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 ...
with the trace of a
Yayoi period
The Yayoi period (弥生時代, ''Yayoi jidai'') (c. 300 BC – 300 AD) is one of the major historical periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is generally defined as the era between the beginning of food production in Japan and the emergence o ...
settlement located in the Mukogaoka neighborhood of Yayoi, in Bunkyō, Tokyo 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 ...
of
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 ...
In 1884, a student at the preparatory school of the
University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
,
Shōzō Arisaka
Vice admiral Shōzō Arisaka was a Japanese naval engineer and amateur archaeologist.
Life
Arisaka was born as the second son of Senkichi Arisaka (有坂銓吉), one of 25 samurai responsible for rivers in the Kantō region, Kanto region (四 ...
, discovered a distinctive red-clay jar in a
shell mound
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 occup ...
in Mukogaoka, facing the Nezu valley in
Bunkyō
is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. Situated in the middle of the ward area, Bunkyō is a residential and educational center. Beginning in the Meiji period, literati like Natsume Sōseki, as well as ...
, Tokyo. This jar was very different from
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 ...
, and archaeologists named the style "
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 traditionally dated 300 BC to AD 300. The pottery allowed for the identification of the Yayoi period and ...
" as Mukogaoka was located in the Yayoi neighborhood. Further investigation led to the conclusion that the period (1000 BC to 300 AD) in which it was made was ethnically and culturally distinct from the Jōmon period, and thus the term
Yayoi period
The Yayoi period (弥生時代, ''Yayoi jidai'') (c. 300 BC – 300 AD) is one of the major historical periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is generally defined as the era between the beginning of food production in Japan and the emergence o ...
was coined. This was reported to academia in the 1889 edition of "Toyo Gakugei Magazine", which only mentioned that the location of the find was near an
Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
shooting range. The site was sold to the private sector in 1888, with the northern half becoming the residence of Marquis
Asano Nagakoto
Marquis was a ''daimyō'' of Hiroshima Domain for a short time after the Meiji Restoration. For the rest of the Meiji period, he was a politician and diplomat, and was one of the last surviving Japanese ''daimyō'' ( Hayashi Tadataka and Wak ...
, the former ''
daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...
]'' of
Hiroshima Domain
The was a large domain that owned all of Aki Province and half of Bingo Province. It occupies most of current Hiroshima Prefecture. The domain office was located at Hiroshima Castle in Sato District, Aki Province (renamed Numata District in 1 ...
and the southern half developed into a residential area. It was not until 1923, about 40 years after the find, that Arisaka published a text about the pottery in the "Anthropological Magazine". he described the Mukogaoka location as being on the opposite side of the street behind the university, which at the time was a rural area, with no houses or landmarks nearby except for the shooting range, and admitted that he did not keep an exact record of them location and was not unable to precisely identify it due to urban encroachment. The exact location remained lost and over the decades three separate sites have been advanced as possible candidates over the years.
In 1974, archaeologists received word that local elementary school students were collecting pottery exposed in the roots of fallen trees at the Asano area of the campus of the University of Tokyo. The site was a small elevation to the east of the Faculty of Engineering Building, where the ground was being cleared to construct a new research building. A subsequent
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 ...
found the traces of a settlement with a double moat next to a shell midden. The shells were mainly marine oysters and other shellfish; however, finds also included a whetstone and five examples of Yayoi pottery. Since the characteristics of the pottery excavated in 1974 were similar to those of the pottery excavated in 1884, and as the site is in the approximate location of the missing Mukogaoka Shell Mound, this location was designated as a National Historic Site in 1976. However, as the identification with the Mukogaoka Shell Mound remains unproven, the name used for the National Historic Site was the "Yayoi 2-chome Site" instead of the "Mukogaoka Shell Mound".
The site is about a three-minute walk from Nezu Station on the
Tokyo Metro
The Tokyo Metro () is a major rapid transit system in Tokyo, Japan, operated by the #Organization, Tokyo Metro Co. With an average daily ridership of 6.52 million passengers (as of 2023), the Tokyo Metro is the larger of the Tokyo subway, two s ...
Chiyoda Line
The is a subway line owned and operated by Tokyo Metro in Tokyo, Japan. On average, the line carries 1,447,730 passengers daily (2017), the second highest of the Tokyo Metro network, behind the Tozai Line (1,642,378).
The Yayoi pottery originally excavated in 1884 is kept at the Museum of the University of Tokyo, and is designated as a National Important Cultural Property. It has a height of 22.0 centimeters and maximum diameter of 22.7 centimeter, and was made in the late Yayoi period. It is stylistically similar to pottery found in the Tokai region, mainly the coast of
Suruga Bay
Suruga Bay (駿河湾, ''Suruga-wan'') is a bay on the Pacific coast of Honshū in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is situated north of a straight line from Omaezaki Point to Irōzaki Point at the tip of the Izu Peninsula and surrounded by Honsh ...
, rather than the southern Kantō region and may have come to this area by trade.
See also
*
List of Historic Sites of Japan (Tōkyō)
This list is of the Monuments of Japan, Historic Sites of Japan located within the Prefectures of Japan#To, Metropolis of Tokyo, Tōkyō.
National Historic Sites
As of 1 January 2021, fifty-three Sites have been Cultural Properties of Japan, des ...