한국과 일본의 초기도작 - 미완의 과제들 = Some Unsolved Issues in the Early Rice Agriculture of Korea and Japan

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper try to deal with some common controversies in the study of early rice agriculture of Korea and Japan. Firstly, though there have been arguments that rice husks were found from the presumed late Pleistocene peat deposits in Soro-ri site, central Korea, they were not directly related with domesticated rice in Korea. Rice might had been cultivated from Neolithic Korea and Jomon Japan. Nevertheless radio-carbon datings directly to rice samples are urgently needed to solve the controversy. Thirdly, early rites grown in Korea and Japan were mostly Japonica-type, but some argues that Indica-type rice had existed from Neolithic Korea and tropical Japonica(that is Javanica)-type rice had been also cultivated in slash-and-burn and/or dry fields of Jomon and early Yayoi Japan. The present writer is sceptical about this argument. If Tropical Japonica-type rice was grown in Jomon and early Yayoi, we must check a possibility that it was related with Large-type rice in Korea. Fourthly, the model that early rice agriculture of Korea and Japan had been developed from the slash-and-burn field to the paddy field via dry one is open to question since paddy field had already been operated in China before rice agriculture diffused into Korea.. Fifthly, the southern route of early rice diffusion, proposed mostly by folklorists and agronomists, still lacks archaeological evidences. Another diffusion route via eastern region of Korea is suggested though similar kind of suggestion in Japan lacks evidences of rice cultivation.