Robert L. Kelly has written a book about the end of worlds. Usually, this sort of thing is the province of science fiction writers, harbingers of an apocalypse (name your favorite), and even mainstream historians. In the book's introduction, Kelly reminds us that, back in 1987, the alternative rock group R.E.M. released a song entitled “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” I am not sure Kelly is fine with the ends of the worlds he writes about, but he has hope and faith that our species has always been able to surmount the challenges it has created and that it will be able to do so into the future. And what is it that gives him hope? The archaeological record of the biological and cultural evolution of our species.
You might not have seen that coming. Archaeologists often make the claim that understanding the past can help us avoid, or at least identify, future problems. But frankly, this desire has been more aspirational than actual. Kelly, however, believes that not only is such an understanding desirable, it is absolutely necessary. He describes four beginnings: the development of the first technologies by our hominin ancestors, the creation of culture, the domestication of plants and animals, and the origins of complex societies and the state. Each beginning was a tipping point, and the long-term success of each led to the end of the world it created. Although individual archaeological cultures may have failed, the cumulative effect of their successes created contradictions that led to the end of those past worlds. Taking an evolutionary perspective, Kelly suggests that our ancestors tried to be the best at whatever they were doing—growing plants, hunting animals, building coalitions. Taking this argument one step further, he suggests that trying to be the best at one thing led to unexpected outcomes, or emergent phenomena, to explain the origin of each of the beginnings. Some may dispute the notion that in the context of evolution, we act to “be all that you can be” (apologies to the U.S. Army) since other adaptive strategies are feasible and often employed. But Kelly's point is clear: whatever our ancestors did to live their lives, in the aggregate, they succeeded all too well.
The book has seven chapters. In the first, Kelly explains what led him to become an archaeologist and how so doing created for him a sense of wonder and excitement about the world. This resonated strongly with me—I knew I wanted to be an archaeologist in the third grade, and I imagine many of our colleagues had similar revelations early in their lives.
How archaeologists think is explored in the second chapter. Kelly uses his previous experience in writing textbooks on archaeology well, and he explains how we look at temporal and spatial patterns in artifacts to interpret the past. Again, colleagues who are looking for a more detailed presentation of current theoretical concerns in contemporary anthropological archaeology may be disappointed. Then again, they are not the primary audience for this book, which is written for a more general readership.
Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 are detailed, but accessible, descriptions of what we know from archaeology about each of the four beginnings and their trajectories over time. Much of what is here can be found in any text devoted to world prehistory, but Kelly leavens these chapters with many personal asides, funny stories, and plenty of wisdom accumulated over the course of a long and productive career. Some may object that these chapters are only “just so” stories—a term employed by those who seek to debunk what they see as the fanciful deployment of evolutionary concepts. These critics would be wrong because Kelly has done his homework. He also has not claimed—and does not claim—that what he has written is the truth. What he does claim is that his arguments are more than simply plausible and that they have an empirical basis.
In the final chapter, we confront the fifth beginning: the rise of European and other colonial powers, the ascendance of capitalism, the advent of the Industrial Revolution, and the creation of the nation-state. Many believe that these combined trends have created a perfect storm of future travail that we cannot overcome. It is the end of this world as we know it, but Kelly counsels us not to worry. He identifies three contradictory trends in this unholy mess that may create a way out of it: the search for cheap labor, the arms race, and the globalization of culture. Kelly believes that these contradictions will force us to cooperate and find solutions to global problems. The archaeological record proves to him that because we have done this in the past, we can, given the will, do it again in the future. You should read the book to find out just how this can be accomplished. I am not as sanguine as Kelly is that we can. But the archaeological record just may prove me wrong. Perhaps there is a sixth beginning in our global future.
