A Dictionary of Archaeology

Yangtze valley, southern Chiang-su, northern Chechiang, Chiang-hsi (e.g. Wu-ch’eng-ts’un), and throughout much of eastern South China and coastal areas.

Chang Kwang-chih: The archaeology of ancient China, 4th edn (New Haven, 1986), 195.

NB

geophysical survey Technically, any survey designed to investigate the physical structure of the soils and geology of a region or site. In archaeology, a geophysical survey almost always refers to the use of non-invasive surveying techniques such as the

RESISTIVITY SURVEY or MAGNETIC SURVEY.

Gerzean see EGYPT 1; NAQADA

Gezer (Tell el-Jezari) Settlement site in Israel, midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which was occupied continuously from before the Middle Bronze Age (c.2000–1600 BC) until the time of the Crusades. The town of Gezer was well-placed to benefit from the principal commercial routes along the Levantine coast, although its defences – comprising thick fortified walls and glacis – clearly indicate the disadvantages of its strategic location. The excavations of 1902–9 and 1964–73 have revealed nearly 30 major strata containing evidence not only of the local Canaanite population but also of cultural contact with the Egyptians, Philistines and Persians.

R.A.S. Macalister: Excavation of Gezer, 3 vols (London, 1912); W.G. Dever et al.: Gezer, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1970–4).

IS

Ghassul, Teleilat el- Type-site of the Ghassulian culture (c.4500–3400 BC), consisting of a cluster of three small Chalcolithic tell-sites located on the plain to the north of the Dead Sea in Jordan. The site as a whole is characterized by four major phases, the most recent of which (stratum IV) contains evidence of agriculture (including sickle blades and silos), early metalworking (copper artefacts), weaving and pottery, as well as substantial stone-built and mud-brick houses, some decorated with unusual painted wall-plaster bearing geometric and figurative designs. A large cemetery, consisting of CIST burials and micro-dolmens, has been excavated at ‘Adeima, several kilometres to the east, although it is not clear whether this was directly connected with the settlement at Ghassul.

The ‘Ghassulian’ is one of the most distinctive and widespread Chalcolithic assemblages in Palestine. The discovery of similar sites in the

GIS (GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS) 255

Beersheba region has led to the use of the term ‘Beersheba-Ghassul civilization’ to refer to the southern Palestinian Chalcolithic phase, although there are ‘Beersheba’ sites both earlier and later than those of the Ghassulian, and the early stages of the Beersheba culture are characterized by subterranean housing. The rich hoard of copper artefacts found at the Ghassulian cave-site of NAHAL MISHMAR is an indication of the sophistication of metalworking during this phase.

A. Mallon et al.: Teleilat Ghassul I (Rome, 1934); R. Koeppel: ‘Ma’adi und Ghassul’, Biblica 18 (1937), 443–50; ––––: Teleilat Ghassul II (Rome, 1940); J. Perrot; ‘A propos du Ghassoulien’, Syria 29 (1952), 403–5; R. de Vaux: ‘Palestine during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods’, Cambridge Ancient History, eds I.E.S. Edwards et al., 3rd edn (Cambridge, 1970), 499–538 [522–31].

IS

Ghassulian see GHASSUL, TELEILAT EL-

giant’s grave see TOMBA DI GIGANTI

Girsu see TELLOH

GIS (Geographical Information Systems)

Computer technique consisting of a set of tools for the storage, manipulation, retrieval, transformation, display and analysis of geographical, environmental and spatial data (such as site or artefact distribution in the landscape). The basic geographical elements that are dealt with in GIS are the point, the line and the polygon (area). Data in GIS can be organized either in ‘raster format’ (a line being represented by a series of contiguous cells with the same value in a grid) or in ‘vector format’ (a line being represented by a series of points joined together in a reference system).

The raster format is suitable for the storage of continuous data, such as elevation or distance from given points, and discrete data, such as soil types, while the vector format is suitable for the storage of linear data, such as road systems, hydrology, coastlines. Raster-based systems generalize the data into a grid with a loss of precision, but they allow boolean and algebraic operations to be carried out.

Vector-based systems are considerably more precise than raster-based systems in storing the data, but the operations that can be performed on the data are limited. The way the data is organized dictates the type of analysis that can be carried out:

SPATIAL ANALYSIS and MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS

are only possible on raster data (e.g. multiple REGRESSION of site location with regard to elevation, orientation, soil type and distance from

256 GIS (GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS)

water), while network analysis is only possible on vector data (e.g. speed and the best way to reach point A from point B along the local Roman roads).

As each cell in a raster-based system can only contain one number, each variable must be kept in a separate map called an overlay. All overlays with information about one region must be referenced on the same coordinate system and must cover exactly the same area on the ground. Anything that can be quantified on the nominal scale or above can be used as a variable in a GIS overlay. The possibility of combining variables of a different nature facilitates the creation of predictive models. These models work by identifying all of the points in the area under analysis in which the sum of the values of all the variables reaches a certain threshold. By giving different weights to the variables it is possible to determine their relative importance.

Starting from a set of altitude contours or points, a GIS package can interpolate a continuous surface, thus reducing the error due to the gap between two contour lines on a map. An interpolated elevation surface is known as a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) and can be used to calculate the slope and orientation of the area.

P.A. Burrough: Principles of Geographical Information Systems for land resources assessment (Oxford, 1986); K.M. Allen et al.: Interpreting space: GIS and archaeology

(London, 1990); V. Gaffney and Z. Stancˇicˇ: GIS approaches to regional analysis: a case study of the Island of Hvar (Ljubljana, 1991).

