Igeum-dong is a complex

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

located in Igeum-dong, Samcheonpo in Sacheon-si,

South Gyeongsang Province South Gyeongsang Province ( ko, 경상남도, translit=Gyeongsangnam-do, ) is a province in the southeast of South Korea. The provincial capital is at Changwon. It is adjacent to the major metropolitan center and port of Busan. The UNESCO World ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. This prehistoric archaeological site is important in Korean prehistory because it represents solid evidence that simple chiefdoms formed in as early as the Middle Mumun, some 950 years before the first state-level societies formed in Korea. The settlement is dated by pottery, pit-house types, and an AMS radiocarbon date to the Late Middle

Mumun Pottery Period The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory that dates to approximately 1500-300 BC. This period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery ...

(c. 700–550 BC). Test excavations were conducted in 1997, and wide-scope horizontal excavations took place in 1998 and 1999. The site contains a

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

ic cemetery with 63 burials, some of them with artifacts of high-status, 25 raised-floor buildings, including the two largest raised-floor buildings in Korean prehistory, 5 ditches, 1

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a fence or defensive wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks, and used as a defensive structure or enclosure. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymology ''Palisade'' ...

, and 27 pit-houses. The intra-site patterns show that the site is divided up into at least three ‘zones’: 1) mortuary, (2) feasting-meeting, and (3) residential.

Megalithic cemetery

The megalithic cemetery is notable for a number of high-status burials and an interconnected series of low ‘pavement’ features made of rounded river cobbles that link the burials together. Individual megalithic burials were constructed with small cobble pavements in the vicinity of the grave, but through time a long line of burials became interconnected through these pavements. The pavement features themselves are thought to have functioned as ritual altars on which was placed fine red-burnished

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and p ...

and other offerings. The overall length of the excavated burials in the long, strung-out cemetery is some hundreds of metres and must have formed through numerous individual funerary events that took place over a number of generations. Some of the artifacts excavated from the cemetery include two rare Liaoning-style bronze daggers (Burial Nos. C-10 and D-4). Other burials yielded hundreds of large tubular greenstone ornaments, groundstone daggers, and finely made red-burnished pottery.Bale, Martin T. and Min-jung Ko 2006 Craft Production and Social Change in Mumun Pottery Period. ''Asian Perspectives'' 45 (2):159–187.

Raised-floor buildings: meeting places or dwellings of chiefs?

The cemetery lies beside two long raised-floor buildings, Nos. 60 and 61. These buildings were placed on a series of large wooden footings, the largest of which approached 2 m in diameter. Building 60 was 29 m in length and 174 m² in area, and No. 61 was 26 m in length in 130 m² in area. Based on these large dimensions, the excavators have illustrated Nos. 60 and 61 as being built up high, not unlike the reconstructions of raised-floor buildings at the

Yayoi The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age. Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon ...

period

Yoshinogari site is the name of a large and complex Yayoi archaeological site in Yoshinogari and Kanzaki in Saga Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan. According to the Yayoi chronology established by pottery seriations in the 20th century, Yoshinogari dates to between ...

Saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, from the Super NES to the Play ...

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Pottery was excavated in and around the two large raised-floor buildings at Igeum-dong, indicating that they were likely used for feasts and meetings. Alternatively, the buildings could also be the dwellings of Igeum-dong's chief and/or members of the local elite group. The two large raised-floor buildings separate the megalithic cemetery from the residential area at Igeum-dong. The residential area is composed of pit-houses in the Late Middle Mumun style, otherwise known as '' Songguk-ri''-style. Additionally, raised-floor buildings of varying sizes and plans are found in this area. The largest pit-houses and raised-floor buildings are located closest to Nos. 60 and 61, and successively smaller pit-houses are found the further one is from the two largest raised-floor buildings. Igeum-dong is unique among

Mumun pottery period The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory that dates to approximately 1500-300 BC. This period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery ...

sites in that 1) bronze objects come from the megalithic cemetery, (2) there are two large raised-floor buildings, and (3) a highly organized intra-site settlement plan. Some archaeologists propose that Igeum-dong was the central settlement of a small

chiefdom A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...

. Other bronze artifact-bearing major Late Middle Mumun cemeteries such as Deokcheon-ri (Korean: 덕천리), Jeongyang-ri (적량리), Jindong-ri (진동리), and Yulha-ri (율하리) are found at a number of locations in a similar environmental location not far from the sea. The personages represented by the high-status burials at Igeum-dong may have been the masters of the large raised-floor buildings and they became prominent by being highly involved in economic trade between south-coastal Korea, the interior of

, and northern Kyushu in Japan.

References

External links

Gyeongnam Archaeological Research Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Igeum-Dong Early Korean history Archaeological sites in South Korea Prehistoric Asia Former populated places in South Korea

Megalithic cemetery

Raised-floor buildings: meeting places or dwellings of chiefs?

See also

References

External links