Doran's Trip to Japan

	Researchers from the Lake Biwa Conference (summer 1997 - Polish, Russian, Japanese, and American in this photo) converse on the stern of the ferry. An international group of scholars gathered to share information about lakes, their biology and environment, history and prehistory. A day trip to a 'traditional' fishing village in Lake Biwa was a conference highlight.
Shiga Prefectural Azuchi Castle Archeological Museum (http://www.kippo.or.jp/alacart/his/shiga1_e.htm#HIS2). One of the many new museums housing exhibits and working labs.
	Conservation lab for treatment of organic materials includes this very large freeze dryer and many subfloor storage tanks for long term conservataion of large wood artifacts (Shiga Prefecture Museum).
Flotation system in the archaeology lab (Shiga Museum) provides for separation of small and delicate plant and animal material. Such materials are critical to understanding subsistence strategies and environmental change.
	One of the largest freeze dryers most European and Western archaeologists have ever seen (Shiga Prefecture Museum). Prof. Akira Matsui (individual to the left), Nabunken (Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute -http://www.nabunken.go.jp/Nabunken-Doc/mokujiE.html ) assured the Lake Biwa visitors that this small system, though large by our standards, was dwarfed by the Nara system capable of handling 'car size' wooden artifacts. Matsui provided my first introduction to Japanese archaeology when we meet at a wet site conference in Ireland almost ten years ago.
	Reconstruction of waterwheel used to irrigate rice paddies (Shiga Prefecture Azuchi Castle Archeological Museum). Rice becomes important in Japan around 300BC with the appearance of the Yayoi tradition marking a significant change from the earlier Jomon tradition.
Ceramic restoration lab at Sannai Maruyama site. Near Aomori in northern Japan, one of the most important excavations of a large Jomon village (5,500 BP) in Japan. Link http://jinjapan.org/atlas/historical/his01.html
	Sannai Maruyama Museum visitors using a bow drill fire starter. Many hands-on exhibits bring to life the materials of early Japanese peoples.
Jomon ceramics are some of the earliest in the world and exhibit an impressive variety of vessel forms and decorative techniques. The Jomon Period extends from roughly 10,0000 BC to 300 BC.
Yayoi wooden artifacts mostly associated with farming tasks. These are from a the Minamikata site (Yayoi) in downtown Okayama. Wet sediments with some Jomon (10450 BC - 300 BC) and Yayoi sites (300 BC - AD 300) provide excellent preservation of even the most delicate organic artifacts. Careful preservation/stabilization of such materials is critical. Japanese conservation labs and procedures are some of the most advanced in the world.
	'Portable' lab complex associated with multiyear excavations of Edo - Meji Period (historic) site, Shiodome Iseki, Tokyo (Minato-Ku area). A huge area (many hectares) have been excavated in preparation for construction of a new highspeed rail terminal. This, is one of many immensely large horizontal excavations characterizing Japanese archaeology of the last 15 years. Japan probably has a higher number of archaeologists per capita than any other country in the world. At last count, there were between 4,500 and 5,000 archaeologists in Japan (US has approximately 2,500). Gross expenditures for archaeology in the early 1990s approached $800,000,000 dollars compared to the USÕs $200,000,000 though the total land area of Japan is approximately that of California and the population of Japan is smaller than that of the US.
'Feudal lord's house structural features at Shiodome Iseki, Tokyo. One of the tasks for the Edo period lord was to reclaim for development the swamp around his house. During the later Meji Period it became the first rail station in Japan and the 'mile 0 marker' marks the beginning of the Japanese rail system in the last century.
	Backdrop of Tokyo. Urban construction frequently requires extensive archaeological investigations. Unlike excavations in most of the United States, sampling strategies, are almost unheard of and complete excavation is generally the rule.
Tea growing in an ornamental garden. Large tea fields line some of the rail lines approaching Tokyo. At first glance, the fields look like neatly trimmed rows of ornamental bushes covering the hillsides.
