Mesolithic Europe: diversity in uniformity.

Mesolithic Europe: diversity in uniformity. GEOFF BAILEY & PENNY SPIKINS (ed.). Mesolithic Europe.xviii+468 pages, 94 illustrations, 27 tables. 2008. Cambridge & NewYork: Cambridge University Press; 978-0-521-85503-7 hardback 55 [poundssterling] & $95. SINEAD MCCARTEAN, RICK SCHULTING, GRAEME WARREN & PETER WOODMAN(ed.). Mesolithic horizons. 2 volumes, lx+ 1007 pages, 688illustrations. 2009. Oxford: Oxbow; 978-1-84217-311-4 hardback 150[pounds sterling]. NYREE FINLAY, SINEAD MCCARTEAN, NICKY MILNER & CAROLINEWICKHAM-JONES (ed.). From Bann Flakes to Bushmills (Prehistoric SocietyResearch Paper 1). xxiv+224 pages, 84 illustrations, 23 tables. 2009.Oxford: Oxbow; 978-1-84217-355-8 hardback 35 [pounds sterling]. CLIVE WADDINGTON & KRISTIAN PEDERSEN. Mesolithic studies in theNorth Sea Basin and beyond: proceedings of a conference held atNewcastle in 2003. viii+158 pages, 100 illustrations. 2007. Oxford:Oxbow; 978-1-84217-224-7 hardback 48 [pounds sterling]. TOM CARLSSON. Where the river bends--under the boughs of trees. 380pages, 59 illustrations. 2008. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieambetet;978-91-7209-502-1 hardback 18 [pounds sterling]. The five volumes on the European Mesolithic reviewed here allappeared within three years. Together they show an increase in thepopularity of a period long considered poor and uninteresting. Thereviewer is someone who mainly concentrated on the ensuing Neolithic,albeit in a region where earlier traditions remained incorporated indaily life; he started and ended his career with contributions to theMesolithic, a period in which he has always been greatly interested.This review article offers the views of a 'kindly relative'who agrees with Lars Larsson (in Mesolithic horizons, p. xxi) that:'A common thread is the hope for a better research connectionbetween those scholars who are dealing with the Mesolithic and those whoare researching the Neolithic.' The five books comprise the proceedings of the huge 'Meso2005' conference (Mesolithic horizons), three further editedcollections (Mesolithic studies in the North Sea Basin, From Bann Flakesto Bushmills and Mesolithic Europe, the latter a comprehensive overviewof the research field) and an idiosyncratic monograph on a Swedish sitewritten in English (Where the river bends). European overview Mesolithic Europe is a volume of twelve chapters written byhighly-qualified authors marshalled by Geoff Bailey and Penny Spikinswho contribute an introduction and conclusion. Their aims, stated in thePreface, were 'to bring together a series of regional syntheses ofthe Mesolithic in different parts of Europe ... and to provide ahup-to-date overview of the current state of knowledge, a demonstrationof the richness and diversity of the material now available and thevarious approaches to its study'. They gave their authors strictinstructions, asking them to cover: the history of research, definitionof the Mesolithic, environment and geography, chronology, technology andsubsistence, settlement and social organisation, art and ritual and thenature of the (time) boundaries including the transition to agriculture.A rather ambitious enterprise! Did they succeed? Yes and no. There is awealth of information from all over the European subcontinent and thebook is extremely useful as an orientation to Mesolithic themes andregions, not least because of its impressive (integrated) bibliographyof some 1800 titles and a 14-page index. We should, however, notconsider it a textbook to be read from the first to the last page, butrather as a source of information to be consulted for quintessentialinformation and references. If I point out some aspects which I wouldhave preferred treated slightly differently, this should not be seen asa criticism of the intrinsic qualities of the book, bur as desires notentirely fulfilled. There is some imbalance between the regions covered(e.g. the Iron Gates microregion in contrast to the whole of Russia,Belarus and Ukraine taken together); the same holds for the ratiobetween authors from British and American institutions (9) and thosefrom the regions themselves (5: Bjerck, Blankholm, Valdeyron, Svobodaand Verhart). Illustrations are similarly patchy: radiocarbon date listsoccupy 28 pages and there are 24 site location maps, but very fewillustrations of hut plans, burials or other relevant finds. Graphs andtables documenting isotopic and faunal evidence are few and theillustrations are factually rather dull. The result is that the book issound and thorough but fails to generate enthusiasm for the Mesolithicas a research arena. This was surely not intended by the editors andtheir contributions help to redress the balance: the first half of theintroductory chapter by Penny Spikins and the final chapter by GeoffBailey give us an admirable and up-to-date thematic overview of theMesolithic as a whole, as each chapter does for its region. all seriousstudents of European prehistory should have this book on their shelves! Meso 2005 If the preceding book is the most ambitious of the five, Mesolithichorizons is the most massive. It gives an overview of the Mesolithictoo, but this time it showcases current work and inevitably does so in amore kaleidoscopic way. The book contains the contributions to theseventh five-yearly conference on 'The Mesolithic in Europe'which was held in September 2005 in Belfast. For the first rime in thehistory of the conference two volumes were needed, weighing 4.5kg. Theconference was guided by the 'unwritten, fundamental principle[that], where possible, all those who wish to speak should be given anopportunity to speak' (Preface) and that all contributions shouldalso be printed. The result is 1065 pages containing 144 papers writtenby 192 authors (out of c. 250 participants) from over 20 countries.Apart from the references at the end of each contribution, there is a'consolidated bibliography' of 88 pages with c. 2500 titles,and a 10-page index. All papers are introduced by a summary, exceptthose in the current research section. They are spread rather unevenlyover the study area: 28% concern British or Irish subjects, 26%Scandinavian and 24% southern European themes. Only four contributionseach are on Central and Eastern European topics and none deal with theBalkan peninsula, a fact observed by Lars Larsson in his analysis oftrends in the conferences over the past 35 years. The first five papers, representing the conference's plenarysessions, consist of Europe-wide perspectives by five 'oldmasters': Stefan Kozlowski discusses 'his' topic ofgeographical differentiation of microliths, Lars Larsson contributes aretrospect, Douglas Price peers (briefly) into the future, MarekZvelebil takes a (longer) view of the current state of the Mesolithic,especially the concept of the 'Mesolithic', and Peter Woodmanconsiders Ireland's special place (it was after all a Belfastmeeting!). The other papers are arranged according to the themes of theconference, in short: postglacial colonisation, mobility, environment,places, regional identities, dwellings, transitions, ritual and socialaspects, flint and non-flint technology and finally 'currentresearch'. Each section of 10-15 papers opens with a reflectiveintroduction by the chairperson, thus making an enormous body ofmaterial accessible. Producing these two volumes must have been quite a job and theeditors deserve our greatest respect. Criticism would seem ill-mannered,but I shall still permit myself some remarks. First, access to all thisknowledge could have been improved by separately indexing the contentspages by author and geography (say, by country). Secondly, a number ofcomparable studies are found scattered under a variety of headings, e.g.mortuary practices under 'ritual' and 'socialcontext', settlement systems under 'places' and'technology'. This may not have been a problem at theconference, but the volumes would have benefited from some rearranging.The general index alas is of no great help in this respect. Mesolithic at the edge From Bann Flakes to Bushmills is a Festschrift in honour of PeterWoodman. It is the first volume in a new series of research paperspublished by the Prehistoric Society. As with most Festschriften itcontains a diversity of papers, but it should come as no surprise thatfor this laureate the focus is mainly on the Mesolithic and I shallrestrict myself to these contributions. Of 21 papers 16 cover either theMesolithic or the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition and 12 of these dealwith either Ireland or Britain (Scotland and Star Carr), while LarsLarsson reports on the renewed research at the spectacular cemetery ofZvejnieki in northern Latvia. The Irish and Scottish papers reveal theresearch school founded by Peter Woodman, which has populated the'empty landscapes at the Mesolithic edge of the world' as farnorth as West Voe in the Shetlands. There are papers on artefactclasses, on microregions and raw material acquisition. It is evidentthat the Mesolithic in these countries at the edge is very resistant toresearch and that we are very dependent for our view of the period onthe rare occasions when dwellings and organic material are preserved. Ifeel, however, that we should not let ourselves be seduced into fleeinginto postmodernism to escape the frustrations of poor flint assemblageson bare rocks, an approach adopted, amongst others, by a paper on 400(Mesolithic?) flints from 98 'locales' collected on the shoresof Lough Allen in Ireland. Without intending to be unfair to the other contributors, I wouldlike to pay a special tribute to the authors of three'non-British' papers, who each present excellent and sharpanalyses of important topics and major debates: Erik Brinch Petersen& Christopher Meiklejohn who discuss the isotope study of humanremains in southern Scandinavia, Douglas Price & Hanna