Masaki Sano
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor
National Museum of Japanese History
Project Overview
If the provenance of archaeological wood can be determined, the range of activities of people at that time, their interactions with other groups, and the actual use of forests can be clarified in detail. In this study, we will develop a method to accurately and quantitatively determine the provenance of wood by integrating tree-ring oxygen isotope and strontium isotope. Specifically, we will collect samples from modern trees of known origin in Japan, and develop spatial maps of tree-ring oxygen isotope and strontium isotope as reference records. These datasets will then be used to actually estimate the provenance of the known origin of the wood and evaluate the errors. We will also try to determine the provenance of archaeological and old construction timbers using the tree-ring oxygen isotope network and the strontium isotope map we will create.
