Colin Renfrew Reihenfolge der Bücher (Chronologisch)

Kniha sa začína pohľadom na postupné objavovanie vzdialenej minulosti siahajúcej desaťtisíce rokov dozadu, ktoré sa začalo iba pred 150 rokmi. Začiatky archeológie, geológie, Darwinove myšlienky o evolúcii, jaskynné maľby, skamenení predkovia človeka, múzeá a zbierky, rádiokarbónové datovanie a analýzy DNA - to všetko je súčasťou dramatického vývoja prehistórie. Colin Renfrew ponúka nový pohľad a skúma sporné otázky a problémy. Spochybňuje všeobecne prijatý predpoklad, že najdôležitejšia ,,revolúcia ľudstva" sa odohrala pred 40 000 rokmi - keď sa v Európe po prvýkrát objavil Homo sapiens sapiens - a vyslovuje názor, že kľúčové zmeny nastali oveľa skôr. Náš druh sa vyvinul v Afrike zo staršieho hominidného predka, zrejme už pred 200 000 rokmi.

In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records–the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth–and gives an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and of how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light. Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, detailing how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have helped us to define humankind’s past–how things have changed–much more clearly than was possible just a half century ago. As for why things have changed, Renfrew pinpoints some of the issues and challenges, past and present, that confront the study of prehistory and its investigators. Renfrew then offers a summary of human prehistory from early hominids to the rise of literate civilization that is refreshingly free of conventional wisdom and grand “unified” theories. In this invaluable account, Colin Renfrew delivers a meticulously researched and passionately argued chronicle about our life on earth–and our ongoing quest to understand it.

Widely praised for its comprehensive coverage, excellent graphics and well-organized layout, this invaluable introduction for students and enthusiasts of archaeology has been expanded to incorporate all the latest developments

In this book Colin Renfrew directs remarkable new light on the links between archaeology and language, looking specifically at the puzzling similarities that are apparent across the Indo-European family of ancient languages, from Anatolia and Ancient Persia, across Europe and the Indian subcontinent, to regions as remote as Sinkiang in China. Professor Renfrew initiates an original synthesis between modern historical linguistics and the new archaeology of cultural process, boldly proclaiming that it is time to reconsider questions of language origins and what they imply about ethnic affiliation--issues seriously discredited by the racial theorists of the 1920s and 1930s and, as a result, largely neglected since. Challenging many familiar beliefs, he comes to a new and persuasive conclusion: that primitive forms of the Indo-European language were spoken across Europe some thousands of years earlier than has previously been assumed.

New edition of a classic previously published since 1987 by Penguin. Renfrew considers questions of language origins and what they imply about ethnic affiliation. He re-examines the problem of the spread of Indo-European languages and argues that early forms of these were spoken thousands of years earlier than we had previously assumed.

The refinement of radiocarbon dating using the information form tree-ring counts has raised serious doubts about the accepted theoretical frameowkr of European prehistory. Monuments in Central and Western Europe have proved to be considerably older than their supposed Near-Eastern forerunners, and the record must be almost completely rewritten in the light of these new dates. Before Civilsation is a preliminary attempt to do this with the help of analogies from more recent and well-documented primitive societies. The more glaring inconsistencies in the old theory are re-examined and Professor Renfrew shows convincingly how the baffling monuments of prehistoric Europe, like Stonehenge, could have been built without recourse to help from the 'more civilized' Near East.