return to Japan, was appointed Professor of Archaeology in the History
Department of Kyoto University (Ikawa-Smith 1982: 301).
The main foreign archaeologist to engage with Japanese historical archae-
ology was William Gowland, one of many foreigners employed to assist with
the process of Westernizing of Japan. As a chemist he was given a post in the
Imperial Mint in Osaka, then in the process of minting the national coinage.
Gowland lived in Japan between 1872 and 1888. There he developed an
interest in archaeology, centring his attention on the kofun, i.e. stone cham-
bered tombs of warrior rulers of the so-called Heroic Age built between the
third and the seventh centuriesce. He meticulously surveyed and excavated
many, including, in theWrst years, some misasagi or imperial tombs. These he
was allowed to survey at ease until access to them was banned. In 1884,
Gowland visited Korea to explore its relationship with Japan in the Kofun
period, excavating the dolmen at Shibamura there. Only in 1897, nine years
after his return to England, would he start to publish his research in Japan
(Harris 2004). In 1891, however, a photographer friend, the American Romyn
Hitchcock, had already published Gowland’s results (Kazuo Goto 2004).
Gowland would chair the Japan Society in London, read papers on Japanese
archaeology there and write up his research for itsTransactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan, the journal of an association that had been established largely
by British and American diplomats in Yokohama in 1872.
In Japan, in contrast to historical archaeology, prehistoric studies devel-
oped at a similar pace to many parts of Europe. In 1872 an exhibition of
ancient pottery and stone tools was held in Tokyo. It was organized by Baron
Kanda Takahira (1838–98). From that year he became involved in the set-up
of the museums promoted by the Meiji government, the National Museum.
In 1884 he published hisNotes on Ancient Stone Implements &c. of Japanin
English and a Japanese edition appeared two years later. The earliest excav-
ations in Japan were undertaken by the wealthy farmer and politician, Negishi
Bunko (1839–1902) (Ikawa-Smith 1982: 298). They were continued for a
short time by the American zoologist Edward Morse (1839–1917), whose visit
to Japan to study marine fauna turned into a two-year appointment in Tokyo
Imperial University from 1877. In that same year he excavated the Omori shell
middens of the Jomon period that were being uncovered by new railroad
construction between Tokyo and Yokohama. For its publication in 1879
Morse adhered to the format and style used by JeVeries Wyman, with
whom Morse had been working on archaeological sites in New England
while employed at the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in the
early 1870s. Morse organized a museum within the Science Department to
exhibit the zoological and archaeological specimens which he and his students
had found, and followed the Darwinian evolutionary principles. Morse’s
198 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism