6 2 0 A M E R I C A N A N T H R O P O L O G I S T V O L . 97 . N o . 3 0 S E P T E M B E R 1 9 9 5

of establishing the truth of the theories; to the paradig- matic method in which the role of reason is underplayed; and to the anarchic method of treating all theories as equal, which leads to relativism.

The testability of a theory or explanation is in direct relation to the number of its points that can be checked by empirical observation. Acceptable theories must be rationally consistent and must conforni empirically to the facts. Theories cannot be supported by ad hoc aaust- ments or dogmatic assumptions. Testing refutable theo- ries enipirically is the only means of obtaining scientific knowledge: “The goal of science is to progress,” Bell says, “to generate theories that are closer to empirical truth” (p. 222). He believes that science should “be approached as a rational enterprise” (p. 208), and he agrees with Popper, who “always assumed that scientific explanations were about the real world” @. 231).

Bell delineates the linuts and usefulness of universal and probabilistic covering laws, inductive generahza- tions, and individualistic narratives. And he explains how human agency and actions of individuals of h t o r y can be incorporated into empirically testable explanations.

Bell reconiniends that archaeolo9sts select high- level theories that yield testable hypotheses. Dogmatic views that everything is explainable in econonuc or power-play terms are not testable; when a theory can be used to explain everything whatever the empirical facts are, then it is not useful.

While Bell characterizes positivism as the view that universal laws govern human institutions and that theo- ries incorporating influence of hunian decisions are not empirically verifiable (p. 254) , readers should note that t h is only one of many views labeled positivism. Also, note that “super” in “super-human forces” @p. 267 ff.) means external to human forces, and not supernatural forces.

The weakest part of Bell’s book is found in h re- marks that “the thoughts and commitments of the believer can be interpreted as his or her choices, and those choices can be interpreted as a reason, even a necessary reason, for the existence of churches and other religious institu- tions” @. 271). Here he should have pointed out that using apositivist approach, one can incorporate these thoughts, commitments, arid choices into an empirically testable theory as manifested by behavior.

Bell claims that it is a misconception “to interpret methodological assumptions as empirical statements rather than as heuristic tools” and says that “debating whether they are tnie or false is about as sensible as debating whether hanuners and saws are true or false” (p. 282). But his claim that “method is a tool” is debatable, and Bell’s major methodological point, that “the degree to which a theory is testable is the most important single indicator of its potential to contribute to the advance of

archaeological theory” @. 97) is actually an empirical statement that is tnie or false.

Finally, Bell slips when he says, “that the future is open provides another criticism of the attenipt to estab- lish universals-‘covering laws’--in historical fields such as archaeology. If the future is open, such ‘laws’ are always suspect” (p. 285). Of course; in our contingent world all laws are always suspect. So even if there were positivists who set certain tnith as their goal (who?), none of them ever expected to reach that goal. The search for truth, as Bell hinlself stresses, is an ideal, a methodic guideline, not an endpoint of scientific research.

Accidental Arrhaeologist. Memoirs of Jesse D. Jennings. Foreword by C. Melvin Aikens Salt Lake City: IJniversity of Utah Press, 1994.307 pp.

LINDA s. C0Kl)El.l.

University of Colcnado

Jesse Jennings is a monumental figure in American archaeology, one who has earned its highest honors. He belongs to the National Academy of Sciences and received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for American Archaeology. H e is perhaps best known for his work in the Great Basin, especially at Danger Cave, that revealed a stable cultural adaptation to the Desert West spanning 11,000 years. He is also known for the siiccess of the Glen Canyon project, one of the largest modern salvage archaeology endeavors in the United States. Along the way, he edited and wrote important syntheses of North American archaeology, pioneered the study of the Fremont culture of central Utah, began and edited the Plains Anthropologist, was a founding member of the Society for Professional Archaeology, and established the Utah Museum of Natural History. He is venerated by generations of students.

These memoirs developed out of lectures he has given over the years, especially since his 1986 “retire- ment” from university teaching at IJtah. Though they con- cern his active professional life rather than his personal family history, the memoirs begin with his childhood in eastern New Mexico where his family relocated from Oklahoma City when he was ten. They comment on his undergraduate years at a now defunct Baptist college, his graduate work at the University of Chicago, his first pro- fessional work at the Peachtree site and Orniond Mound in North Carolina, and subsequent Works Progress Ad- ministration excavations for the Tennessee Valley Author- ity. They also touch on a brief sojourn at Kanuna.l,yljil, Guatemala. A deeper view is provided of his work for the National Park Service in the Southeast and on the Plains. Jennings next focuses on his move to the [Jniversity of Utah in 1948 and his teaching and administrative life. He devotes a chapkr to his archaeological research in Poly-

B O O K R E V I E W S 621

nesia during the 1970s and a thoughtful perspective on the Glen Canyon project.

