ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with issues concerning nationalism and archaeological practice. Both archaeologists and non- archaeologists use archaeology to imagine what the past would have been like, make sense of the present in relation to the past, and identify/constitute who they are through reference to the past. The archaeological evidence indicates that the demand of iron implements, predominantly axes and wood-working tools and the cutting edge of digging tools, dramatically increased throughout the Late Yayoi period. The chapter describes the two constitutive assumptions of the Imperial Mausolea Discourse, the fatefulness of the genesis of the imperial line and the uninterrupted continuation of the imperial line. The fundamental character of the Imperial Mausolea Discourse is self-preservation, or self-reproduction. Deconstruction of the Imperial Mausolea Discourse that is grounded in the materiality of the Kofun tumuli reminds that the modern Japanese nation was created, and has not existed from the beginning of time.
