Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1985 - 74

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The Prehistory of Germanic Europe, by Herbert Schutz . viii, 421
pages , 20 color plates , 240 black-andwhite photographs, 20 text figures , 1
plan, 30 maps, bibliography. YaleUniversity Press, New Haven, CT 1983 $45.00
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The archaeology of central Europe is
complex and does not lend itself readily
to synthesis. The lands that are now
eastern France, Germany, Switzerland,
Austria, and Czechoslovakia have been
densely settled from Neolithic times on
compared to most parts of the world. In
each of these countries intense interest
in local history and active scholarly concern with the prehistoric and historic past
have resulted in vast numbers of archaeological excavations over the past 150
years. Thousands of publications concerning sites and the artifacts from them
have been produced. Few individuals
have attempted to synthesize this rich
and varied material, even on the regional
level.
Unlike many parts of the world, central
Europe has no distinct geographical
limits defined by seas or deserts; even
the Alps have served largely as a passage
for communication between north and
south rather than as a barrier. The
prehistoric societies of central Europe
were in constant contact with peoples in
other parts of the continent, as shown
by the common occurrence at archaeological sites of such foreign products as
Spondylus shells and coral from the
Mediterranean, amber from the Baltic
coasts, bronze harness ornaments from
eastern Europe, and metal jewelry from
Iberia. Central European societies were
receptive, by both geography and inclination, to luxury items and new styles
from all directions. A synthesis of central
European prehistory must not only document cultural change and growth in a
large and diverse area, it must also take
account of widespread interactions involving other parts of Europe as well.
The task is an enormous one.
In The Prehistory of Germanic Europe, Herbert Schutz bravely attempts
to synthesize not only the archaeological
evidence from central Europe, particularly the German-speaking lands of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, but also
from neighboring regions. Each major
period of prehistory is given a chapterPalaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age,
Early Iron Age, Late Iron Age, and the
Roman period in northern Europe.
The book provides a clear and sensible
discussion of the kinds of archaeological
evidence available for each period and
the ways in which that evidence can be
interpreted. The approach is that of traditional, cultural-historical European archaeology.The author deals in a straightforward fashion with difficult issues such

as the meaning of Palaeolithic art and the
significance of the Iron Age bog bodies,
citing different interpretations and the
evidence supporting them. Footnotes
lead the reader to references arranged at
the back of the book.
A strong point of the book is the large
series of photographs of objects and
archaeological sites. These give the
reader an excellent overview of the material culture characteristic of each major
period. Many of the objects shown are
familiar ones, but others are not so well
known and are of special value. The
maps, which usually show distributions
of culture groups, types of monuments,
or patterns of rich graves, are disappointing. They are poorly drawn and look
rather sloppy compared with the sometimes excellent photographs. Some are
dominated by heavy black arrows indicating directions of cultural "influence,"
a familiar device belonging to an earlier
generation of European scholarly tradition. In some instances, the maps contain
errors, as for example on page 236 where
the Saône River is mislabeled Rhône.
The approach of the book is traditional, and there is little mention of
processes of cultural change which have
become popular themes for study in
European archaeology since the publication of David Clarke's Analytical Archaeology (Methuen, London) in 1968
and Colin Renfrew's Emergence of Civilisation (Methuen, London) in 1972. Nor
is any special attention devoted to the
three principal transformations of Old
World society currently of special concern to anthropological archaeologiststhe beginnings of the agricultural economy, the development of metallurgy, and
the formation of towns and cities. Finally,
no comparisons are drawn between cultural developments in Europe and in
other parts of the world.
The author is identified on the jacket
as a professor of Germanic studies at
Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. He appears to rely heavily
on existing syntheses rather than on
original site reports. Perhaps because of
the author's lack of familiarity with the
material, a number of factual errors appear. For example, the Fritzdorf gold
cup, shown on page 126, dates from the
later part of the Bronze Age, around 1500
b.c., not from around 2500 b.c. The pot
from Gemeinlebarn in Austria with bulls'
heads on the shoulder (page 138) is a
characteristic, if spectacular, vessel of
the Early Iron Age, not the Middle
Bronze Age. Because of such errors, the
reader should be cautious about accepting specific statements without looking
up and checking the references cited.
Despite these problems, the book
stands as a useful illustrated summary
of the archaeology of central Europe. No

Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1985