Adoption of the Practice of Horse-Riding in Kofun
Period Japan: With Special Reference to the Caseof the Central Highlands of Japan
SASAKI Ken’ichi1
ABSTRACT

Horses were not native to Japan. Not only did horses have to be imported from the Korean
peninsula, but equestrian specialists also had to be invited in order to raise and reproduce
horses in Japan. In this paper, the author presents regionally distinctive cases of the introductionof horses to the central highlands of Japan in the ﬁfth and sixth centuries A.D. While it is highly
likely that the central polity took the initiative to adopt the practice of horse-riding in Japan, theauthor argues that it was entirely up to local polities how to invite equestrian specialists andimport horses from the Korean peninsula in the ﬁfth century. Furthermoe, the author suggests
the possibility that the central polity in the ﬁfth century was no so powerful to monopolize thediplomatic right that local polities remained so autonomous to maintain their own diplomatic
relationships with local polities in the southern Korean peninsula.
KEYWORDS: Horses, Korea-Japan interaction, ﬁfth century A.D. Kofun Period, state formation

1.

Introduction

Horses were not native to Japan. Not only did horses have to be imported from the
Korean peninsula, but equestrian specialists also had to be invited in order to raise andreproduce horses in Japan. The adoption of the practice of horse-riding as a system has
been a very important subject of the Kofun Period archaeology. It was the proposal of the“horse-rider” theory by Egami Namio in 1949 (Egami, Oka, Ishida, and Yawata 1949)
that triggered the heated discussion in the 1950’s. Egami argued that a large number ofhorse-riders of the Asian continent arrived in Japan at the beginning of the ﬁfth century,
conquered Japanese people, and established a new state.
The majority of Japanese archaeologists, including Kobayashi Yukio (1951), wereagainst Egami’s proposal, and made every effort to refute it. Kobayashi discussed that,while the practice of horse-riding was introduced to Japan in the early ﬁfth century,
the practice became widespread in Japan toward the end of the ﬁfth century, not the
beginning of the ﬁfth century. At ﬁrst, horse trappings had to be imported, and local
Japanese production started after the end of the ﬁfth century.
1 Faculty of Arts and Letters, Meiji University, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101–8301, Japan (ksasaki@meiji.ac.jp)

Category: Original Article Received: 12 June 2018; Accepted: 12 September 2018
JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 6 (2018): 23–53

SASAKI Ken’ichi

At present, very few Japanese archaeologists, if any, consider the horse-rider hypothesis
valid. To refute or to support Egami’s hypothesis, the Japanese archaeologists have inany case basically depended up on analyses of horse-trappings discovered at moundtomb sites, because the bone preservation is so bad that horses are rarely discoveredarchaeologically. As a result, research into horse-trappings of the Kofun Period has
made considerable progress (see Onoyama 1959, Masuda 1966, Yamada 1974, Chiga
1991, Isahaya 2012 and Uchiyama 2013 for synthesis in Japanese; see Edwards 1983 forgood review in English). In a sense, research into horse-trappings is a valid approach tothe studies of social ranking of the elite class. For example, Amako (1993) observes agood correlation between the size of burial chambers and the richness of horse-trappings
deposited in the burial chambers in the sixth century.
The problem is that researches into the practice of horse-riding are so skewed toward
the studies of horse-trappings themselves and their relative chronologies that little
attention has been paid to other aspects of the practice of horse-riding (see Momosaki
1993 for very thorough, comprehensive, and critical synthesis in Japanese). An exception
to this trend in the 1970’s was Mori Kōichi (1974) who called for the necessity to pay
more attention to the archaeological contexts of discoveries of horse-trappings, andsuggested the possibility of horses intentionally buried wearing horse-trappings in the
Kofun Period. Furthermore, Mori (1978) made it clear that the practice of horse sacriﬁces
started in the late ﬁfth century in the Japanese archipelago. At that time, he could only
compile eight cases in the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula, and suggested
the regional and temporal difference in the practice of horse sacriﬁce. Mori’s suggestion
is ahead of the times and is highly noteworthy.
In the 1980’s, the archaeological discoveries of horses that may be interpreted as
being sacriﬁced accumulated, and researches into these discoveries were synthesized
by Yamada (1989) and Matsui (1991) for eastern Japan and Segawa (1991) for Osaka.
In recent years, aspects of horse-pastures became clear in the ﬁeld of Kofun Periodarchaeology (Shibata 2008 for southern Kyushu, Takashima 2008 for northern Kantō,
Nojima 2008 for Shijōnawate City, northern Osaka Prefecture; Miyazaki 2012).
In this paper, following Mori’s (1978) very progressive suggestion, I make clear
the regional difference in the adoption of the practice of horse-riding in northern andsouthwestern regions in the old province of Shinano, present Nagano Prefecture, inthe central highlands of Japan. The selection of the Shinano province is appropriate
because Nagano is the prefecture where the second highest number of the archaeologicaldiscoveries of horse-trapping is reported, the highest being Fukuoka, the prefecture
closest to the Korean peninsula. I will compare these two regional patterns with thecase of the central polity evidenced by the result of archaeological investigations in
Shijōnawate City, northern Osaka Prefecture, and demonstrate that the pattern of the© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANnorthern Shinano province is quite distinctive from that of the central polity. Finally,
I will argue for the possibility that the practice of horse-riding was introduced to thenorthern Shinano province independently from the central polity.

2.

