TRENDS IN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPANThe Committee for the Protection of Buried
Cultural Properties
The Committee(written by OGASAWARA Nagataka)

Fiscal 2011 has begun as the year of recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake, andthere is still a long way to total recovery. Although problems on buried culturalproperties are also piled up, progress has been made continuously on protection ofdamaged cultural properties and handling of archaeological sites due to recovery andreconstruction missions, thanks to persistent efforts from local government staff andresearchers. Organization of research system should be promoted as soon as possible inorder to ensure such progress is not based on individual sacrifices of staff and researchers.
Activities of the Committee for Protection of Buried Cultural Properties in fiscal 2011
consisted of a national committee meeting (May 27, Kokugakuin University), council
meetings (held monthly except August, at the Japanese Archaeological Association office),a study meeting (Nov. 19 and 20, Tokai University’s Lake Yamanakako Seminar House),
and a conference with the Agency of Cultural Affairs (April 24, Agency of CulturalAffairs) to discuss preservation problems and so on.
The Committee issued preservation requests for Old Negoroji Temple in Iwade City,Wakayama Prefecture, and for Nakamura Castle in Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture. In
addition to these sites, there exist several preservation problems and unfortunately some ofsuch problems are yet to be resolved.
Ann especially regrettable example ismanipulation of public opinion through questionnaires for residents, in order to justify
destruction of extremely important buried cultural properties. There is a concern that thesame kind of manipulation will spread and this is an important issue in the future. The
lack of synthetic and continuous “community making” viewpoints which include buried
cultural properties seem to be the fundamental cause of this problem, and it could happen
in any place in the future.
Also the problem of handling excavated artifacts, such as discarding them, continued to1

The committee for the protection of buried cultural properties, Japanese Archaeological Association,
5-15-5 Hirai, Edogawa Ward, Tokyo 132-0035, Japan(maibun@archaeology.jp)
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be seen in this fiscal year. According to a questionnaire conducted annually, a situation
exists by which disposal of artifacts may be justified via “handling standards” developedby local governments. It is a reality that classification of artifacts according to “handingstandards” is being carried out without enough discussion on “utilization,” and theseriousness of the problem is getting worse every year.
Thus, “utilization” and “disposal” of artifacts is quite inseparable and discussion of thismatter is extremely important. Continuation of this discussion must be pursued. As
decentralization is being carried out further, not only disposal of excavated artifacts but
also careless destruction of buried cultural properties could be expected in areas with lessunderstanding of “utilization.” It is expected of the Japanese Archaeological Association
to take a role in promoting discussion of “utilization” on long and wide viewpoints, goingback to the principles of archaeology.

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