a) Problem, background and objectives

So far, many scholars of both paleoclimatology (e.g. Zhang et al., 2008) and history (e.g. Parker, 2013) have argued that human history has been influenced by climate. But, most of historians have not yet believed it and often criticized it as the climate determinism. This mismatch was mainly caused by inaccuracy of our understanding on past climate, but recent IPCC-relevant developments of high resolution paleoclimatology (e.g. PAGES consortium, 2013) has totally changed the situation. Because past variations in temperature and precipitation are now being reconstructed at annual or finer time resolutions during last several millennia using innovative new proxies of past climate such as tree ring isotope ratios (e.g. Li et al., 2011; Sano et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2013), we can investigate chronological relationship between climate variations and societal phenomena precisely and judge whether any kind of societal events were preceded by some significant climate events or not. Moreover, we can propose a new strategy of historical studies. By focusing on outstanding events and periods in past temperature or precipitation variations at first, we can ask contemporarily important questions about the resilience of human societies against climate changes. (I) What types of human societies can avoid crises owing to climate change? (Ⅱ) How can human societies overcome negative influences of climate change at last? In this project, we seek answers to the questions by collaborative studies among many paleoclimatologists, historians and archaeologists on climate-society relationships in Japan during last 5,000 years. Although this strategy seems simple, it is not easy for individual researchers to combine up-to-date climatological and historical knowledge so that there have never been any similar research projects in the world. There are essential reasons why we selected Japan as the research field.(a) Japan is located at the north-eastern rim of East Asia Summer Monsoon(EASM), where rice paddy cultivation, main livelihood of Japanese people during last 3,000 years, has been frequently damaged by flood, drought or cold summer accompanied with EASM variations. (b) In Japan, we can find plenty of historical documents and archaeological remains to elucidate past climate-society relationships during last 1,000 and 5,000 years, respectively.

 

b) Methodology, structure and schedule

This project has three steps of research strategy. (1) Reconstructions of past climate variations as precise as possible for last several millennia in Japan and surrounding areas. (2) Comparisons between climate variations and societal phenomena with special foci on the outstanding events and periods in climate variations. (3) Analyses of cause-and-effect relationships from climate variations to societal phenomena, including the cases where no significant influence had been found in societies. While step 1, using tree rings, sediments, documentary records and soon, has preceded other steps in the project, step 2 has been studied simultaneously by referring the result of step 1 and quantifying the documentary and excavated evidences on societal properties. Based on the new findings in step 2, individual historians and archaeologists in the project are now analyzing the cause-and-effect relationship from climate variations to societal phenomena in their specialized regions and periods, such as early modern, medieval, ancient and pre-historical western and eastern Japan, respectively. During the step 2, we first categorize common climate-society relationships in Japanese long history as many as possible and then find exceptional cases that the typical climate variations did not result in the typical societal responses.

 

c) Expected results

Until FR4, huge amounts of high resolution paleoclimatological data, especially using tree-ring width, density and oxygen isotope ratio as the proxies of summer temperature and precipitation, have been already obtained successfully back to about 5,000 years ago together with new chronological evidences on prehistorical societal events by the tree-ring oxygen isotope ratios (Step 1) enough precisely to discuss climate-societal relationship in Japanese history (Step 2). Agrarian productivity, mainly shown as rice yields, often suffered from summer climate disasters such as coldness, drought and/or flood through short-term climate variations, but some cases of climate disasters did not influence societies significantly. On the other hand, influences of long-term climate variation scan be recognized by changes in distribution and number of archaeological human habitats in a region. As for the middle-term variations, common characteristics have been found where multi-decadal large variations in summer temperature and precipitation often resulted in the occurrence of serious famines and societal upheavals, respectively, possibly owing to the unexpected crop failures and uneven water disasters after decadal length of comfortable climate conditions. We have been conducting numerous case studies on the climate-society relationship since 2800 BC (Jomon era) to 19th century AD (Early Modern period), including cases when large climate variations did not leave any significant influences in societies (Step 3), and now preparing many papers and books in Japanese and English, most of which will be published by the end of FR5.

