Nokubi trapezoid pendant of imported sandstone

垂飾品

Source term: 垂飾品; 箆状垂飾 comparison

On the Gotō Islands off Kyūshū, the Nokubi site yielded a thin, vertically long trapezoid of hard sandstone — a stone that does not occur on the islands and had to arrive by boat. The archaeologist who published it compared it, cautiously and explicitly without committing, to the hera-shaped pendant class, whose origin is traced to the Chinese mainland. It is an island outlier, an imported slab at the far southwestern edge of the distribution — and though its layer is disturbed, the same site has yielded some ten sherds of Korean Neolithic pottery, proof that boats were crossing from the continent in the Early Jōmon.

Particulars

Object

A thin, vertically long trapezoid of very fine-grained hard sandstone, about 8 cm long, pierced near the narrow top. The stone is foreign to the Gotō Islands and was brought in from elsewhere. From a disturbed layer at the Nokubi site.

Function

Published as a pendant (垂飾品).