Michael D. Petraglia & Bridget Allchin (ed.). The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia: Inter-disciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Genetics.

Higham, Charles

MICHAEL D. PETRAGLIA & BRIDGET ALLCHIN (ed.). The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia: Inter-disciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Genetics. xiv+464 pages, 109 illustrations, 43 tables. 2007. Dordrecht: Springer; 978-1-4020-5561-4 hardback 73 [pounds sterling]; 978-1-4020-5562-1 e-book.

Meetings that bring together specialists in different disciplines that bear on the human past have proliferated in recent years, and the exchange of ideas has been invariably stimulating. This volume contains papers read at such a meeting, held at the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge, in late 2004. It centres on South Asia, comprising seven nations inhabited by over 20 per cent of humanity, in which 657 recorded languages are spoken. Here one encounters an archaeological record covering up to two million years, which witnessed the expansion of early hominins from Africa, the later movement of anatomically modern humans, a very early establishment of farming in which both wheat and rice figured, and the development of one of the world's earliest civilisations.

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There are three sections. In the first, six chapters consider the archaeological evidence for the initial hominin dispersal in South Asia, and subsequent cultural development until about 74 000 years ago. Four chapters in section two cover the period when anatomically modern humans expanded eastward from Africa, and the last seven chapters contribute to an appreciation of cultural and biological changes during the Holocene. These three sections are preceded by an overview of the cultural sequence by the editors, and followed by a review by Gregory Possehl.

Tracing and dating the settlement of the earliest hominins in South Asia has not been straightforward. Both to the west and east, there are dated and well provenanced sites at Dmanisi in Georgia and in the Solo River basin in Java. Dennell explores this lacuna by noting the profound sedimentation and landscape changes in the Indus system, and the lack of stone resources in such environments. Even where stone industries are represented, as at Riwat and the Pabbi Hills, the samples are small, and lacking in context. Dennell questions whether hominin expansion eastward involved South Asia, and points out that if they did, the lack of stone resources in the major floodplains would have presented difficulties.

If the very earliest phase of hominin expansion is proving difficult to document archaeologically, the reverse is the case for lower Palaeolithic occupation. Paddayya has undertaken intensive site surveys in the Deccan, and has found 'one of the densest concentrations of lower Palaeolithic sites in the Old World'. One site, Isampur, was an Acheulian quarry now extensively excavated and described. But who were the actors in this settlement? Human remains of the period are vanishingly rare, and in a detailed analysis of the one relatively complete find, from Narmada, Athreya finds traits linking it with both Homo erectus and heidelbergensis. A middle Pleistocene Homo is seen as a reasonable ascription.

The second section begins with a review of the possible impact of the massive volcanic eruption of Toba in northern Sumatra that took place about 74 000 years ago. This eruption has a magnitude 280 times greater than that of Krakatau in 1883. The implication of the volcanic winter is explored, the issue being whether the eruption occurred before the expansion of anatomically modern humans, or whether Oppenheimer is correct in ascribing to it a mass extinction of Homo sapiens. The vital contribution ofarchaeogenetics to documenting the expansion of modern humans is reflected in the contribution of Endicott et al., where they explore the implications of the distribution of Y- and mtDNA lineages. Simulation studies point to the likelihood that a southern coastal expansion incorporating South Asia led to the initial settlement of Australia, and one concurs with their conclusion, that South Asia is a region central to understanding human evolution beyond Africa.

The final section comprises seven chapters on a wide variety of issues, from bovid mtDNA to language families, from the origins of caste to biological diversity and population movements. Fuller's paper incorporates archaeological, linguistic and plant and animal genetic data in a stimulating review of agricultural origins. One of his themes neatly illustrates the roller-coaster pace of current research into just one case, the origins of rice cultivation. The weight of linguistic and archaeological opinion has it that rice farming originated in China and that farmers expanded via the major rivers into Southeast Asia and India, bringing with them the Austroasiatic languages. Fuller reverses this, with an origin in India and an expansion from India to the east.

This single issue could well fill its own volume, and is symptomatic of this volume as a whole. The conference that generated this book was entitled 'South Asia at the Crossroads'. Crossroads in this context has layered meanings. Geographically Southeast Asia indeed occupies a nodal position in the human past. But as many contributors reveal, our understanding of key issues is also at a crossroad. This book is also a crossroad in its own right, weaving together as it does, so many strands into a growing pattern of cultural development in a vital region that is now, rather belatedly, receiving the attention it so richly deserves.

CHARLES HIGHAM

Department of Anthropology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

(Email: charles.higham@stonebow.otago.ac.nz)