Instructions to authors
Instructions to Authors
Revised July 2024
Effective for new manuscript submissions received on or after September 1, 2024:
Journal Information
Anthropological Science (AS) is the open-access, official journal of the Anthropological Society of Nippon. It publishes original and review articles, brief communications, material reports, and book reviews. Printed issues are published two times a year, while on-line uploading (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/ase) is scheduled as frequently as possible.
Anthropological Science concentrates on publishing manuscripts that contribute to understanding the variation, diversification, and evolution of humans and non-human primates. From an anthropological point of view, AS covers biological and cultural works including morphological, genetic, isotopic, functional, archaeological, ethnological, behavioral, ecological, chronological and stratigraphical studies that contribute to understanding the biology, evolution and health of humans and related species. We welcome contributions from all over the world, from both society members and non-members alike.
Submission Guidelines
Submitted papers must be based on original research, and not published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submitted papers must conform in style to the instructions outlined below. When these conditions are not met, or other inadequacies are apparent, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject manuscripts without review. Manuscripts are handled through the peer review process and edited by one of the associate editors or the Editor-in-Chief. Manuscripts are sent out for peer review to two or more reviewers.
Initial submission
Manuscripts of original and review articles, brief communications, material reports, book reviews, and letters to the editor should be submitted on the AS manuscript submission web site (http://www.editorialmanager.com/as/). The Editor-in-Chief can be reached at the following address: Osamu Kondo, Skeletal Biology & Anthropology Laboratory, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. E-mail: as-office@umin.org
1) If you are submitting for the first time, please create a new account. Then follow all step-by-step instructions.
2) Text, figures, and tables should be submitted as separate files to ensure the submission successful.
3) At the initial submission, the list of references CAN BE in ANY STYLE or FORMAT, as long as the style is consistent.
4) To avoid possible delay or error in processing your submission, your files should be submitted in the following format styles:
(1) The title page, abstract, text, and figure legends must be contained in a single Word file, readable in Windows.
(2) Tables can be sent in either Word or Excel files, readable in Windows.
(3) Figures should be sent in JPEG or TIFF format. Initially submitted figures do not need to be in high resolution, but the necessary details must be readable in screen size.
4) When your manuscript is successfully submitted, you will receive e-mail confirmation that the editorial office receives the manuscript.
Submission after acceptance
Upon acceptance of the paper, the corresponding author is required to submit the final accepted version of the manuscript via the submission web site.
1) Submit the final accepted version of the manuscript, including title page, abstract, text, and figure legends in Word, and tables in Word or Excel. Prepare the figures in separate files. Figures must be compiled in JPEG or TIFF format and in high resolution suitable for printing: electronic files of photographs and illustrations should be at a resolution of 600 dpi or higher at the size to be printed, those of line drawings should be 1200 dpi or higher.
2) Copy editing adjustments will be made to accepted manuscripts. During proof reading, the corresponding author is required to check for any undesired changes that may have inadvertently occurred during copyediting.
Manuscript style
1) Manuscripts should be formatted at A4 (297 × 210 mm) size, or the nearest local equivalent, using approximately 25 mm (or one inch) margins on all sides. Page 1 should contain the article title, author name(s), affiliation(s) and address(es) (city, postal code, and country for each author), and suggested running title not exceeding 50 characters (including spaces). The complete mailing address and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be indicated. Page 2 of original and review articles, brief communications, and material reports should contain a short abstract of less than 300 words. A list of up to five key words should be provided below the abstract.
2) Text footnotes are not permitted.
3) Tables. All tables must be cited in the text. Number the tables consecutively with Arabic numerals, such as Table 3, in order of appearance in the text. Supply a short explanatory title above the body of the table, and type table footnotes lettered a, b, c, etc., below the body of the table. Do not use vertical rules.
