Everything We Think We Know About Early Human History is Wrong | David Wengrow on Downstream
Humans have existed for at least 200,000 years. Yet until recently, historians believed that cities, astronomy, architecture and numeracy did not arrive until agriculture emerged some 12,000 years ago. But what if that was wrong? What if cities existed before agriculture and our hunter gatherer ancestors enjoyed a far more complex existence than we thought? And if they did, then what are the implications for modern political theory - which justifies inequality on the basis that we live in a higher, more sophisticated form of society that was always inevitable? What if there were social revolutions before documented history? And what if humankind had engaged in innumerable experiments in how best to live - including ones that involved the rejection of what we would consider to be ‘civilisation’? Aaron Bastani discusses all of that, and more, with archaeologist and co-author of the bestselling ‘Dawn of Everything’ David Wengrow.
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The lighting and the shirt keeps making me think I'm watching an early episode of Star Trek.
Haha... same thought as soon as I saw it. Fortunately not red. They tend to not last the full duration.
Ensign Tiberius Pike
LOL. My first impression also.
also the content, specially for og star trek haha
He better hope he doesn't beam down with Kirk, spock and bones...cause if he does, he ain't coming back
BBC used to do good stuff like this. They may still do but BBC NEWS and politics have damaged their reputation. I don't switch the TV on
You're so right I can see old BBC docs on KZhead and they are extrordinarie ! Here in LA I stopped watching the boob tube a decade ago it's a waste land of political brainwashing ! Cheers
LoL I gaved mine away. No TV ever again. No radio. Skipping all adds Really choosing what I listen to.
Absolutely, me too.
100% spot on
With one exception.....I do like some sports. Otherwise TV is nearly unwatchable.
In a world of uncouth loud braying, it's always so refreshing to hear nuanced, carefully tuned replies full of empathy towards opposing viewpoints. Many scientists even fail to embue their criticism with such grace.
You'll find the "uncouth braying" we collectively give out (at least, the worst of us) is a 'design' or the result of malicious designs that disassembled what should have been graceful conversation, but has been reduced to political pop-media madness. This 'design' or set of designs are inclined to all things horrible like greed lust egoism selfishness etc... we don't worship the loved one or even the self, we worship the pleasure and the dollar.
@@shripperquats5872that was so eloquent… and beautiful.
This discussion reminds me of a story Buckminster Fuller related. Per Fuller, when Europeans first encountered Polynesians the islanders were mocked because their number system only contained two numbers (yet they navigated great distances between islands). Of course the laptop I'm typing on works on two numbers as well.
On this topic but implicating indigenous australians, 'Australian Aboriginal and Islander mathematics' (John Harris, 1987) is a great read and is interesting both from a linguistic and anthropological perspective !! should be freely available
Richard Buckminster Fuller, 7/12/1895 - 7/1/1983, an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher and futurist, developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome.
The eljebra works with zero and one think to an arab mathematician called elkhawarzmi
@@hughjanus5336good….good bot?
Beep bop bee boo bop. 🤣
_"The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently."_ - the late great David Graeber
Aaaa hahaha aaaahaaa
Quite frankly this was just plain boring...
The great awakening of the people is close and the world will be very different once that occurs. The deceived will rise against their deceivers.
@@m1tanker391 🥱
FALSE "all the ways of a fool are right in his own eyes"
The problem with theories like this that radically depart from the conventional wisdom is that almost everyone reacts to them in the wrong way. There are some that jump on immediately wholeheartedly and a a lot who reject out of hand. Most of these types of theories will turn out to be incorrect, but some will be true and the only way we can tell which these are is to interact with and discuss them without immediately jumping on one side or the other.
*hypotheses*
Iraqi dinar
You tell which ones are true by looking at the evidence. That has been done.
Yes, we should react to them with skepticism and an open mind. Before you we accept radical ideas that align with our politics we should try as hard as we can to prove them wrong. David Graeber posited a lot of unconventional ideas about human history. I am not convinced because he didn't give much evidence or discussion his methodology so I can judge how rigorous it was.
The conventional wisdom is oftentimes wrong. You still believe a certain God passed down the words in the Bible through inspirations?
As a retired History and Politics teacher I am happy to say that I have rarely enjoyed a discussion so much. I ordered a copy of the. Book this morning and it arrived tonight. Sorry, I should have visited an independent book shop but I could not wait. Very inspirational. Thank you.
Buy another one at the local bookshop and return that one to the multinational.
@@lvr5266 Where I live, one can also borrow books from libraries and save trees.
@@lettersquash close them all down nowadays
@@ct-gt2dt I'm pretty sure you don't understand supply and demand. You don't think printers estimate how many books people are going to buy before they do a run? Your argument is like saying when you buy a computer at the shop it's already been built in runs in a factory, so we can ignore the plastics and metals used and the carbon dioxide that's been released to the atmosphere. It's an idiotic argument.
I knew a guy named piss balloon.
I loved the book. These issues are crucial and absolutely need to be included in our current discussion about how we want to live as a society. The simple idea that there are choices...
_" how we want to live as a society "_ how to be that: *...and those vadals killed the economy and every human only for warfare money...*
religious differences, class differences, financial differences. No way thngs will ever change for the better
@@PazLeBon Yes. All that is pushed top down. We have no clue or way to roll out a better way. But we do know a lot of the individuals pushing it down and do nothing to eliminate them.
The discussions between the two Davids must have been mind-blowing. What a shame they couldn't both be here to be interviewed. But thank you Aaron, for introducing us to this intelligent, softly spoken, and insightful author and academic.
Yeah, they blew each others' minds....so no mind left.....damn..........such a pity............
@@shandytorok259 If you want a more useful criticism, you can borrow this one: "Graeber and Wengrow, with Dawn of Everything, have consummated in an epic gish gallop of both naivete and arrogance in pretending to be anthropologists, misrepresenting and mischaracterizing the actual body of work and scholars in the field to such an extent as to completely destroy their own credibility forevermore. While pretending to take a liberal stance on "options for governance" they jettison the condition-based analysis of primitive societies in favor of post-modernist perspectives on freedom of choice in governance, an oxymoron of colossal proportions. Whether the intention was to author a new Bible for fascists or merely line their pockets I have little doubt that they have left their souls impoverished as a consequence. (RIP Mr. Graeber, I pray your intents exceeded your efforts, regardless of moral direction.) Unfortunately, those unfamiliar with the field will be courted endlessly by their rigorous contempt for authentic scholarship, painting experts as unilaterally patriachal (except for, Thank Marx, them), and such readers will undoubtedly swoon in their ignorance and hypnotic effect under such sophistry... as I was... before getting a friendly bump towards more experienced research and analysis." ~me and definitely not ChatGPT
This talk made me think deeper than I have in awhile. Thank you for your work. RIP David Graeber
If two scientists disagree on dark matter , does it make one of them a conspiracy theorist?
@@DrewBodsq
@@MartinMcAvoy my first thought...
Don't go too deep though, there is no way back when you go too deep............
@@MartinMcAvoy What is a jibbyjabby? Is that cockney slang?
Having worked with modern hunter gatherer and indigenous peoples all over the word I can confirm that all of them are just as intelligent as anyone, and more intelligent/skilled/kinder than most. I cant comment on the past however.
Indeed. We have to be kind of isolated to believe "we are the greatest" yet that is what most of us are. We adapt to the situation we're in, and find advanced ways to solve the problems that gives us, but ignore the rest.
lol i dont think anyone thought they were less intelligent. You seemingly just suprised your self
@@PazLeBon What a silly response! Did you even watch the video? You know nothing about me or my work yet still seem to feel entitled to cast judgement, well cast it against yourself and ask why you need to go around being a troll.
They were just the poor, like us.
@@haraldthiPaleolithic people couldn't survive in our environment and very very few humans would make it a month I'm the Paleolithic
I took a module in my history degree about pre-Columbian and Spanish America. We learned about how Tlaxcala had only recently been subjugated by the Aztecs, so was very happy to use the Spanish conquistadors to attack their hated enemy. But I don't remember it being mentioned that they were a republic, had a parliament, or were a democracy. Would love to read more on the subject.
Tell us about their individual rights.
You have the right to sacrifice a child, if you cannot afford a child one will be provided for you.
@@cannaroe1213Nailed!
@@cannaroe1213😂 that sounds like the Phoenicians too
@@cristianpopescu78Nailed what?
I'm looking forward to this. I'm reading 'The dawn of everything' at the moment. A Wengrow fan via David Graeber.
For hundered of years we in the West have killed, tortured and enslaved other humans. We have totally destroyed other human cultures, their language, their Gods and even their food and clothes. The Bible, McDonalds and jeans was told to be the superior. We were told we constantly mooved forward to something better. Meanwhile aboriginal australiens say they were healthy, satisfied and lived good lives before their continent was invaded by "the superior" culture. How many people in the West are satisfied (=dont want more, more more goods/money/sex etc)
Just ordered the book. Fascinating conversation. More of this please, Novara.
I am reading it right now, and I am not impressed. The whole narrative comes off as very arrogant, i.e. 'Everything We Think We Know About Early Human History is Wrong'. The first few chapters are devoted to attacking anyone who has written on this topic in the last 400 years. There are definitely interesting tidbits here and there, but they often contradict themselves, and make conclusions based on shacky assumptions and anecdotal evidence. They admonish others for making assumptions about ancient hunter gathers based on modern hunter gatherers, then they do the same thing. They assume Life among the Amazon Tribes must be better than modern society based on a sample size of one girl who was kidnapped by the Yanomami, then escaped 20 years later, could not adapt to modern life, so went back to the Yanomami. They then back this up with more anecdotal evidence from Benjamin Franklin. They do have good points to make, but their approach has been a turn off for me.
Thank you Mr Bastani and Novara Media for this excellent interview. Great work Mr Wengrow, and heartened to hear you speak of David Graeber. Many of us miss his presence and intellect and are glad his remembrance lives on.
Main lesson for me: question everything! And look for new information.
I had a professor in college say similar things. That our history was manufactured.
It is a product of deduction based on evidence. Nothing is written in stone .. either metaphorically or literally. As long as you realise that there is a certain amount of political bias in the interpretation. The facts remain material. But it is at best, "disingenuous" to imply it is merely "manufactured" and risks wild and far fetched flights of fancy the like of which we see in those uncertain and darkest flung corners of the Internet today. And only goes to fuel the ever increasing propagation of the post truth society.
I mean it can't not be manufactured. People can only see so far as their axioms allow them. If your axiom of truth starts eith the idea that you are gods chosen people or some such funky idea its going to be very hard to see beyond that. If you grow up believing money has inherent value its going to be difficult to see somone not asking for money for their work to be mad ..and everyone is always coming from some perspective nobody is robotically aware of all the facts even in one small domain to logically appriase those facts without a perspective being overlaid.
Well yes, it’s difficult to see how it could be done any other way. (Journalism too, in the best of faith.) One can assemble a priori evidence but as soon as you then use that to produce an interpretation, you are inventing a narrative. It might even be “true” in the traditional sense of the word but it’s still a manufacturing process.
@stpancraschapel2136 literally everything is manufactured. Mathematics english literature history our vision when we look out of our eyeballs ...everything in your head is manufactured from a limited apprehension of reality into a story of what it is you're looking at.
Ikr, for everything we experience, we manufacture personal beliefs based on our limited knowledge, which we then often forget to review and test for accuracy.
I feel something missing here is that farming does indeed seem to appear around 12 kya. But we have a lot of evidence for horticulture, and "garden farming", subsistence, small scale styles of food cultivation etc. happening for thousands and thousands of years before that.
Not that I'm aware of. What crops were these "garden farmers" growing? We've got evidence of the transition and the beginnings of domestication and selection of crops in the thousands of years before farming really gets started, which might be what you're thinking of. Basically still gathering, but starting to change the crops with some tending or incidental selective dispersal of preferred seeds.
I think the point is that "plow agriculture" isn't somehow the pinnacle of food cultivation. (Actually it depletes the soil.) People experimented with cultivating crops in many places and using many methods that don't fit the kind of agriculture, often considered a more advanced "stage" of civilization, seen in Europe ~12000 BCY. The stageist view is: first agriculture, then cities. The archaeological record shows a far more complex picture, with many sites that have very large populations before the so-called agricultural revolution.
@@spencerharmon4669 I'm still curious what agricultural crops are being talked about pre-12,000 BCY.
@Spencer Harmon what archaeological sites are you referring to and what sizes were they in terms of populations?
@@paintsilj for example the sites of the Cucuteni-Trypillia. An old-european (pre-PIE) culture that had no signs of organised farming. in fact they had no signs of social stratification at all. and they had communities the size of the Mesopotamian city-states, thousands of years before.
Ah man! you done and did it, reading "The dawn of everything' at the mo and it's game changing. Great shout with getting David on!
Great video and I personally feel it’s insulting to our forefather's to think they just sat on the ass and picked berries for 200,000 years. I wonder how many advanced civilizations have come and gone over that timeframe.
Lol...I never thought of it as insulting, just felt some envy.
let's say that there were several iterations of technological human waves throughout history. and let's say that there are plausible reasons why there isn't compelling evidence of these waves. why are we the first wave to exploit crude oil, not to mention electricity exploitation. like we have presently?
Open your mind .
@@gppizza8979necessity. In pre anthropocene eras there was more than enough game and resources to not need agriculture or a combustion engine
if they had any foresight they would have
As a fellow archaeologist, the book is incredible. Highly recommended.
I'm privileged for being able to watch this
I've been reading Graeber's writings, and have already gotten my copy of His work with Wengrow. I found this interview stimulating, and thought that the host was exceptionally good - he offered great questions and kept an interesting conversation all the more so. Moreover, I found that not only does David Wengrow present himself as an excellent scientist, and teacher - but he is also a humble and wise soul as well. Such a well spent evening listening to this. Thank you for sharing - liked and subscribed!!
You praise the man, but say nothing about the subject. Do you accept this as true?
If you want to go further you are humble.
@@timhallas4275 there is also much more about this. It is very deep, I was decept about the questions.
@@tamo3041 "decept" ? what do you mean sir?
@@izmirtolga2625 rispondo in italiano: sono rimasta delusa dalle domande molto superficiali, ma credo debba essere così. Questo tizio? Si avrei gran piacere a parlarci e condividere pensieri.
"we've become more enclosed over time" what a great point.
The most important nonfiction book in my lifetime (58 years). All credit to Wengrow, but Graeber changed my life. That he died so young is unutterably tragic. Graeber's book on this history of debt is equally awesome.
Downstream is Aarons schtick, long form one on one interviews addressing historical perspectives and putting them straight. ✨
Cereal growing in a fairly damp environment in the UK would most likely have led to a lot of failed harvest and famine, heavy rainfall destroys cereal crops, damp causes toxic moulds etc, I think it was dropped because it didn't work, saying that I think the book is extremely interesting and enjoyed this interview immensely
I reckon They ate loads of hazelnuts meat , fish and mushrooms over winter.... the cereals came later for bread and beer and forage and bedding for the animals geese etc... if it was a good year for cereals it was a bonus. Storing grain would have been a lot more difficult so came a lot later, initially cereals must have been a bonus nothing more, unless you lived in more predictable weather. Rust on cereals can be controlled with milk products though
I can't quite tell when this is supposed to have happened either. There was a migration of Indo-Europeans into Britain somewhere in that period that may have affected the shift as well. And evidence of a shift more to pastoralism than back to hunting and gathering. Which might fit with descendants of steppe nomads moving in.
it could have been a result of climate cooling after the Holocene climate optimum peak (the warmest period during the current interglacial, warmer then today) which forced the inhabitants to switch to pastoralism, coupled with the yamnaya-derived invasion of the first (pre-Celtic) Indo-Europeans, who appear to have largely replaced the previous population (of mostly Neolitic farmers with some WE hunter-gatherers) based on genetic evidence
@@pavelandel1538 That's why a time would be useful. That climate optimum seems to have been ending about the right time. There was also a big population decline across Europe, generally attributed to plagues, over roughly the same timespan. And then migrations off the steppes. Somewhere in there, this supposed switch away from cereal agriculture. Without knowing which bits came first, it's really hard to talk about why. If agriculture continued right up until the pastoralists arrived, that's one answer. If it's associated with a big climate change or with population drops due to disease, those are others. But if you ignore all the other things going on, it's easy to reinforce the idea that "sometimes they just decide to stop doing agriculture". (And even then to imply it was back to HG, rather than to herding.)
Grain suffered the same in medieval Europe which had periods of colder, wetter weather followed by outbreaks of ergot poisoning with horrific consequences.
With what we’re learning of global cataclysms, it is hard to rule out the possibility that there have been periods of advanced human development, perhaps multiple times, over the past several hundred thousand years.
Yet, we have never found anything "advanced" hundred of thousand years old.
Nothing like our current civilization. You will be able to see our mark on the planet forever. A billion years from now some future evolved species will dig down through the geological reccord and find the compressed boundry layer of our civilization marking the start of the 6th mass extinction.
YOU havent found anything. Grow up@@PATRICKJLM
Not really that hard to exclude that possibility when we have no evidence for it ...be very hard to have such Ana danced civilization that you disassembled your entire city and any evidence of it or of the systems nessisary to support it during a cataclysm!
I concur
When I was a little boy I wanted to be a cop, a fireman, an astronaut, and an archeologist after I saw the first Indiana Jones movie. Archeologist seemed like a very action filled and exciting occupation.
i just wanted to be footballer, I thought that was what every boy wanted :)
When I was a little boy I wanted to be a girl as they always got preferencial treatment and seamed to get away with all sorts of wild behavior. So glad I didn't grow up in today's society as I would have been destroyed in lieu of outgrowing that absurd faze I went through.
Well it's not. I like Indiana Jones films but he's a terrible archaeologist. He's a tomb raider. The scenes in which he causes destruction of rare, beautiful and unique statues and archictecture are the total opposite of archaeology. I have a B.A. in Archaeology and have worked on 14 archaeology and paleontology digs, including one in Egypt. I'm a paleontologist now but still love ancient history.
@@granthurlburt4062 I think you have taken my comment a little to literately😁
I left uni despite getting firsts in political philosophy because it drove me crazy that no one would acknowledge that it was built on nonsense. I even got called ‘disruptive’ for constantly questioning! How can you be a disruptive thinker in a university?
Critical thinking and universities have been mutually exclusive for almost a decade.
Because the professor can’t give you answers unless they’re written down in a book written by someone else. Most just want you to follow the same thought processes they did.
have you heard of the 5 monkys experiment ? @@Whoishere2333
Scholarship is built on "disrupting" established thinking. But you do need to convince others of the strength of your ideas through meticulous published research. Sorry you didn't stay long enough to learn that. But it's okay. Academia is insanely competitive and underpaid. You would never make it by simply being disagreeable. That's not enough. You can get away with being disagreeable after you've persuaded some of your opponents through the strength of your research. But most scholars prefer the easier route: be agreeable while quietly working at alternate theories until you get there.
There's ways of going about things. Don't forget the Kruger-Dunning effect.
We might also have a wrong idea of hunter gatherer societies because most of the ones around today (or in recent times) were pushed to less productive ecosystems (at least for humans). In fact, even in historical times there were some hunter-gatherer (or fisher-gatherer) societies which lived a semi-sedentary life. For example in the Pacific-Northwest.. they had villages in which they lived a good part of the year, going to other sites on a seasonal basis to exploit certain maritime resources. They had hereditary chiefs, slaves, etc.
Not sure if you're referencing the book, but this is discussed in the early chapters of the book. That we assume hunter gatherers in history lived in rubbish places, because thats where they live now.
Another example could be Papua New Guinea where a plane flying over the island's highlands in the 1930's discovered the existence of stone age people no one had any idea were there. And not just a couple of sparse bands, but the population was estimated to be as high as a million! With those numbers, impossible everyone was purely nomadic, and indeed there was some agriculture and interaction among groups.
Yes. The “set” of cave symbols that are more numerous in caves than animal images - only a couple of dozen symbols but spread over at least two or three continents - definitely shows a shared stream of culture. There are other places where a fairly sedentary hunter-gatherer life was possible. More recently the people living on the banks of the Danube, catching enormous sturgeon at certain times of year, weaning their children in fish roe, and hunting in forested hinterland.
You can only poop in one place for so long without sewer systems before you have to move somewhere else.
@@bearthalamas9241 Wrong.
Giving up agriculture isn't as surprising as it sounds. Compared with hunting and gathering, agriculture allows a lot higher densities of population at the cost of much more labour. It's not something people adopt because it makes them happy, but something they adopt to stave off mass starvation for a while. If population levels got greatly reduced by some kind of disaster, or if climate change made it easier to live by hunting and gathering, then you can imagine agriculture becoming temporarily unattractive.
most of us wont personally kill an animal and a growing number wont allow others to kill for them
@@IntergalacticDustBunny Well our intelligence and knowledge has continued to develop so it makes sense that eventually we will value all life as equally precious
@@PazLeBonBETA!
On the pseudo archeology topic. I think that part of it is a difference in interest. In this interview the interest is sociological, what were the habits behaviors and social structures of prehistory and how can we learn from them. If your interest is technology you may focus on buildings structure monuments and speculate specifically about them and how they were done. The difference in interests leads to the difference in focus and a desire towards alternative interpretations of history.
Seemed like a basic conversation for the time we live in
Wasn't impressed
Was saying the video was basic! Your comment was more interesting 😊
People like this raise my hopes on Humanity. Thank you both for this interview!
really? they keep you colonized...
money addicts are *NOT* "humanity" ...quite the opposite, actually.
What a coincidence. Started his book this week. Incredible stuff! Thanks for this. :)
Absolutely brilliant guest. David Wengrow is a joy to listen to.
he didn't say anything this was BS!!!
@@dumbvedeoz David Wengrow is a professor at one of the world's top universities and you are ....? If you want to disect his arguments then articulate your views and formulate a compelling argument. A one line "BS" dismissal is not enough.
I stumbled on this and was half expecting a Gonzo Hancock rant of thoroughly dubious veracity. What a delight to hear such a switched on, thoughtful, modest yet deeply informed discussion throwing a genuinely refreshing light on archaeology proper.
@@cl1ntonbodycount652 Hancock is either paranoid or dishonest. I guess he's a good self publisher and tells good fantasy stories and tells them interestingly. His belief in beyond the fringe long discredited ideas like Atlantis is amusing enough and one could argue that while there is no reasonable argument to support the idea of of an Atlantis that ever existed - even the original source, Plato, is self contradictory and may not have believed himself what he wrote - and everything about the accounts are anachronistic and geographically inaccurate one might argue Atlantis represents some vague idea of something we haven't found yet, and fair enough, neither is there any decent evidence to support the fancy. His dishonesty, though, is in representing archaeology as some edifice invested in discrediting true inquiry and closing ranks to shut him up. This is complete rubbish. One might think such things of the multibillion dollar oil or pharmaceutical industries, but most archaeology is done by passionate people on a shoestring budget and, like David Wengrow here, are mostly careful methodical thinkers genuinely interested in what we can learn about the past, At best, Hancock is a ringleader in his own private circus.
