A Dictionary of Archaeology

THIN SECTIONING, HEAVY MINERAL ANALYSIS

and chemical analyses. These analyses can be used in provenance studies, or for the simple description of the characteristics of a stone or ceramic artefact, in which case it is more properly called petrography.

D.R.C. Kempe and A.P. Harvey, eds: The petrology of archaeological artefacts (Oxford, 1983).

PTN

Peukolaotis see CHARSADA

Peu Richardien pottery Heavily decorated pottery style of the Late Neolithic in France, named after an enclosure site in Charente, that makes use of incised and relief decoration in bold motifs – notably oculi (eye motifs). Originally regarded as defining an intrusive culture – many authorities believed the oculi signified an Iberian origin – the style is now interpreted as having evolved locally in the mid-4th millennium BC, adopting selected ‘Mediterranean’ motifs. The lithic material associated with Peu Richardien pottery is not distinctive, but the ware is associated with a series of sites that are the most strongly fortified settlements in the French Neolithic. Champs Durand (Vendée), for example, is surrounded by three concentric ditches- and-banks (the rock-cut ditches are up to 2.5 m deep), one of the entrances being gated and flanked by a drystone ‘tower’. Entrances at other Peu Richardien sites (e.g. Peu-Richard itself) are protected by elaborately curved banks (entrance works). As at all surviving Peu Richardien sites, there is little evidence for domestic structures inside the banks of Champs Durand, but this is probably because of poor preservation – the pottery and refuse etc. suggests that this was a defended settlement.

R. Joussaume: Champ Durand à Nieul-sur-l’Autize (Vendée): Site préhistorique fortifié (La Roche-sur-Yon, 1980); C. Scarre, ed.: Ancient France (Edinburgh, 1983).

RJA

Pfyn (Michelsberg-Pfyn) Regional Swiss Neolithic culture, known from lake-side settlements and other sites in the Lake Zurich and Lake Constance region, and distinguished from the related Michelsberg cultural complex in 1959 by J. Driehaus. Dating from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, it is the earliest major Neolithic culture over much of northeast Switzerland, and is securely stratified below the succeeding late Neolithic HORGEN culture at a number of sites. Pfyn pottery is characterized by flat-bottomed vessels and a

PHENOMENOLOGY 465

unique assemblage of decorative elements drawn from other Neolithic ceramic styles (including some RÖSSEN decorative elements). Likewise, while the lithic equipment is closest to Swiss CORTAILLOD assemblages, the perforated axe hammers resemble those found in MICHELSBERG contexts. A limited range of metal objects are known and – unlike the Cortaillod – crucibles and other evidence suggest local metalworking.

J. Winiger: Das Fundmaterial von Thayngen-Weier im Rahmen der Pfyner Kultur (Basle, 1971); M. Sakellarides:

The economic exploitation of the Swiss area in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, BAR IS 67 (Oxford, 1979), 48–50, J. Winiger: Das Neolithikum der Schweiz (Basle, 1981).

RJA

Phalaborwa Important centre for iron and copper smelting from the 8th century AD onwards, located in the eastern Transvaal, South Africa. Small villages occupied flat ground at the foot of volcanic hills, and in the harsh environment of the Transvaal Lowveld the economy was probably dependent on trade in metal products rather than on locally produced foodstuffs. The site has particularly yielded detail on mining and smelting technology and logistics. Pottery production undergoes no change in technology or style from the 11th to the 19th century, and provides clear links with the modern northeastern Sotho people.

N.J. van der Merwe and T.K. Scully: ‘The Phalaborwa story: archaeological and ethnographic investigation of a South African Iron Age group’, WA 3/2 (1971), 178–96; N.J. Van der Merwe and D.J. Killick: ‘Square: an iron smelting site near Phalaborwa’, South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 3 (1979), 86–93.

RI

phenomenology The science of phenomena (i.e. anything that can be apprehended via the senses), a philosophical approach formulated by Edmund Husserl (1931), was based on the idea of the experiences of the self, in contrast to the empirical approach of POSITIVISM inaugurated by Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Husserl’s ideas found their way into psychology and sociology via the work of Martin Heidegger (1962) and Alfred Schütz, eventually exerting some influence on geography (e.g. Taun 1977; Relph 1985), anthropology and archaeology. Most of the applications of phenomenology have so far been restricted to European sites dating from the Mesolithic to the early Bronze Age.

Chris Tilley (1994) takes a phenomenological approach to the archaeological landscapes of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Wales and Dorset,

466 PHENOMENOLOGY

asking the question: ‘why were particular locations chosen for habitation and the erection of monuments as opposed to others?’. The aspects of the archaeological record which would traditionally be used to answer this question (e.g. climate, soils, availability of resources, demography, technology and territoriality) are characterized by Tilley (1994:2) as ‘the function of a contemporary mythmaking in which an exclusively modernist Western logic has simply been superimposed on the past’. He therefore concentrates primarily on ‘the symbolics of landscape perception and the role of social memory in choice of site location’, arguing that these need to be taken into account alongside conventional factors of the type listed above.

Archaeologists have made numerous attempts to understand the function(s) performed by Early Neolithic CAUSEWAYED CAMPS (large circular monuments enclosed by concentric ditches), producing such suggestions as meeting places, animal enclosures, trading areas or sanctuaries. Whereas the landscapes within and around the ‘camps’ are often studied only in terms of two-dimensional maps and plans, Mark Edmonds (1993) uses practical observations and first-hand experience of the monuments in an attempt to appreciate their impact on the individuals who built them and who were no doubt buried in the closely associated earthen long

BARROWS.

