Hoa Binh Culture

A culture believed to date to the early Holocene (Alluvial Epoch) in Southeast Asia, during the Mesolithic or early Neolithic period. It was discovered by M. Colani of France, who excavated several ruins in the limestone mountains of Hoa Binh Province (now Ha Son Binh Province), southwest of Hanoi, Vietnam, in the 1920s. She divided this culture into three periods. Since then, many ruins have been discovered and investigated, mainly in mainland Southeast Asia. Most of these are cave or rock shelter ruins, and many of them are accompanied by layers of freshwater shellfish, but there are also large shell middens of marine shellfish in Sumatra.

Most of the stone tools are pebble tools and pebble axes made by chipping a small piece of pebble and attaching a blade to it, but there are also primitive ground stone axes with a sharpened edge, concave stones, whetstones, and bone and horn tools. Fragments of pottery have also been reported from some sites, but there are no definite examples of accompanying pottery. The conventional wisdom is that they were at the stage of a hunting and gathering economy, but some have also claimed the existence of primitive agriculture.

[Keiji Imamura]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

東南アジア完新世（沖積世）初頭、中石器時代または前期新石器時代とされる文化。ベトナム、ハノイ南西のホアビンHoa-binh省（現ハソンビン省）の石灰岩山地で1920年代に数十か所の遺跡の発掘を行ったフランスのコラニM. Colaniが明らかにした文化で、彼女はこの文化を三期に区分している。その後、東南アジア大陸部を中心に多数の遺跡が発見・調査された。その多くは洞窟(どうくつ)・岩陰遺跡で、淡水産の貝の層を伴うものが多いが、スマトラ島には海産貝の大貝塚も存在する。

　石器の多くは、手ごろな礫(れき)を打ち欠いて刃をつけた礫器(れっき)、礫斧(れきふ)で、一端を研磨して刃をつけた原始的な磨製石斧、凹石(くぼみいし)、砥石(といし)、骨角器も存在する。いくつかの遺跡で土器片の出土も報告されているが、確実な伴出例はないといってよい。狩猟、採集経済の段階にあったとするのが定説であるが、一部には原始的農耕の存在も主張されている。

［今村啓爾］

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