Anthropology Faculty

Junko Habu
Archaeology
203, 2251 College
510.643.2645
habu@berkeley.edu

Office Hours:

Research Interests

My research focuses primarily on the study of prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers on the Japanese archipelago. This research interest has led me to incorporate several different aspects of anthropological studies and other related fields into my research, including hunter-gatherer archaeology, settlement archaeology, pottery analysis and East Asian studies. To pursue these research interests, I have sought collaborations with specialists in zooarchaeology, palaeoethnobotany, geochemistry, radiocarbon chronology and others. In terms of theoretical approaches, I have tended to adopt an ecological framework with an emphasis on the study of subsistence and settlement, while not dismissing the importance of non-ecological factors such as historical contingency and human agency. Because I was born and originally trained in Japan, and subsequently studied in Canada at McGill University to obtain my Ph.D. degree, I am committed to promoting active interactions between different academic traditions, particularly those of Japan and North America. Coming from Asia to North America, and having worked in Japanese archaeology where only 2.7% of professional archaeologists are women, I am a strong supporter of the inclusion of people from marginalized groups, including women, in academia.

To pursue my interests in understanding the mechanisms of the development of cultural complexity among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, in 1997 I launched a field project at the Jomon period Sannai Maruyama site in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan. The primary purpose of this project is to examine the relationship between the degree of sedentism, subsistence strategies and social complexity of the site occupants during the Early and Middle Jomon periods. The site was initially excavated by the Board of Education of Aomori Prefecture between 1992 and 1994, and was subsequently designated as a national historic site. Previous excavation has revealed that the site is associated with a large number of features and artifacts dated to approximately 5900-4300 cal B.P. In collaboration with The Preservation Office of the Sannai Maruyama Site, I conducted approximately two weeks of fieldwork every summer to collect data for the following five inter-related projects:

1) analysis of faunal and floral remains from the site (with Mr. Komiya, Museum of Natural History, Chiba),
2) analysis of intra-site lithic assemblage variability,
3) analysis of regional settlement patterns and inter-site lithic assemblage variability in the site vicinity,
4) carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human skeletal remains in northern Japan (with Dr. Chisholm, Lecturer of the Univ. of British Columbia), and
5) anthropological investigation of the relationships between archaeological research and public presentation (with Dr. Fawcett, Associate Professor of St. Francis Xavier Univ.).

My other on-going research includes (1) analysis of regional settlement pattern data in central Japan, (2) X-ray fluorescence analysis of Jomon pottery, and (3) comparative study of Jomon data with hunter-gatherers in other parts of the North Pacific Region, (4) examination of the socio-political contexts of archaeological studies in East Asia, and (5) historical archaeology of East Asia, particularly the archaeology of the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan.

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Representative Publications

2002. Beyond Foraging and Collecting: Evolutionary Change in Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems (edited volume with B. Fitzhugh). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

2001. Subsistence-Settlement Systems and Intersite Variability in the Moroiso Phase of the Early Jomon Period of Japan. Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series 14.

2001. Jomon subsistence-settlement systems at the Sannai Maruyama site (with M. Kim, M. Katayama and H. Komiya). Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
21: 9-21.

1999. Jomon Archaeology and the Representation of Japanese Origins (with C. P. Fawcett). Antiquity 73:587-93.

1999. Jomon Pottery Production in Central Japan (with M. E. Hall). Asian Perspectives 38(1):90-110.

1996. Jomon Sedentism and Intersite Variability: Collectors of the Early Jomon Moroiso Phase in Japan. Arctic Anthropology 33(2):38-49.

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Courses for Fall 2007

Anthropology C125B: Archaeology and Japanese Identities

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