User:Abyssal/Prehistory of Asia
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Introduction
Prehistoric Asia refers to events in Asia during the period of human existence prior to the invention of writing systems or the documentation of recorded history. This includes portions of the Eurasian land mass currently or traditionally considered as the continent of Asia. The continent is commonly described as the region east of the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Red Sea, bounded by the Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. This article gives an overview of the many regions of Asia during prehistoric times. (Full article...)
Selected general articles
- Image 1The names for archaeological periods vary enormously from region to region. This is a list of the main divisions by continent and region. Dating also varies considerably and those given are broad approximations across wide areas.
The three-age system has been used in many areas, referring to the prehistorical and historical periods identified by tool manufacture and use, of Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Since these ages are distinguished by the development of technology, it is natural that the dates to which these refer vary in different parts of the world. In many regions, the term Stone Age is no longer used, as it has been replaced by more specific geological periods. For some regions, there is need for an intermediate Chalcolithic period between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. For cultures where indigenous metal tools were in less widespread use, other classifications, such as the lithic stage, archaic stage and formative stage refer to the development of other types of technology and social organization. (Full article...) - Image 2Neolithic Tibet refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Tibet.
Tibet has been inhabited since the Late Paleolithic. Paleolithic inhabitants successfully overcome the extremely harsh climate and environments and made some genetic contribution to the contemporary inhabitants. Excavated microliths on the Tibetan Plateau display mosaic features of both northern Chinese tool culture and the Tibetan Paleoliths During the mid-Holocene, Neolithic immigrants from northern China mixed with the original inhabitants, although a degree of genetic continuity with the Paleolithic settlers still exists. (Full article...) - Image 3
The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Indian subcontinent. Evidence for the most ancient Homo sapiens in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Cudappah of India, Batadombalena and Belilena in Sri Lanka. In Mehrgarh, in western Pakistan, the Neolithic began c. 7000 BCE and lasted until 3300 BCE and the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age. In South India, the Mesolithic period lasted until 3000 BCE, and the Neolithic period until c. 1000 BCE, followed by a Megalithic transitional period, mostly skipping the Bronze Age. The Iron Age in India began roughly simultaneously in North and South India, around c. 1200 to 1000 BCE (Painted Grey Ware culture, Hallur, Paiyampalli). (Full article...) - Image 4
Ohalo II is an archaeological site in Northern Israel, near Kinneret, on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is one of the best preserved hunter-gatherer archaeological sites of the Last Glacial Maximum, radiocarbon dated to around 23,000 BP (calibrated). It is at the junction of the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic, and has been attributed to both periods. The site is significant for two findings which are the world's oldest: the earliest brushwood dwellings and evidence for the earliest small-scale plant cultivation, some 11,000 years before the onset of agriculture. The numerous fruit and cereal grain remains preserved in anaerobic conditions under silt and water are also exceedingly rare due to their general quick decomposition. (Full article...) - Image 5The Caucasus region, on the gateway between Southwest Asia, Europe and Central Asia, plays a pivotal role in the peopling of Eurasia,
possibly as early as during the Homo erectus expansion to Eurasia,
in the Upper Paleolithic peopling of Europe,
and again in the re-peopling Mesolithic Europe following the Last Glacial Maximum, and in the expansion associated with the Neolithic Revolution. (Full article...) - Image 6
The Khiamian culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southwest Asia, dating to the earliest part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), around 9,700 to 8,600 BC. It is primarily characterised by a distinctive type of stone arrowhead—the "El Khiam point"—first found at the type site of El Khiam. (Full article...) - Image 7
Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited the Zhoukoudian cave site in modern northern China during the Chibanian. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has since then become the most productive H. erectus site in the world. Peking Man was instrumental in the foundation of Chinese anthropology, and fostered an important dialogue between Western and Eastern science for decades to come. The fossils became the centre of anthropological discussion, and were classified as a direct human ancestor, propping up the Out of Asia hypothesis that humans evolved in Asia.