Introduction of horses to the central polity

Currently, the earliest evidence for the introduction of horses to Japan is a wooden
stirrups discovered in a stratum dated toward the end of the fourth century A.D. in aditch adjacent to the Hashihaka mound tomb in Nara Prefecture. The best evidence forthe practice of horse-riding in the region of the central polity comes from several sites in
Shijōnawate City, northern Osaka Prefecture (See Figure 1 for the location of Shijōnawate
and Figure 2 for the locations of archaeological sites in Shijōnawate). These sites are
distributed in a plain of two kilometers in east-west width. The western end of this plainis demarcated by the eastern shore of the freshwater Kawachi Inlet and the eastern end

Figure 1.

Locations of Shijōnawate City, Iida basin, and Nagano basin© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

Figure 2.

Locations of archaeological sites in Shijōnawate City mentioned in the textof the plain by the western foot of the Ikoma Hills. Overall, the settlement and pasturesites are located on the plain and groups of burial mounds where equestrian specialist andthose who managed them were buried are located on the western slope of the Ikoma Hills.
The Kawachi Inlet was connected to the eastern end of the Inland Sea during the Kofun
Period, and it is likely that horses and equestrian specialists from the Korean peninsula
sailed through the Inland Sea and disembarked on the eastern shore of the Inlet.
© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANIn the plain, streams originated from the Ikoma hills ﬂew east to west during the
Kofun Period, which must have functioned as a fence to keep the horses inside pastures(Nojima 2008). These streams are, from north, Sara 讃良, Okabe 岡部, Kiyotaki 清滝,
and Gongen 権現. Archaeological sites in Shijōnawate City where features and artifacts
related to horses have been discovered are spatially separated by these streams, and may
be grouped into three clusters. A group of sites situated between the Sara and Okabestreams are, from west to east, Shitomiya-Kita 蔀屋北 site, Minami-Sage 南山下 site, andSaraokayama 更岡山 Mound Group, the second group between the Okabe and Kiyotaki
streams are Kamada 鎌田 site, Narai 奈良井 site, and the Kiyotaki 清滝 Mound Group,and the third group between the Kiyotaki and Gongen streams are Nakano 中野 site,
Komaike-Hoppō 木間池北方 site, Jō 城 site, and Ōgami 大上 Mound Group. Segawa (1991,
p. 125) boldly interprets that three groups of equestrian specialists settled there by thelate ﬁfth century. Site reports of relevant sites were published after Segawa’s proposal,and here I review the archaeological evidence, from the northern (ﬁrst) group of the sites
to the southern (third) group. In each group, I introduce sites from west to east or the
Kawachi Inlet shore to Ikoma Hill.
In the ﬁrst group, the westernmost site is the Shitomiya-Kita site, at the altitude of 1.0
meter, and dated to the ﬁfth century. At this site, archaeologists discovered a horse burial(Figure 3), horse trappings (Figures 4 and 5), large quantities (76 kg) of pottery sherds
used for salt production, ceramics made with southern Korean techniques, and iron slugs

Figure 3.

Horse burial at the Shitomiya-Kia site (Iwase et al. 2009)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

Figure 4.

Stirrup discovered at the Shitomiya-Kita site (Iwase et al. 2009)(Iwase et al. 2009). A complete set of horse skeleton was discovered, evidence that thehorse was carefully buried. The horse was identiﬁed as Mongolian breed, characterized
by very short height of 125 cm. The horse trappings included two wooden stirrups, apart of a lacquered wooden saddle, and a pair of iron horse bits. The horse bits are oneof the very early type in Japan, and considered imported from the southwestern Korean
peninsula or made in Japan after the Korean prototype. The pottery for salt production
was used for transportation of salt from salt production sites on the sea coast, and salt
was necessary for feeding horses with sodium. The ceramics made with southern Korean
technique were evidence for equestrian specialists arriving from the Korean peninsulaand settled in the Shijōnawate area. Iron slugs would suggest that repairing iron horse
bits took place at the site. The excavators identify this site and neighboring sites in
Shijōnawate City as the site of the historically-known Sarara 讃良 Pasture.
1.2 Kilometers east of the Shitomiya-Kita site is the Minamisage settlement site. At© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

Figure 5.

Saddle discovered at the Shitomiya-Kita site (Iwase et al. 2009)

this site, archaeologists discovered a haniwa ceramic ﬁgurine of a horse, dated to the
middle ﬁfth century. The ﬁgurine is very concrete, and the horse-trappings depicted
are identical to those real horse-trappings discovered at the Shitomiya-Kita site (Nojima
2016b).
500 meters north of the Minamisage site is the Saraokayama Mound Group. There,
horse teeth were discovered in a pit just outside a moat enclosing a circular mound tombof 19 meters in diameter, dated to the sixth century. The pit is 1.5 meters by 2.4 meters(Nojima 1981). Nojima (2016d) speculates that the horse head was buried in this pit
because only the teeth were discovered and the size of the pit was somewhat too small tobury the whole body of a horse.
In the second group situated between the Okabe and Kiyotaki streams, the westernmost
site is the Kamada site, at the altitude of 4.8 meters. At this site, excavators discovereda ditch of four meters in width and 1.1 meters in the remaining depth. The discovered
artifacts include a wide variety of pottery, including Korean ceramics and ceramics madelocally with Korean techniques, various wooden objects presumably used for rituals, 383© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

Figure 6.

