Prehistory - The Making of the Human Mind

Zusatztext “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 Informationen zum Autor Colin Renfrew Klappentext In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records-the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth-and gives an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and of how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light. Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, detailing how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have helped us to define humankind's past-how things have changed-much more clearly than was possible just a half century ago. As for why things have changed, Renfrew pinpoints some of the issues and challenges, past and present, that confront the study of prehistory and its investigators. Renfrew then offers a summary of human prehistory from early hominids to the rise of literate civilization that is refreshingly free of conventional wisdom and grand "unified” theories. In this invaluable account, Colin Renfrew delivers a meticulously researched and passionately argued chronicle about our life on earth-and our ongoing quest to understand it.Chapter 1. The Idea of Prehistory   When Dr. Johnson asserted, “All that is really known of the ancient state of Britain is contained in a few pages,” he was right. At that time, knowledge of the past was based upon the study of existing historical texts.   Two centuries ago, prehistory did not exist. Not only was there no discipline devoted to the study of prehistoric times—the study that we today call prehistoric archaeology. More serious, the very notion of prehistory, in the sense of a broad stretch of time going back before the dawn of written history, had not been formulated. There was absolutely no notion that the human past involved tens of thousands of years of development and change. In Europe many scholars followed the arguments of the seventeenth-century cleric and biblical scholar Archbishop Ussher, who had calculated that the earth was created in the year 4004 b.c.e. This, to us extraordinary, claim was based upon his calculations using the generations of men set out in the Old Testament of the Bible. The other episodes of the biblical narrative could be seen to follow, making a coherent and self-consistent story. If the world had been created in 4004 b.c.e., it followed clearly that any notion of prehistory was superfluous, a concept almost unimaginable in the face of biblical scholarship.   Many of the great literary traditions, whether in Europe, Western Asia, India, or China, had likewise no place for any such notion of deep time, going back tens of thousands of years. Indeed, most human cultures, most societies, are founded upon and incorporate a view of the world involving a system of basic beliefs, related to the prevailing religious tenets and observances, that explain how the world came to be. In Europe that system of beliefs meant Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. In Western Asia it generally meant the faith of Islam. In both those cases, as with the Jewish faith, and indeed with many religions, the doctrine of faith involves a creation story, a creation myth. The creation myth generally sets out how the world began, and how the human species came to be, often through the agency of the primary creative force itself. For believers of...

Product details

• Authors: Colin Renfrew
• Publisher: Modern Library PRH US
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.08.2009
• EAN: 9780812976618
• ISBN: 978-0-8129-7661-8
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 15 mm x 1 mm
• Series: MODERN LIBRARY; Modern Library Chronicles; Modern Library; Modern Library Chronicles
• Subject: Non-fiction book