Yayoi Research Articles

The Land-Pulling Myth and Some Aspects of Historic Reality

fudoki describes Province, situated in today's Shimane Prefecture and facing the Japan Sea. It is the oldest surviving Japanese text compiled by aristocrats from a region, hence giving us unique information about a Japanese province during the Nara period. However, fudoki has been little consulted by Western scholars. The land-pulling myth is the first myth to be related in fudoki; it narrates how one of the local deities looks across the Japan Sea and decides to pull land from four of the places that he can see, including from the Korean Peninsula. This land he cuts off, pulls across the sea, and attaches to Izumo, hence making the province larger. This article discusses two ways of interpreting the myth. One possible interpretation is that the four places from which land is being pulled correspond to an area that was in different ways connected to during the late Yayoi period. The other, perhaps more worthwhile, explanation of the myth is to see how it supported the local aristocracy in Province as it tried to maintain partial autonomy vis-a-vis the central government. KEYWORDS: fudoki-Izumo Province-Izumo no Omi-myths-deities-burial mounds-kofun-Yayoi period-Nara period (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) The eighth-century text (no kuni) fudoki ... (733) narrates several intriguing myths, most of them not mentioned in the official records, Kojiki ... (712) and Nihon shoki ... (720), compiled by the central government.1 The myths not only differ from the ones of the central tradition; some of them even outright oppose the hegemony of the court. Almost all of the myths included in fudoki are fragmentary: either they only recount one short part of a myth, or just briefly allude to a tale where gods are the principle characters. However, two myths appear to be related in their full length. One of these, the land-pulling myth (kunibiki shinwa ...), is without a doubt the most impressive of the narratives included in fudoki. It tells of how the great god Yatsukamizu Omitsuno ... finds the land of too small. As a consequence, he looks across the ocean and learns that excessive land exists in Silla ..., a territory on the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. After cutting off a piece of this land and pulling it across the Japan Sea, he attaches the land to and moors it firmly to a nearby mountain. This is how the first part of the land-pulling myth ends, but Omitsuno is still far from content, and he further pulls land from three other localities bordering the Japan Sea (see Okimori et al., 2005, 8-9). The region is special in many ways. Archaeological finds from as far back as the Yayoi ... period (ca. 400 bc-ca. ad 250) imply that the area nurtured its own unique culture. Towards the late Yayoi period, this culture culminated in what has been described as the Izumo Alliance (Izumo rengo ...; see, for example, Watanabe 1995), spreading out eastward from to the Hokuriku ... region, and northward to the Oki islands ... During the following period, the Kofun ... period (ca. 250-592), the awareness of there being an culture seems to have remained, as it is reflected in the special types of tombs built in Izumo. Judging from the historical records that have survived, the distinctive culture can be further traced up to the Nara period (710-784). Could it be possible that the land-pulling myth describes the geographical extent of the Izumo Alliance and the character of the culture in the Yayoi period? Would this be the reason why the myth is related in fudoki? Or, could there be another, more intricate, motive for the compilers of the book to incorporate the myth in fudoki? Is it possible that the myth is an answer to political tension between the center and periphery in eighth century Japan? In search of an answer, this article intends to relate the land-pulling myth to some aspects of historic reality. …

