New Research Directions in Archaeology and Linguistic History of Hokkaido Ainu

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Year: 
2019
Journal/Series title: 
ARF Brownbag Series, UC Berkeley
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Place published: 
Japan
Abstract: 
Over the last 30 years data related to ancestral Ainu material culture, settlement pattern, chronology, subsistence, genetics, and linguistics have provided new insight into their identity, origin, and relationships with the rest of Japan through time. In particular, palaeoethnobotany (the study of the relationships between plants and people) has been instrumental in conceptualizing the Satsumon and Ainu as populations with a complex history that included dry-field (rain-fed) agriculture rather than hunting-gathering alone or the diverse mix of wet-rice and dry-field production elsewhere in Japan. This complex history, partially revealed by the history of agriculture and the dispersion of crops to and within Northeastern Japan, involved long term, continued involvement and interactions with the rest of Japan. Furthermore, significant discontinuity marks the transition from Epi-Jomon to Satsumon so the Ainu are no longer considered an isolate of remnant Jomon (from a cultural perspective) in the Northeast.