Tomomi Nakagawa

Okayama University · Department of History

The present study examines the 3-dimensional data of human crania from the Yayoi period (800 BC to AD 250) of the Japanese archipelago by geometric morphometrics to investigate demic diffusion patterns. This is the first study on the Yayoi crania using their 3D data and geometric morphometrics with a much larger number of skeletal remains outside o...

The evolution of altruism in human societies has been intensively investigated in social and natural sciences. A widely acknowledged recent idea is the “parochial altruism model,” which suggests that inter- group hostility and intragroup altruism can coevolve through lethal intergroup conflicts. The current article critically examines this idea by...

SfM/MVS photogrammetry has received increasing attention due to its convenience, broadening the range of its applications into archaeology and anthropology. Because the accuracy of SfM/MVS depends on photography, one important issue is that incorrect or low-density point clouds are found in 3D models due to poor overlapping between images. A system...

3D techniques are becoming increasingly relevant in archaeology and anthropology. As there are several methods for constructing 3D models and there is no assurance that the 3D models produced by each method will have the same qualities, it is necessary to compare the 3D models and examine their qualities. The present study compared 3D models produc...

3-dimensional data have recently attracted many archaeologists’ attention because of their various kinds of merits. The present study compared 3-dimensional data and traditional 2-dimensional data, especially measured drawings, and examined their merits and demerits. We obtained 3-dimensional data of Ongagawa pottery, which has relatively uniform a...

3D measurement using SfM/MVS (Structure from Motion/Multiview Stereo) and laser scanners has become increasingly popular in archaeology. Especially, the quality (i.e., precision and/or accuracy) of 3D models by SfM sometimes varies depending on target objects, measurers, and equipment, and so quality control is one of the important problems for SfM...

This article quantifies the morphological variations of the Ongagawa pottery of the Early Yayoi period of the Japanese archipelago to clarify its spatiotemporal similarities and differences. We focus on and quantify items of pottery from the birthplace of Ongagawa pottery, i.e., the Itazuke and Sasai sites, and from the Tamura, Ayaragi-go, and Yano...

The causes of prehistoric inter-group violence have been a subject of long-standing debate in archaeology, anthropology, and other disciplines. Although population pressure has been considered as a major factor, due to the lack of available prehistoric data, few studies have directly examined its effect so far. In the present study, we used data on...

It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the...

The data has been included in Nakagawa, T. & Nakao, H. 2017. A critical evaluation of recent violence and warfare arguments with reference to data from human skeletal remains in Mesolithic Europe. Japanese Archaeology, 44: 65-77 (in Japanese).

Violence and warfare in prehistory have been intensely discussed in various disciplines recently. Especially, some controversies are found on whether prehistoric hunter-gatherers had already been engaged in inter-group violence and warfare. Japanese archaeology has traditionally argued that warfare began in the Yayoi period with the introduction of...

The origins and consequences of warfare or large-scale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochia...

Whether man is predisposed to lethal violence, ranging from homicide to warfare, and how that may have impacted human evolution, are among the most controversial topics of debate on human evolution. Although recent studies on the evolution of warfare have been based on various archaeological and ethnographic data, they have reported mixed results:...

Electronic supplementary material

Electronic supplementary material