Originally Posted by
Maciamo
From what I read, the only Ainu still living in Japan are restricted to Hokkaido. They used to occupy all the north of Japan (Tohoku) till a few centuries ago, then were pushed to Hokkaido (but maybe in the Edo period, not Jomon or Yayoi). People from Okinawa don't look Ainu at all. Their language is related to some native languages of Taiwan (i.e. not Mandarin Chinese), not to the Ainu language, nor Japanese. Besides, it would suprise me that Ainu would have ventured at sea to reach small islands hundreds of km off the coast of Kyushu which they might not have known of. From what I've read, Japanese already lived in Western Japan in Jomon and Ainu in the North-East. Not sure when Japanese arrived in Japan (and from where ? probably Korea, but they also seem to be related to Indonesians ?).
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