David Wengrow

Next on my reading list. As in: today. Now.

Seeds of another world The nexus of radical inequality, social atomization and male victimhood has been exploited before. But why now, on such a scale? To understand the appeal of the far right today we need to examine the...

‘To understand the appeal of the far right today we need to examine the origins of the fascist myth of primordial male kinship.’ @davidwengrow.bsky.social on excellent form here. www.eurozine.com/seeds-of-ano...

Good article. Also a great cautionary tale about what happens when you build stories that leave half the population (women) out of the picture.

On far-right attempts to repurpose the past - an important (and timely!) piece by @davidwengrow.bsky.social

'What if, for once, we could bring ourselves to look this history of the nation in the eye? Could we discover something about the beginnings of the path we now find ourselves on again, or even how to get off it and learn to speak a different language of human politics, before it’s too late?"

Excellent article from David Wengrow. Given how much the far right and white supremacists have co-opted history and prehistory, as well as "race science", this should be required reading for anyone interested in how we combat fascism seeping its vile way into perceptions of the archaeological past.

I really enjoyed this. Made me wonder about the link between fascism and systems of monogamy (than centre on ideas of woman as other).

Seeds of another world The nexus of radical inequality, social atomization and male victimhood has been exploited before. But why now, on such a scale? To understand the appeal of the far-right today we need to examine the...

To understand the appeal of the far-right today we need to examine the origins of the fascist myth of primordial male kinship.
New essay, out today @eurozine.bsky.social
www.eurozine.com/seeds-of-ano...

Anthropologie: Der Keim einer anderen Welt Der archaische Männerbund als Ursprung politischer Gemeinschaften und der Freiheit? Bei seiner Rede an den Wiener Festwochen widmet sich der Anthropologe David Wengrow einem obskuren Narrativ, das heute ein Revival erfährt.

Besessen von Kameradschaft, Loyalität, Gewalt und Tod: Über das sich hartnäckig haltende Bild von archaischen Männerbünden.

Ein Vortrag von @davidwengrow.bsky.social, Professor der Archäologie und Bestsellerautor

www.woz.ch/2526/anth...

Hunger That Defeats Language “The hunger I’m experiencing now is not what I imagined. It’s not what you imagine, dear reader. It’s not just an empty feeling in your stomach. It’s a numbness that s…

Since this was published, another month passed.
arablit.org/2025/05/30/h...

The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber | Antiquity | Cambridge Core The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber - Volume 99 Issue 405

Who was NG10 and what was the world they lived in? The sister paper to our CAJ paper is now out in Antiquity and the cover image no less! Working on these papers with this group, has been one of the richest academic experiences I have had in my career. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Out-of-Anatolia: Cultural and genetic interactions during the Neolithic expansion in the Aegean West Anatolia has been a crucial yet elusive element in the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent to Europe. In this work, we describe the changing genetic and cultural landscapes of early Hol...

We also published a second paper on the spread of farming from Anatolia into SE Europe. Our results challenge the assumption that cultural entities frequently correspond to genetically homogeneous populations. Pots don’t equal people! 🏺
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük Combining 131 paleogenomes with bioarchaeological and archaeological data, we studied social organization and gendered practices in Çatalhöyük East Mound (7100 to 5950 BCE), a major Neolithic settleme...

This paper has been in the works for many years and today it's finally out!
"Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük" 🏺
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This, from “Science” magazine yesterday, by the excellent B. Arbuckle - human history is actually changing before our eyes.

An archeological revolution transforms our image of human freedoms | Aeon Essays A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations and the scope of human freedoms

Fascinated by the alternative view on our (human) history that @davidwengrow.bsky.social provides in this essay aeon.co/essays/an-ar...
Why are we (collectively) so fascinated by Empires instead of all the other possible ways of living?

Stone Age farmers’ households passed from mother to daughter Moms and daughters were at the center of the family in ancient Çatalhöyük, ancient DNA and archaeological evidence suggest

The nature of Neolithic society is one of the most debated topics in archaeology–a debate that's almost impossible to settle w/ conventional methods alone. Now, new DNA data from a site in Turkey called Çatalhöyük points to a significant role for women: www.science.org/content/arti... @science.org

No, we in fact, do not.

This is an argument from human nature on the necessity of boot licking.

I recommend The Dawn of Everything by Wengrow & Graeber.

Now this looks intriguing.

Compare today’s story @theguardian.com and yesterday’s story in #TheDawnOfEverything
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Rereading/relistening to @davidwengrow.bsky.social & David Graeber’s THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING. If you believe we do not need to live as we do, here’s the book that proves it.

Don’t fear the bulk or the language if you’re not used to them. Your mind evolved from millennia of thinkers, you’ve got this.

Understanding Early Large-Scale Collectives: A Global Perspective This volume brings together perspectives from different parts of the world that showcase the wide variety of practices, institutions, and ideologies that allowed for shared identities and coordinated ...

This edited volume represents a serious effort to rethink basic categories of human political development, based on new archaeological data from across the world. Thanks to Justin Jennings for inviting me to write a preface (in which I note a debt to Carole Crumley)
www.routledge.com/9781032856926

Korean edition just arrived and is absurdly beautiful. I love the toppled crown floating through the void … leading nowhere. #TheDawnOfEverything

Are we hardwired to fall for autocrats? It’s human nature to trust strongmen, but we’ve also evolved the tools to resist them

I'm sorry, I don't buy this. David Graeber and David Wengrow effectively demonstrated the myriad ways societies could organise in early human history. The point about autocrats is not that we are hardwired to follow them but they employ systems of coercion. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Amazing how brave these students are

With Peter Linebaugh and Robin Kelley yesterday at the international conference, "The Many-Headed Hydra Twenty-Five Years Later,” being held in Pittsburgh.

It was a great privilege for me to share a stage with Adam Michnik in Bucharest this evening, on the eve of the Romanian elections.
unfinisheddemocracy.org

Ukrainian History Global Initiative Ukrainian history is central to global history, to an extent that can be hard to bear and hard to acknowledge

I’m very pleased to be serving on the international advisory council of this important, ambitious, and highly original experiment in the re-making of global history:
uhgi.org

This is big. Congratulations @davidwengrow.bsky.social and 🤍gratitude also to David Graeber for his tireless work in this space.

I miss the ‘simple times’ back in the day when I followed both of you on twitter when you were still writing this. .. and the world, more than ever needs its message.

UCL archaeologist wins one of China’s highest literature awards World-renowned archaeologist, Professor David Wengrow, has received the prestigious 2025 Wenjin Book Award, for his international best-seller ‘The Dawn of Everything’, about the origins of human civil...

Massive congrats to Prof David Wengrow @davidwengrow.bsky.social

"World-renowned archaeologist...has received the prestigious 2025 Wenjin Book Award for his international best-seller ‘The Dawn of Everything’ about the origins of human civilisation.

📲 www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/ap...

#LocalAndGlobal

For my friend (the 20th Wenjin Book Prize)