Head of a sacriﬁced horse, discovered at the Narai site (Nojima 2016c)

talc beads for rituals, and bones of two horses. The artifacts are dated to the middle ﬁfth
century. The excavators assume that this ditch enclosed a square precinct used for ritual(Nojima 2005b; Murakami 2016), very similar to the one discovered at the Narai site to
be discussed below.
0.8 Kilometers east of the Kamada site is the Narai site, at the altitude of 23.5 meters.
At this site, archaeologists discovered a square feature of approximately 40 meters perside, enclosed by a ditch of approximately ﬁve meters in width, very likely used for aritual. The feature is dated to the late ﬁfth to early sixth centuries. In the ditch, one
horse was buried, carefully placed on a wooden board of two meters long. The headsof six or seven additional horses were discovered in the ditch (Figure 6), apparently
their heads chopped off, presumably sacriﬁced. In the central part of the western ditch
were twelve human ceramic ﬁgurines and six ceramic horse ﬁgurines, dated to the sixth
century (Figure 7). In one large Sue-stoneware jar discovered in the ditch, 36 talc beads
were deposited. All these evidence strongly indicates that this square feature was a ritual
precinct, and horses were an important part of the ritual. In the vicinity of this squarefeature, archaeologists discovered considerable quantities of ceramics made with Korean
techniques and a rectangular feature of one by two meters, paved with stone slabs, where
salt was produced (Nojima et al. 2012; Murakami and Jitsumori 2013). Nojima (2016c)
speculates that living horses were sacriﬁced until the early sixth century, the ceramichorse ﬁgurines came to be used as substitutes of living horses for rituals.
In the ditch enclosing the Kiyotaki No. 2 Mound, horse teeth were discovered ina depression of 20 centimeters in depth, dug into the bottom of the ditch. The No. 2© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

Figure 7. Ceramic ﬁgurines of horses and humans, as well as hand-made miniature pottery for
rituals at the Narai site (Nojima 2016c)

Mound is a circular mound of 23.5 meters dated to the early sixth century. The teeth
belonged to a single horse, and Nojima (1980) speculates that the horse head was placedin the depression.
In the third group, at the Nakano site at the altitude of 22.5 meters, two pieces ofevidence for horses ritually sacriﬁced have been discovered. At the Locality NN-II, ahorse head was discovered to have been placed on burned cherry branches. The head
was placed on a bank of a ditch of 3.8 meters in width, 1.4 meters in depth. Nojima(2005a) speculates that the horse head was offered for a ritual. This feature is dated to
the very early ﬁfth century, which is the earliest-dated example of ritually sacriﬁced
horses in this region.
At the Locality 10 of the Nakano site, a horse head was placed on a wooden board anddeposited in a well. On top of the horse head was a few granite rocks, which were thencovered by complete earthenware bowls and jar, and the pedestal of a pedestalled bowl
(Nishio 1988). Nojima (2016a) speculates that the horse head was offered when a ritual of
discontinuing the use of a well was conducted.
© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

The eastern neighbor of the Nakano site is the Komaike-Hoppō site, and its easternneighbor is the Jō site. At these two sites, archaeologists excavated a large quantities
of ceramics made with southern Korean techniques and horse teeth in a stratum dated
to the ﬁfth century ﬁlling the feature of a stream. Most of the pottery does not show
evidence of being rambled in water, and some of the pottery was in complete pieces(Murakami 2006). Murakami (2006) speculates that rituals took place where the pottery
and horse heads were placed on the bank of the stream.
The northern neighbor of the Jō site is Ōgami Mound Group. In the sixth century,
it appears that equestrian specialists or maybe their managers came to be buried inmound tombs. At the Ōgami Mound Group, archaeologists excavated a keyhole-shaped
mound tomb of 45 meters in length, dated to the early sixth century. The mound was
enclosed by a moat and maybe second, outer moat as well. This suggests that whoever
buried in this mound was in a position to oversee and manage a group of specialists, inthis case equestrian specialists (Murakami and Jitsumori 2017). Nojima (2008, p. 196)
boldly speculates that Kawachi no Umakai no Obito Arako 河内馬飼首荒籠 [Arako, theLeader of Equestrian Specialists in the Old Province of Kawachi] who is mentioned in
the chapter of King Keitai 継体 (r. 507–531) in the Nihon Shoki『日本書紀』[Chronicleof Japan]. In the vicinity of the Ōgami Mound Group, archaeologists also discovered
evidence for rituals, utilizing ceramics made with Korean technique (Murakami andJitsumori 2017).
In sum, all the archaeological evidence at these sites in Shijōnawate City strongly
suggests that pastures for raising horses were located in this area, and Korean equestrian
specialists also resided there. Because these sites are located in the region where thecentral polity was presumably located throughout the Kofun Period, it is very likely thatthe pasture was under the control of the central polity. It is also noteworthy that in a few
cases horses were carefully buried and in many cases were sacriﬁced and their heads
were placed in ditches on the bank of streams or in a ditch enclosing a ritual precinct. In
the sixth century, horse ﬁgurines were also used for rituals.

3.

Introduction of horses to southwestern Shinano

Ample archaeological evidence for horses during the Middle Kofun Period (ﬁfth century)
comes from the Iida basin, located in the southwestern Nagano Prefecture or the oldprovince of Shinano. Nagano happens to be the prefecture where the second highest
number of the discoveries of horse-trappings have been reported.
Here, I list the discoveries of horse burials in the Iida basin. Mound tombs in the
Iida basin are spatially grouped into ﬁve areas, namely Zakōji 座光寺, Kamigō 上郷,
Matsuo 松尾, Tatsuoka 竜丘, and Kawaji 川路. Among the ﬁve, the discoveries of horses© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

Figure 8.

Nagano Prefecture in Japan

have been reported from the Zakōji, Kamigō, and Matsuo areas (see Figure 8 for thelocation of Iida and Figure 9 for the locations of archaeological sites in Iida basin). In the
Tatsuoka and Kawaji areas, ﬁfth century horse-trappings have been discovered.
In the Zakōji area, the discoveries of horses and horse-trappings in the Middle Kofun
Period contexts have been reported from the Araibara-Takaoka 新井原・高岡 Mound
Group. A horse wearing horse-trappings was buried in a pit of 1.8 by 1.1 meters (Figure
10, right). The pit (Pit No. 4) was situated seven meters apart from a moat enclosing
the keyhole-shaped Araibara No. 12 mound of 36 meters in length. Because the horsetrappings discovered in this pit were of the same typological stage of iron arrowheads,
iron daggers, and iron cuirass deposited with the dead in the Mound No. 12, theexcavators suspect that this horse burial was associated with the Mound No. 12 anddated to the late ﬁfth century (Imamura and Kobayashi 1983).
In the vicinity of Mounds No. 11 and 12, two pits were discovered where horses were
© Japanese Archaeological Association

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Figure 9.

Locations of archaeological sites in the Iida basin mentioned in the text

buried. One pit was 2.1 by 1.4 meters, and teeth were only discovered. The other pit was
1.8 by 1.1 meters, and not only teeth but also limb bones were discovered. In the earth
ﬁlling the second pit, horse trappings dated to the ﬁfth century were also discovered.
The excavators suspect that a horse wearing horse-trappings was buried in the second
pit, and speculate that the horse in the ﬁrst pit was contemporaneous to the second pit(Kobayashi 1986, pp. 451–452).
Three horses were buried in a ditch enclosing the circular Mound No. 2 of 30 meters
in diameter (Figure 10, left). The horses were placed in pits dug into the bottom of theditch. Although teeth were only discovered, Kobayashi (1994) suspects that the horsebodies were buried because of the sizes of the pits of 1.8 meters in diameter. In addition,
stirrups were discovered in the same ditch. While the horse burial pits were situated to
the west of the mound, the stirrups were placed to the east of the mound. Kobayashi© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

Figure 10. Araibara No. 2 Mound Tomb and a Horse Burial Pit at the Araibara site (Shibuya 2007)(1994) suspects that whoever buried in the Mound No. 2 was in the position related tohorse production.
Another horse was discovered in the Pit SK 47, situated between the Mound No. 11
and No. 13. A horse bit was also discovered in the Pit 33 in the vicinity. Baba (1999)
suspects that the horse and the bit are associated with the ﬁfth century Mound 13
because the Mound No. 11 was built in the sixth century, and all the other horses buriedin this mound group are dated to the middle and late ﬁfth century (Shibuya 2007).
In the Kamigō area, relevant discoveries have been reported from the Miyagaito 宮
垣外 site. A horse, wearing a set of horse-trappings, was buried in the Pit SK64, dug
into the bottom of a ditch enclosing the low burial mound SM03. The pit was 2.4 by
1.12 meters, and apparently the pit was dug more or less at the same time as the ditch
enclosing SM03. Although teeth were only discovered, Shibuya (2000) suspects that thewhole body was buried because of the size of the pit, the association with the set ofhorse-trappings, and the position of the teeth within the pit. The horse is dated to the lateﬁfth century owing to the typology of the horse-trappings. Another horse was buried ina ditch enclosing another low burial mound SM15. The condition of the discovery was so
bad that the horse teeth may not be in situ. If this horse was associated with the Mound
SM15, the horse would be dated to the ﬁfth century (Shibuya 2000).
Four additional horses were buried in four pits (SK10, 11, 42, 68) between mounds.
Pit SK10 was 1.64 by 1.04 meters, and a whole horse body was discovered in a goodpreservation (Figure 11). Shibuya (2000, p. 45) suspects that the horse was intentionally© Japanese Archaeological Association

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buried, and speculates that the horse would be dated to the late ﬁfth century because of thesimilarity in patterns of placing horse bodies in pits to the Pit SK64. In the other three pits,
only teeth were discovered. Pit SK68 was 0.51 by 0.49 meters, and it is impossible that awhole horse body was placed in this pit. Since Pit SK11 was 1.02 by 0.42, considerably
smaller than Pit SK10, it is very uncertain that a whole horse body was placed in this pit.
Pit SK42 was 1.32 by 1.08 meters, and the preservation of the teeth was so bad that it is
difﬁcult to speculate the original context of a horse placed in this pit (Shibuya 2000).
Adjacent to the Miyagaito site is the keyhole-shaped Mizokuchinozuka 溝口の塚Mound Tomb where two iron cuirasses, one iron helmet, one set of iron gorgets, andone set of iron shoulder armor. The amount of iron armor deposited with the dead at the
Mizokuchinozuka Tomb is considerable, and it is possible to assume that a local elite
who managed equestrian specialists was buried there (Kobayashi, Sasaki and Shibuya
2001). In the vicinity of the circular, rear portion of the Mizokuchinozuka Mound Tomb,
horse teeth were discovered in dirt resulted from the destruction of archaeologicalfeatures, and Kobayashi and Furukawa (1998) points out the possibility that a horse may
be associated with this keyhole-shaped mound tomb.
In the Matsuo area, relevant discoveries have been reported from the Monomizuka
物見塚 Mound Tomb, Chagarayama 茶柄山 Mound Group, and Teradoko 寺所 site. In
a ditch enclosing the circular Monomizuka Mound Tomb, dated to the middle ﬁfth
century, horse teeth were discovered in association with a horse bit. Although it is notcertain whether the whole body or the head of a horse was placed, Kobayashi and Sasaki(1992) consider it very likely that the whole body was buried because in most of thecases in the Iida basin whole bodies of horses were buried in the ﬁfth century. While

Figure 11.

