Book Reviews
doubling the age of human occupation presented by Mulvaney
at the 1983 meeting. The Illusion of Riches presents a detailed
study of two rockshelters from southern Tasmania, Nunamira
Cave and ORS7, with a record of human occupation spanning
the Last Glacial Maximum. This work represents another
chapter in the comprehensive study of southwestern Tasmanian archaeology, produced as part of the Southern Forests
Archaeological Project.
Cosgrove has set out to investigate the temporal and spatial
variability of human occupation during the late Pleistocene.
Both archaeological and palaeoenvironrnental data were considered within the fi-amework of a palaeoecological model for
human occupation and subsistence in different environmental
zones.
The monograph is divided into five parts, with 13 chapters.
Part I introduces the topic and study areas of southwest and
southeastern Tasmania. Part 2 describes the study areas of
Nunamira Cave and ORS7, including site formation processes,
excavation techniques and radiocarbon chronologies. Part 3
presents stone artefact analyses, and Part 4, the faunal analyses.
Part 5 firstly discusses the evidence, drawing comparisons
between the two sites; secondly, it places these sites within a
broader framework, in an attempt to explain the different
artefact discard rates, the different stone raw material composition, faunal composition and assemblage profiles.
Cosgrove's study highlights the regional variability associated with different ecological settings, and challenges the
notion of 'homogeneity' that has been previously ascribed to
Pleistocene human populations. Recognition of regional variability has arisen with the increasing number of Pleistocene sites
investigated, both in a temporal and spatial sense. Cosgrove's
work is an important addition to this change in perspective.
Moreover, Cosgrove challenges the use of the rehgiurn concept
for mainland arid zone sites, which, he argues is based on too
few sites and little data. Inadequate time resolution and low
density of cultural material create additional problems in addressing human use of different environmental zones, subsistence
strategies, and acquisition of stone raw material, particularly
during the Last Glacial Maximum - a period of climatic flux.
In addition, different scales of analysis prove problematic when
extrapolating changes observed at the continent or regional
level to the ecology of localities - i.e. the flow-on effect of
climatic change on flora, fauna and people.
Distinct environmental differences between the Tasmanian
southeast and southwest have been highlighted by Cosgrove,
and the palaeoecological model proposed for each region goes
some way towards explaining the different archaeological signatures. Cosgrove acknowledges the problems associated with
small sample size (the study based on one southeast Tasmanian
site, ORS7), however modelling the attributes for each region
provides a good foundation for testing ideas about the environmental constraints on human populations in a sub-Antarctic
environment during the Late Pleistocene period.
The Tasmanian study provides an important marker in the
examination of Pleistocene populations and the assumptions
we make about the use of resources and landscape. 7 k Illusion
of Riches documents distinct regional variants of flaked stone
assemblages, based in part on the presence and distribution of
thumbnail scrapers. In light of this newly-found variation,
constructs such as the 'Core Tool and Scraper Tradition' can
72
be seen as no longer appropriate. Comparisons with other
Pleistocene sitedregions may only be appropriate in a general
sense due to the variations in environmental constraints on subsistence activities, acquisition of stone raw materials and movement of people across the landscape. For example, the recent
discovery of seed grinding assemblages dating to approximately
30,000 years at the Cuddie Springs site further highlights the
differences in strategies of food procurement in different environmental regions.
The only criticisms I have of the monograph are the separation of the figures from the text, which means flipping back
and forth through the volume, and the minimalist figure legends,
which should stand alone in the information conveyed. These
are only minor points. The Illusion of Riches provides another important chapter in the Pleistocene prehistory of Tasmania and Australia, and clearly demonstrates the complex and
dynamic nature of Pleistocene human populations, providing
further confirmation of trends identified in other regions of
the continent.
RETURNING TO NOTHING: THE MEANING OF LOST
PLACES by Peter Read. Melbourne: Cambridge University
Press (1996) 240 pages. ISBN 0 52 1 57 154 5 (hardcover).
Price $90.00.
Veronica Strang
Peter Read's new book, Returning to Nothing deals with an
issue of universal importance: the meaning of place. The book
considers the concept of place as a repository of history and
sentiment, and as an inextricable part of the construction of
human identity. Focusing on the myriad relationships between
people and places, it shows how the severance of these ties
represents a loss that both traumatises and bereaves.
Returning to Nothing explores a number of 'lost places':
pastoral stations handed on to other generations or lost to
national parks; the far-off homelands of rehgees fleeing from
war; towns flooded in the construction of reservoirs. It also
deals with accounts of homes consumed by bushfires; a lake
drowned by the construction of a dam; the destruction of Darwin
in the cyclone of 1974; and the razing of whole neighbourhoods for road development.
Weaving an intelligent and well-infonned discussion with
a series of compelling first-hand accounts, Read explores
many of the issues involved. He opens the discussion with
philosopher Gaston Bachelard's assertion that all inhabited
space bears the essence of 'home' for human beings, or as Read
says (p.2),
Humans ... are able and feel the necessity to t u n
space into place, to identify a site as being in some
way different from another site, to erect mental
boundaries around it, to live or work in it, to call
it home.
How they go about this, he maintains, is partly constructed to
suit their individual needs, but also according to the organisational principles of their culture, its group dynamics, ideologies,
institutions and values.
