Gary Crawford was awarded a fellowship to be a “Visiting Foreign Professor” at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan for two months (February and March, 2017).
Until the early 2000s, Prof. Crawford had an active research program in Japan that started in 1974. He collaborated with Prof. Katsunori Takase on an assemblage of plant remains from an Epi-Jomon site (ca AD 200) recovered in the 1980s when a large complex of sites was excavated before the new Sapporo railway station was built. He worked on the collection in 1986 and published some preliminary results, but he is now preparing the final report, at least as final as such reports can be.
Prof. Crawford also lectured at Hokkaido University, spoke at a symposium on North Asian Archaeology at Sapporo Gakuin University and was the featured speaker at the University of Tokyo symposium on the Archaeology of Grain Cultivation in NE Japan. He explored museums that have new archaeological exhibits, collected literature (200 monographs on archaeological excavations on Hokkaido since 2005 are being donated to the Department of Anthropology), and generally reacquainted himself with Japanese culture and natural history.
Photo Decription: Katsunori Takase and Gary Crawford taken at the Ainu Culture Promotion Centre (Sapporo Pirka Kotan). The sculpture represents an owl, an important Ainu deity.
View Prof. Crafword's photo album titled Japan: An Archaeologist's Impressions on SmugMug