Samurai were predominantly Ainu?

[miles7tp]

Ainu are the people who have the Ainu culture.

Ainu culture appeared in Hokkaido in the 12th century.

Therefore, Ainu appeared in the 12th century in Hokkaido.

In Hokkaido北海道(called "Ezo"蝦夷)

Jomon culture縄文文化 >> zoku-Jomon culture続縄文文化 >>Satsumon culture擦文文化 >> Ainu cultureアイヌ文化

Ainu is the mix of "Hokkaido-Jomon people" and "Okhotsk-culture people from Sakhalin".

Japanese and Ainu have the common ancestors(the common ancestors of Jomon people and Hokkaido-Jomon people).

So, it is natural that Japanese have a part of Ainu's DNA.

 

[lexico]

Kaerupop:

Your information looks interesting.
Would you have a source for your post; noting author, title, publisher, year of publication, ISBN if available, and page(s) ?

I am also curious to know what archeological studies gave the developmental model of Ainu culture that you quoted. Do you have any details to pursue this further ?

 

[miles7tp]

to lexico

アイヌ民族の軌跡 浪川 健治 (著)
山川出版社 ; ISBN: 4634545004 ; (2004/09)
エミシとは何か―古代東アジアと北方日本 中西 進 (著)
角川書店 ; ISBN: 4047032476 ; (1993/11)

Read the books.

This figure is my present for lexico.
Spin a daydream with it.
Have a good daydream!

 

[lexico]

Do you have a passage from history relating the Gilyak-Nivx 吉里迷, the 骨嵬, and the Ezo-Ainu 蝦夷 ?
I'm also interested in how the zoku-Jomon and the Satsumon are related in the historical records. Could you please give the passage stating this relationship ?

 

[miles7tp]

to lexico

Buy those books.
Read them.
I am not your teacher.

 

[lexico]

I'm not asking you to teach me, kaerupop. If you make a claim, you'd better be ready to back it up all the way. That's the rule of survival on the forum when it comes to argumentation in strong academics. Either you back up your claim, or face harsh criticism for sloppy, low-level scholarship.

 

[bossel]

genetic relationships

Cavalli-Sforza has an interesting family tree combining linguistic & genetic features, look at the attachment (it's German, but Ainu & Japanese are easily recognisable). Japanese are closest to Northern Chinese there, while Ainu come next.

Craniometry showed Ainu closest to Maori & Polynesians (but craniometry, well...).

Overall genetic comparison (also done by Cavalli-Sforza, from The History and Geography of Human Genes; the Human Races Calculator , where I took it from, is sadly offline) shows as closest related to Ainu:

1 Mongol Tungus 32
2 Japanese 34
3 Korean 57
4 Chuckchi 77
5 Uralic 80
6 Tibetan 83
7 North Turkic 97

The number behind is supposed to show the genetic distance.

 

[lexico]

genetic relationship: distance from Japanese

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...s.com+"human+races+calculator"+japanese&hl=en
Distance from Japanese (cached page)
Population Distance less than 100
Cavalli-Sforza

1 Mongol Tungus 20
2 Korean 22
3 Ainu 34
4 Tibetan 38
5 South Chinese 77
6 North Turkic 84
7 Uralic 86
8 Chuckchi 91
9 Central Amerindian 94

 

[canadian_kor]

This is all fascinating. What I find interesting is that the modern Japanese is considered closest genetically to Mongol-Tungus according to Cavalli-Sforza. This proves the theory that the modern Japanese are predominantly of the Northern Asian genetic stock. However, if you look at the pictures of modern Japanese many of them do not look like modern-day Tungus people of Siberia:

(This is Koyuki from the movie The Last Samurai.)

(These are Tungus children.)

 

[Chris Weimer]

I did some digging and found that Dr. Brace is considered an expert on bone measurements and human evolution-- so he has credentials. Apparently a lot of his life's work (he's in his 70's) has been tracing the origin of the Native American peoples. I disagree with this theory, but he's not a crackpot. (and don't get me started on the guy from Harvard who preaches that the Indus civilization was illiterate)

I'd like to hear more on the Indus valley civilization. It's my current understanding that the Harappan's weren't literate, that they drawings on pottery there are like the very early European drawings - just that...drawings! Not actually representing language... Please do go on.

 

[Keoland]

But some areas remained predominantly Celtic, like North-Western Spain (Galicia, Asturias...), little Brittany in France, and Wales, Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands in Britain. With time, they all came to speak Spanish, French and English with only very few people still speaking Gaelic and practising Celtic customs nowadays (Wales was the most successful to preserve its culture). However, these people mixed very little with the "invaders" and retain most of the Celtic genes to this day, although they are completely integrated to their country's society and they might not know themselves about their Celtic roots.

Maciamo, the latest research seems to indicate that those people that interbred little were not really celts:

Famous ‘Celtic’ nations may be misnamed - Science - MSNBC.com

Celtic nations like Ireland and Scotland appear to have more in common withthe Portuguese and Spanish than with the “Celts” of ancient Alpine Europe

web.archive.org

while the true celts of Britain actually seem to have interbred very little with either Latins, Anglos, Saxons or Normans. In fact, most of the population of the UK is actually descended from them. The latter invaders form just a tiny part of the total population:

DNA suggests the Celts held their ground

DNA suggests the Celts held their ground
Scientists shatter Anglo-Saxon myth, writes STEPHEN STEWART

THE first analysis of DNA passed from father to son across the UK has shattered the Anglocentric view of early British history, it emerged yesterday.

For decades, historians have believed that successive waves of invaders, such as the Anglo-Saxons, drove out the indigenous population of the British Isles, labelled Celts, pushing them to the fringes of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

However, work by a team of scientists on the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son, has shown the native tribes left their genetic stamp throughout the UK and not only in the "Celtic fringe".

The evidence suggests that Anglo-Saxons tend to dominate British history merely because they kept better-written records than their indigenous counterparts.

A large number of native people remained in England and central Ireland and were never entirely replaced by the invaders, often surviving in high proportions throughout the British Isles, according to the research by Professor David Goldstein, Dr Jim Wilson, and a team of experts at University College London.

The study was based on comparing Y chromosomes from Britain with the invaders' Y chromosomes, represented by descendants of Danes, Vikings (in Norway) and Anglo-Saxons (in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany).

Dr Jim Wilson, a population geneticist from Orkney who is now based at University College London, said: "The recent paper was based on a study that I carried out on Orkney to tell if the inhabitants were descended from Vikings.

"It found the genetic profile was halfway between Norway and Ireland, suggesting that the Vikings did have a significant effect on the population.

"In the new study, samples were collected from the whole of Britain in a grid pattern. The study contradicts the notion of the complete replacement of the indigenous people by incoming Anglo-Saxons.

"The data set doesn't show that but illustrates that the English are largely indigenous in origin. We wanted to look at whether culture and genetics go together.

"In Orkney and Shetland they spoke Norwegian until the 1700s and there we have a strong case for genes and culture going hand-in-hand."

Dr Wilson and his colleagues established that Y chromosomes of Britain's indigenous populations were almost identical to those of the Basques, who live on the French-Spanish border and speak a language unrelated to the Indo-European tongues that swept into Europe 8000 years ago.

"We tended to avoid the term 'Celts' as there is some debate about it. For example, the Irish and Welsh are indistinguishable from the Basques, who are the earliest indigenous inhabitants of Europe," he said.

"The Basques were in Europe before farming and before the development of Indo-European languages such as those spoken by the people labelled Celts."

The indigenous population, genetically very close to the Basques, must also be drawn from the original Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe.

They are possibly the first modern inhabitants of Britain, who settled the islands about 10,000 years ago.

As well as the Vikings' genetic trail in Orkney, a centre of Viking activity from 800-1200, many men in York and east England carry Danish Y chromosomes but there was little sign of Anglo-Saxon heritage in south England, once believed to have been heavily colonised.

Cultural evolution
The notion there is a specific history of the Celts, as opposed to the individual histories of the Irish, Welsh and Scots, is a recent phenomenon.

Between the fall of the Roman Empire and circa 1700, "Celtic" was used only to describe the ancient Gauls of France and related continental peoples.

The conventional view has been that Celts shared certain cultural traits such as related languages; they were also all non-literate and non-urban.

The alternative view is that great differences occurred between so-called Celtic cultures. For example, Druidic cults may have been confined to the British Isles and much of Gaul, and were possibly unknown among most of the continental tribes called Celts in the Iron Age.

As for the Ezo, surely part of the warrior class of the Nara and even early Heian Periods could have come from them (and I will take the recommendations and update my Cavalli-Sforza ), but I'm pretty sure that by the time of the Onin War they were out of the ruling class - one only has to remember the uprisings in Ezochi (modern Hokkaido ) and the demands they made at the time to be allowed to return to northern Japan seem to indicate that there were great tensions between the two groups at the time. In fact, one of the largest revolts started with the killing of an Ezo by a Samurai near Hakodate, if I'm not mistaken :?

Regards,
Keoland

 

[bossel]

Maciamo, the latest research seems to indicate that those people that interbred little were not really celts: MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos

while the true celts of Britain actually seem to have interbred very little with either Latins, Anglos, Saxons or Normans. In fact, most of the population of the UK is actually descended from them. The latter invaders form just a tiny part of the total population: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/25-6-19103-23-43-29.html

It's always a matter of where you look, which genes do you look at & who's doing the looking. Therefore you can get results like Saxon hordes ousted celts, which states:
"After the invaders arrived, they effectively "ethnically cleansed" the Celts from what is now England, replacing at least half the indigenous men. The genetic barrier that this created survives to this day."

Or you can get results like British Have Changed Little Since Ice Age, Gene Study Says, which states:
"In The Tribes of Britain, archaeologist David Miles says around 80 percent of the genetic characteristics of most white Britons have been passed down from a few thousand Ice Age hunters."

 

[Keoland]

It's always a matter of where you look, which genes do you look at & who's doing the looking.

You're quite right Bossel, the research has been conflicting to say the least.

I suspect that indicates that these kind of data should be taken with a large grain of salt

On the other hand, I find it disturbing how supposedly scientific data can be interpreted in such different ways... It may mean that science can be affected by the political mindset of the day, which should not be... what was is what was, no more and no less...

Regards,
Keoland

 

[mononokifool]

I can see why the japanese people would be worried. I myself am very consience of my ansetrial roots(75% german, 10% dutch, 5% irish, and 5%british). i myself am very prowed of my ancesters and what they have accomplished in there time.but then aagin i dont think that i would die if i found out that in fact my dutch ancestors were infact decended from, lets say, polocks. so i dont think i should cause an upproar of any kind but it mite be something to cringe over. and i dont have any problem with the ainu or the polish people.

 

[canadian_kor]

while the true celts of Britain actually seem to have interbred very little with either Latins, Anglos, Saxons or Normans. In fact, most of the population of the UK is actually descended from them. The latter invaders form just a tiny part of the total population: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/25-6-19103-23-43-29.html

From what I read, only 10% of people in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have predominantly Celtic ancestry. These people are characterized as having red hair, green eyes, and freckles. The majority of British Isles natives are descended from a European ice age race. These people have black to brown hair, with brown (or sometimes grey) eyes, and medium pigmentation. These people are classified as non-Indo-European in constrast to their Celtic and Nordic counterparts who arrived in the British Isles later. In fact, if you visit the British Isles today you will find many who exhibit these pre-Indo-European characteristics.

 

[Color red]

To miles7tp

アイヌ民族の軌跡 浪川 健治 (著)
山川出版社 ; ISBN: 4634545004 ; (2004/09)
エミシとは何か―古代東アジアと北方日本 中西 進 (著)
角川書店 ; ISBN: 4047032476 ; (1993/11)

Miles7tp, thanks for the reference. Do you know if there is any English translation of these works, and/or thesis reviews? I'd also appreciate any images and charts along with historical analysis of ancient Japanese history of Jomon cultures.

As for the "Samurai and Ainu" on science frontier (http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf065/sf065a01.htm), I am still trying to find more information and will post some detailed comments later.

Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with:

It looks to me that 1100 samples are good enough to prove that there was a samurai of Ainu/Jomon ancestry, though not enough to show the grouping of social hierarchy as in Indian Caste systems.

Further studies will be useful as there was no way to group people by DNA sequences reliably in the 80s. Experiments could be more efficiently carried out if researchers can combine both anthropological and genetic methods.

Regarding the Braces article, I put up an abstract here.

 

[Color red]

Obsolete articles on genetics

A few comments bossel and lexico's quotes from Cavalli-Sforza.

Cavalli-Sforza has an interesting family tree combining linguistic & genetic features, look at the attachment (it's German, but Ainu & Japanese are easily recognisable). Japanese are closest to Northern Chinese there, while Ainu come next.
Craniometry showed Ainu closest to Maori & Polynesians (but craniometry, well...).
Overall genetic comparison (also done by Cavalli-Sforza, from The History and Geography of Human Genes; the Human Races Calculator , where I took it from, is sadly offline) shows as closest related to Ainu:
1 Mongol Tungus 32
2 Japanese 34
3 Korean 57
4 Chuckchi 77
5 Uralic 80
6 Tibetan 83
7 North Turkic 97
The number behind is supposed to show the genetic distance.