	Rice, also growing in ornamental garden. Rice provided the staple of Yoyoi subsistence and revolutionized Japanese culture and traditions beginning around 300 BC. Tracing the cultivation or rice is one strategy of understanding connections between Japan, Korea and China.
Small 'working man's shrine' in Kyoto market.
	'Racoon dogs' are a common 'goodluck' item appearing in many forms from printed versions to larger than life size statues like these at the entrance of a neighborhood hotel a few blocks from Kyoto University.
Outdoor regional ceramic 'fair' in Tsukuba. Some communities of traditional potters continue to use large communally maintained woodfired kilns instead of more modern gas fired kilns.
	Doran collected skeletal metrics and nonmetrics from Hokkaido to Okinawa during a two month research trip (1998) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science http://www.jsps.org/. Research focused on Jomon and Yayoi demography and skeletal metrics and archaeology. Prof. Mark Hudson (Tsukuba University ) provided connections to many of the anthropology labs housing Jomon and Yayoi skeletal material.
	In the continuing investigation of early (pre-6000) human populations Doran has been able to investigate similar early materials from Japan. This work is ongoing and many aspects of Japanese archaeology are of interest. Japan has many sites with wet components and many early sites (Jomon in particular) contain well-preserved human skeletal material. A JSPS Fellowship allowed collection of skeletal data from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
Habitations often concentrate around water resources and this increases the incidence of saturated sediments providing optimal conditions for the preservation of organic materials. Wet sites can be found in lakes, ponds and the ocean and saturation can dramatically enhance preservation of many materials that are normally lost in terrestrial sites.
	Large wooden materials must be carefully conserved and often take years to treat. Special wet site labs are designed to handle these organic materials. A combination of inside and outside tanks can handle even the largest materials. Typically, the larger the item the longer conservation takes.Ê
The large 'sledge' was used to move building stones and is several hundred years old. All wooden materials from wet sites requires extensive conservation. About 20 ft. long this trunk and limb section of a tree was trimmed and has slots in each limb for the attachment of large ropes which could then be pulled by several hundred people at a time allowing loads of several tons to be moved.Ê
	Smaller materials are easier to treat and these several thousand year old wooden shovel blades attest to the preservation potential of wet sites. These items and others (including human skeletal material and decorated bone tools) come from wet deposits in an Okayama wet site. These items date to the Yayoi tradition (300 BC AD 300). Paddy field agricultural rapidly spread throughout Japan in the Yayoi period.
Mark Hudson, an archaeologist at Tsukuba University, was Doran’s contact for the JSPS fellowship is demonstrating grinding equipment from the Yayoi site in Okayama. Hudson arranged for access to the skeletal samples and provided invaluable information on sites, chronology and Japanese archaeology in general.Ê
	Nichibunken (The International Center for Japanese Studies) hosted archaeologists and anthropologists from Japan, England and the United States in an effort to understand recent studies focusing on the study of early populations and their movements (Jan. 2001). Doran and Michael Faught (both FSU faculty) are looking at early populations and combined their efforts to compare skeletal sample distributions and fluted point distributions (see bibliography for more information). The proceedings were part of an international research symposium hosted by Professor Omoto of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan. Nichibunken is located in a suburb of Kyoto and is a Japanese research center with a wide range of research from DNA analysis to historic literature to archaeology and anthropology.
In Tokyo, one of the most densely populated cities in the world some excavations have been measured in hectares rather than square meters. Such excavations often involved crews of 100+ and last several years. Almost any earth disturbing construction is likely to reveal archaeological materials from earlier time periods.
	New construction in urban areas often involves intensive multiyear excavations, one of the largest is in the footprint of a new high speed rail building. Many excavations involve 100% excavation as opposed to a sampling strategy common in the United States. In Tokyo many sites contain materials from the last 500 years.
