Palaeolithic Cultures and Pleistocene Hominids in the Japanese Islands: an Overview
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
第 四 紀 研 究(The Quaternary Research) 38 (3) p.177-183 June 1999 Palaeolithic Cultures and Pleistocene Hominids in the Japanese Islands: An Overview Akira Ono*1, Shizuo Oda*2 and Shuji Matsu'ura*3 Current research in Japanese Palaeolithic archaeology and anthropology has four main objectives: (1) radiometric dating of Early and Middle Palaeolithic sites; (2) criteria distinguishing the Middle Palaeolithic from the Early and Late Palaeolithic; (3) understanding of settlement, procurement of raw materials, and regional variation of culture in the Late Palaeolithic; and (4) dating of hominid remains from the Late Pleistocene. Thermoluminescence dates suggest that people first reached the Japa- nese Islands as much as 0.5 million years ago. Increasing number of AMS radiocar- bon dates and their calibration opens a new horizon of man-environment interaction in the later phase of the Last Glacial, and the Pleistocene-Holocene transition pattern- ing. But few hominid remains preserved in Japan are older than the Last Glacial maximum. Key Words: Early and Middle Palaeolilthic, Late Palaeolithic, knife-blade culture, microlith culture, Late Pleistocene hominids iments, has made strong impact on the chronol- I. Introduction ogy of the later phase of the Late Palaeolithic, Several outstanding features of Japanese with particular interest on Younger Dryas Palaeolithic research in the last decade can be issues and Pleistocene termination in the Japa- summarized as follows. First, new discoveries nese Islands. And last, the hominid remains of and research progress of Early and Middle the later phase of the Late Pleistocene have Palaeolithic industries in northeastern Japan offered a material basis for discussion of the have advanced considerably. Second, an ex- formation of the Jomon people. This paper tensive interest in raw material exploitation briefly summarizes some aspects of current re- has resulted in development of a model of lithic search in Japanese Palaeolithic archaeology raw material use and procurement following and anthropology. the year-round basis of hunter-gatherer sub- II. Early and Middle Palaeolithic sistence. The analysis of the lithic raw mate- rial environment, in this context, has taken a Research into the Early Palaeolithic got a critical place in the controversy between the solid grounding at the Yamada Uenodai site in Bordesian morpho-typology and the so-called 1979, and since then many well stratified Early lithic reduction theory. Third, high-resolu- Palaeolithic sites have been excavated in tion dating, such as AMS (accelerator mass Miyagi Prefecture and adjacent areas of north- spectrometry) radiocarbon dating and its eastern Japan (Yamada, 1989). The oldest sites calibration by tree-ring and laminated lake sed- have been excavated since 1989 at Takamori Received January 29, 1999. Accepted March 7, 1999. *1 Archaeology Laboratory , Tokyo Metropolitan University. Minami-Osawa 1-1, Hachioji, 192-0397, Japan. *2 Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education . 2-8-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 163-8001, Japan. *3 Ochanomizu University . 2-1-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112-8610, Japan. 178 A. Ono, S. Oda and S. Matsu'ura June 1999 and since 1993 at Kamitakamori. The lower layer, which is dated by fission track at 49kyr, cultural horizons include bif aces and cleaver- was discovered between the two cultural hori- like tools that have been found beneath the zons, which are stratigraphically close to each Tm-1(Takamori tephra No. 1) and Ks-1 (Kura- other (Tateno, 1989). nosawa tephra No. 1) strata (Kajiwara, 1997; Tategahana (Lake Nojiri) is a unique site Kamata, 1998). A TL (thermoluminescence) that has large quantities of fossils of large date for Tm-1 suggest an age of 406-484kyr mammals, Naumann's elephant (Palaeoloxodon for this stratum (Nagatomo et al., 1995). It is naumanni) and Yabe giant deer (Sinomegaceros suggested that the earliest sites in the Japanese yabei), as well as of lithic tools and bone tools, Islands presently go back to ca. 0.5-0.6myr excavated from layers dated ca. 50 to 38kyr. (Fig. 1 ). Further, three buried pits containing In the cultural horizon dated ca. 40kyr, in many bif acially retouched tools were found particular, several good archaeological con- just beneath the Ks-1 tephra layer (Fig. 1). texts, such as a cluster of rib bones of Nau- However, TL and ESR (electron spin reso- mann's elephant, a bone cleaver, bone flakes nance) dates for the earliest sites are still unsta- and chips, and lithic tools, indicate the place ble, because the annual radiation dose used to functioned as a kill-butchering site (Ono, 1995; calculate them is not consistent among re- Anthropology and Archaeology Research searchers (Inoue et al., 1995). Group for Nojiri-ko Excavation, 1996). Pres- The subdivision of the Palaeolithic in Japan ently, more than 30 Early and Middle Pa- is another