Perspectives on the biogeographic and cultural adaptations of early humans during the first intercontinental dispersals

Abstract

Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing records of both events several hundred thousand years earlier than previously thought. In recent years, climate and environmental factors have been considered by many as primary drivers of these evolutionary events in human history. However, models linking Earth’s dynamics with biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic require further testing, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding new approaches to the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans. In this paper, we argue for a broader geographic approach to the study of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing eastern Africa and China, two of the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites. We thus review major research questions involved in the investigation of the earliest human migrations and propose a route map to better understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.