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Humans like us in Sri Lanka 48,000 years ago

Bows and arrows and complex symbolic displays 48,000 years ago in the South Asian tropics:

Archaeologists contend that it was our aptitude for symbolic, technological, and social behaviors that was central to Homo sapiens rapidly expanding across the majority of Earth’s continents during the Late Pleistocene. This expansion included movement into extreme environments and appears to have resulted in the displacement of numerous archaic human populations across the Old World. Tropical rainforests are thought to have been particularly challenging and, until recently, impenetrable by early H. sapiens. Here, we describe evidence for bow-and-arrow hunting toolkits alongside a complex symbolic repertoire from 48,000 years before present at the Sri Lankan site of Fa-Hien Lena—the earliest bow-and-arrow technology outside of Africa. As one of the oldest H. sapiens rainforest sites outside of Africa, this exceptional assemblage provides the first detailed insights into how our species met the extreme adaptive challenges that were encountered in Asia during global expansion.

The most interesting aspect of this is that it is pretty close (a few thousand years earlier) to the date for the arrival of modern humans in Europe. The admixture with Neanderthals seems to be about 10,000 years earlier than this date, while that with Denisovans around this date. Something happened around 50,000 years ago, as a group of modern humans in and around the Near East seem to have radiated rapidly all across Eurasia, and later Oceania.

I assume that modern(ish) humans were present in Southeast Asia, but most of the ancestry dates to this period and pulse. A decade ago I might posit some incredible biological change, but cultural innovations in the Holocene triggered massive demographic shifts. There’s no reason the same couldn’t apply to the Pleistocene.

15 thoughts on “Humans like us in Sri Lanka 48,000 years ago

  1. “I might posit some incredible biological change, but cultural innovations in the Holocene triggered massive demographic shifts. There’s no reason the same couldn’t apply to the Pleistocene.”

    Perhaps, but this would have ocurred in Africa prior to the migration out. Arrows (both bone and stone) have also been found at Sibudu in South Africa dating to about 60-70 kya (and possibly elsewhere from contemporary South Africa), as well as bone harpoons from Katanda in Central Africa dating to about 90 kya, and possible atlatl darts from Adum in Ethiopia dating to 70-100 kya, along with other innovations from the African Middle Stone age and thereabouts, some dating substantially earlier – e.g. the ca 279 kya javelins from Gademotta in Ethiopia, the finds at Blombos and Pinnacle Point in South Africa about 75-164 kya, the likely projectile points, beads, and bone tools from the MSA North African Aterian culture, and the recent very early finds from Olorgesailie in Kenya, etc).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity (See “Africa” section under “Archaeological Evidence”)

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6508696/

    So, the existence of complex projectiles in ca 48 kya southeast Asia is not too surprising (since complex projectiles, including bows, and other modern behaviors are known from H. sapiens/modern in Africa earlier). Though I believe there is some debate whether (though early moderns may have had projectiles) the bow itself was invented once or reinvented more than once, first in Africa and then again in Eurasia perhaps having been lost by some groups (seemingly appearing in Europe only by the Gravettian ca 20 kya or later, with the atlatl having been dominant there previously aming the Aurignacian peoples). Some early African groups at the time seem to have used the bow (e.g. in South Africa) but perhaps the OOA group (and their ancestors in east and/or northeast Africa) may more have favored atlatls/spear or dart throwers (I believe the Aterian points are thought to have likely been atlatl darts rather than arrows and atlatl darts are, as mentioned, known from Aduma Ethiopia) but southern African (Khoisan), Central African (Pygmy), and West African (Niger-Congo) cultures have traditionally used bows (as also attested archaeologically). In Oceania, bows are traditionally used by Andamanese, southeast Asian Negrito groups, and Papuans, but Australian Aboriginals have typically used the atlatl (called the “woomera” in some Australian Aboriginal languages). Amerindian groups traditionally used either, or a mixture of the two depending on region (or in a few regions, the blowgun, which is also known in parts of southest Asia).