Julian Thomas (1993) presents a similarly phenomenological perspective on the development of the Neolithic and early Bronze Age landscapes around AVEBURY in north Wiltshire, stressing that ‘the emergence of the monumental complex cannot be understood entirely from plans and distribution maps, but requires a consideration of the positioning of persons in relation to the monuments’. By walking through and around the site and experiencing at first hand the spatial constraints and visual particularities of the archaeological and natural features, Thomas gains a sense of Avebury as a complex in which the various elements were arranged in such a way as to reflect different individuals’ access to power and knowledge. Thus, for instance, ‘The Obelisk . . . stood at the centre of a series of nested spaces, separated by barriers which impeded rather than totally closed off access, and which rendered activities at the centre obscure and partial rather than totally invisible’, while, the Avebury henge, on the other hand, ‘serves to draw in far more people than the chambered tombs through its sheer size, but as the same time its architecture functions to classify them more rigorously through their movements and access to knowledge and performance’.

E. Husserl: Phenomenological philosophy, trans. W.R.B. Gibson (London, 1931); M. Heidegger: Being and time

(Oxford, 1962); Y.-F. Taun: Space and place: the perspective of experience (London, 1977); E. Relph: ‘Geographical experiences and being-in-the-world: the phenomenological origins of geography’, Dwelling, place and environment, ed. D. Seamon and R. Mugerauer (New York, 1985), 15–32; M. Edmonds: ‘Interpreting causeway enclosures in the past and in the present’, Interpretive archaeology, ed. C. Tilley (Oxford, 1993), 99–142; J. Thomas: ‘The politics of vision and the archaeologies of landscape’, Landscape: politics and perspectives, ed. B. Bender (Oxford and Providence, 1993), 19–44; C. Tilley:

A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths and monuments

(Oxford and Providence, 1994).

IS

Philae The original island site of a temple of the goddess Isis, located about 7 km south of Aswan. The surviving elements of the sandstone temple, dating from the 30th dynasty to the late Roman period, was transferred to the nearby island of Agilqiyya during the early 1970s in order to save it from the rising waters of LAKE NASSER. The worship of Isis at Philae appears to have survived well into the Christian era, and it was not until the reign of Justinian (c.AD 535) that the temple was finally closed down.

H. Junker: Der grosse Pylon des Tempels der Isis in Philä

(Vienna, 1958); –––– and E. Winter: Das geburtshaus des Tempels der Isis in Philä (Vienna, 1965); E. Vassilika:

Ptolemaic Philae (Leuven, 1989).

IS

Philistines People in Iron Age Palestine who were probably the descendants of the Late Bronze Age Peleset, identified as one of the invading SEA PEOPLES in the annals of the eighth year of the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses III (c.1194–1163 BC). Later in the same king’s reign, Papyrus Harris states that Peleset troops were employed as mercenaries in the Egyptian army. The Biblical Philistines, however, are not attested until the 10th century BC by which time they appear to have established themselves in the Pentapolis, a group of five cities along the Palestinian coastal plain: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath. Moshe Dothan’s excavations at Ashdod in 1962–9 revealed a burnt layer dating to the 13th century BC, corresponding perhaps to the Levantine campaign of the pharaoh Merenptah or, alternatively, to the arrival of the Sea Peoples in Palestine.

During the early Iron Age, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gezer (the three cities of the Pentapolis that have been excavated) were characterized by a dis-

tinctive material culture, although opinions differ as to whether these settlements can be described as ‘Philistine’ (Dothan and Freedman 1967–71). Several other sites in northern Palestine (including Jaffa and Tell el-Far’ah) are characterized by sherds of ‘Philistine pottery’, a painted ware combining Aegean, Canaanite and Egyptian shapes and decoration (Dothan 1982), as well as unusual forms of religious and funerary architecture thought to be influenced by the Philistines’ Aegean origins.

Jonathan Tubb (1990: 80) considers that the correlation between the archaeological remains and the textually-attested Philistines is unequivocal: ‘There are very few cases in which archaeologists are able to tie pots to people with any degree of certainty. In the case of Philistine pottery, however, the relationship is secure, and indeed this has provided the means by which it has been possible to chart the progress and expansion of the Philistines subsequent to their initial settlement’. Nancy Sandars (1985: 169) prefers to regard the Biblical Philistines, the Peleset and the Iron Age settlements with ‘Philistine pottery’ as three separate entities, although she agrees that ‘a linguistic connection between Egyptian plst (Peleset) and Philistine must be conceded’ (Sandars 1985: 164).

M. Dothan and D.N. Freedman: Ashdod, 3 vols (Tel Aviv, 1967–71); K.A. Kitchen: ‘The Philistines’, Peoples of Old Testament times, ed. D.J. Wiseman (Oxford, 1973), 53–78; T. Dothan: The Philistines and their material culture (Yale and London, 1982); N. Sandars: The Sea Peoples: warriors of the ancient Mediterranean, 1250–1150 BC 2nd edn (London, 1985), 164–77; J.N. Tubb: ‘Biblical archaeology: a synthesis and overview’, Archaeology and the Bible, ed. J.N. Tubb and R.L. Chapman (London, 1990), 41–93; T. and M. Dothan: Peoples of the Sea: the search for the Philistines (New York, 1992); D.M. Howard, Jr.: ‘Philistines’, Peoples of the Old Testament world, ed. A.J. Hoerth et al. (Grand Rapid, 1994).

