BOOK REVIEWS

The Archaeology of Pouerua. Douglas Sutton, Louise Furey, and Yvonne Marshall.Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. 262 pp., figures, tables, index,NZ$49.99. ISBN 1869402928.

Reviewed by IAN BARBER, University of Otago

During the 1980s, the volcanic landscapeincorporating the modified cone known asPouerua in the inland Bay of Islands, NewZealand, was the subject of a large-scale ar-chaeological investigation. The results ofthis work have been reported and inter-preted in university theses, several pub-lished papers, and three volumes. The firsttwo volumes as edited by project directorSutton present a series of reports on the ar-chaeology of undefended settlements andsmaller pa (defended earthwork sites) of thePouerua area. The last volume of the proj-ect is under the multiple authorship of Sut-ton and two colleagues. It is a full reporton the archaeology of the large, extensivelyterraced and defended Pouerua cone itselfand has been long awaited in New Zealandarchaeology.

This publication is without question oneof the most important archaeological re-search statements on New Zealand pa.Chapter 1 begins with a critique of pascholarship that sets out the fundamentalassumptions of the volume. The authorsimply that earlier views of pa as period arti-facts or settlement types are inappropriatefor the investigation of a complex sociopo-litical site such as Pouerua. Chapters 1through 3 propose that the only way to ad-vance our understanding of a place likePouerua is to identify in fine stratigraphicdetail examples of the many events of thesite's history. This is achieved through ex-tensive survey and a combination of selec-

tive trench and large area excavations.Given the ambitious nature of this project,it is no surprise to learn that "the complex-ity of the excavations and the large numberof stratigraphic layers identified ... madeanalysis and interpretation difficult" andthat a form of the Harris matrix wasemployed to sequence stratigraphic con-texts (p. 29).

The greater part of the book is taken upwith the documentation and interpretationof excavation results, including summarytables of events and layers, clear linedrawings, some well-resolved photographs(chapters 5-11), an integrated cone se-quence (chapter 12), and radiocarbon results(chapter 13). The focus of these chapters ison identified "events" that are separatedout for description, labeled, and related bystratigraphy (where possible) for and be-tween several discrete excavation areas. Theinvestigation units include the elevated,constructed parts of the rim (tihi), defensiveditches and scarps, and separated terracesand terrace clusters from the upper to thelower parts of the cone. This has resultedin a detailed excavation report focused onexcavated soils, layers, features, and objects.The detail is a little overwhelming inplaces, where the reader may need to referback to the helpful summary overview ofchapter 4 (intended to "help make thecomplex excavation data more accessible,"p. 30). Even so, the writing is generallyclear and straightforward and the report co-

Asian Pcrspca;llcs, VoL 46, No. I © 2007 by the University of Haw;lj'j Press.

234 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

herent. By the time one reaches the discus-sion of the form of the cone and its chang-ing use over time in chapters 14 and 15,the major identified events and features atleast are familiar, and their interpretation isgenerally satisfactory.

The careful description and sequence ofconstruction events supports a compellingand somewhat surprising conclusion aboutPouerua's complex history. The cone isinterpreted as a place of defended andundefended uses that changed over time,where the most considerable settlementactivities occurred before and after thetime of its strongest and most conspicuousfortification. In short, when the greatestnumber of people were living on or usingPouerua most intensively, the cone itselfwas only lightly defended at best. This isan important contribution to our under-standing of pa as sociopolitical monuments."People were not cowering in defendedsettlements up on the Pouerua cone," theauthors contend: They were instead "ad-vertising their presence, wealth and situa-tion ... in a highly visible, even command-ing, manner" (p. 233). In conclusion, theauthors interpret Pouerua and by compari-son other pa as places that combined "cere-monial, symbolic and defensive purposes"(p. 237).

The difficult task of presenting and cor-relating the complex excavation results ishandled well overall. As one might expectwith shared rather than multiple edited au-thorship, the Pouerua volume presents amore coherent interpretation than the ear-lier monographs of the project. There issome repetition of detail through the dataand interpretation chapters, but in generalthe complexities of the stratigraphic rela-tionships justify ongoing reminders and ref-erence points. Radiocarbon data are pre-sented fully and calibrated and interpretedcarefully. Suggestions for the very earlyconstruction and sustained use of a pit fromthe smaller Haratua's Pa of the Poueruaarea in the 1993 monograph are referencedobliquely and not advocated otherwise inthis volume, while a reported radiocarbonerror from the 1993 publication is also cor-rected (pp. 198, 22; see also p. 1 acknowl-

edging the current consensus of a shorterMaori archaeological sequence c. 800 yearsold).

The only real quibble I have concernsthe commendable expectation raised inchapter 1 that Pouerua is to be consideredin the context of "archaeological, ecolog-ical, economic and socio-political contexts"(pp. 9-10). In this regard, it is acknowl-edged that Pouerua cone is at the center ofa "vast horticultural landscape," where "itwould never be possible to understand thenature of settlement ... without also un-derstanding the nature of horticulture onthe surrounding lava field" (p. 10). Indeed,some of the adjacent stone field walls androws begin on the cone's lower slopes (p.18). The discussion of this larger horticul-tural landscape is brief, however (primarilyon pp. 18 and 19 respectively, with refer-ence to short published descriptions only),while the suggestions of terrace gardeningon the cone (pp. 158, 164) are not ex-plored further or related to the greaterarea and sequence. It is unclear also whythe intriguing "possibility" of early terracegardening (p. 181) is raised when evidenceof garden soils is conspicuously absent fromthese excavated features (pp. 172, 181). It isto be hoped that the important archaeologi-cal evidence of crop production at Poueruacan be presented more fully at some stage.

The volume, in short, is an admirableexample of a thoroughly presented excava-tion report for a complex earthworks site.It offers a stimulating interpretation thatjoins a number of calls in New Zealand ar-chaeology to reconsider pa as places withcomplex histories and uses, where defen-sive purposes are part of the picture only.Some readers of this journal may be lessconvinced by the discussion that considerspa and other monumental Pacific earth-work sites in relation to stone religiousarchitecture in Polynesia (pp. 234-237).In my view, the record of multiple con-structed open spaces and bounded areas ofvariable form and size over the hugePouerua cone justifies the comparison andhelps to relate the too-often marginalizedarchaeology of New Zealand to its largerPacific context.

BOOK REVIEWS 235

Archaeology and Culture in Southeast Asia: Unraveling the Nusantao. Wilhelm G. Sol-heim II, with contributions from David Bulbeck and Ambika Flavel. Forewordby Victor Paz. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006. 316pp. + xvi, illustrations, maps. ISBN 9715425089.

Reviewed by JOHN A. PETERSON, Carcia and Associates, Kailua, Hawai'i

Bill Solheim founded this journal, AsianPerspectives, which first appeared in 1957.For over 50 years he has been a leader andcontributor to Southeast Asian archaeolog-ical studies. He has been prolific, and hiswork has been foundational for studies inthe region. He has recently revised andrepublished his Archaeology of the CentralPhilippines: A Study Chiif/y of the Iron Ageand Its Relationships (Solheim 2002) as wellas updated earlier reports in "Archaeolog-ical Survey in Papua, Halmahera, and Ter-nate, Indonesia" (chapter 6 in this volumeunder review). He also recently revisitedceramic collections in the Sarawak Mu-seum from the Gua Sirah project, which heis currently preparing for publication. Inother words, Solheim has been vigorousand productive since his "retirement" fromteaching in 1991 from the Department ofAnthropology at the University of Hawai'i.He is currently on the faculty of the Ar-chaeological Studies Program at the Uni-versity of the Philippines in Diliman. Thefestschrift Southeast Asian Archaeology waspublished in 2005 in his honor by his col-leagues and former students, and it includesarticles from throughout Mainland and Is-land Southeast Asia-the latter a neologismthat he helped coin.

This book on the Nusantao is a consum-mate review by Solheim of his life's workin the region. It is written in a fresh andsometimes conversational style, with an eyenot only toward reviewing his previouswork, but also accommodating recent find-ings and literature. Solheim takes advantageof hindsight to revise a few earlier miscon-ceptions or misstatements, and he also takesthe opportunity to frame his vision of mi-gration in the region in light of a currentcontroversy of contending models. In this

sense, this volume presents the history ofan idea as well as the fieldwork and analysesthat Solheim has done over the past halfcentury. Unraveling the Nusantao is at thesame time a recounting of the data, a histo-riography of the concept, a personal intel-lectual biography, and also a vision of a vi-brant maritime culture that has inhabitedthe region since the Late Paleolithic. It is acompelling argument for his model of dis-persive and expansive settlement in South-east Asia.

The concept has evolved considerablyfrom its earliest presentations as a Neolithicera "Nusantao" culture, and this volumereflects not only the emergence of data butalso an emerging and quite sophisticatedmodel of migration. The theme is centralto theory and interpretations of migrationthroughout the region and is currentlycontroversial in its opposition to modelsthat focus on Taiwan as the fulcrum ofAustronesian Neolithic period diffusion.Solheim examines this alternate model andcompares it unfavorably to the data, as wellas to his own theory.

Solheim himself eschews the term"theory," as he has long been skeptical offads and fashions, old wine in new skins, orrevisionistic explanations. In contrast, Sol-heim remains close to his experience of thearchaeological landscapes of the region, tothe data, and to his prodigious knowledgeof artifacts, sites, and collections in his illu-mination of a powerful and resilient modelfor settlement and migration. He presentsthe ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and lin-guistic as well as archaeological bases for histheory.

The book is divided into seven chapters,with two contributions regarding the anal-yses of his Sa Huynh-Kalanay ceramic tra-

As;nll Pcrspcaillcs, Vol. 46, No.1 © 2007 by the University of Hawai'j Press.

236 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

dition that he had first proposed in 1952for the central Philippines as the Kalanaytradition. He later expanded the conceptinto a panregional tradition where ceramicstyles from the Sa Huynh site in Vietnamwere interpreted as genetically related tothe Kalanay, with stylistic flow occurringover probably a very short period oftime during the Neolithic and evolvingthroughout the early Iron Age in the re-gion. David Bulbeck and Ambika Flavelhave contributed appendices to this volumethat statistically support Solheim's earlierstylistic lumpings. Another brief section, anaccount of survey results from Papua, Hal-mahera, and Ternate, Indonesia, is alsoappended to the Nusantao volume as chap-ter 6. This chapter adds more detail fromthe region regarding artifacts and sites butis somewhat tangential to the main thrustof the volume.

In Chapter 1, Solheim lays out theNusantao model as a maritime communica-tion and trade network that provided theframe for regional migration as well as ex-change. This model is an elegant visualiza-tion of the movement of people andresources in the region as known fromcontemporary, ethnographic, and ethnohis-torical accounts, as Solheim recounts inchapters 4 and 5. Migration in this accountmight more reasonably be termed "geo-graphical mobility," in the sense of RalphPiddington (1965) or its application to theLimau villagers of Galela in Halmahera byMatsuzawa (1980). Here kinship occa-sioned nondirectional and sporadic "migra-tion" that could not be explained by linearor clinal migration models. The termrecognizes the tremendous fluidity of hu-man movement in the region, where themaritime is field to the figure of socialagency. It is unbounded by terrestrialresources except as temporary landingzones, and these are often ephemeral pointreferences in a very expansive seascape.The system is driven more by spatial per-ceptions of dispersed maritime resources,kin networks, cyclical weather, and tides,currents, and prevailing winds than by"landmarks." Small groups can travel great

distances very quickly and can drop offnodes of settlement and revisit themthroughout the region on very short no-tice. Further, the nature of trading shifts inthe maritime field from terrestrial or trans-humant patterns to "down the line trading"that itself contributes to the pulsative anddispersive character of mobility rather thanlinear or unidirectional migration. Solheimcomments wryly that this kind of exchange"has been termed smuggling when itinvolves trade over national boundaries"(p. 154), and in that phrase he capturesmuch of the difference between Westernand regional perceptions of space, time,and relationships. To the West, the regionis awash in corruption. Locally, powerflows are perceived as horizontal and in aweb of kin networks, not through hierar-chical and linear systems. One man's graftis another's habitus.

In chapter 2, Solheim lays out the casethat he had previously identified as a Neo-lithic phenomenon, which actually had itsroots in the Palaeolithic settlement of theregion. He depicts artifact complexes inKorea and Japan as genetically related tothe Nusantao and links them all to theHoabinhian or Palaeolithic stone tool com-plexes found throughout the region. Inchapter 3, he discusses the "four lobes" ofthe Nusantao Maritime Trading Network,and with this image he figuratively con-trasts his model of geographical mobility tothe linear models of migration advancedmost notably by Peter Bellwood, amongothers. He presents a close reading of theliterature and the data from throughout theregion and clearly contrasts the Nusantaoconcept with its rather one-dimensionalalternative. Solheim, with the Nusantaomodel, provides a mechanism as well as abroader frame within which to considerthe rapid movement of people and culturethroughout a very expansive region. TheNusantao concept is more like a swarm ofbees than like the startled beekeeper whomakes a "beeline" to escape their wrath!This comparison might best clarifY thecontention between the "out-of-Taiwan"migrationists and Nusantao proponents.

