Talk:Okinoshima site (Chiba)

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Discussion for: Okinoshima site (Chiba) • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Okinoshima site (Chiba) covers the Jōmon site on the east shore of Okinoshima in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture: the site and its excavation, the four hemp fruits from layer 9a, their identification and radiocarbon dating, and the readings of the find. The Okinoshima island of Fukuoka Prefecture is a different place.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

• Kobayashi, Momohara, Okitsu, Yanagisawa and Okamoto (2008), Japanese Journal of Historical Botany 16: 11–18, in Japanese with an English abstract: the island and the excavations, the stratigraphy, the find of the fruits in grid B-5, the dates of the layers above and below, the comparison with hemp and the two hops, Table 3 of Japanese finds, and the authors' reading of the find.
• Kudo and colleagues (2009), Japanese Journal of Historical Botany 17: 27–31, in Japanese with an English abstract: the direct radiocarbon date of the fruits, the sample, and the revised reading of the layers.
• Dal Martello, Min, Stevens, Qin and Fuller (2024), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 33: 503–518: the Okinoshima fruits in a comparison of measured archaeological cannabis seeds.

Source discrepancies

• Calibrated date. Kudo and colleagues give the calibrated date of the fruits only as about 10,000 cal BP, calibrated with IntCal04. Dal Martello and colleagues give the same measurement (NUTA2-12809) as 8280–7660 BCE in their text and 8260–7990 BCE in their Table 3. The infobox range follows their wider figure, which takes in about 10,000 cal BP.
• Width. Kobayashi and colleagues give a mean width of 3.2 mm (range 3.0–3.5); Dal Martello and colleagues' Table 3 gives 3.3 mm.
• Period name. Kobayashi and colleagues call the layer Initial Jōmon (sōki; "earliest Jomon" in their English abstract). Kudo and colleagues place the cord-marked Yoriitomon pottery at the start of the Initial Jōmon, while the Chiba University excavation report places layers 9a and 9b in the late Incipient to early Initial Jōmon.
• The layer's date. Kobayashi and colleagues took the layer to be 7830–7600 BCE from a leaf above it and wood below it. The fruits themselves date about 200 radiocarbon years older than both; Kudo and colleagues explain the wood as root from a later tree.

Infobox values

• Site type. Settlement: the excavators read the site as a seasonal fishing ground or camp.
• Dates of the find. 8280 to 7660 BCE: the calibrated range Dal Martello and colleagues give for the direct date of the fruits, which contains Kudo and colleagues' figure of about 10,000 cal BP.
• Analyses. Morphology: shape, size, the knob at the top and the hollow at the base, against modern hemp and the two hops.
• Finds held. Not given in the papers.

Georeferencing

The coordinates (34.99, 139.83) are the east shore of Okinoshima, where both papers place the site. The papers print no position for the site itself. The map in Kudo and colleagues' Figure 1 is marked at 34°59′ N and 134°49′ E. The latitude fits the island, but that longitude lies about 460 km to the west, in western Japan; the island is at 139°49′ E. Wikidata (Q49333456) gives the islet at 34.9906° N, 139.8247° E, and OpenStreetMap (node 6718462569) at 34.9907° N, 139.8249° E, about 20 metres apart. OpenStreetMap's coastline puts the island's east shore at about 139.826–139.827° E, which rounds to 139.83. The island is about 1 km round, so every point on it lies within about 0.7 km of these coordinates. Éloise 22:10, 29 October 2026 (+07)