Human Origins: a Manual of Prehistory

Abstract

DURING the past thirty years Dr. MacCurdy has paid frequent visits to the Old World to study on the spot the various discoveries of prehistoric man and his handiwork. For some time he has also directed the American School of Prehistoric Research in Europe. He has taken part in several diggings, notably in the exploration of the cave of La Combe (Dordogne) by the Peabody Museum of Yale University in 1912. He is curator of anthropology in this museum, and has had much experience in teaching. Dr. MacCurdy is therefore well qualified to produce a students' manual of prehistory with first-hand information, and his two handsome volumes now before us will be widely welcomed. He is cautious—perhaps too cautious—in expressing opinions of his own, but his work is most exhaustive in summarising the conclusions of the authors quoted by him. He has discussed the various subjects with most of these authors, and so is able to present them to the student in the most satisfactory manner.

Human Origins: a Manual of Prehistory.

By Dr. George Grant MacCurdy. Vol. 1: The Old Stone Age and the Dawn of Man and his Arts. Pp. xxxviii + 440. Vol. 2: The New Stone Age and the Ages of Bronze and Iron. Pp. xvi + 516. (New York and London: D. Appleton and Co., 1924.) 42s. net.