Yayoi People Research Articles

Demic Diffusion of the Yayoi People in the Japanese Archipelago

The present study examines the 3-dimensional data of human crania from the Yayoi period (800 BC to AD 250) of the Japanese archipelago by geometric morphometrics to investigate demic diffusion patterns. This is the first study on the Yayoi crania using their 3D data and geometric morphometrics with a much larger number of skeletal remains outside of the Kyushu regions than previous studies. The comparative results between the Jōmon and Yayoi samples show that the Yayoi people not only in the eastern parts but also in the western parts of the archipelago are significantly different from the final Jōmon people and the Yayoi people were not strongly affected by the Jōmon people. A relatively gradual geological cline is also found among the Yayoi population, suggesting that the immigrants from the continental East Asia moved from the western parts to the eastern parts of the archipelago though the causes of the morphological changes are unclear.

늑도 거주 집단의 성격 연구

This study attempted to approach the characteristics of the Neuk Island group by analyzing the characteristics of the entire human skeletons excavated from Neuk Island During the analysis of burial facility, direction of burial, and posture of body, it was confinned that throughout the IC and A district mostly featured the existence of multiple jar burials, graves with structures installed, burials directing towards northeast and east, extended burial, and general usage of supination. But, C district shows differences in comprehensive fimeral rite from those two districts. Scarcity of jar burials, absence of structure built graves, irregularity of burial direction, and also the focus of flexed burial. As in analysis of artifacts, it was clear that there was hierarchy differentiation, due to the existence of the skeletons buried with artifacts that are marlcedly different from others, and superior accessories that were buried with specific minors. Also, according to the comparison of cranial measurements with other areas, IC and A district had similar characteristics and groups with skeleton group of Korean peninsula, but C district has difference in characteristics from those two and groups with Jomon People and Jomon type Yayoi People. In conclusion, the analysis ofNeuk Island Skeleton shows that I C and A district were the settlement groups ofNeuk Island but C district which shows differences in characteristics and funeral rite was group of Yayoi People stayed temporarily for trades.

Climatic change around the 4.2 ka event in coastal areas of the East China Sea and its potential influence on prehistoric Japanese people

Climate change during the Holocene is thought to have had a significant impact on human migration and development. In Japan, the earliest prehistoric culture based on hunting and gathering began about 16,000 years ago (the Jomon era). At least 3000 years ago, people with paddy rice cultivation skills started to migrate from mainland China, causing an explosion of population growth, lifestyle changes, and changes to the level of civilisation (Yayoi era). To clarify the climatic changes that potentially led to the movement of the Yayoi people to Japan, we analysed the palaeotemperature changes recorded in coastal marine sediment cores obtained from the Zhejiang coast in China, where the first paddy rice cultivation occurred, and northern Kyushu Island, where it was introduced to Japan. The reconstructed temperature fluctuations over the past 7000 years from both sites were similar on the scale of hundreds to thousands of years. The cold periods that occurred approximately 300 and 4200 years ago, which are related to the Little Ice Age and 4.2 ka events, respectively, may have been caused by modulations of the East Asian summer monsoon. Our study suggests that enhanced coastal upwelling may have amplified the cold climate of the 4.2 ka event on the Zhejiang coast. Our results support the recently proposed hypothesis that climate change prompted the collapse of the Yangtze civilisation and the migration of paddy rice farmers to other parts of Asia, including Japan. In contrast, the Jomon people, who still survived mainly based on hunting and gathering at that time, might have avoided a major population collapse.

Genome-wide SNP data of Izumo and Makurazaki populations support inner-dual structure model for origin of Yamato people

The “Dual Structure” model on the formation of the modern Japanese population assumes that the indigenous hunter-gathering population (symbolized as Jomon people) admixed with rice-farming population (symbolized as Yayoi people) who migrated from the Asian continent after the Yayoi period started. The Jomon component remained high both in Ainu and Okinawa people who mainly reside in northern and southern Japan, respectively, while the Yayoi component is higher in the mainland Japanese (Yamato people). The model has been well supported by genetic data, but the Yamato population was mostly represented by people from Tokyo area. We generated new genome-wide SNP data using Japonica Array for 45 individuals in Izumo City of Shimane Prefecture and for 72 individuals in Makurazaki City of Kagoshima Prefecture in Southern Kyushu, and compared these data with those of other human populations in East Asia, including BioBank Japan data. Using principal component analysis, phylogenetic network, and f4 tests, we found that Izumo, Makurazaki, and Tohoku populations are slightly differentiated from Kanto (including Tokyo), Tokai, and Kinki regions. These results suggest the substructure within Mainland Japanese maybe caused by multiple migration events from the Asian continent following the Jomon period, and we propose a modified version of “Dual Structure” model called the “Inner-Dual Structure” model.

