ABSTRACT

Offshore landmasses in the Western Pacific were colonized during the Late Pleistocene through deliberate seafaring by modern humans. However, our knowledge of the developmental process of the Palaeolithic seafaring is still limited due to lack of reliable chronology for such seafaring. To contribute to this issue, we synthesize lines of evidence on repeated sea-crossings over the Korea/Tsushima Strait, a major passage to the Japanese archipelago. Shortly after the earliest evidence of flake assemblages around 39,000–37,000 cal BP, a sudden appearance of blade reduction is observed, suggesting multiple sea-crossings over this strait in the early Upper Palaeolithic. Subsequently, a unique type of stemmed points spread across the strait, signaling another sea-crossing during 29,300–27,500 cal BP. Furthermore, the obsidian provenance analysis suggests bidirectional sea-crossings during the Last Glacial Maximum. These sea-crossings seem to have occurred regardless of narrowness of the strait with changing sea level, whereas it is possible that bidirectional crossing was triggered by this factor.

摘要

西太平洋的近海陆地在晚更新世期间通过现代人类有意识的航海而被殖民。然而，由于缺乏可靠的航海年代学，我们对旧石器时代航海发展过程的了解仍然有限。为了解决这个问题，我们综合了关于反复穿越朝鲜/对马海峡（通往日本列岛的主要通道）的证据线。在约 39,000–37,000 cal BP 的薄片组合的最早证据出现后不久，观察到叶片突然减少，这表明在旧石器时代晚期早期该海峡曾多次跨海。随后，一种独特类型的干点遍布海峡，标志着 29,300–27,500 cal BP 期间的另一次跨海。此外，黑曜石来源分析表明，在末次盛冰期期间存在双向跨海。这些海峡穿越似乎已经发生，而不管海峡随着海平面的变化而变窄，而双向穿越可能是由这个因素引发的。