Dennell 2015 - Asian Paleolithic Dispersals

Cambridge Histories Online
http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/histories/
The Cambridge World History
Edited by David Christian
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139194662
Online ISBN: 9781139194662
Hardback ISBN: 9780521763332
Chapter
17 - Asian Palaeolithic dispersals pp. 414-432
Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139194662.018
Cambridge University Press

17
Asian Palaeolithic dispersals
robin dennell
Much of human prehistory is about movement. Sometimes these move-

ments involved the colonisation of a new niche brought about by environ-
mental change, or when our ancestors crossed a behavioural threshold that
enabled them to inhabit new regions that were previously beyond their
capabilities. Often, these movements were ones of contraction and expansion
because of climatic changes that made a region either habitable or uninhabit-
able. At times, these movements brought groups into closer contact with
each other; at other times, these movements resulted in their isolation. All
these types of movements are seen in the Palaeolithic record of Asia, the
largest of the continents settled by hominins (our own species, Homo sapiens,
and its predecessors) in the last two million years or so.
Biogeographers dene many different types of movement by animal and
plant species.1 Dispersals, or population expansions, refer to the extension of
a species range into new areas. Colonisation occurs if this leads to the
establishment of a permanent population. Most dispersals involve no behav-
ioural change, and result from either an expansion of a species preferred
habitat as when, for example, a fall in sea level results in the expansion of
the type of coastal plain already familiar to it or (especially with birds), the
ability to cross barriers such as mountains or the sea to reach favourable new
habitats. Dispersals should be differentiated from migrations, which usually
refer to seasonal movements within a dened annual range: many modern
pastoral societies are examples of this type of seasonal movement between
winter and summer pastures, as are modern hunting communities with
distinct winter and summer territories, and many species of birds. This type
of migration is distinct from emigration, which is the planned, and usually
one-way movement of people from one region to another. Rapid dispersal
1 See Glen McDonald, Biogeography: Space, Time and Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2003).
414
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events (over a matter of decades or a few centuries) that are at the expense of
indigenous communities (whether red squirrels or Australian aborigines) are
sometimes termed invasions or irruptions; although there are numerous
examples from historic contexts, these are unlikely during the Palaeolithic
because population densities were so low. Dispersals by an immigrant
species can sometimes be at the expense of an indigenous one and even
result in its extinction (as may have happened to Neanderthals after the
appearance of Homo sapiens), but this process may take several centuries or
even millennia; here, population replacement is a more appropriate term
than invasion.
Dispersals by humans and their ancestors are particularly interesting
because they were often facilitated by anatomical, technological, or social
changes. Examples might be an increase in brain size, the invention of stone-
tipped projectiles, or the development of exchange networks that allowed
groups to obtain resources such as high-quality stone that were not available
locally. Dispersals can also occur if the colonising species is a predator that
the indigenous fauna had never previously encountered. For example, the
rapid dispersal of our species into and across Australia 40,00050,000 years
ago, and the Americas after 12,00015,000 years ago may have been possible
because the local fauna was nave with respect to the predatory nature of
humans: the same process may also have occurred when Homo erectus rst
entered Asia over 1.8 million years ago.2 In Palaeolithic Asia, human evolu-
tion is often discussed as the result of two, and possibly three major,
continental-level dispersals. The rst, known as Out of Africa 1, comprises
the earliest expansion and subsequent colonisation of our own genus Homo
from Africa into the Eurasian landmass.3 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.4 Some research-
ers also recognise a third, which was the expansion of an African type of
Acheulean, bifacial technology into Southwest Asia and perhaps India and
2 R. W. Dennell, Hominin dispersals, environmental novelty and levels of group

co-operation, In M. Petraglia, N. Boivin, and R. Crassard (eds.), From Colonisation to
Globalisation: Species Movements in Human History (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, in press).
3 See Ofer Bar-Yosef, Early colonizations and cultural continuities in the Lower Palaeo-
lithic of western Eurasia, in Ravi Korisettar and Michael D. Petraglia (eds.), Early
Human Behavior in Global Context: The Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record
(London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 22179 and Figure 1.
4 Paul Pettitt, The rise of modern humans, in Chris Scarre (ed.), The Human Past
(London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2005), pp. 12773 and Figure 2.
415
robin dennell
Europe c. 600,000800,000 years ago.5 As outlined below, some recent work

in India and the Caucasus challenges this scenario.
Out of Africa 1
The timing of this process is dened by the earliest unambiguous record of
hominins outside Africa. At present, this comes from the site of Dmanisi,
Georgia, where a remarkable set of deposits 1.771.85 million years old were
found under a medieval castle during restoration work. Excavations of only a
small part of these deposits has so far produced four complete skulls of a very
early form of Homo erectus, two mandibles, numerous post-cranial bones,
hundreds of very simple stone tools, and a large number of animal remains.6
Recently, the earliest stone tools from Dmanisi have been dated to 1.85
million years ago.7 These hominins were small, with small brains less than
half the modern size, and highly sexually dimorphic, with males considerably
heavier than females. This may have implications on their social organisa-
tion: some researchers argue that a high degree of sexual dimorphism (as in
gorillas, for example) implies a harem-type of social grouping, with a few
males dominating several females. Although it is not yet clear whether the
Dmanisi hominins hunted or scavenged, their stone tools would have been
adequate for deeshing animals and smashing their limb-bones to extract
marrow. A handful of sites across Eurasia mark the earliest recorded appear-
ance of our genus outside Africa (see Map 17.1). In Java, the earliest nds of
Homo erectus at Sangiran date from slightly before c. 1.5 million years ago; in
5 Naama Goren-Inbar, et al., Pleistocene milestones on the Out-of-Africa corridor at

Gesher Yaaqov, Israel, Science 289 (2000), 9447.
6 Leo Gabunia, et al., Earliest Pleistocene hominid cranial remains from Dmanisi,
Republic of Georgia: Taxonomy, geological setting, and age, Science 288 (200),
1,01925; David Lordkipanidze, et al., Postcranial evidence from early Homo from
Dmanisi, Georgia, Nature 449 (2007), 30510; Henry de Lumley, et al., Les industries
lithiques proldowayennes du dbut du Plistocne infrieur du site de Dmanissi en
Gorgie, LAnthropologie 109 (2005), 1182; and G. Philip Rightmire, David Lordkipa-
nidze, and Abesalom Vekua, Anatomical descriptions, comparative studies and evolu-
tionary signicance of the hominin skulls from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, Journal
of Human Evolution 50 (2006), 11541. A. Mgeladze, et al., Hominin occupations at the
Dmanisi site, Georgia, Southern Caucasus: Raw materials and technical behaviours of
Europes rst hominins, Journal of Human Evolution 6 (2011): 57196; D. Lordkipanidze,
et al., A complete skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the evolutionary biology of early
Homo, Science 342 (2013): 32631.
7 Reid Ferring, Oriol Oms, Jordi Agusti, Francesco Berna, Medea Nioradze, Teona Shelia,
Martha Tappen, Abesalom Vekua, David Zhvania, and David Lorkipanidze, Earliest
human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.851.78 Ma., Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108 (2011), 10,4326.
416
417
50
50 60 100
140
0 2000 km
Dmanisi Majuangou 1.6 Million years ago

1.771.85 Million years ago
Kuldara
0.9 Million years ago Zhoukoudian
'Ubeidiya Tibet
c. 1.9 Million years ago 0.40.78 Million years ago
c. 1.01.5 Million years ago
30 Riwat 30
Lantian >1.2 Million years ago
Yuanmou ?1.7 Million years ago

