ABSTRACT
In Japan the discipline of anthropology originated more than 100 years ago: the first volume of the Japanese journal of physical anthropology was published in 1886. The most conspicuous characteristic of Japanese studies in anthropology in Africa is that they were pioneered by researchers from a primatological background. Interpreting these results that were originally published in a Japanese article in 1989, Osaki discussed the problem of to what extent the egalitarian system which had governed the traditional San social life had been influenced by sedentarism. Under the influence of primatology, Japanese studies of ecological anthropology have been characterized by an orientation towards a synthetic theory of the evolution of human society. The studies based on intensive fieldwork among extant hunter-gatherers were initiated by the research focusing on the San in Botswana, Southern Africa.