issue, because there is not yet laeolithic sites are known in the Japanese a common recognition. Recent discussions Islands. focus on the adoption of the term "Middle III. Late Palaeolithic Palaeolithic." In this case, the central question is, of course, the criteria distinguishing Middle Late Palaeolithic people were the first suc- from Early Palaeolithic. Around 130kyr not cessful settlers on the Japanese Islands. They only various scrapers but dejete (side) scrapers, left traces at about 5,000 sites over the islands, pointed tools and disk-shaped cores made of from Hokkaido to the Ryukyus, and Pleisto- hard shale are associated with bifaces, chop- cene hominid fossils in Japan are limited to the ping-tools and cleavers (Kamata, 1998). If we Late Palaeolithic, at present. Knife-blade (or evaluate this assemblage, it is tentatively pos- knife-shaped) tools and edge-ground axes char- sible to call this the beginning of the Middle acterize their culture (Ono et al., 1992). The Palaeolithic. Further discussions of the cri- Late Palaeolithic period of the Japanese Islands teria are needed, however. The time ranges of divided into three phases (Fig. 2). the Early and Middle Palaeolithic can be set Knife-blade culture phase 1: ca. 35,000- out provisionally following the radiometric 26,000yrs BP dates from stratigraphic horizons with wide- Numerous sites of this phase are found in the spread tephra, as well as with many local Kanto region around Tokyo. The oldest sub- tephra layers: Early Palaeolithic ca. 600 to 130 phase of this culture is Stratum X of the kyr, and Middle Palaeolithic ca. 130 to 35kyr. Tachikawa Loam, the latest Kanto Loam for- Although Early and Middle Palaeolithic sites mation. These sites include two different in- are found in the Japanese Islands everywhere dustries. One is characterized by chert arti- except the Ryukyu Islands, the known sites facts and consists of pebble tools, borers, and clearly concentrate in the Pacific coastal area amorphous flake tools. The other is charac- of northeastern Japan. However, this corre- terized by tuff aceous-shale artifacts and con- sponds exactly with the area of active field sists of edge-ground axes, knife-like tools, and work. blades. In the Tokyo area, the Tama New Town 471 The second sub-phase is in the so-called B site is a representative of the later phase of black-band, Strata IX to VII of the Tachikawa the Middle Palaeolithic, including two cultural Loam. Settlements increased in number and horizons ca. 50kyr. The Tokyo Pumice (TP) enlarged in scale. The emergence of heaps of 1999年6月 Palaeolithic cultures and Pleistocene hominids 179 Fig. 1 Chronology of the Japanese Palaeolithic 180 A. Ono, S. Oda and S. Matsu'ura June 1999 Fig. 2 Cultural areas of Late Palaeolithic period burnt pebbles-heating apparatus-is note- AT impact produced regional typological worthy. The blade technique became sophis- differences in the knife-blade culture: Sugi- ticated. Well-formed knife-blades, with blunt- kubo-type, Moro-type, Kou-type, Kyushu-type ed backs and oblong blades emerged. and so on. This diversification resulted in two Knife-blade culture phase 2: ca. 25,000- major cultural regions, Northeast Japan and 15,000yrs BP Southwest Japan. The historical duality in The great eruption of the Aira caldera in the the Japanese culture, East and West, became Kagoshima region of southern Japan about obvious since then. 25,000 years BP affected the life of the people The later half of this phase, from 18,000 to over a vast area. A disastrous pyroclastic 15,000 years BP, is characterized by the sponta- flow overlaid southern Kyushu, and the AT neous development of two industries. One is tephra caused a drop in the temperature. The an industry with a small point, centered in the 1999年6月 Palaeolithic cultures and Pleistocene hominids 181 Fig. 3 Pleistocene hominid sites in Japan central Honshu mountainous region and the cores was introduced via the Korean Peninsula. Kanto region, especially in the Sagamino They spread and confronted each other in the region. The other one is an industry with center of the Japanese Islands. At a later time, trapezoids, centered in Kyushu. another wedge-shaped micro-core industry ad- Microlith culture phase: ca. 14,000-12,000 vanced via the Korean Peninsula and spread yrs BP over southwestern Japan. The southern The final stage of the Palaeolithic culture is Kanto Microlithic culture accompanies the Microlithic. The Japanese Microlithic belongs oldest pottery, which had flat bases and was to the micro-blade industry which spread over undecorated. eastern Eurasia, Northeast Asia, and North IV. Pleistocene hominid remains America. The industry with wedge-shaped from Japan micro-cores was introduced into Japan via Sa- khalin Island, and that with semiconical micro- Table 1 is a list of the Pleistocene hominid 182 A. Ono, S. Oda and S. Matsu'ura June 1999 Table 1 An inventory of Pleistocene hominids of Japan (slightly modified from Matsu'ura, 1999) BP means uncalibrated radiocarbon years before AD 1950, and kyr is used for thousand years.