Of the sea and volcano: A petrographic provenance investigation of locally produced and imported ware of Pre-Younger Dryas Tanegashima Island, Japan
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.
Section snippets
Geography
Southern Kyushu comprises the southern area of the Kyushu Island, in the Kagoshima and Miyazaki Prefectures, and a chain of smaller islands extending south, excluding Okinawa. This study focuses on the southern area of Kyushu Island, which will be called the Kyushu proper, and also includes Yakushima and Tanegashima (Fig. 1). In the northeast, there is a chain of volcanoes surrounding Mount Kirishima. These geographical features surround Kagoshima Bay. The northern Kagoshima Bay is formed by
Lithics
Based on Miyata (2002), we suggest that large stone tools such as stone axes and pebble tools are mostly produced using local shale and hornfels. Grinding stones and stone plates, mainly of sandstones, are also local. There are few hammer stones of granite transported from Yakushima or the southern Osumi Peninsula. About 30% of the small flake tools such as arrowheads are produced out of andesite and obsidian. Andesite may be from either Kyushu proper or Yakushima. Obsidian must be from Kyushu
Materials-based expectation of sources
There are no granitic or granodiorite outcrops on Tanegashima. We expect that granitic inclusions in sherds must have derived from the bedrock. Those that include granitic inclusions are from Yakushima or the Osumi Peninsula. We expect petrographic analyses to indicate that non-granite containing sherds are local.
Although to date no Incipient Jomon sites are known on Yakushima, if the ceramics are produced using raw materials from Yakushima, they should contain no amphibole or magnetite.
Materials and methods
We selected 58 pottery sherds excavated at the Sankakuyama I site, in Layer V (Fig. 3). These sherds had previously been assigned to the Incipient Jomon period (Kagoshima Prefectural Archaeological Center, 2006). Clayey soil, sandy sediment, and rock samples (n = 50) were gathered in Kyushu proper, Yakushima, Tanegashima, and Mageshima (Table 4, Fig. 2a and b). In Kyushu proper, sediments and rock fragments were collected near the sites of Nishimaruo, Kiriki, and Soujiyama. At Yakushima raw
Pottery petrography based on polarized light microscopy
All of the sherds analyzed had rock fragments and mineral inclusions. We classified them into five inclusion types: 1–5. Summary of the overall characteristics are given, and one example of each type is described.
Type 1 (n = 2) is rich in Y-shaped volcanic glass derived from tephra. Samples SNK-I-001 and 040 are of this type. They also contain moderate amounts of minerals including those coming from phenocrysts, minor amounts of sedimentary rocks and trace amounts of angular plutonic rock
Discussion
Type 1 pottery is rich in Y-shaped volcanic glass, with origins in highly viscous lava related to large scale eruptions (Machida and Arai, 2003). Geochemical results from microprobe analysis of SNK-I-001 suggest that all volcanic glass samples analyzed are probably AT tephra. Type 1 is likely transported from Kyushu proper. AT tephra accumulated in layers at least 800 cm thick over 30 km southeast of the Sakurajima volcano, and 400 cm thick further southeast on the Osumi Peninsula (Machida and
Conclusions
Agreeing with our materials-based expectation of sources, sherds with predominantly angular granitic and associated inclusions are derived close from the bedrock location. However, different from our expectation, there is no clear mineralogical signatures that allow distinguishing between near-bedrock sources of Yakushima and the Osumi Peninsula. Additionally, contrary to our expectations, small amounts of granitic fragments found in inclusions are interpreted to be of local, Tanegashima
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
We thank the following individuals and institutions that facilitated this research: Hideto Dogome, Ryoichi Maesako, Koji Okubo, and Aya Manabe at the Kagoshima Prefectural Archaeology Center, Kazuhiro Ishido at the Minamitane Town Board of Education, Akira Iwase and Shunsaku Egusa at Tokyo Metropolitan University, Kathleen Hull at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced), Kagoshima Prefectural Archaeological Center, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hokkaido University of Education, UC
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