Archaic (prehistoric) world history

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[The term archaic is used here in order to counter the devaluation implied by the term prehistory relative to history and to reduce any implication of a funamental break between the palæolithic and neolithic. It implies a system in which life is subsumed under culture.]

Fossil Find Aids Evolution Study
By Curt Suplee, Washington Post, Friday 27 August 1999. A 15 million-year-old skeleton unearthed in Kenya belongs to a previously unknown animal type that may be a sort of great-uncle of our oldest direct relative. The recent find predates by several million years the long-sought last common ancestor that great apes and humans had before each of those groups diverged and developed separately.
‘Astonishing’ skull unearthed in Africa
By Ivan Noble, BBC News, Wednesday 10 July 2002. Recently unearthed human-like skull which is being described as the most important find of its type in living memory. The newly discovered skull in Chad comes from a time when the creatures which were to become modern humans had not long diverged from the line that would become chimpanzee. It finally puts to rest any idea that there might be a single missing link between humans and chimpanzees.
Archaeologists find 800,000-year-old pick
Mainichi Shumbun, Thursday 4 November 1999. A stone implement, which could be the oldest of its kind ever found in Japan, has been unearthed at the Kamitakamori site. Three stone implements are estimated to be around 700,000 years old.
Genetic ‘Adam never met Eve’
BBC News Online, Monday 30 October 2000. The most recent ancestor of all males living today was a man who lived in Africa around 59,000 years ago. The new research confirms the Out of Africa theory that modern humans originated in Africa before slowly spreading across the world. Our most recent paternal ancestor would have been about 84,000 years younger than our maternal one.
Creative Search For Naked Truth: Study Uses Lice DNA to Find When Clothing First Appeared
By Rick Weiss, Washington Post, Tuesday 19 August 2003. scientists studying the DNA of lice have concluded that early humans may have started wearing clothes just a few tens of thousands of years ago, more recently than many had presumed. The real purpose of clothing is always a combination of sex and politics.
Diffusion—Indo-Europeans and western China
Part of a dialog from the H-World list, May 1996. Caucasians speaking an Indo-European language (Tocharian) lived in the Tarim Basin of what is now western China 4,000 to 2,400 years ago. At issue is whether diffusion theory is implicitly racist.