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Show REVIEWS 103 The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin, by Stephen Trimble. University of Nevada Press, Reno. 1989. 248 pages. $34.95. Reviewed by: David M. Jabusch Salt Lake-Davis Chapter Utah Statewide Archaeological Society 1144 South 1700 East Salt Lake City, UT 84108 Until recently my impression of the Great Basin was grim. In my Oregon State class in Natural History of Oregon, the Steens Mountains were characterized as the last uncharted wasteland in the United States. Raised in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, my first impression of the drive from Reno to Salt Lake City (not changed by thirty annual treks to my Redwood roots) was that of endless miles of sagebrush and salt. Two recent events have changed that impression, somewhat. The first was a project of surveying the Pony Express Stations across Utah and the other was the appearance of Stephen Trimble's The Sagebrush Ocean. Trimble provides a scientifically sound, stylistically interesting and visually enticing survey of the natural diversity of the Great Basin. He sets the stage with a geographical overview of the "four great basins" as well as the climatological origins of its "desert" ecology. Trimble develops the "Biogeography" of the Basin as he discusses the subtle changes in natural communities, the dynamic and dramatic development of its geologic past and "Mountains as Islands." Trimble then provides the reader with a fascinating vicarious visit to the wide variety of plant and animal communities in the Great Basin. He takes you through Playas and Deserts, Shadscale, Sagebrush, Dunes, and the surprising abundance of water in the desert wetlands. Moving up in elevation the author visualizes the Pinion-Juniper Woodland, Mountain Brush and Aspen Glens, Subalpine Forests and Alpine Deserts. He concludes his tour with the Transition Forests of the Western Wasatch and Eastern Sierras. Lacking the abundance of easily observed flora and fauna of wetter and more temperate climates, Trimble directs the attention of the reader to the less obvious but no less diverse plants and animals of the Basin. But this is not merely an enumeration (however fascinating) of the flora and fauna of the Great Basin. Trimble skillfully represents these natural communities as the complex, ever-changing ecological systems they are found to be in nature. While his discussion of the impact of human beings as an integral part of the Basin ecology could have been more fully developed, Trimble does point out the role of humans and their domesticated animals upon the change (he might say degradation) of the Basin ecology. The Sagebrush Ocean transcends enjoyable reading. Technically sound, it will provide a useful reference for avocational (and perhaps an occasional professional) archaeologists when struggling to distinguish among choices under "environmental data" on their IMACS forms. In his review of The Sagebrush Ocean, David Madsen laments the excellence of Trimble's book for its potential "to attract the L. L. Bean crowd," and make the Great Basin "just like California." As a native Californian, I have neither Madsen's love nor his knowledge of the Basin, but I agree that Trimble's interesting, accurate and beautiful book should attract a wide readership to the once solitary diversity of the Great Basin. Northern Anasazi Ceramic Style: A Field Guide for Identification, by William A. Lucius and David A. Breternitz. Center for Indigenous Studies in the Americas, Publications in Anthropology No. 1. 1992. Cost $10.00, pages 61. Reviewed by: Mark Bond Archaeological Consultant P. O. Box 56 Bluff, UT 84512 The typological identification of ceramic artifacts, and associations of these artifacts, is one of the more significant tasks faced by the field archaeologist while recording Formative Period prehistoric archaeological sites in the American Southwest. More often than not, inferences concerning the cultural affiliations, and hence chronological associations, of these archaeological sites are based on the field identification of the ceramic types observed and recorded. However, differentiation between similar 104 UTAH ARCHAEOLOGY 1993 types often depends on analytical techniques and tools not available to the field recorder. Given the large number of ceramic types that may be present on the surface of a Formative Period site, the similarities in the appearance of different types from potentially far removed cultural areas, and the difficulties involved with differentiating between various technological attributes exhibited by small sherds with only macroscopic examination, or at best a lOx hand lens, the potential for misidentifying ceramic types must be considered high. It is too easy to make too many assumptions in the field. The problem is compounded when "no-collection" policies prevent the archaeologist from removing a sample of the artifacts to the laboratory for amplified examination or inspection by the "experts." This situation results in the implicit, and even explicit, mistrust of archaeological data bases by many archaeologists who are familiar with how they are compiled and their potential problems (i.e., junk in-junk out!). Northern Anasazi Ceramic Styles: A Field Guide for Identification is a welcome, and long awaited, attempt to ameliorate this situation. It is focused on the prehistoric ceramic traditions found in the northern Anasazi portion of the Colorado Plateau. This area is defined to exclude the Little Colorado and Virgin Anasazi areas. The book describes a field method of ceramic identification for sherd based assemblages using a relatively small number of easily recognizable technological attributes. These include painted design motifs, firing atmosphere (neutral or oxidizing), and paste surface manipulation (polish, smoothing, banding vs. corrugating, and rim shape); all attributes which can be readily perceived with the naked eye. While this technique does not identify specific types, and associated cultural affiliation, it does serve to place a given archaeological site into the Pecos Classification System, and hence, into a chronological framework. For black-on-white decorated ceramic sherds this system relies heavily on recognition of design style and differentiation between design motifs. For utility gray ware sherds the system relies on vessel surface manipulation and rim shape. The advantage of this system of ceramic identification is that a field archaeologist does not have to memorize, or otherwise have ready access to, the large volume of data concerning ceramic technology and typology that is available in order to adequately record a Formative Period site. Given the confusing, and occasionally contradictory nature of these data, as well as the volume, the advantage of this system is readily apparent. It should be noted that A Field Guide for Identification will not do it all for you. It is not an excuse for not learning. A