Energizing Museum “Diaspora” Collections for Archaeological Research: A Case Study from Jōmon-Period Japan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper offers a heuristic tool to generate archaeological research questions that address the sociocultural lives of ancient people utilizing the strength of existing museum collections. Methodologically, it is necessary to select artifacts that are diagnostic on surface appearance and that can be linked, as a “diaspora” collection, to the “original” dataset in their homeland. Diaspora artifacts are those that were unearthed in a homeland site that is far away from the museums where they are currently stored. Once the diaspora collection is embedded within its homeland dataset, this facilitates development of meaningful research questions and leads to solid archaeological research despite the lack of detailed excavation information. A case study to exemplify this approach is drawn from Jōmon-period pottery data originally excavated near Tokyo and currently stored in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia as well as in the Tokyo National Museum, Japan. This methodology leads to a conclusion that certain types of special pots in Late Jōmon were used as containers for botanical insect repellent and indoor fragrance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32043