IS

Phimai Major religious and administrative Khmer centre located in a strategic position in the upper Mun Valley of northeast Thailand. The central enclosed precinct has been restored, the large central tower of the principal temple being 18 m high. Phimai was also an important site during the later prehistoric period, and excavations have revealed rich burials of the later 1st century BC in association with a lustrous black burnished style of pottery.

L.P. Briggs: ‘The ancient Khmer empire’, TAPS 4/1 (1951), 1–295.

CH

PHOTOMICROGRAPH 467

Phoenicians West-Semitic-speaking, maritime people of the east Mediterranean coast during the 1st millennium BC, who were perhaps the immediate descendants of the CANAANITES (although the identification of the Canaanites themselves is problematic); Donald Redford (1992: 299), for instance, describes them as ‘coastal Canaanites’, and D.R. ap Thomas (1973: 262) asserts that they were ‘Canaanites, culturally, and indeed racially also’. It was the Greeks who referred to them as ‘Phoenicians’, but they described themselves simply in terms of their individual cities of origin. These towns along the Syro-Palestinian coastal strip ranged from Arvad and Amrit in the north, via Byblos and Sidon, to Tyre and Ushu in the south. There were also Phoenician settlements in Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Crete and north Africa, but the best-known Phoenician colony - Carthage - was to gain control of large areas of the Mediterranean region during the late 1st millennium BC, at a time when the Levantine Phoenicians were absorbed into the Assyrian and Persian empires.

Phoenician material culture, like that of the Canaanites, is characterized primarily by its eclecticism and tendency to draw ideas and technology from surrounding peoples – their pottery is essentially Aegean in nature whereas their styles of ivory-carving and cylinder-seals owe a great deal to Egypt and Mesopotamia respectively (the alphabetic fitter’s marks on the backs of the ‘NIMRUD ivories’ probably indicate a Phoenician origin). The Phoenician alphabetic script is closely related to that of the Canaanites, from which it appears to have developed, although the signs also show indications of the influence of cuneiform. Bernal (1987: 317–438) discusses the gradual changes in modern western attitudes to the Phoenicians; he argues that the growth of anti-Semitism between the 1880s and World War II caused many scholars to belittle the Phoenicians’ role in the emergence of Greek civilization.

D. Harden: The Phoenicians (Harmondsworth, 1971); D.R. ap Thomas: ‘The Phoenicians’, Peoples of Old Testament times, ed. D.J. Wiseman (Oxford, 1973), 259–86; P.M. Bikau: ‘The late Phoenician pottery complex and chronology’, Basor 229 (1978), 47–56; M. Bernal: Black Athena: the Afro-Asiatic roots of Classical civilization (London, 1987); D. Redford: Egypt, Canaan and Israel in ancient times (Princeton, 1992).

IS

photomicrograph Photograph of an object, or part of an object, taken through a microscope. Such photographs can be made using any type of microscope, from the simple optical microscope to

468 PHOTOMICROGRAPH

polarizing or scanning electron microscopes. The photographs may be required for record purposes or as a stage in further examination such as image analysis.

Kodak Ltd: Photography through the microscope (New York, 1974).

PTN

Phrygia, Phrygians The Phrygians were not a single cultural group but a ‘federation’ or ‘coalition’ of tribal peoples from eastern Europe who invaded Anatolia in the late 2nd millennium BC, effectively displacing the HITTITES. The Phrygian kingdom comprised most of central Anatolia, bordered to the west by the independent cities along the Aegean coast, to the south by Cilicia and to the east by Assyria. The history of Phrygia is derived mainly from Mesopotamian and Greek textual sources, starting with the Assyrian annals of the mid-12th century BC, when they are described as ‘Mushki and Tabal’.

Many early Phrygian settlements were built on the ruins of Hittite towns such as Alaça Hüyük and Boghazköy, but the 8th century capital was Gordium (the modern mound of Yasi Hüyük, 90 km west of Ankara). Despite its massive stone and timber fortifications Gordium was eventually pillaged by the CIMMERIANS in c.685 BC, but continued in use until at least the 6th century BC. The adjacent cemetery consisted of about 80 tumulusgraves, including the 50 m high ‘tomb of Midas’, containing the skeleton of an unknown 60-year-old ruler, along with wooden furniture, 169 bronze vessels and a bag containing 165 fibulae. Elsewhere, primarily in isolated mountain-top locations, the Phrygians of the 8th century BC erected stone sculptures, many carved with inscriptions in their own distinctive alphabet which is still undeciphered (Barnett 1953).

R.D. Barnett: ‘The Phrygian rock-façades and the Hittite monuments’, BO 10 (1953), 77–82; E. Akurgal: Phrygische Kunst (Ankara, 1955); C.H.E. Haspels: The highlands of Phrygia: sites and monuments, 2 vols (Princeton, 1971); R.S. Young: Gordion (Ankara, 1975); S. Lloyd: Ancient Turkey: a traveller’s history of Anatolia (London, 1989), 61–7.

IS

Phu Lon Southeast Asian copper source on the southern bank of the Mekong River, northeast Thailand, which was exploited from the mid-2nd millennium to the end of the 1st millennium BC. The mine shafts and the deep deposits of ore processing, smelting and casting residue probably represent seasonal activity. Sites on the adjacent

Khorat Plateau, such as NON NOK THA and BAN NA DI, have yielded sandstone and clay moulds, suggesting that casting was often undertaken away from the mines.

V.C. Pigott and S. Natapintu: ‘Archaeological investigations into prehistoric copper production: the Thailand archaeometallurgy project’, The beginnings and uses of metals and alloys, ed. R. Maddin (Boston 1986), 156–62.

CH

Phung Nguyen Prehistoric settlement, located above the confluence of the Red and Black rivers in northern Vietnam, that has given its name to the earliest metal-using culture of the region. Extensive excavations (1959–68) uncovered a rich material culture in which polished stone adzeheads, chisels and stone bracelets were particularly well represented, together with pottery vessels bearing ornate parallel-incised designs infilled with impressions. Over 50 similar sites have now been identified and ascribed to the Phung Nguyen culture; 11 of these have yielded fragments of bronze, but no complete artefacts. There is no corpus of radiocarbon dates, but the culture probably belongs to the period 2500–1500 BC.

Nguyen Ba Khoach: ‘Phung Nguyen’, Asian Perspectives 23/1 (1980), 23–54.

CH

Phylakopi Principal prehistoric settlement on the obsidian-producing island of Melos in the Cyclades. Excavations conducted between 1896 and 1899 at Phylakopi (see Atkinson et al.) helped to establish the framework of Cycladic prehistory, and revealed the successive influence of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations on the island; these early investigations have recently been supplemented by the work of Colin Renfrew and others. From 1600 BC Phylakopi was impressively fortified, and possessed at least one major building of probable administrative function. A Linear A clay tablet has been recovered, as have fragments of graceful Minoan-inspired frescoes. Renfrew’s detailed description of a later (1360–1100 BC) shrine at Phylakopi has elucidated our understanding of MYCENAEAN religion, and is interesting as an unusually systematic attempt to relate archaeological evidence to ritual.

T.D. Atkinson et al.: Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Supplementary Paper No. 4 (London, 1904); C. Renfrew and M. Wagstaff, eds: An island polity (Cambridge, 1982);

––––: The archaeology of cult: the sanctuary at Phylakopi

(London, 1985).

RJA

phytoliths (Gk. ‘plant stones’) Microscopic deposits of silica formed in the epidermal cells of plants. The silica, absorbed from groundwater, resists decay and the differently shaped phytoliths it forms within the plant cells have a restricted but useful taxonomic value. A very few plants, notably certain forms of maize, produce sets of phytoliths that can be distinguished at species level after careful size and morphological analysis (Piperno 1984). However, most phytoliths are family specific or non-specific. A crude form of phytolith analysis uses the density of silica within soils as an indicator of past grass cover; the future of more subtle means of analysis depends on the success of basic research in the variability of phytolith morphology and the effect upon phytolith sets of PRE- and POST-

DEPOSITIONAL PROCESSES.

D.M. Pearsall; ‘Phytolith analysis: applications of a new paleoethnobotanical technique in archaeology’, American Anthropologist 84/4 (1982), 862–71; D.R. Piperno: ‘A comparison and differentiation of phytoliths from maize and wild grasses: use of morphological criteria’, AA 49/2 (1984), 361–83; A. Powers: ‘Phytoliths: animal, vegetable and mineral?’, Science and archaeology, ed. E.A. Slater and J.O. Tate, BAR BS 196, ii (Oxford, 1988), 459–72.

RJA

Piklihal Neolithic settlement in the Raichur District of southern India, consisting of two Neolithic phases dating from the late 3rd to the early 2nd millennium BC, and later Iron Age and early Historic levels (Allchin 1960). Domestic cattle are common in both Neolithic phases, along with remains of sheep, goats, tortoises and shellfish. Artefacts include hand-made ceramics, ground stone axes, blade tools and terracotta cattlefigurines. Cattle, gazelle, sheep and goat are depicted in rock-drawings on nearby boulders and cave-walls.

F.R. Allchin: Piklihal excavations (Hyderabad, 1960);

––––: Neolithic cattle keepers of South India (Cambridge, 1963), 59.

CS

Pikunda-Munda Group see AFRICA 5.3

Piltdown Man hoax Palaeontological forgery which was widely accepted as fact for the first half of the 20th century. Fragments of a skull, a mandible and various EOLITHS and animal bones were found in 1912 by Charles Dawson (a solicitor with an interest in geology and archaeology) and Arthur Smith Woodward (a palaeontologist) at the site of Barkham Manor near Piltdown Common,

PIRAK 469

about 13 km north of Lewes, in the English county of Sussex. At the time they were thought to be evidence of the so-called ‘missing link’, a hominid which was halfway between ape and man, dated to c.75,000 BP. In the second edition of his Outline of history (1925), H.G. Wells confidently described the so-called ‘dawn man’ (Eoanthropus) as ‘an intermediate form between the Heidelberg man and the Neanderthal man . . . a member of a number of species of sub-human running apes of more than ape-like intelligence’. By the 1950s, however, such analyses as FLUORINE UPTAKE demonstrated conclusively that the find was an elaborate hoax, involving the deliberate juxtaposition of a modern cranium and the mandible of an orang-utan. Since then, the controversy has centred not so much on the find itself as the identity of the perpetrator of the hoax, who was at first thought to be Charles Dawson. It now, however, seems likely that the major culprit was Arthur Keith, an anatomist whose enthusiasm for the concept of ‘tertiary man’ (i.e. a Tertiary date for HOMO SAPIENS) seems to have led him to fabricate the evidence to support his theories.

C. Dawson: ‘The Piltdown skull’, Hastings and East Sussex Nature 2 (1913), 73–82; H.G. Wells: The outline of history, 2nd edn (London, 1925); J.S. Weiner: The Piltdown forgery (Oxford, 1955); R. Millar: The Piltdown men (London, 1974); C. Blinderman: The Piltdown inquest

(Buffalo, 1986); F. Spencer: Piltdown: a scientific forgery

(London, 1990).

