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Author Pitcher, Ben, author.

Title Back to the stone age : race and prehistory in contemporary culture / Ben Pitcher
Published Montreal ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2022]

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 286 pages) : illustrations
Contents A Turn to Prehistory -- Becoming Prehistoric -- Prehistory and the Popular Culture of the Anthropocene -- Genetic Prehistory -- Prehistory, Landscape, and Belonging -- Facing Up to Prehistory -- Piltdown Man and the Endomorphic Gravel Pit
Summary "Prehistoric human life is a common reference point in contemporary culture, inspiring attempts to become happier, healthier, or better people. Exploited by capitalism, overwhelmed by technology, and living in the shadow of environmental catastrophe, we call on the prehistoric to escape the present, and to model alternative ways of living our lives. In Back to the Stone Age Ben Pitcher explores how ideas about race are tightly woven into the powerful origin stories we use to explain who we are, where we came from, and what we are like. Using a broad range of examples from popular culture--from everyday practices like lighting fires and walking in the woods to engagements with genetic technologies and Neanderthal DNA, from megaliths and museum mannequins to television shows and best-selling nonfiction--Pitcher demonstrates how prehistory is alive in the twenty-first century, and argues that popular flights back in time provide revealing insights into present-day anxieties, obsessions, and concerns. Back to the Stone Age shows that the human past is not set in stone. By opening up the prehistoric to critical contestation, racial justice becomes central to questions about the existence and persistence of Homo sapiens in the contemporary world."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 21, 2022)
Subject Race.
Antiquities, Prehistoric.
Popular culture.
Human beings -- Origin.
race (group of people)
popular culture.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture.
Antiquities, Prehistoric
Human beings -- Origin
Popular culture
Race
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0228015618
9780228015628
0228015626
9780228015611