Sacrificial virgins of the Mississippi
Archaeologists are slowly unearthing the ghastly secrets of Cahokia, an ancient
city under the American heartland

By Andrew O'Hehir

Aug. 6, 2009 | Ever since the first Europeans came to North America, only to
discover the puzzling fact that other people were already living here, the
question of how to understand the Native American past has been both difficult
and politically charged. For many years, American Indian life was viewed through
a scrim of interconnected bigotry and romance, which simultaneously served to
idealize the pre-contact societies of the Americas and to justify their
destruction. Pre-Columbian life might be understood as savage and brutal
darkness or an eco-conscious Eden where man lived in perfect harmony with
nature. But it seemed to exist outside history, as if the native people of this
continent were for some reason exempt from greed, cruelty, warfare and other
near-universal characteristics of human society.

As archaeologist Timothy Pauketat's cautious but mesmerizing new book, "Cahokia:
Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi," makes clear, Cahokia -- the
greatest Native American city north of Mexico -- definitely belongs to human
history. (It is not "historical," in the strict sense, because the Cahokians
left no written records.) At its peak in the 12th century, this settlement along
the Mississippi River bottomland of western Illinois, a few miles east of
modern-day St. Louis, was probably larger than London, and held economic,
cultural and religious sway over a vast swath of the American heartland.
Featuring a man-made central plaza covering 50 acres and the third-largest
pyramid in the New World (the 100-foot-tall "Monks Mound"), Cahokia was home to
at least 20,000 people. If that doesn't sound impressive from a 21st-century
perspective, consider that the next city on United States territory to attain
that size would be Philadelphia, some 600 years later.

In a number of critical ways, Cahokia seems to resemble other ancient cities
discovered all over the world, from Mesopotamia to the Yucatán. It appears to
have been arranged according to geometrical and astronomical principles (around
various "Woodhenges," large, precisely positioned circles of wooden poles), and
was probably governed by an elite class who commanded both political allegiance
and spiritual authority. Cahokia was evidently an imperial center that abruptly
exploded, flourished for more then a century and then collapsed, very likely for
one or more of the usual reasons: environmental destruction, epidemics of
disease, the ill will of subjugated peoples and/or outside enemies.

rest at

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/08/06/cahokia/

BOOK REVIEW
Looters

Jenifer Neils

LOOT: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World.
Sharon Waxman. xvi + 414 pp. Times Books, 2008. $30.

WHO OWNS ANTIQUITY? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage.
James Cuno. xl + 228 pp. Princeton University Press, 2008. $24.95.

On April 19th, 2005, a Russian Antonov 124 transport touched down on a
runway in Axum, Ethiopia. Its cargo was the middle section of a
1,700-year-old, 78-foot-tall, 160-ton granite obelisk, which had been
removed from Ethiopia in the 1930s by Benito Mussolini, who erected it
in front of his newly built Ministry of Italian Africa in central
Rome. The cost to the Italians for disassembling this monument and
transporting it back to Ethiopia in three parts was reportedly $7.7
million.

The obelisk of Axum was not the only piece of cultural property
returned to its country of origin in 2005. The British Museum, which
since 1944 had had in its possession a red cedar ceremonial mask that
Kwakwaka'wakw tribesmen of British Columbia had worn at potlatches in
the early 20th century, sent this artifact back to British Columbia on
long-term loan to the U'Mista Cultural Society in Alert Bay.

These two voluntary acts have garnered little publicity and rate
barely a mention in the proliferation of new books devoted to the
"battles" over heritage. Yet they demonstrate that the tide is turning
in favor of countries and peoples who seek to reclaim objects that
they consider to be their cultural patrimony, regardless of whether
the object was removed legally.

Loot, by journalist Sharon Waxman, and Who Owns Antiquity?, by James
Cuno, take decidedly different approaches to the complex problems
relating to the archaeological material that is at the forefront of
the disputes over cultural property. Waxman focuses on spectacular
cases involving high-profile museums—for example, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles,
which have recently returned valuable works of ancient art to Italy,
Greece and Turkey. Having previously authored a book on maverick
Hollywood directors, she here turns her attention to some of the more
flamboyant personalities of the antiquities world, detailing the
exploits of notorious thieves (or saviors of the past, depending on
your perspective) as well as those of contemporary players—namely,
well-known museum directors, curators and dealers.

Cuno, who is director of the Art Institute of Chicago, is the only
person holding such a post who actually writes books defending the
mores of his profession. His approach is more scholarly than Waxman's
but also more irritating, because the book consists mainly of a
diatribe against increasing nationalism throughout the world, which he
believes has prompted the actions that archaeologically rich countries
have taken to protect and retain their antiquities. Although he
strives to be ecumenical, pulling his examples from China, Nigeria,
Turkey and Italy, his arguments are one-sided and hence surprisingly
narrow. He supports the now outdated and largely rejected practices of
museums that acquire antiquities without documented provenance. And he
utterly fails to provide any other perspectives, especially those of
archaeologists.

Photograph%20of%20the%20interior%20of%20the%20tomb%20of%20the%20Egyptian%20phara\
oh%20Amenophis%20III
Click to Enlarge Image

Both books deal with personalities. Waxman retells the much-rehearsed
story of Lord Elgin, the ambassador to the Ottoman empire who
despoiled the Acropolis not only of the well-known Parthenon
sculptures but also of random columns and sculptures from other
monuments of classical Athens; these are now the jewels of the British
Museum. Cuno describes the travels of more recherché individuals, such
as Langdon Warner, a Harvard professor of Chinese art. In 1924 Warner
visited the Mogao cave temples in northwest China, which have the
largest collection of Buddhist mural art in the country. He came home
with a Tang Dynasty stucco sculpture of a kneeling bodhisattva from
one cave (this was a purchase he negotiated) and 12 painted wall
fragments from another (Cuno says that these were "rather awkwardly"
removed). Today, both the Acropolis and the Mogao caves are World
Heritage sites.

The value of these archaeological sites resides not only in their
artistic achievements, but also in the wealth of information they
provide about the culture of their age. The Acropolis once had
inscriptions carved on marble slabs detailing the transactions of the
treasury, and the Mogao caves contained hundreds of Buddhist
manuscripts; much of this site-specific material was removed long ago
by European travelers and collectors. That's a great shame: Had these
sites remained more complete, archaeologists would have more readily
been able to understand their impressive past.

Both books organize their material along geographical lines. Waxman
devotes part 1 of Loot to Egypt and its despoliation by the likes of
Napoleon (under whose command the Rosetta Stone was brought to light)
and Giovanni Belzoni, the Italian weight lifter who discovered the
Temple of Abu Simbel. Belzoni also managed to cart off from Thebes a
colossal head of Ramses II, which now resides in the British Museum.

Part 2 is devoted to Turkey and the intriguing tale of the Lydian
hoard, which consists of 219 Greek gold and silver objects that the
Metropolitan Museum of Art bought in the late 1960s. The museum left
these to cool off in its basement for years before exhibiting them, at
which point Turkey sued for their return. Part 3 deals with Greece and
its long controversy with the British Museum over the marbles taken by
Lord Elgin. And the focus of part 4 is Italy and its pursuit of the
looted objects the Getty Museum acquired, as well as the ongoing
prosecution in Rome of the Getty's former antiquities curator.

Cuno covers some of the same ground (his third chapter deals with
Turkey), but he goes farther afield (China) and also delves more
deeply into the rise of nations such as Italy, Turkey and Iraq. He
attempts to demonstrate that their cultural identities are modern
constructs. He points out, for example, that the Egyptians formerly
thought of themselves chiefly as Muslims and only more recently as a
people whose ancestors were responsible for the pyramids. He seems to
argue that because these identities are recent and nationalistic they
should have no bearing on claims for antiquities, which he believes to
be the heritage of all.

rest at

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/looters

--- In EuropeanArchaeology@yahoogroups.com, "mhall940" <markhall@...>
wrote:

Geography Is Destiny

Europe Between the Oceans
by Barry Cunliffe
Yale

Worlds collide Hellenistic images on the dome of a Thracian tomb in
Bulgaria
Image credit: Carmen Redondo/Corbis

Great archaeologists are often at war with themselves. They aim to
explain seismic transformations—social and cultural, economic,
demographic, even genetic. But they do so by sifting (literally and
figuratively) physical evidence that's scant and (literally and
figuratively) fragmentary. These methods mean that nearly all their
publications are narrow and exceedingly dry, even by academic
standards. And even on those rare occasions when they venture beyond
the journal article or monograph, their writing seldom tempts even the
most archaeologically besotted general reader. For instance, although
the great archaeologist of Mesopotamia Robert McCormick Adams has
revolutionized scholars' understanding of the origins of urban
civilization, his oversize tomes, with their detailed maps of
watercourses and settlement patterns and meticulous charts of pottery
types, resemble field reports, not works of history. But because
archaeology addresses the most basic questions and explores the most
profound changes in human history by means of a grossly incomplete
record—and perhaps because it was long the province of aristocrats and
buccaneers—it has invited the sort of bold interpretations in which
speculation can too easily become untethered from evidence. When
archaeology is done right, it's frequently dull; when it's
fascinating, it's frequently wrong.


So Europe Between the Oceans, at once compelling and judicious, is an
extraordinary book. In a work of analytical depth and imaginative
sweep, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European
archaeology at Oxford, has synthesized the voluminous recent record of
excavations from Iceland to Turkey, the burgeoning scholarship on DNA
and ancient populations, and research on topics ranging from Stone Age
shipbuilding to trade in Muslim Spain and from salinity levels in the
ancient Black Sea to state formation in Early Iron Age Denmark. This
all serves to elucidate the "complex interaction of human groups with
their environment, and with each other" in Europe from 9000 B.C. to
1000 A.D.—10,000 years of cultural, social, and material development,
starting at the close of the last ice age and ending with the
emergence of the European nation-states.

rest at

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice

--- End forwarded message ---

Tales from the Vitrine: Battles Over Stolen Antiquities
By Britt Peterson

Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
     by Sharon Waxman
     Buy this book

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
     by James Cuno
     Buy this book

Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past
     by Geoff Emberling and Katharyn Hanson, eds.
     Buy this book

Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine's Passion to Recover the World's
Greatest Stolen Treasures
     by Matthew Bogdanos, with William Patrick
     Buy this book


This article appeared in the January 26, 2009 edition of The Nation.
January 7, 2009

Sharon Waxman
A counterfeit hippocampus on display in Usak, Turkey

On a 1984 visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Turkish
journalist named Ozgen Acar noticed a group of fifty artifacts labeled
"East Greek treasure" that resembled a collection that had gone
missing some twenty years before. The treasure, Acar suspected, had
been snatched by grave robbers from Sardis, an ancient city in western
Turkey, which served as the capital of the Lydian empire at its peak
in the sixth and seventh centuries BC. (Herodotus tells us that its
last king, the affluent Croesus, was the first person to mint coins of
pure silver and gold, hence the saying "as rich as Croesus.") Acar,
who had spent the previous decade tracking antiquities looters in the
small towns surrounding Sardis, took his suspicions to the Turkish
Ministry of Education. It turned out that the Lydian Hoard had passed
through a number of smugglers and semireputable dealers before
reaching the Met in the 1960s, and there was plenty of evidence that
the Met had known something of the provenance of the objects at the
time and willfully ignored it. The Turkish government sued the Met for
the unconditional return of the cache and, after a six-year legal
battle, finally won. In 1995 the Lydian Hoard was returned to the
small town of Usak, in Sardis, sparking an outpouring of national
pride and a flurry of copycat lawsuits.


       Britt Peterson: How powerful museums and private collectors act
as stewards and looters of the world's cultural treasures.

The celebrations were to be short-lived. Unlike in other "source
countries" such as Greece, Italy and Egypt, the people of Turkey are
the product of successive invasions and migrations. Modern Turks, who
are primarily descended from thirteenth-century Ottoman conquerors,
have little in common, ethnically or culturally, with the Trojans,
Lydians and Mycenaeans of the distant past. Perhaps not surprisingly,
then, Turks have been most eager to tour attractions that showcase
relics of their Muslim heritage, such as the Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine
basilica later converted into a mosque, and Topkapi Palace, once home
to the Ottoman sultans and the present custodian of their crown
jewels. These sites each host about a million visitors every year,
making them the two most popular attractions in Istanbul. Compare this
with the little museum in Usak, which received exactly 769 visitors
between 2001 and 2006, a number that failed to impress the Hoard's
previous stewards: the number of people "who've visited those
treasures in Turkey," sniffed a museum spokesman, "is roughly equal to
one hour's worth of visitors at the Met."

At that time, the Usak museum was so poorly appointed that its lone
security guard doubled as the ticket taker. The vitrines holding the
objects were barely protected; there was no alarm system, and the lock
was the sort one can pick with a hairpin. In 2005 officials were
forced to admit that several pieces had corroded since arriving in
Turkey; the Usak museum lacked sufficient funds to care for them properly.

So it should have come as no shock when, in April 2006, the highlight
of the Hoard, a golden hippocampus (sea horse) much beloved by
tourists and locals alike, was revealed to have been stolen. At almost
twice the weight of the original, the hippocampus that was--and
remains--on display was an obvious fake. Kazim Akbiyikoglu, the
museum's curator and Acar's old friend and ally, was fingered as the
thief. Acar, who had by then devoted twenty years of his life to
winning back the Hoard, was devastated.

rest at

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090126/peterson

Loot
The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
By Sharon Waxman
Times Books; 414 pages; $30
The title, stamped in gold capital letters on the dust jacket, gives
away the author's agenda: This is a muckraking book about art objects
from ancient cultures that have found their way into major museums of
Europe and the United States. Sharon Waxman has a nose for scandal
and spends much of the book following up on reports of thefts by
grave robbers, smuggling by dealers and sexual hanky-panky between
museum personnel.

The result is an odd volume, part scandal mongering and part
travelogue, wrapped around a philosophical question that could have
been discussed in a book a tenth of its size.

To the victor belong the spoils has been the case for all of history.
Soldiers, from generals to privates, have brought home treasures from
the lands they conquered. Napoleon systematized things, bringing 167
artists, scientists and historians on his Egyptian campaign with
orders to collect all manner of objects, particularly art. Those
French intellectuals, as Waxman points out, created modern
Egyptology. Many of their finds wound up in the Louvre, but not the
most famous, the Rosetta Stone, key to deciphering hieroglyphs, which
the British claimed after defeating Napoleon.

The war ended, but European antiquity hunters stayed in Egypt, aided
by local officials who, if properly provided for, were quite willing
to grant permits to dig and remove ancient objects. This pattern was
followed throughout the Mediterranean and Near East during the 19th
century, most notoriously when the Earl of Elgin bribed the Turkish
authorities who ruled Greece at the time to allow him to remove from
the Parthenon and ship to England what are now known as the Elgin
Marbles. They were soon acquired by the British Museum, where they
still reside.

The Greeks have never forgotten the loss.

They and other Mediterranean nations have begun the quest in recent
times to recover what they regard as their looted patrimony. The
result is a conflict between those who espouse the Enlightenment's
idea of a universal museum, where masterpieces from all civilizations
are collected and displayed, and those who claim that the removal of
objects from the place of their creation, in addition to being theft,
robs the objects of the context without which they cannot be fully
understood. Museum officials have little patience with the latter
view.

