Protohistoric Yamato: archaeology of the first Japanese state

Barnes, Gina Lee

Book

Protohistoric Yamato: archaeology of the first Japanese state

Published jointly by the University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies and the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan • (17) • Published In 1988 • Pages: xx, 473

By: Barnes, Gina Lee.

Abstract
Barnes looks at the rise of state society in Japan in the late Yayoi and Kofun periods through analysis of settlement data. Only the data that might pertain to the Yayoi period were indexed for OCM (Outline of Cultural Materials) subjects. She used existing site data and conducted additional surveys ot obtain her data. As site location data was frequently not very specific (other than mentioning a town), Barnes created a grid of the Nara Basin and located the sites within the grid. Settlement patterns were then studied by analyzing the data within the grid squares. One surprize found was that there was no change in settlement pattern between Yayoi V and Early Kofun. Barnes proposes '…Both the mounded tombs and the Early Kofun culture came into being within the Yayoi V culture, as an elite stratum of society developed. This situation would not be out of keeping with the idea that social differentiation was both accompanied and facilitated by differentiation of material cultures.' (page 247). What archaeologists had been defining as Yayoi V culture may be the subculture of the commoners while Early Kofun culture may be the elite subculture and the two may be contemporaneous. Category 103 (place names) was used for town names although it is not known whether the names were the same during the Yayoi period.

Identification

Reviews and critiques

Theoretical orientation in research and its results

Organization and analysis of results of research

Location

Topography and geology

Post depositional processes in archaeological sites

Water supply

Ceramic technology

Settlement patterns

Burial practices and funerals

Chronologies and culture sequences