Modern Japanese People Research Articles

Fibular diaphyseal curvature of the Jomon population.

This study investigated differences in the fibular diaphyseal curvature between prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers and modern Japanese people. A total of 115 skeletal remains of 40 individuals from the Late/Final Jomon period (approximately 4300-2500years BP) and 75 modern Japanese individuals were included in the analysis. The degree of anteroposterior and mediolateral diaphyseal curvature was measured based on digital photographs taken from the frontal and sagittal planes at every 5% diaphyseal region between the range of 20-80% of the fibular length. Fibular diaphyseal curvature was compared between both populations and sexes, and the correlation between fibular diaphyseal curvature with diaphyseal cross-sectional morphology and body size variables were confirmed. The results showed significant differences in the anteroposterior diaphyseal curvature between the Jomon and modern Japanese populations, and a significantly curved anterior direction was noted for Jomon males and females, compared with modern Japanese males and females. On the contrary, little populational difference was noted in terms of mediolateral diaphyseal curvature. The curvature of the fibular diaphysis showed less correlation with body size variables. Moreover, anteroposterior diaphyseal curvatures were correlated with diaphyseal robustness and had low correlation with diaphyseal shape. A relationship between anteroposterior curvature and diaphyseal cross-sectional morphology, an indicator of habitual activity, was confirmed. This suggests that the fibular curvature is possibly influenced by mechanical loading from daily activities as well.

Modern Japanese ancestry-derived variants reveal the formation process of the current Japanese regional gradations

Modern Japanese people have two major ancestral populations: indigenous Jomon hunter-gatherers and continental East Asian farmers. To determine the formation process of the current Japanese population, we developed a detection method for variants derived from ancestral populations using a summary statistic, the ancestry marker index (AMI). We applied AMI to modern Japanese population samples and identified 208,648 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were likely derived from the Jomon people (Jomon-derived variants). Analysis of Jomon-derived variants in 10,842 modern Japanese individuals recruited from all over Japan revealed that the admixture proportions of the Jomon people varied between prefectures, probably owing to the prehistoric population size difference. The estimated allele frequencies of genome-wide SNPs in the ancestral populations of the modern Japanese suggested their adaptive phenotypic characteristics to their respective livelihoods. Based on our findings, we propose a formation model for the genotypic and phenotypic gradations of the current Japanese archipelago populations.

Do modern Japanese people have gender stereotypical traits?

Do modern Japanese people have gender stereotypical traits?

Geographic variation in the polygenic score of height in Japan.

A geographical gradient of height has existed in Japan for approximately 100years. People in northern Japan tend to be taller than those in southern Japan. The differences in annual temperature and day length between the northern and southern prefectures of Japan have been suggested as possible causes of the height gradient. Although height is well known to be a polygenic trait with high heritability, the genetic contributions to the gradient have not yet been explored. Polygenic score (PS) is calculated by aggregating the effects of genetic variants identified by genome-wide association studies (GWASs) to predict the traits of individual subjects. Here, we calculated the PS of height for 10,840 Japanese individuals from all 47 prefectures in Japan. The median height PS for each prefecture was significantly correlated with the mean height of females and males obtained from another independent Japanese nation-wide height dataset, suggesting genetic contribution to the observed height gradient. We also found that individuals and prefectures genetically closer to continental East Asian ancestry tended to have a higher PS; modern Japanese people are considered to have originated as result of admixture between indigenous Jomon people and immigrants from continental East Asia. Another PS analysis based on the GWAS using only the mainland Japanese was conducted to evaluate the effect of population stratification on PS. The result also supported genetic contribution to height, and indicated that the PS might be affected by a bias due to population stratification even in a relatively homogenous population like Japanese.

Dream Structure Characteristics of Modern Japanese People

Dream Structure Characteristics of Modern Japanese People

Dream Structure Characteristics of Modern Japanese People

Dream Structure Characteristics of Modern Japanese People

Dorso-palmar elongation of the diaphysis of the third metacarpal bone in prehistoric Jomon people.

