Palaeoanthropological Investigations of the Thai-American Expedition in Northern Thailand (1978-1980): An Interim Report

Abstract

N THE FIRST HALF of this century, explorations and discoveries in Java indicated that hominids had occupied Island Southeast Asia during the early Pleistocene (Koenigswald 1935(Koenigswald , 1936)).Work during the last few decades has not only succeeded in increasing the number of known hominid specimens from Java, but has also established a radiometric framework which indicates that early species of Homo had reached Southeast Asia at least as early as the Lower Pleistocene (Koenigswald 1956;Jacob and Curtis 1971;Jacob 1972 Jacob , 1973Jacob , 1975)).While the taxonomic status of many of the hominid specimens is an issue of current debate, certain biogeographic aspects of the history of these hominids may be deduced with a fair amount of certainty.The fact that the then-exposed Chao Phyra River plain and Sunda Shelf served as a major dispersal route for hominids is suggested not only by fossil hominids themselves but also by the distribution of living and fossil mammals in Java and Mainland Southeast Asia (Colbert and Hooijer 1953;De Terra 1943;Lekagul and McNeely 1977).Recent discoveries in the southernmost province of China have also greatly expanded our knowledge of the early Pleistocene distribution of Asian hominids.At Yuanmou, Yunnan (some 700 km from Chiangwat Chiang Mai), two upper

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