Luminous debris: reflecting on vestige in Provence and Languedoc.

Luminous debris: reflecting on vestige in Provence and Languedoc. GUSTAF SOBIN. Luminous debris: reflecting on vestige in Provenceand Languedoc. ix+247 pages, figures. 1999. Berkeley (CA): University ofCalifornia Press "UC Press" redirects here, but this is also an abbreviation for University of Chicago PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. ; 0-520-22245-8 hardback $45 &27.50 [poundssterling],0-52021775-6 paperback $18.95 & 11.95 [pounds sterling]. `"Documentation" for the archeologists, pure"curio cu��ri��o?n. pl. cu��ri��osA curious or unusual object of art or piece of bric-a-brac.[Short for curiosity. " for the rest', ruminates Mr SOBIN SOBIN Southwestern Ontario Bioproducts Innovation Network (Chatham, Ontario, Canada)(p. 193), `whocan say that any object ... outlasts the fires with which it wasoriginally invested?' In 26 essays, he assesses the culturalsignificance of archaeological interpretation from Terra Amata to theburials of babies in Iron Age houses to the study of the long-lastingaqueduct of Nimes. The latter, for instance, was not `merely an act ofmanifest bravura': `We've become far too attached ... to itsnecessity as both monument and metaphor ... to endorse such a slenderhypothesis' (p. 222). Or, like dolmens, `Don't we, after all,under certain pressures, motivated by a particular set of circumstances,occasionally face west-southwest ourselves?' (pp. 62-3). Beachcombing along near-by stretches of the river, processing andclassifying the finds (including knives and blank ammunition below theHQ of Military Intelligence 6), and then exhibiting them, were part ofan exploration of archaeological procedures by the artist, MARK DION DION Delete It Or Not ,last year, for the Tate Gallery in London. The work on the finds wascarried out on the lawn by volunteers, also as an exhibition.Archaeology includes commentary on projects of his in Switzerland andItaly. The artist reflects on both archaeology and art; and Prof.Renfrew points out that these projects raise `penetratingquestions' (p. 22). The finely produced and illustrated bookincludes short pieces by colleagues (including J. Cotton on the historyof management and finds along the lower Thames).