Horse burial discovered at the Miyagaito site (Shibuya 2007)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANthe archaeological context of the discoveries of the teeth and bit suggests that the horse
was buried a little after the Mound Tomb was constructed, the typology of the horse bit
suggests that the horse was dated to the middle ﬁfth century, earlier than the Araibara
Mound No. 12 case. This is the earliest horse-burial in the Iida basin (Kobayashi and
Sasaki 1992).
In the Chagarayama Mound Group (Figure 12), six horses were buried in pits dug into
the bottom of a ditch enclosing the circular Mound No. 9 of 23 meters or so in diameter.
In two of the six pits, middle ﬁfth century pottery was also discovered, and Kobayashi(1994) considers that all the pits and horses were contemporaneous. In addition, horseteeth were discovered in two pits four meters to the north of and ﬁve meters to thesouthwest of the Mound No. 9, and Kobayashi (1994) considers that these two pits wereassociated with the Mound No. 9. The burials of eight horses associated with a single
mound tomb is very unusual, and it also suggests that whoever buried in the Mound No.
9 possessed far more than eight horses.
In two pits six to eight meters to the northwest of the Mound No. 2 of 20 meters indiameter, horse teeth were discovered. The mound is dated before the end of the ﬁfth
century. Since the teeth were discovered in the corners of the pits, Kobayashi (1994)
considers that the whole bodies were buried in these pits. Among the two, one horse wasburied wearing horse bit and a ring of three bronze bells hung from a saddle.
At the Teradoko site, horse teeth were discovered in a ditch enclosing a low

Figure 12.

Horse burials at the Chagarayama Mound Group (Shibuya 2007)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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burial mound (SM04) of the late ﬁfth century, the same was the case for two othercontemporaneous low burial mounds (SM02 and SM03). The burial mounds SM02 andSM04 are circular in plan, and In both cases a part of the ditch enclosing the mounds
were left unexcavated, functioning as a bridge to the mound. On the contrary, burial
mound SM04 is square in plan, and the mound surface was covered with cobbles. In Pit
SK03 situated between SM01 and SM03, horse teeth were discovered in its southwestern
corner, which suggests that a whole body was buried in the pit. Yamashita (1999)
speculates that the whole bodies were also buried in the moats enclosing SM02, SM03,
and SM04. All the low burial mounds are dated to the late ﬁfth century, and Yamashita(1999) considers Pit SK03 contemporaneous to the burial mounds.
In the vicinity of the Teradoko site is the Myōzen-Ōtsuka 妙前大塚 Mound Tomb of
26.5 meters in diameter, where an iron helmet with a visor, ﬁve iron daggers, four ironswords, and one iron spear were discovered (Satō 1971). This mound tomb is dated to the
middle ﬁfth century. Yamashita (1999) points out the difference in social status between
the one buried in the Myōzen-Ōtsuka Mound Tomb and those buried at the Teradoko sites.
This case is the same as a relationship between the Miyagaito site and the keyhole-shaped
Mizokuchinozuka Mound Tomb. Equestrian specialists were probably buried in small or
low burial mounds, while those who managed the equestrian specialist were buried withiron armor.
All these horses are dated to the ﬁfth century. In the Iida basin, the discoveries ofhorses in the sixth century contexts have not been reported. An exception to this would
be the discoveries of horse teeth at two places in a ditch enclosing a late seventh century
circular Kitabayashi 北林 Mound No. 5 in Takamori Town, northern neighbor of Iida City
(Matsushima 1994).
The archaeological evidence in the Iida basin suggests some important aspect of thepractice of horse-riding in the ﬁfth century. First, horses were not buried in moundtombs where iron armor was deposited with the dead. Because iron armor is the status
symbols of high-ranking elites in the Middle Kofun Period, this phenomenon suggeststhat horses did not belong to particular high-ranking individual in the ﬁfth century. I
would speculate that horses still belong to equestrian specialists who were buried incircular mound tombs. It is also very important to note that horse trappings were notprestige goods but were practical trappings in the ﬁfth century. Indeed, several horses
were buried wearing horse trappings, and no horse trappings were deposited with thedead in ﬁfth century mound tombs where iron armor was deposited with the dead.
In the Iida basin, semi-subterranean residences equipped with built-in stoves appeared in
the middle ﬁfth century (Shibuya 2007), which is exceptionally early in the history of the
Kofun Period. Stoves were domestic practice introduced from the Korean peninsula, andwere widely adopted in Japan since the sixth century. The appearance of built-in stove in© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANthe middle ﬁfth century should be indirect evidence for the presence of Korean immigrants.

4.

Introduction of horses to northern Shinano

A case of the introduction of horses to northern Shinano was very different from thecase of southwestern Shinano. Evidence for the early introduction of horses comes fromthe Ōmuro 大室 Cairn and Earthen Mound Group in Nagano City, situated southeasternpart of the Nagano basin (see Figure 9 for the location of Nagano City, and Figure 13 forlocation of sites in Nagano City). The name “Ōmuro” appears in the early tenth century
document, Engishiki 延喜式, listed as one of the governmental pastures in Shinano. The
Ōmuro Group consists of more than ﬁve hundred small mound tombs, and characterizedby more than one hundred cairns, constructed solely by rocks. Staff of the Archaeology
Program, Faculty of Letters, Meiji University conducted archaeological excavations ofsome twenty cairns and earthen mounds from 1984 to 1996, and archaeological evidence
related to horses was discovered at Tomb No. 168 constructed in the third quarter of theﬁfth century (Kobayashi et al. 2008) and Tomb No. 186 at the end of the sixth century(Sasaki et al. 2015).
Tom No. 168 is a cairn (Figure 14). Because it is situated on a slope, its diameter is
as follows: along the east–west axis 11.2 to 12.4 m; along the north–south axis 12.2 to
13.0 m. The height of the cairn is more than 0.96 m in the upper slope and 2.96 m from

Figure 13.

