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Concept
Richard Rudgley
Résumé
Richard Rudgley (born 1961) is a British author and television presenter. He specialises on the topics of the usage of hallucinogens and intoxicants in society. He has also written about the Stone Age and about Paganism.
Rudgley completed a BA in Social anthropology and Religious studies and went on to do a M. St. and M. Phil. in Ethnology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford University. He is married and lives in London.
Rudgley's first book, The Alchemy of Culture: Intoxicants in Society (published in America under the title Essential Substances: A Cultural History of Intoxicants in Society) was the first winner of the Prometheus Award, launched by the British Museum Press in 1991.
His 1998 Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age addresses a popular audience. John Robb, reviewing it in Nature summarised it thus:Writing, surgery, drug use, monument building, detailed environmental knowledge, sophisticated artworks, technologies such as mining and smelting, language, musical instruments, tools fashioned with aesthetic sense as well as utilitarian function – all arose far earlier than either archaeologists have generally acknowledged or the public has imagined. The result is that we cannot consider our history as a simple story of the ‘rise’ from savage roots to a sophisticated present. Our ancestors, even tens of thousands of years ago, commanded surprising knowledge and expert skills.He goes on to indicate both the strengths and weakness of the book:As Rudgley points out, with examples of ancient ingenuity abounding, there is no need to turn to ancient astronauts to explain civilization.
Rudgley almost always finds himself taking the minority view over controversies, and his conclusions are occasionally facile or follow discredited authorities. But throughout the book we find clear exposition, a refreshing straightforwardness about the complexity of the archaeological record, a willingness to explore many sides of an issue, and a zest for discovery that makes it a page-turner.
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