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Summary:
20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction.
But these people live on the brink of seismic change--10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself.
Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.
Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.
(20040910)
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
how to make a fascinating subject almost unreadable
Customer Rating:
The book covers a critical period of human development: the transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to sedentary, agriculture-based societies, which we call civilization. The author seems to employ a number of techniques which pad the page count. He is very chatty about his personal/professional experiences without adding much to the readers' enlightenment. He uses an imaginary character, John Lubbock, who is based on a Victorian amateur researcher, to roam across the various landscapes of the story, and back and forth across time in pointless and confusing wanderings. The illustrations are not well distributed, and contain photographs of dig-sites that convey little more than displaced dirt. The map diagrams are informative. Had there been more diagrams relating the eras and geographic relationships of the archeological sites discussed, understanding would have been increased and tortuous verbiage would have decreased. Last, but not least, there are too many Britishisms. One can try to ignore the "programme"s and the "metre"s, but I was amazed at the phrase "different to", which appears repeatedly. Apparently, this construct is considered acceptable in British conversations, but is not considered (by the Oxford Dictionary & English Usage Guide) to be acceptable in formal expression. If an archeology work by a college professor is not a "formal" work, I don't know what is. The main reason for discussing this is the additional burden the writer places on the reader (this one at least) trying to acquire information and understanding. The flow of the writing is interrupted so often by these problems that the reading process is slowed to a crawl. This book should not need over 100 pages of notes, index, and bibliography if it was supposed to be a time waster. There is significant new and fascinating material, but it is so poorly organized, so inefficiently conveyed, and so annoyingly idiomatic that it is a tossup to determine if it is worth reading.
After The Ice how did we survive
Customer Rating:
"After the Ice" is well read and easy to understand. The character he invented gives the story a new insight. The book is quite comprehensive. I would recommend this book for those interested in old age history.
Human prehistory is awe-inspiring
Customer Rating:
This book was a grand sweep across the era from the LGM to 5000 B.C. of human prehistory. Mithen is careful to use only facts available to describe the lives of people around the world at this time. His notes document in clear detail the evidence for his assumptions. There is more evidence out there than I realized and appreciate this book for bringing it all together in a comprehensive package. The style of writing is easy to read, almost poetic at times. My God, that we're even here today discussing the human prehistory is amazing. Our ancestors were impressive in their pursuit of survival. It makes me want to try to start a fire with sticks and a piece of flint to see if I could even do that. The reviewers who were turned off by the climate change theme need to finish the book. What Mithen does so effectively, whether it was inadvertant or not, was to elucidate the fact that climate change has always been with us and will always be with us. Whether we can cause a change by our behavior is, I think, still debatable. But the climate will change, like it or not, come hell or high water. And both have come and gone many times over. What this book brings home is the lesson that humans can adapt, must adapt and will adapt to survive.
Global Warming Hysteric
Customer Rating:
Groan.....If I had only read all the reviews on this book I would have hesitated in buying it!
I just started reading it and immediately became disappointed due to the premiss of the author regarding anthromorphic (sp?) causes of global warming. Ugh....he could not even support that fact as he shows a chart of temprature fluctuations showing an ever so slight decrease in temprature from 6000BC to 2000AD. This indicated to me that the author lacked scientific perspective but followed the "flavor-of-the-day" views of media hype.
Sad to se I reached this conclusion by reading only a few pages and scanning others. I will force myself to finish the book and may change my opinion of the work but, I some how doubt that.
Early agriculture and related matters
Customer Rating:
As human beings, our bodies tell of our past as forest and savanna-dwelling primates. However, when living in a modern, industrial society, some of us spend an astonishingly small part of our lives in natural settings, and most of us do so only on weekends for leisure. How did this state come about? One of the most important steps in this direction was the neolithic revolution, the change of human lifestyle away from hunter-gathering towards farming, domesticating plants and animals and living in permanent settlements. How this change came about is the topic of Steven Mithen's book.
In science, there are proven facts and educated speculation. No one can say for sure how the inhabitants of post ice-age Europe acted when they sat around their campfires and how they spent their days. There is, however, archaeological evidence which can allow us educated guesses. Mithen uses a hypothetical time-traveler in order to narrate his educated guesses. He names this time-traveler "John Lubbock", after the Victorian scientists and progressive member of parliament who authored an early book on prehistory. This makes Mithen's book quite entertaining and readable, while it is academically sound at the same time. I can't judge how complete and up-to date his review of meso- and neolithic archeology is, but he makes sure to give room to the arguments of both sides in the case of controversies before he presents his own conclusion on the matter. The book covers the preceding mesolithic times and the neolithic revolution in the middle East, Europe, Asia, greater Australia and Africa. The development, or lack thereof, of agricultural civilizations followed a unique course in all of these places. Sedentaryness, plant and animal domestication and farming did not always occur coincidentally and were by no means irreversible processes. Climate changes were always very important in determining which human lifestyles were possible. With this in mind, Mithen warns of the likely consequences of our current, man-made increase in global temperature.
We are usually first presented with hard evidence from archaeological digs, such as the bones, tools and food scraps found. Then, he lets Lubbock hike around the area at the time of the lives of the people who left these remains. Often Lubbock joins the neolithic men for a meal or an evening around a campfire and observes their health, eating habits and cults. Mithen believes, rightfully so, that archeology should be more than a cataloging of the items found at a site, but a multi-disciplinary attempt at reconstructing early man's life. He describes a lot of fascinating multi-disciplinary science, with archaeologists cooperating with biologists and geologists, in order to gain answers about the biotic and abiotic environment of meso- and neolithic times. He also takes the time to describe what the area where the prehistoric settlements were found looks like, what it feels like to hike around there and how the view enthralled him and likely impressed prehistoric man as well.
Two issues I found particularly interesting: One is the human role in the extinction of large land-mammals such as mammoths - Mithen thinks that although we did not barbecue every single one of them, human hunting together with worsening environmental conditions lead to their demise. The other is the human settlement of the Americas - Mithen first introduces the reader to the Clovis culture and after carefully surveying the evidence concludes that the Clovis people were in fact not the first Americans.
An intellectually enjoyable description of a fascinating and important area at the doorstep of historic times!
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