Newly-sprouted chestnuts and "acorns" with the outer surface removed and deep creases on the inner surface have been excavated from various sites from the Jomon period onwards from all over Japan. From ethnographic comparisons, it can be proposed that these nuts were dried before pounding with a pestle to remove the surface coat and obtain the meat within. As evidence of nut husking in the Jomon period, we can cite the "heso" of "acorns" as well as discoveries of pestles. These excavated remains and ethnographic examples show that this nut culture has continued to the present. In ethnographic cases dried nuts are stored above the hearth and it can be suggested that this custom has continued since the Jomon. It is argued that the area above the hearth was an important space for food storage from the Incipient Jomon onwards.

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The aim of this article is to understand the organization of Sue ware production in the Kofun period by examining the actual nature of the manufacturing groups. Particularly within documentary history, Sue production has traditionally been discussed and critiqued in the context of the Sue Tsukuribe mentioned in the Nihon Shoki. This topic is related to the questions of who comprised the Sue manufacturing groups and how specialized that production was. In concrete terms, clarification of the relationship between Sue manufacturing groups and the occupants of cluster mounds and side chamber tombs-i.e., the family level management groups within settlements-will be able to contribute something to this debate.
This article uses the example of the Sue Sugaura site to investigate the above problems. This site has integrated kilns and side chamber tombs, with tombs built around the kilns after they had ceased producing Sue ware. Using changes and distribution patterns of features from each phase, the article attempts to clarify their formative processes and to use grouping analysis to identify social units.
As a result it was shown that the kilns and side chamber tombs were integrated together and that the same social units were associated with both. Two or three families were associated with the operation of one kiln, forming what can be assumed to be a kiln operating unit. It is also argued that increases in the number of kiln operating units and expansion of the cemetery area were related to the division of collateral kin. In terms of scale, the kiln operating units can be compared with the goko large households of the Ritsuryo period and the small clusters of side chamber tombs with the boko small households. From this it can be concluded that Sue manufacturing groups were comprised of several households corresponding to a family group such as the Ritsuryo goko and thus that production was not managed by household cooperatives as traditionally argued. These production units increased with each generation and there was a hereditary transmission of technology with specialist production of Sue ware within half agricultural-half craft production groups.

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In the early 8th century, the burial system based on the Ritsuryo code which entailed strict regulations came to an end in the Kiani region as cremation was adopted as the standard funerary custom. Just as in the Kofun period, the Yamato region played an important part in this change. However, a new tomb system that used inhumations with wooden coffins began after the capital moved to Heian-kyo at the end of the 8th century. This was because of new, Bud-dhist ideas begun by emperor Kanmu. In this paper it is argued that differences in burial method reflect social structure and that specific burial specifications were related to social position and class based on the Ritsuryo code. This Ritsuryo-based mortuary system is thought to have come to an end in the late 9th century when shared customs were replaced by regional variations in tombs.
In order to examine these questions, an analysis of grave goods was conducted in this paper. After inhumation in wooden coffins was adopted in the reign of Kanmu, there was variation in the use of Sue vases, black earthen pots, and lacquer ware in burials and cremations. Ritsuryo nobles used wooden coffin inhumations for political purposes. A definite distinction was made at this time between burials and cremations, but in the mid-9th century a new funerary custom based on Buddhism was introduced. A new cosmology spread with this Buddhist influence. Furthermore, in about the latter half of the 9th century the distinction between inhumations and cremations broke down. After the 10th century, the type of burial was decided by the individual who had the money and means to do so and a new burial system began.

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The bell-shaped clay objects of the Yayoi period are earthenware representations of bronze dotaku bells and are distributed from north Kyushu to the Kinki and Tokai regions. In addition to undecorated examples, some of these objects have flowing water, crossed band, horizontal band and other decorations copied from dotaku. Pictures and symbolic marks are also sometimes incised on these objects. In this article I compare the "human figure", "halberd" and "x" designs that are shared between bell-shaped clay objects and decorated pots and bronzes and consider their significance.
Firstly, many of the "human figures" hold halberds and other weapons and shields. Rather than actual battles, these figures are equipped to commune with the grain spirits, showing that they played an essential role in rituals relating to rice cultivation.
The "halberds" originally had a blade fixed at a right angle to the shaft and functioned to kill and maim. That the Yayoi people had a special image of the hook-shaped morphology of the "halberd" can be assumed from the fact that almost all weapons in primitive pictorial representations are halberds.
Finally, the "x" mark is more a symbol than a picture. If one extends the inverted triangle of the torso of figures with weapons, it forms an "x" at the intersection and the author therefore argues that this is a symbolic representation of a "figure holding a halberd". Similar "x" marks can be seen on pottery pictures and Osaka Bay type bronze halberd molds from the Kinki and San' in regions as well as on the hilt of bronze daggers and the handle of dotaku bells from Izumo. An "x" is also found on thin-broad bronze daggers from the Setouchi and medium-broad bronze halberds from north Kyushu.
It would appear that the three types of representations of "figures", "halberds" and "x" were not separate but closely related. Figures with hook-shaped halberds communed with the grain spirits to ask for fertility and it can be concluded that clay bell-shaped objects had a significance that was linked to dotaku and weapon-shaped bronzes. Furthermore, the fact that bell-shaped objects are excavated in settlements and from features near water is a pattern shared with small dotaku. Thus clay bell-shaped objects can probably be seen as ritual objects used by groups who possessed shared rights to irrigation facilities.
The pictures and symbols on clay bell-shaped objects were distributed across western Japan from the last third of the Middle to the first third of the Late Yayoi. Although the Yayoi people maintained regional diversity in burials and pottery styles, they shared a spiritual world related to fertility and magic.

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The present essay examines the establishment and development of the Paekche (Baekje) Daetongsa (Daitsuji)style roof tile and its influence on ancient Japanese culture. The Daetongsa style roof tile emerged as new designs and techniques were introduced from Six Dynasties China, while the Daetongsa temple itself was constructed in the late Ungjing period. The Daetongsa style prevailed as the major roof tile fabrication technique and design motif after-wards, and it also spread into nearby Japan. Paekche dispatched craftsmen to Japan for the construction of Asuka-der-a, the first Buddhist temple in Japan, which is also evidenced by an entry in the Nihon Shoki. The Daetongsa style rooftile provides a good way to examine a half century of diffusion of material culture from the Six Dynasties to Japan viaPaekche.

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This article examines the late Nara-early Heian temple hall that is thought to have had gato (Sue ware grave markers shaped like a pagoda) excavated at the Miharada Suwagami site, Akashiro-son, Gunma Prefecture as part of a broader discussion of Buddhist beliefs in ancient Ueno. In Gunma Prefecture in the northern Kanto there have been few excavations of sites that relate to the spread of Buddhism amongst commoners but a temple hall with gato grave markers associated with a settlement has been identified at Miharada Suwagami. From the foundation stones, it can be assumed that this hall was of a size equivalent to a Irakamune or a Noshimune and had a roof that was partly tiled. It is also clear that a foundation base was built to set up the gato markers.
In the foothills of Mt. Akashiro, settlements that appeared in the late 8th century suddenly came to an end in the mid 9th. As it can be assumed that Buddhist halls developed as a part of settlements, we can examine the actual nature of beliefs relating to gato in eastern Honshu. I hope to use these grave markers to further investigate the development of Buddhist beliefs in farming villages in ancient Ueno.

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