    Perhaps, bows, (and harpoons and javelins in some instances) could phase in and out of favor among early moderns depending on the environment, but the more consistent factor seems to have been a preference for/reliance on projectile hunting weapons (often compound projectiles like atlatls and bows)

  2. Edit: should be “Aduma in Ethiopia” (not “Adum”).

    Also, the Sri Lankan Vedda people, who (among some groups at least) have retained a hunting and gathering lifestyle and many other old pre-neolithic customs , also hunt with bows.

  3. Edit: “…first in Africa and then again in Eurasia perhaps having been lost (and sometimes re-invented) by some groups; or alternately, carried out of Africa (but lost in some Eurasian groups, and lost but reinvented among some others).

    Also, the Aduma dates are 80-100 kya (rather than 70-100).

  4. @Jatt_Scythian
    “These would have been created y dna C/D and mtdna M individuals?”

    They (or many of them) seem likely to have belonged to those haplogroups (especially M and C), but some in that area at the time (or not long after) perhaps could have also belonged to mtdna N (which is relatively common among the native Sri Lankan Vedda people (significantly more so than among other South Asian groups of the region).

    See “Genetics” under the “Population affinites” section):
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedda

  5. 48K would predate the West Eurasian-East Eurasian split so would these be Basal Eurasian like or some sort of crown Eurasian?

    Also both M and N coalesce in SE Asia no? So was there some sort of back migration to South Asia from SE Asia?

  6. Edit to my first comment:

    “So, the existence of complex projectiles in ca 48 kya southeast Asia is not too surprising…”

    Should be: “…complex projectiles in South Asia…”

    (i.e. Sri Lanka, not southeast Asia, though in southeast Asia would not be so surprising either)

  7. “Also both M and N coalesce in SE Asia no? So was there some sort of back migration to South Asia from SE Asia?”

    Possibly, but not necessarily. M and N could have coalesced in West Asia. In a recent study, a basal branch of N was found in North Africa (in early Neolithic remains), and N is proposed to have either diverged in West Asia/the Middle East soon after the OOA (later back-migrating to North Africa in the neolithic) or alternately originating in North Africa itself, with the former scenario as more likely (M is also proposed to have originated in West Asia/the Middle East). I believe there is also some very recent evidence of early M in Western Eurasia (possibly Europe) in the Aurignation/early Upper Paleolithic or thereabouts (I think mentioned somewhere in a recent entry in this blog but I’m not sure which one).

    On basal N in the Sahara:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6401177/

  8. Thank. Very interesting.

    I’m guessing the environment in Sri Lanka isn’t too conducive to Ancient DNA preservation. Too bad.

    I also wonder when we’ll figure out exactly where in Southeast Asia ydna K2b/P came from. Guessing the environment is an issue there too.

  9. (Cont.) Also the presence of M1, which seemingly is a fairly basal branch of M, in the Horn of Africa (thought to be there due to an early back-migration from West Asia I believe from ca 40kya) would seem to be consistent with an origin for M somewhere not far from Africa (such as the Near East).

  10. Anybody have any insight into whether would have been basal eurasians or AASI?

    it looks like mt M has been wiped out from a lot of areas but if C was the original ydna of the western side of ANE it seems like y C has been wiped out a lot too. very infrequent in South Asia as well despite what I saw about Gujratis in Houston.

  11. @Jatt_Scythian

    I would think in Sri Lanka/South Asia/the Indian subcontinent region it would have been AASI. I don’t think there’s evidence of Basal Eurasians that far east; Basal Eurasians likely either originated from either North Africa or the southern Middle East/Arabia, and are thought to have been originally based in one of those regions, and later became admixed in the Middle East with ancestral Western Eurasians. AASI were the first known wave of people (descended from the main OOA) to inhabit the Indian subcontinent region.

  12. It’d be intresting if they were y H though.
    Also Wouldn’t this predate the East-West Split?
    Would this also mean the east-west split occured between Iran and Pakistan?
    I also wonder what dna would we associate with Basal Eurasians if E came from SSA Africa later on.

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