Study on the Paleolithic Sites around Lake Nojiri

About 20 sites of Paleolithic or Mesolithic age have been found around Lake Nojiri. This paper describes several important sites among them. (1a) Tategahana site (Fig. 1-1): The principal stone tools are knife-blades, scrapers, gravers, blades and awls (Figs. 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10). In addition, bone tools such as ivory artifacts, bone points (Figs. 5, 8, 11) and utilized fragments of wood. (Fig. 12) have been excavated. They have been found in 5 horizons belonging to Section III of the Lower Nojiri-ko Member and up to Section I of the Upper Nojiri-ko Member. (1b) Nakamachi site (Fig. 1-8): The principal stone tools are knife-blades, scrapers, gravers, points, notches, tanged points, micro-core, arrowheads and grinding stones (Figs. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24). They have been excavated from 11 horizons belonging to the Upper Nojiri-ko Member and the Kashiwabara Black Volcanic Ash Formation. In addition, red ochre-like materials have been unearthed from a horizon in Section I of the Upper Nojiri-ko Member. Pottery (Fig. 23) thought to be from the early Jomon Period to the Burial Mound Period, has been excavated from 5 cultural layers found in the Kashiwabara Black Volcanic Ash Formation. Human bones were also obtained from the same horizon. (2) The horizon ranging from the upper part of Section III of the Lower Nojiri-ko Member to Section III of the Middle Nojiri-ko Member, is possibly correlated with the early stage of the Late Paleolithic age and the Aurignacian Period of Europe by radiocarbon dating. The remains excavated from this horizon include materials of various types and contain abundant bone tools. They have the general characters of the Late Paleolithic culture. However, the technique of flaking is not the blade technique, but a method including a relic of the technique of the Neanderthaloid culture. During the age of Sections I and II of the Upper Nojiri-ko Member, this blade technique may have been popularized and obsidia n used. As to the disappearance of the Naumann elephant and Yabe's giant deer within this age, there is a possibility that they were over-killed by Paleolithic man. The points appeared in the yellowish grey silt layer of the Upper Nojiri-ko Member, which is overlain directly by the brown silt layer thought to be 10,000 years old. The Kashiwabara Black Volcanic Ash Formation has been assigned to the Jomon (Neolithic) period or later. (3) It has been suggested that the Tategahana site might represent a kill-site, since stone tools and bone tools have been unearthed in association with fossils of large manmals. On the other hand, it seems possible that the Nakamachi site may have been a camp-site.