The Flaming Sword

Available for over a year

What really happened when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge? Paul Howard-Jones, Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Bristol University, has had a lifelong fascination with the story of the Garden of Eden. He first heard it in the Herefordshire church where his father was the vicar. Now, he investigates how knowledge has changed us, and whether the Eden story contains within it a nostalgic longing for our simpler, hunter-gathering past. In episode three, he visits the archaeological dig at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, where he sees a thousand years of technological development exposed in the soil. And he finds out what we lose when we learn to read and to count. Producer: Chris Ledgard.