An Ethno-historical Study of Religious Buildings in the Ryukyu Archipelago : Searching for a Chronology Based on the Development of Plans of Wells Constructed with Stones

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This research work was planned to establish a chronological framework to determine the age of diffusion of political control of the Ryukyu dynasty of the main Okinawa island to the Miyako and the Yaeyama islands, from the morphological features of religious constructions, especially the well constructed with the stone. From histrical literature studies, this age was estimated to be the 18th century. Besides such a historical work, the archaeological studies on the southern islands are not developed well. This study tries to draw ethno-archaeological perspective of the subject.From fieldwork carried out in 1993 and 1994, it became clear that the morphological features of the wells are determined not only by the tendency of the times, but also by the environmental elements described below. The feature of stone constructed wells or natural springs articulated by rubblework were decided by (1) the micro-topography of the location, (2) the relative position of the water source, (3) the quantity of the water running from the resource, (4) small faults, stalactive grottos, and so on, which influence the position of underground water streams, and (5) the technology available at that age and the quality of the ground, firm or flimsy, where the well or the spring is located.So as to identify the feature of construction of wells meaningful for the chronology, the comparison among wells of which conditions concerning the elements listed (1) to (5) are all the same. In the features investigated, the horseshoe shape wells which distribute in Kabira (the Yaeyama islands) and in several places in the main Okinawa island, can be a distinctive one to identify the rather old age.