azahari
Palaeoethnobotanical investigations in northeastern Japan have focused
on Kazahari and several other sites in the northeast, on projects associated
with Gary
Crawford (University of Toronto) and Masakazu Yoshizaki (Hokkaido University,
Sapporo, Japan). Kazahari is located on the outskirts of Hachinohe city,
Aomori Prefecture, Japan (Figures 1 and 2). Occupations date to the end
of the Jomon period. The floors of Pithouses 32 (Figure 3) and 37 were
intensively sampled for charred plant remains, in addition to several other
contexts. Charred plant remains were extracted by machine-assisted flotation
(Figure 4). Two rice grains recovered from Pithouse 32 have been radiocarbon
dated by IsoTrace Laboratory (University of Toronto) using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry to 2540+/-240 and 2810+/-270
b.p. (TO-2202, 4086) (Figure 5). The presence of rice in northeastern Japan
at this early time has suggested that the dispersal northward of rice took
place more rapidly than was previously believed. Pithouse 37 which dates
to the Final Jomon (first millennium BC) has produced the remains of a
wide variety of domesticated plants, including rice, foxtail millet and
Japanese barnyard millet (Figure 6), suggesting that plant cultivation
was integrated into the Jomon way of life.
