A Dictionary of Archaeology
.pdfincluded provenancing but usually only in support of other techniques such as lead isotope analysis.
I. Perlman and F. Asaro: ‘Pottery analysis by neutron activation’, Archaeometry 11 (1969), 21–52; S.J. Parry:
Activation spectrometry in chemical analysis (New York, 1991).
MC
‘New Archaeology’ Term used to describe
PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY when it was first
emerging in the 1960s. See also ANALYTICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY, BEHAVIORAL ARCHAEOLOGY,
COVERING LAWS, FUNCTIONALISM and SYSTEMS THEORY.
Newark Large earthworks and mounds complex dating to the Middle WOODLAND period (c.200 BC–AD 400). Located in Licking County, Ohio (USA), it is associated with the HOPEWELL cultural manifestation. The site, covering about 5 sq. km, is located on an elevated plain near the junction of two forks of the Licking River. The site contains three major sections consisting of octagonal, square and circular earthworks, each enclosing 8–20 ha, and connected by corridors formed by pairs of parallel earthworks or roadways. Several smaller circular enclosures are located outside the major ones. Smaller conical and pyramidal mounds are constructed within some of the large earthworks.
G.E. Squier and W.H. Davis: Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley (Washington, D.C., 1848 repr.1973); C. Thomas: ‘Report on the mound exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology’, Twelfth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, D.C., 1894).
RJE
‘new gastronomy’ see AQUATIC
CIVILIZATION
Newgrange The most famous example of the BOYNE VALLEY group of passage graves in Eire. It comprises a vast circular cairn c.80m across and 12 m high, retained by a drystone wall that is lined around its base with 97 megaliths – some of which are decorated with classic examples of MEGALITHIC ART. The monument was also encircled by a ring of free-standing monoliths, 12 of which survive. The orthostats of the passage (19 m long) support roof slabs; at the very front of the passage a unique ‘window-box’, made of slabs arranged so as to allow the beams of the winter solstice sunrise to enter the tomb and illuminate the
NIHON SHOKI 425
rear wall of the chamber, forms one of the few certain examples of Neolithic astronomical ALIGNMENTS. The cruciform chamber has a false-corbelled roof that is nearly six metres high; the side-chambers were found to contain large stone basins. Newgrange was excavated and heavily restored by Michael O’Kelly, and has been dated by radiocarbon to about 3200 BC (e.g. 2465 ±40; 2250 ±45 BC).
M.J. O’Kelly: Newgrange (London, 1982).
RJA
Ngamuriak see PASTORAL NEOLITHIC
Niaux Decorated case of the Upper Palaeolithic, situated 4 km from Tarascon-sur-Ariège in the Pyrenees, France. One of the largest decorated cave systems, Niaux contains engravings scored on its clay floor, including a fish and a bison wounded by arrows. The walls of the famous ‘Salon Noir’ are dominated by bison, horses, ibex and deer boldly outlined in black (probably charcoal). Some of the depictions are carefully detailed
– horses wearing winter coats, for example – and were probably drawn in the middle or later
MAGDALENIAN.
L-R. Nougier and R. Robert: Niaux (Toulouse, 1954); A. Beltrán et al.: La Cueva de Niaux (Zaragoza, 1973); D. Vialou: L’art des grottes an Ariège Magdalénian, XXIIe supplément à Gallia préhistoire (Paris, 1986), 295–322 [detailed description; spatio-symbolic analysis].
RJA
Nicoya The region of northerwestern Costa Rica (and including southwestern Nicaragua in ‘Greater Nicoya’), sometimes seen as an extreme southern ‘sub-area’ of Mesoamerica. The region is particularly known for its polychrome pottery manufactured after about AD 500.
F.W. Lange, ed.: Costa Rican art and archaeology
(Boulder, 1988).
PRI
Nihon Shoki One of the two earliest surviving chronicles of Japan, compiled under the RITSURYO state as part of the legitimization of the ruling dynasty (the other being the KOJIKI). Compiled in the 8th century (a little later than the Kojiki), it provides a fuller account of imperial lineages, legendary events and reign chronicles up to the reign of Empress Jito (AD 696). Both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki were based on earlier, non-extant texts, the Teiki and Kyuji, and supplemented by
426 NIHON SHOKI
four later works (together with which they comprised the Six Ancient Histories). The provide important documentary evidence for the Kofun period (see JAPAN 4).
W.G. Aston, trans.: Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to AD 697 (Tokyo, 1924).
SK
Nimrud, Tell (anc. Kalhu; Biblical Calah) Citysite located between the Tigris and Zab rivers about 30 km south of Mosul in northern Iraq, which was the location of the second capital of the ASSYRIAN empire in the 9th–7th centuries BC. Kalhu was founded as a provincial city by Shalameser I in the 13th century BC, but in c.864 BC Ashurnasirpal II transformed it into a new royal capital, in place of Assur, and is said to have installed an ARAMAEAN population there. It was eventually replaced as capital by KHORSABAD and finally NINEVEH.
The main citadel of Kalhu, in the southwest corner of Tell Nimrud, was among the first archaeological sites to be excavated in Mesopotamia, when the ziggurat and temples of Ninurta, Ishtar and Kidmuru, as well as the magnificent southwestern palace of Ashurnasirpal were uncovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1845–7. There were also palaces belonging to Shalmaneser III, Tiglath-Pileser III and Esarhaddon, whose reigns spanned the period of c.858–680 BC. From the palace gateways Layard extracted colossal LAMASSU guardian figures in the form of winged bulls, which were laboriously conveyed back to his sponsors, the British Museum. He also sent back a selection of sculpted and inscribed stone slabs from the palace walls, the so-called Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (which provided one of the first concrete links with the Bible through its depiction of Jehu the King of Judah at the feet of the Assyrian ruler) and the famous ‘Nimrud ivories’. The huge hoard of ivory sculptures and inlay, many of which were coated in gold leaf, almost certainly derive from the Levantine section of the empire, although there is still debate concerning their styles and provenance (Winter 1981).
Just over a century after Layard’s work, the site was further excavated by Max Mallowan and David Oates between 1950 and 1963, resulting in the discovery of more ivories, clay cuneiform tablets and numerous stone reliefs, including Ashurnasirpal’s inscription describing the re-founding of the city. The 1950s excavations also uncovered private houses and a richly equipped arsenal known as Fort Shalmaneser, including rooms stacked with mili-
tary gear and stores of booty from foreign campaigns (some of which remain unexcavated).
A.H. Layard: Nineveh and its remains (London, 1849); R.D. Barnett: A catalogue of the Nimrud ivories with other examples of Ancient Near Eastern ivories in the British Museum (London, 1957); M.E.L. Mallowan: Nimrud and its remains, 2 vols (London, 1966); ––––: The Nimrud ivories (London, 1978); I.J. Winter: ‘Is there a southern style of ivory carving in the early 1st millennium BC?’, Iraq 43 (1981), 101–30; G. Herrmann: Ivories from Room SW37, Fort Shalmaneser, 2 vols (London, 1986).
IS
Nindowari see KULLI COMPLEX
Nineveh (Tell Kuyunjik and Tell Nebi Yunus) City site in northern Iraq occupied continuously from the HASSUNA period (c.5800–5500 BC) until the Middle Ages. The enormous depth of prehistoric stratigraphy (constituting as much as 75% of the mound and including the NINEVITE 5 phase) has given the site an additional importance quite apart from its historical significance as one of the major cities of the ASSYRIAN empire (c.883–612 BC). Although, along with the rest of Assyria, it was destroyed by the Medes in 612 BC, it nevertheless survived into the Sasanian period and was finally supplanted by the town of Mosul, in the suburbs of which it now lies. The two principal mounds – Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus – have yielded a great deal of evidence regarding the Assyrian empire. The city reached its peak in the reign of Sennacherib (c.704–781 BC, when it was the Assyrian capital, and its ruins include Sennacherib’s stone palace and the ‘arsenal’ of his son Esarhaddon (c.680–669 BC). However, among the most crucial finds for Assyriologists was the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c.669–627 BC), excavated by Rassam in 1853; this contained not only a series of exquisite stone-carved reliefs depicting the royal lion-hunt (Barnett 1976) but also the ‘library’ of Ashurbanipal, consisting of tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets. This library is probably the most important collection of texts from Mesopotamia, including versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Epic of Creation, as well as vast numbers of religious and scientific documents.
P.-E. Botta and E. Flandin: Monument de Ninive découvert et décrit par M.P.-E. Botta, mesuré et dessiné par M.E. Flandin, 5 vols (Paris, 1849–50); V. Place: Ninive et l’Assyrie, 3 vols (Paris, 1867–80); A.H. Layard: The monuments of Nineveh (London, 1853); R.D. Barnett:
Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (London, 1976); J.M. Russell: Sennacherib’s ‘palace without rival’ at Nineveh (Chicago, 1991); J. Curtis
|
NITROGEN PROFILE DATING 427 |
and J. Read, eds: Art and empire: treasures from Assyria in |
6 (1980), 93–7; E.C. Stone: Nippur neighbourhoods |
the British Museum (London, 1995). |
(Chicago, 1987). |
IS |
IS |
Ninevite 5 One of the three major styles of pottery in Mesopotamia in the early 3rd millennium BC. The ‘Ninevite 5’ ware is a style of pottery bearing painted and incised decoration which was first discovered in level 5 of a deep sounding at Nineveh. Ninevite 5 pottery dated to the period immediately after the URUK phase in northern Mesopotamia and was roughly contemporary with the EARLY TRANSCAUCASIAN ware of eastern Anatolia and the Levant, the ‘scarlet ware’ of the Diyala region and JEMDET NASR–Early Dynastic pottery in Sumer and Akkad. Unlike these phases in southern Mesopotamia, the Ninevite 5 sites so far excavated (e.g. CHAGAR BAZAR) show few signs of developing urbanism. Much of the recent archaeological information on this cultural phase derives from rescue excavations in northern Iraq (the Saddam Dam Salvage Project, including Tell Mohammed Arab) and northeastern Syria (including Tell Leilan).
