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to the ancient histories of such Old World civiliza-tions as Egypt and Mesopotamia. To be sure, thetextual material from the Maya civilization is in manyways more limited in both quantity and quality thanthat available from those others, but it is neverthe-less yielding intriguing and increasingly detailed in-formation about how the rulers and elite perceivedand responded to their times. Simon Martin andNikolai Grube, in Chronicle of the Maya Kings andQueens, deliver an elegant and illuminating excla-mation point to this quest for Maya history.

It is a well-organized and beautifully craftedbook. The graphics are in a class by themselvespedagogically. High-resolution colour photographsmake compelling illustrations, even when repro-duced at small scale, and they are distributedthroughout the narrative texts. Chronicle includes ex-cellent new cut-away and reconstruction pictures ofmonumental architecture important to the stories.The numerous side bars and boxed discussions drawattention to particular substantive points and meth-ods of analysis without distracting from the mainarguments. In the wake of The Ancient Maya ofMorley, Brainerd, and finally Robert Sharer (1994),Linda Schele sustained a tradition of detailed visualsin her books on Maya history, and Chronicle extendsthis tradition in an original and welcome fashion.Like those books, Chronicle is also an original andimportant work of scholarship as well as a currentsummary of ancient Maya history as presentlyknown. So the book can be read at several levels, bythe interested novice, the well-acquainted enthusi-ast, and the professional, with rewarding results.The endnotes are brief allusions to scholarly publi-cation; the bibliography is compact and precise. In-deed, the running narrative is in a parsimonious andclear prose that rarely strays from the main points ofhistorical interpretation proposed by these authors.

Following the mandatory introductory orienta-tion to the Maya, their culture history, writing, andélite culture, the authors lay out the essentials ofClassic Maya politics as they understand this matter.Martin and Grube, building upon prior work butalso making a brilliant leap in interpretation, pro-pose that the Maya practised overkingship, a hierar-

Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11:2 (2001), 265–88

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Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens:Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya

by S. Martin & N. Grube. London: Thames &Hudson; ISBN 0-500-15103-8 hardback, £19.95 &

US$34.95, 240 pp., 368 ills. (86 col.)

David Freidel

Since the publication of John L. Stephen’s andFrederick Catherwood’s travels in southern Mexicoand Central America more than a century and a halfago, the ancient Maya have gripped the popularimagination as a people whose undeciphered glyphictexts would, at the very least, confirm the civilizedcharacter of the Precolumbian inhabitants of the re-gion. Many hoped they held some great insight aslost and secret knowledge of the human experience.As late as the 1930s, Colonel James Churchward(1926; 1931), prototype to Indiana Jones, could get awarm reception from the New York Times review ofbooks with unlikely sagas of a lost continent calledMu, whose enlightened legacy included the wisdomof the Maya sages through their writings. SylvanusMorley (1946) and Sir Eric Thompson (1954) pub-lished lively and authoritative best-sellers on theMaya civilization, in which they despaired of everreally knowing what the texts conveyed, beyond afascination with calendrical time bordering on reli-gious obsession.

But there were always some devoted adeptswho thought this writing system would eventuallyyield, and in the sixties and seventies it finally did.Michael Coe’s Breaking the Maya Code (1992) is alucid take on that remarkable era of achievement.Beginning with Linda Schele and Mary Miller’s TheBlood of Kings (1986) and continuing with Schele andmy collaboration on A Forest of Kings (1990), Scheleand Peter Mathews The Code of Kings (1998), andnumerous other books and articles in the 1990s,Mayanists have been exploring the prospects of an-cient history in a Precolumbian society comparable

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chical ordering of rulers that created larger regionalpolitical entities out of the many relatively smallkingdoms making up the southern Maya lowlands.They have articulated this thesis clearly and persua-sively here and in other publications, and it is thefavoured working model for students of ancientMaya history. At the core of this idea is the fact thatthe Maya did not write publicly and monumentallyfor local audiences alone. Rather, they wrote for alarger and regional posterity. As we come to under-stand the events that rulers celebrated in their texts,we can discern that some of them actually were ofgreat regional consequence, shaping the destiny ofall the kingdoms as they struggled over the course ofthe Classic period with an increasingly tangled webof obligations and loyalties. Chronicle brings theseevents to life vigorously; but because the book isorganized chronologically by dynasty, eleven in all,the reader is required to jump from chapter to chap-ter periodically in order to follow the links betweenevents in one kingdom and those in another. Thepriority of dynastic sequence over the inter-king-dom ties is a reasonable one. For one of the majorscholarly contributions of this book is a complete revi-sion of the dynastic sequence at Tikal based in newepigraphic analyses by the authors. Moreover, this isthe first relatively comprehensive summation of aseries of Maya dynasties through their entire lengths.

The focus of Chronicle on the institution of dy-nasty as such raises a number of important issues forfurther consideration. While such epigraphers asChris Jones (Jones & Satterthwaite 1982), working atTikal, long ago argued that the ideal of dynasticsuccession through descending related males couldbe broken by interlopers inserted into the line, Chroni-cle underscores this pattern at such key kingdoms asTikal, Palenque, and Naranjo. It is now clear thatMaya dynasties could maintain a count of kings reck-oning from dynastic founders that included indi-viduals related only tenuously, if at all, by blooddescent. This is not to support assertions by some,such as Joyce Marcus (1992), that Maya writing wasnot chronicle in the main, but rather political propa-ganda in which dynastic founders were likely mythi-cal. Recent archaeological discovery of the probablefounder of the Copan dynasty (Sharer 1999) sug-gests the contrary. But the observation begs a ques-tion unanswered in this book, which is preciselyhow such interlopers were legitimated as membersof the dynastic succession? It is a question that maybe answered eventually through a combination ofarchaeological and epigraphic evidence. I would sug-gest on the basis of my own research that the essen-

tial means was implementation of the appropriaterituals transforming the would-be king from an or-dinary mortal into a sacred vessel of the rulership(Freidel & Suhler 1999). Such rituals required facili-ties and instruments that sometimes leave archaeo-logical traces.

At the heart of Chronicle are two unfolding his-torical dramas in Classic Maya civilization. The firstis a general consequence of the overkingship phenom-enon, the struggle between two great hegemonicpowers, centred on Calakmul and Tikal, for supremestatus among the southern lowland kingdoms. Thedetails of this struggle will be unfolding for a longtime to come, but it shows promise of being the cruxof Classic politics, and perhaps a key to the notori-ous ninth-century collapse. The second drama, re-lated to the first, is the establishment of what Martinand Grube call the New Order, a hegemonic expan-sion of Tikal in alliance with outsiders, evidentlyfrom the huge highland Mexican city of Teotihuacan,during the late fourth and fifth centuries. ClemencyCoggins (1976) first argued that Tikal had Mexicankings in the Early Classic period. Schele and I, in AForest of Kings, saw this Tikal-Teotihuacan connec-tion as an alliance. Recently, David Stuart (1998) hasargued that Teotihuacanoes conquered Tikal andplaced one of their own on the throne there. Martin& Grube side with Stuart in seeing Teotihuacan con-quest at Tikal. These epigraphers have resurrectedaspects of an important debate concerning the sec-ondary or primary status of the Maya states in theensuing Late Classic period. William Sanders &Barbara Price (1968), in a bold and influential essayon the evolution of Mesoamerican civilization, pro-posed that the Maya lowlands were an environmentinimical to the pristine inception of states, and theypostulated that such states as arose did so understimulus from states in the Mexican highlands. Inlight of the impressive Late Preclassic lowland Mayacivilization (Hansen 1998) the evolutionary dynam-ics are more complicated than Sanders & Price couldhave anticipated, but the notion of secondary stateformation in the Classic period is back in the mix.Whatever the outcome of this debate, there can be nodoubt that research in southern lowland Maya ar-chaeology of the Classic period is now conditionedby epigraphic data.

Ancient civilization was, in important respects,a self-defining cultural phenomenon. The ClassicMaya lived adjacent to non-Maya peoples to theireast in Central America who, while prosperous andsettled, were not full participants in Mesoamericancivilization as a matter of cultural choice and oppor-

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tunity. The same, I think can be said, for the south-ern lowland Classic Maya civilization. I have jokedin the past about working in text-free zones in north-ern Belize and northern Yucatan. The archaeology ofthose regions shows that their Preclassic and Classicperiod kings were quite mainstream in their mate-rial insignias, ritual paraphernalia, and divine archi-tectural settings. But for the most part they were notwriting themselves into the regional history whichemerged in the southern Classic lowlands. That self-definition, as participants in an interwoven historyunfolding as a cosmic literary drama was unique inthe Pre-Columbian Americas. In some importantways, still not yet clear in their collective chronicle,they wrote an end to their history. The ninth-centurycollapse encompassed that world of public writingand left alive the several Maya societies surroundingit to the north, east, and south. Why remains to beresolved, but it is an inquiry in which Simon Martinand Nikolai Grube will certainly continue to contrib-ute insight.

David FreidelDepartment of Anthropology

Southern Methodist UniversityDallas TX 75275

USAEmail: dfreidel@mail.smu.edu

References

Churchward, J., 1926. The Lost Continent of Mu. London:Neville Spearman.

Churchward, J., 1931. Children of Mu. New York (NY):Vail: Ballou Press.

Coe, M.D., 1992. Breaking the Maya Code. New York (NY):Thames & Hudson.

Coggins, C.C., 1976. Painting and Drawing Styles at Tikal:an Historical and Iconographical Reconstruction. AnnArbor (MI): University Microfilms.

Freidel, D.A. & C.K. Suhler, 1999. The path of life: towarda functional analysis of ancient Maya architecture,in Mesoamerican Architecture as a Cultural Symbol, ed.J.K. Kowalski. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 250–73.

Hansen, R.D., 1998. Continuity and disjunction: the Pre-Classic antecedents of Classic Maya architecture, inFunction and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture,ed. S.D. Houston. Washington (DC): DumbartonOaks, 49–122.

Jones, C. & L. Satterthwaite, 1982. The Monuments andInscriptions of Tikal: the Carved Monuments. (TikalReport 33A.) Philadelphia (PA): University Museum.

Marcus, J., 1992. Mesoamerican Writing Systems, Propaganda,Myth, and History in Four Ancient Civilizations. Prince-

ton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Morley, S.G., 1946. The Ancient Maya. Stanford (CA):

Stanford University Press.Sanders, W. & B.J. Price, 1968. Mesoameric: the Evolution of

a Civilization. New York (NY): Random House.Schele, L. & D. Freidel, 1990. A Forest of Kings: the Untold

Story of the Ancient Maya. New York (NY): WilliamMorrow & Co., Inc.

Schele, L. & P. Mathews, 1998. The Code of Kings: the Lan-guage of Seven Sacred Maya Temples and Tombs. NewYork (NY): Scribner.

Schele, L. & M.E. Miller, 1986. The Blood of Kings: Dynastyand Ritual in Maya Art. Fort Worth (TX): Kimbell ArtMuseum.

Sharer, R.J., 1994. The Ancient Maya. Fifth edition. Stanford(CA): Stanford University Press.

Sharer, R.J, 1999. Archaeology and history in the RoyalAcropolis, Copan, Honduras. Expedition 41(2), 8–15.

Stuart, D., 1998. The arrival of strangers. Pre-ColumbianArt Research Institute Newsletter 25, 10–12.

Thompson, J.E.S., 1954. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civiliza-tion. Norman (OK): University of Oklahoma Press.

Evolution of the Mind

Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language,and Meta-Cognition, edited by P. Carruthers &A. Chamberlain, 2000. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press; ISBN 0-521-78908-7 paperback,£14.95 & US$22.95, 346 pp., 37 ills.

Toby M. Pearce

It is increasingly recognized that the study of theevolution of the human mind must be inter-discipli-nary. And presumably, when treating the more com-plicated of the range of human cognitive abilities —language and consciousness, for example — the needto combine the strengths of various disciplines is atits strongest. Since, then, one of the central aims ofthis collection of essays is to discuss a variety ofissues that arise from the evolution of just such com-plex human abilities, it is just as well that the at-tempt to create a truly inter-disciplinary work wasgenuine. The book gathers together archaeologists,philosophers, psychologists, linguists, even psychia-trists, and allows them to share their particular fasci-nation with the evolution of the human mind. It hasto be said at the beginning that it lets them do sopretty freely; the editors speak just once, at the be-ginning, and leave the reader to draw links betweenthe various contributions. (Carruthers does also con-

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tribute an essay concerning the evolution of con-sciousness, but this is more in the capacity of con-tributor than editor.) As it is unlikely that any readerwill be very familiar with all of the topics touched inthe essays, the volume might have benefited from afinal chapter pulling together various strands of argu-ment, and providing general directions for further work.Nevertheless, the twelve essays that make up the vol-ume do represent a serious attempt to bring togetherthinking from otherwise disparate disciplines to bearupon questions surrounding the evolution of the mind.

Given its title, it is not at all surprising that thevolume adopts an evolutionary perspective through-out, but it is certainly pleasing. The idea that themind is a product of evolution is, within the palae-ontological and archaeological disciplines, dealt withon an almost daily basis. Within the study of thecontemporary mind, however, the fact that the mindhas evolved has not always been embraced as fullyas one might like. This is especially true when deal-ing with complex phenomena like language and con-sciousness, as this volume does. For archaeologists,this point is staggeringly important, because if themind per se, rather than the evolution of the mind, isseen as the only area worthy of serious interest, thenarchaeologists may have nothing to contribute todebates that is unique.

Two of the essays, from Steven Mithen andThomas Wynn, show the volume’s commitment toan engagement with the archaeological record.Mithen’s essay centres on the changes that occurredduring the transition from the Middle to UpperPalaeolithic. The comprehensive changes — indeedexpansions — in the types of artefacts manufacturedand employed after the Upper Palaeolithic transitionmight, he suggests, not merely reflect changes in hu-man cognition, but themselves represent an extensionof the human mind into the environment. Humanslearned to use both material culture, and the mindsof their companions, to boost the limited resourcesof their own minds. He states, for example, that:

by creating artefacts that represented ideas thatcould only have a transient existence within themind, it became possible to regenerate those ideas,communicate those ideas, and allow for cross-ferti-lisation of ideas between individuals in such a waythat completely new constructs could be devel-oped. (p. 216)

Although this idea is not completely original withinarchaeology — Donald (1991), for example, suggestedthat some Upper Palaeolithic artefacts may have beenused to store information, as an aid to memory —Mithen makes the formulation much more explicit,

presenting it as a thesis in its own right. This per-haps quite profound notion has been receiving re-cent philosophical support from Andy Clarke, whohas gone so far as to suggest that at least some partsof the external environment should be included inthe very definition of the human mind (Clarke 1996).

Thomas Wynn’s paper attempts to chart theevolution of symmetry by drawing inferences fromstone tool manufacture. For those familiar withWynn’s work, the basic approach adopted in thisessay will hardly be new. However, his work is assolid as ever, and the basic argument — that it ispossible to construct an archaeology of symmetry,and that this can be used to infer the evolution ofhominid spatial perception-cognition — is both easyto follow, and difficult to fault. Furthermore, Wynndemonstrates a willingness to engage directly withnotions drawn from evolutionary psychology, andcoming from an archaeologist, this is exciting. Evo-lutionary psychologists have often accepted an over-simplified notion of human evolution. They proposethat hominids would have lived in an ‘environmentof evolutionary adaptation (EEA)’, where they wouldhave faced a number of adaptive problems, such aspredation, obtaining food, and securing mating op-portunities. They appear to regard as uninteresting,however, the idea that it might be possible, with thehelp of the archaeological record, to specify in somedetail what this environment might have been like.But as Wynn suggests, ‘the current weaknesses ofevolutionary psychology lie not so much in its tales,but in its failure to follow them up with testing againstthe actual evidence of evolution’ (p. 135). Wynn’spaper shows how an increased dialogue betweenevolutionary psychologists and archaeologists maybe both feasible and productive. Finally, Wynn’s pa-per should be noted for its particularly inspiring andhonest introductory defence of the role that archae-ology has to play in the study of human cognition.

A number of the essays endorse, or at leastdiscuss the idea often associated with evolutionarypsychology, that the mind is largely composed ofinnate, special-purpose computational modules, eachshaped by natural selection to overcome some par-ticular information-processing problem that greetedthe human mind during the course of its evolution.That is not to say that they do so in a blithe, uncriti-cal fashion. Hughes and Plomin, for example, dis-cuss modularity using empirical evidence. Theypresent genetic data, derived from a study ofmonozygotic twins, suggesting that the developmentof children’s theory-of-mind — the understandingthat other individuals possess desires, beliefs, and

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intentions that may be different to one’s own, andthat this knowledge can be used to predict or at leastexplain some aspects of their behaviour — is undertight genetic control. They go on to discuss the im-plications of this finding for the modularity thesis.Richard Samuels suggests in a more philosophicalsense that evolutionary psychologists have often en-dorsed a rather strong version of the modularitythesis, but have tended not to discuss some of themore problematic implications that arise from theirposition. He suggests that it would be possible forthem to weaken their theoretical construction on thenature of modularity without compromising the forceof their argument.

Samuel’s chapter attempts to bring the rigoursof philosophical discipline to bear upon competingtheories within evolutionary psychology, so that theymight be usefully compared. This is an enterprise onwhich the editors are keen. They state in their intro-ductory chapter:

the traditional philosophical skills of distinguish-ing carefully between different questions, of differ-ent variants of a theory, of teasing out theimplications of theories proposed in a given area,and of uncovering the implicit assumptions of thetheory proposers, are just what interdisciplinaryinvestigation requires (p. 8).

But the volume also demonstrates how philosopherscan do more than act as mere referees between vari-ous theories. Indeed Carruthers, in the penultimatechapter, employs the same methodology, but doesso in reverse. He uses the conception of a mind thathas evolved to adjudicate between various philo-sophical theories of consciousness. He demonstrateshow some otherwise quite plausible conceptions ofconsciousness become untenable if a scenario for theevolution of conciousness is asked of them. TheHopkins paper, too, shows how philosophers will-ing to engage with the notion of human evolutionmay find the dialogue rewarding. (One can onlythink that, were they further willing to engage withall that the archaeological record has too offer, thentheir rewards might be even greater.)

One other paper, that of Murphy and Stich, iswell worthy of mention, because it shows how prac-tically useful the acknowledgement that the mindhas evolved can be. The paper is written by twopsychiatrists. They claim that the current systemused to classify and diagnose mental disorder — theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) — is ‘radi-cally and alarmingly unsatisfactory’, and is un-popular with many of those people who engage inits use. An alternative, evolutionary approach is then

outlined. They suggest that there are two main cat-egories of disorder — some result from the break-down of specific modules (such as autism, which isthought to arise at least in part from a failure of thetheory-of-mind module: e.g. Baron-Cohen 1995),while others stem from the mis-match between thepresent day environment, and that in which the mindoriginally evolved:

psychological mechanisms originated in a past envi-ronment, and although those mechanisms may havebeen adaptive in that past environment, it is entirelypossible that the environment has changed enough torender aspects of our cognitive architecture undesir-able or obsolete in the modern world (p. 72).

Disorders involving depression and anxiety wouldapparently fall within this category.

The ideas that Murphy and Stich discuss are mostinteresting. They may well even be true. One suspects,however, that while many clinicians might welcomesome form of renovation of the current classificationsystem, there might be resistance to this particular sug-gestion. Its adoption would require clinicians to makespecific theoretical commitments about the evolvedmind, whereas the DSM has traditionally, if only os-tensibly, been theoretically neutral, and value-free.Nonetheless, Murphy and Stich’s paper demonstratesthat thinking about the human mind from an evolu-tionary perspective is not only of great scholarly worth,but that is has the potential to be useful.

One might be forgiven for supposing, on thebasis of this review, that the volume’s main virtue isits adoption of an interdisciplinary theme per se, ratherthan the individual contributions of which it is com-prised. But this would be a mistake. It may also havebecome clear that many of the papers are meritoriousin their own right. In fact, it is the combination of itsdesire to pull together scholars from different disci-plines and the calibre of the individual papers, oftenheavily interdisciplinary themselves, which deems thebook a success. It represents a real answer to calls foran interdisciplinary understanding of the human mind,particularly in relation to its evolution. The wide rangeof issues considered shows just how important evolu-tionary considerations are, and the quality of workshows how seriously they should be taken.

Toby M. PearceDepartment of Archaeology

University of ReadingWhiteknights

ReadingRG6 6AA

Email: tobypearce@yahoo.com

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References

Baron-Cohen, S., 1995. Mindblindness. Cambridge (MA):MIT Press.

Clarke, A., 1996. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and WorldBack Together Again. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Donald, M., 1991. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stagesin the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge(MA): Harvard University Press.

An Agency of Choice?

Agency in Archaeology, by Marcia-Anne Dobres &John Robb, 2000. London: Routledge; ISBN 0-415-

20760-6 hardback, £65 & US$100; ISBN 0-415-20761-4 paperback, £19.99 & US$32.99, xiii + 271 pp., ills.

Bruno David

In a world populated by human actors, where thesocial and cultural life of people is a target of ar-chaeological enquiry, what is the role of the indi-vidual as agent in social change and social practice?How are concepts of individual choice and intentionmeaningful when addressing the archaeology of so-cially patterned and therefore normative behaviour?If choice is historically and socially circumscribed,what does individual choice mean in relation toagency? Does the archaeology of agency imply thearchaeology of individuals, or need it be concernedwith institutions, historical contingency, social groupsand contexts? These are some of the questionsbroached by Marcia-Anne Dobres and John Robb’snew book, the first dedicated to the concept of agencyin archaeology. Its aims are to stimulate the incorpo-ration of agency, in its various guises, into archaeo-logical practice, including notions of personhood,intent and consciousness and, as propounded bymany of the authors in this book, action as a productof individuals rather than broader-scale social prac-tice. Because of these various dimensions of agency,the chapters here are equally varied. One commontheme, however, is a general reference to Giddens’structuration, although this body of theory is notdiscussed in any depth.

The idea for this book emerged during a con-versation between the editors in New Orleans in1996, giving rise to a session at the 1997 Society forAmerican Archaeology conference in Nashville.Agency in Archaeology is the product of this meeting.It contains 17 chapters divided into five sections:

1) Introduction (Dobres & Robb); 2) Thinking agency(Hodder, Gero, Wobst, Cowgill, Barrett); 3) Usingagency (Joyce, Clark, Pauketat, Walker & Lucero),Sassaman, Chapman, Sinclair, Johnson, Shackel);4) Commentary (Brumfiel); and 5) Epilogue (Moore).

The book contains valuable discussions of re-gional archaeological records (particularly in theAmericas), often based on theoretical and methodo-logical implications of social life as behaviouraltechnology, and symbolism as the cognitive trans-formation of the world. Unfortunately, however, suchinsights are also tempered by a lack of theoreticaldiscussion and unfolding of other key notions thatare much relied upon to understand them, in par-ticular the implicit conviction by many authors thathuman action is intentional choice. Neither intentionnor choice are theorized, being rather largely im-plied to be a product of the conscious awareness of amore or less unlimited range of behavioural possi-bilities. Yet agency in continental philosophy con-cerns a subject who chooses between options, suchchoice leading to action. In this sense, agency in-volves choice. What is of interest here is the relation-ship between the agent as engaged in choice, and thesocial conditions that come to define the world ofpossibilities. What does this dialectic hold for ar-chaeological practice? What of the experience ofchoice and agency, from a phenomenological per-spective? If the range of behavioural possibilities isconstrained by historical conditions — if social prac-tice is always contingent — what do the concepts ofindividual choice and agency mean?

Tim Dant (1999, 118) has thus noted that ‘thesymbolic power of the object lies in the way humansare attracted to it’. We are seduced by objects, aseduction whose roots go beyond the material thingto its entanglement in a world of meaning and whatthe German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer hascalled preunderstanding — the culturally specificontological frameworks by which we understandthe truth of the world, and that guide our under-standing of things and future actions. We are allcaptives of our cultural worlds, but this is not todeny our engagement as active agents. Ours is aworld not just of material culture or ‘cognitive’ be-haviour and intentionality (in the sense of actionultimately arising from fully controlled, consciousawareness), but of behaviour both engaged and en-gaging. Instead of our consciousness reaching outand grasping the material, objects and ideas them-selves draw out from us a certain way of engagingwith them. If this is the case, can we achieve anarchaeology of ontology through an archaeology of

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agency, of engagement with objects and constructedlandscapes, with how people construct their worldsin place, ritual, symbolism (see David in press forsuch an attempt)? This is a promise of an archaeol-ogy of socially and historically embedded agency,but a first necessary step is unfolding its theoreticaland methodological premises. Unfortunately, agen-cy’s theoretical and methodological underpinningshave not been unfolded in this book.

