Fitzhugh, William W., Stephen Loring and Daniel Odess (eds), 2002, Honouring Our Elders. A History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Arctic Studies Center, Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, 2, 319 pages.

This book is a compilation of papers that were presented ten years ago (Spring 1993) at a conference honouring Elmer Harp Jr., and other pioneers in Arctic archaeology. The sub-title is certainly misleading since it is not "A History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology," but, according to the editors, it is a series of building blocks that should initiate a reflection in this direction, and some of the articles included do have a direct bearing on the history of the discipline. The gap between the moment these papers were given and today has been partly alleviated by updates, but all authors kept the core of their original text intact. In this sense, the book itself becomes a part of the history it wants to build. The book is a collection of 21 articles, not all of which were actually presented at the Dartmouth Conference. To give some organization to this important number of eclectic contributions, the book is divided in four parts under general headings. A lenghty introduction (Fitzhugh and Loring, p. 1) sets the purpose and outcome of the book, and also expands on twelve themes that have been explored in the Eastern Arctic over the last fifty years of research, giving, in the process, some guidelines for a "History" of the development of Eastern Arctic archaeology. Two outcomes are clear: the need for such a history, and the necessity to develop a working relationship with the Inuit. One small "geographical" error is readily visible in this introduction: "[…] the Pre-Dorset ivory maskette from Ivujivik […]" (p. 3). To my knowledge, there is no such artifact from Ivujivik. I imagine they mean the Tayara masquette that was discovered by William Taylor, Charles Martijn, and Tayara himself in 1958 on Qikirtaq near Salluit (Taylor 1968). Part One is entitled "Historical Perspectives" and contains four texts. The first text (Ernest S. Burch, Jr.) is a very personal account of the practice of Arctic ethnography, and how Burch came about to be a practitioning ethnographer. Along his route he did meet some archaeologists (one Elmer Harp, Jr.) and was involved in some archaeological work. In his historical overview, it is easy to understand that the first ethnographers were often the first "archaeologists," but one wonders at the inclusion of this text in an archaeology book, since Burch was not a presenter at the Hanover conference, and his discourse — and especially the jokes — is clearly addressed to a completely different crowd. However, I do retain one of his comments about the state of cultural anthropology in the early 1960s because I believe it still does apply today, and in this very book: "They [the cultural anthropologists] were focused on form, not process, and social evolution was an alien concept" (p. 36). The second contribution is a text by J. V. Wright on Harp's contribution to bush archaeology (i.e. the boreal forest and the lichen woodland). This brief account establishes the circumstances and events that led to the definition of five "cultural" groups: Northern Plano Culture, Maritime Culture, Shield Culture, and Northwest Interior and Proto-Northern Athapascan Cultures. The third paper, although entitled "A History of Beverly Range Archaeological Research," has more to do with the actual results of the research than to the circumstances and context leading to the archaeological interpretation presented herein. The last text in this section is by David Morrison (p. 61) who identifies Diamond Jenness as the first Canadian Arctic archaeologist. The account presented is brief, yet informative, and proven: the Arctic cultures as it is understood today were there in Jenness' work. Part two is titled "High …