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Harris Stone's basic thesis is threefold: 1. The Great Plains experienced a fundamentally different pattern of settlement than the Eastern U.S., because the land was subdivided before settlers arrived; 2. European models of city form are not valid for analyzing the built environment of the Plains; 3. Instead, the settlement pattern of the Plains is a work in progress that anticipates the impact of today's information-age economy, and it should be evaluated accordingly.
The author's text is handwritten, with his own drawings illustrating his points. His ideas are spare and challenge the reader to participate and "fill in the blanks." His style is somewhat akin to the way Jane Jacobs analyzes city life, while his conclusions contrast dramatically with hers.
There is also a poignance that permeates the book, because Harris Stone was dying of cancer as he wrote it. Too weak to finish preparation of the text for publishing, his wife and colleagues at the University of Kansas School of Architecture completed the final few pages, in a different style of handwriting and illustration. One mourns the loss of so original a thinker, as one is simultaneously stimulated by his text.
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Lambert starts off her saga of three different women, all named "Zena," way, way back before Ms. Auel's Aurignacian/Gravettian heroine Ayla. The first Zena is a "Homo habilis", the second is "Homo erectus" in transition to Homo sapiens, and Zena III is a Cro-Magnon of the Aurignacian (ca. 30,000 BCE) era. All three Zena's are the strong, competent, independent type of woman in the Ayla/Chagak/Kwani mold most readers of prehistoric fiction enjoy reading about. While Zenas I and II are interesting, original characters (perhaps because very few if any authors have attempted to set stories this far back in human history), Zena III approaches being a cheap Ayla knock-off - she rides on the back of a bison, for instance, and is a revered healer and "wise woman".
There was one thing about the story that really jarred me, and that was the part about the "patriarchal invaders from the north" in the saga of Zena III. While Marija Gimbutas, and others, provide ample evidence these invaders did, in fact, exist, and did overrun numerous peaceful, Goddess-worshipping settlements, these events did not take place until ca. 5000 - 4000 BCE - NOT 30,000 BCE! There were many "northern tribes," at Dolni Vestonice, Kostienki, Sungir, Mal'ta (Siberia) and others, but they all worshipped Goddesses too! The same "fat lady figurines" (Venuses) have been found from the Pyrenees to Siberia, and they likely represented a female creative principle or Goddess. So that part of the plot fell completely flat in my eyes, though it did make for exciting reading. It also gave Lambert a good opening for preaching about the Goddess - which I don't mind since I am a radical feminist pagan myself.
All in all, I enjoyed the first two sections of the book more than the last. Maybe I'm just spoilt by Jean Auel and impatient for that fifth book to come out. Still, "Circles of Stone" is an enjoyable read, the first two sections cast an interesting and revealing light upon a little-known period of prehistory. It just might help while away the time until Ms. Auel finally comes out with that long awaited fifth book.
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