B.L. Batten
13 Lake Biwa: N. Miyoshi et al., “Palynology of a 250-m Core from Lake Biwa: A 430,000-Year Record
of Glacial- Interglacial Vegetation Change in Japan.” Lake Suigetsu: Takeshi Nakagawa et al., “Stratig-
raphy and Potential for Improving the Radiocarbon Calibration Model and Understanding of Late
Quaternary Climate Changes”; Lake Suigetsu 2006 Varved Sediment Core Project, “Suigetsu Varves
2006,” http://www.suigetsu.org/.
14 In addition to the references in the previous note, see the following articles on Lake Suigetsu. Diatoms:
Michinobu Kuwae et al., “A Diatom Record for the Past 400 ka from Lake Biwa in Japan Correlates
with Global Paleoclimatic Trends”; Kuwae et al., “Reconstruction of a Climate Record for the Past 140
kyr Based on Diatom Valve Flux Data from Lake Biwa, Japan.” Flooding events: Gordon Schlolaut et
al., “Event Layers in the Japanese Lake Suigetsu ‘SG06’ Sediment Core: Description, Interpretation and
Climatic Implications.” Tsunami deposits: Saitō Megumi et al., “Suigetsuko bōringu koa o mochiita
Tenshō jishin (ad 1586) zengo no kotei taisekibutsu no bunseki.”
15 On which, see Thomas M. Cronin, Paleoclimates: Understanding Climate Change Past and Present, and
Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, Surface Temperature
Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years.
16 Sakaguchi, “Warm and Cool Stages.”
17 The term “Little Hypsithermal” comes from Yoshino Masatoshi, “Nihon ni okeru rekishi kikōgaku no
kadai.” Yoshino’s point is while the period in question is “medieval” in terms of European histori-
ography, it is “ancient” to historians of Japan.
18 Tagami Yoshio, “Kishō saigai, bōsai kigan to kodai, chūsei no kikō hendō,” presents interesting new
evidence for droughts in his analysis of prayers for rain.
19 T. Mikami and Y. Tsukamura, “The Climate of Japan in 1816 as Compared with an Extremely Cool
Summer Climate in 1783.”
20 In English translation, Watsuji Tetsurō, Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study.
21 Yoshinori Yasuda, Forest and Civilisations, accurately conveys the character of his thought.
22 An example of the latter claim is Ian Buruma, “A Very Fatalistic Race: How the Japanese Have Always
Drawn Strength from Disaster.” Note that fatalism is also commonly ascribed to the influence of
Buddhism.
23 Stephen R. Kellert, “Japanese Perceptions of Wildlife,” disputes the purported love of nature among
contemporary Japanese. A nuanced historical critique is provided by Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the
Four Seasons, especially 5–9. Regarding fatalism, there is a large and divided literature; one seminal
study is David W. Plath, “Japan and the Ethics of Fatalism.”
24 Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 31–36; John W. Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan,
500–1700, 6; W.G. Beasley, The Japanese Experience, 1–2.
25 Or, what is the same thing, that periods of state- building and centralization in Japan were sometimes
causally associated with foreign threats: Bruce L. Batten, To the Ends of Japan: Premodern Frontiers, Bound-
aries, and Interaction, especially 19–51.
26 Reischauer, The Japanese Today, 8; William Wayne Farris, Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic
History, 3.
27 Several English translations exist, but see the one by Anthony H. Chambers in Haruo Shirane, Tradi-
tional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, 624–635.
28 On disasters in Japanese history, a convenient source is Kitahara Itoko, Nihon saigaishi.
29 On Kikai and Hashimuregawa, see Gina L. Barnes, “Vulnerable Japan: The Tectonic Setting of Life in
the Archipelago,” 26–27, 30–32.
30 The examples from this and the previous sentence all come from the plates and essays in Ōtsuka Hatsu-
shige et al., Shizen kankyō to bunka.
31 Tatsunori Kawasumi, “Settlement Patterns and Environment of Heijō-kyō, an Ancient Capital City
Site in Japan.”
32 Fujimoto Tsuyoshi, Mō futatsu no Nihon bunka: Hokkaidō to Nantō no bunka.
33 Batten, To the Ends of Japan, especially 235–262.
34 Ōbayashi Taryō, Higashi to nishi, umi to yama, 18–35; Amino Yoshihiko, Higashi to nishi ga kataru Nihon
no rekishi.
35 Habu, Ancient Jomon of Japan, 26–42.
36 The study of Jōmon population was pioneered by Koyama Shūzō; for a summary, see Habu, Ancient
Jomon of Japan, 46–50.
37 Sakaguchi, “Warm and Cold Stages,” 20–21; Sakaguchi, “Kako 8000 nen,” 105–8; Batten, “Climate
Change,” 41–42.