In his introduction, Sam Kean makes clear how little regard he has for the classical approach to archaeology with its tedious unearthing of potsherds with paintbrushes. In its place, he lauds experimentalists that try to recreate prehistory by living it. Beginning with first humans in Africa, he asks how hard is it to kill an elephant with primitive weapons. Traveling to South America he wonders whether it is possible to bring down a vicuna with an atalatl, the rod shaped tool used to launch spears. Did ancient people living near the North Pole keep their fingers from freezing off by wrapping them in the warm shit of their sled dogs?
To find out, Kean learns to throw an atalatl. He tries to cut through the equivalent of elephant skin with stones, goes to wilderness schools to learn to tan hides with his own urine, and takes a turn napping flint spear points. He investigates why so many of the hundreds of people found preserved in Great Britain’s bogs have had their heads smashed, their throats slit, and their chests pierced by swords. Who needs to be killed three times over? Can you really cure an eye infection with remedies from a medieval book of plants?
Every epoch is approached with an amalgamation of the most up-to-date archaeological awareness of the era, an experiential adventure in which Kean tries his hand, and fails, while being taught by an expert in archaeological reenactment, and most interestingly, an interwoven fictional account of invented characters that lived in the period he is describing. The fictions are engaging and as readers we feel confident that while the conversations and emotions are clearly imagined, they are, nonetheless, underpinned by sound research. There is no doubt that the author enjoyed his research covering geographies from the poles to the tropics and from on every continent and through oceania. Only by the time we have reached the fifteenth period in history his point has been made: there is more to prehistory than arrowheads and stone houses. Maybe ten or twelve chapters would have been enough.