Niuatoputapu: The Prehistory of a Polynesian Chiefdom. Patrick Vinton Kirch. Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum Monograph No. 5. Burke Museum, Seattle, 1988. ix + 287 pp., references, appendices. $25.00 (paper)

millennia of art history. By stressing how few facts are separable from preconceptions, Bahn broadens the base of our scientific understanding. His volume is recommended highly. Bahn is more conversant with animal art than the human figure. He follows Pales and de St Pereuse (1976) in ignoring the shortened proportions of the lower body in Gravettian "Venuses" (one-third instead of onehalf), and thus perpetuates the erroneous idea that they do not deviate from normal reality. He also errs by suggesting sources cited in Chapter 6 (footnote 126) contain anatomical studies comparing female statuettes against actual modern women. The masculinity of the Hohlenstein-Stadel piece is also questionable. In spite of the catholic title, the book's limited geographical and chronological scope is a disappointment. Pleistocene artistic activity is treated as a worldwide phenomenon, but the focus is on the decorated caves and portable art of Franc-Cantabria during the Magdalenian of the European Upper Paleolithic. With a doctorate from Cambridge, and specialized publications in the prehistory of the Pyrenees, the author's traditional reliance on the animals of western European parietal art is understandable. However, the necessity of integrating the full richness of central and eastern European Ice Age assemblages into our thinking scarcely is acknowledged, and coverage is limited to female statuettes and atypical items.