The Appearance and Transition of Chief Tomb in Yeongnam Province

Abstract

Social stratification in the Bronze Age and the appearance and transition of chief tombs in the early Iron Age are reviewed based on the ancient tomb data in Yeongnam Province. Chief, which means a ruler of unequal societies, first appeared in the early Iron Age. Evidence to support the appearance is given as follows: the articles from , production and distribution of ironware, construction of tombs for not a community but an individual, and the beginning of trade between local regions. In the late Bronze Age, tomb clusters turned into a common cemetery, and huge dolmens with graveyards were built. With social stratification being intensified, communities would have been maintained by blood ties and regionalism. The construction of huge tombs was for a community, not for a single person. That is, it was the tomb of the leaders, not of a chief. The types of the leader tombs vary depending on the regions: huge dolmens with graveyards in South Gyeongsang Province, and tombs with long-sharpened daggers in Daegu. In the early Iron Age, chief tombs are categorized into a group of dolmens from the patternless earthenware culture and a group of wooden coffin tombs from the Koreanstyle bronze dagger culture. The former group of chief tombs can be seen in huge dolmen areas such as Gimhae Gusan-dong and Changwon Deokcheon-ri archeological sites, and it is more of an individual’s tomb rather than a community’s. The chiefdom of dolmens and the one of wooden coffin tombs coexisted only until the chiefdom of wooden coffin tombs took over the other. In Yeongnam Province, the wooden coffin tombs first appeared in the third century B.C., and the ironware began to be buried in the second century B.C. By the first century B.C., the wooden coffin tombs clustered and the Chinese Han relics began to be buried. This is when the chiefdom was formed and the Bronze Age came to an end. In South Gyeongsang Province, chief tombs are centered in Gimhae. In Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province, chief tombs are distributed by equal intervals on the road connecting Ulsan, Gyeongju, Yeongcheon, Gyeongsan, and Daegu; it is due to the consolidation of foreign negotiation command of a chief.