Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:24:32.366Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - Asian Palaeolithic dispersals

from Part II - The Paleolithic and the beginnings of human history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

David Christian
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
Get access

Summary

In Palaeolithic Asia, human evolution is discussed as the result of two, and possibly three major, continental-level dispersals. The first, known as Out of Africa 1, comprises the earliest expansion and subsequent colonisation of our own genus Homo from Africa into the Eurasian landmass. The second, or Out of Africa 2, summarises a similar expansion of our species, Homo sapiens, from Africa across Eurasia and ultimately to Australia and the Americas. Some researchers also recognise a third, which was the expansion of an African type of Acheulean, bifacial technology into Southwest Asia and perhaps India and Europe c. 600,000-800,000 years ago. Some recent work in India and the Caucasus challenges this scenario. One major dispersal from Africa into Asia involved the expansion of Acheulean assemblages. The most obvious evolutionary change in the hominin lineage is the increase in brain size over the last 2 million years, from c. 600-750 cc. at Dmanisi to 1,200-1,500 cc. in Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further reading

Aiello, Leslie C., and Wheeler, Peter, ‘The expensive tissue hypothesis’, Current Anthropology 36 (1995), 199222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yosef, Ofer, ‘Early colonizations and cultural continuities in the Lower Palaeolithic of western Eurasia’, in Korisettar, Ravi and Petraglia, Michael (eds.), Early Human Behavior in Global Context: The Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record, London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 221–79.Google Scholar
Barker, Graeme, et al., ‘The “human revolution” in lowland tropical Southeast Asia: The antiquity and behavior of anatomically modern humans at Niah Cave (Sarawak, Borneo)’, Journal of Human Evolution 52 (2007), 243–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brantingham, P. Jeffrey, et al., ‘A short chronology for the peopling of the Tibetan Plateau’, Developments in Quaternary Sciences 9 (2007), 129–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carbonell, Eudald, et al., ‘The first hominin of Europe’, Nature 452 (2008), 465–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Demeter, Fabrice, Shackelford, Laura L., Bacon, Anne-Marie, Duringer, Philippe, Westaway, Kira, Sayavongkhamdy, Thongsa, Braga, José, Sichanthongtip, Phonephanh, Khamdalavong, Phimmasaeng, Ponche, Jean-Luc, Wang, Hong, Lundstrom, Craig, Patole-Edoumba, Elise, and Karpoff, Anne-Marie, ‘Anatomically modern human in Southeast Asia (Laos) by 46 ka’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109 (2012), 14,375–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, Robin W., ‘The Nihewan Basin of North China in the Early Pleistocene – Continuous and flourishing, or discontinuous, infrequent and ephemeral occupation?’, Quaternary International 295 (2012), 223–36.Google Scholar
Dennell, Robin W., The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Dennell, Robin W., and Petraglia, Michael D., ‘The dispersal of Homo sapiens across southern Asia: How early, how often, how complex?’, Quaternary Sciences Reviews 47 (2012), 1522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, Robin W., and Porr, M. (eds.), Southern Asia, Australia and the Search for Human Origins, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, Robin W., and Roebroeks, Wil, ‘An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa’, Nature 438 (2005), 1,099–104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennell, Robin W., Martinón-Torres, María, and Bermudez de Castro, José María, ‘Hominin variability, climatic instability and population demography in Middle Pleistocene Europe’, Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011), 1,511–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodonov, Andrei E., Quaternary of Middle Asia: Stratigraphy, Correlation and Paleogeography, Moscow: Geos, 2002.Google Scholar
Dodonov, Andrei E., and Baiguzina, L. L., ‘Loess stratigraphy of Central Asia: Palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental aspects’, Quaternary Science Reviews 14 (1995), 707–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunbar, Robin I. M., ‘The social brain: Mind, language, and society in evolutionary perspective’, Annual Review of Anthropology 32 (2003), 163–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferring, Reid, Oms, Oriol, Agusti, Jordi, Berna, Francesco, Nioradze, Medea, Shelia, Teona, Tappen, Martha, Vekua, Abesalom, Zhvania, David, and Lorkipanidze, David, ‘Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma.’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108 (2011), 10,432–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gabunia, Leo, et al., ‘Earliest Pleistocene hominid cranial remains from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia: Taxonomy, geological setting, and age’, Science 288 (2000), 1,019–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gamble, Clive, et al., ‘Climate change and evolving human diversity in Europe during the last glacial’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London 359 (2004), 243–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goebell, Ted, ‘Pleistocene human colonization of Siberia and peopling of the Americas: An ecological approach’, Evolutionary Anthropology 8 (1999), 208–27.Google Scholar
