Minatogawa Hominid Fossils and the Evolution of Late Pleistocene Humans in East Asia

Abstract

In order to understand the origins of Japanese people, this paper deals with the skull morphology of Late Pleistocene human fossils in Eastern Asia. After the Minatogawa 1 skull, the most complete Japanese Pleistocene fossil human skull now available, is described, a functional interpretation of the evidence is presented. The Minatogawa 1 skull exhibits many archaic features, which mainly relate to masticatory adaptation. When the Minatogawa 1 skull is compared with other fossil human skulls in East and Southeast Asia, it is found to exhibit morphological features slightly closer to the Wadjak 1 skull in Java than to the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave and Liujiang skulls in China. This suggests that there were no major human migrations between China and Japanese Islands in Late Pleistocene.