Abstract
Three types of millets are known to have been utilized in ancient Japan. It is often suggested that they were cultivated in the Jomon period before the cultivation of rice.
However, the identification of millets has been a problem for researchers of plant remains. It is hard to distinguish them by their outer morphology owing to the deformation and distortion in shape when carbonized. However, when the epidermis of paleas and lemmas remain and can be observed, it is possible to determine differences among the three by observing them with a scanning electron microscope.
In this study, the characteristic cell patterns of the most common millet "awa " was shown by an archaeological sample belonging to the historical age from Iwate Prefecture. They were compared with recent samples by SEM to provide a standard for the Jomon millet.
