BOOK REVIEWS

current geomorphological textbook for use as a shelf reference, it would be this one.

David R. Butler Department of Geography

University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602

Shawnee-Minisink: A Stratified Paleoindian- Archaic Site in the Upper Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania, Charles W. McNett, Jr. Ed., 1985, Academic Press, $60.00 ($34.95 paperback).

A major problem in Paleoindian studies in eastern North America has been the absence of an unmixed component, associated with floral and faunal evidence, in a sealed stratigraphic context. Therefore, the Upper Delaware Valley Early Man Project, built around the Shawnee-Minisink site, is of particular interest. The program, directed by editor Charles W. McNett, Jr., employed an interdisciplinary approach that embraced many ofthe disciplines subsumed under geoarchaeology. Although this aspect of the project is emphasized in the following review, those interested in the details of artifact form and function should note that there is much excellent data contained in the artifact analysis chapters.

The book, produced for professional and avocational archaeologists alike, is divided into four parts and twelve chapters, authored or co-authored by eight collabora- tors. Part I, the Introduction, describes the project, its background and history, and the research design and methodology, with particular attention to the frustra- tions of adapting mid-1970’s computer technology to archaeology. Shawnee-Minisink is located on the Dela- ware River at its confluence with Brodhead Creek near East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in the Upper Delaware Valley. The site, which was discovered in 1973 by avoca- tional archaeologist Donald Kline, was excavated by crews from American Univerity between 1974 and 1977.

A small Paleoindian component, with a single fluted point, was located nearly 3 m below the surface. Char- coal produced two “acceptable” dates, 10,590 +- 300 and 10,750 * 600 radiocarbon years ago. Two other dates were rejected for statistical reasons. In addition to the lithic artifacts, fish (species unknown), and seeds were recovered, but no mammal remains. Early Archaic occu- pations (undated) are stratigraphically separated from the underlying Paleoindian, while above lie Middle and Late Archaic components, capped by Woodland occupa- tions.

Parts I11 and IV emphasize artifact analysis with an almost exclusive focus on the Paleoindian and Early Archaic assemblages. A second review would be required to do justice to these analyses, most of which were PhD dissertations. The analyses stress form and function

over technology. Since all three are interrelated at some level, the ommission of detailed technological studies is unfortunate. Barbara McMillan’s, “A Technological Analysis of the Early Archaic” (Chapter ll), is primar- ily a study of the distribution of artifacts and debitage, not technological study elucidating manufacturing sta- ges that might characterize different approaches to chipped stone technologies. June Evans (Chapter lo), on the transition from Paleoindian to Early Archaic, also gives priority to morphological and functional attri- butes, although technology is not ignored.

The geoarchaeological aspects of the program are found in Chapters 4 3 , and 7, authored or co-authored by Richard Dent. Integrated as they are into the body of the text, they reflect the original research design, and go far beyond mere “window dressing.” In Chapter 4, Dent presents the geological background and characterizes the modern vegetation and animal communities. He is well aware of the pitfalls of using these communities as analogs for the past. Dent and Barbara Kauffman co- author Chapter 5, which examines the floral macrofossil remains, recovered through simple floation techniques. They are cognizant of the many problems associated with the interpretation of seeds in an archaeological context. The diligent student field workers processed 1287 samples and recovered 1427 seeds, representing 16 genera. A rough calculation, based on the 10% sampling strategy, indicates that close to 77 cubic meters of sedi- ment was processed, a very substantial commitment. It should come as no surprise that Paleoindians utilized plant foods when available. The recovery of 76 charred seeds tends to confirm the suspicion, but does not answer the basic question posed by the researchers: How many of these seeds represent plants gathered for food and how many are indigenous? Perhaps a comparison with nearby, non-archaeological site sediments could have helped to resolve the issue. The plant remains provide some useful information about the regional vegetation at the time.

Chapter 7 is the most provocative. Here Dent sets up the “received view,” by which he means the generally accepted view of Paleoindian adaptation, and then pro- ceeds to challenge many of its tenets. The “received view” is a “strawman” model to which few archaeolo- gists would subscribe, and consequently the chapter would not suffer by its deletion. Dent then proceeds to reconstruct paleoclimatic and environmental conditions using regional pollen diagrams and the quantitative methodology of Webb and Bryson (1972). He states (p. 138) that, “No paleoecologists should have trouble accepting the first two assumptions; they are, in this chapter, considered to be valid without further debate.” Assumption one, “climate being the ultimate cause of changes in the pollen record,” is indeed debatable, espe- cially for the late Pleistocene and early Holocene when rapid changes in vegetation occurred in response to dif- ferential rates of colonization to newly deglaciated ter- rain. Paleoecologists may also wonder about the utility of terms such as Atlantic, sub-Atlantic, Boreal, etc., for pollen assemblages in the Upper Delaware Valley. While one can quibble over the exact July temperature or winter snowfall, the basic point Dent is making is reasonable; that is, the eastern Paleoindian hunter- gatherers, who lived in an environment different in many ways from current conditions, should be regarded

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BOOK REVIEWS

as generalists, incorporating fish, plants, and mammals into their diet. Dent sees no evidence to support the notion of a specialized mega-fauna adaptive pattern.

