ABSTRACT
A few fragments of the vertebrae of a large cetacean were
found at the Omori shell midden, the well-known birthplace of scientific
archaeology in Japan (Morse, 1879). Since then, more interest has been
aroused in the palaeotopography and whale hunting in the Stone Age in Japan
with the increasing number of the bone specimens of whales from the sites
(Ikegami, 1933). The excavation of 37 dolphins from the Natagiri-jinja
Cave Site in Chiba Prefecture implies that dolphin fishing was common locally
in the earliest Later of Jomon-period (Kaneko, 1958). Cetacean remains
were found at 101 of 836 shell middens of the Jomon-period from Tohoku
District to Kyushu (Sakadume, 1961). At the Higashi-kushiro shell midden,
an Early Jomon site in eastern Hokkaido, several crania of dolphins were
found in a circle with bills all directed toward the center (Sawa, 1969),
attracting our attention as evidence of religious rites related to dolphin
hunting. There are many remains related to cetaceans also after the Jomon-period
in Hokkaido: for instance even a needle-case (made of a bird bone) with
a picture of Globicephala was found with many bones of small and
large cetaceans at the Kabukai A Site in the Rebun Island; there is a great
possibility of whale hunting in the Okhotsk culture period (Kasuya 1981,
Nishimoto 1981,84). In 1982-83, at least 285 individual dolphin remains
were excavated mainly from a stratum of the later Early Jomon at the Mawaki
site in Ishikawa Prefecture, which suggests that dolphin hunting was characteristically
conducted on the coast of the Japan Sea in the Jomon-period (Miyazaki et
Hiraguchi, 1986; Hiraguchi, 1986,87,89). Some rock engraving at Dae-gok
Li, Ban-gu Dae in Korea depicts whales and whale hunting (Hwang et Moon,
1984), and bones of a cetacean were found at the Jo-do shell midden in
Pusan (Hwang et I, 1976). It is necessary to make a comparative study of
prehistoric dolphin/whale hunting in various coastal regions of the Japan
Sea and the Pacific Ocean. (Addition to I B I REPORTS, 2:79-87, 1991) |
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