Sunken Village Wet Site, Portland, OR

Akira  Matsui

doi:10.7273/000006249

Akira Matsui, Chief Archaeologist, National Institute for Cultural Heritage, Nara, Japan, who passed too early from cancer a few years back, had a column in the Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, the most popular one in Japan with an estimated circulation of over 10 million (called the biggest newspaper in the world). He wrote his column about our collaboration in excavating the National Historic Landmark Sunken Village wet site in Portland Oregon in 2007--he sponsored the project. My son Jaered Croes, who runs www.textfugu.com, a Japanese language teaching site, help us translate the article. (see publications on the Sunken Village wet site 2009): Last September 2007, five fellow researchers and I went to Oregon in the United States of America to participate in an excavation. It all started when my old friend Professor Dale Croes from the South Puget Sound Community College emailed me saying: “I found some pits packed with acorns in an ancient Columbia River intertidal beach site called Sunken Village. Would you like to do a collaborative project there?” We knew that in the fall, the ancient Japanese Jomon people would store large amounts of acorns in storage pits so that during the passing winter they would have food. However, there is a difference between how Eastern and Western Japan went about this. Eastern Japan Jomon put their storage pits on top of a hill, and the West puts it at the bottom of a hill in a muddy, wet place. We didn't know the reason for this. When I asked Dale about the acorn pits, we hoped that we could get some ideas through this Oregon work. I've been part of the Higashimyo wet site research advisory board, Saga City Board of Education, coordinating the excavations and research since 2004. On the Ariake Sea, with the Kose River running along it, the early Jomon people lived there 7000 years ago. We found six shell middens, and around their bases we found 200 acorn storage pits. What surprised me was how many of the baskets were still preserved. By the time the excavation was over, the total number had risen to 730 basketry examples.

Sunken Village Wet Site, Portland, OR

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details