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A Dictionary of Archaeology

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MAGNETIC DATING
LOWLAND MAYA

of conceptualization (tool design, hunting strategy, perhaps shelter construction, burial of the dead). Increasingly, however, the distinction between the Middle and Lower Palaeolithic is not thought to be very clear or useful, and archaeologists have begun to refer instead to an Early Palaeolithic (i.e. Lower and Middle Palaeolithic combined).

In most accounts, a sharp distinction is still drawn between this Early Palaeolithic and the Later or UPPER PALAEOLITHIC – a period in which a much wider range of cultural artefacts, including complex CAVE ART, began to be produced. This exponential growth in human culture, and the emergence and proliferation of distinct cultural assemblages expressed through tools and other cultural artefacts, has been linked by some scholars to the final and most significant step in the evolution of the human mind (Mithen 1996).

C. Gamble: The Palaeolithic settlement of Europe

(Cambridge, 1986); P. Allsworth-Jones: The Szeletian and the transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe (Oxford, 1986); J.K. Kozłowski: ‘The transition from the Middle to the early Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe and the Balkans’, The early Upper Palaeolithic, ed. J.F. Hoffecker and C.A. Wolf, BAR IS 437 (Oxford, 1988), 193–237; P. Mellars and C. Stringer, eds: The human revolution (Edinburgh, 1989); E. Trinkhaus, ed.:

The emergence of modern humans (Cambridge, 1989); N. Barton et al., eds: The Late Glacial in North-west Europe: human adaption and environmental change at the end of the Pleistocene (London, 1992); T. Akazawa et al., eds: The evolution and dispersal of modern humans in Asia

(Tokyo, 1992); H.L. Dibble and P. Mellars: The middle Palaeolithic: adaption, behaviour and variability (Philadelphia, 1992); C. Gamble: Timewalkers: the prehistory of global colonisation (Stroud, 1993); K.R. Gibson and T. Ingold: Tools, language and cognition in human evolution

(Cambridge, 1993); B. Hayden: ‘The cultural capacities of Neanderthals: a review and re-evaluation’, Journal of Human Evolution 24 (1993), 113–46; C. Stringer and C. Gamble: In search of the Neanderthals (London, 1993); H. Knecht et al., eds: Before Lascaux: the complex record of the early Upper Palaeolithic (Boca Raton, 1993); M.H. Nitecki and C.V. Nitecki: Origins of anatomically modern humans (New York, 1994); S. Kuhn: Mousterian lithic technology

(Princeton, 1995); S. Mithen: The prehistory of the mind: a search for the origins of art, religion and science (London, 1996).

RJA

palaeomagnetic dating Scientific dating technique based on changes in the intensity and direction of the earth’s magnetic field with time; changes that are recorded in a range of materials (e.g. lava flows, lake sediments etc.). The physical principles of palaeomagnetic dating and ARCHAEO-

are the same: the difference lies

PALENQUE 455

only in the types of material studied and time scale of application. Key areas of interaction are the establishment of regional reference curves of directional measurements versus time and the global applicability of polarity changes resulting from a reversal in the main dipole of the earth’s magnetic field.

In periods of normal polarity, a compass needle points northwards; in periods of reversed polarity it points southwards. The major ‘recent’ periods, or ‘chrons’, are Brunhes (normal polarity, from the present back to about 0.78 million years), Matuyama (reversed polarity, 0.78 to 2.48 million years) and Gauss (normal polarity, 2.48 to 3.40 million years). Within these phases are shorter ‘subchrons’: Blake (reversed, 104–7 thousand years), Jaramillo (normal 0.90–0.97 million years), Olduvai (normal, 1.67–1.87 million years, (normal, 2.01–2.04 million years) and Réunion II (normal 2.12–2.14 million years). All of these chrons and subchrons are global events, in contrast to localized polarity reversals such as LaschampOlby (30–45,000 years). The time-scale for the boundaries between these is largely based on POTASSIUM-ARGON dating of volcanic minerals which record the field direction on cooling.

D.H. Tarling: Palaeomagnetism (London and New York, 1983); F.C. Bassinot et al.: ‘The astronomical theory of climate change and the age of the Brunhes-Matuyama magnetic reversal’, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 126 (1994), 91–108.

SB

palaeosols Type of buried or fossil soil which can yield chronological and palaeoenvironmental information. The study of the formation and nature of palaeosols is known as palaeopedology.

Palenque site of the Classic period (c.AD 300–900) in Chiapas, Mexico, known for its beautiful buildings and sculpture. Dynastic histories and portraits of rulers were carved on stone panels on temples and palaces, rather than on stelae as elsewhere in the lowlands. The tomb of the ruler Pacal, who died in AD 683, underlies the Temple of the Inscriptions and is entered through a stairway that descends through the centre of the pyramid construction, a rare feature in Maya construction.

M.G. Robertson: The sculpture of Palenque I: The Temple of the Inscriptions (Princeton, 1983); L. Schele: ‘Architectural development and political history of Palenque’. City-states of the Maya: art and architecture, ed. E.P. Benson (Denver, 1986) 110–38.

