TY - CHAP
T1 - The Red Sea, Coastal Landscapes, and Hominin Dispersals
AU - Bailey, Geoff
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - The Red Sea has typically been viewed as a barrier to early human movement between Africa and Asia over the past 5 million years, and one that could be circumvented only through narrow exit points at either end, vulnerable to blockage by physical or climatic barriers (Fig. 1). It is one of several significant obstacles cutting across ‘savannahstan’ (Dennell and Roebroeks, 2005), a broad swathe of herbivore-rich savannah and grassy plains that began to extend over a vast area stretching from West Africa to China with climatic cooling from at least 2.5 Ma, and a key macro-environmental context for early hominin dispersal1. However, this concept of the Red Sea Basin as a barrier should not obscure the fact that its coastal regions also hold considerable potential attractions for early human settlement, especially under climatic conditions wetter than today, including a complex tectonic and volcanic topography not unlike that of the African Rift, capable of providing localized fertility for plant and animal life, tactical opportunities for pursuit of herbivores and protection from predators (King and Bailey, 2006), along with inshore and intertidal marine resources.
AB - The Red Sea has typically been viewed as a barrier to early human movement between Africa and Asia over the past 5 million years, and one that could be circumvented only through narrow exit points at either end, vulnerable to blockage by physical or climatic barriers (Fig. 1). It is one of several significant obstacles cutting across ‘savannahstan’ (Dennell and Roebroeks, 2005), a broad swathe of herbivore-rich savannah and grassy plains that began to extend over a vast area stretching from West Africa to China with climatic cooling from at least 2.5 Ma, and a key macro-environmental context for early hominin dispersal1. However, this concept of the Red Sea Basin as a barrier should not obscure the fact that its coastal regions also hold considerable potential attractions for early human settlement, especially under climatic conditions wetter than today, including a complex tectonic and volcanic topography not unlike that of the African Rift, capable of providing localized fertility for plant and animal life, tactical opportunities for pursuit of herbivores and protection from predators (King and Bailey, 2006), along with inshore and intertidal marine resources.
KW - Bab al Mandab
KW - Coasts
KW - Farasan Islands
KW - Marine Resources
KW - Paleoclimate
KW - Paleoenvironment
KW - Red Sea
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85037125749&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-90-481-2719-1_2
DO - 10.1007/978-90-481-2719-1_2
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85037125749
SN - 9789048127184
T3 - Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology
SP - 15
EP - 37
BT - The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia
A2 - Petraglia, Michael D.
A2 - Rose, Jeffrey I.
PB - Springer
CY - Dordrecht; Heidelberg; London; New York
ER -