Jomon Fishing Site Discovered

Yomiuri.com ^ | 3-29-2004 | Yomiuri Shimbun

[Dog Gone]

I certainly hope no tuna where harmed by the Jomon fishing process.

ROFL. Excellent.

[blam]

Yup. Lots of jade in the Tarim Basin region. In-fact, The Jade Gate, in the Great Wall (of China), is there at Dunhuang, just a short distance from Urumchi...where all the 4,000 year old (Celt like) Caucasian mummies were found.

"Jade rings used for ear decoration and bar-shaped jade used for neck decoration were usually found "together" in the northeast China approximately 8,000 years ago, but showed up together in 7,000-plus-year-old Japanese sites, said Wang. "

[Fedora]

Perhaps. At some point, 12-15k years ago, the people of Japan were 'cut-off' by the rising waters from the Ice Age end. Trading and contact by sea would be limited. So, what-ever similarities exist between the Jomon and Europeans likely occurred before the ending of the Ice Age...which would fit with the dates of the European Venus figurines, 23-25k years ago.

I'm tending towards something like that, largely because of the age of the European Venuses. On sea contact, here's an interesting note:

Oldest Boat Unearthed

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a wooden boat dating back at least 7,500 years in Xiaoshan City of east China's Zhejiang Province. . .The United Kingdom discovered a wooden oar used 7,500 years ago, but archaeologists failed to find any remnants of a boat. The dugout canoe, two meters long and 70 centimeters broad at its widest place with a 15-centimeter-deep hold, has two spiles, or wooden pegs, shaped like tree stumps on each side. Mao Zhaoxi, a professor in the History Department of Zhejiang University, said the discovery of the canoe will assist research on the history of boat-building in the Neolithic Age. According to Mao, a boat dating back about 5,000 years was excavated earlier this year in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The newly discovered canoe confirms that the country's boat-building history extends back an additional 2,500 years. . .The canoe excavation site, also known as the Kuahuqiao ruins, contains the most ancient neolithic cultural relics in Zhejiang. Over the past decade, numerous pieces of precious pottery, stoneware and jade articles dating back 7,000 to 8,000 years have been discovered there.

BTW, I found this while I was looking up that other stuff--is this the same controversial find we were discussing before that some researchers had argued was natural rather than manmade, or is it a different find?

The Ryukyuan Submerged Landforms of the Late Quaternary: Possible Cultural Context and Significance

[blam]

"is this the same controversial find we were discussing before that some researchers had argued was natural rather than manmade, or is it a different find?"

Aren't these the structures that were declared to be natural by Dr Robert Schoch (Geologist/Geophysist)?

That's a good article. I may post it as a stand-alone article.

"The pottery is basically a brownish grey cord-marked ware which has a wide distribution in the Western Pacific, but similar "Jomon" artistic examples have extended as far as Peru."

Could these be our drug dealers? LOL.

[blam]

Over here.

[Fedora]

Aren't these the structures that were declared to be natural by Dr Robert Schoch (Geologist/Geophysist)?

That's what I was wondering. Glad you mentioned Schoch's name--that enabled me to find one of the threads I had in mind where you were discussing his views on certain sites:

Medieval Ruins Found Off Atami (Underwater - Japan)

I don't know if what's in that article by Hurtak I linked is the same site Schoch was talking about--gotta go through that thread now that I found it and look up the geographical references--but in Hurtak's article, at least, that first Ryuku landform pic doesn't look like a natural structure to me--maybe an artificial modification of a natural structure, though. It actually kind of reminds me of a glacial-created terrace which slopes down towards a stream in my backyard (I live near an Ice Age park trail), only what I see in that picture is a lot smoother-looking, like maybe someone took such a terrace and reworked it.

That's a good article. I may post it as a stand-alone article.

If it hasn't been posted before, it looks like a good one to post.

Could these be our drug dealers? LOL.

Yes--it appears the Chicoms may have begun moving into the Latin American market even earlier than anyone suspected. . .LOL!

[blam]

" that first Ryuku landform pic doesn't look like a natural structure to me--maybe an artificial modification of a natural structure, though."

I saw a one hour documentary about these structures and Schoch was swimming around them in scuba gear. In the same area, he pointed out structures on land that looked just like them...all natural. He reluctantly conceded that they may have had some human modification before they went underwater but, he just seemed like he was trying to please his host. He did say, "I'll come back immediately if you find writing on them."

Also, Schoch, in his book, Voyages Of The Pyramid Builders, said that from all that he's seen, the underwater structures off the coast of Cuba are natural too.

[blam]

Check this out:

Jomon Genes

(Using DNA, Researchers Probe The Genetic Origins Of Modern Japanese)

[JimSEA]

Productive discussion! Thinking back to the Hunan site with the phoenix bird and the infusion of new mythic symbolism at some 7000 years ago, you might want to throw in the genetic links the Orang Asli of Malaysia (Proto-Malay or Negrito). Today, they are stuck in an agricultural, early iron age culture, however, they were the first to farm rice, had pottery very early and have genetic ties with Korea, South China, India, the Middle East and East Europ. All with no apparent explaination and the "universal" common myths (ie. great birds, flood, serpents, etc.). They also are about the only genetic tie some of the more isolated New Guinea tribes have. Along with the mystry of the Anui and Joman, they must have had the problem that the only early pathways over long distances are found in the stepps and the coastline which is now submerged.

[blam]

The Negritos seem to have been everywhere at one time.

The Andaman Islanders

[Fedora]

I'll see if I can find the documentary. Not having the documentary at the moment, just going by that one picture, one thing I do notice is that the article says the formations are limestone, and I'd assume it would be possible to compare what's in that picture with other samples of limestone to see if limestone can naturally form that way. What strikes me as artificial about it is, like the author says, "Limestone concentrations resembling coastal terraces found in several Ryukyuan sites have sharp edges, right-angles, and unusual arrangements"--and also, those features are extended for quite a few meters. Maybe it's possible for limestone to get like that naturally, but it at least looks unusual compared to most limestone I've seen either underwater or on the shoreline. I'm trying to find some pictures online--here's an example of a limestone formation near a shoreline and, although it's not as close-up as that underwater picture, even from a distance it's visible how much rougher it's carved than what's in that other picture:

Limestone

Here's a better picture of the type of limestone formation typical on land in my area:

LIMESTONES

There's a number of other limestone formations on land here:

LISTING OF GEOLOGICAL SEDIMENTARY FORMATIONS OF ARIZONA

Here's a gallery of underground formations:

Gallery - Limestone formations

Underwater limestone formations often occur in the form of caves that resemble underground limestone formations (here's a good picture: Cavern Diver looks onto Cave Formations); or in the form of coral reefs. There is also a distinctive type of large limestone formation found on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge--found a discussion but no pictures at:

"Discovering the Lost City":

Q: At the end of 2000 you found a type of undersea hydrothermal vent that no one had ever seen before. What was that?

Kelley: We found a new kind of hydrothermal vent that we believe forms from circulation of fluids in deep rocks, called peridotites, that underlie submarine magma chambers. In certain places in the Mid-Atlantic ridge, there can be 50,000 to 100,000 years between volcanic events. But the plates are always spreading apart. So when they do finally rupture, very large faults form, through processes that we don't fully understand. But those faults end up stripping off the top, say, eight kilometers of rock on the ocean floor. That exposes very deep underlying rocks that have a very different chemistry, and that are chemically unstable on the sea floor. The interaction of seawater with the unstable peridotites generates heat. So it's a very different process than the generation of heat from cooling of a magma chamber. This is a chemical reaction that's generating the heat.

Q: So the heat comes from a chemical reaction between seawater and these unique rocks that usually reside at such great depth?

Kelley: Right.

Q: And when the heat from this reaction drives fluid circulation, the fluids venting on the seafloor form a different type of structure?

Kelley: Yes. Because the peridotite rocks have a unique chemistry, the warm fluids that interact with them also have a different chemistry than typical black smokers. When the warm fluids mix with seawater, calcium carbonate crystallizes out of the seawater and forms limestone. So these towers that we discovered are basically made from the same elements that form limestone, the limestone formations you see in caves.

