The Evolution of Japanese Culture : Religion’s Transformation in the Ancient Eastern Provinces

Joseph Henrich has argued, from the perspective of cultural evolution, that the formation of a distinctive psychological orientation in Western 3Europe was closely connected with the world eligion of Christianity. Was this phenomenon limited to Western Europe alone? What was the case in the geographically distant Japanese archipelago at the eastern edge of Asia? This paper examines the conditions there from the fifth through the eleventh centuries. Adopting analytical perspectives similar to Henrich’s—namely, the transformation of ancient clans, the presence of a literate stratum, and contact with a world religion—it analyzes archaeological evidence from excavated ancient settlements to clarify one aspect of the formation of Japanese culture.