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Grahame Clark's book examines the development of prehistoric archaeology at Cambridge and the achievements of its graduates, placing this theme against the background of the growth of archaeology as an academic discipline worldwide. Prehistory in Cambridge began to be taught formally in 1920 and emerged as a full tripos soon after the Second World War. From the outset it focused on the aims and methods of archaeological research, providing in addition for combinations of study options ranging from early prehistory to the archaeology of the major civilisations of the Old World and the protohistory of Northern Europe. The measure of its success is shown by the achievement of Cambridge graduates at home and overseas in both the study and the field. A significant outcome of their work has been the widespread recognition of archaeology as a subject of broad educational value, not merely for undergraduates, but for human beings the world over.

'To qualify as human, a hominid has, so to say, to justify himself by works: the criteria are no longer biological so much as cultural'. In this 1977 book, Professor Grahame Clark goes on to trace the origins and development of human culture, in all its diversity, throughout the world. He follows the intellectual, material and social progress of mankind in each major region, from the earliest stone industries of two million years ago to the gradual and still incomplete attainment of literacy over the last five thousand years. He takes full account of peoples still preliterate when encountered in recent times by anthropologists as well as of those which nourished the great historic civilizations of mankind. Throughout he emphasizes the close relationship between environment and the character and speed of cultural development. The narrative is generously illustrated with photographs, drawings and maps, and there is a carefully selected list of references to the main sources used.

During the Ice Age Scandinavia was submerged under thick ice sheets, and it was only in the subsequent warmer conditions, as the ice receded, that colonisation by plants, animals and men became possible. In this book Grahame Clark examines the expansion of human settlement into this area, with particular emphasis on the economic aspects of the societies under discussion. The account is carried down to the time (3500–3000 BC) when mixed farming, including cereal agriculture, was being introduced into the area. The book is fully illustrated and documented by many maps and tables. It provides a rounded picture of the economy of the first settlers and their descendants in an area whose archaeological past has been exceptionally fully investigated and documented. The colonisation of Scandinavia is considered in its European context, but the main emphasis lies on the process of change and the continuity of settlement in the territory itself.

Throughout his career Grahame Clark has pioneered on a world scale the use of the archaeological record to document the economic and social life of prehistoric communities. In Europe he was the first to employ the concept of the ecosystem in archaeology and to underscore the necessarily reciprocal relationship that exists between culture and environment. In Britain he has played a major role in moving archaeology away from its preoccupation with typology and spurring on the newly emergent discipline of bioarchaeology. Economic Prehistory reflects all these concerns. Following a comprehensive bibliography of Professor Clark's writing, the volume opens with a series of classic papers on basic subsistence activities such as seal hunting, whaling, fowling, fishing, forest clearance, farming and stock raising. Subsequent sections then deal with world prehistory and the thorny relationship between archaeology, education and society. The volume closes with a retrospective which looks

Human understanding of time and space has been developing since the most primitive societies began to record an awareness of their history and environment. Grahame Clark, a distinguished prehistorian, describes that process and its extension with the emergence of technology, social organisation and the capacity for abstract thought. Moving from preliterate to civilised societies, he charts the various phases of transition, marked most notably by the growth of geographical discovery culminating in the circumnavigation of the earth, and the growth of a deeper, more critical view of human history. Our own period takes this fascinating account into the exploration of outer space and the search for an understanding of man's place in the cosmos.