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

Abstract

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 flexible. 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.