Actualités Inrap Midi-Méditerranée (@Inrap_ActuMMED): "Hier soir à Murviel les Montpellier, Ghislain Vincent et Grégory Vacassy présentaient les résultats de la fouille de la ville basse de l’agglomération de Castellas dans le cadre des #JEArcheo En savoir plus sur les fouilles @Inrap à #Murviel : https://www.inrap.fr/actualites/recherche?search_api_views_fulltext=castellas" | nitter
https://nitter.hostux.net/Inrap_ActuMMED/status/1669940825134964737#m
#Murviel_Les_Montpellier

#JEArcheo #EADays At the end of the 17th century, the Ryukyu Kingdom becomes the most administrative country in the world. And that's a French spreaking, you can trust me about administrative states. It only lasts two centuries but that image sticks to the kingdom even nowadays. Every member of the aristocracy has to serve in the administration. And the aristocracy is not enough so commoners have to serve too and can reach quite high ranks as well.

#JEArcheo #EADays The capital stays the same, but there are two dynasties of kings: the first Shō Dynasty and... the Second Shō Dynasty. probably that changing the name would have been bad for trade. In 1469 Shō En starts the Second Shō Dynasty and in 1609 the Japanese Satsuma clan defeats the Ryukyu Kingdom and imposes a very heavy tribute on it so that its economic power is completely devastated.

#JEArcheo #EADays It was indeed so good that Shuri remained the capital of the Kingdom until the Japanese invasion at the end of the 19th century. That's not from the museum, but have photographs of the Shuri Gusuku and palace before it was destroyed by a fire a few years ago

#JEArcheo #EADays Then a really small aji of the south of the island (the kings kept ajis as local governors), Shō Hashi will defeat all the three kings one by one and establish the Ryukyu Kingdom. Since he first defeated the Chūzan King, he himself became Chūzan King and that's why the Ryukyu Kingdom is often reffered to as Chūzan in Chinese chronicles. He moved the Chūzan capital from Urasoe to Shuri because Shuri's harbour, Naha, was far better than Urasoe's harbour Machinato.

#JEArcheo #EADays There are about 300 gusukus in the Ryukyu Archipelago. Of course the ajis start to fight against each other, the gusukus become bigger and stronger and also less numerous each time an aji defeats one of his colleagues. At the end, there are only three kingdoms left on Okinawa Island: Hokuzan, Chūzan and Nanzan who all start official diplomatic relations with the Chinese Empire.

#JEArcheo #EADays The first to jump into agriculture and stratified society are the islands of the north of the archipelago and they slowly pull their southern friends to share their fate... The local ceramic production in the Okinawa and Sakishima Islands is still pottery, no stoneware yet, but stoneware "kamuiyaki" and talc pots are imported from the north, and celadon and white porcelain are imported from China.

#JEArcheo #EADays So they go on with their neolithic without agriculture until about the 11th century, having contacts with their Japanese and Chinese neighbours and suddenly, someone has a bad idea : "hey, let's do like they do ! we could grow rice instead of just exchanging it for cool shells !". And that's the end of everything, society becomes complex, with elites ("aji", also pronounced "anji") who start building fortresses (gusuku) on top of every hill (and there are a lot of hills...)

#JEArcheo #EADays In addition to the ceram, material culture also includes stone artefacts and shell and bone artefacts. Trade of shells with the Japanese islands develops during the Kaizuka Period and becomes very important at the end of the Period because Japan adopts agriculture, develops elites and the elites like to have tropical shell bracelets. Despite the attested contacts with agricultural cultures, the Ryukyu Archipelago doesn't seem particularly interested in growing its own food.

#JEArcheo #EADays So, no much info about the Palaeolithic in the Ryukyu, very few sites, very few artefacts... and then, the Kaizuka (Shellmound) Culture arrives ! Let's say about 7000 years ago. Yeah because it's moving a lot recently, we have announces of "hey in fact it started 1000 years earlier than we thought !" almost every month... There's no agriculture, but there is ceramic and that's why the start line is blurry: it's set back in time each time we find older pottery.

#JEArcheo #EADays For a long time, we only had bones for the palaeolithic and no material culture. And then, the Sakitari Survey arrived. Sakitari Cave has already revolutionized Okinawan chronology several times since I arrived on this island. Suddenly, artefacts ! Mostly shell tools, dated as far back as 23000-20000 BP. And on the right of the pic, the world oldest shell fishhook (that's a replica) (mostly *all* the interesting artefacts in Okinawan museums are replicas... I hate that...)

#JEArcheo #EADays The most famous are the Minatogawa Human Remains, because they are the most complete skeletons found, in the Minatogawa Fissure and also because they were sent to a Japanese university to be studied and they refused to send them back for years. That's why Okinawan anthropologists are now very reticent to any collaborative study that would request the bones to leave the island.

#JEArcheo #EADays One of the oldest Ryukyuan bronze bells conserved is hung outside of the museum in a small wooden shed. They make it ring sometimes, for the International Museum Day, or the National Culture Day. It was made in 1456 for King Shõ Taikyū who, let's be honnest, ordered about 90% of the bronze bells of this kingdom. A real bell otaku. It was stolen by US soldiers during the war and repatriated in 1991 after an epic battle.

So it seems I'm the only one celebrating the European Archaeology Days #JEArcheo #EADays on Mastodon. No way it will prevent me from going on posting about #Okinawa and #Ryukyu #Archaeology for the rest of the week-end. Since it's raining, let's go to the museum. The Okinawa Prefectural Museum (and Art Museum, but we won't go there) has been designed to look like a gusuku (if not, it is really an incredible coincidence it looks like a gusuku...)

#JEArcheo #EADays
During the survey from which the photographs are taken for the shirubidote, we found that a lot of them had been reused for more recent land surveys and more modern stone, then concrete and even plastic survey poles had been set on top of them... This is not always the case, although we often found modern land markers along the same paths they are not generally set on the top of the historical mounds.
#Okinawa #Ryukyu

#JEArcheo #EADays It is not particularly rare to find a shirubiishi, I know of two colleagues that have found one in the ten years I have already spent in Okinawa and there are probably others that have been found that I haven't heard of. But still, this is the happiest find I ever made :)

#JEArcheo #EADays
The translation had been made by a young student who had never heard about land surveys, topography or even trigonometry in his whole life and I struggled with it for days before I managed to find the original text in Japanese, written by someone who had visibly spent some time in his life triangulating maps in the field. Ryukyu land surveys are terribly modern and accurate and it is a part of the Ryukyuan history that I love.
#Okinawa #Ryukyu

#JEArcheo #EADays
This is the happiest find I ever made in Okinawa. And probably in my whole archaeological life in fact. This is a shirubiishi, a land marker set during the Ryukyu Kingdom for the administrative land surveys. All right, it had fallen into the river but still. When I arrived in Okinawa I had to translate a bunch of texts about the Ryukyuan land survey methods. In fact I was first given an already made English translation to review.
#Okinawa #Ryukyu

#JEArcheo #EADays
For terribly recent archaeological vestiges, we very often find WWII air raid shelters in the northern mountains, especially when we survey close to the settlements. There are very large air-raid shelters dug for the Japanese Army but they are rare: most are small shelters intended for a family, where 4 to 6 persons could crouch during the air raids. They are dug into the bedrock (sandstone) or the subsoil, are about 1.2 m high and 1.5 m deep at most.
#Okinawa

#JEArcheo #EADays Sometimes, your survey area is very terribly completely full of modern pipes. Like, yes.
#Okinawa