Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age
By Richard Rudgley
Century Books, 1998
$39.95
Review by Robert Hodder
The words "Stone Age" and "civilisation" are rarely seen together in popular history. Richard Rudgley's book sets out to turn our assumptions about the Stone Age and what is generally called "prehistory" on their heads. He demonstrates the high degree of sophistication of many so-called prehistoric cultures.
The controversial nature of many of the archaeological findings Rudgley reviews makes his approach to the evidence cautious. But, for those interested in expanding the materialist conception of history, this work is invaluable, and raises many more questions than it answers.
Rudgley begins by examining the meaning of the word "savage" in conjunction with the practices of archaeology and anthropology in the study of non-western cultures.
In a blistering condemnation of these professions, Rudgley gives graphic accounts of the barbarous acts practised against indigenous cultures, including the dismembering of the corpse of William Lanney for souvenirs of the man called "a last" Tasmanian Aboriginal.
He also exposes the patronising nature of these professions as practised under imperialism and the idea of "progress", which justified the obliteration of indigenous people.
The contrasting of civilisation and barbarism was begun by the Greeks to justify their imperialist activities over several hundred years, from the Athenian empire to the end of the Hellenistic empire in 200 BC. This is ably set out by Neil Ascherson in his book Black Sea.
In a similar fashion, says Rudgley, historians have used the advent of writing as a barrier between history and prehistory to "keep barbarians and primitives at bay".
Rudgley convincingly demonstrates that writing did not suddenly develop in Sumer, but in fact developed independently in many cultures over a very long period. Sophisticated notation and accounting systems were developed by Stone Age cultures.
He demonstrates that, far from Europe having been influenced by developments in the Near East, it was the Near East, namely Crete, which was influenced by Europe, with one-third of the Old European sign inventory being revived in Cretan Linear A.
In demolishing the view that European culture received its sophistication from the Near East, Rudgley apologises to historians, such as the socialist V. Gordon Childe, who held such views. Rather than being a dogmatist, Childe formed his views in the absence of evidence to the contrary — much of the research reviewed by Rudgley was not published until the 1980s and '90s.
Rudgley cites evidence of basic elements of human endeavour — writing, scientific and medical inquiry, art and symbolic expression — having developed independently in many cultures, and over very long periods of time.
He shows that many of the developments usually associated with the Neolithic Revolution had their origins in much earlier times, though they may not have been systematically used until later (a very important point).
He is very careful not to present such developments in a linear perspective, or as "progress". For example, he points out that the art of the Upper Palaeolithic (40,000 to 10,000 years ago) exhibits both simple and complex conception and expression throughout the period, with no development from simple to more sophisticated.
One of the most interesting accounts is that of the differing origins of writing in the Near East and in Old Europe. Rudgley traces the development of Sumerian writing from its beginnings in early accounting systems which were developed to "redistribute the economic bounty (or paucity) of the community" to societies which had become more "hierarchical".
In seeming contrast, he describes Old European signs as having developed for religious or magical purposes. However, when the evidence is probed further, it seems that these religious purposes were related to the need to monitor the cycles of the earth and the seasons, clearly a material concern to a gatherer-horticultural or pre-agricultural society.
One of the most interesting themes in the book is the repeated demonstration of sophisticated practices emerging and submerging in many fields over long periods of human and even hominid (pre-human) endeavour. In his concluding chapter, Rudgley quotes the Russian academic Vishnyatsky to draw this theme together:
"To change substantially and rapidly, a culture must already have a great potential, a reserve of ideas and abilities which are known but not put into practice. These ideas and abilities began to be materialised ... only when circumstances (environmental, demographic, social, etc.) changed and the necessity arose to use cultural potential."
There are a couple of deficits in the book. Rudgley acknowledges the lack of examination of changing practices in spheres most readily identified with women, food gathering and agriculture, and textile production. (Margaret Ehrenberg's book Women in Prehistory documents women's contribution to agriculture, and Elizabeth Barber's Women's Work, The First 20,000 Years is an invaluable account of women and textiles.)
There is also little discussion of the role of human labour and productive activity in changing social and cultural practices, but perhaps this is the role of quite a different book.
Marx and Engels appraised contemporary archaeo/anthropological evidence in the light of their materialist view of history at a time when such professions were relatively new. The amount of archaeological evidence has expanded many times since then, with thousands more sites and hundreds of thousands more artefacts having been excavated.
Those interested in this conception of history need to keep in touch with the most recent developments in archaeology and develop the perspective using evidence from a range of sources.
The ambition and breadth of Rudgley's book are commendable. One of its most important contributions is to demonstrate that "primitive" should not be conflated with stupidity and ignorance, as western "civilisation" has done to justify its colonial and genocidal activities.