Stefanos Geroulanos

"Prehistory is an epistemology of the earth. Nothing in the sciences of prehistory would have happened without the geological revolution of the early 19th century—think of the discoveries of fossils and tools and, later, cave paintings. Such discoveries gave depth and breadth to the earth itself and infused it with new meanings."

"...Europeans also imagined—and many still imagine—non-Europeans as a persistent subhuman, natural threat, such as a flood, ready to repeat the “barbarian invasions.”"

"To understand who we are, we need to de-dramatize the distant past, study it without drawing grand conclusions, respect science as a human effort but also not to expect it to solve all problems, and look at the societies we live in—the worlds we make and fail to make. Other than some critical resources and more illusions, the deep past offers us very little on these questions."