The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia 9780521848664, 0521848660

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes
Preface
1 - Asia and Its Place in Palaeoanthropology
2 - The African Background to the Colonisation of Asia
3 - The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia before 1 MA
4 - The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia
5 - The Earliest Inhabitants of South and Southeast Asia and China
6 - “Out of Africa 1” Reconsidered and the Earliest Colonisation of Asia
7 - The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia between ca. 1 Ma and the Last Interglacial
8 - The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia
9 - The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent
10 - The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia
Untitled
11 - Human Evolution in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene
12 - Concluding Remarks
Appendix 1 - The Sizes of Countries and Regions in Asia, with Comparative Examples
Appendix 2 - Geographical Coordinates of Principal Early Palaeolithic Sites in Asia
Appendix 3 - Geographical Coordinates of Geological Sections and Cores
Appendix 4 - English Names of Various Mammals Recorded in Asia
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

THE PALAEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT OF ASIA

This book provides the first analysis and synthesis of the evidence of the earliest inhabitants of Asia before the appearance of modern humans 100,000 years ago. Asia has received far less attention than Africa and Europe in the search for human origins, but it is no longer considered to be of marginal importance. Indeed, a global perspective on human origins cannot be properly attained without a detailed consideration of the largest continent. In this study, Robin Dennell examines a variety of sources, including the archaeological evidence, the fossil hominin record, and the environmental and climatic background from Southwest, Central, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as China. He presents an authoritative and comprehensive framework for investigations of Asia’s oldest societies, challenges many long-standing assumptions about its earliest inhabitants, and places Asia centrally in the discussion of human evolution in the past two million years. Robin Dennell is Professor of Human Origins at the University of Sheffield. A former Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow and British Academy Research Professor, he is the author of European Economic Prehistory and Early Hominin Landscapes in Northern Pakistan: Investigations in the Pabbi Hills.

CAMBRIDGE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY

series editor NORMAN YOFFEE, University of Michigan

editorial board SUSAN ALCOCK, Brown University TOM DILLEHAY, Vanderbilt University STEPHEN SHENNAN, University College London CARLA SINOPOLI, University of Michigan

The Cambridge World Archaeology series is addressed to students and professional archaeologists and to academics in related disciplines. Each volume presents a survey of the archaeology of a region of the world, providing an up-to-date account of research and integration of recent findings with new concerns of interpretation. Although the focus is on a specific region, broader cultural trends are discussed and the implications of regional findings for cross-cultural interpretations considered. The authors also bring anthropological and historical expertise to bear on archaeological problems and show how both new data and changing intellectual trends in archaeology shade inferences about the past.

recent books in the series larry s. barham and peter j. mitchell, The First Africans christopher pool, Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica samuel m. wilson, The Archaeology of the Caribbean philip l. kohl, The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia richard bradley, The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland ludmila koryakova and andrej epimakhov, The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages david wengrow, The Archaeology of Early Egypt paul rainbird, The Archaeology of Micronesia peter m. m. g. akkermans and glenn m. schwartz, The Archaeology of Syria timothy insoll, The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa

THE PALAEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT OF ASIA robin dennell University of Sheffield

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜ao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521613101
c Robin Dennell 2009

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Dennell, Robin. The palaeolithic settlement of Asia / Robin Dennell. p. cm. – (Cambridge world archaeology) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-84866-4 (hardback) – isbn 978-0-521-61310-1 (pbk.) 1. Prehistoric peoples – Asia. 2. Human settlements – Asia. 3. Human beings – Migrations. 4. Antiquities, Prehistoric – Asia. 5. Asia – Antiquities. I. Title. II. Series. gn851.d46 2009 950 .1 – dc22 2008010665 isbn isbn

978-0-521-84866-4 hardback 978-0-521-61310-1 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing, but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

For all those – past, present, and future – interested in the early prehistory of Asia.

CONTENTS

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes Preface

page xi xix

1. Asia and Its Place in Palaeoanthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. The African Background to the Colonisation of Asia . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3. The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia before 1 MA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4. The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5. The Earliest Inhabitants of South and Southeast Asia and China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 6. “Out of Africa 1” Reconsidered and the Earliest Colonisation of Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 7. The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia between ca. 1 Ma and the Last Interglacial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 8. The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 9. The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 10. The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 11. Human Evolution in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene . . . . . . . 438 12. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473 Appendix 1: The Sizes of Countries and Regions in Asia, with Comparative Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

ix

x

Contents Appendix 2: Geographical Coordinates of Principal Early Palaeolithic Sites in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Appendix 3: Geographical Coordinates of Geological Sections and Cores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485 Appendix 4: English Names of Various Mammals Recorded in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 Bibliography Index

489 541

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOXES

tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1 5.2 5.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 9.1

Age, size, and weight parameters of early African hominins. page 12 Early hominin habitats in Africa between 1.5 and 4 Ma. 18 The earliest stone tools from Africa. 22 The distinctiveness of Homo ergaster relative to earlier types of hominin. 30 The origin and habitat of the Dmanisi fauna. 96 The biogeographical classification of the mammals (excluding micromammals) represented at ë Ubeidiya. 102 Sediments and depositional environments at ë Ubeidiya. 108 Details of the principal faunal and lithic layers at ë Ubeidiya. 110 The density of fossils and artefacts per cubic metre at some of the sites at ë Ubeidiya. 111 A catalogue of the principal hominin remains from Trinil and Sangiran, Java. 147 The Early Pleistocene faunal sequence in Java. 154 Hominin skeletal remains from fluvial deposits. 157 Medium and large mammals at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, China. 242 Principal mammalian taxa at Middle Pleistocene hominin sites in China (excluding Zhoukoudian Locality 1). 244 Indicators of reduced temperatures and aridity in MIS 6. 255 The size and temperature regimes of Asian deserts. 257 Dates from Levantine Middle Pleistocene sites (excluding Tabun). 279 Dates from the cave of Tabun, Israel. 286 Principal features of Jabrudian assemblages. 300 Artefact types and raw materials from Yarımburgaz, Turkey. 312 Summary of the stratigraphic sequence and contents of Karain E, Main Block, Turkey. 315 Chronological correlations of Lower Palaeolithic cave sites in the Caucasus. 320 Absolute dates for the Indian Lower and early Middle Palaeolithic. 338

xi

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes

xii

9.2 Ratios of handaxes to cleavers, and their importance in Acheulean assemblages from India. 9.3 Stratigraphic and archaeological sequence for the Soan Valley, Pakistan. 9.4 Artefact types from excavated units of layer 2, Chirki. 9.5 Artefact types from excavated units of layer 3, Chirki. 9.6 Frequencies of the main classes of quartzite artefacts from Rock Shelter III F-23, Bhimbetka. 9.7 Frequencies of main classes of nonbifacial quartzite tools in Rock Shelter III F-23, Bhimbetka. 9.8 Frequencies (%) of Acheulean artefacts at Minarawala Kund, Raisen District, Madhya Pradesh, India. 9.9 Types of Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi-Baichbal valleys. 9.10 Principal artefact types at Hunsgi-Baichbal sites. 9.11 Types of rock used for large artefacts at selected Hunsgi-Baichbal sites. 9.12 Geological contexts of Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys. 9.13 The stratigraphic and typological zonation of Acheulean sites of Hunsgi-Baichbal. 9.14 Artefacts from surface and Acheulean horizons at Hunsgi V and VI. 9.15 Cumulative totals of Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys, 1979–2005. 9.16 Palaeolithic assemblages from Lakhmapur West and East. 9.17 Types of sites, sedimentary contexts, and associated artefacts in the Kortallyar Basin, southern India. 9.18 Middle Palaeolithic artefact types from localities yielding >100 artefacts in the Kortallyar Basin. 9.19 The Acheulean assemblage from layer 6, Test-Trench T3, at Attirampakkam, Kortallyar Basin. 10.1 The stratigraphic sequence at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, China. 10.2 Absolute dates from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 10.3 Frequencies of gnawed and tool-marked bones and teeth from Locality 1. 11.1 The hominin remains from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 11.2 Middle Pleistocene hominins from China, excluding Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 11.3 “Archaic Homo sapiens” sites in China.

342 343 348 348 356 356 359 363 366 367 368 368 369 375 383 386 387 390 402 406 413 440 442 444

figures 2.1 Principal fossil and archaeological sites in Africa before 1.5 Ma. 2.2 The fossil record of African Pliocene fossil hominins and their possible affinities and capabilities. 2.3 A selection of the 2.6-Ma stone tools from Kada Gona, Ethiopia. 3.1 The areas affected by the Indian and East Asian monsoons.

11 11 23 36

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7

3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16

3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

Summary of monsoon winter and summer circulation. Present-day rainfall in Asia. Tibet and surrounding areas. The climatic consequences of an elevated Tibetan Plateau. The sequence of uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. The principal sources of evidence for the development of the climate of Asia during the late Miocene to Early Pleistocene (ca. 8–1 Ma). The Loess Plateau and principal red clay and loess sections of northern China. The North Chinese loess sequence of loess and palaeosols. The Baoji loess section and marine oxygen isotope record of core DSDP607. Short-term Early and Middle Pleistocene climatic fluctuations in the Chinese loess profiles. Summary model of monsoonal circulation in glacial and interglacial periods. The loess section at Chashmanigar, Tajikistan. Late Miocene vegetational changes in South Asia as detected by analyses of d13 C. A summary of the main trends at Lake Baikal, 2.3–3.6 Ma, and comparison with the marine isotope record. A regional overview of the tectonic and climatic changes at Lake Baikal and comparable developments in North China and the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Summary of changes in the North Pacific region in the late Cenozoic. Late Pliocene and Pleistocene changes in the Sea of Japan. Changes in the Aral Sea drainage basin in the last 4 million years. The 3.2-Ma oxygen isotope record of core ODP 967, eastern Mediterranean. Late Pliocene drainage of the Dead Sea Valley. Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene pollen profiles from the Dead Sea Valley. Vegetational reconstruction in the Levant in arid and moist periods. The stratigraphic sequence of the deposits at An Nefud, Saudi Arabia. The Asian grasslands ca. 3.0 Ma “Savannahstan”: Estimated rainfall levels in Asia in moist periods of the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. Map of Southwest Asia and locations mentioned in the text. The stratigraphic section at Dmanisi, Georgia. Cranial specimens D2282 (left) and D2280 (right) from Dmanisi. Cranial specimens KNM-ER 1813 (left) and D2700 (right) from Dmanisi. Postcranial specimens from Dmanisi.

xiii 37 38 39 41 43

44 45 49 50 51 53 55 57 59

60 61 63 67 69 71 73 74 75 78 79 85 87 88 89 93

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes

xiv 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

A selection of artefacts from Dmanisi. The Black Sea and Caspian Sea when Dmanisi was occupied. A schematic geological section of ë Ubeidiya, Israel. The principal lake cycles at ë Ubeidiya. Oldowan-type artefacts from ë Ubeidiya. Acheulean artefacts from ë Ubeidiya. The stratigraphic sequence at Kashafrud, Northeast Iran. A selection of artefacts from Baghbaghu, Kashafrud. The stratigraphic sequence at Evron Quarry, Israel. A selection of the artefacts from Evron Quarry. Early Pleistocene rivers in the Arabian Peninsula. Principal Early Palaeolithic artefact scatters and sites in the Arabian Peninsula. A selection of artefacts from Shuwayhittiya, Saudi Arabia. Map of the Indo-Gangetic drainage system. Faunal subdivisions of the Upper Siwaliks of Pakistan and India. The main mammalian taxa represented in the Upper Siwaliks of the Pabbi Hills, northern Pakistan. Seasonal and episodic rises in river level in the Ind0-Gangetic drainage system, and the availability of stone. The stratigraphy of the Soan Syncline, northern Pakistan. Artefact R001 from Riwat, Soan Syncline, Pakistan. The Kotha Kas area of the Pabbi Hills, Pakistan. A selection of flaked stone from the Pabbi Hills. Sundaland and Southeast Asia at times of low and high sea level. The chronological framework from the early 1990s for the Sangiran hominins. The current chronological framework for the Sangiran hominins. Dubois’s stratigraphic section at Trinil showing the calotte and femur. Carthaus’s stratigraphic section at Trinil. Early Pleistocene archaeological localities in China. A panoramic view of the Nihewan Basin. Schematic lithostratigraphic section of the Nihewan Basin. Artefacts from Xiaochangliang and Donggutou. Palaeomagnetic section at Xiaochangliang. Palaeomagnetic section at Majuangou. Overview of the dating of the earliest hominin localities in China. “Out of Africa 1” and the dispersal of hominins from Africa into Eurasia. “Out of Asia”: An alternative scenario for the dispersal of Homo erectus. The climatic consequences of Late Pliocene uplift of the Tibetan Plateau for East African climate. Southwest Asia with East Africa and mainland Britain superimposed. First appearance dates (FADs) and last probable absences (LPAs).

94 95 99 101 104 105 116 117 119 121 124 125 126 129 132 133 135 137 139 140 141 146 151 156 158 159 161 167 169 171 173 175 183 187 190 191 193 195

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes 6.6 Koro Toro (Chad) and the potential Pliocene distribution of australopithecines ca. 3.0–3.5 Ma. 6.7 Discontinuities in the fossil hominin and archaeological records for Eurasia prior to ca. 0.6 Ma. 7.1 The change in tempo in climatic fluctuations between the Early and Middle Pleistocene in North China. 7.2 The onset of glaciation on the Tibetan Plateau. 7.3 Climatic fluctuations in the last 700,000 years on the Chinese Loess Plateau. 7.4 Changes in the influx of loess across the Chinese Loess Plateau between 1.1 and 0.9 Ma. 7.5 Short-term variations in the strength of the winter monsoon in the last 1.4 million years. 7.6 Estimated rainfall over the Chinese Loess Plateau over the last 125,000 years. 7.7 Precipitation estimates for the last 140,000 years on the Chinese Loess Plateau. 7.8 Vegetational changes on the Chinese Loess Plateau in the last 100,000 years. 7.9 Correlations of the loess sections at Chashmanigar (Tajikistan) and Lingtai (Chinese Loess Plateau) and the marine isotope record of ODP 677. 7.10 The deserts of Asia. 7.11 The climatic record of Lake Baikal, Siberia, over the last 800,000 years. 7.12 The estimated extent and type of vegetation on the coastal shelves of China and Southeast Asia during the last glacial maximum at 18 ka. 7.13 Comparisons of the pollen percentage curves of Pinus and herbaceous plants with the marine isotope record of core ODP 1144, South China Sea. 7.14 The oxygen isotope record of the last 500,000 years of core MD972142, South China Sea. 7.15 Pollen frequencies in core SK-128A-31 from the Indian Ocean west of India. 7.16 Climatic indicators from core ODP 722, northwest Indian Ocean, over the past 3.2 million years. 7.17 The oxygen isotope record and estimated sea surface temperatures in core ODP 723, northwest Indian Ocean. 7.18 The stratigraphy and dating of the 16R dune in the Thar Desert, India. 7.19 Estimated temperature and rainfall over the last 135,000 years in the Bandung Basin, western Indonesia. 7.20 “Aridistan”: Estimated rainfall across Asia during the driest part of MIS 6, ca. 140 ka. 8.1 Map of the Levant showing principal Lower Palaeolithic sites.

xv

197 201 205 207 209 211 213 214 215 217

219 220 221

224

225 229 230 231 233 237 251 256 261

xvi

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes 8.2 Map of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY), Israel, and plan of excavated areas. 8.3 Photograph of the tilted strata at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, level 4. 8.4 The geological sequence at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. 8.5 An Acheulean cleaver and handaxe from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Layer II-6, level 4. 8.6 Reduction processes used at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. 8.7 The flake deficit at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. 8.8 Plan of the elephant skull on level II-6, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. 8.9 The main archaeological horizon at Latamne, Syria. 8.10 Artefacts from Latamne. 8.11 Plan of the archaeological surface at Gharmachi 1b, Syria. 8.12 The “figurine” from Berekhat Ram, Israel. 8.13 The stratigraphic sequence at Tabun, Israel. 8.14 Location of principal Jabrudian sites. 8.15 Rust’s schematic and composite section of Shelter 1 at Jabrud, Syria. 8.16 Plan of the excavations by Rust and Solecki at Shelter I, Jabrud, Syria. 8.17 Section of the deposits at Shelter I, Jabrud, as excavated by Rust and Solecki. 8.18 Solecki and Solecki’s (1986) reconstruction of Rust’s (1950) cultural stratigraphy at Shelter I, Jabrud. 8.19 Plan of the excavations at the caves of Abri Zumoffen and Bezez, Lebanon. 8.20 Stratigraphic sequence of the excavations at the caves of Abri Zumoffen and Bezez. 8.21 A selection of Jabrudian/Amudian artefacts. 8.22 A comparison of different attempts to date the sequence at Tabun. 8.23 A schematic overview of the current dating of the Late Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic in the Levant. 8.24 Location of principal Middle Pleistocene sites in Turkey and the Caucasus. 8.25 Stratigraphic section of Yarımburgaz Cave, Turkey. 8.26 Artefacts from Yarımburgaz Cave. 8.27 The stratigraphic sequence of Karain E, Turkey. 8.28 Clactonian-type tools from Karain E. 8.29 “Charentian” type Middle Palaeolithic tools from Karain E. 8.30 Levallois-Mousterian tools from Karain E, Turkey. 8.31 Map of Central Asia and location of main Early Palaeolithic sites. 8.32 Location of principal Early Palaeolithic sites and geological sections in Tajikistan. 8.33 Age and stratigraphic context of Early Palaeolithic sites in Tajikistan. 8.34 Artefacts from Kuldara, Tajikistan. 8.35 Bifaces from the Krasnovodsk Plateau, Central Asia. 9.1 Map of principal Early Palaeolithic sites in South Asia. 9.2 Plan of excavated area of layer 3, Trench VII, Chirki.

262 263 264 265 266 267 269 272 273 277 283 288 289 291 292 293 294 295 297 299 303 305 309 311 313 314 316 317 319 326 327 328 329 331 341 350

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes 9.3 Map of the Thar Desert, Northwest India, and location of principal Early Palaeolithic sites. 9.4 Early Acheulean artefacts from Singi Talav, Thar Desert. 9.5 Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from the 16R dune excavation, Thar Desert. 9.6 Stratigraphic section of Bhimbetka FIII-23. 9.7 Some of the Acheulean handaxes and cleavers from Bhimbetka III F-23. 9.8 Map of Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi-Baichal valleys. 9.9 Map of Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi-Devapur area of the Hunsgi Valley. 9.10 Map of Acheulean sites in the Fatehpur-Yediyapur area of the Baichbal Valley. 9.11 Map of the Acheulean workshop at Isampur, Hunsgi Valley. 9.12 Plan of the excavated area of the Acheulean quarry at Isampur. 9.13 The excavation of the Acheulean quarry at Isampur. 9.14 Seasonal availability of plant foods in the Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys. 9.15 The surface geology of Lakhmapur. 9.16 Landscape relations and stratigraphy at Lakhmapur. 9.17 Map of the Kortallyar Basin. 9.18 Composite Quaternary stratigraphic sequence in the Kortallyar Basin. 9.19 Stratigraphic section of test trench 3, Attiramapakkam. 9.20 Map showing the seven major Purana basins of peninsular India. 10.1 Map of principal Middle Pleistocene archaeological sites in China and Southeast Asia. 10.2 Plan of Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 10.3 Stratigraphic section of Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 10.4 A selection of flaked stone from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. 10.5 Stone circle at Jigonshan. 10.6 Bifacial artefacts from Bose. 10.7 The stratigraphic section at Panxian Dadong, China. 10.8 Stratigraphic section of Mata Menge, Flores, Indonesia. 10.9 A selection of artefacts from Mata Menge. 10.10 Ocean currents in island Southeast Asia at times of low sea-level. 11.1 Map of the principal Middle Pleistocene fossil hominin localities in China and Southeast Asia. 11.2 The stratigraphic section at Jinnuishan. 11.3 Plan of layer 8, level 1, at Jinnuishan. 11.4 The stratigraphic context of the hominin cranium at Hathnora, India. 11.5 The probable distribution of hominin types in Asia, Africa, and Europe during the warmest and moistest parts of MIS 11 in the Middle Pleistocene. 11.6 The probable distribution of hominin types in Asia, Africa, and Europe during the coldest and most arid parts of MIS 6. 12.1 Robert Thorne’s 1527 map of Asia.

xvii

351 353 354 355 357 361 364 365 372 373 373 377 382 383 384 385 389 394 397 400 401 409 420 423 425 429 430 431 439 447 449 451

466 467 475

List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes

xviii

boxes 2.1 2.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 10.1

Hominids and hominins. Homo ergaster and Homo erectus. The Siwaliks (18 Ma–0.6 Ma). Site 269. Gigantopithecus. The Great Australasian Tektite-Strewn Field.

10 14 131 142 179 421

PREFACE

In this book, I have tried to summarise and integrate the archaeological, fossil hominin, and climatic records of Asia before it was colonised by modern humans ca. 100 ka. I first thought about writing this book ten to fifteen years ago, but had to delay the attempt until I had published the results of the fieldwork I had directed in the Pabbi Hills, Pakistan (Dennell 2004a), and also until I had escaped the burdens of departmental administration. There are several reasons that I have long wanted to write a synthesis of Asia’s early prehistory. The first is that (surprisingly) no one has ever written one, despite the fact that Asia, as the largest continent, was where a substantial part of early human prehistory took place in the last two million years, and it thus deserves to be treated in its own right as much as that of Europe or Africa. Second, and as a result of this neglect, most accounts of early human prehistory are biased towards evidence from Europe and Africa, with often only brief mention of what is known from Asia. One unfortunate result of this bias is the prominence that is usually ascribed to European evidence. Europe is little more than the western peninsula of Asia, and was often a very small tail wagged by a much larger dog. Much of what happened to hominins (and the rest of the fauna) in Europe in the Middle Pleistocene was an extension of climatic and faunal developments further east, and better understanding of these would probably benefit perceptions of Europe’s own early prehistory. A third reason behind this book is that, within Asia, there are several researchers who know an immense amount about their own regions, but far less about neighbouring ones. This is entirely understandable given the size and diversity of the continent, but it has inhibited attempts to see Asia’s prehistory at a continental as well as a regional level. The climatic data now available (especially from the last decade) make this not only possible, but positively exciting in terms of how regional records for early hominins reflect large-scale changes in Asia’s climate (and often topography) over the last two million years or more. A driving influence behind this book has been the wish to combine the details of local regional records with a continental perspective – to see both the xix

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Preface individual trees and the overall forest in which they are found. Although much of the book is necessarily about regional archaeological records, particularly for the Levant (Chapters 4 and 8), India (Chapter 9), Southeast Asia (Chapters 5 and 8), and North China (Chapters 5 and 10), I have tried also to assess these in relation to what is known about Asia’s climatic record before the last interglacial (Chapters 3 and 7). There is now an immense literature on the history of Asia’s climate, particularly the monsoon, and this deserves to be as well known as the European record of glaciations and interglacials. The fossil evidence for hominin evolution in Asia is often very poor, and has often been synthesised entirely as a self-contained set of material, and without any attempt to place it in an environmental and climatic context. As I hope I show in Chapters 6 and especially 11, there is much to be gained by studying the Asian fossil hominin record at a continental level in relation to its climatic and environmental context. In writing this book, I have tried to rely upon primary sources as much as possible. Because the literature on the early prehistory of Asia (including its climatic and fossil hominin record) is so diverse and scattered, the book includes an extensive bibliography that I hope will be useful to those wishing to proceed further. It is not exhaustive, but I hope it provides a reasonable selection of current evidence. As is evident from the bibliography, the sources used are overwhelmingly in English, although I have used French, German, and Russian ones when appropriate. The main omission is unfortunately the enormous amount of material published in Chinese that I cannot (yet) read. In finishing this book, I am aware that I am in the position of someone leaving a large party in full swing: some conversations are routine, some may even be tedious, but others are highly animated and unpredictable. In such a position, all one can do is to summarise and evaluate the current situation, even though some aspects may have changed by the time the book is published. In a large, diverse, and active field, this is normal, so readers should expect parts of this book to age rapidly; I hope that the greater part will do so gradually. One detail that should be clarified at this point in order to circumvent accusations of geographical inexactitude concerns my definition of Asia. “Asia”, like “Africa” and “Europe”, is a construct of classical and postclassical Western thought, and its boundaries reflect shifting cultural, political, and historical perceptions. In the Roman Empire, “Africa” denoted Roman territories on the southern side of the Mediterranean (apart from Egypt, which was seen as unique), whereas “Asia” referred to territories on and beyond the eastern Mediterranean. In the sixteenth century, Europeans tended to expand the term “Asia” to include all areas east of the Mediterranean, and later, east of the Urals. The edges of Asia are blurred, especially for those interested in the Pleistocene or recent history. In the mid-nineteenth century, the English writer Kinglake regarded Belgrade, Serbia, as the European frontier with Asia because the Balkans were then under “Asiatic” Ottoman rule. Because of various wars

Preface before 1914, the Balkans became European, as might Turkey if it becomes part of the European Union. The Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas is another region where geography, history, and religion have resulted in a contested identity – European, Asian, neither, or both. Asia appears sharply demarcated from Alaska by the Bering Strait, yet they were united for much of the Pleistocene, at times of low sea level, by the coastal shelf of Beringia. Likewise, Australia seems neatly divided from Southeast Asia, but its faunal and floral boundaries were blurred when the Sunda and Sahul Shelves were exposed when sea levels dropped. My approach is unexceptional and heuristic: Istanbul for me remains the gateway to Asia from Europe1 ; the southern Caucasus is included in Asia because it would make no sense to exclude Dmanisi and the cave sequences of this region from a discussion of Asian prehistory2 ; Flores remains the southeast endpoint of Asia regarding early hominins; and Beringia is irrelevant to this book, as hominins prior to the last interglacial never reached it. There are many who need to be thanked for their support over the last three years. First and foremost are the British Academy, who generously granted me a three-year research professorship so that I could concentrate upon writing this book, and the anonymous referees of my application for that award, who were so supportive in their comments. Without the freedom to concentrate without the extraneous distractions of day-to-day departmental life, I would never have had the quality time and mental space to focus so wholeheartedly on a book of this scale. Next to thank are a small number of individuals for their generosity in sharing with me their much greater knowledge as specialists, and especially for reading and discussing advanced drafts of individual chapters. First, my Sheffield colleagues Professor Andrew Chamberlain and Dr. Kevin Kuykendall, for their comments on the African early fossil hominin record (Chapter 2); Professor Phil Gibbard of the Godwin Laboratory of Quaternary Research, Cambridge, for discussing the two chapters (3 and 7) on the Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene climatic and environmental records of Asia; Professor Namma Goren-Inbar of the Institute of Archaeology, Jerusalem, for commenting on the two chapters (4 and 8) on the Early and Middle Pleistocene records of Southwest Asia, and particularly the Levant; Dr. Mike Petraglia of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES), Cambridge, for long discussions on the Early Palaeolithic of India and for commenting in 1

2

As one crosses the Bosphorus at Istanbul, there is (or used to be) a signpost pointing one way to Europe (i.e., Istanbul) and the other way to Asia; I see no reason to disagree with this geographical boundary. Nevertheless, I discuss in Chapter 8 the evidence from Yarimburgaz, on the European side of the Bosphorus, as it is one of the few excavated Early Palaeolithic sites in Turkey. As example of the ambiguous status of this region, all these sites are discussed in the volume on the Early Palaeolithic of Europe, edited by Roebroeks and Kolfschoten (1995).

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Preface depth on Chapter 9; Professors Huang Weiwen and Gao Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP), Beijing, for sharing their knowledge of the Early Palaeolithic of China (Chapters 5 and 10); and Professor Berm´udez de Castro and Dr. Martin´on-Torres (Centro Nacional de Investigaci´on sobre Evoluci´on Humana [CENIEH] Burgos) for their comments and advice on Chapter 11, which considers the Middle Pleistocene fossil hominin record of Asia and its neighbours. I also owe much to the friendship of Professor Wil Roebroeks of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden, especially for his support in developing some of the ideas in Chapter 6 that underpinned our joint review paper in Nature (2005), and for his invitation to give a series of postgraduate seminars in Leiden on the first half of the book in 2006. Dr. Paul Pettitt read and commented upon advanced drafts of the entire text and has been faultless as a departmental colleague, critic, sounding board, and friend throughout this project, and Norman Yoffee and Tom Dillehay provided useful suggestions on amendments and additions to the final script. Needless to say, I have only myself to blame for any shortcomings and errors that have accrued. Many others are thanked for advice on specific topics: Dr. Ian Boomer (Department of Geography, Newcastle) on the history of the Aral Sea; Dr. Deborah Bekken (Field Museum, Chicago) on the Chinese Pleistocene faunal record; Dr. Sabine Gaudzinski (Forschungsbereich Altsteinzeit, Neuwied) and John Shea (Stony Brook University) on the ë Ubeidiya fauna; Professors Bienvenudo Mart´ınez-Navarro (Tarragona) and Alan Turner (Liverpool John Moore’s University) on vertebrate palaeontology; Drs. Jon de Vos and Paul Storm (Naturalis Museum, Leiden) on the dating of the Ngandong fauna; and Dr. Marianne Sommer (Zurich) for enhancing my understanding of palaeoanthropology’s development. On a more general level, I have profited enormously from being part of a wider community of palaeoanthropologists and Pleistocene specialists. In addition to those thanked above, I would like to thank the following (in no particular order) for their genial and stimulating company at various conferences and workshops: Rob Foley and Martha Lahr and the postgraduates at LCHES, Richard Leakey, Kenneth Kennedy, Mark Moore, Mike Morwood, Russell Ciochon, Jeff Schwartz, Zhang Yue, Phillip Rightmire, Chris Stringer, Jose Joordens, Marco Langbroek, Georgio Manzi, Eudald Carbonell, Ric Potts, David Lordkipanidze, Peter Underhill, Mike Parker-Pearson, Steve Lycett, Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, Susan Ant´on, Mary Stiner, and my former Ph.D. students Parth Chauhan and Kathryn Holmes. Additionally, for their invitations to participate in various workshops and conferences (and often for enabling me to do so), I thank Professor Thjis van Kolfshoten (Marine Isotope Stage 11 Workshop, Leiden, 2000); Sari Miller-Antonio and Lynn Schepartz (Workshop on the Asian Middle Pleistocene, Honolulu, 2001); Andrei Dodonov (INQUA Loess Workshop, Moscow, 2003); Iain Davidson (Australian Archaeological Association Meeting in Armidale, 2004); Professors John Fleagle and John Shea (Workshop on Early Asian Prehistory, Stony Brook,

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2005); Dr. Clive Finlayson (Early Hominin Dispersals Conference, Gibraltar, 2006); Rob Foley and Martha Lahr (Opening of the LCHES, Cambridge, and associated workshop, 2006); Dr. Chris Norton (IVPP; AAPA meeting, Philadelphia, 2007; and for commenting on parts of Chapters 7 and 10); and all those in the Atapuerca team (Workshop on Middle Pleistocene Hominin Evolution in Eurasia, Burgos, 2007). Finally, I thank my wife, Dr. Linda Hurcombe (Department of Archaeology, Exeter), for her support and shared experience over the years, and especially for knowing what it entails to be obsessive, to write a book, and to be a head of department; and I thank our son Patrick, now aged four, for tolerating my frequent absences, for diverting my preoccupation with Asian prehistory, and for making life so much richer, if often more tiring. The production of this book was made immeasurably easier by Polly Billam, who took care of most of the requests for copyright permission to reproduce many of the figures, compiled the list of index terms, cross-checked all references, and pointed out my numerous typographic errors. Shane Earles (departmental technician) did an exemplary job in scanning the figures, and the Document Supply Service in the University Library, Sheffield, is also thanked for dealing with my many and usually obscure requests. A brief note on the spelling of names is appropriate. In some instances, sites and people are known by different spellings (for example, Dmanisi, Dmanissi; Gabunia, Gabounia; Tien Shan, Tianshan), and I have tried to standardise these. I have listed Chinese names in full in the bibliography wherever possible, and as they appeared in lists of authors. Because the Chinese place the family name before the given one, there is much confusion over which is which in many journal publications; for example, Gao Xing can be listed as Xing Gao, Gao X., or Xing G. Apologies to any Chinese colleagues whose names have appeared incorrectly. Regarding acknowledgements to those figures and tables that have been reproduced, in a few instances it proved impossible to trace the owners of copyright material, and thus I take this opportunity to offer my apologies to any copyright holders whose rights I may have unwittingly infringed. Sheffield and Topsham, December 2007

chapte r 1 ASIA AND ITS PLACE IN PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

It is easy for someone accustomed to the small-scale landscapes of Europe to be mesmerised by the immensity, grandeur, and extremes of Asia. It is the largest continent, covering 17 million square miles, or an area larger than Africa and Europe combined. It has the fifty-six highest mountains in the world, but also the two lowest places on the earth’s surface: the Dead Sea (−405 m) and the Turfan Depression, North China (−154 m). Tibet, with an average altitude of 5,000 m and an area half that of the United States, is the world’s highest and largest plateau, and also has the world’s deepest valleys, such as the 5-km-deep Yarlung Zangbo. The Caspian Sea, one-and-a-half times the size of Britain, is the world’s largest inland sea, and Lake Baikal is the world’s oldest, deepest, and largest (by volume) lake, with one-fifth of the world’s fresh water (Chapter 3). Asia contains six of the ten longest rivers in the world, and most of those with the largest sediment discharge. Cherrapunji in Northeast India, where a ridiculous 26,461 mm (86.75 feet) of rain fell in 1860–61, including 9,300 mm (30 feet) in one month (Guinness World Records 2004:68), qualifies as the wettest place ever recorded,1 yet several of Asia’s deserts – such as the Rubì al Khali of Arabia and the Taklamakan of North China – are among the most arid and hottest parts of the world. At Verkhoyansk, Eastern Siberia, winter temperatures can fall to −68◦ C (−90◦ F), thus making it the coldest part of the northern hemisphere; because summer temperatures there can exceed 37◦ C, its annual temperature range of 105◦ C. is the widest in the world (Guinness World Records 2004:68). Siberia, covering one-twelfth of the earth’s land surface, has permafrost up to 1.5 km deep (Tumel 2002:149). Asia is and has been more prone to natural disasters than any other continent: these include Tambora (Sumbawa, Indonesia) in 1815 – “the year without a summer” – which was 1

Mawsynram, also in Northeast India, is currently listed as the wettest place on earth, with a comparatively modest average rainfall (over 38 years) of 11,873 mm, or ca. 39 feet (Guinness World Records 2004:68).

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia the largest volcanic eruption in historic times, and Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia), which erupted ca. 74 ka (thousand years ago) and was the largest in the last 2 million years. It is also cursed with the world’s most lethal earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and floods. Most of Asia between Japan and Turkey is prone to major earthquakes; tsunamis normally strike the Pacific coastline, with terrible exceptions such as the tsunami of 2004 that devastated the coasts of the Indian Ocean. East Asia is also particularly prone to floods, and not for nothing is the Yellow River (Huang He), which drowned several hundreds of thousands of people in 1887 and 1931, named China’s Sorrow. Nowadays, Asia is also the most populous continent, with over half the world’s population and the two countries (China and India) with the largest populations. Parts of Asia, such as Java in Indonesia, have some of the highest densities of population in the world, with almost 2,500 people per square mile, or 600 times more than Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in the world, and much of the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, and Siberia have even lower densities of population. For the palaeoanthropologist, the primary significance of Asia is that it was the largest area colonised by hominins. The distances that were eventually covered, on foot and by bipeds which were less well equipped and generally smaller than we are, are often hard to comprehend. ë Ubeidiya and Majuangou, the oldest sites yet found in Israel and China, respectively, are 4,400 miles apart, or roughly the distance (in air miles) from New York to Sarajevo; ë Ubeidiya, where hominins are known from ca. 1.4 Ma (million years ago), is 5,600 air miles from Java, where they are first recorded a little earlier, ca. 1.6 Ma. The same distance separates the site of Boxgrove in the United Kingdom from Swartkraans in South Africa, or Paris from San Francisco.2 The hominins that may have ventured into northern Central Asia before the last interglacial were as far north from those on the island of Flores in Indonesia as London is from Kinshasa in Zaire. By the end of the Middle Pleistocene, ca. 125 ka, Asian hominins were spread across seven time zones, and had settled, even if briefly and often intermittently, in an area of some 10 million square miles. The colonisation of this vast and varied continent constitutes one of the major and most exciting themes of human evolution over the last 2 million years, and is the main focus of this book. Beyond its intrinsic interest, Asia has a wider relevance in palaeoanthropology because it was also the continent through which hominins had to pass in order to reach Europe, Australia, and North America, and the early prehistory of these continents cannot be properly assessed without some reference to developments in their Asian neighbour. Western Europe was reached by at least 1 Ma, but indications that it was settled 2

London–Johannesburg is 5,617 air miles; Paris–San Francisco is 5,683 air miles; Jerusalem–Yogyakarta is 5,643 air miles; New York–Sarajevo is 4,477 air miles; and Tel Aviv–Beijing is 4,455 air miles (Fitzpatrick and Modlin 1986).

Asia and its Place in Palaeoanthropology in cold glacial as well as warm interglacial periods are scarce before ca. 600 ka (Chapter 11). Australia and North America were different matters, and beyond the capacity of hominins prior to Homo sapiens (and thus sadly beyond the scope of this book). The colonisation of Australia required the use of seacraft that could be navigated by paddle or sail, as it could not be reached by reliance upon surface currents, and the first humans arrived there ca. 50 ka or perhaps a little earlier. Alaska could be reached overland across Beringia, the subcontinent across the Bering Straits that was exposed at times of low sea level, but this required the ability to cope with the exceptionally cold conditions of Northeast Siberia.3 On current estimates, modern humans did not arrive in Alaska until the end of the Pleistocene, ca. 12 ka. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that much of Asia proved more inaccessible to modern humans than Australia. The earliest indications of humans on the Tibetan Plateau are only 30–40 ka (Yuan et al. 2007), and thus substantially younger than the earliest Australian evidence; Siberia, covering one-twelfth of the earth’s surface, was probably not permanently colonised until after the glacial maximum (Goebel 1999), long after humans had reached Australia. For reasons still unclear, hominins did not venture into southern India south of the Kortallyar Basin, or Sri Lanka (Chapter 9), even when exposed at times of low sea level, until ca. 28 ka, by which time modern humans had already reached Portugal and Australia.

A Brief History of Palaeoanthropological Research in Asia Although palaeoanthropology (and particularly Palaeolithic archaeology) first developed in Europe in the early nineteenth century, comparable research in Asia is almost as old. The first monograph on Siwalik fossils was published in 1845 (Chapter 5), and the first Acheulean handaxes in India were recorded in 1863 (Chapter 9), only four years after their antiquity was confirmed in Britain and France. The earliest Palaeolithic find from Siberia (from the military hospital in Irkutsk) dates from 1871 (Derevì anko 1998:1), and the first cave explorations in Indonesia date from the 1880s (Theunissen 1989:39–42).4 These discoveries all occurred before comparable ones in Africa.5 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many researchers thought that the origins of humanity lay in Asia rather than in Africa. Although Darwin (1871:161) 3

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Although Beringia is overwhelmingly cited as the preferred route by which humans arrived in the Americas, Bradley and Stanford (2004) suggest that North America was reached from western Europe across the pack ice by Upper Palaeolithic Solutrean groups. Neither route need of course exclude the other. British researchers knew about the great cave system of Niah, Borneo, in the 1850s, and even sponsored a generally unproductive expedition to investigate caves in Borneo in 1878 (see Sherratt 2002). As example, Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf) was not discovered by Europeans until 1888, and the first European visit to Olduvai Gorge (by Kattwinkel) was not until 1911 (Leakey 1951:1).

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia suggested somewhat half-heartedly (Chapter 6) that humanity originated in Africa because our closest relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla, live there, others thought that Southeast or East Asia was more likely. In one of the most bizarre models ever proposed in palaeoanthropology, Ernst Haeckel suggested in 1876 that the ancestors of humankind lived on a hypothetical continent named Lemuria, which sank in the Indian Ocean (Bowler 1986:67–8). Those ape-like survivors that reached mainland Southeast Asia evolved into humans and the orang-utan, whereas those that reached Africa eventually became the gorilla and chimpanzee. According to Haeckel, the earliest hominin was an ape-like creature named Pithecanthropus alalus, or speechless ape-man. (It was presumably speechless because of its small brain rather than because of its outrageously improbable origins.) Although Haeckel’s model was implausible and unencumbered by any evidence for or against it, the young Dutch physician Eug`ene Dubois was sufficiently excited by it to obtain employment in the Dutch East Indies so that he could search for fossil evidence for this creature. Eventually, he found in 1891 at Trinil on Java the skull-cap and femur of what was then the oldest and most primitive hominin specimen ever found (Chapter 5). He initially named his find Anthropopithecus erectus (the upright manape), but later renamed it Pithecanthropus erectus, partly in homage to Haeckel (Theunissen 1989:54–60). Many decades later, the Trinil find was reclassified again, this time as Homo erectus, the earliest known inhabitant of Asia. A more coherent and plausible model of human evolution than Haeckel’s was proposed in 1915, when Matthew published his Climate and Evolution. He argued that mammalian evolution was driven by climates that were challenging and continually changing, and none were more so than on the harsh and strongly seasonal Tibetan Plateau. Those species that could flourish there were then able to colonise neighbouring regions, thus displacing more primitive and less competitive types that either became extinct, or ended up in faraway regions such as Africa. Thus the presence of the chimpanzee and gorilla in Africa was not, as suggested by Darwin, indicative of where humankind had evolved, but of where primitive forms of apes had ended up. A more notable advocate of this line of reasoning was Davidson Black, a young Canadian anatomist, who published in 1925 a major essay, “Asia and the Dispersal of Primates”, and took up employment at the Peking Medical College so that he could be at hand if and when the relevant fossil material was found. Already, by then, a hominin tooth was known from the cave site of Choukoutien (now Zhoukoudian) near Beijing; when a well-preserved one was found in 1927, Black was quick to name it Sinanthropus pekinensis, and see it as proof that human origins lay in East Asia. By the time that excavation stopped at Zhoukoudian in 1937, it had produced the largest collection of early hominin fossils in the world (Chapter 10). The importance of East Asia was enhanced further by other discoveries in the 1930s in Java, first at Ngandong on the Solo River (1931–3) (Chapters 7 and 10), then at Mojokerto (1936), and then on

Asia and its Place in Palaeoanthropology the Sangiran Dome of central Java (1936–8) (Chapter 5). By the outbreak of World War II, almost all the key evidence for human evolution came from East Asia, and the rest from Europe, notably the Mauer mandible from Germany in 1908 (then and now the type specimen of H. heidelbergensis) and the infamous and fraudulent Eoanthropus dawsoni from Piltdown, United Kingdom. Africa, meanwhile, was thought to lack any fossil evidence for early human evolution. Dart’s recognition of Australopithecus africanus at Taung in 1925 and Broom’s discoveries of Paranthropus at Swartkrans and Kromdraai in South Africa in the 1930s were dismissed by most specialists6 as primitive apes or apelike forms that had been displaced there by more successful types that had originated in Central or East Asia. In East Africa, Louis Leakey’s discoveries in the 1930s of hominin fossils at Kanam and Kanjera were deemed suspect because of confusion over where precisely they had been found. Furthermore, the chronological framework then available seemed to suggest that the Early Acheulean in East Africa was the same age as that in Europe (see Leakey 1934:90), and not, as we now know, almost a million years older. With only a few exceptions, most authorities in the 1930s regarded Africa as a dead end that had contributed nothing significant to human evolution. Nowadays, of course, it is Africa rather than Asia that is seen as being of paramount importance in human evolution.7 As shown in Chapter 2, Africa now has all the fossil evidence >2 Ma for hominins (including our own genus Homo), as well as the earliest evidence (currently 2.6 Ma) for tool-making and carnivory. (As discussed in Chapter 6, however, it also has a Pliocene faunal record that is much richer than that of Southwest and other parts of Asia, and thus the absence of such evidence outside Africa does not necessarily constitute genuine evidence of absence.) This point aside, the earliest hominins currently recorded outside Africa date to ca. 1.8 Ma (Chapter 4), and the history of our genus in Asia over the last 1.8 million years constitutes a large part of its history in the Old World. Although there are still many large gaps in our knowledge, an enormous amount of information is now available on the archaeological and fossil hominin evidence and its climatic background. Before we proceed to examine this evidence in detail, a brief summary of some of its main features is appropriate.

Fossil Hominin and Archaeological Evidence from Asia before 100 ka Our main sources of knowledge about H. erectus in Asia are still the Sangiran Dome, Java (Chapter 5), and locality 1, Zhoukoudian, North China (Chapter 10), both of which were investigated before 1939, but have since continued 6 7

Gregory (1938–9), from the American Museum of Natural History, New York, was a notable exception. The background to this relocation of humanity’s origins is discussed in Dennell (2001).

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia to provide important new information. Two of the most exciting discoveries in recent years have been the hominins of 1.8 Ma from Dmanisi, Georgia (Chapter 4), and the Late Pleistocene “hobbits” from Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia. Both (especially Dmanisi) have enormous implications for studies of hominin evolution within and beyond Asia. There are also several Early Palaeolithic sites in Asia that have major widespread significance. ë Ubeidiya is one of the key Early Pleistocene archaeological sites in the world, and continues to provide new information (Chapter 4), as do sites such as Majuangou, Xiaochangliang, and Donggutuo in the Nihewan Basin of North China, which have recently added much to our knowledge of the earliest hominins in East Asia (Chapter 5). Several outstanding Middle Pleistocene sites are known from Asia. One of the most fascinating is Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, ca. 800 ka, with an Acheulean assemblage similar to those found in East Africa, and evidence of fire, plant processing, and perhaps big-game hunting (Chapter 8). Another is the Acheulean, Middle Pleistocene site of Isampur, India, which is probably the world’s oldest quarry (Chapter 9), where tabular blocks of limestone were removed and used for making handaxes. The Bose Basin in South China is a third major discovery (Chapter 10); here, very large, handaxe-like tools from ca. 800 ka have been found, in a region well beyond the “Movius Line” that demarcates the Acheulean assemblages of Southwest and South Asia from the flake and core assemblages of East and Southeast Asia (see Chapter 10). Mata Menge on Flores, Indonesia, is another major recent discovery, this time of the colonisation of an island ca. 800 ka by the earliest known accidental or purposeful sea-crossing by hominins (Chapter 10). For the later part of the Middle Pleistocene, the cave of Tabun, Israel, is still one of the major flagship sites of the Old World. Other important Middle Pleistocene cave sites in Southwest Asia are Jabrud, Qesem, and Hayonim in the Levant and Kara’in and Yarımburgaz in Turkey (Chapter 8). There has also been a quiet revolution in dating archaeological sites and fossil hominin specimens that is still ongoing, and that will have major consequences for our understanding of when things happened. Asian sites that feature prominently in recent chronometric investigations are the open-air sites in the Sangiran Dome, Java, and the Nihewan Basin, North China (Chapter 5), the caves of Tabun, Qesem, and Hayonim in Israel (Chapter 8), and Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, North China (Chapter 10); others include the hominin remains from Jinnuishan, Tangshan and Hexian, China (Chapter 11). These all now appear older than first thought, but other specimens – notably the hominin cranium from Mojokerto, Java – now seem to be much younger (Chapter 5).

Palaeoclimatic Research in Asia The last fifteen years have seen a staggering amount of new and detailed information on Asia’s climatic history over the last 10 or even 20 million years

Asia and its Place in Palaeoanthropology (Chapters 3 and 7). Most of this has been published in English in major international journals, and often at a rate that is difficult to monitor. The largest single contribution has come from studies of the Loess Plateau of North China, the sequence of which now extends back some 22 million years. The last 2.5 million years is now recorded in almost as much detail as the better-known ocean isotope record, and is unquestionably the finest terrestrial climatic sequence of its age in the world. The loess record of Central Asia, covering 2.5 million years, is almost as finely documented. Another superlative climatic record, this time extending back 10 million years, has been obtained from cores taken from the floor of Lake Baikal, Siberia. As a result, the record of climatic change in continental Asia from the Late Pliocene to the end of the Middle Pleistocene is probably better now than that of Europe or Africa. Oceanographers have also been busy off the Asian coastline, and valuable new evidence, often at an extremely high resolution, has been obtained from the North Pacific, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Taken together, these studies allow a remarkably detailed picture to be built up of the history of the Asian monsoonal system that dominates almost every part of the continent, including those regions outside its area of summer rainfall. Large amounts of data have also been collected on Asia’s tectonic history over the last 5–15 million years, particularly for the Tibetan Plateau, North China, and the Himalayas and Karakorum Mountains. These show substantial and often dramatic changes within the last 2 million years on a far greater scale than that seen in Europe or Africa, and many of these changes had major effects on regional climate and on the ability of hominins to disperse between regions. As argued in Chapters 6 and 11, hominin evolution in Asia (and the Old World generally) has to take account of the climatic and environmental evidence now available from Asia. THE AIM AND SCOPE OF THIS BOOK

The primary aim of this book is to set down what is currently known about Asia’s prehistory, fossil hominin record, and climate and environment before the last interglacial. This event was chosen as an endpoint for two reasons: first, it provides a reasonably clear marker horizon that can be traced across much of Asia; and second, it coincides (on current evidence) with the appearance of modern humans (H. sapiens sapiens) in Southwest Asia. Their subsequent worldwide expansion in the last glaciation is such a rich and complex story that it requires a separate volume. The book has two main sections. The first part deals with events, processes, and evidence prior to ca. 1.0–0.8 Ma (or roughly the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene). Chapter 2 discusses the African evidence for hominin evolution up to and including H. erectus, the first hominin recorded in Asia. Chapter 3 reviews the climatic background to hominin evolution and dispersal in Asia,

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia with particular attention to the Asian monsoonal weather system. The various strands of evidence for hominins in Asia before ca. 0.8 Ma are covered by Chapters 4 and 5, including the recent evidence from, in particular, Dmanisi, Georgia, as well as the recent dating of the earliest sites in China and Java. In Chapter 6, I discuss the validity and plausibility of the “Out of Africa 1” model as currently formulated and suggest that we are at the beginning of a major rethinking of our views on when Asia was first colonised, and on the origin of Homo erectus. The second part of the book deals with events between ca. 0.8 Ma and the last interglacial ca. 125 ka. The climatic background of this period in Asia is reviewed in Chapter 7, and Chapters 8–10 present and discuss the Asian archaeological and fossil hominin evidence. This evidence is discussed in Chapter 11 with reference to the African and European evidence for human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene. I argue here that insufficient attention has been paid to the repeated isolation of hominin populations within and between Europe, Africa, and Asia and the likelihood that much of continental Asia might even have been uninhabited during the coldest and driest parts of the later Middle Pleistocene. As with assessments of the colonisation of Asia in the Late Pliocene, I suggest that a major rethinking is now required about human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene, including the colonisation of Europe and the appearance and expansion of modern humans outside Africa. Finally, the book ends with some general reflections on what we currently think we know about early Asian prehistory, and what we most need to know. During the writing of this book, I was very aware that I was trying to serve two purposes. The primary aim was to produce a volume that will (I hope) serve as a source of reference for those unfamiliar with some or most of the archaeological, fossil hominin, and climatic evidence from Asia before 100 ka. The other aim was to provide my own views and interpretations of this evidence in order to encourage debate, and to suggest future research directions: in short, to stick my head above the parapet and articulate my own thoughts about a set of data and the issues it raised. Each chapter therefore ends with my own assessments of the significance of the material discussed in that chapter, including some of its implications for evidence discussed in other chapters. Readers may disagree with some (or even all) of my assessments, but debate and discussion are vital to the way that a discipline such as palaeoanthropology develops. There are also four appendices: the first shows the area of each Asian country and region, two provide latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of Asian archaeological and geological localities, and the fourth provides a list of common names for some Asian and fossil mammals that may be unfamiliar to readers.

chapte r 2 THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND TO THE COLONISATION OF ASIA

INTRODUCTION

The fundamental assumption that underpins studies of the earliest hominin colonisation of Asia is that it was accomplished by Homo erectus, but no other types of hominin. To outline briefly the “big picture” of early Asian prehistory: our own genus and the ability to make stone tools and butcher large animals are thought to have originated in East Africa shortly after 2.6 Ma at a time when grasslands were expanding under a cooler and drier climate. Homo erectus is thought to have emerged in East Africa ca. 1.9 Ma, and then shortly afterwards expanded its distribution into Southwest Asia ca. 1.8 Ma (Chapter 4) and reached Java and North China (on current estimates; see Chapter 5) by ca. 1.6 Ma. When viewed close up, however, the actual process of expansion is probably a great deal more complicated than this simple scenario, and alternative scenarios can be suggested (see Chapters 4 and 6). In this chapter, we examine the African fossil hominins and archaeological and climatic record that preceded the earliest evidence for hominins in Asia. The fossil hominin record for Africa before ca. 1.0 Ma is a story of two types of hominin. (Box 2.1 discusses the meaning of the term “hominin”.) The first types were australopithecines, or australopiths: this “australopithecine world” was in place by ca. 4 Ma, and lasted until they finally became extinct ca. 1.2– 1.4 Ma. The second type was our own genus Homo, which first appeared (on current evidence) shortly after 2.4 Ma. (Figure 2.1 shows the location of the main hominin discoveries, and Figure 2.2, a recent summary of their affinities and attributes. Their “vital statistics” of age, height, weight, brain size, age range, and so on are summarised in Table 2.1.) Major developments occurred after 2.5–2.6 Ma that coincided with some major climatic and faunal changes, which included the earliest evidence for making stone tools and eating meat from large mammals, and the appearance of our own genus as well as largetoothed australopithecines. It was against this complex background that the

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

box 2.1. Hominids and hominins On common sense grounds, it seems obvious that we as humans are different from apes such as the African chimpanzee and gorilla and the Asian orangutan. For example, we have much larger brains; our backs are straighter; because of our upright posture, we walk confidently on two legs in an upright manner; our feet are poor at grasping, although our hands are very proficient at manipulating all manner of objects; our faces are short and do not project; and we are comparatively hairless. Additionally, we depend upon tools for our survival, use fire, and have language. Until recently, these differences seemed robust and longstanding, and thus we defined ourselves as belong to the family Hominidae, and the apes as members of the family Pongidae – hence the terms hominids for ourselves and our ancestors, and pongids for the extant apes and their ancestors. Genetic studies show a very different grouping: genetically, we are much closer to the chimpanzee and gorilla than either is to the Asian orang-utan. (In fact, we share 98.6% of our DNA with the chimpanzee, and only a little less with the gorilla.) The implication – increasingly supported by fossil evidence – is that the ancestor of the orang-utan branched off before the last common ancestor (LCA) of gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. The family of hominids therefore has to include us and our African cousins, the chimpanzee and gorilla; in other words, the differences between “us” and “them” are now at the level of the subfamily, or tribe, rather than the family. When we discuss human evolution, we still need some way of distinguishing our ancestors from those of the gorilla and chimpanzee, and so we now use the term “hominin” or “hominine” to denote the grouping within the family of hominids that belongs to our lineage and not to that of our fellow-hominids, the gorilla and chimpanzee. If and when we find fossils of their ancestors, these would be classed as “panin” or “panines” to show that they are part of their lineage and not ours or the orang-utan’s; these would be pongins or pongines. (A minority of researchers argue that the orang-utan, not the chimpanzee, is our closest living relative; their views are considered in Chapter 6.) This understandably can cause some confusion amongst those who think “hominin” is a misprint, or haven’t realised that the term “hominid” now means different things to different people. In the literature before around 1990, “hominid” meant our own lineage, and not that involving chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-utans. Nowadays, it is supposed to mean ourselves, chimpanzees, and gorillas as members of one family that is distinct from the family of Asian apes; hence the use of the term hominin.

