DOLMENS IN JAPAN. 



599 



as a place of residence. A small opening between two of the wall- 

 stones at the base of one of the chambers api^eared blackened by fire. 

 By removing the dirt and smaller stones which had tumbled down, I 

 managed with some difficulty to crawl into an irregular flue which was 

 blackened with smoke. This flue communicated with another smaller 

 flue leading back into the chamber (see Fig. 2). 



A rude sort of plaster was observed in some of the caves. 



The walls of all the caves examined were carefully scrutinized to 

 detect if possible signs of tool-marks or inscriptions, but nothing of 

 the kind was observed. A careful search was made also for relics of 

 some kind, but the floors were equally bare. Trenches were also dug 

 down to the undisturbed soil, but no traces of pottery or implement of 

 any description was found. This result is not surprising, when it is 

 known that during the feudal days these chambers were often used as 

 places of refuge for outlaws or political refugees, and during these 

 times the earlier relics were probably removed or destroyed. 





Fig. 6.— Longitudinal Section op Dolmen, showing Chamber and Passageway. 



History records the fact that the governors of various provinces in 

 which underground shelters occur ordered the closing of these places 

 as a necessary measure. 



No great antiquity can probably be assigned to these structures. 

 That they are over a thousand years old there can be no doubt.* I am 

 told by Japanese scholars that their early records call attention to these 

 megalithic chambers existing in different parts of the country. Many 

 of them have been destroyed, either for the purpose of securing the 

 stone they contained for building materials, or to gain gi'ound for cul- 

 tivation. 



In the vicinity of the dolmens and in the paths leading to them, 



* In Fergusson's work, already alluded to, there is figured a dolmen of Uby, Scandi- 

 navia, page 311, and Antiquera, Spain, page 383, which resemble in many features the 

 dolmens near Osaka. Jewitt also, in his work entitled " Grave-Mounds and their Con- 

 tents," figures the dolmen of New Grange, Meath, Ireland, page 57, and the cairn of 

 Howth, Ireland, page 58, which again recall similar features to those of the dolmens de- 

 scribed in this article. In the cairn of Howth the passageway is twenty-seven feet long. 



