I chose this book because it covers one of the most interesting and important periods of human prehistory, the origins and expansion of anatomically modern humans from Africa into the rest of the world. Few topics have responded so readily to the wide range of disciplines that can now focus on one issue and in this volume, we can see how skeletal evidence, refined methods of radiocarbon dating, and the study of ancient and modern DNA can be effectively integrated. The story of modern human expansion should be required reading for all educated people, since it emphasises our common origins and the remarkable dominance that humans have achieved over the past 50,000 years.
This article is an extract from the full article published in World Archaeology Issue 38. Click here to subscribe