ARCHAEOLOGY

The term archaeology is derived from the Greek words archaios ("ancient") and logos ("knowledge, discourse") and was already used in ancient Greek literature in reference to "the study of ancient times." In its modern sense it has come to mean the scientific recovery and systematic study of the material remains of ancient human cultures of prehistoric and historic date. Prehistory refers to that part of human existence that preceded the development of writing. To understand what happened in prehistoric periods, the archaeologist is obliged to rely much more on the interpretation of physical remains such as flint tools and cultic objects, habitations and burials, the assessment of the chronological sequencing of remains at sites, while also using an array of scientific techniques to gather information about climatic and environmental changes occurring in the past. Archaeologists dealing with the historic periods, however, are able to rely on a greater variety of artifacts and architectural remains, on the one hand, and on the discovery of written materials (notably inscriptions on durable materials, such as stone or clay tablets, and on ceramic ostraka, and to a lesser extent on organic materials, such as scrolls and papyri made of leather skins and parchment) on the other. The study of ancient writing is known as epigraphy, while the study of the development of individual written letter forms is known as paleography (see *Alphabet). The archaeological discipline incorporates within it numerous specialist fields of study, notably the investigation of ceramics (the study of *pottery forms and manufacturing techniques over time), *numismatics (the study of coins), archaeozoology (the study of animal and fish bones), and archaeobotany (the study of plant remains, pollen, and phytoliths). Archaeological data recovered during excavations are often supplemented with information derived from ancient literary sources (such as theological, narrative, or historical writings). Archaeology has an important role in illuminating the cultures of certain peoples referred to for example in the Bible, such as the Hyksos and Philistines (who were not at all boorish as one might think). This is also true of neighboring civilizations such as those of the Egyptians, Sumerians, and Hittites – without archaeology our understanding of these cultures would be very limited. Numerous "historical truths" based on literary sources have had to be re-assessed in the light of irrefutable archaeological finds, for instance the Israelite "conquest" of the Promised Land as recounted in the Bible (see below). Archaeology has much to contribute to the contextual clarification of the later classical and medieval periods as well, and a wealth of data now exists in textbooks and scientific publications. The cut-off period for archaeological investigations in Israel used to be the late medieval period (c. 1750), but recent decades have seen an interest in late Ottoman remains as well and archaeological work has even been conducted on features dating from as late as World War ii.

Methods and Approaches

The modern archaeologist uses a variety of methods in gathering information about the ancient past, but surveys (surface explorations) and excavations (methodical digging operations) are two primary methods of recovering data.

In the mid-19^th century a shift occurred in terms of the methods used by scholars for understanding the history of the Syria-Palestine region and for the elucidation of biblical writings in particular. Prior to this the field of biblical interpretation was dominated by the writings provided by Jewish travelers and Christian pilgrims, in which uneven accounts of their observations of antiquities in the southern Levant were provided. Much of this information was collated while traveling the country along predetermined routes, under the supervision of local guides, and with the purpose of visiting sites that were primarily of biblical interest. The culmination of all this was the detailed work made by Robinson and Van de Velde, among others. E. Robinson, in particular, crisscrossed the country in 1838 and 1852 and his work ultimately led to the development of the systematic study of place names (topynoms) which was crucial for the identification of places mentioned in the Bible. However, the first systematic overall mapping of the country, with a regional investigation of monuments and sites possessing visible architectural remains from different periods, began with the work of the *Palestine Exploration Fund and undoubtedly one of its greatest achievements was the "Survey of Western Palestine" of the early 1870s. The swp provided for the first time detailed topographical maps of the country to a scale of one inch to the mile, as well as a number of volumes of memoirs in which were described the sites and landscapes they encountered. The swp maps have since

become an indispensable tool for all new archaeological surveys, even though the information provided was incomplete and by modern archaeological standards defective (e.g., artificial city mounds – tells – were not regarded by the explorers as sites of any archaeological significance). Subsequently, the Survey of Eastern Palestine was made in 1881–82 and then discontinued, the Arabah Survey in 1883–84, surveys east of the Jordan by G. Schumacher in 1885–86, and the Wilderness of Zin survey under T.E. *Lawrence and L. Woolley in 1913–14. An important survey of ancient synagogues in Galilee was undertaken in 1905–7 by H. Kohl, E. Sellin and C. Watzinger, and their book is still a basic textbook for the plans of ancient synagogues in the Holy Land.

Until World War ii, surveys conducted in Palestine were fairly basic in terms of the field methodologies and the means of dating that were employed. A "Schedule of Historical Maps and Sites" was prepared and updated by the Palestine Department of Antiquities at regular intervals from the 1920s. A new Archaeological Survey of Palestine was initiated in 1937, but very little progress was made. In July 1964 the Society for the Archaeological Survey of Israel was founded. Surveys were henceforth made within 10 × 10 kilometer maps, with the recording of archaeological remains by making measured plans of architectural remains, photography, and the collection and identification of surface artifacts (notably potsherds, flints, and coins). Since the 1980s Regional Archaeological Surveys have been conducted in various parts of Israel, with excavated tell sites placed within the context of the pattern of archaeological sites known in their specific regions. Site Catchment Analysis or Site Territory Analysis has been particularly useful for the study of the morphological environments of prehistoric sites, particularly in desert areas, and in recent years Landscape Archaeology has come to the fore especially in regard to the investigation of historical landscapes with rural and industrial remains. Historic Mediterranean type landscapes in the southern Levant tend to be regarded by archaeologists as places characterized by an assemblage of features pertaining to a variety of extramural human activities, such as agricultural pursuits (terraces and field systems) and industrial work (stone quarrying and lime and charcoal burning), all of which, of course, necessitated the establishment of a system of communications (roads and paths) so as to form links between farms and villages, and towns and markets. An in-depth study of such remains during a project of Landscape Archaeology can lead to a chronological and contextual understanding of ancient communities and how they adapted themselves to the specific environments they inhabited. The underlying assumption behind this kind of approach, however, is that communities will interact with each other and with the ecology of their environments, in a sensible, harmonious, and stable fashion. Some landscape features, however, reflect their adaptation as a physical means of advancing ideologies and strengthening power struggles and territorial conflicts.

Excavation ("dirt archaeology") is the principal method used by archaeologists in the search for information about ancient cultures. W.F. *Albright once wrote that "excavation is both art and science" and M. Wheeler wrote that "there is no correct method of excavation, but many wrong ones." Numerous factors contribute to the choice of a site for excavation in the Land of Israel, including its historical importance (and biblical identification), chance finds of significance, the impressiveness or accessibility of a site, and observations made during earlier archaeological investigations. The choice of a site chosen for excavation also depends on the budget that the archaeologist and the sponsoring university can raise. The procedure of excavations requires a systematic removal of accumulated earth and debris covering ancient architectural remains, whether belonging to the site of a tell (i.e., a superficial mound created by the accumulation of superimposed layers of ruined ancient towns of different periods) or at the site of a one-period settlement (i.e., a place that was founded on natural land and after a time came to be destroyed or abandoned and never rebuilt). Various techniques of excavation exist and the choice of the techniques employed depends largely on the characteristics of the site being excavated. The first action that is taken in preparation for an excavation at a tell is to lay out a grid-system with iron rods set in cement along a north-south axis across the mound. These rods are used as the baseline for setting out a grid of 5 × 5 meter squares across the area chosen for excavation. By digging squares of 4 × 4 m within the larger grid the excavator is able to leave balks (unexcavated earthen walls) in place as the excavation deepens. Once the first occupation level has been encountered, the balks need to be recorded and taken down so that the general area of excavation will be sufficiently large enough to capture the outlines of more or less complete buildings, otherwise the archaeologist will be left with a series of fragmentary walls scattered within a grid of squares. However, key balks are left at appropriate locations to record the overall stratigraphy of the area under excavation. To ensure that this is properly organized the archaeologist appoints an area supervisor in each field of excavations, and they in turn take charge of monitoring the square supervisors.

The excavating archaeologist is obliged to keep detailed written records of the daily findings, accompanied by photographic dossiers and surveyed architectural maps and drawings, and lists of objects found. The dig director is assisted by a qualified staff: archaeological area supervisors to supervise work in the various fields of excavations, a surveyor and architect, a finds curator/registrar, and an administrator to take care of the tools and budgetary matters. The success of a project often depends on the stamina of an archaeologist in dealing with logistics and organization, and with his/her ability to successfully communicate with people, whether with staff or locals. The archaeological work will include the careful analysis of the strata of a site made on the basis of constant stratigraphical observations of fills of soil and debris, using balks to record the gradual progress of the digging operations, looking at the structural relationships between various phases of building construction, examining foundation-and-robbers' trenches, and looking at post-depositional materials as well. The most difficult problem posed by excavating is that of correctly distinguishing the superimposed layers from the different occupation levels and this inevitably requires a certain amount of interpretation. Features that may be encountered include the lower portions of stone walls, mud-brick walls, robbed-out walls ("ghost walls"), wall foundation trenches, beaten earth or plaster floors, flagstones, silos, pits, hearths and tabun (bread oven) installations, and so forth. The fills between the structural remains of the occupation levels may consist of accumulated rubbish, ashes and burnt material, the contents of sunken pits, roof collapse, wall collapse, wind-deposited fills, water-deposited fills, and so forth. Each one of these contexts is ultimately given a locus number to facilitate recording procedures. All changes in soil color, the appearance of walls, installations and other features, are recorded in written and graphic form in the daily field diary with elevations above sea level taken from a fixed benchmark. Hence the professionalism of the field archaeologist is crucial in recognizing all the stratigraphical variables in the field, as well as training inexperienced students, monitoring the work of the surveyor, and keeping a vigilant eye on the volunteers or paid workers digging at the site. At tell sites stone structures or mud-brick buildings are encountered and these two types of materials require different excavation procedures. Having a general idea of the date of the remains to be excavated before the work is commenced may be useful in securing the correctly trained staff ahead of time as well as the appropriate equipment. A site with large fallen blocks of stone will require special lifting equipment that would not at all be useful on a site with mudbrick architecture which will require a lot of trowel-work instead. Sieving of the excavated soils (especially on floors or in pits) is necessary for retrieving small objects such as scarabs, coins, gems, and so forth, as well as very small rodent or fish bones. Soil samples are kept from floor surfaces for flotation in water (for hard and light fraction retrieval) and carbonized wood or seed samples are kept for radiocarbon determinations (short-life materials are preferable; care has also to be taken not to contaminate the sampled materials).

A daily exchange of ideas on matters concerning the interpretation of the stratigraphy at the site between the dig director, site supervisors, and square supervisors is highly recommended while the excavations are in progress, all of which should be recorded as deliberations in available notebooks. Potsherds (and other finds) are collected in numbered buckets with labels identifying the loci they came from and these are recorded in the field diary. The pottery is subsequently washed and sorted. Dipping of sherds is undertaken at sites when ostraka (inscribed potsherds) begin appearing. The sorting of the potsherds and small finds in the excavation is an activity undertaken by the finds curator in conjunction with the entire staff on a daily basis. Volunteers or students help with the registering of finds. It is imperative for the success of the expedition that the site supervisors and square supervisors know exactly the date of the pottery coming from their areas. On-the-spot instruction on pottery retrieval may be provided by the finds curator, especially in regard to the excavation of floors where it is suspected that there are crushed vessels that might eventually be mended by a pottery conservator. A draftsperson will prepare drawings of the diagnostic pottery profiles, usually to a scale of 2:5, and these are appended to the finds cards with written descriptions (decorations, slips, glazes, grit inclusions, etc.) and Munsell color readings.

In terms of digging techniques, the 19^th century has to be regarded as a time of treasure hunting, to say the least, with Lady Hester Stanhope, for example, digging haphazard holes in the ground at Caesarea in order to extract Roman statues. Although the first tells were excavated in the 1860s by the explorer Charles Warren (at Jericho and Tell el-Ful), this was done without the realization that they in fact contained the ruins of ancient cities. Many explorers at that time excavated in the form of mining shafts, shored up with wooden struts, but this method was not at all conducive to the scientific gathering of data. The first methodological excavation of a tell was made in 1890 by Flinders-*Petrie, the "father of modern Near Eastern archaeology," at Tell el-Hesi in the southern Shephelah, and it was there that he first recognized that by studying the changing forms of ancient pottery vessels and their associated levels, one is able to trace the development of a city and its changing cultures through time. The need for planning and method on a dig was later made clear by Flinders-Petrie in his book, Methods and Aims in Archaeology (1904). A trained staff to accompany the chief archaeologist in the field was first employed by Reisner during his work at Samaria in 1908. The wide-scale excavation of tells was subsequently undertaken during the first half of the 20^th century by many foreign expeditions, with an attempt to get down to those levels with biblical associations as quickly as possible. This rapid "stripping" of the superimposed city remains at tells – with the exposure of defense walls, gates, temples, administrative buildings, stores, and domestic dwellings – provided enormous amounts of hitherto unknown scientific data, but it also sometimes resulted in great harm to sites (e.g., at Gezer, which was excavated on a wide scale by R.A.S. Macalister with unskilled labor and without a trained backup staff).

During the course of the 20^th century scientific techniques of excavations improved considerably, with sensitive area-excavations of a more limited and solid scientific nature being conducted at tells, with careful stratigraphical and architectural observations being made, and with refined material studies of ceramic and environmental remains being initiated. This was the peak of "Biblical Archaeology" and the general public in Israel at that time was fascinated by the discoveries at tells, such as at Hazor, Lachish, and Beersheba. There was also excitement about discoveries relating to sites of Jewish interest from later periods such as at Masada, and in the 1970s in Jerusalem with the excavations close to the Temple Mount and in the Jewish Quarter. Recent decades have seen the development of a much more scientific discipline, with the flourishing of procedures such as radiocarbon and thorium-uranium methods of dating, and with the development of many different areas of specialization amongst archaeologists, not only in terms of the periods studied but also in terms of the interest in specific groups of artifacts (e.g., weapons, stamped seals, beads, glass objects, and so forth). Many smaller one-period sites, such as villages and farms, were also subsequently excavated as part of new project strategies. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a boom of archaeological endeavors in Israel, with large-scale excavation projects being undertaken at Beth Shean, Caesarea, and elsewhere. With the growth of scientific specialization and with the clear distancing of the discipline from that of biblical studies since the 1990s and into the 2000s, archaeology, unfortunately, no longer holds the same interest for the general public that it once had. Indeed, archaeology is sometimes perceived as a hindrance to modern development in this Western-oriented country which has limited territorial resources and a growing population possessing higher aspirations for better housing and roads. Conflict has also arisen as a result of objections made by representatives of the religious ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to the scientific excavation of human remains, even when these are under threat of destruction as a result of modern development.

The preparation of a new site for excavation requires the thorough study of the morphology of the site and the mapping of existing remains and surface features, using gps and other topographical surveying techniques. Having checked on surveys and excavations that might previously have been undertaken at the site in the existing literature, the next step is to check on the site records in archives, such as those at the Palestine Exploration Fund in London, the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, and the foreign schools in Jerusalem. Surveys of sites on 10 × 10 km maps have been conducted since 1961 by archaeologists working for the Archaeological Survey of Israel (now the Survey Division of the Israel Antiquities Authority) and information about a site might be available there. Valuable information might also be obtained from geomorphological and geological maps, topocadastral maps, and aerial photographs. The latter are useful when deciding on the location of areas to be opened up on a mound site, with telltale features that might help pinpoint the location of fortification walls, gateways, the internal layout of the final settlement at the site (particularly from the Hellenistic period, or later). Some aerial photographs date back to World War i and may be important if the area around a tell has been substantially developed since then. Modern aerial photographs are useful in monitoring the progress of the dig from season to season. Once the background research has been done and the site has been selected and surveyed, the next stage is to secure the budget for the excavation and a license from the Israel Antiquities Authority. A budget for an excavation may be raised from grant-giving archaeological institutions worldwide or from private sponsors. To obtain the license the director of a potential dig needs to have a recognized academic qualification in archaeology, a pledge of sponsorship from an academic institution (preferably one's own affiliated university), and proof that one has the back-up staff and budget ready to undertake the excavation successfully. The budget has to cover not only the costs of the excavation itself, but also the costs of the conservation of the archaeological remains exposed (e.g., crumbling mosaic floors) and the costs of the post-excavation work (namely, pottery conservation, cleaning of coins, drawing of pottery, anthropological and zoological examination of bones, the identification of plant remains, radiocarbon determinations and other scientific tests).

The preparation of the final archaeological report on the results of an excavation involves much work and time, but ultimately it is the most important part of the exercise. Without it an excavation will not benefit general archaeological research. An excavation may have been carried out with the best available standards but if it remains unpublished then it is close to useless. Thousands of excavations have been carried out in the Land of Israel since the beginning of the 20^th century and the sad fact is that only a small percentage of these have actually been fully published. Hence, archaeologists nowadays set up classification and recording frameworks while the excavation is still in progress, to ensure a more rapid funneling of material towards publication later on. At a very early stage the various specialists dealing with scientific materials derived from the excavations, among them anthropologists, archaeozoologists, archaeobotanists, metal experts, and petrography experts, are called in to examine materials derived from the excavations. Archaeological experts on pottery, lamps, and coins are also called in, unless of course they are already part of the expedition. To facilitate their research the specialists and experts are provided with the maximum available information on the chronological/stratigraphical significance of the findspots of the materials they will be studying. Much of the preliminary archaeological work for the report consists of sorting through copious field notes and vast amounts of data that accumulated during the course of the excavation: notes on stratigraphy and architecture, notes on chronological considerations, parallels for pottery assemblages that have been drawn and analyzed, specialist lists of identified coins and small finds, identification lists of animal bones, shells, and so forth. In addition, the archaeologist keeps in mind the layout of the report and its structure when planning the necessary illustrative materials (line drawings and photographs). The final report ordinarily begins with a history of previous researches undertaken at the site, followed by a chapter on the environment of the site and its setting, a short summary chapter of the research aims of the new expedition and the methods employed, and, thereafter, the actual report itself with a detailed description of the remains uncovered and all the stratigraphical and architectural considerations. The report on the pottery from the site tends to be one of the most important expert chapters and this because pottery is extremely ubiquitous and ultimately serves as an important dating tool. Specialist reports, appendices, and tables/lists close the excavation report. The best reports are those that are written clearly and simply, with the avoidance of long-winded and complex descriptions. Technical information is placed in tables and kept out of the main text. Archaeologists try to make use of as many illustrations as possible, based on the maxim that a picture, however bad, will always be better than a written account. The drawn pottery is arranged in a sequence of plates, presented chronologically, and according to vessel type, which are depicted in succession from small vessels, such as plates and bowls, to large storage jars and pithoi. Some excavators believe (incorrectly) that the final publication of a report should be deferred until such a time that they have undertaken a comprehensive study of all the comparative material available, even if this means waiting for comparative material to come to light from excavations elsewhere. F. Cumont put it quite succinctly in 1926, on the eve of his rapid publication of the amazing *Dura Europas excavations, that he preferred to expose himself to critics "rather than to resemble the dragon in the fable jealously guarding a sterile treasure in its lair."

History of Archaeological Research in Israel

Interest in the antiquities of the southern Levant (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine) began as early as ancient times. All ancient peoples living in this region would have seen the monuments and ruins that were antecedent to their time and would have shown curiosity in their antiquity. The Jewish historian *Josephus Flavius already remarked in his writings on the evident antiquity of certain monuments and attempted to ascribe to them dates, for example in describing the fortification wall surrounding the Upper City of Jerusalem (the "First Wall") he suggested that it dated back to the time of David and the Israelite kings. While scholars once thought this was nonsense and that the wall was from no earlier than the time of the Hasmoneans (late second century b.c.e.), the subsequent archaeological excavation of portions of this wall in the 1970s revealed that earlier parts of it had indeed been built at the time of the Divided Israelite Monarchy, i.e., in the eighth century b.c.e. Hence, Josephus had got it partly right. One of the earliest descriptions of an excavation in Jerusalem, albeit in a story that may be partly legendary in character, is the one which refers to Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, digging in the early fourth century c.e. in a cistern close to the spot of the crucifixion of Jesus and finding there wooden remnants which she believed were from the holy cross itself. Throughout Late Antiquity the country was visited by numerous Jewish and Christian pilgrims and many of them left written records of their observations regarding the antiquities they came across during their travels. Numerous travelogues and itineraries of pilgrims who came to the Holy Land are extant from the time of the Crusaders onwards, and in the 17^th and 18^th centuries the pertinent materials were summed up by Quaresmius and Reland, and in the 19^th century by T. Tobler and C. Ritter. Some of the important antiquarians of the region in the 19^th century were E. *Robinson, V. *Guérin, C. *Schick, G. *Schumacher, among others.

Proper methodical archaeological work in the region began with the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund from the 1860s onwards. Charles *Wilson conducted a survey of Jerusalem and its monuments in 1864–65, and this was followed by excavations in the city by Charles *Warren until the early 1870s with work being conducted especially around the edges of the Temple Mount. The earliest dig at a tell took place by Warren at two places in the 1860s, but the earliest scientific work at a tell was made by Flinders-Petrie at Tell el-Hesi in 1890, followed by the work of his assistant Frederic J. Bliss, who conducted additional work at Tell el-Hesi, as well as work in mining shafts on the slopes of Mount Zion in Jerusalem (together with A.C. Dickie). Together with R.A.S. *Macalister, Bliss also made open area excavation on four tells in the Philistia part of the Shephelah (the western foothills) between 1898 and 1900, and this because the Ottoman Law of Antiquities of that time permitted the granting of an excavation license not just for a single site but for an area of land of about four miles square and all the sites contained therein. The four sites were Tell es-Safi (Gath), Tell Zakariyeh (Azekah), Tell ej-Judeideh (Moresheth Gath), and Tell Sandahanna (Maresha). Most of the work was actually conducted at the latter site, which the excavators correctly identified as biblical Maresha and Hellenistic Marissa. Bliss wanted to expose the acropolis area of the site, layer by layer, but this proved impracticable and only the uppermost Late Hellenistic layer of the city was exposed. Having completed their work at these sites, they covered up their excavation areas in order to return them to the landowners as was required by Turkish law. This was followed by large-scale excavations at the beginning of the 20^th century at *Gezer and *Samaria. At Gezer Macalister employed what he thought was a better system of excavations known as the "strip method" in which an area is excavated strip by strip, the rubble from succeeding strips being dumped into the previous ones. Although economical, this did not offer a satisfactory picture of the overall history of the site and much of Macalister's work at Gezer still remains difficult to understand. Excavations were conducted at this time by a number of German and Austrian biblical scholars and architects, at Tell *Taanach by E. Sellin (1902–4), *Megiddo by G. Schumacher (1903–5), and *Shechem by E. Sellin and C. Watzinger (1907–9), but the results were poor owing to the excavators' lack of training and skills in mound excavation. The excavations made at Samaria in 1908 and 1910–11, by D.G. Lyon, C.S. Fisher, and G.A. Reisner, were very important in terms of the careful excavation techniques and recording procedures that were employed there. Many objects from these early excavations – including the important *Siloam Inscription – ended up in the Ottoman Imperial Museum in Constantinople (Istanbul).

With the establishing of the British Mandate over Palestine in 1920 archaeological excavations became much more systematic and scientific. This was the first "golden age" for archaeology in Palestine, between 1920 and 1940. All excavations were regulated by licenses issued in accordance with the new Antiquities Ordinance, prepared by J. *Garstang for the Palestine Department of Antiquities. The Department of Antiquities employed a number of Jewish scholars, notably L.A. *Mayer and M. *Avi-Yonah. In a meeting held in Jerusalem in 1922 the leading archaeologists of that time – J. Garstang, W.J.T. Phythian-Adams, H. Vincent, and W.F. Albright – agreed upon a common classification system of chronological terms in line with systems used elsewhere in Old World Archaeology. A museum of antiquities was also founded in Jerusalem at Way House (later the collection was transferred to the Rockefeller Museum). Important excavations were undertaken by American archaeologists at Megiddo, Beth Shean, Tell el-Ful, and Tell Beit Mirsim, and later by a joint expedition under the direction of J.W. *Crowfoot at Samaria and by Flinders-Petrie and others at Tell el-Farah (south) and at Tell el-Ajjul, and by J.L. Starkey at *Lachish and Garstang at *Jericho. A dominant personality during this period was W.F. Albright. His excavations at Tell el-Ful (1922–23, 1933) and at Tell Beit Mirsim (1926–36) laid the groundwork for the proper study of Iron Age pottery. Studies and excavations were also made at this time on the Nabatean and Byzantine/Early Islamic settlements in the Negev Desert by H. Dunscombe Colt, with the discovery of the now-famous Nessana Papyri. Additional work of importance on later Crusader and medieval remains was made by C.N. Johns. Scholars and archaeologists of the Hebrew University, notably B. Maisler (*Mazar), E.L. *Sukenik, and L.A. Mayer, conducted excavations on remains that were pertinent to the study of the Jewish past, such as the excavation of the Third Wall of Jerusalem dating from the first century c.e., Jewish tombs around Jerusalem and at Beth Shearim, and the remains of synagogues (e.g., at Beth Alpha and at Hammath Gader). Much of this work on Jewish sites was sponsored by the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society (now the Israel Exploration Society) which was founded already in 1914. The climax of archaeological work in Palestine was in the early 1930s – thereafter the outbreak of political disorders in the country disrupted work and slowed down archaeological enterprises. The murder of the archaeologist J.L. Starkey on his way from the excavations at Lachish to the inauguration of the Palestine Archaeological Museum (now the Rockefeller Museum), was a blow to the archaeological community of that time. Jewish archaeologists, notably E.L. Sukenik, played an important part in the recovery and study of the *Dead Sea Scrolls.

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish archaeologists were cut off from the Palestine Archaeological Museum and the archives of the Department of Antiquities. In July of that year the Israel Department of Antiquities was established, with Shemuel *Yeivin as its first director, and its first archaeological activities were connected with sites under danger as a result of the new building developments in the country. Excavations conducted during these early years included work at Tell Qasile, Jaffa, and Beth Yerah. Large-scale excavations were subsequently conducted by Y. *Yadin at *Hazor during the 1950s and in 1968, and many Israeli archaeologists received their first fieldwork training at this important site. This was the second "golden age" of biblical archaeology in the country. The 1960s saw important excavations at *Arad and *Ashdod, the Judean Desert Caves survey (1961–62), which brought to light important finds from the time of Bar Kokhba, and the expedition to *Masada. Numerous excavations were conducted at tell sites throughout the country during the 1970s and 1980s, from Dan (A. Biran) in the north to Beersheba (Y. *Aharoni) in the south. Following the war in 1967, excavations on a large scale were conducted in various parts of the Old City in Jerusalem: at the foot of the Temple Mount by B. Mazar, in the Jewish Quarter by N. *Avigad, and on Mount Zion by M. Broshi. An emergency survey of the occupied territories (the West Bank and the Golan Heights) was conducted by teams of Israeli archaeologists, and scores of hitherto unknown sites were discovered, including the sites of ancient synagogues.

Israel has five active archaeology departments in Israeli universities: the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, the Archaeology and Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University, and the Department of Maritime Civilizations and the Center of Maritime Studies at Haifa University. Numerous archaeological sites have been excavated by the teachers and graduates of these universities from the 1980s to the present day, some projects in cooperation with foreign institutions. Many of the important key sites are described in the five-volume New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. An Archaeological Congress jointly arranged by the various institutions is held once a year to allow archaeologists to discuss recent discoveries and new approaches. Good relations are maintained between Israeli archaeologists and local foreign archaeological institutions, notably the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, the Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Francaise de Jérusalem, the Kenyon Institute (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem), and the American W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. The latter institution, in particular, has always been regarded as a meeting ground for fellows with scholars from Israel, Palestine, and abroad. The early 2000s has seen the independent development of Palestinian archaeological activities within the territories (West Bank and Gaza), with the establishment of a Palestine Department of Antiquities, and with archaeological courses being provided at the universities of Bir Zeit and al-Quds. The focus of Palestinian investigations to date has been on tell archaeology, the investigation of indigenous landscapes, medieval Islamic remains, and cultural heritage.

In 1989 the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums became the Israel Antiquities Authority under the directorship of Amir Drori, and numerous salvage excavations were conducted throughout the country, as well as larger prestigious projects such as those at Beth Shean and Caesarea, and smaller projects such as those at *Beth Shemesh and *Modi'in. The Antiquities Law of the State of Israel was originally based upon the Antiquities Ordinance of the British Mandate period, with substantial revisions made in 1960, 1978, and 1989. The Israel Antiquities Authority is the official governmental regulatory power for all archaeological activities conducted in Israel: inspecting existing archaeological sites and ensuring their protection, fighting illegal diggings and regulating the trade in antiquities, and issuing licenses for archaeological excavation projects. Many objects from archaeological excavations are exhibited at the Rockefeller Museum (from excavations that predate 1967 because of the status quo), at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (where many new finds are first exhibited), and at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv (particularly the finds from the local site of Tell Qasile). Smaller local museums are scattered throughout the country. The results of excavations and surveys conducted by the various local institutions are frequently published in English and in Hebrew in Israeli scientific journals (such as Ḥadashot Arkheologiyot, Israel Exploration Journal, Tel Aviv, etc.) and in popular publications (e.g., Qadmoniot and Ariel), as well as in local non-Israeli publications (such as the Franciscan Liber Annuus) and abroad (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, and Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, etc.) and in popular magazines (e.g., Near Eastern Archaeology and Biblical Archaeology Review). Numerous scientific monographs are published in Israel by the respective archaeological departments of the universities and by the Israel Antiquities Authority, as well as by the Israel Exploration Society.

The future of the archaeological discipline in academic circles in Israel looks like it is set to develop along the lines of an elaborate refining of scientific techniques, with project strategies that will entail a greater amount of multidisciplinary work with scientists in related fields than has hitherto been seen. This will undoubtedly improve the contextual understanding of sites and their formation, of dating systems and other approaches to the reconstruction of ancient human and environmental manifestations. The study of regionalism within ancient cultures will be another improvement since there is now a realization that typological classifications of material remains, such as ceramic vessels, are better understood on a regional rather than on a countrywide level. The production of costly scientific monographs will likely be dispensed with and replaced by electronic publication formats. The casualty of this scientific upgrading of the profession is that local lay persons in Israel with a passion for yedi'at ha-areẓ (lit. "knowledge of the land") will eventually find themselves slowly dissociated from the subject. On the other hand, the discipline would also seem to be heading towards the establishing of a better system of Contract Archaeology with procedures that will be run on a purely business basis and with financial rather than overt scientific goals. Already academic institutions in Israel are running field units that bid one against the other for tenders to conduct salvage archaeological work at sites being threatened by modern development. At the present time, the Israel Antiquities Authority is the official governmental regulatory power for archaeological work done in Israel – it too bids for tenders to conduct salvage excavations, thus creating a certain amount of conflict of interest.

Archaeology and the Origins of Israel

One has to admit that archaeology has not been very helpful in shedding light on the origins of the Israelites (whose ancestry is traced back to Jacob: Gen 32:32; 49:16, 28; Ex 1:9). Gottwald once pointed out that "origins do not tell us everything, but I believe that in seeking them, we will know more." It has been claimed that the appearance of the name "Israel" on the famous Stele of Merneptah would suggest that there was already an "Israelite" entity in the central hill country well before any "conquest" by Joshua ben Nun. This stele commemorating Merneptah's Syro-Palestine campaign, from 1208 b.c.e., refers to Israel with the determinative indicating a people rather than a land or place: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." In the 1950s and 1960s, particularly under the influence of the American scholar W.F. Albright, there was a firm belief that archaeology had much to contribute to the historical understanding of the Patriarchal, Exodus, and Conquest narratives and the Monarchical period (United and Divided). Since then there has been a lot of debate amongst scholars on the subject of the emergence of the people of Israel, where they came from and how they came to settle in the land of Canaan, but no consensus of opinion has yet been reached. There is general agreement, however, that a substantial shift in settlement patterns occurred in the highlands of Palestine (Judah and Ephraim) during the Iron Age i (circa 1200 to the 11^th century b.c.e.) in comparison to the preceding Late Bronze Age, with the construction of many small settlements in areas that were not previously inhabited. But the ethnic identity of these new highlanders and their place of origin are still not clear. It is plausible that some of them were Israelites, or, at least, some later became Israelites. The new settlements were unfortified, with dwellings in a scattered or grouped layout, and with well-planned storage facilities (silos and very large pithoi for water storage). This would suggest that the inhabitants of these Early Iron Age settlements came from an agricultural rather than a nomadic background, but this is not conclusive. The suggestion that these "Israelite" settlements were inhabited by farmers that withdrew from less marginal agricultural lands in the "Canaanite" lowlands, to the west, or from inland valleys, seems reasonable but it does not answer all the questions. In support of the theory of indigenous development, there is evidence for some general continuity in the material culture from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. The suggestion that the settlements were inhabited by people from a nomadic background who rapidly became sedentarized by adopting a new agricultural way of life is another possibility but one which is difficult to prove.

The alternative solution is that there was a much more complex symbiosis of Early Iron Age peoples in the highlands, more so than scholars have previously been willing to admit. These "proto-Israelites" may have come from diverse backgrounds, both agricultural and nomadic, from great distances or from regions in Palestine close by. They probably brought with them traditions connected to the Aramean god "El," on the one hand, and to the nomadic god "yhwh," on the other, and these may very well have brought the groups into religious and ideological conflict, but not necessarily to the extent where struggles led to the destruction of settlements. The gelling together of these diverse peoples within rather harsh and restrictive highland environments may have forced the rapid abandonment of earlier lifestyles and the adoption of a fairly simple way of life based on subsistence agriculture. Such a scenario is admittedly difficult to prove archaeologically, but it is a reasonable assumption that the highland cultures of the Early Iron Age were much more variegated than their material artifacts would suggest them to be. What is clear is that the Israelite national entity of the tenth century b.c.e. eventually emerged in precisely the same areas that were formerly occupied by the diverse "proto-Israelites" of the 12^th and 11^th centuries b.c.e. Archaeology has been able to show strong evidence of the emergence of Israelite statehood in the northern part of the country at the time of the Omride Dynasty, and eventually in the Assyrian period, from no earlier than the eighth century b.c.e., one can trace the emergence of Judah and the consolidation of Jerusalem as an important central city.

Nowadays a dichotomy between the Bible and archaeology no longer exists. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s serious debates broke out between biblical historians and archaeologists, of both religious and secular backgrounds, regarding the historicity of the Bible. Indeed, Biblical Archaeology, that was so fashionable in the 1950s to 1980s, has few adherents today amongst working academics, and some would even describe themselves simply as the practitioners of a "scientific" archaeology instead, as if any discipline can truly be conducted in a dispassionate and unbiased fashion. Some scholars, notably the so-called "Copenhagen School," regard the Bible as a source of legendary material that has very little antiquity to it (i.e., dating from a time no earlier than the Persian or early Hellenistic periods, fifth to third centuries b.c.e.) and that a true history of ancient Israel cannot be recovered at all. From their perspective, David and Solomon were legendary figures, there were no Patriarchs, the Exodus never took place, and there was no Conquest of Canaan. These revisionists, however, cannot ignore the following evidence that attests to the strength of the biblical traditions: (1) the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions of the ninth to seventh centuries b.c.e. mentioning Israelite and Judaean kings, notably the Black Obelisk showing the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser iii with the Israelite King Jehu bowing down in front of him; (2) the Siloam Tunnel inscription of the eighth century b.c.e. referring to the creation of the water system of Jerusalem under the Judaean King Hezekiah (recent thorium-uranium procedures on the plaster of the tunnel has confirmed the dating of the inscription independently); (3) the Tell Dan stele of the ninth century b.c.e. that refers to the dynasty of the "House of David"; and (4) the Tell Miqne royal dedicatory inscription dating from the second quarter of the seventh century b.c.e., which refers to two kings of Ekron who are also attested in the Neo-Assyrian annals. Ikausu, the builder of the temple at Miqne, is also known from the Assyrian records. In addition to the inscriptional evidence, the student of the Bible must also take into account the undeniable fact of collective memory, with traditions and complete books being transmitted orally from generation to generation. Moreover, in linguistic terms, Classical Hebrew of the First Temple period as it appears in some of the historical books is very different from the Hebrew of the later Persian and Hellenistic periods (e.g., the books of Daniel, Ezra, and others), and this has been confirmed by the recent discovery of written artifacts, notably the text of the Priestly Benediction on a sixth-century b.c.e. silver scroll found at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem. Scholars adopting the Julius *Wellhausen approach in the past regarded the books of the Old Testament as a complex fabric of source materials that were written down at different times and by different hands during the First Temple period and also later, and that this process came to an end when the final revisions and canonization eventually took place. However, the extent and date of the historical "kernels" existing within these various sources and how they should be linked to archaeological finds is still very much debated by mainstream scholars.

The Archaeological Periods

Determining an exact chronological terminology for the ancient cultural remains uncovered in the land of Israel has always been a matter of great importance and debate, ever since the days of the explorations of the "Survey of Western Palestine" in the 1870s and up to the present day. The early explorers described the remains they encountered in very general terms, as "rude" (i.e., prehistoric); "Semitic" (Bronze Age); "Jewish" (Iron Age); "Greek" (Hellenistic); "Roman"; "Christian" (Byzantine); "Crusading" (Medieval); and "modern" (Ottoman). Many chronological systems were proposed or adopted by archaeologists at the beginning of the 20^th century, but it was only at a meeting held in Jerusalem in 1922 that the leading archaeologists of the time – J. Garstang, W.J.T. Phythian-Adams, H. Vincent, and W.F. Albright – agreed upon a common classification system of chronological terms in line with the Three Age System used in Old World Archaeology. This system is more or less the same as the one used by archaeologists today. However, many of the periods have subdivisions and substages (e.g., eb i a = Early Bronze i stage a), or are sometimes labeled with the names of peoples such as "Canaanite" and "Israelite" (instead of Bronze Age or Iron Age), and in some cases the same period of time may confusingly appear in the archaeological literature under different names (e.g., Middle Bronze i is now called the Early Bronze Age iv or alternatively the Intermediate Bronze Age; or for the later periods the term Herodian is sometimes used interchangeably with Early Roman). In prehistory there has been a tendency to replace the rigid time-line chronological division with a more flexible framework based on the names of identified cultures or names of localities. Although archaeologists dealing with proto-historic and historic periods still adhere to the prevailing chronological system, the realization that cultures in different parts of a country will produce pottery and other objects possessing distinctive traits all of their own is leading researchers more towards a regional appreciation of the chronology of cultures. Much of the relative chronology of the Bronze and Iron Ages is synchronized with the better-established chronologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Small objects such as carved and inscribed seals can be useful for dating, but the "heirloom" factor can sometimes be a problem, i.e., objects that are "kept in the family" well beyond the time they represent. With the appearance of coins in Persian times archaeological materials may be better fixed in time, but problems still remain with some coins having a much longer life span than the cultural material in which they are found (e.g., caches of fourth century coins were still being deposited in the fifth century, and Umayyad coins were still the main currency used in the early Abbasid period).

A description of the principal archaeological periods and the main finds is provided below under the following chronological headings: Prehistoric Periods (Palaeolithic to Neolithic); Chalcolithic; Early Bronze Age; Middle Bronze Age; Late Bronze Age; Iron Age and Persian; Hellenistic; Roman; Byzantine; Islamic to Ottoman. Different dating schemes are provided by the relevant authorities and for this the reader is referred to existing publications for comparison purposes (see bibliography below). The following abbreviations have been used: b.p. = Before Present; b.c.e. = Before Common Era; c.e. = Common Era.

prehistoric periods (palaeolithic to neolithic)

The earliest human-made artifacts found in the Syria-Palestine region consist of objects made largely from flint and attributed to the Lower Acheulean stage of the Lower Palaeolithic, marking the point in time when the proto-human Homo erectus began moving into the region from Africa about 1.4 to 1.0 million years b.p. (= Before Present). Exciting work has been undertaken at Ubeidiya, a key site for understanding the period, which is situated within one segment of the central Afro-Asian rift, in the present-day northern Jordan Valley, with the discovery of large quantities of finds embedded within the local lacustrine and fluvial deposits, some in almost vertical layers owing to the quite substantial natural folding and faulting of the land. Research indicates that the site was originally on the shore adjacent to a sweet-water lake, and an abundance of bones was uncovered in the excavations of mammals, reptiles, fish, and birds. The local hominids survived by hunting and scavenging for meat, notably hippopotamus, deer, and horse. The site yielded scatters of flint core choppers and polyhedrons made from local pebbles, as well as limestone spheroids, and a smaller percentage of handaxes made from basalt, limestone, and flint. Other sites of note belonging to the later Middle or Upper Acheulean of the Lower Palaeolithic period and also reflecting scavenging or hunting activities include the Evron Quarry site in western Galilee where imported flint objects and animal bones were uncovered, and the Gesher Benot Ya'akov site next to the Jordan River which revealed scatters of basalt implements, small fragments of human bones, and numerous bones of large mammals such as elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and others. The latter site probably dates to around 750,000 years b.p. Upper Acheulean flint tools are also known from Ma'ayan Barukh and Holon as well as further south at Umm Qatafa (Layers e1 and e2), and close to Jerusalem at Baqa and in the Rephaim Valley (mainly handaxes and flakes). The northern and central part of Palestine was characterized in the Upper Acheulean by the Acheulo-Yabrudian lithic industry and is known especially at a number of cave sites, dating to circa 500,000/400,000 to 270,000/250,000 b.p. Fragmentary human remains – a fragment of a Homo sapiens skull and a femur – were found at the cave of Zuttiyeh and the cave of Tabun.

The Middle Palaeolithic is characterized by the hunter-and-gatherer Mousterians, who appear to have maintained their scavenging activities as well. Judging by the type of tools they made, the Mousterians were making more refined cutting tools for butchering meat and sawing bones (blades and flakes) and processing animal skins (borers and scrapers). They were also adept in woodworking and hafting flint tools, such as the typical Levallois points to serve as spears for the purpose of hunting medium-sized animals (such as gazelle and fallow deer) that replaced the larger mammals typical of the Lower Palaeolithic. The Tabun cave provided important stratified deposits allowing for the differentiation between the types of Mousterian tool kits: Tabun d dated to 270,000–170,000 b.p.; Tabun c to 170,000 to 90,000/85,000 b.p.; and Tabun b to 90,000/85,000 to 48,000 b.p. Human remains were discovered in the caves of Tabun and Kebara, caves in the Amud Valley, and at Daura in Syria, and represent either a local population of Mediterranean Neanderthals or perhaps a population of Southeast European Neanderthals migrating into the Levant. Skeletal remains of the archaic Homo sapiens were found at the Skhul and Qafzeh sites, but whether or not they interacted with the Neanderthals is unclear.

The Upper Palaeolithic coincides with the first half of the Upper Pleistocene, beginning around 43,000 b.p. and ending in about 20,000–18,000 b.p. The period has been subdivided into a number of phases based on various cultures with particular types of flint tools. The Emiran tradition was apparently a transitional Middle to Upper Palaeolithic phase and it had a tool kit characterized by a special type of point, known as the Emireh point, in addition to end-scrapers and blades. This phase is equivalent to Phase A at the Lebanese site of Ksar 'Akil and Boker Taḥtit in the Negev. The locally developed Upper Palaeolithic cultures include the hunter-gatherer-derived Ahmarian tradition, found in the central parts of the Levant and in the Negev and Sinai deserts, as well as in southern Jordan, and typified by its blade industry. The Levantine-Aurignacian tradition, known only from the northern and central Levant, has new types of flint tools, notably the el-Wad points, with the first systematic use of microliths, and a bone industry. During the depreciation of the water level of the Sea of Galilee a site was uncovered (Ohalo ii) consisting of the foundations of a settlement of round huts, with flint assemblages in situ, with well-preserved plants and animal and fish bones. It is during the subsequent Kebaran that microliths began to predominate and evolve. Human remains are known from Qafzeh, Ksar 'Akil, Naḥal En Gev i (a semi-flexed burial of a woman), Neveh David (Mt. Carmel), and at Kharraneh in Jordan. The country was forested and was particularly suited for game (elk, deer, and boar) which was the object of the hunters. Numerous pounding and grinding stones indicate the processing and consumption of various nuts, grain, and seeds. Hunter-gatherers were also roaming the woodland areas of the central highlands as recent archaeological finds have shown, but their settlements were so temporary and small (estimated at no larger than 150 square meters) that traces have been hard to detect.

Climatic change at the end of the Pleistocene resulted in the emergence circa 12,800 b.c.e. of a sedentary culture known as the Natufian. Natufian sites include 'Ain Mallaha-Eynan, Naḥal Oren Terrace, Hayonim cave, Jericho, el-Wad, and Hatula. Settlement took place in caves or within built complexes of houses, usually curvilinear, with sunken earthen and plastered floors and wall foundations of undressed stones or unbaked bricks. The superstructures of the walls of the dwellings were apparently made of wood, reeds, and other organic materials; postholes found in one large house at Eynan provided evidence regarding roof supports. Houses contained hearths and grinding vessels. Flint tools included sickle blades, borers, and burins, as well as the distinctive production of small bladelets which were used as blanks for tools. The quantity of grinding vessels and sickles from the sites was regarded by some scholars as an indication that the Natufians not only gathered wild cereals but were also proto-farmers. However, convincing evidence for this has not been forthcoming from the plant remains gathered at the sites. Moreover, the grinding stones may have had numerous domestic functions and the sheen visible on sickle blades is easily obtainable from the cutting of wild grasses. Artistic representations include carved heads on sickle hafts, animal and human figurines cut schematically in limestone, and incised geometric designs (such as meanders and zigzags) on everyday objects. Burials were frequently encountered in pits beneath the floors of houses or in adjacent areas, either as single internments (flexed or stretched out) or as collective burials with numerous skulls and bones gathered together. Life expectancy for Natufians was no more than 35 years. Burial goods included necklaces and bracelets and other body decorations that were usually made of shells, notably Dentalium, with pendants of stone and bone. In Eynan the discovery that a dog was buried with its presumed owner provides an interesting insight in regard to domestication at that time. The final phase of the Late Natufian uncovered in the more recent excavations at Eynan, with structures, living surfaces, and hearths, may represent the hitherto elusive transition to that of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period. Contemporary with the Late Natufian, the Harifian culture emerged in the Negev and Sinai in the southern Levant, with scattered settlement in the lowland areas utilized during the winter months and with additional sites used in the highlands in the summer months. Excavations have brought to light the foundations of huts, with a largely microlithic tool kit dominated by lunates and the Harif point. Grinding stones and stones with cupholes were found in the huts and their vicinity. The occupants were hunters and their prey included gazelle, ibex, and hare.

The subsequent Neolithic has been divided into a pre-pottery period (Early Neolithic, 8500/8300 to 6000/5800 b.c.e.) incorporating the ppna and ppnb stages, and also at some sites a final ppnc stage (ending around 5500 b.c.e.), and a succeeding pottery period (Late Neolithic, 6000/5800 to 4000 b.c.e.) incorporating the pna and pnb stages. The Early Neolithic period saw a gradual transformation in the Levant of "Sultanian" communities of hunters (practicing some farming) into "Tahunian" farmers (with the herding of animals) and the eventual emergence of more consolidated permanent villages. ppna sites were once only known from sites in the Jordan Valley and in the Carmel Hills (notably at Naḥal Oren), but recent work has revealed sites in the western foothills of Palestine (Hatula near Emmaus; Modi'in) and elsewhere at desert sites. Significant remains from the ppna were uncovered at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) with the earliest levels possessing "Khiamian" lithic assemblages, defined mainly by el-Khiam type arrowheads and the lower frequencies of microliths, and the later Sultanian assemblages having polished celts of basalt and limestone, flint adzes/axes with single cutting edges and plain sickle blades. An important discovery at Jericho was that of a massive round tower (8.5 m high) with an internal staircase, and an adjacent wall segment fronted by a ditch (3.5 m wide) cut into bedrock. Most scholars believe these architectural features served for defensive purposes (i.e., fortifications) to provide protection for the settlement of curvilinear houses built of plano-convex mud bricks on stone foundations, which had a population estimated at 450 individuals. Others (notably Bar-Yosef) suggest that the wall was used as a barrier to prevent the flooding of the village and that the round tower was the lower part of a mud-brick shrine (no longer extant). At Nahal Oren two ppna levels were uncovered (iv–iii) and the developed settlement consisted of 20 curvilinear structures built on four terraces, with hearths, grinding stones, and cup-hole slabs. Important sites in the Jordan Valley include Gilgal and Netiv ha-Gedud, and further afield, close to the Euphrates in Syria, the sites of Mureybet and Abu Hureyra. Various art objects are known made in bone and stone representing animals and humans.

Numerous hamlets or villages from the ppnb period have been excavated: Jericho, Naḥal Oren, Munhata, Kefar ha-Ḥoresh, and Yiftahel (Area c) in Israel, Beidha, Ain Ghazal and Basta in Jordan, and Tell Ramad in Syria. Curvilinear houses were now replaced by rectilinear houses, multi-roomed, with walls of mud brick on stone foundations (as at Jericho) or completely built of undressed stones (as at Naḥal Oren and at the terraced site of Basta). Floors and interior walls of structures were frequently plastered; a small installation for the burning of lime was uncovered at Ain Ghazal and slag has been found at other sites (e.g., under the pn levels of Yiftahel). Plastered walls were found at Jericho decorated with floral decoration, and at Basta decorated with a representation of twigs and berries. Burials of prone or flexed adults and children (frequently headless) were found beneath floors. The ppnb is characterized by a wealth of clay and plaster statuettes representing humans and animals, as well as numerous plaster-molded human skulls of men, women, and children, with features emphasized with paint and shells, masks and small figurines. Two caches of human statuettes and busts made out of lime-based plaster, molded on lashed reed bundles, were recovered from Ain Ghazal and are dated to 6750/6500 b.c.e. The faces of these statuettes were painted and other features may represent body paint, clothing, or tattooing; polydactyly was evident in a six-fingered toed foot and hand. Such favissae were definitely connected with ritual practices and the statues were originally intended to be displayed in the round. Sixty-one plastered or decorated skulls and crania are known from Syria and the Levant, from the sites of Tell Ramad, Jericho, Beisamoun, Naḥal Hemar (modeled in bitumen), Ain Ghazal and Kefar ha-Ḥoresh. It has been suggested that the human statuettes and plastered skulls represent stylized representations of ancestors, but recent research on the skulls does not support claims that age, sex, or skull shape were domineering factors in the choice of skulls for special treatment. The ppnb lithic industry resembles that of the ppna except for the fact that heated flint was now used. Blades from naviform (i.e., boat-shaped) cores were used for making arrowheads (the Helwan and Jericho points, and later the Byblos and Amuq points), sickle blades (plain or slightly serrated), and other tools. Bifacial tools are also known. In addition, obsidian (volcanic glass) for making very sharp tools was brought in from eastern Anatolia and indicates the importance of the exchange of commodities at that time. Greenstone was used for making pendants and marine shells were gathered from the Mediterranean and Red Sea. This period also has the earliest attempts at animal domestication and the first systematic cultivation of cereals and legumes (with the earliest known fava beans and lentils at Yiftahel), side by side with the continued practice of hunting and the raising of sheep and goats. The onset of a dry climatic period at the end of the ppnb apparently led to the abandonment of many settlements. At Ain Ghazal the site actually continued expanding in the ppnc (circa 6000 to 5500 b.c.e.) with some changes, such as smaller structures appearing with permanent storage facilities, and sub-floor burials of complete skeletons (breaking the earlier tradition of the headless burials). The ppnc stage has also been noted at the site of Basta in Jordan and at Yiftahel in Israel with the discovery of rectilinear pier houses. Crude attempts at making pottery (sun-dried or low-fired) was found at Ain Ghazal and Basta, and examples of vessels made of White Ware ("vaisselles blanches") are known particularly from the northern Levant.

