Archaeological Site in Songguk-ri, Buyeo

Basic information

Designation

Historic Site No.249

Category

Architecture

Era

선사시대

Designated year

1976

Location

부여군, 충청남도— 충남 부여군 초촌면 송국리 산24-1번지

Coordinates

36.260745, 127.031357

This is an underground pit habitation from the Bronze Age located in Songguk-ri, Buyeo-gun, Chungcheongnam-do. It is supposed that there are about 100 houses on the low downhills near the streams and fields. The habitations are of two kinds distinguished by their shape, circular or rectangular. The circular sites are dug up 30-150cm deep in the ground, with a wall dug shallowly for entrance. Signs of fireplaces have not been found, but there are multiple holes for storage. In the center there is a long elliptical hole about 1m long and inside this are several more circular holes. The rectangular sites had two types, one is dug up 30cm deep, and the other is more like on the ground. As for the latter, it looks like it had no hole to bolster pillars but there were foundation stones, which appear in later houses with more developed architecture. Inside the habitation many kinds of earthenware and stone tools were discovered. Including the ones with no pattern, there were burnished red pottery and black pottery. Pattern-less vessels have a flat bottom and a long egg-shaped body. There is no neck and the beak is bent a little to the outside. They are distinct from former pieces with no pattern, thus, are called Songguk-ri styled pottery. Various stone tools include knives, arrowheads, parts of spinning wheels and axes. In addition, as much as 395g of burnt rice was excavated, and also coal sleets and molds for casting bronze axes, which can be found nowhere else in South Korea. These were similar to the type of molds found in Liaoning province. This discovery shows that Liaoning-styled bronze axes were also made in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. It has been ascertained that to the west of the habitations, there is a primitive form of kiln site for making pattern-less potteries, the oldest in Korea. It is believed on the basis of the excavated relics that the habitations at Songguk-ri were made by people who lived on farming and hunting around the 7-6th century B.C. The fact that the evidence places those people in the era of plain coarse pottery, and that graves were discovered along with the habitations at Songguk-ri reveals that people lived in communities. It also makes it possible to ascertain the range of culture based on a new form of housing and a new form of pottery. The discovery of burnt rice here helps to explain the origin and expansion of rice crops in the Korean peninsula. Generally, the Songguk-ri habitations are an important historic site in for attempts to reconstruct the lives of ancient days.

Location