The World before 1000 BCE

Billions of Years – from the earth's beginning to human species

Dinosaurs, Birds, and Change – a focus on the Triasic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods

Genes, Aging and Evolution – creature biologies

Biology, the Brain and History – distribution of differences among humans

Origins of War – beginning with tribal raiding

Primal Religion – hunter-gatherers try to understand their world

Inequality – Relations between men and women and the rise of property

Population Growth, Harvest Gods and Sacrifices – agriculture, animal and human sacrifice

 

Civilization in Mesopotamia – Sumerians, a flood, Sargon, Hammurabi, Babylon, Hittites, Asyrians and Kassites

Egypt and Civilization in North Africa – Berbers, authoritarianism, myth, upheaval, Hyksos, Egyptian expansion, Ramses II

Biblical Hebrews, from Abraham to David – Biblical stories, archeology and theories of historical reality

Civilization in the Indus Valley – Mohenjo-daro, squatters, invasions, war, Hinduism and the Vedas

Civilization on the North China Plain – Shang Dynastry to the Zhou Dynasty

Civilization to Europe – agriculture, the Mycenae Greeks, Minoans, and a Dark Age

Migrations into SE Asia and Oceania – to Australia, the Austronesians, Micronesia, Melanesia, Tonga and Samoa

Agriculture and Sacrifices in the Americas – north of the Rio Grande, Tehuacán Valley, the Olmecs, South America