The Colonial Origins of Prehistoric Korea

2 The Colonial Origins of Prehistoric Korea JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY IN THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM (I895-1945) Modern Korean studies date from the late nineteenth century and must be understood in the context of imperialism.1 The signing of the Kanghwa Treaty in 1876 established diplomatic relations between Yi dynasty Chosen and MeijiJapan and opened the port oflnch'en.2 The main clause of Korea's first modern treaty signaled the political independence of the Chosen state from its centuries-old tributary and cultural ties with China. Imperial Ja pan's attempt to relegate Korea to a different political role and the ensuing shifts in the traditional East Asian world order resulted in the Protectorate Treaty in 1905 and the official annexation of Korea in 1910. During the J apa nese takeover of the Korean peninsula in the late nineteenth century, the newly founded Tokyo University Department of History (1885) produced the first generation of graduates to dedicate their academic careers to mod ern Toyo gaku, or East Asian studies (Yoshikawa 1976). Under the tutelage of Shiratori Kurakichi, the founder of East Asian studies in Japan, Ikeuchi Hiroshi, T orii Ryuzo, and Imanishi Ryii represented the new breed of scholars, who were versed not only in classical Chinese historical literature but also in the imported Western disciplines of geography, geology, paleon tology, archaeology, art history, physical anthropology, and ethnography. As intellectuals trying to come to grips with the rapidly changing role of 24 THE COLONIAL ORIGINS OF PREHISTORIC KOREA Japan in East Asia, their research naturally turned to the Korean peninsula (H. Kang I974! 7-8), as it began to be identified as part of the Japanese em pire. The first systematic studies of Chosen3 documents by Tokyo Univer sity scholars began with the collection, compilation, and study of Korean historical texts; these efforts contrasted with traditional scholarship, which had relied on dynastic Chinese textual sources.4 It is politically significant that the earliest academic studies of ancient Korea appeared in the first issues of the journals of the Shigaku zasshi and Toyo gakuho, published by the Tokyo University Department of History, and the ]inruigakku zasshi, published by Tokyo jinrui gakkai (Tokyo anthropological association), throughout the late I890S. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also witnessed Japan's continental expansion with the j)ino-Japanese ( I894-95) and Russo-Japanese (I904-5) wars. The building of the South Manchurian Railway5 was the im petus behind archaeological surveys, excavations, and ethnographic research into remote regions of northern Korea, Manchuria, and northern China. In 1908, Shiratori persuaded Goto Shimpei (Mishina & Murakami 1978), the railroad's first general manager, to set up the Mantetsu Chosabu (SMR Re search Division) in its Tokyo headquarters (Hatada 1969a: 187-88). The two main stated purposes of the Research Division were to facilitate the actual administration of Korea and Manchuria and to guide the company's activi ties through academic research on "Mangan" (Manchuria/Korea). Hence forth, academic research was conducted as an integral part of Japan's ad ministration of Manchuria and Korea. Publications in the series titled "Mantetsu chosa hokoku" (The South Manchuria Railway Research Department reports: 1915-41) were prepared by the leading East Asian spe cialists of the day, such as Tsuda Sokichi, Ikeuchi Hiroshi, T orii Ryiizo, Mikami Tsugio, Hamada Kosaku, and Harada Yoshito. The SMR Re search Division's funding, as well as the military support and the physical protection of the Kempeitai, was indispensable to pioneers such as T orii Ryiizo in their anthropological, archaeological, and historical field research6 into the far corners of northern Korea, Mongolia, and the present Russian Maritime provinces (Torii 1976: 542). Torii's first trip to Manchuria was in 1894 when he was sent by the Tokyo Anthropological Association to survey the physical anthropology, language, customs, and psychology (shinsei) of what he called the Manchurian races (Mansha minzoku). On his second trip, .

Load more