SHENNAN, SJ

English

UCL Discovery

384 Book reviewsthe search for the Sun's energy source. The thirdepoch, 1910—40, was not only the monitoringperiod during which the search for strong solarterrestrial relations bore limited fruit, but alsothe time during which the details of the solarcomposition and the nuclear energy generationprocess in the solar interior was placed on a firmfooting. Huge advances in stellar and galacticastronomy, however, saw solar astrophysicistslose status amongst the astronomical elite.Solar physics benefited greatly from theSecond World War and between 1940 and themid-1970s we saw the discovery of the effects ofsolar activity on radio transmission and alsohuge expenditure on rocket, satellite and ground-based solar instruments and the concomitantexpansion of solar studies into the radio, X-ray,ultraviolet and neutrino fields. Since the mid-1970s Hufbauer notes that we have moved intothe era of budgetary restrictions and this has ledto the decline of the monitoring programmes.In Exploring the Sun Hufbauer has con-centrated on the breakthroughs in solar scienceand has maintained a swift narrative pace byplaying down the less exciting spade-work thatfollowed after the pioneering observations. Healso enjoys placing the history of the subject intothe larger philosophical, political, technical andsocioeconomic arena. I found his two casestudies — the discovery and investigation of thesolar wind, and the space age quest to quantifythe degree of variability in the Sun's radiationoutput — absolutely fascinating.This is a well-written, well-illustrated andwell-referenced book. The history of solarscience is a huge subject and I congratulateHufbauer on the way in which he has skilfullybalanced the extremes of brief review anddetailed investigation.DAVID W. HUGHESThe University, SheffieldVALERIE PINSKY and ALISON WYLIE (eds.).Critical Traditions in Contemporary Archae-ology: Essays in the Philosophy, History andSocio-Politics of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1990. Pp. ix + 160. ISBN 0-521-32109-3. £27.50, $54.50.It is only relatively recently that archaeologistshave begun to develop a critically self-awareapproach to their discipline. This book gives anexcellent panorama of the issues, held togetherand placed in perspective by the section introduc-tions and commentaries provided by the editorsand two 'discussants'. The points raised arecentral ones, familiar from discussions in othersocial and historical disciplines: what is thestatus of our claims to knowledge and themethods we use? How do these relate to thesocial and political context of archaeology ? Canarchaeology be an 'emancipatory' discipline,and how should that be achieved ? What is therole of disciplinary history ?The first section of the book, entitled Philo-sophical Analysis, is arguably the least interest-ing, perhaps because the issues with which itdeals are no longer as topical as they once were.The tradition of critical introspection out ofwhich this book has emerged began in the 1960s,with reactions of Kuhn on the one hand, andcriticisms of existing standards of explanationwithin the discipline on the other, the latterleading, especially in North America, to aprescriptive insistence on the application ofHempel's covering-law model to explanation inarchaeology. It is largely with the tail end of thisdebate, concerning the role of philosophy ofscience and philosophy generally in archaeology,that this first section of the book is concerned.Dunnell takes a negative view on this but Wylie,in an excellent article, shows why he is wrong inarguing for the deleterious effect of philosophyon archaeology by disentangling and illumin-ating a whole series of important issuessurrounding the key research programmes ofLewis Binford and the assumptions behind them.The study of the history of the discipline hasa much longer pedigree in archaeology than aconcern with the philosophy of science, but untilrecently the level of the contributions has beenpretty uninspiring: a mixture of curious anecdotesBook reviews 385with the story of the progressive overcoming ofnaivety and ignorance. The second section ofthis book argues for the kind of contextualhistoriography which is now widespread in othersubject areas and sees such work as going handin hand with the development of critical self-consciousness, so that the history of archaeologyis no longer a mere dispensable adjunct butbecomes central to the definition of the subject'sgoals. All the papers are worth while but themost stimulating and provocative isChippindale's review of the history of studies ofStonehenge. Here he argues, in many waysagainst the trend of the book, that the objectswhich archaeologists study have their ownidentity and set their own agenda: people havebeen asking the same questions about Stone-henge and applying similar methodologies to itsinterpretation ever since the monument was firstmentioned in written sources in the medievalperiod; it is the nature of the answers which haschanged.One of the strengths of this collection ofpapers is that it combines detailed case studies,such as Chippindale's, with general theoreticaldiscussions, and this mixture is continued intothe third section of the book, dealing with thesocio-political context of archaeology. Tilley'sarticle is a polemic for an 'emancipatory' and'empowering' archaeology which helps to under-mine the assumptions and practices of thecapitalist societies in which many if not mostarchaeologists work. Handsman and Leoneattempt to put such ideas into practice with adetailed analysis of two museum exhibitionswhich proposes alternative presentations tothose actually given. However, the paper whichin many ways encapsulates the issues raised bythe volume as a whole, and indeed the currentdilemmas of archaeology generally, is that byGero. This is a fascinating, perceptive and all tooconvincing account of the divisions betweenprofessional and lay archaeologists concerningthe interpretation of certain stone structuresfound in New England: recent storehouses to thefirst group, evidence of ancient transatlanticcolonists from the Old World to the second. Thesheer difficulty of grounding archaeologicalclaims to knowledge in certain circumstances isapparent, so too is the arrogance and remotenessof the professionals and the emotion- and value-laden significance which archaeological remainshave in many places for local people.This volume captures much of the presentstate of archaeology, despite its long gestation.Nevertheless, it is a pity that it could not haveincluded a discussion of the 1986 World Archaeo-logical Congress, which had a major role in thedevelopment of critical self-consciousness inarchaeology in the 1980s. All the signs are thatarchaeology has a stormy future ahead of it as itattempts to come to terms with its rapidlychanging social context at a global scale.STEPHEN J. SHENNANUniversity of SouthamptonLILIANE BODSON and ROLAND LIBOIS (eds.).Contributions a I'histoire des connaissanceszoologiques. Colloques d'histoire des connais-sances zoologiques, 2. Liege: Universite de Liege,1991. Pp. 123. 450FB.This little collection is a pretty mixed bag. Theeditors themselves admit that they had noframework for the second one-day meeting ofthe unenticingly named 'Inter-university Groupon the History of Zoology and the Relationsbetween Man and Animals'. Neverthelesstwenty-seven participants showed up on 17March 1990, eight papers were read and dis-cussed, of which five are reproduced here in full,while another is given in summary. An additionalpaper has been added which was not presentedat the meeting.Two contributors evidently failed to meettough editorial deadlines. We are thereforedeprived of the pleasure of learning about theharvesting of cast reindeer horns in prehistorictimes or of looking at an analysis of medievaltreatises on falconry as literary texts. What isprinted seems to fall into much the same mould.There must be something here for someone.The opening paper is on the excavation of birdbones from archaeological sites in Pategonia.These apparently reveal regional variations inthe birds hunted for food. The patterns reflectboth the varying ecology of the species and thecultural differences between the ethnic groups

Critical traditions in contemporary archaeology - essays in the philosophy, history and sociopolitics of archaeology - Vinsky,V, Wylie,A

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