Review The methodological implicarions of using the body as a form of material culture are explored by focusing on two major

skeletal points of reference, sex and age. Necessarily, Sofaer discusses the perceived relationship between sex and gender in Western archaeological traditions and current debate. By arguing for a distinct separation between the biological category of sex and the social category of gender, Sofaer does not suggest a biologically determinist approach but rather one which envisages the potential integration of the material skeletoti into the study of gender. This approach in fact removes the problem of sex being interpretively conflated with gender; the disarticulation of gender (as culture) and sex (as nature) is made 'redundant through their unification in the human body' ip. 116). This way of addressing both sex and gender grounds their investigation within a tangible Framework, avoiding the problems which abstract conceptual construas have posed for linking theory and practice. Age is considered in a similar way: the use of the developmental process in the course ofa life is proposed as a focus for investigation, as opposed to specific ontological age status. By recognising that social practices and actions can result in physical expressions. Sofaer highlights the material formation of the body over time through interaction with material objects. Her study of the skeletal changes evident in remains at tbe sixteenth to nineteenth century site of Ensay in the Outer Hebrides is given in example. Tasks undertaken by the Ensay population reflect a strongly gendered division of labour; women in particular, from childhood to old age, show progressive degeneration and remodelling at various points on the skeleton (p. 140). The division of age into categories of 'childhood" and 'adulthood' are seen as relevant methodologically, particularly when as.sessing sex. However, the specific age at death of an individual is viewed as less significant. Sofaer then moves on to consider sociological and health research, as well as sttidies of cyberbodies and cyberpunk. Drawing on tbis research, she proposes the concept of the hybrid as a theoretical framework. This offers considerable possibilities for mortuary archaeology, since it deals with the material remains of humans and the artefacts buried with them. Eor those archaeologists who 'switch off' at the thought of theories ofthe body, sex, gender and age, this book is an essential read. It is a valuable excursion into how archaeology has conceived and is conceptualising the body as both a biological and a cultural resource. Sofaer draws together the Helds ofosteoarchaeological practice, which has 'on the whole, failed to engage with reeent developments in theoretical archaeology (p. 24) and the interpretive, constructionist theories which mostly disengage with the biological materiality of the skeleton. As an osteoarchaeologist herself, Sofaer has a foot in both camps and manages to convey the theoretical association between bodies and objects in a direct, engaging and thought-provoking way.
WENDELIN ROMER

Department of Archaeology, University of York, UK D.B. MADSEN (ed.). Entering America: Northeast Asia and Bcringia before the Last Glacial Maximum. vi+486 pages. 104 illustrations, tables. 2004. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press; 0-87480-7867 hardback $30. It's called the 'peopling of the Americas,' an uproar that has set rival archaeologists gracelessly arguing against each other in a state of earplugged stubbornness. As soon as one set of theories is declared to be delusional the others arc alleged to be in denial. I imagine the gods are laughing at those of us involved in this contest the eagerly opinionated, the selectively uncritiail, the taphonomically naive, the a^ressively unsccptical. We all may be dead wrong. Entering America contains papers addressing the question 'What if humans had dispersed from Northeast Asia into the Americas before the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum)?' Included are ten contributed papers and two essays by the editor, plus two commentaries by external readers. Tbe ediror's own introductory chapter gets the volume off, if not on the wrong foot, then decidedly on one foot, with

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Review a list, perhaps more a wish-list, of putative reasons why a very late glacial peopling of the Americas is deemed impossible. In my view, a couple of other papers are also partisan, although many readers will inevitably take them co be impartial summaries. A niucb more useful chapter is the one by BrighamGrette and colleagues, an informative reference point for imagining human diasporas in western Bcringia around the LGM. in spite of uncertainties about short-term climatic patterning and a lack of detailed sca-lovel curves for Beringia. Clague et al.'s chapter on the pre-lX^M and LGM environments of northwestern North America Is another valuable source of information about the period. This chapter makes the point that in the late glacial period extensive ice cover and no possible food resources would have been barriers to human movement along the coast southwards from Beringia until 13.5 ka (uncalibrated). Fedje etal., in turn, hope to convince readers that the north-western coastal entry route was used by the Americas' carly immigrants, and predict where sites may one day be found; but they then make a leap of taith, proposing that the presence of Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene coastal people implies an even earlier, invisible, presence, needed for the development of coastal adaptations. If this sort of argument were applied to the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene sites known from the ice-free corridor of interior Canada, it would mean the late glacial interior route was also passable much earlier than conceded by many authors in this volume. Meitzer's later commentary also acknowledges that the interior corridor may indeed have been open earlier than frequently argued. Goebel's chapter is the most important one in the book. His careful examination of sites in subarctic Siberia ultimately narrows down the possibilities for a likely C'lovis progenitor. Gocbel wrote this paper before the discovery of the Yana RHS site, dated to about 27 ka (uncalibrated), in the northeast Asian Arctic; the presence of this site, however, does not invalidate Goebel's main point - thar human beings were very scarce in northeast Asia during the period of maximum glacial conditions, and only after the LGM did the adaptive features that had begun appearing oarliLT allow long-distance human dispersal through Beringia into the Americas. Schurr'.s chapter surveys the genetic data: to me. the most important point is that there may not be a lengthy genetic disconnection between Northeast Asians and Native Americans - the estimates for evolutionary rate range widely enough to accommodate either a pre-LCM or post-LGM entry from Asia, in fact extending as late as jtjst before the Clovis era Itself. Schurr proposes that several separate expansions out of Asia account for Native American diversity, but not all genetic experts would be satisfied with that. Remarks on the number of well-documented archaeological sites that supposedly prove a pre-LGM arrival for the hrst Americans can be found in several chapters, including the commentaries of the two external readers; at best this is the view of only a part of the archaeological community, and at worst it is just a slant, broadcast by very vocal advocates unwilling to tolerate dissent or scepticism. If more archaeologists would read original data reports and not rely on secondary summaries, they might emerge from the task confused about theflimsyevidence and the tissue-thin supporting arguments. Still. 1 think this book is worth reading if you are looking for palaeoenvironmental or archaeological information not generally available elsewhere, or if you are an interested outsider seeking the bigger picture of the peopling ofthe Americas. New students will need to be guided through the occasional misconception or biased presentation, but they should also feel inspired to make their own contributions after reading the finer chapters that point the way forward, such as those, not yet mentioned, by Collins and Lohse on Clovis blades. Brantingbam and colleagues on the early Upper Palaeothic in southern and subarctic Siberia (see especially their list of deficiencies in the Siberian evidence on p. 267). and Ikawa-Smith on pre-LGM cultures in and around Japan.
GARY HAYNES

Department of Anthropology. University of Nevada, Reno. USA PATRictA A. MCANANY (ed.). K'axob; ritual, work and family in an ancient Maya village (Cotscn Institute of Archaeology Monumcnta Archaeologica 22). x+467 pages, c. Ml illustrations, 66 tables & tnultimedia CD. 2004. Los Angeles (CA): Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California; 1-93174509-9 hardback $65. In the early days of Maya archaeology the excavation strategy was a comparatively simple one: select a large or a medium structure, depending upon your

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