Episode 1 - Before the Beginning

Map of key geographic features in the prehistoric Near East. Most of these regions, mountains, deserts, and rivers will remain relevant throughout the podcast, as new terms enter story. This map will be updated over time to reflect what’s most important.

This episode covers the important geographic, evolutionary, and environmental background within which the first arrival of our hominin ancestors in the Near East took place. Not much of this episode pertains to the Near East specifically, but it does introduce a lot of important story elements which will follow us throughout the prehistoric period, as well as the historic period.

---

Rough map of the Paratethys Sea around 30 million years ago, overlaid modern coastlines (marked by black lines). Note the location of the Near East.

Sources

Books

1. Ayala, F. J., & Conde, C. J. C. (2017). Processes in Human Evolution: The Journey from Early Hominins to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Oxford University Press.

2. Dennell, R. (2008). The Paleolithic Settlement of Asia. Cambridge University Press.

3. Enzel, Y., & Bar-Yosef, O. (Eds.). (2017). Quaternary of the Levant: Environments, Climate Change, and Humans. Cambridge University Press.

4. Herrera, R. J., & Garcia-Bertrand, R. (2018). Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations. Elsevier Academic Press.

5. Regal, B. (2004). Human Evolution: A Guide to the Debates. ABC-CLIO.

6. Renfrew, C., & Bahn, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge university Press.

7. Renfrew, C. (2016). Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice, 7th Edition. Thames & Hudson.

8. Roberts, J. M., & Westad, O. M. (2014). The Penguin History of the World, 6th Edition. Penguin Random House.

9. Wenke, R. J., & Olszewski, D. (2006). Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press.

Research Papers

1. Bar-Yosef, O., & Belmaker, M. (2011). Early and Middle Pleistocene faunal and hominins dispersals through Southwestern Asia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 30(11-12), 1318-1337.

2. Ronen, A. (2006). The oldest human groups in the Levant. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 5(1-2), 343-351.

3. Ronen, A., Inbar, M., Klein, M., & Brunnacker, K. (1980). Artifact-bearing gravels beneath the Yiron Basalt. Israelian Journal of Earth Sciences, 29, 221-226.

4. Zhu, Z., Dennell, R., Huang, W., Wu, Y., Qiu, S., Yang, S., ... & Ouyang, T. (2018). Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago. Nature, 559(7715), 608.

Useful Links

Quaternary Climate Cycles: https://www.livescience.com/64813-milankovitch-cycles.html