Jun Kimura

Themes of special interest – Asian Maritime Archaeology

Professional biography

Dr. Jun Kimura is a maritime archaeologist and a faculty member of the Dept. of Maritime Civilizations at Tokai University. He received his PhD in Maritime Archaeology at Flinders University in South Australia in 2011. His doctoral dissertation topic was the archaeological study of shipwrecks in East and Southeast Asia with a focus on the formation of the regional shipbuilding technology. Kimura was a Research Fellow of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in 2012 -2014 and at the Field Museum in Chicago in 2014-2015. He has been a member of the national advisory committee for the investigation and protection of underwater archaeological sites under the Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Dr. Kimura has a number of survey and excavation experience as a field archaeologist at several sites including the naval battlefields related to the Kublai Khan’s 13th century invasions of Japan and Vietnam. His current research interests include the shipwreck archaeology of the Maritime Silk Routes. He is leading an underwater archaeological project about the San Francisco the Manila Galleon sunken in the Japanese waters. Kimura’s major publications are “Naval Battlefield Archaeology of the Lost Kublai Khan Fleets” published in the IJNA and Archaeology of East Asian Shipbuilding Tradition through University Press of Florida.