[HN Gopher] The Dawn of Everything challenges a mainstream telli... ___________________________________________________________________ The Dawn of Everything challenges a mainstream telling of prehistory Author : hackandthink Score : 74 points Date : 2023-01-22 18:37 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.middleeasteye.net) (TXT) w3m dump (www.middleeasteye.net) | intrasight wrote: | A heavy dose of political language mixed with questionable | science. What rot. | readthenotes1 wrote: | i guess back in those pre-resource-accumulation days, they | managed to kill all the charming psycopaths before they became | tyrants. Maybe it was the teenage mothers and high infant | mortality rate that did it? | charlescearl wrote: | All history has a political agenda. "Non-partisan" itself serves | to further the legitimacy of Western academia, itself born in | service to colonial and neo-colonial projects. | | The work of Sylvia Wynter, Ngugi wa Thiong o, Edward Said, Walter | Rodney among many others are probably good jumping off points. | marojejian wrote: | Having read the book:Pro:It's a great question and mission.I'm | sympathetic to their general critiques and main points e.g.: | | - prehistoric human were just as smart and creative as us | | - there's a ton to learn from them. | | - there is not enough evidence to accept an inevitable path to a | state with ever growing power. | | - prehistoric people tried a bunch of different societal types we | can hardly conceive of. | | - We should strive to be as experimental and playful. | | - There is interesting new evidence in there (e.g. about | potentially non-authoritarian per-historic societies) | | Con: | | - Evidence / word ratio very low | | - Authors have a HUGE Ax to grind. even if I like some portion of | that axe, I can't afford to trust them, they are more biased than | the folks they attack (not that I like Yuval Harari so much | either...) | | - Poor reasoning processes: 1)X is conceivable 2) Y might be | evidence of X, 3) (Much later) As we demonstrated: X is True | | - Super repetitive | | So net, I'd say read a few reviews (e.g. Tides of History) and | skip the actual book, and hope we can find some better avatars | for this mission. Go listen to some Mike Duncan podcasts. | [deleted] | [deleted] | college_physics wrote: | > prehistoric human were just as smart and creative as us | | This. The educational system, willingly or just incompetently | manages to instill a sense that human intelligence somehow | grows monotonically with historical time. Maybe thats because | it is conflating it with knowledge accumulation and never | bothering to make a clear distinction. | | In fact its very plausible that 30000 years ago some homo | sapiens had a discussion around a campfire that was as | intelligent as your average HN thread :-) | goatlover wrote: | Not individual human intelligence as in capability, but | certainly in terms of culture, the knowledge has grown | exponentially since then. 30,000 years ago people weren't | sitting around the campfire talking about deep learning | models, quantum mechanics, or how long the ancestors of | Native Americans lived in Beringia. | HeckFeck wrote: | > The educational system, willingly or just incompetently | manages to instill a sense that human intelligence somehow | grows monotonically with historical time. | | Grade inflation has a lot to answer for. It's a serious | problem in the UK but understandable, all statistics are | designed to bolster the image of the organisation producing | them. | euroderf wrote: | I detect a parallel with the monotonic, cumulative evolution | depicted in the typical image that has man at the apex of a | pyramid of evolution. As pointed out in "Wonderful Life" | (about the Burgess Shale), evolution has been very different | from this. | kqr wrote: | I agree with your sentiment, but I think you're under- | emphasing the power granted our reasoning ability from | knowledge (theoretical concepts) and writing (seekable | communication). | | Part of what I know about basic statistics I got from an old | book. I would not be able to draw on those concepts and | present a coherent argument if my experience and | communicative tools were limited to what they would have been | 30,000 years ago. | | That said, they may have had very intelligent and nuanced | discussions about specific topics, like immediately human | experiences such as illness, politics, fashion, love, etc. | Towaway69 wrote: | 30'000 years ago politics didn't exist, doubt very much | they would had discussion about it. | | Instead perhaps the local priest might have discussed the | next sacrifice needed to bring the rains. | ElevenLathe wrote: | This is quite a statement. How do you suppose these | anatomically modern humans would have made group | decisions? Mind control by a warrior king? | richk449 wrote: | > 30'000 years ago politics didn't exist, doubt very much | they would had discussion about it. | | Why do you say politics didn't exist long ago? | | > Instead perhaps the local priest might have discussed | the next sacrifice needed to bring the rains. | | So... politics? | kqr wrote: | Politics emerges naturally when a group of people in | constrained by time to perform only a subset of a large | selection of activities; children are political about | what to play. | | For as long as there has