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Michael D Petraglia - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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heading north late pleistocene environments and Human Dispersals in central and eastern asia
PLOS ONE, 2019Co-Authors: Nils Vanwezer, Michael D Petraglia, Nicole Boivin, Xing Gao, Florian Ott, Patrick RobertsAbstract:The adaptability of our species, as revealed by the geographic routes and palaeoenvironmental contexts of Human Dispersal beyond Africa, is a prominent topic in archaeology and palaeoanthropology. Northern and Central Asia have largely been neglected as it has been assumed that the deserts and mountain ranges of these regions acted as 'barriers', forcing Human populations to arc north into temperate and arctic Siberia. Here, we test this proposition by constructing Least Cost Path models of Human Dispersal under glacial and interstadial conditions between prominent archaeological sites in Central and East Asia. Incorporating information from palaeoclimatic, palaeolake, and archaeological data, we demonstrate that regions such as the Gobi Desert and the Altai Mountain chains could have periodically acted as corridors and routes for Human Dispersals and framing biological interactions between hominin populations. Review of the archaeological datasets in these regions indicates the necessity of wide-scale archaeological survey and excavations in many poorly documented parts of Eurasia. We argue that such work is likely to highlight the 'northern routes' of Human Dispersal as variable, yet crucial, foci for understanding the extreme adaptive plasticity characteristic of the emergence of Homo sapiens as a global species, as well as the cultural and biological hybridization of the diverse hominin species present in Asia during the Late Pleistocene.
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environments and cultural change in the indian subcontinent implications for the Dispersal of homo sapiens in the late pleistocene
Current Anthropology, 2017Co-Authors: James Blinkhorn, Michael D PetragliaAbstract:The Indian subcontinent lies on a key east-west corridor for hominin expansions across Asia, which has led to it playing a prominent role in debate surrounding the Dispersal of modern Humans. The current geography and ecology of the region consists of a diverse array of habitats. An examination of changes in monsoonal intensity indicates that geographic reconfiguration of ecological diversity occurred, but at a regional level, South Asia is shown to provide suitable environments for hominin occupations throughout the Late Pleistocene. Unfortunately, the fossil record of South Asia remains poor, preventing decisive resolution of modern Human Dispersal debates. However, in the past decade new interdisciplinary approaches to the archaeological record have overhauled the framework for understanding behavioral change during the Late Pleistocene. While the nature of the Late Acheulean to Middle Paleolithic transition remains to be resolved, it is now clear that it appears significantly later than in other Old W...
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Human Dispersal and species movement from prehistory to the present
2017Co-Authors: Nicole Boivin, Remy Crassard, Michael D PetragliaAbstract:How have Humans colonised the entire planet and reshaped its ecosystems in the process? This unique and groundbreaking collection of essays explores Human movement through time, the impacts of these movements on landscapes and other species, and the ways in which species have co-evolved and transformed each other as a result. Exploring the spread of people, plants, animals, and diseases through processes of migration, colonisation, trade, and travel, it assembles a broad array of case studies from the Pliocene to the present. The contributors from disciplines across the Humanities and natural sciences are senior or established scholars in the fields of Human evolution, archaeology, history, and geography.
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alluvial fan records from southeast arabia reveal multiple windows for Human Dispersal
Geology, 2015Co-Authors: Ash Parton, Michael D Petraglia, A R Farrant, Melanie J Leng, M W Telfer, Huw S Groucutt, Adrian G ParkerAbstract:The Dispersal of Human populations out of Africa into Arabia was most likely linked to episodes of climatic amelioration, when increased monsoon rainfall led to the activation of drainage systems, improved freshwater availability, and the development of regional vegetation. Here we present the first dated terrestrial record from southeast Arabia that provides evidence for increased rainfall and the expansion of vegetation during both glacial and interglacial periods. Findings from extensive alluvial fan deposits indicate that drainage system activation occurred during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (ca. 160–150 ka), MIS 5 (ca. 130–75 ka), and during early MIS 3 (ca. 55 ka). The development of active freshwater systems during these periods corresponds with monsoon intensity increases during insolation maxima, suggesting that humid periods in Arabia were not confined to eccentricity-paced deglaciations, and providing paleoenvironmental support for multiple windows of opportunity for Dispersal out of Africa during the late Pleistocene.
