Book
1928
The Most Ancient East: The Oriental Prelude to European Prehistory
V. Gordon Childe
Argues that farming, metallurgy and urban life spread to Europe from the Near East rather than arising independently, making prehistoric Europe a periphery of an older Oriental core.
Read itWhere it is now wrong
Childe's diffusionist model, civilisation spreading west from the Near East, was broken by radiocarbon dating in the 1960s, which showed several European developments predating their supposed sources. The questions he asked about the Neolithic outlasted his answers.
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Filed under Prehistoric Archaeology in Archaeology.