Locations of archaeological sites in the Nagano basin mentioned in the text
© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

the lower slope. A vaulted stone burial chamber was constructed on the top of this cairn.
The length of the chamber is 1.82 m, and the width 0.83 m (southwestern end) and 0.86 m(northeastern end). Its height including the top is 0.92 to 1.06 m.
At the foot of the Tomb 168, a ceramic earthenware ﬁgurine of a horse was discovered(Figure 15). It is 19.1centimeters in length, 10.3 centimeters in height. This ceramic

Figure 14.

Tomb No. 168, Ōmuro (Kobayashi et al. 2008)

Figure 15.

Ceramic horse ﬁgurine discovered at Tomb 168 (Kobayashi et al. 2008)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANﬁgurine is solid, not hollow as in the case of haniwa ceramic ﬁgurines. The ﬁgurine hasa well-fabricated mane, and the back of the ﬁgurine retains a trace of a saddle, which is
now missing. It was discovered in association of sue-stoneware dated to the third quarterof the ﬁfth century. This horse ﬁgurine should be distinguished from sixth century horseﬁgurines discovered at the Narai site, Shijōnawate City because the Narai examples are
smaller and more abstract, and discovered in a ditch in a group. It is also important tonote that the Ōmro horse ﬁgurine is earlier than the Narai examples.
The only example very close to the Ōmro horse ﬁgurine is two horse ﬁgurines
discovered at the Ten’nōdan 天王壇 Mound Tomb, Hongū Town, Fukushima
Prefecture (Ōkōchi and Yamazaki 1984). The mound is of 41 meters in length, withdisproportionately large circular mound of 38 meters in length, and dated to the third
quarter of the ﬁfth century. One of the two horse ﬁgurines is 19.5 centimeters in length,10.8 centimeters in the total height, and 7.7 centimeters in body height. The other is 26.5
centimeters in length, 16.6 centimeters in the total height, and 10.9 centimeters in bodyheight. Both of them have manes, and equipped with saddles.
Another archaeological discovery of a horse in the Ōmro Group comes from the Tomb
No. 186, dated to the end of the sixth century. The tomb is a small circular mound of
12.5 by 13.5 m (Figure 16). A corridor-style horizontal burial chamber was housed inthis mound. The chamber is 8.4 m in total length, and the main burial chamber is 4.6 m

Figure 16.

Tomb No. 186, Ōmuro (Sasaki et al. 2015)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

in length, 1.8 m in height, 1.8 m in width at the back wall, and 2.2 m in the maximum
width. On the eastern side of the entrance were large jars of sue stoneware in pieces but
in situ, as well as a concentration of haji earthenware pots and pedestalled bowls. On
the western side of the entrance were the remains of a horse (Figure 16). Since the teethof the horse were discovered without any other body parts, the head might have been
ritually severed and placed near the entrance of the burial chamber. The presence of ahorse that might have been ritually sacriﬁced suggests the possibility that an equestrian
specialist was buried in this tomb (Uetsuki 2015).
Unlike the case of the Iida basin, mound tombs of high-ranking elite distinguished by
the deposit of iron armor were also built in the Ōmro Group. In the late ﬁfth century,
a mound tomb of such a high-ranking elite is the Tomb No. 196 where an iron cuirass,a bronze mirror, and an early type of horse bit were deposited with the dead. I see a
difference in social rank between the one buried in the Tomb No. 196 and the one buriedin the Tomb No. 168 (Sasaki 2018). The one buried in the Tomb No. 168 may be anequestrian specialist and the one buried in the Tomb No. 196 was a leader who managed
equestrian specialists.
A situation is somewhat different in the case of the Tomb No. 186. I consider this tomb
as a tomb of high-ranking elite because iron armor was deposited with the dead andbecause the ﬂoor size of the main burial chamber is more or less the same as tombs ofhigher-ranking chiefs of the central polity in Osaka and Nara (Sasaki 2018). A sacriﬁce
of a horse at this tomb may suggest that the one buried in this tomb was a leader who
managed equestrian specialists. This practice of offering a sacriﬁced horse to an eliteburial mound is absent in the Iida basin in the sixth century.
Unfortunately, settlements where those who were buried in the Ōmuro Cairn andEarthen Mound Group resided and ceramics made with Koren techniques have not been
discovered, probably because these settlements had been washed away by ﬂoods of the
nearby Sai and Chikuma Rivers. Consequently, evidence for Korean immigrants innorthern Shinano is not very strong. Yet, I believe that equestrian specialists from the
Korean peninsula were settled in northern Shinano. Together with the description of theEngishiki, the ceramic ﬁgurine of a horse discovered at Tomb No. 168 and the possible
evidence for horse sacriﬁce at the Tomb No. 186 strongly suggest to me that equestrian
specialists or those who were close to them were buried in the Ōmuro Cairn and Earthen
Mound Group and that raising and reproducing horses started in the Nagano basin in the
middle ﬁfth century.
In the Nagano basin, another possible evidence of horse burial or sacriﬁce has recently
been discovered at the Shiozaki 塩崎 sites. Excavations are still in progress, and a site
report has not been published yet. At the site, scattered fragments of horse bones werediscovered in a ditch enclosing a late ﬁfth century circular mound tomb of 12 to 13© Japanese Archaeological Association

42

ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANmeters in diameter. Excavators assume that pottery and horse bones presumably used
for ritual on the top of a mound tomb fell into a ditch enclosing the mound (Anonymous
2014; Iijima 2016). This might be distinguished from the cases of the Iida basin wheredead horses are carefully buried in ditches and/or pits. Because site reports of the
Shiozaki sites are not published yet, the interpretation may be altered in the future.

5.

Discussion

The ways in which horses were treated varied considerably from a region to another inthe ﬁfth century. In Shijōnawate City, Osaka Prefecture, it was the dominant practice tosacriﬁce horses by cutting the heads off. The heads were offered at banks of streams and“precincts” for rituals. In the sixth century, the heads were sometimes placed in ditches
enclosing mound tombs. This practice may have been replaced by another practice ofoffering several small ceramic horse ﬁgurines. In a few cases, horses were carefullyburied in pits. Such a variety of practices may be a reﬂection of a large number ofequestrian specialists settled in the present Shijōnawate region. Although Segawa (1991)
speculates that three groups of equestrian specialists resided in this region, I do not see
any correlations between localities of equestrian specialists’ settlement and a particular
attitude toward horses, such as sacriﬁce by cutting the heads off or burial of the whole

Figure 17.

Discovery of horse teeth at the foot of Tomb No. 186 (Sasaki et al. 2015)© Japanese Archaeological Association

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SASAKI Ken’ichi

body of a horse. Segawa’s hypothesis must be tested against, for example, DNA’s ofhorses discovered at different localities or minute technical difference in the Korean
ceramics in association with horses. Still, it is possible to speculate that a few groups ofequestrian specialists from different regions of the southern Korean peninsula may havebeen invited to the present Shijōnawate region because such a variety of attitude toward
horses is not present in northern and southern Shinano.
The difference in the attitude toward horses between northern Shinano and southern
Shinano is obvious. In the Iida basin in southern Shinano, the predominant practice inthe ﬁfth century was to bury the whole bodies of horses carefully. This practice may
have been originated from the present Shijōnawate region. If this is indeed the case, it ispossible to hypothesize that equestrian specialists ﬁrst arrived in the Shijōnawate region,
probably invited by the higher-ranking chiefs of the central polity, and then move to the
Iida basin.
The situation of the ﬁfth century in the Nagano basin, northern Sihnano is radicallydifferent from the Shijōnawate region and the Iida basin. A ceramic horse ﬁgurine wasoffered to a cairn in the ﬁfth century, and no horses were sacriﬁced nor buried. Toward
the end of the end of the sixth century, a practice of sacriﬁcing a horse was introduced.
This practice of horse sacriﬁce may be introduced from the central polity. Nevertheless,
it is highly noteworthy that, although equestrian specialists were already present in the
Nagano basin in the ﬁfth century, their attitude toward horses were different from the
Shijōnawate region and the Iida basin.
I would argue that a group of equestrian specialists were invited to the Nagano basin
independently from the central polity. My hypothesis is that, while it was the central
polity that took an initiative of introducing the practice of horse-riding by inviting
equestrian specialists and importing horses from the southern Korean peninsula, thecentral polity entrusted some local polities that maintained interactions with polities insouthern Korean peninsula to invite equestrian specialists and import horses. One ofsuch local polities existed in the Nagano basin. My hypothesis must be tested by, forexample, DNA’s of horses discovered in the Nagano basin, Iida basin, and Shijōnawate
City. If my hypothesis is appropriate, the DNA’s in Nagano should be distinctive fromones in Shijōnawate City and Iida basin.
It is highly likely that a local polity in the Nagano basin interacted with a polity insouthern Korean peninsula since the second century, A.D. At the site of the ﬁrst- tosecond-century Nezuka 根塚 burial mound in the northeastern Nagano Basin, an ironsword with a pommel featuring a whirlpool decoration (Figure 18) was discovered(Yoshihara 2002), and is very likely to have been brought from southern Korea. There
are no other discoveries of this type of iron swords in Japan, but several iron swords ofthis type have been discovered at the Yangdong-ni 良洞里 cemetery site in Kimhae 金© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

Figure 18.
2002)

Iron sword with whirlpool-pattern decoration discovered at the Nezuka site (Yoshihara

Figure 19.

Bronze belt buckle discovered at the Asakawabata site (Shimizu and Kazama 2005)

海 (Tongŭi Taehakkyo Pangmulgwan 2000). Habuta (2006, p. 181; 2012, pp. 7–8) argues

that this sword was transported directly from the southern Korean peninsula without
going through, for example, northern Kyushu or the Nara basin where the central polity
was presumably located.
Another piece of evidence for interaction between polities in the Nagano basin andthose in the southern Korean peninsula before the ﬁfth century is a horse-shaped bronze
buckle (Figure 19) discovered at the Asakawabata 浅川端 site in the central Nagano© Japanese Archaeological Association

