| Formatted contents note |
Pt. 1. The beginning -- <br/>Ch. 1. The birth of history. Global warming, archaeological evidence and human history -- <br/>Ch. 2. The world at 20,000 BC. Human evolution, the causes of climate change and radiocarbon dating -- <br/>Pt. 2. Western Asia -- <br/>Ch. 3. Fires and flowers. Hunter-gatherers and the forest steppe, 20,000-12,300 BC -- <br/>Ch. 4. Village life in the Oak Wooland. Early natufian hunter-gatherer communities, 12,300-10,800 BC -- <br/>Ch. 5. On the banks of the Euphrates . Abu Hureyra and the rise of hunter-gatherer sedentism, 12,300-10,800 BC --<br/>Ch. 6. One thousand years of drought. Economy and society during the Younger Dryas, 10,800-9600 BC --<br/>Ch. 7. The founding of Jericho. Neolithic architecture, burial and technology of the Jordan valley, 9600-8500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 8. Pictograms and pillars. Neolithic ideology, symbolism and trade, 9600-8500BC -- <br/>Ch. 9. In the valley of Ravens. Architecture, textiles and animal domestication, 8500-7500BC -- <br/>Ch. 10. The town of ghosts. Ritual, religion and economic collapse, 7500-6300BC -- <br/>Ch. 11. Heaven and hell at Çatalhöyük. Florescence of the Neolithic in Turkey, 9000-7000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 12. Three days on Cyprus. Extinctions, colonization and cultural stasis, 20,000-6000BC -- <br/>Pt. 2. Europe -- <br/>Ch. 13. Pioneers in northern lands. The recolonisation of northwest Europe, 20,000-12,700 BC -- <br/>Ch. 14. With reindeer hunters. Economy, technology and society, 12,700-9600 BC -- <br/>Ch. 15. At star carr. Adaptions to early Holocene woodland in the northern Europe, 9600-8500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 16. Last of the cave painters. Economic, social and cultural change in southern Europe, 9600-8500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 17. Coastal catastrophe. Sea-level change and its consequences, 10,500-6400 BC -- <br/>Ch. 18. Two villages in Southeast Europe. Sedentary hunter-gatherer and immigrant farmers, 6500-6200 BC -- <br/>Ch. 19. Island to the Dead. Mesolithic burial and society in the northern Europe, 6200-5000 BC --<br/>Ch. 20. At the frontier. The spread of farming in Central Europe and the impact on Mesolithic society, 6000-4400 BC -- <br/>Ch. 21. A Mesolithic legacy. The Neolithic in southern Europe, 6000-4000 BC; debates in historical linguistics and genetics -- <br/>Ch. 22. A Scottish envoi. Colonisation, Mesolithic lifesyles and the transition to the Neolithic in western Scotland, 20,000-4300 BC -- <br/>Pt. 3. The Americas -- <br/>Ch. 23. Searching for the first Americans. The discovery of ice-age settlement. AD 1927-1994 -- <br/>Ch. 24. American past and present. Dental, linguistic, genetic, and skeletal evidence for the peopling of the Americas -- <br/>Ch. 25. On the banks of Chinchihuapi. Excavation and interpretation of Monte Verde, AD 1977-1997, 12,500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 26. Explorers in a restless landscape. North American fauna, landscape evolution and human colonization -- <br/>Ch. 27. Clovis hunters on trial. Extinction of the mega-fauna and Clovis lifestyles, 11,500-10,000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 28. Virginity reconsidered. Hunter-gatherers of Tierra del Fuego and in the Amazon, 11,500-6000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 29. Herders and the 'Christ-Child'. Animal and plant domestication in the Andes, and coastal foragers, 10,500-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 30. A double-take in the Oaxaca Valley. The domestication of maize, squash and beans in Mexico, 10,500-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 31. To Koster. Hunter-gatherer lifestyles in North America, 7000-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 32. Salmon fishing and the gift of history. Complex hunter-gatherers of the northwest coast, 6000-5000 BC -- <br/>Pt. 4. Grater Australia and the East Asia -- <br/>Ch. 33. A lost world revealed. Tasmanian hunter-gatherers, 20,000-6000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 34. Body sculpture at kow swamp. Burial and society in Southeast Australia, 14,000-6000 BC, and mega-faunal extinctions -- <br/>Ch. 35. Across the arid zone. Hunter-gatherer adaptations to the Central Australia Desert, 30,000 BC-AD 1966 --<br/>Ch. 36. Fighting men and a serpents birth. Art, society and ideology in northern Australia, 13,000-6000 BC --<br/>Ch. 37. Pigs and gardens in the highlands. The development of tropical horticulture in highland New Guinea, 20,000-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 38. Lonesome in Sundaland. Hunter-gatherers in the Southeast Asian tropical rainforest, 20,000-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 39. Down the Yangtze. The origin of rice farming, 11,500-6500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 40. With the Jomon. Complex hunter-gatherers in Japan and the earliest pottery, 14,500-6000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 41. Summer in the Artic. The mammoth steppe and colonization of the High Arctic, 19,000-6500 BC -- <br/>Pt. 5. South Asia -- <br/>Ch. 42. A passage through India. Indian rock art and village on the Ganges Plain, 20,000-8500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 43. A long walk across the Hindu Kush. Early farming in South and Central Asia; the domestication of cotton, 7500-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 44. Vultures of the Zagros. The roots of Mesopotamian civilization, 11,000-9000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 45. Approaching civilization in Mesopotamia. The development of town and trade, 8500-6000 BC -- <br/>Pt. 6. Africa -- <br/>Ch. 46. Baked fish by the Nile. Hunter-gatherers of North Africa and the Nile valley, 20,000-11,000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 47. On Lukenya hill. The development of East African landscapes and faunas after 20,000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 48. Frogs' legs and ostrich eggs. Hunter-gathered of the Kalahari desert, 12,500 BC -- <br/>Ch. 49. A South African tour. Changing environments, diet and social life, 12,500-7000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 50. Thunderbolts in the Tropics. Hunter-gatherers in Central and West African; environmental change in East Africa, 7000-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 51. Sheep and cattle in the Sahara. The development of pastoralism in North Africa, 9500-5000 BC -- <br/>Ch. 52. Farmers in the Nile valley and beyond. The arrival of cereal agriculture in North Africa, 5500-4000 BC -- <br/>Epilogue: 'The blessings of civilisation'. Past, present and future impacts of global warming on human history. |
| Summary, etc. |
20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age – the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction.<br/><br/>But these people live on the brink of seismic change – 10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. "After the Ice" is the story of this momentous period – one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods – and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself.<br/><br/>Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, "After the Ice" takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler – John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of "Prehistoric Times." With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life – from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.<br/><br/>Part history, part science, part-time travel, "After the Ice" offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world. |
