会誌『考古学研究』

Abstract: The basic unit of kin groups in the Kinki district has been considered to consist of a family whose axis was the married couple, with increasingly autonomous households becoming patrilineal and thereby making property heritable. But these assumptions are found unsustainable in a reexamination of physical anthropological data on gender and age, along with archaeological evidence for social stratification at burial sites. Also, burials of infants and children indicate that status was not established innately but rather that individual status changed with progress through an age grade system. The author concludes that while Kinki Yayoi society was stratified from its early phase, hereditary succession was unstable, and society was not closed or exclusive but allowed movement between strata according to age or changes in social role. Kin groups were extremely tribal in nature, but it was an inegalitarian society with aspects of a chiefdom, including the allowance of attempts to make status hereditary.

Keywords: Yayoi society; kinship system; group membership; hereditary system; age grade system.

Abstract: This paper reveals two phases of major change toward patrilineality, one at the beginning, and a second in the latter part, of the Middle Kofun period. Examination of tomb groups suggests the establishment of patrilineal decent groups, first among the elite, at the beginning of the Middle Kofun. Patrilineality spread to the level of household heads in the latter part of the Middle Kofun, although a small number of female household heads continued to exist, suggesting a bilateral element remained at this level. Military tension, and the military policies taken in response by the Kinai polity, are inferred as background factors to the accelerated transition toward patrilineality.

Keywords: Kofun period; patriliniality; kinship system; burial pattern.

Abstract: The period from the latter half of the sixth to the first half of the seventh centuries has special meaning in the process of ancient Japanese state formation, as important social changes seen at this time include the cessation of keyhole-shaped burial mound building, and the start of construction of Buddhist temples and Chinese style palaces. There is considerable disagreement, however, among estimates for calendar years of archaeological materials in this period, a problem that cannot be ignored for attempts to reconstruct political processes from burial mound data.
　After a proposal that Bakuya kofun, Nara prefecture, is the tomb of Oshisaka no Hikohito no Oe, a prince who died at the beginning of the seventh century, the absolute chronology of materials of this period was thought to shift several decades later. But a detailed chronological re-examination of stone chambers of burial mounds, and of Sue pottery in the Kinai and the Kibi regions, demonstrates critical problems in the prevailing opinions based on the date of Bakuya kofun.
　Another chronological clue is a sword from Midani kofun, Hyogo prefecture, inscribed with the bo-shin year of the sexagenary cycle. Some researchers, relying on the date estimated for Bakuya kofun, have insisted this corresponds to 668, rather than the traditional interpretation of 608. But from chronological considerations of decorated swords, and of the pottery accompanying this find, the date estimated for this sword cannot be moved to the latter half of the seventh century.
　In consequence, the calendar year of the abolishment of keyhole-shaped burial mounds in the Kinai region is estimated as near the end of the sixth century.

Keywords: Keyhole-shaped burial mounds; calendar year; Bakuya kofun; stone chamber; Sue pottery.

Abstract: This paper discusses methodologies of making digital topographic surveys and processing spatial data by means of GIS (Geographic Information Systems). To collect accurate spatial data, researchers survey a site using a total station and GPS. A number of studies recently carried out by foreign scholars have examined the accuracy of results obtained with different types of spatial data and interpolation methods, but in Japanese archaeology this issue has hardly been discussed.
　The author has been engaged in the digital documentation of, and analysis of spatial data for, Tsukuriyama (“Zozan”) kofun, a burial mound in Okayama prefecture. Results obtained from DEM (Digital Elevation Model) interpolations at different surface resolutions are compared. In conclusion, methodological and practical issues in the processing of spatial data using the results of digital topographic surveys are discussed, in order to give a perspective for future research in this area.

Keywords: Digital topographic survey; TIN model; spatial interpolation; DEM; contour map.