Developmental perspectives on neurocranial proportions in Japan

This study employs juvenile cranial data derived from collections dating to between about 5000 years ago and the present in order to investigate how differences in cranial growth trajectories contributed to inter-group variation in cranial shape among temporally defined Japanese populations. As gene influx from the Asian mainland was insignificant after the Yayoi period (c. CE 300), differences in adult cranial shape among later assemblages from Japan are probably related to developmental adaptations to environmental change. Comparing cranial growth trajectories among groups from different time periods allows indirect testing of several hypotheses about secular changes in cranial growth, including thermoregulatory adaptation, change in levels of masticatory stress, and change in levels of physiological stress. Differences in neurocranial proportions among groups with contrasting adult cranial shapes were found to be already pronounced for the infant cohort (0–3 years of age) and actually tended to decline slightly within later age ranges; differences in mandibular shape were unremarkable early in life, but became more pronounced after infancy. Consequently, changes in chewing stress are unlikely to have been the principal factor driving inter-group differences in cranial proportions. The cranial growth pattern reconstructed from a Medieval Japanese skeletal series showed the greatest magnitude of difference from those reconstructed for other time periods. Unlike in the other groups, there was no marked decline of cephalic index with age for the Medieval series. The unusual trajectory of cranial growth evident in the Medieval sample may result from a high degree of physiological stress due to overall poor nutrition.

Rice archaeological remains and the possibility of DNA archaeology: examples from Yayoi and Heian periods of Northern Japan

Japanese rice cultivation in paddy fields has 2,400∼3,000 years of history. Most of modern Japanese rice varieties are classified as Temperate-japonica (Tm-J). Few landraces are recognized as Tropical-japonica (Tr-J) only in southwestern Japan. However, ancient DNA studies and phytolith analysis suggest that Tr-J strains were more popular in the past than now. Maekawa is a complex archaeological site composed of paddies dated from the Yayoi (2,100 years BP) to the Heian (1,100 years BP) periods. Phytolith analysis indicates that intensive rice cultivation was practiced in both periods, but there was no cultivation in the intervening period. Morphological features of bulliform phytoliths suggest that Tr-J was cultivated during both periods. Locally, rice cultivation during the Heian period was brought to a close by a flood event, in which immature rice plants were pulled down and buried in silt to be preserved in a quasi-carbonized/ waterlogged state. Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of the carbonized plant culm from Heian Maekawa recovered chloroplast DNA sequences of the 6C7A plastid subtype, which is common to both Tr-J and Tm-J, whereas two plastid subtypes, such as 6C7A and also 7C6A, were found in aDNA of carbonized grains from the Tareyanagi site of the Yayoi period. The latter plastid subtype was specific only to Tr-J. In order to better characterize the past rice populations, modern landraces collected in the local area were classified with morphophysiological traits. Some of the landraces were found to carry several traits of Tr-J, including bulliform phytolith types, but mixed with Tm-J traits. Based on the discontinuous distribution of rice phytoliths between the Yayoi and the Heian period, the early introduction of rice cultivation may have been discontinuous and locally reintroduced after a ∼1,000-year hiatus, but with a genetically different rice population. Such populations were composed from Tr-J like strains as shown by landraces but with reduced diversity in plastid types. Through such changes, since the Yayoi era, Tr-J was largely replaced by Tm-J, although ancient Tr-J continued to participate in the genetic makeup of later rice populations and may have aided the local adaptation of introduced Tm-J.

New discovery of the oldest maize weevils in the world from Jomon potteries, Japan

AbstractThe maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) and rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) are two of the most damaging insects for stored grains, and are characteristic species of ancient Japan. Both species and the granary weevil (Sitophilus granarius) are common elsewhere in the world, but the natural distribution of maize and rice weevils is restricted to the Old World^1^. Japanese archaeological records contain a few maize weevil fossils after the Middle Yayoi period (ca. 2000 aBP)^2^. However, since evidence of weevils was discovered as impressions in Jomon potsherds in 2004^3^, many weevil impressions have been found. The oldest is from the Late Jomon (ca. 4000 to 3200 aBP). These findings and other archaeological evidence suggest that the maize weevil invaded Japan from Korea, accompanying the spread of rice cultivation^4^. However, in 2010 we discovered older weevil impressions dating to ca. 9000 aBP. These specimens are the oldest harmful insects discovered from archaeological sites around the world. The new discovery is valuable for future entomological research because such specimens are absent from the fossil record. It is also archaeologically and culturally interesting because this provides evidence of harmful insects living in Jomon villages. However, the new discovery raises the question of what these weevils infested: did cereal cultivation exist 9000 years ago? We have no persuasive answer, but hope one will be provided by future interdisciplinary collaborations among geneticists, entomologists, and archaeologists.

