ARCHAEOLOGIA JAPONICA

Annual Activities of the Japanese ArchaeologicalAssociation
SATO Hiroyuki1
The first thing that should be mentioned regarding activities of the JapaneseArchaeological Association during fiscal 2011 is measures taken for problems due to theGreat East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. “Preparation Group for a Special
Committee for Urgent Measuresof the Great Earthquake” was installed at the regular
council meeting held on March 26, and the group began to collect information on thesafety of Association members and damage to cultural properties. The group issued
two statements from the Association chairman, conducted three inspection missions oncultural property damage, and held repeated discussions among the Agency for CulturalAffairs and the three prefectures that were strongly affected by the earthquake. At the77th General Meeting, “Special Committee for the Great East Japan Earthquake” wasofficially installed, and decided on exemption from payment of the member’s fee for theearthquake affected members, and fundraising activities for rescue projects of culturalproperties. “Emergency reports” were also made at study meetings of the General
Meeting, to give an outline on damage to cultural properties and their rescue efforts, aswell as estimating casualties.
As demand for reconstruction in tsunami affected areas rose in the latter half of fiscal
2011, the Association conducted a questionnaire with 46 local governments, mainly toensure research systems for cultural properties due to reconstruction. Although therescue mission for damaged cultural properties has passed its peak, still there are no clear
prospects for solving problems of preservation/restoration and storage for recovered
cultural properties. Reconstruction projects began to take place in full force from thefiscal 2012; however there are still many problems, such as securing excavation systems toconduct archaeological excavation research before reconstruction. Excavation researchdue to reconstruction projects in areas damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake is
expected to continue for a long time in the future. There is still no prospect of solving

1Department of Archaeology, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo.
7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan(hsato@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
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RECORDS OF THE JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

the problem of cultural properties affected by the nuclear power plant accident.
The style of study reports at the General Meeting has been changed from this fiscal year
and a session system under a specific theme was introduced, in addition to the verbal
presentations of the past, and it was well received by the Association members. Thisfiscal year continued to see many activities of standing committees regardingarchaeological research environments, international exchanges, social study/history
textbooks, protection of cultural properties, and so on. The problems regarding
maintenance of donated books and operation issues are becoming more serious in recentyears. A special committee was organized to discuss these problems, and it is expectedthat some proposals will be made in near future.

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