The crossroads of human evolution (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka)
1,749,820
Published 2022-10-26
South Asia is one of the most interesting regions for human evolution. A region where all simple models fall apart!
Huge thanks to!
Sheela Athreya
James Blinkhorn
Gopesh Jha
Praveen Kumar
Joao Teixiera
All of my generous patrons www.patreon.com/stefanmilo
Sources:
Narmada: Athreya, Sheela. “South Asia as a Geographic Crossroad: Patterns and Predictions of Hominin Morphology in Pleistocene India.” Asian Paleoanthropology, 2010, pp. 129–141., doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9094-2_10.
Patnaik, Rajeev, et al. “New Geochronological, Paleoclimatological, and Archaeological Data from the Narmada Valley Hominin Locality, Central India.” Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 56, no. 2, 2009, pp. 114–133., doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.08.023.
Great Overview: Chauhan, Parth Randhir. “South Asia: Paleolithic.” Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2020, pp. 9987–10006., doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_662.
Early Middle Paleolithic: Akhilesh, Kumar, et al. “Early Middle Palaeolithic Culture in India around 385–172 Ka Reframes out of Africa Models.” Nature, vol. 554, no. 7690, 2018, pp. 97–101., doi.org/10.1038/nature25444.
Anil, Devara, et al. “An Early Presence of Modern Human or Convergent Evolution? A 247 Ka Middle Palaeolithic Assemblage from Andhra Pradesh, India.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol. 45, 2022, p. 103565., doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103565.
Late Achuelean: Haslam, Michael, et al. “Late Acheulean Hominins at the Marine Isotope Stage 6/5E Transition in North-Central India.” Quaternary Research, vol. 75, no. 3, 2011, pp. 670–682., doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2011.02.001.
Extinct Hominin 1: Teixeira, João C., and Alan Cooper. “Using Hominin Introgression to Trace Modern Human Dispersals.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116, no. 31, 2019, pp. 15327–15332., doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904824116.
Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists.
All Comments (21)
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As an Indian from the south, i am obsessed with anthropology but had to get an IT job to support my old parents. Maybe another life. Excellent video though 👍
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You never mentioned that India has the worst conditions for fossil preservation. 1) It's hot. 2) It gets the highest rain penetrance in the world. Even though other tropical regions get more consistent rain, India is the only place that gets 2x the amount of rain for 4 months straight, which saturates the ground and kills fossilization chances. This is why almost all fossil DNA comes from Northern Eurasia, and to a much lesser extent the Middle East. The former is cold, and the latter is dry which helps to combat the hotness.
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As a Sri Lankan going for a career in arcaheology and anthropology, thank you for making this video :) I love your videos a lot
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Because of Himalayan mountains (spread east west)in the north and ocean in the south, south Asia gets sustained rainfall every year that is second to none. It also is on the same latitude as middle east. So its a perfect extreme of hot and wet. So human fossils are going to be extremely rare.
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This was wonderful Stefan, clearly so much work went into it. I also wondered why the Indian subcontinent is not talked about so much. Such a great video.
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My favorite thing about anthropology is that it’s all people from all over just learning about each other. There’s no room for racism when you get to learn that we are all just on different branches of the same path
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Living in south india , this is full of goosebumps for me. There is a proverb in our tamil language that starts with :" kal thondra man thondra...."" which means there has been a civilization living here even before land and sand.. so one day we will know the truth :) absolutely mind blowing 🤯
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The point about South Asia being transitionally isolated due to deserts, and the difficulty of travelling from east to west is something that I have never thought about before and is really interesting to think about for sure!
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Its so true, India is literally sidelined in human evolution discussion!!!
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7:43 can we just acknowledge how Jimbob Blinkhorn might actually be the greatest name in human history? That’s fantastic.
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I really appreciate how you take these academic discussions and break them down for the average person who hasn't got degrees in these subjects. I learn so much from your channel.
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I'm blown away by how this channel has evolved. This is one of the best videos so far.
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as a Bangladeshi, its so rare but great to see my country being represented and recognized and talked about
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Thanks for taking us with you on your academic journey (not just this video, but your body of work). It is very brave of you to put yourself out there and let us 'walk with you' as you construct meaning and knowledge in your own head. It's a privilege. Thank you.
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Nice to see such an appreciated and underappreciated region get time in the spotlight, great video!
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Such high quality content. I and i'm sure all of us here on the webs really appreciate you and your hard work. Absolutely Stellar stuff man
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Beeing a "cultural/social anthropologist" with south Asia and "historical ethnology" as a main subject, I love to watch stuff like this in the evening 😀. There are 3 or 4 channels worth to have a look at. Yours is one. Not boring at all (and with serious facts and thoughts). Well done.
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Great video! It is so fascinating to piece together the puzzles of human evolution, basically life on a different time, a different world even! I loved the illustrations too ❤️
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I am from Pakistan. In studying the history of my country, I have gone back up to the Indus Valley Civilization and the pre-Indus farming communities of Mehrgarh and Beluchistan. And I thought I had gone far, but clearly, not far enough. Human habitation is indeed so much older and goes back to even pre-homo sapiens to even more archaic species of humans. It's mind blowing just how many people have stood behind us in order for us to enjoin in and enjoy this very moment in our lives. It teaches you gratitude.
