This book, an innovative history of science, explores the scientific breakthroughs from peoples of the ancient world--Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World and Oceanic tribes, among others--and the non-European medieval world. They left an enormous heritage in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology. The first comprehensive, authoritative, popularly written, multicultural history of science, Lost discoveries fills a crucial gap in the history of science.