Our first stop was at the Aomori Museum of Art.
They have a small collection of mostly modern works, with a few traditional screen paintings and wood block prints. No photographs allowed, except of Aomori-ken, a huge sculpture.
Aomori-ken
The museum had a lunch room, where we ate with the group.
After lunch, we moved on to the Jomon era museum and Sannai-Maruyama archaeological site. Back in the early 1990s, they began excavations for a large baseball stadium in Aomori. But they found the remains of a very large Jomon era settlement. Instead of building a baseball stadium, they excavated the find, reconstructed more than 20 structures, and built a museum. In November, 2000, 24.3 hectares of the space was designated a Special National Historic Site.
We visited a different Jomon site last year, but Sannai-Maruyama was a much larger settlement, partly evidenced by the large community building. Because of its size and the quality of its structures, the discovery of this settlement, which was inhabited for 1,500 years, from about 5500 BC to 4000 BC, revolutionized ideas about the lifestyle and technological skill of the Jomon people.
There are several theories about its purpose. One is that it was a communal work area. Another is that it may have been used as community housing in the winter for warmth and safety. It may also have been used for village meetings.
Their construction was very solid--post and beam.
In the community building, they found evidence of a fire circle for cooking, heat, and possibly meetings.
The thatched roofs of the later buildings were made of reeds from the seashore and nearby riverbanks. The sea is now about 4 km away.
This large pillar-supported structure's purpose is unknown, but it has become a symbol of the site. The original vertical support pillars were a meter in diameter. In the domed building behind, Patrick and Tommy saw the huge pillar holes from the original structure.
Sign explaining the various houses found on the site. From right to left are earliest to latest.
One of the earliest types of pit houses with conical roof.
Later pit houses were built similarly, but earth was placed over the top for insulation.
The latest types of pit houses had thatch of reeds over the roof and sides.
A storage house. These were very similar to the ones we saw at the Jomon site we visited last year. It struck us in New Zealand that the Maori storage houses were built very similarly. Instead of thatch, they used wood sides and roofs, but the raised structure was exactly like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment