Japanese Archaeological Association 2015 Conference
TANAKA Kazuhiko1
ABSTRACTThis short essay reports the proceedings and some highlights of the Japanese Archaeological
Association 2015 Autumn Conference, held between October 17–19, 2015, at Nara University.
KEYWORDS: 2015 Conference, Japanese Archaeological Association

Japanese Archaeological Association 2015 Conference was held 17–19 October, 2015
at Nara University in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. Japanese Archaeological Association(hereinafter abbreviated JAA) holds its Annual Meeting in Spring and a Conference inAutumn, and this year the conference was organised as Nara University’s 90th anniversary
project. In addition to the perfect weather that the 700 participants enjoyed, the tirelessefforts put forth by Hideya Sakai, Head of the Conference Executive Committee, ensured
the event was a success.
Chairperson Hiroaki Takakura delivered the welcome address on the afternoon of 17
October. He cited that the conference was being held in Nara Prefecture for the fourthtime, with previous events held in 1985, 1992, and 2002. Mentioning the excavation
reports and archaeological publications donated over many years to the JAA now housed
in Nara University Library, he also stated that he hoped that Nara University would
become Japan’s centre for the collection and public use of archaeological documents.
The next speech was delivered by Hideya Sakai, Head of the Conference Executive
Committee and professor in Nara University’s Department of Cultural Properties, which
he noted was established in 1979. Yoshiya Ichikawa followed with a discussion on theestablishment of the Nanto Seikyo Middle School as the beginning of Nara University.
Director Ichikawa also noted that 17,000 out of the 63,000 books received from theJapanese Archaeological Association have been catalogued.
Two special lectures followed. The ﬁrst lecture by Fuminori Sugaya, Head of
the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, was titled ‘International
Exchange in the 7th and 8th Centuries—From Study of Single Excavated Articles to
Systematic Archaeological Research.’ He illustrated that the most important international
exchange agenda was to create and execute the layout of Keito. He offered the Fujiwara
Imperial Site as an example that was built based on information obtained from Emperor
1 Committee

Member (General Affairs), The Japanese Archaeological Associaiton, 4th Floor, 5–15–5
Hirai, Edogawa Ward, Tokyo 132–0035, Japan (jjarch@archaeology.jp)
Category: Report (Solicited) Received: 8 February 2016
JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 3 (2016): 121–125

TANAKA KazuhikoTenji’s envoy to the Tang dynasty in China or Emperors Tenji and Temmu’s envoys toSilla. Furthermore, the group of buildings was made to symbolically embody legal codeson earth. Conversely, with regard to Buddhist architecture, which was the other systemprevalent at that time, only materials related to Buddhist temples were used for reference.
However, Sugaya pointed out that earthen Buddhist sculptures excavated in recent years
indicated the possibility that Buddhist rites were performed at compounds of aristocratic
households and that those compounds were often turned into small Buddhist temples.
He further mentioned that not many Buddhist temples were erected after the Tenpyo eraof the Nara period and that small temples and mountain temples with only cypress bark
shingles and without roof tiles have not yet been subjected to adequate investigations.
The next lecture was on ‘Learning about History through Castle Archaeology,’ which
was delivered by Dr. Yoshihiro Senda, the President of Nara University. Earlier, it wasgenerally considered that research on the Shokuho phase (the phase characterised bythe process toward the political integration of warring feudal states by ODA Nobunagaand TOYOTOMI Hidesyoshi) of the Sengoku period (the period of warring states)
could only be conducted by studying historical sources. Dr. Senda stated that thecastle remains also provided clear insights into the nature and character of the era.
He noted that Kiyosu Castle (Aichi Prefecture) and Nagoya Castle (Aichi Prefecture)
where ODA Nobunaga initially lived were constructed by joining a number of adjacentbuildings. Their structures revealed an alliance between the Daimyo and his retainers
as well as the separation of powers between them. Conversely, as Nobunaga moved
from Komakiyama Castle (Aichi Prefecture) to Gifu Castle (Gifu Prefecture) to Azuchi
Castle (Shiga Prefecture), the distances between Nobunaga and his retainers’ living areas
continued to be widened. Azuchi Castle, which was Nobunaga’s last castle, had a strong
centripetal structure which symbolized the new social organisation and its cosmologicalrepresentation with Nobunaga at its vertex. Dr. Senda argued that the historicalsigniﬁcance and innovativeness of Nobunaga’s castles not only regulated the surface level
characteristics of early modern castles by creating a new architecture style using castle
towers, tiles, and stone walls, but they also deﬁned the constitutive characteristics of theEarly Modern society of Japan. Some scholars remarked that Nobunaga was unable toovercome the structural characteristics/framework of the Medieval period. However, Dr.
Senda’s lecture illustrated that Nobunaga’s castles evidenced that Nobunaga was actually
the pioneer accelerating the historical process toward the Early Modern period.
After the lectures, the participants had time before the welcome party to visit theUniversity Library where the books donated by JAA are shelved and the University
Museum where the ‘the Akishino and Misasagi areas from the Jomon to Medieval
Period’ exhibition was being held.
A welcome party was held at the Nara University cafeteria at 5:30 p.m. Chairperson© Japanese Archaeological Association122

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Hiroaki Takakura and President Yoshihiro Senda addressed the gathering, while Hideya
Sakai, Head of the Conference Executive Committee, raised a toast to begin the party.
The party’s harmonious atmosphere became livelier when a barrel of special ricewine from a famous local sake brewery was served. This was followed by a greetingfrom Professor Tatsuhito Sekine of Hirosaki University, the venue for the next annual
conference to be held in Aomori. Finally, General Affairs Manager Kazuo Miyamotodelivered the concluding speech.
On 18 October, three parallel sessions were held throughout the day: ‘From Wakoku
to Nihon—Re-examining Asuka and Fujiwara Imperial Sites Through Archaeological
Materials and Historical Documents,’ which focused on the ancient times; ‘Castlesand Cities of the Transitional Phase between the Medieval to Early Modern era’; and‘University Education and Conservation of Cultural Properties,’ which focused on theissues faced by present-day Japanese archaeological researchers.
In the session ‘From Wakoku to Nihon,’ Masashi Kinoshita presented a paper on ‘theAsuka and Fujiwara Imperial Sites—The Period of Civilisation and Enlightenment,’
explaining the purpose of the session and its outline. The panelists presented theirpapers on various topics such as relationships between the ancient capitals of Asuka andFujiwara and the tumuli and ancient temples, the formation of the Jobo grid system in
the Fujiwara capital, and the process of the ancient state formation as seen from Mokkan
wooden document strips excavated from the Asuka and Fujiwara archaeological sites.
Furthermore, there were also presentations that compared the hillforts in the ancient
Korean Peninsula to the Fujiwara Imperial Site, and results of a study on the Early
Modern period in the Asuka and Fujiwara area. The presentation on the formation of
the Jobo grid system in the Fujiwara capital focused on the orientation of the buildings
and castle walls in each phases of its duration. This presentation highlighted that fromthe phase II of the duration, the buildings and castle walls in the Asuka capital werebuilt facing the north. In the phase III-B, the buildings and walls in the area surrounding
the Asuka castle were also built to face north. Thus, the Jobo system took shape as thenumber of buildings facing north continued to grow.
In the session ‘Castles and Cities of the Transition Phase between the Medieval toEarly Modern,’ examples of castles from the Medieval-Early Modern transitional phasethroughout Japan were presented. After Masato Miyatake’s presentation deﬁning theresearch questions for the session in ‘The Objectives of the session “Castles and Cities ofthe Transition Period from Medieval to Early Modern”,’ relevant examples from aroundthe country were presented (starting from the north): Aizuwakamatsu Castle (FukushimaPrefecture) and Kozashi Castle (Fukushima Prefecture) as examples from the southern
Tohoku region; Karasawayama Castle (Tochigi Prefecture) and Sano Castle (TochigiPrefecture) as examples from the northern Kanto region; Odawara Castle (Kanagawa© Japanese Archaeological Association123TANAKA KazuhikoPrefecture) as an example from the southern Kanto region; Komakiyama Castle (AichiPrefecture) as an example from the Tokai region; Kanazawa Castle (Ishikawa Prefecture)
as an example from the Hokuriku region; Tamonyama Castle (Nara Prefecture) as anexample from the Kinki region; and Hizen Nagoya Castle and various Kyushu castles
from the transitional phase as examples from Kyushu. This presentation highlighted theeach region’s characteristics. The mention of Hizen Nagoya castle (Saga Prefecture) andrelated facilities was particularly important as it might have helped the Daimyos learn
about new architectural techniques, thus prompting the modernisation of castles in thecountry. This led to fewer differences between various regions. Furthermore, it alsoquestioned how the following three types of castle characteristics observed in Kyushu
during the transitional phase appeared in other regions: ‘complete modiﬁcation type,’‘central part modiﬁcation type,’ and ‘feature-wise modiﬁcation type.’ This question
provides an interesting subject for future studies.
In the session ‘University Education and Conservation of Cultural Properties,’ Hideya
Sakai outlined the issues to be dealt with and objectives of the session in his introductory
paper ‘Current State and Problems in University Education and Conservation of CulturalProperties.’ Following up on this, three panelists from the administrative ofﬁces
and two from the universities presented their papers. Finally, there was a paper onarchaeological education in Europe and Britain presented by Akira Matsuda, formerly at
the University of East Anglia, the United Kingdom and just moved to the University ofTokyo. The panelists from the administrative ofﬁces spoke about the shrinking numberof new applicants for specialised heritage ofﬁcer’s posts while many current employees
are approaching their retirement age. The panelists from universities spoke about thedifﬁculties in nurturing ready-to-use specialised knowledge and techniques required
for excavation and post-excavation works amongst pupils due to the strict control overattendance and academic achievements imposed by universities, and the sharp decline inopportunities for students to experience excavations. One of the solutions to this problem
was presented by Ryuzaburo Takahashi who presented the outcomes of the internshipprogram organised by Waseda University during the 2014 academic year, in cooperation
with Saitama Research Centre for Buried Cultural Properties. This program was
successful because the internship offered university credits. Furthermore, Hideya Sakai
also stated that universities had to be aware of the fact that a signiﬁcant ration of those
who took archaeology major would not get archaeology-related jobs. However, he argued
that they would play important roles in promoting the preservation and effective public
use of cultural properties for the general public. Universities must train and educate such
students as well.
Apart from the sessions, four poster sessions were held over two days: ‘The Current
State of Education of Successors in Archaeological Research 2—Analysis of Aggregated© Japanese Archaeological Association124

JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 2015 CONFERENCE

Results from University Surveys’ by the Research Environment Review Committee;‘Yayoi and Kofun Periods in Primary School Social Sciences (History) Textbooks’ by
the Social Sciences and History Textbooks Review Committee; ‘Present Status of theArchaeological Cultural Properties Survey in Light of the Great East Japan Earthquake
Recovery Project (III)’ by the Archaeological Cultural Properties Conservation MeasuresCommittee; and ‘Donation and Use of Association Books to Nara University Library’ by
the Association Books Related Review Subcommittee. These sessions were held in thelecture hall on the second ﬂoor. (Note: ‘Donation and Use of Association Books to Nara
University Library’ was held on the library’s ﬁrst ﬂoor on the ﬁrst day.)An excursion was organised on 19 October on which the participants visited the Nara
Archaeological Centre, the Fujiwara Imperial Site, the Fujiwara Imperial Site Exhibition
Room in Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, the SakafuneishiRuins, the Asukamura Archaeological Exhibition Room, and the Archaeological Instituteof Kashihara’s musuem, Nara Prefecture. The visit to the excavated sites at the Fujiwara
Imperial Site was extremely signiﬁcant as it was the topic of group discussion I.
Furthermore, although the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara’s museum in Nara
Prefecture was closed to the public, it was opened speciﬁcally for this tour.
The Nara Conference concluded successfully with the help of approximately 100
students.

© Japanese Archaeological Association125