This was a very fascinating and thought-provoking interview. I will read his book. Though not entirely convincing, it certainly made some very valid points to be debated - and challenged - further. One of the recurring themes observed over my lifetime is that the study of history (in its widest sense) moves towards conclusions that chime with the cultural and political themes of a given time. Hypotheses emerge that reflect contemporary debate and this discussion was, at least to an extent, an example of this. Thank you Novara for this excellent content.
Yes facinating and some truth but what u say about historical analysis gelling with current ideology ,so true. I am very interested in end of Roman Britain and advent of the Saxon's etc. Yes the Victorian invasion and slaughter no longer seen as valid but now it's the other extreme where there was no violence at all ,being pushed. And clearly improbable.
To me it's a natural development, as we take hold of those pieces of information that seems interesting to us in the problem solving that we are currently at. The rest of the available information is too much to have a grasp on, so we let it be.
Great comment. Most facts of history are totally accurate but the overall narrative is largely false. We live in a short term medium age, not as dark as some times, but we are not the most advanced human civilization to have walked the earth
You can read Billy Meier's writings for free.
Wait, did I just find out that, around the time stone henge was built, the UK rejected farming practices from Europe and went back to foraging? Like a Neolithic proto-brexit?
lmao, then half the population died of mushroom fever having only ever tried the magic ones previously
With the exception being that they where probably well informed about what they where doing, rather than led by a bunch of anarcho-capitalist billionaires to cut their own noses off!
In the Paleolithic Levant, 23,000 years ago, cereals cultivation of emmer, barley and oats has been researched near the sea of Galilee by the Ohalu II.
Fascinating interview, I am going to order that book right now. It reminds me of debates I have had about Aboriginal Australia. There is a continuity of art and culture lasting 60,000 years. I have found many people are irritated when I call this a "civilization" but what we call "civilization" in Australia is less than 300 years old, 0.1% as old as Aboriginal civilization. Manifestly, our "civilization" is rapidly destroying the planet and will not last for another 100 years, perhaps not even 50, or at least not without complete transformation. We are unable to think about deep time. Our modern obsession with novelty and a dogma of constant progress and economic growth has blinded us.
Yes. It goes back to how the West was developed. It unanimously abandoned the cultures and traditions of ancestors for religious ones, then it abandoned those for material ones, and it is destroying them as the world begins to change against the circumstances that allowed that development. You can see it every time they encounter a people that has those cultures and traditions, because they know those peoples, and they are all over the world, will survive this change, and they will never be in this dominating position again once the collapse is completed.
"Obsession with novelty and a dogma of constant progress and economic growth has blinded us". Don't you see the eloquence of Bush Economic Plan of post 9/11; Shop til one drops! Don't you shop?
The world is empirically better in almost every way than it was 50 years ago. Habitat destruction is about the only thing that’s gotten considerably worse.
Exponential growth cannot be sustained on a finite planet with a declining population. The "appearance of exponential growth" can be extended by using propaganda and disinformation to fool an ignorant, uninterested and "asleep" population. Allowing the Top 1% to extract more of the valuable resources and capital until the whole civilization collapses. Probably very rapidly accompanied by the collapse of the rule of law. And a revolution and bloody fighting until new governments are formed.
But he's having people think Aborigines had knowledge of the rest of the world. They really don't.
And this is why I left university, too much gaslighting, I couldn't have chosen it over my own mental health. Thank you very much for the honesty.
That was a fascinating and thought-provoking discussion. Many thanks to you both.
Just another con....nothing fascinating about it.....
What was thoughtprovoking in this discussion? There was nothing new at all? No new ideas, not even a hint to the controversy in Egyptology going on these days.
@@perjanuschas8050 Well, it provoked my thoughts. And perhaps Wengrow finds that he doesn't need to refer to Egyptology to make his arguments. Have you actually read his book?
Thank you so much for this fascinating interview with David Wengrow. A wise and humble man who has decided to impart his wisdom upon others. Students are fortunate to have a dedicated and knowledgeable teacher. The homage to David Graeber at the end of the interview was truly sad. RIP.
From what I read and hear archaeologists are finding new information, often using modern tech, and moderating what they think. Its what makes science such fun.
You have to tear down the A before you can build up the B. You have to break down what people think they know before they can listen to another posibility.
Having done farming, hunting, and wild crafting I am convinced that success at farming requires more knowledge and skill than any other livelihood but hunting gathering.
boooooo
This is quality content. Thank you Novara for opening up this vein in my brain.
Oh no! Listening to this podcast gave you a stroke? Heal up quick!
Quality content? So you think this guy is right?
@@timhallas4275 I’m curious, what’s the purpose of a comment like this? Attempting to open an honest dialog? Defending an orthodoxy? Troll? Who benefits from presenting false choices?
Ponderously slow
@@stvbrsn My comment was directed to the op... troll.
Fascinating. Subbed. Can't wait to see what other conversations are on this channel, if this was anything to go by... 1:00:22 - While I am inclined to accept expert information (once I've assessed the source for myself), to have lived on this world over the last 4 years and still be able to blindly accept people labelling themselves "Expert" and using religious mantras like "Follow the Science", would be nothing short of foolish.
Once in a while I have privilege of witnessing work of great individuals who make me proud to be human. Sorry for your loss and thank you for your work and effort
lionel messi
If you think about the British Isles, the reason they would “turn their back” on agrarian farming is pretty obvious: where wheat was bred, there’s ten times less rainfall. Even in the south of France, you don’t need too much adaptation. But by the time you get to the Atlantic coast, you’re getting significantly different rainfall and light/dark conditions and much less predictable weather. A single weather event like three days of gusty, heavy rain would wipe out the whole crop of “naked” wheat & barley they had then. (They eventually bred much more sturdy type that need to be forcibly separated from the stalk when ripe.). The farmers who spread from Anatolia or the fertile crescent were growing things like lentils and dates which even now aren’t feasible for much of northern and western Europe.
