Archaeological Journal

ISSN: 0066-5983 (Print) 2373-2288 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raij20

The Illustration of Lithic Artefacts: a guide to

drawing stone tools for specialist reports. By Hazel
Martingell and Alan Saville

Philip Dean

To cite this article: Philip Dean (1990) The Illustration of Lithic Artefacts: a guide to drawing
stone tools for specialist reports. By Hazel Martingell and Alan Saville, Archaeological Journal,
147:1, 471-471, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.1990.11077985

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00665983.1990.11077985

Published online: 22 Dec 2014.

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 REVIEWS 471
each stage from the different fieldwalking units, and not just those deemed to represent 'sites'. This
would have allowed the conclusions to be re-examined from a different perspective, as well as
facilitating the comparison of the results with those obtained from surveys elsewhere in Britain or
abroad. Hopefully, this deficiency will be remedied in future reports, but in the meantime, Sylvester
and his colleagues have established a high standard for others to follow.
COLIN HASELGROVE

THE ILLUSTRATION OF LITHIC ARTEFACTS: A GUIDE TO DRAWING STONE TOOLS FOR

SPECIALIST REPORTS. By HAZEL MARTINGELL and ALAN SAVILLE. Pp. JO, Figs. 32. Lithic Studies
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 15:58 28 June 2016

Society, Northampton, 1988. Price: £4. so.

A retired colleague used to view any flint illustration with a critical eye, and invariably utter 'if you can
draw a flint, you can draw anything!' I can only agree, for the physical and mental effort required to
produce a good flint drawing always appears daunting.
Practical guides to this demanding discipline arc rare, and so the appearance of this booklet is to be
welcomed. Produced by two experts, the booklet is a sound and comprehensive guide. Concisely
written and fully illustrated, it explains in an easily understood manner the methodology and
professional approach that Martingcll and Saville have developed over the years.
The text is divided into individual sections covering the main types of flint and stone artefacts-
e.g. handaxes, choppers, microliths, through to scrapers, arrowheads and cores. Each section has
clear step-by-step text, accompanied by explanatory diagrams and examples of finished illustrations.
Although obviously intended to be 'something to aim for', on the whole the finished illustrations are
disappointing. They are badly printed on poor quality paper, which has over-thickened the fine lines
and blocked-in the closely worked areas. Following on from this observation, a more than useful
addition would have been a section on the litho printing process, giving details of the stages the
original drawing goes through, and drawing attention to the variable output from this method of
printing. This variability, often felt to be beyond the control of the illustrator, can often be minimized
by developing contacts with editors and printers, so that all arc concerned to bring the best out of the
illustrations.
On the whole this is a booklet well worth purchasing by all practising illustrators and lithic
specialists. The text has much worthwhile information concrning the creation of quality lithic
illustrations.
PHILIP DEAN

PHOTOGRAPHY IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONSERVATION. By PETER G. DoRRELL.

Pp. 261, Pis. 99. Cambridge University Press, 1989. Price: £27.50.
This is a further volume in the Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology series; the author is in the Institute of
Archaeology at the University of London. It was from the same institution that Cookson published
his classic on the same topic in 1964, and there have been several others between then and 1976.
All suffer the same problem; that so much of what one needs to know about archaeological
photography is the basic methodology of all photography; and much of the space in this book is
devoted to matters which could be just as easily obtained from basic manuals, or from the handbook
of any modern camera.
As w1th Cookson's book, and perhaps reflecting the pre-occupations of the Institute, the case-
studies and illustrations chosen arc mainly from the Mediterranean and the Levant, which make it
rather unattractive to the British archaeologist. Elevations of vast stone edifices and huge inscriptions,
and photographs of papyri and obsidian, figure more prominantly than the remarkable structures in
London itself.
The book is however comprehensive and thorough, if dull and humourless. Readers may
remember wistfully the liveliness of Wheeler's chapter on photography in Archaeolo,Ry .from the Earth