On the spatial and technological organisation of hafting modifications in the North African Middle Stone Age

Aterian stone tools represent one of the clearest indications of technological regionalisation in the North African Middle Stone Age. Found in association with Homo sapiens skeletal remains and more recently with symbolic material culture, the Aterian is widely thought to reflect modern human identity and cognition. As a lithic industry, the Aterian has been primarily defined by the presence of stemmed or tanged tools, but there has been little quantitative study of the relationship between tangs and other forms of hafting modifications, such as shouldering and basal thinning. Understanding the diversity of these features and their relationships with one another will clarify the organisation and adaptations of North African populations during Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5, ∼130–70,000 years ago), a critical timespan for modern human dispersal. This paper presents the results of a stepped analysis of fifteen Aterian and other non-Aterian assemblages from the same spatial and temporal bracket in North Africa. Using Correspondence Analyses together with a suite of other statistics, the results indicate that tanging represents a widely applied strategy of hafting a variety of different tools. On the other hand, basal thinning is specifically correlated with lightweight, highly retouched points. The distribution of these features appears to reflect geographical proximity and shared environments, rather than articulating with traditional named industries. This in turn suggests that a continued focus on tangs to differentiate an ‘Aterian’ from other, contemporary North African MSA industries may be obfuscating regional-scale patterns of technological diversity.     

Going ‘backstage’: observant participation in research with young people

This paper reflects on fieldwork undertaken at youth-led community radio station, KCC Live. It draws on Goffman to elucidate the differences between front and backstage spaces at KCC Live, and provides snapshots from research encounters to illustrate the importance of observant participation (over participant observation) in permitting access to these spaces. This paper celebrates the embeddedness of the researcher as a member of the community under study. In doing so, it argues that immersion in community research settings can enable insight into the functioning, relationships, rules and peculiarities of the place and people, all of which are fundamental to ethnographic research.     

Book reviews

Daniel Archibugi and David Held (eds), Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1995. $37.95.

Catherine McArdle Kelleher, The Future of European Security: An Interim Assessment. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995. vii + 216 pp. $US14.95 (paper).

Jacques Polak, The World Bank and the IMF: A Changing Relationship. Washington, DC: Brookings Occasional Papers, 1994. $US9.95 (paper).

Catherine Gwin, US Relations with the World Bank 1945–72. Washington, DC: Brookings Occasional Papers, 1994. $US9.95 (paper).

Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir M. Khrustalev, The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution. Translated by Elizabeth Tucker. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. 400 pp. $US27.50 (cloth).

I. William Zartman (ed.), Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995. 353 pp. $US42.95 (cloth) & $US 18.95 (paper).

Janet E. Heininger, Peacekeeping in Transition: The United Nations in Cambodia. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1994. xii + 183 pp. No price given.

David Bouchier and John Legge (eds), Democracy in Indonesia: 1950s and 1990s. Clayton: Monash Papers on Southeast Asia No. 31, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1994. xviii + 324 pp. No price given.

John Bresnan, Managing Indonesia: The Modern Political Economy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. xi + 375 pp. $US21.00 (paper).

Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xiii + 370 pp. $24.95 (paper).

Jutta Berninghausen and Birgit Kerstan, Forging New Paths: Feminist Social Methodology and Rural Women in Java. London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1992. xiv + 289 pp. No price given.

Lorraine M. Elliott, International Environmental Politics: Protecting the Antarctic. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. xv + 336 pp. $89.95 (cloth).

Peter Uvin, The International Organisation of Hunger. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1994. xvi + 334 pp. £45.00 (cloth).

Jeremy Seabrook, Victims of Development: Resistance and Alternatives. London and New York: Verso, 1993. vi + 250 pp. $39.95 (paper).

Garry Rodan (ed.), Singapore Changes Guard: Social, Political and Economic Directions in the 1990s. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993, 1994. xxii + 209 pp. $39.99 (cloth).

Robert J. Muscat, The Fifth Tiger: A Study of Thai Development Policy. Tokyo: M.E. Sharpe/United Nations University Press, 1994. xvi + 339 pp. $US22.50 (paper).

Gabriel Sheffer (ed.), Innovative Leaders in International Politics. New York: State University of New York Press, 1993. xviii + 294 pp. $US19.95 (cloth).

John King, Handshake in Washington: The Beginnings of Middle East Peace? Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1994. x + 234 pp. No price given.

Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel. Translated from the Vietnamese and Adapted by Judy Stowe and Do Van. London: Hurst and Company, 1995. xx + 202 pp. £25.00 (cloth).     

Geomorphic perspectives on the sterkfontein australopithecine breccias

Breccias in the upper Sterkfontein cave system levels have yielded artifact assemblages as well as Homo and Australopithecus africanus remains. As mapped by the author, this sytem can be subdivided into a northern sector, comprising small, bedding-controlled passageways, and a southern one with large galleries controlled by subvertical fracture zones and partly filled with two generations of external, detrital sediment. A four-stage model describes the development of these deposits. The implications of this study include: (1) The caves formed in one rather than two phases, as a result of structural rather than watertable controls. (2) The lowest strata of both depositional generations, 50–60 m below the hillcrest are probably the oldest. T. C. Partridge's Sterkfontein Formation only includes approximately the upper half of the stratigraphic column recognized here. Deposits underlying those he described are also fossiliferous and probably substantially older than the 2·8+ million year age attributed to the lower units of the Sterkfontein Formation. (3) The Sterkfontein Formation, as defined by Partridge, is a composite stratotype, comprising one surface exposure and another underground, at mid to upper levels in the system. Their stratigraphic relationships are obscure and since the lower boundary of the Formation also is in doubt, erection of a formal stratotype is premature. Deep-lying breccias may ultimately warrant another component, extending the Sterkfontein Formation to the lowest known levels of the cave system.