Andrew Jones (ed.). Prehistoric Europe: theory and practice.

Andrew Jones (ed.). Prehistoric Europe: theory and practice. ANDREW JONES (ed.). 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 : theory and practice(Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology 12). xvi+378 pages, 93illustrations, 2 tables. 2008. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell;978-1-4051-2597-0 hardback 55; 978-I-4051-2596-3 [pounds sterling]paperback 19.99 [pounds sterling]. This series is '... designed to meet the needs of archaeologyinstructors and students [tackling] ... key regional and thematic areasof archaeological study' by producing accessible and 'useableteaching texts', which do not sacririce theoretical sophistication so��phis��ti��cate?v. so��phis��ti��cat��ed, so��phis��ti��cat��ing, so��phis��ti��catesv.tr.1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly.2. .The volumes should 'immerse readers in fundamental archaeologicalideas and concepts', but also 'illuminate more advancedconcepts' ... as well as exposing 'exciting contemporarydevelopments in the field'. It is against this demanding schedulethat these papers should be judged, the foregoing remarks suggestingsenior undergraduates as the primary target readership. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jones, as editor, intended to 'provide a flavour of thediversity of research in European prehistory' by commissioningsixteen authors to produce fourteen chaprers (of c. 7-11000 words; onlytwo are not single-authored). Chapters are paired and preceded by aneditorial introduction, as is the entire volume. Hall: the authors areUK-based, others comprising three US academics, one from Romania and twoeach from Sweden and Holland. The dominant perspectives fall within thebroad church that is the post-processualist paradigm favoured around theNorth Sea and across the Atlantic, and from Jones' Introductiononwards (e.g.p. 11 'By the end of the 1970s, there was a growingdissatisfaction with the ... approaches of New Archaeology') ourputative undergraduate could be excused for believing that preferredmodes of archaeological explanation had evolved along the sametrajectory everywhere on the European continent. It is surely furtherindicative of the book's thrust that all the literature cited inthe editor's section introductions is in English and by British orNorth American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. academics. That said, as an exposure of selected contemporary themes withinthe (mainly) post-processual archaeologies of Europe between theMesolithic and the Late Iron Age (in Scandinavian terms), the volumecontains much of merit. Britain and the Mediterranean Basin The Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around and surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which are (notentirely) excluded from this concept of prehistoric Europe, althoughtreated in other series volumes. The geographical focus is predominantlyon central and Balkan Europe west to southern Scandinavia and Holland,although individual contributions consider Iberian evidence (e.g.Lillios), or stretch east to the Urals (e.g. Hanks). Given thevolume's selectivity both thematic and geographical, the presenceof Jones' guiding hand is generally helpful in steering readersthrough his commissioning design, and this, plus the fact thatPrehistoric Europe is more fully illustrated than the companion volumeon Britain (Pollard 2008), mean it is more accessible to the targetreadership. This is achieved not least because by making explicit theintentions and coverage, the lacunae are also clear. The key themes are: frameworks for 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 ; place and landscape;the lifecyde of domestic architecture; the emergence of newtechnologies; archaeologies of death and memory; the archaeology of thebody and the person; and exchange and communication. Each is consideredby two authors, presenting different approaches for different periods.Writers vary in seniority from Professors emeriti to much youngerresearchers, and the scale of their contributions from the sub-regionalto the subcontinental (e.g. Chapman and Wells on earlier and laterprehistoric exchange, Collis on the Celts The following pages provide lists of nations or people of Celtic origin, arranged by branch of Celtic ethnicity or language grouping:Goidelic Celts list of Irish people list of Scots list of Manx people Brythonic Celts as 'grandnarrative', or Pluciennik, more philosophically considering thehunter-gatherer to farmer transition). Some pairings work well ascontrasting approaches, although inevitably certain themes arecross-cutting (e.g. the interpretation of burial monuments inlandscapes) and in other cases the diversity of the two contributions(such as by Pluciennik and Collis) means the editor has to strainsomewhat to demonstrate their relation. In terms of the intendedreadership, certain chapters were to my judgement particularlysuccessful in their approach: Gerritsen revisiting domestic architecturein the Wohnstallhaus tradition; Hofmann and Whittle on Neolithic bodies;and the essays on new technological developments, with ceramicsconsidered by Gheorghiu and metals by Ottaway and Roberts. The latterwere amongst the most broad-scale essays, and were also underpinned byextensive (on average 160-item) bibliographies in a variety oflanguages, making plain that the fuller study of European archaeologyrequires consultation of a formidable range of literature. Hofmann andWhitde's chapter is one of only two where most sources were writtenin languages other than English LOTE or Languages Other Than English is the name given to language subjects at Australian schools. LOTEs have often historically been related to the policy of multiculturalism, and tend to reflect the predominant non-English languages spoken in a school's local area, the , whereas in some chapters (in my view amatter for regret) over 90% of the literature cited is in English; overthe entire volume it is 75% (see diagram). Other chapters introduce sites and artefacts at a more localisedscale: notably the two landscape studies (Fontijn on selectivedeposition of bronze work in watery contexts in Holland, and Goldhahn onfour Scandinavian Early Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the burial monuments); the laterprehistoric 'twin' to Hofmann and Whittle by Back Danielssonon bodies in Early Historic Scandinavia; and Lillios' essay onNeolithic Iberia which opens the section on 'death, remembrance andthe past'. Asa set, these contributions by writers earlier in theircareers usefully complement those discussed above, and collectivelyillustrate the potentials and limitations of post-processual approaches. More forceful editing would have enhanced the accessibility of someof the contributions, and much fuller internal cross-referencing wouldalso have helped--and not only our putative student. This volume cannone the less be commended as a multi-period compendium of itsparticular strand of European prehistory--which might be termedAnglophone post-processualism. Students of the subject, their appetitewhetted by this introduction, should, however, be encouraged also tosearch the sophisticated literature produced within other Europeanarchaeological communities. Reference POLLARD, J. (ed.), 2008. Prehistoric Britain Prehistoric Britain was a period in the human occupation of Great Britain that extended throughout prehistory, ending with the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. Preface . Oxford & Malden(MA): Blackwell. IAN IAN Interactive Affiliate NetworkIAN i am nothingIAN Instrumentation & Automation NewsIAN Ianuarius (Latin: January)IAN Instituto Agronomico Nacional (Paraguay)IAN Incident Area Network RALSTON School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh (body, education) University of Edinburgh - A university in the centre of Scotland's capital. The University of Edinburgh has been promoting and setting standards in education for over 400 years. , Scotland, UK (Email: Ian.Ralston@ed.ac.uk)Analysis of references in Jones ed. 2008SPANISH/PORTUGUESE, 36(30 IN Lillios paper)FRENCH, 39(31 in Georghiu paper)SCANDINAVIAN 99(86 in Goldhahn paper)GERMAN, 157(62 in Hofmann/Whittle paper)ENGLISH 1250OTHER, 39(Dutch, Italian, LatinRumanian, Hungarian,Russian, other Slavic)