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Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind (Modern Library Chronicles), by Colin Renfrew
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Review
“In this complex, closely argued text . . . field giant Renfrew sets forth quite a task, to sum up the progress of prehistoric archaeology thus far and then explore current challenges.” —Publishers Weekly“A remarkably useful text in that it will generate lively, thoughtful and passionate discussion and inspire new ways of examining existing evidence.” —New Scientist magazine“An elegant and absorbing distillation of the wisdom accrued during a life in prehistory.”—Reference and Research Book News
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About the Author
Colin Renfrew was professor of archaeology from 1981 to 2004 at Cambridge University, where he is now a Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Also a Fellow of the British Academy, he has won numerous international medals and prizes and was made a life peer in 1991. A leading figure in archaeology worldwide, he has led many excavations, especially in Greece. He is co-author, with Paul Bahn, of Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice, the definitive student reference.
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Product details
Series: Modern Library Chronicles
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Modern Library; Reprint edition (August 11, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0812976614
ISBN-13: 978-0812976618
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.8 out of 5 stars
26 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,088,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is an interesting book that has drawn interesting responses. On the surface it seems straightforward: a summary of what we know about human prehistory. Divided into two parts, it surveys "the discovery of prehistory" and then "the prehistory of mind." This seems simple enough: how the study of prehistory originated and developed and, now, the prehistory of a particular part of human experience, a crucial part.When one looks at the reviews, however, one finds a strong current of disappointment. The book is hard to follow; it is not as clear as one would desire, and so on. I believe that the problem is one of scholarly genre. This is not a book for the 'educated layperson' who wants to know the current state of 'prehistory studies'. It is more an introduction for senior anthropology/archaeology/ancient history majors, or perhaps an introductory text for master's degree students. The Modern Library publisher's colophon suggests that this is a book for the ages, for all readers, but it is not. Thus, we get extensive summaries of the thoughts and discoveries of previous scholars. That is essential for pros in the trade, but not for general readers. There are also examinations of disputed issues—were the cave painters in the Dordogne much farther advanced, intellectually and culturally, than the others who had emerged from Africa shortly before them? That is a very interesting question but a 200 pp. book cannot hope to cover the key disputed issues in Prehistory Studies. Hence, the discussion becomes too concentrated and, as a result, somewhat difficult to follow for those who, e.g., have not seen the paintings (and the great variety of such paintings) for themselves and can tell you, off the top of their heads the great range of historical time covered by the works. In some cases, e.g., we may be talking about a painting that was somehow memorialized by a shadow hand painting 10,000 years after the painting's creation.The book contains a small handful of illustrations and none of them are photographs of the works (paintings, burial sites, 'observatories') described. Only two are of any real use, one cursorily depicting the development of Homo sapiens during the speciation phase and one listing human developments during the tectonic phase along different cultural trajectories. The latter only goes back to 10,000 BCE, while many of the cave paintings, e.g., go back tens of thousands of years before this time.The curious thing about this book is that some of the Amazon reviewers who are obviously experts in the subject (Bill Greene, e.g.) are far more lucid on the subject than the author, even though they are working in terms of a half dozen paragraphs rather than 200 pp.The bottom line is that the prospective reader should be wary. The book may not be what it first appears to be. An introduction to this subject needs to be much longer and much more detailed or done by a professional writer adept at summarizing large chunks of information with clarity and the ability to use vivid (illustrated) examples. Alternatively, one can read next to the computer or smart phone and fill in the blanks for him- or herself. The 'blanks' include both pictures and professional terms, which receive minimal explanation in the actual narrative.Bottom line: Caveat emptor.
