Shizuoka's Toro Site: Experience Daily Life 2,000 Years Ago

Shizuoka City is home to many historical treasures. While the ruins of castles and temples linked to figures like Tokugawa Ieyasu and Imagawa Yoshimoto are well known, the city also preserves far older archaeological sites. Among them is the Toro Site, a settlement from the late Yayoi period roughly 2,000 years ago.

Today, the entire area has been developed into a park that recreates life in the Yayoi era and allows visitors to experience what daily living was like at the time.

Archaeological Significance

The Toro Site sits about two kilometers southeast of JR Shizuoka Station, quietly tucked away in a residential neighborhood. Within the grounds, visitors can explore reconstructed Yayoi-period buildings, including dwellings, raised-floor storehouses, and a ceremonial hall. Near the south entrance is the Shizuoka City Toro Museum, home to 775 excavated artifacts designated as Important Cultural Properties.

*Artifacts excavated from the Toro Site, designated as Important Cultural Properties of Japan. (Courtesy of Shizuoka City Toro Museum)*

Excavations revealed that the residential area and rice fields formed a single integrated community, and research carried out here helped lead to the founding of the Japanese Archaeological Association. For these reasons, the site is often described as the starting point of postwar archaeology" and "a landmark achievement in Japanese archaeology."

Museum Exhibits

The museum's senior curator, Sota Matsubara, explains, "We have about 400 items on permanent display. Highlights include rare cultural assets such as 2,000-year-old wooden farming tools and structural elements like pillars and beams from ancient dwellings and storehouses."

As he guides us through the second-floor permanent exhibition, Matsubara points out that one of the museum's signature attractions is the first-floor Yayoi Experience Exhibition Room, where visitors can take part in hands-on activities.

In this space, replicas of excavated items are available for visitors to touch, and stations are set up for trying out tasks that recreate daily life in the Yayoi period.

*The Yayoi Experience Exhibition Room on the first floor of the Shizuoka City Toro Museum. (©Sankei by Hiromi Aoyama)*

"Children especially love it, but adults also say it helps them imagine what life was really like back then," Matsubara adds.

The Toro Site was discovered in 1943, during the Pacific War, when land was being cleared for a military factory. Although the initial excavation was brief, it attracted significant academic interest and some investigation was carried out.

*Excavation of the Toro Site, which began in 1947. (Courtesy of Shizuoka City Toro Museum)*

Rice Cultivation

Full-scale excavations began in 1947, after the war. A large number of pottery and wooden artifacts were unearthed, and researchers confirmed that the residential area, with its dwellings and storehouses, was closely integrated with the surrounding rice fields.

It is largely thanks to the research at the Toro Site that the Yayoi period became widely recognized as an era of paddy rice cultivation. Reflecting this, rice fields have been reconstructed next to the ancient dwellings on the site.

*The Permanent Exhibition Room on the second floor of the Shizuoka City Toro Museum. (©Sankei by Hiromi Aoyama)*

"Every year, we actually grow rice in these paddies," Matsubara explains. "We cultivate red rice, an ancient variety, and hold events like rice planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall."

In addition, the museum regularly offers workshops in woodworking, rope-braiding for ceremonial shimenawa, and pottery-making. These hands-on activities give visitors a chance to experience life in the Yayoi period firsthand.

Later excavations revealed that the Toro settlement had been hit by two major floods. It is believed that the inhabitants abandoned the site and moved elsewhere after these disasters. For the Yayoi people, who had begun living settled lives and relying heavily on agriculture, maintaining their crops may have been a matter of survival for the entire community.