The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age
by Richard Rudgley
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Book Reviews of The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age
Book Review: REAL EYE OPENER
Summary: 5 Stars
By bringing together evidence from archaeology, ancient history, linguistics and anthropology, the author convincingly demonstrates that the inventions, achievements and discoveries of prehistoric times have all but been edited out of popular accounts of human history. He describes how stone age explorers discovered all the world's land masses, presents strong evidence for writing before 5000BC and for mathematical, medical and astronomical science as well as tool-making and mining long before the Sumerians. Tracing the human story from the cusp of history back to the earliest known artefacts, he shows that the making of rugs, dental drilling and accountancy among others, were all known in the Neolithic. But not only that - the other "ideological wall" placed at about 40 000BC is also being shown up to be highly dubious as many anomalous cases of earlier symbolic and artistic activities are coming to light. I found the section on language of particular interest and would like to refer interested readers to the work of linguists like Dr. Joseph Greenberg (Language In The Americas, Indo-European and its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family), Merritt Ruhlen (On The Origin Of Languages: Studies In Linguistic Taxonomy), Alan Bomhard (Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis ) and Sydney M. Lamb (Sprung From Some Common Source), all available here on amazon.com. Lost Civilisations Of The Stone Age is lavishly illustrated with figures, plates and a map of language families, and there's an extensive bibliography and index. A well-researched, well-written book that sometimes perhaps goes into too much technical detail for the casual reader, but always remains thought-provoking.Book Review: Comprehensive and Complex
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this book to be immensely interesting. Mr. Rudgley shows that prehistoric humans were intelligent, sensitive, and capable beings who contributed much more to the "civilisation" of humanity than they have ever been given credit for.
Many archeologists seem to think that the first humans were a bunch of idiots running around in a fog and barely able to keep themselves alive. Not being an archeologist myself, I always thought they must have been an amazing bunch of people. They developed ways to feed themselves, keep warm and dry, protect themselves, etc. without a single "how-to" book.
Evidence is given of writing, worship, and even surgeries performed before any "cave man" was supposed to be able to form a coherent thought. There are references to many other works that are just as interesting, if not more so, regarding the misconceptions of prehistoric man.
The beginning of this book, and some sections through out the book, are written for a nonacademic audience and are easily understood. It seems at times the author forgets this little tidbit and resorts to an academic form of writing, using language and sentence structure, that is more than a bit confusing for the average person. Other than that, I felt this was an excellent book on this particualar subject.
Book Review: Tread lightly
Summary: 5 Stars
I've always enjoyed this book. The author (despite all the claims for him by other reviewers) simply wants us to rethink what we mean by "technological" and "sophisticated." He's just arguing that our ancestors often got impressive results with simple materials, and that, in turn, should cause us to have a little more respect for them. Frankly, all I ever needed was a glimpse at some of that cave art. No B-movie cave men here.
And no Atlanteans either. This is not a book to be read in a vacuum, or in conjunction with books on Lost Advanced Civilizations. It's meant to cast a different light on conventional archaeological data, so it's a good idea to dive into it with some knowledge of human history, at least the human history that's supported by 95% of the data available out there.
Mind you, I believe there were ancient advanced civilizations, but when we finally uncover them I don't think they're going meet our somewhat naive and either New Age or techno-centric expectations of what ancient advanced civilizations were genuinely like. An open mind is incredibly important here.
Book Review: Interesting Ideas that Go Too Far
Summary: 3 Stars
Richard Rudgley's The Lost Civilations of the Stone Age brings up some very interesting ideas and delves into news ways of looking at the prehistoric past. It is important to view the stone age peoples with more open minds than is usually done and this book could be a good place to begin that examination. The only serious flaw of this book, and it sometimes could be quite grating, was the author's insistence on building up his case by dramatically overemphasing the importance and achievements of these ancestors of ours. Any evidence, however spurious, was included. It felt, at times, that the author felt that unless he proved that the stone age peoples were, in fact, superior to all other peoples that followed he had not fulfilled his mission. The book became a competition instead of simply a way of presenting the facts of the stone age and allowing their own achievements to stand. It was an interesting read, although at times it could be quite frustrating.Book Review: Same old stuff
Summary: 2 Stars
I cannot recommend this book. It's the same old stuff, an establishment archaeologist clinging to 1930's theories. He closes his mind to paradigm shattering works that render this book obsolete--works like "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" by Hapgood; "The Origin Map" by Brophy; and "Giza Powerplant," by Dunn. Instead of addressing the theories of researchers like Z. Sitchin, he unscientifically dismisses them with an unscientific smirk and a laugh, exposing an unwillingness to inspect anything that violates his establishment prejudices.