HUMANS: FROM THE BEGINNING – a full guide to human prehistory

In just a few years, our understanding of the human past has changed beyond recognition as new discoveries and advances in genetic techniques overturn long-held beliefs and make international news.

HUMANS: FROM THE BEGINNING is a clear and engaging guide to this new picture of the human story. Intended for the general reader, it draws on expert literature and the latest research. It presents an even-handed account of events from the first apes to the rise of the first cities and civilisations. We learn about early humans, the rise of Homo sapiens, the emergence of modern human behaviour, prehistoric art, early modern human migrations from Africa, the peopling of the world, and how farming and agriculture replaced hunter-gathering. Archaeological, fossil, genetic, and other lines of evidence are assembled to present a coherent picture of humanity’s past.

PART I: The Symbolic Ape
The hominins are a diverse lineage of bipedal primates that includes modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our extinct relatives. More than twenty species are recognised, including Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo erectus, the diminutive ‘hobbits’ (Homo floresiensis) from the Indonesian island of Flores, and the recently discovered Homo naledi. Many of these species were unknown before the 1990s. What do we know about the other hominin species and our even more distant primate ancestors? How did modern humans emerge, and why are we the only hominin species still existing?

PART II: Out of Africa
Modern humans are the only primates to have populated every continent on Earth, and did so in just a few tens of millennia. How and why was this diaspora so rapid? What happened to the earlier human species, some of which had migrated from Africa more than a million years earlier? During the Late Pleistocene, Earth experienced one of the largest mass extinctions since the demise of the dinosaurs. Were modern humans – now the only remaining hominin species – responsible?

PART III: The Neolithic Revolution
As the last Ice Age came to an end, a fundamentally new way of life emerged in many parts of the world. Archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe referred to the change as the Neolithic Revolution. Instead of hunting and foraging for food, humans began herding animals and growing crops. Food production enabled far larger populations to be supported, but how, why, and where did it arise? As farming spread, what was its impact on people who retained the hunter-gatherer lifestyle?

PART IV: Cities, States, and Empires
The Neolithic Revolution was followed by the Urban Revolution as the increasingly complex agricultural societies evolved into urban societies. The great early civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, and the New World emerged in regions that had been primary centres for the development of agriculture. These societies were remarkably similar to our own and subject to many of the same problems, including wars, climate change, and societal collapse. The most dramatic example was the Late Bronze Age collapse, which led to a multi-century breakdown of society across the whole of the eastern Mediterranean.

First published in 2014, HUMANS: FROM THE BEGINNING has been revised and updated, bringing it fully up to date with the latest developments.

HUMANS: FROM THE BEGINNING is written for the non-specialist, but it is sufficiently comprehensive and well-referenced to serve as an ideal ‘one-stop’ text not only for undergraduate students, but also for postgraduates, researchers, and other academics seeking to broaden their knowledge.