Archaeology of Salmon Ceremony in the Japan Sea Coastal Regions: A Comparative Study with the Northwest Coast of North America

Summary

As in the Northwest Coast of North America, salmon may have played a critical role for the development of subsistence and political economies as well as ritual systems during prehistoric and historic northern Japan. This paper explores the Jomon salmon ceremony in the Japan Sea coastal regions based on the analyses of the (1) ecology of salmon, (2) rock arts (petroglyphs), (3) salmon remains and their archaeological contexts, (4) zoomorphic stone figurines (clubs), and (5) ethnohistory (folklore) of salmon rituals and their spatial distribution. All of the evidence from the analyses suggests that ecological conditions of salmon have a significant effect on Jomon salmon ceremony in the Japan Sea coastal regions.

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): 15104