Environment and Ethnicity in the Middle East.

Wilkinson, T.J.

This ambitious book draws on a wide range of archaeological, geographical and linguistic data to trace cultures and language groups back to the Palaeolithic, a task that would daunt most scholars. Before tackling the text, however, it is necessary to give some details on its background. Pavel Dolukhanov was based for many years in the Institute of Archaeology, Leningrad/St Petersburg, where, according to his candid introduction, his manuscripts were frequently ignored or passed over for publication. However, contacts with certain western scholars led to a number of publications on the archaeology or environment of Europe and Central Asia. These include significant contributions on, for example, the ecological prerequisites for early farming in central Asia (Dolukhanov 1981), as well as a study (Dolukhanov 1986) that anticipated some aspects of Indo-European linguistics outlined in Renfrew's Archaeology and language (1987). Originally a geomorphologist and quaternary geologist, Dolukhanov has considerable archaeological field experience, first in European Russia, and later in the Caucasus and central Asia. That he has no first-hand experience or knowledge of the Middle East clearly shows, however, from this volume.

The geographical range of this book encompasses the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and Iran as well as southern ex-Soviet central Asia. Intellectually, Dolukhanov attempts to integrate a wide range of archaeological, environmental and linguistic data to trace cultures to inferred linguistic predecessors as far back as the late Palaeolithic. Following a first chapter devoted to matters of cultural theory, linguistics and archaeological theory, chapter 2 summarizes the ecological and ethnic setting. Although based on a number of standard references, this chapter provides some misleading stereotypes of the Middle East. For example, the statement that 'The Arabian peninsula is almost devoid of trees' (p. 47), although true of large parts of the area today, is not true of, for example, parts of Yemen, Oman and the 'Asir region of Saudi Arabia. In many places these are well vegetated today, and were almost certainly more wooded in the past. More misleading is the statement that the annual average rainfall of Iran never exceeds 100 mm, except for the southern Caspian plain which receives 'about 200 mm'. In fact, significant areas of the Iranian plateau receive more than 200 mm of rainfall, and mean annual rainfall at Rasht (listed in one of his cited references) is 1355 mm per year, For a book that claims to be treating 'environment and ethnicity' these errors are serious because both the rainfall and the vegetation must have been significant factors influencing the development of settlement. Even more relevant, vegetation changes through time are vital to a correct reading of linguist proto-lexica, which form a key part of his approach to tracing linguistic histories.

There then follow four chapters examining the development of material culture, environment and linguistics chronologically from 'Initial settlement' (chapter 3), through 'The Neolithic revolution' (chapter 4), 'Prehistoric farmers and their neighbours' (Chapter 5) to the 'Dawn of civilization' (chapter 6). These chapters provide a wide range of basic data, but are weakened by numerous errors. These include two mislabelled figures (6.4 and 6.5, both taken from Charles Redman's Rise of civilization (1978)). The first implies that the illustrated figurines are Libaid (they are both Ubaid and Uruk), and the second asserts that the page of pottery is entirely Libaid (they are in fact Ubaid, Uruk and Jemdet Nasr in date). Such mistakes are supplemented by a quite remarkable array of typographical errors which should, at least, have been picked up by the editors. The fact that they were not indicates serious problems in the editorial process in this 'Worldwide Archaeology Series'. Page 154 should perhaps even find its way into the Guinness Book of Typographical Errors, for not only are there three spellings of one site - aceramic Neolithic Maghzaliyah (namely Magzaliya, Marzaliya and Mazgaliya) - but Nemrik inexplicably is referred to as Kikruk. On the same page, amongst other errors, Asia Minor becomes Minor Asian and more appealing, Bouqras appears as the quasi-erotic Bourqasm, In chapter 5, among many other slips, the first appearance of 'Halafan' should be Hassuna. In chapter 6, devoted to the Dawn of Civilization, the author inserts an extended treatment of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the Pontic lowlands (pp. 338-9), a topic more appropriate to an earlier chapter. On p. 364, the assertion that Washukkanni the Mitannian capital, has actually been excavated to yield over 5000 texts, rather than simply being known from cuneiform texts, is at best misleading. Elsewhere the text is marred by occasional scruffy figures or maps, such as the over-reduced figure 5.26, which originally appeared at a readable scale in Kohl 1984 (map 9). Although supplied with numerous bibliographic citations, many of the more stimulating or controversial ideas seems to rest upon unsupported statements such as: early human populations had a 'system of communication which included a limited number of mutually comprehensive [sic; should read comprehensible?] signals [which] was largely the same throughout the early human world' (p. 386).

In the conclusion, two Upper Palaeolithic provinces are proposed: a 'periglacial zone' within central and eastern Europe south of the PleistOcene ice sheets, which are identified with the 'pre-Uralic' (i.e. pre-Finno-Ugaric) languages, and second, a Mediterranean zone extending through to the Caucasus, which contain populations originally using Basque/Caucasian languages (p. 389). On p. 390 he then adds that in the Upper Palaeolithic, long-distance contacts spanning the entire Mediterranean province were carried out within the large linguistic area, all the inhabitants of which spoke mutually comprehensible dialects. Accepting Renfrew's model that the spread of the farming economy was associated with the spread of the Indo-European language, he then goes further by suggesting that this language or dialects acted as a common language for inter-group communications in the newly-evolved world of early agriculturalists. The themes discussed in this book parallel those in Renfrew's Archaeology and language, or of variant models (e.g. Zvelebil & Zvelebil 1988 and Sherratt & Sherratt 1988). Unfortunately, because this book is less well argued, has numerous factual errors, and also tackles an even more remote past than Renfrew's work, it is not nearly as convincing.

From its appearance, this book must have been rushed through to press without due attention being paid to normal editing procedure or to such matters as the re-drafting of figures. While reading the extended treatment of cultural sequences from the Palaeolithic to the early 2nd millennium BC, it becomes apparent that both writer and editor lack familiarity with the region or materials being discussed. Dolukhanov might have learned from Renfrew, who, in Archaeology and language, summarized basic archaeological data into one concise 21-page chapter. Curiously, for a book that claims to be treating the Middle East, little attention has been paid to the origins of those communities or languages of the Middle East for which we do have a vast range of archaeological and epigraphic evidence. It seems that Mediterranean Europe, the Pontic region and the Caucasus remain his prime area of interest. Therefore, although potentially provocative and controversial, this book does not do justice to its title, and Dolukhanov (and the reading public) would have been better served by a more limited but less flawed book.

T.J. WILKINSON The Oriental Institute, Chicago (IL)

References

DOLUKHANOV, P.M. 1981. Ecological prerequisites for early farming. in P.L. Kohl (ed.), The Bronze Age civilizations of central Asia. New York (NY): M.E. Sharpe.

1986. Natural environment and the Holocene settlement pattern in the northwestern part of the USSR, Fennoscandia Archaeologica 111: 3-16.

KOHL, P.H. 1984. Central Asia: from the Palaeolithic beginnings to the Iron Age, Edition Recherche sur los Civilisations. Paris. Synthese no. 14.

REDMAN, C.L. 1978. The rise of civilizations from early farmers to urban society in the ancient Near East. San Francisco (CA): W.H. Freeman.

RENFREW, C. 1987. Archaeology and language: the puzzle of Indo-European origins. London: Cape.

SHERRATT, A. & S. 1988. The archaeology of Indo-European: an alternative view, Antiquity 62: 584-95.

ZVELEBIL, M. & K.V. 1988. Agricultural transitions and Indo-European dispersals, Antiquity 62: 574-83.