Radiocarbon dating of stones of peach (Prunus persica) excavated from the Ikiriki site, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

During excavations in 1984 and 1985 of the Ikiriki site, a lowland wetland site in Nagasaki Prefecture, stones of a peach (Prunus persica) was excavated from a cultural layer containing artifacts of the early Jomon period. Because peach is an exotic cultigen native to China, these stones were thought to be the oldest record of peach in Japan. Radiocarbon dating for 11 samples of these peach stones and related plant remains showed that these peach stones were mainly of the middle to late Yayoi period, indicating that the later peach stones seem to have fallen into the cultural layers of the early Jomon period.