 Japan has actually a very long history of addressing the past and its tangible remains from the chronicles spanning from the 7th century to 12th centuries, to the scholars from the 17th century to the 19th century and then to the different timescales of the modern era. Every period shows a distinctive approach towards the material remains of the past. And this know maybe is the fact that the same actually applies to its uninterrupted history of natural disaster. Floods, deluge of rain, extreme winds, earthquakes, hurricane, tsunami, landslides and volcanic eruptions, whatever you name it, they have it all. Even heavy pounding in industrial catastrophes such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. However, even in a land so aware of its aggressive environmental situation, the question of how to make sure that previous knowledge about these events can actually be taken into account shows up very often. Each time a new disaster occurs, actually those questions show up. And this is of course not a Japanese issue per se, but Japan being a very well equipped land from higher centricity requires a systematic approach of recording catastrophes folding upon its inhabitants. One can feel that it is of great importance to understand why and how parts of very valuable available knowledge documented both by historical records and recent archaeological research tend to eventually slip into the void. And giving this kind of false impression that they are only to research when a new disaster strikes again. Japanese preventive archaeology, rescue archaeology actually addresses very well the matter of documenting past disasters and for a long time. This comes probably from a deep awareness of what the Japanese archipelago is and after the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, which was a big, big one, this preventive archaeology spawned another version of itself referred actually to as disaster-led archaeology. Both an archaeology of disasters and an archaeology under the circumstances of disaster. And well, this may sound like a kind of Japanese specialty somehow, but as a research field, of course, it's set in a broader, actually even an universal set of issues of very roughly three orders, I would say. First, a framework of ignorance and denial of the past conversions of the planet. Second, a framework of very ancient past, present and future events of climate change. And finally, a framework made of the challenges posed by a responsible, unsustainable human development. We could think of others, but let's go with those three. These different issues come often in the way of what could be the value of disaster archaeology for the progress of society, but also its raison d'être. And Japan may be an excellent spot of observation by its maturity observing those phenomenon to learn what are actually the real problems of transmission and application of knowledge regarding those recurring disasters. So first, obviously, there is a priority which is documenting disasters. I was in Japan shortly after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. I was also in Japan for a long period of stay after the 2011 earthquake. And in both cases, a resurgent question was that of the preparedness or rather the unpreparedness of Japan regarding these cataclysmic events. And well, actually, Japan society and authorities are quite prepared. Of course, it can never be enough, but this is my own opinion that if anything close to what happened in Japan happened in any European country, it would be far worse in consequences. And as I already mentioned briefly in Japan, documenting natural disasters take a very noticeable place in many shapes from distant historical past to recent history. And I'd like to have an overview of what kind of documentation we are actually talking about. The most ancient one are official historical state records. This kind of record goes back as far as 684, meaning the very first steps actually of scripture in Japan, meaning disaster records and the invention of scripture in Japan are related. They happen nearly at the same time, if they're old. This record is called the Nihonsuki, one of the two oldest official chronicles of the Japanese state. And at the entry of the year 684, so the 10th year of the reign of the emperor Temmu, you have quite a description about the Hakuhou earthquake, which is followed by a tsunami on the Pacific coast of Shikoku and laying destruction. I think this one is the first historical occurrence of natural disaster in Japan. Another official source from antiquity, which called late attention after 2011, is the relation of the Jogan era earthquake in 869, which struck the northeastern province of Japan. The account of the disaster is very vividly written, reporting extreme shakes, tsunami and earth tsunami that went well over three kilometers inside the coastal limits in very similar ways to what happened actually in 2011. It's a doppelganger. Another source on those disasters is literature. Japanese literature in its many shapes, very on, is very rich on accounts on the calamities that fell upon the population of the archipelago. One of the most famous translated in several western languages is the Hojouki, visions of a torn world in its English translation. It exists in English. Written by Kamono Chome at the beginning of the 13th century. Here again we can find very vivid depiction of fire, tornado, famine, and last but not least the great earthquake of the Bunji era in 1185 that led to the destruction on a massive scale of entire parts of the capital city of the time, the actual Kyoto. Then we have a lot of graphic depictions. Japan is well known for its wood block prints, wood block prints, and even before that for its maps or illustrated scrolls. And many of these actually are very reliable sources of information on past disasters, information that we can cross-reference with archaeological findings. And a very well documented earthquake, the earthquake of Ido in 1703. And you have this painting which proposes a narrative of the events. On number one you have the daily life and happy life in the streets of Ido. On the second one you read it right to left. On two you have the city shaking, actually. On three you have the destruction landscape. And on four you have big fire that usually shortly comes after the massive destruction. Then you have the chaos after fire and after