Island Adaptation in Human Evolution and Dispersal: Based on Archaeological Evidences

Island Adaptation in Human Evolution and Dispersal: Based on Archaeological Evidences

Pahiyangala Sumangala¹

¹Center for Archaeological Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China.;

¹Department of Social Sciences and Comparative Studies, Bhiksu University of Sri Lanka, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.909000718

Received: 20 September 2025; Accepted: 26 September 2025; Published: 28 October 2025

ABSTRACT

Island is a key region for studying human dispersals, adaptations and interactions with other hominin populations. Although archaeological evidence now reveals occupation of the region by approximately 48 000 years ago (Sri Lanka), its human fossil record, which has the best potential to provide direct insights into ecological adaptations and population relationships, has remained much more elusive. Defining the distinctive capacities of Homo sapiens relative to other hominins is a major focus for human evolutionary studies. The cultural and ecological adaptations that enabled our species to expand outside Africa to almost every continent during the Late Pleistocene (125–12 ka) remain major subjects of interest to archaeological, anthropological and biomolecular research. There is growing evidence that Homo sapiens had a unique capacity to adapt to a diversity of extreme environments, both within and beyond Africa, when compared with other members of the genus Homo.

Keywords: adaptation, evolution, dispersal, pleistocene, holocene, island

INTRODUCTION

Studies of migrations of our species into Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have often focused on its increased efficiency in hunting, butchering, and consuming medium-to-large game in open “savanna” settings. Focus on these environments has meant that small mammals have been neglected in discussions of the human colonization of new environments, despite the fact that a specialization in their procurement is often considered a feature of technological and behavioral “complexity” or “modernity” unique to our species.

When, how and why did humans first exploit shorelines a marine food? These questions have become a frequent topic in archaeology and paleoanthropology. Researchers have long known that the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines—behaviors loosely summarized under the term ‘coastal adaptations’—are integral to the lifeways of many Holocene hunter-gatherers. Recent archaeological findings, however, suggest that an interest in coasts reaches back to the late Middle Pleistocene for modern humans (Marean et al, 2007), and perhaps also for Neanderthals (Stringer et al, 2008), though the comparability of these behaviors is debated.

The nature, age and distribution of the evidence for island adaptations have also ignited a debate on their importance for the bio-cultural evolution and dispersal of our species. Some researchers regard the evidence for coastal foraging by early humans during the Paleolithic as scarce, indicating short-term and geographically isolated behaviors with limited relevance. Others view such adaptations as long-term and important phenomena that were integral to the origin and evolution of modern humans in particular.

There is less consensus on how to define island and coastal adaptations, or how they differ from maritime/marine adaptations (Marean 2014). This being said, island and coastal adaptations have frequently been defined as a characteristic of populations whose regular and systematic use of marine foods and rainforest food (fauna & flora) reflects the largest portion of their diet, often associated with year-round settlements on or near shorelines and the additional potential to transform the overall behavior of people in relation to the sea and its resources. In these definitions, island and coastal adaptations are conceived of as a discrete trait, either present in or absent from a population. The presence of island adaptations is often based on archaeological evidence from Holocene hunter-gatherers or modern ethnographic analogies, where large heaps of shell refuse are a frequent behavioral by-product.

Throughout human history, islands have played a significant role in shaping the trajectory of our species’ evolution and dispersal. Isolated from mainland regions, islands have presented unique challenges and opportunities for human populations. This article will explore the archaeological evidence that sheds light on how humans have adapted to island environments and how these adaptations have influenced their dispersal patterns. Islands are characterized by their isolation from mainland areas, often surrounded by vast bodies of water. This isolation has led to distinct ecological conditions and limited resources, posing challenges for early settlers. However, islands also offer some advantages such as biodiversity, reduced competition, and abundant marine resources.

Island Dispersal Patterns

The adaptations made by humans in island environments have also influenced our dispersal patterns. Island populations often face reduced gene flow with mainland populations, leading to genetic divergence and the emergence of distinct groups. This genetic isolation can be witnessed in various regions:

Human Adaptation in Island

Islands are unique ecosystems that pose a range of challenges for human survival and adaptation. With limited resources and often isolated from mainland civilizations, humans living on islands have developed extraordinary strategies and techniques to overcome these obstacles. This is explores the various aspects of human adaptation on islands, including food sources, transportation, and cultural practices.

Food Sources

The unique ecosystems found on islands necessitated innovative approaches to food procurement and resource utilization. Archaeological findings provide evidence of Homo sapiens adapting to exploit the limited resources available to them (Sumangala et al., 2025).

