Walking Tour of Sannai Maruyama

By K. Kris Hirst, About.com Guide

Burials at Sannai Maruyama took three forms: jar burials, pit burials, and stone circle burials. Large jars were discovered near the pit dwelling clusters, containing stone tools or fist-sized cobbles. The bases of these jars all had holes drilled in the bottom. These are assumed to be burials, although human bones have not been preserved within them, on the basis of similar burials found in later Jomon sites. Jar burials have been dated to the Middle Jomon period, from 5400-4300 years ago.

The second form of burial was of adults aligned in rows along the sides of long roadways extending from the center of the settlement towards the outside. The 5-14 meter wide roads measured approximately 400 meters in length, and were of tamped and cut earth. They were first built about 5400-4300 years ago.

Finally, stone circle arrangements were found at Sannai Maruyama, which included adult burials. These date to 4400 BP.

Sources

See the Jomon Timeline and Definition for more specifics on the culture.

See the official Sannai Maruyama website for further information. If you are planning a visit to Japan, the site is open to visitors, with a museum and several reconstructed buildings.

Habu, Junko 2008 Growth and decline in complex hunter-gatherer societies: a case study from the Jomon period Sannai Maruyama site, Japan. Antiquity 82:571–584.

Habu, Junko and Clare Fawcett 1999 Jomon archaelogy and the representation of Japanese origins. Antiquity 73:587-793.

Habu, Junko, Minkoo Kim, Mio Katayama, and Hajime Komiya 2001 Jomon subsistence-settlement systems at the Sannai Maruyama site. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 21:9-21. Free download

Anonymous. The Sannai Maruyama Site: Extraordinarily Large Settlement in Prehistoric Japan. Undated pamphlet available at the Sannai Maruyama site webpage.