★Japanese Chronology for Dolmen (early Yayoi era, 3000-300 BCE)

Submitted by Aska on Sunday, 25 July 2021 Page Views: 2810

Iron Age and Later PrehistoryCountry: Japan Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen

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**Kuboizumi-Maruyama** submitted by Aska : Site in Kyushu Japan: (Vote or comment on this photo)

　Dolmens in Japan distribute mainly in the northwestern Kyūshū islands. Dolmen construction technology seems to have been introduced from the Korean peninsula, which is one of the dolmen’s most densely distributed areas and contains three UNESCO World Heritage registered dolmen sites. They developed a peculiar regional style on Jeju island, but curiously no dolmen has been discovered on Tsushima and Iki islands which lie between the Korean peninsula and Kyūshū island.

　Dolmens in Korean peninsula might be basically classified into 4 types (2 types or 3 types theories are more conventional) : table type with tall portal stones ; “GO” playing board type with a massive capstone and short portal stones ; flat capstone with short portal stones type ; flat capstone type without portal stones. Japanese dolmens have only latter 2 types : flat capstone types with or without portal stones.

　The underground burial system under the capstone varies : pit, wooden coffin, stone cist and terracotta jar burial (huge urn). Some scholar suspect there might be some regional tendencies in the choice of burial system.

　The ones in marginal areas utilize plural small stones as the capstone instead of one single huge stone, they might later develop into “rock tile roofed burial pit grave” in southern Kyūshū. And in northern Kyūshū, some capstones have no function as the cap of burial systems but have function as landmarks on burial mounds.
The most significant cultural revolutions in Yayoi era should be the introductions of metallurgy and rice cultivation. Some dolmens lie close to paddy fields but the other ones lie in mountainside or seashore. It is unclear that dolmens were tombs of the first rice farmers or not.

　A Japanese archaeologist Ryūzō TORII (鳥居龍蔵 1870-1953), a dolmenmania who built his own tomb in dolmen shape, explored the Eurasian continent and investigated the dolmens there. He also explored throughout Japan but he could not distinguish real dolmens, dolmen-like cists and pile of rocks in natural outcrops. Nowadays such pseudo-dolmens are ironically ridiculed as ”Dr.Torii’s style dolmens”. But some locals still regard such natural rocks as artificial monuments and place the signposts “dorumen” (ドルメン = dolmen).

Basic Resources :
考古学ジャーナル(161) pp.2-36 特集：東北アジアの支石墓 1979.5 ニュー・サイエンス社 ISSN:0454-1634 (lit: Archaeological journal. No.161. Special feature articles : Dolmens in northeastern Asia)
西谷正ほか 1997 東アジアにおける支石墓の総合的研究（科学研究費補助金(基盤研究(A)(2))研究成果報告書) (lit: Integrated study of megalithic dolmens in east Asia (Report for ‘Kakenhi‘　grant supported by Ministry of Education, Japan))
太田新 2014 日本産支石墓の研究.第1,2部福岡:海鳥社 ISBN:978-4-87415-909-5 (lit: Study on Japanese dolmens, 2 vols.)

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