven age classes are commonly used to classify human osteological remains: fetus (before birth), infant (0–3 years), child (3–12 years), adolescent (12–20 years), young adult (20–35 years), middle adult (35–50 years), and old adult (50 þ years). Subadult age estimation The principal criteria for estimating age in subadults are: dental development, epiphyseal closure, and length of long bones. Dental development Dental calcification (tooth formation) and eruption (emergence from the gum) are the most accurate indicators of chronological age in subadults. Several published standards exist for aging the skeleton through the use of dental formation and eruption. In general terms, there are four distinct periods of emergence of the human dentition: (1) emergence of most deciduous teeth during the second year of life, (2) emergence of the two permanent incisors and the first permanent molars usually between 6 and 8 years, (3) emergence of the most permanent canines, premolars, and second molars between 10 and 12 years, and (4) the emergence of the third molar s around 18 years. It can be noted that dental development is

sensitive to sex and population differences (see Paleodemography). Epiphyseal closure The epiphysis of postcranial bones unites with the diaphyses at a known age. Because these unions occur at different times in different bones, they are useful for estimating age, especially between 10 and 20 years, when data on dentition and length of long bones are of limited value. Union begins earlier in females than in males and these ages also vary by individuals and populations. The approximate chronology of epiphyseal union for several human skeletal elements is shown in Table 1. Length of long bones In the absence of teeth and various epiphyses, subadult individual age may be estimated from long bone length. This method is not very accurate because growth rates vary among populations; nevertheless, it is especially useful for predicting age at death of fetuses and very young infants. The procedure consists of comparing the isolated long bone lengths to an appropriate reference series in order to derive ages. Adult age estimation The application of a multifactorial approach that integrates pubic symphysis face, auricular surface, dental attrition, suture closure, and microscopic methods is more accurate than reliance on any single age indicator. Pubic symphysis face One of the best areas to determine age at death of an adult is from the pubic symphysis of the os coxae. Age-related changes at the

OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS 1753 Table 1 Timing of the fusion of epiphyses for several human bones (age in years)

Table 2 The Suchey–Brooks pubic symphysis scoring system: descriptive statistics

Epiphysis

Males

Females

Phase

Clavicle: medial epiphysis Scapula: acromial process Humerus: head trochlea lateral epicondyle medial epicondyle Radius: head distal epiphysis Ulna: distal epiphysis Os coxae: iliac crest Os coxae: Ischium-Pubis Femur: head/lesser trochanter greater trochanter distal epiphysis Tibia: proximal epiphysis distal epiphysis Fibula: proximal epiphysis distal epiphysis

18–22 14–22 14–21 11–15 11–17 15–18 14–19 16–20 18–20 17–20 7–9 15–18 16–18 14–19 15–19 14–18 14–20 14–18

17–21 13–20 14–20 9–13 10–14 13–15 13–16 16–19 16–19 17–19 7–9 13–17 13–17 14–17 14–17 14–16 14–18 13–16

Mean
st. dev.

95% range

Mean
st. dev.

95% range

1 2 3 4 5 6

19.4 25.0 30.7 38.2 48.1 60

15–24 19–40 21–53 26–70 25–83 42–87

18.5 23.4 28.7 35.2 45.6 61.2

15–23 19–34 21–46 23–57 27–66 34–86

pubic symphysis have been recognized in studies by different authors. The Suchey–Brooks system consists of six phases for defining the progressive changes of the surface with age. The young adult human pubic symphysis has a rugged face traversed by horizontal ridges. This surface loses relief with age and is bounded by a rim by the age of 35. Subsequent erosion occurs after this age. Statistics for this six-phase system are shown in Table 2. Auricular surface (Os Coxae) This is the surface of the sacro-iliac joint. Certain advantages of this surface for aging individuals are that changes extend well beyond the age of 50 and that it is more likely to be preserved than pubic symphysis. A system described by Lovejoy and colleagues consists of eight phases for classifying age-related changes to this surface (Table 3). Dental attrition Dental attrition or wear generally proceeds throughout life and can be used to estimate age. Although attrition rates vary greatly between populations and individuals because of differences in diet, occlusion, and dental morphology, a good correlation has been shown between known age and tooth wear. Since teeth erupt at different ages, they show different rates of wear. A first molar accumulates about 6 years of wear before the second molar erupts (assuming eruption at 6 and 12 years, respectively). When a similar account of wear is found on a third molar of another individual (a third molar may have erupted at the age of 18), the age of that individual can be estimated as 24 years.

2.6 4.9 8.1 10.9 14.6 12.4

2.1 3.6 6.5 9.4 10.4 12.2

Sample: female (n ¼ 273), male (n ¼ 739). Mean and range: ages in years.

Table 3 Auricular surface: phases of change and age related range (in years) Phase

Age range

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 44–49 50–60 >60

Cranial suture closure Sutures between various cranial bones fuse progressively as the individual ages. The reliability of this method is greater for some sutures, such as lateral-anterior, spheno-occipital, and basilar sutures. For the latter, at least 95% of all individuals have fusion between 20 and 25 years of age, with a main tendency at 23 years of age. Bone microstructure The normal remodeling of bone during adult life has been used for aging skeletal material. This is a destructive procedure, undertaken mainly on the long bones that depend on osteonal remodeling of bone with age. Methods for Estimating Sex

Sexual identification of human skeletal material is most accurate above the age of around 18. When the individual reaches maturity, male and female bones become differentiated, and therefore useful in sexing. The differences between sexes are of size and shape. In general, the bones of males are longer, more robust, and rougher than those of females. Shape differences are especially pronounced in the pelvis, but the skull also presents sex differences in humans. All the morphological techniques for sexing skeletal remains present a certain error rate; however, molecular techniques (DNA) are more precise, even for fragmentary and subadult remains.

1754 OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS

Sexing the pelvis Morphological methods used to determine sex through the pelvis are based on the landmarks described below. Pubis The pubis is longer in females and the subpubic angle is wider. Phenice’s method based on pubic region described three distinctive characteristics in females: ventral arc, subpubic concavity, and the contour of the medial aspect of the ischiopubic ramus that displays a sharp edge. After sexing the specimen with this method, further features described below can be observed to confirm the sex diagnosis. Sciatic notch The sciatic notch is located at the junction between the ilium and the ischium. It is wide in females (forming an angle of about 60 ) and narrow in males (angle of about 30 ) (Figure 1). Pre-auricular sulcus This is a groove between the sciatic notch and the sacroiliac articulation, and is most often found in females. There are other morphological features of minor value that help in sex estimation, such as the auricular area (more elevated in females than in males) and the acetabulum (larger in males to accommodate a larger femoral head). The application of metric techniques to sex estimation is difficult because many of the remains are very fragmented. The simplest technique is the ratio between the length of the pubis to the length of the ischium, described as an index that is around 155 in males and between 160–170 in females. Sexing the skull Sex estimation made from the skull is not as accurate as that based on the pelvis. In general, males tend to be larger and more robust than females. Males also display larger mastoid processes, more prominent supra-orbital ridges and glabellar region, and heavier temporal and nuchal lines. Male mandibles are characterized by squarer chins and larger teeth, with the lower canines revealing the greatest dimorphism. Sexing the long bones Sexual differences in the long bones are less consistent than those on the pelvis and skull. Although male bones tend to be larger and more rugged, incorrect identification is due to the overlap between the ranges of size in males and females in the same population. Maximum diameters of the heads of the femur, humerus, and radius are good indicators of sex in adults when they fall outside the overlap zone. Femoral heads with diameters exceeding 48 mm are usually male, whereas those measuring less than 43 mm are usually female.

Many studies have been conducted on known-sex samples to derive discriminant equations capable of classifying sex accurately in more than 85% of the cases for a variety of skeletal remains (femur, humerus, ulna, etc.). These equations are based on a combination of measurements. Estimation of Stature

The correlation between body height and limb-bone length across all ages allows the anthropologist to reconstruct an individual’s stature from different long bones. However, the correlation varies between different populations, making it difficult to generate equations useful in estimating stature in different human populations. Trotter and Gleser formulas for stature estimation in whites and blacks are the ones most frequently used in North America, whereas Genoves’ formulas are more appropriate for Mesoamerican remains. Numerous other formulas have been developed using different samples and approaches (forensic/ archaeological). There are a number of human osteology manuals (Bass and Ubelaker are the standard works) that provide useful tables for stature estimation in different human groups.

Chemical Analysis of Bones The chemical analysis of osteological remains has played an important role in the reconstruction of subsistence patterns in past human populations. Conventional approaches used plant and animal, as well as utensil, remains. The interaction between these elements is complex due to difficulties in preservation of food remains. Certain aspects of the chemical composition of human bone are determined by the types of food consumed, providing a more direct and objective means to generate human subsistence patterns. Bone tissue is a composite of two kinds of component: the organic component is mainly a large protein molecule known as collagen (90%), and the inorganic component is hydroxyapatite, in the form of calcium phosphate, which impregnates the collagen matrix. The principal chemical analyses for dietary reconstruction are those of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes (performed mainly on the organic portion of the bone) and those of trace elements (strontium, barium, etc.) (on the inorganic portion). Stable isotope analysis There are two stable isotopes of carbon: 12C and 13C. Ratios of these isotopes in mammalian bones reflect the consumption of different foods. There are two types of plants according to the photosynthetic pathways they use: the so-called C3 plants, which discriminate against the heavier

OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS 1755

isotope of carbon (13C) and are enriched in 12C, and the C4 plants (generally speaking, tropical gramineae such as maize, sorghum, sugarcane, millet, and soya), which do not discriminate the 13C isotope. On the other hand, high levels of 13C occur in certain kinds of marine animals exploited by humans. Since the carbon in bone collagen comes from food consumed, the isotopic ratios allow for differentiating between foods of marine or terrestrial provenance, and in turn, the latter can be separated according to the proportion of C3 and C4 plants ingested. Organisms eating more C3 plants will show higher 12 C/13C ratios in their bones. The isotope ratio is expressed: d 13C% ¼ [(13C/12C sample / 13C/12C standard) – 1]  1000. The standard for carbon is a marine carbonate fossil from the Peedee formation in South Carolina (PDB, PeeDee Belemnite). Existing data indicate that subsistence based entirely on C3 plants provides an isotopic ratio of between –18% and –22%, whereas one based on C4 plants has a value of between –4% and –7%. Like carbon, nitrogen occurs in two isotopic states: 14 N and 15N. The heavier (15N) concentrates as it travels up through the food chain. Marine plants have higher concentrations of this isotope than land plants. As a consequence, people feeding on marine food sources are expected to have higher 15N/14N ratios than those subsisting on terrestrial food sources. Isotope analysis is made from a tiny sample of bone tissue (1 g), from which collagen is extracted to measure the isotope values with a mass spectrometer. Trace element analysis Trace elements are chemical elements that are found in small amounts in the body. The main source of trace elements is diet, with the bone being the main depositary in the organism. The variations that occur in the concentration of these throughout the trophic chain are the reason for their use in the study of the diet. The strontium (Sr) enters the land-based food chain from the soil and ground water via roots of plants. The amount of strontium gradually decreases moving up the food chain (from herbivores to omnivores and carnivores). The more appropriate method of analysis consists in comparing Sr levels in the different elements of the trophic chain represented in a site. This Sr measurement indicates the relative proportion of vegetables in the human diet. Elements such as barium (Ba) and magnesium (Mg) have a similar behavior to Sr. Other elements, such as copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), reflect meat intake, being deposited mainly in the muscular tissue and, to a lesser extent, in the bone. Accordingly, carnivores will feature the highest levels of these elements, with reduced amounts in omnivores and herbivores.

Assessing the results for trace elements is complex due to the possible existence of diagenetic processes that, following burial, may alter the biogenic proportions of the trace elements present in the bone. This makes it essential, therefore, to perform examinations of the taphonomy of soil-buried bones. There are numerous applications for chemical analyses in bioarchaeology, with major ones involving studies dealing with the introduction of C4 plants such as maize, those referring to intra- and interpopulational social differences, the assessment of marine versus terrestrial food webs, and the change of diet in the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.

Molecular Analysis of Bones Under certain conditions, skeletal specimens retain a sufficient number of DNA molecules to permit their recovery and analysis. DNA is the molecule of heredity and almost every human cell has a complete copy of their DNA. After an organism dies, the DNA molecules degrade rapidly, but sometimes, fragments of DNA are present in the biological remains (bone tissue, muscles, and hair, amongst others). The ability to recover DNA from ancient human remains potentially allows for addressing questions of importance to different scientific fields (Figure 1), such as estimation of sex, disease status, ancestry, diet, and individuation. Sampling

Sampling of skeletal elements for molecular analysis is important in order to obtain reliable results. In the case of samples recovered in modern excavations, specific procedures should be employed in order to minimize the contamination and degradation of samples. The use of disposable latex gloves and masks during excavation should be recommended, while the use of preservatives and humidity (washing) should be avoided. When the molecular analysis is applied to museum collections, sampling should be made minimizing damage and the loss of morphological information, because this type of analysis is often destructive. Morphological information should be recorded through photographs, radiographs, and casts, at least for important specimens. It is often useful to first attempt to analyze fauna bones from the same layer as humans and, whenever possible, more than one sample is to be taken per individual, in order to replicate results in an independent laboratory. Methodology

Working with ancient DNA (aDNA) involves a number of limitations, namely the scarcity and fragmentation of DNA that is recovered, and the risk of

1756 OSTEOLOGICAL METHODS

contamination. To avoid contamination, the processing of the samples in the laboratory involves the application of strict criteria, as detailed in the specialized literature, for the authentication of results. The major problem in aDNA analysis is contamination by exogenous DNA. Some potential sources of contamination, such as microorganisms or personal manipulating samples, are not difficult to detect and overcome, but laboratory contamination related to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products is more difficult to avoid. The PCR preferentially amplifies well-preserved DNA molecules, which are more likely to be modern than ancient DNA. Products of previous PCR reactions may produce laboratory contamination. However, a number of techniques can be applied to reduce the chances of contamination. The general methodology of aDNA analysis involves several stages. First, extraction and isolation of DNA from a bone or tooth sample. Second, a specific sequence of the DNA is amplified using PCR, an in vitro technique to produce many copies of this DNA, starting from only a few original molecules (DNA template). Finally, the amplified DNA sample is analyzed by enzymatic digestion (restriction fragment length polymorphism: RFLP) and/or sequencing, typically specific regions of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Limitations

Limitations of aDNA analysis are mainly related to the preservation of DNA, which seems to be influenced primarily by environmental factors rather than by time, at least for younger remains (up to 10 000 years). In general, samples recovered from environments with cooler temperatures, neutral or

Overkill Hypothesis

slightly alkaline pH, and dry conditions are best for DNA preservation, although samples found in wet anoxic conditions or frozen in permafrost have also yielded DNA. Typically, the quality and quantity of DNA is better from tooth than bone, and better from hard tissue than from soft tissue, due to the hydroxyapatite content that binds DNA and thus protects it from subsequent degradation. It is also well known that mtDNA (non-nuclear genome) is easier to retrieve than nuclear DNA, because the greater number of copies present in the cell favors their survival and recovery. There is currently no clear consensus on the time limit regarding remains that may still contain DNA fragments. The Neanderthals from Feldhofer (Germany) (40 000 years) and Vindija (Croatia) (42 000 years) are the oldest human remains analyzed to date. See also: Bioarchaeology; DNA: Ancient; Forensic Archaeology; Paleodemography; Stable Isotope Analysis; Trace Element Analysis.

Further Reading Bass WM (1995) Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual, 3rd edn. Missouri: Missouri Archaeological Society. Katzenberg MA and Saunders SR (eds.) (2000) Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton. New York: Wiley-Liss. Kelley MA and Larsen CS (eds.) (1991) Advances in Dental Anthropology. New York: Wiley-Liss. Pa¨a¨bo S, Poinar H, Serre D, et al. (2004) Genetic analysis from ancient DNA. Annual Review of Genetics 38: 645–679. Richard MP, Schulting RJ, and Hedges REM (2003) Sharp shift in diet at onset of Neolithic. Nature 425: 366. Ubelaker DH (1989) Human Skeletal Remains: Excavation, Analysis, Interpretation, 2nd edn. Washington DC: Taraxacum. White TD and Kolkens PA (2005) Human Bone Manual. New York: Elsevier/Academic Press.

See: Extinctions of Big Game.

P PALEOANTHROPOLOGY Ian Tattersall, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary hominid Any member of the biological family Hominidae, including extinct and extant humans, and sometimes the chimpanzee/bonobo group. Palaeolithic period Also called Old Stone Age, http://www. britannica.com/eb/art-6821?articleTypeId¼1 ancient cultural stage, or level, of human development, characterized by the use of chipped stone tools.

Introduction Palaeoanthropology is the multidisciplinary branch of science uniting the many diverse fields that contribute to understanding the evolution and prehistory of human beings, Homo sapiens, and their extinct relatives. These hominoid primates have traditionally been classified together in their own zoological family, Hominidae, to the exclusion of their closest living relatives the great apes (the chimpanzee and bonobo, the gorilla, and the orangutan). However, during the last quarter-century or so, it has become widely believed that the closest living relative of H. sapiens is in fact one subset of the great apes (in most views, the chimpanzee/bonobo group) rather than the entire ensemble, and in consequence many scholars have expanded their notion of Hominidae to include at least one of the great apes. When this is done, the grouping that excludes all of the apes is reduced to a lower rank, the subfamily Homininae, or even the tribe Hominini. At the present stage of our knowledge, classification of these forms is essentially a matter of taste, although it is important to be aware that the same term does not always denote the same species content. In this article the noun Hominidae (and its derived adjective, hominid) is used in its traditional exclusive sense (for living humans and their extinct relatives only), mainly because of the extraordinary diversity of extinct forms this group is now known to contain. The term ‘human’ is more contentious yet,

since it has never been formally defined. Thus, the phrase ‘human evolution’ is generally taken to refer to the evolutionary history of the ensemble of species belonging to Hominidae, while in contrast most authorities would only apply the descriptive adjective ‘human’ to members of the genus Homo, and the expression ‘fully human’ is usually reserved for fossil members of our species H. sapiens who resembled us not only anatomically but behaviorally as well (see below). The reader should expect inconsistency in this area, even in this article! The science of palaeoanthropology is itself subject to similar vagaries of definition, bringing together as it does a very diverse group of scientific specialties – none of which, apart from human palaeontology and archaeology, is uniquely brought to bear on the evolution of the human family. The field began to take on its recognizably modern form early in the second half of the twentieth century, when the Kenyan palaeontologist Louis Leakey and his wife, the archaeologist Mary Leakey, actively recruited scientists from other fields to help investigate the fossil hominid- and stone tool-bearing deposits of Olduvai Gorge, in Tanzania. In the late 1960s the American physical anthropologist Clark Howell formalized the multidisciplinary approach to palaeoanthropology in his pioneering explorations of the fossiliferous and artifact-bearing sediments of the Omo Basin in southern Ethiopia, setting a collaborative model that has since been followed by the vast majority of such investigations in Ethiopia and elsewhere. The essential core of palaeoanthropology is the discipline of hominid palaeontology, the branch of vertebrate palaeontology that deals with the recovery and analysis of the fossils that directly document the hominid past. Hominid palaeontology is an older science than palaeoanthropology, tracing its origin back to the discovery of the original Neanderthal fossil in 1956. Analyses of hominid fossils can take many different forms, ranging from systematic studies that attempt to sort the available fossils into species and to determine the relationships of those species to others, all the way to functional morphological investigations aimed at reconstructing how members of

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extinct species moved and behaved when they were alive. But fossils do not exist in isolation; as part of the larger enterprise, vertebrate palaeontologists of other specialties are needed to identify nonprimate fossils and to reconstruct the larger animal communities of which the early hominids formed part. This is also true of taphonomists, who study how living communities are converted into fossil assemblages and how we can read back from one to the other, and of palaeoecologists, who put together the larger picture of what those communities were originally like. Geochronologists, stratigraphers, and geologists of other kinds are needed to assign dates to fossil assemblages and to interpret the strata in which they are found. Isotopic chemists can contribute to understanding the dating, environments, and diets of fossil hominids, while molecular geneticists are increasingly bringing their expertise to bear on questions of early human relationships and demographics. Archaeologists of various kinds are essential in the interpretation of early hominid behaviors and economic strategies in the later phases of human evolution, when hominids had begun to leave behind a record of stone tools, and eventually of a much broader spectrum of material culture. And so on – specialists of all these kinds and and many more contribute to our understanding of the history of early humans in all its many dimensions, even when many of them are only part-time palaeoanthropologists.

The Data of Palaeoanthropology Central to palaeoanthropology is the hominid fossil record. Fossils may actually be any kind of evidence of early life – ancient footprints are technically fossils, for instance – but in practice almost all hominid fossils consist of bones and teeth. This is because these are the hardest tissues of the body, and are hence most likely to escape the destruction by scavengers and weathering that is the normal fate of a dead mammal’s remains. The same destructive mechanisms also ensure that rarely is a complete hominid skeleton, or even a complete dentition, preserved. Sometimes, however, the remains of hominids and other mammals are covered by protective river muds or other such sediments before they are destroyed; and as those sediments build up into thick layers of rock the original components of the bones and teeth are replaced by minerals – which may on occasion replicate the physical features of the originals in amazingly fine, even microscopic, detail. Sedimentary rocks may accumulate in this way to great thicknesses – hundreds or even thousands of feet – but should they eventually be eroded away by water or wind there is a brief window of time in which any fossils they

contain will be exposed at the surface and thereby become available for collection by palaeontologists. It is these that are the database of palaeoanthropology, and it should be evident that, for palaeoanthropologists, being at the right place at the right time is critical. Vastly more fossils are lost to erosion than ever make it to the palaeontologist’s workbench, which is one of the many reasons why the fossil record of any kind of organism will always be highly incomplete. As a result, the practice of hominid palaeontology has been likened to doing a huge jigsaw puzzle with only a few of the pieces – and no picture on the box. Fossils have three essential qualities: what they look like (broadened these days to include their microscopic and chemical qualities and in some cases their DNA content); where they come from; and how old they are. Generally, fossils are sorted into species on the basis of their external appearance (not an easy task, since there is no quantifiable degree of morphological distinction that corresponds to species difference), in a process known as ‘alpha taxonomy’. Once species identities have been established, the relationships among species are determined on the basis of their possession of ‘derived’ characteristics – those inherited from a recent common ancestor. This procedure yields a branching diagram known as a ‘cladogram’ that specifies which species and groups of species are most closely related by recency of common ancestry. Cladograms represent testable hypotheses since the distributions of one set of characteristics can be compared to those of other characters or sets. But although cladograms establish closeness of relationship among species in terms of recency of common ancestry, they do not specify the ‘kind’ of relationship involved. There is (and in principle can be) no distinction made between the relationship between an ancestor and its descendant, and between two descendants of the same ancestor. When you start to identify ancestors and descendants, you are making an ‘evolutionary tree’, which is inherently a less testable kind of proposition. This is entirely appropriate: even if any fossil species did not necessarily have any descendants, it must have had ancestors. But in interpreting such formulations you have to bear in mind the cladogram on which the tree was based. Finally, when you add to the tree everything you know about the functional anatomy, the ecology, the age, the inferred adaptations of a species and so forth, you have a ‘scenario’. This is, of course, inherently the most interesting kind of evolutionary proposition, but it is also the farthest from the testable base. Palaeoanthropology is renowned as one of the most controversy-ridden of the sciences, and a major reason for this is that palaeoanthropologists have often

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dived in at the deep end, as it were, and started out with the scenario. This has given rise to a discipline that has too often been one of pure storytelling, your choice among scenarios depending on who is the best storyteller, rather than on the rigor with which the basic evidence is analyzed. Of course, given the scale of the unknowns (and unknowables) in a historical science such as palaeoanthropology, a certain degree of uncertainty is inevitable. Still, it is wise to remember when evaluating any palaeoanthropological scenario that palaeoanthropologists continue to disagree on how many species they are dealing with in the hominid fossil record, as well as on how the species they recognize are related to one another. A major ingredient in creating scenarios has often been the age of the fossils concerned. Palaeoanthropology was born in a time when evolutionary theory was dominated by a body of thought known as the ‘evolutionary synthesis’. Under this construct, evolution was viewed as an essentially linear process, with each species merely representing an ephemeral segment of a steadily changing lineage. As long as species were thus seen more or less as links in a continuous chain running through time, the age of a fossil species could be seen as the key to its evolutionary position. Now, however, it is generally acknowledged that the evolutionary process is more typically one of natural experimentation than one of gradual refinement. Speciation – the origination of new discrete species – is seen as a relatively common phenomenon, with many new species emerging, competing on the ecological stage, and as likely as not eventually going extinct. As a result, understanding evolutionary histories is now seen as a matter of analysis rather than simply of discovery. Knowing the age of a fossil hominid species is not by itself enough to tell you its evolutionary significance. Nonetheless, along with its geographical provenance its age is one of the most important attributes of any fossil, and palaeoanthropology has been revolutionized since its birth in the mid-twentieth century by the introduction of ‘chronometric’ methods, which can assign to fossils an age in years (before this, only ‘relative’ dating was available: this fossil species is older or younger than these others). Most chronometric methods, many of them described elsewhere in this encyclopedia (see Dating Methods, Overview) date the rocks in which fossils are found, rather than the fossils themselves.

Hominid Emergence H. sapiens is today the only hominid on Earth (see Modern Humans, Emergence of). In the past this selfevident fact encouraged the view that our species is the culmination of a single progressively evolving

lineage. However, extensive additions to the hominid fossil record over the past half-century or so have made it increasingly clear that, in contrast, the hominid story was one of evolutionary diversity from the very start (see Figure 1). Both the fossil record and molecular genetic analyses of human beings and their closest living relatives point to an origin of the hominid family in the period between about 7 and 8 million years (Myr) ago. This was a time in which climatic and topographic changes in Africa (where Hominidae originated) were beginning to fragment that continent’s formerly monolithic forests and to create new woodland and eventually grassland environments. There are many variants on the precise scenario, but it is generally agreed that the arboreal hominid precursor, a member of the hominoid group that also included the ancestor of today’s great apes, was forced to take up at least a semi-terrestrial existence by the shrinking of its ancestral habitat. Once on the ground this ancestor, unlike the precursor of today’s quadrupedal ‘knuckle-walking’ apes, adopted a bipedal style of locomotion. There has been extensive debate over what the ‘critical advantage’ of twolegged locomotion might have been to the hominid ancestor. Among many other suggestions are more efficient terrestrial locomotion, better shedding of the sun’s heat in the open away from the trees, freeing up the hands to carry and manipulate objects, and seeing dangers farther away over tall grass. Most plausibly, though, the hominid ancestor was most comfortable walking upright over the ground because it already favored holding its trunk erect when moving in the trees. Once it had adopted this way of getting around in the open, all of the associated advantages – and disadvantages – followed. The notion that terrestrial uprightness was the key to hominid identity has been strengthened by fossil discoveries in eastern Africa that date to between about 7 and 4 Myr ago. Three genera of early hominids – Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus – have been described from this period. All of them are pretty fragmentary, but each has been described as a biped, even if on less-than-ideal evidence. They make up a rather heterogeneous assemblage, but if they were all upright hominids – rather than indicating, for example, that a variety of different hominoids experimented with bipedalism on the ground in response to similar environmental pressures – they provide eloquent support for the idea that, from the very beginning, Hominidae has typically shown an evolutionary pattern involving experimentation with the many ways that there evidently are to be a hominid. The genus Australopithecus – first represented in northern Kenya by a species (A. anamensis) that shows definitive signs of upright bipedalism at over

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Figure 1 One possible phylogeny (evolutionary tree) of the family Hominidae, showing time on the vertical axis. Solid black bars indicate documented time ranges; dotted lines indicate possible relationships, many of them highly speculative. ã2008 Dr. Ian Tattersall. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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4 Myr ago – is the best known of the early hominids. Its most famous representative is the fossil popularly known as Lucy, a partial skeleton of the species A. afarensis from 3.2-Myr-old deposits at Hadar in Ethiopia. Lucy and similar fossils are short-statured (females were not much over 3 ft tall, males not much over 4 ft), and retained many features that would have aided climbing in the trees (narrow shoulders, long arms relative to legs, long and somewhat curved hands) but show structures of the pelvis and leg that clearly indicate upright posture and locomotion. Although their dentitions have features, such as reduced canine teeth, that recall later hominids rather than apes, their skulls are very ape-like in structure, with large, protruding faces in front of tiny braincases that contained ape-sized brains with volumes no more than about a third of the modern human average. Indeed, many palaeoanthropologists like to refer to these archaic hominids as functionally ‘bipedal apes’. Fossils usually allocated to Australopithecus species are found in eastern and southern African sites (and one in Chad, in central-west Africa) that are dated to beween about 4 and 2 Myr ago. Most sediments containing them appear to have been laid down in forest-edge or woodland contexts, to which such creatures appear to have been largely confined, though occasionally there is evidence of conditions ranging from closed forest to grassland. By about 2 Myr ago, hominids of this kind had largely disappeared, with the exception of a ‘robust’ group, allocated to the genus Paranthropus, which lingered until about 1.4 Myr ago.

The First Stone Tool Makers There is, at least at the beginning, no reason to infer that the cognitive skills of the archaic hominids differed significantly from those of today’s apes – which are, indeed, quite impressive. But no modern ape, even with intensive coaching, has been able to master the special skills involved in fracturing a piece of stone to obtain a flake with a cutting edge. Nonetheless, at about 2.5 Myr ago, well before we have any fossil evidence that any significant anatomical advance had been achieved, ancient hominids spontaneously began to manufacture stone tools, initially simply sharp-edged flakes knocked off one river cobble using another. With the introduction of such simple stone tools and the inauguration of what is known as the Palaeolithic period (the Old Stone Age), we witness the birth of the archaeological record, the direct material register of ancient human activity. The first archaeological sites are places on the landscape where ancient hominids butchered the remains of

dead animals, the larger ones at least presumably scavenged rather than hunted. Indeed, it has been argued that early hominids were themselves favorite prey species of the many large carnivores that roamed the burgeoning African grasslands. Dismemberment of carcasses by hominids is attested to by cut-marks made by the stone tools on the animal bones, and we know that the tools were manufactured on site, from suitable stones carried in by forward-thinking hominids, because archaeologists have refitted entire cobbles from fragments of ‘foreign stone’ found among the remains. Largely because they fall within the period of early stone tool manufacture, several 2.5–2.0 Myr-old African hominid fossils have been described as belonging to ‘early Homo’, but in all likelihood the first stone tools were made by archaically proportioned hominids whose (poorly known) morphology does not warrant including them in our own genus. If so, we see here the beginning of a pattern that is repeated throughout the story of human evolution: new technologies tend not to be introduced by new types of hominid. The first widely recognized species of Homo is H. habilis (‘handy man’), a form first described in the 1960s from Olduvai Gorge, and so-named because it was associated with crude stone tools of the eponymous Oldowan tradition. Almost half a century later this species has come to embrace a very motley assemblage of fossils indeed, none of them particularly advanced in aspect. The first hominid species to have a body size and structure essentially similar to our own is H. ergaster, most dramatically exemplified by the amazingly preserved 1.6-Myr-old Turkana Boy skeleton from northern Kenya. Other fossils from the same region that are assigned to this species range up to almost 2 Myr in age. The remains of an adolescent who would have topped 6 ft had he lived to adulthood, the Turkana Boy is our first definitive evidence of a hominid who was definitely emancipated from the woodlands and forest fringes that had sheltered his forebears. Yet his brain remained rather small, not much more than half the size of ours today, and his face was still quite large and protruding. What is more, the earliest H. ergaster continued to make Oldowan stone tools similar to those their predecessors had been manufacturing for million years. Some change in lifestyle is perhaps implied by the fact that soon after H. ergaster appeared on the scene hominids spread out of Africa for the first time, although findings in such Eurasian localities as the 1.8-Myr-old site of Dmanisi in the Caucasus show that this expansion was not propelled by larger brains or by better stoneworking technology. Still, it set another repetitive pattern, this time of the spread of repeated waves of new kinds of hominid out of Africa.

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At about 1.5 Myr ago, a new kind of tool finally showed up in the African record. This is the ‘Acheulean handax’, a much larger implement consciously fashioned with multiple hammer-blows to a regular shape, most commonly that of a teardrop. Here we have a tool that was made to a ‘mental template’ held in the mind of the toolmaker, who was doing more than seeking just a cutting edge. But while it seems that we are indirectly glimpsing a cognitive advance here, it is impossible to know what its correlates were in the wider aspects of behavior. The handax-making tradition seems to have been confined to Africa for a long time, during which a new kind of hominid emerged there, this one with a brain approaching three-quarters of the modern size. Known as H. heidelbergensis (because it was first discovered in Germany), this species appeared in Africa at about 600 thousand years (kyr) ago – in association with remarkably crude tools – and spread rapidly throughout the Old World. Hominids of this kind may have been the makers of the first artificial shelters, constructed at Terra Amata in France some 400 000 years ago. This site also has indications of the domestication of fire in hearths, something that only subsequently became a regular feature of hominid life (although a recent report from Israel dates hearths back to 790 kyr). Still, we have to wait until after 300 kyr ago to find the next important innovation in stone tool-making, again in Africa. This was the ‘prepared-core’ technique, whereby a stone ‘core’ was elaborately shaped until a single blow would detach a more or less finished tool.

The Appearance of Modern Humans The classic practitioner of prepared-core technology was undoubtedly H. neanderthalensis, the bestknown member of an endemic European and western Asian hominid radiation that traces its roots back to at least 500 kyr ago. One reason the Neanderthals are so well known as fossils is that they practiced burial of the dead, though whether this exercise had the same connotations to them as it does to us is not clear. H. neanderthalensis possessed a brain the size of our own, although it was enclosed in a skull of very different appearance, with a long, low profile and large double-arched brow ridges over a protruding face with swept-back cheekbones. Its body proportions were also different from ours, especially in the funnel-shaped rib cage that tapered outward to match a widely flaring pelvis. Neanderthals made stone tools beautifully but rather monotonously, their Mousterian utensils varying little over time or space. They rarely took advantage of other materials such as bone and antler. The Neanderthals were resident

in Europe when the first H. sapiens arrived from the south and east some 40 kyr ago. With their ultimate origins in Africa, these immigrant ‘Cro-Magnons’ had at their disposal the entire cognitive apparatus that distinguishes modern humans today. This is borne out by the abundant evidence they left behind of symbolic consciousness: phenomenal art on cave walls; delicate animal carvings and engravings; notations on bone plaques; flutes made from vulture bones; and so on. These people were fully equivalent in anatomy and sensibility to us, and it was the Cro-Magnons who presumably outcompeted the long-established Neanderthals into extinction within a dozen millennia. Yet the first anatomically modern H. sapiens, who evolved in Africa between about 200 and 150 kyr ago, appear to have had none of these complex behaviors. The earliest African H. sapiens are associated with very crude stone tools, and the earliest anatomically modern humans we know of who lived outside Africa – in Israel, between about 90 and 100 kyr ago – had an identical technology to that of the Neanderthals. Moreover, there was no displacement of the Neanderthals in this region until Cro-Magnonequivalent stoneworking techniques appeared less than 50 kyr ago. What was going on? To understand this, we have to return to the disconnect between new hominids and new ways of behaving. What most plausibly happened is that the potential for the symbolic behaviors that are the most fundamental hallmark of living humans was born with the biological reorganization that produced the distinctive modern human anatomy; but that this potential lay unused until it was ‘released’ by a cultural innovation. To many it seems most likely that this innovation was the invention of language, which is the ultimate symbolic activity and facilitator of symbolic thought. This places the origin of our unprecedented human consciousness squarely in the realm of emergence – the phenomenon whereby a chance combination of factors produces an entirely unanticipated result.

Conclusion By any calculation, symbolically reasoning H. sapiens is not a simple behavioral extrapolation from the hominids that preceded it. Our species does not do what they did, only a little better. Instead, we are radically and qualitatively different from any of our predecessors. Evidently, by 200 kyr ago the human brain had, for whatever reasons, evolved to a point at which a relatively minor genetic change was capable of producing an instrument with an entirely new potential: a potential that had then to be ‘discovered’ by its possessor, in much the same way that birds possessed feathers for millions of years before

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co-opting them for flight. As extraordinary as its result may be, the evolutionary mechanism involved in the acquisition of modern human consciousness was thus entirely routine. Palaeoanthropology is a diverse discipline with many subdivisions and ramifications, and more than its share of controversies. But if any of its messages is clear, it is that modern H. sapiens has not been burnished to its current condition by eons of gradual perfectioning selection. Remarkable behaviorally as we human beings undoubtedly are, we are not a fine-tuned product of gradual evolutionary refinement. Instead, we are the random result of a long process of highly sporadic evolutionary experimentation that dates back to the first bipedal hominoids and well beyond. See also: Amino Acid Racemization Dating; Asia, West:

Paleolithic Cultures; Turkey, Paleolithic Cultures; Electron Spin Resonance Dating; Luminescence Dating; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Obsidian Hydration Dating; Paleoanthropology, Computer-Assisted.

Further Reading Delson E, Tattersall I, Van Couvering JA, and Brooks A (eds.) (2000) Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory, 2nd edn. New York: Garland Publishing. Hart D and Sussman RW (2005) Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution. New York: Westview Press. Johanson D (1996) From Lucy to Language. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kingdon J (2003) Lowly Origin: Where, When and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Klein R (1999) The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schick KD and Toth N (1994) Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology. New York: Simon and Schuster. Stringer CB and Andrews P (2005) The Complete World of Human Evolution. New York: Thames and Hudson. Tattersall I (1995) The Fossil Trail. New York: Oxford University Press. Tattersall I (1998) Becoming Human. New York: Harcourt Brace. Tattersall I and Schwartz JH (2000) Extinct Humans. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. White R (2003) Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind. New York: Abrams.

PALEOANTHROPOLOGY, COMPUTER-ASSISTED Marcia S Ponce de Leo´n, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary computer graphics A set of devices, methods, and procedures to visualize and manipulate visual object representations in a virtual environment. computed tomography (CT) X-ray-based imaging method that permits reconstruction of cross-sectional images of patients and other objects from radiographic projections. geometric morphometrics (GM) Methods of quantification of organismic form that integrate real-space geometric properties of the morphology of organisms into multivariate analysis. virtual reality (VR) A computer-based environment in which a user interacts with geometric object representations using input and output devices that provide perceptual equivalence to physical reality. real virtuality (RV) An environment in which a user interacts with physical models of three-dimensional objects generated or modified by computer-assisted procedures. rapid prototyping (RP) Technologies that transform objects from virtual reality back to the physical world.

Computer-assisted palaeoanthropology (CAP) is a new discipline that emerged with the advent of novel techniques in the fields of biomedical imaging, computer

graphics, rapid prototyping, and geometric–morphometric analysis. The major reason to bundle these disciplines into a coherent transdisciplinary approach is to tackle a central problem of palaeoanthropology, namely the scarcity of the fossil record and the incompleteness of most specimens. In order to gain a maximum of information from the scant but precious material evidence, the primary aim of CAP (see Paleoanthropology) is to enhance the investigative power while minimizing the invasiveness of methods used for fossil data acquisition, preparation, reconstruction, anatomic diagnosis, and comparative morphometric analysis. The basic concept of CAP is to enable the user to perform these tasks in a ‘virtual reality’ setting (Figure 1). The first step in a typical CAP workflow is the acquisition of three-dimensional (3D) data from a fossil specimen – which may still be embedded in sediment – with the technique of ‘computed tomography’ (CT). The development of CT in the 1970s marked an important step toward the improvement of noninvasive medical diagnostics, as it permits acquisition of serial cross-sectional image data from patients. CT was quickly adopted for ‘fossil diagnostics’, giving insights into internal anatomic features of fossil specimens, and into regions still covered by sediment. Parallel to these

1764 PALEOANTHROPOLOGY, COMPUTER-ASSISTED Fossil in matrix

Volume data acquisition

Virtual preparation and reconstruction

Physical replicas

Morphometric analysis

Morphogenetic modeling

Figure 1 CAP consists of three main steps. Digital volume data of hominid fossils still embedded in sediment are acquired with CT. All subsequent steps are performed noninvasively through interactive computer graphics tools. Virtual preparation is performed with data segmentation tools. Segmented data are transformed subsequently into 3D object representations, which can be manipulated interactively on the computer screen to perform reconstructive tasks. Finalized virtual fossils can be transformed into physical models with RP technology. Virtual sampling of two- and three-dimensional measurements permits extensive comparative morphometric analyses. Computer models of processes of taphonomy, evolution, and development lead to a better understanding of the causes underlying fossil form variation.

developments the rapid increase of computer power and advancements in the area of image processing and ‘computer graphics’ opened up new fields in the visualization and interactive manipulation of 3D objects in a virtual environment. In CAP, these techniques build the basis for virtual fossil reconstruction. Applying 3D data segmentation procedures to volumetric CT data sets, it is possible to free a fossil fragment embedded in sediment with a ‘computer chisel’, and to extract internal anatomical structures

such as the labyrinthine cavities of the inner ear. After data segmentation, a geometric description and a graphical representation of the fossil fragments are created through 3D reconstruction procedures. These fragments are then recomposed in virtual reality. This procedure is analogous to the assembly of a 3D puzzle in which important pieces are deteriorated or have been lost. The primary aim of virtual reconstruction is to reverse the fossilization process in order to infer the morphology of the specimen at the

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Figure 2 Virtual reconstruction of a fragmentary Neanderthal child skull from the site of Devil’s Tower, Gibraltar. Only five original fragments are preserved (dark gray): parts of the mandible, the right maxillary and temporal bones, the frontal bone and associated left parietal bone. Virtual reconstruction proceeds in eight steps. 1: orientation of the fragmentary mandible along the virtual midplane of the skull; 2: mirror-image completion (white) of missing left mandibular ramus and right milk molars; 3: establishment of dental occlusion between mandibular and maxillary dentition; orientation of maxilla relative to midplane; 4: articulation of the right temporal bone with the maxilla and orientation according to the anatomy of the inner ear; 5: mirror image completion of missing parts on the left side; 6: articulation of frontal bone and left parietal bone; 7: mirror image completion of missing right parietal bone; and 8: docking of independent reconstructions of the face/cranial base and cranial vault.

time of its death (Figure 2). This involves correction of distortions that occurred during fossilization, reestablishment of anatomic connections between preserved parts, and completion of missing parts by mirror-imaging preserved antimeres. During this process, each reconstructive step follows predefined

anatomic criteria. This prevents a reconstructive bias toward preconceived morphologies, ensures reproducible results, and makes the entire procedure accessible to other researchers. Additionally, the reliability of the process as a whole can be evaluated by creating a range of potential reconstructions.

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Virtual reconstruction is an iterative process in its essence, in which reconstructive attempts can be gradually refined without physically dismantling earlier versions and exposing the original specimens to further damage. A major advantage during this process is the absence of physical forces such as gravitation. Each piece of the fossil puzzle can be fixed in virtual anatomic space without the need for glue, plaster, or stabilizing elements. Handling fossil fragments in virtual reality instead of physical reality is of immediate benefit. Whereas physical preparation, manipulation, and reconstruction are highly invasive and potentially destructive processes, the analogous computer-assisted procedures are completely noninvasive. Additionally, CT volumetric data provide unlimited access to all external and internal anatomic structures from an infinite number of views. The finalized virtual reconstruction of a fossil represents the basis for various further analyses and procedures: virtual fossils can be used as a guide during physical preparation, transformed into physical hard copies, and submitted to comparative morphometric analysis. Transforming a fossil reconstruction from virtual reality into ‘real virtuality’, that is, into a physical hardcopy, is typically achieved with rapid prototyping (RP) technologies. A widely used method is stereolithography, where, analogous to the construction of topographic models from piles of cardboard layers, the object is constructed from automated superpositioning of cross-sectional layers. In this manner, it is possible to build models containing arbitrary geometric complexity, including cavities, in a single production step. Stereolithographic replicas of fossil specimens – before and after virtual reconstruction – represent a valuable noninvasive and secure alternative to classic mold-and-cast techniques. RP replicas convey touchand-feel information and are thus ideal for teaching purposes and for interactive museum exhibits. Similarly, RP models drawn at different stages of virtual reconstruction can be used to monitor spatially complex matching tasks. Comparative morphometric analyses of reconstructed fossil specimens represent an essential part of CAP and range from functional and biomechanical analysis to the analysis of patterns of evolutionary diversification and developmental differentiation. Because virtual fossils are graphical objects, they provide an ideal basis for exploration of a wide variety of one-, two-, and three-dimensional measurements. By supplementing the classic repertoire of rulers and calipers with virtual morphometric tools, spatial position of anatomic landmarks, areas of muscular attachment, paranasal sinus volumes, surface curvatures, bone thickness distribution, moments of

inertia, strain distribution, and so on can be measured. The new field of ‘geometric morphometrics’ (GM) is of special relevance for CAP, because GM methods integrate real-space geometric properties of 3D biological forms into multivariate analyses. Using special-purpose computer graphics tools, it is possible to explore complex patterns of shape variability in multivariate space and to visualize them as 3D patterns of shape change in virtual organismic forms. These methods have proved instrumental to identify differences and commonalities between patterns of growth in fossil and extant hominoid species. CAP also comprises computer simulations of form variation in fossils, be it to test hypotheses regarding taphonomic deformation of a given fossil specimen, or to test more general hypotheses about how empirical patterns of form variability are related to underlying evolutionary and developmental processes. The possibility of archiving and retrieving virtual fossil specimens opens new avenues of comparative analysis. Making use of an extended database of digital fossils and the virtual desktop, it becomes possible to inspect fossil specimens that are literally separated by continents in side-by-side comparisons and to derive new measurement series for testing hypotheses without requiring re-examination of the original specimens. However, virtual hominid fossils also raise questions of copyright and access regulations that still need to be resolved. Hominid specimens often represent national treasures, and many of the most valuable specimens come from countries where access to scientific knowledge, especially in its digital form, is severely hampered by infrastructural, educational, and political hurdles. Problems arising from the resulting unidirectional knowledge transfer are similar to problems associated with ‘gene trading’. See also: Anthropological Archaeology; Paleoanthro-

pology.

Further Reading Bookstein FL (1991) Morphometric Tools for Landmark Data: Geometry and Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dryden IL and Mardia K (1998) Statistical Shape Analysis. New York: Wiley. Zollikofer CPE and Ponce de Leo´n MS (2005) Virtual Reconstruction: A Primer in Computer-Assisted Paleontology and Biomedicine. New York: Wiley. Zollikofer CPE, Ponce de Leo´n MS, Lieberman DE, et al. (2005) Virtual cranial reconstruction of Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Nature 434: 755–759. Zonneveld FW and Wind J (1985) High-resolution computed tomography of fossil hominid skulls: A new method and some results. In: Tobias PV (ed.) Hominid Evolution: Past, Present, and Future, pp. 427–436. New York: Alan R. Liss, Inc.

PALEODEMOGRAPHY 1767

PALEODEMOGRAPHY Douglas H Ubelaker, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

the ‘stationary’ nature of past populations and the applicability of model tables developed from more recent modern populations.

Glossary

Early History

crude birth rate The number of childbirths per 1000 persons per year. ethnography The branch of anthropology that deals descriptively with specific cultures, especially those of nonliterate peoples or groups. gross reproductive rate The average number of female children a woman would have if she survived to the end of her childbearing years and if, throughout that period, she were subject to a given set of age-specific fertility rates and a given sex ratio at birth. This rate provides a measure of replacement fertility in the absence of mortality. life expectancy A statistical measure of the average length of survival of a living thing. It is often categorized by things like gender and geographic location. mortality rate Measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in some population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time. The crude death rate is the total number of deaths per 1000 people. taphonomy The branch of palaeontology that deals with the process of fossilization.

The roots of palaeodemography extend back to the work of E. A. Hooton with skeletal samples from Madisonville, Ohio, and Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico. While at that time, most reporting of human skeletal data consisted largely of tables of measurements and observations published as appendices within archaeological reports, Hooton introduced a population approach which included a look at mortality and other demographic type issues. In the late 1940s, J. Lawrence Angel, a 1942 doctoral student of Hooton, used similar approaches to study samples from ancient Greece. His work in the area continued through the 1950s and culminated in several publications in the 1960s that explored theoretical aspects of demographic reconstruction and broad correlations of demographic factors with cultural and other biological variables. Other notable contributions during this period include Acsa´di and Nemeske´ri’s work in Hungary, M. Fuste´’s research on the length of life in ancient Spain, M. S. Goldstein’s comparative study of vital statisties derived from skeletal samples, and New World studies of Anderson, Blakely, Walker, Churcher, and Kenyon. These studies examined a variety of samples, including communal ossuary deposits to generate age and sex profiles and related vital statistics. In 1970, Acsa´di and Nemeske´ri published a book, presenting details on palaeodemographic method and theory, including life table construction from skeletal data. The volume synthesized their considerable work on a variety of Hungarian samples from archaeological contexts and presented their ‘complex’ method of estimating age at death in adults. This landmark publication presented methodology utilized for decades in Europe and elsewhere and demonstrated how demographic profiles could be used to examine long-term trends in mortality and adaptation. Shortly thereafter, similar approaches were utilized in the Americas to address broad anthropological problems. Ubelaker utilized palaeodemographic methods and ossuary samples from the mid-Atlantic area of the United States to reconstruct mortality profiles, life tables, and generate new estimates of population size. Buikstra working with skeletal samples from

Palaeodemography refers to the science of reconstruction of demographic information from ancient evidence. Following traditional definitions of palaeodemography, such evidence usually takes the form of human skeletons recovered from archaeological contexts. In these types of analyses, meaningful samples of archaeologically recovered human remains are researched to determine the age at death and sex. These data are then grouped to reveal information on life expectancy, age-specific mortality, survivorship, and related demographic characteristics. Presentation can take the from of mortality curves, survivorship curves, life tables, or a variety of other statistical expressions. A more general definition of palaeodemography can include other types of archaeological evidence (e.g., house structures, settlement patterns, faunal remains) and address different anthropological questions (size and duration of settlement, status and gender roles, and bioarchaeological issues relating to mortuary site interpretation.) Much of the methodology employed is based on uniformitarianism principles, namely that basic processes operating today can be used to understand demographic aspects of past populations. Interpretations are made regarding

1768 PALEODEMOGRAPHY

the Lower Illinois Valley of the United States used reconstructed demographic information to elucidate mortuary site dynamics and examine archaeological hypotheses. Through these works and others in the 1970s, palaeodemography emerged not only as a novel way to organize age at death data, but as a promising approach to understand past patterns of mortality and address broad anthropological issues.

Critical Evaluation Later, in the 1970s, critiques of palaeodemography and its applications to skeletal samples focused on the difficulty of obtaining accurate ages at death, especially for adults and sampling issues. In a series of publications, Bocquet in 1977 and 1986 (1977, 1986) and Bocquet and Masset in 1982 and 1985 argued that demographic reconstructions from ancient skeletal samples are weakened by inaccuracy of age at death estimates and the underrepresentation of the very young in skeletal samples due to preservation issues. Their age at death criticism focused on their contention that age estimates are heavily influenced by the age structure of the reference sample used in developing the age methodology. They also argued that modern historical samples were of little use in modeling demographic factors in ancient samples. Van Gerven and Armelagos responded to the age at death concern, pointing out that in their study of ancient Nubian remains from Egypt aged using methods developed from the Todd collection in Cleveland Ohio; their suggested age distribution for the ancient sample was different from that of the reference collection. Thus, their application of the methodology likely produced reliable age at death data for the ancient sample and was not just duplicating the ages of the Todd collection, as suggested by Bocquet and Masset. Buikstra and Konigsberg also responded, arguing that sampling issues could be addressed using archaeological information and rigorous analysis. They did agree however on the need to improve methods of age estimation and statistical treatment of the data. Sampling issues can affect palaeodemographic reconstruction at a variety of levels but enumeration of infants is especially difficult. Taphonomic factors can produce poor preservation of infant remains since they lack the size and mineralization of older individuals. If remains are poorly preserved, they are more likely to be overlooked by excavators and excluded from the overall sample. Since low numbers of infants in mortuary samples may reflect combinations of low infant mortality/fertility and preservation, they can be difficult to evaluate. To avoid the issue of infant prescrvation, Buikstra et al. suggested using the

proportion of the number of deaths over age 30 to the number over age five to evaluate mortality/fertility issues (see Paleopathology).

Estimates of Age at Death Since estimates of age at death represent the cornerstone of palaeodemography, it is important that they be as accurate as possible. The vast literature on methodology of age at death estimation is too vast to be summarized here. In general, it reveals that the margin of error increases with increasing age and is dependent upon which skeletal and dental elements are available for analysis. For subadults, the method of choice is dental development; however, other aspects of growth and development (e.g., bone size, dental eruption, epiphyseal appearance, and fusion) also provide useful information. For adults, a variety of techniques are available, of varying accuracies at different stages in adult age (e.g., epiphyseal union, metamorphosis of the sternal ends of the ribs and symphyseal faces of the pubic bones, degenerative changes (such as osteophytosis of vertebral bodies), microscopic alterations in cortical bone, and factors of tooth morphology). Most workers also agree that combined techniques produce more accurate results than individual ones (see Osteological Methods). Progress continues with aging methodology. Thus it is important to consider new techniques and to select appropriately. Reanalysis of material using new techniques can produce variations in sex and age data. Debate also has focused on the nature of the reference samples utilized in methodological development. Promising new techniques continue to be developed; noteworthy examples include the Lamendin technique examining tooth root translucency and the point of attachment of the periodontal membrane, which is especially valuable for estimating age at death in older adults and tooth cementum annulation involving counts possibly correlated with absolute age. A three-day workshop on palaeodemography in June, 1999, at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, reinforced concern over the above issue. The ‘Rostock Manifesto’ that emerged from this workshop appealed for new research on appropriate reference collections to sharpen aging methodology and renewed focus on evaluation of mathematical approaches, especially Bayes’ theorem.

Sex Estimation Reliable estimates of sex from skeletal remains allow sex-specific demographic variables to be evaluated. Most researchers working with skeletal and dental

PALEODEMOGRAPHY 1769

morphology do not attempt sex estimates for subadults. Sex can be estimated with considerable accuracy for adults, if preservation is good and the pelvis is present. Some studies have suggested that systematic errors are possible working with ancient samples with variable preservation. Investigator experience is an important factor as well. Due to advances in molecular research, it is now possible to determine sex from even fragmentary remains using DNA analysis. This methodology is applicable to subadults as well as adults, subject to adequate preservation of the molecular material.

Assumption of Stationary Population As noted by Sattenspiel and Harpending, mean skeletal age at death values reflect life expectancy at birth only if the population is stationary (not in growth or reduction). Age at death values increasingly reflect fertility issues as populations depart from the stationary model. Some general indicators of population growth or decline status may be available from archaeological information.

Statistical Approaches One of the positive products of the historical debate on palaeodemography discussed above has been focused discussion of statistical approaches to age estimation and related issues. Konigsberg and Frankenberg argue that the field has been strengthened by debate and offer suggestions for more vigorous statistical analysis of aging methodology, especially in regard to reference samples. A variety of statistical approaches to aging methodology and palaeodemographic reconstruction have been suggested. Such discussion is relevant since Herrmann and Konigsberg demonstrated how different statistical approaches can yield distinct palaeodemographic products in their analysis of the Kentucky Indian Knoll sample. Much of the discussion has focused on specific statistical approaches to age estimation.

Models A variety of investigators have turned to modeling as a useful approach to palaeodemographic interpretation. Model life tables reflect broad patterns of mortality within the samples selected, but it can be difficult to fit them to the type of data available in palaeodemography. Uniformitarianism limitations also enter such applications since such use assumes that data from one group of samples can be applied to the specific sample being studied. Models have been used convincingly to explain patterns of mortality and to examine the reasonability of palaeodemographic

reconstructions. Model life tables can offer insight into the related demographic variables of gross reproductive rate and crude birth rate in addition to the traditional life expectancy.

Fertility As noted above, values of age at death data in a palaeodemographic study are influenced by fertility in addition to mortality. As early as 1979, Bocquet used age structure in ancient samples to suggest fertility (4.5–6 children per female). Johansson and Horowitz noted that a growing population (nonstationary) will produce more at-risk infants than in a stationary population and thus age at death data from mortuary samples would suggest lower life expectancy than is actually the case. The reverse would be true for populations with negative growth. Johansson and Horowitz argued on this basis that skeletal age distributions can be used to suggest fertility in the population. Various such approaches have been suggested by Milner et al. and Paine and Harpending, although the fertility versus mortality discussion has not yielded academic agreement.

Accuracy Much of the literature discussing the merits of palaeodemography has a distinct theoretical tone, primarily because it usually is not possible to compare products of research with known information. An exception consists of Lanphear’s 1989 study of 296 individuals from a nineteenth-century poorhouse cemetery. Lanphear found no significant differences between ages estimated from skeletons as well as the demographic reconstructions they produced and those recorded in the archival records for the cemetery. The study suggested that despite theoretical concerns, palaeodemographic techniques yielded accurate results. In their study of a large nineteenth-century cemetery sample from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ubelaker and Jones found similar results. Demographic profiles reconstructed from age at death data derived from skeletal analysis compared favorably with those developed from church records, once the data were reconciled for young infants missing in the archaeological sample.

From Skeletons to an Estimate of Population Size Ossuary deposits present special challenges and opportunities to the researcher. By definition, ossuaries contain multiple individuals, frequently commingled and disarticulated. Such samples present challengers

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in excavation, as well as analysis, especially in sorting out single individuals, developing estimates of the number of individuals represented and evaluation of sex and age at death. In some contexts, social factors leading to ossuary burial are at least partially known, providing opportunities to assess key sampling issues important in demographic reconstruction. In the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States and the Great Lakes area of southern Canada, ethnographic information suggests that such ossuaries culminated from social practices in which the Indian groups periodically assembled the remains of their decedents for communal burial. Each ossuary represented a specific period of time and the groups went to great efforts to include all who had died since the previous burial ceremony. The resulting ossuaries thus address two of the major concerns in palaeodemographic reconstruction, namely the extent to which all decedents are represented and the time period represented. If preservation is favorable, the ossuaries represent prime samples for demographic study. In 1953 and 1971, two ossuaries were discovered in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States. Excavation and analysis revealed that at least 131 and 188 individuals were represented respectively. Ages at death were estimated using a variety of techniques, but demographic reconstruction focused on what were believed to be the most accurate and relevant methods given the state of bone preservation and representation. For subadults, age was assessed using standards of dental formation. For adults, ages were estimated utilizing histological methodology applied to ground thin sections taken from the femoral midshafts.

The resulting ages at death were assembled to form mortality curves, survivorship curves, and life tables. An example of the life table reconstructed from the second (larger) ossuary is presented in Table 1. The life table presents agespecific mortality information for successive 5 year cohorts but suggests a life expectancy at birth of about 23 years. A product of life table reconstruction can be the crude mortality rate (number of individuals dying per thousand per year in the population). This statistic can be computed directly from the life expectancy at birth value; for the larger ossuary, the figure was 43.5. This suggests that the death rate for the population represented was 43.5 per thousand in the population per year. The total number of deceased individuals was known through analysis (188). The number of years represented by the ossuary (about three years) was estimated using archaeological information (extent of articulated individuals vs. nonarticulated individuals). Using this information, the size of the contributing population could be estimated (approximately 1441 persons). This estimate could then be considered with site survey information as well as ethnohistorical sources for an overall anthropological evaluation of the mortuary site and its cultural context.

Status and Growth Studies Once palaeodemographic variables have been generated with confidence, they can be utilized to assess other anthropological issues. Sullivan utilized palaeodemographic data to examine status in a York Medieval sample.

Table 1 Life table reconstructed from skeletons in Ossuary II in Maryland Age interval (x)

No. of deaths (Dx)

% of deaths (dx)

Survivors entering (lx)

Probability of death (qx)

Total years lived between X and X þ 5 (Lx)

Total years lived after lifetime (Tx)

Life expectancy (e
x)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

56 12 7 14 9 12 21 20 13 11 8 4 0 1 0

29.79 6.38 3.72 7.45 4.79 6.38 11.17 10.64 6.91 5.85 4.26 2.13 0.00 0.53 0.00

100.00 70.21 63.83 60.11 52.66 47.87 41.49 30.32 19.68 12.77 6.92 2.66 0.53 0.53 0.00

0.2979 0.0909 0.0583 0.1239 0.0910 0.1333 0.2692 0.3509 0.3511 0.4581 0.6156 0.8008 0.0000 1.0000 0.0000

425.525 335.100 309.850 281.925 251.325 223.400 179.525 125.000 81.125 49.225 23.950 7.975 2.650 1.325 0.000

2297.900 1872.375 1537.275 1227.425 945.500 694.175 470.775 291.250 166.250 85.125 35.900 11.950 3.975 1.325 0.000

22.98 26.67 24.08 20.42 17.95 14.50 11.35 9.61 8.45 6.67 5.19 4.49 7.50 2.50 0.00

PALEODEMOGRAPHY 1771

Saunders and Hoppa point out that subadult mortality may reflect bias affecting bone growth studies. The growth of survivors may be different from that of nonsurvivors. This key point is relevant to the larger issue of how evidence of mortality and morbidity relates to health and disease in the once living population.

and offer unique, exciting opportunities to address broad anthropological issues.

Temporal Trends

Further Reading

Palaeodemographic reconstruction offers detailed information about a specific skeletal sample from an archeological context and the once living population represented. When grouped with similar studies derived from samples in key geographic and temporal locations, long-term trends can be examined. Such trends offer information about temporal shifts in the quality of life, adaptation, mortality, morbidity, and how such variables may correlate with other anthropological or ecological information. Synthetic works have examined how demographic variables derived from skeletal studies correlate with the development of agriculture, broad social/historical issues, and quality of life factors. Regional studies reveal variation in long-term trends. Working with samples from the southern Levant, Eshed et al. found that during the transition from hunting-gathering (Natufian) to the Neolithic, life expectancy increased, perhaps along with fertility. However, in Portugal, Jackes et al. found that the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic showed negligible demographic change, although tooth size exhibited reduction. Samples from northeastern Hungary revealed slight temporal increases in life expectancy between Bronze Age and Iron Age samples.

Summary Palaeodemography represents a rich field of inquiry, historically strengthened by debate and probing for new methodology and applications. Contemporary approaches have been termed a ‘thicker’ prehistoric demography, more cognizant of sampling issues, aging methodology, and statistical approaches. As pointed out by Piontek and Weber, palaeodemography is a unique field that should not be judged using standards of modern demography but rather on its own terms. It offers an opportunity to allow the skeletal samples and other related archaeological information to reveal their biocultural information. Such data provide a very human look into the past

See also: DNA: Ancient; Osteological Methods; Paleopathology; Plant Domestication; Stable Isotope Analysis; Statistics in Archaeology; Trace Element Analysis.

Acsa´di G and Nemeske´ri J (1970) History of Human Life Span and Mortality. Budapest: Akade´miai Kiado. Angel JL (1969) The bases of paleodemography. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 30(3): 427–437. Buikstra, JE (1976) Northwestern Archeological Program Scientific Papers No. 2: Hopewell in the Lower Illinois Valley: A Regional Study of Human Biological Variability and Prehistoric Mortuary Behavior. Northwestern Archeological Program, Illinois. Eshed V, Gopher A, Gage TB, and Hershkovitz I (2004) Has the transition to agriculture reshaped the demographic structure of prehistoric populations? New evidence from the Levant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 124(4): 315–329. Fuste M (1954) La duracio´n de la vida en la poblacio´n espan˜ola desde de la prehistoria hasta nuestros dı´as. Trabajo del Inst. Bernardino de Sahagu´n de Antropologı´a y Etnologı´a 14: 81–104. Hooton EA (1930) The Indians of Pecos Pueblo: A Study of Their Skeletal Remains. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Hoppa RD and Vaupel JW (2002) Paleodemography: Age Distribution from Skeletal Samples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackes M, Lubell D, and Meiklejohn C (1997) Healthy but mortal: Human biology and the first farmers of Western Europe. Antiquity 71: 639–658. Konigsberg LW and Frankenberg SR (1994) Paleodemography: ‘Not quite dead’ Evolutionary Anthropology 3: 92–105. Lamendin H, Baccino E, Humbert JF, Tavernier JC, Nossintchouk RM, and Zerilli A (1992) A simple technique for age estimation in adult corpses: The two criteria dental method. Journal of Forensic Sciences 37(5): 1373–1379. Milner GR, Wood JW, and Boldsen JL (2000) Paleodemography. In: Katzenberg MA and Saunders SR (eds.) Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, pp. 467–497. New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. Paine RR (1997) Integrating Archaeological Demography: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Prehistoric Population. Carbondale, IL: Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Ubelaker DH (1974) Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 18: Reconstruction of demographic profiles from ossuary skeletal samples: A case study from the tidewater Potomac. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Ubelaker DH and Jones EB (2003) Biological and cultural analysis of human remains. In: Ubelaker DH and Jones EB (eds.) Human Remains from Voegtly Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pp. 12–43. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, No. 46. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Ubelaker DH and Pap I (1998) Skeletal evidence for health and disease in the Iron Age of northeastern Hungary. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 8: 231–251.

