Human Colonization of Asia in the Late Pleistocene An Introduction to Supplement 17

Abstract

The origin and evolution of modern humans continues to be of great interest to the scientific and public communities alike; the field has long been dominated by findings from Europe and Africa. With new discoveries of hominin fossils and archaeological sites, in addition to the application of recent genomic and paleoclimate modeling studies, findings from Asia are serving to revolutionize the field of modern human origins. The identification of Neanderthals and Denisovans in Siberia, for example, along with growing fossil and archaeological evidence for the presence of early modern humans in East and Southeast Asia, much earlier than originally thought, places the spotlight on the evolutionary history of our species in Asia over the last 125,000 years. Exciting and unanticipated new discoveries call for a need to critically reexamine the Asian record. Taking a multidisciplinary perspective, a group of active researchers participated in a week-long Wenner-Gren symposium titled “Human Colonization of Asia in the Late Pleistocene” (#153) in March 2016. Here we review the major themes and findings emerging from the symposium and discuss avenues to move the field forward.