Figure 2.1. Principal fossil and archaeological sites in Africa before 1.5 Ma. Source: The author.

Figure 2.2. The fossil record of African Pliocene fossil hominins and their possible affinities and capabilities. Source: Redrawn from Wood 2002, Figure 2.

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table 2.1. Age, size, and weight parameters of early African hominins Mass (kg)

Stature (cm)

Taxon

Dates (Ma)

Male

Female

Male

Female

ECV (cc)

Brain weight (g)

Postcanine tooth area

EQ

MQ

Pan troglodytes Australopithecus anamensis Australopithecus afarensis Australopithecus africanus Australopithecus aethiopicus Paranthropus boisei Paranthropus robustus Australopithecus garhi Homo habilis Homo rudolfensis Homo ergaster Homo sapiens

Extant 4.2–3.9 3.9–3.0 3.0–2.4 2.7–2.2 2.3–1.4 1.9–1.4 2.5–? 1.9–1.6 2.4–1.6 1.9–1.7∗ Extant

49 51 45 41 − 49 40 − 37 60 66 58

41 33 29 30 − 34 32 − 32 51 56 49

− − 151 138 − 137 132 − 131 160 180 175

− − 105 115 − 124 110 − 100 150 160 161

− − 438 452 − 521 530 450 612 752 871 −

395 − 434 448 − 514 523 446 601 736 849 1350

294 428 460 516 688 756 588 − 478 572 377 334

2.0 − 2.5 2.7 − 2.7 3.0 − 3.6 3.1 3.3 5.8

0.9 1.4 1.7 2.0 − 2.7 2.2 − 1.9 1.5 0.9 0.9

Notes: ECV, estimated cranial volume; EQ, encephalisation quotient (brain mass divided by [112 × body mass0.76 ] MQ, megadontia quotient [postcanine tooth area divided by [12.15 × body mass0.86 ]. The earliest unambiguous specimens of H. ergaster/erectus at Koobi Fora have recently been revised to 1.65;1.5 Ma (Gathago and Brown 2006), but this dating awaits confirmation. The age of the partial H. erectus skeleton WT 15000 is ca. 1.53 ± 0.03 Ma (Brown and McDougall 1993:19); this dating is not significantly affected by the revised dates now available from Koobi Fora (McDougall and Brown 2006). Source: McHenry and Coffing 2000, Table 1.

The African Background to the Colonisation of Asia hominin classified as either Homo erectus s.l. (sensu lato), or H. ergaster (see Box 2.2) first emerged ca. 1.9 Ma. We can first review the “australopithecine world” of Africa before 2.5 Ma. THE AUSTRALOPITHECINE WORLD: HOMININS PRIOR TO CA. 2.5 Ma

Australopithecines are currently of tangential relevance to the early prehistory of Asia, as none has yet been found in Asia. It is, however, worth keeping an open mind on this matter: first, the absence of a desert barrier between Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia in the Late Pliocene meant that faunal movements out of and into Africa were easier than in more recent times (Chapters 3 and 6); second, the Pliocene faunal record of Southwest Asia in particular is extremely poor (Chapter 6) and thus it cannot yet be demonstrated that australopithecines were absent from this region; and third, as seen below, it is most unlikely that the full range of australopithecines has yet been established in Africa, given the number of new taxa found since 1994. The principal australopithecine genus between 4 and 2.5 Ma is Australopithecus, a term derived from Raymond Dart’s discovery in 1924 of A. africanus at Taung, South Africa. Several species are now recognised, most of which come from East Africa. The best known is A. afarensis, initially defined from a small amount of material from ca. 3.6–3.8 Ma from Laetoli in Tanzania, and a much larger amount from Hadar in Ethiopia that is probably from 3.0–3.2 Ma. Laetoli is better known for its superb trails of fossil foot-, hoof-, and pawprints preserved in volcanic ash, which include the prints of two (Leakey and Hay 1979) or three (Hay and Leakey 1982) hominins assumed to have been made by A. afarensis. The human-like nature of the prints provided considerable initial support for arguments that hominins ca. 4 Ma were already fully upright and efficient bipedal walkers, a view now questioned by several researchers. Hadar is best known for the 3.2 Ma partial skeleton “Lucy” (AL 288–1) and “the first family”, or the find of thirteen individuals from ca. 3.2 Ma at one locality (AL 333) ( Johanson et al. 1982). This and other evidence from Hadar, Maka (3.4 Ma) (White et al. 2000), and possibly Belohdelie (ca. 4.0 Ma), Ethiopia (Asfaw 1987), has enabled researchers (e.g., Kimbel et al. 2004) to reconstruct most of the skeletal features of this creature. New material from South Turkwel, Kenya, ca. 3.5 Ma (Ward et al. 1999) and slightly younger material from Lake Turkana (Brown et al. 2001) might add further insights, as should recent discoveries of a left mandible and a partial juvenile skeleton from Dikika in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia (Alemseged et al. 2005, 2006). Overall, A. afarensis was small-brained, small in stature, light in build, and strongly sexually dimorphic (see Table 2.1). Current opinion inclines to the view that it could have moved bipedally across open ground (McHenry and Coffing 2000:129). Its basic body proportions,

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

box 2.2. Homo ergaster and Homo erectus The first fossils of what we now call Homo erectus were found in Java in 1891, followed by several more in the 1930s; as we will see in Chapter 5, most of these were classed as Pithecanthropus erectus. Others that were similar were found around the same time in China and named Sinanthropus pekinensis. In 1950, Ernst Mayr argued that both Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus should be regarded as belonging to our genus, and thus he renamed them Homo erectus. (As Pithecanthropus erectus had been found first, Mayr (1950) was obliged to use the specific name erectus.) For several years, Homo erectus was the oldest known member of our own genus, and known only from discoveries in eastern Asia. It was not until 1954 that the first specimens of H. erectus was found in Africa, at Ternifine (now called Tighenif ) in Algeria, which are probably Middle Pleistocene in age. In 1960, the first example of H. erectus was found in East Africa; this was a skull cap from Upper Bed II at Olduvai Gorge that is probably ca. 1.4–1.5 Ma (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003:196). The major breakthrough in our knowledge of H. erectus in Africa came with the discovery in 1984 of the superlative skeleton WT15000, or “Big Boy”, from the west side of Lake Turkana, Kenya, which is not only the most complete H. erectus individual ever found, but at the time of discovery was also the oldest, with a secure date of ca. 1.53 ± 0.03 Ma. (At that time, the Javan finds were thought to be a little over a million years old, and the Chinese ones younger still; as we will see later (Chapter 5), the oldest Javan finds might be a little earlier than WT15000.) There have also been numerous, but more fragmentary finds of Homo erectus throughout East Africa since the end of the 1980s, so that there is now an impressive amount of material from this taxon. Now that we know so much more about Homo erectus, some specialists have raised doubts over the integrity of this taxon. They suggest that the African specimens represent a species different from the Asian, and should thus be classed as H. ergaster (“worker man”), named after a mandible fragment (KNM ER 922) from Koobi Fora. Corollaries of this view are that the Asian H. erectus represents an evolutionary dead end, whereas H. ergaster in Africa is regarded as directly ancestral to ourselves. Others disagree, and argue that these differences can still be accommodated within one species, and would thus retain the term H. erectus to include both the African and Asian specimens. (There is even a third view that the term H. erectus should be abandoned, and all specimens assigned to it should be reclassified as Homo sapiens [Wolpoff et al. 1994].) This can be very confusing for nonspecialists, especially when a find such as WT15000 is called H. erectus in some publications, but H. ergaster in others. One way of avoiding confusion (used in this volume) is to distinguish

The African Background to the Colonisation of Asia between H. erectus sensu stricto (or “s.s.”), meaning only specimens from East Asia, and H. erectus sensu lato (or “s.l.”), which includes specimens from Africa that others might prefer to classify as H. ergaster. An alternative is to use subspecific names: thus H. erectus erectus for the East Asian specimens, and H. erectus ergaster for the East African ones. with long upper limbs relative to lower ones, and a large, broad body relative to its mass, “are probably best accounted for by retained arboreal capabilities combined with the allometric effects of small body size” (Ruff 2002:219). In the view of Ward (2002), however, the arboreal competence of A. afarensis is unclear, and much depends on whether “primitive” features useful for treeclimbing were neutral retentions from earlier types of hominin, or actively selected for. Their hand proportions appear human-like and capable of a precision grip (Alba et al. 2003), but there is no evidence that they made stone tools. Environmental data from Hadar indicates that these hominins “ranged through various parts of the savannah mosaic” (Radosevich et al. 1992:26), from closed to open woodland and to grassland, during the timespan of A. afarensis (see also Johansen et al. 1982:380; Bonnefille 1995:306). Evidence from Laetoli is more equivocal, as pollen data indicated an open savannah grassland environment like today’s, although faunal data indicate “heavy woodland-bushland cover with some lighter tree and bush cover and grassland” (Kovarovic and Andrews 2007). Two other types of hominins have recently been claimed from East Africa. The first is a set of material from 3.9–4.2 Ma from Kanapoi and Allia Bay, Kenya, that is ascribed to a new taxon, A. anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995; Ward et al. 2001) that may be ancestral to A. afarensis (Kimbel et al. 2006). Andrews (1995), however, pointed out that the assemblage may be a mixed one, with the “primitive” dental remains coming from the lower level at Kanapoi, and the postcranial remains (including a tibia that may indicate bipedalism) from the upper level – in short, there may be a bodiless head from one level, and a headless body from the other. As he suggests, this evidence may indicate a hominin with an earlier, and more primitive, dentition than A. afarensis and a bipedal ape of unknown dentition. Environmental data suggest dry and possibly open wooded conditions, and probably with dense gallery forest along the local river, not unlike those from other early australopithecine sites. The second recent discovery is known only from a partial skull, 3.5 Ma, from the west side of Lake Turkana, Kenya, and named Kenyanthropus platyops (Leakey et al. 2001). The local setting is described as predominantly woodland and forest edge. Its assignment to a new genus rather than to another species of Australopithecus is thought reasonable given its unusual combination of features (Lieberman 2001). If and when postcranial specimens are found that can

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia be confidently attributed to this new type, it may turn out that the Laetoli foot-prints were made by Kenyanthropus and not A. afarensis. One recent and significant discovery came from Koro Toro in Chad, ca. 2,500 km west of the Rift Valley. This was a mandible dated on faunal grounds to ca. 3.0–3.5 Ma, in a setting “compatible with a lakeside environment, with both perennial and permanent streams, and a vegetational mosaic of gallery forest and wooded savannah with open grassy patches” (Brunet et al. 1995:273). Carbon isotope analyses of tooth enamel show that there was an increase in C4 plants in the Chad region between 5–6 and 3–3.5 Ma, and the Chad hominins would have lived in a savannah-like grassland that was more open than contemporaneous and later environments in East Africa (Zazzo et al. 2000). (C4 plants and the emergence of grasslands are discussed in the next chapter.) The Koro Toro mandible was subsequently assigned to a new species of Australopithecus, A. bahrelghazali (Brunet et al. 1996). Unfortunately, there is no associated postcranial material, so the size, sexual dimorphism, and locomotion of this creature are unknown. The implication of this find is that by 3.5–3.0 Ma, “hominids were distributed throughout the woodland and savannah belt from the Atlantic Ocean across the Sahel through eastern Africa to the Cape of Good Hope” (Brunet et al. 1995:274). (Whether they might have dispersed even further by this time, into or even beyond Southwest Asia, is considered in Chapter 6.) Another major recent find is that of cranial and dental material ca. 2.5 Ma from the Bouri Formation in Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia, that has been assigned to a new taxon, A. garhi (Asfaw et al. 1999). This is thought to have been derived from A. afarensis, and is also considered as a possible ancestor of our own genus. As seen below, it may also have been the first hominin to flake stone and extract meat and marrow from large carcasses. The environmental setting appears to have been a “broad featureless margin of a shallow freshwater lake” (Heinzelin et al. 1999:626) with extensive grassy plains. Although most attention has recently been on early types of hominin from East Africa, those from South Africa are equally fascinating. Those from Taung, Makapansgat, and Sterkfontein are classified as A. africanus. Their dating has always been difficult because of the absence of volcanic ashes and the complex nature of the cave deposits from which they are derived, but faunal data suggest they range in age from 2.3 to 3.1 Ma (Chamberlain 1999:776). Palaeomagnetic data indicate that the Makapan Limeworks sequence dates from 2.0–4.0 Ma (Herries and Latham 2002). Their postcranial anatomy appears to be surprisingly ape-like, as evidenced by their body proportions (McHenry and Berger 1998), their chimpanzee-like tibia, and a foot with an ape-like opposable great toe (Berger and Tobias 1996). (These features also make it unlikely that A. africanus was descended from the earlier A. afarensis, as the postcranial anatomy of the latter appears to be considerably less ape-like, even if its dentition

The African Background to the Colonisation of Asia appears more primitive.) Assessments of their preferred habitat are at present contradictory. Botanical evidence suggests that A. africanus preferred densely wooded conditions, at least at Sterkfontein (Clarke and Tobias 1995), but the associated large mammals are more typical of more open surroundings (Reed 1997). The status and age of a new, and very important find (the “Little Foot Skeleton”, StW 573) from Member 2, Sterkfontein, are currently unresolved, as age estimates range from 4 Ma (Partridge et al. 2003) to 3.30 Ma (Partridge et al. 1999), less than 3.0 Ma (Berger et al. 2002), or 2.2 Ma (Walker et al. 2006). Hominins before 2.5 Ma were a diverse group, but overall, “stone tools were absent at sites containing hominid fossils, brain sizes were chimp-like, cheek teeth and supporting masticatory structures were enormous, numerous primitive traits were retained in all parts of the body, including the skull, bodies were small, there was strong sexual dimorphism in body size, and hindlimbs were small relative to forelimbs” (McHenry and Coffing 2002:138). Although they were bipedal to some degree, they were still probably competent at moving in trees. Wood (2002) suggests that they were “facultative bipeds”, that is, they could be bipedal when needed, in contrast to “obligate bipeds” such as Homo ergaster and ourselves, who have few other effective options for moving around. According to Marzke (1997), A. afarensis may have been able to use tools, but not to the extent that this activity modified their hand and wrist structure. Their preferred habitat (Table 2.2) may have been woodland, but the recent evidence from Chad and Bouri indicates that A. bahrelghazali and A. garhi lived in open savannah grasslands. Judging by the number of hominins taken by large carnivores at Sterkfontein (Pickering et al. 2004), predator avoidance must have been one of the main concerns of Pliocene hominins. Although there is no direct evidence of their diet, australopithecines are likely to have been omnivorous, and reliant upon fruit, harder-coated seeds and nuts, and perhaps animal protein from sources such as eggs, tortoises, termites, grubs, reptiles, and small mammals. Wear on shaped bones from Swartkrans has been attributed to their use for digging, possibly in termite mounds (Backwell and d’Errico 2001). THE AUSTRALOPITHECINE WORLD AFTER 2.5 Ma: THE APPEARANCE OF EARLY HOMO, PARANTHROPUS, TOOL-MAKING, AND CONSUMPTION OF LARGE MAMMALS

Several major changes in the African fossil and behavioural hominin record occurred between 2.5 and 1.7 Ma. To quote McHenry and Coffing (2002:126), “stone tools first appeared, brains expanded, bodies enlarged, sexual dimorphism in body size decreased, limb proportions changed . . . and crania began to share more unique features with later Homo”. The eating of meat and

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

table 2.2. Early hominin habitats in Africa between 1.5 and 4 Ma Hominin

Age (Ma)

Location

Habitat

Source

Australopithecus afarensis

3–4

Hadar, Ethiopia

Woodland (closed and open); grassland

Johanson et al. 1982; Radosevich et al. 1992; Bonnefille 1995

A. afarensis

3.6–3.8

Laetoli, Tanzania

Dense woodland but some bush and grassland

Kovarovic and Andrews 2007

A. anamensis

3.9–4.2

Kanapoi and Allia Bay, Kenya

Open woodland plus gallery forest

Leakey et al. 1995

Kenyanthropus platyops

3.5

Lake Turkana West, Kenya

Woodland/ forest edge

Leakey et al. 2001

A. bahrelghazali

3.0–3.5

Chad

Lakeside; wooded savannah grassland

Brunet et al. 1995; Zazzo et al. 2000

A. africanus

2.3–3.1

Various, South Africa

Dense woodland but also grassland

Clarke and Tobias 1995; Reed 1997

A. robustus

1.9–1.2

Various, East and South Africa

Open woodland/grassland?

Various

A. garhi

2.5

Bouri, Ethiopia

Lake margin with grassy plains

Heinzelin et al. 1999

Homo habilis

1.8–1.6

Olduvai

Woodland

Fern´andez-Jalvo et al. 1998

Early Homo

10◦ C, and annual rainfall between 200–300

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia mm in low-lying areas and 600–750 mm in the foothills of the Pamirs and Tian Shan. Despite the apparent uniformity of the loess landscapes of Central Asia, there are important climatic differences from east to west. In the eastern part of the loess zone, from east of the Pamirs to the Chinese Loess Plateau, the main factor affecting the climate is the Siberian-Mongolian high-pressure system in winter, which drives dry cold air southwards. Most precipitation is delivered by the summer monsoon from the southeast, and decreases markedly towards the northwest. In the western part of Central Asia, the harshness of the winters results from the penetration of cold air from the Arctic, and the precipitation which falls mainly in spring and summer comes from the west, either from North Atlantic cyclones in north central Asia, or from the Mediterranean in the southern parts. As a general model (see Figure 3.12), moist westerly winds would have dominated during interglacials, and dry northerly winds during glacials. In Tajikistan, loess accumulated to a thickness of 180–200 m, comparable to that seen in the Chinese Loess Plateau, and was first deposited ca. 2.5 Ma. (Unlike in China, there is no equivalent of the Red Clays and there does not appear to have been any aeolian deposition prior to the loess.) Figure 3.13 shows the main profile at Chashmanigar. As in North China, numerous palaeosols (or “pedocomplexes” in the Russian literature) developed during interglacial periods,3 when conditions were warmer and moister. At least thirty-seven are recognised, of which twenty-seven date from the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene (Dodonov 2002:183). Before 800 ka, each loess-palaeosol cycle lasted ca. 34–50 ka, with an average accumulation rate of only 0.5 m/1,000 yr. In the Middle Pleistocene, the rate of loess accumulation tripled, to ca. 1.6 m/1,000 yr, and each loess-palaeosol cycle lasted much longer, ca. 80,000–100,000 years (see Chapter 7). The episodic merging of the Aral and Caspian Seas in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene (see below) would have made Central Asia less arid, as the rain-bearing westerly winds would have passed across a much larger body of water. Additionally, when these seas were enlarged, there would also have been a much smaller dust source to the west of Central Asia. The low rate of sedimentation in the early part of the Tajik loess sequence, and the high frequency of palaeosols might thus reflect both higher rainfall and a smaller dust source. Conversely, the high sedimentation rate in the upper part of the loess sequence might indicate both drier conditions once those seas had regressed, and a much enlarged dust source following the exposure of the former bed of the enlarged Aral-Caspian Sea. 3

A long-running debate amongst Russian scientists over whether loess formed in glacial or interglacial periods can be regarded as conclusively settled in favour of the former viewpoint: loess is glacial (see Dodonov and Baiguzina 1995:708).

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.12. Summary model of monsoonal circulation in glacial and interglacial periods. This figure shows the dynamics of air-mass dynamics in Eurasia during interglacial (A) and glacial (B) periods. The black area shows ice-sheets (particularly extensive in the Middle Pleistocene). The dark and light grey areas show respectively the central and peripheral parts of the Siberian-Mongolian high-pressure system. In (A), westerly winds from the Mediterranean and across the Black Sea provide most of the precipitation during spring and winter; the summer monsoon is also able to penetrate into northern India and northern China. In (B), strong northerly winds from the European ice-sheets block easterly winds from the Mediterranean, and thus Southwest and Central Asia become more arid. Because the high-pressure zone over Siberia and Mongolia is strengthened, the summer monsoon over India, Southeast Asia, and China is weakened, and thus rainfall is reduced. Redrawn from A. E. Dodonov and L. L. Baiguzina, “Loess stratigraphy of Central Asia: Palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvionmental aspects”, Quaternary Science Reviews 14 (7–8):707–20, Figure 1, 1995, with permission from Elsevier. Source: Dodonov and Baiguzina 1995.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Sotnikova et al. (1997) have described the faunal evidence from below and within the loess sequences of Central Asia. This evidence is interesting because there are a wide range of large carnivores, which implies an abundance of prey, and the presence of taxa found also in Africa, India, and Europe implies considerable freedom at this time in faunal migration between regions. Preservation was heavily influenced by the amount of ongoing tectonic activity. There are no faunal assemblages, for example, from the Early Pliocene, when the uplift of the Tian Shan and Pamir-Alay Mountains resulted in the deposition and later erosion of very coarse conglomerates. Several Late Pliocene localities are known from the Tekess Depression, southern Kazakhstan. The one at Esekartkan is dated palaeomagnetically to the top of the Gilbert Chron (ca. 3.5 Ma) and contained remains of Lynx, Anancus, Hipparion, Dicerorhinus, Palaeotragus, Gazella, and a camel, Paracamelus. Several localities are dated to the Late Pliocene, ca. 2.2–2.4 Ma. The best known is Kuruksay, which contains evidence of a large canid, Canis etruscus, several other carnivores (a bear, Ursus cf. etruscus, a hyaenid, Pliocrocuta, Lynx, Acinonyx (cheetah), and the large cats Megantereon and Homotherium), and herbivores such as the primitive elephant Archidiskodon, the rhinoceros Dicerorhinus, Equus stenonis, Paracamelus, Sivatherium (a short-necked type of giraffe), and a medium-sized bovid, Damalops palaeindicus. There was also a Eurasian type of macaque, Paradolichopithecus sushkini (Nishimura et al. 2007), that was initially identified as a baboon, Papio sushkini (Maschenko 1994). Sotnikova et al. (ibid.) note that the fauna is overall very like the Middle Villafranchian of Europe, but with some Oriental types such as camels, and the cervids and bovids Sinomegaceros, Elaphurus, Axis, Antilospira. Two taxa – Sivatherium and Damalops – are also recorded in both Pakistan and Africa at this time (Dennell et al. 2006). Broadly similar assemblages of the same age-range were recovered from the loess sequences at Karamaidan, Obigarm, and Tutak. Animals represented at Karamaidan included Equus (which replaced Hipparion ca. 2.5 Ma), Gazella, and Paracamelus, as well as Dicerorhinus and Ursus cf. etruscus. Similar evidence was found in the loess profile of Zil’fi, in a context dated to the Olduvai Sub-chron (1.77–1.95 Ma), and in the middle level of Koplay, where the main large mammals were Canis etruscus, Pachycrocuta brevirostris, Homotherium, Equus stenonis, Dicerorhinus, and Leptobos, a large and primitive bovid.

Stable Isotope Studies Studies of carbon isotopes in soil carbonates and fossil teeth and stable oxygen isotope are other important sources of information on the development of the monsoon. Most of these studies have examined soil carbonates. The logic behind these is based on the ways that plants absorb carbon dioxide. One pathway, known as C3 , is found in virtually all trees irrespective of climate, and nearly all shrubs and herbs favoured by a cool growing season.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.13. The loess section at Chashmanigar, Tajikistan. The loess section at Chasmnigar, southern Tajikistan, is ca. 180 m thick, and provides the most extensive record of the Pleistocene in Central Asia. Isolated artefacts found in the sixth buried soil complex date to more than 400 ka. The oldest artefacts from Tajikistan are those from soil complex 10/11 at Kuldara, and are from ca. 900 ka. The elevation of the section at the top is >1,500 m. Source: Davis and Ranov 1999, Figure 2.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Plants categorised as C4 include a few shrubs in the families Euphorbiaceae and Chenopodiaceae and grasses with warm growing seasons; the latter are primarily associated with grasslands. (A third pathway, known as CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism), is found in cacti and some yuccas, and can be ignored [Quade et al. 1989]). C3 and C4 plants can be distinguished by their different carbon isotopic signatures: C3 plants have an average of −27‰, but C4 ’s average −13‰. The isotopic composition of soil organic matter and soil CO2 is determined by the ratio of C3 to C4 plants. Resulting soil carbonates have a ∂ 13 C value of ca. −12‰ if formed entirely under C3 plants, but one of +2‰ under an exclusive C4 plant cover. Oxygen isotopes in soil carbonates vary according to local rainfall, so the two isotopic signals combined give a good proxy record of both local plant cover and rainfall. A dominance of C4 plants that indicates grasslands is particularly useful palaeoclimatically in Asia because it may indicate a monsoon regime with a warm, moist growing season. Recent pedological evidence indicates that the origins of the Indian monsoon system extend back to the Middle Miocene, ca. 15 Ma (Ganjoo and Shaker 2007). As on the Chinese Loess Plateau (see above), the monsoon intensified ca. 8.0 Ma. This is clearly shown by analyses of palaeosols between 16 and 0.4 Ma from the Siwalik series in northern Pakistan, which lies on the western edge of the modern Indian monsoon (Quade et al. 1989). Figure 3.14 summarises their results and those from comparable studies. They showed that there was a pure or nearly pure C3 biomass before 7.4 Ma. Between 7.4 and 7.0 Ma, there was an increase in C4 grasses, indicating a mosaic of C4 grassland and C3 forest. From 5.0 to 0.4 Ma, C4 grasses formed 90% of the plant cover. They therefore suggested that the expansion of grassland after 7.4 Ma indicates an intensified Indian monsoon, with greater seasonal contrasts between dry winters and wet summers, and a warm growing season. This study is particularly persuasive because of the amount of supporting evidence. After 7.0 Ma, much less leaching is observed in soil horizons, and palaeosols with organic A horizons become commoner. There were also major faunal changes: before 7.4 Ma, the larger herbivores were mostly browsers, whereas afterwards, they were mainly grazers. The rodent faunas also changed from forest to grassland types. Significantly, in terms of relevance to hominoid evolution, Sivapithecus, a hominoid related to forest-dwelling orang-utans and which probably fed in the upper forest canopy, also became extinct in the Late Miocene, ca. 8.1 Ma (Barry et al. 2002; Nelson 2007). Interestingly, isotopic analysis of bovid teeth from the late Miocene site of Molyan (ca. 6.6–7.5 Ma [Sen 1998]) in Afghanistan, which lies north of the Siwaliks and outside the monsoon, shows an overwhelmingly C3 vegetation at this time (Zazzo et al. 2002). This conclusion is similar to that reached in a study of dental microwear of Late Miocene herbivores in Afghanistan (Merceron et al. 2004), which concluded that C3 grasses and evergreen bushes were probably the main types of plants because of the higher altitude and lower temperatures than in the area of

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.14. Late Miocene vegetational changes in South Asia as detected by analyses of d13 C. Note the shift from C3 to C4 plants indicative of grasslands ca. 7 Ma. Sources: Quade et al. 1989, Figure 2; Derry and France-Lanord 1997, Figure 6.

Pakistan sampled by Quade’s group. C3 vegetation also prevailed (as it does today) in western Turkey and Greece during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene (Bocherens and Sen 1998; Quade et al. 1994). Conclusions broadly similar to those reached by Quade et al. (1989) were also reached in a study of the ∂ 18 O content of bivalves from Nepal and fossil teeth from Pakistan (Dettman et al. 2001). High 18 O values in the molluscs were interpreted as showing high rates of evaporation; the fossil teeth were sampled for annual variation encompassing both dry and seasons to assess the degree of seasonality. They concluded that the Indian monsoon was present by ca. 10.7 Ma, and thus the Tibetan Plateau must have been sufficiently high by that time to drive the monsoon. However, the monsoon apparently intensified ca. 7–8 Ma, roughly at the time when C4 plants were established in the area studied by Quade et al. (1989). Harrison et al. (1993) also identified a change from C3 to C4 vegetation at ca. 7 Ma (as in Pakistan) and linked this to an intensification of the Indian monsoon resulting from Tibetan uplift. A similar vegetational shift ca. 7 Ma was recorded in sediments in the Bay of Bengal (Derry and France-Lanord 1997). Different results were obtained from studies of the Chinese Loess Plateau. Ding and Yang (2000) studied the soil carbonate record of the red clay and loess profile at Lingtai in the Loess Plateau, and showed that C4 plants expanded at only 4.0 Ma – the same age as in North America, but some 3 Ma later than in Pakistan. At no time did C4 plants dominate the vegetation of the loess plateau, and in the Pleistocene, C3 plants actually expanded. Their explanation for why C4 plants expanded so much later than in Pakistan, which is only 3◦ of latitude

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia to the south, is the difference in temperature. They suggested that the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau in the Late Miocene would have reduced temperatures over northern China. As C4 plants prefer a warm growing season, the Loess Plateau would have been more suitable to C3 plants. Although the absence of pollen means that we do not know the vegetation of the Loess Plateau, we do have a detailed picture from the Guanzhong Basin (see above), which showed that Artemisia, a C3 type of plant, was dominant. The probability that low temperatures in North China disadvantaged C4 plants is supported by a recent study by Zhaohui Zhang et al. (2003), who made a detailed study of the last 170,000 years of the loess section at Luochuan and Xunyi in the Loess Plateau by monitoring grain size, magnetic susceptibility, and total organic content (TOC). The last two factors were positively correlated, which suggests that in warm periods (when magnetic susceptibility is higher), plant biomass also increased. By an ingenious method, they inferred the ratio of C3 to C4 plants by measuring the carbon isotope records of nalkanes, a biomarker found in leaf wax. Their results indicated that C3 plants increased in cooler periods, despite seasonal aridity. They suggest that when the average growing season temperature fell below 13–15◦ C, C4 plants were unable to flourish. There is an ongoing debate over whether the expansion of grasslands in South Asia was caused by the onset of the Indian monsoon or, as suggested by Cerling et al. (1993, 1997), by reduced carbon dioxide (CO2 ) levels. In their view, these declined because in tectonically active regions such as the Himalayas and Tibet an immense amount of CO2 would have been removed from the atmosphere and locked up in the products of chemical weathering, which were then transported into the ocean. As Raymo and Ruddiman (1992) point out, the eight largest rivers flowing out of this region provide 25% of the total ocean dissolved load from only 5% of the earth’s land surface. Cerling et al. (1993, 1997) argue that C4 plants are better adapted to low CO2 levels than C3 ones and suggest that C4 plants would first have taken advantage of lower CO2 levels at lower latitudes, where the growing season was warmer. As CO2 levels continued to decline, C4 plants would eventually have replaced C3 ones in areas at higher latitudes but with lower temperatures. In support of this model, they showed that there was a latitudinal trend in expansion of C4 plants: 8–7.5 Ma in East Africa, 6–7.8 Ma in Pakistan; and 4 Ma in Nebraska. The key issue here is the level of atmospheric CO2 in the late Miocene. Contra Cerling et al. (1997), CO2 levels do not appear to have changed significantly in the last 10 Ma. Although these are difficult to measure, a recent study of carbon isotope fractionation in marine organic matter concluded that CO2 levels had stabilised at preindustrial levels (ca. 280 ppm) by 9 Ma (Pagani et al. 1997). These investigators therefore suggest that the expansion of C4 plants was caused by low levels of seasonal aridity resulting from Tibetan uplift rather than reduced levels of CO2 .

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.15. A summary of the main trends at Lake Baikal, 2.3–3.6 Ma, and comparison with the marine isotope record. Reproduced from D. Demske, B. Moore, and H. Oberh¨ansli, “Late Pliocene vegetation and climate of the Lake Baikal region, southern East Siberia, reconstructed from palynological data”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 184:107–29, Figure 5, 2002, with permission from Elsevier. Source: Demske et al. 2002.

Lake Baikal and Transbaikalia, Siberia Lake Baikal, up to 1,637 m deep and ca. 25 million years old, is ideal for sampling climatic change at the same latitude as Scandinavia and North America, but without any direct interference from ice sheets. Its position deep in the continental interior of Asia also means that its climatic record is uncomplicated by any input from marine areas. Recent research shows that the climatic history of this lake extends back at least 12 million years (Maki et al. 2003; Matsumoto et al. 2003; Takamatsu et al. 2003). The area today has a mean temperature of ca. −2◦ C. and mean July temperatures of 18–22◦ C. Thanks to an international research programme, several sediment cores have been drilled from the bed of Lake Baikal. A summary of the main results is shown in Figure 3.15, and a regional overview in Figure 3.16. Analysis of a 600m-long core has established a reliable magnetic polarity chronology for the last 6.7 Ma and shown that sedimentation was fairly constant, with an average of 3.9 cm/millennium (Kravchinsky et al. 2003). The magnetic susceptibility of the sediments indicates an inverse correlation between magnetic susceptibility and biogenic silica content, because the nonmagnetic diatoms that produced silica were much commoner in warm periods than cold ones; consequently, the magnetic susceptibility signal is stronger in cold periods. (This is the opposite of what occurs in loess profiles from the Chinese Loess Plateau, where strong magnetic susceptibility indicates increased oxidisation in warm periods.)

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 3.16. A regional overview of the tectonic and climatic changes at Lake Baikal and comparable developments in North China and the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Reproduced from J. M¨uller, H. Oberh¨ansli, M. Melles, M. Schwab, V. Rachold, and H.-W. Hubberton, “Late Pliocene sedimentation in Lake Baikal: Implications for climatic and tectonic change in SE Siberia”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 174: 305–26, Figure 12, 2001, with permission from Elsevier. Source: M¨uller et al. 2001.

Kravchinsky et al. (ibid.) show that for the last 1.2 million years, there is a good correlation between the Lake Baikal magnetic susceptibility record and the d18 O record of deep-sea cores such as ODP (Ocean Drilling Programme) 677. This should imply that a detailed, fine-grained, and continuous climatic record will emerge from the heart of Asia that is comparable in quality to the evidence from marine cores. Another study (Williams et al. 1997) established a 5-million-year record of climatic change based on diatom counts and the biogenic silica % of sediments. The results closely matched the fluctuations seen in deep-sea cores such as ODP 846 and indicate two major periods of cooling: the first at 2.6–2.8 Ma, and the second at 1.6–1.8 Ma. The change at 2.65 Ma is currently emerging as the more important. A detailed study of the lake sediments (M¨uller et al. 2001) also showed major climate change towards colder and more arid conditions at ca. 2.65 Ma. Here, analysis of the ratio of zircon to aluminium (Zr:Al) in wind-blown sand particles indicates weaker wind speeds and a change in atmospheric circulation at this time. (In this area, reduced wind speeds indicate the intensification of a stable Siberian high pressure zone in winter; this is the reverse of what we saw on the Chinese Loess Plateau, where cold periods are associated with stronger winter winds blowing outwards from Siberia.) They

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.17. Summary of changes in the North Pacific region in the late Cenozoic. Source: Rea et al. 1998, Figure 6, and reproduced with permission of the American Geophysical Union.

also point out that the Lake Baikal area was tectonically active between ca. 3.15 and 2.65 Ma, as were the adjacent Altai and Tian Shan mountains, and suggest that the coincidence of tectonic activity and climatic change implicates the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau in the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation. Prokopenko et al. (2001) also argue that tectonic uplift in the Lake Baikal region (and perhaps elsewhere in the Asian interior) ca. 2.8–2.6 Ma was a significant factor in the onset of glaciation ca. 2.5 Ma. The vegetational history of Lake Baikal between 3.6 and 2.35 Ma (Demske et al. 2002) confirms much of what the previous studies indicated for this period. Mixed coniferous forests (Picea, Tsuga, and Pinus) and associated broadleafed forests (Quercus, Corylus, Ulmus, and Tilia) were affected by dry cold conditions between 3.48 and 3.39 Ma (see Figure 3.17). As Demske et al. (ibid.)

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia note, the Greenland ice cap expanded at this time, ca. 3–3.5 Ma. There was a further cooling trend from 3.15 to 2.5 Ma, with fluctuations of Pinus and Picea. Extensive areas with open and rock-steppe vegetation became permanent after 2.6 Ma, when cold dry conditions became dominant. In another palynological study, Bezrukova et al. (2003) showed that larch (Larix) appeared between 2.6 and 2.35 Ma, and its appearance probably indicates the beginning of a cold, continental climate. Once again, the period around and shortly after 2.6 Ma emerges as a major climatic “spike” that is coeval with the red clay/loess transition on the Chinese Loess Plateau and the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation in northern Europe and North America. The Early Pleistocene climatic history of the lake is known from the diatom contents of the top 100 m of two cores (Grachev et al. 1998). Changes in their type and frequency show that the climate cooled dramatically after 1.8 Ma; after 1.34 Ma, cold periods became longer and climatic changes more abrupt. The Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene faunal record of Transbaikalia – the area south of Lake Baikal – is known in some detail, particularly regarding micromammals. Regarding the large mammal record, the Late Pliocene Itantsa Faunal Complex includes Equus sanmeniensis (which replaced the three-toed Hipparion) and Gazella cf. sinensis. In the succeeding Early Pleistocene Dodogolian Fauna (1.7–1.5 Ma), large mammals include Equus ex gr. suessenbornensis, Coelodonta sp., and the sabre-toothed felid Homotherium sp. (Alexeeva and Erbajeva 2005). In the Kuznetsk Basin of southwest Siberia, an Early Pleistocene Psekupsian fauna includes Ursus sp., the elephant Archidiskodon cf. meridionalis, a large species of Equus (E. singularis), and a small species of Alces, the elk. These (and various types of microfauna) are thought to indicate forest steppe under a moderate climate. In the late Early Pleistocene (1.5–0.8 Ma), the early Tamanian fauna includes A. meridionalis, Equus cf. suessenbornensis, and large types of Alces, Bison, and Panthera. Conditions are described as a continental climate, with open landscapes, and arctic floras moving south to 55◦ N (Foronova 2005).

Marine Records Three ocean areas are particularly informative on the development of the monsoon. Each can be taken in turn.

i. the north pacific and sea of japan Several recent studies indicate substantial changes in this region in the Late Pliocene. Rea et al. (1998) showed that the influx of aeolian dust into the North Pacific increased tenfold around 3.5 Ma, a million years before “the big change” that is marked by the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation and loess deposition in China and Central Asia. As indicated in Figure 3.17, this is attributed to uplift of Northern Tibet and neighbouring regions, as indicated by the evidence for uplift at this time at Lake Baikal, and in northern Tibet

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.18. Late Pliocene and Pleistocene changes in the Sea of Japan. Reproduced from A. Kitamura, O. Takano, H. Takata, and H. Omote, “Late Pliocene-early Pleistocene paleooceanographic evolution of the Sea of Japan”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 172 (1–2): 81–98, 2001, with permission from Elsevier. Source: Kitamura et al. 2001, Figure 1 and Figure 6.

(see above). In another study, Prueher and Rea (2001) examined several cores from the North Pacific between the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands between 50 and 55◦ N. These showed that ca. 2.65 Ma, there was a twoto tenfold increase in ice-rafted debris, or sand (and larger particles) that were transported offshore by ice-bergs. They suggest that this happened rapidly, possibly within only 2,000 years, and around the same time (2.4–2.5 Ma) as

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia a major increase of ice-rafted debris in the North Atlantic (Shackleton et al. 1984). Another study, based on molluscs and planktonic (i.e., surface) foraminifera from the Omma Formation in Central Japan, indicated substantial changes to the Sea of Japan in the last 2.5 Ma (Kitamura et al. 2001). This semienclosed sea covers ca. one million square kilometres, with an average depth of 1,380 m, but has shallow entrances less than 200 m deep. Its most important component is the Tsushima Current (see Figure 3.18a), which is the only in-flowing current; it enters from the south and flows along the coast of Honshu, bringing with it a large amount of heat. Periods when its flow was reduced therefore indicate that regional conditions were colder. According to their study, the sea’s southern entrance was closed between 2.5 and 1.71 Ma (= MIS 59/60), so that cold northern waters entered through the northern strait (see Figure 3.18b). The regional significance of this is not clear, but a large body of cold water east of the Chinese Loess Plateau presumably contributed to the overall cooling recorded at this time. A land bridge between the mainland and southern Japan would also have allowed mammals to migrate into Japan. In the second stage (1.71–1.52 Ma; MIS 51), warm waters entered during interglacial periods and also isolated Japan from the Asian mainland. Thereafter, the Sea of Japan became more isolated from the North Pacific by further tectonic movements that narrowed and shallowed its northern entrance.

ii. the south china sea The South China Sea covers some 3.5 million km2 (about the same size as the Mediterranean and Sea of Japan combined), and excellent palaeoclimatic data have recently come from some high-resolution cores. One is core ODP 1146, which contains a climate record extending back 20 million years (Shiming Wan et al. 2007); another is ODP 1143, which was drilled between Borneo and Indochina and extends back ca. 12 million years into the Late Miocene. This particular core is currently the only one that provides a complete record of both planktonic and deep-water (benthic) isotopic conditions over the last 5 million years, and with a remarkable resolution of only 2,600–2,800 years (Tian et al. 2002). Muhong Chen et al. (2003) analysed its radiolarians. These microscopic creatures fluctuate according to ambient productivity and are thus a good proxy indicator of the East Asian summer monsoon. They show that this strengthened ca. 11–12 Ma, with a maximum ca. 8.24 Ma. This provides additional confirmation that the East Asian summer monsoon began earlier than the Indian summer monsoon, which appeared at ca. 8 Ma, according to marine evidence, or 7.4–7.0 Ma ago according to the soil carbonate evidence from Pakistan (see above). Tian et al. (2002) have shown that variations in the ∂ 18 O content of benthic foraminifera were driven mainly by cycles of 41,000 years (corresponding to

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement variations in the obliquity of the earth) during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. After 1 Ma, the length of these cycles increased to 100,000 years, corresponding to variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit (see Chapter 7). As with core ODP 659 from the Atlantic, three major episodes of cooling, caused by ice growth in the Northern Hemisphere, could be seen between 3.6–2.7, 2.7–2.1, and 1.5–0.25 Ma. Changes in surface salinity in this core were studied by examining the ∂ 18 O content of Globigerinoides ruber, a planktonic foram (Tian et al. 2004). They showed that surface salinity was reduced between 3.3 and 2.5 Ma and concluded that this reduction was caused by an intensified East Asian monsoon that brought frequent and strong precipitation, and the intrusion of low-salinity water offshore from Borneo. As they point out, evidence for a stronger East Asian monsoon at this time has been detected elsewhere, in, for example, the Lake Baikal region, the North Pacific, and the Chinese Loess Plateau (see above), and may have resulted from uplift of northern Tibet. An additional factor may have been the closure of the Indonesian seaway between 3 and 4 Ma (Cane and Molnar 2001), as this would have restricted the flow of warm ocean water from east to west, and facilitated the influx into the tropics of cold, high latitude currents. Another excellent record for the period 3–1.0 Ma has been obtained from core ODP 1146, from between Luzon in the Philippines and mainland China Analysis of the planktonic foraminferal record of its lower section (Huang et al. 2003) between 2.0 and 3.2 Ma showed a stepwise decline in sea surface temperatures, with temperature decreases at 2.8, 2.72, 2.6, 2.5, 2.16, and 2.08 Ma. These changes, especially after 2.7 Ma, were attributed to a strengthening of the East Asian winter monsoon. Liu et al. (2003) analysed the amounts of clay minerals washed into the area from different sources over the last 2 million years. The proportions of illite and chlorite, which were derived from Taiwan and the Yangtze River to the north, were taken as proxy indicators of the winter monsoon, whereas the proportion of smectites, which derive from Luzon, was used as an indicator of the summer monsoon. Thus in glacial periods, when the northern winter monsoon dominates, there should be a high ratio of illite and chlorite to smectite, and the reverse in interglacials, when the southward summer monsoon is stronger. Their results show a remarkable similarity to the d18 O record of core 677, with a particularly strong periodicity of 41,000 years between 1.2 Ma and 2 Ma, similar to that seen also in the loess records of the Loess Plateau in North China.

iii. the indian ocean Remarkable correspondence between high- and low-latitude climatic trends has been obtained from a core (ODP 722) in the Arabian Sea of the Northwest Indian Ocean that spans the last 3.5 Ma (Clemens et al. 1996). Several indicators were used. Lithogenic grain size, derived from dust blown off the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia by the winter northwesterly shamal winds, indicates

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia wind strength and thus aridity. Three biological indicators (the planktonic Globigerina bulloides and the percentage and amount of biogenic opals) were used to track the amount of upwelling of surface waters, which is caused by southwesterly monsoon winds that transfer most of the latent heat and moisture from the southern Indian Ocean to India. Their results show close correspondence between high-latitude glaciation and low-latitude aridity in the last 1.2 million years; the large-amplitude fluctuations in ice volume at high latitudes in the last 600,000 years is paralleled by decreased levels of biogenic indicators, implying a weaker summer monsoon (Chapter 7). They therefore concluded that the growth of northern hemisphere ice sheets over the last 2.5 million years weakened the summer monsoon, and also increased the aridity of subtropical Asia and East Africa. In a separate study, DeMenocal et al. (1991) showed that there was an increase in windblown dust deposition and a shift to a periodicity in climatic fluctuations at 41,000-year intervals after 2.4 Ma. Taken together, these data clearly show that the expansions and contractions of ice sheets at high latitudes after 2.4 Ma had clear consequences in the Asian tropics.

