Review: 178Author(s): G. A. WainwrightReviewed work(s):

Trade Routes, Trade and Currency in East Africa. by A. H. QuigginSource: Man, Vol. 50 (Aug., 1950), p. 111Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2794308Accessed: 04/04/2010 06:48

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AUGUST, 1950 Man Nos. 175-I79

Both expert and general reader will find the dictionary an instruc- tive and entertaining addition to their works of reference, full of un-expected information. I was gratified to find, for instance, under 'CIAP,' an up-to-date account of the International Commission on Folk Arts and Folklore, and under 'abracadabra,' ' birch,' ' eyebrows neeting' and 'fairy rings' much unfamiliar wisdom.

ETHEL JOHN LINDGREN

Statistical Methods in Research and Production (with special Reference to the Chemical Industry), Edited by 0. L.

J76 Davies. London (Oliver and Boyd), second edition (revised), I949. Pp. xi, 292, 20figures. Price 28s.

This book, to quote the foreword, 'is the first of a series of scientific and technical handbooks which Imperial Chemical Industries Limited intend to publish with the aim of making generally available the important body of information accumulated as a result of the Company's manufacturing experience and re- search.' In fact it is an excellent textbook of those statistical methods which the authors have found to be useful in chemical industry. The chapters deal with Frequency Distributions, Averages and Measures of Dispersion, Tests of Significance, Analysis of Variance, Regression and Correlation, Frequency Data and Contingency Tables, Samplng, Control Charts and Prediction and Specification. For a full understanding of the book considerable mathematical equipment is demanded, though a reader who is not afraid of using symbols freely could manage on only a moderate amount, if he omits some of the appendixes.

The first three chapters are concerned with the concepts funda- mental to any statistical study and are sufficiently general to be useful to anyone interested in the subject. The remaining chapters deal with special techniques, and of these the first three contain something of interest to the physical anthropologist. All the techniques described are illustrated by numerical examples with ample details to enable the reader to follow each step, and research workers in fields allied to chemistry will doubtless find these examples very helpful. It is doubtful though how many of them anthropologists will find relevant to their problems. The merit of the book for anthro- pologists lies in its sound treatment of statistical concepts rather than in details of individual techniques. On those techniques which are used extensively in physical anthropology, such as the coefficient of racial likeness or multivariate analysis in general, the book is naturally enough silent.

Two criticisms of detail may be noted. First, that the analysis of variance is presented always from the point of view where the factors are themselves samples from some Universe; I cannot believe that this always holds in the chemical industry, and it can hardly ever hold in anthropology; some readers may therefore

have difficulty in appreciating the relevance of this method to their problems. A second criticism is that no mention is made of the useful transformations to approximate normality of the correlation coefficient, binomial and Poisson distributions or the variance estimate in testing for variance heterogeneity.

The printing and format are excellent and the text is remarkably free from misprints. D. V. LINDLEY

The Old Stone Age. By M. C. Burkitt. 2nd edition. C. U.P., I949.

Pp. xiv, 254, 9 plates, 30 text figures. Price I2S. 6d. 77 The second edition of this well established book con- tains only a minimum of changes. The fact that entire

chapters can still stand, after seventeen years, with only minor additions is a tribute to the soundness of the original structure. It is to be regretted that, for technical reasons, additions and changes could not have been fuller. For example, the Swanscombe skull and Mr. Marston scarcely get enough credit in a one-line footnote, while Piltdown retains its original page or so of text.

Mr. Burkitt is justly known for his expertise on the Upper Paleolithic and the cave art. This section is brought up to date by including the more recent work of Professor Garrod and Miss Caton-Thompson and by a note on Lascaux, with some necessary reconsideration of the art phases. One may be permitted to doubt the 'fugitive' nature of carbon as a pigment.

To the student of the geological approach the changes made represent rather less than the desirable minimum, in view of advances in fact and theory since the first edition. It is an improve- ment that the Upper Thames gravels are omitted from the correla- tion, but Hoxne and the Traveller's Rest still appear in places which not all workers would find acceptable.

Some will continue to miss capitals in the names of geological periods, as the zoologist will regret their retention in the trivial name merckii, and, surely, Machairodus 'neogceus' is a New World species which never existed in Europe?

No cognizance is taken of the now widely entertained theory of glacial eustasy, in view of the existence of which it may seem daring to lump the Chalky Jurassic boulder clay, Boyn Hill and Taplow together under the single heading 'Riss.'

The bibliography contains some essential additions. Room might have been found, under 'Quaternary Geology' for Zeuner's more recent 'Pleistocene Period' in place of Wright's classic 'Quaternary Ice Age.'

Shortcomings must evidently be attributed to the fact that the book was originally printed from stereos, so that considerable alterations demanded the scrapping of entire pages. Author and publisher no doubt share the regret which will be felt at such evidence of continuing austerity. I. W. CORNWALL

AFRICA

Trade Routes, Trade and Currency in East Africa. By A. H. Quiggin. Occ. Pap. Rhodes-Livingstone Mus., No. 5. 178 Lusaka,Northern Rhodesia, '949.Pp. i6,6plates. Priceis.6d.

Mrs. Quiggin has only recently published a large book on currency in general, and now she gives some account of trade and traders in East Africa.

It seems a pity to introduce the subject with suggestions of Sumerians and Assyrians trading with the country in remote times of which there is not the slightest evidence. Nor is there any likeli- hood that Sofalah was the unidentifiable Ophir of Solomon; and it is quite unknown what island Qanbalu represents.

There is a slight account of many travellers to the continent beginning with the Periplus of the first century A.D., mentioning the probability that the Arabs of Ausan had been there earlier. This is likely to have been as early as 700 B.C. Among the mediaeval travellers the Persian Bozorg might have been included. There are good, short accounts of many Portuguese travellers, of whom Fernandes is the most important. The value of the Sofalah gold trade had been so much exaggerated that slaves became the more valuable export, and this trade was intensified in the seventeenth century because Angola was becoming worked out.

Slaves, salt, cotton cloth, iron, copper, beads and cowries were the chief articles of trade. The 'Katanga crosses' passed from the Cape to Cairo, from Mombasa to Boma. Abyssinian salt blocks were acceptable all across Africa in the sixteenth century. Cast pieces of pewter made a surprising currency on the Zambesi in the seven- teenth century. Silent trade has existed into the present century.

G. A. WAINWRIGHT

Ashanti Weights. By Carl Kjersmeier. Copenhagen (Gjellerup), I948. Pp. 23, with 3I plates. U.K. price 7s. 6d.

179 Dr. Kjersmeier's classic four-volume work Centres de

style de la sculpture negre africaine (Paris and Copenhagen, I935: cf. MAN, I936, 45 and I938, IIS and uI6) is now not only very expensive but almost unobtainable. For the serious student of African primitive art it is an indispensable item of his reference library: the first comprehensive study of Negro sculpture.

Ashanti Weights is a reprint of the essay on the Ashanti in Centres de style, translated into Danish and English, and comprises a brief discussion of these Gold Coast people, their history and art, with particular emphasis on the casting technique, the meaning and symbolism of these small masterpieces of cire perdue casting in brass,

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