The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds
2
BOOK REVIEWS 839 bly. Clearly the workshop in Durham was one that worked. We can only hope that a follow-up conference, in 20 years or so, will leave researchers marveling at our present-day confusion. The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Amhaeologg. Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.195pp. MILES RICHARDSON Louisiana State Uniuersity Archaeologists are uniquely situated “to make origi- nal and consequential contributions to the sciences of the human mind” (Schlanger,p. 143). While not arguingan abstinence for studying “prehis- toric ‘mental things’ . . . our data are such that we will usually accumulatemore knowledge of human prehistory by emphasizingother pursuits” (Hill, p. 91). In this coedited volume of 18 separate pieces, the positions about the feasibility of recovering ancient thought range from Nathan Schlanger’s insightful enthu- siasm to James Hill’s dismissive assessment. The book itself has emerged out of heated exchanges labeled by some as the cognitive wars. Contributionshere follow the banner of what coeditor Renfrew calls the cognitive- processual. In Renfrew’s view, the cognitive-processual pairs with the fimctional-processual(the “new” archaeol- ogy) in that it is broadly scientific and consequently stands in opposition to the postprocessual, interpretive ap- proach. To drive home the point, James Bell provides a checklist so that we can distinguish interpretation, which is sloppy, from testability, which is rigorous. To be honest, most of the contributors attempt to play down the conflict with the postprocessualists. Indeed, the other coeditor, Zubrow, goes so far as to declare that the much touted debate is largely irrelevant to understanding prehistoric cognition, which should center around the question of how humans represent knowledge. In the volume there are contrasting images on how we represent what we know. Erwin Segal, a cognitive scientist, gives us a mentalistic exposition of the individ- ual mind at work, goal-directed and problem solving. CharlesRake reminds doubters such as Bell and Hill, who bemoan the lack of prehistoric informants, that no one “has magic access to the mind of others” (p. 119). He observes that instruments, such as dials for measuring degree, hour, and direction, are not only operational aids to the mind but are public displays designed to impress as well as inform. That may put Frake, who was once a “new” ethnographer, into the postprocessual bed, but it does suggest that, to the question of how humans represent knowledge, we must add: How do we communicate it to one another? Several authors in fact address the latter question. J. N. Postgate, in a well-argued piece about icon and text in ancient Mesopotamia, points to how often icon and text worked off each other to convey information. Similarly, Main Schnapp, in considering the psychology of statues in ancient Greece, observes that a poem transcends rain, wind, and frost (and auto emissions), but a stone image makes the invisible visible-not only to the excavating archaeologLst, one wants to insist, but to the indigenous, contemporarybeholder. In a piece on the evolutionof sign substitution in the Elamite cuneiform, John Justeson and Laurence Stephens refer to the manner in which repeti- tion combines with substitution at critical junctures to impart information in symbolic behavior. Richard Bradley, in an exemplary essay on the ar- chaeology of place, marshals a detailed account on how petroglyphs may have served as devices for communicat- ing the boundaries of particular places in prehistoric Great Britain. In one of the best pieces, Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery, who plead for a holistic archaeology in- stead of a specialized search for cognition, use ethnogra- phy, historical documents, and archaeology to provide a picture of the evolution of Zapotec religion. A key strategy in their search is to look for distinctive features that coincide nonrandomly and that segregate themselves from other structures. Such features convey specialized qualities of being associated with ritual. hkewise insisting that any attempt at cognitive an- thropology must include an approach to religion, Renfrew begins by stressing the centrality of the individual reli- gious experience. He soon moves to the material setting of that experience with the goal of identlfylng what was religious to the participants at the time in question. Chris Scarre offers a more cautionary account. We may com- pare tombs of megalithic Europe with the mortuary prac- tices of the Merina of Madagascar, but that procedure, useful though it may be, does not provide access to what the prehistoric burial practices specifically meant. Soundinglike Segal, Zubrow presents the goal of the cognitive archaeology as getting at the set of norms that guided the actions of prehistoric peoples. In an innovative use of GeographicInformation Systems(GIS),he suggests that the spatial patterns of prehtoric trade routes of the Iroquois conform both to economic considerationsand to the Iroquois model of the longhouse. What he has accom- plished seems superior to his goal. Three contributions employ the concept of chaines opbutoires, or, loosely,chained operations. C. Karlin and M. Julien apply the concept to Magdalenian blade produc- tion, and S. E. van der Leeuw likewise applies it to pottery making in M i c h o a h , Mexico, Nathan Schlanger, how- ever, gives the best exposition. The concept is based on objectification, of people turning socially elaborated thought into objects, but concept is not so strait-jacketing as norms. When the Mousterian knapper produced a tool,
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Transcript of The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds
B O O K R E V I E W S 839
bly. Clearly the workshop in Durham was one that worked. We can only hope that a follow-up conference, in 20 years or so, will leave researchers marveling at our present-day confusion.
The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Amhaeologg. Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.195 pp.
MILES RICHARDSON Louisiana State Uniuersity
Archaeologists are uniquely situated “to make origi- nal and consequential contributions to the sciences of the human mind” (Schlanger, p. 143).
While not arguing an abstinence for studying “prehis- toric ‘mental things’ . . . our data are such that we will usually accumulate more knowledge of human prehistory by emphasizing other pursuits” (Hill, p. 91).
