Climate Change in Prehistory The End of the Reign of Chaos Climate Change in Prehistory explores the challenges that faced humankind in a glacial climate and the opportunities that arose when the climate improved dramatically around 10,000 years ago. Drawing on recent advances in ic mapping, it presents the latest thinking on how the fluctuations during the ice age defined the development and spread of modern humans across the Earth. It reviews the aspects of our physiology, intellectual development and social behaviour that have been influenced by climatic factors, and how features of our lives – diet, health and the relationship with nature – are also the product of the climate in which we evolved. This analysis is based on the proposition that essential features of modern societies – agriculture and urban life – only became possible when the climate settled down after the chaos of the last ice age. In short: climate change in prehistory has in so 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. After seven years at the UK National Physical Laboratory researching atmospheric physics, Bill Burroughs spent three years as a UK Scientific Attache´ in Washington DC. Between 1974 and 1995, he held a series of senior posts in the UK Departments of Energy and then Health. He is now a professional science writer and has published several books on various aspects of weather and climate (two as a co-author), and also three books for children on lasers. These books include Watching the World’s Weather (1991),Weather Cycles: Real or Imaginary (1992; second edition 2003), Does the Weather Really Matter?(1997), The Climate Revealed (1999), and Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach (2001), all with Cambridge University Press. In add
