- Email: [email protected]
Science and society in prehistoric Britain
394
BOOK REVIEWS
sion of the terrain in which hillforts were built, for excavation should produce the evidence to enable fuller statements to be made than that “the old turf line below the rampart sections at Ravensburgh Castle, Herts, clearly represents a buried plough soil”. Bruce Proudfoot
Science and Society in Prehistoric
Britain.
By Euan W. MacKie. 1977.
xii +252 pp. 17 plates, 36 figures. 57.50. This is a courageous and strongly argued book that proposes two hypotheses which, if generally accepted, are fundamental to our interpretation of society in the 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC. The central hypothesis is that certain elements of the populace were proficient in geometry, surveying and observational astronomy and that their expertise was supported by surplus food and labour when required. The subsidiary hypothesis which follows from this is that society was so organized as to enable these “wise men” or “theocratic elite” to live in specially constructed centres. The author claims that these hypotheses satisfactorily integrate three developments in archaeological thought and discovery in recent years-the calibration of radiocarbon dates; theories regarding the intellectual achievements of neolithic and Bronze Age society propounded by Professor Thorn; and excavations of earthworks of that date in southern England. The volume includes in addition, an important reassessment of Stonehenge and descriptive accounts of Avebury, Durrington Walls, Mount Pleasant, Marden, Woodhenge and Skara Brae. It is perhaps unnecessary to emphasize that the interpretations placed by Professor Thorn on his field results, which are fundamental to the main hypothesis of this book, have not found universal acceptance. The megalithic yard and a multiple of it as standard units of measurement have been interpreted on several occasions as standardizations of a pace which probably developed independently in several parts of the world. In addition, circle and ring lay-outs are employed to demonstrate the advanced geometry developed by the neolithic population. Yet amidst the recondite explanations necessitated by this hypothesis an equally plausible view is possible, that complex designs (e.g. with flattened curves and eccentric alignments) may be due solely to established practice in the use of work-gangs to construct rings and earthwork ditches. Concerning archaeoastronomy the author properly distinguishes between an orientation and an alignment and discusses the majority of the problems involved in interpreting the latter as astronomical sight-lines. However, despite a part-chapter on the nature of archaeological evidence one would have wished to see greater emphasis placed on the limitations of the inferences to be drawn from field or excavation data. Stone monuments by their very nature are subject to erosion, attrition and addition and our knowledge of the structural history of any monument cannot be complete without excavation, which will produce evidence for any timber structures and the micro-environment of the time. Furthermore, it would be a fallacy to assume that excavation data represent a total objective record of the original state of a monument which can be employed to infer the geometrical and astronomical abilities postulated by Professor Thorn and endorsed by the author. The monuments today are almost certainly not as they were when first built and refined statistical or astronomical arguments should be constantly inhibited on account of these fundamental limitations in the evidence. The second hypothesis follows directly from an acceptance that certain elements of the neolithic and Bronze Age populace possessed these intellectual skills. The author suggests that this elite had their residences, temples and training schools in enclosures
BOOK
REVIEWS
lW
and buildings of types recently excavated in southern England at Durrington Walls, Marden and Mount Pleasant and in the north at Skara Brae on Orkney. A dual domestic! ritual function has for several years been the preferred explanation for the south English structures and earthworks; the author proposesthat the inhabitants were the astronomerpriests necessitatedby an acceptance of Thorn’s theories. Any differences of opinion do not concern the nature of the centres but the qualifications and specialismsof the elite who lived in them. It is a bold and keenly argued book which is a welcome and forceful addition to excursions into archaeological theory. In addition to its main hypotheses it contains new assessments of great interest and its iconoclastic approach will provide the impetus for fresh avenues of research, if treated as a speculative exercise in the interpretation of archaeological data. G. J. Wainwright
Sunda and Sahul-Prehistoric Studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia. Edited by J. Allen, J. Golson and R. Jones. 1977. 647 pp.
84 figures and plates. London: Academic Press. &12*50. This book contains 18 papers presented at a symposium of the Pacific Science Congress in Vancouver in 1975 by an invited group of anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists, ecologists and geographers, all of whom have been involved in field research in Australia or the islands to its north, and who were asked to focus on common themes of human adaptation and cultural evolution linking Australian and Melanesian prehis:ory to that of Southeast Asia. There are five sections: on palaeolithic stone tools and the extent to which they reflect cultural processes;on the Pleistocene settlement of Island Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia and associatedproblems of human biology, demography, and cultural adaptation to a new environment; on biogeographic principles of island colonization and the role of early maritime technology and trade; on the value of the rich ethnographic data from the region for reconstructing the past; and on new evidence for the development of horticultural systemsin Mainland Southeast Asia and Melanesia which developed parallel with, but independently of, the better known early centres of p!ant domestication and cultivation techniques in Western Asia. Despite the symposium’s purpose of exploring some of the general themes linking the prehistory of Australia and Melanesia with that of Southeast Asia, few of the contributors take more than a casual glance beyond their accustomed regional boundaries. Eleven of the papers deal almost exclusively with Australian (5), Melanesian (3) or Southeast Asian (3) topics, a further six compare evidence and problems between two of these three regions, and only one paper, that by Chappell and Thorn on Quaternary sea-level changes and their biogeographic consequences,is conceived on a truly inter-regional scale. Perhaps one should not have expected more, for only four of the 20 contributors have worked west of the Wallace Line and the prehistory of Southeast Asia is undeveloped compared even with that of Australia and Melanesia. If the book does not quite live up to the expectations aroused by its title and the publisher’s blurb, it still contains much of value and should be of interest to all archaeologists, whether or not they are particularly concerned with Asian and Pacific studies, as it contains, for a conference proceedings, an unusually high proportion of creative and forward looking papers which offer substantial help towards understanding man’s cultural and biological diversification.
