ARCHAEOLOGIA JAPONICA

Early Modern
HARA Yuichi1‘We live in their future’ are words noted on the homepage for an exhibition ‘Meiji noKokoro: Mosu ga Mita Shomin no Kurashi (Heart of Meiji: Life of Common People
Observed by Morse),’ held at Edo-Tokyo Museum from Sept. 14 to Dec. 8, 2013. (http://www.asahi.com/event/morse2013/) The early modern and modern are indispensable
periods in order to consider our present; truly ‘we live in their future.’ For example,
development that took place in the early modern and modern eras would have had a
big inﬂuence on preexisting sites, so it is hard to know if an archaeological site did notexist or was destroyed, or how it was destroyed. As there is a big difference between“inexistence” and “came into inexistence,” in order to understand archaeological sites that
may have existed previously, we cannot ignore this factor considering pre early modernsites. It has been over 40 years since Shigeo Nakagawa and Shinpei Kato advocatedearly modern archaeology at the 35th General Meeting of the Japanese Archaeological
Association in 1969. Now its study trends are discussed in the Annual Report of theAssociation as one ﬁeld of archaeology, thanks to the efforts of boards of education,buried cultural properties research centers, universities, and early modern archaeology
societies in various places. As for museum exhibitions, modern sites and artifacts
are sometimes the main feature of exhibitions and early modern archaeology often
plays an important role in exhibition themes outside archaeology. While early modernarchaeology’s subdivision is progressing for artifact and feature study as in archaeology
of other periods, special feature articles are being published in magazines and so on, andjoint research is conducted with other academic ﬁelds, such as document history.
Categories of main articles included: 1. Books/magazines, 2. Academic societies, 3.
Exhibitions: topics of different ﬁelds were mentioned as long as it involved sites andartifacts handled by modern archaeology. 4. Feudal lords’ residences: taking Mito-han(the Fief of Mito) as an example, it introduced Tokugawa Museum, museums in Ibaragi
Prefecture, non-government organizations, and organizations engaged in research on
the Mito-han residence in Edo, and mentioned that their network is being promoted. 5.
Gardens: an example of the excavation of a feudal lord’s garden was indicated. 6. Sites
1 Archaeological Research Unit, the University of Tokyo, 4–6–1 Komaba, Meguro Ward, Tokyo 153–8904, Japan(y-hara@dolphin.ocn.ne.jp)

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JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 3 (2015): 64–65

TRENDS IN ARCHAEOLOGYTitle
IN JAPANof modern/contemporary: this pointed out the need to conduct research on the modern/contemporary period, as it was once for early modern archaeology. After excavation
examples from modern archaeology were mentioned, activities of the ‘National Networkfor Preservation of War Sites’ were mentioned, which included sites handled by earlymodern and modern archaeology. It is a national organization formed in 1997 mainly
by Matsushiro Daihon’ei no Hozon wo Susumeru Kai (Organization for Promotionof Preservation of Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters), Bunkazai Hozen
Zenkoku Kyogikai (National Council for Preservation of Cultural Properties), History
Educationalist Conference of Japan, and so on. 7. Utilization of sites: it proposed
a way of city development that would take research results and nature of the place
into consideration, such as including research results into ‘open empty grounds.’ 8.
Preservation movement for sites: this mentioned preservation movements for Yanba Damfor which excavation is still continuing.

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