QuoteReplyTopic: The Origins of Japanese people Posted: 10-Nov-2008 at 05:05
Originally posted by Sarmat12
Originally posted by pebbles
Originally posted by Sarmat12
Originally posted by SameButDifferent
It is from the Ainu that the Japanese derive thier samirai mythology.
What do you mean by this?
In the early 20th century,a few Japanese historians credited the chivalrous ( bushido ) spirits to Ainu.Japan's indigenous people were orignally gifted in craftsmanship and martial valour.
Weren't the first samurais the frontier guardsmen on the borders with Ainu and Amishu? I read that the Japanese horse archery was actually learned by samurais from Amishu. In this light the argument could indeed make some sense.
It's a little inaccurate to conflate the Ainu and Emishi into a single entity. From what I can tell, "Emishi" appears to be a catch-all term analogous to "Barbarian". The Early Japanese identified at least three different types of Emishi. The Emishi of central Honshu (the ones that heavily influenced the military development of Japan), are generally considered to have been a hybrid Jomon-Yayoi culture (or cultures).
Some Emishi groups were intimately involved in early Japanese society, and it's entirely possible that many Samurai were, rather than being inspired by Emishi, actually "Emishi" themselves.
Originally posted by Pinguin
It has always called my attention that Japan has the same denial of native roots that the United States. The difference is more striking when we realize Amerindians and East Asians are related in the same way Caucasians and Ainus are.
So Japan is the mirror image of the United States. In the first, the Ainus were forgotten and in the seconds the Indians were. In both cases, the contributions of the native people were buried to benefit of the largest immigrant majority.
Today genetics and archeology are making the records straight
While it's true that the Japanese have an ugly history of marginalizing aboriginal cultures, it isn't a mirror of the American experience. Concerted efforts to eradicate aboriginal cultures didn't really begin until the Meiji era, as part of a nationalization movement that was more analogous to the post-imperial westernization projects of other non-western states than to the American westward expansion.
Further, the Ainu are not "Caucasian". Aside from their tending to be relatively hairy, there's nothing about them that would suggest that.
Originally posted by pebbles
Recent scholarship believed Emishi were descendants of Jomon.
Most Japanese are descended from the Jomon, among other things. The same goes for the Emishi.
The aboriginal peoples of Japan have always fascinated me, particularly because their presence and resistance against the incoming Japanese people is for the most part ignored in the Japanese education system. I have however attended many cultural exchange programs with Ainu people who are the last surviving window to the aboriginal peoples of the Japanese isles. Despite the fact that obviously they are heavily mixed with Japanese people, they are physically still quite distinct from Japanese people. They have deeper eye sockets, larger and longer nose and more robust facial structure that does not have the east Asian flatness to it. Their facial structure simply made me think that they might have been originally related to Australian aboriginals or Papua New Guineans, which combined with their light skin makes it understandable as to why some anthropologists in the 19th century thought that they have Caucasoid features. The amount of hair they have is not just relatively more than Japanese, but they are the hairiest people I have seen on earth. It was not only the thickness of their beards or eyebrows on their face, but the amount of hair on their body that was very striking to me. Their whole body is covered with a thick mat of hair which was visible from the sleeves and the front and the back of the neck. When I shook hands with an Ainu man I was surprised by the amount of hair on the back of his hand. According to the study of skeletal remains from the early Jomon period, it is known that Ainu people have the closest craniological features to Jomon people, which shows that after more than two thousand years of conquest, mixing and formations of new ethnic identities between the incoming Yayoi people, some Siberian groups from the north, and native Jomon people, it is safe to assume that Jomon physical characteristcs have survived more in Ainu people than Japanese people. From linguistic evidence such as the personal names of the Emishi people, geographical names left in north Honshu, and the fact that the Japanese needed interpreters to communicate with the Emishi, we can see that the Emishi spoke a distinct non-Japanese language which was related to the modern Ainu language. Granted that there was a lot of mixing and that the real picture is much more complex, from all this we can still see a rough continuity from the Jomon people to ancient Mojin, to Emishi peoples and today's Ainu people, as opposed to the Yayoi - Yamato - Japanese continuity. Added to this is the Siberian group that came through Sakhalin and Hokkaido, who were distinct from both the Jomon and Yayoi people, and created the Ashihase culture. I am quite confident to say that before any mixing occurred between the native Jomon people and the incoming peoples, the two groups were physically very distinct from each other, probably each group belonged to a different wave of out-of-Africa migration. The Jomon people must have been very unique in their appearance and racial development/background. Pinguin in my opinion makes a good point by comparing the Japanese situation to that of North America, because from what I have seen, the Jomon physical/genetic contribution to the Japanese people is in a very similar degree to the native American contribution to the (white) north American population. For example it is quite normal for many north Americans who do not look any different from Europeans, to have a native American line somewhere in their ancestry, meaning that the native American ancestry is certainly there in them but not to an extent to alter their European physical appearance dramatically. This in my opinion is the extent of (early) Jomon genetic influence on the Japanese people, that it is certainly there but was simply absorbed into the larger component, not influencing the general appearance of the Japanese people who for the most part do not look any different today from Koreans or the Chinese, apart from them being marginally hairier. There are still very occasionally some Japanese people who do have the robust face with deep eyes and long nose, especially in the Tohoku region. Ainu people are disappearing little by little too in spite of the recent movement in Japan to preserve their culture. Almost all the Ainu people I have met are only a quarter or less Ainu. I hope these sites and pictures help a little. http://www.emishi-ezo.net/WhoEmishi.htm http://www.oldphotosjapan.com/en/photos/144/ainu http://zichi.blogspot.com/2008/06/japan-recognizes-ainu-as-indigenous.html http://ampontan.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/ainu-2.jpg http://www.arco-iris.com/George/images/ainu_pair.jpg http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ainu.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/AinuGroup.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/AinuManStilflied.JPG http://flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/2746187012/
Their facial structure simply made me think that they might have been originally related to Australian aboriginals or Papua New Guineans,
I have always found the history of Australoid groups interesting.
As a side note, Australoid groups are found in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. The Pakistani, Thai and Malay groups are very small where as the Indian and Sri Lankan groups are relatively larger.
Some Indian bands in California (now extinct) were described by the Spanish as having Australoid features. I think that there are still very small numbers of people in Somalia and Yemen with Australoid features. They migrated through South Asia and then split into tow migration patterns. The alrgest was to Australia with a smaller population going to Northeren Japan and eventually, the Americas.
Originally posted by omshanti
I am quite confident to say that before any mixing occurred between the native Jomon people and the incoming peoples, the two groups were physically very distinct from each other, probably each group belonged to a different wave of out-of-Africa migration.
My theory is that Australoids were the first people to leave Africa. But, they left in smaller groupss with a lower level of technology and social development. As a result, they were gradually forced into more isolated areas by larger, better equipped and better orgainized Asiatic and Caucasoid groups.
The aboriginal peoples of Japan have always fascinated me, particularly because their presence and resistance against the incoming Japanese people is for the most part ignored in the Japanese education system.
Yes, this is a terrible shame. Until recently, there really doesn't seem to have been much curiosity at all about the interaction between early Japanese cultures.
Originally posted by omshanti
From linguistic evidence such as the personal names of the Emishi people, geographical names left in north Honshu, and the fact that the Japanese needed interpreters to communicate with the Emishi, we can see that the Emishi spoke a distinct non-Japanese language which was related to the modern Ainu language. Granted that there was a lot of mixing and that the real picture is much more complex, from all this we can still see a rough continuity from the Jomon people to ancient Mojin, to Emishi peoples and today's Ainu people, as opposed to the Yayoi - Yamato - Japanese continuity.
Here I have to take issue with you. The following article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hokkaido/ainu.html, suggests that, culturally at least, the Emishi were not Jomon. Even the Emishi who established the Satsumon culture on Hokkaido were a predominantly Yayoi culture whose "material culture resembles that of these early state peoples, particularly the Nara and Heian regimes."
