Archaic humans in Southeast Asia
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Peopling of Southeast Asia :''See Archaic humans in Southeast Asia for the earlier presence of archaic humans.'' Southeast Asia was first reached by anatomically modern humans in two distinct waves before 50,000 years ago, possibly firstly before 70,000 years ago. The oldes ...
for anatomically modern humans.'' The region of
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
is considered a possible place for the evidence of archaic human remains that could be found due to the pathway between
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and mainland
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, where the migration of multiple early humans has occurred out of Africa. One of many pieces of evidence is of the early human found in central
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
of
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
in the late 1800s by
Eugene Dubois Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...
, and later in 1937 at Sangiran site by G.H.R. van Koenigswald. These skull and fossil materials are ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'', named ''
Pithecanthropus erectus Java Man (''Homo erectus erectus'', formerly also ''Anthropopithecus erectus'', ''Pithecanthropus erectus'') is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now part of Indonesia). Estimated to be ...
'' by Dubois and '' Meganthropus palaeojavanicus'' by van Koenigswald. They were dated to c. 1.88 and 1.66 Ma, as suggested by Swisher ''et al''. by analysis of volcanic rocks.


Three possible migration routes through Southeast Asia

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 The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...
and Early Holocene. There are three possible routes suggested by scholars; #From the northwest of Thailand they went down to
Chao Phraya river The Chao Phraya ( or ; th, แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา, , or ) is the major river in Thailand, with its low alluvial plain forming the centre of the country. It flows through Bangkok and then into the Gulf of Thailand. Et ...
basin and the
Gulf of Thailand The Gulf of Thailand, also known as the Gulf of Siam, is a shallow inlet in the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. It is around in l ...
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” #From Northeastern Vietnam they went down to the Indochinese region. This route is supported by 86 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 Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
, this new evidence seems to support this route. # 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. 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.


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. 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. 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. 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 ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'' 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 Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
, Indonesia, this discovery has introduced many new theoretical approaches to human evolution in the region and on the global scales. Southeast Asia is separated into two main subregions following the previous
Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
biogeographical region; mainland Southeast Asia and island Southeast Asia. The region of mainland and island Southeast Asia has been separated into four sub-regions: The Indochinese, Sundaic, Indian, and Wallacean provinces. The Indochinese province includes northern Thailand, southern
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
, Laos, and Cambodia. The
Sundaic Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...
province includes southern Thailand, Malaysia,
Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
, Java, and Borneo. These two regions are divided by the climatic, zoological, and environmental patterns in which it implicates a different set of mammals and plants. This region is of some importance in paleoanthropology, e.g. ''Homo erectus'' in Java, ''Homo floresiensis'' in Flores, and until the early anatomically modern human in Laos. Furthermore, the faunal remains that were found within the region indicate the possible exchange between the Indochinese and Sundaic faunal in which the assemblages from this intermediate zone might yield the hominid specimen.


''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) 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
Trinil Trinil is a palaeoanthropological site on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in Ngawi Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia. It was at this site in 1891 that the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered the first early hominin remains to be ...
, Dubois found the skull (cranial part), tooth and thighbone of one individual ( Java Man) and naming him as ''
Pithecanthropus erectus Java Man (''Homo erectus erectus'', formerly also ''Anthropopithecus erectus'', ''Pithecanthropus erectus'') is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now part of Indonesia). Estimated to be ...
.'' While at Sangiran, van Koenigswald discovered at least 40 fossils and named them as '' Meganthropus palaeojavanicus''. Although the fossils that were found in Trinil and Sangiran sites are the oldest evidence found within the region, the date of these fossils—implicated by Dubois—is still ambiguous. Swisher ''et al''. are the first scholars who attempted to analyze the age of these fossils by using the 40Ar/39Ar dating of volcanic rock from both sites. Swisher ''et al''. suggest that the result from both sites indicates the age of the fossils is dated back to c. 1.81-1.82 Ma or Early Pleistocene. This date was older than the fossils of the ''Homo erectus'' that were found from
Olduvai Gorge The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropology, paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human ev ...
at Tanzania at least 0.6 Ma. Nevertheless, some scholars argue that the dating method at both Java sites is unclear, especially the collective method of the rock and the relationships between the rock and the fossils. In fact, the remains in Java were found in more than these two sites, such as
Ngandong Solo Man (''Homo erectus soloensis'') is a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' that lived along the Solo River in Java, Indonesia, about 117,000 to 108,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene. This population is the last known record of the species. I ...
('' Homo soloensis'') and Kedung. Along with these fossils, there are also tools and fauna as well as other related artifacts found within the sites and other sites nearby. These artifacts could nevertheless shed light on the unresolved age of these remains. By using the absolute ( radiometric) dating method, these faunal remains implicate the age at 0.8 Ma as for Flores Island. As for Kedung site, the faunal remains indicate the 110 and 70 ka in which this record is quite well known for the turnover of the age of ''H. erectus''. In addition, the faunal remains that Dubois and van Koenigswald used might be overlying on the deposits of Kubuh and Pucangan Formations in which it indicates slightly younger ages from the remains of both sites. Therefore, scholars still debate the age of the ''H. erectus'' fossil Java Man. Corvinus ''et al''. suggested that the evidence found between Southeast Asia and India illustrate a different set of understanding. For instance, in Southeast Asia, the finding of the human remains is flourishing and well-studied, but the lack of stone tools and human occupation. While in Indian sites there were discoveries of a number of Acheulean stone tools, Southeast Asian sites lack those remains. For this reason, to established and reconstructed the early ''H. erectus''s activity and environment are yet ambiguity in the region regarding the technology and development of the tools and the relation to fossils. 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. 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. However, the stone tools found in the Java region are difficult for establishing the age that can link to the ''H. erectus'' fossils. 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.


Persistence hunting

The technique of persistence hunting was the primary hunting tactic of ''Homo erectus''. Since most animals were faster than ''Homo erectus'', they had to use other skillsets that countered the speed of these animals such as persistence and stamina. These ''Homo erectus'' hunters would chase their prey until the prey ran out of stamina. However, hunting like this led to dehydration because of constant movement in hot weather causing ''Homo erectus'' hunters to lose a maximum of 10% of their body mass in water weight.Dehydration and persistence hunting in Homo erectus - PubMed (nih.gov)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31770677/  Studies by scientists show that ''Homo erectus'' could persistence hunt for a maximum of 5 hours before they would become too dehydrated. ''Homo erectus'' would use their stamina and long-distance running capabilities in order to chase their prey until it died of exhaustion. Thus, it can be said that ''Homo erectus'' were hunters that had to use their stamina and determination to hunt rather than their physical prowess.


''Homo floresiensis''

In 2003 another human species was found at Liang Bua cave in
Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
, eastern Indonesia. The fossils consist of cranial and some post-cranial remains of one individual, and a premolar from another individual in older deposits. The species was recognized as distinct from ''H. erectus'' and ''H sapiens'' on the basis of anatomical differences (including much smaller body size), and named '' Homo floresiensis''. It has been suggested that the brain volume of these individuals was approximately around 400 cm3, similar to the African '' Australopithecus afarensis''. However, ''H. floresiensis'' remains were dated to only 38 ka – 18 ka ago (Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene), using radiocarbon, luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance (ESR) methods on sediments and associated artifacts.


Hunting technique

Apart from the remains, archaeologists also found stone (bifacial small core) or fleck tools in the same section of the individuals at least 32 of them and other 5,500 flakes per cubic meter on another section nearby. In addition, there is also a formal component found only with evidence of juvenile '' Stegodon'' and Komodo dragon, including points, perforators, blades and microblade that were probably hafted as barbs in which these tools indicate a selective hunting method. Although these stone artifacts seem to suggest the possibilities that these individuals use them, archaeologists are unable to establish which human species manufactured them since similar flakes tools and the remains of juvenile ''Stegodon'' and Komodo dragon are also found at the Soa Basin sites nearby as well. Despite this fact, the cognitive ability of ''H. floresiensis'' should not be underestimated. In addition, all evidence suggests another possibility of this species that they were able to migrate across the Wallace line into the
Wallacean Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British natural history, naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution thro ...
province in which according to geographical setting it was difficult to do. Nevertheless, scholars seem to agree that this ''H. floresiensis'' represent a species different from ''H. erectus'' and ''H. sapiens'' and overlapping with the presence of both in the region, raising the possibility that these species might have lived alongside each other before modern humans fully colonized the region later on.


See also

*
Peopling of Southeast Asia :''See Archaic humans in Southeast Asia for the earlier presence of archaic humans.'' Southeast Asia was first reached by anatomically modern humans in two distinct waves before 50,000 years ago, possibly firstly before 70,000 years ago. The oldes ...
* Prehistoric Asia * Recent African origin of modern humans * *


References

{{Early human migrations Human evolution