LONG-DISTANCE OBSIDIAN TRANSPORT IN PREHISTORIC NORTHEAST ASIA

Abstract

A brief overview of recent obsidian source studies in Northeast Asia (Japan, Russian Far East, Korea, and Northeast China) is presented. Obsidian was a valuable commodity since the early Upper Palaeolithic, and the length of distances between sources and utilisation sites at that time (ca. 30,000–10,000 BP) was up to 800 km. In the Neolithic of Japan (Jomon), several large exchange networks existed, with obsidian transportation up to 1000 km from source to sites, often across wide-open waters. The use of multiple obsidian sources shows the complex nature of raw material acquisition and use in prehistory.