Fukui Cave

The Fukui Cave (, Fukui dōkutsu) is an archaeological site consisting of a Japanese Paleolithic period to the early incipient Jōmon period cave dwelling in the Yoshii neighborhood of the city of Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1978. Humans have been occupying the site since at least 30,000 years ago Pottery discovered at this site dates back to around 12,700 years ago and are among the oldest found in the world. In June 2024 a government panel recommended the site be designated as what would be one of just 64 special historic sites in Japan.

The Fukui Cave is located in the grounds of an Inari shrine on the left bank of the Fukui River, a tributary of the Saza River. The cave is 16 meters wide, 6 meters deep, and 3 meters high, and opens up in the shade of a huge protruding rock. The steep cliffs of the cave are made of sandstone, and in the surrounding area is found volcanic basalt from the late Miocene era. Landslides over the years have changed the flow of the Fukui river, forming the present shape of the caves. From the topsoil to the lowest bedrock, there are 15 sedimentary layers at a depth of about 5.5 meters, and stratigraphic examination indicates that there are seven cultural layers.

The Shinto shrine was constructed in 1936, during which time the soil was dug about one meter deep. Local historian Junichi Matsuse sifted through the soil finding Jōmon pottery and arrowheads. An archaeological excavation was conducted by a team of archeologists from the Japanese Archaeological Association in 1964 revealing significant neolithic artifacts. Stone arrowheads and mold-patterned pottery from the early Jōmon period were discovered in the first surface layer, while claw-patterned pottery, ridge-patterned pottery, and microblades from the early pottery period were excavated in the second and third layers. The relationship between the claw-patterned pottery in layer 2 and the ridge-patterned pottery in layer 3 revealed that the pottery from the early period was followed by the claw-patterned pottery. In addition, the microblades excavated at the same time were found in the older layer 4 in the same form, and since layer 4 is a layer of stone tools without pottery, it can be inferred that Paleolithic people who made and used microblades began making pottery. Furthermore, layer 7 contained a group of stone tools that were slightly larger than the microblades excavated in layer 4 and could be called small stone blades, which are noteworthy as they are considered to be a precursor to the creation of microblades. The material of the stone tools also changed at the boundary between layer 7 and layer 7, with sanukite being used above layer 7 but obsidian being the main material, whereas in layers below layer 7, no obsidian was found at all and only stone tools made of sanukite were found. Sanukite lithic cores and wing-shaped fragments were excavated in the 9th layer, showing that chipped stone tools were actively made from sanukite. A large stone tool with double-sided processing, thought to be one of the oldest stone tools known in Kyushu, was excavated from the lowest layer, the 15th layer. From February 2011 to 2016 the cave was re-excavated by digging a 6 meter trench and analyzed using recent technology. New discoveries included identification of animal and plant remains, hearths, as well as using photogrammetry to identify stratigraphy helping to understand formation of the cave. During Paleolithic times, the cave was surrounded by temperate forests with ample amounts of chestnuts, walnuts and acorns. The site is about a seven-minute drive from Senryugataki Station on the Matsuura Railway Nishi-Kyushu Line. It is open to the public and there

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).