20,000-year-old 'human' fossils from Japan aren't what we

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A stock picture of a bear fossil.
(Image credit: Fabio Di Natale by means of Alamy Stock Photo)

The 20,000-year-old fossilized bones of “Ushikawa Man,” believed to be a few of Japan’s the majority of ancient human fossils, are not what researchers thought they were, brand-new research study discovers.

Rather, they are the bones of an ancient bear.

The fossils were discovered in the late 1950s in the city of Toyohashi, about 140 miles (225 kilometers)southwest of Tokyo. Gen Suwaan anthropologist at the University of Tokyo who led the brand-new task, informed Live Science that questions about the Ushikawa fossils were very first raised in the late 1980s, and had actually continued ever since.

The brand-new research study, released Dec. 1, 2024 in the journal Anthropological Sciencereveals beyond a doubt that the bones are from an ancient brown bear, Suwa stated in an e-mail.

He included that the bones of bears were seldom discovered in historical sites in Japan from this time, therefore Japanese researchers– consisting of the paleontologists who discovered the fossils in the 1950s– had a restricted understanding of what bear bones might appear like. Nevertheless, these researchers had actually made “detailed and very accurate” descriptions, and likewise gathered great deals of fossilized skeletal remains over numerous years, Suwa stated.

Related: Ancient bones expose formerly unidentified Japanese forefathers

The brand-new research study has actually developed that Japan’s “Ushikawa Man” fossils, as soon as believed to be from a human who lived more than 20,000 years back, remain in reality from a bear. (Image credit: Anthropology and Prehistory Division, University Museum, University of Tokyo)

Old bones in Japan

The fossils are called for the Ushikawa district of Toyohashi, where they were uncovered throughout excavations at a quarry in between 1957 and 1959. Suwa stated Japanese researchers at that time believed a various bone piece referred to as “Akashi Man” was the earliest human fossil from mainland Japan, maybe more than 780,000 years of ages; however the fossil was damaged in an Allied air raid on Tokyo throughout World War II.

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In the 1980s, a physiological analysis in the 1980s of a cast of the lost Akashi fossil suggested it was most likely a piece of a current human arm bone that had actually been cleaned into a various historical layer and after that mineralized. That finding caused higher attention on the Ushikawa fossils, Suwa stated.

The Ushikawa fossils were at first provided as a humerus bone from the arm and completion or head of a thigh bone from the leg of a human who had actually lived more than 20,000 years earlier. In the brand-new research study, a visual evaluation and calculated tomography (CT) scan exposed that the expected human humerus was most likely the radius bone from the lower arm of a brown bear (Ursus arctosfrom about that time, while the head of the thigh was likewise figured out to be from a bear, Suwa stated.

The fossils were found in the late 1950s. They include a long bone believed to be from a human arm and completion or “head” of a leg bone. (Image credit: Anthropology and Prehistory Division, University Museum, University of Tokyo)

Ancient fossils

The discovery that the Ushikawa fossils are not human indicates the earliest human fossils discovered on the Japanese mainland are from a limestone quarry near the Japanese city of Hamakita, about 25 miles (40 km) east of Ushikawa.

They make up pieces of a human leg bone, arm bone, collar bone and skull that are believed to be from 2 various individuals– one who lived about 14,000 years earlier and another who lived about 17,000 years earlier.

Human fossil remains have actually likewise been discovered on Japan’s Ryukyu Islands — likewise called the Nansei Islands– positioned about midway in between Japan and Taiwan. Researchers believe the youngest of these fossils date from about 18,000 years back, while the earliest might date from approximately 32,000 years back.

The current finding in Japan is not the very first time that human and bear bones have actually been puzzled: A bone discovered in a collapse Alaska in the 1990s was as soon as believed to be from a bear, however brand-new research study has actually revealed that it is from a Native American female who lived about 3,000 years ago

Tom Metcalfe is a self-employed reporter and routine Live Science factor who is based in London in the United Kingdom. Tom composes generally about science, area, archaeology, the Earth and the oceans. He has actually likewise composed for the BBC, NBC News, National Geographic, Scientific American, Air & & Space, and lots of others.