BOOK REVIEWS 237

No doubt Austronesians did move fromTaiwan to Batanes and perhaps then di-rectly to northern Luzon, but it is likelythat this was just one small corner of ex-pansive geographical mobility throughoutthe region. Solheim was recently told thatan expedition to the Batanes had justreturned with a report that they had foundred-slipped pottery and jade, two of thehallmarks for regional Neolithic culture."Why not?" he remarked. "It's everywhereat that time, why not also in the Batanes?"

REFERENCES CITED

MATSUZAWA, K.1980 Social organization and rites of pas-

sage. Senri Ethnological Stt/dies 7: 345-398.

PIDDINGTON, R.1965 Kinship and Geographical Mobility. Lei-

den: E. J. Brill.SOLHEIM, W.

2002 Archaeology of the Central Philippines:A Study Chiifty of the Iron Age and ItsRelationships. Quezon City, Philip-pines: Archaeological Studies Pro-gram, University of the Philippines-Diliman.

Gender and Chinese Archaeology. Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun, eds. WalnutCreek, CA: Altamira Press, 2004. 392 pp., tables, figures, index. US$39.95 paper,US$80.00 hardcover. ISBN 0759104093 (paper), 0759104085 (hardcover).

Reviewed by ELIZABETH M. BRUMFIEL, Northwestern University

Gender and Chinese Archaeology presents anintroduction and 11 original studies thatdraw upon already published data. Theauthors are professors and graduate studentsof art history, Asian studies, anthropology,and history at the University of Pittsburgh.Their studies cover a 3500-year span, fromthe Neolithic Majiayao culture of north-western China to the Shang, Zhou, andHan dynasties. Most of the chapters exam-ine mortuary data, and most are concernedwith the relative status of women and menand the sources of their equal or unequalstatus. I approached Gender and ChineseArchaeology with great interest, curious toknow whether the engendered archaeologyof an unfamiliar region from a non-Western point of view would yield newand challenging insights. I came awaysomewhat disappointed-but also impressedby the potential of these scholars and theirdata.

As Gideon Shelach explains in his intro-ductory chapter, the Marxist foundationsof the People's Republic of China duringthe 1960s through the 1980s encouragedthe study of ancient social structure,

including family organization and the statusof women. True, Chinese researchersaccepted as given Engels' (1972 [1884])model of social evolution from matriarchyto patriarchy, accompanied by a decline inthe status of women. And they alsoaccepted that women throughout the ageswere confined to the domestic sphere dueto their biologically imposed roles in repro-duction and child rearing. But within theselimiting assumptions, debates could and didoccur among Chinese archaeologists con-cerning the classification of particular cul-tures as matriarchal or patriarchal, the re-construction of marriage systems, and theeffects of different gendered divisions oflabor and property regimes on the status ofwomen. This led in turn to methodologicaldiscussions of using archaeological houseplans, burial practices, and ethnographicanalogy to reconstruct ancient gender sys-tems. Although Marxists presented stereo-typed models of gender in ancient societies,they did produce relevant data and they didenvision ancient societies that were signifi-cantly different from those recorded in his-torical documents.

Asiall PcrspCCti11CS. Vol. 46. No.1 © 2007 by the University of Hawai'i Press.

238 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

With liberalization during the 1990s,Marxist approaches in Chinese archaeologywere superseded by a nationalistic programthat sought to recover the deep historicalroots of Chinese culture. This nationalistprogram has tended to diminish the powerof archaeology as an independent source ofknowledge about the past because it pro-jects onto prehistoric data the social andcultural institutions recorded in Chinesehistorical texts. The nationalistic programhas produced less work on gender and aless careful formulation and testing ofhypotheses about ancient gender systems.This volume, then, might have provided atimely return to the topic of gender, draw-ing on the strengths of earlier Marxist re-search and introducing new theoreticalapproaches of the scholars' own design orfrom outside sources. For the most part,this has not happened. While the 11 casestudies presented in this volume are datarich, the analyses sometimes draw conclu-sions prematurely and at other times fail toexplore the full implications of their find-mgs.

Examining Majiayao culture (3300-2000B.C.E.), Yan Sun and Hongyu Yang ask:Did this Neolithic culture evolve froma matrilineal society to a patrilineal/patriarchal society with parallel increases ingender and social inequality? And werethese trends intensified during the subse-quent Qijia culture (2200-1700 B.C.E.)with the emergence of metallurgy? Theyexamine 397 tombs from ten Majiayao andQijia cemeteries. Looking at the relation-ship between tools and sex in single burials,they find two patterns. In half of the ceme-teries, there is no consistent association oftool types with sex, either because no toolsare present or because tools are the samefor female and male burials. In the othercemeteries, some tools (stone chisels, adzes,knives, awls, arrowheads, and axes) aremainly associated with males and sometools (spindle whorls) are associated withfemales. Sun and Yang conclude that thesetwo patterns show different attitudes to-ward gender, with some groups playingdown gender differences and some groupschoosing to highlight them. They offer no

explanation for this difference, and they donot discuss the possible consequences ofthis difference for gender relations outsideof burial practices.

Looking at double burials, Sun and Yangobserve a change from the Majiayao pe-riod, when both burials were given equaltreatment, to the Qijia period, when maleswere placed in coffins and females were notor a male was buried in an extended posi-tion with an associated female in a flexedposition facing him. Sun and Yang con-clude that the earlier culture took a sym-metrical approach toward gender, treatingmales and females similarly. In contrast, theQijia culture was characterized by maledominance and female subordination.

The large number of burials analyzed inthis study and the care in delineating burialpatterns for women and men are admirable.On the other hand, the interpretationsseem a little naive: Is privileged treatmentin burial a reliable indicator of matrilinealor patrilineal descent? Is patriarchy a uni-tary phenomenon? In other areas of theworld, archaeologists have developed var-ious indices of gender equality and inequal-ity, and they recognize that these differentindices do not always coincide. For exam-ple, Crown and Fish (1996) found thathigh-status women in Hohokam societywere advantaged in some ways (e.g., theyhad access to high-prestige spaces at thetops of mounds) but disadvantaged in otherways (e.g., their personal autonomy waslimited by walls enclosing high-prestigedomestic space). Rather than characterizingan entire society as matriarchal or patriar-chal, archaeologists outside of China havebegun to investigate the various dimensionsof women's and men's well-being and todefine what is gained and what is lost ateach step of social change.

Jui-man Wu examines Late Neolithicburials at Dadianzi in the Inner MongoliaAutonomous Region. She differentiatesbetween grave goods placed within tombniches (said to reflect social status) andgrave goods placed in the coffin (said to re-flect personal identity). Gender-associateddifferences occur in both sets of gravegoods. Eleven graves are defined as elite

BOOK REVIEWS 239

because they contained rich burial goodsand are located in close proximity to eachother. In terms of gender relations, Wuclaims that "the social status of an elite fe-male was closely related to that of the maleburied in proximity to her" (88).

This conclusion privileges male status:The data might as well indicate that thestatus of an elite male was related to that ofthe female buried in proximity to him. Wuadmits to deciding which females wereassociated with which males by pairing thetombs in such a way that large, richlyendowed graves containing females werematched with even larger and more richlyendowed graves containing males. Butwhat if the large, richly endowed femalegraves were associated with less impressivemale burials? And even if the associationsthat Wu proposes are correct, couldn'twell-endowed females be associated withwell-endowed males because of the assetsthat the females brought to the association?

Ying Wang examines the rich tombs offour ladies at Anyang. Lady Jing was thehighest ranking female, the only woman tohave a tomb with ceremonial ramps. Hertomb also contained a heavy bronze vessel,many bone arrowheads and sacrificial vic-tims. Lady Hao's tomb had bronzes com-memorating her important family, andoracle bones recorded her military achieve-ments. The woman in Tomb 18 has smallinscribed bronzes and elaborate hairpins.And finally, a woman in the king's tomb,believed to be a sacrificial victim, was asso-ciated with the most elaborate headdressfound in Anyang and other body orna-ments. Lady Jing and Lady Hao are bothnamed in the ritual calendar and thus wereregarded as ancestors and the objects ofofferings from royal descendents. How-ever, the tomb of Lady Hao contained499 carved bone hairpins, 28 jade hairpins,33 other jade ornaments, and many of the50 ritual bronze objects in the tomb werewrapped with luxurious silks. Wang con-cludes, "Fashion must have played an im-portant role in the gendered ritual perfor-mance of elite women" (112). Yet, wasthis the display of a "trophy wife" or wasthis a display of Lady Hao's own wealth

and power? Again, the former interpreta-tion seems to be favored because historicalaccounts portray Chinese court ladies asthe consorts of powerful kings. But the his-torical records might be biased: For ideo-logical reasons, they might underplay thewealth and power exercised by women inroyal courts and overemphasize their statusas the passive ornaments of male agents.The archaeological data suggest that somewomen of the court were powerful indivi-duals in their own right.

Yu Jiang examines 21 Western Zhoutombs at Baoji. Bone preservation in thetombs was poor, but the gender of thetombs' occupants was identified by inscrip-tions on bronze vessels. In one case, thesecond of a double burial was identified bythe bronze inscriptions as "er" (i.e., "theson"); however, the excavators decidedthat this burial belonged to a concubinebecause it was a part of a double burial,and it was accompanied by 24 hairpins butlacked horse trappings and bronze weaponsand tools. Jiang provides no account ofhow a bronze inscribed to "er" found itsway into a concubine's tomb. This seemslike a classic case of slighting data that donot fit preexisting ideas about whoreceived double burial in ancient Chinaand what the proper contents of a malegrave ought to have been.

Tsui-mei Huang shows great inventive-ness in using the contents of female andmale tombs to gauge the autonomy of theJin state. She analyzes changes in bronzeand jade artifacts from female and maletombs in three Jin state cemeteries in earlyand late Zhou times. In early Zhou times,men were buried with bronze vessels andbronze weapons and women were buriedwith ceramic vessels and jade ornaments.By late Zhou times, both men and womenwere buried with bronze ritual vessels, andornamental jades were placed in both maleand female graves. Since these patterns donot conform to the jade regulations formen and women listed in the Zhou Li(Book of Rites), Huang concludes thatZhou regulations did not apply to the stateofJin and that the Jin state exercised a de-gree of autonomy.

ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

Ying Yong analyzes 19 elite joint burialsin Jin cemeteries to see if the status of elitewomen equaled that of their husbands. Inthe tenth century B.C.E., the status ofwomen was relatively high, and Zhouritual regulations were not fully in effect.Women were not regularly buried to thewest of their husbands, they had morebronze than later women, and they weresometimes buried with small chariots. Inthe ninth century, men had fewer chariotsand women had none, and both men andwomen were accompanied by fewer bronzevessels. In the early eighth century, thetombs of two women were larger thanthose of their husbands, but the numberof bronze vessels continued to decline forboth men and women. Although bronzewas less plentiful, jade continuously in-creased from the tenth through eighth cen-turies, replacing bronze as the primaryindicator of wealth and status. Women reg-ularly had less jade then men, which is saidto indicate their lower status and wealth.According to Yong, the declining numberof bronze vessels suggests that "Zhou ritualregulation became more rigid." But it isalso plausible, as Huang suggests, that Zhouritual simply became less popular and thatjade was adopted as the local measure ofstatus and wealth.

Xiaolong Wu gauges female and malestatus based upon 79 tombs at a com-moners' cemetery in the fifth to third cen-turies B.C.E. at Maoginggou. This cemeteryyields two burial programs; W u suggeststhat one program was used by agriculturalpeople and the other by pastoralists. In thegraves attributed to pastoralists, males dis-played wealth through animal sacrifice,pottery, weapons, and body ornaments.Females displayed wealth only through ani-mal sacrifice and body ornaments. Usingthe correlation of wealth with age to mea-sure achieved vs. ascribed status, Wu arguesthat males' wealth, which increased as afunction of age, was achieved through theirown efforts and that females' wealth, whichdid not correlate with age, was ascribed bymarriage. But with only one young maleburial in the burial sample, it is difficult tosupport the claim that the relationship of

wealth and age was different for malesand females. I wonder whether the male:achievement female:ascription conclusionwas accepted on such slender evidencebecause it conformed to the male:activefemale:passive stereotype that pervadesWestern culture and, I suspect, Chineseculture as well.

Wu observes that the possible presenceof agriculturalists and pastoralists in a singlecemetery challenges "the dichotomousworldview in traditional Chinese literaturethat sees the pastoral nomads in the northand the agricultural peasants in the south"(231-232). Thus, Wu favors using archaeo-logical data as an independent source ofinformation about the past and not fittingit to the accounts provided by historicaldocuments.

Jian-jing Li examines 118 graves at thePengyang cemetery in the northern fron-tier area to reconstruct gender relations andthe division of labor during the sixththrough third centuries B.C.E. Earlier multi-ple secondary burials imply the importanceof kinship as an organizing principle, withwomen and men enjoying approximatelyequal status. Later double burials suggestthe importance of the individual familyand male domination of females. Knivesand arrowheads are associated with maleburials; needles and spindle whorls areassociated with female burials, suggesting agendered division oflabor. However, thesetools are occasionally associated with mem-bers of the other sex, so the gendered divi-sion of labor was not absolute. In otherareas of the world, archaeologists have con-sidered the possibility that the presence oftools usually associated with females inburials sexed as males-or vice versa-might mark the existence of third andother genders (Hollimon 1997; Weglian2001). However, Li does not explore thispossibility.

Sheri A. Lullo analyzes historical changein the myths and depictions of the QueenMother of the West during the Han dy-nasty to show how this figure was domesti-cated to reconcile it with Confucian idealsof social structure. In early myths anddepictions, the Queen Mother of the West

BOOK REVIEWS

is an awesome, fearsome, and alien de-monic figure, with a leopard's tail and tigerfangs, a companion of dragons, tigers, andsnakes. Over time, the Queen Mother ofthe West becomes humanized, docile, andbenevolent. She was paired with the KingFather of the East, the male creator oforder in the universe. This pair then servedas a model for behavior desired by the Hanrulers: a balanced, ordered world with fe-male authority controlled and domesticated.This analysis will contribute to broader dis-cussions of gender and the state (Gailey1987; Joyce 2000; Silverblatt 1991).

Tze-huey Chiou-Peng examines the sizeand contents of male and female tombs inthe pastoral Dian society of Yunnan (350-50 B.C.E.) to gauge the degree of gender in-equality and to establish the basis of differ-ential power. The tombs are labeled femaleor male according to their contents. Per-sonal adornments and weaving tools iden-tify female tombs; bronze weapons, imple-ments, plaques, and horse gear identifymale tombs. Twenty-five percent of theplaques depict male horsemen; accordingto Chiou-Peng, these plaques commemo-rate the use ofhorses in raids or cattle, sheep,goats, women, children, and tribute pay-ments. Horse ownership and equestrian skill,Chiou-Peng claims, were important basesfor male power. This interesting hypothesisrests upon limited archaeological data, but itis certainly amenable to further testing. Themovement of livestock, women, and chil-dren though raiding could be confirmedthrough bone chemistry studies (Price et al.1994a, 1994b; White et al. 2001, 2004),while the movement of tribute paymentscan be traced through other methods ofchemical composition analysis of ceramicsand metals (Ciliberto and Spoto 2000).

In the concluding paper of the volume,Penny Rode balances Chiou-Peng's exam-ination of male status in Dian culture byexamining the bases of female power. Shefocuses upon carved depictions of womenthat appear on the lids of shell containersfound in female tombs. These scenes por-tray a dozen or so female figures engagedin weaving, accompanied by a larger femalefigure who does not herself weave. Rode

suggests that these scenes depict textileworkshops, supervised by elite women whoderived status from their roles as supervisorsrather than as actual participants in thework process. Rode further suggests thatthe status of women declined in Han timesas imported silk replaced locally producedcotton textiles as status items and women'sroles in supervising textile productiondiminished. Rode successfully suggests theexistence of dimensions of the Dian econ-omy resting on female labor not consideredby Chiou-Pengo

While this volume is data rich, the anal-yses would be strengthened by greater fa-miliarity with the gender and archaeologyliterature from other parts of the world.Such familiarity would sensitize the contri-butors to the pitfalls of androcentric inter-pretation and overdependence on historicaland ethnographic sources, as well as thebenefits of using multiple strands of evi-dence in reconstructing ancient gender sys-tems. Surely this will happen as genderstudies in Chinese archaeology mature. Thisvolume is an important beginning; it lays asubstantial foundation upon which to build.

REFERENCES CITED

CILIBERTO, E., AND G. SPOTO, EDS.

2000 Modern Analytical Methods in Art andArchaeology. New York: John Wiley& Sons.

CROWN, P. 1., AND S. K. FISH1996 Gender and status in the Hohokam

Pre-Classic to Classic transition.American Anthropologist 98 :803-817.

ENGELS, F.

1972 [1884] Origin of the Family, PrivateProperty, and the State. E. B. Leacock,ed. New York: International Books.

GAILEY, C. W.1987 From Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hier-

archy and State Formation il1 the TonganIslands. Austin: University of TexasPress.

HOLLIMON, S. E.

1997 The third gender in native California:Two-Spirit undertakers among theChumash and their Neighbors, inWomen in Prehistory: North America andMesoamerica: 173-188, ed. C. Claas-sen and R. A. Joyce. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press.

242 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

JOYCE, R. A.2000 Gender and Power in Prehispanic Meso-

america. Austin: University of TexasPress.

PRICE, T. D., G. GRUPE, AND P. SCHRORTER1994a Reconstruction of migration patterns

in the Bell Beaker period by stablestrontium isotope analysis. AppliedGeochemistry 9 :413-417.

PRICE, T. D., C. M. JOHNSON, J. A. Ezzo, J. H.BURTON, AND J. A. ERICSON

1994b Residential mobility in the prehis-toric Southwest United States.]oumalofArchaeological Science 24: 315-330.

SILVERBLATT, 1.1991 Interpreting women in states, in Gen-

der at the Crossroads of Knowledge:140-171, ed. M. di Leonardo.Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.

WEGLIAN, E.

2001 Grave goods do not a gender make:A case study from Singen amHohentwiel, Germany, in Get/der andthe Archaeology of Death: 137-155,eds. B. Arnold and N. 1. Wicker.Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

WHITE, C. D., M. W. SPENCE, F. J. LONGSTAFFE,H. STUART-WILLIAMS, AND K. R. LAW

1997 Geographic identities of the sacrificialvictims from the Feathered SerpentPyramid, Teotihuacan: Implicationsfor the nature of state power. LatinAmerican Antiquity 13: 217-236.

WHITE, C. D., R. STOREY, F. J. LONGSTAFFE,AND M. W. SPENCE

2004 Immigration, assimilation, and statusin the ancient city of Teotihuacan:Stable isotopic evidence from Tla-jinga 22. Latin American Antiquity15:176-198.