 

d)Project organization and membership

The project consists of six research groups, one international outreach unit and the project office. All academic activities in the project have been divided into five traditional discipline-based groups (Paleoclimatological group, Climatological group, Prehistorical and Ancient group, Medieval group and Early Modern group) and one synthesis group (Categorization and Integration group), mainly consisting of project office members and core members (leader and sub-leader of each research group). To promote international publications of Japanese historical and archaeological studies, we are operating the international outreach unit continuously. The discipline based structure for most of research groups was designed to make numerous historians and archaeologists now outside the project understand results of this project smoothly and participate in the study on climate-history relationships for the full promotion of the research strategy after the end of this project. As the result, inter-disciplinary collaborations by individual members in the project still have rooms to be improved at present.

 

e) Contribution to the Program

Program 1 has two fundamental questions. (A) What type of society can adopt to environmental changes smoothly? (B) How can we transform present society to it? Our project can answer to the former question by extracting various lessons from historical societal responses against climate changes. By collaborating with other contemporary projects in Program 1, we can contribute to answer to the latter question too by comparing many cases of societal transformations, which occurred intermittently in Japanese history, with many contemporary cases in Asian countries and clarifying their essential similarities and differences.

Although our project is a truly inter-disciplinary (ID) project between natural science (paleoclimatology and climatology) and humanity (history and archaeology), itis not a trans-disciplinary (TD) project collaborating directly with various stakeholders outside of academic societies. The program in RIHN consists of various types of projects, each of which is located at its particular position between ID and TD, so that a project in a program may be ID-oriented while another project in the same program is TD-oriented. The most important purpose to launch the “program” system in RIHN is that a project oriented to ID or TD can and must collaborate with other projects with different background regarding to ID and TD to learn more deeply from each other. The ID-oriented project can provide the other projects of up-to-date academic progresses in the issues covered by the program, while the TD-oriented project can tell the other projects on-going problems for installation of practical methods to solve the problems dealt by the program. In this framework, we would like to contribute to the achievement of Program #1 goal from the viewpoint of ID-oriented project. During last one year, the inter-project collaboration has not been activated very much mainly due to the total number of FR projects in Program #1had become small (just 2) one year ago. However, we believe that we can develop the inter-project collaboration in Program #1 by participation of three FR projects in the coming one year.

a) Project Progress during the FR period to date

Until FR4, we have obtained huge amounts of high resolution paleoclimatological data for last 5,000 years in and around Japan using many natural proxies and documentary records on past climates (Step1). So far, we have found many fundamental common linkages between climate variations and societal responses with their important exceptions by comparing those paleoclimatological data with various quantitative data on societal properties, such as agrarian production, human population, distribution of human habitats and occurrence of famines and conflicts, inferable from numerous palaeographic and archaeological archives (Step 2). Based on the newly obtained paleoclimatological data and the discovered past climate-society relationships, we are now conducting many case studies in Japanese history from Jomon era (~30thcentury BC) to Edo era (~19th century AD) on people’s adaptation to climate variations (Step 3). Here, some outstanding results will be presented for each research step.

 

<<Step 1>> Summer temperature is one of the most important climate parameters controlling agrarian productions because rice paddy cultivation in Japan has been suffering from summer coldness frequently and it resulted in many large famines in Japanese history. We have reconstructed summer temperature in annual time resolution during last millennium by tree-ring width and documentary records and in centurial time resolution for more than several millennia by sediment analyses. Because time-series on past summer temperature reconstructed by various proxies are coincided well with others, we can conclude that those reconstructions are reliable. Summer precipitation is the other most important climate parameter influencing agriculture and people’s lives because summer strong rainfall usually causes floods destroying farmlands and villages and on the other hand small rainfall often results in droughts decreasing crop yields. Until the end of last century, we had never obtained data on past summer precipitation at annual time resolution in Japan for the period before 17th century AD, while we could reconstruct daily weather conditions only after 17thc AD using many diary records over Japan. However, we have created a new innovative method applicable to last several millennia to reconstruct past summer precipitation at annual time resolution using tree-ring oxygen isotope ratio (Nakatsuka et al., 2004). As the main research activity in Step 1, we have developed many time-series of tree-ring oxygen isotope ratios for last five millennia over Japan. The reconstructed variations of summer precipitation in central Japan for last 2,600 years by the tree-ring oxygen isotope ratio have been proven to be accurate and reliable by comparison with meteorological, historical and archaeological archives. In Japan, summer precipitation generally shows negative correlation with summer temperature, suggesting that we can infer past variations in summer temperature at least in centurial time scale using the tree-ring oxygen isotope time-series even for the period when we have not reconstructed past summer temperature by tree-ring width.

