Human remains from the Yayoi period, approximately 2,300 years ago, from which DNA was extracted.
Map of Japan showing Sakhalin (far north) and the Kuril and Ryukyu Islands
Google Map
Being parochial Bronze Age pastoralists who knew about nothing and nowhere that was more than a day or two's walk from their hill pastures in Canaan, those who made up the Hebrew creation myths could not possibly have been aware that there were other cultures in far-away places like China, Korea and Japan, which had ancient histories going way back before the myth-makers thought Earth was created, and which were unscathed by an global flood at the time in which they set that tale.
Had they been aware of them, they could have made up slightly more plausible myths with a more realistic timeline, instead of requiring their believers to try to compress everything that's happened in the entire 14-billion-year-old Universe into 10,000 years.
But how could they have done so when they had no-one to teach them the real history of the planet and the people living on it? All they had was their own limited imagination and a handful if inherited myths from neighbouring culture, like Egypt and Sumeria, for theirs was a backward, illiterate culture from the fearful infancy of our species, dependent on oral traditions and superstitions.
How could they possibly have known, for example, that a population of humans had been more or less isolated for about 6,500 years, ending at about the time the myth-makers believed Earth was made out of nothing by magic, complete with a dome over it to cover the small, flat place they called home? They would have known nothing about immigration from China or from the Korean Peninsula into the Japanese archipelago that brought this period of isolation to an end and probably resulted in the present-day population of Japan.
So, of course, they saw nothing wrong with inventing a tale about a genocidal flood killing everyone apart from 8 related survivors, or of building a tower to reach above the dome or about a panicking god making them all speak different languages so they couldn't work in cooperative groups any more, and yet, if their tale is to be believed, the descendants of those few survivors, all speaking different languages, migrated to places like China, Korea and Japan where they all adopted the local language and writing that had been used for several thousand years, forgot all about Noah and his flood and invented new gods and religions, whereas the myth-makers of Canaan remembered it all word-perfect in every detail...
So, how do we know the record they left was wrong?
What can you tell me about the people of Japan, their origins and ancient history? The people of Japan have a rich and complex history that spans thousands of years. The earliest inhabitants of Japan were likely the Jomon people, who lived during the Jomon period (c. 14,000 – 300 BCE). They were hunter-gatherers known for their distinctive pottery, which is some of the oldest in the world. The Jomon people are believed to have arrived in Japan via land bridges during the last Ice Age.Simple. We can look at the record people like the Japanese left in the form of archaeology, which was left by people who didn't need to make anything up, and we can look at the fossil DNA evidence that modern Japanese people still carry withing their cells. In other words, we can look at the real, scientific evidence, and see that it is entirely inconsistent with what the Canaanite myth-makers made up. This is how we can tell that the stories they made up and which were later incorporated into a book declared to be the inerrant word of a god and therefore real history, could not have been written or inspired by such a god.
The Jomon People
The Jomon culture is notable for its long duration and cultural sophistication, particularly in pottery-making and intricate designs on everyday objects. These early inhabitants lived a semi-sedentary lifestyle, relying on fishing, hunting, and gathering, and they settled in different parts of the Japanese archipelago, including Honshu, Hokkaido, and the Ryukyu Islands. Their tools and evidence of early agriculture suggest a society that became increasingly complex over time.
The Yayoi People
Around 300 BCE, a new wave of people, the Yayoi, migrated to Japan from the Korean Peninsula and mainland Asia, bringing with them new technologies like wet-rice agriculture, metalworking (bronze and iron), and a more stratified social structure. This marked the start of the Yayoi period (c. 300 BCE – 300 CE), which saw the gradual blending of Jomon and Yayoi cultures. Genetic studies indicate that modern Japanese people are a mix of Jomon and Yayoi ancestries, with the Yayoi contributing more to the gene pool.
The Yayoi people are thought to have been more organized and communal, living in larger villages and developing a more advanced agrarian society. They are credited with introducing rice cultivation, which became a staple food in Japan and a key driver of its ancient economy. This period also saw the emergence of metal tools, weapons, and ritual objects, which facilitated social hierarchy and warfare.
The Kofun Period and Early Yamato State
From around 300 CE, the Kofun period (c. 300 – 538 CE) began, named after the large burial mounds or kofun that were constructed during this time for powerful leaders. This period marks the rise of powerful clan-based rule, particularly the Yamato clan, which eventually laid the foundations for the Japanese imperial family. The Yamato rulers began to unify the many disparate clans of Japan, forming a centralized state.
