This study examined the environments and living of prehistoric and historic people based on the information from insects found in ruins.

Insects adapt to various environments, and they diversified on earth. By investigating the taxonomic names of insect fossils, we can infer information about the environment that the insect lived in. Here, I present the environmental changes and human activities of prehistoric and historic ages based on analyses of insect fossils from 14 archaeological sites in Japan.

Many phytophagous village insect fossils such as Oxycetonia jucunda and Anomala rufocuprea are found in a peaty layer of the middle Jomon period at the Denotame site in Saitama Prefecture. These insect fossils indicate that fruit trees and vegetable crops were planted around the settlement.

I discuss the waste treatment procedures in each period based on the differences in the taxa of coprophagous insect fossils found from the Sannai-maruyama Jomon site in Aomori Prefecture, the Asahi Yayoi site in Aichi Prefecture, and the Heijokyo palace site in Nara Prefecture. At the Kiyosu-jyokamachi site in Aichi Prefecture, a number of stored rice beetle fossils such as Sitophilus zeamais, Tribolium castaneum, and Oryzaephilus surinamensis were found in a pit of the late Medieval period. These fossils indicate the existence of granaries in the Kiyosu-jyokamachi site.

A discrepancy between the paleoenvironment inferred from insect fossils and the paleoenvironment inferred from plant fossils was found in the Final Glacial Age at the Miyanomae site in Gifu Prefecture.

In the Heian period, 13 lacquered fly fossils were found from the Hasegami site in Yamagata Prefecture. These flies were identified as Trichocera japonica, which appears in midwinter, indicating that the people conducted lacquer coating work in winter.

Two insect larvae impressions on pottery were discoverd from Middle and Late Jomon sites in Aomori Prefecture. One of them was identified as Plesiophthalmus nigrocyaneus, the second one as Cerambycidae. Given that both of these larvae typically perforate decaying logs or wood deep in the forest, it is unlikely that these worms are commonly present in the living environment of the residents of these sites. Instead, I suggest that these larvae may have been intentionally introduced into the site, potentially as food items. I observed an elytron fossil of Onthophagus beetle found from the Hyakkengawa Medieval site in Okayama Prefecture using a binocular and SEM. I identified the taxonomic name of the elytron as O. viduus.

Small size pupae fossils found in the seed accumulation layers of the Sannai-maruyama Jomon site in Aomori Prefecture were identified as Drosophila flies. Since Drosophila flies tend to gather around rotten fruits, I assumed that the seed accumulation layer was used for sake brewing. Neatus picipes fossils were found in the grain of the Machi site in Gunma Prefecture covered by the Asama volcanic flow of 1783. This fossil suggests that N. picipes was a stored rice-eating beetle in that period.