 

<<Step 2>> To clarify the influence of climate variations to past societies in Japan, we have been extracting various types of quantitative and semi-quantitative information about past societies from numerous palaeographic and archaeological archives. The temporal variation in rice yield in a region during Early Modern era can be inferred from annual records of “Tsubokari ” (grain yield per an unit area; Sato, 1987) and “Nokoridaka” (basis of land tax for a village; Kamatani et al., 2016), which varied coincidently to summer temperature and/or precipitation, indicating strong influences of climate variations to agrarian productions. Occurrence of large famines can be monitored by counting of the number of old documents per year describing the word “Ki” (starving) in digital databases of old literatures relevant to climate disasters during Medieval (10-17th centuries; Fujiki (ed.),2007) and Early Modern (17-19th centuries; Kimura et al. (eds.), 2015) periods. Number of famine records drastically increased when summer temperature suddenly decreased after decadal length of warmth in both Medieval and Early Modern periods, indicating difficulty for the people used to rich harvests for a long time to adopt the crop failure at once. By comparing the annual numbers of old documents containing the word “Akuto” (outlaws emerging in a manor) in CD-ROM of “Kamakura-Ibun vol.1-46” (Database of old documents in Kamakura era, 1185-1333 AD) (Takeuchi (ed.), 1971-91) with the summer precipitation, we could realize that multi-decadal large variations in summer precipitation and resultant occurrence of unexpected floods probably caused local conflicts frequently owing to the serious and uneven damages to farmlands among many manors. Interestingly, the multi-decadal components of variations in summer precipitation during last 2,600 years shows intermittent amplification at several hundred year intervals, exactly corresponding to the period of political regime shifts in Japan and China. Number of human habitats in the prehistorical period summarized from numerous excavation reports in Japan seemed to increase when amplification of multi-decadal climate variability increased, suggesting that emergence of many refugees due to water disasters and nation-wide people’s migration at those periods. The large scale coincidence between climate variations and human history must become a basis for many historical researches about climate-society relationship in the near future.

 

<Step 3>> We are now conducting so many case studies about cause-and-effect relationships from climate variations to societal responses during last 5,000 years over Japan as shown in Research Plan below that we cannot explain them in detail here. In principle, large climate variations had usually caused serious societal damages, but there are significant numbers of exceptions in some periods and regions. For example, multi-decadal large variations in temperature during late 13th and 14th centuries did not seem to cause many famines, while those in precipitation might have resulted in serious warfare at the same periods. An important lesson from historical climate-society relationship is that any kind of societies have their own resilience against climate variations to certain degrees resulting in various societal transformation during and after the periods of large climate variations, from which we can learn about adaptability of societies to environmental changes.

 

b) Progress since the last reporting

There are significant progresses in each of three research steps 1~3 during last one year.

 

In Step 1, we have nearly reached the final goal of past climate reconstructions necessary in the project during last one year (FR4). Until FR3, we could not separate the signal of long-term precipitation variations in time series of tree-ring oxygen isotope ratios from that of long-term biological effects. However, by integrating of oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios in tree-ring cellulose, we have succeeded in reconstructing past variation of summer precipitation in central Japan during last 2,600 years for all frequency domains covering from annual to millennium time scales, that is now stimulating many case studies of climate-society relationships especially in prehistorical, ancient and medieval periods in Steps 2 and 3.

 

We have improved the accuracy of summer temperature reconstruction in Early Modern period by analyzing newly obtained tree-ring width and density dataset in mountainous areas of central Japan, elucidating mechanism of famine occurrence in Step 2. On the other hand, we have extended the annual resolution of summer climate reconstruction to middle Jomon period (around 4,800 years ago). It provides us of a new evidence on middle Jomon societal change that the decline of human habitats did not occur due to drastic cooling event at 4.3-4.2k but corresponded to maximal warmth and dryness around 4.6k, suggesting the difference in climate adaptation between hunter-gathers (Jomon) and farmers (post-Jomon) societies to be discussed in Step 3.

 

In Step 2, we have accumulated many new quantitative data on past societies since last reporting, to be compared with past climate variations, such as agrarian production, land tax, human population, social conflict and human habitats inferred from early modern documents of tax invoices to villages, medieval palaeographic database compiled by local governments, excavation reports on prehistorical distribution of human habitats and so on.

 

In Step 3, we have discussed and fixed contents in final publications of the project during last one year. Planed publications consisted of six Japanese books, one English book, as shown in Research Plan, and many other individual papers submitted to journals, some of which have been already written and edited in project office.

 

c) Most notable outputs to date

Batten, B. and Brown,P. (eds) 2015 “Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present”, Oregon State University Press, 291pp.

 

Cook, E. R.,  Krusic, P. J., Anchukaitis, K. J.,  Buckley, B. M., Nakatsuka, T., Sano, M.,PAGES Asia2k Members 2013 Tree-ring reconstructed summer temperature anomalies for temperate East Asia since 800 C.E. Climate Dynamics 41, 2957-2972doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1611- x41.

 

Itoh, K. and Nakatsuka,T. 2017 Quantitative analyses of relationship between reconstructed past climate variations and numbers of old documents in “Kamakura era old documents CD-ROM”, Research on Kamakura Old Documents 40, 23-53. (in Japanese)

 

Kamatani, K, Sano, M, Nakatsuka, T. 2016 Payment of the land tax and the change of climate in the Early Modern ages. Journal of Japanese History 646, 36-56.(in Japanese)

 

Kawahata, H., Matsuoka,M., Togami, A. Harada, N., Murayama, M., Yokoyama Y., Miyairi, Y.,Matsuzaki, H., Tanaka, Y. 2017 Climatic change and its influence on human society in western Japan during the Holocene. Quaternary International 440, 102-117

 

Kurita, N., Nakatsuka, T., Ohnishi, K., Mitsutani, T.,Kumagai, T. 2016 Analysis of the interdecadal variability of summer precipitation in central Japan using a reconstructed 106 year long oxygen isotope record from tree ring cellulose. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmosphere 121, 12,089–12,107.

 

Liu,Y. and others (incl. Nakatsuka, T.) 2017 Recent enhancement of central Pacific El Niño variability relative to last eight centuries. Nature Communications 8, Article No:15386,

 

Nakatsuka, T. 2015 New possibilities in archaeological research enabled by oxygen isotope dendrochronology, Archaeological Research 62,17-30. (in Japanese with English abstract)

 

Nakatsuka, T. 2016 Possibility of the new historical study by using the data of the high resolution paleoclimatology. Journal of Japanese History 646, 3-18. (in Japanese)

 

Nakatsuka, T. 2016 Directions in new historical disaster studies based on high resolution paleoclimate data. Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 203, 9-26. (in Japanese with English abstract)

 

PAGES 2k consortium (incl. Kimura, K., Nakatsuka, T., Sano, M., Yasue, K.), 2013 Continental-scale temperature variability during the last two millennia. Nature Geoscience 6, 339-346.

 

Sato, D. 2016 “Recovery from giant disaster and collaboration – Construction of crop storage and development of salt pan by Maruyama Sasaki family”, Banzanbou, Sendai, 74pp. (in Japanese)

 

Tamura, N. 2016 Study on the Japanese medieval history and the reconstruction by the high resolution paleoclimatology. Journal of Japanese History 646, 19-35. (in Japanese)

 

Wakabayashi, K. 2016a The early agricultural settlements pattern in Japan with flood disaster. Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 203, 27-46. (in Japanese with English abstract)

 

Watanabe,K. 2016 The formality of agreement on ‘the clearance’: the measures to recover from the typhoon surge in 1790’s Metropolis Edo. Historical Review (Rekishi Hyoron) 797, 55-73 (in Japanese).

