Palaeolithic Chronology and Environmental Change in East Asia.

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This project was planned to make a reliable time scale for reconstructing East Asian Paleolithic chronology and to illuminate Paleoenvironmental changes in East Asia, including the Korean Peninsula and the eastern coastal China, by various scientific methods with high resolution and accuracy to loess-paleosol sequence. Most of the Paleolithic open air sites in this region are recovered in thick loess deposit that transported with westerly and jet stream from inland Asian Continent since 2.5 Ma BP. In particular, loess-paleosol sequence is a good indicator to reflect cold/arid and warm/wet climatic oscillation in Pleistocene linked with global Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) and SPECMAP. It is an important indicator of the Asian monsoon oscillation in the Pleistocene too. Loess-paleosol chronostratigraphy crosschecked with various methods provides the most reliable time scale in this vast area.To make local standard of such a loess-paleosol chronostratigraphy, we made cooperative works with … More Korean and Chinese archaeologists and geoscientists in Korea and China in 2004-2007. As the result we established the standard loess-paleosol chronostratigraphy from MIS 9 to 2 at the famous Chongokni Paleolithic sites near DMZ in Korea with analyses of the loess-paleosol stratigraphy, tephra (volcanic ash) from the Japanese archipelago, magnetic susceptibility, magnetostratigraphy and OSL dating for the loess-paleosol eolian deposit. The earliest industry comprised of small flake tools made of quartz from Layer 9 at E55S20 Pit 4 in the site dates up MIS 9 (334-301 ka) at latest.At the Mansuri site near Daejon City, Korea, we discerned 8 paleosols on the profile in 7 m height. The 8 paleosols can be correlated with MIS 3 to 15, basing on loess-paleosol stratigraphy by Naruse. Five Paleolithic cultural layers were recovered from the 5 horizons comparable to MIS 4, 5b, 5c-e, 8 and 14 at this site. They are composed of massive and crude stone artifacts made of quartz. The lowest cultural layer would be dated up to MIS 14 (568-528 ka) according to the loess-paleosol sequence.Loess-paleosol is also recognized in the lower Changjiang River basin in China. In 2004, 2005 and 2006 we had cooperative field works with Archaeological Institute of Nanjing Museum to decide the age of stone industry from the Heshangdun Paleolithic site in Jintan City, Jiangsu Province. As the result we estimate the earliest industry from the basal gravel of the highest lacustrine terrace comes from the horizon just over Brunhes/Matuyama boundary (0.78 Ma) on the basis of magnetostratigraphy and loess-paleosol stratigraphy. Furthermore we found a few pumice type volcanic glasses with the characteristic appearance in the horizon between MIS 3 and MIS 2 at the Paleolithic sites of Heshangdun, Fangniushan and Jiangjunya in Jiangsu Province. This type volcanic glass, which has no its origin within the Japanese archipelago, will do very important role as time marker in the Late Paleolithic chronology in coastal China after this. Less