During the Kofun period, Japan also began to establish cultural and diplomatic ties with China and Korea. The introduction of Buddhism from the Korean Peninsula in the 6th century was a major cultural turning point, influencing Japanese society, art, and governance. The Influence of China and Korea
In the centuries that followed, Japan absorbed various cultural, political, and technological influences from China, particularly during the Asuka period (538–710 CE) and the Nara period (710–794 CE). Chinese Confucian ideals, administrative systems, writing (the kanji script), and Buddhism were all adopted and adapted by Japanese elites. This period also saw the formal establishment of an imperial government based on Chinese models, although it developed into a unique Japanese system over time.
Ainu and Ryukyu People
Apart from the Jomon and Yayoi influences, Japan is also home to indigenous groups such as the Ainu, who traditionally inhabited northern Japan, particularly Hokkaido, and the Ryukyuans, who inhabit the Ryukyu Islands (including Okinawa). The Ainu have distinct cultural and linguistic roots, and their origins are somewhat distinct from those of the Yayoi and Jomon. Their traditional lifestyle was based on hunting, fishing, and gathering. The Ryukyu people, meanwhile, developed a maritime trading culture that was heavily influenced by Japan, China, and Southeast Asia.
Japanese Identity and Language
Linguistically, Japanese belongs to the Japonic language family, though its precise origins remain debated. Some theories suggest links to Korean and other languages of Northeast Asia, while others propose influences from Pacific or Southeast Asian languages. The mixture of Yayoi, Jomon, and later cultural waves helped shape the distinct Japanese identity that emerged during Japan's ancient history.
Summary of Key Periods:
- Jomon period (c. 14,000 – 300 BCE): Early hunter-gatherer culture, famous for pottery.
- Yayoi period (c. 300 BCE – 300 CE): Introduction of rice agriculture, metallurgy, and social stratification.
- Kofun period (c. 300 – 538 CE): Rise of clan-based rule, formation of the Yamato state.
- Asuka and Nara periods (538 – 794 CE): Influence of Chinese culture and Buddhism.
This blend of early indigenous cultures and external influences from the Korean Peninsula and China laid the foundation for Japan’s later historical development, including the formation of a unified state and the imperial family, which still exists today.
From that we can deduce that those who declared the myths to be the inerrant word of a god were lying, and, as liars, they had a reason to try to deceive us into believing something they knew wasn't true.
So, what is the archaeological evidence that tells us the myth-makers were wrong and the compilers of the Bible were deceivers?
That has just been published, open access, in the Journal of Human Genetics, by a team from the School of Science, Tokyo University, led by Jonghyun Kim and Jun Ohashi and explained in a University of Tokyo news release:
Traces of ancient immigration patterns to Japan found in 2000-year-old genome
Genetic analysis of an individual from the Yayoi period reveals immigration patterns from the Korean Peninsula.
A joint research group led by Jonghyun Kim and Jun Ohashi of the University of Tokyo has demonstrated that the majority of immigration to the Japanese Archipelago in the Yayoi and Kofun periods came from the Korean Peninsula. The researchers analyzed the complete genome of a “Yayoi” individual and found that, among the non-Japanese populations, the results bore the most similarity to Korean populations. Although it is widely accepted that modern Japanese populations have a dual ancestry, the discovery provides insight into the details of immigration patterns to the archipelago that have eluded scientists thus far. The findings were published in the Journal of Human Genetics.
Today, Japan is an international hub for both business and pleasure. However, this was not always the case. The Japanese Archipelago was relatively isolated during the Jomon period until around 3000 BCE. Then, during the Yayoi and Kofun periods, immigration to the islands from continental Asia began.
East Asian-related and Northeast Asian-related ancestries account for over 80% of nuclear genomes of the modern Japanese population, however, how the Japanese population acquired these genetic ancestries—that is, the origins of the immigration—is not fully understood.
Jun Ohashi, co-corresponding author.
Department of Biological Sciences
Graduate School of Science
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Various theories have been proposed to explain the genetic variety in the modern population. Currently, the two contenders are the two-way and three-way admixture models. According to the two-way model, the main source of immigration was the same during the Yayoi and Kofun periods, while the three-way model assumes two different sources. To investigate which model was the better fit, the researchers analyzed the complete nuclear genome of an individual from the Doigahama Site, the archeological site of a Yayoi period cemetery in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan.
