Hawkes Jacquetta. The Atlas of Early Man

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976. — 255 p.What was happening in China when the pyramids were being built in Egypt? What had been achieved in the Americas when wheeled vehicles first rolled across Sumeria? What point of progress had been reached in Western Europe when Knossos was supreme in Crete, or in India when the Roman Empire was at its height?
In this book Jacquetta Hawkes sets out to answer such questions as these, and at the same time to fill the gaps in our overall picture of the ancient world. It is the first book of its kind to give a comprehensive treatment to the concurrent developments of early history from 35,000 BC to AD 500. By means of illustrated maps showing what happened at the same time as what, summary time charts linking people and events across the world, a gazetteer of archaeological sites and over 1,000 drawings and photographs the relative progress of civilization across the globe is lucidly presented. While particular emphasis is laid on the simultaneous developments in art, architecture and technology, Jacquetta Hawkes writes vividly of the social, religious and political forces which helped to shape them.
This book should fulfil a long-felt need both to the casual reader and to the student and specialist, not only as an invaluable source of reference but also for the fight it casts on some of the arguments that absorb archaeologists. Did similar technologies in different parts of the world develop independently? Or were they the result of a spreading influence? The clarity of Jacquetta Hawkes' treatment enables us to draw our own conclusions to such questions. Above all by grouping the first peoples together in time and linking them across the world, it dispels the clouds that have for so long blocked our view of early history.