Other Areas Useful palaeoclimatic data has also been obtained on the inland seas of Central Asia, as well as the East Mediterranean, the Levant, and Saudi Arabia.

i. inland seas of central asia – the aral, caspian, and black seas A fascinating recent review (Boomer et al. 2000) outlined some of the changes that followed the retreat of the Parathethys Sea (see above) in the Late Oligocene (see Figure 3.19). According to them, the Aral Sea depression developed through deflation processes when small water bodies evaporated and left thin salt crusts that were vulnerable to wind erosion. Between 3 and 2 Ma, the Aral Basin filled with water, following a transgression (known as the “Akchagyl Basin” phase) from the Caspian and possibly the Black Sea. The water would have been saline, perhaps 5–10‰. There was then a regression of the Caspian Sea, and because river flow in the region was fairly insignificant,4 the Aral Basin then dried out for much of the Early Pleistocene. A second but short-lived transgression (the Apsheronian) of the Caspian Sea ca. 1.1 Ma again linked the Aral, Caspian, and possibly Black Seas. This was followed by a third major transgression (the Khazarian) of the Caspian Sea, ca. 300 ka, that linked it to the Black Sea but not the Aral Sea. The details of the dating, duration, and extent of these transgressions remain imprecise. In a recent study 4

The only significant rivers in this region that now drain into the Aral Sea are the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, which originate in the Pamirs and Tian Shan respectively; both are largely fed by melted snow.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.19. Changes in the Aral Sea drainage basin in the last 4 million years. This figure shows palaeogeographical reconstructions of the Black Sea-Caspian region from the Pliocene to the Late Middle Pleistocene. The dashed line indicates the maximum extent of major continental transgressions. Enlarged and conjoined Black and Caspian Seas (as in the Akchagylian, Apsheronian, and Khazarian phases) would have constrained hominin dispersals northwards and probably increased regionally the amount of annual precipitation. Reproduced from Boomer, N. Aladin, I. Plotnikov, and R. Whatley, “The palaeolimnology of the Aral Sea: A review”, Quaternary Science Reviews 19: 1259–78, Figure 4, 2000, with permission from Elsevier. Source: Boomer et al. 2000.

of volcanism and uplift in the Caucasus, Mitchell and Westaway (1999) suggest that the Akchagyl Transgression occurred ca. 1.2 Ma, during marine isotope stage 36 of the marine records, and not at 2–3 Ma (see above) or ca. 1.8 Ma, as has been proposed for Dmanisi (Chapter 4). This discrepancy in the timing of a conjoined Black and Caspian Sea is at present unresolved. These transgressions have interesting implications that have not yet been explored. One is that an enlarged and connected Black, Caspian, and Aral Sea would have constituted a substantial barrier to animal dispersal (including hominins) north of the Caucasus and Iran in the Late Pliocene. Entry into Central Asia would have been limited to a relatively narrow corridor between the Aral Sea and the flanks of the Pamirs and Tian Shan. As the water would have been saline, it would also have been unusable for drinking. A second implication is the likely climatic consequences of such an expanded body of water in Central Asia. As noted above in the simulation study by Ramstein et al. (1997), the climate of this region when the Paratethys Sea existed was oceanic,

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia and became continental (and more arid) when it retreated. The same is likely to have happened when the Aral and Caspian Seas were linked during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. Finally, when the enlarged Aral, Caspian, and Black Seas retreated to their approximate current configuration, Central Asia would have become more arid. Large amounts of clays would also have been left that were vulnerable to wind erosion, and thus a major source of aeolian dust that could be deposited elsewhere.

ii. the eastern mediterranean and the levant As noted earlier, the eastern Mediterranean is the main source of rainfall over the Levant and east as far as the Zagros Mountains of Iran. In the Late Miocene (ca. 5.33–5.96 Ma), much of the Mediterranean dried up after the closure of its western exit to the Atlantic, during what is known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis. As a result, enormous amounts of ocean salt were deposited (perhaps 6% of the global total), and the Mediterranean littoral became extremely arid (McKenzie 1999). When its connection to the Atlantic resumed in the Early Pliocene, it was reestablished as a sea with roughly the same configuration as today. However, neither its closure nor reopening appears to have had any major regional climatic consequences (Ruddiman et al. 1989). The climatic history of the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant is known from both marine and terrestrial sources. Kroon et al. (1998) discuss the marine isotope stratigraphy of ODP 967, which was obtained south of Cyprus. This core has a sequence for the last 3.2 million year that is complete except for a short hiatus in the Late Pliocene, ca. 2.0–2.1 Ma (see Figure 3.20). The planktonic oxygen isotope stratigraphy shows a periodicity of ca. 41,000 years for the period from 3.2 to ca. 1.0 Ma, and thereafter a 100,000-year frequency. There is also good agreement between this core and the benthic (i.e., deep-water) oxygen isotope record of core ODP 849 from the Pacific, which primarily recorded changes in global ice volume, leading the investigators to suggest that the eastern Mediterranean responded rapidly to fluctuations in northern hemisphere glaciations, particularly between 1 and 2 Ma. The most interesting aspects of core 967 are the numerous sapropels that occur throughout the profile (Figure 3.20). These are organic-rich sediments that formed when freshwater input increased, probably mostly from the Nile, and provide a proxy indicator of periods of higher rainfall and greater biological productivity. Overall, thirty-nine are recorded between 1.6 and 3.2 Ma, with a hiatus between 2.3 and 2.5 Ma. These episodes are also those that may have provided the most favourable conditions for hominins to migrate out of (as well as into) East Africa (see Chapter 6). Before we examine the climatic history of the Levant in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, we need to consider the tectonic changes that affected its drainage at this time. According to Horowitz (2001), streams that now flow into the Dead Sea are thought to have flowed into the Mediterranean in the

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.20. The 3.2-Ma oxygen isotope record of core ODP967, eastern Mediterranean. Source: Kroon et al. 1998, Figure 3.

Late Pliocene (see Figure 3.21). There were other changes to fluvial systems in this region. Ginat et al. (1998) showed that because of movement along the Sinai and Arabian Plates, there was a 15-km lateral displacement of the drainage systems in the Central Avrava Valley in the Negev desert of southern Israel (see also Chapter 4 for discussion of the Nahal Zihor Early Pleistocene sequence in

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia this area). Besides being one of the largest displacements of its kind recorded anywhere, this lateral shift disconnected the local drainage system from what is now the Dead Sea. In northern Israel, a Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene drainage system drained large parts of eastern Galilee into the Mediterranean before the current watershed formed between these two areas (Matmon et al. 1999). Although these changes are not as dramatic as those experienced in and around the Tibetan Plateau, they had significant impacts upon the drainage systems of the Levant. The climatic history of the Levant since the Late Miocene is known from a very long pollen sequence obtained from several bore-holes that were drilled in the Dead Sea Valley during oil and gas prospecting (Levin and Horowitz 1987; Horowitz 1989, 2001). The combined length of these drillings was over 40 km. The depth of subsidence in the Dead Sea Valley is clearly indicated by the thickness of Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits that were drilled: the Pleistocene cores were between 280 and 920 m deep. (This also helps explain the absence of an extensive Pliocene faunal record from this part of Southwest Asia.) These were not cores, in the sense of being raised as continuous sediment, but cuttings, where samples were taken as material was brought to the surface. Consequently, the sampling interval was coarse (between 3 and 9 m), although Horowitz rightly points out that the close sampling of 40 km of sediments would occupy the lifetimes of several analysts. In addition, drillings are not particularly sensitive to changes in the dip or continuity of sediments. There are also taphonomic problems acknowledged by Horowitz, principally that the pollen counts are biased towards woodland species, because they produce more pollen and because their pollen is more easily transported by wind than that from desert plants; arid conditions dominated by sparse nonarboreal pollen will thus be underrepresented. Nevertheless, with these warnings in mind, the Dead Sea Valley provides the longest and most continuous set of terrestrial data on climate from the Miocene to present in western Asia. Horowitz identified two pollen zones (Pa and Pb) for the Pliocene, and ten for the Quaternary (QI – QX) (Figure 3.22). The Late Pliocene part of his sequence (zone Pb) dates from 3.5 to 2.63 Ma, and shows dry and temperate conditions, slightly drier than before, with small amounts of arboreal pollen, of which oriental spruce (Picea orientalis) was the commonest type. The Early Pleistocene is defined by zone QI (2.6–2.0 Ma), which is correlated to marine isotope stages 73–103 in deep-sea cores. The beginning and end of this zone are characterised by large proportions (up to 80%) of arboreal pollen, most of which came from P. orientalis. The middle part is seen as more steppic, with less tree cover. In the subsequent zone QII, there is a considerable decrease in arboreal pollen and a gradual replacement of P. orientalis by Quercetalia and other conifers. This type of alternation between large and small amounts of arboreal pollen continues throughout the rest of the sequence, with high proportions in zones III, V, VII, and IX, and low proportions in zones IV,

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.21. Late Pliocene drainage of the Dead Sea Valley. Note how streams in the Dead Sea Valley (now 400 m below sea level) once drained into the Mediterranean. Source: Horowitz 2001, Figure 7.5.2.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia VI, VIII, and X. Higher proportions of tree pollen are attributed to pluvials (i.e., glacial periods), and high proportions of steppe or desert vegetation to interpluvials (i.e., interglacial periods). Useful though this sequence is, there are serious concerns over the palaeoclimatic inferences drawn by Horowitz. The lesser one is his linkage of pollen zones to the now outdated Alpine glacial sequence, stemming from his assumption that the uplift of the Alps was the trigger for the ice ages. Compared in height and area to Tibet, such alpine uplift as occurred was trivial by comparison, as were any alpine ice-sheets in comparison to those over Scandinavia. A more serious issue is whether wet, or “pluvial”, periods (defined by high frequencies of tree pollen) corresponded to high-latitude glaciations. This idea is not a new one: Louis Leakey (see, e.g., 1934:21), for example, tried to correlate East African pluvials (the Kageran, Kamasian, Kanjeran, and Gamblian) to the alpine sequence of G¨unz, Mindel, Riss, and W¨urm. As noted above, some Russian specialists have maintained that loess formed during interglacials, and palaeosols – indicating wetter climates – during pluvials (see Dodonov and Baiguzina [1995] for discussion of this point). This interpretation is at odds with a large number of data from elsewhere. As shown above, there are excellent reasons for attributing loess deposition in North China and Central Asia to cold, dry periods, dominated by bitterly cold northerly winds blowing across eastern and central Asia. In the northwestern Mediterranean, larger proportions of arboreal pollen are taken to indicate interglacial periods (see, e.g., Suc 1984), whereas in Arabia, glacial periods are depicted as cold and dry, with low sea levels, and interglacials as warmer and moister, at times of high sea level (Glennie and Singhvi 2002). In general, therefore, the eastern Mediterranean should have experienced higher rainfall in interglacials than in glacial periods. Given the coarseness of sampling in the Dead Sea Valley, it is not surprising that there are no clear correlations between the pollen cores and deep-sea cores, beyond the obvious truism that both show multiple fluctuations. Horowitz’s Early Pleistocene zone QI, for example, spans thirty oxygen-isotope stages (nos. 73–103), and even his subzone QIa spans sixteen of these. These zones are thus gross averages of conditions over long periods of climatic instability. To that extent, it does not matter greatly whether high percentages of arboreal pollen are correlated with odd- or even-numbered stages in the deep sea core stratigraphy. It is, however, important when it comes to vegetational reconstructions (see Figure 3.23) that show, for example, the maximum extent of desert in interglacials and the maximum extent of woodland in glacials – the direct opposite of what one would expect to find in, for example, Central Asia, North China, or Arabia, or by inference from the deep sea cores in the Indian Ocean. Overall, it is probable that the Levant was a corridor during interglacials, when rainfall was highest, and a cul-de-sac in glacial periods, when rainfall was lowest.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement

Figure 3.22. Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene pollen profiles from the Dead Sea Valley. Frequencies of arboreal pollen (AP) fluctuated considerably throughout the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. Precise correlations with the marine isotope record were not possible because of the low sampling interval of the pollen samples, which were derived from cuttings taken during oil and gas prospecting. Source: Horowitz 2001, Figure 6.6.2.

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Figure 3.23. Vegetational reconstruction in the Levant in arid and moist periods. (A) Present day; (B) extreme arid periods; (C) extreme moist periods. (1) Mediterranean macquis; (2) Irano-Turanian steppe; (3) Saharan desert; (4) Mediterranean forests, mostly deciduous oak. Also shown are fluctuations in the size of lakes in the Jordan Valley. According to Horowitz (2000), arid periods correspond to interpluvial (i.e., interglacial) periods and moist periods to pluvial (i.e., glacial) episodes. As argued in the text, I suggest that arid periods denote glaciations and moist periods interglacials, in keeping with the palaeoclimate records elsewhere in Asia. Nevertheless, these reconstructions are valuable in showing the alternating role of the Levant as a corridor in warm and moist episodes and a cul-de-sac in cold, arid phases. Source: Horowitz 2001, Figure 6.6.3.

iii. an nefud, saudi arabia Another highly interesting study of an ancient lake system has been published recently by Thomas et al. (1998), who show the presence of substantial Early Pleistocene lakes in Arabia that were able to support populations of large fish and hippopotami, as well as good-quality grassland in an area that is now desert. This area should therefore have been highly attractive to hominins at this time. Today, the An Nefud desert of northern Saudi Arabia is extremely arid, with 1 m long – so the lake was clearly quite large – and a carapace fragment of Geochelone sulcata, the largest African land tortoise, and now found only in the Sahel. Carnivores are represented by specimens of Crocuta crocuta, Panthera gombaszoegensis (found also at ‘Ubeidiya), and the fox, Vulpes vulpes. Herbivores include Elephas (possibly E. recki), Pelorovis oldowayensis, and Equus (the last being compared to those from Olduvai Upper Bed II). The pygmy hippo Hexaprotodon is also represented; this is found today only in West Africa, but in the Early Pleistocene was also present in North Pakistan and Java; its presence here confirms that the lake was large, as they prefer standing water 2–5 m deep ( Jablonski 2004). A camel, an oryx, and some kind of alcelaphine are also present. ∂ 13 C measurements taken from tooth fragments of Pelorovis, Elephas, and the alcelaphine indicate a C4 grassland environment. Hopefully, the age of these lakes will be constrained by palaeomagnetic analyses, and the palaeo-shorelines searched for stone artefacts. At present, their most likely age on faunal grounds is ca. 1.2–1.4 Ma, that is, comparable to that of ‘Ubeidiya and Olduvai Upper Bed II. SUMMARY

The monsoon provides the climatic heartbeat of Asia and is the key to understanding the climatic context of early hominin evolution, dispersal, and settlement in that continent. It nowadays not only affects those parts of South and Southeast Asia and China that receive most of their rain in the summer monsoon, but also is a major cause of aridity in Central and Southwest Asia. As seen above, the East Asian monsoon originated ca. 22 Ma, partly because of the desiccation of interior Asia following the retreat of the Paratethys Sea, and also because of the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. The central portion of Tibet had probably been uplifted to current elevations by 35 Ma; the uplift of the northern part occurred much later, in the Pliocene and even the Pleistocene, and was an important factor in strengthening the intensity of the winter monsoon.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement Current data indicate that the Indian monsoon had developed by ca. 15 Ma and intensified ca. 7–8 Ma, around the same time that most of the aeolian red clay began to be deposited on the Chinese Loess Plateau. An important cooling event occurred ca. 3.5 Ma, according to data from the Chinese Loess Plateau and Lake Baikal, which further strengthened the East Asian winter monsoon. This may have been triggered by further uplift in Transbaikalia and the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau, as well as the closure of the Indonesian seaway between 3 and 4 Ma. A much more important period of cooling took place in Asia around 2.5–2.6 Ma, as in Europe and East Africa. This too might have been triggered, or accentuated, by tectonic uplift. The most obvious indicators of this event in Asia are the replacement of red clay by loess in the Chinese Loess Plateau, the onset of loess deposition in Central Asia, and the first appearance of ice-rafted debris in the North Pacific. This cooling also happened at a time when the Sea of Japan was restricted at its southern end, thereby blocking the warm, northward-flowing Tshushima Current. After 2.5 Ma, there was much closer correspondence between the East Asian and Indian monsoons, and between the air systems over the North Atlantic, the Scandinavian ice-sheet, and Siberia. Additionally, alternations of cold and warm periods became more regular and pronounced, with a frequency averaging 41,000 yr (except in North China, where this did not happen until 1.67 Ma). In Europe, these fluctuations were primarily associated with ice-volume changes over Greenland and Scandinavia; in Asia, the key factor was whether the winter or summer monsoon was dominant. DISCUSSION

There were few areas of Asia inhabited by hominins in the Pleistocene that were not directly or indirectly affected by the monsoon. The data now available on its subsequent development have two major implications for studies of the early evolution, dispersal, and settlement of hominins in Asia.

The Longevity and Importance of Grasslands We saw earlier (Chapter 2) that the emergence of grasslands and accompanying climatic changes in East Africa after 2.5 Ma are widely seen as among the most important developments that affected the emergence of the genus Homo. As shown above, grasslands are immensely ancient in Asia compared to East Africa, and date from at least 7 Ma in South Asia and 4 Ma in North China. Because these Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene Asian grasslands were so extensive, ancient, and important to early hominins, Dennell and Roebroeks (2005) suggested the term “Savannahstan” as a way of highlighting their significance (see also Kohn 2006). The best base-line for assessing the likely extent of “Savannahstan” in Asia during the Late Pliocene is the PRISM2 reconstruction of northern

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Figure 3.25. The Asian grasslands ca. 3.0 Ma. The most striking contrasts between the Pliocene ca. 3 Ma and today are in the extent of grasslands and deserts. As shown, in the Late Pliocene, savannah or steppe grasslands extended from northern China to West Africa, and the present-day desert barrier between the Sahara and Arabia did not exist. Conditions for hominin dispersals out of (and perhaps into) Africa were thus more favourable then than in recent times. Reproduced from H. Dowsett, J. Thompson, J. Barron, T. Cronin, F. Fleming, S. Ishman, R. Poore, D. Willard, and T. Holtz, “Joint investigations of the Middle Pliocene climate I: PRISM palaeoenvironmental reconstructions”, Global and Planetary Change 9:169–95, 1994, with permission from Elsevier. Source: Dowsett et al. 1994, Figure 11.

hemisphere climate and vegetation in the late Pliocene, between 3.29 and 2.97 Ma (Dowsett et al. 1994; see Figure 3.25). At this time, the world was perhaps 3.5◦ C. warmer than today, but CO2 levels were much the same as now (Raymo et al. 1996). The most interesting feature of this reconstruction is that grasslands ca. 3 Ma were probably continuous from West Africa right across to North China; in other words, the present-day desert barriers of the Sahara and South West Asia did not then exist. In theory, any herbivore that was grazing some three million years ago and keen to travel could have grazed anywhere between West Africa and North China. The PRISM2 reconstruction was on a continental scale and did not aim to provide vegetational information on a regional scale. Its main data sources were deep-sea cores, and only a few terrestrial data sets that were well dated and environmentally sensitive were incorporated. As a consequence, it provides the equivalent of photographs taken from the window of the Space Shuttle. What is missing at present, especially from Southwest and Central Asia, is the equivalent

Figure 3.26. “Savannahstan”: Estimated rainfall levels in Asia in moist periods of the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. This map attempts to indicate the probable level of precipitation across southern Asia during moist (i.e., interglacial) parts of the Early Pleistocene. Arrows show the main rain-bearing winds: westerly ones in winter and spring from the East Mediterranean and Black Sea, and southwest and southeast ones in summer from the Indian and East Asian monsoon. The asterisks denote Nahal Zihor (Israel; Chapter 4) and An Nefud (Saudi Arabia), where there were substantial lake systems during the Early Pleistocene in areas now receiving 50 m long from near the quarry showed reddish alluvial mud in the basal 5 m, then an upward-shallowing lake sequence

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Figure 4.12. The stratigraphic sequence at Kashafrud, Northeast Iran. Key: (2) sandy layer with abundant gypsum; (3) heterogenous alluvium with several rock types (dolerite, pegmatites, quartz, quartzite, etc.); (4) sandy layer with a brown palaeosol at the top; (5) alluvium, coarser than in layer 3, with numerous clasts >10 cm long. Source: Ariai and Thibault 1975/1977, Figure 5.

with intermittent fluctuations, and marsh deposits at the top. Vertebrate fossils were found in two lignite horizons at 4 and 10–12 m depth. Palaeomagnetic analyses indicated a predominance of reversed polarity, with three records of normal polarity. The highest of these was weak and may indicate residual normal polarity. If these episodes are real, they may indicate the Jaramillo, Olduvai, and R´eunion Events, but these require confirmation. The fauna is consistent with an Early Pleistocene age. The birds indicate lacustrine conditions, open, steppe vegetation, and a Mediterranean climate not unlike the present (Louchart et al. 1998). The mammalian fossils include a proboscidean, an indeterminate hippopotamus, pigs, three types of deer, and three types of bovids, including gazelles. Hyaenids were much rarer than canids and felids. A total of 175 pieces of flaked stone were found on tip heaps of the quarry, and sometimes in silty sediments. Their probable origin is from below the lignites but above the fauna. The stone probably originated from adjacent uplands. The assemblage is largely quartz, with four pieces of limestone and three flints. Types are described as cobbles and modified and unmodified flakes. This assemblage may be Early Pleistocene in age, but is clearly not well-dated. Nevertheless, Dursunlu provides another example of an Early Pleistocene lakeside that may have been used by hominins, and is also the first hopeful indication of stratified Early Pleistocene archaeological material from a very poorly documented part of Asia. KASHAFRUD, NORTHEAST IRAN

One intriguing study was by Ariai and Thibault (1975/1977), who reported stone artefacts from a series of sections along the edge of an alluvial basin that contained a large but probably shallow lake at Kashafrud, 40–80 km east of

The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia

Figure 4.13. A selection of artefacts from Baghbaghu, Kashafrud. Key: (1) chopping tool; (2, 3) flakes; (4) core. Source: Ariai and Thibault 1977, Figure 7.

Meshad and near the border with Afghanistan. Figures 4.12 and 4.13 show one of the sections and some of the artefacts. They reported quartz “pebble tools” on the surface (level 1) and at the base of a gravel layer (level 3) at Abravan. Four others were reported from within layer 3 at another section, at Baghbaghu. There is at present no way of knowing the age of these deposits or the stone

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia tools. According to a recent study by Biglari and Shidrang (2006:161–2), some of the items from Kashafrud are geofacts, but the remainder are similar to East African Oldowan ones and also to the tools from Dmanisi. The suggested Early Pleistocene date is thus reasonable, especially given other lakes of this age in Saudi Arabia and Israel (see above and Chapter 3), and the evidence that the Aral and Caspian Seas were conjoined in the Early Pleistocene (Chapter 3). It would be well worth reexamining Kashafrud to establish the age and environmental context of the artefacts. RIVERS AND STREAMS

The other main source of information on the early Lower Palaeolithic of Southwest Asia comes from channel fills and terrace deposits along rivers and streams (mostly seasonal). The dating of faunal and archaeological remains in these deposits is usually problematic, especially if the sediments are too coarse for palaeomagnetic analysis. As we shall see with much of the material from Saudi Arabia, surveys along wadi systems often result in the discovery of large numbers of lower palaeolithic artefacts that are unfortunately impossible to date with current methods, as they are on or very near the surface. To date, the best example of an Early Pleistocene stream channel with evidence of hominin activity is at Evron Quarry in Israel. One site that merits a brief mention is Yiron, near Haifa, Israel (Ronen 1991b). Here, some possible artefacts were recovered from gravels that appeared to extend under a basalt. This was dated at 2.4 Ma, but there are doubts about the identity of the struck stones as artefacts, and also about the relationship of the gravel layer to the basalt. As with Erq el-Ahmar, more work is needed before these claims can be accepted. EVRON QUARRY

One of several Acheulean sites was investigated in 1976/1977 and 1985 at Evron Quarry, located on the coastal plain north of Haifa. The stratigraphy and archaeological aspects are discussed by Ronen and Amiel (1974) and Ronen (1991a), and the palaeontological evidence by Tchernov et al. (1994). The deposits with Acheulean artefacts have a reversed polarity and are thus >0.78 million years old (Ron et al. 2003); on faunal grounds, they are intermediate in age between ë Ubeidiya and Gesher Benot Yaì aqov (Chapter 8), and probably 1.0–1.2 million years old (Tchernov et al. 1994). The stratigraphic sequence at this site comprises a series of shoreline and coastal deposits (see Figure 4.14). Layer 4, containing the archaeological and faunal material, was water-lain yellow-grey sand up to a metre thick, and was probably a short depositional event not long before a drop in sea level. Layer 4 overlay a red sandy loam (layer 5) known as a hamra, the top part of which

The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia

Figure 4.14. The stratigraphic sequence at Evron Quarry, Israel. Layer numbers: (1) a dark brown to black clay with Upper Acheulean lithic and faunal remains; (2) poorly sorted pebbles with sand and clay lenses; (3) red clay with occasional flint artifacts; (4) a yellow-grey sandy layer containing the Early Palaeolithic archaeological unit; (5) reddish sandy loam (hamra) with isolated artifacts in its upper part; (6) sandstone with cross-bedding and thin laminations; (7) reddish-brown hamra. Source: Ronen 1991a, Figures 5 and 13.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia had some artefacts that had penetrated downwards from layer 4. Layers 6 and 8 were sandstone 2–3 m thick; between them there was a thin layer of hamra. The uppermost part of the sequence comprises two layers of clay (layers 1 and 3), with a 2–3 m interspersed layer of poorly sorted pebbles. No handaxes were found during the excavation, but some were found elsewhere in the quarry area with the same matrix of yellow sand as seen in layer 4. The excavation exposed some 70 m2 and material was found in two or three lenses, separated vertically by 20–25 cm. This pattern was initially interpreted as showing repeated use of the site. However, the larger stone items and bone fragments were found in the upper part of each layer, and it is more likely that smaller items had migrated downwards, a process which would have been facilitated when the sand unit was waterlogged after flooding. There is no indication that any of the lithics refitted with one another. As seems typical of Early Pleistocene sites, there is no evidence of any clear spatial organisation. Cut-marks were not found on any bones, and there is also no reason to link the artefacts to the faunal remains. The artefacts were made of flint, which could have been found in the nearby river. There were also some unrolled calcite geodes that came from a mountain area 5 km to the east, and which were probably used as hammerstones. A remarkable feature of the excavated stone artefacts is their small size, with not a single item >100 mm long, and the average size of the cores (the largest class of objects; N = 115) was only 35 mm. Some of the artefacts are shown in Figure 4.15. The “tool” category consisted largely of different types of flakes. Most tools (N = 268) were in fresh condition, and the main types were described as follows: borers (22.8%); denticulates (14.4%); notched pieces (32.5%); retouched pieces (15.6%), burins (8.4%); racloirs (2.4%); and grattoirs, polyhedra, and core/choppers (1.2% each). (The identification of some of these categories as borers, burins, and scrapers was based on their shape, and not on use-wear analysis of their edges.) There were also two pebble hammerstones, of which the heavier weighed 582 gm. The faunal remains were very fragmented, and those identifiable to taxon were mainly isolated teeth and parts of limb bones. According to Tchernov et al. (1994), a variety of habitats are indicated. Animals suited to riverine conditions included Hippopotamus, a suid, Kalpochoerus, and a turtle, Trionyx. Woodland types included Elephas aff. maximus, Stegodon, Bos primigenius, and cervids, and gazelle and an alcelaphine indicated the presence of open steppe. As so often with Israeli Pleistocene faunas, the animals represented at Evron show a mixture of origins: in this case, Stegodon and E. maximus, the Asian elephant, are from the East, Bos primigenius and the cervids are palaearctic, and Kalpochoerus, Alcephalus, and Trionyx are Ethiopian in origin. As Tchernov et al. (1994: 337) remarked, this degree of faunal mixing makes it difficult to determine the likely source of origin for the human populations: “It is not yet clear whether the human populations of the Levantine Lower Palaeolithic

The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia

Figure 4.15. A selection of the artefacts from Evron Quarry. Key: (1–8) cores; (9–12) unmodified flakes; (13–16) core trimming elements. No scale is provided, but see text for details for the small size of these artefacts. Source: Ronen 1991a, Figure 17.

were autochthonous, whether they were associated with a South Asian biotic invasion which followed the dispersal of the Stegodontidae, or whether they were part of a new African exodus”. This statement neatly makes the point that human movements into Israel need not necessarily have been from Africa.

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The Arabian Peninsula, covering over a million square miles, is often mentioned as the most obvious route by which hominins would have migrated out of Africa into Asia, either across the Bab al Mandab Strait, or at the northern end of the Red Sea and across the Sinai Peninsula (e.g., Beyin, 2006; Derricourt, 2006). Although the southern and western side of the Arabian Peninsula are mountainous, the northern part unfolds gently westwards to the Mediterranean, north to southern Turkey, and east to the Zagros Mountains. It should thus be an area where populations could easily have moved over large distances. Despite its size and geographical importance as a potential bridge between two continents, the early Palaeolithic record of the Arabian Peninsula is almost unknown. There are no absolute dates, stratified sites, detailed assemblage analyses, palaeolandscape studies, faunal or hominin remains, or spatial analyses of the few sites that have been studied. In archaeological terms, the Arabian peninsula is indeed the Rub’ al-Khali, or the Empty Quarter of palaeoanthropology in the Old World. Although this ignorance can partly be attributed to lack of fieldwork, there are genuine taphonomic reasons that it figures so little in discussions of the Asian early palaeolithic. Lower Palaeolithic sites are usually undatable, as they are on the surface, either having never been buried, or having experienced deflation. In other areas, extensive Middle and Upper Pleistocene sand dune formations have buried earlier land surfaces. Consequently, chronological ordering has to rely on the typological dating of surface sites. Divisions between sites attributed to the Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic, or between the Oldowan and Acheulean, are arbitrary, and based on relative artefact proportions and not absolute categories (Petraglia 2003:148). Investigators have understandably borrowed the terms used in the neighbouring and better documented territories of East Africa and the Levant. “Oldowan” assemblages comprise simple, nonstandardised cores and flakes, similar to those found at Olduvai, Beds I and lower Bed II. The “Lower Acheulean” is defined by the presence of Oldowan-like forms such as crude choppers and bifaces, polyhedra, and some ovate and cordiform handaxes. “Middle Acheulean” denotes assemblages with lanceolate and trihedral bifaces, polyhedra, spheroids, trihedral picks, choppers and bifacial knives, and hard hammer flaking; and the “Upper Acheulean” refers to assemblages with smaller handaxes with ovate or cordiform shapes, the use of soft hammer percussion, and the presence of some Levallois technique. As a cautionary note, both Bar-Yosef (1994) and Petraglia (2003) warn against the supposition that simple nonbiface assemblages are necessarily the earliest: the Karari Industry at Koobi Fora (Harris and Isaac 1976) is one example of a simple nonbiface assemblage that postdates the first appearance of handaxes, and simply flaked artefacts may sometimes be fairly recent, or reflect activities where bifaces were not needed. Nevertheless,

The Earliest Inhabitants of Southwest Asia detailed similarities between known Oldowan and early Acheulean assemblages in, for example, Israel or East Africa and ones from Arabia should not be dismissed out of hand, even if such similarities remain unsubstantiated without secure dating. Until there are secure dates for the Early Palaeolithic of Arabia, this region will neither challenge nor confirm existing views about the early history of our own genus outside Africa. To elaborate the last point further, it is implicitly assumed that the earliest artefacts in the Arabian Peninsula were made by groups of Homo erectus that migrated from East Africa, and must therefore be 60 kg in adult body weight (see Figure 5.3). The faunal range is also incomplete in both India and Pakistan. In India, Crocuta, Canis pinjorensis, and Panthera cf. cristata are the only large carnivores reported (see Nanda 2002) and the absence of Megantereon and Pachycrocuta may result from inadequate sampling. Camelus and Theropithecus are not known from Pakistan, nor anthracoceres in India. The large felid Homotherium is known from Bethlehem (Chapter 6), Dmanisi, Georgia (Chapter 4), Kuruksay, Tajikistan (Chapter 3), and Longgupo, China (see below), and its absence in both India and Pakistan may reflect insufficient sampling (Dennell et al. 2007). The absence of hominin remains in Upper Siwalik deposits may

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Figure 5.2. Faunal subdivisions of the Upper Siwaliks of Pakistan and India. This shows the correlations of the Faunal Interval Zones of Barry et al. (1982) with those proposed by Hussain et al. (1992) for the Mangla-Samwal anticline in Pakistan, and the roughly equivalent Tatrot and Pinjor Stages in India. Note the replacement of the E. planifrons interval zone with a restricted E. planifrons zone, followed by an open-ended one based on E. hysudricus. The Boulder Conglomerate Stage is marked by the deposition of coarse conglomerates, but is not a “stage” in the sense of being synchronous across the Siwaliks. Fossil preservation is very poor. Its age varies from basin to basin, from ca. 1.6 million years in the Soan Valley to ca. 0.5 million years in the Pabbi Hills. It is archaeologically important because the large-scale deposition of conglomerates was when stone became widely available in this part of Northern India and Pakistan (see Chapter 9). Source: Redrawn from Hussain et al. 1992, Figure 6; Indian zonation added by the author.

therefore simply reflect inadequate sampling of rare taxa. Nevertheless, that factor would not explain the virtual absence of Palaeolithic evidence. It is thus worth considering the opportunities and constraints that large river systems might have presented to early hominins, with limited abilities to transport stone over large distances, and small home ranges.

ii. large-scale river systems and flood-plains In a recent paper (Dennell 2007), I discussed how early hominins might have coped with large flood-plain systems such as the Indus and Ganges. Besides the ready availability of water, the obvious attraction of these large river systems would have been the range and abundance of potential food resources, particularly herbivores. These flood plains were also easy to move around in. Nevertheless, they would have had three major drawbacks.

The Earliest Inhabitants of South and Southeast Asia and China

Figure 5.3. The main mammalian taxa presented in the Upper Siwaliks of the Pabbi Hills, northern Pakistan. As shown, carnivores, small suids, and gazelles are poorly represented, and most mammals were considerably larger than H. erectus. The absence of hominin remains from the Upper Siwaliks may be partly due to taphonomic biases against the preservation of taxa 250) >10 (>22) 2 (>4) >100 (?) >100 (>135) >10 (16) >10 (87) >11 (>140) >10 (48) 2 (4) 1 (2) 2 (6) >2,000 >1 (4) 2 (9) 3 (7) >10 (>14) 1 (1) 3 (>10) 3 (>9) 1 (1) ? >1,000 ? ? >200 1 (2) 30 (>140) 1 (5) >1,000 >2,000 ? 1 (4) 2 (>5) 3 (4) 2 (>5) >80 2 (?)

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x x x x x x x x x x No details given x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Note: Numbers refer to the minimum number of individuals (MNI); those in brackets indicate numbers of individual specimens (NISPs). When only one figure is given (e.g., “2,000+” for Hyaena brevirostris), it denotes MNIs, not NISPs. Insectivores, Chiroptera (bats), birds, and rodents are omitted, along with doubtful identifications, and ones where the identification was only to the level of the subfamily. a The Lutra specimens came from layer 7, which contained most of the specimens of Bubalus and some of Castor, all indicative of nearby water. b The estimate of >2,000 individuals of Hyaena (Pachycrocuta) brevirostris was based on counts of astragali. Specimens include 1 complete skeleton, 8 skulls, >100 complete mandibles, and some tens of complete limb and foot bones (Pei 1934: 91). Sources: Aigner 1981, Table 11, and Pei 1934 for carnivore totals.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia Pseudaxis (ca. 1,000 individuals each), Sus lydekkeri (200), Canis lupus and Nyctereutes (100 each), and Bubalus teilhardi (80). (Complete listings in English are given by Aigner [1981:113–19] and Han and Xu [1985:281–2], and also Pei [1934] for the carnivores.) Pei’s (1934:151) assessment of the overall character of the Locality 1 fauna (based on the carnivore evidence) still stands: most taxa at Locality 1 were indigenous, and only a few were immigrants, such as Crocuta (Hyaena) ultima and Felis tigris from South China, and Gulo and Cuon from areas north and west. An impressive range of sixty-two bird species were also recovered at Locality 1, which was derived from nine orders, nineteen families, and fortyeight genera. They include one species of ostrich; two species each of owls and swifts/hummingbirds; three species each of marsh-dwellers, woodpeckers, and falcons; four species of pigeons/doves; six species of pheasant/ partridge/grouse; and thirty-eight species of Passeriformes or songbirds, the largest bird order, with half of all known species. Most bird species were represented by only a few bones each, and no complete skeletons were found. Birds are thought unlikely to have made a significant biogenic contribution to the cave’s deposits ( Jia 1989:202). Overall, the avian remains are reported as indicative of a dry environment with a rich vegetation (Wu and Poirier 1995:76–8). Table 7.2 lists the main mammals associated with Homo erectus or archaic H. sapiens at other sites in North and South China. As shown, several types of mammals found at Locality 1 are found at other early Middle Pleistocene sites in North China, notably Chenjiawo and Hexian. An important feature of this evidence is the retreat and local extinction of some mammals that are normally associated with South China. As example, Ailuripoda melanoleuca, Stegodon orientalis, and Tapirus sinensis were present at Gongwangling, north of the Qinling Mountains in the late Early Pleistocene, but were rarely found north of the Yangtse Valley in the Middle Pleistocene. Stegodon and tapirs were absent at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. Panda was probably also absent, as only one specimen (a distal humerus from Layer 5 [Pei 1934:72]), is recorded, which Aigner (1981:115) considered doubtful.

ii. south china Faunal changes in South China during the Middle Pleistocene were more muted than those to the north of the Qinling Mountains. The StegodonAiluripoda fauna that was present in the Early Pleistocene at Longgupo and Yuanmou (Chapter 5) seems to have persisted with little change into the Middle Pleistocene. However, “the Stegodon-Ailuripoda fauna” is a blanket term that may conceal considerable diversity and change. First (as shown in Table 7.2), more sites have Stegodon than Ailuripoda. Second, it is a mixed fauna in that some cave assemblages contain some primitive genera (e.g., Mastodon and Stegodon) and some recent ones (e.g., Elephas), some forest animals (e.g.,

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table 7.2. Principal mammalian taxa at Middle Pleistocene hominin sites in China (excluding Zhoukoudian Locality 1) Site North China Order

Primates

Lagomorpha

Rodentia

Carnivora

Genus/species

Homo erectus∗ Archaic H. sapiens Gigantopithecus blacki Macaca robustus∗ Lepus wongi∗ Lepus sp. Ochotona sp. Ochotonoides complicidens Bahomys hypsodonta Mysospalax tingi M. cf. fontanieri Microtus brandtoides Mus sp. Cricetelus sp. Ellobius sp. Apodemus cf. sylvaticus Hystrix subcristata H. sp. Rattus sp. Rhizomys sp. Trogontherium sp. Ailuripoda melanoleuca A. sp. Canis lupus∗ C. variabilis∗

1a

2b

3

4

5

√

√

√

√

√

6

7c

South China 8

9

10 11 12 13 13 13 √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

15 16

17 18

19

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

14

√

√ √ √

√

√ √

√

√

√

√ √ √ √ √

√

√ √ √ √

√

√

√ √ √

√ √

√ √

√ √

√

√ √

√ √

√ √

√ √

√

√

245

Proboscidea

Crocuta crocuta Cr. ultima∗ Cuon alpinus∗ Cuon dubius Cuon javanicus Cuon sp. Meles cf. leucurus∗ Arctonyx sp. Panthera (Felis) tigris∗ Felis sp. P. tigris P. sp. Megantereon sp.∗ Hyaena (Pachycrocuta) brevirostris∗ Hy. licenti Hy. sinensis Hy. sp. Ursus arctos∗ U. kokeni U. thibetanus∗ U. sp Vulpes sp.∗ Gompotheriidae gen. et sp. Indet. Elephas sp. E. (Palaeoloxodon) namadicus∗ E. (Palaeoloxodon) cf. naumani Stegodon orientalis S. sp. Tetralophodon sp.

√ √ √

√ √ √

√ √ √ √

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

√ √

√ √

√

√

√

√ √

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √ √

√ √a

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

√

√ √ √

√

√

√

√

√ √

√

√ √

√ √ √ √ √ √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

(continued)

246

table 7.2 (continued) Site North China Order

Genus/species

Artiodactyla

Sinomegaceros (Megaloceros) sp. Megaloceros ordosianus Megaceros pachyosteus∗ Cervus elephus C. grayi C. nippon C. sp.∗ Muntiacus sp. Bibos sp. Bison sp.∗ Bos primigenius B. sp. Bubalus sp.∗ Gazella subgutturosa G. sp. Procapra picticandata Psuedaxis grayi∗ Sus cf. lydekkeri∗ S. cf. scrofa. S. xiaozhu S. sp. Spirocerus hsuchiayaocus Sp. peii∗ Sp. sp.

1a

2b

3

4

5

6

7c

√a

√

√

√

South China 8

9

√

√

10 11 12 13 13 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

√

√ √

√ √ √

√ √

√

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

√

√ √ √

√

√ √

√

√

√ √

√ √

√ √

√ √

√a

√ √

√

√ √ √ √

√

√ √ √ √

√

√

√ √

√ √

√

247 Perissodactyla Coelodonta antiquitatis∗ Dicerorhinus mercki∗ Rhinoceros sinensis Rh. sp. Equus hemionus E. przewalskyi E. sanmeniensis E. yunnanensis E. sp.∗ Proboscihipparion sp. Megatapirus augustus Tapirus augustus T. sinensis T. sp.

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√ √ √ √

√a

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √ √

√

√

√

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√ √ √ √

√

√

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√

Notes: Localities with Homo erectus in North China: (1) Chenjiawo; (2) Yunxian (Quyuan River Mouth); (3) Yunxi; (4) Yiyuan (Qizianshan Hill); (5) Nanzhao (Xinhua Shan) Localities with Homo erectus in South China: (12) Nanjing (Tangshan Cave); (13) Jianshi (Longgudong Cave) a = first fossil bed; b = second fossil bed; c = third fossil bed; (14) Hexian. Localities with archaic Homo sapiens in North China: (6) Dali; (7) Jinniushan; (8) Xujiayo; (9) Dincun; (10) Zhoukoudian locality 4; (11) Miaohoushan layers 5 and 6. Localities with archaic Homo sapiens in South China: (15) Chaoxian (Chaohu); (16) Maba; (17) Changyang; (18) Tongzi; (19) Panxian Dadong. Canis variabilis is probably synonymous with C. lupus; Cervus grayi with Pseuadixis grayi; Tapirus augustus with Megatapirus augustus; and Ursus kokeni with U. thibetanus (D. Bekken, pers. comm.). Dali (6): This also has Castor sp., Gazella przewalksi, Myosplax sp., and Struthio andersoni. Jinnuishan (7) also has Homotherium ultima, Meles sp. and Vulpes cf. corsac. At Miaohoushan layer 6 (11), Cervus elaphus is listed as C. canadensis, the North American variant of this species. Zhoukoudian locality 4 (10): This also has Scaptochirus moschatus, Erincaeus sp., Crocidura suaveolens (Insectivora), Rhinolophus ferrum-optimum, Myotis sp., Ia io (Chiroptera), Sciurotamias davidianus, Citellus undulates, Eutamias cf. sibricus, Cricetulus triton, C. barabensis, Myospalax wongi, Microtus epiratticeps, Alticola cf. stracheyi, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Apodemus sylvaticus, Meriones meridianus (Rodentia), Ochotona koslowi, O. daurica (Lagomorpha), Mustela nivalis, Felis lynx, Vulpes vulpes (Carnivora), and Capreolus manchuricus (Artiodactyla). Jianshi (13): The Gompotheridae entry is anomalous. According to Flynn et al. (1991), Gompotherium is recorded only in the Mahui Formation, 5.5–5.8 Ma, but “Gomopotheres” (e.g., Anancus, Sinomastodon) are present up to the Late Pliocene Mazegou Formation, ca. 3.0 Ma. Hexian (14) has four types of insectivores, three, possibly five types of bat, ten types of rodent besides those listed, and also Felis chinensis, Hydropotes inermis, and Elaphurus davidianus. At Changyang (17), the Rhizomys is R. sinensis, and the Meles entry is Meles sp.; this site has 230 Th dates of 194 +24/–20 and 196+20/–17 ka (Wu and Poirier 1995:143). Tongzi (18) also has Pongo sp., Hylobates sp., and Rhinopithecus sp. [golden monkey] (Primates) and Petaurista cf. brachyodus, Hystrix magna (Rodentia), Panthera pardus (Carnivora), two species of Cervus, and Capricornis cf. sumatraensis. Panxian Dadong (19) also has Sciurotamias sp., Belomys pearsoni, Trogopterus xanthippes, Trogopterus sp., Atherus sp., Mus sp., Micomys cf. minutus, Apodemus chevrieri, Niviventer anderssoni, N. confucianus, Leopoldamys edwardsi, Rattus rattus (Rodentia), Macaca arctoides, M. cf. assamensis, Colobinae indet. (Primates), Sus australis, Moschus sp., Cervus (Rusa) unicolor, Pseudaxis sp., Capricornis sumatraensis, Naemorhedus goral, and Megalovis guangxiensis. Sources: Wu and Poirier 1995 unless otherwise stated: (a) Keates 2003a; (b) Zhao et al. 2001; (c) Zun’Er Lu 2003. Taxa marked by ∗ are present at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. $ = common. Family order (e.g., “Bovinae”) and uncertain identifications are omitted. The advice of Dr. D. Bekken on various taxa is gratefully acknowledged.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia the orang-utan) and some that prefer open environments (e.g., Equus) (see Vos 1984), and they may comprise material of different ages. The karstic caves of Daxin, Wuming, and Bama (Guangxi Province) all contain evidence of Stegodon, Ailuripoda, Gigantopithecus, and Rhinoceros sinensis and are dated to the Middle Pleistocene (Wei Wang et al. 2006). (Rhinoceros is the only member of this family found in South China [Tong 2000].) A StegodonAiluripoda fauna is also present at the Early Palaeolithic, Middle Pleistocene sites of Guanyindong (Guizhou Province) and Shilongtou (Hubei Province). The sequence at Guanyindong is divided into Group A (upper strata, with Rhinoceros sinensis, Hystrix, and Stegodon) and Group B (with twenty-two taxa). According to Keates (2003a:43–4), most specimens are teeth, and most taxa are represented by one or two individuals only, except for Stegodon cf. orientalis and Rusa. The assemblage from Guanyingdong B is thought to be like that from Shilongtou (Han and Xu 1985), which was the first early Palaeolithic site found on the middle reaches of the Yangtse (Wu and Lin 1985). Data from Guanyindong and other caves in Guizhou Province indicate that speleothem growth ceased in Marine Isotope Stages 2, 6, and 8 (Shen 1993), as in Oman (see above). The recent and detailed faunal assemblage from the late Middle Pleistocene site of Panxian Dadong is discussed in Chapter 10.

iii. “transitional faunas” and latitudinal shifts in animal ranges Some Chinese researchers (e.g., Han and Xu 1985) have suggested that there was a “transitional fauna” that contained taxa normally resident in North or South China. As an example, Hexian, in the Yangstse Valley, has evidence of Cuon alpinus, Vulpes sp., Megaloceros pachyosteus, Pseudaxis grayi, and Sus lydekkeri (all of which are found at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian), but also southern taxa such as Ailuripoda, Stegodon orientalis, Megatapirus, and Tapirus sinensis. All these are reported as from the same 0.7–1.4 m–thick layer of brown sandy clay (Wu and Poirier 1995:89), and may have lived locally at the same time. An alternative possibility is that this layer spanned both a cold, glacial and a warm, interglacial period, and the assemblage reflects two, not one, animal communities. The bison provide an excellent example of the extent to which the distribution of some taxa might have changed according to prevailing climate. They are present at Locality 1 (although very rare), but also recorded at Tangshan Cave, Nanjing in the Yangtse Valley, and extraordinarily, at Panxian Dadong in South China (Chapter 10). Their presence here is not improbable given the evidence for freeze-thawing at this cave in the penultimate glaciation (see above). It is nonetheless as dramatic an example of how climatic and vegetational belts shifted in China in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene, as is the appearance of reindeer in Southwest France under similar conditions in Europe. Some southern taxa also ranged further north than usual; we have already mentioned Crocuta (Hyaena) ultima and Felis tigris at Locality 1, Zhoukoudian.

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia Other examples are Stegodon, Rhinoceros sinensis, and Tapirus augustus, all found at Nanzhao, and Tapirus, present at Yunxian. Given the pronounced differences between cold and arid, and warm and moist climates of the Chinese Middle Pleistocene, such changes in distribution should be expected.

Southeast Asia The Middle Pleistocene faunal history of this region is very poorly known, but new information has been added from the late Middle Pleistocene caves in northern Thailand of Thum Wiman Nakin, dated to 169 ± 11 ka (Tougard 2001; Tougard and Montuire 2006; Tougard et al. 1996, 1998), and Ban Fa Suai (Zeitoun et al. 2005). This evidence supplements that from the older cave of Tham Khuyen, northern Vietnam, dated at ca. 475 ± 125 ka, from which teeth of H. erectus, Gigantopithecus and Pongo pygmaeus were recovered (Ciochon et al. 1996; Schwartz et al. 1994, 1995). The most characteristic large mammals of this region in the Middle Pleistocene were Stegodon, Ailuripoda melanoleuca, Pongo pygmaeus, Hylobates, and (in South China and Vietnam), Gigantopithecus (see Box 5.3). Rhinoceros, a variety of large bovids, and Panthera tigris were also present, as was Crocuta crocuta, which was one of the few large mammals to colonise this region from either North China or India. Camels, equids, and giraffids were three major groups that never managed to exit India and colonise Southeast Asia. The porcupine was a major taphonomic agent at many of these cave sites, as its propensity for gnawing bone often resulted in the survival of a disproportionate number of teeth. The fate of some of these animals in Thailand affords interesting insights into the probable climatic and vegetational history of this region in and after the Middle Pleistocene. C. crocuta is now found only in sub-Saharan Africa; Stegodon and Gigantopithecus are extinct; the giant panda is now confined to a few mountainous areas of Southwest China north of the Yangtse; and the orang-utan is found only in North Sumatra and Borneo. The key to understanding these changes lies in the climatic oscillations of the later Middle Pleistocene. As shown above, the pollen sequence from Leizhou showed that montane forests were lowered by 600–800 m during MIS 6 and 8, and at Panxian Dadong, there is even evidence of freeze-thawing (implying temperatures of −5◦ C) during MIS 6 (Wang et al. 2004:310). Conversely, interglacial stages MIS 5 and 7 were warm and humid. Different taxa would have responded to these changes in different ways. Jablonski et al. (2000) have argued, for example, that the southward contraction of tropical lowland forest from southern China in the late Pleistocene had very different consequences for monkeys and apes: the former, with short gestation periods, high intrinsic rates of increase, and a tolerance of low-quality plant foods, were less affected than gibbons, orang-utans, and Gigantopithecus, with longer gestation periods, lower rates of

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia increase, and a preference for high-quality foods. Consequently, gibbons and the orang-utan retreated southwards with the lowland rain forest during cold, dry periods; gibbons now survive in the southern parts of mainland Southeast Asia, but the orang-utan is now extinct on the Asian mainland, and Gigantopithecus is wholly extinct. Conversely, the warm and humid conditions of the last interglacial in Southeast Asia probably forced the panda to retreat northwards into South China so that it could still feed upon the temperate bamboos such as Sinarundinaria fangiana and Fargesia spathacea that form its favourite food (Tougard et al. 1996).

