Cities without kings: humanity's prehistory on Ukrainian soil — with David Wengrow

About this episode

The episode explores the deep past of Ukrainian lands and its implications for understanding early human societies.

What can the deep past of Ukrainian lands reveal about the global story of humanity? Six thousand years ago, "mega-sites" flourished in what is now central Ukraine—but can these be considered the world’s first cities? How were they organized without central authorities, and how do they challenge everything we thought we knew about early social life? *** This is Thinking in Dark Times, a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language multimedia project about Ukraine. Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine. Guest: David Wengrow, a renowned British archaeologist and Professor of Comparative Archaeology at University College London. He is the co-author, alongside David Graeber, of the international bestseller "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity". *** Thinking in Dark Times is produced by UkraineWorld and brought to you by Internews Ukraine. It is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation and Politeia, a Ukrainian NGO. *** SUPPORT: You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding. You can also contribute to our…

People in this episode

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko

Guest: David Wengrow

Topics covered

• Ukrainian prehistory
• early social life
• archaeology
• cities
• humanity's history

Keywords

• Ukraine
• archaeology
• cities
• David Wengrow
• prehistory
• social organization
• humanity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UkraineWorld, Internews Ukraine, International Renaissance Foundation, Politeia

Books & works: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

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