Timber‐Handling Technology in Japan

Preindustrial Timber Handling

Japan's earliest wood‐handling technology was predictably simple. Stone – and later metal – hand axes, adzes, and chisels were used to fell and process tree trunks and bamboo to create rafts, dugout canoes, and plank‐walled boats; diverse hand tools, weapons, and other small objects; and post‐and‐beam buildings lashed together with vine and enclosed with thatch or wattle.

During the seventh century, however, major new architectural forms – grand wooden palaces and Buddhist temples that utilized stone foundations, mortis‐and‐tenon framing, board walls, and tile roofs – arrived from the adjacent...