Portable XRF analysis of zoomorphic figurines, “tokens,” and sling bullets from Chogha Gavaneh,Iran

This study examines small finds from the site of Chogha Gavaneh, Iran, including zoomorphic clay figurines, geometric-shaped objects (often referred to as “tokens”), and sling bullets in order to investigate the possible social and economic functions of these artifacts. While Chogha Gavaneh has been occupied from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) (ca. 9000 B.C.E) period to the present, we focus on 87 small finds from the Early Chalcolithic period (ca. 5000–4000 B.C.E.). We explore how portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) provides a new line of data with which to test the conventional wisdom about the uses of these small finds. Our findings suggest that local production is unlikely to account for the diversity in the elemental composition of the small finds. We argue that this supports claims that Neolithic and Chalcolithic people exchanged “tokens”. The presence of non-local zoomorphic figurines also raises interesting questions regarding their possible role in past societies.     

Book Reviews

BRIAN BOND. British Military Policy between the Two World Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Pp. XVI, 419. £16.00. Reviewed by Paul Kennedy

Washington Despatches, 1941–1945: Weekly Political Reports from the British Embassy, edited by H.G. Nicholas, with an introduction by Isaiah Berlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 700. $40.00 (US), £20.00. Reviewed by David Reynolds

MARK C. WHEELER. Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, 1940–1943. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Pp. 342 (East European Monographs, No. LXIV). SI8.50 (US). Reviewed by John O. Iatrides

PATRICIA JALLAND. The Liberals and Ireland. The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914. Hassocks, Sussex, 1980. Pp. 250. £20.00. Reviewed by John Kendle

BRIAN JENKINS. Britain and the War for the Union. Volume II. Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 1980. Pp. IX, 480. $26.50 (US). Reviewed by Frank Lawrence Owsley, Jr.

GEOFFREY ELLIS. Napoleon's Continental Blockade: The Case of Alsace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp. 355. $65.75. (CAN.) Reviewed by Richard Glover

R.D. THORPE. The Uncrowned Prime Ministers. London: Darkhorse Publishing, 1980. Pp. XV, 263. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by J.O. Stubbs

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. I. 1906–1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 213. £10. Reviewed by Trevor Burridge

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. II. After 1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 198. £10. Reviewed by Ray Jones

CLAIRE HIRSCHFIELD. The Diplomacy of Partition: Britain, trance and the Creation of Nigeria, 1890–1898. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Pp. 234, Fl. 90. Reviewed by A.S. Kanya-Forstner

PHILIP M. TAYLOR. The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp.xv, 363. £25.00. Reviewed by Keith Robbins

NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY. The Keyes Papers, Vol. III, 1939–1945, ed. Paul Halpern. London: Allen and Unwin, 1981. Pp. 398. $;37.50 (Can.). Reviewed by Donald M. Schurman

JOHN TURNER. Lloyd George's Secretariat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp.vm, 254 £15. Reviewed by Patricia Jalland

JAMES NEIDPATH. The Singapore Naval Base and the Defence of Britain's Eastern Empire, 1919–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp.XVII, 296. £22.50. Reviewed by C.C. Ong

ELEANOR M. GATES. End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939–40. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 630. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by P.M.H. Bell

F.H. HINSLEY ET AL. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Vol. I, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. 616. $29.95 (US); Vol. H, ibid., 1981. Pp. 690. $39.50 (US). Reviewed by D.C. Watt

E. MARY SMALLWOOD. The Jews under Roman Rule: A Study in Political Relations. From Pompey to Diocletian. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. XIV, 595. 96 guilders. Reviewed by Jacob Neusner