20 20
Attirampakkam
10 10
0 0
Sangiran Mojokerto
<1.49 Million years ago
60 100 140
Map 17.1 Primary evidence for early Homo erectus in Asia. Stars denote sites with skeletal evidence of Homo erectus; circles denote sites with the
earliest stone tool assemblages from different parts of Asia; and squares denote the earliest evidence for Acheulean assemblages.
At present, there is little denite evidence of a hominin presence outside Africa before 1.85 million years ago, but the size of Asia and small
number of observations should make us wary about excluding the possibility of an earlier presence. By 1 million years ago, hominins had
colonised much of Asia as far as 40 N.
robin dennell
north China, the earliest artefacts from the Nihewan Basin currently date to
c. 1.66 million and 1.61.7 million years ago, and the Homo erectus cranium
from Lantian in Central China has recently been dated to 1.63 million years
ago.8 A mandible c. 1.3 million years old from Atapuerca in northern Spain
and a tooth from Barranco Leon, Orce Basin, Spain that may be 1.4 million
years old are currently the oldest evidence for our genus in Europe, and
show that hominins were now distributed across the entire Eurasian land-
mass south of 40 N.9
Three comments are worth making about the current evidence for our
ancestors rst appearance outside Africa. First, the evidence is so slight that a
chance discovery could easily transform our opinions of when they rst left
Africa: Dmanisi, for example, was a wholly unexpected discovery. Secondly,
the dating of these very ancient sites is critically important, but not always as
robust as one would like. Although dating techniques have improved hugely
in recent years, dates (like share prices) can fall as well as rise, and some
important nds have turned out to be much younger than rst thought.
Thirdly, we are almost certainly not dealing with a single dispersal event;
instead, it is much more probable that the colonisation of Eurasia spanned
scores of millennia and thousands of generations. With the very limited
evidence at our disposal, we see only the cumulative end-result of what
was likely a long, complex process, with many false starts and set-backs.
Although the overall trend was from west to east, back-movements may
have occurred at times, and perhaps (as has been suggested for the type of
hominins evidenced at Dmanisi) even re-entered Africa.10 What is likely is
that sites even older than Dmanisi will eventually be found in Eurasia. One
credible scenario is that our ancestors were able to expand their range and
disperse into Asia shortly after they had mastered the repetitive and regular
aking of stone to produce sharp edges for cutting and scraping c. 2.6 million
years ago. Because this innovation enabled hominins to deesh carcasses
rapidly, it must have conferred them with a considerable advantage over
8 Roy Larick, 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), 4,86671; and R. X. Zhu, et al., New evidence on the earliest human presence
at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia, Nature 431 (2004), 55962; H. Ao, et al.,
New evidence for early presence of hominids in North China, Nature Scientic
Reports 3 (2013) 2,403; Zhu ZhaoYu et al., New dating of the Homo erectus cranium
from Lantian (Gongwangling), China, Journal of Human Evolution 98 (2013), 14457.
9 Eudald Carbonell, et al., The rst hominin of Europe, Nature 452 (2008), 4659; I.
Toro-Moyano, et al., The oldest human fossil in Europe, from Orce (Spain), Journal
of Human Evolution 65 (2013), 19.
10 Rightmire, Lordkipanidze, and Vekua, Anatomical descriptions.
418
their competitors by allowing them to delay consumption until after they had
procured their food.11
Expansion of Acheulean assemblages