Radiocarbon and Archaeology in Japan and Korea: What has Changed Because of the Yayoi Dating Controversy?

Since the sensational 2003 announcement that pushed the start of the Yayoi period back by 500 yr, archaeologists working on 1st millennium BC material from northeast Asia have had to switch from the older short chronology to a new long chronology. However, this change need not apply to the entire northeast Asian region as China's chronology is tied to written records. The timeline of the Korean peninsula, intermediate between the Chinese and Japanese ones, needs to be reexamined. The chronology of the 1st millennium BC in the Korean peninsula is still in dispute, in part because many of the radiocarbon dates lack clear archaeological contexts. This paper shows that a reliable typological relationship observed in archaeological materials existed at this time linking northeast Asia from China to Japan. This paper includes absolute dates based on the initial AMS 14C measurements of charred crops from South Korean sites.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Yayoi period human skeletal remains from the Doigahama site

We analyzed the mitochondrial DNA extracted from 14 human skeletal remains from the Doigahama site in Japan to clarify the genetic structure of the Doigahama Yayoi population and the relationship between burial style and kinship among individuals. The sequence types obtained in this study were compared with those of the modern Japanese, northern Kyushu Yayoi and ancient Chinese populations. We found that the northern Kyushu Yayoi populations belonged to the groups that include most of the modern Japanese population. In contrast, most of the Doigahama Yayoi population belonged to the group that includes a small number of the modern Japanese population. These results suggest that the Doigahama Yayoi population might have contributed less to the formation of the modern Japanese population than the northern Kyushu Yayoi populations. Moreover, when we examined the kinship between individuals in the Doigahama site, we found that the vicinal burial of adult skeletons indicated a maternal kinship, although that of juvenile skeletons did not. The vicinal burial style might have been influenced by many factors, such as paternal lineages, periods and geographical regions, as well as maternal lineages. In addition, skeletons considered to be those of shamans or leaders had the same sequence types. Their crucial social roles may have been inherited through maternal lineage.

Comparison of the Periodization Methodologies of the Korean Bronze Age and the Japanese Yayoi Period

In this article, I will examine the research history of subdivision/periodization of Korea’s Bronze Age and Japan’s Yayoi period and compare the methodologies of the two countries. The subdivisions of the Korean Bronze Age and the Japanese Yayoi period are similar in that they set changes in pottery as the basis, but show clear differences in their contents. The subdivision of the Korean Bronze Age set at first the changes in metalware and later the changes in pottery as the standard. However, after the concept of “types” was introduced, cultural epochs became the standard. Of course, periodization is initially done using material culture including pottery, followed by cultural interpretations of other archaeological aspects. However, it can be seen as a methodological limitation. The subdivision of the Japanese Yayoi period, however, used changes in pottery as the standard since the formation of Japanese archaeology. Whether good or bad, it is said to be the most important characteristic of Japanese archaeology. Of course, the idea is that classification is not simply based on changes in pottery form but includes changes in pottery types under the concept of “model,” but is limited in its actual application.

Changes in shell gathering in an early agricultural society at the head of Ise Bay, Japan

We examined changes in shell gathering in an early agricultural society at the head of Ise Bay, Japan based on the analysis of almost 20,000 individual shell remains from four coastal settlements. We analyzed historical changes in the composition and size range of the shell species Meretrix lusoria. The most common species went from Crassostrea gigas in the early Middle Yayoi period (about 400–350BC) to M. lusoria in the mid-Middle Yayoi period (about 320–200BC). It is possible that the seacoast tideland, an environment suitable for C. gigas, was buried in sediment from the rivers and thereby transformed into muddy sand bottoms, an environment more suitable for M. lusoria. We also analyzed historical changes in the size range of M. lusoria. The mean size of M. lusoria increased significantly from the early Final Jomon (about 1250–1000BC) to the late Early Yayoi (about 500–400BC), from the late Early Yayoi to the early Middle Yayoi, and from the early to the mid-Middle Yayoi periods. Evidence suggests that during the Yayoi period, the demand for shells decreased and therefore, the pressure to collect M. lusoria also decreased. We concluded that the larger specimens of M. lusoria were collected selectively.

