| Abstract: |
The vast subcontinent of South Asia comprising the modern nations of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and their borderlands is situated at the geographical intersection of Africa and SoutheastAsia, with its eastward extension into the oceanic sphere of Australasia
Central Asia lies to the north of the Himalaya range and Tibetan plateau
the waters of the Indian Ocean join those of the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east of the Indian peninsula. Archeological evidence indicates that hominids were settled in the subcontinent during the Pleistocene period, by which time the Miocene apes of the Siwalik Hills of the northwestern region were extinct. A fossil record of the hominids who manufactured crude pebble tools, ascribed by some paleoanthropologists to a Late Pliocene antiquity, has not been recovered, but skeletal remains associated with technologically more advanced lithic industries of the Middle and Late Pleistocene and Early and Middle Holocene periods are present. This article summarizes and evaluates the diverse interpretations of the paleoanthropological data which have concentrated upon (1) phylogenetic relationships of the Siwalik apes to early hominids
(2) attribution of prehistoric cultures, defined by their lithic technologies and geographical distributions, to extinct hominid species or races
(3) characterization of South Asia as a cul-de-sac of ancient peoples who were recipients of major demographic, linguistic and cultural innovations derived from Western or Central Asian sources. Recent field and laboratory investigations reject these venerable approaches to South Asian paleoanthropology by the initiation of new research orientations which include (1) documentation of changes in muscular-skeletal robusticity, tooth size and sexual dimorphism marking the socioeconomic transition from hunting-foraging to food-producing strategies
(2) employment of new methodologies in molecular biology and multivariate statistics in determining genetic distance between early and modern South Asian populations
(3) understanding of the historical background of research orientations which are now expediting the advent of South Asia into the arena of world prehistoric archeology.
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