The paleogene of Asia: Mammals and stratigraphy

374

BOOK REVIEWS

research

efforts in (mostly)

of approaches

lacking a firsthand research

late Pleistocene

and treatments

interests

grasp of the primary literature,

The variety of topics and diversity and other interested

it should indeed encourage

and cross-disciplinary

researches

readers,

some insight into current problems

of a fair diversity of Old World prehistorians.

of some contributors, perspectives

prehistory.

will afford many archeologists

and hopefully

and

And, in spite of the caveats enhance

further

regional

in the future. F. CLARK HOWELL Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley,

The Paleogene By Donald

E. Russell

d’Histoire

Naturelle.

This monographic monumental background

study, dedicated

tribute

and Stratigraphy

P aris: Memoires du Museum National Sciences de la Terre 52, 1-488~~. ISBN 2-85653-140-7, Ff. 300. (cloth) and Zhai Ren-jie

(1987)

to Donald

to the perseverence

E. Savage

and competence

and Ting Su-Yin

is a direct quote from the work of Russell

and Minchen of its authors.

to the state of affairs of the Asian Paleogene

work and that of Li Chuan-Kuei China)

of Asia: Mammals

Berkeley,

CA 94720, U.S.A.

Chow, is also a Perhaps

prior to the publication

in 1983 (The Paleogene

the best of this

mammals

of

and Zhai (p. 20).

Knowledge of the Paleogene faunas of Asia has greatly suffered in the past from regionalism, as much as in the Soviet Union as in the People’s Republic of China. This isolation was considerably aggrevated with respect to scientists in the Western world; linguistic barriers and the dispersion ofinformation in sometimes inaccessible publications were the principal causes of this problem. Moreover, the geographic situation of many localities, as well as the fauna1 contents or their age, remained inaccurate or estimated on faulty data.

This is an accurate

summation,

and it was this state of affairs that the Li and Ting study

and the wider-scoped and more ambitious Zhai has all but eliminated. Russell

and Zhai have undertaken

undertaking

a daunting

of the monograph

by Russell

and

task. They take each known Paleogene

mammalian locality from all of Asia and explain both its stratigraphy and the up to date understanding of its sedimentary environment. The description and systematic ordering of any fauna1 assemblage is always subject to the state of knowledge of the various groups from other localities and the systematic revisions scattered in many other studies. As

expected,

a

reappraisal

of

mammalian

fauna1

assemblages

by

competent

paleomammalogists like the authors invariably results in new systematic determinations based both on their own views of the taxa as well as judgements made on the literature subsequent to the original descriptions or revisions. All of this has been done with great care. The organization and rhythm of the book is exemplary in that its riches are laid out in probably the most accessible possible ways. Going up through time and covering the localities in the various great regions of the Asian continent one finds fauna1 lists, synonyms of taxa, copious list of references, detailed description of the sediments, and a reasoned and justified

age assignment

of the faunas.

375

BOOKREVIEWS

In the conclusion various

of this study they summarize

fauna1 assemblages.

They

maintain

nature of almost all of the Asian Paleogene

their reasons

for the correlation

that in spite of the exclusively

sediments

of the

continental

which yielded mammals,

the faunas

of the Far East can be securely correlated with North American faunas at least in most of the Eocene, and with European faunas in the Oligocene. The Paleocene remains clearly problematic. The best critique

that may be levelled against their correlations

fine study, from the authors

themselves

comes, as it befits such a

(p. 409):

An obvious criticism that can be made of our work is the impression that nearly all of our listed faunas are neatly contained in one of the three divisions, early, middle and late, of each epoch. But certainly no one is more aware than we of the obligatory imprecision and fuzziness of each boundary, especially when proposed on a world wide scale. Correlation, whether it be by marine invertebrates, terrestrial mammals or radioisotopic dates, is still decades away from true precision. We have no illusion as to the accuracy of the terms early, middle and late; they are conventional concepts that express our estimates. The temporal fauna1 groupings presented here are our versions of probability. Superb maps (several large fold-out kinds), lithostratigraphic charts provide stimulating

and rich illustrative

columns,

and correlation

support for the detailed discussions

in the

text. In the Appendix Paleogene

of the monograph

into the biochronologic

the authors

propose

units of Land Mammal

used throughout

the world for most major landmasses.

the mammalian

faunas

bases of their definitions age,

these

are:

Nongshanian Mammal

from the specified

(1) Shanghuan

Land

Land

Mammal

Age (early Eocene);

Mammal

Tabenbulukian framework

created

incorporation debate.

Land

Mammal

by Russell

Age and

(late Zhai

of any future discoveries

paleontology

One is both humbled

faunas

or middle

Land Mammal (6) Ergilian

are the

of decreasing

Paleocene);

(3) Bumbanian

(2) Land

Age (middle Eocene), Land Mammal

(5)

Age (early

Age

(middle

Oligocene);

and

(9)

Oligocene).

There

is no doubt

that

this

will

represent

the

starting

and it will serve as a foundation

This is a classic and very important

vertebrate

(early

late Paleocene);

Sharamurunian Land Mammal Age (late Eocene); Oligocene); (7) Shandg o 1’lan Land Mammal

fauna1 lists for

composite

Ages. In a sequence

Age

Age (presumably (4) Irdinmanhan

These

of the Asian

latter are widely

They list composite

formations.

of the specific land Mammal

a subdivision

Ages. These

contribution

point

for

the

for any future

for the study of Asian geology,

and “deep” paleoanthropology. and inspired

by such an achievement. FREDERICKS.SZALAY

Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, U.S.A.

L’homme, son &oh&ion,

sa Diversitd: manuel d’anthropologie physique

Edited by Denise Ferembach, Charles Susanne, and Marie-Claude Chamla CNRS and Doin Editeurs, 572 pp. ISBN 2-7040-0492-7, Ff. 390.00.

(1986)

Paris:

It is commonplace nowadays to use terms derived from the jargon of the computer world to describe phenomena in other worlds. Having read L’homme . . I could not avoid being