1772 PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS Dolores R Piperno, National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary palaeoecology The scientific discipline that studies the relationship of organisms, including humans, that lived in the past to their biotic and physical environments. phytoliths Types of fossilized plants that are formed within the cells of living species and survive for long periods of time after they are deposited into the environment when plants die. multiproxy environmental reconstructions Employing a number of different types of fossil indicators of past vegetation and climate in order to minimize the shortcomings and maximize the strengths of each technique. charcoal particles Small, often microscopic, pieces of burned plant tissue that typically survive for long periods of time in lake sediments and soils, and are used to reconstruct fire history.

Introduction: Archaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction Archaeologists want to understand the physical and biotic environments that past human cultures colonized and lived in for a number of important reasons. For example, investigators who study prehistoric diets and land-use patterns know that the environment to a significant degree determines the type, quality, and abundance of wild plants and animals that hunters and gatherers can exploit and potentially take under cultivation and domesticate. Dramatic oscillations of climate and vegetation may result in fluctuations in the density and distribution of the resources, leading to dietary innovation and change. The technologies (milling stones, fishing gear, hunting traps, projectile points, various types of chipped stone tools) that are best used to procure plants and animals and turn them into food, clothing, shelter, and other utilitarian items may also depend on the types and density of resources available for exploitation. Other major issues in archaeology that require good environmental reconstructions have to do with ancient migrations of humans from one area of the world to another, together with often related questions of human adaptations to coastal environments. In these cases, archaeologists must have good data on past fluctuations in sea level and other characteristics of marine environments. Rising and falling sea levels result in, respectively, a loss or exposure of land area,

which, among other things, might affect the timing of human colonization of major landmasses along with the technology required to do so. For example, through detailed reconstructions of sea-level fluctuations during glacial advances and retreats, scientists now understand that when human populations settled the Australian continent from Southeast Asia probably by 40 000 years ago, consecutive expanses of deep water hundreds of kilometers wide separated northern Australia from the nearest land masses, and sophisticated use of water crafts was required. In contrast, the initial peopling of the Americas from northeastern Asia sometime before 15 000 years ago occurred over a large land bridge exposed by lower sea levels and did not require passage by boats over long stretches of deep ocean. Nonetheless, if archaeologists, prominently including Ruth Gruhn, who believe that early migrations followed nearshore coastal routes are correct, boats dodging glaciers and hopping from island to island around icy fjords would probably have been a necessary component of the original migrations from the Old World to the New, and down through the westernmost portions of North America. The quality and quantity of resources that are typically important in the diets of human groups living on or near coastlines – such as various types of fish, shellfish, and sea mammals – also heavily depends on prevailing ocean temperatures and currents. These issues have perhaps been studied in the most detail along the Peruvian coast, where fine-grain reconstructions by Daniel Sandweiss and others of changes in coastal environments during the past 11 000 years, including the timing and effects of ENSO (El Nin˜o/Southern Oscillation) cycles that brought severe droughts or floods, have greatly increased understanding of the complex patterns of human coastal adaptations along this important area of western South America. A palaeoenvironmental reconstruction may, therefore, deal with a wide variety of characteristics of past landscapes: vegetation, climate, topographic and hydrological features, specific landforms such as glaciers, lakes, and swamps, and still visible markers of human activity such as prehistoric irrigation ditches and canals. Table 1 provides a brief guide to the kinds of studies carried out by various specialists, including archaeologists, that archaeologists rely on. These kinds of studies have long been carried out all over the world and as time goes on and more techniques

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS 1773 Table 1 Types of data used to reconstruct quaternary environments Source of data I. Continental Soils Lakes and Swamps

Wind-borne deposits (loess, sand dunes, desert dust) Speleothems (carbonates found in caves) Vertebrate fossils Tree rings Mountain glaciers and ice sheets Ice cores Various topographic features Various types of archaeological data II. Marine Ocean sediments Coral reefs Marine shorelines

What is studied

Phytoliths, charcoal, soil types, pollen (in some cases) Pollen, phytoliths, charcoal, diatoms, macrofossils, insects, sediment types and mineralogical composition, stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios, invertebrate fossils (mollusks and ostracods) Phytoliths, pollen (in some cases), overall types and characteristics Stable isotope compositions

Terminal positions Varves, stable isotope composition, dust and charcoal particles Includes remnants of human activity, such as rock art and traces of irrigation, mounding, terracing, ditching, etc. Plant and animal remains Pollen, phytoliths, charcoal, fossil plankton composition, isotopic composition of planktonic and benthic fossils, mineralogical composition of sediments, etc. Species characteristics, stable isotope studies Shoreline positions based on calculated sea level position

Modified from Williams et al., 1998, Table 1.1.

capable of providing high-resolution data are developed, the precision of reconstructions increases accordingly. Most researchers involved with studying the palaeoenvironment use their accumulated data primarily to understand the past, not to inform present-day debates or predict what the future may hold. However, as it becomes more clear that reconstructions of the ancient world have direct relevance to managing in an intelligent way our present and future landscapes, environmental historians can increasingly share in the responsibility of developing informed environmental policies and mitigating future, detrimental global climatic and other changes. For example, what we have learned about the origins and antiquity of the planet’s current store of biodiversity (e.g., how the extreme Ice Age conditions of the past 2 million years impacted tropical and other landscapes), should allow conservation biologists to better model plant succession following major ecosystem disruptions, as well as to predict and pattern forest regeneration when planning regrowth programs. Moreover, the documentation of the often considerable to sometimes profound impact of human populations on the vegetation and overall biodiversity of many past landscapes, discussed in detail below, has helped to make it clear that indigenous societies did not often practice strategies that conserved many of their resources. Many societies instead used their environments to the limit of their technology to attempt to ensure their short-term success. These

facts remind us that in order to better preserve and protect remaining biodiversity we not only have to have better data from ecologists, foresters, and climate modelers; we, the anthropologists, have to straightforwardly assess past and present human behavior, its proclivities, and its goals. Another possibly crucial area of insight into future global conditions, this time concerning the effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 on the European climate, has been provided by scientists called palaeooceanographers, who gather biological and physical data from the oceans and study their relationships to what happens over land surfaces. These scholars have learned that processes occurring deep in the oceans profoundly affect climate and vegetation over both nearby and distant continents. For example, it would be easy to assume that ever-higher amounts of atmospheric CO2 robustly predicted by climate modelers if fossil fuel injections into the atmosphere are not slowed considerably would lead to global-wide warming. However, studies of changes in the deep ocean circulation and how they affected the Earth’s climate during the final stages of the last Ice Age between 14 000 and 10 000 years ago, when the Earth was ‘warming’ considerably, show us this assumption might be a mistake with serious consequences for some highly populated and developed areas of the world. Palaeooceanographers using geochemical and other indicators have discovered that something they call the ‘North Atlantic conveyor’, part of a chain of ocean currents that brings warm water and air from

1774 PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS

the tropics to the far North Atlantic and heats much of maritime and continental Europe, was actually disrupted or halted completely by influxes of glacial meltwater and run-off from rivers as the Ice Age was ending. This was a major cause of the Younger Dryas, the temporary return to Ice Age conditions that affected much of the world between 11 000 and 10 000 BP. What makes all of this very real for us today is that a recent study documented for the first time that the ocean conveyor may have slowed considerably during the last 30 years, presumably due to the same melting glacier and river run-off effects that caused climate reversal 11 000 years ago. Climate is a particularly dangerous thing for human populations to tamper with because it is nearly impossible to predict when a threshold for climate changes, such as those that involve ocean circulation, is close to being reached, and resulting shifts in temperature and precipitation tend to be quite abrupt. For example, palaeoclimate studies have shown that temperature can decrease by 10  C (about 23  F) in less than 30 years. If the conveyor belt breaks down or continues to slow, Europe may in the near future experience severely colder temperatures that could lead to significant socioeconomic disruptions. These examples show how understanding past environments and factors that controlled global change can help us to better plan for the future.

Reconstructing Vegetation, Climate, and Human Land Use A major area of palaeoenvironmental research is the reconstruction of past vegetation, climate, and human land usage from microfossil plant remains (those that cannot be seen with the naked eye) found in the sedimentary records of lakes and swamps. Increasingly, terrestrial soils – those found directly underneath extant, dryland vegetation – are also being used for this purpose. My own involvement in the environmental sciences focuses on these types of environmental reconstructions. These kinds of studies are carried out by scientists who are generically called palaeoecologists. Analyses have long been carried out in every region of the world and there is a voluminous literature. Increasingly, archaeologists are learning during their graduate careers or later how to carry out palaeoecological field and laboratory work, and this combined with numerous interdisciplinary collaborations has injected a strong archaeological component into research goals and interpretations of the assembled data. Because vegetational zones vary greatly along latitudinal and elevational gradients and each region has its own set of naturally occurring plant species, the

actual varieties of fossil plants retrieved and studied vary markedly from place to place. However, because the vegetation of any region is a direct correlate of the prevailing climate, trends in precipitation and temperature through time can often be inferred from the reconstructed vegetation, no matter what the type. Humans can exert very large impacts on landscapes independent of climate and, therefore, a major pursuit of palaeoecologists is documenting past landscape changes caused by prehistoric agriculture and other activities that extracted resources from the environment. Such endeavors are possible because plant succession after human interference is often different from that associated with natural kinds of landscape disturbances (e.g., tree blowdowns and floods; see below). There is a huge literature documenting a human presence on, and disturbance of, past landscapes, and there are few archaeologists who do not recognize the importance of environmental reconstructions and effectively assimilate and use palaeoecological data in their own research. In summary, the major questions asked of these types of retrospective analyses vary little regardless of the world region under study. They include: (1) what was the prevailing climate and vegetation of the area during the time period during which sediments accumulated at the site, (2) have significant changes in vegetation and climate occurred and if so, what were the causes, (3) where a human presence has been documented near the study site, what were the ecological contexts of human occupation and what were the relationships between human settlement/subsistence strategies and the reconstructed environment through time, and (4) can human alteration of vegetation be detected; if so, when did it occur and what kinds of cultural practices was it associated with?

Environmental Reconstructions: Field and Laboratory Procedures The first task for palaeoecologists is retrieving sediments from places that are likely to have accumulated undisturbed sediment continuously or nearly so in the past. Lakes and large swamps generally offer the best sets of conditions. In such settings, pollen grains, phytoliths, and charcoal from a watershed of usually definable area arrive at and settle to the bottom of lakes, creating detailed, organic-rich sedimentary records that are like a book of the past waiting to be opened and read. Anoxic conditions often created by the water kill organisms that would burrow through and disturb sediments after deposition has taken place. In addition to lakes, deep and often ancient (hundreds of thousand year-old) deposits of loess found over widespread areas of a number of the

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS 1775

world’s regions such as northern China and the western USA can also provide detailed information. Also, terrestrial soils can be profitably studied even though pollen preservation is usually not good enough to provide suitable records because the soils contain phytoliths and charcoal pieces, which survive for long periods of time in quantities that can be productively analyzed and also radiocarbon-dated. Retrieving sediments from lakes and swamps is accomplished through the use of various types of hand- or motor-driven samplers that are attached to coring tubes of precisely measured length and width, and that remove sediment in ways that do not disturb it. A hand-operated coring device known as the ‘Colinvaux-Vohnout locking piston corer’, itself a modification of the ‘modified Livingstone sampler’, is most commonly used to core sediments that are underneath permanent standing water (Figures 1 and 2). As already noted, where lakes and swamps are not present, phytolith and charcoal studies of terrestrial sediments can be carried out. This type of analysis simply requires digging a suitable number of holes by

Figure 1 Coring a lake in tropical southwest Mexico with a Colinvaux-Vohnout locking piston corer. The author is about to insert the core barrel containing the sampling tube down a hole created by metal casing tubes through 7 m of water into the sediment below. The coring takes place on a stabilized wooden platform constructed on a raft of rubber boats. (Photo by Ruth Dickau.)

hand and sampling them over continuous intervals of a soil sequence. Informative results have recently been acquired throughout temperate and tropical regions of the Old and New Worlds. Terrestrial sequences can be particularly valuable because they can be undertaken in any area desired and thus provide good insights into vegetational changes for a specifically defined tract of vegetation. Conservation and other biologists interested in understanding how past human and natural disturbances may have affected the present composition and structure of tropical forest segments that are being preserved, mapped, and censused on a continual basis are finding them particularly useful, for example. No matter what the goals of the analysis are, terrestrial soil studies reduce the dependence on the occurrence of lakes and swamps for providing vegetational reconstructions. After sediments are recovered and transported back to the laboratory, various laboratory techniques may be used to isolate the fossils under study. These are the usual kinds of ‘cookbook’ approaches that investigators develop and modify according to sediment characteristics and other variable circumstances. Importantly, many investigators now employ what is called a ‘multiproxy’ approach to data retrieval and interpretation. That is to say, a number of different microfossil (and sometimes also macrofossil) indicators are studied, and results from each are combined and interpreted with respect to one another. At the present time, pollen, phytolith, charcoal, and diatom analyses are most often employed in tandem in lake palaeoenvironmental work. Some temperate zone investigators utilize macrofossils that may occur in high numbers near the edges of lakes and can provide species-specific determinations of taxa. Pollen grains, the male elements of gymnosperms and flowering plants that are often identifiable to the family or genus level, have the longest history in this kind of endeavor and there is a voluminous literature from all over the world. During the last 20 years investigators have increasingly employed phytolith analysis side-byside with pollen studies to document the terrestrial vegetation. Phytoliths are particles of silica formed within plant cells that survive for long periods of time, including in contexts such as in oxidized sediments where pollen grains have long decayed. Phytoliths also occur in many types of plants and often are diagnostic to the family and genus level. The advantages of studying more than one kind of fossil indicator of vegetation and climate are substantial. Pollen and phytolith analysis (see Pollen Analysis; Phytolith Analysis) each have strengths that typically redress the other’s weaknesses and thus are highly complementary. For example, in the tropics pollen analysis can have difficulties in recognizing

1776 PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS

Figure 2 The newly opened sediment cores in the author’s laboratory from the lake shown in Figure 1. The length of each core segment is about 1 m. In addition to data derived from pollen, phytoliths, and diatoms occurring in the sediments, a substantial amount of information can be obtained from physical characteristics of the sediments. For example, the zone of compacted red clayey silt at the left of the core segment that is second from the top represents a period from about AD 500 to AD 1000 when the lake dried out and sediments were exposed to the air and became oxidized. This interval is probably associated with a regional drought, likely the same major drying event recorded by other investigators working in the Yucatan peninsula that is associated with the demise of the Maya civilization. The zones of dark organic sediment were formed underneath standing – often deep – water, indicating the region was receiving a significant amount of annual rainfall during those intervals. In the core segment beneath the one containing red soil, the sediments are strongly laminated (they have numerous fine bands, each of which accumulate over the period of a few years or even seasonally during a single year), and the laminations further indicate that deposition was undisturbed. Before sampling, the sediments were carefully cleaned to eliminate any possible contamination occurring when the core barrels were cut open. (Photo by Enrique Moreno.)

and adequately quantifying the many insect-pollinated arboreal and herbaceous taxa of mature tropical forest. Phytolith analysis provides significant information on this aspect, improving our ability to understand tropical forest history. Conversely, in the recognition of woody, early secondary tropical forest growth that is increasing on a landscape under slash and burn cultivation, where phytolith analysis may be ‘silent’ (e.g., the tree taxa Ficus and Cecropia among others do not produce many identifiable phytoliths), pollen come to the rescue and identify these associations (see Figures 3 and 4 for examples). In both the temperate and tropical zone, phytoliths provide much more information on grassland reconstructions than can pollen analysis, identifying, for example, grasses to the subfamily, tribe, and sometimes genus levels that allow temperature and rainfall changes through time to be identified. Diatoms, unicellular aquatic plants that live in lakes, are also commonly utilized to reconstruct characteristics of lake basins such as lake levels, salinity, and productivity. Some types of diatoms that proliferate in water enriched by nutrients contained in surrounding terrestrial soils may be used to infer soil erosion in the watershed caused by human activity. The identification of pollen, phytoliths, and diatoms requires large modern reference collections.

These allow the investigator to compare fossil and modern plants and assign what they find in palaeobotanical records to taxa at appropriate taxonomic levels (family, genus, species) or habitat preferences (forest, scrubland, prairie, agricultural field). Constructing such collections, especially in regions where biological diversity is high, is often a long-term task. Pollen and phytolith analysts are increasingly publishing large monographs and keys to regional flora. The accumulation of a very large amount of information on pollen and phytolith production and taxonomic patterns during the last 15 years, together with the availability of more tightly focused morphological studies devoted to restricted taxa sets (e.g., domesticated plants and their putative wild ancestors), has considerably improved the quality of palaeoecological reconstructions. In order to make temporal sense of the accumulated data and determine ages for major events documented in palaeoecological sequences, a chronology must be constructed. Lake sediments are often highly organic and dateable with radiocarbon, and this has been the traditional method of choice in these situations. Now that accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) determinations of very small amounts of carbon are possible (radiocarbon laboratories can now reliably date as little as 100 micrograms of organic

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Figure 3 A phytolith influx diagram from Lake La Yeguada, Panama. The chronology was obtained from more than two dozen internally consistent radiocarbon dates on sediments encompassing the bottom to the top of the sequence. The portion of the sequence dating to between 14 000 and 11 000 BP represents the Ice Age. It can be seen how trees and other plants of mountain forests are represented during this interval (Magnolia, Carex, other Montane taxa) when the climate was much cooler and they descended from higher elevations. Beginning 11 000 BP. when the Ice Age ended and the climate became much warmer, these taxa are replaced by others that grow today in lowland tropical forest (Chrysobalanaceae, Perebea, Protium, Trichomanes, the Podostemaceae). The category ‘Total arboreal’ represents mostly taxa of mature forest; the marked decrease in this category at 7000 BP represents the onset of slash and burn agriculture in the lake’s watershed. At about 350 BP there is a rapid regrowth of the forest, which probably resulted from the tragic decimation of indigenous populations after Europeans arrived in the region. This sequence demonstrates that long-term slash and burn agriculture is possible and that this kind of indigenous agricultural system can allow regeneration of a species-diverse forest when agricultural pressure is relaxed. Reprinted from Piperno, et al. 1991. The figure is continued on the next page.

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Pollen influx grains cm2−1 yr−1 ⫻ 103 Figure 4 A summary pollen influx diagram from Lake La Yeguada, Panama. The increase in secondary forest taxa (Trema, Pilea) and Cecropia at 7000 BP coincides with the significant decline of primary forest at the same time evidenced in the phytolith records indicating that slash and burn agriculture has begun (Figure 3). At 4200 BP the secondary forest trees decline greatly along with charcoal amounts, and tree phytolith frequencies remain greatly suppressed, indicating that agriculture intensified to the point that even successional woody growth was being cut. The pollen analysis was carried out by Mark Bush. Reprinted from Piperno et al. (1991).

material), dating small volume sediment samples taken from precise intervals of a core sequence is preferred to the past option of using larger volume (also called ‘bulk’) sediment samples. Simple linear regressions can be used to construct age–depth relationships and provide statistically robust interpolations of sedimentation rates and dates of deposition for the entire sequence. Some researchers routinely calibrate carbon-14 determinations now before constructing the age–depth relationship.

Other types of fossil materials found in lake sediments are also suitable substrates for radiocarbon analysis and are increasingly being employed for this purpose. They include plant cuticles, wood, and the very pollen and phytoliths that provide direct evidence on past vegetation. The capacity to date a wide range of materials is important because sometimes 14C analysis on lake sediments is not the most accurate way to date the pollen and phytolith records. For example, it has long been known that in lakes

1780 PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS

located on karstic or limestone landscapes, old carbon from the ancient limestone that is dissolved in the water and then incorporated into organisms such as algae that live in lakes typically lead to radiocarbon determinations on sediments that are artificially old, sometimes by thousands of years. More geographically widespread problems that make sediments artificially young have also been identified, the most serious of which seems to be the presence of soluble humic acids from plant materials that percolate downward through sediments and can result in ages erroneously young by thousands of years. Pretreatment by radiocarbon labs usually cannot adequately remove the humics because a heavy base treatment is required, which will often destroy or greatly reduce in quantity the other, suitable organic material in the sample that one wants to date. The way round these potential problems is to simultaneously date sediments and other suitable materials (e.g., pollen grains, phytoliths, microscopic charcoal, macrofossils; plant cuticles) from selected strata (e.g., the basal and middle parts of the sequence; levels where important boundaries are identified), and compare and contrast the results. Investigators are increasingly using a mixture of sediment and other dates from a few selected parts of sequences to make sure they agree. If there appears to be a problem, for example with humic acid contamination, then sediments shouldn’t be used to construct the chronology. The best kind of material(s) from which to derive a chronology depends on a number of factors (e.g., whether the site is in or near a floodplain and receives periodic floodwater inputs; if humic acid presence is considerable; if hardwater error is likely to be present). After the pollen, phytoliths, and diatoms occurring in a palaeoenvironmental sequence are identified, counted, and dated, the data are usually presented in the form of a diagram, composed of the assemblage from each level or stratum plotted against its stratigraphic depth or age. The diagram consists of two parts, a horizontal line with constituents of the assemblage together with frequencies of the various identified taxa, and a vertical line showing depths and dates of the assemblages (Figures 3–6, to be discussed in more detail below). Fluctuations in percentages, concentrations (an estimated number of each represented taxon occurring in a unit volume of sediment), or accumulation rates of species through time (an estimated number of each represented taxon that was deposited over a unit area of sediment every year – its calculation requires a good estimation of sedimentation rates over the entire length of the sequence) are assumed to reflect associated changes in vegetation composition and/or plant usage. When quantifying results, it is a good idea to compute and

present all three types of data values commonly used – percentages, concentrations, and accumulation rates. Each one has its own unique, skew-inducing tendencies as well as its strengths, and evaluating the three in tandem can often allow the investigator to weigh and make sense of conflicting trends that may be indicated by one or more of them. When interpreting vegetational change, careful consideration must also be given to the factors of over- and under-representation of taxa caused by differences in the quantities in which plants choose to produce them and to what taxonomic level they can be identified. Investigators may choose to delimit zones in stratigraphic diagrams built from phytolith, pollen, or other botanical data. The purpose of zones is to make the description and comparison of fossil data easier. Some investigators, including the author, do not routinely zone pollen or phytolith diagrams, feeling that no single zonation will adequately account for the complex record of palaeoenvironmental change often present in a long stratigraphic sequence. Relying on a good carbon-14 chronology and good knowledge of the study region’s ecology, and describing vegetational and lithologic events according to them, is often an equally effective means of interpreting and inferring past conditions. Either visual inspection of important transitions and where they occur or numerical procedures can be used to zone diagrams. It has been the case that zonations done without recourse to formal mathematics are often very similar to those done with the aid of numerical procedures. Even when this is not the case, there is no guarantee that zones produced by numerical methods are more valid than others.

Case Studies from the Neotropics The editors of this volume asked the authors to provide case studies from more than one region of the world. Using the ones the author knows best, those found within tropical latitudes of the New World, in the remainder of this chapter she compares and contrasts palaeoenvironmental records from Central and South America, showing how they relate to and inform existing and future archaeological discourse on prehistoric settlement, technology, and land usage in the lowland tropical forest. The author provides ecological in addition to regional contrasts, showing how present data indicate that seasonal tropical forests in the Americas, those that experience at least a 3- to 5-month ‘dry season’ annually during which little to no rain falls, were probably impacted by human societies longer and more intensively than were evergreen formations or true rain forest, those that do not receive a long and marked dry season.

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Figure 5 A percentage pollen profile from El Venancio, Mexico. Notice the very high percentages of weedy taxa (Poaceae (grasses), Asteraceae (composites), total herbaceous category), low percentages and variety of trees (taxa grouped in the ‘Arboreal’ category), and presence of maize. The basal radiocarbon dates are derived from sediment and also phytoliths and charcoal isolated from the same sediment sample; the two determinations agree well with each other, indicating that deposition of pollen-rich sediment began about 4000 BP at the 100 cm level of the sequence. Sediments below 100 cm are oxidized and contain few pollen grains. Reprinted from Piperno DR (2006c) Agricultural impact on vegetation and quaternary vegetational history in Central America. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 93: 274–296, with permission from the Missouri Botanical Garden Press.

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During the past 15 years, available palaeoecological data relevant to the last 20 000 years of Neotropical forest environmental history has greatly increased. This temporal span covers the maximum extension of northern hemisphere glaciation and some of the most intense climatic forcing known to have occurred in the lowland tropical forest during the last transglacial period (18 000–11 000 BP), and it accommodates the last 4000 to 5000 years of the Ice Age (c. 15 000 to 11 000 BP), when most archaeologists believe humans first colonized Neotropical latitudes. Palaeoecological data frequently go hand-in-hand with the discovery and investigation of nearby archaeological sites; the latter contexts provide allied information about the available forest plants and animals that were most frequently exploited and manipulated by people. In brief, the research indicates that the lowland Neotropical forest was settled by at least 11 000 BP by small groups of hunters and gatherers, who in short order began to modify tropical forest using fire. Because the archaeologist Tom Dillehay has shown that human settlement at Monte Verde, Chile occurred by c. 13 000 BP, earlier evidence of tropical forest occupation probably awaits archaeological research. Space constraints do not permit a detailed discussion of the kinds of environments that humans first encountered in the Neotropics, but a now-large literature documents that much cooler and drier conditions prevailed throughout low latitudes between

c. 20 000 and 11 000 BP. These conditions caused forests in what are now seasonally dry areas to become grasslands or other kinds of plant communities dominated by herbaceous and/or low tree associations, whereas in areas now supporting wet, evergreen forests, mountain trees descended into and occupied the lowlands along with the most cool-tolerant lowland forest taxa (Figures 3 and 4). Arguably, the best way to determine what kinds of habitats people were living in and what kinds of resources they were actually exploiting is to correlate reconstructed Pleistocene vegetation from palaeoecological sites with archaeological sites of the same age located nearby. This is possible for a number of important localities containing early human occupants, indicating that between c. 13 000 and 10 000 BP what were probably highly mobile hunters and gatherers lived in and exploited a wide variety of resources and ecological settings, from species diverse tropical forest to savanna/scrubland. Characterizations of the earliest tropical Americans as either megafaunal specialists or generalized hunters and gatherers is overly simplistic and unsatisfactory. Both palaeoecological and archaeological data make it clear that there was an early and independent development of agriculture in the lowland Neotropics. Combined microbotanical studies (pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains) indicate that human manipulation of a variety of seeds, roots, and probably trees leading

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE LOWLAND NEOTROPICS 1783

to their domestication took place in the early Holocene (10 000–7000 BP). Older views that early tropical forest food-producing systems were root-and/or treebased and that seed crops were mainly creations of people living at high and dry elevations, should be set aside. In the seasonally dry tropical forest, where it appears that most important tropical seed and root crops were originally brought under cultivation and domesticated, cultivation of seed crops such as maize and various species of squashes and gourds is every bit as effective as root crop cultivation. These factors have important implications for the age and trajectory of human forest disturbance. A large number of researchers are now actively investigating prehistoric human impacts on tropical landscapes. Their examinations of palaeoecological data combined with allied studies of modern pollen, phytolith, and charcoal deposition across a range of tropical habitat types have led to a commonality of views about how to interpret ancient data sets, making it possible for trends recognized from sequence to sequence to be meaningfully compared and evaluated. For example, in a long depositional sequence sampled at an appropriate resolution (at intervals of from 300 to 100 years or less), most investigators interpret a continued presence of high frequencies of charcoal over thousands of years of a lake’s history as being indicative of human-set fires. This is because, as has been documented a number of times for modern forests of different regions, the high humidity, moisture, and shaded understory of forests make the likelihood of natural ignitions occurring that frequently very low. Similarly, when large proportions of phytoliths from early invasive herbaceous plants such as the Poaceae and Heliconia are continually burned over long periods of time, human interference is indicated. Studies of modern contexts indicate these patterns do not occur in the absence of human disturbance. We should also remember that ENSO became a part of the post-Pleistocene climate system only after 6000 to 5000 BP, thus Holocene fire events before then are almost certainly rooted in other causes. Moreover, the widespread and destructive fires that have occurred in tropical forests (in Indonesia, for example) in the past 25 years during strong ENSO events were virtually all started deliberately by farmers and commercial developers to clear land. The fires spread and became so devastating because logging and slash and burn cultivation had already created huge fuel loads and highly flammable conditions. Relying on pollen and phytolith profiles constructed from modern, old growth forests where vegetational censuses and other detailed plant inventories are available, as well as on vegetation currently experiencing varying types of anthropogenic pressure, various

investigators, including Mark Bush in Amazonia, the late Barbara Leyden in Mexico and Guatemala, and myself in Panama, have developed pollen and phytolith population markers of human disturbance and agricultural activity for different types of Neotropical forest. For example, in wetter forests, increases of weedy herbaceous taxa along with pollen from major secondary forest trees such as Pilea, Trema and Alchornea occurring at the same time that pollen or phytoliths from a variety of more mature forest taxa are declining usually can be confidently interpreted as human disturbance. In regions where tree diversity is lower and polleniferous families like the Moraceae are important components of the mature forest, rapid and steep declines of Moraceae and other tree pollen grains combined with simultaneous increases in weedy herbaceous plants and early secondary forest trees such as Trema indicate human forest clearance. These efforts have gone hand-in-hand with those dedicated to constructing large modern reference collections of Neotropical pollen grains and phytoliths. They have resulted in the identification of many tree and shrub taxa that were unknown microfossils in older palaeoecological work, and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions that are more finely resolved. The recovery of pollen and phytoliths from cultivars provides another important source of information for documenting past human influences and agricultural practices. A few things concerning the interpretation of cultivar pollen and phytoliths in tropical lake sediments should be remembered. One is that maize phytoliths and pollen grains can be straightforwardly identified on the basis of both size and morphological characteristics in regions outside of the natural distribution of its wild ancestor and other close wild relatives in the genus Zea, which collectively are known as teosintes. The zone where the presence of Zea grains means maize was being grown stretches from Costa Rica south into Panama and on throughout South America. However, because maize pollen grains are so large, they are also heavy and do not travel very far from their original source. A recent study showed that 95% of all maize grains come to rest within 50 m of their source plants, and the author still remembers well her first pollen course when we sampled moss pollsters occurring 10 m from a maize field and often could not find any maize pollen at all in a 200 grain count. Therefore, maize will often be under-represented in lake sediments unless cultivation occurred at or close to the lake edge. Many crops do not leave recognizable pollen or phytolith signatures at all in lacustrine records because of factors related to the low production or limited taxonomic utility of their microfossil products. This

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is the case for the many root crops that were cultivated in Central and South America, although manioc pollen has been identified in sites from the Colombian Amazon Belize, and Mexico, probably because the coring locations were very near – possibly in one case even directly underneath – prehistoric fields. The end result is that there may be strong indications of forest disturbances and clearing in lake records without evidence of the crops that caused the clearing. Phytolith and starch grain records from archaeological sites located in or near a lake’s watershed are necessary to fill in these lacunae, as they have already done in Panama and northern South America.

Major Trends and Patterns of Prehistoric Tropical Forest Modification Dozens of palaeoecological sequences from lakes and large swamps are available from the full range of types of tropical forest – evergreen, semi-evergreen, and deciduous – reaching from southwestern Mexico to the Amazon Basin. The data show that the development and spread of agriculture in the American lowland tropics sometimes exerted profound influences on the structure and composition of the vegetation. Regions far removed from ancient centers of civilizations such as Central Panama and parts of the Amazon Basin experienced systematic interference with tropical forest thousands of years ago. Fire was an important instrument of vegetational modification for people practicing agriculture in tropical America. Between 7000 BP and 5000 BP, depending on the region, palaeoecological records show that slash and burn cultivation had emerged in Caribbean Mexico, central Panama, the Colombian Amazon, the Ecuadorean Amazon, and probably eastern Amazonia. In some regions of Central and South America, forest clearance by agricultural populations was so severe millennia ago that defining climatic events from vegetational patterns in lake records is nearly impossible for Middle and Late Holocene periods. Often, especially in highly seasonal forests in Central America, human impacts were intense and prehistoric agriculture removed or greatly reduced in frequency a significant number of primary forest trees and shrubs. A review of some of these records follows. Pollen and charcoal data generated in my laboratory from a large swamp called El Venancio, located in Guerrero, Mexico very close to the presumed cradle of maize domestication, provide the first indications of ancient agriculture and associated deforestation in the deciduous forests of the Central Balsas River Valley (Figure 5). Here, maize, high amounts of charcoal, and severe forest clearing are evidenced from

the base of the sequence dated to 4000 BP. An older Mexican sequence generated by Kevin Pope, Mary Pohl, and John Jones from San Andre´s, located on the Caribbean coast of Tabasco in what would become the Olmec heartland 3000 years later, records slash and burn cultivation with maize starting at 6200 BP. Two pollen and charcoal records studied by the same group of investigators from swamps called Kob and Cobweb, located about 55 km apart in northeastern Belize, show an early phase of intensive deforestation resulting from slash and burn agriculture starting by 4000 BP (Figure 6). A number of lake sequences generated recently from the Pacific and Caribbean watersheds of Costa Rica demonstrate slash and burn cultivation dating from 4800 BP to 2950 B.P. Maize is present in the earliest deposits of all of them. Moving further south to Lake La Yeguada, central Panama, the initiation of slash and burn agriculture is indicated by 7000 BP, when primary forest trees decrease greatly in the phytolith record and pollen from early secondary woody growth (Cecropia, Ficus) increases significantly (Figures 3 and 4). Shortly after this time maize pollen is first recorded and it continues to be present throughout the sequence. Cucurbita (squash) phytoliths make an appearance at about 6000 BP. At 4200 BP even the secondary growth trees and charcoal decline greatly, indicating that a larger portion of the woody growth was being cut and could no longer contribute charcoal to the record because fallow periods were probably being shortened (Figures 3 and 4). This region of Panama has also seen longterm archaeological research by Anthony Ranere and Richard Cooke and its pre-Columbian cultural records are among the best in the lowland Neotropics. Excavations and systematic archaeological foot surveys indicate that sites identified as hamlets and hamlet clusters near La Yeguada during the 7000 BP to c. 5000 BP period are very similar in size and other aspects to those of modern slash and burn agriculturists, and that site numbers increased 15-fold at that time compared with the 10 000 to 7000 BP period. Several of these occupations have yielded phytolith and starch grain records of agriculture from 7000 to 3000 BP, making it clear that agriculture supported ever increasing human populations, who in turn placed increasing pressure on their environment. Here is a case where combined archaeological and palaeoecological investigations provided a particularly detailed picture of tropical forest history. Moving further south into the Amazon Basin and other areas of South America, a varied scale and intensity of human forest disturbance becomes more apparent. For example, disturbance resulting from

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human agricultural pressure started in the western and eastern Amazon Basin (Lakes Ayauchi and Geral, respectively) during the sixth millennium BP and intensified during the next few milleniums. However, periods of particularly intensive agriculture occurred between c. 3350 BP and the Conquest period, later than in sequences just discussed from Central America, and during the maximum periods of disturbance there are never the declines in tree pollen and phytoliths nor increases in frequencies of herbaceous plants that indicate large-scale destruction of the forest, as occurs in many Central American sequences. Records recently generated by various investigators for the Choco´, western Colombia and the Rı´o Napo region of the Ecuadorian Amazon are examples of even more minimal human disturbance on very wet, aseasonal, and still densely forested northern South American landscapes. In these cases, maize is not recorded until c. 1000 BP in a 4200 year-long sequence, but this signal of agriculture is still not accompanied by signs of significant forest clearing (the Choco´ record). Charcoal is common during certain periods, but neither maize nor signs of forest clearing in the way of declining tree frequencies are recorded at all over more than 10 000 years of time (Rı´o Napo area). Moreover, three sequences now available from high rainfall areas in northern Brazil dating to the past 10 000 years and more record no burning, cultivar presence, or tree felling at all. The Central American sequences contain evidence for significant to severe forest clearing more often than do existing South American records. When the ecological settings of the sites are compared it can be seen that lake records from Central America that demonstrate the most intensive disturbance (El Venancio, Mexico; Belize, Costa Rica, La Yeguada, Panama) are located in areas where the vegetation is or was highly seasonal tropical forest. In other ecological settings in Central and South America, especially those that supported wet, nonseasonal, evergreen formations, human disturbance is often less severe and even undetectable.

Discussion and Summary There has been a great deal of discussion in professional and public outlets recently about the scale and intensity of indigenous alteration of tropical landscapes before European arrival, especially in Amazonia. Arguments concerning prehistoric landscapes are increasingly being polarized into ‘pristine’ versus ‘cultural parkland’ scenarios and soon it will be politically incorrect to argue that Native Americans

did not profoundly alter their landscapes and even reduce biodiversity in some places (20 years ago the opposite was the case). However, palaeoecological data indicate that the chronologies, severity, and trajectories of human impacts varied considerably. It makes sense that seasonal tropical forests, where soils are most fertile and many staple seed and root crops appear to have been originally domesticated, were probably more significantly affected over more protracted timescales than were forests in nonseasonal regions, where soils were poorer, vegetation did not hold as many nutrients and was much harder to burn effectively, and crop plant evolution largely did not take place. Regions that otherwise supported early agricultural developments through participating in the initial dispersals of domesticated plants, as occurred in Central Pacific Panama, for example, also were likely to have experienced early and significant forest modification. Many anthropologists and archaeologists still do not understand the importance these contrasting ecologies – seasonal versus aseasonal – had for prehistoric cultural developments in the tropical forest. Even today, population densities in the lowland tropics are higher and agriculture is more developed and sustained in areas of former drier forest. The result is that far fewer of these forests remain than semi-evergreen and evergreen formations, contributing to the greater distinction that rain forests enjoy. The geographer Carl Sauer was one of the most erudite scholars who studied early humans in the tropical forest, and his comment that ‘‘the mastery of the forest requires no axe’’ has been shown by palaeoecological data to be particularly prescient. Everywhere a record of agriculture is recorded by way of cultivar presence and forest clearance, charcoal frequencies are also very high. As Sauer also noted, Neotropical trees are thin-barked and therefore poorly insulated and can be easily killed by simple ringing and fire, making the use of stone axes irrelevant during early periods of food production in areas having long and marked dry seasons. In central Panama, for example, stone axes did not become common until shortly after 3000 BP, when a major settlement shift occurred and people had to clear the larger trees and moister environments of the major river valleys for the first time. The recent discovery in the Amazon of large areas of terra preta, black earth containing ceramics and organic cultural debris and probably representing middens formed by dense and permanent human settlements, at numerous places near water courses, together with the excavations of what were large and permanently occupied sites in regions such as the upper Xingu that are replete with defensive structures

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and linked by extensive roadways, make it abundantly clear that starting at about 2000 BP, parts of the Amazon Basin near major rivers and tributaries were indeed very well populated in later prehistory. We should take care, however, not to extend these findings to other areas of the Amazon, especially the interfluves (areas located away from major watercourses and tributaries also called the terra firme forests, where soils and overall resource abundance are much poorer), until a lot more data are in hand. We know next to nothing about prehistoric society in the enormous expanses of the interfluves, but already detailed palaeoecological information from large lakes located just 15 to 30 km north of the main Amazon river channel near Santarem indicates that human landscape alteration occurred later and was not as severe as what transpired in extra-Amazonian contexts in South and Central America, and probably along waterways of Amazonian areas just described where large settlements have been documented. Moreover, there still is no evidence for maize or manioc agriculture anywhere in core and eastern Amazonia until after 4000 BP (David Browman and colleagues inaccurately imply that the crops have been documented with phytolith and pollen evidence earlier than that). Similarly, when the author studied phytolith-rich records from terrestrial soils sampled from directly underneath a forest preserve 90 km north of Manaus, Brazil, she could not detect a human influence on the vegetation during the past 7000 years. Future archaeological research should reveal whether areas like these for some reason never supported persistent human occupation. In short, facts on the ground are at variance with the pristine forest vs. cultural parkland dichotomy in the Amazon and elsewhere. The Amazon Basin is precious for natural and social scientists of all stripes because it holds the greatest contiguous expanse of tropical forest and largest store of biodiversity in the Americas, together with a lot of the remaining indigenous cultural and linguistic diversity. Other, long-neglected regions of tropical Central and South America are demonstrating more ancient agricultural practices, earlier nucleated and sedentary villages, and longer and more intensive forest modification when compared with the Amazon. If we are to understand the history of tropical environments and how forest was originally lost to the human hand and can possibly be gained back, we have to also make these areas foci of our future endeavors. See also: Human–Landscape Interactions; Paleoenvir-

onmental Reconstruction, Methods; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis.

Further Reading Broecker WS and Denton GH (1990) What drives glacial cycles? Scientific American 262: 48–56. Bush MB, Miller MS, DeOliveira PE, and Colinvaux PA (2000) Two histories of environmental change and human disturbance in eastern lowland Amazonia. The Holocene 10: 543–553. Bush MB, Silman M, de Toledo M, Listopad C, Gosling W, Williams C, de Oliveira P, and Krisel C (2007) Holocene fire and human occupation in Amazonia: A spatial perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 362: 209–218. Diamond J (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. London: Penguin Books. Dillehay TD (1997) Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile. Volume 2: The Archaeological Context and Interpretation. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Gruhn R (1994) The Pacific Coast route of initial entry: An overview. In: Bonnichsen R and Steele DG (eds.) Method and Theory for Investigating the Peopling of the Americas, pp. 249–256. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University. Heckenberger MJ, Kuikuro A, Kuikuro UT, et al. (2003) Amazonia 1492: Pristine forest or cultural parkland? Science 301: 1710– 1714. Jones (1994) Pollen evidence for early settlement and agriculture in Northern Belize. Palynology 18: 205–211. Lehman J, Kern C, Glaser B, and Woods WI (2003) Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management. Netherlands: Kluwer Acadecmic Publishers. Leyden B (2002) Pollen evidence for climatic variability and cultural disturbance in the Maya lowlands. Ancient Mesoamerica 13: 85–101. Mann A (2006) 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. O’Connell JF and Allen J (1998) When did humans first arrive in greater Australia and why is it important to know? Evolutionary Anthropology 6: 132–146. Pennington RT, Latvin M, Prado DE, Pendry CA, Pell SL, and Butterworth CA (2004) Historical climate change and speciation: Neotropical seasonally dry forest plants show patterns of both Tertiary and Quaternary diversification. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 359: 515–538. Piperno DR, Bush MB, and Colinvaux PA (1991) Palaeoecological perspectives on human adaptation in central Panama. II. The holocene. Geoarchaeology 6: 227–250. Piperno DR (2001) Phytoliths. In: Smol JP, Birks HJB, and Last WM (eds.) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments. Volume 3: Terrestrial, Algal, and Siliceous Indicators, pp. 235–251. Dordrect, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Piperno DR (2006a) Phytoliths: A Comprehensive Guide for Archaeologists and Paleoecologists. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Piperno DR (2006b) Prehistoric human occupation and impacts on Neotropical forest landscapes. In: Flenley J and Bush MB (eds.) Tropical Rain Forest Responses to Climatic Change, pp. 193–218. West Sussex, United Kingdom: Praxis Publishing Ltd. Piperno DR (2006c) Agricultural impact on vegetation and quaternary vegetational history in Central America. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 93: 274–296. Piperno DR and Pearsall DM (1998) The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. San Diego: Academic Press. Pope KO, Pohl MEd, Jones JG, et al. (2001) Origin and environmental setting of ancient agriculture in the lowlands of Mesoamerica. Science 292: 1370–1373.

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION, METHODS 1787 Quadfasel D (2005) The Atlantic heat conveyor slows. Nature 438: 565–566. Sandweiss DH, Richardson JB, III, Reitz EJ, Rollins HB, and Maasch KA (1996) Geoarchaeological evidence from Peru for a 5000 Years B.P. onset of El Nin˜o. Science 273: 1531–1533.

Sauer CO (1958) Man in the ecology of tropical America. Proceedings of the Ninth Pacific Science Congress, Bangkok 20: 104–110. Williams M, Dunkerly D, De Deckker P, Kershaw P, and Chappell J (1998) Quaternary environments, 2nd edn. London: Arnold.

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION, METHODS Petra Dark, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary glacial Period of cold conditions with major expansion of ice sheets and glaciers. interglacial Period of warm conditions, such as the Holocene. isotopes Elements with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus, resulting in differences in atomic mass. Unstable isotopes undergo radioactive decay at a fixed rate and may be used for dating, for example, carbon 14. For stable isotopes the differences in mass may result in differences in behavior during environmental processes such as evaporation and precipitation, or during metabolism of an organism, providing a source of information on past conditions. Holocene The period since the end of the last glaciation (i.e., the last 10 000 radiocarbon years, equivalent to the last 11 500 calendar years).

Introduction While much of our evidence for the human past comes from excavation of archaeological sites and examination of the artifacts and biological remains retrieved from them, a considerable amount of information about the environment in which people lived, the natural resources available to them, and the effects people had on their environment, can be obtained from ‘natural’ deposits which formed away from sites of human habitation. The deposits themselves, and the biological remains that they contain, may inform us about past climate, sea level, soils, vegetation, and animal communities, all of which affected human lifestyles.

Where is Nonsite Environmental Evidence Found and What Can It Tell Us? Many different types of deposit may be used for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, on a range of temporal and spatial scales.

Ice Sheets and Glaciers

Long-term (multiple glacial–interglacial cycles) and large-scale (up to hemispheric) climate change may be reconstructed from ice cores, for example, from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The ice forms annual layers due to variations in its texture and color at different times of year, so the ice cores are intrinsically datable at high resolution. A range of climate proxies may be studied, including presence of dust particles, and oxygen isotope ratios (18O/16O). The layers of ice may also preserve a record of major volcanic eruptions, such as Vesuvius in Italy (AD 79) and Tambora in Indonesia (AD 1815), because acidic gases produced during the eruption can become incorporated into the ice and detected chemically or by changes in electrical conductivity of the ice. On a more regional scale, glaciers may be used for reconstruction of past climate by study of variations in the size of the glacier through time. Glaciers increase in size/advance with increased precipitation and cooler conditions, and reduce in size/retreat when there is more precipitation and warmer conditions. Marine and Estuarine Sediments

Annually resolved long-term climate records may also be obtained from deep ocean sediments, where changes in sediment texture or composition may reflect deposition at different times of year. Climate can be reconstructed on the basis of sediment chemistry (especially stable isotopes) or the presence of biological indicators such as foraminifera (single-celled organisms with a calcareous shell), ostracods (small aquatic crustaceans), and diatoms (single-celled algae). Such deposits may also provide information on past sea level, which in turn affected the form of past coastlines. Former sea level and coastlines can also be reconstructed on the basis of the types of sediment formed at the interface between land and sea. Coastal areas may preserve long sequences of alternating layers of organic peat, formed during periods of marine regression when sea level was relatively low, and inorganic

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silts, formed as sea level rose during periods of marine transgression. The peat layers in these sequences can be radiocarbon dated to provide a chronology of sealevel change over long timescales. Speleothems

Speleothems are mineral deposits such as stalactites and flowstones, found in caves, which gradually form over many millenniums. The chemical composition of the thin layers of calcite deposited is related to climate outside the cave, and can be analyzed using methods such as stable isotope analysis. The speleothems may contain annual layering, or can be dated using uranium series dating. Lake Sediments and Peat Deposits

Lake sediments and peat deposits are very rich sources of information about past environments, especially for the Holocene, because the permanently waterlogged conditions preserve a wide variety of organic remains rarely found elsewhere. These range from entire archaeological sites, to remains of former forests submerged by rising lake levels or engulfed by peat in response to a wetter climate, to microscopic plant and animal remains such as pollen grains and insects. Such remains provide information not only about conditions immediately in the lake or on the mire surface, but also about the surrounding environment. Like marine sediments, lake sediments may contain annual layers (sometimes known as ‘varves’) allowing high-resolution reconstruction of climate change, again often involving analysis of sediment chemistry or the remains of organisms responsive to temperature, such as chironomids (midges). The quality of the water, in terms of its acidity/alkalinity, or nutrient status, may be reconstructed from the remains of diatoms, which are especially useful for showing whether lakes have been affected by environmental pollution such as ‘acid rain’ or run-off of nutrients from surrounding farmland (which may lead to the process of eutrophication, in which the lake becomes very nutrient-rich, potentially causing loss of biodiversity). Lakes also act as ‘sinks’ for eroded soil, enabling reconstruction of long-term patterns of soil erosion, which may be linked to land-use in the catchment. The quantity and origin of such eroded soil may be determined by chemical or mineral magnetic analysis. Where annual layering is absent, the period of deposition of lake sediments is usually determined by radiocarbon dating if the deposits contain sufficient organic material. Radiocarbon dating is also usually required for peat deposits. Peat not only contains a wide range of

biological remains, but can itself yield information on past climate from changes in the degree of peat humification (the degree of decomposition of the peat) over time. Peat that is highly humified (strongly decomposed) would have formed under relatively warm and/or dry conditions, while peat that is poorly humified (well preserved) formed under relatively cool and/ or wet conditions. For northwest Europe such changes were used in the early twentieth century to establish the broad pattern of climate change during the Holocene, and recent refinements in the methodology and associated dating techniques are showing it to be a powerful tool for reconstruction of climate change on a regional to continental scale. In addition to the state of preservation of the peat, the types of plant remains it contains provide information on conditions on the mire surface at the time of deposition. Furthermore, recent research has combined analysis of plant remains with the study of microscopic organisms known as testate amebas. Different species respond in characteristic ways to variations in wetness of the peat surface, and their distinctive shells (or ‘tests’) are preserved in the peat. Soils

The nature of the soil can provide much information about past land use, even away from archaeological sites. By studying the characteristics of the soil profile (the different layers in the soil), it is possible to gain information on whether an area was formerly under woodland, whether it may have been plowed, and the extent to which it has suffered from erosion. Microscopic study of the soil structure and composition (soil micromorphology) may assist in interpretation by allowing identification of soil components, leading to greater understanding of soil origins and formation processes. Chemical analysis may also provide clues to former agricultural practices, such as application of manure or grazing by domestic animals, which may be detected by phosphate analysis (see Soils and Archaeology). Both human activity and natural factors, such as climate change, may cause soil movement away from its point of origin and deposition elsewhere. In hilly areas soil may move down-slope and become deposited in valley bottoms, where it is termed colluvium. Colluvium has often formed as a result of soil destabilization when previously wooded sites are cleared and used for arable agriculture. Colluvium in areas of chalky and limestone soils may be rich in mollusk shells, which can be used to reconstruct the environment in which the deposit formed. Soil that erodes into streams and rivers may later be deposited as alluvium, either along river courses or at

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the mouth of the river where it meets the sea. Alluvial soils are often favored for agriculture, as they tend to be mineral rich and moisture retentive. However, alluvium deposition sometimes caused problems for past societies, such as clogging the ancient harbor at Ephesus in Turkey, making it inaccessible from the sea.

Biological Indicators of Past Environments As noted above, plant and animal remains are key indicators of past environments, and may range in size from whole trees to microscopic organisms such as diatoms. Tree remains can be particularly useful where they are of species suitable for tree-ring dating or dendrochronology (e.g., oak or pine). Tree rings can also yield information on past climate change, which may result in variations in ring width and changes in stable isotope ratios of the wood. Periods of very narrow tree rings have also been linked to the short-term effects of major volcanic eruptions on climate, potentially involving a drop in temperature of a few tenths of a degree for up to a decade. The most useful and widely employed biological remains for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction are those groups which occur abundantly in a range of contexts, can be identified to species level, and have a narrow ecological range. Assemblages of the remains of such organisms can be used to reconstruct past environments on the basis of knowledge of their ecological requirements, applying the principle of uniformitarianism (‘the present is the key to the past’). Thus, if a species requiring a particular set of conditions today is found in a Neolithic context, we might assume that similar conditions existed in the Neolithic period in that area. In practice such an approach is best applied where many different species are present, as a single species today may not occupy all possible niches in which it might be able to survive. The type of context is key in determining which plant and animal remains are available for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. The most widely used biological method is analysis of pollen grains and spores (‘palynology’), which are commonly preserved in huge numbers in waterlogged environments, allowing changes in vegetation to be traced over thousands of years. Not all species of flowering plant produce distinctive pollen, but there are several key indicators of human activity that allow the effects of people on the environment to be reconstructed. In naturally wooded landscapes human activity involving woodland clearance may be detected by a decline in tree pollen and increase in that of sun-loving herbs, while agriculture may be evident

from remains of crop plants or plants that benefit from grazing, for example, ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) in northwest Europe (see Pollen Analysis). Pollen analysis is often accompanied by analysis of other biological remains to assist in interpretation, including larger (macroscopic) plant remains such as seeds. These have the advantage that they are usually more closely identifiable than pollen grains, but they are rarely as abundant. Microscopic charcoal particles are also commonly used to complement the pollen record. Such particles may originate from fires of natural or human origin, but in parts of the world where natural fires are rare they may help in identification of the role of human activity in environmental change. An example of an area where several types of biological remains have been used to reconstruct past environments is the Vale of Pickering in northeast England. The well-known early Mesolithic site of Star Carr lay on the edge of a large lake that gradually filled with sediment during the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. Analysis of plant and animal remains from the archaeological site showed the range of animal species hunted by the occupants, the nature of the local environment over the several decades of its occupation, and the use of fire for burning local reedswamp. This was complemented by the longer-term and more regional picture of environmental change provided by analysis of the deep sediments from the center of the lake. Here analysis of sediment composition, pollen, charcoal particles, macroscopic plant remains, mollusks, and ostracods, combined with radiocarbon dating, showed how the environment was affected by climate change and use of fire by human groups both at the Star Carr site, and elsewhere in the landscape, throughout the period from c. 13 000 to 6500 BP. See also: Human–Landscape Interactions; Insect Anal-

ysis; Invertebrate Analysis; Macroremains Analysis; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Soils and Archaeology; Vertebrate Analysis.

Further Reading Bell M and Walker MJC (2005) Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives, 2nd edn. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Berglund BE (ed.) (1986) Handbook of Holocene Palaeoecology and Palaeohydrology. Chichester/New York: Wiley. Birks HJB and Birks HH (1980) Quaternary Palaeoecology. London: Edward Arnold. Brothwell DR and Pollard AM (eds.) (2001) Handbook of Archaeological Sciences. Chichester: Wiley.

1790 PALEOETHNOBOTANY Butzer KW (1982) Archaeology as Human Ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Charman DJ (2002) Peatlands and Environmental Change. Chichester: Wiley. Goldberg P and Macphail RI (2006) Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology. Malden, MA, USA/Oxford, UK/Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing. Last WM and Smol JP (eds.) (2001) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments. Vol. 2: Physical and Geochemical Methods. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lowe JJ and Walker MJC (1997) Reconstructing Quaternary Environments, 2nd edn. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Mackay A, Battarbee R, Birks J, and Oldfield F (eds.) (2005) Global Change in the Holocene. London: Arnold.

Roberts N (1998) The Holocene: An Environmental History, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell. Shane LCK and Cushing EJ (eds.) (1991) Quaternary Landscapes. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Smol JP, Birks HJB, and Last WM (eds.) (2001) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments, Vol. 3: Terrestrial, Algal and Siliceous Indicators. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Smol JP, Birks HJB, and Last WM (eds.) (2001) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments, Vol. 4: Zoological Indicators. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Williams M, Dunkerley D, DeDeckker P, et al. (1998) Quaternary Environments, 2nd edn. London: Arnold.

PALEOETHNOBOTANY Christine A Hastorf, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Steven Archer, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary stratigraphy The science of rock strata, their relative and absolute ages, and the relationships between strata. water flotation The archaeological method of flotation or water separation involves the use of water (sometimes impregnated with chemicals) to recover tiny artifacts such as seeds, charcoal, nut shell fragments, microdebitage, and bone fragments from soil or feature fill deposits.

‘Palaeoethnobotany’ is the study of human relationships with plants in the past, generally as an adjunct or subdiscipline within archaeology. Although the terms ‘archaeobotany’ and ‘palaeoethnobotany’ have slightly different origins, primarily with respect to initial research aims, today palaeoethnobotany and archaeobotany are often seen as interchangeable terms. Palaeobotany is considered a different subdiscipline, studying plants from earlier times not linked to human impact, as in the Jurassic or Cretaceous times. Although earlier archaeologists had incorporated fortuitous discoveries of plant materials into their interpretation of the past, beginning as far back as the late nineteenth century, modern palaeoethnobotany is a product of the late 1960s processual archaeology, which, building on the work of archaeologists such as Julian Steward, emphasized the central role of biology and the environment in the interpretation of the human past (see Processual Archaeology). The

processual era of archaeology saw the advent of many of the most basic tools of palaeoethnobotanists, from sampling design through the now-standard technique of water flotation for recovery of charred plant and other tiny materials. While contemporary palaeoethnobotanists often engage with so-called ‘processual’ issues of diet, environment, and ecology, the research agenda has broadened to include many other themes, such as foodways, gender, interpersonal power issues, identity, trade and exchange, political economy, and all the other topics archaeologists generally engage with through analysis of material culture. After all, for most of human history, the majority of ‘material culture’ was constructed from plants, the most diverse and dynamic group of raw materials available. Plants, however, preserve differently in the ground than more durable objects of bone, stone, and ceramic, and foresight as well as specific tools and processes are necessary to reveal them. While basic sampling and recovery for plant macroremains has become commonplace (see Macroremains Analysis), research has continued to yield new categories and contexts for archaeological plant remains. Macroremains such as formerly indistinguishable lumps of tissue are now identifiable due to extensive botanical comparative work using scanning electron microscopy (SEM); new categories of microremains, such as starch grains (see Starch Grain Analysis), offer exciting new potentials to interpret traditional ‘blind spots’ in archaeobotanical data; microstratigraphy has permitted the observation of plant material in situ, and various isotopic, spectroscopic, chromatographic, chemical, and molecular techniques record the presence of plants no longer visually recognizable in residues, or as traces in

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human or animal skeletal material (see Chemical Analysis Techniques; Organic Residue Analysis). Because plant remains can be either difficult to see or completely invisible to the naked eye, specialized sampling and recovery techniques are employed during excavation. Dependent upon the research design, deposits can have bulk soil samples removed from the site and processed by specialized recovery techniques; such samples may be many liters in volume in the case of flotation samples, or a few scant milliliters or grams for pollen, phytolith, and other microscopic material. Generally archaeobotanical analysis succeeds when a systematic, ‘blanket’ sampling strategy of most or all contexts is employed, enriching interpretation when deposits without obvious quantities of plant remains can be contrasted with material that looks dark or ‘organic-rich’ during excavation. Aside from fortuitous discoveries of preserved material, macrobotanical plant remains (those visible to the naked eye, but identified using microscopy) are generally recovered from archaeological sites via water flotation, less rarely via nested sieving. Various machine designs have been developed, ranging from simple, nonmechanized setups to elaborate machinedriven froth and water-recycling systems. All water flotation machines share the basic essential principle of using water to separate items with a lower effective specific gravity (charred plant remains, the ‘light fraction or residue’) from the nonbuoyant material or ‘heavy fraction or residue’. Separation of the material into size classes may occur at the flotation stage, or later in the laboratory. In extremely arid sites, such as dry caves (where noncharred material may also survive), botanical remains may be recovered simply with fine sieving. In waterlogged sites, chemical flotation, wherein the specific gravity of the liquid used is increased, may be necessary to properly separate the plant component from the other materials in the deposit matrix. Seeds (including seed-like structures such as nuts, endocarps, or caryopses) and carbonized wood are the most common materials found in flotation samples, but other botanical material, including ‘parenchyma’ (root, tuber, or fruit storage tissue), stems, leaves, inflorescence ‘chaff’, fungal structures, fruit rinds, or attachment structures may also be preserved. Laboratory identification of macrobotanical material is generally performed by trained analysts who work with identification keys and comparative reference material. The charring process distorts some aspects of seed, wood, and parenchymous tissue anatomy, but much often remains, allowing genus- and often species-level identification, particularly of seeds. The distortion produced by charring may also yield contextual information, as tissues will distort differentially under particular firing conditions (open fire, reduced

atmosphere, or dependent on the moisture content of the tissue when it was exposed to fire). Most routine work is conducted using stereoscopic binocular dissecting microscopes, although the increased availability of SEM has permitted greater identification of amorphous tissues and more precise examination of morphological features, such as seed testa thickness and other indicators of domestication or other taxonomic significance. A macrobotanial study of a long-term domestication process of the pseudo-cereal Chenopodium quinoa is illustrated from the southcentral highlands of Bolivia (Figure 1). After first identifying grains from flotation samples from Chiripa, Bolivia, Bruno then completed an SEM study of the testa thicknesses of these seeds. In that study, she found that testa thickness varied from the thick wild seeds to the thin domesticated one from the beginning of agriculture up to today, although the domesticates did increase through time. Quantification of plant remains is less codified in comparison with standard zooarchaeological bone quantifications (such as minimum number of individuals (MNI), number of identified specimens (NISP), useable meat, or biomass calculations), in part because the materials recovered are generally more fragmentary, diverse, and represent not only food taxa, but also commensal and weedy taxa, fuels such as wood or dung, tools, architectural debris, and many other nondietary components. Basic density calculations, normalizing plant part counts, or weights to volume of soil are considered standard, as are percentage presence, diversity, and richness measures of flotation samples. Other ratios or analytic transformations are dependent on the research questions of the investigation. For dietary or other food-related interpretation, comparisons of edible portions to processing waste or fuel (such as maize kernels to cobs, grain to chaff, or nutshell to wood) have been used. Attempts to estimate proportional caloric dietary contributions from macrobotanical remains are fraught with difficulty, although some attempts have been made to statistically rank data from flotation samples in an attempt to understand dietary patterns. Applying more multivariate covariance analyses, especially by usage or environmental zone is increasingly opening up the data. Much work, particularly in cultural resource management contexts (see Cultural Resource Management), continues to be published simply as basic appendixes of identified material, although more research is reaching the general archaeological literature, especially with the increasing interest in foodways. Data presentation ranges from simple presence or absence to elaborate graphs and three-dimensional relationships. The most effective macrobotanical results come from research

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Figure 1 Scanning electron micrographs of experimentally charred modern Chenopodium, showing intact testa and pericarp morphology: a, C. quinoa: the thin testa is intact, and a patch of the pericarp remains in the center; b, C. quinoa var melanospermum: the thick testa is split, and some pericarp remains; c, C. pallidicaule: the testa is intact, and pericarp remains on the margins; d, C. ambrosioides: the testa is intact, and some of the pericarp remains at the bottom of the image. (Reproduced from Bruno M (2006) A morphological approach to documenting the domestication of Chenopodium in the Andes. In: Zeder M, Bradley D, Emshweler E, and Smith BD (eds.) Documenting Domestication, New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, pp. 32–45. Berkeley: University of California Press, with permission.)

that thoroughly collected the plant matter, systematically identified the material, and kept the statistical manipulation to a minimum, in line with the intensity of collection. A clear illustration of this is in Johannessen’s research where she demonstrates the long domestication and propagation of indigenous local seeds throughout the Midwestern US, long before maize entered the region, illustrated in Figure 2. Beginning in the late 1970s, a suite of new so-called ‘microremains’ began to emerge more prominently as part of the archaeobotanical toolkit. Microremains are generally described as plant remains too small to be seen without microscopy, and are usually chemically extracted from soils and sediments. Palynology (see Pollen Analysis) has had a long history of indirect application for archaeologists, tracking ecological

and climate change over long periods of time through off-site coring studies, yet renewed attention was paid to the potential of on-site pollen for archaeological interpretation. Phytoliths, plant opal silica particles, were first described as a potential archaeological tool by Rovner in 1971, and the first major interpretive study was by Pearsall in 1979 where she tracked the entry of maize into Ecuador. Archaeological palynology rests on the interpretation of pollen, the male gametophyte of flowering plants, as well as spores from nonflowering plants and fungi, which have a similar chemical structure. Palynology as a palaeoecological reconstructive technique has been well known since the late nineteenth century, using core samples from highly stratified natural deposits such as varves and other lake sediments. Taxonomic identification of pollen is quite

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Figure 2 a, Smoothed data for percentage of starchy seeds and percentage of upland wood. b, Smoothed data for nut:wood ratio. c, Smoothed data for percentage of features with maize. (Reproduced from Hastorf CA and Popper VS (1988) Current Paleoethnobotany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, with permission.)

secure, often possible to genus or other subfamily levels, although wind-pollinated (anemophilous) species will tend to be overrepresented simply because they produce many more times the amount of pollen than animal- or insect-pollinated species. This discrepancy in production may be valuable to archaeologists, as unusual amounts of nonanemophilous pollen grains may indicate deliberate use of plant taxa. Its success as an on-site tool in archaeological sediments is highly variable; because pollen is omnipresent in

the air, pollen samples are more susceptible to contamination than macrobotanical or phytolith samples. Moreover, the conditions necessary for pollen preservation and the amount of contamination via translocation through soil profiles on open-air sites is the subject of some concern and unresolved questions. Pollen is chemically extracted from soils and sediments, generally using very small initial volumes of matrix, on the order of a few cubic centimeters. There is some debate over whether the procedures perfected

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for lake sediments and core samples should be used unmodified on samples from archaeological contexts. Generally, though, strong reagents such as hydrofluoric acid are used to dissolve the mineral fraction, leaving only the organic material, including the polymer sporopollenin, which comprises the exine, or outer structure of fossil pollen grains. Additional organic material such as charcoal particles or cellulose may also be preserved in the pollen extraction procedure; these may provide supplementary contextual information to the analyst. Pollen is identified using a combination of published keys, atlases, and comparative collections; pollen morphology and taxonomy is well described and understood due to its long history of application. Pollen is generally quantified by a standardized count of several hundred identifiable pollen grains. Usually a precise amount of an exotic ‘tracer’ pollen grain or spore is also added to the pollen sample during the extraction procedure, which provides a way to quantify pollen abundance in a sample. Counts of the exotic type are tallied along with the original grains present in the sample. The ratio of archaeological pollen grains to tracer grains counted during the analysis provides an estimation of the density of pollen preserved in the original sample. Traditionally, pollen frequency diagrams have been the primary means of presenting and interpreting pollen data; arranged stratigraphically, these charts present the fluctuating relative levels of pollen types through time. These depictions represent a sequence through time. Phytoliths are rapidly becoming an interpretive boon to archaeological interpretation as they become better understood in terms of formation process, recovery, and interpretive capacity (see Phytolith Analysis). Phytoliths are plant cells or intercellular voids in plant tissue that have accumulated silica from groundwater and solidified. They retain distinct shapes and are taxonomically identifiable to varying levels of specificity. Phytoliths are generally pursued on sites where macrobotanical recovery is sparse, because silica is much less susceptible to destruction than fragile charred plant tissue. Nonetheless, like pollen, they are a complementary rather than substitute data set. Phytolith production is primarily genetically controlled, and many plant families produce either no phytoliths at all, or amorphous or redundant phytolith types that are not taxonomically distinct. Phytolith production will also vary according to various edaphic, environmental, and climatic conditions, where increased evapotranspiration rates may increase silica deposition in tissues. In general, monocotyledonous species, particularly the grasses (Poaceae family), tend to be heavy silica accumulators

and are overrepresented in comparison to dicotyledonous species in phytolith assemblages. Phytoliths can be recovered from both artifacts such as stone tools and pottery as well as bulk soil samples. Extraction laboratory processes are variable by necessity, as some soils react poorly with individual chemicals used in processing. Generally, though, removal from soil consists of physical or chemical separation of phytoliths from the surrounding soil matrix by some combination of disaggregation, removal of organic materials through combustion or acid digestion, and usually a chemical flotation separating the phytoliths from mineral components of the sediment sample. Phytoliths are generally quantified using transmitted light microscopy at magnifications of 100–1000. Phytoliths fall in the range of 5–500 mm (0.005–0.05 mm), and their translucent, three-dimensional structure requires viewing in multiple orientations for secure identification. SEM is also a productive tool in comparative phytolith studies, but cumbersome for general counting purposes. The analytical classification of phytoliths has been hampered until recently by the lack of a standardized descriptive terminology. In 2005, the first International Code of Phytolith Nomenclature (ICPN) was published, providing a common language for description of phytolith forms, permitting easier comparison between regions and analysts. Some identification keys and regional publications exist, and specific taxa such as domesticates are well described. However, most analysts must develop a regional comparative collection for their study area. Several researchers have made image and other descriptive databases of comparative collections available online. Phytolith quantification procedures were largely borrowed from palynological techniques. Standardized counts (i.e., counting a target number of known forms) are the most common quantification, although other methods may be employed. Because phytoliths do not have the same type of specific taxonomic affiliation of pollen, multivariate statistical techniques such as principal components, factor analysis, or correspondence analysis are often used in lieu of the traditional pollen frequency diagram when interpreting multiple phytolith samples, although such diagrams may be useful when phytoliths are recovered from soil cores or other types of column samples. Phytoliths have also been used as material for generating accelerator mass spectroscopy radiocarbon dates, via carbon sometimes occluded in phytoliths. Starch grains have been the subject of much recent research. They are nutrient storage structures that form in all parts of plants, but are particularly numerous and large in edible roots and tubers, the staples of numerous diets and economies.

