Japanese Imperialism and the Investigation of Stone Age in Colonial Joseon

Abstract:The study of the Stone Age on the Korean peninsular began with Japanese researchers. Torii Ryuzo was the first archaeologist to take charge of and shape archaeological investigations of the Stone Age. However, the research results were used to defend the logic of imperialism rather than the academic domain. Torii used the past relationship between the Korean peninsula and Japan to locate the ancestral Japanese and provide evidence to support his "theory of the common ancestral origins of Korean and Japanese races (日鮮同祖論 nissendosoron)."Unlike Taiwan, in Chosŏn, which had a direct historical relationship with Japan, the results of archaeological investigations were only used as supporting materials to explain the prehistoric and ancient times of Japan, which in turn resulted in consolidating a colonial view of history (i.e., Korean history distorted by Japanese historians during the Japanese occupation). This is why it is difficult to deny the shadow of imperialism in the archaeology of colonial Chosŏn.