History of the World podcast

2500000 - 700 BCE - Why did we start killing each other and how come we were so good at it?

15 Sep 201941min

7000 - 700 BCE - Starting in Mesoamerica, we head south to explore the rainforests, highlands and savannah of South America, before heading to the Arctic tundra and heading south again to the grasslan...

8 Sep 201940min

3500 - 200 BCE - In the mysterious Peruvian highlands, people were gathering from far and wide to take a psychedelic journey into a dark labyrinth to meet the ferocious looking jaguar deity of the Cha...

1 Sep 201940min

1600 - 400 BCE - Just what was the Olmec fascination with rubber balls all about?  Did the Olmecs copy the Egyptians by constructing the first Mesoamerican pyramid?

25 Aug 201936min

1750 - 1046 BCE - Plotting the rise and fall of the Shang dynasty where archaeology meets traditional stories.  An incredible bronze age with innovative techniques and the comparison of cultural advan...

18 Aug 201947min

7000 - 1750 BCE - What happened before the Shang dynasty?  We have the traditional stories to go by, but does it stack up against the archaeological evidence?

11 Aug 201942min

3400 - 2600 BCE - The Yamnaya Culture was a successful part of the wider Kurgan culture of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. This Bronze Age culture influenced its neighbours and may have brought Bronze Age ...

4 Aug 201936min

7000 BCE onwards - Proto-Indo-Europeans are believed to have spoken a language ancestral to over four hundred languages of the modern world.  Why do we believe this when there is no firm evidence of a...

4 Aug 201937min