G.M. Schwartz: ‘The Ninevite 5 period and current research’, Paléorient 11 (1985), 52–70; M. Roaf and R.G. Killick: ‘A mysterious affair of style: the Ninevite V pottery of northern Mesopotamia’, Iraq 49 (1987), 199–230.
IS
Nippur (Nuffar) Early Mesopotamian city-site and cult-centre of Enlil, the most important Sumerian deity, located in southern Iraq, about 150 km southeast of Baghdad. Although not politically powerful in itself (except for a period in the late 3rd millennium BC, when it may have been the seat of the Third Dynasty of UR), the approval of the city’s priests of Enlil was generally regarded as essential for the legitimate rule of SUMER and AKKAD from the early 3rd millennium BC onwards. The settlement remains comprise one of the largest tells in Mesopotamia, about 1 km in diameter, up to 20 m in height, and ranging in date from the UBAID period (c.5000–3800 BC) until the Middle Ages. There is a distinct gap in the archaeological record at Nippur between the Old Babylonian and Kassite strata (i.e. c.1750–1550 BC), which mirrors the dearth of textual evidence from the cities of southern Iraq during the same period.
V. Crawford: ‘Nippur, the Holy City’, Archaeology 12 (1959), 74–83; G.F. Dales and D.P. Hansen: ‘The temple of Innana, Queen of Heaven at Nippur’, Archaeology 15 (1962), 75–84; D.E. McCown and R.C. Haines: Nippur 2 vols (Chicago, 1967–78); H.T. Wright: ‘Problems of absolute dating in protohistoric Mesopotamia’, Paléorient
Nishapur Site in northeastern Iran (Khurasan), which is one of the most extensively excavated Iranian Islamic sites. The finds, which included paintings, decorative plaster, metalwork and ceramics all bear witness to the importance of Khurasan as the prosperous industrial heartland of preMongol Iran. The excavations of 1935–40 were halted by the Second World War and concluded afterwards, by which time the tells had been heavily looted by the local treasure hunters. The publication of the ceramics remains one of the most significant studies of excavated material from eastern Iran and provides an archaeological context for the large amount of unprovenanced material from Khurasan that appears on the art market and in museums.
C.K. Wilkinson: Nishapur: pottery of the early Islamic Period (New York, 1973); J.A. Allan: Nishapur: metalwork of the early Islamic period (New York, 1982); C.K. Wilkinson: Nishapur: some early Islamic buildings and their decoration (New York, 1986).
GK
nitrogen in bone Bone nitrogen content decreases post mortem with the breakdown of proteins. Fluorine and uranium contents increase with uptake from the burial environment (see FLUORINE
UPTAKE and URANIUM SERIES DATING). In com-
bination, these have been used as indicators of relative date and were instrumental in exposing the
PILTDOWN MAN HOAX.
K.P. Oakley: ‘Analytical methods of dating bones’, Science and archaeology, ed. D. Brothwell and E. Higgs (London, 1969), 35–45.
SB
nitrogen profile dating Scientific dating technique, the principles of which are similar to those of OBSIDIAN HYDRATION dating. The extent of the diffusion of nitrogen into the carved surface of non-porous stones, such as jade, flint and possibly marble, is a function of the time that has elapsed since the carving of the stone (and is also temperature-dependent). An essential prerequisite is that there is no initial nitrogen in the stone. The technique, although suggested nearly 20 years ago, has only begun to be developed in the 1990s, using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) to determine the nitrogen profile.
K.V. Ettinger and E.L. Frey: ‘Nitrogen profiling: a
428 NITROGEN PROFILE DATING
proposed dating technique for difficult artefacts’,
Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Archaeometry and Archaeological Prospection, Edinburgh 1976, ed. E.A. Slater and J.O. Tate (Edinburgh, 1980), 293–311.
SB
Njoro River Cave Pre-Iron Age site in the elevated stretch of the Eastern Rift Valley in Kenya, famous for its numerous cremated burials excavated by Louis and Mary Leakey in 1938. The burials were accompanied by stone bowls, grind-stones and rubbing stones, several types of beads and ornaments as well as various carbonized organic objects, including basketry, string, ivory (perhaps pestles), a gourd and a wooden vessel (possibly for milk). Obsidian tools and pottery also buried there relate to the ELMENTEITAN, although the radiocarbon dating of Njoro River Cave to the end of the 2nd millennium BC (Merrick and Monaghan 1984) places it half a millennium earlier than Elmenteitan settlements dated so far. The site remains unique, although partly comparable pre-Iron Age burials are known from other caves along the same river and higher up the Mau escarpment.
M.D. and L.S.B. Leakey: Excavations at the Njoro River Cave (Oxford, 1950); H.V. Merrick and M.C. Monaghan: ‘The date of the cremated burials in the Njoro River Cave’, Azania 19 (1984), 7–11.
