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Introduction

Standing on the beach of a small island surrounded by the vast Pacific Ocean you might feel cut off from the rest of the world, and you'd be right. But, the sea is so much more than just a barrier. Any land-dwelling organisms crossing the sea must inevitably journey toward an island and so islands are truly remarkable sites where living beings, including humans, objects, and events encounter together, entangle and contest each other. We have been conducting research on “Islandscape History,” which traces such a history of islands as their biographies in Oceania. We are currently advancing interdisciplinary research in Pukapuka, a small atoll formed on a coral reef in the northern Cook Islands, where archaeology, earth sciences, and cultural anthropology collaborate. We're thrilled to say that our interests have expanded to topics such as sea-level rise and weather-related disasters caused by global warming. While our research focuses on a small atoll, its scope is limitless.

Achievements

■Landscape History of Islands in Oceania
・Research Objective: Landscape history of Pukapuka Atoll, Northern Cook Islands
- Title: Multi-disciplinary studies of 'islandscape' as a meshwork (Convener), Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future, The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Sep. 16, 2020.
- Title: Out of Eurasia Project, vol. 5 (Contributor), RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR THE DYNAMICS OF CIVILIZATIONS, OKAYAMA UNIVERSITY, ISBN: 9784910223087, 2021 (in Japanese).
・Research Objective: Landscape history of Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands
- Title: Excavation of pit-agriculture landscape on Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands, and its implications. GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 9(1), 27-36, 2005.
- Title: Archaeological investigation of the landscape history of an Oceanic atoll: Majuro, Marshall Islands. PACIFIC SCIENCE 63(4): 537-565, 2009.
- Title: Rapid settlement of Majuro Atoll, central Pacific, following its emergence at 2000 years CalBP. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 38, 2011.
- Title: Sedimentary facies and Holocene depositional processes of Laura Island, Majuro Atoll. GEOMORPHOLOGY 222, 59-67, 2014.
- Title: Landscape history of pit agriculture in Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands from geoarchaeological view, ANNUAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 33, 129-150, 2007 (in Japanese).
・Research Objective: Landscape History of Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu
- Title: Atoll island vulnerability to flooding and inundation revealed by historical reconstruction: Fongafale Islet, Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu. GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE 57(3-4), 407-416, 2007.
・Research Objective: Landscape History of Ishigaki in Yaeyama Islands
- Title: Patterns and Processes in the Transformation of Pacific Island Landscapes（Convener）, 8TH WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS, Aug. 29, 2016.
- Title: Coral Reef: Strategy for Ecosystem Symbiosis and Coexistence with Humans under Multiple Stresses（Contributor）, SPRINGER JAPAN 2016.
- Title: Remote sensing evaluation of spatio-temporal variation in coral-reef formation in Ishigaki, Yaeyama Islands, toward a study of prehistoric insular resource utilization, Quarterly of Archaeological Studies 60(2), 55-72, 2013 (in Japanese with English summary).
- Title: Studies of Landscape History, Ishigaki Island in Ryukyu Island Arc (1): Report of Shallow Boring Surveys and Trench Excavation of Alluvial Lowland in Nagura Basin, OCCASIONAL PAPERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY No. 14, ISBN: 9784906400140, 2016 (in Japanese).
・Research Objective: Theoretical Studies of Landscape History
- Title: Oceania Studies (Contributor), Kyoto University Press, ISBN: 9784876987894, 2009 (in Japanese).
- Title: Toward a historical approach of interaction between two agencies, human and nature, Shigaku 82(3), 107-126, 2013 (in Japanese).
- Title: 'Islandscape Histories: Bridging a gap between Historical Ecology and Historical Anthropology (ed.), Fukyosha Publishing Inc., ISBN: 9784894892583, 2019 (inJapanese).
- Title: Ethnographic Studies of Sea People's Migration: Social Network of Western Pacific (contributor), Showado Publishing Inc., ISBN: 9784812217184, 2018 (in Japanese).
- Title: Doing Archaeology with the Concept of Landscape (Contributor), The 88th Japanese Archaeological Association, May 29, 2022 (in Japanese).
- Title: Welcome to Oceania (Contributor) , Showado Publisher, ISBN: 9784812222034, 2023 (in Japanese).
- Title: Thinking with Landscape: Anthropological and Archaeological Approaches (Contributor), Rinsen Book Co., ISBN: 9784653046332, 2023 (in Japanese).
■Historical Anthropology of Things and Islands
・Historical and Museum Anthropology of Encounters and Entanglement during the Colonial Period in Oceania.
- Title: Special Exhibition "Biographies of Things from the South Pacific: Keio University Collection Originated from Isokichi Komine (Supervision), Jan., 2015.
- Title: Historical anthropology of entanglement surrounding 'Uli' figures : review of carved objects from New Ireland, Bismarck Archipelago, Shigaku (Historical Science) 85(1-3), 401-439, 2015 (in Japanese).
- Title: Challenges in Oceanic Archaeology (Contributor), Yuzankaku Publishing Inc., ISBN: 9784639027034, 2020 (in Japanese).
- Title: Reading into ethnographic objects: a dog carving collected from the former Netherlands New Guinea, BULLETIN OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY 46(4), 543-563, 2022 (in Japanese with English summary).
- Title: World History 19: the World of Pacific Ocean (Contributor), Iwanami Shoten Publishers, ISBN: 9784000114298, 2023 (in Japanese).
■Geoscience
・Holocene Sea Level Change in the South Pacific.
- Title: Revisiting late Holocene sea-level change from the Gilbert Islands, Kiribati, west-central Pacific Ocean, QUATERNARY RESEARCH 88(3), 400-408, 2017.
・Chemical Analyssis of Atoll Sediment.
- Title: Origin and migration of trace elements in the surface sediments of Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands, CHEMOSPHERE 202, 65-75, 2018.
- Title: Influence of Acidification on Carbonate Sediments of Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands CHEMISTRY LETTERS 47(4), 566-569, 2018.

Areas of Research

・Coral reef studies -Future strategies for symbiotic coexistence of ecosystems and humans under complex stress-
・Research on island resilience of atoll societies in Oceania amidst cascading weather disasters
・Geoarchaeology of rain-fed taro cultivation landscapes and weather disasters supporting atoll societies in Oceania
・Comprehensive archaeological and historical anthropological research on Oceania atoll landscapes and examination of their current applications
・Research on the maintenance of sustainable national land in island nations consisting of atoll states
・Research on adaptation strategies for topographical and water resource changes in small island nations formed on atolls
・Geoarchaeology
・Cultural Anthropology and Historical Anthropology
・Area Studies

Social Contributions

・Enhancing disaster resilience through traditional and local knowledge.
・Informing sustainable agricultural practices for climate adaptation.
・Improving modern disaster management strategies.
・Proposing a new way to understand other beings in this century of division.
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