 

d) Project organization and members

This project consists of six research groups and project office in RIHN, with a special unit for international outreach. Among six groups, five groups have their own group leaders and sub-leaders, while a group (Categorization and Integration group) is a virtualone where members are coming from other five groups and project office in RIHN to discuss issues covering the whole project. Among five groups, three groups (Early modern group, Medieval group and Prehistorical and Ancient group) consist of historians and archaeologists and the other two groups (Paleoclimatological group and Climatological group) consist of paleoclimatologists and climatologists.

 

The two members in International Outreach are historians originating from United States and studying Japanese history fora long time. They belong to Prehistorical and Ancient group and Early Modern group, respectively, but mainly contribute to preparation of the publication of project results in English by holding an annual meeting for the international publication of the project in August regularly, negotiating with editors of Cambridge University Press and other publishers and recruiting of many potential translators from the community of English native speakers with speciality on Japanese history.

 

Each research group holds research meetings about three times per year to enhance communication within the group and with the project office in RIHN. During last one year, each group has been focusing on discussion about publication of the Japanese synthesis book on the group research result as shown above. The communication between different groups is mainly mediated by project office in RIHN, but direct communication among groups are also encouraged such as direct communications between literature-based historians and diary-based ultra-high time-resolution paleoclimatologists in the meeting of Early Modern group and wooden artefact archaeologists and annually-resolved tree-ring dating of oxygen isotope dendrochronologists in the discussion of Prehistorical and Ancient Group and Medieval Group. In Each research group, all members belonging to the group have been conducting their own individual researches on some specific issues at some specific period and region by communicating with other members in the group and project office mainly for exchanging quantitative data on past climatic and societal conditions within and beyond the group.

 

We have created a special team of oxygen isotope dendroarchaeology, beyond the groups covering many dendrochronologists and isotope geochemists in the Paleoclimatological Group and archaeologists in the Prehistorical and Ancient Group and Medieval Group, to collect many important naturally and artificially buried woods and establish annually resolved tree-ring oxygen isotope chronologies precisely over many regions in Japan and many periods since middle Jomon era about 5,000 years ago to present. We have successfully reconstructed past variations in summer precipitation at annual time resolution and dated many excavated wooden artefacts all over Japan since the Jomon era to present using the established tree-ring oxygen isotope chronologies, which have been already applied to date excavated archaeological woods in Korea and China, too. The special team has not only consisted of academic researchers in the projects but also collaborated with many experts of archaeological investigations belonging to local governments all over Japan. This “trans-disciplinary” collaboration has been realized by introducing of the innovative technology of oxygen isotope tree-ring dating to the trans-academic, governmental and private community on the buried cultural properties in Japan.

 

In general, this project structure is suitable for promotion of historical climate adaptation studies according to the philosophy of each discipline, but it is not very effective to enhance the inter-disciplinary communication especially for members of natural scientists because they do not have enough chance to discuss with many historians and archaeologists in the project on the application of paleoclimatological data for understanding the historical societal responses to climate variations. To compensate this insufficiency, we have the whole project meeting once a year, but it is also a big challenge to promote fruitful discussions among researchers of natural sciences and humanity beyond the large boundary of discipline in the meeting. It is partly because we have not created enough chances to enhance the inter-disciplinary communication within the project as seen in the project structure, but partly because the research philosophy itself is completely different between natural science and humanity, such that almost all research activities in literature-based Japanese history are individual ones and it is not necessary for potential contributors of any results on climate-history relationship in the project to agree conclusion of the individual researches because the individual papers do not usually have co-authorships. By introducing of many natural scientific data to the field of Japanese historians and archaeologists, the situation may change gradually in the future.

Because only one year is left for our project before the end of FR5 (March, 2019), we will concentrate ourselves to publish our research results as Japanese and English books shown below through intense individual and group studies in Step 2 and 3.