PRI

456 PALEO-ARCTIC TRADITION

Paleo-Arctic tradition Lithic tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupation of the North American Arctic, between 8000 and 5000 BC. The culture is only known from lithic artefacts, especially microblades and small bifaces, and the most diagnostic artefacts are wedge-shaped microcores. The sites with evidence of the tradition, such as ONION PORTAGE, are found in Alaska; they are all terrestrial (as opposed to marine) sites, but this may simply be a result of rising sea levels drowning the coastal sites. There is presently little evidence to link the Paleo-Arctic tradition to later occupations in the Arctic, although it seems possible that manifestations in southwestern Alaska, especially the KODIAK TRADITION, may be derived from the Paleo-Arctic tradition.

D.E. Dumond: The Eskimos and Aleuts (London, 1987).

RP

Paleoindian Term used to describe the earliest period of prehistoric settlement in the Americas, extending from the arrival of the first inhabitants (before 10,000 BC) to the beginning of the Archaic period (c.8000 BC). The Paleoindians were nomadic and semi-nomadic hunting and gathering peoples who entered North America via the Bering Straits and moved south through the many different environments of the Americas, reaching southern Chile by c.12,000 BC (see MONTE VERDE). The North American Paleoindian period comprises three successive cultural traditions: LLANO, FOLSOM and PLANO. Paleoindian cultures are extremely varied, although all initially depended upon hunting of now-extinct species, such as mammoth, giant sloth and bison. There has in the past been over-emphasis by scholars upon big-game hunting, given that contemporary studies show foraging for plants and shoreline gathering and fishing to have been just as important among many of these earliest Americans, leading to an early invention of agriculture in areas where sedentism and foraging economies were earliest established (LAS VEGAS). Many Early Paleoindian groups manufactured fluted Clovis or Folsom projectile points, while lanceolate forms like Agate Basin and Eden were made by later groups on the Great Plains.

T.D. Dillehay and D.J. Meltzer: The first Americans: search and research (Ann Arbor, Boston and London, 1991); B. Lepper and D. Meltzer: ‘Late Pleistocene human occupations of the Eastern United States’, Clovis: origins and adaptations, ed. R. Bonnichsen and K. Turnmire (Corvallis, 1991), 175–84; D. Stanford: ‘Clovis origins and adaptations: an introductory perspective’,

Clovis: origins and adaptations, ed. R. Bonnichsen and K. Turnmire (Corvallis, 1991), 1–13; T.D. Dillehay et al.:

‘Earliest hunters and gatherers of South America’, JWP 6/2 (1992), 145–204.

KB/RJE

Palliser Bay Situated at the south end of the North Island of New Zealand, the bay contains a series of sites ranging from early settlements (c.800 BP), with gardens attached, to burials at Washpool that reveal signs of dietary stress. A further feature of the sites is evidence for environmental degradation of both land and marine environments, caused by soil erosion through vegetation clearance.

B.F. and H.M. Leach, eds: Prehistoric man in Palliser Bay

(Wellington, 1979); J. Davidson: The prehistory of New Zealand (Auckland, 1984), 39–41, 53–55, 166–7.

CG

pan-grave culture The term ‘pan-grave’ refers to an unusual type of shallow circular inhumation found at a number of small cemetery sites (typically consisting of up to a hundred burials) between Deir Rifeh in Upper Egypt and Tushka in Lower Nubia during the late Middle Kingdom and 2nd Intermediate Period (c.1800–1550 BC). The human remains and assemblages excavated at pangrave cemeteries such as Balabish and Mostagedda

– including distinctive black-topped or incised pottery bowls, mother of pearl bracelets, the skulls and horns of sheep, ox and gazelle, and various weapons – comprise a material culture clearly distinct from the two more widespread Nubian cultures of the period, C GROUP and KERMA. In addition pottery apparently of a pan-grave style has been found at Egyptian settlements in the north (e.g. EL-LAHUN and ABYDOS) and at forts further to the south (e.g. MIRGISSA and Quban). These finds perhaps lend support to suggestions that the pangrave people, if they are indeed a distinct ethnic group, are to be identified with the ‘Medjay’, a people of the Eastern Desert, known only from texts, who often served as mercenaries in the Egyptian army.

M. Bietak: Ausgrabungen in Sayala-Nubien 1961–1965. Denkmäler der C-Gruppe und der Pan-Gräber-Kultur

(Vienna, 1966); E. Strouhal and J. Jungwirth: ‘Anthropological problems of the Middle Empire and Late Roman Sayala’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 101 (1971), 10–23; B.J. Kemp: ‘Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period’, Ancient Egypt: a social history, ed. B.G. Trigger et al. (Cambridge, 1983), 71–182 (169–71); K. Sadr: ‘The Medjay in southern Atbai’, Archéologie du Nil Moyen 4 (1990), 63–86.

IS

P’an-lung-ch’eng (Panlongcheng) Important site of the SHANG period (c.2000–1122 BC) located near the village, She-k’ou, Huang-p’i-hsien in the province of Hu-pei, China. It comprises a walled enclosure 290 × 260 m with cemeteries on three sides (Lou-tzu-wan, Yang-chia-wan, and Li-chia- tsui). The enclosure walls are built of hang-t’u layers and the moat surrounding the site was apparently 10 m wide. Within the walls was a large hang-t’u platform (60 × 10 m) upon which large rectangular houses were built. One of the houses consisted of a hall 34 × 6 m in area, with four inner divisions surrounded by a long verandah at the edges of which were found 43 postholes probably indicating the supports of a lean-to roof. Of the three cemetery areas, the richest burials excavated are those in the Li-chia-tsui locus, comprising pit tombs with wooden chambers (elaborately carved and painted in lacquer on the exterior) and coffins. Among the several burials reported to date, were bronze, jade, wooden and ceramic artefacts.

