S7-6

Revisiting the Agency of Rivers: The Case of the Shinano-Chikuma Drainage in the Japanese Archipelago

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom

The Shinano-Chikuma River system is the longest river drainage in the Japanese archipelago, and is the subject of the ongoing international collaborative Shinano River research project. The greatest density of Incipient Jomon sites in Japan (with ceramics predating 10,000 years ago) have been discovered along its reaches, and the region produced the Flame pot style during the Middle Jomon (c. 2500 BCE). This paper discusses the importance of setting these discoveries in the context of a very active riverscape, and considers to what extent recent thinking on the ‘agency’ of rivers is appropriate in analysing and interpreting the material traces of Jomon societies along the Shinano-Chikuma system. Parts of the river system are now included in the Japan Heritage designation by the Japanese Government Agency for Cultural Affairs.