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Beyond domestication in prehistoric Europe: Investigations in subsistence archaeology and social complexity
BOOK
REVIEWS
291
boundary through a combination of archaeological and ethnohistoric data. The central argument is that such long-term boundary maintenance was not based upon resource competition, but on the existence of an ecological frontier. In contrast, Hodder examines boundaries between ethnic groups in East Africa in terms of internal social strategies, specifically a “battle of the sexes” as reflected in material culture patterning. The six papers on complex societies begin with Paynter championing the causative role of large-scale spatial processes, as in world systems models, in cultural change. The same theoretical perspective is adopted by McGovern in his study of social and economic processes in Norse Greenland as responses to the position of this area on the periphery of the Scandinavian North Atlantic trade system before the 14th century AD. World systems also underlie Lewis’s study of the 17th and 18th century European colonization of South Carolina. Rubertone and Thorbahn use a distance decay model to examine zonation within an urban hinterland. An ecological and evolutionary approach is introduced by Hardesty in his study of the industrial frontier. The book closes with a strange paper by Bronitsky, Marks and Burleson, who conclude that their study of West Texas Baptists shows the need for testable models on the relationship between behaviour and material culture. Perhaps a triumph of faith over originality? My main problem in reading this book was trying to appreciate it as a whole. The approaches in the sections on more and less complex societies could have formed the bases for at least two separate volumes, while Hodder’s theoretical position sits uneasily alongside the optimal foraging theory of other authors. Complex societies also exist outside of historical North America, as do advocates of world systems models, and their inclusion might have strengthened the book. Overall I found many points of interest, but a more substantial introduction on the study of boundaries in archaeology and anthropology would have given the volume the coherence I think it lacks.
Robert Chapman Depurtment of Archaeology University of Reading
Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe: Investigations in Subsistence Archaeology and Social Complexity. Edited by G. Barker and C. Gamble. 1985. xx+282pp., 51 figures. London: Academic Press (Studies in Archaeology Series). E36.00. ISBN 0 12 078840. “Subsistence refers to what people live on, whereas economy deals with the management and mobilization of resources.” In the belief that more effort has been applied in these fields to earlier, so-called simpler societies, the editors have brought together four methodological studies and four regional ones addressed to the problems in later, so-called complex societies of not just what people ate but the wider social context of production and its role in social change. The methodological studies (by Maltby, Cribb, Jones and Fleming) cover approaches to fauna1 and floral remains and field systems, while the regional studies (by Zvelebil, Mills, Lewthwaite and Randsborg) offer a transect across Europe from the Mediterranean to the north-east Baltic, spilling over chronologically into the first millenium AD. Dedicated to Eric Higgs, former sheepfarmer turned prehistorian and the late supervisor of both editors, this is a rewarding collection of essays which can be quarried by specialists and students, theorists and fieldworkers alike. It presents an encouraging move to bring palaeoeconomy out of the appendices and into the forefront of discussions about social change, and the reader can sample both the resulting generalizations in the regional studies and the “middle-range” struggle to establish valid bases for inference in the methodological studies. The methodological studies offer many of the most interesting insights in the book. Maltby’s review of fauna1 studies is notable for its range, covering not only the biases produced by post-depositional change but also questions of the movement of animals, carcases and meat around, within and between settlements. This is nicely complemented by Cribb’s simulation of herd structure (with a program called Flocks!). Jones follows a similar line for floral studies,
298
BOOK
REVIEWS
attempting to break the dichotomy between site and landscape. There is less detail on the biases of formation processes but a convincing model is constructed of varying roles in grain production and consumption for various kinds of settlement and environmental zone in Iron Age Southern England. Fleming taps British rural sociology to craft a stimulating model of how small-scale communities actually operate at various levels, from the neighbourhood to the region, with the emphasis firmly on the possibilities, productivity and efficiency of collective enterprise. He suggests that it may be possible to see organized fields systems “as an attempt to maintain collective economies by communities organized on segmentary principles and subject to increasing internal competition” (p. 142). When discussing the shift on the Blasket Islands in Ireland from open-field cultivations with scattered individual strips to a more unified system of allotments, Fleming argues that European ethnography should have an important role in future studies. The regional studies are inevitably rather more diverse, but each is individually stimulating. There are contrasts too at the explanatory level, with a debate on the primacy of social competition or population pressure (Zvelebil and Lewthwaite versus Mills). All are concerned, however, with integrating economic data into explanation, and all also reflect a healthy concern with broad areas: even if “the region” as such is not definable in the abstract, explanation has to encompass human interaction at differing scales. Is all then sweetness and light in the palaeoeconomists’ garden? One fears not. It is sadly evident that the best fauna1 data come regularly from Roman and Medieval contexts, and that all too few sites measure up to the kinds of analysis now required of botanical evidence. It is depressing to think how many past prehistoric assemblages may simply not be up to these new standards. This indeed produces a tension in the book between the methodological and the synthetic-regional studies. Let us only hope that out of this kind of tension comes future progress. A. Whittle Department qf’ilrchaeology University qf Card@