R.W. Bagley: ‘P’an-lung-ch’eng: a Shang city in Hupei’, Artibus Asiae 39 (1977), 165–219; Chang Kwang-chih; Shang civilization (New Haven, 1980), 298–305; An Chihhuai: ‘The Shang city at Cheng-chou and related problems’, Studies of Shang archaeology, ed. Chang Kwang-chih (New Haven, 1986), 28, 35–8, 71.

NB

Pan-p’o (Banpo) see YANG-SHAO

Papua New Guinea see OCEANIA 2

papyrus Material manufactured from the pith of the papyrus plant (Papyrus cyperus) in ancient Egypt, which was used as a writing surface from at least as early as the 1st dynasty (c.3000–2770 BC). Until the widespread adoption of parchment (4th century AD) and linen paper (7th century AD), Egyptian papyrus was employed throughout the Roman empire.

M.L. Bierbrier, ed.: Papyrus: structure and usage (London, 1986); R. Parkinson and S. Quirke: Papyrus (London, 1995).

IS

Paracas Important early culture of the Andes region. The burials found on the Paracas Peninsula of southern Peru are justly famous for the elaborately embroidered textiles which envelop the dead. Despite their fame, however, there has been relatively little scientific study of the burials since the initial excavations of Tello and Mejia Xesspe in

PARADIGM 457

the 1920s. That the burials pertain to the very end of the Early Horizon (c.400 BC) has been fixed by other investigations, but knowledge regarding most aspects of the burials and the societies that made them is very incomplete.

Paracas mummies and textiles have been known since 1911, but most studies regarding them have been concerned with unlineal stylistic chronologies and/or considerations of textile iconography. These investigations have generally ignored context, save for the general provenance of south coast, Paracas culture. Studies by Anne Paul, using each excavated MUMMY BUNDLE itself as a single analytical unit have added immeasurably to our knowledge of Paracas culture. Her studies show that the very different Linear and Block Colour styles – the former depicting a human/feline/bird deity (the so-called ‘Oculate Being’) in a geometric manner, and the latter depicting realistic figures of supernatural figures, humans dressed as supernaturals, animals and objects – are contemporary and, presumably, intended for different uses. Experimental studies of how long embroideries take to produce (using a skilled embroideress), comparing these data to the amounts of clothing and the quantities of decoration represented in the textiles of each bundle, have resulted in a considerably more sophisticated understanding of wealth in this ancient society (since the bundles vary immensely in the number and quality of textiles). Paul’s work also bolsters ideas that in Peru time equalled wealth (i.e. the more time spent on fabrication of an object, the more value it had).

A.Paul and S. Niles: ‘Identifying hands at work on a Paracas mantle’, Textile Museum Journal 25 (1985), 5–15;

A.Paul: Paracas ritual attire: symbols of authority in ancient Peru (Norman, 1990); ––––: Paracas: art and architecture: object and context in South Coastal Peru (Ames, 1991).

KB

paradigm Conceptual framework or canon of scientific practice, forming the context for a particular set of theoretical conditions and objectives, examples of which in archaeology arguably

include the CULTURE-HISTORICAL and the

various POST-PROCESSUAL approaches. The view of science set out by Thomas Kuhn (1962) suggests that different ‘research paradigms’, e.g.

STRUCTURALIST or MARXIST ARCHAEOLOGY, are

each sustained and controlled by a ‘research community’. Kuhn argues, however, that these paradigms cannot be compared with one another, since they are each characterized by a completely different vocabulary, frame of reference and

STATISTICAL DISTRI-
POST-STRUCTURALIST

458 PARADIGM

viewpoint. He not only makes a clear distinction between paradigm and theory, the latter being a subset of the former, but also proposes that all theories are affected by the subjective paradigm (or ‘world-view’) within which they were created, therefore no theory can claim to be truly objective.

In 1968, David Clarke described archaeological theory before New Archaeology as ‘pre-paradigmatic’ in that it was too undisciplined and incoherent to constitute any sequence of Kuhnian research paradigms. Preucel and Hodder (1996: 4) take this a stage further by making the point that: ‘While we . . . agree that our understanding of the archaeological past has dramatically increased after over a century of research, we are concerned that this seems to imply that all of our theories have been equally progressive and that culture history has somehow been superseded or that processual is being replaced by post-processual archaeology’.

E.L. Sterud (1973), on the other hand, views the various phases in the history of archaeology as an evolutionary sequence of ‘scientific revolutions’ created by innovative scholars such as Oscar Montelius, Gordon Childe and Lewis Binford. Bruce Trigger (1989: 5) suggests that there was a sequence of major paradigms between the mid-18th and mid-20th centuries

(e.g. ANTIQUARIAN, CULTURE-HISTORICAL and

FUNCTIONALIST) but that these were implicit and unconsciously held positions, as opposed to the more self-conscious and polemical paradigms of the late 20th century (e.g. CONTEXTUAL

ARCHAEOLOGY or

ARCHAEOLOGY).

