secondary burials, which suggests that deceased clansmen were re-interred with their chief.

Whether the lack of rigid hierarchical social structures over large parts of Melanesia prevented the dense populations of agriculturists, like those in the New Guinea Highlands, or complex maritime traders, like those in island Melanesia, from achieving the transformation to city-states as elsewhere in the world remains a matter of debate. In neither case did any particular group control both a stable agricultural base and access to wealth accumulation through trade, which some people believe are requisites for such transformations. Especially in the case of island Melanesia, the emergence of maritime societies followed a gradual and logical adaptation to an oceanic world that had more limited terrestrial resources than homelands to the west. This evolution was clearly aided and added to by movements of people and technologies into the region from further west, coupled with increasing local complexity and specialization if not long-term stability.

Jim Allen

References

Spriggs, M. 1997. The Island Melanesians. Oxford: Blackwell.

Parrot, André

(1901–1980)

André Parrot first studied theology and then, as a result of art history lessons at the École du louvre, became interested in the ancient Near East. He spent a year at the École Biblique et Archéologique in Jerusalem and then excavated at Nerab in northern Syria in 1926. In 1927, he excavated at Balbeck in Lebanon, and in 1931, he worked at the Sumerian site of Telloh, where he was director of excavations from 1931 to 1933.

Parrot began excavating Tell Senkere, the site of ancient Larsa, in 1933, but political problems with the Iraqis caused him to begin to excavate the Mesopotamian site of Mari in southeastern Syria instead; he was to direct excavations there until 1961. Mari was a city founded in the early third millenium and had a long settlement history until the late first millenium b.c. Parrot discovered major temple and palace complexes and major archives from the Old Babylonian period of the early-eighteenth century b.c.

Parrot’s association with the Louvre continued throughout his career. He was appointed conservator, then chief conservator, of the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities, and during his time there, he completely reorganized the Near Eastern galleries. He was appointed director of the museum in 1965. He published on the history of art and biblical history, demonstrating links between the biblical world and other Near Eastern civilizations.

Tim Murray

See also

French Archaeology in Egypt and the Middle East

References

Parrot, André. 1976. L’Archéologie. Paris: Seghers.

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

The Peabody Museum, a part of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been an active sponsor of field archaeology since its founding in 1866. It has undertaken significant field research in the Maya area, lower Central America, the southwestern and southeastern sections of the United States, and the early prehistory of Europe and Asia. The first academic department to grant a Ph.D. in archaeology in North America, the Peabody Museum has provided an institutional base for the development of culture-historical archaeology and the direct historical approach.

The Peabody Museum helped shape the discipline of archaeology in North America. Its initial constitution called for special attention to “the early races of the American Continent,” an orientation reflected in its original name, the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. Forty years were to pass before the museum undertook serious archaeological exploration outside the Americas, and during that time, the museum underwent significant changes in organization that were of fundamental importance both to its changing orientation and to its impact on training in archaeology in the United States.