Issue no 48, October 1999

ASTRONOMY IN PREHISTORIC BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Clive Ruggles
Yale, £45.00
ISBN 0-300-07814-5 hb

This book is a landmark. It is a splendid pioneer in a subject tainted with prejudice and escapism. It will become a standard reference and has few predecessors, my own Prehistoric Astronomy and Ritual (1983) being the only direct rival and that was no more than a primer for the astronomically illiterate.

Archaeo-astronomy has had a bad press because of earlier slipshod work and the prejudice of some archaeologists, despite the evidence of Stonehenge and Newgrange. Alexander Thom's Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967) did little to help. After an initial uncritical acceptance, archaeology returned to the safer havens of pottery and places. Yet Thom introduced concepts of units of measurement, design and celestial sightlines that had been despatched to the lunatic sidelines.

Ruggles has not only made use of Thom and others. Since the early 70s he has undertaken an enormity of fieldwork to examine rigorously what evidence there is for prehistoric interest in the sun and moon. He has planned and analysed little-known sites - 300 megalithic rows in western Scotland, nearly 100 Scottish recumbent stone circles, more stone rows in south-western Ireland - to amass data that reveal patterns of orientations towards sun, moon and horizon never before presented so succinctly. The book is a triumphant statement of the fact that early societies in these islands were not only aware of heavenly bodies but ritualistically incorporated their movements. The facts are incontrovertible.

It is not long ago that we were informed by a member of the establishment that, `at least we now have all the archaeological facts [about Stonehenge] to go with the astronomy, the Druids, the flat-earthers and all the rest'. All? Throw your trowels away, chaps. We're back to Geoffrey of Monmouth! It is such flat-headed fatuities that make Ruggles's work so healthy.

Here, major and minor sites are discussed, earlier work assessed, Ruggles's protracted fieldwork itemised, circles, rows and tombs investigated, future fieldwork recommended. Here is excellence. This is not an easy book but archaeology is not an easy discipline. Only prejudice is easy.

Dr Aubrey Burl is a leading specialist in megalithic monuments

SEX AND GENDER IN PALEOPATHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Anne L Grauer and Patricia Stuart-Macadam (eds)
CUP, £35.00
ISBN 0-521-62090-2 hb

This collection of mainly American papers illustrates the value of interpreting disease observed in human skeletal remains within theoretical and archaeological contexts. The framework employed, known as `bioculturalism', promotes the integration of the biological data with the archaeological in order to understand the nature and causes of changes in disease, and from this to infer the cultural changes that preceded or succeeded them.

More specifically, these papers attempt to investigate and interpret differences in the health of males and females from various cultures, geographical areas and time periods.

Although the title suggests such interpretation extends to socially-constructed gender, this is not in fact done. Biological sex is not the same as gender. The biological sex of an adult can, within limitations, be determined from skeletal remains; identification of gender cannot. In order to infer gender other lines of evidence have to be considered, such as grave goods, to build a picture of the relationship between biological sex and social differentiation. Unfortunately, such data do not seem to have been used in most of these studies and analyses have been based on biological sex.

Only one paper was contributed by a British author. The absence of a greater British presence is indicative of the lack of a theoretical framework in much British research. As one contributor warned `there is a danger that interpretation of skeletal data will proceed more rapidly than warranted by the development of sound theory'. British researchers are lagging far behind their American colleagues in this regard.

Chrissie Freeth is a postgraduate student of palaeopathology at the University of Bradford

LAND AND ARCHAEOLOGY
John G Evans
Tempus, £14.99
ISBN 07524-1463-1 pb

This book is a heartfelt and stimulating examination of the relationships between people and the landscapes they inhabit and create. Through case studies drawn from throughout the British Isles, Prof Evans attempts to reconnect the apparently dry data of environmental archaeology with those whose lives it records. In so doing he informs, challenges and infuriates in equal measure.

Structured in a loose chronological narrative from the arrival of the first hominids to the medieval period, the book does not attempt a synthesis of all the available data but concentrates on a number of regions and areas which arguably illustrate the range of possible interactions between people and their local environment at particular times. Throughout, Evans emphasises the small scale, the local, and the importance of the different meanings we, and those in the past, may attach to places. `Communities,' he argues, `are maintained in the first instance as localities - inter-actions between people and people and between them and their surrounds.'

Drawing on sociology and theoretical archaeology, he reinterprets the ways in which the landscape was shaped and how it may have functioned in the past. Some of his ideas challenge conventional preoccupations with the need to establish first cause, or regional patterns and long term trends where none may have existed.

Many people will look to this book as replacement for Evans's pioneering text-books on environmental archaeology. They will be disappointed, for this is a personal and passionate book - a statement of Evans's view of what has been learned about the processes which have shaped the landscapes of Britain.

Some specialists will quibble with details of interpretation and will be frustrated by the absence of references. Some general readers will be frustrated by the occasional lapses into jargon (but again a glossary is on hand). Nonetheless, this is a well written book on a very complex interdisciplinary subject.

Dr Geraint Coles is a Lecturer in Environmental Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh

ANCESTRAL GEOGRAPHIES OF THE NEOLITHIC
Mark Edmonds
Routledge, £15.99
ISBN 0-415-20432-1 pb

This is a curious book. In a postscript, which takes the novel form of a conversation with another archaeologist, Mark Edmonds tells us that it is an experiment and also that he wanted to write a less `academic' book.

The structure is indeed experimental. There are seven `archaeological' chapters which centre on interpretations of the environment, quarrying for flint and making tools, burial monuments and rituals and those enigmatic structures, causewayed enclosures. The themes are not well balanced: for example, causewayed enclosures are discussed at much greater length than other themes, while the rich potential of burial traditions has not been fully tapped.

While this is not the place for specific criticisms, of which archaeologists will make plenty, one example will suffice. Having drawn his line tightly around southern Britain, Edmonds crosses that line to present a continental background to these sites. The result is unsatisfactory to the archaeologist and confusing to the general reader.

These archaeological chapters are interspersed with seven miniature fictional stories in which we encounter, at the sites just previously described, adults and children of the past engaged in various activities. These stories are charming, well written and entertaining. They are also plausible and clever but I suspect that the skilful play on certain themes - such as the vexed question of the appearance in Britain of domesticated cattle and cereals - will only be understood by those who have followed the arguments over several decades; such subtle humour may not be appreciated by all.

The book is a strange mixture of the popular and `not quite the academic'. But Edmonds does write well - some of his passages are quite poetic - and, having experimented, he should now write that prehistorical novel which is hiding here.

Dr Magdalena Midgley is a Senior Lecturer in European Prehistory at the University of Edinburgh