This paper examines how prehistoric people perceived the space and practiced spacial organization in the house in the Bronze Age based on the types of artifacts and their arrangement as well as features found in the house. In other words, through the ...
This paper examines how prehistoric people perceived the space and practiced spacial organization in the house in the Bronze Age based on the types of artifacts and their arrangement as well as features found in the house. In other words, through the plans and sections of rectangular structures in the early Bronze Age, the space identified in the dwellings is divided into cooking area, activity area, storage area, residential area, entrance, and so on. Furthermore, in order to identify how this people organized the pace in the house, and how the house was divided into male and female spaces, all these various types of areas are carefully examined.
Among artifacts recovered from the house, potteries and stone-tools were separately stored inside the dwelling. Many house sites have the storage area that contains potteries or storage pits. An activity area for making stone-tools in the house is situated in the bounded place. Some activity areas identified inside the house produce more metates lithic flakes than those of others. This fact indicates that the manufacture and the repair of stone-tools were conducted inside the house. The cooking area in which grains were processed and prepared produces manos, metates, and potteries. It also indicates that cooking was conducted inside the house. The dwelling site, Misa-ri A no. 9, is considered that the resident of the house produced potteries as it yields pottery clay. Unfortunately, the evidence for the pottery manufacture is not found in other sites. Some sites have the evidence of the entrance. Judging from this, the entrance of other sites is either destroyed since the site abandonment or damaged by the use of tools. The traces of partition, the arrangement of the postholes, and the raised floor found in the house all indicate that the Bronze Age people organized the space inside the house as various activity areas.
Based upon the artifacts found in the house, the activity areas identified inside the house seem to be planned for the purpose. In addition, the identification of the activity area for the manufacture of stone-tools and the cooking area indicate that some part of the house was separately used by male and female.