Goshono Site and Komakino Stone Circle

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Goshono Site

   In the hills of northern Iwate, a short ride from the town of Ichinohe, a group of round houses with grass-covered roofs sits in a quiet clearing among cedar and broadleaf woods. They look like something out of a fairy tale, low mounds with doorways and smoke holes, and they are reconstructions of pit dwellings from the Jomon period, the long prehistoric era of hunter-gatherers who lived in Japan from around fifteen thousand years ago until the arrival of rice farming. The Goshono site was a large settlement in the middle Jomon period, and excavations found that some houses here were roofed with earth rather than thatch, which is why the reconstructions look the way they do. Since 2021 it has been one of the components of the World Heritage site of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan.

   Read the complete Goshono Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Goshono Site is where the day begins. Next is Korekawa Site.

2. 2. Korekawa Site

   The Korekawa site lies on the southern edge of Hachinohe, a port city on the Pacific coast of Aomori prefecture in northern Honshu, and it is one of seventeen locations in the UNESCO listing of the Jōmon prehistoric sites of northern Japan. The Jōmon were hunter-gatherers who lived in these islands for over ten thousand years, making some of the oldest pottery in the world and developing a remarkably settled, sophisticated way of life without farming. At Korekawa, waterlogged layers preserved things that usually vanish: wooden bowls, combs, bows and baskets, many of them coated in red lacquer, showing a level of craft that surprises everyone who sees them.

   Read the complete Korekawa Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Korekawa Site comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Futatsumori Site.

3. 3. Futatsumori Site

   Futatsumori is a gentle hilltop near the town of Shichinohe in Aomori prefecture, overlooking Lake Ogawara, and to an untrained eye it is simply a grassy field among woods and farmland. But this is one of the largest shell mounds in the Tōhoku region, piled up by Jōmon people over thousands of years as they gathered shellfish from the lake and the sea, and it belongs to the same World Heritage group of Jōmon sites as the better-known Sannai-Maruyama. The shell heaps, rich in calcium, neutralised the acid soil and preserved bones, tools and ornaments that would otherwise have dissolved.

   Read the complete Futatsumori Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 102 km into the recorded legs you reach Futatsumori Site. Next is Komakino Stone Circle.

4. 4. Komakino Stone Circle

   Four thousand years ago, someone on this hillside in northern Honshu lined up stones in a ring and built another ring around it, and they did it carefully enough that the circles are still there. Komakino is a Jōmon stone circle, from the hunter-gatherer people who lived in Japan long before rice farming, and it is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of Jōmon prehistoric sites in northern Japan, added in 2021. The arrangement is quite small and elegant, a double ring of river stones in a grassy field, and nobody knows for sure what it was for. Graves, ceremonies and a calendar of the seasons are all guesses, and it is better to stand there and hold the question than to pretend to an answer.

   Read the complete Komakino Stone Circle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Komakino Stone Circle, about halfway. Next is back through Futatsumori Site.

5. 5. back through Futatsumori Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Futatsumori Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Futatsumori Site sits at 206 km, about halfway. Next is back through Korekawa Site.

6. 6. back through Korekawa Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Korekawa Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Korekawa Site comes up about 291 km into the recorded legs. Next is Goshono Site.

7. 7. Goshono Site

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Goshono Site write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Goshono Site closes the day.