SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subsequent reviser.] The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia. By W. J. Perry. (Manchester University Press and Longmans and Co. 12e. 6d. net.)—Mr. Perry's examination of the prehistoric stone monuments in the East Indian Archipelago, the Philippines, Formosa, the Malay Peninsula, Burma, and Assam may seem at first of somewhat remote interest, but it really illuminates one of the fundamental problems of archaeology. His conclusion is that the Indonesian monuments were all the work of a stone-using people who migrated to the islands in search of gold and pearls, introduced civilized arts, founded hereditary castes and priesthoode with a cult of the sun and a belief in a sky-world, and then disappeared. This very able essay goes to strengthen the view held by Dr. Rivers and Professor Elliot Smith that megaliths all the world over were the work of people sharing a common culture and a common worship of the sun. Between Stonehenge and Zimbabwe, Carnes and the Pyramids, there is, then, some direct connexion.
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