The Atlas of Early Man: The Rise of Man Across the Globe, From 35,000 B.C. to A.D. 500 With Over 1,000 Maps And Illustrations

The Atlas of Early Man is a unique, and uniquely fascinating, work of popular natural history. For nearly two decades, it has been the definitive survey of the human developments that were the building blocks of scores of different civilizations, offering the kind of irresistible blend of history, science, and cultural study that will capture the interest and imagination of almost any reader.

Now, in the first new edition since 1981, Jacquetta Hawkes's landmark volume is at last available in paperback. It is a book that fills in the gaps in our overall understanding of the ancient world: Through one thousand maps, diagrams, drawings, and illustrations, it compares the cultures of historical contemporaries, placing simultaneous developments in art, religion, technology, science, architecture, and government in graphic perspective. What was happening in China when the pyramids were being built in Egypt? What had been achieved in the Americas when wheeled vehicles first rolled across Sumeria? What point of progress had been reached in Western Europe when the Roman Empire was at its height? Hawkes's eloquent and comprehensive text brings these worlds alive for us, not just as historical entities but as living, thriving civilizations. Did the advances of man occur independently across the oceans and continents, or were they the results of a spreading influence? The provocative clarity of Hawkes's treatment enables us to draw our own conclusions to such questions-and dispels the clouds that have been so long blocked our view of early history.

Jacquetta Hawkes, the distinguished archaeologist, historian, and author, lives at Stratford-upon-Avon in England. she studied at Cambridge and has traveled extensively; among her best-known books are A Land, Man on Earth, The World of the Past, The Dawn of the Gods, The First Great Civilizations, and the Atlas of Ancient Archaeology.