T.S. Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions, (Chicago, 1962) [2nd edn 1970]; D.L. Clarke: Analytical archaeology (London, 1968); E.L. Sterud: ‘A paradigmatic view of prehistory’, The explanation of cultural change: models in prehistory, ed. A.C. Renfrew (Cambridge, 1973), 3–17; D.J. Meltzer: ‘Paradigms and the nature of change in American archaeology’, AA 44 (1979), 644–57; L.R. Binford and J.A. Sabloff: ‘Paradigms, systematics and archaeology’, JAR 38 (1982), 137–53; B.G. Trigger: A history of archaeological thought (Cambridge, 1989) 4–12; R.W. Preucel and I. Hodder, eds: Contemporary archaeology in theory: a reader

(Oxford, 1996).

IS

parameter estimation Branch of statistics concerned with making the best possible estimates of the parameters of a

BUTION, e.g. the mean date of a RADIOCARBON determination, on the basis of DATA from a

SAMPLE. Such estimates may be given in the form of a single value (point estimates, e.g. 2000 BP) or ranges (interval estimates, e.g. 2000 ± 80 BP). The latter are usually given as CONFIDENCE INTERVALS; for point estimates their PRECISION is of key importance.

J.E. Doran and F.R. Hodson: Mathematics and computers in archaeology (Edinburgh, 1975), 42–51; C.R. Orton:

Mathematics in archaeology (Glasgow, 1980), 90–4; S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh, 1988), 301–13.

CO

parchmarks see AERIAL ARCHAEOLOGY; CROPMARKS

parietal art Term used to describe art executed on rock walls, usually within caves or rockshelters (from the French pariétal, itself derived from the Latin paries or wall), and especially Palaeolithic

CAVE ART.

Parthians (Parthava: ‘mounted warrior’) From c.250 BC to AD 224, a large area of the ancient Near East was dominated by the Parthians. They first appear in the mid-1st millennium BC as the inhabitants of a province of the Seleucid empire to the east of the Caspian Sea. In the mid-3rd century BC the Parthian rulers Arsaces and Tiridates conquered large areas to the north of the modern Iranian border, establishing the first of a series of capitals at Nysa (in Turkmenistan), but it was Mithridates I who took advantage of the ailing fortunes of the Seleucid empire to push southwards in the mid-2nd century BC, establishing a military camp on the opposite side of the Tigris from Seleucia; this camp was to be the site of the final Parthian capital, Ctesiphon. The Parthian (or Arsacid) dynasty established cities at HATRA, DuraEuropus, Firuzabad and Takht-i Sulaiman, using a style of architecture featuring the iwan and employing paintings and relief decoration characterized principally by their ‘frontality’.

Many aspects of Parthian material culture (e.g. styles of pottery, small objects and burial practices) vary widely from one region to another. The tendency for 19th-century excavators to focus on Mesopotamia and Susiana resulted in the accidental discovery of many Parthian and Sasanian remains in the process. Much is therefore known about the Parthians from such Mesopotamian sites as NINEVEH and URUK, rather than from sites in the original Parthian heartland.

O. Reuther: Die Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Ktesiphon-

Pa-Shu (Ba-Shu) Two ancient states of the 1st millennium BC on the western periphery of China, in and around present-day Ssu-ch’uan but also extending into parts of Hu-pei and Kuei-chou. Shu and Pa only rarely occur in the traditional texts, and they are generally mentioned together; there does not seem to be any marked cultural distinction between them. Like many other leaders in these peripheral ‘barbarian’ regions, the rulers of Shu adopted the Chinese title of ‘king’ and ascribed to themselves an appropriate lineage (see CHINA 2).
see PERSIA
MC
Pasargadae
IS
particle induced gamma-ray emission (PIGME) Non-destructive prompt nuclear analysis technique using a particle beam, usually of protons, to excite gamma-ray emission in materials. The technique, which is useful for light element analysis, is often used in conjunction with
PARTICLE INDUCED X-RAY EMISSION (PIXE) since
both require similar particle sources.
J.R. Bird, P. Duerden and D.J. Wilson: ‘Ion beam techniques in archaeology and the arts’, Nuclear Science Applications 1 (1983) 357–526.
MC
particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE)
Non-destructive technique for multi-element chemical analysis related to X-RAY FLUORESCENCE which makes use of a particle beam. Instead of using an X-ray source to stimulate fluorescence, a beam of particles is used, usually protons, generated by a cyclotron or similar source and directed at the specimen. The fluorescent X-rays produced are detected using an energy dispersive spectrometer. The technique can be used to analyse artefacts in situ but, like XRF, only of the surface. Detection limits are lower than conventional EDXRF and the beam may be focused to analyse small areas (about 1 μm). The technique has been applied to metals, ceramics and lithics.
S.J. Fleming and C.P. Swann: ‘The application of PIXE spectrometry to bronze analysis’, Masca Journal 3 (1985), 142–9.

Expedition (Berlin, 1930); R. Ghirshman: Parthes et Sassanides (Paris, 1962); M.A. Colledge: The Parthians (London, 1968); N.C. Debevoise: A political history of Parthia (Chicago, 1938, repr. 1969); E. Mathiesen:

Sculpture in the Parthian empire, 2 vols (Aarhus, 1992).

PASTORALISM 459

The two states were extinguished by CH’IN in 316

BC.

N. Barnard and Satö Tamotsu: Metallurgical remains of ancient China (Tokyo, 1975); Li Hsueh-ch’in: Eastern Zhou and Qin civilizations, trans. Chang Kwang-chih (New Haven, 1985); N. Barnard: ‘Bronze casting technology in the peripheral “barbarian” regions’, BMM 12 (1987), 3–37.