Noe-Nygaardwho consider the earliest evidence for domestic cattle and, last but notleast, Bill Finlayson who contributes an inspiring and polemic articleon the archaeological (mis)use of the concept of 'complexhunter-gatherers' and more generally the use of ethno-analogies inour modelling of past societies. This is a paper that anyone dealingwith late foragers and early farmers should read and reread. The bookends with an index carefully composed by Julie Gardiner. North Sea central? Mesolithic studies in the North Sea Basin and beyond contains thepapers of a one-day conference in Newcastle, organised because 'itwas thought timely to follow up the excavations at Howick ... discussingrecent finds from countries surrounding the North Sea Basin', whichhas been 'a dynamic environment subject to immense change duringthe Late Quaternary and early Holocene' and because 'The ebband flow of cultural interactions ... poses an exciting challenge toarchaeologists'. These quotes from the introduction sound quiteambitious compared to the content of the volume. Apart from the shortintroduction there are 15 contributions, 11 of which are on British andtwo on Scandinavian Mesolithic topics. The southern part of the Basin isnot considered. Most prominent is the contribution by Clive Waddington on thespectacular round hut, discovered in an erosion scar on a cliff edge atHowick in Northumberland, dating to the early eighth millennium cal BC.In addition Waddington gives an overview of Mesolithic hut structuresand intrasite features in the British Ides, with some references tosites abroad, and proposes a new classification system of sites based onthe modes of residency; these may however not be so easily applicable inmost real world cases. A hut, in many respects comparable to the'Mount Sandel type', is the hut from East Barns, East Lothian,Scotland, presented by John Gooder. Both are examples of goodstate-of-the-art field archaeology. I regret to say that quite a few of the other papers which reportfieldwork are disappointing in their interpretation and/or presentation.What makes Saveock in Cornwall Mesolithic? Are there no doubts oralternatives for the Hawcombe Head clay floor? Do the [sup.14]C dates ofpine charcoal at Silvercrest really date the post circles "in anarea of predominantly Bronze Age remains'? If so, are we tounderstand that the two circles are 1100 years apart? And why are themicrolithic assemblages at Oliclett not retooling locations at selectedpoints and why 'suggest' and 'believe' so much onthe basis of one modest flint assemblage on 'mound A'? For meah 'enculturated landscape' needs more tangible evidence, morethan a few artefacts at more or less special places, where theygenerally are. Surprisingly no reference is made to the spectacular remote sensingresearch by the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at theUniversity of Birmingham (Fitch et al. 2005; now Gaffney et al. 2009,published after the volume reviewed here) or to the Early Mesolithicfinds from the North Sea floor itself, such as those from the BrownBank. Some illustrations could have been designed more carefully andincluded scale bars and more precise information on the location ofsites and trenches. but the book makes knowledge available in acondensed form, knowledge otherwise not easily accessible, especiallyabroad. Swedish post-modernism Tom Carlsson's book is an explicit and emphaticallypostmodernist reconsideration of his 1999-2003 excavation atMotala-Strandvagen in Ostergotland in Sweden, a 90m long and 10-20m widesection of a late Mesolithic riverbank site of unknown extent. Anearlier report was published in Swedish by the Riksantikvarieimbetet.The site was discovered and excavated--partly underwater--as aconsequence of the construction of a new railway. The site is unique incentral Sweden for its preservation of bone implements (c. 50 barbedpoint fragments) and refuse, allowing that part of the subsistence basedon animal resources to be assessed. The excavation also produced 800hammer stones, over 100 greenstone axes and 180 000 flint and quartzartefacts, two antler punches or pressure flakers and two pieces ofdecorated bone. Most important in the interpretation ('The home inthe world--the world in the home') are two (incomplete) plans ofstructures: a larger oval one measuring 4 x 8.5m (plan) or 5 x 10m(text) and a smaller one, probably circular, of about 4m (plan) or 5m(text) in diameter. Both are indicated by dark shading on all the plans,although no depression or discolouration is mentioned in the text. Awarning is issued to those who are sceptical about these houses: theywill have to put up with 'the Mesolithic house syndrome'.Thirty [sup.14]C dates are spread between c. 5900 and 4500 cal BC, butthe main occupation is considered to date to 5500-5000 BC. Mostinteresting and really unique are two concentrations of fist-sizedpebbles in the muddy bank zone, interpreted as platforms