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

Late Pleistocene pottery production and exchange: Provenance studies of hunter-gatherer wares from southern Kyushu, Japan by neutron activation analysis

“…Sites in this context can be used to begin to reconstruct ceramic production and circulation patterns. Additionally, geological heterogeneity ( Fig 1 ) makes this region [ 41 ] an appropriate location for sourcing. In this paper, we study pottery from the Sankakuyama I site of Tanegashima Island, off the southern coast of mainland Kyushu, and analyze sherds by neutron activation analysis (NAA).…”

“…Our study tests the first systematic pottery sourcing done by petrographic analysis and electron microprobe on pottery prior to the Younger Dryas (starting ca. 12,900 cal BP, [ 42 ]) in East and Northeast Asia [ 41 ]. The NAA study from Sankakuyama I employs the same specimens used in the previous petrographic study.…”

“… The lines in the ocean are inferred paleo-coastlines from around 14,000 cal BP. The map was reprinted/modified from GeomapNavi [ 43 ] and Iizuka and Izuho [ 38 ] ( Fig 2 ), and Iizuka et al [ 41 ] ( Fig 1 ) with the original source, Environment Simulation Laboratory Co, Ltd. [ 44 ], under CC BY licenses, with permissions from the Geological Survey of Japan with the original copyright (2001–2019), Elsevier with the original copyright (2017 and 2022), and Environment Simulation Laboratory Co, Ltd. with the original copyright (2019–2021). …”

“…Radiocarbon dates range between ca. 14,000–13,570 cal BP and 11,030–9520 cal BP; however, with the depositional position below the well-dated Sz-S tephra, date ranges are suggested to be 14,000/13,500–12,800 cal BP [ 41 ].…”

“…Decorations are mostly applique bands. Lithics include flaked arrowheads, ground arrowheads, wedge-shaped tools, secondary retouched flakes, cores, ground stone axes, stone plates, grinding stones, pebble tools, hammerstones, and polished stones [ 12 , 41 , 62 , 63 ]. Features include pit-dwellings, pit aggregates, earth pits, pebble aggregates, a flaked stone production area, and areas with burnt soil ( Fig 3 ).…”