Re: the role of coastlines in human evolution

Bailey G 2004 J.interdisc.Stud.History & Archaeol.1:39-50
World prehistory from the margins:
the role of coastlines in human evolution

Conventional accounts of world prehistory are dominated by land-based
narratives progressing from scavenging and hunting of land mammals and
gathering of plants to animal domestication and crop agriculture, and
ultimately to urban civilisations supported by agricultural surpluses and
trade. The use of coastlines and marine resources has been viewed as
marginal, late in the sequence, or anomalous. This bias is primarily the
result of 3 factors:
- the removal of most relevant evidence by sealevel change;
- the bad press given to coastal hunters and gatherers by 19th century
ethnographers;
- a belief in technological 'primitivism'.
In this paper I will examine the case for treating coastal habitats as
amongst the most attractive for human settlement, and coastlines and seaways
not as barriers but as gateways to human movement and contact, from early
hominid dispersals to the rise of the great coastal and riverine
civilisations.

"Just how large an area would have been made available by lowered sea level
is debatable. Even if we take the extreme of -120 m as our reference point,
rather than the -60 m norm, we should remember that many of the most
extensive areas of the continental shelf are at high latitudes: the Bering &
Barents Seas of N-Asia and the North Sea of NW.Europe. Some of these are
arctic regions that are barely usable today, and none would have been
habitable during glacial conditions. Or they are in the S.Atlantic off the
coast of Brazil & Argentina, an area generally considered marginal to human
habitation until the very end of the last glacial period. The continental
margins close to the main Old World centres of human evolution & early
civilisation for the most part have narrower shelves. The major exceptions
are the extensive shelf that skirts mainland China & the peninsulas &
archipelagos of SE.Asia, and more localised pockets around the Arabian
Peninsula, parts of the Indian coastline & N-Australia. A conservative
estimate of the extra area exposed as dry land that could be used for human
occupation is about 16 million km2, or some 10 % of the current habitable
area of the world. Even so this is a significant increment of new territory,
especially if we remember that much of this coastal strip would have
represented relatively attractive & well-watered land during the conditions
of greater aridity that prevailed during glacial periods."



Op 10-02-2008 15:12, in artikel C3D4C4D5.D5AF%m_verhaegen@xxxxxxxxx, Marc
Verhaegen <m_verhaegen@xxxxxxxxx> schreef:

"The aquatic ape hypothesis first advanced by Sir Alister Hardy (1960) and
later popularised and extended by Elaine Morgan (1982) remains
controversial, not least because of lack of relevant archaeological or
palaeontological evidence. Nevertheless Sauer (1962), inspired by this
hypothesis, first speculated about the attraction of coastal environments
for terrestrial hominids, and drew attention to the concentration of Lower
Palaeolithic implements on raised coastal and river terraces, and the
possibilities of intercontinental migration across narrow sea barriers
between continental margins. These ideas have been reinforced by more recent
surveys of evidence (Erlandson 2001)."

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: the role of coastlines in human evolution
    ... "ack of relevant archaeological or palaeontological evidence" - that says it all. ... World prehistory from the margins: ... gathering of plants to animal domestication and crop agriculture, ... The use of coastlines and marine resources has been viewed as ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • the role of coastlines in human evolution
    ... World prehistory from the margins: ... Conventional accounts of world prehistory are dominated by land-based ... gathering of plants to animal domestication and crop agriculture, ... The use of coastlines and marine resources has been viewed as ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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