The Association
   Introduction
    Membership Information
    AMQUA Awards
    Current Officers
   Previous Officers

Upcoming Meetings:

 Student Travel Grants Available

10th CAVEPS and Quaternary Extinction Symposium
March 29 - April 2, 2005
Naracoorte, SA, Australia

CANQUA June 5-8, 2005
NOTICE: The server to the Winnipeg CANQUA abstract submission site has been periodically down for the past day or so. Please try again if you've been rebuffed; the format and address can be found on the meeting web site <http:www.umanitoba.ca/canqua>. We are extending the deadline until next week.

2^nd International Congress
“The World of Elephants”
Hot Springs, South Dakota, USA September 22-25,  2005

Special Report:
    Vision for Geomorphology &
    Quaternary Science

The Quaternary Times
    Current Newsletter
    Previous Newsletters

Ask an AMQUA Expert

Directory of Quaternary Scientists

Friends of the Pleistocene

2005 Northeastern Friends of the Pleistocene meeting

Quaternary-Related Journal Discounts

Quaternary Job Opportunities

Quaternary-Related Abstracts

Quaternary-Related Links

Society of American Archaeology Fellowship Announcement

Search the AMQUA Site

The Quaternary Times
Newsletter of the American Quaternary Association
Volume 29 Number 1 May 1999

New Books

Paleoclimatology Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary. Bradley, R.S., 1999. Second Edition. Academic Press International Geophysics Series, Volume 64. ISBN 012124010X, $69.95, case bound.

The second edition of Ray Bradley's Paleoclimatology text has been printed, and you should get a copy. There is nothing else like it for general Quaternary studies, and the first edition has been out of print for a couple of years. I use this text in an undergraduate - graduate Introduction to the Quaternary course, and I am asking our bookstore to order five or ten extra copies, because more of Bradley's texts are sold than there are students in the class. The book is not a regular Academic Press Textbook, but is offered through their Geophysics Series. It is only available in hard cover.
Most of the topics covered in the first (1985) edition can be found in the second, and there is a new chapter twelve on paleoclimate models that replaces the Current Status and Future Directions chapter of the first edition. Like the first edition, there are long chapters on pollen analysis (39 pages), tree ring analysis (39 pages), and ice cores (61 pages); but most of the book is taken up by 3 chapters on marine oxygen isotope chronology (143 pages) and 2 chapters on chronological techniques (76 pages). Of course there is a 29-page chapter on historical records (Bradley's forte).
Ray Bradley has done a good job of updating a 15-year-old textbook. The writing is clear and simple enough to be understood by college juniors and seniors, and there is enough substance to be rewarding to beginning graduate students. The style is decidedly science professional, with abundant citations throughout the text. Bradley summarizes well, but he seldom makes clear and simple analyses like, 'it was wetter'. I would not recommend its use in a lower division class.
Before ordering the textbook for class use, one should consider two things. First, I find the geographical and topical coverage too narrow; in my own course, I supplement the text with outside readings for topics such as fire history, packrat middens, vertebrate paleontology, soils, etc. These are topics covered in the only other textbook I've considered using: Williams, J.A.J., Cunkerly, D.L., De Deckker, P, Kershaw, A.P., and Stokes, T. 1993. Quaternary Environments. Edward Arnold, ISBN 0 7131 6590 1. However, the Williams et al. text is written at a more basic level, and its coverage is limited in other ways.
The second consideration in adopting this text is its lack of editing. Partly, this is merely annoying, like the lack of page numbers for Chapter 7 in the table of contents. But, the labeling problems in tables and figures could be confusing to students, and might require class-time discussion. For example, Table 2.7 includes a column labeled "H/L",which is Bowen's Ratio in the original publication, but Bowen's Ratio is discussed as "H/LE" on page 26 of the text. Likewise, Figure 12.14 shows two unlabeled maps of summer and winter temperature differencesÐwhich is which?. I am glad to see the many illustrations in the second edition taken from current literature, but I wish they had been better labeled and more fully integrated into the text.
Nonetheless, Bradley's text is the most complete and up-to-date text I know of for Quaternary studies. It will be a welcome reference for everyone, and it is the best textbook available.
Owen Davis
University of Arizona

The Diatoms: Applications for the Environmental and Earth Sciences Edited by: Eugene F. Stoermer and John P. Smol, Cambridge University Press 1999; ISBN: 0 521 58281 4; Hardback, 484pp, 84 line diagrams, 3 half-tones, 12 tables; Price: about $120. Further information: http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/Scripts/webbook.asp?isbn=0521582814

Diatoms are microscopic algae which are found in virtually every habitat where water is present. This volume is an up-to-date summary of the expanding field of their uses in environmental and earth sciences. Their abundance and wide distribution, and their well-preserved glass-like walls make them ideal tools for a wide range of applications as both fossils and living organisms. Examples of their wide range of applications include as environmental indicators, for oil exploration, and for forensic examination. The major emphasis is on their use in analysing ecological problems such as climate change, acidification and eutrophication. The contributors to the volume are leading researchers in their fields and are brought together for the first time to give a timely synopsis of a dynamic and important area. This book should be read by environmental scientists, phycologists, limnologists, ecologists and palaeoecologists, oceanographers, archaeologists and forensic scientists.
Climatic Variations and Natural Hazards over the Last 500 Years, Christian Pfister, Wetternachhersage (Weather Hindcast); 500 Jahre Klimavariationen und Naturkatastrophen (1496-1995), Bern (Paul Haupt) 1999.

With a preface by Hartmut Grassl and contributions by Jürg Luterbacher und Heinz Wanner (Institute of Geography, University of Bern), including 195 historical charts of mean monthly sea level pressure in Europe from the early sixteenth century to the present.
Results of first-ever investigations between the relationship of climatic variations in the past and the frequency and severity of natural hazards in central Europe during the last five-hundred years are presented in this book. The manner in which monthly temperature and precipitation are estimated from documentary data prior to the period of instrumental measurements is described in the first section. The evolution of temperature and precipitation is then discussed for southern central Europe north and south of the Alps. Societies are sensitive to major climatic departures from average conditions. For this reason special focus is made on the documentation of 285 pronounced monthly temperature anomalies beginning at the present and extending long into the past. This emphasis includes charts of mean monthly sea level pressure which point to the origin of air masses, diagrams displaying the frequency of grosswetterlagen and a characterization of the main weather patterns using both measured temperatures and contemporary descriptions and/or pictures. A second focus is put on reconstructing natural hazards - severe floods, storms and damaging avalanches - from documentary data. The frequency of such events is analyzed and the most extreme of them are described in detail. It is concluded that in a quasi-natural climate the frequency of natural hazards undergoes large variations. As a consequence, the twentieth century cannot be taken as a safe basis for extrapolations into the future or the diagnosis of anthropogenic effects. In a final chapter, the significance of the findings for the current debate on climate is highlighted.

Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis, Andrefsky, William, Jr. (1998). Cambridge University Press, 258 pp.

Shells, Claassen, Cheryl (1998). Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology,
Cambridge University Press, 266 pp.

Expanding the View of Hohokam Platform Mounds: An Ethnographic Perspective, Elson, Mark D. (1998). Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 63, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 145 pp.

The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society, Milner, George R. (1998). Smithsonian Institution Press, 216 pp.

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Squier, Ephraim G., and Edwin H. Davis, edited and with an introduction by David J. Meltzer (1998). Smithsonian Classic of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution Press, 316 pp.