FM

Giyan, Tepe see LURISTAN

Giza The Giza plateau, on the very edge of modern Cairo, is the site of one of the royal necropolises of the Old Kingdom, incorporating the Great Pyramid of Khufu (c.2540 BC), as well as the pyramid complexes of his successors Chephren (c.2500 BC) and Mycerinus (c.2480 BC), the Great

Sphinx (see SPHINX) and the MASTABA-TOMBS of

important members of the nobility. In the New Kingdom the Spinx became the focal point of the cult of the sun-god Horemakhet. Although it is one of the most well-known archaeological sites in the world, surveyed and excavated by countless archaeologists from Flinders Petrie to George Reisner, the first systematic survey of the plateau as a whole was not undertaken until the 1980s (Lehner 1985).

W.M.F. Petrie: The pyramids and temples of Gizeh

(London, 1883); H. Junker: Giza, 12 vols (Vienna, 1929–55); G.A. Reisner and W. Stevenson Smith: A history of the Giza necropolis, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1942–55); I.E.S. Edwards: The pyramids of Egypt, 5th edn

(Harmondsworth, 1993); M. Lehner: ‘A contextual approach to the Giza pyramids’, AO 32 (1985), 136–58.

IS

Gla Mycenaean fortress in the northeast of the Copais plain, Greece. With walls stretching for over 2 km, and four gateways including a double-gate, this is one of the most impressively fortified Mycenaean sites, although the walls are not as thick as at the other great Mycenaean fortresses of MYCENAE and Tiryns. Although there is fragmentary evidence of frescoes, and the buildings in the inner enclosure are often referred to as a palace, Gla’s main function may have been as a strategically important stronghold. From the gates, roads once led out across the plain, while around the Lake Copais region there is evidence for a system of Mycenaean dykes that may once have turned extensive areas of marsh into productive farmland.

RJA

Gladysvale Ancient cavern/fissure system containing rich deposits of fossils suggestive of an age of around 2.5 million years BP, lying a few miles east of Johannesburg, South Africa. The site has been the subject of several (unpublished) investigations, but acquired new interest in 1992 with the discovery of two hominid teeth thought to represent AUSTRA-

LOPITHECUS AFRICANUS.

L.R. Berger, A.E. Keyser and P.V. Tobias: ‘Gladysvale: first early hominid site discovered in South Africa since 1948’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 92 (1993), 107–11.

RI

glass weathering layers Layers within the weathered crust of glasses which are produced at an approximately constant rate, but which cannot reliably be used to date the glass.

R.G. Newton: ‘The enigma of the layered crusts on some weathered glasses, a chronological account of the investigations’, Archaeometry 13 (1971), 1–9.

SB

glyphs see HIEROGLYPHS, MESOAMERICAN

Goat’s Hole see PAVILAND

Gobedra Palaeolithic/Neolithic rockshelter near AXUM in the highlands of Tigre, Ethiopia, where excavations have revealed deeply stratified Stone Age remains dating back to c.10,000 BC, including both blade (Clark’s ‘mode 4’, i.e. long parallel-sided blades produced from prismatic cores) and backed microlithic industries. Ceramics and a camel-tooth

were found in the microlithic levels, indicating the earliest Ethiopian evidence for the transition to the Neolithic, c.4500–3000 BC, although the seeds of cultivated finger millet (Eleusine coracana) initially reported by Phillipson (1977) were subsequently radiocarbon-dated and found to be recent intrusions. Later levels at the site contain evidence for domesticated cattle in the 1st millennium

BC.

D.W. Phillipson: ‘The excavation of Gobedra rockshelter, Axum: an early occurrence of cultivated finger millet in Northern Ethiopia’, Azania 12 (1977), 53–82.

IS

Godin Tepe see MEDES

Gogo Falls Rich and complex late Holocene site located on the Kuja river, near to Lake Victoria in south-western Kenya. The three distinct cultural traditions at Gogo Falls were revealed by Peter Robertshaw in the early 1980s. Represented are (1) KANSYORE pottery and lithics, dating probably to the final millennia BC, which are frequently associated with lakes, rivers and their fish resources; (2) ‘pastoral Neolithic’ ELMENTEITAN occupation of around 2000 years ago, previously identified only in higher and more open grasslands to the east; and (3) EARLY IRON AGE remains of the Urewe variety, probably dating to about the 2nd–6th centuries AD.

P.T. Robertshaw: ‘Gogo Falls: a complex site east of Lake Victoria’, Azania 26 (1991), 63–195.

JS

Gombe Point (formerly Kalina Point) Stone Age site at Kinshasa, Zaire, which was first excavated in 1925. The 3–5 metres of silty sand were long thought to contain a sequence of post- ACHEULEAN industries representative of the whole of the southern Zaire Basin. Re-excavation in 1973 and 1974, however, showed that the assemblages were in fact mixed, with numerous conjoins, often separated vertically by more than a metre.

J.R.F. Colette: ‘Complèxes et convergences en préhistoire’, Bulletin de la Société royaume belge d’Anthropologie et de Préhistoire 50 (1935), 49–192; D. Cahen and J. Moeyersons: ‘Subsurface movements of stone artefacts and their implications for the prehistory of central Africa’, Nature, 266 (1977), 812–5.

RI

Go Mun Cultural phase of the Bronze Age in Vietnam, dated to c.1000–600 BC, and thus immediately preceding the rich DONG SON bronze culture of the Red River valley. The type-site is located above the junction of the Red and Black rivers, and was excavated over a ten-year period from 1961.

GRÄCHWIL 257

The range of implements cast in bronze included socketed axeheads, chisels, spear and arrowheads and bracelets. A single sickle has also been recovered, together with a human figure cast with the lost-wax method.

Ha Van Phung and Nguyen Duy Ti: Di Chi Khao Co Hoc Go Mun [The excavation of the archaeological site of Go Mun] (Ha Nôi 1982) [in Vietnamese].

