The Mammoth Steppe and the origin of Mongoloids and their dispersal

• Main Author: Guthrie, R Dale
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Pacific; Indian; Molnar; Bering Land Bridge
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198523185.003.0011; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52426013/isbn-9780198523185-book-part-11.pdf

Abstract I would like to proffer a new theory: that the complex of characters which we identify with Mongoloid peoples are the product of a special Holarctic biome, the Mammoth Steppe. And further, that this Mammoth Steppe environment is the key to understanding both the adaptive features of Mongoloids and much of their dispersal history. The roots go deep. The collision of the Indian Plate with the Asian Plate starting 40 million years ago created the Himalayas, building mountains higher than any the earth had known. This series of massive upward thrusts affected atmospheric circulation by blocking southern monsoonal air flow which normally moves northwestward from the Pacific. This mountain building reached a crescendo in Pleistocene times (Molnar 1989). An almost permanent high pressure cell developed behind the Himalayas, resulting in a cold and arid climate. The flora and fauna which persisted in these conditions had some unusual aspects due to the combination of low latitude (30° to 45° North) but moderately high altitude (2000 to 5000 meters). The cold, dry grassland which developed behind the south face of the Himalayas (the Tibetan Plateau on the north to Mongolia) became the heartland of the Mammoth Steppe (Fig. 11.1), and, I propose, was also the evolutionary homeland of the Mongoloid peoples. During Pleistocene cycles of low solar input this grassy biome spread eastward across Europe to the Atlantic, northward to the Arctic Ocean onto the huge exposed continental shelf north of Asia, and eastward to North America via the exposed Bering land bridge.