Archaeological Investigations of Anadromous Salmonid Fishing in Japan

Archaeological Investigations of Anadromous Salmonid Fishing in JapanAuthor(s): Akira MatsuiReviewed work(s):Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 27, No. 3, Hunter-Gatherer Land Use (Feb., 1996), pp. 444-460Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124935 .

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Archaeological investigations of

anadromous salmonid fishing in

Japan

Akira Matsui

Abstract

This paper examines the archaeology of salmon fishing in Japan, mostly during the Jomon period. The starting point is Sugao Yamanouchi's 'salmon/trout theory', which suggested that the greater density of Jomon sites in northeastern Japan could be linked to greater availability of dog salmon (Oncorynchus keta) and trout (0. masou) in this area. Many archaeologists disputed this theory on the grounds that bones of salmon were very rarely recovered during archaeological excavations. Fine sieving of deposits does, however, enable salmon bones to be recovered, as the author has demonstrated on many archaeological sites. The varying frequencies of salmon bones on different sites enables those sites to be classified into four types: A, producing complete vertebrae only; B, producing vertebral fragments; C, producing vertebral fragments, and cranial elements; and D, producing complete vertebrae and cranial elements. Differential preservation is argued not to be responsible; it is argued that different patterns of capture, processing, storage, transport and consumption have caused the pattern.

Keywords

Salmon; Jomon; Japan; bones; taphonomy; transport.

Introduction

Salmon is one of the most familiar fish in the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. It is rich in nutrients and large numbers can be caught in a short time. Traditionally, salmon were caught from the river banks while running up the river to spawn. As fish run for a relatively short period but do so in great numbers, people had to catch and process them efficiently in order to store them for the season of scarcity. People who exploited salmon could maintain high population density, complex social organization and sophisticated ritual lives. Their significance in prehistory has long been emphasized, by, for example, Sauvage (1875) for the Dordogne, and Childe (1954) for the Northwest Coast of North

World Archaeology Vol. 27(3): 444-460 Hunter-Gatherer Land Use

?C Routledge 1996 0043-8243



Archaeological investigations of anadromous salmonid fishing in Japan 445

Table I Principal chronological periods of Japan; Palaeo- lithic and Jomon dates are BP.

Palaeolithic Lower 400,000-30,000 Upper 30,000-12,000

Jomon Period Incipient 12,000-10,000 Initial 10,000-7000 Early 7000-4500 Middle 4500-3500 Late 3500-3000 Final 3000-2400

Yayoi Period 4th century Bc-3rd century AD

Kofun Period 4th-7th centuries AD

Ancient Age 7th-12th centuries AD

Medieval Age 12th-16th centuries AD

Premodern Age 16th-19th centuries AD

America. Many archaeologists and ethnologists have subsequently emphasized the importance of salmon for the peoples who had access to it (e.g. Schalk 1977).

Although its significance was discussed by many archaeologists, actual salmon remains were rather rare. Bryan (1963) suggested that salmon remains were hardly preserved in shell middens because they are cartilaginous. Casteel (1976), however, found broken vertebral fragments in shell middens in California. He believed that they were broken by the site inhabitants, who pounded the dried salmon during consumption. This can be recognized only if the identification of broken fish bone is carried out.

The same discussion has been going on in Japan for many years. The aim of this paper is to re-evaluate the significance of salmon in prehistoric Japan, by presenting data from several different settlement types and ages (Table 1).

Character of anadromous salmonids

There are several anadromous salmonids in the northern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. They are classified in genus Oncorynchus in the Pacific, and genus Salmo in the Atlantic. The main difference between them is that Oncorynchus spawns only once and then dies; Salmo, however, returns to the sea after spawning, and may spawn several times. This paper will discuss Oncorynchus in the Jomon culture.

Oncorynchus is divided into five principal species: king or chinook salmon (Oncorhyn- cus tshawytscha), sockeye salmon (0. nerka), silver salmon (0. kisutch), dog salmon (0. keta) and cherry salmon (0. masou). Dog and cherry salmon are the two most common species in Japan, which is located at the southern edge of salmon distribution; these species are adapted to rather warmer water than the others. Dog salmon are referred to just as sake (salmon) in Japanese, cherry salmon as masu (trout). The other species are found



446 Akira Matsui

Akita 162 --

Yamagata 142'

ToaE 114 1 42

Toyiamal4 F2ukushima 177

_uu 19, lbaraki 76| 5~~~ 75 6

and to cherry salmon as 'trout'. Salmon used to spawn in rivers as far southwest as the Tone river on the Pacific coast and

the Maruyama river on the Sea of Japan. Trout used to extend slightly further southwest. Sometimes they went up streams in Kyushu, suggested by the existence of sake jinja (salmon shrines) in Fukuoka prefecture.

