Collecting Japan's Antiquity in Colonial Korea: The Tokyo Anthropological Society and the Cultural Comparative Perspective Hyungil Pai University of California, Santa Barbara Jinshuron (Who are the Japanese?) debates mostly rested on rehashing myths and legends gleaned from the ancient texts of the Kojiki and Nihonshoki . However, when Torii's letters from the field came filtering in monthly from exotic corners of the Asian continent, that reported on the finds of shell-mounds, stone-tools, dolmens, and kofun remains, all "similar" to that of Japan, such news were eagerly anticipated by the members of the Tokyo Anthropological Society. This paper is devoted to introducing, describing, and analyzing the earliest field reports, photographs of ethnographic peoples, and material collections of prehistoric artifacts and burials that were published in the issues of the Tokyo Anthropological Society dating from 1890's - 1910's. I will especially focus on how the opening up of the Asian continent to Japanese fieldwork and the 1910 annexation of Korea permitted the first systematic art and archaeological surveys, excavations, and analysis of prehistoric pottery, settlement patterns, and burial classifications which to this day have served as the most important chronological framework for cross-dating Japan's ancient remains. | |
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