for leisterfishing: close to these stones at least 17 broken tips of bone barbedpoints (Figure 17) were recovered 'in vertical position deep downin the bottom of the river'. Motala is an important and well-documented site and space does notallow me to criticise details of interpretation. It is only sad thatthis alternative postmodern approach is confusingly presented, thatbasic data are difficult to find or not given at all. Above all the 150000 word-long (!) text would have benefited from being shortenedconsiderably. To my mind, there appears to be a significant imbalancebetween the lavish presentation of all the arguments on significance andmeaning and the exposition of the excavated data. Some considerations Data and research strategies, expectations All these pages offer a distinct picture of Mesolithic researchtoday, the efforts of an extensive research community which comprisedover 250 participants at the Belfast meeting. The picture is a mixtureof what people do and would like to do, expressed in severalforward-looking papers (e.g. by Price, Larsson, Milner & Woodman). In general, in most regions, Mesolithic evidence is indeedrestricted to imperishable (stone and flint) materials in scatters witha restricted spatial and stratigraphic resolution. Research concentrateson technology--typology being out of date--and spatial topics: intrasitepatterns, site location, settlement patterns and systems with referenceto the environment, raw material acquisition, mobility andterritoriality. There is a general dearth of evidence, in the form ofdwellings, burials, organic preservation and symbolism, which couldoffer a more vivid view of society. Despite new discoveries, thisappears to be a structural problem for the period. The limits of what ispreserved and therefore what is knowable seem to have been reached andresearch has focused on more of the same, if denser, data sets. Larssoneven observes that: 'Some of us are fed up with cemeteries and goodpreservation, and are eagerly trying to find theories and methods inorder to intensify information from imperishable materials'(Mesolithic horizons, p. xxix). That would indeed be one way to a moresophisticated Mesolithic view. A second element seems to be better dating. There is a distinctpreoccupation with [sup.14]C dating, however without prospects, so far,for a chronology finer than the three to five phases generallydistinguished. Two questions arise: first, whether sharper dates are atpresent a core issue, given the relatively modest changes in theMesolithic trajectory; and second, whether we can expect to establish'duration' with some accuracy on this basis. Hopes rest on new techniques, such as analyses of aDNA, stableisotopes (Sr, [sup.15]N, [sup.13]C, O, S ...), microwear, residue,physical anthropology, computer applications, and, on a larger scale,excavation and intensive survey, especially under water. The number ofstudies dealing with these techniques is, however, quite small in thevolumes reviewed here, as are papers on organics, artefactual as well aseconomic. There still is a gap between wishes and practice. Postmodernism or anthropology? White for some more advanced theory might be the way out from thefrustration generated by the poverty of the evidence, others escape fromreality into postmodern imagination (or should I say'fantasy'?). If the Mesalithic horizons volumes arerepresentative of the whole, it seems that it is the young northernfemale researchers that are especially tempted by this approach.Carlsson (p. 305), quoting Julian Thomas states: 'As a consequenceof the postmodern outlook.., we know (my emphasis) that modern thoughtis probably (idem) the worst conceivable ground for interpretations ofthe Other: in this case, of prehistory and of people of othercultures.' It is my opinion that modern scientific research is theonly way to progress and that we have overcome ethnocentrism and theuncritical use of analogies years ago. A phenomenological approach mayadd value to a rich data set, but cannot replace the lack of basic data.For further reading I suggest consulting Marek Zvelebil in Mesolithichorizons, pp. lii-liii. Instead our view of Mesolithic society would be improvedconsiderably by the adoption of critical anthropological reflections,like those of Finlayson (quoted above) and Alain Barnard (2002) on theforager mode of thought. Definition There is a standing discussion about the continued validity of theconcept of a Mesolithic (see Zvelebil in Mesolithic horizons and Milner& Woodman 2005). This is as if biologists would question whetherthere are mammals. Yes, there are. They are as diverse as bats andgiraffes, whales and pygmy shrews, but they certainly have commondenominators. Diversity in the Mesolithic is far less pronounced. For most of us the 'Mesolithic' represents a stage of thepostglacial, peopled by foragers and collectors who use a stonetechnology, defined specifically in Europe. Outside