Nana Nakayama

Nana Nakayama is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Human Sciences, specialising in bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of Japan’s Edo period. Since 2024 she has taught a wide spectrum of archaeology, material-culture and research-ethics courses to both on-campus and online-program students while leading JSPS-funded projects on childhood growth and cremation in pre-modern Edo.

Education:

• 2014–2017: Waseda University, Graduate School of Human Sciences (PhD trajectory)

Research Interests:

Nakayama integrates human-osteological analysis with contextual archaeological data to explore how urbanisation, social stratification and industrial development affected the growth, health and funerary treatment of children and adolescents in historic Japanese cities. Her work combines linear-enamel-hypoplasia studies, paleodemographic modelling and mortuary spatial analysis to illuminate lifeways in 17th–19th-century Edo.

Across her peer-reviewed articles she has documented secular changes in skeletal growth, rising physiological stress during economic transitions, and links between hypoplastic defects and lower social status, underscoring the utility of osteological markers for understanding inequality in pre-industrial urban settings.

Current & Recent Grants:

• JSPS Grant-in-Aid “A bioarchaeological study of cremated human remains of 17th–19th-century Edo” (2021–2025)
• JSPS Grant-in-Aid “Childhood growth stages seen in Edo-period cemeteries” (2025–2028)
• Takahashi Young Researcher Grant & Suntory Foundation Challenge Grant for child-growth osteoarchaeology (2018–)

Professional Service:

She serves on the editorial board of Tokyo Archaeology, and is an active member of the Paleopathology Association, the Anthropological Society of Nippon, and the Japanese Archaeological Association.