The study of prehistoric change

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this relationship. Yet despite these weaknesses this work provides a useful insight into the settlement and subsequent development of the Southwest and the Rocky Mountains. Brigham Young University

RICHARD H. JACKSON

FRED T. PLOG, The 5’tudy of Prehistoric Change (New York: Academic Press, 1974. Pp. xii + 199. $14.00) The Academic Press currently carries one of the most extensive available lists of archaeological books and its new publication by Fred Plog is a thoughtful addition to contemporary discussions of prehistoric human behaviour in general and in the North American Southwest in particular. Plog’s well-organized presentation of concepts, methods, data and argument generally allows the reader to follow his logical constructions and thus accept or question each stage of his work. His discussions of general methods and models for the analysis and explanation of prehistoric technology, demography, energetics and land-use patterns make his book relevent to several disciplines. The ultimate concern of this volume is delineation of sequences of cultural change in the explication and explanation of the transitory periods of increased innovation that can be identified between periods of relative cultural homeostasis (i.e. stability, equilibrium, homogeneity). Rather than being simply a general survey of this topic, however, the book focuses on one specific research problem and its solution. Following an initial general statement of the “new” goals and methods of archaeology, Plog presents a problem that merits attention from a “model of change” perspective: the apparent cultural transition that occurred between A.D. 500 and loo0 in the American Southwest Anasazi tradition, between two archaeological units labelled Basketmaker and Pueblo. An excellent, succinct summary of the history of archaeological research on this period is provided, as background to development of the authors’ specific concern with “a search for laws explaining the . . . transition” (p. 34). Data gathered over twelve years by the Field Museum of Natural History’s Southwest Archaeological Expedition (directed by the late Paul S. Martin) in the Hay Hallow Valley, Upper LittIe Colorado Region (Arizona), provide the base for analysing the problem within the general theoretical framework which Plog outlines. A presentation of general “models of change”, following the particular problem identification, is rather confusing. Plog’s summary of this section (pa 54) states that he has discussed three models and selected one as being most appropriate to analysis of prehistoric diachronic problems, but the reader is hard put to distinguish between the three. The author first identifies an “environmental change model”, focused on the idea that cultural changes as reflected in the archaeological record are morphogenic or deviation-amplifying systemic responses to physical environmental stresses (p. 47). Plog’s rather disorganized argument rejects this systemic model and instead opts for a model which attempts to understand systemic change by focusing on the accidental and purposeful shifting behaviour of individuals within a system. This leads him into a discussion of behavioural adaptive strategies, which are also rejected as an appropriate diachronic analytical model. Finally, he is left with a “dimensional or dynamicequilibrium” model of change. Dimensions are defined as “the most important or basic characteristics of cultural systems”, never causally related to each other but “each of which includes a set of commonly used variables that are essentially varied modifications of a single data base or observational set” (p. 54). This acceptable analytical model is never discussed in general: there is no discussion of possible variations of “dynamic-equilibrium” models and of how these are diagnostically different from, for instance, the variant environmental change models. Instead, a model of growth that is suggested by contemporary third world developments is presented as the most appropriate pattern for the analysis of

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Basketmaker-Pueblo transitions, and apparently for investigations of prehistoric cultural systems in general. Plog accepts a definition of growth as “progressive”, involving systemic “increase in size”, “ rise in the number of components”, “increase in . . . complexity”, “reorganization of relationships among structures” and “increase in the amounts of matter energy and information” (p. 55). He thus involves the cultural dimensions of population, differentiation, integration and energy. Technology is constantly interwoven among the dimensions but its precise place is not clearly delineated in the initial discussion. The model is initially operationally bivariate, relying on the assumption of all other things being equal, and is presented with the caveat that the analytical conclusions presented by the specific case study must be seen only as “hypotheses derived from the examination of a single case of growth” (p. 57). Despite the fact that it is difficult to separate clearly the stages and levels of inference in any study, it is obvious at the beginning of the more detailed discussion of the growth model’s dimensions, test implications and specific application that the model’s “goodness of fit” evaluation was made before the analysis of data began. The rest of the volume is simply an exercise in seeing how well the data can be fitted into the concepts and language of the a priori model. This is a valuable exercise if understood as such, but is a far cry from the process of developing multiple alternative models and test implications, then reviewing the data against this broader reference frame to test the explanatory power of each. After selecting his model of growth, Plog proceeds to discuss the changes that are associated with various cultural dimensions as seen in contemporary third world developments. He then constructs a matrix of the probable interrelationships among these dimensions. Next is an intellectual translation of these dimensions into a prehistoric horticultural/gathering context. Finally, the Hay Hollow Valley data are reviewed in relation to three specific questions that all relate technological change to the nonsubstantive cultural dimensions of population, differentiation and integration. Most of the data on which Plog’s analysis is based come from archaeological survey and surface sampling, with extrapolation to regional population size and distributional estimates over time. As one would expect with such a presentation the data are given in summary only, but it is still disconcerting to find that so many of the original data collections are described in unpublished manuscripts on file at the Field Museum and hence generally not subject to review. This feeling is exacerbated when one realizes the paucity of excavated sites and data on which the regional cultural portrayal is built2 sites dug and no idea of total site number for Phase I; no site dug, 4 known, 8 total estimated for Phase II; 1 dug, 40 total estimated for Phases III and IV respectively; up to 5 dug, 150 total estimated for Phase V; up to 4 dug, 35 total estimated for Phase VI. Even more disturbing is the artifact type outline presented in appendix 11 which is limited to lithic items only, a combination of flaked and ground stone artifact classes that are completely cross-cut by a mixture of technological, utilizational and stylistic attribute systems. It is the inferred organization of these tool types into functionally defined tool kits that is then transformed into statistically manipulatable data for analysis of technological change. Despite Plog’s introductory avowal (p. x) that “rigorous methods and rigorous explanations are sterile companions in the absence of an interesting problem”, hence not essential here since it is the definition of the problem that is considered more important, one wonders if the publication of a rather expensive book should not have been delayed until there was more congruity of method and data. If we accept the appropriateness to the Anasazi problem of Plog’s model of growth, and of the data at all its levels of inference, his analysis of the patterns of change in demography, work, social organization and technology follows logically. The data as presented, on architecture, tool kits, site distributions and burial goods, clearly indicate a maximum increase and maximum utilization of limited activity sites between A.D. 800 and 900 (the archaeological transition from Basketmaker to Pueblo), and a peak of intra-site and inter-site social complexity at about A.D. 1000. This was accompanied by a

