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Photomicrographs of world woods
394
BOOK
REVIEWS
Polynesia other than by Man? By what means, other than by ship-born travellers, did the sweet potato arrive on Easter Island and incidentally also its Peruvian name? It is more than coincidence that the latter was accompanied by another Peruvian plant-the totara reed-and one used by both the Peruvians and the Easter Islanders to make reed boats! It is these reed boats that link this fascinating story together and it is the materials of thert construction that the travellers took with them on their ocean voyages-wherever they settled, one or other suitable reed, papyrus, or totara is found. This reviewer recalls further support for the importance of papyrus in the fact that the early European visitors to the Canary Islands thought that the finding of this plant on those islands was worthy of recording. Pliny writes that Statius Sebosus in the latter’s description of the fsfes of’ the Bliss, now identified with the Canaries, tells that “papyrus grows in the rivers”. Was the significance of the plant to those early travellers that they recognized that papyrus, like the totara on Easter Island, could only have reached the Isles qf’thr Bliss through the intermediacy of even earlier voyages? These islands of the Bliss or Blest, lying to the West, enter written history with Homer, who believed in the ocean river which took the dead to the Islands of the Blest, and geographically with Sartorius, as recorded by Plutarch, and with Pliny as mentioned above. But before written records, were there oral records of even earlier voyagers who returned with tales of suitable lands for colonization? Was Homer aware of the Canary current? This is Heyerdahl’s “highway”, sweeping as it does past the Canaries, the bulge of Africa, across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean, which, he believes, carried the pre-European Mediterranean-Middle-Eastern voyagers to the new world, and upon which he and his companions demonstrated so successfully that a reed boat could travel. It would, if this were the case, be odd indeed if the Canaries had not been visited. Likewise in the Pacific it seems more than probable that the Cocos Islands and the Galapagos group would have been explored and settled before the westward flowing currents carried Man into Polynesia. This book provokes as much argument as it settles, is informative and stimulates further researches, and the few errors which it does contain are of very little substance. Perhaps if it has a fault, it lies in the title and the attractive dust jacket, because these do not inform the prospective buyer that the contents are a collection of previously published Heyerdahl papers; it is left to the author in his preface to do so. This omission may not be deliberate but it is unfortunate and unfair to those buyers who may think that they have something in the vein of Ken-tiki or The RA Expeditions, especially as the blurb on the flaps encourages this view-the fault is not the author’s but solely the publishers. However, Early Man and the Ocean provides us with a comprehensive account of Thor Heyerdahl’s researches and clearly presents the material upon which he bases his thesis. The author himself comes through too as a considerable scholar and scientist. He is foremost a scientist and an experimental scientist at that; after all his experiments have that hallmark of good (and classical) experiments-they are repeatable, if you have the courage! In the context of this journal Thor Heyerdahl provides example after example where scientific investigation can enhance archaeological and anthropological endeavour. Finally Heyerdahl has one other attribute-he can communicate his ideas to his readers. Arthur Boutm
Die Hiilzer Mitteleuropas. 1977. ix+208 pp. Berlin, Photomicrographs &20*00.
of World
Ein mikrophotographischer Heidelberg and New York: Woods. By Anne Miles.
Lehratlus. By Dietger Springer Verlag.
1978. iv+ 233 pp. London
Microscopic Wood Anatom)?. Structural Variability of Stems und Twigs Subfossil Woods jiorn Central Europe. By Fritz H. Schweingruber. Birmensdorf: Swiss Federal Institute of Forestry Research. 28 Sw.Fr.
Grosser. : H.M .S.O.
in Recent and 1978. 226 pp.
These three books are welcome additions to what was previously a rather sparse literature on aids to wood and charcoal identification from archaeological sites. Available books were either
BOOK
REVIEWS
Polynesia other than by Man? By what means, other than by ship-born travellers, did the sweet potato arrive on Easter Island and incidentally also its Peruvian name? It is more than coincidence that the latter was accompanied by another Peruvian plant-the totara reed-and one used by both the Peruvians and the Easter Islanders to make reed boats! It is these reed boats that link this fascinating story together and it is the materials of thert construction that the travellers took with them on their ocean voyages-wherever they settled, one or other suitable reed, papyrus, or totara is found. This reviewer recalls further support for the importance of papyrus in the fact that the early European visitors to the Canary Islands thought that the finding of this plant on those islands was worthy of recording. Pliny writes that Statius Sebosus in the latter’s description of the fsfes of’ the Bliss, now identified with the Canaries, tells that “papyrus grows in the rivers”. Was the significance of the plant to those early travellers that they recognized that papyrus, like the totara on Easter Island, could only have reached the Isles qf’thr Bliss through the intermediacy of even earlier voyages? These islands of the Bliss or Blest, lying to the West, enter written history with Homer, who believed in the ocean river which took the dead to the Islands of the Blest, and geographically with Sartorius, as recorded by Plutarch, and with Pliny as mentioned above. But before written records, were there oral records of even earlier voyagers who returned with tales of suitable lands for colonization? Was Homer aware of the Canary current? This is Heyerdahl’s “highway”, sweeping as it does past the Canaries, the bulge of Africa, across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean, which, he believes, carried the pre-European Mediterranean-Middle-Eastern voyagers to the new world, and upon which he and his companions demonstrated so successfully that a reed boat could travel. It would, if this were the case, be odd indeed if the Canaries had not been visited. Likewise in the Pacific it seems more than probable that the Cocos Islands and the Galapagos group would have been explored and settled before the westward flowing currents carried Man into Polynesia. This book provokes as much argument as it settles, is informative and stimulates further researches, and the few errors which it does contain are of very little substance. Perhaps if it has a fault, it lies in the title and the attractive dust jacket, because these do not inform the prospective buyer that the contents are a collection of previously published Heyerdahl papers; it is left to the author in his preface to do so. This omission may not be deliberate but it is unfortunate and unfair to those buyers who may think that they have something in the vein of Ken-tiki or The RA Expeditions, especially as the blurb on the flaps encourages this view-the fault is not the author’s but solely the publishers. However, Early Man and the Ocean provides us with a comprehensive account of Thor Heyerdahl’s researches and clearly presents the material upon which he bases his thesis. The author himself comes through too as a considerable scholar and scientist. He is foremost a scientist and an experimental scientist at that; after all his experiments have that hallmark of good (and classical) experiments-they are repeatable, if you have the courage! In the context of this journal Thor Heyerdahl provides example after example where scientific investigation can enhance archaeological and anthropological endeavour. Finally Heyerdahl has one other attribute-he can communicate his ideas to his readers. Arthur Boutm
Die Hiilzer Mitteleuropas. 1977. ix+208 pp. Berlin, Photomicrographs &20*00.
of World
Ein mikrophotographischer Heidelberg and New York: Woods. By Anne Miles.
Lehratlus. By Dietger Springer Verlag.
1978. iv+ 233 pp. London
Microscopic Wood Anatom)?. Structural Variability of Stems und Twigs Subfossil Woods jiorn Central Europe. By Fritz H. Schweingruber. Birmensdorf: Swiss Federal Institute of Forestry Research. 28 Sw.Fr.
Grosser. : H.M .S.O.
in Recent and 1978. 226 pp.
These three books are welcome additions to what was previously a rather sparse literature on aids to wood and charcoal identification from archaeological sites. Available books were either