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Like pollen, they are composed of organic polymers that are durable in many buried environments. Starch grain analysis has great potential to address a traditional ‘blind spot’ in archaeobotancial analysis, namely horticultural root and tuber crops, which preserve poorly as macroremains and are common staples in tropical and subtropical regions where general preservation conditions are also poor. Extraction procedures and taxonomies are at the earliest stages of development, although research is progressing quickly. Starch grains are classified by size, shape, surface decoration, and the shape of the ‘extinction cross’ produced by the crystalline structure of the grains when viewed in cross-polarized light. However, it is difficult to interpret starch grains recovered from generalized contexts such as soil samples, as too little is known about life-cycle production across a range of plant types. Starch grain analysis has proved most fruitful in specific contexts such as residue studies of food preparation artifacts, where a limited number of possible starchy plants may be distinguished from one another. Numerous other high-powered techniques in archaeology are shedding light on archaeobotanical issues such as stable isotopes, organic residues, and lipid analysis, providing further evidence of plant use in the past by humans. These techniques used together increase our potential to visualize past use of plants.

See also: Archaeology Laboratory, Overview; Blood Residue Analysis; Bone Tool Analysis; Cultural Resource Management; DNA: Ancient; Ecofacts, Overview; Insect Analysis; Interdisciplinary Research; Invertebrate Analysis; Macroremains Analysis; Organic Residue Analysis; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Preservation, Modes of; Starch Grain Analysis; Taphonomy; Vertebrate Analysis.

Further Reading Bruno M (2006) A morphological approach to documenting the domestication of Chenopodium in the Andes. In: Zeder M, Bradley D, Emshweler E, and Smith BD (eds.) Documenting Domestication, New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, pp. 32–45. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ford RI (1994) The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany, 2nd edn. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Hastorf CA and Popper VS (1988) Current Paleoethnobotany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hather JG (ed.) (1994) Tropical Archaeobotany: Applications and New Developments. London: Routledge. Miller N and Gleason KL (eds.) (1994) The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pearsall D (2000) Paleoeothnobotany, A Handbook of Procedures, 2nd edn. New York: Academic Press. Piperno D (1988) Phytolith Analysis: An Archaeological and Geological Perspective. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Renfrew JM (1973) Palaeoethnobotany. London: Metheun & Co.

PALEOPATHOLOGY Christopher J Knu¨sel with Alan R Ogden, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary acute disease A disease or condition, the onset of which is sudden, and that can lead rapidly to death, oftentimes before the bone has occasion to react. chronic disease A disease or condition that is slowly acting over a considerable period of time. These are the types that most often affect the skeleton. disease A lack of well-being (e.g., an infectious disease such as smallpox, alcoholism). disorder An abnormal functioning of part of an organism (e.g., a chromosomal disorder, such as Klinefelter’s syndrome, an XXY male). dysplasia (dysplastic, adj.) The malformation of bone. enthesis A tendinous or ligamentous attachment that is a dynamic entity, having its own blood and nerve supply. There are

two types based on their structure and location: fibrous, those that attach muscles or ligaments to the metaphyses or diaphyses of bones in adults and to the periosteum in subadults, and fibrocartilaginous, that are found at apophyses and epiphyses of the long and short bones, and that occur between joints of the vertebral column. These attach to the periosteum that surrounds bone via compact fibrous connective tissue. enthesophyte An ossified projection of bone deriving from a tendon or ligament that relates to the increased number of capillaries and consequent change in blood flow that stimulates osteoblasts to lay down a localized deposit of bone that results in an hypertophied insertion site. etiology The cause of disease. granuloma (granulomatous, adj.) Newly formed tissue caused by chronic inflammation and made of granulations, which are small masses of formative cells containing loops of newly formed blood vessels that emerge over any lesion as the first step in the healing process. Granulomata or granulomas occur in treponemal disease, tuberculosis, and in dental disease, among others, that are characterized by chronic inflammation. hyperplasia (hyperplastic, adj.) An abnormal increase in the number of cells in a tissue.

1796 PALEOPATHOLOGY hypoplasia (hypoplastic adj.) An abnormal decrease in the number of cells in a tissue. joints The articulations between bones are divided into three classes: synarthroses or immovable, amphiarthroses or slightly movable, and diarthroses or freely movable joints. The diarthrodial joints are covered by a layer of hyaline cartilage, which is composed of 65–80% water, fibrous protein (collagen), proteoglycans (macromolecules found throughout the body consisting of a protein core and at least one and, more often, tens or hundreds of carbohydrate chains), and chondrocytes (cells that produce cartilage), measures between 1 and 5 mm thick. It covers articular surfaces and has no blood or nervous supply and is not connected to the lymphatic system. The cartilage, then, obtains its nutrients directly from the synovial fluid (a lubricant produced by the synovial membrane, which does have a substantial blood supply and is innervated), which surrounds the joint and is supported by capsular ligaments. kyphosis (kyphotic, adj.) An anteroposterior deviation of the spine and vertebral column. lesion (lesional, adj.) A term used originally to describe an injury (i.e., insult) to a tissue, but now used generally to describe all disease changes (morbid conditions) to organs and tissues. Lesions may have sharp or rounded margins that relate to the duration of the lesion-forming process. Sharp margins or borders indicate an aggressive or recent occurrence, while rounded margins suggest a more chronic or lengthier period since occurrence. Inactive or well-remodeled lesions are healed, while active new bone formation suggests an active inflammation and infection at the time of death. neuropathy A disorder or disease affecting the nervous system. osteophyte (osteophytic, adj.) A projection of ossified bone (spicule), normally used in a general way and especially for describing spondylosis deformans (osteoarthropathies of the vertebral column). pathogen A disease-causing organism. passive hyperemia (also venous hyperemia, emia, variant of h(emia) = blood) Decrease in blood flow resulting from blockage or obstruction in the flow of blood from a body part (which results in bone deposition), the opposite of active hyperemia, which results from the increase in organ blood flow that is associated with increased metabolic activity of an organ or tissue (and which tends to be associated with bone resorption). Exercise or functional hyperemia results from the recruitment of muscles in movement. sclerosis (sclerotic, adj.) A radiological term used to describe increased density of bone, seen as white (increased radiodensity) on a radiograph. prevalence The number of affected individuals out of the total observed, a ratio (used in palaeopathological studies). woven or fiber bone A disorganized, quickly formed, latticelike bone that is similar to that found in infants and is associated with insult to the bone tissue.

Palaeopathology: Definition and Disciplinary Place Literally, palaeopathology refers to the study of suffering in the past. Today, it is best defined as the study of the differential diagnosis of disease and disorder in past populations. It is allied to palaeodemography, the study of the dynamics of population structure of past human groups (age-at-death, longevity, sex-linked mortality, etc.), and palaeoepidemiology,

the study of the occurrence and spread of disease in past communities. These disciplines provide a complement to historical and clinical understandings of disease and disorder for periods and peoples without written records and for individuals and populations that these sources do not document. In more recent historical periods, palaeopathological studies act as a complement to historical epidemiological studies of disease and disorder, especially of those groups or peoples that are less likely to be recorded in historical documents or in instances when diagnostic criteria for disease, did not exist or were not fully appreciated. Individuals or selected specimens of diseased individuals with known case histories are especially useful in establishing diagnostic criteria, especially for individuals and populations prior to the advent of modern antibiotics. Equally, palaeopathological study of diseased remains can help to understand modern disease manifestations (see discussion on leprosy and Paget’s disease). When placed in their archaeological context, palaeopathological studies also have the potential to highlight the social, economic, and cultural consequences for past populations and individuals.

Bone and Disease Only a proportion of diseases affects bone, often less than 5%, so the diseases that one studies in bones are only a fraction of those that affect the human body. When diseases do affect bone, they often do so in their latter stages when disease becomes chronic. Acute conditions, on the other hand, often cause death before the disease affects bone; these diseases cannot be studied by way of lesions in human remains, except in instances of unusual preservation of soft tissue and by palaeodemographic analysis. Skewed palaeodemographic profiles toward a high frequency of juveniles and young adults may reveal the passage of a contagion, even in the absence of skeletal lesions (Figure 1). Bone lesions associated with disease result from metabolic insult to bone remodeling. Healthy, normal bone possesses a fine balance between modeling (or growth) and remodeling (cellular turnover or development) that is mediated by osteoclasts, specialized bone cells that resorb (i.e., remove) bone, and osteoblasts, those cells that are responsible for laying down new bone. Because this balance – between removing old or damaged bone and replacing it with new bone – is disturbed by disease pathogens, bone response to disease tends to be very similar for a wide range of conditions. Inflammation of the periosteum, the neural and vascular supplying membrane around bone, is a common response to infection. Under conditions of

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1797 Comparison of the Royal Mint and Beckett Street AD 1849 mortality profiles Royal Mint Beckett Street

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Figure 1 Plague, as identified at the Royal Mint Site, London, UK (blue), strikes indiscriminately, affecting young adults disproportionately, more often those living in urban centers in the past, where contagions spread more readily. In contrast, the mortality profile of a cholera cemetery (red) based on archive documents from mid-nineteenth-century Beckett Street, Leeds, UK, demonstrates that this water-borne infectious disease disproportionately affects the very young and the very old. Both are acute diseases that leave no bone lesions. From Margerison, BJ (1997) A Comparison of the Palaeodemography of Catastrophic and Attritional Cemeteries. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Bradford.

and recording of lesion type and distribution is fundamental to publication. Case studies – publications based on a single or small group of individuals – are still of value, especially for rare or very well-preserved examples. In the last 30 years or so, researchers have adopted a population approach in order to compare human groups through time and across geographic space. This interest has been given increased attention through genotyping of disease pathogens permitted by modern genetic studies – mainly of infectious diseases such as plague (Yersinia pestis), human and bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. bovis, respectively), and leprosy (M. leprae). These studies permit researchers to identify mutations and to draw phylogenetic trees (ancestor–descendant relationships) based on the genetic endowment of modern pathogens, especially among the Mycobacteria, which preserve extremely well in archaeological human remains. Information derived from archaeological remains is useful in genetic studies of modern disease pathogens in order to corroborate suspected mutation events and their timing in the past.

The Osteological Paradox active hyperemia (decreased arterial blood flow with high oxygen tension), bone is resorbed, while passive hyperemia (increased venous blood flow under moderate oxygen tension) produces bone formation. Thus, some diseases result in bone loss, others in increased bone deposition, and still others demonstrate a mixed response of bone deposition and bone resorption. Although bone response is not specific to particular disease pathogens, the patterning of lesions in the skeleton often is. Not only the type of bone response but also the patterning of lesions is thus fundamentally important to differentiating among diseases.

Historical Perspective Early palaeopathological studies tended to focus solely on the diagnosis of cases of particular conditions as a means to extend the natural histories of them – to establish their temporal and geographic origins and spread. Often these diagnoses were made based on clinical knowledge (often by medically qualified individuals) but without a thorough description of the lesions or their full patterning in the skeleton. These diagnoses, then, tended to rest on the authority of the researcher. Today, especially given the varied backgrounds and experience of those undertaking skeletal analysis, a more descriptive approach is recommended, and accurate description

Since perhaps the Medieval period, there has been the notion that death is the great leveller – all are equal in death. This is decidedly not the case. Skeletal analysis reveals that the inequalities of life leave their traces in the human skeleton, but because disease that affects the skeleton is in its chronic form, the epidemiological interpretation of these lesions is not as straightforward as equating lesions with ill health and imminent death. Individuals lacking lesions succumbed to illness due to low immune resistance, before the disease could elicit bone reactions. Although lacking lesions, these individuals were, in fact, less healthy. Those displaying inactive or healed lesions, then, were the ones whose resistance to disease was high (and whose frailty was low) and, as a consequence, survived the onset of disease. This perspective has been termed the ‘osteological paradox’, one that has had a major impact on the way that disease and health are interpreted from the study of human remains. The full significance of the paradox, however, cannot be fully exploited without considering that the morbid conditions of the past had deleterious social and personal consequences for those afflicted. One must also consider individual access to remedial and palliative care and cures that have been available since deep antiquity. As in today’s society, access to care is likely the key factor in the past, and this access was heavily conditioned by the social standing of the afflicted individual. Whatever the case, it is clear that one

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cannot simply study the physiology of peoples without due consideration of their cultural, social, economic, and political context. There are two means by which to reconstruct social standing or status from the archaeological record. A method traditionally employed by archaeologists equates the richness of grave goods, funerary architecture, and placement of the grave with respect to others with the social position of the individual during life. An alternative method relies on an osteological approach based on measurement of stature, body proportions (i.e., growth and development), and other biological indicators, such as nutrition, longevity, and health status that have been linked to social standing in living groups. A biocultural approach employs both of these approaches as complements (see Bioarchaeology; Osteological Methods).

Nonspecific Indicators of Disease and Population Stress Any number of bacteria can produce inflammation due to infection, which normally starts in the soft tissues of the body and, only upon becoming chronic, produce bony reactions. These generalized reactions that lack the appearance and patterning of specific bone disease, as well as those that cannot be determined due to inadequate preservation of the skeleton, are termed ‘nonspecific’ disease. The most commonly occurring type of bone reaction is due to the infiltration of skin bacteria, most commonly by Staphylococcus aureus, into an open wound that causes inflammation and new bone formation (Figure 2). If the bacteria gain entry to the medullary canal, osteomyelitis results with its distinctive sheath of bone formation called an involucrum, its pus-draining sinuses called cloacae (singular cloaca), and a sequestrum, necrotic or dead bone (Figure 3). Due to the skin’s role as a protective barrier, these bacteria do not normally pose a health threat. In individuals who suffer from a compromised immune system, through disease or injury, these bacteria enter the bloodstream and can cause infection some distance from the point of entry. Due to their nondiagnostic pattern, the prevalence of these nonspecific bone reactions is used to indicate that individuals and populations had experienced ‘stress’ that led to infection. Stress may result from a variety of causes, physical as well as mental, that act to reduce the immune response such that an individual is at a heightened risk of ill health. Because these conditions have multiple etiologies, they are often used as a population-level indicator of stress. Stress also influences the development of skeletal structures: lines of arrested growth or Harris’ lines in long bones, enamel hypoplastic defects in teeth

Figure 2 This section of tibia shows striated woven or fiber bone from a Medieval Blackfriars house, Gloucester. Photograph courtesy of Prof. Donald J. Ortner, Smithsonian Institution, from the collections of the Biological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

(Figure 4), subperiosteal infection (new bone formation on the cortical surface of bones indicative of inflammation of the periosteum) (Figure 2), porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia (indicators associated with iron deficiency) (Figure 5), and thinning of cortical bone in long bones (an indicator of malnutrition). These are usually recorded in a presence or absence manner and prevalence rates for a given population calculated on the number of bones observed and affected (to indicate the state of skeletal preservation of the skeletal material). Teeth, being the most highly mineralized body structures, are a unique and, indeed, are sometimes the only source of information relating to past individuals and the societies to which they belonged. Their health is a good indicator of individual and population health. Unlike bone, in life, teeth interact directly with the environment (chewing, wear, and trauma) and, after death, are highly resistant to most taphonomic processes. The well-preserved lesions produced by diseases of teeth and jaws can also tell us much about diet, which is strongly related to culture and economic and social status. Unlike bone, teeth do not undergo remodeling or repair in life, so they retain deposits laid

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Figure 5 The resorptive changes of diploic hyperplasia of cribra orbitalia in the orbits of an individual from Late Anglo-Saxon, Thetford, Norfolk, UK. Note that these are resorptive (i.e., loss of bone) lesions, unlike those in Figure 22. Photograph courtesy of the Calvin Wells Collection, Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 3 Osteomyelitis, chronic bone infection, secondary to a fracture of the femur in a male from Medieval Chichester, West Sussex, UK. The bony sheath of reactive new bone, the involucrum, can be seen to envelop the distal end of the bone. A large, pus-draining sinus, a cloaca, can be seen in the popliteal space. A sequestrum can be seen in the cloaca, which, in this case, has been retained through a re-established blood supply and subsequent fusion to the margin of the cloaca. Photograph courtesy of Prof. Donald J. Ortner, Smithsonian Institution, from the collections of the Biological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford. Figure 6 Lower left mandible of an adult from Medieval Hereford, showing the decayed, dead, and worn roots of a molar that developed a chronic abscess. Note, too, the flat wear of the remaining molar and the tipped and impacted wisdom tooth behind it.

Figure 4 Teeth from an 8-year-old from Medieval Hereford, showing depressed bands of poorly formed (hypoplastic) enamel, revealing that this individual had been very unwell or severely malnourished at 3–4 years of age when these regions of the teeth were developing. Photograph courtesy of Alan R. Ogden from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

down in layers during childhood and adolescence. Teeth, then, retain permanent indications of diseases linked to diet, such as caries, abscesses, and tooth loss (Figure 6), as well as to stressful episodes, especially in the young when teeth are developing. A group of relative indicators complements these indicators of health, including growth studies of subadults based on dental development and limb length, adult attained stature, sexual dimorphism (less sexually dimorphic populations tend to be less healthy), and asymmetries of bilateral structures due to development instability (i.e., fluctuating asymmetry) in the dentition and skeleton of adults and subadults. In general, males appear to be more sensitive to growth-disrupting stress than females (Figure 7). Life

1800 PALEOPATHOLOGY 54

Long limbs

Long limbs

Low weight

High weight

Relative lower limb length

52

50

48

Sex

46 Short limbs

Short limbs

Low weight

High weight

44 16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

m f

34

Body mass index Figure 7 The relationship between body mass and relative lower limb length among 1351 males (green) and females (red) of populations dating from the Roman to Medieval periods. Individuals of a lower social status would tend toward the lower-left quadrant (short limbed and light weight, indicating growth stunting), and those of a higher social status would tend toward the upper-right quadrant of the graph (long limbs and heavier, indicating better growth circumstances). Note the diffuse scatter of males, who are more susceptible to environmental insult, compared to the females, who are much less scattered. Schweich M (2005) Diachronic Effects of Bio-Cultural Factors on Stature and Body Proportions in British Archaeological Populations. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Bradford.

expectancy from birth also features as a relative source of information on population health, but such studies are hampered by difficulties in precisely aging adults after the attainment of physiological maturity.

Specific Infectious Disease Perhaps the most important finding so far realized from the study of palaeopathological conditions concerns the effect the environment – natural and humanly created – has on human health. Contrary to the perceived notion that people made progress toward civilization because of the benefits of a settled, village or urban, lifestyle, palaeopathological studies have demonstrated that this process exposes people to a host of diseases that are not present in their hunter-gatherer forebears. It is with the origin of agriculture and with the advent of more highly agglomerated populations in villages and urban centers that the first signs of density-dependent diseases – crowd diseases – are found. They spread by airborne infection from exhaled phlegm or sputum, other bodily excreta, or contaminated food or goods and not only include some of the biggest killers in history, such as cholera (Figure 1), influenza, and plague (Figure 1), which leave no macroscopically discernible bone lesions, but also those that do leave osseous manifestations, including, importantly, the mycobacterial diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, a major killer in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, remains a public health concern worldwide today. Tuberculosis is considered a disease of poverty because it thrives in situations of social deprivation. The tuberculous bacterium has many forms, including those that affect humans (M. tuberculosis) and cattle (M. bovis), both of which influence human populations, the former through human-to-human pulmonary transmission and the latter from this form of transmission and also from the ingestion of contaminated milk or meat that produces a gastrointestinal form of the disease. Both forms may affect the skeleton, producing characteristic lesions in the form of vertebral body collapse and kyphosis (Figure 8), new bone deposition on the visceral surface of ribs (Figure 9), and destruction of joints in the body, most often those of the lower limb. The gastrointestinal form of the disease is most often diagnosed from pelvic lesions, of the sacrum (Figure 10) and ossa coxae. Palaeopathological study has had perhaps its greatest impact on elucidating leprosy (or Hansen’s disease), caused by M. leprae, a close relative of tuberculosis. Based on its modern distribution in the tropics and subtropics, where it is associated with poverty, one would not have predicted that the disease was once prevalent in Northern Europe, where its presence has been confirmed by human remains

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1801

Figure 10 Space-occupying lesion of the sacrum in a suspected case of gastrointestinal tuberculosis from Medieval Fishergate, York, UK. Photograph of the author, courtesy of York Archaeological Trust.

Figure 8 Vertebral kyphosis (anterior bending) due to collapse of the vertebral column from the destruction of vertebral bodies by M. tuberculosis from Medieval Wakefield. Photograph courtesy of Jean Brown from the collections of the UK Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 11 Sculpture of the parable of Lazarus from the Cistercian Abbaye de Cadouin, Dordogne Valley, France. The leper holds an identifying clapper and shows collapse of the bridge of the nose and a lepromatous nodule on the forehead (visible in the lower middle part of the photograph). Adapted from Manchester K and Knu¨sel CJ (1994) A Medieval sculpture of leprosy in the Cistercian Abbaye de Cadouin. Medical History 38(2): 204–206.

Figure 9 Visceral surface rib lesions from Anglo-Saxon Addingham, West Yorkshire, UK, visible as shiny bands indicative of respiratory infections, including tuberculosis. Photograph courtesy of Jean Brown from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

recovered in Denmark and Britain in large numbers, as well as elsewhere. Due to its biblical associations, the disease also contributed to a highly representative artistic depiction in the period (Figure 11) that demonstrates detailed familiarity with the facially disfiguring and symmetrical (i.e., affecting both limbs) lower limb infections that are complicated by motor and sensory neuropathy. Palaeopathological studies have clarified the unique characteristics of the disease including the rhinomaxillary syndrome that develops from direct infection with M. leprae (Figure 12), unique circumferential remodeling that leads to destruction of the phalanges (Figure 13), the latter as a consequence of motor and sensory neuropathy that exposes the feet and hands to ulceration and

1802 PALEOPATHOLOGY

were founded in large numbers in the Middle Ages by wealthy benefactors as a sign of Christian charity. Treponemal Disease

Figure 12 The rhinomaxillary syndrome of leprosy with characteristic rounding of the margins of the nasal aperture in a Medieval individual from Chichester, West Sussex, UK. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Alan R. Ogden from the collections of the Biological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 13 Circumferential remodeling (thinning) of the shafts of the phalanges and joint destruction associated with the neuropathy of leprosy from Medieval Chichester. Photograph courtesy of Prof. Donald J. Ortner, Smithsonian Institution, from the collections of the Biological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

infection. The disappearance of the disease in the Medieval period may not only be attributed to the rise of tuberculosis, which confers immunity from leprosy (but not vice versa as evidenced by tuberculosis claiming the lives of many sufferers of Hansen’s disease today), but may also be as a consequence of medieval segregation of sufferers in leprosara, which

The treponemal diseases consist of four closely related ailments caused by a spirochete (bacterium) of the genus Treponema. Controversy exists as to whether these are manifestations of one disease that changes its expression under differing environmental and social conditions (the unitarian hypothesis), or whether the four types are separate diseases that evolved from a now-lost common ancestor (the nonunitarian hypothesis). The most geographically circumscribed form, found in the American tropics, is pinta, a skin disease, which affects adolescents and young adults and is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. It has no osseous manifestations. The treponemal diseases, in a similar way to leprosy, expanded their geographic range during the Medieval period, affecting people throughout Europe, despite the fact that they are largely diseases of the tropics and subtropics today. Poor diet, inadequate and crowded living conditions, illicit sexual behavior, and the social and psychological disruptions of warfare may all have compromised or lowered the immunity of individuals to treponemal disease. All forms are recurrent and debilitating. The occurrence and spread of syphilis is bound up with the political turmoil of Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe and the ‘Age of Discovery’, when its manifestations took their toll on the warring armies and populations of the Italian city-states and European monarchies. As a consequence, the disease came to be known by a series of ethnic labels (the French pox or Morbus Gallicus, the Spanish plague or Lues Hispanicus). Controversy has since surrounded the origins of the disease, whether it was a disease of the New World brought to Europe by the crews of exploring sailing vessels, or rather it is an older disease that underwent epidemiological change at this time. Syphilis, the venereal form of the disease, became a highly visible public health concern in Europe, as much as a consequence of the hushed atmosphere that surrounds sexual activities and their association with illicit deviancy as due to its debilitating effects. Recent studies demonstrate that a number of named aristocrats, both male and female, suffered from the venereal form, as did those of less lofty social origins. Yaws, a disease of the tropics today, and bejel (also called nonvenereal or endemic syphilis or treponarid), a disease of the arid regions of Southwest Asia and the Balkans, are nonvenereal forms of the disease that affect infants and young children and are transmitted by contact with early and open spirochete-containing lesions. Their physical manifestations are almost

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1803 Table 1 A chart showing the parts of the skeleton most often afflicted in a series of infectious diseases Skeletal element

Disease Leprosy

Neurocranium Viscerocranium Mandible Dentition Clavicle Scapula Humerus Radius Ulna Carpals Metacarpals Manual phalanges Cervical vertebrae Thoracic vertebrae Ribs Sternum Lumbar vertebrae Sacrum Os coxae Femur Tibia Fibula Tarsals Metatarsals Pedal phalanges

Tuberculosis

Bejel

Yaws

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx

xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Syphilis xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx xxx

Sources: Steinbock, R T (1976) Paleopathological Diagnosis and Interpretation. Springerfield, IL; Thomas, CC, Aufderheide, AC and Rodriquez-Martin C (1998) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Note that yaws may affect the neurocranium in some cases and may have done so with greater frequency in the past.

identical and are also similar to those produced in venereal syphilis (Table 1). All produce cutaneous and mucosal rashes that, when transmitted to bone (in less than 1–5% of cases), elicit inflammatory periosteal new bone formation and destructive granulomatous lesions called gummas. The nasopalatal region and tibiae (producing characteristic ‘sabershin’ deformities) are more often predilected in yaws and bejel, whereas, neurocranial involvement, referred to as caries sicca, is more severe and more common in venereal syphilis, although it is found in a small percentage of yaws and bejel sufferers. Due to the similarity in bone involvement, it is very hard to distinguish the venereal form from the nonvenereal forms. Venereal syphilis is the only one of the group that produces neurological manifestations (tabes dorsalis), although these do not produce diagnostic bone lesions. Importantly, however, syphilis is also the only one of the treponemal diseases that can be transmitted transplacentally, producing characteristic dental dysplasias in the form of Hutchinson’s incisors and mulberry (i.e., multi-cusped) molars. These dental lesions of congenital syphilis, then, are most sought after by palaeopathologists interested in the origin and spread of the venereal form.

Diseases of Affluence and Increased Longevity Some conditions and diseases are related to overall advantageous socioeconomic status, prolonged longevity, and lifestyle/dietary factors. Both gout and DISH (diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, hyperostotic or Forestier’s disease) are found in older individuals, normally males. The symmetrical (i.e., occurring in bilateral structures) erosive lesions of gout are caused by the deposition of urate crystals within and around joints, with the feet and frequently the first metatarsophalangeal joint often being affected (Figure 14). Its etiology is incompletely understood, but it appears to be associated with a fatty diet, rich in protein, and high alcohol intake, which in the past involved lead in the distillation process. Imbibed lead accumulated in the kidneys, causing renal failure, and the eventual accumulation of high levels of uric acid led to the formation of urate crystals. There may also be an hereditary component. The etiology of DISH is unknown, although its occurrence in the remains of monastic populations and individuals buried in propitious locations in Medieval churches and churchyards would seem to

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Figure 14 The erosive lesions of gout from a Carmelite friary, Medieval Lincoln, UK. These would have filled with urate crystals during life. Courtesy of the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

suggest a dietary and/or lifestyle link. Overweight and adult onset diabetes mellitus accompanies DISH in some modern sufferers. Its skeletal manifestations are striking in advanced cases, with ossifications of tendinous and ligamentous entheses (producing enthesophytes) and ossification of the anterior longitudinal ligament on the right anterolateral side of the vertebral bodies (Figure 15) as well as at attachments for ligaments and muscles (i.e., extravertebral entheses). The left side of the vertebral column is thought to be spared due to the pulsation of the descending aorta with the passive hyperemia of the inferior vena cava contributing to bone formation on the right. Both gout and DISH are age-related conditions – that is, their occurrence increases with age. Thus, their prevalence, rather than indicating solely population ill health, also relates to increased age-atdeath and a rich diet. These conditions appear to correlate with higher social status, among them cloistered ecclesiastics, aristocrats, and gentry in the past. Osteoarthritis, an age-related degenerative joint condition, is perhaps one of the more perplexing conditions. Long linked to the physical behavior of individuals in the course of their daily activities, this association has been difficult to demonstrate from osteological studies, in part, perhaps, because those individuals who develop the condition from activity at a more youthful age retain the condition into old age when population prevalence rates increase as a whole. The relationship to activity has also been clouded by clinical evidence that some elite athletes, even when remaining highly active in their elderly years, do not have a higher prevalence of the disorder. A higher number of women than men are affected. It seems from recent studies that the predisposing factor

Figure 15 The ‘flowing candle-wax’ fusion of the anterior longitudinal ligament on the right anterolateral aspect of the vertebrae in DISH from Roman Droitwich, Worchestershire, UK. Photograph courtesy of Jean Brown from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 16 Eburnation and porosity at the articulation of the patella with the femoral condyle when the lower limb is extended in a Medieval individual from Fishergate, York, UK. Photograph by the author, courtesy of York Archaeological Trust.

may be postural and weight related with consequent abnormal loading of the body’s joints, producing subchondral (i.e., in bone beneath the cartilage) micro-fracture, joint instability, and ossification of surrounding support structures. In the diarthrodial joints of the body, osteoarthritis is diagnosed on the presence of eburnation of parts of the articular surface and porosity that relate to the breakdown of cartilage (Figure 16). Joint space narrowing seen in clinical

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1805

cases is commensurate with joint surface contour change in bone specimens. Some researchers include para-articular (i.e., those that surround a joint) osteophytes as part of their diagnostic criteria, while others see para-articular osteophytosis as a separate condition and thus score it separately. The latter may be a response of soft tissue support structures to joint instability. Degeneration of the vertebral column, because it consists of fibrous joints (these cannot develop eburnation because they lack a synovium), is called ‘spondylosis deformans’.

Congenital Conditions Bone disorders arising from congenital conditions, those present at birth or that develop in the course of growth and development, can also be observed in skeletal remains. These may be due either to trauma during birth or to an underlying genetic predisposition, sometimes with a link to environmental pollutants and maternal health and nutrition. Palaeopathological studies of congenital conditions have tended to concentrate on those producing a developmental absence of an entire anatomical structure or a part thereof, examples being spina bifida occulta, an open vertebral canal, or mid-line defects such as cleft palate, or skeletal dysplasia, such as seen in club-foot deformity (talipes equinovarus) that develops in utero, or muscular torticollis (wryneck deformity) and hip dysplasia from damage to the nerves and/or musculature from traction injuries (i.e., pulling) during a difficult birth (Figure 17). Many congenital conditions are identified based on the changes they bring not only to morphology, but also to shape, size, and proportion. Among the most commonly identified in the archaeological record is achondroplasia or dwarfism, from a mutation of the FGFR3 gene on chromosome 4, which alters the relative proportions of the limbs with respect to the axial skeleton, producing short stature. Down’s syndrome or trisomy 21, linked to non-disjunction of chromosome 21 in the ovum inherited from the mother, has also been identified due to the effect that this disorder has on cranial shape and dimensions. Since many congenital syndromes influence cranial development, a similar approach using craniometrics and larger population samples will increase what is, at present, an under-explored area of enquiry. Since many of these conditions produce mental impairment (e.g., a lack of or reduction in normal function), their identification in the archaeological record permits insight into the social circumstances that contribute not only to their occurrence but also to the survival and perceptions of people with identified mental disability from their burial treatment. Because these types of

Figure 17 The cranial asymmetry and twisting of the cranial base seen in muscular torticollis or wryneck deformity in a Medieval adult female from St. Helen’s-on-the-Walls, York, from the collections of the Yorkshire Museum. The left mastoid process is atrophied, the occipital flattened on the right, with slight bulge on left, and the right parietal is larger than that of the left side. Courtesy of Rebecca Storm, Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford, from the collections of the Yorkshire Museum. From: Storm RA (forthcoming) Human Skeletal Asymmetry: A Biometrical Study of Fluctuating Asymmetry to Assess Health and Social Status of English Populations from the 7th to the 19th Centuries. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Bradford.

conditions often affect both appearance and behavior, they are ideal candidates for the application of the biocultural approach that would permit assessment of social reactions to the impaired.

Metabolic and Deficiency Disorders Rickets and scurvy are deficiency diseases that result from inadequate metabolization of vitamins D and C, respectively. Scurvy results from an absence of sufficient vitamin C in the diet; whereas, rickets results from insufficient exposure to sunlight as much as from a dietary deficiency. Indeed, sufficient metabolization of vitamin D can be achieved simply through exposure of the skin to the ultraviolet light in sunlight. Lack of exposure or diminished exposure due to air pollution in industrialized urban centers of the nineteenth century became synonymous with the occurrence of rickets. Vitamin D is responsible for the maintenance of blood calcium and phosphorus levels, which are essential for normal endochondral (i.e., bone that forms from a cartilaginous precursor) bone formation. Without vitamin D, cartilage is not converted to bone mineral (hydroxyapatite). Rapidly growing infants and younger children are most at risk of developing rickets when the forces produced in

1806 PALEOPATHOLOGY

normal posture and movement cause bending in the poorly mineralized bones. Although all bones of the body can be affected, the most common features of the disease are mediolateral bending in the tibiae and fibulae and anterior bowing of the femora. Although scurvy has become associated with long-distance sea voyages of the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, it is also found in industrialized nineteenth-century urban populations subsisting on an impoverished diet lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables or subsisting on only cooked meat (raw meat contains vitamin C, but it is destroyed in the process of cooking). Vitamin C is essential for collagen (the protein in bone responsible for its flexibility) and osteoid (bone matrix laid down by osteoblasts) production, as well as strong blood vessel walls. The major physical manifestation of vitamin C deficiency is hemorrhaging (bleeding). Because entheses are attached to the periosteum in infants and children, simple movements, even of the eye, and chewing causes bleeding which causes porous new bone formation (Figure 18). These formations are especially notable in the temporal fossae of the cranium, through which the temporalis muscles (the major muscles for mastication) pass, as well as in the jaws. Both of these diseases are found sporadically in earlier periods and their occurrence is often used as a population indicator of poor childhood health. Although palaeopathologists encounter a number of other metabolic diseases in the course of population analyses, one of the most enigmatic and relatively commonly encountered is Paget’s disease or osteitis deformans, especially in European populations, which was first and famously described by Sir James Paget, who monitored the progression of the disease in a group of patients at the end of the nineteenth century. Despite its relatively common occurrence and distinctive physical manifestations, its cause remains obscure. Among the suspected etiologies is genetic predisposition, because it occurs in members of the same family, and exposure to paramyxoviruses, such as measles or canine distemper. The disease is progressive, affecting males over the age of 40 most commonly. It is characterized by diffuse porous bone formation with thickened cortical bone predominately of the axial skeleton (Figure 19), although bones of the appendicular skeleton can also be affected. The potential of palaeopathological studies to shed light on modern diseases comes in the form of a group of elderly males buried within a church and chapel associated with the Augustinian monastic house at Runcorn in Cheshire, England. Based on these individuals’ placements within the nave and chapel of the monastic church, locations normally reserved for those of high social

Figure 18 Fiber bone deposition in the orbits of a child due to the haemorrhaging (bleeding) of scurvy. These are bone-depositing lesions, unlike those in cribra orbitalia in Figure 5. Photograph courtesy of Jean Brown from the collections of the Biological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 19 The thickening of the cranial vault of Paget’s disease in the cranium of NP 21 from Norton Priory, Cheshire. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Alan R. Ogden, Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

standing (often families) in Medieval society, and the recovery of a coffin adorned with the family crest of the Haltons, an aristocratic family local to the area, these remains suggest that a genetic predisposition may be implicated in the disease etiology. The distribution of the lesions in these individuals demonstrates the variability of bone lesions that is a common feature of bone disease (Figure 20).

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1807

Figure 20 The variable pattern of Paget’s disease in six males buried intramurally at Norton Priory, Cheshire. NP 21 is thought to be Roger, brother of the third Baron Halton. Courtesy of Dr. Alan R. Ogden, Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Neoplastic Disease The neoplastic diseases, tumor-forming conditions, carry the suffix ‘-oma’, meaning a swelling or tumor, which is accompanied by a prefix that indicates in what type of tissue or cell type the primary seat of the tumor originally developed. The benign forms are localized and usually not life threatening. The osteoma, a form of benign tumor, is the most frequently encountered form, often on the surface of the cranial vault, where they appear as hard bony swellings. Malignant neoplastic diseases (cancers) grow rapidly and spread from one tissue to another (i.e., they metastasize). They require enormous blood supplies in order to support their increased metabolic requirements. As a consequence, they are associated with rapidly expanding, bone-destroying lesions that elicit no bone-healing response. Neoplastic lesions, in most cases, are distinguished from other bone-destroying conditions by their lack of sclerosis (radiodensity) around their irregular lesion margins (Figure 21). The most common types of cancer are carcinomas that affect epithelial tissue (e.g., linings of organs) and sarcomas that occur in tissues originating in mesenchyme (e.g., connective tissues, including muscles and bone) with the former being more common than the latter. Carcinomas differ from sarcomas in that in the majority of cases, c. 80%, they metastasize from their primary location to others throughout the body via the circulatory or lymphatic systems. Contrary to the grand majority of carcinomas, primary carcinoma of the prostate gland is among the

Figure 21 A radiograph showing the lack of sclerosis around perforating lesions of the cranial vault in neoplastic disease from Anglo-Saxon Eccles, Kent. Radiograph courtesy of Dr. Jo Buckberry from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

few neoplastic diseases that regularly produce bone formation. In prostatic carcinoma, lesions tend to be found in the pelvic area, but may also be found in bones throughout the body if they metastasize. Primary carcinomas of the lung and breast produce mixed lesions, both resorptive and depositional, often of the rib cage and then throughout the body after metastasis. Bone deposition also often occurs within medullary canals and is thus identified as radiodense (white) areas in radiographs. A major interest of researchers today is whether the prevalence of neoplastic disease is increasing and, if so, is this

1808 PALEOPATHOLOGY

due to increased longevity, older individuals being more likely to develop neoplastic disease, or more predominant environmental carcinogens.

Trauma-Related Lesions Trauma as identified in human remains represents an interaction between the timing of bone breakage and the death of the individual, bone breakage being dependent on the amount of collagen present in the bone when the traumatic episode occurs. Postmortem fractures (or new breaks) are those that occur long after death and relate to excavation and handling of archaeological bone. Antemortem fractures, or those that occur before death, indicate that the individual survived the traumatic episode. A fracture callus, a fibrous bony sheath that develops around the fracture site that is indicative of healing, distinguishes these. Perimortem fractures are those that occur around the time of death. This means that they could relate to violent injuries or from impacts to the bone in the immediate postmortem period when it is still full of collagen but when the individual had already expired (as in rock falls, for example). These are identified by their helical or spiraling fracture outline, as well as by their smooth fracture surfaces. Due to the biomechanics of bone bending, beveling occurs endocortically in long bones and endocranially within cranial bones in cases of perimortem trauma (Figure 22). The identification of such fractures can lead to insights into the manner (although not its cause) of death (e.g., by blunt force trauma) (Figure 23). Disability and the availability and efficacy of treatment can be monitored from the type of fractures sustained and how these have healed. Perimortem fractures, their occurrence and patterning, are the most direct means by which to monitor violence and warfare in the past.

Figure 22 An endocortical bevel in bone. Photograph of the author from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Activity-Related and Occupational Conditions Although diseases such as DISH (see above) have been associated with an occupational pathology based on archaeological context, one of the most direct routes to such conditions are those linked to clinical descriptions of not only individuals engaged in strenuous physical exertion, but moreover the movements associated with the condition and the injuries incurred in making them. Among these are spondylolysis (Figure 24), which is associated with

Figure 23 A blunt force depressed cranial injury with radiating fractures, a diagnostic feature of perimortem cranial injuries, extending from the central depression in a Medieval male from the Late Medieval Battle of Towton. The piece of bone attached to the margin of the depression resulted from comminution (crushing) of the fractured area and was found within the cranial vault of this individual. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Shannon Novak from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 24 Spondylolysis, a fracture of the neural arch of the fifth lumbar vertebra in a male buried in the lay cemetery of the Gilbertine monastery of St. Andrew, Fishergate, York. Photograph of the author, courtesy of York Archaeological Trust.

PALEOPATHOLOGY 1809

lateral flexion and occurs in gymnasts and cricket fast bowlers today; medial epicondylar avulsion fractures (Figure 25), associated with flexed-elbow throwing motions, as used by baseball pitchers;

Figure 25 A medial epicondylar avulsion fracture with the unattached fragment from Norton Priory, Runcorn, Cheshire. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Alan R. Ogden from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

shoveller’s fractures from retraction of the scapula against resistance (Figure 26); and osteochondritis dissecans from trauma produced by powerful and repetitive joint movements in youth (Figure 27). Palaeopathological studies of such conditions provide a time death for modern clinical conditions, evidence for sexual division of labor, youthful behaviors, evidence for behaviors unrecorded elsewhere in the archaeological record, and complementary evidence for the use of material culture. In this, as in other conditions reviewed here, palaeopathological analysis is the most direct and often the only source of information about the health and well-being of past populations. See also: Bioarchaeology; Burials: Dietary Sampling

Methods; Excavation and Recording Techniques; DNA: Ancient; Health, Healing, and Disease; Osteological Methods; Paleodemography.

Further Reading

Figure 26 A left lateral view of a shoveller’s fracture of cervical vertebra 7 in a male from Roman Baldock, Hertfordshire, UK. Photograph courtesy of Jean Brown from the collections of the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford.

Figure 27 Osteochondritis dissecans of the knee in a Medieval male from Fishergate, York, UK. Photograph of the author, courtesy of York Archaeological Trust.

Aufderheide AC and Rodriquez-Martin C (1998) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boylston A and Ogden A (2005) A study of Paget’s disease at Norton Priory, Cheshire, a Medieval religious house. In: Zakrzewski S and Clegg M (eds.) Proceedings of the 6th British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) Conference pp. 69–76 British Archaeological Reports (International Series) 1383. Oxford: Archaeopress. Dutour O and Palfi G (eds.) (1994) L’origine de la syphilis en Europe, avant ou apre`s 1493? Errance, France: Centre Arche´ologique du Var. Fiorato V, Boylston A, and Knu¨sel CJ (eds.) (2000) Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from Towton, AD 1461. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Goodman AH, Brooke Thomas R, Swedlund A, and Armelagos GJ (1988) Biocultural perspectives on stress in prehistoric, historical, and contemporary population research. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 31: 169–202. Ortner DJ (2003) Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains, 2nd edn. Amsterdam: Academic Press. Palfi G, Dutour O, Dea`k J, and Huta`s I (eds.) (1999) Tuberculosis: Past and Present. Szeged, Hungary: TB Foundation. Roberts CA and Manchester KM (2005) The Archaeology of Disease, 3rd edn. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing. Roberts CA, Lewis ME, and Manchester KM (eds.) (2002) The Past and Present of Leprosy: Archaeological, Historical, Palaeopathological, and Clinical Approaches, B.A.R. International Series 1054. Oxford: Archaeopress. Rogers J, Waldron T, Dieppe P, and Watt I (1987) Arthropathies in palaeopathology: The basis of classification according to most probable cause. Journal of Archaeological Science 14: 179–193. Wood JW, Milner GR, Harpending HC, and Weiss KM (1992) The osteological paradox: Problems of interpreting prehistoric health from skeletal samples. Current Anthropology 33(4): 343–370.

1810 PEDESTRIAN SURVEY TECHNIQUES

Palynology

See: Pollen Analysis.

PEDESTRIAN SURVEY TECHNIQUES Andrew K Balkansky, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary full-coverage survey Involves the systematic examination of large contiguous blocks of terrain at a uniform level of intensity. intensive site survey Characterized by the complete or nearcomplete coverage of the survey area at a high resolution, most often by having teams of survey archaeologists walk in a systematic way (e.g., in transects) over parcels of the landscape in question, documenting archaeological data such as lithics, ceramics, and/or building remains. pedestrian survey Involves walking the surface of an archaeological site or large region in stratified patterns.

Site Discovery: Pedestrian Survey Techniques It goes without saying that pedestrian survey is about finding archaeological sites, but ever since the survey boom years in the 1960s and 1970s, surveyors have disagreed over their proper means of discovery and precisely what entity constitutes the site. However, much of the methodological disagreement is subsumed within Kowalewski’s rules for surveyors: (1) that ‘scientific observations ought to find significant structure’ and (2) that regarding sites and other spatial objects ‘we have to scale our recovery efforts to their size, plus a little more area to make sure we have correctly defined them’. Beyond these rules on structure and spatial scale, alternative survey methods are best judged with respect to the anthropological questions of interest. This article focuses on the generic concerns shared by most surveyors, allowing that specific applications of method are best adapted to local conditions and research problems.

Definitions and Technical Issues Plog et al. define an archaeological site as the ‘‘discrete and potentially interpretable locus of cultural materials’’. This definition of site – and leaving aside issues

arising from nonsite and distributional approaches – still leaves much to the imagination. Archaeologists working within different survey traditions or with different research questions in mind inevitably make varied decisions concerning the material that need be present, and the means of delimiting sites. Surveys are best designed when decisions of this kind are explicit and applied consistently in the field so that survey results are replicable and comparable with other projects. One guideline is to demarcate sites restrictively, since it is far easier to combine sites than to split them apart during later stages of analysis. Another important guideline is that surveyors should be able to illustrate the complete data flow from initial site visit to final settlement pattern map (see Sites: Mapping Methods). Apart from defining sites, the growth of survey methods brings further diversity in technique with differing approaches to sampling, intensity of coverage, collections, site recording, and standards of publication. The use of full-coverage survey techniques has become the primary means to study regional variation and change over time for much of problemoriented settlement archaeology. The rationale for full-coverage survey is the unpredictable nature of prehistoric settlement, such that no subregion or sample adequately describes the whole. The results of fullcoverage surveys, moreover, allow for accurate characterization of site hierarchies, the spacing between sites on the large scale, discovery of rare or unique sites, and analyses of boundary conditions within and among regional settlement systems. The dispute over whether full coverage is better than probabilistic sample surveys has died down, having for a time resembled the old Miller Lite beer commercials in which ex-survey stars could be imagined to say, ‘‘Tastes great! Less filling!’’. Today, wherever possible, and most especially in arid and semiarid regions with complex, sedentary populations, full-coverage survey is almost always the chosen method (notably in Andean South America, Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and the Southwestern United States). Sampling nonetheless remains entrenched in European archaeology and much of the United States, owing to difficult

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surface visibility in temperate forests and the needs of cultural resource management. Similarly, survey in tropical lowlands has emphasized transects and probabilistic sampling rather than full coverage (e.g., surveys in the Maya area). The real question, however, is not which method is better but how best to integrate full coverage with probabilistic samples in long-term, region-oriented research programs. For most areas, probabilistic sampling makes more sense if it follows a full-coverage survey, or once there was knowledge of the actual universe of sites. The global reach of the highland Mesoamerican survey technique illustrates the adaptability of the full-coverage method, as well as the more general issues arising from surveys of all kinds.

Highland Mesoamerican Survey Technique The highland survey method was pioneered by William T. Sanders in the Basin of Mexico and then exported to Oaxaca (Mexico), Peru, and China among other world areas. In highland Mexico before the advent of pedestrian surveys in the 1960s the known sites numbered in the low hundreds; since then, over 10 000 sites have been mapped and published. These settlement data have been essential to developing second- and third-stage research (intensive site surveys and excavations) at sites first recorded on survey as well as reanalyses of survey data for questions beyond those posed by the original surveyors. Expansion of this method around the globe is also bringing areas formerly overlooked into comparative studies of societal organization and change. Highland surveys are designed for 100% aerial coverage given the view that probabilistic surveys obscure the regional variability of sites and are especially troublesome for the subset of larger sites (consider the interpretive difficulties should one miss Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico). To put the matter another way: the goal for full-coverage survey is finding sites, not finding reasons to explain why you did not. Thus, the discussions over proper spacing between surveyors and what sorts of terrain to cover miss the point: the best technique – if you want to find all the sites – is to walk in a zigzag within given transects rather than perfectly straight like soldiers on parade. Similarly, walking over unplowed terrain as well as establishing base camps in the mountains extends the range of survey coverage in remote locations, further raising the likelihood of finding all the sites still visible on the surface. Good indirect measures of the intensity of coverage are finding rare artifacts, such as projectile points, or large numbers

of very small sites. Of 1000 sites recorded on a recent survey in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico, more than half were less than 1 ha in size. Objectives for these surveys are to obtain specific regional data sets: site size over time; site plans drawn to scale; artifact distributions; place names; ancient and modern agricultural features; and data on the natural environment. Data of all kinds are recorded directly onto air photo enlargements or scaled topographic maps of the region. Artifact and especially pottery collections are made opportunistically to date occupations and observe their distributions on the regional level, not to measure within-site variation best left to a second stage of more intensive research at one or a few sites. Most surveyors using the highland technique bring detailed site forms paired with notebooks for data recording in the field. Monographs by Jeffrey R. Parsons are among the basic sources on the method. Recent updates of the highland method include the Brian S. Bauer and R. Alan Covey surveys near Cuzco (Peru) with their targeted second-stage sampling, and intelligent use of new technology such as the personal data assistant (PDA), global positioning system (GPS), and laser distance meters. The use of transit and stadia rod much less the total station on full-coverage surveys remains a dubious prospect in regions with hundreds of sites, but it is nonetheless worthwhile to generate digital information and maps by other means or as parts of targeted second-stage sampling. Apart from their methodological unity, the surveys mentioned above all emphasize site function and inter-site relationships as basic to social organization and change, making them suitable for comparative studies.

Future Directions The first law of regional survey states that ‘‘other things being equal more survey coverage is always better’’. But how should one follow this mandate while still getting good answers to anthropologically informed questions? Survey methods of all kinds must be justified with reference to the structure, scale, and questions being asked of past settlement. Those issues aside, several observations on the future of survey seem in order. First, not all surveyors hold to common standards of site recording and publication, making regional comparisons more difficult (more impressionistic, less quantifiable) than they ought to be. Second, the burgeoning ‘gray literature’, or backlog of unpublished survey data is reaching scandalous proportions. Since for most sites the survey visit is the only scientific work that will ever be done, and given the unprecedented rates of site destruction, surveyors and funding agencies must allow for the costs

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of analysis and write-up in their research designs. Third, the greatest hidden strength of pedestrian survey should be further exploited: the surprising results that come with each expansion of a region’s existing survey coverage. Fourth, the discovery and analysis of variation within regional and macroregional settlement systems remains a ‘growth industry’ for young scholars with sufficient stamina who are looking for future research directions. See also: Cultural Resource Management; Settlement Pattern Analysis; Settlement System Analysis; Sites: Mapping Methods.

Further Reading Bauer BS and Covey RA (2002) Processes of state formation in the Inca heartland (Cuzco, Peru). American Anthropologist 104: 846–864. Blanton RE, Feinman GM, Kowalewski SA, et al. (1999) Ancient Oaxaca: The Monte Alba´n state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Persian Empire

Fish SK and Kowalewski SA (eds.) (1990) The Archaeology of Regions: A Case for Full-Coverage Survey. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kowalewski SA (1990) Scale and complexity: Issues in the archaeology of the Valley of Oaxaca. In: Marcus J (ed.) Anthropological Papers of the Museum of Anthropology 84, Debating Oaxaca Archaeology, pp. 207–270. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Kowalewski SA, Balkansky AK, Stiver LR, et al. (2007) Origins of the n˜uu: Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico. Boulder: University Press of Colorado (in press). Parsons JR (1971) Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology 3. Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Texcoco Region, Mexico. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Plog S, Plog F, and Wait W (1978) Decision making in modern surveys. In: Schiffer M (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 1, p. 383–421. New York: Academic Press. Sanders WT, Parsons JR, and Santley RS (1979) The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. New York: Academic Press. Underhill AP, Feinman GM, Nicholas L, et al. (1998) Systematic, regional survey in SE Shandong Province, China. Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 453–474. Wilson DJ (1988) Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Lower Santa Valley, Peru. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

See: Asia, West: Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations.

PHILOSOPHY OF ARCHAEOLOGY Merrilee H Salmon, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary act-utilitarianism An ethical theory that identifies the moral goodness of an action with the amount of (nonmoral) good (such as knowledge or happiness) that follows from the action. Bayesian confirmation A model of confirmation that regards a hypothesis as confirmed when its probability after a particular test is higher than its prior probability. confirmation The relationship between hypotheses and the evidence that supports them, or, in the case of disconfirmation, fails to support them. deductive-nomological explanation A philosophical model that says that (some) scientific explanations are correct deductive arguments. The explanatory premises of these arguments consist of true statements of initial conditions along with at least one

universal law. The conclusion of these arguments is a statement that the event-to-be-explained did in fact occur. hypothetico-deductive confirmation A model of confirmation in which a hypothesis is said to be confirmed when some observable prediction that follows deductively from the hypothesis turns out to be true. models of scientific explanation Accounts that attempt to identify the essential features of scientific explanation. new archaeology Refers to an approach to archaeology that emphasizes the explicit use of scientific methods and adopts scientific goals. postprocessual archaeology Refers to an approach to archaeology that is critical of the new archaeology for its emphasis on science and ecological factors to the neglect of prehistoric symbolic behavior. prior probability The probability of a hypothesis before it is subjected to a particular test. rule-utilitarianism An ethical theory that identifies morally good behavior with following those rules of behavior that result in the greatest amount of (nonmoral) good in the world. systems explanation A type of archaeological explanation that invokes systemic features, such as negative and positive

PHILOSOPHY OF ARCHAEOLOGY 1813 feedback, rather than external influences to account for patterns of change and development in archaeologically known societies. typology A system of classification based on qualities common to a number of individuals that distinguish them as an identifiable class.

Introduction The philosophy of archaeology, like the philosophy of other disciplines, such as art, law, and biology, asks philosophical questions about the discipline in question and applies the critical apparatus of philosophy to answer them. Philosophy of archaeology examines the definitions of basic archaeological concepts, the principles for how to classify archaeological materials, and the nature of archaeological knowledge. It also examines the ethical issues that arise in the conduct of archaeological investigations and dissemination of the information obtained from those investigations. Consideration of these foundational questions is not limited to professional philosophers. Archaeologists often don a philosophical hat to engage in critical examination of their discipline. Ideally, the philosopher of archaeology should have a foot in both fields, with enough knowledge of archaeology to understand its workings and enough critical philosophical ability to examine the arguments for various approaches to problematic issues and to write clearly about them. Most archaeologists confront opportunities for philosophizing at various points in their careers. Introductory texts, for example, typically begin with an account of the nature and aims of archaeology. Such an account requires the archaeologist to step back from doing fieldwork, analyzing materials in a laboratory, reporting discoveries and other normal disciplinary activities. In a philosophical mode, the archaeologist considers instead such questions as whether archaeology is a science, how archaeology is related to history, and what methods work best to acquire and organize archaeological knowledge. Philosophical questions about standards of evidence and criteria for successful explanation also occur at the beginning of archaeological studies.

Definition and Classification While most archaeology texts begin with a definition of the discipline, the definitions vary. Some present archaeology as a study of the prehistoric past, with goals similar to those of history, that is, to construct an explanatory narrative, based on material remains rather than written records, about past events. Other definitions characterize archaeology as a branch of anthropology, which studies societies

that are accessible only through their material remains. Most contemporary definitions emphasize the study of past cultural and social systems through their material remains rather than focusing on the materials themselves as the objects of study, but one group of contemporary archaeologists rejects the affiliation with anthropology in favor of an evolutionary biology model in which artifacts evolve through a process resembling natural selection. Even definitions that appear to be similar can differ in subtle ways, particularly with respect to the emphasis on science, the sorts of knowledge we can obtain from archaeological data, the importance of chronology, and on distinctions between stylistic and functional features of artifacts. Nineteenth-century archaeologists worried mainly about how to classify antiquities in a systematic way. Archaeologists organized – often at their own expense – expeditions to collect materials from the great ancient civilizations and from places mentioned in the bible. Materials from Europe’s prehistoric past also received some serious attention. Archaeologists persuaded universities, governments, and private donors to build museums to house the collections. A major concern of archaeology – one could even say its defining characteristic – was to classify and arrange these collections in terms of chronological age and culture area. Thomsen, the first curator of the Danish National Museum, for example, invented the Three-Age System of stone, bronze, and iron as a basis for organizing prehistoric European artifacts. The flavor of the early classificatory schemes is still present in some museums. The archaeological museum of Florence (Italy), for example, consists of a series of rooms crowded with statues and other artifacts that are identified by period and provenance, but without further information. Today, most museums that can afford to do so have reorganized their collections to reflect contemporary archaeology’s concern for social relationships. The contrast between the old and new ways of handling collections is evident in the elegantly revamped Rosengarten Museum in Konstanz (Germany). One room is carefully preserved in the old style as a memorial to the donor of the original collections, while the other rooms have been arranged in the modern manner. The result is a striking testimony to a shift in understanding of the primary nature and goals of archaeology. Although early museums organized their collections along antiquarian lines, archaeologists have always been interested in the people whose material remains offer our only access to their lives. When archaeology was new – and its birth as a discipline came in the early nineteenth century – scholars had not yet developed schemes for controlled excavation

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or modern dating techniques. Even to identify stone tools as the handiwork of ancient people rather than as fossils involved inferences questioned by Thomsen’s contemporaries. Definitions of archaeology have shifted from a focus on the need for systematic classifications to a concern with how to understand the lives of past human societies in part because of the realization that meaningful systems of classification involve theorizing about the societies that produced the artifacts. While nineteenth-century archaeologists could only speculate about past social systems, advances in archaeological techniques have made genuine knowledge possible. With this increase in knowledge, archaeologists are better able to articulate what they have always found interesting about material culture. Once archaeologists accept a definition of ‘archaeology’ that requires explaining and understanding the social and cultural aspects of the lives of people known through their material remains, the research goals of archaeologists change, and a new set of philosophical questions arises: What are the basic terms of the discipline and what do they mean? Can archaeology provide objective knowledge of the past? What are the standards of proof in archaeology? What are the features of a good archaeological explanation? What are the relationships between style and function in archaeological materials? How do we distinguish the one from the other? What moral constraints limit our studies of artifacts and human remains? With respect to these philosophical questions, let us look first at attempts to define two of archaeology’s most important concepts: ‘site’ and ‘artifact’. Whereas dictionaries define ‘site’ as a spatial location, in archaeology ‘site’ has special significance because it structures archaeological investigation. For many with an amateur interest in archaeology, ‘site’ calls up grand scenes of Pompeii or King Tut’s tomb. Midtwentieth-century archaeologists, such as Paul Martin and Fred Plog, however, present a more inclusive characterization: ‘‘A site is any place formerly occupied or utilized by a prehistoric group.’’ This definition of ‘site’ is theoretical, which is to say that its purpose is to help to construct an archaeological theory by identifying the phenomena that are of interest to archaeological investigators. One role of this particular theoretical definition of ‘site’ is to broaden the traditional understanding so that archaeological investigation can be appropriately conducted on and archaeological protection extended to sites that are barely recognizable by nonarchaeologists. Many sites in Arizona, where the framers of this definition worked, are unimpressive surface scatters of lithic debris and sherds. Although these surface sites seem meager, a careful study of them can reveal much information about the

prehistoric inhabitants of the region. Philosophers might criticize this definition of ‘site’ for being too broad because many places formerly occupied or used by a prehistoric group are devoid of all traces of their former occupation or use, and thus irrelevant to archaeology. Despite this defect, the philosophical importance of the definition is clear. Definitions are not merely a matter of words. They shape a particular vision of what archaeology is and how – or where – it should be done. Archaeologists’ definitions of ‘artifact’ also have theoretical significance. While sites are the places of primary archaeological investigation, artifacts are the things that make sites interesting. The distinction between artifacts, which are marked in some way by humans, and natural objects, which have not undergone any intentional modification or selection, is fundamental. The latter are outside the scope of archaeology. ‘Artifact’ was employed as early as 1841, when Boucher de Perthes used it to refer to so-called ‘hand-axes’ that were found in association with bones of extinct animals in gravel deposits near the Somme River. Boucher de Perthes’s artifacts, and his account of their nature – that is, as stones modified by humans rather than natural fossils – were instrumental in building the case for the long period of human habitation of Earth, a striking and controversial idea in his time. Modern archaeology requires a definition of ‘artifact’ that encompasses more than stone and bone tools. If the archaeologist wants to understand and explain past cultural behavior, the definition should ensure that the term ‘artifact’ would apply to all material remnants of what might be called ‘cultural activity’. Thus, a definition is needed that will apply the term ‘artifact’ to a stone that was selected and used for polishing pottery, even though it was not modified in any way. Similarly, the definition should make it clear that ‘artifact’ applies to deliberately constructed spatial relationships among objects, even though spatial relationships are not material things. When we realize that good definitions should avoid vagueness as well as being neither too broad nor too narrow, we can see that definition of key terms such as ‘site’ and ‘artifact’ is a challenging task. The problem of definition is intimately related to the larger problem of typology, or how to classify archaeological materials. Most archaeologists are familiar with the mid-twentieth-century controversy about whether archaeological types are constructs imposed by archaeologists in order to organize the materials they study (J. A. Ford) or whether types are inherent in the materials and thus discovered by archaeologists rather than created by them (A. C. Spaulding). Contributions to this debate are reminiscent of the debates among medieval philosophers about the reality of

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universals, that is to say whether general concepts, such as ‘truth’ or ‘man’, existed independently, were concepts that existed in the minds of those who created and used them, or were mere names applied to particular things. The debates about the basis of classification filled the pages of archaeological journals throughout the 1950s. Similar debates have occurred among biologists about their own systems of classification, and typologies continue to engage archaeologists and philosophers as well. While sophisticated physical methods of dating materials now answer many chronological puzzles that older typologies were designed to solve, archaeological theory – like any scientific theory – is still intertwined with, and dependent on, systems of classification. The most comprehensive current work on classification argues that typologies are instruments created by archaeologists to solve particular problems. This instrumental view of classification allows for different ways of organizing material culture depending on what questions the archaeologist is asking. The emphasis has also shifted from an abstract treatment of typologies to practical aspects of creating and using systems of classification in archaeology as well as the importance of defining key terms so that archaeologists can successfully communicate the results of their work. Definition and typology are topics of perennial interest to archaeologists, and as the discipline grows and changes focus, new definitions and new systems of typology will be needed.