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Human Dispersal across diverse environments of asia during the upper pleistocene
Quaternary International, 2013Co-Authors: Nicole Boivin, Robin Dennell, Dorian Q Fuller, Robin G Allaby, Michael D PetragliaAbstract:The initial out of Africa Dispersal of Homo sapiens, which saw anatomically modern Humans reach the Levant in Marine Isotope Stage 5, is generally regarded as a ‘failed Dispersal’. Fossil, archaeological and genetic findings are seen to converge around a consensus view that a single population of H. sapiens exited Africa sometime around 60 thousand years ago (ka), and rapidly reached Australia by following a coastal Dispersal corridor. We challenge the notion that current evidence supports this straightforward model. We argue that the fossil and archaeological records are too incomplete, the coastal route too problematic, and recent genomic evidence too incompatible for researchers not to remain fully open to other hypotheses. We specifically explore the possibility of a sustained exit by anatomically modern Humans, drawing in particular upon palaeoenvironmental data across southern Asia to demonstrate its feasibility. Current archaeological, genetic and fossil data are not incompatible with the model presented, and appear to increasingly favour a more complex out of Africa scenario involving multiple exits, varying terrestrial routes, a sub-divided African source population, slower progress to Australia, and a degree of interbreeding with archaic varieties of Homo.
Finn Viehberg - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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hydroclimate changes in eastern africa over the past 200 000 years may have influenced early Human Dispersal
Communications Earth & Environment, 2021Co-Authors: Frank Schaebitz, Asfawossen Asrat, Henry F Lamb, Andrew S Cohen, Verena Foerster, Walter Duesing, Stefanie Kabothbahr, Stephan Opitz, Finn ViehbergAbstract:Reconstructions of climatic and environmental conditions can contribute to current debates about the factors that influenced early Human Dispersal within and beyond Africa. Here we analyse a 200,000-year multi-proxy paleoclimate record from Chew Bahir, a tectonic lake basin in the southern Ethiopian rift. Our record reveals two modes of climate change, both associated temporally and regionally with a specific type of Human behavior. The first is a long-term trend towards greater aridity between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago, modulated by precession-driven wet-dry cycles. Here, more favorable wetter environmental conditions may have facilitated long-range Human expansion into new territory, while less favorable dry periods may have led to spatial constriction and isolation of local Human populations. The second mode of climate change observed since 60,000 years ago mimics millennial to centennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. We hypothesize that Human populations may have responded to these shorter climate fluctuations with local Dispersal between montane and lowland habitats. A drying trend in East Africa between 200,000 and 60,000 year ago was followed by cycles of high millennial to centennial climate variability, and may have influenced the Dispersal of Human populations, suggests a multi-proxy palaeoclimate record from Chew Bahir, Ethiopia.
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environmental change during mis4 and mis 3 opened corridors in the horn of africa for homo sapiens expansion
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2018Co-Authors: Finn Viehberg, Nicole Klasen, Janna Just, Jonathan R Dean, Bernd Wagner, Svenoliver Franz, Thomas Kleinen, Patrick LudwigAbstract:Abstract Archaeological findings, numerical Human Dispersal models and genome analyses suggest several time windows in the past 200 kyr (thousands of years ago) when anatomically modern Humans (AMH) dispersed out of Africa into the Levant and/or Arabia. From close to the key hominin site of Omo-Kibish, we provide near continuous proxy evidence for environmental changes in lake sediment cores from the Chew Bahir basin, south Ethiopia. The data show highly variable hydroclimate conditions from 116 to 66 kyr BP with rapid shifts from very wet to extreme aridity. The wet phases coincide with the timing of the North African Humid Periods during MIS5, as defined by Nile discharge records from the eastern Mediterranean. The subsequent record at Chew Bahir suggests stable regional hydrological setting between 58 and 32 kyr (MIS4 and 3), which facilitated the development of more habitable ecosystems, albeit in generally dry climatic conditions. This shift, from more to less variable hydroclimate, may help account for the timing of later Dispersal events of AMH out of Africa.