This study investigated cross-sectional morphological differences in the diaphysis of the third metacarpal bone (MC3) between prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers and modern Japanese people. Overall, 179 skeletal remains of 119 individuals (73 men and 46 women) from the Middle-to-Final Jomon period (3500 BC-500 BC) and 60 modern Japanese people (35 men and 25 women) were included in the analysis. Analyses were performed at the mid-shaft of the MC3 using linear measurement, elliptic Fourier analysis, and cross-sectional geometric properties. The standardized polar section modulus (ZpSTD) indicated sexual differences in both populations. The right MC3 was generally stronger than the left side. There was no populational difference in the ZpSTD in both sexes. In both men and women, the cross-sectional shape of the MC3 was relatively larger in the dorso-palmar direction than in the radioulnar direction in the Jomon population compared to the modern Japanese population. Sexual differences in cross-sectional shape were recognized only in the Jomon population, with the dorso-palmar elongation being greater in Jomon men than in women (particularly when comparing the left MC3). There was a significant side difference in the diaphyseal shape among Jomon women, with the right MC3 being relatively larger in the dorso-palmar direction. These findings were consistent, although skeletal remains of the Jomon population were excavated from different regions. Differences in the diaphyseal cross-sectional shape between populations suggest differences in habitual loading on MC3 associated with differences in subsistence behavior. Furthermore, differences in diaphyseal shape and strength between Jomon men and women suggest sexual division of labor, with men performing bimanual tasks and women performing unimanual tasks.

The Spiritual Culture of Modern Japanese People

The Spiritual Culture of Modern Japanese People

Diaphyseal cross-sectional geometry of the metatarsal bones in the Jomon population.

This study aimed to investigate differences in the diaphyseal cross-sectional geometry (CSG) of the metatarsal bones (MTs) between two populations with different habitual activities: the Jomon hunter-gatherers and modern Japanese people. We evaluated the first through fifth MTs of 117 skeleton samples: 59 (33 men and 26 women) were obtained from Late and Final Jomon period archeological sites and 58 (31 men and 27 women) were from modern Japanese people. CSG properties were calculated at the mid-shaft of the MTs and the relative values of the polar section modulus (Zp ) of each second-to-fifth MTs to first MTs were calculated. These variables were compared according to population and sex. Many of the CSG properties of MTs, except first MTs, were higher in the Jomon population than in the modern Japanese population for both sexes. Additionally, the relative values of the Zp of the MTs were higher in Jomon men and women than in modern Japanese men and women. Moreover, the Jomon population had sex-based differences in the ratio of the shape of third MTs and fourth MTs and the relative MTs value. Jomon women had elliptical third MTs and fourth MTs, and the relative Zp values of the third-to-fifth MTs to first MTs were higher in Jomon women than in Jomon men. Our result suggests that the habitual activity of the Jomon population placed heavy loads on the forefoot. This finding possibly relates to mediolateral forefoot loading that appears to be related to traversing uneven terrain.

Analysis of politeness strategies in Japanese and Korean conversations between males

AbstractThis study analyzed the uses and functions of speech levels and speech level shifts in natural conversations between two unacquainted males. Similarities and differences between Japanese and Korean languages have been investigated. For the Japanese language, speech levels do not clearly reflect the hierarchical relationships based on the interlocutors’ age by utilizing “non-marked utterance (NM)” This finding implies that modern Japanese people tend to avoid the use of honorifics which clearly indicates the hierarchical relationships between speakers at the sentence level. On the other hand, speech level shifts reflect hierarchical relationships between speakers, which means that Japanese seem to conform to normative language use at the discourse level. For the Korean language, both speech levels and speech level shifts clearly reflect the hierarchical relationships based on the interlocutors’ age. This result suggests that Korean have a strong tendency to preserve the normative honorific usage of polite forms according to age difference both at the sentence level and at the discourse level. These results suggest that speech levels, considered to be socio-pragmatically obligatory, have a strategic-use aspect for both languages, including the use of “non-marked utterances” and that of downshifts. It was also discovered that Japanese tend to use speech levels more strategically than Korean. Consequently, Japanese uses honorifics strategically in order to evade hierarchical relationships based on age, whereas Koreans tend to conform to social norms that derive from tenets of Confucianism, a philosophy emphasizing politeness toward older people; such practice encourages younger people to use polite forms to their elders.

A Study on Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Translation and Kanji Notation of Foreign Place Names

In connection with Fukuzawa Yukichi’s view of translation, this study examined the Kanji notation in his books written in the early Meiji Era, and compared it with that in other documents. First, place names translated into the same Kanji notations are found in all of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s books, among place names that had comparatively long been translated into Kanji. Second, in each book, translation of one place name into two or three Kanji notations shows the intention to gather various notations together; and on the other hand it demonstrates the view of translation trying to reflect the diversity of Kanji notation. Third, the place names translated by coining Kanji characters represent a positive aspect that it enabled early modern Japanese people to have easy access to the Western world. On the other hand, it shows limitations that the Kanji notations that were coined by excessively relying on the colloquial style did not play a proper role as Kanji characters representing the place names. Fourth, the comparison shows that the two documents have relatively similar notation pattern. However, since there is mixed use of Japanese-style Chinese characters and Chinese-style of Chinese characters even in the same document depending on the translator, it confirms the transitional period of natation of place names.

The characteristic mid-shaft cross-sectional shape of the ulna in Jomon hunter-gatherers.

