"Art and architecture, organized religion, writing, cities, social inequity, warfare, population explosions...all the blessings and curses of modern civilization can be traced to the seminal moment in prehistory when people decided that they wanted to live together in communities," writes Michael Balter in The Goddess and the Bull (New York: Free Press, 2005; $27), his arresting book about the excavations of Catalhoyuk, one of the earliest sites to show evidence of this "Neolithic Revolution." The folks behind the finds are exposed as well--both their triumphs and their bitter disputes.
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