| |
|
Book
Review |
|
Mithen,
Steven. After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20000–5000 BC
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2003; Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2006). 540 pp, $18.95.
|
|
|
When I first starting teaching world history,
I found the prospect of exploring the origins of agriculture daunting. Over
the past three years, my interest in and enthusiasm for the topic has grown
enormously. I credit this change in attitude to the publication of accessible
and engaging analyses such as Christian's Maps of Time, Peter Bellwood's
First Farmers, and Steven Mithen's After the Ice. Christian's
work is valuable as a critical synthesis of current theories and Bellwood's
book offers the best appraisal of available linguistic evidence. For breadth
and depth of coverage and supporting evidence, though, After the Ice
is unrivalled. |
1 |
|
After the Ice was first published in
London in 2003 and up to the present, it has been difficult to find in bookstores
outside of the UK. Fortunately, Harvard University Press have recognised
the potential of the work both as a scholarly and teaching text. As the
subtitle announces, the work offers a global account of communities between
22,000 and 7,000 years ago. Mithen's use of the word 'global' is appropriate,
for the forty nine chapters that form the core of the work take readers
to Natufian communities in the Middle East, Clovis hunters in North America,
Kuk Swamp farmers in Papua New Guinea, hunter gatherers in Tasmania, the
Jomon in Japan, pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa and the well-known centre
of Çatalhöyök in present-day Turkey. Mithen's descriptions
foreground current research, particularly that in archaeology. These, in
combination with generous footnotes and an extensive bibliography mean that
the work will be of interest to scholars and graduate students. For historiographers
and undergraduate students, there is the added device of Mithen imagining
his focus communities being observed by the Victorian author of Prehistoric
Times (1865), John Lubbock. Mithen's Lubbock sometimes lingers on the
margins of the narrative, but his presence will be enough to encourage advanced
undergraduates to think about how the study of world prehistory and archaeology
have changed over the last century. |
2 |
Mithen's work has made it possible for me
to revise the very general essay question I used to set first year undergraduate
students on the origins of agriculture to the following:
Using
two to three examples from different parts of the world, examine and
compare the reasons why people did or did not adopt agriculture.
|
3 |
|
In their responses, students have taken advantage
of the scope of the work to explore the activities of communities in the
Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania, and to better fill out existing
accounts on the fertile crescent that stretches from Israel to Northern
Turkey to the Gulf estuaries of Iraq. Previously, their analyses lacked
specific evidence, or presumed experiences in Western Asia could be used
as a template for the rest of the world. And although he does not discuss
the point explicitly, Mithen's work clearly fosters an appreciation of the
varying experiences of communities that are often bundled into a monolithic
'prehistory'. In particular, he shows us that not all communities embraced
or were forced into agriculture as a result of population growth, sedentism
or climate change. Sedentism meant agriculture for the Natufians, but it
did not for the Jomon or for such Northwest Native American peoples as the
Tlingit. |
4
|
|
At five hundred pages, and with few
illustrations, After the Ice may not be the best text for students
and teachers under time pressure. The brevity and relative self-sufficiency
of each of the chapters, though, offers teachers the opportunity to assign
segments of the text. A class may consider the same portion of the text,
or even better, divide up a selection of chapters for discussion. Students
can be asked to identify the evidence that Mithen uses, and to comment on
whether it and his narrative strategies are persuasive. If students record
the key points of each chapter on a board, there also exists an opportunity
for comparative analysis. I have also asked students to address the shortage
of illustrations by finding suitable ones through an internet search. This
activity has been informative for students, highlighting both the challenges
of conducting archaeological research on this period and the relative lack
of attention given to early African agrarian and pastoral communities on
the web. |
5 |
|
Students have also managed to
detect some of the limits of Mithen's work. A memorable moment for me this
past semester was when a first-year undergraduate observed that Mithen needed
to take more account of topography in his analysis of agriculture in South
America. While on a short trip to the Puna and Quebrada de Humahuaca in
Argentina, the student took photos to support his identification of relatively
distinct highland and plains farming activities. Three of his photographs
accompany this review. Still other students have noted Mithen's failure
to tackle perhaps one of the most vexed questions in world history: whether
agriculture ushered in gender inequality. Perhaps the most serious problem
with Mithen's work is the absence of an analytical conclusion. Having assembled
a rich and detailed global survey, his brief epilogue on anthropogenic climate
change seems out of place. Far more valuable would be an analysis that draws
together observations across the chapters. For instance, does population
growth best explain the independent emergence of agriculture in multiple
localities around the world? Or should we steer away from a global hypothesis?
At present, Mithen leaves that work to his readers, and this may be too
difficult a task for many undergraduate students. |
6 |
|
After the Ice is
a much needed work on the history of human communities between 22000 and
700 years ago. Its length and relatively extensive scholarly framework may
make it appear inaccessible to undergraduate students. However, I have found
it an invaluable text for first-year undergraduates. Many of them, like
me, have Mithen to thank for our critical appreciation of a period that
is all too often skirted over in other world history texts. |
7 |
|
Early agriculture in the Puna grasslands,
Argentina, with thanks to HIST112 student, Ernest Roux. |
8 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
Marnie Hughes-Warrington
Macquarie University |