The Jomon people were hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Japanese archipelago between 10,000 BC and 300 BC. Here, we focus on the mid-shaft cross-sectional shape of the ulna in the Jomon population and compare it with modern Japanese people. Jomon specimens, including 32 males and 22 females, were excavated from shell mound sites in the Pacific and Seto inland coastal area of Honshu island in the Japanese archipelago dated to the Late-to-Final Jomon phase (between 2,000 BC and 300 BC). Mid-shaft ulna cross-sectional shapes were compared with modern Japanese specimens (25 males, 21 females) using standard linear measurements and elliptic Fourier analysis (EFA). Differences from both sides of this element were compared using predicted handedness. Linear measurements and EFA results show that ulna shape of both sexes within the Jomon population are relatively larger in the antero-posterior direction and have more developed posterior borders than modern Japanese males and females. No significant differences were observed between Jomon sexes based on the predicted dominant side, but differences were evident in the predicted nondominant side. At the same time, bilateral differences were recognized in Jomon females, because of a lower level of posterior border development in the predicted nondominant side compared to the dominant side. Shape differences between Jomon people and modern Japanese can be explained by variation in the habitual loading of the ulna. Sexual dimorphism in ulna shape within the Jomon population suggests division of labor differences.

The hierarchical semantic structure of respect-related emotions in modern Japanese people

This study examined the reproducibility of the hierarchical semantic structure of respect-related emotions and the prototypical meaning of sonkei (respect) in modern Japanese people. Participants, ages 20-79, rated the semantic similarity of 153 pairs of 18 respect-related words used in previously published work. Hierarchical cluster analysis (n = 515) showed almost the same semantic organization as the previous study. The highest level of abstraction consisted of "person-focus respect, emotional attitude" and "action-focus respect, emotional state." The basic-level consisted of (a) respect mingled with mild love; (b) ought-respect (respect as moral duty); (c) idolatry (worship and adoration); (d) awe mingled with fear; (e) admiration; and (f) wonder. The word sonkei was included in category (a). Additional analyses were conducted according to age. The results revealed that the basic categories seen in adults ages 60-79 differed from those in the whole sample and that sonkei was included in the category which could be considered as, ought-respect. These findings suggest that the semantic organization of respect-related emotions is gradually changing under the influence of modern culture.

Listen, Copy, Read: Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan ed. by Matthias Hayek and Annick Horiuchi (review)

Reviewed by: Listen, Copy, Read: Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan ed. by Matthias Hayek and Annick Horiuchi Brian Platt Listen, Copy, Read: Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan. Edited by Matthias Hayek and Annick Horiuchi. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 380 pages. Hardcover €125.00/$162.00. The essays in this volume are set against the backdrop of a historical development that is essential to the history of early modern Japan: the dissemination, among broad segments of the Japanese population, of areas of knowledge that were previously the preserve of an exclusive circle of elites. Historians have long been interested in this development, but have focused their attention primarily on formal institutions of learning—schools—in which teachers transmitted knowledge to ever-growing numbers of students. This is an important topic, to be sure, but it can create the misimpression that learning is something that happens only in the setting of a formal [End Page 309] institution, typically via a hierarchical, unidirectional transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. Learning also takes place outside of such settings, of course, and this volume provides a rich sample of the kinds of learning through which early modern Japanese people acquired knowledge. The volume’s title refers to the three basic means by which this acquisition took place: listening to lectures, copying information from copybooks, and reading manuals and guidebooks. The last two of these means speak directly to a phenomenon that is at the heart of this book, which is the extraordinary expansion in commercial publishing during the Tokugawa era. As a number of the essays point out, before the advent of commercial publishing, knowledge could be monopolized by elite families or other exclusive social groups and transmitted directly to initiates. Whether the knowledge in question was transmitted orally or through texts, these groups could control access to it—and indeed, their livelihoods and social status often depended on their exercise of this control. The growth of a market for printed materials during the early modern period eroded this paradigm, creating new mechanisms for the acquisition of knowledge and leading gatekeepers of knowledge to adapt to the new environment. As several contributors to the volume make clear, the growth of print did not mean that orality ceased to be important. Lectures retained their significance as a vehicle for transmitting knowledge, even as they moved away from a pattern of private transmission by a master to the members of an exclusive group and became, instead, increasingly public. In fact, they became part of a strategy for reaching broader audiences—a logic that had been dictated by the spread of educational materials via the commercial press. Among these three modes of learning, then, the one that was not dependent on print—listening—cannot be understood correctly outside of the context of the print revolution. The editors organized the twelve essays in this volume into four sections. The first section includes essays on the “transposition” of knowledge from elite circles to commoners. (As we will see, though, almost all of the essays in the volume could have been grouped under this rubric.) The section begins with Tsujimoto Masashi’s essay on the Shingaku movement, which from its inception represented an effort to reach broader audiences with new knowledge. The movement’s founder, Ishida Baigan (1685–1744), had sought to bring moral knowledge—which had been pursued primarily through textual study of Confucian classics—to ordinary people with simple, everyday language. In contrast to most previous scholarship, Tsujimoto focuses not on Baigan but on subsequent generations of Shingaku teachers. He demonstrates that they adopted a different way of communicating with their audience: instead of a dialogue between teacher and students, they taught by means of a lecture to a mass audience, an oral performance designed to provoke an emotional response in the hearer. Unlike many of the chapters in this volume, which discuss how commercial printing created new pedagogical tools for mass audiences, the chapter by Tsujimoto sheds light on an effort to reach nonliterate audiences who were left behind by the print revolution. Wakao Masaki’s chapter is on the reading habits and intellectual worlds of Kawachika Kashō (1636–1713) and Andō Shōeki (1703–1762...