45

SASAKI Ken’ichi

basin (Shimizu and Kazama 2005). It is basically the same type as one discovered at theCh’ŏngdang-dong 淸堂洞 site, in particular Tomb No. 5, in Ch’ŏnan 天安 City, and is also
likely to have been brought from the Korean peninsula. The buckle is dated to the third
century A.D. based on typological analysis (Kazama 2006). As in the case of the Nezuka
iron sword, I argue for the possibility that this bronze buckle was directly brought to the
Nagano basin without going through the intermediation of the central polity.
Because of this longstanding practice, it was easy for them to invite equestrian
specialists from the Korean peninsula in the ﬁfth century. Furthermore, I argue thatthe central polity in the ﬁfth century did not fully monopolize the diplomatic right, andlocal polities at that time had some freedom to interact with polities in the southern
Korean peninsula independently. I speculate that by the late sixth century the central
polity more or less monopolized the diplomatic right because assemblages of prestige
goods of Korean origins tend to be the same in most parts of Japan, suggesting that thecentral polity imported all of the prestige goods. In this context, while the local elites
in the Nagano basin continued maintaining pastures for raising horses, by the late sixth
century the central polity may have gained some control over the pastures. This may be
a background to the introduction of sacriﬁcing a horse by chopping the head off toward
the end of the sixth century.
To conclude this paper, I should like to put these different patterns of the adoptionsof the practice of horse-riding in the broader context of the archaeology of immigration.
For this purpose, a framework proposed by Kameda Shūichi (1993) is useful. Kameda
ﬁrst distinguishes between the case of immigrants arriving directly from the Korean
peninsula and settled down in a local area of Japan and the case in which immigrants
ﬁrst arrived in the central polity region or northern Kyushu and then move to anotherarea of Japan. While the case of northern Shinano would be an example of the ﬁrst case,the case of southern Shinano would be an example of the second case where Koreanequestrian specialists ﬁrst settled in the present Shijōnawate area and some of themfurther moved to southern Shinano.
Kameda (2003) who argues for the necessity of utilizing written sources also
distinguishes the case of immigrants who were forcefully taken to Japan and the caseof immigrants who volunteered to come to Japan. It is not easy to make such distinction
depending solely on archaeological evidence. It seems, however, that Korean equestrian
specialists volunteered to come to Japan because some of them were buried in mounded
tombs, having been incorporated into the local elite social hierarchy of Japan.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mr. Minoru Nojima and Mr. Hajime Murakami for information© Japanese Archaeological Association

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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPAN

about the archaeological discoveries of horses in Shijōnawate City, and Dr. Nishiyama
Katsumi for information about the Shiozaki site.

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Board of Education, Osaka Prefecture.
Nojima Minoru 1981 Saraokayama Kofun-Gun Hakkutsu Chōsa Gaiyō 『更岡山古墳群発© Japanese Archaeological Association

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掘調査概要』[Preliminary Report of Archaeological Excavation at the Saraokayama
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Nojima Minoru 2005a Shijōnawate Shi Nakano Iseki 「四条畷市中野遺跡」[Nakano Site,
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Nojima Minouru 2005b Shijōnawate Shi Kamada Iseki 「四条畷市鎌田遺跡」[KamadaSite, Shijōnawate City]. Osaka no Buraku Shi, Vol. 1 (Archaeology, Ancient andMedieval History, and Early Modern History, Part 1), pp. 49–50.
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Infrastructure of Kingship], In Maki no Kōkogaku, edited by Irumada Nobuo andTaniguchi Kazuo, pp. 187–198. Koshi Shoin, Tokyo.
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Nojima Minoru 2016b Haniwa no Mura (1): Shinobugaoka-Ekimae Iseki, Minamisage
Iseki 「埴輪のムラ(1) 忍ケ丘駅前遺跡・南山下遺跡」[Hanwa Production Center, Pt.
1: Shinobugaoka-Ekimae and Minamisage Sites]. Shijōnawate Shi-Shi, Vol. 5(Archaeology), pp. 206–215. Shijōnawate City Government, Osaka Prefecture.
Nojima Minoru 2016c Uma no Matsuri Ba (2): Narai Iseki 「馬のまつり場 (2) 奈良井遺跡」[Place for Horse Rituals, Pt. 2: Narai Site]. Shijōnawate Shi-Shi, Vol. 5(Archaeology), pp. 230–238. Shijōnawate City Government, Osaka Prefecture.
Nojima Minoru 2016d Umakai Shūdan no Kofun-Gun (3): Saraokayama Kofun-Gun 「馬飼い集団の古墳群 (3) 更岡山古墳群」[Group of Mound Tombs for Equestrian Specialists,
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調査概要報告書—大阪瓦斯株式会社高所対策ガバナ設置工事に伴う埋蔵文化財発掘調査』[Preliminary Report of Archaeological Excavation at the Narai Site: Excavation
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Ōkōchi Mitsuo 大河内光夫 and Yamazaki Yoshio 山崎義夫, Editors 1984 Ten’nōdan
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Onoyama Takashi 小野山節 1959 Bagu to Jōba no Fūshū 馬具と乗馬の風習 [Horse© Japanese Archaeological Association

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Trappings and the Practice of Horse Riding]. Sekai Kōkogaku Taikei 『世界考古学大系』[World Archaeology: A Survey], Vol. 3 (Japan, Pt. 3), edited by Kobayashi Yukio
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野市大室古墳群における階層構造 [Structure of Social Ranking as Evidenced by theŌmuro Mound Group]. Machikaneyama Kōkogaku Ronsō 『待兼山考古学論叢』 III[Collected Papers in Archaeology in Celebration of the Thirtieth Anniversary of theArchaeology Program at the Osaka University], pp. 497–516. Osaka University, Osaka.
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sub-group]『信濃大室積石塚古墳群の研究 IV—大室谷支群・ムジナゴーロ単位支群の調査—』 Archaeology Program, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Meiji University 明治大
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ADOPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF HORSE-RIDING IN KOFUN PERIOD JAPANthe Yangdong-ni site in Kimhae]. Tongŭi University Museum haksul ch’ongsŏ 東義大学校博物館學術叢書 [Tongŭi University Museum Academic Series], No. 7. Tongŭi

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