Graveyard in Daho-ri and the change of its social body

This article aims to examine the change in the shape of the political body that existed in the Daho-ri site in Gimhae based on the different styles of tombs constructed there across the ten periods (from Period I a to Period V b) that it chronologizes from sequence dating of the burial goods. For each period, three social classes, namely chiefs, aristocrats, and ordinary people, are identified by the amounts of bronzeware, bronze swords, ironware, and iron swords buried with them. Following the existing literature records, this political body is assumed to be Garakguk. Each period corresponds to a single generation and the absolute age of the site was inferred from the age of the coins from the Xin dynasty found in Daho-ri (produced in AD 14) and the time at which wood coffin tombs began to be produced. The fact that the tombs for aristocrats began to be constructed in Period I b (the early first century AD) while the tombs for chiefs had existed since Period I a (the late first century BC) suggests that Garakguk started in Period I b. From Period II b to III a, many bronze swords and bronzewares were buried with chiefs and aristocrats suggesting that trades with China and Japan were frequent at this time. Period III a (around AD 70), characterized by the increased numbers of iron axes used as burial goods, was the time when iron and ironware production and trade with foreign countries thrived alongside the increased agricultural productivity. Tomb no.1 where the most extravagant ironware was buried was constructed in this period. Since Period III b (around AD 100), only iron swords had been buried while the use of bronze had been restricted only to the decorations on the sheaths. Since Period IV a (around AD 120), the tombs with bronze swords and bronze mirrors had been constructed only on the coastal areas of Gimhae Bay (one for each generation) while none had been in Daho-ri. From this, it is inferred that, since Period IV a, the supreme chiefs had been selected from the Gimhae area while the chiefs from Daho-ri had been incorporated as the lower rank right after the chiefs from Gimhae. Since Period V a (around 170 AD) and Period V b, the wooden coffin tombs for the highest rank had been constructed at the Yangdong-ri site in Gimhae. This was also the period when wooden chamber tombs much larger than wooden coffin tombs began to be constructed in Yangdong-ri, suggesting that the political body in this area was further developed and this led the political body in Daho-ri to disappear around 200 AD. The graveyard can be divided into three parts, the Central, Southern, and Northern, according to the distribution of the tombs. From Period I a to III b, the tombs of chiefs were constructed in the Central site. After Period IV a, the chief tombs were constructed in the Southern or Northern sites. The gray potteries typical for the Gimhae area also started to be produced in Period IV a in relation to the change in the political bodies around this region.