4) Figures. All figures must be cited in the text. Number the figures consecutively with Arabic numerals, such as Figure 3, in order of appearance in the text. Dimensions of each illustration, photograph, or composite imagery should be no larger than the size of the manuscript page, and must be submitted complete and in final form. Photographs should be glossy prints or of equivalent quality. Figure legends are to be typed, double-spaced, consecutively on paper sheets separate from the figures themselves. In both the text and figure legends, always spell out Figure fully; i.e. do not use the abbreviation Fig.
5) Concise appendices can be part of the article in printed and electronic forms. Electronic supplementary materials such as large datasets, images and audio/sound clips, are accepted to enhance your article. Supported file formats are pdf, txt, csv, jpg, tiff , mp3, avi, mov, mp4, stl and zip. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received and cannot be changed once they are published online.
6) References. Only references cited in the abstract, text, tables and figure legends should be listed. Suffixes a, b, c, etc. should be used following the date to distinguish two or more works by the same author(s)in the same year. References should be cited in the text by surname and year in parentheses, in chronological order, such as:
…according to Ohtsuka (1986), Ishida (1988, 2002), Brown (1990), Ishida and Dodo (2000a, b)…
…were demonstrated (Dodo and Hanihara, 1988a, b; Suwa, 1990; Brown, 1992, 2002; Dodo, 1994)…
Where there are three or more coauthors, only the first author’s name is given in the text followed by ‘et al.’, such as
…Dodo et al. (2002)… or …(Dodo et al., 2002)…
List references at the end of the manuscript. At the initial submission, the list CAN BE in ANY STYLE or FORMAT, as long as the style is consistent. Once the manuscript has been accepted, the authors will be requested to follow the AS style shown below.
The reference list of the AS style should be in alphabetical order by author, and in chronological order when there are two or more references of the same author(s). References with three or more authors with the same first author should be listed in chronological order, regardless of the names of the other authors. Articles with six or more authors can be abbreviated to the first five authors’ names plus et al. Do not abbreviate journal titles or publisher names. Spell these out fully. Style and punctuation are illustrated by the following examples. Use of DOI is highly encouraged. When citing the online items including preprints, the access date (the day you visited a website and got information from it) is required.
Journal article:
Nara T., Hanihara T., Dodo Y., and Vandermeersch B. (1998) Influence of the interproximal attrition of teeth on the formation of Neanderthal retromolar space. Anthropological Science, 106: 297–309.
Iwamoto M. and Tomita M. (1966) On the movement order of four limbs while walking and body weight distribution to fore and hind limbs while standing on all fours in monkeys. Journal of Anthropological Society of Nippon, 74: 228–231. (in Japanese with English summary)
Hasebe K. (1917) Nihonjin tougai no chiiki teki sai. Journal of Anthropological Society of Nippon, 32: 285–296. (in Japanese)
Online publication not yet in print:
Haile-Selassie Y. and Asfaw B. (2004) Hominid cranial remains from Aduma, Middle Awash, Ethiopia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI:10.1002/ajpa.10330 (in press).
Nakamura Y., Waku D., Wakiyama Y., Watanabe Y., Koganebuchi K. et al. Collagen of ancient bones gives an indication of endogenous DNA preservation based on the next generation sequencing technology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.05.02.538509 Accessed 1 Nov 2023
Book:
Ruhlen, M. (1987). A Guide to the World’s Languages, Volume 1: Classification. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Contribution in a book:
Horai S. (1995) Origin of Homo sapiens inferred from the age of the common ancestral human mitochondrial DNA. In: Brenner S. and Hanihara K. (eds.), The Origin and Past of Modern Humans as Viewed from DNA. World Scientific, Singapore, pp. 171–185.
Limit of revision period
Authors who have been requested to revise their manuscript should send the revision through the Author Login within one year of reception of the editorial decision. Otherwise, the submitted manuscript is regarded as withdrawn.
