Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects upon what kinds of criteria Japanese archaeologists use to distinguish the Yayoi Period from the Kofun Period. As new data are discovered, different criteria are selected to make the distinction.

Paper long abstract:

In the middle third century A.D. highly standardized keyhole-shaped mound tombs appeared in various regions of western Japan. Their emergence marks the beginning of the Kofun Period and at the same time the end of the Yayoi Period, when mortuary customs were regionally distinctive. Because Japanese archaeology is characterized by a heavy dependence on pottery analyses for the reconstruction of history, it is rather unusual to use mortuary evidence to distinguish time periods. To define the beginning of the Kofun Period Japanese archaeologists have confronted with two difficult issues. First, what was the meaning the “standardized mound form”? Keyhole-shaped mound tombs were built according to fixed sets of plans; for example, the Urama-Chausuyama keyhole-shaped mound tomb in Okayama is one-half of Hashihaka in Nara. The total length, diameter of the circular rear mounds, height of the rear mound, width of the joint between the rear and frontal mounds, width of the frontal mound, height of the frontal mound were exactly one half. The problem is dating the appearance of this standardization. A few Japanese archaeologists argue that small keyhole-shaped burial mounds constructed in the late second to early third century in a few regions of eastern and western Japan, as well as Nara, were built according to the fixed plan, but many archaeologists (including myself) do not approve of this hypothesis. The second issue relates to the chronological type of pottery in use at the time standardized keyhole-shaped mound tombs appeared; in other words, the chronological correlation between mound tombs and the type of pottery discovered at ordinary settlements. Ordinary pottery is not usually discovered at mound tombs. Excavations at the foot of the Hashihaka mound and the adjacent Makimuku site have provided a key to this question, showing that the type of pottery discovered at the foot of Hashihaka is best placed in the third to fourth stage of the Makimuku pottery chronology. This type marks the beginning of the Kofun Period settlements. Some archaeologists argue for the early appearance of standardization consider a type one stage earlier than the first stage of the Makimuku chronology as the beginning of the Kofun Period.