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Problems in economic and social archaeology
BOOK
REVIEWS
99
and their sub-sections, have almost the same titles as in the 1956 volume but have been skilfully rewritten to incorporate most of the advances of recent years. Obviously, in so large a field, not all aspects can be covered equally and Godwin’s interest in the flora of the last glaciation, the discussion of which covers several pages, contrasts with the almost complete lack of reference to man’s role in the formation of heathlands and to the results of soil pollen analyses which will be familiar to many archaeologists. Similarly, the role of Mesolithic man is still seen as one of almost total subservience to the environment and remarks to that effect in the first edition (p. 332) are reproduced in this new edition (p. 465). For a detailed reconsideration of the evidence on this topic one must refer to A. G. Smith’s review in the Festschrift volume presented to Godwin in 1970 (D. Walker & R. G. West: Studies in Vegetational History of the British Isles)-a work which Godwin refers to in his preface as one which, together with other texts mentioned on page 5, has relieved him of the need to revise various parts of the new edition. This would have been more satisfactory if Godwin had cited individual papers such as Smith’s at the appropriate place in the text. There appear to be few misprints or factual errors, though the attribution of the south coast interglacial sites to the Hoxnian in Figure 146, a mistake partly confounded by the Selsey site entry (p. 75), may confuse the uninitiated. Those familiar with Quaternary research will discount such lapses and be delighted to find that the archaic “shew” still has its place. This great volume is surely an essential library acquisition and many individuals in the palaeoecological field will feel the need for a personal copy. The price may be thought a high one, but compared with the five pounds asked for the first edition in 1956, and bearing in mind current price levels generally, it is not excessive for such a well-produced book. It will be as much a source of inspiration and reference as was the old edition and we are all indebted to the founder of modern British Quaternary research for a magnificent achievement. K. E. Barber
Problems
in Economic and Social Archaeology.
Sieveking, I. H. Longworth and K. E. Wilson. figures + 44 plates. London : Duckworth. &24-00.
Edited by G. de G. 1976. 626 pp. + 127
This massive, elegantly produced and long awaited volume consists of 37 essays written by his former pupils to honour Grahame Clark, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge from 1952-74, as one of the pioneers, and an outstanding exponent of economic and social archaeology. Sieveking, in an introductory chapter, asserts that the book has a value on several levels : as a guide to current methodology by practitioners who learned their skills in a single school; as a substantial contribution to knowledge in many research fields where only brief summaries have hitherto achieved publication; and as an extension on a world stage of many themes in social and economic prehistory first developed in this country by Professor Clark. It is divided into five geographical parts (Africa, America and Asia, Australasia, the British Isles and Continental Europe) and a comparison of these suggests that Professor Clark’s influence on the interests and archaeological style of the contributors is inversely related to their present distance from Cambridge. This, perhaps facile observation, supports a belief I have long held that although Professor Clark is widely, and properly, held as one of the foremost British prehistorians of his generation, he has had rather little influence on the archaeology of Britain. Bellwood presents a valuable account of the evidence for plant and animal domestication from Thailand east to Polynesia; the region where man first demonstrated his ability to make deep-water crossings. To the evidence detailed here I must point out
100
BOOK
REVIEWS
that there is no evidence of dog (domesticated or otherwise) in the Toalian sites of Sulawesi (p. 1962) and that it is not certainly present in Timor before the mid 1st millennium BC. Also, while caprovines had been introduced into Timor at least by the mid 2nd millennium BC, bovids are later: perhaps about AD500, rather than the 1OOOBC suggested here (p. 163). On a related theme, Bulmer shows from his incomparably detailed New Guinea ethnographic data how cultural selection imposed on domesticated and wild fauna might bias the archaeological record; a point archaeologists readily accept in principle, but can seldom come to grips with. Golson offers his first published account of a long term programme of research into the agricultural history of the New Guinea highlands where swamp drainage for tea plantations in the mid-1960s revealed the evidence for ancient intensive agricultural systems. In subsequent lectures and privately circulated papers the author has considerably modified his interpretations of the geomorphological and cultural succession set out here, but this version remains of value for its introduction to the problems and clear exposition of research methods and field data. Jones takes up the problem of the water-crossing capabilities of man, long of interest to Clark, in the seas between Tasmania and continental Australia. In an elegant and persuasive essay he draws on historical, ethnographic, biosocial as well as archaeological data and argues that after being isolated by rising seas across the Bass shelf, the Tasmanians re-invented a form of canoe, with only limited range and capacity, which enabled them to better exploit their new maritime environment. Elsewhere around the Australian coast groups cut off on islands large enough to support more than 1000 persons flourished, whereas those on islands with a potential carrying capacity of under 400 risked or frequently suffered extinction. The relevance of Jones’s arguments to the Pacific where many island settlements were abandoned is clear, but they would be worth considering in other regions where prehistoric cultural extinction in islands appears to have occurred; in Cyprus in the 5th millennium and perhaps in Malta in the 2nd millennium (see David Trump’s paper in this volume). In his analysis and interpretation of the Kauri Point Swamp deposit (New Zealand) Shawcross acknowledges his debt to Clark’s Star Carr report and although coming 20 years after that classic monograph, this essay does not have the same impact of originality, it is a model for its clarity of argument and economical presentation. Of the eight essays on British archaeology, Fleming on Early Settlement and the landscapein West Yorkshire, and Mellars’ Settlement patterns and industrial variability in the British Mesolithic reflect most clearly the influence of Clark’s interests and approach. Both relate man clearly to his environment and try to articulate aspects of prehistoric culture by drawing on a wide range of evidence from soils, climatic records, site distributional studies and, inevitably, ethnographic behavioural models developed from structurally comparable societies. The title of the late David Clarke’s essay, Mesolithic Europe: the economic basis, both in title and approach, deliberately echoes Clark’s classic 1954 synthesis of European prehistory. It is a long, carefully thought out attempt to re-establish the importance of mesolithic studies, arguing that this was not a curious interlude between the artistic and technological glories of the Upper Palaeolithic and the advent of “progressive” Neolithic society. Mesolithic Europe was characterized by a number of distinctive and strikingly successful cultural adaptations such as a more efficient use of inorganic resources, careful scheduling of subsistence patterns and the manipulation of the ecosystem to increase the productivity of desired species, the significance of which has only been recognized through recent hunter-gatherer studies. This is an admittedly “speculative and theoretical essay, attempting to avoid the prison of conventional interpretations” (p. 476) and every reader will find as much to disagree with as to accept.
BOOK
REVIEWS
101
But the careful development of the argument and mastery of material makes one realise again how much archaeology has lost through David Clarke’s early death. Andrew Sherratt too relies heavily on ethnographic sources, this time the role of Melanesian “big men” as trading partners to articulate exchange networks, in order to develop a model for the movement of materials and artifacts in neolithic and early Bronze Age Europe. Whether this historical pattern “must have been the condition of later prehistoric Europe” (p. 561, my italics) one may doubt, but his concern with process is a proper one and the essay offers many insights into a field where the facts are now more or less accepted and dispute is mainly over their interpretation. In sum, the book is as fine a festschrift as one can hope for, and Professor Clark should feel it was worth waiting the four years after his retirement to receive it. Perhaps his greatest satisfaction will come not from the 600 plus pages and 2.5 kg of this volume, but from the demonstration that so many of his former students are continuing to do good, creative archaeology in so many temporal and geographical areas. Certainly this wide geographical scope pays fitting tribute to Professor Clark’s own interests and it may also help the book to find a market in every English-speaking country where prehistory is taught. The publisher must surely hope for this, for over the last eight years Duckworth have courageously sponsored archaeological conferences and published their proceedings, which perhaps has not always been a profitable occupation. Let us hope that this volume gets the many readers it deserves. I. C. Glover