certain amount of experience handling ceramic sherd assemblages and knowledge of the area archaeology is a prerequisite for using this book. For instance white wares are defined as having at least one polished surface although, in southeastern Utah, Chapin Black-on-white often exhibits the characteristic design motifs painted on a smoothed but unpolished surface. A sherd from one of these vessels lacking a portion of the painted design would be undifferentiatable from a sherd from a similar shaped Chapin Gray vessel. However, given proper experience and knowledge, this book can be extremely useful as a recording tool. Gray ware surface manipulation techniques are illustrated by photographs in the book. Painted design motifs on white ware ceramics are also illustrated, though given the wide variety of motifs that exist, only a small number are illustrated. A larger number of motifs could have been included using pen and ink drawings if photographs were not available. Given that this book is intended as a field identification tool, it would seem that the more illustrations the better. I also feel that a more in-depth introduction and discussion of design styles and their origins would be appropriate in the introductory chapters of this book. Giving the authors their due, they may well feel that this information is some of the knowledge they imply a user of this book should already have under their belt. It is refreshing to note that sherds that do not exhibit sufficient attributes for traditional typological placement are covered in a useful manner by this system of identification. In the past such sherds have often been assumed to be of the same types as those that could be easily identified in a particular assemblage. Anyone familiar with the various archaeological data banks has observed the site forms in which all of the white ware sherds, painted and unpainted, were given type names. In such a case a site exhibiting 5 sherds of Mancos Black-on-white and 75 non-diagnostic white ware and/or black-on-white sherds may have been recorded as exhibiting 80 sherds of Mancos Black-on-white. This indicates not only poor methodology but also the high potential for faulty data in the data bank. Unfortunately, these site forms are common. A Field Guide for Identification addresses this problem by introducing the concept of REVIEWS 105 Grouped Style Categories; general style categories into which non-diagnostic sherds can be easily placed without artificially inflating specific categories. Grouped Style Categories can be useful for rough chronological interpretations and the identification of different cultural components reflected by the sherds within a single assemblage. In closing I would note that A Field Guide for Identification is a field tool, in convenient 5.5 by 8.5 inch format, that, if used properly, can greatly aid the various survey archaeologists working in the northern Anasazi area of the Colorado Plateau. The identification system it describes can, and will, reduce the potential for faulty data finding its way into the various archaeological data banks. This book is a step towards correcting a problem. The initial step was to recognize and accept that there was a problem. The next step will be to educate the keepers of the various data banks and to modify the various forms, such as the Intermountain Archaeological Computer System (IMACS) form, to accept ceramic styles as a legitimate form of data. The final step will be for those of us who are out there doing the archaeological footwork to get with the program. It will be a long trek but this book represents a start. I hope to find many dog-eared and worn out copies among the field gear of my fellow southwestern archaeological field workers in the years to come. The Main Ridge Community at Lost City. Virgin Anasazi Architecture, Ceramics, and Burials, by Margaret M. Lyneis. Anthropological Papers No. 117. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 1992. xi, 96 pages, 22 figures, 71 tables on included computer diskette. $25.00 paper. Reviewed by: Douglas A. McFadden Bureau of Land Management 318 North First East Kanab, UT 84714 This volume considers the Anasazi settlement along the Muddy River in southern Nevada popularly known as "Lost City." It is the westernmost pueblo an occupation and is part of the Virgin Anasazi culture area that spans the adjacent uplands of northern Arizona and southern Utah. Located in the Mohave Desert at less than 2,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the most extreme adaptations of the Anasazi culture. While not a marginal manifestation, it is unquestionably a peripheral one. Initially excavated during the 1920s and never adequately published, accounts of Southwestern culture history have virtually ignored the area. Lyneis, conducting both archival research and her own field investigations has created order of this "old" data and provided us with a modern perspective of it. In so doing, this corner of the Anasazi world can now find its place in Southwestern prehistory. Mark R. Harrington, fresh from Lovelock Cave, began excavating sites in Moapa Valley in 1924. This was his first experience with the Anasazi; his perspective was essentially synchronic for he called the entire area "Pueblo Grande de Nevada." Eventually, 121 sites (over 600 rooms) were investigated (or as he termed them, "houses"). Forty-four of these were concentrated on "the main ridge." The area was largely ignored until Shutler's 1961 dissertation considered the entire occupation and imposed some temporal order by describing chronological phases. Recently Main Ridge has been recorded as 26CK2148, a single site that covers an area 750 m by 900 m. The forty-four "houses," which consist of nearly 200 rooms, are the subject of this monograph's analysis. Unfortunately no unexcavated sites are left on Main Ridge with which to test hypotheses, provide dates or additional analyses. This situation makes a strong case for the modern preservation ethic of leaving something to dig in the future. Harrington's excavation methods, the resulting categories of data and its quality, while perhaps in accord with the standards of the day, perforce structure the modern study of Main Ridge as a community. For instance we learn that Harrington was not careful about differentiating artifacts in room fill and those on the floor (page 26) nor were any drawings made of the structures. Lyneis assumes the task of developing the available data on architecture, ceramics, mortuary practices, and trade goods and brings it to bear on her central concern which is social organization. These analyses are followed with a chapter that summarizes the Main Ridge findings and a final chapter that considers the Moapa Valley occupation in a regional context. Chapter One presents the central issue of this volume, Main Ridge social organization, as a dichotomy: do the "houses" (read sites) constitute a contemporaneous group of families with some form of |
