The Archaeology category has 66 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 606 ratings. The most-rated is Fingerprints of the Gods.
The Jesuit and the Skull
Summary
In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution. For Teilhard, both a scientist and a man of God, the discovery also exposed a deeply personal conflict between the new science and his faith. He was commanded by his superiors to deny all scientific evidence that went against biblical teachings, and his writing and lectures were censored by the Vatican. But his curiosity and desire to find connections between scientific and spiritual truth kept him investigating man's origins. His inner struggle and, in turn, his public rebuke by the Catholic Church personified one of the central debates of our time: How to reconcile an individual's commitment to science and his commitment to his faith. In The Jesuit and the Skull, best-selling author Amir D. Aczel vividly recounts the discovery of Peking Man, its repercussions, and how Teilhard de Chardin's scientific work helped to open the eyes of the world to new theories of humanity's origins that alarmed the traditionalists within the Church. A deft mix of narrative history and a poignant personal story, The Jesuit and the Skull brings fresh insight to a debate that still rages today.
©2007 Amir D. Aczel (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
The Sea Hunters II
Summary
From the authors of the number-one best-selling The Sea Hunters comes more unforgettable true adventures with famous shipwrecks.
©2003 Clive Cussler (P)2003 Penguin
After Eden
Summary
When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe. How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide? In After Eden, Kirkpatrick Sale answers these questions in a radically new way. Integrating research in paleontology, archaeology, and anthropology, he points to the beginning of big-game hunting as the origin of Homo sapiens' estrangement from the natural world. Sale contends that a new, recognizably modern human culture based on the hunting of large animals developed in Africa some 70,000 years ago in response to a fierce plunge in worldwide temperature triggered by an enormous volcanic explosion in Asia. Tracing the migration of populations and the development of hunting thousands of years forward in time, he shows that hunting became increasingly adversarial in relation to the environment as people fought over scarce prey during Europe's glacial period between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago. By the end of that era, humans' idea that they were the superior species on the planet, free to exploit other species toward their own ends, was well established.
©2006 Duke University Press (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks
1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
Summary
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages. In 1177 BC, marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy defeated them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, famine, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life a vibrant multicultural world, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires of the age and shows that it may have been their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse. Now revised and updated, 1177 B.C. sheds light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and eventually destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age - and set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece and, ultimately, our world today. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Eric H. Cline (P)2021 Princeton University Press
Archaeology from Space
Summary
One of the 2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year One of the 2019 Amazon.com Best Books of the Year 2020 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award This program is read by the author. National Geographic Explorer and TED Prize-winner Dr. Sarah Parcak welcomes you to the exciting new world of space archaeology, a growing field that is sparking extraordinary discoveries from ancient civilizations across the globe. In Archaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field's biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world's ancient treasures. Parcak has worked in 12 countries and four continents, using multispectral and high-resolution satellite imagery to identify thousands of previously unknown settlements, roads, fortresses, palaces, tombs, and even potential pyramids. From there, her stories take us back in time and across borders, into the day-to-day lives of ancient humans whose traits and genes we share. And she shows us that if we heed the lessons of the past, we can shape a vibrant future. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Sarah Parcak (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
House of Rain
Summary
In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head-on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day", a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace. Was it drought? Pestilence? War? Forced migration, mass murder, or suicide? Conflicting theories have abounded for years, capturing the North American imagination for eons. Join Craig Childs as he draws on the latest scholarly research, as well as a lifetime of exploration in the forbidden landscapes of the American Southwest, to shed new light on this compelling mystery. He takes us from Chaco Canyon to the highlands of Mesa Verde, to the Mongollon Rim; to a contemporary Zuni community where tribal elders maintain silence about the fate of their Lost Others; and to the largely unexplored foothills of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, where abundant remnants of Anasazi culture lie yet to be uncovered. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2007 Craig Childs (P)2018 Hachette Audio
Black Genesis
Summary
Relegated to the realm of archaeological heresy, despite a wealth of hard scientific evidence, the theory that an advanced civilization of Black Africans settled in the Sahara long before Pharaonic Egypt existed has been dismissed and even condemned by conventional Egyptologists, archaeologists, and the Egyptian government. Uncovering compelling new evidence, Egyptologist Robert Bauval and astrophysicist Thomas Brophy present the anthropological, climatological, archaeological, geological, and genetic research supporting this hugely debated theory of the B;ack African origin of Egyptian civilization. Building upon extensive studies from the past four decades and their own archaeoastronomical and hieroglyphic research, the authors show how the early Black culture known as the Cattle People not only domesticated cattle but also had a sophisticated grasp of astronomy; created plentiful rock art at Gilf Kebir and Gebel Uwainat; had trade routes to the Mediterranean coast, central Africa, and the Sinai; held spiritual and occult ceremonies; and constructed a stone calendar circle and megaliths at the ceremonial site of Nabta Playa.