As the curator of Egyptian art at the Louvre says, "If that's the
case, then we should put everything back in the tombs and leave it in
the dark. At its extreme, that argument is absurd. These objects were
not meant to be seen."

rest at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2008/11/29/DDSM148LFK.DTL&hw=Loot&sn=001&sc=1000

Mapping Britain's archaeology
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/06/2008



Tom Fort reviews Bloody Old Britain by Kitty Hauser

Clive Aslet reviews a monumental Survey of London
The Ordnance Survey map is one of the enduring glories of this land.
Prime Ministers and prelates come and go. Once unassailable
institutions crumble away. The reputations of poets, painters and
novelists wax and wane.

advertisementBut the OS map - with the occasional modish restyling (a
change of livery, going metric) - goes on and on.

For anyone remotely curious about the landscape, life without it is
unthinkable. That it is what it is - both guide to and treasure-store
of information about the familiar world around us - is due in no
small measure to the subject of Kitty Hauser's riveting, revelatory
and generally rather marvellous book.

O. G. S. Crawford - 'Ogs' or 'Uncle Ogs' to his colleagues and
followers - became the Ordnance Survey's first archaeology officer in
1920. He swiftly startled his boss by announcing his intention to
concentrate on fieldwork, and during his first few months personally
inspected and recorded more than 200 ancient sites in and around the
Cotswolds.

In the years to come, travelling mainly on a bicycle adapted to his
unusual purposes, he dedicated himself to correcting the many errors
perpetuated in the existing maps, and to documenting the visible and
hidden face of Britain.

rest at

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?
view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/arts/2008/06/01/bohau101.xml

If any of youhave read this, I would love to hear your comments...

Archaeology, as viewed by the "Other." New From Left Coast Press,
Inc.. A 15% discount on web orders at www.LCoastPress.com.

Protecting Çatalhöyük: Memoir of an Archaeological Site Guard
Sadrettin Dural, with contributions by Ian Hodder
Published January 2007, 160 pages, $29.95 paperback

Written by the narrator, Sadrettin Dural, a guard at the well-known
Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, this is not just the tale of the
protection of an archaeological site.  In his book, he tells the
story of the excavation from the point of view of the "Other," his
ethnography of his time at Çatalhöyük.  Delightfully written in the
first person, Dural provides stories of the strange habits of
archaeologists, describes the local in-fighting that scholars never
see, discusses the visitors to the site, as well as describes
incidents of attempted looting and his response to such incidents.
He also explains how scientists can be protected from the Yatırs,
spirits of the dead who guard the mound. For the archaeologist, this
book provides a  perspective on their work from the other side  and
shows the importance of including locals as partners in their
projects.  For the cultural anthropologist, Dural provides a rich
emic description of  rural Turkish life, one that can only be viewed
from within the culture. His role as site guard is only a small part
of his life. Dural recounts the daily lived experience of one man in
a contemporary  village, including stories about his past and his
hopes for the future, changing economic strategies for supporting his
family, his brushes with the law, trips to the beach and the city,
and erotic moments found in Turkish phone sex.

Ian Hodder, director of the Çatalhöyük project, provides explanatory
notes for the reader and an interview with the author, exploring
indigenous interpretations of ancient sites and the archaeologists
who excavate them.

" Sadrettin's is not a success story. It does not chart the
successful education and empowerment of one of those many that have
for so long been overlooked at the edges, but actually at the center
of archaeology. It could hardly be said that Sadrettin's story charts
the end of centuries of colonial archaeological manipulation and
silencing. His story is at once amusing, uplifting, tragic and
unending. But in providing us with his voice, Sadrettin has opened up
new possibilities for dialogue. I have learned a lot from him in
terms of how Çatalhöyük might be managed and interpreted, and in
terms of how archaeologists might work with local communities. I hope
that others too will gain from reading his words."
- From the Foreword by Ian Hodder


To order, visit our website at
http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=37
ISBN: 978-1-59874-049-3 (c), 978-1-59874-050-9 (p)

PRICE:
$29.95 (U.S.), $36.95 (Canadian), £17.99 (Paperback)
$65.00 (U.S.), $78.95 Canadian, £40.00 (Cloth)
For more information, contact Caryn Berg at
archaeology@...

If any of youhave read this, I would love to hear your comments...

Archaeology, as viewed by the "Other." New From Left Coast Press,
Inc.. A 15% discount on web orders at www.LCoastPress.com.

Protecting Çatalhöyük: Memoir of an Archaeological Site Guard
Sadrettin Dural, with contributions by Ian Hodder
Published January 2007, 160 pages, $29.95 paperback

Written by the narrator, Sadrettin Dural, a guard at the well-known
Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, this is not just the tale of the
protection of an archaeological site.  In his book, he tells the
story of the excavation from the point of view of the "Other," his
ethnography of his time at Çatalhöyük.  Delightfully written in the
first person, Dural provides stories of the strange habits of
archaeologists, describes the local in-fighting that scholars never
see, discusses the visitors to the site, as well as describes
incidents of attempted looting and his response to such incidents.
He also explains how scientists can be protected from the Yatırs,
spirits of the dead who guard the mound. For the archaeologist, this
book provides a  perspective on their work from the other side  and
shows the importance of including locals as partners in their
projects.  For the cultural anthropologist, Dural provides a rich
emic description of  rural Turkish life, one that can only be viewed
from within the culture. His role as site guard is only a small part
of his life. Dural recounts the daily lived experience of one man in
a contemporary  village, including stories about his past and his
hopes for the future, changing economic strategies for supporting his
family, his brushes with the law, trips to the beach and the city,
and erotic moments found in Turkish phone sex.

Ian Hodder, director of the Çatalhöyük project, provides explanatory
notes for the reader and an interview with the author, exploring
indigenous interpretations of ancient sites and the archaeologists
who excavate them.

" Sadrettin's is not a success story. It does not chart the
successful education and empowerment of one of those many that have
for so long been overlooked at the edges, but actually at the center
of archaeology. It could hardly be said that Sadrettin's story charts
the end of centuries of colonial archaeological manipulation and
silencing. His story is at once amusing, uplifting, tragic and
unending. But in providing us with his voice, Sadrettin has opened up
new possibilities for dialogue. I have learned a lot from him in
terms of how Çatalhöyük might be managed and interpreted, and in
terms of how archaeologists might work with local communities. I hope
that others too will gain from reading his words."
- From the Foreword by Ian Hodder


To order, visit our website at
http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=37
ISBN: 978-1-59874-049-3 (c), 978-1-59874-050-9 (p)

PRICE:
$29.95 (U.S.), $36.95 (Canadian), £17.99 (Paperback)
$65.00 (U.S.), $78.95 Canadian, £40.00 (Cloth)
For more information, contact Caryn Berg at
archaeology@...

Dear friends,
I just received the book "Arms and Armour from Iran" by Manoucher
Moshtagh Khorasani. It is at first sight at least very impressive with
its 776 pages, more than 3 thousand images and a few kilos!
It is a monumental work describing the time line of arms in Iran, in a
way that even the less educated in Iranian history will understand it
easily.
The text is clean, straight to the point, based in well researched and
quoted sources, prepared evidently with the precision of a master. The
images are superb and helpful for any collector, independent of
his/her historical area of focus. I can only thank to Manoucher his
excellent work and congratulate ourselves, from simple private
collectors to scholars, students, antique dealers, etc.,  for the
benefit of the availability of this exceptional reference book.
All the best
Antonio

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Dear Archview

If anyone knows of any conferences or publications about archaeology
and prehistory of first millenium BC (Europe's Atlantic facade)
please
let me know.
Thank you

José Ramiro Pimenta

Hi folks,

The lack of list traffic has indicated to me that the world is not really
ready for an informally administered peer-reviewed free e-journal
publishing reviews of archaeological and archaeology-related texts.  There
are, as I see it, two potential solutions.  I am already implementing #1
below, and I am asking for your help in implementing #2.

1.  Archreview is in the process of establishing a more traditional
approach to the review process.  While we still expect to publish a great
range of reviews from a more broad range of perspectives than the typical
peer-reviewed journal, we are now in the process of negotiating agreements
with several high-profile publishers for review copies of books.  Once
received, I will list the copies available and ship them to reviewers who
apply for the specific books listed as available.  The same deadlines
previously published here will apply, but this practice will offer our
reviewers a wider variety of potential subjects, and, potentially, attract
more reviewers and more subscribers.

2.  Simply put, this e-journal needs more participation by existing members
and more members generally speaking.  I do not want to see Archreview
members contributing spam to the already spam-heavy archaeology mailing
lists I currently subscribe to, but I would very much like to see our
membership grow.  In this, I am asking for your help.  Please consider
quietly recommending this mailing list to your students, colleagues or
co-workers.

I very much believe in what we are trying accomplish here, and I appreciate
the efforts of those who have followed through with reviews and
comments.  I also support the freedom and inexpense of the medium we've
implemented, however, archaeology on the internet is still, and for good
reason, not taken as seriously as it should be.  Archreview, following a
more traditional scholarly model than most of the mailing lists and web
sites out there, and remaining a free-of-charge service, has the potential
to help change the views of both the professional and academic
archaeological communities concerning internet resources.  This is,
undoubtedly, a worthy goal.  However, it will require substantially more
effort than what this list has so far engaged.

Please help in any way you can.

Can we post reviews of fictional novels? I am speaking of
archaeological fiction, of course.

Anita

Hi all:

In addition to this group, I am involved with the Arizona
Archaeological Council email discussion list, the AAC-L
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAC-L/). Recently, we had an issue
develop on the AAC-L involving some rather spirited debates
concerning politics and the role archaeologists and scientists in
general should play in both political activism and education.

To offer our membership another venue to discuss such things, and to
perhaps keep our official organizational email list at peace, we have
started a new list for the discussion of all the stuff that had been
deemed inappropriate for the AAC-L.

The new list is called archaeo-politics (Archaeological Politics). At
its most basic, archaeo-politics is a place to discuss the politics
and practice of archaeology and cultural resource management. It is
of course open to all those with an interest in the topic. In
addition, we hope to encourage a broader range of discussions that
take an anthropological perspective in our analyses of everything,
not just of politics.

One of our basic ideas is that all the things that make us human can
be analyzed using anthropological thought, and that the various
anthropological paradigms can be useful tools for scientists to use
to study humanity.

We would like to invite you all to join archaeo-politics, and would
appreciate it if you could forward the information about this new
discussion list to any interested parties.

You can find out more, and sign up to the new list, at this link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archaeo-politics/

Peace,

John Giacobbe
cerci1@...

Jon Hanna is an undergraduate here at Montclair State University.  He
submitted this review last week and I have edited and revised it slightly
during the review process.   Anita Cohen-Williams will be reviewing the
entire series from which this text hails at some time in the future, and
from a very different perspective.

Archaeology by Design



      By Stephen Black
      and Kevin Jolly
      Walnut Creek, CA:
      AltaMira Press
      2003, 157 pp., $22.95.



      Reviewed for Archreview
      by Jon Hanna,
      an Montclair State University
      Undergraduate Student,
      Department of Anthropology
      and
      Center for Archaeological
      Studies.

"If archaeologists are to continue to suckle the CRM teat in the twenty-first
                                   century, we sure better be learning
things worth knowing." (68) Designing such
                                   worthwhile research projects in the real
world of politics, money, and "archaeology
                                   by default," (15) however, is a lot more
complicated than the novice archaeologist
                                   may expect. Thus, Archaeology By Design
by Stephen Black and Kevin Jolly
                                   (both associated with the University of
Texas at Austin) intends to educate the
                                   newest generation of archaeologists on
how to "think first, [and] dig later" (83)
                                   when framing archaeological research.
Black and Jolly's discussion forms the
                                   cornerstone (Volume 1) of the new
Archaeologist's Toolkit series edited by Larry
                                   Zimmerman (Minnesota Historical Society)
and William Green (Logan Museum of
                                   Anthropology at Beloit College).

                                   Stephen Black (Ph.D., Harvard) is editor
of "Texas Beyond History, a public
                                   education project of the Texas
Archeological Research Laboratory-TARL- at UT
                                   Austin where he is also a research
associate.  Dr. Black has been involved in
                                   various aspects of CRM archaeology since
the 1970s. Kevin Jolly is also a
                                   research associate of TARL as well as the
Vice President of Technology for RW3
                                   Technologies, Inc., a business management
and technology provider. Together they
                                   outline everything from CRM jargon to
assessing how much toilet paper is likely to
                                   be used during fieldwork. Individual
chapters systematically address how to create
                                   realistic research questions, develop a
functional strategy for answering them, and
                                   then write the results up in a useful
final report.

                                   As dry as the subject may seem at some
points, Black and Jolly do their best to
                                   lighten the mood while keeping their
discussion from diverting into other topics.
                                   This habit allows for brief side notes on
archaeological specializations (such as
                                   geoarchaeology), handling work-relations,
being honest, keeping everyone
                                   informed, accepting (and asking for)
criticism, and an adequate basic survey of
                                   CRM history and laws in North America
(although if your looking for the specifics
                                   on CRM logistics, you'd be better off
investing in a volume intended for that
                                   purpose- some of which are listed in this
title's annotated bibliography). An
                                   emphasis is also placed on the importance
of keeping updated on current research,
                                   and an appendix offers various starting
points in "Journals You Should Read"
                                   (131). The authors also offer sound
advice on many aspects of developing a
                                   realistic project design- including how
to involve the public's interest (a topic
                                   actually covered in Presenting the Past-
the final volume of the Toolkit series).
                                   Perhaps the most emphasis, however, is
placed on the importance of being a
                                   legitimate CRM archaeologist and a
pragmatic decision-maker rather than indulging
                                   the temptation of riding a mechanical
routine through every contract (an approach
                                   they label as "archaeology by default" (15)).

                                   The strengths of this work are abundant,
but perhaps the only apparent weakness
                                   is its brevity.  Though said to be the
soul of wit, brevity seems to hamper  thorough
                                   treatment of the authors' points and some
are left unsupported by examples. Of
                                   course, the advice is quite beneficial
and the repetition of some points could be
                                   accepted as emphasis.  This brevity,
however, also necessitates a cursory
                                   discussion of academic research design.
Though the authors certainly do give an
                                   outline of an academic research project,
complete with an example of UT's lengthy
                                   research at the Classical Mayan site of
Colha, Belize, the up close and personal
                                   intricacies of the CRM world are more
thoroughly addressed than those of the
                                   academic perspective. The distinction
between the two worlds (i.e. their history
                                   together) is also emphasized and
sufficiently discussed. Black and Jolly probably
                                   favored an emphasis on the contracting
world because of the more problematic
                                   nature of research design that world
faces, and the fact that most of the
                                   archaeology conducted in the developed
world is non-academic.

                                   Naturally the goals of theoretically
guided and question-based research are
                                   ubiquitously expressed throughout
archaeological research publications, but the
                                   issues of realistically implementing such
ideals in contract archaeology is rarely
                                   discussed outside of professional
conferences. As an Anthropology undergraduate
                                   with less than a year's experience in the
field, I found the book to be quite helpful in
                                   clarifying the mysterious jargon and
procedures often encountered in the CRM
                                   domain. This self-help style paperback
provides quick info and theoretical models
                                   while also offering useful, realistic
advice for the totally unexposed beginner to
                                   serious Cultural Resource Management.
Insights on this topic are not always
                                   available in college textbooks and
classes, making this book an excellent
                                   elucidation of an oral archaeological
tradition that's finally been written down for
                                   those who need it most- the earnest
students of archaeology.