I agree. Western Britain has a lot of rain and dark, and as we all know, much of Scotland can get very cold and snow covered. However, oats can be grown more successfully than wheat, and root vegetables can be grown even in Sweden.
For that reason do you suppose if there was agrarian farming with organic tools pre younger dryas in the warm latitudes where they were effectively farming sea bed, would there be any evidence left at all?
The problem is, how do you support the new, larger population if you revert to hunting and gathering? Cereal agriculture supports a lot more people on a given amount of land, and by the time Neolithic farmers showed up Britain had been inhabited for several thousand years and had probably reached somewhere near its carrying capacity for hunter-gatherers - not to mention that rather than the farmers assimilating the hunter-gatherers, which is what all the evidence indicates, if the farmers had fairly quickly given up farming the assimilation would be the other way around since the earlier inhabitants would have much better knowledge of how best to live off that land.
We have come a long way in a couple thousand years. It’s not unreasonable to think there were other civilisations that came and went in the previous 100K years.
Come a long way?! The civilisation of Simone de Boulevard......😵
Previous 100M years.
Made me wonder why he seemed to disparage pseudo archeology. After all, the evidence comes via photographs from space rather than a dig, or from stone experts who say archaeologists explanations for how someone made of fine vase out of granite don't stack up...
@@simonruszczak5563 Homo homo sapiens are 200,000 years old.
@@jamesragsdale8202 Humans have evolved and gone extinct many times over tens of millions of years, our civilisation and species is not special.
As a forager, bushcrafter with a huge facination in deep time and the intelligence and ingenuity of "hunter-gatherer" peoples ... this was hugely self-indulgent of me! Lots and lots confirming my intuition but very happy to hear the details and confirmations. I'm enjoying the book very much already too =) Lots to talk about tracking, memory, etc ... I'm only halfway through the interview too thought so I'll not pre-empt too much ;) I do hope Wengrow is on Bluesky.
His holistic explanation of pseudoarchaeology is excellently thought out. Very interesting interview.
I was watching this while ironing, had to stop the ironing and watch this fascinating discussion. Congratulations on this, out to get the book later today. Wonderful stuff!
David Wengrow is an amazing scholar, studied his work at univeristy and it is some of the most detailed and careful research i read. His book The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in North-East Africa, c.10,000 to 2,650 BC is incredibly beautifully illustrated and suprisingly readable for an academic work. It will totally change the way you think about Ancient Egypt.
I believe him studying theater has helped him tremendously with communication.
@@professorrhyyt3689 - Another favorite scholar of mine is the psychologist Julian Jaynes. He left academia for a while to work as a playwright. It was maybe his non-academic experience that led him to a larger perspective. He quickly lost interest in behaviorism research and ended up writing a book that looked far beyond conventional psychology, including studying the evidence about the early humanity.
@@ario4795 What do you mean "ambiguos"? Egypt is located in Africa.
@@ario4795 But ironically you use the term European. Were the Greeks “European” or Middle Eastern? Asian isn’t a race either. I imagine you don’t consider Nubia, Kush or modern Sudan, Eritrea/Ethiopia to be “African” either. Strange aroma coming from your comment.
@@NoLefTurnUnStoned. , they not Africa is continent not gene. Cushitic people and native middle eastern share dna and linguistic.
I often wonder how the dna of Aztecs and Mayans fits in with the plan of things such as where they evolved from the line of humans out of Neanderthals....
Fantastic interview. It's a crying shame that the other David is no longer with us.
Aaron is one of the best journalists ever. It's always a pleasure to watch an ITW led by him.
55:00 question; could urban humans have lived alongside primitive humans? answer; they still do today.
The Davids book IS intellectually earth shattering. I am reading it again. I appreciate this interview, Mr. Navara, you are a deep thinker and i thoughtful communicator, thank you for your work.
"intellectually earth shattering" Oh my... are you sure it´s not a synapse meltdown, caused by a meteorite of wisdom? Let´s figure out what´s the best exaggeration :)
@@Grievance87 lol intelligence is certainly relative anyway, can a 32bit pc be amazed by the 64bit one is a question i ponder
The last glacial period started about 115k years ago. Now, considering modern man has been around for 200k to 300k years, whose to say a stone age civilization didn't exist before this time, and was simply ground into dust by the mile high ice sheets? I find this particularly interesting as you can find precision megalithic stone work in places that the glaciers never touched, such as Peru. If you look at the ancient cities of Uruk and the like in Iraq, there is hardly anything but dust left. These cities are a mere 5-7k years old and were never glaciated. So...what might happen to a city after 100k years and smashed by glaciers?
Thank you for shining a light on this book and interviewing David. The moment I was done listening to this book I listened to it again and then again. I'm going for my fourth read because I am going to memorize every wonderful story and point they make. What a time to be a human! Despite the message that we humans don't change up our government like we did in the old days - in fact - it is more flexible than ever, for people who have the means and the knowledge. But that is another story ...
. Really enjoyed this interview. A pleasure to hear such eloquence. It's a sublime book. Mind blowing. The work of two beautiful minds . Two beautiful Davids. Thanks Aaron , great interview (your mind's also equally beautiful, of course)
still can't get over David Graeber's passing, we're missing such a brilliant mind. I cried the day I found out he passed. Good on Dabid Wengrow for bringing their amazing book's idea forward!
