C05_06

Annual radiocarbon dating of tree rings of the beginning and the end of the Yayoi period, Japan.

Sakamoto M^1,2, Hakozaki M¹, Nakatsuka T³, Ozaki H⁴

¹National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura-shi, Japan, ²The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Sakura-shi, Japan, ³Nagoya University, Nagoya-shi, Japan, ⁴The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Japan

Paddy rice cultivation is thought to have been introduced to Kyushu Island of the Japanese archipelago from mainland China via the Korean Peninsula, but until now no dendrochronological dating of the trees which had been growing at that time on Kyushu Island has been achieved. However, the practical application of oxygen isotope dendrochronology has enabled to date a wide range of tree species and regions and has opened the possibility of developing calibration curves based on its results. In this report, we examine the behavior of radiocarbon ages of the annual rings of a buried chinaberry (Melia azedarach) from 1025 to 927 B.C.E. excavated in Kagoshima, southern Kyushu Island, which is dated by oxygen isotope dendrochronology.

Two datasets of Japanese tree rings were introduced for IntCal20, which made a change in the shapes of the curve from the 1st to 3rd centuries C.E. However, the validity of the revision should be considered by accumulating radiocarbon dating of tree rings. We also measured radiocarbon dates of Japanese zelkova (Zelkova serrata) buried in Miyagi, northeastern prefecture of the Japanese archipelago, which was dated by oxygen isotope dendrochronology (41 B.C.E – 130 C.E.). Although this sample is older than expected age of the end of the Yayoi period, regional offset in radiocarbon age can be discussed by comparing with Korean tree rings (Hong et al., this conference).

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP18H03594 and JP22H00026.