Japans Paleolithic Period
The abundance of acid soil on Japan makes preservation of fossils difficult. For a while, it was popular belief that humans did not live on Japan before the Jomon period that began in 14,000 BCE. The 1931 discovery of a left pelvic bone first suggested Paleolithic habitation, but air raids destroyed the bone during the Pacific War and its discovery was left in suspicion. However, the last decade has vindicated the fossils first discovery with the unearthing of other remains. One exceptional site is the Shiraho-Saonetabaru Cave on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, which unearthed over 1000 bones. Many date back to some 20,000 years ago. Japan's oldest known human remains has also been unearthed here: a piece of human rib measures out a little over two inches and dates back to some 24,000 years ago.
Fossil Remains
Japan witnessed its first wave of early hominid, non-human animal, and incidental plant migration across Eurasia during the Ice Age 2.6 million to 11,700 YBP. At this time, Japan was not an archipelago but connected to the continent by coastal lowlands that formed a terrestrial crescent with the Sea of Japan serving as what must have been an inland sea. By 100,000 YBP many Paleolithic foragers roamed Eurasia, and some wandered onto this terrestrial crescent perhaps in pursuit of game and other foraging opportunities.
Life Style
Early foragers presented three distinct language groups that indicated routes of migration: Ural-Altaic (Japanese, Korean, Northeast Asian, and Turkic languages), Chinese (Tibet and Burman languages), and the Austro-Asiatic (Vietnamese, Khmer, and several minority languages in China). Whatever language, early foragers were hunter gatherers and they tracked large game during their first arrival. However with the final stages of the Ice Age, early foragers over hunted most of the island's giant mammals. By then, Japan had become an archipelago and the hungry hominids were now geographically confined. This is known as the “Pleistocene extinction”. Change in climate and game drove history. Settlement patterns, dwelling arrangements, and hunting circuits were all affected.
Ground stone tools and polished stone tools has been unearthed and linked to a prehistoric campsite near modern day Kantō
(1) Mammoth (2) Giant elk (3) Naumann elephant (4) Okhotsk or Ezo-deer. A recent 2009 study concluded that the extinction of megafauna was caused by the colonization by early foragers
Evidence of fire pit from Yokohama History Museum
Approximately 24000 year-old human bones from Shiraho Saonetabaru Cave Ruins at the University of the Ryukyus, Faculty of Medicine