The World Before Us

The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the worlds experts on the dating of prehistoric fossilsSteve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Fascinating and entertaining. If you read one book on human origins, this should be itIan Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now

50,000 years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latters ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham.

In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements - in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example - that allowed each of these discoveries to be made, enabling us to be more accurate in our predictions about not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived, interacted and live on in our genes today. This is the story of us, told for the first time with its full cast of characters.

ExcitingDavid Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea

RemarkableRebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred

ThrillingDavid Reich, author of Who We Are and How We Got Here

BrilliantChris Gosden, author of The History of Magic

Gripping and funPaul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

EssentialBarry Cunliffe, author of The Scythians

Profoundly entertainingBrian Fagan, author of World Prehistory