What's the origin of the Japanese people ?

[Gaki]

It's most likely that Japanese are of a Chinese origin.

BUT i think that along the way they have mixed with other groups, creating the Japanese race we have today.

A belief is that during the reign of the first emperor of China Qin Shi HuangDi ~ when he was in his search for the magical herb of immortality, sent thousands of people to the east for the "mushroom islands".
But of course we know these thing doesnt exist, and since they couldnt find and going back to China would only mean death (for not finding it, is an offence to the emperor). So these people who travelled to the east, found the island of Japan and settled there.

LOL ~ just re~read what i wrote and i sound like such a story-teller ^^;

Also you can see with facial looks there are many similarities between the two.

[梁铠赞]

It's most likely that Japanese are of a Chinese origin.

BUT i think that along the way they have mixed with other groups, creating the Japanese race we have today.

A belief is that during the reign of the first emperor of China Qin Shi HuangDi ~ when he was in his search for the magical herb of immortality, sent thousands of people to the east for the "mushroom islands".
But of course we know these thing doesnt exist, and since they couldnt find and going back to China would only mean death (for not finding it, is an offence to the emperor). So these people who travelled to the east, found the island of Japan and settled there.

LOL ~ just re~read what i wrote and i sound like such a story-teller ^^;

Also you can see with facial looks there are many similarities between the two.

my history teacher taught me the same things...I believe it's not a belief....I think it's the truth....^^ any opinion??

[ToMach]

I believe it's not a belief

Hum...interesting argumentation...
Let's say that's a myth, maybe the distorted reflect of part of the truth or not, and let's look for real evidence somewhere else.

[Dharma]

It's most likely that Japanese are of a Chinese origin.
BUT i think that along the way they have mixed with other groups, creating the Japanese race we have today.
A belief is that during the reign of the first emperor of China Qin Shi HuangDi ~ .

Here I listed two useful websites, you may want to have a look:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese.htm
http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/jpp/japor.html

Actually I noticed that the Japanese traditions and costumes have a lot of similarities with Chinese Han Dynasty (e.g. tatami, low table) and Tang Dynasty Period.

[Grimmo]

Here I listed two useful websites, you may want to have a look:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese.htm
http://users.tmok.com/~tumble/jpp/japor.html
Actually I noticed that the Japanese traditions and costumes have a lot of similarities with Chinese Han Dynasty (e.g. tatami, low table) and Tang Dynasty Period.

Han chinese is originated from south east and south west asia.



The following figures came from National Science Museum at Ueno/Shinjuku, and supposed to reflect how the mainstream scientist (inland/overseas) sees the origin of japanese people.



Mainstream hypothesis of migrations into the Japanese islands from Sibelia and Korea. Red=Jomon/Ainu (native islanders), Yellow=Yayoi (korean/chinese)



It is known that japanese shares about 60% of genes from continents, and 40% from Ainu/Jomon, proto-caucasoid.

[Grimmo]

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ull/19/10/1737
Free Online Journal Edition

The Emerging Limbs and Twigs of the East Asian mtDNA Tree
Toomas Kivisild*, Helle-Viivi Tolk*, Jüri Parik*, Yiming Wang, Surinder S. Papiha, Hans-Jürgen Bandelt and Richard Villems*

*Department of Evolutionary Biology, Tartu University and Estonian Biocentre, Estonia;
Department of Medical Genetics, Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, People's Republic of China;
Department of Human Genetics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne;
Department of Mathematics, University of Hamburg, Germany

We determine the phylogenetic backbone of the East Asian mtDNA tree by using published complete mtDNA sequences and assessing both coding and control region variation in 69 Han individuals from southern China. This approach assists in the interpretation of published mtDNA data on East Asians based on either control region sequencing or restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing. Our results confirm that the East Asian mtDNA pool is locally region-specific and completely covered by the two superhaplogroups M and N. The phylogenetic partitioning based on complete mtDNA sequences corroborates existing RFLP-based classification of Asian mtDNA types and supports the distinction between northern and southern populations. We describe new haplogroups M7, M8, M9, N9, and R9 and demonstrate by way of example that hierarchically subdividing the major branches of the mtDNA tree aids in recognizing the settlement processes of any particular region in appropriate time scale. This is illustrated by 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.