been humans, there has been | politics. | college_physics wrote: | The starting point is that our brain was (probably) more or | less as today, hence in principle capable of cognitive | tasks of similar "quality" or complexity. But there is no | doubt that _what_ these capabilities were applied to might | feel very exotic or even uncomfortable to us. E.g., Graber | makes this point in particular in relation to social | relations. A lot of modern society would probably look like | totally brain damaged to them in terms of emotional / | social intelligence. We have also the examples of very | elaborate religious / theological discourse, which seems to | have been a major preoccupation for the longest time. | | On the other hand there are definitely cultural inflection | points (like writing or numeracy) that seem to have | reshaped the ability of a trained brain in a very short | period of time. E.g. if you compare writings from the same | civilization / region just several hundred years apart | (Homeric poems vs Classic Athenian philosophy) its hard to | believe its even the same species... | jawon wrote: | Like I said in another comment, I'm only halfway through. I'm | not sure what the denouement is going to be or where they are | going to take the evidence that there have been urban | civilisations that were not ruled by kings or other | hierarchical power arrangements and resolve it with the | present, but their goal to show how the Hobbesian and | Rousseauian views of human history are not supported by | evidence only needs a single counter example and I feel they've | supplied plenty. | | I think their mission of puncturing the grand narratives of the | evolution of human society is a good one, and I think they have | the evidence, but I'm not sure it's going to have any effect in | the long run. | pc2g4d wrote: | The Christian often sees the Devil around every corner. | | The socialist sees capitalism. | | The capitalist sees socialism. | | Something like that.... | | Being so fashionable to bash on capitalism these days, I can't | help suspecting that it is an opposing ideology, rather than | truth or facts, driving the bus. | | Interesting to consider pre-Athens democracy. | | I'm not so sure Gobekli Tepe overthrows the idea of an | agricultural revolution. It just changes its texture. We are, | after all, all agriculturalists now. And 3000 years is _not_ a | long time for an anthropological "revolution"! | moron4hire wrote: | I keep confusing this book with "The Dawn of The New Everything" | by Jaron Lanier. When people started to talk about it on Twitter, | I got excited that Lanier's excellent book was having a mini | resurgence. Made for an awkward argument with a friend because we | had vastly different opinions on the quality of "this" book, | until I admitted "maybe I'm just a Lanier fan", to which he | replied "who's Lanier?" | Aunche wrote: | > Noble savage myth | | The noble savage is a trope represents the innate goodness of | humanity when free from the corrupting influence of civilization. | If anything, it's Graeber propagating the noble savage myth. | Societies that are smaller have have less stuff are obviously | going to have less material inequality. That doesn't mean that | they lacked hierarchies and selfishness. | moloch-hai wrote: | We need not pretend Graeber advanced any notion that | hierarchies have never existed in undocumented populations. His | point is that they were often lacking in circumstances | historians routinely assume, and vociferously insist, it would | have been impossible. | didntreadarticl wrote: | Daniel Quinn (author of Ishmael) wrote about this sort of thing | in a non-scientific sort of way. More from a philosophy | standpoint. | | But anyway one point he makes that really stuck with me, is that | in a hunter gatherer society, you might get a tribe leader or | chief or something. But if you dont like what they're doing, you | can just leave and be a hunter gatherer somewhere else. No one is | depending on any centralised place for food. So you can get | complex social structures if thats what everyone wants, but | hierarchies are difficult to maintain by force. People will just | quit if they dont like it. | | Whereas in an agricultural society, you get specialisation of | skills which helps towards the sort of thing we now think of as | 'progress' but you can also have hierarchies enforced by force | because someone or some subgroup ends up in charge of the food | and can lock it away, and peoples option to just leave and go and | fend for themselves is less feasible and so they get stuck being | subjects of some ruler. | | TLDR: You dont have to think of hunter gatherer societies as | simple or backward. But they are less likely to have deep | hierarchies and specialisation | moloch-hai wrote: | You miss the point. | | Yes, hunter/gatherer societies routinely lack hierarchies. But | settled populations, throughout prehistory and history, have | very often _also_ lacked hierarchies, including in places | historians insisted otherwise. And, hunter-gatherer societies | have _sometimes_ had hierarchies despite the apparent | impossibility. | fckgnad wrote: | No I don't think this is true. | | Hierarchies are heavily part of human behavior. The concept of | leaders and rank is so ingrained in behavior it's hard to think | it didn't exist even in hunter