A01_P04

Development of a new method to extract and date of carbonized material in pottery

Kunikita D¹, Obata H², Miyaji S³, Omori T⁴, Ozaki H⁴, Yoneda M⁴

¹Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan, ²Kumamoto Unibersity, Kumamoto, Japan, ³Kyushu Historical Museum, Fukuoka , Japan, ⁴The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

The timing of the introduction of grains such as rice, foxtail and broomcorn millets originating from mainland China into the surrounding areas is an important issue in discussing agriculture throughout East Asia. However, data on carbonized grains are extremely rare in Japan at the beginning of early agriculture, there remains uncertainty in whether the grains coincided with the accompanying pottery type.

  We proposed a new method that uses X-ray equipment to search for carbonized grains embedded within earthenware and directly date these grins in order to solve this problem. We applied this method to a key site, the Etsuji site, Kyushu Island, to examine the introduction of rice and millet agriculture to Japan (Obata and Kunikita, 2022).

  In this presentation, we compare the ages of the newly obtained pottery-embedded carbonized materials at the Higashihataze site with the ages of the pottery-adhered carbonized materials. In the Japanese archipelago, marine organisms often affect the contents of boiled foods, and the age may be older than the actual age. This method could make a significant contribution to the study on the pottery typologies and the age of carbonized grains without being affected by the marine reservoir effect.

Obata, H., Kunikita, D., 2022. A new archaeological method to reveal the arrival of cereal farming: Development of a new method to extract and date of carbonized material in pottery and its application to Japanese archaeological context. Journal of Archaeological Science 143.