As they are adapted to cold waters, salmon runs generally become larger from




southwest to northeast, but there is also substantial variability within regions due to individual river environments. Trout spawning runs take place in June and early July. Salmon run from September till early December. As food was scarce for hunters and gatherers in prehistoric Japan in late winter and early spring, the salmon run was more important as far as food for storage was concerned. Runs in the southwestern part of their distribution are smaller and of shorter duration than further northeast. However, the size of the run may not be so important. The important point is that people should process fish effectively within a short period before they decayed. People had to concentrate their labour to catch and process fish for storage. The significance of salmon as a human resource lies not in the amount available or caught, but in the amount preserved for the season of scarcity.

What is the 'salmon/trout theory'?

The so-called 'salmon/trout theory' was proposed by Sugao Yamanouchi to account for the fact that Jomon sites are overwhelmingly more numerous and more closely spaced in northeastern Japan than in the southwest of the country. It seeks the underlying reason in food resources, which might have been more favourable in northeastern Japan (Fig. 1). This idea, mentioned by Yamanouchi from ca. 1947 in lectures, was published in only two articles (Yamanouchi 1964, 1969). The following quotation outlines the 'salmon/trout theory'.

As far as riverine fishing is concerned, salmonids are of the greatest interest. Nowadays salmon are seen every fall running in the rivers northeast of the Tone River on the Pacific coast, and northeast of Tottori Prefecture on the Sea of Japan. Trout, on the other hand, run up rivers even further southwest during the early summer. Salmon has long been one of the principal food sources of the modern Ainu, and also for other ethnic groups further to the north. A river teeming with a large shoal of fish (even if somewhat modified by differences in climate during the Jomon period) would hardly be overlooked by the Jomon people, who shared a culture with the salmon areas of Siberia. The salmon bones that would prove this are rarely recovered from shell middens, possibly due to the preservation method of drying and pulverising the fish. It is worth noting, however, that some salmon vertebrae have occasionally been found in inland waterlogged sites.... The author has now come to believe that throughout the entire land, the major food supply for the Jomon people must generally have been hard nuts, particularly acorns, horse chestnuts, Japanese chestnuts and walnuts. The people harvested these supplies in fall, so that they could store them as preserved food.... The second major food source was salmon, which ran up the river every fall. Salmon was caught widely to the northeast of central Honshu and was an important food resource. This region, then densely populated, formed the core area of the Jomon culture. The author believes that the easy accessibility of nuts plus the benefits of salmon fishing was the reason why this region was the Jomon core area.

(Yamanouchi 1969: 94-5)

Even before this article was printed, Yamanouchi's idea had been mentioned in print by



448 Akira Matsui

other researchers, who had heard his lectures, to describe the differences between northeastern and southwestern features of Jomon culture.

Although the 'salmon/trout theory' is highly likely to be valid, some archaeologists remain sceptical because of the scarcity of salmonid remains. Others suggest that the fish might well have been pulverized for storage. The following suggestions have been given by other researchers as the reason why salmon remains have rarely been identifiable (e.g. Okamoto 1964).

a) Salmon bones, being cartilaginous, would not survive long. b) Bones were cast into the sea or river bearing the people's prayers for their

reincarnation. c) After the fish were processed for preservation, the bones would become too fragile to

survive. d) As only a small quantity of salmon was consumed at one time, their remains are too

small in number to be detected. e) The fish was completely edible, from the head to the caudal fin. f) Since salmon had been processed for storage at places far away from coastal shell

midden sites, their remains were often left at the inland riverside fishing campsites.

