• NEW - Reworked organization and additional material—The method and theory section has been shortened and world prehistory added to make a combined archaeology text.

  • More complete, covers the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of archaeology.

• NEW - Updated and refined—Includes the most recent developments in the field and today's hot issues.

  • Discusses the latest advances in the study of human origins, including the latest fossil discoveries in East Africa.

• NEW - New research into the controversial issue of the earliest modern humans and fresh perceptions of Neanderthal ancestry and behavior.

  • Describes the first farmers of the Old World and incorporates new dates for early agriculture obtained from accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating.

• NEW - “Doing Archaeology”—Introduces key dating methods and other scientific approaches, such as radiocarbon and AMS dating, also ways of studying ancient subsistence.

• NEW - “Sites”—Each chapter includes one or more boxes describing sites of unusual importance and some aspect of them that has unusual interest.

  • Provides more detailed background on major sites.

• NEW - “Discoveries”—Details of important archaeological discoveries.

  • Satisfies student curiosity about the major archaeological discoveries that have defined our knowledge of the human past.

• Exceptionally up-to-date global coverage—Draws on methods and sites from all parts of the world and time periods with examples from the Americas, Africa, Europe, and all parts of Asia.

  • Allows instructors to cover their own specialties within a broad context, and not just North America or Mesoamerica.

• Self-contained chapter on career opportunities—Including CRM (Cultural Resource Management).

  • Gives students an unusually frank, detailed discussion of the opportunities, day-to-day realities, pros, and cons of a career in archaeology.

• Stand-alone chapter on Archaeology of the Intangible.

  • Introduces instructors and students to cutting-edge coverage of the study of ancient religious beliefs and other cultural intangibles.

• Key Terms—Highlighted throughout and defined in Glossaries of Technical Terms and Archaeological Sites and Cultures.

  • Gives students a convenient in-text resource for study and review.

Brian Fagan is one of the leading archaeological writers in the world and an internationally recognized authority on world prehistory. He studied archaeology and anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, and then spent seven years in sub-Saharan Africa working in museums and in monuments conservation and excavating early farming sites in Zambia and East Africa. He was one of the pioneers of multidisciplinary African history in the 1960s. Since 1967, he has been professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has specialized in lecturing and writing about archaeology to wide audiences.

Professor Fagan has written six best-selling textbooks: Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology; In the Beginning; Archaeology: A Brief Introduction; People of the Earth; World Prehistory; Historical Archaeology (with Charles E. Orser)—all published by Prentice Hall—which are used around the world. His general books include The Rape of the Nile, a classic history of Egyptology; The Adventure of Archaeology; Time Detectives; Floods, Famines, and Emperors: EI Niño and the Fate of Civilizations; Ancient North America; and The Little Ice Age. He is general editor of the Oxford Companion to Archaeology. In addition, he has published several scholarly monographs on African archaeology and numerous specialized articles in national and international journals. He is also an expert on multimedia teaching and has received the Society for American Archaeology's first Public Education Award for his indefatigable efforts on behalf of archaeology and education.

Brian Fagan's other interests include bicycling, sailing, kayaking, and good food. He is married and lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter, four cats (who supervise his writing), and last but not least, four rabbits.