EARLIEST MODERN HUMANS IN ASIA

EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF MODERN HUMANS IN ASIA AND OCEANIA

Jwalapuram's location in India

Country — Date — Place — Notes
China — 80,000–120,000 years before present — Fuyan Cave — Teeth were found under rock over which 80,000 years old stalagmites had grown.
India — 70,000 years before present — Jwalapuram, Andhra Pradesh — Recent finds of stone tools in Jwalapuram before and after the Toba supereruption, may have been made by modern humans, but this is disputed.
Indonesia —63,000-73,000 years before present — Lida Ajer cave — Teeth found in Sumatra in the 19th century
Philippines —67,000 years before present — Callao Cave — Archaeologists, Dr. Armand Mijares with Dr. Phil Piper found bones in a cave near Peñablanca, Cagayan in 2010 have been dated as ca. 67,000 years old. It's the earliest human fossil ever found in Asia-Pacific [Source: Wikipedia +]

Australia — 65,000 years before present — Madjedbebe — The oldest human skeletal remains are the 40,000-year-old Lake Mungo remains in New South Wales, but human ornaments discovered at Devil's Lair in Western Australia have been dated to 48,000 years before present and artifacts at Madjedbebe in Northern Territory are dated to ca. 65,000 Years before present.
Taiwan — 50,000 years before present — Chihshan Rock Site — Chipped stone tool similar to those of the Changpin culture on the east coast.
Japan — 47,000 years before present — Lake Nojiri — Genetic research indicates arrival of humans in Japan by 37,000 Years before present. Archeological remains at the Tategahana Paleolithic Site at Lake Nojiri have been dated as early as 47,000 Years before present. +

Laos — 46,000 years before present — Tam Pa Ling Cave — In 2009 an ancient skull was recovered from a cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos which is at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia
Borneo — 46,000 years before present — (see Malaysia)
East Timor — 42,000 years before present — Jerimalai cave — Fish bones
Tasmania — 41,000 years before present — Jordan River Levee — Optically stimulated luminescence results from the site suggest a date ca. 41,000 Years before present. Rising sea level left Tasmania isolated after 8000 Years before present.
Hong Kong — 39,000 years before present — Wong Tei Tung — Optically stimulated luminescence results from the site suggest a date ca. 39,000 Years before present.
Malaysia — 34,000–46,000 years before present — Niah Cave — A human skull in Sarawak, Borneo (Archaeologists have claimed a much earlier date for stone tools found in the Mansuli valley, near Lahad Datu in Sabah, but precise dating analysis has not yet been published.) +

New Guinea — 40,000 years before present — Indonesian Side of New Guinea — Archaeological evidence shows that 40,000 years ago, some of the first farmers came to New Guinea from the South-East Asian Peninsula.
Sri Lanka — 34,000 years before present — Fa Hien Cave — The earliest remains of anatomically modern humans, based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal, have been found in the Fa Hien Cave in western Sri Lanka.
Okinawa — 32,000 years before present — Yamashita-cho cave, Naha city — Bone artifacts and an ash seam dated to 32,000±1000 Years before present.
Tibetan Plateau — 30,000 years before present
Buka Island, New Guinea — 28,000 years before present — Kilu Cave — Flaked stone, bone, and shell artifacts +

Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Earliest Modern Humans in China

teeth from Fuyan Cave in China

The earliest evidence of modern humans in China — dated to 80,000–120,000 years before present — was found at Fuyan Cave in southern China's Hunan province. At Fuyan Cave Teeth were found under rock over which 80,000 years old stalagmites had grown. Genetic studies of 28 of China's 56 ethnic groups, published by the Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project in 2000, indicate that the first Chinese descended from Africans who migrated along the Indian Ocean and made their way to China via Southeast Asia. [Source: Wikipedia]

In December 2007, an almost complete human skull estimated to be 100,000 years old was found in Xuchang in the central province of Henan. The fossil consists of 16 pieces of skull with protruding eyebrows and a small forehead. Li Zhanyang, an archeologist with the Henan Cultural Relics and Archeology Research Institute told Reuters, “More astonishing than the completeness of the skull is that it still has a fossilized membrane on the inner side, so scientist can track the nerves of the Paleolithic ancestor." The fossil was discovered after two years of excavations. Li said, “We expect more discoveries of importance."

According to Archaeology magazine: Obscure engravings on animal bones from the site of Lingjing in Henan Province suggest that early hominins who lived there 125,000 years ago may have had more advanced cognitive abilities than once believed. The mysterious markings proved to have been etched into the bone, which was then rubbed with red ochre powder to make the markings more visible. Experts do not yet know why early humans made these abstract designs, nor what they represent. [Source: Archaeology magazine, November-December 2019]

First Modern Humans in India: 70,000 Years Ago or 50,000 Years Ago?

Jwalapuram excavations

Earliest evidence of modern humans in India — 70,000 years before present — Jwalapuram, Andhra Pradesh — Recent finds of stone tools in Jwalapuram before and after the Toba supereruption, may have been made by modern humans, but this is disputed. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Tony Joseph wrote in The Hindu: “When did our species, Homo sapiens, first set foot in India? There are two competing versions of the answer: let’s call them the ‘early version’ and the ‘late version’. The ‘early version’ says they arrived 74,000 to 120,000 years ago from Africa through the Arabian peninsula with Middle Stone Age tools such as scrapers and points that helped them hunt their prey, gather food, or make clothes. The ‘late version’ says they arrived much later, around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, with upgraded technology such as microlithic (tiny stone) tools that might have been used to give sharp tips to arrows and spears. A geological event separates the two versions: the supervolcanic eruption at Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, about 74,000 years ago, dumped tonnes of ash all over South-east Asia and South Asia, causing much stress to all life in the region. The ‘early version’ says migrants reached India before Toba; the ‘late version’ says the opposite.” [Source: Tony Joseph, The Hindu, September 5, 2017 |^^|]

Until fairly recently it seemed like late version had the most support. But two studies, published in July and August, 2017 may have changed that. “The first study, led by Professor Chris Clarkson of the University of Queensland, established that modern humans were in Australia by between 59,300 and 70,700 years ago, or, if you take the midpoint, 65,000 years ago. That is about 15,000 years earlier than previous estimates. Prof. Clarkson and his colleagues used the latest techniques to date things left behind by humans at the Madjedbebe caves in Australia’s Northern Territory: mortars and pestles, ground-edge axes, and painting material. |^^|

Modern Humans in Sumatra 67,000 Years Ago

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Indonesia —63,000-73,000 years before present — Lida Ajer cave — Teeth found in Sumatra in the 19th century In a study authored by archaeologist Dr. Kira Westaway of the Macquarie University, palaeontologist Dr. Julien Louys of the Australian National University, and others had equally re-examined two teeth that had been found in the Lida Ajer caves in Indonesia’s Sumatra island in the late 1800s but whose dating and species were disputed. Using the latest multidisciplinary techniques, they said the teeth belonged to modern humans who lived 63,000-73,000 years ago, pushing back the dates for modern human in Southeast Asia by about 20,000 years. [Source: Tony Joseph, The Hindu, September 5, 2017]

Bruce Bower wrote in Science News: “Humans inhabited rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra between 73,000 and 63,000 years ago — shortly before a massive eruption of the island’s Mount Toba volcano covered South Asia in ash, researchers say. Two teeth previously unearthed in Sumatra’s Lida Ajer cave and assigned to the human genus, Homo, display features typical of Homo sapiens, report geoscientist Kira Westaway of Macquarie University in Sydney and her colleagues. By dating Lida Ajer sediment and formations, the scientists came up with age estimates for the human teeth and associated fossils of various rainforest animals excavated in the late 1800s, including orangutans. [Source: Bruce Bower, Science News, August 9, 2017]

Ancient DNA studies had already suggested that humans from Africa reached Southeast Asian islands before 60,000 years ago. Humans migrating out of Africa 100,000 years ago or more may have followed coastlines to Southeast Asia and eaten plentiful seafood along the way. But the Sumatran evidence shows that some of the earliest people to depart from Africa figured out how to survive in rainforests, where detailed planning and appropriate tools are needed to gather seasonal plants and hunt scarce, fat-rich prey animals, Westaway and colleagues” report online August 9, 2017 in Nature.

mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia

Modern Humans in the Philippines 67,000 Years Ago

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Philippines —67,000 years before present — Callao Cave — Archaeologists, Dr. Armand Mijares with Dr. Phil Piper found bones in a cave near Peñablanca, Cagayan in 2010 have been dated as ca. 67,000 years old. It's the earliest human fossil ever found in Asia-Pacific [Source: Wikipedia ]

Colin Barras wrote in New Scientist: “In 2007, researchers found a 67,000-year-old human foot bone on the island of Luzon. It was provisionally suggested that it belonged to an unusually early Homo sapiens to the east of the Wallace line. But there are also unpublished reports that more human fossils were found on Luzon in 2014 – and that these additional finds suggest that the Luzon hominin may have been a more primitive species. [Source: Colin Barras, New Scientist, 13 January 2016]

In 2010, The Philippines Star reported: “A team of archaeologists has confirmed that a foot bone they discovered in Callao Cave in Cagayan province is at least 67,000 years old, older than the so-called Tabon Man of Palawan, which has long been thought to be the archipelago’s earliest human remains at 50,000 years old, a report on GMANews.TV said. “So far this could be the earliest human fossil found in the Asia-Pacific region. The presence of humans in Luzon shows these early humans already possessed knowledge of seacraft-making in this early period,” Dr. Armand Mijares, of the University of the Philippines-Diliman who led the team of archeologists, told GMANews.TV. The actual discovery of the bone occurred in 2007 but it was not clear then just how old the fossil was. Mijares said they were able to approximate the fossil’s age through a method called “uranium-series dating." [Source: Philippines Star, August 3, 2010 ]

Philippine migration patterns

Modern Humans in Laos 46,000-63,000 Years Ago

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Laos — 46,000 years before present — Tam Pa Ling Cave — In 2009 an ancient skull was recovered from a cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos which is at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia [Source: Wikipedia +]

In 2015, University of Illinois anthropology professor Laura Shackelford and her colleagues announced that they had found an ancient jaw and skull fragments a few meters apart in a cave in northern Laos, adding to the evidence that early modern humans were physically quite diverse, they reported in PLOS ONE. Researchers found the human skull had modern characteristics while the human jaw had modern and archaic traits. Both artifacts were dated to 46,000 to 63,000 years ago. [Source: Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor, University of Illinois, April 8, 2015 ==]

According to the University of Illinoise: “The skull, found in 2009 in a cave known as Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains of present-day Laos, and reported in 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the oldest modern human fossil found in Southeast Asia. Its discovery pushed back the date of modern human migration through the region by as much as 20,000 years. It revealed that early humans who migrated to the islands and coasts of Southeast Asia after migrating out of Africa also traveled inland much earlier than previously thought, some 46,000 to 63,000 years ago. ==

“The jaw was discovered in late 2010 and is roughly the same age as the skull. Unlike the skull, it has both modern and archaic human traits. "In addition to being incredibly small in overall size, this jaw has a mixture of traits that combine typical modern human anatomy, such as the presence of a protruding chin, with traits that are more common of our archaic ancestors like Neandertals - for example, very thick bone to hold the molars in place," said University of Illinois anthropology professor Laura Shackelford, who led the study with anthropologist Fabrice Demeter, of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. ==

“This combination of archaic and modern human traits is not unusual, Shackelford said. Other ancient human fossils from Africa, Eastern Europe and China also exhibit this amalgam of characteristics, she said. "Some researchers have used these features as evidence that modern humans migrating into new regions must have interbred with the archaic populations already present in those regions," Shackelford said. "But a more productive way to look at this variation is to see it as we see people today - showing many traits along a continuum."Tam Pa Ling is an exceptional site because it shows that very early modern humans migrating and settling in eastern Asia demonstrated a wide range of anatomy," Shackelford said.” ==

maternal lineage migrations in Southeast Asia

Niah Caves

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Malaysia — 34,000–46,000 years before present — Niah Cave — A human skull in Sarawak, Borneo (Archaeologists have claimed a much earlier date for stone tools found in the Mansuli valley, near Lahad Datu in Sabah, but precise dating analysis has not yet been published.) [Source: Wikipedia +]

Niah Caves in Sarawak is an important prehistoric site where human remains dating to 40,000 years ago have been found. Archeologists have claimed a much earlier date for stone tools found in the Mansuli valley, near Lahad Datu in Sabah, but precise dating analysis has not yet been published.

Modern humans lived that lived in Niah Caves ate orangutans, based on the presence of charred bones found in the cave. A skull found in Niah Cave in the 1950s was first described as resembling Melanesians and native Australians. This supports the notion that earlier human species living in the region were absorbed via interbreeding as Homo sapiens spread out of Africa. Ancient genetic markers are found in indigenous groups in the Andaman Inlands, in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea and among Australian aborigines.

In the 1950s and 60s, Niah Cave was the focus of several intense and active archaeological field seasons led by Tom Harrisson, Curator of Sarawak Museum, who excavated a large area on the northern side of the West Mouth. The excavations were admirable for their time, particularly given the considerable logistical difficulties that had to be overcome because of the isolation of the site and the difficulties of working in tropical environments. [Source: ABC.net; Barker G, The Niah Caves Project: Preliminary report on the first (2000) season , The Sarawak Museum Journal, Vol 55(76), December 2000]

Their most notable discovery was a human skull (the so-called 'Deep Skull') uncovered in a deep trench dubbed 'Hell Trench' by Harrisson's excavators because of the heat and humidity in this particular part of the cave's entrance. The skull was approximately at a level where stone tools had been found previously together with charcoal that yielded a radiocarbon date of around 40,000 years ago. But there are doubts about the reliability of the data collected and recorded by Harrisson.

Niah Caves

Oldest High-Altitude Settlements Discovered in Papua New Guinea

Earliest evidence modern humans in of New Guinea — 40,000 years before present — Indonesian Side of New Guinea — Archaeological evidence shows that 40,000 years ago, some of the first farmers came to New Guinea from the South-East Asian Peninsula.
Buka Island, New Guinea — 28,000 years before present — Kilu Cave — Flaked stone, bone, and shell artifacts [Source: Wikipedia]

In 2010, AFP reported: “The world's oldest known high-altitude human settlements, dating back up to 49,000 years, have been found sealed in volcanic ash in Papua New Guinea mountains, archaeologists said. Researchers have unearthed the remains of about six camps, including fragments of stone tools and food, in an area near the town of Kokoda, said an archaeologist on the team, Andrew Fairbairn. "What we've got there are basically a series of campsites, that's what they look like anyway. The remains of fires, stone tools, that kind of thing, on ridgetops," the University of Queensland academic told AFP. "It's not like a village or anything like that, they are these campsite areas that have been repeatedly used."[Source: AFP, October 1, 2010 =]

“Fairbairn said the settlements are at about 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) and believed to be the oldest evidence of our human ancestors, Homo sapiens, inhabiting a high-altitude environment. "For Homo sapiens, this is the earliest for us, for modern humans," he said. "The nearest after this is round about 30,000 years ago in Tibet, and there's some in the Ethiopian highlands at around about the same type of age." =

“Fairbairn said he had been shocked to discover the age of the finds, using radio carbon dating, because this suggested humans had been living in the cold, wet and inhospitable highlands at the height of the last Ice Age. "We didn't expect to find anything of that early age," he said. The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that the prehistoric highlanders of Papua New Guinea's Ivane Valley in the Owen Stanley Range Mountain made stone tools, hunted small animals and ate yams and nuts. =

“But why they chose to dwell in the harsh conditions of the highlands, where temperatures would have dipped below freezing, rather than remain in the warmer coastal areas, remains a mystery. "Papua New Guinea's mountains have long held surprises for the scientific community and here is another one — maybe they were the home of Homo sapiens' earliest mountaineers," Fairbairn said.” =

