Isenya: état des recherches sur un nouveau site acheuléen d'Afrique orientale

Résumé Isenya est le premier site acheuléen fouillé sur les hauts plateaux du Kenya. Sa richesse en vestiges lithiques et fauniques en fait dès maintenant un gisement important pour la connaissance des hominidés du Pléistocène moyen. Isenya est inclus dans un contexte sédimentaire fluviatile, indiquant que les hommes préhistoriques se sont installés sur une barre sableuse, le long d'une rivière qui était alors peut-être pérenne. La convergence des informations géologiques et archéologiques permet d'expliquer la mise en place des vestiges, la positionin situ de plusieurs niveaux d'occupation superposés, le faible degré de perturbation qu'ils ont subi, et l'origine essentiellement anthropique des associations os/pierres. L'industrie lithique est caractérisée par une grande abondance de bifaces et de hachereaux dont les proportions varient dans le temps. Une première analyse de l'ensemble apporte d'ores et déjà des indications sur les comportements techniques: les chaînes opératoires sont décryptées, depuis l'acquisition des matériaux jusqu'à l'obtention des outils. La faune associée à cet outillage est dominée par des animaux de savane ouverte (Alcelaphini etAntilopini). Son étude détaillée mettra en évidence les stratégies d'acquisition du gibier et son mode de consommation. Attirés, entre autres raisons, par la proximité de l'eau et des affleurements de phonolite, source principale de matière première pour l'outillage, les hominidés ont occupé cet enfroit de façon répétée dans un court laps de temps, selon une périodicité à rapprocher sans doute des comportements de subsistance.

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Isenya is the first Acheulian site excavated in the Eastern Highlands of Kenya. Very rich lithic and faunal remains in a fluviatile sedimentary context indicate hominid activity on a sandy bar next to a river, which was perhaps perennial. Microstratigraphy and archaeological data permit reconstruction of the processes by which the remains were deposited. Severalin situ occupation layers show only a slight degree of perturbation. The bone assemblage is of anthropic origin, and the lithic industry is characterized by an abundance of bifacial pieces, level VI being particularly rich in cleavers. From the analysis of the lithic industry we can obtain some idea of hominid technological behaviour, most notably the operational chains of tool production from the procurement of raw materials to the knapping sequences. The fauna associated with the lithic materials is dominated by animals of the open savanna (Alcelaphini andAntilopini); and its detailed study will allow us to specify the strategies used in the procurement of game and its subsequent consumption. Without doubt, the reasons for hominid occupation at this particular site will be impossible to explain fully. However, choice of this location, where evidence for several different activities has been uncovered, should be considered in terms of the proximity both of water and of outcrops of phonolite, the principal raw material for tool-making. Repeated occupation by hominids over a short time may, perhaps, correspond to the periodicity of their subsistence behaviour.

     

Book reviews

Peter Edwards with Gregory Pemberton. Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1965. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1992. xix + 515 pp. $45.00.

J.D.B. Miller and RJ. Vincent (eds). Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. vii + 220 pp. $55.00.

Carl Bridge (ed.). Munich to Vietnam. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1991. 237 pp. $24.95.

Gary Brown. Breaking the American Alliance. Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No.54, 1989. 171pp. $17.00.

G. Withers (ed.). Commonality and Difference: Australia and the United States. Australian Fulbright Papers No.1. Sydney: Allen & Unwin for the Australian‐American Educational Foundation, 1991. 138 pp. $19.95.

John S. Gibson. International Organizations, Constitutional Law and Human Rights. New York: Praeger, 1991. xvii + 265 pp. $US45.00.

J. Ronald Engel and Joan Gibb Engel (eds). Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge and International Response. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, in association with the IUCN, 1990. xv + 264 pp. $US29.95 (cloth), $US14.95 (paper).

Stephen Ryan. Ethnic Conflict and International Relations. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1991. xxviii + 200 pp. No price given.

K.M. de Silva and R.J. May (eds). Internationalization of Ethnic Conflicts. London: Pinter Publishers for International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 1991. x + 272 pp. $84.25.

Robert C.R. Siekmann. National Contingents in United Nations Peace‐Keeping Forces. Doedrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991. xv + 229 pp. $US82.00.

Mara R. Bustelo and Philip Alston (eds). Whose New World Order? What Role for the United Nations? Leichhardt: The Federation Press, 1991. xiv + 157 pp. No price given.

H. Brauch and R. Kennedy (eds). Alternative Conventional Defense Postures in the European Theater: The Impact of Political Change on Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control. New York: Crane Russak; Basingstoke: Taylor and Francis, 1992. xxi + 279 pp. £35.00.

