ARCHAEOLOGIA JAPONICA

Overview
TANIGAWA Akio1
15 years has passed into the 21st century, and it seems today’s world is in the midst of
turbulent times with economic globalism and its counter reaction. In our country, serious
problems are becoming apparent such as social disparity and aging society due to adecreasing birthrate. Trends of archaeological study are not at all unrelated to such states of
the world and Japan. These situations seem to lie in the background of problems Japanesearchaeology is facing in recent years, like a drastic decrease of researchers who support
regional study, a serious shortage of staff in municipalities, and the educational environmentof archaeology and educating the next generation of researchers at universities.
Discussion of each period and region will be left to each article, so some problems shouldbe mentioned here.
Overlooking research trends from the Paleolithic to the Yayoi period, natural scientiﬁcmethods occupy an important place in each period. Themes of study are varied suchas paleoenvironment/paleoclimate, dating measurement, subsistence, source/material/technique, anthropology including physical anthropology and DNA analysis, and so on.
On the other hand, the relationship with history occupies an important position for study
on and after the Kofun period. For example, history has yielded signiﬁcant results on thestudy of national formation, and energization of the discussion between archaeology andhistory should be expected in the future on this matter.
Also, observable trends are study on the arrival of modern humans to the Japanese islands
and surrounding Asian regions in regards of the arrival in the Paleolithic, study on early
cultivation in East Asia and beginning of farming in Japan as well as the problem of eastern
diffusion of early metal tools from northeast Asia during the Yayoi period, and formationof nations in East Asia and viewpoints of comparative archaeology for the Kofun period.
As for research technology, examples are increasing in practice of three-dimensional
measurement and laser measurement, and study using highly accurate survey maps isprogressing. It is a development of study by introduction of new technology.
It can be said that Japanese archaeology in recent years is in a big stream of diversiﬁcationof methodology and expansion of periods and space to be studied. In addition to traditional
1 Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University, 1–104 Totsukamachi, Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo 169–8050, Japan(E-mail address undisclosed)JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 7 (2019): 86–87© Japanese Archaeological Association

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JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 7 (2019): 86–87

TRENDS ●●●●IN ARCHAEOLOGYTITLE ●●●●IN JAPANanalysis methods in archaeology, natural scientiﬁc analyses are actively introduced whichis bringing epochal progress in dating measurement, reconstruction of paleoenvironment/paleoclimate, and dietary analysis.
Other than the expansion of study subjects to be analyzed due to diversiﬁcation ofanalysis methods, research and study are now conducted on modern/contemporary sitesthat have not been handled by archaeology in the past. Also, evaluation of Japanese culture
within the world or Asia and study from the perspective of comparative archaeology appear
to be new directions of study. A large task in the future for research and education is how torespond to such trends in archaeology.
On the other hand, Japanese archaeology, in its long academic history, has always beenoverviewing the entire archipelago based on steady research/study of each region. Important
problems that should be explored in the future are how to relate results of archaeologicalstudy in each region to the archaeology of the entire Japanese islands, and how to locate it
within the world.

© Japanese Archaeological Association

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