Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (534 page)

A set of theoretical approaches that attempt to understand the way in which people experience the world they create and inhabit; the study of human experience and consciousness in everyday life. The starting point is the idea of ‘being’ in the world, that is being situated in a physical and social space. Writing in the early 20th century, Edmund Husserl believed he could create a presuppositionless analysis of human experience, but this was challenged by Martin Heidegger who maintained that any observer was situated within the world being observed.

 
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Mobile communities of the eastern Mediterranean in the late 2nd millennium
bc
, perhaps of Aegean or European origin, one of the
SEA PEOPLES
. After unsuccessfully attacking Egypt in
c.
1200 bc they drove the
CANAANITES
from the coastal plain of Palestine and settled there. One of their main cities was Ashkelon, but imported Aegean and Cypriot material of the period is found widely in the region. The Philistines were eventually subsumed by the
ISRAELITES
around 1000 bc.

 
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Phillips , Charles William
(1901–85)
[Bi].

British archaeologist with both a distinguished amateur and professional career in the subject. Following a degree in history at Cambridge in 1922 he was appointed Librarian and Fellow of Selwyn College. All his spare time was devoted to field archaeology, especially in Lincolnshire and the Fens. Immediately before the outbreak of war in 1939 he was put in charge of excavations at
SUTTON HOO
, Suffolk. During the war he was at the Central Photographic Interpretation Unit in Medmenham where he became an authority on aerial photography. In 1945 he was appointed to his first professional post in archaeology as Archaeology Officer at the Ordnance Survey, a position he held until his retirement in 1965.
[Abio.: C. W. Phillips , 1987,
My life in archaeology
. Gloucester: Alan Sutton]

 
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A Semitic people from the eastern Mediterranean renowned as traders in later prehistory, erroneously credited with many wondrous exploits around the world. Descendants of the
CANAANITES
, their early history is obscure. By the later 2nd millennium
bc
, however, they occupied the narrow coastal plain of Lebanon and Syria with important settlements at Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Under Hiram I of Tyre (970–936 bc) the Phoenicians enjoyed a golden age; soon afterwards a series of colonies was established as part of a complex and extensive trading network in the western Mediterranean. The colonies included: Gades, Gibraltar, Tingis, Carthago Nova, Ebusius, Cherchell, Algiers, Hippo, Carthage, Utica, Sabrata, Lepcis Magna, Malta, Nora, Caralis, Sulicis, Tharros, and Olbia. After their incorporation into the Babylonian empire in 574 bc they continued their role as merchants, traders, and middlemen. They were the leading seafarers of the 1st millennium
bc
, sailing into the Atlantic and reputedly circumnavigating Africa. It is often claimed that they came to Britain, but this has never been substantiated. Towards the end of the 1st millennium
bc
they were absorbed into the Hellenistic and Roman world. The Phoenicians are believed to have developed the first alphabetic script around 1500 bc; the Greek, Roman, Arabic, and Hebrew alphabets all derive from the Phoenician one.

 
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Phosphates are naturally present in all soils at varying levels. Anthropogenically derived phosphates have their sources in a wide range of organic materials with the result that in occupation areas, burials, food-processing areas, latrine areas and animal compounds and droveways the phosphate levels in the soil can be considerably enhanced. Once in the soil, phosphate is generally fixed in an insoluble form to inorganic aluminium, calcium, and iron components, or associates with organic molecules to form insoluble complexes. Fixed in this way it can survive for long periods. In archaeology, identifying concentrations of phosphates through
PHOSPHATE ANALYSIS
is extremely useful for the recognition and definition of settlement sites, and mapping the different levels of activity within a site. Phosphates can also be used to identify the presence of burials in ground where all physical traces have vanished.

 
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