Shinmachi site and Ootomo site: Subsistence activities of people during the beginning of the Yayoi period revealed using musculoskeletal stress markers.

YONEMOTO Shiori

doi:10.15017/7343681

This study investigated musculoskeletal stress markers (MSMs) on archaeological human bones from the Shinmachi site, Itoshima, Fukuoka Prefecture, and the Otomo site, Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, which are mainly composed of dolmen tombs. The sites studied were 15 sites in the upper and lower limbs, and MSMs were assessed according to the criteria of Hawkey and Merbs (1995). As a result of analysing the MSMs pattern using categorical principal component analysis, it was found that the MSMs pattern of the human bones from the Otomo site is somewhat similar to that of the Jomon groups, while the MSMs pattern of the human bones from the Shinmachi site is similar to that of the Yayoi period groups, particularly those from the Hibikinada coast and Mikuni Hills. As a result, the Otomo and Shinmachi sites were said to have a similar characteristic in terms of limb bone shape, with the upper limbs being relatively thicker than the lower limbs, but examination of the MSMs revealed a slight difference in trend. One reason for this difference is that the people of the Shinmachi site were involved in wet-rice farming, but also engaged in a variety of subsistence activities such as hunting and fishing, while the people of the Otomo site were more focused on fishing activities and may not have engaged in activities that promoted the internalization of other subsistence activities such as wet-rice farming (Amuro 1992, 2001). The findings in this study suggest that there were differences in the subsistence activities between the two groups.

Shinmachi site and Ootomo site: Subsistence activities of people during the beginning of the Yayoi period revealed using musculoskeletal stress markers.

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