Confirmation and Archaeological Knowledge As we have seen, most recent definitions of archaeology suggest that we can gain ‘knowledge’ of past societies by studying their material remains. During the 1960s and 1970s, the ‘new archaeologists’ were particularly concerned with the scientific credentials of archaeological knowledge. They urged archaeologists to adopt rigorous scientific methods of confirming hypotheses and explaining archaeological findings, and they turned to philosophers of science, especially C. G. Hempel, for explication of those methods. Their accounts of Hempel’s work and its relevance to archaeology attracted critical attention from philosophers as well as other archaeologists. The philosophical problem of ‘confirmation’ concerns the relationship between evidence for some claim (the hypothesis) and the truth of that claim. New archaeologists criticized their colleagues for using ‘inductive methods’. By this they meant gathering data without any prior notion of what the data would reveal and then letting the data ‘speak for themselves’ to reveal patterns or generalizations. In contrast, the

new archaeologists promoted using the ‘hypotheticodeductive’ method in which a hypothesis was stated and then tested on the basis of predictions that could be deduced from the hypothesis. If a prediction follows with certainty from the hypothesis, and is observed to be true, the hypothesis is confirmed; if the prediction turns out to be false, the hypothesis is disconfirmed. In the ensuing discussions of the proposal to adopt the hypothetico-deductive model of confirmation, no one defended the crude version of inductivism that the new archaeologists rejected. However, critics did argue that the new archaeologists’ account of the method was oversimplified and that despite its ‘hypothetico-deductive’ name, the method depended on inductive reasoning. Critics pointed out that there were philosophical rivals to Hempel’s account of scientific confirmation, including Hempel’s own alternative accounts. Philosophers noted that philosophical models represent attempts by philosophers to analyze patterns of scientific reasoning rather than recipes to be followed for doing ‘real science’. Many archaeologists were already using more or less sophistical statistical reasoning to support their hypotheses. Such work, while scientifically sound, does not accord with the simple form of the hypotheticodeductive method. A version of a Bayesian model for confirmation was also suggested as a one that archaeologists might find useful as a tool for analyzing informal arguments of confirmation. That model allows for predictions to follow from hypotheses with probability rather than certainty, and supplements the core idea of the hypothetico-deductive model with considerations of ‘prior probabilities’. The prior probability of a hypothesis is the probability that it has before a particular test of it occurs. The prior probability could be based on several factors, including outcome of earlier tests of the hypothesis, the plausibility of any causal mechanisms involved in the hypothesis, the ‘fit’ of the hypothesis with already established theories, and so forth. Scientists routinely consider the prior probability of hypotheses to decide whether they are worth testing. Consideration of prior probabilities also offers a way to choose between different hypotheses that are equally supported by the same observational data. In such cases, the hypothesis that has the higher prior probability retains its relative ranking after the test. Few archaeologists are currently debating conflicting philosophical models of confirmation, though it is still an important issue for philosophers of science. While a better understanding of the philosophical issues involved in confirmation can increase understanding of how science works, it is also true that doing good science does not require adhering to a particular philosophical vision of confirmation.

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Explanation The nature of scientific explanation is probably the philosophical topic that has provoked the greatest number of interchanges between philosophers of science and archaeologists. The new archaeologists believed that archaeologists could make their explanations scientific by formulating them according to the pattern of Hempel’s deductive-nomological (D-N) model, which says that for an event to be explained scientifically, its description must be shown to be the conclusion of a deductive argument that has as its premises statements of initial conditions and at least one universal law. To take a rather old-fashioned but simple example of D-N explanation, one explains why inserting a penny in place of a blown fuse restores electrical current by citing the initial condition that the penny is made of copper, along with the universal law that all copper conducts electricity. Critics were quick to point out that Hempel never claimed that all scientific explanations fit this model; it is one model among many. Many archaeologists, concerned about the difficulty of finding universal laws required for D-N explanations, looked for less stringent explanatory models. Philosophers of science, already heavily engaged in trying to understand the nature of scientific explanation, were drawn into the debates about the nature and possibility of scientific explanation in archaeology, and found that archaeology provided a good testing ground for some of their theories. Instead of merely claiming that the new archaeologists had failed to understand Hempel, some philosophers tried to make a more positive contribution by considering philosophically acceptable alternative models of explanation. They also distinguished between formal models that focused on the structure of explanation and its ontological and epistemological basis, and substantive models of explanation in a discipline, which look at appropriate generalizations and facts that can be mustered to explain archaeological phenomena. Hempel himself had already proposed an alternative inductive-statistical model that used statistical laws and allowed for probabilistic rather than deductive support of the conclusion/event to be explained, and had argued that this model was better suited to history and the social sciences. Systems explanations of the archaeological record are popular with many archaeologists. The term ‘systems’ can refer to both formal and substantive features of explanations, and the failure to recognize this distinction caused some confusion in early discussions of the topics. Archaeologists proposed substantive systems explanations as alternatives to diffusionist explanations of cultural phenomena

such as the spread of agriculture. Diffusionist models account for cultural change and innovation by looking for an external source of an idea or trait and then tracing its spread (diffusion) to other cultures. Systemic explanations focus on the following internal features: (1) multiple interacting causes that can reinforce or counterbalance one another, (2) negative feedback mechanisms that promote stability in the face of pressures for change, and (3) positive feedback mechanisms that amplify some factors, allowing for change within the system. Systems explanations are sometimes called ‘neofunctionalist’. Whereas contemporary systems explanations bear some resemblance to Radcliffe-Brown’s structural–functional explanations, they differ in several important ways. (1) They treat the archaeological record on a par with historical documents as a source of evidence. (2) They provide a mechanism – positive feedback – to explain change. Although structural– functional explanations recognized negative feedback mechanisms, such as joking relationships that maintained social stability through release of tensions, they could not account for beneficial changes in societies and tended to regard any change as harmful. (3) Systems explanations emphasize the significance of humans’ physical environment as well as their social environment. A central tenet of the new archaeology is that societies cannot be considered in isolation from the physical surroundings that both shape and are shaped by them. By supplementing negative feedback mechanisms with positive feedback, by broadening the notion of a system to include the physical environment of a society, and by analyzing the archaeological record for appropriate evidence, systems explanations offer a theoretical framework for organizing and extending archaeological knowledge. Some archaeologists argued that ‘the systems model’ of explanation was a superior alternative to the D-N model because it did not require laws. However, although the systems explanations that archaeologists use do not address the problem of laws in an explicit way, their reliance on laws is implicit in their requirement for causal mechanisms. The ‘systems model’ uses different kinds of substantive principles from those adopted by diffusionist models, but it simply is not a model of explanation in the same formal sense that the deductive-nomological model is – indeed, some systems explanations can be construed as examples of the D-N model or of the inductive-statistical model. The point to be made about philosophical models of explanation is similar to that about confirmation. The problem of finding a set of general criteria that characterize genuine scientific explanation is a serious concern for philosophers, who have argued

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for alternatives that focus on various aspects of successful scientific examples of explanation. It is difficult to describe briefly the differences among the philosophical models, but a few distinguishing features can be mentioned. Some models, like Hempel’s, emphasize the logical connection between explanatory factors and that event which is to be explained. Other models emphasize the causal relationships that are important to sound explanations, and still others emphasize the ways in which good explanation serve to unify scientific knowledge. A common feature of these models is that all of them invoke laws. As with philosophical studies of confirmation, we can note that while philosophical analysis of scientific explanation can deepen our understanding of science and our appreciation of it, doing good scientific work does not depend on having the ‘right’ model. A diverse group of critics of the ‘new archaeology’ characterize themselves as ‘postprocessual archaeologists’. Many of them are unhappy with the new archaeologists’ concern with laws and scientific explanation, as well as their preoccupation with environmental and ecological matters. Postprocessualists emphasize instead the symbolic function of prehistoric human behavior, and decry its neglect by new archaeologists. Moreover, they believe that it is possible to recapture this symbolic behavior from archaeological remains. Their work involves distinguishing function from style in cultural remains and studying carefully the stylistic features. They analyze and explain their results using ‘general principles’ that govern certain kinds of symbolic behavior, such as the pattern of distinguishing the ‘raw’ (natural) items from the ‘cooked’ (culturally transformed). By invoking general principles, however, their own interpretations also appeal implicitly to laws, even if these are employed in the service of so-called interpretation rather than explanation. From the viewpoint of the new archaeologists, the postprocessualists use principles that depend on questionable anthropological theorizing and lack empirical support. It is fair to say that the theories of both new archaeologists and postprocessualists involve lawful explanation or interpretation, although the aims of the two groups and the content of the laws they invoke are very different (see Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology).

Ethical Issues Archaeologists’ concern with the ethics of their profession is evident in the codes of ethics that have been formulated and revised by their professional societies and in their adherence to international and local standards regarding the treatment of cultural property.

The effort involved in formulating codes of ethics requires intense reflection on general principles of ethics and careful consideration of how these principles can be applied. Archaeologists are committed to acquiring and disseminating knowledge and preserving archaeological resources so that they can continue to be used by future generations for acquiring knowledge. These separate goals can conflict with one another, especially when the use of improperly acquired (looted) material would significantly increase our knowledge of the past. On the one hand, some argue that in this sort of case, the increase in knowledge trumps the conservation principle (e.g., the looted material is already in a private collection; no further damage to the site from which it came occurs). In other words, more good (i.e., total knowledge) will result from the act of publishing the work than from the act of not publishing. An ‘actutilitarian’ ethical principle underlies this reasoning, namely ‘‘Act in such a way as to increase the total amount of good in the world.’’ On the other hand, the conservationists adopt a ‘rule-utilitarian’ stance: greater good will result from following the ‘rule’ of not using looted material than from allowing special exceptions because the no-exception policy discourages future looting and ultimately results in the greater good of more knowledge. Both appeal to an ethical principle that examines the ‘consequences’ of action, but one judges each particular individual act and the other looks at the consequences of following a rule of behavior. Most ethicists regard actutilitarianism as an untenable theory because of its apparent arbitrariness. Rule-utilitarianism shows more promise, but coming up with a set of rules that are complete and compatible is highly problematic as well, and no ethical theory can be general enough and precise enough to cover every possible action. Further ethical issues arise because archaeologists typically investigate material cultures that are not part of their own heritage and conduct their surveys and excavations on land that does not belong to them. The fundamental ethical principle they follow here is one that appeals to the justice or fairness of behavior rather than to its consequences. Although it is a matter of some serious dispute, most archaeologists agree that the rights of others must be respected even when doing so may result in a loss or decrease of archaeological knowledge. Disagreements still arise among those whose rights compete and amongthose who doubt that some groups’ rights are violated by the pursuit of archaeological knowledge. These disputes are apt to be settled more fairly when representatives of the affected groups negotiate with one another, and many archaeologists have been party

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to such negotiations. Working out the details of what is just and fair in individual cases can be a very difficult and delicate task even when the principles are clear. Moreover, in many instances, particularly when government regulations are involved, the principles themselves can be opaque. In some exemplary cases, archaeologists who manage major museums that acquired those collections in times less sensitive to issues of cultural patrimony have been able to work out agreements in which the cultural heirs own the property and can use it when it is needed, while the museum agrees to care for it and display it in accord with conditions set out by the heirs. In these agreements, fairness is preserved and everyone benefits. Archaeologists’ sensitivity to the issues of cultural patrimony and abuses under colonialism reflects their anthropological training. Their continuing attempts to solve the difficult problems by focusing on ethical issues in their publications and meetings have created a climate of professionalism with very high ethical standards. See also: Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Explanation in Archaeology, Overview; Goals of Archaeology, Overview; Postprocessual Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading Adams WY and Adams EW (1991) Archaeological Typology and Practical Reality: A Dialectical Approach to Artifact Classification and Sorting. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Hempel CG (1965) Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press. Hodder I (1986, 1991, 2003) Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmon MH (1982) Philosophy and Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Salmon MH and others (1999) Ethics in Science: Special Problems in Anthropology and Archaeology: Special Issue of Science and Engineering Ethics 5: 3. Salmon WC (1998) Causality and Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press. Watson PJ, LeBlanc S, and Redman C (1971) Explanation in Archeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach. New York: Columbia University Press. Watson PJ, LeBlanc S, and Redman C (1984) Archaeological Explanation: The Scientific Method in Archaeology. New York: Columbia University Press. Willey GR and Sabloff JA (1993) A History of American Archaeology, 3rd edn. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Wylie A (2002) Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

PHYTOLITH ANALYSIS Arlene Miller Rosen, University College London, London, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary archaeobotany The recovery and identification of plant remains from archaeological contexts, which assist in reconstructing past environments. C3 plant A plant that produces the 3-carbon compound phosphoglyceric acid as the first stage of photosynthesis. C4 plant A plant that produces the 4-carbon compound oxalocethanoic (oxaloacetic) acid as the first stage of photosynthesis. microbotanical remains Those plant remains from archaeological sites that are visible to the naked eye, primarily seeds and charcoal. paleoenvironmental reconstruction Investigations which are undertaken to reconstruct the climate and vegetation of a specific time and place. phytoliths Minute particles formed of mineral matter by a living plant and fossilized in rock.

Phytolith analysis is one of the most versatile of all the techniques used in archaeobotany. Researchers have used phytoliths to answer both traditional and nontraditional archaeobotanical questions, within archaeological as well as palaeoenvironmental sampling contexts. Some of the most common uses for phytoliths in archaeology are: (1) the identification of plant taxa utilized at archaeological sites in studies of diet, farming practices, foddering, and construction materials; (2) detection of plant parts used for determining ancient activities, such as husks from grain-storage areas or plant stalks used for matting; (3) determining the seasonality of site occupations by examining the ratios of grass floral parts to stem segments; (4) the reconstruction of off-site vegetation changes in the past, from phytolith assemblages in lake-cores; and (5) identifying the earliest appearance of cultigens such as maize in South America, rice in China, and bananas in Africa. Some less traditional uses of phytoliths include: (1) evidence for both

PHYTOLITH ANALYSIS 1819

natural and human-induced fire ecology by distinguishing phytoliths from burned material versus those from unburned deposits; (2) analysis of phytolith properties indicating irrigation agriculture in alluvial valleys versus dry-farming in interfluvial settings; (3) identifying the first African cattle pastoralists from phytolith densities in animal pens; (4) reconstructing climatic records from carbon and oxygen isotopes found respectively within organic matter occluded inside phytoliths, and oxygen from the SiO2 itself (see Stable Isotope Analysis); and (5) direct radiocarbon dating of organic matter trapped within phytoliths (see Dating Methods, Overview; Carbon-14 Dating). The term ‘phytolith’ comes from the Greek words for ‘plant stone’. They are mineralized particles that form within living plants and can consist of calcareous or siliceous materials. Most phytoliths are primarily inorganic and form from amorphous silicon dioxide (SiO2) which is precipitated from soluble monosilicic acid derived from the soil water. Plants commonly deposit silica within epidermal cell walls forming an exact replica of the cell, but some plants produce silica bodies in other localities as well. The uptake and precipitation of plant silica is both passive and active. In grasses and sedges, silica is deposited within plant hairs and short cells (also called ‘silica cells’) in a manner controlled by the plant physiology. Other cells can become silicified due to environmental conditions controlled by temperature, evapotranspiration rate, soil texture, water availability, and the quantity of dissolved silica in the soil water. Both monocotyledons (grasses, sedges, and palms) and dicotyledons (woody, herbaceous plants) produce phytoliths, but generally, phytoliths are far more abundant within the monocots. Since many genera of monocots were among the most useful plants in antiquity, the phytolith record can contribute a great deal to studies of palaeoethnobotany (see Paleoethnobotany). Monocots can be easily distinguished from dicots since the monocots are typified by a number of forms recognizable as fossilized epidermal cells which recur with regularity, whereas dicots often produce irregular shapes that do not recur repeatedly. This is a valuable distinction for environmental studies and allows the researcher to track grassland/ forest boundary shifts through time from lake cores and sediment sections in ecotonal areas. In archaeological sites, this distinction helps reconstruct the general vegetation in the area around the site as well as indicates the types of fuel used for hearth fires. Within the monocots, phytoliths take two main forms which include the single-celled phytoliths

consisting of individual disjointed cells, and the multi-celled forms (or ‘silica skeletons’) that consist of two to hundreds of adjacent cells silicified as a single body. The single-cell variety are by far most common in grasses from temperate climates, whereas the multi-celled forms are very common in areas with high evapotranspiration rates, primarily semi-arid environments. This phenomenon is enhanced under circumstances in which the monocots grow in heavy moisture-retaining soils, or under conditions of irrigation in alluvial valleys. Phytoliths are easily recovered from archaeological deposits. A small amount of sediment (from about 2 to 30 g) is collected with a clean utensil and placed in a sealable plastic bag. In the laboratory, researchers extract the phytoliths by removing calcium carbonate residues, organic matter including micro-charcoal, and sediment material that is less than 2 mm in size (clay particles) or greater than about 500 mm (medium sand and larger), thus keeping the silt and fine-sand fractions of the sediment. This is floated in a heavydensity liquid that is calibrated to separate out the light opaline phytoliths from the quartz and heavy mineral material. The remaining phytolith residue is washed and mounted on microscope slides. These slides are usually examined under a microscope at 400
magnification and phytoliths are counted. The resulting counts can give either relative percentages or absolute numbers per gram sediment depending upon the research methods. The process of identification of phytoliths is different for single-celled forms versus multi-celled types. Single-celled types include forms traditionally called saddles, bilobes, crosses, bulliforms, rondels, cones, and other such terms denoting shape (Figure 1). In a very general way, some of the traditional categories of shapes used to designate single-celled phytoliths are broadly related to plant family or subfamily. For example, cones are most often associated with the sedge family (Cyperaceae). Within the grass family (Gramineae), rondels are commonly formed in pooids (festucoids), bilobes in panicoids, and saddles in the chloridoid grass subfamilies. These distinctions have allowed phytolith researchers to determine the likely environmental conditions represented by these types. Sedges are associated with moist micro-environments and standing water, pooids are C3 plants found in cool moist environments and high elevations. Chloridoids are C4 plants associated with warm, sunny, arid to semi-arid environments, whereas panicoids are found in warm/moist environments such as tropical regions or marshy areas in semi-arid environments. These designations are very useful environmental

1820 PHYTOLITH ANALYSIS

Figure 1 Bilobe-shaped phytoliths from foxtail grass (Setaria viridis). Scale ¼ 10 mm.

Figure 3 Variant 1 cross-shaped phytoliths from the leaves of maize (Zea mays). Scale ¼ 15 mm. Photograph courtesy of D. Piperno.

Figure 2 Dendritic phytoliths from the husk of wheat (Triticum aestivum). Scale ¼ 10 mm.

indicators off-site as well as within archaeological contexts. In hunter-gatherer campsites, this level of taxonomy can indicate environmental conditions at the time of occupation. In pastoralist sites, researchers can determine the micro-environments used for grazing when analyzing samples from animal enclosures or ash from dung fuels. For agricultural sites, grass subfamily might indicate the location used for agricultural fields from the subfamily of the weed grasses. More recently, there has been a concerted effort to develop an International Code for Phytolith Nomenclature in order to standardize terms used universally. This code proposes a glossary of terms relating to shape, surface texture, ornamentation, and anatomical origin. Both single-cell and multi-cell phytoliths can also indicate the part of the plant represented in a particular archaeological sample. This is based on differences

in the shape of long-cells originating in the stems of grasses as opposed to those from the floral parts or husks of the grass. Long-cells from the stem are smooth-sided trapezoids, usually rectangular in shape. Those from the husk are dendritic trapezoids with wavy, sharply peaked cell walls (Figure 2). This distinction is very useful for determining such things as seasonality in hunter-gatherer or nomadic pastoral sites since the floral parts of grasses only appear in abundance during the flowering season, usually during the spring or early summer. In settled agricultural sites, this distinction can indicate grain-storage areas, or cereal-processing stations likely to include remains of cereal husks. Many phytoliths from smooth-sided long-cells could indicate localities at the site where large amounts of stems decayed, as in areas with matting, basketry, or roofing material. More precise taxonomic designations, down to plant genus or even species, are also possible for single-cell phytoliths. Using multivariate and morphometric analyses of single-cell forms, phytolith analysts have been able to identify crops such as maize (crosses from leaves, short-cells from cobs) (Figure 3), rice (keystone bulliforms from leaves or double-peaked hairs from husks) (Figure 4), wheat and barley (dendritic long-cells and others), banana (short-cells from leaves), and a variety of palms. Multi-cell phytoliths are composed of suites of adjacent cells silicified together as sheets. Since they represent an assemblage of different cell types, they can often be identified down to genus and sometimes to species. Identifications of multi-celled forms from

PHYTOLITH ANALYSIS 1821

Figure 4 Keystone bulliform phytolith from rice (Oryza sativa). Photograph courtesy of E. Harvey.

Figure 5 Diagnostic multi-cell phytolith from the husk of wheat (Triticum aestivum). Scale ¼ 10 mm.

Figure 7 Multi-celled phytolith from the husk of foxtail millet (Setaria italica). Scale bar equals 10 mm.

husks have been made for cereal genera including wheat (Triticum sp.) (Figure 5), barley (Hordeum sp.), rice (Oryza sp.) (Figure 6), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) (Figure 7), and for some weed grasses including wild oat (Avena sp.), goat-faced grass (Aegilops sp.), rye grass (Secale sp.), foxtail grass (Setaria sp.), brome grass (Bromus sp.), common reed (Phragmites sp.), and others. In addition to these more standard types of archaeobotanical studies, phytoliths have been used in palaeoclimatic reconstruction in conjunction with pollen and diatom data from pollen cores. In these studies, the distributions of phytoliths from grasses are compared with variations in tree genera from pollen to obtain a broader picture of vegetation associations from a particular region. Phytoliths from C3 versus C4 plants have also been compared with diatom data indicating lake-level changes or salinity. When analyzed in conjunction with macrobotanical remains, phytoliths contribute additional dimensions to an overall picture of palaeoethnobotany by allowing researchers to access the record of plant shoots in addition to the record for seeds and wood charcoal. Since unlike macrobotanical materials phytoliths do not need to be charred to be preserved in the archaeological record, they contribute archaeobotanical information in unburned archaeological contexts. Finally, in many archaeological settings with poor macrobotanical records, phytoliths are the only indicators of plant use. See also: Carbon-14 Dating; Coprolite Analysis; Dating

Figure 6 Multi-cell phytolith from the husk of rice (Oryza sativa). Scale ¼ 10 mm.

Methods, Overview; Macroremains Analysis; Paleoethnobotany; Pollen Analysis; Stable Isotope Analysis.

1822 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Further Reading Meunier JD and Colin F (eds.) (2001) Phytoliths: Applications in Earth Science and Human History. Lisse: A.A. Balkema. Pearsall DM (2000) Phytolith analysis. In: Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures, pp. 355–496. New York: Academic Press. Piperno DR (2006) Phytolith Analysis in Archaeology and Environmental History. Walnut Grove, CA: AltaMira Press.

Rapp G and Mulholland SC (eds.) (1992) Phytolith Systematics: Emerging Issues. New York: Plenum. Rosen AM (1999) Phytolith analysis in Near Eastern archaeology. In: Pike S and Gitin S (eds.) The Practical Impact of Science on Aegean and Near Eastern Archaeology, pp. 86–92. London: Archetype Press.

PLANT DOMESTICATION Deborah M Pearsall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary agriculture Subsistence system characterized by large-scale field systems and reliance on a small number of productive domesticated plants. Agriculture leads to population growth, landscape modifications, and vegetation alteration, resulting in creation of an agro-ecology. crop Plant under cultivation, regardless of its genetic status. cultivation The full range of activities undertaken to care for plants; in addition to planting and harvesting, which can lead to genetic change, cultivation includes weeding, watering, pruning, and transplanting. The latter activities may increase the abundance or change the distribution of plants. domestication Process of genetic change through which plants are altered from the wild state, and when fully domesticated become dependent on humans for their reproduction. For plants that reproduce by seed, domestication comes about through the repetitive process of harvesting seeds, replanting, and harvesting. horticulture Subsistence system characterized by small-scale plantings. In comparison with agriculturalists, horticulturists maintain more diverse plantings that include wild or cultivated plants. neolithic or formative Stage of cultural development characterized by the emergence of farming as the mainstay of life, typically accompanied by the appearance of ceramics, large substantial villages located for access to fertile land, and ceremonialism. slash and burn agriculture Also called shifting cultivation, a practice involving cutting forest, burning vegetation, planting for 2–5 years, then fallow (allowing forest regrowth). New plots are opened to replace those in fallow. Extensive (requiring land) rather than intensive (requiring increased labor input). In sediment cores sustained charcoal and secondary forest indicators are markers.

Introduction ‘‘As American as Apple Pie’’? Where did these plants come from? 1. Apples: Balkans to Caspian Sea

2. 3. 4. 5.

Sugar (cane): New Guinea Cinnamon: Southeast Asia Tapioca (manioc) thickener: Brazil Wheat flour: Near East

Many foods considered typical of an ethnic group or culture are actually made from plants that originated in far different places. The example of apple pie illustrates how Old World crops were carried to the New World during the Age of Discovery, and captures crop movements that predate this era. Wheat, for example, was spread from its homeland in the Near East into Europe many millennia before Columbus. People began to move plants soon after their domestication, and this process is closely linked to the emergence of agriculture as the dominant way of life of our species: the subsistence system that fueled commerce and trade, provisioned elites, supported large populations, and had physical and social consequences still felt today (see Agriculture: Biological Impact on Populations; Social Consequences). This contribution focuses on the archaeological record of plant domestication and of agriculture: the ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘when’ of these processes. Why humans domesticated plants and became agriculturalists is considered briefly at the close.

Understanding Domestication and Agriculture through Archaeology Plant remains form part of the archaeological record. Water flotation and fine sieving have improved recovery of plant macroremains, and enhanced our ability to study plant domestication and agriculture. Identifying charred, dried, or waterlogged fragments as the remains of domesticated plants can require specialized methods, such as statistical analysis of size or microscopic examination of anatomical features. During the process of domestication, plants undergo

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1823

selection for traits that make them more desirable to humans, and better able to compete under cultivation. These traits distinguish domesticates from their wild ancestors and include loss of natural dispersal mechanisms, increased size of edible parts, and more uniform appearance (see Macroremains Analysis; Paleoethnobotany). Major domesticates are part of complexes of related wild and weedy species, and the analyst must determine whether the preserved plant remains match the wild, weedy, or domesticated forms. If remains come from an archaeological site far from the homeland of the domesticate, it may be possible to eliminate related wild species from consideration. In some cases, domesticated plants become so changed from wild species that identification is straightforward. Analysis of pollen, phytoliths, and starch microfossils from sites, artifacts, agricultural fields, and coprolites (preserved feces) also form part of the archaeological record of domestication (see Pollen Analysis; Phytolith Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis; Agricultural Fields, Identification and Study; Coprolite Analysis). Naturally accumulating sediments in lakes, swamps, and alluvial settings are also excellent sources of plant microfossils that document human modification of environments, including clearance for slash and burn agriculture (see Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods). Approaches for identifying microfossils are the same as described for macroremains. It is essential to understand the archaeological context of domesticates, especially their age. Macroremains and microfossil extractions may be directly radiocarbon dated, wood charcoal associated with domesticates may be dated, or domesticates may be associated stratigraphically with artifacts of known age (see Dating Methods, Overview). Dating by association is impacted by postdepositional disturbance, for example, movement of dried macroremains by rodents. Microfossil residues recovered directly from surfaces of artifacts used for crop processing, cooking, or consumption provide clear associations. Agriculture is also identified through its consequences. Plants were domesticated by forgers in the Early Holocene. It took 1000–6000 years, depending on the region, for farming to become a mainstay of life, and for Neolithic or Formative cultures to appear. Successful, expanding Neolithic populations sometimes carried agriculture from primary centers into areas occupied by foragers, incorporating those people or pushing them into environments not suited for agriculture. In other cases individual crops spread and were accepted by foragers, sometimes followed by local domestications.

Other Approaches to Investigating Domestication and Agriculture We would understand less about the origins of plant domestication and agriculture without data from the biological and agricultural sciences. The likely area of origin for a domesticate may be inferred from geographic distributions of ancestral and related wild species, as determined by DNA and molecular studies of plants. Ideally, early archaeological remains correspond to the probable origin area, but sometimes domesticates are only documented once they spread into environments with better preservation or a longer history of research. Plant-breeding studies, experiments on harvesting wild grains, and study of domestication processes are among the other contributions from the biological and agricultural sciences (see DNA: Ancient; Modern, and Archaeology). A primary result of agriculture is change in diet from wild foods to domesticated plants. This dietary shift has consequences that leave their marks on the human skeleton, and provide information on the timing and nature of the transition. Diet change is studied through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, trace element analysis, and analysis of nonspecific indicators of stress, including dental caries (see Chemical Analysis Techniques; Health, Healing, and Disease; Trace Element Analysis).

The ‘Where’, ‘What’, and ‘When’ of Plant Domestication and Agriculture A useful starting point is Harlan’s proposal that there were three independent systems of plant domestication, each with a center and a noncenter: Near Eastern center and sub-Sahara Africa noncenter; north China center and Southeast Asia/south Pacific noncenter; and Mesoamerican center and South American noncenter (Figure 1). As knowledge has grown, centers have become larger, and within noncenters the origins of some crops can be pinpointed. Agriculture emerged independently and contemporaneously among foragers within these three systems. There were multiple independent plant domestications within regions in some cases, and movement of ideas and/or plants in others. When we consider our current understanding of the origins and movements of domesticates, it becomes apparent that some are linked by common geographic origin and complementary dietary and subsistence roles. The Near Eastern cereals and pulses provide one example. There are also cases in which suites of domesticates formed and re-formed under different environmental conditions. An example of this is the

1824 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Figure 1 Centers and noncenters of agricultural origins: A1, Near East center; A2, African noncenter: B1, North Chinese center; B2, Southeast Asian and South Pacific noncenter; C1, Mesoamerican center; C2, South American noncenter. From Harlan JR (1992) Crops and Man (2nd edn.). Madison, Wisconsin: American Society of Agronomy.

New World maize–beans–squash suite: maize, domesticated once in western Mexico, occurs in combination with four species of beans and five species of squashes (Figure 2). How long did domestication take? For cereals, estimates based on experimental harvesting and planting range from 20–200 to 1000 years. For any seedpropagated domesticate, there were key changes in seed dispersal and competition in the agricultural field that had to become fixed genetically. For domesticates propagated vegetatively using stem or tuber cuttings, domestication was likely rapid: experiments on yam suggest less than 10 years. Domestication was rapid enough to be virtually ‘invisible’ archaeologically. Calibrated BC radiocarbon dates (cal BC) will be used to facilitate comparisons among regions. Dates designated cal* have been estimated graphically. Near East (West Asia) and Sub-Saharan Africa

First domestications: 9000–8500 cal BC The earliest evidence of plant domestication in the Near East comes from the Levant (eastern Mediterranean), a region of winter rainfall and marked seasonality (see Tables 1 and 2). Plants domesticated by sedentary or near-sedentary foragers include the domesticated cereals barley, einkorn, and emmer; the pulses pea,

chickpea, lentil, and bitter vetch; and the fiber flax. Genetic evidence suggests that the ‘founder crop’ cereals were domesticated once or very few times. The Pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) or early Prepottery Neolithic B (PPNB), 9000–8500 cal BC, was pivotal in the emergence of crop-based subsistence. This was the time period between the appearance of intensive wild plant use (wild cereals, lentil, bitter vetch, flax, tree fruits) at Natufian sites like Ohalo II, Abu Hureyra, and Mureybit, and abundant evidence for domesticated plants in the PPNB (see Table 2). This timing supports the thesis that climatic instability in the Early Holocene was an essential factor in the shift to domesticated cereals (see Asia, West: Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant). First expansions: 8000–6500 cal BC The founder crop suite was adopted in its entirety or in subsets in the rest of the Fertile Crescent and adjoining areas. By the PPNB it had spread northwest and east into the uplands of Anatolia (eastern Turkey) and the Zagros mountains (Iraq, Iran) where goat and sheep pastoralism developed, by sea to Cyprus and Crete, and into the Balkans and Greece (see Tables 1 and 2) (see Animal Domestication). The founder crop suite was suitable for expansion, providing a balanced diet.

Giant ragweed, sunflower Erect knotweed Marshelder, chenopod Maygrass, little barley

60⬚ N

Grape, olive, pea, bread wheat, fig, rye Barley, bitter vetch, chickpea, date palm, flax Einkorn, emmer, grasspea, lentil, faba bean

Oats Squash Soybean

Cotton Chenopod, amaranth Bean (tepary)

30⬚ N

Sweet potato Cocoyam, sapodilla Achira, chile pepper Arrowroot, avocado Llerén, jack bean Tobacco, cacao

Squash Maize

Bean (common and lima) Squash

0⬚

Barnyard millet Broomcorn millet Foxtail millet Rice (japonica)

Pearl millet Sorghum

Adzuki bean Kodo millet, green gram Little millet, black gram

Manioc

Squash, bean (common) African rice Groundnut Okra

Yam Cotton Bean (lima) Jack bean Squash

30⬚ S

180⬚

120⬚ W

90⬚ W

60⬚ W

30⬚ W

Finger millet Tef, enset

Banana Taro

Hyacinth bean ?

Bean (common) Peanut Chile pepper Coca

Breadfruit, coconut Yam, aroids

Bottle gourd Cowpea

Oil palm, yams

0⬚

Figure 2 Areas of origin of selected important domesticated plants. Figure drawn by Kristin Smart.

30⬚ E

60⬚ E

90⬚ E

120⬚ E

150⬚ E

180⬚

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1825

150⬚ W 60⬚ S

Potato Oca Ullucu Squash Jicama Quinoa

?

Rice (indica)

1826 PLANT DOMESTICATION Table 1 Crops of the Near East and Africa Common name

Scientific name

Use

Near Eastern crops Barley Bitter vetch Bread wheat Chickpea Date palm Einkorn wheat Emmer wheat Faba (broad) bean Fig Flax Grape Grasspea Lentil Oats Olive Pea Rye

Hordeum vulgare Vicia ervilia Triticum aestivum Cicer arietinum Phoenix dactylifera Triticum monococcum Triticum turgidum Vicia faba Ficus carica Linum usitatissimum Vitis vinifera Lathyrus sativus Lens culinaris Avena sativa Olea europaea Pisum sativum Secale cereale

Grain Pulse Grain Pulse Fruit Grain Grain Pulse Fruit Fiber Fruit Pulse Pulse Grain Oil Pulse Grain

African crops African rice Bambara groundnut Bottle gourd Cowpea Enset Finger millet Hyacinth bean Oil palm Okra Pearl millet Sorghum Teff Yam, white Yam, yellow

Oryza glaberrima Voandzeia subterranea Lagenaria siceraria Vigna unguiculata Ensete ventricosa Eleusine coracana Lablab niger Elaeis guineensis Abelmoschus esculentus Pennisetum glaucum Sorghum bicolor Eragrostis tef Dioscorea rotundata Dioscorea cayenensis

Grain Pulse Container Pulse Starch Grain Pulse Oil Vegetable Grain Grain Grain Root/tuber Root/tuber

These early expansions probably represent movements of farmers who replaced or assimilated local foragers (Figure 3). Cyprus and Crete Excavations on Cyprus have identified Neolithic sites, such as Mylouthkia, that date to the early PPNB (c. 8800–8400 cal BC) and document the introduction of domesticated cereals, domestic pig, and wild cattle, sheep, and goat, probably from Syria. By the late PPNB (7500–6500 cal BC), there is a substantial Neolithic presence. Khirokitia, for example, has dozens of stone-walled circular houses (see Table 2). The site of Knossos (Table 2) documents that Crete was colonized by farmers about 7000 cal BC. The relationship between the farming populations of Crete and those of mainland Greece is unclear. The first dispersals of crops westward may have been by sea directly to the islands, rather than through Anatolia. Central and Western Anatolia, Greece, Balkans The earliest farming communities in central and western

Anatolia date to middle PPNB (8400–7500 cal BC), and share many characteristics with PPNB sites in the Levant (see Table 2). The lack of PPNA sites, and the sudden appearance of large PPNB-like villages, suggests an influx of farmers. Domesticated animals are lacking. The spread of agriculture into Greece resembles the western Anatolia situation, a late PPNB (7500–6500 cal. BC) introduction by migrants (see Table 2). The relationship between local foraging populations and the earliest Neolithic settlements is unknown. At Franchthi Cave, for example, wild plant foods characterizing the Mesolithic period were replaced suddenly by domesticated animals and plants. Craniometric data, showing high homogeneity among Early Neolithic skeletons, support the idea that colonizing farmers originated from central Anatolia, and entered Greece and the Balkans through western Anatolia. Domesticated plants appeared relatively late in the Balkans. Neolithic sites resemble those of Anatolia and Greece and overlap temporally with Mesolithic sites. The incoming farmers at sites such as Anza, Obre, and Slatina brought the founder-crop package. Broomcorn millet, introduced from the Ukraine or central Asia, which was present by the Late Neolithic (see Table 2). Neolithic sites in the eastern Mediterranean cluster on water-retentive soils, such as alluvial deposits and lake edges, enhancing crop success under the Mediterranean climatic regime. Plant cultivation was a small-scale activity; there was little impact on vegetation before 4500 cal* BC. Spread of Farming into Western, Central, and Northern Europe and Northern Africa: 6500–4000 cal BC There is debate about the relationship between incoming farmers, who often founded villages in locations distinctive from forager settlements, and resident Mesolithic foragers. How much and what kinds of interactions occurred? Were foragers assimilated or replaced? Were domesticates introduced and accepted by Mesolithic peoples, in the absence of migration? In Europe, it appears that a mixture of processes occurred, with rapid spread of farmers along the northern Mediterranean coast, into the Danube Valley, and into Germany and the low countries, but slower spread, with Mesolithic population involvement, in western Europe and the colder Atlantic and Baltic coastlines (see Tables 1 and 2). Two important events contributed to the expansion of agriculture out of the eastern Mediterranean and southeastern Europe: regional episodes of resource shortfall caused by land degradation, and increasing importance of pastoralism and cultivation of pulses

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1827 Table 2 Selected archaeological sites from the Near East, Mediterranean, Europe, and Africa Location

Site

Crops (domesticated unless indicated otherwise)

Dates (associated)*

Near East

Abu Hureyra Abu Hureyra Abu Hureyra

Wild plants Rye Einkorn, emmer, 2-rowed barley, 6-rowed barley, naked barley, lentil, chickpea Wild plants Wild plants Emmer, 2-rowed barley (either wild or domesticated) Einkorn, emmer, two-rowed barley, lentil, pea, chickpea, flax Emmer, pea, lentil, bitter vetch, chickpea, flax Einkorn, emmer, 2-rowed barley, naked barley Einkorn, emmer, barley, pig Einkorn, emmer, 6-rowed barley, lentil, flax

11200–10500 cal* BC

Ohalo II Mureybit Aswad Jericho

Cyprus

Crete Anatolia

Cayonu Ali Kosh Mylouthkia Cap AndreasKastros Khirokitia Knossos Hacilar Asikli Ho¨yu¨k Can Hasan III C ¸ atal Ho¨yu¨k

Greece Balkans

Franchthi Cave Franchthi Cave Anza Obre Slatina

Italy

Spain

S. Central Europe Egypt

Sudan Cameroon Uganda

Gomolava Grotta dell’Uzzo Rendina Scamuso Coveta de L’Or Cueva de los Murcielagos Hienheim Ulm-Eggingen Nabta Playa Fayum Merimde Kadero 1 Nkang Munsa sediment core

Einkorn, emmer, 6-rowed barley, lentil, pea Bread wheat, cattle, pigs, sheep, goat Einkorn, emmer, barley, lentil Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, 2-rowed barley, lentil, bitter vetch, pea Einkorn, emmer, 2-rowed barley, rye, lentil, bitter vetch Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, barley, pea, bitter vetch wild plants Emmer, two-rowed barley Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, 6-rowed barley, lentil, bitter vetch, pea Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, 6-rowed barley, lentil, bitter vetch, pea Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, 6-rowed barley, lentil, bitter vetch, pea Broomcorn millet Einkorn, emmer, lentil, barley Wheat, barley Einkorn, emmer, hulled barley, lentil, pea Einkorn, emmer, free-threshing wheat, hulled 6-rowed barley, naked 6-rowed barley Emmer, free-threshing wheat, naked 6-rowed barley Einkorn, emmer, barley, flax, poppy, pea, lentil Einkorn, emmer, barley, flax, poppy, pea, lentil Wild plants Emmer, 2-rowed barley, 6-rowed barley, flax Emmer, 6-rowed barley, lentil, pea, flax Wild sorghum (cultivated) Banana Banana

Dates (direct)*

10700 cal BC 8750–7500 cal* BC c. 20500 cal* BC 10500–8750 cal* BC 9000–8750 cal* BC 8300–7500 cal* BC 8200–7700 cal* BC c. 8000 cal* BC c. 8800–8400 cal BC 7500–6500 cal BC 7500–6500 cal BC 7000 cal BC 8400–7500 cal BC 8400–7500 cal BC 7500–6500 cal BC 7500–6500 cal BC

c. 6900 cal BC 6000–5757 cal* BC 5750 cal* BC 5800–5750 cal* BC 4800–4500 cal* BC 6250–5750 cal* BC 6000–5700 cal* BC 6000–5700 cal* BC 5500–5300 cal* BC 5300–4500 cal* BC 5300–4750 cal* BC 5500–4500 cal* BC ca. 6750 cal* BC 5750–5000 cal* BC 5800–5400 cal* BC c. 5000 cal* BC 1st millennium BC cal 3220 cal BC

*Calibration estimated graphically.

as fodder. Both occurred in the context of increases in human and animal populations. These forces fueled site abandonments, population dispersals, and the emergence of pastoral mobility on the edges of settled areas. Western Mediterranean Neolithic populations spread, likely by sea, into Albania and Italy by 6000 cal BC. Farmers reached southern France and the Iberian Peninsula between 5800 and 5400 cal BC.

Throughout the region, Neolithic populations settled where Mesolithic populations were sparse. Neolithic sites are more ephemeral than in the Near East since timber, rather than mud brick, was used for most construction. Neolithic and Mesolithic settlements overlap temporally – by as much as 1000 years in Portugal. Craniometric study of skeletons from sites in the western Mediterranean shows greater heterogeneity among Neolithic groups than seen in southeastern Europe. This suggests the spread of farming

1828 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Figure 3 The spread of the founder suite of Near Eastern crops into Europe and North Africa; dates are calibrated BC. Figure drawn by Kristin Smart.

was not a simple case of population migration (see Table 2 and Figure 3). Central, North, and Northwestern Europe After 5400 cal BC, while farming was spreading along the Mediterranean coast, the founder crops, cattle, and perhaps pig spread northward up the Danube valley and through Europe north of the Alps to Germany and the Paris basin. This followed a 600-year standstill on the edge of the Hungarian Plain, perhaps due to soil conditions and climate (see Figure 3) (see Europe: Neolithic; Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures). This expansion was associated with the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK), characterized by timber longhouses, incised pottery, association with fertile loess soils, and floodplain-edge locations for villages. The LBK appeared around 5700–5500 cal* BC in south-central Europe (see Table 2). While there is strong evidence for expansions of populations from western Hungary, relations with Mesolithic peoples are debated, as is the ‘package’ nature of the introduction. In north-central Europe, 5500–5000 cal BC saw the appearance of several phases of LBK and the establishment of farming in upland loess basins. Sites with botanical remains are numerous, and document the full suite of founder crops.

There was another slowdown in the expansion of agriculture into the coastal plain of northern Europe and the British Isles (see Figure 3). Entrenched Mesolithic populations and less favorable soil and climate may have slowed the spread. Domesticates adapted to Mediterranean climate, where the limiting factor was summer drought, had to adjust to the cold of northern Europe. Mesolithic peoples adopted Neolithic traits, like pottery and stone adzes, or were incorporated into farming communities (see Europe, Northern and Western: Mesolithic Cultures). A complex situation existed in the final expansion of agriculture into Britain, Ireland, and southern Scandinavia. Did Mesolithic foragers accept the agricultural package, incorporate pieces of it, adapting them for their own purposes, or was agriculture established by separate Neolithic populations? All these processes may have been at work. Understanding the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition or relationship is complicated by chronology and context issues and submergence of Late Mesolithic coastlines around Britain and Ireland. The very uniform characteristics of the Middle Neolithic (substantial houses, tombs, farming economy of cereals and domestic animals), established by 4000 cal* BC in southern and eastern England and by 3750 cal* BC in Ireland, may color our perspectives on the nature of the earliest Neolithic (c. 4400–3750 cal* BC).

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1829

Egypt and North Africa The fertile Nile valley was once considered a homeland of agriculture. We now know that no ancestors of Near Eastern crops grew there, but once the valley filled with rich sediments after sea level stabilization (6500–5500 cal BC), it became a perfect area to grow the founder crops. Neolithic sites appeared suddenly in the Nile valley between 5500 and 5000 cal BC (see Figure 3). To the south, the monsoonal summer rainfall climate of Sudan inhibited the spread of the founder crops for millenniums. West of the Nile are sites with pottery that predate this introduction. More than 120 wild plants, including wild sorghum, were recovered from the Nabta Playa site, in association with evidence for cattle management (see Table 2). Genetic research suggests cattle could have been domesticated in North Africa. Pastoral peoples spread along the North African coastline beginning around 5500 cal BC; arrival of cereal agriculture is less clear, with a current date of 2000 cal BC (see Animal Domestication; Africa, North: Sahara, Eastern). Sub-Saharan Africa Plant domestication in subSaharan Africa was apparently late, some 3000 years after Near Eastern crops appeared in Egypt. Limited data from the Sahara, the Sahel, East Africa, and southern Africa suggest agriculture began around 2300 cal* BC in the Sahara, and much later elsewhere. This picture is likely biased by poor preservation, however, and limited numbers of excavations practicing systematic botanical recovery. Finger millet, sorghum, and pearl millet must have been domesticated earlier: all were introduced into South Asia by 2300 cal* BC, with finger millet present by 3000 cal* BC. Plant domestication in the drier parts of Africa apparently followed the emergence of pastoralism (see Figure 2). The grasslands and parklands south of the Sahara are considered the homeland for sorghum and pearl millet. These zones extended northward under the wetter conditions of the Early Holocene. The more mobile lifestyle of cattle pastoralists was perhaps a better fit to plant collection than cultivation. Increasing desiccation of the Sahara after 3000 cal BC caused herders to move south, triggering plant domestication in the Sahel and savanna regions. Evidence to test this model is currently lacking. Modern plant distributions establish two other zones of domestication: the forest–savanna boundary in West Africa (African rice, yam, oil palm, cowpea, bambara groundnut) and the Ethiopian highlands (finger millet, tef, enset) (see Figure 2). Earliest finds of domesticated plants are 2000–1500 cal BC for pearl millet and 1250–1 cal* BC for sorghum and African rice. Morphologically wild sorghum may

have been cultivated at Kadero 1 in east Africa by 5000 cal* BC (see Table 2). Pearl millet was spread rapidly into West Africa as part of a mixed economy of cattle-keeping and foraging. Important crops that became mainstays of west African agriculture – sorghum, African rice, cowpea, bambara groundnut, and okra – appeared between 500 BC–AD 500. We know little about plant domestication in the forests of Africa. Sediment cores taken near the Munsa site in Uganda document banana phytoliths at 3220 cal. BC. Bananas were domesticated in New Guinea by 8000 cal BC and introduced into eastern Africa. Banana was likely grown by people already practicing agriculture, and familiar with vegetative propagation. The prehistory of the African yam is unknown; banana is a logical companion plant. Pollen evidence from west and west-central Africa documents increases in oil palms, useful plants that are known colonizers of agricultural fields, after 1200 cal BC (see Tables 1 and 2) (see Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists). East, South, and Southeast Asia

This region gave rise to important grains as well as root and tuber domesticates (see Tables 3 and 4). We know more about rice than taro or yam, however, because of the greater likelihood that seeds, rather than root/tuber macroremains, will survive archaeologically. Microfossils are beginning to fill in the picture of vegetatively propagated crops. East Asia: China, Korea, Japan Early domestication in China: 8000–6500 cal BC Agricultural villages appeared in the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys in north and central China around 7500–7000 cal* BC (see Table 4). There is evidence for cultural continuity in each region from the terminal Pleistocene to the early Holocene. Exploitation of wild cereals – foxtail millet in the Yellow River region and wild rice in the Yangtze – characterized subsistence prior to agriculture; pottery, which predated agriculture, would have facilitated cereal cooking. In the Yellow River valley the earliest Neolithic sites are large: at Jiahu over 300 pits and 30 house floors were excavated. The cultural complexity of Jiahu suggests earlier farming communities existed. Foxtail millet was domesticated locally from green foxtail (Setaria viridis). North China was also the home of domesticated broomcorn millet, documented beginning at 6500 cal BC. The occurrence of rice at Jiahu and other Yellow River sites suggests cultural influences from the Yangtze region, one homeland of

1830 PLANT DOMESTICATION Table 3 Crops of East, South, and Southeast Asia Common name

Scientific name

Use

Adzuki bean Banana

Vigna angularis Musa, Eumusa section

Barnyard millet (sawa) Black gram (urd bean) Breadfruit Broomcorn millet Cabbage tree Candlenut tree Coconut Elephant ear taro Elephant yam

Echinochloa colona

Pulse Starchy fruit Grain

Vigna mungo

Pulse

Artocarpus altilis Panicum miliaceum Cordyline fruticosa Aleurites moluccana Cocos nucifera Alocasia macrorrhiza Amorphophallus paeoniifolius Setaria italica Cyrtosperma merkusii Vigna radiata

Fruit Grain Fruit Fruit Fruit, fiber Root/tuber Root/tuber

Paspalum scrobiculatum Panicum sumatrense Oryza sativa Oryza sativa Glycine max Colocasia esculenta Dioscorea alata

Grain Grain Grain Grain Pulse Root/tuber Root/tuber

Foxtail millet Giant swamp taro Green gram (mungbean) Kodo millet Little millet Rice, indica Rice, japonica Soybean Taro Yam

Grain Root/tuber Pulse

rice (see Figure 2) (see Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures). Early farming communities in the middle Yangtze River valley, such as Pengtoushan and Bashidang, were also substantial villages. Rice was present, and at Bashidang has been identified as domesticated. Rice was domesticated by 8000 cal* BC, as indicated by the Diatonghuan phytolith study, which also provides evidence that wild rice grew in the middle Yangtze. A core from nearby Poyang Lake also documented Oryza in late Pleistocene sediments (c. 13000 cal* BC), and wild rice was present in the lower Yangtze in the early Holocene (see Table 4). Genetic research indicates that rice was domesticated twice from the Oryza rufipogon–O. nivera complex. Japonica rice, commonly grown in upland areas, was domesticated in China; indica rice, grown in lowland settings, arose independently in eastern India, Myanmar, or Thailand (see Figure 2). Spread of agriculture: South China, Korea, Japan Neolithic villages appeared in South China between 5000–3000 cal BC. Agriculture likely spread along two axes, from the middle Yangtze south to Hong Kong, and along the coast from the lower Yangtze.

Table 4 Selected archaeological sites from East, South, and SE Asia Location

Site

Crops (domesticated unless indicated otherwise)

Dates (associated)*

China

Jiahu, North China

6561–5529 cal BC

6995–6000 cal BC 7000–5500 cal BC 12 000–11 000 cal* BC

Rice

9250–8000 cal* BC

Rice Rice Foxtail millet, broomcorn millet

11 900–11 000 cal BC 5000 cal* BC

Korea

Xinglonggou, Northeast China Pengtoushan, Central China Bashidang, Central China Diatonghuan (Wangdong), Central China Diatonghuan (Wangdong), Central China Yangtze River palaeo-estuary core Zenpiyan, South China Tongsamdong

Wild and domesticated rice and foxtail millet, nuts, fruits Foxtail millet, broomcorn millet Wild or domesticated rice Rice Wild rice

India, Pakistan

Thailand New Guinea

Oun 1 Various Various Mehrgarh

Kot Diji Harappa Khok Phanom Di Ban Chiang Kuk swamp

*Calibration made graphically.

Rice Soybean Rice 6-row barley, hulled emmer, einkorn, 2-rowed barley, possibly durum or bread wheat, date Banana Rice Rice Rice Colocasia taro, banana

Dates (direct)*

6250 cal* BC

3360 cal BC (foxtail) 1950 cal BC 1000–900 cal BC 3000–1500 cal BC 7000 cal BC

after 2500 cal* BC after 2750 cal* BC 2300–2000 cal BC 2300–2000 cal BC 8220–7910 cal BC

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1831

Rice is documented by 5000 cal* BC. Neolithic villages with rice and foxtail millet appeared in Taiwan after 3500 cal BC. There are marked similarities in the material culture of Neolithic villages in southern China, suggesting population expansion. The degree to which local foragers were assimilated or pushed aside by farmers is unknown. Rice agriculture also spread north from central China into Korea where, by 1250–500 cal* BC, evidence of intensive paddy (wet-field) agriculture is present. Rice is dated by association to 3000–1500 cal BC, and directly to 1950 cal. BC. Sites of the Middle Chulmun through Middle Mumun (3000–1000 cal BC) document that foxtail and broomcorn millet were introduced and grown as dry-field crops prior to the introduction of rice, and continued to be used after wet-field production was established. Foxtail millet is direct-dated to 3360 cal BC, and soybean was present by 1000–900 cal BC (see Table 4). The Jomon culture of Japan (14 750–500 cal* BC) was characterized throughout its long history by sedentary forager-fishers who utilized a broad range of plant resources. Some plants were cultivated/managed, including herbaceous plants like bottle gourd, perilla, Vigna beans, burdock, yam, and goosefoot. Landscapes were altered to encourage nut species like chestnut and walnut. Rice, barley, and several millets appeared around 3750–2500 cal* BC, and became more common after 1750 cal* BC. Introduced crops contributed little to subsistence in relation to nuts and local herbaceous plants, however, until Yayoi immigrants from Korea introduced wet paddy rice agriculture between 1250–500 cal* BC (see Asia, East: Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers). South Asia: Pakistan, India The South Asian crop complex originated in four regions: the Near East (einkorn, emmer, bread wheat, barley), Africa (sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea, hyacinth bean, finger millet), East Asia (rice, foxtail millet, broomcorn millet), and locally (the pulses black and green gram, kodo, and little millet) (see Figure 2). Near Eastern founder crops and caprines dispersed eastwards across the Iranian Plateau to Central and Southern Asia between 8000–6750 cal* BC, either through population migration or local acceptance of domesticates (see Figure 3). By 7000 cal BC Near Eastern crops are documented at the preceramic Mehrgarh site in western Pakistan, with native Zebu cattle, sheep, and goat appearing near the end of the preceramic. Mehrgarh is located near the eastern limit of the winter rainfall zone, to which the Near

Eastern founder crops and farming practices were adapted (see Table 4) (see Asia, South: Neolithic Cultures). African finger millet appeared in South Asia at 3250 cal* BC, joining indigenous little millet as part of a summer cultivation system. Asian foxtail millet appeared about the same time. Introduced millets played minor roles in agriculture initially, with little impact on farming systems. The three summercultivated millets spread into the Indus River valley, where subsistence was oriented towards wintercropping. By the end of the Mature Harappan Phase (2600–1900 cal BC) of the Harappan civilization of Pakistan and northwest India, winter-cropped wheat and barley and summer-cropped millets were grown (see Table 4). Multicropping became established, and millets spread throughout South Asia (see Asia, South: Indus Civilization). The African cereals sorghum and pearl millet were introduced around 2500 cal* BC. Both produce large seeds, and sorghum soon assumed a dominant position. East Asian broomcorn and barnyard millet also appeared around this time. Early Neolithic villages practicing a mixed economy of Near Eastern crops and rice date to 3000 cal BC in the Ganges valley in eastern India. The Neolithic of inland peninsular India is also late, around 3500 cal BC. It was based on Near Eastern cereals, native legumes and millets, and by 2000 cal BC, African pearl millet and sorghum (see Asia, South: Ganges Valley). Domesticated rice was likely present in eastern India by 3000 cal BC, but since wild rice grows there, it is sometimes unclear whether archaeological rice remains are domesticated or wild. Domesticated rice was present after c. 2750 cal* BC at Harappa. As discussed earlier, indica rice was likely domesticated in eastern India, Myanmar, or Thailand. Rice is documented much earlier in Thailand (see below), and perhaps spread into eastern India as part of a Neolithic expansion. Banana was introduced into South Asia at 2500 cal* BC, demonstrating another influence on the development of the complex South Asian agricultural system. Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Pacific The picture of plant domestication and agriculture in this diverse region is evolving, especially as microfossil data accumulate. New Guinea appears to have an independent history of plant domestication, with agriculture a secondary development elsewhere. Whether or not indica rice domestication was primary is unresolved, as is the extent to which local foragers contributed to the development of agriculture.

1832 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Figure 4 Traditional agriculture in Bali. Use of animal traction and the plow were technological advances associated with intensification of agriculture in many areas of the Old World. Photo credit: Edmund Lowe.

Mainland Southeast Asia By 3000 cal* BC or slightly later, agricultural villages and rice agriculture were present in much of mainland Southeast Asia. A welldefined incised and stamped pottery style associated with rice cultivation links the Neolithic of southern China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Cattle, buffalo, and pigs were likely domesticated in the late Neolithic (see Figure 4). Domesticated rice is documented at Khok Phanom Di and Ban Chiang in Thailand, in contexts dated 2300–2000 cal BC (see Table 4). Archaeological evidence is currently lacking for the native root crops of this region, making it impossible to evaluate the role these played in early agriculture. Environmental records from Thailand indicate that food production predated the Neolithic, and that agricultural intensification was a two-phase process that varied temporally among regions. Indications of food production – burning, disturbance of forests and grasslands – are documented at 6750–5750 cal* BC in northeast and central Thailand, and at 5000–3750 cal* BC in southern Thailand. In the Khok Phanom Di area, disturbance indicators date to 9250–6750 cal* BC, with rice and rice weeds identified at 8000–6750 cal* BC. Agriculture was late in northwest Thailand, with no evidence of human impact on landscapes until AD 100–300 (see Table 4). Island Southeast Asia, Pacific Agriculture was introduced into this region by expanding Neolithic populations, beginning after 2500–2000 cal BC in the Philippines and Indonesia. Between 2000 and 800 cal BC Lapita populations, producing related forms of redslipped and stamped or incised pottery, shell artifacts,

and stone adzes spread over 10 000 km to the central Pacific. After an apparent standstill there at 800 cal BC, eastern Micronesia was settled by 500 cal BC–AD 1, Polynesia between AD 600–1250, and New Zealand by AD 1200 (see Migrations: Pacific). There is no evidence that rice was introduced beyond the Philippines and Borneo; agriculture in the Pacific was based on tubers and tree fruits, including aroids (taro, elephant ear taro, giant swamp taro, elephant yam), yams, sweet potato, banana, breadfruit, coconut, cabbage tree, candlenut tree, and gourd. There are too few botanical data to infer the sequence of introductions and relative contributions of crops on different islands. Starch residues and pollen document non-Colocasia aroids (likely elephant ear taro or elephant yam) in eastern Micronesia by AD 100 and in southeastern Polynesia by AD 800. New Guinea Evidence from Kuk swamp indicates that plant domestication began independently in Highland New Guinea during the early to mid-Holocene, prior to the earliest agricultural influences from Southeast Asia. New Guinea was not isolated – bananas spread to Africa and India – but the practice of mounded cultivation at Kuk is distinctive. Raised island beds are documented by 4950–4440 cal BC. Forest clearance, use of fire, and disturbed environments were widespread after 5000–4500 cal BC, resulting in establishment of an anthropogenic landscape. Colocasia taro and Musa (Eumusa section) bananas were cultivated at Kuk beginning during Phase 1 (8220–7910 cal BC). This is the earliest evidence for

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1833

these vegetatively reproduced crops (see Table 4) (see Oceania: New Guinea and Melanesia). New World

Plant domestication and agriculture began in the early Holocene in the Americas (see Tables 5 and 6). There are constraints on our understanding of these processes, the most formidable being a paucity of archaeological data for regions identified on the basis of genetics and plant distributions as areas of origin of major crops. Other challenges include the common occurrences of multiple domestications, and the mobility (low archaeological visibility) of populations engaged in early planting and harvesting. Finally, there are many domesticates from the lowland Neotropics for which little is known about the wild ancestors (see Figure 2). Mesoamerica The lowlands of Mexico and Guatemala were home to maize, the most important seed crop of the New World, squashes, beans, cotton, chili peppers, and a variety of tree crops. This is a larger domestication center than the Near East, and also differs from that center in that crops did not disperse as a ‘package’ (see Americas, Central: Early Cultures of Middle America). Early evidence for domestication The best-known data come from two caves, Coxcotlan and Guila´ Naquitz, located in the semi-arid highlands of central Mexico (see Table 6). While not located in the area of origin of maize – the lowlands of west Mexico – the excellent preservation of crop remains in these dry caves has influenced perceptions of the history of plant domestication. Maize, squash, and bottle gourd first appeared at Coxcotlan during the Coxcatlan phase, 5800–4400 cal* BC; by 4550 cal* BC tree fruits were present whose dispersal and maintenance must have depended on humans, as were large quantities of Setaria grass. Another squash, common bean, tepary bean, and chili pepper appeared over the next 2000 years. The antiquity of domesticates in the Coxcotlan sequence has largely not stood up to direct-dating of crop remains. Coxcatlan-phase maize was direct-dated no earlier than 3600 cal BC, common beans no earlier than 300 cal BC, and tepary bean remains from later levels are no older than 440 cal BC. Only bottle gourd was as ancient as expected from site stratigraphy. Guila´ Naquitz also documents early domesticated squash, possibly chili pepper, and bottle gourd. Direct dates confirmed that squash and bottle gourd were ancient. Maize cobs not recovered from the welldefined living floors at the site have been directdated to 4280–4210 cal BC (see Table 6).

