Of the sea and volcano: A petrographic provenance investigation of locally produced and imported ware of Pre-Younger Dryas Tanegashima Island, Japan

Abstract

In the southern part of Kyushu Island in southern Japan and the small islands further south the earliest pottery is found beneath the Satsuma tephra, which has been well dated to ca. 12,800 cal BP. Here we focus on Incipient Jomon pottery, 14,000/13,500–12,800 cal BP, from the Sankakuyama I site on Tanegashima Island. Previous visual analysis of the fabrics suggested that about half of the vessels were not locally made. In this study, we conducted both ceramic and raw material petrography and an electron microprobe study on samples of pottery. Our results indicate that pottery was mainly produced in situ, away from the coast, but that there is some clear non-local material which came from either Yakushima Island or Kyushu Island proper. Yakushima has no reported Incipient Jomon sites. There should be undiscovered sites on Yakushima if pottery circulated from there rather than Sankakuyama I residents embedding production in their logistical moves on Yakushima. Minor signatures of non-local geology in locally produced pottery are probably the result of volcanic eruptions and sea currents. Pottery production began when Tanegashima was disconnected from Kyushu and probably about to be separated from Yakushima. During the Incipient Jomon period, Tanegashima had become isolated. We conclude that pottery producers were hunter-gatherers who were mainly sedentary, living in a mild environmental with ecotone properties. They occasionally engaged in costly communication and exchange, which may have involved transporting pottery by watercraft and on foot, to buffer risks. Our study is among the first to investigate the pottery economy of the late Pleistocene and the decisions made by its producers and users in response to environmental variability and change. The research contributes to the debate on the origins of pottery and the Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic transition.

Introduction

Pottery is among the technologies that emerged between the late Pleistocene and the Holocene and can be used to investigate the nature, processes, and causes of human behavioral changes in that time period. With an increasing number of AMS radiocarbon dates, pottery associated with the late Pleistocene has been reported in eastern and northeastern Asia, southern and northern China, the Transbaikal, the Russian Far East, and the Japanese Archipelago. There are, however, great discrepancies in the dates resulting in uncertainties of the antiquity of ceramics in certain key areas.

For example, the earliest radiocarbon dates associated with pottery have been obtained in southern China. They date as early as 20,000–17,000 cal BP (Boaretto et al., 2009; Cohen, 2013: Cohen et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2012) between the terminal Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Oldest Dryas (OD). Suggestions have been made that the producers were mobile hunter-gatherers associated with the Upper Paleolithic (Qu et al., 2013; Patania et al., 2019a, 2019b). However, at well-reported sites like Yuchanyan, Xianrendong, and Diatonghuan, there are earlier reports of macro- and/or micro-botanical remains of rice in the process of domestication, supposedly occurring around the beginning of the Holocene (Iizuka, 2018; Lu et al., 2010; Yuan, 2002; Zhang, 2002; Zhao, 1998; Zuo et al., 2017). Those who support LGM-OD dates question these inferences (Cohen, 2013; Patania et al., 2019b). Furthermore, the cobble-tool industry continues in the LGM and the early Holocene, overlapping with the appearance of pottery (Qu et al., 2013), rendering the elucidation of the timing of behavioral change between pre-ceramic and ceramic periods difficult (Iizuka, 2018).

In Transbaikal, Russia, radiocarbond dates associated with early ceramics are suggested to be between 14,000 and 12,900 cal B.P. (Kuzmin, 2017; Kuzmin and Vetrov, 2007; Razgildeeva et al., 2013). However, dates based on stratigraphic observations—with pottery recovered from the black A horizon that developed in the Holocene—indicate the introduction of pottery during the Atlantic Optimum, 7000–6000 years ago (Konstantinov, 2016). This early pottery is associated with mobile foragers hunting mammals such as reindeer, red deer, boars, and bears in the taiga environment (Konstantinov et al., 2019).

In the Japanese Archipelago, there are numerous late Pleistocene sites yielding pottery which likely emerged around the terminal OD (ca. 15,300 cal BP; Iizuka, 2018). However, there are several sites that require careful chronological re-evaluation (Iizuka, 2018). In the Russian Far East, there are single component sites with reliable late Pleistocene dates; however, pottery tends to be found in the context of thin soil layers (Kuzmin, 2006a). Sites can also be without significant technological changes from the late Pleistocene to the early Holocene (Kuzmin, 2006b), making the differentiation of micro-level behavioral and occupational change difficult (Iizuka, 2018).

Some regions have a more reliable late Pleistocene geochronology; Southern Kyushu in southern Japan is one of them. In this area exceptional tephrochronology is available for the late Pleistocene because of repeated volcanic eruptions occurring during the Quaternary. The Incipient Jomon occupation with the first clear evidence of pottery is found below the Satsuma tephra (also Sz-S, P14, and Sz-14) layer, dated to ca. 12,800 cal BP (e.g., Aira City Board of Education, 2005). This period coincides with the onset of the Younger Dryas (Iizuka, 2018; Iizuka and Izuho, 2017; Okuno, 2002). This makes it a viable region to study the production and circulation of pottery, as well as the variability in producer behavior during the late Pleistocene. Moreover, there is geological variability within Southern Kyushu, providing a promising setting for artifact sourcing, allowing the origins of pottery and its relation to economy and residential mobility, and environment and climatic variability and changes, to be clarified. These issues are more difficult to approach in areas without a secure geochronological context.

Here we present results of petrographic sourcing of Incipient Jomon pottery, dated between 14,000/13,500–12,800 cal BP (Iizuka, 2018), excavated from Sankakuyama I at Tanegashima (Fig. 1). From production and circulation patterns we infer degrees of sedentism and mobility, adaptive patterns, and responses to environmental change. Through this, we intend to provide insights to the widely discussed problem of the advent of ceramics and transitions between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic.