Since taking their first steps on this planet, humans have changed the environment around them. Anthropocene: A New Introduction to World Prehistory tells the comprehensive story of human prehistory through the lens of anthropogenic environmental change. Each chapter explains how and why ancient humans transformed the Earth, linking prehistory to today’s greatest global challenge.

As they explore this record of the world’s early people and societies, authors Joy McCorriston and Julie Field reject the traditional account of cultural evolution, instead presenting a thematic organization that highlights our Anthropocene narrative. Chapters are devoted to cities and agriculture, but also to such topics as technology, extinction, food production, writing and extractivism. Chapter 9, ‘Individuals and Identity,’ considers human identity and agency in more recent eras, and the book ends with a contemporary chapter that takes a hopeful look at the future.

Contents

1. Archaeology and the Anthropocene What Is the Anthropocene? • The Perspective of Archaeology • Polynesia and the North Atlantic: Islands as Laboratories • Methods: Survey and Excavation • How Have Humans Made Their World?

2. Discovering Diversity: Modern Human Origins Diversity of Humans: Homo sapiens and Neanderthals • Modern Humans • Lascaux Cave and the Human Experience of the Ice Age • Additional Human Experiences in the Ice Age • Human Culture Begins to Shape the Anthropocene • Protecting Cultural Diversity

Global Timeline 1: Human Origins and Migrations

3. Technology Makes the Human: Stone, Metal, and Organic Material Culture Stone Tools and the Discovery of Time • The Mechanics of Flintknapping • Stone Tools as Evidence of Human Adaptation • Metalworking, a New Technology for Communities • Perishable Technologies: Revelations from the Iceman • Technology, the Environment, and the Anthropocene

4. Peopling the World: Human Dispersals to Australia, the Americas, and the Pacific Inhabiting Australia • Human Dispersals in the Americas • Inhabiting the Pacific • Methods: Archaeological Survey • Peopling and the Anthropocene