Jeulmun pottery period

Jeulmun pottery period
Geographical rangeKorean peninsula
PeriodNeolithic
Datesc. 8000 – c. 1500 BC
Followed byMumun pottery period
Korean name
Hunminjeongeum
즐문 토기 시대
Hanja
Revised RomanizationJeulmun togi sidae
McCune–ReischauerChŭlmun t'ogi sidae

The Jeulmun pottery period (Korean즐문 토기 시대) is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory broadly spanning the period of 8000–1500 BC.[1] This period subsumes the Mesolithic and Neolithic cultural stages in Korea,[2][3] lasting ca. 8000–3500 BC ("Incipient" to "Early" phases) and 3500–1500 BC ("Middle" and "Late" phases), respectively.[4] Because of the early presence of pottery, the entire period has also been subsumed under a broad label of "Korean Neolithic".[5]

The Jeulmun pottery period is named after the decorated pottery vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage consistently over the above period, especially 4000-2000 BC. Jeulmun (즐문; 櫛文) means "Comb-patterned". A boom in the archaeological excavations of Jeulmun Period sites since the mid-1990s has increased knowledge about this important formative period in the prehistory of East Asia.

The Jeulmun was a period of hunting, gathering, and small-scale cultivation of plants.[6] Archaeologists sometimes refer to this life-style pattern as "broad-spectrum hunting and gathering".

Map of archaeological sites in the southern Korea peninsular during the Jeulmun Period.
  1. ^ Bale, Martin T. 2001. Archaeology of Early Agriculture in Korea: An Update on Recent Developments. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 21(5):77-84. Choe, C.P. and Martin T. Bale 2002. Current Perspectives on Settlement, Subsistence, and Cultivation in Prehistoric Korea. Arctic Anthropology 39(1-2):95-121. Crawford, Gary W. and Gyoung-Ah Lee 2003. Agricultural Origins in the Korean Peninsula. Antiquity 77(295):87-95. Lee, June-Jeong 2001. From Shellfish Gathering to Agriculture in Prehistoric Korea: The Chulmun to Mumun Transition. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison. Proquest, Ann Arbor. Lee, June-Jeong 2006. From Fisher-Hunter to Farmer: Changing Socioeconomy during the Chulmun Period in Southeastern Korea, In Beyond "Affluent Foragers": The Development of Fisher-Hunter Societies in Temperate Regions, eds. by Grier, Kim, and Uchiyama, Oxbow Books, Oxford.
  2. ^ Choe and Bale 2002
  3. ^ see also Crawford and Lee 2003, Bale 2001
  4. ^ Choe, C P and Martin T Bale (2002) Current Perspectives on Settlement, Subsistence, and Cultivation in Prehistoric Korea. Arctic Anthropology 39(1–2): 95–121. ISSN 0066-6939
  5. ^ Lee 2001
  6. ^ Lee 2001, 2006