C A Petrie
Biographic Data
| ID | 125148 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C A Petrie |
| GIVEN NAMES | C A |
| FAMILY NAME | Petrie |
| SIGNATURE | PETRIE C A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2926-7230 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 247 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 53 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Ponds and Their Potential for Agricultural Sustainability in Punjab; Insights from a Century of Surface Water Change in the Granary of India
Ponds are one of the most basic landscape features that humans can use to manage water, and were important landscape features common especially in periods before people began extracting groundwater using fossil-fuels. In this article we use historical cartography and geospatial methods to analyse a century of change in pond distribution in the Indian state of Punjab, part of a larger area colloquially known as the ‘Granary’ of India. We ask how t…
Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro was a major city of the Indus Civilisation ( c . 2600–1900 BC), with excavations revealing evidence for public infrastructure, civic amenities and hundreds of residences. Archaeologists traditionally assume that urbanism is accompanied by economic stratification, but, at Mohenjo-daro, qualitative evidence of inequality is absent. Drawing on early excavation data, the authors here calculate Gini coefficients of residence area, providi…
Over the Hills and Far Away
Archaeologists have long been interested in mobility in the past, but tend to think about and visualize movement in simplified ways that do not account for the range of topographic, environmental, and climatic factors that influenced it. The Iranian Plateau is akin to a number of regions around the globe characterized by dramatic diversity in topography, natural resources, and climate that present local and regionally varied affordances and restr…
Hidden in Plain Sight
Social resilience to changes in climate over the past 5000 years
Increasing numbers of studies are investigating the phenomenon of social resistance, particularly instances of stability or prosperity in the face of climatic–environmental stresses over a long period. This emerging research field of climate resilience explores the capability of socio-ecological systems to cope with stresses, maintain functions, and evolve into more desirable systems within stressful climatic and environmental conditions. This sy…
The Global Dynamics of Inequality (Gini) project
The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally
Identifying accurate artefact morphological ranges using optimal linear estimation
A fundamental goal of archaeologists is to infer the behaviour of past humans from the attributes of the artefacts they left behind. The archaeological record is, however, fragmented and often provides a partial record of the total artefacts produced by a given population. In turn, there is potential for population-level morphometric data, and therefore behavioural inferences, to be biased relative to the trends realised in the past. This include…
Weather, Land and Crops in the Indus Village Model
The start and end of the urban phase of the Indus civilization (IC; c. 2500 to 1900 BC) are often linked with climate change, specifically regarding trends in the intensity of summer and winter precipitation and its effect on the productivity of local food economies. The Indus Village is a modular agent-based model designed as a heuristic “sandbox” to investigate how IC farmers could cope with diverse and changing environments and how climate cha…
Landscape resource management for sustainable crop intensification
Crop intensification is required to meet the food demands of an increasing population. This paper presents data from three paired scaling-up initiatives to compare the benefits of landscape-based interventions over individual plot-level interventions using evidence generated in the Indian semi-arid tropics. A range of soil and water conservation interventions were implemented in a decentralized manner following the landscape-based approach. The p…
Seeking sustainable pathways for fostering agricultural transformation in peninsular India
Sizable populations in developing countries in Asia and Africa live in dryland ecosystems, and agriculture in these areas faces major challenges including water scarcity, land degradation, poor infrastructure and insufficient access to markets. Natural resource management (NRM) interventions offer an important path to sustainable agricultural practices through increasing resource use efficiency, but true efficacy will only be achievable if these …
Potential of deep learning segmentation for the extraction of archaeological features from historical map series
Historical maps present a unique depiction of past landscapes, providing evidence for a wide range of information such as settlement distribution, past land use, natural resources, transport networks, toponymy and other natural and cultural data within an explicitly spatial context. Maps produced before the expansion of large-scale mechanized agriculture reflect a landscape that is lost today. Of particular interest to us is the great quantity of…
Crop water status from plant stable carbon isotope values
Stable carbon isotope analysis is increasingly used in archaeology as an indicator of crop water status and/or water management regime. While the technique shows promise, robust modern baseline studies are required to inform and validate archaeological interpretations. Here, we test stable carbon isotope values as a crop water status proxy in a monsoonal climatic context for the first time. Specifically, we test the relationship between grain sta…
Setting the wheels in motion