Peking Man also played a vital role in the restructuring of the Chinese identity following the Chinese Communist Revolution, and was intensively communicated to working class and peasant communities to introduce them to Marxism and science. Early models of Peking Man society strongly leaned towards communist or nationalist ideals, leading to discussions on primitive communism and polygenism. This produced a strong schism between Western and Eastern interpretations, especially as the West adopted the Out of Africa hypothesis by late 1967, and Peking Man's role in human evolution diminished as merely an offshoot of the human line. Though Out of Africa is now the consensus, Peking Man interbreeding with human ancestors is frequently discussed especially in Chinese circles. (Full article...) - Image 8
The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Indian subcontinent. Evidence for the most ancient Homo sapiens in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Cudappah of India, Batadombalena and Belilena in Sri Lanka. In Mehrgarh, in western Pakistan, the Neolithic began c. 7000 BCE and lasted until 3300 BCE and the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age. In South India, the Mesolithic period lasted until 3000 BCE, and the Neolithic period until c. 1000 BCE, followed by a Megalithic transitional period, mostly skipping the Bronze Age. The Iron Age in India began roughly simultaneously in North and South India, around c. 1200 to 1000 BCE (Painted Grey Ware culture, Hallur, Paiyampalli). (Full article...) - Image 9This is a list of Paleolithic sites in China. They are sorted in chronological order from the earliest founding to the latest: (Full article...)
- Image 10
Solo Man (Homo erectus soloensis) is a subspecies of H. erectus that lived along the Solo River in Java, Indonesia, about 117,000 to 108,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene. This population is the last known record of the species. It is known from 14 skullcaps, two tibiae, and a piece of the pelvis excavated near the village of Ngandong, and possibly three skulls from Sambungmacan and a skull from Ngawi depending on classification. The Ngandong site was first excavated from 1931 to 1933 under the direction of Willem Frederik Florus Oppenoorth, Carel ter Haar, and Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, but further study was set back by the Great Depression, World War II and the Indonesian War of Independence. In accordance with historical race concepts, Indonesian H. erectus subspecies were originally classified as the direct ancestors of Aboriginal Australians, but Solo Man is now thought to have no living descendants because the remains far predate modern human immigration into the area, which began roughly 55,000 to 50,000 years ago.
The Solo Man skull is oval-shaped in top view, with heavy brows, inflated cheekbones, and a prominent bar of bone wrapping around the back. The brain volume was quite large, ranging from 1,013 to 1,251 cubic centimetres (61.8 to 76.3 cu in), compared to an average of 1,270 cm3 (78 cu in) for present-day modern males and 1,130 cm3 (69 cu in) for present-day modern females. One potentially female specimen may have been 158 cm (5 ft 2 in) tall and weighed 51 kg (112 lb); males were probably much bigger than females. Solo Man was in many ways similar to the Java Man (H. e. erectus) that had earlier inhabited Java, but was far less archaic. (Full article...) - Image 11
The Japanese Paleolithic period (旧石器時代, kyūsekki jidai) is the period of human inhabitation in Japan predating the development of pottery, generally before 10,000 BC. The starting dates commonly given to this period are from around 40,000 BC; although any date of human presence before 35,000 BC is controversial, with artifacts supporting a pre-35,000 BC human presence on the archipelago being of questionable authenticity. The period extended to the beginning of the Mesolithic Jōmon period, or around 14,000 BC.
The earliest human bones were discovered in the city of Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture, which were determined by radiocarbon dating to date to around 18,000–14,000 years ago. (Full article...) - Image 12This is a list of Neolithic cultures of China that have been unearthed by archaeologists. They are sorted in chronological order from earliest to latest and are followed by a schematic visualization of these cultures.
It would seem that the definition of Neolithic in China is undergoing changes. The discovery in 2012 of pottery about 20,000 years BC indicates that this measure alone can no longer be used to define the period. It will fall to the more difficult task of determining when cereal domestication started. (Full article...) - Image 13Daimabad is a deserted village and archaeological site on the left bank of the Pravara River, a tributary of the Godavari River in Shrirampur taluka in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state in India. This site was discovered by B. P. Bopardikar in 1958. It has been excavated three times so far by the Archaeological Survey of India teams. The first excavation in 1958-59 was carried out under the direction of M. N. Deshpande. The second excavation in 1974-75 was led by S. R. Rao. Finally, the excavations between 1975-76 and 1978-79 were carried out under the direction of S. A. Sali. Discoveries at Daimabad suggest that Late Harappan culture extended into the Deccan Plateau in India. Daimabad is famous for the recovery of many bronze goods, some of which were influenced by the Harappan culture. (Full article...)
