3.0.2 How Humans Spread: Archaeology - Overview

Version 1.2 March 2012                                               (Previous Version)

There are still controversies regarding how and when humans occupied some lands.

However, there is such a vast amount of evidence that historians can agree on much of the story. We show how homo sapiens, as hunter gatherers, spread out of Africa, to colonize the world.

·       Early humans lived in small bands, gathering plant food for the bulk of their diet, hunting game for fat and protein, fighting internally and raiding neighbouring groups for women.

·       Humans expanded across Eurasia about 50,000 years ago.  Because the sea levels were then low, we walked or took short boat trips across Indonesia to Australia about 40,000 years ago. 

·       Humans also skirted around the edge of a land bridge at the Bering Straits to the Americas about 13,000 years ago, and in boats to the Pacific islands from about 1,500 to 800 years ago. 

·       Dogs were domesticated early in Eurasia, and travelled with humans to other continents. 

·       The mega fauna (very large animals) which used to live these places became extinct, perhaps as humans changed the environment (eg by the use of fire), perhaps after the last ice age.

We consider how food production – settled farming in villages, rather than collection – began about 13,000 years ago, after the last ice age, and developed at different rates in different places. 

·       A few areas in Eurasia (around Iraq, India and China) had the climate and plants (eg wheat and rice) and animals (eg cows, sheep, goats and chickens) suitable for domestication, so farming began earlier in these regions than elsewhere.

·       In West Africa and the Americas (Mesoamerica and the Andes) there were fewer of these resources and farming developed slower and later.

·       The highlands of New Guinea (taro, banana and cassowary) also began farming early, but isolation by mountains allowed little surplus for larger towns to develop, and most people there continued as hunter gatherers or pastoralists.

·       Australia had even fewer plants and animals suited to farming, and the Southern Oscillation brought alternating floods and droughts, so agriculture didn’t take off until Europeans invaded.

·       The random geographical differences facilitating food production enabled civilisation to begin earlier in ancient Iraq and China, later in the Americas, partially in Africa, and not in Australia. 

·       Horses were domesticated in central Asia and their use spread across Eurasia.  Camels were domesticated in the Middle East and spread into Africa.

We work through the next level of detail on each of the above issues (more).  After considering this evidence, we’ve looked for a way to state our conclusions briefly, and we come to the following summary.

Is this the best way to state our conclusions in this area?  Click on feedback, or add a comment below, if you can improve the substance or the phrasing.

more                                                                                Statement 15

We learn from archaeology that different rates of growth are linked to the accidents of geography rather than supposed racial or ethnic differences, reinforcing our choice of diversity as a core value.

We learn that there is no basis in history for racism based on different rates of development.