Gina L. Barnes

Paddy soils now and then

Abstract Research on modern paddy field soils in Southeast Asia by Kawaguchi and Kyuma has produced a new classification of ten soil types for growing wet rice. Further study has yielded five fertility classes and a description of the nutritive requirements for good rice yields. These data are reviewed with the aim of identifying prehistoric practices for choosing and modifying soil materials in order to maximize crop yields. Methods are being developed in Japan for identifying subsurface paddy fields without the recovery of actual field system features through excavation. Most of this work consists of phytolithic analysis by Fujiwara and colleagues. A review of this research is accompanied by the test results of phosphate levels under modern paddy fields carried out by the author and colleagues. It is concluded that the assumption that structured fields in the archaeological record were used for growing wet rice is potentially misleading without phytolithic evidence, and that phosphate tests are underuse...

An introduction to Buddhist archaeology

Abstract This introduction to the volume provides background information necessary for understanding the arrangement and content of the succeeding articles. The origin and general concepts of the Buddhist religion as they affect material culture are set out, with a glossary of terms keyed to all the articles. The spread of Buddhism is then briefly described through Sri Lanka into Southeast Asia, and through Afghanistan into East Asia. The articles are subsequently arranged in this geographical order. Because of the cumulative nature of the information presented, following the chronological development and spread of the religion, the volume is best read from beginning to end.

Japanese archaeology in the 1990s

As scientific archaeology takes hold in Japan, our understanding of the nature and content of Japanese prehistory is changing radically. All of the period boundaries of Japanese prehistory are being rewritten, and many new “archaeologies” are growing up around particular scientific techniques. New publications in English give greater access to archaeological thinking in Japan, while Japanese publications focus on ever-narrowing aspects of prehistoric lifeways. Policy changes are giving archaeologists more access to the imperial tombs, and rescue teams are under less obligation to “save everything” as selective preservation is instituted.

The ritual landscape of ‘Boar Mountain’ Basin: The Niuheliang site complex of north‐eastern China

Abstract The relic Neolithic landscape at Niuheliang was recognized and partially excavated by the Liaoning Provincial Archaeological Research Institute in the mid‐1980s. A decade later, scholars are competing to re‐interpret the landscapes symbolic and ritual nature deriving from its unique and unprecedented complexity within the East Asian Neolithic. In these new interpretations, the old pitfall of untestable speculation is joined by politically emotive considerations in acting to shape the significance of Niuheliang within the origins of Chinese civilization.

The ‘idea of prehistory’ in Japan

Thirty years after Glyn Daniels perceptive publication on the ‘idea of prehistory’ (Daniel 1962), the topic is enjoying a return engagement in the archaeological literature. Not only have the sources of the words for ‘prehistory’ been traced in various languages (Chippindale 1988; Clermont & Smith 1990). but a new nuance has been added to the word ‘idea’. In the new chapters added to the re-issue of Daniel’s book, Renfrew uses the phrase ‘idea of prehistory’ to mean ‘a picture of the past’ or a ‘reconstruction of the past’ (Daniel & Renfrew 1988: 198, 203). In other words, Renfrew has subtly shifted the meaning of ‘idea’ from the concept of a time of human existence before the advent of written history, as I perceive Daniel originally used it, to an interpretation of what went on in that time period.

Bamiyan: Buddhist cave temples in Afghanistan

The Kyoto University Archaeological Mission carried out research on the Bamiyan caves in Afghanistan between 1970 and 1978. We aimed at making a general photogrammatic map of the whole area, attrib...

The Japanese Palaeolithic: A Review.

In the post-war years, the palaeolithic of Japan has become one of the best documented areas of Stone Age studies. In terms of both quantity and quality, the Japanese palaeolithic record has no equal in East Asia. This paper is an up-to-date review of the western language literature, identifying new trends of research in this important area. It first examines the chronological development of research into the Japanese palaeolithic in relation to the broader palaeolithic perspective. Then regional variability is described, and attention in particular is drawn to postglacial transitions, lithic technology, behavioural archaeology, and the peopling of the New World.

Landscape and Subsistence in Japanese History

Japan consists of four main islands plus the Ryukyu archipelago south of Kyushu Island (Fig. 20.1). It stretches from 20°24¢N to 45°30¢N, thus crossing cold to warm temperate and subtropical climatic zones. Because of its backbone mountain ranges, the climate of Honshu Island is radically different on the Japan Sea side and Pacific Seaboard. Seasonal monsoonal winds bring heavy snowfall to the western side in winter, and a June rainy season and typhoons from the south/southeast in summer. Average annual precipitation ranges from 944 to 4060 mm but mostly exceeds 1020 mm/year. The forest types vary by latitude and altitude, with broad-leaf evergreens at low elevations in the southwest, deciduous forest at higher altitudes in the southwest and through the northeast into Hokkaido Island, while high northeastern mountains host conifers (Statistics from www.britannica.com and Kojima 2004).

Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 C.E.: Relic, Text, Object, Fake by Joshua A. Fogel (review)

As the title suggests, this book is a historiography—an analytical history of historical writings. Its topic is a gold seal found on Shikanoshima (an island that is part of modern-day Fukuoka prefecture) in 1784. Author Joshua Fogel’s playful invocation near the end of his introduction—“Let the games begin” (p. 11)—is an apt lead-in to his review of a prolonged scholarly contest that even today is not quite over. The first half of the game is a face-off between Neo-Confucianists and nativists. Philologists then perform at half time, and the game continues in the second half between scientists (given short shrift, actually) and scholars who denigrate science; the latter are characterized as nihilists and social constructivists (see pages 5–6). And the football? It’s an inch-square, half-inch-tall block of gold topped with a curled snake and inscribed with five Chinese characters on its base: 漢委奴国王, which are today generally understood to mean “[seal awarded to] the ruler of the state[let] of Na within Wa under the Han” (p. 20). The seal is transformed over the course of the game from secular relic, to text, to object. The gold seal was found intentionally buried under a large rock nestled between three smaller rocks—that is, a dolmen-like structure—at a site overlooking Hakata Bay in northern Kyushu, not far from where the Yayoi-period country (kuni) of Na was ostensibly located. The seal has been linked with a passage in the Hou han shu (the official history of the later Han dynasty) stating that in 57 c.e. Emperor Guangwu gave a gold seal and ribbon to an emissary from Na. From the time of its discovery in the late eighteenth century, the seal was heralded as a historic relic, but fifty years later it was decried as an ingenious forgery. And the debate continues. Fogel has translated many passages from the scholarly writings he discusses, and he included in appendices his own translations of three seminal essays that he describes as “paradigm-shifting” (p. 3) in how the gold seal has been treated and interpreted. Appendix A is philologist Miyake Yonekichi’s erudite and definitive interpretation of the discovery (published in 1892), while appendix B contains an essay describing the seal as a forgery (written by Matsuura Michisuke in 1836 but published by Miyake in 1898). Appendix C, by archaeologist Okazaki Takashi, presents a scientific argument for the authenticity of the seal and was published in 1968.