Fig. 3.―Phylogenetic reconstruction and geographic distribution of haplogroup M7. a, A network of HVS-I haplotypes, which comprises the superposition of the most parsimonious trees for the three postulated sets of M7a, M7b, and M7c sequences. The mutations along the bold links were only analyzed for a few Japanese sequences (Ozawa et al. 1991 ; Ozawa 1995 ; Nishino et al. 1996 ) and―toward the root of M―for some Chinese sequences (this study): the corresponding individuals with (partial) coding region information are boxed. Numbers along links indicate transitions; recurrent HVS-I mutations are underlined. The age of mtDNA clades is calculated (along the tree indicated by unbroken lines) according to Forster et al. (1996) , with standard errors estimated as in Saillard et al. (2000) . Sample codes (and sources): AI―Ainu (Horai et al. 1996 ); CH―Chinese (Betty et al. 1996 ; Nishimaki et al. 1999 ; Qian et al. 2001 ; Yao et al. 2002 ; this study); IN―Indonesian (Redd and Stoneking 1999 ); JP―Japanese (Ozawa et al. 1991 ; Ozawa 1995 ; Horai et al. 1996 ; Nishino et al. 1996 ; Seo et al. 1998 ; Nishimaki et al. 1999 ); KN―Koreans (Horai et al. 1996 ; Lee et al. 1997 ; Pfeiffer et al. 1998 ); MA―Mansi (Derbeneva et al. 2002 ); MJ―Majuro (Sykes et al. 1995 ); MO―Mongolians (Kolman, Sambuughin, and Bermingham 1996 ); PH―Philippines (Sykes et al. 1995 ; Maca-Meyer 2001 ); RY―Ryukyuans (Horai et al. 1996 ); SB―Sabah (Sykes et al. 1995 ); TW―Taiwanese Han (Horai et al. 1996 ) and aboriginals (Melton et al. 1998 ); UI―Uighur (Comas et al. 1998 ; Yao et al. 2000 ); YA―Yakuts (Derenko and Shields 1997 ). b, Frequencies of the subgroups of M7 in Asian populations are inferred from the preceding HVS-I as well as partial HVS-I and RFLP data (VN―Vietnamese: Ballinger et al. 1992 ; Lum et al. 1998 ). Mainland Han Chinese are denoted as follows: GD―Guangdong, LN―Liaoning, QD―Qingdao, WH―Wuhan, XJ―Xinjiang, YU―Yunnan (Yao et al. 2002 ), SH―Shanghai (Nishimaki et al. 1999 ). The number of M7 sequences in relation to the sample size is indicated under each pie slice proportional to the M7 frequency

--------------------------------------
So chinese is much closer to Vietnam, and Thailand, and Nepal in terms of genes.

Some tiny portions of SK shares Jomon and Ainu bloods, (YAP+: 2% of SK, mtDNA markers: 5% of SK). This msut be due to the recent colonization of korea, and possibly long-time trade relationship.

[Grimmo]

According to genetic results, apporx. 60% or more Japanese are of continental origin (korean/chinese). However, there are significant jomon/ainu bloods in them.

I think on average, japanese appearances are nowhere in east asian.
My guess is due to the the distorsion introduced by jomon/ainu bloods, and their unique facial structures. I guess, there must be some japanese who could be almost deemed as chinese or korean, but there are japanese who is completely outside the chinese/korean facial features.