Table 5 Selected crops of the New World Common name

Scientific name

Use

Achira Amaranth Arrowroot Avocado Bean, common Bean, lima Bean, tepary Cacao Chenopod

Canna edulis Amaranthus cruentus Maranta arundinacea Persea americana Phaseolus vulgaris Phaseolus lunatus Phaseolus acutifolius Theobroma cacao Chenopodium nuttaliae; C. berlandieri Capsicum spp. Erythroxylon coca, E. novogranatense Xanthosoma sagittifolium Gossypium barbadense, G. hirsutum Polygonum erectum Ambrosia trifida Psidium guajava Canavalia plagiosperma, C. ensiformis Pachyrrhizus ahipa Hordeum pusillum Calathea allouia Pouteria lucuma Zea mays Manihot esculenta Iva annua Phalaris caroliniana Oxalis tubersosa Inga spp. Arachis hypogaea Solanum tuberosum Chenopodium quinoa Manilkara achras Annona spp.

Root/tuber Seeds Root/tuber Fruit Legume Legume Legume Fruit Seeds

Seeds Seeds Fruit Legume

Cucurbita pepo Cucurbita spp.

Seeds Fruit,

Helianthus annuus Ipomoea batatas Nicotiana rustica, N. tabacum Ullucus tuberosus Dioscorea trifida Pouteria campechianum

Seeds Root/tuber Stimulant

Chili peppers (ajı´) Coca Cocoyam Cotton Erect knotweed Giant ragweed Guava Jack bean Jicama Little barley Llere´n Lucuma Maize Manioc Marshelder Maygrass Oca Pacae Peanut Potato Quinoa Sapodilla Soursop, custard apple Squash, pepo Squash container Sunflower Sweet potato Tobacco Ullucu Yam Yellow sapote

Spice Stimulant Root/tuber Fiber

Root/tuber Seeds Root/tuber Fruit Grain Root/tuber Seeds Seeds Root/tuber Fruit Legume Root/tuber Seeds Fruit Fruit

Root/tuber Root/tuber Fruit

Direct-dating of maize from highland Mexican sites shows that maize was not especially early there; maize spread first into lowland tropical environments like its west Mexico homeland (see Figure 5). The spread of maize into highland Mexico was likely delayed due to drier, cooler conditions there and the low productivity of early maize in comparison to other resources. Genetic studies suggest that maize was domesticated once, 9000 years ago in west Mexico, and underwent a prolonged domestication

1834 PLANT DOMESTICATION Table 6 Selected New World archaeological sites Location

Site

Crops (domesticated unless indicated otherwise)

Dates (associated)*

Mexico

Coxcotlan Cave

Wild tree fruits, including avocado; wild Setaria grass; Maize, C. pepo, C. mixta squash, bottle gourd Bottle gourd Maize Common bean Phasolus acutifolius Wild tree fruits, cactus, and agave; C. pepo squash, wild or domestic chili pepper, wild bean, bottle gourd Wild bean C. pepo squash Bottle gourd Maize Cultivated Zea Maize Manioc (possibly domesticated) Sunflower, cotton Sunflower Slash and burn indicators Intensification of slash and burn indicators Maize Arrowroot Arrowroot, lleren, bottle gourd, squash Manioc, primitive Zea, maize Maize Maize, Zamia cf. skinneri, Dioscorea, Fabaceae, Maranta cf. arundinacea, manioc, cf. Calathea Maize, cf. Dioscorea, cf. Calathea, cf. Maranta, Fabaceae Squash (directly dated extracts) Lleren, bottle gourd Maize Wild squash in oldest strata, domesticated in later strata Maize, cotton, jack bean Maize, achira, manioc, arrowroot, jack bean Maize Arrowroot, palm, avocado Palm, avocado, arrowroot family Palm, avocado, arrowroot family Maize Maize Maize Potato, manioc, sweet potato, ullucu, jicama Oca, Capsicum chinensis, lucuma, common bean, lima bean Common bean Lima bean Bottle gourd, quinoa, Cucurbita andina Common bean, lucuma, coca, Solanum, maize Cucurbita, Gossypium, Capsicum, achira Squash, quinoa, manioc, ciruela de fraile, peanut Maize Bottle gourd

Before 4550 cal* BC

Coxcotlan Cave Coxcotlan Cave Coxcotlan Cave Coxcotlan Cave Coxcotlan Cave Guila´ Naquitz Cave

Panama

Guila´ Naquitz Cave Guila´ Naquitz Cave Guila´ Naquitz Cave Guila´ Naquitz Cave San Andres site, core San Andres site, core San Andres site, core San Andres site, core San Andres site, core Lake La Yeguada core Lake La Yeguada core Lake La Yeguada core Cueva de los Vampiros Aguadulce Aguadulce Cueva de los Ladrones Gran Chiriquı´ stone tool study Gran Cocle´ stone tool study

Ecuador

Colombia, Andes

Peru

Vegas, site 80 Vegas, site 80 Vegas, site 80 Vegas, site 67 Real Alto Real Alto Loma Alta San Isidro Sauzalito El Recreo Hacienda Lusitania core Hacienda El Dorado core Paramo´ de Pen˜a Negra I Tres Ventanas Cave Guitarrero Cave Guitarrero Cave Guitarrero Cave Ayacucho Caves Ayacucho Caves Ayacucho Caves Quebrada de Las Pircas sites Waynuna Siches complex

Dates (direct)*

5800–4400 cal* BC 5248–5200 cal BC 3600 cal BC 300 cal BC 440 cal BC 10800–7720 cal* BC

6360–6310 cal BC 8020–5828 cal BC 7973–6808 cal BC 4280–4210 cal BC 5100 cal BC 5000 cal BC 4600 cal BC 2500 cal BC 2725–2675 cal BC 5800 cal* BC 5800–3800 cal* BC 4800 cal* BC 7800 cal* BC Ca 5800 cal* BC 5800–5050 cal* BC Ca. 5800 cal* BC 5800–3050 cal* BC

5800–3050 cal* BC 9840–8555 cal BC 8300 cal* BC 5800 cal* BC 10685–6080 cal BC 4500–2250 cal* BC 2800–2400 cal BC 3750–2500 cal* BC 9250–8500 cal* BC 8750–8500 cal* BC 6760–6500 cal* BC Before 3900 cal* BC 5550 cal* BC 7320–4000 cal* BC 9250–6750 cal* BC 9250–8500 cal* BC

5800 cal* BC

430 cal BC 1495–1325 cal BC 6500–5250 cal* BC 5250–3800 cal* BC 3800–2250 cal* BC 7200–6250 cal* BC 2000–1600 cal BC 6750–5000 cal* BC Continued

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1835 Table 6 Continued Location

Argentina

Brazil Colombia, Amazon

Site

Crops (domesticated unless indicated otherwise)

Dates (associated)*

Paloma Chilca 1

Bottle gourd, squash, guava, Phaseolus Bottle gourd, squash, Phaseolus, achira, jicama, jack bean Capsicum, common bean, maize Maize, quinoa, amaranth, oca, achira, ullucu, potato, Cucurbita Forest disturbance Slash and burn indicators, maize Palm, domesticated Cucurbita, lleren, bottle gourd Palm Phytolith extract Maize, manioc, forest disturbance indicators Maize, manioc, cotton, cacao, chile peppers, avocado Slash and burn indicators; maize Intensification of agriculture Maize, common beans Maize Maize, arrowroot, yam, ginger, guapo (root crop) Maize, squash Canna Phaseolus Maize

6500–3750 cal* BC 4500–2900 cal* BC

Huachichocana ChIII NW Argentina, stone tool residue study Geral Lake, lower Amazon Geral Lake, lower Amazon Pen˜a Roja Pen˜a Roja Pen˜a Roja Abeja Abeja

Ecuador, Amazon Venezuela

La Plata Basin Caribbean

Lake Ayauchi core Lake Ayauchi core Parmana Parmana Middle Orinoco, stone tool residue study Los Ajos Los Ajos Los Ajos Sites in Dominican Republic El Jobito site, Dominican Republic Lake Miragoane, Haiti En Bas Saline site, Haiti Maruca site, Puerto Rico Maruca site, Puerto Rico Puerto Ferro site, Puerto Rico Maisabel core, Puerto Rico Laguna Tortuguero core, Puerto Rico Tutu site, US Virgin Islands Three-dog site, Bahamas

8750–7720 cal* BC 4250–1500 cal* BC 4550 cal* BC 1600 cal* BC 8160–8125 cal* BC 8250 cal* BC 6500 cal* BC 3500–2800 cal* BC AD 385–1175 4000 cal* BC 400 cal* BC 1050 cal* BC AD 1000–1500 AD 450–800 2760 cal BC 2050 cal* BC 1300 cal* BC 1700 cal* BC

Maize

AD 1020

Maize Maize Maize, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, cf. Manihot esculenta Maize, cf. Manihot esculenta, sweet potato Maize, cf. Manihot esculenta, cf. Ipomoea batatas, Zamia portoricensis Maize Slash and burn indicators

AD 1000–1500 AD 1200–1500 1500–1000 cal* BC

Maize Maize

AD 1200–1500 AD 800–900

period of 300–1000 years, depending on the size of the initially cultivated populations. Maize evolution continued after its dispersal, and hundreds of distinctive land-races developed. The earliest maize in Mesoamerica to date is documented from a sediment core near the San Andres site on the Gulf coast (5100–5000 cal BC). Maize pollen and/or phytoliths document the crop in south Pacific coastal Mexico, Pacific coastal Guatemala, northern Belize, and Honduras by 3500 cal BC. Maize was carried south through the tropical lowlands prior to this time, however, since it is documented earlier in Panama and Colombia (see below) (see Table 6) (see Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics).

Dates (direct)*

800–400 cal* BC 700 cal* BC 785 cal BC and after 3350 cal BC

Emergence of the Formative Domesticates appear in the Mesoamerican highlands in the context of seasonal camps. Populations became less mobile over time; in the Tehuacan valley, for example, by late in the Archaic (4550–2800 cal* BC) hamlet-size sedentary occupations were present. Villages situated along waterways appeared in the Early Formative (1800–1300 cal* BC). In lowland Mesoamerica there was a shift in settlement and subsistence from 2000–800 cal BC, with increasing sedentism, and major investments in monumental architecture. These shifts underlay the emergence of Maya civilization. Lake and swamp cores throughout Mesoamerica document the onset of shifting cultivation between

1836 PLANT DOMESTICATION

60 ⬚ N Bottle gourd

? AD 1-400

?

AD 1-200

2000

AD 450

6100

4200 8000-7000

1700-1500

Maize 5100

3500 AD 450

5800 7250

4000

2400 5800 7200

1600 ?

Manioc 2000 6400 4200-1500

2700

150 ⬚ W

120 ⬚ W

90 ⬚ W

60 ⬚ W

Figure 5 The spread of bottle gourd, maize, and manioc around the New World; dates are calibrated BC. Figure drawn by Kristin Smart.

3800–3050 cal* BC, and establishment of intensive agriculture between 1300–50 cal* BC. Throughout the New World, domesticates first appeared among relatively mobile foragers having little impact on the environment, followed by reduced mobility and increasing environmental impacts (see Figure 6). North America Eastern Woodlands, Northeast, Plains For millennia, foragers in the Eastern Woodlands relied on game and native plant foods, including nuts, fleshy fruits, grains and oil seeds, legumes, and root and tubers. Between 3200–1785 cal BC native species of squash, chenopod, marshelder, and sunflower were domesticated. Maygrass, erect knotweed, little barley, and

giant ragweed were grown and moved outside their native ranges but did not undergo genetic change (see Americas, North: Eastern Woodlands). Over time these crops became increasingly important relative to other plant resources; there was a shift to greater reliance on food production during the Middle Woodland (500–200 BC to AD 200). Maize is direct-dated to AD 1–200, and is likely somewhat earlier. The introduction of maize had little effect on subsistence until AD 900 and after, when it suddenly came to dominate paleoethnobotanical assemblages, and native domesticates declined or disappeared. Common bean was introduced around 1000–1200 AD. Environmental records document landscape modification associated with cultivation beginning around

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1837

Figure 6 Slash and burn. In traditional slash and burn agriculture, burning of vegetation releases nutrients for crops, such as the maize being planted here, and provides evidence for shifting cultivation in palaeoenvironmental records. Photo credit: Deborah M. Pearsall.

2500 cal *BC in the Eastern Woodlands, and document anthropogenic landscapes after 800 AD. Fire was a major tool in altering vegetation for human use. North American domesticated chenopod, pepo squash, and sunflower are closely related to Mesoamerican domesticates, raising the question of the primary or secondary status of domestication in Eastern North America. DNA analysis of wild sunflowers supports separate origins for North American and Mesoamerican lineages, although domestication was contemporaneous in Mexico and Eastern North America (c. 2700 cal BC). There are also two separate lineages of domesticated pepo squashes. North American pepo was domesticated from a wild squash ranging from northeastern Mexico into the Mississippi valley. Mexican pepo squash falls into a separate lineage; the ancestor is unknown. Current data thus indicate that plant domestication in Eastern North America was independent of Mesoamerica (see Figure 2). Agriculture spread into Northeastern North America from the Eastern Woodlands. Domesticates grown included squash (4540–4190 cal BC), sunflower (1300 cal* BC), maize (AD 454–435), tobacco (AD 850– 950), and common bean (AD 1200). Regional differences existed in the impact of these introductions, as well as the importance of chenopod, erect knotweed, little barley, and marshelder. In general, little change occurred until maize was introduced; the period from AD 450–1000 saw the development of mixed economic systems, with intensification of food production based on maize after AD 1000.

Agriculture was also introduced into the Plains, predominantly from the east, but with some influence from the southwest. Archaic (4500–500 cal* BC) subsistence on the Plains was characterized by collection of native annuals; by late in this period, chenopod and others were perhaps cultivated. The earliest directdated domesticates are squash (2218–2142 cal BC), marshelder (628–609 cal BC), and maize (AD 813– 878). Maize was found in contexts dated 4224–2917 cal BC, and in the Middle Woodland (AD 1–400). It is reasonable to assume that maize was introduced around AD 1–400 , since it was present in the east by then (see Figure 5). During the Woodland Period (500 BC to AD 800–900), populations of the Plains became more sedentary, ceramics were introduced, and cultivated plants were increasingly used. The maize-based Plains Village tradition (AD 900–1600) developed out of this foundation (see Americas, North: Plains). Southwest The Mesoamerican domesticates maize, beans (common and tepary), and pepo squash form the core of southwestern agriculture, with cotton and bottle gourd also introduced early on, and other beans and squashes being later arrivals. Indigenous plants also played a role in southwestern agriculture; panic grass, little barley, and amaranth may have been cultivated. The earliest direct-dated domesticates were maize (2050 cal* BC), an unknown amaranth (1000 BC), common bean (1050–550 BC), squash (850 BC), and Amaranthus cruentus (500 BC).

1838 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Cotton was direct-dated to AD 200–400, but was likely introduced earlier. The period between 1500 BC and AD 500, the Early Agricultural Period, was one of change, with the widespread adoption of maize and the beginning of population-growth and aggregation (see Figure 5). Central America Domesticated plants were seen early in Central America, notably Pacific coastal Panama. Central America and Northern South America form a macroregion that is the likely area of origin for domesticated arrowroot, llere´n, cocoyam, sweet potato, achira, avocado, one species of chili, jack bean, and lima bean. Until genetic research narrows the homelands of these crops further, we cannot evaluate whether plant domestication was independent in Panama (see Americas, Central: Lower Central America). Many native wild resources were used throughout prehistory in Central America, including tree fruits, palms, starchy tubers and stems, and grasses. Some were likely cultivated: firing of forests and small-scale land clearance date to 11 050 cal* BC at Lake La Yeguada. Rock shelters and small open-air sites, some located adjacent to alluvial land, date to 11 050– 5800 cal* BC (see Table 6). Arrowroot was the first documented domesticate, dating to 7800 cal* BC at one site and 5800 cal* BC at others. By 5800 cal* BC maize and bottle gourd were introduced, and llere´n and squash were present. Manioc was introduced between 5800–5050 cal* BC (see Figure 5). Slash and burn agriculture is evident beginning around 5800 cal* BC, and intensifies from 5800–3800 cal* BC. During this time (Late Preceramic), stone tool residue studies document zamia (Zamia cf. skinneri) and yam (Dioscorea). With the appearance of the earliest ceramic-producing cultures in Panama (3800–1300 cal* BC), the domesticate list expanded to include sweet potato, yam, canna (cf. Canna), and cacao, and sediment records show increased environmental impacts of agriculture. After 3000 cal* BC, maize and manioc became staples, and increased forest clearance led to declining use of wild resources. Common bean is documented by 350 cal* BC (see Table 6). South American Andes The Andes encompasses deserts, tropical forests, and high elevation environments. The northern Andes (Ecuador, Colombia, western Venezuela) are part of the domestication macroregion discussed above. The Andes are also home to domesticates whose areas of origin are more precisely known: squash and common bean (northern mid-elevation Andes), lima bean, jack bean, cotton, and squash (coastal southwest Ecuador

and adjoining mid-elevation Andes), and potato, oca, ullucu, squash, jicama, and quinoa (mid-high elevation Andes of central Peru and Bolivia). Multiple domestication events occurred in the Andes, but domesticates introduced from Mesoamerica and eastern South America also played significant roles in the emergence of agriculture (see Figure 2) (see Americas, South: Early Cultures of the Central Andes; Northern South America). Early record of plant domestication: 9800– 3000 cal BC Plant domestication began around 9800 cal BC in coastal Ecuador. Squash phytoliths recovered from terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at Vegas sites (11 800–5300 cal BC) provide a rare look at the domestication process. Squash phytoliths dating to the earliest levels were smaller, in the range of wild squash, than those from later levels. Domesticated-size squash phytoliths were directly dated to 9840–8555 cal BC, and characterize the later part of the sequences. Other domesticates included bottle gourd, llere´n, and maize, which was introduced before 5800 cal* BC (see Figure 5). Maize was grown at farming villages of the Valdivia tradition (4500–2250 cal* BC), as was cotton, jack bean, achira, manioc, and arrowroot. Coastal agriculture remained broad-based for many millennia, incorporating wild/managed tree fruits, domesticated roots, tubers, pulses, and maize. Cotton and jack bean were likely domesticated in southwest coastal Ecuador or northern coastal Peru (see Figure 2 and Table 6). In the Colombian Andes, domesticated arrowroot is documented at 9250 cal* BC at the San Isidro site. Palms and avocado were also present at San Isidro and other sites, but whether they are domesticated or wild/managed is unknown. Pollen records document maize in association with forest clearance and disturbance beginning at 7250 cal* BC in one core, and in several sequences from 5500 cal* BC and after (see Table 6). Plant domestication may be equally ancient in the Peruvian sierra, but dating ambiguities exist for desiccated macroremains. Oca, chili pepper, lucuma, and common and lima beans were recovered from Guitarrero Cave in strata dated 9250–8500 cal* BC, but beans were direct-dated much younger. Several root crops were recovered from Tres Ventanas Cave in equally ancient strata, but one was direct-dated 5800 cal* BC. At Quebrada de Las Pircas (7200– 6250 cal* BC) all direct dates on domesticates, including manioc and peanut, were modern. In this case the direct dates should be rejected in favor of the associated dates, since the domesticates have primitive morphologies. None of the domesticates from

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1839

caves in the Ayacucho region, including early maize, have been direct-dated, making those results difficult to interpret. Maize microfossils on stone tools from the Waynuna site in the southern Peruvian Andes places maize there by 1600–2000 cal BC. Domestication of the diverse array of local Andean tubers, pulses, and quinoa was likely underway before 5800 cal* BC (see Table 6). Domesticates were introduced onto the Peruvian coast in this timeframe. Bottle gourd, squash, guava, and perhaps Phaseolus appeared first, followed by achira, jicama, and jack bean. Maize has not been documented in any secure preceramic context. Moving south from coastal Peru, while there is clear evidence for domesticated plants and farming villages by 500 BC in northern Chile and Argentina, most earlier finds are desiccated macroremains, none direct-dated. Associated dates of 8750–7720 cal* BC for maize are difficult to accept, given the Peruvian dates. Microfossils recovered from grinding stones from sites in northwest Argentina support a more reasonable date for plant domestication and maize introduction: 4250–1500 cal* BC for maize, quinoa, amaranth, oca, achira, ullucu, potato, and squash (see Figure 5) (see Americas, South: Southern Cone). The later record of agriculture: post-3000 cal BC On the Peruvian coast, by the late preceramic (3100/2750–2250/1750 cal* BC), 9–15 domesticates were typically present at sites. Among the new crops were: cotton, chili peppers, lucuma, avocado, pacae, soursop, sweet potato, manioc, and common and lima bean. While some fruit trees and cotton may have been domesticated locally, most crops were introduced from the sierra or eastern lowlands. There was increased reliance on plants in general, and on domesticates in particular, but no single plant food dominated. Settlements were located to take advantage of maritime resources. Cotton was widespread and abundant, reflecting a focus in local economy. The Initial Period (2500/1750–1250/1000 cal* BC) and Early Horizon (1000–400 cal* BC) saw few changes in the crop list. Maize was present by 2500 cal* BC, as was potato. Throughout the central and north coasts, there was a settlement shift in the Initial period to locations adjacent to productive lands in the lower and middle valleys. There was a slight decline in crop richness in the Early Horizon, with disappearance of potato, sweet potato, and jicama, and fewer tree fruits. Early agriculture was oriented to self-watering lands along rivers and their outflows, and in locations where short ditches or embankments could guide water. The earliest dated irrigation canals are small

ditches in the Zan˜a valley, dated 5000–3750 cal* BC. Irrigation canals were eventually constructed in 25–30 coastal valleys, with the largest system and area irrigated located on the north coast, dating AD 1000. Significant maize cultivation on the coast or in the sierra would have depended on irrigation. Shift of site locations during the Initial Period to inland valleys, and the first appearance of maize on the coast, likely signaled the beginnings of canal irrigation. Intensification of agriculture in the highlands was also linked to creation of productive agricultural lands through landscape modification, including irrigation, terracing, and raised fields. Eastern South America, Caribbean Eastern South America The record of plant domestication is scant for eastern South America. The antiquity of domestication in the Amazon, Orinoco, and adjoining regions must be inferred from data from regions into which crops from this area spread. The major crops include manioc (Brazilian uplands) (see Figure 7), peanut, chili pepper, coca (Western Brazil, lowland Bolivia, and adjoining eastern Andean slopes), and perhaps arrowroot, llere´n, and yam (Central America to northern South America) (see Figure 2). Many tree fruits native to the eastern lowlands have a long history of management (see Americas, South: Amazon Basin). The eastern lowlands were occupied in the early Holocene, and site locations suggest exploitation of tropical forest and riverine resources. Lake cores do not provide evidence for fire and human disturbance in the lower Amazon until 4550 cal* BC, late in comparison to other areas. Intensification of disturbance indicating maize slash and burn agriculture does not appear until 1600 cal* BC. Eastern Ecuador and Colombia document longer histories of agriculture. Palm and domesticated squash, llere´n, and bottle gourd were direct-dated to 8250–6500 cal* BC at the Pen˜a Roja site in Colombia, only slightly later than the first appearance of these crops in Andean Colombia. At a later site, Abeja, maize and manioc pollen were recovered in a stratum dated before 3500–2800 cal* BC, associated with forest disturbance indicators. Site occupations dated AD 385–1175 document cotton, cacao, chili peppers, and avocado (see Table 6). At Lake Ayauchi in Amazonian Ecuador, forest clearance started around 4000 cal* BC, associated with the first evidence for maize. Intensification of agriculture occurred by 400 BC, when frequencies of maize increased. There was a delay in the spread of maize from the Andes into the western Amazon. Agriculture appeared late in the middle Orinoco basin of Venezuela. Maize cobs from the Parmana

1840 PLANT DOMESTICATION

Figure 7 Manioc harvest. Harvesting the roots of manioc, an ancient crop and important food of the lowland Neotropics. Photo credit: Deborah M. Pearsall.

site were direct-dated to AD 1000–1500. Starch from stone tools, including ‘manioc grater chips’, from other Middle Orinoco sites documented maize, arrowroot, and yam by AD 450–800. This represents a long delay in the spread of maize into eastern South America, where root crops, not maize, are the mainstays of diet today. The absence of early evidence for manioc remains a puzzle (see Table 6). In southeastern Uruguay, research at the Los Ajos mound complex has documented permanent villages and presence of maize and domesticated squash just after 2760 cal BC. Stone tool residues also document Canna (2050 cal* BC), maize (1775 cal* BC), and Phaseolus (1300 cal* BC). The antiquity of maize in southeastern Uruguay is in line with a spread of maize down the eastern Andean foothills and through northwest Argentina (see Figure 5). Caribbean At European contact Caribbean populations cultivated a combination of roots, tubers, seed crops, and tree crops carried into the archipelago by prehistoric migrants from Mesoamerica and northern South America. The introduced domesticates included most of the lowland Neotropical crops discussed above. The history of these introductions, and how a uniquely Caribbean agricultural system was forged from local and introduced plants, is incompletely understood (see Americas, Caribbean: The Greater Antilles and Bahamas; The Lesser Antilles). Archaic-age (5750/5000–200 cal* BC) migrants into the Caribbean combined foraging with cultivation of local and introduced species. Maize is documented in Archaic contexts in the Dominican

Republic (1700 cal* BC) and Puerto Rico (1500– 1000 cal* BC), in association with possible manioc, cocoyam, and wild/managed yam, canna, palms, and pulses. Since maize was not present in the Orinoco basin at this time, introduction from Mesoamerica was likely. Fruit trees, including avocado, sapodilla, and yellow sapote, were also among Archaic-age introductions. Lake cores on Haiti and Puerto Rico indicate shifting cultivation around 3300 cal BC (see Table 6). Around 500 BC, populations of the Saladoid and Huecoid ceramic traditions migrated into the Caribbean from the Orinoco basin. Cultivation of root and tree crops was likely. By AD 800, maize is confirmed in ceramic-age contexts, and sites of the Ostionoid tradition (AD 1200–1500) documented two types of maize, manioc, chili pepper, and possibly sweet potato and Zamia. Reliance on staple crops likely intensified during this period.

Conclusion Domesticated plants feed most of the earth’s population today. Methodological advances in archaeology and increased interest in the origins of domestication and agriculture have led to a degree of consensus on the ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘when’ of these processes. There are three thresholds of domestication and agriculture within the primary centers. First, in the Early Holocene there were frequent and dispersed plant domestications; some were advantageous and left traces in the archaeological record. First domesticates included food plants – mostly annuals grown for their

PLANT DOMESTICATION 1841

nutritious seeds and starch-rich roots, tubers, or stems propagated by cuttings – as well as useful species like gourd (floats, containers). Long-lived fruit and nut trees were managed, but slower to undergo genetic change. In two centers, Eastern North America (United States) and sub-Saharan Africa, this first threshold dates to the mid-Holocene. Second, early domesticates spread, sometimes widely, through social interactions among forager/ horticulturists. Cultivation was small-scale in wellwatered settings, use of wild and managed species continued, and local species were sometimes domesticated. These developments initially had little effect on societies. Third, increasingly productive crops fueled population growth within communities, which led to the spread of societies dependent on agriculture into new habitats, and creation of built environments for farming. Interactions between expanding farming populations and local foragers were likely complex, and remain poorly understood. The third threshold is the most visible of the process, having left its mark on the landscape in the form of irrigation and drainage canals, planting terraces and mounds, or plowing scars; in sedimentary records in the form of evidence for deforestation and erosion; and in sheer numbers of Neolithic/Formative archaeological sites. There is considerable variation in the time lapse between first domestications and dependence on agriculture – 1000–6000 years – for reasons likely rooted in historical circumstances and differences in environments and crops. There is less consensus on the ‘why’ of domestication and agriculture, except for a fundamental understanding that these are separate phenomena, best understood as processes, not revolutions. Many would agree that domestication grew out of normal foraging behaviors in the changing conditions of the early Holocene: behaviors that were mutually beneficial to foragers and plants, or that optimized caloric return for energy expended by foragers. Some would argue that an external ‘push’ was required to start the process: deteriorating climate or increasing populations. Others emphasize the role of social factors and individual decision-making in the emergence of agriculture: gaining prestige by producing surplus food for feasting. The future holds great potential for testing these and other ideas about why humans domesticated plants and became agriculturalists, and for filling in gaps in our knowledge of understudied crops and regions. See also: Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists; Africa, North: Sahara, Eastern; Agricultural Fields, Identification and Study; Agriculture:

Biological Impact on Populations; Social Consequences; Americas, Caribbean: The Greater Antilles and Bahamas; The Lesser Antilles; Americas, Central: Early Cultures of Middle America; Lower Central America; Americas, North: Eastern Woodlands; Plains; Americas, South: Amazon Basin; Early Cultures of the Central Andes; Northern South America; Southern Cone; Animal Domestication; Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Japanese Archipelago, Prehistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers; Asia, South: Ganges Valley; Indus Civilization; Neolithic Cultures; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Coprolite Analysis; DNA: Ancient; Modern, and Archaeology; Europe: Neolithic; Europe, Northern and Western: Early Neolithic Cultures; Mesolithic Cultures; Health, Healing, and Disease; Interdisciplinary Research; Migrations: Pacific; Oceania: New Guinea and Melanesia; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics; Paleoethnobotany; Phytolith Analysis; Pollen Analysis; Starch Grain Analysis; Trace Element Analysis.

Further Reading Babot Marı´a de Pilar (2004) Tecnologı´a y utilizacion de artefactos de molienda en el noroeste prehispa´nico. Tucuman, Argentina: Tesis Doctoral, Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Bellwood P (2005) First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Colledge S, Conolly J, and Shennan S (2004) Archaeobotanical evidence for the spread of farming in the eastern Mediterranean. Current Anthropology 45(Supplement): 35–58. Crawford GW and Lee G-A (2003) Agricultural origins in the Korean Peninsula. Antiquity 77(295): 87–95. Denham TP, Haberle SG, Lentfer C, et al. (2003) Origins of agriculture at Kuk swamp in the highlands of New Guinea. Science 301(5630): 189–193. Dickau R (2005) Resource Use, Crop Dispersals, and the Transition to Agriculture in Prehistoric Panama: Evidence from Starch Grains and Macroremains. Philadelphia, PA: Doctoral Thesis, Temple University. Erickson DL, Smith BD, Clarke AC, et al. (2005) An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(51): 18315– 18320. Harlan JR (1992) Crops and Man, (2nd edn.). Madison, Wisconsin: American Society of Agronomy. Harris DR (ed.) (1996) The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Harter AV, Gardner KA, Falush D, et al. (2004) Origin of extant domesticated sunflowers in eastern North America. Nature 430(8): 201–205. Horrocks M and Weisler MI (2006) Analysis of plant microfossils in archaeological deposits from two remote archipelagos: The Marshall Islands, Eastern Micronesia, and the Pitcairn Group, Southeast Polynesia. Pacific Science 60(2): 261–280. Iriarte J, Holst I, Marozzi O, et al. (2004) Evidence for cultivar adoption and emerging complexity during the mid-Holocene in the La Plata basin. Nature 432(2): 614–617. Londo JP, Chiang Y-C, Hung K-H, et al. (2006) Phylogeography of Asian wild rice, Oryza rufipogon, reveals multiple independent

1842 POLITICAL COMPLEXITY, RISE OF domestications of cultivated rice, Oryza sativa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(25): 9578–9583. Lu TLD (1999) BAR International Series 774: The Transition from Foraging to Farming and the Origin of Agriculture in China. Archaeopress. Marshall F and Hildebrand E (2002) Cattle before crops: The beginnings of food production in Africa. Journal of World Prehistory 16(2): 99–143. Matsui A and Kanehara M (2006) The question of prehistoric plant husbandry during the Jomon Period in Japan. World Archaeology 38(2): 259–273. Mbida CM, VanNeer W, Doutrelepont H, et al. (2000) Evidence for banana cultivation and animal husbandry during the first millennium BC in the forest of southern Cameroon. Journal of Archaeological Science 27: 151–162. Minnis PE (ed.) (2003) People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books. Minnis PE (ed.) (2004) People and Plants in Ancient Western North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books. Neumann K (2005) The romance of farming: Plant cultivation and domestication in Africa. In: Stahl AB (ed.) African Archaeology, pp. 249–275. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Plant Remains

Penny D and Kealhofer L (2005) Microfossil evidence of land-use intensification in north Thailand. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 69–82. Perry L, Sandweiss DH, Piperno DR, et al. (2006) Early maize agriculture and interzonal interaction in southern Peru. Nature 440(2): 76–79. Piperno DR and Pearsall DM (1998) The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. San Diego: Academic Press. Piperno DR and Stothert KE (2003) Phytolith evidence for early holocene Cucurbita domestication in southwest Ecuador. Science 299(5609): 1054–1057. Price TD (ed.) (2000) Europe’s First Farmers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Weber SA (1998) Out of Africa: The initial impact of millets in South Asia. Current Anthropology 39(2): 267–274. Zhao Z (1998) The middle Yangtze region in China is one place where rice was domesticated: Phytolith evidence from the Diaotonghuan Cave, northern Jiangxi. Antiquity 72: 885–897. Zohary D and Hopf M (2000) Domestication of Plants in the Old World, (3rd edn.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

See: Macroremains Analysis.

POLITICAL COMPLEXITY, RISE OF R Alan Covey, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary archaic state See state. chiefdom A regional polity with hierarchical organization, limited political offices (chiefs), but lacking specialized administration. complexity, political Forms of social organization characterized by the presence of political offices, institutions, and the hierarchical structuring of information exchange and decision making. core-periphery model An approach to states that distinguishes between highly integrated and economically developed territory near the capital (core) and less well integrated and developed regions in outlying areas (periphery). empire A centralized state that is sufficiently large and complex to administer other states and/or multiple ethnic groups.

heterarchy Power distribution arrangement where multiple upper-level entities divide power broadly, as opposed to its narrow concentration in upper levels of a hierarchy. Malthusian effects The observation by T. R. Malthus that human populations grow to outstrip increases in food production. This term is used here without any adherence to Malthus’ personal views on how society should respond to such conditions. neoevolutionary theory Comparative evolutionary approach to human social organization. polygyny Household arrangement where a prominent or elite man takes multiple wives. satisfizing strategy A production strategy that seeks to meet perceived needs, then ceases or reduces production (rather than seeking to intensify or maximize production). sedentism Residential pattern characterized by relatively permanent occupation of a single locale. settlement hierarchy The archaeological identification of multiple tiers of settlement within a given region, most easily identifiable as peaks on a histogram of regional site size distribution. state A regional polity characterized by social stratification and a centralized and specialized administration.

POLITICAL COMPLEXITY, RISE OF 1843

Virtually all humans living today participate to some degree in at least one of the few hundred nation-states that have occupied and incorporated the habitable parts of the planet. Our species spent most of its history dispersed in bands of hunter-gatherers, so present conditions represent a radical departure from the past. Archaeology is well suited to study the rise of complexity because it is the discipline that addresses large-scale spatiotemporal patterning in the human developmental trajectory. The rise of political complexity involves the establishment and elaboration of political offices and institutions that did not exist among egalitarian foragers and collectors of the Palaeolithic.

Defining Complexity To be useful to archaeologists, complexity must be defined in a meaningful way such that material expectations relevant to the archaeological record may be developed. Political complexity can be assessed or documented by the appearance of offices, institutions, and the hierarchical structuring of information exchange and decision making. The concept of ‘complexity’ should not be regarded as the opposite of egalitarianism. Current literature on egalitarian groups emphasizes that while permanent political institutions and hierarchies are absent, interpersonal relationships and consensus-building mechanisms are by no means ‘simple’. Thus, complex societies are nonegalitarian, but egalitarian ones are not undifferentiated. Complex societies are characterized by reduced residential mobility, intensified economic production, some degree of labor specialization, the presence of hierarchical posts and titles, institutionalized leadership, and hereditary status differences; these features tend to be integrated regionally to varying degrees.

Approaches to Complexity The concept of political complexity emerged in early centralized state societies (see Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of), where philosophers and historians developed typologies or continua to describe domestic organization and civil institutions of their own societies, as well as to rank their ‘barbarian’ neighbors relative to their own perceived organizational and cultural superiority. Notions of progress toward civil society date at least to classical antiquity – Aristotle’s Politics distinguishes between the patriarchal household (oı´koB), small villages and regional polities, and the city-state (po´liB), a continuum based on the same distinction between

kin-ordered (societas) and civil societies (civitas) seen later in Latin literature. Early formulations of concepts of ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’ reflect a core– periphery model of contemporary political arrangements with slight attention dedicated to diachronic aspects of social evolution. In writings from classical antiquity and the Renaissance, political complexity tends to be conceptualized as a quality that is concentrated in the here-and-now, one that diminishes when moving backward in time or outward in space. Contemporary archaeological approaches to political complexity are intimately tied to colonialism and the same kinds of teleological and ethnocentric constructions of ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’ seen among earlier writers. The first European archaeologists focused on unraveling the prehistory of their own nation-states and exploring the ruins of ancient civilizations in the classical world (and, later, in their colonies). By the eighteenth century, archaeologists were beginning to recognize large-scale technological developments occurring in European prehistory, which became the basis for cross-cultural comparisons and regional chronologies. In the early 1800s, Christian Ju¨rgensen Thomsen formulated a system of three prehistoric ages (Stone, Bronze, and Iron) that was based on technological innovations. Continued archaeological research refined the three-age system for European archaeological sequences, which, thus derived, provided a material-culture platform for subsequent evolutionary theories. The nineteenth century saw attempts to develop global approaches to cultural development that could be used in synchronic and diachronic analyses. Those formulated in anthropology presumed an evolution of social complexity that was unidirectional and unilineal, one that could be linked to specific sociocultural practices and material culture. The evolutionary approaches of Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Taylor, and others drew from the writings of classical antiquity, the Old Testament, and accounts of European travelers; they also took into account the relative chronologies developed by European archaeologists. For example, Morgan, in his Ancient Society (1867), laid out a seven-stage typology through which human societies had risen from conditions of savagery to civilization (Figure 1). Each step toward civilization was achieved by the innovation or adoption of a new economic resource or technology – fishing/fire, bow and arrow, pottery, food production/durable architecture, iron metallurgy, and writing. While evolutionary theories were widely rejected in the first half of the twentieth century (particularly by Boasian anthropologists in the United States),

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Writing Iron Animal domestication, irrigation, stone/adobe architecture Pottery Upper Archery Middle Fishing, fire Lower

Upper Middle Barbarism Lower

Savagery

Figure 1 Morgan’s seven-step evolutionary sequence from Ancient Society.

archaeologists continued to use classification systems and were influenced by their underlying assumptions of societal progress. The three-age system proved a useful heuristic for approaching prehistoric technological innovation and diffusion in Europe, but was problematic for other parts of the world, where political complexity lacked the same sequence of innovations and technologies in those materials. Archaeologists came to recognize that the material from which a tool was made was of less social significance than the use to which such a tool was put; this inspired the development of evolutionary approaches that focused on ecology, energetics, and economic innovations. Unlike nineteenth-century social evolutionary theory, which incorporated material culture patterns that had been developed by archaeologists, so-called neoevolutionary approaches by Julian Steward, Gordon Childe, Leslie White, and later writers derived their material correlates of social organization and change from comparative studies of ethnography, ethnohistory, and history. These scholars viewed political complexity as the result of plant and animal domestication – food production increased available energy resources and permitted population growth, leading to rapid social and technological innovations culminating in processes of urbanization and the development of centralized states and empires. While Steward favored a multilineal evolutionary taxonomy for social evolution, Childe and White generally embraced an evolutionary scheme involving a limited number of rapid macroevolutionary transformations (‘revolutions’) separated by multilineal microevolutionary developments that followed specific culturehistorical trajectories. These processual orientations were more fully expressed in the 1960s by Elman Service, Morton Fried, and others, who promoted evolutionary taxonomies that articulated some important social features of complex societies: hereditary inequality, political offices, differential access to resources, political centralization and specialization, and the

development of supra-kin politico-legal systems (Figure 2). Service’s typology has remained influential among archaeologists, who have worked to identify material correlates of the societal transformations concomitant with the development and elaboration of political complexity. Critics of neoevolutionary theory fault it for being teleological and static, fetishizing the state (or, worse, projecting the values of a contemporary nation-state onto the past), masking organizational diversity, and failing to account for the role of individual agency. While acknowledging the limitations of the archaeological record vis-a`-vis behavioral and cognitive aspects of social change, neoevolutionary archaeologists have advanced more dynamic approaches to social evolution (Figure 3). Evolutionary trajectories are not inevitable, and types should not be viewed as unidimensional or unidirectional; rather, in the tradition of Childe and White, social change may be viewed as a dynamic adaptive landscape (sensu Sewall Wright) where complexity is measured in terms of ecological fitness maxima that fluctuate through time (Figure 4). Classificatory systems describe a limited number of general patterns of institutional organization that were durable enough under given conditions to be materialized archaeologically – the results of macroevolutionary transformations of the sort termed ‘revolutionary’ by earlier researchers. Internally, broad categories subsume substantial microevolutionary variation – they encompass both diachronic fluctuations and inter-regional variability – but they can be useful for developing research hypotheses and for making comparative analyses of social institutions. Comparative ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies reveal that while the material record may seem straightforward to archaeologists, human groups have pursued a wide range of organizational strategies. Neoevolutionists recognize the specific differences but they often want to focus on significant and repetitive patterns. This article considers two macroevolutionary transformations linked to complex societies, looking first at the development of political offices and centralized regional political organizations (chiefdoms), and subsequently at the innovation of centralized and specialized civil government (states). In considering intra-type variation, the dynamics of large-scale multiethnic states (empires) are also considered.

Pathways to Complexity Much ink has been spilled in the debate over how increasingly complex forms of social organization could be promoted as desirable alternatives to prevailing patterns of organization. When distilled to its

POLITICAL COMPLEXITY, RISE OF 1845 Service (1962)

Fried (1967)

Band Egalitarian society Increased scale sodalities Egalitarian

Ecological demography redistribution

Tribe

Rank society Redistribution labor specialization Restricted access to basic resources Complex

Chiefdom

Complex

Stratified society Legal system Specialized institutions and agencies

State

State Figure 2 Neoevolutionary typologies of Elman Service and Morton Fried.

Time

Growth/fissioning

Centralization

Complexity

Autonomous village societies

Complexity

Chiefdoms

Chiefly cycling Specialization

States and empires

Time Figure 4 An example of dynamic ‘evolution without stages’.

Expansion/decline

Figure 3 A schematic of dynamic social evolution, showing microevolution within types, as well as limited qualitative transformations between types.

simplest form, theoretical discussion revolves around the roles of consensus and coercion in generating intracommunity and intercommunity cooperation and conflict (Figure 5). Coercion-oriented perspectives focus on class conflict or interpolity warfare, while consensus-based theoretical approaches emphasize the managerial roles of an emergent elite or the importance of long-distance economic and exchange

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Consensus Coercion

Elite power base

Scale of interaction Intracommunity

Intercommunity

Elite management

Regional trade

(infrastructure, monuments)

(regional artifact distributions)

Class struggle

Aggressive expansion

(local status distinctions)

(regional settlement patterns)

Figure 5 Simple schematic of approaches to the emergence of complexity.

networks. It is worth noting that these basic mechanisms are implicated in the rise of both chiefdoms and states, although individual behavioral strategies may vary over time. Some models see both coercion and cooperation at both the intrasite and intersite and interpolity levels. Recognizing the dialectical relationship between individuals and institutions, a complete treatment of the rise and elaboration of complex political organization should ideally account for both individual behavior as well as institutional structures. It is important to acknowledge the fundamentally archaeological nature of the problem, however, and to admit that the archaeological record is coarse grained, and that the clearest material patterns will tend to reflect behavior that is normative and recurrent rather than idiosyncratic and innovative. In the absence of text or other auxiliary lines of evidence, archaeologists are more likely to identify enduring institutions than individual behavior, and punctuated periods of institutional innovation will remain difficult to sort out unambiguously. Timing the Emergence of Complexity

Humans possessed a fully modern capacity for culture tens of thousands of years before the first complex societies coalesced, and human groups developed technology and crafted intricate forms of egalitarian social organization that enabled them successfully to colonize Arctic tundra and vast deserts. If complexity is decoupled from human biological evolution – if, as some researchers have argued, it subverts millennia of biocultural evolution based on egalitarianism – then we must look elsewhere for explanations of why complexity developed

when and where it did, and why complex forms of social organization seem to be effective. Many researchers argue that Pleistocene climatic conditions yielded resource distributions that favored the persistence of egalitarianism, and that the amelioration of global climate in the Holocene presented human groups with a new set of environmental parameters in which sedentism and food production were viable possibilities. Such observations may help to explain why complexity would not be pronounced before the Holocene, but they still fail to provide a meaningful social perspective on how complexity appeared in certain parts of the world and became so common in the past 5000 years or so. Factors in the Emergence of Complexity

While some researchers cite environmental conditions to explain the rise of complexity, others would invoke human population growth as an important aspect of the process. Population growth appears to be a characteristic common to all forms of human social organization, but archaeological estimates of population are crude at best, leaving the field with a lack of consensus regarding whether population growth necessitated technological innovations and new forms of social organization, or whether growth was a consequence of such developments. Probably neither alternative is exclusively responsible, and it is undeniable that innovative behavior occurs in the absence of stress (as a common satisfizing strategy), as well as in cases where ecological and social pressures are present. Humans are innovators who develop, implement, and improve resources and technology to improve net caloric return on labor investments and reduce the risks inherent to food-procurement strategies. Innovations intended to reduce proximate work loads and risk can paradoxically have a perverse ultimate impact as the Malthusian effects of increased resource availability are felt over time. Population growth, implicated by many researchers in the rise of complexity, influences the tempo of such processes and is also an effect of them – given the rough tools at our disposal for measuring population growth over short spans of time, this presents a critical problem for archaeologists. The rise of complexity has been linked to reduced residential mobility, increases in the size and density of population, and higher per capita energy production. Higher population size and density may be obtained by greater resource (energy) availability, which is made possible by the intensive exploitation of highly productive patches of wild resources (especially marine resources), the intensification of

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agropastoral production (through improved infrastructure, technology, scheduling, and genetic manipulation of domesticates), or a combination of wild and produced foods. Some researchers challenge the identification of complex hunter-gatherers in the ethnographic and archaeological record, but most would agree that there are multiple economic paths to complexity, and that particular case studies should be expected to vary in terms of the social solutions crafted over the long term. Regardless of economic base, several factors influence the rise of complexity, including population growth rate, technological capacity, and the degree of circumscription. Complexity might arise through a combination of consensual and coercive means, depending on the relationship between fortuitous/obligate innovation and regional demography.

Egalitarian Social Organization Egalitarian social organization – where social statuses are achieved, power is rooted in personal charisma, and permanent political offices are absent – is commonly observed among both nomadic foragers and sedentary horticulturalists, indicating that foodprocurement strategy alone does not determine the rise of complexity. Ethnographic accounts of egalitarian groups describe population ranges from microbands of a few individuals to villages of several hundred people. Individuals and families in egalitarian groups maintain wide social networks and change residential locations based on food-procurement needs, as well as to satisfy both positive and negative social needs. Egalitarianism is thus encouraged by lower ecological and social costs for residential mobility (or, put differently, higher costs for permanent residence), operating most effectively under conditions of modest regional population densities relative to resource potential. Band societies tend to fluctuate between periods of dispersal and temporary aggregation, while autonomous villages are characterized by patterns of population growth and fissioning that discourage the emergence of regional political hierarchies. Egalitarian groups tend to have social leveling mechanisms that undermine the emergence of hereditary status categories – status is gained by underwriting feasts and distributing (rather than accumulating) gifts (see Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects). They also practice self-dampening household-oriented economies where intensive resource development is rare and material goods are produced and exchanged to maintain the social networks that constitute an essential risk-reduction strategy.

Archaeologically, egalitarian social organization manifests itself materially at the regional and site level. Regionally, settlement hierarchies are modest or absent, and material culture production and distribution do not pattern in a way that suggests specialized production or hereditary status inequality. At the site level, domestic architecture tends to be fairly uniform, although there may be a distinction between nuclear and extended family residences within or between sites, depending on economic activities. Sedentary groups sometimes construct corporate architecture used for sodality activities (e.g., a structure for initiated men), or to accentuate gender categories (e.g., a menstrual building), but the lack of special offices and full-time ritual specialists may be inferred by the absence of architecture devoted to full-time religious activity. Egalitarian societies typically lack full-time craft specialists; regionally, style should be heterogeneous (with localized or idiosyncratic patterning) and exotic goods and technology should be widely distributed. Mortuary contexts should not communicate differential investments of labor or materials based on inherited statuses.

Features of Emergent Complexity The ethnographic literature for autonomous village societies describes cases of male (and some female) aggrandizers, individuals whose scheming, charisma, and hard work aid them in building and manipulating larger social networks than less prominent individuals. Such individuals are turned to for conflict resolution, and their persuasive power is critical for increasing local production to stage important feasting events. Such ‘big men’ also provide critical leadership in times of intercommunity conflict and have stronger regional exchange ties than less prominent men. Certain of these men are polygynous, possess specific titles and symbols connoting their prestige, and are credited with enhanced ties to the supernatural. These are all features of leadership seen in chiefdoms, but ‘big men’ in egalitarian societies are not able to pass their prestige on to their children, and in cases where titles are inherited they are not linked to offices with real political power. Chiefdoms differ from autonomous villages in terms of their territorial extent and the kind of internal differentiation present within a given community or polity. A chiefdom is thus a regional polity in which multiple villages are administered by the emerging chiefly elite at a paramount settlement. Chiefdoms are characterized by hereditary inequality, which may be expressed socially through rules of ranking or by outright stratification. Labor specialization is

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more pronounced in chiefdoms, with attached craft specialists and retainers surrounding the elite. Whereas a ‘big man’ earns status through hard work, a chief is released from subsistence labor by virtue of perceived genealogical superiority, supernatural ties, and access to a fund of coercive power. Economically, a chiefdom should have some degree of resource intensification. Intensive agriculture stands out as the most effective means of promoting a centralized political economy, differential access to productive resources, and the production of stored surpluses to fund specialized labor (or buffer against production variability). Pastoralism and certain wild resources can provide intensive resource bases, but these tend to support only modest (i.e., nonstate) levels of complexity in the absence of agriculture. Redistribution of the polity’s products was once thought to be the basis of the emergence of chiefly economic power, but archaeological and ethno-historic research indicates that chiefdoms tend to promote local economic self-sufficiency, drawing tribute in labor or kind to support the chiefly elite and their retainers and attached specialists. Emergence of the Chiefdom

Coercion-based approaches to complexity assert that villages and individuals will not permanently cede their autonomy voluntarily; chiefdoms are thus expected to develop in circumstances where residential mobility is constrained (through either environmental or population circumscription) and where intra- and intercommunity conflicts result in proven warriors being vested with temporary powers that ultimately become institutionalized. Warfare has the potential to promote an emergent warrior elite, but not simply by placing power in the hands of skilled fighters. Male and female prisoners taken in intercommunity conflicts often become slaves, creating an emergent underclass, as well as households with a disproportionate number of adult laborers. Prominent men in egalitarian societies are more likely to practice polygyny and take male and female prisoners to add to their households – few authors have pointed this out, but such developments would tend to differentiate domestic units within a community and to favor the emergence of specialized craft production and a regional prestige goods economy. Captives and secondary wives could work to meet subsistence requirements and to produce surpluses for feasts – without the need to be reciprocated – leaving ambitious men and women to invest in acquiring exotic goods or producing laborintensive prestige items from nonlocal materials. As discussed above, cooperation-oriented approaches to complexity focus not only on exchange

networks, but also on leadership roles in the development of intensification projects within a community. Intensification changes the productive landscape, creating a resource hierarchy between permanently farmed patches of centrally/privately held lands and unimproved lands available to all community members for shifting cultivation. Charismatic leaders who organize the creation of such resources may appeal to community interests to mobilize labor, but probably benefit later with disproportionate access to these lands. Dynamic Cycles in Chiefly Societies

The unspecialized nature of political offices in chiefdoms encourages an inherent instability. Because the chiefly office exists apart from its individual holders and is predicated upon social ranking, fierce competition exists between many eligible would-be chiefs for a limited number of generalized positions of power. A chief must outcompete rivals – including close relatives, as well as unrelated neighboring chiefs – without compartmentalizing sociopolitical control. This often leads to situations where a chief controls a limited set of resources or territory within which an attempt is made to amplify or maximize surplus production. Chiefs mobilize surpluses to underwrite competitive ritual displays, feasts, and acts of generosity, but the overexploitation of labor and natural resources can lead to social or ecological collapse. Individual personalities influence the trajectory of (in)stability; a capable chief will moderate managerial and extractive roles to meet evolving circumstances, while one who fails to achieve the right balance may be assassinated or ousted by rivals or disgruntled subalterns. Paradoxically, chiefly competition yields conditions where local economic self-sufficiency is encouraged as a means of recognizing goals of regional cohesion and control. In stable chiefdoms, this may be resolved institutionally (and individually) through the sanctification of authority, vertical alliance building between paramount and subordinate chiefs, prestige good exchange, and periodic interpolity warfare. The importance of individual agency in social stability is illustrated particularly well by periods of instability that occur at times of chiefly succession. In more stable chiefdoms, successors are usually appointed and prepared for office through the creation of political ties and instruction in ritual and esoteric knowledge. In larger chiefdoms, however, several prestigious individuals (local chiefs, close male relatives of the decedent) may take advantage of an interregnum to challenge the chief-designate for the paramountcy, and subordinates may attempt

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to assert local autonomy. In regions with competing paramount chiefdoms, other paramounts may capitalize on the vulnerability of a rival, attracting former supporters of that chiefdom, extending control over nearby areas, or simply consolidating control over current holdings. Due to cycles of competition and the evolution of institutional structures, the organization of chiefly societies often fluctuates or cycles between strong, centralized, and weak, decentralized forms. Major upheavals and fluctuations in chiefly authority do not always result in regular system-wide changes in organizational hierarchy; alternately, short-term cycles stimulated by individual competition may influence the long-term trajectory of regional polities. Processes of short-term centralization may be marked by outward expansion of chiefly interests, accomplished as a strong paramount sends competitors into interpolity conflicts or channels them into peripheral leadership positions. If a neighboring group is also strong and centralized, marriage alliances might be sought between elite families; if weak and decentralized, a neighboring group might be targeted for conquest. During periods of centralization, tribute flows should be uninterrupted and prestige and long-distance exchange goods should be managed by the chiefly elite. Military conflict should be directed outward from the system, and core areas should be well integrated. Periods of disintegration, on the other hand, should be characterized by deterioration of the core area, and if prolonged, territorial predation by neighboring polities. Marriage exchange partnerships will be interrupted, and peripheral areas may either contest central authority or shift allegiance to a neighboring chiefdom. As peripheral tributary and long-distance exchange relationships break down, the chiefly structure will be affected, and rebellions, assassinations, and coups will be more likely. Ideological devices may be co-opted by competitors and rules of social ranking suspended as internal military success decides contests for office – to the long-term detriment of the system. Short-term decentralization is most likely during periods of succession or environmental perturbation (e.g., cyclones, droughts, earthquakes). Over the long run, however, rules of chiefly succession and sanctity, competition with neighboring groups, and ecological factors may contribute to long-term cycles of centralization or decentralization. Archaeological Correlates of Chiefdoms

Archaeologically, chiefdoms will be most effectively identified based on societal features not present in egalitarian societies, as well as by the absence of institutions seen in states and empires. A multitier regional

settlement hierarchy provides evidence of vertical political integration lacking in egalitarian societies. Clear status differences should be identifiable at the site level, including differential investment in domestic architecture and burials. Elites should exhibit better health and access to exotic goods, even in childhood. Monumental religious architecture may be present in chiefly societies, although temples should not exhibit regional standardization.

The Development of Centralized State Polities Organizational cycling in chiefdoms may be the source of the institutional innovations that brought about the emergence of the first centralized states in a limited number of world regions (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, central China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes). States, like chiefdoms, are centralized regional polities with intensive economies and hierarchical social organization. Unlike chiefdoms, which have only marginally differentiated political offices, states possess specialized offices and more complex constructions of power and status within elite and commoner strata (see Social Inequality, Development of). Most states are organized at a scale that transcends maximal kin groupings – they are civil societies where the state holds a putative monopoly over sanctioned internal and external expressions of force. Processes of First-Generation State Formation

Conflict-oriented interpretations of state formation view the first states as paramount chiefdoms that successfully conquered at least one other paramount chiefdom and then developed a specialized powersharing structure to administer territories and populations on a scale that undifferentiated chiefly leadership could not monitor effectively. Because first-generation state formation involves a regional extrapolation of chiefly power, with administrative specialization following territorial expansion, conquest models seem consistent with the archaeological evidence as well as historical descriptions of state formation in some parts of the world. Cooperationbased approaches to state formation emphasize the role of economic intensification, specialized craft production, and regional trade networks, arguing that economic specialization could drive population growth and nucleation, creating the need for new offices and institutions to manage emerging urban centers and regional economies. Institutional Features of Archaic States

Political complexity in archaic states is qualitatively different from chiefdoms and autonomous villages.

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Chiefdoms form in societies that have kin- or community-based institutions (sodalities), but the power of the chiefly office is typically not derived from these institutions. Power in states is not simply vested individually in a horizon of competing elites, but is distributed in hierarchical offices representative of a number of central institutions whose powers, functions, and constituencies overlap to varying degrees. The ruling elite of an archaic state may hold the paramount titles for military, political, religious, and economic institutions – and may compete for these offices in a manner not unlike chiefly competition – but lower-order offices are inevitably staffed by a new stratum of intermediate elites that may include formerly hostile local elites and distinguished commoners (and, eventually, bureaucrats). States also have kin-based structures, but governmental power is concentrated in elite-dominated institutions. States are socially stratified, and have a specialized division of labor that is visible in social hierarchies at the capital, as well as in a rural–urban continuum that becomes more accentuated through processes of urbanization. State political economies coordinate agropastoral production centrally, using tribute and taxes to intensify surpluses that can support a standing military and non-food-producing sectors of society (craft specialists, administrators). Storage of staples and direct elite access to and monopoly over exotic goods become important state priorities. A state religion is an important institution for promoting the state ideology and political economy, and the ruling elite invests in sponsoring religious activity, promoting the state cult, and managing the ritual calendar. As civil societies, states also attempt to monopolize internal and external expressions of force. A judicial system and code of law replaces kin-based mechanisms of conflict resolution, regulating internal disputes; raiding and territorial conquests are achieved by state armies led by members of the ruling elite. While elites may occupy the upper echelons of the court system and army, lower-order positions (e.g., legal functionaries, record-keepers, and soldiers) are often staffed by commoners, whose ambition and ability permit a certain degree of social advancement. Archaeological Features of Centralized States

Evidence for centralized state organization is strongest when multiple indicators are unambiguously identifiable at the regional level, at individual sites, as well as in special proveniences that do not exist in non-state societies. From a practical standpoint, this requires an archaeological database of considerable breadth, and much of the debate over archaic states arises over interpretive disagreements between

researchers responsible for collecting different aspects of the total database. At the regional level, military expansion and information exchange models presume a hierarchical settlement pattern that is indicative of regional political integration by a central government. For many archaeologists, a four-tier regional administrative hierarchy (although some use just site-size hierarchies) has been taken as strong evidence for a centralized state. It is easy for researchers to infer a four-tier hierarchy from small regional data sets or out of ambiguous settlement patterns; this criterion is most persuasive when combined with other lines of evidence for a qualitative regional reorganization of society compared to earlier time periods. Excavations at the urban capitals of early states can provide the clearest evidence for state hierarchies and institutions – state capitals possess the fullest range of state infrastructure and the most obvious evidence for complex social hierarchy – but such sites are rarely accessible for horizontal excavation projects. Even when state capitals have not been buried under modern cities, the scale of urban archaeology requires massive investments of time and labor to develop material culture patterns related to life in the state capital. Excavations at lower-order administrative sites are critical for moving beyond monolithic, top-down views of the state and developing perspectives on how state administrative policies were (or were not) implemented locally. Rural food producers comprised the vast majority of the population of archaic states; archaeology can show how farmers and herders were affected by the changing fortunes of the state. Archaeologists have suggested a number of other possible material correlates for state-level organization, including the presence of palatial residences, royal tombs, standardized temples, and morphologically distinct types of administrative buildings. Not all of these criteria represent qualitative developments – for example, palaces and royal tombs might not be significantly larger than elite residences and tombs in chiefdoms – so archaeologists should seek as many independent indicators as possible, attempting to identify both a qualitative social transformation (in a culture-historical sense) as well as archaeological features that are compatible with other known cases of state formation.

Developmental Trajectories of Archaic States Archaeologists working within a neoevolutionary framework consider archaic states to have been dynamic and inherently unstable systems in which

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ecological variability and human agency affected the longue dure´e. Institutional arrangements and the individuals influencing their structures should be expected to have changed over time, particularly in the case of first-generation states, which endured for several centuries. Institutional and Hierarchical Evolution

While all archaic states possessed a specialized governmental structure, the development of and relationship between offices and institutions was not uniform. There is no reason to believe that political, economic, religious, and military institutions emerged at the same time (or in the same order), or that state institutions and the ideologies justifying them were static over the state’s developmental trajectory. Comparison of first-generation states with later ones suggests that the life cycle of a state will see a tendency toward more complex institutional organization, as well as more heterarchical interinstitutional relationships and an increasingly bureaucratic organization. Such tendencies are reflected in the proliferation of intermediate offices in state capitals and at lower-order administrative sites; the longrange (in)stability of the state comes to depend on balancing the interests of ruling elites, intermediate elites, and commoners. Secondary State Formation

Peripheral regions are influenced by state formation and expansion, and one local reaction to external state influence is to adopt some or all of the features of centralized states. Such processes of secondary state formation may involve autonomous chiefly polities urbanizing and establishing specialized governments, but other secondary states form as state administrative centers break away from the capital to assert political autonomy. Secondary states often have populations and territories that fall within the administrative scope of a successful chiefdom; these are sometimes referred to as city-states, although many researchers prefer to employ culture-specific terms (e.g., comunidad, polis, altepetl, cacicazgo, nome) for such polities. Secondary state formation processes are expected to vary based on contingencies related to the expansion of first-generation states and the diffusion of the concept of the state. Archaeologists have not developed a distinct set of material correlates for identifying secondary state formation. Collapse, Decline, and Conquest: The Eclipse of the Archaic State

Archaic states are arguably at their strongest while in phases of territorial expansion. Internal competition

is channeled outward, while successful military campaigns bring in plunder and tribute from newly administered areas. Subsequent phases of consolidation and decline see a proliferation of elite categories, as well as the number of elites at the state capital. Over the long term, the capital and its rural hinterland may be dominated by a burgeoning and highly differentiated elite that is engaged in costly status displays, monumental constructions, and ideological communication. Elites at lower-order sites may present problems for the ruling elite over the long term. If vested with insufficient power and authority, they may fail to maintain order and deliver taxes or tribute; if given too free a rein, they may embrace local power structures and seek to break away from the central government. As local economies develop and standardize and regional exchange networks come under less restricted management, central elites will find it increasingly difficult to administer peripheral regions. Over the long term, states may collapse (a failure of central authority), experience decline (as the periphery develops and exerts autonomy), or weaken to the point where other states can conquer them (see State-Level Societies, Collapse of). States almost universally fail due to problems with self-regulation and an imbalance between food producers and elites.

Empires: The Extrapolation of State Institutions When compared with first-generation states, empires constitute an increase in territorial extent, administrative complexity, and ethnic differentiation, although the development of empires does not appear to involve the kind of qualitative social reorganization seen in the emergence of chiefdoms and states. In attempting to arrive at a meaningful definition of the term ‘empire’, it is useful to distinguish between modern empires that have thrived in the capitalist world system and those that flourished before transoceanic colonial systems developed. Such early empires have typically been identified on the basis of supra-state administrative characteristics; essentially, an early empire is a state that has developed an administrative apparatus capable of governing other states, or of transcending ethnic affiliation (much in the way that a state constitutes organization beyond that of the kin group). Each of these classificatory criteria has its weaknesses – the state-administration haracteristic imposes an artificial distinction between the nascent macroregional tendencies of first-generation states, while the multiethnic criterion may be difficult to evaluate archaeologically. Empires are territorially expansive, although they do not necessarily pursue continuous or uniform

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territorial control. The distinction may be made between a highly integrated core or heartland region and a much larger scattering of peripheral or provincial regions linked to varying degrees to the imperial core. Most imperial core regions constitute centralized states that formed and consolidated and were then transformed during subsequent phases of imperial territorial expansion and provincial administrative consolidation. Provincial regions are bound to the core through a suite of dynamic strategies that vary over space and time. Researchers distinguish between direct/indirect control and hegemonic/ territorial control, but such dyads fail to capture the complexity of imperial negotiations. The Elaboration of Regional Elite Networks

Rapid imperial expansion and decline are partially due to the emergence of a macroregional elite culture. This is the result of previous periods of state integration and the rise of complex elite hierarchies that intermarry and share certain cultural elements. Successful imperial administration requires more pronounced bureaucratic structures, as well as a tolerance of local cultural and religious practices, which are organized under an overarching imperial ideology. Due to their scale and the limits of information exchange in the ancient world, early empires tend to be polities that tolerate a more indirect control over political economy and religion. Military force and judicial force are still treated as state monopolies, although many empires use mercenaries or client kingdoms to achieve stability in frontier regions. Cycles of Imperial Development

Because they depend so heavily on intermediate elites, empires are more fluid sociopolitical arrangements, and they are prone to form and collapse more rapidly than first-generation states. The ruling elite – and the overall imperial identity – can often be replaced without requiring substantial transformations to lowerorder administration, or to the social organization religion, and economy of local communities. Some empires are known to have risen and balkanized in a single generation, and without written documents these political changes might be difficult to detect archaeologically. As the organizational scope reaches macroregional scale and imperial ideologies and elite identities become more idiosyncratic and restricted socially, it might be argued that the study of imperial societies becomes more appropriately the subject of history than archaeology. At the very least, the written record assumes a much more significant role in identifying and interpreting such polities.