 

The Japanese synthesis books consist of six volumes. Contents of all books have been determined in detail, some of which have been already written and handled by editors (project office members and leader and sub-leader of each group) in the project. Chapters of each books are as follows. Volume 1 is to overview the whole six volumes (part 1) and to propose a new strategy for obtaining lessons about societies resilient to climate and environment changes from the history (part2). Volume 2 is to describe the up-to-date results of past climate reconstructions, their climatological implications and dating of archaeological properties. Volumes 3-6 are to show the latest results on many historical case studies on climate-society relationships during prehistorical and ancient (Vol.3), medieval (Vol. 4) and early modern (vol. 5 and 6) periods, respectively.

 

<Vol.1> Emergence of new climatological scope and new potential of Japanese history

 

Part 1. How do new paleoclimatological data change our understanding of Japanese history?

 

Chap. 1 Overview of climate variations behind Japanese history

 

Chap. 2 How does our understanding on prehistorical and ancient periods change or not change?

 

Chap. 3 How does our understanding on medieval period change or not change?

 

Chap. 4 How does our understanding on early modern period change or not change?

 

Part 2. Searching societies resilient to climate variations – New possibility in studies of history

 

Chap. 5 Reconstruction of historical rice growth potential under climate variations

 

Chap. 6 Comparison of social responses to climate across periods from prehistorical to early modern era

 

Chap. 7 Comparison of social responses to climate among regions – Cases of early modern era

 

Chap. 8 Categorizing of climate-society relationship beyond time and space.

 

<Vol. 2> Reconstruction of past climate variations and establishment of new chronological basis

 

Part 1. Development of high resolution paleoclimatological reconstruction

 

Chap. 1 Recent achievements of paleoclimatological reconstructions in Japan and world

 

Chap. 2 Precipitation -Tree ring oxygen isotope ratio

 

Chap. 3 Temperature - Tree ring width and density

 

Chap. 4 Precipitation and Temperature - Old diaries

 

Chap. 5 Water and Air temperature - Sediment

 

Chap. 6 Water temperature and Salinity - Coral ring

 

Chap. 7 Climate disaster - Old document

 

Part 2. Toward comprehensive understanding of climate history

 

Chap. 8 Integration of paleoclimatological data by statistical methods

 

Chap. 9 Integration of paleoclimaotlogical data by data assimilation general circulation model

 

Part 3. Establishment of new chronological basis

 

Chap. 10 Development and advancement of oxygen isotope ratio dendrochronology

 

Chap. 11 Spatio-temporal extension and application of tree-ring oxygen isotope chronologies

 

Chap. 12 Toward highly precise dating by radiocarbon analyses

 

<Vol. 3> Climate and society in prehistorical and ancient period in Japan

 

Part 1. General part

 

Chap. 1 Overview of climate variations in prehistorical and ancient period

 

Chap. 2 Recent development of chronology in prehistorical period

 

Chap. 3 Migration of rice paddy cultivation and climate variations

 

Part 2. Formation and alteration of ancient nation

 

Chap. 4 Relation between climate and local social structure during period of nation formation

 

Chap. 5 Population pattern and environment in Yayoi and Kofun period

 

Chap. 6 Royal authority and climate - General crisis in late 9th century

 

Part 3. Villages and landscape

 

Chap. 7 Variation in middle Jomon (4-5ka) village around the region in southwest Kanto region near Tokyo and its relation to climate

 

Chap. 8 Change in village and climate in central Japan around Nagoya during Yayoi-Kofun transition

 

Chap. 9 Development of villages with surrounding trench during middle Yayoi in Shiga prefecture area

 

Chap. 10 Geomorphology and human habitats in southwest Kanto region since late Yayoi related to climate variations

 

Part 4. Production and economy

 

Chap. 11 Rice paddy cultivation and precipitation change in Yayoi period

 

Chap. 12 Problems around “Koku” (crop) and climate variations in 6th and 7thcenturies

 

Chap. 13 Relationship between ancient coin circulation and climate variations

 

<Vol. 4> Climate variation and medieval societies in Japan

 

Part 1. Environment and landscape in medieval period

 

Chap. 1 Overview of climate variations in Medieval period

 

Chap. 2 History of villages and farmlands related to environmental changes

 

Part 2. Responses against disasters

 

Chap. 3 Medieval ceremonies to pray for rain and precipitation variations

 

Chap. 4 Formation of medieval societies caused by climate changes in 11th and 12th centuries

