Saurashtra fossils say early humans didn’t stick to coast as they migrated

Context: Studies suggest that humans who arrived at Saurashtra
moved inland, dispersing away from the coast. Further, there is no evidence of
the utilisation of ‘marine resources,’ which would indicate coastal settlement.
Scientists mostly agree on this out-of-Africa theory of human evolution and
migration, but they frequently disagree on when exactly our ancestors migrated
and what routes they took to different parts of the globe. Several genetic
studies have supported the coastal dispersion idea: that migrating humans
travelled along the coast, especially in the tropics, where the weather was
warm and wet, and food was plentiful.

Key points

·      
Overview: A new study of archaeological sites in India’s
Saurashtra peninsula, published in the journal Quaternary Environments and
Humans in October, has mounted yet another challenge to the coastal
dispersion model.

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Early
humans in Saurashtra: Discovery
of artefacts & tools made by early human inhabitants like, pieces of chert,
jasper, chalcedony, bloodstone, and agate that were chipped again and again to
achieve a desired shape and size. It has been estimated that the artefacts
found in the Aji and Bhadar River basins were 56,000 to 48,000 years old which
are from the Middle Palaeolithic age.

·      
Human
Evolution: Human evolution is the long
process by which humans evolved from their apelike ancestors. Scientific data
suggests that the physical and behavioural characteristics common by all humans
evolved over a six-million-year period from apelike ancestors.

·      
History of
Human Evolution: The term
“prehistory” refers to the period before written history began. Prehistory
makes up more than 99 percent of man’s story. Historians agree that man is
approximately 1 million years old, yet he did not begin writing until 5000
years ago. Even though the prehistoric man left no written records, he
unwittingly left us knowledge about his manner of life, which has been
interpreted by various scientists.

·      
Homo
Sapiens: Humans in your midst are
thought to be the same species as Homo sapiens, which developed into its
present form in Africa some 300,000 years ago. Throughout human evolution, the
brains of human ancestors have grown in proportion to their bodily size, and
today’s humans have the largest brains of the group. Modern humans lack the
pronounced forehead ridges and forward-jutting jaws of earlier hominids.

·      
Middle
Palaeolithic Age in India (1,00,000- 40,000 BC): Middle Palaeolithic culture in India is called
Nevasian (like Mousterian), as flake tools were found at Pravara, Nevasa. Early
Homo sapiens lived in the Middle Palaeolithic Age, marked by the evolution of
modern language, the systematic burial of the dead with rituals, and the use of
more sophisticated tools. This age witnessed a variety of tools made on flakes,
produced by specialised techniques. Therefore, it is widely referred to as the
flake tool industry.