Reviews

The Art of Persian Music, Jean During, Zia Mirabdolbaghi, and Dariush Safvat, Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1991, 280 pp. + Compact Disc entitled Anthology of Persian Music: 1930–1990, $100.

Les Kurdes et le Kurdestan, Bibliographie critique 1977–1986

Abstracta Iranica (volume 5), ed. Joyce Blau, Tehran and Paris: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1989, xvi + 146 pp.

La Révolution française, la Turquie et l'Iran, special issue of the Cahier d'études sur la Méditerraée orientale et le monde turco‐iranien, no. 12 (Juin‐Décembre 1991), 161 pp., with additional articles and book reviews 264 pp.

The History of al‐Tabari, Volume 3: The Children of Israel, trans, and annot. William M. Brinner, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991, xii + 194 pp.

Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah, Marvin Zonis, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991, x + 350 pp.

Sufi Women, Javad Nurbakhsh, trans. Leonard Lewisohn, rev. ed., London: Khanigah‐i Ni'matullahi, 1990, xv + 263 pp., bibliography and index.

Die persische Gesellschaft unter Nasiru'd‐Din ?ah (1848–1896), Heinz‐Georg Migeod, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1990, 430 pp.

States and Urban‐Based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua, Farideh Farhi, Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1990, x + 147 pp., including notes, bibliography, and index, cloth $ 29.95.

Women's Autobiographies in Contemporary Iran, Afsaneh Najmabadi (ed.), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990, Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs 25, 78 pp., $9.95.

A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885–1886: The Safarnameh of Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Farahani, ed., trans., and annot. Hafez Farmayan and Elton L. Daniel, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990, xxxii + 380 pp.; cloth $40, paperback $17.95.     

Evaluating bone collagen extraction methods for stable isotope analysis in dietary studies

The specific purpose of this study was to compare three different collagen extraction methods commonly used in isotope laboratories conducting dietary studies. We evaluated their resultant differences in δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N, collagen quality and collagen yield. Our study was based on well-preserved skeletal material from the medieval period in Denmark. Our study shows that there is a systematic significant difference in the yield and the δ¹³C values between the three methods. Using the method of DeNiro and Epstein [DeNiro, M.J., Epstein, S., 1981. Influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 45, 341–351] with NaOH as cleaning agent, will, according to our study, give δ¹³C values that are on average ±0.32‰ more positive than using the ultra-filtration method [Brown, T.A., Nelson, D.E., Vogel, J.S., Southon, J.R., 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30 (2), 171–177, modified in Richards, M.P., Hedges R.E.M., 1999. Stable isotope evidence for similarities in the types of marine foods used by late Mesolithic humans at sites along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 26, 717–722]. The third method, which is a modified version of the second method, excluded the ultra-filtration step. This method seems to give δ¹³C values that lie in between the other methods. Our study did not show any significant difference in δ¹⁵N values. Although the differences between the methods are very small, we conclude that the use of stable isotope analysis in food determination studies requires adherence to routine methods for preparing and measuring samples.     

Breaking Ground: Hoes in Precolonial South Africa—Typology,Medium of Exchange and Symbolic Value

In sub-Saharan Africa, every cultivator of the soil in a precolonial, agriculturist society needed a digging implement, and this normally took the form of a hoe with an iron blade hafted on a wooden handle. This paper marks the first attempt to document the surprising variety of hoe blade styles and map their regional distributions within South Africa. While the primary function of the hoe—this key item of material culture in African farming communities—was to cultivate the soil, the large quantity of metal and therefore labour required to make a hoe blade accorded it great value in the years before European industrial copies flooded the market. The hoe was an important item in trade networks, in marriage transactions and in a number of symbolic contexts associated with individual and collective ancestry. This biographical approach to hoe exchange, use and recycling reveals the complex significance of this tool in the lives of precolonial farmers. In particular, we are able to show that hoes could in some circumstances be accorded the same values as cattle in marriage exchange.     

Microscopical findings associated with the diagnosis of osteoporosis in palaeopathology

This paper presents some preliminary results on microscopical identification of microfractures in human skeletal remains which may be associated with osteoporosis. A technique is described for the examination of cancellous bone and applied to a number of vertebrae and one radius. All the material used is Romano-British or English medieval. However, microscopical screening for osteoporosis could form a useful part of comparative studies on historically or geographically different populations. The archaeological significance of osteoporosis in terms of skeletal ageing and nutritional status is discussed.     

A Supermarket of anthropology: AAA 2002

Conference reviewed:
Mette Louise Berg, A Supermarket of Anthropology AAA Meeting, New Orleans, 20–24 November 2002