The Maglemose Culture: The Reconstruction of the Social Organization of a Mesolithic Culture in Northern Europe.

Mithen, Steven

While the Mesolithic of southern Scandinavia receives very wide attention in the literature, the vast majority of this is directed to the Ertebolle, the Later Mesolithic. Consequently the appearance of two books in a single year concentrating on the earlier period, the Maglemose, is of great interest. That by H.P. Blankholm, On the track of a prehistoric economy, should certainly be read along with Ole Gron's work as both concentrate on drawing inferences from the spatial distribution of artefacts on sites. But while Blankholm is concerned with economic patterns, Gron's interest is with social organization.

The premise behind his book is that the space within hunter - gatherer dwellings is organized by a set of rules which is distinct to that culture. These rules often derive from the mythological ideas of the people and the dwelling-space may be a representation of their cosmos. Gron's concern is to make a spatial analysis of the artefact distributions from a set of Maglemosian sites with the intention of identifying recurring patterns which, he assumes, will reflect the rules of this particular culture. To avoid distortions introduced by disturbance and cleaning of dwellings, Cron focuses on the spatial distribution of microliths. He claims that the size of such artefacts minimizes the chance that they have been secondarily deposited. Moreover, he claims that this class of artefact has a clear functional role, the tips and barbs of hunting weapons, and consequently functional influences on artefact distributions can be minimized so that the social rules can be more readily inferred. This assumption about the function of microliths is just one of several that can be seriously questioned in his work. Another is that the number of pieces of burnt flint is a useful indicator for the location of hearths.

To undertake his study Cron considers more than 25 sites (or levels within sites), although he concentrates on the relatively well preserved Ulkestrup huts. The second half of his slim volume is devoted to a catalogue of the sites in which he provides information about location and excavation. In the first half he builds himself a data-base for each site in which he specifies attributes such as the number and size of microlith concentrations and hearths, the geometric relations between these, the distance and direction to the shoreline.

To arrive at this data-base Cron examines the spatial distribution of artefacts. He argues that statistical methods are inappropriate for such data and consequently he relies on visual inspection. I found his rejection of statistical methods too vague and brief to be convincing, and throughout the volume I wished that there could be some way of validating his inferences about the distribution patterns he infers based on no more than his own subjective, visual inspection of the data. For instance, he argues that the different microlith types on the floor of Ulkestrup I show 'systematical difference' in their distribution; I was not convinced.

Due to the reliance on visual inspection the diagrams of artefact distributions play a particularly important role in this work, as Gron acknowledges by stating that the data are given as 'optimal graphical representation'. He relies on diagrams of interpolated contours of artefact densities derived from the raw counts of artefacts in each grid square of the excavation. While this is indeed the appropriate technique, although one might question such a strict adherence to equidistant contours, his diagrams fall rather short of being 'optimal'. They provide a clear indication of where artefact concentrations may be located, but as we are not given the sample size of artefacts, it is unclear whether these concentrations are of tens, hundreds or thousands of microliths. I found trying to work this out from the numbers placed on the contour lines which specify densities per sq. m too demanding, partly because the numbers were often too small to read. Indeed, the absence of raw data in the volume is a shortcoming; remarks such as 'the small numbers of lanceolate points' (p. 31) or the 'low concentrations of . . .' (p. 23) are frustrating to the reader since we have no idea of what 'small' or 'low' means in this context.

Using no more than visual inspection, Gron readily identifies microlithic concentrations, hearths (defined by concentrations of burnt artefacts) and proposed traces of dwellings. I found the lack of explicit criteria for how these were identified to be another shortcoming, as was the limited concern with the technological organization. For instance, when discussing the floor of Ulkestrup I he notes the shortage of flakes and irregular pieces as compared to blades and cores (although we are not given any actual figures or ratios, nor told what to expect). He explains this by a removal of the flakes and irregular pieces - they were 'swept away to the periphery'. But were they ever there? We should expect to find different stages of knapping at different sites rather than necessarily all stages present at all sites and in the same frequencies.

Gron acquires and then interprets his data base for spatial patterns within dwellings. He concludes that the basic element in the Maglemose culture was one hearth zone and one microlith concentration. In small huts this element has an axis which is parallel to the shoreline, while in huts with a dual set of hearths/microlithic concentrations, the axes are claimed to be perpendicular to the shore. A third category of dwelling shows no preference for the angle of the axis to the shoreline. This basic element is interpreted as reflecting two individuals, a man (the microliths) and a women (the hearth) and Gron speculates about the spatial relationship of men and women to each other and to the entrance of the dwelling. Any children are said to be archaeologically 'invisible'.

I doubt if many readers will be as confident as Gron is about these interpretations, nor be willing to continue with the microliths=hunting, weapons=men associations which have so long been criticized in Mesolithic studies. And the likelihood of children ever being invisible seems remote. Other readers may question the identification of the basic structural element of one hearth and one microlith concentration that Gron identifies. All readers, however, will very likely applaud Gron's effort in this work of trying to identify spatial patterning, and recognizing that such patterns may contain information about social organization. Anybody who has tried to draw together quantitative data from a wide range of excavations undertaken with different methods and reported in different formats, will appreciate the problems that Gron faced and recognize his accomplishment. For all my criticisms and quibbles I certainly do so myself, finding this an inspiring book.

STEVEN MITHEN Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

Reference

BLANKHOLM, H.P. 1996. On the track of a prehistoric economy: Maglemosian subsistence in early postglacial South Scandinavia. Arhus: Aarhus University Press.