Analysis of Orbital Morphology and its Relationship With Eyelid Morphology

Correct anatomical reconstruction of the orbital wall for function and cosmesis is important; however, this is difficult because of the structure's complexity. The authors aimed to analyze and classify orbital morphology from computed tomography (CT) images and examine the relationship between orbital morphology and eyelid morphology in the Japanese population. CT images of 60 men (right side, 29; left side, 31) and 44 women (each side, 22) were included. The lengths of the orbital medial wall and floor in the coronal plane at the anterior, middle, and posterior planes of the orbit; angle between them; simotic index; and the thickness of upper eyelid were measured. Additionally, the presence or absence of double eyelids was evaluated. Non-paired Student's t test and Pearson correlation coefficient test were used for analysis. Orbital morphology was symmetrical on both sides, and men had a larger orbit than women. Orbital morphology was classified into 2 groups according to the posterior angle, and there was a difference between the groups in the simotic index. The difference between groups may represent a genetic difference between the Jomon and Yayoi people and not only provide a new classification for the orbit of the population but also be useful in orbital reconstruction.

Genetic characteristics of Yayoi people in Northwestern Kyushu

Genetic characteristics of Yayoi people in Northwestern Kyushu

Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan by Charlotte von Verschuer

Reviewed by: Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan by Charlotte von Verschuer W. Wayne Farris (bio) Rice, Agriculture, and the Food Supply in Premodern Japan. By Charlotte von Verschuer; translated by Wendy Cobcroft Routledge, London, 2016. xiv, 356 pages. $145.00. The place of rice in Japanese agriculture and civilization has been a contentious issue among scholars of all disciplines for 50 years or more. Sahara Makoto, the leading archaeologist of the Yayoi period (defined by Sahara as 300 BCE–300 CE), argued in his heyday (the 1980s) that rice was introduced to Japan during that period and overtook the islands almost overnight. According to Sahara, the chief characteristic of the Yayoi people was that they ate rice. On the other hand, Amino Yoshihiko, a historian of medieval Japan (roughly 1100–1600), told me once in a scholarly conversation that rice farmers comprised no more than 25 per cent of the population of Japan in the medieval period. Later, while I was doing research for Japan’s Medieval Population,1 I relayed Amino’s words to Hayami Akira, the dean of Japanese demographers specializing in the Edo period, who stated angrily [End Page 136] that Amino was a “fool” (baka). Such is the capacity of this issue to generate more heat than light. Charlotte von Verschuer therefore deserves great credit for walking into this minefield. Moreover, she cites a basketful of primary sources and secondary interpretations in a scholarly narrative that generates more light than heat. That is not to say that her book is without flaws. The argument repeats much information already available in English while neglecting other points, presents a dubious chronology of agricultural development in Japan, and forces the reader through pages of undigested primary sources. Reading this book was a chore akin to boring through solid rock. The contents may be summarized as follows. Rather than setting up the larger issue in the introduction, the author describes her conclusions and shows the differing routes by which Oryza sativa japonica and dry grains were introduced into Japan—rice from the south and unirrigated crops mainly from the north. I found the idea of dry crops being introduced from the north interesting and requiring more explanation while the discussion of wet rice merely repeated what is already known. Chapter 1, with its detailed account of the agricultural process and agricultural development from the Yayoi period through Edo times (1600–1868), is overlong. The side issues examined seem like digressions and do not receive the attention they deserve. Insufficient thought has been given to the presentation of primary sources. Chapter 2 offers a straightforward narrative of swidden or slash-and-burn agriculture, though one swamped with data (especially pp. 154–74). The conclusion (“swidden farming was a widespread reality in everyday life” [p. 185]) seems unremarkable. Chapter 3 is an interesting excursion into the world of wild plants harvested for food by Japanese farmers, with much information new to the English-language corpus. In chapter 4, the author seeks to calculate the average amount of rice consumed by the Japanese of the “early medieval era” (by Verschuer’s reckoning, 700–1200). There are many pitfalls to this type of calculation, but the unsurprising conclusion here is that wet rice supplied only 25 per cent of the caloric intake of the average resident of the archipelago. Chapter 5 deals with the place of rice in Japanese culture, proposing several new and tenuous readings of Japanese mythology. In place of the purported old view that all Japanese ate rice all the time, Verschuer argues that there was a “five grain” (gokoku) ideology and that Japanese commoners relied upon permanent crops, swidden grains, and foraging. I concur with this general conclusion and amidst the author’s tortuous presentation found several additional valuable insights. For example, I was heartened by Verschuer’s discussion of the direct sowing of rice grains onto soggy lands (p. 32) because so many descriptions of rice agriculture merely assume that transplanting was the rule from the Yayoi period. The section on harvesting is intelligent and nuanced, as she considers whether the rice plant [End Page 137] was removed near the root with an iron sickle...

