Mystery shrouds the ancient Oshoro circle

Japan Times ^ | Sunday, December 14, 2008 | Michael Hoffman

[SunkenCiv]

In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle -- a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made. What could it be? An Ainu fortress? ...Oshoro today is part of the city of Otaru, on its western fringe, 20 km from the city center and 60 km west of Sapporo. The Late Jomon period (circa 2400-1000 B.C.) was an age of northward migration. The north was warming, and severe rainfall was ravaging the established Jomon sites, primarily in the vicinity of today's Tokyo and Nagoya... "By devoting a special area to burials," writes J. Edward Kidder in "The Cambridge History of Japan," "Late Jomon people were isolating the dead, allowing the gap to be bridged by mediums who eventually drew the rational world of the living further away from the spirit world of the dead." ...It is one of about 30 Late Jomon stone circles scattered through northern Japan. In terms of size it ranks about midway between the smallest enclosures and the largest one at Oyu, Akita Prefecture, bounded by thousands of stones. No bones have been found to make an airtight case of the cemetery theory, but relatively few Jomon bones have been found anywhere, the acid in the soil claiming them long before the archaeologist's trowel can.

[Oatka]

OK, thanks, I’ll check it out.

[Drammach]

Our local swimming hole had a large flat gathering place on one shore.
We had gathered a couple ton of pumpkin and cantaloupe sized stones for a fire pit, and then ringed the pit with larger boulders for seats.
While strictly utilitarian in it’s construction, I personally know of several Bulls— ah, “story tellers”, that convinced their girlfriends that it was an ancient Indian “pow wow” site, where tribal chiefs gathered for war councils and such.
It was romantic enough of a fiction to get some “action”, and, while mysterious, not as scary as a cemetery.
I would imagine the fiction has pretty much become accepted as local “factual” history over the decades, with very few of us original site builders now around to refute the myth.
I would even expect it to show up as an illustrated magazine article in some tourist magazine or historical site.
The fact is much simpler.
We needed a barbecue pit and we didn’t want to sit on the ground while we ate.