Villagers of the Maros: A Portrait of an Early Bronze Age Society.

Villagers of the Maros: A Portrait of an Early Bronze Age Society. JOHN M. O'SHEA. xii+398 pages, 68 illustrations, 141 tables.1996. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of (NY) & London: Plenum Press; 0-306-45322-3 hardback$59.50.At the beginning of this book the author asks a question thatmotivates 377 pages of dense, analytical text: can an adequateinterpretation of prehistoric funerary fu��ner��ar��y?adj.Of or suitable for a funeral or burial.[Latin fner practices be constructed as anarchaeological formalism, without recourse A phrase used by an endorser (a signer other than the original maker) of a negotiable instrument (for example, a check or promissory note) to mean that if payment of the instrument is refused, the endorser will not be responsible. to the modern ethnographicanalogies that have informed most archaeological studies of mortuaryritual? In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , can archaeologists actually draw more meaningfulconclusions if they abandon ethnography and concentrate instead onexploiting the unique record of long-term patterns in human behaviourthat is contained in the archaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. ? O'Shea would agreewith the great classicist clas��si��cist?n.1. One versed in the classics; a classical scholar.2. An adherent of classicism.3. An advocate of the study of ancient Greek and Latin.Noun 1. Jane Harrison, who reoriented the study ofclassical religion by focusing on behaviour rather than written texts.'What a people does in relation to its gods', Harrisonobserved, 'must always be one clue, and perhaps the safest, to whatit thinks' (Harrison 1903: viii). O'Shea's book is aneffort to explore the possibilities of a behaviour-up rather thanethnography-down kind of mortuary archaeology. It is stimulating anduseful, but not entirely convincing.Villagers of the Maros examines Early Bronze Age (EBA EBA Eisenbahn-Bundesamt (German)EBA Euro Banking AssociationEBA Emergency Brake AssistanceEBA Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (Australia)EBA Elite Beat Agents (video game)) mortuarypractices at seven cemeteries of the Maros group to obtain sociologicalinsights into community organization, gender and the symbols of identityin a small province of the east Hungarian plain between about 2700 and1500 BC. For those who are interested in the EBA of southeastern Europe,there is a wealth of information here on community organization, genderroles (both normative and inverted), the inheritance of status,community size and population structure and inter-community relations inthe Maros culture. The analysis of Maros funerary material culturecontains a mine of descriptive statistics descriptive statisticssee statistics. : 132 tables, 28 bar graphs (16of which present descriptive statistics on Maros-culture ceramics), fourcluster-analysis dendrograms and 36 diagrams of grave plots, 22 of whichshow the distribution of various artefact See artifact. types just in the Mokrincemetery. Some of this is quite useful ('Composition of HeadOrnaments at Mokrin', 'Distribution of Exotic Wealth Markersin the Maros Cemeteries') and some arcane ('Varimax RotatedComponent Loadings for the Maros Sashes').O'Shea refers the reader to other works for images of thematerial culture he describes and analyses so thoroughly. Most of theobjects that he discusses as critical indicators of social status -necklaces, sashes, daggers, axes, bone needles, pins, small tools andmost varieties of ceramics - are not illustrated. Consequently thereader cannot independently evaluate the typological and chronologicalclassification of graves, or easily determine if chronology might betterexplain some of the variation that is interpreted here in terms ofsocial differentiation. The time-span of the Mokrin cemetery is closelyexamined from a demographic perspective, but chronology is generallyunderdiscussed. Cemeteries that are typologically early (Obeba, with anew map, corrected from Trogmayer's) often are compared with thosethat are typologically later (Mokrin) without much acknowledgement ofpossible chronological variation.The reconstruction of Maros community structure that is at the heartof the book succeeds in some ways and fails in others. Hereditary socialstatuses or 'offices' are identified primarily by an artefacttype considered to be a badge of office - beaded sashes (belts) amongfemales, for example, or copper head ornaments among males - that isfound in the 'worn' position in adult graves and'unworn' in the graves of subadults. The contrast in placementis said to indicate the inheritance of the right to hold the'office' by a subadult, but not the office itself. Thisdefinition is applied inconsistently. While female sashes and male headornaments meet the definition, other artefact types identified ashereditary markers do not. Bone needles - apparently clothing fasteners- were found in the graves of a small percentage of Maros-culture women,occurring in the 'worn' position in all age categories.Nevertheless they are identified as unambiguous markers of an ascribedstatus inherited at birth. Apparently, bone needles are interpreted ashereditary 'office' markers because they occur in a minorityof female graves, and these are said to cluster together in most of theMaros cemeteries where they are found. But the clustering of bone-needlegraves is uncertain at all the Maros cemeteries except Mokrin, and aspatial cluster does not necessarily equate with a herditary statusgroup in any case.Similar uncertainties cloud some male status markers. Of daggers andaxes, O'Shea himself says (p. 261) 'there is no clear evidencethat the office symbolized by the weapons was necessarilyhereditary'. But by p. 286, 'the distinction between axe anddagger . . . seems to differentiate two hereditary descent groups orlineages that may well have corresponded to two villages, or sets ofvillages, that jointly utilized the Mokrin cemetery'. The basis forthe axe-village and dagger-village interpretation is just the spatialconcentration of male graves with axes in the northern part of theMokrin cemetery and male graves with daggers in the southern part. Theargument that other artefact types also segregate seg��re��gate?v. seg��re��gat��ed, seg��re��gat��ing, seg��re��gatesv.tr.1. To separate or isolate from others or from a main body or group. See Synonyms at isolate.2. into two north-southdivisions at Mokrin is not strongly supported, and O'Shea admitsthat daggers and axes occur together in the same grave at other Maroscemeteries. Contradictory cases like this are discussed together withthe stronger cases as if they were equally likely to representhereditary markers, which confuses and weakens the general argument.Three principal types of social status are identified in Maresgraves: permanent hereditary statuses ascribed at birth [the'weapon office', the 'bone needle office');temporary economic statuses reflecting household wealth at the moment ofthe funeral ('petitoner' assemblages, 'provider'assemblages); and associative statuses, primarily for females, thatreflect the association of wives and sisters with wealthy males(indicated by the presence of exotic copper ornaments - assumed to becontrolled by men - in female graves). A number of assumptions underliethese identifications. The household of the deceased is assumed tocontrol the funeral ritual. 'Household subsistence wealth' (ameasure of food-providing capacities) is assumed to equate directly withthe ceramic vessels placed in the grave, as reflected in just threeassemblages: no ceramics, cup present, bowl or jug present. Thistripartite typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. is assumed to reflect accurately the size of thefunerary feast, which is assumed to reflect accurately the wealth of thehousehold at the time of the funeral. Non-ceramic grave gifts areassumed to be irrelevant in measuring household subsistence wealth.Males are assumed to control access to copper, females are assumed tocontrol household subsistence wealth. O'Shea tries to support theseassumptions by documenting non-random patterning in mortuary treatmentsand by reference to such concepts as the 'logic of competitiveredistribution', which make a particular pattern of Bronze Agegift-giving the 'obvious choice' (p. 288). In the absence ofconfirming evidence from settlements, which are described briefly inchapter 3 but not integrated into the social analysis, assumptions likethese must derive from ethnographic analogies that cannot be avoided.Although Villagers of the Mares presents an unparalleled trove ofdescriptive statistics on Mares mortuary rituals, the argument thatarchaeological interpretation can free itself from ethnography isillusory.DAVID ANTHONY Department of Archaeology Hartwick College, Oneonta(NY)ReferenceHARRISON, J. 1903. Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). .