The succeeding late Neolithic pottery period (6000/5800 to 4000 b.c.e.), incorporating the pna (typified by "Yarmukian" and Jericho ix) and pnb (typified by Wadi Rabbah) stages, marks a major change with the establishment of new settlements and with a greater sedentary way of life. The early part of this period was once described as characterized by ephemeral settlements of circular sunken huts without solid architecture and rounded pits, based on the results of excavations at Jericho, Sha'ar ha-Golan, Munhata, Tel Aviv sites (e.g., Ha-Bashan Street) and so forth, and that the population was semi-nomadic and pastoral. Recent excavations, however, have shown this to be a misconception and based on faulty data and that there were in fact large and flourishing sedentary villages during this period. Three monumental and solid-built architectural complexes, with rectilinear plans, with courtyards and alleyways, indicating village planning, were uncovered in the 1990s at Sha'ar ha-Golan. Handmade fired pottery – jars, cooking pots, bowls – characterizes the material culture assemblages of this period and the vessels are frequently decorated with red-painted and incised geometric designs (such as chevron and herringbone patterns). The invention of pottery is believed to have taken place first in the northern Levant, together with the plaster-based White Ware, and slowly it began appearing in Palestine as well. At Yiftahel (Stratum iii) the White Ware and the early pottery was visually indistinguishable, and some distinctions could only be made by petrographic analysis. Numerous types of female figurines are known made of stone and clay, perhaps representing the Mother Goddess and fertility, as well as incised drawings and symbols on carefully selected river pebbles. The Yarmukian seated female figurines are particularly distinctive; 350 were found at Sha'ar ha-Golan alone. A possible shrine was uncovered at Bikat Uvda, with large animals drawn with stones on the desert floor in its vicinity. Pressure flaking and polishing are two new features of the lithic technology of this period. The lithic tool-kit includes sickle blades, arrowheads in a variety of shapes, and axes/adzes, as well as the normal points, scrapers, and burins. Subsistence was based on cultivation practices, with cereals and legumes, and animal herding (sheep and goats, with pigs and cattle raised in some communities). Groups of hunters and pastoral nomads continued living in the desert fringes.

chalcolithic

The peak of village development in the southern Levant, with a more permanent agricultural existence and a dependence on livestock and crops, occurred during the Chalcolithic period (4000–3300 b.c.e.). The period is regarded as a complex and stratified society, with clear evidence for trade and craft specialization, maritime pursuits, and the exploitation of marginal environments. Some scholars suggest that the social organization of these communities was in the form of "chiefdoms." This period attests to the widespread use of copper, hence the name of the period (khalkos = copper and lithos = stone). Copper extraction was made at the Timna Valley in the southern Arabah, and in Wadi Feinan in southern Jordan. Trade activities were highly developed at this time with raw materials and probable "invisible" products (e.g., textiles) obtained from great distances from all over the Near East. Connections with Egypt were particularly strong with objects of Egyptian provenance appearing at Chalcolithic sites. Important agricultural developments also emerge with evidence for horticultural pursuits and the intensive use of the digging hoe. Specialized olive oil production took place in highland regions, notably in the Golan and in the Palestine highlands. Olive oil plants have been identified at Neballat, Givat Oranim, and at Modi'in consisting of groups of crushing cup-marks and pressing basins. The key site from this period is Tuleilat el-Ghassul situated to the northeast of the Dead Sea with remains of villages extending back to the Late Neolithic perhaps suggesting cultural continuity between the two periods. Important sites in the Negev include Bir es-Safadi, Abu Matar, Naḥal Gerar, Gilat, Shikmim, and Abu Hof. Of the many sites in the Golan, the most important to have been excavated so far is at Rasm Harbush. Settlement in the coastal plain is still hardly understood, though important tombs have been uncovered at Ḥaderah. Smaller villages are known in the highland regions, notably at Sataf west of Jerusalem, with greater quantities of temporary sites or caves in the Judean Desert. Different forms of settlement are known in the southern Levant: permanent villages of houses with stone-built or mud-brick walls, villages with underground loess-cut caves beneath the houses, encampments used by nomadic pastoralists on a seasonal basis, and caves used as temporary dwellings or storage. Houses are usually of broad-room plan, with pits in the floors and various installations, and with large adjoining enclosed courtyards. Parallel lines of structures built on a chain pattern are known from the Golan. Settlements were situated next to springs of water (e.g., Jerusalem) or had wells cut down to groundwater (e.g., Abu Hof). A number of shrines are known, notably the En-Gedi temple, which was close to nearby springs, which may have had a "holy tree" in the external courtyard. The cultic objects from this temple may very well have been hidden in the nearby Naḥal Mishmar cave. This cave produced an amazing cache of 442 different objects made of copper, hematite, stone, and ivory (of hippopotamus and elephant). Another shrine was uncovered at Gilat in the northwestern Negev, with the discovery of an array of cultic objects including a ceramic vessel modeled in the shape of a seated naked woman holding a churn on her head, and another of a ram carrying three cornets on its back. Wall paintings depicting cultic scenes were found at Tuleilat el-Ghassul. Numerous cave burials are known (e.g., Ḥaderah), but the most spectacular find was at Peki'in with numerous types of highly decorated ossuaries and jars for the secondary burial of human bones, as well as "violin" figurines and copper objects. Pottery from the final phases of the Chalcolithic period are extremely diverse and distinctive, especially the churns, cornets, and "v-shaped" bowls which were frequently decorated with bands of red paint, and large storage vessels (pithoi). Fine basalt bowls, some on a fenestrated base, are also distinctive of the period, as well as basalt house idols from the Golan. Flint-working continues with a tool-kit of axes/adzes, scrapers, blades, and others. Copper artifacts abound and attest to the artistic and technological expertise of the period, with some objects made in the lost-wax (cire-perdue) method. Organic remains have also been preserved, with textiles, mats, and straw artifacts found in caves in the Judean Desert. The reason for the disappearance of the Chalcolithic culture at the end of the fourth millennium b.c.e. remains a mystery, though some have suggested climatic reasons.

early bronze age

The Bronze Age in the southern Levant is divided into three parts: Early, Middle, and Late, extending from around 3300 b.c.e. to 1200 b.c.e. The Early Bronze Age is itself divided into three parts (eb i to iii) with various sub-phases.

The villages of the Chalcolithic were abandoned and replaced by villages of the eb i but these were situated at new locations. The distinctive architecture of the earlier phase of the eb i is represented by dwellings that in plan are curvilinear, oval, or oblong with rounded ends. Originally it was thought the typical dwelling plan of this period was apsidal, largely based on the evidence unearthed at Meser, but this is no longer accepted by scholars. Good examples of early villages of this kind have been unearthed at En Shadud, Tell Teo, and Yiftahel which has the foundations of at least 22 dwellings. Caves used as habitations and temporary settlements with pits have been uncovered at other locations, particularly in the south of the country. Later in the eb i many more villages were founded and these became considerably larger (about 50 acres). This stage also saw the shift to using rectilinear architecture, sometimes with rooms built with slightly rounded corners. An example of a site from this stage was found at Palmaḥim Quarry. Some fortifications from this period may have existed at Jericho and at Tell Shalem. The eb i ceramic material is quite austere compared to the previous Chalcolithic, with an assemblage of plain pottery vessels, with smaller quantities of the highly polished Grey-Burnished ("Esdraelon") ware, some carinated with protrusions along the edges, and jars decorated with the grain-wash or band-slip technique. Later geometric painted wares are also known. Simple seal-impressions have been found on the shoulders of a few ceramic jars, and stone or bone seals are also known. Ground-stone artifacts continued to be made out of basalt, but these differ considerably in technique and design from earlier examples. Small quantities of copper objects, notable adzes or chisels, have been found at sites from this period, some originating from the Feinan mines in southern Jordan. However, the discovery of a workshop for copper working at Ashkelon-Afridar on the coast indicates that metal working was undertaken not just close to the copper sources but throughout the country. Flint tools of ad hoc types continued to be made, with the appearance of the ubiquitous "Canaanean" blade. The social organization of these early communities is uncertain, but some stratification must have emerged between farmers and traders at least in regard to matters of leadership and cooperation. Agricultural activities included new cultivation practices, the introduction of the light plow, the organization of fields and terracing (e.g., at Sataf), herding of animals, and a small amount of specialized hunting. Olive oil and wine surpluses were important commodities used for trade, together with smaller amounts of bitumen and salt from the Dead Sea. Excavations at Ashkelon-Afridar indicate that imported Lebanese cedar was being transported to coastal sites probably by sea, perhaps en route to Egypt. Strong trade networks were set up with parallel traders in Egypt, with their Egyptian representatives living side by side with the local population at sites in southern Palestine. Egyptian-type architecture is known from En Besor (the "residency") and from Tell 'Erani. Stylized renderings of an Egyptian royal symbol (the serekh) were also found incised into local wares at Ḥorvat Illin Taḥtit and at Palmaḥim Quarry, corresponding to the proto-historic Dynasty "O" time period in Egypt.

Proper urbanism is characteristic of the second stage of the Early Bronze ii (3100–2700 b.c.e.) with the emergence of full-fledged towns with fortifications and city gates, distinct built-up areas set aside for housing, industrial, and mercantile activities, administrative buildings/palaces, temples, and public water systems. The reasons for the development of urbanism at this point in time in the southern Levant are unclear. However, towns are much larger and denser than the previous settlements of the eb i and they appear to have had much more control over their hinterland. The overall numberof eb ii settlements in the landscapes of Palestine decreased, suggesting a movement of population into the towns. This ultimately led to a differentiation emerging between the status and function of individual villages of different sizes and their interdependence as satellites of the larger dominating towns. Fortifications from the eb ii are known from Tell el-Farah (n), Beth Yerah, Aphek, Ai, and Arad. Administrative buildings/palaces have been unearthed at Megiddo and Arad. Temples have been found at Beth Yerah, Megiddo, Ai, and Arad. Arad is a good example of a large fortified town in the eastern Negev Desert. It was a well-planned city, divided into distinct neighborhoods of houses by streets, with shrines (one with a stele depicting deities with upraised arms), public or palace buildings, a water system (more than 15 meters deep), and it was surrounded by a massive fortification wall with projecting semicircular towers. The houses were of distinctive broadroom plan (hence the "Arad house") with the entrance in the long wall. The pottery assemblage from the site includes vessels imported from Egypt, as well as a large quantity of painted and well-burnished local wares that hitherto had been found in quantity in First Dynasty tombs at Abydos. A jar fragment with the serekh of Narmer, founder of the First Dynasty of Egypt, provides important synchronism between Egypt and eb ii "Canaanite" Palestine. It is believed that the flourishing of eb ii sites in the Negev and Sinai was the direct result of the copper trade controlled by Arad. At the end of this period some towns were abandoned: Tell el-Farah (n), Aphek, and Arad.

The Early Bronze iii spans about 400 years (2700–2300 b.c.e.), but the reasons why the eb iii replaced the eb ii are unclear. In terms of material culture new ceramic types emerge, notably the so-called red/black burnished "Khirbet Kerak" wares in the north, and the disappearance of the eb ii pottery wares in the south. There can be no doubt that during this period the centralization process of the rural population within cities reached its peak, with the establishment of new fortified towns at Tell Poran, Tell Nagila, and Tell Beit Mirsim. Pre-existing towns at Ai and Yarmut were strengthened and enhanced architecturally and especially in terms of the fortifications, suggesting that dangers of invasion and internecine violence were prevalent at that time. Temples are known from Megiddo and Khirbet Zeraqoun in Jordan. A massive underground water system is known from Zeraquon. The movement of the rural population into towns does not, however, indicate any decline in agricultural production, but quite the contrary. An enormous granary was uncovered at Tell Beth Yerah. Olive oil and perhaps also wine were the chief commodities that were used for trade at this time. Yarmut, situated in the heart of rich agricultural lands in the lowlands of Palestine, was in a key location to affect the control, processing, and marketing of some of the commodities required for trade with Egypt and other parts of the Near East. The town was surrounded by massive fortifications and had an offset gateway, a temple ("White Building"), palatial buildings, and residential quarters.

The gradual abandonment of eb iii towns was replaced by the spread of new settlements with a different material culture across the countryside during the Intermediate Bronze Age (also known as the Early Bronze iv, 2300–2000 b.c.e.). Once thought to have occurred as a result of invading "Amorites," it would now appear that there were a number of factors that affected the movement of population away from the towns and into the countryside: the collapse of the trade networks with Old Kingdom Egypt and climatic fluctuations (with possible long-term desiccation) that made specialized cultivation difficult and eventually led to the need for broadening agricultural cultivation instead. Although once regarded as an overall pastoral-nomadic interlude between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, it would now appear that the pastoral nomads of this period only actually existed in the semi-arid and arid zones (e.g., Be'er Resisim), whereas elsewhere there were flourishing farming communities spread out in large and small villages. Large villages are known in Jordan (Iktanu, Khirbet Iskander – with some fortifications) and in Palestine (Modi'in and Naḥal Rephaim). The abandoned towns were sometimes also used for ephemeral settlement: Hazor, Megiddo, Beth Shean, and Jericho. Numerous burials from this period have been found throughout the country, under cairns in the south, in shaft tombs in the highlands, and within dolmens in the north.

middle bronze age

The Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 b.c.e.) is regarded as a period of renewed urbanism and it reflects the strength of influences emanating from the north and particularly from Syria. Small settlements previously inhabited during the Intermediate Bronze Age were abandoned, particularly along the coastal plain and in some of the inland valleys and were replaced in the mb ii a (previously known as the mb i) by a number of urban centers (Tell Aphek, Tell Poleg, Tell Burga), on the one hand, and by a new scatter of villages and campsites (e.g., Dor, Sha'ar ha-Golan), on the other. It is unclear whether the same happened in the highland regions or in the arid zones, and it is quite possible that the Intermediate Bronze Age continued there for a little longer. Clearly the sites closer to the major trade routes, especially in the coastal plain, were the first to be fortified with characteristic wall-andglacis or earthen rampart defenses. The renewed opening of the trade routes connecting Syria and Egypt probably brought with it an influx of Semitic-speaking and Hurrian groups into the southern Levant and this in turn raised the profile of local elites. At the same time as these changes in the Levant, local Egyptian groups of Western Asiatics ("Hyksos" – foreign rulers) were beginning to establish themselves in Lower Egypt, as has become clear from excavations at Tell ed-Daba. Egyptian texts provide an insight into the character of the Levant at this point in time, notably the story of Sinuhe, who traveled along the coast of Palestine not long after 2000 b.c.e.

Middle Bronze Age material culture was extremely rich and varied. The pottery traditions were almost completely new and many vessels were now made on a fast wheel (replacing the slow tournette). Bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) was now used for making weaponry, implements, and other objects. Religious objects – human and animal figurines and votive objects – some with strong Syrian/Mesopotamian influences, appear at sites and reflect the needs of the elite classes. Cylinder seals decorated with religious and mythological scenes are also typical of the period. Evidence for written tablets in Akkadian indicates that high levels of literacy existed in the towns, particularly among the scribes and temple officials.

The peak of urban development in Palestine took place during the Middle Bronze ii b–c with further developments along the coastal plain and with an incredible wave of settlement throughout the highlands, with the establishment of fortified towns, fortresses, and villages. Important village remains have been uncovered at Shiloh, Tell el-Ful, and elsewhere. The key urban centers of this period are Hazor, Dan, Shechem (Tell el-Balata), Megiddo, Jerusalem, Aphek, and Ashkelon. Hazor was enormous (198 acres) and in size it is similar only to towns known from Syria. The fortification systems at these sites became progressively quite elaborate. The city gates uncovered at Dan (with its arches still intact) and Ashkelon are quite impressive. A major mb ii tower system was uncovered protecting the Gihon Spring on the lower east slope of the "City of David" in Jerusalem. Temples of migdal appearance (i.e., long rooms with massive walls and with altars at one end) are known from Shechem, Megiddo, and Pella. Additional shrines are known from Tell el-Hayat, Tel Kitan, Nahariyyah, Hazor, and an open-air cult place at the unfortified village of Givat Sharett. Palaces have been uncovered at a number of sites and at Kabri elaborate floors with floral-decorated floors and fragmentary wall paintings of Minoan style were found. This discovery may be compared to examples of wall paintings from Tell ed-Daba, Middle Minoan ii Phaistos in Crete, and Late Minoan ia Knossos and Thera.

With the expulsion of the Hyksos from the Delta by Ahmose I in about 1540–1525 b.c.e., a few sites of the southern Levant are subsequently destroyed (e.g., Tell el-'Ajjul – ancient Sharuhen). This period of uncertainty continued and eventually led to a series of military campaigns to subjugate the southern Levant undertaken by Thutmosis iii.

late bronze age

Palestine during the Late Bronze Age fell under the shadow of Egyptian dominion. Numerous military campaigns were mounted against Western Asia (Syria and Palestine) by the rulers of Egypt, from Thutmosis iii and through to the "Amarna" age. The Egyptians also came into conflict with the Hittites and later with the "Sea Peoples," with Syria and Palestine serving for much of that time as a battleground.

The towns of this period were mostly unfortified, but large structures, administrative buildings, and temples are known. Important towns existed along the coast, in the foothills, and within inland valleys. Some sites that were destroyed at the end of the mb were rebuilt in the lb, others were left abandoned, but new settlements were built as well. While highland landscapes became depopulated, a few towns (e.g., Shechem) and small hamlets (e.g., Jerusalem) still existed within these territories. A type of large administrative/palace structure – labeled the "governor's residence" – has been found at sites throughout the country: Beth Shean, Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, Tell Jemmeh, and Tell Sera'. Elaborate temples of different sizes are also known, notably at Hazor, Beth Shean, Megiddo, Tell Mevorakh, and Lachish. Rich finds were found in some of these temples, including carved statues and orthostats. The discovery of large numbers of decorated seals and rich artistic goods of Egyptian and Syrian style (e.g., a thin gold leaf plaque of a goddess standing on a horse from Lachish) is a clear indication of the success of the international trade passing through the region. It would appear that certain elite parts of the population enjoyed prosperity particularly from this trade, while the rest, especially the rural population, suffered hardship and poverty and survived on basic agricultural endeavors. Egyptian officials and tradesmen were situated within some of the towns, and at Deir el-Balah to the south of Gaza anthropoid ceramic coffins in Egyptian style were uncovered within a 13^th-century cemetery. lb pottery reflects a continuation of mb pottery traditions, with the addition of foreign vessels, e.g., fine wares imported from Cyprus and the Aegean. A number of tablets inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform attest to the literacy of the period. Bowls bearing texts in Egyptian hieratic script were uncovered at Tell Sera'. The Amarna tablets from Egypt provide a wealth of information about the political landscape of Western Asia at this period. A few inscriptions have been found inscribed with a set of "Proto-Canaanite" symbols, representing an early version of Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets.

Major events towards the end of this period, with the collapse of the Egyptian and Hittite empires, and with the emergence of the "Sea Peoples," led to the breakdown of lb society and the collapse of local city-states.

iron age and persian

The Iron Age is divided into two main parts: the Early Iron Age (or Iron Age i, 1200–1000 b.c.e.) and the Late Iron Age (Iron Age ii a–c, 1000–586 b.c.e.). During the late 1990s a debate ensued amongst scholars regarding Iron Age chronology with attempts to posit a lower chronology for the accepted mid-twelfth to mid-eighth centuries b.c.e. The matter continued to be debated during the early 2000s with the narrowing of some dates in both the low and high chronologies especially in regard to the dating of Iron Age ii a strata at sites, especially as a result of new radiocarbon determinations obtained from sites such as Rehov, but there is now a general acceptance that the extant archaeological evidence points to the emerging process of Israelite "statehood" from as early as the tenth century b.c.e. rather than the ninth century b.c.e. This process culminated in substantial consolidation procedures within the state frameworks during the Omride Dynasty in the ninth century b.c.e. to the north and with the development of the kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital in the eighth century b.c.e. in the south.

The Early Iron Age saw the disintegration of the entire political and economic framework of the southern Levant and the decline of trade, with the appearance of new groups of people in different parts of the country, among them the "Sea Peoples" (which included the Philistines) along coastal areas, and farmers/herders (some of them undoubtedly Proto-Israelites) in the highland regions and elsewhere, where there was also some intermingling with pre-existing "Canaanite" peoples (see the section "Archaeology and the Origins of Israel," above). Across the Jordan saw the establishment of additional groups of people who eventually became the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. Egyptian and biblical sources document the conflict that ensued between the "Sea Peoples" and the Egyptian Rameses iii in his eighth regnal year, particularly with battles in Lebanon and in Egypt. The Egyptian presence in Palestine was maintained until the mid-12^th century b.c.e. in some parts of the coastal regions (e.g., at Akko) and in the inland valleys and plains (e.g., Beth Shean, where inscriptions and a statue of Rameses iii were found). The subsequent development of the Philistine culture is now well documented owing to a number of key excavations undertaken in the region of Philistia and in surrounding parts, particularly at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tell Miqne (Ekron), as well as at Tell Qasile, Tell Sera', Tell el-Farah (N) and Tell Batash (Timnah?). The distinctive material culture of the Philistines, which was derived from Aegean traditions, rapidly absorbed foreign (i.e., Egyptian and Cypriot) and local Canaanite influences. In the highland regions surface surveys and excavations attest to the appearance of large numbers of small sites in regions that were hardly occupied in the Late Bronze Age, dating from the 12^th century b.c.e. in the central highlands (the territories of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin) and from the 11^th century b.c.e. in the Galilee. Sites include Dan, Hazor, Sasa, Ḥorvat Avot, Ḥorvat Harashim, Mount Ebal, the "bull site," Shiloh, Ai, Khirbet Radaanah, and Giloh. Additional sites are known from the western foothills ('Izbet Sartah) and in the northern Negev (Tel Masos). The period is typified by the emergence of new pottery types (e.g., collared-rim jars), new architecture (e.g., the "four-room" house), and new technologies (e.g., the first use of iron).

The Late Iron Age saw the establishing of Israelite kingdoms, from the time of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon, and the Divided Monarchies of Judah and Israel. Numerous archaeological excavations have uncovered a variety of remains from the Iron Age ii reflecting a diverse settlement pattern consisting of urban settlements, smaller towns, and villages/hamlets. Important sites from this period include Dan, Hazor, Megiddo, Jezreel, Rehov, Tell el-Farah (n), Samaria, Tell en-Nasbeh, Jerusalem, Gezer, Beth Shemesh, Lachish, and Beersheba. The cities had strong defense walls and multi-chambered gates, palaces, public administrative buildings, royal enclosures, pillared storehouses, central silos, well-planned streets dividing blocks of houses, cisterns, and subterranean water systems that were reached via sloping stepped tunnels or down vertical stepped shafts. There were also citadels/fortresses (e.g., Arad and Kadesh Barnea), trade outposts (e.g., Vered Jericho), observation towers (Giloh), farmsteads (e.g., Khirbet er-Ras), shrines (e.g., Dan and Arad), and desert cultic centers (e.g., Kuntillet 'Ajrud). Nothing has survived of the central Israelite temple at Jerusalem (i Kings 6–7). Key dates in the chronology of the Iron Age are 925 b.c.e.: the raid of the Egyptian Shoshenq (Shishak) in the country, resulting in the destruction of various sites (Beth Shean, Tel Amal, Megiddo ivb–va, Gezer viii, Qasile viii, sites in the Negev); 735 and 722 b.c.e.: the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom (Dan, Hazor v, Megiddo iva, Yoqneam, and Samaria); 701 b.c.e.: Sennacherib's invasion of Judah (Lachish iii, Batash iii, Beit Mirsim a, Beersheba ii, Arad viii); 604 b.c.e.: a Babylonian destruction of sites in Philistia; 586 b.c.e.: the Babylonian conquest of Judah (Jerusalem, Ramat Rahel, En Gedi, Lachish, Aroer, Arad vi). A graphic representation of the Assyrian conquest of Lachish was immortalized in a series of monumental carved reliefs found in the palace of Sennacherib in Iraq. Important epigraphic finds from the general region include the Moabite stone, the Dan inscription, the Hadid tablets, the Lachish letters, the Ketef Hinnom amulet, the Miqne inscription, and various inscribed bullae. From the eighth century b.c.e. hamlets/small villages (ḥaẓerim and migrashim) proliferated as never before, particularly in the highlands and foothills regions, and numerous installations for the production of oil and wine are known. There was also a major transformation of the highland regions with the construction of agricultural terracing on a scale that had never been seen before. The countryside was divided up by a network of roads, some of which seem to have been consolidated intentionally by the state, to provide access between the cities and their rural hinterlands. In the seventh century b.c.e. there was a move towards a greater amount of settlement in marginal and arid zones, notably in the Negev and Judean deserts, and along the Dead Sea. Side by side with the Israelite and Judahite kingdoms, there were also additional ethnic entities present in the country, with the Phoenicians to the north (the plain of Akko and the sites of Achziv, Kabri, Keisan, Abu-Hawam) and with the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites in Transjordan to the east (Hesban, Dibon, Buseirah, Tawilan, Umm el-Biyara, Tell el-Kheleifeh, with some Edomite presence in the Negev to the south). An interesting Edomite shrine was excavated at Haẓevah in the Negev with the discovery of a very large assemblage of cultic vessels and figurines. Similar finds were also made at the site of Qitmit. The Philistine entity continued to flourish within cities in the southern foothills region as has become particularly clear from the excavations at Tel Miqne (Ekron), Ashkelon, and Ashdod. Ekron had a major economy at this time based on the production and marketing of olive oil.

