ABSTRACT
Adefinition of our concept of “Japanese culture” seems called for at the outset. Is it the indigenous Japanese culture centered on the emperor concept, or is it rather the culture that has Buddhism as one of its focal points and that entered from the continent in successive waves? All this, to be sure, is Japanese culture, but a still different concept that leads yet farther back into the past comprises all the manifestations of human activity from the time man first populated the Japanese archipelago. It has fallen to me to review the first and most ancient part of human activity on these islands, namely the so-called “stone age.” I will deal with its distribution and time span and, where feasible, with its affinities.
