The archaeology of difference: negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania.

The archaeology of difference: negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania. ROBIN TORRENCE & ANNE CLARKE (ed.). The archaeology ofdifference: negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania. xiii+418pages, 72 figures, 32 tables. 2000. London: Routledge; 0-415-11766-6hardback 80 [pounds sterling] & $130. The first set of studies collected by SCHMIDT & VOSS VOSS Vessel of Opportunity Skimming SystemVOSS Vehicle Optics Sensor SystemVOSS Visitor Operations Site SupervisorVOSS View Order Sales System are on theorganization of space: two on monasteries (Colonial California and R.Gilchrist on England), one on `gay leathermen in San Francisco',and one on a novel of c. 1800 (cf. the section below on `Spatialorganization'). There follow four on 19th-and 20th-centuryprostitution, homosexuality and Black midwifery in the USA andAustralia; three case-studies in prehistory alongside a paper onarchitectural design and archaeological interpretations in the USSR USSR:see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (cf.Gordon Childe in the following section); a couple on iconography (NewKingdom Egypt and the ancient Maya); and a concluding review by M.Conkey, remarking of Christopher Hawkes that `he must be turning over inhis grave, poor old guy!' (p. 289). It comes across well thatidentities may be created by subjects or imposed by others. Ms HUBERT presents 16 studies of disability and exclusion from agreat range of disciplines including archaeology and social and physicalanthropology. Topical themes glow engagingly -- including shamanism shamanism/sha��man��ism/ (shah��-) (sha��mah-nizm?) a traditional system, occurring in tribal societies, in which certain individuals (shamans) are believed to be gifted with access to an invisible spiritual (inancient Greece) and hermaphroditism hermaphroditismCondition of having both male and female reproductive organs (see reproductive system). It is normal in most flowering plants and in some invertebrate animals. True human hermaphrodites are extremely rare. (in early Modern Europe The early modern period is a term used by historians to refer to the period in Western Europe and its first colonies which spans the two centuries between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. ) -- but,while each interesting in themselves, these papers are drawn from aneven greater diversity of cultural settings and they hardly make acoherent collection. The book on the impacts of contact with the Europeans and Japanesein Oceania works very well. TORRENCE & CLARKE introduce eightstudies of sites in Australia (including an interesting piece by CLARKEon Groote Eylandt, a paper on rock art, and a long study, by J.Birmingham, of foraging around a missionary site), a very sound casestudy of the dislocation of life in North Island, New Zealand (C.Phillips), and a couple each from Melanesia (including a satisfyinganalysis by Dr TORRENCE of change in artefacts) and Micronesia. Why,though, is the theme of subjective identity not explicit here? It isprobably because, although the editors mention `long-termprocesses' of `negotiation' (p. 16), the articles areremarkable for focusing, in fact, on the sort of `short termchanges' (p. 176) traced by A. CLARKE. Americanists too will findthis book rewarding; but it would be difficult to apply most of itslessons to prehistory.