May 13, 1922 



NATURE 



605 



. This research still further emphasises the fact that 



no special polychaet fauna characterises the Antarctic 

 seas, and that in all probability in the diatom-ooze of 

 the great depths between Australia and the Antarctic 

 shores even a proportionally greater number of novel 

 types exist than have hitherto been procured. Again, 

 some cosmopolitan forms make their appearance in the 

 Antarctic waters, such as Phyllodoce madeirensis , Glycera 

 capitata, Cirratulus cirratus, and Serpula vermicularis. 

 It is curious, however, that Hauchiella tribullata, a 

 Zetlandic Terebellid, is not included in the captures, 

 though it was found at Kaiser Wilhelm Land in the 

 American Antarctic region. The author did not meet 

 with examples of the incubatory habit which was 

 thought by Gravier to be a feature of these cold southern 

 regions, e.g. in Eteone gaini and FlabelUgera mundata 

 amongst the polychaets, and in holothurians, actinians, 

 and colonies of tunicates. It is well to remember, 

 however, that the incubatory habit is seen in British 

 seas from fishes to ccelenterates. 



If criticism may be offered, it is that the author 

 might have made the discrimination of his new and 

 rare species more easily accomplished if he had given 

 at the commencement of each a brief epitome of the 

 specific characters. The accompanying ten plates have 

 their figures fairly represented in lithographic ink, 

 though they lack the fine touch of stone-engraving. 

 The descriptive letters have been omitted from the 

 figures throughout. The entire memoir is a credit to 

 the Australian Government, and to Prof. Benham, 

 whose ability and wide experience enabled him to 

 treat the subject in an effective manner. 



W. C. M'Intosh. 



European Archaeology. 



A Text-Book of European Archceology. By Prof. 

 R. A. S. Macalister. Vol. i, The PalcBolithic 

 Period. Pp. xv 4- 610. (Cambridge : At the Uni- 

 versity Press, 1921.) 50^. net. 

 SEVENTY years ago the Scandinavian founders of 

 European archaeology regarded the shell-heaps 

 or " kitchen-middens " as containing the earHest traces 

 of man's handiwork. Ever since then it has been 

 ound necessary to shift man's beginnings further and 

 lurther into the past, so that now Prof. Macalister is 

 obliged to devote a whole volume, containing nearly 

 300,000 words, to reach the point at which his Scan- 

 dinavian predecessors began their narratives. For 

 the type of implement, in stone and in bone, found in 

 the oldest shell-heaps the author adopts the recognised 

 French term " Campignian," although he is of opinion 

 that the culture represented in the shell-heaps was 

 actually evolved in the Baltic Area. By a strange 

 coincidence, if we are to follow our author implicitly, 

 NO. 2741, VOL. 109] 



it is with the introduction of this shell-heap or Cam- 

 pignian culture into Ireland that the history of man 

 commences in our sister-island. " No remains of the 

 Palaeolithic period to the end of the Magdalenian 

 stage," writes Prof. Macalister, " have been found 

 in the north of England or else in Scotland or in Ireland, 

 some injudicious publications notwithstanding." The 

 Professor of Celtic Archaeology in University College, 

 Dublin, has thus the advantage of surveying the 

 ancient cultures of Europe from a land untrammelled 

 by palaeolithic tradition. His first volume covers 

 cultural periods which are unrepresented in Ireland. 



Where, when, and how, then, does the modern story 

 of European archaeology begin ? One may reasonably 

 complain of having to wade through some two hundred 

 preliminary pages before reaching the point at which 

 Prof. Macalister commences his archaeological narrative. 

 The first chapter is spent in defining what archaeology 

 is and what it is not ; the second is devoted to the 

 elements of geology, the third to the evolution and 

 classification of mammals, the fourth to the evolution 

 of man and classification of races, the fifth to eoliths 

 and to eolithists, the name which the author gives to 

 those who believe in eoliths as products of human 

 hands. As the following passage shows, Prof. Macalister 

 refuses to begin his archaeological narrative with 

 eoliths : — 



" The question that these flints present to us is 

 primarily : Are they the work of a conscious agent, 

 fashioning them for a definite purpose, or are they not ? 

 The answer to this question appears to be almost 

 wholly subjective, not objective, and is therefore 

 outside the region of scientific study, except perhaps 

 for the psychologist." 



We fear that Prof. Macalister understands as little 

 of psychology as of eoliths. For him, true archaeology 

 begins with types of flint implement which even a child 

 can perceive have been artificially fashioned. 



Archaeology is construed in a wide sense by Prof. 

 Macalister. It is made to include not only all things 

 which have been made or used by past generations of 

 mankind, but also skulls, bones, teeth, psychology, and 

 religion. For a writer who warns his readers on almost 

 every page against possible fallacies, it is somewhat 

 daring for him to assert that " Man develops a religious 

 instinct." Then, again, when discussing the " psycho- 

 logy of middle palaeolithic man " — men of the Neander- 

 thal type — he not only boldly asserts that they had a 

 religion, but proceeds to draw a picture of this long 

 dead and extinct type of humanity sitting round the 

 fire and discussing momentous problems. 



" One would tell of a dream that he had had, in 

 which the dead had appeared to him ; another would 

 relate how something, he knew not what, but which 

 surely was not of the common things of nature, had 



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