Tracing Jomon and Yayoi ancestries in Japan using ALDH2 and JC virus genotype distributions.

BackgroundAccording to the dual structure model, the modern Japanese ethnic population consists of a mixture of the Jomon people, who have existed in Japan since at least the New Stone Age, and the Yayoi people, who migrated to western Japan from China around the year 300 bc Some reports show that the Yayoi are linked to a mutation of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene (ALDH2).Recent viral studies indicate two major groups found in the Japanese population: a group with the CY genotype JC virus (JCV) and a group with the MY genotype JCV. It is unclear whether either genotype of the JC virus is related to the Jomon or Yayoi.In this study, we attempted to detect JCV genotypes and ALDH2 mutations from the DNA of 247 Japanese urine samples to clarify the relationship between the dual structure model and the JCV genotype through ALDH2 mutation analysis and JCV genotyping.FindingsThe ALDH2 polymorphism among 66 JC virus-positive samples was analyzed, and it was found that the ALDH2 variant is significantly higher in the population with CY genotype JCV (51.5 %) than in the population with the MY genotype (24.2 %) (p < 0.05).ConclusionFrom these findings, it may be inferred that the ALDH2 mutation, which is related to the Yayoi, is related to CY genotype JCV. When the Yayoi migrated to the Japanese archipelago, they brought the ALDH2 mutation as well as the CY genotype JCV.

Model-based verification of hypotheses on the origin of modern Japanese revisited by Bayesian inference based on genome-wide SNP data.

Various hypotheses for the peopling of the Japanese archipelago have been proposed, which can be classified into three models: transformation, replacement, and hybridization. In recent years, one of the hybridization models ("dual-structure model") has been widely accepted. According to this model, Neolithic hunter-gatherers known as Jomon, who are assumed to have originated in southeast Asia and lived in the Japanese archipelago greater than 10,000 years ago, admixed with an agricultural people known as Yayoi, whom were migrants from the East Asian continent 2,000-3,000 years ago. Meanwhile, some anthropologists propose that rather, morphological differences between the Jomon and Yayoi people can be explained by microevolution following the lifestyle change. To resolve this controversy, we compared three demographic models by approximate Bayesian computation using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (gwSNP) data from the Ainu people who are thought to be direct descendants of indigenous Jomon. If we assume Chinese people sampled in Beijing from HapMap have the same ancestry as Yayoi, then the hybridization model is predicted to be between 29 and 63 times more likely than the replacement and transformation models, respectively. Furthermore, our data provide strong support for a model in which the Jomon lineages had population structure diversified in local areas before the admixture event. Initial divergence between the Jomon and Yayoi ancestries was dated to late Pleistocene, followed by the divergence of Jomon lineages at early Holocene. These results suggest gwSNP data provides a detailed picture of the complex hybridization model for Japanese population history.

Human genetic diversity in the Japanese Archipelago: dual structure and beyond.

The Japanese Archipelago stretches approximately 3,000 kilometers from Hokkaido in the north to the Ryukyu Islands in the south, and has seen human activity since at least 30 thousand years ago (KYA). The Jomon period from 16 to 3 KYA is associated with cord-marked pottery and the people at that time, who were hunter-gatherers, occupied a range of locations across the Japanese Archipelago. The Yayoi period from 3 to 1.7 KYA saw the introduction of migrants from the Asian Continent who brought rice agriculture to the archipelago. The dual-structure model, which is based on craniofacial measurements, proposes that admixture between the Jomon and Yayoi people resulted in current-day Japanese. Subsequent genetic studies using uniparental and autosomal markers in current-day and ancient human samples are widely in support of the dual-structure model. These genetic data have also unveiled the uniqueness of the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan people while further demonstrating the genetic substructure within the Mainland Japanese.

The history of human populations in the Japanese Archipelago inferred from genome-wide SNP data with a special reference to the Ainu and the Ryukyuan populations

The Japanese Archipelago stretches over 4000 km from north to south, and is the homeland of the three human populations; the Ainu, the Mainland Japanese and the Ryukyuan. The archeological evidence of human residence on this Archipelago goes back to >30 000 years, and various migration routes and root populations have been proposed. Here, we determined close to one million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for the Ainu and the Ryukyuan, and compared these with existing data sets. This is the first report of these genome-wide SNP data. Major findings are: (1) Recent admixture with the Mainland Japanese was observed for more than one third of the Ainu individuals from principal component analysis and frappe analyses; (2) The Ainu population seems to have experienced admixture with another population, and a combination of two types of admixtures is the unique characteristics of this population; (3) The Ainu and the Ryukyuan are tightly clustered with 100% bootstrap probability followed by the Mainland Japanese in the phylogenetic trees of East Eurasian populations. These results clearly support the dual structure model on the Japanese Archipelago populations, though the origins of the Jomon and the Yayoi people still remain to be solved.

Patterns of systemic stress during the agricultural transition in prehistoric Japan

This study documents and interprets systemic stress during the agricultural transition in prehistoric Japan using linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) defects and cribra orbitalia (CO) lesions. Middle to Final Jomon cultures (5000-2300 BP) from Honshu Island represent the foraging samples, while Yayoi cultures (2500-1700 BP) represent the early agricultural samples. Jomon foragers from eastern Japan had broad-based, intensive economies. Jomon foragers from western Japan had a greater focus on seasonally available, nutritionally poor resources, while Yayoi people were descendents of migrants from the East Asian continent and introduced wet rice economies to Japan. This study tests the hypotheses that wet rice economies will be associated with a lower prevalence of teeth/individuals affected by LEH defects in western Japan, while few differences in the prevalence of teeth/individuals with LEH defects will be observed between eastern Jomon people and Yayoi farmers. It is further predicted that similar CO prevalence will be observed between Jomon and Yayoi people given environmental similarities. Significantly greater frequencies of teeth affected by LEH defects are observed among western Jomon compared to Yayoi people. The prevalence of teeth with LEH defects is slightly elevated among eastern Jomon foragers compared to Yayoi agriculturalists. Significant differences in CO prevalence are not observed. Systemic stress prevalence in western Japan likely declined following wet-rice agriculture because this crop provided a predictable, renewable resource base. Systemic stress prevalence was similar between eastern Jomon and Yayoi people because both groups practiced intensive subsistence strategies. Similar CO prevalence reflects infectious diseases associated with living conditions.

Japanese map of the earwax gene frequency: a nationwide collaborative study by Super Science High School Consortium

