Marcel Otte is an art historian and archaeologist and a professor of prehistory at the University of Liège. A specialist in cultural exchanges during the Palaeolithic Era, he is the director of numerous European archaeological digs and the author of many works of reference on prehistory.

Evolution explains how humans acquired their physical appearance but to understand how they became humans we must also grasp how thought, culture and religion arose, argues Marcel Otte.
However, in writing about humanity’s prehistory, the author does not ignore archaeological and physical data: instead he reconciles them with the evolution of thought to explain the hominization process.
What we discover here is the path taken by our ancestors, from prehistory to advanced societies, through such questions as: how did they think? What did they feel? How were their daily lives organised?

• An alternative vision of our prehistory that draws on physical and technical evolution to grasp the evolution of thought.

• A unique work by a specialist on an essential issue: the birth of culture.