World Prehistory: In New Perspective

by Grahame Clark

Overview

'To qualify as human, a hominid has, so to say, to justify himself by works: the criteria are no longer biological so much as cultural'. In this 1977 book, Professor Grahame Clark goes on to trace the origins and development of human culture, in all its diversity, throughout the world. He follows the intellectual, material and social progress of mankind in each major region, from the earliest stone industries of two million years ago to the gradual and still incomplete attainment of literacy over the last five thousand years. He takes full account of peoples still preliterate when encountered in recent times by anthropologists as well as of those which nourished the great historic civilizations of mankind. Throughout he emphasizes the close relationship between environment and the character and speed of cultural development. The narrative is generously illustrated with photographs, drawings and maps, and there is a carefully selected list of references to the main sources used.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521291781
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/15/1977
Series:	In New Perspective
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.18(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables, Acknowledgements, Preface; Part I. Early Prehistory: 1. Evolution of man as an organism; 2. Environmental change; 3. Palaeolithic hunters and foragers; Part II. Beginnings of Civilization in South-West Asia: 4. Background; 5. The transition: 9000–6000 BC; 6. Neolithic/Charcolithic settlement; 7. Emergence of civilization in south Mesopotamia; 8. Civilizations of the Highlands; Part III. Foundations of European Civilization: The Stone Age: 9. Upper Palaeolithic hunters and artists; 10. Mesolithic hunter-fishers; 11. Late Stone Age farmers; 12. Farmers and hunter-fishers; Part IV. Europe: From Metallurgy to Civilization: 13. Early metallurgy; 14. Minoan–Mycenaean civilization; 15. The Bronze Age in temperate Europe; 16. Antecedents of classical Greece; 17. The barbarian world in the pre-roman Iron Age; 18. Antecendents and expansion of Roman civilization; 19. The Iron Age in northern Europe; 20. Christianity and the end of European prehistory; Part V. The African Achievement: 21. The Stone Age; 22. Ancient Egyptian civilization; 23. The opening up of sub-Saharan Africa; Part VI. The Indian Sub-Continent: 24. Early prehistory; 25. Later prehistory; 26. Protohistory; Part VII. East Asia: 27. China; 28. Japan; 29. South-east Asia; Part VIII. North and Middle America: 30. Late Pleistocene settlement; 31. Middle American sequence; Part IX. North America: 32. Temperate zone; 33. Arctic zone; Part X. South America: 34. The first settlers: Andean zone; 35. Intermediate zone: marginal territories; Part XI. Australia and Oceania: 36. Australia; 37. Oceania; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'… there can be no doubt that for the student or general reader who needs an overview of world prehistory this is essential reading.' Geography

'It is amazing how much information, and how many ideas, Professor Clark managed to pack into this book. Nothing of importance seems to have been omitted … Similarly there are few prehistorians who could have written such a wide-ranging survey and yet have fallen into so few errors … Taken as a whole, World Prehistory is the most up-to-date survey not only of world prehistory as a whole but of the individual areas with which it is concerned.' The Times Literary Supplement

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