destruction. You have on six the habitation that are roughly built in order to shelter the survivors of the shake. Then on seven, eight, and nine you have procession, religious procession in order to pray for the death. Then progressively you go to nine and you have the city of Ido that is rebuilt and everything is fine again. So you have a loop, a circle of how people used to consider those events. Another well documented disaster is documented by the map made in the aftermath of the great Zankozi earthquake, not far from Nagano. It shows the consequences of the earthquake of 1847 in the form of landslides and flood. All the brown parts are landslides, which is the flood of the Sai River which is a big river in the region. And you do not only have those kinds of documentation on what happened but you have also a very analytic one who explained what really happened. Meaning by that they had a big earthquake and a lot of debris came to build a natural dam in the Sai River and eventually the dam collapsed. And this is after the collapse that all the valley went submerged by the river and that landslide occurs. So you have very precise depiction on the consequences after the shake. And maybe the most famous of all those rather recent era earthquake is the great Anse earthquake in Ido again and this time in 1855 and other kind of graphic depiction. This is for earthquake and consequences of earthquake. Actually you have a lot of graphic depiction of all kinds of disaster, not only earthquake. I will pass on other kinds because there are so many and we could go on for hours. But basically they are all well documented, be it volcanic eruption with their lava flow, gas, flying rocks of volcano. So you have really precise depiction of any kind of disaster you can think of. And of course you also have tsunami depiction. We also have, of course, and this is the main issue for us, scientific documentation and education. And all this historical documentation is actually followed until today by more modern investigation methods such as geology, archaeology and is participating in the education of the masses concerning the recurrence of disasters in Japan. Museums hold regularly exhibitions on the matter. Specific places are frozen in time at the time of the disaster in order to keep the experience very alive in the memories of people. And scientifically speaking, archaeology has a very important role in the construction of disaster-related narratives. And since the end of the 80s, the GAAA, Japanese Archaeological Association, recognized archaeology of disaster as one of its specific research field. And after the quake in 1995 in Kobe, archaeology became even a tool participating in the construction of a kind of rhetoric of resilience among the people of Kobe. Just a small example, the rescue excavation in Awaji-Jima Island near Kobe of a settlement destroyed during a great earthquake during the Yayoi period, meaning 2,000 years ago, showed how past population overcame a great disaster, implying that present populations could not do less. And another example more about semantics this time, the excavation performed in the context of the reconstruction after 1995, often criticized, became Fukko Chosa, meaning excavation for relief accompanying the reconstruction rather than obstructing it. And this rhetoric reemerged in the northeast after 2011 and helped a great deal to build somehow positive thinking about rescue archaeology in the context of, well, you have to put people back to their life really quick and archaeology can be perceived as a problem, as an obstruction. I'm almost done. In Japan, both excavation at Tagajo Ancient Provincial Palatial Complex and later geological investigation revealed the scale of the Jogun Era earthquake I was referring a few minutes ago. And the results were translated into the reinforcement of the seaside protection of the Onagawa nuclear power plant near Sendai. But unfortunately, not at Fukushima Daiichi, and these are two different companies which each its own policy, let's say. And well, at the modern era you also have photographs about earthquake and disaster, and this is the settlement from the Yayoi period that collapsed 2,000 years ago because of a really, really big earthquake. But for sure, obviously, documenting is not enough to be sure there can be loopholes in the documenting strategy, but Japan until present times is certainly not characterized by general lack of documentation on the natural calamity that before its land. So one can safely consider that documenting is not the only parameter to control in the larger spectrum of preventing catastrophes, dealing with them. And grasping with natural disaster and their consequences imply being able to think long-term strategies. After the Jogun Era earthquake and the devastation of the coastal settlements, for a while populations reorganized, they are living at a good distance from the coast to eventually return closer to the ocean and, whoops, getting hit again. And this is a picture from 2012, 2013, I think, after the passage of the tidal wave. Climate change, if it does not impact on earthquakes, surely has an impact on the formation of hurricanes, typhoons, and makes the issue of anticipating disasters even more vital, we could say. Nuclear pollution or nuclear waste actually deepens the issue. Long-term here must be measured not in hundreds of years, but in thousands, even tens of thousands of years. And it causes a very, very deep problem in the matter of managing heritage. You can't access some sites right now because they are, for example, in the red zone, the so-called red zone near Fukushima Daiichi Plant. And you cannot observe, maintain good condition for some of the classified sites, archaeological sites you have in Fukushima. So the question really is, how do we build up a system that enables us to project in long-term, in a period in history when we have great technology, but when governments tend to cut their budget and corporations aims to maximize their short-term profits. So we sure have a great potential, but at the same time, very few stretching. I feel we have very few stretching ability towards the future. In the nuclear era, future means very, very distant future. And I think archaeologists are quite fit for this kind of job because we are used to deal with huge chunk of time, but we are not in charge. And now we stop. No?