Origins of the Jomon, Jomon connections with the continent and with today’s Japanese

Scientists have determined that the Jomon (and Ryukyuan and Ainu) people carry a genetic marker called the ab3st haplotype or blood marker that is shared by Mongoloid populations, found today among the Korean, Tibetan, Tungus, Eskimo and Yakut peoples, and that marker is commonest among the Buryat people living around Lake Baikal.

Furthermore, scientists have recently extracted the mitochondrial DNA extracted from some human bones (some of the oldest) about 2,500 years ago from the Jomon era. Their recent research showed the mitochondrial DNA of 30 Jomon bodies was close to that of the Buryat population of southern Siberia, while DNA of only three bodies was close to that of the Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese populations. This particular mitochondrial DNA pattern can also be found today in many other Japanese women, at a ratio of one out of 10 women.

Experts have followed the trail of this mitochondrial DNA pattern even further back in time, and deep into Tibetan borders and Siberia. Experts now conclude that the prehistoric Japanese people and ancestors of the Jomon people originated from somewhere around Lake Baikal area in Russia (currently called Buryatia which is known to have been inhabited as long ago as 23,000 years ago).

Back then during the ice ages, only small tribes of paleo-asiatic stone tool using hunters had been able to survive the harsh climate of the glacial ages up to 25,000 years by living in warm pockets along Lake Baikal and other bodies of water in Siberia, India, China, as well as in the Altai mountains. When the global climate started to warm up some of these hunters started moving south in pursuit of large animals such as mammoths, and further to Japan (while others may have crossed the Bering strait to reach the North American continent). Scientists identify these Buryat tribes from the Baikal area who migrated into Southeast Asia, southwards into the Korean peninsula and into Eurasia, the Mongoloid tribes.

At a certain stage during the glacial age, the land of Paleolithic Japan was connected to the mainland at two points: Korean peninsula-Kyushu land bridge where the Tsushima strait is today, and the Tsugaru Strait between the current Hokkaido Island and the Honshu Island froze in winter, so that people from the northeastern continent were able to travel further south into Japan. The oldest evidence of this crossing is found in the Chitose Shukubai Remains with its cluster of stone tools in Hokkaido which date between 23,000 and 20,000 years ago. Based on this evidence, Palaeolithic Mongoloid hunting people must have arrived at one point in Hokkaido from Siberia via Sakhalin which used to connect Hokkaido to mainland Asia.

DNA research shows that the modern day populations in Okinawa and Ryukyu islands and the Ainu people in Hokkaido are genetically connected to the Jomon people. They share the same genetic markers, features in their body anatomy as well as similarity as ATL virus-carriers. This leads scholars to conclude that, apart from the Mongoloid group that had made their way into Hokkaido, there must have been a second Mongoloid group (also originating from the ancestral Baikal Buryat people) who must have made their way from Siberia and into the southern Ryukyan part of the Japanese archipelago (and later Kyushu) via the other land bridge across the Tsushima Strait from the Korean peninsula. (See “Faces of Ainu” for more about the Ainu people.)

The first Mongoloid group is thought to have made their way through a corridor North of the Tibetan massif while the second Mongoloid group took the corridor South of the Himalayas heading in southerly direction into Kyushu or southeast Asia, then into Ryukyu islands.

The oldest evidence of the early colonization of southern Japan may be found in the remains of a 6-year old human child at Yamashita-cho cave (Central Ryukyu) and Minatogawa finds of 6 humans dated to around 32,000 years ago as well as human remains at the Pinzabu site dated to 26,800. Evidence of the earliest settlement on Kyushu Island, come from remains from the Ishinomoto site in Kumamoto prefectures dating to 33,720 years ago, the Ushiromuta and Kawahara sites in Miyazaki and Kumamoto prefecture dating to 29,520 and 29,370 years ago respectively, and three sites in Kagoshima prefecture, all dated to between 24,000 and 25,000 years old.   On Kyushu Island, the Fukui cave remains from Nagsaki prefecture contained pottery as well as microblade lithics, dating between 14,000 and 10,700 years or so. However, one of the most important sites is thought to be the one on Shikoku Island because the remains at Kamikuroiwa Shelter showed that the area was continuously inhabited from Palaeolithic to Jomon times. From examining all of these remains, it is thought by some (Hanihara and Turner) that the Southern and Central Ryukyu was populated by people migrating from the south, perhaps Southeast Asia. But others (Omoto and Saitou) say that their study clearly shows that Ryukyan, Jomon and Ainu populations have no southeast Asian origin but are found instead to be genetically related to the populations of northeast Asia.

Skull remains of the Epi-Jomon period were also intensively studied and compared with the skeletal proportions of modern-day Ainu.  The studies found a close resemblance in the skeletal morphology between the prehistoric Jomon and modern Ainu. To confirm that the Ainu are actually descended from the Jomon, all available skulls of the Epi-Jomon period in Hokkaido, roughly (ca. 300 BC-700 AD), were intensively investigated for the cranial variations. Based upon the scientists’ analyses,  they concluded that the Jomon, Epi-Jomon and Ainu are closely related with each other; and that the epi-Jomon were transitional stage and had evolved from the Jomon in eastern Japan to the Hokkaido Ainu.

