Prehistory: a contribution to the discussion

The two texts of Jens published on the ICC website have to be welcomed as an expression of and stimulant to a debate that has a long and noble history in the tradition of the workers' movement, the tradition of being "radical" and going to the root of our very existence, our very beginnings. This is not, or shouldn't be, an academic exercise but one that reinforces proletarian political and historical views against those of the bourgeoisie, and strengthens our perspective of communism. There are no "class lines" in this debate but the way we see "revolutions" in the past obviously weighs on whatever analysis we might have for the revolution of the future.

My contribution is a long text, not too boring I hope, and I want to look at several distinct areas, all of which I think tend to underline my opinion in this discussion in favour of the "long view" of prehistory, the antiquity of the beginnings of culture and solidarity before the existence of homo sapiens, indeed developing in embryonic form from the ape/homo transition. In order of sequence these areas are the book Blood Relations by Chris Knight; second, some scientific observations and discoveries; third, structuralism, shamanism and prehistoric art, and fourthly Lewis Henry Morgan and his contribution to the workers' movement. I apologise if I repeat myself from previous scribblings and the first issue I want to comment on is the analysis expressed in the book Blood Relations.