#jearcheo — Public Fediverse posts

Journées européennes de l'archéologie : "Nous redécouvrons aujourd'hui l'âge de bronze"

#JEA2025 #JEArchéo #Archéologie #AgeDuBronze
Journées européennes de l'archéologie : "Nous redécouvrons aujourd'hui l'âge de Bronze"

Another nice path of Yanbaru. I think this will conclude this collaborative thread #FootpathFriday / #EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025. I have more photographs of Yanbaru paths of course, but I fear I am becoming a little bit redundant… There are some parts of Yanbaru easily accessible to the public (even children) for instance in the park around Nangusuku (Nago Gusuku). They even have charcoal kilns ! I’d recommend to wait for november though, when the habu season is over.

Ah, bamboo! Another plant you’ll learn to hate really quickly when surveying Yanbaru… They invade the ridge paths like the ferns. Of course they don’t look terrible in this picture. When they are terrible, I’m too busy cutting my way through to take any pictur And they cut holes in your waterproof boots! All things considered, ridge paths are quite a bit of hell, better stick in the valley and walk the streams.If your boots are still all right.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

In fact when the horse paths became too deep, they made another one 1 metre on the right or the left. Generally there is a human footpath just next to the horse paths (on top of it you would say) because that’s not easy to pass a horse going the opposite way on such narrow paths, so humans would better walk elsewhere. So you can find two horse paths (different depth) + one human path going the same way. Yanbaru’s highways.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

Another horse path, please appreciate the height of the walls. Or maybe their depth, since they were dug...A lot of the paths were cut after the Japanese annexation, at the end of the 19th century : the Ryūkyū Kingdom was really strict about access to Yanbaru. But even limited, there was access and so, necessarily, paths. I mean we found paths with the kingdom’s landsurvey markers along them, so obviously, some date back to the kingdom.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

This is another ridge path, same area, no horse, for comparison. Very well conserved, probably used until more recently. Most of Yanbaru’s paths have been used till WWII. Then the US put their jungle warfare training thing there and access was denied. Also, Okinawa’s population drastically decreased with the war so people just concentrated on the good valley fields on the coast and even the parts that were outside the fences were abandoned.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

Another survey, even older, february 2018, where we had horse paths ! Lots of them. Please appreciate this first one, that is not very deep indeed, but whose symmetry is vaguely satisfying. As you can see this is a ridge path, but instead of being flat, the repeated passage of horses (to carry bamboo and firewood) has dug it, giving it a nice U shape (it’s currently being filled a bit by almost 80 years of forest deposits…)
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

OK, that’s not a path, that’s a stream. But you can’t make a thread about a Yanbaru survey without putting one or two photographs of gorgeous streams, whether it is Footpath Friday or not. Moreover, it answers the question “why the hell would you walk in a stream ?” : as you can see, absolutely no vegetation to clear to be able to progress ! You can just walk and look for historical remains while appreciating the landscape.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa

Another slope path, after clearing, quite weathered. As you can see the hills in Yanbaru might not be very high, but they are very steep, we’re always very happy to find an old path. Not only because archaeological remains concentrate along old paths, but also just because it eases the progression so much. There is much difference between cutting your way in the vegetation in the wild and cutting your way in the vegetation on an ancient path…
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootpathFriday

We also walk a lot in the stream beds. In fact, we generally start by walking in the stream beds and look for paths that go up from the stream bed. The easiest way to find a path in Yanbaru. Moreover, ancient people used to do the same (use the stream beds as path) so that you can find quite a lot of archaeological vestiges along the streams before you even find a path. Charcoal kilns. Lots of charcoal kilns.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootPathFriday

We also have horse paths, recognisable because the hooves of the horses gradually dug the path, so that now, they look like ditches, sometimes with walls more than 1.5 m high.
The one in this photograph is just another slope path. Before clearing, but it is not too much invaded by vegetation, a lucky path ♡ You can see a second cut slope below the path on the left : that’s the start of terraced fields that go down the valley.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootPathFriday

This one is more recognizable as a path I’d say, it’s practically a highway. There are many types of paths in Yanbaru, mainly slope paths with the hill-side of the path cut to create a vertical wall, as in the two photos I just posted, and ridge paths. Ridge paths are more difficult to identify since there is no cut slope and some are very invaded by vegetation. You feel it in your feet, the ground is different where there used to be a path.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa #FootPathFriday

If you're interested in what Yanbaru surveys are like, I made a thread last year for the #EuropeanArchaeologyDays :
https://archaeo.social/@berangere444/112611986368406048
detailing what we do and what we find.
Et en français :
https://archaeo.social/@berangere444/112611997095374546
#JEArchéo #JEA2025 #EADays
#Okinawa @archaeodons

The #EuropeanArchaeologyDays at last !
Since I’m a sad #archaeologist trapped in an office today, I’ll send photographs of past surveys in the northern #Yanbaru woods. And since it’s friday, it will count as #FootPathFriday as well !
This is from a survey in february 2020, probably the most productive we ever had in Yanbaru. Since I’m a contractor, I am not allowed to give the exact location and I wiped the photograph properties.
#EADays #JEArchéo #JEA2025 #Okinawa @archaeodons

#EADays #JEArcheo
they also have a false tomb and a war-period corner with a reconstruction of a cave that served as air-raid shelter. there are mannequins showing the mass suicides inside the cave so, think twice before you open the curtain.

#EADays #JEArcheo more kaizuka period wonders 😁

#EADays #JEArcheo
2nd floor, old building, my favourite part of the museum, with the crowded showcases full of gorgeous kaizuka period artefacts.

