2021/080: After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5,000 BC -- Steven Mithen

2021/080: After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5,000 BC -- Steven Mithen

Who, he thinks, would be a town-dwelling farmer rather than a hunter-gatherer? Having travelled through all but one of the world’s continents he knows the answer: almost everyone in the prehistoric world. [loc. 9624]

A survey of history before anything was written down, covering the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to the establishment of farming. To bring archaeological, ecological and geological discoveries to life, Mithen invents an invisible observer who observes life on each continent (except Antarctica) over this period of fifteen millennia. ( review of long book is long )