The Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age: A Journey Back to Our Cultural Origins

click here for more details, find new or used items	Richard Rudgley New from £2.98 Used from £0.53 Pages: 368 (Paperback) ISBN: 0099223724 Pub: Arrow Books Ltd Pub date: 1999-09-02 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 117350

Reader Reviews:

Interesting though a bit dry in parts (4/4 people found this helpful)

Though one of the unconventional books on archeaology, it is not so outlandish that no 'conventional' archeologist can accept it. In fact the book does mention that archeaologists in the conventional field are divided on when civilisation began.

The book argues that civilisation didn't begin overnight but rather developed gradually along with evolution of humans and that what has 'been started' by other type of humans/hominids was to continue by modern humans when they appeared later.

While those who describe these 'unconventional' views as 'fantasy', others may see the logic of it. I'm one of them. To me, the view of 'suddeness' is fantasy unless we were visited by exterrestial beings who taught us 'civilisation' which in my opinion did not happen.

I found the book a bit boring in parts but only because the author seems to go into minute detail. Others may prefer this style of writing so it's a matter of personal choice.

I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in archaeology, especially on the subject prehistory.

Rudgley relies heavily on linguistics but misuses it (6/10 people found this helpful)

Rudgley's book cannot be taken seriously as an attempt to re-write pre-history. His argument is confused at the outset by his failure to define 'civilisation' and his apparent tacit adoption of an unreasonably wide definition, which makes it very easy for him to claim cheap success. The mainstream ideas he attacks are mostly 'straw men'. Much of his specific 'evidence' is linguistic (or at least involves what are claimed to be early manifestations of written language), but this is discussed within the framework of the highly controversial ideas of Gimbutas. The evidence for anything resembling written language at the relevant dates is, to say the least, tenuous. Rudgley also relies heavily on fringe philological theories. He has in no way demonstrated his case...

People were cleverer than we thought! (6/6 people found this helpful)

This is a really well written and stimulating book. It looks at a variety of aspects of civilisation: language, writing, pottery, surgery and so on. What he shows is that evidence for these goes back a long way before the conventional view of the beginning of civilisation. The book shows an excellent knowledge of a wide range of recent archeological evidence from around the world. He shows how the achievements of the early Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations did not come from nowhere, but were the end of a gradual processes of cultural development thta had been occuring for 10s and even 100 of thousands of years. I found some of this really eye opening (particularly the evidence on languages and writing.

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