The invention of rotational devices contributed to a range of developments in craft production technology, perhaps most visibly in the various forms of potter's wheels. These technological innovations, and the adoption or non-adoption of those innovations, carry economic and social implications, which are significant for understanding past human behaviour. There has been debate around the introduction and use of the potter’s wheel in South Asia's…
Geoarchaeological insights into the location of Indus settlements on the plains of northwest India
This article presents a geomorphological and micromorphological study of the locational context of four Indus civilisation archaeological sites—Alamgirpur, Masudpur I and VII, and Burj—all situated on the Sutlej-Yamuna interfluve in northwest India. The analysis indicates a strong correlation between settlement foundation and particular landscape positions on an extensive alluvial floodplain. Each of the analysed sites was located on sandy levees…
Automated detection of archaeological mounds using machine-learning classification of multisensor and multitemporal satellite data
Significance This paper illustrates the potential of machine learning-based classification of multisensor, multitemporal satellite data for the remote detection and mapping of archaeological mounded settlements in arid environments. Our research integrates multitemporal synthetic-aperture radar and multispectral bands to produce a highly accurate probability field of mound signatures. The results largely expand the known concentration of Indus se…
An Introduction to Seshat
This article introduces the Seshat: Global History Databank, its potential, and its methodology. Seshat is a databank containing vast amounts of quantitative data buttressed by qualitative nuance for a large sample of historical and archaeological polities. The sample is global in scope and covers the period from the Neolithic Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. Seshat allows scholars to capture dynamic processes and to test theories about t…
How to ‘downsize’ a complex society
The development, floruit and decline of the urban phase of the Indus Civilisation (c.2600/2500-1900 BC) provide an ideal opportunity to investigate social resilience and transformation in relation to a variable climate. The Indus Civilisation extended over most of the Indus River Basin, which includes a mix of diverse environments conditioned, among other factors, by partially overlapping patterns of winter and summer precipitation. These pattern…
An interdisciplinary framework for using archaeology, history and collective action to enhance India’s agricultural resilience and sustainability
South Asia has a deep history of agriculture that includes a range of past farming systems in different climatic zones. Many of these farming systems were resilient to changes in climate and sustainable over long periods of time. India’s present agricultural systems are facing serious challenges, as they have become increasingly reliant on the unsustainable extraction of groundwater for irrigation. This paper outlines an interdisciplinary framewo…
Feeding the herds
Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India
This paper presents novel insights into the archaeology of food in ancient South Asia by using lipid residue analysis to investigate what kinds of foodstuffs were used in ceramic vessels by populations of the Indus Civilisation in northwest India. It examines how vessels were used in urban and rural Indus settlements during the Mature Harappan period ( c .2600/2500-1900 BC), the relationship between vessels and the products within them, and ident…
Revisiting Settlement Contemporaneity and Exploring Stability and Instability
Map overestimation," or "the contemporaneity problem," derives from the assumption that settlements identified during surface surveys were occupied throughout individual periods. Inductive and simulation analysis have been used to ascertain the degree of contemporaneity in surface survey data sets, as variation in settlement location is critical for understanding population density and demography, which inform social, economic and political inter…
CHAPTER 3 The Development of the Oxus Civilisation North of the Hindu Kush
We are inheritors of a rural civilisation
What role do villages play in 'an urban civilisation'? Although it is likely that most of the populations of South Asia's ancient Indus Civilisation would not have lived in cities, it is not clear what their rural way of life would have encompassed. Using ceramic assemblages excavated from Indus-period villages in northwest India, alongside ethnographic records on village organization and rural craft production, this paper argues that Indus villa…
Ceramic Analysis and the Indus Civilization
Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization
Survey data play a fundamental role in studies of social complexity. Integrating the results from multiple projects into large-scale analyses encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations. This approach is essential to understanding changes in the Indus Civilization's settlement distributions (ca . 2600-1600 b.c.), which shift from numerous small-scale settlements and a small number of larger urban centers to a de-nucleated pattern o…
Adaptation to Variable Environments, Resilience to Climate Change
This paper explores the nature and dynamics of adaptation and resilience in the face of a diverse and varied environmentaland ecological context using the case study of South Asias Indus Civilization (ca. 30001300 BC). Most earlycomplex societies developed in regions where the climatic parameters faced by ancient subsistence farmers were variedbut rain falls primarily in one season. In contrast, the Indus Civilization developed in a specific envi…
Multi-cropping’, Intercropping and Adaptation to Variable Environments in Indus South Asia
