Main description:

South Asia is home to a diverse range of prehistoric and contemporary cultures that include foragers, pastoralists, and farmers. In this book, archaeologists, biological anthropologists, geneticists and linguists are brought together in order to provide a comprehensive account of the history and evolution of human populations residing in the subcontinent. A wide range of topics and issues are addressed in this book, including hominin adaptations, behaviours, and dispersals; the origin and spread of food producing economies; and the cultural, biological and genetic relationship of foragers and settled communities. New theories, methodologies and interpretations presented in this book are bound to have a profound effect on the way in which the cultural record of South Asia is perceived and how this evolutionary history relates to events in the wider world.

Feature:

First volume of its kind on prehistoric cultures of South Asia

Integrates a range of subjects from Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Genetics to Linguistics

Provides a comprehensive picture about human adaptations and population changes in South Asia through time

New theories and methodologies presented in the book provide new interpretations about the cultural history and evolution of populations in South Asia

Wide range of topics and issues are covered including Palaeolithic adaptations, behaviours, and dispersals; the development of food production societies; the biological and skeletal relationship of foragers and settled communities; and the cultural and genetic interactions of populations

Contents:

1. Human Evolution and Culture Change in the Indian Subcontinent
Michael D. Petraglia and Bridget Allchin

Part I. Setting Foundations

2. Afro-Eurasian Mammalian Fauna and Early Hominin Dispersals
Alan Turner and Hannah J. O’Regan

3. 'Resource-Rich, Stone Poor': Early Hominin Land Use in Large River Systems of Northern India and Pakistan
Robin Dennell

4. Toward Developing a Basin Model for Paleolithic Settlement of the Indian Subcontinent:
Geodynamics, Monsoon Dynamics, Habitat Diversity and Dispersal Routes.
Ravi Korisettar

5. The Acheulean of Peninsular India with Special Reference to the Hunsgi and Baichbal Valleys of the Lower Deccan
K. Paddayya

6. Changing Trends in the Study of a Paleolithic Site in India: A Century of Research at Attirampakkam
Shanti Pappu

7. Was Homo heidelbergensis in South Asia? A test using the Narmada fossil from Central India
Sheela Athreya

Part II. The Modern Scene

8. The Toba Supervolcanic Eruption: Tephra-Fall Deposits in India and Paleoanthropological Implications
Sacha C. Jones

9. The Emergence of Modern Human Behavior in South Asia: A Review of the Current Evidence and Discussion of its Possible Implications
Hannah V.A. James

10. Genetic evidence on modern human dispersals in South Asia: Y Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA perspectives: The World through the eyes of two haploid genome.
Phillip Endicott, Mait Metspalu and Toomas Kivisild

11. Crania diversity in South Asia relative to modern human dispersals and global patterns of human variation
Jay T. Stock, Marta Mirazón Lahr and Samanti Kulatilake

Part III. New Worlds in the Holocene

12. Interpreting Biological Diversity in South Asian Prehistory: Early Holocene Population Affinities and Subsistence Adaptations
John R. Lukacs

13. Population Movements in the Indian Subcontinent during the Protohistoric Period: Physical Anthropological Assessment
S.R. Walimbe

14. Foragers and Forager-Traders in South Asian Worlds: Some Thoughts from the Last 10,000 Years
Kathleen D. Morrison

15. Anthropological, Historical, Archaeological and Genetic Perspectives on the Origins of Caste in South Asia
Nicole L. Boivin

16. Language Families and Quantitative Methods in South Asia and Elsewhere
April McMahon and Robert McMahon

17. Duality in Bos indicus mtDNA Diversity: Support for Geographical Complexity in Zebu Domestication
David A. Magee, Hideyuki Mannen, Daniel G. Bradley

18. Non-Human Genetics, Agricultural Origins and Historical Linguistics in South Asia
Dorian Q. Fuller

Part IV. Concluding Remarks

19. Thoughts on The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia
Gregory L. Possehl