It has universally been accepted as if it were a general rule that in the Yayoi age which corresponds to the semi-bronze age on the Japanese Archipelago, hewing adapting both agriculture and metal culture, they founded the settlements on arable lowland for paddy field.
Of those settlements which were set up on heights more than 200m. both above sea-level and in relative altitude, only a limitted number of them are known, and the couses have not yet been fully brought into light.
The writer, therefore, after closely examining every fundamental matter to be met with at the entrance of the foregoing problem, has carried out the research into the specific feature of establishing regional and the cultural point of view, and has obtained the following results:
1. The settlement on lowland is a conspicuous feature throughout the entire age of Yayoi, however, it has been revealed that about the later stage of the former period, especially toward the end of the middle period such heights as mountain-tops, redges, or basin edges, 20m. to 400m. in relative altitude, were chosen to be settled upon, and this fact shows eight periodic transitions of altitudinal settlement. They may be subdivided from the cultural viewpoint to be generalized as follows:
The First Period; the later stage of the former half-the middle stage
The Second Period; the later stage of the middle period-the early stage of the latter period
The Third Period: the early stage of the later period-the early stage of the “Haji” period
A new settlement on a height, it is found, was set up every stage the culture took up different aspect throughout these three periods.
2. And such a phenomenon of periodic transition of altitudinal settlement, being different in distribution in accordance with the culturally subdivided period, may be classified into four types of region as follows;
1) Lowland distribution type: the middle part of Kyushu Island and northward through the Japan Sea coast, the Pacific coast of Japan Proper and Shikoku Island, extending in the north to the southern boundary of Tohoku District excepting Kanto District, and from the basins of Kyoto, Nara, Ueno, and Omi in Kinki District and northward to the basins among mountains in Chubu District excluding one or two basins.
2) Type of settlement distribution largely on lowland and in some period on height: the middle part of Seto-naikai (Seto Inland Sea), its eastern coast with its islets, the southern Kyushu and one or two regions in Chubu District.
3) High-level distribution type: the north-eastern coast in the western of Seto-Inland district and about the area along the lower course of the Aizu River.
4) High-land Terras distribution type: the Southern port of Kanto District especially Tokyo-to and diluvial terrases along the coast of Tokyo Bay in Kanagawa Prefecture.
3. The foregoing phenomenal feature in the periodic transition of altitudinal settlement in the Yayoi age and its relationship with the regional difference provide us with three major subjects of the reseach to be traced out.
As to the more detailed description of these matters, however, the writer shall have to leave them untouched here for another occasion in future. But the careful consideration of the cause, which induced such altitudinal settlements, would show us that the motive factor cannot be sought for in the physical environment but in the human cultural scientific field.
If the writer might venture a further remark, it may be said that the ultimate factor seems to be most rightly expected of all the human cultural scientific requirements to be based upon the development of the social organization with the advance of the rice farming culture and the advancement in political system.
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