A new understanding of human history and the roots of inequality
2,137,347 views | David Wengrow • TED2022
What if the commonly accepted narratives about the foundation of civilization are all wrong? Drawing on groundbreaking research, archaeologist David Wengrow challenges traditional thinking about the social evolution of humanity -- from the invention of agriculture to the formation of cities and class systems -- and explains how rethinking history can radically change our perspective on inequality and modern life.
What if the commonly accepted narratives about the foundation of civilization are all wrong? Drawing on groundbreaking research, archaeologist David Wengrow challenges traditional thinking about the social evolution of humanity -- from the invention of agriculture to the formation of cities and class systems -- and explains how rethinking history can radically change our perspective on inequality and modern life.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
About the speaker
David Wengrow proposes new ways to think about the history of human social development -- and the rise of inequality.
David Graeber and David Wengrow | Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021 | Book
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
In this book, which took us 10 years to complete, my co-author David Graeber and I lay foundations for a new understanding of human history, challenging long-held ideas about social evolution, from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy and inequality.
Journal of Human Evolution, 2019 | Douglas W. Bird, et al. | Article
"Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies"
There’s a long-held perception that our ancestors spent their lives in small hunting and gathering groups of a few dozen closely related people, and that human cognition evolved to cope with life in such tiny groups. The authors of this study show why there is no particular reason to believe this was the case, and their findings dovetail with our arguments from the archaeological evidence.
David Graeber and David Wengrow | Eurozine, 2018 | Article
"How to change the course of human history (at least, the part that’s already happened)"
This was the essay where we first outlined a new vision of human history based on the evidence of contemporary archaeology and anthropology: one which doesn't begin with everyone living in tiny, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers, and where the invention of agriculture and cities was not, in fact, a fall from grace.
David Wengrow | Aeon, 2018 | Article
"A history of true civilisation is not one of monuments"
Why do we so readily associate "civilization" with hierarchy and power? In this essay I write about some of the themes discussed in my TED Talk, and how we might think about the concept of civilization in entirely different ways.
David Wengrow | British Academy, 2019 | Article
"Rethinking cities, from the ground up"
It's often suggested we evolved to live in small groups, so that living in cities must pose all kinds of special social challenges and psychological obstacles. Here I discuss how the latest evidence from psychology and anthropology challenges that assumption, and how this plays out in the archaeological evidence of early cities around the world.
Bisserka Gaydarska, Marco Nebbia and John Chapman | Cambridge Journal of Archaeology, 2019 | Article
"Trypillia Megasites in Context: Independent Urban Development in Chalcolithic Eastern Europe"
Learn in more detail about those remarkable egalitarian cities of prehistoric Ukraine, often referred to as "megasites," from archaeological experts Bisserka Gaydarska, Marco Nebbia and John Chapman.
David Graeber and David Wengrow | Laphams Quarterly, 2020 | Article
"Hiding in Plain Sight: Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas."
We are taught to pride ourselves on living in a democracy. At the same time, in a thousand subtle ways, we are taught that true democracy is probably impossible. In this essay, the anthropologist David Graeber and I discuss how new and different histories of democracy are emerging from the Indigenous history of the Americas, and consider some wider implications.
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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.