The palaeoenvironmental context of the Palaeolithic of Java: A brief review
Section snippets
The early colonizers' adaptation and the chronology of human dispersals
Homo erectus, as attested by c. 1.5 Ma remains of archaic specimens discovered in the Solo sedimentary basin in Sangiran (Central Java, see for instance Swisher et al., 1994, Sémah et al., 2000), colonized new lands south of the Equator during the Lower Pleistocene, through land bridges (Fig. 1a) reaching the southernmost part of the Sunda shelf. These earliest islanders subsequently lived in isolated conditions during glacial periods, and had to adapt to several environments in which they had
The impact of climate and natural events: the broad picture
The links between climate, palaeogeography, environmental evolution patterns on the one hand and human biological and socio-cultural adaptation on the other is therefore critical in order to study human evolution in Island Southeast Asia. In the case of Java, these natural factors do not only include major climatic cycles driven impacts, as we must also take into account the severe consequences of volcano-tectonic activity (Bemmelen, 1949, Sémah, 1986). For instance, it is likely that, though
The Lower Pleistocene series in the Sangiran Dome
The Solo area was still covered by the sea at the dawn of the Quaternary period, when the present Sunda volcanic arc began to produce huge amounts of effluents (ashes then lahars) that progressively dammed shallow basins and lagoons. It is not easy in such a context, when studying the recessions of the sea and the palaeoenvironment on the inland, to discriminate the eustatic oscillations and the climate driven vegetal landscape evolution from the volcanic impact. Although the pollen record (
Towards an accurate palaeoenvironmental chronology
Field studies in continental environment do not provide as yet a detailed biostratigraphy or a continuous palaeoenvironmental record that can be fully correlated with the marine isotopic stratigraphy. The early biostratigraphical framework proposed by von Koenigswald (1949), partly grounded on collections lacking of stratigraphical control, was subsequently revised (Vos et al., 1982, Vos et al., 1994) and provides a sound although still schematic biozonation that must be refined according to
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Cited by (11)
Archaeological investigation in the future capital city of Indonesia (IKN) at Sepaku, East Kalimantan
2023, Anthropologie (France)‘Emptying Forests?’ Conservation Implications of Past Human–Primate Interactions
2021, Trends in Ecology and EvolutionCitation Excerpt :By contrast, the MNI, which estimates the fewest possible number of individuals of a specific taxon in a skeletal assemblage, has been criticised as being influenced by sample size and aggregation [20,23,25]. At the most basic level, a review of the primate remains uncovered from the compiled sites indicates that primates have played important roles as targeted human prey since the arrival of the earliest members of our species in this part of the world [18,29], but also as a source of materials for technological development and symbolic material culture [18,30,31]. The majority of primate elements in archaeological sites in the region showed evidence of anthropic modifications, including burning, deliberate bone breakage for marrow extraction, and marks and surface modifications resulting from butchery and carcass processing [18,29,32–35], suggesting primates were deliberately targeted for consumption.
Insular dwarfism in canids on Java (Indonesia) and its implication for the environment of Homo erectus during the Early and earliest Middle Pleistocene
2018, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, PalaeoecologyCitation Excerpt :This absence is generally explained as an ecological bias (de Vos et al., 1994). However, Trinil at the time of the H.K. layer deposition contained near-coastal rivers, lakes, lagoons, swamp forests, marshes (Joordens et al., 2009), and extensive mangrove stands (Sémah et al., 2016), all perfectly suited to hippopotamids. In addition, the hippopotamus from the older Cisaat zone (Hippopotamus simplex) is on average smaller than the younger Kedung Brubus form (H. sivajavanicus) (de Visser, 2008), therefore, we assume here multiple immigrations and the absence of hippotami at Trinil is better explained by an impassable filter corridor connection to the mainland.
Position of the posterior skullcap fragment from Sendang Klampok (Sangiran Dome, Java, Indonesia) among the Javanese Homo erectus record
2016, Quaternary InternationalCitation Excerpt :The Grenzbank coarser, often conglomeratic deposits point to a drastic change of sedimentation which occurred after the uplift of the hill ranges bordering the axial depression (synorogenic deposits, Djubiantono, 1992). The Kabuh series are volcano-fluviatile deposits which reflect both a severe volcanic activity and the climatic opening of the landscape during the drier phases of the early Middle Pleistocene (Sémah et al., 2016). While some studies still question the Sangiran chronology (Larick et al., 2001) and assign a Lower Pleistocene age to the Kabuh series, most dating attempts (see Falguères et al., 2016) place the sedimentary transitional period (Pucangan to Grenzbank) around the end of the Lower Pleistocene (c. 1 Ma) and assign a Lower to Middle Pleistocene age to the Kabuh series (c. 0.8 Ma).
Palaeoenvironments and hominin evolutionary dynamics in southeast Asia
2023, Scientific Reports