A geometric morphometric relationship predicts stone flake shape and size variability

The archaeological record represents a window onto the complex relationship between stone artefact variance and hominin behaviour. Differences in the shapes and sizes of stone flakes—the most abundant remains of past behaviours for much of human evolutionary history—may be underpinned by variation in a range of different environmental and behavioural factors. Controlled flake production experiments have drawn inferences between flake platform preparation behaviours, which have thus far been approximated by linear measurements, and different aspects of overall stone flake variability (Dibble and Rezek J Archaeol Sci 36:1945–1954, 2009; Lin et al. Am Antiq 724–745, 2013; Magnani et al. J Archaeol Sci 46:37–49, 2014; Rezek et al. J Archaeol Sci 38:1346–1359, 2011). However, when the results are applied to archaeological assemblages, there remains a substantial amount of unexplained variability. It is unclear whether this disparity between explanatory models and archaeological data is a result of measurement error on certain key variables, whether traditional analyses are somehow a general limiting factor, or whether there are additional flake shape and size drivers that remain unaccounted for. To try and circumvent these issues, here, we describe a shape analysis approach to assessing stone flake variability including a newly developed three-dimensional geometric morphometric method (‘3DGM’). We use 3DGM to demonstrate that a relationship between platform and flake body governs flake shape and size variability. Contingently, we show that by using this 3DGM approach, we can use flake platform attributes to both (1) make fairly accurate stone flake size predictions and (2) make relatively detailed predictions of stone flake shape. Whether conscious or instinctive, an understanding of this geometric relationship would have been critical to past knappers effectively controlling the production of desired stone flakes. However, despite being able to holistically and accurately incorporate three-dimensional flake variance into our analyses, the behavioural drivers of this variance remain elusive.     

Experimental Pesah or,How do you Eat a Lamb while Holding a Staff in your Hand?

The Passover festival has been the ritual expression of Jewish cultural identity ever since the Old Testament got the form it has today. This article looks at the ways cultural identity was expressed in antiquity, critiques the traditional prioritising of the story of exodus over its biblical ritual expression in understanding ancient Jewish identity and explores various Pesah sacrifice instructions in Exodus 12 as an implicit polemical ritual discourse engaged in constructing a ritual of cultural distinction. The article pays close attention to the tension between the invented and the real of the instructions, and attempts to identify the possible cultural other against whom some of the Exodus instructions were constructed.     

Book reviews

THE PHILIPPINES

FILOMENO AGUILAR. Clash of Spirits—the History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island. Ateneo de Manila University Press and University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

CHINA

BENJAMIN VANG. Deng: a Political Biography. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. 360 pp. Bibliography, index. US$59.95, hardcover; US$21.95, paper.

CHING KWAN LEE. Gender and the South China Miracle. Two Worlds of Factory Women. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998. xiii, 210 pp. Bibliography, index. £12.95, paper.

LINDA BENSON and INGVAR SVANBERG. China's Last Nomads: the History and Culture of China's Kazaks . New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 270 pp. Index, photographs, maps, charts, bibliography. US$63.95, hardcover; US$ 24.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

TESSA MORRIS‐SUZUKI. Re‐inventing Japan: time, Space, Nation. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. US$21.95, paper.

DAVID MYERS and KOTAKU ISHIDO (eds). Japan at the Crossroads. Tokyo: Seibundo, 1998. xv, 253 pp. Bibliography. ¥3000, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LINDA CONNOR, PATSY ASCH and TIMOTHY ASCH.

Films: A Balinese Trance Séance (30 mins). Jero on Jero (16 mins). The Medium is the Masseuse (31 mins). Jero Tapakan (26 mins). Produced and distributed by the Ethnographic Film Unit, Department of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU, Canberra. 16mm (VHS cassette). Colour. English subtitles. A$80.00.

CARL A. TROCKI (ed). Gangsters, Democracy, and the State in Southeast Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1998. 94 pp. No price given, paper.     

Book reviews

CHINA

MURRAY A. RUBINSTEIN (ed). Taiwan: a New History . Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. 536 pp. Illustrations, maps, photographs, index. US$27.95, paper.

CLARA WING‐CHUNG HO (ed). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women Vol 1: the Qing Period 1644–1911. Editors in Chief Lily Xiao Hong Lee and A. D. Stefanowksa. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 424 pp. Bibliography, index. US$87.95, hardcover.

JUN JING. The Temple of Memories: history, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village. Oakleigh, Victoria: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 217 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, references, character lists, index. A$29.95, paper.

LISA ROFEL. Other Modernities. Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1999. xvi, 330 pp. 3 b/w illustrations, 2 maps, notes, bibliography, index. US$16.95, paper.

HAIPING YAN (ed). Theater & Society: an Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xlvi, 328 pp. Introduction, notes on translators. US$ 62.95, hardcover; US$ 24.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

MICHAEL J. GREEN. Arming Japan: defense Production, Alliance Politics and the Postwar Search for Autonomy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. 206 pp. US$19.00, paper.

T. J. PEMPEL. Regime Shift: comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy. Idiaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. 263 pp. £13.50, paper.

IAN NISH (ed). The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe: a New Assessment. Surrey: Japan Library, 1998. 226 pp. Foreword, list of contributors, introduction, appendix, notes, index. £40.00, hardcover.

SUGIHARA SEISHIRO (trans. Norman Hu). Between Incompetence and Culpability: assessing the Diplomacy of Japan's Foreign Ministry from Pearl Harbour to Potsdam. Lanham: University of America Press, 1997. xxv, 227 pp. Appendices, glossary, bibliography. No price given, hardcover.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

JOHN DOWSON. A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1998. 430 pp. Rs. 100, paper.

SURES CHANDRA BANERJI. A Companion to Dharmasastra. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1998. 265 pp. Rs. 350, hardcover.

ANIL KUMAR. Medicine and the Raj: British Medical Policy in India 1835–1911. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publications, 1998. 246 pp. £27.50, paper.

VTVEK PINTO. Gandhi's Vision and Values. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publications, 1998. 176 pp. Index. Rs. 225, hardcover.

MINA SWAMINATHAN (ed). The First Five Years: a Critical Perspective on Early Childhood Care and Education in India. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publications, 1998. 313 pp. £35.00, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

PETER SEARLE. The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism: rent Seekers or Real Capitalists? St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1999. xvii, 318 pp. Tables, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. A$29.95, paper.

KATHERINE A. BOWIE. Rituals of National Loyalty: an Anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xxii, 391 pp. US$49.40, hardcover; US$18.50, paper.

MICHAEL A. AUNG‐THWIN. Myth and History in the Historiography of Early Burma. Ohio University Center for International Studies, Athens, Ohio. Monograph No. 102. 1998. US$25.00, paper.

ANNE BOOTH. The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. A History of Missed Opportunities. Basingstoke: Macmillan, in association with the Australian National University, 1998. xvi, 377 pp. A$49.95, paper.