This fossil remains, once believed to be one of Japan’s oldest humans, so-called “Ushikawa Man,” was discovered to be an ancient bear according to new research. The fossils were unearthed in late 1950s in the Ushikawa district of Toyohashi, about 140 miles southwest of Tokyo and were one of Japan’s most significant prehistoric human findings. However, in the 1980s, their human origin became a question, and doubts are now definitively resolved.
According to LiveScience, a recent study published in the journal Anthropological Science confirmed that the remains belong to a brown bear (Ursus arctos). The fossils were initially classified as human humerus and femur bones, dating back over 20,000 years. However, researchers led by Naoto Suwa used CT scans and visual analysis to identify the humerus as a bear’s radius (forearm bone) and the femur as another bear bone.
Suwa pointed out that bear bones of this period are scarce in Japan, and in the 1950s, the palaeontologists knew very little about the anatomy of bears. Nevertheless, the actual researchers had detailed descriptions and took a comprehensive fossil record.
This revelation follows a similar reassessment of another supposed ancient human fossil in Japan. The “Akashi Man,” once believed to be more than 780,000 years old, was later found to be a modern human bone misplaced in an archaeological layer.
In consequence of this reclassification, Japan’s oldest confirmed human fossils can no longer be titled with Ushikawa; that honor falls now to fossils recovered in a limestone quarry about 25 miles east of Ushikawa near Hamakita. Among them are fragments of the legs and arms, the collarbone, and portions of two skulls, 14,000 years and 17,000 years old, respectively.
