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Pacific Northeast Asia in Prehistory: Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers, Farmers, and Sociopolitical Elites
Contents include such topics as Prehistoric Aquaculture on the Western Coast of the Pacific, Exploitation Dynamics During the Jomon Period, Miura caves on Tokyo Bay, Origins of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in China, The Development od Stoneware Technology in Southern Korea, and many other fascinating topics.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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April 14, 2025
the Proceedings i read focussed on CircumPacific PreHistory. There wer close to a hundred papers included, many just abstracts. Some talked about present nay archaeology projects and others on the future of archaeology and some on language groupings, others on early contact with the Spaniard explorers.
I focused on the Prehistoric Trans-Pacific Contact sessions. One paper dwelled on accidental trans-Pacific voyages. Another examined (argued) the claims that Valdivian ceramics finds of 3000BC had Jomon antecedents (from Japan).
A paper comparing MesoAmerican themes of gods and animals with Hindu deities and calendars reached no conclusion.
Japanese style pottery was found in southwest Washington State, dating to AD 1400 that had to been fired in a kiln (unheard of in the rest of prehistory America). Elemental Dispursive Xray (EDX) analysis revealed the ceramics were made from local clay. The people who had once inhabited the Lake River area have not been identified, left the area and it is not known where they went.
Ancient temples in India show stone sculptures with ears of maize. There were twenty-eight detailed examinations of these stone maize pieces showing it had to be from modelling after real maize. Such details included: shapes in carvings, sides of ears are parallel, tips of ears are pointed, ears are sometimes warped, husks may only partially cover the ear, rows of kernels are generally parallel, occasionally rows are jumbled (a condition called tesselate), sketches of ears sometimes were found where sculpturing was incomplete, knobs at the end of ears sometimes showed a deformity (which was indicative of larval destruction), kernels are rectangular in outline, kernels are smaller at the tips of ears, at least once the upper 1/5 of kernels are tiny as though unfertilized, and dog tooth kernel features were noted. The conclusion being the sculptors had to have had real corn to model from, for the Hoysala Temples.
The most intriguing paper was titled the Zuni Enigma by Nancy Yaw Davis. The Zuni are an unusual group. Their language has no clearly established affiliation. Zuni have several distinctive tooth features and unusually high incidence (11%* of type B blood (vs 0% in rest of Amerinds). Europe has 8% and Japan has 22%. Problems persist about Zuni prehistory during Pueblo IV, circa 13th Century.
Features of Hawikah Zuni of Pueblo IV are highly distinctive: the new population was shorter and smaller, deemed a mixing of two populations. The red cell phosphatase is similar to Japan: the gene frequency is 0.199 in Japan and 0.208 in Zuni.
Unusual types of glazed pottery were in the Zuni area, for a relatively short time (150 years) starting about AD 1250. It is proposed a Japanese ship(s) with as much as 100 sailors reached the California coast and mixed with native women and moved eastward due to a series of eight earthquakes (from oral history) to settle in the SW.
Both Zuni and Japan have complex systems of directional orientation involving color, seasons and elements. Zuni religion (dualism) had elements of Yin-Yang. There are many linguistic parallels. From a list of 627 words appear similar even before considering sound shifts. The paper provides words that are similar in both languages such as words for river, summit, sand, crow, sparrow, mountain, angry, tall, mean, wake up, dish, back, spheres, ancient, old, wide, within and to be inside of (uchi for both). One wonders how language might change if men spoke one and the women another. [Romans occupying Romania might be an example.]
In both Zuni and Japan, kinship terms extend beyond blood relationships. Changes in Zuni suggest a shift from strong matrilineal clans with input from a strong patrilineal system.
There was a lot of turmoil in Japan in the 13C with attacks from China, Korean army and the Kublai Khan (tried invading twice), to motivate living elsewhere [but what evidence that North America was known?] Japan in 13C was ripe for a religiously motivated pilgrimage.
