THE HENRY MYERS LECTURE 2014
will be given by
Professor David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology at University College London
Farewell to the “Childhood of Man”: Ritual, Seasonality, and the Origins of Inequality
Friday 12 September 2014, at 5pm (approximately) in the BP Lecture Theatre, Clore Education Centre, the British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG.
The lecture will be preceded by the RAI’s AGM. All are welcome to the AGM; only RAI Fellows may vote.
The event is free.
Abstract:
Across the ages, dual structures of political organisation – where a single society alternates periodically between hierarchical and egalitarian systems – have served as effective checks and balances on the excesses of state power. In tracing their deep origins back to the ‘Upper Palaeolithic Revolution’ we come a little closer to understanding – not just the full nature of “complexity” among our hunter-gatherer ancestors – but also their millennial track record of avoiding the emergence of states.
