Kyushu University Academic Staff Educational and Research Activities Database
List of Papers
Koji MIZOGUCHI Last modified date:2023.11.10

Professor / The Basic Structures of Human Societies / Department of Environmental Changes / Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies


Papers
1. MIZOGUCHI, Koji, Making Sense of the Transformation of Religious Practices: A Critical Long-term Perspective from Pre- and Proto-historic Japan, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 10.1017/S0959774321000366, 2021.06, [URL], This paper proposes a novel procedural framework for the archaeological study of the long-term transformation of religious practices by heuristically defining the religious in terms of their functional-effective elements. Thus, religious activities constitute a distinct communicative domain that responds to and processes the uncertainties and risks of the world. Drawing on this re-definition, this paper proposes a procedure comprising the following units of investigation: (A) what uncertainties and risks of the world were generated in and differentiated by a certain social formation; (B) how were they responded to and processed; and (C) how is the mode of the responding and processing changed as social formations are transformed? The applicability of this procedure is examined through a case study from the pre- and proto-historic periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is hoped that the framework reintroduces causally explanatory, comparative and long-term perspectives to the archaeological study of religious practices..
2. MIZOGUCHI, Koji, Making Sense of Material Culture Transformation: A Critical Long-Term Perspective from Jomon- and Yayoi-Period Japan, Journal of World Prehistory, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-020-09138-0, 2020.03, [URL], This JWP Focus paper argues that material culture transformation can be understood as the transformation of the way human beings and material culture mutually open up their potentialities. Such opening up/becoming takes place in the domains of their encounter, which often take the form of human communications. In communication, human beings and material culture mutually mediate/intervene/transform their modes of existence as the former cope with various uncertainties and risks that the world generates and that communication differentiates. Drawing upon the theory of communication developed by the social systems theorist, Niklas Luhmann, the paper will elucidate and elaborate this perspective through an examination of the long-term transformation of the mode of such mutual opening up/becoming by human beings and the material culture of their potentialities that took place in the Jomon and the Yayoi periods of Japan between 13000 Cal BC and AD 250/300..
3. Mizoguchi, Koji, Re-thinking the origin of agriculture through the‘beginnings’ in the Japanese archipelago, JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, 6, 2, 95-107, 2019.03, [URL], The way in which we investigate the origin of something is largely determined by the way we intend to understand it. In the case of the origin of agriculture, the situation is further complicated by the tone of the investigation, which is not only determined by how we define and understand the set of human activities characterised and described as agriculture but also influenced by the way in which we define and understand those other beginnings we believe were causally linked to the development of agriculture, that are, the development of complexity, the beginning and spread of language and ethnic groups, and so on. The investigation of the beginning of agriculture in Japan offers us some good cases which show that the uncritical coupling of agriculture with those beginnings not only are erroneous but also hinder the development of nuanced approaches to human-plant/animal interactions and their impact on human society. This paper illustrates those problems by studying Jomon food procurement activities and proposes a way to overcome the problems by introducing the concept of the spatio-temporal organisation of social life and by linking hunting, gathering and farming practices to the spatio-temporal organisations of Jomon and Yayoi social life..
4. Mizoguchi, Koji, Uchida, Junko, The Anyang Xibeigang Shang royal tombs revisited: a social archaeological approach, Antiquity, https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.19, 362, 709-723, Issue 362, 2018.05, [URL], The Shang Dynasty has attracted much archaeological research, particularly the renowned ‘royal tombs’ of the Xibeigang cemetery at Anyang Yinxu, the last Shang capital. Understanding of the social strategies informing Shang mortuary practices is, however, very limited. A new reconstruction of the detailed chronology of the cemetery is presented here, allowing social theory to be applied, and reveals the strategic social decisions behind the placement of the tombs in relation to each other. The results of this analysis are important not only for the reconstruction of the social structure and organisation of the late Shang dynasty, but also for understanding the relationship between mortuary practices and the functioning of early states in other regions..
5. Koji MIZOGUCHI, STAŠA BABIĆ, RAIMUND KARL, MONIKA MILOSAVLJEVIĆ, CARSTEN PALUDAN-MÜLLER, TIM MURRAY, JOHN ROBB, NATHAN SCHLANGER, ALESSANDRO VANZETTI, What is ‘European Archaeology’? What Should it be?, European Journal of Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2016.12, 20, 1, 4-35, 2017.01, [URL], ‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of European archaeology, it potentially unites an academic field and provides a basis for international collaboration and inclusion, but also creates essentialized identities and exclusionary discourses. This discussion article presents a range of views on what European archaeology is, where it comes from, and what it could be..
6. Koji Mizoguchi, The yayoi and kofun periods of japan, Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology, 10.1007/978-1-4939-6521-2_34, 561-601, 2017.01, The Yayoi and Kofun (meaning ‘old tumuli’) Periods of the Japanese Archipelago witnessed the introduction of rice paddy field agriculture and the subsequent rapid development of social complexity and hierarchy, culminating in the establishment of ascribed social stratification and the formation of an early state. The process can most typically be observed in the transformation of the way people dwelled and buried the dead. In what follows, I trace that process in Japan and describe possible causes of significant changes punctuating the historical trajectory by focusing on settlement and mortuary evidence.1.
7. The trajectory of the transformation of archaeological theories and its historical background.
8. Koji MIZOGUCHI, A Future of Archaeology, Antiquity, http://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.39, 89, 343, 12-22, 2015.02, [URL], As archaeologists we look to the past, but where might archaeology be going in the future? In this issue of Antiquity we begin a new feature where we invite archaeologists from different parts of the world to consider how the subject may or should develop in the coming years. For the first of these, Koji Mizoguchi, President of the World Archaeological Congress and Professor at Kyushu University in Japan, offers a perspective on the regional traditions of archaeology within an increasingly globalised world..