                                   Jonathan Hanna
                                   Anthropology/Archaeology Undergraduate at
Montclair State University
                                   hannaj1@...

Jim Selley is an avocational archaeology enthusiast writing from Ontario
Canada.  His review of Before California was submitted last week and flew
through review without alterations.


      Before California:
      An Archaeologist Looks at
      Our Earliest Inhabitants
      by Brian Fagan.
      2003.
      Walnut Creek, CA:
      Altamira Press.  288pp.
      $21.95




      Reviewed for Archreview
      by Jim Selley,



Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants is a
popular
                                    account of the aboriginal inhabitants of
the state prior to the arrival of the Spanish
                                    in 1542. It is intended as an
introduction to the prehistory of California. The
                                    author, Brian Fagan, hopes to provide an
adequate summary of human adaptation
                                    in California in spite of the general
inaccessibility of what he terms as the "'gray
                                    literature', publications of limited
circulation resulting from cultural resource
                                    management projects." (p. xi)

                                    Part 1 is entitled "The Archaeologist's
Tale". In its sole chapter, "A Stream of
                                    Time", Fagan gives a quite lengthy
overview of the subject.  Included are very
                                    useful descriptions of several
fundamental archaeological principles, as well as
                                    data on tribal, linguistic and
demographic distributions at the time of European
                                    contact.  Fagan also outlines three
common themes that will drive his telling of the
                                    story.  These are cultural continuity,
interconnectedness of peoples, and complex
                                    spiritual beliefs.  Cultural continuity
relies on the people constantly moving,
                                    searching for food.  Interconnectedness
refers to the networks of exchange, both
                                    social and economic, that underpinned
native existence in prehistoric California.
                                    Spiritual beliefs permeated every aspect
of that existence as well.

                                    Fagan attempts to tackle the thorny
issue of the first peopling of the Americas to
                                    2500 B.C. in "Beginnings", Part 2 of the
book.  In particular, he notes that there
                                    seems to be very little evidence in
favour of the coastal migration theory into the
                                    Americas, and what there is, is very
sketchy.  Fagan also takes on the "big-game
                                    hunter" theory, characterized by the
Clovis point, referring to the theory of intrepid
                                    hunters spreading across the New World
as "intellectually bankrupt" (p. 49),
                                    especially with regard to early
California. Instead, prehistoric Californians engaged
                                    in a variety of subsistence activities
such as seal, sea lion, and dolphin hunting,
                                    mollusk gathering, and processing grass
and other plant seeds using baskets and
                                    milling stones.

                                    In Part 3, Fagan shows how "The Web of
Interconnectedness" became
                                    predominant in California between 2500
and 1500 B.C.  The chapters here first
                                    point out how acorn processing became of
primary importance, leading to social
                                    stratification as economic surpluses
started to be produced.  Another factor
                                    leading to ranked society was the
development of the obsidian trade.  Obsidian
                                    was used for the manufacture of
blades.  Fagan then shows the importance of the
                                    shaman in ancient California, relating
the shamanic role to a broad tradition of
                                    ritual and belief.  The writer adeptly
gives a portrait of the often conflicting and
                                    controversial theories that snake their
way through very limited and often
                                    conjectural archaeological evidence. The
same applies to Fagan's treatment of
                                    California rock art.

                                    "A Crowded World", Part 4, describes
native California from 1500 B.C. to A.D.
                                    1542.  This part is divided up
geographically, showing the different cultures that
                                    arose, starting with the salmon culture
of the northwest coast.  Subsequent
                                    chapters provide depth on San Francisco
Bay, the central valley, the south and
                                    southeast, and the Santa Barbara
Channel.  Each region's adaptations are treated
                                    clearly, yet comprehensively.  The whole
reveals a picture of a cultural complexity
                                    not even hinted at in the name "Digger",
the epithet given contemptuously to native
                                    Californians by the first Anglo
Americans to settle the state.

                                    The book is concluded by the chapter
entitled "Entrada", a brief overview of the
                                    European "discovery" of California and
its inhabitants.  The chapter sets the stage
                                    for the horrible devastation that was to
be wrought upon native California.

                                    Before California is Fagan at his
best.  It is a well written summary reflecting the
                                    current state of knowledge of
prehistoric California.  Done in his typically engaging
                                    style, the book is an antidote to the
commonly held view that aboriginal California
                                    was rather a backwater in comparison to
the loftier cultural achievements in other
                                    parts of the New World.

                                    Jim Selley

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/04_03_lernia.htm

Sand, Stones, and Bones: The Archaeology of Death in the Wadi Tanezzuft Valley (5000-2000 BP), ed. SAVINO DI LERNIA & GIORGIO MANZI
Arid Zone Archaeology Monographs, Vol. 3. Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza”. 2002. 356 pages. ISBN 88-7814-281-6. (€60)

This book forms the first of a series of three planned volumes devoted to “The Archaeology of [the] Libyan Sahara”. The project is directed by Mario Liverani and focuses upon Wadi Tanezzuft during the early Holocene in order to better understand marginal environments. The period studied covers the transition between the Late Pastoral (c. 5000-3500 BP) and the Garamantian (c. 500 BC – AD 500) phases of North African prehistory. The book consists of fourteen chapters following a relatively traditional scheme of introductory chapters (Chapters 1-3), field and laboratory research type papers (Chapter 4-13) and ending with a concluding report summarising the entire project (Chapter 14). The editors describe the project as being an attempt to merge varying subfields, such as relatively traditional archaeology, geology, anthropology, palaeobiology, zooarchaeology and molecular genetics.

The first chapter, written by the volume editors, evaluates a variety of topics within the archaeology of death in the Saharan region. Special focus is placed upon the rituals and beliefs of the later Prehistoric populations of south-western Fezzan in Libya, with evidence also being collected for neighbouring regions such as Niger, Algeria and Egypt. The choice of research region is said to be the result of the nature of the archaeological record, as the area is characterised by strong erosion associated with increasingly arid conditions, associated with disturbed and otherwise altered settlement features. The authors also note that the position of Acacus massif corresponds to a crossing point between modern genetic boundaries related to human gene flow across the Sahara. This chapter provides a valuable introduction to the aim of volume, which is to take a combined approach interlinking physical anthropology and archaeology, in order to reconstruct cultural and micro-evolutionary trajectories of the past populations / societies. Prior to this research project, the knowledge of the history of the Sahara consisted only of survey data, with some archaeological excavation of settlements and rock art studies and information upon the palaeobiology, and the funerary practices and rituals associated with death was very limited.

In the second chapter, Mauro Cremaschi and Savino di Lernia provide a summary of regional approaches to mortuary archaeology and attempt to insert the current study into a theoretical framework. Attention is drawn to the important relationship in the study area between climate, environment and “cultures”, as analysis is undertaken of the fragmentation of the Late Pastoral communities and the different adaptations employed to cope with increasingly arid environments. In this chapter, in contrast to the first, the authors state that the choice of research area (the Wadi Tanezzuft west of the Acacus scarp) was due to this area escaping the aridification of the neighbouring areas for several millennia. The authors note problems of representative sampling within the study as sampling was undertaken by covering the area by 4WD vehicle in 2km wide strips, and employing fieldwalking when areas of interest were noted from the vehicle. This approach seems a sensible method to use in such a harsh and vast environment. The authors recommend using a regional approach, integrated with high resolution studies in certain sample areas associated with selective excavation. As a result, the surveyed area covers 2500 km2, in which 119 funerary sites and 560 stone structures were located.

