Book Reviews

DENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY. By Simon Hillson.New York: Cambridge University Press.1996. 373 pp. ISBN 0-521-45194-9. $74.95(cloth).

Simon Hillson has done it again! Tenyears before the appearance of the presentvolume he produced an excellent book withthe simple title of Teeth (Hillson, 1986). Nowhe has written an updated, companion book,Dental Anthropology. It may seem presump-tuous to use this all-encompassing title thatwas used over thirty years ago in what wasarguably the first dental anthropology bookto enjoy widespread use (Brothwell, 1963)and what may even have defined dentalanthropology, but Hillson has furnished uswith a book that builds on, and in manyaspects improves on, the Brothwell-editedvolume.According to Hillson, ‘‘Dental anthro-pology . . . can be defined as a study of people(and their close relatives) from the evidenceprovided by teeth.’’ (p. 1) This definition is, Ibelieve, unduly restrictive and Hillson provesmy point in his sweepingly comprehensivevision of dental anthropology. This is not acompendium of papers as was the first Den-tal Anthropology volume but a cohesive,well-designed look at the field, indicatingthe vast amount of research and thoughtthat went into its writing.

Hillson has included over 900 referencesthat encompass all of the more importantpapers in the field. These will be of tremen-dous use to the researcher who has notaccumulated a large personal database. TheReferences section alone is practically worththe price of the paperback edition since itwill assist the student who needs a begin-ning point for studying or writing on adental anthropological subject. As Hillsonhimself notes, ‘‘This book . . . attempt[s] toprovide an introduction to the main skillsrequired, the major issues raised, with apathway to the literature so that readerscan follow up these arguments themselves.

The bibliography is therefore one of thelargest sections.’’ (p. 5)

The book’s chapters on dental anatomy,variation in size and shape of teeth, occlu-sion and the timing and sequence of dentalgrowth precede those treating in some detailenamel, dentin and cementum primarilyfrom a histological view. A chapter on thebiochemistry of the teeth summarizes recentdevelopments in this area. Two of the morevaluable chapters summarize histologicalmethods of age determination and toothwear and modification. As might be ex-pected, there is a chapter on dental diseases.The appendices will be of value to those whoneed practical information for ‘‘doing’’ dentalanthropology. Techniques for the excavationof skeletal materials, dissection of jaws,sectioning, measuring, etc., can be foundhere along with a valuable discussion ofmicroscopy.

The deficiencies of the volume are limitedto the quality of printing and to some ‘‘mis-placed’’ explanations of the figures andtables. Table 5.1 (on p. 123), providing avaluable overview of tooth formation timing,is left to stand alone with no explanation ofthe terms used. Only six pages later do welearn what the various abbreviations are,and it takes another three pages beforethere is reference to it in the text. Later,Figure 5.8 provides a poor reproduction ofSchour and Massler’s dental developmentdiagram. There is no excuse for such poorreproduction since, as in Teeth, this charthas been reproduced numerous times withexcellent clarity. There are other examplesof reproduced charts and illustrations whichreveal that the publisher has not taken thecare in reproducing them that one shouldexpect.

As with any book, a single reviewer willfind points of disagreement on the contentand emphasis. I would have preferred ex-panded sections on variation in dental mor-phology and tooth abrasion, and a moredetailed emphasis on tooth size. Similarly,there could be less emphasis on the histol-ogy of the dental tissues, subjects that may

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 104:535–538 (1997)

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be more adequately covered in dental histol-ogy and some dental anatomy texts. How-ever, Hillson has given the histological sec-tions an anthropological view seldom foundin strictly dental texts. Teeth offered a betterdiscussion of the variability of tooth morphol-ogy but the present volume gives a muchbetter basic description of human dentalmorphology, providing a very good, succinctdescription of each tooth that will allow itsidentification.

Who is the appropriate audience for thisbook? Hillson claims that the book is writtenmainly for biological anthropologists, ac-knowledging their diverse interests in foren-sic odontology, dental morphology, demogra-phy, archeology, paleontology and prima-tology. Had the book attempted to cover allthese topics in detail it would be extraordi-narily fat, so Hillson has limited its scopeprimarily to Homo sapiens. (Teeth providedvaluable dental data on large numbers ofOrders and Families that assisted with theiridentification.) This is a book best suited fora graduate or an upper-level undergraduatedental anthropology course or for use as abasic reference text for a dental anatomycourse. (I have used Teeth for several yearsas a reference for dental students, especiallysince it has been available in soft cover. I willdo the same for the soft-cover edition of thisbook.)

A comparison of Hillson’s new volumewith his earlier one reveals no clear winner.

