There were many ways of conserving the places of historic interest in Japan such as old tree-borded roads, Japanese milestones, old tumbs, and shell mounds. When we trace the origins of conservation of those places, we find that the cause and the theory of conservation differs from each other so much that we cannot totalize them in a single movement. At the same time we find that the etymology of such words as "fuchl" (tastefulness of scenery), "bikan" (scenic beauty) and "kyuseki" (historic scene) shows the prehistory of generating the concept of "Historic Environment" and its conservation.