Robin Dennell & Martin Porr (ed.). South Asia, Australia and the search for human origins.

Bellwood, Peter

Robin Dennell & Martin Porr (ed.). South Asia, Australia and the search for human origins. xvi+331 pages, 50 b&w illustrations, 27 tables, 2014. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 978-1-10701785-6 hardback 65 [pounds sterling] & $99.

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The origin of Homo sapiens, as a sentient, behaviourally modern, large-brained and nowadays frighteningly ubiquitous member of the hominin tribe, is currently attracting a lot of attention. I addressed the issue recently from a migration perspective (Bellwood 2013), and, for what it is worth, I also organised the conference (Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, Hanoi, 2009) where the 20 chapters in this book were first presented. The authors discuss the crucial issues of when, how and with what cultural baggage our ancestors spread out of Africa, focusing, as the title suggests, on South and Southeast Asia, and Australasia.

Edited books on diverse themes are always hard to review simply because of their diversity--there is no specific bone (metaphorical, of course) that all authors must pick. There are, however, new data and new perspectives, many of which are worthy of review. The first squib is thrown in the two early chapters by Robin Dennell, in which he states (especially pp. 19-20) that there are no certain associations between Homo erectus and stone tools in Southeast Asia (hence we can forget the Movius Line), that H. erectus died out during the Middle Pleistocene, and that H. sapiens colonised a hominin-deserted Southeast Asian forested landscape as a stone tool user around 50 kya. This, at least, is how I understand his major discussion on p. 19. Is he right? What about Flores, where stone tools apparently sealed under volcanic ash are claimed from before 1 mya? And what could have driven H. erectus to extinction in this part of the world, given that other hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans have left within many of us genetic evidence that they did not just disappear? I accept that the Solo Valley hominins (Ngandong, Sambungmacan, Ngawi) might be older than many have until recently claimed (i.e. Middle, not Late, Pleistocene), but I see no good reason why they should not have overlapped in time with the MIS 5 Punung rainforest fauna in Java, which contains the first evidence for the presence of H. sapiens. Debate will no doubt continue.

The following chapter, by Groucutt & Petraglia, fans the flames in another direction, this time by suggesting that the movement of H. sapiens out of Africa occurred as early as 127 kya (hooray for Skhul and Qafzeh, and goodbye, perhaps, to molecular mtDNA clocks, but see Oppenheimer later in the book). This well-published argument is based on last interglacial lithic similarities claimed between Arabia and East Africa, and it is carried further in the next chapter by Blinkhorn & Petraglia for South Asia. All of this places the initial spread of modern humans out of Africa long before the emergence of the classic Upper Palaeolithic, and Clarkson in the next chapter traces the roots of this first expansion back into the non-microlithic African Middle Stone Age, with a fall-off in technological complexity with distance out of Africa (i.e. towards Southeast Asia).

From Chapter 8 onwards, the book focuses on Southeast Asia and Australasia. Hunt & Barker describe the Niah Cave stratigraphy associated with the 'Deep Skull', dated by U/Th to c. 35 kya. The late Mike Morwood provides an excellent description of the Flores faunal sequence and supports an arrival of Homo floresiensis and stegodons there from Sulawesi (rather than Sundaland), through a chain of exposed glacial maximum stepping stones between the two islands. Piper & Rabett discuss a series of Late Pleistocene cave faunas from central Java, Niah, Palawan and Mainland Southeast Asia, pointing to the great variety of exploitative strategies represented. Pawlik et al. provide more detailed coverage for the Philippines, noting the species-rich composition of the Cagayan Valley Middle Pleistocene fauna. Was there a Middle Pleistocene almost-land bridge from Sundaland into the oceanic Philippines (beyond Palawan) and, if so, did humans cross it too? 1 am willing to guess so, and the Callao Cave findings also described here--with enigmatic small hominin remains dated to 67 kya, and deer and pig bones cut by humans--certainly raise the level of likelihood.

Chapters with a focus on Pleistocene Indonesia and Australia follow. Balme & O'Connor review a large number of early sites, making the point that edge-ground axes are only found in northern Australia during the Late Pleistocene, and not in the islands to the north (contra the suggestion by Clarkson for a presence in New Guinea). They are, of course, found in much greater numbers in Japan after 40 kya, a point that no one in the book comments on. The authors also make the unusual suggestion that all the Sangihe and Talaud Islands were joined as dry land during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), but I have my bathymetric doubts. Cosgrove et al. describe grassland wallaby and wombat hunters in the extremely cold LGM climate of central Tasmania, avoiding wind chill by living in caves and perhaps making animal-skin clothing with their thumbnail scrapers and bone points. Parallels with Neanderthals in Europe are drawn, despite the species difference.

Interestingly, the next chapter by Gilligan suggests that the Tasmanian LGM skin garments were actually sewn, at least until the caves themselves were abandoned with the return of forested conditions in the Holocene. The ultimate significance of all this wind-chill avoidance extends far beyond Tasmania, and helps to explain the modern human interest in blades, microliths, backed tools and eyed needles, in various manifestations from Howieson's Poort through the 'Upper Palaeolithic', as adaptations to cold climates. In the warmer conditions of Southeast Asia and mainland Australia, such adaptations were not necessary. Hence the absence here of an Upper Palaeolithic? I certainly think so.

There follows an excellent summary of the Palaeolithic record for New Guinea and the Bismarcks by Summerhayes & Ford, and a discussion of haploid genetics and molecular clocks by Oppenheimer, who favours an out-of-Africa event around 80 kya (contra the Arabia and South Asia chapters above). Finally, we face the question, discussed previously by many authors in the book, of why Australian and Southeast Asian Palaeolithic stone tool industries appear to be so unmodern. For Langley, the answer is related to taphonomy, while Porr points to a very real "ascertainment bias" (p. 236) in the dominant focus on the western Old World.

This is a long book with an immense range of data and opinions. There are many spurts of insight, peppered with a mixture of data that are often new and exciting, sometimes old and well worn. It will be a lasting contribution.

doi: 10.15184/aqy.2014.15

Reference

BELLWOOD, P. 2013. First migrants: ancient migration in global perspective. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

PETER BELLWOOD School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Australia (Email: [email protected])