cdmcPes 7--41-8- paperback Sussex 978-1-84519-481-9 Eastbourne: £19.95 Press; 2012. illustrations. Academic 3 pages, perspective. biographical a culture: of diffusion P i a:wa ioh hminhscle “an called former has of and Champion scholarship episode” Timothy the embarrassing what to day: opposition a his in of gospel” theory his grand “preaching best passionately is for he known archaeologists on to discussions However origins. to human Egyptian contributed of and studies pioneered mummification also He teaching world’s research. anatomy British and “the guiding in in as role knighted his 36 for and 1934 at neurologist”, Society comparative Royal leading the of Fellow otaitdb h xadn vdnefo world from evidence cultures. expanding the by as contradicted views these criticised immediately other anthropologists and and archaeologists Unsurprisingly, Africa, mariners. East ancient for from “ travelling searching the and as Phoenicians travellers North described Smith by Islands, Elliot what taken Pacific America, Australia, South to Asia, Valley to Nile eastwards the spread elements cultural From associated multiple construction. megalithic marked sun/serpent by the the of civilisation; cult ‘heliolithic’ of a of source metalworking, invention of the Smith agriculture, Egypt: Elliot space To ancient of in usually origin. was single distant origin a that however had in world, they time, found the and was of phenomenon parts same two the belief. if or economic occurred practice Therefore in cultural innovations whether culture, history, material that practice, human in was only model once basic His rubbish”. “academic as described hyperdiffusionism, it naming Daniel, Glyn ANTIQUITY C AUL niut ulctosLtd. Publications Antiquity C ROOK 6(02:5954http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/086/ant0860569.htm 569–594 (2012): 86 . rfo litSih gpooyadthe and Egyptology Smith, Elliot Grafton 97 a lce a elected was (1871– 1937) Smith liot El- Grafton politics). American winism, Dar- (Social ideas of historian an is Crook Professor Emeritus men. distinguished two together book brings curious This Antiquity lxro life” of elixir okreviews Book viii editor + 160 ,by 569 rnro,te ev eyvgedtiso o,when how, of details vague very leave then narrow, ignorant or or blind as scholarship traditional denounce this references, scholarly fit with to detail seem in them which describe view, items select to data available corpus vast of the trawl view, world be grand unconventional later and a would Announce pseudo-archaeology. that as model read the described contrast books of In pioneers these like papers, agree. more research would anatomical his work to diffusionist readers Few his vi). (p. of methodology” always their “were in writings Smith’s scientific that states author The research. his archaeological from current coming information that on or praise out readers, missed he popular somehow of or by enthusiasm over-influenced the was and reforms, he Perry that argue teaching evolutionary or personality, mummification, and and research brain on but work Smith’s emphasising describe by this to do the might Others lies just problem. Here some not reputation. Smith’s Elliot is had rehabilitate aim to Smith his suggests that Crook view though a autism. this, of advance characteristics tackle does not does he a Crook opposition for total specialists. almost arguments by of face his the in maintain century quarter a and led rewrite history, and what try world of to explanation scientist biomedical an distinguished ‘why’, the is Missing scholars. contemporary other by criticisms work his universal) of (nearly appear the and of publication Quotes citation his when. alongside and on area, paraphrases this sympathetic in weirder) said even and seem wrote now writings whose Perry, W.J. eeec nwa litSih(n i prot his (and Smith convenient Elliot a what thus is on volume reference The Egypt’s influence. in were wider interests his Egyptology; to is time devoted of little Smith crania, studies work Egyptian important and his mummification is writing other After book mistitled. The his Smith’s ignored. somewhat or of summarily diffusion; only detail considered of cultural more summary useful on with a career presents Smith’s volume short This welcomed. be should initiative in held conferences 1972 SydneyandLondontomarkhiscentenary.SoCrook’s two from appeared certainly Books 1938. in is volume tribute appraisal a inspired and Smith’s widow due. study biographical new A eg ´ e ´
