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 ...

containing the traces of a large

Yayoi period 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 p ...

settlement and ritual area, located across the Ise and Amura neighborhoods of

Moriyama 270px, Lake Biwa from Moriyama is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 85,485 in 34366 households and a population density of 1533.63 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Mo ...

and the Nojiri neighborhood of the city of

Rittō, Shiga 270px, Ritto Horse Training Center 270px, Otsuki Taisha ''honden'' is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 70,312 in 29068 households and a population density of 1300 persons per km². The total ar ...

in the

Kansai region The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolita ...

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 ...

. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 2012.

Overview

The Ise Site is located in the highlands of the

Yasu River The is located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan; it is the largest river to flow into Lake Biwa. It rises from Mount Gozaisho and flows through Kōka, Konan, Rittō, Moriyama and Yasu. It forked at the lower reaches and made a delta region, but they ...

in southeastern Shiga Prefecture. It was confirmed as an archaeological site in 1981, and many

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

s have been carried out so far. The site measures about 700 meters east-to-west and about 450 meters north-to-south. Of especial interest was the foundations of a group of large buildings dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (latter half of the Yayoi period), which were found to be lined up neatly in an "L" arrangement in an enclosure surrounded by a fortification consisting of two sets of moats and an earthen ramparts with wooden

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' ...

s. The enclosure also had the foundations for a watchtower in the east, believed to be similar to what was discovered at the

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 ...

Kyushu 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 ...

. These large buried pillar buildings (which may have been political or ritual facilities) are surrounded by a separate group of buried pillar buildings arranged in a circle, with each building spaced 18 meters apart. These circumferential buildings have a foundation plan similar to that of

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Officially known simply as , Ise Jingū is a shrine complex composed of many Shinto shrines centered on two main shrines, and . The Inn ...

and are therefore assumed to be shrine buildings. In addition, to the north of the outside of the circumferential buildings, was one of the largest

pit dwelling 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, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larder ...

s found in Japan, measuring 13.6 meters on each side with a floor area of about 185 square meters. The building had internal pillars for support, and a floor made of baked clay bricks. This was presumably the residence of the king. A total of 13 large buildings have been detected in the excavations so far, and it is assumed that it was the center of politics and rituals in a kingdom which once existed in southern part of Ōmi. In the western half of the ruins, the foundations of a group of smaller pit dwellings were recognized. Unlike the larger square buildings, these nine buildings had pentagonal foundations, which matches the characteristics of Yayoi sites on the coast of the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

and in other locations in southern Ōmi. Excavated

Yayoi pottery Yayoi pottery (弥生土器 Yayoi doki) is earthenware pottery produced during the Yayoi period, an Iron Age era in the history of Japan, by an Island which was formerly native to Japan traditionally dated 300 BC to AD 300. The pottery allow ...

includes pottery finished with spatula polishing, which is mainly developed in the Kansai region, as well as style with a unique mouth edge which is found only in the Ōmi area. In the vicinity of the Ise Site, the Hattori Site contains the remains of a vast system of early Yayoi period

paddy field A paddy field is a flooded field (agriculture), field of arable land used for growing Aquatic plant, semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in sout ...

s, the

Shimonogō Site The is an archaeological site containing the ruins of a Yayoi period fortified settlement, located in what is now part of the city of Moriyama, Shiga, Moriyama, Shiga Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. It was designated a Monuments of Japa ...

is a settlement trace from the middle Yayoi period, and the Shinomagari Site, 1.2 kilometers to the southwest of the Ise Site, had the remains of a metalware production facility from the late Yayoi and early

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

. The site is about a 10-minute walk from Rittō Station on the

JR Central is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and in Japanese as JR Tōkai ( ja, JR東海, links=no). ''Tōkai'' is a reference to the geographical ...

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

References

External links

Moriyama city Department of Education home page

Moriyama City Agency for Cultural Affairs
{{in lang, ja Yayoi period Archaeological sites in Japan History of Shiga Prefecture Moriyama, Shiga Rittō, Shiga Ōmi Province Historic Sites of Japan

Overview

See also

References

External links