NB

Paso de la Amada Early Formative village on the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico, dating to c.1700–1200 BC. It has provided evidence of early sedentism and social ranking that predates the OLMEC florescence.

J.F. Ceja Tenorio: Paso de la Amada: an early Preclassic site in the Soconusco, Chiapas, Mexico, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 49 (Provo, 1985).

PRI

passage grave One of the two main types of Neolithic chambered tomb (the other being the GALLERY GRAVE), defined by a well-differentiated passage – typically about one metre wide and just under a metre tall – leading through a covering mound or cairn to a taller and broader chamber. The chamber, which sometimes has side-chambers, may be constructed of megaliths, drystone, or both; the tomb is usually covered by a circular mound, which may be ringed with kerbstones. Passage graves occur particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, Brittany (where the earliest radiocarbon dates, of before 4500 BC, have been recorded), Wales (e.g. BRYN CELLI DDU), Scotland (notably the MAES HOWE group in the Orkneys) and Ireland. Perhaps the most impressive examples are those of the BOYNE VALLEY, which are decorated with of the megalithic art that tends to be associated with passage graves.

RJA

pastoralism Mode of subsistence consisting of the rearing of livestock (usually cattle, sheep or goats) and a process of constant movement between two or more different areas of pasture. In some cases, pastoralism is adopted as only one part of an agriculturally-based, semi-sedentary culture, while in other, more extreme cases, a wholly nomadic lifestyle is adopted. For further discussion and bibli-

ography see NOMADS and PASTORAL NEOLITHIC.

W. Goldschmidt: ‘A general model for pastoral social systems’, Pastoral production and society, Proceedings of the international meeting on nomadic pastoralism, Paris, 1–3 December 1976, ed. L’équpe écologie (Cambridge,

460 PASTORALISM

1979), 15–29; R. Cribb: ‘Greener pastures: mobility, migration and the pastoral mode of subsistence’,

Production Pastorale et Société 14 (1984), 11–46.

IS

Pastoral Neolithic Currently fashionable term used to summarize the pre-Iron Age East African cultures with pottery and other advanced technological features of the final millennia BC in the Eastern Rift Valley, flanking highlands and adjacent plains of Kenya and northern Tanzania. The Pastoral Neolithic comprises the former ‘Gumban’ and ‘stone bowl’ cultures (names now redundant), as well as the ELMENTEITAN (late in the sequence and restricted geographically) and later facies of the

‘KENYA CAPSIAN’ (or ‘EBURRAN’). It should be

noted, however, that the criteria for using the term ‘Neolithic’ – whether technological or economic – have not been clearly agreed in sub-Saharan Africa, and some archaeologists prefer to avoid the label altogether.

Narosura, a Pastoral Neolithic site in the Kenyan highlands, west of the Rift Valley on the Loita plains, is situated beside a small river where cattlekeepers camped or congregated seasonally. Radiocarbon dating and the study of comparative archaeological evidence (such as the types of ceramics and stone bowls) suggest that Narosura was occupied by c.3000 BP, a full millennium before the inception of the local Iron Age. Together with Tunnel Rockshelter further north, it has produced the best dated evidence for early pastoralism in the East African highlands. The lithic industry seems to derive from the KENYA CAPSIAN tradition.

The most revealing of several ‘PASTORAL NEOLITHIC’ sites in the Lemek valley on the high grasslands of the eastern Mara plains in southwestern Kenya is Ngamuriak, which was excavated by Peter Robertshaw and the British Institute in Eastern Africa in the 1980s, and is assigned to the ELMENTEITAN tradition of about 2000 years ago more or less, shortly before the Iron Age. Ngamuriak’s importance lies in the discovery of structural remains, which are very rare for this period in East Africa. Attempts have been made to understand the nature of the settlement, its pastoral economy and herding strategy, by spatial analytical methods and detailed finds studies, including Fiona Marshall’s faunal analyses (Robertshaw 1990).

S. Cole: The Prehistory of East Africa (New York, 1963), 274–5; K. Odner: ‘Excavations at Narosura, a stone bowl site’, Azania 7 (1972), 25–92; J.R.F. Bower et al.: ‘Later Stone Age/Pastoral “Neolithic” in Central Kenya,’ Azania 11 (1977), 119–46; D.W. Phillipson: The later prehistory of Eastern and Southern Africa (London, 1977);

D.P. Collett and P.T. Robertshaw: ‘Dating the Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa’, AAR 1 (1983), 57–74; S.H. Ambrose: ‘The introduction of pastoral adaptations to the highlands of East Africa’, From hunters to farmers; the causes and consequences of food production in Africa, ed. J.D. Clark and S.A. Brandt (Berkeley, 1984), 212–39; P.T. Robertshaw: Early pastoralists in south-western Kenya

(Nairobi, 1990).

JS

Pataliputra see MAURYAN PERIOD

Patayan Poorly known prehistoric culture of the American Southwest dating to c.AD 800–1540. The Patayan practised floodwater farming along the lower Colorado River and hunting and gathering in the surrounding desert. They are thought to have been ancestral to Yuman-speaking groups.

R.H. McGuire and M.B. Schiffer, eds: Hohokam and Patayan (New York, 1982).

