Review: 178

Author(s): G. A. Wainwright
Reviewed work(s):
Trade Routes, Trade and Currency in East Africa. by A. H. Quiggin
Source: Man, Vol. 50 (Aug., 1950), p. 111
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2794308
Accessed: 04/04/2010 06:48
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AUGUST, 1950

Man

Nos.

175-I79

Both expert and general reader will find the dictionary an instructive and entertaining addition to their works of reference, full of
un-expected information. I was gratified to find, for instance, under
'CIAP,' an up-to-date account of the International Commission on
Folk Arts and Folklore, and under 'abracadabra,' ' birch,' ' eyebrows
neeting' and 'fairy rings' much unfamiliar wisdom.
ETHEL JOHN LINDGREN

have difficulty in appreciating the relevance of this method to their

problems. A second criticism is that no mention is made of the
useful transformations to approximate normality of the correlation
coefficient, binomial and Poisson distributions or the variance
estimate in testing for variance heterogeneity.
The printing and format are excellent and the text is remarkably
D. V. LINDLEY
free from misprints.

Statistical Methods in Research and Production (with special

Reference to the Chemical Industry), Editedby 0. L.
Davies. London(Oliver and Boyd), secondedition(revised),

The Old Stone Age. By M. C. Burkitt. 2nd edition. C. U.P., I949.

Pp. xiv, 254, 9 plates, 30 textfigures. Price I2S. 6d.
The second edition of this well established book contains only a minimum of changes. The fact that entire
chapters can still stand, after seventeen years, with only minor
additions is a tribute to the soundness of the original structure. It
is to be regretted that, for technical reasons, additions and changes
could not have been fuller. For example, the Swanscombe skull and
Mr. Marston scarcely get enough credit in a one-line footnote, while
Piltdown retains its original page or so of text.
Mr. Burkitt is justly known for his expertise on the Upper
Paleolithic and the cave art. This section is brought up to date by
including the more recent work of Professor Garrod and Miss
Caton-Thompson and by a note on Lascaux, with some necessary
reconsideration of the art phases. One may be permitted to doubt
the 'fugitive' nature of carbon as a pigment.
To the student of the geological approach the changes made
represent rather less than the desirable minimum, in view of
advances in fact and theory since the first edition. It is an improvement that the Upper Thames gravels are omitted from the correlation, but Hoxne and the Traveller's Rest still appear in places which
not all workers would find acceptable.
Some will continue to miss capitals in the names of geological
periods, as the zoologist will regret their retention in the trivial
name merckii, and, surely, Machairodus'neogceus' is a New World
species which never existed in Europe?
No cognizance is taken of the now widely entertained theory of
glacial eustasy, in view of the existence of which it may seem daring
to lump the Chalky Jurassic boulder clay, Boyn Hill and Taplow
together under the single heading 'Riss.'
The bibliography contains some essential additions. Room
might have been found, under 'Quaternary Geology' for Zeuner's
more recent 'Pleistocene Period' in place of Wright's classic
'Quaternary Ice Age.'
Shortcomings must evidently be attributed to the fact that the
book was originally printed from stereos, so that considerable
alterations demanded the scrapping of entire pages. Author and
publisher no doubt share the regret which will be felt at such
I. W. CORNWALL
evidence of continuing austerity.

J76

I949. Pp. xi, 292, 20figures. Price 28s.

This book, to quote the foreword, 'is the first of a series of
scientific and technical handbooks which Imperial Chemical
Industries Limited intend to publish with the aim of making
generally available the important body of information accumulated
as a result of the Company's manufacturing experience and research.' In fact it is an excellent textbook of those statistical methods
which the authors have found to be useful in chemical industry.
The chapters deal with Frequency Distributions, Averages and
Measures of Dispersion, Tests of Significance, Analysis of Variance,
Regression and Correlation, Frequency Data and Contingency
Tables, Samplng, Control Charts and Prediction and Specification.
For a full understanding of the book considerable mathematical
equipment is demanded, though a reader who is not afraid of using
symbols freely could manage on only a moderate amount, if he
omits some of the appendixes.
The first three chapters are concerned with the concepts fundamental to any statistical study and are sufficiently general to be useful
to anyone interested in the subject. The remaining chapters deal
with special techniques, and of these the first three contain something
of interest to the physical anthropologist. All the techniques
described are illustrated by numerical examples with ample details
to enable the reader to follow each step, and research workers in
fields allied to chemistry will doubtless find these examples very
helpful. It is doubtful though how many of them anthropologists will
find relevant to their problems. The merit of the book for anthropologists lies in its sound treatment of statistical concepts rather
than in details of individual techniques. On those techniques which
are used extensively in physical anthropology, such as the coefficient
of racial likeness or multivariate analysis in general, the book is
naturally enough silent.
Two criticisms of detail may be noted. First, that the analysis of
variance is presented always from the point of view where the
factors are themselves samples from some Universe; I cannot
believe that this always holds in the chemical industry, and it can
hardly ever hold in anthropology; some readers may therefore

77

AFRICA
Slaves, salt, cotton cloth, iron, copper, beads and cowries were the
chief articles of trade. The 'Katanga crosses' passed from the Cape to
Cairo, from Mombasa to Boma. Abyssinian salt blocks were
acceptable all across Africa in the sixteenth century. Cast pieces of
pewter made a surprising currency on the Zambesi in the seventeenth century. Silent trade has existed into the present century.
G. A. WAINWRIGHT

Trade Routes, Trade and Currency in East Africa. By

A. H. Quiggin.Occ.Pap. Rhodes-Livingstone
Mus., No. 5.

178

Lusaka,NorthernRhodesia, '949.Pp. i6,6plates. Priceis.6d.

Mrs. Quiggin has only recently published a large book
on currency in general, and now she gives some account of trade and
traders in East Africa.
It seems a pity to introduce the subject with suggestions of
Sumerians and Assyrians trading with the country in remote times
of which there is not the slightest evidence. Nor is there any likelihood that Sofalah was the unidentifiable Ophir of Solomon; and
it is quite unknown what island Qanbalu represents.
There is a slight account of many travellers to the continent
beginning with the Periplus of the first century A.D., mentioning the
probability that the Arabs of Ausan had been there earlier. This is
likely to have been as early as 700 B.C. Among the mediaeval
travellers the Persian Bozorg might have been included. There are
good, short accounts of many Portuguese travellers, of whom
Fernandes is the most important. The value of the Sofalah gold
trade had been so much exaggerated that slaves became the more
valuable export, and this trade was intensified in the seventeenth
century because Angola was becoming worked out.

Ashanti Weights. By Carl Kjersmeier.Copenhagen(Gjellerup),

I948. Pp. 23, with 3I plates. U.K. price7s. 6d.

179 style de la sculpturenegreafricaine(Parisand Copenhagen,

Dr. Kjersmeier's

classic four-volume

work

Centres de

I935: cf.MAN, I936, 45 and I938, IIS and uI6) is now not only very
expensive but almost unobtainable. For the serious student of
African primitive art it is an indispensable item of his reference
library: the first comprehensive study of Negro sculpture.
Ashanti Weights is a reprint of the essay on the Ashanti in Centres
de style, translated into Danish and English, and comprises a brief
discussion of these Gold Coast people, their history and art, with
particular emphasis on the casting technique, the meaning and
symbolism of these small masterpieces of cireperdue casting in brass,

III