The stages of land bridge formation between the Japanese Islands and the continent on the basis of faunal succession

Abstract

The stages of the land bridges between the Japanese Islands and the adjacent continent during the Pliocene and Pleistocene are estimated based on the revised first appearance of several Japanese proboscidean forms and on the comparison with the stratigraphic ranges of the related continental forms. The stages of the land bridges of the western route, by way of the Yellow Sea and/or the East China Sea, are assigned to around the Miocene Pliocene boundary, 1.2 Ma, 0.63 Ma, and 0.43 Ma. It is possible that the land bridge of the same route. was also formed in the middle Pliocene. At the early stage of the Late Pleistocene, the northern land bridge was formed from Eurasia to Hokkaido via Sakhalin.