Prehistory for Beginners
By Petrus Groenewald
Categories: History
Prehistory for Beginners From the first stone tools to the first cities, in the order it happened. Our species is roughly 300 000 years old. The record of everything before writing is a few bones, a few stones and a great deal of argument. Prehistory for Beginners walks through that record in order, using the archaeologists’ own periods (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic), from 2.6 million years ago to about 3000 BCE. It assumes nothing. Every claim is labelled as established fact, scientific theory, a hypothesis still being worked on, or evidence that is thin or patchy.
7 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- 01. Myths & Conspiracies - Primitive Humans: What Life Was Really Like
Episode 1: Primitive Humans: What Life Was Really Like (300 000 to 50 000 years ago)A flint flake pumped up from the floor of the North Sea carries a lump of black birch tar and a date of about 50 000 years. It is the opening exhibit for the first of three myths: that early humans had primitive…
- Episode 1- How we know: The Science of Dating
Episode 1: How Old Is It? The Science of DatingAbove the skull and skeleton known as Omo I in Ethiopia lies a layer of volcanic ash more than two metres thick, too fine-grained to date directly. In 2022 a team matched its chemistry to an eruption 350 kilometres away and dated the volcano instead…
- The Human Family
The Human Family: Every Species We Know, and the Ghosts We Don’tDrimolen Cave, South Africa, about two million years ago. A toddler of Homo erectus dies in a landscape shared with a heavy-jawed Paranthropus and a lingering Australopithecus. This companion to Episode 1 is a census of the whole…
- Episode 3: Middle Palaeolithic - Ochre and Eggshell
Episode 3: Ochre and Eggshell (southern Africa, c. 100 000 to 60 000 years ago)About 100 000 years ago at Blombos Cave, someone stirs red ochre, crushed bone and charcoal in an abalone shell. This episode follows the earliest regional cultures we can name in southern Africa. They include engraved…
- Episode 02: Middle Palaeolithic - Many Humans, One Continent
Episode 2: Many Humans, One Continent (Africa, 300 000 to 200 000 years ago)At Olorgesailie in Kenya, about 320 000 years ago, someone holds a point of black volcanic glass carried at least 25 kilometres from its source. From there the episode meets the faces of the period: Jebel Irhoud in…
- Episode 01: Lower Palaeolithic - Before the Clock Starts
Episode 1: Before the Clock Starts (2.6 million to 300 000 years ago)A hippopotamus dies beside a lake in Kenya about 2.9 million years ago, and someone arrives with a rock struck until it has an edge. This opening episode introduces Prehistory for Beginners and its two sister podcasts, then…
- 00 Prehistory for Beginners Intro
Prehistory for Beginners IntroHistory for Beginners:https://open.spotify.com/show/5qn89M62vqDIW4k0AJSX4nAncient History for Beginners:https://open.spotify.com/show/6ep0A0b4ACmLo2PrKZ4gIo
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