The Bullroarer Atlas

EA-KAWAJIRI-001 - archaeological find

Okajima Kawajiri site (Esashi, Okhotsk)

Japan - Okajima, Esashi Town (Okhotsk Subprefecture), Hokkaido; Kawajiri site, now Horobetsu Right-Bank Terrace site - East Asia

Archaeological dateInitial Jōmon, middle phase; c. 8100–6000 ¹⁴C BP (class/site horizon)

Function not recorded Candidate only

Photo 2: the four Kawajiri pieces — three reworked fragments above no. 2, the largest and heaviest.
Photo 2: the four Kawajiri pieces — three reworked fragments above no. 2, the largest and heaviest. Image source
Fig. 1: no. 1 is the Utanobori comparison piece; nos. 2–5 are the four Kawajiri objects.
Fig. 1: no. 1 is the Utanobori comparison piece; nos. 2–5 are the four Kawajiri objects. Image source
Fig. 2: comparative examples nos. 6–16 from other Hokkaido sites — not Kawajiri finds.
Fig. 2: comparative examples nos. 6–16 from other Hokkaido sites — not Kawajiri finds. Image source
Fig. 3: comparative examples nos. 17–35, smallest last — a class of about forty across the north.
Fig. 3: comparative examples nos. 17–35, smallest last — a class of about forty across the north. Image source

有孔石斧 Japanese

Source term: yūkō sekifu (perforated stone axe)

有孔石斧 (yūkō sekifu): 'perforated stone axe' — northern Japan's report-language for end-pierced re-worked axe blades.

From one trench at the Okajima Kawajiri site on Hokkaido's Okhotsk coast came four perforated stone blades of the Initial Jomon. The largest is a 12.3-centimetre strip of dark stone with a red heart, biconically drilled near one end, the drill's rotary striations still legible in the hole — and at 228 grams, perhaps unfinished, it would be a poor thing to whirl. But two of its companions were broken axes deliberately ground smooth again before being pierced, part of a northern class now numbering about forty, which archaeologists read as ornaments or worn-out tools re-hung at the waist. The open question belongs to the thinner survivors: when a broken polished axe became a light blade on a cord, did it ever become an instrument?

Object
Four perforated and reworked polished-stone axe objects from one trench. The largest, no. 2, is a strip-shaped (短冊状) slat, (12.3) × (5.0) × (2.7) cm and 228.4 g, biconically drilled with clear rotary striations, a saw-cut (擦切) groove, warped axis and unformed base — possibly unfinished. Nos. 3–5 are basal fragments of 55.0, 68.4 and 110.2 g; nos. 3–4 carry grinding on their fracture faces — broken axes deliberately reworked after breakage. Red argillaceous chert per the 1964 report, though Tatsuta notes the pieces look serpentinite-like and may be rodingite or tremolite rock. Same trench: Higashi-Kushiro I–IV pottery, ten stone-blade arrowheads, 120 net sinkers. Date: Initial Jomon, middle phase; serpentinite-axe phases III–IV, c. 8100–6000 14C BP (class/site horizon).
Function
Published as perforated stone axes: broken polished axes deliberately reground and pierced for suspension, read as portable tools or stone stock carried on a cord — the site report imagined them slung from the waist. Whether the thinner pieces also sounded on that cord is the open question.
Map confidence
low - Town-level: Esashi town centre, Okhotsk Subprefecture (the Okhotsk-coast Esashi, not Hiyama); the Okajima locality near the Horobetsu River is not precisely located in the paper.
Source location
図1 nos. 2–5 (p. 29); 写真2 (p. 32); Table 1 rows 2–5 (p. 27)

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