Fragmentation in Archaeology: People, Places and Broken Objects in the Prehistory of South Eastern Europe by John Chapman Review

by: Alasdair Whittle American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 105, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 722-723 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/507420 . Accessed: 18/02/2013 13:36
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[AJA 105

suggest that Thera dumped an ash fall of "more than 15 cm, sufficient to cause substantial damage to crops, livestock, buildings and water supplies." But this is not in accord with observable data: the Katmai tephra caused such damage only when far thicker. Not that this necessarily invalidates Driessen and Macdonald's argument, but such differences must be addressed. The Katmai study suggests instead support for RJ. Blong's claim that Thera's tephra fall on Crete had minimal effect (Thera and the Aegean World 2 [London 1980] 217-25). On a different subject, an implied caution to archaeologists (don't take written sources on faith) runs through several of the articles; and in two of them that caution is overt. J.P. Grattan, D.D. Gilbertson, and A. Dill question a report of a low-intensity eruption of a dormant volcano in Germany in 1783, when a fissure eruption in Iceland covered much of central Europe with a dry, acid fog. Someone sent a letter to a local German newspaper describing the effects and products of a spurious volcanic eruption of Gleichberg, a dormant volcano near Schweinfurt. Although the description was detailed, there is no geologic evidence of an eruption at Gleichberg in the last two million years. The authors conclude the report is likely a hoax or posArchaeologists can draw an sibly a misunderstanding. lesson: if we can't trust a written report that important is only 200 years old, what do we do with those 2000 years old? In their article on classical and archaeological evidence for earthquakes in central mainland Greece, V. Buck and I. Stewart compare the archaeological record with accounts by Strabo, Thucydides, and Diodorus Siculus. All are found wanting. As the authors say, their argument is to "illustrate the uncertainty that accompanies literary and archaeological information, and to highlight the need for caution when using interdisciplinary methods." If we have to be skeptical about ancient written sources, how are we to treat the Delphic oracle? In what the book calls "perhaps the most intriguing proposal," authors J.Z. De Boer and J.R. Hale suggest a geological origin for the oracle. (The only catastrophe I can associate with Delphi is driving a camper there 30 years ago on mountain roads undergoing repair!) This is possibly the best article in the book, well written and fully integrating geology and archaeology. Moderns reject the ancient descriptions; the authors postulate that the Pythia inhaled bituminous gases, got into a mantic mood, and made her declarations. To understand how this came about, one needs the geologic description that precedes the archaeological. A major fault zone and a minor swarm of fractures intersect very near the site; these allowed ground water carrying hydrocarbon gases-from the same geologic horizon that provides the oil of the Middle Eastto rise and be breathed. These gases, in sufficient concentration, should have mild narcotic effects. This book does-and does not-accomplish its stated purpose; most of the articles are at least readable, but a few are dense enough to discourage even the informed expert. Nonetheless, on balance, I find the work impressive, both in its aims and its contents. A caveat: the archaeologist who does not have a geological background will find some articles difficult in places. But the benefits

of seeing these two sciences cooperate make this volume worthwhile. LES COLE
756 OPAL AVENUE VENTURA, CALIFORNIA 93004 LHCOLE@RAIN.ORG

FRAGMENTATION AND BROKEN

IN ARCHAEOLOGY: OBJECTS

PEOPLE, PLACES OF

IN THE PREHISTORY

SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE, by John Chapman. Pp. xii + 296, figs. 42, maps 3, tables 27. Routledge, London 2000. $100. ISBN 0-415-15803 (cloth). Not "a grand narrative in the Childen mode" (xiii), this is nonetheless a wide-ranging analysis of several millennia through the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Copper Age, which draws on evidence from 10 countries of southeast Europe, Greece apart. At its heart lies a concern to put the material culture of these times and places center stage in the lives of people. This is played out by reference to the linked hypotheses of enchainment by fragmentation and of integration by accumulation. From very close attention to the condition, deposition, and character of material objects, linked to an interest in the treatment of the human body after death and in places as ancestral "timemarks," John Chapman is able to work through a series of powerful case studies. These range from the Neolithic and Copper Age sequence in southeast Hungary and the late Copper Age in northeast Bulgaria (ch. 5), to the differing worlds of the late Mesolithic of the Danube Gorges and the rise of the great tell at Vinca-Belo Brdo on the Danube just south of Belgrade (ch. 6). Based on impressively wide reading, sensitive both to anthropological theory and to the archaeological material itself, this is a distinguished and thought-provoking addition to the literature on the prehistory of southeast Europe. It should also cause reflection in other fields. "Enchainment," taken from Marilyn Strathern's famous treatment of indigenous conceptions of social relationships in Melanesia, is an idea of linkage between people. The individual may not be self-contained, and objects associated with people may transfer something of their own and their previous owners' biographies when they come into new hands. Another important (though hardly in itself new) idea is that of deliberate or "structured" deposition, the conscious placing of material in chosen contexts, as opposed to the thoughtless or other abandonment of "rubbish." This is familiar from the mortuary record of the region, but Chapman builds a convincing case for the deliberate retention of material in the domestic sphere. By the time of developed tells (roughly, fifth to fourth millennia B.C.), such deposition had an important part to play in the network of associations of place, past and corporate groups that these sites may represent, and which the author therefore calls "timemarks." Pit-digging provides links with the ancestors (140), and burnt houses may represent contexts where material was deliberately accumulated to be added to the material substance of an ancestral past.

