When did homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?
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Date
2018
Authors
O Connell, J.
Allen, J.
Williams, M.
Williams, A.
Turney, C.
Spooner, N.
Kamminga, J.
Brown, G.
Cooper, A.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018; 115(34):8482-8490
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James F. O’Connell, Jim Allen, Martin A. J. Williams, Alan N. Williams, Chris S. M. Turney, Nigel A. Spooner, Johan Kamminga, Graham Brown and Alan Cooper
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Abstract
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens, AMH) began spreading across Eurasia from Africa and adjacent Southwest Asia about 50,000-55,000 years ago (ca 50-55 ka). Some have argued that human genetic, fossil, and archaeological data indicate one or more prior dispersals, possibly as early as 120 ka. A recently reported age estimate of 65 ka for Madjedbebe, an archaeological site in northern Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea), if correct, offers what might be the strongest support yet presented for a pre-55-ka African AMH exodus. We review evidence for AMH arrival on an arc spanning South China through Sahul and then evaluate data from Madjedbebe. We find that an age estimate of >50 ka for this site is unlikely to be valid. While AMH may have moved far beyond Africa well before 50-55 ka, data from the region of interest offered in support of this idea are not compelling.
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The author(s) retains copyright to individual PNAS articles, and the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (NAS) holds copyright to the collective work and retains an exclusive License to Publish these articles, except for open access articles submitted beginning September 2017. For such open access articles, NAS retains a nonexclusive License to Publish, and these articles are distributed under either a CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY license.