West Asia in the prehistory (before 3500 BC). Before writing, the record is stone, bone and DNA. These articles cover human origins, the ice ages and the first farmers, up to the moment cities and script appear.
Solecki's 1951 to 1960 trench at Shanidar Cave held 10 Neanderthals. In 2020 a Cambridge-led team reported an adult buried in a pit dug beside Shanidar 4.
Hunter-gatherers raised Göbekli Tepe's T-pillar rings about 9500 BC, before farming reached the region. Excavators now call it a settlement with rituals.