Wet/dry types of earwax are determined by the c.538G>A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the ABCC11 gene; GA and GG genotypes give the wet type and AA the dry type. The Japanese population may have a dual structure comprising descendants of mixtures between the ancient 'Jomon' and 'Yayoi' populations. We hypothesized that the dry type was introduced by the Yayoi people to the Jomon population where the wet type was predominant, and as the mixture of the two populations has not yet been complete, the allele-A frequency (f(A)) would even now be higher along a putative Yayoi man's peopling route within Japanese islands. To know the frequency, a nationwide Super Science High School (SSH) Consortium collected 1963 fingernail samples of pupils/students from at least one high school/university in every prefecture. All further procedures, DNA extraction, SNP genotyping and gene frequency estimation, were carried out by trained SSH pupils. Although the allele-A frequency varied among the 47 prefectures, the Gifu/Kyoto and Okinawa prefectures showed the highest and lowest values, respectively. Areas with high frequencies included Northeastern Kyushu, Northern Shikoku and Kinki districts, showing a belt-like zone, whereas those with low frequencies other than Okinawa were the Southwestern Kyushu, Hiroshima prefecture and Tohoku districts. The f(A) value in Kinki district was statistically higher than those in prefectures westward and east-northward from it. The result may provide another line of evidence supporting a possible route of the Yayoi-man's peopling in Japan.

On Jômon Ceramics

Okamoto Tarô is one the most prominent intellectuals and artists of postwar Japan. His “On Jômon Ceramics” marks the beginning of his engagement with prehistoric Japanese culture. Published in 1952 in the Japanese journal Mizue, the article was highly controversial as it challenged the common view that traced Japanese culture to the achievements and the refined ceramic tradition of the prehistoric Yayoi people and ascribed elegance and understatement to Japanese aesthetics. Okamoto, however, argued that the earlier Jômon culture, a hunting-gathering economy with a dynamically different ceramic tradition, was an equally important influence. Okamoto's vision of Japanese culture as rough, explosive and even “surreal” anticipates an alternative understanding of what modernist artists, architects and the general public would subsequently consider as authentically “Japanese.”

A Further Insight into the Origin of Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1) in Japan, Based on the Genotyping of ABCC11

Our research into the biogeography of HTLV-1 in Ja- pan has led us to the hypothesis that the virus was intro- duced to Japan in the prehistoric era by the Jomon people. Later, in the Yayoi period (ca.300 BC - ca.300 AD), a mass migration of non-carriers (the Yayoi people) reached Japan from northeastern Asia, and these people became dominant by virtue of their proficiency in advanced technologies such as agriculture and iron works (1). As a result, aggregations of HTLV-1 carriers gradually disappeared from central Ja- pan, where today HTLV-1 remains only in remote areas along the coast and adjacent islands. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted an experimental study which aimed to identify the relationship between HTLV-1 carrier status and the nucleotide substitution 538G↑A (rc 17822931) in ABCC11, a marker of the earwax type, which represents an inherited trait from either the Jomon or Yayoi people. Our results revealed that the proportion of wet ear- wax among HTLV-1 carriers was 28.6% (10/35), whereas that among non-carriers was only 5% (1/20). The differ- ence was statistically significant (Kai square=4.42, p<0.05). This suggests that the HTLV-1 carrier population inherited a genetic trait from the Jomon people and lends support to the theory that it was the Jomon people who brought HTLV-1 into Japan. Although the process of introduction of HTLV-1 to Ja- pan and its establishment there remain hotly disputed, two

Relationship between root caries and alveolar bone loss in the first wet-rice agriculturalists of the Yayoi period in Japan

Objective The people of the Yayoi period (5th C b. c.–3rd C a. d.), who were the first wet-rice agriculturalists in ancient Japan, had carious lesions that were most frequently located on the root surfaces of their teeth. Root surface exposure is a prerequisite for this type of decay, and alveolar bone loss is the main cause of such exposure. Therefore, we identify the factors associated with root caries, and examine the relationship between root caries and alveolar bone loss in the people of the Yayoi period. Materials and methods This study was performed using 263 sets of ancient skeletal remains that are believed to be from the Yayoi period and that were excavated at 49 archaeological sites in western Japan. Using 5010 teeth found among the remains, we analysed the relationship between the prevalence of root caries and the cemento-enamel junction–alveolar crest (CEJ–AC) distance. Results The prevalence of root caries and the mean number of teeth with root caries per person were significantly correlated with age, the presence of coronal caries and the mean CEJ–AC distance per person. We also found that as the mean CEJ–AC distance per tooth surface increased, the percentage of the root surface affected by caries increased. Moreover, after excluding the lingual (palatal) side, the mean CEJ–AC distance per surface was significantly greater for those tooth surfaces with root caries. Conclusion We present the first evidence that the occurrence of root caries correlated with the CEJ–AC distance in the Yayoi people of Japan.

