Takeru Akazawa
C. Melvin Aikens

In this collection of papers two different topical areas-hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement, and the physical anthropology of the Japanese population-are addressed. The two sets of papers are unified, however, by a common theme of quantitative, comparative analysis, and by common focus on problems of Japanese prehistory.

One major objective in assembling this collection is to advance the use of scientific, quantitative methods in the study of prehistoric problems, through providing illustrative examples of the successful use of such methods on a series of concrete problems. In modern Japan, many hundreds of reports on salvage archaeology projects are published every year. But most of these are strictly raw data reports, lacking in any extensive analysis. It is most important to develop new methods for the analysis and synthesis of this great body of data, in order that it may become accessible to scientific discussion. It is hoped that the present series of examples will prove useful in stimulating further research along increasingly sophisticated methodological lines.

A second major objective is to make Japanese research results available for discussion by the international anthropological community. The Japanese islands contain a continuous archaeological record of human occupation beginning-at the latest-in terminal Pleistocene times, and continuing to the present. This record subsumes an Advanced Paleolithic (30,000-11,000 B.C.) more or less comparable to that known from the Afro-European region; a Jomon, age (11,000-300 B.C.) characterized by an extremely rich and stable hunter-gatherer adaptation that from very early times included the use of ceramics and the establishment of sedentary pithouse villages; a Yayoi age (300 B.C.-300 A.D.) during which the cultivation of continental rice and other domesticates was adopted, and during which political-economic competition and political control developed rapidly; and a Kofun age (300-700 A.D.) which saw the consolidation and spread of unified political control over an increasingly broad area-by the dawn of the subsequent historical period, international relationships in the form of diplomatic missions and military adventures had been initiated.

Throughout this long development, a strong thread of continuity is evident, making the Japanese case of particular interest in the study of cultural evolution. Moreover-and this is a very important point-Japan is without any doubt the most intensively-researched area of its size in the world; scholars interested in developmental process and comparative studies would do well to be aware of the enormous potential for studies of these kinds in such a data-rich country. Unfortunately, until very recently, there was next to nothing published about Japanese prehistory in western languages accessible to the majority of the international scholarly community. Happily, this situation is now beginning to change, and the present volume is offered as a further contribution in that direction.

A third objective in presenting this collection is to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the origins and affiliation of the Japanese population. This is an area of intense scholarly debate within Japan, and is also the principal area of discussion in which international scholars have participated to date. The problem, as usually phrased, has two dimensions; regional diversity and change over time in both the physical characteristics of the Japanese population, and the cultural traditions of the country. Many scholars, perhaps most, have treated these processes as parts of a single phenomenon.

The simplest expression of this approach has been to picture the original Jomon population of Japan as composed of the direct ancestors of the remnant Ainu people, and the modern Japanese as descendants of continental immigrants who swept over the country as the bringers of the Yayoi culture. This is the viewpoint probably best known to, and most favored by, international scholars, but in the opinion of the editors and the contributors to this volume, it does not accord well with many of the actual facts of the case. Furthermore, it fails to provide any significant illumination of cultural process and the interaction between human biology and culture. The present volume contains several contributions which move in the direction of a more sophisticated understanding of this problem, and thus of the much more general problem of migration and cultural change that has occupied archaeologists in all parts of the world.