Case file · Folklore / legend
The Koropokkur debate
From 1886 Tokyo anthropologists argued over whether the koropokkur, little people of Ainu tradition who lived under butterbur leaves, had been a real people who made Japan's prehistoric pottery.
1886 CE · 35.71, 139.76 · status: legend
The account
Shōgorō Tsuboi said yes; Yoshikiyo Koganei said the pottery was made by the Ainu's own ancestors. The debate shaped early Japanese archaeology.
The sceptical view
Archaeology later showed the Jōmon people made the pottery; the koropokkur remain a figure of Ainu oral tradition.