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Reviews the books 'Paper Tangos,' by Julie Taylor and 'The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil,' by Hermano Vianna and edited and translated by John Charles Chasteen.

The article reviews the book "For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings," by Janet Lee Scott.

The article reviews the book "Uncovering Southeast Asia's Past: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists," edited by Elisabeth A. Bacus, Ian C. Glover, and Vincent C. Pigott.

The article reviews the book "Engaged Anthropology: Research Essays on North American Archaeology, Ethnobotany, and Museology, Papers in Honor of Richard I. Ford," edited by Michelle Hegmon and B. Sunday Eiselt.

The article reviews the book "Commons & Borderlands: Working Papers on Interdisciplinarity, Accountability and the Flow of Knowledge," by Marilyn Strathern.

Reviews the book "Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter Between the LoDagaa and the 'World on Paper,'" by Sean Hawkins.

Reviews the book `The Potlatch Papers: A Colonial Case History,' by Christopher Bracken.

Reviews the book `Dimensions of Sociolinguistics in South Asia: Papers in Memory of Gerald B. Kelly,' edited by Edward J. Dimrock Jr., Braj B. Kachru and Bh. Krishnamurti.

Reviews the book `Personality and the Cultural Construction of Society: Papers in Honour of Melford E. Spiro,` edited by David K. Jordan and Marc J. Swartz.

Reviews the book `Alternative Approaches to Lithic Analysis,` edited by Donald O. Henry and George H. Odell.

Reviews the book `Selected Papers on Refugee Issues,' edited by Pamela A. DeVoe.

Edward Tylor had envisioned anthropology to be comprised of ethnology and ethnography in equal parts, but today ethnography dominates the field. In this paper, we examine two reasons for the refugee status of ethnology. First, we look at the notorious "Galton effect." Second, we examine the problem of defining and using cultural units, particularly when positivistic and static theories and methods of culture have been largely discredited by anthropology. We argue against any formulaic solutions to these problems and show that for each research question one needs to reconsider the criteria for how to construct cultural units and how to ensure that the cultures under study are not merely replicas of one another. We show that previous solutions to these issues are limited because they fail to appreciate the contingent and multidimensional nature of culture. We also argue that, instead of a "Galton problem," there is actually a "Galton asset," which can be used to study historical and emergent communicative networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book `The Evolution and Dispersal of Modern Humans in Asia,' edited by Takeru Akazawa, Kenichi Aoki, and Tasuku Kimura. Collection of papers and summaries of four topical discussions about the evolution and dispersal of modern humans in Asia.

Reviews books: `Cinematographic Theory and New Dimensions in Ethnographic Film,' edited by Paul Hockings and Yasuhiro Omori; `Anthropological Filmmaking: Anthropological Perspectives on the Production of Film and Video for General Public Audiences,' edited by Jack R. Rollwagen; `Disappearing World,' by Andre Singer and Leslie Woodhead; `Visual Explorations of the World: Selected Papers from the International Conference on Visual Communication,' edited by Martin Taureg and Jay Ruby.

Reviews the book, `Whither Archaeology? Papers in Honour of Euzen Neustupny,'by Martin Kuna and Natalie Venclova.

Reviews the exhibition called `Secrecy: African Art That Conceals and Reveals,' organized and produced by the Museum of African Art, New York, New York and the paper called `Secrecy: African Art That Conceals and Reveals,' edited by Mary Nooter. Exhibit of 100 objects from different sub-Saharan cultures.

Reviews the exhibition entitled `Fluffs and Feathers: An Exhibition on the Symbols of Indianness' and the paper `Fluffs and Feathers: An Exhibit on the Symbols of Indianness'. Deborah Doxtator as the curator; Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Canada as the organizer.

Reviews the book `Space, Time, and Archaeological Landscapes,' edited by Jacqueline Rossignol and LuAnn Wandsnider. Collection of papers on archaeological research and environment settings where human populations played out their lives.

Reviews the books `Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery,` by Frank Spencer and `The Piltdown Papers, 1908-1955: The Correspondence and Other Documents Relating to the Piltdown Forgery,` by Frank Spencer.