The Indonesian Archipelago Nowhere in Asia are the faunal changes of the Middle Pleistocene more difficult to unravel than in the area that is now the Indonesian Archipelago, and at times of low sea level was the enormous continental shelf of Sunda (Voris 2000; see Figure 5.9). Unlike mainland Asia, the main environmental climatic variables were not simply global trends of rainfall and precipitation. Changes in sea level had profound regional climatic consequences; when sea level fell in cold periods, the South China Sea and Java Sea became smaller, and thus less moisture was transported across southern Borneo and Indochina. Animals thus experienced widely different opportunities for colonising this region. Low sea levels opened corridors for immigration, although the associated vegetation might not always have been suitable for colonisation. High sea levels created potential barriers that were not always overcome by the simple expedients of swimming short distances or floating on natural rafts of vegetation over longer distances (see Heany 1991; Kershaw et al. 2001; Moss and Wilson 1998). The modern fauna and flora of the Indonesian Archipelago are remarkably rich and diverse, with numerous species that are endemic to particular islands. The fauna is also characterised by pronounced discontinuities. For example, the leaf monkey is known only from west Java, northern Sumatra and northern Borneo; the orang-utan is found only in northern Sumatra and Borneo (Brandon-Jones 1996); the tiger is present on Sumatra, Java, and Bali, but not Borneo, even though the sea passage between Sumatra and Java is deeper than that between Sumatra and Borneo (Brandon-Jones 1998); and in the Pleistocene, Stegodon was present on Java, Sulawesi, Flores, Timor, and the Philippine islands of Luzon and Mindano, but not on Borneo or Sumatra (Allen 1991; Brandon-Jones 2001). Clearly, no single island can be seen as representative of the entire region. Brandon-Jones (1996, 1998) attributes many of these discontinuities to two major periods of deforestation, one of which occurred at the end of MIS 6, shortly before the last interglacial. Pollen evidence from the Bandung Basin of West Java Kaars and Dam (1995) indicate that rainfall at the close of MIS 6 was only ca. 750–1,000 mm, compared with ca. 2,000 mm during the last interglacial (see Figure 7.19), which supports

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia

Figure 7.19. Estimated temperature and rainfall over the last 135,000 years in the Bandung Basin, western Indonesia. The estimates are based on the types and frequencies of pollen. Note the reduction in rainfall of >60% at the end of Marine Isotope 6. Source: Kaars and Dam 1995, Figure 5.

the suggestion that most rainforest in this region (and much of its fauna) was eliminated by drought (Brandon-Jones 1998:402). With these considerations in mind, we can examine the fossil vertebrate record from Java, which is the best-studied island in the region.

i. java Three faunal stages have been recognised from the late Early and the Middle Pleistocene: the Trinil H.K.,14 the Kedung Brubus, and finally the Ngandong Fauna (Vos et al. 1994; Bergh et al. 1996, 2001; Storm 2001a, 2001b). The Trinil H.K. fauna was described in Chapter 5; the succeeding Kedung Brubus Stage, dated to ca. 0.7–0.8 Ma, represents a major immigration event, and with twenty taxa, contains the largest number of medium to large mammalian species on Pleistocene Java. The succeeding Ngandong Fauna contains fewer taxa, but is seen as very similar. All three faunas are regarded as indicative of open woodland (clearly indicated by large bovids, such as Bubalus palaeokerabau, 14

Trinil H.K. = Trinil Haupt Kochenschicht, or the main bone layer at Trinil. This term is used to distinguish that assemblage from the “Trinil Fauna”, which is a composite one derived from several localities (Sondaar 1984:225); see Chapter 5.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia which had horns up to 2.5 m wide), with some expanses of water (indicated by Hexaprotodon sivalensis and crocodiles), some forests (indicated by Cercopithecidae), and possibly gallery forests along river banks (Bergh et al. 2001; Storm 2001b:369). The dating of the Ngandong Fauna is critically important because it contains H. erectus (see Chapter 10). In a well-known, controversial publication, Swisher et al. (1996) dated bovid teeth from Ngandong to ca. 28–54 ka and suggested that H. erectus had therefore been contemporaneous with the earliest populations of H. sapiens in Southeast Asia. This dating was questioned on technical grounds by Gr¨un and Thorne (1997). On faunal grounds, there are sound reasons for placing the Ngandong Fauna in the late Middle Pleistocene. The succeeding Upper Pleistocene Punung Fauna, ca. 80 ka, marks a major discontinuity in the Javan faunal sequence in indicating dense, humid forest, with the first appearance of ten taxa, including the orang-utan and gibbon. Several taxa in the Ngandong Fauna became extinct, including Hexaprotodon sivalensis, Bubalus palaeokerabau, Elephas hysudrindicus, and Stegodon trigonocephalus. Palynological evidence from cores in the Bandung Basin, west Java (Kaars and Dam 1995) and the Banda Sea north of Timor (Kaars et al. 2000) shows that conditions became more humid during the last interglacial and resulted in an expansion of tropical lowland rain forest, and of humid montane forests between 126 and 81 ka. As sea levels were high at this time, taxa such as Pongo could not have reached Java, but could have done so when sea levels began to fall prior to ca. 60 ka, after which rain forest and its associated fauna disappeared on Java. Storm (2001b:372) points out that the expansion of rain forest indicated by the Punung Fauna covered the whole of Java, and so open woodland could not have found a refuge in east or south Java from which it could re-expand in post-Punung times. Contrary to Swisher et al. (1996), H. erectus was probably extinct on Java several tens of millennia before the arrival of H. sapiens (see in particular Storm 2001a, 2001b; Storm et al. 2005).

ii. flores The archaeological evidence that Flores was colonised ca. 800 ka is discussed in Chapter 10, and the implications of the discovery of H. floresienensis, a dwarf late Pleistocene hominin, are discussed in Chapter 11. Here, we examine its Middle Pleistocene faunal record. The earliest vertebrate remains are from Tangi Talo (or Bhisu Sau), which lies in Member A of the Ola Bula Formation and is dated by palaeomagnetism and fission-track to ca. 0.9 Ma. The faunal assemblage contains a dwarf stegodon, S. sondaari, a giant tortoise (but smaller than the Geochelone atlas known from Java, Timor and Sulawesi [Sondaar et al. 1994:1259]), and the Komodo dragon, the lizard Varanus komodoensis. The slightly younger Member B is dated to ca. 0.7–0.8 Ma and contains a medium to large stegodon, S. floresiensis, a giant

The Climatic and Environmental Background to Hominin Settlement in Asia rat, Hooijeromys musatenggara, and the Komodo dragon. The presence of stone tools at Mata Menge indicates that this faunal turnover was accompanied by the arrival of hominins (Bergh et al. 2001).

iii. other islands: borneo, sulawesi, and the philippines Current evidence indicates that H. sapiens was probably the first hominin to reach the present-day islands of Borneo, Sulawesi, Sumatra, and Palawan in the Upper Pleistocene (see Barker 2002; Bartstra et al. 1991; Vos 1983; Reis and Garong 2001 respectively). In a region where so little is known, a few discoveries could drastically change this assessment. Siberia The “mammoth steppe” that developed in Europe after the Anglian and Elsterian glaciations (MIS 12), ca. 427–478 ka, originated in Northeast Asia. According to Lister (2004), the steppe mammoth and steppe bison may have originated in North China in the Early Pleistocene, ca. 1.0–1.5 Ma, the reindeer may have immigrated from Alaska ca. 1 Ma, and the musk-ox is first recorded in Northeast Siberia ca. 0.6 Ma. Their expansion into Europe in the Middle Pleistocene emphasises both the severity of the climate, and the extent to which much of Europe became a westward extension of Siberia. In the Kuznetsk Basin of Southwest Siberia, Bison ex. gr. priscus first appeared in the late Early Pleistocene, and before the Jaramillo Sub-chron (ca. 0.9 Ma); M. trogontherii, Rangifer, and Equus mosbachensis appeared at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, ca. 0.8 Ma. Around that time, earlier forms of elephant (Archidiskodon sp.), Panthera, and Homotherium became extinct. The musk-ox, superbly adapted to exceedingly cold conditions but never common in the fossil record, is also found in Middle Pleistocene deposits (Foronova 2005). Major changes also occurred in the composition of small mammal communities, which were increasingly adapted to dry steppes and semideserts in the Transbaikal region south of Lake Baikal (Alexeeva and Erbajeva 2005). DISCUSSION: FROM “SAVANNAHSTAN” TO “ARIDISTAN”

The climate, landscape, and fauna of Asia in the Middle Pleistocene, particularly after 600 ka, were very different from those of a million years earlier. For the most part, it was considerably colder and drier, and more difficult for hominins to inhabit. After a complex and protracted Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) between ca. 900 and 620 ka, its climate was dominated by 100,000-year cycles of colder and drier climate (MIS 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.), interspersed with relatively short periods that were warmer and wetter (MIS 7, 9, 11, 13, etc.). In East and South Asia, this transition was additionally complicated by the climatic consequences of up to 3 km of tectonic uplift

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia along the northern edge of Tibet and the Himalayan and Karakorum Mountains. However, most Asian palaeoclimatic sequences after 600 ka show good agreement with those from elsewhere, apart from the anomalously temperate conditions during MIS 11–15 in the Lake Baikal region. The contrasts between the equivalent of high-latitude glaciations and interglacials would have caused major vegetational and faunal shifts across Asia, and thus there would thus have been major contractions and expansions of populations across much of Asia between glacial and interglacial periods. Of the warmer episodes of the Middle Pleistocene, MIS 11 (423–362 ka) was the longest and the most like the present interglacial, and would have provided Asian hominins with the best opportunities of the Middle Pleistocene to disperse northwards into Central Asia and North China, and across continental Asia between the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and East Asia. In the later part of the Asian Middle Pleistocene, the main feature of its climate was a strengthened winter monsoon that would have driven cold, dry air southwards, and blocked a weakened summer monsoon from penetrating northwards. The dominant factor that affected Asia was thus aridity: reductions in rainfall had far greater consequences for the distribution of plants and animals (including hominins) than changes in temperature. Over much of Asia, the “Savannastan” of the Early Pleistocene (Chapter 3) had become “Aridistan” by the later part of the Middle Pleistocene. If rainfall decreased across Asia by as much as 30% to over 50% in glacial periods (as implied by estimates from the Chinese Loess Plateau and the Java Sea), the consequences for hominin populations across much of Asia would have been catastrophic during the equivalent of glacial periods. MIS 6 (128–186 ka) comes across as exceptionally severe, particularly in Southwest Asia (inland from the Levant), Northwest India, Central Asia, and North China (see Table 7.3 and Figure 7.20). When conditions were at their most arid, large parts of these regions were probably uninhabitable. Even where rainfall was higher (as in India, Southeast Asia, and China) population levels may have been reduced, and some populations fragmented. Three major developments characterise Middle Pleistocene Asia. The first was the faunal changes that affected every region of Asia and resulted in the appearance of a modern fauna. Several mammals that were conspicuous in the Early Pleistocene became extinct by the end of the Middle Pleistocene, notably the large carnivores Homotherium, Megantereon, and Pachycrocuta that were largely replaced by Crocuta and the wolf. Regional extinctions of the Middle Pleistocene included Gigantopithecus in Southeast Asia and South China, Nestoritherium and Sivapanthera in North China, Stegodon in Southwest Asia, the proboscidean Archidiskodon in Siberia, and several mammals of the Upper Siwaliks in South Asia and in the Ngangdong Fauna of Java. New animals that were better adapted to colder conditions of midlatitude Asia were the muskox, steppe mammoth, steppe rhinoceros, steppe bison, reindeer, cervids with

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table 7.3. Indicators of reduced temperatures and aridity in MIS 6 Area

Climatic indicator

Source

Siberia, Lake Baikal

Minimal pollen production

North China

Rainfall reduced by 25 to >50%; expansion of deserts

Central Asia

Expansion of deserts; major increase in loess deposition after 250 ka Montane forest tree-line lowered by >600 metres; temperatures 5–6◦ C cooler Freeze-thawing; winter temperatures greatly reduced; Bison present Cessation of flowstone development Salinity minimum at 150–137 ka comparable to that in MIS 2 Rainfall reduced by >50% in late MIS 6 Major faunal disruption caused by drought Expansion of sand dunes

BDP-99 Baikal Drilling Project Members 2005:117. Maher and Thompson 1995; Maher et al. 1994; Florindo et al. 1999; Liu et al. 1995; Yang and Ding 2006 Yang and Ding 2006

South China, Tianyang Lake South China, Panxian Dadong South China caves Sea of Japan

Java Sea Indonesia India, Thar Desert Pakistan, Potwar Plateau Oman, Hoti Cave

Arabian Peninsula Offshore Western India

Marine isotope record

Deposition of loess Cessation of flowstone development; Indian summer monsoon now offshore Expansion of sand dunes Pollen mainly Artemsia and chenopods; reduced rainfall and temperatures Maximum volume of global ice ca. 135 ka

Zheng and Lei 1999

Wang et al. 2004

Shen 1993 Itaki et al. 2007

Kaars and Dam 1995 Brandon-Jones 1996, 1998 Misra 1989a, 1995; Misra and Rajaguru 1989 Rendell et al. 1989 Burns et al. 2001; Fleitmann et al. 2003

Preusser et al. 2002 Prabhu et al. 2004

Kukla et al. 2002

large antlers such as Megaloceros, and modern types of Bos. Microfaunal changes were no less dramatic. As shown by the faunal records of the Levant and Siberia (and Europe), Palaearctic mammals suited to dry and cold conditions expanded eastwards across much of continental Asia in the Middle Pleistocene, and even dispersed into the European Peninsula.

Figure 7.20. “Aridistan”: Estimated rainfall across Asia during the driest part of MIS 6, ca. 140 ka. In this reconstruction, the Arabian/Persian Gulf was an arid plain; Sri Lanka was joined to India, and large areas of land were exposed as the Sunda Shelf off Southeast Asia and the North and South Coastal Shelves of China. Arrows show the main rain-bearing winds: westerly ones in winter and spring from the eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas, and southwest and southeast ones in summer from the Indian and East Asian monsoons. The thinness of the arrows compared with the Early Pleistocene figure indicates that these winds have been weakened and transport less rain. The presence of a large ice sheet over northern Europe created a highpressure zone that drove northerly winds across Southwest and Central Asia, thus blocking westerly winds that brought rain from the Mediterranean. Low evaporation rates in the eastern Mediterranean would also have reduced the amount of rainfall over Southwest Asia and made most of this region extremely arid. Because the Indian summer monsoon moved offshore from southern Arabia and the Yemeni Mountains, that source of moisture would have been curtailed. Anatolia and the Zagros and Elburz Mountains would have received more precipitation than Arabia, the Iranian Plateau, and Central Asia, but substantially less than in interglacial periods. At higher altitudes in the Zagros, Caucasus, and Anatolian Plateau, much of the precipitation would have been snow, with some small glaciers and ice fields. A strengthened winter monsoon over North Asia and a delayed start to the summer monsoon would also have seriously reduced rainfall levels over Southeast Asia. Much of North China would have been cold and arid. Most of Asia between the Levant and North China and India would probably have been uninhabited apart from where perennial springs may have allowed small-scale occupation. Hominin movements between East Africa and Southwest Asia would have been impossible. It is also highly likely that India, Southeast Asia, and China were isolated from regions to the west. Source: The author.

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table 7.4. The size and temperature regimes of Asian deserts

Country/region

Desert

Area (sq. miles)

Area (km2 )

Arabia Israel Egypt Syria Iraq Iran Iran Central Asia Central Asia Northern China Northern China Northern China Northern China India Mongolia Total

Arabian Negev Sinai Syrian Mesopotamian Dasht-i-Kavirb Dasht-i-Lutb Karakum∗ Kyzyllkum∗ Taklamakan∗ Turfan Depression∗ Tengger∗ Ordos∗ Thar∗ Gobi∗

888,030 4,630 23,350 200,000 78,125 156,250 78,125 189,190 78,125 125,000 19,305 16,486 12,355 82,625 501,930 2,453,526

2,300,000 12,000 61,000 518,000 200,000 400,000 200,000 490,000 200,000 323,750 50,000 42,700 32,000 214,000 1,300,000 6,343,450

Mean temperature range (◦ C) 2–40a 2–30a 2–30a 10–46 2–40a 1–30a 2–30a −30–54 −30–54 0–+18 −10–+32 −2–+16 0–+20 −10–+32 −18–+20

Note: Those marked with an asterisk (∗ ) are cold deserts, with temperatures at or below freezing for at least two months each year. The largest recorded temperature extremes are probably those from the Turfan Basin (154 m below sea level), from +48.9◦ C to a staggering −52.1◦ C. Sources: Stoppato and Bini (2003); a Cooke and Warren 1973, Figure 1.1; b Naval Intelligence Geographical Handbook Series (1945) for Iran.

The second major development in Middle Pleistocene Asia was the expansion of deserts. As shown in Table 7.4, the present-day deserts of Asia cover almost 2.5 million square miles (6.4 million km2 ) and many of these were a product of the later Middle Pleistocene. In addition to denoting a major reduction in the size of areas that hominins could inhabit, the growth of these deserts placed major barriers that impeded or prevented the dispersal of hominins across Asia. There was thus a reduction in hominin mobility as well as of the space that they could inhabit. As shown in Figure 7.10, the expansion of these deserts created a more or less continuous chain that was difficult to inhabit or cross between the Arabian Peninsula and North China. Particularly important barriers to hominin movement were the deserts of inland Southwest Asia, Central Asia, the Thar Desert of Northwest India, and those along the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and North China. Even in the Indian Peninsula, hominin populations would have contracted into a number of small basins when conditions were at their most arid (see Chapter 9). The expansion of deserts in the Middle Pleistocene led to the third major development, and one which has a direct bearing upon human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene. This was the isolation of Africa from Asia and Europe.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia As shown above, there is no evidence of any faunal connections between the Levant and sub-Saharan Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, and very little evidence of any faunal link between the Levant and North Africa. The Levantine corridor was blocked at its southern end throughout the Middle Pleistocene, and it was not until the last interglacial that widespread movement between Africa and Asia became possible. Human evolution in Asia and Africa in the Middle Pleistocene thus proceeded on parallel lines in isolation from each other, and without any probability of contact. The consequences of these developments for human evolution in Asia will be explored in Chapter 11; at this stage, we will now (Chapters 8–10) examine the Middle Pleistocene archaeological records of Asia.

chapte r 8 THE M IDDLE PLEISTOCENE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD FOR SOUTHWEST AND CENTRAL ASIA

INTRODUCTION

As noted earlier, Southwest and Central Asia have rain in winter and spring that is derived from westerly winds from the Mediterranean and Black Sea, with hot, dry summers and cool/cold, moist winters (Chapters 3 and 7). Most of this region is today arid or semiarid, and is therefore vulnerable to any reductions in effective rainfall if these winds are blocked or reduced. Much of it is now desert (Table 7.1 and Figure 7.10), particularly inland from the Levantine coast. Almost all the archaeological evidence from the Southwest Asian Middle Pleistocene comes from the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria), which has a rich record, with arguably the earliest evidence for symbolic representation, fire, plant processing, hunting, blade assemblages, and lithic assemblages specific to a particular region. There are two reasons that so much more is known about the Levant than inland regions. First, considerably more fieldwork has taken place in Israel than in neighbouring countries; and second, because of its higher rainfall, the Levant would have been a core area of settlement, with more continuous residence during glacial-interglacial cycles. Other “core” areas would probably have been western Turkey, the western Zagros Mountains, and the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. This chapter has four sections. The first deals with excavated Middle Pleistocene, Lower Palaeolithic sites in the Levant (mostly with Acheulean assemblages). The second looks at the Jabrudian complex (which is specific is to the Levant and occurred between the late Acheulean and the early Middle Palaeolithic) and the earliest Levantine Mousterian assemblages. The third section examines the Middle Pleistocene evidence for the Lower and early Middle Palaeolithic from the rest of Southwest Asia; and the fourth reviews the Central Asian evidence before the last interglacial.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia THE LOWER PALAEOLITHIC OF THE LEVANT (Ca. 800–300 ka)

Most Lower Palaeolithic assemblages from this period belong to the Acheulean complex, of which the main feature is the bifacial handaxe. Relative chronologies of assemblages with bifaces from surface occurrences are based on typological schemes of changes in handaxe shape. In Israel, Gilead’s (1970) scheme is still useful for clustering Israeli material into a Lower, Middle, and Upper Acheulean, and in Syria and Lebanon, Hours (1981) distinguished an Early, Middle, and Recent Lower Palaeolithic, followed by a Developed Recent Acheulean. In some instances, these groupings can be linked to dated stratigraphic sequences from excavated sites, of which the main ones are shown in Figure 8.1. Each can be considered in turn.

Gesher Benot Yaìaqov Gesher Benot Yaì aqov,1 often abbreviated to GBY, is one of the Early Palaeolithic “flagship” sites of Asia, and may have the earliest evidence for the controlled use of fire, the hunting of elephants, the processing of plant foods, and the shaping of wood. It lies in the northern part of the Dead Sea Rift, ca. 12 km north of the Sea of Galilee, and along both banks of the River Jordan2 (see Figure 8.2). As at ë Ubeidiya (Chapter 4), the strata are severely tilted (see Figure 8.3), thus limiting the extent of excavation of archaeological horizons; the stratigraphy is also very complex, and the excavation and subsequent analysis have required much patience and skill. The main features of GBY are summarised by Goren-Inbar et al. (2000). The 34 m of strata exposed at the site form part of the Benot Yaì akov Formation3 and comprise calcareous and organic muds, coquinas (layers of shell), sands, and conglomerates (see Figure 8.4). Fluvial deposits mark the top and base of the local section, and intervening layers are lacustrine or lake-margin deposits. Palaeomagnetic analyses show that the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary lies 4 m below the base of layer II-6, one of the main archaeological horizons, which is thus dated to ca. 0.7– 0.8 Ma, and correlated to MIS 19. The micromammalian fossils from GBY are from the upper part of the section, and include both African taxa (such as Procavia syriaca and the murid Arvicanthus ectos) and Levantine ones such as Tibericola (Microtus) jordani, Mus macedonicus, Gerbillus dasyrus, Spalax ehrenbergi, and Hystrix cf. indica. The large mammals from the earlier excavations included Elephas sp., Stegodon mediterraneus, Hippopotamus amphibius, Sus cf. scrofa, Bos sp., Cervus 1 2

3

In earlier publications, it is sometimes referred to by its Arabic name, Jisr Banat Yaqub. The recent excavations are on the eastern bank of the Jordan; the earlier ones by Garrod, Stekelis, and Gilead were a few hundred metres north on the western bank. (See Goren-Inbar et al. 2002a:7.) The spelling of the geological formation is different from that of the GBY archaeological site.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.1. Map of the Levant showing principal Lower Palaeolithic sites. Source: The author.

elaphus, Dama cf. mesopotamica, Gazella sp., Dicerorhinus hemitoechus, and Equus sp. (Geraads and Tchernov 1983:138–9); Capra sp. (Goren-Inbar et al. 1992:33) and Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus (Goren-Inbar et al. 1994) have been added from more recent work. Because the site is waterlogged, an enormous range and amount of plant material (wood, bark, seeds, and fruit) has been preserved.4 Seeds and fruits have been recovered from thirty-two layers; overall, 100 taxa are present, 44 of which can be identified to the species level. Of these, 42 grow in wet habitats, and several are edible, notably the water chestnut (Trapa natans), the wild grape (Vitis sp.), the prickly water lily (Eurayle ferox), the oak, the wild pistachio (Pistacia atlantica), the wild olive, the plum, and the jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) (Goren-Inbar et al. 2000:946). 4

The monograph by Goren-Inbar et al. (2002b) provides a feast of botanical information on this evidence; see also Werker and Goren-Inbar (2001) for a discussion of the arboreal vegetation.

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Figure 8.2. Map of Gesher Benot Yaì aqov (GBY), Israel, and plan of excavated areas. (A) location of GBY; (B) the 1989–97 excavations at GBY; (C) exposed surfaces of Layer II-6, Levels 1 and 4. Note that in addition to scatters of bifaces, giant cores, boulders, and manuports, the upper level contained wood and an elephant skull. Source: Madsen and Goren-Inbar 2004, Figure 1.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.3. Photograph of the tilted strata at Gesher Benot Yaì aqov, level 4. Reproduced with kind permission of Professor N. Goren-Inbar.

Over twelve archaeological occurrences were investigated between 1989 and 1997, varying from thin horizons to successions of superimposed layers and artefacts up to 1.5 m thick. Most occurrences are in their original contexts, found at the boundary of fine and coarse sediments (e.g., II-2/3 and I-4/5), and comprise lithic assemblages and faunal and botanical remains. All the assemblages are classified as Acheulean; those of sufficient sample size always include handaxes and cleavers, as well as e´clats de taille de biface (“flakes resulting from striking bifaces”) that show the in situ modification of tools. Three types of rock were used: limestone for chopping tools and percussors; flint for the modification of cores, flakes, and flake tools; and basalt for handaxes and cleavers. Basalt was the commonest and nearest raw material, and readily available locally as large boulders and basalt flows. The bifacial assemblage from GBY (see Figure 8.5) is highly distinctive, in that (as at ë Ubeidiya; Chapter 4), it shows a marked preference for basalt for the manufacture of handaxes and cleavers. GBY is also unique in the Levant in that a high proportion of handaxes and cleavers were made using the “Kombewa” technique,5 which is well known in Africa (for example, from Olduvai Bed IV, Olorgesaille, Isimila, Kalambo Falls, Ternifine (Tighenif) and Isernia (see Goren-Inbar et al. 2000:946–7)). As Goren-Inbar and Saragusti (1996) point 5

The Kombewa technique “involves the use of a large flake, usually with a prominent bulb of percussion, as a core from which the Kombewa flake is detached. The resulting flake, with a bulb on each face, is sometimes referred to as a ‘Janus’ flake” (McBrearty 2001:89).

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Figure 8.4. The geological sequence at Gesher Benot Ya ì aqov. Sources: Goren-Inbar et al. 2002b, Figure 9 and Goren-Inbar et al. 2000, Figure 2.

out, the bifacial assemblage from GBY has more in common with assemblages in Africa than with those from the nearby site of ë Ubeidiya, and this may indicate a subsequent dispersion of ideas6 out of Africa ca. 800 ka. If this evidence does indicate a dispersal of hominins, it seems to have been restricted to the Dead Sea Rift during the time span of GBY, and not elsewhere in Southwest Asia. An alternative possibility is that the Kombewa technique was discovered independently by the inhabitants of GBY; pressure flaking, for example, and blades were developed independently in many parts of the Palaeolithic world. The manufacture of bifaces at GBY has been explored through analysis of assemblages from layer II-6, level 1 (in which there were three large basalt cores 6

The 1996 article stipulates the dispersal of ideas, not people. The latter option is considered as possible in a later article (Saragusti and Goren-Inbar 2001:89).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.5. An Acheulean cleaver and handaxe from Gesher Benot Ya ì aqov, Layer II-6, level 4. Source: Saragusti and Goren-Inbar 2001, Figure 5.

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Figure 8.6. Reduction processes used at Gesher Benot Ya ì aqov. Source: Madsen and Goren-Inbar 2004, Figure 25.

and sixty-eight basalt bifaces), and experimental flaking of basalt (Madsen and Goren-Inbar (2004). These investigations began with the giant cores weighing up to 20 kg that provided the blanks from which bifaces were made (see Figure 8.6). Experiments showed that a competent knapper could have flaked sixty-eight biface blanks from the three giant cores in layer II-6, level 1, in 6 hours; each biface could have been made in 15 minutes, or 15 hours in all, and the rest of the flake tools in less than 3 hours.7 Overall, one person could have made the entire assemblage in only 24 work-hours. Interestingly, and as shown in Figure 8.7, far fewer flakes (ca. 1,700) were found than the 8,000 that would be expected if all the bifaces were flaked on the site. The inference is thus that hominins arrived and left with some bifaces as “rough-outs”, but also made some on the site. A related inference is that the activities at GBY could 7

One unresolved issue is whether soft-hammer techniques were used. After a very lengthy examination of this question, Sharon and Goren-Inbar (1999) were unable to reach a clear conclusion on this point.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.7. The flake deficit at Gesher Benot Yaì aqov. Source: Madsen and GorenInbar 2004, Figure 21.

have been very short-lived or episodic, and involved only a few individuals of a group. It is the biological evidence from GBY that makes it particularly interesting. The evidence for hunting (Goren-Inbar et al. 1994) comes from layer II6, which is 1.5 m thick, dips at 40–45◦ , and consists of fluvial and limnic sediments, but includes large pebbles and boulders. In level 1, the skull of an elephant (Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus) was found ventral side up (see Figure 8.8). It was probably from a female or young adult male, age at death unknown. The palate and base of the skull had been removed, and the nasal area had been damaged. Underneath, there were an oak branch (Q. calliprinos), 106 cm long and 13 cm in diameter and with its twigs trimmed (though not by cutting), and a large basalt core (32 × 26 × 17 cm) weighing 16.5 kg. As the investigators acknowledge, the key issues here are taphonomic. The scarcity of other faunal remains in layer II-6 indicates that this layer was not a faunal “trap” where bones accumulated. Fluvial transport was ruled out because of the good state of preservation, because the skull was found embedded in silts and clay, and because over 37,000 artefacts 20 mm long; 426 small wood fragments 300,000 years old, and the oldest date obtained so far is one of 415 ± 27 ka from bed 80 in Unit XIV. Layer G is probably therefore >400 ka.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.14. Location of principal Jabrudian sites. Note that the northern limit of the Jabrudian is unclear because of the scarcity of relevant data from Turkey. Source: Redrawn and modified from Bar-Yosef 1998b, Figure 1. THE LEVANT CA. 350–125 ka: FROM THE JABRUDIAN TO THE EARLY LEVANTINE MOUSTERIAN

The archaeological record of the northern Levant in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene becomes more complex than before, and forms two distinct parts. The first, defined by a complex of lithic assemblages known as the Jabrudian,20 marks a continuation of the late Acheulean in that bifaces are still used, but the Levallois technique is largely discontinued. The second 20

As the letter “j” in German is pronounced as “y”, Rust pronounced Jabrud and Jabrudian as Yabrud and Yabrudian but spelt them with a “j”. English-speaking writers have generally spelt these names phonetically with the “y”. As Rust has taxonomic priority over the spelling of the site and eponymous industry, I have opted for his spelling unless referring to instances where an investigator (e.g., Garrod) opted for the phonetic spelling when referring to a specific assemblage.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia part, characterised by a resumption of Levallois technology, is associated with Levantine Mousterian assemblages. In the southern Levant, a different situation prevailed: here, the Jabrudian is absent, and the late Acheulean is succeeded directly by the Levantine Mousterian. The Jabrudian merits attention because it is the earliest lithic grouping in Asia that is specific to a particular region, and it also includes large-scale blade production; both these features have been cited as indicative of early “modern” behaviour (McBrearty and Brooks 2000).

The Jabrudian, Amudian, and pre-Aurignacian The Jabrudian complex comprises three types. The first is the Jabrudian, which is marked by a distinctive type of asymmetrical convergent scraper, and is known from several sites in northern Israel and Jordan, the Lebanese coast, and inland Syria, but not in areas to the south or east (see Figure 8.14). The other two types of assemblage are more restricted, and characterized by high frequencies of blades. The pre-Aurignacian, so called because of its high proportion of scrapers and burins, was found at Jabrud shelter I, layers 13 and 15, in Syria (Rust 1950; see Figure 8.15). The Amudian, characterized by backed knives, is present at Adlun and El Masloukh A and B in Lebanon, Tabun, layers Ea and Eb (= Jelinek’s Unit XI; see Jelinek 1989:84), Qesem Cave, and possibly Zuttiyeh (Vishnyatsky 2000) in Israel. Although some researchers prefer to keep the Amudian and pre-Aurignacian as separate entities (Copeland 2000; Vishnyatsky 2000), others have seen them as synonymous. Debate continues over whether the Amudian is part of the late Acheulean and Jabrudian, or a separate tradition. Jelinek (1982, 1989) regarded all three as part of the same Mugharan Tradition, in which bifaces, scrapers, and blades were used in different combinations at different times, and possibly under different climatic conditions. He suggested that the Jabrudian was used in warm conditions, the Acheulo-Jabrudian in a cold phase, and the Amudian in an even cooler climate. Although there is merit in the idea of linking lithic assemblages to climatic conditions, this cannot be done without better palaeoclimatic data. Other suggestions have been that these facies represent different tool-kits used for specific tasks, differences in the spatial usage of sites, or different groups of people with separate cultural traditions. All in all, these issues are very similar to those that informed the so-called “Mousterian debate” in Southwest Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Much of the attention given in early research to the Amudian and PreAurignacian stemmed from their superficial resemblances to the Chatelperronian of Europe and to early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages in the Levant. Because the Amudian and pre-Aurignacian are now known to be so much older than either, and separated from them by such long sequences of Mousterian assemblages, there is no need to see them as in any way connected. At this point, we can summarize the main evidence for the Jabrudian.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.15. Rust’s schematic and composite section of Shelter I at Jabrud, Syria. Source: Rust 1950, Tafel 4.

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Figure 8.16. Plan of the excavations by Rust and Solecki at Shelter I, Jabrud, Syria. Source: Solecki and Solecki 1986, Figure 1.

Jabrud The type-site of Jabrud lies at 1,140 m a.s.l. on the east side of the AntiLebanon mountains of Syria, and thus in their rain shadow. It comprises three rock shelters ( Jabrud I, II, and III), which were excavated by Alfred Rust (1950) in 1931–3.21 Collectively, they provide a virtually complete sequence from the Neolithic to the early Middle Palaeolithic. The ten layers in Shelter (or Schutzdach) III spanned the Neolithic to Late Aurignacian, and the ten layers in Shelter II contained Late Aurignacian and Final Mousterian assemblages. The most important sequence came from the 11 m of deposits in Shelter I (see Figure 8.16). Here, Rust recognized twenty-five levels, of which levels 1–10 (from top to base) contained a variety of assemblages that he grouped as Mousterian. Those underneath (levels 11–25) contained assemblages of a type previously unknown, which he called Jabrudian; some of these layers (11, 19, 24) were interspersed with what he called Acheuleo-Jabrudian if bifaces were present, or Micoquian (layer 18) if they were scarce. Layers 13 and 15 21

In an age of cheap and rapid air travel, it is humbling to note that on Rust’s first trip to Syria in 1930, he cycled from Hamburg to Damascus, and then to Beirut, Jerusalem, and Cairo, before returning home via Italy and Southwest France eight months later (see Rust 1950:3).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.17. Section of the deposits at Shelter I, Jabrud, as excavated by Rust and Solecki. Source: Solecki and Solecki 1986, Figure 3.

contained an industry he called Pr¨a-, or pre-, Aurignacian, as it contained large numbers of blades. Notwithstanding Rust’s perseverance under difficult circumstances on a miniscule budget, his findings are open to criticism. Solecki and Solecki (1986) re-examined the Shelter I stratigraphy in the 1960s, and Figures 8.17–8.19 show their plan, section, and revised stratigraphy. They observed that Rust’s composite section included layers dug in different areas. The stratigraphic sequence also changed along the length of the shelter,22 and sometimes different facies were found at the same level in different trenches: for example, Layer 17 (Young Acheulean) in Room or Trench (i.e., Kammer in Rust’s report) 2 was at the same depth as layer 16 ( Jabrudian) in Room 1, and the pre-Aurignacian in layer 13 was at the same depth as layer 12 (end Acheulean/Pre-Mousterian). In both cases, the relative chronology is unknown. Most of the cultural material came from the upper 5 m of the sequence. Little was found between 5 and 9 m depth, and his cultural layers (or Kulturschichten) 19–21 had very few artefacts. Numerous artefacts, however, were found in the lowest ones, layers 22–25, in the bottom 2 m of deposits. The evidence for habitation is chiefly in the upper 5 m. This often includes evidence of widespread burning (including fire-cracked stones in layers 12 and 14), and also stone-lined hearths above layer 16. Various attempts have been made to date the assemblages in Shelter I (see Table 8.1). The first was a set of TL dates of 195 ± 15 ka for Level 18, which should be treated cautiously because “the external dose used in the calculations was based on estimates that may not be too reliable” (Mercier et al. 1995:506). 22

He would not have seen the section in its entirety, as he backfilled trenches as he went along (Copeland 2000:97).

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Figure 8.18. Solecki and Solecki’s (1986) reconstruction of Rust’s (1950) cultural stratigraphy at Shelter I, Jabrud. Source: Solecki and Solecki 1986, Figure 4.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.19. Plan of the excavations at the caves of Abri Zumoffen and Bezez, Lebanon. Source: Copeland 1975, Figure 1.

These dates have since been recalculated to 224 ± 17 ka (Porat et al. 2002:113). Recently, three equid teeth from levels 18/19 that are probably Jabrudian have been dated by ESR (see Table 8.1). Of the nine dates obtained, the average of 226 ± 15 ka derived from a combined uptake model is thought the most reliable; it also concurs with the revised TL date. Porat et al. (ibid.) suggest that these dates place the upper part of the Jabrud sequence within MIS 7, that is, the penultimate interglacial. If so, the scarcity of archaeological material between levels 19 and 21 should date (assuming that there is no stratigraphic hiatus) from the preceding cold and arid period, MIS 8, and perhaps the lowest evidence in layers 22–25 from the preceding interglacial phase, MIS 9.

Zuttiyeh, Israel This cave was initially excavated in the 1920s (Turville-Petre 1927)23 and then re-examined in the 1970s (Gisis and Bar-Yosef 1974). It is chiefly known because a hominin skull24 was found in a breccia (see Chapter 11). According 23

24

Turville-Petre’s enthusiasm in removing 550 m3 in two field seasons (!) appears to have greatly exceeded his ability to recognise the layers he was removing. Apart from the human skull, the excavations produced little of lasting value. Sohn and Wolpoff (1993:335) remark that “virtually every opinion possible” has been expressed about the affinities of this specimen. Their article on it provides a useful starting point for those who might be interested.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia to Gisis and Bar-Yosef (ibid.), the skull was associated with an Acheulean or Jabrudian facies. An Acheulean-Jabrudian assemblage in a travertine in a different area of the cave was in contact with a breccia and dated by 230 Th-234 U to 148 ± 6 ka; higher in the sequence, the same breccia, this time associated with a Mousterian assemblage, was dated to 97 ± 13 ka (Schwarcz et al. 1980; see Table 8.1). These dates were preliminary ones from the early days of 230 Th234 U dating, and the skull and associated assemblage is probably ca. 300,000 years old (Bar-Yosef 1998b).

El-Khowm, Syria At least nine Jabrudian sites (or roughly half the total) are known from former artesian springs in the el-Khowm oasis in the Syrian desert (Copeland and Hours 1983; Henning and Hours 1982, Muhesen 1992). Dated assemblages are listed in Table 8.1. In eight cases, Jabrudian racloirs are associated with bifaces. The most important site is Hummal, where a Jabrudian assemblage (layer 1b) was stratified below a Levantine Mousterian assemblage in layer 6a. At Hummal Well, there is also a so far unique assemblage, the Hummalian, which was found between the Jabrudian and Mousterian and is characterized by large numbers of blades and a distinctive “Hummalian” point that looks like a projectile or Abu Zif point.

Adlun (Bezez Cave and the Abri Zumoffen), Lebanon The plan and stratigraphic sequence of these caves are shown in Figures 8.15 and 8.20. In the Bezez cave, layer C, a Jabrudian assemblage was found overlying a fossil beach. In the Abri Zumoffen, 50 m north,25 an Acheulean-Jabrudian assemblage was found in layer 2 over Jabrudian ones (layers 3–9) in a grey breccia, which in turn overlay Amudian assemblages that were found (layers 11– 21) over a beach conglomerate (Copeland 1975:315). The age of these beach deposits is critical to dating the overlying assemblages, and will be discussed below. According to Copeland (1975), the Lebanese Amudian assemblages, with their distinctive backed knives, are not like the pre-Aurignacian of Jabrud I, layer 15, but are like those at Tabun layer Ea-Ed. For this reason, she preferred not to lump the two together, as suggested by Jelinek (1982).

Qesem Cave, Israel This important, recently excavated cave contains 7.5 m of stratified deposits. All the archaeological assemblages are Acheulean-Jabrudian, and two sets of 25

An excellent account of Garrod’s research in Lebanon in 1958–63 is given by Copeland (1999). The final reports on this fieldwork were the two volumes edited by Roe (1983).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.20. Stratigraphic sequence of the excavations at the caves of Abri Zumoffen and Bezez. Source: Copeland 1975, Figure 2.

overlying flowstones have recently been dated by 230 Th-234 U TIMS (thermal ionisation mass spectrometry). The results (see Table 8.1) indicate that the Acheulean-Jabrudian was used in the cave before ca. 382 ka and until ca. 207 ka, and possibly as late as 150 ka (Barkai et al. 2003). The lithic assemblages are all Amudian, and characterised by a simple laminar technology, featuring little core preparation, for making handheld cutting tools (Barkai et al. 2005). Usewear and faunal analysis (Lemorini et al. 2006) indicate that tools were mainly used for skinning and removing meat from heads and upper limbs of mediumsized and large ungulates (mainly Dama, Bos, Equus, and Sus sp.; see below). Recent analyses (Karkanas et al. 2007) have shown that recrystallized wood ash was a major component of the cave deposits, and resulted from the repeated use of fires inside the cave. Fire was thus being used as a maintainable technology. Activities associated with these fires included butchering large animals (notably fallow deer) and marrow extraction: ca. 10–36% of identified bones were burnt, and up to 84% of unidentifiable bone fragments. It is also possible that some tools were used for plant collecting. Analysis of cosmogenic beryllium (10 Be), which is largely concentrated in the surface, indicates that the flint was obtained from the surface or shallow (300 ka. Mercier and Valladas (2003) later recalculated their dates in a manner similar to that of Gr¨un and Stringer, and this time, obtained dates that were on average ca. 8% younger. As a result of these two papers, the original differences between the ESR and TL dates have decreased, particularly if one allows for depth of deposits and complexity of the stratigraphy in the lower part of the Tabun sequence. Support for dates >300 ka for layer E has recently come from Rink et al. (2004b), who obtained a date of 387 +49/−36 ka for a tooth from a fallow deer mandible that was exposed in section at the base of layer E. They point out that ESR and U-series dating of teeth and the sediments attached to them in museum collections are hampered by the need to assume that their geochemistry is typical of the layer from which they came. By being able to sample the surrounding deposits, they were able to show that had they used dose rate estimates based only on the sediment adhering to the tooth, they would have obtained a significantly younger age estimate of only 221 +32/−33 ka. They thus suggest that ESR and U-series dates on museum specimens will tend to undershoot the probable true age. At present, there are no fewer than six sets of dates (plus the recent one obtained by Rink et al. 2004b) for the Tabun sequence to choose from, and

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.22. A comparison of different attempts to date the sequence at Tabun. Note the steady downward drift of the dates for layer E, from ca. 130 ka to ca. 400 ka. Source: Mercier et al. 1995, Fig. 5.

four chronologies: the original short chronology of Garrod and Jelinek; the “modified short chronology” of Bar-Yosef (1989); a “long” chronology based on ESR and U-series dates; and a “very long” chronology based on TL dating of burnt flints and ESR-U-series dating of in situ material. None of

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia these techniques is problem-free, and the Tabun sequence itself is extremely complex, both stratigraphically and geochemically. Although techniques and understanding of the geochemical issues have improved over the last decade (viz., the revised ESR dates of Gr¨un and Stringer [2000] and the revised TL dates of Mercier and Valladas [2003] are probably better than the initial series), there are still areas of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the long chronologies are more convincing than the short ones, and the main features of the Levantine archaeological sequence for the late Middle Pleistocene (Figure 8.23) now appear well-established. The redating of the Tabun sequence has major repercussions for the dating of the sequences at Adlun, where the critical issue is the dating of the basal beach deposit. Since Garrod’s research, it is now apparent that the height of Lebanese fossil beach deposits cannot be determined from the present height above sea level.27 In view of the dates for layer E at Tabun, it now makes more sense to redate the beach at Zumoffen to the earlier Enfean I beach (marine stage 7, ca. 200 ka; Bar-Yosef (1992:199) or even to stage 9 (Copeland 1999:160), in which case the Amudian and Jabrudian sequence would belong to the early part of stage 6 (ca. 180 ka) or stage 8 (ca. 280 ka), respectively. The latter option is perhaps more compatible with the “long” and “very long” chronologies now available for Tabun.

The Early Levantine Mousterian (Tabun Layers D and C) At Tabun, the appearance of Mousterian assemblages in layer D marks major changes, particularly in the resumed use of the Levallois technique. The relevant dates are shown in Table 8.2. As can be seen, the estimated dates (at one standard deviation) for the earliest Middle Palaeolithic assemblages from layer D are 177–229 ka (Gr¨un and Stringer 2000) and 236–290 ka (Mercier et al. 1995), both considerably earlier than the last interglacial. The same is true of Layer C, dated by Gr¨un and Stringer (2000) to 119–161 ka, and to 154–188 ka by Mercier et al. (1995). (On the dates offered by McDermott et al. (1993), this layer could belong to the last interglacial.) Layer B is dated to either well within the last glaciation (McDermott et al. 1993) or perhaps slightly before or during it (Gr¨un and Stringer 2000). The Mousterian assemblages from layers C and D are distinctive from each other, and are thus useful for correlations with other Levantine sites. Both rely 27

In fairness to Garrod, she excavated at Adlun at a time when the main chronological framework for the Pleistocene was still the simplistic fourfold Alpine sequence, and it is not surprising she thought the fossil beach deposits there were formed in the last interglacial. Nor of course did she have the advantage of modern absolute dating techniques.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.23. A schematic overview of the current dating of the Late Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic in the Levant. Source: Bar-Yosef 1998b, Figure 2.

heavily on Levallois technology for producing standardized blanks. As summarized by Bar-Yosef (1992:193–4), in the Tabun D phase, the blanks, blades, and elongated points were predominantly removed from Levallois unipolar cores with minimal preparation of the striking platform. Common tool types were retouched points, blades, racloirs, and burins. Bifaces were absent, apart from Tabun, where those found in layer D came from the base of that layer and were probably derived from the underlying layer Ea (Goren-Inbar 1995:100). Similar assemblages are known from Abu Sif, Sahba, Rosh Ein Mor in the

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Central Negev Desert, Nahal Aqev 3, Jerf ëAjla, and Doura layer IV. In the Tabun C phase, large and often oval flakes were struck from Levallois cores with radial preparation, and there were small numbers of triangular points. This type of assemblage is also found at Qafzeh, Shuhl in Israel, and Naam´e and Ras el Kelb in Lebanon. Type D assemblages have a wider distribution, and are found from el-Khowm in Syria to southern Jordan, as well as in the Lebanon and northern Israel. These are also the only type of Mousterian assemblages found in the central Negev and southern Jordan before the Upper Palaeolithic transition at ca. 47 ka (Marks 1992:235). Type C assemblages are known only from northern Israel and southern Lebanon, and appear to have been absent from more arid areas of inland Syria, southern Jordan and Israel, and the Sinai Peninsula (Marks 1992).

Discussion The assemblages from the later part of the Middle Pleistocene in the Levant are now among the most intensively dated in the world, even if they do prompt the feeling that too many dates can cause more problems than no dates! The absolute dates now available have several wider implications for the archaeology of this period, not just in the Levant but also much wider afield. Two key questions concern the end point of the late Acheulean and the beginning of the Levantine Mousterian. We need to remember that in stratigraphic sequences, Jabrudian assemblages are consistently found below Mousterian ones (e.g., Tabun, el-Khowm, Bezez, Zumoffen, Qesem, Misliya, Zuttiyeh) and above Acheulean ones (e.g., Tabun). Within this “core” area, it is thus most unlikely that the Jabrudian was contemporaneous with either the late Acheulean or early Mousterian. However, if the area in which Jabrudian assemblages were used expanded and contracted (for example, in response to climatic fluctuations), we might expect some overlap to occur with either the late Acheulean and/or the early Levantine Mousterian outside this core area.

i. the date of the final acheulean The most recent Acheulean dates are those from Umm Qatafa, Holon, and Revadim (see Table 8.1), all of which imply that Acheulean, non-Jabrudian assemblages were still in use ca. 200 ka. Depending upon which dates are chosen from the Tabun sequence, these dates imply that the Acheulean overlapped with both the Jabrudian (including that at level 18, Jabrud) and the earliest Mousterian. As this is highly improbable, some of these dates are probably wrong. The dates from Umm Qatafa are the easiest to question: first, the wide range of age estimates obtained within and between teeth; second, lack of information about where the dated teeth were found within layer D; and third, the similarity of the microfauna from layers D-F to that from layer G at

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia Tabun, which is clearly far older than 200 ka. Open-air sites such as Holon and Revadim are harder to date than most cave sequences, and the dates obtained may simply be minima rather than indicative of true age. As seen above, the archaeological horizon at Revadim probably dates to stage 8 on geological grounds. If the dates from Revadim and Holon are also disregarded, there are no dated Acheulean assemblages in areas where Jabrudian ones were later used that are necessarily younger than 250 ka, and possibly 300 or even 400 ka. (We need to bear in mind that Berekhat Ram is somewhere between 230,000 and 780,000 years old, not 250,000–280,000 years as often quoted; see above). In the southern Negev, and areas outside the distribution of Jabrudian assemblages, Acheulean assemblages may have continued in use after 300–250 ka. The present range of dates suggest that the Jabrudian complex was in place by at least 200 ka at Jabrud, 300 ka at Tabun, layer E (on the TL dates), and 380 ka at Qesem. These dates imply that in the northern Levant, the late Acheulean was replaced by or developed into the Jabrudian somewhere between 300 and 400 ka. It is now obvious that the age of the Jabrudian and Amudian at Adlun was seriously underestimated, and is probably at least 200,000 years, and possibly ca. 300,000 years old. Likewise, some of the earlier absolute dates are probably suspect.28 Mercier et al. (1995:505) suggest that the dates for El-Khowm, Zuttiyeh, and Jabrud I.18 are mostly single ones that should be treated as minima, although the recent dates from Jabrud (see above) are consistent with the initial dating of that layer.

ii. the beginning of the levantine mousterian At Tabun, the youngest Jabrudian dates are 168 ± 15 (ESR) and 280–350 ka (TL), and the earliest Mousterian dates are on the order of 200 (ESR) or 250 ka (TL). At Hayonim, the Mousterian is extremely well dated to ca. 140–230 ka (see Table 8.1). The dates from Qesem Cave imply that the Jabrudian probably ended by 200 ka. In areas where the Jabrudian precedes the Mousterian, the interface appears to lie somewhere between 160 and 250 ka. At Rosh ein Mor in the Negev Desert (where the Jabrudian was absent), the Middle Palaeolithic was in place by ca. 200 ka. Overall, the Levantine Mousterian probably began ca. 200–250 ka. Jabrudian and Early Mousterian Subsistence Two sites in particular have provided considerable recent information on subsistence during the Jabrudian and early Levantine Mousterian. At Qesem (see above), 70–80% of the fauna comprised fallow deer, with the remainder from 28

It would seem useful to redate those sections that were dated in the 1970s and 1980s and are still accessible, given subsequent advances in dating methods.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia aurochs, horse, pig, tortoise, and rarely Cervus (Stiner 2007). Most fallow deer were prime adults, taken in late winter to early spring. In the upper part of the sequence, most fallow deer remains came from the head and limbs, but trunk elements were better represented in the lower part. It is likely that carcasses were dismembered at the kill site and segments brought back to the cave for further processing and consumption, which here included roasting (see above). The placing of cut marks indicates either that one person changed position several times, or perhaps more likely, that several hominins cut meat from the carcass segment at the same time. The latter possibility may provide a hint of active food-sharing among the group. In the early Mousterian level E of Hayonim, dated to ca. 200–170 ka (see above), the main taxa were aurochs and gazelle (Stiner 2005). There was no evidence of carnivore involvement, and the MNI (minimum number of individuals) count was very low, indicating that few animals were taken. There was little variation in transport elements, and almost all parts of carcasses were carried back, with the partial exception of the vertebral column. As at Qesem, prime adults were the main prey. Occupation at this point appears to have been “repetitive but largely ephemeral” by small groups who used the cave as a residential base (Stiner 2005:221–2). The data from Qesem and Hayonim represent an enormous improvement on what was known previously from old excavations where the retrieval of faunal data was not a major priority. Tchernov (1992a) reported that in Tabun E, Dama mesopotamica composed 45% of all (748) identifiable specimens, followed by Gazella (17%) and Bos primigenius. In the overlying layer D (Mousterian), there are only 277 identifiable specimens, of which 41% were Gazella, and only 25% D. mesopotamica. The Adlun caves provided only 45 identifiable specimens in the Amudian (layers 21–11) of the Abri Zumoffen, 55 in the Jabrudian (layers 9–3), and 142 from Bezez level B. In all three, the commonest animal was D. mesopotamica, followed by B. primigenius. In the Mousterian layers, Gazella, which had been previously absent from the samples, increased in importance, as at Haynim, and also Tabun between layers Ea and D, with which the Adlun Jabrudian layers are correlated. There were also some specimens of Capra, Cervus elaphus, C. capreolus, Equus, and Dicerohinus (Garrard, 1983). Crocuta crocuta was common in Bezez B, and Garrard (ibid.) suggested that it, and also other carnivores such as Panthera leo, Ursus arctos, P. pardua, and Canis lupus, were hunted for their pelts. In the absence of cut-marks, this suggestion can only be tentative, and a more parsimonious explanation is that the cave was used by both hominins and carnivores. At Jabrud, equids dominated at all levels, and Gazella, Capra, and Dama were rare (Copeland, 1975:326). An obvious suggestion is that the users of Jabrud I visited this mountain area in summer in pursuit of horses. If, as suggested above, the bulk of the occupational record at Jabrud dates from interglacial stages MIS 7 and 9, the hominin usage of

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.24. Location of principal Middle Pleistocene sites in Turkey and the Caucasus. (1) Yarimburgaz; (2) Karain; (3) Kalatepe Deresi; (4) Azych; (5) Kudaro I and III; (6) Cona; (7) Treugol’naya; (8) Barda Balka. NAR = Naxcivan Autonomous Republic. Source: The author.

the region east of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains might have been confined to relatively short interglacial intervals, with the “core” population centred in Lebanon and northern Israel (see end of chapter). SOUTHWEST ASIA (EXCLUDING THE LEVANT, CA. 800–125 ka

The Middle Pleistocene archaeological record for the vast expanses of inland Southwest Asia is predictably very sparse: first, because there have been few systematic surveys and almost no excavations, and second, because much of this region would probably have been uninhabited during cold and arid periods (see Chapter 7). We can begin with the evidence from Turkey.

