[M-IS27] History X Earth and Planetary Science

[MIS27-01] Sharing historical materials: An example of multi-disciplinal examination of historical materials in Edo period

★Invited Papers

*Hirotaka Terashima¹ (1.National Archives of JAPAN )

Keywords:Environmental history, Ecology, Fusarium oxysporum

We have made a joint research on environmental history based on collaboration with history, biology, and forest ecology regarding historical materials of disease and insect damage that occurred in the late Edo period. Records of beech fusarium oxysporum caused by Kashinonagakikuimushi, Kashinaga or Platypus quercivorus, have not been confirmed before 1934 yet, but there is a possibility of oak damage by Kashinaga from ancient documents (Shimada Hiroshi Family, 1030, April 1863) left in Sakae Village, Nagano Prefecture. The original documents were first transcribed and interpreted based on historical methods. (1) Outbreaks of moths larvae called Kususan occured in Ohayashi or public forest between 1830 and 1843 (Tenpo year) and killed chestnuts, (2) then trees felled down with snow, (3) the reduced trees were filled up by beech. From a biology perspective, however, Kususan does not kill the trees themselves even if Kususan eats up the leaves of beech trees and konara oak. For this reason, if we think of death of trees as damage by Kashinaga, we can explain the description in the historical materials. Furthermore, it was appropriate to describe that the beech was used to resist snow from the field survey conducted by forest ecologist. In this way, knowledge of biological and forest ecology was added to historical interpretation, suggesting occurrence of damage by Kashinaga in the late Edo period. Around the same time as this study, a diary was discovered in a shrine in Iiyama City, which is a neighborhood of Sakae Village, directly describing the damage caused by Kashinaga in the 1750s. It has been pointed out that this historical document showed that damages by Kashinaga repeatedly occurred in a location with many large-diameter trees such as a shrine forest from the viewpoint of forest ecology. The introduction of unexpected perspective from natural science shows the limitations of interpretation only from historical perspective. In addition, historical examination of the historical background is also essential, for example, as there is a possibility that the document was falsely written because the residents cut trees unofficially in the forest.