Jizouden Ruins "Yayoikko Village"

The staff at Jidozen archaeological site were unbelievably helpful and welcoming. I don't speak much Japanese but they took the the time to help explain the site to me and my friend. The site is tidy and well presented, and they've done an excellent job of making it interactive for the public. The museum is small but has an interesting selection of artefacts and images showing the site during its excavation. Will visit again!

Almost 200 or 300 years old .

Revisited on September 26, 2024. The Jizoda ruins are a nationally designated historic site from the Paleolithic, Jomon, and Yayoi periods. You can see restored wooden fences and pit dwellings from the Yayoi period, about 2,200 years ago. You can view artifacts from the ruins at a nearby exhibition facility.

Visited on November 6, 2021. This ruin is the remains of a pit-style dwelling from the Yayoi period around 200 BC. The remains of four houses were confirmed. It has a wall-standing structure. In addition, the remains of a building with six pillars and a wooden fence were also found. 51 earthen burial mounds and 25 earthenware coffin tombs were also excavated. Local Jomon pottery and clay figurines that were influenced by Onga River pottery have also been discovered, making it a site with strong traces of Jomon culture. However, pottery fragments with paddy impressions were also excavated, so it is certain that rice cultivation was carried out there. I couldn't find any stone knives in the exhibits in the exhibition hall, so I assumed that rice cultivation was done using tools from the Jomon period instead of using new farming tools. It is thought that the Yayoi period began about 500 years earlier, but in the northern Tohoku region, the proportion of rice in the food self-sufficiency may have been lower than expected. I think this is a very important ruin when considering the question of where the border lies with the post-Jomon culture area, which abandoned rice cultivation.

It seems that there were many ruins from the Paleolithic era in this area, but is this Jizo and other ruins the only ones left now? It seems like. It's a real shame that it was no longer developed. The Jizoda ruins seem to be carefully managed by volunteers.