Not only did Europe steal the resources to create the material wealth of the Renaissance but key political concepts borrowed from Turtle Island/North America ignited the French Enlightenment and created democratic consensus politics as we know it.

#theDawnofEverything

#DavidGraeber, an American #anthropologist and #anarchist activist, was born on #ThisDayInHistory in 1961. He studied under #MarshallSahlins, helped drive the #OccupyWallStreet movement, and wrote important and influential books like #TheDawnOfEverything, #BullshitJobs, & #Debt.

Just finished reading “The Dawn of Everything” by the Davids Graeber and Wengrow (may David Graeber rest in peace). I loved all the examples given, from the Wendat to Çatalhöyuk, but I’m a bit disappointed that there’s no proposed alternative.

(1/2)

#TheDawnOfEverything
@davidwengrow.bsky.social

Rousseau was wrong? We didn't evolve from simple to complex. We got stuck. 🏛️🔥 We expose #TheDawnOfEverything: how #Kandiaronk and the #IndigenousCritique sparked the Enlightenment. Why did we lose the freedom to say "no"? #TechTakedown.

🎧 LISTEN NOW 👇
open.spotify.com/episode/59LS...

J.I. Staley Prize - School for Advanced Research

At today’s plenary of the American Anthropological Association #TheDawnOfEverything was awarded the Staley Prize for ‘outstanding scholarship’ by the School for Advanced Research🙏

It would have meant so much to David Graeber, as it does to me
sarweb.org/awards/j-i-s...

This was a fascinating look at different ways that societies developed across the world and how we can reinvention the role of it. I found it so interesting.

#TheDawnOfEverything #DavidGraeber #DavidWengrow #BookReview

#TheDawnofEverything by the davids

Diving into #TheDawnOfEverything by #DavidGraeber and #DavidWengrow

I am enjoying this book. It is a detailed guide to ancient history and civilizations. At one point the author says of a unique ancient people group, “We don’t know, maybe they were just odd.” 😁 (Humans have always been odd, I guess.) #booksky #thedawnofeverything

The book "Sapiens" on the left and the book "The Dawn of Everything" on the right.

Glad to be reading two books with one on the left as a summary for @AmyIsCoolz 😊

Ukrainian edition on the way ✊🏻
#TheDawnOfEverything
#DavidGraeber

DNA from Prehistoric Proto-City Reveals 'Surprising' Signs of Female-Centered Society An unprecedented study reveals maternal lineages, female-centered practices, and a “surprising shift” in a 9,000-year-old settlement associated with a goddess cult.

strong Graeber & Wengrow vibes here:

www.404media.co/dna-from-pre...

#thedawnofeverything

Radical Anthropology (@RadicalAnthro@c.im) In 'Before The Dawn of Everything', archaeologist #IanWatts questions Graeber and Wengrow's premise that searching for original human society 'can only be a matter of myth-making'. He argues, for Graeber and Wengrow, a ‘single human “us” can only be inferred from ~30,000 years ago'. The actual stretch of time when we became all-singing, all-dancing, language-speaking symbolic culture-bearing humans -- in Africa-- is abandoned as unknowable. The latest archaeological findings and their interpretation suggest pan-African habitual performance of collective ritual, with a uniform signature of red cosmetic usage, from ~160,000 years ago around the end of speciation, grounding symbolic culture’s first shared imaginaries. While #TheDawnofEverything was clearly intended to be collectively empowering, it marginalises evolutionary theory, the archaeology of our speciation and African hunter-gatherer ethnography. Thereby, it resembles the decried ‘sapient paradox’! That is the fairly racist (!) idea that we got human bodies in Africa but had to reach Europe to show intelligence (or interesting archaeology!) #archaeology #humanorigins #Africa #MiddleStoneAge #sapientparadox https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hgr.2022.3

@ochrewatts

Here is a link for Ian's piece in our special issue on #TheDawnofEverything

https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/113324013116547825

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

"I'm sure you understand what prehistory is. It's rather like prewater, and you all know what that is, don't you? Prewater is the stuff fish lived in before there was water, and prehistory is the period people lived in before there was history."
– #DanielQuinn, The Story of B

👀 #TheDawnofEverything

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

第二十届文津图书揭晓

I’m thrilled to announce that #TheDawnofEverything has won the prestigious 20th Wenjin Book Prize, awarded by the National Library of China. Congratulations to David Graeber!

mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XkXrhR7b4L...

Very nice indeed to see colleagues coming around to some of the broad points in #TheDawnOfEverything - even if the methods used are questionable. (House size = inequality is a pretty flimsy argument, as I explain here:
www.stone-econ.org/news-and-blo...)

Девід Венґров: «Питання витоків демократії спонукали мене вивчати трипільські мегапоселення» Девід Венґров — британський археолог, професор компаративної археології в University College London. Поле його досліджень — неолітичні спільноти і протоміста. У 2021 році разом з колегою Девідом Гребе...

With best Easter wishes to Ukrainian readers of #TheDawnOfEverything

lb.ua/culture/2025...

#TheDawnofEverything

As someone with a chronic case of the #WorldBuilding bug, books like my latest read #TheDawnOfEverything are my bread and butter. If you want to make a world, you’ve got have at least an inkling of how this one works and my particular poison is ancient cultures and mythology. [1/7]

Book #4 for my 2025 #BookJourney is complete! This one was a bit hefty but #TheDawnOfEverything is a great read, taking a look at the development of different societies pre & post agriculture with an emphasis on the social hierarchy / how egalitarian these societies were. #History #PreHistory

The African Revolution A panoramic global history of Africa in the age of imperialism

Who else is reading this? I need to hear from you. 100 pages in and I am really hooked.

There is something here connecting in a mycelial fashion to #TheDawnofEverything by @davidwengrow.bsky.social and Graeber, but obviously Africocentric.

Liverpool University Press

#ChrisKnight's paper here from our Hunter Gatherer Research special issue on #TheDawnofEverything

liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

An earlier thread on Chris Knight's paper here in our Hunter Gatherer Research issue on #TheDawnofEverything

https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/113324084751900183

200+ pages in, and definitely becoming one of my favorite books. Helps to reinvigorate my drive to live in community with people. Adds context and nuance to histories and cultural and mental frameworks where it had previously been lacking. #thedawnofeverything #booksky #davidgraeber #anthropology

Screecap from social media known before as Twitter - prof Wengrow about sequel to #TheDawnOfEverything called #TheThirdFreedom

Have you heard that @davidwengrow.bsky.social is currently writing the sequel for #TheDawnOfEverything and that it is titled #TheThirdFreedom ?

Excited to learn there will be a second #TheDawnOfEverything book. The first has had major impact on the fiction I’m writing & my thought overall.

Every so often a colleague writes to tell me #TheDawnOfEverything is now a core teaching text for students taking archaeology/anthropology - even entire courses designed around the book. A great legacy for David Graeber: he’d have been so pleased!

Just finished #TheDawnofEverything. (Graeber and
@davidwengrow.bsky.social)

"...Mass enslavement, genocide, prison camps, even patriarchy or regimes of wage labor never had to happen.... Even now, the possibilities for human intervention are far greater than we're inclined to think." (524)