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(★)(Titulo original : 我々はなぜ,我々だけなのか : アジアから消えた多様な´人類´たち [Wareware wa naze wareware dake nanoka : Ajia kara kieta tayou na ´jinrui´ tachi, 2017])(Translated by Dana Lewis)(Even as societies are beset with turmoil over insignificant human differences such as skin color, ´Homo sapiens´ are broadly homogeneous. We´re all basically the same. What´s more, we´re the only human species alive. Yet it has not always been that way. Eons ago, there were many different species in many different places. Not only the Peking Man and Cro-Magnons that school textbooks talk about but many more. It was, so to speak,´a world of diversity´. Now it is just us. How did this happen? Who were these people? Where did they live? And how did such species diversity end up being just Homo sapiens? With an unequaled focus on events in Asia, this exciting work takes you along on the exploration and the research to answer these questions. Providing new information and new insights, it is a thoughtful look at humanity´s evolutionary background. ／What comes to mind when you think of the people of prehistoric Asia? For me, it used to be Peking Man and Java Man --whom scientists call ´Homo erectus´. Java Man in particular, discovered in the late nineteenth century, was a first in anthropological history and was widely acclaimed as the missing link between apes and humans. This link led to his being prominently featured in natural history museums and to widespread recognition of the name ／More than a hundred years after that discovery, it is agreed today that humans emerged first in Africa. As a consequence, anthropological research has focused primarily on Africa, leaving Asia somewhat in the shadows as a relatively neglected area of study. But there have been a number of exciting discoveries in Asia in the last twenty years. One major surprise was the 2003 discovery of a smaller species, ´Flores Man´, nicknamed ´hobbit´, on Indonesia´s Flores Island. There was also the 2010 DNA identification of a new species now known as Denisovans. And there have been more recent discoveries : in 2015 of a distinctively robust jawbone likely from a new species in Taiwan´s Penghu Channel and then reports in 2018 of human bones from another new species of ancient humans in the Philippines, from Luzon. All of this clear evidence of human evolution in Asia has sparked renewed interest in Asia as an area once inhabited by many different species. ／This book grew out of an effort to gain a better understanding of the peoples who populated Asia in ancient times and to present these findings from a modern Homo sapiens perspective. Books on human evolution have long been popular in Japan, and the genre has spawned a number of best sellers. Regrettably, most have been translations of works originally written in English. Even as they dealt with fascinating questions like how humans evolved from their African origins, when Homo sapiens came out of Africa, how Neanderthals and Homo sapiens coexisted in Europe, when and how the European population transitioned from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens, and how Homo sapiens spread to Eurasia and then to the Americas, I was left with the mystery of who lived in Asia and when, a question that these popular books seemed to have overlooked. Of course, all authors write with a target audience in mind, and the target audience is an important consideration in deciding what to include in a book. A book written for people living in Europe naturally focuses on the Neanderthals who earlier populated Europe and then the Cro-Magnons who followedthem as the first European Homo sapiens. Likewise, readers in North America are likely to be interested in the great journey taken by humanity to and then across the Americas ; Australian readers curious about where the indigenous people´s ancestors came from ; and Pacific islanders about how people came to live on this or that island. More broadly speaking, people like me who live in Asia might be expected to to want to find out what human species lived in Asia and when. ／Since the book I wanted to read didn´t exist, I decided to find these things out firsthand. And the best place to start was by talking with Dr. Yousuke Kaifu of Tokyo´s National Museum of Nature and Science, who brought me up to date on anthropological research in Asia. The result is this book. Though I originally wrote the book for Japanese readers, my hope is that it will prove a catalyst in conveying a wealth of information not readily available to English-language readers. ／Of course, I mainly hope you´ll enjoy the quest to unearth the secrets of human evolution in Asia as depicted here. Another hope is that I´ve shed some light, albeit from a different angle, on the universal questions of where we came from and what the future holds. All of us essentially have our origins in Africa, and this Asian chapter enlarges the ever-evolving story of humankind´s great journey from past to present, living in regions far and wide across the planet. [from ´INTRODUCTION´, Hiroto Kawabata, December 2019] ◆Hiroto Kawabata : Born in Hyogo in 1964 and raised in Chiba, Kawabata graduated from the University of Tokyo College of Arts and Sciences. He worked as a science reporter for the Nippon TV news department before going independent in 1997. Among his works of fiction are ´Natsu no roketto (Rocket summer)´, ´Ginga no warudokappu (Galaxy Kickoff!!)´, ´Kumo no ou (King of clouds)´, ´Kawa no namae (River names)´, and ´Aoi umi no uchuko (Space port on the blue sea)´. Among his many non-fiction works are ´Dobutsuen ni dekiru koto (What zoos can do)´, ´Uchu no hajimari, soshite owari (Our universe : The beginning and the end)´, and ´Hachi-jikan suimin no uso (The myth of the eight-hour sleep)´. ／Yousuke Kaifu : Born in Tokyo in 1969, Kaifu earned his Doctorate of Science from the University of Tokyo´s Graduate School of Science. He is currently group head for the Division of Human Evolution at Japan´s National Museum of Nature and Science, Department of Anthropology, and leads the hands-on project to reenact the voyage to Japan 30,000 years ago. He was awarded the 2012 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize for his research on Java Man and Flores Man. A prolific contributor to the scientific literature, he has also authored ´Jinrui ga tadottekita michi (Origins of humanity)´. ▼CONTENTS／ ●PROLOGUE／Uncovering Homo Erectus in Asia ●CHAPTER 1／Overview of Human Evolution ●CHAPTER 2／The Java Story ●CHAPTER 3／Where It Happens : Putting Science to Work on Java Man ●CHAPTER 4／Grand Entrance from an Island Cave ●CHAPTER 5／Big News from the Basin ●CHAPTER 6／Up from Taiwan´s Ocean Floor ●CHAPTER 7／Lost in Evolution／) |
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