| Abstract: |
In recent years, much research concerning the dispersal of modern humans across Asia has focused on exploring a southern, coastal route from Africa across tropical Asia, ultimately to Australia and Island Southeast Asia. This fast- train model explains the evidence of an early expansion of humans into the region by 5045 ka, as well as the close morphological similarities between early modern humans in Africa and greater eastern Asia and Australia. However, the southern, coastal model explains neither the potentially simultaneous appearance of modern humans in Siberia nor the strong technological similarities between the Early Upper Paleolithic complexes of central Asia, Siberia. and Mongolia and the initial Upper Paleolithic complexes of southwestern Asia / eastern Europe. Instead, a more complex, dual- dispersal model more parsimoniously explains the spread of modern humans across Asia. In this paper, I revive the northern overland- dispersal model of modern- human origins in central and northeastern Asia, reviewing current archeological, paleoanthropological, and genetic evidence that supports it. According to the model, sometime shortly after 50 ka, modern humans in western Asia developed Upper Paleolithic technology and material culture, and from there these modern humans spread east and north into central Asia, appearing in southern Siberia and central Mongolia by 45 ka and ultimately reaching northern China by 30 ka. This hypothetical dispersal is currently best supported by archeological evidence (i.e., a strong technological tendency toward stone- blade production and common production of well- formed osseous tools and items of personal adornment across inner Asia (4530 ka)
however, emerging paleoanthropological and ancient- genetic data suggest that modern humans were in the region by 45 ka and that these people were genetically more closely related to western Eurasians than eastern Asians. Although the earliest modern humans of Siberia have not yet been recovered from clear archeological contexts, likely they were the hominins behind the production of the regions Early Upper Paleolithic industries.
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