Reviews the book `Exploring Gender through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference,' edited by Cheryl Claassen. Papers from participants in the 1991 Anthropology and Archaeology of Women Conference.

Reviews the book `Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, Occasional Paper No. 25,' by James G. Cusick.

Reviews the books `Mind, Culture and Activity: Seminal Papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition,' edited by Michael Cole, Yrjo Engestrom and Olga Vasquez and `Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution,' edited by Andrew Lock and Charles R. Peters.

Reviews the book `Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology 3: Symposium Held April 27-May 1, 1992, San Francisco, CA,' by Pamela B. Vandiver, James R. Druzik, George Segan Wheeler and Ian C. Free. Compendium of papers presented as a symposium of the Materials Research Society held in San Francisco, California in 1992.

Reviews the book `Rivers of Change: Essays on Early Agriculture in Eastern North America,' by Bruce D. Smith. Compilation of papers on the author's thoughts, original research, and syntheses of data.

Reviews the book `Long-Term Subsistence Change in Prehistoric North America,' edited by Dale R. Croes, Rebecca A. Hawkins and Barry Isaac. Collection of papers grouped into four North American cultural/geographical zones.

Reviews the book `Development or Destruction: The Conversion of Tropical Forest to Pasture in Latin America,' by Theodore E. Downing, Susanna B. Hecht, Henry A. Pearson and Carmen Garcia. Collection of papers focused on the use of deforested land for pasture; Overview of complementary perspectives on the problems of pasturage in Latin American rain forests.

Reviews the book `Isolation, Migration and Health: 33rd Symposium Volume of the Society for the Study of Human Biology,' edited by D.F. Roberts, N. Fujiki and K. Torizuka. Papers on a symposium held in 1990 in Fukui, Japan on isolation and migration, dynamics of the processes, and their implications for biology and health.

Reviews the book `The Fossil Man of Monte Circeo: Fifty Years of Studies on the Neanderthals in Latium: Proceedings of the Symposium Held in Sabaudia (Latina, Italy), October 19-21, 1989,' edited by Amilcare Bietti and Giorgio Manzi. Papers on the Neanderthal fossils from Monte Circeo and aspects of paleolithic archeology, paleoecology, and chronology of the Middle Paleolithic in the Latium region of Italy.

Reviews the book `Of Mice and Women: Aspects of Female Aggression,' edited by Kaj Bjorkqvist and Pirkko Niemela. Compilation of papers on the topic of female aggression in humans and other species.

Reviews the book `Colonialism and Culture,' edited by Nicholas B. Dirks. Eight papers on colonialism and culture.

Reviews the book `The Poverty Point Culture: Local Manifestations, Subsistence Practices, and Trade Networks,' edited by Kathleen M. Byrd. Aggregate of papers dealing with various aspects of Poverty Point culture.

Reviews the book `Gardens of Prehistory: The Archaeology of Settlement Agriculture in Greater Mesoamerica,' edited by Thomas W. Killion. Papers on the subsistence implications of settlement patterns in archaeology.

Reviews the book `Calumet and Fleur-de-Lys: Archaeology of Indian and French Contact in the Midcontinent,' by John A. Walthall and Thomas E. Emerson. Papers from the 1988 conference Walthall and Emerson organized for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Reviews the book `Empty Meeting Grounds: The Tourist Papers,' by Dean MacCannell.

Reviews the book `Recent Advances in Micronesian Archaeology: Selected Papers from the Micronesian Archaeology Conference, September 9-12, 1987,` edited by Rosalind L. Hunter-Anderson.

Reviews the book `World Music, Politics and Social Change: Papers from the International Association for the Study of Popular Music,` edited by Simon Frith.

Reviews the book `Offering Smoke: The Sacred Pipe and Native American Religion,` by Jordan Paper.

Reviews the book `The Archeology of Human Origins: Papers by Glynn Isaac,` edited by Barbara Isaac.

Reviews the book `A Life in Science: Papers in Honor of J. Lawrence Angel,` edited by Jane E. Buikstra.