An Unusual Case? Hunter-Gatherer Adaptations to an Island Environment: A Case Study from Okinawa, Japan

Abstract

Homo sapiens sapiens had spread into most diverse environments by the end of the Pleistocene, but many islands were not settled until the Holocene. One explanation is that because of space and resource limitations in many island environments, it was difficult for hunter-gatherers to survive there. Although some islands were colonized successfully by hunter-gatherers, agriculture may have been necessary to settle many islands permanently. Islands successfully colonized by hunter-gatherers were large, close to continents or larger islands, or had abundant marine resources (especially large sea mammals), or a combination of these elements. Relatively small and remote, the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan, were not characterized by the conditions mentioned above. The first humans who successfully colonized the Okinawa group of islands were “Late” Jomon people. In this paper, I examine subsistence strategies of prehistoric Okinawans using recent faunal and floral data, demonstrating that they lived on the islands using a foraging-based economy. In the process, I explore the reasons hunter-gatherers were able successfully to colonize Okinawa island environments for several thousand years.

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