Watanabe's challenge to the 'salmon/trout theory'

Makoto Watanabe was unconvinced by these reasons. In his first criticism of the 'salmon/trout theory', he maintained that it was nothing but a hypothesis, which had never been proved due to absence of actual remains (Watanabe 1967). Three years later, he successfully recovered salmon remains at Ruige (now Bocchiyashiki) shell midden, Aomori Prefecture. In view of the fact that salmon remains were now proved to be recoverable, but had never been reported from shell middens in nearby areas, Watanabe held that Ruige shell midden was exceptional and concluded that the 'salmon/trout theory' was therefore invalid (Watanabe 1971).

After Watanabe's criticism, Obayashi (1971) discussed the question using ethnographic and written records. His conclusion, based on ethnographic examples, was: 'thus in spite of Watanabe's criticism, I am of the opinion that Yamanouchi's "salmon/trout theory" is in substance valid' (Obayashi 1971: 78).

Another approach was made by Yotsuyanagi (1976, 1983), who examined the possible distribution of salmon on the basis of paleoenvironmental and ecological information, and sought to estimate volume of catch during the Jomon period from written records and fisheries statistics of the Meiji era, etc. He adopted this method because he felt that attempts to prove the 'salmon/trout theory' by physically retrieving salmon remains would not be successful. He divided salmon rivers into five geographical blocks based on the temperature of coastal seawater. Hokkaido and Tohoku were the main salmon areas; the fish was less significant elsewhere. Yotsuyanagi arrived at the following conclusion:

Salmon availability is restricted to the spawning grounds. . . . Such areas are limited in Japan, so only Jomon settlements in the areas nearby could have benefited from salmon. . . . Accordingly, it is hard to believe that salmon in the Jomon period were




abundant enough to yield a surplus, make large settlements grow, and develop human culture along the salmon rivers.

(Yotsuyanagi 1983: 218)

Thus Yotsuyanagi was sceptical of the 'saimon/trout theory', on the grounds that it was only the inhabitants of small settlements along the middle reaches of rivers close to spawning grounds that could benefit from salmon.

Nishida (1985) also opposed the role of salmonids in the Jomon. He compared their productivity with that of ayu (a catadromous fish, Plecoglossus altivelis) which is found mainly in southwestern Japan, and of cyprinids. In recent times the quantity of ayu and cyprinids caught has been similar to that of salmon, so he denies that the salmon could have caused the disparity between the northeastern and southwestern Jomon culture. However, this did not take account of efficiency of processing for storage: ayu on average measure 20 cm in standard length and weigh 80 grams. Salmon on the other hand measure 80-100 cm and weigh 5-6 kg each, trout being rather smaller. Ayu and cyprinids are also very difficult to catch in as large quantities as the salmonids. The processing efficiency of salmon and trout is thus substantially higher than that of ayu and cyprinids. Thus Nishida's hypothesis cannot be supported. However, Suzuki (1989) is still sceptical of the 'salmon/trout theory' because of the scarcity of their remains in archaeological sites. Also, Nishimoto (1984, 1985) discusses prehistoric faunal exploitation in Hokkaido as follows:

The importance of salmon for the inhabitants of Hokkaido is likely to have been over-emphasized. It seems doubtful that they depended so heavily on them. I would rather emphasize that the Jomon people in Hokkaido depended on various food items in each season. They changed their major foods according to seasonal availability, especially in case of sea mammals and fishes, which were less affected by climatic changes.

(Nishimoto 1984:14)

There are many other recent comments on the 'salmon/trout theory' both in archaeology and in ethnography. In general, the more that archaeologists become concerned with faunal analysis, the more they become sceptical - except for this author (Matsui 1983).

Efforts to recover salmonid remains

In 1911, Kamakichi Kishinoue, an ichthyologist, published an article in English entitled 'prehistoric fishing in Japan' (Kishinoue 1911). In an effort to recover fish remains, he wet-sieved soil samples from shell middens and discovered small fish bones that otherwise would have been overlooked. A vertebra of Oncorynchus was retrieved from Kuwagasaki shell midden, Iwate Prefecture. Casteel (1976) praised this as the world's first example of fish remains recovered by this means. Though a number of discoveries of fish bone were reported thereafter, Kishinoue's method was not emulated, so that when Sakazume compiled a list of species collected from shell middens all over Japan, only two shell middens (Kuwagasaki itself and Ikawazu, Aichi Prefecture) were listed as yielding salmonid remains (Sakazume 1963). Only in the later 1950s was the wet-sieving of soil



450 Akira Matsui

Sapporot2. K1 35 \>:

Yunosat Bocchiyashiki

Matoba Nakazawame

Kam iyamada Maedakouchi

Kusadosengen A) A g 5 D '.0 Yoyarna

Figure 2 Principal Japanese sites yielding salmonid remains.

samples again taken up by Kaneko (Kaneko and Wada 1957). He successfully retrieved salmonid vertebrae from Saibana shell midden, Aomori Prefecture (Kaneko 1967). Watanabe, using the same method, retrieved complete salmon vertebrae from Ruige shell midden, but (as mentioned above) he has been an ardent critic of the 'salmon/trout theory' because 'the remains excavated were too scarce in comparison with other fish' (Watanabe 1970:212).

As retrieval improved, the number of salmon remains has continued to increase. Kaneko (1970) mentioned in the report on the Kaitori shell midden, Iwate Prefecture, that, even when complete salmonid vertebrae were absent, scrutiny sometimes revealed vertebral fragments; however, he is cautious toward the 'salmon/trout theory', saying:




Salmonid vertebrae have been found. Although small in volume, investigations of soil samples certainly reveal the existence of vertebral fragments of this sort, but it is difficult to estimate the amount of catch with such a limited volume of excavation results.

(Kaneko 1970: 170)

From the mid-1970s, wet sieving has become popular and faunal remains have attracted the interest of archaeologists, and finds of salmonids have also rapidly increased. Despite this, the volume of salmonid remains has remained smaller than those of other fish and the 'salmon/trout theory' is not regarded as proven by many archaeologists. There follow the author's observations on the significance of salmon as prehistoric food resources, based on the detailed study of Japanese faunal remains, referring also to overseas excavation results and ethnographies.

Classification of salmon exploitation from archaeological contexts

Settlements yielding salmonid remains are classified here into four types, A to D, according to the condition of the remains. The cultural significance of each type is then evaluated. See Fig. 2 for location of sites.

Type A settlements frequently produce complete vertebrae, but very few other skeletal elements. This group is represented by such shell middens as Bocchiyashiki and Cho-shichiyachi, both of the Initial Jomon period and located on the Pacific Coast in Aomori Prefecture.

At Cho-shichiyachi (Kaneko 1979), complete vertebrae and some vertebral fragments were retrieved, but no other skeletal parts such as loose teeth and cranial elements have been reported. It should be noted that these two shell middens produced mainly remains of marine fish and shellfish, and were not well-located for salmon fishing. Nevertheless, many complete vertebrae were found. Initial Jomon shell middens are relatively rare. These facts lead the author to suggest that in the Initial Jomon, salmonids were not stored in such large quantities as in the later periods; rather they were caught and consumed only in their season of availability, when they returned to run up the river. Hence their vertebrae are complete, like those of all the other fish.

Kusadosengen is a famous medieval port town, destroyed by floods in the fifteenth century AD. The site was preserved in the delta of the Ashida river, so rich organic remains survived including a great number of faunal remains. They have been analysed by myself (Matsui 1988, 1994). Alongside fish common in Seto Inland Sea, several complete salmonid vertebrae were recovered from rubbish pits. No vertebral fragments or loose teeth were found even in sieved material. There is no evidence that salmon or trout existed in Seto Inland Sea during the Holocene, so they must have been transported from elsewhere. They may have come over the Chugoku range from the Japan Sea, or from further afield via the commercial centres of Kyoto and Osaka. The Seto Inland Sea saw much maritime trade, so the latter route is more plausible. It is also supported by historical records.

Type B settlements produce vertebral fragments, with rare examples of complete vertebrae and/or other elements. The majority of Jomon coastal or lacustrine shell



452 Akira Matsui

middens fall into this category. A salmonid vertebra, cylindrical and filled with marrow, is fragile and easily broken by soil pressure once the marrow decays. Physical fragility alone, however, cannot explain why only vertebral fragments are found, because not a few complete vertebrae were retrieved from settlements of types A (above) and D. It is interesting that some fragments are carbonized, making it likely that salmon was preserved, cooked, eaten and dumped in a way different from other fish. Sites are located close to the sea or lake shore, away from the riverine salmon-fishing areas. These factors suggest that the salmon consumed at these sites presumably would have been a processed reserve, filleted and with heads removed. Because of this, unlike other fish, there were multiple ways of cooking salmon, and this would explain why the vertebrae were crushed into fragments.

