Japanese Journal of Historical Botany

The Motonobaru site is one of the largest villages in the late Jomon period in Kyushu about 4300–3500 years ago located 50 km west of the center of Miyazaki City. We conducted examinations of 179,135 Jomon earthenware sherds from this site 36 times using the “impression method” and found more than 500 impressions of plant seeds/fruits, including legumes, along with house pest insects. Before our investigation, the site had only charred acorns of Quercus sp. that were estimated as plant dietary resources. Our studies using an X-ray equipment revealed the largest number of bean impressions including soybeans and adzuki beans in Kyushu and the first discovery of earthenware incorporating multiple bean seeds. These findings suggested the possibility of the earliest legume cultivation in Kyushu and the emergence of spiritual and ceremonial practices for a good harvest of cultivated crops. Additionally, the high density of legume seeds in the earthenware fabric strongly indicated the intentional mixing of legume seeds in the clay.

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We developed a ring-width chronology using living trees of old-growth Sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) in Yanase, Kochi Prefecture, Japan. The studied site is situated in a national forest in the mountainous area of southeastern Shikoku Island, where Sugi-dominant stands mixed with Tsuga and Abies are distributed. A total of 18 cross-cut disks were used to measure ring widths at the precision of 0.01 mm for paired radii of a sample. Tree-mean curves were all successfully crossdated, and the final raw ring-width chronology were generated, covering CE 1768–2004. Crossdating statistics and the visual assessment of the ring-width series showed that the chronology is enough capable of dendrochronological use in future studies. A conventional method to detect pointer years was improved by producing a chronology for the percentage of agreement of increase or decrease of ring widths from those of the previous years. Mean ring-width series of age-aligned tree-mean curves showed the aging trend of the forest dynamics in radial growth, i.e., rapid depression in the very early stage, successive slow recovery, and then gradual, exponential decrease. The result suggested that the variability of the ring-width series are governed not only by the climate but also greatly by the ecological conditions.

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