The language of the Beaker People was a variant of Proto-Indo-European, which had two linguistic genders -- animate and inanimate. Ancestors' is focused on the evolution and methods up from the grave digging, treasure hunting, and carnival attraction-seeking roots. The reality of multiple, miserable, slow-death diseases is in the bones simply had to direct the trajectory of civilization.

This is a book about belonging: about walking in ancient places, in the footsteps of the ancestors . For example, one chapter revolves around the ways in which the presence of Stonehenge has distorted our theories about the surrounding landscape -- every settlement turns into "where the builders of Stonehenge lived"; even Mesolithic remains are evaluated in the context of their proximity to Stonehenge! The book's highlight is the 20-30-some page chapter survey regarding the salient, significant, bigger picture that the site represents.And the best overview history of the classical world The Classic World The Epic History of Greece and Rome by Robin Lane Fox.

Ancestors well worth reading with a sophisticated intelligent engagement with the past, and how perceptions and ideas change through time and not to just look through the cultural lens of the present.But in Ancestors , pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons, from burial sites and by using new technology to analyse ancient DNA. Perhaps the important divide for the Beaker people was into animate/singular and neuter/collective, rather than owned wealth or male/female? She is certainly not recommending that we try to fit those remains into 21st century gender categories, but uses that as an example to show how 19th and 20th century ideas of gender and class have affected archaeological theories from those times.

But in Ancestors, pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons, from burial sites and by using new technology to analyse ancient DNA. Ancestors is a carefully thought out and well-expressed argument for a new way of doing prehistory -- trying to prevent the shape of present-day society from dictating how we understand the past.Studies of DNA from other Beaker graves in Germany show ancestry from the Eurasian steppe and migration clearly played a major role in establishing Beaker culture. The scale and the detail of the Thousand Ancient Genomes project, which is collaborating with archaeologists across the UK, could transform our understanding of prehistoric Britain, especially as regards mobility and migrations.

Interesting as the content was, the fluidity with which (in places) she shifted from technical analysis, to dialogue, to whimsy made it difficult to enjoy. At one point Roberts memorably describes excavating Beaker pottery, like that found in the grave of the Amesbury Archer. Roberts is a prolific TV presenter, and Ancestors skilfully deploys the arts of screen storytelling: narrative pace, a sense of mysteries being unfolded. They intend to fully sequence a thousand ancient genomes, which it is hoped will reveal the connectedness, the shared ancestry, of people across Britain and beyond: “Ancient DNA bears clues to forgotten journeys – memories of migrations long ago, written into genes. Photograph: Christopher Jones/Alamy View image in fullscreen Bryn Celli Ddu, a Neolithic passage tomb on Anglesey.The author delivers several of the best summaries I've seen regarding the Beaker People, Arras culture, genetics and isotope analysis, and the long-term implications of 100,000-some years of migrations and retreats. Together with two stone wrist guards, or bracers, they formed the largest collection of bronze age archery equipment ever found. The Amesbury Archer is preserved in Salisbury Museum and, according to Roberts, “our visits to museums, to gaze on such human remains, are a form of ancestor worship”. The burials are described in detail, as is the history of their discovery, excavation and the theories around them. In another 100 years, one must wonder if a then archeologist will similarly heap such scathing criticism on today's archaeologists consuming the last threads of DNA for our time and place primitive analysis?