These sites start in the Early Jomon and increase in number through to the Final Jomon. This is the most typical type of Jomon shell midden in northeastern Japan except Hokkaido. Some of the sites are as follows:

Nakazawame shell midden is on a terrace of the Kitakami river 10 km from the Sendai Gulf. This lowland area has many middens composed of freshwater mussels and mud snails. The site was formed during the later half of the Late and the early half of the Final Jomon. The mammal remains comprised mostly sika deer and wild boar, as at other Jomon shell middens, but the site is distinguished by the large number of bones of migrant birds. This marshy area is still famous for migrant birds such as mallard, swans, geese and so on. Fragile objects survived, such as well-preserved pharyngeal bones of crucian carp (Carassius carassius), Japanese bitterling (Acheilognathus moriokae), Japanese dace (Tribolodon hakonensis) and loach (Misgurnus fossilis). The fact that despite such excellent preservation only the vertebrae of salmonids were retrieved leads one to assume that no salmon heads were dumped at the shell midden; and the vertebrae were usually in fragments when dumped. The interesting point is the ratio of loose teeth to vertebral fragments: only two teeth were found, against more than 100 vertebral fragments in the column sample (Matsui et al. 1984).

Kamiyamada shell midden in Ishikawa Prefecture is on the former Kahokugata lagoon. The site dates mostly to the early half of the Middle Jomon period, with C-14 dates between 4490 ? 150 and 5070 ? 150 BP. The faunal remains were identified by Matsui and Hiraguchi (1978). The mammals were the usual sika deer and wild boar. A small number of salmonid vertebrae were found in column samples using a 2 mm mesh sieve. They were all fragmentary; there were no teeth. Only one charred salmonid vertebra was found.

Type C settlements also yield vertebral fragments, and in addition loose teeth, cranial elements, etc. There are three typical sites of this type, all comprising habitation sites and not shell middens. The salmonid remains were in strata of burnt soil or ash inside pit-dwellings. Complete skeletons were apparently dumped and burnt so that only teeth and vertebrae, which survive and can be identified even when broken into pieces, were retrieved. The sites are located inland, close to the places where the salmon would have been caught. At least some of the fish were eaten where they were caught, cooked complete, and the entire skeleton discarded into the hearth (Table 2)

Maedakouchi lies on the terrace of the Tama river which flows into Tokyo bay. One pit dwelling was unearthed of Incipient Jomon date (about 11,000 BP). A large quantity of charred microfaunal remains was sieved from the fill of the dwelling; these were mostly




Table 2 The number of salmon bones, teeth and vertebrae at three sites

The number of salmon remains from Maedakouchi site, Incipient Jomon (after Kato 1985)

Teeth Ribs and spines Vertebrae fragments

Dark soil outside the house 232 145 7 Yellow soil 2,680 567 56 Dark soil inside the house 241 214* *

Mixture of these layers 4,130 1,403 *

Total 7,283 2,329* 63* * These numbers will be increased because of existing uncounted fragments.

The number of salmon remains from Yunosato I site, the Late and Early Jomon (after Matsui and Yamada 1981)*

Features Teeth Vertebrae fragments

Hearth pottery* from Feat. 10 12 16 Hearth pottery from Feat. 13 4 8 Hearth pottery from Feat. 15 82 78 Isolated pottery from Feat. 13* 15 14 Total 113 116 * I did not count the number of the spine and cranial elements.

The number of salmon remains from Sapporo K135 site, Epi-Jomon (after Kaneko 1987)

Layers Teeth Cranial and spine Vertebrae (g)* fragments

2b-5a 131 1,006 30.8 gram 7a-8c 3,228 18,852 215.6 gram Total 3,359 19,858 246.4 gram The number of the vertebrae fragments are not counted.

salmonid and small mammal fragments. Kato (1985) identified the fish as salmon rather than trout from the size of the teeth. He counted 7283 loose teeth, 2329 ribs and neural spines and 63 vertebral fragments. He classified the teeth into size five classes, and concluded that at least 60-80 individuals were represented (Kato 1985).

This site reveals an important aspect of prehistoric salmon exploitation, because the number of vertebral fragments is far less than that of skulls (represented by teeth), ribs or neural spines. According to my classification, this was a fishing site occupied during the run and used purely for processing salmon for storage. The inhabitants first removed the head and then opened the body, removing the inner spines and ribs when they cleaned up the abdomen. The open body was probably dried using fire because all the bones were charred and broken into fragments. The processed salmon would all be transported to the permanent settlement or winter camp and consumed there.

Yunosato lies on the terrace of the Shiriuchi river 10 km upstream from the river mouth. This site is located near a salmon spawning ground well-known to Ainu people until the nineteenth century (Plate 1). Several excavations have revealed a sequence from upper palaeolithic to Late Jomon. In 1978 at least fifteen pit dwellings, burials, and ceremonial areas formed by stone arrangements were unearthed (Fig. 3).



454 Akira Matsui

I AN

I -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IT

Plate I Ainu salmon fishing in the ninetecnth century (from Izumi 1968).




N Feat.6 Fa.

Feat.5 K Feat / U' F~at.5--

Feat. 1.3 Feat.8

Feat. 14

n ~~~~~~~~~~Feat.9

0~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4m

Figure 3 Plan of Yunosato I. All numbered features are pit-dwelling houses. The salmon remains were mostly recovered from the fills of pots buried in the hearths of the dwellings, and from pottery placed upside down on the floor of dwelling feature 13 (from Ohshima 1979).

Minute fragments of burnt bone were sieved from the ashy soil in fireplaces and on the floor. They were small fragments of loose teeth, cranial parts and vertebrae of salmonids, pharyngeal bones of cyprinids, vertebrae of sardine and small mammals. Salmonid fragments were the most numerous. Matsui and Yamada (1981) measured the teeth, and the diameter of vertebrae of which more than one quarter of the outer radius survived. The results indicated that these remains corresponded to those of dog salmon of spawning age, though we hesitated to identify them conclusively as Oncorynchus keta because trout can sometimes attain a similar size. Teeth numbered 113, and vertebral fragments 116; this indicates a larger proportion of salmon heads because of the greater number of vertebrae each fish contains.

Matoba (Matsui in prep.) is a fishing village dating from the eighth to ninth centuries AD.

It lies in Niigata City, on a coastal sand dune which was formed by the Shinano river which is famous for salmon fishing. There are spear heads, net sinkers and wooden floats. There are also many wooden writing tablets which indicate their products were transported to Kyoto as a tax. I recovered several loose teeth from sieved samples, but no vertebral remains. This suggests that most of the salmon had their heads removed, and only fillets were processed and exported.



456 Akira Matsui

Type D settlements yield cranial elements and complete vertebrae. As of now these sites date only to the epi-Jomon period and later, and are restricted to Hokkaido.

At Ebetsubuto on the Chitose River, a tributary of the Ishikari, remains of salmonids comprised only articulated vertebrae and no heads (Nishimoto 1979). Neural spines of such vertebra still survived, and in some cases two or three segments of vertebral column were laid upon one another. It appears that salmon had their heads cut off on the riverbank right after being caught, and were then filleted so that their vertebrae were discarded there. This form of processing results in boneless fillets being brought to and consumed at the seaside settlement, thus making it hardly possible to detect salmonids at the place of consumption. At Sakaeura 2, a site in Tokoro town, a tumulus was found containing bones of animals like brown bear, deer, seal, sea lion, etc. It also included complete salmon vertebrae, branchial, dental, cuboidal and articular bones, showing that the whole body of a salmon had been placed there (Kaneko 1972). At Katsuyama-date, the site of a well-preserved fortified mansion, complete vertebrae and loose teeth of salmonids were again recovered.

At Sapporo City site K135 many pits were filled with ash and burnt soil which contained huge number of salmonid remains, and there were many possible pit dwellings. The site dates to the Epi-Jomon (fourth to eighth centuries AD). The Toyohira river divides into many tributaries which serve as good spawning grounds for salmon. This location was used as a salmon and trout fishing base by Ainu until the end of the last century. Wet sieving recovered 22,000 teeth and innumerable vertebral fragments (including thirty-two complete vertebrae and 229.3 grams of fragments). A small number of huchen (Hucho perryi) and cyprinids were also found (Kaneko 1987). It is clear that this site was used for processing trout during early summer and salmon in fall. As other subsistence evidence was scarce, the inhabitants presumably moved to winter base camp(s) after the fall salmon processing (see Table 2).

