The is a

shell 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 eco ...

and remains of an Early

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 ...

settlement located in the Torihama neighbourhood of the town of

Wakasa, Fukui is a Towns of Japan, town located in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 14,577 and the population density of 82 persons per km². The total area of the town was . Geography Wakasa is located in southwestern Fuku ...

, 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 ...

. 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 is a Quasi-National Park in Fukui and Kyōto Prefectures, Japan. Established in 1955, the central feature of the park is the ria coast of Wakasa Bay. In 2005 an area of of wetland in the Mikata Lakes was designated a Ramsar Site. Sites of ...

. 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 , mottoeng = Truth shall make you free , tagline = , established = Founded 1875,Chartered 1920 , vision = , type = Private , affiliation = , calendar = , endowment = €1 ...

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 The Japanese wolf ( ja, ニホンオオカミ（日本狼）, ja, script=Latn, label= Hepburn, Nihon ōkami, or , below]; ''Canis lupus hodophilax''), also known as the Honshū wolf, is an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that was once endem ...

have been found at Torihama dating 10,000 to 250 B.C.

Cultivated plants

In 2011,

radioactive carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

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 ca ...

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 veget ...

(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, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...

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

(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) 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 are shrubs. The le ...

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

acorn The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...

s and

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a true ...

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

Castanea crenata ''Castanea crenata'', the Japanese chestnut, also known as the 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 dise ...

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 gok (Chinese: 菱角), ling nut, lin kok ...

''), and the regular

sweet chestnut ''Castanea sativa'', the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just 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 substantial, long-lived ...

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

Adzuki bean ''Vigna angularis'', also known as the adzuki bean , 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 ...

s),

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a "pepo". The ...

, and

Chinese cabbage Chinese cabbage (''Brassica rapa'', subspecies ''pekinensis'' and ''chinensis'') can refer to two cultivar groups of leaf vegetables often used in Chinese cuisine: the Pekinensis Group (napa cabbage) and the Chinensis Group (bok choy). These ...

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'', prints, and on a wide variety of objects from Buddha statues to ''bento'' boxes for food. The characteristic of Japanese lacquerwar ...

. The items were found by scholars from

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...

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 ''Boehmeria'' is a genus of 47 species of flowering plants in the nettle family Urticaceae. Of the species, 33 are indigenous to the Old World and 14 to the New World; no species is indigenous to both the Old and New Worlds. The species include ...

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 tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' ( ...

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 ''Cryptomeria'' (literally "hidden parts") is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family Cupressaceae, formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae. It includes only one species, ''Cryptomeria japonica'' ( syn. ''Cupressus japonica'' L ...

tree. Burning was used in its manufacture, as well as adzes.Francesco Menotti, Aidan O'Sullivan
The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology.
OUP Oxford, 2013. p.183 The majority of remains unearthed from the Torihama site are stored and exhibited at the Wakasa Mikata Jomon Museum in

Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

(c. 20 km west of the site).

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 Archaeological sites in Japan Jōmon period Buildings and structures in Fukui Prefecture Shell middens in Japan Wakasa, Fukui