TRENDS IN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPANKofun Period
TSUJITA Jun’ichiro1Kofun period study in ﬁscal 2017 saw accumulation of research results in more ﬁelds thanany other year; and many efforts were made on joint research and to pursue images of thesociety and the period based on accumulated knowledge. Also, it was a year that made usaware of a connection to the present society such as the decision to register Okinoshimasite in Fukuoka Prefecture as a World Heritage site. Individual theses and books/excavation
reports should be referred to the main article in Japanese, and trends of the Kofun period
study will be overviewed here.
Interest is being gathered especially on formation of the nation, regarding images of theKofun period society and the era. However, in case of examining the Kofun period fromthe viewpoint of state formation, there is a difference between the explanation of nation
formation processes between researchers who focus on Early Kofun (3rd to 4th centuries AD)
and who stress Late and Final Kofun (6th to 7th centuries AD). Speciﬁcally, the difference isin the direction of understanding the period from Late Yayoi to the former half of the Kofun
period in a framework of chiefdom society and the direction of understanding the period as
an early nation. Both standpoints are presently coexisting.
Also, discussions were active in relation with natural disasters: volcanic eruptions andearthquakes. The former is the problem of disaster history such as the disaster struck humanbones excavated from Kanai-Higashiura site in Gunma Prefecture, and the latter is related
to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake that caused collapse of and damage to some mounded
tombs. As for the relationship between modern society and Kofun period study, active
discussions were exchanged on the signiﬁcance of Okinoshima sites in Fukuoka Prefecture
as the sites were ofﬁcially registered as World Heritage sites along with related sites, as well
as mounded tombs including Mozu-Furuichi mounded tombs which were nominated as
domestic candidates for World Heritage status. As for research methods, three-dimensional
measurement and laser measurement are often used in research and study in recent years,
and they are applied widely from mounds of mounded tomb, to entire sites, to artifacts.
As for research themes, trends of ﬁscal 2017 were discussion on external exchanges,
relationship with the Korean Peninsula, and migrants, as well as study on settlement sites
1 Faculty of Humanities,Kyushu University, 744 Moto’oka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka City, Japan(tsujita@lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp)

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JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 7 (2019): 99–100

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ARCHAEOLOGIAand production. Signiﬁcant discussion topics remained unchanged such as excavatedartifacts from the Korean Peninsula, tombs like stone piled mounds (tsumiishizuka),
movement of migrants seen from settlement sites, or so-called Wa-lineage artifacts from thesouthern Korean Peninsula and the construction background of a keyhole-shaped mounded
tomb in the Yeongsan river basin. As for pottery/earthenware study, there were especiallymany conferences and featured articles on Sue-wares and haniwa, aspects of which wereorganized nationally. As for chronology and dating of mounded tombs, reexamination of
burial equipment was conducted for the chronology of Middle Kofun mounded tombs, anda common understanding is almost being achieved including actual dating. On the otherhand, discussion still continues on dating of Sue-ware and horizontal stone chambers in
Final Kofun/Asuka period in the 7th century AD.
On mounded tomb study, interests are high in recent years on construction technology ofmounded tombs. As for burial facilities, study on horizontal stone chambers is active. Studyis also active on burial equipment, and especially development of the study of iron armor(especially tanko) was outstanding. Due to analysis using X-ray, CT, and three-dimensional
measurements, the possibility to reconstruct manufacturing techniques and production
systems is emerging. As for bronze mirror study, aspects of production/distribution ofChinese and domestic mirrors were organized in each period from Early to Middle/Late Kofun, contributing to form images of the period along with results on other burialequipment.
Although the international information dispatch seems less compared to the last ﬁscal
year with WAC-8, continuous development in the future is expected.

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