IS

Pirak Post-Harappan settlement-mound located on the Kachi Plain near the foot of the strategic Bolan Pass, Pakistan. Pirak is about 9 ha in area and there is a great deal of continuity in material culture and settlement-plan, which spans three chrono-

logical phases from the	late 2nd to the early
1st millennium BC.	Architectural remains

include rectangular multi-room houses with rows of small rectangular wall niches, and complexes of larger interconnected buildings with evidence for specialized craft production activities, including flaked flint blades, bone and ivory tools. Rice was evidently the most important crop at Pirak, but traces of millet, sorghum, wheat, barley (and other wild and domesticated plants), as well as the domesticated horse, Bactrian camel and cattle have also been found.

Contact between the occupants of Pirak and contemporary communities in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, such as ANAU, Yaz, Tillya

Tepe, TEPE YAHYA, and SHAHR-I SOKHTA

(Jarrige 1985), is demonstrated by similarities in

470 PIRAK

technology, and the presence of certain artefacts, especially compartmented bronze seals, copper strainers, flint points and ceramic figurines. The faunal remains and figurines representing horses have been linked by Jean François Jarrige to the increasing importance of the horse and pastoral nomads throughout the Eurasian steppes at this time, and he suggests that they may represent direct evidence of the emergence of a complex and dynamic inter-regional interaction network (1985: 58).

J.F. Jarrige: Fouilles de Pirak, 2 vols (Paris, 1979); ––––:

‘Continuity and change in the north Kachi Plain’, South Asian Archaeology, 1983, ed. J. Schotsmans and M. Taddei (Naples, 1985), 35–68.

CS

Piramesse see QANTIR; TELL EL-DABðA

pit-and-comb Style of pottery characteristic of Middle Neolithic sites on the East European Plain, consisting of conic-bottomed vessels of various sizes decorated with comb impressions and small pits that form horizontal bands. During the later phases, more complicated patterns appear. In several cases stylized waterfowl (usually duck) may be recognized. By extension, the term is used to denote the Middle Neolithic cultural tradition in the same area. The earliest pit-and-comb sites are located in the catchment of the Upper Volga and Oka (central Russia) and are often considered as an independent cultural entity (the ‘L’yalovo culture’). Sites such as Sakhtysh (see below), Yazykovo 1 and Ivanovskoye 3 (see also UPPER VOLGA) have yielded calibrated dates of around 4000–3500 BC. In all

A

B

Figure 41 pit-and-comb Rock carvings of (A) hunting and (B) fishing scenes, Karelian pit-and-comb culture, Lake Onega region, Russia.

these cases, the pit-and-comb levels are stratified above those of the ‘Upper Volga’ cultural complex.

At a later stage, the pit-and-comb tradition expanded over a wide area of the East European Plain: up to the White Sea and Kola peninsula in the north, Latvia and Belarus in the west, the Urals in the east, the northern Ukraine and the middle stretches of River Don in the south. Several local variants are recognizable: Ryazanian, Belevian, Karelian, the White Sea etc. Pit-and-comb sites are usually situated on the flood-plains of small rivers, and on the shores of lakes, and in central Russia they have often been discovered in large peat-bogs. In many cases, the remains of oval-shaped, semisubterranean dwellings have been revealed, and, at the site of Sakhtysh, a rectangular dwelling with a total floor area of 200 sq. m was identified. The economy of pit-and-comb sites was based entirely on foraging. The following species were identified at the Ust’-Rybezhna site south of the Ladoga Lake (St Petersburg district): elk, aurochs, wild boar, brown bear, reindeer, seal, numerous birds, catfish and perch.

Rock carvings (PETROGLYPHS) concentrated on granite outcrops along the shores of Lake Onega offer one of the most outstanding features of the Karelian pit-and-comb culture. One of the most impressive assemblages, Besov Nos (Devil’s Cap), comprises 116 compositions including birds, fish, elk, red deer, seals, beaver, human figures, and three boats with oarsmen. Another group of petroglyphs is situated in the mouth of the River Vyg, in the coastal area of the White Sea; boats and hunting scenes are the most common motifs. Based on their height above the water-level, the rock carvings have been dated to between 2800 and 1800 BC.

V.P. Tret’yakov: Kul’tura jamocˇno-grebencˇatoi keramiki v lesnoi polose evropeiskoi cˇasti SSSR [The pit-and comb culture in the European part of the USSR] (Leningrad, 1972); S.V. Oshibkina et al.: Iskusstvo kamennogo veko [Art of the Stone Age] (Moscow, 1992).

PD

pit-grave culture (Russ. yámnaya). Bronze Age cultural tradition which spread over a vast area of Russia, from the Urals in the east to the low Danube in the west, in the course of the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC; it was first identified by V.A. Gorotsov in 1901–3. The most characteristic feature of the pit-grave culture are burial pits (‘yama’ in Russian) of rectangular or, rarely, oval shape, covered by burial mounds (kurgans). For this reason it is sometimes called the first ‘kurgan culture’ of the Bronze Age, preceding the

CATACOMB GRAVE culture and the TIMBER-GRAVE

culture. In the case of the pit-grave culture, the kurgans are of various sizes, and in some cases several stages in their construction may be distinguished. The pits were often covered with wooden slabs. Reed, grass and/or red ochre lined the bottom of the pits. The red ochre also covered the body of the dead, and may have been an essential element of the mortuary rites. In some cases, wheels or even the remains of complete wheeled carts were found inside the pits (e.g. Storozhevaya Mogila, near Dnepropetrovsk on the Dniepr). The position of the skeletons – mostly on the back or on the side with legs contracted – finds an obvious antecedent in the SREDNI STOG tradition. Other Sredni Stog features may be seen in the stone cairns, cromlechs and anthropomorphic stelae incorporated in the kurgan constructions.

