The World Before Us

Description

Fifty-thousand years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, who occupied Europe, the Near East and parts of Eurasia; the enigmatic Homo floresiensis, or ‘Hobbits’, from the island of Flores in Indonesia; and Homo luzonesis, found in the Philippines, and less than four feet high. And then there are the elusive Denisovans, discovered thanks to cutting-edge science in a cave in Siberia in 2010. At the forefront of this groundbreaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In ‘The World Before Us’ he follows the scientific and technological advancements – in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example – that allowed these discoveries to be made and enabled us to better predict not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived.