Editorial
JJA is entering into a new phase: it will be published twice annually from the ﬁscal year
2015. In its third year of existence, a clear journal character appears to be emerging:a mixture of reporting what is happening on the Japanese archaeological scene rightnow, and original research papers reﬂecting some distinctive features of Japanesearchaeological practice.
Mizumura’s original research paper in the current volume, for instance, reveals thecharacter and the scale of an interaction and exchange network whose signiﬁcance has
been underestimated till now, by conducting a detailed examination of the exceptionallywell-preserved artefacts from a single site dating from the Yayoi and the Early Kofun
periods, namely Aoya Kamijichi. The area investigated so far during sixteen rescue
excavations comprises just a small portion of the entirety of the site. By making full useof the detailed pottery typo-chronological system that covers the entirety of the Japanesearchipelago, along with parts of the Korean peninsula and mainland Asia, createdand continuously re-validated by the rigorous application of cross-dating methods,
Mizumura has managed not only to specify the provenance of imported items, but also
to reconstruct the actual routes though which they were brought to the site, which, as thestudy has clearly suggested, was functioning as an important hub in the network.
Kikuchi reports on various projects organised for rescuing, storing and restoring
cultural heritage damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and/or abandoned inareas evacuated due to radioactive contamination resulting from the meltdown of theFukushima nuclear power plant. His paper well illustrates some of the advantagesof maintaining the mixed system of centralised co-ordination and control of cultural
heritage management, which works across the whole nation, and the relevant sectionsof local government which manage local rescue and heritage protection on a day to day
basis. The former enabled the rapid organisation of aid initiatives for the areas mostaffected by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant disaster, by dispatching humanand material resources from across Japan to help with rescue work. The latter made it
possible to ﬂexibly organise various rescue works according to different conditions andneeds between damaged/contaminated areas. The overwhelming scale of devastation,
combined with and never-before experienced difﬁculties in rescuing items in radiation
contaminated areas, some of which were themselves contaminated by radiation, havemade this undertaking extremely difﬁcult, and have severely tested the robustness of theJAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 3 (2015): 1–2

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above mentioned public ofﬁce-based system.
Such contributions to the JJA hopefully offer our readership not only insights into
the current state of Japanese archaeology, but also sources for re-examining the ways inwhich they conduct their daily archaeological practices. As the Editor-in-Chief, I lookforward to contributions from our overseas colleagues to compare the characteristics
of Japanese archaeology and their own, and to propose ways to better conductarchaeological practices deriving from the outcomes of such comparison.
Koji Mizoguchi
Chief Editor© Japanese Archaeological Association2