The Adaptive Fitness of Complexity Archaeology provides the sole means of assessing the nature of two important organizational transformations occurring in the human trajectory. Socioevolutionary theory approaches comparative aspects of the dynamic fluctuations that follow these transformations from either a diachronic or a comparative perspective: chiefdoms and states are types that encompass substantial diversity. The recent trajectory in socioevolutionary theory has embraced a dynamic view of complex societies that recognizes some of their instability. More complex forms of social organization undoubtedly enjoy some adaptive advantages over less complex ones, but they also exhibit serious problems in terms of self-regulation of population, territorial integrity, and ecological sustainability. More complex societies benefit from technological advantages and systemic cohesion, but are also subject to more spectacular collapses. See also: Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists; Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas; Africa, East: Ethiopia and Eritrea; Africa, North: Egypt, Pre-Pharaonic; Nubia; Africa, South: Herders, Farmers, and Metallurgists of South Africa; Africa, West: Herders, Farmers, and Crafts Specialists; Villages, Cities, and States; Americas, Central: Classic Period of Mesoamerica, the Maya; Postclassic Cultures of Mesoamerica; Americas, North: American Southwest, Four Corners Region; Eastern Woodlands; Americas, South: Early Cultures of the Central Andes; Inca Archaeology; Inca Ethnohistory; Asia, East: China, Neolithic Cultures; Chinese Civilization; Asia, Northeast, Early States and Civilizations; Asia, South: Baluchistan and the Borderlands; India, Deccan and Central Plateau; Indus Civilization; Megaliths; Asia, Southeast: Early States and Civilizations; Asia, West: Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sasanian Persian Civilizations; Arabian Peninsula; Archaeology of the Near East: The Levant; Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Akkad; Phoenicia; Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization; Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures; Cities, Ancient, and Daily Life; Civilization and Urbanism, Rise of; Craft Specialization; Exchange Systems; Europe, Northern and Western: Bronze Age; Iron Age; Europe, South: Greece; Rome; Food and Feasting, Social and Political Aspects; Social Inequality, Development of; State-Level Societies, Collapse of.

Further Reading Alcock SE, D’Altroy TN, Morrison KD, and Sinopoli CM (eds.) (2001) Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. New York: Cambridge University Press.

POLITICS OF ARCHAEOLOGY 1853 Earle TK (ed.) (1991) Chiefdoms: Power, Economy, and Ideology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Earle TK (1997) How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Feinman GM and Marcus J (eds.) (1998) Archaic States. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Haas J (ed.) (2001) From Leaders to Rulers. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press. Price TD and Feinman GM (eds.) (1995) Foundations of Social Inequality. New York: Plenum Press.

Runciman WG (ed.) (2001) The Origin of Human Social Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press. Sinopoli CM (1994) The archaeology of empires. Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 159–180. Trigger BG (2003) Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. New York: Cambridge University Press. Upham S (ed.) (1990) The Evolution of Political Systems: Sociopolitics in Small-Scale Sedentary Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.

POLITICS OF ARCHAEOLOGY Laurajane Smith, University of York, York, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary Ancient Monuments Protection Act Act recognizing the need for a governmental administration on the protection of ancient monuments finally passed, after a number of failed attempts on heritage protection acts. Cultural Resource Management (CRM) The vocation and practice of managing cultural resources, such as the arts and heritage.

The first laws, and other legal decrees to protect national antiquities, ancient monuments, and historic buildings date back to the seventeenth century in Europe, although it was not until the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that such laws became commonplace in the West. These early acts, and other legal instruments and public agencies, included the English Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882, the 1807 chancellery recommendations in Denmark, the establishment in the 1830s of the Comite´ historique in France, the enactment of a Monuments Protection Act in Germany in 1902, and the 1906 Antiquities Act in the USA, amongst others. A second ‘wave’ of legislative activity occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, stimulated not only by the destruction caused by World War II and the extent of post-War redevelopment, but also the extent of 1960s urban expansion, development, and urban renewal projects. These events, alongside increasing public debate about environmental issues during the 1960s and 1970s, saw the amendment of existing laws to extend the powers of protection and/ or the development of new, more extensive legislation

in many Western countries to protect archaeological resources and monuments. Archaeologists, and before them antiquarians, have played active roles in the development and implementation of this legislation. Individual archaeologists and archaeological/anthropological societies have been active in lobbying for legislation and have even participated in the drafting of bills. John Lubbock and his championing of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882 in England is perhaps the most well-documented archaeological advocate for the legal protection of archaeological sites. The development of legislation to protect archaeological data – sites, monuments, structures, etc. – has had significant consequences for archaeological practice. Not only did these laws help to protect archaeological data from destruction, looting, and the collecting activities of amateur archaeologists, they also helped formalize the policy process concerned with the protection and management of archaeologicalsites. This process, often referred to as Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in North America, Archaeological Heritage Management (Europe), and Cultural Heritage Management (Australasia), is often based on legal documents, administered by governmental agencies and supplemented by a range of national and international policy documents. CRM is now the area of archaeological practice that employs the majority of archaeologists, who find employment in national and local government agencies, as private consultants, and in amenity societies, museums, and other public and private cultural organizations. The CRM process is not only defined by the relevant national legislation and the policy guidelines of national governmental agencies, but may also be influenced by a range of international agreements. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

1854 POLITICS OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Organization (UNESCO) administers a number of international agreements concerned with the protection of archaeological and other heritage resources. These agreements take the form of Conventions, Recommendations, Declarations, and Guidelines that, while not laws, require Member States (those nations who are signatories to the agreements) to uphold certain practices and principles or face international censure. Relevant agreements include the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention); the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property; the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World Heritage Convention); the 1956 Recommendation on International Principles Applicable to Archaeological Excavation; and the 2003 Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, among many others. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) is a professional organization that lobbies governments and intergovernment organizations such as UNESCO and ICCROM about the management and conservation of archaeological and other cultural and historic resources. ICOMOS has produced a number of international and national Charters to help guide management, preservation, and conservation practices, and while these are not legal documents, they carry professional authority. Influential international Charters include Athens Charter for the Restoration of Historic Monuments of 1931; the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (Venice Charter) of 1964; and the Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage, 1990; while national charters include the Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (Burra Charter), 1999 (Australia ICOMOS) and A Preservation Charter for the Historic Town and Areas of the United States of America, 1992 (US ICOMOS). The CRM process, with its legal and public policy base, tends to privilege and give authority to archaeological values and practices in the management and preservation of material culture. Not only do archaeologists numerically tend to dominate the CRM process through the various jobs and roles they play within the management process, but it has also often been archaeological values and conceptualizations about the nature and meaning of material culture, or cultural resources, that are embedded in preservation and conservation laws, public policy, and international agreements. Subsequently, archaeologists, their knowledge about the past and basic disciplinary values, are continually legitimized and granted authority on a

day-to-day basis through the legal and policy practices of CRM. The authority that archaeological knowledge and values obtain in this way often means that archaeologists are vested with a considerable amount of power over the disposition and fate of material culture. This does not mean to say that archaeologists and archaeological values are ‘all powerful’ – economic expediencies often see the destruction of archaeological sites in the face of major developments. However, what it does mean is that archaeologists and archaeological knowledge and values are often given more power and authority in the management process than many others who may have a cultural, political, or historical interest in, or a stake in, the management of the past (see Who Owns the Past?). This becomes problematic when other less powerful interests may disagree with or contest the archaeological knowledge, values, and practices concerned with the management, curation, and use of material culture. What is significant here for understanding the ‘politics of archaeology’ is that conservation and preservation laws and policies, through the CRM processes that they establish and maintain, give authority and power to archaeological knowledge and values, often over that of other culturally or historically interested groups. Conflicts over the management, curation, interpretation of material culture, and so forth, between management archaeologists and other community interests are very common in the CRM process. Of particular note are the conflicts that occur between archaeologists and Indigenous groups in postcolonial countries, often over the repatriation or return of human remains and cultural artifacts from archaeological, government agencies, and museums back to the communities. Although conflicts between archaeologists and Indigenous peoples are often the most visible, other tensions may exist between other community groups and archaeologists over the use or interpretation of material culture. These conflicts are not simply tussles and tensions over the ‘ownership of the past’ as they are often characterized – they are often about the rights and abilities of communities and other groups to control the ways they are represented, recognized, and perceived by the rest of the society. Archaeological sites and artifacts are often valued and characterized in the CRM process as archaeological data, but to many others these things may be more readily understood as ‘heritage’. As heritage, material culture (sites, places, artifacts etc.) stand in for and represent a sense of cultural, social, and/or historical identity. In the wider politics of cultural, social, or historical recognition, it is often important for subaltern community or cultural groups to attempt to control how they are represented.

POLLEN ANALYSIS 1855

Subsequently, the conflicts over the possession or rights to control material culture/heritage are not simply about rights of possession, but are important statements of authority and control in the cultural politics of representation. Archaeological interpretations of material culture and the past become more than simple neutral or ‘objective’ statements, but rather themselves work to validate and authorize – or not – community and other interests, knowledge, and claims about the past and their own cultural, social, and/or historical identities. When archaeological views about the past conflict with a group’s own sense of identity, the conflicts can become fraught not only because of the authority with which archaeological knowledge is given in the CRM process and in wider Western culture, but the degree to which archaeological knowledge is used to legitimize, arbitrate over, and regulate other nonarchaeological knowledge claims. CRM, and the laws that underpin it, may be understood to establish archaeologists and archaeological knowledge within a framework of relations with other interests and interest groups with a stake in how the past is understood. The ‘politics’ of these relations rests on the differential levels of authority and power given to different knowledge claims about the past and the values attributed to material culture. Archaeology cannot be characterized as simply another interest in the CRM process, because of the authority and power given to archaeological knowledge claims in the legal process. See also: Cultural Resource Management; Historic Preservation Laws; Illicit Antiquities; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; Native

Peoples and Archaeology; Who Owns the Past?; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.

Further Reading Carman J (1996) Valuing Ancient Things: Archaeology and Law. London: Leicester University Press. Choay F (2001) The Invention of the Historic Monument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deloira V, Jr. (1992) Indians, archaeologists, and the future. American Antiquity 57(4): 595–598. Jokilehto J (1999) A History of Architectural Conservation. Amsterdam: Elsevier, Butterworth, Heinemann. Kehoe AB (1998) The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology. New York: Routledge. Langford RF (1983) Our heritage – your playground. Australian Archaeology 16: 1–6. McNiven I and Lynette R (2005) Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. Walnut Creek: AltaMira. Meskell L (ed.) (1998) Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London: Routledge. Murtagh WJ (1997) Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America. New York: Wiley. Pickard R (ed.) (2001) Policy and Law in Heritage Conservation. London: Spor Press. Smith C and Wobst HM (eds.) (2005) Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice. Routledge: London. Smith L (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Swidler N, Dongoske KE, Anyon R, and Downer AS (eds.) (1997) Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Watkins J (2000) Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Zimmerman LJ (1998) When data become people: Archaeological ethics, reburial, and the past as public heritage. International Journal of Cultural Property 7(1): 69–86.

POLLEN ANALYSIS John G Jones, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary anemophily A form of pollination whereby pollen is distributed by wind. biostratigraphy The science of dating rocks by using the fossils contained within them. sporopollenin A major component of the tough outer (exine) walls of spores and pollen grains.

zoophily A form of pollination whereby pollen is transferred by vertebrates, particularly by hummingbirds and other birds, and bats, but also by monkeys, marsupials, lemurs, bears, rabbits, deer, rodents, lizards, and other animals.

Pollen, the male sex cell of flowers, is produced by all plants. These grains usually have a durable outer shell or exine composed of sporopollenin, a complex polymer similar to lignin. This durable shell allows pollen grains to be preserved under ideal circumstances for millions of years. Theoretically, most or all pollen grains are distinctive and thus can be identified

1856 POLLEN ANALYSIS

under the microscope. In reality, there are many limitations and pollen types can usually only be identified to the family or genus level, although many exceptions exist. This combination of relative abundance and its diagnostic nature makes the analysis of pollen one of the most powerful tools in the archaeologist’s arsenal. Pollen analysis has been widely used in medicine, botany, forensics, and perhaps most importantly in geology (where it has been widely employed for biostratigraphic analysis of oil-bearing deposits). Pollen is routinely extracted from lignites, coals, shales, and other organic-rich rocks. Archaeologists use pollen analysis in a variety of ways including as an aid in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction; in dietary studies, to establish the presence and origins of agriculture, and to determine ground stone or other artifact use (see Artifacts, Overview; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods; Plant Domestication). All plants produce pollen or spores, though in varying amounts, and the mechanisms for pollen dispersal largely dictate the quantity of grains produced by any plant. Anemophilous plants, which rely on the wind for pollination, tend to produce copious quantities of grains as there is a high degree of chance that any given grain will successfully travel to an awaiting stigma. As a result, these anemophilous types tend to be commonly encountered in archaeological samples. Members of this group include pine, oak, ragweed, and grasses. Zoophilous or insect-pollinated plants produce much less pollen as they rely on an animal to directly carry pollen from one flower to another. These grains are much less commonly encountered in archaeological samples, but are often very diagnostic. Depending upon the amount of sporopollenin contained with the pollen, some grains are more durable than others, and thus they tend to be more commonly encountered or even over-represented in fossil pollen assemblages. Pine, grasses, and members of the families Asteraceae and Chenopodiaceae are typically overrepresented in many samples. Other pollen types are exceedingly fragile or are so rare that they never show up in archaeological sediments. In many archaeological sites, particularly those exposed to cyclic wetting and drying, pollen is not well preserved. The careful analysis of even poorly preserved grains, however, can provide at least a listing of plant species that were once present in the site area, information that is still valuable. However, differentially or poorly preserved assemblages must be recognized and caution should be observed when drawing interpretations from these assemblages. To help identify poorly preserved assemblages, palynologists usually add a known quantity of exotic

tracer spores to each sample. As a known quantity of spores is added to a known quantity of sediment, the quantity of recovered spores allows for the calculation of concentration values which can indicate overall preservation. The presence of these spores also serves to verify that laboratory error did not occur if tracer spores are found, but fossil pollen grains are not. Palynologists must consider all of these factors when drawing interpretations from their pollen samples. Pollen is extracted from archaeological sediment samples through a series of chemical treatments, including the removal of carbonates with hydrochloric acid, and the removal of silicates with hydrofluoric acid, while other alkaline and acid bath treatments remove unwanted organics and remaining minerals. Fossil pollen survives these treatments and the resulting residue consists of pollen, spores and charcoal. After extraction, pollen samples are usually examined on a light microscope at 400–1250. These high magnifications are necessary to see the diagnostic features of the tiny grains: apertures, surface textures, shape, and size. Although a few exceptions occur, most pollen grains fall within the size range of 15–80 mm, and the unique combinations of surface patterns, openings in the grains called pores and colpi, shapes, sizes, and other micromorphological features allow for positive identification of pollen grains. Reference collections and published keys aid in the identification of fossil pollen grains. Most analysts will scan a microscope slide counting a specified number of grains, giving a fair representation of what the past environment was like. These data, coupled with ample radiocarbon dates, provide a clear look into past conditions at a given archaeological site. In the case of a sediment core, a series of these counted pollen samples from known depths can be graphed into a stratigraphically constrained composite picture of the fossil pollen record, documenting changes in past environment and climate, human activity, and deforestation and reforestation. Figure 1 shows a graphic representation of a sediment core from Sipacate, Guatemala, and is fairly typical of what a detailed pollen analysis can provide. The basal section, dated to the period just before 3583 to c. 3356 BC, shows an environment dominated by red mangroves, with little evidence of human activity in the area. Around 3356 BC, there is a dramatic decrease in mangrove pollen, coinciding with an increase in Cyperaceae (sedge), Poaceae (grass), and Typha (cattail) pollen, indicating that the environment became less saline, and thus more favorable for human occupation and agriculture. Shortly afterward, the appearance of Zea mays (maize) pollen indicated that people were now farming in the area. The sustained presence of significant quantities of

Sipacate, Guatemala Pollen percentage diagram Herbs and cultigens

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POLLEN ANALYSIS 1857

Figure 1 Pollen percentage diagram from a sediment core from Sipacate, Guatemala.

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1858 POLLEN ANALYSIS

in the nearby mountains. Their deliberate introduction into the sediments making up the burial fill over 50 000 years ago, possibly as a grave offering, has been interpreted as perhaps the earliest evidence of religion. The role of pollen analysis in archaeology is not limited to prehistoric studies, but instead can help document past activities of all ages. Historical archaeology benefits much from detailed pollen analyses, as illustrated at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Here, a series of late eighteenth century stone walls were constructed near springs on Monticello Mountain, the purpose of which were to protect the precious water sources from being choked due to agricultural erosion. Despite the extreme oxidizing environment of the area, pollen was nearly perfectly preserved because of the fine-grained clays which served to protect the grains. As the deposits were laid down in annual increments, likely resulting from erosion due to wheat farming activities near the top of the hill, the pollen record then documents a beautiful record of plants occurring at the site, and crops being grown by Mr. Jefferson (Figure 2). Finally, pollen analysis has demonstrated its potential in the field of nautical archaeology. Ancient cargos, ports of call, and foodstuffs have all been identified by pollen in sunken vessels from around the world.

charcoal fragments, also present in the pollen samples, confirms the continued human occupation of the region. Samples toward the top of the core show the return to a more saline environment; however, people continued to live in the region. In addition to providing information on past climates and human plant interactions, pollen analysis of grinding stone surfaces can offer insights into past modes of food preparation and ancient crops. Ancient pollen grains taken directly from the surfaces of grinding implements can reveal which crops were prepared using these tools. A study of pollen from desiccated human feces or coprolites can provide information on ancient food preferences and dietary patterns (see Coprolite Analysis). Since pollen survives digestion, grains taken in with the deliberate ingestion of flowers or fruits, as well as through their accidental ingestion, will be found in preparations of fecal materials demonstrating past food choices. Ancient cultural practices can also be illuminated from careful pollen analyses. In 1975, Leroi-Gourhan identified clusters of pollen from extralocal sources within a Neanderthal burial at Shanidar Cave in Iraq. These clusters of pollen grains were thought to represent flowers that would not have been expected to occur near the cave location, but were instead collected

PawPaw alignment, Monticello Pollen percentage diagram

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he Pl noan Am Po tag a o Tr cea ifo e U lium rfi c C a/C er e an Ze ale nab is am a C a ar y s C ya as ta ne a Fa g Fr us ax lle inu x s Ju gl a Li ns rio Pi den nu d s ron

Herbs and cultigens

383.0 382.9 382.8 382.7 382.6 382.5 382.4 382.3 382.2 382.1 382.0 381.9 381.8 381.7 381.6 381.5 381.4 381.3 381.2 381.1 381.0 380.9 380.8 380.7 380.6 380.5 380.4 380.3 380.2 380.1 380.0 379.9 379.8 379.7 379.6 379.5 379.4 379.3 379.2

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Figure 2 Pollen percentage diagram from a sediment profile from PawPaw Alignment, Monticello, Virginia.

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POPULAR CULTURE AND ARCHAEOLOGY 1859

Despite these successes, pollen analysis does have a few drawbacks. Pollen can sometimes be difficult to extract and identify, and many types cannot be identified to a fine taxonomic level. However, it remains one of the most powerful tools available to the archaeologist interested in past environments, agricultural origins, and prehistoric diet. See also: Artifacts, Overview; Coprolite Analysis; Macroremains Analysis; Organic Residue Analysis; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Lowland Neotropics; Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Methods; Phytolith Analysis; Plant Domestication; Starch Grain Analysis.

Further Reading Bohrer VL (1981) Methods of recognizing cultural activity from pollen in archaeological sites. The Kiva: 46(3): 135–142.

Bryant VM, Jr., and Hall SA (1993) Archaeological palynology in the United States: A critique. American Antiquity 58(No. 2): 277–286. Bryant VM, Jr., and Holloway RG (1983) The role of palynology in archaeology. In: Schiffer MB (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 6, p. 191–224. New York: Academic Press. Erdtman G (1969) Handbook of Palynology. New York: Hafner Publishing Co. Faegri K, Kaland PE, and Krzywinski K (1989) Textbook of Pollen Analysis by Knut Faegri and Johs. Iversen, 4th edn. New York: Wiley. Iversen J (1941) Land occupation in Denmark’s Stone Age. Danmarks Geologiske Undersogelse, 2 Raekke, nr. 66. King JE, Klippel WE, and Duffield R (1975) Pollen preservation and archaeology in eastern North America. American Antiquity 40: 180–190. Leroi-Gourhan A (1975) The flowers found with Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal burial in Iraq. Science 190(No. 4214): 562–564. Neff H, Pearsall DM, Jones JG, Arroyo B, Collins SK, and Freidel DE (2006) Early Maya adaptive patterns: Mid–Late Holocene paleoenvironmental evidence from Pacific Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 17(3): 287–315. Traverse A (1988) Paleopalynology. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

POPULAR CULTURE AND ARCHAEOLOGY Cornelius Holtorf, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary cultural heritage Qualities and attributes of places that have aesthetic, historic, scientific or social value for past, present or future generations. These values may be seen in a place’s physical features, but importantly can also be intangible qualities such as peoples associations with, or feelings for a place. rescue archaeology Emergency salvage of sites in immediate danger of destruction by major land modification projects such as reservoir construction.

This article reviews the most important perceptions of archaeology and archaeologists in contemporary popular culture. One of the most important insights that will emerge is that archaeology, unlike many other scientific disciplines, is largely perceived in flattering terms. In popular culture, the archaeologist is a hero and role model, competent and resourceful, serving the interests of society and occasionally of humanity through new discoveries and important revelations. This positive appeal is an important, though often underappreciated, asset of professional archaeologists and their discipline. The available literature on this subject is very small, often anecdotal, and

does not amount to a sustained academic debate. In recent years, however, the academic interest in the portrayal of archaeology in popular culture has increased substantially. The themes archaeologists are associated with in popular culture can be divided into four main categories: the archaeologist as adventurer; the archaeologist as detective; the archaeologist making profound revelations; and the archaeologist taking care of ancient sites and finds. These themes are characteristic for the contemporary Western world, although they have roots that go back at least as far as the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the meaning of archaeology in popular culture outside the Western world could not be covered in this article.

The A Theme: The Archaeologist as Adventurer According to Roslynn Haynes, scientific discovery is the greatest of all adventures, and the scientist as heroic adventurer is one of six recurring archetypes of scientists in Western literature. By the same token, the theme of adventure is the single most important association with archaeology throughout popular culture. Archaeology has come to stand for a quest involving travel to exotic locations, simple living and working conditions in the field, unexpected tests and

1860 POPULAR CULTURE AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Figure 1 The archaeologist as adventurer, cartoon by Quentin Drew.

dangers, followed by spectacular discoveries, recovery of treasures, and the successful return home of the virtuous hero – all forming parts of essential adventure stories (Figure 1). The associations of archaeology with adventure are as old as archaeology itself. In a famous passage written more than three decades before Indiana Jones, the American archaeologist Alfred Kidder argued that In popular belief, and unfortunately to some extent in fact, there are two sorts of archaeologists, the hairychested and the hairy-chinned. [The hairy-chested variety appears] as a strong-jawed young man in a tropical helmet, pistol on hip, hacking his way through the jungle in search of lost cities and buried treasure. His boots, always highly polished, reach to his knees, presumably for protection against black mambas and other sorts of deadly serpents. The only concession he makes to the difficulties and dangers of his calling is to have his shirt enough unbuttoned to reveal the manliness of his bosom. (Alfred Kidder, 1949: XI)

The A theme has often been employed to tell the stories both of archaeologists’ research in the present and of the history of archaeology. In this view, the archaeologist is an uncompromising adventurer and explorer who conquers ancient sites and artifacts, and earns just rewards for pushing forward the frontiers of our knowledge about the past. The three existing Indiana Jones movies (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989) created by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are quintessential action/adventure films. The archaeologist hero, a young University Professor, was played each time by Harrison Ford. Indiana’s clothes and

fearless character, the exciting storylines with many action scenes, and the exotic sets – all were carefully developed to suggest classic adventure in the tradition of King Solomon’s Mines (1950) and Secret of the Incas (1954). So much so that the poster to the second film proclaimed that ‘‘If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones.’’ All films were international successes, and led to the creation of a lot of merchandise as well as computer games, comic books, roleplaying sourcebooks, a TV series, and various kinds of novels for all age groups. The three films together grossed more than US$ 1 billion at the box office alone. When Indiana Jones once appeared in late December on the German TV channel ARD, they advertised that ‘‘Christmas has been saved.’’ Indiana Jones is the most widely recognized and most enduring image of an archaeologist. His incredible popularity may partly rely on the fact that ‘‘No one’s got balls like Indiana Jones’’ as an ad in Playboy claimed. In a recent ranking by Premiere Magazine (April 2004) – two decades after the height of the cinematic Indiana Jones fever – the character still made rank no. 7 among ‘The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time’. Even Disney has embraced Indiana Jones. Since 1995, Disneyland’s ‘Adventure Land’ features a ride called Indiana Jones Adventure – Temple of the Forbidden Eye which has proved to be extremely popular. Another ride with reference to the no.1 movie archaeologist was created in Disneyland Paris as Indiana Jones et le temple du peril. The British holiday park Chessington World of Adventures features a broadly similar though less-advanced ride in its Forbidden Kingdom area. It carries the promising title Tomb Blaster. Stereotypes associated with adventure inform very much the image of archaeologists in children’s toys (e.g., Lego, Playmobil), comic series, contemporary advertising, literary fiction, films as well as widely read magazines like National Geographic Magazine, among other areas of popular culture (Table 1). In particular, the ‘colonial style’ clothes in which archaeologists appear often reveal intended associations with heroic adventures. Unfortunately, these cliche´s and narratives are not always harmless entertainment but can have highly problematic undertones that smack of colonial and imperial attitudes. For example, in the movie March or Die (1977) Max von Sydow plays the archaeologist Franc¸ois Marneau who is trying to secure an ancient Moroccan treasure at all cost. He is quite ready to sacrifice human lives and peace with the Arab tribes for what he – misguidedly – considers the greater good of archaeology. Similarly, the American TV game-show Legends of the Hidden Temple (Nickelodeon, 1993–1996) involved a race of the participating children teams through

POPULAR CULTURE AND ARCHAEOLOGY 1861 Table 1 Adventurer-archaeologists of popular culture Lara Croft Rick Dangerous Professor Sydney Fox, historian in the Department of Ancient Studies Professor Indiana Jones Indiana Pipps, Indiana Ding, Indiana Goof, Indiana Jo¨ns, Arizona Goof, etc. Will Rock Professor Robson

Professor Bernice Summerfield Vash

The heroine of the computer game and Tomb Raider films The hero of a classic computer game The heroine of the TV-series Relic Hunter

The hero in novels by various authors and three films by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg Goofy’s cousin who appears in Disney’s Donald Duck stories under various names in different countries The hero of a computer game The hunky professor in the soft-porn film series The Adventures of Justine (1995–1996) The heroine of several novels by various authors, originally part of Doctor Who Character in the TV series Star Trek

an elaborate obstacle course evoking ruins in the jungle, in order to retrieve an artifact from ‘Olmec’s Temple’. In order to succeed they needed to bribe several ‘native’ Temple Guards along the way. As shown in a brilliant analysis by the Austrian writer and expert in German literature Christiane Zintzen, a particularly well-suited template for such archaeological narratives has been the life and career of Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890). Like few others, he personified both to himself and to others the lonely hero on a long journey. Despite being an outsider, he knew ‘the truth’ – in this case about the historical reality of Homer’s Troy – early on but was ridiculed until he finally embarked on his quest alone and under great difficulties. In the end, however, Schliemann, like the archetypal hero, proved himself right by making great discoveries, becoming accepted as scholars, and celebrated as a national hero. Many have since then drawn inspiration and motivation from this truly mythical story, so that one may even speak of a ‘Schliemann Effect’. Best-selling accounts of archaeological romances involving mystery, adventure, and hardship but concluding with the reward of treasure were pioneered by the author Kurt W. Marek (1915–1972) alias C. W. Ceram who published in 1949 his instant classic Go¨tter, Gra¨ber und Gelehrte (Gods, Graves, and Scholars). This book tells the story of the ‘great’ archaeological adventures and discovery processes in the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the Middle East, and central America by focusing on the archaeologist heroes themselves. Among them are the celebrities Heinrich Schliemann, Arthur Evans, Howard

Carter, and Leonard Woolley. The appeal of this subject was such that Go¨tter, Gra¨ber und Gelehrte has been translated into 30 languages and sold approximately 5 million copies worldwide. The success of Ceram’s writing lies in a mixture of facts and exciting story-telling where the readers suffer with their heroes until they eventually succeed. The use of numerous historical details and the frequent allusions to archaeology continuously advancing our knowledge by deciphering more and more of the past became key elements of a new literary genre thus established: the archa¨ologischer Tatsachenroman, or fact-based archaeological novel. This genre was very successfully continued by Geoffrey Bibby, Rudolf Po¨rtner, Philipp Vandenberg, among others. In the same spirit, if to you ‘‘the idea of exploring the ancient tombs of pharaohs sends shivers down your spine and swells a yearning in your heart,’’ travel companies like Fodors advise you (on their web pages) to ‘‘just go.’’ They offer special archaeological ‘explorations’ to far-away places where ‘‘plenty of secrets still remain hidden for modern-day explorers to unearth.’’ For those who do not travel, there is still TV with its many archaeological documentaries. A summary on the Internet of the recent British series Great Excavations (Channel 4, 2000) could not have been written better by Ceram himself: [The series tells] the story of the fascinating and often eccentric science of archaeology, from its beginnings in the 18th century to the present. It is a tale of chance finds and clever deduction, of private enterprise and national plunder, of romantic adventures and sheer cunning, of the hunt for mysterious ancient civilisations and the desire for invaluable objects.

These story elements are also reminiscent of the archaeological adventures of Lara Croft, archaeological action heroine that over the past decade acquired first computer game acclaim and then movie fame. To date she is the only video game character who made it onto the cover of fashion magazines and to have appeared in car commercials. Lara can be described as a blend of Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Pamela Anderson. She is portrayed as (the stereotype of) the perfect woman, combining girl power with male fantasies. Yet contrary to how it might seem at first, Lara Croft does arguably not break the rule that heroic adventurer archaeologists are male. Instead, she can be seen as a male protagonist in female masquerade, for her body is the only thing female about her. This is hardly surprising though, given that the genre of the adventure story demands stereotypically male characteristics for its heroes. On the other hand, it may be precisely these characteristics that make Lara the epitome of the empowered woman.

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One aspect that is sometimes forgotten in archaeological hero-stories is their final element: the eventual downfall of the hero and his being cut down to size. Even the glory of Schliemann began to fade after his death, when questions were raised about the ownership of the artifacts he shipped out of their countries of origin. By the same token, Indiana Jones, in the Last Crusade, manages to get hold of the Holy Grail and save his father but in the end he cannot hold on to it and remains an ordinary mortal. However far the A theme may stray from the realities of professional archaeology, it has at least in parts been created and promoted by archaeologists themselves. It is beyond question that Heinrich Schliemann fabricated his autobiography so that his own heroic role would stand out more clearly. Even nowadays, archaeologists often do not hesitate to use phrases and generally represent themselves in ways that immediately evoke the A theme. Numerous exhibitions and their catalogs appeal to visitors through the term ‘treasures’ in their titles. The Swedish archaeologist Go¨ran Burenhult, who wrote a series of TV programs and books about his archaeological adventures, is introduced on the dust jacket of one of the volumes with the words: To be an archaeologist is precisely as exciting as it sounds – at least if one works like Go¨ran Burenhult. If one is an explorer of foreign cultures, then and now, whether here or on the other site of the globe.

Archaeologists have for a long time, even amongst themselves, considered the rituals of fieldwork and the making of finds as the core of their discipline: archaeological fieldwork certainly can be an adventurous experience. Arguably, there is a bit of an adventurer and Indiana Jones in every archaeologist. Indeed, many archaeology students chose their subject out of fascination for figures like Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, this has as a consequence that gender issues are far from unimportant in the discipline.

the opposite to the ‘hairy-chested’ archaeologist in the following terms: The hairy-chinned archaeologist [. . .] is old. He is benevolently absent-minded. His only weapon is a magnifying glass, with which he scrutinizes inscriptions in forgotten languages. Usually his triumphant decipherment coincides, in the last chapter, with the daughter’s rescue from savages by the handsome young assistant.

This Sherlock Holmes-type figure has become a common cliche´ for the archaeologist (Figure 2). Although the detective has been associated with other disciplines too, the link with archaeology is extremely close. As has often been pointed out, both archaeology and forensic science and criminology draw, in parts, on seemingly incontrovertible material evidence, which is carefully documented and taken to provide significant clues as to what really had happened at the site under investigation. Both use advanced technology helping them to come up with reconstructions of the past based on circumstantial evidence (Table 2). Many archaeological TV documentaries, for example, those on Discovery Channel including Time Team, tend to adopt detective-style narratives to tell their stories. The same is true for a large number of adventure and computer games such as Riddle of the Sphinx (2000) and The Mystery of the Mummy (2003). The genre of the archaeologist as detective has often been parodied. The perhaps best-known example are Calvin & Hobbes’ excavations. Another brilliant example is the author and illustrator David Macaulay’s (1979) account of the Motel of the Mysteries, a late twentieth-century ruin re-discovered in 4022 by the mediocre amateur archaeologist Howard Carson. The site was to reveal ‘wonderful things’ indeed about a mysterious lost civilization. Arguably, a special case within the detective category is the antiquarian scholar, usually an elderly

The D Theme: The Archaeologist as Detective As contemporary Western societies are characterized by increasing specialization, professionalization, and scientification, it is not surprising that the past too is expected to be dealt with by experts, in this case historical and archaeological scholars who have the skills to investigate the past. Archaeologists have long been considered – and considered themselves – as professional detectives of the past. They solve profound mysteries and reveal the secrets of the past for us all. Alluding to this role, Alfred Kidder described

Figure 2 The archaeologist as detective, cartoon by Quentin Drew.

POPULAR CULTURE AND ARCHAEOLOGY 1863 Table 2 Detective/scholar archaeologists of popular culture Dr. Cornelius Daniel Jackson, Egyptologist Professor Henry Jones Sr. Professor Kilroy, Professor Articus, Dr Charles Lightning Martin Myste`re Dr Eric Leidner Professor William Harper Littlejohn Evelyn O’Connell (Carnarvon), Egyptologist Amelia Peabody and Radcliff Emerson, Egyptologists Jean-Luc Picard, Professor Richard Galen Professor Hercules Taragon, Americanist

A chimpanzee in the film The Planet of the Apes The hero in the film Stargate and subsequent TV series Stargate SG-1 Indiana Jones’ father (see Table 1) A character with different names in the Lego Adventurers theme featuring Johnny Thunder The hero in an Italian comic series The murderer in Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) A character in the 1930/40s Doc Savage novels by Lester Dent and other (associated comics, radio shows and a movie from 1975) Major character in the Mummy films and recent role playing games Main characters in a series of novels by Elizabeth Peters The captain of the Enterprise and his former teacher in the TV series Star Trek A character in two Tintin adventures

male professor with glasses and a beard, somewhat dull but not always unattractive, obsessed with his research – which he perceives as a large puzzle, keeping a journal containing his theories, and a little out of this world. This, for instance, was the role played by archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler on British TV during the 1950s. The gentleman-like scholar, like the detective, creates light where there was darkness, solving academic mysteries through the skills of careful observation, enormous knowledge, strict logic, and some intuition when it matters most (Table 3). In a way this character is thus a hero too, although not in the sense of the classical adventure discussed earlier (which is why some prefer to speak of an anti-hero in this context). The narrative that goes with scholarship in popular culture nevertheless bears an astonishing resemblance to that common in adventures: scholars leave behind their own familiar world, fully committed to command other worlds; they work in their fields exploring uncharted territories without fear or hesitation; they make sensational discoveries, and eventually they announce their enlightenment to the world at large, which in turn rewards them with recognition, although their own motivation is entirely selfless. Indiana Jones’s father Professor Henry Jones, who was famously played by Sean Connery in the Last Crusade, is designed precisely in this mould. He does not like being disturbed and never had time for his son since he followed his personal quest of scholarship for all his life. Yet then the scholarly passion of his father suddenly merge with Indy’s adventure, and the Professor’s scholarship becomes as important as Indy’s fighting skills for the successful completion of their joint adventure. In this case as well as in The Mummy and Stargate movies, the Relic Hunter

Table 3 Similarities between the detective story and the factbased archaeological novel as represented by Ceram Detective story 1. The detective 2. The crime, lying in the dark 3. The motive which can explain the crime 4. Techniques of delay (false tracks, resistance, competition, envious opponents) 5. Great excitement immediately before the revelation or discovery Fact-based archaeological novel (Ceram) 1. The archaeologist 2. The archaeological artifact, lying in the dark 3. The key which can explain the artifact (e.g., Rosetta Stone) 4. Techniques of delay (false tracks, resistance, competition, envious opponents) 5. Great excitement immediately before the revelation or discovery Source: Scho¨rken (1995: 74), my translation.

episodes, the Lego Adventurer products and the Doc Savage series, among others, the detective/scholar and the adventurer together form the classic team for solving archaeological mysteries where many pieces of a puzzle first have to be found and then put together. Only at the end, the full picture will be revealed. These correspondences between criminological and archaeological mysteries are certainly one reason why archaeologists and archaeology occur frequently in detective fiction. Fore example, the bestselling American author Tony Hillerman (e.g., A Thief of Time, 1989) likes to combine themes about native American archaeology with the work of his police officer Joe Leaphorn. Agatha Christie, whose Hercule Poirot is explicitly inspired by archaeological methodology, was even married to the archaeologist Max Mallowan and participated in a series of his excavations herself.

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However, in popular culture, not all archaeological scholars are successful detectives, becoming heroes in their own fields. Some seem to be doing little else than conducting arcane research through which they accumulate obscure facts and artifacts. They are from educated middle-class backgrounds and come across as dull and boring people, so that popular culture occasionally makes fun of them. This is the case with Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Enterprise and a dedicated amateur archaeologist. When, in the Startrek episode ‘Qpid’, he addressed the Federation’s Archaeology Council, his ‘scientific’ speech is described (and indeed performed) as ‘dull’ and ‘pedantic’. Another boring archaeologist was depicted in the popular 1980s BBC sitcom Hi-De-Hi, written by David Croft and Jimmy Perry. The series was set in a typical British holiday camp in the 1950s and 1960s. Jeffrey Fairbrother, a former Professor of archaeology, is the awkward and uncomfortable new entertainment manager who introduces himself with the following words: I left my seat at Cambridge as Professor of Archaeology, essentially, to discover just how to stop being boring. It’s no secret that being boring is what led to the end of my marriage, and I found, to my surprise, that many of my students were falling asleep during my lectures too because they were bored as well.

Scholars, like detectives, are widely considered benevolent and harmless. Indeed, their scholarship and methodology is often seen as appealing and enviable. In the context of the scholars’ own families, however, the complete dedication given to their research can be more sad than funny. This is well illustrated by Henry Jones who, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, emerges as a father who had been obsessed with his scholarship for all his life and never had time for his son. At the end of the film he finally seems to realize his mistake (Son: ‘‘What did you find, Dad?’’ – Father: ‘‘Me?’’). In addition, there can be a side to this character yet more dangerous. Whether by some historical coincidence or as a result of misguided ambitions, the scholar may end up on the ‘wrong’ moral side. Such figures can become potent enemies even to their own colleagues, as demonstrated by the Nazi archaeologist Dr Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and the corrupt archaeologist Alex West who works for an auction house, in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).

The R Theme: The Archaeologist Making Profound Revelations A third common stereotype of archaeology in popular culture is that it is a source of sensational revelations,

although they occur also in association with many other sciences. Curiously, this theme has previously attracted little attention although it occurs frequently and is easily recognizable. Not unusual, for example, are archaeological newspaper stories with headlines like ‘‘Dresden Stonehenge discovered: Stone Age observatory is 7000 years old!’’ (Bildzeitung Dresden, 7 August 2002), ‘‘Norrbotten was multi-cultural already 10,000 years ago’’ (Norrla¨ndska Socialdemokraten, 19 September 2003), or ‘‘Go¨teborg’s inhabitants are really Germans’’ (Aftonbladet, 19 October 2002; all my translations). Examples for these kinds of revelations cannot always be blamed on floppy journalism but they are, at least in parts, the doing of archaeologists and scientists of other disciplines themselves. It has become normal to expect from archaeologists new revelations whenever they present their work (directly or via mediators) to large audiences. The stronger and more sensational the claim, the more ‘interesting’ and ‘worthwhile’ a specific project is perceived to be. Parodies have made that principle particularly obvious. For example, in 1999 the American satirical paper The Onion ran a story entitled ‘Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race of Skeleton People’. After finding ancient skeletons, the excavator is cited as stating that ‘‘the implications are staggering’’: ‘‘We now know that the skeletons we see in horror films and on Halloween are not mere products of the imagination, but actually lived on Earth. [. . .] These skeletons may, in fact, be ancestors to us all. Any of us could be part skeleton.’’ By the same token, on 1 April 2004, the campaign for awarding the German town of Bremen the title of ‘European Cultural Capital 2010’ published a short film and press statement announcing the ‘archaeological sensation’ that the ‘mystery of the Sphinx of Gizeh’ has been ‘revealed’: it is said to have been part of a sculpture of the town musicians of Bremen, a well-known German fairy tale. Generally, the R theme is compatible with both the A theme and the D theme, and usually occurs in conjunction with either one or both of them. The basic notion is that at the end of an adventure or a detective story a sensational discovery is made that often contains a truth significant and important to everybody. In this vein, the British Time Team TV series promises that each program ‘‘unlocks the secrets of the past in just three days.’’ How significant such ‘secrets’ can be, is illustrated in Hammond Innes’ adventure novel Levkas Man (1973). Here, a series of excavations and finds gradually reveal to a desperate palaeoanthropologist that ‘‘Man is a killer’’ who ‘‘carries the seed of his own destruction in him,’’ thus questioning whether there is ‘‘any hope for our species.’’

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Similarly, large issues have been addressed in popular nonfiction literature about archaeology. The German TV author Gisela Graichen suggested in one of the books accompanying her programs that archaeologists could find the mechanisms that govern the rise and fall of civilizations and reveal the reasons why some societies flourish and others collapse. Based on their understanding of the past, archaeologists may thus be able to develop strategies of survival for our future as human beings. It is only a small step from here to the heroic Lara Croft whose archaeological expertise helps her directly to save the world from its imminent destruction by evil enemies. The archaeologist thus often comes across as a potential savior, sometimes resembling a seer or messiah, whose revelations enlighten our ordinary lives and may even be able to save us from imminent doom. The reason why archaeologists should have special access to such great truths goes beyond their ability to solve mysteries and recover treasures. Inasmuch as it is possible to bring lost civilizations and the dead back to life and make ancient artifacts speak, terms often used to describe archaeology, it involves supernatural powers and achieves true miracles (Figure 3). Nowhere is the notion of the archaeologist having access to eternal truths better exemplified than in the Indiana Jones film scripts. Whereas in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones seeks to recover the Ark of the Covenant, which is believed still to hold the ten commandments, in the Last Crusade he hunts, together with his father, for nothing less than the Holy Grail.

Taking the R theme to an extreme, the Swiss author Erich von Da¨niken has been a master of linking mysterious archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge in the UK and the Nasca lines in Peru, with large existential questions about humans on earth and some powerful explanations involving visits by beings from outer space. Da¨niken, who incidentally never claimed to be an archaeologist, made his fame by revealing the possibility of extraterrestrial origins of ancient human civilizations. With over 65 million sold books, he alone has probably reached more readers than all the writings of professional archaeologists worldwide put together. When a certain threshold of revealing secrets is overstepped, there is, however, the risk that the past takes revenge. As The Mummy films and numerous novels and adventure games vividly illustrate, the unscrupulous archaeologist who disturbs the peace of the dead and compulsively seeks to recover secrets of ancient civilizations may have to face the mighty forces guarding them. Archaeologists run the risk of tampering with forces that they do not understand. They are the people who raid the tomb, irrespective of the wishes and warnings of the local or indigenous population, awaken the dead, activate the curse, and bring down some immense supernatural nasty upon the world. (Russell 2002: 46)

It is not surprising that this metaphysical dimension of archaeology enjoys considerable public interest. Archaeology commands some of the same appeal as flying saucers, horror movies or the X Files. It holds for all of them that when you are dealing with unknown mysteries, you can expect some (nasty) surprises. Although satisfying the public demand in addressing large existential questions is arguably an important social function of both archaeology and cultural heritage, archaeologists are often reluctant to get into any kind of speculations that cannot withstand scientific scrutiny. ‘Alternative’ archaeologists like Erich von Da¨niken or Graham Hancock have thus been able to claim the vacated territory with considerable success.

The C Theme: The Archaeologist Taking Care of Ancient Sites and Finds

Figure 3 The archaeologist bringing ancient civilizations back to life, cartoon by Quentin Drew.

A final theme within which archaeology is being given meaning in contemporary popular culture has only over the past few years gained in significance, as developer-funded rescue archaeology and cultural heritage and resource management have been thoroughly transforming the landscape of professional archaeology throughout the Western world. Archaeologists have become the Heritage Police.

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Figure 4 The archaeologist taking care of ancient finds, cartoon by Quentin Drew.

This theme revolves around the notion that in managing ancient sites and finds, archaeologists bear the responsibility of taking care of what are scarce and nonrenewable resources. Accordingly, the archaeologist, whether a civil servant or an employee of a commercial company, is a caring specialist with limited time and limited resources who tries to salvage, for the benefit of society and humankind, valuable archaeological sites or artifacts – and the historical information they may possess – from decay or destruction (Figure 4). In addition, these professional rescuers, who are committed to working according to ethical principles, also fight things like tomb-raiding (a´ la Lara Croft) and the illicit antiquities trade. Whereas the A theme is usually far-away archaeology, the C theme tends to be close-to-home archaeology. Whereas the former can be appreciated in national and indeed international media, the latter is particularly visible in local media such as newspapers. Local papers contain numerous reports about precisely what has been rescued where and which preserved archaeological sites or recovered finds exhibited in museums might draw visitors to the area. So strong is this fascination with caring for ancient sites and preserving historical evidence at risk that local rescue projects might even then be deemed newsworthy when nothing has been found: ‘‘No archaeological finds where National Road 29 will run’’ (Blekinge La¨ns Tidning, 2 October 2002, my translation). The C theme is now also entering the worlds of film and fiction. The well-known Swedish author P. C. Jersild published in 2003 a novel (De ondas kloster) about a small archaeological rescue firm

struggling under various pressures as clues about the Medieval site under investigation emerge. Similarly, in the movie The Body (2001), the remains of none less than Christ come to light on a rescue dig in Jerusalem. The film archaeologist Dr Sharon Golban explains the circumstances of the discovery with the words: ‘‘They wanted to put up flats in about three months so we had to be quick.’’ The National Geographic Society, too, is now extending the appeal of their documentary films to include the C theme. A DVD of the 2002 production Inca Mummies: Secrets of a Lost Empire features on its cover not only some of the usual emblems of the A theme but also an invitation to ‘‘join archaeologists racing to rescue priceless Inca relics from looters and urban sprawl.’’ Although C and D themes are very compatible with each other and indeed often combined, the two are nevertheless not interchangeable. The archaeologist as specialist caretaker and manager of precious resources is not a detective carrying a notebook and a magnifying glass but rather a professional expert who wears either suit and tie or protective clothing suggested by the appropriate Health and Safety regulations. Even science-fiction adventures, which are often featuring archaeologists, have now begun to reflect the real changes to the profession of archaeology on planet Earth. For example, the Startrek episode Q-less (1993) featuring rogue archaeologist Vash who has previously been expelled from the Federation’s Archaeology Council for selling illicit artifacts, contains a strong ethical message. When she is resuming her illegal activities, omnipotent alien Q informs the bridge crew of space station Deep Space Nine that Vash is ‘‘setting Federation ethics back two hundred years. Believe me, gang, she is far more dangerous to you than I am.’’ The C theme in archaeology has both comical and tragical elements. On the one hand, precisely why should anybody want to rescue a few ancient artifacts? On the other hand, the archaeologist can often not prevent but only alleviate the destruction of archaeological sites. In popular films like the Swedish comedy Den ofrivillige golfaren (1991), where a somewhat hopeless character played by Claes Ma˚nsson represents the state archaeologist Berglund, both elements are coming together. The audience smiles about the seemingly ridiculous endeavors of the naive and inept archaeologist but at the same time feels for this poor guy who is trying to do his important job, without being taken seriously by anybody. The work of the caretaker archaeologist is usually appreciated by people. But when personal interests are involved, for example, when peoples’ personal beliefs, finances, or livelihoods are concerned, the

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stakes rise quickly and the archaeologist can be perceived as a formidable enemy. It may suddenly appear questionable why all this academic attention to ancient remains should be so sensible after all. For example, in the British film Pascali’s Island (1988), set on an Aegean island during the end of the Ottoman Empire, the local Pasha feels threatened by the archaeologist Anthony Bowles who lets it known that he will report his valuable discoveries to the national authorities in Constantinople so that the Sultan can take care of it in the proper way. The irony is that Bowles himself turns out to be a swindler who is seeking to get rich from the greedy Pasha.

Alternative Themes Any categorization has its limits in where it draws boundaries between different types and regarding those types that do not fit in any of the categories. My own attempt at categorizing the portrayals of archaeology in popular culture has not been able to place convincingly a few depictions which I would nevertheless like to mention briefly. Alternative categorizations have similar limitations. There is for example the archaeologist as a vulnerable romantic. Although this character is arguably linked to the A theme and often, for example, wears similar clothes, the archaeologist Tom Baxter in the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is no Indiana Jones. ‘‘I am honest, dependable, courageous, romantic, and a great kisser,’’ he says about himself. When this ‘poetic little archaeologist’ falls in love with a woman he gives up his archaeological explorations, telling her ‘‘I want to learn about the real world with you.’’ Adventurous in a different way is the young French archaeologist Lina in the B-movie Summer Lovers (1982). While working on the excavation site of Akrotiri on Santorini, exciting Lina enters into a romantic relationship with a visiting American tourist and his girlfriend, both of whom experience mutual attraction to her. In this portrayal, the archaeologist represents the intriguing ‘Other’ through whom the two Americans ultimately find each other again. Finally, there is the archaeologist as a fairly ordinary person in an ordinary social context, with all the ordinary problems that may entail but that have nothing to do with archaeology. The German author Barbara Frischmuth, for example, showed in her novel Bindungen (1980) how the archaeologist Fanny looks back at her family past and contemplates her present life while visiting her sister who has built up a seemingly happy family idyll. Other stories about the archaeologist as a very normal person are The Archaeologist (1998) by the academic Richard

Jenkins and The Realms of Gold (1975) by the English writer Margaret Drabble. In the latter novel, the famous archaeologist Frances Wingate, divorced and mother of four, has escaped a past of marital violence. While she finds herself madly in love with the weird and married academic Karel Schmidt, she is in the process of rediscovering her family history. The most striking variation of this theme can be found in Japanese Anime and Manga which frequently feature archaeologists who are depicted as nice, forgetful, and well-meaning males, usually young. In Cardcaptor Sakura there is, for example, the archaeologist Fujitaka Kinomoto (aka Aiden Avalon) who is a busy professor at the local University. Although he is often absent, Fujitaka is a loving father of two children including Sakura herself. Since his wife died at the age of 27, he raises them on his own. The main focus is again on the nonprofessional family life of the archaeologist.

Conclusions In this article, the author distinguished and discussed four main themes which can account for practically all portrayals of archaeology in contemporary popular culture in the Western world. Each theme represents one particular dimension of what might be called ‘archaeo-appeal’. Significantly, there are some dimensions which all these themes share. None of the four themes take the past itself particularly seriously. Mostly, archaeologists are not portrayed in relation to their actual ability to find out what happened in the past but in relation to certain other qualities of their endeavor. These qualities may be the adventurous character of archaeological fieldwork, the exciting detective-work that leads to important discoveries which may solve historical mysteries, the possibility and hope of eventually being able to make great revelations, and the professional duties of the specialist who takes good care of the archaeological heritage as a nonrenewable resource. It is as if any specific historical information or interpretation has meaning only in so far as it contributes to any of these themes, making the adventure more adventurous, the mystery more (or less) mysterious, the revelation more likely (or pertinent), and the protection more urgent. In none of the four themes are thus the actual results of archaeological work particularly important. Instead, what matters most are various aspects of the process of doing archaeology. Just like an adventure story is not characterized by precisely what the hero accomplishes but how he gets there, so a detective story does not rely a lot on what the solution of the case eventually is, and professional management of a scarce resource is not really about

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protection for any specific site or artifact and its historical information. I would argue that even great archaeological revelations are often more effective at making audiences gasp at ‘how’ somebody could have reached them than at making them appreciate the validity of ‘what’ they actually imply. The phenomenon that the object and the results of scientific studies can seem less interesting than the desire and the process of studying themselves is not unique to archaeology. They occur also in other sciences featuring unsolved mysteries, adventurous fieldwork, searches for evidence, and the prospects of large revelations, among other popular themes. In other words, all scientific disciplines are to some extent perceived and appreciated in metaphorical terms, that is in other terms than what they literally claim to be about. See also: Careers in Archaeology; Interpretation of Archaeology for the Public; Politics of Archaeology; Pseudoarchaeology and Frauds.

Further Reading Bray W (1981) Archaeological humour: The private joke and the public image. In: Evans J, Cunliffe B, and Renfrew C (eds.) Antiquity and Man. Essays in Honour of Glyn Daniel, pp. 221–229. London: Thames and Hudson.

Postmodern Archaeology

Ceram CW (1980) Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology (first published in German in 1949). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Haynes R (1994) From Faust to Strangelove. Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Holtorf C (2005) From Stonehenge to Las Vegas. Archaeology as Popular Culture. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Holtorf C (2007) Archaeology is a Brand! The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture. Illustrated by Quentin Drew. Oxford: Archaeopress and Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Kidder A (1949) Introduction. In: Amsden C (ed.) Prehistoric Southwesterners from Basketmaker to Pueblo, pp. XI–XIV. Los Angeles: Southwest Museum. Macaulay D (1979) The Motel of the Mysteries. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Russell M (2002) ‘‘No more heroes any more’’: The dangerous world of the pop culture archaeologist. In: Russell M (ed.) Digging Holes in Popular Culture. Archaeology and Science Fiction, pp. 38–54. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow/The David Brown Book Company. Scho¨rken R (1995) Begegnungen mit Geschichte. Vom auberwissenschaftlichen Umgang mit der Historie in Literatur und Medien. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Tru¨mpler C (ed.) (2001) Agatha Christie and Archaeology. London: British Museum Press. Zarmati L (1995) Popular archaeology and the archaeologist as hero. In: Balme J and Beck W (eds.) Gendered Archaeology. The Second Australian Women in Archaeology Conference, pp. 43–47. Canberra: ANH Publications. Zintzen C (1998) Von Pompeji nach Troja: Archa¨ologie, Literatur und o¨ffentlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert. Wien: WUV Universita¨tsverlag.

See: Postprocessual Archaeology.

POSTPROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Glossary

postprocessual archaeology Sometimes called postmodern archaeology; includes several modes of archaeological interpretation that rose to prominence in the 1980s as alternative to, or supplementary to, processual archaeology. processual archaeology Also called ‘New Archaeology’, an approach to the past that dominated Anglo-American archaeology during the 1960s–70s when general principles (processes) of human social behavior were stressed.

archaeology Study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. Ian Hodder British archaeologist, who introduced the phrase ‘postprocessual archaeology’ in 1985. Lewis Binford American archaeologist, leader of the New Archaeology movement in the 1960s/70s.

The phrase ‘postprocessual archaeology’ was introduced in 1985 by the British archaeologist, Ian Hodder, as a blanket term for several approaches to archeological interpretation alternative, complementary, or supplementary to those advocated by proponents

Patty Jo Watson, Washington University-St. Louis, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

POSTPROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY 1869

of processual archaeology (the latter is also known as New Archaeology). Processual archaeology rose to prominence in the 1960s–70s under the leadership of Lewis R. Binford. Most processualists were trained in anthropology departments in the Americas, especially the United States and Canada, their research – whether in the Old World or the New – typically being focused on prehistoric time periods and upon economic, ecological, and environmental aspects of ancient lifeways. This proved to be a strong and productive trajectory that occupies a central position in early twenty-first century archaeology. As practiced in the 1960s and 1970s, however, processual archaeology was almost completely bereft of concern for past cognitive systems, and for individual social and political action (agency) in the human past. Moreover, 1960s–70s processualists accorded little or no attention to the sociopolitical contexts of archaeology and individual archaeologists, which shaped and biased theoretical orientations and resulting interpretations of the archaeological record. All three of the issues just noted are central to postprocessual archaeology. The major impetus to the varied approaches loosely grouped as postprocessual came from England and the European continent where post-Paleolithic archaeology has deep roots within history, in contrast to its development in the United States where archaeology has been a subfield of anthropology since the late nineteenth century. Hence, postprocessual archaeology features a strong emphasis on cultural history, as well as close attention to the concepts and scholarly programs of a wide array of European social theorists (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu, Fernand Braudel, Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ju¨rgen Habermas, Max Horkheimer, E. Le Roy Ladurie, Claude Levi-Strauss, Herbert Marcuse, and Paul Ricoeur) and to the strictures of venerable European scholarly groups (e.g., the Annales School and the Frankfurt School). In addition to the approaches indicated above (agency and practice, critical theory, hermeneutic or interpretationist perspectives, symbolic structuralism, poststructuralism), postprocessual archaeology also includes marxian, feminist, and indigenist perspectives upon archaeology and archaeologists. Finally, a few postprocessualists are beginning to experiment with phenomenological and semiotic means of approaching the human past. There is considerable literature on and about postprocessual archaeology, much of it programmatic, but increasing numbers of articles and books presenting substantive results of postprocessual research – or of combined processual and postprocessual approaches – are now available.

Perhaps the largest, most comprehensive, and longest lasting of such projects is that directed since 1993 by Ian Hodder at the remarkable prehistoric site of C¸atalho¨yu¨k in Turkey. Interested readers are directed to the series of published volumes issued to date, and to the project website. In summary, it may be concluded that the quite successful but also quite narrow scope of Americanist processual archeology left that approach vulnerable to critiques and alternative emphases provided by a number of British and continental European scholars beginning in the early 1980s. At present, there are many different postprocessual programs, some being in conflict, to greater or lesser degrees, among themselves. Others are relatively compatible with processual orientations, and still others are overtly opposed to processualist archaeology. To a certain extent, the tension among these different views of archaeological theory and consequent methods and techniques to investigate the archaeological record is salubrious, because it prevents a monolithic approach to the extremely complex subject of the human past. On the other hand, the bewildering variety of interpretive modes can make public education about archaeology and its results difficult and confusing. It is this latter issue that makes the work at C¸atalho¨yu¨k even more interesting because – although the project has several more years to run so that the final results will not be available for some time – it does include a major component of public outreach, locally and internationally. See also: Cognitive Archaeology; Engendered Archaeology; Native Peoples and Archaeology; Marxist Archaeology; Philosophy of Archaeology; Processual Archaeology.

Further Reading Balter M (2005) The Goddess and the Bull. C ¸ atalho¨yu¨k: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. New York: Free Press. Hill J (1991) ‘The accumulation of knowledge in archaeology’. In: Preucel R (ed.) Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past, Paper No. 10, pp. 42–53. Carbondale, IL: Center for Archaeological Investigations; Southern Illinois University. Hodder I (1985) Postprocessual archaeology. In: Schiffer M (ed.) Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 8, pp. 1–26. New York: Academic Press. Hodder I (ed.) C¸atalho¨yu¨k Excavation Reports, vols. 1–6 (and continuing). Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute Publications. Hodder I and Hutson S (2003) Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology, 3rd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Preucel R (1991) The philosophy of archaeology. In: Preucel R (ed.) Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past, Paper No. 10, pp. 17–19. Carbondale, IL:

1870 POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University. Preucel R (2006) Archaeological Semiotics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Press. Reitz E, Scarry M, and Scudder S (eds.) (2008) Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology. New York: Plenum.

Potassium-Argon Dating

Pot-hunting

Pottery

Relevant Website www.catalhoyuk.com – Catalho¨yu¨k, Excavations of Neolithic Anatolian mound.

See: Dating Methods, Overview.

See: Illicit Antiquities.

See: Ceramics and Pottery.

POTTERY ANALYSIS Contents Chemical Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis Stylistic

Chemical Josefina Pe´rez-Arantegui, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary accuracy The degree of conformity of a measured or calculated quantity to its actual (true) value. archaeological chemistry The analytical chemistry as applied to archaeological problems, which enables scientists to gain new insights into historical and cultural practices and events. atomic emission spectrometry Uses quantitative measurement of the optical emission from excited atoms to determine analyte concentration. energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry A chemical microanalysis technique performed in conjunction with a scanning electron microscope. The technique utilizes X-rays

that are emitted from the sample during bombardment by the electron beam to characterize the elemental composition of the analyzed volume. hierarchical cluster analysis A method of cluster analysis comprised of agglomerative methods and divisive methods that finds clusters of observations within a data set. The divisive methods start with all of the observations in one cluster and then proceeds to split (partition) them into smaller clusters. inductively coupled plasma A type of plasma source in which the energy is supplied by electrical currents which are produced by electromagnetic induction, that is, by time-varying magnetic fields. mass spectrometry An analytical technique used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. It is most generally used to find the composition of a physical sample by generating a mass spectrum representing the masses of sample components. neutron activation analysis A nuclear process used for determining certain concentrations of elements in a vast amount of materials. It allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on its nucleus.

POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical 1871 principal components analysis A technique for simplifying a data set, by reducing multidimensional data sets to lower dimensions for analysis. provenance The origin or source from which something comes, and the history of subsequent owners. statistical treatment The statistical treatment of data that involves basing the error estimation on firm theoretical principles. wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectrometry A method used to determine the energy spectrum of an X-ray radiation. X-ray fluorescence The emission of characteristic ‘secondary’ (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by bombarding with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays.

Introduction Identifying the constituents of a substance (elements or compounds) and measuring how much is present are the aims of the chemical analysis, called qualitative analysis in the first case or quantitative analysis in the second one. Analysis of artifacts, ceramics in this case, is the second major application of the physical sciences to archaeology. The aims of these analytical studies are to obtain information in three main areas: provenance, technology, and usage. Traditionally chemical analysis of pottery for elemental component determination provides a compositional ‘fingerprint’ of the samples, for grouping together pottery made from the same raw materials or for distinguishing between groups of pottery made from different raw materials. This chemical characterization of the pottery can be used in provenance studies, which involve also the characterization and identification of the natural sources of raw materials used to make objects, and thus establishing the pattern of trade and exchange. Provenance studies assume that the chemical composition of the fired ceramic is similar and indicative of the chemical composition of clay raw material. Technological studies are concerned with identifying raw materials used, how these raw materials were processed and what techniques were used in making the ceramic objects, and also with why particular raw materials and production methods were used and why changes in technology occurred. In the case of pottery, usage studies are related to the identification of organic residues in the ceramic by chemical analysis, and not to the analytical pottery composition itself.