Turkey Our knowledge of Early Palaeolithic Turkey is currently limited to undated surface material, a few open-air locations with dated artefacts, a report of some Middle Pleistocene hominin footprints (Ozansoy 1969), and two excavated caves.29 Kuhn (2002) provides an excellent overview, and the location of the main sites is shown in Figure 8.24. 29

There is also an excellent and often updated Web site (http:tayproject.org; see TAY (T¨urkiye Arkeolojik Yerles¸meleri) Project (Archaeological Settlements of Turkey)) that lists and briefly describes a large number of Palaeolithic (and later) sites in Turkey.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Open-Air Locations Acheulean bifaces and flaked items that are probably Lower Palaeolithic are known from numerous find spots and chance discoveries across Turkey. Yalc¸ınkaya (1981) summarized what was known in the 1970s, and noted that bifaces and simple flake tools were present in western Turkey, along the Black Sea littoral, and in Anatolia, particularly along the valleys of rivers such as the Euphrates. As these were all surface finds, none was dated or in context. Since then, a little more has been learnt about the early Palaeolithic in western Turkey and Anatolia. Some Lower Palaeolithic material from the Bosphorus region of Northwest ¨ Turkey is discussed by Runnels and Ozdo˘ gan (2001). Bifaces, core-choppers, and flake tools were found at G¨oksu, and some Lower Palaeolithic artifacts are reported from the Black Sea coast. In Anatolia, Minzoni-Deroche and Sanlaville (1988) conducted one of the few systematic surveys in Turkey that attempted to link Acheulean artifacts to terrace sequences, in this instance, along the Euphrates and Nizip Rivers in the Gaziantep region of southern Anatolia. They identified a Middle and a Late Acheulean on the second and third terraces in their sequence; their Middle Acheulean was compared with Latamne in Syria (see above). Albrecht and M¨uller-Beck (1988) discovered (typologically) late Acheulean bifaces in a gravel deposit attributed to a cool period before or (less likely) after the last interglacial in a side valley of the Euphrates. Better prospects of dating have come from a recent project at Kalatepe Deresi 3 in Central Anatolia (Slimak et al. 2004). This lies on a volcanic plateau 1,600 m above sea level that is rich in obsidian. Excavations into the side of a ravine revealed seven occupation horizons (with 1,124 artefacts to date), of which the uppermost five have Middle Palaeolithic artifacts (most on local obsidians) and evidence of Levallois and discoid debitage. Six tephra layers, the oldest dated to ca. 160 ka (i.e., MIS 6), are interstratified between archaeological levels I and II. The climatic context of these is unfortunately unknown. This is the first evidence that the Middle Palaeolithic in Anatolia began before the last interglacial. The presence of an equid mandible in level II holds out promise of some faunal data in future excavations. The lowest two horizons are described as Lower Palaeolithic, and made mainly on andesites and basalts for heavy-duty chopping tools; a biface was found the fifth and lowest level.

Cave Sequences Our main knowledge of the Turkish Lower and early Middle Palaeolithic comes from two caves, Yarımburgaz30 and Karain (see Figure 8.24). 30

Turkish has two forms of the letter “i”; the one in Yarımburgaz is short.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.25. Stratigraphic section of Yarımburgaz Cave, Turkey. Source: Kuhn et al. 1996, Figure 4.

i. yarımburgaz cave This long cave system lies near Istanbul in European Turkey (Kuhn 2003; Kuhn et al. 1996; Stiner et al. 1996; Stiner 1998). It has two chambers near the entrance, the lower one of which contains over 5 m of Middle Pleistocene sediments (see Figure 8.25). Three cycles of deposition were recognised. The first was waterlain, and probably derived from a stream flowing through the cave. The second was dark clay loams, at the top of which were many large bones and some artefacts. Most of the artefacts and fauna are derived from the third cycle of deposition, during which angular limestone from the roof of the cave formed a major component of the deposits. No absolute dates are available for the age of these deposits, but the faunal assemblage (see below) implies a mid-Middle Pleistocene age. The excavations produced a large and diverse faunal assemblage with over twenty genera. In all, 93% of the large mammal remains were of cave bears, Ursus deningeri, with other large carnivores (notably wolves) and large ungulates making up the remainder. According to Stiner et al. (1996), most bear mortality can be attributed to deaths during hibernation, and hominins were less important than wolves in collecting and modifying ungulate carcasses. Indeed, they suggest that the hominins at Yarımburgaz may have focussed on resources other than large game, and thus the artefacts were not related to meat processing. Additionally, there was no evidence of hearths or structures inside the cave. The artefact assemblage (N = 1,675) was made primarily from flint, quartz, and quartzite (see Table 8.4). Most of the stone used for tool-making was probably local, and could have been derived from nearby stream pebbles. If flaking debris is excluded, flake tools were the commonest item, many of which were steeply retouched and often extensively modified (see Figure 8.26). The main types of retouched flake tools were classified as denticulates (36%) and

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia table 8.4. Artefact types and raw materials from Yarımburgaz, Turkey

Cores Core tools Flake tools Whole flakes Broken flakes Debris Total

Flint

Quartz

Quartzite

Othera

Total

60 10 398 147 111 373 1,099

41 5 94 22 16 119 297

35 48 40 32 20 62 237

3 1 6 12 6 14 42

139 64 538 213 153 568 1,675

a

Jasper, silicified wood, and various metamorphic rocks. Source: Kuhn et al. 1996.

sidescrapers (22.5%). Retouched flake tools were almost nine times commoner than core tools, almost all of which (sixty-one out of sixty-four) were choppers. Two had a superficial resemblance to Acheulean bifaces but were a flake and a flat cobble, with some retouch along their lateral margins. There were no Levallois flakes, or flakes produced by thinning handaxes. The scarcity of small flaking debris might indicate that most of the primary stone flaking was done outside the cave. One of the most interesting points made by Kuhn et al. (1996) is that the size of stone available was sufficiently large for the inhabitants to have made bifaces if they had wished to do so. They point out that bifaces are rare in deep caves, and suggest that hominins might thus have made and used bifaces at open-air locations but did not need them when at Yarımburgaz. As noted above, (undated) handaxes have been found in Northwest Turkey.

ii. karain e Karain E is one of a series of caves near Antalya in Southwest Turkey, and has a long Middle Pleistocene sequence that extends back to ca. 400 ka (Otte et al. 1995a, 1995b,1998; Rink et al. 1994). The cave contains at least 12 m of deposits, the base of which has not been reached (see Figure 8.27). The deposits are mainly sands and silts, rock fall debris, and colluvial infilling, interspersed with calcitic crusts and dark clays indicative of increased humidity. Ten archaeological units were recognised within the six geological layers, and are grouped into three main phases (see Table 8.5). The first phase comprises assemblage A from levels VI and V.1–5 and is described as an Asian Clactonian, with irregular debitage, in which hard percussion produces short and thick flakes, of which denticulates and deep notches were the main types (see Figure 8.28). “In this phase, visits were brief and stone tool manufacture was limited to local materials (representing temporary camps rather than base camps)” (Otte et al. 1998:429). The second phase includes assemblages

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.26. Artefacts from Yarımburgaz Cave. (1–6) flake tools; (7) chopper; (8) discoid core; (9) polyhedral core. Source: Kuhn 2002, Figure 3.

B, C, D, and E, and is classified as Charentian (see Figure 8.29), meaning “an industry on non-prepared flakes comprising numerous side scrapers with thick retouched edges” (Otte et al. ibid., p. 421). As before, hominins’ usage of the cave appears to have been ephemeral, but possibly more frequent than before. Most tools were made from local stone, but some raw material was brought to

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 8.27. The stratigraphic sequence of Karain E, Turkey. See Table 8.5 for details and age of layers. Source: Otte et al. 1998, Figure 5.

the site, where tools were used, resharpened, and discarded. Some white flint was imported, it is claimed, from more than 80 km away. (Details regarding this source, or the amount of stone involved, are not given; if we assume that there was no nearer source for this material, 80 km is one of the longest transport distances reported for this period [see F´eblot-Augustins 1997].) The third phase

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table 8.5. Summary of the stratigraphic sequence and contents of Karain E, Main Block, Turkey

Layer

Palaeosol

Dates (ka)

Assemblages

Type

OIS

I.1 I.2, I.6, I.8 I.7 II.-II.3 III.1-III.2 III.2.1 III.3-5 IV.1 IV.2-4 IV.5 V.1 V? 2–4

0 1

10 60–70 110–120

2

200–250

MP + UP I H G F F E D C B A A A

Mousterian and Upper Pal. “Karain” Mousterian Levallois-Mousterian Zagros Mousterian Mousterian Mousterian Charentian Charentian Charentian Charentian Clactonian Clactonian Clactonian Clactonian

1–3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 10 11 12 13

V.5–V.4∗

3

300–350

4

370–400

5

Number of artefacts 716 1,100 150 806 1501 85 19 64 57 4

NISP (bones)

Human bones

144 907 980 889 10 37 1

X X

38 14

Note: Dates in bold indicate ESR or TL determinations; other dates are estimates. ∗ denotes material from the East Profile. This also includes assemblage C, units IV.1–IV.2 (N = 30); Assemblage E, units III.3–III.5 (N = 220); and Assemblage E, unit III.3 (N = 145). OIS = oxygen isotope stages. NISP = number of individual specimens. Source: Otte et al. 1998, Tables 1–3.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 8.28. Clactonian-type tools from Karain E. Source: Otte et al. 1998, Figure 6.

comprises assemblages F-I. These are described as Mousterian “de type Zagros” (Otte et al. 1995a), with several side scrapers and points. A selection is shown in Figure 8.30. The sequence at Karain E has been dated by ESR and TL, and documents the earliest Middle Palaeolithic assemblages in Turkey. Particular emphasis has

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.29. “Charentian” type Middle Palaeolithic tools from Karain E. Source: Otte et al. 1998, Figure 7.

been placed on dating the four warm periods evidenced by calcitic crusts and dark clays. Rink et al. (1994) proposed that both warm periods in units III.2– III.1 occurred in MIS 5, and thus the transition from the Charentian to the Mousterian (i.e., assemblages E to F) occurred shortly before or during the last interglacial. A revised sequence published by Otte et al. (1998) included TL

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia dates that were not available when Rink et al.’s (1994) paper was published. These showed that the age of unit III.2 (containing assemblage F, the earliest Mousterian one) was ca. 200,000–250,000 years, and thus fell within MIS 7 (190–240 ka). Accordingly, Otte et al. (ibid.) now suggest that the earliest Middle Palaeolithic dates from well before the last interglacial. The excavations produced a large faunal assemblage (19,725 specimens), of which only 3,111 could be identified because of poor preservation and fragmentation. The main component was identified as debris resulting from hunting ovicaprines (Capra ibex, C. aegagrus, and Ovis ammon) as well as fallow, red, and roe deer, pigs, Bos primigenius, Equus caballus, and E. hydruntinus. A second group was classified as workshop refuse, and included items such as antlers, ovicaprine horns, and unspecified remains of Elephas meridionalis and Hippopotamus amphibius. The remains of competitors that used the cave for hibernation or habitation formed a third group, and included cave bears (Ursus spelaeus), hyaenas (Crocuta spelaea), wolves, lynxes, foxes, wild cats, mustelids, and some birds. Of these, wolves and hyaenas could have eaten many of the medium-sized animals, as there are gnawing marks and evidence of regurgitation (i.e., acid etching) of many skeletal elements, particularly ovicaprine ones, although only two horse bones were gnawed. Finally, a fourth group comprised the remains of small mammals that used the cave, or were consumed there by raptors such as owls and buzzards. There were also some human remains; these are discussed in Chapter 11. The numbers of identified specimens (excluding microfauna) from each assemblage provides a useful, even if approximate, indicator of the intensity of usage of the cave, whether by hominins or other animals. Usage appears to have been very ephemeral in the periods covered by assemblages A-D: only thirty-eight specimens in assemblage A, one in assemblage B, thirty-seven in assemblage C, and ten in assemblage D. In assemblages E-G, specimen counts are 889, 980, and 907, respectively. If these totals are considered in conjunction with the small numbers of artefacts in assemblages A-D (see Table 8.5), the impact of hominins at the cave in the lower part of the sequence appears to have been minimal.

The Caucasus We can in passing note a group of caves in and south of the Caucasus Mountains, notably Azych (Azerbaijan), Kudaro I and III and Cona (Georgia), and Treugolì naya (southern Russia) (see Figure 8.24). Doronichev (2000), Doronichev and Golovanova (2003) Lioubine (2002), Ljubin and Bosinski (1995) provide excellent overviews, and the geological history of cave systems in Georgia is covered in a monograph by Nesmeyanov (1999). Additional information for Kudaro I and III is by Lubine et al. (1985), and by Doronichev (2000), Doronichev et al. (2004), Hoffecker et al. (2003), and Molodkov (2001)

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.30. Levallois-Mousterian tools from Karain E, Turkey. Source: Otte et al. 1998, Figure 8.

for Treugolì naya. There are also undated Early Palaeolithic, often Acheulean surface sites (e.g., Eni-El and Satani Dar) in Armenia (Fourloubey et al. 2003; Lioubine (2002). As Table 8.6 shows, these caves were utilized during the Middle Pleistocene in both glacial and interglacial periods. In all cases, the use of these caves by hominins appears to have been brief and episodic, which is perhaps not surprising, given their altitude. The cave faunas are dominated by cave bears,

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

table 8.6. Chronological correlations of Lower Palaeolithic cave sites in the Caucasus Oxygen isotopic stages

Ages of OIS stages (ka) Sites

7

195–246

Treugolì naya, 4a,4b,4c (upper)

Kudaro I, 5a/Vl-VII

8

245–303

Treugolì naya, 4c (lower)

Kudaro I, 5a/Vlll 245 ± 29; 252 ± 51 ka (TL)

Kudaro III, 5

Azych, V (levels 8–9)

9

303–335

Kudaro I, 5b 350 ± 70 ka (TL)

Kudaro III, 6–7

Azych, V (levels 10–11)

10

339–362

Treugolì naya, 5a

Kudaro I, 5c/Xa

Kudaro III, 8

Azych, VI ?

11

362–423

Treugolì naya, 5b Kudaro I, 5c/X 393 ± 27 ka (ESR) 360 ± 90 ka (TL)

12

Cona Azych, V (levels 6–7)

Treugolì naya, 5c

Azych, VI ?

13 14 15

565–620

Treugolì naya, 6, 7a, 7b 583–25 ka (ESR)

Kudaro III, 8a 560 ± 112 ka (TL)

Source: Doronichev and Golonova 2001, Table 4.1.

and most deaths (as at Yarımburgaz) probably occurred during hibernation: in the lower levels of Kudaro I (1600 m above sea level), the remains of Ursus deningeri comprise 75–85% of all bones, but only 30–45% in levels from cold periods; in the Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic levels of Kudaro III (altitude, 1,564 m), 92–98% of all specimens in levels 5–6 and ca. 85% in levels 7 and 8 were bears; and in the Acheulean levels of Cona (altitude, 2100 m), 99.1% of all bones were of Ursus spelaeus. At Treugoly’na (1,500 m above sea level), wolves and possibly cave lions probably accumulated most of the ungulate remains, although some bones show evidence of hominin damage (e.g., percussion marks, and some rare and problematic cut-marks). Bears (Ursus deningeri) were also common. When hominins were present, they rarely used Acheulean bifaces. At Azych and Kudaro I, the percentages were 2.4% (7/289) and 1% (50/5,000), respectively. Cona, with 47 bifaces out of 104 artefacts (Doronichev and Golovanova 2003:83) is an exception, but this is a high-altitude site that appears to have been visited with a tool-kit previously prepared. However, at Treugoly’na, handaxes were absent from an assemblage of 360 pieces. A few hominin remains are known: two incisor fragments and one premolar from layers 5a and 5b at Kudaro I, and a mandible from Azych layer V (see Chapter 11). The archaeological records of all these caves probably

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia indicate brief summer forays into high-altitude areas during interglacial periods and the milder parts of glacial ones.

Overview of the Evidence from Turkey and the Caucasus Several issues arise from these brief and episodic visits by hominins to caves in Turkey and the Caucasus. The first is when hominins first occupied Turkey. As they were at Dmanisi, Georgia ca. 1.8 Ma (Chapter 4) and probably in Israel and southern Europe ca. 1.4 Ma, equally ancient evidence should (eventually) be found in Turkey. The second is when Acheulean assemblages were first used in Turkey and the Caucasus. As the earliest in Southwest Asia are those from ë Ubeidiya, Israel, at ca. 1.4 Ma (Chapter 4), it is currently difficult to explain why the earliest Acheulean assemblages in the Caucasus should be almost a million years younger. A third issue is how to explain the absence or rarity of handaxes at some sites. Here, different explanations reflect different approaches to early palaeolithic material culture. For Otte et al. (1998), the absence of handaxes at Karain E shows a “cultural frontier” between an Acheulean province of Southeast Turkey, the Levant, and Transcaucasia, and a province in which nonbiface, flake-dominated assemblages prevailed across southeast Europe and perhaps northern Asia. Likewise, Doronichev and Golovanova (2003:102) suggest that different cultural groups inhabited the Caucasus during the Middle Pleistocene. These conclusions reflect a normative approach to Palaeolithic assemblages, which are seen as the product of distinct, longstanding cultural traditions that were maintained in all locations and seasons. For Kuhn et al. (1996), the absence of handaxes at Yarımburgaz is simply because the inhabitants did not need them whilst there: they see archaeological assemblages as the product of a behavioural system in which hominins had a flexible approach as to what tools they made and discarded at any one time or place, and handaxes were not needed on the rare occasions when groups used caves. There are also methodological considerations. As seen above, handaxes are rare in the large assemblages from Azych and Kudaro I. In general, the rarer the tool type, the larger the sample that is needed to detect it. At Karain E, the numbers of artefacts in the earliest layers are very low: the numbers of “tools” never exceeds sixty-five (in assemblage F), and the number of all lithic items in assemblages A-D is never more than sixty-four (in assemblage C) (see Table 8.5). The absence of handaxes at Karain E may therefore be simply a consequence of the small size of these assemblages. At present, a more cautious assessment is that hominins in both Turkey and the Caucasus rarely used caves in the early Middle Pleistocene, and had a flexible attitude as to when and where they used handaxes. A final issue that deserves comment is that the Karain E lithic assemblages are not like those from the Levant: there is no evidence of, for example, the Jabrudian or the type of Mousterian assemblages

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia of Tabun D. Regional distinctiveness in lithic traditions may thus already be apparent in Southwest Asia by the later part of the Middle Pleistocene.

Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan In Iraq, the main Early Palaeolithic site is Barda Barda,31 in the Chemchemal Valley, 700 m above sea level in the western Zagros Mountains (Braidwood and Howe 1960). Here, artifacts (including limestone choppers, flint flakes and cores, and some small bifaces) were found in gravels between two silt layers thought to date to the Upper Pleistocene, but possibly earlier. Associated faunal remains included those of elephants, rhinoceri, onagers, deer, sheep, and goats (Smith 1986:16). Iran is one of the largest and most important voids in our knowledge of the Asian Early Palaeolithic. The Early Palaeolithic site of Kashafrud, northeast Iran, was discussed in Chapter 4. Although there are several cave sites in the Zagros Mountains with Mousterian (and early Upper Palaeolithic) sequences, these (and also Shanidar, Iraq) appear to date from the last glaciation, Marine Isotope Stages 3–5 (Howell 1999:223; Roustaei et al. 2004, Figure 6; see also Chapter 11).32 There is otherwise minimal evidence of Middle Pleistocene occupation. Smith’s (1986:15–16) survey of the Palaeolithic of Iran indicated two surface finds of lower palaeolithic material from the Zagros Mountains: one at Pal Barik, Luristan, where several small handaxes, choppers, and flake tools were found on the surface, and the other an Acheulean-like handaxe from Tepe Gakia near Kermanshah. Another handaxe from Azerbaijan, Northwest Iran (Singer and Wymer 1978), and choppers and flake tools were found on undated stream terraces east of Lake Urmia. A “Ladizian” industry defined from open air sites with chopping tools but without handaxes or cleavers was reported from Southeast Iran, but the artifact collections are undated, and probably include much later material that may even be post-palaeolithic (Smith, ibid.). Recent surveys have produced some useful information, and significant developments may be expected in the next few years (see Biglari and Shidrang 2006). Some chert “core-choppers” and flake tools (including side scrapers and denticulates) were collected at Amar Merdeg in Southwest Iran at an altitude of 200–300 m that may date from the Middle Pleistocene. The absence of bifaces may have resulted from the limited nature of the survey (Biglari et al. 2000). A potentially important discovery is the site of Ganj Par, which lies near the southeast shore of the Caspian Sea and contains Acheulean handaxes as well as 31 32

Barda Balka was found in the early 1950s but never thoroughly investigated. Sadly, it probably never will be. There is a single 230 Th–234 U date of 148 ± 35 ka from the cave of Humian that could indicate occupation in MIS 5, 6, or 7 (Roustaei et al. 2004: 694). Given its altitude (2,000 m a.s.l.), interglacial stage 5 or 7 is more likely than MIS 6.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia cleavers (Biglari et al. 2004). An Iranian-French team has also recently reported the discovery of late Early Palaeolithic artefacts in Northwest Iran ( Jaubert et al. 2005). Similar discoveries may be expected from ongoing surveys in the Central Zagros mountains (Biglari and Abdi 1999; Roustaei et al. 2004). Unsurprisingly, little is known of Early Palaeolithic Afghanistan. One possible Lower Palaeolithic site is known, and several Mousterian ones (Davis and Dupree 1977), but these are thought to date to the last glaciation (Ball 1982), as in Iran.

Jordan The Lower Palaeolithic of Jordan is usefully summarized by Copeland (1998), who notes that the Acheulean in this region has been subdivided into Early, Middle, and Late phases on purely typological grounds (as elsewhere in Southwest Asia), and rarely with independent geochronological evidence. In her view, there is no evidence of an Early Pleistocene Acheulean comparable to that of ë Ubeidiya. There may be some Acheulean material from Early to Middle Pleistocene contexts in the upper part of the Dauqara complex, and at Masharaiì a 4 in the lower member of the Tabaqat Formation. In contrast, Late Acheulean assemblages are common in lacustrine and fluvial contexts as well as from surface exposures. Good examples are an extraordinarily large spread of Late Acheulean artefacts at Fjaje, where artefacts were found over a distance of ca. 20 km (Rollefson 1981); and along the wadis and in the springs at Azraq, at, for example, Lion Spring and C-Spring, in a setting not unlike that at the late Acheulean site of Nadaouiyeh in the el-Khowm oasis of Syria (Hours et al. 1983).

The Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas A great deal of Acheulean and some Middle Palaeolithic material has been found by surveys in the Arabian Peninsula, and is summarized by Petraglia (2003) and Petraglia and Alsharekh (2003). As almost all material has been found on modern surfaces and is thus undatable, Acheulean assemblages are classified as Lower, Middle, or Upper on typological grounds. According to Petraglia (2003:148), the Lower Acheulean comprises Oldowan-like forms (crude choppers, polyhedra) as well as crude bifaces, including some cordiform and ovate handaxes. Middle Acheulean assemblages contain lanceolate and trihedral bifaces, polyhedra, spheroids, trihedral picks, choppers, and bifacial knives, all allegedly made by hard hammer percussion.33 Upper Acheulean 33

As seen above in the discussion of the very intensively studied assemblages from Gesher Benot Ya ì aqov, it can be extremely difficult to distinguish between hard and soft hammer techniques, so this criterion should be treated cautiously.

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324

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia assemblages are characterised by smaller handaxes, with ovate, cordiform, or other shapes, some use of the Levallois technique, and use of soft hammer percussion. As Petraglia notes (ibid., p. 148) in the absence of any geochronological information, “the temporal attributions [are] somewhat tenuous”. “Acheulean sites in Arabia are numerous, widely dispersed, and occur in a variety of settings and environments . . . including coastal zones, elevated zones in submountainous regions, and in interior plains, occurring along river terraces and near lakeshores” (Petraglia 2003:171). He also notes that a wide variety of stone was used, such as andesite, rhyolite, quartzite, basalt, and chert, and that bedrock sources as well as secondary gravels were used. Although Acheulean sites are found over most of the Arabian peninsula, their distribution is partly related to factors affecting their visibility factors and local geomorphic conditions; along the eastern edge of Arabia, for example, where few are known, they may be buried under sand dunes. In some areas of Saudi Arabia, Acheulean “sites” are clearly parts of extensive landscapes in which a variety of activities were carried out. As an example, over 30 Middle Acheulean sites were found along 10 km of the north side of the Wadi Fatimah (Western Province), where there were outcrops of andesite, rhyolite, diabase, and other igneous rocks (Whalen et al. 1988). The most impressive Acheulean landscape is at Ad-Daw¯adm¯ı (Central Province), where at least twenty-four Acheulean sites are known from along the northern side of an andesite dike near which there may have been a low-lying lake. Two of these sites (206–76 and 206–68, each 150 by 200 m) were excavated (Whalen et al. 1983). The maximum depth of artefact-bearing deposits was only 90 cm. 230 Th-234 U dates of calcareous concretions on artefacts varied from 61 to 204 ka; as these are postdepositional, the artefacts are clearly older than 200,000 years.34 Although the investigators suggested that a variety of activities were carried out in this area, Petraglia (2003:162) considers that by far the most important was the manufacture and/or roughing out of stone tools from the numerous sources of good-quality stone in this area. In Southwest Yemen (at the “Gateway to Africa” by the Bab al-Mandab Strait), no Early Pleistocene, Oldowan material was found, and the oldest sites found were Middle Pleistocene, Middle Acheulean ones (Whalen and Pease 1991). Survey work in the Sinai Peninsula is discussed briefly by Bar-Yosef (1994), who points out that no Lower Palaeolithic material was found.

Summary Hominin occupation of Southwest Asia outside the Levant is likely to have been largely limited to interglacial periods. Much of the Anatolian Plateau and 34

This is currently the only Lower Palaeolithic material in the Arabian peninsula that has been directly dated.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia the mountain ranges of the Caucasus, the Elburz and Zagros, with their severe winters, must have been uninhabited during periods colder than today. Similarly, most of the Arabian Peninsula, inland Syria, Iraq, the Iranian Plateau, and Jordan would probably have been too arid for hominin occupation in glacial periods. When hominins were present, they used an Acheulean technology, and used a wide variety of environments, ranging from those (such as in western Turkey) that receive over 600 mm of rainfall a year to areas (such as the Arabian peninsula) that are now desert. They were also occasionally present at altitudes up to 1,600 m in Anatolia, 2,000 m in the Zagros, and 2,100 m in the Caucasus. As might be expected in a region where water is usually scarce, most evidence comes from stream and river channels, and near springs and lakes. CENTRAL ASIA

The Palaeolithic record of this vast region (see Figure 8.31), covering an area ca. 16 times larger than Britain (see Appendix 1), is largely unknown, and mostly comprises undatable surface artefact collections. Most of this region has low relief, with few major obstacles to movement across it, but the eastern part is dominated by the great mountain ranges of the Tien Shan, Pamirs, and Hindu Kush, which greatly constrain movement into Mongolia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Much of the southern parts of Central Asia are desert, particularly the Kizyl Kum and Kara Kum deserts, which probably developed in the Middle Pleistocene (see Chapter 7). The climate of Central Asia is strongly continental, with very hot summers, especially in the south, and cold winters, especially in the northern parts. Its deserts are thus classified as cold ones because of their low winter temperatures (see Table 7.1). Because Central Asia lies west of the summer monsoon, most precipitation is brought by westerly winds in winter and spring. The region would thus have been highly vulnerable to decreased precipitation when these winds were reduced during cold, arid periods by winds blowing south from an enlarged North European ice sheet, and east and southwards from the Tibetan Plateau (see Chapters 3 and 7, and Figure 3.12). Aridity is thus likely to have been the main determinant affecting the extent and duration of Middle Pleistocene hominin settlement. The various transgressions and regressions of the Caspian Sea, which occasionally merged with the Aral Sea (see Chapter 3), would also have had regional influences on the environment and climate, but the history and effects of these palaeogeographic changes remain unclear. Vishnyatsky (1999) provides an excellent overview of the Palaeolithic of Central Asia, and Moloney et al. (2001) usefully summarise the evidence from Kazakhstan. Over sixty major Palaeolithic sites are known from Central Asia, but unfortunately almost all are poorly dated. Most are classified as Middle Palaeolithic and probably date from the last glaciation, and only a few are known to be definitely older than the last interglacial. There are at present

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 8.31. Map of Central Asia and location of main Early Palaeolithic sites. Disputed borders are shown by hatched lines. Source: The author.

only two well-dated stratified Early Palaeolithic sequences from this region, both from Southeast Central Asia.

The Tajik “Loess Palaeolithic” The Tajik Palaeolithic sites are securely dated because they are found in the loess and palaeosol sequences (Chapters 3 and 7) of the Tajik-Afghan basin between the Pamirs of Tajikistan and the Hindu Kush of North Afghanistan. The location of these sites is shown in Figure 8.32, and their stratigraphic context and age are shown in Figure 8.33. As can be seen, these sites are consistently found in the pedocomplexes that indicate interglacial conditions. Kuldara, the earliest, lies in pedocomplex 11/12, dated to ca. 880–955 ka, just below the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary. Pedocomplexes 9 and 7 contained only isolated finds of artefacts, but pedocomplex 6 (570–620 ka) contains Karatau I, with

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record for Southwest and Central Asia

Figure 8.32. Location of principal Early Palaeolithic sites and geological sections in Tajikistan. Sources: Ranov and Dodonov 2003, Figure 1 and Dodonov et al. 2006, Figure 1.

almost 1,000 finds. The earliest (and very slight) evidence of prepared cores is at Lakhuti I in pedocomplex 5, now dated to 475–530 ka. These dates are derived from correlations of the Tajik loess-pedocomplex sequence with the North Chinese loess and the marine isotope sequences (Chapter 7), and are considered more reliable than the TL dates quoted in earlier publications (e.g., Ranov 1995), and which seriously underestimated the probable age of the loess horizons and associated archaeological material. Lakhuti I in Pedocomplex 5, for example, was thought to date to the last interglacial (Ranov 1995:738), but is now known to be at least 300,000 years older. Zhou et al. (1995) showed from study of a loess sequence at Urkutsay, Uzbekistan, that none of the TL dates below pedocomplex 1 (= MIS 5) could be considered reliable, and those below pedocomplex 2 could not provide even a relative chronology. The main features of the “loess Palaeolithic” are summarised by Davis et al. (1980), Davis and Ranov (1999), Ranov (1995, 2001), Ranov and Davis (1979) and Ranov and Sch¨afer (2003). Kuldara is discussed in greater detail by Ranov (1995), Ranov et al. (1995) and Ranov and Dodonov (2003); and Dodonov et al. (1992) and Sch¨afer et al. (1996) discuss Obi-Mazar. Figure 8.34 shows some of the artefacts from Kuldara. At these Tajik sites, stone artefacts were made from pebbles of quartzite, limestone, schists, cornelian, porphyry, and

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 8.33. Age and stratigraphic context of Early Palaeolithic sites in Tajikistan. Black bars denote interglacial pedocomplexes (palaeosols); intervening white parts denote glacial loess. Sources: Dodonov 2002, Tables 9 and 14 and Ranov and Dodonov 2003, Figure 10.

poor-quality flint and chert. Flaking techniques were rudimentary, with no standardisation in tool types or core preparation (apart from a few at Lakhuti 1), and little retouch. None of this is surprising given the size and quality of the pebbles used for flaking, or the size of the flaked items. At Kuldara, 25% of flaked pieces were 390

Chirki

230

Th-234 U

Calcrete

>350

Kukdi

39

Ar-40 Ar

Tephra

680 ± 30

39

Ar-40 Ar

Tephra

540 ± 30

39

Ar-40 Ar

Tephra

660 ± 10

Miliolite overlying Acheulean handaxes Associated with Acheulean assemblage Associated with Middle Palaeolithic assemblage, depth 11.50 m Associated with Middle Palaeolithic assemblage, depth 12.65 m Associated with Middle Palaeolithic assemblage, depth 14.25 m Associated with Middle Palaeolithic assemblage, depth 17.55 m Underlying small lithic assemblage, depth 18.60 m Sample overlying Acheulean assemblage Locality 2, one flake in gravel underlying tephra Locality 2, second dated sample considered less reliable Locality 5, no artefacts, tephra rests disconformably on gravel Mean of samples 1 and 3

670 ± 30 Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys Kaldenvanhalli Th230 -U234 locality Ib Th230 -U234

Sadab locality Ib

Th230 -U234

Teggihali locality Ib

Th230 -U234 Th230 -U234

Sample (2): Travertine 1 m below surface Sample (3): Travertine 2 m below surface Elephas molar fragment

174 ± 30

Bos molar fragment Elephas molar fragment

288 + 27.2/ −22.4 >350

166 + 15/ −13 290.4 + 21/ −18.2

Considered more reliable than sample 3. Below the Acheulean horizon Within age range of sample 2

Considered reliable; in layer of brown silt and associated with assemblage of 30 Acheulean artefacts Considered reliable In layer of brown clay and associated with Acheulean material; see note for investigators’ assessment

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

339

Site

Technique

Sample

Age (ka)

Comments

Isampurc

ESR

2 herbivore teeth

1.27 ± 0.17 Ma

Dina (North Pakistan)d

Palaeomagnetism

Ca. 0.6 Ma

Jalalpur (Pakistan)d

Palaeomagnetism

Ca. 0.6 Ma

LU (linear uptake) estimate: teeth in carbonate matrix and associated with Acheulean assemblage; age estimate is the average of 10 readings from both teeth One handaxe found in cemented conglomerate just above the BrunhesMatuyama boundary. Two handaxes found in cemented conglomerate just above the BrunhesMatuyama boundary

Notes: Kaldenvanhalli: Sample 1 of travertine, collected 15 cm below the surface in the Acheulean level was too impure for dating. The discrepancy between the two dates for Teggihali may be due either to the dating technique itself, or because the Elephas tooth “is older and was picked up from outside and introduced to the site. . . . as a curio” (Szabo et al. 1990:319). Isampur: On typological grounds, the expected age of the site was 0.5– 0.6 million years (Paddayya et al. 2000). The early uptake (EU) age was a minimum of 730,000 ± 100,000 years; the recent uptake (RU) age estimate was 3.12 ± 0.4 million years. The LU estimate is considered the most reliable. Kukdi: The dated gravel contained 152 artefacts, including six bifaces (Mishra et al. 1995:847). Dina and Jalalpur: Contrary to Mishra et al. (1995:847), these are not in the Pabbi Hills, and should not be confused with material collected from there. Sources: Petraglia 1998, Table 11.1 except a Misra 1989a; b Szabo et al. 1990; c Paddayya et al. 2002; d Rendell and Dennell 1985.

they were introduced. In India, Acheulean bifaces are distributed from North Pakistan to the Dang Valley, Nepal (Corvinus 1991, 1994, 1998), Northeast India, and southwards to the Kortallyar Basin (see Figure 9.1). The main types of artefacts are handaxes and cleavers, unifacial and bifacial choppers, scrapers, points, discoids, polyhedra and spheroids (Pappu 2002:29), and small numbers of blades (Misra 1978, 1989b:20). The type of raw material varied according to what was locally available: for example, quartz and quartzite at Bhimbetka, granite and basalt in the Baichbal valley, limestone at Isampur and elsewhere in the Hunsgi Valley, basalt at Chirki in the Nevasa valley, and quartzite at Anagwadi in the Kaladgi basin (see below). Because current dating of the Indian Acheulean is so limited (see Table 9.1), relative ages of Acheulean sites are often proposed on typological grounds. Two groups are recognised. The first and probably older one consists of “handaxes, choppers, polyhedrons and spheroids, a low proportion of crudely made cleavers and of flake tools, the predominant use of the stone hammer technique,

340

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia and the absence of the Levallois technique” (Misra 1989b:20). Examples are Singi Talav, Chirki, Hunsgi, and Anagwadi (see below). Handaxes and cleavers are usually thick, often retain much of their cortex, and have sinuous edges; handaxes also tend to be pointed (Paddayya 1984:349). The second and probably younger one is characterised by “the low proportion of bifaces, the high ratio of cleavers to handaxes, the very high proportion of flake tools like scrapers, the extensive use of the soft hammer technique, and the knowledge of the Levallois and discoid core techniques” (Misra, 1989b:20). Examples are Bhimbetka and sites in the Raisen area (see below). Because soft hammers were used more often, artefacts were usually thinner, and edges less sinuous. Handaxes are often cordate, ovate, or triangular, and were more frequently made on flakes than before; scrapers and points are also commoner (Paddayya 1984:349). However, Petraglia (1998:360) points out that this scheme of typological dating rests heavily upon an untested hypothesis that artefact thinning and refinement equate to age. Its validity clearly depends upon stratigraphic criteria, and requires independent demonstration that a “crude” Acheulean assemblage is indeed earlier than a “refined” one. Nevertheless, assemblages ascribed to the Early Acheulean tend to be found in stratified contexts (as at Anagwadi, Chirki, Singi Talav, Hunsgi V and VI, and Isampur; see below), which is not always the case with Later Acheulean ones such as those in the Raisen area that were found on or eroding from the surface (see Mishra 1994:64). Although Indian Acheulean assemblages are uniform in that they contain handaxes, cleavers, and core and flake tools, there is also considerable variability at both a local and a regional level. Table 9.2 shows as a simple example the ratio of handaxes to cleavers in a variety of Acheulean assemblages, and also the overall importance of bifaces (i.e., handaxes and cleavers). Although handaxes are usually commoner than cleavers, the reverse is also found, as at Chirki, Hunsgi V and VI, Raisen, and Bhimbetka III F-23. Bifaces are sometimes 80% or more of an assemblage (as at Hunsgi II, Yediyapur IV) or even 100%, at Mudnur VIII, but as low as 1.4% at Attirampakkam. It is currently not possible to assess the reasons for such variations, given the absence of faunal data and accurate indications of the integrity and time depth of each assemblage and the likely function of each site. Sample size and methods of recovery (surface collections versus excavated ones, for example) may also be important factors.

The Soanian The Soanian was first recognised in the Soan Valley in modern Pakistan by Terra and Paterson (1939). It was primarily a simple flake and core industry that lacked bifaces; there was little core preparation, retouch or modification of flakes, or standardisation of tool types. In many respects, it was similar to

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

Figure 9.1. Map of principal Early Palaeolithic sites in South Asia. Sites mentioned in text: Pakistan: 1, Riwat; 2, Dina; 3, Jalalpur; 4, Rohri Hills; India: 5, Jayal, Singi Talav, Sand Dune 16 R; 6, Dang Valley (Nepal); 7, Belan Valley; 8, Paisra; 9, Durkadi; 10, Bhimbetka; 1,1 Raisen sites; 12, Chirki; 13, Kukdi; 14, Hunsgi-Baichbal sites; 15, Attirampakkam. The star denotes the Hathnora hominin site. Source: The author.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

table 9.2. Ratios of handaxes to cleavers, and their importance in Acheulean assemblages from India

No. handaxes

Site Hunsgi Valley Hunsgi II Hunsgi V excavation Hunsgi VI, incl. surface Isampur Quarry Baichbal Valley Gulbal II Yediyapur I Yediyapur IV Yediyapur VI Mudnur VIII Mudnur X Kortallyar Basin Attirampakkam layer 6, T3 Mailapur Parikulam Other sites Anagwadi Bhimbekta Chirki, layer 3, trench VII Lakhmapur West Lalitpur Minarawala Nala, Raisen Paisra C Paisra D Singi Talav layers 3a,3b,4

No. cleavers

Ratio of handaxes to cleavers

Total in assemblage

% of bifaces in assemblage

18 18 12 39

13 28 14 20

1.4:1 0.6:1 0.9:1 1.9:1

38 291 153 244

81.6 15.8 17.0 24.2

12 10 11 21 9 2

2 6 6 17 0 0

6:1 1.7:1 1.8:1 1.2:1 N/A N/A

22 21 20 90 9 7

63.7 76.2 85.0 42.2 100.0 28.6

2 20 10

2 3 1

1:1 6.6:1 10:1

286 178 138

1.4 11.2 7.2

184 93 147 14 88 12 12 17 2

68 215 183 1 22 115 3 12 1

2.7:1 0.4:1 0.8:1 14:1 4:1 0.1:1 4:1 1.4:1 2:1

583 12819 1455 151 1048 621 600 432 275

43.2 2.4 22.7 9.5 10.5 20.4 2.5 6.7 1.1%

Sources: Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys, Petraglia et al. 2005, Table 12.1A except for Hunsgi V (Paddayya 1977:353) and Hunsgi VI (Paddayya 1982, Table 4). Kortallyar Basin: Attirampakkam Test Trench T3, Pappu et al. 2003, Table 1; Mailapur and Parikulam, Pappu 2001a:105–6, Table 6a. Other sites: Bhimbetka, Misra 1985, Table 1; Chirki, Corvinus 1983, Table 1; Lalitpur, Misra 1978; Raisen, Jacobson 1985, Table 1; Singi Talav, Gaillard et al. 1983. The Bhimbetka artefact total excludes 5,902 chips.

the Clactonian industry of southern England.3 Paterson subdivided the Soan assemblages in the Soan Valley into four phases, each linked to a particular terrace, and allegedly showing a gradual improvement in flaking techniques. The Soan Valley sequence and its associated stone tool assemblages were also correlated with the European Alpine record for glaciations and interglacials 3

It is pertinent here that Paterson’s main work before his fieldwork in India in 1935 was on the British Clactonian, which he subdivided and described in very much the same terms as the Soanian (see Dennell and Hurcombe 1992).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

343

table 9.3. Stratigraphic and archaeological sequence for the Soan Valley, Pakistan

Depositional unit

Terrace sequence

Climate sequence

Pink loam/silt/gravel Thin loam Loessic silt Upper terrace gravel

Terrace 4 Terrace 3 Terrace 2 Terrace 1

W¨urm Riss-W¨urm Riss Mindel-Riss interglacial

Erosion and tilting Boulder conglomerate Erosion and tilting Pinjor zone Tatrot zone Unconformity Dhok Pathan

Mindel glaciation

Archaeological component

Late Soan Early Soan I, Chelles-Acheul Pre-Soan

G¨unz-Mindel interglacial G¨unz glaciation

Note: Terra assigned the Pinjor and Tatrot zones to the Early Pleistocene. Both are part of the Upper Siwaliks; Indian researchers place the Tatrot firmly in the Pliocene, with a terminal date of ca. 2.5 Ma. The Pinjor faunal stage extends up to ca. 0.6 Ma. As the age of the Boulder Conglomerate varies from basin to basin across the Himalayan foreland, it cannot be correlated with the Mindel glaciation, whatever that means in modern-day palaeoclimatology. Source: Terra and Paterson (1939).

(see Table 9.3). According to their results, the Soanian was the dominant lithic tradition in (then) northern India throughout the Pleistocene, and the Acheulean was seen as a short intrusion during an interglacial equivalent to the Mindel-Riss interglacial in Europe. Terra and Paterson (ibid.) also recognised a “pre-Soan” industry that was found in a coarse conglomerate known as the Boulder Conglomerate, which Terra correlated with the Mindel glaciation in Europe; however, these “implements” are probably geofacts, the products of natural flaking (Stiles 1978). Terra and Paterson’s work exerted a tremendous influence on early Palaeolithic research in South Asia over the next forty years. In the 1940s, Movius (1948) incorporated the Soanian into his pebble-tool complex of South and Southeast Asia, which he contrasted with the Acheulean complex of Africa, western Europe, and Southwest Asia (see Chapter 10). Unfortunately, following the partition of British India in 1947, Palaeolithic research in India and Pakistan proceeded along different lines: whereas a considerable amount of fieldwork in northern India built on and often replicated Terra and Paterson’s results, little comparable research took place in Pakistan until the 1980s. My own work in the Soan Valley in the 1980s with the geologist Helen Rendell showed that few of Terra and Paterson’s conclusions could be maintained (see Dennell and Rendell 1991; Dennell 1995b; Rendell et al. 1989).

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia The “Boulder Conglomerate” which underpinned Terra and Patterson’s sequence is time-transgressive, in that its age varies enormously across the Himalayan forefront, from ca. 1.9 Ma in the Soan Valley to 350 ka (Petraglia 1998:355; see Table 9.1), but it is not possible to assign a maximum age. Faunal evidence was unhelpful. A few specimens of Bos namadicus, Elephas namadicus, and Bubalus arneee were found in the basal gravels, but as the duration of these species is unclear, they are of limited biostratigraphic use (Corvinus 1981:47). The typological aspects of the assemblages from layers 2 and 3 are summarised in Tables 9.4 and 9.5. The layer 3 assemblage is regarded as Early Acheulean because of the high proportion of core tools and handaxes made on cobbles (instead of flakes, as at Bhimbetka [Misra 1978:95]), the low incidence of soft hammer flaking, and the absence of the Levallois technique. Most items were classified as heavy-duty tools, and small flaked items suitable for more delicate tasks were much scarcer. The layer 2 assemblage contained almost no handaxes, cleavers, or other heavy-duty items. Most were small flakes, only a few of which had been shaped. The initial explanation of the differences between these two assemblages was that layer 3 contained an Acheulean assemblage of handaxes, cleavers, and other heavy duty items, whereas layer 2 contained a nonbiface, non-Levallois flake assemblage that was classified as a Middle Palaeolithic industry called the Nevasian. Mishra (1986, 1994), however, pointed out that the basalt at Chirki was friable and easily weathered (unlike the small chert and chalcedony flakes from layer 2), and thus

347

348

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia table 9.4. Artefact types from excavated units of layer 2, Chirki Trench/artefacts Handaxes Cleavers Picks Scrapers Knives Modified flakes Pebble tools Cores Waste Miscellaneousa Total

Trench VII

Other trenches

Overall total

1

1

3 3 1

4 5 2 4 0

4 5 5 7 1

7

16

23

Small shaped tools Simple flakes Waste Cores

1 40 27 1

31 571 377 68

32 611 404 69

Total Overall total

69 76

1,047 1,063

1,116 1,139

a

This was a piece classified as “various bifacial”. Source: Corvinus 1983, Table 1.

table 9.5. Artefact types from excavated units of layer 3, Chirki Trench/artefacts Handaxes Cleavers Picks Scrapers Knives Modified flakes Pebble tools Cores Waste Miscellaneousa

Trench VII

Other trenches

Overall total

147 183 25 42 48 49 122 61 320 33

90 85 17 22 13 39 91 114 228 33

237 268 42 64 61 88 213 175 548 66

Total

1,030

732

1,762

Small shaped tools Simple flakes Waste Cores Total Overall total

16 215 177 17 425 1,455

22 162 153 0 337 1,069

38 377 330 17 762 2,524

a

Two undefined handaxe/cleavers and 31 pieces classified as “various bifacial”. Source: Corvinus 1983, Table 2.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent the absence in layer 2 of handaxes, cleavers, and heavy-duty items could have resulted from their subsequent disintegration when redeposited in a fluvial gravel. In contrast, basalt tools in layer 3 were minimally transported, and thus able to survive. On this interpretation, the Nevasian was simply the light-duty component of an Acheulean assemblage from which large basalt items had been removed by weathering, rather than a Middle Palaeolithic industry that lacked retouched tools or ones made by prepared core techniques. The interpretation of the layer 3 evidence is problematic. The location of Chirki by a river (or a spring, M. D. Petraglia, pers. comm.) means that water and game were probably available during the dry season. The densest concentrations of material were found in and on the rubble horizon (Figure 9.2), which was hardly an ideal place to camp, even if it was a readily available source of raw material. Chirki was probably not a workshop site because of the scarcity of debitage. As Corvinus (1983:75) pointed out, there were 237 bifaces, 268 cleavers, and 213 pebble tools in the layer 3 assemblage, but little evidence of waste – only 548 large and 707 small flakes. (See Chapter 8 for a similar flake deficit at Gesher Benot Yaì aqov, Israel.) Small flakes may have been washed out of the rubble horizon at Chirki by stream action, but the main concentration of flaked material was found in the midslope of the channel, and not at the base, as might be expected if material had been winnowed by stream action. Misra (1978:5, 1987:117) also pointed out that material might have been washed into as well as out of the site, and some smaller silcrete items may have been derived from areas away from the river bank. The paucity of faunal remains prevented investigations of hunting, scavenging, and butchery, and the friable nature of the surfaces of the basalt artefacts precluded examination of use wear. Corvinus’s (1983:77) assessment was that Chirki was probably used seasonally and periodically for several purposes, and the extent of the archaeological horizon of level 3 may have been as much as 1 km2 . This assessment provides a salutary reminder that excavated areas of Early Palaeolithic “living floors” provide a limited account of the total area of usage.

The Son and Belan Valleys The fluvial sequences of the Son and Belan valley systems in Madhya Pradesh and Andra Pradesh, north central India, are among the most carefully studied south of the Ganges (Ahmed 1984; Sharma and Clarke 1983; Williams and Clarke 1995; Williams and Royce 1982;). Four formations are recognised. The Sihawal is the earliest, and comprises Middle Pleistocene colluvial and alluvial clayey gravels and fanglomerates that are capped by generally sterile, aeolian sandy clay. Fresh and abraded Acheulean artefacts occurred in and on the gravels. The overlying Patpara Formation consists of (probably) late Middle to early Upper Pleistocene fluvial clayey gravels with late Lower or early Middle Palaeolithic artefacts. The succeeding Baghor Formation dates from the Upper

349

350

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 9.2. Plan of excavated area of layer 3, Trench VII, Chirki. Source: Corvinus 1983, Figure 3.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

Figure 9.3. Map of the Thar Desert, Northwest India, and location of principal Early Palaeolithic sites. Based on Misra and Rajaguru 1989, Figure 1 and Gaillard 1996, Figure 2.

Pleistocene to early Holocene, and contains ash from the Toba eruption (75 ka) that provides an important maker horizon in India. The youngest formation, the Khetaunhi, is Holocene. Apart from the discovery of the Toba ash, the main archaeological benefit of these investigations is the demonstration that the Acheulean artefacts in the Sihawal Formation were stratigraphically earlier than Middle Palaeolithic ones in the overlying Patpara and Baghor Formations. Similar results have been obtained from other fluvial sequences, such as at Anagwadi in the Ghataprabha Valley (see below), in the Hiran Valley, at Saurashtra (Marathe 1981), and in the Wagan and Kadmali Valleys in the Berach basin, southern Rajasthan (Misra 1967:203). The precise age of these sequences has yet to be established.

