Prehistoric fiction gives me the creeps. In fact, prehistoric fiction--that is to say, stories set in the prehistoric past, whether books or movies--has always given me the creeps, but I hadn't realized the broader implications of that until I started reading Rob Swigart's newest 'teaching novel', Stone Mirror.
Rob Swigart and Stone Mirror
Stone Mirror (Rob Swigart)
Photo Credit: Left Coast Press (c) 2007
Stone Mirror is the second 'teaching novel' by Rob Swigart, books based on archaeology and explicitly for use as archaeological texts; the first was 2005's Xibalba Gate, based on Maya archaeology. Stone Mirror is a novel set at a fictional Neolithic site in Turkey, and the action takes place partly in the ancient Neolithic past of some 9,000 years ago, and partly during the archaeological dig of the present. As I was reading and enjoying the different bits, I was jarred out of my "I'm reading fiction" state of bliss by the old pain from prehistoric fiction: I wanted to know which bits of the vignettes are 'real', that is, based on scientific research, and which are 'fiction', based on the writer's imagination. Where are the footnotes? I wanted to know.
Doris Lessing and The Cleft
The Cleft (Doris Lessing)
Photo Credit: Harper-Collins (c) 2007
So I put Stone Mirror aside for a while, and I picked up Doris Lessing's 2007 novel called The Cleft. The Cleft is also a dual action book set in the past. The narrator of The Cleft is a Roman senator writing about the time of the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD; but he's relating the ancient time when men and women were different species. Okay, we know, going into reading anything by Lessing that it will all be fiction, but once again the juxtaposition of the two seems, well the only word I can think of is jarring. What's 'real' (in the Roman part of the story) I think to myself; what's 'fictional'?
10,000 BC, More or Less
Box Office Archaeology (Julie M. Schablitsky, ed)
Photo Credit: Left Coast Press (c) 2007
One reason the jarring fact vs. fiction thing is interesting at this particular juncture (to me and I hope to you, too) is that the movie 10,000 BC has just premiered. I've only seen the trailer, and, although it's apparently better than the version with Raquel Welch in a furry bikini, there are several significant places where the story line misses the facts which have been determined by archaeological science. But---wait a minute. Who is telling this story and, not inconsequentially, who owns the rights to tell it and how?
So, Who Does Own the Past?
The Archaeology at About.com website is explicitly science-biased. In other words, my whole goal has always been to cover the scientific stories that don't appear in the popular press. So when I am asked, as I often am, about alternate histories, I tend to be, I'm sorry to say, dismissive. Like every good archaeologist today, however, I am fully aware that there are other, quite legitimate, sources of knowledge about the past, but in this venue I explicitly privilege science, the results of scientific studies, above all others. I get flak for that all the time--see the comments on 10,000 BC, Kinda, for the interesting discussion that's developed there.
Archaeology is a Brand! (Cornelius Holtorf)
Photo Credit: Left Coast Press (c) 2007
I'll try to stop the dismissive part of my nature in the future (it's embarrassingly pointy-headed of me, for one thing)--but I'm still going to stick with the explicitly scientific bias. There are simply too many stories to be told in archaeological science that don't make it out of academic journals, and I want to tell them. Other people cover the other sources of information better than I would, and I'm happy with that.
But, at the same time, I think the thing to remember (for me too) is that the juxtaposition of both imagination and scientific fact is in itself created knowledge, about the writers, and about our modern culture as its expressed by those lights. And, even the scientific studies, those specifically privileged knowledge bases I depend on, are interpretations that reflect modern culture. Not 'fact' versus 'fiction' but rather 'interpretation' versus 'interpretation'.
Footnotes to Cultural Science
Archaeology as Popular Culture (Cornelius Holtorf)
Photo Credit: Altamira (c) 2005
I'm not going to argue that you shouldn't privilege science. How could I? That's how I make my living; and, more to the point, the results of scientific research have underwritten too much of how we live our lives today to not be privileged. And, admittedly, footnotes would be a great help to those of us in archaeology geekland, and in fact there is a burgeoning web presence for geeks like me who need to know what's based on scientific research and what's expediently entertaining in our movies and books.
But--you know what? Reality is what you make it. And you have to remember--I have to remember--that the past is made up of stories people tell about it, whether the story tellers are archaeologists, folklorists, novelists or movie directors.
Archaeology as Popular Culture
This whole discussion of science stories versus popular culture stories owes a great deal to Cornelius Holtorf and others who have been discussing the role of archaeology and popular culture in the last few years, including several recent books published by Altamira Press and, more recently, Left Coast Press. Although I don't have space or time to review them here, the following books are well worth taking a peek.
