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Reviewed by:
  • Journey to the Ice Age: Discovering an Ancient World
  • Patrick Julig
Journey to the Ice Age: Discovering an Ancient World. Peter K. Storck. Vancouver: UBC Press, in association with the Royal Ontario Museum, 2004. Pp. 376, illus. $39.95

Dr. Peter Storck, a semi-retired archaeologist from the Royal Ontario Museum, has written an interesting, clever, and unusual book on archaeology. It is an autobiographical narrative or memoir of his experiences working with colleagues on paleo-Indian archaeology in south-central Ontario. The author deals with the practical (and political) aspects of finding a place to carve out his niche as an archaeologist, how to make a contribution and to become famous in his research area. The book is not only about finding a research area that is yet to be claimed, and knowing where to find the perfect site, but also about getting permits and permission and funding to excavate, which involves navigating the political waters of southern Ontario archaeology. In this respect, the book entails much more than a journey back to the Ice Age.

On another level, this book is about conducting the science of archaeology, in this case about a relatively small area (south-central Ontario) and time (10,000 to 12,000 years ago) at the beginning of Ontario prehistory. The author clearly explains how archaeology is conducted, from research strategy and collaborations, to detailed analysis and interpretation. There is considerable detail for both the amateur armchair archaeologist and the professional. However, this book is probably aimed at public consumption, for it lacks academic references and footnotes. It would help to have references in the book, as it is not always evident where specific information originates. There is a long list of suggested readings, some of which are alluded to in the text; however, it is not clear how or why many of them were included, or why others were not. These suggested readings typically include only one or two entries per scholar and may not accurately reflect the relative value of his or her contributions (for example, to paleo-Indian archaeology in Ontario).

A very attractive aspect of this volume is the integration of landscape features, the reconstruction of ancient environments, and the site 'context' within the natural environment – a merging that involves aspects of archaeology and geology that have become a subdiscipline referred to as 'geoarchaeology.' The use of the information provided by scholars from several disciplines (geologists, botanists, faunal experts) is well explained and helps to illustrate the multidisciplinary nature of modern scientific archaeology. There are numerous maps, photographs, and illustrations, all of very high quality. The travel guide at the end of the book to the regions in which the sites may be found is also helpful to [End Page 565] any who wish to visit. However, such information can also cause problems, as some sites (for example, Sheguiandah site) have long been illegally surface collected.

This is not an easy book to review, because it is neither fish nor fowl, but a mixture of memories and scientific findings. Since it is a personal narrative, it represents the author's views on what he has accomplished archaeologically over the past quarter century. Since archaeology is an accumulative historical science, as archaeologists we build on the work of others, and the historical and intellectual legacy is very important. With this autobiographical book, the main points are what the author did, and about his friends and colleagues, so it was possible to overlook or downplay some aspects and overstate others. For example, 'beachcoming' surveys of ancient beaches for ancient sites have been conducted in Ontario and elsewhere by archaeologists for many years. This is not a new or novel approach, but standard operating procedure in survey methods from the arctic to East Africa, and this fact could have been noted. In northern Ontario near Thunder Bay, many paleo-Indian sites were located in such surveys from the 1950s to 1970s, and the same is true for other places in Canada, and around the pluvial lakes of the western United States.

This book is about journeying back to the Ice Age, but has other objectives as well: to inform the public about...

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