Scientists (studying blood or gene markers, and skulls and teeth) have however distinguished the past Jomon and today’s Ryukyan and Ainu populations from the populations of southern China and Pacific. The Jomon (and Ryukyuan and Ainu) people carry a genetic marker called the ab3st haplotype or blood marker that is shared by Mongoloid populations, found today among the Korean, Tibetan, Eskimo and Yakut peoples, but the marker is commonest among the Baikal Buryats living around Lake Baikal.  This northern group of ab3st gene-carrying peoples can be distinguished however from a second group of southern Mongoloid peoples who were or are carriers of the afb1b3 gene, which is shared by populations in Guangxi and Yunnan area of southwest China (and who are rarely found to carry the ab3st gene).

The scientists have also concluded that the gene pool of later Yayoi immigrants who had arrived 2,400 years ago had limited influence (if any) on the people of the Epi-Jomon inhabitants in Hokkaido. As such, they conclude the lineage of the epi-Jomon and Ainu people is far removed from that of the mainland Japanese and that of the northern Kyushu Yayoi people who were derived of continental lineage. Other studies (such as studies of Y chromosome SNP paternal lineages,  of distributions of populations with different earwax types and of virus-carrying populations) confirm these conclusions.

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Continental Connections


The earliest figurine-making tradition is thought to have originated from Upper Palaeolithic figurines from Eurasia and Siberia. The figurine developed into the mother goddess figure in the North Pacific area. Originating from the Lake Baikal area, was the ancestral mother goddess figurine figurine. That figurine probably influenced the development of the Amur River and Japanese types.

In addition to the mother goddess figurines, the snake motif on pottery designs on Katsusaka pottery from the Yatsugatake mountain area, may be another indication of influence from people living in the Amur River area. Snake motifs are most widely used by all Tungus tribes in the lower Amur region where the cosmic serpent is considered the Creator of their Universe.

There were possibly early connections with the Paleolithic peoples from the Korean peninsula. Remains from the earliest settlements in Kyushu showed many knife-type stone tools, which are similar to finds on the Korean Peninsula of the same age. The earliest art found in Japan were stone figurines. Archaeologists have found at the Seokjang-ri locality 1 dwelling site dating to 20,000 years ago, human hairs of Mongoloid origin with limonitic and manganese pigments near and around a hearth, as well as animal figurines such as a dog, tortoise and bear made of stone. The hairs, found with yellow-brown iron ore and manganese pigments near a hearth, were shown to have belonged to people of Mongoloid stock. The living floor of compact clay was hollowed out in the shape of a whale.

Although the earliest pottery in the world is found at the Odai Yamamoto site on northern Honshu Island and on Kyushu and Shikoku island sites, many scientists and scholars think that the pottery culture may have been introduced into the Japanese archipelago via a northerly route from the Eurasian continent. Archaeologists have uncovered five sites in Amur River basin in Eastern Russia with early pottery shards as well as stone tools (lithics) that are similar to those of the Odai Yamamoto site. However, scientists also suspect that because the Amur River pottery were fairly sophisticated, the origin of this pottery production tradition could probably be traced back to an earlier time in South China.

From around 10,000 BCE, some aspects of the Jomon pottery culture showed similarities with that of Jeulmun pottery in Korea. The respective pottery samples were extremely similar in shape, form and technique. Other aspects of the people who made the Jeulman pottery such as the shellmound culture indicating a shellfish diet, were similar to the Jomon culture of the time too.

The connection of Jomon pottery with mainland sites in China is also evident. Sites in central and southern Japan yield a lithic industry similar to southern China with pebble-flaking, chipping, pecking and polishing as the same basic techniques. Far east in the north on the continent, and reaching far to the south was a culture with axes or round or oval section. On the other hand, shouldered-axe culture was to be found in the south and in the coastal  region from Nanjing to Tongjing, Yunnan to Fujian and that reached the coasts of Korea and Japan.

Jomon people were influenced by the sea since they lived surrounded by the sea on the Japanese archipelago. The sea routes would have made it possible for successive waves of migrations of human groups from the continent to enter the archipelago and come into contact with Jomon people.  People probably came to live or to trade. Among the important sea routes or “sea bridges” of the Jomon, were the migratory paths from the South China coast (particularly Fujian) and Southeast Asia.

In particular, the rice culture of the Yangtze people in the Hemudu period through the Liangzhu period, is thought to have been transmitted to the Japanese archipelago via the Fujian people and the Taiwan sea bridge. The influence of the culture from the Yangtze basin can be seen in the artefacts such as jade, stone, perforated axes, perforated stand vessels and others, many of which are found in the Fujian region too.

From around 5,300 years till 3,600 years ago (the Early Period) the Jomon culture showed some similarities to South China coastal and Southeast Asian cultures from Fujian to Malaysia, such as in the shouldered and tooth-shaped  stone axes, ornaments decorated with large spiral patterns or a mixture of cord and shell prints or eye forms, pottery with widening stands and bulged middle line, among other artefacts.  Typical artefacts such as pebble axes, pointed picks, short axes, waisted axes, shouldered axes and others were unearthed at Kozanji, Kutobo, Ubayama and the southern Japanese islands, all of which were also common in South China and Indochina.

Hence, some scholars think migrations from the South China coastal areas and Indochina from the Middle Period onwards were important in the formation of Jomon people and culture from the Middle period. They see, for example, close similarities between the shouldered stone axes, rectangular axes with triangular blades, round stones with deepening in the middle, as well as the phallic shaped stone hoes, found in various parts of the Jomon world from around 4,500 to 3,200 years ago and those found in Indochina.

Stones circles found in eastern and northwest Japan, can also be seen on the Korean Peninsula and in southern part of Northeastern China. Dolmens and stone circles are thus thought to be a shared megalithic culture by Japan and other regions in East Asia and that the dolmen culture originated in Manchuria or on the Liaotung Peninsula (as dolmens are most numerous along the Northeast Asian geographical corridor — Liaoning, to Shandong, and Zhejiang in China).

However, dolmens are also found all along the coast of Vietnam (particularly the Dong Nai Province) as well as in parts of Island Southeast Asia (the island of Sumba and Nias in Indonesia where living megalithic traditions still exist) Liaoning, Shandong, and Zhejiang in China, Dong Nai province in Vietnam and parts of India, and the megalithic culture or technology may equally have been brought from Southeast Asia. Vietnamese researcher (Lam, 2008) while acknowledging other theories about megaliths originating from the

Austronesian region at least from the first millennium BC (Bellwood) and from Nias, Borneo (Heine Geldern) offers a new and unusual view in a study on Vietnamese and SEA megaliths,  that the “megalith sites in Vietnam might have belonged to the megalith complex in western Pacific, spreading from Japan to Korean peninsula to all over Southeast Asia”.

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The picture from recent DNA studies


A rather recently published study in 2005 on 81 sets of Y chromosomes of six populations across Japan showed:

Japanese have at least two very deep Y chromosome lineages (D-P37.1 and C-M8) that descend from Paleolithic founders who had diverged from the mainland and that were then isolated from those populations on the mainland for a very long time. Scientists thought these D lineages to mean the Jomon populations in Japan once upon a time the same ancestors as Tibetans from central Asia who are found with the highest frequency of continental D lineages is found in central Asia. Scientists hypothesized that the area between Tibet and the Altai Mountains in northwestern China is the most likely geographic source of Paleolithic Japanese founding Y chromosomes. ( Historical records suggest that Tibetan populations were derived from ancient tribes of northwestern China that subsequently moved to the south and mixed with the southern natives in the last 3,000 years.)

A separate recent mtDNA study on the Haplogroup M12 – the mitochondrial component of Japanese genes, the counterpart of Y chromosome D lineage – also confirmed the direct connections of Japanese haplotypes with Tibet. This rare haplogroup is possessed only by mainland Japanese, Koreans, and Tibetans, with the highest frequency and diversity in Tibet.  These Paleolithic ancestors were thought to have migrated into Japan sometime around 20,000 years ago.
Interestingly, the Y chromosome study also suggested that there could be one other Japanese Paleolithic founding that found its way to the Japanese archipelago, these early ancestors carried the Y-STR haplogroup, C-M8, a Y-chromosome haplotype that is related to Indian and central Asian C chromosomes. This set of C-M8 Y chromosomes were thought to be carried into Japan sometime around just before 12,000 years ago.

The same study also concluded that Jomon genes have survived till today showing up at high frequencies in Japanese populations today (34.7%)  The scientists having charted the Haplogroup D chromosome-carrying populations who were found to exist at frequencies distributed in an inverted U-shaped pattern across the archipelago, with the highest frequencies occurring in the southern Ryukyuans (Okinawa) and the northern Ainu (Hokkaido). The results suggested to scientists that not only the distinct genetic contribution of Paleolithic ancestors but that they had intermarried (admixed) with the later income Yayoi migrant populations who were of a separate and different haplotype O  lineage.

The strongest evidence for a southern genetic component in the Jomon is the M7 (mtDNA) haplogroup that comes from a recent research paper defining the East Asian mtDNA Tree (Toomas Kivisild). The paper notes the “characteristically southern distribution of haplogroup M7 in East Asia, whereas its daughter-groups, M7a and M7b2, specific for Japanese and Korean populations, testify to a presumably (pre-)Jomon contribution to the modern mtDNA pool of Japan”. The haplogroup M “branch of the mtDNA Tree” is regarded as unequivocally Indian-derived and of southern origin, because it is found in Eastern Eurasia but is virtually absent in Europe. Other research on mtDNA on Indian subcontinent adheres to the  “Southern Coastal Route” hypothesis, as “suggested by the phylogeography of mtDNA haplogroup M, the virtual absence of which in the Near East and Southwest Asia undermines the likelihood of the initial colonization of Eurasia taking a route north around the Red Sea.  Map of Eurasia and northeastern Africa depicting the peopling of Eurasia as inferred from the extant mtDNA phylogeny”.

Source: Metspalu et al. BMC Genetics 2004 5:26 doi:10.1186/1471-2156-5-26

The bold black arrow on the map above indicates the possible “coastal” route of colonization of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans (ca. 60,000 – 80,000 ybp). Therefore, the initial split between West and East Eurasian mtDNAs is postulated between the Indus Valley and Southwest Asia. Spheres depict expansion zones where, after the initial coastal peopling of the continent, local branches of the mtDNA tree (haplogroups given in the spheres) arose (ca. 40,000 – 60,000 ybp), including M7, from where they where further carried into the interior of the continent (thinner black arrows).

