This is a longer (hour and 16 minutes) interview but very interesting.
Everything We Think We Know About Early Human History is Wrong | David Wengrow on Downstream
Humans have existed for at least 200,000 years. Yet until recently, historians believed that cities, astronomy, architecture and numeracy did not arrive until agriculture emerged some 12,000 years ago.
But what if that was wrong? What if cities existed before agriculture and our hunter gatherer ancestors enjoyed a far more complex existence than we thought? And if they did, then what are the implications for modern political theory - which justifies inequality on the basis that we live in a higher, more sophisticated form of society that was always inevitable?
What if there were social revolutions before documented history? And what if humankind had engaged in innumerable experiments in how best to live - including ones that involved the rejection of what we would consider to be ‘civilisation’?
Aaron Bastani discusses all of that, and more, with archaeologist and co-author of the bestselling ‘Dawn of Everything’ David Wengrow.
It's interesting that the evidence shows that in the British Isles people moved in and "lost" agriculture to go back to hunting and gathering almost until they denuded the islands of wood for fuel and building.
They discuss the collapse of universities over the last 60 years. They've turned further and further away from empirical evidence-based science, paywalled scientific journals, and chopped up disciplines siloing them.
Even more surprising, a discussion of Native American impact upon The Enlightenment in Europe.
Was this the migration following the "sinking" of Doggerland?
