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Here’s the SBQ (Summary Bullet Quotes) for:
📘 After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000–5000 BC
By Steven Mithen
🌍 CORE THEMES:
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Explores how climate change, environment, and technology shaped human societies after the Last Glacial Maximum.
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Covers the transition from hunter-gatherers to early agriculturalists around the world.
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Uses a narrative archaeological style — imagining a fictional archaeologist ("John Lubbock") traveling through time.
💡 Summary Bullet Quotes (SBQ):
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“At the end of the Ice Age, humans adapted not just biologically — but culturally, socially, and spiritually.”
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“The shift to farming wasn’t a revolution — it was a slow, uneven transformation shaped by necessity and ecology.”
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“Climate was destiny: melting glaciers redrew coastlines, opened new lands, and drowned others.”
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“Hunter-gatherers were not primitive — they were resilient, innovative, and socially complex.”
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“Domestication began with relationships — between people, animals, and place.”
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“The story of early humanity is one of adaptation, ingenuity, and constant movement.”
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“We became who we are because of the Ice Age, not in spite of it.”
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“Agriculture allowed surplus — surplus allowed hierarchy.”
🌐 REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:
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North America: Megafauna extinction reshaped hunting and tool use.
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Europe: Mesolithic foragers thrived in forests and coasts, long before farming.
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Near East: Natufians laid groundwork for agriculture, villages, and storage.
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East Asia: Millet and rice cultivation emerged independently.
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Africa: Diverse adaptations — from fishing on the Nile to cattle herding in savannahs.
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South America: Amazonian forest dwellers shaped their environment long before the Inca.
🧪 METHODS & STYLE:
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Blends archaeological evidence with imaginative narrative, making prehistoric data feel alive.
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Draws on climate science, paleobotany, zooarchaeology, and DNA studies.
🎯 Key Insight:
After the Ice reveals that the foundations of modern life — from farming to social complexity — were laid not in a flash, but through millennia of adaptation, experimentation, and transformation in response to a changing planet.
Want a timeline of global changes from 20,000–5,000 BC, or a map of early agricultural zones covered in the book?
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