While the Jomon genetic heritage certainly remains strongest in the north, that doesn't mean that the Emishi, or today's Ainu, are necessarily the cultural descendants of the Jomon. Since southern Honshu was ground zero for immigration to Japan, continental genetic influence was bound to be largest there, regardless of how cultural influences spread around the islands.
A strong argument can be made that the Yamato and the Emishi cultures neighbouring them were more closely related to each other than to anything else, and that they were deeply interconnected. I find it interesting that everyone agrees many Emishi accepted imperial rule, but little thought seems to be given to what these tribes' role was once they became part of Yamato society. Early Japanese society was probably a mish-mash of cultures that only congealed into what we now call "Japanese" much later.
Originally posted by omshanti
I am quite confident to say that before any mixing occurred between the native Jomon people and the incoming peoples, the two groups were physically very distinct from each other, probably each group belonged to a different wave of out-of-Africa migration. The Jomon people must have been very unique in their appearance and racial development/background.
Pinguin in my opinion makes a good point by comparing the Japanese situation to that of North America, because from what I have seen, the Jomon physical/genetic contribution to the Japanese people is in a very similar degree to the native American contribution the (white) north American population. For example it is quite normal for many north Americans who do not look any different from Europeans, to have a native American line somewhere in their ancestry, meaning that the native American ancestry is certainly there in them but not to an extent to alter their European physical appearance dramatically.
Following from what I wrote above, if the Yamato and Emishi were both Yayoi cultures, then the most appropriate analogy for the Yamato/Emishi relationship would probably be the English/French colonies' relationship in North America, rather than the European/Aboriginal one. In both cases new cultures were competing to replace what had existed before, but in radically different ways.
Like the Emishi, New France had a relatively low population and a relatively high level of hybridization between native and imported culture. Like the Yamato, New England had a relatively high population and a relatively low level of hybridization with native cultures, and stronger links to the source of its imported culture. Like the Yamato, the English would gradually emerge as the dominant culture, but not without being heavily influenced by the French and Aboriginal cultures it encountered, and those cultures have continued to develop within the English-dominated society since (as the Emishi did, for centuries, within Japanese society).
Bernard Woolley, it seems to me that we are talking about two different things. The focus of my post was on the physical/biological aspect of people and their relation to each other. In short I was talking about race. I know that many people have issues with this but that is a different matter all together as nobody can change my interest and focus on the physical aspects of human/hominid evolution and interactions. On the other hand your focus, at least on the surface, seems to be on culture. I can see that there is a general problem in the subject that might cause confusion between the racial aspect and the cultural aspect of the jomon-Yayoi or aboriginal-foreign relations in the Japanese isles. Namely the fact that the native peoples responsible for the making of Jomon culture and the immigrants whose possession and importation of agriculture was responsible for the Yayoi culture, lack their own names and are often simply identified with the names of the cultures they created, apart from the ambiguous name 'Yamato' for the latter group. This probably caused the confusion between the focus of my post and your post. As we know, although intimately related, culture and people are two different things and can travel differently. My post was also about the aboriginal-foreign relation of people in Japan as a whole both in time and space of which the Emishi are only a part of, as opposed to your stronger focus on the Emishi and their culture. In conclusion, I see nothing in your post that contradicts anything in my post.
The obvious difference between the Jomon culture and the Yayoi culture
is that the former is characterised by hunter-gatherer lifestyle and
the latter by agricultural or farming lifestyle which was introduced by
the immigrants who started migrating into the Japanese isles from around 400BC
onwards.
