Obsidian as a commodity to investigate human migrations in the Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Paleometal of Northeast Asia

Obsidian provenance studies, conducted in Northeast Asia over the last 40 years, give us solid evidence about human migrations and contacts in prehistory. Active exchange of raw material began at ca. 33,000–25,000 BP in both the mainland and insular parts of this region, and continued afterward. The scale of interaction between Stone Age people was quite large, with distances sometimes greater than 800–1000 km in later prehistory. Seafaring was most probably practiced since this time, as supported by the movement of obsidian across wide (20–40 km) open sea.