340 AMERICAN A N TEROPOWGIST [N. s., 29, 1927

initial issue establishes the pattern to be followed in the future. There is, first of all, a Bibliography, which purports to be as complete as possible, including material of ethnographic interest that may be scattered over journals of a more technical character. The arrange- ment is by continents, each being considered only once a year, and the several distinctive culture areas are treated under separate headings. The second section contains Reviews of the more important publications; special emphasis will be placed on valuable treatises written in generally inaccessible languages. From time to time there are to appear comprehensive summaries of special regions; for example, the present installment contains a r6sum6 of Siberian work by M. Azadowskij. Finally there are brief Communications (Mitteilungen) about new investigations, congresses, museums, university activities, and personalia generally.

This worthy enterprise certainly merits general support, and we hope that i t will prosper and grow in proportion to the competence of its management as indicated by this first Heft, which in its opening section is entirely devoted to Arnericanist interests.

ROBERT H. LOWIE

PREHISTORY

Our Early Ancestors. A n Introductory Study of the Mesolithic, Neo- lithic, and Copper Age Cultures in Europe and Adjacent Regions. M. C. BURKITT. 243 pp., 30 pls. Cambridge University Press, 1926.

The author gives two reasons for writing this book. I n the first place very few textbooks covering this particular field have been published; secondly the need of such a work was felt by the author himself as lecturer to University students as well as by the students themselves. He admits that this long and painstaking job is still far from completion even as far as Europe is concerned, and that it will be many years before the work is in any sense finished. Our knowledge of the Old Stone Age, especially that portion of it known as the Palaeolithic, is now fairly well crystallized and forms a safe basis on which to build a superstructure which will form a link be- tween prehistory and proto-history. The volume begins with that period which was once known as the hiatus,-a period bridging the gap between the Magdalenian epoch with its reindeer fauna and realistic cave art and the culture known as Neolithic. This supposed

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hiatus has vanished before our advancing and cumulative knowledge and in its place we now have the Mesolithic period.

Measured by Palaeolithic standards, the Mesolithic Period covers a relatively short space of time. Regionally i t is represented by cul- tures differing slightly in fact as well as in name. The Azilian of Piette with its painted pebbles and flat harpoons of staghorn; the Tardenoisian of De Mortillet with its microliths; the Asturian of Count de la Vega del Sella; and the Maglemosean of Sarauw all go to make up the Mesolithic complex. And in recent years there is a tendency to detach the first or lowest rung of the Neolithic ladder and add it to the Mesolithic; I refer to the Epoch of the Shell Heaps in Denmark and its equivalent, the Campignian, in France.

“Neolithic Civilization” comes in for the lion’s share of space. The most notable additions to human experience during the Neo- lithic Period are: (1) the domestication of animals and plants; (2) the manufacture of pottery, and (3) the pecking, grinding and polish- ing of stone tools, instead of merely chipping as a shaping process. A chapter is devoted to Neolithic typology, made all the more valuable by a well-selected series of plates.

Chapter VII is given over to “A Brief Sketch of England in Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Earliest Metal Age Times;” while the last three chapters out of a total of ten treat of “The Mediterranean Area and the Copper Age,” “Preliminary Notes on the Bronze Age Cultures” (not envisaged in the title of the book), and “Art.”

The author is taken to task by no less an authority than Sir Arthur Keith for making no attempt to fix in years the duration of the cultural epochs covered by the volume. The serious student of prehistory will not be disturbed by the omission; the general reader, however, is glad to have such details even though they have to be in the nature of the case only approximations or enlightened guesses. A fairly long and carefully selected list of references is added a t the end of each chapter, enabling the student to delve deeper into the mines of information now a t his disposal. The present volume is not the first from Burkitt’s pen and we hope it is not to be the last.

GEORGE GRANT MACCURDY

Prihistoire de la Norvkge. HAAKON SHETELIG. Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1926, 280 pp. 10 pls. Theoretically, man might have lived in Scandinavia during an

interglacial stage. One can simply say that no record was left of his