©2011 Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy (P)2018 Tantor
The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America
Summary
A study of the substantial evidence for a former race of giants in North America and its 150-year suppression by the Smithsonian Institution. It: Shows how thousands of giant skeletons have been found, particularly in the Mississippi Valley, as well as the ruins of the giants’ cities Explores 400 years of giant finds, including newspaper articles, first-person accounts, state historical records, and illustrated field reports Reveals the Stonehenge-era megalithic burial complex on Catalina Island with more than 4,000 giant skeletons, including kings more than nine feet tall Includes more than 100 rare photographs and illustrations of the lost evidence Drawing on 400 years of newspaper articles and photos, first-person accounts, state historical records, and illustrated field reports, Richard J. Dewhurst reveals not only that North America was once ruled by an advanced race of giants, but also that the Smithsonian has been actively suppressing the physical evidence for nearly 150 years. He shows how thousands of giant skeletons have been unearthed at Mound Builder sites across the continent, only to disappear from the historical record. He examines other concealed giant discoveries, such as the giant mummies found in Spirit Cave, Nevada, wrapped in fine textiles and dating to 8000 BC; the hundreds of red-haired bog mummies found at sinkhole “cenotes” on the West Coast of Florida and dating to 7500 BC; and the ruins of the giants’ cities with populations in excess of 100,000 in Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Louisiana. Dewhurst shows how this suppression began shortly after the Civil War and transformed into an outright cover-up in 1879 when Major John Wesley Powell was appointed Smithsonian director, launching a strict pro-evolution, pro-Manifest Destiny agenda. He also reveals the 1920s’ discovery on Catalina Island of a megalithic burial complex with 6,000 years of continuous burials and more than 4,000 skeletons, including a succession of kings and queens, some more than nine feet tall - the evidence for which is hidden in the restricted-access evidence rooms at the Smithsonian. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2013 Richard J. Dewhurst. All Rights Reserved. (P)2019 Inner Traditions Audio. All Rights Reserved.
The Golden Rhinoceros
Summary
A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval Africa. From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the 15th, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. The Golden Rhinoceros brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking listeners from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and Southern Africa. Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, François-Xavier Fauvelle painstakingly reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history - but no longer. He looks at ruined cities found in the mangrove, exquisite pieces of art, rare artifacts like the golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, ancient maps, and accounts left by geographers and travelers - remarkable discoveries that shed critical light on political and architectural achievements, trade, religious beliefs, diplomatic episodes, and individual lives.
©2018 Princeton University Press: original French edition copyright 2013 by Alma éditeur, Paris (P)2020 Tantor
The Statues That Walked
Summary
The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland? The prevailing accounts of the island’s history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island’s people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island’s agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse. When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2011 Terry Hunt and Carl Weber (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
The Pattern Seekers
Summary
A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity. Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for 70,000 years, from the first tools to the digital revolution. How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species' inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
©2020 Simon Baron-Cohen (P)2021 Tantor
The Ancient Celts, Second Edition
Summary
Fierce warriors and skilled craftsmen, the Celts were famous throughout the Ancient Mediterranean World. They were the archetypal barbarians from the north and were feared by both Greeks and Romans. For 2,500 years, they have continued to fascinate those who have come into contact with them, yet their origins have remained a mystery and even today are the subject of heated debate among historians and archaeologists. Barry Cunliffe's classic study of the ancient Celtic world was first published in 1997. Since then, huge advances have taken place in our knowledge: new finds, new ways of using DNA records to understand Celtic origins, new ideas about the proto-urban nature of early chieftains' strongholds. All these developments are part of this fully updated and completely redesigned edition. Cunliffe explores the archaeological reality of these bold warriors and skilled craftsmen of barbarian Europe who inspired fear in both the Greeks and the Romans. From the picture that emerges, we are crucially able to distinguish between the original Celts and those tribes which were "Celtized", giving us an invaluable insight into the true identity of this ancient people.
