Archaeology Magazine - March 1951 - 3

so much that needs doing most urgently , and that is so much easier to do. Field archaeology without digging constitutes the time-exploration of a region , whose space-exploration may (or may
not) have been already completed . There are castles, churches, monasteries , forts and even towns
to be discovered , photographed and (if possible) planned. There are sites of early occupation to
be discovered by mounds and debris of sherds and flints. There are Roman roads to be traced and
mapped (with their accompanying forts and other habitation-sites). There are places named by
early travelers but now perhaps abandoned o/ not named on the maps , but to be found by merely
asking the nearest inhabitant. All so easy, so pleasant, and yet at times so arduous and exacting!
This field archaeology is no matter of vast organisation, elaborate and expensive equipment or
large staffs. It is best done alone and on foot, or on a bicycle, donkey , or camel according to
the climate. You may need a cook and an interpreter; you must have the equal temper of the traveller in time, to whom time means nothing. You cannot hustle field archaeology, especially in
the east, and if you do not actually fgo native ,' one should at least occasionally consider the possibility while always rejecting it. And you must be as interested in existing people and their ways
as in their ancestors. Thus equipped the field archaeologist whose eyes have been opened realizes
that, apart from political obstacles, the whole world lies before him as a virgin field. Large areas
are of course now barred ; but he still has left to him the whole of Southern
Europe and the Mediterranean lands, Africa, and most of India and beyond. Here are a few
suggestions. Visit and describe the Cassiterides, those unknown islets off the N. W. coast of Spain;
identify the site of Sybaris ; explore the Sudanese Nile Valley, but please leave a bit for the
undersigned who hopes to
go do it himself if he can find the money.
Yours faithfully,
O. G. S. Crawford
fan. $th, 1951

Mr. Crawford is the distinguished British prehistorian and editor of Antiquity. The references in his first
sentence are to two communications which appeared in our Autumn, 1950, number (Volume 3, No. 3), pages
185 and 187.- Ed.

Comes

Revolution

On our desk are a number of blue paper-backed books, printed in inexpensive form on
cheap paper, which
promise to reverse the long process by which the public has been excluded from archaeology by the cost of its
books. These are Pelicans; others are in the Penguin series. They cost 35^, or, if
they are especially thick,
they are considered double volumes and priced at 65^. They include a number of books which should be on
the shelf of every archaeologist, professional and amateur alike, and of
every aficionado of ancient history
or ancient studies in general. Here are Christopher
and Jacquetta
Hawkes, Prehistoric Britain; S. E.
Britain
Under
the
Stuart
WiNBOLT,
Romans;
Piggott, Prehistoric India; I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of
Egypt; W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine; two books by Sir Leonard Woolley on Ur; V. Gordon Childe's What Happened in History; Benjamin Farrington's
Greek Science, in two parts; A. C.
volumes
on
Bouquet's
Comparative Religion;
geology, palaeontology, and geography; the Iliad and the
The Aztecs of Mexico is to be re-published and the morning mail
Odyssey; and many more. Vaillant's
brings
word that Associate Editor J. Alden Mason is doing one on the Andean civilizations.
Spring 1931

Archaeology Magazine - March 1951

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1951