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18 - The Pleistocene colonization and occupation of Australasia

from Part II - The Paleolithic and the beginnings of human history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Peter Hiscock
Edited by
David Christian
David Christian
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
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Summary

Tracing the colonization and cultural radiation of humans in Australasia provides unique insights into the earliest human history in this region of the world. Two models of the migration to Australia have been grounded in genetic patterns: late dispersal and early dispersal. Most importantly, a late dispersion chronology required that human populations had spread from Africa to Australia in a remarkably short amount of time. The genetic evidence indicates that colonization of Australia was carried out by some of the initial populations dispersing eastwards across the Old World. Geographical difference in technology is revealed in the stone artefact assemblages, which have preserved extremely well. during the early millennia of settlement it was geographical diversity and cultural adaptation rather than pan-continental uniformity and cultural stability that were the features of human occupation of Sahul. Some inland areas contained enough geographical diversity to allow groups to continue their occupation through the more desertic conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum.

Keywords

postwar enthusiasmnationalist historyhistory of technologywhiggismtechnological innovationSHOTprewar scholarship
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 433 - 460
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

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