Issue no 47, September 1999

THE FAMILIAR PAST?
Sarah Tarlow and Susie West (eds)
Routledge, £19.99
ISBN 0-415-18806-7 pb

The premise of this book - a collection of 14 papers from the 1996 Theoretical Archaeology Group conference - is that archaeologists have neglected social aspects of the last 500 years of British history. This it seeks to redress by illustrating the rewards of sociological and anthropological approaches to archaeological evidence.

The papers cover a wide range - artefact studies, `polite' and vernacular buildings, burial practices, battlefields and gardens. Two papers take the form of review articles, one on the archaeology of food (Sarah Pennell), the other on battlefields (John Carman), while the other 12 deal with individual lines of research. Sarah Tarlow, for example, emerges from the cemeteries of Orkney with some thoughtful observations on changing attitudes in the post-medieval period to the relationship between human identity and the body. In Chester, meanwhile, Keith Matthews's excavations of Victorian slum housing remind us how grim life could be in the centre of a city already renowned as an international tourist destination, and how little the lives of its poorest inhabitants accorded to middle class Victorian notions of propriety.

Less successful, however, are some of the approaches to buildings analysis. Gavin Lucas's paper on the archaeology of the workhouse, interesting though it is, derives almost exclusively from documentary sources and thus appears to contradict the central proposition of the volume.

More worrying are some authors' speculative interpretations. Shane Gould, for example, finds deliberate and explicit statements of social control in the siting of an Essex industrialist's house in relation to his factories, workers' housing and the local school, and also sees in the imposing design of modernist Rochford Hospital an intention to remind patients that `they were entering a realm of authority where they had little or no control'. Evidence for such obsessive control mechanisms can always be found if one wishes them to exist, but that does not mean they were intended.

Steve Boyle is a Field Investigator with the Scottish Royal Commission

THE MATERIAL LIFE OF HUMAN BEINGS
Michael Brian Schiffer
Routledge, £12.99
ISBN 0-415-20033-4 pb

Michael Schiffer's latest book in his studies of modern material culture, such as the portable radio (1991) and the electric automobile (1994), is his most ambitious to date. The aim is to construct a general theory that inter-relates artefacts, behaviour and communication. What links these books to Schiffer's archaeological oeuvre on site formation processes, middle range theory, technology and experimental archaeology is his positivism and behaviourism.

These approaches enliven this book, while ultimately miring it in unresolved contradictions. The vast majority of social science books on behaviour and communication are based on what is known as the two-body linguistic model, where one person's interaction with another is explained in terms of linguistic performance. Schiffer correctly observes that this model leaves no place for the subject matter of archaeology - material culture. He emphasises that artefacts are integral to all aspects of human performance, and his alternative is the 3-interactor model of communication, based upon three different kinds of interactors: (P)ersons, (A)rtifacts and (E)xterns (viz, external environments).

Where Schiffer's behaviourism lets him down badly is his exclusion of notions of symbol, meaning, and value because they are allegedly `behaviourally problematical'; this leaves us with the more neutral `information'. To avoid meaning in a theory of communication is to try to make Earl Grey tea with a Tetleys teabag - the result may be an interesting concoction but it is not the authentic article.

There is a paradox at the heart of this book. The central message relies on insights from archaeology but very little of the book is about archaeology. In the main, the references are fascinatingly nonarchaeological. This makes Schiffer's book an important one for social scientists to read, but archaeologists wishing to know more about communication theory may need to re-formulate this processualist work in more nuanced and symbolic terms.

Dr John Chapman is Reader in Archaeology at the University of Durham

ROMAN INFANTRY EQUIPMENT
IP Stephenson
Tempus, £18.99
ISBN 07524-1410-0 hb

How many javelins can you loose off at an enemy approaching at speed from a distance of 20m to 10m? What's the butt spike on a spear for? What's the best bit of an opponent to go for with your sword at close quarters? These and squadrons of other similar questions are answered here. (Answers - 1: five; 2: to finish off the wounded underfoot; 3: head, shoulders, right arm and left leg.)

The book looks at all the weapons and equipment used by the 3rd century infantryman - what they were like and how they were used. The Roman soldier emerges as a wholly practical chap ruled only by common sense, who chose his weapons because they were what he needed. However, a more interesting approach might have been to see the soldier as having to fit into a system and adapt to the equipment available.

The text has turned out on parade in poor order. A number of commas and apostrophes were clearly detailed to take up positions on the crossing of the Alps of Preparation to the Plain of Publication, but many are lolling around in the wrong place. Some sentences are lined up without verbs, others have verbs but no sense. Sergeant Spelling was overcome by his task (Privates Were, Where and Wear beat the spellcheck - no contest - as did Horde and Hoard); this shambles could have been avoided by some stiff discipline from General Editor.

Like other books in this series, this has few detailed references. While this works OK for an overview, this book is focused on a particular period which means that we don't get a sense of change through time. It's hard to see its use for the archaeologist. The line drawings are mostly copied from the standard reference works. The colour plates are a nice idea though, showing the soldier's equipment layer by layer. The dustjacket tells us that the book is intended for wargamers and re-enactors - so if you're the kind of person who likes to pop up to the attic in legionary costume and slay a few barbarians before tea this is the book for you.

Peter Ellis is a Field Officer with the Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit

THE STUDY OF THE PAST IN THE VICTORIAN AGE
Vanessa Brand (ed)
Oxbow, £20.00
ISBN 1-900755-28-7 pb

At last this interesting conference volume has finally been published. Far too little is published on the history of archaeology and any work such as this is important. Its subject is the range of approaches used to study the past in the 19th century. We learn about some of the main interests of the period, and the activities undertaken, before archaeology became `professionalised' and `institutionalised' in universities.

The topics covered are diverse, including the role of museums, the contribution of fine arts, the intersection between geology and archaeology, architecture and restoration, and the growth of archaeological societies. It is encouraging that the history of the discipline is not simply restricted to stories about fieldwork and the role of `great men'. The quality of the papers is high. These are not just conference papers cobbled together with a few references; they are solid and well researched discussions. Arthur Macgregor's paper, for example, provides important background information on the growth of museums in Britain, and will be a key reference for anyone researching the topic. Torren's paper presents an informative account of how the history of geology is connected to archaeology, while Vaughan's paper documents the extent to which painters of historical themes have contributed to shaping our perceptions of the past.

Dr Stephanie Moser is a historian of archaeology and a Lecturer at the University of Southampton