Nancy H. Bigelow - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Late-Glacial Paleoecology of the Middle Susitna Valley, Alaska: Environmental Context for Human Dispersal
Frontiers Media S.A., 2019Co-Authors: Nancy H. Bigelow, Joshua D Reuther, Kristi L. Wallace, Émilie Saulnier-talbot, Katherine Mulliken, Matthew J. WoollerAbstract:We present here the results of multi-proxy analyses (sediment geochemistry, diatoms, and pollen) from sediment cores collected at four lakes in the middle Susitna Valley, Alaska. These lakes form a transect from the tundra to the boreal forest. The retrieved cores span from ∼12,000 cal yr BP to the present, with age control provided by radiometric dates and tephra deposits, some of which are newly identified. Results indicate that deglaciation occurred before 12,000 cal yr BP and that by that time, the lakes were deep, productive, and surrounded by shrub tundra. The lake with the highest sampling resolution indicates a brief climatic reversal ∼11,500 cal yr BP with decreased diatom-inferred lake level and lowered lake productivity, and reduced shrub presence. During the early to middle Holocene, all of the sedimentary records provide evidence of climatic amelioration with tree expansion and productive lakes. A middle to late Holocene climatic deterioration with reduced trees and a shallower, less productive lake is also indicated. In addition, the prominent Watana tephra at ∼4,000 cal yr BP likely reduced lake productivity and affected the vegetation. Even though the region was relatively productive soon after deglaciation, people did not occupy the region until ∼11,000 cal yr BP, about 1000 years later, and then only sparsely. By the middle and late Holocene, the region was more densely populated and this shift in Human occupancy presumably reflects changes in resource abundance, especially caribou. Whether the Watana ashfall influenced caribou abundance and thus people, is still under investigation, but given the tephra’s effect on vegetation and lake productivity, it seems likely
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a new terrestrial palaeoenvironmental record from the bering land bridge and context for Human Dispersal
Royal Society Open Science, 2018Co-Authors: Matthew J. Wooller, Nancy H. Bigelow, Emilie Saulniertalbot, Ben A Potter, Soumaya Belmecheri, Kyungcheol Choy, Les C Cwynar, Kimberley Davies, Russell W GrahamAbstract:Palaeoenvironmental records from the now-submerged Bering Land Bridge (BLB) covering the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the present are needed to document changing environments and connections with ...
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Beringia and the global Dispersal of modern Humans.
Evolutionary anthropology, 2016Co-Authors: John F. Hoffecker, Scott A. Elias, Dennis H. O'rourke, G. Richard Scott, Nancy H. BigelowAbstract:Until recently, the settlement of the Americas seemed largely divorced from the out-of-Africa Dispersal of anatomically modern Humans, which began at least 50,000 years ago. Native Americans were thought to represent a small subset of the Eurasian population that migrated to the Western Hemisphere less than 15,000 years ago. Archeological discoveries since 2000 reveal, however, that Homo sapiens occupied the high-latitude region between Northeast Asia and northwest North America (that is, Beringia) before 30,000 years ago and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The settlement of Beringia now appears to have been part of modern Human Dispersal in northern Eurasia. A 2007 model, the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, which is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in living people, derives Native Americans from a population that occupied Beringia during the LGM. The model suggests a parallel between ancestral Native Americans and modern Human populations that retreated to refugia in other parts of the world during the arid LGM. It is supported by evidence of comparatively mild climates and rich biota in south-central Beringia at this time (30,000-15,000 years ago). These and other developments suggest that the settlement of the Americas may be integrated with the global Dispersal of modern Humans.
