Coleridge was supposed to have been the last person ever to have read everything, and that was in 1834. So Peter Watson, a Cam- bridge archaeology don, is up against it when he tries to squeeze the history of all the clever things that mankind has ever thought into 822 pages.
He makes a pretty good fist of it, though, even if he has to rattle through it at 1066 and All That speed. In the space of one page, he jumps from man getting up from all-fours — about 6,000,000 BC — to man making stone tools (2,500,000 BC).
Still, as he whips along, Watson gives attractive thumbnail sketches of developing ancient man. As we stood up on our hind legs, not only were our arms then free for tool-making, but our larynxes started to slip, leaving them in a better position to form vowels and consonants.
We also began to breathe better and, because we could kill more animals with our stone tools, we developed a richer diet, enabling further brain growth. Meat, as well as being more nutritious, is easier to chew than tough plants, meaning our jaws were gradually modified, with finer muscles developing. So we ended up with the subtler tongue movements needed for the varied sounds of speech.
As Watson is quick to concede, none of this was ‘intended’. So it hardly counts as an idea. Like a lot of things in this book — fire, painting, money — it’s impossible to point to ancient man staring at the cave wall and saying, ‘Yes! This afternoon I’ll rub two sticks together/ Do a woad picture of a bison/ Swap some salt for her from next door’s reindeer thigh and come up with a rudimentary currency.’
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in