Daily Life and Demographics in Ancient Japan by William Wayne Farris

Author:William Wayne Farris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies

CONCLUSION

This book has examined the population of ancient Japan from many angles. Its chief goals were to present an overview of the historiography of the topic; derive justifiable estimates for three eras (the second quarter of the eighth, the mid-tenth, and the mid-twelfth centuries); and fit the trend so inferred with numerous variables, including ones directly affecting the population such as pestilence and famine and background factors such as agrarian technology, the labor market, and material culture. Even though I have considered many components of population change, I hope that readers will view this work not as the last word on the subject, but rather as a hypothesis to be tested and discussed as more evidence becomes available. It is hard to believe that other major sources or new ways around the assumptions of the various methods employed here are readily available; certainly in the future scholars should conduct research on migration, the labor market, various industries, urbanization, the family and marriage, and the physical well-being of the populace in more detail and their data may well result in more authoritative results.

Concerning the historiographical review, I showed that while scholars evinced an early interest in Japan's early population, few estimates made prior to 1945 are reliable. Yokoyama Yoshikiyo made three calculations for the ninth and tenth centuries in 1879, but except for the mid-tenth century, serious flaws beset them all. The same may also be said of Kimura Masakoto's tally for the tenth century. Only Sawada Goichi, who estimated mid-eighth century population at 6–7 million, made a long-lasting contribution to this field before 1945.

After World War II, the newfound freedom to examine Japan's ancient history critically benefited those who wanted to know more about demography. Urata Akiko determined that the "household" of the census records was an administrative fiction devised to raise more conscripts. The archeological boom aided, too, first of all by allowing Koyama Shūzō to infer his demographic cycle for the Jōmon and then by providing the skeletal evidence for Kobayashi Kazumasa to derive life expectancies for the same period.

To Kitō Hiroshi fell the job of synthesizing most prior research and calculating new estimates for the Yayoi era, as well as the eighth, ninth, tenth, and twelfth centuries. His figures, computed in 1983, showed dramatic growth from the inception of the Yayoi until about 700, with a gradual leveling off thereafter. More significantly, his work seemed to contradict the conventional wisdom that population expanded greatly during the 700s, as purportedly implied by vigorous activity in land clearance at that time.

In addition to Kitō in the 1980s, Dana Morris studied the Heian household and argued that its large size arose from the need for more field hands. I inferred vital statistics for four sets of early eighth-century population data, suggesting that birth and death rates were high; infant mortality was at least 50 percent to age five, leading to an average life expectancy at birth of around twenty-five. Moreover, based on a finding by William McNeill, I endorsed the

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