and gatherer societies. | | Right now we have enough wealth such that everyone can live | comfortably. But a lot of people still fight tooth and nail in | the rat race all for what? For wealth partly but mostly for | Rank. The higher your rank the better it's a huge driving force | emotionally... especially for men. Desire for high rank is an | inborn biological instinct. This is confirmed in psychology | across all cultures. All men are emotionally more satisfied the | higher their rank. | | For women it's also a huge driving force for mate selection. | Women marry up. They have a strong desire to marry the highest | ranking man. | | I would imagine in hunter and gather societies rank is | maintained by two things. Brute force and social proof. Bigger | men have more brute force to maintain leadership (hence why a | lot of women are attracted to height) and social proof and | respect insures that other men trust you and are more likely to | listen to you. | | That being said coercion to build things like pyramids or grand | multi-year projects of vast scale requires someone to own | wealth. This type of serfdom like heirarchy is much stronger | then the hierarchies that existed in hunterer gatherer | societies. Definitely more stable since wages and survival | required someone to stay at their hierarchical post. | | Either way hierarchies DID exist in hunter gatherer societies. | It's just the tribe leader doesn't have enough power to coerce | all men into building a pyramid. | entropicgravity wrote: | As this article points out, most the best environments for humans | in the deep past would have been along seashores. These seashores | are now about 100 metres below current sea level, so much of the | information we need to characterize how those people's lived is | beyond reach or accessible only at great cost and effort. | | For me the biggest mystery is how and when did language progress | because this is what allowed a group of humans to effectively | operate as a pseudo single organism. The ability throw stones | accurately and with force would also have been critical in | defense. Probably even before (pre)humans learned to make | sophisticated stone tools. | jawon wrote: | I'm about halfway through and it's fascinating. I love a "here is | how the dominant paradigm is an over-simplification of reality" | story and I also love pre-literary history so I'm finding a lot | to enjoy. | jonahbenton wrote: | Same. I had read most of it ahead of a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, | a state with a strong indigenous presence and a lot of within | 3000 years human archeological sites. Although Graeber was | writing about a much earlier period, having read the work made | it much, much easier for me to build a sociological mental | model (wrong, sure, but interesting) to appreciate the sites | and artifacts we saw. | Natsu wrote: | It's kinda light on evidence for some things, which isn't great | when we're talking about someone they describe as an "activist" | challenging mainstream history. For example, it just drops | assertions like "The authors also show that the earliest cities | in Ukraine and Mesopotamia of the 4th millennium BCE were | egalitarian and organised without the presence of kings, | temples or royal palaces." | | But why are we to believe these societies were "egalitarian"? I | mean, the usual understanding of that means a lot more than | just living somewhere without a king or a temple. I can imagine | a lot of ways for a city without any of these as such to be far | less than what most people think of as "egalitarian" and they | really need to flesh this idea out a lot more by going over why | we should think that and to what degree, because there's a big | gap between the modern understanding of the word "egalitarian" | and the evidence provided. | | Maybe the book does better, if so I'd like to hear that part, | but the article is a bit scant here, which is bad when the only | thing it is clear on is that this was written by an activist | with political motivations. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | > But why are we to believe these societies were | "egalitarian"? | | I haven't read this book, but my understanding is this is | usually ascertained from looking at burial grounds, and | building remains. Lack of distinction between high status and | low status burials is indicative of a society with less | stratification. Lack of specialized ceremonial and ruling | buildings another. | | In the case of the Cucuteni-Tripolye civilization & | associated cultures in Ukraine & the Danube, though, my | understanding is that there really aren't many graveyards or | human remains because they didn't bury their dead, at least | not in graveyards. Not until the Yamnaya culture (Indo- | Europeans) intruded/conquered/took-over/became-dominant later | on. So, I dunno. | | But in that culture the lack of palatial buildings and so on | does imply the lack of a kingship system. Plus they didn't | build walls around their settlements, and there's few | artifacts that imply weaponry until much later. | User23 wrote: | All history is post-literary by definition. To go back further | is to visit myths and legends. Some of which are even perhaps | something like true. | ChainOfFools wrote: | And the material record of course, it is the availability of | access to