Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (403 page)

MacNeish , Richard Stockton ‘Scotty’
(1918–2001)
[Bi].

American archaeologist who pioneered research on the evolution of agriculture and who studied the earliest human migrations into the New World. Born in New York he was a schoolboy boxer of note, taking his degrees at the University of Chicago and completing his BA in 1940 and his Ph.D. in 1949. He joined the National Museum of Canada as an archaeologist in 1949, remaining there until 1964 when the Tehuacán Project in Mexico was already well under way. This project examined the long-term cultural and environmental history of the Tehuacán Valley and was the first post-Pleistocene sequence for any region important in New World archaeology. It documented changes in subsistence patterns and the development of agriculture and village life which underpinned the rise of Olmec, Zapotec, and Maya civilizations. In 1964 he founded the Department of Archaeology in the University of Calgary, Canada, the first such freestanding department in the Americas. He continued this tradition and commitment to archaeology as a distinct discipline by spending the period 1982 to 1986 at the newly established Department of Archaeology in Boston University, the first such department in the USA. Between 1968 and 1983 he was director of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, but resigned after a disagreement with the governing body there about the allocation of funds. In the mid 1980s he established the Andover Foundation for Archaeological Research which served as a vehicle for receiving grants and running his projects for the rest of his life. Always a field archaeologist, he calculated that he spent 5683 days in the field during four decades of active research. He was awarded many honours and prizes for his work, including membership of the United States Academy of Sciences. Tragically, he died following a car crash in Belize where he was taking a working holiday to examine the sites of Lamanai and Caracol.
[Obit.:
Antiquity
, 75 (2001), 9–11]

 
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A group of several, usually related, families who set up seasonal hunter-gatherer camps. Well established through anthropological research, such social units are often used as a model for prehistoric societies. There may be more than one camp in the region exploited by a given macroband, the group itself moving from one area to another to exploit seasonal food resources. At some times of the year, the macroband splits into microbands.
FISSION/FUSION
.

 
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Plant remains recovered from archaeological contexts that can be seen with the naked eye. These tend to be seeds and wood fragments, but nuts and other fruits may also be represented.

 
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Neolithic
DEVELOPED PASSAGE GRAVE
on Mainland in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Constructed around 2750 bc the site has been partially investigated on several occasions, the first systematic excavations being those by Gordon Childe in 1954–5; later work includes a section through the surrounding ditch by Colin Renfrew in 1973–4, and a trench on the platform immediately outside the entrance by Colin Richards in 1991. Prior to all these, however, the central chamber had been entered and sacked by Vikings in the 12th century
ad
. They made runic inscriptions on the walls and claimed, amongst other things, to have carried off a great treasure.
The main mound is 7.3m high and 35m in diameter. A passage 12m long leads into the mound from the southwest side and gives access to a very well-constructed vaulted chamber about 4.5m square. This chamber has small square cells set into three of its walls above the floor level. Internal buttresses in each of the corners support the corbelled roof. The mound stands on a platform constructed over the remains of earlier structures, possibly houses, and is surrounded by a bank and ditch.
[Rep.: C. Renfrew , 1979,
Investigations in Orkney
. London: Society of Antiquaries. 31–8]

 
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A regional group of
DEVELOPED PASSAGE GRAVES
defined by Audrey Henshall . Centred on Orkney in the far north of Scotland, the group is named after the type-site of
MAES HOWE
. About twelve examples are known, characterized by their large rectangular chambers, small side cells leading off the main chamber, restricted entrances to the side cells, and long narrow approach passages.

 
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