Gaiso-Bo and Fuso Mortuary Practices and Human Migration in the Late Pleistocene in the Ryukyu Islands

Chiaki Katagiri

A chapter in The Prehistory of Human Migration - Human Expansion, Resource Use, and Mortuary Practice in Maritime Asia from IntechOpen

Abstract: This chapter introduces and discusses the Pleistocene human migration from the view of mortuary practices in the Ryukyu Islands, such as gaiso-bo and fuso traditions, based on the late Pleistocene tomb site newly found in Ishigaki Island on the southern Ryukyu. Gaiso-bo is a traditional mortuary practice where rock shelters and caves are used as tombs, and remains of the deceased are exposed to the elements to undergo natural decomposition. Fuso mortuary practice where the body of the deceased, with soft tissues still remaining after death, is placed in an exposed environment on the surface over time to allow it to naturally decompose into bones. With the detailed introduction of these mortuary practices, I also discuss the Pleistocene mortuary practices in the Ryukyu Islands with comparative view from the cases of Pleistocene mortuary practices in other island environments like Wallacea and Near Oceania.

Keywords: Pleistocene mortuary practice; gaiso-Bo; fuso; Ishigaki Island; Ryukyu Islands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/89259 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ito:pchaps:329843

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.114232

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from IntechOpen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Slobodan Momcilovic ().