A brief and original prehistory of the world Prehistory covers human existence before written records, i.e. most of human existence. But it also refers to the discipline through which we scrutinize prehistoric times. PREHISTORY begins by looking at the discovery of a remote human past and the subsequent dramatic growth of the study of prehistory: early archaeology; geology; Darwin's ideas of evolution; cave paintings; fossil discoveries of human ancestors; museums and collections; radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis. Renfrew challenges the conventional assumption of an all-important 'human revolution' 40,000 years ago - when Homo Sapiens first appeared in Europe - and suggests that the key developments were much later. The author's case-studies range widely, from Orkney to the Balkans, from the Indus Valley to Peru, from Ireland to China, and provide fresh insights on landmark monuments such as the Egyptian pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, Stonehenge and the sacrificial burial pyramids at Teotihuacan in Mexico. The book closes with a fascinating chapter on the transition from Prehistory to History, on early writing systems.
About the Author
Colin Renfrew is Disney Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and former Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He is the author and editor of many books. Paul Bahn is a prehistorian and archaeological writer, and the author and editor of numerous books, including the standard introduction to cave art, Images of the Ice Age, and the Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology. Elizabeth DeMarrais is Associate Professor in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches archaeological theory and the archaeology of the Americas. She has done fieldwork in Northwest Argentina, Cape Cod, Maui (Hawai‘i), and the American Southwest, and is widely published.
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