Sources:

Michael F. Hammer, Tatiana M. Karafet, Hwayong Park, Keiichi Omoto, Shinji Harihara, Mark Stoneking and Satoshi Horai, Dual origins of the Japanese: common ground for hunter-gatherer and farmer Y chromosomes, Journal of Human Genetics / © The Japan Society of Human Genetics and Springer-Verlag 2005 / 10.1007/s10038-005-0322-0

Yali Xue et al., “Male Demography in East Asia: A North-South Contrast in Human Population Expansion Times,” Genetics 172: 2431-2439 (April 2006) The study notes that Manchu-Liaoning populations display the N1*-LLY22g haplogrpup (xN1a-M128, N1b-P43, and N1c-Tat) at 5.7% frequencies.

Lam Thi My Dzung, “Studies on Megaliths in Vietnam“, Social Sciences Information Review Vol 2. No. 3 Sept 2008.  The paper (at p. 36) suggested that the megalithic site at Ta Van Giay “must have a certain relation to the ancient stone fields in Sapa and their counterparts that have just found in the area (possible references are some Asian sites such as complexes of megalith sites at Yoshinogari, Ashiziri Cape (Japan), the field of jars at Xiem Khoang (Laos), Sunda (Indonesia)… and other similar sites located along Vietnamese – Chinese border”

Kivisild, T, Tolk, HV, Parik, J, Wang, Y, Papiha, SS, Bandelt, HJ, Villems, R. (2002). The emerging limbs and twigs of the East Asian mtDNA tree. Mol Biol Evol. 19: 1737-1751. Read full paper here

Takehiro Sato et al.  Polymorphisms and allele frequencies of the ABO blood group gene among the Jomon, Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk people in Hokkaido, northern Japan, revealed by ancient DNA analysis  |  Journal of Human Genetics 12 Aug 2010 55, 691-696 | doi:10.1038/jhg.2010.90

Abstract

To investigate the genetic characteristics of the ancient populations of Hokkaido, northern Japan, polymorphisms of the ABO blood group gene were analyzed for 17 Jomon/Epi-Jomon specimens and 15 Okhotsk specimens using amplified product-length polymorphism and restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses. Five ABO alleles were identified from the Jomon/ Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk people.

Allele frequencies of the Jomon/Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk people were compared with those of the modern Asian, European and Oceanic populations. The genetic relationships inferred from principal component analyses indicated that both Jomon/Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk people are included in the same group as modern Asian populations. However, the genetic characteristics of these ancient populations in Hokkaido were significantly different from each other, which is in agreement with the conclusions from mitochondrial DNA and ABCC11 gene analyses that were previously reported.

Y-chromosomal Binary Haplogroups in the Japanese Population and their Relationship to 16 Y-STR Polymorphisms 

Nonaka et al 2007

Abstract
We investigated Y chromosomal binary and STR polymorphisms in 263 unrelated male individuals from the Japanese population and further examined the relationships between the two separate types of data. Using 47 biallelic markers we distinguished 20 haplogroups, four of which (D2b1/-022457, O3/-002611*, O3/-LINE1 del, and O3/-021354*) were newly defined in this study. Most haplogroups in the Japanese population are found in one of the three major clades, C, D, or O. Among these, two major lineages, D2b and O2b, account for 66% of Japanese Y chromosomes. Haplotype diversity of binary markers was calculated at 86.3%. The addition of 16 Y-STR markers increased the number of haplotypes to 225, yielding a haplotype diversity of 99.40%. A comparison of binary haplogroups and Y-STR type revealed a close association between certain binary haplogroups and Y-STR allelic or conformational differences, such as those at the DXYS156Y, DYS390m, DYS392, DYS437, DYS438 and DYS388 loci. Based on our data on the relationships between binary and STR polymorphisms, we estimated the binary haplogroups of individuals from STR haplotypes and frequencies of binary haplogroups in other Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese Han populations. The present data will enable researchers to connect data from binary haplogrouping in anthropological studies and Y-STR typing in forensic studies in East Asian populations, especially those in and around Japan.

Population N C1-M8 C3-M217 D1-M55 D2-M55  NO*-M204  O2b*-M176 O2b1-47z Q-M242
Japanese 263 2.2 3.0 0.4 38.8 21.7 8.4 25.1 0.4

16 responses to “Origins of the Jomon, Jomon connections with the continent and with today’s Japanese

  1. This is very informative. Thank you

  2. Thank you for spelling this out so clearly. In future, I would like to see photos of tool, skull, and pottery types.

  3. The Ainu of the Nile dispersed northward to Finland and from there to Greenland and eastern Canada. Some also went east to India, Cambodia and Japan.

    The Nilotic Ainu are probably “First Nation People.” They are at the center of Luigi Cavalli-Sforza’s genetic distance chart.

