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 ...

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), ...

located in what is now part of the town of

Shinchi, Fukushima is a town located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the town has an estimated population of 8,152, and a population density of in 2832 households. The total area is . Geography Shinchi is located in the far northeastern Hamadōri region of Fu ...

in the southern

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, , or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains ...

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 ...

. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1930.

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 Tōhoku 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 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, and the rocky

ria coast A ria (; , feminine noun derived from ''río'', river) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendritic ...

from Iwate through northern

Fukushima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,771,100 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miyagi Prefecture and Yamagata Prefecture ...

was densely settled from the early through late Jōmon period. The site is located in a rural area near the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. The midden has been known since at least the

Edo Period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. Sakuma Yoshikazu, a local scholar, described it a journal listing the holdings of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date fam ...

. compiled at the order of the 4th ''daimyō'' of

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of ...

Date Tsunamura was an early Edo period Japanese samurai, and the fourth ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain in northern Japan, and the 20h hereditary chieftain of the Date clan. Tsunamura's succession led to the ''Date Sōdō'' or "Date Disturbance" of 1671, which has ...

. Per this account, a small

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

near this midden was dedicated to the ''

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

'' of Mount Kare, a 430-meter mountain to the west of town. A giant, the "Tenaga Myojin" lived on the mountain and had very long arms - so long that it could reach the ocean to pick up shellfish (its favorite food), whose shells it would deposit on what became the Shinchi Shell Midden. The shell midden attracted attention from archaeologists in the

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 initial excavations were conducted in 1890 and in 1924 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 ...

. In addition to the expected shells and animal and fish bones, the midden was found to contain a unique design of pottery with ruffled decoration which was dubbed "Shichi-style pottery". The shell midden dates from approximately 4000 years ago. The Shinto shrine disappeared around 1887, but its foundations were discovered. The site has a stone marker and explanatory signboard. It is located about 30 minutes on foot from

Shinchi Station is a railway station in the town of Shinchi, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Operation of the station was suspended due to severe damage to the railway and station facilities caused by the 2011 Tō ...

on the

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are in ...

Joban Line.

References

External links

Shinchi town home page

Fukushima Tourist information home page
{{in lang, ja Jōmon period Shell middens in Japan Historic Sites of Japan History of Fukushima Prefecture Shinchi, Fukushima

Overview

See also

References

External links