The Practical Impact of Science on Near Eastern and Aegean Archaeology. (Reviews of Books).

Knapp, A. Bernard

The practical Impact of Science on Near Eastern and Aegean Archaeology. Edited by SCOTT PIKE and SEYMOUR GITIN. Wiener Laboratory Monograph, vol. 3. London: ARCHETYPE BOOKS, 1999. Pp. ix + 169, illus. [pounds sterling]20, $30(paper). [Distrib. by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif.]

The relationship between archaeologists and archaeological scientists has often been a tortured one, and after fifty years of attempting to work out the essentials of communications, one would hope that the bases for a long-term partnership had been established. Most major, annual archaeological conferences (e.g., AIA, SAA, ASOR) regularly incorporate symposia or colloquia devoted to presenting the results of science-based research in archaeology, and these sessions more often than not involve both archaeologist and scientist collaborating in the presentation of their work. Every other year, science-based archaeologists organize the by-now well-known Archaeometry meetings, at least thirty of which have now taken place. In addition, over the decades, several "around tables" or workshops have been set up in the attempt to establish the ground rules and to foment communications between archaeologists and their scientifically-oriented colleagues. One recent and very encouraging development is the emergence of you nger scholars who have been trained both as archaeologists and as scientists: increasingly they play a major role in the growth and maturity of science-based archaeology.

Many archaeologists today accept that science-based archaeology can contribute positively to the resolution of socio-cultural and material culture problems. Others remain skeptical of archaeological science or baffled by its results. The analysis and statistical (i.e., quantitative) orientation and practice of science-based archaeology often seem to stand in contrast to, if not in conflict with, social or behavioral (i.e., qualitative) approaches championed by the diverse "archaeologies" practiced in the twenty-first century. Thus one might venture to say that the collaboration between archaeologists and their science-based colleagues has yet to realize its full potential. Until these two groups accept the need for and put into practice a more active, integrative spirit of collaboration, this reality will not change. Such collaboration would enable both fields to make important contributions to understanding the past. From an archaeological point of view, the bottom line is that scientific analyses alone can never distinguish between cultural possibilities: quantitative data are non-definitive, open-ended, subject to multiple socio-cultural interpretations, and must be evaluated by archaeologists and scientists working together.

So, given such concerns, where does the present volume fall on the spectrum between archaeology and archaeological science? The three-paragraph preface by the editors (their only palpable contribution to the volume) certainly espouses the need for collaborative research programs and for careful communication "within and between the fields of archaeology and science" (p. vii). The one-page introduction to the volume by James D. Muhly, himself a long-time collaborator with archaeological scientists and especially archaeometallurgists, is equally positive and equally insistent that communications between archaeologists and scientists must be facilitated and encouraged; he also stresses that a successful "partnership" necessitates the active participation of individuals from both fields (p. ix).

The volume itself is comprised of twenty-two papers taken from a workshop held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem an(l Tel Aviv University in 1996, organized by the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (Jerusalem) and the Wiener Laboratory at the American School of Classical Studies (Athens). These studies have been divided into three general categories: botanical remains, osteological remains, and geological and other material studies. The subjects of these papers are diverse: amongst others, dendrochronology, phytolith analyses, palynology, zooarchaeology, DNA analyses, geoarchaeology and geochemistry, ESR dating of flint tools, 14C dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls, petrography, neutron activation analysis, and organic residues analysis. The majority of the papers have a strong methodological component, so much so that at times this volume reads more like a primer for science-based archaeology rather than an up-to-date demonstration of the ways in which science can elaborate on the information ava ilable from archaeological data. Fully half the papers are devoted to geological and other material studies. One of the most striking omissions, in my opinion, are attempts to interpret and understand the analytical results in social or cultural terms, a shortcoming also apparent in the paucity of references to works on social, technological or other archaeological theory that seeks to engage analytical data.