Past human populations are known to have managed crops in a range of ways. Various methods can be used, singly or in conjunction, to reconstruct these strategies, a process which lends itself to the exploration of socio-economic and political themes. This paper endeavours to unpack the concept of 'multi-cropping' by considering diversity and variation in the cropping practices of the populations of South Asia's Indus Civilisation. It argues that …
Temperature, compression and fragmentation
Assessing the effects of volcanic disasters on human settlement in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea
Bayesian statistical approaches to calibrating radiocarbon determinations can make a significant contribution to disaster studies by adding precision to the dating of both the environmental forcing agent and the consequent human responses. An archaeological case study in the Willaumez Peninsula region of New Britain, Papua New Guinea uses radiocarbon dating to examine the chronology of five major volcanic events and the timing and nature of recol…
Exploring Indus crop processing
This paper presents a preliminary study combining macrobotanical and phytolith analyses to explore crop processing at archaeological sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, northwest India. Current understanding of the agricultural strategies in use by populations associated with South Asia's Indus Civilisation (3200-1900 bc) has been derived from a small number of systematic macrobotanical studies focusing on a small number of sites, with little use of …
Approaching rice domestication in South Asia
The nature and timing of rice domestication and the development of rice cultivation in South Asia is much debated. In northern South Asia there is presently a significant gap ( c .4200 years) between earliest evidence for the exploitation of wild rice (Lahuradewa c .6000 BCE) and earliest dated evidence for the utilisation of fully domesticated rice (Mahagara c .1800 BCE). The Indus Civilisation ( c. 3000-1500 BCE) developed and declined during t…
Feeding ancient cities in South Asia
We are inheritors of a rural civilisation
What role do villages play in 'an urban civilisation'? Although it is likely that most of the populations of South Asia's ancient Indus Civilisation would not have lived in cities, it is not clear what their rural way of life would have encompassed. Using ceramic assemblages excavated from Indus-period villages in northwest India, alongside ethnographic records on village organization and rural craft production, this paper argues that Indus villa…
Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India
This paper presents novel insights into the archaeology of food in ancient South Asia by using lipid residue analysis to investigate what kinds of foodstuffs were used in ceramic vessels by populations of the Indus Civilisation in northwest India. It examines how vessels were used in urban and rural Indus settlements during the Mature Harappan period ( c .2600/2500-1900 BC), the relationship between vessels and the products within them, and ident…
Potential of deep learning segmentation for the extraction of archaeological features from historical map series
Historical maps present a unique depiction of past landscapes, providing evidence for a wide range of information such as settlement distribution, past land use, natural resources, transport networks, toponymy and other natural and cultural data within an explicitly spatial context. Maps produced before the expansion of large-scale mechanized agriculture reflect a landscape that is lost today. Of particular interest to us is the great quantity of…
Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization
Survey data play a fundamental role in studies of social complexity. Integrating the results from multiple projects into large-scale analyses encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations. This approach is essential to understanding changes in the Indus Civilization's settlement distributions (ca . 2600-1600 b.c.), which shift from numerous small-scale settlements and a small number of larger urban centers to a de-nucleated pattern o…
From Anshan to Dilmun and Magan
Cameron A. Petrie, Alireza Asgari Chaverdi, Mojgan Seyedin, From Anshan to Dilmun and Magan: The Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Kaftari and Kaftari-Related Ceramic Vessels, Iran, Vol. 43 (2005), pp. 49-86
Palaeoenvironmental and chronological investigations of the Magdalenian sites of Goyet Cave and Trou de Chaleux (Belgium), via stable isotope and radiocarbon analyses of horse skeletal remains
Expanding the research parameters of geoarchaeology
Agricultural productivity in past societies
Agricultural productivity, and its variation in space and time, plays a fundamental role in many theories of human social evolution. However, we often lack systematic information about the productivity of past agricultural systems on a large enough scale in order to be able to test these theories properly. The effect of climate on crop yields has received a great deal of attention resulting in a range of empirical and process-based models, yet th…
Crop water status from plant stable carbon isotope values
Stable carbon isotope analysis is increasingly used in archaeology as an indicator of crop water status and/or water management regime. While the technique shows promise, robust modern baseline studies are required to inform and validate archaeological interpretations. Here, we test stable carbon isotope values as a crop water status proxy in a monsoonal climatic context for the first time. Specifically, we test the relationship between grain sta…
Feeding the herds
Revisiting Settlement Contemporaneity and Exploring Stability and Instability
