About this item
Groundbreaking anthropologist and memory champion Lynne Kelly reveals how we can use ancient and traditional mnemonic methods to enhance and expand our memory.Our brain is a muscle. Like our bodies, it needs exercise. In the last few hundred years, we have stopped training our memories and we have lost the ability to memorize large amounts of information -- something our ancestors could do with ease.After discovering that the true purpose of monuments like Easter Island and Stonehenge were to act as memory palaces, Kelly takes this knowledge and introduces us to the best memory techniques humans have ever devised, from ancient times and the Middle Ages to methods used by today's memory athletes. A memory champion herself, Kelly tests all these methods and demonstrate the extraordinary capacity of our brains at any age.
About the Author
I am a science writer fascinated by just how much the human brain can memorise - and it's a huge amount if you know the methods. My most recent book, 'Memory Craft', is the result of years of experimenting with a vast range of memory techniques and the way you can implement them in contemporary life to memorise almost anything and keep your brain active.My PhD explored the way indigenous cultures encode knowledge without writing, especially the pragmatic stuff - animals, plants, medical knowledge including a pharmacopoeia, laws, navigation, genealogy, history, land and resource rights plus all sorts of ethical metaphors. I then realised that this understanding offered a new theory on the purpose of Stonehenge and many other archaeological sites.'The Memory Code' tells the story of these extraordinary memory methods for the non-academic reader. The memory methods draw from Australian, Native American, Pacific and African cultures. The new theory explains the pragmatic purpose of Stonehenge and Avebury in England, Orkney in Scotland, Carnac in France and Newgrange in Ireland, Chaco Canyon in the US, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Nasca Lines in Peru among many others.Cambridge University Press has published the academic version, "Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies" giving a solid peer-reviewed academic reasoning for my ideas. Writing dominates my life. I started with educational books - 10 of them - logical because I was a teacher. I wrote a novel, "Avenging Janie" and then three popular science books published in Australia, the US and UK: "The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal", "Crocodile: evolution's greatest survivor", and "Spiders: learning to love them". I overcame my arachnophobia a bit too well and now I am obsessed by spiders. I simply adore the gorgeous critters.But it will be memory systems which will dominate my writing for many years to come. I simply love the stuff!
