Landscape and subsistence in Japanese history

Abstract

Japan consists of four main islands plus the Ryukyu archipelago south of Kyushu Island (Fig. 20.1). It stretches from 20°24¢N to 45°30¢N, thus crossing cold to warm temperate and subtropical climatic zones. Because of its backbone mountain ranges, the climate of Honshu Island is radically different on the Japan Sea side and Pacific Seaboard. Seasonal monsoonal winds bring heavy snowfall to the western side in winter, and a June rainy season and typhoons from the south/southeast in summer. Average annual precipitation ranges from 944 to 4060 mm but mostly exceeds 1020 mm/year. The forest types vary by latitude and altitude, with broad-leaf evergreens at low elevations in the southwest, deciduous forest at higher altitudes in the southwest and through the northeast into Hokkaido Island, while high northeastern mountains host conifers (Statistics from www.britannica.com and Kojima 2004). Deep green forests on steep mountainsides dominate the Japanese Islands. This inviting yet forbidding topography is a product of rapid and continuing uplift due to the subduction of the Pacific and Philippine plates under the Eurasian plate at the Japanese archipelago's eastern edge (Barnes 2003). The mountains themselves are mostly folded and faulted due to the pressures of the opposing plates, but subduction also gives rise to volcanic and earthquake activity (Barnes 2008). In northeastern and southern Japan volcanoes dominate the landscape, while most areas nationwide are at continuous earthquake risk. The hazards of living in a tectonically active area might seem a deterrent to human occupation. Yet Japan is the fifth most densely populated country in the world, with an average of 343 persons/km2. However, the population is unevenly spread over Japan's total land area: seemingly insignificant for island composition are the flattish lands of fringing coastal plains and mountain basins, yet this is where Japanese civilization resides. Residential land accounted for only 3.0% of Japan's land area and is concentrated in such lowlands (2005 calculation: MLIT 2007). In 2005, Tokyo's population density was 17 times higher than the national average, at 5751 persons/km2 (MIAC 2008). In line with the aims of this volume, the question arises: how did Japanese society adapt so successfully to this archipelago where both population and agricultural production are squeezed onto the plains, which account for only 35% of Japan's total land area. I define three major adaptations within Japan's historical sweep that address changes in landscape use (Table 20.1): the prehistoric hunting-gathering-fishing- horticultural subsistence systems of the Jomon peoples, the historic system of wet-rice agriculture, and the modern opening of Hokkaido and importation of new foods and food technologies. Between Phases 1 and 2, occupation shifted from the uplands to the coastal plains, and between Phases 2 and 3, agriculture in Japan itself ceased to be the major food supplier for the Japanese people. This scheme is outlined in the first section below. The dichotomy between upland and lowland is not a new phenomenon in Japanese history, nor is it unusual amongst other nations. Yet Japan did not develop ethnically separate hill tribes who exploited the uplands while There is a tendency to think that once rice agriculture was introduced into the lowlands, other forms of food production became unimportant. A fourth focus will illustrate how the development of dry field agriculture has been vital to the continuing success of the historical economy. In particular, I follow up Ohnuki-Tierney's work (1993) demonstrating that no matter how ritually and symbolically important rice was and is to the historic Japanese, they did not and do not live by rice alone. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.