Ochre and Bone, Flint and Clay

Not all evidence of civilization endures as history...

The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age is a fascinating examination of the period between the Upper Paleolithic Revolution and our earliest historical knowledge.  Civilization did not arise fully formed like a Venus on the half shell.  This wide-ranging but effectively concise book explains that our climb to modernity began many centuries before the Sumerians, Egyptians, and the Minoans began to create history.  Written by Richard Rudgley in 1999, Lost Civilizations foreshadowed wonders yet to be unearthed at Wonderwerk, Blombos Cave and other excavations where we moderns strive to discern the nature of our paleolithic origins.

Photo credit: The Museum of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium, by way of http://www.planetquest.org/learn/ishango.html