Shawnee-Minisink is an important report on an im- portant site. Inevitably, i t will be compared with the contemporary excavations at the Meadowcroft Rock- shelter, also in Pennsylvania, and while the final results of the latter project are not yet available, preliminary reports indicate quite a different flavor to the manage- ment and multidisciplinary involvement of a major re- search program (Adovasio et al. 1978). Between the two sites our knowledge of the earliest inhabitants in northeastern North America is greatly advanced.

One of the costs commonly associated with modern interdisciplinary archaeology is the length of time from backfill to final publication, in this case about eight years. To judge by the references, most chapters were written prior to 1980, which made it difficult to include the spate of northeastern Paleoindian research pub- lished in the early 1980s. In addition to a number of typos that slipped by the editorb), more serious errors occur; for example, on pages 115 and 116 of McNett’s chapter on artifact morphology, radiocarbon dates of 1640 2 200 radiocarbon years and 1564 *95 years are said to equal 310 B.C. and 385 B.C. respectively! Prehis- toric archaeologists should leave A.D./B.C. to the histo- rians. Despite these problems, McNett is to be congratu- lated for encouraging his co-authors to distill chapters from their dissertations, and for organizing the results in a smooth-flowing, well-integrated package. In a pre- vious review of an Academic Press offering on archae- ology this reviewer criticized the extravagent use of space on each page. The format of this volume is more economical, but the volume itself is hardly thrifty.

References Adovasio, J.M., Gunn, J.D., Donahue, J., and Stucken-

rath, R. (1978). Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 1977: An overview. American Antiquity 43, 332-351.

Webb. T., and Bryson, R.A. (1972). Late and postglacial change in the northern midwest U.S.A.: Quantitative estimates derived from fossil pollen spectra by multi- variate statistical analysis. Quaternary Research 2 , 70-115.

David Sanger Department of Anthropology and Institute for Quaternary Studies

University of Maine Orono,ME 04469

Land-Use and Prehistory in South-East Spain, Antonio Gilman and John B. Thornes, 1985, George Allen & Unwin, London- Boston-Sydney 217 p.,S Sterling 25.00.

One of “the London Research Series in Geography” (No. 8), this is a regional monograph dealing with an

important sector of the Betic Cordillera and Mediterra- nean coast of Spain, of particular interest to archaeolo- gists and geomorphologists because it contains rich remains of prehistoric human cultures paradoxically within an area that is today extremely arid-it was identified by Meigs as the “Nijar Desert.”

Most of the book consists of site descriptions illumi- nated by excellent geomorphic, land-use, and hydrologic maps. The first four chapters provide a clear introduc- tion, with presentation of the background and problems (environment, archaeology), land-use study, and geo- morphology. The cultures are broadly Neolithic (5000- 3500 BC), Copper Age (3500-2000 BC), and Bronze Age (2000- 1200 BC), emerging respectively from cave occu- pations to round houses and finally rectangular houses in fortified sites.

The geomorphology treats the always-dimcult prob- lems of soil erosion, alluviation, and gully erosion. In the reviewer’s opinion, this section is seriously marred by a simplifying assumption: “We have assumed that cli- matic parameters have not changed significantly over the 3-7 millennia ....” The authors thus conveniently turn their backs on the vast literature and abundant palynological data that demonstrate extraordinarily great climatic fluctuations over this period, especially obvious in the semi-arid landscapes around the Mediter- ranean and the American Southwest. The authors are frank enough to admit (e.g., p. 74) that they perceive anomalies between drainage channel density and ero- sion rates. The hydrology is seen essentially in terms of 20th century data.

Notwithstanding this criticism, the volume contains fascinating studies of the growth of farming technology in a marginal area. There is a useful reference list and modest indexes.

Rhodes W. Fairbridge Department of Geological Sciences

Columbia University New York, NY 10027

Surficial Deposits of the United States, Charles B. Hunt, 1986, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 189 p. (w. map in pocket), $39.95.

Here is a volume that we have long needed, dealing with the soil and unconsolidated materials of the coun- try’s surface, overlying “bedrock” of any age. It has been designed to be read side-by-side with the U.S. Geological Survey’s color-printed “Surficial Geology” sheet on 1:7,500,000 (1979) that is part of the National Atlas. Its legend identifies: untransported (saprolitic residuum, thin residuum, organic, and colluvium) and transported deposits (shore, glacial,stream, lake, eolian).

The text treats these topics in the same sequence, with an added section on Transitional Deposits that deals with the “more or less” category labeled “Gravity Depos-

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