The researchers compared the genome of this Yayoi-period individual with the genome of ancient and modern populations in East Asia and Northeast Asia. The comparison showed close similarity to Kofun period individuals with distinct Jomon-related, East Asian-related, and Northeast Asian-related ancestries. However, a comparison with modern genomes also revealed that the Yayoi individual, except for modern Japanese populations, was the closest to modern Korean populations, which also have both East Asian-related and Northeast Asian-related ancestries.
Our results suggest that between the Yayoi and Kofun periods, the majority of immigrants to the Japanese Archipelago originated primarily from the Korean Peninsula. The results also mean the three-way admixture model, which posits that a Northeast Asian group migrated to the Japanese Archipelago during the Yayoi period and an East Asian group during the Kofun period, is incorrect.
Jun Ohashi
Despite the significance of these findings, Ohashi is already looking ahead.Since our study has identified the primary origins of the immigrants, our next goal is to examine the genomes of more Yayoi individuals to clarify why more than 80% of the genomic components of the modern Japanese population are derived from immigration and how the admixture between continental Asian and indigenous Jomon people progressed within the Japanese Archipelago.
Jun Ohashi
Publication:
The roots of immigration to the Japanese ArchipelagoJonghyun Kim, Fuzuki Mizuno, Takayuki Matsushita, Masami Matsushita, Saki Aoto, Koji Ishiya, Mami Kamio, Izumi Naka, Michiko Hayashi, Kunihiko Kurosaki, Shintaroh Ueda, and Jun Ohashi. 2024.
Genetic analysis of a Yayoi individual from the doigahama site provides insights into the origins of immigrants to the Japanese archipelago. Journal of Human Genetics. DOI: 10.1038/s10038-024-01295-w
AbstractAnd that, simply put, is how we can tell those who bound up the Canaanite origin myths into a book and declared it to be the inerrant word of a god were lying and had an agenda which depended on us being deceived. From the resulting power it gave them over people and the way they freely abused that power for their own self-aggrandizement, it's not hard to work out why they wanted to deceive us.
Mainland Japanese have been recognized as having dual ancestry, originating from indigenous Jomon people and immigrants from continental East Eurasia. Although migration from the continent to the Japanese Archipelago continued from the Yayoi to the Kofun period, our understanding of these immigrants, particularly their origins, remains insufficient due to the lack of high-quality genome samples from the Yayoi period, complicating predictions about the admixture process. To address this, we sequenced the whole nuclear genome of a Yayoi individual from the Doigahama site in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. A comprehensive population genetic analysis of the Doigahama Yayoi individual, along with ancient and modern populations in East Asia and Northeastern Eurasia, revealed that the Doigahama Yayoi individual, similar to Kofun individuals and modern Mainland Japanese, had three distinct genetic ancestries: Jomon-related, East Asian-related, and Northeastern Siberian-related. Among non-Japanese populations, the Korean population, possessing both East Asian-related and Northeastern Siberian-related ancestries, exhibited the highest degree of genetic similarity to the Doigahama Yayoi individual. The analysis of admixture modeling for Yayoi individuals, Kofun individuals, and modern Japanese respectively supported a two-way admixture model assuming Jomon-related and Korean-related ancestries. These results suggest that between the Yayoi and Kofun periods, the majority of immigrants to the Japanese Archipelago originated primarily from the Korean Peninsula.
Introduction
The prehistory of the Japanese Archipelago is represented by the “Jomon period”, a Neolithic period. The name “Jomon”, meaning “rope pattern”, reflects the distinctive feature of the Jomon culture, characterized by pottery with a unique pattern created using rope [1]. Although there are various opinions about the duration of the Jomon period, archeological evidence widely supports that it started approximately 16,500 years ago and persisted in isolation from the Eurasian continent for at least 10,000 years [2]. The main subsistence activities during the Jomon period were hunting and gathering. Rice cultivation in paddy fields was introduced to northern Kyushu, Japan, at the end of the Final Jomon period, about 3000 years ago, marking the beginning of the Yayoi period. It then gradually spread throughout Japan from the Middle to Late Yayoi period [3].
There were various hypotheses to explain the history of the Japanese. For example, the “transformation model” posits that only culture, not people, came from the continent. The “replacement model” suggests a complete replacement of indigenous Jomon people by the Yayoi people, while the “hybridization model” proposes admixture between indigenous Jomon people and continental immigrants [4]. Currently, the “dual-structure model,” one of the hybridization models proposed by Hanihara [5] based on the skeletal characteristics of ancient Jomon and Yayoi individuals, is widely accepted.