Fishing: – Island dwellers heavily rely on fishing as a primary food source due to their close proximity to water bodies – Techniques such as net fishing, spearfishing, and trapping are often employed – Traditional knowledge about tidal patterns, fish behavior, and seasons are passed down through generations to optimize the chances of a successful catch – Fish provide essential nutrients and proteins that are vital for island inhabitants. Fishing and shellfish gathering were crucial for island subsistence – Remains of fish, turtles, and mollusks indicate the significance of marine resources in island adaptation

Agriculture – Many islands have limited arable land, so humans have adapted their farming techniques accordingly (after Prehistorical period) – Terraced farming is a common practice where flat steps are created on hilly slopes to maximize space and prevent erosion.

Gathering – Collecting food from the wild, such as edible plants, fruits, nuts, and seeds, is often practiced – Islanders have extensive knowledge of local flora, allowing them to identify edible plants as well as their medicinal properties – Seaweed, sea grapes, and other maritime vegetation are also harvested and consumed for their nutritional value.

Traditional Knowledge – Islanders possess a rich heritage of traditional knowledge and practices that have been passed down through generations – This includes knowledge of weather patterns, wildlife behavior, medicinal plants, and sustainable resource management – Traditional rituals and ceremonies help maintain a connection to the land, sea, and ancestors.

The archaeological evidence of island adaptation in Homo sapiens provides valuable insights into the evolutionary, environmental, and cultural factors that shaped human existence on islands. The ability of Homo sapiens to overcome the challenges presented by isolated environments reveals the remarkable adaptive capabilities of our species. Through the evolution of physical traits, adaptation to distinct environmental conditions, and the development of innovative technologies, Homo sapiens successfully settled and thrived on islands worldwide. These archaeological findings unravel the extensive history of island colonization and the resilience of Homo sapiens in adapting to diverse habitats.

Islands have been critical in shaping human evolution and dispersal. The archaeological evidence presented here demonstrates the various adaptations made by early humans, from physical changes to innovative problem-solving skills. These adaptations not only allowed humans to survive in isolated environments but also influenced their dispersal patterns, leading to genetic divergence and the emergence of distinct populations. Human adaptation on islands exemplifies the incredible resilience and ingenuity of our species.

Dispersal of Modern Humans

Discussions about island adaptations have also entered into another topic central to human evolution: the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa, or more precisely, its causes, routes and mode (Figure 01) (Bae et al, 2017). Ethnographic observations suggest that humans dispersing into new landscapes tend to follow conspicuous landscape features, such as coastlines, mountains and rivers. People would follow coasts if they were familiar with this ecosystem and intended to move swiftly along mostly linear corridors and small stretches of land. Applied to early Homo sapiens, the ‘coasting out’ theory hypothesizes that intimate knowledge of coastal landscapes and their resources was an exaptation to colonize the rest of the world rapidly. Critics of coastal dispersal models have rightly voiced concern that much of the material evidence for such a route is missing, presumably due to rises in Holocene sea-level (Bailey, 2009). Others object to a purely coastal route out of Africa based on environmental and genetic data, arguing for a greater importance of terrestrial adaptations and dispersal routes based on archaeological evidence from abundant inland sites and palaeohydrological modeling (Bailey, 2009; Boivin et al, 2013). Early modern humans had already adapted to thrive in coastal environments, considering that these habitats difer substantially due to oceanographic, geographic and other environmental factors, and regular access to fresh water might be problematic. The most practical way to evaluate the debated importance of coastal adaptations in human bio-cultural evolution and dispersal is to query the archaeological record in a systematic and large-scale manner to assess the nature and distribution of these behaviors in Pleistocene populations.

Figure 01. Map of sites with ages and postulated early and later pathways associated with modern humans dispersing across Asia during the Late Pleistocene (Bae et al, 2017).