    • I think it is a very big leap of logic to call the Ainu, the Ainu of the Nile. Even though it is acknowledged that they are descendants of an ancient lineage somewhat preserved by genetic drift, the term Ainu is reserved for the distinct ethnic people in Japan, and their closest relatives on Sakhalin. Also their identity is still an admixture, and their migratory lineages and genetic affinities have to be established step by step both in time and by distance. The Nile is at the extreme opposite end of the earth and the Ainu, as either earliest settlers or among the earliest settlers of Japan, go back anywhere between 10,000 to 40,000 years in time. As per the analysis by Tajima and Horai, see their “Genetic Origins of the Ainu” “On the paternal side, the vast majority (87.5%) of the Ainu exhibited the Asian-specific YAP+ lineages (Y-haplogroups D-M55* and D-M125), which were distributed only in the Japanese Archipelago”. So far, the furthest back-traceable origin we have of haplogroup D (also found in Andamanders, Tibetans, Yunnan-popns), is to the sub-haplogroup DE*, which is thought to be the most ancient lineage of the D/E* superhaplogroup and which is thus far only found in Africans from Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau … which are in West Africa rather than Cushitic E. Africa (although I do not discount the possibility that future studies may throw up new links). As for the Anu-Ainu connection, I can show you a cognate city called Ainu in Nigeria, and since 30-40,000 years is a long time ago, I don’t really too much store on the Ainu-like names, it is often written in Japanese literature that the term Ainu was a derogatory name given by the later arrivals, sounding like “inu” and meaning dog. I have read your “Abraham’s Ainu Ancestors”, but your mention of all the names from historic sources relate to a non-Ainu population and unconnected migratory lineage (their genetic sources have been proven to be totally unconnected). The Hebrew or semitic traits and influences to which you refer, have, more likely to do with the Indo-Saka and Ashina royal lineages which entered Japan late-Yayoi and Kofun periods (haplogroups O2, O3 and Q1b) from Western China and/or near Tibet, the Indo-Iranic Sassanians were influenced by semitic priests and magi, and the Ashina clans are known, like in the famous historical case of the Jewish state of Khazaria to have ruled Khazaria and to have converted to Judaism. The Khazaria early historical state has a structure that has close affinities in the kurgan rule of the Kofun Period. The mythical traditions of the royal and shrine histories of Japan, you will find, are closest to the Indo-Iranic as well as the Xiongnu(Hun tribe from whom the Ashina clan descended)-and-Mongolic traditions. All the salt and fire purification rituals and betyl-like Shinto shrines also stem from the Kurgan-CAS influx-era onwards.
      And one more thing, I think the complete absence of Y-DNA R1a or R1b and J haplogroups in the Ainu or in any of the Japanese people, is the biggest reason why it is hard to see the Ainu as having descended from the Cushitic peoples. We have however, only addressed the Y-chromosomes, it is entirely possible that the early Ainu ancestors intermarried with women already living on the Japanese islands, who were predominantly of the mtDNA M7 and other North Asian lineages, and these may have had remote E. African ancestry, but that is a different maternal trail.

  4. The term “Jews” (people of Judah) dates to the Babylonian Exile around 598-538 BC. The term “Semitic” is misleading also, as the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth intermarried. The descendants of Japheth are found in Hungary, Turkey, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Upper Nile. This explains the linguistic similarity between some Afro-Asiatic names and some Turkish, Pashtun and Mongolian names, including Jochi, Beri, Malik and Khan. Khan was originally a title meaning king. Today it is a common surname in Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Mongolia. It is equivalent to the Afro-Asiatic Kain or Kayan. Some of the Pashtun tribes adopted Malik as the ruler’s title instead of Khan. Malik is equivalent to the Afro-Asiatic Melek, meaning king or ruler.

    Genghis Khan married a woman of the Olkut’Hun, or Ogur Hun meaning the Hun clan/community. The word ogur means clan/community and appears to be equivalent to the Pashto orkut, meaning community. So ogur, orkut and olkut are cognates and likely related to the Kandahar dialect, which has Tir-hari as a principal dialect. Tir is a form of the name Tiras, mentioned in Genesis 10 and hari is a form of the word for Horite (Horim). So Genghis Khan married into a community which had connections to Abraham’s Horite people, probably through the ruler Nimrod.

    In the Hungarian origin stories, Nimrod had two sons: Magor and Hunor. Magor is the equivalent of the Afro-Asiatic name Magog and the Hungarian word Magyar. Magyar is what the Hungarian people call themselves. Some Magyar still live in the Upper Nile area where they are called the Magyar-ab, meaning the Magyar tribe.

    It is not accurate to speak not of Nigeria or Kush, since these terms are relatively recent . They cannot be used to describe the movement of the Ainu out of Africa. I prefer to use the term Proto-Saharans.