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The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilisation of southern Central Asia, also known as the Oxus Civilization. The civilisation's urban phase or Integration Era, was dated in 2010 by Sandro Salvatori to c. 2400–1950 BC, but a different view is held by Nadezhda A. Dubova and Bertille Lyonnet, c. 2250–1700 BC.
Though it may be called the "Oxus civilization", apparently centred on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River) in Bactria, most of the BMAC's urban sites are actually located in Margiana (modern Turkmenistan) on the Murghab river delta, and in the Kopet Dagh mountain range. There are a few later (c. 1950–1450 BC) sites in northern Bactria, currently known as southern Uzbekistan, but they are mostly graveyards belonging to the BMAC-related Sapalli culture. A single BMAC site, known as Dashli, lies in southern Bactria, current territory of northern Afghanistan. Sites found further east, in southwestern Tajikistan, though contemporary with the main BMAC sites in Margiana, are only graveyards, with no urban developments associated with them. (Full article...) - Image 15The Seima-Turbino culture, also Seima-Turbinsky culture or Seima-Turbino phenomenon, is a pattern of burial sites with similar bronze artifacts. Seima-Turbino is attested across northern Eurasia, particularly Siberia and Central Asia, maybe from Fennoscandia to Mongolia, Northeast China, Russian Far East, Korea, and Japan. The homeland is considered to be the Altai Mountains. These findings have suggested a common point of cultural origin, possession of advanced metal working technology, and unexplained rapid migration. The buried were nomadic warriors and metal-workers, traveling on horseback or two-wheeled carts.
Anthony (2007) dated Seima-Turbino to "before 1900 BCE onwards." Currently, both Childebayeva (2017) and Marchenko (2017) date the Seima-Turbino complex to ca. 2200 – 1900 BCE. (Full article...) - Image 16The Levant is the area in Southwest Asia, south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and Mesopotamia in the east. It stretches roughly 400 mi (640 km) north to south, from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai desert and Hejaz, and east to west between the Mediterranean Sea and the Khabur river. The term is often used to refer to the following regions or modern states: the Hatay Province of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. The term sometimes include Cilicia, Cyprus and the Sinai Peninsula.
The Levant is one of the earliest centers of sedentism and agriculture throughout history, and some of the earliest agrarian cultures, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, developed in the region. Previously regarded as a peripheral region in the ancient Near East, modern academia largely considers the Levant as a center of civilization on its own, independent of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Throughout the Bronze and Iron ages, the Levant was home to many ancient Semitic-speaking peoples and kingdoms, and is considered by many to be the urheimat of Semitic languages. (Full article...) - Image 17
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c. 2000–1150 BC, spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The slightly older Sintashta culture (c. 2200–1900 BC), formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately to Early Andronovo cultures. Andronovo culture's first stage could have begun at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, with cattle grazing, as natural fodder was by no means difficult to find in the pastures close to dwellings.
Most researchers associate the Andronovo horizon with early Indo-Iranian languages, though it may have overlapped the early Uralic-speaking area at its northern fringe and Yeniseian-speaking area to its eastern fringe. Allentoft et al. (2015) concluded from their genetic studies that the Andronovo culture and the preceding Sintashta culture should be partially derived from the Corded Ware culture, given the higher proportion of ancestry matching the earlier farmers of Europe, similar to the admixture found in the genomes of the Corded Ware population. (Full article...) - Image 18The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent begins around 3000 BCE, and in the end gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilisation, which had its (mature) period between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE. It continues into the Rigvedic period, the early part of the Vedic period. It is succeeded by the Iron Age in India, beginning in around 1000 BCE.
South India, by contrast, remains in the Mesolithic stage until about 2500 BCE. (Full article...) - Image 19The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-Khabur), of south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq, although Halaf-influenced material is found throughout Greater Mesopotamia.
While the period is named after the site of Tell Halaf in north Syria, excavated by Max von Oppenheim between 1911 and 1927, the earliest Halaf period material was excavated by John Garstang in 1908 at the site of Sakce Gözü. Small amounts of Halaf material were also excavated in 1913 by Leonard Woolley at Carchemish, on the Turkish/Syrian border. However, the most important site for the Halaf tradition was the site of Tell Arpachiyah, now located in the suburbs of Mosul, Iraq. (Full article...) - Image 20
The Bronze Age is a historical period lasting from approximately 3300 to 1200 BC. It is characterized by the use of bronze, the use of writing in some areas, and other features of early urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, between the Stone and Iron Ages. This system was proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition.
