Résumé
The rise of water transport technology enabled modern humans to expand their habitable territory to insular environments since the Late Pleistocene or Late Palaeolithic. However, apart from intensive discussion for Wallacea, developmental process and regional variation of Palaeolithic seafaring remain unclear. To contribute to this issue, I will introduce a synthetic model for Palaeolithic seafaring in another region of the western Pacific, the Ryukyu Islands (Ryukyus). Here, some islands were more than 100 km away and invisible beyond the horizon, and one of the world’s strongest ocean currents, Kuroshio, intervened in the seaways. Despite these challenging situations, Palaeolithic sites appeared throughout much of the 1,200 km chain of the islands ~35,000–30,000 years ago. By integrating currently available information from archaeology, skeletal morphology, genetics, palaeogeography, oceanography, our own experimental voyage project, and super-computer-based simulations, I discuss probable migration routes, possible watercrafts, preparation and strategy needed for successful maritime migrations, and other issues relevant to deeper understanding of the origins and development of human maritime activities.
