Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present

Humans have always been interested in their origins, but historians have been reluctant to write about the long stretches of time before the invention of writing. In fact, the deep past was left out of most historical writing almost as soon as it was discovered. This breakthrough book, as important for readers interested in the present as in the past,brings science into history to offer a dazzling new vision of humanity across time. Team-written by leading experts in a variety of fields, it maps events, cultures, and eras across millions of years to present a new scale for understanding the human body, energy and ecosystems, language, food, kinship, migration, and more. Combining cutting-edge social and evolutionary theory with the latest discoveries about human genes, brains, and material culture, Deep History invites scholars and general readers alike to explore the dynamic of connectedness that spans all of human history.

With Timothy Earle, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Clive Gamble, April McMahon, John C. Mitani, Hendrik Poinar, Mary C. Stiner, and Thomas R. Trautmann

Andrew Shryock is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (UC Press) winner of the Middle Eastern Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Award, among other books. Daniel Lord Smail is Professor of History at Harvard University. Among his books is On Deep History and the Brain, (UC Press) a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology.