The is a

shell midden A midden is an old landfill, dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bone, bones, feces, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, Lithic flake, lithics (especially debitage), and other Artifact (archaeology), ...

and remains of an Early

Jōmon period In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...

settlement located in the Torihama neighbourhood of the town of Wakasa, Fukui, in the

Hokuriku region The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is a waterlogged midden site that was occupied mainly from the Incipient Jomon period to the Early Jomon period from 12,000 to 5,000 years ago (10,000–3,000 BC). The site is located in the area of Lake Mikata, one of the Mikata five lakes, near the confluence of Hasu and Takase Rivers, within the borders of the Wakasa Wan Quasi-National Park. At that time, the Shiibayama hill on which the site is located extended like a cape from the west to the east, and Lake Mikata extended to the tip of the hill. On the southern slope of the hill, three pit dwellings were detected, indicating that there were settlements. The shell midden begins at a depth of 7 meters underground to 3 meters above ground. At the time it was used as a garbage dumping site, it was in the lake.

Excavations

The excavation of the site was initiated in 1962, and conducted up to 1972 by

Doshisha University , also referred to as , is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1875, it is one of Japan's oldest private institutions of higher learning, and has approximately 30,000 students enrolled on four campuses in Kyoto. It is one of Japa ...

in Kyoto, and Rikkyō University in Toyo. Starting in 1975, the Fukui Prefectural Board of Education continued the investigations. Important information about early agriculture in Japan in 7500–3500 BC was discovered.

Discoveries

The cultural deposits are about 6 to 3 meters thick. Primarily fresh water shells are found in the midden. Ropes, reed baskets and similar items were plentiful. Very old stone weights used for nets were excavated, as well as many other items made of stone. A large quantity of stone axes were found. The inhabitants hunted various local fauna. Skeletal remains of the Japanese wolf have been found at Torihama dating 10,000 to 250 B.C.

Cultivated plants

In 2011, radioactive carbon dating has revealed that the

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

tree found at the Torihama shell mounds is the oldest lacquer tree in the world, dating back 12600 years. Evidence of early beefsteak plant

perilla ''Perilla'' is a genus consisting of one major Asiatic crop species '' Perilla frutescens'' and a few wild species in nature belonging to the mint family, Lamiaceae. The genus encompasses several distinct varieties of Asian herb, seed, and vege ...

(Jap. 'egoma') was found. Other plants that were cultivated were

bottle gourd Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvest ...

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a plant in the botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial and consumable use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest ...

(Cannabis sativa),

paper mulberry The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,burdock ''Arctium'' is a genus of biennial plants commonly known as burdock, family Asteraceae. Native to Europe and Asia, several species have been widely introduced worldwide. Burdock's clinging properties, in addition to providing an excellent mecha ...

, and

mustard family Brassicaceae () or (the older but equally valid) Cruciferae () is a medium-sized and economically important family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family. Most are herbaceous plants, while some ar ...

plants (Brassicaceae). Weedy annuals and shrub fruits and nuts, such as

acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

s and

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

s, were also used by villagers. The latter comprised a very substantial part of the diet. Chestnut (

Castanea crenata ''Castanea crenata'', the Japanese chestnut or Korean chestnut, is a species of chestnut native to Japan and Korea. ''Castanea crenata'' exhibits resistance to ''Phytophthora cinnamomi'', the fungal pathogen that causes ink disease in several Cas ...

Siebold & Zucc.) was also found, as well as water chestnut (''

trapa The water caltrop is any of three extant species of the genus ''Trapa'': ''Trapa natans'', ''Trapa bicornis'' and the endangered ''Trapa rossica''. It is also known as buffalo nut, bat nut, devil pod, ling nut, mustache nut, singhara nut or wate ...

''), and the regular

sweet chestnut The sweet chestnut (''Castanea sativa''), also known as the Spanish chestnut or European chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A ...

. In terms of caloric intake, plant foods made up about half of the diet. Red beans (

Adzuki bean ''Vigna angularis'', also known as the , azuki bean, aduki bean, red bean, or red mung bean, is an Annual plant, annual vine widely cultivated throughout East Asia for its small (approximately long) bean. The cultivars most familiar in East A ...

s),

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. It can also specifically refer to ''Cucumis melo'', commonly known as the "true melon" or simply "melon". The term "melon" can apply to both the p ...

, and Chinese cabbage were also found.

Manufactured goods

Wood products of all kinds have been found, including lacquered pottery and combs. They represent the oldest known examples of

Japanese lacquerware is a Japanese craft with a wide range of fine and decorative arts, as lacquer has been used in ''urushi-e'', woodblock printing in Japan, prints, and on a wide variety of objects from Buddhist art, Buddha statues to ''bento'' boxes for food. ...

. The items were found by scholars from

Tohoku University is a public research university in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. It is colloquially referred to as or . Established in 1907 as the third of the Imperial Universities, after the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, it initially focused on sc ...

who investigated the site in 1984–2011, and they may date to 12,600 years ago. Also found here was the oldest fabric product yet found in Japan—a rope made of hemp, dating back 12,000 years. Also, a woven item made of '' Boehmeria tricuspis'', a vegetable fiber, was found.

Canoes

The 1981 excavation revealed the presence of some very old

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed-out tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' (tr ...

s at the site; the oldest one was dated 5500 BP. This was the oldest canoe found in Japan. It is about 6 meters long, and made from the Japanese cedar tree. Burning was used in its manufacture, as well as adzes. The majority of remains unearthed from the Torihama site are stored and exhibited at the Wakasa Mikata Jomon Museum in Obama (c. 20 km west of the site).

Coprolites

The discovery and study of coprolites from the site was pioneered by Michiko Chiura.

Notes

Bibliography

*Hongo, H. (1989). Freshwater fishing in the early Jomon period (Japan): an analysis of fish remains from the Torihama shell-mound. Journal of Archaeological Science, 16(2),333-354. * *Morikawa, M., 1994. Torihama kaizuka 7000-nen no shiki, in Torihama Kaizuka, by M. Morikawa & S. Hashimoto. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbun-sha, 15–136. (In Japanese) *Torihama Kaizuka Kenkyu Group, 1983. Torihama Kaizuka, vol. 3. Fukui: Fukui-ken Kyoiku Iinkai & Fukui-ken- ritsu Wakasa Rekishi Minzoku Shiryo-kan (In Japanese) *Morikawa, M., and S. Hashimoto. 1994. The Torihama shellmound: a Jomon time capsule. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha. (In Japanese) *Matsui, A., and M. Kanehara. 2006. The question of prehistoric plant husbandry during the Jomon period in Japan. World Archaeology 38:259–273. {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Fukui Prefecture Wakasa, Fukui Jōmon-period ruins Jōmon-period shell middens