Kusadosengen was a medieval port town, located at Fukuyama city in Hiroshima Prefecture. Thousands of fish bones were recovered from garbage pits. They were mostly Red Sea Bream, Black Sea Bream and Sea Bass, but a small number of salmon vertebrae were also found. As this is far to the southwest of their natural distribution, they were probably traded by way of Osaka or Kyoto. As the vertebrae are all complete, people probably ate salted salmon as modern Japanese do. This supports the suggestion that broken salmon vertebrae in Jomon shell middens were caused by artificial treatment.

Thus the number of type D settlements continues to increase. The state of preservation of salmon remains from type D settlements is, however, no better than at types A and B. This means that, had any heads been present at type A and B sites, they should have been preserved. Since type A and B settlements produced only vertebrae, the salmonid waste dumped at these shell middens would therefore most probably have been minus the heads. An imbalance between the number of cranial elements and that of spines was pointed out for fish other than salmon by Komiya and Suzuki (1977), but they did not suggest the complexities put forward by this author for salmon. In conclusion, it may well have been the method of handling and utilizing salmon that has caused their remains to present such a particular set of patterns.




Salmon and trout in historical records

Written records, folklore and ethnography all testify to the importance of salmon and trout from early times. In particular, they were important food items for nobles, emperors and their families. Many descriptions are found in historical records. The mokkan, wooden tablets mostly used for tax or official records, mention many fish which were transported from various areas as tax during the seventh and eighth centuries AD. Hokkaido and the northeastern part of the mainland were not under central control in the early periods, and there are no historical documents which mention salmon and trout products in those areas.

The engishiki, a ninth-century legal manual, recorded that many salmon were eaten by the Imperial Family. Salmon were also used in official ceremonies held in the palace or capital, in which their importance was second only to that of bonito. Shibusawa (1954) estimated that more than 20,000 salmon were transported every year to the capital, Kyoto, for these purposes alone. Interestingly, the fish names also indicate the method of conservation, including various types of drying, filleting, fermenting, etc. Salt was also important for fish preservation. Pottery for salt production appeared in the Late Jomon in Kanto and the Final Jomon in Tohoku, but there is none in southwestern Japan until the Middle Yayoi. Smoking is also likely to have been used, but there are no written records. Most of these processes are popular even nowadays.

Conclusions

The following points have been made: 1 Salmonid remains are often fragmentary; as a result, they have often been overlooked

during excavation. The use of fine mesh sieves has however made it possible in many instances to retrieve them in northeastern Japan.

2 Settlements yielding salmonid remains have been grouped into four types (A to D) on the basis of which bones are found, and what state they are in. The differences between these settlement types are now considered to be due to the manner in which salmonids were utilized by humans, and not to some natural condition or anything incidental affecting the remains. Type C settlements such as Maedakouchi were used as special-purpose camps for the processing of salmon, which may then have been transported to type B settlements. This suggests that, in some cases at least, Jomon salmon procurement was organized in a logistic manner (in the sense of Binford 1980).

3 The work described here compared to that in other countries means that the 'salmon/trout theory' can no longer be refuted because of the relative rarity of salmonid remains in Japan. If some day the chance presents itself to examine sites in suitable riverside fishing locations with well-preserved fish bones, then the significance of these sites will be enormous.

4 Further testing of Yamanouchi's 'salmon/trout theory' is still of great importance. One method would be to excavate sites located close to places mentioned in early documents as suitable for salmon fishing. Another would be to ascertain the extent to which the location and distribution of these sites was affected by the volume of the salmonid run in individual rivers. Both of these are major priorities for future research.



458 Akira Matsui

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to many people who have discussed this topic with me, especially Professors H. Serizawa (Tohoku Fukushi University), M. Sahara (National Museum of Japanese History) and T. Kobayashi (Kokugakuin University). I am also indebted to Mr K. Kobayashi (Hachinohe City Museum) for his suggestion about the existence of salmon remains in midden soils while we were students together at Tohoku University. For assisting with the English text, I thank Dr Y. Fukazawa (Cambridge University), Ms J. Habu and Mr R. Danielson (McGill University) and Dr Peter Rowley-Conwy (Durham University).

Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute and Kyoto University

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Archaeological Investigations of Anadromous Salmonid Fishing in Japan

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