Archaeology Magazine - December 1960 - 62

tails of headdress, nose and ear
pendants, bracelets and pectorals. Accoutermentsinclude spear-throwersand
spears, clubs, bows and arrows (rare),
shields, bags, baskets, cradles and trophy heads. In addition to human figures, various animals are represented,
including snakes, birds, crocodiles,also
shells, and utensils such as spearthrowers, cradles and combs.
If these objects are votive offerings,
it follows that symbolism was more
important than realism and that there
was no reason to demand artistic merit
in an article destined to be discarded.
An important and unusual aspect of
this monograph is that almost every
artifact has been analyzed for gold,
silver, copper and OMI ( = otros
metales e impurezas). There are, however, no structural studies. Most pieces
appear to have been cast by the lostwax process and there is little evidence
of subsequenthammering or soldering.
The author classifiesColombianmetals by their copper content, suggesting
a chronologicalsequence.What he calls
pre-tumbaga is gold with less than 15
percent copper, presumably an impurity in the native gold. He recognizes
three successiveclasses of tumbaga alloys, each with an increased copper
content. This scheme of development
may be entirely correct but it must
remain purely speculative until confirmed by stratigraphie excavations or
radiocarbon dates. In Panama, both
these assets are partially available.
Changes in style of metalwork and in
types of ornaments can be followed in
Codé for about twelve hundred years
before the Conquest, but the nature of
the alloys and the manufacturing techniques do not reveal a chronological
pattern.
S. K. Lothrop
PeabodyMuseum
Harvard University

reviewer awaits the last volume with
interest, since the author is an avowed
proponent of cultural determinism
amounting to a sort of predestination.
Though the subtitle and the jacket
blurb suggest that this contribution is
a history of culture, it is an unorthodox one, if a history at all. The first
part of the book, "Primitive Culture,"
is primarily an elucidation of White's
unique view of culture, seen as a phenomenon capable of being studied
apart from man. The somewhat argumentative manner in which it is written is doubtless a product of the unpopularity of White's views among
his colleagues.
The latter part of the book deals
with the agricultural revolution and
its consequences.Here one finds a reflection of the author's focus on technology as the mainspring and pivot of
human culture; one may anticipate an
elaboration of this attitude in the second volume.
Only on a long-range basis can this
work be seen to trace the development
of culture. Time-perspective is minimal and one may characterize the results as being a generalized text in
cultural anthropology.
R. F. G. Spier
University of Missouri

the Table of Contents shows the categories under which the notes will fall,
to account for interpretations of dies.
The Introduction states the questions
at issue, the means of fixing suppositions, and the points at which new discoveries in this mint or another may
furnish a needed connection.
Historical evidence is for the most
part taken for granted. There is, on
the other hand, a helpful reiteration of
the uses of terms and procedures: the
role of successiveobverse and reverse
dies, the implications of incuse and
double-relief, types and symbols and
letters, the basis of every grouping and
sequence,with die-combinationssometimes linking coins not otherwise
thought of together, the manner of
working backward and forward
through wearing and weakeningbreaks
in the dies.
The catalogue of dies thus established is attended by two far-sighted
additions: a description and photograph of each of the thirteen plated
coins ferreted out, and a record equally
complete for the South Italian hoard
found near Taranto in 1929. In these
reinforcementsCaulonia may again be
seen as reaching beyond a single mint,
toward a more accurate reading of
Greek coins as a whole. The matter of
plating recurs insistently in the study
of hoards and deposits, as for those
THECOINAGE
OFCAULONIA,
by SYDNEY now found in Paestum and in the IsthP. Noe. 62 pages, 22 plates. Ameri- mian
temple. In Metapontum Mr. Noe
can Numismatic Society, New York
puts the plated coins in regular series,
1958 (Numismatic Studies, No. 9) as linking dies or obvious imitations;
$5.00
in Caulonia they stand as a group.
As for the South Italian hoard, it
Mr. Noe's Coinage of Caulonia reveals the output of a single mint. Ev- is the greatest satisfaction to see it
ery attainable coin has been hunted presented entire, to see exemplifiedthe
out, to be represented in a catalogue helps and pitfalls of putting a hoard
of dies which forms a compendium of to use in dating. It is set to work first
234 specimen coins arranged in die- for the seven Caulonia staters in a
combinations and sequence. They are hoard of thirty-eight coins, and then
to be viewed in relation to neighboring it is turned to account for relationships.
mints and as adding historical witness. There are staters of Tarentum, MetaA newly discovered coin of Caulonia pontum, Sybarisand Croton, one stater
TheDevelopTHEEVOLUTION
OFCULTURE:
now be matched against the cat- of Poseidonia,and one promisingtetramentof Civilization
to the Fallof Rome,by may
types and be known at once drachm of Sicilian Gela.
alogued
Leslie A. White, xiv, 378 pages, 9 to corroborate
Both historian and numismatist will
or supplement the varifigures. McGraw-Hill Book Company, ations of the seriesestablished.
Mr. Noe's forbearance in
appreciate
New York 1959 $7.50
A student of the mints of Magna making assumptions which must wait
This volume is the first instalment Graecia will read Mr. Noe's Caulonia on further knowledge and on connecof an ambitious trilogy which will in conjunction with the earlier studies tions yet to be found. Is the coin-type
carry, the reader from most ancient of what amounts to a South Italian a design of the die-cutter or did he
times into the future. Projected cov- series. In Metapontum Mr. Noe has have a sculptured representation as a
erage is as follows: to the fall of included, for example, the systematic model? Evidencefor Caulonia seemsto
Rome (the present work); the Fuel discussion of technical, chronological urge a model, but decisivenesswisely
Revolution and its concomitants; and and historical materials which pertain awaits some new-found coin, or a
the coming century, to A.D.2058. This to this book as well. In Caulonia itself sculptured relief, perhaps, as Mr. Noe

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Archaeology Magazine - December 1960

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - December 1960