Yosihiko H. Sinoto

Yosihiko H. Sinoto (born 3 September 1924 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese-born American anthropologist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.^[1] He is known for his anthropological expeditions throughout the Pacific, in particular Hawaii and French Polynesia.^[2]

Biography

He graduated as BA at the University of Hawaii in 1958 and he acquired his DSc at the University of Hokkaido in Japan in 1962.

In 1954 he moved to Hawaii where he began his archaeological dig work at South Point on Hawaii. In 1960 he accompanied anthropologist Kenneth Emory to Tahiti. On the island of Huahine, where he worked for 40 years, he helped to restore and preserve the prehistoric village of Maeva with its temple ruins, or marae. In 1977 he discovered the remnants of a deep-sea voyaging canoe. Sinoto's further expeditions led him to the Society Islands, Marquesas, Tuamotus and others, where he studied the settlements, artifacts, migration patterns and Polynesian cultural ties.^[2][3]

Yosihiko Sinoto's spouse Kazuko is a historian of Japanese immigration. His son Aki is archaeologist at the Bishop Museum.

Honors

Sinoto is honored with a Tahitian knighthood^[4] and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun.^[2]

Sinoto's Lorikeet (Vini sinotoi), an extinct parrot species in the Marquesas Islands and Sir Yosihiko Sinoto, a hybrid variety of hibiscus, are both named for him.^[5]

Bibliography

• Emory, Kenneth P.; Sinoto, Yosihiko H. (1969). "Age of the sites in the South Point area, Ka’u, Hawaii". Pacific anthropological records (Honolulu, HI: Dept. of Anthropology, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum) (8). ISSN 0078-740X. LCCN 71029054. OCLC 659366796. 

References

• Robert D. Craig, Russell T. Clement: Who's who in Oceania, 1980-1981. Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University—Hawaii Campus, 1980 ISBN 978-0-939154-13-5