ABSTRACT
The main theme of this chapter is to discuss how archaeological investigation can contribute to the understanding of the coexistence of different cultures. In this chapter, we would like to report the results of research on Japan’s first agricultural society-the Yayoi culture. In particular, many archaeologists have said that there were several special regions where, in the early stage of the Yayoi culture, we can still see artifacts, especially pottery, from the preceding Jomon culture. Such phenomena have been explained as the coexistence between two different cultures-a hunter-gatherer group (Jomon) and an agricultural group (Yayoi). However, this explanation presupposes that the differences between the pottery types are indicative of different cultural groups. Our analysis will focus on this phenomena and the hypotheses proposed to explain it because we think it is very important to analyze the possible coexistence of different cultures in terms of evidence found in an archaeological context.
