The Beginnings of Modern Archaeology in Japanand Japanese Archaeology before World War II
MIYAMOTO Kazuo1
ABSTRACTThis paper charts the trajectory of modern archaeology’s development in Japan from theTokugawa feudal period to the era before World War II and considers some of its implications,
including its colonialist element, the role of amateur archaeologists, and Marxist inﬂuences.
KEYWORDS: Japanese archaeology, colonial archaeology, amateur archaeologists, Marxist archaeology

The birthModern archaeology began in 1877 in Japan, when Edward S. Morse excavated the Omori
Shell Mounds (Figure 1). In 1879, he published the ﬁrst excavation report in Japan: Shell
Mounds of Omori (Morse 1879). However, his students failed to continue with his efforts.
After Morse introduced modern archaeology to Japan, Shogoro TSUBOI and others
established the Anthropological Society of Nippon in 1884, and in 1893, the Departmentof Anthropology was established at the Tokyo Imperial University. In those times, muchcontroversy prevailed over the prehistoric peoples in Japan, with one theory linking
them to the Korobokkuru people of the legend and the other to the indigenous Ainu ofHokkaido. Race was a key element in this controversy. Both hypotheses considered theprehistoric peoples of Japan as savages, while the ancestors of the Imperial Family werebelieved to have been civilized, and the direct ancestors of the current Japanese people(Teshigawara 1988).

Pre-modern developments
However, even before modern archaeology arrived in Japan, the Japanese people werekeenly interested in antiquity. The double tomb of Emperor Tenmu and Emperor
Jitou constructed in the 7th century was looted in the 13th century. A record of theinside of this tomb was documented as early as 1235, the Kamakura Era, in the bookAokino-Sanryou-ki. In the 17th century, the lord Mitsukuni TOKUGAWA excavated at the1 c/o Faculty of Humanities, Kyushu University, 6–19–1 Hakozaki, Higashi Ward, Fukuoka 821–8581,Japan (miyamoto@lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp)
Category: Review Article (solicited) Received: 24 October 2016
JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 4 (2017): 157–164

MIYAMOTO Kazuo

Figure 1.

Edward S. Morse

Shimo-kurumazuka and Kami-kurumazuka tombs in order to identify their occupants. In
1879, Chujiro SASAKI and Isao IIJIMA, who were students of Edward S. Morse but notarchaeologists, excavated at Okadaira Shell Mounds, Ibaragi Prefecture. This was theﬁrst excavation at a shell mound site by Japanese nationals.

The foundation
The birth of modern archaeology in Japan corresponded with the establishment of theDepartment of Archaeology at Kyoto Imperial University in 1916 (Figure 2). Kosaku
HAMADA, the department’s ﬁrst professor, went to study at the University of London
and introduced modern archaeology from England to Japan upon his return (Figure 3).
In 1926, he published the ﬁrst ever archaeology textbook in Japan, Tsuron Kokogaku,
which is still in use today (Hamada 1926). Furthermore, he also introduced the typologyof Oscar Montelius, which was interpreted in his book Kokogaku Kenkyuuhou, publishedin 1932 (Hamada 1932). The typological method became an important tool for theproduction of very detailed and accurate relative chronologies of pottery and so on. In
1943, a chronology of pottery of the Yayoi period was established based on excavations
at the Karako Site in Nara Prefecture by Yukio KOBAYASHI, a research assistant at© Japanese Archaeological Association158

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPAN AND JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY BEFORE WORLD WAR IIFigure 2. Exhibition Hall, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University: Former building of theDepartment of Archaeology

Kyoto Imperial University (Suenaga et al. 1943).
In 1915, in an excavation report on the tombs of Saitobaru, Miyazaki Prefecture,
Professor HAMADA mentioned that the relative dating of the tombs was different
from that of the legends contained in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan’s oldest extant
chronicles. This idea was similar to the theory proposed by Professor Teikichi KIDA, ahistorian who divided the Kofun period into two phases (Teshigawara 1988). Professor
Kosaku HAMADA excavated at Kou Site, Osaka Prefecture, in 1917 (Hamada 1918),
and at Ibusuki Site, Kagoshima Prefecture, in 1918 and 1919 (Hamada 1921), wherein
the stratigraphy clearly revealed that artefacts belonging to the Jomon and Yayoi cultures
came from distinct layers, although these two archaeological cultures were in those days
believed to belong two different races that were contemporaries. This was the ﬁrst time
the Jomon and Yayoi periods were understood as different periods based on stratigraphic
evidence from the excavations. In this manner, modern archaeology gradually madeinroads in Japan.

