Seven Ages of the Body

This new video from Cambridge University, featuring archaeologist John Robb, gives you a quick and visually appealing introduction to how humans have understood something we take for granted – our own bodies. Covering 10,000 years in six minutes, Robb takes us from the “Animal Body” and “Sexualized Body” of the Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages, to the “Politicized Body” of the Classical Age, “God’s Body” of the Middle Ages, and finally “The Body as Machine,” the metaphor we have been living with since 1500. And we wrap up with the “Body Digital,” the body of the future, and “Multiple Bodies.” This video comes from the Cambridge Ideas series available on Cambridge’s YouTube channel.