Glacial Adaptations

All around the world, H. sapiens populations had to adapt to falling temperatures in a few core regions. I start by reviewing economic and social development in Europe during the Upper Paleolithic after 45 kya when groups of game hunters roamed the mammoth steppe, and the appearance of elaborate cave paintings suggests a novel spiritual and perhaps religious development. In Oceania, seafaring colonizers exploited low glacial sea levels and colonized Australia, the highlands of New Guinea, and smaller islands in Oceania, often using advanced forms of niche construction. Also the Americas were settled around this time by migrants from Siberia. An important subsection is concerned with the overkill and extinction of large land-based mammals during the Late Pleistocene and reviews theory and evidence of factors driving the extinction. Lastly, we present recent research on the formation of ethnic groups and the evolution of ethnic and genetic diversity as a result of the out-of-Africa dispersal.