---------------
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/brown99.pdf

The first modern East Asians ?:
another look at Upper Cave
101, Liujiang and Minatogawa 1
Peter Brown
Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology
University of New England
Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia



MINATOGAWA 1
The Minatogawa 1 male skeleton was found in 1970 at the
Minatogawa limestone quarry on Okinawa (Suzuki and Hanihara 1982).
111
The first modern East Asians?: another look at Upper Cave 101, Liujiang and Minatogawa 1
Three female skeletons, in varying states of preservation, and assorted
other fragments were also recovered. The Minatogawa skeletons have
been described in detail in Suzuki and Hanihara (1982), with Suzuki
(1982) describing the crania. Additional comparative information can
be found in Baba and Nerasaki (1991). The Minatogawa 1 cranium is
not as complete as Liujiang and Upper Cave 101, particularly in the
basi-cranium, facial skeleton and temporal regions. Several of the
dimensions used in the analysis to follow had to be estimated.
Unlike Liujiang and Upper Cave there does not appear to have
been any concern over the reliability of the dating of Minatogawa.
Radiocarbon dates of 18,250 ±650 to 16,600 ±300 years BP were obtained
from charcoal inside the fissure (Kobayashi et al. 1974). Fluorine content
of human and non-human bones within the site suggested that they
were contemporaneous (Matsu’ura 1982). Assuming that the site was
well stratified, that the carbon dates do bracket the skeletons and that
the skeletons were not intrusive, then Minatogawa remains do have a
strong claim to being the earliest modern human skeletons in East Asia.



Overall, the scatter plot of Functions 1 and 2 indicate the relative morphological
similarity of the modern and Neolithic Chinese groups, while the
modern Japanese are closer to a wider range of East Asian and Native
American populations. Plots of the total group dispersions associated
with Figure 3 revealed the large degree of overlap between the Neolithic
and modern Chinese and between the modern Japanese, Anyang,
Hainan and Native American groups. The Eskimo and Ainu were more
distinct, as were both of the Australian Aboriginal groups.

Please note that northern and southern japanese are in the middle point between N/S chinese and ainu/jomon/minatogawa. This represents the japanese population
divided into the two completely diverged skull/facial structures.

[Grimmo]

I presume that on the northernmost japan (aomori, akita, etc), people's face can have many features like ainu, jomon, minatogawa, but no chinese like facial structures could be expected, because of the genetic distributions of YAP+ and DE-YAP and some mtDNA markers. The rest will be defined as yayoi coming from the continent through korean peninsula.


The results show the average faces of east asian (and some other related)populations.

Please notice that N/S japanese faces are slightly different from N/S chinese. I think this is due to the ainu/jomon population and/or mixtures of both natives and continentals.

Northern chinese are independent of modern yayoi japanese facial structures. Southern chinese are somewhat similar, so the southern chinese tribes may have immigrated to japan through korea 2kya, which now comprises the 60% of total japanese population.

Please note the ainu/jomon (native japanese islanders) which should represent roughly 40% or less of total japanese population (by the results of genetic analysis) shows dissimilarity to the Northern/Southern chinese.

[Grimmo]