I liked the book and found most reviews here to be overly negative. However, it is true that it would be good if the author had pursued the "Sapient Paradox" more fully. Renfrew does point out that the huge and accelerating advances by modern man, starting about 5-10 thousand years ago, made the ancient million year long history of primitive primates seem constant and stagnant. However, he does emphasize the unique nature of modern man who suddenly appeared 80-100 thousand years ago. Those unique individuals had the power of speech, an advanced pre-frontal cortex, and an extensive 25 year maturation and development of cognitive skills. And he shows how even during the first 50,000 years of modern man's existence as hunter gatherers there were minimal advances until about 10,000 years ago, when the agricultural and pastoral Ages led to the growth of settled communities in those few regions where the people took to such farming cultures.The author explains in detail how modern man suddenly appeared in Africa about 100,000 years ago and was a markedly unique individual, vastly superior in cognitive abilities to the so-called pre-human primates. The missing link to those possible precursors has not yet been found. Some reviewers may be turned off by this emphasis because it is basically a critique of the strict evolutionary theories and leaves room for speculation whether some unknown agent contributed to this transformation that established for the first time a people almost identical to present-day humans. Renfrew does state that those people, moving out of Africa 70-80 thousand years ago, were anatomically almost identical to today's people. It is not the purpose of this book to answer how that all occurred, but it was the advanced biological structure of those people, primarily in their cognition, that allowed the rapid advances that eventually occurred after the Agricultural Age.Renfrew also explains how the new settled communities led to expanding trade, the production of goods, and the need for negotiating and bargaining skills. Those individuals endowed with such skills would have prospered more than those without the mental ability to accumulate inventories of goods and bargain and trade with other people in an emerging "business class." The mental challenges that were faced by the production, storing, and trading activities would have created a divide in the population with the more successful having more children than the less successful. This led to a population of increasingly "sharp" people--individuals with the persistence to work, the mental agility to calculate, and a mind-set for long-term planning. Thus, the author seems to explain the sapient paradox by showing that modern man, after 50,000 or more years as a hunter gatherer, settled down to community lives, and the resulting challenges led, by simple genetic advances, to an explosion in the competencies of those communities enjoying new and expanding Agricultural and Trading activities. No mutations were needed; just the gradual genetic concentration of genes from the "winners."In essence, "survival of the fittest" became a matter not of outwitting mother nature, wild animals, and cold weather, but of prospering in settled market oriented communities. No evolution in its broadest sense was involved, there were few adaptive mutations in that "brief" 50,000 years, but simple genetics, mate selection, and monogamy created an ever expanding population of individuals with the cognitive skills and behavioral traits needed for living in advanced social groups. Most notably, these early societies were in the Orient and the Middle East, with Assyria, Egypt, Judea, and Babylon thriving as huge civilizations about 5,000 years ago. History shows that such advances occurred in only parts of the world with other regions permanently mired in Stone Age cultures. He also omits any suggestion that such cognitive and social advances occurred primarily in societies that allowed a degree of economic freedom that would allow individual active participation by its population. Renfrew carefully avoids any such conclusions and simply argues that all people in the world today have equal cognitive capabilities. He is thus politically correct and avoids any attempt to explain why some societies advanced more than others and whether that had any effect on the nature of their people. However, in his defense, he had to rely on the DNA analysis of his times. The last 30 years have shown that the DNA of today's people around the world is much more varied than originally believed. Undoubtedly, DNA analysis still does not identify the individual traits that make an individual effective in today's technical and highly organized societies. It is possible that those subtle competencies, consistently enhanced in the genetics of advancing societies, could explain why some places skyrocketed ahead of other places.The book does require a reader with some knowledge of the varying impact of culture, religion, and biology on the ebb and flow of historical civilizations. However, for those readers interested in exploring those types of riddles this is a great introduction. Renfrew does make it very clear that evolution has played a smaller role than simple genetics, and that it was cultural advances caused by agricultural, mechanical, and technological developments that created the ever-increasingly competent people who could work with such challenges. But he stops short of making conclusions which would violate today's multi-culturalists' dogma:.There was a dual force involved: successful farmers created storage facilities which established trading communities in which the people were motivated to develop new modes of transportation, which led the enterprising members who designed better boats to trade more distantly, which then created the need for laws to regulate business activity, and the use of money and banking, and so forth. Once this spiraling series of developments got rolling, many people in many areas of the world got left behind. Renfrew would have been accused of being a racist had he explored those ideas further.
Read this for a master's class and really enjoyed it. Highly readable.
This small book will stimulate your thinking whether you agree with it or not. I found it a great jumping-off point that aimed me toward more detailed texts and ideas, especially in sociology.
Informative but not written with my layman's understanding in mind. I frequently had to read paragraphs several times to gain an understanding. Perhaps the author would do well to reflect on "eschew sesquipedalian obfuscation". I almost bailed out on reading this more than once.
Renfrew's book proved once again that he is an excellent teacher of prehistory. I found his discussion of symbols was clear, something I had had difficulty grasping before as a rank layman. His example of the weight concept to illustrate the process of symbols is covered in a very understandable way. I would suggest that a familarity with an overall picture of prehistory might make this book more meaningful.
I had to order this book for a class and it was a good read. I usually don't expect class books to be engaging or easy to get through but this one did surpass my expectations. Anyone interested in prehistory should give it a whirl, you might be pleasantly surprised.
An excellent read. Very clear explanation of background before presenting his new proposals. Lots of synthesis of information that was very useful to non-specialists. My only complaint: the Kindle copy had no easy way to cite places in the text - page numbers would be great!
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