Bull. Tohoku Univ. Museum, No. 12, pp. 1–7, 2013
© by The Tohoku University Museum

On Some “Early Palaeolithic” Evidence in Japan– A Personal View
Seonbok Yi
Seoul National University-. Preface-. Sozudai

Despite decades of research, existence of the pre-Upper
Paleolithic evidence in Japan still remains controversial.
While it is now believed that Homo sapiens had reached thearchipelago some 35 to 40 thousand years ago (Sato et al.
2007), they seem to have appeared rather abruptly. So far,the best possible evidence for their predecessor(s) is limited
to small amount of lithics. To some, they represent evidence
for the “Early Palaeolithic”, following Serizawa (1965), butmany are not willing to accept it. To them, they are not
artifacts at all, and, even if so, should be derived ones (cf.
Serizawa 2003).
In 2012, the current author had an opportunity toobserve some of these controversial evidence kept in the
Tohoku University. Thanks to the invitation from the Tohoku
University Museum, I visited Sendai as a visiting professorof the museum between January 25 and March 1. During
the period, I was also introduced to the Aizawa Memorial
House and several localities on the foothills of the Akagi
Mountain. This paper is a brief summary report of personalobservations on some “Early Palaeolithic” evidence madeduring the visit. Of course, it would not be necessary toremind the readers that little can be expected in resolving
the controversy from this brief report.
The controversy cannot be settled without detailed
chronological and stratigraphic evaluation of the sites
and artifacts involved. Morphological and technologicalassessment of the lithics alone cannot provide an answer.
For one thing, the poor quality of the raw material provides
an ample source for controversy. While participation in
the discussion of the issue requires one to understanddetails of both the depositional context of the lithics and thehistoriography of sites, the current author obviously does nothave such knowledge. As such, what is discussed here must
be regarded as a mere personal comment by an outside
observer based on a cursory observation of the evidence,
limited by the lack of detailed understanding of the data.

One of the focal points of the author’s visit is to observe
lithics from the site of Sozudai in Oita Prefecture, Kyushu. In
some sense, Sozudai lies at the center of the controversy.
It also represents the best studied among the suggested
early sites, many of which were either destroyed without
sufficient study or known only from surface collection. For
example, localities on the foothills of the Akagi Mountain had
been destroyed before sufficient and satisfactory evaluationof their stratigraphy and context was made, leaving manyquestions unanswered and making Sozudai an exceptional
case.
Originally, Sozudai had been known as a key Jomon
locality of the Kyushu region. Then, in 1964, palaeolithic
layer was reported by the late Chosuke Serizawa, which
led him to suggest the “Early Palaeolithic” in Japan. Reexamination of the site had not been made for almost
four decades since his testing. Then, in 2001 and 2002,
excavation was resumed by the Tohoku University team.
New excavations provided much needed information of thesite and the industry, thus, more is known about Sozudaithan any others.
Geography and stratigraphy of the Sozudai site as wellas the history of research are well summarized by Yanagida
and Ono (2007) and Yanagida (2011), whose English
summary is seen in Yanagida and Akoshima (2007, 2011).
To paraphrase these authors’ descriptions, Sozudai lies on acoastal terrace developed along the southwest edge of the
Kunisaki Peninsula in northeastern Kyushu, commanding afine view of the Beppu Bay. The terrace is with an elevationof about 35m above the sea level, making it a “middle level”
terrace formed after the last interglacial.
In consideration of such macro-stratigraphy of the site
as well as lithic technology and typology, Serizawa (1982)
concluded that Sozudai represents palaeolithic occupation
pertaining to c. 100,000 to 120,000 BP. However, the age
estimate needs to be refined. From a tephra analysis of theStratum 5, which is reportedly the main lithic layer of the site,
there was obtained a rather obscure estimate that it should

