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- Convenors:
-
Mark Hudson
(Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)
Martine Robbeets (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)
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- Section:
- History
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
The Yayoi has been studied as the most interdisciplinary period in Japanese history but what issues remain under-theorised in the gaps between the different disciplines? This panel will evaluate the successes and problems of interdisciplinary research as applied to the Yayoi.
Long Abstract:
The Yayoi (900 BC - AD 250) has been the most interdisciplinary period in the Japanese past with approaches from historical linguistics, biological anthropology and genetics all adding significant insights to archaeological and historical research. In understanding a period with very few historical texts, this interdisciplinarity has greatly expanded our knowledge of the Yayoi, but what issues remain under-theorised in the gaps between the different disciplines? In this panel we evaluate the successes and problems of interdisciplinary research as applied to the Yayoi, a formative period of Japanese history. Most history textbooks, especially in European languages, present a simple definition of the Yayoi as the period when wet rice farming began in Japan. Within historical linguistics it has long been assumed that the Yayoi was the time when the Japonic family arrived in the archipelago and began to expand from its original 'beachhead' in north Kyushu. Since the 1990s, a majority of anthropologists have also argued that the Bronze Age migrants who arrived from Korea began to admix with native Jōmon populations. In this panel we use interdisciplinary perspectives from archaeology, linguistics and biological anthropology to re-examine the Yayoi in the light of recent research.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 25 August, 2021, -Martine Robbeets (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will integrate linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence on the ultimate origins of Yayoi culture. It will trace Yayoi language, agriculture and genes languages back to the beginning of millet agriculture and the early days of the Amur genome in Northeast China.
Paper long abstract:
The origins of the Japanese language are among the most disputed issues of historical comparative linguistics. Even if the precise nature of its affinity to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic languages remains debated, the hypothesis that Japanese is historically related to these languages is gradually gaining acceptance (Georg et al. 1998, Johanson 2010, Starostin 2016, Robbeets et al. 2020). In my past research, I have shown that shown there is a small core of reliable evidence that enables us to classify Japanese as a Transeurasian language (Robbeets 2005, 2015, 2020 a/b, Robbeets & Bouckaert 2018). Accepting the Transeurasian origins of the Japanese language, however, inevitably gives rise to new questions about who the ancestors of the speakers of Japonic were, where they came from and when, where and why they moved. It is clear that these questions reach far beyond linguistics, into other scientific disciplines such as genetics and archaeology. Here, I will bring these three lines of evidence together in a single approach, for which Bellwood (2002) adopted the term "triangulation". To this end, I will align the datasets, independently generated by linguists, archaeologists and geneticists within the context of my ERC funded eurasia3angle project and point out correlations and discrepancies. The results will trace back the ultimate origins of Yayoi language, agriculture and genes languages to the beginning of millet agriculture within the Xinglongwa culture (6200-5400 BC) and to the early days of the Amur genome in Northeast China. Adding rice and other crops to the agricultural package and admixing with Yellow-River ancestries, the speakers of Japonic are thought to have moved over the Korean Peninsula and reached Japan, where they established Yayoi culture. In this way, my presentation will contribute to a larger view of how human, cultural and linguistic dispersal interacted to shape modern Japan.
Mark Hudson (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology)
Paper short abstract:
The paper compares different interdisciplinary understandings of admixture in the Yayoi period and proposes a new diverse cultural model for the Yayoi.
Paper long abstract:
New research in biological anthropology over the 1980s led to the publication in 1991 of Kazuro Hanihara's influential 'dual structure hypothesis' for the population history of the Japanese Islands. A critique of previous models of ethnic homogeneity, Hanihara's hypothesis proposed a process of 'hybridisation' between two populations, the 'native' Jōmon and the 'immigrant' Yayoi. Interdisciplinary research in historical linguistics, archaeology and other fields has expanded our understanding of the social and cultural processes behind the meeting and mixing of the two population layers. However, the biological 'hybridisation' proposed by Hanihara cannot be directly extended to linguistics or archaeology. The evidence from historical linguistics supports language replacement in the Yayoi. While many archaeologists have seen the Yayoi as a cultural 'cocktail' they have assumed it results from an equal mixing of two elements which coalesced to form traditional Japanese culture. This paper will use an archaeological perspective to critique these ideas and propose a much more diverse cultural model for the Yayoi.
Irene M. Muñoz Fernández (International University Isabel I, Complutense University of Madrid)
Paper short abstract:
Archaeology provides archaeological remains within ritual contexts in Yayoi Japan. Recurring to disciplines like Anthropology is key to reach an understanding. Besides, research has traditionally excluded feminine aspects. Fortunately, gender studies represent an improvement for research.
Paper long abstract:
Rituality has been an inherent aspect of human populations since the very first beginning of civilization, and Japan is no exception to this rule. Researching about any culture's rituality means achieving a deep knowledge about that culture's most intimate aspects. It is for that reason that it is paramount to try to understand ritual manners. Archaeology provides material remains within ritual contexts in Yayoi Japan. Nevertheless, it is difficult to infer from such archaeological remains the formal details of the ritual itself, so using related disciplines such as anthropology or ethnography in order to make sense of the purposes and effects of the aforementioned ritual is key to reach an understanding of Yayoi rituality.
Furthermore, historical research has traditionally excluded female aspects from its focus, resulting in studies with a limited view of some concrete areas where women's role was especially important. Fortunately, nowadays gender studies are consolidating their presence, which is translated in significant improvements in research. This is the case of ritual world in Yayoi Japan, that can be studied from some historical texts, together with some cultural persistences within the archipelago from which the paramount role played in the ritual realm by women since ancient times can be inferred through the implementation of an anthropological perspective.
The present work aims to contribute with a general panorama of rituality in Yayoi Japan, highlighting women's role within the ritual realm from an anthropological perspective. To this it must be added the fact that the development of an agricultural way of life implied changes in belief and its associated rituality, as well as the introduction of new rituals as a consequence of contacts with foreigner agents, which will be also analyzed.
Elisabeth de Boer (Ruhr Universitaet Bochum)
Paper short abstract:
Certain regions along the Japan Sea coast share both agreements and differences in segmental and tonal phonology. These can be explained as resulting from migrations that can be dated with reasonable certainty, based on comparison with archaeology, genetic research and Japanese historiography.
Paper long abstract:
Insights on the position of Izumo in the Yayoi period have changed dramatically over the years. For a long time, the reasons for the prominent role given to Izumo in 8th century chronicles stemming from the Yamato kingdom of central Japan was a matter of debate. The find of a cache of 358 2000-year-old bronze swords in Izumo in 1984 however, made clear that it had been one of the most powerful regions of Japan in the Mid to Late Yayoi periods. The attention given to Izumo in chronicles from central Japan reflected its role as Yamato's main rival.
Not only mythology and archaeology, but historical linguistics and dialect geography too, can contribute to our knowledge of the role played by Izumo in Japanese prehistory: There are two regions along the Sea of Japan coast, the Noto peninsula and the Tohoku region, where the dialects share resemblances in segmental and tonal phonology with the dialect of Izumo. The resemblance in segmental phonology is present in all three regions, but the resemblance in the tone systems is much stronger between Izumo and the Tohoku region than between either of these with the Noto peninsula in-between.
In my talk, I will argue that this puzzling distribution of agreements and differences between the dialects can be explained as resulting from migrations from Izumo in different time periods. These migrations can be dated with reasonable certainty based on comparison with archaeology, genetic research and Japanese historiography.