In this coedited volume of 18 separate pieces, the positions about the feasibility of recovering ancient thought range from Nathan Schlanger’s insightful enthu- siasm to James Hill’s dismissive assessment. The book itself has emerged out of heated exchanges labeled by some as the cognitive wars. Contributions here follow the banner of what coeditor Renfrew calls the cognitive- processual. In Renfrew’s view, the cognitive-processual pairs with the fimctional-processual (the “new” archaeol- ogy) in that it is broadly scientific and consequently stands in opposition to the postprocessual, interpretive ap- proach. To drive home the point, James Bell provides a checklist so that we can distinguish interpretation, which is sloppy, from testability, which is rigorous. To be honest, most of the contributors attempt to play down the conflict with the postprocessualists. Indeed, the other coeditor, Zubrow, goes so far as to declare that the much touted debate is largely irrelevant to understanding prehistoric cognition, which should center around the question of how humans represent knowledge.
In the volume there are contrasting images on how we represent what we know. Erwin Segal, a cognitive scientist, gives us a mentalistic exposition of the individ- ual mind at work, goal-directed and problem solving. Charles Rake reminds doubters such as Bell and Hill, who bemoan the lack of prehistoric informants, that no one “has magic access to the mind of others” (p. 119). He observes that instruments, such as dials for measuring degree, hour, and direction, are not only operational aids to the mind but are public displays designed to impress as well as inform. That may put Frake, who was once a “new” ethnographer, into the postprocessual bed, but it does suggest that, to the question of how humans represent knowledge, we must add: How do we communicate it to one another?
Several authors in fact address the latter question. J. N. Postgate, in a well-argued piece about icon and text in ancient Mesopotamia, points to how often icon and text worked off each other to convey information. Similarly, Main Schnapp, in considering the psychology of statues in ancient Greece, observes that a poem transcends rain, wind, and frost (and auto emissions), but a stone image makes the invisible visible-not only to the excavating archaeologLst, one wants to insist, but to the indigenous, contemporary beholder. In a piece on the evolution of sign substitution in the Elamite cuneiform, John Justeson and Laurence Stephens refer to the manner in which repeti- tion combines with substitution at critical junctures to impart information in symbolic behavior.
Richard Bradley, in an exemplary essay on the ar- chaeology of place, marshals a detailed account on how petroglyphs may have served as devices for communicat- ing the boundaries of particular places in prehistoric Great Britain. In one of the best pieces, Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery, who plead for a holistic archaeology in- stead of a specialized search for cognition, use ethnogra- phy, historical documents, and archaeology to provide a picture of the evolution of Zapotec religion. A key strategy in their search is to look for distinctive features that coincide nonrandomly and that segregate themselves from other structures. Such features convey specialized qualities of being associated with ritual.
hkewise insisting that any attempt at cognitive an- thropology must include an approach to religion, Renfrew begins by stressing the centrality of the individual reli- gious experience. He soon moves to the material setting of that experience with the goal of identlfylng what was religious to the participants at the time in question. Chris Scarre offers a more cautionary account. We may com- pare tombs of megalithic Europe with the mortuary prac- tices of the Merina of Madagascar, but that procedure, useful though it may be, does not provide access to what the prehistoric burial practices specifically meant.
Sounding like Segal, Zubrow presents the goal of the cognitive archaeology as getting at the set of norms that guided the actions of prehistoric peoples. In an innovative use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), he suggests that the spatial patterns of prehtoric trade routes of the Iroquois conform both to economic considerations and to the Iroquois model of the longhouse. What he has accom- plished seems superior to his goal.
Three contributions employ the concept of chaines opbutoires, or, loosely, chained operations. C. Karlin and M. Julien apply the concept to Magdalenian blade produc- tion, and S. E. van der Leeuw likewise applies it to pottery making in Michoah, Mexico, Nathan Schlanger, how- ever, gives the best exposition. The concept is based on objectification, of people turning socially elaborated thought into objects, but concept is not so strait-jacketing as norms. When the Mousterian knapper produced a tool,
840 A M E R I C A N A N T H R O P O L O G I S T V O L . 97 , N o . 4 D E C E M B E R 1 9 9 5
the knapper, Schlanger argues, was engaged in a series of operations-recoverable in the record-that set up con- ditions in which the knapper had to make choices to proceed. It is in this carefully executed choosing that Mousterian work stock became culture.
In addressing the hotly contested issue of the transi- tion between Middle and Upper Paleolithic, Steven Mithen argues that social intelligence preceded the devel- opment of specitic environment knowledge. Conse- quently, the transition was not one requiring a species
replacement but rather one of increased application of intelligence gained in the social sphere to the exploitation of the environment.
By the time Zubrow brings the volume to a close, his earlier plea for peace in the "cognitive wars" begins to sound a bit thin. Warfare aside, anyone intrigued by the strong, human tie between the happening in the head and the object in the hand, and how one goes from the latter to the former-if, indeed, one needs to--ought to grab hold of this book.
Anthropological Linguistics, ii quarterly journal tounded in 1959, provides a fbrum fix the hill r;ing:c of' scholarly S h l d y
ot' the languages ;ind cultures ot the peoples ot the world, am1 especially the native peoples o f the Aniericas. Emlxicing the fielcl of 1;ingwige and culnire hro;idy cleiitied, the editors welcome articles and research reports ;icldrcssinc ~wIhir;il, his- toric;il, ; i n c l philologic;il aspects of linkyistic study, including analyses of texts and discourse; studies of' semantic systems ;ind cultriral cl;issific-;itions; onom;istic S h l d i C S ; etlinohistorical pipers that draw significantly on linguistic d:it:i; stiiclies ot' linguistic prehistory and genetic classification, both methodological and substantive; discussions atid interpretations of ;irchiv;il inaterial; eclited historical c1ociiiiients; and contrihutions to the history of ;intlirol~ologic;il linguistics. The journ;il ;ilso ;ictivcly reviews new puldications in the fielcl.
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