In the Beginning

Brian Fagan is one of the world's leading archaeological writers and an internationally recognized authority on human prehistory. He studied archaeology and anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, and then spent seven years in sub-Saharan Africa working in museums and in monuments conservation and excavating early farming sites in Zambia and East Africa. He was one of the pioneers of multidisciplinary African history in the 1960s. From 1967 to 2003, he was professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he specialized in lecturing and writing about archaeology to wide audiences. He is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. Brian Fagan has written several best-selling textbooks and has published several scholarly monographs on African archaeology and numerous specialized articles in national and international journals. An expert on multimedia teaching, he has received the Society for American Archaeology's first Public Education Award for his tireless efforts on behalf of archaeology and education Brian Fagan's other interests include bicycling, sailing, kayaking, and good food. He is married and lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter, three cats (who supervise his writing), and last but not least, a minimum of seven rabbits. Nadia Durrani is an archaeologist and writer. For much of the past decade she was the editor of Britain's best-selling archaeology magazine, Current World Archaeology, becoming an independent editor after the arrival of her son in 2010. She has authored and edited many hundreds of articles on archaeology from every corner of the globe, contributed to dozens of books, and written two. Throughout her career she has travelled widely --from Peru to Pakistan--to report on the latest archaeological discoveries; worked as a specialist lecturer on archaeological tours to countries including Yemen and Jordan; and contributed to a range of television documentaries. Her specialist area is Arabian archaeology and, following a degree in archaeology and anthropology from Cambridge University, she took a PhD in South West Arabian archaeology from University College, London (2001). Other research interests include the archaeology of the First World War and she is a founding member of the Great War Archaeology Group. A fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, she lives in London with her husband, Matthew, and son Jacob 'Caractacus' Hillier.