Lynne Kelly (1)

Read this if you want to learn how to write a full-blown book, but you have only that much pertinent material to share with your reader. Hint: quote till you drop.

I really enjoyed this book, although I found Dr. Kelly's confidence and hyperbolic language pretty offputting for a semi-academic work. Whatever. A theory that posits that humans across all of history are intelligent and value knowledge isn't going to get much complaint from me right now.

Easy, informative read. Piqued my interest enough to want to read her previous works...but not enough to practice what she preaches.

The thesis is that Stonehenge, the Nazca lines, the Easter Island moai, and many (most?) other early non-practical constructions are memory palaces. Surely true up to a degree, spatial arrangement of memory is intuitive, hardwired into human brains. But as is common with someone with a pet theory, overreaching seems inevitable. I read most of the book as a cautionary tale of pattern-matching confirmation bias. Good way to brush up on the current state of archaeology.