Human behavior and adaptations at Sri Lanka Island

Fresh data provide new insights into the foraging strategies and material culture of human populations living at the site of Sri Lanka Island. Firstly, new radiocarbon dating programme has dramatically revised the dates for the site, making it now one of the oldest dated rockshelter/cave sites in Sri Lanka, and indeed South Asia more broadly. Indeed, the earliest occupation date of 48,000 cal. years BP places it approximately contemporaneous to Fahien-lena Cave and now earlier than the 38,000-36,000 cal. years BP recorded for Batadomba-lena (Perera et al, 2011; Roberts et al, 2015a). This re-dating emphasizes the importance of applying robust pre-treatment methodologies in the tropics for the Niah Caves, Borneo, in order to avoid erroneously young dates as a result of detrital contamination. In the context of charcoal, this involves the application of the Acid Base Oxidation (ABOX) pre-treatment steps (Higham et al, 2008). Moreover, the re-dating of Kitulgala Beli-lena and Fahien-lena confirm the early presence of humans in the Wet Zone rainforests of Sri Lanka as early as ca. 45,000 and 48000 years ago, an assertion that was previously solely based on the record at Fahien-lena (Wedage et al, 2019). The multidisciplinary approach presented here also enables us to confirm that this early record of human presence at Kitulgala Beli-lena is associated with clear evidence for rainforest foraging throughout the sequence. Archaeobotanical evidence from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene levels demonstrates the continued extraction and use of wild breadfruit (Artocarpus nobilis) and Kekuna nut (Canarium zeylanicum) by foragers at the site. Both of these plants provide a rich source of starch, fats, and protein, and require little processing. This makes them highly productive food resources in an environment that has often been considered to lack reliable plant-based sources of carbohydrate and protein (Bailey et al, 1989; Gamble, 1993). Canarium sp. nuts have also been documented at Fahien-lena and Batadomba-lena (Perera et al, 2011; Wedage et al, 2019a), as well as Late Pleistocene sites in Southeast Asia and New Guinea (Summerhayes et al., 2010; Barker and Farr, 2013), highlighting their potential significance to early human tropical foragers in these parts of the world. Zooarchaeological and taphonomic insights from the Holocene layers (8,029-10,577 cal. BP) of Kitulgala Beli-lena further support a specialized rainforest exploitation and use of small mammals, primarily semi-arboreal and arboreal primates and squirrels, that has been documented with striking similarities at Late Pleistocene and Holocene levels at Fahien-lena and Batadomba-lena. Wijeyapala (1997) reported the presence of animal bones in the Pleistocene layers of Kithulgala during his excavation of the outer, eastern section of the rockshelter. Although no systematic zooarchaeological analyses were conducted, he noted the presence of cercopithecid bone fragments in the site’s lower sediment layers. The absence of any animal skeletal or dental remains was also noted in the sediment micromorphological analysis conducted by Kourampas et al. (2009). This seemingly indicates that animal butchery and processing was done in different parts of the site during the Pleistocene. The osseous and lithic technological remains recovered from Kitulgala Beli-lena further confirm evidence from Fahien-lena that Late Pleistocene and Holocene foragers in Sri Lanka had developed a sophisticated repertoire for the exploitation of their immediate landscapes. Osseous tools were found within the Holocene levels of Kitulgala Beli-lena, including finished unipoints, bipoints and geometrics. The bone points were most likely utilized as projectile points similar to those found in Fahien-lena (Wedage et al, 2019; Langley et al, 2019). The lithic materials, while not representing any backed microliths, show a bipolar-on-anvil reduction method on quartz with stark similarities to those seen at Fahien-lena and Batadomba-lena where microlithic points appear to have been the final goal (Lewis et al, 2014; Lewis, 2017; Wedage et al, 2019; 2019b). The absence of retouched tools and backed flakes in this area of the site may indicate that tool-use occurred in a different part of the rockshelter or at another location altogether. Since faunal remains were recorded previously in the Pleistocene deposits (Wijeyapala, 1997) and they are lacking in the area excavated in last decade, it is probably that butchering activities, microlith preparation, and gear retooling were carried out in specific tasks locations of the rockshelter. This different spatial distribution of the remains suggests a complex organization of the site that is common in prolonged (long-term) settlements (Bartram et a, 199; O’Connell et al, 1991). This, alongside the lack of bone tools and faunal remains from the Late Pleistocene layers, supports the differential use of space by Late Pleistocene and Holocene foragers at caves of this island. As a result, while material culture and archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence at wet zone caves, and its neighboring sites, demonstrates a well-tuned, persistence foraging adaptation to the rainforest environments of Sri Lanka, there appears to be spatial complexity into how this adaptation was practiced on a site and landscape basis, represented within a given site, in a given period, and, indeed, perhaps across the landscape.

