Today's the big day, friends - my new book, Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age, is available for preorder! Smash that link and purchase from your retailer of choice, if that's the kind of thing you're into. harpercollins.com/products/l…

I’m in a documentary on the History Channel tonight, “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”! Check it out!

Why History Keeps Happening, by @ajkeen open.substack.com/pub/keenon… @Patrick_Wyman “Every single person that we meet was both the endpoint of thousands of years that brought them there, and the midpoint of some other process, and was the beginning of something else entirely. Think of yourselves as the middle and the beginning, not just the end.” — Patrick Wyman History, we are often told, is a simple story of progress — from caves and villages to cities; from forests and farms to factories; from chieftains and kings to democracies. But, for Patrick Wyman, host of the enormously popular Tides of History and Fall of Rome podcasts, that’s far too linear a narrative. In his new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World, Wyman argues that rather than a teleological inevitability, civilization is a chaotic ten thousand year story of improvisation, experiment, failure, and unintended consequence. It is never ending. We are always in the middle of it. Dramatic advances in archaeological technology triggered Wyman’s argument in Lost Worlds. Ancient DNA, isotope analysis, LiDAR, cutting-edge excavation are all opening up what Wyman calls “a golden age for popular historians.” We can now trace the lives of individuals in ways that were inconceivable just a generation ago. Wyman’s star is Ötzi the Iceman — a man murdered 5,300 years ago in the Alps, whose gut contents, DNA, last meal, and likely killers we now know. Rather than a symbol of prehistoric life, Ötzi the Iceman reveals why history keeps happening.

My new book, Lost Worlds, is out today! It tells a new story about how humanity went from hunting and gathering to the cusp of "civilization" that incorporates all of the stunning new archaeological work of the past couple of decades. harpercollins.com/products/l…

I'm going to jump on Instagram Live at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT (50 minutes from now) to talk about Lost Worlds - ask me anything about prehistory, ancient DNA and archaeological science, climate change in the past, writing a book, whatever! Come hang! instagram.com/wyman_patrick/

Can't wait to read this--out today. It seems like it will be a better version of Graeber & Wengrow "The Dawn of Everything": all the lucid & inventive archaeological interpretation, none of the layered-on theoretical baggage aimed at getting even with academic opponents.

Fantastic review of my new book Lost Worlds in the Wall Street Journal: "Throughout, Mr. Wyman evokes the sights, sounds and smells of entire lifeways that have disappeared." wsj.com/arts-culture/books/l…

Anyone who loves Patrick’s podcasts has been waiting for this book. Looks like it’s going to live up to our unreasonable expectations!

My book is debuting at #6 on the NYT nonfiction best seller list. I am stunned and so grateful that readers are embracing not just Lewis and Clark but York, Ordway, Sacajawea, Black Buffalo, Coboway . . .

Patrick!! Awesome interview yesterday. Cross Word Books on bookclues.com Love this book! open.spotify.com/episode/1Zu…… Great Father’s Day gift!!

New Past Lives: Ötzi the Iceman. Of all the people who lived in the distant past, we might know Ötzi the best: his tattoos, his final meals, the aches and pains he experienced, and more. Considering he lived more than 5,000 years ago, that's incredible. pod.link/1852618120/episode/…

Past Lives Season 2: Introducing Bodily Experiences - every episode focuses on the life of a person we know through their remains, like skeletons and mummies. Thanks to new archaeological tools, we can understand past people in ways never before possible. pod.link/1852618120/episode/…