There are many theories about how the Japanese came to be.
Some folk history lovers in our country believe that the Japanese are the descendants of Xu Fu in our country, and legend has it that Qin Shi Huang sent Xu Fu to lead a thousand virgin boys and girls out to sea to find in order to find the elixir of immortality, and as a result, Xu Fu and his party floated on the sea for a long time and did not find the Immortal Mountain, and went back to send them to death, so he took this thousand virgin boys and girls to drift to Japan, and multiplied in Japan, and legend has it that this is the source of the Japanese.
But after all, this statement is only a legend, and there is no scientific basis.
The Japanese also have myths and legends about their origins, and the Japanese royal family also claims to be the descendant of the god Amaterasu, a descendant of the Ten thousand generations.
In addition to these two claims, there are other Japanese origin stories, which have no scientific basis and are either conjectures or legends.
And the Japanese research team, a paper published in the American Science Journal during this time, may be able to explain from a scientific perspective who the ancestors of modern Japanese people are?
Are modern Japanese descendants of Han Chinese?
In the paper, the Japanese research team analyzed the human bone DNA of the Kofun period found in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, about 1500 years ago, and found that the Kofun dna contained genetic features that are common in East Asians, which are almost identical to the genetic characteristics of modern Japanese. The Asahi Shimbun said this meant that the Kofun people may be the direct ancestors of modern Japanese.
To understand the history of the Japanese race, we must first know about the different eras of Japan.
The earliest era in Japan is the Jomon period, which lasted from 10,000 years ago to around 300 BC.
Yayoi Period: Around 300 BC to 250 AD.
The Kofun period, also known as the Yamato period, began in 250 AD and ended in 538 AD.
There are also the Asuka era, the Nara era, and the Heian era. The focus of this article is on the Jomon period, the Yayoi period, and the Kofun period.
In 1991, Japanese expert Kazuo Tsukiwara proposed the famous "double tectonic theory" to explain the history of the Japanese population, which holds that in the Paleolithic Age, ancient people from Southeast Asia first arrived in Japan and created the Japanese Neolithic culture: Jomon culture, which was named "Jomon culture", mainly because of the pottery at that time, there were various patterns of grass rope patterns. The Jomon people made a living from hunter-gatherers, and their production methods were relatively backward.
Then a second wave of immigrants from East Asia arrived, during the Yayoi period in Japan. The arrival of the second group of immigrants from East Asia brought agriculture to the local area, and the most favorable evidence is that the cultivation of rice began to appear in Japan, and we know that rice was the first domesticated in our country.
Japanese expert Kazuro Kawahara believes that the direct ancestors of modern Japanese people are likely to be Yayoi people.
After the Yayoi period, there were East Asian peoples from the Han Chinese who came to Japan, in this era, the Han chinese and other ethnic groups not only integrated with the genes of the locals, but also brought textile, civil construction technology, and built many kofuns, so this era is also called the kofun era.
Modern research has shown that the DNA of the Kofun people contains genetic traits that are common in East Asians that the Yayoi people do not have, and these genetic traits are almost identical to those of modern Japanese.
It can also be proved that the direct ancestors of modern Japanese may be Kofun people, and The Kofun people are mixed races of Yayoi people and Han immigrants, so modern Japanese are likely to be descendants of East Asian peoples such as Han Chinese.
In fact, the Japanese originated in China and East Asia, and it can be seen from the geographical location that Japan is an island country surrounded by the sea, and it was difficult for people to cross the ocean in ancient times when productivity was not yet developed. The only continent closer to it is Asia. And during the Quaternary Ice Age, when global sea levels were low, It was likely that Japan would be able to connect directly with Eurasia, allowing people to reach it.
summary
Although the new theory has solved the problem of modern Japanese people as descendants of kofun people from the DNA level, it is still necessary to analyze the number of samples of human bones and investigate kofun and Yayoi more extensively in order to further solve the mystery of the origin of the Japanese people.
Either way, modern Japanese have a certain relationship with East Asian peoples such as the Han Chinese.