A multivariate analysis of measurements recorded in early and more modern crania from East Asia and Southeast Asia

Stepwise discriminant function analysis and Mahalanobis' generalized distance are applied to 28 landmark measurements recorded in 38 prehistoric and modern cranial series from Eastern Asia for interpreting biological relationships and population history. The cranial series are from Japan, China, Northern Asia, mainland Southeast Asia, and island Southeast Asia. The results of this analysis indicate a marked separation of East/North Asian and Southeast Asian cranial series, a finding that supports hypotheses of long-term continuity in northern and southern regions of Eastern Asia rather than models that suggest intrusion and replacement. The results also support a common recent origin of the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in Northeast Asia. A major intrusion of people into the Japanese archipelago beginning in the Yayoi Period is further supported by these results. The relationships of Ainu, Jomon, Ryukyu Islanders, and Taiwan Aboriginals are discussed.

A Further Insight into the Origin of Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1) in Japan, Based on the Genotyping of ABCC11

Our research into the biogeography of HTLV-1 in Ja- pan has led us to the hypothesis that the virus was intro- duced to Japan in the prehistoric era by the Jomon people. Later, in the Yayoi period (ca.300 BC - ca.300 AD), a mass migration of non-carriers (the Yayoi people) reached Japan from northeastern Asia, and these people became dominant by virtue of their proficiency in advanced technologies such as agriculture and iron works (1). As a result, aggregations of HTLV-1 carriers gradually disappeared from central Ja- pan, where today HTLV-1 remains only in remote areas along the coast and adjacent islands. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted an experimental study which aimed to identify the relationship between HTLV-1 carrier status and the nucleotide substitution 538G↑A (rc 17822931) in ABCC11, a marker of the earwax type, which represents an inherited trait from either the Jomon or Yayoi people. Our results revealed that the proportion of wet ear- wax among HTLV-1 carriers was 28.6% (10/35), whereas that among non-carriers was only 5% (1/20). The differ- ence was statistically significant (Kai square=4.42, p<0.05). This suggests that the HTLV-1 carrier population inherited a genetic trait from the Jomon people and lends support to the theory that it was the Jomon people who brought HTLV-1 into Japan. Although the process of introduction of HTLV-1 to Ja- pan and its establishment there remain hotly disputed, two

Craniometric divergence history of the Japanese populations

The Japan Islands, a small island chain on the western rim of the circum-Pacific region, have experienced several cultural contacts and human migrations from northern and eastern continental Asia. In this study, craniometric diversification of Asian peoples was assessed using the R-matrix method based on 21 metric traits in 25 representative male and female samples of prehistoric and modern northeastern and eastern Asians, including inhabitants of the Japan Islands. The prehistoric series show, in general, greater observed variance than expected. In the Japanese series, the greater than expected variation of the Jomon is strongly contrasted with the lower level of variability seen in the continental immigrant Yayoi, suggesting a founder effect stemming from the small population size of the initial immigrants represented by the Yayoi series. Scattergrams based on the morphological distances transformed from the R-matrix showed that the Jomon, Ainu, and prehistoric Okhotsk (northeastern immigrants to the Japan Islands) were isolated from the main eastern and northeastern Asian cluster, suggesting greater phenotypic diversity in the Japan Islanders. Despite less variability in the Yayoi series, the phenotypic contribution of the Yayoi to the main-island Japanese populations was considerable, probably because of the existence of successive immigrants after the Yayoi period and/or a higher growth rate of the Yayoi immigrant groups. An assessment of intra-regional variation of the five major Asian regional series by the R-matrix method confirmed that the Japanese series representing populations living on small islands have greater craniometric diversity than the Arctic and Coastal northeastern Asian samples.

