Words from the Inaugural Chief Editor
Outside Japan, Japanese archaeology is perhaps mainly known for its scale and emphasis
on detail. The former is epitomized by photographs of vast areas stripped for rescue
excavations, often showing large albeit temporary excavation facilities, and the latter byexcavation reports containing large numbers of fiendishly detailed line-drawings andsharply-focused black and white photographs, both standardized to a degree rarely seen
anywhere else. The aims of Japanese archaeology, however, and how its practices havebeen mediated methodologically and theoretically, have received less exposure outside
Japan. Instead, Japanese archaeology is all too often discussed in terms of clichés andstereotypes about typo-chronology and culture-historical description. This is despite
pioneering efforts by a number of scholars, both Japanese and non-Japanese who havestriven, often through their own original research, to introduce overseas the fruits ofJapanese archaeology, much of which is highly theoretical and methodologicallydistinctive.
However, my very writing in this manner may in itself be reproducing these clichés,taking it for granted that an entity called ‘Japanese archaeology’ actually exists. ManyJapanese archaeologists work abroad and publish the outcomes of their research in locallanguages as well as in English. Their works are often well known, cited and discussed
overseas. There is also a gradually increasing number of archaeologists based outside
Japan (i.e. non-Japanese archaeologists) who are working on Japanese materials andpublishing in their mother tongues as well as in English. Some choose to stay in Japan forvarious lengths of time as academic tourists, students, or visiting researchers. They doarchaeology in their own way, often influenced by the multiple archaeologies practiced inJapan, and sometimes, conversely, influencing Japanese archaeologists. In addition, anumber of overseas colleagues are involved in projects organized by Japanesearchaeologists abroad. And there are archaeologists like our co-editor, Simon Kaner, andmyself who are working on both Japanese and overseas materials and publishing inJapanese and in English.
Reality may already be far ahead of us: there may be no such thing as Japanesearchaeology any longer. There may just be various archaeologies practiced by Japanesearchaeologists on various materials from all over the world, in an increasing number ofcases in collaboration with overseas colleagues. Or perhaps there are just archaeologies
practiced by archaeologists the world over that have various degrees of relevance toJAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 1 (2013): 3-4

WORDS FROM EDITOR

archaeologies investigating Japanese materials. In any case it appears to me safe andproper to say there does not exist an entity definable in universally acceptable terms called‘Japanese archaeology’. Hence, not the ‘Journal of Japanese Archaeology’ but the‘Japanese Journal of Archaeology’. Japanese Journal of Archaeology (‘JJA’) is open to all,open-access, and welcomes contributions reflecting and/or embodying the reality which isdescribed above.
I need to add a little, however, to what I just said. Any cliché can be shared as a cliché aslong as it reflects reality. While wishing to avoid caricaturing the state of the discursive
space of Japanese archaeologies, it can be said that there are some things that areespecially distinctive about ‘Japanese archaeology’, that have been generated as historicalcontingencies out of the trajectory of the history of Japan as a modern nation state. This is
not the place to go into the detail of this process and its causes, but they have resulted inJapanese archaeologists affording archaeological materials as ancestral relics and treat
them with ‘respect’ of some sort: such elements are not grasped in a discursive manner but
rather are internalized, and in that sense, work as strong constraints upon the way we dig,classify, conserve, write, draw and talk about things from the past. In that sense, that JJA
has come to exist in the discursive space of Japanese archaeology/archaeologies willinevitably make Japanese archaeologists aware about the distinctiveness of the ways inwhich we do archaeology, and in that sense, the existence of JJA also offers opportunities
for our overseas colleagues to become aware of theirs.
I wholeheartedly welcome your contributions which will make JJA an lively arena forinternational interaction and knowledge generation in archaeology. Thank you very much.

Koji Mizoguchi
Fukuoka, July 2013

© Japanese Archaeological Association4