Collapse, or Drastic Socio-cultural Transformation?: Some Cases from Japanese Prehistory

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper proposes to redefine 'collapse' as a type of human responses to changes that happen to the (variously perceived, experienced and utilized) environment in which we live. It is argued that the phenomena commonly termed as 'collapses', such as the disintegration of settlement systems and the disappearance of monumental constructions, can be understood as the material consequences of changes in the way people organize their lives by spatio-temporarily structuring their activities and communications. The argument is to be verified with some examples from Japanese prehistory which show that people actively responded to drastic environmental/social changes by utilizing material culture items (including their own body) in creatively different manners from before, that, on the surface, made the changes recognized in archaeological evidence 'look like' collapses.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23443