©2018 Barry Cunliffe (P)2019 Tantor
Forgotten History
Summary
This book contains a glimpse into the lives of multiple historical figures that have escaped common knowledge and many historical texts. Here's an inescapable fact: you will need to dig deeper when learning about these people, but you will come out introduced to droves of new personalities. If you do not find yourself wanting to know more, we have done you a disservice, but we guarantee you that your interest will be piqued. It's time for you to become an amazing historian in your own right. When it is all said and done, introduce your peers to these amazing people. Their stories deserve to be told. Here is a preview of what you'll learn: Why is history important? The Greeks The Romans 1000s 1500s-1600s 1700s 1800s-1900s The Secrets of the wisest Much, much more!
©2016 Robert Paulson (P)2016 Robert Paulson
Pathways to the Gods
Summary
A spaceport in the Andes! A computer chart in Egyptian ruins! Primitive sculptures of figures wearing space suits! Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods stunned the world with the archaeological discovery that alien beings once colonized earth. Now, in Pathways to the Gods, von Daniken reveals the story of his travels following the trail of the ancient visitors---from the technologically sophisticated stone ruins in the Bolivian Andes to the sensational Sanskrit descriptions of space battles in Calcutta---new proof of von Daniken's startling theory that man descended from the stars!
©1981 Erich von Daniken (P)2011 Tantor
Sandstone Spine
Summary
On September 1, 2004, three middle-aged buddies set out on one of the last geographic challenges never before attempted in North America: to hike the Comb Ridge in one continuous push. The Comb is an upthrust ridge of sandstone-virtually a mini-mountain range-that stretches almost unbroken for a hundred miles from just east of Kayenta, Arizona, to some ten miles west of Blanding, Utah. To hike the Comb is to run a gauntlet of up-and-down severities, with the precipice lurking on one hand, the fiendishly convoluted bedrock slab on the other-always at a sideways, ankle-wrenching pitch. There is not a single mile of established trail in the Comb's hundred-mile reach. The friends were David Roberts, writer, adventurer, famed mountaineer of decades past, at age 61 the graybeard of the bunch; Greg Child, renowned mountaineer and rock climber, age 47; and Vaughn Hadenfeldt, a wilderness guide intimately acquainted with the canyonlands, age 53. They came to the Comb not only for the physical challenge, but to seek out seldom-visited ruins and rock art of the mysterious Anasazi culture. Each brought his own emotions on the journey; the Comb Ridge would test their friendship in ways they had never before experienced. Searching for the stray arrowhead half-smothered in the sand or for the faint markings on a far sandstone boulder that betokened a little-known rock art panel, becomes a competitive sport for the three friends. Along the way, they ponder the mystery, bringing the accounts of early and modern explorers and archaeologists to bear: Who were the vanished Indians who built these inaccessible cliff dwellings and pueblos, often hidden from view? Of whom were they afraid and why? What caused them to suddenly abandon their settlements around 1300 AD? What meaning can be ascribed to their phantasmagoric rock art? What was their relationship to the Navajo, who were convinced the Anasazi had magical powers and could fly?
©2006 The Mountaineers Books (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
The Wreck of the America in Southern Illinois
Summary
Flatboats were the most prolific type of vessel on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers during the early 1800s. Thousands of these boats descended the two rivers each year, carrying not only valuable cargo to New Orleans but also western-bound emigrants to newly opened territories. By the late 1800s, flatboats had completely disappeared, and no intact examples were known to exist. That changed in 2000, when local residents found a wreck on the Ohio River shoreline in Illinois. Archaeologist Mark J. Wagner and his colleagues from Southern Illinois University Carbondale investigated extensively and established that the wreck was a pre-Civil War flatboat, which they named America after a nearby town. In The Wreck of the America in Southern Illinois: A Flatboat on the Ohio River, Wagner provides a brief description and general history of flatboats and the various reasons they wrecked - such as poor workmanship and encounters with pirates, storms, rocks, and floating trees. Wagner describes the remains of the America, how it was constructed, the artifacts found nearby and inside - including pewter spoons, utensils with bone handles, metal buttons, and an iron felling axe - and the probable cause of its sinking. Wagner concludes with a history of the America since its discovery in 2000. The book is published by Southern Illinois University Press.
