HISTORIC ARTIFACT ANALYSIS FROM CA-ORA-1301H; MISSION VIEJO, SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY,. CALIFORNIA. By Stephen R. Van Wormer and Susan D. Walter. Archaeological Resource Management Corporation, Anaheim, California 92801. April, 1993. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29846.01600 (original) (raw)
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This thesis project examines Japanese ceramic collections from three West Coast archaeological sites. These sites, located in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta; Mukilteo, Washington; and Gresham, Oregon; were all associated with communities of first-generation Japanese American immigrants (Issei) in the decades preceding World War II. The primary goal of this work is to contribute to archaeological identification and analysis of Japanese table and sake wares. Using a classification system based on Japanese language terms, this thesis explores the potential for a contextually-informed comparative analysis to answer research questions about Issei communities. Historical and archaeological data highlight some of the broad connections between transpacific communities, as well as the diverse and locally-distinct aspects of Issei experiences. Project results indicate the potential for this type of classification and analysis to contribute to interpretation of Japanese ceramics as part of the larger archaeological record of Issei communities.
Results of the Archaeological Monitoring Program for the Restaurant Depot Project Project No. 180219/ I.O. No. 23432387/ SCH No. N/A, RECON, San Diego, CA. , 2012
This report presents results of historical and archaeological investigations at the site of Fish Camp Kushimoto no Kyampu, the home of Japanese immigrant fishing families during the early 20th century. Historical and archaeological evidence indicate that the people who lived at Fish Camp Kushimoto no Kyampu were not transient immigrant laborers who came temporarily to the United States. They established businesses, married, raised families, and made their homes in America. In doing this they lived in and negotiated between two worlds: their traditional Japanese culture and the every day realities of survival in early 20th century Southern California. The blending of these worlds and the creation of a Japanese-American identity is seen in both the historical and archaeological evidence gathered for this report. They were Japanese-Americans, who have left a legacy in the local community.
Japanese Ceramics and the Complexities of Consumption in "this Knife-Fork Land"
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020
Japanese Gulch Village was home to a community of Japanese millworkers and their families between 1903 and 1930. During this time, village residents pursued a wide range of options for acquiring goods. This article uses a consumption framework and archaeological Japanese ceramics to explore the ways that village residents negotiated among purchasing options to increase communal wellbeing and express individual agency. As a case study, Japanese Gulch Village highlights the complexities of consumption in transpacific contexts and the importance of drawing connections between the Japanese ceramics industry and its Japanese diaspora customers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Pots not People Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Postwar Japanese Archaeology
■ This article considers the relationship between identity politics and archaeological interpretations of ethnicity in postwar Japan. Although race and ethnicity were important concepts in early Japanese archaeology, from the 1930s a new interpretive paradigm based on archaeological cultures began to dominate the discipline. After the end of the Second World War, Japanese archaeologists became increasingly concerned with sociopolitical issues relating to democracy and peace, but the continued absence of explicit discussion of prehistoric ethnicity has tended to reinforce the primordialist view of ethnic identity that became common in postwar Japanese society. This article discusses the use of ethnicity in Japanese archaeology, citing examples from Hokkaido, Okinawa, and the Jômon-Yayoi transition. It is argued that the lack of emphasis afforded to ethnicity in postwar archaeology in Japan reflects interest in other sociopolitical issues rather than theoretical naivety with respect to identity politics.
Japanese Gulch Village was home to a community of Japanese immigrant (Issei) millworkers between 1903 and 1930. Composed of both single laborers and families, the village reached a peak population of 94 men, 29 women, and 44 children in 1920. In 2007, Northwest Archaeological Associates, Inc. (NWAA), initiated testing and data recovery excavations near the village after the unanticipated discovery of archaeological materials during monitoring. These efforts resulted in the recovery of nearly 8,500 artifacts, including at least 100 Japanese-manufactured ceramic vessels. This paper presents a reanalysis of a selection of these vessels using an expanded typology specific to historical Japanese table-and sake wares. Reanalysis reveals further diversity among forms and decoration within the collection, and highlights connections to distinctive stylistic movements and production centers in the Meiji-and Taishō-era ceramic industry. This new information contributes to an understanding of life in Japanese Gulch Village, and to the archaeological record of Issei in early twentieth-century Washington.
Research materials from fieldwork in Japan, 2013
Mutual Images Journal
Among the possible innovative ways to publish research data and materials—alongside the more established formats of the research paper, the academic article, and the critical review—we inaugurate here the format of the “Research Files”, batches of qualitative data which have been assessed as useful materials for other scholars. A certain amount of data which academics collect often remains underused. But such data, if contextualised within one’s own past research activity, can be kept “alive” and perhaps be reborn and virtuously transmitted to other researchers who may want to make some use of them, citing the original source and therefore generating a proficuous circle of knowledge. We decided to distribute a few of these materials over different issues of Mutual Images, grouping them by type. In this first instalment (presenting some early interviews from one of my own past projects), we are also suggesting a way to interpret the notion of “research files” for other scholars who i...