  5. I am not disputing this entire section of the history of the expansion of the Hun lineages that you have described, but it is irrelevant and not part of the Ainu people’s history or the Jomon proto-Ainus. The timing of the Jewish diaspora as you pointed out after the turn of the Christian era, is the key point here, which distinguishes the Ainu lineages from the out-of-Egypt or Nilotic Cush (which was originally your geographic term of reference) or Proto-Saharan lineages that descended upon Japan around this time frame. Ainu DE* and YAP gene carriers come from West Africa beginning with the Yoruba tribes in Nigeria. I speak of Nigeria as a geographical region to refer specifically to the place from which the people tested with DE* haplogroup originate. Since my selected evidence is genetic marker-related, Nigeria (as well as Guinea Bissau) in West Africa is not a vague term of my own concoction but a location referred to in the chart map found and identified as the earliest point of the DE* trail in the scientific paper earlier linked for you. The specific genetic trail does not lead through the Nile Egypt, but through Palestine, and Arab Mesopotamian areas where Semitic peoples are also to be found, but the DE* is found markedly in very specific populations all related to proto-Shia pre-Islamic populations, there are highly clarified maps for haplogroup D-YAP populations, so we can see how they lead to Ainu lineages in Japan. The Out of the East Africa-Nile trail is a completely different lineage that leads to the peopling of the Siberians-North East Asians, the kurgan peoples, but all the genetic studies are clear that the dual populations of Ainu and mainland Japanese have completely different sets of mutually exclusive genes in early prehistoric times, with D admixing gradually into all of Japan from the Yayoi-Kofun periods onwards, but with none of the O haplogroups entering the Ainu group. Not only are the time frames for the different in-migrating lineages of Ainu and other Japanese peoples different, their genetic makeup as well as migratory paths are also completely different, as are their oral traditions and myth sets. All of the Kojiki references you made as well as the khan and kurgan structures, attach to the lineages that imposed themselves as elites upon the earlier existing peoples (i.e. Paleolithic-to-Jomon=proto-Ainu). The Kojiki and Nihongi are chronicles by the royal clans, and the myths parallel most of them in the Central Asian or Vedic-Aryan or Sassanid as well as Chinese-Korean traditions, but they are markedly different from those found in the Ainu Yukar oral traditions, and even in the oral traditions, the Ainu speak of themselves as being there long before the children of the sun came on the scene. The royal myths in fact contain mention of the Ainu people in subordinate roles as openers of mountains and coopted guides, and sometimes as subjugated people in battles fought. Your trail following similar-sounding names may work as a theory in combination with anthropological and archaeological evidence for the Mesopotamian-Scythian-kurgan expansion phases, but the further back you go in prehistoric time, the harder it becomes to link the Ainu specifically to the Proto-Saharans or the Nile area, and the more gaps there are all round since it is all circumstantial. You must be aware that there are other Out-of-Africa paths taken like the Horn of Africa or across the Levantine corridor. Skull elongation or trepanation has been a visible trait of all the peoples you connect from Egypt to the Turks and Mongols to Koreans to Native Amerindians, but is lacking in prehistoric skulls of the Jomon or Ainu people. The Ainu also lack all of the Mosaic/Abrahamic traditions, no law set in stone or steles, no writing, no ark, no salt rituals, no ram or horse sacrificial practices, only the bear deification ceremonies which come from the Siberian circum-pacific fishing peoples. That the Ainu(and proto-Ainu-Jomon) vs. other Japanese populations came from entirely distinct migratory lineages is universally accepted by all scholarship within and without Japan. The Negritic Ainu do not fit in any of the Ham, Shem and certainly share nothing in common with any of the Japhetite-Gomer-Magog, etc- groups And most prominently of all, is that the Ainu lack the R1 genes that are found in all of the peoples and places you have mentioned, the Turks, the Huns, the Hungarians … the only likely explanation is the Ainu left from a different origin in Africa, and arrived before all of the aforementioned Mosaic/Abrahamic groups.

  6. “The only likely explanation is the Ainu left from a different origin in Africa, and arrived before all of the aforementioned Mosaic/Abrahamic groups.” — I agree, and that is what the evidence of anthropology, molecular genetics, linguistics, archaeology, climate studies, and migration studies seems to indicate.

  7. Ainu/Jomon people came from South East Asia, all statemenst they came from NEA are actually metastases of Japanese state mythology

  8. “The earliest figurine-making tradition is thought to have originated from Upper Palaeolithic figurines from Eurasia and Siberia. The figurine developed into the mother goddess figure in the North Pacific area. Originating from the Lake Baikal area, was the ancestral mother goddess figurine figurine. That figurine probably influenced the development of the Amur River and Japanese types.

    In addition to the mother goddess figurines, the snake motif on pottery designs on Katsusaka pottery from the Yatsugatake mountain area, may be another indication of influence from people living in the Amur River area. Snake motifs are most widely used by all Tungus tribes in the lower Amur region where the cosmic serpent is considered the Creator of their Universe.”

    that is just amazing diffusionists drivel.
    we can state nothing about the meaning of figurines.
    and “snake motif” is very widely spread over the world.

  9. Really dumb. The highest population of haplogroup y-chromosome D are in the Japanese islands and Andaman islands. This is consistent with a coastal migration out of Africa around Southeast Asia How did the scant traces of Group D end up in Siberia and Tibet? Follow the coast until it is too darn cold and turn left at the Amur river or flee the Toba event by going north on the Mekong River. The person who wrote this article have obviously never gone camping and run out of supplies. You need fresh water and food which is easy to catch or pick off the ground and furthermore small sticks and rocks don’t work too good against wolves, bears and tigers nor hunting for game in the jungle, forest or steppes. It would be another 10,000 years before advanced hunting weapons allowed humans to even venture into the deep interiors of Asia.