ＤＮＡ解析が解明する現生人類の起源と拡散

Modern DNA—maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA and paternally inherited Y-chromosomal DNA in particular—is now routinely used to trace ancient human routes. It appears that genetic data can actually offer a means of better understanding ancient population movements. The DNA patterns of present-day world populations indicate that modern humans emerged from Africa at least 150,000 years ago. These populations dispersed from Africa to most other parts of the world at least 60,000 years ago along the tropical coasts of the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and Australasia. Genetic data support a model for the peopling of the New World in which Native American ancestors diverged from the Asian gene pool and experienced a gradual population expansion as they moved into Beringia. After a long period in greater Beringia, these ancestors rapidly spread into the Americas at least 15,000 years ago. Examinations of ancient human bones using molecular genetic techniques provide direct access to genetic information on past populations. The retrieval and analysis of ancient DNA is more difficult than that of modern DNA. However, this technique holds great potential for inferring the origins of the Japanese people. The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups among the Jomon, Yayoi, and modern Japanese populations suggests that the formation of the Japanese population was not the result of a population expansion. Distinctively different frequencies of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups among Jomon and Yayoi populations indicate significantly different population histories for these groups. However, both populations have contributed to the formation of the modern Japanese population. An eastward population expansion from the Asian Continent during the Yayoi period resulted in the admixture of these people with the indigenous Jomon people and led to the formation of the basic pattern seen in modern Japanese people.

多変量解析による『特記空間』データの分析 : 『特記空間』を用いた現代住宅の動向研究 その4

The author defines Special Space as a space that influences a living room's domain, space uses or space held in common, selected from arbitrary housing spaces reflecting the life style of modern Japanese people. Previous reports have presented the distribution of Special Space in houses shown in Jutaku Tokushu published by Shin-Kenchiku sha and its characteristic analogous, which were investigated and searched. Furthermore, attempts were made to analyze the opinion trends discussed here and the design processes based on architects' comments on the houses. This study applied statistical treatment with multivariate analysis on Special Space data obtained during the above investigation. It aims to draw the relationship mutually acting on the analogous hiding in the depth and the dull tendency based on the Special Space data.

『特記空間』の定義と検証方法の考察 : 『特記空間』を用いた現代住宅の動向研究 その1

"Special space" is defined as the space influencing the domain and use of housing space reflecting the life-style of modern Japanese people. This study aims at establishing a methodology for evaluating the way of living using this space. The houses studied were sampled from the 1998 "Jutaku Tokushu", and the study classified "special space" and surveyed its distribution. The analysis derived models showing the relationship between living and special space. Discussions of architecture styles will be discussed after the models are verified.

気道・食道異物 医外史

Broncho-esophageal foreign bodies have been seen throughout human history. This paper presents foreign body cases from Japanese ancient writings particularly after 10th AD. and the correct location of trachea and esophagus, and future problems for foreign body treatments.1) There were several interesting removal methods. For example, a laryngeal rice-cake foreign body was removed by drinking vinegar, and an esophageal fish bone was removed with a hemp stick, and a pin using an array of beads with a string in the esophagus.2) T. Yamawaki pointed out the correct position of the trachea and esophagus in his book titled“Zohshi” (1759). Before this book, people had thought that the position of the esophagus was in front of the trachea.3) Two hundred modern Japanese people were asked where the location of trachea and esophagus were. Thirty-two percent of them believed that the esophagus was in front of the trachea. The author reported 7 reasons why they misunderstood the relative locations of the trachea and esophagus.4) Future problems regarding the broncho-esophageal foreign bodies and their diagnosis, anesthesiology and removal were discussed. Improvement in the flexible broncho-fiber scope, X-ray diagnosis and methods of anesthesia, and new removal methods for the bronchoesophageal foreign bodies are required.