Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T14:25:05.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Systemic Expansion

from Pleistocene Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2020

Patrick Manning
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Get access

Summary

Expansion of the Human System began with divergence and migration of speaking communities in their homeland. Then, up to 45,000 years ago, migrants moved southwest across Africa and eastward along the Indian Ocean littoral, as documented through archaeology, genomics, and climate. Language evidence, supplemented by an accompanying website, confirms the value of Joseph H. Greenberg’s tradition of large-scale linguistic analysis. African migration included multiple settlements among preexisting hominin populations. The parallel migration into Asia, now identified genetically as a single migration, relied on watercraft at most stages. Surviving language groups indicate the path of migrants along the Indian Ocean littoral. Only after 45,000 years ago were migrants able to move northward, into the ecologically distinctive temperate zone. Once in the steppes, migrants moved east to Northeast Asia and west to the Black Sea. As networks facilitated exchange of dogs, religious ideas, bows and arrows, the Human System thus expanded from its initial locality to become a hemispheric network of communities in contact.

Type
Chapter
Information
A History of Humanity
The Evolution of the Human System
, pp. 62 - 83
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Systemic Expansion
  • Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: A History of Humanity
  • Online publication: 14 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784528.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Systemic Expansion
  • Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: A History of Humanity
  • Online publication: 14 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784528.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Systemic Expansion
  • Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book: A History of Humanity
  • Online publication: 14 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784528.005
Available formats
×