40,000 Year Old Cave Art Found in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Remains at Niah Cave show that men have been living on Borneo for a long time. In the karst interior of Borneo are networks of caves with rock art and hand prints, some of them dated to 12,000 years ago. More significantly, rock art and hand prints found in caves in Sulawesi have been dated to nearly 40,000 years ago. Deborah Netburn wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Archaeologists working in Indonesia say prehistoric hand stencils and intricately rendered images of primitive animals were created nearly 40,000 years ago. These images, discovered in limestone caves on the island of Sulawesi just east of Borneo, are about the same age as the earliest known art found in the caves of northern Spain and southern France. The findings were published in the journal Nature. "We now have 40,000-year-old rock art in Spain and Sulawesi," said Adam Brumm, a research fellow at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and one of the lead authors of the study. "We anticipate future rock art dating will join these two widely separated dots with similarly aged, if not earlier, art." [Source: Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, October 8, 2014 ~\~]

Pettakere Cave in Sulawesi

“The ancient Indonesian art was first reported by Dutch archaeologists in the 1950s but had never been dated until now. For decades researchers thought that the cave art was made during the pre-Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago. "I can say that it was a great — and very nice — surprise to read their findings," said Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study. "'Wow!' was my initial reaction to the paper." ~\~

The researchers said they had no preconceived ideas of how old the rock art was when they started on this project about three years ago. They just wanted to know the date for sure. To do that, the team relied on a relatively new technique called U-series dating, which was also used to establish minimum dates of rock art in Western Europe. We have seen a lot of surprises in paleoanthropology over the last 10 years, but this one is among my favorites. - Wil Roebroeks, Leiden University archaeologist

First they scoured the caves for images that had small cauliflower-like growths covering them — eventually finding 14 suitable works, including 12 hand stencils and two figurative drawings. The small white growths they were looking for are known as cave popcorn, and they are made of mineral deposits that get left in the wake of thin streams of calcium-carbonate-saturated water that run down the walls of a cave. These deposits also have small traces of uranium in them, which decays over time to a daughter product called thorium at a known rate. "The ratio between the two elements acts as a kind of geological clock to date the formation of the calcium carbonate deposits," explained Maxime Aubert of the University of Wollongong in Australia's New South Wales state, the team's dating expert. ~\~

“Using a rotary tool with a diamond blade, Aubert cut into the cave popcorn and extracted small samples that included some of the pigment of the art. The pigment layer of the sample would be at least as old as the first layer of mineral deposit that grew on top of it. Using this method, the researchers determined that one of the hand stencils they sampled was made at least 39,900 years ago and that a painting of an animal known as a pig deer was at least 35,400 years old. In Europe, the oldest known cave painting was of a red disk found in a cave in El Castillo, Spain, that has a minimum age of 40,800 years. The earliest figurative painting, of a rhinoceros, was found in the Chauvet Cave in France; it goes back 38,827 years. ~\~

“The unexpected age of the Indonesian paintings suggests two potential narratives of how humans came to be making art at roughly the same time in these disparate parts of the world, the authors write. It is possible that the urge to make art arose simultaneously but independently among the people who colonized these two regions. Perhaps more intriguing, however, is the possibility that art was already part of an even earlier prehistoric human culture that these two groups brought with them as they migrated to new lands. One narrative the study clearly contradicts: That tens of thousands of years ago prehistoric humans were making art in Europe and nowhere else "The old 'Europe, the birthplace of art' story was a naive one, anyway," said Roebroeks. "We have seen a lot of surprises in paleoanthropology over the last 10 years, but this one is among my favorites." ~\~

Early Humans in Taiwan

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Taiwan — 50,000 years before present — Chihshan Rock Site — Chipped stone tool similar to those of the Changpin culture on the east coast. [Source: Wikipedia +]

In January 2015, a jawbone thought to be from an early hominid species was found in seas off Taiwan. Jiji Press reported: “The mandible, fished up from the Penghu submarine channel, some 25 kilometers off the western shore of Taiwan, has been dated at between 190,000 and 450,000 years old, according to the group, which includes researchers from the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, Kyoto University and Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Science. [Source: Jiji Press, January 28, 2015 ==]

“The jaw and teeth appear stronger and more primitive than specimens from two other Homo erectus, Java Man and Peking Man. It is also different from Homo floresiensis, the so-called “hobbit” hominid, whose fossilized remains were found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, according to the group. “ ==