Satsumon culture which is together with the Okhotsk culture considered
to be ancestral to the Ainu culture was created sometime around
600AD~800AD by the Emishi people who fled from the severe wars of
conquest by the Japanese against the Emishi in eastern and northern Honshu. The
article I posted: http://www.emishi-ezo.net/WhoEmishi.htm in which you found the article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hokkaido/ainu.html, very clearly mentions the following: ''According to archeological findings from the fifth to the seventh
centuries AD, the northern half of Tohoku (roughly extending from
northern Miyagi prefecture to Aomori) and the western part of Hokkaido
formed a single cultural area, and many Ainu place names are left in
the Tohoku. It is beyond the discussion of this introduction to go into
the Jomon, Epi-Jomon and Yayoi cultures as they affected the Tohoku
region, but to simplify this discussion, it is now believed that
evidence points to the Emishi tie in with the Tohoku Middle Yayoi
pottery culture that is heavily influenced by Jomon forms--almost as if
these peoples were gradually adopting Yayoi culture from the seventh to
the eighth centuries.''
I have no objection to and do not remember writing anything against Emishi people being of mixed stock of aboriginals and immigrants, especially since 1. They had already possessed agriculture which was one of the cornerstones of the immigrants and the Yayoi culture. 2. They were in Honshu the same island the immigrants landed, and shared borders with the Yamato/Japanese people. 3. Their presence and resistance is mainly noted long after 400BC which was when the immigrants started to come in.
So it is natural to assume that they were already heavily mixed with the immigrants, however this is where we have to think about the merits of agriculture over hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Agriculture or farming lifestyle can sustain far larger population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This in my opinion is the main reason the immigrants flourished in their numbers wherever they settled and were able to outnumber and absorb the aboriginal peoples without receiving from them any dramatic genetic influence enough to alter their physical appearance. However, from 1. the chronology of changes in the pottery styles in the Tohoku region which changed from epi-Jomon to Yayoi styles around 600AD 2. the low population around the same time of the Emishi people compared to the Yamato people 3. their geographical location (Michinoku) which was the furthest in Honshu from where the immigrants came in. 4. their recorded appearance, such as their hairiness 5. their language we can see that the influence of the immigrants was still recent and minimal, and that they still retained a much larger aboriginal element in them, both physically and linguistically, compared to the Yamato/Japanese people.
So I would say yes, your analogy of comparing the Yamato-Emishi relation to that of the English-French colonies in north America with the focus on culture does work, but my analogy of comparing the whole aboriginal-foreign relation of Japan to that of the native-European relation in north America with the focus on physical anthropology and racial influence does also work.
I don't agree with your statement that little thought has been given in this thread regarding the contribution of the Emishi to the Japanese. The discussion of the Emishi and indigenous people started in this thread with the focus on their military contribution and their influence on (or possibly their creation of) the Samurai class within the Yamato/Japanese society. So it all started from the thought about their contribution. I would be very happy though to hear about more than just military contribution.
Bernard Woolley, it seems to me that we are talking about two different things.
I think I'd agree. I'll clarify that I didn't disagree with you on the main point you were making, and as you mentioned, the source of confusion was probably that we each attached different meanings to "Jomon" and "Yayoi".
A recent string of posts have suggested that the Ainu and their ancestors are basically equivalent to the native peoples of North America - I think this is inaccurate, and perhaps stems from a romanticization of the Ainu that does a disservice to their actual place in Japanese history.
Originally posted by omshanti
So I would say yes, your analogy of comparing the Yamato-Emishi relation to that of the English-French colonies in north America with the focus on culture does work, but my analogy of comparing the whole aboriginal-foreign relation of Japan to that of the native-European relation in north America with the focus on physical anthropology and racial influence does also work.
And on this I agree with you.
Originally posted by omshanti
I don't agree with your statement that little thought has been given in this thread regarding the contribution of the Emishi to the Japanese. The discussion of the Emishi and indigenous people started in this thread with the focus on their military contribution and their influence on (or possibly their creation of) the Samurai class within the Yamato/Japanese society. So it all started from the thought about their contribution. I would be very happy though to hear about more than just military contribution.
Oh, I didn't mean on this thread. I'm very happy that the subject is being discussed here. I meant that, in the world beyond this forum, I've found information about Japan's ethnic history hard to come by (Of course, I suppose that may simply be because I'm way over here in North America where libraries tend not to stock many books on the subject).