CH

Gondar The most impressive of the surviving post-medieval sites in the northern Ethiopian highlands, located just to the north of Lake Tana. For the first few hundred years after the decline of the Axumite civilization the medieval ‘emperors’ of northern Ethiopia were semi-nomadic, ruling the country from a succession of temporary camps. But from about 1500 onwards a number of more permanent capital cities were established. During the 17th-18th centuries AD, the village of Gondar was transformed into the first capital city of postmedieval Ethiopia, with the earliest ‘castle-palace’ at its centre.

D. Buxton: The Abyssinians (London, 1970), 52–4.

IS

Gondwanaland see OCEANIA

goodness-of-fit In statistical analysis this term is used by archaeologists to describe a measure of how well a DATASET can be represented, or ‘fitted’, by a specified DISTRIBUTION. The null hypothesis (see HYPOTHESIS TESTING) that it does not fit can be tested by a goodness-of-fit test. The most common test, appropriate for discrete DATA, i.e. data that can take only certain specified values, is the chi-squared test; for continuous data the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is preferable. Examination of the ‘residuals’ (the difference between the actual and the fitted values) often yield valuable insights into the problem being studied.

J.E. Doran and F.R. Hodson: Mathematics and computers in archaeology (Edinburgh, 1975), 292–5; S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh, 1988), 65–70; M. Fletcher and G.R. Lock: Digging numbers (Oxford, 1991), 91–102.

CO

Gordion see PHRYGIANS

Grächwil One of a group of Hallstatt tumulii close to the hamlet of Grächwill, near Berne in Switzerland. Roughly excavated in the mid-19th century, the tomb was found to contain, among other bronze objects and pottery, an extraordinary

258 GRÄCHWIL

Greek bronze ‘hydria’ dating from about 570 BC. The vessel, now held in the Musée d’Histoire de Berne, sported a detailed representation of the ‘Mistress of the animals’ – an icon derived from the Near East – with an eagle on her head and surrounded by lions grasping hares. Like the cauldron from VIX in eastern France, the piece is a dramatic manifestation of the trade that grew up between the Mediterranean civilizations and the Hallstatt ‘chieftains’ in the mid-1st millennium BC.

K. Zimmerman: ‘Grächwil’, Trésors des princes celtes, ed. J.-P. Mohen et al., exh. cat. (Paris, 1987), 244–6.

RJA

grammars, generative see STRUCTURALISM

Grand Pressigny flint Distinctive honeycoloured iron-rich flint dug from the valleys of the Claise and Creuse at Grand Pressigny (Indre-et- Loire), France, during the Neolithic. It was used to make daggers, sickles and other fine implements. Some of the daggers are over 10 cm in length, carefully pressure-flaked along the cutting edge, and were probably prestige rather than functional objects. Although there have been claims of Grand Pressigny flint in middle Neolithic contexts, it is really a late Neolithic material, and is often the only exotic material found in allées couvertes of the late Neolithic SOM CULTURE of the Paris basin. It is also found in the Midi and in Switzerland in the same period (the 3rd millennium BC).

RJA

Gran Pajatén Site in Amazonian Peru dating to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 900–1438) and the Late Horizon (AD 1438–Conquest). Also known as Abiseo, this is perhaps the largest and most elaborate site in the montaña (the precipitous forest on the eastern side of the Andes). It has been the focus of numerous ‘discoveries’ by explorers, travellers, and other passers-by. It consists of a number of large circular masonry buildings, some with mosaics depicting humans or birds, on platforms.

D. Bonavia: Las ruinas de Abiseo: informe presentado al Museo Nacional de Antropología y Arqueología de Lima (Lima, 1968); G.A. Savoy: The search for the lost cities of the Amazon (New York, 1970); T. Lennon: ‘Investigaciones arqueológicals en el Parque Nacional Río Abiseo, San Martín’, BL 62 (1989), 43–56.

KB

Grasshopper Pueblo Pueblo of 500 rooms on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, eastcentral Arizona, which was occupied by people of the MOGOLLON culture from AD 1275 to 1400. The

site made a significant contribution to the develop-

ment of BEHAVIORAL ARCHAEOLOGY during its

excavation as part of the University of Arizona Field School between 1963 and 1992.

There was a small population at Grasshopper during the Great Drought (AD 1276–1299), but it grew exponentially during the ensuing period of high rainfall (1300–1330), through the aggregation of local inhabitants and immigration from as far away as the Colorado Plateau. The extent of the immigration has been deduced from compositional analysis of ceramics and TRACE-ELEMENT analysis of tooth enamel. The abandonment of the pueblo was gradual, perhaps beginning as early as 1325, with movement to satellite communities during a time of reduced rainfall ending in 1355. The latest tree-ring date of AD 1373 accords with an estimated abandonment of the pueblo and surrounding region by 1400.

The long-term mountain Mogollon subsistence strategy of hunting (mule deer, turkey, rabbit and squirrel), gathering (pinyon, acorn, walnut, agave and cactus) and gardening (maize, beans and squash) shifted rapidly with the population increase of the early 1300s to a total reliance on maize agriculture. Community organization comprised individual households, groups of households sharing religious rooms, and four male societies, which provided community leaders. At least two ethnic groups – Mogollon and Anasazi – lived together at Grasshopper in apparent harmony.

Behavioral archaeology and the ‘complexity debate’. The research at Grasshopper was initially guided by the questions and aims of the

approach to archaeology, but in 1966 it began to be influenced significantly by

OLOGY. By the mid-1970s it was clear that a research programme based on processual archaeology lacked the necessary conceptual tools to unite explanatory goals with the realities of prehistoric remains. Eventually processual theorists were to fill this void with MIDDLE RANGE THEORY, but in the interim behavioral archaeology emerged to provide a comprehensive approach to the archaeological record. Behavioral archaeology is best-known from Michael Schiffer’s work on

PROCESSES. This research focus aimed to provide a sharp scientific edge and a strong POSITIVIST character to the understanding of the formation of the archaeological record, the first step in a sequence of research objectives that include the reconstruction and explanation of human behaviour (where, when, what and why). The programme provides a conceptual framework and procedures for generating authentic, verifiable reconstructions of

past behaviour that can form the basis of explanatory models.

During the early 1980s, a debate emerged between the two groups of researchers studying 14th century pueblo ruins at Grasshopper and Chavez Pass respectively. These two sites are situated only about 75 km apart, in the mountains of east-central Arizona. Chavez Pass is interpreted as representing a level of social complexity bordering on statehood and characterized by stratification, social inequality and coercive decision making by an elite class managing the trade and allocation of scarce commodities. Grasshopper, on the other hand, is considered to be similar to a generalized ethnographic model of Western Pueblo organization, structured by kinship, ritual and non-kin-based societies (sodalities). The Grasshopper research, beginning with a thorough consideration of formation processes, proved able to provide credible accounts of variability in the archaeological record in terms of human behaviour rather than extraneous natural or cultural processes.

J.J. Reid, M.B. Schiffer and W.L. Rathje: ‘Behavioural archaeology: four strategies’, American Anthropologist 77 (1975), 864–9; M.B. Schiffer: Behavioral archaeology (New York, 1976); W.A. Longacre, S.J. Holbrook and M.W. Graves: Multidisciplinary research at Grasshopper Pueblo (Tucson, 1982); M.B. Schiffer: Formation processes of the archaeological record (Albuquerque, 1987); J.J. Reid: ‘A Grasshopper Perspective on the Mogollon of the Arizona Mountains’, Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory, ed. L.S. Cordell and G.J. Gumerman (Washington D.C., 1989), 65–97; G. Brown, ed.: Technological change in the Chavez Pass region, north-central Arizona (Tempe, 1990).

JJR

Gravettian (Upper Périgordian) Upper Palaeolithic industry dating from perhaps 26,000 BC or earlier to around 19,000 BC, traditionally regarded as successive to the AURIGNACIAN, the first industry of the Upper Palaeolithic – although it is now known to be interstratified or mixed with the Aurignacian at a number of sites and must therefore be to some extent contemporary with the later Aurignacian. The Gravettian lithic industry is characterised by backed blades, end scapers and distinctive points, including shouldered points; it has various regional expressions, some of which include Noailles burins. The ‘eastern Gravettian’ is the expression of the industry in Central Europe at very rich sites such as Pavlov and Dolní Veˇ stonice and in Russia at sites such as SUNGHIR and KOSTENKIBORSHEVO, and is characterized by some distinctive tool types such as Kostenki-type shouldered points. The eastern Gravettian is associated with some of the finest figurines and ornaments known from the

GREAT ZIMBABWE 259

earlier Upper Palaeolithic, notably the eastern Gravettian of the later layers at Willendorf which yielded the famous figurine from that site (see VENUS FIGURINES), the baked clay figurines of Dolní Veˇ stonice and the many art objects found at Kostenki; there are also relatively elaborate burials

(see SUNGHIR).

RJA

Great Langdale Neolithic quarry and ‘axe factory’ in the Lake District of England. Since the site’s discovery by Brian Bunch in 1947, numerous subsidiary quarry, scree exploitation and working floor areas have been identified in the vicinity of Langdale and nearby Scafell Pike. Finished axes made from the fine-grained Langdale tuffs seem to have been manufactured over a considerable period, from the Early Neolithic to the Beaker period.

Great Langdale axe distribution Great Langdale is the most prolific stone-source for axes in Britain. The handaxes (categorized at a national level as Group VI) were roughed out at the site itself; their distribution is concentrated in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and to a lesser extent in the Midlands and in eastern and southern Britain. It has been suggested that as Langdale axes cluster around Humberside, the Humberside area might be a distributional centre to which the axes were transported in bulk – which would imply directional trade. However, the concentrations can be accounted for more simply by village-to-village reciprocal exchange, and this seems to have been confirmed by Chappell’s detailed analysis of spatial patterning and morphological variability.

B. Bunch and C. Fell: ‘A stone-axe factory at Pike of Stickle, Great Langdale, Westmorland’, PPS 15 (1949), 1–20; S. Chappell: Stone axe morphology and distribution in Neolithic Britain, BAR BS 177; 2 vols (Oxford, 1987); P. Claris and J. Quartermaine: ‘The Neolithic quarries and axe-factory sites of Great Langdale and Scafell Pike: a new field survey’, PPS 55 (1989), 1–25.

RJA

Great Wall of China (wan-li-ch’eng) see

HSIUNG-NU

Great Zimbabwe Large stone-walled complex which has given its name to Zimbabwe, the Central African country in which it is located. Many scholars used to believe that the PHOENICIANS or SABAEANS built the town, but archaeologists have shown that it is the product of a Shona-speaking society. Period Ia at Great Zimbabwe is now well-dated as a 5th-century AD occupation by agropastoralists (with BAMBATA or Gokomere pottery)

260 GREAT ZIMBABWE

several metres below the first stone walls. Period Ib is an 8th century Zhizo occupation. Period II (AD 1150–1220) encompasses the first occupation by proto-Shona people with Gumanye pottery; the deposit is still several metres below the stone walling. Great Zimbabwe could not, therefore, have been built before the 13th century AD, eliminating completely any question of construction by ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Sabaeans and Pre-Muslim Arabs.