Review Review and why the new model happened. If his medical Since the 1960s and the advent of the processualist students had studied their anatomy with as little school of the ‘New Archaeology’, Palaeolithic attention to detail as Smith’s diffusionist tracts a lot archaeology has proved of patients would surely have died. to be fertile ground The book suggests that Smith’s diffusionist model has for the testing and de- not been conclusively refuted. Crook, in respecting velopment of new sci- Smith’s passion and commitment, does seem to entific paradigms. In- ignore the gap that existed at the time of Smith’s vestigations in this writing between his arguments and the evidence from discipline are nowadays archaeological work; a gap that has continued to grow far from arid studies of decade by decade. If—as Crook suggests—there has stone tools and bones; been little active criticism of Smith since the 1970s, rather, they constitute an interdisciplinary domain that is more probably because most people consider that bridges various sub-fields of evolutionary and there is no case to answer. Crook says “the diffusion earth sciences. Thus the edited volume on Peninj controversy has never really ceased” (p. 114), but does not merely present the results of ten years what has continued is argument about any specific of investigations of an important archaeological cultural sequence of the relative contributions of local area, it also exemplifies the aforementioned assets innovation and development, population movement of Palaeolithic research: strong interdisciplinarity, and diffusion of ideas; not a total ‘diffusionist’ with archaeological reasoning informed by multiple paradigm. strands of evidence, and a consistent focus on systemic approaches that draw upon human ecology, A minor comment concerns Smith’s references to race. taphonomic studies, ethnographic analogy and Crook notes that in 1934 he wrote two important experimental archaeology. denunciations of the ‘Aryan’ concept. The rise of Nazism had a dramatic impact on a range of ideas, Located in the western Natron basin in northern including eugenics (fashionable with left as much Tanzania, Peninj is a complex of Early Pleistocene as right) and enthusiasm in physical anthropology (Oldowan and Acheulian) archaeological sites formed for racial classification. Smith would not be unique in an alluvial-deltaic and lacustrine setting, dated in his earlier racial descriptions, crediting European to c. 1.5–1.2 million years ago. The low-energy civilisation to the virility “especially of those depositional environment of the Natron palaeo-lake, belonging to the blond Nordic race” and writing that along with fast burial from alluvial sedimentation “the Negro is a very primitive member of the human andvolcanicashthatcoatedthelandscape, family”. His 1934 presentation now seems more of a created favourable conditions for the preservation of mea culpa for the discipline. archaeological material. Reconstructed as an open For those wishing to track the detail of Smith’s savannah, Peninj offered itself as an ideal palaeo- hyperdiffusionist theory, with some impression of the landscape for investigating controversial hypotheses man behind it, this will prove a useful summary book. regarding hunter-gatherer adaptations, subsistence It is unlikely to achieve its goal and attract modern strategies and faunal exploitation. scholars back to those ideas. Dom´ınguez-Rodrigo and Alcala´ explicitly portray the methodological trademark of the research in Peninj ROBIN DERRICOURT right from the introductory chapter: a landscape School of History & Philosophy, University of New approach with an ecological/adaptive perspective, South Wales, Australia which pays close attention to site formation (Email: [email protected]) processes and uses taphonomy as its spearhead for unravelling the issues of carnivore competition MANUEL DOM´INGUEZ-RODRIGO,LUIS ALCALA´ & and hominin scavenging. The next two chapters LUIS LUQUE (ed.). Peninj: a research project on (Alcala´ et al.) provide a comprehensive overview human origins (1995–2005). xx+284 pages, 199 of the geological context, geomorphology, palaeo- illustrations, 7 colour plates, 53 tables. 2009. Oxford environment and landscape evolution at Peninj, & Oakville (CT): Oxbow for American School of with thorough accounts on the palaeo-relief and the Prehistoric Research; 978-1-84217-382-4 hardback tecto-sedimentary processes conditioning the degree £20. of preservation. Aided by detailed photographs,