The World Before Us

Critics Review

• Fascinating and deeply researched. Higham conveys the thrill of archaeological discovery eruditely and accessibly

  Guardian

• A gripping account of Earth’s other humans

  New Scientist

• The remarkable new science of palaeoanthropology, from lab bench to trench

  Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred

• The application of new genetic science to pre-history is analogous to how the telescope transformed astronomy. Tom Higham, one of the world’s leading scientists in the field, brings us to the frontier of recent discoveries with a book that is both gripping and fun. And the results are astonishing. It matters: understanding our evolutionary origins reveals our innate strengths as a species

  Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

• A brilliant exposition of the way in which archaeology and science are completely changing our understanding of early humans. This is a fast-moving story written with verve and enthusiasm by one of the scientists deeply involved in tracking down the evidence. Essential reading for all interested in our early ancestors and the sheer excitement of their discovery

  Barry Cunliffe, author of The Scythians

• A brilliant distillation of the ideas and discoveries revolutionising our understanding of human evolution. Tom Higham, one of the leaders of the revolution and the cutting-edge science on which it is based, introduces us to a complex world of many human species, whose genes and deeds live on in us today

  Chris Gosden, author of The History of Magic

• Tom Higham has been at the pulsating centre of the close collaboration between archaeologists and geneticists that in the last few years discovered our previously unknown cousins – the Denisovans – and revealed the lost world in which they, Neanderthals and modern humans interacted and interbed. His thrilling book gives us a court-side view of this scientific revolution

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

• A bang-up-to-date insider’s review of a critical period in the emergence of modern humans. It also provides fascinating, intelligible and authoritative glimpses into a wide variety of new technologies

  Ian Tattersall, co-author of The Accidental Homo sapiens: Genetics, Behavior, and Free Will

• Our knowledge of where humanity came from has been revolutionized in the last ten years, and Tom Higham has been in the front lines for many of the biggest breakthroughs. The World Before Us is a fascinating and entertaining account, which tells us not only of how we began, but also where we might be going. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it

  Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now

• Opening up entirely new perspectives on the early history of humanity, this exciting book shows that we now have a revolutionary new tool for reconstructing the human past: DNA from minute pieces of tooth and bone, and even from the dirt on the floor of caves. Everyone studying history should be taking a course in DNA

  David Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea

• The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world’s experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils. Tom Higham blends evidence from archaeology, palaeontology and genetics to reveal a rich family album of our closest relatives, a cast of characters including cave-dwelling Neanderthals, mountain-adapted wanderers and island-living Hobbits, which thrived before Homo sapiens took over the world

  Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs