Prehistoric Man
Researches into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World

Published in 1862, a seminal two-volume work in the study of early man and civilisation, using archaeological and anthropological advances.

Daniel Wilson (Author)

9781108054850, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 November 2012

512 pages, 44 b/w illus. 1 colour illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.65 kg

The Scottish archaeologist and anthropologist Daniel Wilson (1816–92) spent the latter part of his life in Canada. Published in 1862, this is a seminal work in the study of early man in which Wilson utilises studies of native tribes 'still seen there in a condition which seems to reproduce some of the most familiar phases ascribed to the infancy of the unhistoric world'. He believed that civilisations initially developed in mild climates and judged the Mayans to have been the most advanced civilisation in the New World. Twentieth-century anthropologist Bruce Trigger argued that Wilson 'interpreted evidence about human behaviour in a way that is far more in accord with modern thinking than are the racist views of Darwin and Lubbock', and it is in this light that this two-volume work can be judged. Volume 2 covers topics ranging from ceramic arts to the influence of interbreeding and migration upon civilisations.

16. Narcotic arts and superstitions
17. Primitive architecture: megalithic
18. The ceramic art: pottery
19. The intellectual instinct: letters
20. Ante-Columbian traces: colonization
21. The American cranial type
22. Artificial cranial distortion
23. The red blood of the West
24. The intrusive races
25. Ethnographic hypotheses: migrations
26. Guesses at the age of man
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA]