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evident (the contribution of geographers, George F. Carter, Stephen C. Jett and others, is not mentioned and is apparently unknown to the author).

The quality of the book picks up quickly; it is interpretative and provocative, as well as descriptive, particularly in regard to such topics as Indian-white relations, allotment and the early reservation period. A good indication of the content and emphasis is given by the titles of the other chapters : ‘Indian personality ’ ‘Indian social structure’, ‘Indian- , white relations in the context of equality’, ‘Indian response to religious persuasion’, ‘Indian wars in the Colonial Period’, ‘The American Revolution and its aftermath’, ‘The coercion of the western Indians’, ‘The Civil War and its aftermath’, ‘The reservation Indian’, ‘Allotment and the Indian’ and ‘The Indian in search of an identity’.

Geographers will be disappointed (although probably not surprised) to find only three maps (‘Traditional culture areas and tribal locations’, ‘Indian land cessions: 17761945’, and ‘Location of contemporary Indian population’), all quite general and not particularly useful to the volume’s reader. There is also a 16page set of photographs which this reviewer believes adds more cost than value to the work (too many are portraits of Indian leaders, although a few are worthwhile).

Despite these criticisms, the book as a whole is very well wrought, being readable as well as scholarly. In addition to the large number of useful footnotes (especially strong in history and anthropology), Washburn concludes with a valuable 12-page ‘Bibliographical essay’. Although it contains little of direct interest to historical geographers, The Indian in America is recommended for general reading on the history, character and problems of the American Indians. Most public, school and university libraries should have a copy of Washburn’s volume, which will no doubt also find use as a supplemental reader in American History courses and even as the basic text (or one of the texts) for special courses dealing with the American Indian.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania DONALD J. BALLAS

Other studies

D. A. DAVISON and M. L. SHACKLEY (Eds), Geoarchaeology: Earth Science and the Past (London: Duckworth, 1976. Pp. x+408. &14XlO)

This book is the report of a Symposium on ‘Sediments in archaeology’ held in 1973, with participants from a variety of backgrounds, mostly in geology, geography, archaeology and soil science. The editors have arranged the papers into four sections: first, techniques in geoarchaeology; then two sections on these techniques applied to coastal and lacustrine and to terrestrial environments; lastly comes a section on “biological sedi- ments”, perhaps misnamed since its concern is with biological material found in sedi- ments rather than simply with sediments of purely biological origin.

Both space and competence forbid comment on all of the papers. Some are of a relatively conventional and empirical nature on topics such as the relation of sea-level changes to prehistoric settlements or the interpretation of the results of pollen analysis. Others are of a more exploratory character or have some special interest. In the first section, Catt and Weir write on petrographic techniques, Proudfoot on soil phosphorus and Williams and Jenkins contribute on the provenance of sediments used in ceramics. In the second section, Dr Susan Limbrey writes interestingly on lake margin sediments in the basin of Mexico, and in the third section there are two unusual papers on weathering processes on tells, by A. and D. Kirkby and by D. A. Davidson. From the fourth section mention should be made of Buckland’s long and detailed paper on insect remains as archaeological indicators.

I have often felt that at symposia and in volumes arising from symposia there should be a “best paper” prize (at the symposium itself anybody who failed to keep to their

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allotted time would automatically be excluded) and in this case, 1 suggest that a con- tribution by two geographers, A. Kirkby and M. J. Kirkby, should receive the award, They outline theoretical models for phenomena at archaeological sites in semi-arid areas, such as mound degradation rates, the patterns of sherd scatters on receding house mounds and the upward mixing of sherds, and then test these models with field data. The paper is clearly set out and argued, is free from encumbering jargon and is a model for those interested in model building and the mathematical approach in archaeology or geography.

I have the reservation that many of the techniques set out in the first section are not then demonstrated in later sections, and that in turn contributions to the latter use techniques not treated earlier in the book, presumably because they are not new enough to qualify. This leads to a certain lack of flow between the various parts: they do not fit together very well, a common problem with symposium reports. Neither is there a concluding chapter by the editors in which they might have tried to give an overview of the application of techniques, to indicate where the gaps in knowledge are and to suggest what seem to be the most significant advances. Instead the book ends lamely with a very brief paper on molluscs, whereas I am sure that the editors could have put the whole in context for us in a satisfying way.

Who will use this book? At &14 it is not a student text, and since the treatment of different techniques is uneven, it is not intended as a laboratory cook book. It is pre- sumably therefore a library reference volume to be used ad hoc to provide background on one of the topics which is particularly well covered by a specific contribution. More positively, it is beautifully produced (though the lag between the symposium and publication of its proceedings presumably means that much of the work will now be considerably advanced beyond the state indicated in these papers), and is a most cheerful reminder of the intellectual health and interest of a field which can bring together scholars from so many different backgrounds to focus on reconstructions of man-environment relations in the distant past.

University of Bristol I. G. SIMMONS

ROBERT E. DICKINSON, Regional Concept: The Anglo-American Leaders (London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. Pp. xxi+408. 58.95)

This is a disappointing book. Less comprehensive, and yet twice as long as its author’s Regional EcoZogy (1970), it suffers, rather than gains, from being written to be read as a companion volume to his The Makers of Modern Geography (1969). The straightforward biographical appreciations of distinguished French and German geographers comprising much of that book are complemented in the one under review (its title notwithstanding) by similar thumb-nail sketches of leading Anglo-American geographers and their work; discernment of the historical development of the regional concept amidst the indis- criminate welter of biographical detail depends largely on the reader’s perspicacity. The arrangement of many of the biographies by centre, institution, period and generation often seems arbitrary and unsatisfactory, and it does little either to curtail the consider- able amount of repetition or to make the book less invertebrate. Had Dickinson chosen instead to subsume his material under such heads as field observation, sampling and description, “synthesis”, holism, scale and comparative method, his treatment surely would have been more succinct and incisive. This kind of approach, moreover, would have made it easier to trace the French and German impact on regional conceptualization in Anglo-America, and similarly it would have facilitated elucidation of the significant reciprocity of influence within this predominantly English-speaking realm.

Perhaps the best parts of the book are the several, all too brief, passages in which the author, combining personal reminiscence with pertinent ideas and themes drawn from