First Migrants

List of Figures ix

Preface xiv

A Note on Dating Terminology xvi

Acknowledgements xvii

1 The Relevance and Reality of Ancient Migration 1

Migration in Prehistoric Times 4

Hypothesizing About Prehistoric Migrations 6

Migrations in History and Ethnography 8

The Helvetii8

Ancient China9

Medieval Iceland10

The Nuer of Sudan10

The Iban of Sarawak12

Relevance for Prehistoric Migration?13

2 Making Inferences About Prehistoric Migration 17

Changes in Time and Space Genes, Languages, Cultures 18

Human Biology, Genetics, and Migration 19

Demic Diffusion21

Language Families and the Study of Migration in Prehistory 22

Language Family Spread: Lessons from Recent History26

Language Family Spread: Lessons from Anthropology28

Dating the Spreads of Language Families29

Cultures in Archaeology Do They Equate with Linguistic and Biological Populations? 30

Archaeology and the Study of Migration in Prehistory 32

One End of the Spectrum Intensive Culture ChangewithoutSignificant Migration32

The Other End of the Spectrum Intensive Cultural ChangewithSignificant Migration33

3 Migrating Hominins and the Rise of Our Own Species 36

Behavioral Characteristics and Origins of Early Hominins in Africa 38

First Hominin Migration(s) Out of Africa 1 41

Unfolding Species in Time and Space46

Java, Flores, and Crossing the Sea48

Out of Africa 2? 50

Out of Africa 3? The Origins ofH. sapiens52

The Recognition of Modern Humans in Biology and Archaeology54

The Expansion of Modern Humans Across the African and Eurasian Continents, 130,00045,000 Years Ago 58

Africa58

The Levant and Southern Asia60

Northern and Western Eurasia63

The Fate of the Neanderthals66

Explanations? 67

4 Beyond Eurasia: The Pioneers of Unpeopled Lands Wallacea and Beyond, Australia, The Americas 71

Crossing the Sea Beyond Sundaland 72

How Many Settlers?74

The First Australo-Melanesians 76

The Archaeology of Island Colonization Wallacea, Melanesia, Australia77

Heading North and Offshore Again Japan 81

The Americas 83

Getting to Beringia84

Circumventing the Ice88

The Rapid Unfolding of American Colonization90

5 Hunter-Gatherer Migrations in a Warming Postglacial World 96

Postglacial Recolonizations in Northern Eurasia 97

After the First Americans: Further Migrations Across Bering Strait 101

Na-Dene and Yeniseian101

The Apachean Migration104

The Holocene Colonizations of Arctic Coastal North America 105

The Thule Migration and the Inuit107

The Early Holocene Colonization of a Green Sahara 109

Continental Shelves and Their Significance for Human Migration 112

Holocene Australia Pama-Nyungan Migration? 113

Linguistic Prehistory during the Australian Holocene117

Who Were the Ancestral Pama-Nyungans?119

6 The First Farmers and Their Offspring 123

Where and When Did Food Production Begin? 124

Why Did Food Production Develop in Some Places, but Not Others?127

Why Was Domesticated Food Production Relatively Slow to Develop?128

Food Production and Population Expansion 129

TheNeolithic133

Food Production as the Driving Force of Early Agriculturalist Migration 135

7 The Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex 140

Agricultural Origins in the Fertile Crescent 141

Neolithic and Chalcolithic Expansion Beyond the Fertile Crescent 147

Anatolia and Southeastern Europe147

Neolithic Migration Beyond Greece and the Balkans149

The Steppes and Central Asia151

Iran, Pakistan, and South Asia Beyond the Indus153

Linguistic History and the Spread of the Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex 157

Perspectives from Indo-European157

The Possible Significance of the Turkic and Yeniseian Languages in Central Asia163

West Eurasian Genetic and Population History in the Holocene 165

Peninsular Indian Archaeology and Dravidian Linguistic History 168

The Spread of the Fertile Crescent Food-Producing Economy into North Africa 169

The Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex and Its Impact on Holocene Prehistory in Western Eurasia 172

8 The East Asian and Western Pacific Food Production Complexes 178

Agricultural Origins in the Yellow and Yangzi Basins of East Asia 178

Migrations from the Yellow River Basin181

Migrations from the Yangzi Basin Mainland Southeast Asia182

Early Rice and the Linguistic Record187

Genetics, Human Biology, and the East Asian Mainland during the Holocene189

Island Southeast Asia and Oceania 191

The Colonization of Oceania194

The History of the Austronesian Language Family197

Biological Anthropology and the Austronesians201

The East Asian and Western Pacific Food Production Complexes and Their Impacts on Holocene Prehistory 204

9 The African and American Food Production Complexes 210

Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa 211

West Africa and the Niger-Congo-Speaking Populations213

The African Food Production Complex in Perspective 218

Holocene Migrations in the Americas 219

The Central Andes221

Amazonia224

The Caribbean Islands228

Mesoamerica229

Northern Mesoamerica, the Southwestern United States, and the Uto-Aztecans230

The Eastern Woodlands234

The American Food Production Complexes and Their Impacts on Holocene Prehistory 238

10 The Role of Migration in the History of Humanity 243

References 249

Index 299