Winner of the 1994 R.R. Hawkins Award
One of Princeton University Press's Notable Centenary Titles.
The History and Geography of Human Genes
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza

One thing a reader should notice is the date of publication, i.e., 1994. Most of the results at that time are already dead, or ancient. Now the new study made their works obsolete.

This interdisciplinary approach enables them to address a wide range of issues that continue to incite debate: the timing of the first appearance of our species, the problem of African origins and the significance of work recently done on mitochondrial DNA and the popular notion of an "African Eve," the controversy pertaining to the peopling of the Americas, and the reason for the presence of non-Indo-European languages--Basque, Finnish, and Hungarian--in Europe.

Study methods are not one of the best practices, since the recent experiments published on nature casts doubt on the level of conservation mtDNA can get hold. mtDNA's mutation rate per total sequences is somehow very high. Most recent studies no longer use mtDNA unless there is a need to keep track of maternal lineages.

Another thing is an interpretation mixed with language. Many linguistics studies are unrelated to biological factors. Language is a social science, and its end is the understanding of human culture, not the understanding of biological existence of human.

The authors reconstruct the history of our evolution by focusing on genetic divergence among human groups. Using genetic information accumulated over the last fifty years, they examined over 110 different inherited traits, such as blood types, HLA factors, proteins, and DNA markers, in over eighteen hundred, primarily aboriginal, populations.

HLA factors, proteins, non-Y markers, suffer severe within variations. Although I do give high recognition of Cavalli Sforza on the cell research, these methods are now totally out of date.

I remember one korean guy pointed me out a more recent study done by
Cavalli Sforza's famous pupil, Spencer Wells. I've already cited this a few times, but this could be a useful reminder of differences between the published in 2001 (Spencer Wells), and another in 1994 (Cavalli Sforza).

PNAS | August 28, 2001 | vol. 98 | no. 18 | 10244-10249
The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity
R. Spencer Wells, Nadira Yuldasheva, Ruslan Ruzibakievc, Peter A. Underhilld, Irina Evseevae, Jason Blue-Smithd, Li Jinf, Bing Suf, Ramasamy Pitchappang, Sadagopal Shanmugalakshmig, Karuppiah Balakrishnang, Mark Readh, Nathaniel M. Pearsoni, Tatiana Zerjalj, Matthew T. Websterk, Irakli Zholoshvilil, Elena Jamarjashvilil, Spartak Gambarovm, Behrouz Nikbinn, Ashur Dostievo, Ogonazar Aknazarovp, Pierre Zallouaq, Igor Tsoyr, Mikhail Kitaevs, Mirsaid Mirrakhimovs, Ashir Charievt, and Walter F. Bodmera,u
ABSTRACT
The nonrecombining portion of the human Y chromosome has proven to be a valuable tool for the study of population history. The maintenance of extended haplotypes characteristic of particular geographic regions, despite extensive admixture, allows complex demographic events to be deconstructed. In this study we report the frequencies of 23 Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphism haplotypes in 1,935 men from 49 Eurasian populations, with a particular focus on Central Asia. These haplotypes reveal traces of historical migrations, and provide an insight into the earliest patterns of settlement of anatomically modern humans on the Eurasian continent. Central Asia is revealed to be an important reservoir of genetic diversity, and the source of at least three major waves of migration leading into Europe, the Americas, and India. The genetic results are interpreted in the context of Eurasian linguistic patterns.

Consensus methods of population geneticist now uses the Y-haplogroup, and this method will be complemented by the complete genome comparisons presently under progress by many researchers of HapMap. But to measure the lineages, Y-haplogroups are just enough, and the only reliable method we can have.

In conclusion, there is a list of items showing that Cavalli Sforza's publication on 1994 is not up to standard in the year of 2006.

(1) Date of Publication (1994) is too old given the advancement of genetics in late 90s usurped by super computational powers and cheaper experiment methods with high quality chips.
(2) HLA is about immune systems, whereby evolutionary pressures, and clocks are high. HLA studies are in general irrelevant to lineage findings.
(3) Mixed results of genetics with linguistics are not appropriate givent that genetics and linguistics do barely agree
(4) mtDNA rich studies, where the mutation rates and recombination factors (see my another thread on this) could bias the results

 

[MajideSaiaku]

Its my understanding that "Samurai" didnt even exist until well after the Ainu were pushed out of Japan.

 

[caster51]

I think Samurai's origin was Emishi(蝦夷、it is not EZO)
yes they were ainu?
they were living in tohoku,aomori, iwate
they were so strong and bravery more than Yamato
However
蘇我蝦夷 was defeated.....
Soga no Emishi - Wikipedia
according to some old doccuments, they were made to move to 東国（関東）、 四国
九州、as a 防人（sakimori)
ps, there are still many non-brown eyed PPls In Tohoku region

 

[Color red]

Origin of Samurai, Ainu, Jomon Japanese

I think Sumurai's origin was Emishi(蝦夷、it is not EZO)

There is a reference on emishi people. Note that all the sources used on the site are rather outdated, and some are completely obsolete by new genetic studies.

http://emishi-ezo.net/
http://www.isn.ne.jp/%7Esuzutayu/MHJapan/WhosEmishi.html

 

[chimera]

The comparison of Ainu with Celts is interesting. Defeated and desperate people sometimes become loyal out of necessity, and Celto-Romans in Britain adopted their rulers' culture. One of the bravest units in US forces in WWII was the Japanese, from the concentration camp in Alabama. Perhaps desperate Ainu were loyal to their lord , having nothing more to lose and everything to gain.
It would also be interesting to look at links with the Angkor Wat and Champa kingdoms, and lingual influence of that Sanskrit in the Pacific and in Ainu language (and perhaps genes).
chimera

 

[Color red]

Cavalli-Sforza

This is the first time I post the Wikipedia link. The link has brief criticism on Cavalli-Sforza's works.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Criticism

In a paper published in 1997, Shomarka Keita and Rick A. Kittles have criticized the primary methodology used by Cavalli-Sforza and other like-minded geneticists, pointing out the "inappropriateness of using a priori predefined racial categories and then sorting genetic diversity as much as possible into these categories." [2] (Evolutionary Anthropology, pg. 39) In some cases, groups generated by cluster analysis of genetic data reproduce traditional racial categories, but in some further analysis Cavalli-Sforza uses groupings like Extra-European Caucasoid that are apparently a priori and not generated by the data itself.

His proposed ambitious Human Genome Diversity Project to gather further genetic data from populations around the world was accused of "cultural insensitivity, neocolonialism, and biopiracy." [3]

Linguist Bill Poser in Language Log has criticized some of Cavalli-Sforza's comments about linguistics, [4] in particular the suggestion, echoing controversial linguists Merritt Ruhlen and Joseph Greenberg, that some mainstream linguists are unnecessarily conservative about hypothesized long-range relationships between language families, and an overstatement that Greenberg's critics "have ruled out the possibility of hierarchical classification", which Cavalli-Sforza did not defend when challenged by Poser, but deferred to Ruhlen. Cavalli-Sforza's interest in hypothesized large-scale language families is as a basis for comparison with similarly large-scale postulated genetic classifications of human populations.

Quote

"The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise."

 

[IslandBridge]

Ainu

I do not think that anyone can categorically state that Ainu and Japanese were historically related nor derived from common ancestors as far back as the Satsumon-Okhotsk culture groups.
Clearly intermarriage and other factors (yes, including rape, read original sources) have caused the majority of modern Ainu to have asian features, but this was not always so. I met several Ainu in Sakhalin who did not look as asian as many modern Ainu in Hokkaido do, and often one can meet Ainu who look very different from the majority of modern Japanese Ainu even in Japan. This is a photo of the Ainu fellow I saw in Sakhalin.

 

[Adulado]

To my knowledge samurais have their origin from the proto Buyeo-Kaya-Baekje horse riding people coming from the peninsula. It's said that rice was the food of the gods and samurais, maybe it's correlated?

 

[Kyusin]

This is a very old topic but here is my two cents.

Samurai is military nobility class of Japan, very similar to aristocrat with private army something most feudal periods of many established states.

The origin is still unknown, but it started from couple of famous Japanese clans:
Fujiwara, Minamoto and Taira etc..

Fujiwara clan is very interesting clan, because their origin lies with late Kofun to Asuka periods of Japan where some ancient Korean military conflicts within Korean peninsula made wave of Korean war refugees flooded to Japan between 4th century to 7th century.

Samurai class didn't kick started until Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunate, it's aka military dictatorship of Japan and lasted until pre-industrial era of Japan. Ainu was annexed by Japanese in 18th century, it's highly unlikely Ainu was source of Japan's samurai.