June i6, «9ioj 



NA TURE 



463 



We assumed too hastily that the rude, countrified 

 Lacedsemon of the prejudiced and tendencious 

 Athenian historians whom we are taught at school to 

 accept as infallible would yield little or nothing of 

 interest to our spades. Yet the excavations of Messrs. 

 Bosanquet and Dawkins and their helpers have shown 

 that early Sparta was in no way behind other Greek 

 cities in art and civilisation ; and we remember that in 

 Homeric days Lacedaemon was a lordly house of 

 princes, while Athens was nothing at all. The excava- 

 tions of iQog, which are not treated in this volume of 

 the "'Annual," have revealed to us the scanty remains 

 of the old Mycenaean civilisation of Sparta, at the 

 Menelaion, the hereon of Menelaos, on a hill some two 

 miles distant from Sparta itself, on the opposite bank 

 of the Eurotas. We await with interest the publication 

 in the next "Annual" of these discoveries. The 

 volume before us deals chiefly with the continued 

 excavations of the temple of Artemis Orthia, which 

 have resulted in the discovery of the most primitive 

 shrine on the site, which dates from the eighth cen- 

 tury B.C. Geometric pottery found beneath its ftoor 

 shows that the place was sacred at an earlier date, but 

 no Mycenaean sherds prove a history going back into 

 the Bronze age. The geometric sherds lie on virgin 

 soil, and the sanctuary was evidently a new one, 

 established by the Dorians. 



The great quantity of f)Otter\' found has enabled Mr. 

 Droop to construct a scheme of the development of 

 Laconian pottery from its first stage, immediately 

 succeeding the Geometric, to its latest. The identity 

 of the Laconian style with that hitherto known as 

 •' Cyrenian " is proved. 



Prehistoric archaeology is represented in this volume 

 by two articles by authors who disagree with one 

 another. M. Vassits, the curator of the Belgrade 

 Museum, writes a somewhat inconclusive article on 

 " South-eastern Elements in Prehistoric Servia," in 

 which he claims, reasonably enough, that the /Egean 

 culture must have sent forth a stream of influence 

 which passed up the Vardar valley into the Danubian 

 basin, but does not bring forward much positive evi- 

 dence of importance to confirm this probability. 

 Messrs. Wace, Droop, and Thompson contribute an 

 account of their very important excavations in 

 Thessaly, which have put into their proper perspec- 

 tive the previous discoveries of Sotiriadis in Boeotia, 

 and Tsountas in Thessaly, and have shown that in 

 early times northern Greece possessed a peculiar art 

 and culture of its own which was very little affected 

 by i^gean influence. We say "very little"; the 

 authors would say " not at all," but without much 

 probability. Mr. Wace and his colleagues have dis- 

 covered that in northern Greece a Neolithic culture 

 continued to exist until long after the .^gean 

 had reached the full flower of the Bronze age, 

 and that the Thessalian contemporaries of the 

 Minoan Cretans were stone-using barbarians. Then, 

 brushing aside the few traces of ^^gean influ- 

 •"ce on this barbaric culture (such as the rude 

 iral ornament in the Dimini pottery), they as- 

 .me that the North-Greek and /Egean contem- 

 orar)- cultures had no connection with one another, 

 '.nd were absolutely independent, not only in origin, 

 but until suddenly the higher culture broke down the 

 lower in the latest Minoan age. It is obvious, bow- 

 er, that this is impossible. The ^^geans were 

 live seamen, and it is incredible that /Egean influ- 

 ce should not have affected the Thessalians, con- 

 :'vative though they were, from the beginning; and, 

 at the same time, that the ^^gean influence should 

 not have affected the north coast of the /Egean Sea 

 and have penetrated up the Vardar valley, as M. 

 Vassits says it did. and have greatly influenced the 

 Danubian Bronze-Age civilisation. We believe that 

 XO. 2120, VOL. 83] 



the independent North-Greek Neolithic and Chalco- 

 lithic "culture" was no bar to this, and that itself it 

 was much more affected by the Minoan culture than 

 its discoverers believe. For us, then, \L Vassits and 

 Mr. Wace are both right. 



The great importance of the Thessalian discoveries 

 for the history of the origin of European civilisations 

 is evident. It has never seemed to the present writer 

 probable that the changes from the age of Stone to 

 that of Metal, and from the age of Bronze to that of 

 Iron, each necessarily took place at about the same 

 time all over the European and Mediterranean 

 world; iron, for instance, seems certainly to have 

 been used sporadically by the Egyptians as early 

 as the time of the fourth and sixth dynasties, about 

 3000 B.C., whereas even in southern Europe it does 

 not appear much before 1000 B.C. ; and now we see 

 the same thing in this case of the continued use of 

 stone, for long exclusively, by a large community in 

 northern Greece down nearly to 1300 or 1200 B.C., 

 and contemporaneously with the existence, but two 

 hundred miles off, of the head centre of the splendid 

 Bronze-age civilisation of Minoan Crete. We are 

 again reminded that, though nature nihil facit per 

 saltuvi, human activity does progress in precisely this 

 haphazard way. Our archaeologists, too much under 

 the influence of the professors of natural science, have 

 assumed that the evolution of human progress was far 

 more even and equable than actually was the case. 



The Greek sculpture of the later period takes up 

 less space in this year's "Annual" than in that of last 

 year; there is only one short article by Mr. Wace on 

 an interesting Pergamene head found at Sparta. 



Prof. Burrows and Mr. Ure contribute an account 

 of their excavations in tombs at Rhits6na(Mykalessos), 

 which have produced large quantities of pottery of 

 the classical period ; and there are interesting articles 

 by Mr. Hasluck on the topography of Laconia, and 

 by Mr. Hoearth on Hierapolis Syriae, the ancient 

 sanctuary- between Aleppo and the Euphrates, other- 

 wise called Bambyke or Mabog, the modern Mambij. 

 Mr. Hogarth publishes several fragmentary Greek and 

 Latin inscriptions and graffiti of Roman davs from 

 this ancient holy place. H. R. Hall. 



GOATS AND MALTA FEVER. 



A QUESTION asked in the House of Cominons 

 on June 13 illustrates the desirability of mem- 

 bers of Parliament becoming familiar to some extent 

 with scientific facts before concerning themselves with 

 subjects in which such facts are involved. 



The question was in regard to the part played by 

 the goat in the spread of Malta fever, and arose out 

 of a misreading of the evidence given before the Roval 

 Commission on Vivisection (Q. 14,242). The ques- 

 tion asked was to the effect that, seeing no goats 

 had been infected by the alleged Malta- fever germ, 

 and that it did not give rise to any ill-health or fever 

 in these animals, why spend money on anv inquirv 

 regarding the part played by goats in Malta fever? 



The evidence given before the Royal Commission 

 was that the goats did suffer from this disease, that 

 the micro-organism did multiply in their bodies, but 

 that it did not give rise to any appearance of ill-health 

 or rise in temperature. It is this that makes the goat 

 so dangerous. If Malta fever caused high fever and 

 the other symptoms of a severe disease in the goat, 

 as it does in man, the goat would probably cease to 

 be a danger. The animal would be confined to its 

 stable, and its milk would run dr\'. As it is, the goat 

 which acts as a source of the virus of Malta fever 

 continues to accompany the herd into the town or 

 village, appears the picture of health, and secretes 

 quite as much milk as its harmless neighbours. 