The economy of the pit-grave culture was based on stock breeding. In the upper layer of Mikhailovka (Shaposhnikova 1985) nearly 90% of the determined faunal remains belonged to the domesticates such as cattle (38%), sheep/goat (32.5%) and horse (17.6%). It is assumed that oxen were used as draught animals. At the same time, there is evidence that crops were grown at some sites; this is true of the middle layer at Mikhailovka where the impressions of emmer wheat, hulled barley and millet have been identified (Pashkevich 1991). In its final stage, this settlement grew to a size of 1.5 ha, and was surrounded by fortifications which included stone ramparts and ditches.

The western outposts of the pit-grave culture stretch to northern Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, where so called ‘ochre graves’ are found (e.g. Hamangia-Baia tumuli in Dobruja, the area between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea). The mortuary rite includes kurgans with stone cairns and cromlechs and all the usual elements of pitgrave mortuary practice.

According to N.Ya. Merpert (1968), the pitgrave sites formed a distinct ‘cultural-historic entity’ based on a common subsistence economy (predominantly nomadic stock-breeding) and common ideology (the kurgan mortuary rite, primarily). According to Merpert, this entity came about from the integration of numerous local traditions over a vast area: from the Urals in the east, to the Lower Danube in the west. Basing her analysis on some formal elements of the burial ritual, and the cord ornamentation of the pottery, Gimbutas (1973) expands the ‘kurgan culture’ to a still wider area: to the Balkans, central and northern Europe, the Caucasus and even to the Near East. According to Gimbutas, between 4000 and 2500 BC,

PLAINS VILLAGE PERIOD 471

three consecutive waves of ‘kurgan people’ (identified with speakers of Indo-European), beginning with the pit-grave culture, pushed to the west, to the north, and later expanded southwards through the Caucasus to occupy Asia Minor. Some groups moved on towards India, while the others remained in the steppe, and pressed into the Iranian plateau and Central Asia. Variations of this hypothesis have been accepted by many scholars, including Merpert (1968) and Mallory (1989).

The main deficiency of the hypothesis resides in the direct indentification of archaeological entities (ie the pit-grave or kurgan ‘culture’) with linguistic and/or ethnic groups. It seems more likely that the emergence of pit-grave assemblages was related to the social development of various local Bronze Age communities. It represents an expression of social stratification, and the emergence of chiefdomtype nomadic social structures. The development of nomadic chiefdoms was accompanied by the intensification of inter-group information exchange between what were essentially heterogeneous social groups. These processes, which might be compared to the social dynamics underlying the later BEAKER PHENOMENON of western Europe, need not imply any large-scale migration; neither are they related to the spread of the Indo-European language.

N.Ya. Merpert: Drevneišaja istorija naselenija stepnoi polosy Vostocˇnoi Evropy [The most ancient history of the population of the steppe belt of Eastern Europe] (Moscow, 1968); M. Gimbutas: ‘The beginning of the Bronze Age in Europe and the Indo-Europeans: 3500–2500 BC’,

Journal of Indo-European Studies 1 (1973), 163–214; O.G. Shaposhnikova: ‘Jamnaja kul’turno-istoricˇeskaja obšcˇnost,’ Arheologija Ukrainskoi SSR [Archaeology of the Ukrainian SSR], col. 1, ed. D. Ya. Telegin (Kiev, 1985), 325–36; J.P. Mallory: In search of Indo-Europeans: language, archaeology and myth (London, 1989); G.A. Pashkevich: Paleoetnobotanicˇeski nahodki na territorii (Neolit-bronza): Katalog [Palaeothnobotanical finds in the territory of Ukraine (Neolithic-Bronze Age): catalogue] (Kiev, 1991).

PD

Plains Village Period Period from c.AD 1000 to 1850, which developed out of (or replaced) the

PLAINS WOODLAND PERIOD in the Great Plains of

the United States. It is made up of the Middle Missouri, Central Plains, and Coalescent traditions. Tribes with long residence in the Plains that derive from these traditions are the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Pawnee and Wichita. Sedentary settlements consisting of a few to several hundred earthlodges were situated along major rivers during this period. Historically the inhabitants of these

472 PLAINS VILLAGE PERIOD

villages practised a duel subsistence strategy of agriculture and bison hunting. They lived in the permanent earthlodge villages in the spring, when corn, beans, and squash were planted in the river bottomlands, and returned to the villages in the autumn, for harvest. The summer and part of the winter were spent in tipis away from the villages on an extended buffalo hunt. Contact with Spanish, French, English and American traders, explorers and naturalists began in the 16th century AD, but continuous contact did not occur until the 18th century.

W. Wood: An interpretation of Mandan culture history. River Basin Survey Papers 39, Bulletin 198, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C., 1967); D. Lehmer: Introduction to Middle Missouri archeology. Anthropological Papers 1, National Park Service (Washington, D.C., 1971); S. Ahler, T. Thiessen and M. Trimble: People of the willows: the prehistory and early history of the Hidatsa indians (Grand Forks, 1991).

WB

Plains Woodland Period Beginning about 500 BC and continuing to about AD 1000, the cultures in the level-to-rolling Great Plains of the United States show evidence of general relationships with peoples to the east of the area inhabited by the people of the WOODLAND period. This eastern orientation is designated the Plains Woodland period. Diagnostic features of the Plains Woodland that are derived from the eastern woodlands are conoidal-shaped ceramic vessels, projectile point styles, and linear and conical burial mounds.

