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Title: The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age by Richard Rudgley ISBN: 0-684-86270-0 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 25 January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: REAL EYE OPENER
Comment: By bringing together evidence from archaeology, ancient history, linguistics and anthropology, the author convincingly demonstrates that the inventions, achievements and discoveries of prehistoric times have all but been edited out of popular accounts of human history. He describes how stone age explorers discovered all the world's land masses, presents strong evidence for writing before 5000BC and for mathematical, medical and astronomical science as well as tool-making and mining long before the Sumerians. Tracing the human story from the cusp of history back to the earliest known artefacts, he shows that the making of rugs, dental drilling and accountancy among others, were all known in the Neolithic. But not only that - the other "ideological wall" placed at about 40 000BC is also being shown up to be highly dubious as many anomalous cases of earlier symbolic and artistic activities are coming to light. I found the section on language of particular interest and would like to refer interested readers to the work of linguists like Dr. Joseph Greenberg (Language In The Americas, Indo-European and its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family), Merritt Ruhlen (On The Origin Of Languages: Studies In Linguistic Taxonomy), Alan Bomhard (Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis ) and Sydney M. Lamb (Sprung From Some Common Source), all available here on amazon.com. Lost Civilisations Of The Stone Age is lavishly illustrated with figures, plates and a map of language families, and there's an extensive bibliography and index. A well-researched, well-written book that sometimes perhaps goes into too much technical detail for the casual reader, but always remains thought-provoking.
Rating: 3
Summary: Worth reading but not as controversial as it pretends
Comment: The best thing you can say about any book is that it seemed worth the time taken to read it. This book passes the test. It told me things about the early use of symbols that I did not know, and told me them in a readable and decently illustrated way (after a slightly pedantic introduction - don't let it put you off). It also achieves its main aim: to prove for those who ever doubted it that the pre-"civilised" world was sometimes capable of accumulating significant bodies of thought and methodology in writing, counting, medical procedures, etc. So far as I know, however, this is not in itself a controversial idea (unlike, for example, a discussion of why pre-"civilised" communities sometimes accumulate pools of ignorance and malevolence...). Irritatingly, the author presents it as such throughout his chapters. Although there is lots of new evidence described here, so far as I can remember the thrust of this book had ceased being controversial by the time I was an undergraduate studying archaeology in Cambridge in the early 1980s! (There was something almost spooky about seeing these old chestnuts presented as millennial thought.) For sure, not everyone will agree with his interpretations of the evidence, but his only truly controversial moments are in deciding what constitutes "writing" and "civilisation". This kind of semantic controversy can be useful, but it needs to be much more clearly defined and argued than is the case in this book. None of this is an argument against buying the book however, as in his useful tour of the evidence the writer gives quite enough qualifications and detail for the reader to make his/her own mind up about the date, likelihood and possible importance of "writing" and other achievements of civilisation in "prehistoric" cultures. Above all, this reader reached the last page...
Rating: 2
Summary: Death to Van Daniken!
Comment: I liked the idea behind this book and the first chapter seemed promising but somewhere along the way it faded as its emphasis faded from a book for the general population to one that can only be enjoyed, or understood, by professionals. For some reason many professionals, historians, palaeontologists, and the like, seem to believe that, before writing, that almost nothing of consequence was invented. Instead, these parties feel that there was an "explosion" of knowledge about 5000 years ago. This explosion is sometimes hard to explain.
Enter the UFO freaks. There is a cottage industry of parties, like Erich Van Daniken, that try to explain these matters by stating that this explosion occurred because knowledge was given to man from "supermen" of Atlantis or aliens from outer space. By showing how much of man's knowledge was developed thousands of years ago, the need for aliens dies, because there was no knowledge explosion. Van Daniken is dead. Well, sort of.
I personally have read through some of Van Daniken's work. (It can be a tough go.) To say that his work is focused solely on a "knowledge explosion" is unfair. But, without getting to side tracked, if this book was solely a refutation of Van Daniken's work; it probably would be more interesting, especially is the style and tone of the first chapters flowed throughout the book.
Instead the author goes into explaining, then discrediting, one theory after another for prehistoric skills and events. Every theory is introduced by discussing its author and a little of the research they have done. In this vein, the book is well referenced so a reader looking for sources can find them easily. For me, it was annoying. I don't want to know why everyone else is wrong, I wanted to know what evidence you have for believing or stating what you think is right. Mr. Rudgley, however, is apparently stating things which must be very controversial because he is very slow to state his case. Step by step by step he goes.
While walking so slowing, he often also changes his terms, in a way I found confusing. B.C., for example, means "Before Christ" which was about 2001 years ago. (give to take six years for you purists.) I think most people understand this. What does B.C.E. mean? I think it means "Before the Common Era" which began about 2001 years ago. I think. As such, B.C.E. was always D- U-M-B to me. You don't have to believe in Christ to understand that the calender was based on the year we believe he was born. Yet scientists want to avoid association with religion. Finally, there is B.P., "Before Present." This one really confused me for a while. To understand this term, you would have to know when the author wrote the book. Since, however, the dates go back 50,000 years or so, I guess being of by five or 10 years doesn't matter that much.
It doesn't really matter to me which system of dating time the author used, if he was consistent. This author, however, switches back and forth, even in the same sentences! If you are shaky on the different sytems, it can be distracting. And, the dating system is only one example of how the author would jump around, when explaining things. Combined with other inconsistencies, it was a little lunny.
In this vein he talks about the origins of writing (which he believes may have come from an accounting system developed in thousands of years before Egypt or Babylonia), ancient religions (and the worship of a "goddess"), early surgery, early language and the early use of fire.
There are 19 total chapters in this book. Each chapter is about 20 pages long. So, there are about 14 other topics I have not mentioned. I personally got tired of this book at Chapter 10 and skimmed through the rest of it. I'm saving this book though, for a time when I may want to read those chapters, perhaps when I'm better versed on these topics. If, like me, you only had a course in Archeology 15 years ago, don't try to renew your interest here. I guess, for the experts out there, who want a book that may be controversial, have a good time.
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Title: The Atlas of Early Man by Jacquetta Hawkes ISBN: 0312097468 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology by Mary Settegast ISBN: 0940262347 Publisher: Lindisfarne Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Secrets of the Stone Age : A Prehistoric Journey by Richard Rudgley ISBN: 0712684522 Publisher: Century Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: Exploring the Ice Age by Margaret Cooper ISBN: 0689825560 Publisher: Atheneum Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World by Barry. Fell ISBN: 0812906241 Publisher: Random House (T) Pub. Date: 01 November, 1976 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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