The archeological background

Asian evidence

The archeological evidence in Asia is open to even more diverse interpretation than in Europe, partly because the data are fewer and partly because some apparent paradoxes exist. Great differences are also noted between western Asia and eastern Asia, where the evidence is sparsest of all. Western Asia, which includes the Middle East, is closely allied to Africa geographically and provides a natural migration

route out of Africa. Between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago, this region was variously occupied by Neanderthal and early modern humans, while the Far East was inhabited by populations that were neither Neanderthal nor modern.

The archeological transition from archaic to modern in the Middle East is typologically very similar to the Mousterian to Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe, and apparently occurs about the same time (40,000 years ago). If the transition tracks the migration of modern humans out of Africa, through the Middle East, and finally into western Europe, then the evidence for it in the Middle East might be expected to predate the evidence gleaned further west. Tentative confirmation of this movement might come from the site of Boker Tachtit in Israel, which dates to between 47,000 and 38,000 years ago. Evidence of Upper Paleolithic human remains in the Middle East is scarce, but is essentially that of modern

humans.

Where western Asia differs from Europe is in the occurrence of anatomically modern humans with classic Mousterian assemblages, at the Israeli sites of Skhu¯ l and Qafzeh (see unit 28), which have been dated to approximately 100,000 years. These fossil remains are either equal in age to or predate Neanderthals of the region, and thus would seem to preclude an evolutionary transformation of Neanderthals into modern humans. Nevertheless, the occurrence of modern human anatomy with Mousterian assemblages some 60,000 years before Upper Paleolithic assemblages appear in the region represents a puzzle. It implies either that modern human anatomy evolved long before modern behavior or that the modernity of the Skhu¯ l and Qafzeh remains has been overstated. Recent analyses have implied that the two populations used different hunting strategies, with modern humans being more efficient.

Klein points out that the Skhu¯ l/Qafzeh specimens are extremely variable anatomically and that they possess some archaic features, such as prominent brow ridges and large teeth. “Both cranially and postcranially, they clearly make far better ancestors for later modern humans than the Neanderthals do,” he says. “However, it seems reasonable to suppose that they were not yet fully modern biologically perhaps, above all, neurologically.” Clark and Lindly’s reading of the evidence differs from Klein’s interpretation, with the duo arguing for continuity between the archaic and the modern species, in both the fossils and the archeology.

The interpretation of eastern Asian evidence poses a challenge because of the scarcity of sites and uncertain dating. There does appear to be a continuity of chopping-tool assemblages from Homo erectus times through approximately 10,000

years ago, with no dramatic shift equivalent to that seen in the European Upper Paleolithic. One site in Sri Lanka, Batadomba Iena cave, contains a microlithic tool assemblage that has been radiocarbon dated at 28,500 years old. In addition, sites in Siberia, dated between 35,000 and 20,000 years old, contain Upper Paleolithic-like artifacts and art objects, suggesting a more European-like pattern. The migration from Southeast Asia to Australia between 60,000 and 45,000 years ago implies the evolution of modern human behavior by at least this date (see unit 34).

The Asian evidence is therefore equivocal at best, but offers little to suggest the appearance of modern human behavior early in the record.