Human-environment interaction and climate in the Japanese Archipelago

Japan is one among 34 global biodiversity hotspots (Conservation International 2012). The Japanese Archipelago extends over 3000 km from north to south, and includes subarctic, cool temperate, warm temperate and subtropical climatic zones. There is evidence that these diverse climatic zones existed even during the global environmental changes that have taken place over the past 100 ka (Tsukada 1983). Under the influence of climatic change and human activities, the distribution of individual species of plants and animals in the Japanese Archipelago has constantly changed. Populations have repeatedly divided, expanded and diminished in response to changes in the availability of suitable habitat. Where suitable habitat was unavailable, the species became extinct. The knowledge and skills that humans have developed seem to harbor the idea that biological resources should be used in a sustainable way, and the desire to harvest without fear of exhausting the limited resources. Throughout the period of human habitation, the Japanese Archipelago has been blessed with a warm climate and abundant rainfall, and consequently abundant bioresources. But were those resources overused and exhausted in the past? To answer these questions, we initiated a project to investigate: 1) How subsistence and economic systems were maintained in the past, and how and why they ended, and 2) the underlying social system (social structure, economic foundation, system of spatial organization, technical system, perception of nature) and how it evolved after the collapse of the subsistence and economic systems.