Shell Mound in Seongsan, Changwon

A shell mound is formed from the shells and household refuse discarded by prehistoric people after eating shellfish, and is therefore a site that reveals what daily life was like at the time. This site lies on a low hill at the centre of the Changwon plain, the top of which forms flat ground; shell deposits are piled up on the sloping ground in what are designated Area A, Area B and Area C. The stratigraphy consists of a surface soil layer at the top, a shell layer beneath it, and a layer of humus at the bottom. Excavation showed that the surface soil layer of Area A yielded Silla-period pottery and modern ceramics; the upper part of the shell layer yielded pottery together with Wuzhu coins, a currency first minted in Han-dynasty China; and the lower part yielded plain coarse pottery and polished stone tools. Area B yielded reddish-brown soft pottery, grey-blue hard pottery and iron implements, while Area C yielded plain coarse pottery, half-moon stone knives, stone axes and clay-textured pottery. Part of an earthen fortification remained at the top of the hill, but pottery recovered from its walls showed that this fortress dated to the Silla period and was largely unrelated to the shell-mound site; even so, it is possible that part of the mound continued to accumulate into the Silla period. The Wuzhu coins found at the site indicate when the mound first began to form, suggesting that accumulation started around the turn of the Common Era. The typology of the Silla pottery shows that the site continued into around the fourth century AD, and the date of Kaiyuan Tongbao coins, a Chinese Tang-dynasty currency recovered from the fortress wall, indicates that it continued still further, into around the fifth century AD. Given its location and scale, the Seongsan shell mound shows that this area served as the centre of the Changwon region over a long period, and together with sites such as the Naedong shell mound and the Gaeumjeong-dong shell mound within the Changwon basin, it is an important settlement site of the period. (Renamed from Masan Oedong Seongsan Paechong to Changwon Seongsan Shell Mound, notified on 28 July 2011.)

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Changwon, Gyeongnam

Designation

Historic Site · 사적