A Dictionary of Archaeology

past archaeological contexts. For an extended example, see IGBO-UKWU.

A distinction can be made between formal and relational analogies (Wylie 1985). In using formal analogies, similarities between past and present contexts are sought, and differences are identified but deemed irrelevant to the transfer of information from past to present concerning unknown issues. For example, similarities in the form of present and past post-hole arrangements might lead to the transfer of information concerning the use of those arrangements in the construction of houses (Hodder 1982a). Such formal arguments are supported by demonstrating the closeness of the similarities and/or their widespread cross-cultural occurrence.

Relational analogies, on the other hand, are more concerned with the causal relations between the items deemed similar, different or unknown within the two contexts being compared. The relevance of the analogy has to be demonstrated by showing not only similarities in form, but also in meaning or function within determinant historical situations. The emphasis can again be crosscultural, emphasizing the generality of certain links between material residues and the behaviour which produced them. However, few non-trivial generalizations have been identified concerning c-transforms. Alternatively, emphasis is placed on in-depth understanding (or ‘thick’ description) of the specific contexts being compared and of the regularity of behaviour within historical trajectories. Even when direct historical analogy cannot be demonstrated, relational analogies can be used to enhance the understanding of specific societies in the distant past (e.g. Tilley 1993) – given careful contextual consideration of all types of data within the societies being compared.

J.W. Fewkes: ‘The prehistoric culture of Tusayan’, American Anthropologist 9 (1896), 151–73; H. Balfet: ‘Ethnographic observations in North Africa and archaeological interpretation: the pottery of the Maghreb’, Ceramics and man, ed. F.R. Matson (Chicago, 1965), 161–77; L.R. Binford: ‘Smudge pits and hide smoking: the use of analogy in archaeological reasoning’, AA 32 (1967), 1–12; M.B. Schiffer: Behavioral archaeology (New York, 1976); L.R. Binford: Nunamiut ethnoarchaeology

(New York, 1978); R. Gould and M.B. Schiffer, eds: Modern material culture (New York, 1981); B. Orme:

Anthropology for archaeologists (London, 1981); I. Hodder: The present past (London, 1982a); ––––: Symbols in action

(Cambridge, 1982b); M. Parker Pearson: ‘Mortuary practice, society and ideology: an ethnoarchaeological study’,

Symbolic and structural archaeology, ed. I. Hodder (Cambridge, 1982); K. Flannery and J. Marcus: The cloud people (New York, 1983); L.M. Raab and A.C. Goodyear:

ETHNOGRAPHY 225

‘Middle range theory in archaeology: a critical review of origins and applications’, AA 49 (1984), 255–68; A. Wiley: ‘The reaction against analogy’, Advances in archaeological method and theory, ed. M. Schiffer (New York, 1985); H. Moore: Space, text and gender (Cambridge, 1986); M.B. Schiffer: Formation processes of the archaeological record

(Albuquerque, 1987); D. Miller: Material culture and mass consumption (Oxford, 1989); P.J. Watson and M.C. Kennedy: ‘The development of horticulture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America: women’s role’, Engendering archaeology, ed. J.M. Gero and M.W. Conkey (Oxford, 1991), 255–75; C. Tilley: Material culture as text: the art of ambiguity (London, 1993).

IH

ethnographic analogy see

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY

ethnography The anthropological observation and study of contemporary societies and cultures. For many archaeologists, particularly in the New World, their discipline is indissolubly linked with anthropology in that it contributes to a general comparative understanding of human beings and their culture. In the Old World, archaeology has closest ties with history; without the broader umbrella of anthropology, ethnography has been identified as a specific source for ideas about the past. At times archaeologists in Europe have been suspicious of drawing ethnographic parallels, wary of transferring information between specific historical contexts. But the dependence of archaeology on analogies with the present is too pervasive to undermine the general close relationship between archaeology and ethnography.

By the 16th century AD, travels to North America had led to the emergence of an image of native peoples which was used in the reconstruction of the lives of ancient Britons (Orme 1981: 3–12). In the 18th century, Thomas Pownall compared the culture of North American Indians with the antiquities of the British Isles and developed the uniformitarian principle, some version of which is at the basis of all use of ethnography in archaeology: ‘Man is, in the natural course of his being, always the same thing under the same circumstances’ (Pownall 1795, quoted by Orme 1981: 13). In 1865, John Lubbock interpreted ancient remains by drawing parallels with what he termed ‘modern savages’.

It was General Pitt Rivers’ ethnographic knowledge, as well as his military interest in firearms, which allowed him to develop archaeological approaches to stylistic variation and change through time. In the United States at the end of the 19th century, the Moundbuilder controversy was settled

226 ETHNOGRAPHY

when John W. Powell and Cyrus Thomas demonstrated similarities between archaeological material concerning mound sites and contemporary Indian material culture in the same areas (Hodder 1982: 35). Throughout the early 20th century a cautious acceptance of the need for drawing ethnographic parallels in archaeology was widespread, if little theorized. Archaeology remained separate from, but closely related to, ethnography. The term ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY is used to describe ethnographic studies that are undertaken specifically in order to solve archaeological problems. For an ethnographic case-study see IGBO-UKWU.

