Recent Progress and Future Directions in Archaeological obsidian Study on Hokkaido (Japan)

Recently, local archaeologists of Hokkaido have experiencing significant progresses in several aspects for archaeological obsidian study on Hokkaido. In Characterization of obsidian source compositional groups, for example Ferguson and colleagues, demonstrated a comprehensive study of all known obsidian sources on the island of Hokkaido using two analytical methods: Neutron Activation Analysis and Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence. Twenty-one unique geochemical source groups were successfully identified. With using this comprehensive source data, Izuho and colleagues go further to demonstrates a systematic approach to artifact sourcing that minimizes time, expense, and sample destruction while achieving a high rate of success. They revealed that the obsidian raw material procurements and reduction strategies varied by industry with the diversity of sources used increasing through time in Upper Paleolithic, even though all of industries frequently use high quality obsidian in very rich lithic raw material environment of Hokkaido. This kind of practices will contribute on the first of two key issues in obsidian research in Northeast Asia: 1) the dispersal and adaptation processes of anatomically modern humans and their regional variability; and 2) the significance of obsidian exchange in the extent and formation of distribution networks. Here I present recent progress, future directions, and some difficulties in Archaeological obsidian research on Hokkaido.