Book Reviews
Enduring Records: The Environmental and Cultural Heritage Of Wetlands. Barbara A. Purdy (Editor), 2001, Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK, 320 pp., $75.00 (hardcover).
The 27 articles in this volume were presented as papers at a conference on wetland archaeology held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, on December 1-5, 1999. Scientists from 17 countries presented the results of their research and discussed items of importance to the field as a whole. The conference's central theme was the significance of the survival of organic materials from archaeological contexts.
For this volume, editor Barbara A. Purdy organized the papers into five general areas: Florida archaeology; archaeology of the Americas (other than Florida); archaeology of the rest of the world; wetland environments; and management and conversation methods. Short biographical sketches of the authors are presented in the front matter of the book.
In her Introduction, Dr. Purdy makes an eloquent plea for the protection of wetland environments in order to save the cultural materials they might contain. She lists shrinkage of wetlands due to development, expanding agriculture, and peat mining among the major problems, with hopes that this publication will lead to an awareness by governments, developers, and the public of the cultural and environmental heritage that is lost when wetlands are modified.
The articles selected for this volume cover not only many parts of the world, but also a wide range of topics including newly discovered archaeological sites and previously reported sites revisited. Other topics include the conservation and management of wet sites, bog bodies, improved techniques for preserving wet-site artifacts, interpretation of recovered artifacts, and one article that pushes the antiquity of wet-site cultural and biotic materials back to Acheulian times.
Examples of this variety include Werkler and Goren-Inbar's report on the reconstruction of the woodyvegetation environment at Gosher Benot Ya-aqov. This site is located in the Dead Sea Rift system, and dates to 780 ka. At least seven well-dated archaeological horizons, each yielding thousands of artifacts in situ, have been thoroughly investigated. A total of 27 genera of trees and shrubs were identified.
Improved techniques for using polyethylene glycol (PEG) for the conservation of sunken ships are reported by Hoffman. PEG has been used in the conservation of wet-site artifacts for many years (for example, for treating the Swedish ship Vasa and the wooden artifacts form the Ozette site in Washington state, USA). Research reported in Hoffman's article describes markedly improved results achieved by using PEG of different molecular weights in a two-step system. Doran's article describes continuing analysis of burial remains from Florida's remarkable Windover Site, where 168 partial and complete burials were excavated from a mortuary pond. For unknown reasons people living in this area between 8120 14 C yr B.P. and 6900 14 C yr B.P. chose to bury their dead in shallow, freshwater ponds. To date, ongoing DNA studies have failed to identify any descendant population. Textiles and cordage from the Windover Bog are reported by Andrews, Adovasio, Hyland, and Illingworth. Eighty-seven fiber artifacts recovered in association with the burials at this site were painstakingly analyzed for the materials and techniques employed and for their use or function. Andrews et al. conclude that most are pieces of cloth from lightweight rectangular or square blankets, capes, toga-like garments, or shrouds.
In 1566, Spanish bishop Diego de Landa reported to the crown that the Well of Sacrifice (El Cenote de Sagrado), a limestone sinkhole 60 m in diameter, was a place where human sacrifices were made and where gold and other riches were thrown into the water. Coggins reports on various recovered artifacts from this site in Yucatan, Mexico, including gold and copper bells, jade beads and carvings, a wooden scepter topped with a human figure, several atlatls, more than 600 textiles, fragments of sandals and baskets, and scores of other items.