In summary > evidence suggests Asian admixture in Zuni biology, lexicon, religion, social organization, and oral traditions of migration and recognition of two distinct populations. Mitochondrial DNA testing wouldn't provide proof, as only transmitted through females and unlikely women sailed... [but if a religious pilgrimage, why not?]
I focused on the Prehistoric Trans-Pacific Contact sessions. One paper dwelled on accidental trans-Pacific voyages. Another examined (argued) the claims that Valdivian ceramics finds of 3000BC had Jomon antecedents (from Japan).
A paper comparing MesoAmerican themes of gods and animals with Hindu deities and calendars reached no conclusion.
Japanese style pottery was found in southwest Washington State, dating to AD 1400 that had to been fired in a kiln (unheard of in the rest of prehistory America). Elemental Dispursive Xray (EDX) analysis revealed the ceramics were made from local clay. The people who had once inhabited the Lake River area have not been identified, left the area and it is not known where they went.
Ancient temples in India show stone sculptures with ears of maize. There were twenty-eight detailed examinations of these stone maize pieces showing it had to be from modelling after real maize. Such details included: shapes in carvings, sides of ears are parallel, tips of ears are pointed, ears are sometimes warped, husks may only partially cover the ear, rows of kernels are generally parallel, occasionally rows are jumbled (a condition called tesselate), sketches of ears sometimes were found where sculpturing was incomplete, knobs at the end of ears sometimes showed a deformity (which was indicative of larval destruction), kernels are rectangular in outline, kernels are smaller at the tips of ears, at least once the upper 1/5 of kernels are tiny as though unfertilized, and dog tooth kernel features were noted. The conclusion being the sculptors had to have had real corn to model from, for the Hoysala Temples.
The most intriguing paper was titled the Zuni Enigma by Nancy Yaw Davis. The Zuni are an unusual group. Their language has no clearly established affiliation. Zuni have several distinctive tooth features and unusually high incidence (11%* of type B blood (vs 0% in rest of Amerinds). Europe has 8% and Japan has 22%. Problems persist about Zuni prehistory during Pueblo IV, circa 13th Century.
Features of Hawikah Zuni of Pueblo IV are highly distinctive: the new population was shorter and smaller, deemed a mixing of two populations. The red cell phosphatase is similar to Japan: the gene frequency is 0.199 in Japan and 0.208 in Zuni.
Unusual types of glazed pottery were in the Zuni area, for a relatively short time (150 years) starting about AD 1250. It is proposed a Japanese ship(s) with as much as 100 sailors reached the California coast and mixed with native women and moved eastward due to a series of eight earthquakes (from oral history) to settle in the SW.
Both Zuni and Japan have complex systems of directional orientation involving color, seasons and elements. Zuni religion (dualism) had elements of Yin-Yang. There are many linguistic parallels. From a list of 627 words appear similar even before considering sound shifts. The paper provides words that are similar in both languages such as words for river, summit, sand, crow, sparrow, mountain, angry, tall, mean, wake up, dish, back, spheres, ancient, old, wide, within and to be inside of (uchi for both). One wonders how language might change if men spoke one and the women another. [Romans occupying Romania might be an example.]
In both Zuni and Japan, kinship terms extend beyond blood relationships. Changes in Zuni suggest a shift from strong matrilineal clans with input from a strong patrilineal system.
There was a lot of turmoil in Japan in the 13C with attacks from China, Korean army and the Kublai Khan (tried invading twice), to motivate living elsewhere [but what evidence that North America was known?] Japan in 13C was ripe for a religiously motivated pilgrimage.
In summary > evidence suggests Asian admixture in Zuni biology, lexicon, religion, social organization, and oral traditions of migration and recognition of two distinct populations. Mitochondrial DNA testing wouldn't provide proof, as only transmitted through females and unlikely women sailed... [but if a religious pilgrimage, why not?]
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