Strong evidence supporting the dual-structure model has been accumulated through population genetic studies. The presence of not only the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome haplogroups commonly found in continental East Asians, but also the mtDNA haplogroups such as N9b and M7a [6,7,8] and Y chromosome haplogroups such as D-M125 [9,10,11], which are uncommon in continental Eurasians but common in Jomon people, supports the hypothesis of hybridization between Jomon people and continental Eurasian immigrants in the Japanese Archipelago. Studies on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on autosomes have suggested that the genetic component of modern Japanese can be explained as a mixture of Ainu-related ancestry and continental East Asian-related ancestry [12, 13], providing additional evidence for the dual-structure model. Furthermore, studies revealing a closer genetic affinity between the Ainu of Hokkaido Prefecture and the Ryukyuans of Okinawa Prefecture despite their geographical distance [14,15,16] suggest the migration of continental Eurasians to the mainland of Japan. The dual-structure model is considered fundamentally correct; however, among Mainland Japanese, there exists genetic heterogeneity [17,18,19,20] partly due to variations in the proportion of Jomon-related ancestry [21]. This indicates that the admixture of Jomon and continental Eurasian immigrants did not uniformly progress throughout the mainland of Japan.
Several studies have also investigated the origins of the Jomon people through the analysis of ancient nuclear genomes. The analysis of Jomon genomes revealed that the Jomon lineage is located basal to the other East Eurasian lineages [22,23,24]. However, the origins of continental Eurasian immigrants who migrated to the Japanese Archipelago from the Yayoi to the Kofun period remain unclear due to the lack of high-quality nuclear genome data from Yayoi individuals.
A recent study [25] reported a sudden change in the genetic profile of the Japanese between the Yayoi and Kofun periods, using newly reported genomes of three Kofun individuals and previously published genomes of two Yayoi individuals from the Shimomotoyama rock shelter in Japan [26]. Based on the differences in genetic components between the Yayoi and Kofun individuals, the authors suggested that gene flow occurred from Northeastern Siberians during the Yayoi period, and independent gene flow from East Asians, such as Han Chinese, occurred during the Kofun period. Consequently, they proposed a three-way admixture model for modern Mainland Japanese.
However, certain aspects of the analysis presented in the paper proposing a three-way admixture model [25] require further consideration. A major concern is the representativeness of the Yayoi samples used. Human skeletal remains from the Yayoi period, excavated from northern Kyushu and its surrounding areas, have been categorized into two main groups based on metric analyses [27, 28]. The Yayoi people from northwestern Kyushu area (including Nagasaki and nearby regions) exhibit morphological traits similar to those of the Jomon people, such as a low face and short stature [29,30,31]. In contrast, the Yayoi people from northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi areas are characterized by a higher face and taller stature compared to the Jomon people [32,33,34], suggesting a significant genetic influence from immigrants. The Yayoi samples used in the previous study [25], specifically Shimomotoyama 2 and Shimomotoyama 3, belong to the northwestern Kyushu Yayoi group and have been shown to possess genetic components from both the Jomon people and immigrants from the Asian continent [26]. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the genetic characteristics of the Yayoi people, it is also essential to investigate samples from the northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi Yayoi group. Additionally, the sequence data quality for Shimomotoyama 2 and Shimomotoyama 3 was not high, with coverage below 0.1x. Consequently, the question of whether there is a significant genetic difference between Yayoi people and Kofun people remains open for further study.
In this study, we determined the whole nuclear genome sequence of an ancient Yayoi individual from the Doigahama site in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. This individual belongs to the northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi Yayoi group. To clarify the origins of continental Eurasian immigrants from the Yayoi to the Kofun period, we conducted further population genetic analyses on the Doigahama Yayoi individual, including admixture modeling.
And from the self-aggrandizing greed of modern Christian talibangelists and the way they are now trying to abuse their power for political ends, it's clear that the deception is continuing. The Christian religion with its Holy Book of Lies is still providing excuses for those who need excused.
Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It
This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
No comments :
Post a Comment
Obscene, threatening or obnoxious messages, preaching, abuse and spam will be removed, as will anything by known Internet trolls and stalkers, by known sock-puppet accounts and anything not connected with the post,
A claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Remember: your opinion is not an established fact unless corroborated.