Archaeology and Indigenous Issues in Hokkaido Island, Japan

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeology and Indigenous Issues in Hokkaido Island, Japan" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

While many advances have been made in Japan with regard to the recognition of the Ainu as the Indigenous people of Japan, there remains much to be done in decolonizing the practice of archaeology and increasing community-based and Indigenous archaeological practice. This session presents a spectrum of topics related to decolonizing research practices around the Ainu on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. These include a call for understanding the origin of place names and the important role that archaeological and anthropological research can play in helping reestablish ties to place, concepts of heritage to the Ainu peoples with regard to aspects of tangible and intangible cultural history and the protection of archaeological sites, and a reporting on the alternative 2022 international field school.