Karako-Kagi Site, Excavation No. 74: Discovery of a Large-scale Embedded Pillar Building

Abstract

The Karako-Kagi site is a representative Yayoi period moated circular settlement, located close to the center of the Nara basin in Tawaramoto Town, Shiki County, Nara Prefecture. The multiple encircling moats are 600 m across in both north-south and east-west directions, and the 300, 000 m2 area covered by the site puts it in the highest rank among Yayoi settlements nationwide. Excavations conducted at this site range from the first in 1936 to No. 78 at present. The first excavation was especially famous in the history of archaeological research, as large numbers of wooden agricultural implements were recovered from the bottom of Karako Pond, demonstrating that the Yayoi period had an early farming culture. On 27 January 1999, the site was designated a National Historic Monument.
Excavation No. 74, reported herein, was conducted from 14 July to 25 December 1999 within the hamlet of Kagi, on the western side of Route 24 which divides the site east-west, by the Tawaramoto Town Board of Education. Although no occupation surfaces remained, structural features ranging from the Early Yayoi through the Medieval and Early Modern periods were detected at the same level. For the interior of the Karako-Kagi Site, the density of features was low. Postholes were scarce, with large pits such as wells and storage facilities for wooden implements making up the greater portion. Among these, of particular note are the remains of a large-scale embedded-pillar building. Having a north-south ridge with independent external ridge posts, its two-bay transverse width was 7.0 m, and length parallel to the ridge was at least 11.4 m over five or more bays. Also, from the presence of postholes along the central ridge line within the interior of the building, it is thought that the building had an elevated floor supported in part by internal struts. The surviving pillar stumps were approximately 60 cm in diameter. Gaps separating the bottoms of the postholes and the bases of the pillars were filled with layers of wood fragments or logs. The wood fragments showed signs of being worked, and are thought to be re-utilized wood chips produced when the pillars were dressed.
The age of this large-scale embedded pillar building can be placed at the start of the Middle Yayoi, on the basis of the relations of overlap among features, and from the pottery they contained. That date is the oldest for both a building with independent ridge posts, and for one with a raised floor supported by internal struts. The Karako-Kagi Site at the start of the Early Yayoi antedates the building of moats around the settlement, and is thought to have been divided into three residential sections of north, south, and east. Excavation No. 74 was conducted near the center of the western section. Compared to the site as a whole, relatively old Early Yayoi pottery accompanies features of this sector, which is thought to have been the earliest area where settlement occurred. It probably held a central role in the Karako-Kagi community before the establishment of the moats. The discovery of a large-scale building at its center, prior to the building of the moat, is of considerable significance.