In the abstract to an article published in Nature under the title “The first archaic Homo from Taiwan”, Taiwanese and Japanese researchers wrote: Recent studies of an increasing number of hominin fossils highlight regional and chronological diversities of archaic Homo in the Pleistocene of eastern Asia. However, such a realization is still based on limited geographical occurrences mainly from Indonesia, China and Russian Altai. Here we describe a newly discovered archaic Homo mandible from Taiwan (Penghu 1), which further increases the diversity of Pleistocene Asian hominins. Penghu 1 revealed an unexpectedly late survival (younger than 450 but most likely 190–10 thousand years ago) of robust, apparently primitive dentognathic morphology in the periphery of the continent, which is unknown among the penecontemporaneous fossil records from other regions of Asia except for the mid-Middle Pleistocene Homo from Hexian, Eastern China. Such patterns of geographic trait distribution cannot be simply explained by clinal geographic variation of Homo erectus between northern China and Java, and suggests survival of multiple evolutionary lineages among archaic hominins before the arrival of modern humans in the region. [Source: Chun-Hsiang Chang, Yousuke Kaifu, Masanaru Takai,Reiko T. Kono,Rainer Grün, Shuji Matsu’ura, Les Kinsley and Liang-Kong Lin, Nature Communications, January 27, 2015]

Early Modern Humans in Japan

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Japan — 47,000 years before present — Lake Nojiri — Genetic research indicates arrival of humans in Japan by 37,000 Years before present. Archeological remains at the Tategahana Paleolithic Site at Lake Nojiri have been dated as early as 47,000 Years before present. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Japan Humans are believed to have first arrived in Japan by around 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, possibly following great herds of animals across land bridges connecting the islands of Japan with the Asian continent but more likely on boats via the chain of islands that link Taiwan, Okinawa and the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. Early man is believed to have reached Japan from the Eurasian continent by three routes: 1) from Taiwan to the islands of Okinawa; 2) from Korea to Kyushu; and 3) from Russia to Hokkaido.

Some archaeologists believe that people may have arrived on the Japanese archipelago as far back as 100,000 years ago, during an ice age, when Japan was connected to the Asian mainland by land bridges to the Korean peninsula in the south and the Amur River Delta (between present-day China and Russia) via Sakhalin Island in the north. Fossils of ancient elephants have been found near Nagano but no signs of human habitation have been found from the period in which these elephants lived.

Most scholars believe that the ancestors of modern Japanese arrived in two waves of migrations. There are two theories as to the origin of the first wave. The second wave came from Korea about 2,300 years ago. One theory on the first wave to the main Japanese islands, based on dental morphology, holds these people originated from southeast Asia arrived via Okinawa about 12,000 years ago; a second theory, based on genetic data, suggests they came from northeastern Asia as far back as 40,000 years ago. People most likely came from both places but it is hard to pin down exactly when they arrived and which group was dominant. Some scholars believe that the first arrivals probably came from Siberia around 40,000 year ago, and they were probably hunters who pursued game such as wooly mammoth on Hokkaido, arriving via land bridges that existed between Hokkaido and the Asian mainland and Siberia when sea levels were low. Later, other groups are believed to have moved from Taiwan to Okinawa.

Remains and tools of early Palaeolithic people in Japan have been found in Okinawa, Kyushu, Shikoku and Shizuoka prefecture in Central Japan. Modern humans may have reached Kyushu via the Korean Peninsula and the Tsushima Strait some 38,000 years ago, according to Yosuke Kaifu, head of the Division of Human Evolution at Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science. There is evidence from Lake Nojiri sites that suggests that large mammals were hunted there by human hunters between 33,000 and 39,000 years ago. There is also evidence that ancient navigators carried obsidian, a volcanic glass used to make tools, to Honshu from Kozushima island of the Izu Island chain about 38,000 years ago. [Source: Makoto Mitsui, Yomiuri Shimbun, February 20, 2015; Jiji Press, February 10, 2016; Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website]

The oldest human skeletal remains — dated to over 30,000 years ago — have found in the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa. The bones of an eight -year-old girl— nicknamed “Yamashita Dojin“— dated to 32,500 years ago were found in Yamashita Daiichi Cave near Naha city on the main island of Okinawa in 1962 Yamashita Daiichi Cave is a semi-cave ruin and because it was used as a grave it escaped destruction in postwar quarrying. [Source: Tom Corrao, Okinawaology Blog, November 4, 2011]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024