Modern Human Origins in the Levant and Western Asia: The Fossil and Archeological Evidence

Abstract

Upper Pleistocene human fossil and archeological evidence from the Levant and western Asia indicates continuity over the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition and the transition from archaic to modern Homo sapiens. It also indicates that these transitions did not coincide with each other in time. Both data sets are examined in light of recent claims from molecular biology invoked by replacement advocates in support of the position that morphologically modern humans develop (or arrive) first in the Levant, coexist with archaic Homo sapiens, and then displace or extirpate archaic Homo sapiens. Replacement models that assume no admixture are not supported by the archeological or the human paleontological evidence. Those who would argue for replacement without gene flow must show how it could have occurred without leaving traces of disjunction in the typological and technological aspects of Levantine archeological assemblages, in those aspects of the archeofaunal record that monitor subsistence, and in the evidence from settlement pattern studies.