鳥取と縄文から弥生への転換点Tottori's Forgotten Role in Ancient Japanese History: Rethinking the Jomon-Yayoi Shift

Today I am in Tottori. Known now as one of the regions depopulating fastest, Tottori belongs to the area on the Sea of Japan side called San'in. Nothing of it remains now, but San'in, including Izumo, where Izumo Taisha stands, was once a region that played a central part as a key place in ancient Japan.

My purpose in coming to Tottori is to explore ancient Japanese history, and in fact anyone who explores ancient Japan runs into the mystery of the turning point from the Jomon period to the Yayoi period. The accepted view has tended strongly to see the Jomon as a mobile hunter-gatherer life that changed into the settled, wet-rice life of the Yayoi. But based on my own research I have serious doubts about this established view, and I came to Tottori this time to explore the possibility of my own theory.

Yet it is not easy to learn about this “mysterious turning point.” First, neither the Jomon nor the Yayoi people had a culture of writing, so nothing has come down to us in the form of records. A many-sided viewpoint is therefore needed, one that draws on the vast materials of archaeology, takes into account the customs of life and the environment that remain in the land, and unravels the myths from them.

In recent years Tottori has risen sharply as a key to solving this “mysterious turning point.” Geographically facing the Sea of Japan, Tottori has long served as a gateway for people who came to Japan by way of China and Korea. Their main destination was northern Kyushu, but when I look into the traditions and myths of the Sea of Japan coast, we must also consider that someone came directly, without passing through Kyushu.

One example is “The White Hare of Inaba,” the best known of Japanese myths among the Japanese. It tells of an old relationship between Inaba (now eastern Tottori) and Izumo in Shimane Prefecture. According to the myth, the white hare was originally on the Oki Islands in Shimane and crossed the sea to Inaba with the help of a wani.

The animals and insects in the myths of the Kojiki have a distinctively Japanese character, and are basically tribes of the Jomon period represented in myth by later people. In short, this myth says that the Jomon people of the Oki Islands, represented by the white hare, crossed the sea with the help of other Jomon people, represented by the wani, and made their base in Inaba. This deep relationship between “Oki and Inaba” is one important factor in reading ancient Japan.

What we want to ask here is why the Jomon people of the Oki Islands had to leave their homeland and cross the sea. One possibility is the inflow of different groups from across the sea. That is, in their dealings with new people who came directly to the Oki Islands by way of China and Korea, the Jomon people of the Oki Islands saw their place of living change, and set out across the sea for a new land.

Notably, the myth tells that a single word from the white hare decided whom the princess of Inaba would marry, which shows that the Jomon people of the Oki Islands held considerable power in the Inaba region. And as if to back up the presence of new arrivals, Tottori saw countless settlements formed and expanded through the Yayoi period. This suggests that new arrivals who landed on the Oki Islands then crossed the sea to Inaba.

For example, in the foothills of Yodoe, in the eastern part of Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture, Yayoi settlements formed in scattered fashion, and traces have been found of their expansion across the area over about a hundred years. There was once an inlet of the Sea of Japan beside the Jomon-period foothills, now gone; by the Yayoi period its natural connection to the Sea of Japan was dammed, and a large lagoon is confirmed to have existed.

It is increasingly likely that the foothills around this lagoon became a crossroads of land and sea routes and a key point of trade in every direction. Notably, from the early Jomon period this area was already trading actively with the Jomon people of the Oki Islands, and finds suggest that trade across the sea was conducted on a considerable scale.

Its main trade good was obsidian from the Oki Islands. A large amount of Oki obsidian has been unearthed from the Yodoe sites, and since there is much unworked material as well as finished pieces, it has been pointed out that there was an obsidian processing base on the Tottori side, and that the products made there were carried to many places. And if the white hare (the Jomon people of the Oki Islands) led the mining and trade of Oki obsidian, it is understandable that they could exert strong influence on the Tottori (Inaba) side from early on.

Going east from Yonago, there is the Aoya-Kamijichi site. It holds a large Yayoi settlement, and daily goods made with advanced woodworking techniques have been unearthed. Above all they show traces of the deep wisdom the Yayoi people had about water and wood. The representative find is the basket, still used today. Several Yayoi baskets have been found in this area, all woven with very advanced technique, and astonishingly the weave and the material change from part to part within a single basket to raise its practicality.

The material peculiar to this area's baskets is matatabi (silver vine). Several woods were used together in the baskets, but the Yayoi people of Tottori understood the properties of matatabi and used it skillfully. In an earlier study, a basket maker still living was asked to reproduce a Yayoi basket, and what was learned was that matatabi does not weaken when soaked in water, which is why the Yayoi people there actively used it.

The use thought to presuppose this soaking in water is washing grain such as rice, for which matatabi may have been ideal, and traces appear of the enormous time and effort the Yayoi people here devoted to adapting to their new living environment in Japan.

Interestingly, baskets of matatabi are still woven in this area as a traditional craft. This shows that the technique was invented by the Yayoi people and has been handed down for more than two thousand years. It is a representative case of old wisdom becoming culture without anyone noticing.

And most important of all, surprising things are coming to light one after another from the Yayoi-period building remains excavated at the Aoya-Kamijichi site, shaking the old account of ancient Japanese history. It is increasingly likely that people carrying the culture of northern Korea came to this place, and that these people moved around the 3rd century as far as Yamato (southern Nara Prefecture) and may have formed a large center of government there.

I will write about this separately.