930 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [83, 19811

describes briefly cultural factors that influence nutrition, procurement techniques deducible from artifacts and biological remains, and pro- cessing methods that affect nutrient availabili- ty. Archaeologists will appreciate the extendrd introduction to human nutrition and to the metabolic constraints that determine both clinically normal health as well as pathologies.

While the methods of biological data analysis receive major emphasis, the theoretical ap- proaches that can integrate the disparate pieces of evidence pertaining to paleonutrition are treated in cursory fashion. This is unfortunate because theoretical models of interpretation should have been discussed initially to demon- strate how the archaeological methods required to test the models necessarily dictate what data should be recovered. Furthermore, as this co- authored volume indicates, no single archaeol- ogist can reconstruct the subsistence system of a prehistoric community. Specialists must cooperate to identify macroscopic biological re- mains, microscopic pollen and phytoliths, chemical residues, x-ray film of skeletal pathol- ogies, etc. By specification of the magnitude of the nutritional problem in advance, interdis- ciplinary research can be facilitated to the mutual advantage of all participants.

The theoretical models suggested by the authors are part of a broader ecosystemic ap- proach. They mention resource scheduling and seasonality, demographic analysis, least cost energy optimization, and other problems whose solutions involve linear programming. These are not isolated theoretical considerations. An ecological approach does demand knowledge of the efficiency of food procurement and process- ing technologies. It does require details about the phenology of each potentially edible species, the nutritional contribution of each, and the probability of annual variation in their avail- ability. Computer simulations of nutrient com- binations are the best means for generating test- able hypotheses about which resources to expect if the prehistoric population was healthful and in what quantity and combination they must have been consumed.

Unfortunately, excavated archaeobiological data are inadequate for quantifying the relative contribution of each taxon in the diet. Even the many approaches estimating meat biomass and minimum numbers of individuals, recon- structed from fauna evidence detailed in this volume, are still insufficient. Theoretical models of adequate population nutrition pro- vide a measure for assessing the archaeological

results, and recent techniques of trace element analysis and of isotopic human bone and teeth are better tests of dietary composition than are the scant remains of the actual foods.

Because of the limitations of food remains for testing models of paleonutrition. human skeletal parts and their chemical elements and microscopic attributes will become increasingly important for upgrading the precision of recon- structed diets. Although this volume does pro- vide the principles of human nutrition, many of the clinical manifestations of nutritional defi- ciencies do not leave known skeletal evidence. Without a detailed discussion of all the nutri- tional pathways that leave skeletal markers, which this volume does not specify, much of the human nutritional information can only be used for deducing models, not for testing them. 1 suspect that within the decade human paleo- nutrition will rely mostly on skeletal and coprolite evidence and the macroremains from plants and animals will become the bases for reconstructing paleoenvironments and descrip- tions of their subsistence potential. This is the basic reason why theoretical approaches should have been amplified.

Despite difficulties a reader may encounter integrating the results of subsistence analysis, Wing and Brown provide an authoritative reference to help archaeologists ask the proper questions about prehistoric nutrition. The volume is technical but pleasurable to read. I t is nicely edited, and the only substitution I would request when it is revised and expanded in the future is that photography be substituted for the line drawings, which are not very illustrative. All told, the profession should be grateful that the authors have defined an exciting new field for archaeological inquiry.

Thule Eskimo Culture: An Anthropological Retrospective. Allen P. McCartney, ed. Ar- chaeological Survey of Canada, Paper No. 88. Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1979. xxi + 586 pp. n.p. (paper).

Don E. Dumond University of Oregon

It was not two decades ago that a Canadian museum official (who contributes a preface to this volume) could be heard complaining that although a growing number of archaeologists (himself included) involved themselves with

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problems of the Canadian Dorset and Pre- Dorset cultures, not one was interested in the widespread Thule remains. Indeed, nobody had displayed a sustained interest in them since the Danish Fifth Thule Expedition of the 192Os, when Therkel Mathiassen excavated the first Canadian Thule site, defined the archaeological Thule culture, and accounted for its distribu- tion by postulating a migratory movement from west to east across the entire North American Arctic.

