Starting more than 340,000 years ago, when man's ability to make a fire and fashion stone tools helped him to survive among the wild beasts, it traces his development as a food producer, the emergence of cities and states, the rise of foreign trade, and the urban revolution. Contents include: Chronological Table for Egypt and Mesopotamia, Human and Natural History, Organic Evolution and Cultural Progress, Time Scales, Food Gatherers, the Neolithic Revolution, Prelude to the Second Revolution, the Urban Revolution, the Revolution in Human Knowledge, the Acceleration and Retardation of Progress.

    The outcome was that Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence were employed to record archaeological remains alongside military surveyors in the Gaza region, through the Negev Desert to southern Jordan. In a mere six weeks, during January and February 1914, the two archaeologists covered large tracts of the desert wilderness studying monuments of numerous periods from the prehistoric to the Islamic. By the end of 1914, the work was written up and ready for publication by the Palastine Exploration Fund in 1915.