Plains Woodland sites occur from Canada to Texas, but are concentrated in the eastern Great Plains, along major rivers, such as the Missouri, and their tributaries. Subsistence was predominantly based on hunting, fishing and gathering of wild plants, but incipient horticulture of local plants and imported cultigens, such as corn, became increasingly important through time. There is variation geographically and temporally across the Great Plains in the importance of cultivation and in the types of animals hunted. It is only the later Plains Woodland sites, and then those in the eastern Plains, that cultivation becomes an important factor. Bison was a major food source in the northern and western Plains, while deer was more important on the eastern Plains. Habitations consisted of small villages and camps that are often deeply buried; they were usually situated in the river valleys, while burials, often accompanied by shell beads and stone tools, were placed in

burial mounds on the overlooking bluffs.

M. Adair: Prehistoric agriculture in the Central Plains, Publications in Anthropology 16, University of Kansas, (Lawrence, 1988); D. Benn: Woodland cultures on the western prairies: the Rainbow Site investigations, Report 18, Office of the State Archaeologist, (Iowa City, 1990).

WB

plane-table levelling/survey Method of surveying – now rarely used – whereby a map is drawn on a carefully levelled, centred and orientated table, using an alidade to sight on various points.

Plano The last of three PALEOINDIAN cultures that are found east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. The period extends from c.8000 to 5000 BC, and artefacts include a gradually changing sequence of types of lanceolate projectile points, scraping tools and knives. Several regional and temporal complexes have been identified. In the Great Plains, small bands of hunter-gatherers attacked solitary bison, or killed herds of bison by driving them into gullies, as at

OLSEN-CHUBBUCK, or over jumps, as at BONFIRE

SHELTER. Habitation sites, such as HELL GAP, are poorly known. In the eastern United States, sites of this period are placed in the early ARCHAIC period.

H. Irwin and M. Wormington: ‘Paleo-Indian tool types in the Great Plains’, AA 25 (1970), 24–34; D. Stanford: ‘The Jones-Miller site: an example of Hell Gap bison procurement strategy’, PAnth, Memoir 14 (1978), 90–7.

WB

plano-convex brick Type of rectangular mud brick (usually unbaked) with a distinctive domed upper surface often retaining the maker’s thumbmarks, which was employed in southern Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods (c.2900–2150 BC).

planum method Style of excavation involving the removal of successive layers of arbitrary depth (‘spits’) across an entire site (or, more often, the whole of a feature within a site). After the removal of each spit the whole surface is recorded, with all find-spots being recorded in three dimensions. The method is particularly suitable in dealing with deposits where there are comparatively few solid features such as walls or floors.

plaquettes Small stone, bone, antler or ivory blocks, flattened on one side and often decorated,

which were manufactured by the hunters and gatherers of the Western European Upper Palaeolithic. They are often found in groups, such as the numerous examples recovered from Montastruc, France (now held in the British Museum). The decorated examples commonly depict animals – such as horses, deer and bison – but also present are occasional human figures, schematized designs and repeated simple motifs. Their subject inventory is thus comparable to Palaeolithic mural art. The designs are either incised (possibly originally filled with ochre) or in very low relief. The maximum dimension of plaquettes is nearly always below 30 cm, and they are usually classed as MOBILIARY or portable art. However, Sieveking points out that there is little evidence of curation, and it seems likely that the creation and display of plaquettes formed part of repeated ceremonies at particular habitation sites and that they were then simply discarded.

A. Sieveking: Engraved Magdalenian plaquettes, Bar IS 369 (Oxford, 1987).

RJA

plastromancy Chinese method of divination by the turtle shell (plastron) to seek the advice of the gods and ancestors regarding projected activities. During the Late SHANG period (c.1400–1123 BC), the practice was accompanied by the incising of texts and has thus provided valuable information on many aspects of Shang life. Although it seems possible that turtles were reared in captivity to ensure a supply of shells for the daily ritual of divination, marginal notations incised in the plastrons indicate that non-Shang sources apparently contributed up to as many as 1000 shells at a time, suggesting that a considerable proportion came from outlying regions (Keightley 1978: 11–12). The preparation of the shells and bones for divination was a painstaking process, in which hollows were drilled into the rear surfaces to receive an application of heat – the nature of the heat source is uncertain (see CHINA

3 and SCAPULIMANCY).

D.N. Keightley: Sources of Shang history: The oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley, 1978).

NB

Plateau Pithouse Tradition Cultural tradition in the Fraser-Thompson drainage system of the interior plateau of south central British Columbia, dating to c.2000 BC–AD 1850. The tradition was formulated on the basis of detailed comparative analysis of the cultural content and ecological context of components from 78 excavated sites, supported by 244 radiocarbon dates. It shows

POLONNARUVA 473

continuity throughout but is divisible on stylistic grounds into three successive cultural horizons, each correlated with environmental changes. The bow and arrow appears in the latest horizon, dating to c.AD 500.

T.H. Richards and M.K. Rousseau: Late prehistoric cultural horizons on the Canadian Plateau (Burnaby, 1987).