- Stone Mirror (Rob Swigart, Left Coast Press, 2007)
- The Cleft (Doris Lessing, Harper Collins, 2007)
- Box Office Archaeology (Julie M. Schablitsky, ed., Left Coast Press, 2007)
- Xibalba Gate (Rob Swigart, Altamira Press, 2005)
- Archaeology as Popular Culture (Cornelius Holtorf, Altamira Press, 2005)
- Archaeology is a Brand! (Cornelius Holtorf, Left Coast Press, 2007)
- Archaeology and the Media (Timothy Clack and Marcus Brittain, eds., Left Coast Press, 2007)
Comments
Please clarify how it is that prehistoric fiction is creepy?
To me a well crafted story might help others, understand something about how we once might have lived and how far we have come. Though some might argue that we haven’t come far.
In anycase I thought the story was as good as it gets – way above 1,000,000 bc.
I enjoy bad archaeology movies and stories, but I’ve always felt that what is really lacking is a good pre-contact Americas sort of story. I’ll have to check out the Swigart books sometime.
Have you read the Gears? They’ve done several good books on precontact America (I’m told, I haven’t read them myself). Tom King reviewed the Anasazi mysteries here:
http://archaeology.about.com/od/fictionstoriesandnovels/fr/tk_gears.htm
Kris
Oh, I don’t think the fiction’s necessarily creepy–I think the failing is in me. I always get distracted trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not. So, instead of just enjoying the story I think… where did they get that idea? Did they find a shaman’s hut and how did they know that?
May I should have said: When it comes to prehistoric fiction, I am definitely creepy .
Nope. I haven’t read the Gears’ stuff either. It seems I’ve missed all the good opportunities. It’d probably help if I read more fiction (most of my reading is taken up with the professional archaeology literature). Honestly, I’m really hoping for a good comic book. That medium is made for a good visual hero cycle.
I saw 10,000 BC tonight. I was pretty horrible.
I think that there’s an important distinction to be made between wildly inaccurate fictionalizations — like “10,000 BC” — and novels/films that are more or less based on historical reality (as we think we know it today, that is). It’s one thing to invent a few characters in order to flesh out the time period (as Tracy Chevalier and others have recently done) and quite another to have humans building pyramids at the end of the last ice age. It’s theoretically possible to have a very compelling story based on what we know of, say, the stone structures built by pre-agriculturalists at Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey — but it might still turn out to be “creepy” in your book, Ms. Hirst. (One problem I have with fiction set in prehistory is that it’s so darn mystical — ef. “Clan of the Cave Bear” — but you know, it’s going to be tremendously difficult to envision the lived experiences of people in the Palaeo- and Neolithic in a way that’s acceptable to post-Enlightenment scholars!!!)
Yep, you’re right; there is a decidedly important difference between those writers who base stories of the past on the scientific record while using the narrative form of writing; and those who just make up something interesting for us to look at and read.
But, I guess I was trying to get at (besides poking fun at myself for my lack of ability to enjoy a good book) was that storytelling is what I do, and it’s what archaeologists do. Not to say that all story telling was equal.
I just finished “The Cleft” this week. I have long been a fan of Lessing’s, but this book disappointed. I don’t find anything in it particularly archaeological, to be honest; it almost bears more similarity to allegory in some senses. But as with some recent novels of hers, she seems to have trouble ending the story in a satisfying way. Her males and females become almost trite stereotypes, much to my disappointment.
If you’re looking for footnotes, I recommend Steven Mithen’s After The Ice. It isn’t necessarily fiction, but it’s a readable narrative that travels the prehistoric globe – far from the dense, dry reads that most texts offer. And like I mentioned before… footnotes!
I really like Steven Mithen; I just finished the Singing Neanderthal (it came out in paperback last year), and am mid-way through my review of that. He really knows how to use that literary device within a scholarly text.
I also like Martin Jones. Have you seen his book, Feast?
http://archaeology.about.com/od/foodsoftheancientpast/fr/jones07.htm
He interlaces the vignettes with a discussion of the sites on which they’re based. Very satisfying (pardon the pun).
After teaching anthropology for forty years, I have come to believe that (good) fiction can bring the past and other cultures to life in ways we academics have never succeeded in doing. Furthermore, these books reach FAR more people than we ever will. As of five years ago, Jean Auel had sold thirty-four million books. How many of those purchasers and readers got intrigued enough in the past to follow up by reading something else, perhaps more factual, or at least paying attention to articles on the past in their local newspapers? Even if it was only 1%, that is a success from my perspective. Finally, thanks for names of some books and authors unknown to me. They all sound more interesting than the next issue of Latin American Antiquity.
Dick