This is so strange to me. The way he characterizes what "we Europeans" say about the ancient past is completely foreign to me (a German, which certainly counts as European). I don't think I've *ever* seen or heard a comparison of those people with pre-human primates. That's so absurd! And of course, we know very little about the time before humans started to write things down. Though we know astonishingly much about some after that point. (A dog walks into a bar ... or a customer complaint about substandard product ... absolutely the same kind of people as live today!) Hmm. Nation states. becoming more enclosed. You know, I live in the Schengen Area, and as such, my experience has been the opposite. Maybe the real problem is trying to pour all of history (and pre-history) into one, all-encompassing, linear growth (or shrink) framework when actually, it's comprised of many small pieces where the directions of those developments change from piece to piece. Hmm. I'd argue that science actually emerges exactly from those "other systems of knowledge", by noticing how much they got wrong and looking for ways to improve them (those ways are today known as the "scientific method"). And I'd argue that while there were no lab coats (though sometimes religious robes), there were certainly laboratories, that is, spaces where people experimented - usually parts of their normal workspaces. Everybody has likely experienced experiments with food preparation in the kitchen. We know about Galen's pig bladder experiments, for example. Shiths, and before them, stone knappers, certainly experimented to come up with all the advanced techniques they ended up with. Farmers with grain and animals. Hunters with hunting techniques. Gatherers with gatherable plants. That's sort of obvious. Hmm. I think I've heard enough from Captain Kirk, here. G'bye!
I don't know why this year-old video is popping up in our feeds again, but my BS-detector is maxxed out by this guy. The fact that cities pre-dated agriculture is well known, yet he presents it as his own amazing new idea. Then he misinterprets it. After a little Googling, I think he's just a political activist with an academic hustle. "Capitalism is bad, and I can prove it with psuedoscience". Meh.
Exactly the way technologies build on each other, combining discoveries by neighbors & experimenters.
So sad and very very strange, David Graeber in his prime, only 40 or 50, so insightful, deeply humble genuinely really nice guy.super intelligent. A sudden shocking loss, the two Davids were just great together in interview
Always the best are taken early while the gouls linger on to torment us. Trump and Kissinger still going strong. There is no God.
@@NocturnalDoom exactly. We all need to be skiing that question!
@@tofty21 Oh dear - skiing questions? Never got the hang of how to slalom one of those about archeology!
@@MartinMcAvoy lol
@@MartinMcAvoy not the time or place for this.
Historians are rarely geographers too. Which makes many of them miss obvious things like Europe being covered with forests (and marshes) near completely until 2000 years ago or so. What old poems remain from ancient times they all mention shepherds or hunters, who needed to travel to new areas due to grass depletion or lack of targets for hunts. Hard to imagine in these days, when borders are being barb-wired or even lined with land-mines. It was just as hard to imagine for later times, when migrations destroyed the Roman Empire or the Mongols ran over East Europe.
Ehhhh. I suppose that's happened but every historian I know is attentive to these things. But historians don't generally research the paleolithic and neolithic periods. Other academic disciplines do that. By the way the ancient period comes AFTER the time period you seem to be talking about. They aren't one and the same.
Inequality is not inevitable- unless you deliberately handicap or destroy the exceptional & gifted.
My guess is, the history of so called modern man had been segregated between apocalypse’s. When I think about today’s amazing electronic achievements and how few people really know how it’s engineered let alone manufactured, we are a meteor strike away of losing 150 years of technology. The Egyptian stone pottery is a great example of inherited technology that can’t be explained or reversed engineered. It’s potentially possible modern humans have been around longer than 400,000 years.
I can see how the father's and mother's, brothers and sisters of the sacrificial victims would have started a trend in walking away from Cahokia. There's a book and a movie in here. The growing fanaticism of the priesthood that leads to the start of the practice, and the point where those carrying the cost reach the breaking point.
This is one of the most fascinating interviews I've ever watched.
I'm halfway through the book and really enjoying it. It's great to put a face and a voice to one of the authors and hear such measured and graceful replies to the questions.
14:20 Stone Henge was rebuilt using modern construction techniques circa 1900 and there are photos to prove it. Cranes, backhoes, and other relatively modern equipment.
I stopped hanging my washing to go and buy the book while he was talking. Being an ancient history documentary addict, I've been pondering along these lines for the last few years. So many bedrock certainties still being based on the findings of a particular 'English Gentleman' class with all their bias. The young ones went adventuring and brought the stuff back, then a bunch of older gentlemen decided what it all meant and what was fit for the public to know about. (glibly out) I might get mostly corrected, with a few confirmations. Or I might just get firmly corrected altogether 😂. Either way my afternoon just got more interesting.
@bina nochtI reckon they cut the trees for heat and to provide expanse for protection and protection of their rabbits and dogs. The understory of hazel was used for food, animal feed and tools and fencing/huts copiced for tender shoots to eat or left for nuts, and the mounds as lookouts and allow the animals to be protected at night. That's roughly an idea I have anyway. The place was chosen in the first place because of the abundance of flint which made fire and weapons/blades, which were easy to trade in a short amount of time. Every part of history for me is about economy of effort. Unfortunately now we are a slave to our desires.....
@bina nocht I like your idea that farming was something that they were forced to do because of the destruction of forests. I read Yuval Noah Hari's book but I don't remember him suggesting this, although he did say that farming was extremely hard compared to hunter gathering but that people stuck to it because of the 'this time next year, Rodney" mentality.
@@hughdennison3013 I read that the English cut down the Irish Oaks to build ships for warmongering.
I recommend James C Scott “against the grain”
@@richardswaby6339 the English still lived in Europe not the British isles in the time that is being discussed
You should include a reading list in the description of these dialogues. Very insightful.
So good, so interesting and important, too...and as a bonus, pure ASMR. Thank you for doing this interview - and sharing it.
Also the impact of various species disturbing agricultural settlements. Even insects for example destroying crops that ultimately force abandonment of crops. There may have been small scale agriculture practices in tandem with a nomadic lifestyle. As a travelling yachty in Australia living a nomadic lifestyle we plant various fruit and vegetables in areas that we think they may survive on a small scale and months later when we return we find some of our efforts rewarded and others not. Would this process contribute to the evolution of agricultural practices.
Really enjoyed this! (Nerdy confession: I watched it twice.) David Wengrow is a very engaging speaker. I got The Dawn of Everything for Xmas last year and loved it. So refreshing to hear alternative theories of history that are well-researched and supported by ample evidence.
He mumbles
This is fantastic, more like this please and thanks
I liked the chat, but at the end is where I dissagree with David. For me the Sphinx and it`s construction is much more interesting than why lions and people were sacrifaced.
This is the best thing I’ve ever seen on you tube I’m going to buy the book. Been interested in history of early humans and this seems to try to answer some of these questions great show thanks ❤
David Wengrow. You are doing such excellent work. Graeber he’s looking down from on high, applauding and bowing to you. Your clarity and ability to communicate such beautiful and subtle nuance behind these revolutionary commonsense human theories it’s so important, edifying and calming. Your gentle incredibly well informed ministration of these lofty topics is such a gift to all of us, to all of humanity. Thank you, sincerely. Bravo. Onward. Thankful 👏👏👏😌🙏❤️ Great Job, Aaron !
Aboriginal oral histories from all over the world have been saying this for hundreds of years. It's nice that open-minded people are finally understanding it to some degree and doing further research. Anyone interested in this should look into the writing of John Mohawk.
I don't trust oral history. No one should trust oral history. Not for scientific purposes at least.
@@VicenteMReyes-vs9nh that's more than a bit short-sighted in my opinion
Studies of prehistoric civilizations have known for the better part of a century, perhaps longer, that large towns and small cities originated in the vicinity of major fisheries before agriculture. This is a typical pattern found in Japan. Also Poverty Point, Louisiana, USA. The Northwest coast of North America features some large towns near fisheries, though technically not cities. That aspect cannot plausibly be regarded as original, "ground breaking" research.
yeah but those studies aren't on youtube or tiktok so dont really count
@@PazLeBon Lol I do so hope that is sarcasm mate 😂
@@mnomadvfx lmao mate.. of course, jeez lol
The Sphinx, The Osirion, The valley Temple, The pyramids on the giza plateau, The bent pyramid, The Sarapeum, all far older then the 4th dynasty! The simple truth is that no Egyptologist has ever reproduced anything close to the prescision with multiton granite stones using the tools and techniques the Dynastic Egyptians had at their disposal. The few sparse undertakings of this kind failed myserably, and show how borderline diffucult these feats are, even if you use modern techniques. Loved this talk !!
Thank you, I was looking for this comment. I really didn't like how they didn't discuss these facts at all, brushing people off that don't have an archeological background and calling it pseudo-archeology. Yet any engineer that looks at these objects can tell you right away that you could never produce these artifacts with copper chisels and wood hammers. How do they explain the degradation in workmanship over the millennia? The super precision of the far older objects? I still enjoyed the talk and thought he had many good points but I had the feeling he was almost there but stopped himself from thinking further in order to not lose credibility.
Of course they can't, we've lost the techniques they developed over millennia. Give the Egyptologists a few centuries doing nothing else and I'm sure they'll come up with practical methods. I don't expect anyone to pay a small army of hundreds or thousands of professionals for 500 years while they hone their stoneworking skills, though. The biggest difference between us and ancient Egyptians is that the Egyptians were willing to make that investment - mostly because the work those people were doing was deemed beneficial to society for its own sake, not just for the works they would eventually create after the centuries of learning.
“Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence,” Carl Sagan
Exactly. And where is this evidence? Crickets…
Yeah but u can’t prove they weren’t geniuses that were completely free of ego and reading this each other’s mines and more advanced than even we are now. Logically then, shouldn’t we assume it’s true?
That’s not how science works. If we have no evidence we need to say “we don’t know “
@@oobrocks you just don’t wanna accept aliens obviously built the pyramids or at least their knowledge did
Pleaseeeeee
John Wesley wrote of Oxford University as a place where people get "puffed up" with pride, but lack learning.
What a great speaker David is. Love the book, loved this interview.
Gobleki Tepe may or may not have been a 'city', but Karahan Tepe nearby, which is much older, seems to be. It's larger, is full of residences, and is one of dozens of such settlements in a roughly 50 mile radius. The Tepes clearly made up a large, permanently settled pre-agriculture society, the only problem is we've hardly scratched the surface on the absolutely massive number of constructions in the region.
Wonderful interview! I love these in depth discussions (I loved the Chris Packham and Oliver Bullough ones too), and this one especially, as I read the Davids' book Dawn of Everything this summer past, so it was great to hear a discussion of the book's main topics. I keep recommending the book to people, but am now able to share this, which is a much better recommendation!
Can you imagine where we the conversation would be if everyone had the opportunities shown here!!
Back in the 1970’s I helped an archeological digs and finds of buildings and settlements that were present before the 1400’s. The Maritimes, Canada. We were laughed at and dismissed. In the past decade, archeologist returned and took X-rays, cameras down into tunnels etc., and there is lots of evidence despite the criticism and now, it’s being accepted…kind of. They do t know what to do which tells me what they do is founded on lies because a PH.D. Says you are trained to greet and process new knowledge. Most can’t.
Excellent and very interesting discussion…I have heard a lot about David’s book but wasn’t sure if I was quite ready to tackle it…but I think now I will.
Agriculture and " civilized" society has been around for more than a few thousand years. Much much more.
The Dawn of Everything is amazing, it touches on so many other subjects.
Really interesting interview, thank you.... My only issue was I had problems hearing Aaron's input at times.
Super fascinating. Eloquent presentation and critique as well. Thanks!
love it when Aaron does history
Another great interview. So interesting. Thanks Novara.
Wow, new knowledge on the horizon. Congrats & thanks!
Wengrow has some REALLY odd interpretations of human prehistory. Yes, most hunter/gatherer DID live in small bands because teh area they could cover ON FOOT could only sustain bands of a certain size. Once the band got too large it had to splinter off into two bands and so n through prehistory until the advent of agriculture. What is truly interesting is that agriculture arose in WIDELYgeographically separated parts of the world with no communication between them. And as well similar architectural structures arose in these same widely separate locations. Human nature seems to eventually follow similar historical patterns..
Especially prior to the end of the glaciation period after the last glacial maximum. As temperatures increaseed, more plant growth flourished, and in turn so did animals that fed on them amking for both more vegetation food sources and more meat sources.