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MIYAMOTO Kazuo

Figure 3. Kousaku HAMADA: The ﬁrst professor of the Department of Archaeology at Kyoto
Imperial University

Colonial archaeology
In 1910, Japan occupied the Korean Peninsula, and the Japanese government of Korea—
known as the Chosen Soutoukufu—was established. The Japanese government of Korea
had an archaeological section, and several archaeologists from Japanese universities,
like Professor Kosaku HAMADA of Kyoto Imperial University and Professor
Yoshito HARADA of Tokyo Imperial University, were involved in the section of thecolonial Korean government that promoted heritage management and excavations atarchaeological sites in Korea. These excavations were conducted at cemeteries in thecapital city of Silla, Gyeongju, and at Lelan provincial ofﬁce sites dating to the Han
Dynasty, with Han period cemeteries in Pyongyang, etc. (Figure 4).
In 1926, Kosaku HAMADA, Yoshito HARADA, and others founded the Far Eastern
Archaeological Society in order to excavate at archaeological sites in China. They ﬁrst
excavated at Dantuozi and Gaolizhai sites in southern Liaodong Peninsula in 1927(Hamada ed. 1929). These sites date to the Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Their© Japanese Archaeological Association160

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPAN AND JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY BEFORE WORLD WAR IIFigure 4. Excavation at the Site of the Lelang Provincial Ofﬁce in Korea, conducted by Prof.
Yoshito HARADA, Tokyo Imperial University

excavations at these sites were followed by an excavation at Hongshan Site, Chifeng,in Eastern Inner Mongolia, in 1936. The Hongshan Site had a Neolithic settlement
and a cemetery dating to the Bronze Age. These excavations at Hongshan Site led tothe designation of Hongshan culture, a type of Neolithic culture, in Manchuria, after
the establishment of the Republic of China. They published Numerous voluminous
excavation reports were published soon after these excavations (Hamada & Mizuno
1938). On the other hand, during 1941 to 1942, the Japan Society for the Promotionof Science conducted excavations at three prehistoric sites: Shangmashi Shell Mounds(Figure 5), Sipingshan Cairns (Figure 6), and Wenjiatun Shell Mounds in LiaodongPeninsula. These were conducted by Professor Sueji UMEHARA of Kyoto Imperial
University and other Japanese scholars. Unfortunately, however, they did not report theoutcomes of those excavations at that time. It is only recently that the reports were ﬁnallypublished by Japanese archaeologists (Okamura ed. 2002, Sumita, Onoyama, Miyamotoed. 2008, Miyamoto ed. 2015).
These excavations are recognized as examples of colonial archaeology. However,ironically, they also were the ﬁrst ever instances of modern archaeology in the Korean
Peninsula and Manchuria in China. These academic archaeologists were inextricably
linked to colonialism along with their archaeological interests. At the same time, theirarchaeological interest in the continent related to the centrism of legends appearing in
ancient Japanese documents. Professor Soukichi TSUDA, a historian who researched
the ancient history of Japan at that time, cast doubts over the historicity of the legends© Japanese Archaeological Association

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Figure 5. Excavation at Shangmashi Shell Mound, Liaodong Peninsula, conducted in 1941 by
Japanese archaeologists

Figure 6. Excavation at Sipingshan Cairn, Liaodong Peninsula, conducted in 1941 by Japanesearchaeologistsof the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, which were compiled in the 8th century. His views
expressing doubts over the legends forced him to resign as professor at Tokyo Imperial
University due to the relationship between the centrism of the legends and imperial© Japanese Archaeological Association162

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAPAN AND JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY BEFORE WORLD WAR II

fascism based on the imperial system. Therefore, academic archaeologists endeavoured
to distance themselves from issues surrounding the historicity of legends to escapeoppression from imperial fascism. Instead, they concentrated on the cultural history inarchaeology to identify relative chronologies and the placement of artefacts. They madea conscious decision to avoid exploring issues related to society in the history of Japanthrough archaeology. This is the reason Professor Sueji UMEHARA, who researched
Chinese mirrors during this time (Umehara 1925), made it clear that their dating wasunconnected with issues about tombs in the Kofun period in Japan, which included
Chinese mirrors among the grave goods. The reason was that the giant keyhole-shaped
tombs of the Kofun period are recognized as the tombs of the imperial family and related
to the imperial system as a whole.

Contributions of amateur archaeologists
During the ﬁrst half of the 20th century, amateur archaeologists who did not haveacademic authority began to gradually make a name for themselves. Rokuji MORIMOTO
organised an archaeological society in Tokyo to conduct research, mainly on the Yayoi
period. He and Yukio Kobayashi made a chronological table for Yayoi pottery covering
the whole of Japan (Kobayashi & Morimoto 1938, 1939). Sugao YAMANOUCI, whowas a lecturer in the Faculty of Science, Tokyo University, after World War II, made a
relative chronology for the Jomon covering the whole of Japan. He was the ﬁrst to makethe observation from a social perspective even before World War II that the Jomon wasa hunter-gatherer society and the Yayoi an agricultural society (Yamanouchi 1932). It isalso remarkable that archaeology based on Marxist historical materialism, such as thework of Masashi NEZU and Seichi WAJIMA, existed before World War II (Teshigawara1988). The existence of amateur archaeologists helped promote democratic archaeology
after World War II.

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