ABSTRACT

Recent research on sustainability and human futures has emphasized the need for an integrated human and natural history. The idea that different research traditions may negatively influence how the environment is studied is a topic that has received little attention in the growing literature on climate justice. Japanese archaeology began in the late nineteenth century with what were at the time cutting-edge analyses of faunal and sea level changes. The relative lack of focus on human-environment interactions has rarely been discussed as a particular characteristic of Japanese archaeology. Japanese researchers such as Matsui have noted that interest in the environment in Japanese archaeology is a relatively recent phenomenon but have not attempted to explain why that interest was slow to develop. Although Japanese archaeology has neglected questions of the interaction between humans and the environment, this topic has by no means been ignored by the human and social sciences in Japan.