Early dispersals in Asia and the Pacific are crucial to the global story of human evolution, interaction and diversification. In the footsteps of our ancestors is the latest in a growing tradition of books that expressly deals with this subject (other important contributions include The Palaeolithic settlement of Asia (Reference Dennell2009) and From Arabia to the Pacific (Reference Dennell2020 both by Dennell); Human adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic (Rabett Reference Rabett2012); Southern Asia, Australia, and the search for human origins (Dennell & Porr Reference Dennell and Porr2014); and Emergence and diversity of modern human behavior in Palaeolithic Asia (Kaifu and colleagues Reference Kaifu2015). As mentioned in Takeshi Ueki’s preface to the book reviewed here, the editors’ key aim was to revisit well-trodden questions with the most up-to-date archaeological data, to take stock of ‘where and when’ Homo sapiens travelled through the region and the lifestyles they followed. Over the past decade, archaeological and anthropological evidence has shown that there were multiple, sometimes early, invariably complex, Homo sapiens dispersal and admixture events that led to the human diversity we see across the region today.
In Chapter 1, Peter Hiscock and Kim Sterelny provide a synthesis of Out of Africa dispersals, evaluating fossil, genetic and archaeological evidence. They focus on early Homo sapiens expansions into eastern Asia, which they argue occurred between 100 000–45 000 years ago. Chris Clarkson and colleagues (Chapter 2) then test three competing hypotheses for these early Homo sapiens dispersals in southern Asia with a cladistic analysis. The results will be open to interpretation, given limitations on the data used to compile these cladograms, but this is an important attempt to empirically evaluate variation between lithic assemblages across the region.
In Chapter 3, Charles Higham provides an extensive overview of anatomically modern human occupation in Mainland Southeast Asia. A.P. Derevianko and A.V. Kandyba (Chapter 4) focus in on northern Vietnam, with a thorough description of the stone types associated with the Nguomian, Sonvian and Hoabinhian industries, providing a counterpoint to Higham’s chapter which focuses on subsistence. Derevianko and Kandyba conclude with an argument for polycentrism and the emergence of four subspecies of Homo sapiens (including our own African variety, the Neanderthals, northern Denisovans and an eastern Asian lineage). Although this conflicts with some recent palaeoanthropological descriptions of the fossil evidence—such as in Christopher Bae’s recent volume The Palaeoanthropology of Eastern Asia (Reference Bae2024)—in making these claims, the authors stimulate discussion and debate. Certainly, it is useful to think in more detail about processes of admixture and replacement, which were complex in eastern Asia and force us to re-evaluate the concept of Homo sapiens, both in a broad and a strict sense.
Daud Tanudirjo (Chapter 5) provides a superbly written synthesis of the Island Southeast Asian evidence for Homo sapiens dispersals, drawing together the mounting evidence for our species in the region prior to 50 000 years ago. In Chapter 6, Glenn Summerhayes examines the colonisation of northern Sahul (New Guinea and its surrounding islands) by Homo sapiens. It integrates archaeological evidence with genetic and palaeoecological studies to provide a multi-proxy perspective on the area. Hiscock and Sterelny return in Chapter 7 to describe human migration across southern Sahul (Australia and Tasmania). They support early peopling more than 60 000 years ago, which is now accepted by a large portion of the Australian archaeological community. The authors build a coherent argument in support of these early dates and cleverly describe the peopling process, referring to generational lengths and the implications for niche diversification and landscape learning.
A summary of Pleistocene occupation in eastern Eurasia is presented by Andrey Tabarev (Chapter 8), focusing on the Maritime and Sakhalin regions of Russia but at times mentioning neighbouring areas. The chapter is a good introduction to the available evidence from this severely understudied region. Hsiao-chun Hung and colleagues (Chapter 9) then describe in detail the early peopling of Taiwan and its now-submerged seabed. This chapter will become a touchstone reference for research on the early peopling of Southeast Asia with its excellent inclusion of a table of relevant sites and radiocarbon dates. In Chapter 10, Xing Gao and Feng Li present information about the Middle and Late Pleistocene (300 000–30 000-year-old) colonisation of northern China. The chapter is a thorough account of the available palaeoanthropological and archaeological evidence, presenting data from several sites that show hominins shared classically Homo sapiens and Homo erectus characteristics around the same time that Homo sapiens emerged in Africa. As with several other chapters, the authors assess whether this evidence supports a rapid Out of Africa model, a multiregional model, or a continuity with hybridisation model for settlement, with the authors generally favouring the latter.
In Chapter 11, Alfred Pawlik and Philip Piper write about the colonisation of the Philippines. The authors summarise the sparse but convincing evidence for Middle Pleistocene hominins in the region before examining the timing and nature of Homo sapiens dispersals. Yongwook Yoo (Chapter 12) contributes a chapter on Homo sapiens around Korea, attempting to provide an empirical and critical account of the data supporting hominin movements around the peninsula, acknowledging that previous research within Korea, north and south, has been complicated by political and nationalistic biases.
In Chapter 13, Ueki generates a cluster analysis that evaluates technological variability within the Initial Period of the Upper Palaeolithic settlement of Japan. The chapter is an impressive contribution, which synthesises many Japanese language publications making it invaluable to international readers. In Chapter 14, Takuya Yamaoka describes the archaeological material associated with Early Upper Palaeolithic sites in Japan. The chapter provides an overview of the palaeoenvironmental information and Palaeolithic evidence, focusing particularly on the first 10 000 years of occupation. In the final chapter, Masaki Fujita examines the Pleistocene colonisation of the Ryukyu Islands (southern Japan). It is an updated synthesis of the author’s work on Okinawa, providing some of the earliest global evidence for seafaring, fishing and island adaptation.
Introduction and conclusion chapters would have been helpful additions to the book to signpost important areas for future research: what are the pertinent questions that should be driving field and laboratory programmes and what do we want to know in a decade’s time, when we again take stock of the field in another edited volume? Nonetheless, this book will become an essential text for researchers and students interested in the dispersal of our species out of Africa and into Asia and Oceania. Beyond archaeologists, the volume will be important reading for historical linguists, geneticists and anthropologists seeking to compare datasets on the region’s deep human past.
