Nihonjin no Kigen: Where do the Japanese people came from?

Here’s the tricky question – where do the Japanese people come from?

Most people would simply assume that the Japanese are either generations of the aborigines of the once isolated islands or people who happens to migrate into the island from the nearby mainland. However, the real answer is actually in both answers. Japanese people that lived on today are actually part of varying admixtures of the aborigines and the once continuously increasing immigrant population from the mainland, namely Korea and China.

Like the rest of the world, the Japanese land too has gone through the ice age phases. The earliest phase of Japanese social development begins with a long Paleolithic pre-ceramic period prior to ca 10,000 BC. The oldest identified human (homo sapiens) remains was found in Japan which was examined and assumed to date from around 30,000 BC. And later came the Jomon period (ca 10,000 BC to ca 300 BC).

The Jomon people were basically Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from the continent (remember that parts earth were slightly different from today). Archeologist found that from the image given by the remaining skeletal dug, that the Jomon people are generally short-stature with heavy skeletal structure, longheaded skulls, short faces with broad, concave nasal profiles. The native Ainu people are said to be closer to the Jomon in terms of resemblances than modern Japanese.

Remaining of Yayoi period - Japanese origin

Later, during the Yayoi period (ca 300 BC to ca AD 300) more people from the main continent came to the Japanese land and mixed with the current population at that time, and thus made a generation of Japanese people with a much closer resemblances to those existed to this day. This is pretty much the integral part in the subject of where do the Japanese people came from.

Tagged under: Ainu people, Japanese history, Japanese origin, Jomon people, Jomon period, Nihonjin no kigen, Where do the Japanese came from, Yayoi period