REVIEW

cestral skull with two post-mortem drill-holes for

suspension is described incorrectly as a 'trepanned'
skull in figure 4.22.
The debates in post-Soviet archaeology are mostly
about chronology and culture history, not about site
formation and abandonment processes, the variable
meanings of style in material culture or the causes
and dynamics of culture change, the principal subjects of debate in the west. Culture change is explained in post-Soviet archaeology principally by
migration, ecological change and technological innovations such as metallurgy. Since there is broad
agreement on this issue, archaeological debates fo-

627

cus on chronology and typology in a manner reminiscent of the 1950s in the west. Radiocarbon dating is still regarded with enough suspicion so that
it is often discarded if it contradicts seriation-based
chronologies - although this is changing. The collection of essays reviewed here exhibits all of these
characteristics. Different agendas can make conversation and cooperation between post-Soviet and
western archaeologists an exercise in patience and
tolerance, on both sides. The continuing effort is
worthwhile because it helps to shed light on a large,
influential and too-little-understood part of the ancient world.

Mediterranean myopia
RICHARDE. BLANTON*
JOHN BINTLIFF & KOSTAS

SBONIAS(ed.). Reconstructing wast wowulafion trends in Mediterranean Europe (Graeme Barker

& David Mattingly (ed.), The archaeology of Mediterranean landscapes 1). xviii+261 pages, 1 4 2 figures, 25 tables. 1999. Oxford: Oxbow: 1-900188-62-7
hardback 55 & US$90.
PHlLlPPE LEVEAU,F~DERIC
T&MENT,KEVIN WALSH
& GRAEME
BARKER(ed.). Environmental reconstruction in Mediterranean landscape archaeology (Graeme
Barker & David Mattingly (ed.), The archaeology of
Mediterranean landscapes 2). xxii+210 pages, 102
figures, 13 tables. 1999. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-90018863-5 hardback 40 & US$70.
& J A N VAN
MARKGILLINGS,
DAVIDMATTINGLY
DALEN(ed.). Geographical Information Systems crnd
landscape archaeology (Graeme Barker & David
Mattingly (ed.), The archaeology of Mediterranean
landscapes 3). xxi+137 pages, 82 figures, 14 tables. 1999. Oxford: Oxbow: 1-900188-64-3 hardback 30 & US$50.
MARINELLA
PASQUINUCCI
& FR~DERIC
TR~MENT
(ed.).
Non-destructive techniques applied to landscape
archaeology (Graeme Barker & David Mattingly (ed.),
The archaeology of Mediterranean landscapes 4).
xx+276 pages, 201 figures, 3 tables. 2000. Oxford:
Oxbow; 1-900188-74-0 hardback E45 & US$75.
& HELEN
PATTERSON
(ed).
RICCARDO
FKANCUVICH
Extracting meaning from ploughsoil assemblages
(Graeme Barker & David Mattingly (ed.), The archaeology of Mediterranean landscapes 5). xxii+266 pages,
133 figures, 1 7 tables. 2000. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-90018875-9 hardback 55 & US$90.
"

Owing to recent developments in field methods and

analytical techniques, settlement pattern archaeology has emerged as a powerful methodology able to
contribute to our understanding of long-term demographic and social change. In the Mediterranean,
however, this approach has faced considerable opposition, has been used unevenly, and has tended
to be methodologically diverse. As a result, crossregional comparison and broad synthesis making use
of settlement pattern data have been slow to materialize. The POPULUS project, an EU-funded research
network, was established to overcome these impediments. Its participants were charged with developing a coherent set of research goals, methods, and
standards for Mediterranean European settlement
pattern archaeology. POPULUS funding was used
to assemble working parties representing diverse
methodological and regional interests and to fund a
series of colloquia organized by Research Fellows.
The first product of the colloquia is The archaeology of Mediterranean landscapes, published in five
volumes, each representing a different methodological
focus. A manual of best practices is forthcoming.
The contents of the five volumes illustrate how
Mediterranean archaeology, after coming around
rather late to the idea of a regional approach, has
emerged as a major world centre of methodological
development for settlement pattern archaeology. To
me the most important contribution of the publication is the rich overview of diverse methodologies
that is made available in one integrated source. Most
chapters are summaries of work reported in more
detail elsewhere, but often they provide a useful
introduction to a method and illustrate how it was

Sociology-Anthropology,Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907, USA. blantonr@sri.soc.purdue.edu

