1999 Volume 6 Issue 8 Pages 101-116
Shirataki Site Group is a general term for the Paleolithic sites lying the village of Shirataki, located on the northern base of Mt. Taisetsu in Hokkaido. Shirataki is also famous as a source of obsidian, and the volume of stone tools recovered from sites in the group is vastly greater than in other regions. This rich assortment of stone tools is noted not only within Hokkaido, but on a worldwide basis as well. Excavations in conjunction with the construction of a major road were begun in 1995 by the Hokkaido Archaeological Research Center, and five years later in 1999 the greater part of the work has been done, with investigations completed in the Oku Shirataki and Kami Shirataki sectors where large-scale sites concentrate. The nine sites excavated are Oku Shirataki 1 and 11, Hattoridai 2, Kami Shirataki 2 and 5-8, and Kita Shiyubetsu 4, totaling approximately 70, 000m2 and yielding 3.16 million items found. All of these items were stone artifacts, with no ceramic materials recovered at all. The great majority of artifacts were from the latter half of the Paleolithic period, with a small amount from the Jomon. The bulk of the stone items were flakes of various sizes produced in the process of stone tool manufacture, with tools of regular shapes counting about 20, 000 items in all, or 0.65 percent of the total. The tools could not be classified stratigraphically, but clusters discerned in terms of their horizontal distributions can be regarded as forming assemblages. The chronological ages of these assemblages can be divided broadly into those dating to before and after the appearance of microblade cultures. Those thought to predate the appearance of microblades are the assemblages from the Kami Shirataki 8 and Oku Shirataki 1 sites which include a trapezoid-like stone tool, and those from the Kami Shirataki 7 and 8 sites which include the Hirosato shape knife; the former do not exhibit blade manufacturing techniques, whereas they are seen in the latter. With regard to the microblade assemblages, for blocks which include microblade cores such as the Togeshita shape microblade core of the Kami Shirataki 8 site, the Sakkotsu and the Shatekiyama shape cores of the Kami Shirataki 2 site, the Momijiyama shape core of the Oku Shirataki 1 site, there are good refitted materials which may permit better understanding of microblade flaking techniques. For projectile point assemblages, which contain large amounts of flakes produced in the process of manufacture, while there are differences between sites and regional blocks in their compositions, they are accompanied by boat-shaped keeled scrapers, burins, end-scrapers, side-scrapers, and axe-shaped stone tools. For each assemblage there are plentiful refitted materials, making it possible to perceive the flaking techniques and method of manufacture for each tool type. It is believed that these materials will clarify the conditions of stone tool production sites situated in an obsidian producing region.
