Ōtsuka Kofun

In the Landscape of Ancient Hekikai

Anjo City sits on the broad alluvial plain south of Nagoya, in what was once the Hekikai District of Mikawa Province. This fertile lowland was heavily settled from the Yayoi period onward, and the Kofun period (c. 3rd–7th century CE) left a remarkable scatter of burial mounds across it. The larger tombs on the Hekikai Terrace's eastern edge—particularly the nationally designated Sakurai Kofun Group—belonged to powerful chieftains who dominated the Yoshizu River corridor. But the smaller mounds deeper in the plain, like Ōtsuka Kofun, likely mark the graves of local lineage heads in an interconnected world of rural communities.↗↗

The name Ōtsuka (応塚) means something close to "Responding Mound," a folk-appellation type common to kofun whose original occupants and functions faded from memory long before the Edo period. The site's listing as a 史跡 (historical place of interest) reflects local governmental recognition of its value as a cultural heritage resource rather than major tourism infrastructure.↗↗