The Thar Desert The geological sequence of the Thar Desert was described in Chapter 7. Acheulean and other artefacts were found at several localities (Gaillard et al. 1986). Three sites, Jayal, Singi Talav, and the 16R dune site (see Figure 9.3), are particularly important (Misra 1989a, 1995; Misra and Rajaguru 1989). At Jayal, handaxes, choppers, chopping tools, scrapers, and denticulates were found on and in the top 40 cm of gravels forming a low ridge of the Jayal

351

352

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Formation. Because they were found near the surface, they were thought to be intrusive, and to have worked their way into the gravels down crevices. It is thus concluded that hominins were absent when the gravels were deposited, but used them as a source of raw material after the ridge was formed.

i. singi talav At the quarry of Singi Talav, numerous (ninety-five) handaxes were collected, and a further twenty-five were found in the excavation of two trenches that were excavated to a depth of 1.30 m (Gaillard et al. 1983, 1985, 1986). Although the smaller trench (16 m2 ) contained only a few rolled artefacts, the larger one (32 m2 ) contained a low-density scatter of fresh Acheulean material in silty clay (layers 3–4). These layers are part of the Amarpura Formation (see Chapter 7) and formed under low-energy conditions. Sixty-eight artefacts were found in layer 3a, and 20 in the underlying layer 3b. This was separated by a thin sterile layer from layer 4, the richest part of the site, with 164 artefacts. Layer 5, of which only the top part was excavated, contained 23 artefacts. The site remains undated. Most artefacts were made from coarse-grained quartzite and quartz, obtained as blocks from nearby Aravalli outcrops, but some were of finegrained quartzite and quartz pebbles that were available from nearby stream beds. The assemblage from layers 3a, 3b, and 4 included seven choppers, three polyhedra, two handaxes, two cores, one cleaver, a discoid, a spheroid, and a hammerstone (see Figure 9.4); the smaller items were mainly scrapers (eight) and points (four). The remainder was classified as unretouched flakes or waste. There was no evidence of the Levallois technique or soft hammer percussion, and thus the assemblages are classified as early Acheulean. Interestingly (and as at locality 1, Zhoukoudian [Chapter 10]), five quartzite crystals found in layer 4 are thought to have been brought to the site by its occupants. ii. sand dune 16r The most complete archaeological sequence is from the sand dune site 16R, which was described in Chapter 7. Mesolithic material was found in Unit I, and an Upper Palaeolithic assemblage in Unit II. Unit III contained a Middle Palaeolithic assemblage of 206 artefacts at depths between 8.9 and 13.1 m that included flakes, blades, and cores, three handaxes, three choppers, four side scrapers, one point, and one hammerstone (see Figure 9.5). At depths between 17.20 and 18.40 m, two small assemblages (N = 15 and 30) comprised flakes, blades, cores, a side scraper, and a chopper. These were regarded as Lower Palaeolithic, because of the basal date of ca. 390 ka (Misra and Rajaguru 1989:311). If that date is disregarded (see Chapter 7), and the age of Unit III is regarded as ca. 150,000–130,000 years, the small basal assemblages are probably also Middle Palaeolithic.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

Figure 9.4. Early Acheulean artefacts from Singi Talav, Thar Desert. Two bifaces are shown on the left. Those on the right are 1–4, choppers; 5, hammerstone; and 6–7, polyhedra. Source: Misra and Rajaguru 1989, Figures 7 and 8.

Gaillard et al. (1986) analysed 301 handaxes found in the Didwana area and showed that the Singi Talav handaxes, which tend to be large, with massive butts, and ovate or triangular in shape, appear to be the oldest, and broadly similar to those from Chirki and Hunsgi. Jayal appear somewhat younger, and those from localities such as Bandlav-ki-Talav are probably Late Acheulean. Although these suggestions need confirmation from absolute dates, it would appear that the Acheulean in the Thar Desert is of a considerable duration (even if episodic), and marked by slow but subtle changes in handaxe morphology.

Bhimbetka F III-23 The most complete Palaeolithic sequence in India comes from cave F III-236 at Bhimbetka, ca. 45 km south of Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh, Central India. The cave lies in the Vindhya Range, a low range of hills ca. 650 m a.s.l. that rise 100 m above the surrounding plain and overlook the Narmada Valley 6

The caves in the Bhimbetka area are numbered by location: there are seven areas (I–VII), each subdivided (A–F, etc.). Caves within each subarea are then numbered consecutively (1–24, etc.) (Misra 1978:65).

353

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

Figure 9.5. Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from the 16R dune excavation, Thar Desert. 1–8, flakes; 9–14, 16, blades; 15, 17, cores. Source: Misra and Rajaguru 1989, Figure 10.

to the south. These hills contain >1,000 caves and shelters, including >700 with Mesolithic to medieval rock art (Misra 1978:65). The floor of F III-23 covered 80 m2 , of which 52 m2 was excavated as 1-m squares and in 5-cm spits; all Palaeolithic deposits were sieved through a 2-mm

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

Figure 9.6. Stratigraphic section of Bhimbetka FIII-23. Key: (1) silty sand with microlithic industry, including pottery and beads; (2) sandy silt with microlithic industry; (3) brown sandy silt with microlithic industry; (4) brown silty clay with late Middle or Upper Palaeolithic industry; (5) reddish-brown silty sand with Middle Palaeolithic industry; (6, 7) reddish-brown silty sand with Late Acheulean industry; (8) orange weathered sandstone with late Acheulean industry; sterile at the lowest 30 cm. Source: Misra 1985, Figure 1.

mesh (Misra 1978). The deposits were up to 3.80 m deep and composed of artefacts, manuports, roof-fall blocks, sands and silts, and finer sediments that were washed or blown into the cave (Figure 9.6). Sadly, these remain undated, and faunal remains were not preserved. Eight main layers were recognised: 1–3, Mesolithic; 4, Upper Palaeolithic; 5, Middle Palaeolithic; and 6–8, Acheulean. Almost all Palaeolithic tools were made from a local yellow quartzite from which the cave and surrounding hill are formed, but bifaces and cleavers were made from a purple quartzite obtained from nearby veins of rock. These tools were brought ready-made to the shelter.

355

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

table 9.6. Frequencies of the main classes of quartzite artefacts from Rock Shelter III F-23, Bhimbetka Lower Palaeolithic

Artefact type

No.

%

Handaxes 93 0.50 Cleavers 215 1.15 Flake tools 5,336 28.50 Flakes 5,335 28.50 Blades 383 2.04 Microblades 7 0.04 Chips 5,902 31.53 Debris 874 4.67 Flake cores 566 3.02 Blade cores 6 0.03 Microblade cores 4 0.02 Total 18,721 100 % of total

Middle Palaeolithic

Upper Palaeolithic

No.

%

No.

8 – 2,875 2,041 180 15 2,812 372 197 2 3 8,505

0.09 – 33.81 24.00 2.12 0.18 33.06 4.37 2.32 0.02 0.03 100

– 533 549 108 29 1103 116 72 – 12 2,522

58.46

26.56

Mesolithic

%

No.

– – 21.13 314 21.77 520 4.28 165 1.15 75 43.74 1,050 4.60 87 2.85 57 – – 0.48 10 100 2,278

%

Total

101 – 215 13.78 9,058 22.83 8,445 7.24 836 3.29 126 46.09 10,867 3.82 1,449 2.50 892 – 8 0.44 29 100 32,026

7.87

7.11

Source: Misra 1985: Table 1.

The density of artefacts per m2 throughout the F III-23 sequence provides an approximate indicator of the intensity of occupation. According to Misra (1985:39–40), the initial occupation was very sporadic (100 artefacts in the Kortallyar basin Artefact types

Attirampakkam Aryathur Nambakkam Mailapur Gunipalayam Total

Modified cobbles 1 Cores 14 of which: Levallois 3 Discoidal 2 Flake 8 Flake-blade 1 Flake and blade 0 Blade 0 Exhausted 0 Debitage 284 of which: Unretouched Levallois flakes 30 Unretouched Levallois points 2 Finished tools 104 of which: Scrapers 28 Core scrapers 34 Denticulates 4 Knives 5 Notches 2 Levallois points 0 Points 1 Retouched pieces 25 Chopper-chopping tools 0 Handaxes 2 Cleavers 2 Total of major categories 410

5 13

1 2

4 19

2 12

13 60

3 0 6 2 0 0 2 345

1 1 0 0 0 0 0 55

2 5 3 1 1 1 6 92

6 1 1 1 1 2 0 90

15 9 18 5 2 3 8 866

9 8 143

3 0 49

10 0 47

9 0 96

61 10 439

20 26 12 21 6 15 1 19 13 4 0 508

18 6 2 0 3 0 2 7 3 3 1 108

12 10 3 4 2 0 1 5 2 3 0 163

25 4 7 9 2 0 7 25 1 4 0 200

103 80 28 39 15 15 12 81 19 16 3 1,389

Note: This includes six pieces classified as cores grading into chopping tools, and five cores grading into bifaces. The commonest type of debitage is cortical or noncortical flakes. Source: Adapted from Pappu 2001, Table 1.

Pappu (ibid.) attributed to the local clast size. Most tools were made on flakes and had minimal retouch and much edge damage; those made from debitage and exhausted cores were commoner when found away from the sources of raw materials. The lack of debitage at most sites suggested that many artefacts were made elsewhere, and this in turn may indicate a high degree of mobility by the inhabitants. Pappu (ibid.) further suggests that the main factor driving Middle Palaeolithic variability in this area was the availability, type, and size of raw material. Two of the most important Acheulean sites in the area were Mailapur and Parikulam (Pappu 2001a:105–6), at which 173 and 138 artefacts were found,

388

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia respectively. These sites are in ferricretized stream and sheet-flood deposits, indicative of a low- to medium-energy environment, and are considered to have high integrity. The main raw materials were quartzite and quartzitic sandstone cobbles and pebbles. Both assemblages included handaxes and cleavers and large numbers of flakes, some of which may have been utilised. The size range of debitage implies that secondary as well as primary flaking of artefacts of different sizes took place. The most important Acheulean site in the area is Attirampakkam, primarily because it contains an in situ assemblage in a sedimentary context so far unique to the area. Attirampakkam is the type site of what in earlier literature was described as the Madrasian handaxe tradition, or a South Indian variant of the Acheulean. Recent excavation of a 7-m-deep test pit has unexpectedly indicated the presence of Acheulean material in a type of sedimentary context not previously found in India, and moreover, in one previously thought to be Cretaceous in age (Pappu 2001a:240–41; Pappu et al. 2003; Pappu and Akhilesh 2007). Figure 9.19 shows the stratigraphic section, and Table 9.19 details of the Acheulean assemblage. Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts were found in Layer 2, and a few Middle Palaeolithic ones in Layer 5. The main discovery was an Acheulean assemblage in the laminated clays of Layer 6, which also contained a series of nonhominin foot/hoof prints. The clay of Layer 6 had previously been mapped as Cretaceous, but is distinct from the underlying bedrock, which is Cretaceous shale. The excavators are satisfied that the Acheulean artefacts in this layer are not intrusive, and did not sink into it from a higher level. Pappu et al. (2003) note, for example, that there were 257 pebbles in layer 5, but only 21 in layer 6. Also, the layer 6 artefacts were not abraded or patinated, unlike those in layer 5. However, some vertical transport of artefacts did take place; as an example, some conjoinable pieces were found up to 60 cm apart vertically. The 286 artefacts were mostly quartzite (255), with 25 of quartz and 6 of quartzitic sandstone. The raw materials probably came from cobbles and large pebbles in the Allikulli Hills, 2–3 km to the south and southeast of the site. The presence of an anvil and two hammer stones indicate that some stone was flaked locally. Some artefacts had also been reused. There were also three fossil teeth, of Bubalus or Bos, Equus, and a caprine or Boselelphus that may be suitable for dating by ESR or 234 Th-230 U. DISCUSSION: THE INDIAN ACHEULEAN IN ITS CONTINENTAL CONTEXT

The Early Palaeolithic of South Asia, and India in particular, is primarily a record of sites with Acheulean, bifacial assemblages that date from after 800 ka. The evidence for these having been examined, they now need to be seen in their continental context.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent

Figure 9.19. Stratigraphic section of test trench 3, Attiramapakkam. Source: Pappu 2001, Figure 3.

The appearance of assemblages that routinely included Acheulean bifaces as far west as the Atlantic coastline of Europe and as far east as India was one of the most important developments of the Middle Pleistocene archaeological record. In both Europe and India, the nature of the archaeological record changes substantially with the appearance of groups using Acheulean bifaces. In India,

389

390

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia table 9.19. The Acheulean assemblage from layer 6, Test-Trench T3, at Attirampakkam, Kortallyar Basin Artefact type

Count

%

Hammerstones Anvil Manuportsa Cores Elongate discoidal cores Irregular multidirectional flake cores Irregular flake core Flake-blade core Core-flakes Levallois core Core-chopping tools Debitage Chips/chunks Noncortical flakes Cortical flakes Trimming/rejuvenation flakes Blades Broken flakes Broken tools Unretouched flakes Unretouched knives Finished tools Uniface Handaxes Cleavers Cleaver-flake Knives Heavy-duty scrapers/cutting tools Push-planes Bifacially flaked tools Picks Flake-blade Borers Denticulates Notches Pointed tools Scrapers on flakes Core scrapers Pieces with retouch Miscellaneous Chronologically later tools Total

2 1 2 10 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 152 29 34 15 20 4 6 13 25 4 112 1 2 2 1 9 6 4 4 8 1 7 5 2 3 22 6 8 1 20 286

0.70 0.35 0.70 3.50 3.50 0.70 0.70 0.35 0.70 0.35 0.70 53.15 10.84 11.89 5.24 6.99 1.40 2.10 4.55 8.74 1.40 39.16 0.35 0.70 0.70 0.35 3.15 2.10 1.40 1.40 2.80 0.35 2.45 1.75 0.70 1.05 7.69 2.10 2.80 0.35 6.99

a

Manuport: one granite, one quartz. Source: Pappu et al. 2003:596, Table 1.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent Acheulean assemblages provide the earliest indications that hominins were present. In Europe, it is only after 500–600 ka, when Acheulean bifaces first appeared in Europe, that we regularly find large assemblages of unambiguous stone artefacts, evidence of fire, hominin-modified bone, and hominin remains from large parts of Europe (Roebroeks and Kolfschoten 1994), even if handaxes were never used extensively in central and eastern Europe. An enormous literature exists on the European Acheulean; in contrast, far less attention has been paid to its eastern counterpart.16 Yet the expansion of the Acheulean into India (and the eastward shifting of the Movius Line from the Levant to the Ganges) appears to have been broadly contemporaneous, and was comparable in scale. The handaxes at Dina and Jalapur in Pakistan, Atapuerca in Spain, and Boxgrove in Britain are all about the same distance (2,250 air-miles) from sites such as Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in the Levant; as regards area, South Asia is almost exactly the same size as the current European Union, and peninsular India is roughly the same size as those European countries that contain an Acheulean record (see Appendix 1). The same issues of establishing the timing, origin, and nature of regional settlement records arise in discussions of the Indian and European Acheulean. Each can be taken in turn.

Timing: When Does the Acheulean First Appear in Europe and India? The European Acheulean dates from 500 to 600 ka. The earliest example may be from the Sima de los Huesos, Spain, where an Acheulean biface is the only artefact in the remarkable assemblage of ca. twenty-eight individuals of Homo heidelbergensis (Carbonell and Mosqera 2006) that may be, according to recent dates, ca. 600 ka (Bischoff et al. 2007). In northern Europe, Acheulean bifaces were used at Boxgrove and Kents Cavern in MIS 13, ca. 478–524 ka (Roberts et al. 1995). In South Asia, the earliest bifaces are those from Dina and Jalalpur, Pakistan that were found in sediments slightly younger than the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary, and are thus ca. 700,000 years old. (For reasons explained above, the ESR date of 1.27 Ma from the Acheulean quarry site of Isampur is disregarded because it was so anomalous compared with the expected age of ca. 500,000 years.) Because there are so few dates for Indian Acheulean sites, it seems prudent to keep an open mind as to when hominins first entered peninsular India. As noted already, the few 230 Th-234 U dates available for the Early Acheulean in India may have underestimated its true age. An additional major problem is the absence of Early Pleistocene sediments in peninsular India in which evidence of hominins might be preserved. As noted above, at Samnapur in the 16

The amount published on the Acheulean of southern England must exceed by at least an order of magnitude that published on the whole of the Indian Acheulean.

391

392

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Narmada Valley, Chirki on the Nevasa River, Anagwadi on the Ghataprabha, and in the Son, Belan, Berach and Hiran Valleys, the oldest deposits resting directly on bedrock are Middle Pleistocene, and usually gravels that contain Acheulean artefacts. Sometimes, these are rolled, and thus are probably older than the gravels in which they are found. Elsewhere, as at Hatnora (Chapter 11), the oldest gravels exposed in sections are Middle Pleistocene, and earlier ones are buried. It thus remains possible that peninsular India was colonized before the Middle Pleistocene, but that the evidence has either been destroyed when river channels rejuvenated themselves in the Middle Pleistocene, or buried below the modern surface. We may yet find that hominins entered peninsular India before 800 ka.

The Origins of the Acheulean in Europe and India Because faunal exchange between the Levant and sub-Saharan ceased in the Middle Pleistocene, and was minimal with North Africa (Chapter 7), the Acheulean of Europe and India is almost certain to have originated in the Levant, where bifaces were first used 1.4 Ma at ë Ubeidiya (Chapter 4), and at subsequent sites such as Latamne and GBY (Chapter 8). If we assume that the expansion of the Acheulean across Europe and as far east as India occurred without any impetus from Africa, the key issue is whether it signified a colonisation event. This seems improbable in Europe, but the evidence from India is less clear-cut. The key issues here are whether there was a “pre-Acheulean” hominin settlement record in each region when Acheulean tool kits were first used, and if so, whether the indigenous population was replaced by an incoming population. In Europe, evidence for a “pre-Acheulean” is thin, but recently much improved (see Chapter 11) by evidence from Atapuerca, Spain (1.2 and 0.8 Ma), Ceprano, Italy (0.9 Ma), Fuente Nueva 3, Orce, Spain (ca. 1.0 Ma), and perhaps also Pirro Nord, Italy (ca. 1.3–1.7 Ma). Because H. heidelbergensis – the principal hominin in Middle Pleistocene Europe – is thought by some to have originated from an indigenous predecessor, H. antecessor (Chapter 11), it is most improbable that the Acheulean indicates the colonisation of an empty continent. Additionally, the discovery of bifaces and the remains of H. heidelbergensis at sites such as Boxgrove and Sima de los Huesos implies that the indigenous population assimilated their use. That is to say, the use of Acheulean assemblages may have been adopted over large areas of western Europe by the resident population of H. heidelbergensis following contact with immigrant groups that used bifaces and had entered southern Europe. Entry into Europe would probably have been through western Turkey and Southeast Europe (although the absence of securely dated finds impedes investigation of this possibility) rather than across the Central Mediterranean or the Straits of Gibraltar (Chapter 11; see also O’Regan et al. 2006).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of the Indian Subcontinent In India, it is less certain whether there was a “pre-Acheulean” population. Because hominins were in both Southwest Asia to the west and Java to the east by 1.6 Ma, it is probable that hominins were also in South Asia, but the evidence is currently very sparse, and limited to the small assemblage from Riwat (1.9 Ma) and the Olowan-type artefacts found on eroding Early Pleistocene surfaces in the Pabbi Hills (Chapter 5). The absence of any hominin skeletal evidence from Early Pleistocene India makes it impossible to establish whether the Acheulean represents a colonisation event, or, as probably in Europe, the incorporation of bifaces into existing technologies by an indigenous population. As noted already, there is no good reason to suppose that the Indian Acheulean was an indigenous development. If we assume that the Indian Acheulean is from 0.7

Keates 2000:85-9 (Xu and Ouyang) (1982)

Zhou et al. 2000

MIS 8

MIS 10/11

ka

MIS 12

420

MIS 13

500

MIS 14

520

MIS 9 MIS 10

MIS 15–16 590–660 MIS 11

MIS 16

660

MIS 12

MIS 17

670–690

MIS 18

720

Note: The earliest evidence for hominins comes from layer 13. Shaded rows indicate layers with a reversed magnetic polarity. Sources: Aigner (1981:104–5) for layers 1–13; Keates (2000:85–9); Wu and Poirier (1995:68–70) for layers 14–17; Zhou et al. (2000).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia deposits when the Zhoukou River entered the site. The second type of deposition resulted from collapse of the roof and walls. Bedded scree was common in layers 3, 6, 8, and 9, and much of layers 8 and 9 comprised angular rockfall with limestone and dolomite boulders. The third type of deposition resulted from subaerial inwashing of finer silt and clays from hill slope surface above the site. These are present from layer 10 upwards, implying that the roof was always partly open, and probably consisted of a semiopen or porous “plug” of fault breccia. With progressive collapse of the roof and walls of the cave, it became almost completely exposed to the exterior, probably just before layer 4. The finer fraction in layers 6–10 is mainly micaceous silt and clay, which is laminated in layers 10, 7, and 4. This is also seen as pockets in stone-rich layers (e.g., layers 6 and 8/9). This fraction was washed in from the surrounding hill slopes. Layer 4 developed subaerially after most of the roof had collapsed, after which time the “cave” was largely open to the environment. This layer is a 4–6 m–thick accumulation of waterlain silt derived from the loess-covered hillsides near the site. The fifth type of depositional process was biogenic. The most striking was phosphatic hyaena coprolites in layers 4 and 7. Hyaenas also disturbed layers by digging, trampling, and gnawing, and the lack of bedding in parts of layers 7 and 10 was probably due to trampling and digging by hyaenas. Although some of the smaller bones could have been washed in, large pieces were probably brought by carnivores. The numerous finds of hackberry seeds (Celtis sp.) in some layers (such as layer 4) probably derived from bushes growing along the edge of the open depression of locality 1. As these seeds were often found in clumps, they were probably not transported far. It remains an open question whether they were gathered by Sinanthropus or were there as a result of natural processes.

The Excavations The excavations of the 1930s were of a very high standard for their time. During the excavations of 1932–7, all material was excavated according to a grid system in blocks of 1 m3 , with numerous plans, sections, drawings, and photographs ( Jia and Huang 1990:81–4) Although Binford and Stone (1986:455) suggest that small bone fragments were not recovered, the list of small mammals and birds is impressively long (see Table 7.2). Small items were frequently recovered; as one example, Pei (1934:32) noted “several hundreds of isolated teeth” of Vulpes cf. corsac amongst the carnivore remains. Weidenreich (1939:50), an eyewitness of the excavations, was explicit that “there was no chance whatever of even tiny bones escaping detection. The excavations are carried out systematically with the utmost care”, and Jia Lanpo was also insistent that “during digging, scarcely an object would be discarded unless its nature had been made clear” ( Jia and Huang 1990:211). Boaz et al. (2004:538) accept that the use

403

404

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia of sieving meant that fragments as small as 1 cm were recovered,6 and that the body-part frequencies of the hominins are genuine. It thus seems unlikely that the composition of the hominin, nonhominin, and lithic assemblages was biased by the excavation techniques.

Vegetation The reconstruction of the vegetational history of Locality 1 is based on three studies (see Keates 2000, 87 and 338–9 for details of the first two). The first was a sample of 132 pollen grains and nine spores from the matrix on a mandible of M. pachyosteus collected by Zdansky in the early 1920s, probably from layers 1–3. Approximately 33% of the pollen was from Pinus, 28% from birch, and the remainder from grasses and shrubs. These frequencies were interpreted as showing a forest steppe environment with lower temperatures than the present. The second study was of 1,972 pollen grains and spores from layers 1–4 and the basal gravels. The latter showed colder conditions than now, with a dominance of herbs such as Artemisia. In layers 7–11, nonarboreal pollen (e.g., Rhamnus globosa) was commoner than arboreal pollen (e.g., Abies). Cold-tolerant trees in the lower part were replaced abruptly by warmth-loving ones indicative of a mixed oak forest; at the top, more open conditions were indicated by a decrease in the frequencies of birch and shrub pollen, and warmer conditions by the appearance of Symplocos, a tree now found to the south. In layers 4–6, pollen from warm temperate trees (e.g., Carpinus) was common, and Symplocos still present. The middle and upper parts of the profile were interpreted as showing interglacial conditions. The third study (Kong et al. 1985) analysed 120 samples. One of the main indicators of interglacials was the ferns Selaginella denticulata and S. sinensis, which now grow in South China; these had high frequencies in layers 4 (upper), 6, 8, and 9. Nonarboreal pollen (Artemisia, Gramineae, Chenopodiaceae, and Polygonaceae) dominated in layers 2, 4 (lower), 7, 10, and 11 and indicates cold periods. No useful data came from layers 1, 3, and 5.7

Dating As with the cave of Tabun (Chapter 8) and other famous hominin sites, there have been many divergent estimates of the age and duration of deposition at Locality 1. Initial estimates of its age and duration were based on faunal and palynological evidence, with some researchers suggesting that the fauna could be correlated with the end of the Mindel glaciation, and others that the entire 6 7

Photographs on pp. 91 and 140 of Zhu et al. (1999) show workers sieving deposits in 1934 and 1937. Although the sieving was not large-scale, it was unusual for its time. I am grateful to Zhang Yue for providing a summary translation of this study.

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia sequence at Locality 1 accumulated during the equivalent of the Holsteinian, or Mindel-Riss interglacial of Europe (Aigner 1981:112, 120–21). The last 20 years have seen numerous attempts to apply absolute dating methods to Locality 1. These are summarised in Table 10.2. All investigators agree that layers 1–13 are Middle Pleistocene in age, as they have a normal magnetic polarity unlike those in and below layer 14. The crucial issues concern the dating of the uppermost layers, the duration of the sequence, and the reliability of different dating techniques. The least reliable were those obtained before 1985 by amino acid racemisation, because these dates are affected by the undefinable prevailing temperature. Thermoluminescence (TL) and uraniumthorium series dates are also problematic. The TL dates were obtained when the technique was largely experimental, and the age of the deposits probably greatly exceeds the limits of the ability of TL to date them. The uraniumseries dates suffer from the limitation that the samples dated are open systems, and thus radiogenic material is lost over time. As with the Levant (Chapter 8), India (Chapter 9), and the hominin site of Tangshan (Chapter 11), these dates almost certainly underestimate true age. Many error margins are also so large as to weaken seriously the precision of the estimated age of the sample. At present, the most reliable dates are those obtained by TIMS (thermal ionisation mass spectrometry) dating of speleothems, as these are closed isotopic systems. The dates recently obtained by Guanjun Shen et al. (2001) and Shen Guanjun et al. (1996) indicate that the age of layers 1–2 is ca. 400,000 years, with an error margin of only 8,000–10,000 years. The dates available from a variety of techniques for layer 10 indicate that it may be from ca. 400–500 ka, but these estimates may well undershoot true age. The most important aspect of the recent TIMS date for layer 2 is that Locality 1 now appears to belong to the early, rather than the middle part of the Middle Pleistocene. Various attempts have been made over the years to correlate the Locality 1 sequence with the loess sequence at Luochuan and the marine isotope record. The main weaknesses of these attempts have been uncertainty over the reliability of the absolute dates, and the lack of independent palaeoclimatic data (see the vigorous criticism by Aigner 1986). The most recent attempt is by Zhou et al. (2000), who used the TIMS dates of ca. 400 ka to anchor the age of the top of the Locality 1 sequence; they propose that Layer 2 can be correlated with MIS 11 (386–417 ka), and layer 10 with MIS 17 (693–713 ka). Contrary to Aigner (1981), the Locality 1 sequence may therefore span not one, but four glacial-interglacial cycles.

The Archaeological Assemblages Although the first stone artefacts at Locality 1 were not recognised until 1931 ( Jia and Huang 1990:72), ca. 100,000 “palaeoliths and worked stone flakes

405

406

407

table 10.2. Absolute dates from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian

Layer Pre-1985 1 2

Pei 1985, TL, fired Guo et Yuan et al. Shen and Jin quartz al. 1991; 1991, Huang et al. 1993; U-series grains F/T U-series 1993; ESR on speleothems

230+30/−23 256+62/−40 230; 370a

270

3

4

368+207/−68; 392+211/−71; 383+132/−58; 421+110/−54;

7 8 9 10

Zhou et al. 2000

Loess sequence (Zhou et al. 2000)

Loess sequence Marine (Heslop et al. isotope 2000) stage

89–3: 391+16/−15; 89–3: 393+35/−28; 89–3: 406+33/−26; 89–3: 400+12/−11 410 ± 10; 400 ± 8

420

L4 S4

386

470

L5

500

S5–1

282; 316

300b

292 ± 26; 299 ± 55 300 321 ± 28

93–2: 486+34/−28 93–2: 508+68/−12 350

368.5; 385; 396

390a 420+18/-10 >400 462 ± 45 >421; 520b 610b 500 13–1 13–2 13–3 14–17

452 ± 44

(462)

585

11

417 312 ± 36; 338 ± 39; 363 ± 48; 386 ± 51

320

5 6

Shen et al. 1996, 2001: TIMS U-series Gr¨un et al. on speleothems 1997; ESR

510 376 ± 28; 404 ± 27; 393 ± 25

535 ± 37; 541 ± 33; 529 ± 33; 594 ± 59; 550 ± 40; 448 ± 30; 462 ± 30; 464 ± 30; 512 ± 35; 466 ± 32; 470 ± 34; 482 ± 34

12

503

13

556

570

S5-II

568–575

14

590 620

S5-III

581–625

15

660

L6

16

S6

693

17

670

680 690 720

713 18

19

Notes: The shaded row indicates that the deposits below and including layer 14 have a reversed magnetic polarity; that is, they are below the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary and thus >0.78 Ma. Pre-1985 dates are all uranium series excepta amino acid and b thermoluminescence; see Wu and Wang 1985. For Huang et al. 1993, dates are averages of estimates from a disequilibrium model and one of linear uptake, assuming no radon (Rn) loss. The samples were from tooth enamel of Psuedoxis grayi. The parenthesised ESR date of 462 ka for layer 10 is from this article. Gr¨un et al. 1997 was based on museum material, and it was not possible to conduct a gamma spectrometric survey of the site. Dates given are for linear uptake; those obtained for an early uptake model tend to be ca. 10% younger for layers 3, 6, and 7 and 20% younger for samples from layer 10. Pei 1985 is cited from Keates 2000, Table 236, and Gaboardi et al. 2005, Table 1. Confusingly, the dates of 321 ka and >592 ka cited by Gaboardi et al. (ibid.) are listed as 312 ka and 2,000 artefacts. Few artefacts were recovered from layers 5–7, 10, and 11 (Keates 2000:86). Layer 7 had only 14 artefacts (Keates 2000:94); there were a scraper and two end flakes in layer 11, none in layer 12, and one of chert8 in layer 13–2 ( Jia 1989). Artefacts were found with hominin fossils in layers 1–4 and 6–11 (Keates 2000:86). Hominin fossils were found in layer 3, in the eastern and highest part of layer 4, and also in layers 5 and 7–11; see below. They were most numerous in the artefactual and “ash” layers (see below), but rarer near the artefact and “ash” concentrations (Keates 2000:86; Boaz et al. 2004). Tools were made from forty-four types of rock, of which 88.8% were quartz, 4.7% rock crystal, 2.6% sandstone, and 2.4% flint/chert (Wu and Poirier 1995:80–82). The rock crystal and chert came from a distance of 2 km (Keates 2000:89), and the other types from a nearby river bed (Wu and Poirier 1985:82). The dolomite used for making a few artefacts may have come from 20 km away (Keates 2000:89). One interesting detail is that there were about twenty quartz prisms up to 6 cm long that may have come from some kilometres northeast and south of the cave (see Edwards 1978:136); similar pieces were also found at Singi Talav, India (chapter 9). Most flakes were made by bipolar technique, direct hammering, and anvil percussion. The bipolar technique was used for quartz flakes; anvil (or blockon-block) flaking was mainly used on sandstone and was less important. Bipolar flaking produced smaller flakes than anvil processing (Wu and Poirier 1985: 82). Experimental work ( Jian 1998:421) indicates that this technique is best if the stone is too small to hold for direct flaking. The Locality 1 assemblage was “diverse and difficult to classify into regular typological categories” (Zhang 1985:167). A selection is shown in Figure 10.4. In Zhang’s sample, there were 5,160 flakes, 2,228 scrapers, 445 cores, 406 points, 160 choppers, 113 burins, 61 hammers, 47 awls, 19 anvils, and 8 bolas. Another 8,444 items were classified as substandard (i.e., debitage, discard). Around 70% of tools were made from flakes, and 30% from cores. Of the flake tools, 75.2% were classified as scrapers, 13.7% as points, 3.81% as gravers/burins, and 1.5% 8

One more tool was found in this layer in 1960 ( Jia 1989:204).

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia

Figure 10.4. A selection of flaked stone from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. The large object is described as a large chipped pebble, flaked without any preliminary preparation. The smaller pieces are small implements in veined quartz. “p, p” denote opposite points of impact produced by bipolar flaking. Source: Teilhard de Chardin 1941, Figures 27 and 28.

as awls. Choppers (mostly unifacial) were the largest tools, but formed only 5.4% of the total assemblage. There were also eight bolas (or polyhedral cores) from layers 1–5, 8, and 9. Most flake tools were very small: scrapers were generally 30–50 mm long and 20–40 mm wide and weighed 10 cm long. At the same time, the Bose Basin assemblages can be distinguished from Acheulean ones in several ways. One is the reliance on thick asymmetrical cobbles as an initial form; this is seen on 91% of all flaked pieces and 80% of large cutting tools (LCTs). Another is the extent of unifacial flaking (72% of all flaked pieces and 65% of LCTs). Even so, 35% of LCTs are bifacial, of which ca. 25% were made on large flakes and are considered to be within the Acheulean morphological range of handaxes, picks, and knives. Third, the Bose artefacts are massive compared to Acheulean ones, with several weighing 2–3 kg, and even 5 kg (as an example, the average weights of all flaked pieces and bifacial large cutting tools at Bose are 1,372 and 1,534 gm, compared to 385 and 731 gm for the same items at Olduvai Gorge, Bed II [Hou et al. 2000, Table 1]). Fourth, they are usually much thicker, and finally, there is no evidence of the cleavers that are so characteristic of the nearest Acheulean in India (Chapter 9). Overall, although the assemblage can be classified as Mode 2 (in other words, the manufacture of large tools such as handaxes, cleavers, picks, and knives, in contrast to the simpler, unstandardised Mode 1 technology of the Oldowan), it seems unwise to press too closely any cultural connections with the Acheulean: after all, there is no reason that indigenous populations of Homo erectus would have been incapable of producing large flakes or flaking bifacially. As regards the association of the artefacts and tektites in the Bose Basin, Hou et al. (ibid.) suggest a causal connection. Because charcoal and silicified wood are present in the same sediments as the artefacts and tektites, they propose that “the Palaeolithic artefacts of Bose signal a behavioural adaptation to an

421

422

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia episode of woody plant burning and widespread forest destruction initiated by the tektite event, which exposed cobble outcrops throughout the basin”. The key issue here is the chronological relationship between the artefacts and tektites. One of the peculiarities of the impact event of 780–800 ka is that it has proved easier to date the resulting tektites than to demonstrate that they are found in situ. Many years ago, Harrison (1978) showed that at 13 localities in Borneo, deposits of the Jerodong Formation, which had been dated to ca. 730 ka on the basis of tektites, were all within the range of 14 C dating and thus 300 ka in MIS 9. The excavations produced both flaked stone and vertebrate fossils, but at low densities. In 1996, 1998, and 1999, 2,152 items were individually recorded, of which 29.1% were artefacts, 48% bone, and 17.8% teeth. These all came from 83.9 m3 of sediments, an average of only 24 items per m3 . There were no conjoining lithic pieces, and few faunal elements that were anatomically adjacent (e.g., scapula and humerus) or conjoinable (Schepartz et al. 2003). No “living floors” or stratigraphically distinct occurrences of lithic or faunal material were observed. Although some bones were burned (see below), hearths and ash deposits are not reported. Instead, the distribution of faunal material could be loosely grouped into four zones. The uppermost, zone A (corresponding to the upper part of Unit 2a), was a dense zone of bones and teeth, with 58 items per m3 ; zone B (corresponding to the base of 2a and top

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia

Figure 10.7. The stratigraphic section at Panxian Dadong, China. Sources: Wang et al. 2004, Figure 3, and Schepartz et al. 2005, Figure 4, for details of the freeze-thawing.

of 2b) was a thin zone of sparser concentration (42 items per m3 ) with fewer bones but proportionately more teeth; zone C (corresponding to the upper part of unit 2b), one of dense bones and teeth (52 pieces per m3 ); and zone D (the lower part of 2b and unit 3) was a sparse zone (12 pieces per m3 ) of bones and teeth. The proportions of material varied between zones: in zones A and D, 70% of faunal items were postcranial, but in zone B, 59% were dental, 40% postcranial, and 1% cranial. Chemical analyses showed that the high proportion of teeth in zone B was not caused by bone dissolution. Because large mammals are disproportionately represented in this zone, Miller-Antonio et al. (2000) suggest that isolated teeth may have been used as a substitute for poor-quality stone, and that three rhinoceros teeth were apparently shaped into small scrapers. These provide a rare example from the Early Palaeolithic in Asia where bone or teeth were used as a substitute for poor-quality stone. The artefact assemblages are discussed by Miller-Antonio et al. (2004). The 1,805 artefacts that were analysed were made from three raw materials: limestone (49%), basalt (29%), and chert (22%). The limestone was available from 2.5 cm long and individually recorded during the excavation, and the remainder recovered by sieving. Nineteen percent of specimens were identifiable as to taxon, of which 95% were individually plotted. A wide range of animals (forty-seven mammalian taxa) are represented, but often by very few specimens. There are several large mammals, such as Stegodon orientalis, Rhinoceros sinensis, giant tapirs (Megatapirus), and various cervids, bovids, and pigs; large carnivores (tigers, bears, hyaenas [species indeterminate], pandas, and wolves); small ungulates (muntjak, musk deer); small carnivores (weasels, tiger cats); and the primates Macaca, Pongo, colobine monkeys, and Homo (represented by five teeth). The extraordinary appearance of bison (Bison sp.) has already been noted (Chapter 7). Overall, the assemblage suggests a mixed woodland with other types of habitat, such as bamboo

The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia forest for pandas and bamboo rats (Rhizomys); mixed woodland with abundant browse for musk deer, barking deer (muntjac), giant tapirs, and rhinoceri; and open rocky areas with abundant grasses for the goral (Naemorhedus goral ) and serow (Capricornis sumatraensis). As mentioned above, the assemblage from Panxian Dadong was divided stratigraphically into four groups or zones. Zone 3 had 46% (574) of all specimens. If the volume of deposit is also factored in, then Groups B and C had most of the fauna. Based on counts of individual specimens (NISP’s), 23–29% were of rhinoceri in Groups A-C, with Stegodon at 13% (mostly 94

Yunxi; Bailiandong Cavec

Guangxi

2 P2 , P1 , M2 , M1/2 , M3

20

Lianhua Cave

Jiangsu

M2 of “late H. sapiens”

14 (2)

U-seriesc

104–136 f

Panxian Dadongd

Guizhou

ESR/U-series for earliest tooth

231 + 32/−26 294 + 35/−30

Tongzi Cave

Guizhou

U-series

113 ± 11 115 ± 7 181 ± 11

1981

“Several dozen”

Under a capping flowstone

Layer 2/3

None

Five teeth of Homo sp. 1972–3, 1983

C1 , I1 , 2M1 , 2PM1

24 (4)

Layer 4

12

122–171 (layer 3); 124–161 (layer 6) 14.2+13/−11 22.8+5.6/−4.0

Notes: At Dali, the fauna includes Myospalax sp., Castor sp., Palaeoloxodon sp., M. pachyosteus, Psuedaxis cf. grayi, Gazella przewalskyi, and Struthio anderssoni. The stone artefacts were small and included scrapers, some points, an awl, and burins, all made by hammering. a Keates (2003a:40) reports an age of layer 3 of 270,000 years based on correlations of the magnetic susceptibility of this layer with the transition from L(loess)3 to S(paleosol)3 in the loess-palaeosol sequence at Luochuan; see Xiao et al. (2002) for more detail. Schwartz and Tattersal (2003:407) cite an estimated cranial capacity of 1,120 ml. b Jinnuishan: see also Lu (2003: 129). The fauna from layers 5–8 (including the hominin remains) includes Macaca robustus, Trogontherium sp., Canis variabilis, Ursus arctos, Homotherium ultima, Meles sp., Dicerorhinus mercki, Sus lydekkeri, and Megaloceros pachyosteus. Carnivore gnaw marks and hominin cut marks are visible on many deer bones; some gnaw marks were on burnt bones. The hominin cranium has a capacity of 1,260 cc. Most artefacts were made of quartz (69%) and silicaceous limestone (30.5%). There were nine ash patches, of which four were in levels 6–9. Some bear remains in layer 8 probably indicate natural deaths during hibernation. Xujiayao: The fauna includes Canis lupus, Panthera cf. tigris, Coelodonta antiquitatis, Equus przewalskyi, E. hemionus, Megaloceros ordosianus, Cervus elaphus, Cervus nippon, Bos primigenius, Sus sp. Gazella subgutturosa, and Struthio sp. In a sample of 589 artefacts, 38.56% were scrapers, 4.11% points, 3.08% burins, and 0.26% small chopping tools. Many bone and some antler tools are also reported. Chaoxian (Chaohu): The fauna from layers 1 and 2 includes Hyaena brevirostris, Ursus sp., Panthera sp., Megaloceros pachyosteus, Stegodon sp., Sus xiaozhu, and Tapirus sp. (i.e., a mixture of northern and southern elements). Maba: the fauna includes Ailurpoda sp., Ursus kokeni, Crocuta crocuta, Panthera tigris, Stegodon orientalis, Palaeoloxodon namadicus, and Sus scrofa. Changyang: The fauna includes Ailurpoda sp., Ursus kokeni, Stegodon orientalis, Megatapirus sinensis, and Rhinoceros sinensis. Dingcun, locality 54100: The hominin remains, most of the associated fauna, and numerous stone artefacts were from the upper part of 20 m of cross-bedded sands and gravels, intercalcated with marls. The fauna included Equus przewalskyi, E. hemionus, Coelodonta antiquitatis, Megaloceros cf. ordosianus, Bos primigenius, Bubalus sp., and Cervus (Pseudaxis) grayi. Zhoukoudian Locality 4: The main large mammals were Sus lydekkeri, Capreolus manchuricus, Cervus elaphus, C. grayi, Equus sanmeniensis, and Megaloceros pachyosteus. Ash layers are also reported. Miaohoushan layer 5: The fauna includes Equus sanmeniensis, Macaca robustus, Dicerorhinus mercki, and Megaloceros pachyosteus. Layers 4 and 5 contained nine artefacts; an ash lens was found in the underlying layer 6. Tongzi: The fauna included Ailuripoda melanoleuca, Ursus kokeni, Panthera tigris, P. pardus, Stegodon orientalis, Megatapirus sinensis, Rhinoceros sinensis, and Sus scrofa. f Lianhua Cave: The date is suspiciously early for late H. sapiens, and direct dating of this specimen is needed. Sources: Wu and Poirier 1995:114–57 unless otherwise stated. a Keates 2003. b See Lu 2003:129. c See Shen et al. 2002 for dating issues. d Panxian Dadong: See Rink et al. 2003b and Jones et al. 2004 for dating details, and Chapter 10 for a discussion of this site. e Schwartz and Tattersal 2003:407, 430; f Pan Ya-Juan et al. 2002.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia from other localities in China. There are several descriptions of this material; see, for example, Ant´on 2002, 2003; Schwartz and Tattersall 2003; Wu Xinxhi and Poirier 1995. As indicated, reasonably complete cranial specimens have been found at Zhoukoudian and also Dali, Hexian, Jinnuishan, Tangshan, and Yunxian. Isolated teeth are the commonest finds, and there is little postcranial material apart from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, and partial skeletons from the caves of Jinnuishan, North China and Tongtianyan, Liujiang. Chinese scholars have tended to distinguish two types of Middle Pleistocene hominins. The first is an earlier set, referred to H. erectus s.s., and is best documented by Locality 1, Zhoukoudian (Chapters 7 and 10), Hexian, and Tangshan (Nanjing): this seems a coherent group, albeit with some degree of regional variability (see Liu et al. 2005). (Unfortunately, the crania from Yunxian (Quyan River Mouth) preserved much of the face but are badly compressed and distorted [Wu and Poirier 1995:94].) The second and later set is usually referred to as “archaic” (ibid.) or “pre-modern” (Etler and Li 1994) Homo sapiens, and is best represented by the specimens from Dali, Jinnuishan, and Maba. Alternative suggestions that these should be attributed to the European taxon H. heidelbergensis (Rightmire 2001a:131), or even the African taxon H. helmei (Stringer 1996:126), are discussed later. Although there have been suggestions that the chronological ranges of Chinese specimens attributed to Homo erectus and archaic H. sapiens overlapped (Chen and Zhang 1991), it is more likely that they did not, although much depends here on the impact of new dating techniques on existing chronologies. The best specimen of an “archaic H. sapiens” is the partial skeleton from Jinnuishan, North China, where the remains were found in a small area of 1.6 m2 in layer 8 (see Figures 11.2 and 11.3), and now appear securely dated to ca. 280 ka. Palynological data indicated a local deciduous broad-leaved forest of Quercus, Ulmus, and Betula, consistent with a warm and humid climate (Wang 1993). The skeleton comprised fifty bones, including the cranium (but not the mandible), ribs, vertebrae, pelvis, an ulna, parts of both hands and feet, and a patella (Lu 2003). It was clearly not ravaged by large carnivores to the same extent as, for example, the hominins at locality 1, Zhoukoudian (Chapter 10), even though Canis variabilis and Homotherium ultima were present. (Ursus arctos was also present, but its skeletons are attributed to bears that died during hibernation.) By way of a speculative (and now untestable) suggestion, the Jinnuishan hominin might have been buried, and might thus have been the oldest of its kind in Asia. The dating of the Chinese Middle Pleistocene fossil hominin record remains a serious problem. As seen in Chapter 10, the age of Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, now appears to be 400,000–600,000 years in the light of recent dating by TIMS, considerably older than previous estimates (derived from TL and ESR) of ca. 230,000–400,000 years. Likewise (Table 11.2), the Hexian specimen now appears to be from 400 ka instead of 200 ka, and the Tangshan skull

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene

Figure 11.2. The stratigraphic section at Jinnuishan. This indicates the main archaeological layers (7–10) and the location of the hominin fossils and artefacts. Source: Lu 2003, Figure 3.

may be from ca. 500–550 ka instead of ca. 380 ka. Other specimens may turn out to be older than currently thought, particularly those from Maba, Dingcun, and Tonzi (Table 11.3), whose ages have been estimated from Useries dates of associated teeth. As in the Levant (Chapter 8) and probably India (Chapter 9), it is likely that the application of this technique to animal teeth results in a compressed chronology (see Shen et al. 2002). However, hominin specimens do not always become older if redated, and some have turned out to be significantly younger than initially thought: examples are the alleged early upper Palaeolithic humans at the Vogelherd Cave, Germany, now shown to be Neolithic (Conard et al. 2004), the Neandertal burial at Starosele, now

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia known to be medieval (Marks et al. 1997), and several “Pleistocene” human remains from river deposits in Germany, now shown to be Holocene (Bronk Ramsey et al. 2002). Recently, a human femoral fragment from Sulawusu, Inner Mongolia, that was found on the surface of eroding Pleistocene deposits and thought to be Pleistocene in age has been directly dated, and shown to be only ca. 200 years old (Keates et al. 2007). As they suggest, specimens should be directly dated whenever possible, especially if they were not found under carefully controlled conditions. One example is the partial skeleton from Tongtianyan Cave, Liujiang that was found by villagers digging for fertiliser and is attributed to modern H. sapiens (Table 11.3). Although found in deposits that may be from 111–139 ka, it is a remarkably early example of modern H. sapiens in East Asia, and as suggested by Keates et al. (2007), it should be a prime candidate for direct dating.

Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia This area, encompassing 1.6 million square miles (Appendix 1) and containing several potential corridors between India and southern China, is an enormous gap in our knowledge about Middle Pleistocene Asian hominins. Current evidence is limited to some isolated teeth from the cave of Tham Khuyen,2 ca. 475 ± 125 ka (Ciochon et al. 1996) and attributed to H. erectus, two teeth of “archaic” Homo sp. from the cave of Ma U’Oi, Vietnam (Demeter et al. 2004, 2005) that are late Middle to Late Pleistocene in age, and one classified as Homo sp. from the late Middle Pleistocene cave of Thum Wiman Nakin, Thailand (Tougard et al. 1998). In Java, the principal Middle Pleistocene hominin specimens are from those from Ngandong, Sambungmachan, and Ngawi, all on the Solo River. Of these, the most important are those from Ngandong, which was excavated by Oppenoorth in 1931–3 (Oppenoorth 1932, Koenigswald 1933). Here, the remains of twelve crania (Solo I-XI; Solo III was later found to represent two individuals [Schwartz and Tattersall 2003:450]) and two tibiae were recovered, along with >25,000 other mammalian fossils that define the Ngandong Fauna (Chapter 7). This material all came from a sandstone layer mixed with marl cobbles up to 2.5 m from the surface. Parietal and pelvic fragments were later excavated by an Indonesian team in 1976 and 1978. The hominin remains from Oppenoorth’s excavation were described in a monograph by Weidenreich (1951), sadly incomplete at the time of his death, and in another by Santa Luca (1980), who attributed them to a late population of Homo erectus, a conclusion recently reinforced by Ant´on (2003:144). Schwartz and Tattersall (2003:450–71) provide detailed descriptions and photographs of the cranial specimens, but disagree that they should be classified as H. erectus (Schwartz 2

Nine teeth were initially assigned to H. erectus, but only one appears to have been hominin (Schwartz et al. 1994, 1995).

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene

Figure 11.3. Plan of layer 8, level 1, at Jinnuishan. Source: Lu 2003, Figure 4.

and Tattersall 2000:20). As indicated already (Chapter 7), the dating of the Ngandong hominin assemblage has proved controversial, and contra Swisher et al. (1996), I support Storm’s (2001a, 2001b) arguments that its age is Middle Pleistocene. The composition of the hominin assemblage is also problematic, notably because of absence of mandibles and isolated teeth, and the rarity of postcranial material. Although this has been attributed to the poor quality of the original excavations and analysis (Swisher et al. 1996:1871), this suggestion is not supported by the testimony of Koenigswald (1951:216, 1956:72–5, who analysed the faunal assemblage and was present at the excavations.3 Ngandong 3

I am indebted to John de Vos at the Natural History Museum, Leiden, for showing me the original plans, sections, and photographs from Oppenoorth’s excavations. The plans and sections were very detailed for their time, and the photographs show a tidy and orderly excavation. The peculiar composition of the hominin assemblage cannot be seen as an artefact of a poor-quality excavation.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia is also anomalous compared to other discoveries of hominin remains in fluvial contexts in having such a large number of cranial specimens (see Table 5.3). I have suggested elsewhere (Dennell 2005) that this assemblage might represent a reworked set of remains of hominins that died in a mass drowning event: under this scenario, the crania (which have a high transport potential in streams) would have been preferentially transported downstream after they had already disarticulated from the rest of the bodies. There are four specimens from Sambungmachan. Sambungmachan (SM) 1 and 3 (Delson et al. 2001; M`arquez et al. 2001)4 are partial adult crania, both lacking the face and dentition, and Sambungmachan 2 is a tibia fragment. SM1 was found in a layer that is probably Middle Pleistocene in age; SM2 was a surface find, and the original context of SM3 is wholly unknown.5 All are attributed to H. erectus s.s. (Schwartz and Tattersall (2003:472–81). The fourth specimen, SM4, is a calvarium with an estimated capacity of 1,006 cm3 and is presumed to be Middle Pleistocene in age (Baba et al. 2003). The Ngawi specimen (Widianto and Zeitoun 2003) is an adult calvarium found on the surface of the riverbed in the Solo Valley, and thus undated. It is regarded as similar to those from Ngandong and Sambungmachan (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003:467–71). Recently, the discovery of a (probably) Middle Pleistocene hominin incisor in West Java (Kramer et al. 2005) has raised prospects of further discoveries of hominin remains in this area.

