This paper will discuss so-called "jindai seki" as an example of how objects created in the distant past are taken up by later generations and given new meanings. Jindai seki is a term that was coined by pre-modern Japanese stone collectors, and refers to stone products made during the Jindai (literally the "age of the gods", the period before Japan was established as a nation and was ruled by Emperor Jinmu), as described in Japan's early histories, the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki. In detail, this term refers to such Neolithic period stone products as dokko ishi, sekitô, sekibô, sekikan and seiryûtô-shaped stones. It also refers to early Kofun period (3rd to 5th centuries) burial goods, stone-made models and bracelets, such as sharin seki, kuwagata ishi and kotoji-shaped stone products. The two shared characteristics of all these items is that they have been skillfully formed and that they have been excavated from the earth. Jindai seki became objects of interest in Japan during the later part of the Edo period (latter half of the 18th century through the middle of the 19th century) when they were gathered, bestowed, exchanged, bought and sold by stone collectors. These aficionados frequently exchanged information about these stones and pictures of stones in their collections were made to show the images of these objects to aficionados in distant places, given the difficulties involved in moving the actual objects themselves. With the appearance of modern archaeology in the latter half of the 19th century, the concept of Jindai seki vanished. We can see that the Jindai seki symbolism of these stones was the creation of stone collectors in the Edo period, and thus, what has moved or shifted across time is not the category of Jindai seki, but rather, the stone objects themselves which had their own specific functions in Paleolithic and Kofun period Japan. Further, what is important is the birth of this concept of Jindai seki and then the later disappearance of the concept. The above information about the case of Jindai seki allows us to consider them as an example of the temporal movement of objects and the assignment of new values to the objects.
      Interest in Jindai seki emerged from the interest in rare stones which developed against the background of honzôgaku, an empirical study of plants, animals and minerals with medicinal uses. In comparison to the scientific and practical uses that inspired the study of honzôgaku, this interest in rare stones was based on the collection and enjoyment of rare and unusual stones as simple pleasure items. During the Edo period, rare stone collecting aficionados were connected by a tight network with Kinouchi Sekitei at its center. Sekitei, based on his massive collection of rare stones and his extensive observations, applied the term jindai seki to a group of stone-made objects from amongst the diverse array of types of rare stones. For the rare stones which had certain shapes within this myriad of types, he further categorized them by determining that these rare stones were either "tenkô" (naturally formed stones) or "jinkô" (stones that humans had worked or shaped). Amongst those stones which he considered to be human-shaped products of extreme antiquity, he noted a group of stones which were extremely finely formed, and whose functions were completely unknown. Sekitei called these stones, "sinkô" (god-made), "sinbutsu" (god items), or "sinsaku" (god-made), and indicated that they were items remaining from the gods' age as recorded in ancient documents and literary sources. In comparison to the clearly defined "tenkô" natural stones and the "jinkô" human-worked stones, this third category of "sinkô" god-formed stones was a vague concept which was unknowable and which defied further investigation. However, if we were to question further, we can sense that in this theory there was an intention that these stones were to be seen as having been made by the Japanese people of far antiquity. Thus the most important characteristic of these jindai seki, their extremely skillful manufacture, was traced by Sekitei to the gods, a term which can here be read as the ancient Japanese people. Sekitei attributed the unusualness of the forms and the unfathomableness of the uses of these objects to the length of time elapsed between the ancient past and his present. Eventually, modern archaeology was introduced to Japan from the West and brought with it the historical periodization of European anthropology. Modern archaeology posited that the earliest period of Japan's history was a period of indigenous people prior to the arrival of the Japanese people to the Japanese archipelago. The stone products made in this prehistoric ancient period were re-categorized on the basis of differences in the peoples who made and used the items and the term jindai seki was no longer used.