Barley (Hordeum vulgare) in the Okhotsk culture (5th-10th century AD) of northern Japan and the role of cultivated plants in hunter-gatherer economies.

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses archaeobotanical remains of naked barley recovered from the Okhotsk cultural layers of the Hamanaka 2 archaeological site on Rebun Island, northern Japan. Calibrated ages (68% confidence interval) of the directly dated barley remains suggest that the crop was used at the site ca. 440-890 cal yr AD. Together with the finds from the Oumu site (north-eastern Hokkaido Island), the recovered seed assemblage marks the oldest well-documented evidence for the use of barley in the Hokkaido Region. The archaeobotanical data together with the results of a detailed pollen analysis of contemporaneous sediment layers from the bottom of nearby Lake Kushu point to low-level food production, including cultivation of barley and possible management of wild plants that complemented a wide

SUBMITTER: Leipe C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5371317 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature