Rethinking Local Differences in Burial Customs in the Final Jomon Period

Summary

Previous studies have discussed burial customs and society of the Kamegaoka culture in the final Jomon period (around 3200 to 2500 cal BP) as a single unit of similar local societies in the northern Tohoku district, extending around 220 km from north to south and around 180 km from east to west. In contrast, geographical clustering with delaunay triangulation, my new spatial analysis using GIS, reveals local scale differences in burial customs in terms of shapes of burial pits, grave goods and red pigments. As a result of the analysis, it is possible to distinguish at least 12 local units of burial custom in this district. There is an uneven distribution of jadeite beads, which are considered as an indicator of social stratification in the Jomon period, between areas. Furthermore, there are different levels of varieties in shapes of burial pits. These results imply that local societies had different levels of social inequality or complexity, and different social or symbolic meanings of burial customs, which leads me to propose an alternative understanding about local meanings of burial systems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Feasts and Ritual Structures: Ethnoarchaelogical and Archaeological Perspectives

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16236