©2015 Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks
Breve historia de Babilonia
Summary
Una ciudad tan majestuosa como Atenas o Roma pero absolutamente desconocida. Es poco lo que se sabe de Babilonia a parte de unas cuantas anécdotas, este audio libro es fundamental para comprender poemas épicos como Gilgamesh, figuras bíblicas y de la música clásica como Nabucodonosor o auténticos enigmas arquitectónicos como la Torre de Babel sobre la que se conocen no pocas leyendas. Montero Fenollós nos intentará desvelar estos y otros misterios de la historia en un audio libro que supone el primer ensayo en castellano sobre la capital de Mesopotamia. El libro nos presenta la historia de esta ciudad, cosmopolita y majestuosa, de un modo asequible pero sin dejar de tocar todos los puntos fundamentales de la vida de esta urbe desconocida. Parte de la excavaciones de franceses e ingleses para situarnos en la época y señalar los lugares más importantes de la ciudad y, desde allí, recorre todos los acontecimientos más importantes desde el reinado de Hammurabi hasta el fin de la ciudad con la invasión de Ciro el persa y de Alejandro Magno dos siglos después, sin dejar de estudiar el reinado de Nabucodonosor II que llevó a la ciudad a su máximo esplendor. Pero además, incluye unos capítulos en los que el autor se mete de lleno en la topografía de la ciudad y las costumbres de sus habitantes, intenta separar el mito de la realidad en torno a la construcción de la Torre de Babel y, por último, nos descubre su religión de la que los judíos tomaron ideas acerca de los ángeles o los demonios. El audio libro es, en resumen, fundamental para entender la historia de esta ciudad, tan influyente como Atenas y Roma, pero absolutamente desconocida. Devastada por las invasiones persas y macedonias, pervertida en un intento de reconstrucción por Sadam Hussein, Babilonia toma cuerpo en este audio libro con el brillo de sus años de esplendor. Please Note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2012 Ediciones Nowtilus S.L. (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Rome Is Burning
Summary
This gripping audiobook narrated by John Telfer provides an authoritative history of Rome's Great Fire and the lasting harm it inflicted on the Roman Empire According to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, 64 AD and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia - and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. In Rome Is Burning, distinguished Roman historian Anthony Barrett sets the record straight, providing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Great Fire of Rome, its immediate aftermath, and its damaging long term consequences for the Roman world. Drawing on remarkable new archaeological discoveries and sifting through all the literary evidence, he tells what is known about what actually happened - and argues that the disaster was a turning point in Roman history, one that ultimately led to the fall of Nero and the end of the dynasty that began with Julius Caesar. Rome Is Burning tells how the fire destroyed much of the city and threw the population into panic. It describes how it also destroyed Nero’s golden image and provoked a financial crisis and currency devaluation that made a permanent impact on the Roman economy. Most importantly, the book surveys recent archaeological evidence that shows visible traces of the fire’s destruction. Finally, the book describes the fire’s continuing afterlife in literature, opera, ballet, and film. A richly detailed and scrupulously factual narrative of an event that has always been shrouded in myth, Rome Is Burning promises to become the standard account of the Great Fire of Rome for our time.
©2020 Anthony A. Barrett (P)2020 Princeton University Press
Floods, Famines, and Emperors
Summary
In 1999, few people had thought to examine the effects of climate on civilization. Now, due in part to the groundbreaking work of archaeologist Brian Fagan, climate change is a central issue.Revised and updated 10 years after its first publication, Floods, Famines and Emperors remains the definitive account of how the world's best-known climate event had an indelible impact on history.
©2009 Brian Fagan (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
Crossing the Deadly Ground
Summary
Weapons improved rapidly after the Civil War, raising difficult questions about the battle tactics employed by the United States Army. The most fundamental problem was the dominance of the tactical defensive, when defenders protected by fieldworks could deliver deadly fire from rifles and artillery against attackers advancing in close-ordered lines. The vulnerability of these offensive forces as they crossed the so-called "deadly ground" in front of defensive positions was even greater with the improvement of armaments after the Civil War.
©1994 The University of Alabama Press (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks