Gina L. BARNES: Professor Emeritus, Durham University, Barnes earned her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Michigan, followed by a career teaching East Asian Archaeology at Cambridge and Durham Universities. In addition to her cultural studies (State Formation in Korea, State Formation in Japan, Routledge 2001, 2007), she has always been involved in landscape archaeology and geoarchaeology. After taking a late BSc in Geology with the Open University, she formulated the subdiscipline of Tectonic Archaeology with her publications on Japanese Island geology, earthquake archaeology, tsunami archaeology, and now tephroarchaeology. She is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London, and an Affiliate of the Earth Sciences Department at Durham University. Her major publication, Archaeology of East Asia (Oxbow, 2015) is widely used as a textbook, and the Society for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA), which she founded in 1996, is the major professional venue for archaeologists of China, Korea and Japan. | SODA Tsutomu: As a Doctor of Science (Geography) from Tokyo Metropolitan University, Soda studied tephra identification within Quaternary research in Japan under the doyens of tephrochronology, MACHIDA Hiroshi and ARAI Fusao. His research extends throughout Japan but focusses on Gunma Prefecture, having established Gunma’s natural history in the Quaternary and cooperating with archaeologists to research the history of natural hazards in this active volcanic area. He is a major tephrochronologist for archaeology in Japan, formerly with the Palaeoenvironment Research Institute Co, Ltd., but now running his own Institute of Tephrochronology for Nature and History, Co. Ltd., in Maebashi, Gunma. He teaches physical geography at Maebashi Institute of Technology since 1997 and lectures at Waseda and Gunma Universities. His research papers include contributions to the History of Gunma Prefecture (Gunma Pref., 1990), Kazanbai Kokogaku (Kokon-shoin, 1993), Kokogaku noTame no Nendai Sokuteigaku Nyumon (Kokon-shoin, 1999), and the Manual of Kankyo Kokogaku (Doseisha, 2003).