Wars and battles as cultural phenomena in Bronze and Early Iron Age of Japan

Summary

Several lines of archaeological evidence indicate that numerous battles took place during the Yayoi Period or Japanese Bronze and Early Iron Age. So far, Japanese archaeologists have argued that these battles occurred as results of competition for agricultural lands or taking initiatives over exchange system. Many of the Japanese archeologists have speculated that wars were a part of the social process for evolving toward an early state society. However, archaeological evidence for wars, such as injured skeletal remains, weapons, and settlements at defensive locations, are all dated to the fourth to third centuries, B.C. contemporaneous to the Warring States Period China. This suggests to me that widespread warfare in Japan was a part of many cultural influences from China. I would argue that wars took place not as a factor for social evolution but as a cultural phenomenon.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Tribes, Chiefdoms and early states in late prehistoric Japan

Keywords

Spatial Coverage