J. Lubbock: Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages (London, 1865); B. Orme: Anthropology for archaeologists

(London, 1981); I. Hodder: The present past (London, 1982).

For further bibliography see ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY.

IH

Etowah Major MISSISSIPPIAN ‘mound center’ located along the Etowah River in northwestern Georgia, eastern North America. Etowah was occupied for several centuries and for much of this period it was one of the most important sites in the region. Three large mounds and several smaller ones, along with plaza and habitation areas, were constructed within a 21 ha area. The site was protected by a strong palisade with bastions and a deep ditch. Excavations in one of the large mounds uncovered many burials with ornate SOUTHERN CULT artefacts, as well as lines of postmoulds from fences which once screened the mortuary area from view.

L.H. Larson: ‘Archaeological implications of social stratification at the Etowah site, Georgia’, AA Memoir 25 (1971), 58–67; ––––: ‘Functional considerations of warfare in the Southeast during the Mississippi period’, AA 37 (1972), 383–92.

GM

Europe, medieval and post-medieval

1 Medieval Europe; 2 Post-Medieval Europe

1 Medieval Europe

The origins of medieval archaeology – the study of the material culture of the period from c.AD 400 to 1500 in Europe – lie in the midto later 19th century as amateur archaeologists excavated burial mounds of all periods and as the scope of architectural history was enlarged to encompass small churches. The discovery of post-classical artefacts in British, French and Scandinavian burial mounds, in

particular, demonstrated the material wealth of the early medieval period. A significant development was Hjalmar Stolpe’s excavations of the Vikingperiod cemetery at BIRKA, Sweden (Ambrosiani and Clarke 1992). Stolpe, a natural scientist, made scale drawings of his excavations. He took a keen interest in the historical importance of the cemetery which led to a series of major publications by Holger Arbman in the 1930s and 1940s; the most notable of these was Schweden und das Karolingische Reich

(Arbman 1937) which illustrated how the material culture located early medieval Sweden within the Carolingian economic sphere. By contrast, the study of church architecture has evolved slowly as a subdiscipline of art history. Major studies of Early Christian churches in the later 19th century, for example, by G.B. De Rossi (1864–77) in Italy or G. Baldwin Brown in the case of Anglo-Saxon churches in England (1903), led to major studies such as Richard Krautheimer’s Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae (1937–77) of the major early medieval churches of Rome.

In the early 20th century the discipline developed slowly. While Roman towns became the subject of large-scale exavations, medieval occupation levels were literally shovelled away. Nevertheless, museum curators actively promoted the collection of medieval objects. E.T. Leeds at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, for example, encouraged the young T.E. Lawrence to search building sites for medieval objects. By the 1930s such incidental finds were being rigorously catalogued by British, German and Scandinavian museum directors. R.E.M. Wheeler in London supported G.C. Dunning to make a systematic survey of finds from London (Hurst 1982), and later commissioned John Ward-Perkins to prepare a catalogue of medieval finds. Urban archaeology before 1939 was also advanced by Herbert Jankuhn’s excavations at Haithabu, financed by the Nazi party to demonstrate the early commercial prowess of German merchants in Slavic areas (see Arnold 1990). Jankuhn’s important excavations showed the need for adopting prehistoric methodologies which in turn might provide new sources of information for the historian.

The obliteration of many European towns during the Second World War provided the opportunity for systematic urban excavations. From medieval Cologne to Anglo-Saxon Southampton, a new school of rescue archaeologist came to the fore. These excavations provoked an interest among historians in post-classical remains, giving rise to investigations of deserted rural sites. Large-scale excavations of early medieval coastal villages in

Frisia had begun in the 1930s under the direction of A.E. van Giffen; after the war excavations at Feddersen Wierde and later on, at Wijster revealed hitherto unexpected data on domestic architecture, production and, indeed, agrarian life in general.

Similarly, the archaeology of villages was recognized by economic historians like M.W. Beresford and W.G. Hoskins as a vital new source of data about the peasantry. The excavations at WHARRAM PERCY, North Yorkshire, started in 1952 gave rise to deserted village excavations and to the study of rural sites throughout Europe (Hurst 1971). The systematic recording of churches, as major village buildings, much influenced by West German detailed studies emulating the recording of classical monuments, evolved in parallel with rural excavations. Such systems led effectively to the re-calibration of churches hitherto dated by architectural historians on the bases of their stylistic features.

With stratigraphic excavations came the opportunity to date material culture. Major studies of Late Roman pottery (Hayes 1972) and of medieval pottery by scholars throughout western Europe made it possible by 1980 to reconstruct regional settlement history from south Etruria, north of Rome (Potter 1979) to the Eifel mountains (Janssen 1975), the Dutch polders (Besteman 1990) and East Anglia (Hurst 1976). Such patterns, when integrated with the evidence from rescue excavations made in towns, provided a historical geography for the post-classical period. From 1980 onwards, the scope of this evidence was enlarged, as the openarea excavation techniques introduced in the 1960s by Martin Biddle in his excavations at Winchester (see OLD MINSTER) have been adopted throughout western Europe.

New topographic insights derived from, for example, the excavations at the Cripta Balbi, Rome (Manacorda and Zanini 1989), Marseilles, DORESTAD and Birka, provide the measured contextual information on which to hang patterns of production, distribution and consumption. A popular illustration of this development is the Jorvik Centre at York where the York Archaeological Trust have reconstructed a 10thcentury street frontage of workshops found during rescue excavations (see COPPERGATE). Perhaps the most provocative illustration of this trend was Charles L. Redman’s excavations of the later medieval port of QSAR-ES-SEGHIR in Morocco (Redman 1986), where probability and judgement sampling strategies were employed to examine the patterning of material within the town.

With such data, post-classical archaeology has

EUROPE, MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL 227

developed far beyond the scope of classifying churches and burial mounds (note Carver’s research design at SUTTON HOO: Carver 1992) to become a historical instrument of singular importance because it sheds light on the peasantry as well as elites. In the late 20th century, medieval archaeology probably accounts for the greater share of public monies spent on archaeology in western Europe. However, while its academic place has been safeguarded by teaching posts in most European universities, it is still poorly represented in research terms. Its future appears to rest firstly upon collaboration between archaeologists and all branches of history, and secondly upon regionally based professional archaeologists in local government concerned with curating the past.

See also HUSTERKNUPP, IPSWICH, KEMPEN PROJECT, RABITA DE GUARDAMAR, ROCCA SAN SILVESTRO, ST GALL PLAN, SAN VINCENZO AL VOLTURNO, SARÇHANE, SERÇE LIMAN, TINTAGEL and VORBASSE.

G.B. de Rossi: Roma Sotterranea Cristiana (Rome, 1864–77); G. Baldwin Brown: The arts in early England (London, 1903); H. Arbman: Schweden und das Karolingische Reich (Stockholm, 1937); J.G. Hurst: ‘A review of archaeological work’, M.W. Beresford and J.G. Hurst, eds, Deserted medieval village studies (London, 1971), 76–89; J.W. Hayes: Late Roman pottery

(London, 1972); W. Janssen: Studien zur Wustungsfrage im frankischenzwischen Rhein, Mosel und Eifelnordrand

(Cologne, 1975); J.G. Hurst: ‘The pottery’, The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D.M. Wilson (London, 1976), 283–348; T.W. Potter: The changing landscape of south Etruria (London, 1979); J.G. Hurst: ‘Gerald Dunning and his contribution to Medieval Archaeology’, Medieval Ceramics 6 (1982), 3–20; C.L. Redman: Qsar esSeghir, an archaeological view of medieval life (Orlando, 1986); D. Manacorda and E. Zanini: ‘The first millennium AD in Rome: from the Porticus Minucia to the Via delle Botteghe Oscure’, The birth of Europe, ed. K. Randsborg (Rome, 1989), 25–32; B. Arnold: ‘The past as propaganda in Nazi Germany’, Antiquity 64 (1990), 464–78; J.C. Besteman: ‘North Holland AD 400–1200: turning tide or tide turned?’, Medieval archaeology in the Netherlands, ed. J.C. Besteman, J.M. Bos and H.A. Heidinga (Assen, 1990), 91–120; B. Ambrosiani and H. Clarke: Early investigations and future plans (Stockholm, 1992); M. Carver, ed.: The age of Sutton Hoo (Woodbridge, 1992).

RH

2 Post-medieval Europe

Term used to describe research into the archaeology of Europe during the centuries since 1500. This subdiscipline has developed in the past 30 years, as a result of the increasing realization that physical evidence has a significant contribution to make to the understanding of the economic history of the

228 EUROPE, MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL

post-medieval period. The impetus for the development of post-medieval archaeology has arisen not only from the need to provide complementary evidence in answering historical questions but also from archaeological and conservational interest in the post-medieval monuments themselves.

Archaeological effort has been devoted to topics for which archives are sparse, for despite the growth of record-keeping in the 16th century and after, many activities generated little written material or, where anything was set down, it was unlikely to be preserved. Even where archives are at first sight substantial, they are essentially quantitative, and there is rarely description or comment, apart from some aspects of land surveys, or depositions in legal cases. Correspondence on economic as opposed to political matters is relatively rare. Practice, of course, varied over Europe. In Britain, for example, written evidence for property transfer survives unevenly until (and in many regions well beyond) the beginnings of deed registration in the 18th century. In France, by contrast, notarial registers are an important surviving source from the Middle Ages onwards. Where the qualitative emphasis is absent from the written record, valuable evidence can frequently be derived from the archaeology of structures, standing or buried, the land which surrounded them, the possessions of their occupants, or the products or residues of crafts and industries.

Over Europe as a whole there is a basic context of economic change into which the archaeological evidence can be fitted. Population growth, after the epidemics of the later middle ages, led to new settlement, more intensive agriculture, employment in urban and rural industries which fed new markets, and the growth of towns, whether centres of trade or of government. In many areas successive development has left relict landscapes which illustrate these changes, and overlie features of the Middle Ages (as in the case of post-medieval enclosed fields overlying medieval ridge and furrow).

One facet of landscape history is of particular importance in the period between the 15th and the 19th centuries: industry. Before the growth which characterizes the Industrial Revolution period, industry was predominantly rural. All over Europe there can be found examples of communities where individuals combined industrial and agricultural work, and this is recognized as a key to the understanding of many post-medieval landscapes.

There are valleys where industries have made intensive use of water power, mining areas linked to managed woodlands which provided fuel for smelt-

ing, metalworking by farmer-smiths whose fuel came from new coal-mines as well as from woodlands, areas of pastoral farming where textile production developed from a by-employment to become the driving force of local economies (see RCHME 1985). These combinations of occupations leave characteristic traces; they also gave rise to signs of wealth in the form of improved domestic buildings: the study of vernacular architecture, and of the houses and grounds of the better-off, is linked to the relict-landscapes which result from industrial activities, as well as to the growing productivity of agriculture, spurred on by the demands of a rising population.

The identification of landscapes in which multiple occupations have been practised has been enhanced by excavation and field survey which has led to an understanding of technological change in early industry. The iron industry has been the subject of many excavations, particularly in Britain, where bloomeries, blast furnaces and forges have been examined. In Spain, field and archive work has demonstrated the key features of the Catalan forges of the Basque country, while in France, the work of the Inventaire National has provided high-quality published surveys of ironworking districts in the regions of Châteaubriant, Ardennes, Normandy and the French Alps (see Ministère de la Culture 1991, 1992). Some progress has been made in Italy with the study of the characteristic bergamasque blast furnaces of Tuscany and the Alpine regions.

The glass industry has been the subject of increasing interest: this is another occupation which in most areas was dependent on the management of woodlands for fuel. Excavations carried out on postmedieval furnace-sites include examples in England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the Czech and Slovak republics.

The field archaeology of the post-medieval period is assisted by the precision with which many artefacts found on excavations and during fieldwalking can be dated. Of particular importance is the occurrence of clay-tobacco-pipes, found in post-1600 deposits, and datable to narrow limits as a result of close studies of types and makers’ marks (Oswald 1975). The study of post-medieval ceramics is of great importance, for many types of pottery were traded over considerable distances (see Hurst et al. 1986), and regional decoration and design were influenced by exotic items. Of particular importance were far-eastern imports of porcelain and the extent to which they inspired imitation amongst the makers of tin-glazed earthenware in the Mediterranean region and in northwest Europe.

Not to be underestimated is the extent to which research in the post-medieval archaeology of Europe and the historical archaeology of colonial regions outside Europe are inter-linked. This is particularly true of work in the lands bordering the north Atlantic: many artefacts produced in Europe are found in north America, often in closely-dated contexts which in turn help to confirm the chronology of production and trade. See also INDUSTRIAL

ARCHAEOLOGY.

A. Oswald: Clay pipes for the archaeologist (Oxford, 1975); T.S. Reynolds: Stronger than a hundred men: a history of the vertical water wheel (Baltimore, 1983); Ministère de la Culture: Les forges du pays de Châteaubriant (Paris, 1984); H.F. Cleere and D.W. Crossley: The iron industry of the Weald (Leicester, 1985); Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME): Rural houses of the Lancashire Pennines (London, 1985); J.G. Hurst et al.: Pottery produced and traded in North-West Europe 1350–1650 (Rotterdam, 1986); Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England: Houses of the North York moors (London, 1987); Ministère de la Culture: La Métallurgie du fer dans les Ardennes (XVIe–XIXe) (Paris, 1988); F. Verhaeghe and M. Otte:

Archéologie des temps modernes (Liege, 1988); D.W. Crossley: Post-medieval archaeology in Britain (Leicester, 1990); H. Horat: Der Glasschmelzofen des Priesters Theophilus (Bern, 1991); M. Mendera: Archeologia e storia della produzione del vetro preindustriale (Siena, 1991); Ministère de la Culture: La Métallurgie Normande (Caen, 1991); ––––: Fonte, fer, acier: Rhìne-Alpes (Lyon, 1992).

DC

experimental archaeology Archaeological approach that seeks to explore and test interpretations, theories and hypotheses by practical experimentation. Although experimentation has long been used by archaeologists, the subdiscipline was fundamentally changed from the 1960s onwards, with the inauguration of several largescale projects, including the OVERTON DOWN earthwork, the BUTSER ANCIENT FARM (both in England) and the Experimental Centre at Lejre in Denmark.

Experimental archaeology can be divided into five distinct categories: construct, process and function, simulation, probability trials and technological innovation. The ‘construct’ is perhaps the simplest type of experiment to explain, not least because it has the greatest visual and physical impact. The term ‘construct’ is deliberately used here to differentiate an experimental building from a ‘reconstruction’, the latter being those buildings for which sufficient material evidence has survived to allow their accurate reconstruction, as in open-air museums devoted to the preservation and reconstruction of buildings from earlier historical

EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY 229

periods. Prehistoric buildings, on the other hand, are usually known only through patterns of post and stake holes and often very little else. Creating a superstructure based on this kind of data often requires artistic licence or even pure imagination. However, the attempt can focus the attention of excavators on explaining why such a structural interpretation is right or wrong. At the very least, a construct can provide an idea of the space contained by a building and the material requirements for its construction.

At Butser Ancient Farm, a construct of a late Iron Age house was created on the basis of the archaeological data from Pimperne Down in Dorset, where two double ring houses (one built immediately after the other in the same location) were excavated, each taking the form of an outer ring of stakeholes with a diameter of 12.9 m and an inner ring of postholes with a diameter of 9.9 m (see Reynolds 1994: 4–10). The sheer quantity of materials required for the Butser construct was remarkable: over 200 mature trees, mostly oak averaging 0.3 m at the butt, some ten tonnes of clay to make the daub (for the wattle- and-daub outer wall) and twelve tonnes of thatching straw to cover the roof.

The second category of experiment is ‘process and function’: this involves the examination of the ways in which things actually work. It embraces trials with ards (such as the ways in which they stir the soil and the effect of the soil on the ard itself), the manufacture of ancient tools such as the vallus (and the testing of their efficiency or otherwise), as well as the building of kilns and the study of their use in firing pottery.

One of the most significant process-and-func- tion experiments was carried out at Butser Ancient Farm with regard to the creation of underground grain storage silos. Although excavations have often demonstrated the use of underground silos at all periods, there is very little documentary evidence for the practice (Tacitus, Germania, 16 and Pliny, Natural History 18, 306) and many archaeologists in the 1970s began to express doubts as to whether the large pits typically found on Iron Age sites could have been used for this purpose. Experimental pits dug into a number of different rock types at Butser, however, indicated that it was perfectly feasible to store grain in this way in England for a period of at least 18 years. It was demonstrated that the same pit could be used over and over again without any deleterious effect on the grain. These experiments also examined different types of lining for which there was putative archaeological evidence. A basketry-lined pit proved unusable after the first year, since the wood

230 EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY

became an ideal substrate for concentrating microorganisms; a clay-lined pit, on the other hand, worked extremely well for many years. The clay simply acted as a barrier against any further penetration of water, although its own humidity accelerated germination of the grain and slightly increased the loss rate.

The third category of experiment – the simulation trial – is best exemplified by the experimental earthwork, such as those constructed at Overton Down in 1962 and Wareham Down in 1963. These were both massive replicas of ditch-and-bank earthworks containing various deliberately buried artefacts, which have been excavated at various intervals in order to investigate the processes of deterioration and change in the archaeological record. An experimental earthwork was also constructed at Butser Ancient Farm in 1976 as a simulation of the typical ditch and bank which surrounded small settlements of the Bronze and Iron Ages, thus allowing the examination of erosion patterns in so far as they created specific layers in the ditch profile when excavated. The Butser earthwork, based on an actual Iron Age example at East Castle in Dorset, showed the remarkable speed at which vegetation began to encroach, generally serving to stabilize the structure as a whole. In 1984, a series of sections were cut across the ditch on the east, south and north sides of the enclosure with totally unexpected results. It is normal to find on archaeological ditches that the layers are not evenly distributed in the sense that one side always seems to have a greater quantity of material than the other. This has often been used to argue that the side with the greatest deposit is the side where the bank was located. However, the experimental ditch showed exactly the opposite. The reason is not difficult to isolate. It seems that the skewed deposition of material is caused directly by the pattern of vegetative growth on the inner elements of the ditch and bank.

As a result of the pilot scheme at Butser, a major experimental design was implemented, involving the construction of much more complex octagonal earthworks at three sites in Britain: the National Science Museum Reserve Collection at Wroughton, near Swindon (in 1985); the grounds of Fishbourne Roman Palace at Chichester (also in 1985); and Bascomb Down, the new site of the Butser Ancient Farm, in Hampshire (in 1992). Each of these is accompanied by a meteorological station and each one is monitored annually to record the vegetation cover.

The fourth category of experiment is the probability trial, which is a combination of the first three

categories with the added component of seeking and outcome. The ideal example of this type of experiment is the long series of agricultural trials carried out at the Butser Ancient Farm since 1972. Any agricultural trial is subject to the five basic criteria of farming: climate, soil, crop or cereal type, the nature of treatment and finally pests and pestilences. The probability trial is extremely complex in terms of recording all of these variables and presenting the results within the strict parameters of the experiment. In order that the results are acceptable to the agriculturalist/agronomist, experimental design must take account of modern agricultural research design and sampling technique. For example, the area cultivated has to be large enough to allow the sample to completely ignore a metre-wide perimeter band around the crop, in order to avoid an ‘edge effect’.

The final category of experiment, technological innovation, covers attempts to improve or enhance archaeological practice (whether excavation technique or methods of prospection). For example, the initial use of RESISTIVITY SURVEY was an experiment, and its adoption as an archaeological tool only came after a series of trials.

Experiment is central to the practice of archaeology, forcing reappraisal and focusing on anomalies and absurdities; it is no more than the application of deductive logic reinforced by physical testing: without experiment, archaeology would stagnate into endless repetition and unquestioned typologies. The use of experiment has increasingly brought scientific discipline to bear upon a subject steeped in a more traditional, humanistic way of thinking.

For a non-European case-study see INCA and

TIAHUANACO.

J. Coles: Experimental archaeology (London, 1979); P.J. Reynolds: Iron Age farm: the Butser experiment (London, 1979); ––––: Ancient farming (Princes Risborough, 1987); D.W. Harding et al.: An Iron Age settlement in Dorset

(Edinburgh, 1993); P.J. Reynolds: Experimental archaeology: a perspective for the future (Leiden, 1994); M. Bell et al.: The experimental earthwork project 1960–1992

(London, 1996).

PRE

exploratory data analysis (EDA) An approach to statistical analysis advocated by Tukey (1977), which explores archaeological DATASETS in an open-minded way and looks for patterns in them. It is contrasted with classical methods such as

HYPOTHESIS TESTING and PARAMETER ESTI-

MATION, sometimes called confirmatory data analysis, which seek to prove or disprove a particular point of view. EDA is of most value in

MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS, in which a con-

firmatory approach is both difficult and unrealistic, and the data are difficult to visualize. It therefore makes extensive use of VISUAL DISPLAY OF DATA.

J.W. Tukey: Exploratory data analysis (Reading, MA,

EYNAN 231

1977); S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh, 1988), 22–3.

CO

Eynan see AIN MALLAHA

Failaka Small island in the northern Arabian/ Persian Gulf, 20km from the coast of Kuwait. A settlement dating to the 2nd millennium BC has been excavated in the south-western corner, as well as the remains of a Hellenistic town. The Danish and French excavations since the early 1960s have dated the 2nd-millennium architectural sequence by identifying seven phases of ceramics between 2000 and 1200 BC, although there are also a few isolated earlier finds, such as Early Dynastic stamp and cylinder seals. In the section of the island designated F6 the Danish expedition uncovered a large elite building containing a columned court resembling that in the Sinkashid temple at URUK, with which it seems to have been roughly contemporary. X-RAY FLUORESCENCE analysis for the distinctive glazed pottery and faience vessels on Failaka has suggested that they may be locally made, since the ratio of magnesium to calcium is unparalleled elsewhere in the pre-Islamic Near East (Pollard and Hõjlund 1983).

Failaka’s extensive contacts with Mesopotamia and Bahrain are indicated by the discovery of large numbers of cuneiform documents and seals, suggesting that the island was first colonized by Mesopotamia during the Isin-Larsa period (c.2025–1763 BC). Potts (1990: 291–2) argues that the population of Failaka has consistently been multi-ethnic, citing the presence of Old Babylonian inscriptions and KASSITE ceramic forms as well as Dilmun seals (see BAHRAIN), imported pottery from the Iran and the Oman peninsula, an inscribed sherd bearing AMORITE names, and one seal bearing an Indus inscription (see INDUS CIVILIZATION). There are important Seleucid and early Islamic settlements on the island, the latter with a so-called ‘Sasanian’ church in its centre.

A. Pollard and F. Hõjlund: ‘High-magnesium glazed sherds from Bronze Age tells on Failaka, Kuwait’, Archaeometry 25 (1983), 196–200; J.-F. Salles, ed.:

Failaka: fouilles françaises 1983 (Lyons, 1984); Y. Calvet and J.-F. Salles, ed.: Failaka: fouilles françaises 1984–1985

(Lyons, 1986); P. Kjaerum: ‘Architecture and settlement patterns in 2nd millennium Failaka’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 16 (1986), 77–88; D.T. Potts:

The Arabian Gulf in antiquity, 2 vols (Oxford, 1990), I, 261–97, II, 154–96.

IS

Faiyum region (anc. She-reshy, Moeris) Large fertile depression in the Egyptian Western Desert about 60 km to the southwest of Cairo, covering an area of some 12,000 sq. km. Before the Palaeolithic period it had a huge salt-water lake at its centre, but this eventually became linked to the river Nile by the Bahr Yusef canal, thus transforming it into the fresh-water Lake Moeris. The earliest inhabitants of the Faiyum were the EPIPALAEOLITHIC ‘Faiyum B’ people, who were succeeded by the Neolithic ‘Faiyum A’ culture in c.5500 BC (Caton-Thompson and Gardner 1934). Although the Faiyum gained a degree of importance in the Middle Kingdom (c.2040–1640 BC), the surviving remains are dominated by Greco-Roman towns such as Bacchias (Kom el-Atl), Karanis (Kom Aushim) and Tebtunis (Tell Umm el-Breigat).

G. Caton-Thompson and E.O. Gardner: The Desert Fayum (London, 1934); H. Geremek: Karanis, communauté rurale de l’Egypte romaine au IIe–IIIe siècle de notre ére (Warsaw, 1969); E. Husselman: Karanis: excavations of the University of Michigan in Egypt, 1928–35 (Michigan, 1979); A.K. Bowman: Egypt after the pharaohs (London, 1986), 142–55.