ＤＮＡ解析が解明する現生人類の起源と拡散

Modern DNA—maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA and paternally inherited Y-chromosomal DNA in particular—is now routinely used to trace ancient human routes. It appears that genetic data can actually offer a means of better understanding ancient population movements. The DNA patterns of present-day world populations indicate that modern humans emerged from Africa at least 150,000 years ago. These populations dispersed from Africa to most other parts of the world at least 60,000 years ago along the tropical coasts of the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and Australasia. Genetic data support a model for the peopling of the New World in which Native American ancestors diverged from the Asian gene pool and experienced a gradual population expansion as they moved into Beringia. After a long period in greater Beringia, these ancestors rapidly spread into the Americas at least 15,000 years ago. Examinations of ancient human bones using molecular genetic techniques provide direct access to genetic information on past populations. The retrieval and analysis of ancient DNA is more difficult than that of modern DNA. However, this technique holds great potential for inferring the origins of the Japanese people. The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups among the Jomon, Yayoi, and modern Japanese populations suggests that the formation of the Japanese population was not the result of a population expansion. Distinctively different frequencies of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups among Jomon and Yayoi populations indicate significantly different population histories for these groups. However, both populations have contributed to the formation of the modern Japanese population. An eastward population expansion from the Asian Continent during the Yayoi period resulted in the admixture of these people with the indigenous Jomon people and led to the formation of the basic pattern seen in modern Japanese people.

Evidence for fish cultivation during the Yayoi Period in western Japan

AbstractPeople in the western part of Japan, where the cyprinid fish fauna is very rich, have utilised these fish as a protein resource since the Jomon Period. Abundant cyprinid fish remains have been recovered from archeological sites in western Japan dating from both the Jomon (ca. 12,000 BC–300 BC) and subsequent Yayoi (ca 300 BC–AD 300) times. They captured larger cyprinids, especially Cyprinus carpio and Carassius spp., coming inshore for spawning and processed them as a food stock. One can easily imagine that people who captured cyprinids during the spawning season might also have begun to cultivate those fish sometime during prehistory, but until now there has been no evidence of fish cultivation in ancient Japan. We examined cyprinid pharyngeal tooth remains recovered from an archeological site of the Yayoi Period, the Asahi site in the Nobi Plain near Nagoya. The common carp Cyprinus carpio accounted for more than two‐thirds of the recovered pharyngeal tooth remains. There are two peaks in the body length distribution, estimated from tooth size, of common carp from this site, one at 350–450 mm and the other, higher peak at 50–150 mm. We believe that the smaller fish of 50–150 mm in body length were cultivated, because it is very difficult to capture common carp of this size in substantial numbers in the field. We propose that fish cultivation started as a by‐product of the artificial control of water levels in the paddy fields used for rice agriculture, which were characteristic of the Yayoi Period in Japan. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Relationship between root caries and alveolar bone loss in the first wet-rice agriculturalists of the Yayoi period in Japan

Objective The people of the Yayoi period (5th C b. c.–3rd C a. d.), who were the first wet-rice agriculturalists in ancient Japan, had carious lesions that were most frequently located on the root surfaces of their teeth. Root surface exposure is a prerequisite for this type of decay, and alveolar bone loss is the main cause of such exposure. Therefore, we identify the factors associated with root caries, and examine the relationship between root caries and alveolar bone loss in the people of the Yayoi period. Materials and methods This study was performed using 263 sets of ancient skeletal remains that are believed to be from the Yayoi period and that were excavated at 49 archaeological sites in western Japan. Using 5010 teeth found among the remains, we analysed the relationship between the prevalence of root caries and the cemento-enamel junction–alveolar crest (CEJ–AC) distance. Results The prevalence of root caries and the mean number of teeth with root caries per person were significantly correlated with age, the presence of coronal caries and the mean CEJ–AC distance per person. We also found that as the mean CEJ–AC distance per tooth surface increased, the percentage of the root surface affected by caries increased. Moreover, after excluding the lingual (palatal) side, the mean CEJ–AC distance per surface was significantly greater for those tooth surfaces with root caries. Conclusion We present the first evidence that the occurrence of root caries correlated with the CEJ–AC distance in the Yayoi people of Japan.

