968 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [76,2974]

tabulated, the remainder of the material analysis treats the entire sequence as a single cultural unit labeled Howiesonspoort. This unfortunately obscures possibly interesting changes in shape and size of types with the passage of time. It also ignores the fact that charcoal recovered between surfaces 6 and 7 date to 50,800 B.P., but a sample imme- diately overlying surface 6 dates to only 19,100 B.P. This situation could be written off as a surface contamination of the upper sample, but it is also at this point in the sequence that the characteristic tool types of the Howiesonspoort disappear. It seems to this reviewer that the upper part of the Layer 2 sequence resembles in both typol- ogy and carbon-14 chronology the still poor- ly described Robberg industry that follows the Howiesonspoort industry at several caves in the southern Cape. It must be pointed out at once that such a diagnosis would not be possible without the excellent standards of description and illustration to be found in this work.

The monograph will be an essential tool for any serious student of Paleolithic prehis- tory.

References Cited Clark, G.

1969 World Prehistory: A New Outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Frenzel, B. 1964 Zur Pollen analvze von Loss.

Eiszeitalter und Gegenwart 16:5. Goodwin, A. J. H.

1929 The Montagu Cave: A Full Report on the Investigations of the Montagu Rock-shelter. Annals of the South African Museum 24(1):1-16.

Kleindienst, M. R. 1961 Variability within the Late

Acheulian Assemblage in Eastern Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 16:35-52.

The Stone Age of Indonesia. H. R. VAN HEEKEREN. Contribution to second edi- tion by R. P. Soejono. Verhandelingen van het koninklijk Instituut V O O ~ Tad-Land-en Volkenkunde, 61. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972. xix + 247 pp., + 105 plates, figures, maps, tables, references and selected bibliographies. DG60.00 (paper).

Reviewed by KARL L. HU’ITERER University o f Hawaii

The archaeological literature of Southeast Asia can still be accommodated on just a few library shelves. There are only a handful of monograph-sized publications, and the few articles are mostly buried in what to the non-specialist are exotic journals. Compre- hensive and systematic treatments of par- ticular periods or areas are virtually non-ex- istent. Van Heekeren’s two monographs on The Stone Age o f Indonesia and The Bronze-Iron Age o f Indonesia are remarkable exceptions. The first of the two books was originally published in 1957 and has now been reissued in a revised and enlarged edi- tion. The new edition has been extensively updated, mainly through the incorporation of recent excavation reports and the elabora- tion of some passages.

The book is organized mainly along chronological lines. It is subdivided into two major parts dealing with the “Cenozoic” and the “Post-Glacial” periods, respectively. The part on the Cenozoic is further broken down into sections on the Early Middle, Late Mid- dle, and Upper Pleistocene of Java and the Pleistocene of Celebes. The part on the post- glacial period is subdivided into two sections entitled “The Mesolithic Stage,” and “The Neolithic Stage.”

The treatment of the Pleistocene has benefited from a clearer exposition of the relationship between geology, fossil beds, and archaeological deposits of the Javanese Early Man sites. Van Heekeren indicates radiometric dates for the Putjangan and Kabuh beds of 610,000 B.P. and 495,000 B.P., respectively. Recent work suggests that those dates may be too late (Pilbeam 1972:159). In this connection, it must be pointed out that almost all the basic geolog- ical research in Java was carried out before 1940. Recent developments in Pleistocene studies have not yet had any impact on our generally poor understanding of this period in tropical Southeast Asia. The presented scheme of relationships between geological events, ancient faunal complexes, paleo- climate, and stages of hominid evolution must be considered tentative.

By and large, the new edition follows the now current classification of Early Man fossils. Only with regard to the mandibular

ARCHAEOLOGY 969

fragments from Sangiran does van Heekeren maintain a separate generic statueMegan thropus polaeojavanicus-while he classifies the cranial fragments from the same geologi- cal deposits as Homo erectus robustus. Ex- tensive lists of the associated fossil fauna are given but unfortunately, no other informa- tion is provided than long strings of scien- tific names.

While the classification and dating of Javanese Early Man fossils has its problems, the identification, definition, and dating of a Lower Paleolithic Culture associated with Homo erectus is even more problematical. All of the alleged Patjitanian finds have been collected from the surface and none was associated with human skeletal material. The identification of Patjitanian implements is based on tenuous geological and typological criteria. The problems of this approach are illustrated by the fact that certain finds that had previously been claimed for the Lower Paleolithic Chopper/Chopping-too1 complex are now reclassified as belonging to the “mesolithic” Hoabinhian (p. 85). It must be asked whether it is indeed useful to maintain the construct of a Patjitanian Culture any longer. Similar difficulties exist concerning the Sangiran Flake Industry and its associa- tion with Solo Man.

The post-Pleistocene prehistory of Indo- nesia is seen by van Heekeren in terms of a ’“colonization. . . by a series of successive waves of races of Homo sapiens” (p. 79): the Palaeo-Melanesoids, Negritos, and Mongol- oids. Following essentially the old “type- fossil concept,” he defines assemblages and cultures as “mesolithic” on two grounds: geologically, they are post-Pleistocene; typo- logically, they are not associated with ground stone tools or pottery (both assumed to be “neolithic” traits). On the basis of ethnographic comparison he infers that “mesolithic peoples” engaged in hunting and foraging subsistence activities, although they may have practiced an “incipient form of horticulture.” Unfortunately, there are vir- tually no reliable dates for the site assem- blages described as “mesolithicyy because most of the excavations were carried out before the advent of (2-14 dating. Even more detrimental is the fact that many of the earlier investigators had only a very insuf- ficient understanding of the nature of soil stratigraphy and stratigraphic association.

