Product Description

Twenty thousand years ago Earth was in the midst of an ice age. Then global warming arrived, leading to massive floods, the spread of forests and the retreat of the deserts. By 5,000 BC a radically different human world had appeared. In place of hunters and gatherers there were farmers; in place of transient campsites there were towns. The foundations of our modern world had been laid and nothing that came after - the Industrial Revolution, the atomic age, the internet - have ever matched the significance of those events. AFTER THE ICE tells the story of climate change's impact during this momentous period - one that also saw the colonisation of the Americas and mass extictions of animals throughout the world. Drawing on the latest cutting-edge research in archaeology, cognitive science, paleontology, geology and the evolutionary sciences, Steven Mithen creates an evocative, original and remarkably complete picture of minds, cultures, lives and landscapes through 15,000 years of history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23198 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 726 pages

Review
Steve Mithen will be taking part in number of literary festivals and events this year, including:Hay Festival (29th May)Cheltenham Festival (5th June)Edinburgh Festival (21st August)Royal Institution (7 November)National Museum ofScotland (13 November).Cafe Scientifique, Golders Green (9 December) Steve will be writing articles for:THES (20.6.03)TES (to be published in September)PLANET EARTH MAGAZINE.THE NEW SCIENTIST (17 May) Radio:BBC RADIO SCOTLAND (Thurday 22 May, review).SIMON MAYO SHOW (BBC Radio 5 Live, 7 July, interview)BBCRadio Berkshire (14 July)BBC Three Counties Radio (15 July)BBC Radio Kent (29 August)BBC Radio Cambridge (Book of the Week, review)Interest from IN OUR TIME (BBC Radio 4) for an interview in the Autumn Reviews confirmed so far include: NATURE, SOCIALIST STANDARD, BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY 'The lucidity of Mithen's thought and prose will inform the professional and illuminate the general reader. After the Ice is that rare event: the right book at the right time.'Alan Garner, THE TIMES (23.7.03) '...[a] brilliant idea...[told with] Mithen's...characteristic virtues: immense erudition, lightly worn; mastery of vast material, wielded with impressive deftness. For clarity of exposition, fluencyof language, vividness of imagination, he is unrivalled in his field...the most readable and...most reliable general survey of the subject since Jack Harlan's, now more than a decade old.'Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, LITERARY REVIEW 'This is an important book, which succeeds in writing about the prehistoric past in a new way, restraining though not eliminating the preoccupations of the writer and offering a wealth of experienced detail for each continent...a sympathetic and informed introduction to a formative period in world history.'Colin Renfrew, TLS (29.8.03) 'Mithen has not only mastered his material, he has delivered a charming read and an up-to-date informative resource. After the Ice is an exceptional book..that students, specialists oR anyone else with curiosity about our early history can enjoy.'Mike Pitts, NEW SCIENTIST 'An engrossing study, lavishly illustrated.'GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'A BIG and important book...Ambitious and original and stimulating study.'THE SCOTSMAN (21.6.03) 'Steven MIthen has written a magnificent account of archaeology worldwide, and in this first edition of Current World Archaeology I am happy to hail the success of a great World Archaeologist.'CURRENT WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY (October 2003) '[AFTER THE ICE] at times reads like fiction, with evocative descriptions of people, places, landscapes and activities, but we can be safe in the knowledge that Mithen knows his facts...His written style is erudite and engaging andhis descriptive prose would be the envy of many novelists. AFTER THE ICE is packed full of information, but there is no obvious bombardment of facts. With few statistics, no tables, footnotes or continually interrupting references(the notes are confined to the back), the reader is an unwitting but enthusiastic participant in the learning process.'OXeN (August 2003)

The Scotsman, 21 June 2003
'A big and important book ... ambitious and original and stimulating'

Mike Pitts, New Scientist, 12 July 2003
'A charming read and an up-to-date informative resource. After the Ice is an exceptional book'

Customer Reviews

The Way We Were
Various forms are being applied to popularise what science has discovered about Nature, particularly our nature. Paleontologist Steven Mithen utilises a favourite technique of SciFi - time travel - to explain how our ancestors once lived. Although this might be a risky method in the hands of someone less talented, Mithen carries it well as he takes us on a global journey. From Western, Southern and Eastern Asia, through Africa, Europe and the Americas and Australia, he introduces us to the daily activities of those people who moved across the planet as the glaciers retreated. While that sounds highly speculative, Mithen's method is a way of introducing us to the numerous dig sites prehistoric scholars have found and analysed. The evidence for his depictions is laid out and the interpretations arising from the data is carefully presented.

Mithen isn't our guide in this tour. He assigns that task to a figure named for a contemporary of Charles Darwin. "Victorian John Lubbock", as Mithen dubs him, wrote one of the earliest paleoanthropological works, "Prehistoric Times" - an attempt to describe what our ancestors were like. Lubbock coined the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic" to give order to a chaotic scene. In this account, the Time Traveller refers to his namesake's publication for comparison of what has been revealed today by Mithen's digging colleagues. What did your ancestors do during the day? What challenges did they face and how did they overcome them? Time Traveller Lubbock tries to impart these questions and their answers with distant observation and active participation alike. The method, when the releaved evidence is explained, proves an excellent balance. You are there at the time of events and alongside the archaeologists as they sift through artefacts thousands of years old.

