Comments on the flint daggers of Denmark

The transition to settled farming communities in northern Europe was a far more gradual process than elsewhere in Europe: this makes it possible to study the transition to farming archaeologically at a finer level of resolution. In this paper we trace the shift to cultivation in two areas: Denmark and Finland. Despite the difference in the time scale of agricultural evolution, and despite other chronological and environmental differences, we can, in both cases, isolate three distinct stages in the transition to fanning, thus extending the process well beyond the conventional date for the shift to cultivation. Both the case studies emphasize the long continuation of foraging adaptations, and the long delay before the appearance of a predominantly agricultural economy. This delay has been caused by the development of successful maritime adaptations, which acted as a viable alternative to farming until a specific trigger—a decline in marine resources—occurred and initiated the substitution phase of the transition.     

Behind the Romanesque Frieze at Lincoln Cathedral

The purpose of this short article is to put on record the archaeological observations made between 1990 and 2002 during the decade of stonework conservation on the northern run of the frieze panels on the west front of Lincoln Cathedral. It is not concerned with the frieze sculpture itself but with its stones and the spaces behind the stones. Equally, this article is not an assessment of the sculpture and its dating but is an archaeological investigation which potentially has wider implications for the sequence of construction and carving of the Romanesque frieze now visible at Lincoln.     

The Efficacies of Heritage: Syndromes,Magics, and Possessional Acts

In this paper I present critical insights into the efficacies of heritage. I take the phenomenon of the Jerusalem Syndrome (JS) as my point of departure and recast it as Heritage Syndrome (HS). I do this to better understand how such efficacies are experienced and materialized in ritual possessional acts. As a framework, the JS reveals the power and potency that reside in experiences of collapse. Such disembedding events activate subsequent ritual dramas (whether malign/benign or successful/failed) of world-making, redemption, repair, and renewal. Heritage quests as ritual ‘sacred dramas’ and ‘practical magics’ are I argue, similarly experienced in the collapse of known categories: imagined/real, extraordinary/mundane, possessing/being possessed, and crucially what heritage is versus what heritage does. Writ large, heritage efficacies are bound-up in the breakdown and blurring of boundaries — and thus the non-distinction — between heritage in the conventional sense and other dynamics such as magic, prophecy, and well-being/ill-being. These reveal alternative pathways, potentialities, and patterns of behaviour that demonstrate that dominant, elite, rationalized approaches to heritage banalize heritage efficacies and can thus be termed a failed project. I argue that conceiving of heritage as a syndrome — and critically as a movement away from medical pathologization and towards a recasting of heritages as diverse constellations of cultural-spiritual-magical-emotional experiences and engagements — better reflects the deeply felt complex and transformative practices at play. These heritage rites distinguished at points by those who wish their lives were more dramatic and those who wish their lives were less traumatic better describe how the vast majority of global actors engage with heritage, notably at popular, grass-roots level and in contexts of extremis, yet its significance goes largely unrecognized and unvalued.     

WEST EDMONTON MALL AS A TOURIST ATTRACTION

Recent years have seen the mega-phenomenon assume increasing significance in tourism; it is not surprising, therefore, that West Edmonton Mall, the world's first mega-mall, should be viewed as a tourist attraction. This
article discusses the role of shopping as a tourist activity and the opportunity to shop as a facet of the appeal of a location to tourists. It examines the relative attractiveness of West Edmonton Mall as a tourist destination in this context and concludes that it has few outstanding characteristics beyond its unique size and range of leisure facilities. The permanence of its appeal beyond the regional scale is therefore unikely. The long-term appeal of shopping and related facilities is discussed in the context of a model of tourism development.     

Book reviews

SHOWCASE STATE: THE ILLUSION OF INDONESIA'S ‘ACCELERATED MODERNISATION’. Rex Mortimer (ed.). Angus and Robertson, 1973. 164 pp; 0–207–12826. $3.95 softbound, $5.95 hardbound.

FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION: THE CASE OF INDONESIA. Jon M. Reinhardt. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Monograph Series No. 17, 1971. Distributed by The Cellar Book Shop, 18090 Wyoming, Detroit, Michigan 48221. $US6.50.

ISLAMIC COURTS IN INDONESIA: A STUDY IN THE POLITICAL BASES OF LEGAL INSTITUTIONS. Daniel S. Lev. University of California Press, Berkeley, London, 1972. 281 pp.

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN POLICY: TOWARDS A REASSESSMENT. Claire Clark (ed.). Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1973. 274 pp. $3.75.

FREEDOM IN AUSTRALIA. Enid Campbell and Harry Whitmore. Second edition, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1973. 488 pp. $15 cloth, $10 paper.

CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND. K. W. Thomson and A. D. Trlin (eds.). Hicks Smith, Wellington, 1973. 456 01430 6. 218 pp.

CANADA'S SEARCH FOR NEW ROLES: FOREIGN POLICY IN THE TRUDEAU ERA. Peter C. Dobell. Oxford University Press, London, 1972. 0–19–285057–1. 161 pp. $5.10.

SOUTH AFRICA'S FOREIGN POLICY 1945–19701 James Barber. Oxford University Press, 1973. 0–19–21561–9. 325 pp. $13.15.

POWER AND EQUILIBRIUM IN THE 1970s. Alastair Buchan. Chatto & Windus, London, 1973. 0–7011–1998–5. 120 pp. $6.80.

THE SOVIET UNION IN WORLD AFFAIRS: A DOCUMENTED ANALYSIS, 1964–72. W. W. Kulski. Syracuse University Press, Box 8, University Sta, Syracuse, N.Y. 13210, USA, 1973. 526 pp. $US5.95 paper, $US17.50 hard cover.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEW ROMAN EMPIRE: ITALY'S BID FOR WORLD POWER, 1890–1943. G. St. J. Barclay. Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1973. 210 pp. 0283 97862. £3.95stg.

THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY VERSUS THE STUDENTS. Richard Johnson. Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1972. 215 pp. 0–300–01525–9. $8.00 cloth, $1.95 paper.

STUDIES IN DEMOGRAPHY. Ashish Bose, P. B. Desai, and S. P. Jain (eds.). The University of North Carolina Press, 1972. 579 pp. $12.95.

A DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF MODERN INDIA. Charles H. Heimsath and Surjit Mansingh. Allied Publishers, Calcutta, 1971. .559 pp. Rs. 30.

CHINA: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUED. Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle. Penguin Books, U.S.A., 1973. 155 pp. $2.20.

MAO TSE‐TUNG AND GANDHI: PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION. J. Bandyopadhyaya. Allied Publishers, Calcutta, 1973. 156 pp.

STUDIES IN POLITICS: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL. M. S. Rajan (ed.). Vikas Publications, Delhi, 1971. 512 pp. Rs. 60.