Fingerprints of the Gods

by Charles C. Mann

Mann does for pre-Columbian civilizations what Hancock does for ancient human history—he dismantles conventional academic wisdom using archaeology, genetics, and anthropology to argue that the Americas were far more sophisticated and densely populated than textbooks claimed. You'll get that same satisfying experience of having accepted history rewritten before your eyes, but grounded in more recent scholarship and peer-reviewed research.

by Jeremy Narby

Narby takes Hancock's willingness to connect disparate knowledge systems—shamanic traditions, molecular biology, ancient myths—and pushes it further into genuinely strange territory. Where Hancock uses computer analysis of myths, Narby asks whether indigenous knowledge about DNA might be encoded in those myths themselves. It's the kind of speculative-but-rigorous thinking that will either fascinate or frustrate you, but either way, you won't forget it.

by Edward E. Ericson

This is the surprise pick, but hear me out: Bulgakov weaves together multiple timelines and mythological frameworks—a contemporary Soviet narrative interlaced with a retelling of Pontius Pilate's encounter with Christ—in a way that mirrors Hancock's layering of ancient and modern evidence. It's literary fiction, yes, but it shares that same architectural ambition of showing how different historical moments and mythic patterns echo each other. Published in 1967, it also satisfies your decade requirement.

by Richard Dawkins

Dawkins applies rigorous analytical thinking to reframe how we understand human behavior and evolution—much like Hancock reframes human history. While one uses mythology and archaeology and the other uses genetics and game theory, both authors share that quality of taking an established framework and showing you why it's incomplete. Dawkins is more conventional science, but his willingness to challenge received wisdom about human nature will appeal to your taste.

by Terence Mckenna

McKenna brings together ethnobotany, consciousness studies, and ancient divination systems with the same fearless interdisciplinary approach Hancock uses, but filtered through a more countercultural lens. He's asking similar questions about what ancient peoples understood that we've forgotten, but his methodology is more speculative and his conclusions more radical—if you found Hancock's synthesis exhilarating rather than reckless, McKenna will take you even further into that territory.