The Rest of Asia Middle Pleistocene hominin specimens from Asia outside China and Java are few and far between. The main find from South Asia is a cranial specimen from Hathnora in the Narmada Valley, India.

i. hathnora Only two hominin remains from Middle Pleistocene contexts in India now exist, as other specimens found in the 19th century were lost after their discovery.6 Both come from Hathnora, in the Narmada Valley of Central India. The Narmada Valley lies in a late Tertiary and Early Pleistocene rift that was filled with ca. 250 m of laterite and Quaternary alluvium. This alluvium is 4 5 6

The cranial capacities of SM and SM3 are estimated as 1,035 and 915 ml. respectively (Liu et al. 2005:257). The only firm information on its provenance is a natural history store in New York (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003:472). Kennedy (1980:398–400) mentions that there were six finds of possible Pleistocene hominin remains in British India between 1833 and 1884, but none was ever recorded or drawn. According to Patnaik (2000), a cranium was found in 1881 in the Hatnora area, but was subsequently lost. The history of Asian palaeoanthropology might have been very different if these mishaps had not occurred.

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene

Figure 11.4. The stratigraphic context of the hominin cranium at Hathnora, India. Source: Sankhyan 1997, Figure 2.

subdivided into a Lower Group, composed of cemented gravels and conglomerates from the Early and Middle Pleistocene, and an Upper Group that is Late Pleistocene and Holocene in age. The hominin remains are derived from the earliest of three units of Boulder Conglomerate in the Lower Group (see Figure 11.4). Numerous choppers, handaxes, and flakes have been found in the Boulder Conglomerate. Associated mammalian fossils include those of Elephas namadicus,7 Sus namadicus, Hexaprotodon (Hippopotamus) palaeindicus, Stegodon ganesa, S. insignis, Leptobos, Equus namadicus, and Bubalus palaeindicus (Sankhyan 1997:5). Most of these can be safely assigned to the Middle Pleistocene, and indicate “wooded grasslands in a warm humid climate, with lakes/pools away from the channel area” (Patnaik 2000:249). Ostracods suggest that these lakes and pools were shallow and permanent (Patnaik, ibid.). Recent analysis by gamma spectrometric U-series dating of a piece of bovid scapula found near the hominin cranium indicates a minimum age of 236,000 years (Cameron et al. 2004:419). Although the age of the hominin specimens is not precisely established, Sankhyan (1997:4) suggests they are at most between 0.2 and 0.7 million years old, and probably 0.4–0.5 million years old. He also suggests that the sedimentary features of the Unit I boulder conglomerate and associated fossils indicate that they are largely in situ, an opinion supported by Kennedy 7

According to Patnaik (2000), this is E. hysudricus, an earlier type. It is possible that some of the faunal remains have been reworked.

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia et al. (1991). A more recent assessment is that the minimum age of the hominin specimen is ca. 48,000 ± 1,000 years, but if it was not reworked, its age lies between 131,000 ± 5,000 years and 236,000 years (Patnaik et al. in press). The cranial specimen consists of the complete right half of the skull cap and part of the left parietal; sadly, the mandible, maxillary, and face are lacking. Estimated cranial capacity is ca. 1,200 cc (Sonakia 1985:336) or 1,155 to 1,421 cc (Kennedy et al. 1991). One feature considered curious is that the cranial bones are up to 11 mm thick (Sonakia 1985). The taxonomic assessment of this specimen is problematic, and there is considerable uncertainty over what is meant by terms such as “Homo erectus”, “H. heidelbergensis”, and “archaic H. sapiens” (see below). When first reported, it was described as an Asian H. erectus. However, Kennedy et al. (1991) undertook a more thorough set of comparisons, and concluded that it was probably from a female, and most like European specimens, such as the one from Steinheim, Germany, that were then attributed to archaic H. sapiens. Recently, Cameron et al. (2004) reached the same conclusion, except that European specimens such as Steinheim are now (usually) classified as H. heidelbergensis. Both sets of investigators agree that the Narmada specimen is not like the Chinese Middle Pleistocene ones of H. erectus. Nevertheless, Sonakia and Lumley (2006) have recently suggested that the Narmada specimen not only is representative of H. erectus, but also is directly ancestral to modern Indians. The anatomical comparisons are very general, and at no point is it demonstrated that these similarities are unique to South Asian populations. In the most recent assessment, Athreya (2007) concludes that the Narmada specimen could be classified as H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, or simply as “Middle Pleistocene Homo”, depending upon one’s definition of these taxa: some of these issues are discussed below. (Given the uncertainties over its dating, and the lack of any facial and dental features, my own assessment is that it is Homo sp. indet. [species indeterminate].) The clavicle from Narmada has attracted less attention than the skull cap, but is nevertheless intriguing (Sankhyan 1997). It was found in the same Unit I conglomerate as the skull cap. Sankhyan (ibid., p. 9) considers it came from an adult, and possibly female, individual. It is robust and extremely short (98– 100 mm); in comparison, the clavicles of African H. erectus are ca. 130–140 mm in length, and those of Neanderthals and Southwest Asian early H. sapiens are ca. 135–150 mm long. Although it is difficult to estimate stature from clavicular length, Sankhyan (ibid., p. 11) suggests that the Narmada clavicle could have belonged to an individual 5,000) have been found at the base of a shaft deep inside a cave (see, e.g., Arsuaga et al. 1997a; Berm´udez de Castro et al. 2003, 2004). The age of this has been estimated as 380,000 years but is more likely to be between 530,000 and 600,000 years (Bischoff et al. 2007), and thus contemporary with Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. The importance of Sima de los Huesos cannot be overstated, as it contains a population of at least twenty-eight individuals of all ages from a short period of the Early Middle Pleistocene, and with all skeletal elements represented. This should be the reference collection by which taxa such as H. heidelbergensis should be defined, rather than isolated finds such as Mauer and Petralona. Most authorities regard the European specimens of H. heidelbergensis as directly ancestral to Neanderthals, which are classified (depending upon viewpoint) as H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis. The most recent estimates from analyses of Neanderthal DNA for when the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans diverged range from ca. 370 ka (Noonan et al. 2006) to ca. 516 ka (Green et al. 2006). These imply that H. antecessor, H. cepranensis, the Sima de los Huesos population, and possibly other European specimens of H. heidelbergensis between 370–500 ka pre-date the beginning of the Neanderthal lineage. On those grounds, H. antecessor and the Ceprano specimen might be the ancestral forms of H. heidelbergensis, which in turn was ancestral to H. neanderthalensis (Arsuaga et al. 1997b). Nevertheless, some researchers (e.g., Stringer 1993) have suggested that all European specimens of H. heidelbergensis could be accommodated within H. neanderthalensis.

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene THE VIEW FROM AFRICA

The African Middle Pleistocene fossil hominin record is not as rich as that of Europe, but is considerably better than that of Asia, and there have been considerable recent improvements in the dating of key specimens (see McBrearty and Brooks 2000, Table 1). Schwartz and Tattersall (2003) provide detailed descriptions of the main specimens. These are the cranium and various postcranial bones from Kabwe (Broken Hill), Zambia, that are poorly dated but probably late Middle Pleistocene in age; three mandibles from Tigh´enif (Ternifine), Algeria, dated to ca. 700 ka (Geraads et al. 1986); a cranium from Bodo, Ethiopia, that is from ca. 600 ka (Clark et al. 1994); a cranium from Ndutu, Tanzania, that is perhaps from 400 ka (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003:188); and a partial cranium from Florisbad, South Africa, now directly dated to 260 ka (Gr¨un et al. 1996). There are widely divergent views over how these should be classified. As noted above, some (e.g., Rightmire 1996, 1998; Stringer 2002) included Bodo, Kabwe, and possibly Elandsfontein and Sal´e in their definition of H. heidelbergensis, and suggested that whereas the European members of these taxon were ancestral to Neanderthals, their African counterparts were ancestral to H. sapiens. This scenario is clearly weakened if H. heidelbergensis in Europe is subsumed within H. neanderthalensis. (This would also result in the peculiar outcome that H. heidelbergensis was initially defined in Europe but would now be effectively banished to a neighbouring continent). Mindful of such issues, McBrearty and Brooks (2000:480) suggested that the term H. rhodesiensis (originally proposed for the Kabwe specimen) should be retained. A third suggestion came from Br¨auer (1984:387), who proposed that Bodo, Kabwe, Ndutu, and others could be classified as “early archaic H. sapiens”, following a grading system similar to that attempted by Stringer et al. (1979) for the Petralona specimen (see above). The term “archaic H. sapiens” has been used to categorise some African specimens from the later Middle Pleistocene. The main specimens in this category include are from Eliye Springs (= KNM ES 11693, undated), Guomde (= KNM ER 3884, ca. 160–280 ka), Ndutu (ca. 400 ka), Ngaloba (Laetoli 18 = LH18, ca. 120 ka) (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003); Omo Kibish 1 and II (195 ± 5 ka; McDougall et al. 2005) in East Africa; Florisbad, South Africa (ca. 260 ka [Grun et al. 1996]); Singa (Sudan; 133 ± 2 ka); and the three Jebel Irhoud specimens (two crania and a mandible, ca. 130–190 ka) from Morocco (Schwartz and Tattersall 2003). The new dates for Omo Kibish imply that “anatomically modern humans” were already resident in East Africa ca. 190–200 ka. As noted already, the term “archaic H. sapiens” is not particularly satisfactory, and appears to be a blanket term that denotes all late Middle Pleistocene specimens that are neither H. erectus nor Neanderthal. McBrearty and Brooks (2000:480) suggest that the taxon H. helmei (originally proposed for

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia the Florisbad cranium) might be a more appropriate term, even though they note that this species currently lacks a formal diagnosis, and thus its membership remains uncertain. McBrearty and Brooks (ibid., p. 481) restrict its application to African specimens that are considered intermediate between Homo erectus/H. rhodesiensis and H. sapiens sensus stricto. Stringer (1996), however, included the specimens from Florisbad, Eliye Springs, Ngaloba and Jebel Irhoud in Africa, with those from Dali, Jinnuishan and possibly Maba (China), Narmada (India) and Zuttiyeh (Israel) as potential members. When used in this manner, it is hard to see what H. helmei designates apart from a “grade” that includes all late Middle Pleistocene hominin specimens except those of Neanderthals. For reasons suggested below, it seems sensible to restrict usage of the term H. helmei to African specimens, as suggested by McBrearty and Brooks (ibid.). An important recent discovery is a set of cranial material from Herto, Ethiopia, dated to 160 ka (White et al. 2003) and designated as a new subspecies, H. sapiens idaltu. According to Stringer (2003:693), this currently provides “the oldest definite record of what we currently think of as modern H. sapiens”. In his view (ibid.), the most complete Herto cranium seems closest morphologically to those from Jebel Irhoud, Qafzeh, and Omo Kibish. It also marks a suitable point at which to return to the Asian evidence. THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND CLIMATIC BACKGROUND TO HOMININ EVOLUTION IN ASIA

A noticeable absence in discussions of hominin evolution in the Middle Pleistocene is any consideration of how hominin populations might have expanded or contracted their ranges in response to the climatic, vegetational, faunal, and topographic changes that affected Asia; as Howell (1999:223) remarked, “Such shifts are still ill appreciated”. Still less has there been much attention to how hominin evolution in Asia might have been affected by the fragmentation of populations, their long-term isolation, and the opening and closing of barriers between them. It is thus worth recapitulating three major themes of Middle Pleistocene climate and environment in Asia (Chapter 7) in contextualising its hominin fossil record (see also Dennell 2003, 2004b).

The Expansion and Contraction of Habitats Early Pleistocene climate was characterised by generally moderate cold (glacial) and warm (interglacial) periods, on a cycle averaging ca. 40,000 years, and contrasts between glacial and interglacial climate were muted relative to those that occurred in the Middle Pleistocene (Chapter 3). Major changes occurred during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) between 980 and 640 ka, in which the amplitude and duration of glaciations increased, as did the contrasts

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene between warm and moister interglacials. From 600 ka onwards, the earth’s climate has been dominated by 100,000-year cycles of cold, dry glacial periods, punctuated by relatively short warmer and moister interglacials that occupied perhaps only 10–20% of the last 600,000 years. Current evidence indicates that Marine Isotope Stage 6 (125–200 ka) was particularly severe (see Chapter 7). No part of Asia was immune to these changes, and even at low latitudes, climatic and vegetational changes were often dramatic (see Table 7.4). Examples are the evidence for freeze-thawing in MIS 6 in South China, the estimates of severely reduced rainfall from Java and North China, the extreme aridity recorded in the sand dune record of the Thar Desert, and the speleothem record of Oman. At the northern limits of the hominin range at ca. 40◦ N., the input of aeolian loess increased dramatically relative to the Early Pleistocene in both North China and Central Asia. The repeated exposure and submergence of the coastal shelves along the coastlines of China and modern Indonesia was another major feature of the Middle Pleistocene in Southeast and East Asia. Additionally, the consequences of tectonic uplift were often dramatic, as along the forefront of the Himalayas, the Tien Shan, and the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau (Chapter 7). Middle Pleistocene hominins in Asia would thus have experienced – along with the rest of the fauna – repeated and major contractions and expansions of their preferred habitats. The density and distribution of hominins must also have changed considerably during a glacial and interglacial cycle. Some areas were probably abandoned for long periods – the best documented example is that from Tajikistan, Central Asia, which shows clearly that hominins were present only during interglacials (Chapter 8). This example is probably applicable to the rest of Central Asia and much of inland Southwest Asia. North China is another region where the bulk of the Middle Pleistocene archaeological and fossil hominin record probably stems from interglacials, with the implication that the “core” populations lay further south (Chapter 10). In India, the “core” areas of long-term residence were in the Purana Basins (Chapter 9), and intervening areas were probably occupied during brief periods. Given the vulnerability of the Levantine coastal strip to changes in rainfall, the area of usable space must have contracted considerably during glacial periods (Chapters 3 and 7). The Asian Middle Pleistocene archaeological record is probably not dissimilar to that of Europe. For example, Britain appears to have been occupied perhaps 20% of the time for most of the Middle Pleistocene, and even abandoned for over 100,000 years from 180 to 70 ka (Stringer 2006), and the Italian Middle Pleistocene record is consistent with “multiple, sporadic and discontinuous episodes of settlement” (Villa 2001:126). Overall, therefore, there would have been long periods when hominins were constricted to a small number of “core” areas, and long periods when they were also isolated from each other. As I have suggested previously (Dennell 2003, 2004a), spatial and chronological discontinuities in regional Asian Palaeolithic

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia records were real, reflected major climatic and vegetational changes, and were common across the entire area of inhabited Asia and Europe.

Barriers and Isolation versus Corridors and Contact As a consequence of the above, the ability of animals (including hominins) to disperse would have been profoundly affected by the scale and tempo of climatic change during the Middle Pleistocene. In particular, dispersal between some regions would have severely restricted by the formation of barriers that were often closed for substantial periods.

i. asia and africa: the red sea and the levant The most important barrier and corridor were those between the Sinai and Arabian Peninsulas that allow or prevent dispersals between Africa and Asia. The main routes across this barrier are either overland across the Sinai Peninsula, along the Red Sea coast and then inland into Arabia, or via a short crossing at times of low sea level across the southern end of the Red Sea at the Bab el Mandab strait (Chapter 6). Both these corridors were in areas that were always marginal to human settlement and dispersal. On the basis of artefacts and shells dating to the last interglacial in Eritrea (Bruggeman et al. 2004; Walter et al. 2000), and the evidence for the occupation at this time of Sodmein Cave in the Red Sea Mountains of Egypt (Moeyersons et al. 2002), the Red Sea has been seen as part of a coastal corridor by which modern humans dispersed from Africa into Southwest Asia, and ultimately to Southeast Asia and Australia (Stringer 2000). It may have provided an easier entry to Asia than the Sinai Peninsula, which would have been a narrow but severe obstacle to cross, and best undertaken during episodes of moist climate (Derricourt 2006). Dispersals along or across the Red Sea and Sinai Peninsula are most likely to have been restricted to those brief windows of opportunity marked by interglacials because of the extreme aridity of the intervening glacial periods, that is, Marine Isotope Stages 6, 8, 10, and so forth. That is, the worst time to attempt a crossing of the Bab al Mandab Strait was at times of low sea level, when conditions were at their most arid, as evidenced by the Omani speleothem records (Chapter 7). There is a little evidence for movement across the Red Sea during the Middle Pleistocene. Rose (2004) has shown some similarities between the Middle Palaeolithic assemblages of East Africa and Oman, and suggests that this might indicate some movement between the two regions, but most likely in the Upper Pleistocene during MIS 5e, 5a, or 3. Winney et al. (2004) also showed from analyses of mtDNA that the hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) that is found today in western Arabia may have dispersed from East

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene Africa at a time of low sea-level in the Upper or perhaps the late Middle Pleistocene. Our most detailed faunal records for Southwest Asia are from the Levant (Chapter 7). Here, there was a small amount of faunal exchange with East Africa in the late Early Pleistocene, but none during the Middle Pleistocene, 800–125 ka, apart from one record of Lycaon, the African hunting dog, from Hayonim, Israel, ca. 170 ka (Stiner et al. 2001; Stiner 2005:122–3). The opinion of Tchernov (1992a:118) still stands: “The ‘Levantine Corridor’ was a cul de sac rather than a passageway, as the Saharan belt was too firmly closed to allow free dispersal into sub-Saharan domains”. There was, however, a small amount of exchange with North Africa, as evidenced by the presence of Bos and Equus tabeti (O’Regan et al. 2005).

ii. north china and central asia There are two main routes into North China from the west. The first and longer route is through Central Asia, and then across southern Siberia, moving north of the Tien Shan and Gobi Desert, and then entering North China from the north. This route entails crossing some extremely inhospitable terrain, and particularly the area covered by the bitterly cold Siberian-Mongolian highpressure zone (Chapter 3), where January temperatures can average −40◦ C. (Shahgedanova 2002:79). There is little evidence that hominins colonised southern Siberia before the last interglacial; if they did, it was for brief periods only (Chapter 8). The first hominins to use this route were probably groups of H. sapiens who entered North China ca. 27–25 ka with a blade technology and presumably a suite of cold-climate adaptations, such as warm clothing, curated tools, and controlled use of fire (Madsen et al. 2001). The shorter route is more southerly, and lies between the Tien Shan and Kunlun Mountains on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. This corridor is most famous in historic times as one of the principal arteries of the Silk Road between China and the West. It entails traversing some very harsh landscapes, notably the deserts of the Taklamakan, the Baidan Jaran, the Tengger, and the Ordos Plateau. The Tien Shan and northern Tibet also experienced considerable uplift in the late Early Pleistocene, which contributed to the desertification of this region, and increased influxes of loess in both North China and Central Asia (Chapter 7). The main factor that makes sustained contact between Central Asia and North China unlikely throughout the Middle Pleistocene is that the Central Asian record shows clearly that hominins were there only briefly, perhaps (as in Britain) for 20% of the time, and only during interglacials. Even during interglacials, there would have been some 2,000 miles of desert between the two regions. Significant gene flow below these two regions during the Middle Pleistocene seems impossible.

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iii. south asia There are two main routes, neither easy, into South Asia from the west. The first and more famous is through Afghanistan and then into modern Pakistan down the Khyber Pass into the Punjab, or through the Bolan Pass into Baluchistan. The second is through the southern parts of Iran and Pakistan, and thence into Northwest India. This route nowadays entails crossing a region that is largely desert: the Dasht-i-Lut of South Iran, the Baluch Desert of Southeast Iran and West Pakistan, the desert of Sindh (Pakistan), and then the Thar Desert (India). As shown in Chapter 7, these are probably Middle Pleistocene in origin. As with Central Asia and North China, these corridors were probably unoccupied during cold, arid periods, and occupied at most, sparsely, during interglacial times. Entering India from the east (or leaving it in that direction) is also difficult. The lower reaches of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers are difficult to cross, but the main impediment to movement lies in the mountainous terrain of northern Myanmar (Burma), which is extremely difficult to cross before it is possible to enter the lower valley of the Irrawaddy. The Movius Line (Chapter 10) is normally drawn through the Ganges. As seen in Chapter 9, there is very little evidence for any occupation in Northeast India, and this area was also a major faunal barrier (Chapter 7). Significant gene flow between South and Southeast Asia in the Middle Pleistocene is thus highly improbable. iv. southeast asia Although the barriers mentioned above were most effective during cold, dry periods, the reverse was true of Southeast Asia. Here, movement from mainland Southeast Asia across the Sunda Shelf was relatively unrestricted at times of low sea level (i.e., during cold, dry periods) but interrupted during interglacials by the rising sea level (Chapters 5 and 7). Long-Term Contraction of Inhabitable Environments: The Consequences of Desertification The Middle Pleistocene in Asia saw the expansion and conjoining of deserts across enormous swaths of Southwest, South, and Central Asia, and North China (Chapter 7). From west to east, these were the Arabian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian Deserts, the Dashti-Kavir and Dasht-i-Lut of Iran, the Kara Kum and Kyzlkum of Central Asia, and the Tibetan corridor, as well as the deserts of Baluchistan, Sindh, and the Thar. The most important consequence was the merging of the Arabian and Saharan Deserts to form a major barrier between Africa and Asia. The expansion of deserts also exacerbated the isolation of India from Southwest Asia, and North China from Central Asia. The Middle Pleistocene expansion of deserts at the expense of semiarid grassland across Asia entailed a substantial and permanent reduction in the biological

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene productivity of the continent. These deserts persisted into interglacial times, even if their margins may have retreated a little. The long-term expansion and contraction of habitats, the creation of barriers between Africa and Asia and within Asia itself, and the long-term reduction of habitable space because of desertification would have meant that hominin populations in Asia were frequently isolated from one another, and that their habitats were repeatedly disrupted and fragmented. Such conditions would have been ideal for allopatric speciation; to quote Tattersall (1996:53), “The isolation of infraspecific populations is thus a prerequisite for speciation, and the occasions for such isolation can rarely have occurred more frequently than during the dramatic climatic and glacio-eustatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene”. Indeed, it would have been surprising if a species with the limited technological and behavioural skills of H. erectus had been able to avoid speciation under the conditions of the last 600,000 years in Asia. With these comments in mind, we can return to the fossil hominin record. DISCUSSION: HOMININ EVOLUTION IN ASIA DURING THE MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE

Most (but inevitably, not all) researchers agree that there was a speciation event in the early Middle Pleistocene or at the end of the Early Pleistocene, which led to two distinctive hominin lineages in Europe and Africa. The one in Europe comprised Homo antecessor, H. cepranensis, and H. heidelbergensis and led ultimately to Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis), whereas the other lineage in Africa comprised H. rhodesiensis/H. heidelbergensis and H. helmei/archaic H. sapiens and (on current evidence) resulted in modern humans. What might have happened in Asia? Four major issues are the origin of H. antecessor and H. heidelbergensis; the likely Asian distribution of Neanderthals; the timing of when H. sapiens sapiens first appeared in Asia; and the likely trajectory of hominin evolution in South, Central, and East Asia. Figures 11.5 and 11.6 provide a summary of the probable distribution of hominins in the Old World during a warm and moist interglacial such as MIS 11, and during the coldest and driest parts of MIS 6.

The Origins of H. antecessor/cepranensis and H. heidelbergensis in Europe If we assume that H. antecessor and/or H. cepranensis were African by origin, their ancestors must have left Africa before the barrier between the Saharan and Arabian deserts was closed in the Middle Pleistocene. The Bouri cranium, dating to ca. 1 Ma, might have been part of this population, if its similarities to the Ceprano specimen are accepted. The Acheulean industry from Gesher Benot Yaì aqov, Israel (Chapter 8), with its “African stamp” of cleavers and the

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Figure 11.5. The probable distribution of hominin types in Asia, Africa, and Europe during the warmest and moistest parts of MIS 11 in the Middle Pleistocene. This shows the distribution of hominins during the warmest and moistest parts of the interglacial period Marine Isotope Stage 11. The solid lines indicate barriers to faunal exchange, such as between the Levant and sub-Saharan Africa. Dashed thick lines, such as across the southern end of the Red Sea, are partial barriers; that is, some limited movement across them may have occurred. Areas of horizontal shading are deserts; those with diagonal shading are mountainous areas >4,000 m. Southern India, Sri Lanka, and Borneo are shown in black, as these are known to have been uninhabited in the Early Palaeolithic. Singapore and Sumatra are shown as joined, as the Singapore Strait originated in MIS 5 (Bird et al. 2006). Three, and perhaps four, distinct hominin populations are shown: H. heidelbergensis in Europe, H. rhodesiensis in East Africa, H. erectus sensu stricto in East Asia, and perhaps a distinct population in South Asia. The inhabitants of Southwest and Central Asia are currently unknown. The northern limit of hominins is shown as ca. 40–45◦ N across Asia, and up to 50 ◦ N in western Europe.

use of the Kombewa technique, appears to mark the last major contact between the Levant and sub-Saharan Africa at ca. 800 ka. Its makers are unknown, but might have been part of a population that later entered southern Europe. An alternative and probably more likely scenario is that the antecedents of the earliest European populations (e.g., Sima d’Elefante (Atapuerca), Ceprano) were more proximate, and lay in Southwest Asia with the descendants of the H. erectus population sampled at Dmanisi, ca. 1.75 Ma. Whichever view is preferred, a cranial and/or mandibular specimen from ca. 0.8–1.0 Ma from Southwest Asia is sorely needed. H. heidelbergensis should be regarded as a European taxon that probably descended from an indigenous European population such as H. antecessor (but

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene

Figure 11.6. The probable distribution of hominin types in Asia, Africa, and Europe during the coldest and most arid parts of MIS 6. The solid lines indicate barriers to faunal exchange, such as between the Levant and sub-Saharan Africa. Areas of diagonal shading are mountainous areas >4,000 m, and those with horizontal shading are deserts. At the height of MIS 6, a large ice sheet covered northern Europe, and sea levels were ca. 100 m lower than today; the Arabian/Persian Gulf was a sandy and dusty plain, and enormous areas of land were exposed by the Sunda Shelf of Southeast Asia and the South and North Coastal Shelves of China. The Northern Shelf was formed in MIS 6. Sri Lanka was conjoined to southern India; both these were uninhabited in the Early Palaeolithic. The most dramatic environmental changes in Asia were the coalescence and expansion of deserts across North China and in Central and Southwest Asia and Northwest India; these arid regions were probably uninhabited at the height of MIS 6. Asian hominin populations are shown as isolated from each other: derived H. erectus s.s. or “archaic H. sapiens” in China south of latitudes 30–35◦ N and in Southeast Asia; one of unknown type in India and largely confined to a few basins providing year-round access to water and stone; and a small population of Neanderthals in West and South Turkey and along the coast of the northern Levant. Europe was occupied by H. neanderthalensis south of latitude 40–45◦ N, and East Africa was occupied by (according to preference) H. helmei or H. sapiens. As movement to and from the Levant and East Africa was impossible at this, the presence of H. sapiens in the Levant in MIS 6 (if confirmed) would imply that they entered earlier, perhaps during MIS 7.

see Berm´udez de Castro et al. 2003), and not as one that also occurred in Africa or East Asia. The eastern limit of H. heidelbergensis is currently unclear. The mandible from Azykh Cave in the Caucasus (Chapter 8) indicates that this taxon probably inhabited Turkey and the Caucasus, and perhaps the Levant and Southwest Asia. For reasons explained above, the taxonomic status of the

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Narmada cranium is uncertain, and it is premature to conclude that the distribution of H. heidelbergensis extended into South Asia (see Athreya 2007). For reasons explained above, desert barriers probably prevented it from reaching China.

Did Neanderthals Inhabit Inland Asia in the Middle Pleistocene? The limits of the “Neanderthal world”, as evidenced by skeletal evidence, extended from the Atlantic coastline of Europe to the Levant to the Zagros Mountains and ultimately the interior of Central Asia. Mousterian assemblages, commonly assumed to have been the handiwork of Neanderthals, covered an even larger area, and have been found as east as Afghanistan. Whether any of this evidence from the interior of Asia pre-dates the last interglacial and is thus from >125 ka is unclear. The only Middle Pleistocene Asian specimens classified as Neanderthal are the mandible from layer C at Tabun, Israel, and possibly the mandible fragment from Karain E, Turkey, from ca. 200–250 ka. The assumption that Mousterian assemblages are automatically the product of Neanderthals is, of course, questionable because Neanderthals made some Upper Palaeolithic assemblages (such as the Chatelperronian in western Europe), and the earliest H. sapiens groups in the Levant used Mousterian assemblages. The automatic linking of the Mousterian to Neanderthals should therefore be avoided. Even with that caveat, the critical point here is that no convincing evidence indicates the presence of representatives of a Neandertal p-deme in . . . greater western Asia overall until the earlier Upper Pleistocene (18 0 stage 4 and perhaps upper 5) . . . Thus, Neandertals are seemingly allochthonous and immigrants into western Asia from their autochthonous source and broad distribution throughout Europe . . . they were, perhaps, a consequence of range displacement attendant on natural paleoclimatic factors, population factors, or even aspects of intergroup competition and aggression. (Howell 1999:223)11

The Timing of When H. sapiens sapiens First Appeared in Asia As noted above, the earliest specimens attributed to H. sapiens in Southwest Asia are those from Qafzeh and Skuhl, Israel, ca. 100–135 ka. Because these are younger than the earliest representatives of H. sapiens in Africa, notably those from Herto, ca. 160 ka, it is widely assumed that modern humans originated there. However, the data for hominins from East Africa and Southwest Asia 11

Howell (1999) regarded the Tabun C mandible as H. sapiens and thus excluded Neanderthals entirely from Asia before MIS 5e; this view is not shared here. His main point still stands, that there is no firm evidence of Neanderthals inland from the Levant before the last interglacial.

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene for the period 200–100 ka are simply not comparable: the East African record for this period contains several specimens, unlike that from Southwest Asia. If Howell’s (ibid.) suggestion that the Tabun C specimen belonged to a H. sapiens individual is accepted, it would imply that H. sapiens inhabited Southwest Asia (and made the Levantine Mousterian assemblages) during MIS 6, and might thus have entered (or left) Southwest Asia during the interglacial of MIS 7, ca. 180–200 ka. A hint that this might have occurred comes from the discovery of Lycaon (the African hunting dog) at Hayonim ca. 170 ka (see above). Nevertheless, it seems more likely that the Tabun C mandible belonged to a Neanderthal, and that modern humans are unlikely in the Levant before their appearance at Skuhl at the very end of MIS 6 or (probably) during the last interglacial, MIS 5e. At present, the hypothesis that H. sapiens originated in East Africa cannot be tested against the data currently available from Southwest Asia: absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence, and a Southwest Asia origin for H. sapiens remains a possibility, as suggested by Stringer and Andrews (1988:1267). The lack of diagnostic and well-dated hominin remains between 250 and 125 ka from Southwest Asia precludes further progress in resolving this debate. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in the late Middle Pleistocene, most of Southwest and Central Asia was probably too arid to support hominin populations, and may have been largely unpopulated (see Figure 11.6). On palaeoclimatic grounds, therefore, an African origin of H. sapiens remains the most likely scenario.

The Likely Trajectory of Hominin Evolution in South, Central, and East and Southeast Asia As noted above, South Asia would have been largely isolated from Southwest and Southeast Asia throughout most of the Middle Pleistocene. The mountain chains of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Karakorum were (and are now) formidable barriers to movement northwards, and grew in height during the Middle Pleistocene. The Early and Middle Pleistocene faunal record of South Asia also includes a large number of endemic species that are not found to the east or west (Chapter 7). Because Peninsular India would often have been isolated, one might expect it to have been a region where speciation occurred. A specimen that is more complete and better dated than the one from Hathnora is needed before this issue can be resolved. The hominins that inhabited Central Asia during those relatively infrequent windows of opportunities during Middle Pleistocene interglacials doubtless stemmed from “core” populations that lived further south in the Caspian region of Iran, or even India. As explained, there was probably minimal contact with North China. At present, these populations are undocumented, apart

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia from ten hominin teeth (six adult) and an infant humerus fragment from layer 3, Selì ungir, Kyrgyzstan (Chapter 8) that were attributed to Neanderthals or pre-Neanderthals, but not to modern humans (Islamov 1990). In East Asia, the critical unresolved issue concerns the use of the term “archaic H. sapiens”. Many Chinese scholars believe that there was an indigenous transition in China from H. erectus to H. sapiens.12 Wu and Poirier (1995:234–6) list ten cranial traits that are said to link H. erectus in China with H. sapiens, although they note (ibid., p. 238) that none is unique to hominin fossils from China. It is not clear how many of these traits result from homology and homoplasy, or how many are plesiomorphic (i.e., shared primitive features and common to many groups) as opposed to autapomorphic (i.e., shared through direct ancestry and unique to a particular lineage). Without seeking to enter the long-contested debate over the origins of modern humans, three suggestions might be made. The first is that it might be preferable to avoid use of the term “archaic”, and to use instead a binomen that does not prejudge the phylogenetic status of a set of fossil specimens, in the same way that the use of H. helmei is available to label late Middle Pleistocene African specimens without prejudging their relation to H. sapiens. The second is that, as in Africa, the term “archaic H. sapiens” might be a blanket term that masks an important degree of variability. Given the immense size of China, and the disruptive effect of numerous major glacial-interglacial cycles over the last 600,000 years (Chapters 7 and 10), one would expect that its Middle Pleistocene hominin inhabitants were often fragmented and isolated, and thus speciation might have occurred. Howell (1999:210–11), for example, suggested that the specimens from Dali, Jinnuishan, and Maba might represent different paleodemes, and recently Durband et al. (2005) concluded that there were marked differences between the Hexian calvaria and Zhoukoudian skull V. Third, as most of the Chinese hominin fossil record consists of isolated teeth (Tables 11.2 and 11.3), one way of exploring its evolutionary history is to apply the type of highly detailed dental geometric analysis pioneered by Martin´on-Torres and her associates (Martin´on-Torres et al. 2006, 2007). We may find that the Chinese fossil hominin record is more complex than currently presented. There is much about hominin evolution in Southeast Asia that remains an enigma, including the timing of when H. erectus last appeared. If (as seems probable) the Ngandong Fauna was Middle Pleistocene in date, H. erectus in 12

This view originated with Weidenreich’s study of the material from Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, and forms an important component of the multiregional hypothesis whereby modern humans in Africa and Asia were locally descended from populations of H. erectus that avoided speciation because of continuous gene flow between regions. For reasons adduced in this chapter, I do not see how this gene flow could have been maintained across major and long-established barriers within Asia and between Asia and Africa to sustain this process.

Human Evolution in Asia During the Middle Pleistocene modern Indonesia may have been extinct by the end of the Middle Pleistocene (i.e., MIS 6). If so, modern humans may have later colonised a region that had been uninhabited for perhaps 20,000 years or more. A second enigma is the diminutive, late Pleistocene “hobbit”, H. floresiensis (Brown et al. 2004; Morwood et al. 2004) from the island of Flores (Chapter 10). The “hobbit” may be short, but it casts a very long shadow across palaeoanthropology. Assuming that it is not a dwarf or pathological population of H. sapiens (see, e.g., Balter 2004; Hershkovitz et al. 2007), it may represent a dwarfed population of H. erectus s.s. following 800,000 years of isolation. Alternatively, it may represent a different and much older lineage, as suggested by Argue et al. (2006). The prospect that there might be a hidden lineage of hominins in Southeast Asia highlights just how little is understood about hominin evolution in Asia during the Early and Middle Pleistocene. SUMMARY

The pattern of hominin evolution in Asia in the Middle Pleistocene remains largely conjectural because of the poverty of well-dated and taxonomically diagnostic hominin specimens from Southwest, South, Central, and mainland Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the scale of climatic changes, the ensuing expansion and contraction of plant and animal communities, and the repeated fragmentation and isolation of populations in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene probably resulted in a considerable degree of speciation within the hominin lineage that is currently undocumented. Minimal or even no contact between East Africa and Southwest Asia throughout most if not all of the Middle Pleistocene is also likely. H. erectus sensu stricto is unlikely to have inhabited Central, South, and Southwest Asia after 600 ka, but was the main inhabitant of East and Southeast Asia. For most of the Middle Pleistocene, it was probably isolated from Central and South Asia, and probably became extinct in Indonesia before the last interglacial. In China, the specimens attributed to “archaic H. sapiens” were probably derived locally from H. erectus s.s., and would have remained isolated from neighbouring regions throughout the later Middle Pleistocene. Although the earliest European hominins (H. antecessor and/or H. cepranensis, and H. heidelbergensis) might have originated in sub-Saharan Africa, their origins were probably in Southwest Asia. The colonisation of Europe in the Middle Pleistocene might have been partly driven by the expansion of deserts in Southwest and Central Asia at this time, which resulted in a contraction of habitable space that might have forced hominins to disperse westwards. Apart from the Levant, western Turkey, and parts of the Caucasus and the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, most of Southwest Asia outside western Turkey and the Levant was probably uninhabited (or very sparsely inhabited) in the later Middle Pleistocene. The first populations of H. sapiens probably

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia arrived from East Africa during the moister interglacial period MIS 5 (or perhaps MIS 7), but not during the cold and arid MIS 6. The late Pleistocene “hobbit”, H. floresiensis, is unlikely to present a microcephalic population of H. sapiens,13 and may be a product of dwarfing among the original H. erectus colonisers of Flores. An alternative hypothesis is that it was descended from a lineage other than H. erectus; this is possible but implies the existence of an Asian hominin lineage that is currently wholly unknown. Although beyond the scope of this book, discussions of the expansion of modern humans eastwards across continental Asia after the last interglacial (i.e., MIS 3–4) need to take into account the probability that Neanderthals also expanded eastwards at this time into the interior of Southwest Asia and Central Asia: Neanderthals and modern humans were both attempting to recolonise vacant territory after the last interglacial in a “scramble for Asia”. 13

A recent suggestion is that H. floresiensis might represent a H. sapiens population with primary growth hormone insensitivity (Laron’s Syndrome) (Hershkovitz et al. 2007). This suggestion is likely to be contested.

chapte r 12 CONCLUDING REM ARKS

In 1527, the English merchant Robert Thorne presented his monarch with a map that summarised what Europeans then knew about the world outside their own continent (Figure 12.1). As can be seen, it shows a recognisable depiction of the coastlines of Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia, even if the Asian part of Thorne’s map embodied a charming mixture of a few landmarks, vast areas of ignorance, and much guesswork, particularly east of India. Although it is easy now to mock the naiviety of this map, it was in 1527 a vivid and state-of-the-art representation of how much Europeans had learnt about the world beyond their own coastlines since the voyages of Columbus only 30 years earlier. Thorne’s map is an appropriate metaphor for our current knowledge about the hominin settlement of Asia before it was colonised by modern humans. Although a future generation will doubtless find amusement in much of what is written today, it may be hoped that it will concede that a basic outline now exists of early Asian prehistory, and some aspects are now understood very well. Despite the many gaps that remain to be filled, an enormous amount has been learnt in the past 30 years about the climatic, environmental, and hominin record of Asia over the past 1.8 million years, and over a much longer period for its climatic and environmental history. As shown in Chapters 3 and 7, there are now outstanding records of climatic change over the past 2.5 million years from the Chinese Loess Plateau, Lake Baikal, Tajikistan, and numerous deepsea sediment cores around the eastern and southern Asian coastlines. These show, often in great detail, the over-riding importance of the Asian monsoonal system in determining temperature and especially rainfall over much of the continent, including those parts such as Central Asia and much of Southwest Asia that lie outside the areas affected by summer rainfall. The monsoon provided the heartbeat to much of Asia’s early (and later) prehistory, and the documentation of its long-term history is one of the great palaeoclimatic achievements of the last 30 years. Another significant achievement has been the elucidation of the tectonic history of the Tibetan Plateau and the mountain 473

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia belts of the Himalayas and Karakorum, and of how uplift of these regions within the timespan of human evolution affected the strength of the monsoon over often very large areas. Much too has been learnt about the faunal history of Asia in the Early and Middle Pleistocene, including its earliest hominin occupants. There are the obvious major landmarks, of “flagship” sites such as ë Ubeidiya and especially Dmanisi and Gesher Benot Yaì aqov in Southwest Asia, those in the Nihewan Basin of North China, Chirki, Bhimbetka, and Isampur in India, and Mata Menge on Flores, Indonesia. Equally outstanding but often overlooked are detailed regional studies of numerous smaller and usually less newsworthy sites: examples are the caves of Qesem and Hayonim in Israel, the Acheulean sites in the Hunsgi-Baichbal valleys of South India, the early Palaeolithic sites in the Thar Desert and Kortallyar Basin of Northwest and South India respectively, the multinational, multidisciplinary studies of the Sangiran Dome, Java, that are at last providing a reliable chronological framework for the Javan hominins, and the remarkable sequence of early Palaeolithic sites in Tajikistan that are each placed in a climatic context. Nor should we overlook the importance of the re-evaluation (and especially the redating) of sites discovered many decades ago, notably Tabun, Israel, and localities 1, 4, and 15 at Zhoukoudian, China. Just as Robert Thorne’s map showed knowledge and ignorance in fairly even measure, so there is still a vast amount to learn about early Asian prehistory. Southwest Asia (outside the Levant and Caucasus) and Central, South, and mainland Southeast Asia are still virtual blanks regarding hominin settlement in the Early Pleistocene before 1 Ma. The same is true for the Middle Pleistocene, with the exception of peninsular India, although even here, we still need better dating of archaeological sites, more (and better-dated) fossil hominin specimens, and considerably more evidence on hominin subsistence. As an illustration of how much there is to be done, it will probably take at least a generation to increase the number of detailed, well-dated site records for Asia south of latitude 40◦ N (i.e., the same latitude as Dmanisi and the Nihewan Basin) for the Early Pleistocene to just one per million square miles, and that for the Middle Pleistocene to one per 500,000 square miles. We also need not just more records of early hominin settlement, but ones that can be set within a climatic and environmental context (as in Tajikistan), and provide better insights into hominin subsistence patterns across this enormous and diverse landmass. On the positive side, two general features can be identified that are common to all hominin communities in Asia before the last interglacial. The first and more important is that the driving force behind hominin settlement was climatic, and in particular, variations in rainfall. Aridity rather than temperature was always the main climatic variable affecting hominins in most of Asia south of latitude 50◦ N. during the Pleistocene. As indicated earlier, the main source of rain in Southwest and Central Asia comes in winter and spring from

Concluding Remarks

Figure 12.1. Robert Thorne’s 1527 map of Asia. This sixteenth-century map provides an apt analogy for our current understanding of the Pleistocene, the early Palaeolithic, and the origin and evolution of the earliest inhabitants of Asia. We now have a recognisable outline, with some landmarks known in great detail, but there is still an enormous amount left to discover in the twenty-first century.

westerly winds from the Mediterranean, whereas in South, Southeast, and East Asia, the main rainfall is brought by the summer monsoon. When, as so often happened, rainfall decreased, the prevailing extent of aridity would usually have determined where hominins could live. The early hominin settlement of Asia is thus a repeated theme of regional expansion and contraction, colonisation and abandonment, integration and isolation as rainfall increased or decreased. When viewed in closer detail (as in Tajikistan), much of the Asian Early Palaeolithic record is likely to comprise regional discontinuities and local extinctions, rather than long-term continuity and permanent residence. If regional discontinuity and local extinction were the norm for much of continental Asia before the last interglacial, there must also have been “core” areas, or refugia, where long-term residence was possible during dry as well as moist episodes, because without such core areas, regions that were inhabitable only intermittently could never have been colonised. Although we cannot yet identify where these core populations may have been (and some might even be blanks on our current Early Palaeolithic map of Asia), we can make some informed guesses. In Southwest Asia, the Levant (northern Israel,

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The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia Lebanon, and western Syria) and western Turkey are obvious candidates; others are the sheltered low-lying parts of the Caucasus, the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, and perhaps the western flanks of the Zagros Mountains. The “Purana basins” of peninsular India are the most obvious places that could have maintained core populations in South Asia. In Southeast Asia, I would exclude the Stegodon-Ailuripoda zone until late in the Middle Pleistocene, but include as core areas of settlement the southern part of this region, as well as Java and its larger neighbours, Sumatra and Borneo. The core areas of longterm residence in China are most likely to have been areas north of the Stegodon-Ailuripoda zone, but south of the Nihewan Basin and Zhoukoudian (i.e., south of latitude 40◦ N), that were mainly settled during interglacials. A second general feature of the Asian Early Palaeolithic is that a major constraint upon hominins before modern humans was their very limited capacity to transport the stone that they needed to make stone tools. Areas that lacked stone (such as large flood-plains and some loess landscapes) may have been rich in food resources, but were probably beyond the colonising abilities of hominins to exploit before they developed the kind of long-distance exchange networks that are so common among humans of the last 30,000 years. Early hominin settlement in Asia would always have been restricted to those patches in the landscape that provided the fortunate coincidence of stone, water, and food. Likewise, hominin dispersals between regions would have been constrained by the local availability of flakeable stone as well as food and water. There are four major issues that either are the subject of much ongoing debate, or deserve extensive investigation. The first relates to when hominins (and which type[s]) first appeared in Asia. As indicated (Chapter 2), the origins of Homo in general and H. erectus in East Africa are unclear, but new discoveries from Dmanisi 1.8 Ma (Chapter 4) imply that the earliest known inhabitants of Asia were a short, small-brained, and early type of Homo, and arguably the most primitive type of H. erectus yet found. Because of the absence of a Late Pliocene fossil vertebrate record from Southwest Asia (Chapter 6), it is currently impossible to be sure when hominins first left Africa, and the hypothesis that H. erectus may be Asian in origin deserves to be taken seriously. As also indicated, there are too few Early Pleistocene Asian archaeological sites to allow confidence that we have yet documented the first appearance of hominins in Asia. In short, we may be on the threshold of a radical reappraisal of when and which hominins first inhabited Asia. The second and third areas requiring further exploration concern developments in the early Middle Pleistocene, ca. 0.8–0.6 Ma. The climatic changes were truly profound (Chapter 7), particularly because of the onset of 100-year cycles of cold, dry periods interspersed with relatively short periods of greater warmth and rainfall. At some point in what I have summarised as the change from “Savannahstan” to “Aridistan”, two other developments occurred. One was the expansion of deserts during the Middle Pleistocene, which

Concluding Remarks considerably reduced the area of habitable space in Asia, and may even have been a factor behind the westward expansion of hominins into Europe after 600 ka. These deserts also constituted major barriers to the dispersal of hominins and other animals, particularly between the Levant and South Asia, and between Central Asia and North China. The other environmental change of great significance was the isolation of sub-Saharan Africa from Asia (and also Europe) during most of the Middle Pleistocene because of the conjoined Arabian and Saharan desert barriers. Consequently, the Eurasian Middle Pleistocene archaeological and fossil hominin records need to be assessed as independent of Africa. Accounts of hominin evolution in the Middle Pleistocene need to take fuller account of these climatic and environmental changes, and an attempt to do so was presented in Chapter 11. There were two particularly important archaeological developments in the Middle Pleistocene. The first was that groups using Acheulean bifaces expanded their distribution 2,500 miles westwards into Europe, and the same distance eastwards into India some 800,000 years after the first use of bifaces at ë Ubeidiya. As suggested in Chapter 9, this expansion, broadly similar in timing and scale in Europe and Asia, is one of the key developments of Eurasian prehistory in the Middle Pleistocene, and deserves study as a single phenomenon. The second was the emergence of big game hunting of prime adult ungulates as the main way of obtaining food. This is certainly evidenced in the Levant by 350 ka at Qesem and later at Hayonim, and evidence from Sch¨oningen and Boxgrove in Europe may indicate that it was in place by 400–500 ka at the latest. If one adds the evidence for fire at Qesem, Sch¨oningen, and probably Gesher Benot Yaì aqov and Locality 1, Zhoukoudian, cooking may be another Middle Pleistocene innovation indigenous to Eurasia. The fourth major development in Asian prehistory occurred at the end of the Middle Pleistocene, during the penultimate cold or glacial phase, MIS (marine isotope stage) 6. As indicated (Chapter 7), this appears to have been exceptionally severe, and I have suggested (Chapter 11) that much of continental Asia between the Levant and North China over 4,000 miles to the east may have been uninhabited ca. 150–130 ka. Accounts of the expansion of modern humans across Eurasia in the Upper Pleistocene need to take account of the point that Neanderthals too were also expanding their range eastwards at this time. Additionally, our own residence in Asia in the last 100,000 years as modern humans needs to be seen against this background of long-term climatic change: very large parts of Asia are vulnerable to significant reductions in rainfall, and the future consequences of this vulnerability for Homo sapiens are likely to be momentous.

