Product Description

This lively and provocative book leaves no stone unturned and no taboo untouched as it pieces together evidence from highly controversial artifacts and human remains to decipher the mysteries of Stone Age sex. Archaeologist Timothy Taylor paints a dramatic and startling picture of our sexual evolution as he follows human sexuality from its origins four million years ago to modern times to answer our most titillating questions about this endlessly fascinating and
powerful subject.

Taylor draws on recent archaeological discoveries such as skeletons of Amazon women, golden penis sheaths, the charred remains of aphrodisiac herbs, and a
wealth of prehistoric erotic art to trace practices such as contraception, homosexuality, transsexuality, prostitution, sadomasochism, and bestiality back to their ancient origins. He makes the startling claim that although humans have used contraceptives from the very earliest times to separate sex from reproduction, techniques to maximize population growth were developed only when farming began--a revolution involving control of animals' sex lives, widespread oppression of women, and an attitude to nature that continues to have devastating ecological consequences. He draws the radical conclusion that the
evolution of our species has been shaped not only by the survival of the fittest but by the very sexual choices our ancestors made. And he links ancient sexuality with our own in a contemporary survey of artificial insemination, surrogate pregnancies, drag queens, brothels, pornography, and the spectre of racial dominance.

How has human sexuality changed--and how has it remained the same--over the span of millions of years? How did the ideas of eroticism, ecstasy, immortality, and beauty become linked to sex? Taylor explores these questions and sets out to prove that our sexual behavior is and has always been a matter
of choice rather than something genetically determined.  He eloquently and accessibly explains how our sexual politics--issues of gender and power,
control and exploitation--are not new but are deeply rooted in our prehistory.


Surely one of the most illuminating and controversial books on human sexuality ever written, The Prehistory of Sex invites readers to become voyeurs into the bizarre--and so far hidden--prehistoric sexual world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #759365 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-01
• Released on: 1997-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Taylor, a British archeologist, taps archeological evidence (reproduced in some 50 photographs) that is virtually unknown outside specialist circles?graphic depictions of sex in prehistoric cultures: mammoth ivory phalluses, sculptures of women in childbirth, syphilitic skeletons, charred remains of aphrodisiac herbs. The result is a groundbreaking, riveting survey that strongly suggests that sex and love among prehistoric peoples was less bestial than is commonly assumed. He traces sexual inequality to the invention of farming in the Near East 10,000 years ago, where the availability of animal milk allowed women to raise many children, tying themselves to hearth and home. Disputing feminist claims that Neolithic figurines of the "Great Earth Mother" emerged from a prehistoric matriarchy, he argues that the clay figurines do not symbolize motherhood, but rather suggest that dominant males practiced polygyny. Surveying Eurasian erotic practice in areas ranging from the great city of Mohenjo-Daro in India circa 2000 B.C. to Iron Age Denmark, he documents tremendous variation in human sexuality?homosexuality, prostitution, male and female transvestitism, transsexuality, vigorous interest in contraception, sex as both acrobatic pastime and spiritual discipline?a diversity that went underground with the advent of Christian sexual attitudes.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Matters of sexual conduct are usually glossed over in popular accounts of archaeological discovery, but it is impossible to gain any deep understanding of a culture, no matter how ancient it is, without some grasp of its sexual practices and attitudes, a fact British archaeologist Taylor tackles head on. Young, hip, energetically articulate, and extremely knowledgeable, Taylor brings prehistoric society to life in his detailed and revelatory discussion of Stone Age sex. He quickly dispenses with old theories about our ancestors' ignorance of the connection between intercourse and pregnancy, presenting artifacts that support his claims that "most prehistoric communities were in control of their fertility and fully able to separate sex from reproduction." Taylor goes on to portray prehistoric family configurations, propose the origins for sexual inequality and prostitution, and discuss Stone Age taboos, sexual rituals, eroticism, and the long history of homosexuality, sadomasochism, and transsexuality. Simultaneously, Taylor's history shows us how similar we are to our ancestors and how different. Donna Seaman

From Kirkus Reviews
A chatty, erudite introduction to one of the least publicized areas of archaeology: the sexual practices and attitudes of our prehistoric ancestors. Taylor's background as a professor (Archaeology/Univ. of Bradford, England) and popularizer for British television serves him well. As he sifts through the archaeological record to reconstruct the sex lives of hominids, Ice Age hunter-gatherers, and Neolithic farmers, he consistently entertains while provoking thought. His crisp, witty style can be found in lines like, ``I do not believe that women built Stonehenge. . . . I believe that the making of Stonehenge was ordered by a man and that he was unhappy.'' The early chapters develop his thesis that sexual culture, including baby slings and contraception, was a shaping force in human evolution; the later chapters are a chronological, selective survey of Eurasian sexuality from Cro-Magnon to Roman times, capped with a loosely connected chapter on race. All the chapters are chockful of little-known facts (herbal ``morning after'' drugs; Siberian rock art showing a man on skis copulating with an elk) and acerbic rebuttals of other prehistorians' ideas. Taylor's opinions themselves are not always more credible than those he rebuts: His suggestion that language might have first been used to fake orgasm can hardly be supported or refuted by fossil evidence. Many of his claims show a nostalgic preference for the presumed sexual variety of prehistoric hunter-gatherers over the sexual repression he identifies with the agricultural revolution. And his conclusion--advocating breastfeeding and kilts over infant formula and pants--ends up sounding suspiciously trendy. But where else can you discover that pregnant mares' urine may have once been a form of transsexual hormone therapy? (photos, drawings, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

fantastic book for encouraging interest in the subject!
I found this book very enjoyable. There were some arguments and theories that I found questionable, but overall the book was a fantastic read. The author's style made it very easy and enjoyable to read. As I attempt to make the move from reading archeological and anthropological books in the classroom, to reading for them for pleasure, I found this book to be a great place to start.

An ultimately unsatisfying read
The 'prehistory' of sex is certainly a compelling subject, and one I was eager to learn more about, having just read a fascinating book on the same subject. But I was disappointed in this book both because it did not describe clearly enough the various stages in human evolution and because I felt that I actually learned little about the 'prehistory' of sex. I did, however, find a great deal of interesting information in the book, but so much of it was written from detached perspective that it lacked the immediacy and relevancy necessary for modern readers to connect with the topic. After reading it, I found myself wondering what the title actually meant, as the book theorizes about sexual practices and gender divisions throughout human evolution; isn't it more of a history, then, than a prehistory? And what would 'prehistory' mean? I finished the book without really understanding the author's primary goal or message.

Interesting ideas that fall flat
This is a book with many interesting ideas that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Let us begin with the claim that early human beings had thick body hair, and that clothing was "probably" invented very early, even before the use of fire. In The Wisdom of the Bones, Walker and Shipman say that at 1.6 million years, the homo erectus was probably active at mid-day, and had no thick body hair.

Page 34 says, "humans could never have been simply naked." Tell this to Australian aborigines, Amazonian Indians, Irian Dani, Orchid Island Yami, or any of the other people who remain in tropical environments (such as our species originated in) without a stitch of clothing.

Concerning hides that might have been used for clothing, in Making Silent Stones Speak, Schick and Toth say (p161), "in the very remote Stone Age past, our primary evidence for hide working comes from Lower Paleolithic sites in Europe, the earliest about 300,000 years ago."

As to language, The Wisdom of the Bones says "A series of careful analyses convinced Laitman that the earliest hominids, like the australopithecines and habilines, were anatomically unable to talk" (page 281). "True language seems to me to have been a very recent acquisition" (page 292).

A very nice point appears (p49) about the development of language and song. Robin Dunbar discusses this in Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language (p140): "the fact that music is located in the right hemisphere is one good reason why the alternative suggestion that language evolved from song cannot be wholly right. It's hard to see how something localized in the right hemisphere can produce something localized in the left hemisphere." I appreciate that Taylor said the two cannot be divorced, not that language evolved from song. This needs work, from both sides.

Page 76: "You cannot easily value what you have no words for." My foot. This statement goes against the whole Taoist philosophy, as well as other traditions. The highest of the ancient Jewish priests uttered the name of Jehovah (known only to them) once a year, drowned out by the clash of cymbals, allowing no words for god because they held him so priceless.

Taylor's refutation of Morgan's Aquatic Hypothesis hardly convinced me (The Scars of Evolution is noticeably missing from the bibliography). On page 35 he says the Aquatic Hypothesis would have ended in extinction from crocodiles. We're better off with tigers?

The identification of the, um, batons, erh, arrow straighteners, ahhh ritual objects (p128-9) is one of those things where the reader says, "It's so obvious, why hadn't I ever seen that before?" Also extremely well done is The Secret Art of Initiation.

Chapter 6 was disappointing. I found Taylor's outlook, looking back on the good old days of hunting and gathering, disdaining farming, too romantic for my tastes. On page 147-8 he claims farmers exploit, rather than trust the soil. I grew up hearing my mother's eye-witness accounts of how emotionally devastated Dust Bowl farmers were when the land failed in the 30s.

On page 152 Taylor say farmers lost detailed knowledge of plants, and then on page 222 says "knowledge of herbal birth control continued down to the very end of the medieval period." If Taylor hasn't noticed this contradiction, I will tactfully change the topic and ask, farmers deal with plants all the time; who said they know about only cultivated plants? One of the great herbal traditions is Chinese, certainly agricultural. Farmers here in Taiwan have detailed knowledge of the wild plants growing outside their fields. In our climate, that's a lot of varieties. Not just farmers: you often see city people out on weekends picking through the underbrush for edible plants and herbs.

Colin Tudge said "Britain retains less of its pristine forest than any other country in Europe...Britain's conservational record is possibly the worst in the world" (The Time Before History, p334-5). Friends who have been to England say there's no wilderness. Maybe Taylor says farmers don't know about wild plants because there aren't any left in England.

Sloppy logic on page 153: "It was for this purpose that fired pottery seems to have been invented." Fired pottery was invented. He probably meant, "It seems to have been for this purpose that fired pottery was invented."

I liked the observation (p154) that "men got involved in farming when animals became important," but now I'm wondering. China was clearly, beyond a doubt, patriarchal at the latest by say 2000 BC, but animals became important much later. They raised pigs and whatnot, but Chinese have always eaten primarily vegetable foods. Plowing was by manpower, done by the males (the Chinese character for 'power' is a pictograph of a plow; 'male' is a field and a plow). Wheelbarrows were used for bulk transport. The earliest plow animals and draft animals would probably have been about the Han dynasty (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD), pretty late.

We read about a female army of life-size terra cotta figures in China (page 205). I've followed Chinese archaeological finds for over 15 years; if such an army existed, I suspect I would have heard about it.

I'm still working on the sentence on page 228: "Different lengths and shapes are common to different people." Are they different or common? Slipshod writing.

The idea that warfare always has some racial component (page 246) is ridiculous. Were Roundheads and Cavaliers of different races? For this to hold water, Taylor had better come up with some fancy new definitions of either 'warfare' or 'race.' Also ridiculous is the idea of a slow differentiation of the hostile groups. Are Danes, Saxons, Angles, and Picts still differentiated in England? The evidence against this is overwhelming, including page 252, which cites Scythian and Thracian, or Celtic intermarriage.

All in all, this is an interesting, but lethally flawed book.