Dr. Simon Kaner

Great question. And actually really timely that you ask that right now. So DNA analysis is taking off in Japan in a really big way. The earliest actual skeletal materials we've got are from the southern islands of the Japanese archipelago, what is now Okinawa Prefecture. Up until 1873 it was part of an independent kingdom called the Kingdom of the Ryukyus.

Great question. And actually really timely that you ask that right now. So DNA analysis is taking off in Japan in a really big way. The earliest actual skeletal materials we've got are from the southern islands of the Japanese archipelago, what is now Okinawa Prefecture. Up until 1873 it was part of an independent kingdom called the Kingdom of the Ryukyus.

Great question. And actually really timely that you ask that right now. So DNA analysis is taking off in Japan in a really big way. The earliest actual skeletal materials we've got are from the southern islands of the Japanese archipelago, what is now Okinawa Prefecture. Up until 1873 it was part of an independent kingdom called the Kingdom of the Ryukyus.

And there are human remains from around about 18,000, 19,000 years ago. Modern, fully modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, which seem to have fallen down some kind of crevasse and they've been preserved down there. There aren't very many other paleolithic human remains.

And there are human remains from around about 18,000, 19,000 years ago. Modern, fully modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, which seem to have fallen down some kind of crevasse and they've been preserved down there. There aren't very many other paleolithic human remains.

And there are human remains from around about 18,000, 19,000 years ago. Modern, fully modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, which seem to have fallen down some kind of crevasse and they've been preserved down there. There aren't very many other paleolithic human remains.

However, a colleague of mine at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, a man called Professor Yasuhiro Taniguchi, he's actually the person who discovered the earliest pottery fragments at a site called Oda Yamamoto in Aomori, right up in the northern tip of Japan. And he did the first AMS dating of those pot sherds.

However, a colleague of mine at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, a man called Professor Yasuhiro Taniguchi, he's actually the person who discovered the earliest pottery fragments at a site called Oda Yamamoto in Aomori, right up in the northern tip of Japan. And he did the first AMS dating of those pot sherds.

However, a colleague of mine at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, a man called Professor Yasuhiro Taniguchi, he's actually the person who discovered the earliest pottery fragments at a site called Oda Yamamoto in Aomori, right up in the northern tip of Japan. And he did the first AMS dating of those pot sherds.

And so it was his report from 1999 that really reinvigorated the debate about early ceramics in Japan. He is now digging a site in central Honshu. Now, Honshu means main island. And that's the big island in the middle, biggest island of the Japanese archipelago, where Tokyo and Osaka are located, the two biggest cities. And the site he's digging is called the EI.

And so it was his report from 1999 that really reinvigorated the debate about early ceramics in Japan. He is now digging a site in central Honshu. Now, Honshu means main island. And that's the big island in the middle, biggest island of the Japanese archipelago, where Tokyo and Osaka are located, the two biggest cities. And the site he's digging is called the EI.

And so it was his report from 1999 that really reinvigorated the debate about early ceramics in Japan. He is now digging a site in central Honshu. Now, Honshu means main island. And that's the big island in the middle, biggest island of the Japanese archipelago, where Tokyo and Osaka are located, the two biggest cities. And the site he's digging is called the EI.

And it's a rock shelter site in the central mountains. And he's been finding a whole series of burials, which seem to date around about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. These are some of the best preserved early burials that we've got from the Japanese archipelago. I went to visit him while he was doing his digging a couple of years ago. And it's phenomenal the way he's got it all set up.

And it's a rock shelter site in the central mountains. And he's been finding a whole series of burials, which seem to date around about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. These are some of the best preserved early burials that we've got from the Japanese archipelago. I went to visit him while he was doing his digging a couple of years ago. And it's phenomenal the way he's got it all set up.

And it's a rock shelter site in the central mountains. And he's been finding a whole series of burials, which seem to date around about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. These are some of the best preserved early burials that we've got from the Japanese archipelago. I went to visit him while he was doing his digging a couple of years ago. And it's phenomenal the way he's got it all set up.

I was there with a couple of colleagues and we've never seen such an amazingly well organized excavation. They're doing all the kind of analyses that one would hope. And because the bones are in a very good state of preservation, it is going to be possible to extract DNA from them, from the bone collagen. And this is going to be great.

I was there with a couple of colleagues and we've never seen such an amazingly well organized excavation. They're doing all the kind of analyses that one would hope. And because the bones are in a very good state of preservation, it is going to be possible to extract DNA from them, from the bone collagen. And this is going to be great.

I was there with a couple of colleagues and we've never seen such an amazingly well organized excavation. They're doing all the kind of analyses that one would hope. And because the bones are in a very good state of preservation, it is going to be possible to extract DNA from them, from the bone collagen. And this is going to be great.

This is going to be some of the best evidence that we've got for the earliest peoples living in the archipelago. We think there was probably continuity of occupation from the late Pleistocene into the Jomon period. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for big new populations coming in.

This is going to be some of the best evidence that we've got for the earliest peoples living in the archipelago. We think there was probably continuity of occupation from the late Pleistocene into the Jomon period. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence for big new populations coming in.