2

Seonbok Yi

be between about 50 to 110 ka (Soda 2007). But a single
OSL date of 27±8 ka was obtained from the same stratum.
At the same time, Stratum 4 above it was dated to 30±3
ka and Stratum 6 below it produced dates of 30±5, 32±3
and 35±4 ka. Although Stratum 7 was not dated, its reddish
color was regarded as suggesting a depositional episodefollowing the formation of the coastal terrace during the
Shimosueyoshi Transgression of the MIS 5e. Then, it might
be said that the lithic layer of the Stratum 5 could belong toany period between c. 30 and 110 ka.
From the 1964 testing by Serizawa, there were recovereda total of about 500 pieces of lithics from both excavationand surface collection. Among them, 225 are from trench
P (Yanagida and Akoshima 2007). As they are from theandesite gravel bed overlying the Tertiary bedrock, heconcluded that they must be the oldest palaeolithic evidence
in Japan, older than the Upper Palaeolithic ones commonly
found throughout in Japan, to propose the concept of “Early
Palaeolithic” which more or less corresponds to the Lower
Palaeolithic in continental Asia.
Lithics are mainly made of vein quartz and quartz rhyolite.
Serizawa characterized the industry as being made offlake and crude core tools. The former was considered tobe manufactured from prepared cores, exhibiting “protoLevallois” technique, while the latter was made out of
tabular or round gravels. In describing the assemblage,
his classification recognized proto-handaxe, protoovate, rhomboid, pick, chopping tool, chopper, point,
disc, prepared core, flake and hammer stone as major
types. From technological point of view, the industry wasviewed as dominated by alternate flaking and “twin-bulbar
percussion”. He suggested the industry is comparable tothe artifacts known from Fujiyama and Gongeyama, butolder than them. Also, he believed that the industry exhibits
archaic features comparable to Zhoukoudian Locality 1 inChina and the Patjitanian in Java in terms of technology,
lithic morphology and the overall assemblage composition.
Thus, the Sozudai industry should be included in the Lower
Palaeolithic tradition of continental Asia, and it is at least
100,000 years old. Such age estimate was supported bygeological interpretation of the terrace that the site sits on as
summarized above.
His proposal for the “Early Palaeolithic” for Sozudai was
not accepted kindly despite some positive response fromoutside of Japan (e.g., Bleed 1977). Bleed’s assessment of
the Sozudai evidence is mainly based on experimentation,and he suggested that morphological characteristics ofthe lithics, although crude, fall within the expected range
produced artificially. However, his conclusion hardly gained
audience in Japan. For example, in the preface of thespecial edition of the Kogogaku Janaru(The Archaeological
Journal) dedicated to Early Palaeolithic research in Japan,

the editor states explicitly that, despite positive opinions byforeign researchers, many Japanese researchers for the last
40 years had maintained their negative opinions, and spells
out names of the opponents (Esaka 2003).
In addition to the problems related to the age estimateof the industry, the main source of such criticisms in Japan
has something to do with difficulty in identifying artifacts
from geofacts. Excavations made in 2001 and 2002 wereconducted with an anticipation to give answers to thecontroversy. In 2001, there were collected 473 pieces
considered to be of “Early Palaeolithic”. Lithics wereclassified into choppers, chopping tools, bifaces, protoburins, pointed tools, awls, burins, tranchets, notches,
scrapers, base-retouched tools and piece-esquillees as wellas cores and flakes. It is suggested that the assemblage
is dominated by small tools, most notably scrapers (73pieces). In 2002, 846 pieces of lithics were collected. In
addition to 79 flakes, 112 chips, 34 cores and 1 hammer
stone, there are choppers, chopping tools, bifaces, pointed
tools, notches, proto-burins, scrapers and piece-esquillees.
Although raw material is dominated by vein quartz andquartz rhyolite, most interesting is the occurrence of finegrained quartz, agate and possible obsidian from Himejima
Island some distance off the coast (Yanagida 2011:87).
Despite all these efforts, it appears that the publishedaccounts alone have not succeeded in expelling the doubts
surrounding Sozudai. Clearly, crudeness and irregularity ofthe shape of the lithics are confusing, providing an ample
room for disagreements. Also, regardless of the differencesin opinion for the samples, there seems to be a lack ofcoherence in the classification of the lithics provided. Thatis, the lithic typology originally suggested by Serizawa
and refined in later reports does not seem to be devised
systematic enough for the others to follow to reach the sameconclusion. Some tool classes are not defined clearly whileothers are defined in a rather idiosyncratic way. Despite selfserving evaluation of foreigners’ comments by Serizawa(2003), the lack of enthusiasm about Sozudai samples visà-vis Hoshino in the comment by Keates (2003) seems tomean that perhaps many feel the same way.
As far as my observation is concerned, many “edgeretouched” pieces appear heavily weathered on theirsurface. As the weathering seems to have had occurred
after the lithics were shaped as they are now, one may
wonder how come only the edge part could have survived
the weathering process. Closely related to this question is
the possibility that raw materials for many of such pieces
are vein quartz or rhyolite, not finer crypto-crystal rocks, andhave inclusions of uneven size and hardness. Then, there
is always a possibility that “retouches” on them might haveresulted from differential removal of the parent rock material
by natural forces as much as from human intervention.

