Island Migration, Resource Use, and Lithic Technology by Anatomically Modern Humans in Wallacea

Abstract

Island migration and adaptation including both marine and terrestrial resource use and technological development by anatomically modern humans (AMH) are among the most significant issues for Pleistocene archaeology in Southeast Asia and Oceania, and directly related to the behavioral and technological advancements by AMH. This paper discusses such cases in the Wallacean islands, located between the past Sundaland and the Sahul continent during the Pleistocene. The Pleistocene open sea gaps between the Wallacean islands and both landmasses are very likely the major factor for the relative scarcity of animal species originating from Asia and Oceania and the high diversity of endemic species in Wallacea. They were also a barrier for hominin migration into the Wallacean islands and Sahul continent. We summarize three recent excavation results on the Talaud Islands, Sulawesi Island and Mindoro Island in Wallacea region and discuss the evidence and timeline for migrations of early modern humans into the Wallacean islands and their adaptation to island environments during the Pleistocene.

The Pleistocene Maritime Migration of Modern Humans in Northern Wallacea: The Cases of Topogaro in Sulawesi and Bubog in Mindoro

“…Use-wear analysis conducted by the authors confirmed that the chert flakes associated with Anoa bone showed traces of impact on hard materials, most likely animal bones. The use-wear analysis also identified tools from the layers dated to around the end of the LGM displaying flat polishing and diagonal/ transversal striations and indicating prolonged contact with phytolith-rich plants through scraping [39,56].…”

“…Along these two routes, the oldest modern human traces were found in several cave sites in south Sulawesi in the form of rock paintings that were dated by U-series of speleothem covering the rock art to c. 43 ka [24,25], considerably earlier than the currently oldest C14 dates in south Sulawesi of up to 36 ka [26]. Other sites older than 30 ka in Wallacea along the northern routes are Golo Cave site in Gebe Island dated to c. 36 ka [27,28], Leang Sarru in Talaud Islands dated to 35 ka [29][30][31][32], Bubog I in Mindoro Island dated to >35 ka [33][34][35], and Goa Topogaro site in Central Sulawesi, which was previously dated to >30 ka [36][37][38][39]. All these sites produced no early modern human fossil remains.…”

“…modern humans in Wallacea. In fact, no such remains were excavated in Timor Island along the southern route or any of the late Pleistocene sites along the northern routes including Golo, Leang Sarru, and Goa Topogaro [1,4,23,27,30,31,[37][38][39], while many Stegodon remains were excavated in layers associated with Homo floresiensis in Liang Bua in Flores, its upper layers after 50 ka did not produce such remains [57,58]. Instead, archeological evidence indicates that the terrestrial animals hunted and exploited by early modern human were mainly small-sized animals including rodents and fruit bats, cuscus as marsupial, and reptiles with various monitor lizard species and snakes in Timor and Flores [4,22,23,58].…”

“…The Prehistory of Human Migration -Human Expansion, Resource Use, and Mortuary Practice... have triggered the fast maritime adaptation, as indicated by the relatively early appearance and active use of J-shaped shell-made fishhooks [21,39,43,44,73].…”

Introductory Chapter: Pleistocene Archaeology - Migration, Technology, and Adaptation

“…The second section "Pleistocene Human Migration and Adaptation in Southeast Asia" contains two papers on the prehistory of the Sunda shelf region and the Wallacean islands. Chapter 3 by Halmi Insani and Masanaru Takaki is entitled "Mainland versus Island Adaptation: Palaeobiogeography of Sunda Shelf Primates Revisited" and focuses on dispersal events and phylogeographic analysis of human and non-human primates in the Sunda shelf region and mainly the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo [18]. Southeast Asian primates, including humans are one of the most successful mammals in responding to the dynamic palaeoclimatic changes since at least 1 mya, and human and non-human primates reflect the complex history of a wide range of ecological and geographic variation.…”