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A review by brucemri
Lost Worlds of South America by Edwin Barnhart
5.0
A few months ago, I enthused about one of the Great Courses series of audio lectures, The Origins of Life by Robert M. Hazen. This is just as good. :)
Professor Barnhart is an archeologist studying South American civilizations, and this is a 2012 recording. He takes listeners from the oldest known settlements in South America - much older than had ever been suspected until quite recently - through the various rising and falling cultures until the time of contact with the Spanish. It turns out that there are millennia of complex societies I never knew about, flourishing from the Pacific coast through the Andes and the vast Amazonian sprawl. Further, Barnhart makes an excellent case for Amazonian societies being first on the scene with sophisticated social and physical lives that are hard to study now because of their need to use almost exclusively perishable materials, and for them being repeated influences on the cultures to their west that are easier to study thanks to greater riches of artifacts.
As with Hazen's lectures, Barnhart combines the evidence uncovered, interpretations of it, and very personal accounts of what it's like to do the work - what kinds of environment are hard or easy, popular or shunned, to study, about dealing with contemporary peoples and politics, about revising guesses as gaps get filled in, about how sudden insights and long slow analysis work together. It thoroughly humanizes the archeological process, constantly reminding listeners of how actual human beings with actual human vices and virtues work together (or against each other) to build up a collaborative set of data and understanding.
One strength of this lecture over Hazen's is that it requires less prior knowledge. Barnhart describes geography and other relevant details as he goes, so that it's very accessible to newcomers.
Highly recommended!
Professor Barnhart is an archeologist studying South American civilizations, and this is a 2012 recording. He takes listeners from the oldest known settlements in South America - much older than had ever been suspected until quite recently - through the various rising and falling cultures until the time of contact with the Spanish. It turns out that there are millennia of complex societies I never knew about, flourishing from the Pacific coast through the Andes and the vast Amazonian sprawl. Further, Barnhart makes an excellent case for Amazonian societies being first on the scene with sophisticated social and physical lives that are hard to study now because of their need to use almost exclusively perishable materials, and for them being repeated influences on the cultures to their west that are easier to study thanks to greater riches of artifacts.
As with Hazen's lectures, Barnhart combines the evidence uncovered, interpretations of it, and very personal accounts of what it's like to do the work - what kinds of environment are hard or easy, popular or shunned, to study, about dealing with contemporary peoples and politics, about revising guesses as gaps get filled in, about how sudden insights and long slow analysis work together. It thoroughly humanizes the archeological process, constantly reminding listeners of how actual human beings with actual human vices and virtues work together (or against each other) to build up a collaborative set of data and understanding.
One strength of this lecture over Hazen's is that it requires less prior knowledge. Barnhart describes geography and other relevant details as he goes, so that it's very accessible to newcomers.
Highly recommended!