Robin Dennell

The prevailing interpretation of the evidence for Early Pleistocene hominin occupation of the Nih... more The prevailing interpretation of the evidence for Early Pleistocene hominin occupation of the Nihewan Basin, North China is that it indicates continuous settlement by hominins that were able to adapt to a wide variety of environmental conditions, ranging from full interglacial to full glacial. It has further been suggested that they were able to do so by the routine hunting of large mammals. This paper argues that there is no evidence that hominins inhabited the Nihewan Basin year-round or under cold conditions, and no evidence that they hunted. Instead, it is suggested that hominins are likely to have visited Nihewan during the summer months, and probably avoided it when conditions were significantly colder than today. This scenario is consistent with what is known of the climatic sensitivity of the earliest hominin occupation of other regions in Eurasia at comparable latitudes (such as the Chinese Loess Plateau, Tajikistan, the Caucasus and Spain), and in similar strongly-seasonal environments with sub-freezing winters, such as Britain. Overall, hominin settlement in the Nihewan Basin was likely discontinuous, infrequent and ephemeral.

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Geoarchaeology in India in the 21st Century: an Outsider's Perspective

Geological Society, London, Special Publications, Jun 3, 2021

Progress over the last 20 years in establishing reliable benchmarks in the Paleolithic of India h... more Progress over the last 20 years in establishing reliable benchmarks in the Paleolithic of India has been uneven but major successes have been the dating of the earliest Acheulean assemblages in India; the dating of the onset of the Middle Stone Age; the dating of the earliest microlithic assemblages in India; and the dating of the antiquity of human occupation of rain forests in South India and Sri Lanka. Also important is our greater understanding of the Younger Toba Tuff and the impact of the Toba megaeruption 74 ka ago on hominin populations in India. Major uncertainties persist over when the genus Homo first entered South Asia; when our own species, H. sapiens first entered South Asia; the age of the earliest blade assemblages in India; and the antiquity of its rock art.

The Sizes of Countries and Regions in Asia, with Comparative Examples

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 17, 2012

In search of Neanderthals

Nature, Aug 1, 1995

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On the problems of studying prehistoric climate and crop agriculture

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Dec 1, 1977

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Human migration and occupation of Eurasia

Episodes, Jun 1, 2008

The main current benefit of collaboration between Quaternary scientists and palaeoanthropologists... more The main current benefit of collaboration between Quaternary scientists and palaeoanthropologists (especially palaeolithic archaeologists) lies in providing a unique perspective on how human populations respond to longterm climate change. Eurasia has a superlative record of climatic changes over the last two million years, and an archaeological record that is regionally variable in quality, but which is drawn from a wide range of environmental and chronological contexts. At a continental scale, the integration of these records allows the past 2 Ma to be divided into six major themes of how hominins (our remote ancestors) and our own species responded to climatic changes at Milankovitch and sub-Milankovitch scales. These themes are the initial hominin colonisation of Asia after ~2 Ma; the dispersal of hominins into Europe in the Early Pleistocene and its eventual permanent colonisation in the Middle Pleistocene; the expansion of Acheulean, bifacial assemblages from the Levant to western Europe and India after 600 ka; the responses of hominin populations to Milankovitch-length climatic changes during the Middle Pleistocene; the expansion of modern humans after 100 ka across Eurasia and later into Australasia and the Americas; and the recolonisation at millennial scales of abandoned areas of Eurasia at the end of last ice age. As the quality of Quaternary and archaeological information improves, these responses of past human populations to climatic change will be documented at a level of detail unimaginable a few decades ago. Cumulatively, this type of collaboration provides a unique perspective on the consequences of large-scale climatic change upon human populations that is particularly relevant to current concerns of climate change

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West and Central Asia: Early Homo Fossil Records

Springer eBooks, 2020