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| Jack Linthicum... |
 Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 1:13 am |
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Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip of
the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like Athens
and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into his
concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
Locale as a key to civilization?
Europe Between the Oceans
9000 B.C. - A.D. 1000
By Barry Cunliffe
Yale University Press.
480 pp. $45
Reviewed by Chris Hedges
Barry Cunliffe is the emeritus professor of European archaeology at
Oxford, and Europe Between the Oceans is perhaps the boldest work of
ancient history in recent memory. It draws on an impressive array of
scholarship to paint a 10,000-year portrait of European civilization
from 9000 B.C. to A.D. 1000.
Cunliffe sees the vast human mutations and advances from the end of
the last ice age to the emergence of the European nation states as
primarily the result of favorable geography. And he draws on an
astonishing array of scholarship, from finds in Nordic burial mounds
to DNA studies, to present a compelling and fascinating read.
Ancient human history, even to those who spend their careers
dissecting it, is largely an enigma. Conjecture often takes the place
of fact. Theory has to replace evidence. The momentous shifts in human
civilization must be examined through puzzling and often grossly
inadequate shards and fragments. Those who investigate prehistory,
where by definition there were no written records, either rely on
intuition and creativity or are forced to retreat into the very narrow
spectrum of the knowable. Such scholarship often resembles a negative
form of knowledge. It draws on imprints, shell mounds, or wall
carvings for its understanding, rather than on recorded deeds,
personalities, and definable human events.
Cunliffe believes that, rather than being the result of great
leadership, specific intellectual traditions, religion, philosophy, or
even the accidents of history, European advancement is rooted in
particular environmental influences and expansive historical
continuity. He argues that Europe's unique geography is the key to
unlocking its unique civilization.
This is a highly Eurocentric book. Cunliffe has little time for
competing civilizations, even the highly advanced Chinese and Japanese
empires. The seas surrounding Europe and the rivers within, which
facilitated trade and communication, cross-pollinated Europe with the
latest ideas, discoveries, and inventions of varied cultures. Europe,
he writes, was geographically and culturally "the western excrescence
of the continent of Asia," from which it drew much of its early
inspiration. The steppes linked central Asia to the Great Hungarian
plain for thousands of years. It provided access from China to the
Atlantic Ocean.
The array of technological innovations that passed through sea and
land corridors into Europe include the two-wheeled chariot. The
chariot appears to have come from the forest steppe region of Russia
between the Urals and the river Volga as early as 2800 B.C. The
technology then spread south to the Near East into the Carpathian
Basin. By the 16th century B.C., horse-drawn chariots are being
painted on Mycenaean shaft graves. Nordic grave sites have yielded
artifacts from across the Mediterranean. Sarmatian horsemen,
originally from central Asia, served in northwestern Britain in the
Roman army.
Political upheavals and experiments in self-governing, once they come
into view, however, are often dismissed as little more than
stagecraft. Great leaders and philosophers are largely irrelevant.
When the topic is the early millennia, such theories are hard to
dispute, since we know almost nothing about individual personalities
or beliefs. But Cunliffe's line of thinking runs into problems when
the topic is ancient Athens or the rise of the city-states of the
Middle Ages.
In other words, geography alone is not enough. Ideas matter. Human
beings, prior to the development of Greek philosophy in the sixth
century B.C., for example, had thought of themselves and of society as
integral parts of nature, and subject to the same natural and
supernatural forces. But this attitude was shattered by the radical
Greek philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. Nature and
the external world became for the Greeks open to rational explanation.
And yet this revolution - as seismic as any technological change - is
sidelined by Cunliffe.
The Roman Empire, likewise, is dismissed as "an interlude." Cunliffe
writes:
The century of political turmoil and military conflict that engulfed
Italy and spread to its provinces in the period from 133 to 27 B.C. is
usually explained in terms of the "big men" who inspired the factions
and led the armies - people such as the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla,
Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Augustus - but really they were
only helpless human beings caught up on the deep swell of change set
in motion by the rise of acquisitive elites vying for space in a
peninsula too small to contain them.
This is an example of how Cunliffe retreats somewhat too often into
his own orthodoxy. He sacrifices complexity on the altar of
consistency.
