Prehistoric Philosophy : The Neolithic Revolution, the Indigenous Critique, and the Myths of Civilization

Building on the success of Graeber and Wengrow’s widely read and groundbreaking The Dawn of Everything, Prehistoric Philosophy challenges the narrative of progress and other civilizational myths by looking at the origins of these myths in the neolithic revolution. Once we reject the simplistic and often racist stereotypes of hunter-gatherers, the agricultural revolution no longer appears as the first step of human progress, but as a messy, ugly, and brutal shift that unleased a whole host of evils into the world like inequality, hierarchy, disease, empire, warfare, patriarchy, slavery, and environmental destruction.

This book reads the neolithic revolution together with indigenous critiques, using each to strengthen our understanding of the other. Doing so helps understand our modern hubris, the concerns of many indigenous communities, and forces us to recognize and understand our role in the death of the cosmos. It also sets the stage for understanding the rise of the world’s major religious and philosophical traditions in the axial age as different attempts to make sense of, justify, or escape the evils of inequality, disease, empire, and more. By advancing the notion of a ‘prehistoric philosophy,’ this volume simultaneously interrogates the colonialism inherent in the Western philosophy canon.