 Although I'm originally Dutch, I'm actually a researcher of prehistoric archaeology in Japan. And I've worked with three years at Tokyo University at the Cultural Resource Studies Department. And apart from my archaeological research, I'm also very interested in the role of archaeology in modern society. I had a lecture series about that and I actually got my students involved as well of sort of thinking what is the role of archaeology in modern society. And something that I find is a slight contrast with my native Netherlands is that Japanese people, how can I put this, are fairly obsessed with their cultural identity. They're extremely interested in their culture, including their archaeological and prehistoric past. And that actually means that people are sort of already emotionally kind of committed. You don't have to do an awful lot to win them over to be interested in archaeology. And part of it is really good. And part of it is also that you do tend to have a slight commodification of archaeology because there are already certain expectations. And Japanese people also have a kind of valorization. But that is very important, for example, the beautiful material of culture or structures if they're already awarded the title such as National Treasure or National Historical Site. In some cases they're also pushing for World Heritage, which is the holy grail of valorization basically. So there is also a kind of a real pride in the culture, but also that can have, of course, ideological problems and it can, of course, be abused potentially by many stakeholders, including in a political way. But people are already relatively, I think, for example, the book is saying, those people are interested, but it's a bit of a trill of a little bit after a while. Japanese people, I find this interest is already inherently stronger there. And people love to go and do workshops now. I get a bit more into that. And they really like it. Of course, there's the Japanese tendency to make everything cute as well. So those are all aspects. Of course, of course. Well, there's many, many different examples. But after the war, one of the ways that people sort of had something to look forward is the archivalential excavations. Of course, there were the professionals, the professors, but again also a great commitment of local population who were sort of distracted from horrible war situations by going to digs and helping by even making food and sort of cheering the excavators and the students on. So there was already a commitment there at some places. People were so excited about finding out more about their past. And nowadays, we have these archaeological centers, these buried cultural property centers, that sort of manage the locally found archaeological heritage. You actually have, I think, thousands of these, some of the prefectural level, some of the municipal level, and very much a little bit what they do is these archaeological hotspots. They have museums, but they keep archaeological finds because they belong to the Japanese people. But also, people can definitely show the stuff they found in their backyard. You know, they do these workshop activities. And the curators very much depend structurally on volunteers. And that's going to be my point. Volunteers are structurally important in sort of mediating. They're sort of translating. Some of the curators are a bit intimidating. So people like to interact with familiar faces with these volunteers. Well, this is a very famous site, Santa Mariana. And actually, I had a very in-depth conversation with a volunteer lady there. And that's going to be one of my nature's slides. But one of the activities of nowadays, because of course there's great professionalization, but nowadays, what I found in my own experience of hundreds of sites is that what you usually see, the activities are slightly museum-guided. Instead, guides are trained. They have a nice little test on. And they show people around and give them the story. They tell them the story of the site in the museum. And another activity that they have in here in English is a major commitment for Japanese people. They have this whole layout. They get training. And they have this whole story they have to tell, even in each foundation sometimes. And the other main activity is assisting at workshops. And these are fun little things to do, especially children and sometimes adults as well. And I found that many people love to just bring their children to these workshop events, even if they're not interested in local archeology. They just bring their children and like, okay, go and do one of these events. And I'm going to just show some of the things that they do, for example. Very popular is fire-making. You can see here there. They love to do fire-making. Extremely popular is making jewelry out of soap. And they actually have these free-salt kits. So what I do for a cost project, I got two euros. You have these little sets. And if you want to have a look, this is one of the standard activities you can do all through your bag. Children love it. What I found in Larry's is boys also love it. They walk around with their children. I'm so proud of it. So these are things that are very, very popular with children. And the major thing is really involving children. Children is so important. So they have these little sets. They play figurines. You can sort of weave baskets. One of my specializations is free-salt kits. That's why I have these examples. So these are very specific after history appeared. What I found hilarious is that they teach these little, these little really, these small kids, right? Like three or four years, they have these blunt arrowheads. They have to shoot at cardboard animals, like proper hunter-gatherers. The children love it. They really adore this. So here you see the children in action. So you get these tiny kids of like three, four years all already involved. So that's a major thing. And if we talk about what kind of people are doing this, well, of course, as a researcher, I've visited these sites and these centers all through all days of the week. So weekdays, of course, very obviously, people who have a job cannot do volunteer activity. So actually the majority of people who are probably involved are indeed retired people. Because they're always available. They're always there. And they're actually really organized, instructional organizations. There will be people on the top to manage them. So it's actually a huge commitment of time because yes, they have to commit to a certain minimum amount of time they're available. They have to get the schedule very seriously managed. So there's no sneaking out there. This is a big commitment that people are making. They have to give their stuff to normal advance and they can't sneak out. They don't get paid. So there are actually many archaeologists are now getting a bit concerned that maybe this is actually a bit of exploitation because there is a huge labor investment here. A huge dependence on their labor. But on the bright side, the people, everybody are asked, they just love it, you know. And especially for retired people, they've fallen in vacuum after retirement. They have the social isolation element. And for them, and I think this was a really interesting point actually, it's a great way to be involved in society and to meet people, have fun with the kids, you know. So for them, it's the social element, but also they are generally passionate about their local history basically. So for many people, it's not just a hobby, it's basically a passion. They dress up and you know, you do all these things. They really, really love it. And to some extent, they follow a script. But to some extent, they also improvise. Only in one example, I found a major archaeological center that did not work with volunteers and they had a reason for that. But this is a wonderful lady. There are actually women involved as well. So they, my name is a very special site, a very special heritage site that is now one of the sites of the World Heritage status. This lady has been involved since the beginning. They found this site in the early 1990s. It blew up. It's completely changed public perception of what this period was all about. It must be that what involved. Everybody heard about this site. This is one of the most famous type sites of the whole country. And volunteers that they just dug in there from the beginning and they have one of the most organized and active volunteers who have also been in the entire country on this period. Nowadays they have a hundred volunteers. They are managed by professionals and it's very serious. They have to be at least six times a month. They have to have three hour blocks that they give away at their time. They don't get paid for this. They only get maximum something like 10 euro for transport costs before. They don't even get a lunch unless they commit for a cold day for a special event. And on the bright side, some of the scientists and special lectures of specialists are floating because these people get serious training. These people are very committed basically. She does these workshops but she particularly loves to take people around the site. And I also had an in-depth conversation with her about that because I noticed sometimes curators tend to tell a specific story. It's sometimes a little bit oversimplified. It's homogenized basically. And I feel that it's not always supported by the facts. She agrees, I know. You can't dumb down. You have to tell a factually accurate story. So this name is really, really, although she is not a professional archaeologist, she is very knowledgeable basically. And there are many, many people like her. She told me there are women involved as well, housewives, but of course, it's a bit difficult because if you ask people to give so much of their time, you're not paying for them. This is a bit of a tricky situation. So they have these trauma fences to get women more involved. I mean, look at this very aleco-jomon period. This is hilarious because there's this particular prefective crowd of their jomon, the historic heritage, but also on their apple cultivation. So you see how the local identity, the specific local identity is really made in there. And what I find interesting is that now there's not just four volunteers, who love about some places, is that they actually put aside money to employ local housewives to do cute little things. And I actually have some examples only that they can sell and they can get a little bit of money. Because obviously, especially in rural areas, people are struggling nowadays. So they cannot afford to just give time. They need to get something in return. And especially this place, I really admire this place, it's in Naranau and Naramachi. It's an obsidian museum training local housewives to make cute little accessories of obsidian and giving them a little money in return. They also do, I thought this was, I just thought it was a week ago, I thought it was spectacular. They have a big event introducing this obsidian quarry from the jomon period. They invented 1000 people from the whole prefecture. What they did is they bought local sculpture in the world. So they got 733 local sculptures like 12, 13, 14 years old. They gave them basic training and fun activities with them. And then they got to guide the people the visitors, because this is in the middle of the mountains. So on the way these children get to tell their story. So I saw this little cute interview with one of them, one of the boys, like 13 year old boy. He was dead proud. He really enjoyed this activity. What he particularly enjoyed is that he was able to tell his story to his former primary school classmates and his teacher. This was a really, really good deal. He was really proud that he was able to present his knowledge that he didn't have. So what I really enjoyed about this example is that it actually got him full school children. And of course this is kind of investment because these children will grow up and continue to have this really, really good memory. So I thought this was a particularly innovative example that I really liked. So thank you for your attention.