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Bronze Age Dagger

A quartz crystal dagger with ivory handle was recovered from a Copper-Age tomb in southern Spain in 2008 within a highly unusual grave assemblage, dominated by exotic Ivory objects. This unique object has a blade, around 18cm long, made from a single piece of quartz crystal that was mounted in a highly decorated ivory handle and found accompanied by a carved ivory plaque, probably part of its sheath. Continue reading →

Cheese

When archaeologists consider developments in food production, we tend to think first of the shift from hunting and gathering to the domestication of animals or cereal cultivation, both of which allow food resources to be stored and consumed when needed. Cheese production, however, is now known to date back to at least 7,500 years ago (the 6th millennium BC), suggesting that it too had an important role at this time in some societies. Continue reading →

Introduction to module

Human history needs to be told through things. Texts help but they only reach back into the shallows of our past. In this module we go further to investigate deep human history through the wonderful things left behind. Our aim is to unite the entire span of our evolutionary history by investigating forty wonderful things described for you by experts. The story starts two and a half million years ago with the first stone tools. Continue reading →