Few of the five million visitors a year who pass through the monumental
portico of the British Museum realise that in a slightly less monumental
converted terraced house just off Russell Square there exists a small department
of the museum, which is one of the oldest and best-respected museum research
laboratories in the world. The work of the Department of Scientific Research
rarely appears in the public gaze, although the fruits of its labours are
often incorporated into purchasing and display policy, and into the results
of scholarly research for which the British Museum is renowned.

The department exists to provide a service to the other departments:
authenticating and dating objects for potential purchase, assessing the
provenance of metals and ceramics, and providing technical descriptions
of ancient manufacturing processes. But if this were its only function,
it would not be in the pre-eminent position it is, nor would it be able
to retain the services of first-class scientists. Many of the staff in the
laboratory are distinguished scholars in their own right and, as a result
of enlightened management policies within the museum, have been encouraged
to carry out their own research programmes.

Science and the Past sets out to describe the work of the Department
of Scientific Research in nonspecialist terms. As such, the book’s scope
is not as wide as the title implies. Many of the specialisms in today’s
scientific archaeology, which ranges from astronomy to zoology, are not
represented. The editor makes no bones about this, admitting that ‘its coverage
is therefore far from comprehensive’.

The specialisms it does represent include physics, chemistry, metallurgy,
geology, computer science and mathematics. The chapters that follow the
brief but fascinating introduction to the history of scientific examination
of archaeological artefacts, are largely thematic, covering topics such
as the technical examination of ceramics, glasses and metals. The chapters
on mining and smelting in antiquity by Paul Craddock and computing and mathematics
by Peter Main stand out by being more expansive than the rest. Craddock
illustrates the story from his own field work in India, and Main shows how
computers can be used in British field archaeology

Sheridan Bowman contributes a well-written nonmathematical description
of the two main dating techniques used by the British Museum, radiocarbon
and thermoluminescence. Craddock and Bowman describe how the laboratory
goes about spotting fakes, but do so with some caution so as not to give
away too many trade secrets. The Turin Shroud makes an appearance, illustrating
the sometimes controversial nature of this work.

In the last chapter, Lea Jones illustrates her section on the problems
of cataloguing such a massive and complex collection with the case of a
pair of dressed fleas from Mexico. I initially suspected a leg-pull, but
was eventually convinced by the eclectic nature of some of the other objects
in the collection, which include shrunken heads and gilded penises.

Though not intended as a textbook, this book will be of use to archaeology
students, especially those without a formal scientific background. It makes
a good introduction to the potential of scientific examination of artefacts
and to scientific dating and authentication techniques.

The thematic chapters are splendidly written and beautifully illustrated.
For example, the section of metalworking technology by Michael Cowell and
Susan La Niece is a particularly clear introduction to this topic. Each
chapter has references and a good bibliography. The glossary, where analytical
techniques and scientific terminology are explained in a paragraph each,
is less successful. It is a stiff challenge to explain intricacies such
as inductively coupled mass spectrometry to an audience of nonscientists.

I am less sure whether the book can fulfil its stated aim of satisfying
‘primarily the nonspecialist with some insight into this field of research’.
It is not a coffee-table book, and is unlikely to be bought by visitors
to the museum in the same way as, say, the catalogue to an exhibition of
Anglo-Saxon art. It is possible to imagine a glossily illustrated volume
concentrating on the ‘scientific detective’ work of the laboratory, but
this is not it. But as a general introduction to the work of the Department
of Scientific Research it is excellent.

Mark Pollard is professor of archaeological sciences at the University
of Bradford.

There can be no doubt that there is a need for a book of this type:
the previous English-language texts describing the applications of geophysical
surveying to archaeology are now nearly 20 years old – an appalling statement
when you consider the pace of development of remote sensing in other scientific
areas. Nor can there be any doubt that noninvasive techniques of subsurface
survey for achaeology are more important than ever before, in the light
of the ever-changing threats to the archaeological heritage. The question
is, of course, whether this is the book to fit the bill.

During the past 10 to 15 years, field arhaeologists have been under
steadily increasing pressure to survey large areas for their archaeoligical
potential as swiftly as possible in advance of development, such as construction,
road-building, forestry or drainage. The main techniques described in Antony
Clark’s book, such as resistivity, magnetometry and magnetic susceptibility,
are attractive to archaelogists because they allow them to investigate the
nature of structural remains, such as walls, ditches, pits, industrial areas,
before they begin excavation. So archaeologists can target their (usually)
limited resources in a rational and cost-effective manner.

Noninvasive surveying has acknowledged benefits for the developers because
it speeds up the process of evaluation and reduces the cost of the necessary
archaeological work. Builders can modify building plans before they start
work to take into account potential archaeological constraints. And archaeologists
can in some cases plan to preserve any deposits in situ, widely recognised
as the best option.

Archaeologists may now have fewer chances to use these techniques as
recent news of job losses in London suggests that archaeology is yet another
victim of the burst in the development bubble. Nationally, however, the
skills of using noninvasive techniques will continue to be needed by developers.

What is needed above all in such scenario is a professional approach
to archaeological surveying: what this book unfortunately perpetuates is
an amateurish image, characterised by bamboo poles coloured with upholstery
tape, washing lines similarly embellished, and handmade masks. In short,
it looks like a ‘string of sealing-wax’ operation, that smacks of Scouting
for Men (I use the masculine noun deliberately).

On the other hand, the book contains delightful personal anecdotes,
describing the history of geophysical surveying in England, seen through
the eyes of one of the pioneers of the subject, working in what has now
become the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage.

The photographs, although generally of a poor quality, chronicle some
of the main characters in the plot, showing youthful versions of many distinguished
practitioners, including one who became an Oxford Professor, and who achieved
the first FRS in archaeological science.

As a possible undergraduate text for archaeological science students,
which is, I presume, one of its functions, the book falls short. There is
to little mathematical beef in the main sections on resistivity, magnetometry
and magnetic susceptibility to make it rigorous. The references, although
useful, are too biased towards England to give a comprehensive coverage.
There is little or no recognition of the huge advances in archaeological
prospecting in other countries, especially in France.

The section on other methods, including ground-penetrating radar, phosphate
analysis and satellite imaging, I found too brief to be useful or even to
allow a balanced assessment of them in comparison with Clark’s main topics.
The exciting developments in some of these areas could potentially render
the other techniques obsolete over the next few years, but this possibility
is not reflected in the text.

The discussion of the practicalities involved in survey work (again,
anglocentric in its choice of examples) underlines the apparently amateur
approach when compared with the large-scale work now routinely carried out
by professional groups fulfilling archaeological contracts.

One particularly irritating aspect of the style of the book is that
the unwary reader might be fooled into thinking that archaeology is a ‘Man’s
World’: the practioners are always referred to as him, as are archaeologiest
in general, and the previous occupants of the archaeological sites being
investigated all appear to have been male. A simple point of drafting and
convention, possibly, but one for which the editor of the series should
be reprimanded.

All in all, a disappointing, slightly eccentric and highly personal
account of an extremely important topic, and one which certainly leaves
room for an update of the older texts, which give better coverage of the
classical geophysical techniques as applied to archaeology but which do
not, of course, touch on the exciting developments in remote sensing going
on elsewhere. Yet again, I find the literature on archaeological science
to be somewhat in arrears of, and isolated from, other relevant literature.

Mark Pollard began as a physicist, became a chemist, and is now Professor
of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford.