<論説>朝鮮石器時代の「すりうす」

Abstract

朝鮮石器時代遺物中に、穀類其の他の植物性食物をすりつぶしたり、紛にひいたりする事に使われた「すりうす」がある。筆者は先ずその形式分類を試みる。その中で著るしいのは、ヨーロッパの石器時代に流行した鞍形「すりうす」 saddle quern と同等の特殊な形のものである。それが亦、蒙古から東満洲に亙つても分布している。これは西からの伝播と考えられ、朝鮮のものは、これ等と一つらなりの関聯にある。朝鮮発見の「すりうす」は既往の概説書や報告書中では概ね「砥石」として扱われたが、根拠のないことである。筆者は在鮮当時作つていた図面の一部を紹介し、同時に既刊の文献中から類例を抜萃し、伴出物特に土器との関係を明らかにする。それによるとこれは本来櫛目文土器に伴う遺物である。然しまた無文土器の遺蹟から出ることもあるので、その理由について考える。本小篇の扱うものは、全部廻転式手動碾磑以前の段階にあるもので、それは石器時代的生活の標識ともなる。最後に金属文化-鉄器時代の初、廻転手動すりうす (碾磑) の考案が漢よりもたらされ、軈て流行した。かくて主題の「すりうす」は、労力節滅の効果の大きい碾磑に其の役目を譲つた。

So far as the archaeological findings are concerned, rotating handmills have been introduced into Korea by the Chinese colonists during the Han Period. Hitherto, housewives in Neolithic times of Korea had been content to make their flour by non-rotating handmills, which may be broadly divided into three main classes : the grinding could be done by (1) pounding in a mortar, (2) rubbing on a saucer-shaped queern with a bun-shaped rubbing stone, and (3) rubbing on a saddle-shaped stone with a sausage-shaped rubbing stone. But the standard procedure, so far as archaeological excavations are concerned, was (3), although some previous writers on Korean archaeology have misconstrued them as a sharpener for stone celts, while others misinterpreted them as an anvilstone on which animal bones or fishshells were crushed. It is interesting to notice that some of them are markedly similar to the saddle-shaped quern in Europe. The to-and-fro movement of an upper stone permitted both hands to be used on it and this led to the development of the saddle quern, in which the upper stone lies athwart an elongatad lower stone. The latter has a grinding surface which is concave longitudinally, while from side to side it may be flat or else slightly convex. The upper stone is typically sausage-shaped, and its grinding surface convex from side to side. In Korea, non-rotating querns have been most commonly found with neolithic pottery decorated with a comb. As this kind of pottery is considered by most archaeologists as distinctive relics of the hunting and fishing phase, there has been a controversy as to the purpose of those stones. The present writer believes that this probably follows from the nature of dietary requirements. However, some have been found in association with elaborately polished vases and huge urns which are typical of an agricultural phase. A distributional study shows that the Korean neolithic quern is one of the most persistent, east-most traits in the Northern Periphery of China Proper. It should be noted that a number of examples have been reported from Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, while the saddle-querns are not found in the neolithic sites of the Japanese Islands.