Taylor's entertaining, if grisly, interpretative history turns the raw gleanings of two centuries of archaeology on their head. Referencing his own experience, as well as others' documented discoveries, he expounds on the pervasiveness of such practices as funerary cannibalism, vampirism, and human sacrifice, and he poses the question, Which came first, the notion of the soul or the ceremonial burial of remains?

His conclusions, as he acknowledges, may be somewhat unsettling. Caches of bones, pottery shards, and tools reveal only the most basic clues, and the majority of archaeologists, filtering those clues through their modern "visceral insulation" from things pertaining to death, are, by Taylor's lights, unable to acknowledge how prevalent cannibalism and ritual sacrifice were and are.

Furthermore, while widespread popular thought maintains that humans acquired belief in the soul first and then developed ritual burial, Taylor considers the reverse to be more accurate: the immortal soul was invented as a result of the first burial ceremonies. Taylor demonstrates, albeit in highly scholarly style, the value of postulating well-developed, opposing points of view. (by Donna Chavez)

Timothy Taylor (born 1960) is a lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Bradford in the UK, and an author of popular books on anthropology. He has presented his work frequently on television. The British Archaeological Award winner for "best popular archaeology on television" 1991 was a "Down to Earth" episode on which he appeared.

Taylor was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and is current editor-in-chief of the Journal of World Prehistory.

Taylor is known for his closely reasoned, wide-ranging, and provocative ideas, and for his ability to connect with a general audience of readers and viewers.

Books by Timothy Taylor:

The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture 1996, Bantam ISBN 0-553-37527-X – a controversial book actually beginning eight million years in the past.

The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death 2004, Beacon ISBN 0-8070-4672-8 – claims evidence for widespread prehistoric vampirism and cannibalism, and that ceremonial burial predates social conceptions of an immortal soul.

The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution 2010, Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-0230617636