I think it’s plausible that you need cities before you get a neolithic tool industry. Maybe, the thing that was special in Japan is that they had at that point of time cities that provided the opportunities for starting a neolithic tool industry.
To have such an industry you not only need one person to discover how to make those tools but also the willingness of that person to teach others. You need economic transactions where the tool makers in the city that’s located at a good place to source the basic material manage to trade with outsiders.
The person who managed to trade the new tools might very well have been a different one than the person who invented them.
But just as likely is that this was just some lone, crazy guy—like many inventors are—who went off in a cave somewhere with some nutty idea that most people told him was insane, and came back with the next evolutionary step in tool construction...
Being able to go off into a cave and not starve is not trivial at a time where most people were hunter gatherers.
I think it’s plausible that you need cities before you get a neolithic tool industry. Maybe, the thing that was special in Japan is that they had at that point of time cities that provided the opportunities for starting a neolithic tool industry.
To have such an industry you not only need one person to discover how to make those tools but also the willingness of that person to teach others. You need economic transactions where the tool makers in the city that’s located at a good place to source the basic material manage to trade with outsiders.
The person who managed to trade the new tools might very well have been a different one than the person who invented them.
Being able to go off into a cave and not starve is not trivial at a time where most people were hunter gatherers.