Each has its particular strengths and I amin a quandary over which to recommend.The more recent is not a revision of the olderone; rather, it is a new volume expanding onits treatment of many topics found in theearlier one, but also not repeating much thatmade the first so valuable. The solution issimple: a boxed set of both volumes! Inconcluding this volume, Hillson writes that,‘‘. . . [teeth] are really very stylish sculpturesthat are seen to best advantage in fossilizedmaterial, or when coated with gold for elec-tron microscopy. Others may be put off bytheir small size and sheer complexity, butthis is precisely how so much useful informa-tion is concentrated in them.’’ (p. 294) Hislatest volume is also this: very stylish, con-cise, complex and packed with information.He is to be congratulated on producingtwo volumes invaluable to the study of dentalanthropology. Dental Anthropology isessential for any dental anthropology li-brary.

JOHN T. MAYHALL

Faculty of DentistryUniversity of TorontoToronto, Ontario, Canada

LITERATURE CITED

Brothwell DR (ed.) (1963) Dental Anthropology. London:Pergamon Press.

Hillson S (1986) Teeth. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press.

YELLOW FEVER, BLACK GODDESS: THE COEVO-LUTION OF PEOPLE AND PLAGUES. By Chris-topher Wills. New York: Addison Wesley.1996. 324 pp. ISBN 0-201-44235-3. $24.00(cloth).

Like many infectious diseases themselves,books about epidemic disease appear to gothrough cycles of popularity. We are now inthe midst of another such cycle—the last fiveyears have seen the publication of numerousbooks about the ecology and evolution ofinfectious diseases: scholarly treatises, suchas Ewald’s Evolution of Infectious Disease;

semi-scholarly accounts directed at scientifi-cally sophisticated laymen, such as Gar-rett’s The Coming Plague; and books writtenfor a general audience, such as Preston’s TheHot Zone. Yellow Fever, Black Goddess: TheCoevolution of People and Plagues falls intothe middle category. Using language thatintelligent laymen can understand, Willsweaves a fascinating tale of how pathogensand their hosts interact with one anotherand with their environment.

Although the title of the book refers toonly two diseases, yellow fever and cholera,the book is not just about the history of these

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two diseases. Rather, its goal is to explain inecological and evolutionary terms why andhow disturbances of the ecological balance ofthe world’s environments can lead to newepidemics of known infectious diseases aswell as the evolution of new plagues.

The book is divided into five parts. PartOne sets the biological stage for later de-tailed discussions of particular diseases.Brief discussions of recent outbreaks of sev-eral diseases, including cholera, bubonicplague, and hantavirus, are used to illus-trate ecological, evolutionary, and immuno-logical concepts. In addition, the book in-cludes a brief overview of the work of JohnGraunt and the dawning of modern demo-graphic studies of the causes of mortality.

Parts Two through Four focus on particu-lar diseases (bubonic plague, cholera, ty-phoid, malaria, and syphilis) that have hada major impact throughout the history ofhuman civilizations and continue to causeproblems in modern times. Each of theseparts has a particular theme which is subtlysuggested by the title of the section. Forexample, malaria and syphilis are the focusof Part Four, ‘‘The Challenge of the Temper-ate Zones.’’ Most readers are aware thatsyphilis is a disease of all environments andmay not understand why it would be dis-cussed in a section ostensibly centered ontemperate zones, and the connection is evenless obvious for malaria, which is firmlyentrenched as a tropical disease in the mindsof most people. However, the connections ofthese two diseases to temperate environ-ments illustrates effectively how evolutionand ecology of both host and pathogen inter-act to determine the nature of the infectiousdisease experience of the host. Syphilis is asexually-transmitted disease with close (andsometimes visually indistinguishable) rela-tives that cause common tropical diseases(yaws, pinta, and bejel). Yet syphilis itself isfound worldwide. Wills uses this fact todiscuss what a tropical microorganism mightneed to do in order to survive in a temperateenvironment. In the case of syphilis, theadaptation involved colonization of the geni-tal tract in a highly mobile and sexuallyactive large population, which guaranteedan internal, tropics-like environment andenough hosts to maintain transmission. Ma-

laria, which is now common only in thetropics, was once widespread in temperateregions as well. Wills nicely weaves togethera discussion of the ecology of the malaria-prone areas of both the present and pastwith human behaviors in an attempt toexplain why the distribution of the diseasehas changed.

Part Five of the book concentrates on thepresent and the future and considers insome detail both ‘‘new’’ plagues, particularlyAIDS, and the interesting question of whythere is so much diversity in both pathogensand other organisms, especially in the tropi-cal regions of the world. Wills argues thatdiseases have an important role to play ingenerating diversity in other organisms, andthat in turn, the diversity in these organ-isms leads to the continual evolution of newstrains and species of pathogens.

One of the most entertaining aspects ofthis book is the effective use of both quotesand literary allusions. Nearly every chapterbegins with a quote that relates in some wayto the content of that chapter. For example,the quote at the beginning of the chapter oncholera comes from a 19th century history ofthe disease and mentions a cholera goddessprevalent in India. This is the first hint thereader gets that the ‘‘Black Goddess’’ in thetitle refers to cholera—a point that is fur-ther elaborated in the first paragraph. Liter-ary allusions are abundant. One particu-larly entertaining allusion to look out for isWills’ comparison of microorganisms andUriah Heep. A second, more subtle andextensive allusion, encompasses the entirefourth chapter, which is entitled ‘‘Four talesfrom the New Decameron.’’ The chapterbegins with a quote from Boccaccio’s Decam-eron that knowledgeable readers readily rec-ognize as referring to bubonic plague inItaly. Yet, rather than discussing the historyof plague at the beginning of the chapter,Wills immediately shifts to a brief discus-sion of a modern epidemic in Arcticmuskoxen that was traced to a relative ofthe human plague bacillus. In Boccaccio’sbook, ten people fleeing from an epidemic ofplague have taken refuge in a Florentinevilla and entertain themselves with stories—100 in all. Wills, in his ‘‘New Decameron’’also tells a series of stories, but he tells only

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four and they are about plague itself. His‘‘storytellers’’ are the leading players in thenatural history of plague—the bacillus, thehuman host, the rat, and the flea.

While the literary allusions and the styleof writing make Yellow Fever, Black Goddessan entertaining book to read, it conveysimportant concepts about the evolution andecology of infectious diseases. The book pro-vides a readable introduction to parasiteecology and evolution. Although the biologi-cal principles are not always explicit, Willsprovides enough detail so that readers witha background in ecology will be able to jumpfrom general principles to understandingparasite ecology, while readers with littlebackground will understand the main pointswithout being overwhelmed by technical de-tails. This book would be ideal for discus-sions in undergraduate courses focusing onecological principles or infectious diseases inhuman populations. Human biologists inter-ested in ecology and evolution in generaland those wanting a book outside their areato help get creative juices flowing will alsoenjoy this book.

Although this is an interesting and enjoy-able book, it is intended for a knowledgeablepopular audience, not for specialists. A glos-sary is included to define and clarify themost important terms and basic principles.The references are presented in a series ofnotes to accompany each chapter, and in

keeping with the tenor of the book, they area combination of selective, scholarly reviewsand popular books and articles. As in mostsemi-scholarly works, they are intended toguide the reader to further materials on thesubject, and are not an exhaustive citation ofthe literature perused by the author. A fullbibliography of sources is not included; thus,the book will provide specialists with tanta-lizing ideas, but to include them in their ownscholarship they would need to repeat Wills’research.

On the whole, though, Wills succeedsnicely in telling the story of how ecologicaland evolutionary factors influence interac-tions between and diversity of both hostsand parasites. After all, ‘‘diseases form animportant part of the story of life on ourplanet—and, frightful though many of themare, the world would be a far less rich placewithout them (p. 273).’’

LISA SATTENSPIEL

Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaColumbia, Missouri

LITERATURE CITED

Ewald PW (1994) Evolution of Infectious Disease. Ox-ford: University Press.

Garrett L (1994) The Coming Plague. New York: Pen-guin Books.

Preston R (1994) The Hot Zone. New York: AnchorBooks.

BOOKS RECEIVED

Baker BJ, and L. Kealhofer (eds.) (1996)Bioarchaeology of Native American Adap-tation in the Spanish Borderlands. Gaines-ville: University Press of Florida, 244 pp.$49.95 (cloth).

Bouvier M (1997) Cross-sectional AnatomyTutor. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones andBartlett Publishers, CD-ROM $149.00 (fac-ulty version).

Ghiselin MT (1997) Metaphysics and theOrigin of Species. Albany, New York: StateUniversity of New York Press, 377 pp.$24.95 (paper).

Manucy A (1997) Sixteenth-Century St. Au-gustine: The People and Their Homes.Gainesville: University Press of Florida,136 pp. $24.95 (cloth).

Muller J (1997) Mississipian PoliticalEconomy. New York: Plenum Press. 455pp. $79.50 (cloth).

Spitzer VM, and DG Whitlock (1998) Atlasof the Visible Human Male: Reverse Engi-neering of the Human Body. Sudbury, Mas-sachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publish-ers. 519 pp. $99.95 (cloth).

Tyson RA (1997) Human Paleopathology andRelated Subjects: An International Bibliogra-phy. San Diego: San Diego Museum ofMan. 716 pp. $75.00 (paper).

538 BOOK REVIEWS