4 2013 - 3 2018

Grant number：25304020

Grant amount：\17420000 （ Direct Cost: \13400000 、 Indirect Cost：\4020000 ）

Current Eastern Eurasia have been widely occupied by Asians morphologically adapted cold climate during last glacial stage, who had hypothetically dispersed from East to Southeast Asia along with agricultural society including plant and animal domestication since Neolithic period onward. Pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers in Yongjiang River Region, Guangxi in Southern China uniquely produced seated squatting burials, at the Huiyaotien Site and the Liyupo Site, which dated approximately 7,000 - 9,000 years BP. These skeletal morphology, speciously in cranial forms, exhibits characteristic quite distinctive from current East Asians. Cranial metric analysis demonstarted their close affinities to current Australo-Papuans and early Holocene Hoabinhian foragers in mainland Southeast Asia. These early settlers in China, as well as Neolithic Jomonese in Japan, are key population to reconstruct so-called ‘Two Layer’ model in addressing population history of Eastern Eurasia.

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4 2011 - 3 2016

Grant number：23247040

Grant amount：\48100000 （ Direct Cost: \37000000 、 Indirect Cost：\11100000 ）

Our interdisciplinary study challenged issue of the origin, dispersal, and divergence of anatomically modern human in Southeast Asia and Oceania. The skeletal data demonstrated the significant genetic discontinuity between the pre- and post- agricultural populations, theologically linked with pre-modern dispersal of language families concurrent with mass population movements during the Neolithic period. Further, the skeletal data demonstrated that the majority of those agricultural people share a suite of features with Northeast Asians one hand, pre-existing indigenous hunter-gatherers were akin to Australian Aborigines and Papuans other hand. The genetic data infers Negrito people originated from the earlier indigenous, with extremely deep historical roots. Archeological records suggests Oceania islanders had multiple cultural contacts, attributed to multi-directional movements from Southeast Asia and Melanesia.

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4 2011 - 3 2016

Grant number：23401031

Grant amount：\11830000 （ Direct Cost: \9100000 、 Indirect Cost：\2730000 ）

This research focuses on the emergence and formation of Linyi, one of the earliest polities in Nanhai, namely, Southeast Asia. The Japanese-Vietnamese collaborative project has been carried out at the Tra Kieu site in central Vietnam, which has been identified as an old capital of Linyi. Two seasons’ excavations on the eastern rampart of Tra Kieu were conducted by the project team, with the intention of verifying the date and structure. As a result of this work, two rows of brick walls were unearthed with infill clay layers between them, regarded as the main structure of initial rampart dating from the latter half of the third century to the fourth century CE. This structure was subsequently enlarged at least twice, and these works probably ranged from the fourth to the beginning of the sixth century CE. These results of excavations have brought new perspectives on historical study of Linyi, and other ancient polities in Southeast Asia.

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2009 - 2012

Grant number：21242028

Grant amount：\21710000 （ Direct Cost: \16700000 、 Indirect Cost：\5010000 ）

We conducted field surveys of archaeological sites of ancient and medieval times in Southeast Asia. In Thailand and Laos, the surveys showed the distribution of Dvaravati sites and the diffusion of the culture of Dvaravati and Angkor Civilizations in the east bank of the Mekong. In Vietnam we confirmed how Chinese Dynasties influenced Early Champa, and the presence of the hoards of cupper coins in the medieval age. In Cambodia and the Philippines, sunken junks and their cargos of the 15thcentury were investigated by our members. Megalithic monuments wre researched in Indonesia. Archaeology of ancient and medieval times of Southeast Asia was created by this project.

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2009 - 2011

Grant number：21401004

Grant amount：\12610000 （ Direct Cost: \9700000 、 Indirect Cost：\2910000 ）

This study aims to clarify the location of the Pre-Angkorean(5-9th century) capital cities from the field of natural science and geomorphology in and around Cambodia. Using aerial photography and remote sensing data of the target area, we carried out field survey by the method of geomorphology and land use, sampling, analysis and dating of sediment, and archaeological trench investigation.
As a result, we discussed the location of the Sambor Prei Kuk archaeological site in Central Cambodia, by analysis of microtopography and sediments of the floodplain of Sen river in Tonle Sap River basin. In addition, we conducted research in archaeological trenches in Sambor Prei Kuk and Wat Phou in Laos, to clarify the stratigraphy and age with C-14 dating.
The result of this research was presented at the 2011 INQUA Congress etc, and published in international journals such as Nagumo et al.(2010) and Nagumo et al.(2011).

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2007 - 2011

Grant number：19254005

Grant amount：\51350000 （ Direct Cost: \39500000 、 Indirect Cost：\11850000 ）

This study aims to clarify various aspects of provincial cities and temples of the ancient Khmer Empire, which dramatically developed from 9^<th> to 15^<th> century, including geographical relationship with the neighboring countries. Based on detailed recording by field surveys at several archaeological sites build along the "Royal Road" from Angkor, especially Koh Ker and Beng Mealea, from architectural, geomorphological, petrological, art historical and archaeological points of view, we analyze method and process of temple and city design and construction, as well as complete monument inventories with maps and drawings, which will contribute to future conservation planning of these provincial sites.

