Shinmachi Dolmen Cluster

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The Shinmachi Dolmen Cluster is an archaeological site in Itoshima, Fukuoka, Japan. It is a Yayoi-period cemetery with many dolmens (stone tombs) and has been a National Historic Site since 2000. The site sits on a sand dune on the southwest coast of the Itoshima Peninsula, facing the Genkai Sea near Hikizu Bay. People have known about it since the early 1900s, and full excavations were conducted through 1986.

The area is a complex that also includes late Jōmon shell middens, the Mitoko Matsubara Yayoi settlement where coins were found, and early Kofun-period wooden coffin graves. The designation covers the cluster of dolmens and wooden coffin graves from the early Yayoi period. Surveys show the grave area stretches about 80 meters north-south and 140 meters east-west. A total of 57 graves were found, including seven dolmens with their upper stone in place and ten dolmens missing the upper stone. About one-third of the graves are dolmens. Similar stone tombs have been found on the Korean Peninsula.

About half of the graves were excavated; half of those contained small pots. Fourteen sets of human bones were found: infants were buried in jar coffins and adults in wooden coffins. The bones show features typical of the Jōmon people, such as a short face and short stature, and Jōmon-style tooth extraction was common.

Two tombs, Nos. 9 and 11, were fully excavated. Tomb 9 has a granite upper stone weighing about one ton, supported by four dolmens. The grave shaft is roughly 180 cm long, 65 cm wide, and 60 cm deep. A skeleton was found with knees bent, and signs suggest a wooden coffin was used. In Tomb 24, the remains of a middle-aged man were found with a polished Korean willow-leaf arrowhead in his left thigh, placed between stones that backfilled a wooden coffin. Beneath him was an earthen pit containing only teeth from another person, possibly the head of a person killed in battle.

Today, Tomb 24 is protected with a roof, and the nearby Shinmachi Ruins Exhibition Hall shows some of the opened graves in their original spots along with artifacts from the site.