Difficulties arise in regard to the identification of material remains dating from the time of the Babylonian occupation of the country from 604/586 to 539 b.c.e., as well in regard to the identification of material remains from the earlier phase of the Persian period, at least down to c. 450 b.c.e. when there was the first appearance of imported Greek pottery and ostraka written in Aramaic. Some scholars have suggested that the material culture of the Iron Age ii c stage in Palestine and Transjordan did not cease with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e. but that it continued at least until 530/520 b.c.e. with others suggesting lowering the terminal date well into the fifth century b.c.e.

The Persian period spans the period from the return from exile of Judeans under *Cyrus in 539 b.c.e. until the coming of *Alexander the Great in 332–31 b.c.e. Following the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, Judean exiles were allowed back to Jerusalem and permission was given allowing them to rebuild the Jewish Temple destroyed in 586 b.c.e.; the Temple was subsequently completed in 516–15 b.c.e. The Palestine campaign of the Egyptian Cambyses in 525 b.c.e. was probably a direct result of the influx of repatriated peoples into the region. A second wave of returning exiles occurred at the time of *Ezra and *Nehemiah, following the death of *Darius i in 486 b.c.e. At this time the land was part of the district of the larger Persian satrapy of eber nahari, "Beyond the [Euphrates] River," and it included various sub-districts: the first included the region of Judah (the province [phwh] of yhd), Philistia, and Idumea in the south, and the second a part of Galilee, the coastal plain, and Samaria. Recent archaeological work has shown that in the central hilly country of yhd there was a settlement pattern of a few large sites with smaller hamlets round about, and this distribution fits in well with the so-called "lists of returning exiles" (Ezra 2:1–34; Neh. 7:6–38; cf. 11: 25–36) which contain the names of settlements in Judah. Judah was surrounded by a mixture of different ethnic entities, with the *Samaritans immediately north, the *Phoenicians (Tyrians and Sidonians) to the far north, the *Ammonites to the east across the Jordan, and with various Arab groups to the south and southeast (eventually replaced by the *Nabateans). In Galilee there is evidence for a Phoenician presence with the capital of this region perhaps situated at Megiddo. Four important sites were situated on the western Galilee coast and south in the area close to modern Haifa: Akhziv (Ecdippa), Akko, Tell Abu Hawam, and Shikmonah. Akko was used as an important military base in 374/373 b.c.e. during the campaigns against the Egyptians. A cargo of Phoenician terracotta figurines, some with representations of the goddess Tanit, was found in the sea next to Shavei Zion, north of Akko. The area of Samaria was governed between the time of Nehemiah and Alexander the Great by the strong local dynastic clan of Sanballat, and this became clear as a result of the papyri finds from Wadi el-Daliyeh. A distribution of some 35 sites, large and small, are known along the coast from Shikmonah to Jaffa. *Dor is an important site on the coastal plain which has yielded many archaeological remains from the Persian period, including fortifications and a two-chambered gate, and an orthogonal city layout with buildings and dwellings. Finds included numerous Greek and Cypriot imported pottery. Some sites along the coast were given by the Persians in the fourth century to the Phoenicians, and this included Dor which, according to the Shamun'azar Sarcophagus, was given together with Jaffa. Further inland are the sites of Nahal Tut and Ein Hofez. There was very little Persian influence on the local material culture of the period, except in terms of some ceramic forms, and in seals and coins with the name of the province yhd, including one bearing the name of a governor of the province, Yehezkiah. Aramaic was the lingua franca of this period and quite a few epigraphic finds – mainly ostraka – have been found at sites throughout Palestine, with a few Greek and Phoenician written finds from the coastal region (e.g., Dor), and some Edomite texts in the south of the country.

hellenistic and roman

The Hellenistic period is divided into two parts: Early Hellenistic (332–200 b.c.e.) and Late Hellenistic (200–63 b.c.e.). The Hasmonean period is sometimes used by archaeologists in reference to the period extending from the mid-second century b.c.e. to the beginning of the rule of *Herod the Great in 37 b.c.e. The Roman period is divided into two parts: Early Roman (63 b.c.e. to 70 c.e.) and Late Roman (70–325 c.e.). Some scholars suggest a Middle Roman period for the time period 70–200 c.e.

The entire Near East came under the dominion of Alexander the Great following a decisive victory over the Persians in November 333 b.c.e. in the Plain of Issus. With the death of Alexander the Great and the dividing up of the Hellenistic empire amongst his Macedonian successors, Palestine became the springboard for an ensuing conflict between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. From 301 b.c.e. Palestine and Phoenicia were under direct Ptolemaic control. The country was divided up into hyparchies or toparchies for administrative purposes. Military colonies were established at Akko, Philoteria, and perhaps even at Beth Shean/Scythopolis by Ptolemy Philadelphus ii (285–246 b.c.e.). Following a major battle held at Banias in 200 b.c.e. between Ptolemy v and *Antiochusiii, Palestine came under the rule of the Syrian Seleucids.

Good sources of information exist in regard to Palestine from both Egyptian and Syrian sources. Perhaps the best known of the sources from this period are the Zenon Papyri from the Faiyum in Egypt. These record a visit that was made to Palestine between 260–258 b.c.e. by Zenon the financial minister of Egypt (under Ptolemy ii). Places mentioned in the papyri include mostly sites on the Via Maris ("way of the sea") route along the coast with a few inland: Gaza, Maresha/Marissa, Ashkelon, Jaffa, Straton's Tower/Caesarea, Adora/Dor, and Akko/Ptolemais. Important archaeological remains of this period have been found at all these sites: fortifications, administrative buildings, palaces, dwellings, as well as pottery and coins. Maresha is referred to in the papyri as a center of the slave trade with Egypt and inscriptions indicate that some of its inhabitants hailed from Sidon and Phoenicia. It was undoubtedly an important city in Idumea. Archaeological work at the site has uncovered a large fortified city with residential quarters, a sacred temenos, markets with shops, and subterranean cave complexes. In one of the shops a standard of volumes for liquids that was made under the supervision of two agoranomes in 143/142 b.c.e. was found. Excavations conducted at the harbor-city of Dor revealed a city wall with square towers built of ashlars, a dyeing installation with murex shells, large residential buildings, and a structure containing plastered pools. To the north of Dor, off the coast of Athlit, underwater researches brought to light the bronze ram of a warship of the Hellenistic period, decorated with images of a trident, the symbols of Poseidon, the head of an eagle (representing Zeus?) and a helmet of the Dioscuri. Hellenistic remains have been found at numerous sites throughout Palestine and a rare and important votive inscription in Greek and Aramaic (to the "God who is at Dan"), dated to circa 200 b.c.e., was discovered during excavations conducted at the High Place of Tell Dan. The enclosed sacred temenos of the Samaritans has been uncovered at Mount Gerizim, with the discovery of numerous inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic referring to offerings provided to the temple. The pottery assemblage of this period known at sites in Palestine includes a variety of local vessels that maintain earlier traditions, as well as the appearance of new types of vessels, such as wine amphorae with stamped Greek inscriptions on their handles, brought by ship from the Greek islands (e.g., Rhodes), and a distinctive red-gloss fine ware (terra sigillata) which continued to be made into the Roman period.

Despite the cultural influences of Hellenism that existed in the region during this period, very little evidence may be adduced from the material culture of Palestine and Phoenicia at this time to suggest that a purposeful and overall Hellenization process prevailed. On the contrary, it would appear that local traditions were strongly maintained within rural communities as well as in the cities and towns, with some evidence that the elites were borrowing and adapting for their own purposes foreign cultural features of art and architecture, as well as acquiring imported valuable objects and commodities that were derived not only from the Greek world, but also from Syria and Egypt. Tel Anafa is a good example of an extremely wealthy Phoenician-type settlement dating primarily from the second century b.c.e., with buildings, a bath house, mosaic floors, and rich finds. At Tel Kedesh a very large administrative building was unearthed and in it was found a large cache of more than two thousand bullae, some bearing portraits of Seleucid monarchs (Antiochus iv to Demetrius i) and Roman Republican merchants, and others decorated with Phoenician symbols (e.g., Tanit). This building was abandoned circa 145 b.c.e.

The Maccabean revolt broke out in 167 b.c.e. and it marks the first manifestation of a Jewish nationalistic struggle against external cultures. It began because of Seleucid attempts to impose upon Jewish religious practices. The struggle that began in the vicinity of the town of Modi'in in the northern foothills of Palestine, northwest of Jerusalem, eventually led in 142 b.c.e. to the establishment of an independent Hasmonean kingdom under *Simeon the Hasmonean, which then expanded considerably under *Alexander Jannaeus (*Yannai; 104–76 b.c.e.) and threatened Nabatean territories in particular (e.g., the Golan and the trade route to Gaza port). Maresha and Gezer were two important sites that were conquered by the Hasmoneans. Important remains of Hasmonean fortified fortresses, palaces, and towns have been found in various parts of the country. The Hasmonean kingdom was considerably weakened with the appearance of the Roman commander Pompey in 63 b.c.e., who captured Jerusalem and took away their dominion over certain cities along the coast and in Transjordan. Henceforth, the Roman governor of Syria held power in the region, with support from the Hasmoneans and Idumeans. Eventually, in 40 b.c.e. the Idumean Antipater's son Herod the Great was declared "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate, and from 37 to 4 b.c.e. he ruled over much of Palestine. A major source of historical information about this period is derived from the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

An impressive building program was initiated by Herod the Great and it may now be seen to be a direct continuation of the ambitious building projects previously initiated by the Hasmonean rulers. In Jerusalem, Herod undertook numerous building activities, including a massive rebuilding of the Temple Mount and its Jewish Temple, a luxurious palace surrounded by gardens in the Upper City, the fortress of Antonia, the strengthening of the city fortifications and the remodeling of gates, and the construction of a theater. Archaeological remains are known for all these monuments, except for the theater. Building programs were also undertaken at the harbor-city of Caesarea Maritima, with the construction of numerous buildings, a palace, and harbor installations (the foundations of the towers mentioned by Josephus have been uncovered in underwater explorations), and at Samaria (renamed Sebaste in honor of Augustus), with the construction of public buildings and a temple. A sprawling winter palace was built at Jericho, replacing earlier Hasmonean buildings at the site, and fortress palaces were erected at Masada, Herodium, and Machaerus. Under Herod's successors, similar building activities were undertaken at *Tiberias and at Caesarea Philippi (Banias). The city of Tiberias situated on the western shore of the Lake of Galilee was substantially rebuilt by Herod Antipas in 20 c.e. and the remains of a large building (palace?) have recently been uncovered, as well as one small part of an amphitheatre. At Caesarea Philippi, situated at the source of the River Jordan, a large complex palace with enormous underground vaulted chambers was unearthed, probably dating to the time of Philip the Tetrarch. Herod the Great also sponsored the construction of buildings in major cities outside his dominion, presumably to boost his influence. Following Herod's death his kingdom was broken up and divided among his sons. The northern and eastern areas – Galilee and Perea (Transjordan) – were allotted to Herod Antipas. The second son, Philip the Tetrarch, received the region of the Golan Heights and parts of the Hauran in Syria. The central part of the country – Judaea (and Jerusalem), Samaria, and Idumea – passed temporarily into the hands of the third son Herod Archelaus, but because of mismanagement he was deposed and the region came to be known as Provincia Judaea administered by Roman officials based at Caesarea Maritima. Procurators were subsequently appointed to rule over Judea between 44–66 c.e.

Archaeological work has been conducted on a variety of remains dating from the Early Roman period (37 b.c.e. to 70 c.e.). In Jerusalem priestly and aristocratic houses have been unearthed, some adorned with wall paintings and stucco decorations. Synagogues dating from the first century c.e. have been found at Gamla, Herodium, Masada, Jericho, and Modi'in. Numerous farming villages and privately owned villae were founded at this time in different parts of the country, with the construction of large areas of terraces in the highlands, regulated co-axial field systems in the lowlands, and large numbers of wine presses. At Qumran a settlement with at least three stages of existence was uncovered close to the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. However, scholars are still debating whether Qumran was a place inhabited by the Essenes, or whether it had some other primary function, such as a trading center or as an agricultural manor house. Burial customs of the Roman period indicate that the well-off were buried within rock-hewn family caves. A typical cave consists of a small central chamber and kokhim (tunnel-like burial recesses) in the walls. Secondary burial was made within limestone ossuaries and some were decorated and even inscribed with the names of the dead. The material culture of this period was quite uniform with a ceramic assemblage of local transport, cooking, and dining wares. Fine wares include a local variety of painted ware, similar in some ways to the Nabatean painted ware, and imported and local versions of red gloss ware (terra sigillata). Stone vessels became particularly popular as a result of the Jewish concerns for purity between 50–70 c.e., with the manufacturing of hand-carved and lathe-turned vessels, including mugs, bowls, and large jars, at places around Jerusalem and in Galilee.

Following the Jewish revolt against the Romans from 66 c.e. and the resulting destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in 70 c.e., Jews were excluded from Jerusalem but not from the immediate territory as was once thought. Excavations at Tell el-Ful and at Beit Hanina to the north of the city have shown that Jews continued farming the lands around Jerusalem, to maintain the roads and to provide agricultural produce for the occupying Tenth Legion, at least until the second century c.e. Numerous finds have been made connected with the *Bar Kokhba revolt, including large numbers of subterranean hideaways, letters, and manuscripts hidden away in caves in the Judean Desert, and remnants of the final bastion at *Bethar (Battir). Following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–35 c.e. Jerusalem became known as the colonia of Aelia Capitolina, and Judaea was replaced by the name Syria-Palaestinia. Large tracts of land were distributed by the Roman authorities to members of the army and some of these were maintained by Roman villae. One such site was excavated to the southeast of Jerusalem at Ein Yael in the Rephaim Valley, and it included buildings, some with highly decorated mosaic floors, a spring-house, and bathhouses. Similar villae existed in the near vicinity at Sataf and Suba. Roman urbanization programs were initiated throughout the country, at Beth Shean/Scythopolis, Sepphoris/Diocaesarea, Shechem/Neapolis, Lod/Diospolis, Beth Guvrin/Eletheropolis, Emmaus/Nicopolis, and elsewhere. Major features within these cities are the remains of monumental gates, columned streets, marketplaces, temples, shrines, nymphaea, amphitheatres, theaters, and hippodromes. Important discoveries include a lead weight from Ḥorvat Alim inscribed in Hebrew with the name of Shimon Bar Kosba (i.e., Bar Kokhba), an over life-size bronze statue of Hadrian that was found near Beth Shean, a mithraeum – a shrine dedicated to the Iranian mystery god Mithras – at Caesarea, residential buildings with highly decorated mosaic floors at Sepphoris (e.g., the "House of Orpheus"), and a third century c.e. monumental Latin inscription at the fort of Yotvatah in the Aravah. The center of Jewish activities gradually shifted during the second and third centuries b.c.e. to the north, to Galilee and to parts of the Golan, and many villages were founded in these areas. Excavations at the necropolis of Beth Shearim have indicated that it became a center for the burial of prominent Jews, not only from the country but also for people from the Diaspora.

byzantine

The Byzantine period (325 to 638 c.e.) is regarded as one of the richest periods in the archaeology of the country. Some archaeologists distinguish between Early Byzantine (325–500 c.e.) and Late Byzantine (500–638 c.e.).

With Christianity becoming established as one of the official religions of the Roman Empire, paganism was gradually abolished in Palestine with the last pagan temple being shut down in Gaza circa 400 c.e. Jews and Samaritans were tolerated by the authorities and allowed to practice their customs and to maintain their places of prayer in purposefully built synagogues. The country was now regarded as the "holy land" – the place that witnessed the birth, life, and resurrection of *Jesus. Places of worship sprang up throughout the country and Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, according to tradition, made a visit to the country circa 326 c.e. to ascertain the location of some of the sites. In Jerusalem, the site of Jesus' tomb was pointed out below the foundations of the Roman forum and the Temple of Venus, in excavation works supervised by the Bishop Macarius on Constantine's orders. The discovery of Jesus' tomb resulted in the construction of a large martyrium basilica on the spot, parts of which are now incorporated into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Additional churches were constructed at this time at the Cave of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives (Church of Eleona), and at Mamre near Hebron. Christianity in Palestine became substantially consolidated during the fifth and sixth centuries c.e., and hundreds of new churches, chapels, and monasteries were constructed all over the country, even at isolated locations. These were adorned with mosaic floors, wall paintings, and portable furnishings made of wood and other materials. The height of these building activities in Jerusalem took place at the time of the Emperor Justinian (mid-sixth century c.e.) with the construction of the southern extension of the Cardo street leading to the entrance to an enormous basilical church called the Nea – foundations of this church were uncovered during excavations in the Jewish Quarter. The church next to the tomb of Jesus and the new church built by Justinian are both depicted on the sixth-century c.e. Madaba mosaic map.

Institutionalized pilgrimage to the Holy Land began in the fourth century. Many pilgrims arrived by boat to the main ports of the country, and at Dor on the north coast, a monumental pilgrimage church was built to accommodate some of their needs. Pilgrimage eventually became an economic mainstay in the country and pilgrims were well catered to by a variety of religious institutions, way stations, hospices, and even hospitals. The existence of so many pilgrims in the country led to the development of a flourishing industry that produced crosses, trinkets, and mementoes (e.g., eulogia amulets and ampullae flasks), portable art works (e.g., icons), and reliquaries (e.g., with the supposed fragments of the holy cross). The holy sites were scattered at different locations, with pilgrims interested primarily in sites in Jerusalem as their main destination, as well as at places in Judea, Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee, and in the Jordan Valley. One of the earliest of pilgrim accounts is that of the Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 c.e.) and one of the best known is that of Egeria, a nun from western Spain, who visited the country between 381–84 c.e.

Byzantine Palestine was divided into three parts: Palaestina Prima, which included the coastal plain, Samaria, Judea, Idumea, and Perea and had its capital at Caesarea; Palaestina Secunda, which included Galilee, the Golan, and the Decapolis of Palestine, with its capital at Scythopolis; and Palaestina Tertia. During the course of the Byzantine period, settlement extended into marginal regions, particularly in the Negev highlands. Many houses of this period had internal open courtyards, and a few walls were partitioned with so-called "Chorazin" windows, and others had roofs constructed with stone slabs in corbelled fashion, especially in the Negev and in the Golan. Jewish life in Palestine flourished during the Byzantine period and large numbers of synagogues have been uncovered particularly to the north of the country, for example at Khirbet Shema, Meiron, Capernaum, Chorazin, Nabratein, Kefar Baram, and in the Golan. Some of the later examples of synagogues (fifth-sixth centuries c.e.) have a bema and ornate mosaic floors depicting the Torah shrine, the menorah, and biblical scenes and have dedicatory inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. One synagogue from Rehov had a floor decorated with a unique Aramaic inscription with 29 lines of the laws of the halakhah pertaining to the sabbatical year. Numerous villages have been investigated in different parts of the country and many of these were identified as being solely Christian, Jewish, or Samaritan, based on the discovery of churches or synagogues. The assumption made by some scholars, however, that a clear-cut ethnic differentiation existed between the ethnic groups at that time is incorrect and without any basis in the extant archaeological finds. During the Persian invasion of 614 c.e. various churches were destroyed in different parts of the country. Large numbers of victims from Jerusalem were buried within a crypt, which was uncovered in excavations close to the Jaffa Gate of today, confirming the writings of the Church Fathers on the subject.

islamic to ottoman

With the advent of Islam in the southern Levant in 638 c.e. gradual changes to the settlement pattern of the country and its material culture began to take place, but there was no massive destruction at sites as had once been thought. The Islamic period may be divided into three parts: Early Islamic (638–1099 c.e.), divided into the *Umayyad (638–750 c.e.) and *Abbasid (750–1099 c.e.), and Late Islamic, divided into the Crusader/*Ayyubid (1099–1291 c.e.) and *Mamluk (1291–1517 c.e.). The *Ottoman period extends from 1517 until the invasion of the British in 1917.

Under the Umayyads major construction activities took place in various parts of the country, continuing local architectural trends apparent already in the Late Byzantine period. For a while Byzantine coinage remained in circulation, but eventually was replaced by Umayyad minted coins. In Jerusalem a number of important buildings were built on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) with the Dome of the Rock, built at the time of the reign of Abd al-Malik, situated at its center, and with the large Aqsa mosque to its south. The Dome of the Rock remains to this day a marvelous gem of Early Islamic architecture. Numerous archaeological remains from this period have been found: fortifications, dwellings and shops in the cities, and pottery kilns. Roads were also repaired as a number of milestones testify. A hoard of 751 gold coins from the first half of the seventh century b.c.e. was uncovered within a large Umayyad residence in Beth Shean. In the baths of Hammath Gader an inscription in Greek testified to the fact that it had been rebuilt at the orders of an Arab governor in 662 c.e. Farms dating from the Umayyad period are known in the Negev, as well as some very early examples of open-air mosques and many rock inscriptions in Arabic. Large building complexes of a kind that is sometimes referred to as the "Umayyad chateau" are known from Khirbet el-Minya on the end of the Sea of Galilee and at Khirbet al-Mafjar close to Jericho. These mansions are richly decorated with mosaic floors and carvings in stone and stucco of a very high order. Coins found at Scythopolis/Beth Shean have shown that this stage of the Early Islamic period came to an end roughly at the same time as a massive earthquake in 749 c.e. The pottery assemblage from the Umayyad period includes common wares that resemble those from the Late Byzantine period, with the addition of a number of new forms and lamps. It would appear that the buff ware that became so distinctive in Abbasid levels already made its appearance towards the end of the Umayyad, i.e., during the century or so preceding the earthquake of 749 c.e., judging by recent finds at Tiberias.

Ramla (*Ramleh) was a new city that was founded in 712–15 c.e. to replace Lod (*Lydda), but major changes and an expansion of the city mainly took place in Abbasid times. The remains of a mosque, dwellings, plastered installations for dyeing, and mosaic pavements have been found, together with large quantities of pottery, artistic objects, inscriptions, and coins. One mosaic floor has one of the earliest representations of a miḥrab and also a verse from the Koran. A subterranean reservoir was found with a dated inscription indicating that it was built in 789 c.e. at the time of the reign of Harun al-Rashid. Sources indicate that the town also had a Jewish neighborhood, but remains attesting to this have not yet been found. The pottery from the Abbasid period is quite distinctive, and includes among others mold-made buff jugs and glazed bowls. Umayyad coinage continued in circulation well into the Abbasid phase and this has tended to confuse some archaeological sequences from the early Abbasid (i.e., pre-Fatimid phase). Jewelry hoards from the Fatimid phase have been found during excavations at Ashkelon and Caesarea, and hoards of metal vessels at Tiberias and Caesarea.

Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099 c.e. and thereafter a massive building program of churches and castles took place throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Early castle building was sponsored by Baldwin i (1100–18 c.e.) and Baldwin ii (1118–31 c.e.) at Ashkelon on the coast of Palestine, at Shaubak in Transjordan, and on the Isle de Graye in the Gulf of Aqaba. Commercial arrangements were made on behalf of the Genoese, Pisans, and Venetians with the provision of holdings in the port cities. The coinage and metal-work of this period is quite distinctive. Reliquaries with fragments purported to be of the Holy Cross, the bones of John the Baptist, and other relics, were dispersed to churches in the West. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem was substantially remodeled and redecorated after 1131 c.e., with most of the works completed by the 1140s, and with the dedication taking place in 1149 c.e. Important churches from this period are the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth, and the Church of St John at Sebaste. The *Templer and Hospitaler orders were strengthened and became consolidated during this period. *Saladin (Salah-ad-Din) eventually unified Moslem forces and in 1187 c.e. inflicted a major defeat on the Crusaders at the Horns of Hattin overlooking the Sea of Galilee, reducing the Crusader hold to Tyre and Beirut. In 1191 c.e. the Crusaders managed to regain control over the coastal areas, but they were unable to recapture Jerusalem. In 1219 c.e. in view of an imminent Crusader invasion, the Ayyubid Sultan of Damascus, al-Malik al-Mu'azzem, ordered the razing of the walls of Jerusalem. This self-imposed Ayyubid destruction has been verified in archaeological excavations along the walls of Jerusalem, with the discovery of piles of collapsed ashlars and dedicatory inscriptions in Arabic dating from 1202/1203 c.e. and 1212 c.e. along the western and southern edges of the Old City. Although Frederick ii was able to restore control over the holy places in 1229 c.e. through a process of treaty with Sultan al-Kamil, Jerusalem was subsequently captured by the Khwarazmian Turks and access to the holy places was again impossible. The fortifications of Tyre, Acre, and Caesarea were rebuilt at the time of Louis ix, as well as a new castle at Sidon. With the Mamluk capture of the castle of Crac des Chevaliers, the Crusader presence in the Levant was gradually eliminated and the final straw was the Mamluk conquest of Acre (Akko) in 1291. Important archaeological work has been conducted on the churches and secular buildings of the Crusaders throughout the Levant, with work undertaken at Caesarea, Belvoir, and recently at Akko where well preserved and substantial remains of the Crusader city have been uncovered. Numerous monuments attributed to the Mamluk period are known from Jerusalem itself, with markets, baths, and schools (the madrasas), and throughout the country as well, notably with the re-use and re-building of castles and towers previously built by the Crusaders. The pottery assemblage from this period includes a variety of glazed bowls and jugs, as well as unglazed green-buff wares, especially jugs with stamped decorations around the necks. Handmade jars and smaller vessels decorated with geometric-painted designs appear during the Ayyubid period and this tradition of pottery making is continued right through the Ottoman period to the early 20^th century.

