CALDERA Nordic-Japan Research Programme (Disaster Studies)

CALDERA is an award-winning new Nordic-Japan research programme launched in 2021. In 2024 it was awarded Antiquity's prestigious international Ben Cullen Prize for "outstanding contributions" to World Archaeology. CALDERA collaborates with two of VR's Swedish National Research Infrastructures: InfraVis and ArchLab. CALDERA aims to investigate long-term cultural responses to major natural disasters. Our first case-study investigates the impacts of the K-Ah "super eruption" in southwestern Japan, which was one of the world’s largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years (VEI 7). Our aim is not only to document the initial damage and disruption to people and environments, but also to understand processes of survival, adjustment and eventual recovery, including emergence of new cultural trajectories within long-term human-animal-environmental interactions. Core team members are based at Lund and Stockholm Universities in Sweden, Aarhus University in Denmark, and at Kanazawa and Kyushu Universities in Japan. The PI’s are: Sven Isaksson (scientific methods, comparative insights), Peter Jordan (interpretive frameworks, synthesis), Aripekka Junno (scientific methods), Kerstin Liden (archaeological sciences), Junzo Uchiyama (environmental archaeology), Mitsuhiro Kuwahata (regional specialist), Felix Riede (palaeo disaster studies). The project is currently funded by JSPS, VR and Lund University.

This research programmne examines how past societies coped with major natural disasters. Our initial focus is on understanding the impacts, legacies and deeper cultural transformations that resulted from the K-Ah "super eruption" which devastated southwestern Japan some 7,300 years ago.