Torihama is the name of a water-logged freshwater mollusc shell midden, located on the Hasu River near Wakasa Bay in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. Torihama was used as a midden and sometime residence throughout the Jomon period in Japan, with the largest deposits laid down during the Early Jomon period. The mound measures at least 120 meters (about 400 feet) across, with deposits up to 2 m (6 ft) in depth.
The midden was built up over a period of several thousand years. At the initial time of occupation, the people lived on the adjacent cape and threw their organic refuse into the lake, eventually forming an underwater midden. Eventually the midden was raised above sea level, and the shellmound itself includes at least three separate settlements and numerous storage pits. As a result of its underwater location, artifact preservation within the midden is excellent, and excavators successfully recovered bone, wood, basketry, rope, string, and human coprolites as well stone tools and pottery sherds.
Chronology
- Yayoi
- Final Jomon
- Early Jomon, layers 8-2, ca. 5600-7300 cal BP Lower Hajima and Lower Kitashirakawa pottery
- Incipient Jomon, layers 10-9, ca 7,300-13,500 cal BP (14 dates)
Incipient Jomon
At the time of the first use of the mound, during the Incipient or Initial Jomon period, the local environment was temperate deciduous broadleaf forest. Organic materials recovered from the midden besides shellfish included chestnuts, walnuts, water chestnuts and hazelnuts. Tools from Torihama from this period are limited to a few pottery fragments, stone arrowheads and carved wooden pieces. Fruits of what appear to be domestic bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), and seeds of some cruciform vegetable, maybe bok choy (Brassica spp) were found in Incipient Jomon levels. If so, the L. siceraria rind is among the earliest domesticated bottle gourds yet found.
In 2013, a report on Incipient sherds from Torihama described residues from cooked fish embedded in the pottery walls. See Craig et al. According to some of the older literature, the Initial Jomon occupation at Torihama is interpreted as a brief temporary camp or camps used primarily in the autumn seasons. However, in the more recent literature cited below there are references to other articles in Japanese that likely had more substantial discussion of the initial/incipient Jomon occupation, but I was unable to access the original articles.
Early Jomon
The climate during the Early Jomon period was warmer, a temperate evergreen broadleaf forest; and occupation at Torihama is interpreted as a sedentary village of pithouses adjacent to the mound beginning about 7,000 years ago. Tools recovered within the mound during the Early Jomon period included large quantities of pottery; stone tools such as net sinkers, hammers, pestles, drills, scrapers, and axes; and wooden tools including bows, bowls, paddles, canoes and combs. Seventy-five different species of plants and animals were identified, dominated by chestnuts, water chestnuts, acorns, fish, deer, wild boars and mollusks.
The Early Jomon people exploited different species of wood for different tasks: upland taxa including oak (Quercus spp and Cyclobalanopsis spp), Japanese camilla (Camellia japonica) and maple (Acer spp) were used for tools such as bowls, pointed rods and ax hafts; wetland woods such as Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) and ash (Fraxinus spp) were used for boards and stakes. (see Noshiro, Sasaki and Suzuki for additional information).
A partial dugout canoe was recovered from the Early Jomon levels, made from Japanese cedar and measuring an estimated 6.5 meters (21 feet) long, .6 m wide (~2 ft) and 26-30 centimeters (10-12 inches) high. It is one of the largest Jomon period canoes yet discovered (Habu 2010).
Fish Species
Fish species dominated the faunal assemblage of the Early Jomon, with a total of 18 different species, most of which were freshwater, suggesting that intensive inland-water fishing was the practice during this period. The most abundant food species were carp (Cyprinidae spp), particularly Crucian carp (Carassius auratus). Other species recovered included sea bream (Seriola spp), porgy (Acanthopagrus schlegeli), skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), puffer (Tetraodontidae spp), shark (unidentified sp) and catfish (Pelteobagrus nudiceps).