Palestine in the early part of Ottoman period flourished and the city walls of Jerusalem were substantially reconstructed under *Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1540s. Numerous villages were erected in different parts of the country and their remains form the nuclei of present-day Palestinian villages. Forts were erected along the route leading through Jordan to protect pilgrims making their way on the holy pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. The important towns of this period are Tabaryya (Tiberias), Nablus (Shechem), al-Khalil/Masjid Ibrahim (Hebron), and Acre. In the mid-18^th century, a local chieftain, Dahr-al-'Umar, fortified the towns of Acre and Tiberias, and built forts at Sa'sa and Shafr'amr among other places. The country was administered by pashas and towards the 19^th century it became the backwater of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the Islamic to Ottoman periods Jews and Christians were allowed to maintain their communities, to build places of worship and to keep their respective traditions. At the time of the Crusades, however, Jews were excluded from Jerusalem and persecuted together with Moslems. Following the conquest of Jerusalem by Salah ad-Din in 1187, Jews and Christians were allowed to establish their own neighborhoods within the city, and this situation with some changes here and there continued through Ottoman times. Important Jewish communities flourished during the Middle Ages at Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and at Safed in the hills of Galilee, as well as in adjacent villages. Ottoman rule in Palestine ceased with the arrival of the British in 1917. On entering Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, General Edmund H.H. *Allenby proclaimed martial law and had posters put up on the walls of the city which read: "Since your City is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of devout people of those three religions for many centuries, therefore do I make known to you that every sacred building, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest or customary place of prayer, of whatever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs to whose faiths they are sacred."

bibliography:

This selected list of books and articles is presented by date of publication and under the relevant sections of the entry. This is only a selection of the vast literature on the subject and readers should check the bibliography contained within the most recent cited books for additional publications. Publications on the archaeology of *Jerusalem are not included here. general: Y. Aharoni, The Archaeology of the Land of Israel (1982); A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10.000–586b.c.e. (1990); A. Ben-Tor (ed.), The Archaeology of Ancient Israel (1992); W.E. Rast, Through the Ages in Palestinian Archaeology: An Introductory Handbook (1992); J. Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide From Earliest Times to 1700 (1992); E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 5 vols. (1993–2006); T.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (1995); J.R. Bartlett (ed.), Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation (1997); A. Negev and S. Gibson (eds.), Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (2001). methods and approaches: W.G. Dever, "Two Approaches to Archaeological Method: The Architectural and the Stratigraphic," in: Eretz-Israel, 11 (1973), 1*–8*; W.G. Dever, "The Impact of the 'New Archaeology' on Syro-Palestinian Archaeology," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 242 (1981), 15–29; J.M. Weinstein, "Radiocarbon Dating in the Southern Levant," Radiocarbon, 26 (1984), 297–366; A.M. Rosen, Cities of Clay: The Geoarchaeology of Tells (1986); R.L. Chapman, "Excavation Techniques and Recording Systems: A Theoretical Study," in: Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 118 (1986), 5–26; J.F. Drinkard, G.L. Mattingly, and J. Maxwell Miller (eds.), Benchmarks in Time and Culture: An Introduction to Palestinian Archaeology (1988); R. Moorey, Excavation in Palestine (1988); A. Kempinsky and R. Reich (eds.), The Architecture of Ancient Israel: From the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods (1992); O. Bar-Yosef and A. Khazanov (eds.), Pastoralism in the Levant: Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives (1992); I. Singer, Graves and Burial Practices in Israel in the Ancient Period (Heb., 1994); I. Sharon, "Partial Order Scalogram Analysis of Relations – A Mathematical Approach to the Analysis of Stratigraphy," in: Journal of Archaeological Science, 22 (1995), 751–67; L.G. Herr, Published Pottery of Palestine (1996); E.H.E. Lass, "Lost in the Maze: An Alternative Method of Designing Matrix Diagrams," in: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 15 (1996–97), 41–49; Z. Herzog, Archaeology of the City (1997); T.J. Wilkinson, Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East (2003); S. Gibson, "From Wildscape to Landscape: Landscape Archaeology in the Southern Levant – Methods and Practice," in: A.M. Maeir, S. Dar, and Z. Safrai (eds.), The Rural Landscape of Ancient Israel (2003), 1–25; Y. Elitzur, Ancient Place Names in the Holy Land (2004); S. Gitin (ed.), The Ancient Pottery of Israel and its Neighbors: From the Neolithic through the Hellenistic Period (2006). history of archaeological research in israel: O. Bar-Yosef and A. Mazar, "Israeli Archaeology," in: World Archaeology, 13 (1982), 310–25; P.J. King, American Archaeology in the Mideast: A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1983); E. Stern, "The Bible and Israeli Archaeology," in: L.G. Perdue, L.E. Toombs, and G.L. Johnson (eds.), Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Memory of D. Glen Close (1987); N.A. Silberman, Between Past and Present: Archaeology, Ideology and Nationalism in the Modern Near East (1988), 31–40; T. Shay, "Israeli Archaeology – Ideology and Practice," in: Antiquity, 63 (1989), 768–72; R. Moorey, A Century of Biblical Archaeology (1991); T. Einhorn, "Israeli Law, Jewish Law and the Archaeological Excavation of Tombs," in: International Journal of Cultural Property, 6 (1997), 47–79; S. Gibson, "British Archaeological Institutions in Mandatory Palestine, 1917–1948," in: Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1999), 115–43; Y. Ben-Arieh, "Developments in the Study of Yedi'at ha-Areẓ in Modern Times, up to the Establishment of the State of Israel," in: Cathedra, 100 (Heb., 2001), 306–38. archaeology and the origins of israel: R.E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (1987); G. Mendelhall, "Biblical Interpretation and the Albright School," in: L.G. Perdue, L.E. Toombs, and G.L. Johnson (eds.), Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Memory of D. Glen Close (1987), 3–14; A. Biran and J. Naveh, "An Aramaic Stele Fragment From Tel Dan," in: Israel Exploration Journal, 43 (1993), 81–98; M. Hasel, "Israel in the Merneptah Stela," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 296 (1994), 45–61; I. Sharon, "Demographic Aspects of the Problem of the Israelite Settlement," in: L.M. Hopfe (ed.), Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson (1994), 119–34; A. Biran and J. Naveh, "The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment," in: Israel Exploration Journal, 45 (1995), 1–18; K.W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (1996); T. Schneider, "Rethinking Jehu," in: Biblica, 77 (1996), 100–7; S. Gitin, T. Dothan, and J. Naveh, "A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron," in: Israel Exploration Journal, 47 (1997), 1–16; B.S.J. Isserlin, The Israelites (1998); S. Gitin, A. Mazar, and E. Stern (eds.), Mediterranean People In Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries b.c.e. (1998); N. Na'aman, "Jehu Son of Omri: Legitimizing a Loyal Vassal by His Lord," in: Israel Exploration Journal, 48 (1998), 236–38; S. Japhet, "In Search of Ancient Israel – Revisionism at all Costs," in: D.N. Myers and D.B. Ruderman (eds.), The Jewish Past Revisited (1998); T.L. Thompson, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of History (1999); S. Gitin, "The Philistines: Neighbors of the Canaanites, Phoenicians and Israelites," in: D.R. Clark and V.H. Matthews (eds.), 100 Years of American Archaeology in the Middle East (2000); A. Mazar, Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan (2001); W.G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did they Know it? (2001); I. Finkelstein and N. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts (2001); K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003). the archaeological periods: S. Gitin, "Stratification and its Application to Chronology and Terminology," in: Biblical Archaeology Today (1985), 99–107; R.L. Chapman, "The Three Ages Revisited," in: Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 121 (1989), 89–111; 122 (1990), 1–20; P. Warren and V. Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (1989); P. James, I.J. Thorpe, N. Kokkinos, R. Morkot, and J. Frankish, "Centuries of Darkness: Context, Methodology and Implications," in: Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 1:2 (1991), 228–35; L.E. Stager, "The Periodization of Palestine From Neolithic Through to Early Bronze Times," in: R.W. Ehrich (ed.), Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, vol. 1 (1992³), 22–41; O. Bar-Yosef, "Prehistoric Chronological Framework," in: T.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (1995), xiv–xvi. prehistoric periods (palaeolithic to neolithic): O. Bar-Yosef, "Prehistory of the Levant" in: Annual Review of Anthropology, 9 (1980), 101–33; O. Bar-Yosef, "The 'Pre-Pottery Neolithic' Period in the Southern Levant," in: J. Cauvin and P. Sanlaville (eds.), Préhistorie du Levant (1981), 555–69; A.M.T. Moore, "A Four Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic, ca. 8500–3750," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 264 (1982), 1–34; O. Bar-Yosef, A Cave in the Desert: Nahal Hemar (1985); A.N. Goring-Morris, At the Edge: Terminal Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers in the Negev and Sinai (1987); O. Bar-Yosef and B. Vandermeersch (eds.), Investigations in South Levantine Prehistory (1989); O. Bar-Yosef and A. Belfer-Cohen, "The Origins of Sedentism and Farming Communities in the Levant," in: Journal of World Prehistory, 3 (1989), 447–98; A. Gopher, T. Tsuk, S. Shalev, and R. Gophna, "Earliest Gold Artifacts in the Levant," in: Current Anthropology, 31 (1990), 436–43; K. Wright, "A Classification System for Ground Stone Tools for the Prehistoric Levant," in: Paléorient, 17 (1992), 53–81; O. Bar-Yosef and N. Goren-Inbar, The Lithic Assemblages of 'Ubeidiya: A Lower Palaeolithic Site in the Jordan Valley (1993); A. Gopher and R. Gophna, "Cultures of the Eighth and Seventh Millennium bp in Southern Levant: A Review for the 1990s," in: Journal of World Prehistory (1993), 297–351; Y. Garfinkle, "The Yarmukian Culture in Israel," in: Paléorient, 19 (1993), 115–34; D.O. Henry, From Foraging to Agriculture: The Levant at the End of the Ice Age (1989); M. Lechevallier and A. Ronen, Le gisement de Hatoula en Judée Occidentale, Israël (1994); M. Weinstein-Evron, Early Natufian el-Wad Revisited (1998); M. Weinstein-Evron, B. Lang, and S. Ilani, "Natufian Trade/Exchange in Basalt Implements: Evidence From Northern Israel," in: Archaeometry, 41 (1999), 267–73; O. Bar-Yosef and A. Belfer-Cohen, "Innovations in Prehistoric Research," in: Qadmoniot, 36 (2003), 80–88. chalcolithic: D. Zohary and P. Spiegel-Roy, "Beginning of Fruit Growing in the Old World," in: Science, 187 (1975), 319–27; P. Bar-Adon, The Cave of the Treasure: The Finds From the Cave in Nahal Mishmar (1980); S.A. Rosen, "The Adoption of Metallurgy in the Levant: A Lithic Perspective," in: Current Anthropology, 25 (1984), 504–5; T.E. Levy, "The Chalcolithic Period," in: Biblical Archaeologist, 49 (1986), 82–108; T.E. Levy, "Social Archaeology and the Chalcolithic Period: Explaining Social Organizational Change During the 4^th Millennium in Israel," in: Michmanim, 3 (1986), 5–20; K. Prag, "Byblos and Egypt in the Fourth Millennium b.c.," in: Levant, 28 (1986), 59–74; I. Gilead, "The Chalcolithic Period in the Levant," in: Journal of World Prehistory, 2 (1988), 397–443; I. Finkelstein and R. Gophna, "Settlement, Demographic and Economic Patterns in the Highlands of Palestine in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Periods and the Beginning of Urbanism," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 289 (1989), 1–22; S. Sadeh and R. Gophna, "Observations on the Chalcolithic Ceramic Sequence in the Middle Jordan Valley," in Mitekufat Haeven – Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society, 24 (1991), 135–48; S. Shalev and J.P. Northover, "The Metallurgy of the Nahal Mishmar Hoard Reconsidered," in: Archaeometry, 35 (1993), 35–47; S. Shalev, "The Change in Metal Production from the Chalcolithic Period to the Early Bronze Age in Israel and Jordan," in: Antiquity, 68 (1994), 630–37; Z. Gal, H. Smithline, and D. Shalem, "A Chalcolithic Burial Cave at Peqi'in," in: Qadmoniot, 111 (1996), 19–24; S.A. Rosen, Lithics After the Stone Age. A Handbook of Stone Tools From the Levant (1997); C. Epstein, The Chalcolithic Culture of the Golan (1998); D. Segal, I. Carmi, Z. Gal, H. Smithline, and D. Shalem, "Dating a Chalcolithic Burial Cave in Peqi'in, Upper Galilee, Israel," in: Radiocarbon, 40 (1998), 707–12; Y. Garfinkel, Neolithic and Chalcolithic Pottery of the Southern Levant (1999). early bronze age: A. Ben-Tor, Cylinder Seals of Third-Millennium Palestine (1978); S. Richard, "Toward a Consensus of Opinion on the End of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine-Transjordan," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 237 (1980), 5–34; R. Gophna, "The Settlement Landscape of Palestine in the Early Bronze Age ii–iii and Middle Bronze Age ii," in: Israel Exploration Journal, 34 (1984), 24–31; E. Braun, "Of Megarons and Ovals: New Aspects of Late Prehistory in Israel," in: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 4 (1985), 17–26; J.W. Hanbury-Tenison, The Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze i Transition in Palestine and Transjordan (1986); A. Ben-Tor, "The Trade Relations of Palestine in the Early Bronze Age," in: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 29 (1986), 1–27; P. de Miroschedji, L'urbanisation de la Palestine à l'age du Bronze ancient (1989); E. Braun, "The Problem of the Apsidal House," Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 121 (1989), 1–43; E. Braun, "Basalt Bowls of the eb i Horizon in the Southern Levant," in: Paléorient, 16 (1990), 87–96; D. Esse, Subsistence, Trade, and Social Change in Early Bronze Age Palestine (1991); A.H. Joffe, "Early Bronze i and the Evolution of Social Complexity in the Southern Levant," in: Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 4 (1991), 3–58; L. Vinitzky, "The Date of the Dolmens in the Golan and Galilee – A Reassessment," Eretz-Israel, 21 (1991), 167–73; R. Gophna, "The Contacts Between 'En Besor Oasis, Southern Canaan, and Egypt During the Late PreDynastic and the Threshold of the First Dynasty: A Further Assessment," in: E.C.M. van den Brink (ed.), The Nile Delta in Transition: 4^th–3^rd Millennium bc (1992); A.H. Joffe, Settlement and Society in the Early Bronze i and ii, Southern Levant (1993); J. Portugali and R. Gophna, "Crisis, Progress and Urbanization: The Transition From Early Bronze i to Early Bronze ii in Palestine," in: Tel Aviv, 20 (1993), A. Mazar and P. de Miroschedji, "Hartuv, an Aspect of the Early Bronze i Culture of Southern Israel," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 302 (1996), 1–40, 164–86; E. Braun, Yiftahel: Salvage and Rescue Excavations at a Prehistoric Village in Lower Galilee, Israel (1997); A. Golani, "New Perspectives on Domestic Architecture and the Initial Stages of Urbanization in Canaan," in: Levant, 31 (1999), 123–33; E.C.M. van den Brink and E. Yannai (eds.), In Quest of Ancient Settlements and Landscapes. Archaeological Studies in Honour of Ram Gophna (2002). middle bronze age: P. Gerstenblith, "A Reassessment of the Beginning of the Middle Bronze Age in Syria-Palestine," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 237 (1980), 65–84; J.N. Tubb, "The mbiia Period in Palestine: Its Relationship with Syria and its Origin," in: Levant, 15 (1980), 49–62; R. Gophna and P. Beck, "The Rural Aspect of the Settlement Pattern of the Coastal Plain in the Middle Bronze Age ii," in: Tel Aviv, 8 (1981), 45–80; M.F. Kaplan, G. Harbottle, and E.V. Sayre, "Multi-disciplinary Analysis of Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware," in: Archaeometry, 24 (1982), 127–42; P. Gerstenblith, The Levant at the Beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (1983); M. Broshi, and R. Gophna, "Middle Bronze Age ii Palestine: Its Settlements and Population," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 261 (1986), 73–90; P. Bienkowski, "The Division of Middle Bronze ii b–c in Palestine," in: Levant, 21 (1989), 169–79; A. Kempinski, "The Middle Bronze Age in Northern Israel, Local and External Synchronisms," in: High, Middle or Low? Acts of the Second International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology (The Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean) (1990), 69–73; M. Bietak, "Egypt and Canaan During the Middle Bronze Age," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 281 (1991), 27–72; W.G. Dever, "Tell el-Dab'a and Levantine Middle Bronze Age Chronology: A Rejoinder to Manfred Bietak," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 281 (1991), 73–79; R. Bonfil, "mb ii Pithoi in Palestine," in: Eretz-Israel, 23 (1992), 26–37, Heb.; W.G. Dever, "The Chronology of Syria-Palestine in the Second Millennium b.c.e.: A Review of Current Issues," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 288 (1992), 1–25; J.M. Weinstein, "The Chronology of Palestine in the Early Second Millennium b.c.e.," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 288 (1992), 27–46; M. Artzy and E. Marcus, "Stratified Cypriot Pottery in mb ii a Context at Tel Nami," in: G.C. Ionnides (ed.), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis (1992), 103–10; D. Ben-Tor, "The Historical Implications of Middle Kingdom Scarabs Found in Palestine Bearing Private Names and Titles of Officials," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 294 (1994), 722; M. Artzy, "Incense, Camels and Collared Rim Jars: Desert Trade Routes and Maritime Outlets in the Second Millennium," in: Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 13 (1994), 121–47; J.M. Weinstein, "Reflections on the Chronology of Tell ed-Dab'a," in: W.V. Davies and L. Schofield, Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant: Interconnections in the Second Millennium bc (1995), 84–90; G. Philip, "Warrior Burials in the Ancient Near-eastern Bronze Age: The Evidence from Mesopotamia, Western Iran and Syria-Palestine," in: S. Campbell and A. Green (eds.), The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East (1995), 140–54; D. Ilan, "Mortuary Practices at Tel Dan in the Middle Bronze Age: A Reflection of Canaanite Society and Ideology," in: S. Campbell and A. Green (eds.), The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East (1995), 117–37; P. Beck and U. Zevulun, "Back to Square One," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 304 (1996), 64–75; D. Ilan, "Middle Bronze Age Painted Pottery From Tel Dan," in: Levant, 28 (1996), 157–72; M. Bietak, Avaris the Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell ed-Daba (1996); E.D. Oren (ed.), The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives (1997). late bronze age: E.D. Oren, " 'Governors' Residencies in Canaan Under the New Kingdom: A Case Study of Egyptian Administration," Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 14 (1984), 37–56; R. Gonen, "Urban Canaan in the Late Bronze Age," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 253 (1984), 61–73; A. Leonard, "The Late Bronze Age," in: Biblical Archaeologist, 52 (1989), 4–39; R. Gonen, Burial Patterns and Cultural Diversity in Late Bronze Age Canaan (1992); J.M. Weinstein, "The Collapse of the Egyptian Empire in the Southern Levant," in: W.A. Ward and M.S. Joukowsky (eds.), The Crisis Years: The Twelfth Century b.c. From Beyond the Danube to the Tigris (1992); L. Kolska-Horowitz and I. Milevski, "The Faunal Evidence for Socioeconomic Change Between the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant," in: S.R. Wolff (ed.), Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse (2001), 283–305. iron age and persian: E. Stern, "Israel at the Close of the Period of the Monarchy: An Archaeological Survey," in: Biblical Archaeologist, 38 (1975), 26–54; J.S. Holladay, "Of Sherds and Strata: Contributions Toward an Understanding of the Archaeology of the Divided Monarchy," in: F.M. Cross (ed.), Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God (1976), 253–93; T. Dothan, The Philistines and Their Material Culture (1982); D. Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (1982); E. Stern, The Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period 538–332 b.c.e. (1982); W.G. Dever, "The Contribution of Archaeology to the Study of Canaanite and Early Israel Religion," in: P.D. Miller, P.D. Hanson, and S.D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion (1987), 209–47; J.S. Holladay, "Religion in Israel and Judah Under the Monarchy: An Explicitly Archaeological Approach," in: P.D. Miller, P.D. Hanson, and S.D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion (1987), 249–99; I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (1988); S. Gitin and W.G. Dever (eds.), Recent Excavations in Israel: Studies in Iron Age Archaeology (1989); G.J. Wightman, "The Date of Bethshemesh Stratum ii," in: Abr-Nahrain, 28 (1990), 96–126; G.J. Wightman, "The Myth of Solomon," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 277–78 (1990), 5–22; D.J. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon (1991); Z. Gal, Lower Galilee During the Iron Age (1992); G. Barkay, "The Redefining of Archaeological Periods: Does the Date 588/586 b.c.e. Indeed Mark the End of Iron Age Culture?" in: Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the Second International Congress (1993): B. MacDonald, Ammon, Moab and Edom (1994); I. Finkelstein, "The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan," in: Tel Aviv, 22 (1995), 213–39; 106–9; I. Finkelstein, "The Archaeology of the United Monarchy: An Alternative View," in: Levant, 28 (1996), 177–87; L. Stager, "Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction: Kislev 604 b.c.e.," in: Eretz Israel, 25 (1996), 61*–74*; S. Bunomovitz and A. Yasur-Landau, "Philistine and Israelite Pottery: A Comparative Approach to the Question of Pots and People," in: Tel Aviv, 23 (1996); I. Milevski, "Settlement Patterns in Northern Judah During the Achaemenid Period According to the Hill Country of Benjamin and Jerusalem Surveys," in: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 15 (1996–97), 7–29; D.C. Hopkins, "The Weight of the Bronze Could Not Be Calculated: Solomon and Economic Reconstruction," in: L.K. Handy, The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium (1997), 300–31; S. Gitin, "The Neo-Assyrian Empire and its Western Periphery: The Levant, With Focus on Philistine Ekron," in: S. Parpola and R.M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria, 1995 (1997), 77–103; A. Mazar, "Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein," in: Levant, 29 (1997), 157–67; I. Finkelstein, "Bible Archaeology or Archaeology of Palestine in the Iron Age? A Rejoinder," in: Levant, 30 (1998), 167–73; A.G. Vaughn, Theology, History and Archaeology in the Chronicler's Account (1999); Y. Alexandre, "The Material Culture of Northern Israel at the Time of the Achaemenid Empire (532–332 b.c.) – Two Recent Excavations," in: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 17 (1999), 102–4; A. Faust, The Rural Community in Ancient Israel During the Iron Age ii," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 317 (2000); K. van der Toorn, "Cuneiform Documents from Syria-Palestine: Texts, Scribes, and Schools," in zdpv, 116 (2000), 97–113; E. Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. Vol. ii: The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods 732–332 b.c.e. (2001); A. Kuhrt, "Greek Contact with the Levant and Mesopotamia in the First Half of the First Millennium bc: A View from the East," in: G.R. Tstskhladze and A.M. Snodgrass (eds.), Greek Settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea (2002), 17–25; S. Gitin (ed.), "The Four-Horned Altar and Sacred Space: An Archaeological Perspective," in: B. Gittlen (ed.), Sacred Time, Sacred Space: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (2002), 95–123; S. Dalley, "The Transition from Neo-Assyrians to Neo-Babylonians: Break or Continuity?" in: Eretz-Israel, 27 (2003), 25*–28*; A. Gilboa, and I. Sharon, "An Archaeological Contribution for the Early Iron Age Chronological Debate: Alternative Chronologies for Phoenicia and Their Effects on the Levant, Cyprus and Greece," in basor, 332 (2003), 7–80; S. Gitin, "Neo-Assyrian and Egyptian Hegemony over Ekron in the Seventh Century bce: A Response to Lawrence E. Stager," in: Eretz-Israel, 27 (2003), 55*–61*; O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (2003); N. Franklin, "The Tombs of the Kings of Israel: Two Recently Identified 9^th-Century Tombs From Omride Samaria," in: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, 119 (2003), 1–11; P. James, "The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods in Palestine," in: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 22 (2004), 47–68; D. Ussishkin (ed.), The Renewed Archaeological Excavations at Lachish (1973–1994), 5 vols. (2004). hellenistic to roman: D. Sperber, Roman Palestine 200–400: Money and Prices (1974); D. Sperber, Roman Palestine 200–400: The Land (1978); M. Stern, "Judaea and her Neighbors in the Days of Alexander Jannaeus," in: L.I. Levine (ed.), The Jerusalem Cathedra i (1981), 22–46; J.D. Grainger, The Cities of Seleucid Syria (1987); K.G. Holum et al., King Herod's Dream: Caesarea on the Sea (1988); A. Kasher, Jews and Hellenistic Cities in Eretz-Israel (1990); E. Netzer, Masada iii: The Buildings – Stratigraphy and Architecture (1991); B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (1992); F. Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 bc–ad 337 (1993); Safrai, Z., The Economy of Roman Palestine (1993); D. Adan-Bayewitz, Common Pottery in Roman Galilee (1993); J.B. Humbert and A. Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumran, vol. 1 (1994); D. Barag and M. Hershkovitz, "Lamps," in: Masada iv: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965: Final Reports (1994); L.Y. Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (1994); E. Stern (ed.), Excavations at Dor, Final Report, 2 vols. (1995); S. Loffreda, La Ceramica: di Macheronte e del' Herodion (90 a.c.–135 d.c.) (1996); A. Kloner, "Stepped Roads in Roman Palestine," in: aram, 8 (1996), 111–37; A. Raban and K. Holum, Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective After Two Millennia (1996); M. Fischer, B. Isaac, and I. Roll, Roman Roads in Judaea ii: The Jaffa-Jerusalem Roads (1996); L.I. Levine, "The Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great and the Rise and Fall of the Hasmonean Kingdom," in: H. Shanks (ed.), Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple (1999); E. Netzer, The Palaces of the Hasmoneans and Herod the Great (2001); R. Bar-Nathan, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Vol. iii: The Pottery (2002); J. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (2002); A. Kloner, Maresha Excavations Final Report i (2003); Y. Magen, The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period: Excavations at Hizma and the Jerusalem Temple Mount (2002); S. Gibson, "Stone Vessels of the Early Roman Period From Jerusalem and Palestine: A Reassessment," in: G.C. Bottini, L. Di Segni, and L.D. Chrupcala (eds.), One Land – Many Cultures: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Stanislao Loffreda ofm (2003), 287–308; R. Rosenthal-Higenbottom (ed.), The Nabateans in the Negev (2003); L.I. Levine, "The First-Century Synagogue: Critical Reassessments and Assessments of the Critical," in: D.R. Edwards (ed.), Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches (2004); Y. Hirschfeld, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence (2004). byzantine: R. Rosenthal and R. Sivan, Ancient Lamps in the Schlossinger Collection (1978); U. Zevulun and Y. Olenik, Function and Design in the Talmudic Period (1979); M. 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[Shimon Gibson (2^nd ed.)]

