Magnus Andersson, Per Karsten, Bo Knarrstrom & Mac Svensson Stone Age Scania: significant places dug and read by contract archaeology.

Magnus Andersson, Per Karsten, Bo Knarrstrom & Mac Svensson Stone Age Scania: significant places dug and read by contract archaeology. MAGNUS ANDERSSON For the handball player with the same name, see Magnus Andersson (handball). For the football player, see Magnus Andersson (footballer). For the politician, see Magnus Andersson (politician). , PER KARSTEN, BO KNARRSTROM & MAC SVENSSONStone Age Scania: significant places dug and read by contractarchaeology. (Riksantikvarieambetets Skrifter No. 52). 256 pages,b&w & colour figures. 2004. Lund: National Heritage Board;91-7209-327-7 (ISSN ISSNabbr.International Standard Serial Number 1102-187x) hardback Kr200. This is an important book for two quite distinct reasons. Not onlydoes it provide an up to date, well written and theoretically informedoverview of an important region in later prehistoric Europe This bulk of this article encompasses the time in Europe from c 900,000 years ago to 8th-7th century BCE. Pre-PleistoceneThrough most of Earth's history, various subcontinental land masses such as Baltica and Avalonia that would later be part of Europe moved about the globe but it alsodemonstrates the value of contract archaeology in achieving a regionalunderstanding. In those countries in which a significant proportion ofarchaeological activity is funded by developers rather than the state,with the archaeologists responsible for this work being chosen through asystem of competitive bidding, there is a real concern that knowledge isfragmented. Two frequent complaints are that much of the work ends up inreports which are little circulated thus having limited impact on theunderstanding of the archaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. and that the fragmentation ofactivity and its competitive nature makes synthesis a task solely foracademics. The Archaeological Excavations Department of the NationalHeritage Board (Riksantikvarieambetet) has shown that this need not bethe case, first in publishing (mostly now on-line) preliminary reports,and second in recognising the limitations of the largely descriptivepublications of contract work from the 1960s to the 1990s. The presentvolume, written by archaeologists whose own excavations exemplify thisnew approach, demonstrates that contract archaeology need not preventsynthesis and that its results are crucial in deepening our knowledge ofthe past of Scania, southern Sweden. Moreover, they present theirfindings and interpretations in a foreign language in order to reach aninternational audience. The book is chronologically structured, except for a briefintroduction to the long history of archaeological investigation inScania, which has a significant place in the development of thediscipline, with the oldest archaeological museum in Europe (LundUniversity Lund University has 7 faculties, with additional campuses in the cities of Malm? and Helsingborg, with a total of over 42,500 people studying in 50 different programmes and 800 separate courses. Historical Museum, founded in 1805) and one of the earliestscientific excavations, that of Magnus Bruzelius at the Neolithicpassage grave of Asahogen. Bruzelius correctly assigned Asahogen to the'Stone Age' on the basis of the finds, predating C. J.Thomsen's Three Age System. A series of period chapters cover thefirst occupation of Scania around 127 000 BC to the Bell Beaker phaseand the appearance of bronze. These are clearly written with features onspecific sites excavated through contract archaeology and wellillustrated by line drawings, especially reconstructions, andphotographs. The Palaeolithic section depends more on the results ofsurface surveys and small-scale excavations than later chapters, but thevarious strands are woven together to argue for an increase in site sizeover time and a continuation of Palaeolithic technology into thePreboreal climatic period. The advantages of the large scale resulting from excavations inadvance of major earthmoving are clear in the chapter on theMaglemosian, Kongemose and early Ertebolle phases of the Mesolithic. Notonly did the Arup site show that Maglemosian settlement occurred inlandbut also the large area opened revealed a series of riverside huts andwindbreaks spanning 3000 years with contemporary but separate knappingareas, a hoard of flint blades and a gigantic pine post (similar tothose found in the car park at Stonehenge) on the river bank. Probablythe most important of the Scanian sites in terms of its potentialinternational impact on understanding the Stone Age is Tagerup, on thewest coast of Scania on a former promontory promontory/prom��on��to��ry/ (prom��on-tor?e) a projecting process or eminence. prom��on��to��ryn.A projecting part.promontorya projecting process or eminence. at the confluence of tworivers. Two phases of occupation can be distinguished, in the earlyKongemose and the early Ertebolle, both of great interest due to thescale of investigation. The early phase has a separate cemetery some 100m away from the settlement area, and a uniformly high quality of flintblade production, fine artworks and an economy based on selectivehunting. The late phase has burials right at the edge of the settlement(in common with other Scanian sites such as Skateholm), a low qualityflake industry, careless artworks, unselective hunting and, mostimportant, a number of large buildings including a longhouse longhouseTraditional communal dwelling of the Iroquois Indians until the 19th century. The longhouse was a rectangular box built out of poles, with doors at each end and saplings stretched over the top to form the roof, the whole structure being covered with bark. , previouslyunderstood to be a defining characteristic of the Neolithic. Given these changes, it is not surprising that Andersson takes theview that the introduction of the Neolithic was, in many ways, not adramatic shift. The main revelations from contract excavations for theEarly Neolithic are the number and variety of houses from the period andthe size of some sites, with Saxtorp 23 containing a house, wells, pits,occupation layers and a flat-grave cemetery, spread over some15000[m.sup.2]. Similarly, for the Middle and Late Neolithic, the mostinteresting site is Dagstorp, interpreted as a small village of fivehouses (more may lie outside the excavated area), with the outermost out��er��most?adj.Most distant from the center or inside; outmost.outermostAdjectivefurthest from the centre or middleAdj. 1. buildings being some 80m apart. Again, the scale of investigation,compared with the key-hole research excavation, allows differentquestions to be answered, throwing important new light on the prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to of Scania and beyond. The only criticism to be made concerning this excellent volume, andindeed Riksantikvarieambetet publications in general (which arebeautifully produced and very reasonably priced), is the difficultythose outside Sweden have in obtaining them. NICK THORPE University College, Winchester, UK.