FourWinds wrote:
I have
Inside The Neolithic Mind on the bedside cabinet, so I can't comment on that yet.
To be honest I never liked the way that
The Mind In The Cave started with the difference between Neanderthals and Modern Humans. I felt it was very - we survived because of some divine right. I found it a very scary attitude that ruined the rest of the book for me. It seemed quite Arrian.
You're right, it doesn't ruin the proposals of the whole book, but it does damage his credibility (in my eyes at least*).
*Which wasn't that high to start with, because of the above.
Phew, then trudging through the whole thing wasn't a waste of time after all. ;-)
I do agree about the damaged credibility thing, but I wonder how high that was in the 1st place. Can't see too many archaeos paying him too much heed without 'proof'. Maybe he has started an industry out there that aims to disprove him and this is the 1st shot across his bows.
The neurological, hard-wired in the brain, entoptic stuff was fascinating for a while. I remember as a kid lying back on the grass on a sunny day and rubbing my eyes and really getting into the, what I now know as, entoptic patterns. Kinda set a pattern!
Don't know if you could call him aryan though. He seems to have a lot of respect for the San and all the tribes that he mentions and I reckon he has his heart in the right place, trying to explain all this. Half way through Inside The Neolithic Mind and so far it seems to be more of the same – using ethnographic stuff from today, and showing the possibilities of yesterday through archaeological and neurological evidence. There's 50 pages on Brú na Bóinne so I'm wondering…
Andy