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significant change in the function of the kiva, in that this structure (never specifically defined) came to serve as a central commodities storehouse as well as a religious ccntre after about A.D. 1000. Plog also comments that the general process of Anasazi cultural differentiation during this period resulted in the differentiation of integrative social roles, but this is not solidly demonstrated. Thus, the model of growth begins to fit the data. His discussion of lithic tools in terms of efficiency of manufacture or use is so rudimentary in its understanding of the processes of selection, modification and task application of stone implements as to make that whole section pointless. Chapter 13, ‘Summary and conclusions’, is the best organized, most lucid statement in the book. Plog’s descriptive and statistical summary of the data on the BasketmakerPueblo transition as they relate to population, differentiation, integration and technology; his discussion of the sequence or temporal ordering of these dimensions during a period of cultural growth; and his application of that problem to those data are all impressive and exciting. But it is also so simplistic as to be almost dangerous, based as it is on the questionable application of a western goal of progress and growth to a prehistoric nonwestern horticultural/gathering economic system; on inadequate and sometimes superficial data; and on tremendous leaps from the actual base data to inferences on cultural dimensions. The volume is of obvious interest to all who are concerned with the explanation of diachronic cultural patterns, but certainly adheres to Plog’s introductory comment (p. x) that “it suggests somewhat more than it delivers”. The University of Idaho

RUTHANN KNUDSON

JEFFREYG. WILLIAMSON, Late Nineteenth-century

American Development: A General Equilibrium History (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. x + 350. $19.50)

This is an ambitious book. It is almost certain to win much praise from some practitioners of the “new economic history”. Many of its conclusions, which directly contradict conventional wisdom, are equally certain to provoke sharp criticism from other “new economic historians”. Unfortunately, Williamson’s work holds disappointingly little of value for either the traditional historical geographer or the human geographer interested in process models. Williamson’s work is ambitious because of the wide range of questions that he seeks to answer about the general causes and consequences of economic growth in the United States between 1870 and 1910 and, more particularly, about “the sources of industrialization, regional development, and the operation of regional commodity and factor markets during the development process”. Among the long list of questions posed by Williamson are the following. Why did the growth rates for per capita output and labour productivity in the United States persistently decline from 1870 to the turn of the century? How is the evolution of a national capital market between 1870 and 1914 to be accounted for? What were the behavioural characteristics and determinants of farm income and land values in the Midwest during the post-Civil War period and how were these related to farm mechanization, off-farm migration and widespread farmer discontent ? What impact did the sharp fall in railroad freight rates between 1870 and 1890 have on capital formation, output growth, industrialization and farm performance in the Midwest, and on rural-urban and inter-regional migration? What influences did world market conditions have on rapid industrialization in the post-Civil War period and on midwestern grain production? What were the economic and demographic determinants of the longterm patterns of European emigration to America? Most of the answers provided by Williamson rest on the premise that late nineteenthcentury development in the Northeast and Midwest was primarily an adjustment process to the conditions of economic disequilibrium precipitated by the Civil War. Williamson proceeds first by constructing a regionally oriented general equilibrium model of economic growth in the United States between 1870 and 1910, then by defending the plausibility of that model and finally-in a manner by now quite popular with “new economic historians” 14