#EADays #JEArcheo
a good indicator of the beginning of the gusuku period is the association imported chinese porcelain ＋imported kamuiyaki ＋ imported talc pots. kamuiyaki is a type of ceramic imported from tokunoshima in the amami islands. talc pots were imported from nagasaki in kyushu (japan).
the exhibition insist on the fact the gusukus along the hija-gawa river functioned as a network, communicating with fire signals, showing there was a sort of large community / central power …

the first floor has a sort of quick summary of Yuntanza history, with a heavy bias toward the gusuku and early kingdom period (because they're Team Gosamaru too).
#EADays #JEArcheo

Yomitan village museum reopened a few years ago under the name Yuntanza Museum. Yuntanza is the historical name of Yomitan. it used to be written 読谷山 instead of 読谷. they added a new building but also kept the old one, that had a really good atmosphere. they have a raised-floor granary and a sugar cane press outside, as well as a few zushis (funerary urns) by the entrance.
#EADays #JEArcheo

not much movement yesterday in (the part of) the fediverse (that i'm aware of) for the second day of the European Archaeology Days…
i know i said i would give you Katsuren Gusuku on the last day, but i was always more on Team Gosamaru (and suddenly
all of Uruma city hates me😁) so, welcome to Zakimi. i have a soft spot for Zakimi. and it's got a museum when it's raining (katsuren's got a museum too, it's probably just that i'm really Team Gosamaru).
#EADays #JEArcheo

#JEArcheo #EADays however it is psychologically difficult and many municipal archaeologists in okinawa just quit after a few years. there are also very few candidates to replace them.
this is on this sad statement that the conference ends.

#JEArcheo #EADays
…in the kunigami archives. it was found also in the english archives, and identified as the benares.

the war period sites are considered as archaeological sites that need to be excavated. there are concrete buildings still standing, fortification walls, bunkers, air-raid shelters, underground hospitals… (i've excavated some, believe me, you don't want to).
their survey is important for the peace-promotion that is really developed in okinawa.

#JEArcheo #EADays there is a tomb for the sailors in ginama so that archaeologist started to dive around the area in search of the ship. and they found a lot of related artefacts. the tomb in ginama is called hollanda-baka, but all the foreigners were called 「hollandaa」at the time (as we are all called amerikaa nowadays). the shipwreck is recorded in the archives in a report sent to the japanese government. it is recorded in 1872 on the tomb, 1873 in the japanese archives and 1874 …

#JEArcheo #EADays
some of the archaeological sites in ryukyu are underwater (in the ocean). there are many shipwrecks.
in kume, there is an area where it is really easy to sink and there are many artefacts found there. most of them are chinese ceramic, from ships that sank in the gusuku period, period for which we don't have records. starting in the 18th c., european and american ships sink in ryukyu too. such as the benares, british ship that sank in 1872.

#JEArcheo #EADays in the 20th c. it goes to the left 4th finger.
the habit of 2 rings on the right hand is found in china and korea too.

#JEArcheo #EADays
the people in the kingdom period where smaller, 157 cm for the males and 144 cm for the females.
in shuri-naha, most of the urns have inscriptions, but in the provinces, most of the urns don't.
the dates in the inscriptions show that there are some years with more important mortality.
funerary artefacts include finger rings showing that the use of rings in ryukyu is old and didn't stop with the japanese invasion. in the 18-19th c. rings are on the right 3rd and 4th fingers.

#JEArcheo #EADays a very large number of tombs of the kinsei are surveyed every year, which represent an enormous amount of data, and hiroki has started to sort this data (really, he's doing an incredible work).
there are funerary inscriptions on the urns, mentioning the date of death. during the kingdom period people used chinese era names and this perdured even after the japanese invasion, even at the beginning of the 20th c. about half of the population used chinese era names.

#JEArcheo #EADays
even if the culture seem homogenous, there are regional particularities.

during the kingdom, the period after the satsuma invasion is called the kinsei (early modern) period. that's the period when the turtle-back tombs develop.
bones are placed in zushi (funerary urns), after the corpse has decayed. the corpse is placed in the tomb, on the front part, decomposes, the bones are washed and placed in an urn, that can be of the jar type (kame) of house-shaped type (udun-gata)

#JEArcheo #EADays adoption of the different characteristics do not happen at the same time, and have different chronologies in the different islands.
chinese ceramic and easteastern asian ceramic are imported, including very high quality pieces, especially starting in the 14th c. showing that ryukyu was an important turning point of International trade. the gusuku in the okinawa area are representative of a stratified society, while in sakishima, the 「suku」society seems more equalitarian.

#JEArcheo #EADays but C14 dates seem to point at an earlier period with some sites in kikai-jima island as old as the 9th c. : agriculture probably came from the north. the kamuiyaki ceram is made in tokunoshima and the talc pots are from nagasaki : strong hints at deep links with the north at the time of the adoption of agriculture. the gusuku period was named after the gusuku (castle) but it's important characteristics are agriculture and development of trade, that will lead to the kingdom.

@LeMoustier there's a list of archaeologists on mastodon here: https://stark1tty.github.io/Mastodon-Archaeology/
Do you follow the hastags or just look for them as on twitter? Here are the hashtags I follow: #DoctorWho #mottemonday #FlintFriday #rugby #terrypratchett #沖縄 #UtakiWednesday #RyukyuanSpringThursday #romanroadsfriday #mammothmonday #FindsFriday #romansitesaturday #FossilFriday #waterfallwednesday #astrotuesday #MosaicMonday #archeologie #mercredisarcheo #JEArcheo #eaa2023 #manuscriptmonday #okinawa