Map overestimation," or "the contemporaneity problem," derives from the assumption that settlements identified during surface surveys were occupied throughout individual periods. Inductive and simulation analysis have been used to ascertain the degree of contemporaneity in surface survey data sets, as variation in settlement location is critical for understanding population density and demography, which inform social, economic and political inter…
Identifying accurate artefact morphological ranges using optimal linear estimation
A fundamental goal of archaeologists is to infer the behaviour of past humans from the attributes of the artefacts they left behind. The archaeological record is, however, fragmented and often provides a partial record of the total artefacts produced by a given population. In turn, there is potential for population-level morphometric data, and therefore behavioural inferences, to be biased relative to the trends realised in the past. This include…
The topographic and environmental context of the earliest village sites in western South Asia
Researchers in several continents have found that agriculture began not in major river valleys but up in the hills, where early farmers tended crops on alluvial fans and improved irrigation by building earth barriers across them. Here the authors reveal a similar process in the hills of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where early farming villages overlook the plains of the Punjab and Sindh, heartland of the later Indus civilisation. Today thi…
Cheshmeh Ali Ware
A distinctive red ceramic known as Cheshmeh Ali Ware, which dates to the Transitional Chalcolithic period (c. 5200–4300 BC), has been found at sites on the Central Plateau in northern Iran, stretching from the Gorgan plain in the east to the Qazvin plain in the west. Geochemical and petrographic analyses were performed on samples collected from sites in the Qazvin and Tehran plains to investigate the mode of production and distribution. The resul…
The Achaemenid Empire in South Asia and Recent Excavations in Akra in Northwest Pakistan
The impact of the Achaemenid annexation of northwestern Pakistan has remained a focus for archaeological research for more than a century. A lack of well-stratified settlements and a focus on artifacts that are not necessarily appropriate for assessing the effects of imperial control have until now obfuscated our understanding of this issue. In this article, we present the results of three seasons of excavations at Akra located in the North West …
Eight Thousand Years of History in Fars Province, Iran
The Global Dynamics of Inequality (Gini) project
The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally
Developing Societies and Economies in Fourth Millennium B.C. Fars
Excavations were resumed at the site of Tol-e Spid in the Mamasani District of Fars in early 2007. Previous excavations in 2003 revealed a deep sequence of occupation but halted due to time constraints. At that time, the lowest phases exposed dated to the fourth millennium B.C. and were characterised by Lapui period ceramics. The 2007 excavations have shown that the sequence of Lapui period deposits continues at least 4 m. below the modern level …
The Iron Age fortification of Husn Awhala (Fujairah, U.A.E.)
An analysis of the architecture of the tomb at Sharm, Fujairah, U. A. E
Late pre‐Islamic ceramics from the tomb at Sharm, Fujairah, U.A.E
Seleucid Uruk
The ancient city of Uruk holds a pre-eminent place in the history of early state development in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC. However, extensive evidence survives to indicate that the city underwent a very separate cultural flowering during the late first millennium BC, synchronous with the rule of the Seleucid successors of Alexander III of Macedonia.Traditionally, the Seleucid period has been viewed as one of extensive cultural i…
From Anshan to Dilmun and Magan
Cameron A. Petrie, Alireza Asgari Chaverdi, Mojgan Seyedin, From Anshan to Dilmun and Magan: The Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Kaftari and Kaftari-Related Ceramic Vessels, Iran, Vol. 43 (2005), pp. 49-86
The Achaemenid Empire in South Asia and Recent Excavations in Akra in Northwest Pakistan
The impact of the Achaemenid annexation of northwestern Pakistan has remained a focus for archaeological research for more than a century. A lack of well-stratified settlements and a focus on artifacts that are not necessarily appropriate for assessing the effects of imperial control have until now obfuscated our understanding of this issue. In this article, we present the results of three seasons of excavations at Akra located in the North West …
Eight Thousand Years of History in Fars Province, Iran
Developing Societies and Economies in Fourth Millennium B.C. Fars
Excavations were resumed at the site of Tol-e Spid in the Mamasani District of Fars in early 2007. Previous excavations in 2003 revealed a deep sequence of occupation but halted due to time constraints. At that time, the lowest phases exposed dated to the fourth millennium B.C. and were characterised by Lapui period ceramics. The 2007 excavations have shown that the sequence of Lapui period deposits continues at least 4 m. below the modern level …
The dynamics of late prehistoric ceramic production and distribution in the Bannu and Gomal Regions, NWFP, Pakistan
(2007). The dynamics of late prehistoric ceramic production and distribution in the Bannu and Gomal Regions, NWFP, Pakistan. South Asian Studies: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 75-94
The Mamasani Archaeological Project, Stage Two
In early 2007. surface survey, geophysical analysis and excavations were carried out at the site of Qaleh Kali (Tappeh Servan/Jinjun), in the Mamasani District of Fars. The excavations revealed that multiple phases of occupation are preserved at the site, the earliest of which appears to have been a sizeable élite structure that may in fact have had a royal clientele, as suggested by the presence of monumental Persepolis-style column bases and th…
Assessing the effects of volcanic disasters on human settlement in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea
Bayesian statistical approaches to calibrating radiocarbon determinations can make a significant contribution to disaster studies by adding precision to the dating of both the environmental forcing agent and the consequent human responses. An archaeological case study in the Willaumez Peninsula region of New Britain, Papua New Guinea uses radiocarbon dating to examine the chronology of five major volcanic events and the timing and nature of recol…
Early Villages on the Persian Gulf Littoral
The archaeological site of Tol-e Pir is situated in the Galehdār Valley, in the south of Fars Province. The site was discovered by Sir M. Aurel Stein in 1933 and is the only prehistoric mound on or adjacent to the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf that has been excavated. Ceramic material from the surface and excavations is similar to material from well dated sites in the highland Kur River Basin and indicate that the site was occupied during the…
Palaeoenvironmental and chronological investigations of the Magdalenian sites of Goyet Cave and Trou de Chaleux (Belgium), via stable isotope and radiocarbon analyses of horse skeletal remains
The Mamasani Archaeological Project Stage One
This large volume presents the results of the first stage of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research (ICAR)-University of Sydney field research in Mamasani, south-western Iran. This comprised test soundings at Tol-e Nurabad and Tol-e Spid, and a regional survey of the Dasht-e Rostam-e Yek and Do plains. The research was conducted over two six-week seasons in 2003, with a subsequent one-month study season in 2004
West of the Indus—East of the Empire
Cheshmeh Ali Ware
A distinctive red ceramic known as Cheshmeh Ali Ware, which dates to the Transitional Chalcolithic period (c. 5200–4300 BC), has been found at sites on the Central Plateau in northern Iran, stretching from the Gorgan plain in the east to the Qazvin plain in the west. Geochemical and petrographic analyses were performed on samples collected from sites in the Qazvin and Tehran plains to investigate the mode of production and distribution. The resul…
Temperature, compression and fragmentation
The topographic and environmental context of the earliest village sites in western South Asia
Researchers in several continents have found that agriculture began not in major river valleys but up in the hills, where early farmers tended crops on alluvial fans and improved irrigation by building earth barriers across them. Here the authors reveal a similar process in the hills of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where early farming villages overlook the plains of the Punjab and Sindh, heartland of the later Indus civilisation. Today thi…
Ancient Iran and Its Neighbours
Abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon in northwest India 4100 yr ago
Climate change has been suggested as a possible cause for the decline of urban centers of the Indus Civilization ~4000 yr ago, but extant paleoclimatic evidence has been derived from locations well outside the distribution of Indus settlements. Here we report an oxygen isotope record of gastropod aragonite ( 18 O a ) from Holocene sediments of paleolake Kotla Dahar (Haryana, India), which is adjacent to Indus settlements and documents Indian summ…
Agricultural productivity in past societies
Agricultural productivity, and its variation in space and time, plays a fundamental role in many theories of human social evolution. However, we often lack systematic information about the productivity of past agricultural systems on a large enough scale in order to be able to test these theories properly. The effect of climate on crop yields has received a great deal of attention resulting in a range of empirical and process-based models, yet th…
New Radiocarbon Dates for the Banesh Period Occupation at Tal-E Kureh, Fars, Iran
Three AMS radiocarbon dates on samples of bone collagen from the archaeological site of Tal-e Kureh indicate that the transition from the Lapui to the Banesh eras in the Kur River Basin occurred around c. 3365 BC. This finding accords well with radiocarbon dates of the Lapui-Banesh transition from the Mamasani region and also with age estimates for the Early Banesh based on ceramic parallels with material from the Susiaria Plain
Exploring Indus crop processing
This paper presents a preliminary study combining macrobotanical and phytolith analyses to explore crop processing at archaeological sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, northwest India. Current understanding of the agricultural strategies in use by populations associated with South Asia's Indus Civilisation (3200-1900 bc) has been derived from a small number of systematic macrobotanical studies focusing on a small number of sites, with little use of …
Approaching rice domestication in South Asia
The nature and timing of rice domestication and the development of rice cultivation in South Asia is much debated. In northern South Asia there is presently a significant gap ( c .4200 years) between earliest evidence for the exploitation of wild rice (Lahuradewa c .6000 BCE) and earliest dated evidence for the utilisation of fully domesticated rice (Mahagara c .1800 BCE). The Indus Civilisation ( c. 3000-1500 BCE) developed and declined during t…
Feeding ancient cities in South Asia
Geography (44 works) · Archaeology (42 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (33 works) · History (23 works) · Indus (21 works) · Geology (18 works) · Ancient history (16 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (16 works) · Agriculture (15 works) · Ecology (15 works)