9. When the World Changes: An Archaeological Approach through a case study of the Middle Yayoi Period in Northern Kyushu.
10. Koji MIZOGUCHI, The centre of their life-world: the archaeology of experience at the Middle Yayoi cemetery of Tateiwa-Hotta, Japan, Antiquity, 88, 341, 836-850, 2014.09, [URL], Social analysis of cemeteries has traditionally viewed them as static images of social organisation. In this study of the Middle Yayoi jar-burial cemetery of Tateiwa-Hotta, however, the dynamic interrelationship between competing groups and successive generations can be discerned. Two initial burials proved to be foundational acts, followed by over 40 further burials spread over a series of generations. Differences in grave orientation and grave goods signalled the separate identities of the adjacent hamlets that came to bury their lineage leaders in this prominent location. Competition between lineages is indicated by externally acquired grave goods, including prestigious bronze mirrors from the Han commandery of Lelang in Korea, and by the varying styles of burial jar that illustrate and symbolise connections or alliances with other communities..
11. The mechanism and process of the large-scale integration in the beginning of the Kofun period: inspired by Barnes's 'Hypothesis on the political authority of the Early Kofun period'.
12. The organisational characteristics of the Ysyoi society and its hierarchisation: communication, contingency, and networks.
13. MIZOGUCHI, Koji, Nodes and edges: A network approach to hierarchisation and state formation in Japan. , Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol.28-1: 14-26, 2009.03, [URL].
14. Mizoguchi, Koji, The emergence of anthropomorphic representation in the Japanese archipelago: a social systemic perspective, Image and Imagination: a global prehistory of figurative representation (McDonald Institute Monographs), pp. 185-197, 2007.11.
15. Mizoguchi, Koji, Genealogy in the ground: observations of jar burials of the Yayoi period, northern Kyushu, Japan, Antiquity, 79, 304, 316-326, Volume 79, Number 304: 316-326, 2005.06, [URL].
16. Mizoguchi, Koji 2004 A treaties of the change of archaeological material culture: a social archaeological framework. "Nihon Kokogaku: Journal of the Japanese Archaeological Association," 18: 1-19..
17. Mizoguchi, Koji 2004 The material for arcaheological investigation as material culture. "Rekishigaku Kenkyu: Journal of Historical Studies", No. 795: 2-10..
18. Mizoguchj, Koji 2004 Why we have come to talk about/through archaeology in the way we do.In "Cultural Diversities and Comparative Archaeology: The Society of Archaeological Studies 50th Anniversary Volume" (The editorial committee, ed.), pp. 361-370. Okayama: Society of Archaeological Studies..
19. Mizoguchi, Koji, Time and genealogical consciousness in the mortuary practices of the Yayoi period, Japan, Journal of East Asian Archaeology, Vol.3, Nos.3-4: 173-197, 2002.06, [URL].
20. Mizoguchi, Koji, The protection of the site: Discursive formation and self-identification in contemporary society, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol.6, No.4: 323-330, 2000.12, [URL].
21. Mizoguchi, Koji 1999 The mortuary practices of Yayoi period northern Kyushu. "Quarterly of Archaeology", No.67: 49-53..
22. Mizoguchi, Koji 1999 Arcaheology as a social practice: a meta-critique of its structures. "Material Culture: Journal of Archaeologico-Folkloric Studies", No. 67: 20-26..
23. Mizoguchi, Koji, 1998. General theory, meta-theorisation and the position for archaeology in human/social sciences (in Japanese with English summary). Quarterly of Archaeological Studies, Vol. 44-4, pp. 96-103..
24. Mizoguchi, Koji, The reproduction of arcaheological discourse: the case of Japan, Journal of Euroepan Archaeology, Vol.5, No.2: 149-165, 1997.12, [URL].
25. Mizoguchi, Koji, 1997 Memory and ancestral image in prehistoric mortuary practices: a case of jar burial No. 6 at location D, the cemetery site of Kuriyama, Amagi City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University, Vol. 3: 53-62..
26. Mizoguchi, Koji, 1997 A study of the basic structure of archaeological practice: An analysis of the structuration of Anglo-American archaeological discourse (in Japanese with English summary). "Quarterly of Archaeological Studies", Vol. 44-1, pp. 51-71..
27. Mizoguchi, Koji, 1997 Perspectives in Post-processual archaeologies: a sociological critique of their "tendency" (in Japanese). Ethnoarchaeology, Special Issue: "Reply to Ian Hodder", pp. 5-15..
28. Mizoguchi, Koji, 2005 A study of burial cluster C at the cemetery site of Kuriyama, Aamgi city, Fukuoka prefecture: social archaeology of a jar burial site of the Middle Yayoi period in northern Kyushu. Nihon Kokogaku: Journal of the Japanese Archaeological Association, No. 2: 69-94..
29. Mizoguchi, Koji, 1995 A study of Yayoi period jar-coffin cemetery of Nagaoka: a social archaeology of a linear-aligned cemetery with two rows of burials. Kobunka DAnso: Journal of the Society of Kyushu Prehistoric and Ancient Cultural Studies, No. 34: 159-192..
30. Mizoguchi, Koji, Time in the reproduction of mortuary practices, World Archaeology, Vol. 25-2: 223-35, 1993.10, [URL].
31. Mizoguchi, Koji, A historiography of a linear barrow cemetery: a structurationist's point of view, Archaeological Review from Cambridge, Vol. 11-1: 39-49, 1992.01.
32. Mizoguchi, Koji 1988 Pottery before and after the appearance of Kofun in Chikuzen area. Quarterly of Archaeological Studies, Vol.35-2: 90-117..