Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1984 - 74

BOOK

BRIEFS

Loot! The Heritage of Plunder,
by Russell Chamberlin. 248 pages,
frontispiece, 8 color plates, 98 blackand-white plates, 9 text figures, bibliography. Facts on File, New York 1983
$19.95
To the victor belong the spoils. This
concept is as old as warfare itself, and
over the course of human history has
governed spoils as various as women
and children, hunting grounds, cities,
and helicopters. Frequently, however,the
plunder has been "cultural property,"
the traditional and often religious symbols of a nation or ethnic group. In the
late twentieth century, many bereft peoples have begun to assert their inalienable
right to such material, and to demand
its return.
This balanced and entertaining book
examines the historical background of
this complex issue with sensitivity and
objectivity, while avoiding the idealistic
abstractions and ideological polemics
that lead many discussions of the subject
to a dead end. Like an epic film, a colorful
cast fills the pages: Lord Elgin, Napoleon, and Hitler play major roles, but
the supporting players, such as William
Hamilton, who began as Elgin's secretary, are even more intriguing. The author
carefully presents them all within the
politics and mores of their time. The
wealth of superb contemporary illustrations further enhances the sense of adventure and historical milieu.
Loot! The Heritage of Plunder is an
important book for anyone who appreciates the significance of the world's material culture. It offers no "quick fixes,"
but provides a vital background to a
problem of much current international
concern: Ellen Herscher, American Association of Museums/ International
Council of Museums, Washington, DC
Africa's Vanishing Art: The Rock
Paintings of Tanzania, by Mary
Leahey. 128pages, frontispiece, 59 color
plates, 16 color photographs, 5 blackand-white photographs, 69 text figures,
1 map, bibliography. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY 1983$50.00
This delightful book by Mary Leakey,
with its excellent reproductions and
characteristically economical text, presents over 50 examples of Tknzanian rock
paintings. The paintings, from Kondoa
in central T&nzania,were originallycopied
by Louis and Mary Leakey beginning
in 1935, then later in 1951with the help
of Giussepe della Giustina. They are
generally monochromes (mostly reds),
and represent a diverse range of humans
and animals in various activities. Animals are frequently shown with charac74

ARCHAEOLOGY

teristic features exaggerated: snakes with
extra coils, for example. Humans are
portrayed hunting, dancing, perhaps
bathing, rarely associated with gathering
or mundane tasks. A number of more
stylized designs are more difficult to
decipher, although they possibly have
ritual significance.
The paintings are technically less proficient, aesthetically less pleasing than
those of the more southern Bushmen.
These Tanzanian rock paintings are
probably at their oldest only about 1,500
years old, but the tradition, so Leakey
thinks, can be traced back into the Late
Stone Age almost 30,000 years earlier.
It is quite likely that these are the paintings of people related to the Hadza or
Sandawe, Click speakers now largely
replaced by Masai and Bantu peoples
who do not produce such art, perhaps
representing the indigenous hunting (and
painting) folk of sub-Saharan Africa.
David Pilbeam, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
TVee Rings and Telescopes: The
Scientific Career of A.E. Douglass, by George Ernest Webb, xiii,
242 pages, 13 black-and-white photographs, 1 text figure, bibliography. The
University of Arizona Press, Tucson,AZ
1983 $19.50
It is simply put. Andrew Ellicott Douglass (1867-1962) was the quintessential
force behind the advance of science in
the American Southwest. It was his
tenacity that ensured funding for the
construction of the Steward Observatory
in southern Arizona; it was his irrepressible energy, in retirement, that brought
tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) to
fruition. His precise analysis of the pine
roof beams of the ruins of Pueblo Bonito
in Chaco Canyon was a benchmark in
archaeological science.
For those who enjoy human drama, I
recommend Webb's description of the
controversy over the "irrigation canals"
of Mars (and related theories of Martian
life) as popularized by Percival Lowell's
Mars (1895)and H.G. Wells' classic The
War of the Worlds ( 1898). It was Douglass' criticism of the astronomical observations underpinning such ideas that
led to his abrupt firing from the Lowell
Observatory at Flagstaff in 1901.
For those who appreciate sound methodology, I recommend the story of
Douglass' search for the most ancient
sequoia, his tying of tree-ring growth to
climate (dramatically highlighted by the
Arizona droughts of 1748,1780and 1821),
and his ten-year-long collection of timber
from ancient pueblos. All this effort
culminated, on the evening of July 22,
continued on page 76

The Bookshelf
continued from page 73
pretation of faunal material as it relates
to prehistoric Maya ritual; toward this
end, she integrates and synthesizes
Maya pictorial representations, the
ethnohistoric record, and the recovered
archaeological data. In contrast to the
emphasis on ecology, Robin Robertson
is concerned with a functional analysis
of pottery from the site of Cerros in
northern Belize and the light that it
sheds on prehistoric economic and ritual
practices.
Two papers are weakly linked to form
the next section of the book, "Iconography and Calendric Correlation." The
first article, by Lee Parsons, describes
the iconography of Altars 9 and 10 at
Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, specifically
with regard to the Serpent-Winged Deity.
The second, a well-researched piece by
David Kelley, deals with the Maya calendar and amply documents the problems with the correlation presently used
to link the prehistoric Maya and European calendars. While many scholars
would disagree with his shortening of the
Maya sequence, his conclusions find archaeologicalsupport in newlyinterpreted
evidence from the Maya Lowlands.
Much of the latter part of this volume
could have been appropriately included
in the first tome, based on the subject
matter. Four papers are first grouped
under the heading "Architectural and
Spatial Patterns." Garth Bawden criticizes the trait-list approach, and reviews
early Middle Horizon activities in Peru
using both recent and previous archaeological data. John and Theresa Topic
present an interesting interpretation of
Coastal-Highland relations in Peru
based on prehistoric roads and route
locations. William Fash attempts to reconstruct Classic Maya social organization using settlement patterns from
Copan and ethnographic analogy. Robert
Feldman interprets archaeological data
from the Pacific Coast of Peru to demonstrate the advantages that this coastal
environment offered in the development
of complex society.
Under the heading "The City and the
State," three articles are proffered.
George Cowgill's well-conceived paper
ascribes function to architectural form
by considering political authority and
government at the Mexican site of Teotihuacan, based on evidence from the
Ciudadela and other architectural complexes. Alan Kolata analyzes the Andean
cities of Chan Chan and Cuzcoas distinct
developmental and cultural phenomena.
Arthur Demarest and Geoffrey Conrad
provide a useful evaluation of causality
in relation to the Aztec and Inca states.
The final formal section of the book, the
complete bibliography of Gordon Willey,
stands on its own.
Both Prehistoric Settlement Patterns
and Civilization in the Ancient Americas
continued on page 76

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1984

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1984