A follow-up to the author's excellent Prehistoric America (Random House 1951) tells the story of archaeology's gradual and often controversial discovery of our ancestors. In dramatic narrative that at times gets a little too strident in its effort to be convincing, there are the diggings of men like Boucher de Perthe, Rigollot, Dubois, and Lartet, whose findings enabled a world-shaking reconstruction of the backgrounds of ancient civilization. And as adjuncts to her reports of the discoveries, the author gives authoritative examples of how Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and the other primitive men must have lived.