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PEOPLE OF THE ICE AGE by Ruth Goode

PEOPLE OF THE ICE AGE

By

Pub Date: Aug. 6th, 1973
Publisher: Macmillan

A measured, deliberate review of what we know about Paleolithic man up to the beginnings of civilization -- including the development of tool-making, language, the family and the first farming communities. Defending the cave man against the image of the lumbering idiot sold to us by cartoons and comic strips, Goode tours the cave paintings of Lescaux and examines other evidence of religious observance and the creation of decorative objects, cites evidence that the cave-men hunters cared for their old and sick (despite occasional cannibalism) and reconstructs the probable origins of firemaking, permanent dwellings and domesticated animals. In our view this responsible simplification has an abstract quality which compares poorly with the aggressive graphics in the (admittedly more difficult) Time-Life presentation of Early Man, but despite its excessive sobriety this will fill a need for material that is both undemanding and up to date.