REVIEWS
99
and their sub-sections, have almost the same titles as in the 1956 volume but have been skilfully rewritten to incorporate most of the advances of recent years. Obviously, in so large a field, not all aspects can be covered equally and Godwin’s interest in the flora of the last glaciation, the discussion of which covers several pages, contrasts with the almost complete lack of reference to man’s role in the formation of heathlands and to the results of soil pollen analyses which will be familiar to many archaeologists. Similarly, the role of Mesolithic man is still seen as one of almost total subservience to the environment and remarks to that effect in the first edition (p. 332) are reproduced in this new edition (p. 465). For a detailed reconsideration of the evidence on this topic one must refer to A. G. Smith’s review in the Festschrift volume presented to Godwin in 1970 (D. Walker & R. G. West: Studies in Vegetational History of the British Isles)-a work which Godwin refers to in his preface as one which, together with other texts mentioned on page 5, has relieved him of the need to revise various parts of the new edition. This would have been more satisfactory if Godwin had cited individual papers such as Smith’s at the appropriate place in the text. There appear to be few misprints or factual errors, though the attribution of the south coast interglacial sites to the Hoxnian in Figure 146, a mistake partly confounded by the Selsey site entry (p. 75), may confuse the uninitiated. Those familiar with Quaternary research will discount such lapses and be delighted to find that the archaic “shew” still has its place. This great volume is surely an essential library acquisition and many individuals in the palaeoecological field will feel the need for a personal copy. The price may be thought a high one, but compared with the five pounds asked for the first edition in 1956, and bearing in mind current price levels generally, it is not excessive for such a well-produced book. It will be as much a source of inspiration and reference as was the old edition and we are all indebted to the founder of modern British Quaternary research for a magnificent achievement. K. E. Barber
Problems
in Economic and Social Archaeology.
Sieveking, I. H. Longworth and K. E. Wilson. figures + 44 plates. London : Duckworth. &24-00.
Edited by G. de G. 1976. 626 pp. + 127
This massive, elegantly produced and long awaited volume consists of 37 essays written by his former pupils to honour Grahame Clark, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge from 1952-74, as one of the pioneers, and an outstanding exponent of economic and social archaeology. Sieveking, in an introductory chapter, asserts that the book has a value on several levels : as a guide to current methodology by practitioners who learned their skills in a single school; as a substantial contribution to knowledge in many research fields where only brief summaries have hitherto achieved publication; and as an extension on a world stage of many themes in social and economic prehistory first developed in this country by Professor Clark. It is divided into five geographical parts (Africa, America and Asia, Australasia, the British Isles and Continental Europe) and a comparison of these suggests that Professor Clark’s influence on the interests and archaeological style of the contributors is inversely related to their present distance from Cambridge. This, perhaps facile observation, supports a belief I have long held that although Professor Clark is widely, and properly, held as one of the foremost British prehistorians of his generation, he has had rather little influence on the archaeology of Britain. Bellwood presents a valuable account of the evidence for plant and animal domestication from Thailand east to Polynesia; the region where man first demonstrated his ability to make deep-water crossings. To the evidence detailed here I must point out
100
BOOK
REVIEWS
that there is no evidence of dog (domesticated or otherwise) in the Toalian sites of Sulawesi (p. 1962) and that it is not certainly present in Timor before the mid 1st millennium BC. Also, while caprovines had been introduced into Timor at least by the mid 2nd millennium BC, bovids are later: perhaps about AD500, rather than the 1OOOBC suggested here (p. 163). On a related theme, Bulmer shows from his incomparably detailed New Guinea ethnographic data how cultural selection imposed on domesticated and wild fauna might bias the archaeological record; a point archaeologists readily accept in principle, but can seldom come to grips with. Golson offers his first published account of a long term programme of research into the agricultural history of the New Guinea highlands where swamp drainage for tea plantations in the mid-1960s revealed the evidence for ancient intensive agricultural systems. In subsequent lectures