written records that divides the historian from the | archaeologist. | User23 wrote: | One of my favorite works of fantasy is the Malazan Book of | the Fallen which was written by an archeologist and it very | much shows. I doubt there's another series in which the | word "potsherds" appears more frequently. | AlotOfReading wrote: | I like the overarching argument and continue to recommend the | book to people, but it's worth noting that the book really | struggles with its factual basis. The authors aren't experts in | most of the examples they discuss and their lack of familiarity | really shows. | | But yes, they definitely take an interesting stance that's | worth reading in its own right. | college_physics wrote: | In a sense the fundamental takeaway is: not only history, but | also prehistory has been "written" by the subsequent | "winners" (interpreting scarce evidence to fit a desired | narrative). | | It seems very plausible yet it would be really satisfactory | if we could piece a more complete picture of these long gone | eras | orwin wrote: | Hence critical theory. | | That's why we don't automagically assume "that particular | indoeuropean tomb is probably from a male warrior chief" | nowadays, and actually do some interdisciplinary research, | because we used to assume a lot in the early 20th. And | sometimes the "male chief" have female bones. And the | "warrior" lance point was probably the rest of a priest | baton. | | But most archeology we learn come from schoolbooks that are | built on those old, often pretty much falsely interpretted | discoveries, and pretty much all good research you have to | read academia (or look at serious archeology youtube | channels, some exists !) | thuridas wrote: | Other assumption is that every small statue is a | religious idol with ritualistic meaning. | huitzitziltzin wrote: | Every time I read a review of this book when it came out, the | review author would say something like "wow! great! So exciting, | EXCEPT in this area *where I am an expert*, the authors got X, Y | and Z badly wrong." | | There were reviews like that when it came out from people in a | bunch of disciplines, certainly in anthropology and prehistory | included. | | Graeber's prior book about Debt has been widely criticized in my | own field. As a result I haven't felt like it was worth the time | to invest in this one even though the topic and the idea seem | extremely interesting. | | It seems like the authors have an axe to grind and a story to | tell and whatever evidence they find against it is either ignored | or misinterpreted. | [deleted] | kodachrome64 wrote: | I'm about halfway through this book. While it's full of | fascinating ideas and information, it's badly in need of an | editor. To me, it often reads more like a stream of consciousness | than a structured essay. Also, I'm not particularly well-versed | in the subject matter, but even I can recognize some of the | massive logical jumps that they make based on the evidence that | they present. | | Had this simply been a book to exhibit new ways of understanding | and exploring the merits of prehistoric societies, perhaps it | would be more fitting of its title "The Dawn of Everything." I | could see this working better in a format more like Charles | Mann's 1491. Instead, it attempts to tackle a number of broader | questions about modern society while slinging mud at every author | in the last five hundred years that's touched upon them. Overall, | my impression so far is that Graeber and Wengrow bit off more | than they could chew. I want to keep reading for the information | they present, but it's been a struggle to stay focused. | goatlover wrote: | Not sure I trust a book which has activism against the current | economic system as a goal. From the sound of it, the book does | have some interesting ideas about prehistory that might turn out | to be at least partially correct. But then to turn that around | and use it as an attack on modern society stops being historical | and becomes polemical. | dgb23 wrote: | > Not sure I trust a book which has activism against the | current economic system as a goal. | | Thinking about this, I don't know a single book that has an | economical and/or political focus that doesn't in some way or | another criticize the status quo or at least challenge our | understanding of it. In fact I doubt such a book would be worth | reading at all. | jrochkind1 wrote: | I don't believe the book is or is meant as "an attack on modern | society". | goatlover wrote: | Meaning a critique of capitalism/neoliberalism and | hierarchical societies as an inevitable outcome of | civilization progressing. So basically, there's other ways to | arrange societies, both politically and economically, because | pre-historic people did that, and our current global | civilization is just one way, that came about because things | went a certain way (contingent), but they could have gone | other ways. | | Therefore, we should reconsider the current setup in favor of | alternative models. | jrochkind1 wrote: | So the altenrnative is the idea that capitalism and | hieararchical societies is an inevitable outcome of | civilizzation progressing, and there are no other ways to | arrange societies? | | While this is still a popular idea in society at large, I | don't think this is in fact an idea supported by mainstream | archeology/anthropology/history/whatever other fields would | comment on this. | | It's not in fact a big outrageous thing for the authors to | be challenging this, it's very normal mainstream scholarly | consensus. If anything, I think they are getting too much | credit for being responsible for something groundbreaking | in that basic challenge. | | But I agree with your summary of their basic | thesis/organizing narrative approach right there. I think | it's curious that you first summarized that as an "attack | on modern society" though. You feel that to suggest the way | society(ies) are organized now was not teleologically | foreordained and could have gone other ways -- is to attack | modern society? | | I think almost anyone writing an account meant to be | popularly accessible like this one has __some_ narrative | agenda, a point of view on the overall big points or | organizing principles. | | To compare to Harari... yeah, it would be hard to argue | that he has less of agenda, or sticks more to facts over | his preferred narrative or ideology. | goatlover wrote: | Graeber was an activist and anarchist, so his motivation | is definitely to critique modern society with the hope of | it eventually being replaced with something more to his | liking. My understanding is that modern society in | general (not the specifics) is the most likely outcome of | human development over time, in that some sort of | technologically advanced global civilization with | governments, global trade and militaries was probable | once modern humans spread out and colonized the planet, | providing no extinction event happened before then. It | was just a matter of time before population density and | technological advances led to civilization as we | understand it, whatever detours that may have taken, and | however different it might have played out given various | historical contingencies. | | My guess is that if there are any technological alien | life out there, it likely follows the same general | development, at least up to this point (given we don't | know how the future plays out and of course just using | our history so far, and also allowing for significantly | different biologies or climates and geologies leading to | divergent outcomes from ours). | [deleted] | wolverine876 wrote: | Does anyone know about an expert, non-partisan (whatever the | parties are in the field of pre-history) review of _Dawn of | Everything_? Someone who can summarize the strengths and | weaknesses, claims and critiques, etc.? | jimwhite42 wrote: | This is a good review, on the What is Politics channel: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJIHWk_M398&list=PLU4FEuj4v9... | | But it isn't a summary, it goes into a lot of detailed | critique. I think each video description links to a | bibliography and transcript too. | 317070 wrote: | My review: the main story and ideas of the book are great, and | the many small stories of the book are great too. I have read | many of Graeber's books, and it is full of novel ideas. | | But, the book could have used a bit more editing. As the arc is | coming to an end, many new examples are hastily introduced that | don't seem to lead anywhere. The book has a great first half, but | the second half is lacking. | | I feel like it has all the raw material of a masterpiece, but it | is missing the polishing, possibly due to Graeber's unfortunate | early passing. | | There is an often heard comment that they provide too few data. I | find that of little importance. I value novel perspectives on | history a lot more. I kind of agree with Graeber that the focus | on data succombs to paradox that if you focus on what you can | measure, you will automatically look at history with today's | eyes, as today is metric-focused. | moloch-hai wrote: | One of the authors _dying_ during editing can reasonably be | expected to have some effect. | college_physics wrote: | Hmm, i don't see how the vitriolic and largely unsubstantiated | attack on Harari (where does he even remotely suggest that | neoliberal capitalism is the pinnacle of civilisation?!) does the | work of Graeber any favor. | richk449 wrote: | In addition to being unsubstantiated, the criticisms of Harari | completely mischaracterize his position. The overriding point | of the chapter on agriculture in Sapiens is that farming was a | huge step back for humans compared to the hunter gatherer | lifestyle. | | I suspect the the authors of this piece really object to | Harari's framing of agriculture as a step on the path of "human | progress". It would have been more honest to stick to a purely | moral and ideological critique in that case, instead of | misrepresenting his factual points. | goatlover wrote: | Right, the argument for agriculture is that it's a basis for | making city states and empires possible, whatever moral value | one assigns to that. | readthenotes1 wrote: | I read The Columbia History of the World. | | Well, the first 50 pages. | | It explained that agriculture allowed people to live in | cities, and that for agriculture to work, people had to | avoid eating their seeds in the long winter. | | Or, as it got lodged in my mind | | -- | | Delayed gratification is the root of civilization. | | -- | | Which saying has been impressively valuable in my life ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-22 23:00 UTC)