Method of matching up the morphological data with samples:
So what does Ainu and Northern Japanese really look like?
Superficially, we have to consider the representative of the population rather than averaging out. I think the person from the noble family seems to be the most suitable sample for dissecting the phenotype of northern japanese. This is due to the traditional japanese system that samurai or any noble class belong to the lords so the number of years these lords govern means that the samurai under the hierachy has lived with them and rather stay in one place for the long period of time.
Traditional samurai (bushi) and aristocrat (kuge) are hereditary. It's not like your boss fussing around his people, and throw them away. They have very limited capability to even fire off their workers. Except a few dictators like Oda Nobunaga, and Taira no masakado, local lords have to take care of people as much as they do to their family. You can verify this by looking at the cheap furnitures of the lords, if you ever had a chance to visit shiro au japon. In cases the noumin (farmers) complain to the central authority (Tenno or Shogun), they themselves be replaced with other guys. Attachment of those nobles to their lands are unusual by western standard, and can only be understood in cultural context.
From heian to edo period, japanese feudal systems impose severe restrictions (shouen seido to baku han taisei) on moving of people. People belongs to shou (or han), and are not allowed to move to other prefectures. This is why japanese calls their society, mura (village). They don't accept outsiders, for if they do it, they will be punished by the highest authority to illegally admit people from the outside. This static nature of society seems to be of particular importance, as this seems to be a much powerful tool to separate the population.
Taking samples based on locations are justified given that northern han and southern han chinese are sometimes merely classified by their birthplaces, although researchers claim that they do more surveys, but in countries other than japan, you have to make quiet a strong assumption. How about Caviella at Stanford? He's using this method on northern and southern han chinese population. So as long as we stick to the old Japanese population, our method does not go beyond the conventional research method. You just need to take the oldest pictures of the oldest family people, then I think the method is accurate enough.
The figure above of the National Science Museum at Ueno shows the predicted distributions of modern japane ethno-demography. We see the strong support for assuming that eastern, north eastern, northern japan, and southern japan has the higher frequency of habitation of native islanders. The comparison of skulls with, say, central japanese may reveal some morphological differences between each of japanese populations.
I think some renowned or famous guys in this field like Philip Deitiker used more radical approaches for classifying people by looks, and that's similar to mainstream genealogist. I used more conventional approaches than these people. I used the Brown's resutls (posted above) based on Howell's approaches and tried to match up the results with some historical figures who has more information known than J-POP or K-POP singers who only has the birthplace on their profiles. These samurai has a history of some up to 1000 years or more , and this makes me feel that they are representative of both ainu/jomon and yayoi japanese.
Northern Japanese
Mutsu Munemitsu, A minister of Foreign Affair

He is nothern japanese from the noblest family in northern japan.
His family tree is from Hiraizumi-Fujiwara clan (Emishi related Ainu).
His ancestor includes some figures like Date Masamune, and the origin of family dates back more than 1000 years ago,
The same person

Iinuma Sadakichi (1853-1931) born in Aizu-han

Eastern Japanese
Katsu Kaishu, Admiral of the Shogun's fleet

[Grimmo]

Fig. 2. Frequency distributions of the eight Y-chromosome haplotypes for the 14 global populations, with their approximate geographic locations. The frequencies of the eight haplotypes are shown as colored pie charts (for color codes, see upper left insert). JP =Japanese. Han=Chinese

Only four Japanese populations exhibited ht1 (defined only by YAP+) at various frequencies (also see Table 1). The highest frequency (87.5%) was found in JP-Ainu, followed by JP-Okinawa (55.6%) living in the southwestern islands of Japan, JP-Honshu (36.6%), and JP-Kyushu (27.9%). The ht2 haplotype (defined by YAP+/M15+) was found in only two males, one each from Thais and Thai-Khmers; ht3 (defined by YAP+/SRY4064-A) was completely absent in the Asian populations examined, whereas Jewish in the Uzbekistan and African populations had this haplotype with a frequency of 28.3% and 100%, respectively. Thus, the YAP+ lineage was found in restricted populations among Asian populations, consistent with previous reports (Hammer and Horai 1995; Hammer et al. 1997; Shinka et al. 1999).

The ht4 haplotype (defined only by M9-G) was widely distributed among north, east, and southeast Asian populations, except for the Ainu. This haplotype was frequent (60.5%) in overall Asian populations (Table 1). Among them, the Han Chinese and southeast Asian populations were characterized by high frequencies ranging from 81.0% to 96.0%. In contrast to ht4, ht5 (defined by M9-G/DYS257108-A) and ht6 (defined by M9-G/DYS257108-A/SRY10831-A) were small contributors to Asian populations. The highest frequency of ht5 was observed in Nivkhi (19.0%) and that of the ht6 in Thai-Khmers (10.8%). The ht5 haplotype is widely distributed among European, Asian, and Native American populations and is proposed to be one of the candidates for founder haplotypes in the Americas (Karafet et al. 1999). Furthermore, high frequencies of ht6 were observed in north Europe, central Asia, and India (Karafet et al. 1999). Thus, the presence of ht5 in Nivkhi may account for the founder effect of peopling of the Americas.

The ht7 haplotype (defined by RPS4Y-T) was also widely distributed throughout Asia with the exceptions of Malaysia and the Philippines, whereas this was absent in two non-Asian populations. The highest frequency of ht7 was found in Buryats (83.6%), followed by Nivkhi (38.1%). Thus, the geographic distribution of ht7 in Asia appears to contrast with that of ht4.

Only eight individuals (1.4%) in Asia belonged to ht8, which was the major haplotype in Jewish population (Table 1). The ht8 haplotype may not be useful for inferring population relatedness among Asian populations because it is defined by no mutations. Additional Y-polymorphic markers such as M89 and M168 (Underhill et al. 2000; Ke et al. 2001) will be needed to investigate details of the formation of modern Asian population.

[Grimmo]

Group of Ainu people, 1904 photograph, taken in Hokkaido Japan
From Wikipedia "Ainu People"
Due to intermarriage with the Japanese and ongoing absorption into the predominant culture, few living Ainu settlements exist. Many "authentic Ainu villages" advertised in Hokkaido are simply tourist attractions.
If you search the Ainu people over the Web, you will most likely see the fake Ainu people's picture. These are fake japanese pretending to be ainu for tourism

[Grimmo]

Komura Jutaro (Southern Japanese), Minister of Foreign Affair, Harvard Graduate


Akiyama Saneyuki (Southern Japanese), Hero in Japan-Russo War, Vice-Admiral, died in 1918


Akiyama Yoshifuru (Southern Japanese), General, The founder of Japanese Cavalry

[Grimmo]

Average (not necessarily typical) Korean face

http://www.andongkim.com/articles/20...koreanface.htm
Korean scientists allegedly produced what they call, "the average Korean face". The Korean Institute of Science and Technology information (KISTI) working together with the Catholic Institute for Applied Anatomy made computer tomographic scans of Koreans last year and with the aid of a supercomputer produced a "digital Korean" -- a 3-D video of the average Korean's physical structure.
Do you see much differences from the northen japanese?
Northern han CHINESE face.
http://www.angle.org/anglonline/?req...e=05&page=0393
Perception of Facial Esthetics by Native Chinese Participants by Using Manipulated Digital Imagery Techniques
Sample population
The Chinese rater group consisted of 85 native Chinese participants from Beijing. Of these raters, 38 were women, and 47 were men (45% women and 55% men). Their mean age was 26.3 ± 5.3 years.
Manipulated digital imagery technique
An adult native Chinese male and female stimulus face (A) was selected for digital distortion (Figures 1 and 2 ). Both subjects were 24 years old and were chosen because they exhibited Class I occlusions with average dental proclination and balanced lower facial skeletal proportions previously established as norms for this population. They were meant to be representative of the average facial profile for this ethnic group. Because the Chinese have a shorter than average anterior cranial base and a dental proclination greater than Caucasian norms, their “normal” profile would be classified, by Caucasian standards, as bimaxillary protrusive.29,30 This profile was selected as representative of the “normal” Chinese participant.

FIGURE 1. The “normal” Chinese male stimulus face (A) with a balance of dental and skeletal proportions

FIGURE 2. The “normal” Chinese female stimulus face (A) with a balance of dental and skeletal proportions

[Grimmo]

Hi

just found an interesting image on jomon (native islander) and yayoi (continental, korean and chinese). Does anyone have more pictures on this?

[bossel]

Hi
just found an interesting image on jomon (native islander) and yayoi (continental, korean and chinese). Does anyone have more pictures on this?

May I ask what you're trying to prove by flooding this thread with these portraits (& other pics)? Judging from your (Ken?) thread in another forum, there is probably more to come.

Outer appearance (esp. modern) is much too varied to conclude from this on what happened 2000 years ago. Concentrating on "nobility" won't do the trick either, because you don't know how much incest has been going on.

Do you have any source for your idea that Ainu are proto-caucasoid?

It’s just like Germans and French don’t really look the same

Er..., what's the difference? I suppose, there is a greater difference between a French Fleming & a Mediterranean Frenchman than between the Fleming & a Rhinelander.
Both France & Germany have quite a mixed population, anyway.