Q: And what do they look like?

Kelley: They are very steep-sided pinnacles rising from the ocean floor. They look like the skyscrapers of an underwater limestone city. We called it "the Lost City." One was 180 feet tall. That's the largest hydrothermal vent structure ever found. Previously, the tallest known hydrothermal vent was a black smoker called "Godzilla." That one was forty-five to fifty meters tall (about 150 feet). So these things can get quite large.

There's probably pictures somewhere online if I poke around long enough, but I've done enough Googling for tonight--LOL! Anyway, I'll look for that documentary.

[Fedora]

Check this out:

Jomon Genes

So the Jomon are ancestral to the Ainu but not to modern Japanese? Pretty interesting. I wonder what that implies about the relationship between the Jomon and the Hakka Japanese you've mentioned?

[Fedora]

Speaking of Malaysia, here's some references that touch on that which I've collected while looking up stuff we've been discussing; I've found these helpful, so I thought I'd pass it on in case anyone else finds them useful:

History of the Philippines

After the last ice age, the sea level rose an estimated 35m (110 feet), which cut the land bridges, filling the shallow seas north of Borneo. Thus the only method of migration left was the dugout prao, built by felling trees and hollowing them out with adzes. To this day, the Filipino word for village is kin to the word for boat. Around 3000 BCE, Malays, from what is now Indonesia and Malaysia, also entered the area.

Austronesian Expansion - Taiwan 4,000 BC

By 5,000 BC an especially potent and versatile culture combining fishing and gardening had developed on the south coast of China. As well as growing their food on land, these maritime gardeners were accomplished at fishing the waters in the Straits of Taiwan from boats with hooks and nets. Between 4,000 and 3,000 BC, these fishermen-farmers crossed the 150 km of the Straits and settled on Taiwan.

It is important to note that the fishermen-farmers who crossed the straits to Taiwan were not the Sino-Tibetan speaking Han Chinese who today make up the great majority of the Chinese population. Linguistic evidence from Taiwan suggests that they spoke an Austronesian language closely related to the Tai-Kadai language family that is the dominant language group today in Laos, Thailand and the north and east of Burma.

On Taiwan, the Austronesian speaking fishermen-farmers honed their sea-faring skills. They soon embarked on one of the most astonishing and extensive colonizations in human history known as the Austronesian expansion. By about 2,500 BC, one group, and just one group of Austronesian speakers from Taiwan had ventured to northern Luzon in the Philippines and settled there. The archaeological record from the Cagayan Valley in northern Luzon shows that they brought with them the same set of stone tools and pottery they had in Taiwan. The descendants of this group spread their language and culture through the Indo-Malayan archipelago as far west as Madagascar off the east coast of Africa and as far east as Hawaii and Easter Island in the central Pacific Ocean.

For the most part, the Austronesians encountered unoccupied coasts and islands. Where they met hunting and gathering cultures, their horticultural productivity and population growth soon overwhelmed the aboriginal occupants. All the surviving Aeta populations in the Philippines speak Austronesian languages. Where they met established agrarian cultures, such as along the coasts of Vietnam (Champa) and Indo-China, their incursions were limited.

The speed of the Austronesian expansion was also a consequence of their maritime culture. Under the pressure of an expanding population, adventurous colonizers would prefer to settle new lands on coasts and islands before pressing inland and away from the sea. Furthermore, the Austronesian kinship system gave higher status, prestige and authority to the lineages most closely related to the society's founder. Austronesian culture put a premium on founding new colonies that gave an additional incentive to continued expansion. As it was, there were many new coasts and islands available for occupation and settlement.

Over the next thousand years to 1,500 BC, the Austronesians spread south through the Philippines to the Celebes, the Moluccas, northern Borneo and eastern Java. One branch went east from the Moluccan Island of Halmahera about 1,600 BC to colonize eastern Melanesia (1,200 BC) and Micronesia (500 BC). The migration had continued well into Polynesia by 0 AD and on to Hawaii and Easter Island by 500 AD. The Austronesians finally reached the last uninhabited land on earth, New Zealand, sometime around 1,300 AD.

