Here is a new, fourth edition of this authoritative introductory survey of world prehistory, spanning the past 3,000,000 years and written by a team of twenty-four expert authors. This edition has been radically updated to be more thematic and accessible: chapters are connected by new key themes boxes (climate change, domestication, migration, social inequality and urbanism), which link global regions and encourage big-picture thinking. The text has been streamlined and the book's design comp...

Why does archaeology matter? How does studying prehistory help us understand climate change? How can archaeological discoveries challenge contemporary assumptions about gender? How has archaeology been used and misused to support political and nationalist agendas - and how can it help build a more diverse and inclusive picture of our world by examining the people left out of written history? Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani address these and other questions, exploring how archaeology's long-term...

New to this Edition * Updated treatment of postcolonial approaches and indigenous archaeology, with coverage of the ontological turn in archaeology, and new examples of community archaeology in southern Africa and Australia. * New discoveries and research across the globe, such as archaeological evidence of social hierarchies at the ancient city of Liangzhu, China, and recent evidence of Neanderthal art in France and Spain. * A more inclusive picture of archaeology, raising the profile of wom...