Abstract
AT the request of the editor of Antiquity, Mr. Miles C. Burkitt and Prof. V. Gordon Childe have prepared a chronological table of prehistory, which is published in the June number of that periodical. The progress of recent research in prehistory will secure a welcome for the chart among students, not least perhaps because of the decisive manner necessitated by its form in dealing with controversial points, which should at least be provocative of fruitful discussion. The compilers have found that a task which they anticipated would give rise to no great difficulty has proved of no little complexity. Failing the ideal method of distribution maps, it was found most practical to divide the map into several geographical areas, each of which heads a column in the list. Even so, the area of extent of specific cultures has sometimes been difficult to determine and represent. It has been found impracticable to give an absolute chronology much before 2000 B.C. In glacial chronology most of the Mousterian is taken as contemporary with W¼rm ii, Acheulean with Riss-W¼rm, and Chellean with Mindel-Riss, while pre-Chellean is definitely pre-Mindel. Even when allowance is made for local specialisation and retardation, and when a solar chronology becomes possible with the dated monuments of Egypt and Mesopotamia, difficulties have still to be overcome, as witness the correlations here put forward between Egypt and Mesopotamia, which, it is admitted, are not universally accepted. The chronological chart, with explanatory notes on each section and index, has been reprinted and is obtainable separately, price 2s. 6d., from the assistant editor of Antiquity, 24 Parkend Road, Gloucester.
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Prehistoric Chronology. Nature 130, 126 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130126b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130126b0