National Museum of Japanese History

Collecting, sharing, and preserving digital research assets are essential for improving knowledge production's efficiency and reliability. However, efforts have been insufficient, and many digital assets have disappeared. We have established a research project RsDA with libraries, archives, and museums of major universities and research institutes in the Asian region. This paper will introduce the RsDA Inventory, an inventory of online databases related to the Asian region, as a core outcome of the project. We migrated the inventory data to Wikidata throughout the project, and behind that, the guidelines and data models played essential roles. RsDA activities and outcomes will contribute to realizing an open academic information environment and long-term preservation of such information in the Asian region.

Japan’s super-aged mortality rate bereaves millions of people annually, threatening the mental health of the bereaved population. Previous research suggests that participation in satisfying funeral rituals can protect or improve the health of a bereaved population—but pandemic restrictions threaten traditional funeral assemblies. To determine how bereaved mourners’ mental health—and consequent dependence upon medical, pharmaceutical, or social services—are affected by funerals and the aspects of funerals most likely to cause satisfaction or dissatisfaction, we conducted an anonymous nationwide survey across Japan. In total, 1078 bereaved Japanese responded; we analyzed their responses by comparing the 106 citing funeral dissatisfaction with the 972 citing no dissatisfaction. The cohort showing greatest satisfaction with funerals tended to be older widows or parents who lost children; they showed greater grief but spent less on medical, pharmaceutical, or social services thereafter than the dissatisfied. Conversely, mourners with the greatest dissatisfaction toward their interactions with funeral directors and Buddhist priests tended to spend more on medical, pharmaceutical, or social services after bereavement. We conclude that training or education to improve priests’ and funeral directors’ interactions may reduce dissatisfaction with funerals, potentially reducing subsequent costs of medical, pharmaceutical, or social services for the rapidly growing population of bereaved Japanese.

本発表は、コロナ禍における歴史文化資料の保存・活用についての情報・意見交換の場として開催した二つのイベントにおいて展開された議論を元に、歴史文化資料の保存と活用の新しいスタイルを見出すための方向性を提示することを目的としている。コロナ禍においては、資料調査や保存活動のために現地に行くことが制限されてきた。そうした中では、感染予防対策を伴う資料調査活動の方法や、地域や施設への訪問・滞在を伴わない代替的資料調査の方法といった、活動を継続して行っていくための新しいスタイルの創出と実践が必要となっている。また、資料のデジタル化やそのオンラインでの公開がより求められている現状にあり、デジタルデータと現物資料それぞれの価値と意義について検討し直すことが求められる。

ABSTRACTRadiocarbon (14C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric14C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth system improves. In this volume the international14C calibration curves for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, as well as for the ocean surface layer, have been updated to include a wealth of new data and extended to 55,000 cal BP. Based on tree rings, IntCal20 now extends as a fully atmospheric record to ca. 13,900 cal BP. For the older part of the timescale, IntCal20 comprises statistically integrated evidence from floating tree-ring chronologies, lacustrine and marine sediments, speleothems, and corals. We utilized improved evaluation of the timescales and location variable14C offsets from the atmosphere (reservoir age, dead carbon fraction) for each dataset. New statistical methods have refined the structure of the calibration curves while maintaining a robust treatment of uncertainties in the14C ages, the calendar ages and other corrections. The inclusion of modeled marine reservoir ages derived from a three-dimensional ocean circulation model has allowed us to apply more appropriate reservoir corrections to the marine14C data rather than the previous use of constant regional offsets from the atmosphere. Here we provide an overview of the new and revised datasets and the associated methods used for the construction of the IntCal20 curve and explore potential regional offsets for tree-ring data. We discuss the main differences with respect to the previous calibration curve, IntCal13, and some of the implications for archaeology and geosciences ranging from the recent past to the time of the extinction of the Neanderthals.

In this research, we developed a VR appreciation system for fountain pens using a head-mounted display (HMD) and a pen-type device. The purpose of this system is to allow museum visitors to view Maki-e fountain pens more freely. This system allows users to preview 3DCG of fountain pens displayed in VR space using the HMD while operating the pen-type device. In order to intuitively operate the 3DCG of the fountain pen, the 3DCG is rotated based on the angular velocity detected with a gyroscope sensor mounted on the pen-type device. In addition, the system allows users to select a fountain pen to view using only head motion by displaying the cursor at the center of the HMD screen. The system was used at a special exhibition of the National Museum of Japanese History for eight weeks. Moreover, to clarify the requirements of museum exhibition systems and the types of knowledge used to appreciate an exhibition, we analyzed user behaviors from the log data of a system deployed at a museum. As a result, when the users wore the HMD, fountain pens in the center of the screen were often browsed regardless of their features.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, German merchants hardly forayed into the trade in the Indian Ocean World, including the China trade. Their trials to conduct or take some part in the East Indian trade by themselves, as they were actively run by the British, Dutch, Portuguese or Spanish, were destined to fail. However, the circumstances changed considerably upon the arrival of the modern period: in and after the middle of the nineteenth century, their trading activities in the Indian Ocean World grew rapidly, especially in its eastern parts, such as the newly opened treaty ports along the Chinese coast after the Opium and Arrow Wars, and the British free ports like Singapore and Hong Kong. This article gives firstly an overview of those German trading activities, from their long stagnation to rapid growth, based on comprehensive survey of German literature as well as of some primary sources. Secondly, it examines backgrounds of the change, illuminating the meanings of the newly established treaty system in China after the Opium War, the abolishment of the British navigation acts and the spread of international ‘public goods’ under the British hegemon for German merchants in the nineteenth century.

This paper describes the overall picture of digital humanities in Japan explains the significance of Integrated Studies of Cultural Research Resources (ISCRR) and (Knowledgebase of Historical Resources in Institutes), the database of the findings of the ISCRR. One of the essential functions that khirin has but Japan Search does not is spatial search based on geographical information. khirin can be said to deliver excellent user experience in terms of individual regional information. We must recognize that information infrastructure is not, as it were, browsing as exit, rather it is an entrance that provides input for understanding the community.

先史学と第四紀学は時代研究であり，総合科学・学際研究としての性質を有する．先史学において人類の生活の舞台となった古環境を知ることは極めて重要な課題の一つであるため，第四紀学との連携は必要不可欠である．第四紀は，かつては人類紀とも呼ばれたが，現在ではホモ属の進化の時期と第四紀がほぼ一致する．遺跡において動植物遺体の出土例が増加する完新世以降の研究では，各種自然科学分析を積極的に活用し，人類活動とその活動の舞台となった古環境を解明することを目指す環境考古学的研究が活発化している．一方で，人類が直接働きかけることのない，純粋な環境史の領域において観察される環境変化の画期となるイベントが，人類活動にどのような影響を与えたのかを解明することも必要であろう．その場合，両者の時間的対応関係を捉えることが第一に必要であり，両者を繋ぐ年代学がその解明にあたって大きな役割を担っている．