Read gives strong support to his arguments with a plethora
of historical examples, including ancient Roman attachments
to land, the 'lost places' in the Domesday Book, and a tragic
tale h m 1489 in which eighty people were evicted from their
Australian Archaeology, Number 4 4 , 1997
Book Reviews
homes to go 'sorrowfully away into idleness: to drag out a
miserable iife and - truthfully - so to die in misery' (p. 18).
Read's willingness to acknowledge culture as central to the
interaction between people and place enables him to frame his
informants' accounts with a cultural context, and so to recognise
some of the critical differences between Aboriginal and white
Australian relationships with place, as well as their areas of
common ground. It also allows him to consider the interplay
between different sub-cultural groups, such as farming communities and conservationists, and their relationships with the
wider national community and its political structures. In addition
the book deals briefly, and somewhat tentatively, with issues
of gender and space, and the differing relationships that men
and women have with the places that they inhabit. Inevitably,
each of these discussions is somewhat politically hught: though
Read gives some space to consideration of Aboriginal attachment to land, his major focus is on the previously less explored
attachments of white Australians. He deals with this issue
sensibly, but given Australia's bitter and continuing conflicts
over land rights, one has to wonder whether all readers of his
book will be so even-handed.
As well as exploring particular attachments to place, the
book also considers wider environmental issues, western cultures' abstract visions of wilderness and 'nature', and the ways
in which places are contested and reformulated to represent
cultural as well as personal identity and values. In Read's
view, some of the west's dominant cultural forms, for example
its religious and economic practices, have contributed to the
perceived alienation from place which has been a persistent
theme in Australia's colonial history. However, throughout
the book, the many heartfelt descriptions of the effects of loss,
whether of homes or other loved places, support his argument
that attachment to place is a universal human need, a process
that will not be denied however nomadic people become.
The book therefore offers considerable insight into some
of the hidden emotional costs of modem life, and picks up
on some of the issues raised by Berger and Luckman in the
1960s and 70s, questioning the value of westemers' assumed
luxury of 'mobility' and transience. It also raises important
questions about why, thirty years on, attachment to place is
still largely excluded from discourse about heritage, from
environmental assessments and from most areas of public
policy. The book makes it plain that the feelings engendered
by the loss of place can be equated with those experienced in
the loss of a close relative, friend or partner. This straightforward analogy helps to make visible the symbolic role of
place in enabling human beings to confront issues of mortality.
This and the other myriad meanings of place have been explored
previously by anthropologists and historians (Agnew and
Duncan 1989; Gans 199 1 ; Massey 1992; Morphy 1993; Myers
1 986; Searnon and Mugerauer 1989; Seddon 1972; Strang 1997;
Tuan 1979). Other writers have dealt with the complementary
meanings of material culture (e.g. Appadurai 1986; Miller 1
but Read's well-written and accessible account of human attachments to 'lost places' will doubtless encourage firther research
into this important area.
Appadurai, A. 1986 The Social L& of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Gans, H. 1991 People, Places and Policies. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Massey, D. 1992 A place called home. New Formations l7:3-15.
Miller, D. 1987 Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Morphy, H. 1993 Colonialism, history and the construction of place:
The politics of landscape in northern Australia. In B. Bender
(ed.) Landscape, Politics and Perspectives, pp.205-43. Providence: Berg.
Myers, F. 1986 Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self Sentiment, Place and
Politics Among Western Desert Aborigines. Washington:
Smithsonian Institute Press.
Seamon, D. and Mugerauer, R. (eds) 1989 Dwelling, Place and
Environment. New York: Columbia University Press.
Seddon, G. 1972 A Sense of Place. Adelaide: University of
Western Australia Press.
Strang, V. 1997 Uncommon Ground: Cultural Landscapes and
Environmental Values. New York: Berg
Tuan, Y. 1979 Space and Place. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
THE BRONZE AGE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA by Charlcs
Higham. Cambridge World Archaeology Series. Melbourne:
Cambridge University Press (1 996) 38 1 pages. ISBN 052 1
56505 7 (paperback). Price $39.95.
Robert Theunissen
The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia is the latest addition to
the Cambridge World Archaeology series. Each volume in the
series is intended to present an up-to-date survey of the archaeology of a region for professional archaeologists, students
and academics in related disciplines. In this Higham has
succeeded despite formidable obstacles. The archaeology of
Southeast Asia is characterised by often conflicting primary
data that have been recorded and interpreted in a bewildering
array of languages. Higham manages to synthesise this conhsion of data into a coherent whole, while still maintaining
much of the original integrity of the data for independent
inquiry.
Instead of simply revamping his earlier work, The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia (Higham 1989), this new
book specifically tackles one of the more controversial periods
in the region's prehistory - the Bronze Age. The Southeast
Asian Bronze Age has been considered anomalous in the context of world prehistory because the first use of bronze in the
region appears to pre-date the rise of social elites and specialist
bronze workers by two millennia or more. Higham deals with
the issue by addressing two key questions:
a. Was the Southeast Asian Bronze Age an early, independent
development in the late 3rd/early 2nd millennium BC,
and
b. What was the social context in which bronze first appeared
and how did its use develop over time?
In the early chapters, Higham poses these questions in
the context of current research on the Southeast Asian Bronze
Age and its historical development. He presents the evidence
needed to answer these questions in the central chapters through
a critical and systematic site-by-site review of the available
References
Agne~v.I. and Duncan. J. 1989 The Po\c'er of Place. Boston: Un~vin dates for bronze technology in the region and the social conHyman.
texts in which bronze is found. An innovation in this review