Certainly there are exceptions to this general trend in the volume, and to exemplify its positive aspects I shall discuss briefly one example from each section. Un Baruch's (Israel Antiquities Authority) chapter in the botanical section on the contribution of palynology and anthracology (the study of charred wood remains) to archaeological research in the southern Levant reveals that the notable fluctuations in the vegetational history of the region over the l)ast 20,000 years were primarily climatic in origin during the Pleistocene but human-induced during the Holocene. Employing data from several case studies, he argues persuasively that the cultivation of the olive began much earlier (5th millennium B.C. in the Hula Valley) than previously thought. (In another contribution to this volume, Nili Liphschitz maintains that the olive was only cultivated in the Early Bronze Age). Baruch also argues that the sharp climatic deterioration associated with the "Younger Dryas" epoch (ca. 11,000-10,000 Cal ]3P) resulte d in a severe contraction of forest vegetation and a "global climatic crisis" (p. 20) that must have impacted the emergence of agriculture, perhaps even the earliest "colonization" of the island of Cyprus by pinto-agriculturalists from the northern Levant.

In the section on osteological remains, Liora Horwitz's (Dept. of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology, Hebrew University) chapter uses zoo-archaeological data in an attempt to identify "ritual" sites. Her premise is that secular sites should contain a broader range of animals fulfilling more diverse functions (food, labor, transport) than those found at ritual sites. Moreover, highly selective "sacred bone assemblages" should reveal more limited age/sex categories and a narrower range of activities than those found in domestic assemblages. Using data from two Iron Age sites in the Negev (Horvat [Uza.sup.[subset]] and Horvat Qitmit) and from Iron Age Tel Dan, she argues that the zoo-archaeological data from Qitmit, known to be a cultic site from other evidence, are highly selective in terms of species, body parts and age classes. At Tel Dan, comparing animal bone data from the "domestic zone" of Area M with those from the "Altar complex," Horwitz shows that even though there is no clear preferential selec tion in the Altar assemblage, the two collections do differ in the relative frequencies of several species. Accordingly, the Altar complex indicates a "... cull oriented toward exploitation of meat with primary butchery activities predominant, while the Area M assemblage contains the remains of prime meat-consumption refuse, and fewer young animals" (p. 68). Although the distinctions, therefore, may not be as clear cut as the author would like, there is nonetheless scope here to pursue the possibility that zoo-archaeological data can help to identify sacred locations in the landscape.

Finally, from the section on geological and other material studies, the petrographic study by Naomi Porat (Israel Geological Survey) and Ann Killebrew (University of Haifa) of Late Antique and Islamic fine and coarse wares from Qasrin in the Golan Heights deserves mention. The authors present a detailed study of the various ware groups established by petrography (including a discussion of the geological sources and likely geographic origins of these groups) as well as descriptions of the various wares, their technology, and their stratigraphic significance. Good correlations were found between the typologically distinct wares and the petrographically established groups. With the exception of some Late Roman and Byzantine cooking wares, most vessels analyzed were made of raw materials from neighboring regions (e.g., Sea of Galilee, Hula Valley, Mt. Hermon) but with at least three groups imported from beyond Palestine. During the Late Roman period, many of the vessels examined derived from the Qasrin area itsel f or from the surrounding regions, whilst during the Byzantine era a large number of fine wares reached Qasrin from (most likely) coastal Asia Minor, Cyprus, or north Africa. Beginning with the early Islamic period, nonlocal calcareous clays became very common in the pottery analyzed from Qasrin, and the authors speculate that these vessels may have been imported from the north, or as far away as Damascus and Baghdad, political centers during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods (p. 139). Thus we can see that these petrographic data from Qasrin have made a notable contribution to studies of Roman and Islamic economic and trade relations in the eastern Mediterranean during the first millennium A.D.

This necessarily brief assessment of these three chapters suggests that collaboration between archaeologists and scientists in interpreting quantitative, analytical data, is not the preserve of either field. Nor does the initiative for more qualitative, social interpretation necessarily stem from the archaeological end of the spectrum. One of the articles was written by an archaeologist alone (Baruch), one by a scientist alone (Horwitz), and one by a scientist working with an archaeologist (Porat with Killebrew). Overall, it seems fair to state that archaeology in the new millennium is attempting to minimize polemic and maximize areas of possible agreement. Multiple perspectives are inevitable in such a climate of cooperation, and we must all come to terms with mutually irreconcilable views about the past. The value of The Practical Impact of Science on Near Eastern and Aegean Archaeology for interdisciplinary collaboration is limited, not least because very few of the studies link data collection/description and scientific analysis with social or cultural interpretation. Any attempt to integrate scientific analysis with archaeological interpretation is fraught with difficulty and may have results at times highly successful and far-reaching, at other times dubious and narrow in scope. This should never proscribe one from making the attempt. The study under review, however, signals a less than optimum future for the partnership between archaeology and archaeological science.