Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History Michael Baigent. Viking. 1998. 288pp. £15.99 (Hardback)

The main theme of this sober book is the origin of man and, more particularly, human civilisation: a subject which has intoxicated a number of populist writers in recent years. Less interested in the invisible footprints of the gods than the visible footprints of homo sapiens, Baigent’s book does not err by projecting some grand overall hypothesis and then seeking the ‘evidence’ to support it. He does something scientifically important and methodologically valid. He presents that hard evidence for the antiquity of humanity (among other things) which has gone the way of the silent martyr in order that orthodox theories might stand substantially unchallenged. This is a truly ‘paradigm-busting’ work, leaving the reader free to hypothesise for his or herself.
    Sober it is, but there is discernible in its cool erudition a controlled excitement which elicits a similar condition in the reader. Baigent is presenting us with a fresh array of windows for gazing into the very remote past. We learn that there are a large number of discoveries which have been ‘buried’ by those very persons whose job is to bring facts to light. The reality of a kind of conspiracy of scientific orthodoxy is made plain to the reader: evidence of human presence and ingenuity dating back hundreds of millions of years has been discarded. It would seem that misfits are as little appreciated in archaeology as in the playground. The first striking chapter, How Ancient is Humanity? concludes: “Perhaps humanity evolved very early and many times in the past, developed a culture, a civilisation, only to see it destroyed by some major incident. The most ancient writings which have been passed down to us record periodic destructions of humanity over long periods of time.”
    The book’s vista is breathtaking. We swiftly move from the foregoing discussion to anomalies in evolutionary theory, the possible survival of dinosaurs, the origin of civilisation, the demythologisation of the Atlantis story, re-dating scenarios for the Pyramids and Sphinx, an exciting discussion of Alchemy – in which occurs the splendid statement that “To put it bluntly, mystical philosophy frightens orthodox academics” – and on to a discussion of the evidence surrounding the possibility of reincarnation. The scope of Ancient Traces’ treatment and the seriousness of its subject-matter merit the widest attention. Here is an excellent basis for considering the ‘hidden mysteries of nature and science’ proper to the second degree and beyond. Baigent has the intellectual and intuitive power to wipe the smugness off the face of the contemporary know-all, sitting snugly in a filtrating tower, built to keep out discomfiting knowledge. My conclusion: we have an awful lot to learn and a measureless territory of reality to learn from; if we see so little, it is because we stand on the shoulders of pygmies.
    Tobias Churton