Goren-Inbar, Naama, et al., ‘Pleistocene milestones on the Out-of-Africa corridor at Gesher Ya'aqov, Israel’, Science 289 (2000), 944–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, Richard G., ‘Out of Africa and the evolution of modern behaviour’, Evolutionary Anthropology 17 (2008), 267–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larick, Roy, et al., ‘Early Pleistocene 40Ar/39Ar ages for Bapang Formation hominins, Central Jawa, Indonesia’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 98 (2001), 4,866–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lepre, Christopher J., Roche, Hélène, Kent, Dennis V., Harmand, Sonia, Quinn, Rhonda L., Brugal, Jean-Philippe, Texier, Pierre-Jean, Lenoble, Arnaud, and Feibel, Craig S., ‘An earlier origin for the Acheulian’, Nature 44 (2011), 82–5.Google Scholar
Leroy, S. A. G., Arpe, K., and Mikolaiewicz, U., ‘Vegetation context and climatic limits of the Early Pleistocene hominin dispersal in Europe’, Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011), 1,448–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Tungsheng, Zhonglli, Ding, and Rutter, Nat, ‘Comparison of Milankovitch periods between continental loess and deep sea records over the last 2.5 Ma.’, Quaternary Science Reviews 18 (1999), 1,205–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lordkipanidze, David, et al., ‘Postcranial evidence from early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia’, Nature 449 (2007), 305–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lumley, Henry, et al., ‘Les industries lithiques préoldowayennes du début du Pléistocène inférieur du site de Dmanissi en Géorgie’, L'Anthropologie 109 (2005), 1182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCaulay, Vincent, et al., ‘Single, rapid coastal settlement of Asia revealed by analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes’, Science 308 (2005), 1,034–6.Google Scholar
McDermott, F., et al., ‘Mass spectrometric dates for Israeli Neanderthal/early modern sites’, Nature 363 (1993), 252–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonald, Glen, Biogeography: Space, Time and Life, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003.Google Scholar
McDonald, Katharine, Martinón-Torres, María, Dennell, Robin W., and Bermudez de Castro, José María, ‘Discontinuity in the record for hominin occupation in south-western Europe: Implications for occupation of the middle latitudes of Europe’, Quaternary International 271 (2012), 114.Google Scholar
Mellars, Paul, ‘Going east: New genetic and archaeological perspectives on the modern human colonization of Eurasia’, Science 313 (2005), 796800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pappu, Shanti, Gunnell, Yanni, Aklilesh, Kumar, Braucher, Régis, Taieb, Maurice, Demory, François, and Thouveny, Nicolas, ‘Early Pleistocene presence of Acheulian hominins in South India’, Science 331 (2011), 1,596–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petraglia, Michael D., et al., ‘Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the Indian Subcontinent before and after the Toba Super-eruption’, Science 317 (2007), 114–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pettitt, Paul, ‘The rise of modern humans’, in Scarre, Chris (ed.), The Human Past, London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2005, pp. 127–73.Google Scholar
Presnyakov, Sergey L., Belyaeva, Elena V., Lyubin, V. P., Rodionov, N. V., Antonov, A. V., Saltykova, A. K., Berezhnaya, Natalia G., and Sergeev, S. A., ‘Age of the earliest Paleolithic sites in the northern part of the Armenian Highland by SHRIMP-II U–Pb geochronology of zircons from volcanic ashes’, Gondwana Research 21 (2012), 928–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranov, Vadim A., ‘The “Loessic Palaeolithic” in South Tadjikistan, Central Asia: Its industries, chronology and correlation’, Quaternary Science Reviews 14 (1995), 731–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranov, Vadim A., and Dodonov, Andrei E., ‘Small instruments of the Lower Palaeolithic site Kuldara and their geoarchaeological meaning’, in Burdukiewicz, J. M. and Ronen, A. (eds.), Lower Palaeolithic Small Tools in Europe and Asia, Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series) 1,115, 2003, pp. 133–47.Google Scholar
Rightmire, G. Philip, Lordkipanidze, David, and Vekua, Abesalom, ‘Anatomical descriptions, comparative studies and evolutionary significance of the hominin skulls from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia’, Journal of Human Evolution 50 (2006), 115–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, Richard G., et al., ‘The human colonisation of Australia: Optical dates of 53,000 and 60,000 years bracket human arrival at Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory’, Quaternary Geochronology (Quaternary Science Reviews) 13 (1994), 575–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shea, John J., ‘Transitions or turnovers? Climatically-forced extinctions of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals in the East Mediterranean Levant’, Quaternary Science Reviews 27 (2008), 2,253–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanford, Dennis J., and Bradley, Bruce A., Across Atlantic Ice: The Origins of America's Clovis Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summerhayes, Glenn R., et al., ‘Human adaptation and plant use in Highland New Guinea 49,000 to 44,000 years ago’, Science 330 (2010), 7881.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Tim D., et al., ‘Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia’, Nature 423 (2003), 742–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhu, R. X., et al., ‘New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia’, Nature 431 (2004), 559–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×