[Grimmo]

Outer appearance (esp. modern) is much too varied to conclude from this on what happened 2000 years ago. Concentrating on "nobility" won't do the trick either, because you don't know how much incest has been going on.

I don't how much lies in their family tree is in their nobles, but I clustered them in the regions of high ainu gene density and low ainu gene density.

Do you have any source for your idea that Ainu are proto-caucasoid?

To show that Ainu is proto-caucasoid, I cannot merely concern the population in east asia. We know the two types of proto-caucasoid features in tiny minority of native north american and native aborigine. By proto-caucasoid, there has to be one of the three conditions satisfied:

1) Ancestral to the modern caucasoid and mongoloid in central asia
2) Split from both population 30-50k years ago
3) Facial features common to other known proto-caucasoids (either north american or Australian Aborigine)

1) hard to prove by population genetics, as the extensive mutation and speciation makes it diverse even within the same proto-caucasoids cluster. Main problem is extreme environmental variation and the extinction and assiimilation of species so that we no longer have an ideal pure proto-caucasoid reference population. In the north sibelia and Australia, the temperature difference can be a factor. But if you like I can post the genentic connection of Ainu to native northern americans, although at the moment, my institution are not subscribed to that particular journal.

2) This is rather lengthy to show, and still disputed widely. Possibly, another one whole page of this thread. Should I do it? Bossel?

3) Minatogawa man found in Okinawa, Aomori, and Hokkaido was posted above. please refer back to my earlier posts. In principal component analysis, Jomon's morphology is the closest to Australian Aborigine. Ainu and Eskimo forms another cluster in comparison with other population, both are close to Minatogawa man skull, and there may be a possible connection.

[bossel]

By proto-caucasoid, there has to be one of the three conditions satisfied:
1) Ancestral to the modern caucasoid and mongoloid in central asia

Proto-caucasoid as I understand it would mean the population from which the caucasoids evolved. Any evidence that the Ainu actually are direct descendents of that population?

2) Split from both population 30-50k years ago

Do you mean that Ainu were actually predecessors of both caucasoid & mongoloid races? That would mean that they were proto-caucasoid/mongoloid.

3) Facial features common to other known proto-caucasoids (either north american or Australian Aborigine)

Aborigenes are proto-caucasoid, too? Amerindians, as well? Caucasoid ancestry must be very heterogenous, then.

2) This is rather lengthy to show, and still disputed widely. Possibly, another one whole page of this thread. Should I do it? Bossel?

If you think that anyone would read it. I suppose, a link to some peer-reviewed articles would suffice.

Jomon's morphology is the closest to Australian Aborigine. Ainu and Eskimo forms another cluster in comparison with other population,

Morphology, hmm? Not very convincing, esp. since Ainu are said to be derived from Jomon. Skulls give hints, but not more, IMO.

[ricecake]

Han chinese is originated from south east and south west asia.

The UPPER ARROW denoted as " Han/Tibetan in Chinese script " CLEARLY POINTS TO upper Yellow River Basin where Hua-Xia tribes settled,with ORIGIN MIGRATION ROUTE THROUGH Tibet Kunlun mountains.These ancient tribal people were one of two early Han Chinese origins,along with other half-lings Dong-Yi of Shandong peninsula.Han Chinese race is MAINLY OF North Eastern Asian stock.Nowadays,Han IS A CULTURAL IDENTITY not a race.

The TWO LOWER ARROWS point to Yangtze River where Miao and Yao ancestors settled,plus various indigenous tribes made settlement in southern China what's today's China's Gunagxi/Canton/Fujian provinces PROBABLY CAME NORTHWARD THROUGH Vietnam or SE Asia.Those ancient southern China's indigenous tribes later labeled as Yue by Chinese historians MIGHT HAVE GENETICS TIE TO Viets,Thais,and Laotians with their languages in the Tai-Kadai group.

China's SW region has ABORIGINAL MINORITIES with some have blood-tie to Viets who are passionate searching for " southern Chinese blood connection ",this is where Vietnamese can find their long " lost siblings " if scientifically proven.