Instead, Agency in Archaeology is largely con-cerned with the role of individuals and intentional-ity in creating the past (but hardly from a hermeneuticperspective), although other voices are also occa-sionally heard. By focusing on choice as the inten-tional decisions of individuals, hegemony andontology (as preunderstanding) are silenced, despitethe fact that it is precisely because of these that wecannot restrict talk of agency to intentionality, nor tothe isolated individual. This very book is a case inpoint: while the authors here aim to transcend estab-lished archaeological practice by calling upon theagent and agency, and in the process much is madeof individual intentionality in explaining change andsocial practice, Agency in Archaeology itself articu-lates two broad sets of chapters, each situated in adistinct and more or less discrete set of approaches.On the one hand are the chapters from the US (Gero,Wobst, Cowgill, Joyce, Clark, Pauketat, Walker &Lucero, Sassaman, Shackel and Brumfiel); on theother are the UK participants (Barrett, Chapman,Sinclair, Johnson and Moore). Hodder sits somewherein between. The language and theory employed —explicitly and implicitly — and the notions refer-enced are distinctive in each case. In this book theUS authors appear to engage in research programsthat move away from the processualism that stillmuch dominates American archaeology. But in do-ing so, processualism remains the point of reference.There is a preoccupation with going beyond positiv-ism and adaptationist thinking, but these are thenotions that embed and frame the US chapters. Thenow familiar processualism borne of the New Ar-chaeology sets up the system of references that in-forms, symbolically presenting archaeological truth,and reproducing it in the process even as the authorsstruggle to go beyond. The UK authors, on the otherhand, are founded less on the functionalism of theNew Archaeology and more on the social archaeo-logies that have come to be the hallmark of Britisharchaeology since the 1980s.

If agency was simply about individuals andunembedded cognitive awareness — ‘intentionality’— why can these two sets of approaches be so read-

ily identified in this book? Indeed it seems that eachauthor intends to go beyond adaptationist thinking,and wishes to address how change and social actionare generated. But as the dual division of the bookindicates, behaviour, or agency as action, cannot beunderstood simply by reference to individuals or toindividual intention. Critical are the forces that con-dition intention, sociality and ‘individual’ being.What we therefore need in archaeology are theoreti-cal discussions about agency itself, choice, subjectiv-ity, alterity and identity, being, power, institutionalism(in the sense of Foucault), engagement, dwelling.Such discussions are necessary because theory guideshow we approach the archaeological record. Unfor-tunately, despite some attempts and in particular,passing reference to Giddens, in this book there islittle to no engagement with such issues, and this is amajor disappointment. Agency and archaeologicalpractice are all the poorer for it.

All in all, however, this volume does containsome points of interest. The highlights for me wereChapter 1, Agency in archaeology: paradigm or plati-tude? (Dobres & Robb); Chapter 12, Tension at funer-als: social practices and the subversion of communitystructure in later Hungarian prehistory (Chapman);Chapter 13, Constellations of knowledge: humanagency and material affordance in lithic technology(Sinclair); and particularly Chapter 17, Ethics and on-tology: why agents and agency matter (Moore). Butthere is also disappointment, in particular that agencyis undertheorized and much-used. Because of this,the term has become a grab-bag concept that hoversaround the notion that people do things. I fear thatagency will suffer the same fate as other under-theorized catch-all concepts in archaeology — style,culture, landscape, and recently amongst rock-art re-searchers, shamanism. In this sense agency seems tohave a limited life-span, in its present guise at least.

Bruno DavidDepartment of Geography and Environmental Science

Monash UniversityPO Box 11A

Clayton, Victoria 3800Australia

Email: Bruno.David@arts.monash.edu.au

References

Dant, T., 1999. Material Culture in the Social World. Buck-ingham: Open University Press.

David, B., in press. Landscapes, Rock-art and the Dreaming.London: Continuum.

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Structural Constraints to Art Theory andMeaning

Art in Non-literate Societies: Structural Approaches andImplications for Sociocultural and System Theories,by J.A. Abramson, 2000. Kalamazoo (MI): New

Issues Press; ISBN 0-932826-32-6 hardback, US$50;ISBN 0-932826-33-4 paperback, US$25,

420 pp., 26 figs.

Paul S.C. Taçon

When I first learned about structuralism, while at-tending university in the late 1970s, I immediatelyperceived its limitations, suggesting it perhaps gaveus a wiring diagram of how some things operate butshed little meaning on what they were about. Usingthe analogy of a television set, I described how lotsof similarly ordered pictures could be received thathad very different meanings, stories and ideas be-hind them. For me, structuralism was an interestingexercise toward learning more about something but,at best, was only a first step. Since then, we haveseen post-structural, post-modern, processual, post-processual and other eras come and go, with greateror lesser enlightenment. As the century drew to aclose, structuralism figured less and less in debate,especially in the past decade. Consequently, it waswith great surprise that I should learn of Abramson’sArt in Nonliterate Societies, published in the year 2000.I anticipated a fresh new look at ‘art’ from a struc-tural point of view, perhaps with some usefulinsights, but soon discovered the book was mired inthe 1960s — hopelessly out of date in terms both ofadvances in theory and basic information. Indeed, itis as if this book were inextricably caught in a timewarp, to be catapulted some 30 years into the future.

Essentially the book is a dusted off old Ph.Dthesis, dressed and tarted up to give the appearanceof something new. Unfortunately, however, it wasnot dressed up enough, so that many sections aretotally deficient in recent information, leading to in-accurate, distorted and incorrect conclusions. Thesection on ‘Art and Culture in Australian Societies’is a good example. It is both offensive and ignorant,with almost no mention of the excellent work bydozens of world-renowned experts of the past 20–30years. Most references are by people based outsideAustralia and dated before 1969. Many are second-ary. This problem plagues other sections as well,leading to inaccurate assessments of Australian Abo-riginal arts and cultures and erroneous statements

about many other groups. For instance, human be-ings did not arrive in Australia ‘approximately thirtythousand years ago’ (p. 60), instead arriving at least40,000 (Allen 2000) and perhaps as much as 60,000years ago (Roberts et al. 1990; 1993; 1998; Thorne etal. 1999). It is not true that there are only slightdifferences between Aboriginal art styles from oneend of the continent to the other (p. 89). It is not truethat ‘local Aboriginal bands do not exhibit stylisticfeatures’ (p. 90). The falseness of this proposition hasbeen demonstrated in rock-art and material culturestudies for over 20 years (e.g. see McDonald 1994;1998; 1999 for the Sydney region; Taçon 1989; 1993for western Arnhem Land; and Smith 1992 moregenerally). Indeed, to state that ‘It is certainly thecase that the art of a local band seldom exhibitsfeatures that differentiate it in any general sensefrom art of other adjacent local bands’ (p. 51) andthat band art is ‘impoverished’, lacks style and is‘uniform’ highlights absolute ignorance more thangood scholarship.

Finally, Aboriginal cultures are not all the same,part of some gigantic ‘multiband’ structure. Theycertainly do not subordinate tradition (p. 292); infact, it is quite the opposite. And to say that theirlifestyle prohibited the formation of particular localband groups or that ‘it is the case that particulargroups in any local sense are still rarities in Aborigi-nal Australia’ (p. 78) is complete nonsense. Forinstance, consider the so-called Bradshaw rock paint-ings of the Kimberley (Walsh 1994; 2000) or the Dy-namic Figures of Arnhem Land (Chaloupka 1993;Chippindale et al. 2000) as examples of arts pro-duced by particular groups.

But why let facts get in the way of a goodtheory, especially if you intend to use the theory toexplain everything in the universe (p. 366 onward)!Essentially, if one’s model is broad enough, and thetheory general enough, facts are irrelevant. And thatis the heart of the problem with any structuralistapproach. Facts are unnecessary red herrings thatget in the way of order. What matters is the divisionof the world into pairs of opposites. And of course,the nature of the exercise preordains a result — eve-rywhere one looks, pairs of opposites are found. InAbramson’s case ‘Most broadly, the model uses gen-eralizations about form and process and their con-texts to explain why cultures resemble or differ fromone another’. But only two main forms of cultureand art are discovered, ‘Type-A’ and ‘Type-B’. Es-sentially, ‘B’ is ‘not-A’. But there are exceptions. Theseexceptions are not quite ‘A’ or ‘B’, lying somewherebetween. They are thus grouped as ‘C’, a form of ‘B’

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(because they are not ‘A’). It is important to note‘that “Type-A” and “not-A” are, by themselves, des-ignations for structural options; they label particularsorts of broadest-level cultural domain and/or en-tire-culture design programs and are not equivalentto sociocultural types’ (p. 10).

For Abramson, ‘A-society’, ‘A-culture’ and ‘A-style’ ‘refers to the societies, cultures and styles ofacephalous familial village-dwelling subsistence-ag-ricultural peoples’. Their designs consist of ‘finiteelements manipulated by finite process-options tocreate overall-modular arrays’ (p. 10). This is betterexplained through over 350 pages of detail, for thosewho care to read it. Essentially, however, the de-signs are those typical of the peoples of the North-west Coast of North America and parts of PapuaNew Guinea, where each design of a local repertoireis made of a limited number of elements, many fig-ures form half-designs, and bilateral symmetry is com-monplace (e.g. see Holm 1965). Abramson argues thatevery aspect of these societies is similarly ordered.

It is interesting that this sort of labelling canlead to placing Australian Aboriginal people, Hel-lenic Greeks, Romans, Gothic groups and PersianIslamics in the same category (see fig. 25, p. 281) butdoes this really tell us anything important? ForAbramson it tells us something crucial: that ‘B’ soci-eties ‘are themselves characteristically dynamic (con-tinually expanding or contracting); their structuralregimes are more complex and flexible, and theytypically generate/expend more energy (i.e. they in-crease entropy more) than do societies organizedwith A-regimes’ (p. 342). Although this is highlydebatable (e.g. see Brody 2001), Abramson uses thisas the foundation for his theory of everything. For itleads to his two broadest typological distinctions:‘periodic and chaotic’ (‘A’ being a periodic type).Eventually, everything is explained away as ‘A’ or‘not-A’, periodic or chaotic. But it gets better, for‘not-A’ really does not exist at all! Instead, thingsmove to or from ‘A’. ‘So, with respect to the universein which we find ourselves, our model postulates astructural tendency for everything to move toward a“most-simple” state or “basic order” — and a ten-dency for substance to move toward matter’ (p. 381).

As enlightening as that structural exercise maybe for some, one’s time might be better spent order-ing one’s own universe rather than reading this 400-page volume. After all, the take-home message isthat there is far too much ‘B’ in the world and thatwe should all be striving for ‘A’. But a universecomposed mostly of ‘A’ would be unexciting, a ro-bot world of perfect symmetry. Certainly, it would

not be a fun place to learn about ‘art’. Sign me up forthe ‘B’ team every time!

Paul S.C. TaçonHead of the People and Place Research Centre

Australian Museum6 College Street

Sydney, NSW 2010Australia

Email: pault@austmus.gov.au

References

Allen, J., 2000. A matter of time. Nature Australia 26(10),60–69.

Brody, H., 2001. The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-gatherers,Farmers and the Shaping of the World. London: Faber& Faber.

Chaloupka, G., 1993. Journey in Time. Sydney: Reed Books.Chippindale, C., B. Smith & P.S.C. Taçon, 2000. Visions of

Dynamic power: archaic rock-paintings, alteredstates of consciousness and ‘clever men’ in westernArnhem Land (NT), Australia. Cambridge Archaeo-logical Journal 10(1), 61–100.

Holm, B., 1965. Northwest Coast Indian Art: an Analysis ofForm. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

McDonald, J., 1994. Dreamtime Superhighway: an analy-sis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric infor-mation exchange. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, AustralianNational University, Canberra.

McDonald, J., 1998. Shelter rock-art in the Sydney Basin— a space–time continuum: exploring different in-fluences on stylistic change, in The Archaeology ofRock-art, eds. C. Chippindale & P. Taçon. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 319–35.

McDonald, J., 1999. Bedrock notions and isochrestic choice:evidence for localised stylistic patterning in the en-gravings of the Sydney region. Archaeology in Oceania34(3), 145–60.

Roberts, R., R. Jones & M.A. Smith, 1990. Thermo-luminescence dating of a 50,000-year old humanoccupation site in northern Australia. Nature345(6271), 153–6.

Roberts, R., R. Jones & M.A. Smith, 1993. Optical dating atDeaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory, indicateshuman occupation between 53,000 and 60,000 yearsago. Australian Archaeology 37, 58.

Roberts, R., H. Yoshida, R. Galbraith, G. Lastett, R. Jones& M.A. Smith, 1998. Single-aliquot and single grainoptical dating confirm thermoluminescence age es-timates at Malakunanja II rock shelter in northernAustralia. Ancient TL 16, 19–24.

Smith, C., 1992. Colonising with style: reviewing the nexusbetween rock art, territoriality and the colonisationand occupation of Sahul. Australian Archaeology 34,34–42.

Taçon, P.S.C., 1989. From Rainbow Snakes to ‘x-ray’ fish:the nature of the recent rock painting tradition of

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western Arnhem Land, Australia. Unpublished Ph.Dthesis. Australian National University, Canberra.

Taçon, P.S.C., 1993. Regionalism in the recent rock art ofwestern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Archae-ology in Oceania 28(2), 112–20.

Thorne, A., R. Grün, G. Mortimer, N. Spooner, J. Simpson,M. McCulloch, L. Taylor & D. Curnoe, 1999. Aus-tralia’s oldest human remains: age of the LakeMungo 3 skeleton. Journal of Human Evolution 36(6),591–612.

Walsh, G., 1994. Bradshaws: Ancient Rock Paintings of Aus-tralia. Geneva: Edition Limitée.

Walsh, G., 2000. Bradshaw Art of the Kimberley. Melbourne:Takarakka Nowan Kas Publications.

Structure and Agency in ComplexAdaptive Systems

Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies:Agent-based Modeling of Social and Spatial Processes,

edited by Timothy A. Kohler & George J.Gummerman, 2000. (Santa Fe Institute Studies inthe Sciences of Complexity.) Oxford & New York

(NY): Oxford University Press; ISBN 0-19-513168-1paperback, £28.99 & US$40; ISBN 0-19-513167-3

hardback, £46.99 & US$65, 412 pp., ills.

Stephen J. Shennan

Archaeologists, anthropologists and their social phi-losopher predecessors have long been interested inthe processes by which such structures as states andcivilizations emerge from human action. The frame-works within which they have pursued that interesthave varied over time. One of the earlier ones, andcertainly one of the most influential, was the Marxistview of history as class struggle, involving the emer-gence of contradictions between the forces andrelations of production. More recently, the neo-evolu-tionary framework which has been such a dominantinfluence in Anglo-American archaeology over thelast 40 years has emphasized the growth of complex-ity and social hierarchies as a process of group adap-tation. Those groups which developed hierarchicalsocial mechanisms for overcoming subsistence in-stability, or for competing better with rival groups,would be more successful. The adoption of innova-tions such as agriculture, which made it possible forsocieties to harness more energy from their environ-ment, provided the basis for supporting increasinglycomplex social structures.

In the 1970s there were attempts to make explo-rations of these adaptive processes, and in particularthe process of morphogenesis, more rigorous and sys-tematic by building computer simulations in whichvariables were defined and their relations with othervariables specified by systems of equations. By andlarge, these attempts were unsuccessful. If structurewas going to emerge, it had to be programmed intothe relations between the variables in the first place.

The agent-based approach to the modelling ofsocial processes, of which this book is an excellentexample, attempts to overcome the shortcomings ofthese earlier frameworks. Consequences of postu-lated processes are rigorously followed-through bymeans of computer simulation. Structure is not builtin to the model from the beginning but emergesfrom the interaction between ‘agents’ through a proc-ess of self-organization. ‘Agents’, as Kohler (p. 2)describes in his introduction, are ‘processes, how-ever simple, that collect information about their en-vironment, make decisions about actions based onthat information, and act’. The outcome of such localactions, based on local knowledge and decision-mak-ing criteria, can often be large-scale patterns unin-tended by the individual agents. A famous earlyexample showed that individual preferences for spa-tial neighbours of the same type as oneself rapidlyled to the emergence of segregated neighbourhoods.

This insight has profound consequences. Thehuman tendency to anthropomorphize the world tendsto lead to the view that complex patterns must be theresult of complex intentions and mental operations aswell as global knowledge. In fact, nothing could befurther from the truth, as te Boekhorst and Hemelrijkillustrate in their description of an example fromsituated robotics. Their robots are small vehicles thatmove randomly distributed cubes into a central heapand line up the rest against the wall. Far from requir-ing complex object recognition software and capacitiesfor co-ordinating movement and action to achieve this,they need only minimal sensors and movement con-trol. The pattern emerges from simple local responsesto colliding with the cubes and with other robots.

Indeed, this is one of the major themes of thebook: what are the minimal requirements for theemergence of structure from action? Are they purelymechanical, so that structure is simply a function ofthe degree of interconnection between different ele-ments? Is it necessary to assume evolutionary dy-namics of selection and adaptation? What is the roleof conscious intentions and knowledge? These areissues of great significance for the understanding ofboth human history and biological evolution.

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In addition to their robotics example, te Boek-horst and Hemelrijk cite a simulation of dominanceinteractions between individuals in which the ef-fects of winning and losing are self-reinforcing. Thestudy showed that patterns of cooperation could arisewithout any memory mechanism in the individuals,simply as a result of the fact that fleeing from theattack range of one opponent leads an individualinto the range of another. The observed series ofimmediate reciprocal actions of support corre-sponded to that of the famous Tit-for-Tat strategy inthe Prisoner’s Dilemma game but without any of theassumptions about the costs and benefits of coopera-tion versus defection that Prisoner’s Dilemma involves.

In a similar vein, Pepper and Smuts use anagent-based model to examine the evolution of co-operation in a simple ecological context. They showthat patchiness of food distribution can itself createsufficient population structure to generate between-group selection, leading to the spread of group-ben-eficial traits, without any need for the operation ofkin-selection. One of the traits they modelled wasfeeding restraint. In freely-mixing populations theindividual paying the cost of feeding restraint wasonly rarely among those reaping the benefits, in con-trast to the situation when resource patches wereisolated and small. Too much isolation, however,was also problematical. Continuing cooperation de-pended on groups being able to export their increasedproductivity to other patches, otherwise between-group selection did not occur. When within-groupselection is the only relevant process then coopera-tors will die out.

Skyrms’ study of the evolution of signallingsystems and inference is also a generic one, demon-strating that evolutionary dynamics provides an ac-count of the spontaneous emergence of signallingsystems which does not require pre-existing com-mon knowledge or agreement. Where the individu-als concerned have a common interest, almost anysort of adaptive dynamics leads to successful coordi-nation of a signalling system, because such systemsare powerful attractors in the dynamics. Which sys-tem emerges, however, depends on the vagaries ofthe initial stages of the evolutionary process (Skyrmsp. 84). The evolution of a correct rule of inference inthe context of a signalling system ‘depends on therepeated occurrence of situations where there is apositive payoff for acting on the right conclusion’, inthe interest of both senders and receivers of signals(p. 87). Skyrms’ example is the correct inference of thetype of predator currently presenting a threat, fromalarm calls which are differentiated by predator.

The remaining studies in the volume are spe-cific rather than generic. They use multi-agent mod-elling to explore particular situations, based on largequantities of specific information. Lake describes aproject in which multi-agent simulation is linked toGIS to explore the processes involved in makingforaging decisions. The agents can learn from theirown experience and from others and make decisionsin the light of their knowledge and goals. In this casethe GIS link enables them to have spatially-refer-enced knowledge in the form of their own cognitivemaps. The system is used to explore the likelihoodthat foraging for hazelnuts was a major determinantof Mesolithic land-use patterns on the Scottish is-land of Islay, and Lake concludes that it was not. Ashe explains, however, the major significance of hisproject is that he has created a powerful genericmodelling tool which can be used relatively straight-forwardly by others to model the activities of socialagents in a landscape.

The papers by Kohler and colleagues and Deanand colleagues model prehistoric settlement changein southwestern Colorado and northeast Arizona re-spectively, using multi-agent techniques, and go onto compare the results of their models with the set-tlement histories actually observed. In both casesthis is a very illuminating process. Kohler et al. con-clude that towards the end of their period, either theimportance of dry-farming was decreasing, or farm-ers were now settling in locations which were ineffi-cient with regard to access to their fields, perhapsbecause social considerations placed a new impor-tance on community members living in face-to-facecircumstances. Their model does not reproduce thepopulation growth that actually occurred towardsthe end of the period they studied, probably becausetheir agents could not intensify, whereas in fact in-tensification seems to have been exactly what hap-pened, through the increasing use of water andsediment management techniques. The Long HouseValley, whose settlement history was modelled byDean and colleagues, was abandoned after AD 1300,a process generally seen as the result of drought. Thesimulation results, however, show that the valleyenvironment after 1300 could have supported a re-duced population if people had disaggregated intosmaller communities and dispersed into favourablehabitats. It appears that the environmental factorsonly partially account for the abandonment of thearea. This contrast between the real world and thesimulated one is all the more striking in the light ofthe remarkable success of the simulation in model-ling many other aspects of the valley history, and

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adds force to Dean et al.’s claim that agent-basedmodels can be seen as laboratories for testing com-peting explanations.

Reynolds’ paper is also a settlement study, ex-ploring the role of conflict in chiefdom and stateformation in the Oaxaca valley by means of decisiontrees. These are used to express changes in the fac-tors predicting raiding and warfare targets over time.

Lansing explores patterns of cooperation amongBalinese rice farmers and the mechanisms by whichsynchronized planting patterns emerge over largeareas in response to pest and water availability prob-lems. He shows that there is pairwise synchroniza-tion of patterns between upstream and downstreamfarmers but that individuals also imitate those neigh-bours who obtain the best results, a process whichleads to uniformity in planting times, with highyields, and low variance in yields from one farmer tothe next; in other words, a highly satisfactory state ofaffairs produced by traditional methods, and far bet-ter than the results produced by centralized devel-opment policies.

In a very different sort of way, Lehner’s longand detailed paper on ancient Egypt as a complexadaptive system is equally illuminating, although itdoes not involve any modelling at all. His main con-cern is to show that it makes no sense to see central-ised control as the key feature of archaic complexsocieties such as Egypt, not least because the state wasvery limited in its capacity to intervene. The complexadaptive systems perspective directs ustowards a bottom-up view of Egyptian society, lookingat the connections between people and households. Itis here that complexity lies, for example in the inequal-ity among people in various superordinate and sub-ordinate relationships at different scales, both withinand between households: hence the view of Egypt inthe paper’s title as ‘the fractal house of Pharaoh’.

Finally, Small’s study uses an agent-basedmodel to explore a classic anthropological issue, theimpact of marriage rules on the degree of socialstratification in Polynesia. Where rules prescribe mar-rying non-relations, patterns of stratification are ex-tremely unstable. For stratification to emerge,marriage rules restricting kin have to be replaced byrules permitting endogamy; without this, the trajec-tories of chiefly lines through time converge on oneanother. Cross-cousin marriage produces a more sta-ble system where chiefly lines tend to keep theirhigh position, but the most stable and rigid system isachieved by permitting brother-sister marriage, suchas occurred in Hawai’i.

In his introduction Kohler is very careful not to

over-sell the virtues of multi-agent modelling, verywisely in the light of the history of panaceas whichhave come and gone in archaeology since the 1960s.Nevertheless, the papers in this book make a strongcase for the productiveness of agent-based model-ling approaches within a broad complex adaptivesystems framework. While predictions are alwaysdangerous, I would venture to suggest that thesemethods will be one of the main means by which thehierarchically-focused social evolutionary ap-proaches of the last 40 years in archaeology are fi-nally reformulated and superseded.

