Prehistory: Did you mean...?

This map illustrates the spread of the Urnfield culture in Europe by around 1300 BCE, a late Bronze Age archaeological horizon named for the practice of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns buried in fields. Lasting from roughly...

Original page from Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum - or Deeds of the Danish, written in Latin in the 13th century CE and here preserved in his own hand. It describes Danish history from prehistory through to the late 12th century CE and...

This 'creeping hyena' forms the highly decorated butt-end of an Upper Paleolithic spear thrower (also known as atlatl). The hook used to propel the spear is clearly visible. It was found at La Madeleine rock shelter in Tursac, Dordogne, France...

Throughout the study of the past, historians have relied on broad conceptual shortcuts to categorize time, societies, and developments. While these models help structure historical analysis and provide useful comparisons, they can oversimplify...

The Stična Breastplate is a 6th Century BCE bronze cuirass from Stična, Slovenia. The cuirass is decorated with anatomical details, not unlike a Greek "muscle cuirass". The breastplate comes from a Hallstatt warrior's grave. This piece...

Cast of an engraving of a woolly mammoth on mammoth ivory made by early modern humans (Homo sapiens) at the rock shelter of La Madeleine, France, between c. 17,000- c. 11,000 years ago. It resides at the Collection de Paleontologie du Museum...

One of the most evocative settlements of Sicilian prehistory (c.1250 - c. 700 BCE) with thousands of excavated tombs in the steep walls of mountain chasms that overlook the valleys of the rivers Anapo and Calcinara, in the Syracuse interior...

The remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico are preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Within the 2,200-acre tract, located a few miles west of Collinsville, Illinois, lie the archaeological...

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Bronze Age Collapse, the name given by many historians to what appears to have been a sudden, uncontrolled destruction of dominant civilizations around 1200 BC in the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia...