Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic

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.

• Tackles the Asian record, one of the most under-studied and least-published, but richly endowed, enigmatic areas of the Palaeolithic world – as indicated by recent discoveries in Southeast Asia, China and Siberia
• Covers the character of the Southeast Asian record, which has long inspired debate on the subject of human cultural development, an area which has never been satisfactorily incorporated into traditional models of early humanity
• The unique perspective provided by Palaeolithic archaeology on the behavioural evolution of our species is well-placed to make a major contribution to the ecologically and climatically-oriented paradigm that is emerging within Western science more generally