Archaic humans in Southeast Asia

See Peopling of Southeast Asia for anatomically modern humans.

The region of

Most scholars who work in Southeast Asia attempt to establish the possible route through which early humans would migrate passing through the region after they migrated out of Africa. The evidence also indicates the migration route and settlement location along the routes that might have taken place during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. There are three possible routes suggested by scholars;

1. From the northwest of
   Chao Phraya river basin and the Gulf of Thailand in which this route is supported by the faunal remains found in north Asia and Indonesia. Topographically advantages like the mountainous western flank of the Chao Phraya Basin, are likely to benefit the hominin habitats. Those advantages are “environmental mosaics with varied food resources and abundant water supplies, combined with physical features offering protection from the weather and providing tactical advantages in the pursuit of prey”^[8]
2. From Northeastern
   anatomically modern human fossils found in mainland and island East and Southeast Asia. Although this model excluded the recent findings of the H. sapiens tooth found in Thailand and Vietnam and the remains in Laos
   , this new evidence seems to support this route.
3. From the coast of South Asia and the west part of mainland Southeast Asia, they went down to the Gulf of Thailand, in which this route is supported by the coastline that many scholars believe that this route is a possible route for the migration from Africa.[9] This route seems to depict the major movement from Africa into this region. However, many possible sites along the coastline are difficult to locate due to the shift of the shoreline, even though the environmental setting is suitable for human habitation.^[9]

Theories of archaic human migration to Southeast Asia

There are many different theories of how Southeast Asians of today came to be. However, the two most prominent and widely accepted theories by scientists are the "Out of Africa" Model and the theory that they are direct descendants of the first Homo erectus species.

Regarding the "Out of Africa" theory, archaic humans must have had to migrate through modern day Egypt into the Middle East and from there travel through Central Asia into China to get to Southeast Asia. This migration of archaic humans must have had to take place around 50,000-70,000 years ago. Some evidence of archaic humans settling and migrating throughout Asia from Africa can be proven with the skulls found in the Upper Cave in Zhoukoudian, China. Since the Zhoukoudian skull is a Homo erectus (Homo ergaster), scientists generally agree that it had ultimately originated from Africa, since Homo erectus originated from there.

Furthermore, many scientists believe modern Southeast Asian humans descend from Homo erectus which migrated out of Africa around 1.8 million years ago which is supported by the Dali Man found by Liu Shuntang in 1978 in Dali County, Shaanxi Province, China.^[10] Although the dating of the fossil yields unclear answers as to the age of the fossil, scientists estimate it to be around 20,000-260,000 years old from uranium-series dating.   

First archaic humans in Australia

It is a well-known fact that there have been aboriginal people residing in the Australian bush for thousands of years. Where they came from and when they came to the island continent, however, is less known. In 1968, Australian geologist Jim Bowler went to the dry lake-bed of Lake Mungo and discovered the remains of Mungo Lady.^[11] After studies were done on the remains of Mungo Lady, scientists have come to the conclusion that Mungo Lady is around 40,000-42,000 years old and is one of the most anatomically modern human fossils in the world. A reason for Mungo Lady's importance to the field of anthropology is because she is one of the oldest examples of cremation by humans in the world, thus signifying the inception of the earliest forms of human tradition and cultural beliefs.

For Mungo Lady's ancestors to get to the continent of Australia however, would have been very difficult. Around 50,000-70,000 years ago, in line with the "Out of Africa" theory, archaic humans must have had to migrate through the Northern Indonesian Islands, into New Guinea and then into Australia.^[12] Although this may not be possible with current day geography and sea levels, 50,000-70,000 years ago, the Earth was different. Sea levels at this time were around 25-50 meters lower than modern day sea levels exposing more land and making it possible for a migration.     

Archaeological discoveries in Southeast Asia

It was not until the late 1800s that Dubois found the skull of Homo erectus in Java, Indonesia, and had plugged the Southeast Asian region into the spotlight.

In 2003 since the archaeologists found another archaic human species on the island of Flores, Indonesia, this discovery has introduced many new theoretical approaches to human evolution in the region and on the global scales.^[13]

Southeast Asia is separated into two main subregions following the previous

Homo erectus in Southeast Asia

Since the discovery of archaic human fossils by Dubois and van Koenigswald during the late 1800s and early 1900s which identified as Homo erectus, there is a small number of later evidence of Homo erectus that found as old as those fossils. Nevertheless, in local scale, one human fossil was found in the region of northern Thailand in 1999 by one villager in which some archaeologists suggest that it might be a fragmental piece of the skull of Homo erectus (c. 500 Ka)^[7] the four pieces of the fragmented skull are believed to be the right "frontal region of a calvaria with a very thick tabula externa, a thick dipole and very thin tabula interna" (Marwick 2009:54). However, this evidence is still debated by scholars and no research has been conducted regarding the age of the piece and the fauna that comes with it.

In Java

At

The tools that were found within the Java sites are quite different from the Acheulean type that are found in Africa and Europe in which this type of stone tools implicates the H. erectus or Homo ergaster culture. Thus, the tools that are found in Java might suggest a different set of the culture of H. erectus between African and Asian regions.^[6] Swisher et al. (1994) also suggest that these tools developed separately from the Acheulean types and might indicate that H. erectus might migrate out of Africa even before the Acheulean type of tools were developed.^[6] However, the stone tools found in the Java region are difficult for establishing the age that can link to the H. erectus fossils.^[17] The research and analyses (tools, deposits, and faunal analyses) above thus suggests that the Javanese fossils are to be placed in the Middle Pleistocene or approximately 1.66 – 0.7 Ma.^[14]

Persistence hunting

The technique of persistence hunting has been suggested as an important hunting tactic of Homo erectus. Since most animals were faster than Homo erectus, they would have had to use other skillsets that countered the speed of these animals. One such option is to ambush or surround or entrap animals, or to herd them into traps or over cliffs. Another is to use the superior persistence and stamina of humans to exhaust prey in some extended chase, until their prey was immobilised by exhaustion, where it could then be easily killed with hunting weapons.^[23]

However, long chases would have led to dehydration because of constant movement in hot weather causing persistence hunters to lose a maximum of 10% of their body mass in water weight.^[24]  Studies by scientists show that Homo erectus could persistence hunt for a maximum of 5 hours before they would become too dehydrated.^[24]

Homo floresiensis

In 2003 another human species was found at

• Peopling of Southeast Asia
• Prehistoric Asia
• Prehistoric Southeast Asia
• Recent African origin of modern humans
• Homo luzonensis – Archaic human from Luzon, Philippines
• Denisovan – Asian archaic human

References