Professor Piggott views archeology as the record of technology expressed in material objects. [15] The 14 contributors are specialists in their respective areas.

Riparian Issue - Humans are a long associated with rivers and shorelines. We know that ice sheets once covered more land mass, and that the shoreline is now raised. For example, in Europe, the ice covered France, and the Mediterranean was much lower. Thus, most human habitats in that region are most certainly submerged today. Chart [20].

Creatures used to be bigger and taller. The Olduvai Gorge has given up wart-hog skeletons as big as rhinoceri, with giant varieties of giraffe, horse, pig, sheep, and baboon. The Dire Wolf was as big as a horse.

The first tool-making man appears 400,000 years ago at Chou K'ou tien near Peking. [21] He extracted marrow from the bones of both men and animals (crushing the bone with stone), and opened the skull for brain extraction. Extent apes were all vegetarian. [21]

Pithecanthropus hunted with stones and wooden spears -- the point hardened in fire. Query, cordage? His brain was nearly twice the size of the apes.

The first "art" appears about 25,000 BC. Small figurines of women have been found over a wide area from the Caucuses to Spain. [24] The arms are abridged, the legs small and tapered, and the face is usually blank. However, the primary and secondary sexual characteristics are prominent. This suggests a concern with reproduction. Often with "string skirts" (!). A few objects are phallic, consisting of only a penis, without any other personal attributes.

Cave Art. At Les Freres -- the bearded dancing deer-figure with horse and fox tail. [28] The author speculates that "Magic ritual" seems inescapable. I disagree: It is clearly sexual, with a protuberant posterior (not steatopygous) and an inviting expression turned toward...us!

At Altamira, bison are drawn on the natural bosses of the roof, with wounds depicted at natural drip marks. [29] Many of the Hand Prints are of small hands. The artists were women.

At the entrance to Lascaux, a bison flees, its back pierced with white lines. No human figures, no kings, no priests.

The ice retreated by 8000 BC. [31] Temperate fertile areas opened up, but the Baltic lake became sea, and large dry land became the North Sea. One of the earliest human figures is a carved man on a mattock head made of mammoth tusk 18,000 years ago. [31]

Thirty-three human skulls of this time were found in depressions in a cave at Ofnet, in Bavaria. Covered with red ochre and faced West. 4 men, 9 women, and 20 children, all of whom suffered a violent death. [34]
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$14.