Japanese people

The people are the Yamato, Ainu, and Ryukyuans of the Japanese Archipelago. While most Japanese live on the main islands of Japan, some have emigrated to the United States (mainly Hawaii and the West Coast), Canada, Brazil, the Philippines, and Australia.

Most people trace Japanese ancestry to the Jomon and Yayoi people, and possibly Chinese peoples, Koreans, Malays, Polynesians, and other Southeast Asians.

Japanese people abroad

Issei Japanese American: "issei" means 'first generation', referring to the first generation of migrants.
Nisei Japanese American: "nisei" means 'second generation'.
Sansei Japanese American: "sansei" means 'third generation'.

Origins

Archeological evidences indicates that Stone Age people lived in the Japanese Archipelago between 33,000 and 21,000 years ago in the Paleolithic period. Japan was then connected to mainland Asia by land bridges, and nomadic hunter-gatherers crossed over from the East asia, Siberia and possibly Kamchatka. They left flint tools, but no evidence of permanent settlements.

The peoples of North Asia and Central Asia, have relatively tall statures, well-defined features (such as longer noses and higher cheekbones) and relatively hairy bodies and faces. These are features considered to be the "prototype" Mongoloid physical type which is a historical definition of race as defined by Carleton S. Coon. The Japanese and Ainu inherit these prototypical physical features. In a recent study, similarity with the people in the neighborhood of Russian Lake Baikal is pointed out by a distribution result of DNA.

Basically, the most accepted theory is that present-day Japanese are primarily descendants of both the Jomon people and fewer the Yayoi people.

Jomon and Ainu people

The world's first known pottery was developed by the Jomon people in the 14th millennium BC. The name, "Jomon" (繩紋 Jōmon), which means "cord-impressed pattern", comes from the characteristic markings found on the pottery. The Jomon people were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, though at least one middle to late Jomon site ca. 1200-1000 BC had a primitive rice-growing agriculture (南溝手 Minami misote site). They relied primarily on fish for protein. It is believed that the Jomon had very likely migrated from North Asia or Central Asia and became the Ainu of today.

Research suggests that the Ainu retain a certain degree of uniqueness in their genetic make-up, while having some affinities with different regional populations in Japan as well as the Nivkhs of the Russian Far East.(Tajima 2004) Based on more than a dozen genetic markers on a variety of chromosomes and from archaeological data showing habitation of the Japanese Archipelago dating back 30,000 years, it is argued that the Jomon actually came from Northeastern Asia and settled on the islands far earlier than some have proposed.

Yayoi people

Around 400-300 BC, the Yayoi people began to live in the Japanese islands, intermingling with the Jomon. Many scholars believe that the Yayoi migrated through Korean Peninsula to Northern Kyushu, though there are now suggestions that they came from southeastern Mainland China. The Yayoi are believed to have brought continental's advanced technology to Japan. Although the islands were abundant with resources for hunting and gathering, a far more productive rice-growing agriculture slowly spread and Japan began to make its steps into next civilization.

Controversy and Reference

There are various disputes about the origin of Japanese people. However, a clear answer doesn't exist.

Modern demography of Jomon and Yayoi

A study conducted by Satoshi Horai, a professor at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, found that modern day Japanese most closely resemble today's Koreans, not the Ainu or Ryukyuans. He studied the mitochondria of 293 people from various ethnic groups in East Asia and discovered that the number of shared base-order types in the DNA was highest between the Japanese and the Koreans at eight. In contrast, the Japanese shared only four base-order types with the Ainu and three with the Ryukyuans. The Koreans, like the Japanese, also shared three base-order types with the Ainu, the Ryukyuans, and the Chinese (Taiwanese). The Chinese (Taiwanese), while sharing three base-order types with the Koreans, only shared two with the Ainu. (^*)

This indicates that: 1. The Japanese are not a genetically uniform group, as previously claimed, and the Ainu and the Ryukyuans don't share the same DNA types at all. 2. The Japanese and the Koreans genetically seem to have a very close relationship, suggesting that the Yayoi (who are believed to be the true ancestors of most modern day Japanese) were from "mainland Asia".

In addition, a geneticist found that YAP-positive chromosomes appeared with much greater frequency in the southern and northern islands of Japan (Shikoku and Hokkaido) than in the central islands (Honshu and Kyushu). Hammer and Horai hypothesized that the YAP element was originally carried to Japan by the Jomon natives and that the Yayoi lacked the marker. Hammer and his colleagues are also studying a second Y chromosome marker that may serve as a sign of the Yayoi migration. This marker is common in Koreans and appears most frequently in the central islands of Japan. Hammer contends that the two markers tell a story of an initial Yayoi migration from Korea into central Japan and a subsequent spread of the people north and south. Since both Y chromosome markers are still found in varying degrees throughout Japan, however, it appears that the genes of the Jomon and Yayoi peoples intermingled significantly. (Travis, Pittsuburgh)

Genetics and physical anthropology

Skeletons of the Jomon and Yayoi people have been examined, and detailed DNA studies have been made in recent years. Most Jomon and Yayoi skeletons are readily distinguishable. The Jomon people were shorter, with relatively longer forearms and lower legs, more wide-set eyes, shorter and wider faces, and much more pronounced facial topography, with strikingly raised brow ridges, noses, and nose bridges, while the Yayoi people averaged an inch or two taller, with close-set eyes, high and narrow faces, and flat browridges and noses. (Diamond 1998)

Studies of teeth show two distinct patterns — sundadonty and sinodonty. The former represents Southeast Asians, Micronesians, and Polynesians, and the latter is found in its highest frequencies among northern Chinese and northern native Americans. The former is pre-eminent among pure-blooded Ainu and Ryukyuan people. The teeth evidence supports the thesis that "ancient demic diffusion, commencing with the Yayoi era around 300 BC, when an immigrant population from Continental Asia entered the archipelago in north Kyushu, and expanded eastward, assimilating the aboriginal inhabitants" occurred. (Riley 2002)

A recent genetic study on the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome shows that four distinct populations in Japan (that of the Honshu, Kyushu, Ainu, and Ryukyuans) exhibited the unique haplotype at various high frequencies, not found in other East Asian populations. Coalescence analysis in the Y-haplotype tree in the same study indicates that the separation of the three lineages from the North Asian, Han Chinese, and Southeast Asian occurred between 53,000 and 95,000 years ago. (Tajima 2002, Human Genetics)

Evidences specific to the Yayoi

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 B.C.-8) in China's coastal Jiangsu province, and found many similarities between the skulls and limbs of Yayoi people and the Jiangsu remains. Two Jiangsu skulls showed spots where the front teeth had been pulled, a practice common in Japan in the Yayoi and preceding Jomon 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. This finding, according to the Japanese team of scientists, suggests that some of the first wet-rice farmers in Japan might have migrated from the lower basin of China's Yangtze River more than 2,000 years ago.

The most recent DNA studies also suggest that a significant migration took place from southern China to Japan, but traversing Korea, concurrently with the larger Yayoi migration from Korea to Japan. A study by Han-Jun Jin of Dankook University, Seoul, South Korea in 2003 Y-chromosomal DNA haplogroups and their implications for the dual origins of the Koreans: 2003, Han-Jun Jin. Retrieved 26 June 2006. says "there is convincing evidence for recent male migration, originally from China, into Japan moving through Korea." This conclusion was derived by calculating the coalescence time of haplogroup O-SRY₄₆₅ Y-chromosomes to 2800 years, based on a total DNA sample of 738 males from 11 East Asian populations. Han-Jun Jin's calculation of coalescence time assumes a constant size followed by expansion, which is consistent with the Yayoi migration. The haplogroup O-SRY₄₆₅ is significant in that it occurs mostly in Korea and Japan only.

A study by Michael F. Hammer of the University of Arizona in 2005 Dual origins of the Japanese: common ground for hunter-gatherer and farmer Y chromosomes: 2005, Michael F. Hammer. Retrieved 26 June 2006. makes a more sweeping statement, proposing that "the Yayoi Y chromosomes descend from prehistoric farmers that had their origins in southeastern Asia." Hammer's definition of "southeastern Asia" includes southern China as well as Southeast Asia proper, which therefore includes the Yangtze River area. Based on his data, Hammer calculates the haplogroup O lineages account for 51.8%, and Yayoi Y chromosomes account for 51.9% of the Japanese population respectively, thereby linking them together. Hammer's study is based on a total DNA sample of over 2500 males from 39 Asian populations, including over 250 males from 6 Japanese populations.

Notes

External links

Japan National Institute of Genetics
Japanese Roots By Jared Diamond (discover.com), ^*
Origin of the Japanese People and Language
Where are the Ten Lost Tribes? (pbs.org)
Study: Korean, Japanese DNA similar (Joongang Daily)
Yayoi linked to Yangtze area: DNA tests reveal similarities to early wet-rice farmers (The Japan Times)
Jomon Pottery
Jun-Nissei Literature and Culture in Brazil by Zelideth Maria Rivas, Center for Latin American Studies,UC Berkeley

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