The Tale of the Axe

How the Neolithic Revolution Transformed Britain

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‘A powerful testimony to the value of archaeology in today’s world’ Brian Fagan

David Miles explores a period of great societal change through the most iconic artefact of its time, the polished stone axe. With a new Afterword considering the latest scientific research, Tale of the Axe vividly demonstrates how, in altering and manipulating their own landscape, our ancestors set us on the path to the world we live in now – a world we are changing in significant, accelerating and often unpredictable ways.
Extent: 448 pp
Format: paperback
Illustrations: 76
Publication date: 2021-05-13
Size: 19.8 x 12.9 cm
ISBN: 9780500293874
Preface • Prologue: A gift from the past • Part One: The Emergence of Humans • Part Two: The First Farmers • Part Three: Crossing the Water to Britain
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Press Reviews

Illuminating … As layered as the strata of an archaeological dig, this is a moving portrait of a people at a cultural and technological tipping point
Nature

Colourful and lively writing and an eye to current issues and idioms play their part … This is first-person scholarship at its most humane
Literary Review

[Miles] presents his scholarly findings with glints of good-humoured individuality which make his book pleasantly readable, even by lay persons
Spectator

David Miles takes this archetypal artefact as a launchpad to explore a vast sweep of prehistory[…] with absorbing detail and an amiable turn of phrase … this new edition includes a thought-provoking afterword that brings the story up to date
Current Archaeology

About the Author

David Miles was the Director of the Oxford Archaeological Unit for many years, and worked on projects in Britain, France, Greece and the West Indies. In 1999 he became Chief Archaeologist at English Heritage, where he developed a maritime archaeology unit and a project to study the impact of slavery in England. He has written many books on archaeology, particularly on the Roman and Migration periods in Britain, and one on the origins of the British, The Tribes of Britain.

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