Book review. Stone Age Scania: Significant places dug and read by contract archaeology.

By Magnus Andersson, Per Karsten, Bo Knarrstrom & Mac Svensson.
Lund : National Heritage Board, Archaeological Excavations Department, 2004
256 p : ill., maps ; 24 cm
ISBN/ISSN: 9172093277

Reviewed by Mark Edmonds

This handsome and well written publication presents a synthesis of the 'stone age' sequence for Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden. Undoubtedly of direct interest to those with a specific research or other connection to this particular part of southern Scandinavia, the volume also has a value and a relevance that goes beyond the geographic and chronological boundaries of the archaeology that it presents.

The clue to this broader relevance lies in the title. The book, the first of a series, is the product of many years of survey and excavation conducted in the contract environment. Unlike most syntheses, which all too often fall back on and recycle long favoured sites and artefacts, this study makes exclusive use of evidence derived from developer funded fieldwork, from small private projects to larger state sponsored schemes. It brings new material into focus, using the evidence of occupation sites, monuments and artefact inventories to chart the changing character of landscape and society from the Palaeolithic to the final Neolithic.

The tone of the volume is set in a succinct and valuable introduction. Setting the geographical scene, this opening section establishes the broader context of the work, drawing a contrast with earlier syntheses that have often paid only lip service, if that, to the insights gained in the contract environment. Historically, this has meant that accounts have often been biased towards landscape zones, scales of fieldwork and forms of evidence that, while interesting and valid as subjects of study, are relatively easy to access. What happened with the emergence of contract archaeology was an opening up of those zones where problems of scale and finance had effectively precluded all but the most chance discoveries. Despite the important work of RESCUE, much the same argument could be made for fieldwork in Britain prior to PPG16 and Development Control.

This point has, of course, been made elsewhere, as has the argument that one of the constraints of work in the contract environment is that the choice of where to work is usually made with reference to non-archaeological criteria. What this book demonstrates very effectively is the possibility of breaking those constraints; of working to research agendas and making significant and original contributions to our understanding. Once again, there are parallels to be drawn closer to home; in the outlining of regional research frameworks and, in particular, in the long term commitment to research issues shown by a number of units. There may be still some way to go, and numerous problems, not least in the area of publication. But there is now enough work coming through to demonstrate that the conventional caricature/opposition between academic and contract work really does need to be chucked on the spoilheap.

So how successful is this synthesis? What does it offer and who is it for? The tone, depth and writing style suggest that the volume is meant to have a fairly broad appeal. The narrative is lucid and accessible without being simplistic, and the numerous figures make an important contribution to the account. This is certainly not a volume to be excavated by other professionals in search of the details from one project or another - that material lies elsewhere. What we get here is a more continuous narrative where evidence is harnessed to an account which places past communities at the centre of the picture.

The structure of the book is shaped by specific sites or project areas. Individual chapters open with the details of Palaeolithic flint scatters, Mesolithic coastal sites or Neolithic houses, monuments and axe workshops. Highlighted on differently coloured pages, these are described in outline terms before discussion widens out to explore broader themes; the colonisation of landscapes, the concept of domestication and social change in the Neolithic. There are certainly a number of interpretive issues to argue with here, but that is only because the book takes an original and provocative approach to the sequence and works with new and frequently exciting material.

This is not perhaps the place to get into specific arguments about interpretation. What is relevant here is the manner of the presentation. The book uses a number of different conventions of representation, many of which have their roots in aesthetic traditions that have long been the hallmark of Scandinavian archaeology. There are images of graves, bodies and their immediate context picked out in greyscale tones in a way that harks back to old engravings. Woodcuts (or drawings that look like woodcuts) are also used in the introductions to specific sites, and here it is interesting that the subjects are often not the past, but the present context of fieldwork. I particularly liked the image of three archaeologists standing on the baulk of a narrow trench with hands in pockets, staring at the line of post holes. What did surprise me was how few maps there were, particularly those pitched at the level of regions, or at the scale of particular landscape traditions. While the text brings these issues to the fore, there was a space for images that needed to be filled. Beyond this, we are treated to a number of different kinds of image. There are photos of work in progress - usually, and thankfully with people in rather than those static 'anatomy' pictures that dominate so many reports. There are also a few 'reconstruction' photos, the most effective being the colour image of a burning Neolithic palisade, modelled at night using flaming torches. There are also lots of pictures of flint artefacts. Now I like a bit of flint myself, and the quality of the drawings is fine indeed. But I did wonder whether or not there might have been a more original way to represent the artefacts and the practices in which they were caught up; again, there was a sense of the images being at odds with the tone and content of the narrative.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I'd certainly take issue with some of the arguments, and I think that some of the experiments in presentation could have been taken further. But that, perhaps, is not the point. What is important is that the book provides new insights on the region,and contributes to broader debate through the medium of contract fieldwork. In that, it is more than successful and a reminder that our commitments to publishing go far beyond the grey literature. We need more works like this closer to home.

Mark Edmonds (biography)

Mark Edmonds experimental work in the presentation of archaeology continues and he has recently taken up a post with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit for the express purpose of publishing their grey literature.