Chapter 3, by Sandra Sivilli, is a synopsis of the history of studies relating to North African megalithic architecture and mortuary archaeology. This is a distinct chapter from rest of volume, and is described as an exploration of the links between the political contexts of archaeology, colonialism and the nature of early archaeological studies in the region. The chapter certainly describes the history of research into both North Saharan and North African tumuli, bringing in mention of past diffusionist thinking and concluding with some discussion of more recent research employing 14C dates as evidence for population movement.

Chapters 4 and 5, written by many members of the project, describe the systematic fieldwork in the Tanezzuft Valley. The authors hope that the exhaustive publication of field data through appendices and a complete graphic and photographic documentation may aid future research. These chapters also include a discussion of the relationship between the representativeness of the sampling and the type of archaeological evidence.

The first of these chapters includes a discussion of the term “megalithic architecture” as it has different interpretations in other studies and may encompass tumuli that are little more than heaps of stones. Within the study area, large boulders are very rare, and neither quarries nor transported rocks were found. There follows a useful and thorough description of a method in which to categorise megalithic stone structures into eleven types, ranging from simple stone alignments and tumuli to crescents and bazinas. This chapter may therefore become a valuable resource to others working upon similar features.

A minor error is found here as the western edge of the study area is the Algerian border (and not the eastern edge as written). This issue highlights a major problem with the volume. Mapping is relatively poor throughout. A simple map is required that clearly locates the area subdivisions used in the text, as regions are referred to but cannot be clearly located without some indication of their relationship to each other. The reader is often left unsure as to whether sample areas are immediately proximate or at vast distance.

The authors compare the quantity of funerary monuments with the ethnohistoric record of the local population size and hypothesise that 500-1000 people lived in the Wadi Tanezzuft in late prehistory. From the number of funerary monuments in the region and this estimate of population size, they predict that about 14 individuals should be buried in each structure. In reality only about 1 to 4 people are found buried per structure, and hence the project’s research question changes to ask where the rest are buried.

The fifth chapter consists of descriptions of the excavations undertaken. Some clear accounts are given of the tumulus excavations, such as the sequence of burials in tumuli 1 & 2 at site 96/129 near Tahalla. The burials consist of a vast range of biologically aged individuals, from neonates, through children and juveniles, to mature adults. These skeletons are found in association with grave goods, including beads (stone, ostrich egg-shell and faience), carinated scrapers and bifacial arrowheads etc. Detail is provided as to the phasing of the construction of the tumuli through analysis of the changing tumuli complex shapes. The authors suggest, with little evidence provided, that this is associated with a change from kinship linkage to the assertion of social ranking in groups. There is much interpretation of the archaeological evidence, and potentially some over-interpretation of the data, such as hypothesising over potential sacrifice of the female in Tumulus 3bis (H1) and its presumed association with the male in Tumulus 3 (H2) at site 96/129, or of the potential mother and child in Tumulus 10 (H2 and H4 respectively) again at site 96/129. When site 96/129 was selected for excavation it was believed to represent a single middle to large cemetery of Late Pastoral phase. Excavation indicated that it dated to the start of the 4th millennium BP and ended around 2500 BP (and thus overlapped with the start of the Garamantian phase). In the following chapter however, describing the textiles and leather, the same site is simply described as a Late Pastoral cemetery, radiocarbon dated to 3800-2700 BP.

Chapter six was outline by Alfio Maspero, who died shortly before completion of the volume, and hence it was finished by other members of the project. It consists of a survey of the organic matter, including leather and other textiles. These studies employed morphological, histological, chemical an immunological methods. The material found was mostly animal leather, with some wool textile being found in the so-called “Royal Tumulus” (of Garamantian period), but no true textiles being found in Late Pastoral phase graves. Dyed textiles and blue dyes were also only found in the “Royal Tumulus”.

The study of the plant macrofossils in Chapter 7, by Michela Cottini and Mauro Rottoli, suggests that the vegetation during the Late Pastoral and Garamantian periods was very similar to today, in comprising of arid adapted species. Wooden sandals made from Faidherbia albida (previously known as Acacia albida of the Mimosa family) were found in a burial at site 00/195. Wild Sorghum was found in a Late Pastoral context. Palm dates are also noted as having been used as funerary offerings in tombs dating to the Garamantian period (approx. 3000BP), which the authors imply suggests some date palm cultivation.

Chapter 8, by Francesca Alhaique, comprises a zooarchaeological study and includes a discussion of the meaning of faunal remains in funerary contexts. The faunal sample from the tumuli is small for the Late Pastoral period, but large for the Garamantian period despite having excavated many more Late Pastoral tumuli. The faunal material was all weathered and poorly preserved, and therefore species attributions were not always possible. A tentative identification was made of Orycteropus afer (aardvark) from Tumulus 10 at site 96/129. This is important as currently aardvarks are only found south of the Sahara. An equid bone was found in 00/195bis. Alhaique notes that this probably originates from Equus africanus (wild ass), but suggests that, as the bone was found in association with a human burial, it may represent E. caballus (domestic horse). The later funerary structures from the Garamantian are described as indicating complex burial rituals, through their interment of Gazella dorcas and ovicaprines. Bones from these species, comprising mainly humeri and metapodials, are found with cutmarks and burning, which Alhaique interprets as indicating use as part of the burial ritual as either a meal or offering. The inclusion of dorcas gazelle, a wild species, amongst small livestock raises questions about the importance of hunting during the Garamantian.

The ninth chapter, by Emanuela Cristiani and Cristina Lemorini, consists of a functional study of the funerary material, considering the deposition with the deceased of unused tools and evidence for particular relationships between the buried individual and the objects, such as of beads and pendants. The deposition with the dead of intact unused projectile points is argued to imply ritual behaviour.

Chapter 10, by Francesca Ricci and others, consists of an inventory of the entire human skeletal sample discovered in the Tannezuft Valley from 1999 onwards. The chapter represents a traditional descriptive approach to skeletal biology. Generally the authors are to be praised for making their sample means data fully available to other researchers, although some researchers may raise eyebrows at the claimed accuracies. There is some unrealistic age determination, with certain adults being placed into 5 year age bands, and some rather meaningless accuracy being claimed, such as measuring long bones to 0.1mm. The latter is complicated by lack of detail as to how certain measurements were taken and thus what they actually consist of, e.g. the medial maximum humerus diameter. Stature estimates are given to 1mm despite the chapter containing a detailed section describing the potential use of a variety of prediction methodologies. The authors also compare two individuals to Howells’ global data set of cranial measurements, but, earlier in the chapter, provide craniometric sample means using slightly different measurements. They do not provide the equivalent Howells measurement data for the sample, hence it is possible that the earlier measurements have been taken as proxies for Howells measurements despite not being collected in the same manner.

Chapter 11, by Emiliano Bruner, Francesca Ricci and Giorgo Manzi, consists of geometric morphometric study of the shape of a sub-sample of the material described in the previous chapter. The sub-sample consists of two individual skulls (H1 from Tumulus 10 at 96/129 and H1 from 00/195). These individuals are compared with material including Somalian, Ethiopian, Canary Islander and Eastern Libyan Oases crania. Morphological continuity is implied in association with interaction with sub-Saharan populations. It would have been useful if this same comparative sample had been employed in the analysis in the preceding chapter.

A study of the skeletal stress markers at site 96/129, in chapter 12, was undertaken by Belinda Arrighetti, Bruna Reale, Francesca Ricci and Silvana Borgognini Tarli. These musculo-skeletal stress-markers are linked to repetitive movements and hence may be linked to occupation and labour. The research is based upon the premise that the duration and amount of mechanical stress placed upon the bone, through repeated action, is linked to the degree of bone resorption or formation in that region. The results indicate that the degree of stress increased by age band of the sample, and the location of the greatest stress, within the vertebral column, changed by age from the thoracic region, through the lumbar region, to the cervical region, and potentially some sexual division of labour.

