Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 42 (2) 2014

Annotation:  Pleistocene Environments of the Northwestern Altai: Vegetation and Climate Early Upper Paleolithic Assemblages from the Japanese Islands: A Case Study from the Musashino Uplan Studying the Forms of Ancient Ware: Theoretical and Practical Aspects A Morphological Analysis of Vessels from Middle Bronze Age (Early 2nd Millennium BC) Burials at Veng Dendrochronological Dating of Buildings in the Central Part of the Residential Area at the Staroturu Bronze Age Animal Figurines from the Taiga Zone of the Ob Region Kurgans of the Yenisei Kyrgyz at the Chineta II Burial Ground in the Altai The Origin of A-frame Carts in the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia The Dolgaya-1 Site and the Novoromanovo Rock Art Gallery: A Tentative Interpretation with Regard to Cultivated Plants of the Bohai Population of Primorye According to Archaeobotanical Data Wood Painting Tradition of the Upper Vychegda Komi in the Late 19th – First Quarter of the 20th Cent Wedding Food of Germans Living in Siberia: Symbols and Signs Buccal Dental Microwear and Diet of the Sunghir Upper Paleolithic Modern Humans Dental Palaeopathological Analysis of the Eneolithic-Early Iron Age Populations from the Minusinsk B   

Early Upper Paleolithic Assemblages from the Japanese Islands: A Case Study from the Musashino Upland Around Tokyo

T. Yamaoka.

Transitional Early Upper Paleolithic stone tool assemblage from Musashino Upland, Japan, is analyzed with regard to raw materials, core reduction (blade technology), and tool types. Results suggest that the diachronic changes of the lithic assemblage can be explained by a shift in raw material utilization by mobile hunter-gatherers rather than by the sophistication of tool-making skills such as blade technology or by typological evolution. The results also indicate the possibility that changes in raw material utilization were caused by changes in residential mobility, in the foraging area size, and in organic raw material utilization within technological organizational systems adapted to various environments during the Early Upper Paleolithic. Technological adaptations were apparently diverse, and strategies anatomically modern humans used during their initial dispersal in Eastern Eurasia were fl exible. Also, materials from other Japanese Islands as well the results of this study jointly suggest that the settlement history of anatomically modern humans in the Japanese Islands was more complex than previously believed.

Keywords: Early Upper Paleolithic, Japanese Islands, Musashino Upland, stone tools, lithic raw material utilization.