Geoarchaeological studies in Nara, Japan: The integrated findings

摘要

In this article, the authors summarize 20 years of scholarship and two field projects on geoarchaeology in Nara, Japan, carried out. by researchers from 12 different institutions in 4 countries. The research goal was to test, an aerial photographic reconstruction of surface landforms in the Nara Basin with subsurface data. Project, A was conducted at Asawa; it tested, through geological coring, whether a suspected swampy back-marsh in the eastern basin existed and whether it Would yield data on the transition to wet, rice agriculture in the mid-1st millennium B.C. Project. B was conducted at Miwa; it, tested, through geological coring and subsequent. excavation, the nature of upland agricultural terrace formation in the southeastern basin and whether the suspected existence of a 4th-century palace site Could be confirmed.