Migrations and Livelihoods of Asian Hunter-Gatherers: Diversity of Environmental Adaptations in Human History

Keywords

Asia,hunter-gatherers,environmental adaptation

Objectives

The hunter-gatherer period is said to account for 99.8% of the entire course of history of humanity, estimated at seven million years. Despite the fact that humans have developed agriculture, pastoralism, and modern civilization since it ended, prehistoric hunter-gatherer culture has not died out entirely. The hunter-gatherers that still live today as minorities in the states they find themselves in, maintaining relationships with agricultural and pastoral peoples, have survived thanks to a variety of ingenious ideas. This study sets out to understand how hunter-gatherers in Asia have adapted to their environment from prehistoric times to the present. For this purpose, I divided the Asian environments into six kinds of ecological region: (1) frigid or cold zones; (2) temperate humid zones; (3) temperate arid zones; (4) tropical highland zones; (5) tropical forest zone; and (6) tropical islands zone (Ikeya, 2022). For convenience, I also divided up the history of humanity into four phases: the hunter-gatherer period; the period of symbiotic relationships and assimilation with agricultural peoples; the period of state formation in the pre-modern/modern; and the market economy period. Using this framework, I focused on migration and livelihood to critically examine the effectiveness of this categorization scheme, in terms of the approach to environmental adaptation in each ecoregion and time period.
• Kazunobu Ikeya 2022, “Survival Strategies of Hunter-Gatherers: Migration and Environmental Adaptation” in “Human Resilience : Past, Present and Future”, edited by Tetsuya Inamura et al., Kyoto University Press.

Research Results

In recent years, advancements in molecular anthropology and prehistoric archaeology have produced active discussion on the characteristics of Homo sapiens. Demonstrating the process of the cognitive revolution that predates the agricultural revolution in human history is difficult due to lack of archaeological evidence. The theme of this research project was how humans in Asia adapted to their environment from prehistoric times to the present, with a focus on migrations and livelihoods of hunter-gatherers, which can be discussed empirically in both the fields of prehistory and ethnology. Specifically, we divided Asian environments into six kinds of ecological regions—ranging from frigid to tropical zones—and researched the history of hunter-gatherers by dividing it into four phases for convenience.
The results can be summarized in the following three points. First, holding separate workshops for each of the six ecological regions illuminated the differences in the volume of research of each academic discipline by region. For example, in the temperate arid zones of West Asia, there are many studies in prehistory but almost no ethnographies. In contrast, the reverse can be seen in the tropical forest zone of Southeast and South Asia. Furthermore, there is little research on tropical highland zones in either field. In this research project, we presented a method of critical examination, taking into account the characteristics of the archeological and ethnological materials of each region, to build a history of Homo sapiens for the entire Asian continent.
Next, we found that migrations and livelihoods could be studied effectively in comparing regions and time periods to build a complete history within the six ecological regions. We found that particularly when discussing migration, it was important to do so in scales of time of hundreds, tens, and one year, and that historical ethnography that dealt with changes in migration over the long- and short-term was crucial.
In addition, we identified the mechanisms of environmental adaption for each of the six ecological regions and examined whether there were common or universal features that spanned regions or time period. Individual materials have not been sufficiently organized at present, but we will likely be able to present the development of new technology in each region and the features that regions have in common such as in the way communities reorganize. As mentioned in the beginning, new discoveries continue to be made in molecular anthropology and prehistoric archaeology on the periods and routes of migration, which provoked thought about future possibilities in ethnoarchaeological and ethnographical studies.