History The application of analytical chemical knowledge in order to solve archaeological problems in ancient ceramics is a discipline which grew rapidly in its scope and is now in its maturity. But the chemical analysis of pottery is much more than a straightforward application of existing instrumental methods to new

questions, because many of the analytical questions are unique to archaeological materials and this discipline requires an understanding of other related disciplines such as geochemistry and material science. The application of analytical chemistry to archaeological artifacts has a long history since the eighteenth century, with the contributions of Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743–1817) and Humphry Davy (1778– 1829) to the analysis of glass, ancient coins, and pigments. One of the first analytical examples related to pottery is found in a report by H. Diamond published in 1867 which includes a section on a Roman ceramic glaze studied by Michael Faraday. But it is toward the end of the nineteenth century when the results of chemical analysis became more common in reports; thus the Swedish archaeologist Gustav Nordenskio¨ld submitted pottery sherds found at Mesa Verde (Colorado, USA) to petrological analysis and the results appeared in a volume published in 1893, and the first chemical analysis of ancient ceramics, a research on Athenian pottery, was carried out at Harvard University by Theodore William Richards (1868–1928) and published by the American Chemical Society in 1895. These early analytical researches were undoubtedly of great interest to archaeologists, but they tended to be of rather sporadic nature and were limited in their scope. The growth of the chemical analysis of archaeological materials in the twentieth century was especially due to the apparition of instrumental analytical techniques and the rapid scientific and technological advances. The intensive application of analytical methods in archaeology became possible only with the development of refined methods of analysis on a microscale, due to the requirements of a nondestructive or quasi-non-destructive material sampling, and with the establishment of new laboratories where chemists worked in close collaboration with scholars and archaeologists. One of the first instrumental analytical techniques used in the ceramic analysis was neutron activation analysis (NAA), which was applied to the study of ancient Mediterranean ceramics by E. V. Sayre and R. W. Dodson in 1957 and published in the American Journal of Archaeology. In 1960, Nature, the prestigious scientific journal, published the work of E. E. Richards and K. F. Hartley on Romano-British pottery by spectrographic analysis (atomic emission by direct current arc), and the research of V. M. Emeleus and G. Simpson on ancient Roman ceramics by NAA. Since the 1960s, all the different analytical techniques developed until now have been also applied to the elemental analysis of archaeological material in general, and ceramics in particular (see Neutron Activation Analysis).

1872 POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical

Chemical Analysis in Ancient Pottery When ancient pottery is submitted to chemical analysis, the archaeological research questions must have been first defined: on provenance, technology, or usage. In order to guarantee the maximum quality of the obtained data, the collaboration between analytical chemists and archaeologists must also be encouraged and both must be involved in defining these questions, within the aim of a better understanding of the past. In the analysis of archaeological materials, the problems facing the analytical chemist are in general quite different from those in the conventional analytical laboratory; therefore some particular requirements of analytical techniques must be considered, related to the type of analysis, the type of object, or the nature of analysis. In the case of pottery, the analysis can be specific to a single object or small groups of objects, but generally the analysis is systematic, on a large number of samples with a statistical significance. The heterogeneous nature of the pottery is an important feature of the material which influences the amount of sample taken for analysis, and also the object size or its specificity should be considered in the sampling or in the election of a nondestructive analytical method. The choice of the final method of analysis employed is related to the type of archaeological problem to be solved and the necessary analytical information to be extracted (see Sampling Methods, Theory and Praxis). The chemical analysis of ceramics, also called elemental analysis, provides identification and quantification of the elements present in the samples. The results are given as weight percentage (wt.%) for major and minor elements or in units of microgram per gram (mg g–1, also called ppm, parts per million) for trace elements. In pottery analysis, major elements are expressed as element oxides, due to the clay nature, by means of the stoichiometric proportions of the oxide formula. By chemical analysis, the elemental composition of pottery could be determined for major, minor, and trace elements. Ceramics are formed by clay materials with different quantities of nonplastic inclusions, natural or added as temper, so elements like silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, etc., appear in high proportions. The choice of what elements will be determined depends on the analytical information needed to solve the archaeological problem; in general, major and minor elements define more the nature of clays and the raw materials being used and trace or ultratrace elements are preferred for provenance studies. Generally, the chemical composition of the pottery is given as ‘bulk’ or total

composition of the ceramic body, although sometimes only the ceramic surface is interesting to be analyzed. Other factors that need to be considered in interpreting chemical composition data are possible changes in composition either during firing (very unlikely), or during burial subsequent to discard. Postdepositional geochemistry should be taken into account, especially if there was any groundwater around in the burial environment, and consequently only immobile elements should be considered in defining compositional groups. In ceramic studies, the steps summarized in Figure 1 can be followed for chemical analysis in ancient material. Some of these steps are described in the next sections, especially those related to the object sampling and the selection of the analytical technique. Sample Selection and Preparation

The chemist should assist in the selection of pottery for chemical analysis in order to ensure that the fragments studied are representative of the available assemblage. Except for specific analysis of precious objects, usually pottery analysis involves the selection of a group of fragments with statistical significance, whether we study provenance or research technology or usage. Because of the ceramic-body compositional heterogeneity (a term meaning that the body composition varies from one part to another) and the variability in chemical compositions within an individual raw material source and the possible similarity of different sources, ceramic studies based on chemical compositions involve the analysis of a large number of samples, which are then grouped together using statistical methods. In selecting ceramic fragments for analysis, it is important that, as far as is feasible, each group (ideally 15–20 samples) is made up of pottery of a single type, period, and site. After the fragment or group of fragments has been selected, the first main question that should be asked is that it is possible to sample the objects. Here sampling means to separate a small part of the material being analyzed. In some cases for different reasons, no small part of the object can be taken to continue the chemical analysis, and then only a nondestructive analytical method can be chosen. But, if the object can be sampled, we can resort to a nondestructive or also to a destructive method. However, to be able to use a destructive method has the advantages, in general, of using more attainable and less expensive analytical techniques, avoiding surface compositional differences or contaminations, and, most importantly, being capable to sample a bigger quantity of ceramic and then obtaining a more representative analytical result of the object composition.

POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical 1873

Ancient pottery

Archaeological data

Archaeological questions 1. Provenance 2. Technology 3. Usage

Chronology Site Ceramic style Typology References …

Is it possible to sample the object? No

Yes

Without sampling

With sampling

Nondestructive method

Destructive method

Chemical analysis

Analytical technique selection

Sample selection and preparation Analytical method application Measurements

Results Statistical treatment

Conclusions Figure 1 Steps in the chemical analysis of ancient pottery.

If we have decided to sample the objects (see Figure 2) and we want to perform a meaningful chemical analysis, first of all, we must obtain a small, homogeneous sample, whose composition is representative of the larger fragment, from each selected ceramic fragment. The small sample is obtained by drilling or by grinding to a fine powder and it is collected by taking portions from several places chosen at random because of the ceramic body heterogeneity. Sample preparation should take into account that the variance of the sampling operation will be added to complete the overall variance, therefore all steps

in this operation should contribute to reduce the uncertainty. This is why the particle size of the solid sample must be reduced as much as possible, and the sample size and the number of replicate analyses are decided according to a desired level of sampling variance with a specific confidence level. After the solid sample is prepared, guaranteeing sample representativeness and avoiding contamination, the analytical procedure selected for analysis can be applied on the solid sample (i.e., on pressed pellets), but sometimes the sample needs to be dissolved and acid digestion or fusion may be used to convert it in a sample solution.

1874 POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical

Group of selected objects/fragments

Randomly extraction of powdered samples

Sampling

Representative bulk samples

Grinding and mixing

Solid sample preparation

Weighing

Homogeneous laboratory subsamples

Sample preparation for analysis

Pressed pellets or acid dissolution or fusion

Samples prepared for analysis Figure 2 Steps in the ceramic sample preparation for analysis.

Analytical Methods

A large number of analytical techniques can be chosen for the chemical analysis of archaeological ceramics. The most popular analytical methods that have been used in pottery analysis are NAA, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry, and inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometry (ICP– AES), or more recently inductively coupled plasma– mass spectrometry (ICP–MS). Until the 1980s, the standard analytical method for multi-trace-element analysis was NAA, because of its detection limits and the possibility of a nondestructive analysis. NAA is a technique where some of the elements in the sample are converted into artificial radioactive elements by irradiation with neutrons. The artificial nuclei decay by one or several standard pathways for radioactive decay, and, if this radioactive decay is detected and the emission intensity measured, this is related back to the original concentration of the parent element in the irradiated sample. Routinely detection levels for NAA are of the order of 10 ng g–1 or better, up to perhaps 10 mg g–1, although there is a variation in the sensitivity and detection limits from element to element, and not all the elements can be determined. XRF is an analytical technique used for the determination of major and minor elements, with the advantage of analyzing directly the solid samples.

In XRF, X-rays used to irradiate the sample strike the solid and several processes take place, but one of them, the transference of part of the primary energy to the atoms, results in vacancies in the sample atoms because of the ejection of an electron. These vacancies give rise to a secondary (fluorescent) X-ray emission with characteristic wavelengths. This X-ray emission is the basis of the identification and quantification of the elemental composition of the sample. Two approaches are possible for the detection of the emitted X-ray: energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDXS) and wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (WDXS). In general, analytical performance of WDXS systems is better, with lower detection limits and higher precision. The principal limitation on the analytical accuracy of those techniques (NAA and XRF) that required solid reference samples is the quality of the certified standard reference materials. ICP–AES requires the sample to be in a liquid form (normally in an aqueous solution). The liquid sample is aspirated into the plasma and the high plasma temperature makes possible the dissociation of all compounds and they even attain an excited state, so that they strongly emit characteristic lines. These emission lines belong to the ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and they are related to the presence and proportion of the chemical elements in the sample. ICP–AES allows a

POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical 1875

multielement analysis with low detection limits and good precision for major, minor, and trace elements in ceramic analysis. A major benefit of the ICP is the possibility of being connected to an MS to give a more powerful technique: ICP–MS. Plasma temperature is high enough to ionize a high proportion of the sample atoms, making the plasma an ideal source of ions that can be extracted from the plasma and injected into a mass spectrometer. Individual charge ions are then separated according to their mass–charge ratio and they can be counted separately in order to be identified and quantified; this provides a chemical analysis of the sample. ICP–MS has the advantages of even lower detection limits and the possibility of monitoring the concentration of individual isotopes. Some differences in analytical sensitivity, precision, and accuracy exist among techniques and laboratories involved in the chemical analysis of archaeological ceramics (see Chemical Analysis Techniques). Large differences in these analytical parameters become significant in the formulation of databases where comparability of the data is being wanted. Small differences become significant when comparing pottery produced from clay resources located within a discrete geological environment. But these differences do not prevent to obtain good analytical results. In every case, the level of precision required for ceramic characterization studies, the use of standards, and the preparation and submission of samples for laboratory analysis should be evaluated in order to select the best analytical technique that allows the archaeological questions defined to be answered. Finally, some statistical tools help us to present and to evaluate the analytical results obtained. Data are given as average values of several replicates, together with their standard deviation (as an estimation of the precision). Some statistical tests are useful to avoid errors and to evaluate accuracy. Student’s t is a statistical tool used most frequently to express confidence intervals (one of the most common estimations of the uncertainty in experimental measurements) and for comparing results from different experiments to decide whether they are ‘different’ or ‘the same’ from each other. Most of the ceramic studies lead to a high number of data (many chemical components from numerous groups of samples); therefore statistical multivariate analysis of these data is necessary to understand the results. Some of the most usual statistical treatments are principal components analysis (PCA) or hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), which help to reduce the number of variables and to group the samples.

Case Studies Chemical Analysis of Pottery to Characterize a Workshop Production

Although in many parts of the world the chief evidence of pottery production (workshops and kilns) is extremely infrequent, the reconstruction of pottery production should start with archeological excavations of pottery workshops and kilns (see Ceramics and Pottery). Then the pottery and other appropriate production debris would be subjected to a range of analytical, microscopy, and radiography techniques in order to establish what raw materials were used, how they were prepared, and how the objects were made. This was the case of the local ceramic production during the Islamic period in the city of Zaragoza (in the northeast of Spain). In 1989, an Islamic potters’ suburb was located and excavated on the eastern side of the ancient city; the kilns were working from the end of the tenth century to the beginning of the twelfth century AD. Thousands of ceramic objects, both glazed and nonglazed, and also potters’ tools were found associated with ten kilns and some waster spots. The study of this archaeological material would allow a better knowledge of the ceramic technology during this period. Therefore a large program on technological features of this production was carried out, considering the different ceramic variants (forms and decorations). The research started with the study of the material found inside one of the kilns, the most representative of the eleventh century production. Several fragments of ceramic objects, potter tools, and wastes were selected and submitted to chemical analysis. These results were completed with mineralogical and petrographic analyses and textural studies by image processing. From an overall selection of 100 samples, only 56 were chosen for chemical analysis after a preliminary observation of their thin sections (see Pottery Analysis: Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis). Determination of ten major and minor elements (Si, Al, Fe, Mg, Ca, Na, K, Ti, P, Mn) and some trace elements (Ba, Ce, Dy, Eu, La, Li, Nb, Nd, Sc, Sm, Sr, V, Y, Yb, Zr) were carried out by ICP–AES. This analysis was undertaken on representative 500 mg subsamples, drilled from freshly fractured surfaces of the sherds. Fusion was used to prepared sample solutions. Chemical results were submitted to a computer-assisted multivariate statistical treatment by cluster analysis in order to group samples with similar composition. Chemical analyses showed the samples distributed in two main groups: one made from noncalcareous clays (CaO < 1 wt.%) and another prepared from

1876 POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical

calcareous pastes (CaO > 14 wt.%). The fragments with noncalcareous bodies belonged to cooking pots, and this relation between chemical composition (low CaO content) and utilization (objects exposed to fire) has been also proved in other ceramic productions as a technological character. Another observed technological division was that all objects covered and decorated with glaze (lead glazes in this case) were manufactured with calcareous clays. This type of clay would have the advantage of producing a buff color in an oxidizing atmosphere, and the ceramic body tends to have higher thermal expansion coefficient with best adherence between body and glaze. The main calcareous group was formed by three subgroups (see Figure 3), each subgroup was related to different ceramic forms or decorations (tin glazes TG, cuerda seca CS, transparent colored glazes CG, red slips RS, or nondecorated ND). The analytical results indicated that a selection of raw material was used for each production variant, with significant technological differences detected in each group – different proportions of clay matrix and inclusions. Cluster 1 included small glazed objects, in cluster 2 were tin-glazed and decorated-glazed ceramics, while unglazed fragments belonged to cluster 3. Chemical composition of cluster 3 would be the most similar to the original raw clay. In summary, chemical composition in major and minor elements was applied in order to know the nature of clay raw materials used in these Islamic workshops. The variation in some elements (aluminum, silicon, potassium, or rare-earth elements) also allows knowledge about raw material preparation. The technological features were also supported by petrographic and texture analyses. The chemical analysis of this pottery production also led to the establishment of the compositional reference of these ceramics to be used in other provenance studies, in major and minor elements and also in trace elements, which can be compared with ceramic fragments found in other archaeological sites of the same historical period. In this way, four average chemical compositions with their respective standard deviations were defined for the four reference groups. Study of Trade Routes and Cultural Contacts

The transformation of clay raw material into the final fired object is a complex process that could influence the final composition of the pottery. In order to compensate for all factors included in the ceramic process, the normal procedure of provenance studies is to compare the chemical composition of finished pottery bodies not with the ancient raw material source (usually very difficult to identify), but with other fired

objects of certain or assumed provenance. Reference groups of known provenance are established from workshop products and kiln wasters, as with the later case described above, or by comparison with fragments of accepted provenance, certified by experts or other archaeological information. This was the procedure selected to study the possible provenance of Roman glazed ceramics found in the western Mediterranean. Lead-glazed pottery was a tradition that originated in the eastern Roman world, but spread to all the other regions during the first century BC and several possible production centers had already been studied and suggested for the western Roman area, including Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany, and Spain. Therefore a study was undertaken to shed new light on Roman glazed ceramic production and importation to the western Mediterranean (see Vitreous Materials Analysis). Unfortunately, Roman glazed ceramic fragments are scarce at archaeological sites, so a very limited number of samples was selected for chemical analysis; 68 objects were chosen from different sites, chronologies, glaze colors, and potential origins. The selection was thought to be representative of the glazed ceramic found in the Ebro Valley (northeastern Spain). Laboratory subsamples to be analyzed were extracted with a diamond drill from the ceramic body core to avoid contamination with material from the lead glaze. Solutions were prepared from the powdered samples (50 mg) by acid attack in open beakers. Determination of eight major and minor elements (Na, Mg, Al, K, Ca, Ti, Mn, and Fe) was carried out by ICP–AES. A more exhaustive examination of the results needed a statistical treatment of the data, so HCA was used to classify fragments according to their chemical composition (see Figure 4). In this case, every group is defined by an average chemical composition and these compositions should be compared with other reference groups of known provenance. At that moment, only two references had been published on body analyses of Roman leadglazed ceramics with provenance established by experts and archaeological evidences; this is why only major and minor elements were chosen to be analyzed and not trace elements. Although inherently less powerful than the trace element analysis for provenance studies, this approach through major and minor element determination gives more insight into the nature of the clays used. A statistical comparison (t test or Student’s test) of the different chemical compositions allowed to attribute some of the groups to production centers in Italy (second and third centuries AD) and Gaul (Lyon area, first century AD); however, other centers in the eastern Mediterranean and central Gaul were excluded.

POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical 1877 9.600 8.000 6.400 4.800 3.200 1.600 0.000 |---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------| .--------------------------------IS01 | .-----------------IS02 | .-------L-----------------IS12 | .--L-------------------------IS05 .L---L----------------------------IS04 .----L---------------------------------IS21 | .-------------------------IS03 | | .-----------------IS07 | | .-L-----------------IS08 | | .-L-------------------IS11 .-----L------------L---L---------------------IS10 .---------L--------------------------------------------IS06 | | .-------------------IS09 | | .---------------IS16 | .---L---L---------------IS17 | | .-------------------IS13 | .--L---L-------------------IS14 | | .----------------IS25 | | .--L----------------IS38 | | .--L-------------------IS37 | | | .--------------------IS28 | .--L---L-L--------------------IS39 | | .------------------IS22 | .---L----------L------------------IS26 | | .-----------------------IS29 | .---------L-----------------------IS36 | | .---------------------IS35 | .------L-----------L---------------------IS40 | | | | .--------------------------IS15 | | | .---------------------IS24 | | | | .------------------IS27 | | | | .L------------------IS31 | | | | | .--------------IS49 | | | .--L-L----L--------------IS51 | | .-L-L------------------------IS34 | | .-L----------------------------IS30 | | | .----------------IS18 | | | .--L----------------IS50 | | | .--L-------------------IS20 | | | .--L----------------------IS19 | | | | .-----------------IS43 | | .----L----L-------L-----------------IS52 | | | .----------------------IS32 | | | | .-----------------IS42 | | | .---L----L-----------------IS44 | | | .-L--------------------------IS46 | | | | .--------------------IS33 | | | | .-L--------------------IS41 | | | | | .--------------IS47 | | | | .--L-------L--------------IS48 ------L-------------L----L------L--L-------------------------IS45 |---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------| 9.600 8.000 6.400 4.800 3.200 1.600 0.000

ND RS ND ND RS CG RS RS RS ND ND ND

Level 4.962 2.608 3.852 4.458 5.147 6.007 3.940 2.585 2.887 3.341 6.986 8.618














ND CG ND ND ND CG TG TG TG TG ND ND CG ND TG CG

2.939 2.329 3.645 2.959 4.079 2.516 2.958 3.400 3.050 4.487 2.843 5.162 3.618 5.250 3.280 6.268


              

ND ND TG TG CG CG TG TG ND CS CG ND CS CS CG CG CG TG CG CG CG CG CG

4.089 3.292 2.754 2.966 2.084 3.751 4.366 4.710 2.474 2.880 3.430 3.980 2.679 5.490 3.417 2.617 4.127 4.425 3.185 3.363 2.151 3.911 ----Level

                      







Figure 3 Dendrogram from statistical analysis of the chemical data, showing the three subgroups. TG, tin glazed; CS, cuerda seca; CG, transparent colored glazed; RS, red slip; ND, nondecorated. Symbols represent the textural subgroups: open star, group 1a; solid star, group 1b; open square, group II; solid circle, group III.

These conclusions demonstrated cultural and trade contacts of southern Gaul (the Rhoˆne Valley) and Italy with the Ebro Valley in Spain, especially following fluvial routes.

Conclusions Chemical analysis provides a very good tool for the study of ancient pottery in several aspects of archaeological researches: provenance, technology, and usage,

1878 POTTERY ANALYSIS/Chemical 6.000 5.000 4.000 3.000 2.000 1.000 0.000 |---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------| Level .--------------------------V15 2.538 .----------L--------------------------V28 3.677 .----------------L-------------------------------------V40 5.376 | | .---------------------------V52 2.620 | | .-----------------V25 1.658 | | | .-----------V04 1.097 | | | | .--------V07 0.742 | | .-L-----L--L--------V05 1.816 | .L-------L-------------------V27 2.765 | | .-----------------------V66 2.278 | | | .------------------V18 1.745 | | | | .--------------V35 1.377 | .-----L----L----L---L--------------V83 3.371 | | | .----L----------------------------------V39 3.810 | | | | .-----------------------V24 2.205 | .L---------------L-----------------------V03 3.900 | | | | .-------------V42 1.290 | | | .------V48 0.581 | | .--L------L------V47 1.507 | | | .----------V01 0.990 | | | .-L----------V12 1.181 | | .--L---L------------V11 1.831 | | .-----L-------------------V10 2.425 | | | .--------------------V54 1.900 | | | .-L--------------------V65 2.168 | | | | .---------------V34 1.466 | | | | | .-----------V08 1.063 | | | | |.--L-----------V33 1.309 | | | | .-LL--------------V57 1.656 | | | | | .------------Va6 1.126 | | | | .L----L------------Vb6 1.794 | | | | .-L------------------V55 1.961 | | .----L--L-L--------------------V51 2.951 | | | | | | .---------------V56 1.451 | | | .------L---------------V70 2.115 | | | .-L----------------------V69 2.305 | | | .---L------------------------V76 2.795 | | | | | | | | .-----------V60 1.052 | | | | .L-----------V68 1.190 | | | | .-L------------V61 1.332 | | | | .----L--------------V59 1.825 | | | | | .------------V58 1.127 | | | | | .-L------------V02 1.383 | | | | .-L----L--------------V43 2.094 | | | | .-L---------------------V36 2.222 | | | | | .---------------V64 1.460 | | | | | .----L---------------V82 1.953 | .-------L---------L-L----L--L--------------------V71 4.791 | | | | .------------------------------------V21 3.551 .----L-----L-----------L------------------------------------V74 5.893 | | .---------------------------------------V72 3.822 -L-------------------L---------------------------------------V37 ----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------| Level 6.000 5.000 4.000 3.000 2.000 1.000 0.000 Figure 4 Dendrogram from statistical analysis of Roman glazed-body results.

and making use of the physical sciences even other archaeological questions that go beyond these aspects can be answered. Collaboration between analytical chemists and archaeologists must be encouraged and

both must be involved in defining the archaeological questions to arrive at the maximum quality of the obtained data, within the aim of a better understanding of the past.

POTTERY ANALYSIS/Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis 1879 See also: Ceramics and Pottery; Chemical Analysis Techniques; Europe: Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance Studies; Metals: Chemical Analysis; Neutron Activation Analysis; Pottery Analysis: Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis; Stylistic; Sampling Methods, Theory and Praxis; Statistics in Archaeology; Vitreous Materials Analysis.

Further Reading Archaeological Chemistry. ACS (American Chemical Society) Symposium Series. Goffer Z and Winefordner JD (2006) Archaeological Chemistry. 2nd edn. New York: Wiley. Henderson J (2001) Science and Archaeology of Materials: An Investigation of Inorganic Materials. London: Routledge. Martini M (ed.) (2004) Physics Methods in Archaeometry. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Neff H (1992) Chemical Characterization of Ceramic Pastes in Archaeology. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press. Orna MV (ed.) (1996) ACS Symposium Series 625: Archaeological Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic and Biochemical Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. Orton C, Tyers P, and Vince A (1993) Pottery in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollard AM and Heron C (1996) Archaeological Chemistry. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry. Rice PM (1987) Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wisseman SU and Williams W (eds.) (1994) Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers.

Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis Ian Whitbread, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary petrology A field of geology which focuses on the study of rocks and the conditions by which they form. There are three branches of petrology, corresponding to the three types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. polarizer A device that converts an unpolarized or mixedpolarization beam of electromagnetic waves (e.g., light) into a beam with a single polarization state (usually, a single linear polarization). thin section A laboratory preparation of a rock, mineral, or soil sample for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope.

In the 1930s it was realized that materials constituting the fabric of a pot are a source of valuable archaeological information. Before the advent of scientific analysis, archaeologists assumed that most

coarse wares were locally produced, but subsequent petrological research has shown that in several cases they were traded, sometimes over very long distances. This applies particularly to some prehistoric wares and to later utilitarian pottery, such as kitchenware, thick-walled storage ware, and specialized products such as cooking ware and transport containers. Coarseware fabrics contain 10–30% inclusions and voids, and can be likened to sedimentary rocks. On this principle, analytical techniques have been adapted from petrological methods developed in the Earth sciences. These include examining the composition, frequency, size, morphology, and arrangement of inclusions, voids, and the fired clay matrix that make up the ceramic fabric. Ceramic petrography is the process of describing these properties at macroscopic (visible to the unaided eye) and microscopic levels of magnification. Ceramic petrology, on the other hand, is the broader study of ceramic classification, production, and trade based on the results of petrographic analysis. There are several advantages in using ceramic petrology. Macroscopic analysis can be undertaken in the field with minimal equipment, allowing rapid and efficient examination of large pottery assemblages of up to tens of thousands of sherds. Observations from these studies can be directly related to results from laboratory-based microscopic analyses. The latter generate much more accurate data, but consider only a limited number of samples, typically 20–300. As petrography maintains the structural integrity of the fabric, technological information can be acquired concerning the potters’ selection and processing of raw materials, forming techniques and firing conditions. Perhaps most importantly, analysis of mineral and rock inclusions in the pottery allows direct comparision with regional geology and its related literature. Of course, there are disadvantages too. Ceramic petrology relies heavily on the analyst’s interdisciplinary experience. The diverse ways in which potters interact with geological materials mean that there are few reliable rules to guide fabric classification and interpretation. Quantification of petrographic results does help, but it is a complex and time-consuming process. Ceramic petrologists therefore take great care in defining appropriate archaeological questions, selecting samples, testing various classificatory schemes, and exploring interpretive models before delivering a conclusion. Instrumentation used in petrography is relatively affordable and widely available. It operates at three levels: hand lens, stereomicroscope, and polarizing microscope. Hand lenses (10) are used in field assessments when classifying large quantities of pottery using macroscopic characteristics. Stereomicroscopes (20–100) provide improved resolution in

1880 Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis

Figure 1 Thin section of a pottery fabric containing volcanic rock and mineral inclusions viewed in plane-polarized light. Similar to natural light, a polarizing filter under the sample means that light striking the thin section is vibrating in only one plane (top to bottom). As a result, the green amphibole characteristically changes color on rotation. Most inclusions are colorless plagioclase feldspar and quartz, distinguished from voids (thin wavy lines) by their gray to white interference colors under crossed polars (Figure 2). Note that the large rock fragment with green amphibole is rounded, indicating that the grain has been transported. Width of field is 4.2 mm.

Figure 2 Same sample as Figure 1 viewed under crossed polars. A second polarizing filter has been inserted above the thin section, at 90 to the lower polarizer, that is, left to right. All undisturbed light is blocked, so voids and volcanic glass appear black. Most of the sample refracts light so it can still be seen as false interference colors caused by the disturbed light path, for example, interference colors of the green amphibole are blue to red. Interferences colors go into extinction (black) four times on rotation as each inclusion is aligned with the upper and lower polarizing filters. Width of field is 4.2 mm.

both field and laboratory environments. These techniques are used to study fresh breaks in pottery and require minimal sample preparation and damage to artifacts, but the accuracy of inclusion identification is severely limited. Polarizing microscopes (20–600) are the most powerful tool, but require samples of 10  20 mm2 or more to be removed from the pot and prepared as thin sections in the laboratory. To make a thin section, a flat surface is ground on the sample, which is then mounted on a glass microscope slide before being ground down to a final thickness of 0.03 mm. Ideally, enough sample is removed for at least two thin sections in case one is lost in grinding. When ground to a thickness of 0.03 mm, rock and mineral inclusions become translucent and can be identified under the polarizing microscope using the light refracted through them. Polarizing filters control the two types of lighting conditions commonly used: plane-polarized light (Figure 1) and crossed polars (Figure 2). Minerals are identified by their structure and by optical properties measured with reference to polarizing filter orientations. Ceramic petrology operates at the interface of archaeology, geology, and ceramic technology. Anna Shepard played a major role in founding this field, and her book, Ceramics for the Archaeologist, continues to be indispensable, despite being largely updated by Rice. Nevertheless, some of the challenges that Shepard faced resulted from archaeologists’ difficulty in fully appreciating the application and value

of her studies. Pottery analyses (see Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Stylistic) have come a long way since then, but few archaeologists have first-hand experience of working with ceramic petrology. The questions posed need be archaeologically sound, but also appropriate to both the technique and the pottery available for study. Sampled pottery must be accurately classified by shape and decoration for fabric distinctions to be mapped into archaeologically meaningful categories. It is likewise advantageous if different rock types occur in discrete parts of the study region. A useful guide is to view the analysis in four stages, each developing new insights: description, characterization, technology, and provenance. Description identifies the geological nature and diversity of a pottery assemblage or ware, whereas characterization is used to sort similar fabrics into geological and/or technological groups using a structured set of criteria. Technology and provenance are more demanding levels of interpretation concerned with pottery production and trade/exchange networks.

Technology Technology is socially embedded. We can therefore gain new perspectives on ancient societies through their use of technology. As a synthetic product made by combining raw materials, manipulating them and transforming them through heat, pottery lends itself to this purpose. Potters engage in a chain of actions

Stylistic 1881

and decisions – a chaıˆne ope´ratoire – comprising essential actions (collecting clay, forming and firing, etc.) and choices (e.g., which particular materials, forming technique, etc.) made at each point in the chain where a variety of equally viable options are available. Consistent patterns of decision making in this chain lead to technological traditions that reflect broader social identities (see Ceramics and Pottery). Potters may use clays singly or mix two or more clays to achieve particular working, firing, and functional properties. They may also add inclusions to the clay body (temper) as opening material, aiding moisture escape from thick-walled vessels and increasing toughness of the finished product. Ceramic petrology can identify temper through compositional and micromorphological differences between inclusions. It can also identify technologically significant inclusions that do not occur naturally in clays, for example, grog (crushed pottery), slag, or bone. Limestone (calcium carbonate) inclusions have also received special petrographic attention because their chemical reaction during firing can damage the final pot. Ethnographic studies have shown how different technological traditions have overcome this problem. Clay mixing is more difficult to detect, but heterogeneity in the fired clay matrix is sometimes found and may result from natural mixtures or the work of a potter. Cooking ware production requires careful selection of raw materials to diminish the effects of thermal shock arising from repeated heating and cooling. Petrography has been employed alongside other techniques in ethnographic studies of traditional cooking ware production to better understand how these selection processes may have worked in the past.

Provenance Determination Ceramic petrology is most commonly used to identify pottery sources and map exchange networks. There are two ways to approach these studies. Site-specific projects address pottery assemblages from one site aiming to characterize locally produced and imported wares and, where possible, identify provenances for the latter. At Knossos, Crete, Wilson and Day took a multilayered approach to early Bronze Age pottery fabrics, defining ware categories based on surface treatment, decoration, and macroscopic fabric properties before comparing shape and microscopic distinctions within and across ware boundaries. They identified local and imported wares, but their results also revealed evidence of standardization and probably specialization at several workshops in the region, each distributing its wares beyond the immediate locale. The alternative approach is to explore the production and distribution of a particular type of

pottery over a region, by sampling specific wares from several sites. Whitbread used petrography to characterize the fabrics of Greek transport amphorae, specialized containers used to ship liquids in the classical world. The results show that fabrics discriminate amphorae produced in disparate parts of the Aegean region, some centers producing a variety of fabrics reflecting production in different local workshops. See also: Ceramics and Pottery; Pottery Analysis:

Chemical; Stylistic; Vitreous Materials Analysis.

Further Reading Bishop RL and Lange FW (1991) The Ceramic Legacy of Anna O. Shepard. Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press. Morris EL and Woodward A (2003) Ceramic petrology and prehistoric pottery in the UK. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 69: 279–303. Peacock DPS (1977) Ceramics in Roman and Medieval Archaeology. In: Peacock DPS (ed.) Pottery and Early Commerce: Characterization and Trade in Roman and Later Ceramics, pp. 21–33. London: Academic Press. Pen˜a JT (1992) Raw materials use among nucleated industry potters: The case of Vasanello, Italy. Archaeomaterials 6: 93–122. Press F and Siever R (2001) Understanding Earth, 3rd edn. New York: W.H. Freeman. Rice PM (1987) Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shepard AO (1956) Ceramics for the Archaeologist. Publication 609. Washington DC: Carnegie Insitution of Washington. Whitbread IK (1995) Fitch Laboratory Occasional Paper 4: Greek Transport Amphorae: A Petrological and Archaeological Study. London: British School at Athens. Whitbread IK (2001) Ceramic petrology, clay geochemistry and ceramic production – From technology to the mind of the potter. In: Brothwell DR and Pollard AM (eds.) Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, pp. 449–459. London: Wiley. Wilson DE and Day AM (1994) Ceramic regionalism in prepalatial central Crete: The Mesara imports at EM I to EM II A Knossos (with a contribution by V. Kilikoglou). Annual of the British School at Athens 89: 1–87.

Stylistic Emily R Lundberg, Consultant in Caribbean Archaeology, Bozeman, MT, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary assemblage A defined grouping of items, especially an analyst-defined grouping of artifacts. iconography Pictorial or symbolic imagery, especially as representative of religion or ideology.

1882 Stylistic seriation A method for determining the serial order of multiple groupings (assemblages) of artifacts, based on hypothetical popularity curves for individual artifact types. sherd A ceramic fragment; also ‘shard.’ vessel feature An element or trait of a ceramic vessel, as defined for analytical purposes.

Introduction ‘Stylistic’ analysis of pottery refers to the generation and interpretation of data emphasizing observed qualities of production and appearance such as form, finish, and decoration. It includes a broad range of methodologies that, in a general way, contrast with studies focused on ceramic technology. Whereas studies of ceramic chemistry and composition focus on source materials and technological qualities (see Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and ThinSection Analysis), stylistic studies deal with artifacts’ style. In early archaeological work, ‘style’ often equated with artistic expression because in practice it was the decorated sherds that received the most attention. Today the term ‘style’ is variable in archaeological usage but usually has a broader meaning. Characteristics of style reflect preferential choices of the artisan, which are attributable to a combination of cultural norms and the individual’s esthetic expression and skill. In contrast, technical choices are based on performance goals. Unlike specialized technological analyses, stylistic data are obtained mostly through macro-observation. Stylistic analysis is not a field with any definite boundary, however. Style and function are opposites in concept, but in reality most traits of pottery reflect aspects of both, to greater or lesser degree. Most modern ‘stylistic’ research includes information that is primarily technological or functional. For instance, a basic pottery study will often record technological variables such as temper types, which are the nonclay particles mixed with the clay, as well as functional variables such as morphological types, for example, ‘bottle’ or ‘griddle’. Studies focused on vessel functions, in fact, derive interpretations from stylistic data, in tandem with functional ethnographic analogies and use-wear evidence. The conceptual contrasts between stylistic and technological/functional research may correspond to differences in investigative techniques but become blurred during formulation of integrated conclusions about pottery as a reflection of culture and society (see Ceramics and Pottery).

Aims The potential aims of pottery analysis are many and diverse because pottery reflects multiple aspects of

culture and society. Pottery vessels are made by individuals operating within a social environment, serve a function within an economic system, and reflect cultural norms for the appearance of the finished product. Therefore, all of those subjects may be addressed through studies of pottery. There is no single formula, or set of formulas, by which archaeologists analyze pottery. Instead, many directions have been explored, with continual attempts to improve the ways in which the data relate to multiple cultural and social variables. As with other archaeological research, approaches to such studies are influenced by the investigator’s theoretical perspectives. The level of previous research in a given region also affects the questions that can be productively addressed through pottery. In some situations there are unresolved basic questions about which peoples produced which kinds of pottery. In other situations it is possible to use pottery to investigate questions of a less historical and more anthropological nature, such as development of powerful political systems, for example. The various regions of the world have unique archaeological research histories, as well, which has resulted in diverse methodological practices and nomenclature.

Opportunities and Problems Pottery has the potential for infinitely variable forms and artistic expressions created by human artisans. Unlike natural materials used as collected, the clay mixture from which the artisan makes pottery also is composed by him or her, again with a potential for infinite variation. Thus, pottery embodies a great deal of the human element, reflecting of multiple aspects of a society. In many archaeological cultures, pottery fragments are an extremely abundant artifact type. These fragments, which are called ‘shards’ in British literature and ‘sherds’ or ‘potsherds’ in most US-based literature, offer a tremendous opportunity for data collection. It is not unusual for several thousand pottery sherds to be individually processed and recorded by analysts in a single project. These large quantities allow statistically valid conclusions. Furthermore, for those regions and eras in which pottery is ubiquitous, there is a constant resource for site comparisons. The same factors that provide opportunities in pottery analysis also create pitfalls. The numbers and fragmentary condition of pottery sherds often require extensive labor and time for proper treatment and analysis. Usually some sort of sampling procedure must be imposed for any detailed analyses, and sampling always introduces new sets of considerations. Pottery found in fragments also raises questions about

Stylistic 1883

relationships to the numbers and types of whole vessels. Large numbers of finds must be somehow translated into descriptive classes that are meaningful to research. Most significantly, a multitude of potentially relevant factors must be considered in drawing conclusions from analytical data derived from pottery, due to pottery’s potential range of expression and the way that it is embedded within many cultural systems.

Pottery Description Terminology

The term ‘pottery’ usually refers to earthenware, a type of ceramic ware that is not fired at extremely high temperatures. ‘Ceramic analysis’ is a term with very wide applicability, inasmuch as most aspects of analysis are transferable between earthenware and higher-fired ceramic wares like stoneware or porcelain. Although any object fashioned from fired clay might be analyzed as pottery, here we will discuss only vessels (containers). A specialized vocabulary has evolved in this subfield of archaeology, due to the necessity of specifically referencing various parts and features of ceramic vessels. Figure 1 shows the labeling of a few basic vessel parts. Descriptions of ceramic vessels include traits relating to manufacture, morphology (shape), surface finish, and decoration. Such traits again comprise a specialized vocabulary, which must have clear meanings within any given study, either from widely accepted usage or from specific definitions provided in the study.

Illustration and Extrapolation

Illustration of pottery vessels and sherds can capture and convey more information than words or data tables. The most informative studies, therefore, are well illustrated. Photography is advantageous in many situations, especially when color and surface textures are important. Photographs of sherds, however, do not often do justice to the information about form that the human brain can grasp from even a relatively small sherd. Schematic drawings of various kinds are extremely useful for presentation of information. Figure 2 shows three levels of information presented for a single sherd from a vessel rim. The first (a) provides surface detail of the sherd but little information about the vessel form from which it came. The second (b) is an example of the rim profile that can be drawn if the vessel has a level rim, providing information about contour and thickness. This is done by holding the sherd so that its entire rim edge is level, in a single plane, and transferring the profile to paper by tracing and measuring. The third example (c) conveys more information at a glance. The source vessel for the sherd has been extrapolated, based on the combination of rim profile and mouth diameter. A circular vessel’s mouth diameter is determined by matching the arc of the sherd’s rim to circular template drawings of known diameter. Noncircular vessels create much difficulty for extrapolation, which is possible only if the sherd section is relatively large and there are whole similar vessels available in comparative collections.

Characterizing Pottery Assemblages Vessel parts Rim, ending in lip Body Base

Orifice/mouth Upper wall Corner point/keel/ shoulder angle Lower wall

Figure 1 Basic terminology for parts of a ceramic vessel.

In many projects there is a need to characterize a collection or grouping of pottery sherds and/or vessels. A defined grouping or set of artifacts is an assemblage, and comparison of pottery assemblages is frequently useful in archaeological research (e.g., from one site to another, or from one site layer to the next, etc.). If the assemblage includes many items, it is described in summary form.

Illustrations of one pottery sherd

26 cm dia.

(a) Rim sherd photograph

(b) Rim profile drawing

(c) Extrapolated vessel

Figure 2 (a–c) Comparison of three different ways to illustrate information about the same sherd from a bowl rim.

1884 Stylistic

Summarizing a large amount of material essentially involves a process of classification. Classification is simply a process of hypothetically sorting items (which may not be physically separable or tangible) into groups (classes) based on selected sorting criteria. The set of criteria that defines any given class, or an hypothetical specimen that embodies all those criteria, is a ‘type’, and the results of the classification may be called a ceramic ‘typology’. Humans regularly and unconsciously classify things and concepts in daily life. In research, however, a good classification must be well defined and standardized. Because summarization highlights certain information at the expense of other potential information, a classification should be designed to fit the intended objectives. In a simple analogy, person A may look at a field of wildflowers and report that it contains white, blue, and pink flowers, while person B may look at the same field and report that it includes tallstemmed flowers as well as groundcovers. These reports are simple classifications making use of two different traits as sorting criteria: flower color and plant height. They are equally valid; the first might be more useful to a painter, however, while the second might be more useful to an ecologist. The purpose of a ceramic classification must be understood, with classificatory criteria selected to suit that purpose. Methods of Ceramic Classification

Factors that affect any classification are: 1. nature of the items to be classified (three common categories for pottery are sherds, vessel features, or whole vessels); 2. sorting criteria (selected traits and their range of potential alternative states); and 3. sorting order (if any traits are to be given precedence over others). The combination of these three factors determines the structure of a classification and thus the results and applications that will be possible. Each of these factors should be made explicit. Of course, any classification method can be applied to any grouping of items and re-applied to different groupings, and the selection of assemblages to be classified is as important as the method itself. Sherd classification Broken pottery fragments or sherds usually are the items actually recovered in archaeological field work. If they are classified on the basis of direct observations, without prior manipulation, there is a savings in time and expertise required. The trade-off, however, is that the sherd classification uses a culturally artificial class of items, lacking

the cultural information associated with the whole artifacts from which the fragments came. Sherd classifications are limited in potential objectives, inasmuch as vessel morphology is omitted in the sorting criteria. Technology in terms of sherd material (also called ‘paste’ or ‘fabric’), sherd surface finishes, and surface decorative techniques can be addressed, although without linkage to vessel types in the cultural repertoire. Typically a sherd classification has a defined sorting order, in which initial classes are created based on one primary criterion and then each class is subdivided one or more times based on further criteria. As a result, all classes at each level are mutually exclusive. This sort of classification saw widespread usage during the mid-twentieth century in the United States, where it was labeled the ‘type-variety’ method. Ceramic types were identified by a few primary criteria of sherd fabric (e.g., temper, thickness, hardness) and/or surface (e.g., smoothness, gloss). Subtypes or ‘varieties’ were created on the basis of further distinctions, such as plain versus variously decorated surfaces, or even rim or vessel-wall contour elements when present on sherds (Table 1). These subtypes indicated the range of variation present within a given ceramic type, for the assemblage classified. Thus, assemblages could be compared on that basis, insofar as allowed by data collected from sherds. The most similar assemblages have the most overlap in types and varieties represented and in the relative abundance of each. Vessel feature classification Classification of vessel features moves a step closer to the intentions of the pottery maker. Vessel features exist only as definitions of the analyst, however, not as physically separate items or separate objectives of the potter. They may be definable parts of vessels, such as bases or handles, or they may be vessel traits, such as base thickness or handle decoration. In order to classify vessel features, it is not necessary to reconstruct (or hypothetically reconstruct) whole vessels because their occurrences together on individual vessels is not at issue. In a purely featurebased classification, the relative abundance of each feature trait is determined separately (Figure 3). The usefulness of a classification of vessel features depends upon the range and definition of features selected, together with the possible alternative states to be recorded. There is no universally applicable template for this because sorting criteria usually are developed from prior work in the area and from the nature of the pottery in question. For example, one set of pottery may have multiple distinctive rim types while another set includes no informative differentiation for that trait.

Stylistic 1885 Table 1 An example of a portion of a type-variety ceramic classification system applied to sherds, with ware types based on differences in ceramic paste mixturesa Sherd type

Variety

Bay – tempered with grit and finely ground shell; thickness variable; surfaces usually reddish.

Bay plain Bay lip punctated Bay inner lip incised Bay vertical incised

Harbor – tempered with larger shell particles, no grit; thin, well fired surfaces well smoothed and even.

Harbor plain Harbor red-painted

a

Bullen, RP (1962) Ceramic Periods of St. Thomas and St. John Islands, Virgin Islands. Orlando: William L. Bryant Foundation. American Studies Report 4.

Feature types

Interiorthickened

Direct (undifferentiated)

Broad line

Same, miniature

Elongated, nonlevel cooking vessel, loop or tab handles

Fine ware wide-mouth liquid decanters and cups

Large flaring cooking vessel

Medium-deep open bowl

Shallow bowl with noncircular, nonlevel rim

Necked jar, liquid storage 20 cm

Figure 4 An example of vessel classification, showing types formed primarily on the basis of shape and size. (Secondary characteristics of paste, surface, decoration, etc., also would be associated with each type). Adapted from the author’s work, US Virgin Islands.

Method of incising (decoration drawn in wet clay):

Narrow line

Convex cooking vessel

Shallow serving/ritual bowl, painted red decoration

Rim form:

Flanged

Vessel types

Broad line with punctations

Figure 3 An hypothetical example of ceramic feature classification, showing three potential trait types (or attribute states) for each of two features.

Classification of vessel features has been used successfully to trace general cultural relationships. Because vessel features reflect cultural practices learned by the pottery makers, a defined set of features can be associated with a cultural group. As a culture evolves through time, vessel feature types will change incrementally. Similarly, there will be fewer differences between more closely related contemporaneous cultures than between distantly related cultures. Comparison of ceramic assemblages on the basis of feature types present therefore provides evidence for temporal and spatial cultural relationships. Vessel classification Whole vessels carry additional meaning because they are the intended products of the pottery makers, which is not the case for sherds or vessel features. Classification of whole vessels into vessel types (Figure 4) parallels archaeological work with other kinds of artifacts. The pottery in use by a

single community may include diverse vessel types that are strikingly different from each other, with little overlap of vessel features. That level of information is not available from feature analysis alone. In addition, only vessel analyses can fully address vessel functions, which add a further dimension to interpretations. Vessel function is a useful dimension for tracing cultural similarities and differences, but it also reaches into the economic and subsistence systems in which the vessels are used. In some circumstances it carries implications for social systems, as well. As a practical consideration, vessel analysis usually involves increased difficulty. Whole vessels are not common finds in most archaeological sites. Therefore, the ‘identification’ of vessels requires manipulation of the pottery fragments, in order to reconstruct mended-sherd vessel sections that are as large as possible. Further manipulation of sherds or sherd groups is necessary in order to record data that are not directly observable (e.g., rim diameter estimates and vessel shape extrapolations). Furthermore, there is increased complexity in data analysis because cooccurring traits are the focus of interest. After traits are recorded for individual vessels, there are choices

1886 Stylistic

in the criteria used to define classes and types – whether certain traits are given priority, or whether quantitative methods are applied, for example. Vessel typologies often are untidy in the sense that there may appear to be a continuum between some defined types or certain classes may appear to overlap, due to the potential for infinite variation in pottery. The analyst is frequently faced with determining the most useful way to present similarity and difference, for descriptive and comparative purposes. As with any artifactual classification, a vessel classification is imposed by analysts according to their own backgrounds and the information available. It does not duplicate the ideas of the pottery makers, but rather is an attempt to summarize a given assemblage in a way that is useful for understanding pottery within its cultural and social setting. Ceramic Repertoires and Wares

Another essential concept in working with pottery assemblages is the difference between a ceramic repertoire and a ‘ware’. The ceramic repertoire of a group or a culture includes all the pottery commonly produced and/or used. In contrast, a ceramic ware is a technologically distinct subset of the repertoire. For example, a modern North American kitchen may contain a set of unbreakable dishware for everyday use by the family’s children, as well as a set of more formal and fragile ceramic ware for use by adults or for special occasions. These are different serving wares, both included in a single cultural repertoire. Wares are identified by classes distinguished on the basis of technological traits. They can be basically identified from sherd analysis, although further characterization and the possibility of unique vessel forms associated with particular wares must be addressed through vessel analysis. An emphasis on vessels, and on all the traits that are linked together in identified vessel types, allows an understanding of vessel repertoires and their constituent wares. Interpretations based on ceramic analysis can become hopelessly mired if wares and repertoires are confused. For questions concerning cultural relationships, the pertinent focus of inquiry might be an entire ceramic repertoire. For certain other questions, identification of ware types is essential. One example would be intergroup ethnic or political distinctions that might be recognizable on the basis of differentiated high-status or ritual wares associated with undifferentiated domestic wares. Another line of research based on ware types is the identification of trade networks in regions where pottery made in specific production centers was widely traded.

Tracing Cultural Relationships through Vessel-Assemblage Comparison Objectives and Samples

A classification is a beginning, not an end. One of the potential purposes of ceramic classifications is to contribute to a local or regional prehistoric culture history. If pottery assemblages that form a chronological series are characterized through vessel classification and then compared, changes occurring through time will be demonstrable. As the ceramic changes are understood in terms of functional or nonfunctional variables, they carry implications for changes in social phenomena. An example of this sort of research is a current project for Caribbean prehistoric material of the US Virgin Islands, where a basic cultural chronology is not yet fully developed. Functional interpretations for various vessel types also are in early stages. For each ceramic assemblage to be analyzed, the source is a defined layer, or stratum, within a controlled excavation unit or group of contiguous units. Thus, the samples for analysis are stratigraphic assemblages. Each well-defined stratum represents a delimited depositional period. With radiocarbon dating results from organic material recovered from the stratum, an estimated age range is associated with each selected stratum and with the ceramic artifacts recovered from it. Initial Processing

Once an assemblage is selected for analysis, all the sherds assigned to it (based on field data) are identified, cleaned, examined for fragments that mend together, and labeled. At the same time, sherds can be categorized according to how they will be handled for data recording. In this case, categories include individual vessel parts (rims, bases, handles, and other distinctive parts), vessel wall (or ‘body’) sherds that are informative in some way (e.g., having evidence of decoration or distinctive contour), and body sherds that are not linked to any source vessel and not informative within the parameters of the analysis method. Sherds are counted and weighed within each category in order to produce a basic quantification of the items in the assemblage. At this stage the initial processing is complete, and the result is a catalog that identifies and quantifies the ceramic contents of each field sample. Attribute Data Recording

Prior to analysis, the attributes to be recorded have been determined and described in a guide, for recording to be done on paper, and/or set up within database

Stylistic 1887 Table 2 An example of data fields recorded for vessel analysisa

Vessel Classes

Data fields

Notes

Lot no.

Each sherd or sherd-group recorded separately constitutes a lot, with a number tied to the catalog number of the field sample. This refers to the field source of the sample. Cross-mends are mends of sherds from different field samples.

In this kind of methodology, vessel classes are defined from patterns of co-occurring attributes. Sometimes, such patterns have been sought through mathematical cluster analysis programs, with varying success. In the example case discussed here, the database records are queried based on hypotheses formulated from the material and its cultural tradition. Extrapolated vessel sketches are used as cross-checks to the database. Priority is given to attributes that describe vessel shape and size because these are closely associated with the potter’s functional objectives. Resulting vessel classes are primarily morphological, with information added by other attributes associated with particular classes. Functional hypotheses for the vessel classes are interpretations based on morphology in conjunction with related ethnographic information and evidence associated with use, such as sooted surfaces from use over fire, other adhering material, and eroded surfaces caused by wear or contents. Sometimes functional interpretations appear to coincide with vessels of a particular ware type. When vessel classes are used to summarize an assemblage, they can be presented in alternative ways. One method is illustration of several examples in each class, which shows the range of variation. Another method is illustration of one typical example from each class (as in Figure 4). A third option is illustration of an idealized type vessel, which is an example that does not really exist but includes all the typical traits together in one hypothetical vessel. Frequently, a combination of methods is used for presentation of results. The formation of vessel classes is expectedly imperfect, in that some attributes appear to have a continuum of variation and some specimens appear to be intermediate between two classes. Clearly, the vessel classes defined by the analyst are an artificial structure, although as analysis-based evidence mounts there should be increasing congruence with the functional objectives of the original users. Nevertheless, vessel classes usefully compare related assemblages.

Provenience unit Level Cross-mend lot(s) No. of sherds No. of sherd-units Weight Maximum size Vessel part Vessel form

Orifice form Rim/lip form Interior orifice diameter Maximum vessel height Wall thickness Exterior surface finish Interior surface finish Paste texture

These are mendable sherd groups.

Choices include rim, body, base, appendage, etc. This field, like several of the following, includes choices that are described and also sketched for easy reference.

Categories are primarily based on size of nonclay inclusions.

Decorative technique Decoration location Base type Handle/lug type Comments a

Excerpted from an analysis form developed by Ken S. Wild, Virgin Islands National Park, and the author for a project on behalf of the Virgin Islands National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior.

software. In this example, data are recorded first in tables printed on paper and later entered into a computer database, a duplication which safeguards original data. A list of the data fields included in this analysis is shown in Table 2. For each, there are multiple possible alternatives, or attribute states. Many are illustrated in the associated guide, and some are exemplified in a comparative sample collection. Emphasis is placed on vessel rim sections, which provide the most information about the original vessel. This particular analytical structure was developed on the basis of prior research, regionally informative traits, and the material at hand. With continual modifications as needed, it serves an intended purpose. There is no all-purpose or ‘best’ structure, however. Certainly, the attribute selection for material from other areas would be different.

Vessel-Assemblage Comparison, Typology, and Interpretation

Because similarity of pottery suggests cultural relationship, comparison of ceramic assemblages is a typical process in building a cultural history, such as a sequence of prehistoric cultures. Similar assemblages are grouped together in classes that may be defined as ‘styles’, ‘phases’, or other terms in use in particular areas. For prehistoric eras for which ethnicity is unknown, a local culture often is labeled by the name

1888 Stylistic

given to such a pottery class. Assemblage comparisons vary according to the nature of the assemblage descriptions, whether based on sherds, vessel features, or whole vessels. There is no formula for the number of traits or vessel types to be compared, but more comprehensive comparisons will yield more valid results. Two vessel-assemblages that share the same vessel types, with only minor differences, could easily be grouped together in the same class, which the archaeologist may have defined as a style, phase, local culture, or similar concept. Such groupings or classes of similar pottery assemblages may in turn be grouped into larger classes based on general similarity, which are labeled by terms like ‘tradition’ or ‘series’. They imply cultural continuity through time and/or cultural similarity across a regional area. These kinds of hierarchical classifications, sometimes called ‘cultural typologies’, are conceptualizations in the same way that any typology is a conceptualization. They serve to organize information and facilitate communication about it. Culture itself is a concept, whether with reference to prehistoric or modern cultures. Cultures can be conceptually subdivided into subcultures or aggregated into larger cultural groupings (e.g., Western culture, French culture, urban culture), depending upon the relevant context. In the same way, there are no ‘correct’ classifications of archaeological cultures, simply more or less effective classifications for the intended purposes. Potential lines of interpretation are determined by factors such as the selected sample, collected data, and comparative groupings. A vessel-assemblage comparison, like that described here, will shed light on the culture history of the area. In simple terms,

similar vessel assemblages indicate shared culture. Thus, the geographical and temporal extent of similarity is indicative of cultural relationships. At the same time, other cultural evidence must be considered because ceramic relationships may not always coincide with relationships in other aspects of culture or in social networks. When studies of vessel assemblages also include vessel functions, further interpretations are possible. It may be the case, for instance, that a particular vessel type, related to a specific function, can be traced through time even as it changes in secondary stylistic traits (Figure 5). Such a case would suggest that aspects of culture – at least subsistence practices related to that vessel’s function – had not changed while ethnicity or art style may have changed. In the opposite case, stylistic traits could remain unchanged while particular vessel functions are lost or adopted. This would suggest something different, perhaps a stable ethnic population adopting a new technology or changing the size of households that cook and eat together. Each of these lines of evidence leads to a different interpretation of the social environment, which would not have been possible without focusing research on whole vessels, the artifacts produced for intended functions.

Tracing Relative Chronology through Seriation Chronology is an important aspect of archaeology, and several different methods are available to determine the age of various archaeological materials. When it is not possible to associate material with a date, however, it is useful to at least determine the

Evolution of vessel types Domestic bowl

Domestic cooking vessel

Assemblage C AD 800–1000

Assemblage B AD 600–800

Assemblage A AD 400–600

20 cm Figure 5 An example showing two hypothesized vessel function lines through three ceramic styles in a local area with cultural continuity. Adapted from the author’s work, US Virgin Islands.

Stylistic 1889

sequential position of materials, in relation to other (earlier and later) materials. This is called ‘relative dating’. Pottery often has proved to be useful evidence for relative dating because of its many variables subject to change through time. One of the specific methods developed to derive relative dating from artifacts is seriation, a process for placing samples in serial order. The seriation method compares the quantities of selected artifactual types in different samples. It is based on the theoretical waxing and waning of the popularity of any given artifact trait. As an example, there might be a situation in which there are several collections of pottery sherds from the surfaces of sites in a given locality but neither their dating nor their sequential order is known. In that case seriation might prove useful in placing the sites in sequential order (based on their surface assemblages). First, the analyst defines a limited number of ceramic traits that appear to be differentially represented in the assemblages. Then, all sherds are examined and the occurrences of those traits are counted and converted to percentages for each assemblage. Finally, the percentage frequencies are compared, often by means of a graphic device like a bar chart. The objective is to order the samples such that the frequency of each of the selected traits consistently increases and/or decreases. Figure 6 shows how a seriation chart is composed, in simplified form. The samples shown must be placed in sequence either as A–B–C–D or as its reverse, D–C–B–A. Any other sequence would destroy the regular progression of frequency for trait types 1 and 2. It is not possible to know which end of the sequence is first and which is last, however, unless there is additional information from other sources. This method provides only rough estimates of relative chronology. Many social or historical factors potentially might affect the popularity curve for any given

ceramic trait, in such a way that it would not conform to the hypothetical model. An estimate, however, can be very useful as a basis of hypotheses for later testing. More complex methods of seriation, derived from the same principles, have been developed to fit individual circumstances for purposes other than relative dating. For example, some scholars have found it possible to estimate a calendrical date range for an archaeological deposit if it includes various artifacts of known periods of popularity. Figures representing the relative abundance of such artifacts are inserted in mathematical formulae to obtain the date estimate.

Tracing Demography through Ceramic Refuse Ceramic refuse in archaeological sites can contribute to demographic studies both on a local scale and on a regional scale. At the household level, pottery recovered from a house floor or from an associated refuse pile holds clues to the number of occupants in the house. For example, the types and quantities of various cooking and serving vessels are relevant to the number of people using them, if there is a fairly good estimate for the length of occupation represented. Working from the opposite direction, the duration of occupation of a house or village can be estimated from its associated ceramic refuse if average household size is already known from prior research and if there are data to support assumptions about vessel breakage and replacement rates. Obviously, these sorts of studies are dependent upon adequate ceramic classification and chronology. The more data supporting the underlying assumptions of the model, the more valid the conclusions. On a wider, inter-settlement scale, patterns of ceramic refuse can serve as data to support models of social organization. For example, an unusually

Seriation graph Ceramic sample group

Ceramic type 1

Ceramic type 2

Ceramic type 3

A

B

C

D (Bars indicate percentage of each type within each sample group) Figure 6 Bar-graph illustration of hypothetical seriation results for three ceramic types defined in four ceramic sample groups (A–D).

1890 Stylistic

large or complex archaeological site may be hypothesized as having been a civic or ceremonial center during a particular period of time. The quantities and types of ceramic refuse will help researchers determine whether the site was a residential settlement and which activities were carried out there. Furthermore, refuse in a regional center may include pottery sherds representative of multiple satellite communities or even culturally differentiated groups. If ceramic styles of the region are well understood, the ceramic data will be relevant to regional social structure and the size of the center’s area of influence.

Tracing Belief Systems through Iconography Iconographic analysis is broadly the study of imagery with regard to the belief systems it reflects. Iconography studied on pottery may comprise naturalistic illustrations or abstract symbolism (Figure 7). This sort of analysis generally is concerned with depictions as the basic data source – that is, with decorations as vessel features rather than with entire pots or assemblages of pottery. Inherent in archaeological iconographic analysis is the assumption that imagery on pottery of prehistoric or pre-industrial societies is an expression of beliefs and practices, as opposed to meaningless embellishment. Even when there are few clues to the meaning of iconographic representations, they can be used to trace historical cultural relationships or inter-cultural contacts. A complex representation, for example, may be repeated with different permutations in adjacent culture areas, indicating a relationship between the belief systems of the two areas.

Figure 7 An example of simply modeled iconography on prehistoric pottery from the Virgin Islands, probably representative of a mythological character or spirit being.

If there is complementary information from other sources, such as other artifact classes, recorded mythology, or related known cultures, then iconography can be mined for meaning. In some instances, iconography on pottery has been very productive in the understanding of religion and ideology, in addition to activities and objects of daily life that may be depicted. Although it is difficult to eliminate subjectivity from iconographic analysis, standardized procedures increase rigorous data collection and comparability. Complex iconography can be broken down into its component parts, and observed rules of composition (such as orientation and repetition) can serve as data in themselves. In a thematic approach, iconographic elements are related to ideological themes as known or estimated from other sources of information. For example, if bats are known to be associated with spirits of the dead in a particular cultural tradition, then bat representations can be traced through various forms, as expressions of the theme of the spirit world. Further, a humanoid image with bat characteristics, by following the same theme, potentially can be interpreted as an ancestor in the spirit world. In ceramic traditions that are especially rich in pictorial representation, entire mythological narratives have been identified in images on pottery.

Concluding Remarks It is important to re-emphasize that stylistic ceramic analysis is multi-faceted and is conducted from diverse theoretical perspectives. The only consistent factor is that stylistic analysis is not primarily concerned with the chemical or physical properties of the ceramic material itself (although even such data are sometimes connected with stylistic data at the interpretive stage). There have been many different analysis methods championed by their practitioners, and methods are often not easily transferable between regions due to the nature of pre-existing data. A few of the possible research objectives and associated ceramic analysis methods have been discussed here in order to illustrate variety within the field; this is by no means exhaustive. In fact, ceramic analysis approaches and methods are continually undergoing reinvention, especially with regard to new opportunities made possible by new technologies. Within diverse research communities, stylistic analysis itself has fluctuated in popularity. With pottery fragments such an abundant resource, however, ceramic analysis by whatever name remains an obvious avenue for understanding the past. No matter how theoretical paradigms may fluctuate, a basic level of primary data analysis is essential as a foundation for higher level explanations.

PRESERVATION, MODES OF 1891 See also: Ceramics and Pottery; Classification and

Typology; Culture, Concept and Definitions; Image and Symbol; Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis; Seriation; Statistics in Archaeology; Vitreous Materials Analysis.

Further Reading DeBoer WR and Lathrap DW (1979) The making and breaking of Shipibo–Conibo ceramics. In: Kramer C (ed.) Ethnoarchaeology, pp. 102–138. New York: Columbia University Press. Nelson BA (ed.) (1985) Decoding Prehistoric Ceramics. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Power

Olin JS and Franklin AD (1982) Archaeological Ceramics. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Orton C, Tyers P, and Vince A (1993) Pottery in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quilter J (1997) The narrative approach to Moche iconography. Latin American Antiquity 8(2): 113–133. Rice PM (1987) Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shepard AO (1956) Ceramics for the Archaeologist. Publication 609. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Skibo JM (1992) Pottery Function: A Use-Alteration Perspective. New York: Plenum Press.

See: Identity and Power.

PRESERVATION, MODES OF Kristin D Sobolik, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary calcination (of bone) The decomposition of carbonates and other compounds by heat. carbonization The term for the conversion of an organic substance into carbon or a carbon-containing residue through burning (pyrolysis). sporopollenin A major component of the tough outer (exine) walls of spores and pollen grains.

There are differential factors which influence why some biological remains are preserved at an archaeological site and some are not. Each site is deposited under diverse conditions that affect whether the site becomes preserved in the archaeological record at all and whether biological remains at that site can be recovered. Preservation of biological remains is mainly influenced by the presence or absence of saprophytic organisms in the surrounding matrix, although material durability is also important. The presence of saprophytes and the interconnected preservation of biological remains are affected by biological, environmental, and cultural factors.

