Kazuo Miyamoto

Fearlessly transcending the intellectual barriers created by modern political boundaries, Miyamoto is the broadest in outlook among East Asian archaeologists today. He uses anthropological research strategies in studying the Neolithic, the Bronze and the early Iron Age across the region. Thanks to his numerous well-published collaborative field projects, he is equally familiar with Japan, Korea, China, the Russian Far East, the Central Asian steppes, and the Himalayan borderlands. He knows all relevant languages. His monographs on early state formation, the spread of agriculture to Northeast Asia and on the impact of Central Asian metallurgy on the Chinese heartland are seminal.