Japanese DNA sequence is made up of: 4.8% Japanese 24.2% Korean 25.8% Chinese 8.1% Ainu 16.1% Okinawan 21% Unidentified
Chinese DNA sequence is made up of: 60.6% Chinese 1.5% Japanese 10.6% Korean 1.5% Ainu 10.6% Okinawan 15.2% Unidentified
This
research isn't fake, it was done using SNP (Single nucleotide
polymorphism). Japanese are probably the least homogenous, genetically.
makes sense because its an isolated group of islands.
Biggest contributor to DNA sequence is in bold (genetic specificity taken into account)
Korean DNA sequence is made up of: 40.6% Korean
21.9% Chinese
1.6% Ainu
17.4% Okinawan
18.5% Unidentified
Japanese DNA sequence is made up of:
4.8% Japanese
24.2% Korean 25.8% Chinese
8.1% Ainu
16.1% Okinawan
21% Unidentified
Chinese DNA sequence is made up of: 60.6% Chinese
1.5% Japanese
10.6% Korean
1.5% Ainu
10.6% Okinawan
15.2% Unidentified
Evidence from DNA base markers (autosomal DNA)
In recent years, more archaeological and genetic evidence have
been found in both eastern China and western Japan to lend credibility
to this argument. Between 1996 and 1999, a team led by Satoshi
Yamaguchi, a researcher at Japan's National Science Museum, compared
Yayoi remains found in Japan's Yamaguchi and Fukuoka prefectures with
those from early Han Dynasty (202 BC-8) in China's coastal Jiangsu
province, and found many similarities between the skulls and limbs of
Yayoi people and the Jiangsu remains.[8] Two Jiangsu skulls showed
spots where the front teeth had been pulled, a practice common in Japan
in the Yayoi and preceding Jōmon period. The genetic samples from three
of the 36 Jiangsu skeletons also matched part of the DNA base
arrangements of samples from the Yayoi remains.
I think it's more important analyzing specificity of lineages when determining the origins of modern ethnic groups. Just saying one sample of this ethnic group as this percentage of this haplogroup does not say anything about the source of the ancestors.
There is only " cultural affinity " between Chinese & Koreans or Chinese & Japanese or Koreans & Japanese.Feeling of kinship ( like that of Europe's Germanic peoples ) never existed past & present within general population of China Korea Japan.I have put some thoughts into this since last year,I concluded because of dominate group is indeed of different Mongoloid stock despite there is roughly 25%-30% shared origin between Chinese & Koreans or 10% for Japanese & Torai-jins ( Koreans & Chinese immigrant stock ).
NO ... they were never ( never have been ) cousins other than artificially related by the generic term NE Asians.
Clearly,people in general do know who they are and who they're related to.We not needing to tell that to English Germans Scandinavians,right.
There have been unsubstantiated rumours about Japan's Yamato Royal House being of " Korean origin ".I found sources refuted such dubious claim.
Gina Barnes of the University of Durham in Great Britain admits the possibility while citing the lack of evidence:
“There is no direct historical evidence of a (Japanese) emperor born on the Korean Peninsula. There is considerable evidence of contact with peninsular kings and elites. But given other monarchical systems in which ‘stranger kings’ may be incorporated, such as the British Hanover line, which has produced the current queen, it’s not an impossible thought that the Yamato rulership incorporated foreign allies.”
Walter Edwards of Tenri University in Nara Prefecture downplays the Korean connection:
“Would we expect to find that the occupants of the earliest large tombs, the third-century figures who originally carved out the Yamato polity, to have been Korean aristocrats who came over and wrested power from indigenous leaders, helping raise a backward nation up to the level of early statehood? That is what is all too often implied by whisperings of ‘Korean bones’. That view I reject. The emergence of the ancient Yamato polity was an indigenous phenomenon.”
A 10th generation " zainich " Baekje royal descedant married into the Yamato Royal House,her " yamatoized " full name was 高野新笠.Thus,she was the birth mother of Emperor Kammu ( 桓武天皇 reigned 781-806 ).However,倭族 Wa-jinpatrilineal lineage remained intact.
Another interesting topic. But we all know Japanese are just another East Asian. Nothing new.
