The Guinness Book of Records 2022 edition has been published these days, but also another book of records, which compared to Guinness has the advantage of being discursive and readable, rather than simply consultable. It is about Eureka! Adventurous story of the discoveries, inventions and first times that changed humanity and it has a peculiarity: it does not tell the inventions of recent history, such as the internet or the plane, and not even the now classic ones, such as Leonardo’s machines or Archimedes’ burning mirrors, but the innovations of Prehistory, such as arrows or the wheel . As the subtitle says, in addition to the discoveries and inventions, many other “firsts” are told, perhaps not commendable, such as the first documented crime in history (other than that of the man of Similaun). We hardly ever know the names of the protagonists of the many stories told – with the exception of one, as we will say shortly – but we arrive at such precise identikits that the detail of the name becomes almost superfluous.
We point out two peculiarities: many of the discoveries and inventions are attributed not to men but to women, and this not to give pink shares, but on the basis of heaps of documentary evidence; secondly, the research in this book is amazingly detailed: for example, the murder of Similaun is reconstructed and described with such a definition of detail that it is as if it happened today before our eyes, and the killer is identifiable in everything except in the name.
Among other things we come to discover where and with which techniques the first head surgery was performed (7 thousand years ago), who first mounted a horse, who fermented and drank the first beer and who ate the first oyster . “He was truly a daring one who first ate an oyster,” wrote Jonathan Swift (but apparently it was actually a she). The oldest discovery cited is that of fire: it dates back to almost 2 million years ago, and together with another archaic innovation, that is, the sling to keep babies fastened to mothers’ chests, was so fundamental as to influence evolution. human, changing our physiology and our morphology.
We said a little while ago that we know the name of one, only one, of the pioneers we are going to discover: his name was Kushim, he lived in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, and was an accountant by trade; he was the first who thought of signing the documents he engraved on the clay tablets, and this found makes him also the first human being ever whose name has been preserved. And since Prehistory is everything that precedes writing, while History is everything that comes after, Kushim sits on the crest.
Cody Cassidy, Eureka! Adventurous story of the discoveries, inventions and first times that changed humanity, the Assayer, 254 pages, 19 euros