This study is to examine the method of burial especially regarding tombs in the Bronze Ageexcavated from Yulha-ri sites, Gimhae in Korea. The site is a large scale settlement includinghousing, storage, tomb, and ritual space in Bronze Age. Tombs that ...
This study is to examine the method of burial especially regarding tombs in the Bronze Ageexcavated from Yulha-ri sites, Gimhae in Korea. The site is a large scale settlement includinghousing, storage, tomb, and ritual space in Bronze Age. Tombs that have been found are 106 intotal. The types of tomb are dolmens (Capstone type domens with graveyard facilities (蓋石式墓域支石墓), capstone type dolmen (蓋石式支石墓)), stone coffin tombs (Stone cist tombs, Stoneouter coffin tombs), wooden coffin tombs, hollow type tombs, pottery coffin tombs, etc. Thetypes of tomb chamber were stone cist type, stone outer coffin type, wooden coffin type withstone, wooden coffin type, pottery coffin type, hollow type, etc. Especially, the tomb chamber ofdolmens mainly features stone outer coffin type, but it is notable that all types were adoptedexcept pottery coffin type. It seems that as dolmens are for the external appearance by means ofthe capstone and grave boundaries, the tomb chamber, which is an internal attribute, was notdecided uniformly, but adopted selectively. Recently, many wooden coffin tombs with stone(stone+wood) have been found, which is the result of adopting wooden coffin type more active-ly for the tomb chamber. Thus, it is confirmed that wooden coffin tombs and hollow type tombswere adopted frequently in the Bronze Age. However, this included only one unit of sites, and thus it may not be appropriate to apply it toall other parts of Korean peninsula. It is expected, though that this could be an example of burialmethods in the Bronze Age since there were many tombs excavated in this area, and variousmethods of burial and tomb chambers were found from this site.