Book reviews
Authors of both solicited and non-solicited book reviews are required to submit their manuscripts online. Manuscript style should be comparable with the above, but with no title, abstract, running title, or key words. Tables and figures are not permitted, but references can be used and listed as necessary. The first lines of the book review must spell out the title, author(s), publisher, year, ISBN number, number of pages, and price. The reviewer’s name, affiliation, and address should be given at the end. Unsolicited reviews must be submitted together with a copy of the reviewed book.
Policies
License and copyright
At the initial submission, the author will be asked to allow AS exclusive rights to publish and use their accepted manuscript. AS does not require authors to assign copyright of their published original research papers to the journal. The articles published by AS are licensed under a CC-BY license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License), but the author(s) can choose CC-BY-NC license (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license) if he/she/they prefer. A CC-BY license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. A CC-BY-NC license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Human and non-human animal studies and subjects
Manuscripts submitted to Anthropological Science that report research concerning living human and nonhuman subjects in both the field and laboratory are expected to comply strictly with relevant institutional and national (governmental) guidelines and regulations regarding ethical treatment of research subjects. In the manuscript, a statement identifying the approval by the appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board and acquisition of appropriate informed consent is mandatory. The editor reserves the right to request formal documentation of the compliance.
Distribution of data
AS recognizes the many benefits of archiving research data. AS expects to archive all data from which published results are derived in a public repository. Nucleotide and protein sequences and microarray data including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), short tandem repeat polymorphisms (STRP) and copy-number variants (CNVs) must be deposited in international public databases (DDBJ, EMBL, GenBank, etc.) and be accessible without restriction from the date of publication. All accepted manuscripts are required to publish a data availability statement to confirm the presence or absence of shared data. If you have shared data, this statement will describe how the data can be accessed, and include a persistent identifier (e.g., a DOI for the data, or an accession number) from the repository where you shared the data. Authors will be required to confirm adherence to the policy. If you cannot share the data described in your manuscript, for example for legal or ethical reasons, or do not intend to share the data then you must provide the appropriate data availability statement. AS notes that FAIR data sharing allows for access to shared data under restrictions (e.g., to protect confidential or proprietary information) but notes that the FAIR principles encourage you to share data in ways that are as open as possible (but that can be as closed as necessary). Sample statements are available below. These statements should be placed in the “Materials and Methods” of your manuscript.
“The complete mitogenome sequence of IK001 was deposited in the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) under accession number LC659323.”
“We deposited all the short-read sequences produced for this study into the DDBJ Sequence Read Archive (SRA; http://trace.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/dra/). Sequence data are available for download through SRA (accession number DRA008031).”
Conflict of interest
AS requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of a conflict of interest. Any financial or other interest or relationship that could affect the author's objectivity is considered a potential source of a conflict of interest. If you have no interests to declare, please note the following words: "The authors declare no competing interests."
Author contribution
AS recommends that manuscripts, including original articles, review articles, brief communications, material reports, book reviews, include a statement of responsibility that specifies all author contributions. The author contribution statements are included in the published paper.
Policy for preprint
AS will consider reviewing articles previously available as preprints posted on servers such as bioRxiv. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time.
Publication Fees
1) Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, the author(s) or his/her/their company or institution will be asked to pay a charge indicated below to cover part of the cost of publication. When submitting from non-Japanese countries, it will be converted to the local currency value according to the exchange rate at that time.
Original article and Review article:
Rate A: JPY 100,000
Rate B: JPY 50,000
Brief communication and Material report:
Rate A: JPY 50,000
Rate B: JPY 25,000
Book review:
No charge
For non-members of The Anthropological Society of Nippon, Rate A applies to the corresponding author based in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, USA, and Western European countries; Rate B includes all other countries/regions. Rate B apply to members of The Anthropological Society of Nippon.
2) Costs for color pages in the printed version will be charged to the author(s). Authors are also charged for additional costs incurred by figures redrawn due to bad quality and excessive changes in proof.
3) Reprints may be ordered at a set price.
