Abstract
The earliest hominin occupation of the Korean peninsula is likely older than 400 ka. The Chongokni site has recently been dated to 350–300 ka.Komunmoru, Jangsanni, and Jangdongni are likely older than Chongokni. Currently, the oldest hominin fossils in Korea date to the late Middle Pleistocene or early Late Pleistocene and have tentatively been assigned to Homo erectus or archaic H. sapiens. Unlike many other regions of East Asia the Korean Peninsula records evidence of Pleistocene hominins which employed Acheulean technology.
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Notes
- 1.
The terms of ‘Lower’,‘Middle’and‘Upper Paleolithic’are often used for description of stone industries in Korea,1343however‘Early Paleolithic’is sometimes used for the Lower and Middle Paleolithic because it is very difficult to find any morphological difference in stone industries of these ages.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors, Christopher Norton and David Braun, for inviting me to contribute this paper to the Asian Paleoanthropology volume. I greatly appreciate the comments from Tim Reynolds and two anonymous reviewers that served to strengthen the quality of this manuscript. I would like to also express my sincere thanks to Christopher Norton and David Braun for their comments and strong copyediting of earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to Sohee Hwang and Jonghyun Park for help with the table and figure. I take full responsibility for any errors that may be present here.
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Bae, K. (2011). Peopling in the Korean Peninsula. In: Norton, C., Braun, D. (eds) Asian Paleoanthropology. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9094-2_14
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