Dragos Gheorghiu (ed.): Early Farmers,Late Foragers,and Ceramic Traditions: On the Beginning of Pottery in the Near East and Europe

Since 1960 the author has led the archaeological investigations in the mountains east of Mo i Rana in Northern Norway. An immense amount of material from the local Stone Age has been collected and a number of settlements have been excavated. There are great chronological problems attached to the North Scandinavian Stone Age cultures. The investigations at Mo i Rana present renewed opportunities of achieving chronological groupings and a few of the tentative results are indicated. The author has also undertaken investigations along Rana fjord in order to discover, if possible, relationships between finds from the mountains and from the coast. Some of the same phases seem to occur at both places, and it is possible that the same people have operated along the coast and in the mountains at different times of the year.     

Neolithic Pottery Traditions from the Islands, the Coast and the Interior of East Africa

Scholars have attributed the spread of agriculture and pottery technology to the larger part of eastern and southern Africa to Bantu speakers. However, the spread of similar aspects to the Kenya and Tanzania Rift Valley as far south as Eyasi Basin and as far east as Mount Kilimanjaro has been attributed to Cushitic speakers. Whereas the spread of these innovations to the Rift Valley region can be dated back to 3000 BC, the remaining part of eastern and southern Africa is alleged to have received similar innovations only after the BC/AD changeover, when iron technology was introduced. These theories can no longer be sustained. The coast of Tanzania, its immediate hinterland, and the deep sea islands of Zanzibar and Mafia were settled by people who had knowledge of agriculture and pottery making probably from 3000 BC. These innovations are also found to have spread to southern Africa in the last millennium BC. The introduction of iron technology and beveled/fluted pottery, associated with Bantu speakers, was just another stage in the cultural evolution of the people of eastern and southern Africa, but not the beginning of settled, farming/domesticating communities.La diffusion de l'agriculture et la technologie de poterie à la région plus grande de l'Afrique orientale et méridional ont était attribué au parleurs des langues bantou. Cependant, la diffusion des aspects semblables au Rift Valley de Kenya et Tanzania, sud au Bassin d'Eyasi et est au Mont Kilimanjaro ont était attribué au parleurs des langues Cushitic. Tandis qu'on peut dater la diffusion de ces innovations à la région du Rift Valley à 3000 BC, il est prétendu que la région restante d'Afrique orientale et méridional ont reçu les innovations similaires seulement après le changement de BC/AD, au temps que la technologie de fer était indroduit. Il n'est pas possible maintenant à sustenir ces théories. La côte de Tanzania, son hinterland immédiat/les regions près de la mer, et les îles de Zanzibar et Mafia, ont étaient colonisé par les personnes qui avait la connaissance de l'agriculture et de la poterie probablement à partir de 3000 BC. On peut trouver aussi que ces innovations ont diffusé à l'Afrique méridional pendant la dernier millénaire avant J. -C. L'introduction de la technologie du fer et la poterie avec le biseau, liée avec les parleurs des langues bantoues, était seulement un autre étape dans l'évolution culturelle du peuple de l'Afrique orientale et méridional. Il n'était pas le commencement des communautés établis qui ont pratiqué l'agricole et la domestication.     

Making Witches: Newfoundland Traditions of Spells and Counterspells

Le Folk-Lore de France, par PAUL Sébillot. Tome iv. Le Peuple et l'Histoire. Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1907. By E. Sidney Hartland.

The Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's former Births, translated from the Pali by various hands, under the editorship of Prof. E. B. Cowell. Vol. VI. Translated By Prof. Cowell and Dr. W. H. D. Rouse. Cambridge: The University Press, 1907. By W. Crooke.

Cradle Tales of Hinduism, by the Sister Nevedita (Margaret E. Noble). London: Longmans, 1907. By W. Crooke.

Folk Tales from Tibet, with Illustrations by a Tibetan Artist and some Verses from Tibetan Love-Songs. Collected and Translated by Capt. W. F. O'Connor. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1906. By A. R. Wright.

The Welsh Fairy Book. By W. Jenkyn Thomas. With 100 Illustrations By W. Pogány. Fisher Unwin, 1907. By Alfred Nutt.

Popular Handbooks of Religions.

1. J. Abrahams, "Judaism"; 2. E. Anwyl, "Celtic Religion in Pre-Christian Times"; 3. C. Bailey, "Religion of Ancient Rome"; 4. L. D. Barnett, "Hinduism"; 5. W. A. Craigie, "Religion Of Ancient Scandinavia"; 6. W. M. F. Petrie, " Religion of Ancient Egypt " ; 7. T. G. Pinches, " Religion of Babylonia and Assyria"; 8. C. Squire, "Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland. " London: Constable &; Co., 1906-7. By W. Crooke.

Short Bibliographical Notices.

Volkskundliche Zeitschriftenschau für 1904, herausgegeben im Auftrage der hessischen Vereinigung für Volkskunde von L. Dietrich. Leipzig: Teubner, 1907. pp. 328. By N. W. Thomas.

Transactions of the First Annual Congress of the European Theosophical Society, held at Amsterdam, 1904. Edited By Johan van Mauen. Amsterdam, 1906. Second Congress, London, 1905. London, 1907. Third Congress, Paris, 1906. London, 1907.

Trans. I., Amsterdam.

E. Weise, Fraternity as found in the Laws of Primitive Races. (Marriage-Laws, Taboo, Totemism, Etc.)

D. v. Hinlasper, Labbertav Kitab Tasaref. (A Dutch Paper, relating to a curious Javanese philosophical work.) By W. F. Kirby.

Trans. II., London.

A. Von Ulrich, The Religion of our Forefathers ; The Mythology of Germany in the Light of Theosophy. (Deals chiefly with the Eddas and the Sagas connected with them.) By W. F. Kirby.

Trans. III., Paris.

George M. Doe, Some Folklore Gleanings, principally from Devonshire. (An important paper, including notes on Omens and Warnings, Charms and Incantations, Witchcraft, and Beliefs and Customs.)

A. Von Ulrich, The Religion of our Forefathers in the SlavonicRace. (Some of the remains of old religious beliefs to be found among the Lithuanians, Russians, Bohemians and Poles, and the Wends and Prussians.)

M. U. Green, Some Notes on the Voyage of Bran, with special references to other Planes and States of Being.

Ed. Bailly, Invocation Aux Dieux Planitaires By W. F. Kirby.

Orkney and Shetland Old Lore, vol. i., 1907, and vol. ii., part i., January, 1908: together with Diplomalarium Orcadense et Hialtlandense. Collected and edited by Alfred W. Johnston, Amy Johnston, and Jón Stefánsson. London : Printed at the King's Weigh House for the Viking Club.     

Imperial Expansion, Ethnic Change, and Ceramic Traditions in The Southern Chad Basin: A Terminal Nineteenth-Century Pottery Assemblage from Dikwa, Borno State, Nigeria

In the course of an archaeological project in the southern Chad Basin of Nigeria, excavations were conducted at several deeply stratified mound sites that date from the Late Neolithic to the Late Iron Age. As a way to complement the ceramic sequence obtained so far and to link it with today's pottery tradition, a small excavation was conducted at a site that dates to the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century A.D. A pottery assemblage was discovered that shows obvious links to today's tradition but notable breaks with those of the nineteenth century and earlier. This break in decoration style and technique is interpreted as an archaeologically visible expression of changing ethnic identity. This ethnic change and the associated spread of the ceramic tradition can be linked with the expansion of the sphere of power of the Kanem-Borno Empire into the area south of Lake Chad after the sixteenth century A.D.