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McKern, W. C. 1938. Review of Rediscovering Illinois: Archaeological Explorations in and around Fulton County, by Fay-Cooper Cole and Thorne Deuel. American Antiquity 3:368–374. [368] The patience of students in adjoining ¤elds, awaiting a published report on the intensive investigations conducted in Illinois during the past twelve years, is ¤nally rewarded in this carefully prepared work, which covers the results of research in Fulton County. Although the book deals speci¤cally with a very limited area within the state, the reader will soon discover that cultural complexes and sequences treated in the text are of much wider import than the immediate locale of operations. The authors make no claim that these cultural and chronological manifestations will be found representative for the area outside that described, but the broader classi¤cations , at least, are certainly based upon a much wider knowledge of data within the state, and throughout a ¤eld embracing many adjacent states. There is the plausible implication that these complexes and sequences may illustrate, fundamentally, and serve as an initial cross section of Illinois archaeology. Speci¤c factual and discursive presentations are preceded by a general introduction and an exposition of methods. The introduction consists largely of a popularized summary of purposes, problems and program, and correlates cultural and historical conclusions. This portion of the book is apparently intended primarily for the nonspecialist, although the inclusion of classi¤catory, survey, and other technical terminology will, I fear, prove a confusing element to an important number of amateur students. However , in all fairness, it should be said that these terms are fully de¤ned and explained either in later chapters or in the excellent glossary which concludes the text. 13 Review of Rediscovering Illinois: Archaeological Explorations in and around Fulton County W. C. McKern The presentation of survey and excavation purposes and methods is exceptionally well done, and will no doubt serve the needs of the instructor to excellent advantage. The reviewer feels, however, that a false impression of the rigidity of excavation methods is created; methods that are nonelastic and cannot yield to the speci¤c nature of the feature encountered. For example, the vertical-slicing technique is described without consideration of any alternative or deviation (p. 26), whereas the reviewer’s experience has convinced him that technical methods are like tools: certain ones will prove most useful under certain conditions; certain others, under other conditions. Figuratively, all eating should not be accomplished with either a fork or a spoon; the ¤eld technique must be selected to meet the demands of the speci¤c ¤eld. It is the reviewer’s ¤rst-hand observation that the authors agree with this in practice if not in statement. At this stage of development in archaeology for the eastern half of the United States, any positive treatment of culture classi¤cation cannot fail to stir up controversy. Of the authors’ contribution to this subject, it should be [369] said initially that it is the most ambitious attempt to reduce¤eld and laboratory data to lucid order in terms of culture that has ever been published for the Woodlands section of the Middle West, however deliberate and cautious may have been the course of its shaping. The chapter opens with a brief history of the formulating of the taxonomic method, which is incorrectly referred to as a “classi¤cation of archaeological sites and materials of the Mississippi drainage” (p. 34). I should like to call to the authors’ attention the omission of Dr. James B. Grif¤n’s name from the list of those who participated in the original classi ¤catory conference [(the informal meeting of December 1932)]. Moreover , inasmuch as the remainder of taxonomic divisions are accepted as endorsed at the Indianapolis Conference [of 1935], one wonders why no mention is made of that most generalized of all divisions, the “base.” Although it is not employed in Illinois, it is a generally recognized class in the taxonomic scheme. There follow lists of determinants for the two great culture patterns involved in the work: the Mississippi and Woodland, following a terminology which has been rather generally accepted. The advisability of including negative traits will be questioned by some. It is the reviewer’s position that these, as given here and later in Appendix II, are trait complexes , not determinant complexes, since determinants are diagnostic traits in a comparison of two culture complexes. Consequently, that which is a diagnostic trait in one comparison may become a link trait in another, and it...

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