21. Bølling-Allerød of Europe

13,000 to 12,000 years ago... From megafauna hunters in Tierra del Fuego to Amazonian rock painters, the formation of early South America hunter gatherer societies was a complex process, and a sudden burst of distinct human cultures appeared at the end of the Ice Age.Support the ... Show More

The first North American cultures appeared around 13,000 years ago, when megafauna roamed a continent still largely devoid of humans. Support the show 

Homo sapiens, the only hominin to colonize every continent on the planet, finally reaches America. But who were the first Americans and when did they arrive? Support the show 

Europe’s earliest known humans lived over 1.2 million years ago. After initially roaming the plains of Iberia in small groups, they spread across the Pyrenees into the wider European continent. But for more than 100,000 years all traces of humans in these regions vanish. The ques ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the dawn of the European Iron Age.In around 3000 BC European metalworkers started to make tools and weapons out of bronze. A complex trading network evolved to convey this valuable metal and other goods around the continent. But two millennia l ... Show More

The Black Death unquestionably wrought a horrific death toll in the mid-14th century, but did it also sweep in social and cultural changes that eventually led to the rise of Europe? Professor James Belich certainly thinks so, and he lays out his argument in new book The World The ... Show More

768 - 1453 - Unpacking the true meaning of feudalism by examining the different relationships between classes of people living in Western Europe during the medieval period. 

Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—includ ... Show More

En 1348, una enfermedad terrible y desconocida se propagó por Europa, y en pocos años sembró la muerte y la destrucción por todo el continente. 

Three years into a global pandemic, the fact that infectious disease is capable of reshaping humanity is obvious. But seen in the context of sixty thousand years of human and scientific history, COVID-19 is simply the latest in a series of world-changing pathogens. In fact, the r ... Show More

1280 - 1453 - The story of how one of the great second millennium empires of Eurasia rose to significance and put the Christian world of south east Europe on notice with its military expertise and diplomatic guile.