JJR

patch/patch-use model see FORAGING

THEORY

Paviland Site of a cave known as the Goat’s Hole on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, which has yielded an Upper Palaeolithic (possibly AURIGNACIAN) burial and an important collection of tools. The original excavator, William Buckland in 1823, believed the ruddle-stained partial skeleton to be that of a woman, and it became famous as the ‘Red Lady of Paviland’. In fact, the remains are those of a young man, who was buried with ivory rods, ivory arm rings and, possibly, the skull of a mammoth. Although the dating is uncertain, it is probably the earliest known formal burial in Britain, dating to between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago. The tool typology suggests the cave was occupied as early as

the MOUSTERIAN.

R.M. Jacobi: ‘The upper Palaeolithic in Britain, with special reference to Wales’, Culture and environment in prehistoric Wales, ed. J.A. Taylor, BAR BS 76 (Oxford, 1980), 15–99.

RJA

Pazyryk Group of five large barrows in the eastern Altai Mountains, Gorno-Altai Republic (southern Siberia), constructed for the elite of the local SCYTHIAN-related nomadic group in the 5th–4th centuries BC. Discovered by S.I. Rudenko in 1924, and excavated by him in 1929 and 1947–9, the earthern mounds were covered by cairns of rocks, under which a lens of frozen soil formed soon

after the interments. Due to this permanent refrigeration, organic matter such as objects of wood, leather, fur and textiles – as well as the mummified bodies of humans and horses – were uniquely preserved. The rectangular tomb-shafts under the barrows, oriented east-west, contained human burials in a log chamber, with horse burials in the northern part of the shaft. The finds include a fourwheeled carriage, a large felt carpet, and various art objects.

S.I. Rudenko: Frozen tombs of Siberia (London, 1970).

PD

PCA see PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS

Pebble Tool Tradition The basal cultural tradition of the Northwest Coast of North America north of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is defined on the basis of the co-occurrence of unifacial pebble tools, leaf-shaped bifaces, and simple flaked stone tools (Carlson 1983). The earliest dated component (7700 BC) was excavated in the lowest 30 cm of stratigraphy at NAMU. At one time it was thought that assemblages of pebble tools without bifaces constituted an early part of the tradition pre-dating the Wisconsin glaciation (Borden 1969), but pedological work and radiocarbon dating have proved this incorrect (Haley 1987). The Pebble Tool Tradition is centred on the territory occupied by Salishan and Wakashan speakers and may represent the material culture of their ancestors.

C.E. Borden: ‘Early population movements from Asia into western North America’, Syesis 2/1–2 (1969), 1–13; S.D. Haley: The Pasika Complex cobble reduction strategies on the Northwest Coast, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, 1987); R.L. Carlson: ‘The Far West’, Early man in the New World, ed. R.S. Shutler (Beverley Hills, 1983), 73–96; ——: ‘Cultural antecedents’, Handbook of North American Indians VII, ed. W. Suttles (Washington DC, 1990), 60–9.

RC

Pech de l’Azé Palaeolithic cave and shelter sites situated 2 km north of the Dordogne valley in France, which, when excavated by François Bordes in the 1950s, yielded a classic sequence of ACHEULEAN and MOUSTERIAN deposits. The careful study of sediments and pollen allowed the evidence of the lithic industries (Acheulean type, Typical Mousterian, Denticulate Mousterian and Ferrassie Mousterian) to be associated with a sequence of climatic changes.

F. Bordes: A tale of two caves (New York, 1972); Laville et al.: Rock shelters of the Périgord: geological stratigraphy and

PEER POLITY INTERACTION 461

archaeological succession (New York, 1980); R. Grün et al.: ‘ESR chronology of a 100,000-year archaeological sequence at Pech de I’Azé II, France’, Antiquity 65 (1991), 544–51.

RJA

Pech-Merle Large and beautifully preserved Upper Palaeolithic painted cave in Lot, France. The paintings and engravings include mammoth, bison, horses, aurochs and deer, and some quite schematic representations of humans, as well as complicated patterns of dots and hand stencils. The main gallery contains a famous frieze of black outline drawings of mammoth, bison, horses and aurochs which seem to form a composition, and which could conceivably have been executed in a single painting session by one artist. There is also a collection of finger-tracings; these are largely indecipherable but include mammoth and a few female outlines. The most striking frieze at Pech-Merle shows two spotted horses with disproportionately small heads, bordered by stencilled hands. Dating the art is difficult, but it may have been created in three or four main phases between perhaps 20,000 BC and 14,000 BC; the spotted horses are thought to be relatively early.

A. Lemozi: La grotte-temple du Pech-Merle: un nouveau sanctuaire préhistorique (Paris, 1929); M. Lorblanchet: ‘Les dessins noirs du Pech-Merle’, XXIe Congrés Préhistorique de France (Montauban, 1981), I, 178–207.

RJA

Pedra Furada One of many PALEOINDIAN rockshelter sites in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil, it is distinguished by a claim of extreme antiquity (30,000+ years ago). However, the lithics and the remains of wall paintings seem to pertain to a considerably later period (c.6000–5000 BC), and there remain unresolved problems with the context of the radiocarbon dates.

N. Guidon and G. Delibrias: ‘C-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago’, Nature 321 (1986), 769–71; T.D. Dillehay et al.: ‘Earliest hunters and gatherers of South America’, JWP 6/2 (1992), 145–204.

