Bringing together for the first time disparate evidence from the fields of archaeology, ancient history and anthropology, Richard Rudgley shows the achievements, inventions and discoveries of prehistoric times have all but been edited out of popular accounts of the human story.

The rise of civilisation 5, 000 years ago has often been portrayed as if it were somehow created out of nothing but the author describes how the explorers of the stone age discovered all the world`s major land masses; how writing can be traced back via Neolithic systems of accounting to its Palaeolithic origins, and how mathematical and astronomical science and technological and industrial activities such as tool-making and pyrotechnics all date back to the stone age, as do many significant medical practices including cranial surgery.

Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age brings into question many assumptions about our own cultural superiority, and argues that prehistoric life was in many ways more advanced than our own.