Macroregional multiperiod views ....

Macroregional multiperiod views .... ADAM Adam, the first man, in the BibleAdam(ăd`əm), [Heb.,=man], in the Bible, the first man. In the Book of Genesis, God creates humankind in his image as a species of male and female, giving them dominion over other life. T. SMITH & KAREN S. RUBINSON (ed.). Archaeology in theborder lands: investigations in Caucasia and beyond, v+270 pages, 170figures, 4 tables. 2003. Los Angeles (CA): University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). Cotsen Institute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. ; 1-931745-01-3 paperback $40. SUSAN E. ALCOCK Susan Alcock is a Roman archaeologist specializing in survey archaeology and the archaeology of memory in the provinces of the Roman empire. Alcock grew up in Massachusetts and was educated at Yale and the University of Cambridge. B.A. & JOHN F. CHERRY John F. Cherry is an Aegean prehistorian and survey archaeologist. He is currently Professor of Classics at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. (ed.). Side-by-side survey:comparative regional studies in the Mediterranean world, xvii+251 pages,119 figures, 35 tables. 2004. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-84217-096-1 hardback 45[pounds sterling]. CHRISTOPHE SAND (ed.). Pacific archaeology: assessment andprospects; proceedings of the international conference for the 50thanniversary of the first Lapita excavation, Konen-Noumea 2002 (Cahiersde l'Archeologie en Nouvelle-Caledonie 15). viii+398 pages, 188figures, 63 tables. 2003. Noume: Service des Musees et du patrimoine deNouvelle-Caledonie; 2-9519208-1-4 (ISSN 1264-1502) hardback. * The twelve papers on the border lands take stock of theNeolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age now that most of the region is moreaccessible. Introducing them, the editors identify three persistentthemes: concern over appropriate scales at which to study aspects ofculture; ethnicity, seen here as 'situational' (of course)rather than essential and perduring; and exchange of recent results ofresearch, unusually difficult in the Caucasus, as they point out, onaccount of diversity of colleagues' languages. Predictably andintriguingly, the contributors, from Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, the USA,Australia and Italy, illustrate various guiding concepts and approaches,newer and older, but most of their results, from archives andexcavations, look substantial. Some of the drawings could have beenprinted more economically. The region merits the same kind of treatmentfor earlier prehistory and the historic period too. * The papers in Side-by-side are salutory. The first are on method:'can we compare sherd density figures?' (M. Given);under-representativeness of data from surface survey, 'hiddenlandscapes' (J. Davis); 'The paradox of global trends andlocal surveys' (N. Terrenato); and a struggle with how to makesense of surface finds. Studies on regional comparison follow, on Italy,Crete (integrating survey and excavation for the Bronze Age), the BronzeAge Peloponesos, and a review of 19 projects in Tunisia. E. Fentress etal. consider African Red Slipware slipware,pottery decorated with various colors of slip, a thin mixture of clay and water. Slip may form a design on a contrasting background, or lines may be scratched through a coating of slip to show the color beneath, in the style called graffito. as 'a key illustration of theconnected and integrated nature of the Roman economy' (p. 161) butwarn that the data remain 'woefully' slim (p. 160). Convergingwith aspects of the first papers, R. Osborne gnaws at that old bone ofdeducing demography from survey: 'archaeologists need to focus uponsite hierarchy and the density of ... occupation', 'historians... the very different ... hierarchies ... emerging in differentareas' (p. 171); and D. Mattingly & R. Witcher, also impatientwith 'minutiae' (p. 173), calibrate archaeological dataagainst the great Barrington Atlas. To close are a consideration of'trends in settlement pattern in the northern fertilecrescent' (T.J. Wilkinson, J. Ur & J. Casana) and a comparisonbetween the Mediterranean and Mesoamerica (R. Blanton). Appended is anamazingly long 'preliminary' list of 'Internet resourcesfor Mediterranean regional survey projects'. * Dr SAND introduces 31 papers and R. Shutler's'Reminiscences' about E.W. Gifford. There are three onMelanesia, Australia and 'Rock art and ceramics in EastBorneo', the latter proposing the emergence of a new'cornerstone for prehistory' (p. 51). Then come eleven on'The Austronesian spread', including eight on 'The Lapitasphere'. There are four on chronology. There are papers on rockart, 'mortuary and biological features' at Lapita, an owlmidden middendungheap. (cf. 'Animal bones', below), 'Dynamic landscapesand episodic occupations' at the Sigatoka Dunes, and 'Humanimpact on ... nearshore marine ecosystems'. Four considerPolynesian colonisation, history and household organisation. Last comesa valuable foursome on public relations, outreach and indigenous'reception' of archaeological discoveries. Well produced andfull of 'top names', it is a book to be proud of.