Avoidance of the subject was not for want of questions. For although the Thule movement itself was accepted so fully that it became a cor- nerstone of Eskimo prehistory, the relationship of Thule people to ethnographically known Canadian Inuit had been controversial enough that only a few pioneers were so bold as to assert flatly that the Central Eskimo had descended from Thule people.

The present collection demonstrates that the museum official's complaints were heard, for more than half of the approximately 30 authors represented have excavated Thule sites or ana- lyzed Thule material - archaeological, faunal, or skeletal-at first hand. The collection also demonstrates a changed climate of opinion, for another fourth of the authors approach the Thule horizon from the framework of ethno- graphically known Inuit, of whom now the con- sensus- well-worn, according to several of the papers - is descent in Canada from Thule fore- bears.

Some of the old questions are still touched upon, however. The matter of Thule origins is not ignored by archaeologists (Yamaura, Schledennann). Skeletal evidence is drawn upon to confirm the homogeneity of the Thule people (Uterrnohle and Merbs), as well as the direct descent of Inuit from them (Mayhall). The last subject pervades some archaeological discussions (Clark, Jordan. Mary-Roseliere), as well as historical treatments (Ross, Sabo, J. G. Taylor), and takes an ironic turn when one author argues against the strictly in situ deriva- tion of all Central Eskimo from Thule, not because of any proposed amval of outsiders, but because at least one post-Thule migratory movement was confined within the Central Eskimo region itself (Burch). Other questions of interest concern the relationship of Thule migrants to the earlier Dorset inhabitants (Bielawski. Plumet, Wenzel), the relations be- tween Thule Eskimo and the Greenland Norse- men (McGovern), and Thule attitudes inferred through art (Thomson).

Not surprisingly. the single most pervasive set of questions relates to environment and sub- sistence. Particular questions range from the nature of the physical environment (Jacobs, J. T. Andrews and Miller, M. Andrews and J. T . Andrews), through the effect of Thule Eskimo occupation on the modern landscape ( N . G . McCartney). to composition of food trash (Mohl, Staab), to inferences from ethno- graphic sealing practice (Riewe and Amsden), to historic trading networks (Hickey), to pro- cesses of construction and intentional destruc- tion of whalebone houses (A. P. McCartney). A particularly provocative paper addresses short- range movements in response to resource scarci- ty in north Alaska, with implications for prehistory (Amsden).

The most recurrent question is the double- sided one of the degree to which Thule people actively chased whales-as distinct from scavenging beached whales-and the degree to which whaling led to the Thule migration. Here lines appear between archaeologists and eth- nographers who accept an active role for whal- ing (Schledermann. J. G . Taylor), and those who downplay it (Freeman, W. E. Taylor, Yorga). Unfortunately, as the polite, light smoke clears, the mechanisms that generated the Thule population movement are little more in hand than they were in Mathiassen's time.

That there was, indeed, the movement of a northern maritime people across arctic North America about a millennium ago is attested abundantly by physical anthropology, archaeol- ogy, and linguistics. Whatever their precise economic underpinning, it not only made posi- ble expansion through a continent-wide area more than half of which is above the Arctic Cir- cle, but it supported routine human residence north of 75" latitude, where total winter dark- ness lasts for more than two full months. This historic fact demands study by imaginative scholars. And this volume, proceedings of a symposium held on the semicentennial of the publication of Mathiassen's Archueology o/ the Central Eskimo, shows that study to be in many worthy hands. Mathiessen would be gratified - and so, I trust, is the museum official.

Catchment Analysis: Essays on Prehistoric Resource Space. Frank J. Fandlow and JOM- than E. Ericson, eds. Anthropology UCLA.