CONTENTS
Vol.63 No.2（250）,September 2016
LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE 62nd GENERAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY
- Food diversity and climate change: Lessons from the Early and Middle Jomon Periods, Japan
- HABU Junko
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that archaeology can contribute significantly to the interdisciplinary discussion of long-term human-environmental interaction. The paper starts with a hypothesis that a highly specialized subsistence strategy can support a larger community for a short period, but a decrease in subsistence and food diversity makes the production system and its associated community more vulnerable in the long-run. The first half of the paper provides a theoretical discussion about the importance of food and subsistence diversity, along with other cultural factors, for maintaining the long-term sustainability and resilience of human societies. Using a case study from the Early and Middle Jomon periods (ca. 5900-4400 cal. BP) of the northern Tohoku Region, Japan, the second half of the paper demonstrates how archaeological and paleoenvironmental studies can contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms of long-term culture change.
Keywords: food diversity; subsistence; Jomon; climate change; resilience.
PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE 62nd ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY:
ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN INTER-DISCIPLINARY APPROACHES, Part 1
- Regional society of the Yayoi and Kofun periods seen from topographical development and the utilization of agricultural lands: A study of the southern portion of the Kawachi plain
- ŌBA Shigenobu
Abstract: Through the methodology of geoarchaeology, in which archaeological excavation is conducted in conformity with the academic disciplines focusing on stratigraphy and sedimentation, the ancient topography of the southern portion of the Kawachi plain has been reconstructed as dividing into seven phases from the Yayoi into the Kofun periods, and changes in settlement over this period were examined. Paying attention in particular to the relationship between residential and economic production districts and calling the combined two the settlement activities precinct, an examination was made of this precinct’s composition and scale. As a result, while the settlement activities precinct was found to change in response to topographic changes brought about by riverine actions, with points of significant transition being recognized for the Early Yayoi and the latter half of the Late Yayoi, plus the latter half of the Middle Kofun periods, agricultural settlements based on wet-rice agriculture showed transformations that were due rather to factors coming out of human society. In particular, in the latter half of the Middle Kofun, as the separation of residential and economic production districts advanced while the settlement activities precinct expanded, it is thought that the essential formation of regional society advanced during this period. Within such enlarged precincts, control was advanced over the river systems across broad areas for the large-scale operation of rice paddies, along with the development of waterways that accompanied the sedimentation of the Yamato river system.
Keywords: geoarchaeology; settlement activities precinct; riverine topography; rice paddies.
- Natural changes and social transformations seen in the environs of ancient Lake Hamana
- GOTŌ Ken’ichi
Abstract: Facing the Pacific ocean, Shizuoka prefecture has been hit many times over by tsunamis up to the present day. Tsunamis from megathrust events such as the Great East Japan earthquake not only bring destruction across wide areas, but also produce topographic changes such as the inundation of low-lying areas along the coast. In fact, the topography in the vicinity of the sea opening of Lake Hamana was inundated by a tsunami from the consolidated-type earthquake of 1498, which flooded the southern portion of the lake and opened it to the ocean, resulting in the lake’s modern brackish water condition. In order to study this region for the Nara period, there is the tax registry (Tōtomi no kuni Hamanagun yusochō) from the year 740 among the documents of the Shōsōin. Whereas the registry records the villages of Arai and Tsuzuki, these two are missing in the Kōzanji copy of the Wamyōruijushō compiled in the interval from 931 to 937. Utagawa Manabu, who has examined the jōri field system remains of the Hamana district, holds that these two villages were not included in the tenth century text because the coastal portion of Lake Hamana was inundated between the end of the Nara and the start of the Heian periods. From an archaeological perspective as well, based on the dispersed existence of lake bed sites on the south shore of Lake Hamana, Mukōzaka Kōji has shown that from the end of the seventh century to the Nara period, the southern portion of the lake experienced a widespread transition to dry land. The current contribution makes a comparison with the tax registry for various sites, beginning with the Kosai kiln site group that is an outstanding domestic example for its type, extracting names of the Miwa family such as Miwa no Atai and others, who provided leadership for production at the Kosai kiln site group. Further, a reconstruction is made of changes in the structure of operation of the kilns in the sixth and seventh centuries.
Keywords: Ancient period; Lake Hamana; topographic change; economic production structure.
RESEARCH NOTE
- Inferring the date of completion of the former Ikeda tunnel by identifying the standards of its bricks
- TAKEUCHI Masato
Abstract: Archaeological treatments of examples from the modern era have been increasing, and it is necessary to enhance typological research on bricks as a widely used structural material. From prior research, a variety of standards for bricks in the Meiji era and their periods of use have become clear. If the standards of bricks used in a structure are known then we may anticipate determining its age on that basis, but the large degree of variance renders this difficult. The current contribution, taking as material the former Ikeda tunnel linking Wakayama and Osaka, conducted an identification of the standards of its bricks while taking into consideration the degree of permissible variance, from which it is inferred that the date of completion of the tunnel was 1900.
Keywords: contemporary archaeology; standardization of bricks; former Ikeda tunnel.
REPORTS, NEWS AND APPEALS
- Special Topic: Archaeological Sites, Nationalism and Prehistorian Studies, considered from France
- Introduction
- SAKANO Tōru
- The order of things in French archaeology: a concise overview from the end of the 18th century to 1945
- Laurent NESPOULOUS
- The formation and institutionalization of archaeology in France: on the relation between prehistoric, protohistoric and ancient archaeology (19th – 20th centuries)
- Arnaud NANTA
- Father Henri Breuil (1877-1961): the road toward prehistoric archaeology in early 20th century France
- Noël COYE
- Damage of cultural properties caused by the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake and what to think about it now
- SUGII Takeshi
- The Future of the Anthropocene
- TAKIGAWA Wataru
- Yamadadera-style eaves-end tiles transmitted to western Setouchi area
- SEO Shūsou
- Artistic Landscape of Archaeology 5: Making the collaboration between art and archaeology more multiple
- SATŌ Keisuke
BOOKS REVIEWS
- WADA Katsuhiko. Systems and administrations for the protection of archaeological sites
- OHKUBO Tetsuya
SIXTY YEARS OF THE SOCIETY SEEN FROM THE PUBLICATIONS 4
ARCHEO-FOCUS
- Barnenez Tumulus in France and the European Megalithic Culture
- Laurent NESPOULOUS
- Excavation of the Kita-komatsu site, Ōsaki, Miyagi prefecture, Japan
- ONO Shōtarō (Miyagi Prefectural Board of Education)
REPORTS
- Report of the Okayama regional meetings of the society held in May, June and July 2016
MESSAGE FROM THE COMMITTEE