Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic
Hominin Dispersal and Behaviour during the Late Quaternary

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene.

Ryan J. Rabett (Author)

9781107018297, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2012

383 pages, 64 b/w illus. 9 maps 10 tables
25.9 x 18.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.94 kg

'Good books on the Palaeolithic of Asia are hard to find. Thankfully, Ryan Rabett has produced a quality volume that synthesises important information about human occupation history in a poorly known region of the world … this book is an excellent new contribution on the Late Pleistocene history of Southeast Asia. The book challenges archaeologists to think about how their regional records developed in response to external and internal influences, ultimately leading to, as Rabett aptly puts it, 'a Pleistocene 'explosion' of new life ways'.' Michael Petraglia, Antiquity

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted propositions about the development of human 'modernity.' Ryan J. Rabett reveals an evolutionary relationship between colonization, the challenges encountered during this process – especially in relation to climatic and environmental change – and the forms of behaviour that emerged. This book argues that human modernity is not something achieved in the remote past in one part of the world, but rather is a diverse, flexible, responsive and ongoing process of adaptation.

1. The journey east
2. The Pleistocene planet
3. Hominin dispersal beyond Africa during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene
4. Regional trajectories in modern human behaviour
5. The initial Upper Pleistocene dispersal of H. sapiens out of Africa
6. Climate, dispersal and technological change during the Last Termination and Early Holocene in Southeast Asia
7. Tropical subsistence strategies at the end of the last glacial
8. Ex levis terra.

Subject Areas: Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology [HD], Asian history [HBJF]