Stephen J. ShennanUniversity College London

Institute of Archaeology31–34 Gordon Square

LondonWC1H OPY

Email: s.shennan@ucl.ac.uk

Cities and Historical Archaeology

The Historical Archaeology of Buenos Aires: a City atthe End of the World, by Daniel Schávelzon, 2000.(Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology

Series.) New York (NY): Kluwer Academic/PlenumPublishers. ISBN 0-306-46064-5 hardback, £49.75 &

US$72, 187 pages, ills.

Peter Carl

This book raises three issues of general concern: thenature of ‘historical archaeology’, Schávelzon’s re-sults regarding Buenos Aires, and the problem ofinterpreting what I will term, ‘urban metabolism’.

Historical archaeology

In this context, the term refers to the school of ar-chaeological inquiry that had its origins in the 1950sin the United States, with Stanley South of the Insti-tute of Archeology and Anthropology, University ofSouth Carolina as its principal exponent. The seriesContributions to Global Historical Archaeology has beenrunning since 1960, now edited by Charles E. Orser,Jr, of Illinois State University (who has also writtenfor the series A Historical Archaeology of the ModernWorld, 1996). A succinct formulation of the aims ofthis school as of 1977 is found in the volume edited

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by South, Research Strategies in Historical Archeology(South 1977a), a full treatment in Method and Theoryin Historical Archaeology (South 1977b) and an officialhistory in Pioneers in Historical Archaeology (South 1994).

The obviously awkward term ‘historical’ — isnot all archaeology historical? — designates ‘archeo-logical research on sites of the historic time period inwhich the broader base provided by ethnographicand historical data is used’ (South 1977a, 1). Again,what archaeologist does not use available and rel-evant contextual material to inform judgements? Thepractice of historical archaeology is formulated asfollows by Mark P. Leone, of the College Park De-partment of Anthropology, University of Maryland(who also helped to edit a work within the Contribu-tions to Global Historical Archaeology, HistoricalArchaeologies of Capitalism, 1999):

Historical archaeology is considered an explora-

however, has the curious consequence of leaving outof ‘Global Historical Archaeology’ Europe itself, asthe void centre of the phenomenon.

These sorts of ambiguities could be multiplied.I am not exhaustively versed in the work of thisschool; but what I have managed to find is ofteninteresting and relevant. To me, a non-archaeologist,however, the designation of an excavation by placeand/or topic of interest would seem to me to besufficient, and would avoid what I see in the litera-ture of the group as tendentious claims for impor-tance or political correctness or methodologicalinnovation. The required localism and particularismof the sites does not need to be suspended beneath agrand agenda for greater visibility, as if from a col-ourful hot-air balloon — for example (taken fromrecent titles): the historical archaeology of manners,of domesticity and power, of capitalism, of impacton landscape. This problem arises from the presumeddivision between ‘material’ and ‘culture’ (is any ar-cheological material not cultural?), as well as fromthe need or desire to establish an academic patch —which declares what is cultivated within the patchas well as what is deemed weeds, or beyond concern.

The most interesting aspect of the discipline ofhistorical archaeology is its pretension to situate in-terpretation within cultural processes, termed bySchávelzon ‘a sound approach to life-style’ (p. 98).Thus, for example, he treats social ceremonies suchas the drinking of mate (Schávelzon uses ‘ritual’ here,incorrectly in my view) not only from the point ofview of its remains but also with respect to the im-plications for gender, slavery, ethnicity, domesticarchitecture, urban divisions between colonials andothers, illicit trade and so on. All of this is quiteinteresting and worthwhile, although it seems to re-quire demoting the importance of such major insti-tutions as the Jesuits and even the cabildo (towncouncil). As this also conforms to Leone’s priorities,it appears to arise from a methodological preferencefor ‘daily lives’ and an anti-colonialist bias.

Such a bias is not necessarily required by South’stheories, which are otherwise treated with discreetsilence by Schávelzon — a practice which, I suspect,is fairly widespread among historical archaeologists(the relation may be mutual: South cites himself withgreatest frequency). What of South’s theories are notcommon sense are confused collages of a variety ofother theories or, in the case of his ‘Nomothetic Ice-berg’ (diagram in South l977a, 3), simply silly. Themetaphor of cultural depth which provoked this dia-gram will always elicit a groan among archaeolo-gists, even before it is larded up with superficial

tion of European expansion and settlement throughmaterial remains. It can be thought of as an explo-ration of the spread of Europeans around the world,primarily through the process of establishing colo-nies . . . since the fifteenth century.

The expansion of Europe was led . . . by white menof status and stature . . . [However] historical ar-chaeology has access to the material remains . . . ofthe daily lives in the past of women, children, footsoldiers and sailors, slaves, freed slaves, NativeAmericans from the moment of contact, the insane,the gaoled, as well as anybody else who has everused a dish, chamberpot, room, privy, or medicinebottle . . . [Although] such people have gone unre-corded historically . . . there is a distinctive ar-chaeological record for them. And studying it isworthwhile. (Leone et al. 1995, 110)

A professed interest in marginalized peoples hasgood European Enlightenment credentials, inheritedfrom Christianity’s concern for the meek of the earth,and therefore might itself be seen to represent colo-nialism, and its guilt. Leaving aside the redemptivepossibilities of a slave’s inclusion in the archaeologi-cal record, the production of this record by attune-ment to all of the artefacts which present themselvesfor scrutiny is, by now, standard archeological prac-tice. What of the finds will be emphasized in thereports or exhibited in the museums is another mat-ter, as is the cultural importance of history. In anyevent, the specific discipline of historical archaeol-ogy seems to be distinguished more by its sphere ofinterest culturally, geographically and chronologi-cally than by its archeological practice or procedures.The interest in ‘European expansion and settlement’,

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references to Chomsky or to what is not the exposedtip of an iceberg. The general idea is to provide abasis for moving back and forth between the com-plex particulars, discovered on site or in records, tothe rich universals of the host culture or that ofpresent readers — which are, of course, the descend-ents of colonial culture and those assimilated into itsmodes of self-understanding. For South, the mediumof exchange between life and archaeological inter-pretation is pattern; but, because he seems less inter-ested in life than in methodology, his ‘law-giving’(nomothetic) patterns are prone to being mis-filed intheoretical categories. Of the works of historical ar-chaeology I have been able to consult, interpretationseems predominantly guided by the artefacts andtheir contexts and quite plausible conclusions setwithin the familiar protocols of statistical analysis,taxonomies, typologies, chronologies, line drawingsand photographs of details and so on. It is best atthis point to consult Schávelzon’s work as repre-sentative of the genre.

‘The Historical Archaeology of Buenos Aires’by Daniel Schávelzon

The book is structured in six chapters, which makefour sections. The first two chapters provide a briefhistory of Buenos Aires from the still-obscure ori-gins to the mid-nineteenth century. The critical mo-ment in the early history is the 1580 Garay Plan,which appears in a version published in 1796 (fig. 6,p. 22). A rectilinear matrix of blocks is set on theexposed west bank of the River Plate, with the largePaza Mayor (still there) fronted by a fort (now re-placed by Government House). Schávelzon tracesthis plan to ‘an urban typology derived from theWest Indies’ (p. 151), but these configurations em-body much more archaic civic ideals that shouldhave been important to his story. He emphasizes theminority position of Buenos Aires with respect toother colonial cities deeper inland and on the PacificCoast, and makes it seem something of a miraclethat Buenos Aires survived at all. Chapter 3, ‘TheArcheology of the Downtown’ is the longest sectionof the book, being largely the results of Schávelzon’sown work. Most of this is architectural, and man-ages to traverse the social and political spectrum,although houses predominate. He calls attention to acurious habit of neglect, whereby buildings wereused to the point of destruction and then rebuilteither in whole or part (pp. 104 & 161). This includesthe Cabildo, the building for the town council, forwhich there were no funds until 1608; and, by 1624

‘it was already on the verge of collapsing’ (p. 101),not to be rebuilt for a century. This section is rich ininteresting detail; but it is not until the end of thebook that we discover that the characteristic settle-ment pattern was houses (which cost less than afancy dress or a slave: pp. 120 & 132) set back fromthe street on narrow lots, leaving the interior of theblock free for cattle, vegetable gardens and children.He also asserts that circulation through the city wasthrough the interior of the blocks rather than in thestreets, reserved for wagons and carts. Two chaptersthen follow, on ‘Ethnicity and Gender’ (Indians, Af-ricans, Children, Women) and on ‘The Nonarchi-tectural Evidence’ (food, ceramics — as ever asignificant standard for dating — material culture,botanics and chemicals). Chapter 6 provides an over-view; and it is a succinct review as well as a lamentfor the replacement of the ‘variety and originality’ ofthe early city by the homogeneous, industrial one.

The production of the book is not greatly af-fected by some loose editing. Several of the images,however, are annoyingly ill-co-ordinated with thetext (e.g. figs. 25 & 29a; similarly the references tofig. 2 in Chapter 3 should be to fig. 3) and could havebeen profitably doubled in number (a basic set ofmaps showing growth and change is sorely lacking).More Schávelzon’s responsibility is a shortage ofsources for several assertions and statistics.

At 187 pages with all notes, bibliography, indexand a helpful glossary, this is a short book, andshould not have been presented by South in his For-ward as a ‘program designed to examine and inte-grate the historical and archaeological record of amajor city’ (p. v). In fact it is the provisional conclu-sions derived from Schávelzon’s thirteen years (since1985) of excavations in the central area of BuenosAires, on seventeen sites. One learns only a few pagesfrom the end (p. 159) that Schávelzon never intendedto look at anything other than the history prior toabout 1830. It is around this time, after the wars ofliberation, that Buenos Aires radically transformsfrom a provincial episode to one of the world’s ma-jor cities (the ‘Paris of the Americas’) and the curveof population growth suddenly sweeps vertically(fig. 7, p. 37). This change also marks, for Schávelzon,a loss of character or quality in Buenos Aires. Ethni-cally, its ten-fold increase in population in fifty yearsproduces the complete suppression by white Euro-pean immigrants of the previous generous mix ofpeoples. Urbanistically, the city ceases to be a com-plex aggregate of houses and institutions distributedloosely within a 300-year old matrix of blocks andattains what Schávelzon deems an unfortunate En-

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lightenment clarity in asserting and extending thegrid plan (p. 154). The author’s preference arises notfrom nostalgia but from the cultural agenda of his-torical archaeology. On his model, the diversitywould be visible as such, taking the form of a semi-suburban accumulation of evident polycultural par-ticulars, ranging from language to dress to town,somewhat after the fashion of a comedia del’arte.

This said, the city he presents is largely un-known outside archaeology, and it is a real credit tohis efforts to have recovered this early history. Atthe same time, I wish the book had been straightfor-ward from the beginning that this was its intention,and had better set the story within the wider contextof such settlements (although I learned much in thefirst third of the book). Instead, the Paris of the Ameri-cas constantly looms on the horizon and the readeris braced for a storm which never arrives. The subti-tle — ‘a city at the end of the world’ — refers toBuenos Aires’ location at the southern limits of theSpanish Empire, whose role is demoted to an ex-porter of Spaniards, products, fashions (Buenos Aireswas apparently surprisingly au courant throughoutits history) and the occasional warship or directive.It may be the case that the principal agents in thehistory of Buenos Aires have been well-studied else-where, and can be taken for granted. WhenSchávelzon declares that ‘Europe mattered most’ (p.151), however, one is surprised that its institutionsand culture are here largely silent. The impression iscreated of a city rendered culturally blind throughthe agency of methodological deafness.

One might say this is merely a problem of bal-ance, and recommend to historical archaeology thepossibility that nobles and priests are as necessary toa town as merchants and barrow-makers, tragedy aswell as comedy. Since ‘the archaeology of’ begins allchapter titles but two, one might say also thatSchávelzon limited his discourse to what could bedirectly related to his excavations; and, as these werenever large-scale and systematic but rather discreteincisions often made available by chance when re-mains were exposed, his conclusions could alwaysonly be provisional. Indeed, Schávelzon deservespraise for not only being able to draw as much as hedid from the remains but also for making archaeol-ogy a matter of concern to the civic authorities, ac-customed to vigorous destruction and rebuilding.However, even if one assumes archaeology to be likeforensics, concerned more with ‘the what and the how’rather than with ‘the why’, the scope of interpretationopened by appending ‘history’ remains elusive.

