Report on the 82nd Annual Meeting (FY 2016) ofthe Japanese Archaeological Association
SATO Hiroyuki1ABSTRACTThis short essay reports the proceedings and some highlights of the Japanese Archaeological
Association 2016 Annual General Meeting, held between May 28–29, 2016, at Tokyo Gakugei
University.
KEYWORDS: 2016 Annual General Meeting, Japanese Archaeological Association

The 82nd Annual General Meeting (FY 2016) of the Japanese Archaeological Association
was held at Tokyo Gakugei University, in the Koganei district of Tokyo, over the courseof two days, from May 28 (Saturday) to 29 (Sunday). The Annual General Meeting has
been held at Tokyo Gakugei University a total of three times, including that held in 1994
and 2006. On the day before the meeting, the 27th, a meeting of the committee for theprotection of buried cultural properties was held, and on the morning of the 28th at 10 a.m.,the plenary was held on the ﬁrst ﬂoor hall of the Geijutsu-kan. The general meeting wasattended by 398 people on the 28th (309 members and 89 participants from the public)
and 1,075 people on the 29th (702 members and 373 participants from the public), for a
total of 1,473. At the end of March 2016, the Japanese Archaeological Association had
4,109 members; in the previous year, 23 members passed away, and 72 withdrew theirmembership. Meanwhile, 66 new members were approved at the plenary; unfortunately,
there has been no abating the trend toward decline in membership that has been seen inrecent years. At the beginning of the plenary, a moment’s silence was observed for the 23members who passed away, beginning with the late Takayasu Higuchi. Opening remarks
were delivered by the president of the Association Hiroaki Takakura and chairman of theAnnual Meeting organising committee Shin Hidaka. The chairman announced that thegeneral meeting had met its required quorum. Subsequently, the president chaired themeeting, and after the vice-chairman and secretary endorsed by the board of directors
were approved, the meeting moved on to the order of business.
The ﬁrst items of business were announced and considered in order, based on thenature of the item. First, the honorary membership committee that had been established
1 Committee Member (General Affairs), The Japanese Archaeological Association, 4th Floor, 5–15–5
Hirai, Edogawa Ward, Tokyo 132–0035, Japan (jjarch@archaeology.jp)
Category: Report (solicited) Received: 7 January 2017

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in the previous year gave its ﬁrst reports and requested that honorary membershipbe awarded to Takuya Iwasaki by the board of directors. Although this proposal wasapproved, Iwasaki was undergoing medical care at the time, so the certiﬁcate wasreceived by his proxy, Akira Tsuneki. Second, the ‘public report and acknowledgementof the 6th Japanese Archaeological Association Award’ was delivered. The prize winners
were recognised and publicly acknowledged at the general meeting: the Association’saward selection committee had recommended Dr. Tasuhito Sekine’s book Chu-kinsei
No Ezochi To Hoppou Koueki (Trading activities in the northern part of Japan during
the medieval and early modern periods), whereas Noriyuki Kakuda (absent from themeeting) received honourable mention for Tatarabuki Seitetsu no Seiritsu to Sono Tenkai(The Establishment and Development of Tatarabuki Iron Production). The third item
was the presentation of a gift to Akihiro Mizuyama from the Association’s members,in recognition for his long-term management of the Association’s public website. Plansfor a full redesign of the website had been put in place, and the day before the general
meeting, a new albeit incomplete website had been published. Fourth, the ‘report andapproval of the review of entry qualiﬁcations for joining the Association’ was presented,
followed by the report of Entry Qualiﬁcations Review Committee chairman Kazumi
Yamasaki. His report mentioned that 66 individuals’ qualiﬁcations had been evaluatedfor entry into the Association. The new members immediately took to the stage to beintroduced, and Ryousuke Kakudou (Tokyo) represented the membership in expressing
the members’ best wishes.
In accordance with the order of business, the 2015 business report was presented(including such items as the general meeting, public lectures, board of directors’
meetings, annual report, and bulletins). Following this, information was disseminatedas committee reports on meetings convened to review various matters, such as imperialmausolea, research environments, public relations, international exchanges, socialstudies and textbooks for primary and secondary education, protection of buried culturalproperties, the special response committee for the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011,
the subcommittee for association’s library collections, and general rules and regulations.
Among these, the international exchange committee reported that the Association had
granted support and cooperation for the 8th World Archaeology Conference, to be held
at Doshisha University in Kyoto in late August and early September. Moreover, in thereport from the meeting convened to review general rules and regulations, association’s
copyright policy and the establishment of the ‘supporter’ membership were explained.
Next, a report was delivered on the planned activities and budget for the ﬁscal year
2016. Two additional items were reported under ‘other items’: the progress in thematters concerning the protection of the Takaosan tumulus, and a report on the meeting
convened to discuss various issues concerning cultural properties.
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REPORT ON THE 82 nd ANNUAL MEETING OF THE JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

