Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan (Needham Research Institute Series) by Charlotte von Verschuer & Wendy Cobcroft

Author:Charlotte von Verschuer & Wendy Cobcroft [Verschuer, Charlotte von]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-02-22T05:00:00+00:00

Map 2.2 Vegetation zones of East Asia

Notes: (a) subarctic zone, forest of conifers, (b) cool-temperate zone, forest of broad-leaved deciduous trees (Fagus), (c) warm-temperate zone, forest of shiny-leaved trees (laurel forest), (d) subtropical and tropical zone, (e) savannah, steppe, (f) desert.

Sources: Sasaki Kōmei, Nihon bunka no kiso o saguru, NHK Books (1994: 18); map after Kira Tatsuo.

The site of Sannai-Maruyama

In 1994, the spectacular discovery of the site of Sannai-Maruyama in Aomori, in far northern Honshū, enriched the body of material evidence. This extensive site (38 ha) was occupied more or less continuously between 3500 and 2000 BC. Here were discovered a total of 500 pit-buildings, some twenty of them very big, 10 m in length, graves, two raised (ritual?) areas, a significant building on pillars each 1 m in diameter, rubbish pits, ritual and household items, silos and organic remains. It was therefore a large-scale settlement as is confirmed by the high number of silos discovered: 350. Twenty-six silos are 5 m in diameter and 1.80 m deep, and 247 silos have a capacity of 1–10 kilolitres. In these silos foodstuffs were probably stored in large earthenware jars. Archaeologists have also found about a hundred pillared-buildings that were probably used as granaries. This significant storage capacity led to demographic estimates that put the population of this settlement at between fifty and five hundred individuals at the same period.

The population of the site lived by hunting and gathering, with, it is thought, chestnuts as the staple food. The pollen diagram drawn up by Yasuda Yoshinori shows a primary forest of alder and fagaceae (we are indeed in the “Fagus zone”), which is systematically replaced by the chestnut from 3500–2800 BC, then followed by a gap in the diagram; later, the fagaceae are again replaced by chestnut trees from 2000 BC. Forest management thus seems to be an established fact. For Takahashi Manabu, a geologist specializing in pedology, the charred remains in the soil layers prove that this management was done by fire. The Sannai-Maruyama site also shows the presence of barnyard millet Echinochloa crus-galli L., which may be self-sown or cultivated. By way of edible plants, archaeologists found on the site some beans, burdock (gobō) and the gourd Lagenaria, though in very small quantities.151

The discovery of the Sannai-Maruyama site confirms the existence of food planning and forest management. However, as regards agriculture, some remained cautious and others were positive (in 1995). One in fact has the impression that some were speaking of an economic system, others of techniques. Outside Sannai-Maruyama, Neolithic sites have yielded traces of rice from the middle phase (3000–2000 BC). Fujiwara Hiroshi who has analysed the phytoliths and Satō Yōichirō, a biologist who has examined their genetic DNA structure, think that there was rice growing on swidden fields. Fujiwara Hiroshi has also put forward the hypothesis that barnyard millet, phytoliths of which are very numerous at Sannai-Maruyama in some deposits, was intensively harvested.152

During a round-table discussion published in 2000, Sahara Makoto, Sasaki Kōmei, Tsude Hiroshi and Nishida Masaki dealt with agriculture in relation to sedentarization.

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