Editorial
We are pleased to present Volume 7, Issue 1 of the Japanese Journal of Archaeology: theofﬁcial English language journal of the Japanese Archaeological Association (‘JJA’). JJA waslaunched back in December, 2013 with one of its objectives being the internationalisationof Japanese archaeology. This issue features two articles that are the products of two new
initiatives that are designed to further that objective.
The article by YAMADA Shunsuke, entitled ‘Lineages of Deer Antler Sword Ornaments’is a translated version of the original article written in Japanese and featured in Volume 5,Issue 1 of Nihon Kokogaku (Japanese Archaeology), the ofﬁcial journal of the JapaneseArchaeological Association, that received the 9th Japanese Archaeological Association
Award (Excellent Article Prize) for this publication in 2018. As the Editor’s Note by SASAKI
Ken’ichi stated, the original article was written for a Japanese audience and to contributeto the advancement of knowledge about the Kofun (mounded tomb) period. Therefore thepaper exempliﬁes the way good Japanese archaeological scholarship is perceived in Japan.
Indeed, various archaeologies are practiced across the world. The differences among
them derive from different trajectories of modernisation respective regions went through,different processes of disciplinisation that the archaeologies of those regions experienced,and different realities generated through globalisation that the practitioners of such
unique archaeologies have to face. In that sense, internationalisation of any archaeology
today inevitably takes the form of the conscious creation of spaces in which different
archaeologies encounter one another. Retrospectively, JJA has been functioning as aspace of such encounter without fully recognising and realising itself to be as such. The
JJA editorial committee has decided to regularly feature the translation of selected JAA
award-winning works (both articles and the extended abstract of books). We hope thisnew project will enhance the effectiveness of JJA as a vehicle for the dynamic and exciting
internationalisation of archaeologies including Japanese archaeology.
The article by Gina BARNES, entitled ‘The Jōmon–Yayoi Transition in Eastern Japan:
Enquiries from the Kantō Region,’ is quite different from YAMADA’s article in many
ways. It is an exploration of the potential of systematically applying novel perspectives fully
informed by the recent development in studies of plant grain/seed impressions on potsherds
and other plant archaeological approaches to the study of the transition to irrigation
agriculture in the Kanto region. The study of agricultural beginnings in the Japanesearchipelago has been heavily focused on the beginning of rice paddy-ﬁeld agriculture inwestern Japan. Latest developments in various, technically-advanced approaches to plantremains, however, are revealing that intertwined trajectories that went on at various tempos
and ever-changing spatial scales/extensions constituted the real picture of the transition tofarming in the archipelago. That also makes us realise that our views on the phenomenon

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Koji Mizoguchi

is biased by a certain image widely shared on the organic linkage between rice paddy-ﬁeld
agriculture, ‘Japanese-ness’ and the Japanese archipelago as an internally homogenous
space where a uniﬁed history, the history of ‘Japan,’ unfolded. It is wonderful that such eyeopening work was undertaken by a scholar who is based overseas but has been conducting
data-rich and theoretically and methodologically-informed research on various topics
concerning Japanese pre- and proto-history, and we are pleased that we can publish theoutcome of such endeavour in JJA.
In its seventh year of existence, JJA is preparing to make another move for the future: anonline submission system. With user-friendly instructions attached to each step to submit amanuscript and accompanying visuals, it will make submission easier and shorten the time
taken for peer review and editing. We thank you for your continued support for JJA.
Koji Mizoguchi
Chief-Editor, Japanese Journal of Archaeology
Fukuoka, September 2019© Japanese Archaeological Association2