The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia

by Robin Dennell

Overview

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 is no longer considered of marginal importance. Indeed, a global understanding of human origins cannot be properly understood 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 discussions of human evolution in the past two million years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521848664
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2008
Series:	Cambridge World Archaeology
Pages:	572
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Robin Dennell is Professor of Human Origins at the University of Sheffield. A 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.

Table of Contents

1. Asia and its place in palaeoanthropology; 2. The African background to the colonisation of Asia; 3. The climatic background to hominin settlement in Asia before a million years ago; 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 of Southwest and Central Asia; 9. The Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of the Indian sub-continent; 10. The archaeological record of China and Southeast Asia ca. 800–125 ka; 11. Human evolution in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene.

Editorial Reviews

"The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia is a monumental contribution towards a continent-wide understanding of early Asian prehistory. ...the book is written clearly and should be comprehensible to audiences with limited paleoanthropological knowledge. It could be suitable for an advanced undergraduate level course or simply as a desktop reference for any professional human origins researcher. ...Dennell’s unconventional ideas about human prehistory provide this book with a valuable perspective on human origins." —PaleoAnthropology

From the Publisher