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A review by timoneill
The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly
4.0
I was initially wary due to the schlock "Holy Blood Holy Grail"/"Hidden Secrets of X" style title, but after hearing an extended interview with Dr. Kelly It seemed she was onto something. The first half on the "system of loci" mnemonic techniques and how it's used by pre-literate cultures to encode huge amounts of information was fascinating, especially how this is key to understanding Australian Aboriginal songlines, dreamings and art.
The book does lose something when this is applied to other prehistoric sites like Stonehenge, largely because the connection between the memory systems and the archaeology becomes more speculative and sometimes a bit tenuous. This means the last half of the book becomes a little repetitive. Overall it's worth it for the insight that "prehistoric" and "preliterate" do no mean "stupid".
An appendix detailing how the "system of loci" works and how it can be used to remember large amounts of information would have been good as well. I've found Sjur Midtunn's "How to Build a Mnemonics Memory Palace" provides a good introductory how-to on the techniques Kelly refers to.
The book does lose something when this is applied to other prehistoric sites like Stonehenge, largely because the connection between the memory systems and the archaeology becomes more speculative and sometimes a bit tenuous. This means the last half of the book becomes a little repetitive. Overall it's worth it for the insight that "prehistoric" and "preliterate" do no mean "stupid".
An appendix detailing how the "system of loci" works and how it can be used to remember large amounts of information would have been good as well. I've found Sjur Midtunn's "How to Build a Mnemonics Memory Palace" provides a good introductory how-to on the techniques Kelly refers to.