477

appe ndix 1 THE SIZES OF COUNTRIES AND REGIONS IN ASIA, WITH COM PARATIVE EXAM PLES

Country

Area (sq. miles)

Area (km2 )

Southwest Asia Georgia Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE)a Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Lebanon Oman Saudi Arabia Syria Turkey Yemen

2,413,623 26,910 43,667 636,293 169,235 10,290 34,444 4,015 82,031 829,995 71,948 300,946 203,849

6,250,128 69,700 113,098 1,648,000 438,320 26,650 89,210 10,400 212,460 2,149,690 185,180 779,450 527,970

71,852 11,506 33,436 26,910

186,100 29,800 86,600 69,700

Central Asia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

1,542,500 1,049,150 76,640 55,520 188,450 172,740

3,994,400 2,717,300 198,500 143,100 488,100 447,400

South Asia Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

1,712,005 55,598 1,269,338 54,363 307,374 25,332

4,434,100 144,000 3,287,590 140,800 796,100 65,610

The Caucasus Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia

(continued) 479

480

Appendix 1 (continued) Country

Area (sq. miles)

Area (km2 )

Southeast Asia Brunei Cambodia Indonesiab Laos Malaysia Myanmar (Burma) Thailand Vietnam

1,613,635 2,228 69,900 735,354 91,428 127,316 261,228 198,116 128,065

4,179,316 5,770 181,040 1,904,570 236,800 329,750 676,577 513,120 331,689

East Asia China Japan North Korea South Korea Taiwan For comparison: Oregon

3,949,927 3,705,386 145,869 46,540 38,232 13,900

10,220,746 9,596,386 377,800 120,540 90,020 36,000

97,686

250,078

1,689,368 94,202

4,324,782 243,368

1,270,702 435,521 224,081 246,201 364,899

3,291,120 1,128,000 580,370 637,660 945,090

European Union (27 member states) United Kingdom East Africa Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Tanzania a

c

The United Arab Emirates comprise Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al Qaywayn, Ra’s al Khaymah, and Al Fujayrah. The Arabian Peninsula (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, and the Gulf States) covers 1,159,542 square miles, or 3,003,120 km2 . b Southeast Asia: Malaysia includes a large part of the island of Borneo; Indonesia also includes the western part of New Guinea (Irian Jaya), which is beyond the Wallace Line and thus not part of Southeast Asia. If Indonesia, Malaysian Borneo, and Brunei are excluded, mainland Southeast Asia covers ca. 1.5 million km2 , or ca. 700,000 square miles – roughly the same area as Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Within Indonesia, Java covers 134,045 km2 (51,740 square miles); Sumatra covers 524,100 km2 (201,576 square miles); Borneo (shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) covers 743,033 km2 (285,782 square miles). c CIA World Factbook 2007. Principal Source: Lye 2000.

appe ndix 2 GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES OF PRINCIPAL EARLY PALAEOLITHIC SITES IN ASIA

Country

Site

Latitude

Longitude

Source

China

Bose Basin

23◦ 30–60 N

Cenjiawan Changyang

40◦ 13 22.5 N 30◦ 15 N

106◦ 30 –107◦ 30 E 114 40 16.5 E 110◦ 50 E

Chaoxian, Chaohu

31◦ 33 N

117◦ 52 E

Dali

34◦ 52 N

109◦ 40 E

Dingcun

35◦ 50 N

111◦ 25 E

Donggutuo, Nihewan Feiliang, Nihewan Hexian, Longtangdong Cave Jinnuishan

40.2◦ N 40◦ 13 13 N ◦ 40 13 19 N 31◦ 53 N

114.76◦ E 114◦ 39 34 E 114◦ 40 18 E 118◦ 12 E

Huang and Pu 2007:175. Chen and Wei 2004 Wu and Poirier 1995:140 Wu and Poirier 1995:134 Wu and Poirier 1995:114 Wu and Poirier 1995:143 Zhu et al. 2003

40◦ 35 N

122◦ 27 E

Lantian (Gongwangling) Lianhua Cave

34◦ 11 N

109◦ 29 E

32◦ 09 N

119◦ 24 E

Longgudong Cave, Jianshi Longgupo Luonan Cave

30◦ 38 N

110◦ 04 E

30◦ 50 N 34◦ 06 N

109◦ 40 E 110◦ 08 E

Maba

24◦ 41 z N

113◦ 35 E

Deng et al. 2007 Wu and Poirier 1995:82 Wu and Poirier 1995:120 Wu and Poirer 1995:17 Wu and Poirier 1995:134 Wu and Poirier 1995:103 Huang et al. 1995:276 Wu and Poirier 1995:107 Wu and Poirier 1995:136 (continued)

481

482

Appendix 2

(continued) Country Site

Georgia

Latitude

Longitude

Source

Miaohoushan

40◦ 15 N

124◦ 08 E

Majuangou, Nihewan Nanzhao

40◦ 13.517 N

114◦ 39.844 E

Wu and Poirier 1995:150 Zhu et al. 2004

33◦ 28 N

112◦ 41 E

Panxian Dadong

25◦ 37 38 N

104◦ 44 E

Renzidong Cave Tangshan, Nanjing

31◦ 5 38 N 32◦ 03 N

118◦ 5 77 E 119◦ 03 E

Tongtianyan Cave, Liujiang Tongtianyan Cave, Liujiang Tongzi

24◦ 10 59 N

109◦ 25 56 E

24◦ 09 N

109◦ 25 E

28◦ 15 N

106◦ 45 E

Xiantai, Nihewan Xiaochangliang, Nihewan Xihoudou Xujiayao

40◦ 13.126 N 40.2◦ N 40◦ 13.073 N 34.7◦ N 34◦ 41 05 N, 40◦ 06 N

114◦ 39.623 E 114.65◦ E 114◦ 39.802 E 110.7◦ E 110◦ 17 30 E 113◦ 59 E

Yiyuan

36◦ 12 N

118◦ 09 E

Yuanmou

25◦ 40 N

101◦ 55 E

Yunxi

32◦ 58 N

110◦ 35 E

Yunxian, Meipu

33◦ 00 N

111◦ 10 E

Yunxian, Quyanhekou Zhoukoudian

32◦ 51 N

110◦ 38 E

39◦ 41 N

115◦ 55 E

44◦ 20 N 44◦ 00 N 7◦ 27 23 S 8◦ 46 S 22◦ 45 N 16◦ 14 N

41◦ 20 E 41◦ 00 E 110◦ 51 17 E 121◦ 03 E 77◦ 43 E 75◦ 38 E

29◦ 27 N

77◦ 16 E

Dmanisi Treugol naya Cave Indonesia Sangiran Dome Mata Menge, Flores India Adamgarh Anagwadi, Ghataprabha Anangpur

Wu and Poirier 1995:101 Miller-Antonio et al. 2000:372 Huang and Pu 2007 Wu and Poirier 1995:91 Shen et al. 2002:818 Wu and Poirier 1995:186 Wu and Poirier 1995:153 Deng et al. 2006:337 Zhu et al. 2003 Shen and Sen 2003:68 Zhu et al. 2003 Jia 1985:135 Wu and Poirier 1995:124 Wu and Poirier 1995:97 Wu and Poirier 1995:12 Wu and Poirier 1995:96 Wu and Poirier 1995:91 Wu and Poirier 1995:94 Wu and Poirier 1995:29 Estimated Hoffecker et al. 2003 Baba et al. 2000:46 Google Earth Misra 1978:96 Pappu and Deo 1994:27 Sharma 1993:20, Fig. 2

Appendix 2 Country

Israel

483

Site

Latitude

Longitude

Source

Attirampakkam Belan Valley section

13◦ 13 50 N 24◦ 55 N

79◦ 53 20 E 82◦ 04 E

Bhimbetka IIIF-23

22◦ 50 N

77◦ 37 E

Chirki-Nevasa Chirki-Nevasa Didwana Durkadi Nala Hathnora Hunsgi Isampur Jayal

19◦ 19◦ 27◦ 22◦ 22◦ 16◦ 16◦ 27◦

74◦ 74◦ 74◦ 75◦ 77◦ 76◦ 76◦ 75◦

Khyad, Malaprabha

15◦ 51 N

75◦ 42 E

Kortallayar basin Kovalli, Ghataprabha Kuliana Lakhmapur, Malaprabha Lalitpur Mahadeo Piparia Paisra

13◦ 10 –17 N 16◦ 16 N

79◦ 40 –56 E 75◦ 35 E

22◦ 04 N 15◦ 52 N

86◦ 39 E 75◦ 37 E

24◦ 42 N 23◦ 06 N 25◦ 08 N

78◦ 25 E 79◦ 16 E 86◦ 26 E

Samadhiala, Saurashtra Sihawal, Son Valley

21◦ 52 N

71◦ 41 E

Pappu et al. 2003:591 Williams and Clarke 1995, Fig. 1 Pappu 2002; Misra 1985:36 Pappu 2002 Misra 1978:94 Misra 1978:94 Armand 1983: 13. Kennedy et al. 1991 Misra 1978:94 Misra 1978:94 Misra and Rajaguru 1989:306 Pappu and Deo 1994:29 Pappu 2001a:1 Pappu and Deo 1994:27 Misra 1978:99 Pappu and Deo 1994:29 Misra 1978: 93 Misra 1978:97 Pant and Jayaswal 1991, 19 Chakrabarti 1995:277

24◦ 28 N

82◦ 15 E

Yadwad, Ghataprabha ë Ubeidiya

16◦ 15 N

75◦ 11 E

32◦ 41 N

33◦ 00 E

Amud Bizat Ruhama

32◦ 52 23 N 31◦ 25 N

35◦ 30 04" E 34◦ 40 E

Erq el-Ahmar

32◦ 37 N

33◦ 00 E

Evron Quarry Gesher Benot Ya ì aqov

32◦ 33 N 33◦ 00 30 N

35◦ 07 E 35◦ 37 30 E

Hayonim Mt. Carmel

32◦ 56 N 32◦ 40 N

35◦ 13 E 34◦ 35 E

34 30 24 09 52 27 27 13

N N N N N N N N

54 50 35 36 53 31 30 11

E E E E E E E E

Williams and Clarke 1995, Fig. 1 Pappu and Deo 1994:27 Estimated from Braun et al. 1990 Ohnuma, 1992 Ronen et al. 1998; Zaidner 2003 Estimated from Braun et al. 1990 Tchernov et al. 1994 Goren-Inbar et al. 2002b:7 Rink et al. 2004a Rink et al. 2004b (continued)

484

Appendix 2

(continued) Country

Lebanon Pakistan

Saudi Arabia Syria Vietnam

Site

Latitude

Longitude

Source

Nahal Zihor Qesem Cave Adlun, Bezez, Zumoffen Pabbi Hills Riwat, Soan Valley Rohri Hills An Nefud El Khowm basin Jabrud I Ma U’Oi caves

30◦ 15 N 32◦ 11 N 33◦ 24 N

34◦ 55 E 34◦ 98 E 35◦ 15 E

Ginat et al. 2003 Barkai et al. 2003 Garrard 1983

32◦ 33◦ 27◦ 27◦ 35◦ 33◦ 20◦

73◦ 47 E 73◦ 10 E 68◦ 52 E 39◦ 30 E 38◦ 40 E 36◦ 38 E 105◦ 16 40 E

Dennell 2004a Rendell et al. 1989 Biagi in press Thomas et al. 1998 Shea 2003:324 Shea 2003:324 Demeter et al. 2005:394

49 30 27 45 30 58 37

N N N N N N 22 N

appe ndix 3 GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES OF GEOLOGICAL SECTIONS AND CORES

Country/area

Core/section

Latitude

Longitude

Source

Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau Chinese Loess Plateau China: Mu Us Desert China China China China China:Tibetan Plateau China:Tibetan Plateau Tibetan Plateau Japan S. China Sea S. China Sea S. China Sea S. China Sea S. China Sea

Duanjiapo

34.2◦ N

109.2◦ E

Bloemendal and Liu 2005

Lingtai

35◦ 00 33 N

107◦ 30 33 E

Ding and Yang 2000

Luochuan

35.9◦ N

109.4◦ E

Florindo et al. 1999

Luochuan

35.4◦ N

108.3◦ E

Bloemendal and Liu 2005

Weinan

34.24◦ N

109.30◦ E

Sun et al. 1997

Yanchuan

36◦ 52 N

110◦ 13 E

Bloemendal and Liu 2005

Yaoxian

34◦ 56 N

108◦ 50 E

Li et al. 2003

Milanggouwan

37◦ 50 N

108◦ 35 E

Li et al. 2000

Badain Jaran Heqing Basin Tarim Basin Urumqi area Kunlun Pass

39◦ 25◦ 40◦ 43◦ 35◦

99◦ 100◦ 81◦ 86◦ 94◦

48 –104◦ 14 E 06 –100◦ 29 E 50 –87◦ 40 E 49 E 02 E

Yang et al. 2003 Hu et al. 2005 Sun et al. 1999 Zhao et al. 2006 Wu et al. 2001

Zoige Basin

32◦ 10 –34◦ 10 N

101◦ 45 –103◦ 25 E

Chen et al. 1999

Qilian Shan Lake Biwa MDP972142 ODP 1143 ODP 1144 ODP 1145 ODP 1146

38◦ 35◦ 12◦ 9◦ 20◦ 19◦ 19◦

99◦ 135◦ 119◦ 113◦ 117◦ 117◦ 116◦

Zhou et al. 2006 Miyoshi et al. 1999 Min-Te Chen et al. 2003 Tamburini et al. 2003 Tamburini et al. 2003 Boulay et al. 2005 Liu et al. 2003

20 –42◦ 00 N 51 –26◦ 46 N 00 –42◦ 20 N 7 N 40 N

52 –39◦ 10 N 00–35◦ 30 N 41.133 N 21.72 N, 3.18 N 35.04 N 27.40 N

15 –99◦ 28 N 50 –136◦ 15 E 27.90 E 17.11 E 25.14 E 37.86 E 16.37 E

(continued )

485

486

Appendix 3

(continued) Country/area

Core/section

Latitude

Longitude

Source

S. China Sea S. China Sea S. China Sea Bay of Bengal Bay of Bengal Indian Ocean Indian Ocean Indian Ocean Indian Ocean Indian Ocean Atlantic Ocean Kazakhstan Tajikistan Lake Baikal, Siberia Oman

ODP 677 ODP 846 ODP 849 MD77-169 MD77-180 ODP 722B ODP 723 SK-128A-30 SK-128A-31 KL 15 ODP 659 Remisowka Chashmanigar BDP-96 Hoti Cave

1◦ 3◦ 0◦ 10◦ 18◦ 16◦ 18◦ 15◦ 13◦ 12◦ 18◦ 43◦ 38◦ 53◦ 23◦

83◦ 90◦ 110◦ 95◦ 89◦ 59◦ 57◦ 71◦ 71◦ 47◦ 21◦ 76◦ 69◦ 108◦ 57◦

Boulay et al. 2005 Tian et al. 2002 Tian et al. 2002 Colin et al. 1998 Colin et al. 1998 Clemens and Prell 1991 Emeis et al. 1995 Prabhu et al. 2004 Prabhu et al. 2004 Almogi-Labin et al. 2000 Tian et al. 2002 Machalett et al. 2006 Ding et al. 2002 Prokopenko et al. 2001 Fleitmann et al. 2003

12.380 N 06 S 11 N 13 N 28 N 37 N 03.079 N 02 N 16 N 51.5 N 05 N 13 N 23 32 N 41 48 N 05 N

44.2200 E 49 W 31 W 03 E 51 E 48 E 36.561 E 41 E 00 E 25.9 E 02 E 51 E 49 57 E 21 06 E 21 E

appe ndix 4 ENGLISH NAM ES OF VARIOUS M AM M ALS RECORDED IN ASIA

Order

Latin

English

Primates

Gigantopithecus∗ Hylobtes Langsonia∗ Macaca Pongo Presbytis comata Rhinopithecus Theropithecus∗ Lepus Ochotona Hystrix Myospalax Rhizomys Trogontherium∗ Acinonyx Ailuripoda melanoleuca Arctonyx Canis lupus Cuon Cynailurus Gulo Homotherium∗ Lutra Martes Megantereon (= Machairodus)∗ Meles Mustela Nyctereutes Pachycrocuta∗ Panthera pardus

Giant extinct gorilla-like ape Gibbon A type of extinct Southeast Asian ape Macaque Orang-utan Leaf monkey Golden monkey An type of extinct baboon Hare Pika, cony, rock rabbit Porcupine Mole rat, zokor Bamboo rat Giant beaver Cheetah Giant panda Hog badger; family Mustelidae Wolf Red dog, dhole See Acinonyx Wolverine or glutton A large sabre-toothed cat Otter Marten A large sabre-toothed cat Badger Weasel, polecat, mink Racoon dog Giant hyaena Leopard (continued )

Lagomorpha Rodentia

Carnivora

487

488

Appendix 4

(continued) Order

Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates)

Latin

English

Panthera tigris Sivapanthera∗ Ursus arctos Ursus spelaeus Viverra Viverricula Bubalus palaeokerabau∗ Bubalus teilhardi∗ Capreolus Capricornis

Tiger A large felid Brown bear Cave bear Civet Lesser oriental civet A buffalo with very wide horns A type of buffalo Roe deer Serow (adapted to steep slopes, good climbers; medium-sized) Red deer Fallow deer An open- or scrub-dwelling antelope found in the Malay Peninsula and Java A type of pygmy hippopotamus A type of large bovid A large, thick-jawed elk Musk deer Muntjac Goral A type of camel An extinct large elk A type of gazelle A type of deer (sika) Spiral horned antelope Tapir A type of rhinoceros A type of rhinoceros Wild ass A type of horse Pig-toothed mastodonts (a type of elephant) Steppe mammoth A chalicothere; a forest browser with large clawed feet An elephant An extinct type of elephant A Pliocene elephant-like animal

Cervus Dama Duboisia∗

Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates) Proboscidea

Hexaprotodon sivalensis∗ Leptobos brevicornis∗ Megaloceros pachyosteus∗ Moschus Muntiacus Naemorhaedus Paracamelus∗ Praemegaceros∗ Procapra Pseudaxis Spirocerus Tapirus Coelodonta antiquitatis∗ Dicerorhinus (=Stephanorhinus) Equus hydruntinus Equus sanmeniensis Gompotheriidae∗ Mammuthus trogontherii∗ Nestoritherium sinensis∗ Palaeoloxodon namadicus Stegodon∗ Tetralophodon∗

∗

Denotes generically extinct. Some extinct mammals have no common English name (for example, Gigantopithecus). In such cases, an appropriate descriptive phrase is provided. According to Kurt´en (1968:175), Capricornis could be subsumed within Naemorhaedus. For Duboisia, see Robson-Brown 2001:189; for serow and other Malaysian animals, see Medway 1969.

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INDEX

Entries in bold refer to tables. ‘See’ refers to synonyms, e.g., Burma and Myanmar. ‘See also’ indicates that further information is available under another entry. Words ending in ‘-ean’ or ‘-ian’ refer to archaeological stone tool assemblages, e.g., Acheulean, Clactonian, Soanian. 16R dune site, India, 236, 338, 345, 351, 352. See also Thar Desert 40 Ar/39 Ar, 84, 282 Abri Zumoffen, Lebanon, 296, 299, 301, 304, 306, 308.See also Amudian, Bezez Abu Sif, Palestine, 298, 305 Acheulean, 24, 28, 115, 118, 122, 123, 125, 235, 260, 267, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 283, 284, 285, 289, 290, 293, 296, 297, 301, 306, 307, 310, 312, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 337, 340, 343, 344, 345, 346, 358, 359, 362, 365, 369, 370, 371, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 381, 384, 387, 388, 392, 418, 421, 433, 434, 436, 437 Acheulean-Jabrudian, 290, 296 Acheuleo-Jabrudian, See Acheulean-Jabrudian 292. Acheulo-Yabrudian, See Acheulean-Jabrudian 297. Adlun, Lebanon, 296, 301, 302, 304, 307, 308, 481.See also Abri Zumoffen, Bezez Afghanistan, 39, 56, 117, 323, 464, 468 Ain Musa, Palestine, 298 Akchagyl Transgression, 67, 95 Akhalkalaki, Georgia, 97, 98 Altai Mountains, 61 Amar Merdeg, Iran, 322 Ambrona, Spain, 268 amino-acid racemisation, 405, 407 Amudian, 290, 296, 297, 301, 304, 307, 308 An Nefud, Saudi Arabia, 481 Anagwadi, India, 339, 340, 342, 351, 379, 380, 392, 481 Anatolia, Turkey, 199, 310, 325 Anhui Province, China, 178, 419, 444 Anthropithecus erectus, 4 Antu, China, 414 Anyathian, 164, 427 Arabian Desert, 257, 464

Arabian Peninsula, xiii, xiv, 35, 36, 37, 42, 65, 66, 72, 76, 80, 83, 118, 123, 127, 135, 230, 234, 236, 255, 323, 324, 325, 334, 462, 479, 480, 490, 522, 523, 526, 528, 537 Arabian Sea, 36, 65, 230, 232, 233, 234 Arabian/Persian Gulf, 232, 234 Aral Basin, 66 Aral Sea, 42, 52, 66, 67, 325, 332 “Aridistan,” 253, 254, 476 Aravalli Hills, India, 345 Arjun 3, Nepal, 346 Armenia, 319 Arridos, Spain, 268 Atapuerca, Spain, 192, 391, 392, 426, 436, 457, 458, 466 Attirampakkam, India, 340, 388, 390.See also Kortallyar Basin Australian monsoon, 36 Australopithecus, 18, 20, 21, 29, 31, 163, 184, 191, 411 A. aethiopicus, 12, 19, 25 A. afarensis, 12, 13, 16, 20, 27 A. africanus, 5, 12, 13, 16, 163 A. anamensis, 12, 15 A. bahrelghazali, 16, 17, 188 A. garhi, 12, 16, 17, 22, 22, 25, 26, 123, 198, 200 Azerbaijan, 318, 322 Azraq Basin, Jordan, 298, 323 Azych, Azerbaijan, 318, 320, 321, 334, 453 Bab al Mandab Strait, 122, 199, 324, 462 Badain Jaran, China, 207 Baghbaghu, Iran, 117 Baichbal Valley, India, 339, 342, 366, 367.See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys, India bamboo, 165, 179, 428, 435 Ban Don Mun, Thailand, 428 Ban Fa Suai, Thailand, 249

541

542 Banda Sea, 252 Bandlav-ki-Tala, India, 353 Bandung Basin, 250, 252 Banshan, China, 174, 175. See also Nihewan Basin Baoji, China, 48, 209 Barda Balka, Iraq, 322 Barents Sea, 36 Bay of Bengal, 57, 207, 224, 228, 485 Bear Cave, Israel, 239 Belan Valley, India, 349, 392 Berach Valley, India, 351, 392 Berekhat Ram, Israel, 275, 279, b– 282, 283, 285, 307, 333, 334, 358 Beringia, 3 Bethlehem, Palestine, 131, 192, 193 Bezez Cave, Lebanon, 296, 300, 301, 306, 308.See also Abri Zumoffen, Adlun Bhimbetka, India, 339, 340, 347, 353, 356, 358, 434, 474, 481 Bilzingsleben, Germany, 241, 284, 360, 436 Bizat Ruhama, Israel, 276, 278, 279, 334, 375, 411, 481 Black Sea, 42, 66, 67, 95, 310 Bodo, Ethiopia, 456 Bori, India, 375 Borneo, Malaysia, 250, 253, 422, 432 Bose Basin, China, 6, 152, 418, 422, 433, 434, 436, 481 Bouri, Ethiopia, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 458, 465 Boxgrove, UK, 2, 111, 192, 268, 335, 391, 392, 436, 437, 455, 477 Brahmaputra River, India, 129, 130, 464 Burma, 164, 229. See also Myanmar cannibalism, 26, 415, 436 Caspian Sea, 1, 42, 52, 66, 67, 68, 95, 322 Caucasus, 67, 84, 94, 239, 322, 325, 433 Central Asia, 36, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 54, 62, 66, 67, 72, 77, 182, 207, 210, 221, 222, 230, 232, 238, 275, 333, 435, 436 Changgousi Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Charentian, 313, 317 Chashmanigar, Tajikistan, 52, 217, 218, 485 Chemchemal Valley, Iraq, 322 Chenjiawan, China, 436 Chenjiawo, China, 243, 247, 396, 433, 442 Cherrapunji, India, 1 China, 35, 36, 43, 44, 45, 51, 58, 62, 64, 65, 77, 89, 113, 163, 184, 185, 217, 228, 250, 336, 418, 427, 448 Chinese Loess Plateau, 50, 60, 62, 65, 77, 183, 212, 217, 221 Chirki, India, 338, 339, 340, 342, 347, 348, 349, 353, 369, 392, 434, 474, 481 Chongnokni, South Korea, 418, 433, 434, 436 Choukoutien, China. See Zhoukoudian Chuwoli, South Korea, 418

Index Clactonian, 312, 342, 410, 433, 436 Cona, Georgia, 239, 318, 320 crystals, 352, 374, 436 C-Spring, Azraq, Jordan, 323 Dali, China, 433, 444, 456 Danangou, China, 178 Daocheng Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Darai Kalon, Tajikistan, 217 Darwin, Charles, 3, 4, 194, 196 Dasht-i-Kavir Desert, 257 Dasht-i-Lut Desert, 257 Dauqara, Jordan, 323 Davidson Black, 4, 179, 399 Daw¯adm¯ı, Saudi Arabia, 324 Dead Sea Valley, 1, 68, 70, 72, 83, 114, 236, 260, 375 Devapur, India, xvii, 361, 368, 376, 394.See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Didwana Formation, India, 235, 236.See also Thar Desert Dina, Pakistan, 208, 338, 339, 375, 391 Dingcun, China, 418, 433, 434, 436, 444, 445, 447, 481 Dmanisi, Georgia, 67, 80, 84, 96, 98, 100, 103, 113, 123, 126, 131, 134, 135, 163, 166, 176, 182, 184, 186, 189, 192, 193, 194, 198, 321, 330, 466, 474, 481 Donggutuo, China, 6, 182, 433, 481.See also Nihewan Basin Dongyaozhitou, China, 178 Durkadi, India, 337, 481 Dursunlu, Turkey, 115, 116, 135 East Asia, 204, 205, 208, 218, 228, 398, 435, 436 East Asian monsoon, 36, 37, 41, 45, 47, 48, 50, 64, 65, 77, 145, 178, 210, 212 Egyptian deserts, 301 electron spin resonance (ESR) dating, 179, 278, 279, 285, 295, 302, 303, 307, 316, 375, 388, 417, 419, 424, 446 El-Khowm, Syria, 279, 296, 306, 307, 323, 481 Eoanthropus dawsoni, 5 Erq el-Ahmar, Israel, 113, 118 Erumaivettipalayam, India,See also Kortallya Basin 385. Esekartkan, Kazakhstan, 54 Euphrates River, 83, 310 Evron Quarry, Israel, 118, 120, 135, 238, 276, 334, 481 Fatehpur, India, 362, 363, 376, 394 fauna Central Asia, 54, 56, 330 China (North), 167, 168, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 242, 243, 247, 396, 443 China (South), 178, 181, 247, 249, 419, 424, 427, 443, 445 Dmanisi, 86, 95

Index fauna (cont.) India (post-Siwalik), 241, 347, 362 India, Pakistan (Siwaliks), 56, 130, 131, 144, 343 Indonesia, 253 Java (Ngandong), 153, 251 Java (Punung), 252 Java (Satir, Ci Saat), 162 Java (Trinil), 153, 154, 160, 162, 251 Siberia, 62, 253 Southeast Asia, 250, 251 Southwest Asia, 76, 116, 120, 192, 239, 260, 274, 278, 307, 308, 311, 318, 319, 322 Ubeidiya, 100, 106, 110, 111, 113 Zhoukoudian, 242 Fingnoian, Thailand, 427 fire, 269, 270, 293, 297, 333, 335, 391, 395, 398, 402, 413, 415, 416, 417, 436, 463, 477 fission-track dating, 155, 252, 429 Fjaje, Jordan, 323 Flores, Indonesia, 2, 6, 163, 250, 252, 432 Gadeb, Ethiopia, 123 Ganges River, India, 129, 130, 132, 144, 435, 464 Ganj Par, Iran, 322 Garrod, Dorothy, 260, 285, 286, 297, 301, 302, 303, 304 Georgia, 98, 318, 321 Gesher Benot Ya ìaqov (GBY), Israel, 6, 118, 135, 238, 271, 283, 323, 333, 335, 349, 375, 392, 436, 465, 474, 477, 481 Gezidong. See Gezitang Cave Gezitang Cave, 400, 410 Gharmachi 1b, Syria, 275 Ghataprabha Valley, India, 351, 379, 380, 392, 394 Gigantopithecus, 178, 179, 180, 249 Gobi Desert, 39, 257, 463 Gobi Gravels, 207 Gongwangling, China, 176, 177, 184. See Lantian Guanyindong, China, 248, 426 Gulf of Aden, 232 Gulf of Aqaba, 114 Hadar, Ethiopia, 13, 20, 22 Haeckel, Ernst, 4 Hathnora, India, 392, 452, 453, 469, 481.See also Narmada Valley Hayonim Cave, Israel, 6, 279, 307, 335, 474, 481 hearths, 293, 412, 428 Hebbal Buzurg II. See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Heqing Basin, China, 223 Herto, Ethiopia, 460, 468 Hexian, China, 6, 243, 247, 248, 442, 443, 446, 470, 481 High Wangfeng Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Himalayas, 7, 39, 40, 42, 204, 205, 207, 208, 235, 240, 344

543 Hindu Kush mountains, 39, 325, 326, 393, 469 Hiran Valley, India, 351, 392 Hoabinhian, 164, 427 Holon, Israel, 276, 278, 279, 306, 307 Homo archaic H. sapiens, 243, 396, 417, 446, 448, 452, 454, 455, 457, 459, 460, 465, 469, 470 H. antecessor, 392, 436, 458, 465, 468, 471 H. cepranensis, 455, 458, 465, 471 H. erectus (general), 4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 18, 22, 30, 33, 34, 123, 135, 187, 191, 421 H. erectus s.l., 12, 13, 32, 33, 89, 90, 91, 96, 113, 125, 134, 163, 176, 180, 184, 186, 188, 189, 192, 198, 201, 271, 376, 438, 452, 453, 455, 457, 466, 476 H. erectus s.s., 29, 103, 149, 155, 161, 164, 165, 179, 180, 191, 243, 244, 247, 249, 252, 398, 414, 415, 416, 417, 432, 433, 436, 446, 448, 450, 452, 470, 471 H. ergaster, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 29, 30, 89, 90, 113, 166, 180, 190, 194, 438 H. floresiensis, 188, 190, 198, 252, 429, 432, 438, 471, 472 H. georgicus, 85, 90, 91, 113, 125, 184, 189 H. habilis, 12, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 89, 90, 113, 124, 163, 180, 189 H. heidelbergensis, 5, 335, 391, 392, 438, 446, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 458, 459, 465, 471 H. helmei, 446, 454, 455, 459, 460, 465, 470 H. neanderthalensis, 287, 298, 438, 452, 453, 455, 456, 465, 468, 472, 477 H. rhodesiensis, 455, 459, 465 H. rudolfensis, 12, 18, 20, 21, 28, 29, 89, 90 H. sapiens, 163, 252, 253, 432 Hoti Cave, Oman, 234, 255, 485 Hsi-hou-tu. See Xihoudu Huleh Basin, Israel, 236 Hummal, Syria, 279, 296, 300 Hunsgi, Hunsgi Valley, India, 340, 369, 370 Hunsgi Valley, India, 274, 339, 342, 366, 367 Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys, India, 338, 353, 362, 363, 366, 367, 368, 375, 474 India, 35, 39, 40, 42, 164, 208, 226, 234, 241, 249, 274, 336, 342, 380, 395, 405, 408, 418, 421, 433, 434, 435, 436, 453 Indian monsoon, 36, 37, 56, 57, 64, 77, 145 Indian Ocean, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 65, 72, 80, 208, 212, 224, 228, 234 Indonesia, 166, 253, 396, 432 Indus River, Pakistan, xiv, 128, 129, 132 Iran, 67, 68, 83, 116, 127, 236, 257, 322 Iranian Plateau, 35, 83, 199, 325, 334 Iraq, 83, 127, 322 Isampur, India, 6, 339, 340, 375, 378, 474.See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys Isernia, Italy, 263

544 Israel, 69, 83, 100, 106, 114, 118, 120, 121, 122, 236, 239, 259, 260, 276, 290, 295, 306, 309, 321, 436 Jabrud rock-shelter, Syria, 6, 279, 285, 290, 295, 296, 297, 298, 306, 307, 308, 417, 481, 527 Jabrudian, 279, 289, 290, 292, 295, 296, 298, 300, 301, 304, 306, 307 Jalalpur, Pakistan, 208, 338, 375, 391 Japan, 64, 208, 210, 222, 227, 396, 418, 419 Java Sea, 250 Java, Indonesia, 89, 149, 166, 176, 184, 250, 251, 252, 427, 448 Jayal Formation, India. See also Thar Desert Jayal, India, 353, 481.See also Thar Desert Jerf Ajla, Syria, 298 Jerodong Formation, Borneo, 422 Jigongshan, China, 419, 436 Jinnuishan, China, 6, 247, 444, 445, 446, 456, 460, 470, 481 Jisr Banat Yaqub. See Gesher Benot Ya ìaqov Jordan, 290, 306, 323, 325 Jordan Valley, 98, 100 Joubb Jannine, Lebanon, 274 Kabuh Formation, Java, 147, 149, 162, 164, 165 Kabwe, Zambia, 455, 456 Kadar Gona, Ethiopia, 22, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 144, 198 Kadmali Valley, India, 351 Kaladgi Basin, India, 339, 380 Kalambo Falls, Zambia, 263, 270 Kalatepe Deresi 3, Turkey, 310 Kaldenvanhalli, India, 338 Kalpi, India, 345 Kanam, Kenya, 5 Kanjera, Kenya, 5 Kara Sea, 36 Karain Cave, Turkey, 315, 318, 321, 453 Karakorum Mountains, 7, 39, 128, 129, 204, 205, 207, 254, 393, 469, 474, 500, 528 Karakum Desert, 51, 219, 257 Karamaidan, Tajikistan, 54 Karari Industry, 122 Kashafrud, Iran, 116, 118, 135, 322 Kawoli, South Korea, 418 Kazakhstan, 54, 217 Kebara Cave, Israel, 302 Kedung Brubus, 251 Kenyanthropus platyops, 15 Khao Pha Nam, Thailand, 428 Khyad, India, 379 Kombewa technique, 263, 264, 271, 283, 333, 466.See also Gesher Benot Ya ìaqov (GBY) Komunmoru, North Korea, 418 Konso-Gardula, Ethiopia, 103 Koobi Fora, Kenya, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 103, 122, 165 Koplay, Kazakhstan, 54

Index Korean Peninsula, 396, 418 Koro Toro, Chad, 16, 197 Kortallyar Basin, India, 3, 345, 362, 386, 387, 388, 390, 435 Kotzetang Cave. See Gezidong Cave Kovalli, India, 379 Krishna Basin, India, 361, 380, 393 Kromdraai, South Africa, 5, 19 Kudaro, Georgia, 239, 318, 320, 321, 334 Kukdi, India, 338 Kuldara, Tajikistan, 217, 326, 327, 328, 330 Kumpari, South Korea, 418 Kungwangling. See Gongwangling Kunlun Mountains, Tibetan Plateau, 51, 206, 435, 463 Kunlun Pass, Tibetan Plateau, 206, 485 Kuratau, Tajikistan, 328 Kuruksay, Tajikistan, 54, 131 Kuznetsk Basin, Siberia, 253 Kyrgyzstan, 329 Kyzyllkum Desert, 51, 219, 257 Laetoli, Tanzania, 13, 16 Lake Baikal, Siberia, 1, 7, 62, 65, 77, 206, 208, 211, 222, 253, 254, 255, 485 Lake Biwa, Japan, 208, 210, 222, 485 Lake Turkana, 113 Lakhmapur, India, xii, 342, 379, 380, 381, 383, 481 Lakhuti, Tajikistan, 220, 327, 328, 329 Lantian, China, 157, 176, 177, 182, 481 Latamne, Syria, 115, 135, 271, 275, 276, 279, 310, 392 Lazaret, France, 98 Lebanon, 259, 260, 274, 290, 292, 296, 301, 306, 309 Lehringen, Germany, 268 Leizhou Peninsula, China, 223, 226, 249, 424 Lemuria, 4 Levallois, 115, 122, 277, 278, 283, 285, 289, 298, 305, 310, 312, 324, 340, 344, 346, 347, 352, 357, 359, 360, 385, 435 Levallois-Mousterian, 278, 289, 290, 296, 301, 302, 304, 306, 307, 308 Levant, 68, 70, 82, 83, 90, 120, 236, 239, 259, 309, 321, 336, 337, 405, 418, 433 Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia, 6, 432 Linxia Basin, China, 42 Lion Spring, Azraq, Jordan, 323 Liuhuangshan Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 loess, 40, 43, 45, 52, 62, 72 Central Asia, 7, 52, 54, 77, 208, 221, 255, 275 China, other, 168, 176, 177, 210, 403, 406 Chinese Loess Plateau, 7, 51, 52, 57, 58, 59, 65, 77, 204, 206, 207, 208, 217, 227, 228 Pakistan, 220, 255 Ukraine, Russia, 220 “loess palaeolithic,” Tajikistan, 329, 332 Lokalalei, Kenya, 22, 22, 24 Longgupo, China, 113, 131, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 193, 243, 419, 481

Index Longgushan, China, 397. See Zhoukoudian (locality 1), China Luochuan, China, 204, 209, 212, 216, 228, 405 Ma U’Oi cave, Vietnam, 448, 481 Maba, China, 444, 447 Madrasian, 388 Mae Tha, Thailand, 427 Mahadeo Piparia, India, 337 Mailapur, India. See also Kortallyar Basin Majuangou, China, 6, 135, 182, 184.See also Nihewan Basin Makapansgat, South Africa, 16, 411 Makassar Straits, 432 Malaprabha River, India, 379, 380, 394 Malaysia, 36, 427 Maliang, China, 433 Maozhushan, China, 419 marine cores Indian Ocean, 65, 234, 255 other, 48, 60, 68, 238 Pacific Ocean, 62, 68 South China Sea, 64, 228 marine isotope stage (MIS) MIS 10, 223, 226, 232 MIS 11, 203, 212, 220, 222, 226, 379, 405, 465 MIS 11–15, 204, 222, 226, 254 MIS 12, 206, 222, 227, 228, 234, 253 MIS 1–2, 217 MIS 1–29, 226 MIS 13, 210, 212, 228 MIS 13–15, 210 MIS 14, 211, 222, 233 MIS 14–18, 206 MIS 15, 222, 226 MIS 16, 203, 228 MIS 1–6, 213 MIS 1–6, 229 MIS 1–6, 238 MIS 17, 227, 405 MIS 19, 260 MIS 22, 212, 227 MIS 23, 226 MIS 24, 226 MIS 34, 210 MIS 36, 67 MIS 5, 212, 228, 230, 249, 317, 424, 472 MIS 51, 64 MIS 5–6, 217 MIS 59/60, 64 MIS 5e, 203, 222, 226, 234, 235, 301, 330 MIS 6, 206, 214, 220, 222, 223, 227, 228, 229, 232, 234, 236, 249, 250, 254, 257, 304, 345, 418, 424, 465, 469, 477 MIS 7, 212, 228, 234, 249, 278, 295, 302, 304, 308, 318, 424 MIS 8, 223, 228, 232, 249, 278, 295, 304, 307, 424 MIS 9, 222, 234, 295, 304, 308, 424

545 Masharai’a 4, Jordan, 323 Masloukh, Lebanon, 290, 298 Mata Menge, Flores, Indonesia, 6, 429, 432, 436 Mauer, Germany, 5, 157, 455, 458 Meganthropus, 147, 152, 162, 163, See Pithecanthropus, H. erectus s.s. Mesopotamian Desert, 257 Micoquian, 292, 297 microfauna, 32, 56, 62, 86, 179, 260, 282, 285, 306, 318, 330, 412 Minarawala Kund, India, 359 Misliya, Israel, 306 Mode 1, 421, 434 Mode 2, 421, 434, 436 Mojokerto, Java, 4, 6, 90, 136, 145, 147, 149, 153, 154, 154, 155, 156, 162, 164, 166, 186, 192, 199, 490, 508, 519 Molyan, Afghanistan, 56 Mongolia, 36, 40, 44 monsoon, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 56, 57, 62, 66, 77, 376 Mousterian, 288, 290, 292, 298, 316, 317, 321 Movius Line, 398, 437, 464 Mu Us Desert, 210, 214, 227 Mudnur, India, 342, 363, 363, 364, 366, 368, 374. See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valley Mugharan, 286, 290, 298, 302 Myanmar, 36, 345, 427, 435 Naam´e, Lebanon, 301, 306 Naamean, 301 Nadaouiyeh, Syria, 323 Nahal Aqev, Israel, 306 Nahal Zihor, Israel, 69, 114, 115, 135, 481 Nanga Parbat, Pakistan, 208 Nariokotome, Kenya, 26 Narmada Valley, India, 240, 336, 337, 346, 353, 392, 450 Negev Desert, Israel, 69, 80, 82, 114, 257, 306, 307 Nepal, 57, 345 Nevasa River, India, 339, 347, 392 Nevasian, 347 Ngandong, Java, xxii, 4, 153, 157, 160, 252, 448, 450, 470 Ngawi, Java, 448 Ngebung, Java, 164, 428 Nihewan Basin, China, xiv, 6, 80, 128, 167, 169, 176, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 192, 194, 202, 206, 433, 474, 476, 499, 522, 528 Donggutuo, 169 Majuangou, 2, 176 Xiantai, 174 Xiaochangliang, 170, 175 North China, 42, 43, 44, 47, 52, 58, 65, 72, 77, 78, 166, 167, 177, 178, 181, 183, 207, 218, 219, 221, 222, 226, 227, 249, 253, 396, 399, 419, 435 North Korea, 418

546 Obigarm, Tajikistan, 54 Oldowan, 23, 24, 28, 122, 123, 323, 421, 434 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, 3, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 29, 31, 76, 103, 106, 122, 123, 136, 191, 263, 269, 395, 421 Olduvai Subchron, 84, 86, 95 Olorgesailie, Kenya, 28, 29, 263 Oman, 232, 234 Omma Formation, Japan, 64 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, 278, 279, 418 Ordos Desert, 257 Orontes Valley, Syria, 271, 275 Pabbi Hills, Pakistan, 130, 134, 142, 144, 240, 393, 481 Pachycrocuta, 170, 175, 178, 179 P. brevirostris, 238, 398 Pacitanian, 427 Paisra, India, 342, 359 Pajitan, Java, 164 Pakistan, 39, 54, 56, 57, 58, 64, 77, 95, 97, 112, 208, 240, 340, 343, 344, 375 Pal Barik, Iran, 322 palaeomagnetism, 54, 76, 84, 85, 86, 114, 116, 118, 168, 170, 176, 177, 179, 181, 204, 223, 252, 260, 419 palaeosols, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52, 56, 72, 208, 209, 210, 216, 217, 220, 236, 396 Pallavaram, India, 336, 344 Pamir Mountains, 39, 51, 52, 54, 66, 67, 325, 326 Panxian Dadong, China, 247, 248, 249, 255, 419, 422, 433, 444, 445, 481 Paranthropus, 5, 12, 17, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 30, 31, 163, 200 Paratethys Sea, 42, 46, 67 Parikulam, India, 385. See also Kortallyar Basin Paviland Cave, UK, 398 Pei Weizhong, 399 Petralona, Greece, 455, 458 Philippines, 65, 228, 253 Philippines Islands, 250 Piltdown, 5 Pinjor Stage, Upper Siwaliks, 130, 240 Pir Panjal Mountains, 207 Pithecanthropus P. alalus, 4 P. dubius, 147, 162, 163 P. erectus, 4, 14, 145, 147, 153, 159, 162, 164, 179 P. modjokertensis, 147, 162 P. robustus, 147, 162 Pithecanthropus erectus. See H. erectus s.s. pollen, 47, 62, 72, 97, 98, 99, 161, 210, 216, 220, 222, 223, 226, 227, 229, 236, 249, 250, 252, 274, 404 potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating, 84, 137, 418 pre-Aurignacian, 290, 293, 296, 297 pre-Oldowan, 23, 94, 125

Index Qafzeh Cave, Israel, 279, 302, 306, 453, 455, 460, 468 Qaidam Basin, China, 39, 210 Qara Su River, Iran, 83 Qesem Cave, Israel, 6, 279, 290, 296, 301, 306, 307, 308, 333, 335, 474, 477, 481 Qilian Shan, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Qinling Mountains, China, 47, 166, 177, 241, 243, 396, 419 Raisen, India, 340, 342, 358, 359 Ras el Kelb, Lebanon, 306 Red Sea, 122, 235 Remisowka, Kazakhstan, 217 Renzidong, China, 178 Revadim, Israel, 278, 279, 282, 306, 307 Riwat, Pakistan, 139, 184, 393, 481 Rohri Hills, Pakistan, 371, 481 Rosh ein Mor, Israel, 279, 305, 307 Rub al Khali Desert, 1, 235 Russia, 220, 318 Rust, Alfred, 290, 292 Sadab. See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys Sadab, India, 338, 368, 375 Sahara Desert, 43, 78, 235, 239, 463, 464, 465 Saharan-Arabian Desert, 100, 477 Sahul, 428 Sambungmachan, Java, 157, 428, 448, 450 Samnapur, India, 346, 391 Sangiran Dome, Java, 5, 161, 163, 164, 165 Satani Dar, Armenia, 319 Saudi Arabia, 74, 118, 123, 324 Saurashtra Valley, India, 351 “Savannahstan,” 77, 78, 253, 476 Sch¨oningen, Germany, 268, 335, 436, 477 Sea of Japan, 62, 64, 77, 255 Sel ì ungur Cave, Kyrgyzstan, 330, 331, 332, 334 Semliki River, Zaire, 22 Shijiawan, China, 211 Shuwayhittiyah, Saudi Arabia, 123 Siberia, iii, 1, 3, 7, 36, 40, 44, 59, 62, 77, 199, 203, 204, 208, 220, 221, 222, 253, 254, 255, 463 Sima de los Huesos (Atapuerca), Spain, 455 Sinai Desert, 198, 257, 301 Sinai Peninsula, 114, 122, 201, 306, 323, 324, 462 Sinanthropus pekinensis, 4, 14, 163, 398, 399, 411, 415 Singi Talav, India, 235, 340, 342, 351, 352, 353, 374, 408, 436, See also Thar Desert Sivapithecus, 56 Siwaliks, 3, 88, 129, 130, 131, 134, 139, 143, 179, 208, 254 Upper Siwaliks, 343 Skuhl Cave, Israel, 279, 306, 453, 455, 468, 469 Soa Basin, Flores, 429 Soan Flake Industry, 130. See Soanian

Index Soan Valley, Pakistan, 128, 134, 136, 340, 343, 344, 345 Soanian, 164, 337, 342, 344, 381 Sodmein Cave, Egypt, 235, 462 Son Valley, India, 349, 392 South Asia, 144, 208, 238, 239, 241, 395, 435, 436 South China, 178, 181, 224, 249, 396, 427 South China Sea, 36, 43, 44, 64, 208, 224, 228, 229, 250 South Korea, 418 Southeast Asia, 35, 36, 40, 166, 178, 225, 228, 249, 250, 252, 336, 343, 396, 419, 422, 432 Southwest Asia, 127, 236, 239, 325, 344, 399 speleothems, 234, 237, 248, 255, 279, 405, 406, 417, 424, 461, 462 Sri Lanka, 3, 435 Stable isotope studies, 54 Starosele Cave, Crimea, 447 Steinheim, Germany, 455 Sterkfontein, South Africa, 16 structures, 274, 419, 436 subsistence, 278, 297, 318, 330, 335 Dmanisi, 98 Gesher Benot Yaë aqov (GBY), 270 Hunsgi-Baichbal, 379 Jabrudian, 309 Panxian Dadong, 427 Ubeidiya, 113 Zhoukoudian (locality 1), 415 Sulawesi, Indonesia, 250, 252, 253, 432 Sulawusu, China, 448 Sumatra, Indonesia, 250 summer monsoon, 36, 37, 40, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 64, 65, 66, 77, 178, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 218, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 234, 235, 358, 361, 378, 379, 393 Sundaland, 145, 428 Swanscombe, UK, 455 Swartkrans, South Africa, 2, 5, 17, 19, 22, 25, 192 Syria, 83, 127, 259, 260, 271, 290, 292, 296, 298, 306, 310, 323 Syrian Desert, 257, 296 Tabaqat Formation, Jordan, 323 Tabun Cave, Israel, xi, 6, 239, 278, 279, 282, 285, 287, 288, 290, 296, 297, 300, 301, 306, 308, 322, 337, 417, 453, 455, 468, 469, 474, 509 Tajikistan, 51, 52, 217, 218, 219, 220, 222, 326, 330, 331, 332, 334, 411, 461, 474 Taklamakan Desert, China, 1, 39, 51, 207, 257, 463 Tampanian, 427 Tangshan, China, 6, 247, 248, 405, 442, 446, 481 Tan-Tan, Morocco, 284 Tarim Basin, China, 39, 42, 206 Taung, South Africa, 5, 13, 16 Tautavel (Arago), France, 98, 453, 455

547 Tayacian, 285, 288 Teggihalli, India, 375.See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valley tektites, 152, 421, 422 Tengger Desert, China, 257 Tepe Gakia, Iran, 322 Ternifine (Tighenif ), Algeria, 14, 263, 459 Terra Amata, France, 98 Terra and Paterson, 340, 343, 343, 344 Thailand, 179, 249, 422, 427 Tham Khuyen, Vietnam, 179, 181, 249, 433, 448 Thar Desert, 208, 230, 234, 235, 257, 345, 351, 353 thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (TIMS), 297, 405 thermoluminescence (TL) dating, 218, 236, 274, 275, 278, 279, 286, 288, 293, 295, 296, 302, 303, 307, 315, 316, 317, 320, 327, 338, 405, 406, 417, 418, 446 thorium-uranium (Th-U) dating, 234, 236, 301, 324, 337, 347, 374, 375, 378, 405 Thum Wiman Nakin, Thailand, 249 Tian Shan (=Mountains), China, 39, 42, 51, 54, 61, 66, 67, 206, 217, 218, 435 Tianyang Lake, China, 223, 226, 255 Tibetan Plateau, 1, 4, 7, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 57, 58, 61, 65, 70, 72, 77, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 218, 222, 223, 227 Timor, Indonesia, 250, 252 Toba volcanic eruption, 2, 345, 351 Toka, India, 344 Tongtian Cave, China, 444 Tongtianyan Cave, China, 446, 448 Tonzi, China, 447 Treugol ì naya Cave, Russia, 318, 320, 481 Trinil, Java, 4, 161, 162, 164, 251, 271 Turfan Depression, China, 1, 39, 257 Turkey, 57, 83, 115, 127, 236, 239, 309, 318, 321, 433 Tutak, Tajikistan, 54 ë Ubeidiya, Israel, 2, 6, 76, 80, 84, 95, 98, 102, 108, 110, 111, 113, 115, 118, 123, 125, 135, 182, 241, 260, 263, 264, 271, 321, 323, 334, 335, 375, 392, 477, 481 Umm Qatafa, Palestine, 239, 277, 278, 279, 285, 306 uranium-series dating, 302, 405, 417, 424 Verkhoyansk, Siberia, 1 Vertesz¨oll¨os, Hungary, 411 Vietnam, 179, 181, 249, 422, 427, 448 Vindhya Range, 353, 358 Wagan Valley, India, 351 Wallacea, 428 Wangkun Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Weidenreich, Franz, 399 winter monsoon, 36, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48, 50, 65, 77, 166, 208, 210, 211, 226, 227, 228, 230, 232, 233 Wushan, China.See Longgupo

548 Xiantai, China, 135, 182 Xiaochangliang, China, 6, 135, 181, 182, 433.See also Nihewan Basin Xifeng, China, 209, 212, 213 Xihoudu, China, 176, 177, 182 Xujiayao, China, 433 Yabrud Rock-shelter, Syria, 300 Yabrudian. 297 See Jabrudian, Yadwad, India, 379, 481 Yakou Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Yamuna Valley, India, 345 Yangtse River, China, 178, 210, 226, 227, 243, 248, 249, 396, 419, 536 Yarımburgaz Cave, Turkey, 6, 239, 310, 312, 312, 321, 334 Yediyapur, India, 340, 342, 363, 365, 366, 368, 370, 375, 376, 394. See also Hunsgi-Baichbal Valleys Yellow Sea, 225, 418 Yemen, 123, 324 Yiron, Israel, 118 Yuanmou, China, 113, 178, 181, 182, 183, 206, 243, 419, 481, 508, 513, 534

Index Yunxian, China, 247, 249, 419, 442, 446, 481 Yushe Basin, China, 167 Zagros Mountains, Iran, 35, 68, 82, 83, 122, 259, 322, 323, 325, 333, 334, 468, 471, 476, 493 Zhinglianggan Glaciation, Tibetan Plateau, 206 Zhoukoudian (localities 4 and 15), China, 418, 444 Zhoukoudian (locality 1), China, 4, 5, 6, 98, 177, 241, 244, 337, 402, 417, 418, 433, 436, 474, 481 artefacts, 411 cannibalism, 416 dating, 402, 405, 407, 443, 446 fauna, 242, 243 fire, 413, 477 history, 399 hominin remains, 439, 440, 470 stratigraphy, excavations, 404 subsistence, 413, 415 Zil ì fi, Tajikistan, 54 Zinjanthropus boisei, 19 Zoige Basin, Tibetan Plateau, 210, 485 Zuttiyeh Cave, Israel, 239, 279, 290, 295, 306, 307, 453, 460, 504, 530