The Japanese ceramic tradition is one of the oldest in the world (Jomon 8000 BC 300 BC) and regional ‘ceramic fairs’ bring materials in from local manufacturing centers, as well as Korea and China. Such markets are common throughout Japan.
	Skeletal material is often well preserved and is frequently housed in medical schools and anatomy departments. Samples span the Jomon through historic periods and present many research opportunities. Many Japanese scholars have focused on craniometric (measures of the skull) studies looking at population differences.
Collection of dental information and age and sex information was a critical part of the JSPS fellowship and is part of a continuing paleodemographic study of early populations.
	Many Japanese scholars have focused on cranial metrics and population differences through time. Some research effort has also focused on pathologies and health.
Todai, in Nara, Japan, is a World Heritage Site and is the world’s largest wooden building (57 m x 47.5 m tall). Early construction dates to around AD 800 and was significantly reconstructed around 1690 (note the famous ‘Nara’ deer in the left background).
	Todai is an immense wooden structure which has been in use for over 1,000 years. It is a popular tourist destination as well as a functioning Buddhist shrine.
Reconstructions of Jomon and Yayoi structures are common at some archaeological parks and draw many visitors each year. This reconstruction of a Yayoi house (near Lake Biwa) is based on archaeological information.
	Excavation crews often use local labor under the supervision of highly trained state archaeological teams like these at Sannai Maruyama a site in Aomori prefecture. http://www.pref.aomori.jp/sannai/index-e.h
At Sannai Maruyama laboratories for ceramic reconstruction and artifact processing are built into the modern museum with a wide range of exhibits and displays focusing on the early prehistory of Japan. Many structures have also been reconstructed at Sannai Maruyama.
	Displays of edible nuts and edible gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) illustrate prehistoric subsistence patterns. Lagenaria (white flowered bottle gourd) shows up at about 10,000 years BP in Japan and in Florida at the Windover site about 7,400 years BP. It is one of the world’s earliest ‘semidomesticates’ and appears very early in many traditional hunting-gathering-fishing populations.
Akira Matsui, a faunal specialist, has training in the United States and is particularly interested in domestication processes and wet sites. He has been host to a number of foreign researchers and recently spent a semester in the US (Harvard University). Matsui, from the Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute (Nabunken) has directed numerous wet site excavations. http://www.nabunken.go.jp/mokujiE.htm
	Matsui was able to visit Florida on his return trip to Japan and visited the reconstructed Apalachee community at Mission San Luis, Tallahassee, Florida. Construction is very similar to those seen in Japan. San Luis contains both precontact and contact (Mission Period) occupations and is a state park.
San Luis has house reconstructions from both the Native American inhabitants and of the Spanish missionaries. Spanish structures are usually rectangular or square while Native American structures are more commonly circular or oval.
	Wheeled vehicles like this reconstruction at San Luis are part of the effort to illustrate what life was like hundreds of years ago.
To learn more about Japanese archaeology here are several suggested English references that you may find useful: Aikens, C. Melvin, and Takayasu Higuchi 1981 Prehistory of Japan. Academic Press, San Diego. Imamura, Keiji 1996 Prehistoric Japan. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Nakashi, Takahiro 1993 Temporal craniometric changes from the Jomon to the Modern Period in Western Japan. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 90:409-425. Oota, Hiroki, Naruya Saitou, Takayuki Matsushita and Shintaroh Ueda 1995 A genetic study of 2,000-year-old human remains from Japan using mitochondrial DNA sequences from Takuta-Nishibun. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 98:133-145. Pearson, Richard J. (editor) 1986 Windows on the Japanese Past: Studies in Archaeology and Prehistory. Center for Japanese Studies, The U. of Michigan. Turner, Christy G. 1979 Dental anthropological indications of agriculture among the Jomon people of Central Japan. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 51:619-636

For more information on this project you can e-mail Dr. Doran at gdoran@garnet.acns.fsu.edu