The is a middle

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 midden located in what is now part of the city of

Kahoku, Ishikawa is a Cities of Japan, city located in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 35,188 in 12787 households, and a population density of 550 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Kahoku is locate ...

in the

Hokuriku region The was located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lay along the Sea of Japan within the Chūbu region, which it is currently a part of. It is almost equivalent to Koshi Province and Hokurikudō area in pre-modern ...

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 1982. The middens were discovered in 1930 and are noteworthy as the first shell midden to be discovered in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Overview

During the early to middle Jōmon period (approximately 4000 to 2500 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, the Hokuriku region 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 these 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 Kamiyamada Shell Midden is an unusual example of midden located on the coastline 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 ...

. It is on 20 meter hill approximately three kilometers from the present shoreline. The midden extends for about 250 meters east-to-west, and about 80 meters north-to-south. The site consists of two separate middens, with a shell layer that is about 150 centimeters thick in places. Some of the shells are from brackish water shellfish; however, the majority of the shells are from freshwater mussels, along with the bones of freshwater fish, such as eels and carp. Between the site and the coast is the Uchinada dunes, a chain of large sand dunes and a large marsh called Kahokugata, which extends for approximately two kilometers. The site was discovered in November 1930 by a local artist, and was first excavated in 1931. A second excavation was conducted in 1960, and again in 1975 and 1976. In addition, a number of artifacts of Jōmon pottery and

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s were discovered, including a unique cylindrical object with what appears to be the clay figures of a woman with a child. The site is a type site for "Kamiyamada style pottery", which is found in various other locations in the Hokuriku region. Many of the excavated relics are stored at the . The midden site is about 20 minutes on foot from

Unoke Station is a railway station on the Nanao Line in the city of Kahoku, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West). Lines Unoke Station is served by the Nanao Line, and is located 8.8 kilometers from the end of the l ...

on the

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and ...

Nanao Line The is a railway line in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and the Noto Railway. It runs between Tsubata Station in Tsubata and Anamizu Station in Anamizu. JR West operates the section between Tsuba ...

References

External links

Kahoku City information home page

{{in lang, ja Jōmon period History of Ishikawa Prefecture Kahoku, Ishikawa Historic Sites of Japan Shell middens in Japan

Overview

See also

References

External links