ABSTRACT
Humans were an invasive species when they colonised Asia in that they had negative impacts on all indigenous inhabitants. Here, I consider first the indigenous populations at the time of contact and argue that their populations were structured into metapopulations. I then discuss the colonisers, the importance of connectivity, and ways in which our species (Homo sapiens) may have colonised Asia. I also discuss the problems involved in learning new landscapes, how an invasive predator such as ourselves could have had an initial advantage over naïve prey, and the limitations of the human skeletal record in establishing when humans first appeared in a region, and when their predecessors died out.