    • The Jomon do not only possess Y-DNA D, but C as well, plus when you look at their mtDNA, the whole picture is predominantly a NEAS one. You are completely behind in your readings then. The old phylogenies are all currently being rewritten. Hg C can now been seen to be pan-Eurasian, from E. Europe to the East, ending up in the proto-Mongol or Mongol ancestors, therefore with C3 highest diversities and frequencies among the Eurasian nomads. Other genes too follow the same trail, hg R, N, P and Q. Q is for eg a North Eurasian hg entering north China by around 3000 bp at least, yet the Chinese claim it as shaping Han Chinese culture (and by implication dishonestly claiming it as having an origin in northern Han China) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0125676, even though basal Q-M242 is between 15-20,000 years old, originating around North Eurasia/CAS. mtDNA R and others are also shown to have early roots in the North Eurasia-NEEurasia. All the Russian studies that have turned up C are in North Eurasia, Ust-Ishim, Kostenski, many others. Mal’ta genes is also upstream and one-hop to PNG. See http://dienekes.blogspot.jp/2014/01/brown-skinned-blue-eyed-y-haplogroup-c.html This posits that Y-DNA C, D divided in somewhere in Eurasia or CAS, around the Egyin Gol (E-G River flows into Lake)~ Baikal area. This view would be consistent with allelic, blood marker and virus studies. Many new studies put origin of Ainu and Jomon in CAS, at the Egyin Gol area (C3 origins: http://dienekes.blogspot.jp/2010/05/comparison-between-morphological-and.html) . Plus it also explains why East Asians still carry the largest component of Denisovan and Neanderthal genes, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure they carried it from the Denisova area in Altai all the way to East Asia. Archaeology shows burins (among other classes of stone lithics) to be a distinctive trait of the earliest Eurasians, and burins are found in abundance among the Jomon, arriving from Siberia. The ancient migrations over the northern route were hard to detect, because they were smaller groups beginning their nomadic trek, and because time and the glacial age have also erased their trails of the migrations and branching of the superhaplogroups. We are told there was a depopulation event – “a biological hiatus in the Cis-Baikal region during the seventh millennium BP”. Hence we see the thinner y-DNA C and D among the Mongols, and is also why the Y-DNA and YAP components of the Qiang, Tibetan have been wrongly interpreted previously as of southern origins … their traditional nomadic admixture from the north and with Mongol pastoral nomads hg D suggest their hg D also came from northerly areas. Recent studies also show that the nomadic earliest layers of the Chinese Qijia and related cultures of Gansu and W. China are associated with sheep-rearing nomadic cultures from a northerly or westerly (W. Asia) area. Until recently, the picture we saw was the high frequencies and diversities of population expansions at the lower haplogroup branches and twigs of the human tree all over MSEA and ISEA. This picture resulted in earlier DNA studies drawing a southern migratory coastal trail. Now we have more complex and nuanced and mixed picture of human migrations and multiple trails. Jomon, Yayoi, Kofun and Japanese, and even Ainu’s origins at every period/epoch, and settling populations from differing regions of Japan are in fact of mixed or hybrid origins, stemming from migrating populations taking different paths into Japan. In fact, the picture of genetic origins for Mongol, Korean, Japanese is predominantly one of a clear cline to the Baikal and Altai region, Eurasian and NEAS genetic components admixed with some proto-Austronesian-Dai originating in MSEA population elements. Clay figurine goddess culture has never been prominent in Southeast Asia or ISEA, but has been a feature of W. Asia all the way across N Eurasia, NEAS to Japan – all of Derenko genetics research and Russian/Japanese archaeology support this picture. What was formerly thought to have been Malay peninsula negrito migrations from a southern migration … detailed and recent studies show that their haplogroups are downstream of haplogroups originating further north, either MSEA/S China with some NEAS Asian genetic components. Final nail in the coffin is that the idea that the Y-DNA hg D stems from Africa or India via a southern route must die a full death, see Thangaraj http://www.nature.com/jhg/journal/v51/n9/pdf/jhg2006122a.pdf/http://genetics.stanford.edu/hpgl/publications/CB_2003_v13_p86-93.pdf Andaman “negrito” D has been debunked as unrelated altogether to an Africa or Indian source, but is the result of long-time drift and distance in the migrations from and has closer affinity to Mongoloid Asian populations. What it tells us is that Y-DNA and YAP bearers were the earliest Palaeolithic colonizers of SEA and E Asia, but the trail is posited to have been either over Eurasia or there is a window open, possibly from a Westerly direction over the Himalayas. A better picture of the origins of the proto-Xiongnu/Mongol-Turk as well as early North Chinese, populations, as well as of their relationship with the entire NEASiberian/ANE/E. Eurasian population history, is necessary for our proper understanding of the ethnogenesis of populations of the Japanese archipelago, which is a mixture of Eurasian as well as MSEA-E. Asian… see http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1112/1112.2013.pdf In any event, the mtDNA picture presented of the early pre-O Y-haplogroups (various 02 an 03 subclades) in situ colonizing populations of E. Asia, including Japan, are unequivocal – See Prehistoric hunter-gatherers of Baikal Region, Siberia “The most compelling feature … is the tight cluster of modern groups from Cis-Baikal, North China, Korea together with prehistoric Ust-Ida and Egyin Gol samples with similar mtDNA hgs of C, D, M and G2 speaks of a common matrilineal structure from Lake Baikal across East Asia spanning six millennia and a broad geographic spectrum.” What is important is to acknowledge and recognize is there has been a very early northern pre-LGM presence of hgs C and D mtDNA groups in E Eurasia, while others appeared in the northern Asia/S. Siberia during the late-glacial ages and beyond, with some of these demographic processes (microblade cultures) contributing to incoming migrations to Korea and Japan, (while some components of the same originating populations also migrated towards E. Europe/ W Eurasia eg. Hungary), see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032179. We know now that the Qijia Bronze Age culture (2400 BC – 1900 BC) (and related or descendant Kayue/Lajia/Siwa-Sibe cultures) and other human sacrificing, bronze mirror cultures) culture for example, originated from the north in the Seimo-Turbino culture in the Upper Ob River Valley area. Why is this relevant? Because the Bronze age ceramics and motifs, bronze casting technologies, pastoral nomadic culture are a commonality from Qijia all the way to Liangzhu and Longshan cultures to Japan (Kofun culture), as are many of the populating genes in question: haplogroups B, C, D, M*, and M10. In any event, wherever the exact origins of the earliest incoming migratory populations, it is a futile exercise to ignore the Eurasian and Central Asian settling populations, prehistoric or neolithic, as a source for Japan’s population history. Ryan Schmidt following his cluster analysis of populations affiliated with Xiongnu-Egiin Gol aDNAs and population history, writes ” The ‘Egiin Gol’ cluster remains isolated in the analysis. The only population that shows any biological affinity are the Ainu and Jomon of Japan.”

