Buried forest at Nakanishi-Akitsu
The Nakanishi site produced relatively few artefacts: a small number of pottery sherds and just a few stone reaping knives. Activity is shown by footprints preserved in the soils, but people did not leave their implements in the paddy fields.
Rather than in the paddies themselves, discoveries of pottery and stone tools were concentrated in the forested area to the south of the fifteenth excavation area at Nakanishi (Figure 15.5 above).[826] The preserved remains of 265 trees were found, some of them still standing and others fallen, beneath the sandy flood deposits that covered the paddies. The majority were identified as Morus australis, Camellia, and Acer, which indicated a deciduous forest with occasional evergreen trees. The girth and age of the trees varied among species. Quercus subgen. Cyclobalanopsis (evergreen oak) were thick, while the Cephalotaxus harringtonia (cowtail pine) were slender. Assuming that all the trees died during the flood, we can observe the forest succession over the hundred years prior to the flood. In addition to natural disturbances, including the flood, this succession was influenced by human activities along the stream. A concentration of some thirty walnut shells (Juglans mandshurica var. sachalinensis) at the edge of the remains of the forest overlooking the paddies suggests the gathering of nuts. A number of stone tools, including arrowheads, flakes, and roughouts, indicates the hunting of animals such as wild boar. Stumps of Celtis (Japanese hackberry) over a metre in diameter tell of logging activities, for lumber. Between 40 and 50 per cent of the wooden implements from Kawanishi-Nenarigaki and Shijo-Shinano, contemporary with Nakanishi-Akitsu, were made of evergreen oak (Quercus subgen. Cyclobalanopsis), and it is probable that this wood was selected for logging from the outset.
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