Discipline

Archaeology

Lessons across the journey that lean on archaeology, in the order they appear in the story.

1. 6.1
   Primates and hominins

   The family tree from the first primates to the hominins.

   Draft
2. 6.2
   From habilis to sapiens

   Homo habilis, Homo erectus and the arrival of our species.

   Draft
3. 6.3
   Fire, tools and cooking

   Stone tools, controlled fire and the cooking hypothesis.

   Planned
4. 6.4
   Language and symbolic thought

   The evidence for language and the first art.

   Planned
5. 6.5
   Collective learning

   Why humans, alone among species, accumulate knowledge across generations.

   Planned
6. 6.6
   Out of Africa, into India

   The peopling of the world, including the early routes into the subcontinent.

   Planned
7. 6.7
   Foraging lifeways

   How people lived for most of human history.

   Planned
8. 7.1
   Why farm?

   Climate, population and the Holocene: why farming began where and when it did.

   Draft
9. 7.2
   Domestication

   How wheat, rice, cattle and dogs were remade by people, and people by them.

   Planned
10. 7.3
    Villages to cities

    Surplus, hierarchy, writing and the first states.

    Draft
11. 7.4
    The Indus Valley civilisation

    Cities, water engineering and a script still unread.

    Planned
12. 7.5
    The price of farming

    Disease, inequality and shorter lives: what agriculture cost.

    Planned