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Ancient Lives is an engaging and accessible textbook that introduces complete beginners to the fascinating worlds of archaeology and prehistory through sites of key significance and the world's first civilizations.
Opening with an introduction to the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of archaeology, the book then provides a summary of world prehistory from a global perspective, exploring human origins and the reality of life in the prehistoric world. Later chapters explore the development of agriculture and animal domestication, and the emergence of cities and state-level societies across the globe. The new edition updates and reflects the latest thinking through numerous updates of case studies, discoveries, and advances in methods and theory. As well as comprehensive revisions throughout the book, new sections on the relevance of archaeology to contemporary society and issues are included.
Ancient Lives continues to be a comprehensive and essential introduction to archaeology and is an ideal textbook for students studying archaeology and prehistory for the first time
List of contents
PART I Archaeology: Studying Ancient Times 1. Introducing Archaeology and Prehistory 2. The Record of the Past 3. Acquiring the Record 4. How Did People Live? PART II Ancient Interactions 5. Individuals and Interactions 6. Studying the Intangible 7. Explaining the Past PART III The World of the First Humans 8. Human Origins 9. African Exodus PART IV Modern Humans Settle the World 10. The Great Diaspora PART V The First Farmers and Civilizations 11. The Earliest Farmers 12. The First Civilizations 13. Early Asian Civilizations PART VI Ancient America 14. North America 15. Mesoamerican Civilizations 16. Andean Civilizations PART VII Finale 17. What remains to be done: Archaeology and You
About the author
Nadia Durrani is the author of multiple archaeological books including
Climate Chaos (2021) with Brian Fagan. She studied anthropology at Cambridge University and has a PhD in archaeology from University College London, UK.
Brian M. Fagan is one of the world's leading archaeological writers and an internationally recognized authority on world prehistory. He is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
