Fairweather Eden: Life Half a Million Years Ago As Revealed by the Excavations at Boxgrove [Hardcover]

Michael W. Pitts (Author), Mark Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1998

An astonishing look at our ancestors at the dawn of civilization. Through the eyes of those involved, this is the story of over ten years of archeological excavations at Boxgrove in Sussex, England, the world's best-preserved early human site. Boxgrove Man lived in a "fairweather Eden" also inhabited by lions, rhinos, elephants, and wolves. The work of Mark Roberts's team at Boxgrove will cause a major shift in our understanding of the true origins of humankind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boxgrove, a gravel quarry in Sussex, England, is one of Great Britain's best-known archaeological sites. A wealth of fossils have been unearthed from this location, including fragments of what has been called the oldest European. Roberts, the archaeologist in charge of Boxgrove, and science writer Pitts use these remains, along with bones of long-extinct animals and primitive tools, to answer one of the biggest debates in Stone Age archaeology, "whether these people were actively hunting or whether they were scavenging from carnivores." The authors come down squarely in the camp of those promoting a belief in active hunting, and conclude that these early hominids possessed a great deal more intelligence than they are usually given credit for. In addition to providing modest insight into the capabilities of our ancestors, Pitts and Roberts do a superb job of describing the way archaeology is conducted. Theirs is a fascinating account of how a world-class dig has been forced to operate on a shoestring budget, making remarkably good use of undergraduate students and unpaid volunteers. Many of the experiments they describe, such as having a modern-day butcher cut up a deer with Paleolithic tools, are elegant, informative and intriguing. 16 pages of b&w illustrations.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Roberts headed the archaeological dig at Boxgrove in southern England, the best-preserved early human site in the world. In 1993, his group discovered a human shin bone 500,000 years old, two human teeth, the oldest-known antler hammer, and tools, all associated with the same time frame. This book is primarily about the dig but also about the origins of archaeology and some of the changes in scientific theory that made it possible to interpret the geology of the site. The discoveries made there have led to new ideas about the intelligence and abilities of ancient hominids, who apparently were not the brutish creatures previously depicted. Experiments performed by crew members and other scientific tests have proven that what were thought to be crude stone hand axes and other tools were actually well designed for specific uses. Recommended.?Marilyn K. Dailey, Natrona Cty. P.L., Casper, WY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 394 pages
• Publisher: Fromm International; 1st Fromm International ed edition (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880641940
• ISBN-13: 978-0880641944
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,584,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking flaky, April 14, 2003

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fairweather Eden: Life Half a Million Years Ago As Revealed by the Excavations at Boxgrove (Hardcover)

What a career as a journalist Pitts might have had. The superb "people skills" and vivid descriptive powers expressed in this book make it a very "human." Pitts, however, is an archaeologist, bringing a strong scientific background to an account of a prehistoric dig and what it brought to view. As the evidence mounted of ancient hominids living along the Sussex coast, it became clear that Boxgrove revealed an unprecedented age for European habitation. Boxgrove, as this book makes graphically clear, will become the standard against which older archeology will be judged and future finds compared.

It is difficult to distinguish the respective contributions made by each author in this book. Mark Roberts, a young archeologist at the beginning of the excavations who became the Director of the site, is a dedicated digger. He managed logistics, personnel, site management and analysed the results. It is likely that he provided significant portions of the scientific background for the account. The story is simply one of persistence in using evidence to gain support for extending operations when funding seemed threatened. Those extensions continued to reveal an assemblage of fossils, tools, and other signs of human activity. All from half a million years ago.

With the authors contributing background material on climate conditions, glaciation and sea levels, soil content and the new science of geomagnetism, we're given a detailed picture of the world surrounding those ancient people. What impact did that environment have on their lives? What does the evidence suggest about how they coped with what nature imposed on them? Did they hunt, or scavenge? Was meat a mainstay or a "side dish" in their diet?

This book makes a major leap of interpretation in formulating what sort of people existed those millennia ago. With help from many sources, the authors build a picture of a sophisticated creature. Boxgrove produced a wealth of flint tools and flakes, some the researchers were able to reconstruct into the original stones. The evidence, they assert, suggests a creature with strong intelligence, capable of in-depth analysis in selected topics. The most important consideration was in hunting and creating the tools to make the hunt a success. Knapping flakes from flint is "more than banging a couple of rocks together" - requires the ability to foresee several steps in advance - "like a game of chess." The tools meant ready access to meat - and meat is necessary for increased brain power. Far from a raw savage, Boxgrove's revelations image our ancestor a capable creature. From this interpretation, it's clear older finds must be reassessed. New discoveries will need to draw on the same interdisciplinary teamwork Roberts was able to assemble.

Fairweather Eden is a wealth of information, both historic and current. Much background material is provided, interspersing the descriptions of participants in the finds and subsequent analysis. One individual actually strips down a carcass with the provided flint tools. Beyond the text is an array of diagrams and photographs depicting the information. If this book has a shortcoming, it's the use of notes' sources in lieu of a bibliography. That hardly detracts from its worth, however. The amount and quality of work Pitts and Roberts have put into this study will keep it useful for a long time. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]