Plant species surviving as phytoliths and plant parts included Japanese horse chestnut (Aesculus turbinata), Manchurian walnut (Juglans mandshurica), water chestnut (Trapa japonica), Japanese chestnut (Castanopsis crenata), kiwi (Actinidia arguta), silver vine (Actinidia polygama), Korean pepper (Zanthoxylum schinifolium) and Japanese oak (Quercus crispula).
Possibly cultivated plants from the Early Jomon at Torihama included beefsteak plant (Perilla frutescens), egoma (Perilla ocymoides), cruciform vegetable of some sort (Brassicaceae), paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), burdock, flax, hemp (Cannabis sativa), azuki (Vigna angularis var. angularis) and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Scholars are not in agreement concerning the domesticated status of some of these plants, with the exception of L. siceraria, which appears to have been domesticated in Japan or the Yangtze river by the early Holocene. Nut trees and some of the grasses are likely to have been at least managed if not completely domesticated by the Early Jomon as well (see Crawford for a discussion of possible Jomon agriculture, and Fuller et al. for bottle gourd).
Archaeology at Torihama
Torihama shell mound was discovered in 1962, with the first excavations that same year carried out by Doshisha and Rikkyo universities. Beginning in 1963, a series of extensive rescue excavations were conducted by the Torihama Shell-Mound Research Group ahead of a river improvement project.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Jomon Culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Craig OE, Saul H, Lucquin A, Nishida Y, Tache K, Clarke L, Thompson AH, Altoft DT, Uchiyama J, Ajimoto M et al. 2013. Earliest evidence for the use of pottery. Nature. Advance publication.
Crawford GW. 2011. Advances in Understanding Early Agriculture in Japan. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S331-S345.
Fuller DQ, Hosoya LA, Zheng Y, and Qin L. 2010. A Contribution to the Prehistory of Domesticated Bottle Gourds in Asia: Rind Measurements from Jomon Japan and Neolithic Zhejiang, China. Economic Botany 64(3):260-265.
Habu J. 2010. Seafaring and the development of cultural complexity in Northeast Asia: Evidence from the Japanese Archipelago. In: Anderson A, Barrett JH, and Boyle KV, editors. Global Origins and the Development of Seafaring. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monograph. p 159-170.
Habu J, Matsui A, Yamamoto N, and Kanno T. 2011. Shell midden archaeology in Japan: Aquatic food acquisition and long-term change in the Jomon culture. Quaternary International 239(1–2):19-27.
Hongo H. 1989. Freshwater fishing in the early jomon period (Japan): An analysis of fish remains from the Torihama shell-mound. Journal of Archaeological Science 16(4):333-354.
Koike H, and Ohtaishi N. 1985. Prehistoric hunting pressure estimated by the age composition of excavated sika deer (Cervus Nippon) using the annual layer of tooth cement. Journal of Archaeological Science 12(6):443-456.
Matsui A, and Kanehara M. 2006. The question of prehistoric plant husbandry during the Jomon Period in Japan. World Archaeology 38(2):259-273.
Nakazawa Y, Iwase A, Akai F, and Izuho M. 2011. Human responses to the Younger Dryas in Japan. Quaternary International 242(2):416-433.
Nishida M. 1983. The emergence of food production in Neolithic Japan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2(4):305-322.
Noshiro S, Sasaki Y, and Suzuki M. 2009. How natural are natural woods from wetland sites? – a case study at two sites of the Jomon period in central Japan. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(7):1597-1604.
Noshiro S, Suzuki M, and Sasaki Y. 2007. Importance of Rhus verniciflua Stokes (lacquer tree) in prehistoric periods in Japan, deduced from identification of its fossil woods. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 16(5):405-411.
Yoneda M, Suzuki R, Shibata Y, Morita M, Sukegawa T, Shigehara N, and Akazawa T. 2004. Isotopic evidence of inland-water fishing by a Jomon population excavated from the Boji site, Nagano, Japan. Journal of Archaeological Science 31(1):97-107.
