Archaeological Journal

ISSN: 0066-5983 (Print) 2373-2288 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raij20

The Human Past: World Prehistory and the

development of human societies (fourth edition)

Andy Valdez-Tullett

To cite this article: Andy Valdez-Tullett (2019) The Human Past: World Prehistory and the
development of human societies (fourth edition), Archaeological Journal, 176:2, 373-374, DOI:
10.1080/00665983.2019.1596357

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2019.1596357

Published online: 17 Apr 2019.

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
2019, VOL. 176, NO. 2, 373–424

BOOK REVIEWS

The Human Past: World Prehistory and the development of human societies
(fourth edition), edited by Chris Scarre, London, Thames and Hudson, 2018, 768
pp., Illus. 746, £45.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 978 0500 29420 8.

The Human Past, now in its fourth edition, was first published in 2005 and has formed
a staple text for first year undergraduates ever since. An introductory account of World
Prehistory aimed at both students and non-students starting to study Prehistory for the first
time. It does not presume a prior knowledge of archaeology but does not trivialize the
subject to the level of simplified vagueness. The volume consists of twenty chapters broken
down into two main sections Pre- and Post-Ice Age (c. 11,600 years ago) with 18 chapters
with a regional focus (each authored by world authorities on the topic) and top and tailed
by introductory and conclusion chapters.
The new introductory chapter gives a background to the development of archaeological
thought, although this is designed to provide the reader with a primer for the coming
discussions rather than an authoritative text in itself. As a result, this is rather brief and for
those new to archaeology, The Human Past is probably best read alongside a work such as
Renfrew and Bahn’s Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice (2016). The opening does
introduce the reader to five key themes that are featured throughout the volume. A new
addition, these key themes of ‘climate change’, ‘migration’, ‘domestication’, ‘social inequal-
ity’ and ‘urbanism’ are selected as threads that can be traced throughout global human
prehistory and retain special significance with contemporary society. They are offered up as
the relevance for the study of archaeology in today’s world.
It positions itself as a text on World Prehistory and, unlike some Europe heavy volumes that
promise a discussion of World Prehistory, its coverage is truly global offering a balanced
account across the continents. The regional chapters are for the Pre-Ice Age ‘African origins’,
‘Hominin dispersals in the Old World’, ‘The rise of modern Humans’, ‘The origins, antiquity,
and dispersal of the first Americans’ (a new chapter for this edition). For the Post-Ice Age we are
offered ‘The World transformed: from foragers and farmers to states and empires’, ‘From
mobile foragers to complex societies in Southwest Asia’, ‘East Asian agriculture and its impact’,
‘Australia and the Indo-Pacific Islands during the Holocene’, ‘Origins of food-producing
economies in the Americas’, ‘Holocene Africa’, ‘Holocene Europe’, ‘Peoples and complex
societies of ancient Southwest Asia’, ‘The Mediterranean World’, ‘South Asia: from early villages
to Buddhism’, ‘Complex Societies of East and Southeast Asia’, ‘Mesoamerican civilization’,
‘From village to empire in South America’ and ‘Complex societies of North America’.
Condensing the prehistory of quite large regions whilst keeping it accessible and under-
standable to the novice remains an ambitious task and something that earlier versions have
been criticized for. The fourth edition has the chapters start with their own table of contents
and timelines with boxes on ‘Key Themes’, ‘Key Sites’, ‘Key Discoveries’ and ‘Key
Controversies’. These, with a series of clear maps and lavish use of colour photos and
illustrations throughout have improved the look and layout to break the text up into less
formidable chunks. Important new sites that are altering our perception of Prehistory such
as Dinaledi Cave in South Africa, or Old Jarma in the Fazzān have also been added whilst
the inclusion of new strands of evidence such as aDNA ensure that the publication remains
up-to-date with developments in the field.
374 BOOK REVIEWS

At the end of each chapter there is a selection of websites for which supplementary
information can be sought along with a short further reading section although these are backed
up by a large and comprehensive bibliography. Although in most cases technical terms are
explained as they as they arise in the text, a thorough Glossary is included at the back.
A host of online resources accompany the volume including ‘chapter summaries and key
concepts; practice quizzes; glossary; web links; and flash cards to revise key terms’ as well as
a customizable bank of questions, images and videos. However, for readers outside of North
America they will need to email Thames and Hudson for more information.
Advice on how the book can be used by lecturers in creating undergraduate modules is
included in the introduction, and with the wealth of online resources that accompany it,
indicate their strategy for making this the key volume on first year undergraduate archae-
ology reading lists. The updates made to create the fourth edition really cement its position
as the go-to primer text for World Prehistory, whilst for more established archaeologists it is
a volume you can dip in and out of, whereas the comprehensive Index makes it equally ideal
for referencing.

Andy Valdez-Tullett
Wessex Archaeology
rai.reviews@gmail.com
© 2019 Andy Valdez-Tullett
https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2019.1596357

Palaeoart of the Ice Age, by Robert G. Bednarik, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, vi and 248 pp., Illus. 76, £61.99 (Paperback),
ISBN: 978 144389 517 0.

In this work, Bednarik aims to redress the perceived primacy of European ‘palaeoart’ (as he calls it;
the term ‘art’ being in his opinion ethnocentric) by offering a comprehensive review of the record
of the rest of the world. While as a European and Europeanist (in my archaeological expertise)
I obviously welcome any balanced review that puts Europe on a back burner, Bednarik’s insistence
that there are ‘only a handful of academic papers about the vastly greater body of Pleistocene
palaeoart [in] Africa, Asia, Australia or the Americas’ (pp. 2–3) is quite patently nonsense, and
additionally does a disservice to the varied monographs published on these regions. It is true, as he
notes, that rock art is ‘significantly more common’ in countries other than Europe; nobody has
claimed otherwise. It’s also particularly true for Australia, where the ‘much greater corpus of
Pleistocene rock art… has been almost completely ignored’ (p. 1). We learn that ‘almost no
publications have considered the corresponding Asian body [of art] in a pan-continental perspec-
tive’ (references here are to two of Bednarik’s early 1990s publications).
So, what does it offer to the interested non-specialist who sit in danger of being misled by
the Europeanists? Given his aversion to the European material, it is odd that his coverage of
Europe is actually the longest chapter in the book. There are over 50 cave art sites in
Australia, in addition to its abundant open-air rock art sites. For all its richness however,
Australia is treated to the book’s shortest chapter. If he’d cited more than a handful of the
numerous publications of Australian rock art specialists the book might have begun to live
up to the cover claims. For instance, no publications of the various staff of the University of
West Australia’s productive Centre for Rock Art Research are cited, and other Australian
household names such as Paul Taçon are cited only rarely.