Europe the period isnot distinguished as such or is named differently. We should not includethe northern hunters up to medieval times, as Marek Zvelebil (inMesolithic horizons) provocatively proposes. We should keep ourperiodisation, which is primarily based on artefact characteristics and,exceptionally, on a 'revolution' (for the Mesolithic/Neolithicboundary), not on supposed shared knowledge systems or commoncosmologies. The upper and lower time boundaries of the Mesolithic areessentially diachronous, like all time boundaries of our'periods', even when we are not able to measure the timedifferences, and they seemingly are 'horizontal'. TheMesolithic ends where the Neolithic starts and it does not matter thatwe cannot always pinpoint the upper boundary because of transitionalphenomena, like in the Swifterbant situation. The same holds for thelower boundary. We should not include the Hamburgian nor should theUpper Palaeolithic include the Azilien. The Allerod interlude asks for aflexible and not a dogmatic approach. That we want to include thepreceding and following periods in our study is a quite differentmatter. But factually this is not important, not a core issue. Uniformity and diversity The Mesolithic people had much in common. They were foragers andcollectors, hunters, gatherers and fishers, concentrating on aquaticresources, living in small groups often in 'persistent places'in use for (many) centuries, all mobile, albeit in different ways. Thegeographical and climatic variation within Europe is self-evidently amajor basis of differentiation: think of the different ways of lifebetween the Mediterranean and the Subarctic, between the Atlantic facadeand interior Russia. Some groups may have adopted pottery. They weregenerally egalitarian, except for a few who may have met the criteriafor 'complex hunter-gatherers' sensu NW coast Indians. This iscontrary to the opinions collected by Lars Larsson (Mesolithic horizons,p. xxviii) and in agreement with Bill Finlayson's arguments. These'complex' societies may after all have been restricted tothose in the Iron Gate area, perhaps not by accident people living atthe frontier of the Neolithic world. After reading or consulting these 2300-odd pages, I am left with anuneasy feeling of scattered information and of a somewhat blinkered viewof the European Mesolithic as a whole. The 'complex andmulticoloured tapestry' (Spikins in Mesolithic Europe, p. 6) isstressed more than the common denominators. The highlights shining froma few oases in these publications are in danger of becoming dimmed bythe rather meagre evidence in most regions. So, a future goal may be to gain a greater appreciation of theMesolithic and do greater justice to these highly successful temperateforager communities. Self-evidently we have to acknowledge and look fordifferentiation, but ! feel that, to complement the regional studies,wider thematic overviews are needed, to bridge the archaeological(semi)deserts and to identify common ground above the differences. Tomentions just one aspect, innovations, documented in regions far apartfrom each other, must also have been part of the outfit of thecommunities 'in between'. And to appreciate these subtleties,more attention should be paid to the quality of illustration, as iscustomary for instance in southern Scandinavia (e.g. Andersen 2009). Finally it is important to restore communication with researchcommunities to the east, regain apparently lost contacts and indeedincrease diachronic contacts with the Upper Palaeolithic and the EarlyNeolithic. By improving our understanding of the transitional stages, weshould also be able to better identify the originality of theMesolithic, its internal dynamics and changes. References ANDERSEN, S.H. 2009. Ronas Skov. Marinarkaologiske undersogelser afkystboplads fra Ertebolletid (Jysk Arkaeologisk Selskabs Skrifter 64).Hojberg: Jysk Arkaeologisk Selskab. BARNARD, A. 2002. The forager mode of thought, in H. Stewart et al.(ed.) Self--and other--images of hunter-gatherers (Semi EthnologicalStudies 60): 5-24. Osaka. FITCH, S., K. THOMSON & V. GAFFNEY. 2005. Late Pleistocene andHolocene depositional systems and palaeogeography of the Dogger Bank,North Sea. Quaternary Research 64: 185-96. GAFFNEY, V., S. FITCH & D. SMITH. 2009. Europe's lostworlds: the rediscovery of Doggerland (CBA Research Report 160). York:Council for British Archaeology. MILNER, N. & P. WOODMAN. 2005. Looking into the canon'smouth, in N. Milner & P. Woodman (ed.) Mesolithic studies at thebeginning of the 21st century: 1-13. Oxford: Oxbow. MODDERMAN, P.J.R. 1988. The Linear Pottery Culture: diversity inuniformity. Berichten van de Rijksdienst voor het OudheidkundigBodemonderzoek 38: 63-140. (1) With apologies to Pieter Modderman (1988) Leendert P. Louwe Kooijmans, Formerly Faculty of Archaeology,University of Leiden; now Het Jachthuis, Imbosch 5, 6961 LJ Eerbeek, TheNetherlands (Email: louwekooijmans@planet.nl)