Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective
Earth, and its archaeological record, is diverse. Archaeologists continually work to characterize how the archaeological record formed and in what ways it can be interpreted to learn about past human lifeways. Researchers continue to revise their ideas and approaches as new evidence is unearthed, the puzzle pieces shift, and images of the past are reconstructed. Sullivan and Olszewski acknowledge that archaeological variability influences researchers' processes, and they have created a volume that provides disciplinary self reflection. The book's contributors use global case studies that incorporate diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives conceptual, crosscultural, experimental, scalar, etc. to provide insights that illuminate the myriad ways in which archaeologists can approach human prehistory. The book's first section, "Advances in Interpreting Regional Archaeological Records," explores spatiality: how sites, assemblages, and artifacts are distributed within landscapes and how these data can be used to investigate prehistoric technological organization, human interactions, mobility, and what factors contribute to humans' sense of place. Two articles in this section stand out. First, Holdoway et al. investigate how the terminal Holocene arid environment in western New South Wales, Australia, influenced raw material access, technology, artifact reuse, and occupational durations at a landscape level. They conclude that Aboriginal mobile lifestyles in this arid zone focused on provisioning people rather than provisioning places. This article demonstrates that studies of raw material procurement and mobility should consider a humanfocused approach in addition to the more typical place focused one. In the second standout, Roth writes about how "persistent places" emerged in the Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico and what socioeconomic consequences resulted as these occupations continued. Roth notes that how people reacted to environmental change in these landscapes influenced regional culture change. Among the articles in this collection, Roth's continues to linger in my mind and make me (re consider how I learn about and understand both the archaeological record and how prehistoric groups related to the spaces they occupied. The book's second section, "Venerable Sites Revisited," reinterprets important archaeological sites via studies that use new methods and theoretical frameworks. Here, Rollefson's contribution is notable for integrating experimental research into a new model of biface production focused on technological features (i.e. chaines operatoires) that he uses to reclassify the lithic assemblage from Tabun Cave, Israel. Rollefson finds that when the assemblage is classified following the typical morphological protocols, researchers over characterize biface quantities in the assemblage. His technoBOOK REVIEWS 539