  10. I am sorry that this in depth study avoided the most common knowledge of paleo-geography that is: the continental shelf of the East China Sea was exposed (dry-land) for 100,000 years prior to 16,000 years ago, while the gradual flooding of this 1 million square kilometers took another 10,000 years.
    In short, after out of Africa, haplogroups M, N, and C populated this immense land that had land-bridges with Korea and Siberian Far East. The distance between this land and Okinawa and Ryukyu Archipelago was in the range of 100-150 km. Climatologically has been proved that this exposed continental shelf had offered much better climate conditions that mainland China-Korea (which were divided only by a Yellow River estuary), otherwise being a single landmass. The coniferous forests and savanna-parks inhabited all paleo-coast, recifes were growing on the southern Ryukyu shores.
    The fact that the first inhabitants of Japan came there only 35,000 years ago, and only in Ryukyu Archipelago, indicates that the rest of Japan (north of Kyushu) was not exactly inhabited for some unknown reasons (probably connected with climate). In the meantime, Siberia, east of Baikal was inhabited since 45,000 years ago.
    The evidence shows that a catastrophic volcanic eruption contributed to the depopulation of Kyushu and Ryukyu from 28,000 years ago until 24,000 years ago. The above study did not show the genetic markers before and after the volcanic eruption; eventually, the new inhabitants, settling 24,000 years ago were the Jomon, but the previous inhabitants almost certainly were from the continental shelf of today East China Sea because no crossing from Siberia or Korea into Japanese Archipelago occurred before this time. The Last Glacial Maximum was probably the reason that made some people from Korea to find refuge in Kyushu and Ryukyu 24,000 years ago.
    In conclusion, the study reveal a bias, and avoid a comprehensive enough analysis .

  11. More recent studies have been done, there is a link with the very early Jomon and the Andaman Negrito and Melanesians etc.

    This doesn’t mean they evolved off these groups, but these groups some 25,0000-30,000 years ago had a common ancestor that likely existed around south western Indochina (this also explains the remnant DNA relation with India also).

    As you know, people spread out in many directions. The Jomon came from the south of Asia and found their way into Japan during the ice age (the oldest Jomon skeleton is found around central Honshu, so we know they didn’t start in Japan from the Ryukyu or Hokkaido area). They likely entered from mainland Korea area, it’s possible that in time they will find an even older skeleton in the Kyushu I would bet.

    Anyway, these peoples were migrating and evolving, they made it into Japan during this time and other groups that split off them made it into eastern Siberia and the Sakhalin area (like the Ulchi people of today).
    These Jomon people almost certainly existed in the Korean peninsula at some point as well.

    Now here is what appears to happen next, the more oriental looking (typical Chinese) evolved around the Huang He in China around 7000-8000 years ago. These people along with their rice farming culture spread viciously across the lands, breeding out many other populations of peoples.

    The similar people to the Jomon existing in far eastern Siberia, Japan and Korea and possibly a small group that reached the Americas from eastern Siberia (but not the majority group).

    The Korean ones get overtaken by the new wave of Chinese type Asians, the waves would have kept coming in and they would have taken over essentially. This would have watered down the Jomon DNA in Korea constantly until it only became a tiny percentage. In modern Korea the Jomon DNA is only in very small amounts (some 2-3%).

    Though eastern Siberia and Japan itself were not invaded by the new type of Asians for a long time to come.
    It was only around 3000 years ago that the new Yayoi type Asians found Japan (found Kyushu first) and started entering Japan and subsequently taking over Jomon lands and breeding in with them.
    And this process took an incredible amount of time, the spread was very slow. And the new Yayoi people in Kyushu and southern Honshu would have acted as a deterrent to more waves of Asians coming into Japan (since at that point they formed their own identity and country).
    It wasn’t until the late 19th century until all of the Jomon lands were finally absorbed by the new Japanese mixed peoples.

    Thus Jomon DNA is heavily preserved in Japan, the same is said for the Ulchi people (eastern Siberians) as they also didn’t face other groups for a long time and thus were preserved to a high degree.

    An interesting thing as well is that the Jomon are known to be hairy, and eastern Siberians related to the Jomon entered the America’s and a small tribe of native Americans in north western USA have quite a bit of body hair and facial hair, without a doubt there has to be a common origin with these groups and the Jomon type.

    There is a 1-2% DNA match with Ainu type DNA with the Kalmyk people, Altaian people. The origin of this I am unsure, it’s possible that the eastern Siberians (which had Jomon type DNA) which bred in to a small degree with the Mongols and other tribes ended up spreading trace amounts of this DNA to those areas the Mongols ruled. It exists in a trace amount in the Xibo people as well.
    As well as the Tujia people of China (central area).
    And it exists around 3-4% in the Daur people of north eastern China.

    A lot of this tells me that the idea that this ancient peoples were more common in the past and got flooded and mixed out with newer groups in the mainland is quite obvious. Which is why it only exists to a high degree in the more remote populations. With it generally going Japanese>Ulchi>Daur>Koreans and so one (lower percentages the farther you get from these populations).

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