Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea

The Palaeolithic Seafaring Debate

John F Cherry, Thomas P Leppard

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English

University Press of Colorado
21 February 2025

History; Archaeology; Anthropology; Human geography

Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea is the first book-length treatment of what has become known as the global Palaeolithic seafaring debate. Until recently, common consensus dictated that only in the last ten thousand years have humans routinely, permanently, and cross-culturally traversed seas and oceans to colonize new lands. New (and sometimes contentious) data from the Mediterranean and Island Southeast Asia challenge that consensus, suggesting to some researchers that long-distance voyaging is a behavior of great antiquity. These scholars suggest that oceans and seas facilitated and encouraged planetary dispersal in our own genus rather than acting as barriers to dispersal. If this model is correct, it necessitates a radical rethinking of not only the big patterns of human history but also more deeply our models of emergent human behavior and when the capacity for highly complex and coordinated group behaviors emerged.

Exploring the data in detail, the authors here show how a complex series of interrelated problems has tended to be treated in reductionist or overly simplistic terms. Cherry and Leppard elucidate this complexity by bringing to bear perspectives from archaeology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. They demonstrate not only that a series of unique circumstances--evolutionary, behavioral, environmental, and economic--conspired to drive mass, ubiquitous global colonization over the last ten millennia; but also that earlier, sparser data provide real insight into key social and behavioral thresholds, even if there is little evidence to support the ""oceans as highways"" model for species other than our own.

A major intervention in this important debate, Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea explains the deep significance of the problem and the profound implications for history, archaeology, and biological anthropology.

By: John F Cherry, Thomas P Leppard
Imprint: University Press of Colorado
Country of Publication: United States
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781646426904
ISBN 10: 1646426908
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 21 February 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

John F. Cherry is the Joukowsky Family Emeritus Professor of Archaeology & the Ancient World and Emeritus Professor of Classics at Brown University and has previously held positions at the University of Michigan and the University of Cambridge. He is coauthor of An Archaeological History of Montserrat in the West Indies and coeditor of Archaeology for the People. Thomas P. Leppard is an archaeologist and prehistorian. He is coauthor of Human Dispersal, Human Evolution and the Sea and Cities and Citadels and coeditor of Violence and Inequality and Regional Approaches to Society and Complexity.

Reviews for Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea: The Palaeolithic Seafaring Debate

""Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea is a landmark volume in Palaeolithic archaeology and will become a touchstone reference for all future studies on early seafaring."" --Dylan Gaffney, University of Oxford ""An extremely valuable contribution to the field of archaeology, particularly as it pertains to island colonization processes and the human diaspora."" --Scott Fitzpatrick, University of Oregon