David Wengrow is Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London. He has written widely on the early development of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisation and is the co-director of an archaeological field project in Iraqi Kurdistan, investi­gating the world’s earliest transition from village to urban life. His books include 'What Makes Civilisation? The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West', and 'The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity' (co-authored with David Graeber).