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2008 - 2010

Grant number：20370096

Grant amount：\17680000 （ Direct Cost: \13600000 、 Indirect Cost：\4080000 ）

The archaeological context of Man Bac in Vietnam places it firmly within a cultural complex identified as the late Neolithic, dated to around 1, 700 BCE. Several bio-anthropological lines of evidence including the skeletal morpho-data and mtDNA analyses from Man Bac suggests the initial appearance of immigrants, who were biologically related to pre-or early historic population stocks in Northeast Eurasian areas, through Southern China, and on the way of admixture with preexisting people originated across southern edge of Eurasia who linked with present-day Australo-Melanesians. The Man Bac skeletons may be key skeletons to support the' Two-Layer' hypothesis in discussions pertaining to the population history of Southeast Asia.

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2008 - 2010

Grant number：20320111

Grant amount：\18720000 （ Direct Cost: \14400000 、 Indirect Cost：\4320000 ）

We studied the location and functions of medieval and early modern power centers in present-day northern and central Vietnam, the most important center being Thang Long (Hanoi). For each center, we made literary research and field surveys. Referring recent research of Chinese and other East/Southeast Asian capitals, we proposed a number of new understandings of the spatial segmentations and the disposition of functions outside the citadel wall of Thang Long. Besides, we collected abundant materials and information of other power centers, including those of Champa.

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2008 - 2010

Grant number：20520666

Grant amount：\4550000 （ Direct Cost: \3500000 、 Indirect Cost：\1050000 ）

The second excavation was carried out at the Iron Age burial site of Hoa Diem, central Vietnam in 2010. The funerary accessory pottery associated with burial jars at Hoa Diem shows the striking similarity to the pottery found at the Kalanay Cave in the central Philippines and on the Samui Island in southern Thailand. Archaeological study made us believe that those ceramic vessels should be dated back to the 2nd and 3rd century AD, as it was also verified by the C14 date of a human tooth found in a jar burial. Thus, the interaction beyond the South China Sea took place during the period of the first state formation in Southeast Asia.

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2006 - 2007

Grant number：18520593

Grant amount：\3860000 （ Direct Cost: \3500000 、 Indirect Cost：\360000 ）

Hoa Diem, an Iron Age burial site located in Cam Ranh city, Khanh Hoa province in central Vietnam, was excavated in January 2007 by a Vietnamese-Japanese collaborative team, aiming to obtain the archaeological evidences on the prehistoric interrelations beyond the South China Sea. Excavation Pit H1(6x8m) yielded fourteen jar burials and two extended burials. Two Chinese Han Wuzhu coins associated with human bones inside a burial jar labeled M6 suggest that the cemetery of Hoa Diem most likely dates from the 1st and the 2nd century AD. The post-excavation work made by the team in 2008 has proved that burial jars and lids of Hoa Diem are quite different from those of the Sa Huynh Culture spread in central Vietnam, whereas the mortuary accessory pottery shows the striking similarity to the pottery found at the Kalanay Cave in the central Philippines. Thus the re-examination of the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition proposed by Solheim in the 1960s has become necessary. Hoa Diem also may relate to the so-called Austronesian hypothesis claiming that the Austronesian speakers arrived on the east coasts of Vietnam from either the Philippines or Borneo at some time in 1500-500BC. Dental morphology of the Hoa Diem skeletons shows close affinity with Philippine Negrito groups, also confirming human migration beyond the South China Sea. The outstanding mortuary practice at Hoa Diem is that some burial jars contained multiple bodies. In a globular jar labeled M8 with a maximum body diameter of 75cm contained one adult female and two infants, among them at least the adult was the primary burial. C14 analysis of the samples collected at Hoa Diem indicates the first half of the 1st millennium BC, which should be the date of the human occupation preceding the cemetery.

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2003 - 2005

Grant number：15405018

Grant amount：\10900000 （ Direct Cost: \10900000 ）

An excavations at Hang Cho site in northern Vietnam resulted in the discovery of an early Holocene human skeletons in a relatively good state of preservation. The cultural remains refer to these human remains pre-ceramic Hoabinian period. An AMS radiocarbon date on the tooth sample gave a result of 10,450BP. In debates on the population history of Southeast Asia, it has been repeatedly advocated that Southeast Asia was occupied by an indigenous people akin to present-day Australo-Melanesians prior to an expansion of migrants from North-East Asia into this area. Morphometric analyses were undertaken to test the validity of this hypothesis, and demonstrate that the Hang Cho specimen resembles the Late Pleistocene Australians, suggesting that the Hang Cho skeleton represents a descended member from the Sundaland population during the Late Pleistocene, who may share common ancestry with the present-day Australian aborigines and Melanesians. The excavation of Man Bac site (c.3800BP) in Ninh Binh Province, Northern Vietnam, discovered the large mortuary assemblage. A total of 31 inhumations were recovered during our 2005's excavation. The ratio of children to adults was two to three, indicating unordinary high infant mortality of the Man Bac people. Although a few individuals have the low and wide faces with robust crania common to those of the pre-Neolithic Hoabinhian people, many others bear the long and flat faces. The specimens of the later type have close affinities in the cranial metrics to the Jiangnan people of the Zhou and the Former Han periods in Yangzi Basin, and to the Yayoi migrants in Japan, as well. These findings suggest the existence of initial immigrants from South China, who settled in northern Vietnam. The Man Bac skeletons support the "immigration hypothesis with farming dispersals" in Southeast Asia advocated by Bellwood and others.

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Grant type：Competitive

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Grant type：Competitive

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