Dr Neil Faulkner was a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Co-editor of Past Worlds magazine, editor of Military History Matters and Co-director of the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (in Norfolk, England). He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) in 2008. Since 1996 he worked on the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon site at Sedgeford in Norfolk with the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP). In 2016, he completed a ten-year field project looking at the military campaigns of Lawrence of Arabia in southern Jordan (the Great Arab Revolt Project).

The author of many articles and numerous academic papers, his ten books include The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics, and Digging Sedgeford: A People's Archaeology. Faulkner appeared frequently on television, both at home and abroad. His TV work includes Channel Four's Time Team, BBC2's Timewatch, and Sky Atlantic's The British.

Introduction 8

Timeline 12

Chapter 1: Dawn of the Hominins 16
The Evolutionary Tree - The First Hominins - The Australopithecines - The Earliest Tools - Paranthropus - Out of Africa - Fossil Hunting - The Neanderthals

Chapter 2: The First Modern Humans 32
The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution - What Makes Us Human? - The Upper Palaeolithic Crisis

Chapter 3: The Agricultural Revolution 42
An Early Neolithic Village - A New Way of Life - Bloody Stone Age - Australia - Primitive Matriarchy - From Mother-Right to Patriarchy

Chapter 4: Bronze Age Civilizations 56
The First Social Classes - The Bronzeworkers - The Land of Shinar - A Global Transformation - Basket-makers and Olmecs: the First Civilizations of the Americas - The Chavin - Akrotiri, Troy, Knossos and Mycaenae - A Late Bronze Age Arms Race - Bronze Age System Failure - The Collapse of Indus Civilization - The Shang Dynasty and its Overthrow

Chapter 5: Iron Age Worlds 90
The First Industrial Revolution - African Ironworking - Bantu Expansion - Sacred Metal - New Civilizations - Mesopotamia: the Assyrian Empire - Persia: the Achaemenid Empire - India: Warlords and Hindus - India: Merchants and Buddhists - Culture-History - China: the First Emperor - Classical Greece - The Macedonian Empire and the Hellenistic World - The Scythians - The Celts - Animal Power

Chapter 6: The Roman Empire 144
Archaeology and Myth - The First City of Rome - Roman Expansion - Caesar's Army - Roman Colonies - Roman Forts - Roman Towns - A Note on Roman Coins - Roman Villas - Roman Pottery

Chapter 7: The Post-Roman World 174
The Fall of the Roman Empire - The Byzantine Empire - The Germanic World - Carolingian Europe - Islamic Civilization - The Vikings - Maya and Moche

Chapter 8: The Medieval World 200
European Feudalism: Villages - Monasteries - European Feudalism: Castles - Novgorod - Mound-builders and Pueblo Farmers - Toltecs, Aztecs, Chimu and Incas - Wind Power - Angkor Wat - Ming China - Samurai Japan - Pacific Societies

Chapter 9: The Archaeology of Modernity 232
Settlers, Slaves and Ships - Tudor London - Victorian York - Conflict Landscapes - The Archaeology of the Contemporary Past

Conclusion 246
Recommended Further Reading 248
Index 251
Picture Credits 256