[Book review] Dissent with modification : human origins, palaeolithic archaeology and evolutionary anthropology in Britain 1859-1901

Abstract

John McNabb’s (2012) Dissent with Modification: Human Origins, Palaeolithic Archaeology and Evolutionary Anthropology in Britain 1859–1901 explores discoveries and debates relating to human origins between the publication of Charles Darwin’s (1859) On the Origin of Species and the death of Queen Victoria (1901). Beyond a summary of who found and said what when, the book seeks to contextualize archaeological, anthropological, and paleontological data in their broad intellectual and social contexts. McNabb explains that the book grew from an original focus on the ‘eolith’ controversy, more on which below, broadening into the complex nexus around this debate which took the author to the core of the emerging concept of the Paleolithic in Victorian times. While the book is wide ranging, it is motivated by a number of central themes (p. 3). These include the origin of Paleolithic archaeology as a discipline and its relationship with other academic foci, the concept of race and its role in evolutionary historical narratives, the relationship between studies of human origins and climate change and, finally, public perceptions of such debates. It is a large and diverse book, so this review can only sketch broad outlines. After discussing the structure of the book, some examples of some of the book’s major themes—the idea of progress, the antiquity of humans, and the eolith debate—will be discussed.