Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations

Where do we come from? How did our ancestors settle this planet? How did the great historic civilizations of the world develop? How does a past so shadowy that it has to be painstakingly reconstructed from fragmentary, largely unwritten records nonetheless make us who and what we are? These 36 lectures bring you the answers that the latest scientific and archaeological research and theorizing suggest about human origins, how populations developed, and the ways in which civilizations spread throughout the globe. It's a narrative of the story of human origins and the many ties that still bind us deeply to the world before writing. And it's a world tour of prehistory with profound links to who we are and how we live today. Woven through this narrative is a set of pervasive themes: emerging human biological and cultural diversity (as well as our remarkable similarities across surprising expanses of time and space); the impact of human adaptations to climatic and environmental change; and the importance of seeing prehistory not merely as a chronicle of archaeological sites and artifacts, but of people behaving with the extraordinary intellectual, spiritual, and emotional dynamism that distinguish the human. Among the corners of our mysterious past you'll explore: human prehistory from Australopithecus africanus through Homo habilis and Homo erectus; the beginnings of agriculture and animal domestication; theories behind the appearance of urban civilization and overall attributes of preindustrial civilizations; the maritime trading revolutions in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia; and much more.

All Lectures:
1. Introducing Human Prehistory
2. In the Beginning
3. Our Earliest Ancestors
4. The First Human Diaspora
5. The First Europeans
6. The Neanderthals
7. The Origins of Homo sapiens sapiens
8. The Great Diaspora
9. The World of the Cro-Magnons
10. Artists and Mammoth Hunters
11. The First Americans
12. The Paleo-Indians and Afterward
13. After the Ice Age
14. The First Farmers
15. Why Farming?
16. The First European Farmers
17. Farming in Asia and Settling the Pacific
18. The Story of Maize
19. The Origins of States and Civilization
20. Sumerian Civilization
21. Ancient Egyptian Civilization to the Old Kingdom
22. Ancient Egypt - Middle and New Kingdoms
23. The Minoan Civilization of Crete
24. The Eastern Mediterranean World
25. The Harappan Civilization of South Asia
26. South and Southeast Asia
27. Africa - A World of Interconnectedness
28. The Origins of Chinese Civilization
29. China - Zhou to the Han
30. Southeast Asian Civilizations
31. Pueblos and Moundbuilders in North America
32. Ancient Maya Civilization
33. Highland Mesoamerican Civilization
34. The Origins of Andean Civilization
35. The Inka and Their Predecessors
36. Epilogue