302 



NA TURE 



[March 9, 1922 



desirable that the path should not be encumbered 

 beforehand with too many adjectives, though it may 

 be confessed that Latin adjectives have a peculiar 

 fascination. They trip so lightly off the tongue that 

 when one begins to use them one scarcely knows where 

 to stop. Napier Shaw. 



Prehistoric Western Europe. 



(i) The New Stone Age in Northern Europe. By Prof. 

 • J. M. Tyler. Pp. xviii + 310. (London: G. Bell 



and Sons, Ltd., 1921.) " 155. net. 

 (2) Man and His Past. By 0. G. S. Crawford. Pp. 



XV+ 227. (London : Oxford University Press, 1921.) 



10^. 6d. net. 



WE gladly extend a welcome to these two books 

 as real signs of a publishing revival as well as 

 of the widespread interest in the far past due to the 

 diffusion of the idea that, when some day we find the 

 right clues, prehistoric Western Europe will become 

 almost as fascinating as the prehistoric ^Egean has 

 become through the great advances of knowledge in 

 the last generation. Both writers have in view the 

 general public, but their aims are very different. Prof. 

 Tyler has striven to interpret the results of research up 

 to about 191 2 so as to give the reader a fairly connected 

 story, but in spite of cautious reserve, here and there 

 he unfortunately obscures many difficulties, and 

 suggests that knowledge exists where the careful 

 worker knows only the depths of ignorance. Mr. 

 Crawford, like Prof. Tyler, has also an annoying habit 

 of discursive remarks on things in general, and these 

 irrelevancies make his book larger than it need have 

 been ; but his valuable purpose is evidently to stimu- 

 late the local archaeologist and to enlighten him as to 

 methods in those provinces of study which he can 

 legitimately occupy. 



It is a sign of progress that both books look back to 

 Dechelette, the acceptance of whose work now marks 

 any book that claims serious attention, at any rate if 

 it deals with Palaeolithic times. But Prof. Tyler carries 

 over a great deal from far older and less trustworthy 

 sources into the new period and gives us a most danger- 

 ous sketch of the coming of the " Indo-Aryans," that 

 name of ill omen in archaeology. Moreover, he has not 

 taken Dechelette's maps to heart, and needs to learn 

 the lesson Mr. Crawford sets out to teach, namely, that 

 finds and prehistoric remains of all kinds need to be 

 mapped accurately for serious geographical study. 

 Mr. Crawford will not think it amiss if we say that 

 among his papers {e.g. Geog. Journ., 1912) are many 

 things that teach the lesson more effectively than this 

 NO. 2732, VOL. 109] 



present book. None the less, precept does come with 

 a certain appropriateness from a well-known practician, 

 and Mr. Crawford's suggestions about road tracing 

 imply that he is going to develop the archaeological data 

 on our ordnance maps in his new and appropriate 

 position as Archaeologist to the Ordnance Survey. 



(i) After reading Prof. Tyler's book, one is more than 

 ever convinced of the need for a careful resurvey of all 

 the evidence for the periods that are commonly sup- 

 posed to intervene between the Magdalenian and the 

 beginning of the Bronze age. Some megaliths almost 

 certainly belong to the Bronze age even if bronze finds 

 do not occur in them, and some of the finds of polished 

 stone axes, and so on, are in danger of being shown to 

 belong to the Metal ages. On the other hand, some 

 finds of flints of Azilian and perhaps earlier types are 

 likely to be shown also to belong to later dates and 

 even to the Iron age. In other words, survivals of late 

 Palaeolithic cultures seem to have lingered on into the 

 Metal ages in N.W. Europe, and metal seems to have 

 come in gradually, locally, and partially, so that the 

 so-called Neolithic period, while still acknowledged to 

 be real enough, is seeing both its limits fade away. 

 Prof. Tyler is perhaps justified in neglecting these 

 refinements, but a more definite consciousness of them, 

 as well as a study of the files of the Journal of the Royal 

 Anthropological Institute, especially for Mr. H. J. 

 Peake's papers, would have helped him over many a 

 stile. 



Perhaps his chapter on Megaliths is the most in- 

 adequate in a book that must be considered, broadly, 

 a failure, in spite of several points which are at any rate 

 suggestive. Take, for example, the contrasts in dis- 

 tribution between so-called dolmens and allies couvertes, 

 and the similarities between the spread of the latter 

 and that of menhirs. The peculiar localisation of holed 

 dolmens, the relation of the allee couverte to the English 

 long barrow and the Scottish long cairn, whether holed 

 or not, as well as to the Ganggrdber of North Germany, 

 are all points for serious study by the next person who 

 tries to make a prehistoric synthesis. The views of 

 Perry and others about the relation of dolmen building 

 to metal seeking — prospecting for gold, copper, and tin 

 — should have been studied critically ; while Aber- 

 cromby's " Bronze Age Pottery," with its discussion of 

 the beaker, should have been brought into relation 

 with the loess zone. With such study, a much more 

 vital view of line of movement round about the end of 

 the Neolithic age would have been gained. We greatly 

 need a synthetic statement of the diverse movements 

 of that transition time heralding the opening of the 

 Bronze age with its concentration of attention on the 

 gold of Ireland and so on the ways of getting to it. 

 The succession of shell mound and dolmen {allee 



