Discovery of the Iwajuku Paleolithic site
Descubrimiento del yacimiento paleolítico de Iwajuku
- Date
- 1946 · confidence high
- Place
- Iwajuku, Gunma Prefecture, Japan
- Credited to
- Tadahiro Aizawa
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Amateur archaeologist Tadahiro Aizawa found stone tools at Iwajuku beneath a volcanic layer predating the Jōmon period, showing for the first time that Japan was inhabited during the Paleolithic, something previously ruled out.
Wikidata dated the find generically without precision; sources place Aizawa's discovery in 1946, with a confirming academic excavation in 1949.
What it led to
- Official recognition of a Japanese Paleolithic previously denied
- Subsequent discovery of around 5,000 Paleolithic sites across Japan
- Pushback of tens of thousands of years in the chronology of the archipelago's human settlement