{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03137396321673278, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01298232960692391, 'mean_word_length': 4.877118644067797, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge . By D. V. Clarke, T. G. Cowie and Andrew Foxon. 28×22 cm. Pp. xi+334, 279 col. ills. Edinburgh: H.M.S.O. for the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, 1985. ISBN 0-11-492455-4. £25.00.

This is a volume which has already attracted much criticism and commendation, and hence a symbol of power in its own right. It operates on various levels: a lavish catalogue raisonnee of the archaeological wealth presented in the 1985 Edinburgh exhibition, a series of inspired essays on prehistoric society seen through artefacts and technology, a specific social (or certainly intellectual) view of prehistory as process not status. The essential period under examination is the millennium or so from c. 2500 be, the ci-devant later Neolithic to earlier Bronze Age, largely for Britain but with valuable excursuses into western Europe. The theme consists in the manipulation of power as a means of social cohesion and perpetuation, implicitly therefore the emergence of individualism on the personal and dynastic level. In terms of the archaeological record—and interpretations here refer constantly to the physical facts of monuments and artefacts—explanation depends upon use, and use upon an effective appreciation of both object and context. In part the volume is a student text for the period in review, embellished by an excellent bibliography. There are set piece assessments of bronze metalwork (Barrett), stone (WickhamJones), gold (Taylor), and jet and amber (Shepherd), with other materials covered, presumably, by the attributed joint authors. An excellent catalogue of the exhibited material completes the volume. Special attention must be drawn to the illustrations: good maps and diagrams and a wealth of colour photographs of objects and sites. Ian Larner, in particular, must be congratulated on the quality and sensitivity of his photographs. In all, the volume is an indispensable resource for research, teaching and sheer stimulation. Other criticism has centred on this matter of the singular and sustained viewpoint. Its roots in the Marxist approach are clear but the standpoint has been considered: it is a matter of intellectual, not political, history. There are many points of potential disagreement, frequent occasions where the evidence seems attenuated beyond its capacities, times where the sheer concepts of symbols and power enforce stopping, re-reading and continuing, but none of these are bad things. This volume is one of the most notable recent contributions to prehistory and to the debate about prehistory. Whatever the level with which it is approached it offers stimulus. A few more like this and one might even hope that archaeology might become more than an adolescent discipline. IAN KINNES