ANTIQJITY75 (2001): 627-9

628

REVIEW

applied in a particular setting. Especially in the areas

of field procedures, environmental reconstruction,
remote sensing,GeographicalInformationSystems,and
geoarchaeology,recent conceptual and technological
advances have resulted in a welcome expansion of
methodological options for the survey archaeologist.
Unfortunately, the colloquia organizers did not
fully address the POPULUS agenda, which was to
investigate the feasibility of establishing a common
series of research goals and standards in Mediterranean landscape archaeology so as to advance the
study of the ancient demography of the region on a
broad comparative front (p. iv of the general introduction by Graeme Barker & David Mattingly). I say
this because much of the recommended methodology is not suited to regional-scale research, and, if
adopted, will actually inhibit meaningful comparison. For the most part, the volumes only serve to
reproduce the prevailing localism of Mediterranean
settlement pattern archaeology. A majority of the
chapters are stand-alone case studies that describe
the results of work done in a particular locality, using a specific method, with no attempt to relate what
was done to larger theoretically driven research
questions or comparative issues. Many of the projects
described mention no research design at all other
than local culture historical interest or a Cultural
Resource Management orientation.
According to Kostas Sbonias (vol. l), there can
be a fruitful dialogue between different disciplines
interested in demographic issues, but the chapters
by historical demographers and palaeoanthropologists
included in the first volume (by Malcolm Smith, Tim
Parkin, Eli0 Lo Cascio, Maria Ginatempo and Andrea
Giorgi, Machiel Kiel, C. A. Marlow, Claude Masset,
and Riccardo Francovich & Kathy Gruspier), while
interesting, do not venture much beyond their usual
methods and sources, and make little or no attempt to
contribute to the development of new methods for archaeological survey. This is unfortunate, since one of
the key methodological issues requiring analytical and
comparative work is the estimation of population size
from site size, particularly in relation to how conversion values will vary in time and space, and for different community types. This issue is addressed by Kostas
Sbonias, John Bintliff, Tony Wilkinson, John Chapman
and Frkderic Trement to some degree, but without any
new insights that could be applied systematically on
a Mediterranean-wide basis.
Most of the methodological standardization advocated in these volumes aims for an increased resolution in data collection from small areas, usually
microregions of at most 100 sq. km (but usually
much smaller), or even single sites. In many cases,
the adoption of such methods will be at odds with a
regional research orientation because they are exor-

bitantly costly in view of the scale requirements of

regional study. For example, the hinterlands of single Roman period administrative centres are often
in the 50-200 sq. km range, but can extend over 600
sq. km, and a regional system may be made up of
multiple interacting territories of this scale. New
World Precolumbian and Late Imperial Chinese
market systems operate in regions consisting of thousands or even tens of thousands of square kilometres, involving dozens of integrated market plazas,
and there is no reason to believe that systems of the
ancient Mediterranean world would have been any
smaller. Mediterranean nodal regions integrated by
upland-lowland symbiosis typically occupy hundreds or thousands of sq. km. But Bintliff (vol. 4)
describes as an example of best practice the survey of northwest Keos by John Cherry and others
that covered only 18 sq. km, except that he recommends further intensifying their method. Bintliff
would have used standardized transect blocks rather
than field-by-field data recording, to facilitate the
comparison of surface densities of pottery. Of course,
laying down the required grid probably would have
stressed the projects resources, but cost seems to
be no object in the minds of those who devise best
practice.
As Elizabeth Fentress aptly points out (vol. 5),
the procedures recommended by Bintliff, Millett and
others, such as transect blocks, counting of all surface sherds and the gridding and complete surface
collection of sites, that allow for the detailed quantification of surface pottery densities, entail a significant penalty in limiting landscape coverage (not
to mention, as Susan Alcockpoints out (vol. 5),straining a projects ability to process the large number of
sherds). Fentress mentions two cases illustrating the
results of intensive method: the Boeotia survey (45
sq. km surveyed in 5 years), and the Rieti survey
( 2 2 sq. km surveyed in 3 years). These same intensive methods restricted Stelios Andreou & Kostas
Kotsakis (vol. 1) to a roughly 30% coverage of
Langadas, Macedonia, but from these data they infer the overall nature of population trends in the
region. Any archaeologist who has done full-coverage survey will tell you how invalid this kind of
extrapolation is likely to be.
While the POPULUS participants emphasized
methods providing greater resolution of data collection in very small areas, really urgent methodological issues were not sufficiently addressed. The
methodological requirements for surface survey and
data analysis in ancient urban contexts is one example (e.g.Simon Keay, vol. 5); a regional approach
entails more than villages, farms and villas. What
methods are most appropriate in upland and other
marginal environments so as to maximize compara-

