Archaeology Magazine - October 1966 - 69

zation is excellent,and this reviewer
welcomes particularly the better
perspectivegained from a view centered on Mallia rather than on
Knossos. The character of Minoan
civilization,and especiallyof its art,
is well sketched. Here, as everywhere in the book, referencesin the
text to the figures would have been
helpful. As it is, text and illustrations go their separate ways, sometimes but not always side by side.
The initiated will have no trouble
in making the proper associations,
but the book is not primarily for
them. The author is not so familiar
with Mycenaeancivilizationand he
looks at it from a base on Crete.
While this is often warranted, it
does not do full justice to the Mycenaeans. However, he does recognize the far greater extent of the
Mycenaean world and the greater
complexityof influencesat work on
it, as well as its own influencemuch
beyond any exerted by Crete.
Part Two, on the Early Archaic
period, is one of the better statements in general terms on this
formative period in Greek art. Demargne weaves a fascinating account of the influencesand counterinfluencesthat flowed eastward and
westward along the length of the
Mediterranean and through the
countries adjacent to it, from the
eighth century B.c. into the sixth.
He has made a commendable attempt to include architectureand to
show its general independencefrom
the Orientalizinginfluencesso strong
during these centuries. In general,
he strikes a sane balance between
the extreme claims of the Orientalists and the Hellenists, or "isolationists"; as is usually the case, this
middle road seems closest to the
truth as we can now reconstruct it.
The illustrations form so important a part of the volume that they
deserve special comment. They are
copious and, on the whole, excellent; in general, the black-andwhites are better than the colored
reproductions, though some of the
color is excellent. The choice is
fine, a veritable picture encyclopedia which stands on its own. Together with the text, the illustrations makeup one of the best general
accounts now available of MinoanMycenaean art and its successorin
ArchaicGreece.
Saul S. Weinberg
Universityof Missouri

SOUTHWESTENGLAND,
by AlLEEN
Fox. 254 pages, 51 figures, 98
plates. Frederick A. Praeger, New
York 1964 (Ancient Peoples and
Places,41) $7.50
This volume is a worthy addition
to the books on the archaeologyof
Britain. The author has written a
combined account of the three
southwesterncounties, from the appearance of Neolithic peoples to the
arrival of the Saxons. Though the
territory is small, the span of time
involves a considerablefeat of condensation within less than two hundred pages. The usual unavoidable
difficulties are present: the loss of
evidencethrough time, man and an
unkind climate, the absence of
sound archaeological technique in
early exploration and excavation.
The author is greatly to be commended for her detailed presentation of the available evidence and
her grasp of an enormous amount
of disparate material.
The general reader may find
much of the book difficult by reason of its condensednature and the
fact that so many of the sites and
discoveriesmentionedare to be fully
understood only in relationship to
those in other areas. J. F. S. Stone's
Wessex would be of great help to
him here, and so might other books
in the same series, for instance,
Brittany by P. R. Giot and Celtic
Britain by N. Chadwick. One wonders whether it might not have been
possibleto expand the excellentsynoptic paragraphs, which are most
useful, and to condenseor eliminate
many of the descriptionsof smaller
sites which are often only lists of
single finds. The reader without
technical equipment will easily become lost among the wealth of
place names, archaeological terms
(not always fully or immediately
defined), and referencesto parallels
outside the scopeof the book.
Although, for the reasons just
given, the scope and importance of
each individual period are obscured,
the book is full of enticing detail
and many surprises. One looks for
evidence on the famous tin trade
and is surprised to see how little is
actually known. But there is much
other information; perhaps the most
fascinating is that on Bronze Age
settlements,some on Dartmoor, and
especially the one at Gwithian in
Cornwall, where the very plow
marks in the fields have been preserved. Burials and ceremonialsites

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Archaeology Magazine - October 1966

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