Comments on Steven Mithen's Book (1996) The Prehistory of The Mind

Over twenty years ago, Steven Mithen, a British archaeologist, published one of the most eloquently written books on human evolution. The Prehistory of The Mind (1996) frames the past six million years with two evocative analogies. The first is a play in four acts. The second is the evolution of church architecture in the West.
These powerful metaphors do not explain human evolution. They re-describe it, bringing to the fore the character of the evidence as well as the cognition that goes wi...