Four major “mesolithic” complexes are recognized: the Hoabinhian of northeastern Sumatra, the Sampung Bone Industry of eastern Java, specialized flake-blade indus- tries found in Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Timor, etc., and unspecialized flake-blade industries reported mainly from Flores. The Hoabin- hian in Sumatra is still considered a pure “mesolithic” hunting culture, in spite of Gorman’s (also figuring as Chester “Gordon” with a wrongly dated bibliographic refer- ence, p. 185) finds in Thailand of Hoabin- hian assemblages associated with pottery and probable plant domesticates. The classifica- tion of flake-blade industries as “mesolithic” on purely typological grounds is certainly untenable for the following reasons: such industries occur throughout insular South- east Asia; they occur over a time range of at least 10,000 years (probably much more), persisting up to European contact; they are often associated with pottery; and such assemblages from various areas and time periods have been noted to contain cutting tools with unmistakable harvesting gloss.

Van Heekeren sees the beginning of the “neolithic proper” around 3500-2500 B.C. characterized by the beginning of grain cul- tivation. What evidence he has for this is not quite clear. Apparently recognizing the com- plexity of the situation, he does not break down the “Neolithic” into specific cultures, but describes several common types of stone tools and their distribution. For the rest, he simply presents some excavation reports.

It is difficult t o do justice to a book like the present one. Southeast Asian archaeolo- gists as well as many others will undoubtedly be happy to have available an updated sum- mary of archaeological finds from Indonesia. Because of the great need for accessible and useful information on Southeast Asian arch- aeology, it is all the more deplorable that L‘The Stone Age of Indonesia” is such an indiscriminate collection of raw data; geol- ogical and paleontological information, an- thropometric tables, and archaeological sur- vey and excavation notebooks are thrown together. The only pervasive effort at sys- tematization and interpretation is the at- tempt to ascribe individual assemblages and sites to specific developmental-chronological stages. And this is where van Heekeren fails most notably, because he works with an in- adequate framework. Not only are the terms

970 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [76,1974 J

“Palaeolithic,” “Mesolithic,” and “Neolith- ic” inappropriate in the Southeast Asian context, but it appears that no generalized stage model will be able to accommodate the reality of Southeast Asian prehistory. Accor- ding to van Heekeren’s classification, “meso- lithic,” “neolithic,” and “Iron Age” peoples are still extant in this part of the world to- day and live happily side by side. It is cer- tainly no longer permissible to identify modes of tool technology with modes of subsistence or social organization.

The book contains a number of typo- graphical errors as well as textual inaccur- acies, especially when non-Indonesian sources are used. Following the basic divi- sion of the book, the bibliography is divided into three parts, making its use rather cum- bersome. The illustrations are good. There is no index.

Reference Cited Pilbeam, David

1972 The Ascent of Man. New York: Macmillan.

Papers in Economic Prehistory: Studies by Members and Associates of the British Acad- emy Major Research Project in the Early His- tory of Agriculture. E. s. HIGGS, ed. Fore- word by Grahame Clark. New York & Cam- bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. x + 219 pp., figures, graphs, maps, photographs, tables, bibliography, indexes. $15.50 (cloth).

Reviewed by CLIFFORD G . HICKEY University of Alberta

In 1965, a decision was made by the Brit- ish Academy to support directly major res- earch projects in areas of general interest. This is the first volume of a planned series, putting forth the results of one of these major projects, The Early History of Agricul- ture. Because of the strong orientation toward economic prehistory at Cambridge University, initiated and maintained by Grahame Clark, the investigations were set up under Eric S. Higgs of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge.

Clark himself has written the Foreword for this volume, and has reiterated the goals of economic prehistory as well as evaluating

the progress of the Agriculture project. The body of the work is divided into three sec- tions, emphasizing (1) new viewpoints on man-animal and man-plant relationships; (2) methods and techniques to ensure adequate samples for the testing of ideas about such relationships; and (3) case studies illustrating the progress being made in understanding particular economic strategies.

The lead article by Higgs and M. R. Jar- man sets the major theme for the volume. Questioning the accepted views on the rise of domestication, they amass direct and indirect evidence toward the formulation of an alternative hypothesis. Based on well- documented evidence of the shifting impor- tance of cultigens in the New World and on suggestive similarities elsewhere, and on models of human and animal adaptations, they suggest that

man-animal and man-plant relationships similar to modern domestication will have tended to occur throughout the Pleistocene wherever this was the most profitable economic strategy. . . . In many ways the diversity of economy which existed in the Paleolithic was com- parable with that of today, but with a continuing trend to an increase in high productivity economies under the urgings of sustained population pressure [p. 121.

One of the primary reasons for the accepted viewpoint that husbandry is exclusively a Postglacial phenomenon, they argue, is that there has been a focusing of attention on the domestication of the presently important species. Examination of past relationships with other species (e.g., moose, musk-ox, gazelle, onager, Chenopodium, hazel, etc.) which were or may have been “cultivated” at one or more times, is likely to give us completely new insights into human adap- tive strategies.

Other papers expand on this theme, by examining the difficulties inherent in taxon- omic (i.e., morphologic) approaches toward establishment of domestication criteria, or by stressing that it is more fruitful, in the study of economic strategies, to study the objectives of any set of inter-species relation- ships than it is to analyze simply the particu- lar techniques employed in maintaining those relationships.

A second set of papers treats collection and analytical topics. Of general interest