THE recent publication of The Dawn of Everything, written by archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber, has prompted debate about the history of human societies. 

Graeber and Wengrow argue that popular ideas about what happened in “prehistory” are wrong. It is often assumed that human history has been a linear progression: from small egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers to farming, to ever-larger societies and eventually “real” civilisation. 

The political implication of this view is that, while some sort of small-scale communism was possible in these “pre-political” egalitarian bands, the increasing size of societies led inexorably to inequality and hierarchies.
 
This political implication, set out memorably by Rousseau, is incorporated into many political views, ranging from the “Enlightenment Now” defence of modernity offered by Steven Pinker to (some) Marxist conceptions of the history of the world before capitalism. 

It was a rosy time, but it couldn’t survive the growth and increasing complexity of society. Some, such as Pinker, frame the same picture more negatively: life before farming was more violent and nasty — we should probably be glad that we can’t return to it.
 
From an anthropological viewpoint this is the origin myth of modernity and, according to Graeber and Wengrow, it is indeed a myth. 

Their alternative thesis is that people in prehistory had more politics than we have given them, and that a diversity of different societies existed. 

While we will never truly know for certain what happened in societies tens of thousands of years ago, The Dawn of Everything highlights recent archaeological evidence that challenges our ideas about hunter-gatherers.
 
This debate has been prompted by technological improvements in archaeological science. Since radiocarbon dating was invented in the 1940s, archaeology has used more and more tools that can give hard quantitative measurements. 

This is valuable: when measurements conflict with the existing body of knowledge, they must be combined with it into new interpretations.
 
For example, when British imperialists invaded southern Africa, they were impressed with the vast stone structures at Great Zimbabwe. 

Racist views meant the British “knew” that the buildings couldn’t have been constructed by indigenous Africans. Radiocarbon dating of the site gave an answer that showed that this was wrong. 

But this evidence was suppressed by the Rhodesian government. As one archaeologist stationed there in the mid-20th century said: “Censorship of guidebooks, museum displays, school textbooks, radio programmes, newspapers and films was a daily occurrence … I wasn’t allowed to mention radio carbon dates.”
 
As the scope and range of dating and archaeological investigation has improved, the past few decades have seen many surprising discoveries that conflict with existing interpretations. 

For example, one assumption is that hunter-gatherers were always less technologically advanced than farming societies. 

This assumption is hard-coded into the model of progression between the different “stages” of societal development. 

Where archaeological evidence shows that hunter-gatherers did use a technology, it is explained as a result of a passive interaction with a more sophisticated society as the technology “diffused” out from its discoverers.
 
This line of thought has been applied to iron technology. An understanding of how to work with iron is meant to have been invented by Near East farmers in the second millennium BCE and diffused out to hunter-gatherer societies in northernmost Europe, where it was passively received as late as 700-1600 CE. One recent paper published in the journal Antiquity by researchers in Sweden challenges this idea.
 
The researchers excavated furnace structures at two sites in the circumpolar north, finding evidence of smelting and smithing of steel. 

They found artefacts including knives and a socketed axe. The axe showed detailed “pattern welding,” thought to require years of training to master. 

A lack of evidence of experimentation at the sites suggests that the technology was well-established. Taken together, the authors argue that this means iron technology was an integral part of the hunter-gatherers’ economy between 200-50 BCE — around 1,000 years earlier than usually assumed. 

The hunter-gatherers were not just passive recipients, but active agents. It isn’t hard to imagine why the hunter-gatherers might be interested in making knives and axes. 

In a way, it would be more surprising if they hadn’t used the technology enthusiastically.
 
As the authors write, evidence like this raises broader questions about the presence of intricate technological processes in societies “considered less complex or highly mobile.” 

It seems likely that such evidence will continue to mount. If more recent hunter-gatherer societies show evidence of using “complex” technologies that surprise us, by extension this suggests that being hunter-gatherers is no necessary bar to societal complexity. 

Much older societies which were highly mobile and non-agricultural may have had far more complex and interesting societies than assumed. 

The idea that for thousands of years in prehistory there was no “progress” but just a static and simple world looks questionable. 
 
This finding isn’t in Graeber and Wengrow’s book, but it seems likely more similar findings that support a challenge to conventional wisdom will keep emerging. 

The debate The Dawn of Everything has prompted is welcome. Although some of their interpretations are neither new nor by any means undisputed, the coverage has highlighted how scientific evidence can challenge our assumptions. The excitement and uncertainty it gives back to the past is refreshing.