Stratigraphy and Chronology of the Pottery-Bearing Formations in the Ryukyu Islands

Abstract

Environments of the sites in the Ryukyu Islands differ in many aspects from those in Kyushu and other parts of Japan. They largely reflect unique and local topography and geology. In the Amami, the Okinawa and the Sakishima Islands, in the Ryukyus a great effort has been paid on archaeological chronology by using excavated potteries.
The present study involves stratigraphy and absolute ages of some pottery-bearing formations distributed in those areas. As shown in Table 1, the present study makes it possible to correlate these pottery-bearing formations one another, and the Holocene chronicle of the Ryukyus was affiliated with that of Kyushu for the first time.