A.P. Derevianko’s multivolume Three global human migrations in Eurasia and its place in Paleolithic studies

Academician A.P. Derevianko’s longterm studies are summarized in the first four volumes of his monograph on three global human migrations in Eurasia. The routes whereby early humans dispersed from Africa and eventually spread over nearly entire Eurasia are reconstructed, and numerous empirical and theoretical problems stemming from these reconstructions are convincingly resolved. Derevianko headed the excavations of Paleolithic sites scattered across vast territories of Asia. Especially important are the discoveries in the Altai. This work has raised a number of questions of key importance, for which no universally accepted answers have been given so far. One such issue is the discovery of three taxa of Middle Paleolithic hominins in that region-Denisovans, Neanderthals, and anatomically modern humans. Whether the former two are separate species of Homo or subspecies of archaic Homo sapiens, is not yet clear. Based on the hominin fossil record and having critically examined the principal hypotheses and proposals concerning both biological and cultural aspects of human evolution, A.P. Derevianko has come up with his own theory of the origin of the genus Homo, originating from Australopithecines. Some groups of the latter are believed to have been mentally predisposed for developing cumulative knowledge relating to lithic technologies and other aspects of culture. One of these aspects is the behavior relating to the interment of the dead-the first specifically human cultural trait, documented since the final Acheulean. Human migrations involve a plexus of issues: properties of the raw material affecting lithic industries, and the extreme environmental variability peculiar to the largest continent. Despite the exponential growth of publications addressing human evolution, Derevianko’s conclusions, both empirical and theoretical, outlined in the first volumes of his summarizing work, retain a key importance.