Born in Florence, Italy, in 1930, Anati studied Archaeology and Historical Geography at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (B.A., 1953; M.A., 1955). He specialized in Anthropology and Social Relations as a Fulbright scholar, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. (A.M., 1959), and in Ethnology at the Sorbonne, Paris (Docteur es Lettres, 1960). He continued his training in the social sciences at the Universities of London and Oxford (1960-62) with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society.
