The , shown on some maps as the Shirokita Central Park Kuirhara ruins, are the site of some ruins of a dwelling found in Nerima Ward,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

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 ...

. Today, a modern (1950s) reconstruction of a

pit-house A pit-house (or pit house, pithouse) is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, this type of earth shelter may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a l ...

stands on the site and is registered as a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been re ...

of Nerima Ward.

History

The ruins were excavated when constructing the athletics and exercise area of in 1955. The name Kurihara was that of a small administrative unit of a village that existed in the area. In a survey conducted between 1955 and 1956, stone tools made of

obsidian Obsidian ( ) is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Produced from felsic lava, obsidian is rich in the lighter element ...

were excavated from the red soil (

Kantō Plain The , in the Kantō region of central Honshu, is the largest plain in Japan. Its 17,000 km2 covers more than half of the region extending over Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Kanagawa Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, Gunma Prefecture, Tochigi Prefe ...

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–si ...

), and were found to be from the

Paleolithic age The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

Jōmon pottery The is a type of ancient earthenware pottery which was made during the Jōmon period in Japan. The term "Jōmon" () means "rope-patterned" in Japanese, describing the patterns that are pressed into the clay. Outline Oldest pottery in J ...

was recovered, and the site exhibits trace evidence of pit dwellings from the

Yayoi The Yayoi period (弥生時代, ''Yayoi jidai'') (c. 300 BC – 300 AD) is one of the major historical periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is generally defined as the era between the beginning of food production in Japan and the emergence o ...

through the

Heian The Japanese word Heian (平安, lit. "peace") may refer to: * Heian period, an era of Japanese history * Heian-kyō, the Heian-period capital of Japan that has become the present-day city of Kyoto * Heian series, a group of karate kata (forms) * ...

periods (300 BC–1185 AD). The replica structure depicts a pit-dwelling from around the beginning of the 8th century, the early

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

(CE 710 to 794). The reconstruction was designed by Gaijiro Fujishima, then a professor at the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

, in 1957.

Structure

The remnants of the dwelling were dug down to a depth of 50 cm, and four pillar holes and a clay pot were identified to the north. When restoring the house, Japanese zelkova was used for the main pillar, and Japanese cedar was used for the beams and girders. The pit-house is surrounded by a metal fence and it is normally not possible to go inside.

Image gallery

File:Kurihara-Site.jpg, File:Kurihara Ruins in Jōhoku-Chūō Park.jpg, Covered in snow in March 2020 File:Kurihara Ruins panorama.jpg, Panorama of the site File:Rear of Kurihara Ruins in Tokyo.jpg, Rear (north side) of the site File:East side of Kurihara Ruins in Tokyo, Japan.jpg, East side of the site

References

Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s webpage about the ruins

External links

{{Commons category
Shakuji Jimdo.com
Archaeological sites in Japan Buildings and structures in Tokyo