One or two criticisms must be ranged at the language and format of the book itself. Alongside linguistic scientism, this book also suffers from a specialist's alienation. A table giving Latin-English equivalents for the pollen taxa that crop up so frequently would have been very very useful. I found that without constructing my own table it was hard to follow arguments closely. This may sound trivial but is a nuisance.
Much more grating is the terrible over-use of abbreviations.
I don't know whether this was the publishers' decision or Simmons'. I don't want to be a sourpuss. Simmons' book, despite its problems, is well worth reading, and if your collection of pollen diagrams needs updating go and buy it. As an introduction to what sensitive palynology is capable of today I can think of no parallel. However I sincerely hope that his story is not the end of the line, that archaeologists can move past the tired oppositions of environment and culture by recognising, belatedly, that the labels and categories by which a modernistic project identified and understood the world do not bear any necessary relationship with what it actually means to be human to inhabit a landscape.