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A review by nathanjhunt
The Savage Stone Age by Martin Brown, Terry Deary
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.5
This was my 42nd book finished in 2024.
I liked this book as a kid, it's no wonder I grew up to be a commercial archaeologist.
So this book does a pretty bad job at defining periods of the "stone age", aka Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic. The "stone age" is a vast period of human history, technologies were so varied, and they're all just kind of smooshed together in here.
With such a vast period, I was surprised that some aspects of the book touched upon the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Medieval period. The Bronze Age and Iron Age could be their own books, there's so much to say!
There was also a lot of time taken to talk about the history of archaeology. As an archaeologist, I'm not mad about this, but again, this could be its own book.
My last point, is that there are a lot of sections with theories that are presented as fact. This is bad as theories change and evolve, and it can badly date a book that's already 25 years old. Everything in this book is a theory - we don't know for sure if humans did what they did, and the book should be more open about that.
I liked this book as a kid, it's no wonder I grew up to be a commercial archaeologist.
So this book does a pretty bad job at defining periods of the "stone age", aka Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic. The "stone age" is a vast period of human history, technologies were so varied, and they're all just kind of smooshed together in here.
With such a vast period, I was surprised that some aspects of the book touched upon the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Medieval period. The Bronze Age and Iron Age could be their own books, there's so much to say!
There was also a lot of time taken to talk about the history of archaeology. As an archaeologist, I'm not mad about this, but again, this could be its own book.
My last point, is that there are a lot of sections with theories that are presented as fact. This is bad as theories change and evolve, and it can badly date a book that's already 25 years old. Everything in this book is a theory - we don't know for sure if humans did what they did, and the book should be more open about that.