ARCHEOLOGY 1029

a provocative and stimulating contribution to the field, had it been published in the year it was written. The addition ofsix post-1976 ref- erences to the bibliography only underscores the fact that this chapter has been superseded in the past decade by an important body of work and thought. Nevertheless, Freeman ad- dresses important issues (psychological foun- dations of art, social context, the relationship between art and language, and symbolically structured space) that one does not often en- counter in European approaches to the art.

Chapter 2 proposes a natural-history ap- proach to the reanalysis of the classic cave of Altamira. Freeman espouses a search for themes, based on a detailed knowledge of the behavior and anatomy of the animals repre- sented. He justly argues that archeologists with little exposure to the animal kingdom ig- nore some very important cues presented in images and compositions. A case in point is the ceiling of the Great Hall of Altamira, which Freeman convincingly argues is a care- fully presented herd of bison, faithful to stereo- typed patterns of herd structure. In a similar vein is Freeman’s re-reading of a supposed mammoth/bison association as a bison rutting scene. Disturbingly, the bibliography of this chapter has no reference more recent than 1977, and ignores the important published proceedings of H.-G. Bandi’s 1979 collo- quium, which exemplifies a well-established “ethology and art” approach independent of and prior to the Altamira research group.

Chapter 3 is an important delineation of 17 different “techniques of figure enhancement” (e.g., anamorphosis, framing, repetition) in Paleolithic cave art. While the term “figure enhancement” may presume too much with regard to the artists’ intentions, this discussion is a valuable basis for future observations and discussion.

Chapter 4, by Freeman and Gonzilez Ech- egaray, is an important vindication of the structuralist strategy in cave art studies. It is a kind of ethnoarcheology performed on the religious architecture of northern Spain. The originality of this approach is refreshing. Its aim was to “determine whether symbolic structure can be detected in true sanctuaries where the content ofsymbols is known. . . us- ing techniques that we will employ in the search for structure in the painted caves” (p. 130). The results are clean, robust, and im- portant to our understanding of the relation- ship between symbolic content and space.

Chapter 5, by Freeman, Bernaldo de Qui- r6s, and Ogden, is a detailed and helpful pre- sentation of analytical techniques and results pertaining to the restudy of the Cola de Ca-

ballo a t Altamira. It is especially useful for the specialist to see detailed re-readings of “well- known” representations from Altamira. The enumera t ion a n d analysis of a series of “masks,” highly patterned in space and ori- entation, is a n important contribution to knowledge.

The careful restudy of Altamira promises to be every bit as enlightening as similar projects carried out at Lascaux, Niaux, and Font-de- Gaume. Through such studies, we will know more about how earlier methodologies af- fected our understanding. Certain of Leroi- Gourhan’s premises will be (in fact, already have been) tested. Most important, we will know more than we ever thought possible about the meaning, content, and context of Upper Paleolithic symbolic constructions.

Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Colin Renfrew. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 360 pp. $29.95 (cloth).

JOSEPH H. GREENBERC Stanford University

The present volume proposes a new and challenging theory regarding the Proto-Indo- European homeland. I t contrasts with the most widely held view developed chiefly by Gimbutas, in time (6500 B.C. versus 4000 B.C.), place (Western Anatolia and then Greece versus the steppes north of the Black Sea), and cultural subsistence (agricultural versus pastoral nomadic).

Renfrew believes that the time is ripe for a new synthesis, based on recent advances in ar- cheology and linguistics, which will allow us more effectively to identify archeological cul- tures with linguistically defined populations. Basing himself on the elegant “wave of ad- vance” model of Ammerman and Cavalli- Sforza (The Neolithic Revolution and the Genetics of Population in Europe, Princeton University Press, 1984), he attributes the spread of Indo- European languages to the advance of agri- culture from Anatolia to Greece and thence during a period of two millenia to Western and Northern Europe. Renfrew’s book has already evoked two simultaneously appearing nega- tive reviews by scholars who are basically ar- cheologists in the Quarter4Y Review ofArchaeology (Spring 1988). T h e present review deals mainly with the linguistic aspects.

