Takeru Akazawa is Professor of Anthropology at International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto. He was formerly Chair and Curator of the Department of Anthropology and Prehistory at the Tokyo University Museum. In 1967, before his first expedition to Dederiyeh Cave, Syria, he joined the "Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia" directed by Hisashi Suzuki, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tokyo, to make an anthropological reconnaissance on the Paleolithic archaeological field in Western Asia. Since 1970, he has been organizing the Japanese anthropological mission to Syria.
He is the author of Report of the Investigation of the Kamitakatsu Shellmidden Site (1972), coauthor of The Japanese Paleolithic: A Techno-typological Study (1980), and co-editor of Paleolithic Site of the Douara Cave and Paleogeography of Palmyra Basin in Syria: Prehistoric Occurrences and Chronology in Palmyra Basin (1979), Paleolithic Site of the Douara Cave and Paleogeography of Palmyra Basin in Syria: Animal Bones and Further Analysis of Archaeological Materials (1983), Paleolithic Site of the Douara Cave and Paleogeography of Palmyra Basin in Syria: 1984 Excavations (1987), and Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers in Japan: New Research Methods (1986), and The Other Visualized: Depictions of the Mongoloid Peoples (1992), and Prehistoric Mongoloid Dispersals (1996), and The Evolution and Dispersal of Modern Humans in Asia (1995), Neandertals and Modern Humans in Western Asia (1998), Human Mate Choice and Prehistoric Marital Networks (2002), and Neanderthal Burials: Excavations of the Dederiyeh Cave, Afrin, Syria (2002).