and privately circulated papers the author has considerably modified his interpretations of the geomorphological and cultural succession set out here, but this version remains of value for its introduction to the problems and clear exposition of research methods and field data. Jones takes up the problem of the water-crossing capabilities of man, long of interest to Clark, in the seas between Tasmania and continental Australia. In an elegant and persuasive essay he draws on historical, ethnographic, biosocial as well as archaeological data and argues that after being isolated by rising seas across the Bass shelf, the Tasmanians re-invented a form of canoe, with only limited range and capacity, which enabled them to better exploit their new maritime environment. Elsewhere around the Australian coast groups cut off on islands large enough to support more than 1000 persons flourished, whereas those on islands with a potential carrying capacity of under 400 risked or frequently suffered extinction. The relevance of Jones’s arguments to the Pacific where many island settlements were abandoned is clear, but they would be worth considering in other regions where prehistoric cultural extinction in islands appears to have occurred; in Cyprus in the 5th millennium and perhaps in Malta in the 2nd millennium (see David Trump’s paper in this volume). In his analysis and interpretation of the Kauri Point Swamp deposit (New Zealand) Shawcross acknowledges his debt to Clark’s Star Carr report and although coming 20 years after that classic monograph, this essay does not have the same impact of originality, it is a model for its clarity of argument and economical presentation. Of the eight essays on British archaeology, Fleming on Early Settlement and the landscapein West Yorkshire, and Mellars’ Settlement patterns and industrial variability in the British Mesolithic reflect most clearly the influence of Clark’s interests and approach. Both relate man clearly to his environment and try to articulate aspects of prehistoric culture by drawing on a wide range of evidence from soils, climatic records, site distributional studies and, inevitably, ethnographic behavioural models developed from structurally comparable societies. The title of the late David Clarke’s essay, Mesolithic Europe: the economic basis, both in title and approach, deliberately echoes Clark’s classic 1954 synthesis of European prehistory. It is a long, carefully thought out attempt to re-establish the importance of mesolithic studies, arguing that this was not a curious interlude between the artistic and technological glories of the Upper Palaeolithic and the advent of “progressive” Neolithic society. Mesolithic Europe was characterized by a number of distinctive and strikingly successful cultural adaptations such as a more efficient use of inorganic resources, careful scheduling of subsistence patterns and the manipulation of the ecosystem to increase the productivity of desired species, the significance of which has only been recognized through recent hunter-gatherer studies. This is an admittedly “speculative and theoretical essay, attempting to avoid the prison of conventional interpretations” (p. 476) and every reader will find as much to disagree with as to accept.
BOOK
REVIEWS
101
But the careful development of the argument and mastery of material makes one realise again how much archaeology has lost through David Clarke’s early death. Andrew Sherratt too relies heavily on ethnographic sources, this time the role of Melanesian “big men” as trading partners to articulate exchange networks, in order to develop a model for the movement of materials and artifacts in neolithic and early Bronze Age Europe. Whether this historical pattern “must have been the condition of later prehistoric Europe” (p. 561, my italics) one may doubt, but his concern with process is a proper one and the essay offers many insights into a field where the facts are now more or less accepted and dispute is mainly over their interpretation. In sum, the book is as fine a festschrift as one can hope for, and Professor Clark should feel it was worth waiting the four years after his retirement to receive it. Perhaps his greatest satisfaction will come not from the 600 plus pages and 2.5 kg of this volume, but from the demonstration that so many of his former students are continuing to do good, creative archaeology in so many temporal and geographical areas. Certainly this wide geographical scope pays fitting tribute to Professor Clark’s own interests and it may also help the book to find a market in every English-speaking country where prehistory is taught. The publisher must surely hope for this, for over the last eight years Duckworth have courageously sponsored archaeological conferences and published their proceedings, which perhaps has not always been a profitable occupation. Let us hope that this volume gets the many readers it deserves. I. C. Glover