Mawaki Ruins

A Settlement That Lasted Four Thousand Years

The Mawaki Site occupies a narrow shelf of alluvial lowland on the Uchiura coast of the Noto Peninsula, where Toyama Bay reaches into the eastern edge of Ishikawa. The ground rises only six to twelve metres above the water and is closed in by hills on three sides. Beneath the rice paddies that cover it today, in places as deep as four metres down, lie thirteen Jomon cultural layers laid down with almost no interruption across roughly four thousand years.

That continuity is what sets Mawaki apart. Most Jomon-period sites in Japan record a single phase of occupation, sometimes two. Here, archaeologists found a place that people used from the early part of the Early Jomon, around 4000 BCE, through to the close of the Final Jomon in the third century BCE. The site was designated a National Historic Site in 1989, and a separate group of 219 objects recovered from it was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1991.

How the Site Came to Light

The excavation began for an ordinary reason. In 1980 the local authority drew up a plan to consolidate and level the paddy fields at Mawaki, and the board of education of the former Noto Town carried out a rescue dig ahead of the work, across four seasons between 1982 and 1984. What the trenches revealed went well beyond a routine survey.

The deposits separated into twenty-four distinct layers. Thirteen of them belonged to the Jomon period, and together they traced an unbroken sequence of pottery styles from the Early through the Final Jomon. Pottery of nearly every Hokuriku-region type turned up, layer by layer and in great quantity, a stratigraphic record with few parallels anywhere in the country. Groundwater had sealed the lower layers, so wood, seeds, basketry and other organic material that normally rots away had survived.

Why It Was Protected

When the Agency for Cultural Affairs assessed Mawaki, three things stood out. The first was the sheer span of occupation and the matching pottery sequence, which makes the site a reference point for tracking how Jomon material culture changed over time in northern Honshu. The second was a set of structures unlike ordinary dwellings, above all the rows of massive wooden posts described below. The third was the volume of animal and plant remains, including the dolphin bones, which give an unusually direct picture of how the people here fed themselves.

Taken together, the excavators argued, these features had no equal among Japan's Jomon sites. The 1989 designation set out to preserve the ground itself; the 1991 designation covered 219 of the objects lifted from it.

The Ring of Chestnut Pillars

The find that drew the most attention was a row of giant wooden posts. Three separate sets were detected, though the edges of the excavation meant only one could be traced in full. Each formed a circle. The posts were cut from huge chestnut trunks, fifty to a hundred centimetres across, then split lengthwise, and they were set so that the rounded outer face of every post turned inward toward the centre of the ring. The three circles have been reconstructed with diameters of 7.5, 6.2 and 5.3 metres.

These belong to the Final Jomon period; a radiocarbon reading taken from one post root returned a date of 2,655 years before present, give or take 25 years. Posts of the same kind were found at the Chikamori Site in nearby Kanazawa, and the two are generally treated as the same tradition. What the rings were for is still discussed. A roofed building, a raised platform, a ceremonial enclosure and a marker tied to the seasons have all been suggested, and no single answer has settled the question. A reconstructed ring now stands on the spot where the posts were found, and standing inside it gives a sense of scale that no photograph quite carries.

A Carved Post and a Bed of Dolphin Bone

Among the wooden objects, one stands out. A chestnut log 252 centimetres long and up to 45 centimetres thick had been worked along its upper half: three raised bands, formed by cutting horizontal grooves, encircle it, and the lower end tapers to a soft rounded point. It came out of a late Early Jomon layer, lying in a mass of dolphin bone. No record explains its purpose, but the careful shaping marks it as something other than a structural timber.

The dolphin bone itself is one of the site's defining features. Remains of several hundred animals were recovered, concentrated in cultural layers eleven and twelve, which excavators came to call the dolphin layers. They date from the late Early Jomon into the early Middle Jomon. The Uchiura coast stayed productive long after the Jomon: it was known for centuries as a fixed-net fishing ground, and at Mawaki a form of dolphin drive hunting continued from the Edo period into the early twentieth century. Fish, other mammals and bird bone were also found across the dig, along with wood, seeds and leaf fragments.

Pottery, Figurines and the Bird-Shaped Vessel

The 219 objects designated in 1991 are kept at the Mawaki Site Jomon Museum beside the excavation. They include the much-photographed bird-shaped vessel, known locally as the torisan doki, along with clay figurines, clay masks and clay discs. Stone tools cover arrowheads, spears and stone rods, and there is a category of polished stone object particular to the Hokuriku region. Bone, antler and tooth were worked into points and ornaments. The waterlogged ground also preserved wooden plates and oars, woven basketry and lengths of rope. Burials turned up as well, including pit graves floored with wooden boards, dating to the Middle Jomon.

Visiting Mawaki

The site and its museum sit within Mawaki Site Park. The museum holds the original artifacts and an introduction to the settlement; an adjoining experience hall runs hands-on sessions such as making Jomon-style pottery, starting a fire without matches, and cooking with ancient varieties of rice. Outdoors, the reconstructed pillar ring and a board-floored grave mark their original excavation points. The same grounds include a hot spring, Jomon Mawaki Onsen, and a place to stay, so a visit can easily fill half a day or more.

The museum opens from 9:00 to 17:00 and closes on Mondays and Tuesdays and over the New Year period. Admission is modest. By car, the site is about 40 minutes from the Noto Satoyama Airport interchange and roughly 30 to 40 minutes from the airport itself. Public transport is possible but slow: a train from Kanazawa to Anamizu, then a local bus toward Mawaki. The Noto Peninsula was struck by a major earthquake at the start of 2024; the museum closed and reopened that May, and recovery across the region continues, so it is worth checking current conditions and opening hours before setting out.