Age and origin of the G774A mutation inSLC22A12causing renal hypouricemia in Japanese

Renal hypouricemia is an inherited disorder characterized by impaired tubular uric acid transport. Impairment of the function of URAT1, the main transporter for the reabsorption of uric acid at the apical membrane of the renal tubules, causes renal hypouricemia. The G774A mutation in the SLC22A12 gene encoding URAT1 predominates in Japanese renal hypouricemia. From data on linkage disequilibrium between the G774 locus and the 13 markers flanking it (12 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 1 dinucleotide insertion/deletion locus), we here estimate the age of this mutation at approximately 6820 years [95% confidence interval (CI) 1860-11,760 years; median = 2460 years]. This indicates that the origin of the G774A mutation dates back from between the time when the Jomon people predominated in Japan and the time when the Yayoi people started to migrate to Japan from the Korean peninsula. These data are consistent with a recent finding that this G774A mutation was also predominant in Koreans with hypouricemia and indicate that the mutation originated on the Asian continent. Thus, this mutation found in Japanese patients was originally brought by immigrant(s) from the continent and thereafter expanded in the Japanese population either by founder effects or by genetic drift (or both).

Variation in limb proportions between Jomon foragers and Yayoi agriculturalists from prehistoric Japan

Variation in limb proportions between prehistoric Jomon and Yayoi people of Japan are explored by this study. Jomon people were the descendents of Pleistocene nomads who migrated to the Japanese Islands around 30,000 yBP. Phenotypic and genotypic evidence indicates that Yayoi people were recent migrants to Japan from continental Northeast Asia who likely interbred with Jomon foragers. Limb proportions of Jomon and Yayoi people were compared using RMA regression and "Quick-Test" calculations to investigate relative variability between these two groups. Cluster and principal components analyses were performed on size-standardized limb lengths and used to compare Jomon and Yayoi people with other groups from various climatic zones. Elongated distal relative to proximal limb lengths were observed among Jomon compared to Yayoi people. Jomon limb proportions were similar to human groups from temperate/tropical climates at lower latitudes, while Yayoi limb proportions more closely resemble groups from colder climates at higher latitudes. Limb proportional similarities with groups from warmer environments among Jomon foragers likely reflect morphological changes following Pleistocene colonization of the Japanese Islands. Cold-derived limb proportions among the Yayoi people likely indicate retention of these traits following comparatively recent migrations to the Japanese Islands. Changes in limb proportions experienced by Jomon foragers and retention of cold-derived limb proportions among Yayoi people conform to previous findings that report changes in these proportions following long-standing evolution in a specific environment.

Dental Information about Human Skeletal Remains from Nukdo, South Korea from a Period Corresponding to the Yayoi Period in Japan

Skeletal remains excavated from the Nukdo archeological site (2100–2000yrs B. P.) are the most ancient of the sizable number found in Korea to date. In the present study, we focused on the caries rates, carious sites, degree of dental attrition, and ritual tooth ablation in skeletal remains excavated from the Nukdo site. The caries rate was 6.4%. This rate was lower than the Yayoi people in Japan as well as the Jomon people, who were hunters and gatherers. An interest for future studies is the type of diet of these Nukdo individuals. For carious sites, half of the caries were seen on the root surfaces even in individuals who were relatively young. As we have emphasized previously, this can be explained by the rapid advancement of physiological age in ancient people. Thus, root caries seen in the present elderly were found in young individuals in the past. The degree of dental attrition was higher in males than females in all age groups. The mandibular teeth had more attrition than the maxillary teeth except in one male in the late middle-age or older group. An investigation of such attrition is valuable when examining the diet and livelihood of people of that time. For ritual tooth ablation, the form of extraction in the Nukdo people appears different from that in the Jomon people in Japan or prehistoric people in China. The origin of this type of ablation is a topic of future studies.

Alveolar Bone Loss in Rice-cultivating Yayoi People of Ancient Japan

Alveolar Bone Loss in Rice-cultivating Yayoi People of Ancient Japan