First Migrants

PETER BELLWOOD is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. An International Fellow of the British Academy and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, he is internationally recognised for his research on human population history in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His previous publications with Wiley Blackwell include First Farmers, First Migrants, First Islanders, and The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. In 2021, he was awarded the International Cosmos Prize in Osaka, Japan.

• List of Figures xiTable xiiiPreface xivA Note on Dating Terminology xviiAcknowledgments xix1 Prehistoric Human Migration and Why It Mattered 1Migration as a Cyclical Phenomenon – Punctuations and Quiescence 2Defining Ancient Migration 6Migration Versus Conquest and “Elite Dominance” as Vectors of Human Dispersal 8Potential Reasons for Ancient Migration 9Researching Ancient Migration at the Level of the Biological Population 10Language Families and Historical Linguistics 13When and How Did Language Families Originate and Spread? 17Cultures in Archaeology – Did They Equate with Linguistic and Biological Populations? 20On Triangulating Opinions from Different Disciplines 212 Migrations in History and Anthropology – A Consideration of Outcomes 24Settling Uninhabited New Lands – Medieval Iceland, and the Bounty Survivors on Pitcairn Island 25Ancient China: Imperial Conquest with Mass Settlement of Previously Inhabited Territory 26The Anglo- Saxons in England: Success in Migration Where the Romans Failed 28The Nuer and Dinka of Sudan: Demic Diffusion Between Neighbors Fueled by Imbalances in Raiding Group Size and Bride Price Demands 31The Iban of Sarawak and the Yanomami of Venezuela: Population Growth in Tribal Circumstances and a Constant Need for New Land 32Roman Britain: Imperial Conquest and Major Cultural Change, but No Mass Settler Immigration 34Indic- influenced Southeast Asia: Religious and Cultural Influence, but No Mass Settler Immigration 35The Helvetii: A Failed Attempt at a Planned Migration 36The Relevance of Historical and Ethnographic Migrations for Understanding Prehistoric Situations 37Notes 413 Migrating Hominins, Until the Emergence of Homo Sapiens 42How Did Species Originate and Migrate? 42The First Hominins 44The Issue of Inter- Species Hybridization 48Early Hominins and Migration in Africa 51Out of Africa, But How Often? 54Who Were the First Hominin Migrants beyond Africa? 59Flores, Luzon, and Crossing the Sea 62Large Brained Hominins of the Middle Pleistocene – Out of Africa Again? 65Neanderthals and Denisovans 68Stone Tools and Hominin Species – Did They Correlate? 70Taking Stock 724 Early Homo sapiens in Africa and Eurasia 74Where and When Did Homo sapiens Originate? 74What Was, and Still Is, Homo sapiens? 77Behavioral Modernity 81Eurasia and Africa in Comparative Perspective 82The Expansion of Modern Humans Across Africa 84Out of Africa – When? 85The Environments Behind Homo sapiens Migration into Eurasia 87The Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia 91Ancient Genetic Perspectives on Upper Paleolithic Eurasians 95The Crossings of Asia 96The Fates of the Neanderthals and Denisovans 975 Early Homo sapiens Offshore: Island Southeast Asia, Australia, New Guinea, Japan, and The Americas 101The Southern Route to the East 101Homo sapiens Arrives in Sahul, But When? 102How Did People Reach Australia and New Guinea? 106How Many Settlers? 108Heading North and Offshore Again – Japan 110The Americas 114Getting to and Through Beringia 116The Genetic Sources of the First Americans 118The Rapid Unfolding of American Colonization 120Paleo- Inuit and Thule Inuit Migrations 123The Apache and the Navajo of the US Southwest 1266 Last Hunter- Gatherers, First Farmers, and the Warming of the Earth 129Goodbye to the Last Glacial Maximum, Welcome to the Holocene 129Food Production, the First Farmers, and Their Fecund Offspring 134Why Did Food Production Develop in Some Places, But Not Others? 139Why Was Domesticated Food Production Relatively Slow to Develop? 141Food Production and Population Expansion 1437 Ancient Farming Migrations in Western Eurasia and Northern Africa 149Agricultural Beginnings in the Fertile Crescent 152Migrations Out of the Fertile Crescent 156Neolithic Expansion from Anatolia into Southeastern Europe 158Neolithic Migration Through Europe, Beyond Greece and the Balkans 161The Eurasian Steppes, Central Asia, and Towards the Indian Subcontinent 165Iran, Pakistan, and South Asia Beyond the Indus River 168The Spread of the Fertile Crescent Food- Producing Economy into North Africa 171Genomic Perspectives on the Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex 174Genomic Expansions Out of the Fertile Crescent 175The Indo- European Language Family – Origins and Dispersals 180Peninsular India and the Dravidian Language Family 183Northern Africa and the Afro- Asiatic Language Family 185Notes 1888 Ancient Farming Migrations in Eastern Asia and Oceania 189Eastern Asian Topography and Its Effect on Human Migration 189Agricultural Beginnings in East Asia 192Who Were the First Farmers of East Asia? 194One Beginning, or Two, or More? 198Neolithic Migrations from the Central and Northern Chinese Riverine Plains 200Sino- Tibetan and Transeurasian Migrations from the Liao and Yellow Rivers 202Southern China and Mainland Southeast Asia 204A Key Archaeological Sequence from Northern Vietnam 209The Austroasiatic and Kra- Dai (Tai- Kadai, or Daic) Language Families 211Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, and the Role of the New Guinea Highlands 214Archaeological and Genetic Migrations Through Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Oceania 219The Colonization of Oceania Beyond New Guinea and the Solomons 224Holocene Australia and Its Migration Puzzles 2299 Ancient Farming Migrations in Sub- Saharan Africa and the Americas 232Africa Before Food Production 233Africa with Food Production 234Sub- Saharan Crop Domestication 236The Bantu Expansion 238Independent Cultural Developments and Migrations in the Americas 241The Rise of Food Production in the Americas, Especially Maize 246Food Production and Migration in the Americas 248Early Farmers in Ecuador and Peru 251Early Farmers in Amazonia 252The Caribbean Islands 254Mesoamerica and the US Southwest 255The Eastern Woodlands of North America 259Notes 26110 What Happened in (Pre)History(?) 262Global Hominin Prehistory and Migratory Punctuation – A Review 262Some Further Questions 266References 269Index 310