Yoshinogari Site - Middle Yayoi

Middle Yayoi

Mortuary features are prominent in this sub-period. For example, a 30 x 40 m mounded burial was constructed on the northern end of the low hill. Five of six jar burials in the centre of the mounded burial contained cylindrical jade-like glass ornaments from China and bronze daggers from the Korean peninsula. The mounded burial is located in an area away from the majority of burials, confirming the thoughts some archaeologists that those interred in the burial mound were the leaders of Yoshinogari (Barnes 1993:220-221; Imamura 1996:182; SPBE 2000).

More than 2000 burial jars dating to this period have come to light, both inside and outside of ditched areas. Many of these burials were laid out in a long row, some hundreds of metres long, parallel with the length of the low hill in the middle of the site. Artifacts excavated from the Middle Yayoi burials indicate the presence of some status distinctions. Large wooden raised-floor granaries appeared at the end of this sub-period in the middle and southern ends of the site (SPBE 2000). An area of the Middle Yayoi settlement seems to have been dedicated to the casting of bronze implements due to the number of moulds were found. In the same area, pottery that was common in coastal Korea (perhaps the latest jeomtodae togi, Hanja: 粘土帶土器 or early wajil togi, Hanja: 瓦質土器) during the same period was excavated there as well. This has led some Japanese archaeologists to propose that Middle Yayoi interaction with the Korean peninsula was related to bronze-casting.