The meeting then moved on to items for discussion. The 2015 ﬁnancial statements andaudit reports were discussed, and the results of deliberation were approved. A reminder
was issued that, accompanying changes to relevant statutes, supervisory responsibilities
no longer simply concern auditing, per the traditional view, but also encompass thegeneral activities of the Association. This year, members of the board of directors weredue for re-election. The election was carried out; the acting chair of the Committee forElection Administration, Shin Shimizu, reported the results of the election, and thesewere accepted by the membership. After this, Vice President Hideshi Ishikawa proposed
the election of two new supervisors (Tetsuo Yoshida [continuing] and Shiro Katsuzawa),
because two of the existing supervisors (Tetsuo Yoshida and Shirai Kumiko) would bereaching the end of their four-year terms, and the proposal was accepted. Finally, anemergency proposal was made for the establishment of a emergency response committee
for the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake by the board director Kazuo Miyamoto. The proposal
was accepted after deliberations.
As approved at the plenary, a meeting of the board of directors was held by the newly
elected directors during lunch break. Akio Tanigawa was elected as the new president.
Hideo Kondo and Hideshi Ishikawa were then elected as vice presidents. Then the chairand the members of the respective committees were chosen. The plenary resumed at1:30 p.m., beginning with the introduction of the new directors and a general policy
speech by the new president, Akio Tanigawa.
Following this, memorial lectures were delivered from 2 p.m. onwards. After president
Takakura’s speech, Tokyo Gakugei University president Toshisada Deguchi gave a briefspeech, followed by a memorial lecture by Masashi Kinoshita (Emeritus Professor,Tokyo Gakugei University). At 3:10 p.m., Session 1, Archaeological and cultural property
sciences in Jomon Period Research, was held at the same venue. After this, the gathering
moved to Musashino Hall 2 within the campus, where the conference party was held.
On the following day, the 29th, the event separated into nine venues. The
oral presentations, poster presentations, and book exchange meetings were held
simultaneously. A total of 38 poster presentations (30 by Association members and 8by high school students) were held: 10 in venue 1, 9 in venue 2, 10 in venue 3, and 9in venue 4. Among these sessions were joint sessions with the Anthropological Societyof Nippon Osteoarchaeology Subcommittee (Session 4: Development and prospects forthe bioarchaeology of Edo period human skeletal remains) and the Science Council ofJapan Subcommittee on the Management of Museums and Galleries (Session 7: Effectsof the amendment of the Museum law and allied legal frameworks on museums), which
demonstrated the expansion of the range of issues Japanese archaeologists had to deal
with. In Session 8, which was organised by the special response subcommittee for theGreat East Japan Earthquake, the activities of the special committee over the last ﬁve© Japanese Archaeological Association149

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years were summarised, as their activities had come to a close with the ﬁnal reportremaining to be published.
During the core time for the poster session, between 1 and 2 p.m., the presenters
explained the content of their posters. This year, as a part of the association’s drivefor revitalising interests in archaeology amongst the young generation, eight poster
presentations were delivered by high school students from around the country. The ﬁrst
prize went to Tokushima Bunri High School student Taketomo Tateishi for his ‘Memorial
Stelae and Ippen Shounin in the province of Awa.’ Awards of excellence were also
conferred on two selected posters: ‘Taka-jizo Buddhist stone statues of the lower ﬂowof the Yoshino-gawa river’ by Tokushima Bunri High School’s folk history researchclub and ‘Itoshima’s Koma-inu guardian lion dogs’ by Fukuoka Prefectural Itoshima
High School history club. President Takakura presented the certiﬁcates and prizes tothe winners. This event was extremely successful; Tokyo Gakugei University president
Deguchi even referred to it in his speech, and Asahi Newspaper for Middle and Highschool students featured the event. There are plans to continue this programme next year.
The meeting was a pleasant one, blessed by good weather on both days, and perhaps
for this reason, had a noticeably higher participation from the membership. The successesof this general meeting were all thanks to the staff of the General Conference Organising
Committee, foremost to chairman Shin Hidaka, who planned earnestly and meticulously
and who issued a heartfelt welcome on the opening day of the conference. We extend ourdeepest gratitude.

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