Current research in Japanese Palaeolithic archaeology and anthropology has four main objectives: (1) radiometric dating of Early and Middle Palaeolithic sites; (2) criteria distinguishing the Middle Palaeolithic from the Early and Late Palaeolithic; (3) understanding of settlement, procurement of raw materials, and regional variation of culture in the Late Palaeolithic; and (4) dating of hominid remains from the Late Pleistocene. Thermoluminescence dates suggest that people first reached the Japanese Islands as much as 0.5 million years ago. Increasing number of AMS radiocarbon dates and their calibration opens a new horizon of man-environment interaction in the later phase of the Last Glacial, and the Pleistocene-Holocene transition patterning. But few hominid remains preserved in Japan are older than the Last Glacial maximum.