With support from an National Science Foundation provided through an Archaeology and Physical Anthropology Programs "high risk" award, Dr. Sheela Athreya from Texas A&M University will conduct an archaeological and paleontological reconnaisance of the Lower Narmada Valley in Western India. Paleoanthropological data indicates that anatomically modern humans first emerged in Africa over 100,000 years ago and that eventually their descendents expanded out of Africa to cover the entire inhabited world. They likely replaced prior "hominid" inhabitants of these regions and most scientists believe that little if any intermixture occurred between these two groups. While the region of origin for anatomically modern humans is fairly well established, the route outside Africa by which their extraordinary expansion occurred is highly debated and the path which they followed is unknown. Two dispersal patterns have been proposed, on proceeds North through the Near East and a second follows a coastal route East into and then around India. Because anatomically modern humans appear in Australia by ca. 50,000 years ago a coastal migration is not unreasonable.
Dr. Athreya believes that such a migration would cross the Lower Narmada Valley in western coastal India and she therefore proposes to conduct a survey to search for fossil remains in this region. She will: determine the density and distribution of archaeological artifacts in the lower Narmada Valley; locate their likely sources, determining if localities are relatively undisturbed; locate sites with a likelihood of having good faunal preservation or evidence of human activity and possible preservation of fossil material; and finally establish the dates for sites through a series of geochemical techniques. Five sites will be intensively surveyed over the course of the project.
