Preface -- Part one. The past is a foreign country: getting from here to there -- Chapter 1. Getting started in archaeology -- Chapter 2. Putting the picture together -- Part two. Human evolution -- Chapter 3. Early hominins -- Chapter 4. From Homo erectus to Neanderthals -- Chapter 5. The origin of modern humans -- Chapter 6. The peopling of Australia and the New World -- Part three. Perspectives on agriculture -- Chapter 7. Towers, villages, and longhouses -- Chapter 8. Mounds and maize -- Chapter 9. A feast of diversity -- Part four. The development of social complexity -- Chapter 10. Complexity without the state -- Chapter 11. Cities and pyramids: early states of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Aegean -- Chapter 12. Locating the source of authority: early states in Asia -- Chapter 13. From city to empire: social complexity in Mesoamerica -- Chaper 14. Bringing the four parts together: states and empire in the Andes -- Epilogue. Appendices. Glossary. References. Credits. Name index. Subject index