Abstract
Frameworks of the Japanese Palaeolithic studies have many aspects. After the disclosure of so-called the “Early and Middle Palaeolithic” archaeological hoax on November 5th 2000, however, timing of the first peopling of the Japanese islands has been formed one of the most striking focuses of interests. This paper first discusses the historical backgrounds of the Japanese Palaeolithic research that has regulated present situation, and second the author reviewed the European criteria on the subdivision of Palaeolithic, as Lower (Early), Middle, Upper (Late), or the Lower, Upper, and finally indicated its application to the Japanese Palaeolithic in the last four decades. Because of a controversy on the emergence of human occupation in the Japanese islands, it will be a notable feature of practical apparatus using the term as “Archaeology of OIS3 or MIS3.” The author stands on the view that the first humans on the Japanese islands dated back not earlier than ca. 40 ka, and only a few sites and sparse evidence are available before than that. For the elucidation of human occupation earlier than the Late Palaeolithic, the following four conditions should be warranted, as Suwama (2010) pointed: (1) clear evidence of human work on the lithic materials, (2) stable site formation context exclusive of pseudo artifacts, (3) artifacts from the stratigraphic context, and (4) with relevant amount of artifact assemblage. No single site was still available with satisfaction of these four conditions before ca. 40 ka. It is possible to set out a robust hypothesis that the Layer X of the lowermost part of Tachkawa Loam bed should be evaluated as the first human occupation in the Japanese islands. For the advancement of framework on the first peopling issue, falsification of this hypothesis would be more practical to test than the verification.
