The is an

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 ...

in the city of Sukumo,

Kōchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kōchi Prefecture has a population of 757,914 (1 December 2011) and has a geographic area of 7,103 km2 (2,742 sq mi). Kōchi Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the northwest and ...

, on the island of Shikoku in

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 ...

. It consists of a pair of late

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

shell middens. The middens were designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1957.

Overview

During the Jōmon period (approximately 3500 BC), sea levels were five to six meters higher than at present, and the ambient temperature was also 2 deg C higher. During this period, Shikoku was inhabited by the

Jōmon people is the generic name of several peoples who lived in the Japanese archipelago during the Jōmon period (). The Jōmon people may have consisted of multiple groups, which arrived and merged at different times in the Japanese archipelago, using multi ...

, many of whom lived in coastal settlements. The

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

s associated with such settlements contain

bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...

botanical Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

material, mollusc shells,

sherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well. Occasionally, a piece of broken p ...

s, lithics, and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with the now-vanished inhabitants, and these

features Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing characteristic of a software item ...

, provide a useful source into the diets and habits of Jōmon society. Most of such middens are found along the

Pacific coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

of Japan. The location of this shell midden is on a plateau at the foot of Mount Ganjoji, to the northwest of the city center. The existence of shell middens on the gentle slope facing south of Sukumo Bay has been known since antiquity, but came to the attention of academia only in 1891, when they were first excavated. The mounds are located approximately 60 meters apart and form the largest known shell midden in Shikoku, both in terms of size and in number of excavated artifacts. The site was excavated again in 1949, 1985-1986 and in 1996; however, traces of the settlement which was once associated with this midden have yet to be discovered. The shell layer is approximately 70-centimeters thick, and consists of reef and open sea clam shells in its lower layers and coastal and muddy sea shells (much as mussels) in its upper layers. Jōmon pottery, stone arrowheads and stone hoes, and bone jewelry have been found in the upper layers, along with a number of Jōmon period human remains. The site is about five minutes by car from Tosa Kuroshio Railway Sukumo Station.

References

External links

Sukumo City homepage
{{in lang, ja History of Kōchi Prefecture Historic Sites of Japan Sukumo, Kōchi Jōmon-period shell middens

Overview

See also

References

External links