Dating of the Mikkabi Human Remains from Japan

Abstract

Human skeletal remains were recovered in 1959 and 1961 from Tadaki Quarry at Mikkabi, central Japan. The mammalian fauna of the site includes extinct species of elephant (Palaeoloxodon naumanni) and giant deer (Sinomegaceros sp.), and the Mikkabi human remains have been considered to date back to the Late Pleistocene. Radiocarbon dating and revised fluorine dating of the human and non-human bones, however as we report here, show that the faunal remains from the Mikkabi site have a wide age range extending from the Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene, and also lead to the conclusion that the Mikkabi hominids are attributable to the early Holocene.