Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction

Prehistory covers the period of some four million years before the start of written history, when our earliest ancestors, the Australopithecines, existed in Africa. Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction invites us to think about who we are by considering who we have been. There have been many archaeological discoveries over the last ten years, with a new framework for prehistory emerging. Greater understanding of Chinese and central Asian prehistory shows Eurasian prehistory in a different light, changing the traditional view of human progress around the invention of agriculture and development of cities. This VSI explores the new landscape of our prehistory, considering the way the different geographical locations weave together.