Book Review
STEPHEN WEINER. Microarchaeology: beyond the visible archaeological record. xviii+396 pages, 95 illustrations, 4 colour plates, 13 tables. 2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 978-0-521-8803-9 hardback £55 & $95; 978-0-521-70584-4 paperback £24.99 & $36.99.
Review by Andrew R. Millard
Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK
(Email: a.r.millard@durham.ac.uk)
Steve Weiner's years of experience studying minerals in the archaeological record are summed up in this book under the novel rubric of microarchaeology — the study of the archaeological record, not just through microscopes, but chemically, biochemically and (especially) mineralogically.
Most of this well-illustrated book is suitable as a text for students who have taken at least a first course in archaeological science. Chapter 2 gives a general overview of the range of microarchaeology and chapters 4–10 give more detail, with a distinct emphasis on areas that have featured in Weiner's own research. Each chapter opens with a review of basic concepts, and then each material is described, its occurrence and diagenesis on archaeological sites are discussed, and the information about the past that is embedded in it is outlined. In this way a great deal of excellent, well-structured information is conveyed about the mineral components of the archaeological record (chapter 4), bones and teeth (chapter 5), phytoliths, diatoms, eggshells, otoliths and mollusc shells (chapter 6). Weiner's detailed understanding of the formation and composition of biominerals shows in the discussion of their occurrence and their potential to yield archaeological information. The structure works well as a didactic framework, but leads to repetition; for example, there are at least three places where the formation of limescale in kettles is described as leading to aragonite not calcite. The archaeological examples given are primarily from subtropical and tropical climates, and I wonder to what extent the techniques and results are transferrable to cooler and wetter climates.
Chapter 7 moves from minerals to pyrotechnological processes, covering wood ash, charcoal, plaster and mortar, and ceramics. Drawing on Weiner's own publications, there is a particularly useful section on a conceptual framework for the diagenesis of the products of fire; the section on ceramics, on the other hand, is short given the extent of previous microscopic and chemical study of pottery, and metals and glass are excluded. Chapter 8 on biomolecules is structured around the idea that biomolecules survive in protected niches where microorganisms cannot attack them. For me, this chapter was less successful because the content is heavily dependent on review articles, some of them relatively old, such as 1993 for lipid residues in pottery and 2001 for ancient DNA. Chapter 10 applies the ideas of earlier chapters to assessing the quality of radiocarbon dates, but completely omits reference to the four decades of literature on this topic that has appeared in this journal and elsewhere.
The final chapters are practical accounts of operating an on-site laboratory and 'an in-depth overview of the use of infrared spectroscopy for analysing the microscopic record' (to quote the back cover). These chapters will be very useful to practitioners, but they are at an entirely different level to the rest of the book.
Other parts of the book are more of a manifesto, calling for change in the way we investigate and conceive the archaeological record to take greater account of microarchaeology. Chapter 1 argues that archaeology is based on the interpretation of observations, and consequently we are missing a lot if we omit microarchaeological observations. Hence the next generation of archaeologists must be conversant with all aspects of the archaeological record, including microarchaeology, and able to interpret it with its ambiguities. Chapter 3 assesses the (in)completeness of the record, showing that mineralogical stability can be used to differentiate materials lost from those never present on a site. After considering each material, chapter 9 returns to this idea with ethnoarchaeological studies incorporating microarchaeology, and thought-experiments (or Gedankenexperimente) about the microarchaeological record generated in an Eskimo winter house and a Zagrosian village. These are thought-provoking discussions of information usually considered lost to archaeological investigation, but potentially accessible via microarchaeology. For example, might it be possible to distinguish between wood and dung as fuel using burnt phytoliths?
Overall I found this book both rewarding and frustrating. The conceptual frameworks for microarchaeology are admirable and form an agenda for future research. However, the repetitions, sometimes only two pages apart, could have been eliminated, and Appendix B (a list of infra-red spectra downloadable from the author's website) is unnecessary. The main text concludes with a discussion of the infra-red spectrum of nitrate salts, whereas the book really needs an epilogue to draw together all its arguments in favour of microarchaeology. Despite its limitations, this book will find a place on my reading lists and the final chapter will ensure that a copy is kept next to our infra-red spectrometer. It is also a book to return to in future for stimulating ideas on microarchaeological research.
Heritage Technology
