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 recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

in the Horinouchi neighborhood of the city of Ichikawa,

Chiba Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama ...

, in the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

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 ...

containing a

Jōmon period In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...

shell midden A midden is an old landfill, dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bone, bones, feces, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, Lithic flake, lithics (especially debitage), and other Artifact (archaeology), ...

and settlement ruin. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1964, with the area under designation expanded in 1967 and again in 1972.

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 Kantō region was inhabited by the

Jōmon people The Jōmon (縄文) were a prehistoric hunter-gatherer culture that inhabited the Japanese archipelago approximately between 14,000 BC and 300 BC. Both genetically and culturally, the Jōmon are among the earliest known ancestors of the modern ...

, many of whom lived in coastal settlements. The

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 ...

s associated with such settlements contain

bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...

botanical Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

material,

mollusc shell The mollusc (or mollusk) shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton which encloses, supports and protects the soft parts of an animal in the phylum Mollusca, which includes snails, clams, tusk shells, and several other classes. Not all shelled ...

sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

lithics Lithic may refer to: *Relating to stone tools ** Lithic analysis, the analysis of stone tools and other chipped stone artifacts ** Lithic core, the part of a stone which has had flakes removed from it ** Lithic flake, the portion of a rock removed ...

, and other artifacts and

ecofact In archaeology, a biofact (or ecofact) is any organic material including flora or fauna material found at an archaeological site that has not been technologically altered by humans yet still has cultural relevance. Biofacts can include but are n ...

s associated with the now-vanished inhabitants, and these

features Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

, provide a useful source into the

diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

s 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 North America Countries on the western side of North America have a Pacific coast as their western or south-western border. One of th ...

of Japan. Of the approximately 2400 shell middens throughout Japan, about 120 are concentrated in Chiba city. The Horinouchi Shell Mound is located on a ridge-shaped plateau on the right bank of the Kokubun River near the western end of the Shimosa Plateau, with an elevation of about 22 meters. This was a peninsula jutting into

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan spanning the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture, on the southern coast of the island of Honshu. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. Th ...

during the Holocene glacial retreat, contemporary with the Jōmon period, when sea levels were higher than today. The midden has a horseshoe shape, measuring 120 meters from north-to-south by 225 meters from east-to-west, forming a partial

shell ring Shell rings are archaeological sites with curved shell middens completely or partially surrounding a clear space. The rings were sited next to estuaries that supported large populations of shellfish, usually oysters. Shell rings have been reported ...

. The shells are mainly from brackish water species, especially ''hamaguri'',

cockles Cockle may refer to: * Cockle (bivalve), an edible, marine bivalve mollusc * ''Lolium temulentum'' (also cockle), an annual plant of the family Poaceae * Berwick cockle, a white-coloured sweet with red stripes * ''Cockle'', a codename for the fo ...

, whelks, ''ibo-kesago'' and black clams. The foundations of a

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, this type of earth shelter may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a lar ...

from the early Jōmon period has been found underneath the shell mound layer, and a number of human remains have been found in addition to

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 ...

, clay figurines,

stone tool Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a ...

s, shell bracelets and animal bones from within the midden itself. The midden has been known since the early

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

and has been subject to numerous

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 due to its proximity to Tokyo, the first of which was carried out in 1901. Subsequent excavations have been conducted by

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

Rikkyo University , also known as Saint Paul's University, is a private university, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan. Rikkyo is one of the five MARCH (Japanese universities), MARCH universities, the group of private universities in the Kantō region, Kanto region, toge ...

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

Keio University , abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally established as a school for Rangaku, Western studies in 1858 in Edo. It was granted university status in 1920, becomi ...

Meiji University is a Private university, private research university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Originally founded as Meiji Law School () by three lawyers in 1881, it became a university in April 1920. As of May 2023, Meiji has 32,261 undergradu ...

and others. The site is a

type site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...

for a type of a type Jōmon pottery from the early to middle Jōmon period (about 3,800 years ago), which has been named "Horinouchi-style pottery", and which has been found widely distributed throughout the Kantō region. Many of the artifacts recovered from the site are stored and displayed at the , which is located adjacent to the midden. The site is about eight minutes on foot from Kita-Kokubun Station on the Hokusō Railway

Hokusō Line The is a commuter rail line operated by the third-sector Hokusō Railway (controlled by the Keisei Electric Railway) in Japan. It runs between Keisei-Takasago Station in Katsushika, Tokyo and Imba Nihon-idai Station in Inzai, Chiba. It is p ...

. The site of the Shimōsa

Kokufu were the capitals of the historical Provinces of Japan from the Nara period to the Heian period. History As part of the Taika Reform (645), which aimed at a centralization of the administration following the Chinese model (''ritsuryō''), the '' ...

, and its adjacent Ichikawa History Museum are located about two kilometers south of the Horinouchi Shell Midden.

References

External links

Ichikawa City home page

{{in lang, ja Ichikawa, Chiba History of Chiba Prefecture Historic Sites of Japan Jōmon-period shell middens

Overview

See also

References

External links