Editors’ introduction: Towards an archaeology of Japanese ritual and religion

Abstract

The Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (d. 538 BC) is often said to have been the world's first archaeologist. Nabonidus's interest in the ruins and inscriptions of ancient Babylon was motivated by a pious desire to better serve the gods. Right from the very beginning of archaeology, therefore, there has been a profound interest in ancient religion. Since then archaeology and religion have had an intimate if occasionally stormy relationship. Archaeology is largely concerned with the study of material items that have been preserved from the past, and that demand explanation within specific cultural contexts, while the study of the history of religion (particularly in Japan) can teeter on the brink of teleology, in which the differences between past and present and the diversity of past religious structures are sacrificed at the altar of progressive evolution. The aims of this special issue on Archaeological approaches to ritual and religion in Japan are threefold: 1) to show what the historical study of Japanese religion can gain from incorporating an archaeological approach; 2) to demonstrate that the material evidence for past Japanese religious activity is a rich repository for exploring the way in which archaeological material operates; 3) to show that it is not possible to fully understand the processes that constitute the history ofJapan without considering religion. In this introduction we would like to set these aims in the context of recent advances in archaeological thought. We will begin by considering the general relationship between archaeology and religion, dealing in particular with the identification of ritual practices in archaeological remains and the interpretation of those remains in terms of reconstructed religious systems. This necessitates a discussion of how ritual operates to reproduce and transform those religious systems, often through the