Study to restore historical landscapes of the ancient periods in Chugoku, southwest Japan

本研究旨在还原日本西南地区的古代历史景观。在古代，人们根据自然环境生活，创造了地域文化，这些文化可以通过考古、历史和文化证据的分析来揭示。这个地区是中国和朝鲜之间的重要文化走廊，在国家形成阶段，日本群岛，通过先进的文化和技术与材料一起输入。这导致了Chugoku山脉的铁和铁器生产以及沿海地区的海上贸易和盐生产的发展。在中世纪，中国的铁生产非常繁荣，银和铜的制造技术也很先进。这一时期沿海地区的制盐技术有了很大的提高。今年，我们收集整理了大量出土的聚落遗迹资料，并进行了补充实地工作，为恢复该地区的历史景观提供了基础资料支持。重要样品的定年和物理和化学分析对报告的编写非常有帮助。该报告主要包含考古和文化遗产研究工作的结果，而其他相关研究领域的结果将紧随其后。

This study aims to restore historical landscapes of the ancient periods in Chugoku, southwest Japan. In the ancient periods, people lived in accordance with the natural environments and created regional cultures that can be revealed by analyses on archaeological, historical and cultural evidences.This district was an important cultural corridor between China and Korea, and Japan Islands in the formative stage of the nation, through which advanced culture and techniques were imported together with materials. This resulted in development in the production of iron and ironware of the Chugoku Mountains as well as maritime trade and salt production along the coastal areas.In the medieval period, iron production in Chugoku was boomed and manufacturing techniques of silver and copper were also advanced. Salt production technique in the coastal area was much improved in this period.This year we collected and arranged the vast data of excavated settlements remains and performed supplementary field works to back up the basic information to restore historical landscapes of the area. Dating and physical and chemical analyses of the important samples are very helpful for the preparation of the report. The report mainly contains the results of archaeological and cultural heritage research works, while other results of the related research fields will follow latter.