Conjuring Up Prehistory: Landscape and the Archaic in Japanese Nationalism

Walter Benjamin observed that it is precisely the modern which conjures up prehistory. From Yanagita’s ‘mountain people’ to Umehara’s ‘Jomon civilisation’, Japan has been an especially resonant site of prehistories imagined in response to modernity. Conjuring Up Prehistory: Landscape and the Archaic in Japanese Nationalism looks at how archaeology and landscapes of the archaic have been used in Japanese nationalism since the early twentieth century, focusing on the writings of cultural historian Tetsuro Watsuji, philosopher Takeshi Umehara and environmental archaeologist Yoshinori Yasuda. It is argued that the Japanese nationalist project has been mirrored by the continuing influence of broader Romantic ideas in Japanese archaeology, especially in Jomon studies.