He is a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo since 1994, he is an expert in Ainu and northern/Siberian archeology. He is mainly involved in archaeological research of the Jōmon period, and is an authority on Okhotsk culture through Satsumon era. He has authored a number of books specifically about Ainu archaeology, including a 1986 book on the Ainu musical instrument, the tonkori, in collaboration with Eijiro Kanaya.[1] Although professor of the University of Tokyo, the majority of his career was spent in the North Sea Cultural Studies training facility in the town of Tokoro.
