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

本研究的目的是探讨琉球群岛谷物种植和国际交流的第一阶段，因为农业和贸易是世纪琉球王国形成的两个最重要的经济因素<th><th>。为此，笔者采取了两种考古方法，一种是发掘植物遗存遗址，另一种是探讨琉球与中国唐朝的贝壳贸易。1999-2002年在冲绳大陆东北部的勒岛长原东贝冢发掘中，成功地从6世纪左右的地层中提取出少量的稻谷和车轮<th>，这是琉球现存最早的谷物遗存。关于贝壳交换，笔者认为<th>，<th>世纪中国人很可能是为了制作珍珠母而来到琉球采集绿螺壳的，笔者从世纪出现在琉球大面积地区的中国唐代钱币“启源”谈起<th>，认为<th>琉球人<th><th>至少在世纪开始与中国有了谷物贸易和经济关系，尽管关于谷物种植的起源问题，我们还有许多问题需要讨论。

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.