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diucrtation (Haward 1964) w~" T h e C h a t DMCC &&onin S a h t c h m a n . Canada," for which she did field m a r c h among the PI& C m and Dakota in that province. The Northem P l a h hsl bem her area of primary raeuch. both ethnographic (Cm, Dakota, Blackfoot. Saulteau) and archaeological (Francoh' H o w . a contact-period fur trade p t ; the M m e Mountain "medicine wheel"; biaon driva); much of her fieldwork h a been in collaboration with her huband, Th~mpl F. Kehoe. Her She served on the board of governon of the latter.Her primary profaional activity WM in an editorial businem that #he cstabluhed and ran, in which she called henelf a wordsmith. She w e d academic. buineu, and p v e mmmt profemiondo in editing and pobhing manusctipu of variolu types. She was a h actin in conununity &ah, plnicularly the women's mowmmt. In all this time. ihe continued a red interat in anthropology, especially in the are-of European anthropology; the V i n l p and the mgsl; and the role of the nonpemn in diffrrent laietics.Dody Ginti died on 6 Febmary 1981 of cancer.Copyright @ 1981 by the American Anthropological Association THE PREPONDERANCE OF WOMEN in possession cults may be causally associated with sumptuary rules and economic patterns that limit women's access to adequately balanced nutrition, particularly the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women. This proposal is based on two hypotheses: (1) if individuals' intake of vitamins and minerals necessary for normal metabolism is insufficient over a prolonged period, then they will develop symptoms of deficiency; and (2) if deficiency symptoms are endemic in a class of a population, then these symptoms will be culturally recognized and labeled. One label, we suggest, for nutritional deficiency symptoms common in women in many societies of Eurasia, Africa, and their transoceanic colonies is "spirit possession." Two kinds of explanations dominate the anthropological literature on spirit possession: one is psychiatrically oriented, claiming that such a condition is evidence of psychological disturbance; the other is quasi-political, claiming that such conditions are really roles performed by overtly powerless people to gain otherwise unobtainable goods or attention. This literature assumes that low status-that of women and that of lower-class men in relation to upper-class male controllers of power and wealth-in itself engenders frustrations that actuate such states of dissociation among low-status individuals. These explanations propose that personating a spirit relieves such frustrations. Cynical anthropologists further allege relief is achieved by constraining those in power to gratify the wishes of the deprived. Both explanations are handicapped by dependence upon inferences about unconscious processes or about unacknowledged deception.Our suggested explanation for women's preponderance in spirit possession groups derives from demonstrable relationships between diet and behavior. There is a strong correlation between populations subsisting upon diets poor in calc...

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The days are long gone when archaeologists would automatically interpret any major prehistoric monument as evidence of a hierarchically organized society. Faced with a Stonehenge or a Silbury Hill, the evident deployment of large labour forces might naturally lead to thoughts of social élites and stratified societies. The task facing archaeologists today, however, is to interpret such monuments not as programmatic products of parallel social processes but as elements in unique and dynamic configurations of social, political and ideological interactions. This is the approach which the present volume seeks to exemplify, taking as its focus the famous site of Cahokia in the Mississippi valley. Cahokia itself is the greatest monument complex of prehistoric North America, marked by 120 mounds spread over an area of 13 square kilometres across the Mississippi river from the modern city of St Louis. During the twelfth century AD this was a settlement with a population estimated to have numbered in the thousands if not tens of thousands. What does such a phenomenon represent in social and political terms?In this book, Thomas Emerson considers not just the monuments of Cahokia themselves but the evidence for ideology and the power relationships which might have supported a hierarchical society, and the mechanisms which may have connected Cahokia with its rural hinterland. The wealth of detailed information available from the sites in and around Cahokia — some of them excavated by Emerson himself — allows a detailed analysis at a level which is rarely possible in archaeological cases of this kind. Drawing on concepts of individual agency, power and ideology as forces for social change, Emerson interprets the rise of Cahokia as the successful manipulation of ideology by élites, an ideology in which the subordinate layers of society are compelled to participate.Emerson's study raises key questions about the rise and fall of complex societies, and the role of ideology and agency in that process. That these questions remain open to debate, the contributions to this review feature amply demonstrate. How hierarchical was Cahokia, how effective was élite ideology, and, above all, how can we go about analyzing this kind of question from the archaeological evidence? The results have a bearing on archaeological interpretation at the very broadest level.

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The ‘fertility symbols’ of Palaeolithic Europe run from unambiguous female effigies to shapes that may not be human at all. A view is taken of some of the forms that makes them into Mars rather than Venus.

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