Ebook: The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE

It is impossible for human beings fully to understand either themselvesor their long prehuman history without knowing something of theprocess (or, rather, processes) by which our remarkable species becamewhat it is. This is, as (almost) everybody knows, evolution. Andalthough most of us have a vague idea of what evolution is all about, fewrealize quite how many factors have typically been involved in the evolutionaryhistories that gave rise to the diversity of today’s living world.For evolution is not, as we often believe, a simple, linear process; rather,it is an untidy affair involving many different causes and influences