State Formation in Japan: Emergence of a 4th-century Ruling Elite (review)

Reviewed by: State Formation in Japan: Emergence of a 4th-century Ruling Elite Walter Edwards State Formation in Japan: Emergence of a 4th-century Ruling Elite. By Gina Barnes. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. 288 pages. Hardcover £75.00. A singular event in Japanese antiquity is the sudden appearance around the end of the third century c.e. of monumental keyhole-shaped tombs, differing sharply from elite burials of the preceding Yayoi period in both size and uniformity. The 280-meterlong Hashihaka, located in the southeast Nara basin and considered the oldest of the colossal keyhole tombs, dwarfs the earlier Yayoi mounds, which never exceeded one hundred meters in length. And whereas the latter varied in outward form according to region, the standardized keyhole shape spanned the area from northern Kyushu to Kinai in the first stage of its appearance, then spread as far north as the Tôhoku region by the mid-fourth century. Recent reappraisals have moreover pushed the age of the earliest keyhole tombs back to the latter decades of the third century, tantalizingly close to the age of Himiko’s hegemony, intensifying interest over possible links between the two. State Formation in Japan, Gina Barnes’s latest contribution to the study of the Japanese past, focuses on the keyhole tombs’ appearance and spread as critical steps toward the fifth-century emergence of the Yamato state. Approaching this topic from a comprehensive array of perspectives, it begins with a historical sketch against the wider canvas of northeast Asia (“Yellow Sea Interaction Sphere”), tracing the development from the Yayoi period of exchange with polities of the Korean peninsula and northern China, as seen through the movement of prestige goods such as bronze mirrors and strategic commodities such as iron, and through Chinese historic records. Barnes analyzes interaction in this arena as a combination of “core/periphery relations” on the one hand, such as the tributary system through which the Chinese court appeased distant peoples by providing prestige goods and titles, and “peer polity interaction” on the other, involving competitive emulation and differentiation among trans-regional networks of peers, both within Japan and between Japan and the Korean peninsula. Within this multidimensional framework, Barnes traces the development of a Yayoi prestige-goods system in which western Japan, and particularly the northern Kyushu region, had greater access to bronze and iron sources through core/periphery and peer-polity relations than did the areas at the eastern end of the Inland Sea corridor, which were probably dependent on their western Japanese counterparts for the metal that filtered down to them. Prestige items like the bronze bells commonly found in the eastern region were not used for the promotion of individual or group status, but rather as part of fertility rites for the benefit of the community as a whole. By contrast, the prestige [End Page 393] items buried in chief-like graves in northern Kyushu, such as Chinese mirrors, were status markers whose acquisition presumably enhanced social standing, although supply was apparently unstable and the focus of competition. Historical records depict interaction at this time between the more advanced polities of northern Kyushu and the Late Han dynasty (25–220), through which particular individuals were able to receive titles as “king.” And while the archaeological record allows the identification of a small number of “kingly” graves in the region, Barnes disputes claims made by some Japanese scholars that stratification into ruling versus commoner classes had already emerged. Rather, she points to a gradient of prestige indicated by relative amounts of bronze mirrors, etc., and suggests that status was not ascribed but achieved through individual success in supervising domestic production, manipulating social networks to obtain such items, or perhaps warfare. The archaeological record indeed indicates that warfare became increasingly prevalent from the first century b.c.e. on, as evidenced by the construction of villages at upland locations for defense and observations by the Chinese of a period of disturbance in the latter part of the second century c.e. In addition to pressure for land, competition intensified over the diminishing supply of prestige goods as the Late Han court fell to unrest and uprisings, and crude imitations of Chinese mirrors...

Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan (review)

Reviewed by: Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan Walter Edwards (bio) Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan. By Koji Mizoguchi. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006. xvi, 183 pages. $80.00. The focus of this volume is on archaeology as grounded in modern society. Taking the Japanese case as his immediate subject matter, Koji Mizoguchi [End Page 225] looks at the history of the field in terms of its relationship with the emergence and development of the modern nation-state and seeks in particular to explain the fragmentary nature of contemporary archaeological discourse as deriving from the conditions of postmodernity. Heavily theoretical in his approach, Mizoguchi draws on the sociology of Niklas Luhmann in outlining a three-part sequence of social development from premodern to the classic modern then postmodern stages, each characterized by a different value framework for supporting the social order (or for "deparadoxizing communication," in Luhmann's terms). In premodern societies, appeal could be made to something outside the human realm "such as the divine and god-given order" (p. xiii). While this was no longer possible with the onset of modernity, which brings greater social complexity and increased relativity in value perspectives, during the classic stage appeal could still be made to a transcendental, common identity—such as the "ethnie"—forming the basis of the nation-state, whose emergence was closely linked with the transition to modernity itself. By contrast, postmodernity is characterized by a fragmentation so total that appeals to common, shared frameworks are no longer possible, and all of society and communication are thoroughly relativized, multivocal, and indeterminate. Under this formulation, the Japanese premodern stage came to an end with the Meiji Restoration, and classic modernity changed to postmodernity sometime in the 1970s. Mizoguchi's presentation of this framework is piecemeal and at times inconsistent, but a more serious problem involves his characterization of the classic stage of modernity. The assertion that once the nation-state had emerged, appeals could no longer be made to divine authority openly contradicts Meiji documents such as the Imperial Rescript on Education, whose bland exhortations of Confucian morality are sandwiched between declarations of a sacredly endowed, absolute moral order. Basil Chamberlain had little trouble recognizing in such statements the birth of a "new Japanese religion [consisting] . . . of worship of the sacrosanct Imperial Person and of His Divine Ancestors."1 But the same period also saw the development of the family state metaphor, which as Mizoguchi notes was indeed intended as an organically based, "common, shared framework" of identity for the nation-state. Accordingly, and regardless of whether this error stems from Luhmann's formulation or Mizoguchi's application of it, dichotomization of value frameworks into "pre-modern=divinely endowed" versus "classic modern=common identity" types is too simplistic. Put differently, the ideology of the prewar state was more complex than the scheme allows. [End Page 226] But apart from this, the framework serves adequately as backdrop for Mizoguchi's analysis of the historical development of Japanese archaeology. This has long been structured by an opposition he traces to the tensonkōrin myth in the ancient chronicles, which implied a division of the past into a prehistory peopled by indigenous, non-Yamato residents prior to the arrival of the imperial ancestors, versus the "history" of the Japanese people from that point forward. Archaeological data were readily matched to this scheme by taking Jōmon materials as remains left by the former group, and the study of Jōmon culture accordingly advanced unimpeded as it never threatened the mythological framework. Materials of the Yayoi period, however, were by implication traces of the imperial ancestors' migration to the archipelago, and those of the Kofun period included mounded tombs designated as imperial mausolea. The study of these remains had to be approached with caution lest doubt be cast on the authenticity of the mythological account forming the basis of the kokutai, the ideology of the nation-state. Whatever misgivings archaeologists had, as they sorted out the chronologies of these materials in the first part of the twentieth century, were kept private, and archaeological research into the Kofun period in particular was stunted. This opposition between "safe" versus "dangerous" (or "contentious") archaeology...

