Early historic human remains from the Hasekouji-Shuhen site in Kamakura, Japan

Abstract

Eight human skeletons in a good state of preservation have been recovered from excavations at the Hasekouji-Shuhen site in Kamakura city, Kanto region, Japan. We conducted AMS radiocarbon dating that revealed the skeletons to belong to the early historic Asuka, Nara, and early Heian periods (circa 670-970 calAD). In terms of their cranial, dental, and limb bone measurements, the Hasekouji-Shuhen skeletons exhibit morphological characteristics that show affinities with the earlier Yayoi series, which are generally considered to represent immigrant populations from the Asian continent. Furthermore, an early indication of dolichocephalization was observed in these early historic people, a trait which became more pronounced in later medieval times. Three adult males have scars that may have been caused by assaults with a spear or a sword-like weapon. One male individual exhibits skeletal abnormalities including multiple cartilaginous exostosis.

Nonmetric cranial variation in human skeletal remains associated with Okhotsk culture

“…To determine which of the skeletons from this site were those of the Okhotsk culture, the one of us (M.Y.) undertook the radiocarbon dating of the Moyoro series using NIES-TERRA, the accelerator facility of the Institute of Environmental Studies located in Tsukuba City, Japan (Yoneda et al, 2005;Matsumura et al, 2006 The comparative samples used in this study consist of the following 19 groups: Jomon, Hokkaido Ainu, Sakhalin Ainu, Yayoi, modern main-island Japanese, Kumejima, Northern Chinese, Aleut, Neolithic Baikalian, Buryat, Chukchi, Ekven (Iron Age), Asian Eskimo, Kazakh, Mongolian, Amur (Nanay, Negidal, Oroch, and Ulch), Nivkh, Russian, and Tagar (Iron Age, southern Siberia). The Jomon from the middle to latest periods (c. 5300-2300 BP) were mainly from the main Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu.…”

Cranial traumatic injuries caused by weapons in Tokugawa Japan

“…The traumas found on the Hitotsubashi crania are distinguishable from those on the medieval crania in terms of low traumatic frequency, and especially in the comparison with Seiyokan. The weapon‐related traumas of the Edo skeletons (Kawagoe, 1965; Ohtani & Baba, 2001; Nagaoka & Abe, 2007) have also been less frequently reported than those of the medieval and Azuchi‐Momoyama periods (Suzuki, 1956, 1989; Ikeda & Tagaya, 1979; Morimoto, 1987; Morimoto & Hirata, 1992; Hirata et al, 2004; Matsumura et al ., 2006; Dodo, 2008; Nagaoka et al ., 2009, 2010). In comparing the Edo and medieval periods, the Edo Shogunate had characteristics different from the previous military governments.…”

Heian-period human skeletal remains from the Shomyoji shell midden in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture

“…The basic axis of the standardized means was represented by the modern Kanto Japanese population (Suzuki, 1969). Other cranial metric data of comparative populations were from the following previous research: Jomon, Kofun, Kamakura, Edo, and Modern populations of the Kanto region (Suzuki, 1969); Yayoi immigrants from northern Kyusyu and Yamaguchi Prefecture (Nakahashi, 1993); and the Hasekouji-Shuhen site series (Matsumura et al, 2006). In comparison, we standardized upper facial height following Dodo (2000), and if it was measured by Martin's method, we subtracted 2.5 mm from that measurement to match Howells's method (1973).…”

“…Thereafter, two-dimensional expressions of the multidimensional scaling method (Torgerson, 1958) based on correlation metrics were applied to visually interpret interpopulation relationships. We took other dental metric data of comparative population samples from the following studies: from Matsumura (1995), Jomon, Kamakura, Edo populations of the Kanto region, and the eastern Japan Kofun population; from Matsumura (1998), Yayoi immigrants from northern Kyusyu; and from Matsumura et al (2006), the Hasekoji-Shuhen site series.…”

“…Among the excavated human remains, one Heian individual, catalogued as Dokoubo 1 (SK1), is worth studying, because current knowledge of Heian-period skeletons is very limited. One of the few that have been examined is from the Hasekouji-Shuhen site; this series exhibited dolichocrany but lacked alveolar prognathism (Matsumura et al, 2006), in contrast with the populations of the succeeding Kamakura period (AD 1185(AD -1333, who possessed both dolichocrany and alveolar prognathism (Suzuki, 1956). Therefore, although SK1 is only one case, and thus may not be representative of the entire population, as one of the only wellpreserved skeletons from the Heian period it is important to examine and describe its morphology.…”