Gina L. Barnes is Professorial Research Associate at the Japan Research Centre and Department of Art and Archaeology, SOAS, University of London. She is the author of Protohistoric Yamato (1988), State Formation in Korea (2001), and The Rise of Civilization in East Asia (1993/1999) which is used worldwide as the main textbook in the field. She is Founder and First President of the Society for East Asian Archaeology and currently serves as Treasurer and Membership Secretary.