One major dispersal or more likely, sets of dispersals from Africa into Asia
involved the expansion of Acheulean assemblages.12 Acheulean assemblages
are typically characterised by bifacially aked handaxes, large cutting tools, and
often cleavers: all heavy-duty items that could be used for splitting and shaping
wood, smashing bone (to extract its marrow), or digging (for example, to
obtain edible tubers). The earliest in Africa date back to c. 1.7 million years
ago but are not found at Dmanisi.13 In Asia, the earliest are from the site of
Ubeidiya, Israel, and date from c. 1.0 to 1.4 million years ago. Recent work
in India has shown that the earliest bifaces at Attirampakkam in South India
are 1.01.5 million years old considerably older than previously thought
for South Asia.14 Likewise in Armenia, it now appears that Acheulean bifaces
in the Caucasus may be over 1 million years old; again, much earlier than
previously reckoned.15 Together, this evidence may indicate that the use of this
technology was diffused between groups or dispersed by incoming groups
across Southwest and South Asia before 1 million years ago. Unfortunately,
there is no skeletal data to indicate what type of hominin(s) made them.
A second set of dispersals again unsupported by hominin skeletal evidence
may be indicated at another Israeli site, Gesher Benot Yaaqob, where African
types of handaxes and cleavers date from c. 700,000 to 800,000 years ago.16 If
this denotes another dispersal event, it appears to have been conned to the
Levant as it is not found elsewhere. For reasons not yet understood, Acheulean
assemblages do not appear in Europe until 500,000600,000 years ago; here,
11 Robin W. Dennell and Wil Roebroeks, An Asian perspective on early human dispersal
from Africa, Nature 438 (2005), 1,099104.
12 The term Acheulean is derived from St. Acheul, near Paris, where these types of
tools were rst recognised in the 1850s.
13 Christopher J. Lepre, Hlne Roche, Dennis V. Kent, Sonia Harmand, Rhonda L.
Quinn, Jean-Philippe Brugal, Pierre-Jean Texier, Arnaud Lenoble, and Craig S. Feibel,
An earlier origin for the Acheulian, Nature 44 (2011), 825.
14 Shanti Pappu, Yanni Gunnell, Kumar Aklilesh, Rgis Braucher, Maurice Taieb, Fran-
ois Demory, and Nicolas Thouveny, Early Pleistocene presence of Acheulian homi-
nins in South India, Science 331 (2011), 1,5969.
15 Sergey L. Presnyakov, Elena V. Belyaeva, V. P. Lyubin, N. V. Rodionov, A. V. Antonov,
A. K. Saltykova, Natalia G. Berezhnaya, and S. A. Sergeev, Age of the earliest Paleolithic
sites in the northern part of the Armenian Highland by SHRIMP-II UPb geochronology
of zircons from volcanic ashes, Gondwana Research 21 (2012), 92838.
16 Naama Goren-Inbar, et al., Pleistocene milestones.
419
robin dennell
they are usually associated with Homo heidelbergensis, which was likely an
immigrant into Europe from Southwest Asia.17
Out of Africa 2
Out of Africa 2 is the name given to the expansion of our species, Homo
sapiens, from Africa. Many researchers argue that the oldest evidence of our
species in Africa is c. 190,000 years old from the Awash Valley, Ethiopia.18
Outside Africa, the earliest skeletal evidence of our species dates from the last
interglacial, c. 70,000125,000 years ago, from the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh
in Israel.19 It appears to have been conned to the Levant, and c. 70,000 years
ago was displaced by Neanderthals who may have been forced southwards
by the increasingly harsh conditions of MIS 4.20 After being present in the
Levant for c. 50,00060,000 years ago, these early populations of Homo sapiens
became extinct, possibly because they were not as socially and cognitively
advanced as later populations of Homo sapiens.21 After an assumed increase of
populations in Africa, Homo sapiens is thought to have expanded across
southern Asia between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago (see Map 17.2).22
Genetic studies of modern populations indicate that the modern inhabitants
17 Katharine McDonald, Mara Martinn-Torres, Robin W. Dennell, and Jos Mara

Bermudez de Castro, 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.
18 Tim D. White, et al., Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, Nature
423 (2003), 7427.
19 F. McDermott, et al., Mass spectrometric dates for Israeli Neanderthal/early modern
sites, Nature 363 (1993), 2525.
20 John J. Shea, Transitions or turnovers? Climatically-forced extinctions of Homo sapiens
and Neanderthals in the East Mediterranean Levant, Quaternary Science Reviews 27
(2008), 2,25370. MIS stands for Marine Isotope Stage. Ocean oor sediments comprise
an incomparably detailed and continuous record of climate change extending back in
places many millions of years. The main palaeo-climatic indicator is the isotopic
composition of the shells of minute marine organisms called foraminifera. Put briey,
these record variations in two types of oxygen in sea-water, and this reects the
prevailing salinity and hence the amount of ice and snow on land: in cold periods, an
enormous amount of water is locked up on land as snow and ice sheets, and because
these are formed of fresh water, the salinity of the ocean increases slightly. Analysis of
cores of ocean oor sediment can reveal these minute changes in salinity, and are
divided into marine isotope stages (=MIS). Even-numbered ones denote cold periods,
and odd-numbered ones, warm periods when ice sheets melted and retreated. We are
currently living in MIS 1; the severest part of the last ice age was MIS 2.
21 Paul Mellars, Going east: New genetic and archaeological perspectives on the modern
human colonization of Eurasia, Science 313 (2005), 796800.
22 Richard G. Klein, Out of Africa and the evolution of modern behaviour, Evolutionary
Anthropology 17 (2008), 26781.
420
421
40 60 80 100 120
40 40
Tibetan Plateau Tianyuandong,

Skhul c. 40 ka
Qafzeh
c. 12570 ka
Zhirendong,
c. 55125 ka
20 20
Tam Pa Callao Cave,
c. 67 ka
Ling
c. 43/63 ka
Awash Valley Niah Cave,

c. 190 ka c. 45 ka
0 0
0 2000 km
40 60 80 100 120
Map 17.2 Sites with the earliest skeletal evidence for Homo sapiens in Asia and northeast Africa. Note the absence of any
relevant skeletal evidence for Homo sapiens between Arabia and Southeast Asia; ka = thousand years ago.
robin dennell
of South and East Asia probably arose from communities that arrived
c. 50,00060,000 years ago, and this estimate is consistent with the earliest
dates for the arrival of our species in New Guinea and Australia, which
would have been conjoined into a giant landmass (along with Tasmania)
during the last glaciation when sea levels were lower than today.23 In Israel,
the earliest communities of Homo sapiens used a Middle Palaeolithic type of
toolkit (that is, one in which cores were shaped by aking prior to the
detachment of the required type of akes) similar to that used by Neanderthals,
and only much later after perhaps 45,000 years ago developed an Upper
Palaeolithic technology that utilised a large number of blades. In India, it is
probable that the earliest immigrant communities of our species used a Middle
Stone Age toolkit (roughly equivalent in Africa and India to the Middle
Palaeolithic of Europe and Southwest Asia), although so far human skeletal
remains have not been found.24 Southeast Asia presents a very different picture,
as the populations that are evidenced there after 40,00050,000 years ago used a
very simple stone technology that nevertheless appears to have been successful
in enabling humans to utilise tropical rainforests for the rst time.25
As with Out of Africa 1, a number of health warnings are necessary over
Out of Africa 2. The rst is that there is almost no human skeletal evidence
from Southwest Asia between 190,000 (when modern humans rst appeared
in East Africa) and 125,00070,000 years ago, when they rst appear in the
Levant, and therefore, Homo sapiens may have left Africa before 125,000 years
ago. Secondly, there is no human skeletal evidence between the Levant,
c. 70,000 years ago, and Tam Pa Ling, Laos, c. 45,000 years ago and therefore
we can only guess when our species rst appeared in Arabia and India.26
23 Vincent McCaulay, et al., Single, rapid coastal settlement of Asia revealed by analysis
of complete mitochondrial genomes, Science 308 (2005), 1,0346; Glenn R. Summer-
hayes, et al., Human adaptation and plant use in Highland New Guinea 49,000 to
44,000 years ago, Science 330 (2010), 7881; and Richard G. Roberts, 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 (Quater-
nary Science Reviews) 13 (1994), 57583.
24 Michael D. Petraglia, et al., Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the Indian Subcon-
tinent before and after the Toba Super-eruption, Science 317 (2007), 11416.
25 See Graeme Barker, 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), 24361.
26 Fabrice Demeter, Laura L. Shackelford, Anne-Marie Bacon, Philippe Duringer, Kira
Westaway, Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy, Jos Braga, Phonephanh Sichanthongtip,
Phimmasaeng Khamdalavong, Jean-Luc Ponche, Hong Wang, Craig Lundstrom, Elise
Patole-Edoumba, and Anne-Marie Karpoff, Anatomically modern human in South-
east Asia (Laos) by 46 ka, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109 (2012),
14,37580.
422
Thirdly, because those communities of Homo sapiens that inhabited the

Levant c. 125,000 years ago have left no genetic signature in modern popula-
tions, it follows that modern humans in South and Southeast Asia may have a
deeper antiquity than indicated by genetic studies of modern populations.
The greatest impediment to understanding when our species left Africa is the
lack of skeletal evidence between the Levant and Southeast Asia before
45,000 years ago, and from Southwest Asia before 125,000 years ago. We
may yet discover that our species left Africa before 125,000 years ago, and
dispersed across southern Asia before 60,000 years ago.27
Dispersals and climatic change

The hominin populations that have inhabited Asia in the past 1.75 million
years would have had to respond to numerous cyclical climatic changes that
occurred throughout the Pleistocene. These changes occurred primarily
because of variations in the earths orbit, and are often known as
Milankovic cycles, after their discoverer. As is now well known, the Early
Pleistocene (2.50.8 million years ago) was characterised by frequent and
usually minor uctuations in precipitation and temperature, on an average
cycle of one every 40,000 years. In the Middle Pleistocene, these uctuations
were much greater, and the last 600,000 years have been dominated by four
lengthy and major periods of reduced temperature and precipitation, each
lasting up to 100,000 years, and separated by relatively short interglacials that
were warmer and moister (see Figure 17.1). In Europe, these cold periods are
termed glaciations, and were dominated by the southwards advance of ice
caps over Scandinavia and northern Britain. In Asia, ice sheets were never as
extensive, and the equivalent of glaciations were periods when the summer
monsoon over South, Southeast, and East Asia was severely weakened,
leading to major reductions in rainfall. Because the winter monsoon (which
drives cold, dry air southwards across these regions) was stronger, tempera-
tures were also considerably cooler than today.
These climatic shifts had profound effects on plant and animal commu-
nities, including hominins. In warm, moist periods, hominins and their
27 Robin W. Dennell and Michael D. Petraglia, The dispersal of Homo sapiens across
southern Asia: How early, how often, how complex?, Quaternary Sciences Reviews 47
(2012), 1522; Robin W. Dennell, Smoke and mirrors: The fossil record for Homo
sapiens between Arabia and Australia, in R. W. Dennell and M. Porr (eds.), Southern
Asia, Australia and the Search for Human Origins (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 2014), pp. 3350.
423
robin dennell
Figure 17.1 The climatic pulse of the Pleistocene. This shows the loess (dust) record from
Baoji, central China, and the isotopic record of a sediment core from DSDP (deep-sea
drilling program) site 607. Without going into the technical details of each, both show a
remarkably similar record of climate change, with numerous low-amplitude changes
before 600,000 years ago, and a few major, high-amplitude changes thereafter. The odd
numbers on the right of the DSDP record denote periods when the climate was warm and
moist, like the present. In the Chinese record, S (for example, S16) denotes periods of
soil formation, when rainfall was higher, and L (for example, L1) denotes dry, cold, and
windy periods when the type of wind-blown soil known as loess accumulated. Our
ancestors had to cope with a climate that was frequently highly unstable. Source:
Tungsheng Liu, Zhonglli Ding, and Nat Rutter, Comparison of Milankovitch periods
between continental loess and deep sea records over the last 2.5 Ma., Quaternary Science
Reviews 18 (1999), 1,20512.
resources could expand northwards and often longitudinally from source

populations, and dispersals into neighbouring regions were often feasible:
when these happened, populations could interbreed. Because conditions
were favourable, population levels and densities could rise.28 In cold, dry
periods, populations had to retreat or become locally extinct, and surviving
ones were conned to refugia. These uctuations therefore shape the
28 Robin W. Dennell, Mara Martinn-Torres, and Jos Mara Bermudez de Castro,

Hominin variability, climatic instability and population demography in Middle Pleis-
tocene Europe, Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011), 1,51124.
424
Palaeolithic settlement of Asia: The early hominin settlement of Asia is. . .a

repeated theme of regional expansion and contraction, colonisation and
abandonment, integration and isolation as rainfall increased or decreased.
When viewed in closer detail. . .much of the Asian Early Palaeolithic record
is likely to comprise regional discontinuities and local extinctions, rather than
long-term continuity and permanent residence.29 Figure 17.2 provides a
simple summary of these types of population dynamics.
This type of climatically driven dispersal is best evidenced at the northern
limits of the hominin range across the Eurasian landmass, from western
Europe to northern China. One excellent example comes from Tajikistan in
Central Asia, which has a long sequence of Palaeolithic sites from the last
900,000 years. Investigations showed that Palaeolithic occupation occurred
only during warm, moist periods when soils could develop; in cold, dry
periods, when dust storms were common and enormous deposits of loess
(wind-blown dust) accumulated, hominins either retreated southwards or
became extinct (see Figure 17.3).30 A similar pattern of expansion and con-
traction is evident in Britain and western Europe, and likely also in north
China. This type of movement is not surprising as hominins are climatically
sensitive, especially to lengthy sub-freezing winters.31
In addition to Milankovic cycles of glacialinterglacial conditions (or their
equivalent in monsoon-dominated regions), there were also shorter periods
of abrupt climatic change, the reasons for which remain poorly known. In
glacial periods, the most important are known as Heinrich events, when
conditions suddenly became considerably colder for a few centuries or
millennia. These must have had profound effects on hominin populations,
but because most Palaeolithic sites >50,000 years old cannot be dated to
within a margin of error of less than 5,000 or even 10,000 years, they cannot
be correlated to these short-term events. However, it is sometimes possible
to see the effects of short term climatic change on populations from the last
30,000 years. One excellent example is late glacial western Europe. Here,
29 Robin W. Dennell, The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 2009).
30 Vadim A. Ranov, The Loessic Palaeolithic in South Tajikistan, Central Asia: Its
industries, chronology and correlation, Quaternary Science Reviews 14 (1995), 73145.
31 Dennell, Martinn-Torres, and Bermudez de Castro, Hominin variability; Robin W.
Dennell, The Nihewan Basin of North China in the Early Pleistocene Continuous
and ourishing, or discontinuous, infrequent and ephemeral occupation?, Quaternary
International 295 (2012), 22336; and S. A. G. Leroy, K. Arpe, and U. Mikolaiewicz,
Vegetation context and climatic limits of the Early Pleistocene hominin dispersal in
Europe, Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011), 1,44863.
425
robin dennell
(a) Uninhabitable
(b) Uninhabitable
Figure 17.2 Summary model of population dynamics under the climatic shifts of the
Pleistocene in continental Asia. This simple model envisages three populations, one of
which is separated from the others by a mountain range. In (a), populations are conned
to a small number of refugia during the equivalent of a glacial maximum, when
conditions were much colder and drier than today. During these periods, populations are
likely to have been at their lowest levels, and isolated from each other. In (b), populations
are able to disperse northwards during the equivalent of an interglacial, when the climate
was similar to todays. Under such conditions, they are also likely to have overlapped in
parts of their range, thereby allowing exchange of mates, ideas, and techniques; and even
in this case, some exchange between populations formerly isolated by a mountain range.
The Tajik record (see Figure 17.3) provides a good example of this type of regional
expansion and contraction, colonisation and abandonment, integration and isolation as
rainfall increased or decreased (Dennell, The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009) in Central Asia.
426
Figure 17.3 The Tajik loess and palaeosol record (reprinted from Quaternary Science
Reviews, 18 (1011), Tungsheng Liu, Zhonglli Ding, and Rutter, N., Comparison of
Milankovitch periods between continental loess and deep sea records over the last 2.5
Ma., pp. 120512, copyright 1999, with permission from Elsevier). Black bars denote
interglacials, when soils formed; intervening white parts denote colder and drier periods
when loess (wind-blown) dust was deposited. As is clear, hominins were present only
during periods of soil formation. It was likely that this part of Central Asia was
depopulated in cold, dry periods.
427
robin dennell
humans moved rapidly northwards from their refugia in southern Europe

when the ice sheets began to contract after c. 15,000 years ago. Following a
sudden re-advance of the ice sheets c. 12,000 years ago, populations once
again retreated southwards, and the re-colonisation of northern Europe was
delayed for two millennia.32
Dispersals, evolutionary change, and innovation

