• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
• /
• v.40
• /
• pp.137-167
• /
• 2007

This paper is aimed to study the late Neolithic Age in North Korea in order to closely examine a transition process into the Bronze Age in the Korean peninsula. Thus, the pottery with lightning design was selected as target data. Since the pottery with lightning design is fundamental data that North Korea's archeologists have used for chronological recordings of the late Neolithic Age in the northwest region, the parallel relationship between the eastern and the western region was established with comparison of pottery with lightning design in the northeastern region. The examination focuses on data that cover the target region of the pottery with lightning design of the adjacent Southern Primorskii region including the counterpart of the northwestern and the northeastern region. As a result, some attribute analyses revealed that the pottery with lightning design was affected by the counterpart of the northwestern region near the Yalu River. Prior to genealogical and chronological recordings of the pottery with lightning design in the northeastern region, the pottery with lightning design in the northwestern region was recorded chronologically in order to examine its specific development process. Consequently, in the second period of the Neolithic Age, the pottery with lightning design in the northwestern region was assumed to have an impact on the counterpart in the northeastern region. The classification of the pottery with lightning design in the northeastern region shall be based on 4-period development. According to this classification, the pottery, which was found in the Tumen river basin, was thought to belong to the first period. The pottery went through genealogy differentiation in the second period and when entering into the third period, the pottery spread to inland of south Primorskii. The pottery was assumed to exist in the southern Primorskii region until the tip end (the fourth period) of the Neolithic Age. It is assumed that considering the fact that climate change led to the agriculture movement, Zaisanovka culture, i.e. the late Ne Neolithic Age, moved to the southern Primorskii region along the Tumen River basin.