TRENDS IN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPANAncientTAKAHASHI Kaori1
Fiscal 2016 saw a national increase of excavation of government ofﬁces (kanga).
Organization of historical sites seems to be the background.
Achievements were made for each castle town, and especially signiﬁcant results wereachieved at Fujiwara palace where features of doban (hanging banner ornament) wereexcavated from northern end of Hall of State, just south of the south gate of the Imperial
Audience Hall. It became clear by comparing with historical documents that one doban
was placed on the center axis and two sets of three doban were arranged in a triangle
shape symmetrically to the east and west.
There were many excavation examples of local government ofﬁces, for both kokufu(provincial centers) and gunga (county seats). It should be noted that Bingo Kokufu wasdesignated as a national historic site. Excavation of Bingo Kokufu yielded importantresults including discovery of an intersection where a road leading to Bingo Kokufu
branching off from the ancient Sanyo-do. Also, it was noticeable that features belonging
to buildings before provincial centers were constructed were excavated in various
places. There were many excavated examples of gunga from Gunma Prefecture, and abuilding consisting of the county seat was excavated at Sai Gunga, and it was revealed at
Tagogun-shoso-ato that warehouses (shoso) were divided by ditches and were organizedunder a conceived plan within a section of two cho (about 218 meters). Since results ofexcavation research in recent years have been achieved, books and symposia are oftenfeaturing gunga the past few years.
As for temples, excavation research continues for Todaiji temple. It was revealed thateven though remains of a Nara period pagoda were destroyed by the Kamakura period
pagoda construction, the original size of the time was able to be assumed even thoughpaving stones around the foundation platform were taken away. It was newly discoveredthat a pagoda at Higashiyuge site had a foundation platform with a side about 20 meters
long, an ancient temple with a scale equivalent to the seven greatest temples of Nanto.
Excavated eave-end tiles used the same mold as Kofukuji and Todaiji styles, so it isassumed to be Yugedera, constructed by Emperor Shotoku/Dokyo.
1 c/o Kanagawa Archeological Foundation, 3–191–1 Nakamura-machi, Minami Ward, Yokohama City,Kanagawa 232–0033, Japan(k-takahashi@kaf.or.jp)

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As for artifacts, only tiles and pottery were mentioned. On ancient tiles, discussions
were made on the national diffusion of the cylindrical mold tile manufacturing techniquethat derives from Hiun-mon eave-end tiles at Kodai Kawara Kenkyukai. As for pottery,reevaluation of reference pottery was proposed, while the chronology of the capital city
(Asuka chronology or Heisei chronology) is used more or less as an index to indicatechronology.
In the end, a result of underwater archaeology was mentioned. Heian period tiles werediscovered from the sea bed around Ainoshima Island located in Shingu Town, Fukuoka
Prefecture. In ancient time, Fukuoka Prefecture had kilns to provide tiles to Heiankyo,
and it is assumed that these tiles sank underwater in the process of transporting tiles toHeiankyo. This kind of discovery is expected to occur again in the future, but there aremany problems regarding research systems of underwater sites and their preservation.

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