Fagan, B: Ancient Lives

Ancient Lives describes how archaeologists go about their work and summarizes the main developments over more than three million years of human prehistory. The first half of the book examines archaeology itself: how and why archaeologists discover and excavate sites, and the ways they analyze and interpret the past. After describing the basics of archaeology in a jargon-free style, the book then discusses the study of particular individuals and groups. The second half of the book provides a narrative of world prehistory from a global perspective, focusing on human origins and the reality of life in the archaic world. Later chapters describe the origins of agriculture and animal domestication and the emergence of cities, states, and pre-industrial civilizations in widely separated parts of the world.
Focusing on major sites of key significance and the world's first civilizations, this popular and engaging textbook, written by a world authority in the field, has introduced complete beginners to the fascinating worlds of archaeology and prehistory through multiple editions. This new edition has been updated to reflect the latest discoveries and research in the field.