The Bronze Age in Korea has some large population aggregates, which are often interpreted as chiefdoms. Bronze Age pottery styles in the Korean peninsula vary by region, but they are essentially similar - consisting of jars with relatively plain exteriors, flat bases, and wide mouths, called Mumun. They also resemble pottery of the Dongbei and the southern Russian Far East. Rice pollen, phytoliths, and grains impressions, as well as evidence for millets and barley, have all been found in the paste of Mumun pottery, confirming that this was a fully agricultural society. Houses are roomier than those of the Neolithic, and grouped into larger aggregates. Instead of being placed in river valleys, Bronze Age villages were built on hill slopes, presumably to allow for terracing of rice paddies with water diverted from small streams. Agricultural fields have been uncovered in several southern Korean sites, with rice, barley, and millets identified as dominant crops.
In the southern part of the Korean peninsula, most dolmens consist of only a large monolith lying on the ground, covering a burial. The burials are most often in stone cists, but sometimes they are in pits with or without wooden coffins, and sometimes large jars contain the bodies, especially in the southwest. Daggers are often made of polished limestone instead of bronze, but Liaoning-style bronze daggers have been found all over the Korean peninsula, especially in the southeast and southwest. The bronze daggers appear in Korea at least by 800 BCE.
The nature of the society in Bronze Age Korea has been a subject of much discussion, but no consensus has formed. Most would propose that they were small polities with local leaders who are buried under dolmens, which are often glossed as chiefdoms.
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