Abstract
Unlike the studies on Jomon pottery, much fewer scientific approaches have been conducted to the residues on Yayoi pottery. Charred remains on pottery plays an important role in the reconstruction of edible plant use in the prehistoric time. This paper aims at investigating the origin of charred remains on the Yayoi pottery excavated from the Joto site in Okayama prefecture. To clarify cooking traces on the pottery, we used three methods, an observation of charred remains by scanning electron microscopy, a carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic analysis, and a starch residue analysis. We found identifiable features of rice on the broken grains that had not fully removed bran. Also the ratios of stable isotope showed that there is no contribution of C4 plants. The starch grains extracted from the sampled pottery suggested that the residues might contain other starchy foods, although their association with the pottery could not be confirmed. Though some problems remained to be solved, the comprehensive method used in this paper can promote discussion of the edible plant use in the Yayoi period, which has not been verified from botanical perspectives yet.