Biological Preservation Factors Many biological factors influence the preservation of biological remains at archaeological sites, although the presence of saprophytic organisms is key. Saprophytes are plants and animals which live on dead material and obtain all their nutrients (nitrogen compounds, potassium, phosphates, and oxidation of carbohydrates) by breaking down organic matter. Saprophytic organisms can include larger scavengers and rodents, but the term mainly refers to small organisms such as earthworms, insects, fungi, bacteria, small arthropods, and microbes (see Archaeozoology). These organisms cause the decay and decomposition of most organic material, including biological materials at archaeological sites. Environments in which saprophytic organisms flourish are detrimental to biological preservation. Material robusticity, durability, and density also affect biological preservation (Table 1). The more durable a bone or plant part is, the longer it will survive attempted decay by saprophytes as well as chemical decomposition. Plant remains which are most frequently preserved are those which contain materials that have a structural or protective role for the plant and are therefore more durable (see Paleoethnobotany). Such constituents include cellulose, sporopollenin (the main component of pollen), silica (the main component of phytoliths), lignin, cutin,

1892 PRESERVATION, MODES OF Table 1 Relative preservation potential of biological remains Preservation factors

Bone

Shell

Plant remains

Pollen

Organic component

Mineral component

Biological Saprophytic organisms Material durability Carbonization/calcination


þ þ

0 þ þ


þ þ


þ þ


þ þ/


Environmental Acidic soils Alkaline soils Mechanical destruction Weathering Hot, arid conditions Cold, arid conditions Anaerobic

þ


þ þ þ


þ

þ þ þ


þ

þ þ þ

þ/



þ þ þ

þ/



þ þ þ

Cultural Processing Cultural use


þ/



þ/



þ/



þ/



þ/


þ ¼ Postive preservation factor.
¼ Negative preservation factor. 0 ¼ Neutral preservation factor. Source: Sobolik KD (2003) Archaeobiology. AltaMira Press.

and suberin which are found in pits, seeds, rinds, spines, woody components, resin, pollen, and phytoliths. Bone is the most frequently preserved biological material from archaeological sites. Bone, horn, antlers, teeth, hooves, hide, and shell resist chemical and saprophytic decay due to their robust structural elements of keratin and collagen (horn and hooves), phosphatics (bone, antler, teeth), chitin (insect and crustacean exoskeletons), and/or are calcareous (shell). All bone, however, is not created equal. Some bone is more resistant to decay and destruction due to its density. Different bone elements and bone elements from different species vary in structural density. Bone from medium and small animals is less dense than that from larger animals; therefore, their bone remains tend to decay more frequently. Mammal bone is denser than fish and bird bone and thus is more frequently recovered. Carbonization (burning) of botanical remains and calcination of bone makes them more resistant to destruction. During the carbonization process, chemical constituents are converted to elemental carbon, a durable substance which offers no nutrients for saprophytic organisms. In many regions of the world in which archaeological plant remains are usually degraded, wood or plant charcoal may be recovered. Burned bone, representing various stages toward calcination, will also tend to preserve better than unburned bone as burning removes protein, which saprophytes digest, and alters the calcium content. Calcined bone is pure white, friable, and porous. Calcined or almost-calcined bone preserves well in areas with acidic soils where unburned bone is degraded through chemical action.

Environmental Preservation Factors Environments that are conducive to saprophytic organisms are not conducive to biological preservation and vice versa (Table 1). Carbone and Keel in 1985 listed four environmental factors that influence preservation of biological assemblages: soil acidity, aeration, relative humidity, and temperature. Saprophytic organisms are intolerant of highly acidic soils and live almost exclusively in alkaline soils. Therefore, acidic soils will tend to preserve organic components of biological materials, whereas alkaline soils will tend to have poor biological preservation of organics due to increased saprophytic activity. An example of this is pollen preservation in the southwestern United States. Because soils in the Southwest are highly alkaline, preservation of organic materials in open areas tends to be rare. Bryant and colleagues in 1994 analyzed 509 pollen samples from soil collected by a CRM firm along a proposed pipeline route in deposits ranging in age from 1000 to 5000 years old. The deposits all had a pH value above 6.0 with anhydrous carbonates as the most common compounds. Only 243 (48%) of the samples contained a significant amount of fossil pollen with a mean pollen concentration value of 6 545 grains/gram of soil. As a control, 90 modern surface soil samples were collected in west Texas, and area where the soil is less alkaline than in the Southwest. All of the samples contained a significant amount of pollen with an average concentration value of 21 311 grains/gram of soil. Pollen has an outer covering (exine) made of sporopollenin, one of the strongest natural substances

PRESERVATION, MODES OF 1893

known. However, alkaline soils are conducive to fungi and bacteria which eat pollen, creating a biased array in which pollen with more sporopollenin in its exine is better preserved than pollen with less. However, it is well known that preservation of biological remains is usually excellent in the southwestern United States due to the dry/arid conditions which do not allow saprophytes to thrive even though the soil is alkaline. Preservation is mainly found in enclosed areas (caves, rockshelters, pueblos, etc.) rather than in the open areas because the latter have increased exposure to weathering (wind, erosion, rain). Conversely, alkaline soils tend to preserve mineral components better than acidic soils. Bone is made up of minerals (hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate, trace elements) and organics (collagen, bone protein, fats, lipids) in an approximately 2:1 ratio. The organic components of bone will tend to be eaten by saprophytes in alkaline soils, leaving mineral bone components intact. Therefore, the mineral (structural) components of bone are preserved and can be recovered in alkaline conditions. Bone tends not to survive in acidic conditions because acids dissolve structural bases of minerals. While alkaline soils tend to destroy organic assemblages (plant remains and organic components of bone) due to saprophytic activity, such soil types tend to preserve the mineral components of bone and shell better than acidic soils. For example, soils in Maine tend to be acidic, which limits the preservation potential of the mineral component of bone. When bone is preserved at interior sites it has been calcined. Although calcined bone is preserved in interior sites with acidic soils, bone (mainly uncalcined) is prevalent at archaeological shell midden sites along the coast. Bone preserves in these sites because weathering and degradation of the calcareous shell matrix produces an alkaline environment conducive to preservation of mineral components of bone. Therefore, bone preservation at archaeological sites in Maine depends upon site location and soil alkalinity. Preservation of biological remains is also influenced by mechanical destruction through seasonal freeze/thaw cycles, increased biological preservation in dry/arid, or dry/frozen regions, and anaerobic environments which decrease saprophytic activity therefore increasing preservation. For example, although soils in Maine are acidic and tend not to preserve mineral components of bone, such acidic soils, because they inhibit saprophytic organisms, should preserve other organics like botanical remains. This is not the case, however, because of the seasonal freezing/thawing cycle which mechanically destroys chemical composition. Preservation of organics in

this type of environment can be achieved when they have been carbonized or burned making them more structurally durable. Cold temperatures also limit the decay of biological remains because saprophytes do not live in such an extreme, cold environment. Biological assemblages in the Arctic can be as well preserved as in dry/arid regions. Saprophytic organisms cannot live without oxygen, so anaerobic (lacking oxygen) environments will be conducive to biological preservation. Such environments include peat bogs, which are famous for preservation of ‘bog bodies’ and other biological remains, and waterlogged sites (see Sites: Waterlogged), where wood is commonly preserved, such as stakes from prehistoric fish weirs. Relatively anaerobic conditions also exist under thick layers of clay or silt deposits, a good environment for preservation of biological materials. Depth of deposit is an important component of preservation in such environmental conditions: the deeper material is buried, the more anaerobic the environment is, and the better the preservation potential.

Cultural Preservation Factors Humans affect the preservation potential of biological materials (Table 1). Before biological remains are deposited, people can affect their robusticity and structure, decreasing or increasing their preservation potential. People burn plants (carbonization) and bones (calcination), either intentionally or unintentionally, generally increasing the probability that those remains will be preserved. But humans also break, macerate, pound, chop, boil, and otherwise manipulate biological materials before deposition, decreasing their chance of preservation. Humans also dig pits for various purposes, exposing underlying archaeobiological material to a more aerobic environment, potentially reducing their preservation. This type of cultural transformation is seen more frequently in large, multicomponent, or stratified sites where human activity was more extensive and diverse than it was at small, single-component sites where activity tended to be centralized and less invasive. Humans will also tend to store biological materials in more protected environments, such as pit structures in any site, therefore increasing their potential preservation as they can be removed from external weathering. See also: Archaeozoology; Caves and Rockshelters;

Frozen Sites and Bodies; Paleoethnobotany; Sites: Mounded and Unmounded; Waterlogged; Soils and Archaeology.

1894 PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Further Reading Bryant VM, Jr., Holloway RG, Jones JG, and Carlson DL (1994) Pollen preservation in alkaline soils of the American Southwest. In: Traverse A (ed.) Sedimentation of Organic Particles, pp. 47–58. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Carbone VA and Keel BC (1985) Preservation of plant and animal remains. In: Gilbert RI, Jr. and Mielke JH (eds.) The Analysis of Prehistoric Diets, pp. 1–20. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Lyman RL (1984) Bone density and differential survivorship of fossil classes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 3: 259–299. Sobolik KD (2003) Archaeobiology. AltaMira Press.

PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY Amber L Johnson, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary new archaeology Mid-twentieth century approach to archaeology explicitly focused on social dimensions of past societies. processual archaeology Combination of learning strategies focused on how to use the archaeological record to make inferences, develop, and test theories about past sociocultural dynamics.

‘Processual archaeology’ and ‘new archaeology’, while often treated as if they refer to the same intellectual tradition, in fact have distinct referents. As advances in radiocarbon and tree-ring dating in the middle of the twentieth century freed archaeologists from relying on the combination of stratigraphic excavation and seriation of items of material culture to develop chronologies, many researchers began to explore what else could be learned from the archaeological record. These explorations led to a number of approaches both for reconstructing social organization beyond subsistence and settlement systems and for beginning to offer explanations for the recorded archaeological variability over space and time. While they share several central figures, ‘new archaeology’ refers to a wide range of innovative approaches for studying archaeological material which were undertaken in many distinct intellectual traditions by archaeologists who were completing graduate study in the 1950s and early 1960s. Further, these approaches depended upon a wide variety of both assumptions about what the world was like and goals for pursuing knowledge of the past. The precursors to most modern approaches to archaeology can be found among the initial contributions which collectively became known as the ‘new archaeology’.

The diversification of research interests and an optimistic view of what could be learned from a systematically excavated archaeological record led to the development of new standards for fieldwork. When chronological control was the primary focus of archaeological research, only the artifact types which were thought to be diagnostic of time had been systematically recorded and studied. This was a tiny portion of the total artifact assemblage. In the early twentieth century, cultures were defined by the presence and absence of culture traits – relative frequencies were not considered relevant. Researchers attempting to learn a new range of things from the archaeological record began to record the full range of materials recovered from surface survey and excavation. Passing all excavated sediments through a screen and recording detailed provenience of artifacts, ecofacts, and features are two such innovations in field methods which are standard archaeological practices today. ‘Processual archaeology’ is just one of many intellectual traditions which were established during this period of experimentation with new strategies for learning from archaeological materials. The primary goal of ‘processual archaeology’ is to explain variability in the archaeological record by reference to general cultural processes. Thus, in terms of its learning goals, ‘processual archaeology’ is firmly aligned with the natural sciences, which seek general explanations that allow prediction across a range of phenomena, rather than with the humanities which seek nuanced explication of particular phenomena. What distinguishes ‘processual archaeology’ from many other contemporary approaches to archaeological explanation is a twofold focus on: (1) epistemology, the study of how new knowledge is produced, which results in (2) studying the archaeological record in terms of itself, rather than as a substitute for a past cultural system. From the beginning, there has been a focus on challenging unwarranted assumptions, propositions, speculations, opinions, and other existing ideas about what the world is like by testing their implications for archaeological patterning. Formal arguments regarding the

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necessary relationships among variables are preferred to less formal interpretations of archaeological patterns. The initial focus on testing pre-existing ideas about what the world is like led early proponents of ‘processual archaeology’ to emphasize the utility of deductive reasoning – starting with an idea or theory and reasoning to the implications for what archaeologists should see if this idea were true. Many authors have misinterpreted the statement that deduction was a necessary part of any mature science as an argument that deduction was the only acceptable learning strategy in science. Thus, ‘processual archaeology’ is often associated specifically with the hypothetico-deductive approach to research. However, testing hypotheses using deductive reasoning presupposes there are pre-existing ideas about what the world is like – those ideas can come from many places, but those which are founded on more than speculation often result from inductive research, or pattern recognition and theory development. As traditional ideas were tested, ‘processual archaeology’ shifted its focus from testing existing ideas using deductive reasoning to developing new ideas relevant to archaeological observation by developing pattern recognition strategies and using inductive reasoning. Today, there are enough new ideas about how the world works, and why it works that way, to begin a new phase of deductive testing to find the limits of their utility. The growth of learning strategies is a major contribution of ‘processual archaeology’ and well worth exploring further. The earliest work in ‘processual archaeology’ challenged existing conventions for interpretation of archaeological patterning (especially how to recognize migration, diffusion, and invention) while simultaneously promoting the analytical potential of the archaeological record for learning about variability in settlement, subsistence, and social organization. Testing the existing conventions and providing alternatives to traditional interpretation proved to be much easier than developing a systematic body of integrated knowledge on which to build general processual explanations for archaeological variability. Several early proponents of ‘processual archaeology’ drifted away after their initial optimism was replaced by the frustration of realizing the field didn’t have enough basic knowledge to accomplish the goal. However, those who recognized the enormous learning potential of the archaeological record saw this as an irresistible intellectual challenge and went to work learning what was necessary to pursue the explanatory goal. Subsequently, ‘processual archaeology’ focused on developing methods for observing the archaeological record and for recognizing patterns in the data

produced from these observations which served the goal of explaining variability. This work is commonly referred to as middle range research, or middle range theory. Middle range research comprises studies of archaeological patterning resulting from both natural and cultural formation processes (Schiffer’s N-transforms and C-transforms). Archaeological study of formation processes, taphonomy, and ethnoarchaeology largely resulted from middle range research questions raised by work in ‘processual archaeology’. More recently, researchers working in this intellectual tradition have returned their attention to the development of learning strategies for building the larger-scale general theory regarding culture process which was the original goal of ‘processual archaeology’. The primary learning strategy in contemporary ‘processual archaeology’ is to organize large data sets (Binford’s ‘frames of reference’ or Wandsnider’s ‘bodies of reference knowledge’) to use as a foundation for pattern recognition and analytical comparison. This strategy can be used to study variability in any observable phenomena at any temporal or spatial scale of comparison. Recent examples range from global comparisons of hunter-gatherer subsistence, mobility patterns, group size – even beliefs about death – to comparison of large-scale patterns in archaeological sequences, regionally focused studies of site locations given detailed knowledge of resource availability, and site-specific studies of formation processes given detailed knowledge of palaeo-environmental conditions and/or ethnographically documented activities in similar ecological contexts. As pattern recognition and inductive reasoning leads to the construction of new theories about why the world is the way it appears to be, a new round of testing should focus on identifying the conditions under which these theories do and do not work. Since initial efforts at theory-building must begin with broad generalizations, there is an enormous potential for learning what other things must be equal for the theory to hold. This research has already produced predictions about the character and timing of long-term patterns of culture change which can fuel the development of archaeological knowledge, method, and theory for many years to come. Accumulation of intellectual tools and organization of large data sets provide a solid foundation for future developments in ‘processual archaeology’. Using a combination of ethnographic, environmental, and archaeological data sets, archaeologists who seek to explain archaeological patterning by referencing general cultural processes are poised to make substantial theoretical contributions relevant to the entire field of anthropology. This is an exciting arena for future knowledge growth.

1896 PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY AND FRAUDS See also: Agency;

Ethnoarchaeology; Interpretive Models, Development of; Middle Range Approaches; Taphonomy.

Further Reading Binford LR (1962) Archaeology as Anthropology. American Antiquity 28(2): 217–225. Binford LR (1972) An Archaeological Perspective. New York: Seminar Press. Binford LR (ed.) (1977) For Theory Building in Archaeology: Essays on Faunal Remains, Aquatic Resources, Spatial Analysis, and Systemic Modeling. New York: Academic Press. Binford LR (1983) In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. New York: Thames & Hudson. Binford LR (1983) Working at Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Binford LR (1989) Debating Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. Binford LR (2001) Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using HunterGatherer and Environmental Data Sets. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Provenance Studies

Studies.

Binford LR and Binford SR (eds.) (1968) New Perspectives in Archaeology. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Fitzhugh B and Habu J (2002) Beyond Foraging and Collecting: Evolutionary Change in Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers. Flannery KV (1971) Archaeological systems theory and early Mesoamerica. In: Stuart Struever (ed.) Prehistoric Agriculture, pp. 80–100. Garden City, NY: The American Museum of Natural History, The Natural History Press. Flannery KV (ed.) (1976) The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York: Academic Press. Flamery KV (ed.) (1986) Guila´ Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Orlando: Academic Press. Johnson AL (ed.) (2004) Processual Archaeology: Exploring Analytical Strategies, Frames of Reference, and Culture Process. Westport, CT: Praeger Press. Leone MP (1972) Contemporary Archaeology: A Guide to Theory and Contributions. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Watson PJo, LeBlanc SA, and Redman CL (1971) Explanation in Archeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach. New York: Columbia University Press. Willey GR and Sabloff JA (1980) A History of American Archaeology, 2nd edn. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

See: Neutron Activation Analysis; Europe: Paleolithic Raw Material Provenance

PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY AND FRAUDS Kenneth L Feder, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary domestication The adaptation of an animal or plant through breeding in captivity to a life intimately associated with and advantageous to humans. Domestication concerns a population or a species as a whole, usually. pseudoarchaeology The interpretation of material remains and sites (which are not necessarily genuine) using methodology that is not part of the established scientific method.

Introduction In the prologue of his 1953 novel, The Go-Between, English writer L. P. Hartley phrased it lyrically: ‘‘the past is a foreign country: they do things differently

there’’. To many people, the past, indeed, is like an exotic, foreign country, a place of intrigue, characterized by astonishing mysteries. Many are fascinated by such mysteries: How did humanity come to be? What does the cave art of the Upper Palaeolithic mean? How did ancient Egyptians build the pyramids? What was the purpose of Stonehenge? Public interest generates an appetite for solutions to these mysteries and the demand for solutions creates a ready supply of researchers and writers ready to provide them, commonly by proposing highly speculative interpretations of actual data and, in the extreme, through the agency of outright fraud.

Archaeological Fraud: In the Name of Religion To be successful, archaeological frauds ordinarily need not be clever, well conceived, or convincing – indeed,

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Figure 1 The Cardiff Giant, in situ, in October 1869 on the Newell farm. Stub Newell appears beside the giant in the pit (Courtesy, New York State Historical Association).

they may be transparently unconvincing to professional scientists and yet still be successful. What is key to the success of an archaeological fraud – in fact, it is at the core of much of pseudoarchaeology – is that it fulfills a need, it meets an expectation, it provides a desired solution, or it supports a preconceived notion about the human past. For example, the Cardiff Giant hoax of 1869 was thoroughly unconvincing and clumsy, at least in the minds of those scholars who investigated it (Figure 1). Ostensibly the petrified remnants of a ten-foottall man who, it was suggested, had been an inhabitant of upstate New York before the biblical deluge, the giant was immediately declared a humbug by palaeontologists, geologists, and even sculptors. For example, geologist J. F. Boynton of the University of Pennsylvania examined the giant and pointed out that it could in no way be interpreted as the mineralized imprint of a human being. Boynton concluded that the giant was not the human equivalent of a petrified tree trunk, but merely a carving done in gypsum, a soft rock which, based on the erosion seen on its surface, he suggested could not have been in the ground for much more than a year. Noted sculptor Eratus Dow Palmer identified marks left by the tools of whoever had sculpted the giant, concluding that it was entirely artificial. Upon his examination, Othniel C. Marsh, one of the most highly regarded American palaeontologists of the nineteenth century, declared the giant to be nothing more than a remarkable fake. This scientific and artistic skepticism, unfortunately, was for naught. The public embraced the notion that on a small farm in a rural community in the state of New York, a simple farmer digging a well had unearthed proof of biblical stories of giants.

Stub Newell, the farmer who discovered the giant, showed remarkable business sense when, the day after its discovery, he erected a circus tent over the in situ remains and began charging people 50 cents to view it. Though precise attendance figures were not recorded, later testimony indicates that in the week after its 16th of October discovery, an average of several hundred people daily visited the farm to view the giant. The number of visitors swelled to more than 2000 on each day of the first weekend after its unveiling. At that point, a bit more than one week after its discovery, a consortium of Syracuse businessmen purchased a three-quarter interest in the giant from Mr. Newell for $30 000, hoping to exploit more fully its potential as a tourist attraction. Of course, the entire thing had been a fake and general rumors to that effect, along with Mr. Newell’s apparent inability to keep quiet about his highly profitable humbug, resulted in a confession by his partner in crime, his cousin, George Hull, who, apparently, had been the brains behind the operation from the outset of the conspiracy. Hull admitted in a later newspaper interview that he had purchased a block of gypsum from an Iowa quarry and shipped it to Chicago where sculptors produced, at Mr. Hull’s request, the image of a giant, naked, recumbent, man. Shipped to New York in a crate labeled ‘‘unfinished marble’’, Hull arranged with his cousin to bury the sculpture on the farm where it remained interred, almost precisely as Professor Boynton had suggested, for one year before its ‘‘discovery’’. It is clear that public acceptance of the giant was based, largely, on its seeming to lend support to biblical accounts of antediluvian giant human beings (see Biblical Archaeology; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology). When local ministers referred in their sermons to the ‘‘Goliath of Cardiff’’, they were not making a simple analogy to Goliath of Gotha; they were stating forcefully that the remains of the Cardiff Giant furnished archaeological evidence that a biblical story was, if only indirectly, based on fact. Ironically, George Hull’s inspiration for the giant was religiously based as well. Hull was an atheist and the idea for the giant was born after a heated argument with a minister concerning the literal truth of stories told in the Bible. Hull freely admitted that, based on his conversation with the minister, he saw an opportunity to exploit gullible believers who would want to accept evidence supporting a Bible story, and who would be willing to pay for the privilege of seeing such evidence. The giant currently resides as an exhibit at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown, New York, were visitors can continue to pay to see the marvelous petrified man supposedly from before Noah’s Flood (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2 The Cardiff Giant in his current circumstance, at the Farmers Museum, in Cooperstown, New York (KL Feder).

Archaeological Fraud: In the Name of Science There is no better known example, no more egregious case, no more influential instance, and no better model for archaeological fraud than that of Piltdown Man. To understand why it was such an enormous success, the context of its evolutionary implications, had it been genuine, must be addressed. The second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth were heady times for those pondering the origin of species, including the origin of our own. Charles Darwin’s watershed work, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published in 1859, just three years after a fossil calvarium (skull cap) had been found by workers building a roadway in the Neander Valley in Germany. The fossil’s find spot provided the name for the now well-known archaic variety of human beings, the Neandertals. Beyond a passing remark in the final paragraphs of his seminal work, Darwin avoided applying his theory to human beings. This, however, did not prevent other scholars from contemplating the evolutionary implications of the discovery in the Neander Valley as well as the significance of other fossils found throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa that seemed to

represent archaic, perhaps ancestral, varieties of human beings. Many evolutionists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries embraced an evolutionary paradigm for human beings characterized as ‘brain centered’. Briefly, the brain-centered paradigm was based on the recognition that the characteristic that most clearly distinguishes us from other animal species is our great intelligence made possible by our large brains. The logical underpinning of the brain-centered paradigm can be phrased in this way: because humans exhibit the most significant difference from other creatures, including our nearest evolutionary relatives, the apes, in terms of brain size and configuration, it must have been the brain that first marked our departure from those relatives in our separate evolutionary trajectories. If the brain was our most changed, most highly developed feature, the argument went, it must have taken the longest to develop and, therefore, must have begun its divergence first. This perspective led thinkers to predict that in the fossil evidence of human evolution yet to be found in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, researchers should find a large-brained version of what amounts to, in all other respects, a chimpanzee. This view is exemplified in the writing of Arthur Smith Woodward of the British Museum (Natural History), who maintained: ‘‘The growth of the brain preceded the refinement of the features and of the somatic characters in general.’’ The brain-centered paradigm was preferred, at least in part, because it allowed for the early evolution of our intelligence, our ability to think, to communicate, and to create. These are the things that truly define, distinguish, and separate us from other animals. It seemed sensible and, perhaps, it was comforting, to believe that the organ that made those human skills possible, our large brain, had been the priority of evolution. The brain-centered paradigm, however, was continually challenged by palaeoanthropological data collected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An ancient calvarium recovered in 1891 on the island of Java and estimated at the time to be more than 0.5 million years old, was too large to be that of an ape, but far too small to be a human being’s. Found nearby was a femur that appeared to be entirely modern in its configuration. Eugene Dubois, the Dutch physician who collected the specimens, concluded that the femur and calvarium belonged to the same individual, asserting that the ancient human ancestor, colloquially called Java Man, was small-brained and bipedal. An ancient human being with a human-like body – at least one capable of our uniquely bipedal locomotion – and an ape-like brain was precisely the opposite of what the brain-centered paradigm predicted.

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Though the original Neandertal, and all subsequent specimens placed in the same category, were large brained, their crania reflected a morphology that seemed more ape-like than human, characterized by a sharply sloping forehead with little room for the forebrain, a flattened cranial profile unlike the modern human configuration which is tall and round, a forward-thrusting, muzzle-like lower face, and a substantial, continuous ridge of bone above the eye orbits. Though there was quite a bit of controversy concerning the precise nature of the Neandertal gait, their postcranial skeletons showed very clearly that they walked upright. So even at a fairly recent point in human evolution – no more than, perhaps, about 80 000 years ago – the Neandertals seemed more human below than above, again, the opposite of what the brain-centered paradigm predicted. This detailed exposition provides context for the discovery in England of a fossil that called into question the significance of the Java and Neandertal specimens and once again elevated the brain-centered paradigm to center stage in discussions of the process of human evolution. Tucked into a section of news announcements in the 5 December 1912 issue of the even then venerable British science weekly Nature, was the announcement by a Mr. Charles Dawson of the discovery in the Piltdown region of Sussex, in the south of England of ‘‘a human skull and mandible, considered to belong to the early Pleistocene period’’ (Figure 3). Dawson was a lawyer by training, but, by disposition, was a dedicated collector of geological, palaeontological, and archaeological specimens. In fact,

Dawson was considered so lucky at finding such things, his envious colleagues nicknamed him, ‘‘the Wizard of Sussex’’. In publications, Dawson maintained that the first piece of cranium found in a pit at the Barcombe Mills Manor, had been handed to him in 1908 by workers gathering gravel. Four additional cranial fragments were obtained by Dawson in the same pit in 1911 whereupon he personally commenced the search for additional bones. Dawson was joined at the site in the summer of 1912 by previously mentioned British Museum scientist Arthur Smith Woodward and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest with a lifelong interest in science in general and human evolution in particular. Working together, initially they found yet another human-like cranial fragment and the bones of a number of extinct animals. Later in that same summer, half of an ape-like mandible (lower jaw) was recovered from the same pit and still later a canine tooth that fits comfortably within the mandible was also found. In 1914, the team found a large chunk of animal bone carved into a shape that seemed a remarkable match for the bat used in the British game of cricket. Called, in fact, the ‘‘cricket bat’’, no one suggested that ancient humans were playing the game in antiquity, but, at the same time, no one digging at Piltdown yet recognized that someone was having a good laugh at their expense. As Dawson and Woodward emphasized in the first detailed published description of the discovery, the cranial fragments had come from a large, humanlike skull that also exhibited some primitive features, in particular, relatively thick cranial bones. The lower

Figure 3 Workers at the Piltdown Man site: Robert Kenward, Jr., a tenant of Barcombe Mills Manor; Charles Dawson (seated); workman Venus Hargreaves; Chipper, the goose; and Arthur Smith Woodward (Courtesy of The British Museum).

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Figure 4 Artist’s depiction of Piltdown Man as it appeared in the Illustrated London News, January 11, 1913, New York Edition.

jaw, on the other hand, was very ape-like, heavily buttressed by bone and lacking a human chin. The age of the specimens could not be determined precisely, but their stratigraphic context implied that they were far older than the Neandertals and likely older than Java Man (see Figure 4). To some, the cranium and mandible represented the equivalent of a chimera, a monstrous and unnatural combination of parts of two distinctly different creatures. German scientist Franz Weidenreich went so far as to suggest that the cranial fragments and mandible were ‘‘the artificial combination of fragments of a modern-human braincase with an orangutan-like mandible and teeth’’. To others, however, the remains at Piltdown seemed to be just exactly what was necessary to revitalize the brain-centered paradigm: a creature with a brain of apparent modern human size and configuration, but with ape-like features below that modern brain. The discovery at Piltdown grabbed the attention of the scientific community for several reasons. Certainly, the fact that it seemed to confirm the brain-centered paradigm preferred by many when all previous finds had contradicted it, was an enormously important part of its appeal. At the same time, the discovery at Piltdown provided for the British their first ancient human fossil. All the better, it must have felt to the British, that in Piltdown they had, not only their first important ancient human remain, but a specimen that

seemed to relegate the fossils found in other nations to side branches, diversions off the main trunk of human evolution. If humanity possessed, at the base of its evolutionary tree, a creature with a large, humanly configured brain, and an ape-like mandible and body, then more recent creatures, like Java or Neandertal Man, with their ape-like heads and human-like bodies, must have been unsuccessful and not terribly important creatures, backsliders off the main pathway leading toward humanity, in other words, evolutionary dead ends. Where the Cardiff Giant had been a clumsy fraud that was unable to fool any scientists who examined it, Piltdown had to be more convincing, perhaps because it had to fool a much more skeptical, better informed, and more sophisticated primary audience – evolutionary scientists. Trained scientists they may have been, but like the public who accepted the Cardiff Giant, many of them suspended their skeptical sense and accepted the validity of the Piltdown fossil because it seemed to support a cherished belief – albeit a belief that related to science rather than a religion – the brain-centered paradigm. The Piltdown fraud was not definitively exposed until 1953 when, through the application of fluorine/ nitrogen analysis (a relative dating procedure), the cranium and mandible were shown to be of entirely different ages. A close examination of the mandible confirmed the suspicion of some that it had been intentionally broken at the point of articulation between it and the cranium, apparently to prevent researchers from determining what should have been obvious, that the two bones didn’t belong to the same individual or, it as turns out, even the same species. Indeed, the cranial fragments were those of an anatomically modern human being; radiocarbon dating indicates that it was only about six-hundred years old. Franz Weidenreich had been precisely correct, however, about the lower jaw. The hoaxer had obtained the mandible of an orangutan, had broken off the condyle where it would have articulated with the cranium, and placed it in the same pit with the human cranial fragments. Though many have been accused of perpetrating the Piltdown hoax, there is no definitive proof of who was responsible. Charles Dawson’s presence at every major discovery, his remarkable luck at finding the only seemingly confirming evidence (he claimed to have found the fossil fragments of another, similar creature, called Piltdown II, in 1915), a history of association with questionable discoveries, and the cessation of all related finds immediately upon his death seem convincing proof that he was, at least, a major player in the fraud. Whether he had professional help has been the focus of several investigations, not

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to mention books, and perhaps, the Piltdown ‘‘whodunit’’ has gotten to be, as archaeologist Christopher Chippendale puts it, a pointless Victorian parlor game. It is of far greater importance to remember that while the definitive exposure of the fake did not occur until more than 40 years after the announcement of its discovery, Piltdown had, long before this, been relegated to the status of a curious footnote among palaeoanthropologists in their evolutionary scenarios. The frenzy of palaeoanthropological research that followed and was, at least in part, inspired by Piltdown’s discovery, resulted in not a single similar, confirming fossil, at least by anyone other than Charles Dawson. All subsequent discoveries in Europe, Asia, and Africa confirmed the evolutionary pattern exhibited by the Java and Neandertal discoveries; upright walking predated the modernization of the cranium and brain rather than the other way around. Revealing Piltdown as a fake in 1953 shocked few. It merely confirmed what many, by that time, suspected; Piltdown had been an egregious fake. Much as many wished to believe that the modern brain had begun its evolutionary trajectory into the modern form as the first step in human evolution, it simply was not the paradigm supported by the data.

Archaeological Fraud: In the Pursuit of Fame If Charles Dawson of Piltdown fame was the ‘‘Wizard of Sussex’’, a title earned for his spectacular luck at finding important geological, palaeontological, and archaeological specimens, he surely was trumped by Shinichi Fujimura upon whom was bestowed by his colleagues the sobriquet ‘‘the hand of God’’. Fujimura was the ostensible archetype of the amateur who makes a significant contribution to scientific knowledge, not because of formal, university training, but as the simple result of his great inborn love for science. Fujimura had no particular background in archaeology but, instead, worked in the 1970s for an electronics manufacturer in Japan. Fujimura, however, had a passionate amateur interest in the human past in general and that of his home country, Japan, in particular and began to participate as a volunteer in digs in the 1970s. He quickly garnered the respect of many professional archaeologists and established a reputation for having an uncanny, some called it divine, ability to find important and surprisingly ancient specimens. When Fujimura began his amateur quest in the 1970s, the prehistory of his nation was comparatively shallow, its oldest sites dating to about 30 000 and, at most, 35 000 years ago. Compare this with the much deeper record on the Asian mainland, where fossil

hominid sites dating to more than 500 000 years ago had been known since the early 1930s (the oldest sites in China now may date to more than 1.5 million years ago). In the 1970s, Japanese prehistory appeared to be a mere afterthought. Fujimura changed all that. Following his spectacular discovery in 1981 of the then oldest artifacts ever found in Japan, dating to more than 40 000 years ago, Fujimura was able to devote his time entirely to Japanese archaeology when grateful colleagues acknowledged his contribution by appointing him to the important post of Deputy Director of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute. Fujimura appeared to use his time well. Between 1981 and 2000, almost yearly, Fujimura or archaeologists working under or alongside him found successively older archaeological sites in Japan. Student and professional archaeologists from across Japan and, in fact, from all over the world, came to excavate with the man who had the ‘‘hand of God’’, and they rarely were disappointed. In this period, Fujimura worked on upward of 180 ancient sites and, by 2000, he had nearly single-handedly expanded Japanese prehistory more than tenfold, from a relatively shallow 30 000 years to an impressive and expansive 400 000 years. Fujimura had become a respected member of the scientific community and a wellknown, even revered, public figure. An undercurrent of rumor and innuendo, admittedly some of it based on resentment of Fujimura’s incredible luck, but some based on reasonable doubts about his remarkable and singular ability to find old sites, swirled around his work. Skepticism about his uncanny abilities to find ever older sites was generally ascribed to little more than professional jealousy. Nevertheless, in late October 2000, in an attempt to address these rumors, a Japanese daily newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun, took the extreme step of setting up a hidden camera at a site on which Fujimura was working. In an extraordinarily dramatic turn of events, that camera caught Fujimura actually planting artifacts in an ancient stratigraphic layer. Within 24 h, Fujimura ‘‘discovered’’ those same artifacts in his excavation of the site. Investigators held back with their damning evidence of fraud, hoping to see what Fujimura would do next. They did not have to wait long. Unaware entirely that he had been caught, Fujimura called a press conference the next day to announce his spectacular ‘‘discovery’’, asserting that he found the stone tools under a geological layer firmly dated to 570 000 years ago, making them, by far, the oldest human-made objects yet found in Japan. Less than a week after the press conference, in the 5 November edition of Mainichi Shimbun, still images

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from the hidden video revealed the terrible truth to Japanese prehistorians, a Japanese public fascinated by their own prehistory, and the world at large. A shaken, contrite, and clearly devastated Fujimura, his head down and shoulders slumped, made a public confession, apologizing profusely and piteously to his countrymen and to archaeologists everywhere, initially admitting to fraud in only two instances, the taped incident and at one additional site. Fujimura complained that he was a victim of his own success. His ability to find progressively older sites, he explained, had led to the expectation on the part of his colleagues that he would continue to find sites older still. His moral and ethical lapse, he rationalized, were the result of this enormous pressure. Unfortunately, this turned out to be another lie in Fujimura’s web of deceit. Mainichi Shimbun continued its investigation and determined that Fujimura planted artifacts, not at two sites, but at more than 42 sites, leading textbook publishers in Japan to announce that new editions of works detailing Japanese prehistory would be published, retracting the claims of great antiquity based on Fujimura’s fakes. A combination of a longing for the respect of and acceptance by the archaeological community and a desire to provide his nation with a depth of antiquity the equal to any led to Shinichi Fujimura’s deceit and, ultimately, his disgrace. With the exposure of Fujimura’s fakery, Japan’s deep time has evaporated. Japanese prehistorians are faced with the difficult task of untangling Fujimura’s frauds from legitimate finds tainted by his association with them as Deputy Director of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute. Only in this way can the damage wrought by Fujimura be addressed, and only in this way can it be determined if Japanese prehistory is back where it was more than 30 years ago before Fujimura began his career of fakery, with a time depth of no more than about 30 000 years.

A More Satisfying Past Underpinning much of pseudoarchaeology is an underestimation of the capabilities of ancient people, particularly in terms of their ability to develop, by themselves, complex technologies, especially those that require the application of sophisticated mathematical concepts, engineering principles, and architectural skills. Pseudoarchaeological claims, in fact, flourish in instances where the archaeological record clearly reflects great achievements in antiquity in construction, metallurgy, writing, calendrics, and astronomy. Pseudoarchaeology often seems inspired by the inability of its followers to accept the assumption that the ancient, indigenous people of a region

characterized by complex technologies, sophisticated art, etc., were capable of achieving such things through the application of their own intelligence, skill, and hard work. Great monuments, accurate calendars, sophisticated metallurgy, fine works of art, astronomical knowledge, and the rest are ascribed to the intervention of outsiders, ranging from presumably genius cultures already known in the ancient world, to denizens of a lost civilization, or, in its most extreme application, to interlopers from another planet – so-called ancient astronauts. Lost Continents, Lost Civilizations

Atlantis was the literary invention of the Greek philosopher, Plato. The notion of a lost civilization located on a continent in the Atlantic Ocean is not mentioned in any Egyptian, Greek, or other ancient history but first appears in one of Plato’s dialogues, written after 355 BC. Plato presents Atlantis as a militarily powerful, economically wealthy, and technologically sophisticated nation bent on world domination. As such, Atlantis was a literary device whose function was to exemplify the efficacy of its primary adversary in Plato’s tale, an equally imaginary ancient Athens, a society Plato concocts with a social, political, and economic structure based on his own construct of a perfect society as laid out in his best known work, the Republic. Greek philosophers and historians who followed Plato knew full well that it was his invention, never bothering to respond to it, either to support or refute its historical validity. Though there were occasional disputes concerning Plato’s intention, it was not until 1882 when United States Congressman and writer, Ignatius Donnelly, wrote Atlantis, The Antediluvian World, that popular debate concerning the reality of Atlantis became a full-blown industry. At the core of Donnelly’s argument was his fundamentally low opinion of the intellectual abilities of ancient humanity on both sides of the Atlantic. Donnelly interpreted the reliance on agriculturally based economic systems by ancient cultures of the ancient Old and New Worlds, their construction of great, pyramidal monuments, their possession of a writing system, employment of the arch in their architecture, and their common practice of metallurgy as proof that they had borrowed these cultural practices and developments from a single, common, superior source. That source, for Donnelly, was Atlantis (Figure 5). Donnelly did not recognize that some of the commonalities he saw were far too general to support the claim of a common source and, when looked at in detail, were different and distinct and almost certainly independently developed. Of course it was true, as Donnelly pointed out, that civilizations on either

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Figure 5 Map showing the ostensible extent of Atlanean influence in the ancient world (all areas in white were, according to the mapmaker, under the sway of Atlantis). From Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis, The Antediluvian World (1882).

side of the Atlantic based their subsistence on domesticated crops (see Plant Domestication), but the fact that those crops were entirely different – wheat, oats, barley, and rice in the Old World and maize, sunflower, quinoa, beans, and squash in the New World – argued for independent development. The pyramids of Egypt are, technically, true geometric pyramids (with four triangular faces that share a common apex), and served as the tombs of pharaohs and other members of the elite classes (Figure 6a). The pyramids of the Maya, Aztecs, and their predecessors, are truncated pyramids, elevated platforms with steps leading up to their flat tops where temples and palaces were constructed (Figure 6b). Not only did these pyramids look and function differently, they dated to entirely different time periods with the last of the Egyptian pyramids constructed centuries before the first built in the New World. In other examples cited by Donnelly, Old and New World writing systems are not mutually intelligible (see Writing Systems), the form of the arch in the Old World (with the structural element called the keystone) and in the New World (characterized by corbelling and lacking the keystone), and metallurgical technologies based on essentially different processes producing different alloys all argue against a common source. Archaeological evidence gathered since

Donnelly wrote has supported the scenario of independent invention with clear evidence in the archaeological record of separate, lengthy developmental sequences for the technologies enumerated in both the Old and New Worlds. Donnelly ended his book on Atlantis predicting that in 100 years (in other words, by 1982), the museums of the world might be filled with artifacts from lost Atlantis while the world’s libraries might be filled with the written wisdom of that lost civilization. That this has not come to pass strongly supports the conclusion that Atlantis was a fiction and that those who support its validity are practitioners of pseudoarchaeology. Popular writer, Graham Hancock, follows in the tradition of Ignatius Donnelly in asserting that the common threads underpinning ancient civilizations including sophisticated calendars and impressive monuments were not developed by their own people independently, but borrowed or inherited from a greatly ancient, enormously sophisticated civilization, as yet unrecognized by professional archaeologists. This ancient civilization, whose remains may be ensconced beneath the Antarctic ice mass, dating to an ancient period when the climate there was considerably more temperate, is the practical equivalent of Donnelly’s Atlantis.

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Figure 6 Egyptian pyramids (top) and those found in Mesoamerica (bottom) are fundamentally different in form, function and chronology. There is abundant archaeological evidence for their independent development and they supply no supporting evidence for the claim that they were inspired by a single source like Atlantis (Top, MH Feder; Bottom, KL Feder).

Those who argue for the existence of a highly advanced lost civilization on Earth may lack evidence to back up their claim but, at least, they credit a group of human beings for the development of ancient civilizations. The same cannot be said for Swiss author Erich von Da¨niken who has written more than two dozen books purporting to show that the great technological and intellectual achievements represented in the archaeological and historical records cannot be credited to human beings at all, but to the intervention of technology-proselytizing extraterrestrial aliens. von Da¨niken’s work is based on three faulty claims: (1) standard evolutionary processes cannot explain human evolution; human beings, in von Da¨niken’s view, are the result of the ‘‘fertilization’’ of ‘‘a few

specially selected women’’ by extraterrestrial visitors; (2) the archaeological and historical records are replete with examples of artistic representations or written descriptions that can best be interpreted as the renderings or descriptions by our human ancestors of ancient extraterrestrial visitors to earth; and (3) the archaeological record is replete with examples of great leaps in technology that were far beyond the capabilities of our ancestors and must have been introduced from the outside. von Da¨niken’s hypothesis represents the ultimate libel against our ancient ancestors, denying that humanity had the requisite intelligence, skill, and determination to develop the marvelous and impressive achievements reflected in the archaeological record. von Da¨niken asserts that

PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY AND FRAUDS 1905

the appearance in the archaeological record of such things as pyramids, calendars, writing systems, mummification, metallurgy, and so on is abrupt, reflecting fully formed and perfected abilities. He ignores, or is unaware of, abundant archaeological evidence of the evolution of such ancient achievements, evidence that clearly shows trial and error, mistakes, and mishaps, the very human pattern that would be expected as human beings develop their technologies. von Da¨niken’s pseudoarchaeology represents nothing more than a foolish disdain for the capabilities of our ancient human ancestors and as such has become an archetype of pseudoarchaeology.

Conclusion For some, a past populated by biblical giants, largebrained, ape-jawed ancestors, lost continents, lost civilizations, and peripatetic extraterrestrial aliens just seems more appealing than the past as presented by archaeologists which is filled, instead, with ordinary human ancestors who developed an extraordinary suite of cultural adaptations and who created the foundation for the technologies on which the modern world is based. If the past, indeed, is a foreign country, then archaeology provides our only viable passport and the extraordinary fables concocted by the pseudoarchaeologists must be rejected for the stories that only a scientific investigation of the past can provide.

Public Archaeology

See also: Asia, East: Japanese Archipelago, Paleolithic Cultures; Biblical Archaeology; Modern Humans, Emergence of; Plant Domestication; Popular Culture and Archaeology; Ritual, Religion, and Ideology; Writing Systems.

Further Reading Chippindale C (1990) Piltdown: Whodunit? Who Cares? Science 250: 1162–1163. Dawson C and Woodward AS (1913) On the discovery of a Paleolithic human skull and mandible in a flint bearing gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings Beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex). Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society LXIX: 117–151. Donnelly I (1882) Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. New York: Harper. Feder KL (2006) Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience In Archaeology, 5th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hancock G (1995) Fingerprints of the Gods. New York: Three Rivers Press. Normile D (2001) Japanese fraud highlights media-driven research ethic. Science 291: 34–35. Russell M (2003) Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson & the World’s Greatest Archaeological Hoax. Stroud, UK: Tempus. Smith GE (1927) Essays on the Evolution of Man. Oxford: Oxford University Press. von Daniken E (1970) Chariots of the Gods. New York: Bantam Books. Weidenreich F (1943) Piltdown man. Paleontologica Sinica 129: 273. Williams S (1991) Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

See: Interpretation of Archaeology for the Public.

R Radiocarbon Dating

Religion

See: Carbon-14 Dating.

See: Ritual, Religion, and Ideology.

REMOTE SENSING APPROACHES Contents Aerial Geophysical

Aerial William S Hanson, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary shadow site The pattern revealing an extant archaeological site created by the shadows it casts in low sunlight. soilmarks The pattern of differences in soil color, texture, temperature, or water content revealing a buried archaeological site. cropmarks The pattern of differences in agricultural crop growth, either positive or negative, revealing a buried archaeological site. parchmarks Negative cropmarks in grass. soil moisture deficit Moisture loss through evapotranspiration of the growing crop which exceeds rainfall causing crops to suffer moisture stress and wilt. hyperspectral scanning The recording from an aircraft or satellite of variations in reflected radiation from the earth’s surface across a wide range of electromagnetic wave bands. light detection and ranging (LIDAR) The recording from an aircraft of detailed variations in the elevation of the Earth’s surface by means of reflections from a scanning pulse laser.

Origins and Development of Aerial Archaeology The first serious application of aerial reconnaissance to archaeology came in the 1920s following the rapid development of aircraft in World War I. The potential was recognized, apparently independently, in both Britain and France by O. G. S. Crawford and A. Poidebard respectively. It was subsequently developed as a primary mode of archaeological fieldwork after World War II, particularly in Britain by J. K. S. St. Joseph based at Cambridge University. As Eastern Europe has opened its skies since the 1990s, its application has continued to expand across Europe, with archaeological aerial reconnaissance now regularly undertaken, for example, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine.

How Sites are Revealed from the Air The earliest applications focused on extant sites, whose outlines were more readily appreciated from an aerial perspective, though it rapidly became apparent that sites could be revealed in a number of ways.

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Where sites are extant, even if so little survives above ground level that they are not readily appreciated from the ground, they may be revealed from the air by virtue of the pattern created by the shadows cast in low sunlight, producing what are known as shadow sites. This effect can be enhanced by a light covering of snow resulting in differential drifting or thawing (Figure 1), or emphasized by slight differences in texture or vegetation cover. Sites may also be revealed in bare soil where any differential surface topography has been removed by years of ploughing. These soilmarks reflect the presence of buried archaeological sites through differences in soil color, temperature or water retention, or through different materials transported to the surface. They are best revealed in shallow soils where there is a strong color contrast between the subsoil and topsoil (Figure 2), but may disappear as the ploughing regime stabilizes. Variations in the concentration of stone on the surface may reveal buried foundations, as in the famous examples of Roman villas and temples photographed in northeastern France by R. Agache. More ephemeral marks can occur simply as differences in moisture content caused by buried archaeological features which affect the spectral reflectance of the soil above them. This

variation in moisture content can also result in sites being revealed by differential thawing in some areas of continental Europe, as demonstrated by O. Braasch. By far the most important method by which buried sites are revealed from the air is as cropmarks, differential growth in agricultural crops. Water is essential to plant growth, both in its own right and as the means by which minerals are carried up from the roots. When moisture loss through evapotranspiration of the growing crop exceeds rainfall, a potential soil moisture deficit (SMD) is established which in a dry summer can build up over time. Once the growing plants have exhausted the water stored in their rooting zone, they begin to suffer moisture stress and to wilt. Plants growing over buried stone foundations or road surfaces will have a more restricted rooting zone and exhibit signs of moisture stress before other plants in the same field. Their growth will be less tall and luxuriant and they will ripen more quickly, creating what are referred to as negative cropmarks outlining the archaeological structure (Figures 3 and 4). The opposite occurs where plants are growing over buried pits or ditches, producing positive cropmarks, that is areas of relatively enhanced crop growth (Figures 4 and 5). The quantity and quality of cropmark production depends largely on weather factors.

Figure 1 Shadow site enhanced by a light covering of snow of an Iron Age hillfort, linear earthworks, and prehistoric plowing at Woden Law, Scotland. Crown copyright: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

REMOTE SENSING APPROACHES/Aerial 1909

Figure 2 Soilmark of burial mounds and Roman road, Vanatori, Romania. Copyright: I. A. Oltean and W. S. Hanson.

Figure 3 Negative cropmarks of stone buildings within the settlement outside the Roman fort at Cigmau, Romania. Copyright: W. S. Hanson.

Positive cropmark Normal crop

Negative cropmark

Road Subsoil

Ditch

Figure 4 Cropmark diagram. Copyright: I. A. Oltean and W. S. Hanson.

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Figure 5 Positive cropmarks of two adjacent later prehistoric ditched enclosures at Burnfoot, Scotland. Copyright: W. S. Hanson.

A consistently dry summer will generate good cropmark recovery, but there are many localized variations associated with microclimates, soil variations, and different types of crop. Best results are obtained from deep-rooted crops, such as cereals, though in very dry summers marks can be obtained from shallow-rooted grass, usually referred to as parchmarks. It is possible to predict cropmark recovery to some extent on the basis of SMD figures in areas where these are produced for the farming community. Figures in excess of 100 mm are generally required before cropmarks become apparent (see Soils and Archaeology).

Biases and Limitations More sites have been discovered as cropmarks than by any of the other described phenomena, but not all areas produce cropmarks with equal facility. Welldraining soils, such as sands and gravels, produce the best results, though even some clay soils can generate cropmarks under the right conditions. However, the combination of factors which best suit cropmark production – well-draining soil types, dry weather patterns, and extensive areas of cereal production – tend to generate consistent biases in their distribution toward those areas where these factors are more consistently favorable. This potential bias can be further exacerbated by the tendency for those undertaking aerial reconnaissance always to focus on the most productive areas, the so-called ‘honeypot’ effect. Aerial reconnaissance is good at discovering larger features, such as ditched enclosures, but much less effective for more ephemeral remains such as shallow

gullies or posthole structures. This means that there is a further bias in terms of the types of archaeological sites which tend to be recorded and accordingly some periods, such as those involving hunter-gatherer communities, are generally ill-represented in the aerial photographic record. Moreover, even when sites are recorded, the photographic record will be only partial compared with what could be recovered from more detailed work by excavation or possibly by geophysical survey. Finally, because of the way in which the phenomena are revealed, an aerial photograph will not readily distinguish between different phases of human activity on cropmark sites. Thus, although the two enclosures in Figure 5 overlap slightly, it is impossible to determine from the photograph which is the earlier.

Acquisition of Aerial Data Traditional archaeological aerial reconnaissance has involved selective oblique photography of sites identified by observation from light aircraft flying at a height of less than 2000 ft (e.g., Figures 1–3 and 5). There is an ongoing debate, however, about the need for more extensive vertical block coverage specifically for archaeological purposes so as to maximize recovery rates and better facilitate the process of producing detailed site plans from the photographs. The vast bulk of aerial photography, however, is not taken to aid the discovery of archaeological sites, but for mapping or landscape monitoring purposes. This is generally vertical photography taken from a much greater height, usually 15 000–20 000 ft or more. But,

REMOTE SENSING APPROACHES/Aerial 1911

Figure 6 Roman fortification (now destroyed by housing) and adjacent burial mounds near Constanta, Romania, visible on Second World War military reconnaissance photography. Copyright: The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives, University of Keele.

since the principles by which archaeological sites are revealed are in no way dependent on the mode or scale of photography, any existing aerial photography has the potential to record sites if it has been taken at the right time of year and in favorable conditions. Thus, archives of existing photography can also be consulted in the search for sites, especially where they may have been destroyed or badly damaged subsequently. The potential of those archives which hold historical photography, such as the Aerial Reconnaissance Archive at the University of Keele in England, which contains coverage of large areas of Europe obtained during World War II, has yet to be fully exploited (Figure 6).

Impact and Applications of Aerial Archaeology Aerial reconnaissance is the single most important way of discovering new archaeological sites in temperate Europe. It has had a huge impact on empirical data collection, with large numbers of new sites being found, particularly as cropmarks in lowland arable areas which have experienced long-term plowing. At least 50% of all known sites in Britain, for example, are aerial discoveries. Aerial photography also facilitates a landscape approach to archaeology and has made a major contribution to archaeological research, enabling sites to be appreciated within their wider geographical and archaeological context and

demonstrating the time depth of that landscape. Finally, it makes an important contribution to cultural resource management, enabling known sites to be easily recorded and regularly monitored.

Future Developments Visible light represents only one range of wavelengths within the electromagnetic spectrum. The archaeological potential of other wavelengths, such as in the near infrared or thermal ranges, is still undergoing assessment, but it has already been demonstrated that such hyperspectral scanning has the potential to address some of the biases in aerial data recovery referred to above. Variations in ground surface texture, vegetation cover, or moisture content have different spectral signatures which can be recorded by a scanning electron spectrometer and may produce patterns facilitating the identification of potential buried archaeological features. Light detection and ranging (LIDAR), which involves analyzing the reflections back to the aircraft of a scanning pulse laser, provides a means of recording variations in surface elevation in considerable detail. This uses the same identification principle as that for shadow sites, but provides the opportunity to exaggerate the height differential or change the light direction, or angle of view in order to maximize the visibility of archaeological sites which are barely extant.

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Finally, with the recent great improvements in resolution and ease of access, the potential of satellite imagery for archaeological aerial reconnaissance has increased considerably. See also: Europe, West: Historical Archaeology in Britain; Remote Sensing Approaches: Geophysical; Seasonality of Site Occupation; Sites: Catchment Analysis; Formation Processes; Mapping Methods; Soils and Archaeology.

Further Reading Agache R (1971) De´tection ae´rienne des vestiges protohistoriques, gallo-romains et me´die´vaux dans le bassin de la Somme et ses abords. Amiens: Socie´te´ Pre´historique du Nord. Bewley RH and Raczkowski W (eds.) (2000) Aerial Archaeology: Developing Future Practice. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Braasch O (1983) Luftbild archa¨ologie in Su¨ddeutschland. Spuren aus ro¨mischer Zeit. Stuttgart: Schriften des Limesmuseums Aalen. Brophy K and Cowley D (eds.) (2005) From the Air: Understanding Aerial Archaeology. Stroud: Tempus. Mills J and Palmer R (eds.) (2007) Populating Clay Landscapes: Recent Advances in Archaeology on Difficult Soils. Stroud: Tempus. Riley DN (1987) Air Photography and Archaeology. London: Duckworth. Stoertz C (1997) Ancient Landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds: Aerial Photographic Transcription and Analysis. Swindon: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Wilson DR (2000) Air Photo Interpretation for Archaeologists, 2nd edn. Stroud: Tempus.

Geophysical Apostolos Sarris, Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas, Rethymno, Greece ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) Also called electrical resistivity imaging (ERI), a geophysical technique for imaging subsurface structures from electrical measurements made at the surface, or by electrodes in one or more boreholes. geographic information system (GIS) A system for capturing, storing, analyzing, and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the Earth. ground-penetrating radar (GPR) A geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. This nondestructive method uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures. remote sensing The method of acquisition of data through a variety of sensing or recording devices without a direct or physical contact with the object of study. The science of remote sensing includes also the methodology for the analysis and interpretation of information gathered.

Archaeological Prospection an Introduction The evolution of archaeological research has gradually expanded its horizons from the narrow study of artifacts and monuments to the study of culture interactions and settlement patterns. After the realization that the archaeological space acts as a continuum of past human interactions and being under the pressure of modern interventions, archaeological research was in need of exploring large landscapes using sophisticated mapping techniques. Ground and space remote-sensing techniques were adopted and modified to the existing requirements for obtaining the maximum information about the subsurface relics without or prior to excavation. Geophysical remote-sensing devices, active or passive, can measure contrasts in the properties of the soil (anomalies) and obtain a detailed map of the features below the surface in a nondestructive way. Within an archaeological context, geophysical prospection has been used in planned or rescue excavations, in regional and landscape applications, and in monument conservation and cultural resources management (CRM) studies.

Milestones in Archaeological Prospection Although early experiments in physics are mainly responsible for the development of the physical principles of remote sensing, shallow depth geophysical prospection techniques were adopted by the mainstream of geophysical exploration and later on by archaeological research mainly after the end of World War II. In 1946, R. J. C. Atkinson introduced soil resistance surveys in an archaeological context. In 1957, J. C. Belshe´ used a proton magnetometer in a reconstructed Roman kiln. The work continued by M. J. Aitken and E. Hall at Oxford University and later on by G. A. Black, E. Lilly and R. Johnson, who carried out the first systematic archaeo-magnetic survey (at Angel site) in North America. The decade 1960s evidenced the development of alkali vapor and fluxgate gradiometers and electromagnetic methods. In the same period (1964) Linnington also tried the first application of micro-gravitometry in an archaeological context. In 1970 Aspinall and Lynam developed the Twin Probe array for resistivity surveying, which is widely used even today due to its simplicity in operation, efficiency in time of survey and its well-defined signal. The first trials of ground penetrating radar (GPR) were carried out in 1975 at Chaco Canyon by R. S. Vickers, L. T. Dolphin, and D. Johnson, followed up by a number of surveys in historical sites by B. W. Bevan and J. Kenyon. Since 1980, a number of systems such as wheeled-driven resistivity arrays, magnetometer, and radar configurations aim toward

REMOTE SENSING APPROACHES/Geophysical 1913

a faster acquisition of measurements. Evolution of instrumentation continued further and the recent developments of computer hardware and software boosted even more the technological aspects of archaeological surveying.

Methods and Principles of Geophysical Prospection Techniques Electromagnetic Techniques (EMs) and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

Techniques that exploit electromagnetic radiation include soil conductivity meters, metal detectors, and the GPR. Pulsed induction metal (PIM) detectors were used in the past but they were gradually withdrawn due to their limited accuracy and sensitivity. EM soil conductivity meters use either fixed space or movable coils (vertically or horizontally aligned) which generate a time-varying magnetic field (usually 15–17 mm) are defined by low magnetic susceptibility. Single domain grains (64 mm) that can cause fatalities and fires. Heavy falls, and those during rain, may cause collapse of buildings/shelter. Other impacts include chemical contamination and respiratory problems.

Introduction The relationship between humans and volcanoes has always been dualistic. On the positive side, volcanoes are the sites where fresh rock material is brought to the Earth’s surface. Hence, volcanic deposits rapidly weather to form soils of excellent physical and chemical properties for plant growth. In addition, mountain volcanoes are often locations of safe surface waters, abundant freshwater springs, hot springs, and with volcanic landforms, also serving as natural points of defence or ceremony. These properties draw human settlers to volcanic regions and provide the conditions for them to flourish. On the negative side, volcanoes can also be agents of destruction, with spectacular catastrophes that may destroy cities overnight, such as St. Pierre (Martinique, West Indies), where 30 000 people died on 8 May 1902 from an eruption of Mt. Pele´e. These dramatic events mean that the most commonly perceived juxtaposition of volcanism and archaeology are cases of catastrophic burial of human towns and cities. These events preserve an unparalleled ‘snapshot’ into the lifestyles, art, and technology of past cultures. Thus, the Italian cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried by the AD 79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, became a test bed for development of modern archaeological investigative techniques. These sites have not only become invaluable in the reconstruction of Roman arts, technology, lifestyles, and physical attributes, but the scale and drama of the disaster were also a spur for investigation of the eruptive processes involved. The event was fortuitously recorded in unprecedented detail in letters of Pliny the Younger. In addition, examination of the physical and chemical properties of the deposits has

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led to development of many of the techniques used in modern volcanological study. Of major importance to volcanic hazards evaluation, forensic-medical aspects of eruptions were also preserved at these sites. Another major Mediterranean example of cultural heritage preserved by volcanic disaster is the Bronze Age city of Akrotiri (Santorini, Grece), buried by tephra falls and pyroclastic flows from the eruption of Thera volcano in the late seventeenth century BC. Investigations into this event have also spawned one of the longest-running controversies in archaeology and anthropology; that is, whether the Thera eruption had a significant enough impact to have caused the decline of an entire civilization and thus change the course of Mediterranean history. Debate has waxed and waned over this issue, with most scholars now accepting that the eruption preceded the decline in the Minoan civilization by around 200 years, negating a simple cause-and-effect relationship. Elsewhere around the globe, cultural implications of individual large volcanic events have been no less important, with one of the best-studied examples being the mid-third century AD eruption of Volcan Ilopango (El Salvador, Central America). This eruption, devastated >30 000 km2 with pyroclastic flows and tephra fall. Archaeological studies in the greater surrounds show that the eruption led to long-term social changes in the Mayan culture, primarily through the long-term displacement of >300 000 evacuees from the area. Following these well-known examples, many archaeological studies relating to volcanism have been preoccupied with catastrophic events and their role in the rise and fall of civilizations. Similarly, many geologists have inferred major cultural disasters solely based on estimates of the magnitude of past volcanic events. These hypotheses are often founded on a close or approximate coincidence in time between a largescale geological event and an apparent cultural change, with little other substantiating evidence. A fact commonly overlooked with volcano–human relationships, however, is that most eruptions are small, and despite creating short-term inconvenience, their benefits to surrounding populations often outweigh the risk. Similarly, despite ongoing serious volcanic threat, human populations persist in hazardous areas due to either population pressure or the natural resources of some areas. Hence, it is in this intermediate state with damaging but not catastrophic volcanic impacts that most human communities have lived for the longest periods of time. Despite this, only a handful of international works describe examples of long-term coexistence with volcanism, including adaptive strategies of the Aleuts to frequent eruptions along the Aleutian Island chain, and the apparent

uninterrupted habitation of the area around the repeatedly explosive Arenal Volcano of Costa Rica. The most pragmatic overlap of volcanism and archaeology occurs when volcanic deposits, particularly ash layers (tephras), are used for the dating and correlation of anthropogenic remains and horizons. However, beyond aspects of chronology, little research has gone into the potential non-disastrous impacts volcanism may have had on past societies – including the possible development of adaptive technologies, construction mechanisms, strategic resettlement, or agricultural practices to mitigate volcanic hazards. A further poorly known dimension is the potential for volcanic influence on the development of religious practices and artistic expression. In the southwest Pacific, archaeological studies started relatively late, but they generally followed classical research from Europe and the approach has also been dualistic. Either volcanic impacts were considered as society-changing catastrophes (e.g., Kuwae, Vanuatu), or their potential role was completely ignored in the development, location, migration, or change of cultures (e.g., Tonga). Described here is a range of case studies that overlap the issues of archaeology, anthropology, and volcanology in the southwest Pacific. Few coordinated studies have been carried out between the three discipline areas, resulting in a fragmented perspective of Pacific history. Here it is contended that a holistic approach is essential to bring fresh ideas into the collaborative research of volcanologists and archaeologists. With a clear understanding of the volcanic and related geological history, along with consideration of oral tradition evidence, a higher-quality analysis of cultural development in the southwest Pacific can be achieved. The main themes presented here are designed to promote debate and propose new research directions for southwest Pacific archaeology and include: instances of overplaying the volcanic card; instances of ignoring the influence of volcanism; and evidence of development of an unsteady equilibrium, through long-term adaptation of humans to coexist with volcanoes in the southwest Pacific.

Southwest Pacific Region Human settlement in the southwest Pacific was characterized by several unique features. Most of the area has been occupied by humans very briefly in comparison with many other areas of the world. All areas outside of Australia, Papua New Guinea, and parts of the Solomon Islands (so-called ‘nearOceania’) have been habited for