Lithic Artifact-Bearing Layers in the Kanto Loam in North Kanto, Japan

Problems on the So-Called Early Palaeolithic in View of Geology

Abstract

Since the first finding of the famous Iwajuku site, many Preceramic remains have been collected from various places in North Kanto districts, Japan. All these remains are discovered in the “Kanto Loam” which consists mainly of Late Pleistocene tephra layers, and their stratigraphical positions are mostly well documental. Today, as the result of archaeological and geological researches, most of these remains are considered to be the Late-Palaeolithic.
This paper deals with some stratigraphical descriptions and discussions on the so-called Early Palaeolithic layers which some archaeologists (Serizawa: 1970 etc.) have recently reported to have found in the lower part of the Kanto Loam at Hoshino, Iwajuku and other sites in the North Kanto.
The tephro-stratigraphic positions of the layers at there Preceramic sites are shown in Fig. 9 in the text.
Stratigraphically is out of question, that the so-called artifacts were discovered from the deposits evidently below the Hassaki pumice bed (HP, 40, 500±3, 500 years B.P.). According to Serizawa's definition that the culture prior to 30, 000 years B.P. in the Early Palaeolithic, the so-called artifacts belong to the Early Palaeolithic. It is very doubtful, however, whether the specimens which those archaeologists believe to be the Early Palaeolithic are actually artifacts or not. They may rather be regarded as mere clastic breccias which were formed by natural agencies in relation to talus, earthflow or volcanic mudflow depositions.
Therefore, it is very precarious to assume that these specimens are the Early Palaeolithic artifacts without taking into goodaccount of the complicated geological and geomorphological factors at each site.