Yamanouchi Sugao

Yamanouchi Sugao ( Japanese 山 内 清 男 ; born January 2, 1902 in Shitaya , Tokyo City (today: Taitō , Tokyo ); † August 29, 1970 ) was a Japanese archaeologist who last taught at Seijō University in Tokyo. He was one of the leading researchers in the field of the Jōmon period . Using the stratigraphy, he created a detailed typology of corded ceramics and a complete, relative chronology of the Jōmon time. In addition, by examining the ceramics and the plant fiber remains, he clarified how the string patterns had been applied.

Life

Yamanouchi was born in 1902 as the eldest son of Yamanouchi Sōko, a Japanese teacher, in the Tokyo district of Shitaya (today: Taitō). Due to his father changing jobs, he attended a primary school in Tochigi Prefecture and returned to Tokyo with him in 1910 when his father gave up his job there. There he finished elementary school with his classmate, the later philosopher and philologist Michitarō Tanaka (1902–1985). He continued his school education in 1914 at Waseda Middle School, where his father also taught. There he heard in 1915 a lecture on the theory of evolution of the well-known biologist Asajirō Oka (1868-1944), who made Darwinism known in Japan. He read Darwin's work On the Origin of Species in the original and deepened his interest by reading works on Neolamarckism and Mendel's and Edwin Conklin's genetics . In 1917 he came into contact with Jōmon ceramics for the first time through the Horinouchi find site and shell pile. At the end of 1918 he met the archaeologist Iwao Ōba (1899-1975) know and first visited Ryūzō Torii .

In 1919 he enrolled at the Tokyo Imperial University and began studying anthropology . In 1921 he took part under the direction of Ryūzō Torii in excavations at the Horinouchi clam pile. During a study trip to Matsudo , he discovered the Kamihongo clam pile with his two younger fellow students Ichirō Yawata and Teiken Usami . Yamanouchi decided to focus on heredity and began doing research on anthropology and prehistory . In 1922 he published an anthropological study of the residents of Suwa County. Because of his interest in socialism and his participation in Ōsugi Sakaes Hokufukai , Yamanouchi came into the focus of the authorities from 1920 to 1924. He was forced to flee to his grandmother in Kagoshima and to hide there again and again.

1924 Yamanouchi worked at the medical faculty of Tōhoku University as an assistant. In the same year he examined the mussel mounds of Ogawa and Sanganji ( 三 貫 地 貝 塚 ) together with Ichirō Yawata . At about the same time, through the writings of Oscar Montelius , he learned the principle of the closed find and also the stratigraphic principle . This prompted him to visit Matsumoto Hikoshichirō in Sendai immediately after the shell piles were excavated . Matsumoto Hikoshichirō was the first researcher in Japan to stratigraphically uncovered a clam mound in Satohama ( 里 浜 貝 塚 ) in 1919 . As a result, he took part in excavations throughout the Tōhoku region, collected stratigraphic knowledge and information about Jōmon ceramics and published the results in 1932 and 1933 under the title Nihon enko no bunka ( 日本 遠古 之 文化 ) in the magazine Dolmen . In 1933 he gave up his position at the university at his own request, returned to Tokyo and ran a stationery shop .

A year later, in 1934, he returned to the scientific community and founded the “Research Group for Primitive Cultures” ( 原始 文化 研究 会 ). The determination of the relative age by chronologizing the ceramic finds , which can be traced back to the trio of experts Yamanouchi, Yawato and Konō Isamu , was particularly well received by the younger generation and also by Oyama Kashiwa and the "Institute for Prehistory" ( 大 山 史前 学 研究所 ) supported. Their method was in contrast to and in competition with the conception of Sadakichi Kita and the older generation of researchers, whose determination was based on the representations of Kojiki and Nihongi and rather followed the heuristic principle of common sense. The contrast between these two doctrines culminated in the so-called "Minerva dispute" ( ミ ネ ル ヴ ァ 論争 ).

In early 1937, the “Research Group for Primitive Cultures” was renamed “Society for Prehistoric Archeology” ( 先 史 考古学 会 ). This society then also published the magazine for prehistoric archeology, in the first edition of which Yamanouchi presented a typology and classification of Jōmon ceramics along with a chronology. In 1939 the first part of the "Pictorial Lexicon of Prehistoric Earthenware of Japan - the Kantō Region" ( 日本 先 史 土 器 図 譜 第一 部 ・ 関 東 地方 ) was published. During the preparation of the second part of the Tōhoku region, Yamanouchi was evacuated to Sendai, where in May 1945 photographs and finds that Chōsuke Serizawa had kept were burned during an air raid . This made the publication of the second part impossible.

In 1946, together with Namio Egami (1906–2002), he carried out prospecting in Manchukuo and northern China. After the end of the war he returned to Japan and took over the chair at the Imperial University of Tokyo as a substitute for Ichirō Yawata . A year later he was given a full professorship at the anthropological chair. Yamanouchi continued the research of the pre-war period and published a summary in 1962: Nihon senshi doki no jōmon ( 日本 先 史 土 器 の 縄 紋 , for example: "String pattern of prehistoric earthenware of Japan"). For this treatise he received the academic degree of Doktor phil. at Kyoto University. At the same time he reached the age limit, left the Tōdai University and taught at the Seijō University.

Yamanouchi died of pneumonia on August 29, 1970 at the age of 68.

Works (selection)

• Sugao Yamanouchi: 日本 旧石器時代 (roughly: The Japanese Paleolithic ). Iwanami, 1982, ISBN 978-4-0-0420209-7
• Sugao Yamanouchi: 日本 先 史 土 器 図 譜 ・ 第一 部 - 関 東 地方 ・ 第一 輯 ~ 第十 輯 (for example: Pictorial dictionary of prehistoric earthenware of Japan - Part I, the Kantō region ). 1939-1941
• Sugao Yamanouchi: 日本 考古学 の 秩序 (roughly: methods of Japanese archeology ). Minerva No. 4, Kanrinshōbo, 1936

Web links

• Kimiyo Suzuki: 日本 先 史 土 器 の 分類 学 的 研究 山 内 清 男 と 日本 考古学 . Tokyo University Digital Museum, 2000, accessed September 14, 2013 (Japanese). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edward Kidder: Ancient Japan . Archeology in words and pictures. Karl Motzet, Munich 1982 (English: Ancient Japan . Translated by Harry Zeise).

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Yamanouchi is the family name, Sugao the first name.