Hwacheon Master Yongamni Site

Excavated by the Gangwon Research Institute of Cultural Heritage from 2001 to 2003, this site is a Bronze Age settlement with more than 230 features in total — including 176 house sites, 32 pit features, 14 raised-floor (post-hole) buildings and 11 earthen pit tombs — showing the highest density of remains found anywhere in the country. Among the excavated features, the dwelling sites preserved evidence of upper structures, wall construction and entrance facilities, providing material that clarifies Bronze Age house design; and the overlapping relationships between dwelling sites are regarded as important evidence for tracing how, over successive periods, a settlement developed on the riverside alluvial terraces of Wira-ri and Yongam-ri in Hanam-myeon, Hwacheon county. Among the artefacts recovered, large numbers of flaked stone tools — flakes ground along part of the edge to form a cutting blade — were unearthed, along with stone axes and arrowheads of various forms; indeed, most of the stone tool types typical of Bronze Age sites were found here as finished or semi-finished pieces, providing important material for clarifying the process and development of stone tool manufacture. The dating of the site is to be reviewed through comprehensive scientific analysis of the dwelling sites and artefacts, but on present evidence it belongs to the early Bronze Age, with its main period estimated at around the ninth century BC. However, some features may date back earlier than the tenth century BC, and it is considered likely that the settlement continued to form as late as around the sixth century BC. The Bronze Age settlement formed in the Yongam-ri area of Hwacheon therefore represents a community settlement established over a period spanning at least the tenth to the sixth century BC, and is considered an extremely important site for research into the way of life and culture of the North Han River basin, the development of dwellings in the Bronze Age, and the routes by which Bronze Age culture spread; being a village site with few parallels even in East Asia, it has great value for designation and preservation.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Hwacheon, Gangwon

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물