Includes bibliographical references and index.

INTRODUCTION: Cave paintings -- DNA sequencing -- Archaeological foundations -- Where do we start -- What do we cover -- Climate rules our lives -- The interaction between history and climate change -- THE CLIMATE OF THE PAST 10,0000 YEARS: Defining climate change and climatic variability -- The emerging picture of climate change -- Proxy data -- Do ice core and ocean sediment data relate to human experience -- Changes during the last ice age -- The end of the last ice age -- The Holocene -- Changes in climate variability -- Just how chaotic is the climate -- Changes in sea level -- Causes of climate change -- The lunatic fringe -- Conclusion a climatic template -- LIFE IN THE ICE AGE: The climatology of the last ice age -- The early stages of the ice age -- Oxygen isotope stage three (OIS3) -- The last glacial maximum (LGM) -- The implications of greater climatic variability -- Lower sea levels -- Genetic mapping -- Walking out of Africa -- The transition to the upper Palaeolithic -- Settling on the plains of Moravia -- Life on the mammoth steppes of Asia -- Shelter from the storm -- The first fishermen of Galilee -- Wadi Kubbaniya and the Kom Ombo Plain -- Threedog nights -- Of lice and men -- THE EVOLUTIONARY IMPLICATIONS OF LIVING WITH THE ICE AGE: Bottlenecks -- The upper palaeolithic revolution -- Europeans palaeolithic lineage -- Physique -- The broad spectrum revolution -- Concerning tortoises and hares -- Gender roles -- Anthropomorphisation a pathetic fallacy or the key to survival -- The importance of networks -- Did we domesticate dogs or did dogs domesticate us -- EMERGING FROM THE ICE AGE: The North Atlantic oscillation -- Europe the Middle East and North Africa -- East and South Asia -- Africa and the southern hemisphere -- North America -- Mass extinctions of big game -- The origins of agriculture -- Natufian culture -- Catalhoyuk -- People and forests move back into northern Europe -- The spread of farming into Europe -- The peopling of the New World -- Concerning brown bears and hairless dogs -- A European connection -- Flood myths -- The formation of the Nile delta -- The lost Saharan pastoral idyll -- The Bantu expansion -- ENSO comes and ENSO goes -- RECORDED HISTORY: Climatic conditions in Europe during the mid Holocene -- East Asia in the mid Holocene -- Agricultural productivity the abundance of Mesopotamia -- Egypt a paradigm for stability -- The price of settling down -- The first great dark age -- The demonisation of the pig -- The sea peoples -- The continuing catalogue of dark ages -- OUR CLIMATIC INHERITANCE: Did we have any choice -- Regaining our palaeolithic potential -- Warfare -- Climatic determinism the benefits of temperate zones -- Ambivalence to animals -- Updating of gender roles -- THE FUTURE: Climate change and variability revisited -- Are we becoming more vulnerable to climatic variability -- Can we take global warming in our stride -- Which areas are most vulnerable to increased variability -- The threat of the flickering switch -- Supervolcanoes and other natural disasters. (Publishers Description) "How did humankind deal with the extreme challenges of the last Ice Age? How have the relatively benign post-Ice Age conditions affected the evolution and spread of humanity across the globe? By setting our genetic history in the context of climate change during prehistory, the origin of many features of our modern world are identified and presented in this illuminating book. It reviews the aspects of our physiology and intellectual development that have been influenced by climatic factors, and how features of our lives - diet, language and the domestication of animals - are also the product of the climate in which we evolved. In short: climate change in prehistory has in many ways made us what we are today. Climate Change in Prehistory weaves together studies of the climate with anthropological, archaeological and historical studies, and will fascinate all those interested in the effects of climate on human development and history."