KB

peer polity interaction Term coined by the British archaeologist Colin Renfrew to refer to the tendency for regional groups of polities (smallscale, independent cultural entities) to experience similar organizational and cultural transformations roughly simultaneously, as a result of the polities’ interaction with one another. This interaction might take numerous forms, ranging from

TAL-I

462 PEER POLITY INTERACTION

comparatively overt practices such as trade and warfare to the less concrete processes of information exchange and competition. The concept of peer polity interaction has been applied to a number of different case-studies, such as Aegean city-states and islands (Renfrew and Wagstaff 1982; Renfrew and Cherry 1986), HOPEWELLIAN settlements and Iron-Age chiefdoms. Shanks and Tilly (1987), however, argue that – like other strands of the area of theory that they call ‘FUNCTIONALIST social archaeology’ – studies of peer polity interaction have tended to be concerned with social systems (i.e. patterning and organization) without reaching any real understanding of social structures (the ‘rules and concepts which give meaning to the system’).

C. Renfrew and M. Wagstaff, eds: An island polity: the archaeology of exploitation in Melos (Cambridge, 1982), 264–90; A.C. Renfrew and J. Cherry, eds: Peer polity interaction and socio-political change (Cambridge, 1986); M. Shanks and C. Tilley: Social theory and archaeology

(Cambridge, 1987), 41–2, 51–3.

IS

Peiligang see P’EI-LI-KANG

P’ei-li-kang (Peiligang) Neolithic culture dating to c.6500–5000 BC and related to the TZ’U-SHAN culture. Named after the type-site, in Hsin-cheng- hsien, province of Ho-nan, China, it is the most extensively excavated of a growing number of pre- YANG-SHAO sites of this recently recognized cultural horizon, and P’ei-li-kang is perhaps the term that should be applied to several other cultures (including Tz’u-shan), all datable, on the basis of calibrated radiocarbon assessments, to the range 6500–5000 BC, and with distinctive ceramic types and many features in common. The pottery was entirely hand-made, mostly of a coarse, sandy paste, with firing temperatures ranging from 700 to 960°C. The surfaces of the vessels were mainly plain, with some decoration (cord-marks, combmarks, appliqués, incisions, and press-and-pick designs).

Chang Kwang-chih: The archaeology of ancient China, 4th edn (New Haven, 1986), 87–95.

NB

‘Peking man’ see CHOUKOUTIEN

Pemba see SWAHILI HARBOUR TOWNS

Pender Canal Multi-component village site (c.3000 BCAD 1500) on Pender Island off the

mouth of the Fraser River in British Columbia. Excavation was undertaken to test Kroeber’s (1939) model that Northwest Coast culture developed in the protected Gulf Islands. The project showed that complex culture with woodworking, sophisticated art, social ranking, memorial ‘potlatch’, use of masks, and SHAMANISM developed there from extant maritime-based culture between 2000 and 1500 BC. Since the art at Pender Canal is intellectually appealing, complicated and cultured, it probably constitutes evidence (through ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALOGY) for the existence of beliefs in spirit power, shamanism and social ranking. Stable

CARBON ISOTOPE ANALYSIS (Chisholm 1986)

demonstrated an overwhelmingly marine diet throughout the sequence, the chronological phases of which are supported by 45 radiocarbon dates, including 27 using ACCELERATOR MASS SPECTROMETRY. Faunal analysis has shown the seasonal nature of the later part of the occupation.

A.L. Kroeber: Cultural and natural areas of native North America (Berkeley, 1939); B.S. Chisholm: Reconstruction of prehistoric diet in British Columbia using stable-carbon isotopic analysis, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, 1986); R.L. Carlson: ‘Northwest Coast culture before AD 1600’, The North Pacific to 1600, ed. E.A. Crownhart-Vaughn (Portland, 1991), 109–36; D. Hanson: Late prehistoric subsistence in the Strait of Georgia region of the Northwest Coast, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, 1991); R.L. Carlson and P.M. Hobler: The Pender Canal excavations and the development of Coast Salish culture (Vancouver, 1993).

RC

periodization see CHINA 2

Persepolis see PERSIA

Persia The Persians, like their neighbours the MEDES, were an Indo-Iranian group whose heartland lay in the region of modern Iran during the 1st millennium BC. The land of ‘Parsua’, apparently situated next to URARTU and to the south of Lake Urmia, is first mentioned in the annals of the ASSYRIAN king, Shalmaneser III (c.858–824 BC). In the first half of the 1st millennium there appear to have been two separate regions occupied by Persians, one next to the Medes’ territory in the central Zagros and the other in the area surrounding the Elamite city of Anshan, modern MALAYAN, in southern Iran. In the early 7th– century BC Anshan was captured by the Persian king Teispes or perhaps by his father Achaemenes, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty which was

PERSIA 463

 

 

 

Caspian

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yarim

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tepe

 

Hasanlu

 

Marlik

 

 

 

 

Takht-i

 

 

 

 

Sulaiman

Tepe

 

 

 

 

Ziwiye

 

Khurvin

 

 

Tepe Hissar

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bisitun

 

Ecbatana

 

 

 

 

Godinl in Tepe

Nush-i Jan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tepe Giyan

Tepe Sialk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tepe Guran

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I R A N

 

 

Susa

 

 

 

 

 

Haft Tepe

Masjid-i Suleiman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choga

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zanbil

 

 

 

I R A Q

 

 

 

 

 

Shahdad

 

 

 

 

 

Pasargadae

 

 

 

 

Tal-i Malyan

Persepolis + Naqsh-i Rustam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Failaka

 

Tall-i Bakun

Tal-i Iblis

 

KUWAIT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tepe Yahya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persian

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gulf

 

 

 

N

S A U D I

 

 

 

 

 

 

A R A B I A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bahrain

 

 

 

0

1000 km

 

 

 

 

Map 28 Persia, Persians

The major sites in ancient Persia.