For example, one can see that the effort to re-

construct ‘from a hundred fragments’ the label of animported Bitter des Basques bottle can be deployedto shed light on the daily lives of Basque immi-grants, trade and, when coupled to the amusing im-age of a portal fabricated from these bottles (fig. 22,p. 63), advertising, commercial life and so forth. What,however, is to prevent deploying other publishedmaterial, from newspapers to novels? What is toprevent shifting the interpretative centre of gravityfrom archaeology to history? Why not, in this exam-ple, query the iconography of the label and of theportal, or attempt to register the culture of its drink-ing (domestic, at bars, drinking songs, etc.) with thesettings and situations of Buenos Aires? The answeris either a bit embarassing — the only relevant mate-rial comes out of the ground — or it depends uponthe sorts of questions one asks. If one wishes only toaccount for the label, then Schávelzon’s contributionis sufficient. If, however, one wishes to understandthe life of Basque immigrants, does historical ar-chaeology offer its results to anthropology, historyor literature? If, finally, one wishes to understand acity, at what point does the ‘material’ (archaeology)leave off and the ‘culture’ (history) begin?

Urban metabolism

As a student of architecture and urban order, themost attractive aspect of Schávelzon’s work is hisinterest in the innards of the urban block, as this is atheme little understood in my own discipline. Ac-cordingly, his city differs considerably from that ofguidebooks or standard courses in architectural his-tory, which gravitate about an aesthetic sublime ofmonuments, lovely urban squares and the like.Schávelzon is deeply interested in the sorts of proc-esses that produce the infinite diversity of local deci-sions, refuse-dumps, infrastructure, etc., and in beingable to understand the coherence of the movementfrom the kitchen-garden to the patio to the salon (pp.72–80 offer a representative excavation of this kind).The line of a street remains remarkably constant overcenturies, whereas the interior of the block can un-dergo radical transformations at various intervals —every 200 years, every 50 years, every 5 years, daily —and at a commensurate range of scales. Schávelzonseems not to have realized, however, that the semi-autonomy of the block is what creates the opportu-nity for the development of its interior diversity.

His conclusion advocates a species of urbandiversity inspired by the inside of the block — or bysuburbia — but without the, to him, pretentious orrepetitive or oppressive block perimeter. He marks

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the loss of his preferred city allegorically. In 1784,the cabildo issued a Real Ordenanza whereby the in-habitants were required to build a perimeter wall(effectively a street façade) to the pavement line,even though many of the buildings were set wellback from, and not even oriented to, the street (p.157). For fifty or so years, the town must have pre-sented a remarkable spectacle — a ‘hollow’ versionof a European capital city, a Vitruvian Tragic Stage-set masking a Comic one where people actually lived.

Inverting the intended lesson of this allegory,we may allow the hiatus between two orders of civiclife to stand for the several difficulties that accom-pany the promise of historical archaeology. The fas-cination for the processes of daily lives of supposedlymarginalized peoples creates a strange gap betweenthem and a mooted colonialist enemy — first noble,Catholic and distant and then Enlightenment, ra-tional and industrial. The overall urban order is lessanother duality of this kind than a topography ofmediated differences. Something similar could besaid about the dialectics of ‘material’ and ‘culture’:architecture is not language, rather each needs theother within a continuum of representations. To theextent that pattern is involved, it arises from thetypicalities of praxis — action and reflection — from‘life’ rather than from methodological considerations.

If historical archaeology is to fulfil its declaredambition of being able to take advantage of the wealthof cultural material available to interpretation of whatmight be termed ‘recent antiquity’, it would seemobliged to rise above the limitations of method andideology (not to say the objectivity of the formerdeployed as tacit support for the latter). Schávelzon’swork is excellent as far as it goes, but it also appearsto represent a missed opportunity. There would seemevery reason to drop the mantra ‘the archaeology of’and straightforwardly to pursue the questions ofinterest, drawing upon the relevant material asclaimed by the questions. Such a procedure trans-posed to New England whaling might look morelike the renderings of equipment in Moby Dick than acustomary archaeological report, but the mode ofinterpretation ought to be governed by the topic.

Peter CarlFaculty of Architecture and History of Art

University of Cambridge1–5 Scroope TerraceTrumpington Street

CambridgeCB2 1PX

Email: pwc21@cam.ac.uk

References

Leone, M.P., P.R. Mullins, M.C. Creveling, L. Hurst, B.Jackson-Nash, L.D. Jones, H.J. Kaiser, G.C. Logan &M.S. Warner, 1995. Can an African-American his-torical archaeology be an alternative voice?, in Inter-preting Archaeology: Finding Meaning the Past, eds. I.Hodder, M. Shanks, A. Alexandri, V. Buchli, J. Car-man, J. Last & G. Lucas. London: Routledge, 110–24.

South, S. (ed.), 1977a. Research Strategies in Historical Ar-cheology. New York (NY): Academic Press.

South, S., 1977b. Method and Theory in Historical Archaeol-ogy. New York (NY): Academic Press.

South, S., 1994. Pioneers in Historical Archaeology. New York(NY): Plenum Press.

Epistemology of Rituals

Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity,by Roy A. Rappaport, 1999. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press; ISBN 0-521-29690-0 paperback,£16.95 & US$19.95, 535 pp.

Dilip Chakrabarti

At the beginning of this book, the late ProfessorRappaport argues that religion was as essential aslanguage for the evolution of modern humans. Thefollowing fourteen chapters offer a detailed theoreti-cal discussion of one of its principal components, i.e.ritual. In the absence of religion, humanity could nothave emerged from its proto-human condition. Thisis something which the protagonists of some reli-gions would readily understand: Hindu Dharma, thenearest Sanskrit term for religion, means somethingwhich upholds the social universe, something whichenriches and enhances the possibilities of one’s ownand others’ lives.

Language and proto-language are consideredabsolutely central to human evolutionary success.The world of concepts that lies behind symbols couldcome about only through the emergence of language.On the other hand, not all these concepts were meantto contribute to the success of the human species; theconcepts of ‘God’, ‘Fatherland’, etc., for which count-less millions have sacrificed their lives, are conven-ient examples of such ‘inversion’. The concept ofalternative possibilities is also important, especiallywhen human beings face the breakdown of ancientcertainties.

In the second chapter, Rappaport discusses theform of rituals, defining them as a set of invariant

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acts and utterances, the meaning of which is notcompletely encoded by their performers. Not all ritualis religious and this definition ties it to the formaldisplays observed among the birds, beasts and eveninsects; but it is the ground from which all religionsspring. The very performance of rituals also entailsthe construction of an integrated convention regard-ing the concepts of the holy, the occult, the divineand perhaps a lot more. The author takes care to saythat his definition of ritual is neither substantive norfunctional. In the form and substance of a givenritual he believes that it is the conjunction of fea-tures, and not any single feature, which constitutesthe specific character. The arrangements of featuresmay be re-drawn and lead to the formation of a newritual.

The following chapter is concerned with theself-referential messages of rituals and their trans-mission. The author first establishes a hierarchy ofmeanings, which he calls not only one of subjectivitybut also of integration. He then discusses the ele-ments of variation in the Maring ritual cycle (theMaring being a group of slash-and-burn horticultur-ists of New Guinea), examining what he calls ‘natu-ral indices’ and ‘ordinary’ and ‘cardinal messages’with examples from this ritual cycle.

Chapter 4 deals with ‘enactments of meaning’;and Chapter 5 (‘word and act, form and substance’)considers why humans have recourse to rituals in-volving physical display as a mode of communica-tion instead of communicating through language.

Chapter 6 is about time and liturgical order, theauthor maintaining that the latter is just as coherentas the ‘natural’ or ‘economic’ orders. He emphasizesthe sequential dimension of liturgical order, whichinvolves the notion of time. Its implications areworked out with reference to St Augustine, St Emilleand the concept of time and categories. An interest-ing example is the Gadjari ritual cycle of the centralAustralian desert, which turns the physiographic andbiotic features of a vast area of the desert into alandscape identified not merely with landmarks butalso with the different stages of the history of theMamandabari people.

The theme of time is taken further in the nextchapter, where it is argued that ritual time — ‘timesout of time’ — really lies outside mundane time.This leads to a consideration of eternity and to adiscussion of the relationship of tempo to the state ofmind and society and to certain nuances of ritualrepresentation. To participate in a canon is to stepout of time’s flow into eternity which is endless andirreversible.

The aim of Chapter 8 (‘simultaneity and hierar-chy’) is to illuminate how the array of significantfeatures of a ritual can be concurrently representedand simultaneously grasped. The discussion is basedprimarily on the yu min rumbim ritual of the Maringand centres around language and liturgy, analysisversus performance, ritual representations andhyperreality, and the hierarchical dimension of litur-gical orders.

Chapter 9 defines the term ‘sanctity’ as ‘thequality of unquestionableness imputed by congre-gations to postulates in their nature objectively un-verifiable and absolutely infalsifiable’ (p. 281). Thisis amplified and argued in a number of sectionswhich consider sacred postulates, basic dogma,unquestionableness and the truth of things.

The different dimensions of ‘sanctification’ arediscussed in the following chapters; varieties of sanc-tification; sanctity, community, and communication.

Chapter 11 moves on to ‘truth and order’, fo-cusing mainly around the concepts of ‘logos’ and‘logoi’. The ancient Greek notion of ‘logos’ broughttogether a whole range of apparently irreconcilableconcepts (such as the temporal and the timeless, mor-tal and divine, sacred and sanctified, discursive andnon-discursive reason) into a wholeness and unity.If ‘logos’ refers to the cosmic orders represented bythe liturgical orders as wholes, ‘logoi’ addresses thefamily resemblance of concepts shared between theseliturgical orders.

The notions of ‘the numinous, the holy, and thedivine’ are scrutinized in Chapter 12, first with refer-ence to the concepts of religious experience of WilliamJames, Rudolph Otto and Emile Durkheim, and thenaround order, disorder, and transcendance; graceand art; ritual learning; meaning and meaningful-ness; the notion of the divine, the illusion of truth,and the foundations of humanity which are realizedin ritual.

Chapter 14 (‘the breaking of the Holy and itssalvation’) discusses the falsification of the sacredand the delusion of the numinous, rounding up thethemes with a section on postmodern science andnatural religion. The volume concludes with the as-sertion that humanity is not merely a species amongspecies but ‘that part of the world through which theworld as a whole can think about itself’ (p. 461).

This is a massive volume, full of great philo-sophical complexity and possibly the most detailedepistemological analysis of the phenomenon of ritu-als. It would have benefited, however, from a sec-tion on the history of the study of rituals inanthropology, and the extent to which the present

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volume is related to this, or marks a new departure.Further, it has been recently argued (Brück 1999)that the conception of ritual employed both in ar-chaeology and anthropology is a product of post-Enlightenment rationalism. These are evidently notthe kinds of issues in which the author was inter-ested.

Dilip ChakrabartiUniversity of Cambridge

Department of ArchaeologyDowning Street

CambridgeCB2 3DZ

Email: dc129@cam.ac.uk

Reference

Brück, J., 1999. Ritual and rationality: some problems ofinterpretation in archaeology. Journal of EuropeanArchaeology 2(3), 313–44.

Tales from the River Bank

Rekem: a Federmesser Camp on the Meuse River Bankby Marc De Bie & Jean-Paul Caspar, 2000. (2 vols.)(Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium.)Leuven: Leuven University Press; ISBN 90-7523-013-4 hardback & ISBN 90-5867-011-2 paperback,

BEF 4950/122.71 Euro, 325 pp., 123 fig.,179 tables + 265 pp., 115 pls, 154 maps (41 colour)

& 3 annexes

Christopher Tolan-Smith

The Late Upper Palaeolithic site at Rekem in theMeuse Valley, Belgium is well known to Europeanprehistorians both through a series of interim publi-cations and from one particularly distinctive findout of the 25,000 recovered from the site. This item, acurved backed ‘Tjonger’ point, has a residue of resinadhering to it which has provided a virtually uniqueopportunity to directly date a stone artefact. TheAMS radiocarbon date obtained (11,350±150 BP: OxA-942) remains the most reliable for the site and for‘Tjongerian’ or Federmesser (the preferred nomencla-ture) occupation in Belgium. That so much shouldrest on a single artefact seems apt in that this site, theinvestigation of which will set the standard for dec-ades to come, is exclusively comprised of a deposit

of stone artefacts recovered from a sandy ridge. Thereare no self-evident remains of structures, no animalbones, virtually no charcoal and not a single hazel-nut. Yet the evidence we are presented with in thesetwo magnificent volumes offers a highly detailedpicture of the daily life of a group of hunter-gather-ers on the North European Plain during the AllerødInterstadial. This has been achieved through the veryhigh standards of recording on site and the meticu-lous subsequent analysis of the technological andspatial data.