Preliminary results obtained from ancient DNA studies are presented in Chapter 13, by Carla Babalini and co-workers. Mitochondrial DNA extraction was attempted upon a sub-sample of human teeth from ten individuals. The mtDNA locus was selected due to its maternal inheritance pattern, high copy number, simple structure and relatively fast rate of mutational change. Analysis was undertaken upon the two hypervariable regions and region V. The authors report that the mtDNA from the individuals from site 96/129 was reasonably distinct from that obtained from the other sampled material. Only one individual was fully characterised, and was found to be a member of an African haplotype (L3).

The final chapter, written by the editors and Francesca Merighi, acts as a synthetic assessment of the preceding studies. The authors believe that “in a certain sense, Late Pastoral people became Garamantes,” (p. 281) through population continuity, as little evidence was found in the current study of population replacement. This research project has clearly demonstrated heterogeneity of mortuary practice. In the initial phase of the Late Pastoral stone tumuli are rare, are set in restricted areas and can best be described as isolated tombs, potentially being reserved for special individuals within the group. By contrast, the second phase, at the start of the 4th millennium bp, is characterised by generalised use of cemeteries with an increase in the heterogeneity of tumuli type. Most of the excavated structures described in chapter 5 date from the third phase, at the end of the Late Pastoral. This last phase has even greater heterogeneity in terms of megalithic architecture and deposition, with the development of large burial grounds.

The chapter also includes an outward view towards the rest of the Sahara. This section highlights the importance of megalithic architecture and the development of African cattle cults, in view of no cattle burials being found during the 1999-2001 fieldwork. These reviewing sections are excellent in placing this region into a greater geographic context and link in to previous studies of population diversity and movement. The authors conclude that there is a degree of local population continuity from the Middle Pastoral up to the Garamantes. A hypothesis is also developed of major population shifts through oasis contraction, on the basis of funerary site and settlement distribution, which is then linked to the emergence of social hierarchy. This final chapter can therefore be recommended to all working in North Africa as a valuable resource for the development of future research design.

The book forms a good preliminary report upon the study of this Libyan material. Throughout the volume, specific attention has been drawn to ritual behaviours and practices. The inclusion of the detailed abstracts at the start of each chapter is very useful. The volume would have been improved by giving clearer captions for the keys to shading in the various figures. The volume has occasional strange choices of phraseology, which is linked to the publication not being in the authors’ native tongue. For example, in Chapter 5, all the skeletons are described as “lied” rather than lay, such as at the base of a tumulus. The volume is recommended for all those working within North African contexts and provides a good grounding in the theoretical debate surrounding mortuary analysis. The authors are commended for their fine work on the project and one hopes that the future volumes in the series will be as thorough.


Sonia Zakrzewski
Dept of Archaeology
University of Southampton

Review Submitted: March 2004

The views expressed in this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews Editor.

---

The Prehistoric Society Home Page

Matt,

I'm one of the reviewers and I, at least, have not yet received the book I am to
review.

Bernard

-----Original message-----
From: Matt Tomaso tomasom@...
Date: Wed,  2 Jun 2004 11:51:09 -0400
To: archreview@yahoogroups.com
Subject: SpamAssassin=5.20 [archreview] reviews overdue or books overdue?

Matt,

I'm very sorry.  Will have review to you on Sunday.

Jim Selley

On Jun 2, 2004, at 11:51 AM, Matt Tomaso wrote:

> Dear arch-reviewers,
> Several of you have gone past your submission deadlines for books which
> were supposed to have been sent to you by Altamira Press.  I have been
> made
> aware by one of you that the text was never received, and I am
> wondering
> what's up with the others.  Please be advised that failure to submit
> reviews for books which have been sent to you by a publisher guarantees
> that you will never be sent another review copy by that publisher and
> makes
> the publisher wonder whether they should do business with us at all.  I
> don't want to have to ask you all to return the books you requested,
> but I
> will if it comes to that.  Please submit your reviews, or at least an
> estimate on when they will be done to me immediately.
> Thanks,
> ~Matt Tomaso
>
> Matt Tomaso
> Director, Feltville Archaeology Project
> Principal Investigator and Associate Director, MSU Center for
> Archaeological Studies
> (973)655-7990
>
> http://picard.montclair.edu/archaeology/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Matt,

I wasn't one of the official reviewers, but am
planning to send you the review of the Archeologist's
Toolkit when I finish reading them (6 books in all).

=====
Anita Cohen-Williams
Search Engine Optimizer/Guru
"Get Your Web Site Noticed!"
http://www.mysearchguru.com

Intertune - One place for web hosting, development, and e-mail marketing
http://www.intertune.com

Dear arch-reviewers,
Several of you have gone past your submission deadlines for books which
were supposed to have been sent to you by Altamira Press.  I have been made
aware by one of you that the text was never received, and I am wondering
what's up with the others.  Please be advised that failure to submit
reviews for books which have been sent to you by a publisher guarantees
that you will never be sent another review copy by that publisher and makes
the publisher wonder whether they should do business with us at all.  I
don't want to have to ask you all to return the books you requested, but I
will if it comes to that.  Please submit your reviews, or at least an
estimate on when they will be done to me immediately.
Thanks,
~Matt Tomaso

Matt Tomaso
Director, Feltville Archaeology Project
Principal Investigator and Associate Director, MSU Center for
Archaeological Studies
(973)655-7990

http://picard.montclair.edu/archaeology/

Matt,

Thanks for passing this on.  I think all too often the books that advocate
a "fantastic" stance in archaeology should be reviewed (and challenged) in
the more popular press.  I think all too often most archaeologists just
hastily dismiss them, or say, "Why bother?!"

Best, MEH


On 5/26/2004, "Matt Tomaso" <tomasom@...> wrote:

>This entertaining and useful review came in from Archaeological Society
of
>New Jersey member Ray Whritenour.  I am re-posting it with Ray's
permission.
>

[snip]


Mark Hall
markhall@...

THE CIRCLE OF LENAPEHOKING, by Paul Tobacco Cashman (Xlibris Corp.,
Philadelphia, 2003), is guaranteed to leave your head spinning in a
circle! Wild conjecture, masquerading as informed speculation, is the
chief characteristic of this work. The author contends that certain
stone walls, rock piles and landscaped oval and circular plots of
ground--found in association with natural features and lithic formations
in the woods of eastern Pennsylvania--were fashioned by Lenape Indians,
and express particular aspects of Lenape spirituality. Chief among
these spiritual expressions is the sacred circle, on the perimeter of
which is marked the solstices, equinoxes, and other celestial events.
Never mind that no proof is cited to confirm that these "circles" and
other man-made features are, in fact, aboriginal creations. And, never
mind that there is no evidence, whatsoever, that the Lenape EVER
observed the solstices and equinoxes. (In truth, not even one of the
three comprehensively documented dialects of Lenape has words for
"solstice" or "equinox.") We need only accept Cashman's opinion that
these are Lenape sites; and, we need only follow his convoluted
reasoning in order to "see" what the Lenape "must" have once believed.

What we really have here is a meditation on sacred circles, based on the
author's understanding of concepts drawn from Hinduism, Buddhism,
Taoism, alchemy, Jungian psychology and numerology. In other words,
this is a hodge-podge New Age cosmology projected onto features of the
Pennsylvania landscape, and falsely attributed to the indigenous
inhabitants thereof.

There are so many errors of fact in this book, I simply haven't got the
energy to cover all of them. Here are a few:

Page 9 - "These people called their home Lenapehoking..." [Highly
unlikely, since the term, "Lenapehoking," was coined by Nora Thompson
Dean, just twenty years ago.]

