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THE ROOTS OF CIVILIZATION: THE COGNITIVE BEGINNINGS OF MAN'S FIRST ART, SYMBOL AND NOTATION, Alexander Marshack, hardcover with unclipped dust jacket (price never printed), Revised and Expanded edition, over 400 illustrations, 1991. BOOK CONDITION: very good, almost near fine. The text block is in fine condition, with no tears, dogears, or marks. No bookplate or signature of prior owner. Not a library book, but it does have a remainder mark on the bottom edge. The brown cloth boards are in very good condition (bumping of spine, a bit of edge wear, and tiny white spot on front cover). The dust jacket is in good condition (some edge chipping and crinkling, small tear, tiny hole in back cover). 11 ¼ x 8 ¾, 445 pages, 59 ounces. XX [From the inner flaps and back cover] Surely one of the most extraordinary books, THE ROOTS OF CIVILIZATION sheds new light on one of our earliest cultures. By examining the artifacts, paintings, and drawings of the Ice Age (beginning over 30,000 years ago), Marshack presents new ways of interpreting the origins of thought, the use of symbolic notation and development of language. What he has discovered revises the whole concept of our primitive forebears. These early people had an advanced culture and were capable of complex thought processes thousands of years before it had ever been considered possible. Howard Gardner of Harvard University has said this is one of the seminal books of our time. Marshack writes clearly and with great detail about how he made his amazing discoveries. He takes the reader every step of the way, almost as if he were telling a detective story. We have here, richly illustrated and carefully annotated, the first complete account of these critical findings. They add greatly to our knowledge of the first modern people to appear in Europe, the hunters of horse, mammoth, bison, reindeer and rhinoceros, who roamed the lands below the great ice sheets during the period 35,000-10,000 B.C., thousands of years before agriculture and the first towns. This revised edition brings the research to the present with new illustrations and additional text reflecting Marshack's most recent work. It is noteworthy that his studies have spawned a new subdiscipline and a new generation of archaeologists and anthropologists. René Dubos, the noted bacteriologist said, I read every year more than 100 books devoted to scientific subjects, but I do not recall any which enriched me as much, intellectually and emotionally. XX Alexander Marshack is Associate in Paleolithic Archaeology of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. He has published dozens of papers and articles, here and abroad. XX Profusely illustrated, THE ROOTS OF CIVILIZATION has become a source book on the range of Homo sapiens' capacity for art and symbol, with detailed data on the evolution of humankind, the intelligence and language. It analyzes the first images of "sex" and "killing," and offers new insight into the eventual rise of civilization, radically challenging traditional archaeological holdings. XX Marshack's work has won unstinting praise from anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and others studying the origins of the ways of mankind (The New York Times).
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