Interrogating Human Origins: Decolonisation and the Deep Human Past

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
SECTION 1: Introduction
1. Interrogating and decolonising the deep human past
Introduction
Research, knowledge and the postcolonial critique
Archaeology and the postcolonial critique
Postcolonial approaches and human origins
Critiques of human origins
Archaeology, human origins, and the end of humanity
Structure of the volume
References
SECTION 2: Definition of the human and its colonial legacy
2. IMHO: Inventing modern human origins
IDK: introducing defined knowledge
LOL: language or language-as-we-know-it
WTF: writing true fiction
NSFW: new synthesis for ‘where-to-next?’
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
3. Modern ontologies of the ‘more-than-animal’ human: Provincialising humanism for the present day
Introduction: figuring the human
‘The peculiar distinction of the erect attitude’: George Cuvier and the
discovery of the great apes
‘A distinct order of being’: evolutionism and Alfred Wallace in
colonial context
‘Only humans can reach for the stars’: geo-engineering and human
exceptionality today
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
4. Colonialism and narratives of human origins in Asia and Africa
Introduction: the ‘othering’ of Asia and Africa
The emergence and construction of human origins narratives in colonial
Asia and Africa
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century studies of the bodies of living peoples:
models for ‘primitive’ ancestors
Transition to the current narrative of human origins: lingering effects of the
colonial past
Orientalism, Afrocentrism, and the practice of palaeoanthropology today
A way forward: reimagining a new narrative of human origins
Notes
References
5. Primordialising Aboriginal Australians: Colonialist tropes and Eurocentric views on behavioural markers of modern humans
Introduction
Degeneration and out-of-Africa
Diffusionism and stone axes
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References
SECTION 3: Representation, temporality and narratives of human origins
6. Old flames: Rekindling ideas of fire, humanity and representation through creative art practice
Introduction
Fire and art
Archaeological illustrations and the representation of human origins
Creative practice in archaeology and heritage research
Fire, photography and Yesterday’s Hearth
Stoking the flames: abstraction and the chemigram process
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
7. Orientalism and origins: The search for firsts in the ‘Cradle of Civilisation’
Introduction
Critiques of the cradle
The search for firsts
Region as relic
Conclusion: rocking the cradle
Notes
References
8. The beast without: Becoming human in the science fiction of H. G. Wells
Introduction
H. G. Wells, scientific romances, scientific journalism, and human origins,
1896–1901
Palaeolithic archaeology and anthropology in the last half of the fin de
siècle decade
The literary context of the last half of the fin de siècle decade
Conclusion
References
9. The temporality of humanity and the colonial landscape of the deep human past
Introduction
The temporality of modernity and humanity: social and historical perspectives
The temporality of colonialism
The barbarian and the primitive: time and archaeology
The colonial temporality of the deep human past
Conclusions
References
SECTION 4: National, political and historical dimensions of human origins
10. The Far West from the Far East: Decolonisation and human origins in East Asia: the legacy of 1937 and 1948
Introduction
The world of 1937
Palaeoanthropology in 1937
The world of 1948
The study of human origins in 1948
Movius and his synthesis of 1948
Weidenreich and multi-regional evolution
Multi-regionalism with Chinese characteristics
The post-1948 legacy
Discussion: where we are now
Concluding comments
Notes
Acknowledgements
References
11. Interpretative shifts in understanding the prehistoric settlement of the Indian Subcontinent: Comparing Western and Indian historical perspectives
Introduction
Lower Palaeolithic colonisations
The Indian Middle Palaeolithic: indigenous, introduced or both?
The enigmatic ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ and early Mesolithic phases
Discussion and conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
12. Our earliest ancestors: Human and non-human primates of North America
My place in this story
Introduction
Decolonising minds and Western constructs of the past
Our earliest ancestors
Changing paradigms of human evolution
Early people in Turtle Island (the Americas)
Nationalistic, historical and politicalised discourses of the human past
Eyes wide open or eyes wide shut
Conclusion
References
13. ‘If we are all African, then I am nothing’: Hominin evolution and the politics of identity in South Africa
Introduction
Part I: two responses
Part II: a history
Part III: discussion
Conclusion
Notes
References
SECTION 5: The construction of genetic facts
14. Naming the sacred ancestors: Taxonomic reification and Pleistocene genomic narratives
Introduction
Taxa and pseudo-taxa in human evolution
Race as genetic apophenia
The human boundary
Neoliberal recreational genomics
Very ancient DNA
Conclusion
Notes
References
15. Traditional owner participation in genetic research: A researcher perspective
Introduction
The fieldwork for a genomic history of Aboriginal Australia
Contentious issues with the research
Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgements
References
Index