The Peopling of Northeast Asia’s Maritime Region and Implications of Early Watercraft Transport

Abstract

AbstractThe migration of people from Northeast Asia into the New World during the late Pleistocene has been generally accepted for almost one hundred years. This was thought to have taken place among terrestrial hunters of Pleistocene fauna. In recent decades a coastal migration hypothesis pertaining to the use of seaworthy watercraft has garnered increasing interest. Based on recent discoveries in North American archaeology and paleo-genetics this peopling process appears to have taken place approximately 17,000 years ago. However, the ecological, social and technological contexts requisite for such maritime based migrations have received comparatively little attention. Evidence of the use of late Pleistocene watercraft to occupy Australia, the Ryukyu Islands, the Paleo-Honshu Island and Hokkaido in Japan have been cited as a foundation for the hypothesized use of seafaring to traverse the coastal North Pacific from Northeast Asia to the Americas. To understand this process, it is necessary to elucidate theoretical and methodological parameters that accompany assumptions associated with the ecological conditions, social contexts for maritime subsistence practices and technological innovations for the development and navigation of seaworthy watercraft during this period. To evaluate the value of maritime based migration hypotheses it is essential to understand maritime related practices and the uses of watercraft in Northeast Asia during the late Pleistocene and Holocene before we can reasonably assert maritime based population movements across the North Pacific.KeywordsNortheast AsiaMigrationTerrestrialMaritimeWatercraftSeafaringTechnological innovationEcology