 

Part 3. Relation to manor system

 

Chap. 5 Influence of climate variations in 11thand 12th centuries to establishment of manor system

 

Chap. 6 Variation of agrarian production in a manor estate of western Japan during 14thand 15th centuries

 

Chap. 7 Disasters in a manor estate near Kyoto and climate variations

 

Part 4. Influence to distribution and economy

 

Chap. 8 Societal change in 14th century, especially urban economy, and adaptation to famines

 

Chap. 9 Land sales contracts in late medieval period near Osaka related to climate variations

 

<Vol. 5> Reconsidering of early modern Japan from climate variation

 

Part 1. Nation-wide characteristics

 

Chap. 1 Overview of climate variations in early modern period

 

Chap. 2 Early modern agrarian production inferred from land tax invoices and climate variation

 

Chap. 3 Population change and natural environment in early modern period

 

Chap. 4 Anti-famine crop stocks and climate variations

 

Part 2. Edo government and central market

 

Chap. 5 Central market in early modern Japan and climate variation

 

Chap. 6 Responses of Edo government and private sectors to complex disasters in early 19th century

 

Part 3. Technologies and societies

 

Chap. 7 “Kabuido” (cooperative groundwater utilization system) in a delta region near Nagoya

 

Chap. 8 Agricultural responses against cold climatedisaster

 

<Vol. 6> Overview of early modern Japanese archipelago - from south to north

 

Part 1. Warmth as the problem

 

Chap. 1 Climate disasters and social responses in 19th Ryukyu (Okinawa) island – Top-down reformation and change in societies

 

Chap. 2 Climate variations and local societies in early modern Tanegashima island (south of Kagoshima) –from 1800 to 1820 AD –

 

Chap. 3 Climate during early 19th century (Bunka period) and agricultural policy in Kaga feudal domain

 

Part 2. Coldness as the problem

 

Chap. 4 Disasters and famines during late 18th and early 19th centuries and societal responses in Hiroshima feudal domain

 

Chap. 5 Crop failure and famine during early 19th century in northern Kanto region (north of Tokyo) and responses by local society

 

Chap. 6 Climate variations and societal responses during early 19th century in Sendai feudal domain.

 

The English synthesis book is planned to be one volume, in which resilience of Japanese societies against large climate variations will be discussed for each period of outstanding historical regime shifts over Japanese history. Chapters of the book have been decided as below. Chapters 4 to 10 will be written by Japanese historians or archaeologists mainly in Japanese language and translated to English later by English-native experts on Japanese history, including members of international outreach unit in the project.

 

Tentative title: “Climate Change and Resilience in Japanese History” (editors: T. Nakatsuka (RIHN), P. C. Brown (The Ohio State University), B. L. Batten (J. F. Oberlin University))

 

Tentative title of chapters:

 

Introduction: Aims of this book (editors)

 

Chap. 1: Japanese history: an overview (editors)

 

Chap. 2: Climate change and its relationships to historical events and trends in Japan: Possibilities for a re-writing of history (editors)

 

Chap. 3: Theoretical perspectives: resilience (editors)

 

Chap. 4: Climate in the 10th–5th c. BCE and introduction of wet-rice agriculture (S. Fujio, National Museum of Japanese History)

 

Chap. 5: Climate in the 2nd c. and the Yayoi-Kofun transition (K. Wakabayashi, Dōshisha University)

 

Chap. 6: Climate in the 6th c. and the emergence of a centralized state (K. Imadu, Okayama University)

 

Chap. 7: Climate in the 10th–12th c. and the decline of a centralized state (N. Tamura, Beppu University)

 

Chap. 8: Climate in the 14th–16th c. and warrior society (T. Ito, Meijō University)

 

Chap. 9: Climate in the 17th c. and agricultural expansion during the Little Ice Age (K. Takeii, University of the Ryukyus)

 

Chap. 10: Climate in the 18th-19th c. and the development of a market economy (Y. Takatsuki, Kobe University)

 

Conclusion: Resilience in Japanese history (editors)

 

All of the writers and translators have been determined, and the book is planned to be published by Cambridge University Press through the reviewing process of CUP after the end of this project.