The periodisation of the Bronze Age is generally ended with the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time of widespread societal collapse between c. 1200 and 1150 BC. This collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean, including North Africa and Southeast Europe, as well as the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, most notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages. (Full article...) - Image 21Xiaochangliang (simplified Chinese: 小长梁; traditional Chinese: 小長梁; pinyin: Xiǎochángliáng) is the site of some of the earliest paleolithic remains in East Asia, located in the Nihewan (泥河灣) Basin in Yangyuan County, Hebei, China, most famous for the stone tools discovered there. (Full article...)
- Image 22
The Fertile Crescent (Arabic: الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include Cyprus and northern Egypt.
The Fertile Crescent is believed to be the first region where settled farming emerged as people started the process of clearance and modification of natural vegetation to grow newly domesticated plants as crops. Early human civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia flourished as a result. Technological advances in the region include the development of agriculture and the use of irrigation, of writing, the wheel, and glass, most emerging first in Mesopotamia. (Full article...)
Things you can do
Desired articles, sorted by how frequently linked to:
- Archaeology of Asia
- Archaeology of Japan
- Archaeology of Tajikistan
- Archaeology of Brunei
- Archaeology of Iraq
- Archaeology of Cambodia
- Archaeology of Jordan
- Archaeology of Kyrgyzstan
- Archaeology of Laos
- Archaeology of Bangladesh
- Archaeology of Kuwait
- Archaeology of Christmas Island
- Archaeology of Bhutan
- Archaeology of Egypt
- Archaeology of Georgia (country)
- Archaeology of South Korea
- Archaeology of East Timor
- Archaeology of Hong Kong
- Archaeology of Sri Lanka
- Archaeology of Iran
- Archaeology of South Ossetia
- Archaeology of Saudi Arabia
- Archaeology of Macau
- Archaeology of Kazakhstan
- Archaeology of Taiwan
- Archaeology of the Palestinian territories
- Archaeology of the Republic of Artsakh
- Archaeology of Abkhazia
- Archaeology of the Maldives
- Archaeology of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Archaeology of Turkmenistan
- Archaeology of Turkey
- Archaeology of Thailand
- Archaeology of Uzbekistan
- Archaeology of Vietnam
- Archaeology of the British Indian Ocean Territory
- Archaeology of Yemen
- Archaeology of Bahrain
- Archaeology of Nepal
- Archaeology of Syria
- Archaeology of Mongolia
- Archaeology of Malaysia
- Archaeology of Myanmar
- Archaeology of North Korea
- Budana
- John David Hawkins
- Gyanpura
- Kheri Lochab
- Khera Gandawala
- Rajpura, Narnaund
- Kagsar
- Nara, Hisar
- Sulchani
- Kinnar, Hisar
- Panihari village
- Gamra
- Pali, Narnaund
- Ukhaa Tolgod
- Geology of Asia
- Kurile arc
- Xinminpu Group
- Zhou Shiwu
- You Hailu
- Wang Xiaolin
- Paul Upchurch
- Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature
- Cyclopygoidea
- Diapophysis
- Changma Basin
- Ukhaa Tolgod
- Kenilworth Sandstone Formation
- He Xinlu
- Cyclopygoidea
Selected images
- Image 1Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes and across Central Asia, and encounter with Ancient Northeast Asian populations. (from Prehistoric Asia)
- Image 2Map of AsiaNorth AsiaCentral AsiaEast AsiaWest AsiaSouth AsiaSoutheast Asia(from Prehistoric Asia)
- Image 3This skull of Homo erectus georgicus from Dmanisi in modern Georgia (Caucasus) is the earliest evidence for the presence of early humans outside the African continent. (from Prehistoric Asia)
- Image 4The Ancient Paleo-Siberians formed from the Ancient North Eurasians and Ancient Northern East Asian ancestry, and are closely connected to the first wave of humans into the Americas. (from Prehistoric Asia)
- Image 6Modern humans interbred with an archaic human species called Denisovans on the islands of Southeast Asia. (from Prehistoric Asia)
- Image 8Dolmen from Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India. Woodcut from the article "Indiska fornsaker" by Hans Hildebrand. (from Prehistoric Asia)
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Prehistory of Africa | Prehistory of North America | Prehistory of Antarctica | Asia | Prehistory of Europe |
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