Interactive Timeline of Human Evolution

This interactive site from the Smithsonian Institution shows the major stages of human evolution alongside the fluctuating climate. You will see how some of the various pre-human species overlapped and some of the gaps in the fossil record.

Marine Archaeology in China

The Silk Road is perhaps the most famous trade route in the pre-modern world, yet its dominance sometimes obscures other routes through which China traded with the outside world. Lately China, whose archaeological tradition has typically focused on terrestrial sites, has turned its interest to the sea. Maritime archaeology has been an essential part of the study of trading civilizations in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds, and so new discoveries in China promise to be valuable additions to our knowledge of its past. This article from National Public Radio describes some recent discoveries, as well as some of China's problems with preserving its past.

Human Sacrifices in China

This article from National Geographic is about a recent excavation in China that includes human sacrifices from the Zhou Dynasty. While human sacrifice is common to many early cultures, many scholars had been inclined to think that it was on the wane in the Zhou period. This new discovery will certainly cause people to rethink this era in Chinese history.

Neanderthal Tools Found in England

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10206677.stm

Neanderthals and Us

It has long been known that Neanderthals lived alongside early humans and that they exhibited some of the same cultural characteristics. However the reasons for the extinction of this hominid species is still a mystery. It has been suggested that Neanderthals and early humans interbred, and that perhaps they were even absorbed into the human population. An impressive new study now suggests that many modern humans share DNA with Neanderthals.

Editorial by Dr. Henry Louis Gates on the Slave Trade

The slave trade is one of the last subjects we cover in History 14. It was part of a "triangular" system of trade whereby manufactured goods from Europe were traded with West African kingdoms for slaves who were shipped to the New World to produce raw materials for European consumption. While we as Americans are often accustomed to thinking of slavery only in terms of our own unfortunate history in the United States, in reality North America was only a small part of a much bigger picture. Only a small fraction of slaves were every brought to North America, the vast majority were brought to plantations in the Caribbean. However slavery is still an open wound in our national consciousness in ways that differ greatly from other states involved with the slave trade.

One of the big contemporary issues in US race relations is slave reparations, the idea that the descendants of slaves should receive compensation for the suffering their ancestors endured. In this article by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, we see that this controversial issue is more complex than simply giving payouts to African Americans. For one thing the class divide between Blacks and Whites in America is arguably derived more from the generations of institutionalized racism that came after Abolition. For another, it was not just white plantation owners who were complicit in this inhuman institution. As Dr. Gates argues, many powerful African kingdoms were direct participants in the slave trade, knowing full well that the conditions they sent their captives into were very different from their indigenous institutions of slavery. This article is an interesting object lesson on the interconnectedness of world civilizations.

Inca Skeletons from the Time of the Spaniards

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/inca-skeletons/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reader