808 American’ Anthropologist [70, 19681 As a book for the amateur, Morris Robbins and Mary R. Irving’s The Amateur Archaeolo- gists Handbook (New York, Thomas Y. Cro- well Co., 1966) is more germane.

La PrPhistoire. A N D R ~ LEROI-GOURHAN, G ~ R A R D BAILLOUD, JEAN CHAVAILLON, ANNE~TE LAMING-EMPERAIRE, and others. (Nouvelle Clio, L’Historie et ses problbmes, No. 1.) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966. 366 pp.. bibliography, 54 figures, index. F. 22.

Reviewed by LESLIE FREEMAN University of Chicago

In this little book, nine authors have at- tempted to synthesize world prehistory from the earliest evidences of culture through the devel- opment of food production. As might be ex- pected of any work that attempts such an over- whelming task in some 350 pages, the result is not an unqualified success. However, the book’s shortcomings do not outweigh its utility.

The authors first present a list of sites that have been of primary importance in the defini- tion of developmental sequences of industrial complexes and that illustrate the “established” chronologies with summaries of stratigraphic sequences at key sites. The presentation of data from Western Europe is most detailed, but im- portant information for other areas of the world is also presented. A bibliography of over 450 sources follows. This list will certainly help beginning students and general readers to get immersed in the literature of prehistory, but coverage is extremely uneven. The French Pa- leolithic and Mesolithic are given adequate space, but the list of sources for other parts of the world is far less satisfactory; coverage for British paleolithic sites is pitifully small and the North American bibliography is not only far too short but is also a perplexing blend of un- questionably essential works and papers that appear trivial in a list of this size. A discussion of finds and interpretations follows, arranged by period and region. The summaries of Middle and Upper Paleolithic data by Andr6 Leroi- Gourhan are far and away the best parts of this discussion. The handsome illustrations are marred by the fact that they sometimes mis- lead. As an example, several Spanish Solutrean pieces are shown, all apparently redrawn from JordPs “El Solutrense en Espafia y sus proble- mas.” Since Jordh‘s artifact drawings are sim- plified with no attempt to show the direction of flake removals, the artist has supplied the miss- ing information by often erroneous guesswork instead of by reference to the line drawings in the original site reports Jordd summarizes: compare figures 15. no. 29 and 17, no. 27 with

Pericot’s report on Parpall6, figures 17, no. 2 and 24, no. 2. Figure 15, no. 28 shows a large flake scar where the original piece figured by Pericot (fig. 17, no. 10) has cortex. Pieces are occasionally misidentified: figure 15, no. 38 is from the Pefia de San Roman de Candamo in Asturias, not from Parpall6. These errors, which would be inexcusable in a book directed to a specialist audience, are less important in an introductory treatise.

The concluding portion of the book is de- voted to a discussion of problems and goals of prehistoric research. It includes surveys of some chronometric techniques and a good brief sum- mary of the development of French prehistory. This section also contains a relatively detailed discussion of Andrt Leroi-Gourhan’s system of artifact typology and his method of “morpho- logical description,” which is, in essence, an at- tempt to catalog the logically possible morpho- logical and metrical characteristics that artifacts may have regardless of where, when, or by whom they were made. Since logically possible morphological variations are infinite, no system of this sort is satisfactory unless its proponents establish guidelines to set limits on the number of variations that are to be recognized in the system. Leroi-Gourhan establishes other “uni- versally valid” categories empirically, from a study of samples from several times and places. On the basis of “a large number” of flakes and blades “from two continents,” he establishes n set of size categories: a length of 8 cm is me- dium, of 4 cm is small, etc. (p. 251). Of course, the sociocultural significance of categories so de- fined is questionable. Nonetheless, the last part of the book is the most stimulating.

The organization of the book is one of its best features. Information is considerably easier to find than in the majority of other general prehistories. The work makes a compact and convenient student reference book.

Palaeolithic Cave Art. PETER J. UCKO and ~ D & E ROSENFELD. (World University Li- brary.) New York, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1967. 256 pp., bibliography and notes, 106 drawings and photographs (some in color), frontispiece, index. $2.45

Reviewed by HALLAM L. Movrus, JR. Harvard Universitv

A substantial number of semipopular. pro- fusely illustrated, and extremely well-docu- mented books on Upper Palaeolithic art have been published during the last 25 years, but in at least two respects this singularly comprehen- sive effort by two young British workers must be considered unique: (1 ) it is the only attempt

(paper).