Ideal for Introduction to Archaeology and World Prehistory courses, and geared toward students with little-to-no previous coursework in the subject area, The Past in Perspective, Fourth Edition is an engaging, up-to-date, chronological introduction to human prehistory. Written in a conversational, appealing tone, Ken Feder introduces students to "the big picture"-the grand sweep of human evolutionary history, presenting the human past within the context of a series of fundamental themes of cultural evolution. His is a captivatingly written narrative of the trajectories of human development-and the fascinating processes employed to reveal those trajectories.