I have to admit that the density of information coupled with the length of the book and my lack of grounding in the area mean I didn’t make it all the way through, though I do plan to come back to it. However, what’s extraordinary about this book for me is simply the respect with which historical cultures are scrutinised. Rather than seeing cultures as a phase between one era and the next, or a prototypical example of an age of metallurgy, the authors recognise people of the past as just as human, wilful, heterogeneous and complex as modern humans. Really refreshing