During Period III (AD 1220–1275), MAPUNGUBWE to the south became important, and Gumanye pottery incorporated some Mapungubwe elements. Period IV (AD 1275–1420/50) brackets the rise and florescence of Great Zimbabwe: Period IVa (AD 1275–1300) is a transitional stage in the ceramic sequence (Keith Robinson’s ‘Class 3 influenced by Class 4’) and marks the first stone walling, large population and control over long-distance trade. Period IVb (AD 1300–1450) encompasses characteristic Zimbabwe pottery and the main occupation, while IVc (AD 1450–1550) covers a small occupation in the lower valley, after the town had been largely abandoned.

Archaeologists use three types of free-standing stone walls at Great Zimbabwe (defined by Anthony Whitty) to date individual buildings or features. P-coursing (uneven granite blocks laid in uneven and short courses) dates from AD 1275 to about 1350, and Q-coursing (regular blocks laid in even and long courses with a systematic batter) dates from its evolution in the Great Enclosure at about 1350 to the end of Great Zimbabwe. Terrace walls with P- and Q-coursing encircle the north and west sides of the central hill.

Whitty placed his third type, R-coursing (poorly fitted, irregular stones wedged together into a rough vertical face), at the end of his P/Q sequence, but subsequent research shows that R-coursing was in use at the same time as both P- and Q-coursing. Generally, Zimbabwe builders used P- and Q-coursing for important structures, such as the Hill Ruin and the Great Enclosure, while R-- coursing was employed for perimeter walls and outlying structures.

The distribution of ruins with similar architecture demarcates the Zimbabwe culture area. Some 300 of these dzimbahwe are known in present-day Zimbabwe, eastern Botswana, northern Transvaal and Mozambique. Archaeologists divide these settlements into two phases: Zimbabwe (AD 1275–1450) and Khami (AD 1450–1830). Portuguese records and Shona tradition show that the principal social dynamic of the Zimbabwe culture was class distinction and sacred leadership.

To function, each dzimbahwe had to have five components: a raised palace at the back (the Hill Ruin at Great Zimbabwe), providing ritual seclusion for the sacred leader; a place for followers in front (highdensity housing units around the bottom of the Hill Ruin); a public court for equal justice; an area for royal wives, who were indispensable to political alliances (Lower Valley enclosures); and a circle of soldiers and medicine to guard against physical and magical danger. According to a more controversial interpretation, some dzimbahwe also contained special enclosures (like the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe) that appear to have been schools for large-scale initiations. Commoner homesteads in rural areas followed the ‘CENTRAL CATTLE PATTERN’ (see VUMBA). The elite Zimbabwe spatial pattern, generated by class distinction and sacred leadership, evolved at K2 and Mapungubwe, as the Shona society there was transformed by the tremendous wealth from the East Coast gold and ivory

trade (see SWAHILI HARBOUR-TOWNS). Dzimbahwe

and their leaders were ranked in a political hierarchy that archaeologists can reconstruct by comparing settlement sizes. During the Zimbabwe phase, Great Zimbabwe was the largest, sheltering an estimated 18,000 people. As the supreme capital, it controlled a vast network of trade and tribute involving metals, cattle, grain and other items. It was probably abandoned because control over the hinterland collapsed, rather than because of ecological degradation. Several small chiefdoms were established at this time south of the Limpopo River and north into Mashanoland. The historically known Torwa dynasty based at Khami near present-day Bulawayo was the principal successor.

R.N. Hall: Great Zimbabwe (London, 1905); D.R. MacIver: Mediaeval Rhodesia (London, 1906); G. CatonThompson: The Zimbabwe culture: ruins and reactions

(Oxford, 1931); R. Summers, K.R. Robinson and A. Whitty: ‘Zimbabwe excavations, 1958’, Occasional Papers National Museums of Southern Rhodesia 3/23A (1961), 157–332; P.S. Garlake: Great Zimbabwe (London, 1973); C.K. Brain: ‘Human food remains from the Iron Age of Zimbabwe’, SAJS 70 (1974), 303–9; C. Thorp: Faunal remains as evidence of social stratification at Great Zimbabwe, MA thesis (Johannesburg, 1984); T.N. Huffman: ‘Iron Age settlement patterns and the origins of class distinction in southern Africa’, AWA 5 (1986), 291–338; T.N. Huffman and J.O. Vogel: ‘The chronology of Great Zimbabwe’, SAAB 46 (1991), 61–70.

TH

Grimaldi Group of caves and rockshelters on the north Italian coast near Ventimiglia, near the French frontier, notable for its Upper Palaeolithic evidence. The industries, which prehistorians

variously relate to the Gravettian or the Noillian/ Perigordian V, are sometimes termed ‘Grimaldian’. They are associated with a series of Upper Palaeolithic burials, the earliest of which exhibit a prognathism that may suggest a part-Neanderthal ancestry. Grimaldi is the source of a series of important, mainly steatite, Upper Palaeolithic figurines retrieved in mysterious circumstances in the late 19th century. Most of the figurines are featureless with bulbous breasts and buttocks; the legs of the more complete examples join to form a point which may have been used to plant the figurines in the ground. One detached and finely detailed head has a hairstyle marked by incisions. Many of the figurines, which may relate to the ‘Gravettian’ levels, are now known only through brief descriptions or poor illustrations.

D. Collins: ‘The Palaeolithic of Italy in its European context’, Italian Archaeology I, BAR S41 (Oxford), 61; H. Delporte: L’image de la femme dans l’art préhistorique

(Paris, 1979), 96–109, 315.

RJA

Grimes Graves Late Neolithic flint mining complex in Norfolk, England, dating in its principal phase from about 2100 BC. The site, which consists of perhaps 500 galleried shafts, represents one of the most developed early extractive industries in Britain. The main phase of mining is strongly associated with Grooved Ware pottery and seems to have come to an end in the first part of the 2nd millennium BC. The shafts were sunk to exploit a particularly fine seam of black flint that occurs at a depth of around 12 m. Around 90 antler picks used by the miners were recovered from a shaft with two galleries excavated by Roger Mercer in 1971, and it is estimated that this shaft alone would have yielded eight tons of flint.

R.J. Mercer: Grimes Graves, Norfolk 1971–72 (London, 1981), 2 vols; Ian Longworth et al.: ‘Excavations at Grimes Graves, Norfolk 1972–1976’, Fascicule 2: ‘The Neolithic, Bronze Age and Later Pottery’ (London, 1988).

RJA

Grooved Ware (Rinyo-Clacton) Characterized by profuse grooved ornament in repeated geometric patterns, this fine pottery was produced in Britain during the 3rd millennium BC. The shape of the vessels is also distinctive, being either splay-sided bowls or flat-bottomed bucket, barrel and flowerpot forms; it is thus possible to identify the occasional undecorated ‘Grooved Ware’ vessels. Grooved Ware was first identified at Rinyo in Orkney and Clacton in Essex, and although it is no longer referred to as the Rinyo-Clacton style, this earlier

GUMELNIT¸A 261

name emphasizes the wide but patchy distribution of the type across the British Isles and Ireland; in fact, it forms an important part of pottery assemblages in Orkney, Wessex, Yorkshire and Essex. In these regions, Grooved Ware has been recorded at most types of site: domestic (Skara Brae), funerary (Boyne Valley tombs) and ceremonial (the henges of Wessex). However, its representation within assemblages can be idiosyncratic: it is very rare at the great henge of Avebury, but abundant at nearby Marden. The traditional ‘first option’ in the explanation of a distinctive form of pottery – that it represents the expression of a definable cultural entity – is precluded in the case of Grooved Ware by the geographically sporadic distribution. Instead, Bradley (1984) has suggested that Grooved Ware was adopted asynchronously, as a part of a system of ‘prestige items’, in those regions of Britain that show evidence of relative economic dynamism and social complexity. As the ware seems to occur earliest in the north of Britain, this may be its area of origin, although there are no obvious ceramic precedents for its form or decorative style; it has also often been remarked that certain motifs that occur occasionally on Grooved Ware vessels, such as spirals, seem to be derived from the megalithic art found in the Boyne Valley tombs (and on associated maceheads etc.), which is also present in the Orkney tombs and villages.

G. Wainwright and I. Longworth: Durrington Walls: excavations 1966–1968 (London, 1971), 234–306; R. Bradley: The social foundations of prehistoric Britain

(London, 1984), 46–67; G. Wainwright: The henge monuments (London, 1989), 32–41; A. Gibson and A. Woods:

Prehistoric pottery for the archaeologist (Leicester, 1990), 64–6, 173–6.

RJA

Guanghan see KUANG-HAN

Gumban see PASTORAL NEOLITHIC

Gumelnit¸a (Gumelnitsa) Chalcolithic culture spread across areas of Romania, Bulgaria, southern Moldova and southwestern Ukraine (Odessa district), identified by V. Dumitrescu (1924). Gumlenit¸a sites, usually unfortified tells, are located on river terraces (e.g. the Danube and Prut) and on the shores of fresh-water lakes. Their economy was based on agriculture and stockbreeding; domestic cattle, sheep/goat, pig and horse, in that order of importance, make up about 90% of the faunal assemblage. Crops included einkorn, emmer and spelt wheats; hulled and naked barley; and millet. Remains of two-storeyed

262 GUMELNITA

dwellings, 13 to 7 m in size, have been found at the site of Ozyornoe in the Danube-Dniestr interfluve. Three ritual burials have been identified at the site of Bolgrad in the same area, comprised of two burials of skulls, and a burial of a child in a contracted posture on a stone pavement with a polished beaker at its feet. The radiocarbon dates suggest a calendar date of around 4700–4200BC.

V. Dumitrescu: ‘Découvertes de Gumelnit¸a’, Dacia, n.s. (1924/1), 407–23; S.N. Bibikov: ‘Pam-jatki kul’turi Gumel’nitsja n territorii URSR’ [Gumelnit¸a sites in the territory of the Ukrainian SRS], Arheologija Ukrains’koi RSR [Archaeology of the Ukrainian SSR], ed. D. Ya. Telegin (Kiev, 1971), 210–13; E. Comsa: ‘Querques remarques sur l’évolution de la culture Gumelnit¸a’, Balcanica VII (Beograd, 1976), 14–43; L.V. Subbotin: ‘O sinhronizacii pamjatnikov kul’tury Gumelnica n nizˇ nem Poduvav’je’ [On the synchronization of the Gumelnit¸a sites in the Lower Danube area], Arheologicˇeski issledovanija Severo-Zapadnogo Procˇernomor’ja [Archaeological investigations in the Northwestern Pontic area] (Kiev, 1978), 29-40.

PD

Gundestrup cauldron Partly gilded silver vessel composed of a simple basin and side-wall plaques decorated in repoussé in Animal Style, found disassembled in the Gundestrup peat bog in Jutland, Denmark in Jutland in 1891. The superb workmanship is paralleled in Thracian work from the 4th century BC on, and the most recent analysis of its origins suggests that it may be a southeast European work of the 2nd century BC – possibly carried north as war booty – although Gaul c.100 BC–AD 200 has also been suggested. Certain parts of the complex iconography (particularly an antlered god or shaman figure) seem to be Celticinfluenced; others derive from Greek and even Indian mythology.

A. Berquist and T. Taylor: ‘The origin of the Gundestrup Cauldron’, Antiquity 61 (1987), 10–24.

RJA

Guran, Tepe see LURISTAN

Gurob (Medinet el-Ghurob; anc. Mi-wer) Egyptian site at the southeastern end of the Faiyum region, which was excavated between 1888 and 1920. The principal settlement at Gurob is identified with the textually-attested town of Miwer, which was established by Thutmose III (c.1479–1425 BC) as a royal ‘harim’, and appears to have flourished in the reign of Amenhotep III (c.1391–1353 BC). Kemp (1978) has synthesized the results of the various excavations to gain an impression of the New Kingdom harim-town which

must have superseded an early 18th-dynasty village.

W.M.F. Petrie: Kahun, Gurob and Hawara (London, 1890); ––––: Illahun, Kahun and Gurob (London, 1891); W.L.S. Loat: Gurob (London, 1905); G. Brunton and R. Engelbach: Gurob (London, 1927); B.J. Kemp: ‘The harim-palace at Medinet el-Ghurab’, ZÄS 15 (1978), 122–33; A.P. Thomas: Gurob: a New Kingdom town, 2 vols (Warminster, 1981).

IS

Gutians Ancient Near Eastern people of the late 3rd millennium BC whose origins were perhaps in the northern ZAGROS region of Mesopotamia. Along with the AMORITES and ELAMITES, the Gutians appear to have made a significant contribution to the decline of the AKKADIAN dynasty in the mid-22nd century BC, and texts from Hammurapi’s reign indicate that they also troubled the emerging First Dynasty of Babylon in the early 19th century BC. The king-lists suggest that there was a single Gutian dynasty consisting of 21 rulers and lasting for approximately 80 years (c.2200–2120 BC), but there is little evidence – whether archaeological or textual – to suggest that the Gutians made any enduring cultural impact on Mesopotamia.

J. Gadd: ‘The dynasty of Agade and the Gutian invasion’, Cambridge Ancient History I/2, ed. I.E.S. Edwards et al., 3rd edn (Cambridge, 1971), 417–63 [457–63]; W.W. Hallo: ‘Gutium’, Reallexikon der Assyriologie 3 (1971), 708–20.

IS

Guzana see TELL HALAF

Gwisho Group of mounds located on the south flank of the Kafue River, 80 miles southwest of Lusaka, Zambia, where a set of hot springs lie along the margin of the wooded uplands and the grassy lowlands of the Kafue valley bottom. Three hotspring mounds have been excavated, revealing intermittent occupation over a period of 400 years, from around uncal 4,700 BP onwards. The excellent preservation of plant and animal remains provides a vivid picture of material culture and diet. The material includes both winter and summer indicators and the sites were evidently used at all seasons for the exploitation of both adjacent ecozones. Thirty-five burials indicate a population described as ‘Large Khoisan’.

C. Gabel: Stone Age hunters of the Kafue: the Gwisho A site

(Boston, 1965); B.M. Fagan and F.L. van Noten: The hunter-gatherers of Gwisho (Tervuren, 1971).

RI

Habuba Kebira (including Tell Qannas) Site of an important settlement of the late URUK period (c.3300–3100 BC), located on the right bank of the Euphrates in northern Syria. Excavated during the 1970s by Dietrich Sürenhagen and Eva Strommenger, Habuba is one of the best surviving examples of town planning from the 4th millennium BC. The 18-hectare city was surrounded on three sides by a huge mud-brick buttressed wall, while its eastern side was protected by the river. There are two fortified gateways in the western wall, and at the southern end of the city is an acropolis (Tell Qannas) surmounted by a series of temples. The settlement is divided in two along its north-south axis by a wide potsherd-paved road, and the southern side (still unexcavated) incorporates a harbour area. Harvey Weiss (1985: 81–2) suggests that colonies in Syria, such as Habuba and the nearby Jebel Aruda, were established in order to supply the cities of the Mesopotamian heartland with certain commodities unavailable in the south, such as mineral resources or animal skins.

E. Strommenger: Habuba Kabira: ein Stadt vor 5000 Jahren (Mainz, 1980); H. Weiss: ‘Protohistoric Syria and the origins of cities and civilization’, Ebla to Damascus: art and archaeology of ancient Syria, ed. H. Weiss (Seattle, 1985) 77–83; G. Algaze: The Uruk world system (Chicago, 1993).

IS

Habur see KHABUR

Haçilar Southwestern Anatolian Neolithic settlement, the earliest strata of which contain ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC architectural remains dating to at least as early as the 7th millennium BC. The surviving evidence of flora and fauna indicates that the inhabitants relied on a combination of hunting and farming. Little artefactual material has survived in these deposits; James Mellaart (1970: 309) suggests that more objects would have been left on the floors if the early Neolithic settlement had been destroyed abruptly by fire rather than gradually abandoned. The next major phase, the ‘Late

Neolithic’ (levels IX–VI), has been radiocarbondated to c.5750–5600 BC (Mellaart 1970: 313), and the material culture indicates a move away from the earlier subsistence base to a purely agricultural diet. The final phase, the early Chalcolithic (c.5600–4700 BC), includes a totally excavated fortified village (levels I–II) which is larger than the similar fortress constructed at Mersin almost a millennium later. The Haçilar fortress is a typical example of a Western Asiatic Chalcolithic settlement, with its two-storey mud-brick houses, potters’ workshops and communal well. The Chalcolithic sequence at Haçilar ends in a conflagration which seems to have destroyed the entire village.

Preliminary excavation reports by James Mellaart in AS 8–11 (1958–61); ––––: Excavations at Haçilar, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1970).

IS

Hadar Early hominid site in the Afar depression of northeastern Ethiopia, about 300 km north of Addis Ababa. Numerous postcranial Australopithecine remains, dating to about 3.5 million years ago, were discovered at Hadar, including almost half of an Australopithecus africanus (or afarensis) skeleton, nicknamed ‘Lucy’ (Johanson and Edey 1981). Acheulean tools were found in the upper layers, while flaked-cobble artefacts were found at levels dated to about 2.6 million years ago (Roche and Tiercelin 1980), too late to have been associated with the Australopithecine remains. As at OMO, the site has been dated by PALAEOMAGNETISM and

POTASSIUM ARGON DATING, as well as by the study

of several thousand fossilized bones of mammals found throughout Pliocene and Pleistocene levels (White et al. 1984).

D.C. Johanson and M. Taieb: ‘Plio-Pleistocene hominid discoveries in Hadar, Ethiopia’, Nature 260 (1976), 293–7; H. Roche and J.J. Tiercelin: ‘Industries lithiques de la formation plio-pleistocène d’Hadar, Ethiope’, Proceedings, 8th Panafrican Congress of Prehistory, ed. R.E. Leakey and B.A. Ogot (Nairobi, 1980), 194–9; D.C. Johanson and M.A. Edey: Lucy: the beginnings of humankind (London, 1981); T.D. White et al.: ‘Hadar biostratigraphy and

264 HADAR

hominid evolution’, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 4 (1984), 575–83.

IS

el-Hadr see HATRA

Hafit see ARABIA; PRE-ISLAMIC

Haft Tepe see ELAM

Hafun (Opone) Site of an early maritime trading settlement on the coast of Somalia, at the easternmost point of the African continent. Investigations by the British Institute in Eastern Africa have revealed two principal periods of activity at Hafun: the 1st century BC and the 3rd–5th centuries AD. Ras Hafun appears to have served as a stopping point for ships plying between the Red Sea and India, and also as a link for the trade of Azania (East Africa) as far as the port of RHAPTA. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek document of the 1st century AD, refers to Hafun as Opone.

H.N. Chittick: ‘An archaeological reconnaissance in the Horn: the British-Somali expedition 1975’, Azania 11 (1976), 117–33; M.C. Smith and H.T. Wright: ‘The ceramics from Ras Hafun in Somalia: notes on a classical maritime site’, Azania 23 (1988), 115–46.

JS

Hajar bin Humeid see ARABIA, PRE-ISLAMIC

Hajji Muhammed see UBAID

Halaf, Tell (anc. Guzana) Type-site of the Halaf period of protohistoric northern and eastern Mesopotamia (c.5500–4500 BC) which was roughly contemporary with the early UBAID culture in southern Mesopotamia. Tell Halaf, a large settlement mound situated by the Khabur river on the border between Turkey and Syria, was excavated by Baron Max Freiherr von Oppenheim in 1899–1929. He concentrated mainly on the remains of the ARAMAEAN town of Guzana, dating to the 1st millennium BC, although his excavations below the floor-level of the palace revealed earlier strata of exquisite hand-made, black and red painted pottery. It was not until the excavation of Halaf–period strata at other sites, such as NINEVEH and TELL ARPACHIYAH, that this ‘Halaf ware’ was recognized as one of the essential characteristics of material culture in Mesopotamia overlapping with the SAMARRA and UBAID periods. The Halaf phase was, as a matter of geographical necessity, characterized by a ‘dry farming’ subsistence pattern (i.e. based on rainfall rather than irrigation) and

settlements consisting of a mixture of rectilinear architecture and small mud-brick beehive-shaped huts or storerooms (known as tholoi by analogy with the Mycenaean tomb-type), rather than the large multi-roomed houses of the preceding HASSUNA and Samarra cultures. Typical Halaf artefacts included flint and obsidian tools, female terracotta figurines, and amulets in the form of gabled houses or double-axes, but it was the pottery, fired in twochamber kilns, that was the most distinctive (and widely traded) aspect of the assemblage. More recently excavated Halaf-period strata at YARIM TEPE and various sites in the Hamrin basin (Watson 1983) have helped to refine the perception of the Halaf culture.

M.F. von Oppenheim: Tell Halaf: A new culture in oldest Mesopotamia (London, 1933); H. Schmidt: Tell Halaf I: Die prähistorischen Funde (Berlin, 1943); D. Frankel:

Archaeologists at work: studies on Halaf pottery (Worcester, 1979); T.E. Davidson and H. McKerrell: ‘The neutron activation analysis of Halaf and Ubaid pottery from Tell Arpachiyah and Tepe Gawra’, Iraq 42 (1980), 155–67; P.J. Watson: ‘The Halafian culture: a review and synthesis’, The hilly flanks and beyond, ed. T.C. Young et al. (Chicago,

Hawaiian Islands, Halawa is a broad deep valley with a permanent stream, and is one of a number of Hawaiian valleys to be surveyed archaeologically (Kirch 1984). Permanent settlement was established around 1400 BP, when it was restricted to the mouth of the valley. From 650 BP there was a major extension of settlement into the interior of the valley, and rectangular buildings were erected on stone-faced terraces; agricultural terraces were also built at this time, as well as irrigation systems. These were considerably extended from 300 BP onwards, as was the amount of public architecture in the valley, demonstrating the links between the intensification of agriculture and the intensification of social interactions.

P.V. Kirch and M. Kelly, eds: Prehistory and human ecology in a windward Hawaiian valley: Halawa valley, Moloka’i (Honolulu, 1975); P.V. Kirch: The evolution of Polynesian chiefdoms (Cambridge, 1984), 243–63.

CG

Halfan Late Palaeolithic industry in Sudan and Egypt, characterized primarily by the lithic assemblages found at hunting and fishing encampments along a 360 km stretch of the Nile Valley, from the