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| 2. Asian Hunter-Gatherers |
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| Intensely conservative hunter-gatherer cultures continued to flourish in Asia after the Ice Age. In the more open country of the north, the microblade traditions of millennia earlier continued to diversify into ever more specialized hunting and foraging economies, as well as into emerging seacoast economies. The peoples of the tropical forests of Southeast Asia continued to rely heavily on bamboo and wood technology, and their simple culture was little changed from much earlier times, except for a gradual trend toward more diminutive, specialized tool kits. These tool kits reflect much more varied adaptations by these peoples to local environments, adaptations subsumed under the archaeological label Hoabhinian Tradition. | 1 |
| Offshore, in New Guinea and Australia, more specialized local cultures now appeared, many of them oriented toward the exploitation of specific foods like fish, sea mammals, and small game. In the New Guinea highlands, there are signs that people began to deliberately clear forests and plant wild yams after the Ice Age to enhance their food supplies as best they could. Human settlement was still confined to the islands of the extreme southwestern Pacific, for Asians still lacked the necessary boats and foods to navigate far offshore. | 2 |
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