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The further, fundamental part of the argument concerns fragmentation. Chapman invites us to reconsider the process of fragmentation, arguing not only that many objects were deliberately broken but also that their alltoo-frequent incompleteness at the point of archaeological recovery is the result of deliberate retention, removal, and circulation of pieces elsewhere as part of enchainment. The related but opposed principle is that of accumulation, whereby whole objects, or objects forming sets, particularly from the onset of copper and gold metallurgy, are retained, constituting hoards, grave sets, and even the contents of houses to be burnt. Tension between these principles is seen as a major factor in the developed Copper Age contexts of the later fifth and earlier fourth millennia B.C. This perspective encourages welcome attention to the materiality of this period and to the links between people, places, and objects. The general case for various kinds of linkage and enchainment, for the importance of place and timemarks, and for various tensions and shifts in relationships across the millennia, is powerful. One might have wished at the outset for a longer discussion of the nature of individuals, though Chapman is surely right to contest imposing modern, western conceptions on this time and area. The case for at least some deliberate breakage and deliberate deposition is strong, but the claim for will be controverdeliberately created incompleteness sial. Chapman is perhaps too ready to reject alternative of (and simpler) explanations for the incompleteness objects as recovered from many excavations. The argument may be more convincing with selected, perhaps special objects, such as figurines and prosopomorphic lids. In the case of pottery, there are few examples where either enough excavation or sufficient postexcavation analysis has been done. Even at Endrod 119, a small Early Neolithic occupation in the K6r6s valley of the Great Hungarian Plain, and one of the few detailed case studies available to support the hypothesis, analysis of pottery is in fact still in progress. The site was fully excavated by Makkay, but only to the edges of the alluvial ridge on which it lies. As the interim report made clear, the site was plow-damaged and excavated with the help of workmen (as far as I know without sieving). Surfaces survived only in the top of the largest subsoil pits. There are indications that pots from these contexts are more complete than those from the pits (pers. comm., Elisabetta Starnini). Other processes than deliberate human intervention must presumably be taken into account. Some of the other rejected hypotheses for the motives behind breakage and deposition may also have to be considered. The case may work better in earlier situations of mobility than in later contexts of more settled life. Nor is it entirely clear in particular cases how the "tension" between fragmentation and accumulation is seen to have been played out. One might comment that a sense of local agency is missing, overshadowed by these two nearuniversal principles. Perhaps for these reasons, the focus in the longer case studies later in the book shifts noticeably away from fragmentation to place. Here the author continues themes he has already explored in a notable series of papers. This final discussion builds on these, adding for example

the speculation that at Vlasac and Lepenski Vir in the Danube Gorges the ancestors became sedentary long before the living, and a demonstration of the rapid transformation of the site at Vinca from an interesting if unremarkable occupation to a regionally astonishing concentration of objects and ritual activity. It is perhaps in these ways that the links between people, objects, and places best come alive.
ALASDAIR WHITTLE SCHOOL OF HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY CARDIFF UNIVERSITY P.O. BOX 909 CARDIFF CF10 3XU WALES UNITED KINGDOM WHITTLE@CARDIFF.AC.UK

LERNA:

A PRECLASSICAL

SITE IN THE ARGOLID

4:

THE ARCHITECTURE, STRATIFICATION, AND POTTERY OF LERNA III, by Martha Heath Wiencke.Vol.

1, pp. xvii + 311; vol. 2, pp. xxv + 484. American School of Classical Studies, Princeton 2000. $90. ISBN 0-87661-226-5 (cloth).
Even after half a century, Lerna is still the key site for understanding the cultural development in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages in southern Greece. It is of great importance that the entire documentation forJohn L. Caskey's excavations in the 1950s is now being gradually published. This is the second volume with archaeological data, followingJ.B. Rutter's publication of the pottery of Lerna IV (EH III; Princeton 1995). It presents the stratigraphy, architecture, and pottery of Lerna III. The first part of the book is devoted to architecture and stratigraphy. In the introduction we are reminded that as far back as his preparations in the 1960s for the final publication, Caskey had already established a fourstage ceramic division, Lerna III [= EH II] A, B, C, and D, which can be correlated with four building sequences. The most striking break in the sequence occurs between phases B and C, and is marked by radical innovations both within the pottery repertoire and architectural features. At the beginning, Wiencke deals briefly with the few sherds of EH I that date from before phase Lerna IIIA and are sporadic finds on the site. Caskey's general scheme is retained in Wiencke's treatment with corrections based on the studies of stratigraphy and pottery that have taken place since his time; his scheme can now be substantiated, and Wiencke's study creates a firm foundation for evaluating the development of EH II in the northeast Peloponnese. In addition to Caskey's four main phases, Wiencke introduces in part 1 a series of subphases defined on stratigraphic evidence. Architecture and pottery (in part 2) are presented chronologically according to phase: Lerna IIIA early and late; B early, middle, and late; C early, middle, and late; and D. From phase A no constructions are preserved, and it is known only from fills. For Lerna IIIA early, two deposits contain the greater part of the material, and Neolithic sherds, deriving from the first inhabitants of the site, are

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