ABSTRACT
Human prehistory and history identify our species, modern Homo sapiens, and our antecedent species, as capable of migrating over vast distances across the globe. While hominin populations were evolving large complex brains in Africa and developing
11.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 157 11.2 Migration and Climate.................................................................................. 161
11.2.1 Early Research .................................................................................. 161 11.2.2 World War Two Studies of Climatic Tolerance ................................ 162 11.2.3 The International Biological Programme and the Man
and the Biosphere Programme.......................................................... 163 11.3 Thermal Adaptation and Human Biogeography ........................................... 167
11.3.1 Behaviour and Culture ...................................................................... 167 11.3.2 Active Function: Metabolism ........................................................... 168 11.3.3 Active Function: Physiology ............................................................. 170 11.3.4 Passive Structure: Size, Morphology, and Composition ................... 172
11.4 What Have We Learned about Climatic Adaptation from Migration Studies? ............................................................................... 174
11.5 Prospects for the Future: Global Climate Change ........................................ 175 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ 176 Dedication .............................................................................................................. 176 References .............................................................................................................. 177
new kinds of cultural behaviour, the Pleistocene epoch was displaying dramatic climatic fluctuations that imposed selective pressures on these hominin populations. There were two major migrations out of Africa that contributed to the widespread distribution of humans throughout the Old World. The first occurred sometime around 1.8 million years ago when a small-brained hominin (either Homo habilis or an early Homo erectus) moved into the Caucasus region and then as far as Southeast and East Asia and Western Europe (Anton and Swisher 2004; see Figure 11.1). Whether this migration was a demic/colonial expansion or a series of episodic population movements is not yet known (Rightmire 2001). The second major migration was of a relatively modern Homo sapiens who moved out of Africa around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago (see Figure 11.2) and either totally displaced, or assimilated to varying degrees, the more primitive hominin residents (Cann et al. 1987; Stringer and McKie 1996). Following the habitation of Europe, Asia, and probably the far reaches of Africa, Homo sapiens successively moved to Australia, the New World, and into the distant islands of the Pacific Ocean (see Figure 11.3) (Merriwether and Ferrel 1996; Kirch 2000; Schurr 2004). By roughly a thousand years ago, with the exception of
FIGURE 11.1 Migration of early Homo erectus from Africa to other parts of the Old World; dates are in millions of years before the present. (Data from Anton and Swisher 2004.)
some Arctic zones, Antarctica, and a few Pacific Islands, much of the land surface of the world was inhabited by fully modern humans, all intelligent, all with a remarkable array of cultures, and all with an astounding range of biological variation.
