Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival

By: Suzanne Pilaar Birch, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Suzanne Pilaar Birch

You and the other 8 billion humans alive today are members of the only species that has survived in the genus Homo since its 2.5-million-year evolutionary journey began. Homo habilis, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis—plus many other species we know of and perhaps dozens yet to be discovered—have all come and gone. H. sapiens alone has endured.

Who were these long-ago ancestors of ours? Where and how did they live and die? And how are we even able to learn about these humans, some of whom became extinct millions of years ago? These are only a few of the myriad fascinating questions explored in Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival. In 20 captivating lectures, Professor Suzanne Pilaar Birch shares her expertise and passion for discovery as she peels back the years to expose the emergence and lives of early humans. You will learn about their environmental challenges, the methods they used to meet their basic needs, cultural development, and the fascinating advances in our own technologies that have allowed us to take their few physical remains and develop a much fuller picture.

Although we might imagine a timeline of the past 2.5 million years as a straight path from the emergence of the genus Homo to modern H. sapiens in the 21st century, the truth of our family tree is much more convoluted and fascinating than that. Who were our direct ancestors? How far back can we trace our lineage? As Dr. Birch explains, we shouldn’t lose sight of what it means to be able to ask those questions in the first place. After all, isn’t it our awareness of the existence of those who came before us what truly makes us human? The answers to these questions and many more will surprise and possibly even shock you as you as you explore Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 The Great Courses (P)2023 The Teaching Company, LLC

Well packaged introduction

The lessons do sound prepared, which is a good thing. These lectures were more in depth (and IMO more interesting) than typical Great Course series.

Terrific overview of prehistoric hominids

This course is on par with other Great Courses. The lecturer is knowledgeable and insightful, while the content is comprehensive and novel.

The lecturer's delivery was solid—I have no idea why other reviewers characterized her delivery as reading a script. Her lectures follow the notes very closely but they're notes from her lecture! She's clearly excited about and invested in the topic.

Same goes for remarks on some course content being a "commentary" on modern life. There's no woke agenda here, just some insight into how modern society has impacted our understanding of prehistoric society. It's very relevant but isn't belabored by any means.

The professor is top notch and brings with her everything that I'd expect from a Great Course lecturer. I hope to see more from her soon!

INTERESTING READ. MEMOIRE STYLE ADDS FLAVOR TO FACTS

GLAD I bought the book

TO AUTHOR
1. IF. you want to know if the snails were EATEN or just crept into each excavation, examine each site for traces of LIME-TYPE ROCK that could fir in your palm like a bar of soap. These stones are STILL in use across central Africa as part of preparing snails. By first SKEWERING the snail & deftly twisting, the snails are easily extracted from their shells. Then by rubbing the lime on their bodies they IMMEDIATELY EXCRETE all their SLIME, which was as detestable THEN as it is NOW. If you FIND these stones near the SITE or near any WATER SOURCE, you’ll have a very strong case that your snails WERE prepared and EATEN, as opposed to being scavengers…

2. The front incisor removal would have been an obvious sign marking a SLAVE, so you now have the unhappy duty of exploring the theory that SLAVE TRADING was alive & well even 10,000 or more years ago. I will watch for you to explore this

Good luck,

Mark Vogt, AI Data Scientist, North Aurora IL (USA)

nice survey of ealy humans and relatives

Very interesting survey of early human and relatives. Does more than just list species and looks at other angles as well

A pedantic and scattershot view of prehistory

I was severely disappointed in this lecture series, which promised an engaging overview of human prehistory and instead delivered a selective introduction to prehistoric archeology, focusing heavily on the teacher’s own academic work. The style oscillated between over- and under-explaining key concepts, and was more interested in methodology than narrative.

While I did learn some interesting new facts from this course, please look elsewhere if you’re looking for an updated narrative of human history before writing and agriculture. Maybe such a thing is unknowable, and what we think we know is subject to such controversy that only describing the evidence for various hypotheses is possible. But even so, it could have been presented in a more rhetorically skillful way.

A fascinating look at early humans

I’ve always been intrigued by the study of early humans: where they came from, how they lived, how they developed tools, art, culture, and eventually society. The time periods are amazing. Most of us today are familiar only with the past few thousand years of human history, but it’s been all been going on for so much longer than that. Our species emerged around 200,000 years ago, and our human-like ancestors and cousins have been around for much longer than that. Who were these early humans, and what were their lives like? It’s one of the most intriguing mysteries of all time, and every year scholars and scientists are able to reveal just a little more for us. This course does just that, and it does it extremely well. The professor speaks with clarity and emotion, making complex topics (like the scientific aspects) simple, and never losing sight of the big picture - which is that we study past humans to learn something about ourselves. She explains what we know, what we don’t, the controversies, and the significance of it all. I really enjoyed listening to this and hope others will too.

Terrible Narration

Narrator continually put her emphasis on oddly random words, rather than ideas. It was distracting and annoying.

very interesting

Lots of interesting information. Hard to grasp the years and scope of the timeline; at least via Audible. But still learned a lot. How they conclude many of the answers and learning more as technology improves is also fascinating.

Solid information, what I was looking for.

As usual, I note that several listeners, both male and female, fell into the same old trap of critiquing the authors voice. We need to consider all the evidence showing that we expect the voice of authority to be male, and react against the female voice as annoying and somehow less than. You may believe strongly that, oh no it’s just _this_ voice I don’t like, nothing to do with being female, but the data is the data. We’re just not used to it but we should be ready for it: the female voice of authority.

Really interesting book on ancient man

Covered evolution and development of various ancient close lines to humans. Got a good understanding and even awareness of a new species I wasn't earlier aware.

Covered various ice ages and migration of humans and Neanderthal.