Robert F. Miller (ed.). The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. iv + 187 pp. $19.95.

David W. Hunter. Western Trade Pressure on the Soviet Union. An Interdependence Perspective on Sanctions. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991. xii + 163 pp. £40.00.

Paul Hainsworth (ed.). Breaking and Preserving the Mould: The Third Direct Elections to the European Parliament (1989) — the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Belfast and Coleraine: Policy Research Institute, The Queen's University of Belfast and the University of Ulster, 1992. v + 223pp. £9.95.

Yue‐man Yeung and Xu‐wei Hu (eds). China's Coastal Cities: Catalysts of Modernization. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. xvi + 330 pp. $US38.00 (cloth).

Freedom in Exile. The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Cardinal Books, 1991. 308 pp.

Vo Nhan Tri. Vietnam's Economic Policy Since 1975. Singapore: Institute of South East Asian Studies, 1990. xi + 253 pp. $S42.50 (cloth), $S32.00 (paper).

Robert Hopkins Miller. The United States and Vietnam 1787–1941. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1990. ix + 234 pp. No price given.

Judith A. Stowe. Siam Becomes Thailand: A Story of Intrigue. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. xii + 394 pp. $US39.00 (cloth), $US16.95 (paper).

Salim Said. Genesis of Power. General Sudirman and the Indonesian Military in Politics 1945–49. North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. xxi + 185 pp. $24.95.

Burhan Magenda. East Kalimantan: The Decline of a Commercial Aristocracy. Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1991. viii + 113 pp. $US11.00.

Khong Kim Hoong. Malaysia's General Election 1990: Continuity, Change and Ethnic Politics. Singapore: ISEAS, 1991. 54 pp. $US5.00.

Stephanie Lawson. The Failure of Democratic Politics in Fiji. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. vii + 307 pp. $90.00.

Asesela Ravuvu. The Facade of Democracy: Fijian Struggles for Political Control 1830–1987. Suva: Reader Publishing House, 1991. xii + 106 pp. $15.00.

William Sutherland. Beyond the Politics of Race. An Alternative History of Fiji to 1992. Political and Social Change Monograph No.15, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1992. vii + 251 pp. $16.00.

Sue Rabbitt Roff. Overreaching in Paradise: United States Policy in Palau since 1945. Juneau, Alaska: The Denali Press, 1991. ix + 245 pp. No price given.

Gary Smith. Micronesia: Decolonisation and US Military Interests in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, 1991. ix + 131 pp. $12.00.

Robert Aldrich (ed.). France, Oceania and Australia: Past and Present. Department of Economic History, University of Sydney, 1991. 203 pp. No price given.

Stephen Henningham. France and the South Pacific; A Contemporary History. Sydney: Allen and Unwin,1992. xvii + 292 pp. $24.95.

R. Briscoe, G.S. Nair and A. Sibbald. Enterprise Support Organizations for the South Pacific: Problems and Proposals. Honolulu: Pacific Islands Development Program, East‐West Center, 1991. xi + 89 pp. $US8.00.

Euan Fleming and Hugh Coulter (eds). Agricultural Export Marketing in the South Pacific: The Future Role of Marketing Authorities. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, Pacific Policy Paper 8, 1992. xii + 255 pp. $25.00.

M. Thea Sinclair and M.J. Stabler (eds). The Tourism Industry: An International Analysis. Wallingford: C.A.B. International, 1991. xi + 244 pp. £30.00.

D. Harrison (ed.). Tourism and the Less Developed Countries. London: Belhaven Press, 1992. xiii + 186 pp. £35.00.     

Environmental response to land use at Lake Curlip,East Gippsland,Victoria

A palaeoecological approach was undertaken to investigate the last 400 years of change in vegetation, fire, nutrient mobility, lake productivity and erosion associated with Aboriginal and European land-use practices in a forested environment in eastern Victoria. Melaleuca ericifolia scrub, although present prior to European settlement, has expanded around Lake Curlip in the last 200 years, primarily due to the action of fire on a forest already weakened by drought. A fern understorey has declined in extent and a more open aspect has developed in the forest. Fire has been a major component of vegetation dynamics in the historical period. Erosion rates were comparatively low and associated with fire during prehistoric times, but after European settlement its increase is more closely related to land clearance and flooding than fire. The response of vegetation to both anthropogenic and natural influences changed during the historical period. Although fire is an integral part of vegetation change, it is not an over-riding effect at Lake Curlip. Drain construction in the swamp has reduced the impact that any accumulation of pasture improvement chemicals may have had on eutrophication of the lake.