Study from http://www.kumanolife.com/History/dna.html is known to be biased and unscientific. Please note there is no specific genetic markers for Chinese, Japanese or Koreans.
The rules of thumb is Japanese are closely related to these with East Asian group. Noticeably Koreans. In terms of linguistically and genetically, two people does resemble each other.
Compare the y-DNA and mt-DNA of Korean people with Japanese. Koreans http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2615218&tool=pmcentrez
Japanese http://www.jref.com/culture/origins_japanese_people.shtml
You will be surprise to see mt-DNA from both Japanese and Koreans share common grounds. I would say, Koreans really don't have blood relation with Japanese, it's more Japanese have blood relation with Koreans due to early migration pattern.
Koreans and Continental Chinese especially the ones in North look rather similiar than Japanese to my eyes.
Yup, check the Y-DNA profile of Korean people, they match up perfectly well with these NE Chinese specially Manchus.
Check mt-DNA of Korean people, match perfectly well with Japanese people, specially these from Kyushu and main island of Japan, often called Hondo Japanese.
The Indonesians, Malaysians and Philipinos originated from Southern China. They migrated on boats via Taiwan and displaced the original inhabitants that might have been related to Dravidians of Southern India. We will see below that it is possible that some of these early Austronesians may have been the ancestors of the Ice Age settlers of Japan.
From a linguistic point of view, Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia and Japanese language share only a few similarities, but nonetheless striking ones. Apart from the very similar pronunciation in both languages, there is the same hierarchical differences in personal pronouns. For example "you" is either anda or kamu with the same meaning and usage as anata and kimi in Japanese. Likewise, the Japanese verb suki ("to like") translates suka in Bahasa. Such similarities are probably more than mere coincidences, and may reveal a common origin. Furthermore, in both languages the plural can be formed by simply doubling the word. For instance, in Japanese hito means "person", while hitobito means "people". Likewise ware means "I" or "you", whereas wareware means "we". Doubling of words in Japanese is so common that there is a special character used only to mean the word is doubled (々) in written Japanese. In Bahasa, this way of forming the plural is almost systematical (person is orang, while people is orang-orang). Expressions like ittekimasu, itteirashai, tadaima and okaeri, used to greet someone who leaves or enter a place, and which have no equivalent in Indo-European languages, have exact equivalents in Indonesian (selamat jalan, selamat tinggal...).
Did you notice that the Japanese anata and the Malay anda is also very close to the Arabic anta?
The Malay suka is derived, I believe, from the Sanskrit sukkha (happy, happiness). But its closeness to the Japanese suki is also very intriguing.
Other similar cases are the Malay sayur (vegetable) and the Japanese yasai (with reversed order of syllable), the Malay kasut (shoes) and the Japanese kutsu.
The Malay kah at the end of a question is also intriguingly close to the Japanese ka of similar usage.
History makes everything. Everything is history in the making.
♣Interestingly, in the ancient Tango region (including Ayabe and Kameoka) was a polity that preceded the rule of Japan's first emperor, Emperor Jimmu, around 660 B.C. Some of the inhabitants in the northern Kyoto area are believed to have come from Sumer. Since Kamu-susa-no-wo visits this region from His residence in ancient Persia, this particular portion of the Reikai Monogatari may shed light on the mysteries regarding the Sumerians and Japanese. ♣No-wo as in Susa-no-wo (a partial manifestation of Kamu-susa-no-wo) can also mean "king of." With this, some scholars infer that Susa-no-wo may have been the "king of Susa" in ancient Persia.
Though I am not a believer in the Summerian connection, there was another documented non asiatic ethnic group in Japan known as Emeishi. The Emeishi were australoids and their modern relatives inludes the Ainu. Emieishi tribal groups were gradually pushed into remote areas and were then absorbed by Asiatic Japanese in the early middle ages.
The last stronghold of the Emeishi was north east Honshu. It is said that some modern Japanese from this area have vaguely australoid physical features. In any case, after the emeishi were absorbed, the Ainu migrated into Japan from the Sakahalin Islands.
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