Late Quatemary mammalian extinctions and human activities in the Japanese Islands

众所周知，在第四纪晚期，世界各地有许多哺乳动物灭绝。但是，在东亚地区，很少对这种灭绝现象进行系统的研究。因此，本研究项目试图收集日本晚更新世和全新世的化石地点的资料，这些地点产生了灭绝的哺乳动物物种。在这个项目中，“灭绝物种”不仅包括从地球上完全消失的真正灭绝物种，还包括今天在日本群岛全部或大部分地区都没有出现的现存物种。还收集了灭绝物种的分类学、年代学和生物地理学数据。在这些数据的基础上，推断灭绝的时间和模式，以考虑灭绝的原因。将有关晚更新世到全新世人工制品过渡的考古资料与已灭绝哺乳动物的资料进行了比较。日本群岛的灭绝现象可以用Stuart（1991）提出的环境和过度杀伤复合假说来解释。

It is well known that a number of mammal species became extinct all over the world during the late Quaternary. But systematic studies on such an extinction phenomenon have been rarely conducted in East Asia. Thus the present research project has attempted to collect the data concerning Late Pleistocene and Holocene fossil localities in Japan which yield extinct mammalian species. In this project, the "extinct species" comprise not only true extinct species which completely vanished from the earth, but also extant species which do not occur in all or most areas of the Japanese Islands in the present day. Taxonomical, chronological and biogeographical data are also collected on the extinct species. On the basis of these data, the timing and pattern of the extinction are inferred to consider the cause of the extinction. Archaeological data concerning the artifact transition from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene are compared with the data of the extinct mammals obtained. The extinction phenomenon in the Japanese Islands may be explained by the environmental and overkill compound hypothesis proposed by Stuart (1991).