The Six Thousand Year Old Companions (2)
In addition to last month's field report, Gwangju national Museum made public further discoveries from the Ando Island shell mound site that suggest a connection with the Kyushu region. On April 24, the museum released to the press that its excavation team had found pieces of wrist bones with five shell bracelets; the material of which (Glycymeris albolineata) as well as the custom of wearing multiple bracelets imply that the buried at Ando Island had kept some kind of cultural relation with the people in Kyushu. Furthermore, the museum also discovered about 220 pieces of obsidian, which also seems to have been imported from the Kyushu region, considered that the obsidian found at Songdo Island shell mound, which is located 17km northwest of Ando Island, was from Goshidake, Kyushu. Although we have to wait for several months before the publication of its final report, the discovery provides us with some intriguing clues to the prehistoric interaction between the two regions.
(Trans. Jae-ho Shin)