An intellectual hero... A superb celebrator of science in all its manifestations. Ian McEwan describes him as 'Darwin's great successor.' The legendary biologist Edward O. Wilson offers his most philosophically probing work to date. 'Creativity is the unique and defining trait of our species; and its ultimate goal, self-understanding,' begins Wilson's sweeping examination of the humanities and their relationship to the sciences. By studying fields as diverse as paleontology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Wilson demonstrates that human creativity began not 10,000 years ago, as we have long assumed, but over 100,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Age. Chronicling the evolution of creativity from primates to humans, Wilson shows how the humanities, largely spurred on by the invention of language, have played a previously unexamined role in defining our species.