2020-03-27
I bought this book thinking it would describe something about how prehistoric belief systems.
Instead, Colin Renfrew simply marvels at how social changes in the past would have required a change in thinking. And that’s it.
There is some archaeology in this book, but not much, which is astonishing considering Renfrew is one of the UK’s leading archaeologists.
Instead he spends a lot of time in this book marvelling at “tectonic” changes in thought. At times I wasn’t sure whether he was addressing a 19th century audience to tell them that ancient people weren’t as stupid as they believed – or addressing a 21st century audience to tell them that prehistoric people were more stupid than expected.
On the latter point, he underlines that prehistoric people must have been dumb not to cross from Africa into Britain while it was inhabitable, or painted in caves before around 50,000 BC. Which begs the question of how often Renfrew has walked from Europe to Africa, or how many new artistic mediums he himself has discovered.
Overall, this book isn’t about the human mind – it’s Renfrew thinking aloud about how cognitive theory might apply to archaeology, and not really coming to any real conclusion.
Rating: 2/5