BOOK REVIEWS
sion of the terrain in which hillforts were built, for excavation should produce the evidence to enable fuller statements to be made than that “the old turf line below the rampart sections at Ravensburgh Castle, Herts, clearly represents a buried plough soil”. Bruce Proudfoot
Science and Society in Prehistoric
Britain.
By Euan W. MacKie. 1977.
xii +252 pp. 17 plates, 36 figures. 57.50. This is a courageous and strongly argued book that proposes two hypotheses which, if generally accepted, are fundamental to our interpretation of society in the 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC. The central hypothesis is that certain elements of the populace were proficient in geometry, surveying and observational astronomy and that their expertise was supported by surplus food and labour when required. The subsidiary hypothesis which follows from this is that society was so organized as to enable these “wise men” or “theocratic elite” to live in specially constructed centres. The author claims that these hypotheses satisfactorily integrate three developments in archaeological thought and discovery in recent years-the calibration of radiocarbon dates; theories regarding the intellectual achievements of neolithic and Bronze Age society propounded by Professor Thorn; and excavations of earthworks of that date in southern England. The volume includes in addition, an important reassessment of Stonehenge and descriptive accounts of Avebury, Durrington Walls, Mount Pleasant, Marden, Woodhenge and Skara Brae. It is perhaps unnecessary to emphasize that the interpretations placed by Professor Thorn on his field results, which are fundamental to the main hypothesis of this book, have not found universal acceptance. The megalithic yard and a multiple of it as standard units of measurement have been interpreted on several occasions as standardizations of a pace which probably developed independently in several parts of the world. In addition, circle and ring lay-outs are employed to demonstrate the advanced geometry developed by the neolithic population. Yet amidst the recondite explanations necessitated by this hypothesis an equally plausible view is possible, that complex designs (e.g. with flattened curves and eccentric alignments) may be due solely to established practice in the use of work-gangs to construct rings and earthwork ditches. Concerning archaeoastronomy the author properly distinguishes between an orientation and an alignment and discusses the majority of the problems involved in interpreting the latter as astronomical sight-lines. However, despite a part-chapter on the nature of archaeological evidence one would have wished to see greater emphasis placed on the limitations of the inferences to be drawn from field or excavation data. Stone monuments by their very nature are subject to erosion, attrition and addition and our knowledge of the structural history of any monument cannot be complete without excavation, which will produce evidence for any timber structures and the micro-environment of the time. Furthermore, it would be a fallacy to assume that excavation data represent a total objective record of the original state of a monument which can be employed to infer the geometrical and astronomical abilities postulated by Professor Thorn and endorsed by the author. The monuments today are almost certainly not as they were when first built and refined statistical or astronomical arguments should be constantly inhibited on account of these fundamental limitations in the evidence. The second hypothesis follows directly from an acceptance that certain elements of the neolithic and Bronze Age populace possessed these intellectual skills. The author suggests that this elite had their residences, temples and training schools in enclosures
BOOK
REVIEWS
lW
and buildings of types recently excavated in southern England at Durrington Walls, Marden and Mount Pleasant and in the north at Skara Brae on Orkney. A dual domestic! ritual function has for several years been the preferred explanation for the south English structures and earthworks; the author proposesthat the inhabitants were the astronomerpriests necessitatedby an acceptance of Thorn’s theories. Any differences of opinion do not concern the nature of the centres but the qualifications and specialismsof the elite who lived in them. It is a bold and keenly argued book which is a welcome and forceful addition to excursions into archaeological theory. In addition to its main hypotheses it contains new assessments of great interest and its iconoclastic approach will provide the impetus for fresh avenues of research, if treated as a speculative exercise in the interpretation of archaeological data. G. J. Wainwright
Sunda and Sahul-Prehistoric Studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia. Edited by J. Allen, J. Golson and R. Jones. 1977. 647 pp.
84 figures and plates. London: Academic Press. &12*50. This book contains 18 papers presented at a symposium of the Pacific Science Congress in Vancouver in 1975 by an invited group of anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists, ecologists and geographers, all of whom have been involved in field research in Australia or the islands to its north, and who were asked to focus on common themes of human adaptation and cultural evolution linking Australian and Melanesian prehis:ory to that of Southeast Asia. There are five sections: on palaeolithic stone tools and the extent to which they reflect cultural processes;on the Pleistocene settlement of Island Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia and associatedproblems of human biology, demography, and cultural adaptation to a new environment; on biogeographic principles of island colonization and the role of early maritime technology and trade; on the value of the rich ethnographic data from the region for reconstructing the past; and on new evidence for the development of horticultural systemsin Mainland Southeast Asia and Melanesia which developed parallel with, but independently of, the better known early centres of p!ant domestication and cultivation techniques in Western Asia. Despite the symposium’s purpose of exploring some of the general themes linking the prehistory of Australia and Melanesia with that of Southeast Asia, few of the contributors take more than a casual glance beyond their accustomed regional boundaries. Eleven of the papers deal almost exclusively with Australian (5), Melanesian (3) or Southeast Asian (3) topics, a further six compare evidence and problems between two of these three regions, and only one paper, that by Chappell and Thorn on Quaternary sea-level changes and their biogeographic consequences,is conceived on a truly inter-regional scale. Perhaps one should not have expected more, for only four of the 20 contributors have worked west of the Wallace Line and the prehistory of Southeast Asia is undeveloped compared even with that of Australia and Melanesia. If the book does not quite live up to the expectations aroused by its title and the publisher’s blurb, it still contains much of value and should be of interest to all archaeologists, whether or not they are particularly concerned with Asian and Pacific studies, as it contains, for a conference proceedings, an unusually high proportion of creative and forward looking papers which offer substantial help towards understanding man’s cultural and biological diversification.