Strange Creatures: Anthropology in AntiquityIn ancient Greek and Roman thinking, whether the world is flat or spherical it will have imaginary boundaries and liminal areas where the norms of nature and culture are thought to break down. Analogies are constantly drawn between 'primitive' peoples at the 'edges of the world' and 'primitive' people in prehistory. Distance, both in time and space, leads to difference, and the idea that strange things happen out there or happened back then dominates Greek and Roman thinking on other cultures. This book examines ancient ideas of the creation of the world, the beginnings of life and origin of species, humans and animals, utopias and blessed islands, and 'barbarian' cultures beyond the Mediterranean world, before going on to trace the influence of ancient anthropological and ethnological thought on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We begin with primordial chaos and end with the invention of the Americas, taking in many strange creatures, from the savages of Britain, Gaul and Ireland, to the Man-faced Ox-creatures of Empedocles, the Dog-heads of India, the Amazons, the Centaurs, and the Tupinamba of Brazil. |
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Page 61
Ancient ideas of prehistory and of ethnography are remarkably closely linked at
the most fundamental conceptual levels. One characteristic shared by many
ancient ethnographic accounts is that somehow when one travels away from the
...
Ancient ideas of prehistory and of ethnography are remarkably closely linked at
the most fundamental conceptual levels. One characteristic shared by many
ancient ethnographic accounts is that somehow when one travels away from the
...
Page 75
This tradition is strongly represented in accounts of both sacred islands and
blessed lands such as Ethiopia and Albania.34 But there is another tradition in
ancient ethnography which sees distant peoples as savages and barbarians. As I
say ...
This tradition is strongly represented in accounts of both sacred islands and
blessed lands such as Ethiopia and Albania.34 But there is another tradition in
ancient ethnography which sees distant peoples as savages and barbarians. As I
say ...
Page 76
Because of the obvious contrast with the softer mythological aspects it may be
very tempting to read this tougher-seeming ethnographic information in such
texts as deriving from empirical observation, but as I see it, such a reading
derives from ...
Because of the obvious contrast with the softer mythological aspects it may be
very tempting to read this tougher-seeming ethnographic information in such
texts as deriving from empirical observation, but as I see it, such a reading
derives from ...
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Contents
The Origin of Life and the Origin of Species | 17 |
Ancient Theories of Prehistory and the Evolution of Society | 39 |
Blessed Islands and Blessed Lands | 61 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
acorns agriculture Anaximander ancient animals anti-primitivist Arcadians Aristotle atomic barbarians barbaric beasts become blessed lands Cambyses cannibalism chaos civilised clearly climate Columbus cosmogony creation creatures culture Darius Democritus described diet Diodorus Siculus divine Dog-heads earth and water east eating elements Empedocles Epicurean Ethiopians ethnocentric ethnographic extremes Fortunate Isles Gauls geographical Germans gods golden age Greece Greek Hartog Herodotus Hesiod Hieros Gamos History human Hyperboreans ideal ideas India Indies inhabitants king Lery Lery's Libya lifestyle living Lucretius luxury moral myth mythological nature noble savage norms Ocean Ovid Panchaia Paradise Pelasgus perhaps Persians philosopher Pillars of Heracles Plato Pliny prehistory Presocratics primitivist produce Prometheus race rationalisation realm river Roman Romm sacred islands Scythians seafaring seems seen sort status story Strabo Taprobane technologies Theogony theory things Timaeus tion tradition Trans Tupinamba warfare wild Zeus