JS
Nkope Multi-component Iron Age site at the southern end of Lake Malawi, which is the type-site of a Central African cultural tradition. ‘Nkope’ material is stratified under Mawudzu and Nkudzi material at the site of Nkope itself. Similarities with KWALE on the East African coast and UREWE in the interior show that Nkope pottery is part of the Early Iron Age Urewe Tradition. The term Nkope formerly corresponded to David Phillipson’s ‘Highland Facies of Eastern Stream’, but it now applies to a branch of the Urewe ceramic tradition that included Situmpa, Ziwa and Gokomere. The Ziwa sequence in northeast Zimbabwe (running from 6th-century Ziwa, via 8th-century Coronotion, to 10th-century Maxton) parallels the changes from Nkope to 10th-century Kapeni and from Kwale to the 10th-century ceramics at KILWA. This parallel process of cultural change in widely separated areas of Africa strengthens the argument that the Ziwa and Nkope sequences had common origins.
K.R. Robinson: The Iron Age of the Southern Lake area of Malawi (Zomba, 1970); T.N. Huffman: ‘A guide to the Iron Age of Mashonaland’, Occasional Papers of the
National Museums of Rhodesia A4 (1971), 20–44; K.R. Robinson: Iron Age occupation north and east of the Mulanje Plateau (Zomba, 1977).
TH
Nkudzi Bay Cemetery of late 18thand 19thcentury date located at the southwest corner of Lake Malawi. It is the type locality for a distinctive class of pottery (Nkudzi ware) of the recent end of the Later Iron Age of Malawi, and is thought to mark the arrival in the area of the people known as the Bisa (Wisa), described as ‘great travellers and traders with the coast’.
R.R. Inskeep: Preliminary investigation of a proto-historic cemetery at Nkudzi Bay, Malawi (Livingstone, 1965); K.R. Robinson: The Iron Age of the Southern Lake area of Malawi (Zomba, 1970).
RI
Nobatae see BLEMMYES; MEROITIC
Nogawa Late Palaeolithic site in Tokyo, Japan, located in the Musashino Uplands of the Kanto loam, which has provided a clear stratigraphic sequence for the Japanese Palaeolithic (pre30,000 BP–10,000 BC). One of many important Palaeolithic sites in the region excavated since the 1970s. Evidence for hearths and lithic clusters was recovered, suggesting a number of activity areas. The site is also important as an early example of a broad-area excavation of a Palaeolithic site. Obsidian tools have been dated using FISSION TRACK to a range between 21,600–9,500 BP. The obsidian was transported into the area from sources outside the Kanto Plain.
C.M. Aikens and T. Higuchi: The prehistory of Japan (London, 1982), 46–51.
SK
Nok Valley in the Chori hills southwest of the Jos Plateau, Central Nigeria, which has given its name to the ‘Nok culture’ or – as some scholars describe it – the Nok ‘artistic tradition’. Characterized principally by dramatically stylized terracotta figurines, most of them recovered from alluvial deposits in the course of industrial mining operations, the ‘Nok culture’ extends over an area of about 480 × 160 km.
Three non-alluvial sites have been excavated: Samun Dukiya (in the Nok valley itself), Taruga, and Katsina Ala (south of the river Benue). At Taruga 13 iron smelting furnaces were found, as a result of which the ‘Nok culture’ has now been
recognized as an exclusively Iron Age phenomenon. Ten radiocarbon dates at Taruga range from 2541 to 2042 BP, making it one of the earliest iron smelting sites in West Africa, and a number of TL dates on figurines from other sites (including Nok itself) are in agreement with this. It is suggested that the figurines (of which about 200 are now known) had most likely a magico-religious significance, whether as field altars or in connection with iron smelting.
B.E.B. Fagg: Nok terracottas (Lagos, 1977); D. Calvocoressi and N. David: ‘A new survey of radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates for West Africa’, JAH 20/1 (1979), 1–29; T. Shaw: ‘The Nok sculptures of Nigeria’, SA 244/2 (1981) 114–23.
PA-J
nomads Mobile hunter-gatherers or pastoralists. According to Barth (1973), true pastoral nomads should be defined as an ethnic group among whom no subsistence activity other than pastoralism is practised (a modern example of which would be the Kababish, a nomadic tribe based in the semiarid Kordofan region of western Sudan, see Asad 1970). In such a group, seasonal movement would be virtually inevitable as a result of the need for large areas of different types of pasture land.
Whereas some archaeologists have chosen to define ‘nomads’ simply as any mobile group (e.g. Taylor 1972), most would agree that the term generally refers to herding societies whose seasonal movements are primarily dependent on the search for fresh pastures (see Cribb 1991). This nomadic pastoralism is usually distinguished from other types that may be more sedentary or may combine herding with forms of cultivation. Various attempts have been made to assess how these different degrees of nomadism and pastoralism should be categorized. Goldschmidt (1979), for instance, distinguishes between (1) flat-land nomads herding large groups of livestock (either mounted or pedestrian, and including some who also cultivate crops to some extent) and (2) mountain-dwelling transhumants herding smaller numbers of stock. Khazanov (1984), on the other hand, suggests that there are six categories: (1) highly mobile pastoral nomads with no agriculture at all, (2) semi-nomadic pastoralists who practise some agriculture, (3) semisedentary pastoralists, among whom agriculture is more important than herding, (4) practisers of ‘herdsman husbandry’, most of whom are sedentary, with a small set of herdsmen looking after the livestock. (5) Yaylagh (or transhumant) pastoralists exploiting different ecological zones in highland regions, and (6) practisers of sedentary animal
NOMADS 429
husbandry, for whom agriculture is their most important means of subsistence (i.e. farmers who each keep a small amount of livestock).