IS

Fakhariya, Tell see MITANNI

falsification Process of attempting to disprove a theory or hypothesis by testing it against the empirical evidence (via observation or experiment). A sustained but unsuccessful attempt to falsify any given theory thus increases that theory’s plausibility

– although it can never prove the universality of the theory. Falsification is the opposite process to VERIFICATION, which presents the evidence for believing that a statement or theory is true. Karl Popper, one of the most influential philosophers of science this century, advanced falsification, rather than verification, as the key activity of science. This seemed to answer a paradox in the philosophy of sci-

ence: how could the universal truth of laws ever be established from the verification of their truth in a finite number of instances? Popper’s approach seemed to answer this paradox without reducing scientific endeavour to logically certain, but drastically limited, statements in the way that the more extreme positivist approaches threatened to (see

LOGICAL POSITIVISM).

In essence, Popper argued that advances in science did not arise out of linear generalizations from the particular at all. Instead, scientists invented theory using existing theory and reasoning that often could not be justified logically. The rigour of science arose out of the determined attempt to find an instance in the real world that did not conform to the theory as formulated (and which would thus falsify it). In that both stress the importance of scientific methodology, the positivist approach and the falsification approach may seem quite similar. Yet taken to the extreme, positivism discounts the usefulness of any statement that cannot be verified. Whereas philosophies of science that stress falsification are able to accept as meaningful and useful a variety of frameworks and approaches that lead to theories, providing these theories lead to useful (non-obvious, clear and unambiguous) hypotheses formulated in such a way that they are open to falsification in the real world.

(see also INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE EXPLANATION; VERIFICATION; THEORY AND

THEORY BUILDING.)

K. Popper: Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge (London, 1963; 4th edn, 1985); P.J. Watson, S.A. LeBlanc and C.L. Redman: Explanation in archaeology: an explicitly scientific approach (New York and London, 1971).

RJA

Fara, Tell (anc. Shuruppak) Tell-site comprising the remains of the Sumerian city of Shuruppak, located in the Mesopotamian alluvial plain midway between Baghdad and the Gulf. The city originally lay on the banks of the western branch of the Euphrates, but the river has moved gradually westwards. The earliest settlement remains date to the Jemdet Nasr period (c.3200–2900 BC). The city grew rapidly, reaching a size of some 100 hectares by the Early Dynastic period (c.2900–2350 BC), but it appears to have been abandoned at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The site was excavated by a German expedition in 1902–3 and an American expedition in 1931. The term ‘Fara period/style’ is used to describe distinctive cuneiform tablets of the Early Dynastic IIIa period and CYLINDER SEALS of Early Dynastic II, large numbers of which were

FARAðIN, TELL EL233

found in the course of the excavations. Harriet Martin (1988: 127) argues that the findspots of the cuneiform archives at Shurrupak, primarily in large houses on the central and southern rises of the mound, support Diakonov’s assertion that the Early Dynastic economic system consisted of ‘household’ units controlling large numbers of workers (Diakonov 1963).

E. Heinrich and W. Andrae, ed.: Fara, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft in Fara und Abu Hatab 1902/3 (Berlin, 1931); I.M. Diakonov: ‘The commune in the Ancient Near East as treated in the works of Soviet researchers’, Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology 2 (1963), 32–46; H. Martin: Fara: a reconstruction of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Shuruppak

(Birmingham, 1988).

IS

Farafra Oasis (anc. Ta-iht) Fertile depression located in the Egyptian Western Desert, about 300 km west of Asyut. The smallest of the major Egyptian oases, it is first mentioned in texts dating to the Old Kingdom (c.2649–2150 BC), but the earliest known sites are the Roman-period settlements and cemeteries at Ain el-Wadi and Wadi Abu Hinnis (c.30 BC–AD 395) and the remains of an Early Christian town (c.AD 450 BC).

H.J.L. Beadnell: Farafra Oasis (Cairo, 1901); L. Giddy:

Egyptian oases: Bahariya, Dakhla, Farafra and Kharga during pharaonic times (Warminster, 1987).

IS

Far’ah, Tell el- (southern Palestine) see

PHILISTINES

Far’ah, Tell el- (Biblical Tirshah) Settlement site near modern Nablus in northern Palestine, which was occupied from the Pre-pottery Neolithic

period (see ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC) to the 8th

century BC, when the town was destroyed by the Assyrians. The Chalcolithic levels at the site contain sherds of Ghassulian pottery (see

GHASSUL) as well as flint and basalt artefacts.

R. de Vaux: ‘The excavations at Tell el-Farah and the site of the ancient Tirzah’, PEQ (1956), 125–40; J. Mallet:

Tell-el-Far’ah (Paris, 1973).

IS

Faraðin, Tell el- (anc. Pe and Dep, Per-Wadjet, Buto) Cluster of three mounds in the northwestern Delta of Egypt. The site comprises a temple complex and the remains of two towns occupied from late predynastic times until the Roman period (c.3300 BC–AD 395). Textual sources have identified Buto with ‘Pe and Dep’, the semi-mythical predynastic twin-capitals of Lower Egypt, but the

234 FARAðIN, TELL EL-

predynastic strata were not located until the 1980s (von der Way 1992). Von der Way’s excavations appear to have revealed a cultural sequence in which Lower Egyptian predynastic pottery types were gradually being replaced by Upper Egyptian Early Dynastic wares.