RC

platform-mound Term used in the archaeology of North America to describe flat-topped mounds of earth usually serving as platforms for domestic or ceremonial buildings. The alternative term ‘temple mound’ is sometimes employed in eastern North America.

plumbate ware A widely traded type of pottery found throughout Mesoamerica during the Early Postclassic period (c.AD 900–1200), believed to have been manufactured on the Pacific coastal plain of Mexico and Guatemala. Its name derives from the distinctive hard, iridescent, lead-gray surface that was initially thought to have been a true lead glaze. Technological analyses (including spectography and wet chemistry) have shown that it is a slip made of fine iron-rich clay, fired (often to vitrification) in a reducing atmosphere.

A.O. Shepard: Plumbate: a Mesoamerican trade ware

(Washington, D.C., 1948); H. Neff: ‘The theoretical and methodological lessons of Shepard’s research on Plumbate ware’, The ceramic legacy of Anna O. Shepard, ed. R.L. Bishop and F.W. Lange (Boulder, 1991), 177–204.

PRI

Pluvial Lakes Tradition see STEMMED POINT

TRADITION

point estimate see PARAMETER ESTIMATION

Polonnaruva Historic capital of Sri Lanka in the 6th–13th centuries AD, although occasionally secondary to the alternative capital of ANURADHAPURA. The site was enclosed within fortification walls and associated with massive irrigation reservoirs. The surviving architecture includes residential remains, administrative buildings, royal palaces and reception halls, as well as a Buddhist STUPA and monasteries.

Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Sri Lanka: A guide to Polonnaruwa (Colombo, 1982). P.L. Prematilleke:

Alanana Parivena Polonnaruva: archaeological excavation report, April–September 1981 (Sri Lanka, 1982).

CS

474 POLYNESIA

Polynesia see OCEANIA 2

polythetic culture Cultures are often defined in terms of recurrent patterns and similarities in the material culture evidence within a specific geographical and chronological area. A monothetic culture would be a grouping of traits where each trait is distinctive to that culture. A polythetic culture is a cultural grouping defined by a distinctive mix of cultural traits, though each individual trait may be identifiable in the surrounding cultural environment. A polythetic culture may therefore arise as a particular set of overlappings of cultural influences, undermining the idea of cultures as an exclusive and absolute ethnic definition. In the real world, most cultures possess both unique and shared traits, but it can be useful to classify cultures as relatively monoor polythetic.

RJA

‘Pompeii premise’ see BEHAVIORAL

ARCHAEOLOGY

Po Nagar see CHAM

Pong Tuk The first major site in Thailand containing evidence for the adoption of Buddhism, it was originally thought to date to the 2nd century AD, but P. Dupont now dates a bronze statue of the Buddha to the 6th century AD at the earliest. Located in the western edge of the Central Plain, it incorporates the foundations of a series of religious structures, including a STUPA, a CAITYA and what is probably a VIHARA (meeting hall). A bronze Roman lamp of the 1st–2nd centuries AD has also been found there, providing an index of the widespread trading network within which sites such as Pong Tuk operated.

G. Coedes: ‘The excavations of Pong Tuk and their importance for the ancient history of Siam’, JSS 21 (1928), 195–209; R.H. Robinson: The Buddhist religion: a historical introduction (Belmont, 1970).

CH

population In statistical analysis a ‘population’ is the aggregate of objects about which a researcher wishes to make statements, often on the basis of DATA taken from a SAMPLE. Archaeologists often distinguish between a target population (e.g. the total original set of stone tools in use at a particular Palaeolithic site) and the corresponding sampled population (e.g. the tools which have actually survived in the archaeological record). The sampled

population is therefore that part of the target population which is actually available for study, because other parts (such as urban land in a field survey) are inaccessible.

J.E. Doran and F.R. Hodson: Mathematics and computers in archaeology (Edinburgh, 1975), 94–9; J.F. Cherry, C. Gamble and S. Shennan: ‘General introduction: attitudes to sampling in British archaeology’, Sampling in contemporary British archaeology, ed. J.F. Cherry, C. Gamble and S. Shennan (Oxford, 1978), 1–8; S. Shennan: Quantifying archaeology (Edinburgh, 1988), 298–328.

CO

portable art see MOBILIARY ART

port of trade Term used in Mesoamerican archaeology to refer to a politically neutral area, where representatives of political entities (often rivals) met for purposes of conducting carefully regulated commercial transactions.

Portuguese trading feiras Trading stations established by the Portuguese in Central Africa during the mid-16th century AD. The Portuguese encountered the Zimbabwe culture (see GREAT ZIMBABWE) while searching for a sea route to India. Recognizing the potential profit in capturing the Indian Ocean gold and ivory trade from the Swahili

(see SWAHILI HARBOUR-TOWNS), they established a

fort in 1505 AD at Sofala, near present-day Beira in Mozambique. In the 1560s they established a number of feiras, or trading stations, in the Mutapa (or Monomatapa) kingdom in northeastern Zimbabwe, where they traded glass beads and cloth for gold and ivory. The best known feiras were Luanze, Dambarare near Mazoe, Ongoe, and Massapa at the base of Mount Fura (modern Mt Darwin). Commonly, the feira comprised a number of individual trading stores owned by merchants living in Sena and Tete on the Zambezi. The stores were rectangular structures made with sun-dried bricks, surrounded by a rectangular ditch and pallisade. Each store was separated from its neighbours by a few hundred metres, the whole settlement stretching along a river or watershed for a kilometre or more. Large and important settlements included a chapel and garrison.

D.P. Abraham: ‘Maramuca: an exercise in the combined use of Portuguese records and oral tradition’, JAH 2 (1961), 211–25; P.S. Garlake: ‘Seventeenth-century Portuguese earthworks in Rhodesia’, SAAB 21 (1966), 157–70; ––––: ‘Excavations at the seventeenth-century