Other Austronesians continued west through Borneo and Java to Sumatra and settled the coasts of the Malay peninsula and southern Vietnam by 500 BC. From Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, they learned to master the semi-annual winds of the Indian Ocean monsoons. Around 100 AD, they crossed the Bay of Bengal and made contacts with Sri Lanka and southern India. The western branch of the Austronesian expansion reached its furthest extent by 500 AD plying the monsoons to colonize Madagascar.

A related reference I've found handy is:

History of the Pacific Islands

[JimSEA]

Thanks for the article. It seems particularly interesting to compare these Andaman folk with those on New Guinea, where the hunter gathers are near to coast and the agricultural communities are in th highlands and the two groups professed no knowledge of each other. Also, there is a profusion of languages in New Guinea as well. Both groups are more primitive than the majority on the mainland though the Negritos in Malaysia do have many tribes of hunter gathers. All three seem to be stuck in various times.

[JimSEA]

Good articles. I believe the early Taiwan farmers were related to the Tai of Ban Chiang culture and the mid/upper Mekong. It is certaoinly the right language group. The furthest north into China these folks probably got was Nong Chau Kingdome which was pretty well wiped out by the Khans who considered them the lowest form of barbarians -- a tension that still persists both on the mainland and between Han and native on Taiwan.

[Fedora]

I believe the early Taiwan farmers were related to the Tai of Ban Chiang culture and the mid/upper Mekong. It is certaoinly the right language group. The furthest north into China these folks probably got was Nong Chau Kingdome which was pretty well wiped out by the Khans who considered them the lowest form of barbarians -- a tension that still persists both on the mainland and between Han and native on Taiwan.

Pretty interesting! Before they were wiped out by the Khans, did they leave any cultural remains behind?--might be illuminating to examine any remains of their culture for comparison/contrast with other Chinese cultural groups, esp. with respect to any visual representations of their racial features.

[blam]

"Pretty interesting. I wonder what that implies about the relationship between the Jomon and the Hakka Japanese you've mentioned?"

The Hakka are Chinese and they came thousands of years later.

[blam]

Sounds like these could be some of the folks Schoch speaks of in his book, Voyages Of The Pyramid Builders. In this book he speculates that all the cultures of the pyramid builders originated from the Sunda-shelf and these people spread around the world (as the 'shelf' went underwater) taking pyramid building with them, as far away as Egypt and South America.

I'm beginning to think there was a worldwide trade network in prehistoric times and that any part of the network may, or may not, know of the lands where some of the traded goods originated. This could explain how coca leaves (apparently) end up in Egypt and must have been very expensive. These trading links would break and re-establish at various times.(?)

Some of the South American natives have a 'Chinese like' attraction to jade.

[JimSEA]

Thais is easily done as there are remnant groups in Yunnan, Hainan Island and Guangxi provinces in China as well as Thailand, Laos, Northern Burma, Vietnam, Northeast India. Current Southeast Asian culture is heavily influenced by the refugees from China pushing into Mon and Khmer areas of the South. It had been assumed that the Chinese influence only came after the Indic and by way of Chinese traders but archealogical sites show the influence coming from the North between 800 and 1200 AD. There are so many influences plus the original culture which carried North into China initially, that it will probably take the opening up of Burma, Laos and Norheastern Vietnam before a lot gets sorted out. Up until some 20 -30 years ago, it was assumed that all culture and advancements flowed from China south to meat with this Mon / Indic culture but Extensive "Ban Chiang " cultural sites ranging from the Black river basin in Vietnam through the entire Korat Plateau to the Northern Thai, Burmese, Laotian. Mekong area. There they find very earky metallurgy, agriculture, pottery and walled villages.

[Fedora]

"Pretty interesting. I wonder what that implies about the relationship between the Jomon and the Hakka Japanese you've mentioned?"

The Hakka are Chinese and they came thousands of years later.

Didn't they have a Japanese branch, too, though?--maybe I'm misremembering that. Here's the link I think I'm trying to remember on that:

Hakka and Japanese Culture