Traces from each layer of (pre)history - typically visible

 

From Tatsuno-city example, just west of Himeji in Hyogo prefecture - Imagining possible instances of visible traces of each part of the past and prehistory, too, https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/34.8374/134.5599

1. Boxes show modern Tatsuno (left) & Himeji (right); circles for imagined Jomon sites visible.

For much of Japan's history and prehistory the land was incrementally reworked and structures were made from wood and paper. Only the foundation stones, stone artifacts (and later, metal tools and pottery), as well as ceramic roof tiles last for centuries and millennia. So the visible traces (and ones from archaeological excavations) present patterns characteristic of each era. Modern-day cities of Tatsuno (top left) and Himeji (right margin) are highlighted, too, on these screenshots from OpenStreetMap.org 

This first map with imaginary traces of the past is for prehistory before agriculture and settled villages began. Some locations of shell mounds and other features of the Jomon people might be found where the small circles are placed near the base of the forested hillsides. 

2. Imagined locations of Kofun burial mounds visible today in part or whole

Next comes some of the traces of the rice paddy builders and people who adopted the incoming technology and knowledge of Buddhism from the continent during the kofun (300-538 CE) and eventual Yamato period, ending in 710 CE. Visible traces might include a few early temple foundations and also stone-lined burial mounds on the tops of surrounding small mountains above the valley. 

3. Early (Kokubun-ji phase) Buddhist temples or ruins imagined in this part of Japan.

The third map with imagined plot points corresponds to the Nara (710-794 C) and Heian (Kyoto) periods (794-1185 CE) up to the start of the medieval Kamakura and Muromachi periods, all together from 710 to 1185 CE when more Buddhist temples were built, along with palaces. Whereas farmers and skilled tradesmen built in wood and paper and fiber, the stonework included in and around Buddhist temples and palaces sometimes remains today in some form. 

4. Durable traces and buildings of medieval times imagined on this cultural landscape.

The fourth map imagines what kind of durable traces of Kamakura and Muromachi periods might be seen here and there: hillforts, temples and residences of powerful landowners, again as stone was used in gardens, walls and gates, foundations for main halls, and so on. Meanwhile, the daily work in forests, paddies, and seacoasts leaves little or no trace. Irrigation systems, Shinto shrines and roadside worship spots, foot bridges with stone footings may sometimes persist in their locations with stonework reused with rebuilding of wooden parts. However, the rationalization of fields to allow mechanized agriculture rearranged water systems and merged and realigned means that only marginal sections of paddy might persist from the pre-1980s.

5. Edo-period potential traces shown relative to geography & modern-day Tatsuno & Himeji.

Map number five imagines the kinds of structures dating to the 270 years of the Tokugawa (Edo) Period, 1603-1867. That is when hillforts and castles were broken down and outlawed to allow only one per domain that belonged to the ruling clan. Many more Buddhist temples were built and many persist today, although others fell into disuse after the period laws for household registration at temples were relaxed after the Edo period ended and particularly in the surge of urbanization of the 1950s and 1960s left many rural areas depopulated. So the features on the landscape that may exist refurbished, derelict, or in ruins again depend on the durability of stone and earthworks to hint at lives long ago lived: temples, shrines, perhaps bridges or their footings, potentially some small port improvement or harbor protection and navigation aids that did not get eclipsed by later works. As well, the residences of rich and powerful people with stone elements in garden, gate and wall, or foundations. The designated clan castle from these feudal years may exist in some way - seldom original, but often partly original, and sometimes in ruin with moat and foundations alone standing today.

6. Structures and land changes imagined from the Meiji and early Showa-eras (1867-1925)

This final map imagines the kinds of traces today dotting the cultural landscape beyond the earlier historical and prehistorical times. Here are reminders from the first generations of building rail and factories, military and education and medical institutions, government administrative centers, surface roads, and commercial districts. There should be some physical memory on the landscape, despite the many reinventions of the economy and political system since 1867. Things like metal, stone, or cement structures may leave some trace: bridges, retaining walls, road features (curb, gutter, water supply lines and sewer and storm water construction, foundations of industrial and residential buildings, among other things. In some cases all or part of a building may still exist "as is" (abandoned; derelict) or having burned down as ruins. Perhaps the oldest parts were incorporated into later expansion, too, so that little of the original is visible at first look, but still persists within a larger site.

Remnant pieces and sometimes larger parts of long-ago times coexist in and around the landscape. Analytically, it would be convenient to filter each era separately, as imagined on these maps. But empirically, the experience of traversing the cultural landscape touches on all these reminders bumping and jostling for space and attention from interested viewers passing by and reflecting on how much or little of social life and language has changed from then to now.