Earthenware in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Singapore Symposium on Pre-ModernSoutheast Asian Earthenwares. John Miksic, ed. Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress, 2003. Published with the assistance of the Southeast Asian Ceramic Society.370 pp. + xxii, maps, tables, b/w photos, index. US$49.00, Singapore$75.00.ISBN 9971692716.

Reviewed by LAURA LEE JUNKER, University of Illinois Chicago

This edited volume on the earthenwarepottery studies by prominent scholarsworking throughout Southeast Asia is avery welcome addition to the SoutheastAsian archaeological literature, with JohnMiksic bringing together for the first timework by a broad range of archaeologistsworking in the Philippines, Indonesia, Ma-laysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,Myanmar, and Assam. I believe therewould be little disagreement between archae-ologists working in Southeast Asia aboutMiksic's clearly stated rationale for publish-ing this 22-chapter compendium of workon Southeast Asian earthenware pottery.Comparing Southeast Asia to other majorcultural regions of the world, where re-gional scholars have collaborated more ondeveloping comparative chronologies and

shared interpretive frameworks for theirearthenware ceramics, Miksic rightly notesthat there has been relatively limited com-munication between archaeologists work-ing with earthenware remains in SoutheastAsia. Miksic sees the limited disseminationof earthenware pottery studies throughpublication, conferences, and other formsof international collaboration as a formida-ble obstacle to making substantial gains incomparative studies between regions, notonly in terms of pottery-based regionalchronological frameworks, but also in termsof more contextual issues such as how pot-tery production is organized and techno-logically implemented; what ceramics cantell us about the migration of humangroups, trade interactions, and the dissemi-nation of widespread symbolic systems

Asiall PcrspcllillCS, Vol. 46, No.1 © 2007 by the University of Haw:li'j Press.

BOOK REVIEWS 243

(whether through actual colonization, so-cially or politically charged exchange inter-actions, or emulative production); howpottery reflects aspects of social and polit-ical relations (e.g., gender relations, kingroups, social ranking, factional competi-tion, political alliance); and the culturalmeanings of pottery in various past societies(e.g., why are anthropomorphic burial jarsfound at Ayub Cave in the Philippines?Why are certain earthenware forms used inburial, feasting, and other ritual contexts?).

In his introduction, Miksic identifieswhat I also view as key factors that haveimpacted the publication and disseminationof an empirical database on Southeast Asianearthenware. First, he notes the difficulty offinding publishing venues, specifically aca-demic or more popular presses that willpublish well-illustrated (but often expen-sive) books that are really specific and em-phasize basic data on sites or artifactualcategories, since many presses see thesekinds of books as having low marketabilityand potential for profit. Secondly, heemphasizes the fact that earthenwarestudies are often eclipsed by archaeologicalinvestigations of what are considered more"spectacular" finds in Southeast Asia, suchas monumental architecture, foreign porce-lains or beads, Buddhist or Hindu religiousstatuary, and inscriptions. This primacygiven to architectural studies and emphasison ceramics associated with "royal" or"elite" areas of sites rather than nonelitehouseholds is also underlined in a paper byMundardjito, Pojoh, and Ramelan on Java-nese ceramics (chapter 9) and a paper byMiriam Stark on Cambodian earthenware(chapter 15). I would add to this list offac-tors limiting comparative work on earthen-ware in Southeast Asia the fact that theuniversity tenure process in many countriesemphasizes the publication of cutting-edgetheoretical work rather than more empiri-cally oriented aspects of research, andtherefore professors and beginning scholarsare discouraged from publishing "basicdata" and "site reports" in favor of thesemore academically splashy theoreticalpapers and books in the first decade of theirprofessional career in academics. I can very

well relate to Miksic's refreshingly honestreflections on his regret that his dissertationand many early works on ceramics werenot published and hence unavailable tomany scholars, since I too, now "safely"tenured and in the "mid" part of my career,am feeling the same regret about unpub-lished empirical work and reprioritizingpublication plans to include more detaileddescriptive writings on excavation, archae-ological survey, and artifact analysis. Ishould note that linguistic barriers to com-munication between scholars working inthe arena of Southeast Asian archaeologyare formidable, since we as a group may beone of the most linguistically diverse aca-demic communities working in a "culturalregion." Furthermore, in his introduction,Miksic emphasizes the importance of ex-panding scholarly interactions with SouthAsian, East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, andKorean), and Oceania (particularly Lapita)specialists, given the several millennia ofmaritime trade interactions with theseother regions, making linguistic and na-tionalistic barriers to shared scholarshipeven more formidable. Miksic also urgesarchaeologists to work closely with ethno-graphers and/or to carry out their own eth-noarchaeological research as a means ofgaining a richer understanding of the vary-ing cultural milieus and historical contextsof pottery production and use. Miksic'sfrank discussion of these issues should stim-ulate all archaeologists working in the areato find ways to be inclusive and proactivein getting beyond language barriers tofruitful collaboration with scholars withsimilar research interests, to assist youngerscholars in finding publication venues forboth "site reports" and "theoretical" works(and to see the value of both types of pub-lications), and to not relegate earthenwareceramics to ubiquitous "background noise"at archaeological sites, recognizing theirsignificant value in developing interpretiveframeworks for cultural practice in the past.

Miksic has assembled a truly internationalrange of scholars in this volume, mostlyfrom Southeast Asian institutions, but somefrom Europe, the United States, Australia,and New Zealand. Geographically, the

244 ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

papers cover many of the islands of thePhilippines and Indonesia, Malaysia, Myan-mar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam,with an interesting paper from the westernedge of this regional distribution (Assam)and with significant comparisons to south-ern China earthenware in many papers.The time range is equally broad, rangingfrom Early Neolithic sites to historic periodsites, with some studies including ethno-graphic work with contemporary potters inregions of archaeological interest. Somepapers focus more narrowly on certaintime periods, a particular site or small re-search region, a particular methodologicalapproach to pottery analysis, and/or ahighly specific research problem such astrade routes or production techniques,while other papers provide a synthesis ofearthenware pottery finds and analyses forthe whole time range of pottery making incertain areas of the region, with an em-phasis on addressing larger-scale and moregeneralized issues of pottery chronologyand distribution. In addition to Miksic's in-troductory chapter, two following chaptersby Wilhelm Solheim present a moreregionwide synthesis of issues related toearthenware analysis; the remainder of thebook is largely organized according tomodern nationalistic boundaries. Miksicrecognizes that this may not be the mostideal structure for encouraging noninsular-ity among archaeologists of different nationsand for emphasizing shared research issuesrather than regional foci, but the many sig-nificant cross-cutting research themes andapproaches do tend to come through de-spite this choice of ordering the chapters(and the fact that many papers are rich inshared themes and insights with a broadrange of other papers might have made anyorganization by topic very difficult). In thisreview, however, after commenting onSolheim's introductory chapters, I will at-tempt to briefly review the numerous anddiverse additional papers by grouping themby shared themes and approaches ratherthan in chapter order.

Recognizing that Wilhelm Solheim is inmany ways the most important progenitorof half a century of earthenware pottery re-

search in Southeast Asia, Miksic follows hisintroduction with two chapters written bySolheim and synthesizing his views on thehistory of earthenware pottery and its studyin the region. In a chapter entitled "South-east Asian Earthenware Pottery and ItsSpread," Solheim presents a broad regionalsynthesis of major discoveries and studies ofearthenware pottery from the Neolithicperiod through what is loosely known asthe Metal Age in Southeast Asia, with a lotof good illustrations of decorated waresfrom various areas of the region that areoften grouped to demonstrate his ideasabout cultural connections and humanmigrations in different periods (particularlythe connection between the Lapita phe-nomena, Sa-Huynh-Kalanay pottery, andthe earlier Neolithic expansion of Malayo-Polynesian speakers in Southeast Asia). Healso provides a very useful summary ofsome of his evolving ideas about the mean-ing of similarities and differences in earth-enware in terms of regional chronologiesand population movements, particularlyclarifying his notion of pottery "traditions"and distancing himself from earlier inter-pretations that saw him as advocating a sin-gle wave of cultural migration through theregion (his model of a Nusantao MaritimeNetwork now emphasizes almost contin-uous movement by many related maritimepeoples). In addition, Solheim recognizesthe problems of relying too heavily onlargely nonsecurely dated decorated sherdsin hypothesizing cultural connections, sincearchaeologists such as Stephen Chia work-ing in Sabah (chapter 13 in the volume)have started to get HC dates showing thesame decorative elements at widely differ-ing time periods. Perhaps the most signifi-cant and controversial aspect of Solheim'sdiscussion in chapter 1 is his hypothesis,based on earthenware similarities, thatSoutheast Asian maritime peoples mayhave been responsible for the influx of newpottery designs associated with the Valdiviaceramic complex of 3000-1000 B.C. ofcoastal Ecuador, an idea that is certain torenew long-term debate over possible earlyAsia-America contacts.

Solheim's second chapter (chapter 2) is

BOOK REVIEWS 245

an insightful and personalized history ofhow and why he became interested inearthenware pottery research. In this chap-ter, Solheim emphasizes his view that ce-ramic studies aimed at cultural historical re-construction (i.e., local chronologies andthen regional syntheses interpreting cul-tural "connections") should be given pri-macy in Southeast Asian archaeology,arguing that an understanding of culturalheritage (specifically, when and fromwhere one's ancestors came) is of primeconcern to people of the region who arethe ultimate "consumers" of archaeology inmuseums and public institutions. I don'tcompletely agree with this view, as well asthe often-stated idea among some scholarsthat more recent trends in archaeologicaltheory (e.g., various forms of "processual"or "postprocessual" archaeology) implicitlyreject or devalue the use of ceramics forcultural chronologies (or what we mightcall "culture history"). I believe thatarchaeologists working in Southeast Asiacan simultaneously use ceramics to con-struct solid regional sequences and a com-parative database for making chronologicalcorrelations between sites and betweenregions, while at the same time using othertechniques and approaches to ceramic ana-lysis to get at contextual questions thatwould also be of equal interest to bothSoutheast Asians in general and otherarchaeologists. Both local peoples andscholars interested in cultural heritagewould be very interested to know that cer-tain "fancy" pedestaled earthenware mighthave been used for ritual pig feasts severalmillennia ago in Thailand or that malewarriors were habitually buried with cer-tain decorated wares as possible symbols(along with other objects) of warrior pres-tige 600 years ago in the Philippines, imbu-ing the observed patterns of ceramics withcultural meaning and practice within a his-torical context. The papers in this issuewell illustrate that Southeast Asian archae-ologists have begun to successfully attack amultiplicity of research questions with theabundant earthenware ceramics found atmost Neolithic and later sites by docu-menting ceramic variation in a variety of

ways (e.g., microstylistic analysis, variousmaterials analysis techniques such as petro-graphic analysis and scanning electronmicroscope, statistical studies of regionalspatial distributions), guided by diverse the-oretical paradigms (including what are oftenbroadly labeled as culture history, culturalevolutionary, or postprocessual approaches).

A number of the chapters in the volumepresent regional syntheses of both pub-lished and unpublished work on earthen-ware of a specific period or periods, addingsubstantially to the reference base of South-east Asian ceramic specialists by makingpreviously inaccessible work available to abroad range of scholars. Most notable areWilfredo Ronquillo's chapter on earlyprehistoric pottery from the Philippines(chapter 3), Santoso Soegondho's chapterreviewing the chronologies and culturalcontexts of earthenware in 6000-1500 B.P.Indonesia (chapter 6), Kyle Latinis and KenStark's chapter synthesizing earthenwareresearches on Maluku (chapter 8), E. E.McKinnon's detailed presentation of thehistoric period earthenware from Sumatra(chapter 11), Miriam Stark's summary ofearthenware sequences in Cambodia thathave long been overshadowed by the morewell-known monumental architecture ofthe Angkor state (chapter 15), Brian Vin-cent's survey of ceramic sequences innorthern and central Thailand (chapter 16),Amara Srisuchat's presentation of earthen-ware discoveries at sites in southern Thai-land spanning the prehistoric and historicperiods (chapter 17), Ruth Prior and IanGlover's review of recent work on earthen-ware in transitional prehistoric-historic peri-ods in Vietnam (chapter 18), and MyoThantTyn and U Thaw Kaung's summary of re-cent research on earthenware at Buddhistsites and other early historic contexts inMyanmar (chapter 19). While many ofthese chapters also make very significantcontributions to our understanding of thechanging social and cultural contexts ofpottery manufacture and use in their re-gions (see below), they certainly meetSolheim's call for the type of comparativeanalysis of form and style necessary to beginto construct regional chronologies and a

ASIAN PERSPECTIVES . 46(1) . SPRING 2007

framework for regional "culture history."Miksic, the authors, and Singapore Univer-sity Press are also to be commended intheir inclusion of numerous excellentdrawings and photographs of earthenwarein the various chapters, allowing this bookto function as a true "reference" work inthe laboratories of Southeast Asian archae-ologists working with earthenware cer-amics. I should also note that most of themaps of different regions of Southeast Asiaand relevant archaeological sites in the vol-ume chapters were produced in a uniformformat, with the same fonts, map symbols,and conventions, which facilitates compari-sons of site locations within the region.

A good number of the chapters-particularly those focused on specific re-search problems in more narrow time peri-ods and geographic areas-address thelong-term and always significant issue ofmaritime trade and forms of social interac-tion in Southeast Asia, as reflected in earth-enware ceramics. While I cannot mentionall of the interesting work on theoreticalissues by scholars included in this volume, Iprovide a few examples aimed at "whettingthe reader's appetite" for looking at all ofthe book's chapters. Elisabeth Bacus (chap-ter 4) presents an interesting statistical anal-ysis of decorative elements on earthenwarefrom geographically widespread sites in thePhilippines to demonstrate how ethnohis-torically referenced elite alliance networksand shared emblems of status in the historicperiod can be documented in the archaeo-logical record. Two chapters, one by HildaSoemantri analyzing the clay figurines atMajapahit (chapter 10) and another byEusebio Dizon presenting anthropomor-phic burial jars from the Ayub Cave site inthe southern Philippines (chapter 5), leav-ing the more popular research realm ofinteraction and exchange, illustrate howdetailed analysis of excavation contexts andpottery forms can provide importantinsights about how societies symbolicallyencoded ideas about the social and politicalorder in ceramics. Another chapter com-paring tripod pottery from Thailand andMalaysia Neolithic and later sites, authoredby Leong Sau (chapter 12), considers the

social significance of ritual feasting in pre-historic societies of the region (also a focusof Latinis and Stark's interpretation of Mal-uku pottery stoves in chapter 8). However,both Santoso Soegondho (chapter 6) andMundardjito and colleagues (chapter 9)point out that we may be seeing onlylimited contexts for social and politicalaction in early Southeast Asian societies,since most archaeological work with cer-amics is still from burial sites and other"ceremonial" contexts or from "elite"-associated architecture. They echo theconcerns of Miksic, Stark, and others thatarchaeologists need to turn their attentionmore to gaining an understanding of earth-enware production and use in a householdcontext.

Several of the chapters, in addressingtheoretical questions such as long-term pat-terns of population interaction, production,and exchange in the region, show the ef-fectiveness of innovative methodologiesthat have not been widely used in South-east Asia but that can add new forms ofempirical data to debate on these issues.For example, a chapter by David Bulbeckand Genevieve Clune (chapter 7) bril-liantly demonstrates how microseriation ofchronologically diagnostic porcelain andstoneware at Macassar historic period sites,cross-dated in stratigraphically secure con-texts with earthenware, can provide aston-ishingly fine chronologies of decoratedearthenware, allowing them to assign datesto surface materials in the region and towider maritime trade patterns extendinginto other parts of the Indonesian and Phil-ippine archipelagoes. Several authors (mostnotably Miksic, Solheim, Latinis and Stark,and Vincent) emphasize the importanceof implementing various materials analysisprocedures to determine earthenwarechemical compositions and sourcing ifSoutheast Asian archaeologists are to movebeyond speculative scenarios of migrationand exchange and to sort out whether thedistribution of certain earthenware typesrepresent the actual migration of people,interregional or intraregional trade, or thecultural borrowing of design elements bypeoples in contact (as aptly stated in

BOOK REVIEWS 247

McKinnon's chapter on Sumatra, we needalso be aware that some of our earthenwaresherds may come from as far afield as Persiaand India!). In their chapter, Bulbeck andClune point out that maritime specialistgroups like the Bajau are historically sig-nificant in disseminating pottery and ideasabout pottery forms throughout the region,and that we need material studies to iden-tify some of these previously poorly con-sidered forms of cultural transmission. San-toso Soegondho's presentation of chemicalanalyses of various Indonesian earthenware(chapter 6), Nik Hassan Rahman andAsyaari bin Muhamad's x-ray diffractionstudies of protohistoric earthenware fromKuala Selinsing in Malaysia (chapter 14),Stephen Chia's (chapter 13) use of multiplematerials characterization techniques onSabah ceramics, and Brian Vincent's(chapter 16) synthesis of various forms ofmaterials analysis on prehistoric Thai cer-amics represent very significant steps in thedirection of resolving these issues of earth-enware sourcing and the possible socialmechanisms underlying their geographicdistribution. Complementing this worktracing earthenware origins is exciting newresearch at earthenware production sites, asexemplified by Stephen Chia's matchingof chemically analyzed clays at a probableproduction locale with his excavated pot-tery at Sabah sites and Amara Srisuchat's(chapter 17) excavation of a probable kilnsite in southern Thailand, where a finelymade "ceremonial" ware widely circulatedin Thailand, Java, Sumatra, and Singaporemay have originated. Finally, I should notethat the volume includes three very ex-cellent ethnographic chapters on contem-

porary pottery production in Myanmar(Charlotte Reith, chapter 21), the largerregion of mainland Southeast Asia (LeedomLefforts and Louise Cort, chapter 20), andAssam (Dilip Medhi, chapter 22) that heedMiksic's and Solheim's call for more col-laboration between archaeologists and eth-nographers interested in the social and his-torical contexts of earthenware productionin the region.

In summary, this is a superb book that islikely to become a valued reference workfor any archaeologist working with earth-enware ceramics in Southeast Asia, as wellas those who desire a well-crafted synthesisof current theoretical interpretations andmethodological developments in SoutheastAsian archaeology by prominent scholarscarrying out research in all the major geo-graphic areas of Southeast Asia. As anendnote, I wanted to point particularly toEusebio Dizon's chapter discussing thehazards of preserving the anthropomorphicburial jars at Ayub Cave in the Philippinesto underscore the point that sites withearthenware as the primary archaeologicalremains can be in as much danger of de-struction as those with substantial monu-mental architecture and traditionally more"commercially valuable" porcelain. There-fore, we need to continue a strong pace ofprofessionally excavating, preserving, anal-yzing, and publishing these significant ar-chaeological materials.

NOTE

Laura Lee Junker was scheduled to review thisbook prior to becoming a coeditor for Asian Per-spectives, and she reviewed this book as an aca-demic colleague rather than in her role as editor.