Page 26 - "Grandfather Sun" [Here we go again! The Lenape called the
Sun their 'Elder Brother.']

Page 70-71 - "Amangamek ...means Frightful Snake-like Water Spirits."
[Good grief! This word means nothing more than 'big fish.']

Page 71 - "Nanaboush" [Here we go again! Nanaboush is NOT a Lenape
culture hero. He's Ojibway.]

Page 72 - "Keshelemukum" (sic!) = 'Thinking Grandfather.' [The Lenape
called Kishelemukong their 'Father.']

Pages 72-80 - "The Woman Who Fell from the Sky" - This is the most
extravagant attempt to reconcile several Lenape (and non-Lenape)
creation stories, by weaving them all together in a dizzying
phantasmagoria, that I've ever seen! This would absolutely stun a
traditional Lenape. Half of the characters (or more) are unknown from
Lenape tradition.

Page 79 - "...all Lenape consider Nanaboush to be their common ancestor
and revered grandfather." [I don't know any Lenapes who believe this!]

The Lenape language used throughout this work is, of course, abominable.
Almost every word is spelled wrong--no matter what pronunciation you
assign to the letters.

The author's vision of a circle, marked at the four quarters, thus
producing an invisible cross inside the circle, which turns into a
pyramid by extending each point of the cross to the zenith; then, an
upside-down pyramid created by extending the same points to the nadir;
thus producing a diamond-shaped three-dimensional figure is then
attributed to the Lenape! From this vision the Lenape then get the idea
for all their artistic motifs--the circle, the cross, the triangle, the
diamond, etc. And, it also generates all the religious concepts
outlined in this book (though unknown from actual Lenape culture!).

Let me leave you with a quotation to ponder:

"We suspect we have stumbled upon something reaching beyond North
America. People have used shapes and symbols all over the world. Does
the three dimensional diamond shape relate to the pyramids in Egypt, the
cross in Europe, the Star of David in Israel, the triangular mandalas of
India like Shri Yantra? Ultimately there is only one spirit path on
planet Earth." (pages 144-145)

I've got nothing against comparative religion. It's been a passion of
mine for more than 35 years. But, if anyone thinks that these
speculative vaporings have ANYTHING to do with Lenape spirituality, I've
got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you!

Ray Whritenour

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The Skull of Australopithecus Afarensis (Series in Human Evolution) by
William H. Kimbel, Yoel Rak, Donald C. Johanson, Ralph L. Holloway,
Michael S. Yuan
ISBN: 0195157060
(Published by Oxford University Press, USA, April 2004)

272 pages

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195157060 (£82)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195157060


Table of Contents
Background
Recovery and Reconstruction of A.L. 444-2
Recovery
Stratigraphic Provenance and Geological Age
Taphonomic Aspects and Reconstruction of the Skull
Ontogenetic Age and Sex of A.L. 444-2
A.L. 444-2: The Skull as a Whole
The Cranium with the Occluded Mandible
The Cranium: Lateral and Median Views
The Cranium: Vertical View
The Cranium: Frontal View
The Cranium: Occipital View
The Cranium: Basal View
``Composite Reconstruction'' of 1984/1988 in Light of A.L. 444-2
Pattern of Cranial Cresting
Pattern of the Venous Sinuses
Endocranial Morphology of A.L. 444-2
Distortion of the Endocast
Assessment of Endocranial Volume
Morphological Description
Discussion
Elements of the Disarticulated Skull
The Frontal Bone
The Parietal Bones
The Temporal Bones
The Occipital Bone
The Maxilla and the Palatine Bone
The Nasal Bones
The Zygomatic Bone
The Mandible
Dentition
Implications of A.L. 444-2 for the Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Status of A.
afarensis
Morphology of the A.L. 444-2 Skull: Summary of the Major Features
Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Status of A. afarensis
Phylogenetic Position of A. afarensis
Australopithecus afarensis in Human Evolution
Notes
References
Index

Hi,

I am pleased to announce that a review of the book "The Triumph of the
Baroque: Architecture in Europe 1600-1750", edited by Henry Millon, has
been completed and is available for reading at
http://www.antiquityofman.com/baroque_architecture_review.html .

===========
Mikey Brass
MA in Archaeology student
"The Antiquity of Man" http://www.antiquityofman.com
Book: "The Antiquity of Man: Artifactual, fossil and gene records explored"

- "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"
(Albert Einstein)

I have been reading Wu's "On the origin of modern humans in China"
(Quaternary International 117, 2004) where he argues for a "Continuity with
hybridization" model. This model treats Homo erectus as a sub-species of
Homo sapiens, i.e. Homo sapiens erectus, and modern humans as Homo sapiens
sapiens. There is no room for Homo heidelbergensis who appears to be
subsumed within the two respective sub-species.

The forementioned effect of creating two sub-species is that fossils such
as Dali, Jinniushan and Maba, dated at 109kya, 280kya and 135kya
respectively, are allocated to Homo sapiens sapiens.

He starts off my mentioning the 12 morphological features proposed by
Weidenreich to be representative of a straight line of evolution from
Peking Man to modern Chinese, and points out that some of these
characteristics are rather "primitive characteristics shared by members of
the genus Homo".

He moves on to cite common features from the existing known remains such as
the shovel-shaped teeth, the large nasomalar angle, et al. While
recognising that at least some of the features are found elsewhere in the
world, nowhere else do they form a morphological complex. Therefore, he
concludes, this mosaic of features "indicates a gradual transition between
these sub-species".

There are morphological commonalities between Maba's skull-cap in terms of
constriction in the post-orbital region when compared to the H. sapiens
erectus remains. Also, "the angular torus has been described as one of the
unique features of H. s. erectus; however, it is shown also in H. s.
sapiens skulls from Dali and Ziyang." Ziyang is missing from the site
chronology table, Table 1. Thus, considering the lack of a clear
demarcation in features, Wu considers it to be prudent to regard "erectus"
and "sapiens" to be sub-species of the same chronological species.

The polytypic species viewpoint of Wolpoff et al. (1984) is endorsed and a
strict Out-of-Africa replacement model is rejected on morphological,
archaeological and genetic grounds. Rather, "the most reasonable
explanation for the fortuitous occurrence of these features in Pleistocene
China is that they are attributable to small amounts of intermittent gene
flow from the West" with "gene flow [becoming] a more potent force in later
periods such as the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, thus diminishing the
differences between the human populations of China and those westward".

The artifacts from China belong, until after 40kya, to the lithic Mode I.
While the occasional biface (Gongwangling) and handaxes (Dingcum, Baise
Basin) have been found, there remains no evidence of a massive change from
Mode I to Mode III as would be expected if immigrants from Africa entered
China around or prior to 60kya. Instead the scattered data is claimed to be
supportive of limited hybridization.

The genetic data is examined, from the Neanderthal mtDNA to studies such as
B-globin. The latter, published by Harding et al. (1998), yielded a date of
around 800kya for the most recent common ancestor of modern humans.
Problems with genetic analyses are pointed out: gene loss, irregularity of
the clock, and the irregular evolution within and inter-loci. He concludes
by stating that "the different dates of the MRCA [most recent common
ancestor] represent only "locus-specific conclusion(s)" instead of a
"genome-wide conclusion" and may imply different times of migration from
Africa".

This is an excellent idea!

Speaking of reviews, I am in the process of proof reading a book due
out soon (April in fact). I'll be reviewing this book for the
newspaper I'm currently working for and, if the publishers permit it,
Mike's www.antiquityofman.com website and, if both you and the
publishers allow it, I can post a review here as well.

The book is called Malta Before History.... just to whet your
appetite:)

Regards
Isabelle