Academic Associate
PhD, Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Japan, 2002
Affiliated Researcher at Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University (Sweden)
Visiting Professor at Institute for the Study of Ancient Civilizations and Cultural Resources, Kanazawa University (Japan)
Junzo Uchiyama was a Handa Japanese Archaeology Fellow (2018-2020) and has been Academic Associate at the Sainsbury Institute since 2020. While his background is zooarchaeology of prehistoric Jomon Japan, his research covers a wide range of topics, including Neolithisation in East Asia (Japan, China and Korea) and its cross-cultural comparison with Europe. More recently, together with colleagues in Nordic countries and Japan, he has launched a new research programme called “CALDERA” for “catastrophe archaeology” in 2021 (https://portal.research.lu.se/en/projects/caldera-nordic-japan-research-programme-disaster-studies), aiming to investigate long-term cultural responses to major natural disasters and to understand processes of survival, adjustment and eventual recovery. In June 2024 he was awarded the Ben Cullen Prize for “outstanding contributions” to World Archaeology. In November 2024, the project “Surviving the Apocalypse: multidimensional modeling of the impact of a prehistoric megadisaster on people’s lifeworlds, technologies and demography”was approved and got funded by Swedish Research Council (VR), in which he is working as a co-project leader. The new project has started from January 2025 for 5 years.
Selected Publications
- Uchiyama J, Kuwahata M, Kowaki Y, Kamijō N, Talipova J, Gibbs K, Jordan PD, Isaksson S. ‘Disaster, survival and recovery: the resettlement of Tanegashima Island following the Kikai-Akahoya‘super-eruption’, 7.3ka cal BP’. Antiquity, 97(393), 557-575. (2023) https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.312.
- Robbeets M, Bouckaert R, Conte M, Savelyev A, Li T, An D-I, Shinoda K, Cui Y, Kawashima T, Kim G, Uchiyama J, …Ning C. ‘Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasian languages’. Nature, 599: 616–621. (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04108-8
- Uchiyama J, Gillam MJ, Savelyev A, Ning C. ‘Populations Dynamics in Northern Eurasian Forests: A Long-term Perspective from Northeast Asia’. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2, E16, 1-19. (2020) https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2020.11
- Nakajima T, Hudson MJ, Uchiyama J, Makibayashi K, Zhang J. ‘Common carp aquaculture in Neolithic China dates back 8,000 years’. Nature Ecology and Evolution 3, 1415–1418. (2019) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0974-3
- Jordan P, Gillam JC and Uchiyama J (issue eds.). Journal of World Prehistory 27, 3-4, 197-323 (Special Issue: Neolithisation of Cultural Landscapes in East Asia). (ISNN: 0892-7537/Print, 1573-7802 /Online) (2014)