Postmortem Cranial Impalement During the Middle Yayoi Period, North Kyushu, Japan

The remains of a male adult recovered from a grave at the Kuma-Nishioda site in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, exhibited unusual perimortem cranial trauma. The Kuma-Nishioda site was a large burial ground that dated to the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory. A differential diagnosis of the trauma suggests that the head was separated from the body and impaled after death. The head may have been put on display for some time before it was interred with the postcranial remains. Comparison with other cases from contemporaneous sites leads to an emergent pattern of overlapping modalities of violence that can be placed against the theoretical framework of the poetics of postmortem manipulation. Discussion of the ritual symbolism and plausible motives of the actors involved in the events that led to the observed trauma forms the basis for the inferential interpretation of the role of this individual in the transformative political process of the region, but whose achievements became a forgotten footnote in the performative narrative of political consolidation that led to the early state society historically known as Yamatai, the precursor of the nation now known as Japan.