A archaeological study of the formation of Ryukyu kingdom in the cradle of the 6^<th> - 7^<th> century

农业和贸易是琉球王国在12世纪和15世纪形成的最重要的两个经济要素，本研究的目的是考察琉球群岛第一阶段的谷物种植和国际交流。为此，我采取了两种考古方法，一是发掘遗址发现植物遗存，二是探讨琉球与唐代中国的贝壳贸易。1999-2002年，在冲绳大陆东北部乐岛长加拉堡-东贝丘的发掘中，我们成功地从大约6世纪的地层中提取了少量的稻米和轮子，这是目前琉球最早的谷物遗存。对于贝壳交换，笔者得出结论，7、9世纪的琉球中国人很可能是为了让珍珠之母做工，才来到琉球采集青螺贝壳的，我从7、10世纪琉球大面积出现的唐代钱币开根措谈起这一问题。可以说，6、7世纪的琉球人至少开始与中国有一些谷类和经济关系，虽然关于谷类种植的开始，我们还有很多问题要讨论。

The purpose of this research is to investigate the first stage of cereals cultivation and international exchange in the Ryukyu Islands, because agriculture and trade are the best two important economic elements for the formation of Ruykyu kingdom in the 12^<th> and 15^<th> century. For this purpose I took two archaeological ways, one is to excavate a site for finding plant remains, the other is to discuss shell trade between Ryukyu and Tang dynasty of China. At the excavation of Nagarabaru-higashi shell mound in le Island which locates at the north east of Okinawa mainland in 1999-2002, we succeeded to extract small number of rice and wheel from the layer of about the 6^<th> century, and these are the earliest cereal remains in Ryukyus now. For shell exchange I arrived at the conclusion that in the 7^<th> and 9^<th> century Chinese people very possibly came to Ryukyus to collect Green-snail shells in order to make mother of pearl work, I discussed this subject from Chinese coin Kaigen-tsuho of Tang dynasty which appeared in large area of Ryukyus in the 7^<th> and 10^<th> century.It is possible to mention that people in Ryukyu of the 6^<th> and 7^<th> century at least began to have some cereals and economical relationship with China, though we still haye many problem about the beginning of cereals cultivation to discuss.