Shell Mound in Dongsam-dong, Busan is located on the west coast of Yeong-do Island in Dongsam-dong,

Yeongdo District Yeongdo District () is a '' gu'' (district) in Busan, South Korea. The ''gu'' itself is limited to Yeong-do (''Yeong Island'') located on the south edge of central Busan. It attained the status of ''gu'' in 1957. The Korea Maritime and Ocean U ...

Busan Busan (), officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second list of cities in South Korea by population, most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economi ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. This

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

consists of a

midden A midden is an old dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bones, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human oc ...

of shells of various

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

that were discarded in a relatively small or restricted area by people who lived there in the

Jeulmun pottery period The Jeulmun pottery period () is an archaeological era in Prehistoric Korea, Korean prehistory broadly spanning the period of 8000–1500 BC. This period subsumes the Mesolithic and Neolithic cultural stages in Korea,Choe and Bale 2002 lastin ...

.Tongsamdong. In ''The Penguin Archaeology Guide'', pp. 450-451. Penguin, New York, 2001.Busan Museum. ''Dongsam-dong Paechong Jeonsigwan Jeonsi Dorok''. Busan Museum, Busan, 2002. It was excavated three times by archaeologists of the

National Museum of Korea The National Museum of Korea () is the flagship museum of Korean history and Korean art, art in South Korea. Since its establishment in 1945, the museum has been committed to various studies and research activities in the fields of archaeology ...

from 1969 and was found to be among the oldest Jeulmun middens so far discovered in the southern part of the

Korean Peninsula Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically divided at or near the 38th parallel between North Korea (Dem ...

. The presence of Yunggimun (appliqué-pattern) pottery indicates the site was occupied for a time between 8000-7000 BP, but many absolute dates generated from carbon that was excavated from the site indicate the site was also occupied in the Middle (c. 3500 BC) and Late (c. 2000 BC) Jeulmun sub-periods.Busan Museum 2002. A variety of artifacts, including three types of pottery (patternless, comb-patterned, and appliqué patterned), and tools made of bone and

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

were uncovered. Artifacts and features from Dongsam-dong provide insight into the way the people of the area lived as well as into the cultural trends of the times. The excavated remains have also proved to be valuable for estimating both the influences of

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

n culture on Korea and prehistoric exchange between southern Korea and

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

, Japan.

References

{{Coord, 35, 04, 16, N, 129, 04, 47, E, region:KR_type:city_source:kolossus-frwiki, display=title Geography of Busan Archaeological sites in South Korea Culture of Busan Shell middens Yeongdo District

See also

References