As far as the origins of nomadism are concerned, it was once widely believed that nomadic pastoralists were simply hunter-gatherers who had begun to domesticate the animals that they had previously hunted. However, this essentially evolutionary view of nomadism has been largely disproved by the discovery of numerous Near Eastern sites where hunting and gathering was immediately followed
by agriculture (see ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC and
NATUFIAN). The more recent consensus, therefore, is that nomads are almost invariably agriculturallybased groups who have been forced to give up cultivation through migration (or restriction) to more marginal land. This ecological approach to the emergence of nomadic life-styles, has, however, in its turn, also met with opposition, mainly in the form of anthropologists and archaeologists who believe that it is not usually environmental pressures but cultural ones (i.e. political, social or technological changes) that are responsible for the nomadic pastoralist adaptation. Thus R.B. Ekvall (1961) argues that the mobility of the Tibetan nomadic way of life served as a defensive response against the actions of an aggressive state. Some of the most recent case-studies and analyses of the problem (e.g. Lynch 1983) have argued that nomadism is invariably the result of both ecological and cultural pressures.
The archaeological study of nomads is still relatively underdeveloped, compared with the study of sedentary groups. Most substantial contributions to the subject have concentrated on north Africa and the Middle East. Karim Sadr (1991) has analysed the nature of nomadism in northeast Africa, while J.R. Kupper (1957) and Roger Cribb (1991) have both devoted monographs to the study of Ancient Near Eastern nomads.
Sadr uses such methods as the quantification of density of artefacts and the study of SITE FORMATION PROCESSES to distinguish between long, medium and short-term occupations in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. He suggests that these northeastern African nomads largely emerged through a process of symbiosis with developing states; thus, for instance, he argues that the appearance of nomadism in Upper Nubia in the late 3rd millennium BC was directly related to the emergence of a powerful late Predynastic agricultural economy in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, leading the Upper Nubian population to switch voluntarily from a mixed economy to the more specialized exploitation of the hinterland at the margins of the state.
430 NOMADS
Cribb’s work (1991), concentrating particularly on the camps of modern Anatolian pastoralists, shows the ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL potential of the subject. Although he is very successful in demonstrating the great complexity of Near Eastern nomadic life, his case-studies have limited applications to the investigation of nomadism elsewhere in the world and arguably he does not go far enough towards establishing general archaeological criteria for the definition of non-sedentary settlement sites or camps.
See also AMORITES, ARAMAEANS, CHALDAEANS, CHICHIMECS, LURISTAN, PALEO-INDIAN,
PAZYRYK, PIT-GRAVE CULTURE and SCYTHIANS.
E. Bacon: ‘Types of pastoral nomadism in central and southwest Asia’, SJA 10/1 (1954), 44–68; J.R. Kupper:
Les nomades en Mésopotamie au temps des rois de Mari (Paris, 1957); R.B. Ekvall: ‘The nomadic pattern of living among Tibetans as preparation for war,’ American Anthropologist 63 (1961), 1250–63; T. Asad: The Kababish Arabs: power, authority and consent in a nomadic tribe (New York, 1970); W.W. Taylor: ‘The hunter-gatherer nomads of northern Mexico: a comparison of the archival and archaeological records’, WA 4/2 (1972), 167–79; W. Watson: ‘The Chinese contribution to eastern nomad culture in the preHan and early Han periods’, WA 4/2 (1972), 139–49; F. Barth: ‘A general perspective on nomad-sedentary relations in the Middle East’, The desert and the sown, ed. C.M. Nelson (Berkeley 1973), 11–21; W. Weissleder, ed.:
The nomadic alternative: modes and models of interaction in the African-Asian deserts and steppes (The Hague, 1978); 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’équipe écologie (Cambridge, 1979), 15–29; T.J. Barfield: The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan: pastoral nomadism in transition (Austin, 1981); T.F. Lynch: ‘Camelid pastoralism and the emergence of Tiwanaku civilization in the south-central Andes’, WA 15/1 (1983), 1–15; A.M. Khazanov: Nomads and the outside world (Cambridge, 1984); R. Cribb: Nomads in archaeology (Cambridge, 1991); K. Sadr: The development of nomadism in ancient northeast Africa
(Philadelphia, 1991).
IS
nomothetic (generalizing) approaches
Philosophers of the social sciences use the term ‘nomothetic’ to describe approaches that attempt to verify meaningful generalizations about human history and social organization, and to formulate these into law-like statements. The nomothetic approach contrasts with the more traditional ‘individualizing’ approach to history and sociology that explains social events and phenomena by reference to the particular.
