Ancient Lives

Nadia Durrani is a best-selling archaeological writer. The former editor of Current World Archaeology magazine, she is also the long-standing co-author of Brian Fagan’s portfolio of textbooks. Her other books include Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from our Ancestors (with Fagan), which won the 2023 COSMOS award for Italy’s best popular science book. She studied archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University and has a PhD from University College London, UK. Brian M. Fagan (1936–2025) was one of the world’s leading archaeological writers and an internationally recognized authority on world prehistory. In addition to writing textbooks, he wrote dozens of general books including The Adventure of Archaeology; A Little History of Archaeology; and The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. He studied at Cambridge University and was Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

• PART I Archaeology: Studying Ancient Times 1. Introducing Archaeology and Prehistory 2. The Record of the Past 3. Acquiring the Record 4. How Did People Live? PART II Ancient Interactions 5. Individuals and Interactions 6. Studying the Intangible 7. Explaining the Past PART III The World of the First Humans 8. Human Origins 9. African Exodus PART IV Modern Humans Settle the World 10. The Great Diaspora PART V The First Farmers and Civilizations 11. The Earliest Farmers 12. The First Civilizations 13. Early Asian Civilizations PART VI Ancient America 14. North America 15. Mesoamerican Civilizations 16. Andean Civilizations PART VII Finale 17. What remains to be done: Archaeology and You