Hominins differ from other mammals in the extent of their anatomical
changes, and also in their capacity for cultural change. The most obvious
evolutionary change in the hominin lineage is the increase in brain size over
the last 2 million years, from c. 600750 cc. at Dmanisi to 1,2001,500 cc. in
Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. This increase in brain size was accompanied
by a shortening of the gut, and was probably caused by the way hominins
shifted towards carnivory and the regular intake of high-quality protein: this
reduced the need for a long digestive tract suitable for processing low-quality
plant foods, and under-pinned the expansion of energetically expensive brain
tissue.33 As noted above, stone tools would have given hominins an edge
over their competitors in enabling them to deesh carcasses and extract
marrow; these skills in turn also depend upon a large brain. In this instance,
carnivory and tool-making may have been the impetus behind the earliest
dispersals of our genus from Africa.
As hominin brains became larger, so the amount of information that they
could store and process increased. Brain size in primates is correlated with
group size, as large social groups involve greater skills of communication
(including language) and negotiation. As group size increased, the social
landscapes of hominins would have become larger and more complex, and
included factors such as mapping the location of scarce resources (such as
high-quality stone), and the developing exchange networks. In short, the
development of a social brain would have widened the potential scope for
hominins to disperse into new types of environments, or to utilise them
more effectively.34
32 Clive Gamble, et al., Climate change and evolving human diversity in Europe during
the last glacial, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London 359 (2004), 24354.
33 Leslie C. Aiello and Peter Wheeler, The expensive tissue hypothesis, Current Anthro-
pology 36 (1995), 199222.
34 Andrei E. Dodonov and L. L. Baiguzina, Loess stratigraphy of Central Asia: Palaeocli-
matic and palaeoenvironmental aspects, Quaternary Science Reviews 14 (1995), 70720;
and Robin I. M. Dunbar, The social brain: Mind, language, and society in evolution-
ary perspective, Annual Review of Anthropology 32 (2003), 16381.
428
The ability to disperse into new types of environments in Asia is most

pronounced for Homo sapiens in the last 50,000 years. For over a million
years, the hominin range did not increase signicantly. However, in the last
50,00060,000 years, several new type of environments were colonised for
the rst time. The most striking in continental Asia is the colonisation of
Siberia, which probably began c. 40,00050,000 years ago, and which brought
humans to the Arctic Ocean and ultimately to North America via the Bering
landbridge c. 15,000 years ago.35 As major an event was the colonisation of the
Australian landmass in the last 50,00060,000 years, which would have
required the use of boats or rafts with paddles and sails, as well as some
navigational abilities. The development of navigational skills also led to the
colonisation of Japan c. 40,000 years ago and outlying islands such as
Okinawa (30,000 years ago) and the Solomon Islands (30,000 years ago). It
is also probable that the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia were colonised
in the last 40,00050,000 years.36 And nally, at the end of the Pleistocene, the
Tibetan Plateau, with an average altitude of 5,000 m above sea level, was also
settled by humans.37
The Palaeolithic history of Asia (and the Eurasian landmass generally) has
been shaped by different types of dispersals, operating at different spatial and
temporal scales and in a wide variety of environments. Rather than studying
the Stone Age settlement of Asia in terms of different types of artefact
assemblages, it is probably more fruitful to study how its inhabitants dis-
persed in response to different opportunities and challenges at different levels
of physical and mental ability over the last 1.8 million years.
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Cambridge Histories Online

The Cambridge World History

Edited by David Christian

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139194662

Online ISBN: 9781139194662

Hardback ISBN: 9780521763332

17 - Asian Palaeolithic dispersals pp. 414-432

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139194662.018

Cambridge University Press

Much of human prehistory is about movement. Sometimes these move-

2 R. W. Dennell, Hominin dispersals, environmental novelty and levels of group

Europe c. 600,000800,000 years ago.5 As outlined below, some recent work

5 Naama Goren-Inbar, et al., Pleistocene milestones on the Out-of-Africa corridor at

Dmanisi Majuangou 1.6 Million years ago

Yuanmou ?1.7 Million years ago

Expansion of Acheulean assemblages

17 Katharine McDonald, Mara Martinn-Torres, Robin W. Dennell, and Jos Mara

Tibetan Plateau Tianyuandong,

Awash Valley Niah Cave,

Thirdly, because those communities of Homo sapiens that inhabited the

Dispersals and climatic change

resources could expand northwards and often longitudinally from source

28 Robin W. Dennell, Mara Martinn-Torres, and Jos Mara Bermudez de Castro,

Palaeolithic settlement of Asia: The early hominin settlement of Asia is. . .a

29 Robin W. Dennell, The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

humans moved rapidly northwards from their refugia in southern Europe

Dispersals, evolutionary change, and innovation

The ability to disperse into new types of environments in Asia is most

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