Archaeology

DOING ARCHAEOLOGY

CLASSICAL BEGINNINGS

ROOTS OF PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY

THE CULTURE-HISTORICAL APPROACH

COLONIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY

POST-PROCESSUALISM

AN EVOLVING SCIENCE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Broadly defined, archaeology is the study of the human past through the discovery, analysis, and interpretation of the material remains of that past over space and time. The bulk of such material evidence is artifactual, which is anything made or modified by human action. Artifacts encompass everything from the stone tools discarded at Gona in Ethiopia 2.5 million years ago to the trash discarded yesterday. Immovable artifacts, such as hearths or postholes, are called features. Non-artifactual evidence that have cultural significance, such as human, faunal, or botanical remains, are called ecofacts. These material remains tend to co-occur at archaeological sites. Collectively, these traces of the past are referred to as the archaeological record. It is the province of the archaeologist to find, record, and preserve, where possible, the archaeological record in order to identify, analyze, explain, and understand past events and processes. They are also interested in contemporary material culture—ethnoar-chaeologists study how modern-day people use material culture in their everyday lives. While there are a variety of scientific and other investigative techniques used to reconstruct the past based on this wealth of evidence, archaeological interpretations are constrained by issues of preservation. Not everything discarded in the past will survive in the archaeological record, and thus there will always be gaps in our knowledge.

Archaeologists attempt to bridge these gaps by making use of theoretical models, often based on data provided by ethnographic or ethno-archaeological studies. These theoretical models may vary depending on the training and context of the researcher as archaeology has developed differently in different parts of the world. As will be demonstrated below, archaeology in Europe developed from historical roots and is in some cases regarded as “long-term history.” By contrast, archaeology in the United States falls under the aegis of anthropology and is seen as the study of past cultures.

Archaeology can be characterized as an omni-compe-tent human science as it is concerned with the entire scope of human life from our hominid ancestors to the modern-day industrial age. Archaeological projects are conducted at many different scales. They range from studies of how past peoples used and perceived the landscapes that they inhabited to the re-creation of an individual’s life and death, as exemplified by the work done on mummified or skeletal remains. Archaeologists study long-term change at sites that have been occupied for hundreds if not thousands of years as well as the immediate at “time capsule” sites such as shipwrecks or Pompeii. It is both a science and a humanity. Many archaeologists also have sub-specializations in the natural sciences such as zoology, botany, and chemistry while others make use of anthropological and historical methodologies and sources.

DOING ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeologists make use of a diverse methodology. While the most important task is to place finds within a chronological and spatial framework, techniques differ depending on the scale at which the archaeologist is working. The upper end of such a scale is that of the identification of sites within a region. Many finds of archaeological sites and artifacts are still the result of accidental discovery by non-archaeologists, but there are a wide range of survey techniques in existence that allow for the location of archaeological sites within the landscape. These range from systematic pedestrian surveys of a region in search of surface traces to the use of aerial photography and other remote sensing techniques (including ground-penetrating radar, bowsing, and magnetometers) to locate buried remains. Archaeologists often cannot afford either the time or money to achieve total coverage of a region and may thus use sampling techniques designed to either maximize site location or to statistically reflect the occurrence of sites within a region.

Once a site has been located and recorded, the material remains at that site can be further explored and their relationship to one another determined by excavation. Excavation can be conducted either horizontally (clearing excavations) or vertically (penetrating excavations) depending on the nature of the site and the kinds of questions that the researcher is attempting to answer. Most excavation projects will include a mixture of both. Excavation involves the physical destruction of the site and the removal of artifacts and other remains and is thus guided by rigorous standards of recording and fieldwork practice. Most importantly, the context of finds is recorded so that their position in the site and their relationship to one another can be reconstructed once their original provenance has been destroyed.

Context is also crucial for establishing either the relative or absolute age of archaeological remains. Relative dates do not allow a specific age to be assigned to an archaeological find or excavation layer; rather they indicate the age of finds relative to one another. Relative dating was paramount until post–World War I advances resulted in a wide range of chemical and other dating techniques that allow absolute or calendar dates to be assigned to artifacts and sites. Foremost among these are radiocarbon, uranium series, potassium-argon, and thermo-luminescence dating. The most widely used of these is radiocarbon dating, which is used to date organic remains and can provide fairly reliable dates back to forty thousand years ago. The other chemical dating methods mentioned above can be used to date inorganic remains and offer a much greater chronological depth. Archaeologists working in more recent time periods can also use documents or other written evidence to date sites.

Once excavated, artifacts are sorted, classified, and analyzed in an archaeological laboratory. This analysis allows the archaeologist to create order out of a mass of data; to summarize many individual artifacts by identifying their shared characteristics; and to define the variability present within an archaeological assemblage. There are many debates about the best way to classify artifacts. They are mostly analyzed in terms of formal, stylistic, and technological attributes. Philosophically, there is a question as to whether or not the categories of artifacts that archaeologists devise reflect the emic order (items analyzed in terms of their role as structural units in a system) created by the people who produced the artifacts or if they are etic (items analyzed without consideration of their role in a system), artificial categories imposed by the archaeologist. Most archaeologists, however, recognize that the best classification systems are a combination of the two.

The suite of techniques that we associate with modern day, professional archaeology did not, of course, emerge fully fledged but developed over the course of more than a century. While many societies over the centuries displayed an interest in the material remains of the past and there are even instances of past societies excavating to uncover those remains, it was not until the nineteenth century that archaeology truly became a scientific discipline. Archaeology’s roots lie in two disparate contexts: the development of classical studies from the 1500s onward and subsequent discoveries in various parts of the world; and the gradual recognition of the true age of the earth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

CLASSICAL BEGINNINGS

The fifteenth-century Renaissance in western Europe prompted interest in the Greek and Roman civilizations, particularly as their art and architecture were still highly visible. The buried Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered in the 1700s and were excavated for art and antiquities. The foundation for art history and subsequently much of classical archaeology was laid in 1764 by the publication of Johann J. Winckelmann’s History of Ancient Art (1764), in which he contextualized the art’s production and set out the first systematic chronology for classical remains. Early excavation of these classical sites was by no means methodical. Smaller artifacts and “unimportant” structures were destroyed during the search for highly desirable works of art. It was these classical studies that provided a model for the development of Egyptology and Assyriology, which themselves evolved within a larger context of European imperial expansion.

Egyptology developed as a direct result of Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769-1821) invasion of Egypt in 1798. Accompanying the French army on this expedition was a Commission of Arts and Sciences that published multiple volumes of Description de l’Egypte from 1809 onward. The invasion also led to the accidental discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which featured the same passage written in hieroglyphs, Demotic (a cursive form of hieroglyphs), and Greek, thus enabling Jean François Champollion to finally decipher the hieroglyphic script in 1822. At this time there was widespread looting by both locals and foreigners in search of treasure for sale or collection, including not only easily transportable artifacts but also the wholesale removal of large monuments, such as Giovanni Belzoni’s 1816 removal of the seven and a quarter ton granite head and torso of Ramesses II from Thebes to Alexandria. Belzoni, and others like him, worked as agents for the European elite and were involved in the discovery and excavation of many sites in Egypt. At this time there was little interest on the part of Egypt’s rulers in preserving or investigating their past through the preservation of the remains of that past. They thus sanctioned the activities of many of the European agents at work in the country. It was not until Frenchman Auguste Mariette was appointed as the director-general of the Antiquities Service in 1858 that the sanctioned plunder and export of Egyptian antiquities ended.

There was widespread interest in the Egyptian past and many expeditions were funded, but the systematic excavation and recording of Egypt’s archaeological past only began with William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) in the 1880s. Petrie emphasized the careful recording of all artifactual material recovered in the excavations as well as the full publication thereof. Further, he developed the first typological sequence dating (based on ceramic jars recovered from graves) to be used in Egypt. His work laid the foundation for other archaeologists such as Howard Carter (1874-1939) who, funded by his patron Lord Carnarvon, discovered and carefully excavated the sealed tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. As all other tombs discovered in the Valley of Kings had been looted, this find remains one of the most spectacular Egyptian discoveries.

As European governments began to take a political interest in places like Egypt and the Near and Middle East, historical and archaeological scholars followed suit. These areas were of especial interest to the European public because of their link to places mentioned in the Bible. Unlike in Egypt, however, there were few impressive structures that had survived the ravages of time in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, or Persia. Rather, explorers in the region reported the existence of large mounds that local tradition held to be biblical locations such as Babylon and Nineveh.

The first systematic work on mounds in Mesopotamia was carried out by the French consul in Mosul, Paul Emile Botta, who had previous experience in Egypt. The French government funded his excavations and paid for the transport of finds to Paris. Further research was also carried out by Henry Layard, an Englishman who is best known for his work at Nimrud. Wholesale excavation and exportation of finds was only halted after World War I (1914-1918) when much of the Near East was placed under French or British control. Museums were established, as were departments of antiquity and stratigraphic (layered) excavation, and the recording of all finds became the new standard. This standard was exemplified in Leonard Woolley’s excavations at the site of Ur in the 1920s.

While these major discoveries were being made in Egypt and the Near East, the traces of civilizations of equal complexity were being discovered in the Americas. Monumental ruins were not common in North America, but large earthen mounds were often remarked upon. The question of who built these mounds—the ancestors of Native Americans or a lost race of moundbuilders—swiftly became one of the most contentious issues in American archaeology and remained so until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1781 Thomas Jefferson became the first person known to have used the principle of stratigraphy to interpret archaeological remains during his excavation of a mound on his Monticello estate. Meanwhile in South America, Antonio del Rio “discovered” the Mayan ruins of Palenque in 1786. It was not until 1896, however, that a stratigraphic excavation was conducted on that continent when Max Uhle started working at Pachacamac in Peru. Peru also yielded the well-preserved Inca site of Macchu Picchu, which was located by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

ROOTS OF PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY

While discoveries were continuing apace in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, intellectual trends in Europe were laying the groundwork for an archaeology of Europe’s prehistory. These trends eventually led to the emergence of archaeology as an academic discipline rather than merely the occupation of adventurers and collectors, and they include the development of typological sequences, the use of stratigraphy, and the acceptance of the principles of uniformitarianism, all of which center around the key issue of chronology.

Up until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was widely accepted, based on biblical chronology, that the earth was no older than six thousand years. Several discoveries of stone tools in association with the bones of extinct animals by individuals such as John Frere in 1797 and Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes in 1837 demonstrated, however, that the earth and human existence on it was much older than had previously been believed. Two theories had been advanced to explain these and other geological and paleontological finds. Catastrophism, advocated by scientists such as Georges Cuvier, was the notion that the earth had been periodically destroyed numerous times in the past, after which a new creation would occur. Uniformitarianism, put forward by geologist Charles Lyell in his Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth Surface by Reference to Causes Now in Operation ([1830-1833] 1969), was the theory that the earth had been formed over a long period of time by a series of geological processes that are still observable in the contemporary world. It was this latter theory, in addition to the increasing fossil evidence, that contributed to the theory of biological evolution and the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life ([1859] 1998). Lyell’s work also gifted archaeology with the concept of stratigraphy, and thus the law of superposition, which states that stratigraphic layers are arranged chronologically, with the oldest layers at the bottom and the younger layers at the top, unless disturbed by later processes. This is the foundation for all interpretations of stratified archaeological deposits.

Even before the age of the earth had become widely accepted, chronological sequences for archaeological material, independent of written records, were being developed. One of the first was that of Danish scholar, Christian Thomsen (1788-1865), who was given the task of cataloguing and preparing for exhibition a collection of antiquities in 1816. He used the Three Age System, subdividing the prehistoric period into stone, bronze, and iron. While the idea was not new, Thomsen was the first to apply it to a large artifactual assemblage. He solved the problem of knowing which finds should be placed in which age by using “closed finds,” artifacts that had been buried together in hoards and graves. By delineating which types and styles of artifacts were found or not found together he was able to work out a stylistic typology with chronological significance. This kind of stylistic ordering is known as seriation and is an important relative dating technique. Stratigraphic excavations of Danish burial mounds conducted by Jens Worsaae, a student of Thomsen, supported this sequence. The notion of technological progress, coupled with the ideas of biological evolution, gave rise to the unilineal cultural evolution of E. B. Tylor and L. H. Morgan and was expounded in John Lubbock’s archaeological text Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages ([1865] 1971).

There were further major developments in archaeological methodology at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Oscar Montelius refined Thomsen’s seriational method of dating using a typological approach, while between 1880 and 1900, Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers, a retired British general, conducted several excavations of barrows on his estate and developed the standards for excavation, recording, and publication associated with modern-day archaeology. These included the recording of all finds including those not directly related to the research questions being asked, as well as the recognition of the chronological value of even unimportant finds (potsherds, for example) if their context was correctly recorded. Later, it was a student of Pitt Rivers, R. E. M. Wheeler, who developed the grid method of excavation and, in the 1940s, went on to revolutionize the archaeology of the Indian subcontinent with his work at Mohenjodaro and other sites.

THE CULTURE-HISTORICAL APPROACH

The unilineal evolution of the nineteenth century was replaced in the early twentieth century by an interest in historical questions. This shift from an evolutionary perspective to culture-history resulted in an increased emphasis on descriptions of past cultures. In Europe there was a desire to discover how particular peoples developed in the past in order to promote national unity. In the United States, where archaeology was regarded as part of anthropology, there was an increased emphasis on data collection as the foundation for the development and testing of theory and explanations, in addition to chronologies.

Culture history, as a theoretical approach, has a normative view of culture. Basically it holds that cultures are composed of shared norms and values and that their members share a particular worldview. Artifacts are therefore seen as expressions of the shared norms and values of any given culture. This approach emphasized data collection, which allowed for the construction of site and regional chronologies. The results of these endeavors were often represented in a time-space grid. In the cultural historical view, change is most often attributed to the action of outside forces, most commonly migration and diffusion, or environmental change.

In the United States this approach was pioneered and applied par excellence by Alfred V. Kidder, who was also the first archaeologist to use the stratigraphic method on a large scale in the Southwest. The first scholar to systematically apply it to archaeological data in Europe was Gustav Kossina in his book Origin of the Germans (1911). Kossina argued that cultural boundaries (as reflected in material culture) were also indicative of ethnic boundaries. His work was extremely nationalistic and was later used by the Nazis in the Socialist education system. By tracing the migrations of the Indo-European people and demonstrating the supposed racial purity of the German people, he argued that the Germans were the true heirs of the Indo-Europeans and, by extension, were the true heirs of Europe. Archaeology was thus also used to establish historical rights to territory. Kossina’s work had little impact outside of Germany and while British archaeologists recognized the importance of repeated invasions and migrations, they did not rigorously apply the culture concept until the appearance of V. Gordon Childe’s The Dawn of European Civilization ([1925] 1958), after which the “archaeological culture” became central to European archaeology.

COLONIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

By the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, archaeological fieldwork was also increasingly conducted in colonial contexts. While much of this archaeology was essentially cultural-historical in approach and method, the situation in the colonial arena was complicated by the sociopolitical relations that existed between colonized and colonizer. Bruce Trigger in his 1984 work offers a definition of colonialist archaeology as comprising that archaeology which developed either in countries “whose native population was wholly replaced or overwhelmed by European settlement or in ones where Europeans remained politically and economically dominant for a considerable period of time” (p. 360), specifically, an archaeology as practiced by “a colonising population that had no historical ties with the peoples whose past they were studying.” Tied up as it is in land and heritage issues as well as its commentary on the supposed political or social sophistication of the cultures being studied, archaeology in these places had an increasingly political dimension.

This was especially the case in the southern African context. At sites such as Great Zimbabwe, it was denied that the ancestors of local people could have been the builders and inhabitants of what was clearly an advanced civilization. As with the myth of the moundbuilders in the United States, this made it easier to claim a civilizing mission and to take ownership of the land. Great Zimbabwe represents possibly one of the most famous examples of the misuse of the past to suit political purposes in the present. The racist theories of Zimbabwe’s past have not been easily laid to rest. Claims that it was the place of King Solomon’s mines or was built (variously) by the Queen of Sheba, the Sabaea Arabs, or the Phoenicians were still being disseminated well into the 1970s.

PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY

By the 1940s some North American scholars were becoming dissatisfied with the shortcomings of culture history, which was severely hampered by a lack of absolute dating techniques that would allow the refinement of chronologies. Walter Taylor called for a conjunctive approach to the past in A Study of Archaeology ([1948] 1983), advocating that artifacts should be looked at in their broader social contexts. His book did not spark a revolution, but in the 1960s a series of articles written by a young Lewis Binford (1962, 1967) did. Influenced by the 1950s neo-evolutionary anthropology of Julian Steward and Leslie White, Binford and his fellow “New Archaeologists” criticized the normative view of culture as inadequate in that it did not address how people interacted with their environments or how material culture was used as an adaptive tool in that environment. They emphasized the relationship of archaeology to anthropology and stressed the need to go beyond description to explanation. Culture history was seen as too particularistic and its practitioners as not being explicit enough about their research objectives, methods, and expectations.

The school of thought and methodologies for research espoused by the New Archaeology have come to be more generally known as processualism. Processualism, as an approach to archaeology, is heavily influenced by scientific positivism. It is based on a belief in “objective science” and aimed to test archaeological propositions against data in order to answer anthropological questions and to deliver broad generalizations—law-like statements—about human behavior. While the most famous processualists are undoubtedly American scholars such as Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery, many of the ideas espoused by them were also taken up by British archaeologists including Colin Renfrew. While Renfrew did not wholeheartedly embrace all aspects of processualism such as the search for law-like generalizations, its systemic approach to the study of culture and the new methodologies proved attractive.

The New Archaeology was characterized by a battery of new methods, techniques, and aids fostered by advances in scientific dating methods. The most important of these was the development of radiocarbon dating, which made internal development more likely than migration and diffusion as an explanation of change. It also meant that archaeologists were finally free to focus on broader questions of cultural and social significance rather than on the development of regional chronologies. Other scientific advances included the use of computers and, in the study of the environment, pollen diagrams and soil geomorphology. The application of these to archaeology necessitated increasing specialization on the part of archaeologists; and increased funding from bodies such as the National Science Foundation led to the scientification of archaeology, especially in the United States.

Fieldwork also became more rigorous and standardized. This was partly a response to the expansion of cultural resource management, which meant an increased need for systematic control and monitoring. Most proces-sual archaeology has strong environmental overtones and thus new field and research methods were developed to accommodate those questions. Regional approaches—the analysis of sites in their settlement systems and environments—were developed, as well as new survey, sampling, and screening techniques to recover the most environmental evidence possible.

The New Archaeology changed the way in which archaeological research projects were administered and carried out. Advocates of this school adopted a formalized methodology that had hypothesis testing as its central emphasis. Archaeologists were expected to clearly and explicitly state the conditions and expectations of their hypotheses. Models employed by processual archaeologists include systems models, cultural ecological models, and multilinear cultural evolution models. One of the best-known case studies is Kent Flannery’s use of systems theory to explain the increasing reliance on maize agriculture in Mesoamerica, which he detailed in 1968.

One of the most important aspects of processualism was the desire for an objective evaluation of ideas and research designs. To achieve this Binford developed Middle Range, or bridging, theory. This solved one of the primary problems facing archaeologists, that of inference, the linking of the (observable) present with the (unobservable) past. In order to understand what happened in the past, a way had to be found to link the dynamics of human action in the past with the static material traces of those activities in the present. Binford felt that archaeologists should observe the processes that give rise to the patterns and their variations, discernible in the archaeological record. This interest of Binford’s in actualistic studies led to an increased focus on experimental- and ethno-archaeology.

The greatest contribution of processualism was methodological, in the sense that issues of sampling, inference, and research design were paramount. These were of course closely linked to the increased use of scientific techniques in archaeological fieldwork and analysis. The second contribution is seen as the shift away from description to explanation, particularly the notion of culture as adaptive and the interconnectedness of social and ecological variables. It also moved archaeology forward in the consideration of long-term processes. While processualism was seen as advancing research in some areas, it was also seen as retarding research into others. While significant advances were made in the study of prehistoric economies, topics such as the role of the individual decision-making, conflict and negotiation between different social groups, and prehistoric ideology were neglected while certain actors/interest groups were excluded from analysis. Many of these arise directly from the processual focus on entire systems and the overriding view that the environment plays the most important role in bringing about change.

POST-PROCESSUALISM

In the light of these limitations, by the late 1970s and early 1980s some archaeologists were arguing that while processual archaeology aimed to explain the past, it could not understand it. In Reading the Past (1986) Ian Hodder argued that material culture and past events had to be understood with reference to people’s attitudes and beliefs, not just their adaptation to an external environment and, further, that archaeological remains could be “read” as a “text.” Similarly, Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley critiqued the scientific focus of processual archaeology in Re-constructing Archaeology (1987), arguing that archaeologists have to be critical of the context in which archaeological interpretations of the past are produced and that multiple interpretations of the past are valid. This critical approach has also been adopted by feminist archaeologists, such as Margaret Conkey and Janet Spector (1984), who have highlighted in “Archaeology and the Study of Gender” the androcentric bias in representations of the past and the practice of archaeology.

While post-processual and cognitive archaeology is an umbrella term incorporating many different theoretical approaches, it is characterized by its cognitive—as opposed to normative or adaptive—view of culture. Thus culture is seen as being actively constructed and reworked by individuals in order to fit the context of their own lives. The various approaches included within post-processual-ism can be divided into three different categories. The first deals with approaches that have at their base a concern with structure, such as structuralism, cognitive approaches, and Marxism. Second is contextual archaeology, which views material culture as a text that can be read. The third incorporates a variety of approaches that seek to offer alternative perspectives on the world and the way in which archaeological results are communicated, such as phenomenology, feminism, and postmodernism. Post-processual approaches have been especially embraced by historical archaeologists, who also have written documents to draw on. James Deetz, for example, used structuralism in his seminal study In Small Things Forgotten (1977) to explore the changing worldview of North American immigrants while Mark Leone has adopted a critical approach in his study of ideology in Annapolis.

Undoubtedly the post-processual critique has made contributions to the discipline. It has moved archaeology away from modeling the environment as the prime mover in past human societies and has added greatly to our ability to understand the past. The political nature of the study of the past and the sociopolitical context of the researcher have also been problematized. More attention is now paid to the way in which archaeologists interact with contemporary groups that have a stakehold in the past and how that past is represented. It remains, however, a largely Anglo-American phenomenon and has hardly affected archaeology on the European continent.

AN EVOLVING SCIENCE

Since the 1980s archaeology has been characterized by a wide diversity of approaches that draw on a range of theory from other social sciences including anthropology, sociology, geography, history, and political science. Like their counterparts, archaeologists make use of practice theory, agency theory, political economy, cultural ecology, world systems theory, and so on. Many times these viewpoints are combined or applied in interesting new ways to the archaeological record.

Archaeology is a constantly evolving discipline. New fields of study are always being created. Since the 1950s sub-disciplines such as landscape, historical (post-medieval), and industrial archaeology have grown rapidly. Further archaeological discoveries and fine-grained analysis continue to make important contributions to ongoing research that include, inter alia : the study of human origins; the origins of agriculture; human migrations; human use (and abuse) of the environment; the rise and fall of civilizations; the processes and impact of colonialism; as well as the lives of people who are generally overlooked in major historical narratives, such as slaves. Yet there are still many parts of the world which, due to environmental, political, or economic factors, have very sparse archaeological coverage, for example sub-Saharan Africa, especially when compared with Egypt. Many times archaeologists in these countries do not have adequate resources with which to pursue research.

Archaeologists are also actively involved in cultural resource management and the conservation of archaeological sites. Sites are threatened by the ever-increasing development that results from expanding urbanization and industrialization. Many sites are destroyed without ever being recorded. Even well known monuments are under threat from wars, pollution, and vandalism. The worldwide antiquities market, which fueled wholesale looting during the early development of archaeology, remains in existence. Archaeology is also a highly politicized discipline, and the balancing of archaeological research objectives with those of other stakeholders, including conservation authorities and local communities, remains an ongoing challenge.

SEE ALSO Agricultural Industry; Anthropology; Anthropology, Biological; Burial Grounds; Cultural Landscape; Cultural Resource Management; Culture; Feminism; Geography; Leakey, Richard; Material Culture; Migration; Postmodernism; Schliemann, Heinrich; Structuralism; World-System

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Binford, Lewis. 1962. Archaeology as Anthropology. American Antiquity 28 (2): 217–225.

Binford, Lewis. 1967. Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: The Use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning. American Antiquity 32 (1): 1–12.

Childe, V. Gordon. [1925] 1958. The Dawn of European Civilization. 6th ed. New York: Knopf.

Conkey, Margaret, and Janet Spector. 1984. Archaeology and the Study of Gender. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 7: 1–38. New York: Academic Press.

Darwin, Charles. [1859] 1998. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. New York: Modern Library.

Deetz, James. 1977. In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Flannery, Kent. 1968. Archaeological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica. In Anthropological Archaeology in the Americased. B. J. Meggers, 67–87. Washington: Anthropological Society of Washington.

Hodder, Ian. 1986. Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, Matthew. 1999. Archaeological Theory: An Introduction. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.

Kossina, Gustav. 1911. Die Herkunft der Germanen [Origins of the Germans]. Leipzig, Germany: Kabitzsch.

Leone, Mark, P. Potter, and P. Shackel. 1987. Toward a Critical Archaeology. Current Anthropology 28 (3): 289–302.

Lubbock, John. [1865] 1971. Pre-historic Times as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.

Lyell, Charles. [1830–1833] 1969. Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface by Reference to Causes Now in Operation. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation.

Renfrew, Colin, and Paul Bahn. 2004. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. 4th ed. London: Thames and Hudson.

Shanks, Michael, and Christopher Tilley. 1987. Re-constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Stiebing, William H. 1994. Uncovering the Past: A History of Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, Walter. [1948] 1983. A Study of Archaeology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Trigger, Bruce. 1984. Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist. Man 19: 355–370.

Trigger, Bruce G. 1989. A History of Archaeological Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Willey, Gordon R., and Jeremy A. Sabloff. 1993. A History of American Archaeology. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Winckelman, Johann J. [1764] 1969. History of Ancient Art. New York: F. Ungar.

Natalie Swanepoel

Archaeology

Background

Disciplines

Field methods

Current controversy

Resources

The term archaeology (from the Greek language for ancient words) refers, in part, to the study of human culture and of cultural changes that occur over time. In practice, archaeologists attempt to logically reconstruct human activities of the past by systematically recovering, documenting, examining, and analyzing artifacts or objects of human origin. However, archaeology, as a sub-field of anthropology, is a multi-faceted scientific pursuit, and includes various specialized disciplines and subfields of study. Depending on the specific field of interest, archaeological artifacts can encompass anything from ancient Greek pottery vessels to disposable plastic bottles at modern dump sites. Thus, studies in archaeology can extend from the advent of human prehistory to the most recent of modern times. The two most common areas of study in archaeological research today, particularly in the United States, are prehistoric and historic archaeology. Some popular archaeological sites are Stonehenge (England), Machu Picchu (Peru), and Great Zimbabwe (Africa).

Background

Although there has been a natural interest in the collection of antiquities for many hundreds of years, controlled scientific excavation and the systematic study of artifacts and the cultures who made them was not widely practiced until early in the twentieth century. Prior to that time, most archaeology consisted of randomly collecting artifacts that could be found lying on the surface of sites or in caves. In Europe and the Middle East, well-marked tombs and other ancient structures provided visual clues that valuable antiquities might be found hidden nearby.

Because most of these early expeditions were financed by private individuals and wealthy collectors, broken artifacts were often left behind, because only intact and highly-crafted items were thought to have any value. Consequently, early theories regarding the cultures from which artifacts originated were little more than speculation.

One of the first Americans to practice many of the techniques used in modern archaeology was American president Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). Before serving his term as president of the United States, Jefferson directed systematic excavations in Virginia of prehistoric Indian mounds, or earthworks, that resemble low pyramids made from soil. His published report by the American Philosophical Society in 1799 marked the beginning of a new era in archaeological studies.

In addition to his thorough examination and recording of artifacts, Jefferson was perhaps the first researcher to observe and note a phenomenon known as stratigraphy, where soil and artifacts are deposited and layered one above the other like the skins of an onion. Jefferson’s observation of site stratigraphy is still in use today as a basic field technique in determining the age and complexity of archaeological sites.

During the late nineteenth century, academic archaeology as a university subject sprang from a branch of anthropology, one of the social sciences that mainly concentrates on understanding the cultural traditions and activities of non-literate peoples.

American anthropologists of the time discovered that a better way to understand the social structure of living Native Americans was to try to reconstruct their prehistoric lifestyles. At the same time, archaeologists found that studies of contemporary Native Americans help in the interpretation of prehistoric Indian cultures, of which there are no written records. Thus, modern archaeology evolved as a result of the mutual effort between these two separate fields of academic discipline.

In addition to the many important discoveries made by researchers over the twentieth century and, now, into the twenty-first century, perhaps the most sweeping event in the history of archaeology was the development of radiocarbon or C-14 dating in the late 1940s by American chemist Willard Frank Libby (1908–1980).

Instead of relying solely on theories and hypotheses to date a site, scientists could derive, through laboratory analysis, highly accurate dates from small samples of organic material such as wood or bone. In many cases, radiocarbon dating proved or disproved theories regarding the postulated ages of important archaeological finds.

Today, archaeologists use a variety of techniques to unlock ancient mysteries. Some of these newly developed techniques even include the use of space technology. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) ongoing project, Mission to Planet Earth, is one example. The primary objective of the project is to map global environmental changes by using specially designed SIR-C/X-SAR (Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar). However, a 1994 Middle East mission conducted by the space shuttle Endeavor resulted in several radar photographs of a series of ancient desert roadways leading to a central location. Field investigations, currently

underway, have revealed that the roadways lead to the 5,000-year-old lost city of Ubar in southern Oman on the Arab Peninsula.

Disciplines

Over the past several decades, as new laboratory technologies have become available, so have the number of disciplines or fields of study that are linked to archaeology. Although they may seem unrelated, all are important in that they contribute to the growing body of knowledge about humankind.

Physical anthropology, ethnobotany, DNA (deox-yribonucleic acid) analysis, x-ray emission microanal-ysis, and palynology are but a few of the dozens of specialized areas of study. However, the individual field archaeologist tends to focus his or her research on a specific culture and/or era in time.

Prehistoric archaeology

Everything that is currently known about human prehistory is derived through the excavation and study of ancient materials.

Prehistoric archaeology encompasses the study of humankind prior to the advent of written languages or written history. In effect, the job of the prehistoric archaeologist is to discover and write about the histories of ancient peoples who had no written history of their own.

However, prehistory lasted for different times in different parts of the world. In Europe, primitive written languages made their appearance around 2500 BC, thus technically ending Old World prehistory. On the other hand, American prehistory ended only 500 years ago, when European explorers such as Christopher Columbus (c. AD 1451–1506) visited the New World for the first time. By returning to their homelands with written reports of what they had seen, those explorers ushered in the early historic era of the Western Hemisphere.

Historic archaeology

As opposed to prehistoric archaeological studies, historic archaeology is a discipline that focuses on a more detailed understanding of the recent past. Typically, any site or building over 50 years old, but younger than the regional area’s prehistory, is considered historic. For example, U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) battlefields are historic landmarks. Because most historic sites and buildings were used during times when records were kept, the historic archaeologist can review written documentation pertaining to that time and place as part of the overall study.

Artifactual material discovered during an historic archaeological excavation adds specific detailed information to the knowledge already gathered from existing historic documents.

A relatively new sub-discipline of historic archaeology, known as urban archaeology, attempts to quantify current culture and cultural trends by examining material found at modern dump sites. Urban archaeology has been primarily used as a teaching aid in helping students of cultural anthropology and archaeology develop interpretive skills.

Classical archaeology

The classical archaeologist is perhaps the most popular public stereotype—the Indiana Jones movie character, for example, is based on the fantastic exploits of a classical archaeologist. The roots of classical archaeology can be traced to the European fascination with Biblical studies and ancient scholarship. Classical archaeologists focus on monumental art, architecture, and ancient history. Greek mythology, Chinese dynasties, and all ancient civilizations are the domain of the classical archaeologist.

This field is perhaps one of the most complex areas of the study of human culture, for it must utilize a combination of both prehistoric and historic archaeological techniques. In addition, classical studies often employ what is referred to as underwater archaeology to recover the cargo of sunken ancient sailing vessels that carried trade goods from port to port.

Cultural resource management

Beginning in the 1940s, a number of state and federal laws have been enacted in the United States to protect archaeological resources from potential destruction that could be caused by governmental developments such as highway construction. In the 1970s, additional legislation extended these laws to cover development projects in the private sector. Other countries have also passed similar laws protecting their antiquities. As a result, archaeology has moved from a purely academic study into the realm of private enterprise, spawning hundreds of consulting firms that specialize in contract archaeology, or what is commonly known as cultural resource management (CRM).

CRM work has become a major economic industry in the United States, generating an estimated 250 million dollars a year in annual business through government and private contracts. Most archaeological studies conducted in the United States today are a direct result of compliance with antiquities laws.

Construction projects such as the building of dams, highways, power lines, and housing developments are a recognized and accepted pattern of human growth. It is also recognized that these activities sometimes have a detrimental affect on the evidences of human history. Both historic buildings and prehistoric sites are often encountered during the course of new construction planning. However, various steps can be taken to insure that such sites are acknowledged and investigated prior to any activities that might damage them.

The two most common measures that can be taken when a site lies in the path of development include (1) preservation by simple avoidance or (2) data recovery. Preservation by avoidance could mean re-routing a highway around an archaeological site, or moving the placement of a planned building to a different location. On the other hand, when avoidance is not possible, then data recovery by excavation becomes the next alternative.

In the case of historic structures, for example, data recovery usually includes a thorough recordation of the building. This might include photographs, scale interior and exterior drawings, and historic document searches to determine who designed and built the structure or who might have lived there. For prehistoric resources, sampling the contents of the subsurface deposit by excavation is perhaps the only method by which to determine the significance of a site.

Field methods

Archaeological survey/field reconnaissance

Prior to any archaeological excavation, whether it be prehistoric or historic, a survey or field reconnaissance must be conducted. In general terms, a survey systematically inspects the surface of a site to determine whether or not it is significant and may warrant further investigation. Although the determination of significance is somewhat subjective, most researchers agree that it hinges on a site’s potential to yield useful information. Significance may include the ability of a site to produce new, previously unknown information, or additional data to add to what is currently known about the site’s original inhabitants and their culture.

Surveys are also conducted on undeveloped properties where no sites have been previously recorded. These types of surveys are performed to verify that no sites are on the property or, if one is found, to record its presence and document its location, condition, size, and type. All records pertaining to archaeological surveys and sites are permanently stored at either government or university clearing houses for future reference by other archaeologists.

Test excavation

The term test excavation refers to the intermediate stage of an archaeological investigation, between surveying and salvage excavation or full data recovery program. It generally incorporates the digging of units or square pits in order to sample the contents and depth of an archaeological site. Test units can be randomly located on a site or placed in specific locations. The use of test units helps the archaeologist determine what areas of a site will yield the highest quantity of artifacts or most useful information before committing time and resources to a more intensive study.

Typically, test units are measured metrically, such as in a one meter by one meter square, and excavated through the archaeological deposit to sterile soil, or soil which fails to produce any additional finds. Depending on the project and the type of site, various methods and techniques are used during an excavation. Sometimes the artifact-bearing soils (called midden ) are excavated from units in 2 to 4 in (5 to 10 cm) levels, carefully peeling one layer of soil and then the next. This is known as arbitrary excavation.

In instances where natural soil layering can be observed, excavation comprises removal of each layer or strata regardless of its thickness. The purpose in both cases is to maintain a vertical control of where artifacts were recovered, as well as separating the shallow, younger materials from deeper, older materials.

Each layer or level of soil recovered from unit excavations is sifted through a wire mesh or screen. Soil falls through the screen while artifacts and other material are left on top, where they are then washed, sorted according to type, bagged, and labeled. In this way, archaeologists not only record from what unit a particular artifact was found but also at what depth.

Thus, archaeologists can reconstruct a three-dimensional view of a site layout.

Salvage excavation

Salvage excavations, or what is referred to as rescue archaeology outside the United States, generally represent the final data recovery program of an archaeological site. Although the methods used in salvage excavations are similar to those of test excavations, there are some distinctions with regard to objectives.

Whereas the term test implies an initial investigation to be followed by further study, the term salvage generally denotes that no additional research may be undertaken once the excavation is complete. This is particularly true for archaeological sites that will be destroyed as a result of construction activities.

Unfortunately, it is an accepted fact in archaeology that recovery of 100% of the contents of a site is impractical due to either time or budget constraints. In actuality, that number is estimated from less than 1% to as much as 7%, leaving the remaining bulk of the deposit unstudied. Thus, archaeologists are forced by necessity to make determinations about the most appropriate mode of data recovery and what avenues of research would best benefit from the excavation.

Traditional methods of excavation typically include the use of picks, shovels, trowels, and hand-held shaker screens.

However, archaeologists have realized that although laboratory techniques have taken full advantage of the latest technologies, field methods have not made a corresponding advancement; in fact, they have not changed dramatically since the 1930s. To tackle this problem, researchers have begun to experiment with various alternative methods of data recovery. These alternatives are designed to increase sample size, lower costs to sponsors, and at the same time maintain careful scientific control over the recovery process.

One of these alternatives includes the use of earth-moving machinery. For decades, machines such as backhoes or tractor-mounted augers have been employed during test excavations to aid in determining the boundaries and depths of archaeological deposits. Recently, however, machines have been used to actually salvage excavation sites by simulating traditional digging methods, or digging level by level. As a result, new methods of hydraulic water screening have been developed to process large amounts of midden soils. Although machines have been successfully utilized in salvage excavations, the use of mechanized earth-moving machinery in archaeology is not widely practiced and cannot be applied to all sites.

KEY TERMS

Artifact— An artificially made object that has been shaped and fashioned for human use.

Classical archaeology— Archaeological research that deals with ancient history, ancient architecture, or any of the now-extinct civilizations such as Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Aztec, Mayan, etc.

Cultural resource management— Contract archaeology performed by privately owned and operated archaeological consulting firms.

Data recovery— An excavation intended to recover artifacts that represent the basic, raw data of any archaeological study.

Deposit— Refers to the three-dimensional, subsurface or below-ground portion of an archaeological site.

Discipline— A specialized field or sub-field of study.

Historic archaeology— Archaeological studies focusing on the eras of recorded history.

Midden— Darkened archaeological site soil caused by organic waste material such as food refuse and charcoal from ancient campfires.

Prehistoric archaeology— Archaeological studies dealing with material which dates to before the historic era, or before the advent of written languages.

Salvage/rescue excavation— The final phase of a typical two-part series of archaeological site excavations.

Site— An archaeological resource such as an ancient Indian campsite, or an old, historic building.

Survey— A systematic surface inspection conducted to examine a known archaeological site or to verify that no site exists on the property under examination.

Test excavation— A preliminary excavation conducted to determine the size, depth, and significance of an archaeological site prior to committing to a salvage or final excavation.

Current controversy

Among many North American Indian tribes, treatment of the dead has traditionally been a matter of great concern. Some modern-day Native Americans have expressed that ancestral graves should not be disturbed or, if that cannot be prevented, that any remains and artifacts recovered should be reburied with ceremony.

However, it was not until the 1970s that this issue became a nationwide concern. By then, public attitudes in the United States had become more favorable toward both Native American interests and religious values. Passage of the Native American Religious Freedom Act of 1978 was a reflection of this change in public attitude, as well as a result of the newly developed political awareness and organization of Native American activist groups.

In 1990, the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was signed into federal law. In addition to applying penalties for the trafficking of illegally obtained Native American human remains and cultural items, the law mandated that all federally-funded institutions (museums, universities, etc.) are required to repatriate, or give back, their Native American collections to tribes who claim cultural or religious ownership over those materials. These and other recently adopted state laws have sparked a heated controversy among scientists and Native American groups.

For archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and other scholars who study humankind’s past, graves have provided a very important source of knowledge about past cultures. This has been particularly true in the reconstruction of prehistoric North American cultures whose peoples left no written history but who buried their dead surrounded with material goods of the time. Repatriation of this material will prevent any further studies from being conducted in the future.

Although many researchers support repatriation of historic material that can be directly linked to living tribal descendants, others have stated that it is not possible to make such determinations on very ancient materials that date to before the pyramids of Egypt. Another argument is that ongoing medical studies of diseases found in the bones of ancient remains could lead to breakthroughs in treatments to help the living.

Archaeologists have expressed that museum materials are part of the heritage of the nation, and that these new laws fail to take into consideration the many complex factors that separate ancient human remains from modern Native American cultures.

See also Dating techniques; Ethnoarchaeology.

Resources

BOOKS

Fagan, Brian M. Archaeology: A Brief Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.

Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Haviland, William A. Evolution and Prehistory: The Human Challenge. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2005.

Holtorf, Cornelius. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2005.

Joukowsky, Marth. A Complete Field Manual of Archaeology: Tools and Techniques of Field Work for Archaeologists. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980.

Palmer, Douglas. Unearthing the Past: The Great Archaeological Discoveries that have Changed History. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2005.

Russell, Ian, editor. Images, Representations, and Heritage: Moving Beyond Modern Approaches to Archaeology. New York: Springer, 2006.

Thomas, David Hurst. Archaeology. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006.

PERIODICALS

Gibbins, D. “Shipwrecks and Maritime Archaeology.” Archaeology Prospection 9, no. 2 (2002): 279-291.

Noble, Vergil E. “Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Domestic Site Archaeology.” Historical Archaeology 35, no. 2 (2001): 142.

OTHER

“Visible Earth: Space Radar Image of the Lost City of Ubar.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. <http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=536> (accessed November 9, 2006).

T. A. Freeman

Archaeology

The European discovery of the existence of the American continents begun by the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s set up the conditions for a massively disruptive collision between two very different worlds of cultural and technological development. Despite achievements ranging from huge cities to the invention of unique writing and recording systems, the civilizations of Mexico and Central and South America were unable to withstand the combined impacts of more advanced technology and unfamiliar diseases or to mount effective military resistance to occupation and colonization.

The presence of ruins of many types posed questions almost immediately as to where the peoples of these lands had originated, how they had adapted to a huge variety of challenging environmental conditions, and what their histories had been. Answers have been sought through archaeological investigations ranging from surveys to long-term excavation and conservation projects. Over four centuries, a certain mystique has attached to the ancient Americas in the public mind, creating a global readership receptive to news of ongoing fieldwork and discoveries revealing the complexities of the hemisphere's past.

THE IDEA OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA

When the conquistadores encountered the high cultures of the region, societies whose ancestry lay in a progression of invention and adaptation to environments as diverse as the jungles of Guatemala, the altiplano of Peru, and the Valley of Mexico, their mystification gave rise to the idea of archaeology in Latin America. The clash of cultures in the early sixteenth century was accompanied by the almost total destruction of written native histories and chronicles as well as the deaths of oral historians as a result of introduced diseases. Thus no more than fragmentary answers can be found to questions as to the origins and growth of the native American civilizations. Much of the surviving information comes from ethnographic accounts, compiled by friars such as Bernardino de Sahagún, and from histories written by eyewitnesses such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo and by descendants of the native ruling classes who had been educated in reading hieroglyphic writing systems and the cycles of the calendar, such as Pedro de Cieza de León, known as "El Inca."

Advocates for the treatment of the conquered peoples as human beings, such as Bartolomé de Las Casas, also wrote histories. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries speculation on the age and possible relationships of the New World to the recorded and mythological pasts of the Old ranged from the Lost Tribes of Israel to survivors of Atlantis. Yet even at this time scholars of Latin America had begun to attempt an objective assessment of their past, excavating at major sites such as Teotihuacán and beginning to gather the surviving manuscripts and artifacts that would form the core of the first national museum collections in Peru and Mexico during the 1820s.

Latin American archaeology in the modern scientific sense had its beginnings in the 1840s, when the findings of the American John Lloyd Stephens and the British Frederick Catherwood exploded into print as Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843), discussing and illustrating the ancient cities of Uxmal, Copan, and Palenque. The discovery of the ruins of Tikal in 1848 spurred further investigations by a highly varied cadre of outsiders, ranging from the American diplomat Ephraim Squier's visits to the major sites of Peru and Bolivia in the 1860s to photographic documentation produced by the French archaeologist Désiré Charnay (1828–1915). In the later nineteenth century the archaeological heritage of each nation began to be recognized as worth protecting. For example, the Mexican congress in 1880 passed an act to stop Charnay from exporting the results of his excavations. By the 1890s excavations were under way across Latin America, if not always under well-controlled conditions. Pottery types and stratigraphy were the first analytic tools used to attempt to construct an accurate picture of cultural succession, as in the work of the German archaeologist Max Uhle (1856–1944) on the Nasca and Moche areas of the Peruvian coast and his model of a sequence of six cultures progressing from fishermen to the fully developed Inca civilization.

The new methodology was adopted by Latin American archaeologists first in Argentina and later in Mexico, where the establishment of the Escuela Internacional de Arqueología y Etnología on January 20, 1911, laid the foundation for training future generations of excavators, among them Alfonso Caso. Stratigraphy, however, yielded only very broad divisions of cultural development, overlooking or minimizing individual local or regional phases. In 1917 Manuel Gamio's excavations beneath the lava beds of the Pedregal at the site of Cuicuilco revealed the first of what would come to be known as the Formative era cultures in the Valley of Mexico. Foreign involvement in the region continued for four decades, beginning in 1914 under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C, led by the Mayanist scholar Sylvanus G. Morley (1883–1948), with attention centered on the complex world of Mesoamerica's interacting civilizations.

MESOAMERICA

Mesoamerican research in the 1920s and 1930s addressed the questions of deciphering the glyphic writing systems and their origin and determining the developmental sequence of the interwoven civilizations in the highlands and tropical forests. Excavations at sites as varied as Zacatenco in the Valley of Mexico, the Mayan sites of Uaxactún and Kaminaljuyú, and the Zapotec ceremonial center of Monte Albán yielded data supporting general agreement on common features of regional cultural evolution. The question of the ancestral Olmec and their relationship to Mayan prehistory was partially resolved with the 1938 discovery of a stela at Tres Zapotes bearing a date earlier than any then known at a Maya site. Both the American archaeologist Matthew Stirling (1896–1975) and his Mexican colleague Miguel Covarrubias endorsed the concept of an Olmec core region in Veracruz and Tabasco preceding the known Formative phase of Maya culture. Subsequent radiocarbon testing of specimens from San Lorenzo and La Venta verified this model, although debate continues on the exact relationship of the two civilizations.

By the 1950s the predominance of North Americans as field investigators had begun to shift to joint projects with their Latin American host nation counterparts, allowing for increased funding. Their ambitious projects were often aimed at the stabilization and reconstruction of major sites with a view toward making them tourist destinations. Although such efforts had long-term preservation value, fewer resources were consequently available for more focused research on topics relating to more abstract cultural features, such as vanished political systems or economic structures. Attitudes toward foreign involvement in excavations (whether as administrators or field workers) began to shift during the 1960s to a more nationally oriented mindset. The discovery of the ruins of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City in 1978 as part of the construction of a mass transit system brought this disparity to public attention.

The decipherment of the Mayan glyphic writing system was a major project from the 1950s through the 1980s, with various approaches taken. The idea of Mayan society as led by priests whose city centers were unoccupied except at specific seasons (popularized by Morley and Eric Thompson) ignored the many depictions of warfare on both stelae and in the spectacular murals of Bonampak, known since 1946. The first major breakthrough in Mayan hieroglyphic linguistics was made in 1952, when the Russian scholar Yuri Knorozov (1922–1999) demonstrated that the glyphs were a mixture of phonetic as well as pictographic characters, followed in 1958 with the identification of name glyphs for specific sites. The discovery of a royal tomb at Palenque in 1959 by the Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruiz further challenged the picture of Mayan society by offering instead an image of city-states led by kings engaged in dynastic wars. A sequence of rulers based on the glyphic signatures was first worked out in 1960 by the Russian-American Mayanist scholar Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1909–1985) for the Guatemalan site of Piedras Negras, followed by 1964 for similar king lists for Quirigua and Yaxchilán. The founding of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing project in 1967 laid the groundwork for further unifying the investigation of written Maya. The next three decades saw an extension of decipherment to retrieve details of individual reigns and an expansion of settlement, economic, and agricultural land use studies, a development that revised sharply upward the potential populations of centers such as Tikal into the tens of thousands and forced a reevaluation of Preclassic era accomplishments. The increase in textual data also allowed for the study of sociopolitical structures and the roles played by social elites and ideologies in the shaping of Mesoamerican cultures. An unusual new focus of field survey and excavation emerged in the late 1980s centering on the use of caves as centers of ritual activity and portals to the underworld. The 1976 discovery of the settlement of Cerén in El Salvador preserved under volcanic ash allowed for a detailed reconstruction of daily life and represents the expansion of archaeological work into areas outside the traditional core regions. In May 1993 the Declaration of Copán was signed by the governments of the five nations with significant Maya archaeological sites, committing resources to ecological conservation and the management of cultural resources.

The currently employed chronology of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is as follows:

2000–900 bce: Early Formative/Preclassic

900–400 bce: Middle Formative/Preclassic

400 bce–200 ce: Late Formative/Preclassic

250–900: Classic

900–1200: Early Postclassic

1200–1519: Late Postclassic

SOUTH AMERICA

The principal regions of archaeological investigation and interest in South America prior to the twentieth century were Peru and adjacent areas of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, which had been part of the Inca empire until its conquest by Francisco Pizarro in the 1530s. The massive ruins of Inca and pre-Inca architecture (whether freestanding such as the fortress of Sacsahuaman and Tiwanaku's Gateway of the Sun, or integrated into colonial Spanish buildings, the fate of Cuzco's Temple of the Sun) maintained a sense of the past as a visible presence for the Andean peoples in a fashion similar to the pyramids of Teotihuacán in Mexico. Hiram Bingham's 1911 discovery of the ruins of Machu Picchu in the Urubamba Valley was followed after World War I by excavations focused on determining the origins of Andean culture and showing that New World high civilization had its beginning in Peru rather than in Mexico. Julio Tello advanced the theory of a tropical forest culture moving into the mountains and later to the coast, based on his fieldwork at Chavín de Huántar, while his colleague Rafael Larco Hoyle saw Peruvian civilization arising on the coast and moving into the highlands, an argument rooted in work at the north coastal site of Cupisnique.

Beginning in the 1920s, research goals shifted from defining origins to establishing accurate cultural sequences for the central Andes through concentrated excavations at major sites of occupation. This concept was expanded in 1946 with the Viru Valley Project, which used one manageable, well-defined area as a model of the interplay of land use and culture, and yielded the most detailed sequence yet known anywhere in the Andes. Similar work continued in both the highlands and on the coast, centering attention on the origins and growth of public structures and regional cultural development. Emilio Estrada's 1956 discovery of the coastal site of Valdivia subsequently yielded pottery dating to 3000 bce, pushing back the dating of ceramics in Peru by a millennium. The 1960s saw major Peruvian campaigns by Japanese archaeologists testing the viability of Julio Tello's theory of the Chavín past, and the adoption by Peru's own archaeologists of a focus on ethnobotany, manifested in the international Ayacucho Archaeological-Botanical Project. The University of San Marcos renewed work at Chavín de Huántar, while regional work shifted emphasis to tracing stylistic variations over time (an example being the chronological sequence for the Ica Valley) and combining field data with ethnohistorical sources for Cuzco and the Incan province of Huánuco. The 1970s saw a renewal of large-scale investigations at sites as varied as Huari in the Central Highlands and the coastal metropolis of Chan Chan, exploring the development of urbanism and continuing the regional focus with work in the Moche Valley.

Debate over the origins of the Chavín tradition was augmented by findings documenting the existence of a tradition of monumental architecture on the coast and the verification of a highland ceremonial complex, both predating the appearance of ceramics. International public attention focused on Peruvian archaeology, with the finding of a lavish Moche burial at the coastal site of Sipán in 1987, and the almost perfectly preserved frozen body of a young woman at the peak of Mount Ampato in 1995. The widely scattered collections of khipu, the knotted cords used as recording systems by the Inca, began to be united and analyzed by computer according to physical features and components in the Khipu Database Project in 1996, incorporating then-recent finds from the northern Peruvian site of Chachapoyas.

The picture of Peru as the early center of cultural development for the continent shifted as further fieldwork was carried out in adjacent regions. Coastal cultures from Ecuador to Chile were understood to serve as sources for maritime materials traded from sites such as Valdivia into the highlands; further insight into the roles of the cultures of northwest South America and the Amazon basin began to develop. The 1961 discovery in northern Colombia of Puerto Hormiga (with ceramics of the same age as those on the Peruvian coast) was followed by similar work in lowland Ecuador and Donald Lathrap's research on the Ucayali River in the upper Amazon Basin. Lathrap advanced the idea that the richly varied Amazon environment had been capable of supporting complex societies, regarding the early ceramic sites outside Peru as supporting Tello's idea of an ancient tropical culture ancestral to much later development.

Away from the more intensively worked areas of the Andes and the western coast, archaeology developed along other lines. The vast landscape of Brazil, with field survey data organized by state, posed special problems for fieldwork because of a climate inimical to the preservation of artifacts made of materials other than stone, pottery, or shell. An early classification offered in 1937 by the Argentine archaeologist Antonio Serrano split the shell middens (known locally as sambaquis) into two groups by associated fauna, and Joao Angyone Costa's Introducao a arqueologia brasileira appeared in 1934 and was updated in 1938, when Anibal Mattos's Prehistoria brasileira was published. The archaeology of the Amazon basin before the end of the 1940s was based primarily on analysis of museum collections from Marajo and Santarem, a situation altered by the fieldwork of Betty Meggers at a group of sites in the mouth of the Amazon in 1948. The next thirty years witnessed the transformation of Brazilian archaeology from hobby to science, the revival and expansion of professional associations and opportunities for training, and the inauguration of long-term projects such as the five-year Programa Nacional de Pesquisas Arquelogicas (a partnership of the Smithsonian Institution and the Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas). This project surveyed the Atlantic coast of Brazil from the Amazon delta to the Uruguayan border, an effort yielding more than fifteen hundred sites ranging in age from pre-ceramic to colonial in date. The foundation of the Instituto de Arqueologia Brasileira by Ondemar Dias in 1961 provided for popular education and involvement in field excavations and laid the groundwork for the formation of the Sociedade de Arqueologia Brasileira in 1980.

South American archaeological chronology is as follows:

?–2500 bce: Preceramic

2500–1800 bce: Late Preceramic

1800–900 bce: Initial Period

900 bce–1 ce: Early Horizon (Chavín)

1–600 ce: Early Intermediate

600–1000: Middle Horizon

1000–1476: Late Intermediate

1476–1532: Late Horizon (Inca)

Somewhat overshadowed by the spectacular nature of the ruins of pre-Columbian civilizations, archaeology of historical period sites had nevertheless begun to emerge as a distinct area of research in South America during the later 1960s, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, although investigations of sites such as the eighteenth-century hostel at Pajatambo had begun in Peru by the 1970s. The types of sites examined ranged from Carlos Magono Guimaraes's work on maroon settlements in Minas Gerais, Kern's Jesuit Missions studies in southern Brazil (unique, as the sites were considered both Guarani and European communities), and Daniel Schávelzon's work on the past of Buenos Aires.

The Caribbean

Caribbean archaeology has likewise focused fieldwork on a mixture of historic period sites (often associated with some aspect of slavery) and investigations on the indigenous populations of the islands and their legacies since the initial settlement around 3100 bce. The foundation of the International Association for Caribbean Archaeology in 1961 created a professional forum for discussion on needed research priorities and current excavations with its conferences.

ARCHAELOGICAL QUESTIONS: THE 1990S

Major questions for Latin American archaeologists during the 1990s addressed developments occurring over a substantial portion of the continent, such as the domestication of the llama and alpaca in the Andes, the development and symbolic uses of metallurgy and the artifacts it produced, a reevaluation of the prehistory of the Amazon basin, and consideration of the unique processes that resulted in Latin American urbanism in cities as varied as Cuzco, Mayapan, and Tikal. Research in Brazil turned its attention to the antiquity of human presence in South America, the interplay of ecology and the prehistoric cultures of Brazil, and a return to the study of rock art, long a uniquely successful focus of fieldwork, publication, and classification within the country's scientific establishment. An ongoing regional problem for Latin American archaeology in general is the dissemination of theoretical proposals and important discoveries on the prehistory of the hemisphere outside the network of local or regional scientific publications and conferences; many of the models for the population of the Americas are dominated by arguments put forward by the North American archaeological community that either minimize Latin American work or do not integrate its results into their framework at all. In the tradition begun by Ignacio Bernal, the history of regional archaeology has continued to be written in works such as Mario Orellana Rodríguez's Historia de la arqueologia en Chile, 1842–1990 (1996) and Rafael Cobos's Sintesis de la arqueologia de El Salvador, 1850–1991 (1994), allowing significant research to receive the recognition it deserves. Efforts continue at the national and international levels to stem the trade in looted artifacts from Latin American sites. However, this effort collides with economic realities of the past, as resources are commonly exploited by "subsistence digging," a practice likely to continue until underlying factors of poverty and development are addressed.

See alsoBernal y García Pimentel, Ignacio; Caso y Andrade, Alfonso; Catherwood, Frederick; Cerén; Chan Chan; Chavín de Huántar; Cieza de León, Pedro de; Covarrubias, Miguel; Cuicuilco; Cupisnique Culture; Cuzco; Díaz del Castillo, Bernal; Gamio Martínez, Manuel; Guarani Indians; Huánuco; Huari; Incas, The; Kaminaljuyú; Knorosov, Yuri; Las Casas, Bartolomé de; Machu Picchu; Maya, The; Mayapan; Moche; Monte Albán; Nasca; Olmecs; Piedras Negras, Guatemala; Puerto Hormiga; Quirigua; Sacsahuaman; Sahagún, Bernardino de; Sipán; Squier, Ephraim George; Stephens, John Lloyd; Tello, Julio César; Templo Mayor; Teotihuacán; Thompson, Eric; Tikal; Tiwanaku; Uaxactún; Valdivia Culture; Yaxchilán; Zapotecs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernal, Ignacio. Historia de la arqueología en México. México: Editorial Porrúa, 1979.

Brady, James Edward, and Keith M. Prufer, eds. In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.

Burger, Richard L. "An Overview of Peruvian Archaeology (1976–1986)." Annual Review of Anthropology 18 (1989): 37-69.

Cobos, Rafael. Síntesis de la arqueología de El Salvador, 1850–1991. San Salvador: Dirección General de Publicaciones e Impresos, 1994.

Farnsworth, Paul, ed. Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001.

Fash, William L. "Changing Perspectives on Maya Civilization." Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 181-208.

Funari, Pedro Paulo A. "Archaeology, History, and Historical Archaeology in South America." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 1, no. 3 (1997): 189-206.

Haviser, Jay B., ed. African Sites Archaeology in the Caribbean. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.

King, Jaime Litvak. "Mesoamerica: Events and Processes, the Last Fifty Years." American Antiquity 50, no. 2 (1985): 374-382.

Matsuda, D. "The Ethics of Archaeology, Subsistence Digging, and Artifact Looting in Latin America: Point Muted Counterpoint." International Journal of Cultural Property 7, no. 1 (1998): 87-97.

Orellana Rodríguez, Mario. Historia de la arqueología en Chile, 1842–1990. Santiago, Chile: Bravo y Allende Editores, 1996.

Politis, Gustavo G., and Benjamin Alberti, eds. Archaeology in Latin America. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Schávelzon, Daniel. The Historical Archaeology of Buenos Aires: A City at the End of the World, trans. Alex Lomonaco. New York: Kluwer, 1999.

Scheinsohn, Vivian. "Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology in South America." Annual Review of Anthropology 32 (2003): 339-361.

Stahl, Peter W., ed. Archaeology in the Lowland American Tropics: Current Analytical Methods and Recent Applications. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Stanish, Charles. "The Origin of State Societies in South America." Annual Review of Anthropology 30 (2001): 41-64.

                                      Robert B. Ridinger

Archaeology

The term archaeology refers, in part, to the study of human culture and of cultural changes that occur over time . In practice, archaeologists attempt to logically reconstruct human activities of the past by systematically recovering and examining artifacts or objects of human origin. However, archaeology is a multi-faceted scientific pursuit, and includes various specialized disciplines and subfields of study. Depending on the specific field of interest, archaeological artifacts can encompass anything from ancient Greek pottery vessels to disposable plastic bottles at modern dump sites. Thus, studies in archaeology can extend from the advent of human prehistory to the most recent of modern times. The two most common areas of study in archaeological research today, particularly in the United States, are prehistoric and historic archaeology.

Background

Although there has been a natural interest in the collection of antiquities for many hundreds of years, controlled scientific excavation and the systematic study of artifacts and the cultures who made them was not widely practiced until early in the twentieth century. Prior to that time, most archaeology consisted of randomly collecting artifacts that could be found lying on the surface of sites or in caves. In Europe and the Middle East, well-marked tombs and other ancient structures provided visual clues that valuable antiquities might be found hidden nearby.

Because most of these early expeditions were financed by private individuals and wealthy collectors, broken artifacts were often left behind, because only intact and highly-crafted items were thought to have any value. Consequently, early theories regarding the cultures from which artifacts originated were little more than speculation.

One of the first Americans to practice many of the techniques used in modern archaeology was Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Before serving his term as president of the United States, Jefferson directed systematic excavations in Virginia of prehistoric Indian "mounds" or earthworks that resemble low pyramids made from soil . His published report by the American Philosophical Society in 1799 marked the beginning of a new era in archaeological studies.

In addition to his thorough examination and recording of artifacts, Jefferson was perhaps the first researcher to observe and note a phenomenon known as stratigraphy, where soil and artifacts are deposited and layered one above the other like the skins of an onion. Jefferson's observation of site stratigraphy is still in use today as a basic field technique in determining the age and complexity of archaeological sites.

During the late nineteenth century, academic archaeology as a university subject sprang from a branch of anthropology, one of the social sciences that mainly concentrates on understanding the cultural traditions and activities of non-literate peoples.

American anthropologists of the time discovered that a better way to understand the social structure of living Native Americans was to try to reconstruct their prehistoric lifestyles. At the same time, archaeologists found that studies of contemporary Native Americans help in the interpretation of prehistoric Indian cultures, of which there are no written records. Thus, modern archaeology evolved as a result of the mutual effort between these two separate fields of academic discipline.

In addition to the many important discoveries made by researchers over the past century, perhaps the most sweeping event in the history of archaeology was the development of radiocarbon or C-14 dating in the late 1940s by Willard F. Libby.

Instead of relying solely on theories and hypotheses to date a site, scientists could derive, through laboratory analysis, highly accurate dates from small samples of organic material such as wood or bone. In many cases, radiocarbon dating proved or disproved theories regarding the postulated ages of important archaeological finds.

Today, archaeologists use a variety of techniques to unlock ancient mysteries. Some of these newly-developed techniques even include the use of space technology. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ongoing project, Mission to Planet Earth, is one example. The primary objective of the project is to map global environmental changes by using specially designed SIR-C/X-SAR (Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar). However, a recent Middle East mission conducted by the space shuttle Endeavor resulted in several radar photographs of a series of ancient desert roadways leading to a central location. Field investigations, currently underway, have revealed that the roadways lead to the 5,000-year-old lost city of Ubar in southern Oman on the Arab Peninsula.

Disciplines

Over the past several decades, as new laboratory technologies have become available, so have the number of disciplines or fields of study that are linked to archaeology. Although they may seem unrelated, each is important, in that they contribute to the growing body of knowledge about humankind.

Physical anthropology, ethnobotany , DNA analysis, x-ray emission microanalysis, and palynology are but a few of the dozens of specialized areas of study. However, the individual field archaeologist tends to focus his or her research on a specific culture and/or era in time.

Prehistoric archaeology

Everything that is currently known about human prehistory is derived through the excavation and study of ancient materials.

Prehistoric archaeology encompasses the study of humankind prior to the advent of written languages or written history. In effect, the job of the prehistoric archaeologist is to discover and write about the histories of ancient peoples who had no written history of their own.

However, prehistory lasted for different times in different parts of the world. In Europe, primitive written languages made their appearance around 2500 b.c., thus technically ending Old World prehistory. On the other hand, American prehistory came to a close only 500 years ago when explorers such as Christopher Columbus (c. 1451-1506) visited the New World for the first time. By returning to their homelands with written reports of what they had seen, those explorers ushered in the early historic era of the Western Hemisphere.

Historic archaeology

As opposed to prehistoric archaeological studies, historic archaeology is a discipline that focuses on a more detailed understanding of the recent past. Typically, any site or building over 50 years old but younger than the regional area's prehistory is considered historic. For example, Civil War battlefields are historic landmarks. Because most historic sites and buildings were used during times when records were kept, the historic archaeologist can review written documentation pertaining to that time and place as part of the overall study.

Artifactual material discovered during an historic archaeological excavation adds specific detailed information to the knowledge already gathered from existing historic documents.

A relatively new sub-discipline of historic archaeology, known as urban archaeology, attempts to quantify our current culture and cultural trends by examining material found at modern dump sites. Urban archaeology has been primarily used as a teaching aid in helping students of cultural anthropology and archaeology develop interpretive skills.

Classical archaeology

The classical archaeologist is perhaps the most popular public stereotype—the "Indiana Jones" movie character, for example, is based on the fantastic exploits of a classical archaeologist. The roots of classical archaeology can be traced to the European fascination with Biblical studies and ancient scholarship. Classical archaeologists focus on monumental art, architecture, and ancient history. Greek mythology, Chinese dynasties, and all ancient civilizations are the domain of the classical archaeologist.

This field is perhaps one of the most complex areas of the study of human culture, for it must utilize a combination of both prehistoric and historic archaeological techniques. In addition, classical studies often employ what is referred to as underwater archaeology to recover the cargo of sunken ancient sailing vessels that carried trade goods from port to port.

Cultural resource management

Beginning in the 1940s, a number of state and federal laws have been enacted in the United States to protect archaeological resources from potential destruction that could be caused by governmental developments such as highway construction. In the 1970s, additional legislation extended these laws to cover development projects in the private sector. Other countries have also passed similar laws protecting their antiquities. As a result, archaeology has moved from a purely academic study into the realm of private enterprise, spawning hundreds of consulting firms that specialize in contract archaeology or what is commonly known as cultural resource management (CRM).

CRM work has become a major economic industry in the United States, generating an estimated 250 million dollars a year in annual business through government and private contracts. Most archaeological studies conducted in the United States today are a direct result of compliance with antiquities laws.

Construction projects such as the building of dams , highways, power lines, and housing developments are a recognized and accepted pattern of human growth. It is also recognized that these activities sometimes have a detrimental affect on the evidences of human history. Both historic buildings and prehistoric sites are often encountered during the course of new construction planning. However, various steps can be taken to insure that such sites are acknowledged and investigated prior to any activities that might damage them.

The two most common measures that can be taken when a site lies in the path of development include (1) preservation by simple avoidance or (2) data recovery. Preservation by avoidance could mean re-routing a highway around an archaeological site, or moving the placement of a planned building to a different location. On the other hand, when avoidance is not possible, then data recovery by excavation becomes the next alternative.

In the case of historic structures, for example, data recovery usually includes a thorough recordation of the building. This might include photographs, scale interior and exterior drawings, and historic document searches to determine who designed and built the structure or who might have lived there. For prehistoric resources, sampling the contents of the subsurface deposit by excavation is perhaps the only method by which to determine the significance of a site.

Field methods

Archaeological survey/field reconnaissance

Prior to any archaeological excavation, whether it be prehistoric or historic, a survey or field reconnaissance must be conducted. In general terms, a survey systematically inspects the surface of a site to determine whether or not it is significant and may warrant further investigation. Although the determination of significance is somewhat subjective, most researchers agree that it hinges on a site's potential to yield useful information. Significance may include the ability of a site to produce new, previously unknown information, or additional data to add to what is currently known about the site's original inhabitants and their culture.

Surveys are also conducted on undeveloped properties where no sites have been previously recorded. These types of surveys are performed to verify that no sites are on the subject property, or if one is found, to record its presence and document its location, condition, size, and type. All records pertaining to archaeological surveys and sites are permanently stored at either government or university clearing houses for future reference by other archaeologists.

Test excavation

The term test excavation refers to the intermediate stage of an archaeological investigation between surveying and salvage excavation or full data recovery program. It generally incorporates the digging of units or square pits in order to sample the contents and depth of an archaeological site. Test units can be randomly located on a site or placed in specific locations. The use of test units helps the archaeologist determine what areas of a site will yield the highest quantity of artifacts or most useful information before committing time and resources to a more intensive study.

Typically, test units are measured metrically, such as in a one meter by one meter square, and excavated through the archaeological deposit to sterile soil, or soil which fails to produce any additional finds. Depending on the project and the type of site, various methods and techniques are used during an excavation. Sometimes the artifact-bearing soils (called midden) are excavated from units in 2–4 in (5–10 cm) levels, carefully peeling one layer of soil and then the next. This is known as arbitrary excavation.

In instances where natural soil layering can be observed, excavation comprises removal of each layer or strata regardless of its thickness. The purpose in both cases is to maintain a vertical control of where artifacts were recovered, as well as separating the shallow, younger materials from deeper, older materials.

Each layer or level of soil recovered from unit excavations is sifted through a wire mesh or screen. Soil falls through the screen while artifacts and other material are left on top, where they are then washed, sorted according to type, bagged, and labeled. In this way, archaeologists not only record from what unit a particular artifact was found but also at what depth.

Thus, archaeologists can reconstruct a three-dimensional view of a site layout.

Salvage excavation

Salvage excavations, or what is referred to as rescue archaeology outside the United States, generally represent the final data recovery program of an archaeological site. Although the methods used in salvage excavations are similar to those of test excavations, there are some distinctions with regard to objectives.

Whereas the term test implies an initial investigation to be followed by further study, the term salvage generally denotes that no additional research may be undertaken once the excavation is complete. This is particularly true for archaeological sites that will be destroyed as a result of construction activities.

Unfortunately, it is an accepted fact in archaeology that recovery of 100% of the contents of a site is impractical due to either time or budget constraints. In actuality, that number is estimated from less than 1% to as much as 7%, leaving the remaining bulk of the deposit unstudied. Thus, archaeologists are forced by necessity to make determinations on the most appropriate mode of data recovery and what avenues of research would best benefit from the excavation.

Traditional methods of excavation typically include the use of picks, shovels, trowels, and hand-held shaker screens.

However, archaeologists have realized that although laboratory techniques have taken full advantage of the latest technologies, field methods have not made a corresponding advancement, and in fact have not changed dramatically since the 1930s. To tackle this problem, researchers have begun to experiment with various alternative methods of data recovery. These alternatives are designed to increase sample size, lower costs to sponsors, and at the same time maintain careful scientific control over the recovery process.

One of these alternatives includes the use of earthmoving machinery. For decades, machines such as backhoes or tractor-mounted augers have been employed during test excavations to aid in determining the boundaries and depths of archaeological deposits. Recently, however, machines have been used to actually salvage excavate sites by simulating traditional digging methods, or digging level by level. As a result, new methods of hydraulic water screening have been developed to process large amounts of midden soils. Although machines have been successfully utilized in salvage excavations, the use of mechanized earth-moving machinery in archaeology is not widely practiced and cannot be applied to all sites.

Current controversy

Among many North American Indian tribes, treatment of the dead has traditionally been a matter of great concern. Some modern-day Native Americans have expressed that ancestral graves should not be disturbed or, if that cannot be prevented, then any remains and artifacts recovered should be reburied with ceremony.

However, it was not until the 1970s that this issue became a nationwide concern. By then, public attitudes in the United States had become more favorable toward both Native American interests and religious values. Passage of the Native American Religious Freedom Act of 1978 was a reflection of this change in public attitude, as well as a result of the newly developed political awareness and organization of Native American activist groups.

In 1990, the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was signed into federal law. In addition to applying penalties for the trafficking of illegally obtained Native American human remains and cultural items, the law mandated that all federally-funded institutions (museums, universities, etc.) are required to repatriate or "give back" their Native American collections to tribes who claim cultural or religious ownership over those materials. These and other recently adopted state laws have sparked a heated controversy among scientists and Native American groups.

For archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and other scholars who study humankind's past, graves have provided a very important source of knowledge about past cultures. This has been particularly true in the reconstruction of prehistoric North American cultures whose peoples left no written history but who buried their dead surrounded with material goods of the time. Repatriation of this material will prevent any further studies from being conducted in the future.

Although many researchers support repatriation of historic material that can be directly linked to living tribal descendants, others have stated that it is not possible to make such determinations on very ancient materials that date to before the pyramids of Egypt. Another argument is that ongoing medical studies of diseases found in the bones of ancient remains could lead to breakthroughs in treatments to help the living.

Archaeologists have expressed that museum materials are part of the heritage of the nation, and that these new laws fail to take into consideration the many complex factors that separate ancient human remains from modern Native American cultures.

See also Dating techniques; Ethnoarchaeology.

Resources

books

Ashmore, Wendy, and Robert J. Sharer. Discovering Our Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1999.

Bahn, Paul G., ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Fagan, Brian M. Archaeology: A Brief Introduction. 8th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Feder, Kenneth L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Haviland, William A. Human Evolution and Prehistory. 2nd ed. New York: CBS College Publishing, 1983.

Joukowsky, Marth. A Complete Field Manual of Archaeology: Tools and Techniques of Field Work for Archaeologists. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980.

Renfrew, Colin, and Paul G. Bahn. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice. 3rd ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

periodicals

Gibbins, D. "Shipwrecks and Maritime Archaeology." Archaeology Prospection 9, no. 2 (2002): 279-291.

Noble, Vergil E. "Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Domestic Site Archaeology." Historical Archaeology 35, no. 2 (2001): 142.

T. A. Freeman

KEY TERMS

Artifact

—A man-made object that has been shaped and fashioned for human use.

Classical archaeology

—Archaeological research that deals with ancient history, ancient architecture, or any of the now-extinct civilizations of Greece, Egypt, Rome, Aztec, Mayan, etc.

Cultural resource management

—Contract archaeology performed by privately owned and operated archaeological consulting firms.

Data recovery

—An excavation intended to recover artifacts which represent the basic, raw data of any archaeological study.

Deposit

—Refers to the three-dimensional, subsurface or below-ground portion of an archaeological site.

Discipline

—A specialized field or sub-field of study.

Historic archaeology

—Archaeological studies focusing on the eras of recorded history.

Midden

—Darkened archaeological site soil caused by organic waste material such as food refuse and charcoal from ancient campfires.

Prehistoric archaeology

—Archaeological studies dealing with material which dates to before the historic era, or before the advent of written languages.

Salvage/rescue excavation

—The final phase of a typical two-part series of archaeological site excavations.

Site

—An archaeological resource such as an ancient Indian campsite, or an old, historic building.

Survey

—A systematic surface inspection conducted to examine a known archaeological site or to verify that no site exists on the property under examination.

Test excavation

—A preliminary excavation conducted to determine the size, depth, and significance of an archaeological site prior to committing to a salvage or final excavation.