Abstract
We describe plant macrofossils that comprise the collection made by Dr. Sigeru Miki at the Tado site, Mie Prefecture, central Japan, and stored in the Osaka Museum of Natural History. The specimens were dated to two age spans, 40,300–39,070 and 21,920–20,270 cal BP, corresponding to marine isotopic stage 3 (MIS 3) and the later stage of the last glacial maximum (LGM), respectively. Macrofossils from the LGM bed were dominated by temperate conifers such as Tsuga sieboldii, Picea sect. Picea, Larix kaempferi, and Chamaecyparis obtusa and also included diverse temperate broadleaf trees such as Cercidiphyllum japonicum, Pterocarya rhoifolia, Fagus japonica, and Ostrya japonica. Results of the pollen analysis of sediments adhered to a Tsuga cone indicated an expansion of the temperate coniferous forest around mixed coniferous and deciduous broadleaf forests that had developed along the Tado River. Occurrence of subalpine conifers at this site indicated the distribution of subalpine forests in the montane zone, contiguous with the mixed coniferous and deciduous broadleaf forest. Inland areas around the Tado site located mid-way between the coasts of the Paci!c Ocean and Japan Sea were assumed to be refugia for temperate trees during the LGM when pinaceous conifers prevailed in cenral Japan. This study showed that reinvestigation of museum collections is important to reconstruct the distribution of paleovegetation during the last glacial stage.
