Physical Anthropology in Japan: The Ainu and the Search for the Origins of the Japanese (2013)
Low, Morris Fraser (Author)
Current Anthropology
Volume: 53, no. S5
Issue: S5
Pages: 57-68
Publication date: 2013
Language: English
Edition Details: Part of a special section, “Anthropology and National Identity”
In this paper I examine the quest by physical anthropologists in Japan for the origins of the Japanese. A major focus of this research has been the Ainu people of the northern island of Hokkaido, who have recently been declared an indigenous people of Japan. The relationship between mainstream Japanese and the very much living community of the Ainu has been the subject of over 100 years of research. Integral to research has been the collection of Ainu skulls, skeletons, and artefacts that have provided a critical if controversial resource for physical anthropologists. This has all been against the backdrop of changing political ideologies about the so-called purity of the Japanese. In the post--World War II period, with the loss of empire, the idea of Japan as a homogeneous nation took hold, and it was only in the last two decades that this notion has been discredited.
...MoreArticle Lindee, M. Susan; Santos, Ricardo Ventura (2013) The Biological Anthropology of Living Human Populations: World Histories, National Styles, and International Networks: An Introduction to Supplement 5. Current Anthropology (pp. 3-16).
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