On Some “Early Palaeolithic” Evidence in Japan – A Personal View
Related to this observation, many pieces made of whitequartz, which is the best raw material among the observed
samples, tend to lack clear flaking scars, whether artificial
or natural. Instead, their surface tends to appear “smooth”,
lacking sharp ridges from removal of flakes. Such condition
seems to suggest that they had been subject to somedegree of “rolling” before or during deposition. Also, it mightmean that natural agents could not leave “retouches” onharder material while making scars on softer materials of
uneven quality. If that is the case, it is not surprising thatsome retouched pieces made of “chert”, which might rather
be grayish vein quartz, demonstrate sharp edges despite
they appear to have been “rolled” heavily.
Then, it looks to me that the overall assemblage
composition and morphological and technologicalcharacteristics of individual specimens do not demonstrate
regularity as expected for a palaeolithic industry. Crudenessof the raw material alone cannot explain observed traits. To
be artifacts, there should be seen more evidence indicative

3of selective behavior in terms of technique of manufacture
and raw material exploitation.
On the other hand, however, there do exist pieces whichappear to be genuine artifacts, especially among thosemade of fine quartz (Figure 1), including pieces on display in
the Tohoku University Museum. The same can be said about
the “chopping-tool” made of the “Himejima obsidian” (Figure2). If petrology and stratigraphic provenance of the latter are
confirmed, there is little reason not to believe the existenceof “Early Palaeolithic” at Sozudai. For now, we need to wait
for more solid evidence to reach the conclusion.

-. Hoshino and Mukoyama
In 1999, I had spent an hour in the storage space ofthe old museum building of the Tohoku University while
participating in a conference in Sendai. At that time, I wasvery much struck by the fact that many of the pieces fromthe sites of Hoshino (Serizawa [ed.] 1967) and Mukoyama

Figure 1. “Pointed-tool” from the Stratum 4, Sozudai(after Yanagida and Ono 2007, Plate 14).

Figure 2. “Chopping-tool” from the Stratum 6, Sozudai(after Yanagida 2011, Fig.8-3).

4

Seonbok Yi(Serizawa 1980) may find their counterparts in Korea
at such site as Pyeongchang-ri (Pyongchangni). There,
excavation of 1998 produced crude pieces from below the
Aira-Tanzawa (AT) tephra, a well-known marker volcanic ash
in East Asia (Yi et al. 2000). In essence, the assemblage
demonstrates that, despite apparent irregularity of the
shape, many selected flakes and chunks were utilized anddemonstrate use wear. Also, certain common tool types may
be defined despite generally irregular shape of the pieces
which seemingly reflects opportunistic exploitation of the raw
material. New observation of the Hoshino and Mukoyama
samples made in 2012 generally confirmed the previous
conclusion.
It is of course beyond the author’s capability to discuss
how old these sites really are. Nevertheless, given thestratigraphic profile of the trench E at Hoshino site (Serizawa
2003: Figure 5), those from below the Cultural Layer 4
should be of the “Early Palaeolithic”. I observed pieces from
Layer 6 of Hoshino. According to Serizawa (2003), fromabove this layer, there are known two fission-track dates of
44,000±4,500 and 42,000±9,000 BP while the one below
produced dates of 56,000±11,000 and 59,000±9,000 BP.
For the Layer 6 samples, while Serizawa defined suchtypes as handaxe or chopper, it is difficult to determine
whether some large pieces are true artifacts. Also, it seems
doubtful whether there are pieces classifiable as handaxe
or chopper. It is also difficult to conclude that “cobbles”
were intentionally split although their edges demonstratepossible modification from use. Despite these problems,
nevertheless, there are small, irregular-shaped pieces withclear and convincing indication of use wear. There seems to
be little reason to suspect that such marks were produced
naturally.
For Mukoyama, observation was made with some 50
pieces collected from Cultural Layer 8, 6, 4 and 3. As Layer
3 is identified as the so-called Black Band lying below
the AT, all of the lithics observed should be of the “Early
Palaeolithic”, especially those from Layer 8 and 6. For
most of these samples, regardless of differences in opinion
regarding their classification and typological designation,
they appear to be retouched and/or modified, not geofacts.
One can only regret that the site was destroyed long time
ago so that we need to wait for future discovery of similar
site.

-. Gongeyama, Kiribara, Yamanoderayama andFujiyama
The most surprising realization from the visit is that, in
relation to the controversy surrounding “Early Palaeolithic”,
so little attention has been paid for so many years to lithics
collected from the foothills of the Akagi Mountain at such

localities as Gongeyama, Kiribara, Yamanoderayama(Iwajuku D) and Fujiyama (Aizawa and Sekiya 1988).
From what I have observed, for example, specimens from
Fujiyama (Aizawa and Sekiya 1988: Figures 39-41, 44-45)
and the famous Gongeyama “handaxe” and associated ones
must be genuine artifacts (Aizawa and Sekiya 1988: Figures
52-57). Such evaluation is possible for all of the samples
on display at the Aizawa Memorial House. Artifacts such as
shown in Figures 3 to 5 may find their counterparts among
many early assemblages on the Eurasian continent.
Significance of the Gongeyama specimens was alreadyrecognized in the 1950s at least by one non-Japanesearchaeologist (J. Maringer 1956, 1957, von J. Maringer
1956). He compared them with the Hoabinhian artifacts,
which at that time was the best known Pleistocene evidencein East Asia. Although he was limited by the knowledge
and perspective of the period, it was clear from his writings
that he understood their significance and tried to find theiraffinities among the “pebble tools” of Southeast Asia. If moreaggressive, he might have found counterparts in Europe,
specifically, among the Middle Palaeolithic. Indeed, many of
the samples collected at Akagi localities demonstrate rather
archaic features. It is only unfortunate that no thorough study
has ever been made while the original sites are long gone.
Although it is now impossible to study their stratigraphy
and context of occurrence, however, they seem to suggestthat we are allowed to expect for more convincing “Early
Palaeolithic” evidence in future.

-. Fukui Cave
In the 1960s, the Tohoku University team led by Serizawa
found several large flakes from the Layer 15 of the Fukui
Cave in Nagasaki Prefecture, Kyushu. As the layer produced
a radiocarbon date of >31,900 BP (Gak-952), it has become
another potential candidate for the “Early Palaeolithic”(Serizawa 1967). To me, in terms of overall shape andtechnique of manufacture, the lithics appear to be genuine.
It will be highly unusual that such pieces had been formedby natural process. Thus, what needs to be done is to collect
more specimens from the same layer and obtain clear dates
for their age.
While we may need to wait to learn whether the cavecontains “Early Palaeolithic” deposit, a recent testing in
the Area 4 of the nearby Nagoya Rock-shelter produced
early dates of c. 39 ka and >42 ka (Sasebo City Education
Committee 2010). The first date is from the Layer 9 andassociated with 4 andesite pieces and the second one isfrom the Layer 10 with 3 pieces made of the same rock
(Figure 6). Although it is yet too early to conclude, thesedates certainly highlight the possibility to find more in
northwestern Kyushu area, which should be the first point of

On Some “Early Palaeolithic” Evidence in Japan – A Personal View

66

67

66

67
Figure 3. “Scraper” and “Chopping-tool” from Fujiyama(Aizawa and Sekiya 1988, Figures 39-41).

5

Seonbok Yi

6

74

74

75

75

Figure 4. “Handaxe” and “pointed tool” from Gongeyama Locality 1(Aizawa and Sekiya 1988, Figures 52, 53).

79

79

80

80

Figure 5. “Scraper” and “pointed tool” from Gongeyama Locality 1(Aizawa and Sekiya 1988, Figures 56, 57).

On Some “Early Palaeolithic” Evidence in Japan – A Personal View
arrival for any migrants from the Eurasian continent during
the glacial period.

-. Concluding Remarks
It is hard to say with confidence that all of the suggested
candidates for the Japanese “Early Palaeolithic” are withsolid evidence in terms of lithic typology or the context of
discovery. It is also true that the age issue has not been
resolved. However, there is no reason not to expect theexistence of early materials there. After all, the archipelago
had been connected to the mainland Asia on and off so that
there had been plenty of chances for early hominids to moveinto. Being covered by deep layers of volcanic materials,
perhaps such data are waiting to be found. Especially,
specimens from the Akagi Mountain area persuade usconvincingly that there will be found evidence for the “Early

Figure 6. Two andesite flakes from the Layer 9,Area 4,
Naoya Rock-shelter.

7

Paleolithic” and that perhaps the earliest evidence in Japan
would not be much different from neighboring areas. It would
be a surprise if the archipelago had been completely isolated
until it was occupied for the first time only 40,000 years ago
or so.

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