The report consists of two volumes, the secondbeing comprised of illustrations of finds, plots oftheir spatial distributions and a series of data baseswhile the text is presented in Volume 1. Both vol-umes are handsomely produced and virtually freefrom proof-reading and typographical errors. Vol-ume 1 is divided into six main chapters, the first twoof which deal with the Research context and Site de-scription and environmental setting, while the thirdsummarizes the evidence from Non-flint rocks andminerals, chiefly quartzites, sandstones and quartz.The next three chapters, which focus on the flintlithic assemblage, comprise the bulk of the volume,232 pages out of the 291 devoted to the main text.

The approach followed is both explicitly andimplicitly that of the chaîne opératoire and was verymuch facilitated by the refitting of 2311 pieces intosome 521 refit groups and by the use-wear analysisof 2500 pieces, approximating to 10 per cent of theassemblage. The study begins with a considerationof the flint-knapping techniques and reduction meth-ods that led to the production of blanks (Chapter 4).From this study the Federmesser flint workers atRekem, while striving to produce broadly laminarblanks in the classic Late Upper Palaeolithic mode,are shown to have had a very ad hoc and expedientapproach to the task, lacking the rigid preparationprocedures characteristic of the ‘classic’ Magdalenianindustries of Northern Europe from which theFedermesser knapping traditions were ultimately de-rived. This development, which has been noted inthe past, has been attributed to the difficulty of locatingsources of good quality flint in the increasingly densevegetative cover of the Allerød Interstadial. De Bie andCaspar advocate an interesting, less environmentallydeterministic, explanation. They point out that thesimplification of reduction methods in the Federmesserindustries and their increasing flexibility would havereleased the ‘artisans from the more exacting demandsof the Magdalenian, . . . and allowed them to exploit amore diversified range of lithic raw materials’ (p. 112).This positivist stance is to be welcomed.

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In Chapter 5 attention is focused on the ‘con-sumption’ of the blanks which are the end productsof the reduction sequence. This sequence proceedsfrom tool manufacture through use and maintenance,and ultimately to discard. The assemblage is domi-nated by a restricted range of implement types ofwhich Laterally Modified Laminar Pieces (LMPs)burins and scrapers are the most numerous. Studiesof use-wear traces and impact damage suggest thatthe more slender LMPs were mainly selected for themanufacture of arrowheads while broader versionsappear to have been used in various cutting tasks.Scrapers with use-wear traces were mainly used forworking fresh and dry hide and, as expected, burinswere mostly used for bone- and antler-workingthough numerous examples were also noted for theiruse on dry hide while some were used in cuttingvarious materials. It is also the case that the burinfacet was not always the part of the implement uti-lised. The picture obtained is one of expediency,with individual tools being adapted on an ad hocbasis to meet the immediate requirements of a taskunder way. This is emphasized by a number of casesin which different ‘types’ of tools discarded at thesame location conjoin in single refit-sequences; forexample refit set 05c05 which consists of six burins,one scraper, a truncation and a retouched piece. Thereare also examples of individual tools being trans-formed during their use-life, such as discarded scrap-ers being recycled as burins. Indeed, De Bie andCaspar argue that while LMPs are essentially ‘inten-tionally shaped tools’, the ‘domestic tools’ in theassemblage, including burins, scrapers, becs andvariouscomposite implements, are ‘primarily end-products of a use-rejuvenation process’ (p. 211). Thisis an important observation and one in accordancewith the flexible and expedient approach alreadynoted in the Federmesser artisans’ attitude to rawmaterial selection.

The study of the assemblage is given a thirddimension in Chapter 6 which focuses on spatialanalyses. The primary stages of flint-knapping seemto have taken place at loci 13, 15 and 16 whereas loci7 and 11 appear to have been the scenes of morespecialized tool-production. Locus 1 is interpretedmainly as a dump, while large communal workingareas, mainly for the processing of hides, are identi-fied at loci 5 and 6. The data from locus 5 provide aparticularly clear picture in that raw material typescan be divided into two, almost mutually exclusive,zones with the working of fresh hide being confinedto one zone. Locus 10 is interpreted as a dwelling,probably a circular tent about 5 m across, partly on

the basis of the finds but also using an application ofthe ‘Ring and Sector’ method (Stapert 1992). Over 60per cent of the artefacts recovered at locus 10 hadsuffered mechanical damage, possibly attributableto trampling, a much higher proportion than notedelsewhere on the site.

Chapter 6 concludes with an assertion thatRekem should be regarded as a residential settle-ment, a view somewhat at odds with that adoptedby Houtsma et al. (1996) who argued that all fullyexcavated Federmesser sites should be regarded asseasonally occupied hunting stands. This reviewerfinds the evidence from Rekem compelling, but inthe absence of seasonality data from any of thesesites the question must remain open. De Bie andCaspar also make a brave attempt to offer what theycall ‘glimpses’ of social structure, gender patternsand ritual behaviour, but on the basis of a lithicassemblage alone there is little that can be claimedthat carries real conviction. For example, while thepresence of a dwelling may imply a household and,by implication, the presence of children, do the casesof rather inexpert selection of raw materials and ‘in-stances of clumsy handicraft’ necessarily documenttheir presence? Wisely, the authors conclude that‘grasping these dimensions with a study of materialculture alone remains an intricate endeavour, . . .beyond the scope of the rigid data analysis’ (p. 283)that forms the substance of the Rekem report.

One aspect that could, perhaps, have receivedfuller attention is what may be called the fourthdimension, the active life histories or ‘biographies’of finds as their movements across the site frommanufacture through use to discard are tracedthrough the refitting sequences. These data are em-bedded within the other parts of the report and itwould have been a fascinating addition to have afew of these ‘biographies’ specifically extracted fromthe rest of the data. De Bie and Caspar assure us (p.280), however, that this topic is a matter of continu-ing research. At present this fourth, temporal, di-mension of Federmesser behaviour is dealt with bythe summary assertion that the robusticity of thespatial pattern implies that the site was the scene ofa single occupation or repeated short-term visits bythe same group of artisans.

The excavations at Rekem are of considerableinterest in several respects. First, they provide a de-tailed insight into the life of a group of hunter-gath-ers on the North European Plain during the AllerødInterstadial. They show how the Federmesser popu-lations had developed a technology that stressedflexibility and expediency and one that stands in

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contrast to the rigidly structured Magdalenian tech-nologies of an earlier stage of the Late Glacial. Thiscomparison and contrast is of considerable interestto students of the Late Glacial resettlement of theformerly glaciated and periglacial areas of northernEurope. Secondly, the results of the Rekem excava-tions show what can be achieved from a study ofhigh-quality/high-resolution spatial data. The exca-vators specifically eschewed the use of sophisticatedstatistical analyses and theoretical models. This is anempirical study and one that shows what can beaccomplished by a combination of meticulous re-cording on site and post-excavation analysis. Theauthors are to be congratulated on the success oftheir achievement.

Christopher Tolan-SmithDepartment of Archaeology

University of NewcastleNewcastle upon Tyne

NE1 7RUEmail: chris.tolan-smith@ncl.ac.uk

References

Houtsma, P., E. Kramer, R.R. Newell & J.L. Smit, 1996. TheLate Palaeolithic Habitation of Haule V. Assen: VanGorcum.

Stapert, D., 1992. The Ring and Sector Method: IntrasiteSpatial Analysis of Stone Age Sites. Unpublisheddissertation, University of Gronigen.

Monumental Problems: Who Built LateEgyptian Temples and Why?

Temples of the Last Pharaohs by Dieter Arnold, 1999.New York (NY) & Oxford: Oxford University Press;

ISBN 0-19-512633-5 hardback, £36.00 & US$49.95,viii+382 pages, 101 col. ills., 169 b&w ills.

Kate Spence

Our limited knowledge of ancient Egyptian historyis, for most periods, inextricably linked with templearchitecture. Texts and reliefs from the walls oftenprovide our only evidence for military activity, jubi-lees and other major royal events and, when thisinformation is lacking, the building activity itselfforms a basis for discussion. As one moves throughtime and Egypt’s interaction with foreign states in-

creases, tantalizing glimpses emerge of a politicalcomplexity obscured in the artistic, textual and ar-chitectural output of the pharaohs. This peaks in theHellenistic period, for which we have accounts writ-ten by Classical historians and visitors to Egypt con-temporary with the huge temples constructed by thePtolemies.

Egyptian temples were built in the name of theking and traditionally only the king and gods wererepresented in them. Constructing new temples orembellishing existing shrines was an important partof the king’s role. Through building he honoured thegods and instituted order in the world in addition tomarking his own reign with a display of conspicu-ous consumption. The history of temple construc-tion therefore fits well with the traditional divisionof Egypt into periods of strong centralization and‘intermediate periods’ for obvious reasons: only inperiods of strong central government were surplusresources available to divert into projects of this type.When centralization weakened, any resources avail-able for construction were generally channelled at alocal level into the construction of impressive tombsfor the provincial élite. The tendency of architecturalhistory to concentrate on periods for which we havea lot of interesting and varied architecture is under-standable, but it can result in continuities betweenperiods being underplayed and an over-emphasison apparent architectural changes which follow pe-riods of political upheaval.

Arnold’s Temples of the Last Pharaohs managessuccessfully to combine architectural history with amuch broader archaeological interest in the chang-ing role of architecture over time. It covers the pe-riod from the breakdown of centralized control atthe end of the New Kingdom (c. 1070) to the con-struction of the last Egyptian temples under the Ro-mans (c. AD 200). With the exception of the Ptolemaictemples, Egyptian architecture of this period is notwell known. Although some dynasties are poorlyrepresented architecturally, either because they didnot build much or because their constructions havebeen usurped or destroyed, the lack of more generalinterest in late temples seems incomprehensible inthe light of this study.

The core of the book is a list of architecturalprojects carried out under each king grouped intochapters by dynasty; each project is described, andillustrated and discussed where appropriate. Shortintroductory sections outline the historical back-ground of each period and the most important de-velopments in building form and constructiontechnique. The final part of the book outlines the

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most characteristic building forms and stylistic de-velopments, and the relationship between late Egyp-tian and Western architecture. The emphasis is onsuccinct and accessible presentation of a large amountof material and as a result interpretation of the monu-ments and individual architectural programmes isnecessarily limited. The illustrations are numerousand exceptionally varied, comprising photographs(archive and recent), plans, elevations, reconstruc-tions and line-drawn details as well as early etchingsand a few computer-generated reconstructions.

What follows is a series of more general consid-erations which were provoked while readingArnold’s useful and most informative book. The jux-taposition of political and architectural history oversuch a long period is particularly stimulating as itallows comparison between periods as well as ex-amination of patterning between the building pro-grammes undertaken by each king (see for exampleBaines 1997, 228–9). As is often the case, more evi-dence and more variety in the source material doesnot actually make interpretation easier, it simplyraises awareness of the underlying complexity.

One of the most striking features of this presen-tation of all the late temples is the strong sense ofcontinuity which becomes apparent between thePtolemaic and earlier structures. Study of Ptolemaictemples has largely become a specialized area: thesheer volume of architecture preserved in Egyptmakes specialization inevitable and there are cer-tainly differences in the social, political and economiccontext of these temples in comparison with earlierperiods. There are also differences in the quantityand complexity of temple decoration. While thereare occasional examples of Hellenistic elements indecoration such as the signs of the zodiac depictedalongside traditional Egyptian constellations on theDendarah astronomical ceiling, these are rare. Anexamination of Ptolemaic architecture actually pro-duces little, if anything, which lies outside what mightbe expected of architectural development over sucha substantial period of intensive building activity:most of the architectural features which ‘character-ize’ Ptolemaic temples can be traced back to thepoorly-preserved projects of the 26th or 30th Dynas-ties, if not earlier. Instead Ptolemaic architecturestands out as a period of experimentation and ex-ploitation of traditional Egyptian features and themeswithin a markedly Egyptian style.

The question of the ‘Egyptian-ness’ of these tem-ples becomes of particular importance when consid-ering their overall purpose and the role of the kingin their creation. It is also significant in considering

whether information from the temples of thePtolemaic period can be used to shed light on therole and meaning of temples of earlier periods. Thisis an area of great interest not only because the tem-ple texts and reliefs are considerably more descrip-tive and explicit than Pharaonic examples, but alsobecause related documents allow much more de-tailed (although still severely limited) evaluation ofthe social and economic role of the temples than ispossible for earlier periods. Obviously both architec-ture and context changed over time, but the highlevel of continuity existing within the architecturemay provide useful pointers in interpreting evidencefrom earlier periods.

The presence of several dynasties of decidedlyun-Egyptian rulers highlights interesting questionsof agency in temple construction and exposes areasof conflict between the interpretation of post-NewKingdom architecture and that of earlier periods.The subject of agency in construction initiative hasnow been examined in detail for the 30th Dynasty bySpencer (2001) with some discussion of its relevancefor other periods. The main focus here lies in thePtolemaic period on account of the preservation ofthe architecture and the number of relevant back-ground texts, but the problem could as readily beapplied to any period with foreign kings.

The problem lies in the emphasis placed on therole of the king in Egyptian monumental buildingprojects of the New Kingdom and earlier. As hasalready been observed, the king is traditionally theonly person represented on the temple walls in thecompany of the gods. Similarly he is usually theonly person mentioned in association with construc-tion projects. There is a tendency to avoid discussionof ‘architects’ in pharaonic Egypt for laudable rea-sons: the term has no exact ancient parallel and wehave little textual evidence for the individuals in-volved in this type of work. Where we do have evi-dence for individuals it is usually ambiguous, leavingus uncertain whether they were the designers or theadministrators of projects. Discussion of the involve-ment of priests in design and construction projects isalso often avoided, again through lack of evidence.

To avoid making assumptions we therefore stickwith the ancient fiction of associating only the kinghimself with temple construction. Obviously weknow that others must actually have been involved,but the danger is that we conflate different aspects ofthe building project (inception, funding/benefaction,design and execution) and implicitly attribute fartoo much to the king (cf. Spencer 2001, 174, 186–7).Presenting the king as the constructor itself involves

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assumptions, but ones with which we feel comfort-able: the interpretation is based on texts and appearsto be supported by numerous New Kingdom in-scriptions which stress the proactive role of the kingin decision-making in many areas, including archi-tecture. There is little to conflict with this interpreta-tion in the New Kingdom, but clear problems emergewhen we get to the Ptolemaic period.

Although the evidence for architectural designis nearly as limited as for earlier periods, it has to bedoubtful that Ptolemaic kings were actually involvedin temple construction to any significant extent be-yond that of benefactors, and even this role mayhave been limited (see below). These kings wereGreek-oriented, living in Alexandria in Hellenisticluxury and primarily concerned with power strug-gles in the eastern Mediterranean and within theirown family. According to ancient texts CleopatraVII, the last ruler of the dynasty, was also the first tolearn to speak the Egyptian language. Discussion ofdesign and construction of these temples thereforeshifts onto the priests and the centres of learningwithin temples, despite the fact that it is still the kingwho is represented in the scenes on the temple walls.

It is quite clear from the architecture itself thatthose who were actually involved in designing andbuilding temples, be they priests, ‘overseers of works’or others, belonged to a highly specialized body ofpeople with detailed knowledge of architectural prec-edent and religious practice, trained and function-ing within a living tradition of Egyptian cultarchitecture. These people maintained architecturalcontinuity and tradition over generations of kingsboth Egyptian and foreign (Spencer 2001, 209–11).Similar groups of people or individuals must alsohave functioned as advisors to kings on issues suchas where to bestow their benefactions and at whichfestivals a royal presence was essential.

Such a situation must also have existed at ear-lier periods, however scanty our textual evidence.New Kingdom texts dealing with the dedication ofarchitecture focus on costly materials, size and sur-passing or embellishing the constructions of one’spredecessors; this is the language of benefaction, notof design. Some kings (such as Akhenaten) may havetaken more interest than others in architectural de-sign and decoration but this should be viewed as theexception rather than the rule; in any case, the de-sign and realization of architectural projects wouldstill have been undertaken predominantly by others.It is essential that the important role of this group of‘designers’ is recognized and acknowledged for ear-lier periods despite their virtual absence from the

textual record. The existence and importance of suchgroups goes a long way toward explaining the conti-nuity and gradual changes within architecture afterthe New Kingdom while the architecture itself wascentral to creating cultural continuity (Spencer 2001,210–11).

The question of why foreign kings should haveinvested so heavily in Egyptian temple architectureis interesting. Some Ptolemaic temples are very largeand represent sustained investment over generations.Many smaller structures were also built. This activ-ity took place while resources were presumably al-ready stretched by the extent of Hellenistic buildingactivity in Alexandria and the Delta, on top of mili-tary activity around the Mediterranean. As might beexpected, the answer is elusive and almost certainlyinvolves complex political, economic and religiousfactors. A key issue here is the role of the temple inlocal administration, as during the Pharaonic periodtemples came to play an increasingly important roleas foci of local life. Temples were large land-owners,they had workshops and education seems to havebeen increasingly temple-based; in addition, lawcourts were associated with them and markets laynearby. Traditionally, high-ranking members of thepriesthood had also held civil offices. The Ptolemiesseem to have left this system largely intact and in-vestment in temple construction in the Nile Valleymay have encouraged the support of high-rankingEgyptian local officials. It may therefore be no coin-cidence that the major building works undertakenby Ptolemies VIII and XII in times of reduced rev-enues correspond to periods of civil unrest in UpperEgypt (Baines 1997, 229).

Other sources point to the issue of legitimationwhich must have been orchestrated by the priest-hood on behalf of the king. In Egypt, the king’sstatus derived from his relationship with the gods,which was enshrined in cult activity on his behalf.To be accepted as the legitimate ruler of the countryit was traditional for the king to build or embellishtemples to show his devotion to the gods in returnfor which the gods would grant blessings to him andthrough him to Egypt. His representation as solecult participant on temple walls emphasized his ac-ceptance by the god. The Canopus decree (238 BC)accords Ptolemy III and Berenike the status of ‘ben-efactor gods’, with their own priesthood throughoutthe country, on account of their benefactions to tem-ples and restoration of sacred statues removed bythe Persians (Bowman 1990, 169–70). This is recordedas a privilege to the rulers in language which is farfrom subservient and seems to point to a complex

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power-balance between priests and rulers.This use of temples for legitimation is illus-

trated most clearly by the building programme un-dertaken at Thebes for Alexander the Great and hisimmediate successor, Philip Arrhideus. Having con-quered Egypt, Alexander went for the jugular in areligious sense by undertaking very limited work inthe most sacred locations in the most sacred templesof the most sacred city of Egypt. The decoration ofthe sanctuary of the Akh Menu at Karnak was recarvedwith images of Alexander before Amun, and newshrines for the sacred boats of Amun were built anddecorated at Karnak and Luxor temples, followingclosely the design of the New Kingdom originals;the Karnak boat shrine was actually decorated byPhilip Arrhideus. These interventions are interest-ing in several ways. First, the programme must havebeen orchestrated by an individual or team whounderstood and was exploiting the significance ofthese locations on behalf of the king. Secondly, thisbuilding work would have been visible only to ahandful of priests and the gods: it was not an act oflegitimation directed toward the general population.Thirdly, the scale of these projects is tiny in compari-son with the building activity of the Ptolemies.

Despite the potential of legitimation as a carrotfor extracting building funds from the ruling dy-nasty, the funding of projects was certainly morecomplex than one-off benefactions from the king.There is considerable evidence for private intiative(Spencer 2001, 144). In addition, major temples wereformidable economic forces with sizeable land hold-ings, a possible monopoly on papyrus productionand the ability to charge large fees for mummifica-tion and burial rites (Quaegebeur 1979). It thereforeseems possible that some construction costs couldhave been met by the temples themselves, particu-larly in larger institutions. The extent to which thiscould have been a factor in funding construction isdifficult to assess given the paucity of evidence. Thesuggestion is highly speculative, but the fact thatconstruction declined rapidly in the Roman periodfollowing major economic reforms including the con-fiscation of temple properties under Augustus (p.225) could be interpreted as lending support to thisview although it could also simply reflect lack ofroyal investment. An apparent lack of definition be-tween royal and temple coffers in the New Kingdom(Janssen 1979) makes it difficult to assess whetherfunding for building projects might not also havebeen partly internally-generated in earlier periods. Itis interesting to note, however, that the Deir el-Me-dina workers who built the New Kingdom royal

tombs in the Valley of the Kings seem to have beenpaid in part through existing temples (Janssen 1975,456–58; Valbelle 1985, 148–52).

While an examination of the architectural evi-dence suggests little direct foreign influence in lateEgyptian architecture, and recent architectural his-tories are certainly justified in emphasizing continu-ity, it is important not to overlook the new interestsand emphases which appear in wall decoration atthis time. Some of these are given a historical pedi-gree within remotest Egyptian history which is al-most certainly fictitious (Kemp 1989, 100–101): theyreflect new ideas developing within the contempo-rary cultural context drawing on traditional aspectsof Egyptian religion (Spencer 2001, esp. 111–18).These temples also provide the fullest and most ex-plicit expositions of many Egyptian myths and ritu-als and this explicitness may to some extent be theresult of indirect influence. Traditionally, temple textsand reliefs referred to a world view and a religioussystem understood to a greater or lesser degree byall Egyptians; perhaps continual explanation of ritu-als and beliefs to those who did not share that worldview encouraged the development of a more explicitand narrative presentation of ideas.

Despite continuity in architectural form anddetail throughout the period under study, the archi-tecture of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt is more thanthe sum total of its recognizable parts. As is the casewith the wall reliefs, the temples of this period re-flect contemporary religious practice in a way whichdraws on tradition within a creative context andproduces distinctive architecture. Thankfully, theimportance of the art and architecture of the Lateand Graeco-Roman Periods is now widely acknowl-edged within Egyptology and negative value judge-ments are rare (Baines 1997; Finnestad 1998) but bothart and architecture are still poorly understood. Thereis enormous scope here for further investigation:Arnold’s volume provides a useful starting pointand hopefully researchers will not be put off by thescale of the challenge.

Kate SpenceFaculty of Oriental Studies

Sidgwick AvenueCambridgeCB3 9DA

Email: kes1004@cam.ac.uk

References

Baines, J., 1997. Temples as symbols, guarantors, and par-

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ticipants in Egyptian civilization, in The Temple inAncient Egypt: New Discoveries and Recent Research,ed. S. Quirke. London: British Musem Press, 216–41.

Bowman, A.K., 1990. Egypt after the Pharaohs. Oxford: Ox-ford University Press.

Finnestad, R.B., 1998. Temples of the Ptolemaic and Ro-man periods: ancient traditions in new contexts, inTemples of Ancient Egypt, ed. B.E. Schafer. London:I.B. Tauris, 185–237.

Janssen, J.J, 1975. Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Pe-riod. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Janssen, J.J., 1979. The role of the temple in the Egyptianeconomy during the New Kingdom, in Lipinski (ed.),505–15.

Kemp, B.J., 1989. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization.London & New York (NY): Routledge.

Lipinski, E. (ed.), 1979. State and Temple Economy in the An-cient Near East II. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek.

Spencer, N.A., 2001. Sustaining Egyptian Culture: Royaland Private Construction Initiatives in the First Mil-lennium BC. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Uni-versity of Cambridge.

Quaegebeur, J., 1979. Documents égyptiens et rôleéconomique du clergé en Égypte Hellénistique, inLipinski (ed.), 707–29.

Valbelle, D., 1985. Les ouvriers de la tombe: Deir el-Médineh àl’époque Ramesside. Cairo: Institut français d’arché-ologie orientale du Caire.