2018 Volume 67 Pages 201-209,en11
The Yamato Seiken（the Yamato Regime）existed from the 3rd to the 6th century typically known as the Keyhole-shaped-tumulus era. During this period, islands and regions of Japan were united as a nation/state for the first time. This symposium aimed to investigate the characteristics of the governmental system and gender in the Yamato Seiken by collaborating with archeologists and comparing the governmental systems of Yamato Seiken and other countries. As this was the first collaborative research between legal historians specializing in the study of national governmental systems, and archeologists, the symposium designed to develop a new image of history.
Kazuo Hirose (Japanese Archeology) presented his conception of the “keyhole-shaped-tumulus nation” or the national governmental system of Yamato Seiken, which differs from the standard archeological view points and other existing writings on the topic. Akira Seike's (Japanese Archeology) talk, based on his latest archeological research on gender, discussed the prevalence of female rulers and empresses in the Yayoi/Tumulus era. By examining the works of Hirose and Seike, Takeshi Mizubayashi (Comparative Legal History) argued that the conventional understanding of the history of national governmental system and gender in the relevant era should be changed. Comments on the three presentations were made by the following four persons : Tetsuya Ohkubo (Japanese Archeology), Akiko Yoshie (Ancient Japanese History of Women), Akira Momiyama (Chinese Ancient History), Masaki Taguchi (German Legal History).
