The First Modern South Asians
By piecing together fragmented snapshots of history, we can create a discernible, if somewhat fragmented, picture of the early migration and lives of anatomically modern humans in the Indian Subcontinent, and the struggles they faced.
After their arisal around 200,000 years ago, as we discussed in the last post, anatomically modern humans (AmHs) initially arrived on the Indian subcontinent as early as 79,000 years ago and populated it continuously for at least 5,000 years. However, this population is relatively insignificant in human history, as evidence seems to suggest that these archaic populations were replaced by newer waves into the Indian subcontinent. Over the next few thousand years, humans propagated throughout the subcontinent through multiple other dispersals. The most widely supported theory analyzing these is known as the Southern Dispersal Hypothesis, which states that humans dispersed southward along the coast from the Makran coast to South India and back up Eastern India, while some populations veered inland through natural passages. Most of these natural passages were river basins and deltas, such as the Narmada and Son Basins, allowing early humans to propagate throughout Central India and cross the Subcontinent.
By the time the first AmHs arrived on the Indian subcontinent, a large number of hominins were already established in that area. For example, Homo erectus arrived as early as 1.6 mya, far before the first humans. In addition, many other species of hominin were settled before the arrival of AmHs, such as the mysterious Narmada man, who has been shuttled between classification as a Homo heidelbergensis, “evolved” Homo erectus, or an archaic Homo sapiens. In fact, the Narmada river valley was an important sanctuary for various species of early hominin. Archaic humans also arrived far earlier than AmHs, making it to South Asia by around 150–100 kya. Early modern humans would have had to compete with these archaic hominins when they reached the Indian subcontinent. The Jurreru Valley, in southern central India, seems to have been a prominent site of archaic hominins that humans came across, turning into one of the epicenters of the conflict between these species. However, a tipping point of this conflict came when the climate went into crisis at around 35 kya. Whether due to the higher flexibility to adapt to different climates, stronger social networks, population growth, or a combination of these factors, humans were able to expand further into the peninsula region, pushing out archaic hominins. By 30 kya, much of the Indian climate had resolved into a tropical climate with dry and humid seasons. Most AmH settlements were situated in the Deccan plateau.
After their dispersal across the Indian subcontinent, AmHs underwent rapid changes at lower levels. These changes coincide with the movement into the Upper Paleolithic period, dated to around 40 kya. This periodic change is often posited to be one of the largest revolutions in human prehistory. Between 29 and 10 kya, during the latter part of the Upper Paleolithic, settlements in South Asia changed from fully nomadic to partially sedentary in three stages. First, most hunter-gatherers lived in small groups. As tool-making increased, these groups also began to gravitate towards alighting in rock shelters. Finally, settlements morphed into semi-nomadic hunters that lived near major rivers, often in open-air dwellings. Along with this increasing stability, or rather, in response to it, the Upper Paleolithic saw an increase in the organization of communities–different people perform different tasks, and the rewards were shared. Because of these developments, humans became the predominant hominin in South Asia by the advent of the Upper Paleolithic.
Although anatomical modernity arose at least 100,000 years prior to the Upper Paleolithic Period, the emanation of behavioral modernity–characterized by social tolerance and prosocial cooperation, which contribute heavily to the trait of cumulative technological evolution (technological development based upon past technologies, causing a net increase in complexity)–is heavily contested among anthropologists. Two groups can be distinguished by their contrasting theories, namely that behavioral modernity developed over a long period of time, with the first traits appearing contemporaneously to anatomical modernity, approximately 150 kya; and that its traits developed within a span of a few thousand years as a relatively universal, complete assemblage.
Although its specific characteristics are contested, partially due to present geographical variation in behavior, the “modern” traits that characterize behavioral modernity include specialized technology, art, standardization within cultures of artifacts, exchange over long distances, defined uses of land, ideas of groups and self-identity, and social behavior. These traits result in cumulative technological evolution, or the development of tools stemming from past development, which lay the bedrock of human society today.
However, evidence for the emergence of modern behavior within South Asia is sparse, and therefore open to some measure of interpretation. For example, evidence prior to 28,500 years ago of behavioral modernity includes carvings on a Bhimbetka cave, which are unidentified and may have been for utility and not cultural. However, although little evidence for symbolism and frivolity exists, much evidence for the development of microlithic tools of different materials exists, including multiple Sri Lankan microliths dated after 28,500 years ago. After 28.5 kya, evidence of nonutilitarian objects occurs in ostrich-eggshell beads and fragments, concentrated in peninsular India. The development of structures is also sparsely recorded, although certain structures, such as a sandstone platform at the Upper Paleolithic site of Baghor I, do occur. Mental traits such as prosocial thought, however, are extremely difficult, and may indeed be impossible, to directly discover evidence for. Still, they may be divined from hard evidence suggesting these behaviors, such as common gathering areas.
In general, evidence pointing to a range of dates for the development of behaviors considered modern is limited. However, we can generally assume that these behaviors appeared after around 45 kya, before which there is a complete lack of evidence. It generally proposes that, because of variations in technology, modern behavior diversified in accordance with climatic variation between around 129 kya to 11,700 years ago. Laying the groundwork for the emergence of human populations and their behaviors is an important task, and one which will certainly be elucidated further in the future.
