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The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory that dates to approximately 1500-300 B.C. (Ahn 2000; Bale 2001; Crawford and Lee 2003). It is named after the undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage consistently over the above period, especially 850-550 B.C.
The Mumun Period is significant for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago (Bale 2001; Crawford and Lee 2003). This period or parts of it have sometimes been labelled as the "Korean Bronze age", but since bronze production and artifacts are rare and the distribution of bronze is highly regionalized until the latter part of the 7th century B.C., such terminology is misleading (Kim 1996; Lee 2001). A boom in the archaeological excavations of Mumun period sites since the mid-1990s has recently increased our knowledge about this important formative period in the prehistory of Northeast Asia.
The Mumun period follows the Jeulmun pottery period (c. 8000-1500 B.C.). The Jeulmun was a period of hunting, gathering, and small-scale cultivation of plants (Lee 2001). The origins of the Mumun period are not well known, but the megalithic burials, Mumun pottery, and large settlements found in the Liao River Basin and North Korea c. 1800-1500 probably indicate the origins of the Mumun Period of Southern Korea. Kim suggests that as they moved south from North Korea, slash-and-burn cultivators who used Mumun pottery displaced people using Jeulmun Period subsistence patterns (Kim 2003).
Early Mumun
The Early Mumun period (c. 1500-850 B.C.) is characterized by shifting cultivation, fishing, hunting, and small settlements with rectangular semi-subterranean pit-houses. The social scale of Early Mumun societies may have been egalitarian in nature, but the latter part of this period is characterized by increasing intra-settlement competition and perhaps the presence of part-time "big-man" leadership (Lee 2001). Early Mumun settlements are relatively concentrated in the river valleys formed by tributaries of the Geum River in West-central Korea. However, one of the largest Early Mumun settlements, Eoeun (Hangeul: 어은), is located in the Middle Nam River valley in South-central Korea. In the latter Early Mumun large settlements of many long-houses such as Baekseok-dong (Hangeul: 백석동) appeared in the area of modern Cheonan City, Chungcheong Nam-do.
Important long-term traditions related to Mumun ceremonial systems originated in this sub-period. These traditions include the construction of megalithic burials, the production of red-burnished pottery, and production of polished groundstone daggers.
Middle Mumun
The Middle (or Classic) Mumun period (c. 850-550 B.C.) is characterized by intensive agriculture, as evidenced by the large and expansive dry-field remains (c. 32,500 square metres) recovered at Daepyeong (Hangeul: 대평), a sprawling settlement with several multiple ditch enclosures, hundreds of pit-houses, specialized production, and evidence of the presence of incipient elites and social competition (Bale 2001; Crawford and Lee 2003; Nelson 1999). A number of wet-field features have been excavated, indicating that paddy field rice-farming was also used.
Social change in the Middle Mumun is evidenced by the architectural switch from using large rectangular pit-houses with multiple hearths in the Early Mumun to using small, square and circular pit-houses in the Middle and Late Mumun. High status megalithic burials and large raised-floor buildings at the Deokcheon-ni (Hangeul: 덕천리) and Igeum-dong sites (Hangeul: 이금동) in Gyeongsang Nam-do provide further evidence of the growth of social inequality and the existence of polities that were organized in ways that appear to be similar to simple "chiefdoms" (see Rhee and Choi 1992).
Burials dating to the latter part of the Middle Mumun (c. 700-550 B.C.) contain a few high status mortuary offerings such as bronze artifacts. Bronze production probably began around this time in Southern Korea. Other high status burials contain greenstone (or jade) ornaments (Nelson 1999; Rhee and Choi 1992). Korean archaeologists sometimes refer to Middle Mumun culture as Songgung-ni culture (Hanja: 松菊里 文化; Hangeul: 송국리 문화)(Ahn 2000).
Mumun culture is the beginning of a long-term tradition of rice-farming in Korea that links Mumun Culture with the present-day, but evidence from the Early and Middle Mumun suggests that, although rice was grown, it was not the dominant crop (Crawford and Lee 2003:91). During the Mumun people grew millets, barley, wheat, legumes, and continued to hunt and fish.
Late Mumun
The Late Mumun (550-300 B.C.) is characterized by increasing conflict, fortified hilltop settlements, and a concentration of population in the southern coastal area. A Late Mumun occupation was found at the Namsan settlement, located on the top of a 100 m above sea level hill in modern Changwon City, Gyeongsang Nam-do. Pit-houses at Namsan were located inside a ring-ditch that is some 4.2 m deep and 10 m in width. A shellmidden (shellmound) was found in the vicinity of Namsan, indicating that, in addition to agriculture, shellfish exploitation was part of the Late Mumun subsistence system in some areas.
Notably, Mumun-esque settlements appeared in Northern Kyushu (Japan) during the Late Mumun. The Mumun period ends when iron appeared in the archaeological record along with pit-houses that had interior composite hearth-ovens reminiscent of the historic period (Hangeul: 아궁이, agungi).
From about 300 B.C., bronze objects became the ascendent prestige mortuary goods, but iron objects were traded and then produced in the Korean peninsula at that time. The Late Mumun-Early Iron age Neuk-do Island Shellmidden Site yielded a small number of iron objects, Lelang and Yayoi pottery, and other evidence showing that beginning in the Late Mumun, local societies were drawn into closer economic and political contact with the societies of the Late Zhou, Final Jomon, and Early Yayoi.
References
- Ahn, Jae-ho. Hanguk nonggyeongsahoe-eui seongnib (The formation of agricultural society in Korea). Hanguk Kogo-Hakbo (Journal of the Korean Archaeological Society) 43:41-66, 2000.
- Bale, Martin T. Archaeology of Early Agriculture in Korea: An Update on Recent Developments. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 21(5):77-84, 2001.
- Crawford, Gary W. and Gyoung-Ah Lee. Agricultural Origins in the Korean Peninsula. Antiquity 77(295):87-95, 2003.
- Kim, Jangsuk. Land-use Conflict and the Rate of Transition to Agricultural Economy: A Comparative Study of Southern Scandinavia and Central-western Korea. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10(3):277-321, 2003.
- Kim, Seung Og. Political Competition and Social Transformation: The Development of Residence, Residential Ward, and Community in Prehistoric Taegongni of Southwestern Korea. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Proquest, Ann Arbor, 1996.
- Lee, June-Jeong. From Shellfish Gathering to Agriculture in Prehistoric Korea: The Chulmun to Mumun Transition. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madision. Proquest, Ann Arbor, 2001.
- Nelson, Sarah M. Megalithic Monuments and the Introduction of Rice into Korea. In The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change, edited by C. Gosden and J. Hather, pp. 147-165. Routledge, London, 1999.
- Rhee, S. N. and M. L. Choi. Emergence of Complex Society in Prehistoric Korea. Journal of World Prehistory 6: 51-95, 1992.
See also
- List of Korea-related topics
- Jeulmun Pottery Period
- Bronze Age
- Yemaek
- Liaoning bronze dagger culture
External links
Archaeological cultures | Early Korean history | Korean archaeology | Asian archaeology
"Mumun pottery period"