Europe Between the Oceans, lavishly illustrated, nevertheless provides
readers with a brilliant and fascinating interweaving of cultures and
traditions. Cunliffe draws on archaeological finds that indicate
direct contact between the societies of Homeric Greece and those of
prehistoric Britain. He holds up identical images of warriors depicted
in ruins in Sardinia, Egypt, and Scandinavia. He explores Dark Ages
sites in Sweden that have yielded coins from the eastern and western
Roman empires, a ladle from Egypt, a bishop's crosier from Ireland,
and a bronze statue of Buddha from India. Even if he too often ignores
the indisputable role of human beings in their own history, Cunliffe
magisterially shows how the interweaving of civilizations, made
possible by geography, has, indeed, always been a powerful engine for
human advancement.
http://www.archaeologynews.org/story.asp?ID=518767&Title=Locale%20as%20a%20key%20to%20civilization? |
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| Jack Linthicum... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:23 am |
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On Nov 1, 6:57 am, Peter Alaca <p.al... at (no spam) invallid.invalid> wrote:
[quote]Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi... at (no spam) earthlink.net> 01/11/2009 12:13 wrote:
Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip of
the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like Athens
and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into his
concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
I still haven't read it, but come back in a month, and I probably will
have.
See sci.archaeology 22 nov 2008
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/sci.archaeology/browse_thread/thread...
[/quote]
$45, and my wife does volunteer work at a local library, means I may
wait to buy the paper back. As I did with Facing the Sea. |
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| Peter Alaca... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 6:57 am |
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Guest
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Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum at (no spam) earthlink.net> 01/11/2009 12:13 wrote:
[quote]Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip of
the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like Athens
and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into his
concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
[/quote]
I still haven't read it, but come back in a month, and I probably will
have.
See sci.archaeology 22 nov 2008
<http://groups.google.co.uk/group/sci.archaeology/browse_thread/thread/7d2733e05b1a88f6/f12243c7dfe476c7?hl=en#f12243c7dfe476c7> |
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| Trond Engen... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:28 am |
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Peter Alaca:
[quote]Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum at (no spam) earthlink.net> 01/11/2009 12:13 wrote:
Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip
of the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like
Athens and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into
his concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
I still haven't read it, but come back in a month, and I probably
will have.
[/quote]
I read it this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm an utter
layman. Since it's an enormous task he must have simplified the story,
deliberately as well as inadvertently, and I'm in no doubt that someone
with detailed knowledge of certain times and places will have
objections. E.g. I noticed his support for, and reasoning from, the
unrevised version of Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis of Indo-European origin.
--
Trond Engen |
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| Peter Alaca... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 8:08 am |
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Trond Engen <trondnet at (no spam) engen.priv.no> 01/11/2009 13:28 wrote:
[quote]Peter Alaca:
Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum at (no spam) earthlink.net> 01/11/2009 12:13 wrote:
Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip
of the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like
Athens and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into
his concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
[...]
I still haven't read it, but come back in a month, and I probably
will have.
I read it this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm an utter
layman. Since it's an enormous task he must have simplified the story,
deliberately as well as inadvertently, and I'm in no doubt that someone
with detailed knowledge of certain times and places will have
objections. E.g. I noticed his support for, and reasoning from, the
unrevised version of Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis of Indo-European origin.
[/quote]
You cannot write a book like this without simplification or
generalisation, and I don't think that the 'Anatolian hypothesis'
can influence the overall picture, because it only touches certain
aspects. In my opinion it doesn't really matter what language the first
farmers spoke as long as that language is not reflected in the
archaeological cultures we perceive.
Anyhow, I like Cunliffe's books, and especially his 'Facing the Ocean'
has influenced my view on Europe. |
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| VtSkier... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:49 am |
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Jack Linthicum wrote:
[quote]Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip of
the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like Athens
and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into his
concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
Locale as a key to civilization?
Europe Between the Oceans
9000 B.C. - A.D. 1000
By Barry Cunliffe
Yale University Press.
480 pp. $45
Reviewed by Chris Hedges
Barry Cunliffe is the emeritus professor of European archaeology at
[/quote]
(snip)
Thanks Jack.
Jared Diamond asks the questions of why did
civilizations arise where they did and why
did those civilizations become more powerful
while others withered and died.
Diamond sees Eurasian civilization as that
which prevailed against nascent civilizations
elsewhere. He sees the vast expanse of
Eurasia along latitude lines as creating a
feedback loop where ideas and technology can
develop in one place and make their way
rather quickly to most or all other places
in the range.
In other words, Diamond would pretty much
agree with Cunliffe, at least as far as this
review is concerned.
Diamond, Jared, _Guns, Germs and Steel_
RW |
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| Trond Engen... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:23 pm |
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Peter Alaca:
[quote]Trond Engen <trondnet at (no spam) engen.priv.no> 01/11/2009 13:28 wrote:
Peter Alaca:
Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum at (no spam) earthlink.net> 01/11/2009 12:13 wrote:
Oxford emeritus professor of Archaeology takes us on a survey trip
of the "lawn" of history and pre-history. Blades of "grass" like
Athens and the city states of the Middle Ages throw a spanner into
his concept of geography as the driving engine of civilization.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 1, 2009
I still haven't read it, but come back in a month, and I probably
will have.
I read it this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm an utter
layman. Since it's an enormous task he must have simplified the
story, deliberately as well as inadvertently, and I'm in no doubt
that someone with detailed knowledge of certain times and places
will have objections. E.g. I noticed his support for, and reasoning
from, the unrevised version of Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis of
Indo-European origin.
You cannot write a book like this without simplification or
generalisation, and I don't think that the 'Anatolian hypothesis'
can influence the overall picture, because it only touches certain
aspects.
[/quote]
True enough, which is why I found his insistence ... disconcerting.
[quote]In my opinion it doesn't really matter what language the first
farmers spoke as long as that language is not reflected in the
archaeological cultures we perceive.
[/quote]
Well, even the drawing of the linguistic map of Europe is a part of
cultural history that should be explained, and archaeology can help at
that. But as one goes further and further back in time uncertainties are
accumulated and speculation unrecorded language is increasingly idle.
[quote]Anyhow, I like Cunliffe's books, and especially his 'Facing the
Ocean' has influenced my view on Europe.
[/quote]
As I said, I really enjoyed the book. When you've read it too, you could
tell me if it's all there or if it's worth reading his previous books
for further detail.
--
Trond Engen |
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| Hayabusa... |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:04 pm |
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Guest
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On Sun, 1 Nov 2009 03:13:35 -0800 (PST), Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthicum at (no spam) earthlink.net> wrote:
[quote]Cunliffe believes that, rather than being the result of great
leadership, specific intellectual traditions, religion, philosophy, or
even the accidents of history, European advancement is rooted in
particular environmental influences and expansive historical
continuity. He argues that Europe's unique geography is the key to
unlocking its unique civilization.
---[/quote]
[quote]The Roman Empire, likewise, is dismissed as "an interlude." Cunliffe
writes:
The century of political turmoil and military conflict that engulfed
Italy and spread to its provinces in the period from 133 to 27 B.C. is
usually explained in terms of the "big men" who inspired the factions
and led the armies - people such as the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla,
Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Augustus - but really they were
only helpless human beings caught up on the deep swell of change set
in motion by the rise of acquisitive elites vying for space in a
peninsula too small to contain them.
[/quote]
I haven't seen the book. But I like the idea. Even great men are
children of their time.
Rome started as a kingdom 150 km across around 350 BCE, it took it 150
years to conquer the peninsula, but the roots for this conquest were
laid early on. Greek colonies were founded by people who wanted to get
away from home, Roman colonies were tools to conquest from the
beginning. Then, one Tursday evening around 190 BCE, they were done
with the peninsula, only to find themselves in a geographically
unavoidable contest with Carchedon for the dominance in the entire Med
on Friday morning. Surely it took great men, but Hannibal was not of
smallish format; but Rome offered a conquest ideology from the
beginning which Carthago did not have (or else they would have erased
Rome off the map, they were close enough), and which was greater than
just a great man or two. Rome endured nearly 200 years of continuous
war, with massive bloodletting that nearly drained the substance.
Hayabusa |
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