Next are five brief chapters on a variety of topics: archaeologists, mostly men, encountered along the way; “Outside the Ordinary,” a discussion of the Tule Springs and Calico Hills sites; retirement patterns among academ- ics; and a personal perspective on his accomplishments, teachng style, and those archaeological contributions he considers most valuable. The last two chapters, “Archae- ology without Theory” and “The Learning Process,” con- tain Jennings’s more philosophical considerations of ar- chaeology.

The memoirs vary in style; some portions are more graceful than others. On the whole they are interesting, offering insight into the work of archaeology as done by one of its legendary practitioners. Why then the title, Accidental Archaeologist? Jennings never tells us that he went into archaeology because he was fascinated by it or had an intense desire to solve particular archaeologcal problems. I think Jennings went into archaeology because he enjoyed it, was remarkably good at it, and found he could make a living doing it. Searching through the book for some epiphany is fruitless, though at one point he admits admiring the exhibits at the Field Museum and his pleasure in developing displays that communicate to the public. His discussions of the actual fieldwork and analy- sis concentrate on the organization and administration of projects, rather than on great debates about the past or spectacular finds. As Jennings put it,

My professional life has been shaped by no personal ‘life plan,’ the couirses I followed being all opportunistic. Chance or luck or circumstances brought me interesting jobs, which I took as they opened up and nierely did what seemed necessary or appropriate or possible within the context of the situation @.

As the man whose concept of desert culture has helped organize our thoughts and enhance our under- standmg of the ancient inhabitants of much of the western United States, Jennings notes the following: “Any contri- bution, whether it be an idea or corpus of empirical data, if it survives testing and proves to be useful soon sinks into the vast reservoir of common knowledge and is taken for granted” (p. 258). Nevertheless, I suspect Jennings’s name will be associated with numerous accomplishments in American archaeology for years to come.

185).

Late Quaternarg Chronology and Pakoclimates of the Eastern Mediterranean. Ofer Bar-Yosef and Renee S. Kra, eds. Tucson: Radiocarbon, University of Arizona, 1994. 371 pp.

ANTHONY E. MARKS Sou them Methodist University

This volume mainly contains papers presented in 1991 at the 14th International Radocarbon Conference. It covers three mqjor areas: the dating of the Near Eastern Middle Paleolithc; the dating of the Neolithic/Chalcolithic of the same area; and eastern Mediterranean paleocli- mates of the last 20,000 years, with some additional dis- cussion of absolute dating in regional and local eastern Mediterranean Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological sequences. Volumes that deal almost wholly with dating tend, at best, to be ephemerally important. Mostly, this book’s papers are important and interesting, especially those of Mercier and Valladas, Schwarcz, Farrand, and Tchernov, which discuss Near Eastern Middle Paleolithic dating. What strikes one most are the disagreements among these papers, the numerous explicit statements of uncertainty because of technical problems, the number of unclear associations between dates and stratigraphic units, and the significant conflicts among different data sources. Since this period in the Near East is central to the current, high-profile debates about the origins and spread of anatomically modern people, these papers should be studied thoroughly. Perhaps the most succinct conclusion is that offered by the editorj: “we hope this volume will evoke a cautious, or even skeptical spirit of investigation“ (p. 8). If these words do not resonate, then figure 1 (p. 3), showing all the “absolute” dates from the important site of Tuban, should be more convincing. On a broader level, the “dating” of the Middle Paleolithic at Bir Tarfawi, Egypt, using a myriad of systems, eloquently demon- strates the conflicting and sometimes unreconcilable dif- ferences in the “absolute” dates produced.

Articles dealing with larger or later temporal periods are of mixed quality, one extreme of which are simple lab reports in Radiocarbon format (Housley) and others ap- proachmg this form (Garrad et al. and Cauvin and Stroeder). The former supply specific dates with insight- ful comments on their archaeological context, related dates and publications, as well as technical notes, al- though not all dates are related in time or space. The latter articles are better focused, covering only a small area and limited time, but contextual mformation, which makes any dates useful, is less specific, limiting their value for the nonspecialist. Most of the other articles in this group (Byrd, Kuijt and Bar-Yosef, Simmons and Wigand, Koz- lowski, and Burns) are brief summaries of regional ar- chaeology or discussions of some aspects of its absolute dating, presenting long lists of radiocarbon dates with only minimal information about each. There are, for in-