 

 

ultimately to mould the Persian empire. At this time the royal capital may have been at Anshan itself (Hansman 1972).

The two principal cities of the Persian heartland in the 5th and 6th centuries BC were Pasargadae and Persepolis (Takshi-i Jamshid), the latter com-

prising a succession of palaces built by Darius I and his successors, each of which incorporated elements derived from Egyptian, Median, Babylonian and Greek architecture. Although the city was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, it is one of the best surviving settlement sites in

WEST KENNET

464 PERSIA

the ancient Near East. The tombs of four of the Persian kings (Darius I, Xerxes, Artaxerxes and Darius II) were carved out of the cliffs of Naqsh-i Rustam, 6 km north of Persepolis. Pasargadae was founded by Cyrus the Great (c.559–350 BC) soon after his conquest of Media and Lycia, and he is said to have employed Lydian masons in the construction and embellishment of the buildings within the fortified citadel, including palaces guarded by winged bulls in the Assyrian tradition, a sacred precinct with fire altars on stone platforms, and the megalithic tomb of Cyrus. In the late 6th century BC Darius transformed the former Elamite city of SUSA into the administrative capital of the empire, constructing an immense palace that incorporated both Babylonian-style courtyards and typically Persian columned halls and porticoes. One of the most distinctive features of Persian cities was the widespread use of the APADANA, a square columned chamber flanked by porticoes and functioning primarily as an audience hall.

At its height in c.500 BC, the Persian empire extended from Libya to the Indus region and from Babylonia to western Turkey, comprising about 20 ‘satrapies’, each contributing regular tax and tribute to the Persian king. Although a great deal of the characteristic material culture of the Persian empire was drawn from conquered territories, it has been pointed out that their art and architecture are unified by the tendency towards an essentially decorative style. Henri Frankfort (1970: 377–8) draws attention to the close iconographic connections between Achaemenian monumental and applied art: ‘The oddities of the architecture – the scattering of buildings over platforms, the elongated columns, their number, the bizarre capitals – all this betrays the direction of people foreign to the

Cyrus the Great

559

– 530 BC

Cambyses II

529

– 522

Smerdis

552

 

Darius I

521

– 486

Xerxes I

485

– 465

Artaxerxes I

464

– 425

Xerxes II

424

 

Sogdianus

424

 

Darius II

423

– 405

Artaxerxes II

404

– 359

Artaxerxes III

358

– 338

Arses

337

– 336

Darius III

335

– 330

 

 

Table 17 Persia, Persians

Chronology of the

Achaemenid Dynasty.

 

 

tradition, the practice and the potentialities of Near Eastern architecture . . . it would seem that the Persians drew on the traditions of their native crafts when they directed the hosts of foreign craftsmen collected at Persepolis and Susa’.

E. Schmidt: Persepolis, 3 vols (Chicago, 1953–70); R. Ghirshman: Iran from the earliest times to the Islamic conquest (Harmondsworth, 1962); W. Culican: The Medes and Persians (London and New York, 1965); ––––: Imperial cities of Persia: Persepolis, Susa and Pasargadae (London, 1970); H. Frankfort: The art and architecture of the ancient Orient, 4th edn (Harmondsworth, 1970); A. Bausoni: The Persians (London, 1971); J. Hansman: ‘Elamites, Achaemenians and Anshan’, Iran 10 (1972), 101–26; D.B. Stronach: Pasargadae (London, 1978); L. Vanden Berghe:

Bibliographie analytique de l’archéologie de I’Iran ancient

(Leiden, 1979); J.E. Curtis: Ancient Persia (London, 1989).

IS

Peterborough ware Later Neolithic impressed ware of southern and eastern England, dating to perhaps 3000–2500 BC. Defined by R.A. Smith, Peterborough ware has a distinctive carination and is often heavily decorated. Now recognized as an important regional style within a wider late Neolithic impressed ware tradition, it was once regarded as the principal ware across late Neolithic Britain. Peterborough ware can be broken down into three distinct styles: Ebbsfleet, round-based bowls with wide necks and undeveloped rims, cross-hatching and herring-bone decoration; Mortlake, round based with heavy developed rim and profuse and varied decoration; Fengate, with sides that taper down to a tiny flat base, heavy accentuated collar, and decoration that is a development from Mortlake. Although Ebbsfleet seems to be the earliest substyle of Peterborough ware, all three variants seem to have been in contemporary use at some sites (e.g. long barrow in Wiltshire).

RJA

Petra see NABATAEANS

petrography see PETROLOGICAL ANALYSIS

petrological analysis Term referring, strictly speaking, to the study of all aspects of rocks, notably their origin, mineralogy, texture and structure. In recent years, however, archaeologists have made much use of ceramic petrology, the application of these geologically derived methods to pottery. The main techniques used are macroscopic examination,