CONCLUSION

From earlier assumptions of a rapid coastal arrival in South Asia ca. 60 ka (Mellars, 2005, 2006; Field et al, 2007), pictures of the appearance of our species in this part of the world have become much more complex over the course of the last decade. Significantly, given the data available from Island of Sri Lanka (as an example), it is now clear that Homo sapiens occupied and utilized a diversity of terrestrial environments, away from the coast, from its earliest arrival in South Asia. This includes the arid environments of the Thar Desert, from potentially as early as ca. 114 ka, perhaps supported by increased precipitation and the freshwater of paleochannels and lakes (Blinkhorn et al, 2013, 2017, 2019). The Jurreru River Valley has also provided evidence for human populations in mosaic of dry forest, grassland, and riparian habitats, with fluctuating periods of aridity from 77 ka through to the Holocene (Petraglia et al, 2007; 2010, 2012; Clarkson et al, 2012). It is perhaps in Sri Lanka, however, that human adaptability to different extremes is most evident in South Asia. Here, sites producing the earliest current evidence for human fossils in the entirety of South Asia, as well as long-term records of human behaviour, are associated with specialized adaptations to island rainforest environments from 48-45,000 years ago through to 3,000 years ago. While this is not to say that coasts were irrelevant to late Pleistocene human occupations in this part of the world (Blinkhorn et al, 2017), and indeed future work on Sri Lankan coastal sites is likely to reveal prehistoric settlements in these parts of the island as well (Deraniyagala, 1992). It is now clear that the peopling of South Asia was far more complex than a coastal highway that rapidly brought uniform populations and technological strategies throughout this diverse region. Research in South Asia over the past two decades points to a complex pattern of cultural and technological change following the initial Homo sapiens colonization of the region.

It also appears that microlithic and osseous tool technologies were utilized by communities occupying a diverse range of terrestrial environments far from the South Asian coast. Bone technology including projectile points presumed to have been utilized to hunt arboreal fauna, alongside quartz microliths, have been recorded in the earliest phase of occupation of the rock shelter sites in Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone region (Deraniyagala, 1992; Perera, 2010; Perera et al., 2011). The sophisticated microlithic and osseous technologies, as well as ochre and symbolic beads, documented in these sites would not be out of place in the caves of western Europe 45,000 years ago (Conard, 2010) or in southern Africa from 100,000 years ago (Henshilwood et al, 2011), perhaps causing us to reorient our ideas of which ecological adaptations accompany symbolic, technological, and economic hallmarks of our species. Evidence for Late Pleistocene rainforest occupation and resource utilization, akin to evidence from Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone sites, has also been documented in Southeast Asia and Melanesia. The most comprehensive evidence for Late Pleistocene rainforest subsistence foraging strategies in the region comes from Niah Caves in Sarawak, Borneo. Niah Caves produced one of the earliest human fossils in Southeast Asia, dated to c. 44,000–40,000 cal. years BP (Barker et al., 2007; Higham et al., 2008; Reynolds and Barker, 2015). Results of detailed analyses looking at a wide range of archaeological materials including fauna, pollen, phytoliths, starch grains, and macrobotanical remains, point to complex foraging behaviours tailored to take full advantage of the rainforest environment (Barker and Farr, 2016). These include exploitation of an array of plant resources for food and possibly clothing, processing of toxic plants such as taros and yams, specialized targeting of wild boar, hunting of arboreal  taxa including monkeys and civet cats, as well as collection and processing of freshwater molluscs. These activities were facilitated by some of the earliest bone tools found in Southeast Asia in addition to flake-based stone tool technologies. The earliest human occupation of Melanesia is also associated with rainforest foraging. Sites in the Ivane Valley region of Papua New Guinea produced evidence for processing of Dioscorea yams and Pandanus nuts as early as 49,000–43,000 cal. years BP (Summerhayes et al, 2010). Human occupation of rainforests has also been recorded in the Bismarck Archipelago at sites in New Ireland dated to c. 40,000 cal. years BP (Leavesley, 2005) and in West New Britain c. 35,000 cal. years BP (Pavlides, 2004; Summerhayes et al., 2017). It is now becoming increasingly apparent that what truly characterizes our species is its emergence at a time of increasing climatic and environmental variability in Africa (Potts et al, 2019). Not only did this act as the background for the evolution of diverse human populations in different parts of this continent (Scerri et al, 2016), but it is also the situation that met members of Homo sapiens moving into Europe, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas during the Late Pleistocene (Roberts and Stewart, 2018). While in some cases coastal environments or savannah settings may have been significant to human populations utilizing new projectile technologies, and developing novel symbolic networks, these behaviours also supported the movement of populations into more ‘extreme’ environments including high-altitude settings, desert settings, the arctic, and tropical rainforests. While research focus on these latter environments has been largely lacking in contrast to temperate and grassland parts of Europe and Africa, two decades of research has revealed a vast wealth of information into human subsistence, technological adaptations, and symbolic behaviours. Increased multidisciplinary excavation, and analysis in parts of the world dominated by these more ‘extreme’ habitats in the present, as well as the past, has the possibility to enable us to build a more complete picture of the ecological and social adaptations that make us human, and enabled us to colonize nearly the entirety of the planet by the end of the Pleistocene.

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