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Ok, so what John Banks said was awful. I’ve heard it from my own biological father and it messed with me for a minute but I have some things to say as a baby archaeologist about folks flipping the “Stone Age” insult onto him. 1/6
Cultural change is not linear, and is not a reflection of some kind of evolution and improvement, making the previous tech used by the population inferior. Some groups might use stone-based tech (the jargon word for this is lithics) and others might use metal-based tech! 2/6
The derision and prejudice associated with calling something stone age is colonial af, because Europeans saw their own ancestors using stone-based tech and used that to say that their present culture was so much more “advanced”, and then compared every other culture to this 3/6
Kind of cultural change to say other groups were inferior. This is a foundational component of white supremacy. 4/6
By attributing stone-based tech with a lack of intelligence and regressive values does a disservice to our own and other contemporary cultures around the world who do use lithics and are most definitely not inferior. 5/6
So what that racist said on the radio was hella wrong, embedded in long-lived racist ideologies, and also not how genetics work goddamnit. Let’s just not reinforce the colonial and racist framing he has of other peoples’ cultures 6/6
