Acquiring Economic Power in Chiefdom Societies of Early Japan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Japanese chiefly polities began evolving toward states during the Kofun period (middle third to early seventh centuries CE), as evidenced by the appearance of a key material symbol of increased social complexity and control: keyhole-shaped mounded tombs. Construction of these distinctive tombs reflects several meanings, which differed from one region to another. I argue that keyhole-shaped tombs symbolize some degree of elite political control over local economies. As a case in point, large keyhole-shaped tombs were erected during the fifth and sixth centuries in the coastal region at Lake Kasumigaura, the second largest lake in Japan, located some 45 to 50 miles northeast of modern Tokyo. In the early fifth century, 186-meter-long and 123-meter-long keyhole-shaped tombs appeared at the lake’s northwestern and southeastern corner. From the end of the fifth to early sixth centuries, several 90-meter-long keyhole-shaped tombs were built in the northern coastal areas. These tombs were very close to the locations of piers recorded on an early seventeenth century map. I suggest that these keyhole-shaped tombs were planned and constructed by local elites who accumulated power and wealth by controlling water transportation and the movement of goods from the coastal region to the lake.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Acquiring Status and Power in Transegalitarian and Chiefdom Societies

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50268