Christopher J. Norton, PhD

Assistant Professor

Background and Research Interests

I was born in Korea to Korean parents. However, from about the age of one I had what many would consider, an atypical upbringing; one that drew me to East Asian paleoanthropology from my earliest days in school. At about the age of one I was orphaned in Seoul, Korea and after living in an orphanage for six months, I was then adopted by an American family. Growing up in a Caucasian-American household and neighborhood always made me aware and interested in topics such as race and human variation. In order to discover my ethnic “roots” I traveled to Korea during my undergraduate days on an exchange program. The general goal of paleoanthropology is to reconstruct the past without all the pieces. My original objective in going to Korea was to reconstruct my own past, but I have since expanded this approach to address a diversity of questions about East Asian paleoanthropology.

Since that initial trip to Korea I have been conducting paleoanthropological field and laboratory research in Japan and China as well. I have been carrying out collaborative research on a diversity of projects (e.g., hominin fossils, vertebrate taphonomy, lithics) in all three countries. Having spent a good part of my time living and becoming acclimated with each country’s particular culture has facilitated the development of a strong network of collaborators and collaborations. From the accumulated experience, I believe that the best way to develop a firm understanding of the human evolutionary record in East Asia is to link the hominin morphological and behavioral records. This facilitates a more comprehensive perspective of the nature of Pleistocene hominin morphological and behavioral variation in Homo erectus and modern Homo sapiens. As such, my current research interests crosscut different subdisciplines in anthropology and other scientific fields.

Current Research

Research in Asian Paleoanthropology Program (RAPP): I am currently involved in research projects that are designed to better synthesize the East Asian human evolutionary record. My research is multi-disciplinary in nature and involves paleoanthropologists, vertebrate paleontologists, archaeologists, geologists, and dating specialists from East Asia, North America, and Europe. By incorporating vertebrate paleontological, archaeological, geological, and chronometric datasets we are developing models to reconstruct Quaternary hominin lifeways in its biotic setting. The primary projects I am involved with are:

1. Field and laboratory research in southern and eastern China in the form of exploratory surveying of cave and open-air sites that potentially contain paleoanthropological residues in the form of hominin body and/or trace (hominin modified bone, manuports, lithics) fossils. This region was chosen as the starting point because a diversity of evidence indicates it served as a continuous hominin migration corridor throughout the Quaternary.
2. Vertebrate taphonomy. I use vertebrate taphonomy to address questions related to reconstructing the nature of hominin-carnivore interactions during the Early and Middle Pleistocene, the evolution of modern human behavior, megafaunal extinctions, and changing human diet breadth during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in East Asia. In particular, I am involved with a series of taphonomic studies of Middle-Late Pleistocene and Holocene faunal assemblages in China, Japan, and Korea. My collaborators and I are also developing experimental taphonomic studies in China and here at the University of Hawai’i.
3. Movius Line. In the 1940s, the eminent archaeologist Hallam Movius observed that bifacially-worked stone implements are present in much of the western Old World, but absent in eastern Asia during the Pleistocene. This observation came to be known as the Movius Line. Since Movius made this interesting observation, bifaces have been found in several different places in East Asia. However, for the most part, these handaxes, cleavers, and picks are rarer in terms of the number of sites and the number of implements excavated from these sites than in regions like South Asia and East Africa. Furthermore, the handaxes in East Asia are morphologically different, often produced on local river cobbles, they tend to be thicker with fewer flakes knocked off. My colleagues and I are working on further analyzing the nature of this variability.

Selected Publications

Monographs

2010 Norton, C.J., Jin, J. (Editors). Pleistocene and Early Holocene Hominin Variability in Eastern Asia and Australasia: Current Perspectives. Quaternary International.

2010 Norton, C.J., Braun, D.R. (Editors). Asian Paleoanthropology: From Africa to China and Beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series, Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals

In press Norton, C.J., Jin, J. The evolution of modern humans in East Asia: behavioral perspectives. Evolutionary Anthropology.

2010 Wu, X.J., Schepartz, L.A., Norton, C.J. Morphological and morphometric
analysis of variation in the Zhoukoudian Homo erectus brain endocasts. Quaternary International.

2010 Liu, W., Wu, X.Z., Pei, S.W., Wu, X.J., Norton, C.J. Huanglong Cave: a late
Pleistocene human fossil site in Hubei Province,China. Quaternary International.

2010 Norton, C.J., Kondo, Y., Ono, A., Zhang, Y.Q., Diab, M. The nature of megafaunal extinctions during the MIS 3-2 transition in Japan. Quaternary International.

2010 Lycett, S.J., Norton, C.J. A demographic model for Palaeolithic technological evolution: the case of East Asia and the Movius Line. Quaternary International.

2009 Norton, C.J., Bae, K.D. Erratum to “The Movius Line sensu lato (Norton et al., 2006) further assessed and defined” J. H. Evol. 55 (2008) 1148–1150. Journal of Human Evolution 57, 331-334.

2008 Norton, C.J., Gao, X. Zhoukoudian Upper Cave revisited: A taphonomic perspective. Current Anthropology 49: 732-745.

2008 Norton, C.J., Bae, K.D. The Movius Line sensu lato (Norton et al. 2006) further assessed and defined. Journal of Human Evolution 55: 1148-1150.

2008 Norton, C.J., Gao, X. Hominin-carnivore interactions during the Chinese Early Paleolithic: Taphonomic perspectives from Xujiayao. Journal of Human Evolution 55: 164-178.

2007 Norton, C.J., Hasegawa, Y., Kohno, N., Tomida, Y. Distinguishing archaeological and paleontological faunal collections from Pleistocene Japan: Taphonomic perspectives from Hanaizumi. Anthropological Science 115: 91-106.

2007 Wu X.J., Liu, W., Zhang, Q.C., Norton, C.J. The microevolution of the craniofacial morphological features for the Holocene human populations in north China. Chinese Science Bulletin 52: 1661-1668.

2007 Norton, C.J. Sedentism, territorial circumscription, and the increased use of plant domesticates across Neolithic-Bronze Age Korea. Asian Perspectives 46(1):133-165.

2006 Norton, C.J., Bae, K.D., Harris, J.W.K., Lee, H.Y. Middle Pleistocene handaxes from the Korean Peninsula. Journal of Human Evolution 51: 527-536.

2002 Gao, X., Norton, C.J. Critique of the Chinese “Middle Paleolithic.” Antiquity 76: 397-412.

2000 Norton, C.J. Subsistence change at Konam-ri: implications for the advent of rice agriculture in Korea. Journal of Anthropological Research 56: 325-348.

2000 Norton, C.J. The current state of Korean paleoanthropology. Journal of Human Evolution 38: 803-825.

1999 Norton, C.J., Kim, B.M., Bae, K.D. Differential processing of fish during the Korean Neolithic: Konam-ri. Arctic Anthropology 36(1-2): 151-165.

Contributions to Edited Volumes (* denotes peer-reviewed)

*2010 Norton, C.J., Jin, C.Z., Wang, Y., Zhang, Y.Q. Rethinking the Palearctic-Oriental biogeographic boundary in Quaternary China. In: Norton, C.J., Braun, D. (Eds.), Asian Paleoanthropology: From Africa to China and Beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series, Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. (in press)

*2010 Norton, C.J., Gao, X., Liu, W., Braun, D., Wu, X.J. Central-East China - a Plio-Pleistocene migration corridor: the current state of evidence for hominin occupations. In: Norton, C.J., Braun, D. (Eds.), Asian Paleoanthropology: From Africa to China and Beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series, Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. (in press)

*2010 Braun, D.R., Norton, C.J., Harris, J.W.K. Africa and Asia: Comparisons of the
earliest archaeological evidence. In: Norton, C.J., Braun, D. (Eds.), Asian Paleoanthropology: From Africa to China and Beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series, Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. (in press)

*2009 Norton, C.J., Gao, X., Feng, X.W. The criteria defining the East Asian Middle Paleolithic reexamined. In: Camps, M., Chauhan, P.R. (Eds.), Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions: Methods, Theories, and Interpretations. Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. (in press)

*2007 Norton, C.J., Bae, K.D., Lee, H.Y., Harris, J.W.K. A review of Korean microlithic industries. In: Keates, S., Kuzmin, Y., Shen, C. (Eds.), Origin and Spread of Microblade Technology in Northern Asia and North America. Archaeology Press, Vancouver, pp. 91-102.

Short Communications, Book Reviews

2010 Norton, C.J. Review of: R. Dennell’s The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia (2009), Cambridge University Press. The Holocene.

2010 Norton, C.J., Lycett, S.J. The Movius Line. McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology.

2009 Norton, C.J. International collaborative research in East Asian paleoanthropology: personal perspectives. Society for American Archaeology Archaeological Record 9:5-7.

Additional Information

I am currently serving as a co-leader of a working group (“Hominin colonization and its Palaeoenvironmental Contexts in China, Mongolia, and adjoining East Asia”) for INQUA’s (the International Union for Quaternary Research) Commission on Palaeoecology and Human Evolution (PAHE). This working group is attempting to synthesize and better understand the East Asian paleoanthropological record in its paleoenvironmental context.

Courses Regularly Offered

• ANTH 151 – Emerging Humanity
• ANTH 215 – Introduction to Physical Anthropology
• ANTH 215L – Introduction to Physical Anthropology Lab
• ANTH 310 – Human Origins
• ANTH 375 – Race and Human Variation
• ANTH 460 – Asian Paleoanthropology
• ANTH 604 – Biological Anthropology Graduate Core

page last updated September 7, 2009