A tension has existed (in explicit form) since the
19th century between these two approaches. Many of the early writings of Emile Durkheim, who attempted to found a ‘science’ of sociology (see FUNCTIONALISM), advocate adopting the nomothetic approach and a POSITIVIST methodology of truth-seeking (Durkheim 1895). On the other hand, Max Weber (1864–1920), who with Durkheim is often named as a co-founder of modern sociology, argued that the concept of universal laws was helpful in the natural sciences, but that the social sciences should remain focused on explaining the causes of social phenomena and events within a particular historical context. Weber’s argument was not a rejection of positivist methodology per se, but a denial of its usefulness as an interpretative tool given the importance and complexity of context when seeking to understand human actions (i.e. within the social sciences).
In archaeology, the general concern in the social sciences over the relative value of nomothetic and individualizing approaches resurfaced as part of the debate between traditional and PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY in the 1960s. It continues to be a significant point of reference (and rhetoric) in the writings of post-processual and ‘contextual’ archaeologists.
See also
AND THEORY-BUILDING and COVERING LAWS.
E. Durkheim: Les règles de la méthode sociologique (Paris, 1895); M. Weber: Economy and society (1922; Berkeley, 1978).
RJA
Non Chai Late prehistoric settlement in the upper Chi Valley, northeast Thailand. Excavations by Pisit Charoenwongsa in 1978 revealed a deep stratigraphy dated to between 400 BC and AD 200, proving that substantial settlements had developed in Thailand by the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. The site has been destroyed through use as land fill and we have no information on domestic structures, layout, or whether it was once moated. Iron was present throughout the occupation, as were glass beads; clay moulds for casting bracelets and bells evidence a local bronze industry. The pottery is mainly red-slipped, offering a contrast to the contemporary layers at BAN CHIANG HIAN, where the ceramics bore red-painted designs, and to Non Dua, where the designs included red bands painted over a cord-marked surface. A series of such large central sites in the valley of the Chi, each with its own pottery styles, suggests that chiefdom centres (and small village communities in their orbit) were emerging during the late prehistoric period.
D.T. Bayard, P. Charoenwongsa and S. Rutnin: ‘Excavations at Non Chai, northeastern Thailand’, Asian Perspectives 25/1 (1986), 13–62.
CH
Non Dua Moated site first settled in the 1st millennium BC in the lower Chi Valley, which for at least the last two millennia has lain at the centre of a vigorous and continuing salt extraction industry. The site is adjacent to an extensive exposure of rock salt, round which deep mounds have accumulated. Excavations by Charles Higham and Hamilton Parker in 1969–70 in one of these have shown that early salt working did indeed take place during the occupation period of Non Dua. Using landsat images, John Parry has identified a canal linking moats at the site with the Lam Siao Yao stream. This suggests a development of water control and reticulation, as at the contemporary site of BAN
CHIANG HIAN.
C.F.W. Higham: ‘The prehistory of the southern Khorat Plateau, with particular reference to Roi Et Province’. MQRSEA 3 (1977), 103–42; J.T. Parry: ‘The investigative role of Landsat-TM in the examination of preand protohistoric water management sites in northeast Thailand’,
Geocarto International 4 (1992), 5–24.
CH
Non Nok Tha Cemetery site of the 2nd millennium BC located in the Upper Chi valley of northeast Thailand. From 1965 to 1968, Down Bayard excavated over 200 burials with grave goods that included a small number of bronze axes and bracelets, sandstone casting moulds, many pottery vessels and some stone adzeheads. Due to a lack of well-provenanced dating material and the unclear stratigraphy, the chronological sequence at the site is difficult and controversial. There have been claims for a very long sequence, with bronze occurring as early as the 4th millennium BC, but it is more likely that the bronze phases at the site belong to the 2nd millennium BC. Bayard has controversially proposed that the burials represent two distinct affiliated groups on the basis of the differences in pottery forms found in the graves.
D.T. Bayard: Non Nok Tha, the 1968 excavation: procedure, stratigraphy and a summary of the evidence (Otago, 1972).
CH
Non Nong Chik Burial site located within Phu Wiang, a large sandstone monadnock about 10 km south of in northeast Thailand. Limited excavations by Higham and Parker in 1970
NON PA WAI 431
revealed stratified inhumations, individuals being buried with pottery vessels resembling those from the later part of the sequence at Non Nok Tha.
R.A. Buchan: The three-dimensional jig-saw puzzle: a ceramic sequence from NE Thailand (MA thesis, University of Otago, 1973).
CH
non-parametric statistics A diverse collection of statistical techniques, with the common feature that they do not depend on an assumption that the DATA come from a particular STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION (for example, it has been argued that the sizes of rim sherd fragments follow a distribution known as the log-normal distribution). For this reason they are sometimes called distribution-free statistics. They are often based on the order (RANK) of the observations rather than their values. For example, in comparing the length of flints from two assemblages, one would take account of the fact that one of the assemblages yielded the five smallest flints, rather than that the flints had lengths of 30 mm. Some well-known tests are the median test, runs test, sign test and Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test.
J.E. Doran and F.R. Hodson: Mathematics and computers in archaeology (Edinburgh, 1975), 54–6; M. Fletcher and G.R. Lock: Digging numbers (Oxford, 1991), 85–90.
CO
Non Pa Wai Prehistoric mound with evidence of early metallurgy, located in the copper-rich KHAO WONG PRACHAN VALLEY, central Thailand. The mound covers an area of 5 ha and contains three principal layers. The lowest comprises a cemetery dated to the 3rd millennium BC, in which inhumation burials were found associated with a range of pottery vessels and jewellery of shell and stone; no metal was found. There follow two further layers representing intensive copper-ore processing and smelting, followed by the casting of ingots and some artefacts. A burial cut from this layer yielded a socketed axe and associated bivalve clay moulds. The artefacts and ingots are made from a copper with significant quantities of arsenic, but no tin bronze. Vincent Pigott and Surapol Natapintu, the excavators, have obtained radiocarbon dates that chart the use of metals from 1500 BC. The huge quantity of copper-processing remains shows how the ore was smelted in bowl crucibles and cast into circular ingots.
V.C. Pigott: ‘Pre-industrial mineral exploitation and metal production in Thailand’, Masca Journal 3/5 (1986) 170–4.
CH
432 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION
normal distribution The STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION most commonly used by archaeologists. It is defined by a mathematical equation, but is colloquially known as the ‘bell-shaped curve’. Its value to archaeologists lies not so much in the rare occasions on which it actually occurs in archaeology (e.g. uncalibrated RADIOCARBON DATES), but in the fact that the MEANS of many distributions which describe archaeological DATASETS have a normal distribution, even when the original distribution is far from normal.
S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh 1988), 101–12.
CO
normalization Statistical term that archaeologists often use to describe a process which is more properly called STANDARDIZATION. It is correctly used to denote the process of transforming a DATASET to make it fit a NORMAL DISTRIBUTION, for example by taking the logarithm of each value.
S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh, 1988), 108–12.
CO
normative explanations These explanations interpret individual cultural phenomena by relating them to cultural ‘norms’ or sets or shared beliefs and practices held in common with other members of the same cultural group. It might be argued that archaeology, as a discipline that is obliged to construct meaning from partial but complex assemblages of material culture, is inevitably drawn to normative explanation: it is often by this means that archaeologists find patterns and correlations in the archaeological record to begin with. At the same time, normative explanations can lead to simplistic assumptions: that a similarity in the material culture implies shared aims, or even shared mental templates and world-views. Normative explanations are therefore sometimes criticized on the grounds that they mask variability in the archaeological record, or mask variability in behaviour even where material culture is indeed similar. Normative explanations also tend not to offer a useful framework for explaining change over time, as they encourage archaeologists to look upon similarity, alone, as meaningful.
Traditional culture-historical archaeological narratives are often accused of normative bias (e.g. in assuming a homogeneous cultural identity); certain approaches in processual archaeology (e.g. the description of social dynamics in terms of
systems theory) have been similarly criticized. By contrast, recent trends in archaeological explana-
tion (e.g. CONTEXTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY) have
tended to stress the diversity of ways in which material culture can be used and the importance of both the individual and the individual social context. Taken to the extreme, this reaction against ‘normative’ explanation can lead to a rather selfdefeating form of archaeological introspection (see
POST-PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY). In modera-
tion, it encourages a useful sensitivity to the social mechanisms that lead to norms in culture, and to the particular contexts in which norms may be abandoned or even subverted.
RJA
Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW)
Widespread ceramic ware of the late 1st millennium BC (c.600–50 BC) which is primarily associated with the early historic cities of the Ganges and Yamuna river valleys (see GANGES CIVILIZATION), although NBPW sherds have also been found at sites in Nepal, Gujarat and the Deccan plateau. It is possible that the start of the NBPW period may have overlapped with the
phase (c.1300–600 BC) at some sites.
The NBPW ceramics were wheel-made and expertly fired; common forms included bowls, dishes, lids and carinated jars. The vessels were slipped with highly polished and burnished black or grey surfaces, some bearing painted decorations in yellow and light red consisting of simple linear bands, wavy lines and circular motifs. Usually found in association with other ceramics, their low frequencies suggest that they may have been used for specialized functions or restricted to an elite.
M.R. Bannerjee: The Iron Age in India (New Delhi, 1965), 240–3; H.C. Bhardwaj: ‘Some technical observations on NBPW’, Potteries in ancient India, ed. B.P. Sinha (Patna, 1969), 174–84; V. Tripathi: The Painted Grey Ware: an Iron Age culture of northern India (Delhi, 1976), 47–50.
CS
Norton tradition Alaskan tradition comprising the Choris, Norton and IPIUTAK cultures, which persisted from 1000 BC until AD 800 in some areas. Assemblages typically contain flaked stone tools similar to the Denbigh Flint complex (see ARCTIC SMALL TOOL TRADITION), but most also include pottery and oil lamps.
D.E. Dumond: The Eskimos and Aleuts (London, 1987).
RP
Noyen-sur-Seine Extensively excavated middle Neolithic enclosure in the Seine valley, France, close to an earlier site of the Mesolithic with remarkably well-preserved organic evidence. The Neolithic site (c.3 ha) consists of a series of ditches and interrupted pallisades of more than one phase. It yielded evidence of hearths and storage pits, and the excavators recognized areas of cereal processing and stock control. The pottery represents a mix of
CHASSÉEN and MICHELSBERG styles. The Meso-
lithic site preserved the organic remains of large fish traps, a basket and a pine dug-out canoe dating from c.7000 BC; faunal evidence included red deer, boar, waterfowl, pike and eel.
C. and D. Mordant: ‘Noyen-sur-Seine, habitat néolithique de fond de vallée alluviale’, Gallia Préhistoire, 20 (1977), 229; D. and C. Mordant: ‘Noyen-sur-Seine: a Mesolithic waterside settlement’ The Wetland Revolution in Prehistory, ed. B. Coles (Exeter, 1992), 55–64.
RJA
Nsongezi Stone Age occupation site on the Ugandan side of the Kagera valley (the Tanzanian border), which contains an array of materials of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. The artefacts range
from ACHEULEAN to ‘SANGOAN’ (regarded as
intermediate between Early and Middle Stone Age) and probably Middle Stone Age itself. After Wayland’s pioneer work early in the 20th century, the site was examined in detail by Glen Cole (1967). Since all the deposits are in secondary alluvial situations with complex stratification lacking fossils, dating is very unclear. While the Sangoan (cum-Middle Stone Age?) could be less than a quarter of a million years old, the Acheulean could stretch back for twice that period or more, although at the time that Cole worked at Nsongezi a much later and more constricted dating of the African upper Acheulean and transition to the Middle Stone Age was assumed.
The nearby Nsongezi rock-shelter contains Late Stone Age materials of Holocene date. The upper deposits, although confused, have been dated to recent millennia, with pottery of KANSYORE and EARLY IRON AGE (Urewe) types. These are better represented on Kansyore itself, an island in the Kagera below the rock-shelter.
S. Pearce and M. Posnansky: ‘The re-excavation of Nsongezi rock-shelter’, UJ 27 (1963), 85–94; G.H. Cole: ‘The Later Acheulean and Sangoan of southern Uganda’,
Background to evolution in Africa ed. W.W. Bishop and J.D. Clark (Chicago and London, 1967), 481–528.
N-TRANSFORMS 433
Ntereso see AFRICA 2
n-transforms Abbreviation for ‘non-cultural formation processes’, a term coined by the American archaeologist Michael Schiffer to describe the ways in which natural activities (such as wind, rain or frost) affect archaeological remains. N-transforms and C-TRANSFORMS (cultural formation processes) are the two fundamental types of
Schiffer’s SITE FORMATION PROCESSES, whereby
the ‘systemic context’ is transformed into the archaeological context’ (see BEHAVIOURAL ARCHAEOLOGY). Whereas c-transforms would include such cultural events as the discarding of rubbish, the demolition of buildings or the burial of a corpse, n-transforms involve purely environmental change, such as the effects of erosion, weathering, earthquakes or the activities of animals.
N-transforms have been further subdivided by Wood and Johnson (1976) into various categories of natural ‘disturbance processes’, including pedoturbation (soil formation), faunalturbation (disturbance by animals), floralturbation (disturbance by plants), cryoturbation (freeze-thaw action), graviturbation (mixing and movement of debris under the influence of gravity), argilliturbation (the expansion and contraction of clays), aeroturbation (effects of wind and soil-gas), aquaturbation (effects of water under pressure), crystalturbation (growth and deterioration of crystals) and seismiturbation (earthquakes).
Karl Butzer (1982: 101–2), for instance, has demonstrated the effects of running water (aquaturbation) on the horizontal patterning of Middle Stone Age lithics at Alexandersfontein, near Kimberley, South Africa, and the tendency of ‘soilfrost sorting’ (cryoturbation) at Torralba, a Pleistocene site in central Spain, to produce rings of stones that appeared man-made but were actually entirely natural. The artificially constructed earthworks at OVERTON DOWN and Wareham Down are practical, experimental attempts to understand
n-transforms (see EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY). See also TAPHONOMY.
M.B. Schiffer: Behavioral archaeology (New York, 1976), 15–6; R. Wood and D.L. Johnson: ‘A survey of disturbance processes in archaeological site formation’, Advances in archaeological method and theory 1, ed. M.B. Schiffer (New York 1978), 315–81; K.W. Butzer: Archaeology as human ecology (Cambridge, 1982), 100–22; M.B. Schiffer:
Formation processes of the archaeological record
(Albuquerque, 1987); P.J. Fowler, ‘The experimental earthworks 1958–88’, Annual Report of the Council for British Archaeology 39 (1988–9), 83–98.
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