Since Renfrew realizes that the basic meth- ods employed in linguistics to determine the location in time and space of protolanguages lead to results incompatible with his hypoth-

1030 AMERICAN ANTHROPOl.OClST 190, 19881

esis, he must show that these methods are un- reliable. Thus, evidence from proto-vocabu- lary is rejected. “If there are no words for wheat, barley, etc. other explanations may be offered” (p. 84), but none are. Results from glottochronology, and, one should add, more broadly based comparisons of the earliest forms of Indo-European languages, indicate a date much later than that assumed by Ren- frew. Hence, glottochronology is also rejected. While its weaknesses are well known, the as- sumption that changes in basic vocabulary can proceed at highly variable rates is notjus- tifiable. Since linguistic paleontology rests on the reconstruction of proto-vocabulary on the principle ofagreement in a t least two branches for any individual etymon, Renfrew draws the conclusion that the genetic model must also be rejected. His assumption that the existence of borrowing invalidates this model is quite mis- taken. In fact, only on a cladistic model, even one that takes early geographical contiguity into effect in accordance with the wave model, is i t possible to distinguish clearly between in- herited and borrowed vocabulary.

The author, a distinguished archeologist, frankly realizes that most archeologists and linguists will not agree with his basic thesis. He is to be praised for his willingness to pre- sent a controversial thesis, but for the reasons mentioned and a number ofothers that might be adduced, his treatment of the linguistic evi- dence is, in itself, sufficient to invalidate his theory

The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurg- ence. Nigel Dauies. Civilization of the Ameri- can Indian Series, Vol. 187. Norman: Univer- sity of Oklahoma Press, 1987. 356 pp. $39.40 (cloth).

ARLEN F. CHASE University of Central Florida

In seeking “a more overall assessment of the Aztec achievement” (p. xiii), Davies’ The Aztec Empire explores the mechanism that existed in Mexica society that led it to compile one of the largest empires in the New World. Critiquing the view that ideology alone gave the Aztecs the means for empire building, Davies, follow- ing Sahlins, returns to a Boasian view of his- torical particularism in explaining the “Aztec Instance” (p. 282). Davies sees two of the pri- mary factors behind the Aztec success as being their “unshakeable belief that it was their duty to strive to recreate the vanished glory of Tol- Ian, a belief that provided the Aztecs, as heirs ofTollan, with a motive for conquest” (p. 284)

and their “more tangible assets in terms of military organization” (p. 188).

The book is organized around a series of topical headings. Chapter 1 examines the problems in dealing with ethnohistoric docu- ments and the indigenous concept of cyclical time and use of multiple calendars. Chapter 2 places the book in perspective relative to the rest of the trilogy. Aztec imperial strategy is examined in chapters 3 and 4. The next five chapters examine the structure of Aztec soci- ety in terms of its sociopolitical, economic, military, administrative, and religious order. Both chapters 6 and 7 argue that the Aztec military presence was not permanent in the re- gions that were conquered. In chapter 9, Dav- ies suggests that the Aztec “flowery wars” were maintained with local rivals as a means of ensuring captives for sacrifice. An alterna- tive view, not considered by Davies, is that such symbolic warfare was instituted for polit- ical expediency to keep local, and importantly, unconquered rivals at bay so that distant con- quests could be effected. Chapter 10 examines the roles of the gods Tezcatlipoca and Huitzil- opochtli, demonstrating, contrary to popular belief, that the latter was not necessarily the primary Aztec god. Davies’ final chapter re- capitulates the book’s major points. Given Davies’ extensive use of archeological and eth- nohistoric data, however, it is surprising that he does not consider how difficult it would be to archeologically establish an Aztec “em- pire” if no ethnohistoric data were available.

The Aztec Empire is a stimulating and well- written volume for the scholar already versed in Aztec culture. Although noted as the last part of a trilogy (with The Toltecs Until the Fall of Tula and The Toltec Heritage, University of Oklahoma Press, 1977 and 1980), for a full historical background, one needs to add an in- itial book written by Davies, simply called The Aztecs: A History (University of Oklahoma Press, 1974). Together, Davies’ four books dealing with the pre-Columbian civilizations in the Valley of Mexico provide one of the most comprehensive analyses available of the Aztecs and their predecessors.

Beyond the Acropolis: A Rural Greek Past. Tjeerd H . uan Andel and Curtis Runnels. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987. 236 pp. $27.50 (cloth).

JACK L. DAVIS University of Illinois at Chicago

Beyond the Acropolis applies methods and the- ory drawn largely from anthropological ar-