Our Rude Forefathers
Early Britain. By Jacquetta Hawkes. (Collins. 4s. 6d.)
THIS is not only one of the most excellent books in a series ("Britain in Pictures ") that is usually, though not invariably, excellent ; it is also a remarkably skilful introduction to an intricate and fasci- nating subject. Obviously it was impossible, within the rigorous limits that are imposed, to avoid the disadvantages of compression and the effects of a certain predilection or bias. I am very well aware of these difficulties, and it is not in any querulous or carping spirit that I venture to indicate what seems to me to be a disproportion in the parts of this generally admirable essay. Of the Art of work- ing in flint and other stones, which has been the continuous occupa- tion of the human race during the immeasurably greater .part of its existence, Mrs. Hawkes says nothing at all. We are given no hint of the extraordinary skill which, at the end of the Stone Age, men had developed in the practice of this art, and there are no illustra- tions of the finer examples of flint-work, which can be so beautifully shown in drawings. In a popular book this may be justly regarded as a serious omission. I regret also the absence of any illustration of Neolithic pottery. On the other hand, La Tene decoration is displayed in no fewer than three of the black-and-white and two of the eight colour-plates. Although the choice of the illustrations is beyond all reproach, the quality of the reproductions in colour (as frequently happens in these books) is by no means a matter of equal congratulation.
Mrs. Hawkes writes agreeably, and m a style that is frequently pleasing on its own account. Perhaps her more speculative passages are not always defensible. The austerity of pure science is often wantonly violated by the archaeologist, and nowhere more so than in facile talk about the " ritual life" of the Upper Palaeolithic ages. We can, of course, know practically nothing about this, and our guesses depend only upon extremely doubtful methods of inter- pretation and analogy. To say that people were buried in the megalithic period with " elaborate ritual," and furthermore to invoke such a thing as "the symbolism of megalithic architecture," is gratuitous. One may also venture to ask Mrs. Hawkes how . she knows that hoes were used by Neolithic women. But these are not so much criticisms as warnings, and I hope they do not detract from the heartiest commendation of thisr delightful essay. The Bibliography shows a perceptible, though doubtless involuntary, prejudice ; and I regret the absence of some of the earlier books (those of Evans, for instance) which, on account of the beauty, wealth and accuracy of their illustrations, are still particularly valuable.
C. E. VULLIAMY.
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