<Articles>Castles and Warfare in Archaeology (Special Issue : WAR)

The study of warfare from the standpoint of archaeology has clearly contributed to clarifying the processes of state formation and social evolution. However, it is necessary to understand and evaluate the military character of defensive works as physical objects in order to propose a more general theory. This article first points out the importance of understanding this military character. It then examines how archaeologists have interpreted the military character of the past through the investigation of the reconstructed defensive settlements. As a result of this examination, one sees that at the Tawayama site in Shimane prefecture, from the mid first century BC, a completely developed triple-enclosed moat system served as defensive works and symbolically divided the area into three sectors. At the same time around the middle of the second century AD, within the northern walls of the moated Yoshinogari site in Saga prefecture, the design of the reconstructed palisade that accompanies the double moats is problematic because its structure is unnatural, preventing defense of the site. In both cases it must be admitted that the military character of the sites has not been sufficiently appreciated. Furthermore, the mountain castles of the Warring States period (16th Century) in Japan serve as useful examples for a comparison of how warfare has been understood. Even at castles where it is certain that large-scale fighting took place on the basis of written sources, it is difficult to determine on the basis of archaeological investigations whether there had been warfare since physical artifacts generally associated with warfare have been carried off. Additionally, as at Crickley Hill in England, where archaeological evidence of warfare is well preserved, at Kunohe castle in Iwate prefecture and Hara castle in Nagasaki prefecture, I have been able to reconstruct the manner in which warfare was conducted from these Japanese sites. Among these, in the 1638 (Kan'ei 15) defensive warfare of Hara castle during the Shimabara Revolt, the character of the warfare shifted from that using projectile weapons to that employing hand-held weapons, and I have made clear that when the castle fell, many people had been killed by hand-held weapons. Facilities such as moats and embankments, keeps and towers, castle gates, did not function solely in a directly military fashion but were symbols of the power of the castle and its lord and a representation of their authority. Therefore, these objects cannot be appreciated simply in terms of their military function, but because symbolization and representation are at base also military functions, their effectiveness is manifest. In order to appreciate this symbolization and representation, a proper understanding of their military character is an important prerequisite. Even if vivid remnants from battlefields cannot be discovered archaeologically, by conducting an analysis of a site in terms of its military character, as in the case of Yoshinogari, it becomes possible to re-evaluate sites in terms of their relation to warfare. In readjusting our understanding of the reality of warfare in each age, there arises the necessity of deepening our study of warfare from the archaeological perspective.