Tobias Friedrich - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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late pleistocene climate drivers of early Human migration
Nature, 2016Co-Authors: Axel Timmermann, Tobias FriedrichAbstract:The Dispersal of Homo sapiens across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant during the last glacial period was not a single event, but occurred in four astronomically-paced migration waves. Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, but the timing of our ancestors' Dispersal to the rest of the world has been a source of controversy. Here Axel Timmermann and Tobias Friedrich model the Dispersal in the context of the pronounced changes in climate and sea-level during the past 125,000 years. Their results suggest that Dispersal across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant was not a single event, but was concentrated in four distinct waves between 106,000 and 29,000 years ago. The findings agree with archaeological data and show that orbital-scale global climate swings played a key role in population movements, whereas millennial-scale abrupt climate changes had more limited, regional effects. On the basis of fossil and archaeological data it has been hypothesized that the exodus of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Eurasia between ~50–120 thousand years ago occurred in several orbitally paced migration episodes1,2,3,4. Crossing vegetated pluvial corridors from northeastern Africa into the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant and expanding further into Eurasia, Australia and the Americas, early H. sapiens experienced massive time-varying climate and sea level conditions on a variety of timescales. Hitherto it has remained difficult to quantify the effect of glacial- and millennial-scale climate variability on early Human Dispersal and evolution. Here we present results from a numerical Human Dispersal model, which is forced by spatiotemporal estimates of climate and sea level changes over the past 125 thousand years. The model simulates the overall Dispersal of H. sapiens in close agreement with archaeological and fossil data and features prominent glacial migration waves across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant region around 106–94, 89–73, 59–47 and 45–29 thousand years ago. The findings document that orbital-scale global climate swings played a key role in shaping Late Pleistocene global population distributions, whereas millennial-scale abrupt climate changes, associated with Dansgaard–Oeschger events, had a more limited regional effect.
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late pleistocene climate drivers of early Human migration
Nature, 2016Co-Authors: Axel Timmermann, Tobias FriedrichAbstract:On the basis of fossil and archaeological data it has been hypothesized that the exodus of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Eurasia between ~50-120 thousand years ago occurred in several orbitally paced migration episodes. Crossing vegetated pluvial corridors from northeastern Africa into the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant and expanding further into Eurasia, Australia and the Americas, early H. sapiens experienced massive time-varying climate and sea level conditions on a variety of timescales. Hitherto it has remained difficult to quantify the effect of glacial- and millennial-scale climate variability on early Human Dispersal and evolution. Here we present results from a numerical Human Dispersal model, which is forced by spatiotemporal estimates of climate and sea level changes over the past 125 thousand years. The model simulates the overall Dispersal of H. sapiens in close agreement with archaeological and fossil data and features prominent glacial migration waves across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant region around 106-94, 89-73, 59-47 and 45-29 thousand years ago. The findings document that orbital-scale global climate swings played a key role in shaping Late Pleistocene global population distributions, whereas millennial-scale abrupt climate changes, associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events, had a more limited regional effect.
Ciprian F Ardelean - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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evidence of Human occupation in mexico around the last glacial maximum
Nature, 2020Co-Authors: Ciprian F Ardelean, Lorena Becerravaldivia, Mikkel Winther Pedersen, Jeanluc Schwenninger, Charles G Oviatt, Juan Ignacio Maciasquintero, Joaquin Arroyocabrales, Martin SikoraAbstract:The initial colonization of the Americas remains a highly debated topic1, and the exact timing of the first arrivals is unknown. The earliest archaeological record of Mexico—which holds a key geographical position in the Americas—is poorly known and understudied. Historically, the region has remained on the periphery of research focused on the first American populations2. However, recent investigations provide reliable evidence of a Human presence in the northwest region of Mexico3,4, the Chiapas Highlands5, Central Mexico6 and the Caribbean coast7–9 during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. Here we present results of recent excavations at Chiquihuite Cave—a high-altitude site in central-northern Mexico—that corroborate previous findings in the Americas10–17of cultural evidence that dates to the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500–19,000 years ago)18, and which push back dates for Human Dispersal to the region possibly as early as 33,000–31,000 years ago. The site yielded about 1,900 stone artefacts within a 3-m-deep stratified sequence, revealing a previously unknown lithic industry that underwent only minor changes over millennia. More than 50 radiocarbon and luminescence dates provide chronological control, and genetic, palaeoenvironmental and chemical data document the changing environments in which the occupants lived. Our results provide new evidence for the antiquity of Humans in the Americas, illustrate the cultural diversity of the earliest Dispersal groups (which predate those of the Clovis culture) and open new directions of research. Chiquihuite Cave (Zacatecas, Mexico) provides evidence of Human presence in the Americas between about 33,000–31,000 and 14,000–12,000 years ago, and expands the cultural variability known from sites of this date.