History of the World podcast

1750 - 1046 BCE - Plotting the rise and fall of the Shang dynasty where archaeology meets traditional stories.  An incredible bronze age with …

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 …

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 …

2500 - 1600 BCE - The city of Mohenjo-daro has some surprisingly modern civil aspects. This episode explores the discoveries and suggest what they can tell us about the people who lived there.

3300 - 1600 BCE - A mysterious, but peaceful and successful trading civilisation.  Their undeciphered script cannot hide some amazing and unique …

1190 BCE? - The Trojan War is a mythological story about a city called Troy which was attacked after a large wooden horse was pulled into the city …

1600 - 1070 BCE - Mythology and archaeology are the ingredients of a good ancient period story and the Mycenaeans are no exception.  The rise and …

2000 - 1450 BCE - Our first European civilisation takes us to the island of Crete in the Mediterranean where we learn of bare breasted ladies, …

1200 BCE - 900 CE - Alphabets emerged from early writing systems and were so practical that they evolved and supplanted many of the systems in place …

3300 - 1200 BCE - What is writing and why did people start doing it?  We analyse the earliest known writing systems and read between the lines.

3150 - 30 BCE - A rapid, rollercoaster ride through three thousand years of drama, dynasties, deities, disputes and development.  Who can resist?

1213 - 525 BCE - Just what caused the New Kingdom to collapse and what did Egypt become in the one thousand years between this and Cleopatra?

3100 - 30 BCE - The complex pantheon of Egyptian deities and their links to everyday life and other cultures are explored.

1274 BCE - The Hittites have control of the city of Kadesh, but the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II wants it back.  Find out what happens when Ramesses …

1303 - 1213 BCE - This is first of our special profile episodes which focus on an historical individual.  This time it we are looking at Ramesses II, otherwise known as Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the New Kingdom of …

1620 - 1324 BCE - More specifically the story of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a golden age in Egyptian history.  However, keeping it in the family may not …

2600 - 1525 BCE - An attempt to decipher the mystery of the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, The Great Pyramid of Giza, as well as all the other pyramids, the people who built them and their motives and …

2040 - 1640 BCE - A new kingdom emerges in the Egyptian lands, but things are slightly different this time, with the Pharaohs needing to build their reputation by displaying those strong leadership qualities that are …

3150 - 2134 BCE - From the unification of the Egyptian kingdom through its journey through great prosperity and a golden age of pyramid building, …

3000 - 700 BCE - We walk together through the entire journey of Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia and the Levant during the two thousand year plus …

1200 - 516 BCE - Digging deeper into the spiritual side of the geographical area which gave birth to Judaism and how polytheism turned into …

1200 - 264 BCE - The expert Mediterranean traders that the Greeks called the Phoenicians, who established the important colony of Carthage, the …

701 BCE - Assyria under the rule of Sennacherib needed to subjugate the Kingdom of Judah under the rule of Hezekiah.  Sennacherib wanted the Judean …

2000 - 610 BCE - The incredible story of an empire that survived the Late Bronze Age Collapse and then dominated the Near East like no other before, …

1200 - 1050 BCE - All of the societies of the Near East either weakened considerably or disappeared altogether.  What could have possibly happened to …

1700 - 1200 BCE - The first Indo-Europeans documented arrived in Anatolia and completely changed the face of the Near East, even going toe to toe …

1900 - 1595 BCE - Semitic speakers from the west had established their own kingdoms throughout Mesopotamia.  The Babylonians became the most powerful …

3000 - 2000 BCE - The fascinating rise and fall of this iconic Sumerian city-state and a look at the incredible work of Sir Leonard Woolley.

2300 - 2083 BCE - Sargon the Great conquered Sumer and extended what some refer to as the first Empire.  This is the story of the earliest known civilised Semitic speakers.

3000 - 2340 BCE - The first known civilisation of Mesopotamia.  Separating fact from myth within the first cuneiform writings, and the Sumerian conquest and decline.

We take a brief look at the unignorable prehistoric cave art of Lascaux and why it could have been created.

We take a brief but closer look at some of the diverse theories relating to the construction and meaning of Göbekli Tepe.

History of the World podcast welcomes in the New Year with some of your valued messages, an update on the performance of the podcast, and most …

Put on your tuxedo or your evening gown for the prestigious 2018 History of the World podcast awards ceremony.

We discuss the incredible story of Piltdown Man as well as provide updates relating to the state of the podcast.

A brief look forward to the next volume of podcasts focusing on the Ancient World.

A summary of the Neolithic period of human history covering the period between 10,000 BCE and 3000 BCE.  An attempt to collate all that we have …

A vital look at how the drying out of the Sahara desert forced populations to congregate and adapt along the Nile's banks forcing powerful leaders to …

We explore how all of the Neolithic advances and environmental changes affected the prehistoric peoples and cultures of Mesopotamia previous to the …

We explore two very fundamental changes to village life in and around the rivers of the Fertile Crescent. Irrigation and the emergence of a class based society.

This week's podcast centres around Stonehenge, but in order to try to understand this most famous of megaliths, we discuss the Neolithic wonders of …

Göbekli Tepe in the Fertile Crescent appears to have marked the start of a megalithic period which ultimately spread across Europe.  Clouded in …

Humans of the Fertile Crescent appear to have started mastering the ability to use metals during the Neolithic period.  We meet Ötzi, who was one of …

A look at some of the correspondance and other podcasts that have inspired the History of the World podcast.

A brief look at the history and the future of the History of the World podcast.

We talk about the emergence of sedentary lifestyles of the Mesolithic and early Neolithic with the interesting story of Tell Abu Hureyra, before …

The big question to be answered, did farming spread or emerge?  We travel to Europe, the Indus Valley, the Far East and the Americas to find the answer.

We try to unravel the mystery of the human transition from the success of nomadic hunter-gathering, to the laborious risks of sedentary agriculture …

We look at at the previous 13 episodes and explore some of the aspects as yet undiscussed including the changing cultures of Old Europe.

Red ochre, shark teeth, ostrich eggs, lion men, hand stencils, cannibalism, friendly wolves, ritual burials, animal masks and big buttocks.

A look back at our changing diet and the ways and means in which we had to evolve ourselves and our technologies to succeed in the ever changing and …

Modern humans expand to Japan, America and Europe, but what happened when they met the neanderthals for the final time?

This podcast is heading for Australia, stopping at Israel, Denisova, Flores and Wallacea.  Please remember to pick up all of your belongings.

Social media indicates that we love talking about ourselves, so let's do it.  Let's talk about ourselves, the modern human, and how it all started from 300,000 years ago in Africa.

Find out about the geological science behind glaciation studies, the effect that ice ages have had on our ancestors and the story of Napi being …

The highly anticipated neanderthals, our rugged cousin who appeared to be quite brutish but was surprisingly intelligent.  Quite possibly someone who …

How is it that we can talk?  Why are we the only animal that can successfully produce audio podcasts that can be listened to and understood?  And who …

Let us put some flesh on the bones of our prehistoric hominin story, and discover what our ancestors created to get carved flesh from the bones of …

Homo erectus, as the name would suggest, is the first fully upright human and it was definitely a migratory species.  Find out more about the …

Homo habilis is thought to be the first species of human to have lived.  Find out who he was and who else lived around him.

They were alive from around 5 million to 2 million years ago, slowly evolving in East Africa and trying to become human.

This episode introduces the podcast and begins our journey from 66 million years ago through to the first ancestors of modern humans around 6 million years ago.