REVIEWS
291
boundary through a combination of archaeological and ethnohistoric data. The central argument is that such long-term boundary maintenance was not based upon resource competition, but on the existence of an ecological frontier. In contrast, Hodder examines boundaries between ethnic groups in East Africa in terms of internal social strategies, specifically a “battle of the sexes” as reflected in material culture patterning. The six papers on complex societies begin with Paynter championing the causative role of large-scale spatial processes, as in world systems models, in cultural change. The same theoretical perspective is adopted by McGovern in his study of social and economic processes in Norse Greenland as responses to the position of this area on the periphery of the Scandinavian North Atlantic trade system before the 14th century AD. World systems also underlie Lewis’s study of the 17th and 18th century European colonization of South Carolina. Rubertone and Thorbahn use a distance decay model to examine zonation within an urban hinterland. An ecological and evolutionary approach is introduced by Hardesty in his study of the industrial frontier. The book closes with a strange paper by Bronitsky, Marks and Burleson, who conclude that their study of West Texas Baptists shows the need for testable models on the relationship between behaviour and material culture. Perhaps a triumph of faith over originality? My main problem in reading this book was trying to appreciate it as a whole. The approaches in the sections on more and less complex societies could have formed the bases for at least two separate volumes, while Hodder’s theoretical position sits uneasily alongside the optimal foraging theory of other authors. Complex societies also exist outside of historical North America, as do advocates of world systems models, and their inclusion might have strengthened the book. Overall I found many points of interest, but a more substantial introduction on the study of boundaries in archaeology and anthropology would have given the volume the coherence I think it lacks.
Robert Chapman Depurtment of Archaeology University of Reading
Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe: Investigations in Subsistence Archaeology and Social Complexity. Edited by G. Barker and C. Gamble. 1985. xx+282pp., 51 figures. London: Academic Press (Studies in Archaeology Series). E36.00. ISBN 0 12 078840. “Subsistence refers to what people live on, whereas economy deals with the management and mobilization of resources.” In the belief that more effort has been applied in these fields to earlier, so-called simpler societies, the editors have brought together four methodological studies and four regional ones addressed to the problems in later, so-called complex societies of not just what people ate but the wider social context of production and its role in social change. The methodological studies (by Maltby, Cribb, Jones and Fleming) cover approaches to fauna1 and floral remains and field systems, while the regional studies (by Zvelebil, Mills, Lewthwaite and Randsborg) offer a transect across Europe from the Mediterranean to the north-east Baltic, spilling over chronologically into the first millenium AD. Dedicated to Eric Higgs, former sheepfarmer turned prehistorian and the late supervisor of both editors, this is a rewarding collection of essays which can be quarried by specialists and students, theorists and fieldworkers alike. It presents an encouraging move to bring palaeoeconomy out of the appendices and into the forefront of discussions about social change, and the reader can sample both the resulting generalizations in the regional studies and the “middle-range” struggle to establish valid bases for inference in the methodological studies. The methodological studies offer many of the most interesting insights in the book. Maltby’s review of fauna1 studies is notable for its range, covering not only the biases produced by post-depositional change but also questions of the movement of animals, carcases and meat around, within and between settlements. This is nicely complemented by Cribb’s simulation of herd structure (with a program called Flocks!). Jones follows a similar line for floral studies,
298
BOOK
REVIEWS
attempting to break the dichotomy between site and landscape. There is less detail on the biases of formation processes but a convincing model is constructed of varying roles in grain production and consumption for various kinds of settlement and environmental zone in Iron Age Southern England. Fleming taps British rural sociology to craft a stimulating model of how small-scale communities actually operate at various levels, from the neighbourhood to the region, with the emphasis firmly on the possibilities, productivity and efficiency of collective enterprise. He suggests that it may be possible to see organized fields systems “as an attempt to maintain collective economies by communities organized on segmentary principles and subject to increasing internal competition” (p. 142). When discussing the shift on the Blasket Islands in Ireland from open-field cultivations with scattered individual strips to a more unified system of allotments, Fleming argues that European ethnography should have an important role in future studies. The regional studies are inevitably rather more diverse, but each is individually stimulating. There are contrasts too at the explanatory level, with a debate on the primacy of social competition or population pressure (Zvelebil and Lewthwaite versus Mills). All are concerned, however, with integrating economic data into explanation, and all also reflect a healthy concern with broad areas: even if “the region” as such is not definable in the abstract, explanation has to encompass human interaction at differing scales. Is all then sweetness and light in the palaeoeconomists’ garden? One fears not. It is sadly evident that the best fauna1 data come regularly from Roman and Medieval contexts, and that all too few sites measure up to the kinds of analysis now required of botanical evidence. It is depressing to think how many past prehistoric assemblages may simply not be up to these new standards. This indeed produces a tension in the book between the methodological and the synthetic-regional studies. Let us only hope that out of this kind of tension comes future progress. A. Whittle Department qf’ilrchaeology University qf Card@