Human prehistory is probably science's most contentious field. For years, the story of how and when the Western Hemisphere was populated has been a simmering issue. Mithen, although giving passing attention to the "Clovis debate" and other questions relating to the human invasion of the America's, gently disentangles himself from the specifics. Instead, he focusses on how the environment affected the way in which societies formed here. This isn't just an evasion tactic. Mithen is more concerned with how humanity solved various problems facing them as they settled in uncontested lands. What adds to our interest is the comparison of such elements as the domesticating grains and animals here with that of Western Asian populations. Mithen meticulously describes how the genetic patterns of grains and animals alike were changed by human intervention.

It's easy to admit to a sense of wonder at reading this book. The scope is vast, fifteen thousand years of time and the entire globe. That one author could accomplish this feat is at least admirable, if not astonishing. Yet, Mithen's own sense of awe is clearly evident, if not infectious. He's not a classroom-bound academic and some of his own site visits are incorporated into the narrative. His passion for the science is clear and present - something that should prompt younger readers to emulate. The recent dates given for dig sites plainly indicate that real work remains to be done. And speed is critical - the number of sites discovered and worked under the threat of dam, highway and shopping mall building is too depressing to recount here. If you, or anyone you know is looking for a career in science, buy this book, read it and encourage a career in human prehistory. Mithen shows how rewarding it can be. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Ancient life as revealed by time-travel.
Archaeologists, both amateur and professional, struggle with the vast gulf of time that separates them from human activities in the distant past. The architects of the pyramids in Egypt, for instance, are at least a millennium further from the era of Christ than we in the 21st century. How then can we conceive of the impossibly remote Last Glacial Maximum, clocking in at 20,000 BC?

Anatomically-modern humans, the same in every physical respect as we are today, evolved perhaps 100,000 years ago, and for 80 millennia eked out a living in the harsh conditions of the Ice Ages. Soon after 20,000 BC, global warming began, and the great ice sheets began their retreat. Fluctuations in climate brought about immense changes in animal and plant species and their distributions; with them came a wholesale change in the character of human societies. By 5,000 BC, says Mithen, the foundations for the modern world were laid. Farming, a sedentary lifestyle, craft specialisation and social stratification all emerged in the period running up to the zenith of the Neolithic. "Nothing that came after -- Classical Greece, the Industrial revolution, the atomic age or the Internet -- has ever matched the significance of those events".

Many books have been written about the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages, yet none of them has attempted anything as ambitious as this book. Mithen has aimed his work at the widest possible readership while maintaining an appropriate level of academic rigour; readers who wish to follow up on any of the themes, sites and periods discussed can refer to his comprehensive bibliography. The chronological and geographical scope of the book is immense, as its subtitle suggests. The true ambition of the book, however, is to close the gap between ourselves and the distant past. He accomplishes this through the introduction of a time-travelling explorer, whom he names John Lubbock after the 19th Century anthropologist and author of "Prehistoric Times". Mithen's explorer, however, is equipped with the modern theoretical tools and archaeological knowledge his Victorian namesake lacked, recognising our ancestors as intelligent humans no different to you or me, rather than savages with childlike minds. Throughout the book, the modern Lubbock encounters the inhabitants of archaeological sites, witnessing their daily routine, the struggles they face and the incredible innovations which form the basis of the modern world.

This metaphor - excavation as travel - attempts to convey Mithen's own experience of archaeological investigation. When exploring the past, one is, as Paul Theroux said, "a stranger in a strange land". Despite this strangeness, the experience of being "other" to the inhabitants of the past, Mithen succeeds in underlining how similar our ancestors were to us, a theme carried over from his previous work. In "The Prehistory of the Mind", Mithen argued that human achievements can be attributed to the evolution of a peculiar kind of mind, in which the barriers between cognitive modules were broken down to produce a mental toolkit that was "cognitively fluid". The birth of that stone-age consciousness produced an adaptivity with much greater responsiveness than the glacial pace of physical evolution, and saved humankind from going the way of the mammoth. Our ancestors survived cold, drought and starvation by remaining adaptive to change. "After the Ice" is the story of that survival.

Excellent Introduction to Prehistory
This lengthy text incorporates serious heavyweight scholarship with an unusual narrative style. Using a "time travel" analogy Mithen brings to life some of the most significant archaeological sites of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Neolithic in a way that most archaological texts, even those aimed at an educated lay audience fail to do.
His style, whilst at times rather too chatty for my personal taste, will undoubtedly draw in a far wider audience to this rather esoteric field than any other text I have so far come across. Please note I am not an archaeologist by training! ;)

The breadth of material covered is truly breathtaking,from Chile to Siberia, North America to Australasia, the entire world is covered in a way that many "eurocentric" scholars could take serious lessons from; it is clear that he has familiarized himself in depth as well with many of the sites used in the text.
If you only ever buy one book about this vital period of modern human development, then you should seriously consider making this your choice.