REVIEW

bility with lowland survey data (e.g. Franco Cambi,

vol. 5)? Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart (vol. 5)
make the important point that archaeologists should
prioritize regional survey in those zones where there
is the optimum coincidence of leading research questions; but virtually all of the method chapters and
case-studies focus on coastal and other lowlands (cf.
Graeme Barker &John Bintliff, vol. 2), even though
upland-lowland symbiosis was a significant factor
in the development of regional market systems, political boundaries, labour migration, intercultural
interaction and inter-group conflict, among other
patterns of social interaction found in Mediterranean complex societies.
To most of the POPULUS participants, the increased intensification of survey method in small
areas represents an evolution over the old fashioned
extensive survey and grab sampling of earlier decades (e.g. Susan Alcock, vol5). In some respects this
is undoubtedly true, depending on ones research
question. What is not fully evaluated, however (except in the aforementioned chapter by Fentress), is
the degree to which this so-called methodological
progress militates against regional analysis. Intensive methods may facilitate between-unit comparison of surface pottery densities, but the areas being
compared are too small to represent the regional
systems of which they are a part. True methodological
development should take place along varied fronts,
not just in the direction of higher resolution at small
scales. Extensive survey using a grab sampling method
can be done systematically such that it facilitates
both full coverage of large areas and cross-regional
comparison. In Mesoamerican archaeology,a standard
pedestrian survey method (with variations appropriate to mountain settings) has been developed for
the field-by-field full coverage of large regions, and
many researchers have employed it. One contiguous area of Oaxaca, Mexico, surveyed according to
this standard method now exceeds 6000 sq. km;
another survey block in the Valley of Mexico covers
3000 sq. km; others are currently in progress in lowland Veracruz and other localities. Correspondingly,
some of the most important issues engaging Mesoamerican archaeologists pertain to social, cultural
and demographic processes found at these large scales
of human interaction. Hypotheses stemming from
the analysis of regional data have been evaluated
by some of these same researchers employing highresolution methods such as systematic surface collection, geophysical prospecting and excavation; but
these have been hypothesis-driven projects focused
on selected localities, and they represent later stages
of an overall research programme that has its origins in field-by-field survey and grab sampling. By
contrast, if they follow the bestpracticesrecommended

629

from the POPULUS colloquia, Mediterranean researchers will employ the intensive methods as a startingpoint in their research designs,but will then be restricted
to comparing ceramic densities of a few scattered villas, villages or microregions (and will have detailed
data on the comparatively trivial matter of off-site artefact densities), and will have only a limited ability
to address the kinds of issues pertinent to the sociocultural evolution of complex societies that currently
engage researchers in other world areas.
Historically, Mediterranean settlement pattern
researchers, some of whose methods are now thought
primitive according to POPULUS logic, addressed
issues relevant to understanding the causes and consequences of change over time at regional and macroregional scales of social interaction (I include Alcock,
Bintliff, Cherry, Davis, Jameson, Mantzourani,
Ponsich, Potter, Renfrew, Runnels, Wagstaff, Wright
and van Andel, among others). They investigated
periphery incorporation in world-systems, production for long-distance trade, the interaction of local
populations with metropolitan cultures, state formation, imperialism, interregional migration, urbanrural relations and related topics pertinent to
understanding the dynamics of complex human societies. A few chapters in the POPULUS volumes
reflect this tradition, most notably those by Martin
Belcher et a]. (vol. 3), Simon Keay (vol. 5), Franco
Cambi (vol. 5), Vince Gaffney et al. (vol. 5) and especially Todd Whitelaw (vol. 5). But as I read the
POPULUS volumes, I was impressed with how Mediterranean survey archaeology as a whole has lost
interest in the kinds of large-scale social and demographic processes that engaged earlier researchers
and, instead, now prioritizes high-resolution method
over theory and problem orientation. Because so many
of the recent methodological advances make possible sophisticated environmental and landscape reconstruction, the theoretical orientation now favoured
by many of the archaeologists featured in the
POPULUS volumes is a dated environmental and
demographic determinism that had its heyday in anthropological archaeology three to four decades ago.
This human ecology, according to Barker & Bintliff
(vol. 2) understands humans in dynamic landscapes.
This is the rationale for using the more environmentally determinist phrase landscape archaeology
routinely in the POPULUS volumes, rather than the
regional analysis, or settlement pattern archaeology more commonly expressed in the literatures of
other world regions. It is unfortunate to see Mediterranean survey archaeology take such a strong turn
towards a landscape approach that sees humans
adapting primarily to local environmental conditions
and in which archaeological method is demoted to
a kind of anthropological geomorphology.