K. Sasaki
a community produced by people who maintain systems of division of labor, trade, and re-
distribution for the sake of shared profits, and as a group that possesses military organiza-
tion, diplomatic rights, and ideological apparatus in order to protect the benefit of its own
and to maintain the order of the group.He emphasizes the aspect of “shared ideological apparatus”—keyhole- shaped tumuli, in the case
of archaic Japan—so that the members of a state feel united.^19
Such diversity in the models and hypotheses has resulted from differing positions concerning
the strength of the central polity. Tsude’s early state model, for example, is based on the premise
that the central polity was very powerful. Tsude was a disciple of Kobayashi’s at Kyoto Univer-
sity. On the other hand, those who emphasize the confederacy nature of the Kofun- era society
consider most local polities to have been relatively autonomous, and the central polity not to
have been very powerful, resulting in a considerable degree of regional differences within the
Japanese archipelago. In recent years, some archaeologists have proposed dismissing the “per-
spective of the Yamato central polity,” and relying on more regionally oriented perspectives.^20 I
entirely agree with this.
In his influential 1991 paper, Tsude argued that Kofun period society was an early state that dis-
played eight key attributes: social stratification under a ruler; a taxation system made possible by
surplus; a central polity with strong authority; a standing army; geographically based, rather
than kinship- based membership; indirect control of local regions by intermediate- class elite;
socially stratified trade networks; and a tribute system. Among these eight attributes, the “devel-
opment of geographically based, rather than kinship- based membership” is the most difficult to
test archaeologically, because bone preservation is poor in Japan due to acidic soil. Moreover,
almost all the giant keyhole- shaped tumuli—those of more than 200 meters—are designated as
imperial mausoleums, off- limits to archaeological excavations. Apart from this, Tsude’s model
may be substantiated by material evidence. For example, the most important material evidence
for “social stratification under a ruler” is the differences in the forms and sizes of elite burial
mounds, most notably the giant keyhole- shaped mounds at the top. Japanese archaeologists and
historians commonly believe that those buried in circular and square burial mounds occupied a
lower position within the elite class. The differences in the forms and sizes of the burial mounds
are clearly correlated to the richness and poorness of the goods deposited with the dead.
Tambiah’s model represents “a galactic picture of a central planet surrounded by differenti-
ated satellites, which are more or less ‘autonomous’ entities held in orbit and within the sphere of
influence of the center.” Tambiah argues that kingdoms, countries, provinces, towns, capitals
and regions consist of “center- oriented,” as opposed to “bounded,” space. Furthermore, he
explains, territory is a variable space, and control over the territory diminishes as royal power
radiates from a center. He sees “a fundamental duality concerning the constitution of the central
or capital region of the king and its provinces, and the relations between them.” While “a faithful
reproduction on a reduced scale of the center in its outlying components” exists, “the satellites
pose the constant threat of fission and incorporation in another sphere of influence.”^21
Tambiah’s model is similar to the segmentary state model introduced by Niiro to Kofun- era
archaeology. Tambiah’s observation is especially applicable to the case of peripheral polities at
the beginning of the Kofun period, wherein the central polity anchored in the Kinai remained
dominant, but most local polities remained autonomous. These local polities interacted with one
another on their own, very likely without knowledge of the central polity.
Tsude’s model may account for the Kofun period society of the central polity in the fifth
century and after. At the same time, this model does not pay enough attention to strong regional