Sannai Maruyama is a large Early to Middle Jomon period settlement in Aomori prefecture of northeastern Japan. The site has been radiocarbon dated showing Jomon occupation between ca. 5900-4300 cal bp.
Sannai Maruyama is the largest Jomon site discovered on Japan, with over 600 pit dwellings and 20 long houses. About 120 post-hole patterns have been identified, believed by excavators to represent raised-floor buildings. Cemeteries have been identified at Sannai Maruyama on the basis of form rather than recovery of human remains, including approximately 250 adult grave pits and 800 burial jars for infants and children.
Numerous storage pits and large shell middens, and hundreds of thousands of artifacts, including arrowheads, polished stone axes, stemmed scrapers, potsherds, bark baskets, grinding stones and mortars, net sinkers, clay figurines, stone and bone ornaments and lacquered plates, bowls and combs have been recovered at the site.
Subsistence Crisis at Sannai Maruyama
One of the continuing puzzles of Jomon archaeology is the seeming population crash in northeastern Japan at the end of the Middle Jomon period. Sannai Maruyama excavator Junko Habu noted an increase at the site in the percentage of grinding stones and mortars during the Early Jomon period, suggesting an increase on reliance on plants. About the beginning of the Middle Jomon period, a sharp decrease in grinding stones and an increase in projectile points is seen.
Although data are limited, it appears as if the Sannai settlement was at its largest just before the switch back to arrowheads, and that the settlement then was reduced in size. Also interesting is that at the height of the occupation, the average house size is smallest during this period as well. Habu believes this reflects clear evidence of a subsistence crisis.
Archaeology at Sannai Maruyama
Excavations of the site were first conducted in 1994, as part of a cultural resources management project ahead of a baseball stadium construction. In 1997, Junko Habu began excavating at Sannai Maruyama, as a collaborative effort between the University of California at Berkeley and the Preservation Office of the Sannai Maruyama Site.
Sources
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
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The Sannai Maruyama Site: Extraordinarily Large Settlement in Prehistoric Japan. Undated pamphlet available at the Sannai Maruyama site webpage.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
