Far East Kingdoms

Palaeolithic Period (Japan)
50,000 - 13,000 BC

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The Early Japanese Palaeolithic was a period which was dominated by big-game hunters, although there is little direct evidence to show how these people lived. The beginning of this period predates the emergence of any localised cultural traits in Central Asia by around twenty-four thousand years, primarily because it and areas of Europe belonged to the same civilisation.

This was the Aurignacian culture which succeeded the Neanderthal-led Châtelperronian culture. Detached from this, early cultures in ancient Korea and Japan seem to have evolved along roughly the same lines and within the same time span as those in ancient China.

There were four ice ages during the Palaeolithic era. The climate in Japan at this time was mostly cool to cold. No continental glaciers reached the islands as they did in Northern Europe and North America but places which are now underwater off the coast of modern Japan were exposed by the lower seas levels, providing a much greater land mass than is the case today. When the ice ages were at their peak and the sea levels were at their lowest, some parts of Japan were connected to the Asian landmass by land bridges.

Around 18,000 BC, during the Wiirm ice age, Japan was certainly connected to the continent and sea levels were around a hundred-and-fifty metres lower than they are today. Hunter-gatherers seem to have arrived during these ice ages. Two routes are available, one being via one of those land bridges in the north while sea crossings may have been possible in the south.

A precise date for the first arrival isn't yet possible, with many scholars refusing to go beyond 35,000 BC despite others preferring a controversially earlier date. DNA now suggests that the Palaeolithic ancestors of the later-dominant Jomon people came from the north-eastern part of the East Asian mainland. Good quality finds, however, are rare thanks to Japan's highly acidic soil which soon destroys fossil matter.

The long Japanese coasts provided good supplies of fish which would have supplemented the game diet of these Palaeolithic people. They also gathered fruits and nuts such as hazelnuts and berries. The fact that they were migrant hunters, though, makes it hard to find evidence of their lives. Most sites were occupied for short periods of time - between a few days to a few weeks or months - and then perhaps not used again for thousands of years.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from External Links: Japan-Guide.com, and Researchers in reed canoes fall short in bid to replicate Stone Age voyage (The Japan Times), and Heritage of Japan, and Ryukyu Cultural Archives, and Japanese Archaeology.)

c.35,000 BC

Generally-accepted theory is that modern humans arrive on the Japanese islands around this time. A land bridge exists towards the north. Hunter-gatherers migrate along it, probably following herds of Naumann elephant (Palaeoloxodon naumanni) and other large animals such as Yabe's giant deer (Sinomegaceros yabei), both of which are now extinct.

Naumann's elephant (Palaeoloxodon naumanni) chasing off a pack of dholes in Pleistocene Japan, by artists Michael Tripoli

c.32,000 BC

Yamashita Daiichi cave in Okinawa Prefecture is a semi-ruined cave complex. Because it is used around this time as a final resting place for the Palaeolithic inhabitants of Japan it escapes post-war destruction by quarrying.

The bones of an eight year-old girl, subsequently called the Yamashita-dojin, are laid about this time, later producing one of the most significant finds in the entire East Asia region.

c.30,000 BC

It seems that a sea crossing may be possible between Taiwan and the southern island of Okinawa in the Ryuku (or Nansei) Islands chain. Many relics have been found which prove the existence of humans on the islands around this time and, despite the low sea levels, there is no land bridge.

However, in 2016 a team of researchers who set off in raupo (reed) canoes in a bid to replicate a theorised sea journey find that they require help to complete the voyage after encountering rough seas. The journey may still be possible, but would have to be completed during calmer weather.

This artist's recreation (by Teru Va) depicts Late Upper Palaeolithic occupiers of Japan from about 30,000 BC (it is too early to refer to them as settlers), carrying obsidian from Kozu Island

c.19,000 BC

Between this point and around 16,000 BC the temperature is around seven or eight degrees Celsius lower than it is today. This is the peak of the most recent glacial cold spell, during which tundra covers much of Hokkaido in the north.

Much of the rest of eastern and central Japan (in the sub-arctic zone) is covered by boreal forests which include larch, spruce, and Japanese hemlock. Western Japan from the Kanto Plain around Tokyo to Kyushu is covered with a temperate coniferous forest.

c.16,000 BC

Minatogawa Man is the most famous of the Stone Age residents of the Japanese islands. He is considered to be a direct, albeit remote ancestor of some of the modern day Japanese population.

This fossilised resident of Naha city in Okinawa is 155 centimetres tall, with a jaw which has two of his large teeth knocked out - the earliest known example to date of this rather common global tribal custom.

Beginning about 68,000 BC, the Würm glacial stage followed the Riss-Würm interglacial and is correlated with the Weichsel glacial stage in Northern Europe and the Wisconsin glacial stage in North America

He has a high, broad, pinched nose but a low and narrow forehead with a prominent brow ridge. It may be his descendants over the next four thousand years who begin to use pottery which introduces the Jomon period of Japan's prehistory.