Dental Information about Human Skeletal Remains from Nukdo, South Korea from a Period Corresponding to the Yayoi Period in Japan

Dental Information about Human Skeletal Remains from Nukdo, South Korea from a Period Corresponding to the Yayoi Period in Japan

Chronospatial variation of dental size of Holocene Japanese wild pigs (Sus scrofa leucomystax)

The lower teeth of the Japanese wild pigs (Sus scrofa leucomystax) from various geographical locations both archaeological and modern were investigated. Buccolingual measurements of the lower third and fourth premolars, and first and second molars are used to compare the regional and temporal differences in dental size of pigs in the Japanese Archipelago.Similar geographical variations in size of Jomon and modern wild pigs in Japan are observed in our study. The size of pigs from northern localities are larger compared to those from southern localities. Populations from Kyushu are distinctively small in dental size compared to the Honshu in both the Jomon and modern populations.A different pattern is observed in the Yayoi samples. The pigs from the Yayoi Period show a west-east cline in their size where the populations in the west being larger than those of east. Interestingly to note is that the size of pigs are significantly different between the sites in the northern Kyushu as well as in the western Honshu. The variation in a single region exceeds the geographical variations observed in the Jomon or in the modern samples. We can supose that most of these individuals were brought in from outside the Archipelago. It is a necessity to understand the variation of the modern and archaeological pigs in the Asian continent in order to further discuss the issue morphometrically.

Dental Information about Human Skeletal Remains from Nukdo, South Korea from a Period Corresponding to the Yayoi Period in Japan

Skeletal remains excavated from the Nukdo archeological site (2100–2000yrs B. P.) are the most ancient of the sizable number found in Korea to date. In the present study, we focused on the caries rates, carious sites, degree of dental attrition, and ritual tooth ablation in skeletal remains excavated from the Nukdo site. The caries rate was 6.4%. This rate was lower than the Yayoi people in Japan as well as the Jomon people, who were hunters and gatherers. An interest for future studies is the type of diet of these Nukdo individuals. For carious sites, half of the caries were seen on the root surfaces even in individuals who were relatively young. As we have emphasized previously, this can be explained by the rapid advancement of physiological age in ancient people. Thus, root caries seen in the present elderly were found in young individuals in the past. The degree of dental attrition was higher in males than females in all age groups. The mandibular teeth had more attrition than the maxillary teeth except in one male in the late middle-age or older group. An investigation of such attrition is valuable when examining the diet and livelihood of people of that time. For ritual tooth ablation, the form of extraction in the Nukdo people appears different from that in the Jomon people in Japan or prehistoric people in China. The origin of this type of ablation is a topic of future studies.

Dental caries prevalence as evidence for agriculture and subsistence variation during the Yayoi period in prehistoric Japan: Biocultural interpretations of an economy in transition

The Yayoi period represents the earliest point of agricultural dependence in Japan, dating from approximately 2500 BP to AD 300. Yayoi period people consumed wet-rice as a primary subsistence base. This article uses dental caries prevalence to interpret the biocultural implications of agriculture among these people by testing the following hypotheses: 1) Yayoi period agriculturalists had greater frequencies of carious teeth than Jomon period foragers, 2) regional variation in carious tooth frequencies will be observed among Yayoi period agriculturalists, while 3) variation in carious tooth frequencies will be observed between male and female agriculturalists. Statistically significant differences in carious teeth were observed between the agriculturalists from Southern Honshu and all other samples. These differences suggest greater reliance on cariogenic plants among farmers from Southern Honshu and are consistent with an agricultural economy. The people of the Yayoi period from Tanegashima Island and Northern Kyushu did not have significantly different carious tooth frequencies compared to Jomon period foragers. This suggests that rice alone was not a more cariogenic dietary substance than those consumed by Jomon period foragers but a cariogenic food nonetheless. Dietary heterogeneity between the prehistoric people of the Yayoi period from Southern Honshu and those from Northern Kyushu and Tanegashima Island is also inferred from these differences. Significantly greater frequencies of carious teeth among older aged Yayoi period females compared with males suggest dietary differences between the sexes.