Reading list for this year’s non-fiction reading project: a contemporary exploration of the first traces of human civilisation, circa 10,000-5,000 BC.
- Meave Leakey with Samira Leakey. The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past. Mariner Books, 2020.
- Chris Gosden. Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2018.
- Rens Bod. World of Patterns: A Global History of Knowledge. trans. Leston Buell. John Hopkins University Press, 2022.
- Thomas Higham. The World Before Us. Penguin (Viking), 2021.
- Louise Humphrey and Chris Stringer. Our Human Story. Natural History Museum, 2018.
- Kermit Pattinson. Fossil Men. Harper Collins (Wiliam Morrow), 2021.
If there any titles you’d care to add to my reading list I am open to suggestions of anything published in the last ten years.
Time's Flow Stemmed 
Very interesting. (And I started re-reading Solstad.) Do you have any recommendations on books about prehistoric art?
Thanks. I find Bataille’s ‘Lascaux or the birth of art’ fascinating & Lewis-Williams’ ‘The Mind in the Cave’ is mentioned by Steve in these comments, which also looks compelling.
I haven’t read it but David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything seems relevant. And perhaps you know of David Lewis-Williams’ The Mind in the Cave because I reference it in my post/chapter on cave paintings, and though published more than 10 years ago, it’s a hugely impressive book.
I do recollect your reference to ‘The Mind of the Cave’ and being interested at the time. Thanks for the reminder. I’m aware of Graeber/Wengrow and should make the time for it as I’ve long intended.