1st Edition

Weirding Civilization The Strange Foundations of the Modern World

By Vesa-Pekka Herva, Antti Lahelma Copyright 2025
290 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

290 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Weirding Civilization examines the irrational foundations of civilization, from the Bronze Age to the Anthropocene. Inspired by Twin Peaks and Lovecraftian horror, it reveals how weirdness – disorienting, monstrous, and ambivalent – has shaped human society since the rise of the first complex civilizations. Taking ‘weirding’ as its conceptual lens, the book examines hallmarks of... Read more

List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Origins and Origin Narratives; Chapter 3: Cities beneath the Surface; Chapter 4: Money, Metals and Treasures; Chapter 5: Otherworldly Writing and Communication;Chapter 6: Civilization and Its Monsters; Chapter 7: Concluding reflections; Bibliography; Index.

Biography

Vesa-Pekka Herva is a professor of archaeology at the University of Oulu, Finland. He has studied the Aegean Bronze Age and European northern worlds from the Neolithic to the present. His research interests encompass cosmologies, human-environment relations, cultural heritage, and classical Graeco-Roman traditions.

Antti Lahelma is a university lecturer of archaeology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research focuses on prehistoric rock art, identity, and worldview, particularly in the northern circumpolar region, and he has also worked extensively on the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. He has previously authored together with Vesa-Pekka Herva a book titled Northern Archaeology and Cosmology: A Relational View (Routledge, 2020).