W.M.F. Petrie and C.T. Currelly: Ehnasya (Cairo, 1904); M.V. Seton-Williams and D. Charlesworth: Preliminary reports in JEA 51–3, 55 (1965–7, 1969); T. von der Way: ‘Excavations at Tell el-Faraðin/Buto in 1987–1989’, The Nile Delta in transition: 4th–3rd millennium BC, ed. E.C.M. van den Brink (Tel Aviv, 1992), 1–10.

IS

Faras (anc. Pachoras) Site located on the border between modern Egypt and Sudan, which was initially a small Egyptian fortress dating from the Middle Kingdom (c.2040–1640) to the 18th–19th dynasties (c.1550–1196 BC) when five Egyptian temples were built. It continued to function as a religious centre after the departure of the Egyptians, and during the Christian period (c.AD 550–1500) it was one of the most important bishoprics in Nubia, the cathedral and bishop’s palace having survived very well (Michalowski 1962–74). The stratified pottery from the site, as well as the paint-layers and stylistic development of the cathedral murals, have contributed significantly to the development of a chronological framework for Christian Nubia. Polish archaeologists saved 169 painted murals from the cathedral (now in the national museums at Warsaw and Khartoum) before it was flooded by LAKE NASSER.

K. Michaelowski, S. Jakobielski and J. Kubinska: Faras, 4 vols (Warsaw, 1962–74); ––––: Faras: Centre artistique de la Nubie chrétienne (Leiden, 1966); W.Y. Adams: Nubia: corridor to Africa, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1984), 226, 472–84.

IS

Fatyanovo Fatyanovo sites – almost exclusively cemeteries – are spread over vast areas of northeastern Europe, from the Ilmen Lake in the west to the Middle Volga in the east, and are generally viewed as the eastern variant of the CORDED WARE culture. The culture was first identified by A.S. Uvarov, A.A. Spitsyn, and V.A. Gorodtsov in the late 19th–early 20th centuries and was thoroughly investigated by D.A. Krainov from the 1940s onwards (Krainov 1972).

Based on the typology of the distinctive battleaxes and pottery, Krainov distinguished several local variants: Dvina-Ilmen; Moskva-Klyazma; Upper Volga; Oka-Desna and Sura-Sviyaga (or Balanovo group, often regarded as an independent cultural tradition). The cemeteries are usually on

elevated sites, close to river valleys or lakes. The number of flat graves varies from two to ten in the early stage, to perhaps 125 in the later stages. The dead were usually interred in a contracted posture (males laid on their right side, head to the west; females on their left side, head to the east); burial goods included stone, bone and metal implements, ceramics and animal bones.

Shaft-hole axes were usually found near the head in the male graves; in the juvenile graves they were put at the feet. Copper battle-axes, usually in bark cases, were found exclusively in the richer graves. Female graves contained numerous ornaments made of animal bones and teeth and, in rare cases, metal (bracelets, rings, pendants) or amber. The metal objects were manufactured predominantly from the local ore (copper sandstone of the Middle Volga). Pottery consists mainly of beakers and amphorae, ornamented with rows of cord impressions, incised lines and geometric patterns.

The animal bones belonged largely to domestic pig and sheep/goat. The bones of wild animals (e.g. brown bear, reindeer, elk, wild board, roe deer, fox) are less numerous; fish bones and the shells of river molluscs are also present.

Radiocarbon dates obtained from Turginivi cemetery (Moskva-Klyazma) and VolosovoDanilovo cemetery (Upper Volga) suggest a calendar date range of 2300–2000 BC, although settlements with Corded Ware assemblages in the Eastern Baltic (e.g. ŠVENTOJI and USVYATY) have yielded earlier dates of c.2800–2300 BC.

D.A. Krainov: Drevneišaja istorija Volgo-Okskogo mezˇdurecˇja: Fatjanovskaja Kul’tura II tysjacˇ-eletie do n.e.

[The ancient history of the Volga-Oka interfluve: Fatyanovo culture of the 2nd millennium BC] (Moscow, 1972).

PD

Fauresmith Proposed variant of the South African ACHEULEAN, named in 1926 after a town in the Orange Free State, South Africa. The industry is characterized by the small size and refined finish of its handaxes. It seems, however, that it may simply be a raw material variant (lydianite) of the normal Acheulean of the region. A URANIUM SERIES DATING of uncal 200,000 BP at Rooidam indicates a likely date for a ‘Fauresmith’ site.

A.J.B. Humphreys: ‘The role of raw material and the concept of the Fauresmith’, SAAB 25 (1970), 139–44; B.J. Szabo and K.W. Butzer: ‘Uranium-series dating of lacustrine limestones from pan deposits with final Acheulian assemblage at Rooidam, Kimberley District, South Africa’, Quaternary Research 11 (New York, 1979), 257–60.

RI